Rhodey, while not Tony-Stark smart, is still smart. He goes to MIT. He gets good grades. More significantly, as the military agency that's currently supporting Rhodey's education realized, he's very smart when it comes to people. He possesses a talent of stance and expression and attention that allows him to be both friend and firm authority. This will be crucial, twenty years from now, for Tony's sanity. In fact, Rhodey is a genius in this way, the polar opposite of autism in the spectrum of human contact. Who else could befriend Tony Stark? He'll be promoted to officer, and his team will love and trust him so much that they'll walk into death when he orders it.
So, unlike his professors, the staff in the stark labs, the housekeeping, or Howard, Rhodey realizes, before all this (story) happens, that the way Obadiah and Tony behave around eachother is... Well, more important than that, he realizes what it means.
