quigonejinn | 5. The Happy Ending by jamaillith and quigonejinn

They're sitting on the couch watching the last quarter of the Lakers-Warriors game and making their way through a family-sized bucket of fried chicken (well, Tony is; Obadiah has been nursing a tumbler of Irish whiskey for the last hour and a half) when Jarvis tells them that Col. Rhodes is approaching the house.

"Oh, hey, cool," says Tony, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. He glances over at Obadiah. "You know he was coming?"

Obadiah shrugs a little. "I thought, since the doctors gave you the okay-"

"Yeah," Tony nods to himself. "Thanks, Obie." Looks him in the eye, the napkin crumpled in his free hand. "For everything, I mean."

When Obadiah doesn't reply, he stands up from the couch and heads into the kitchen to get beer for himself and Rhodey, and his limp is hardly noticeable.

*

The accident, much publicised, happened two weeks before Tony Stark was due to fly out to Afghanistan to demonstrate Stark Industries' latest addition to the Freedom Line.

*

Rhodey comes into the house like he's expecting to be surprised, looking around for something he thinks is going to be there. He catches sight of Obadiah on the couch and nods, his jaw working a little, and Obadiah gives him a brief toast with his glass.

"Rhodey!"

Tony comes out of the kitchen carrying two bottles of Heineken, the necks threaded between his fingers, his grip only slightly awkward. He heads over to the table to put them down, then turns to face Rhodey again, grinning. He reaches out with the hand that isn't in the sling.

"Hey, man, long time no see."

Rhodey looks at him for a moment. He doesn't smile, but he does reach out to grasp Tony's hand. Tony pulls them together, like they've been doing since they were in college, and Rhodey flattens his palm against Tony's back, looking over his shoulder at Obadiah, who has returned his attention to the basketball game, the half-inch of whiskey rolling from side to side as he tilts the glass, thoughtfully, back and forth.

"I missed you, man," Tony says as they step apart.

"Yeah," replies Rhodey, and with real feeling. "I missed you, too." He licks his lips. "Kinda thought I'd be seeing you sooner than this, though."

Tony shugs, or as much as he can shrug.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I kinda.." he waves his free hand at his head, his leg, "the physio, you know. Not really firing on all cylinders, these days. Gotta take it easy."

Rhodey cracks a smile, his eyes flicking over the pale webbing of scars that track down one side of Tony's face, where a spray of glass from the windshield caught him.

"Can't exactly imagine you taking it easy."

"Yeah, but my therapist's a bitch. Kinda hot, though. Big dark eyes. You'd like her."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You want a beer? I'm only allowed one a day with these meds." He grins widely, honestly. "I've been saving myself for you, man."

Rhodey takes a breath. Never even glances at the beer.

"I -- I can't, Tony. I want to, but . . . I can't." He takes a step backward. Shrugs, and his smile slides too easily onto his face; is gone too quickly. He's got his keys in one hand, and with the other he reaches up as if to touch his ear, then runs his palm over his head. Takes another step back. "I'm really busy these days-"

"Aw, come on, sourpuss, don't be like this-"

"Paperwork, you know. Yeah. I gotta." He's already backing towards the door. "I'll call you tomorrow, okay? I'll call."

"Rhodey -- "

"I'll call, I promise."

And he's gone, just like that. Tony stands there for a moment, then raises his hand and scrubs it across his eyes.

"Jesus."

*

The Rolls Royce Phantom took a corner too quickly. The coronor's report concluded that Pepper, who had been in the back, and Happy, who had been driving, died instantly. Tony himself was in and out of intensive care for a month, suffering from a leg fractured in three places, a dislocated shoulder, fractured ribs, and third-degree burns to much of the right side of his body.

Obadiah Stane flew out to Afghanistan three weeks after the accident to deliver the postponed demonstration, citing Tony's own wishes that they "carry on as normal".

*

SHIELD show Rhodey the documents. The print-outs of transcribed telephone conversations. The photographs, and it's amazing how clear they are (Rhodey points at one of them, says "I bought him that shirt", and has to be escorted out of the room to calm down).

The plans of certain buildings, where they think the bodies are buried.

"Bodies of what?"

"The ones he didn't use."

*

Rhodey comes back two days later. Jarvis lets him in the house, explaining that Mr. Stark is downstairs. Obadiah is at the piano when he walks in, tie loose, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Rhodey doesn't know the piece, but he thinks it's by Strauss, and in any case he barely gives Obadiah a glance as he turns to head down to the workshop.

Halfway down the stairs, the music stops, and he has to swallow the sudden urge to run.

*

"You understand how delicate this operation is, Colonel. We need Stane."

"What happens to the clone?"

"It will be disposed of."

*

"You like it?" Rhodey says, holding the keys out. His new car sits between them, and Tony looks her over. It's gone dark outside, but this is Tony Stark's place. Motion-activated lights angled and palced that would make a Ford Taurus look good. Rhodey has a 2009, brand new, midnight blue Mustang. That's how Rhodey's gotten Tony out of the lab, and Tony looks over the lines. He walks carefully around it with his hands his pockets, shaking his head a little.

"She's too sweet for you, Rhodey. I don't think you're man enough to handle her."

Rhodey holds the keys out. "You wanna drive?"

Tony goes still.

"No, I don't need to steal your girlfriend's heart, Rhodey. You drive."

*

Tony hadn't really been working down in the lab. It resembled poking and exploring more than working. As if he'd forgotten where everything was, as if he didn't know what Butterfingers and Dummy would respond to, and as they came up out of the shop, Obadiah had been standing there beside the fireplace, the reflected light swimming through the glass in his hand. He waved at them a little. The firelight made his shirt more pink, a little more red, than it would have appeared normally. Tony was wearing his black leather jacket.

"Going out for a drive. Don't wait up for me, honey."

Rhodey had looked at Obadiah. He thinks Obadiah looked back at him.

*

"You know, I should get you one of those peaked hats. Like in Driving Miss Daisy."

"What?"

"You know, the little hat, and I could wear pearls -- "

"Tony -- "

"It'd be cute. Kind of politically incorrect, I guess, but cute."

"Tony."

"What? I don't get a smile? Come on, cabbage patch, you've been sour all night. Is it because of this? Because, you know, I'm not just a pretty face. Well, not any more. Look at me. Look at me, Rhodey. Jesus. Can't you even look at me?"

"No, Tony, I -- "

"What? Is it because I didn't call you while I was in hospital? Is that it? Because, you know, I tried, but they wouldn't let me -- "

"Tony. Tony, you were never in a hospital."

"I -- what? What? Of course I was in a hospital. I was in a freaking car accident, of course I was in a hospital."

"No, Tony. You weren't."

"If this is some kind of joke, Rhodey, I don't even -- "

"Glove compartment."

"What?"

"Look in the glove compartment."

"If there's, like, one of those rubber snakes in here again, I swear to God -- "

"Just. Just look."

*

"We think he must have made the switch either immediately before or immediately after the accident. Either way, the Tony Stark who went into that car, and the Tony Stark who came out of it were not the same person."

*

"Jesus."

"Yeah."

"Jesus Christ. What the fuck is this, Rhodey. What the fuck. What the fucking hell is this."

"Photographs. Of your body. The one they fished out of the harbour."

"Fished -- this is fucking sick. Fucking sick, Rhodey! Is this payback for what happened to Pepper? Is it? Have I had this coming, you sick motherfuck?"

"The real Tony Stark died in a car accident six weeks ago. Maybe before that, we're -- they're not sure. They've got to run some -- "

"Jesus. Fuck."

" -- tests, I guess. Look, this isn't your -- "

"Stop the car. Stop the car right now."

"I can't do that."

"Stop the fucking car."

"I can't do that. I'm sorry."

"Where the fuck are you taking me? Where the fuck are you taking me? Talk to me! You've gone fucking insane, Rhodey. Jesus."

"Don't -- don't call me that."

"What?"

"Rhodey. Don't call me that."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because you're not -- "

"I'm not what?"

"Because -- "

"Jesus fucking Christ."

"Because you're not him, all right?"

"Fuck."

"Because you're not him and you never were! You never will be! You're just some . . . some fucking monster experiment Stane cooked up so he could get control. You're not . . . you're not him."

"You're fucking sick, you know that?"

*

Rhodey pulls over on a stretch of road that's quiet during the day and virtually deserted at night. The ground dips away from the blacktop to one side, a small incline of gravel and coarse sand littered with Pepsi cans and hamburger boxes. There's a few scraggly trees, some thin underbrush, and then the beach, and the rush of the waves. The night air is cool and pleasant, the faintest hint of a breeze.

A helicopter whup-whups across the sky overhead, and Rhodey pretends he doesn't know why it's there.

The thing that isn't Tony sags when he pulls him out of the car by his shirt collar. He stumbles. Mutters, dimly, "fuck".

"Get on your knees."

The clone turns and looks at him, square in the eye. Raises its chin a little with a pride that is both beautiful and stupid, and not for the first time, Rhodey hates how close the copy is. How convincing.

"Right here? You're going to do me right here by the car?"

"Get down on your -- "

"At least take me onto the beach."

"I'm not -- "

Something in the clone's face softens. Rhodey feels sick at the nakedness of that expression.

"The beach, Rhodey. Please. I want to see the water."

*

The white shells and the sand crunch under their feet. The clone has trouble getting down the slope, and Rhodey grips his elbow so he doesn't fall.

"What, you don't want me breaking my neck?"

Rhodey doesn't answer that.

*

"You remember the last time we did this?"

The clone is walking beside him towards the water, a little wobbly because of the sand, and his injured leg. This time, Rhodey doesn't reach out to help him.

"We never did anything."

"All right. The last time you and Tony did this. I wanted to see the lunar eclipse. You brought that bottle of bourbon and I brought those two hot astronomy students, remember?"

"No," he says, although he does. He remembers thinking how he was getting too old for this shit, but the combination of Tony's infectious excitement and the alcohol had gone a long way to changing his mind. They'd missed the eclipse in the end, because Tony insisted on stopping off at a 7-Eleven for marshmallows to toast on the fire. But they'd gone to the beach anyway, and he remembers sitting on the dunes at three o'clock in the morning, watching Tony, who was standing in the surf, suit pants rolled up around his knees, one arm around the waist of a bikini-clad girl and the other sketching shapes in the air as he described the constellations.

It hadn't been bourbon, though. It had been Jack Daniel's, as a salute to the days before Tony Stark when Rhodey thought it was the height of sophistication.

Rhodey holds that mistake in his mind, clutching at it like a talisman.

"Yeah, you do."

They're close enough to the water that when the next wave breaks, some of the spray hits their skin. The clone turns his face into it and closes his eyes, and God help him, Rhodey thinks that the clone might remember it, too, so he puts his hand on the gun in its holster on his hip.

"Let me go, Rhodey. I swear to God, I'll walk away. I'll be a car mechanic down in Tijuana. Anywhere you want me to go."

"You don't even know what a monkey wrench is. I saw you in the shop, holding a screwdriver like you didn't know which end was the business one."

"Tijuana, Rhodey. You remember Cancun on Spring Break in 1987? I was fifteen. The guy at Customs asked me what the hell I was doing out of the country and didn't believe me when I said I was in college. You wanted to go to Chichen Itza, and all I wanted to do was see some more breasts and see how many of those pink margarita things I could drink in a night, and -- "

"They were green, Tony." Rhodey undoes the button holding the gun in place. "We're down by the water now. You should get down on your knees."

Another helicopter goes overhead; the light drifts over the water, and Tony sinks down onto his knees. Rhodey draws.

"Obadiah," Rhodey says, "is one sick fuck."

*

"What happens to the clone?"

"It will be disposed of."

"No. No. That is not -- you are not."

*

"I let you go," Rhodey says. "SHIELD is going to find you. No matter where you go."

"SHIELD?"

"They'll find you. And put you down. They won't take you down to the beach and let you look at the moon and margaritas. Do you know what it's like to be on the run? How you'd get money? What would you do for food? You can't even drive, Tony."

There's a long moment of silence. Rhodey stares hard at the back of the clone's head.

"I let you go, Tony," Rhodey says, softly. "SHIELD is going to find you. They told me they were going to kill you, but I don't know if that's the first thing they'd do."

"Rhodey -- " And Rhodey is pretty sure that the clone is crying. It's the same sounds that Tony made when his dad went into the ground.

"Rhodey, pl -- "

Rhodey pulls the trigger. The report cracks across the silent beach. The clone falls, face-forward, into the surf.

*

Five minutes later, a SHIELD operative touches him on the shoulder. They take the body. Rhodey tries to follow them. Makes it halfway before his legs give out and he sits down in the sand.

*

He watches the sun rise, the red and gold band of the sky that fades into a sweet, perfect blue.

Page 1 of 2 << [1] [2] >>

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dafnap.livejournal.com

You are all. Assholes.

Jesus.

From:

besyd.livejournal.com

.

Okay. Now that I have recovered somewhat (because my god I spent the last 1/3 of this crying - jesus), I want to say how amazing all of these were ... especially this last one. To be able to literally rip your audience's hearts out and present them on silver platters is scary-good talent at work.

I don't know if I will ever get these images out of my head. God.

Edited Date: 2008-07-16 03:59 am (UTC)

From:

quigonejinn.livejournal.com

Yeah.

jamaillith came up with it basically, like. In the space of a Gtalk conversation. And executed. I didn't realize what she meant when she said "Tony shoots him someplace it doesn't hurt" because I thought he was just going to clip Tony in the hand or something, AND THEN I REALIZED. And spent the next ten minutes in a state of shock.

Did she execute or what?

5. The Happy Ending by jamaillith and quigonejinn

Navigation

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags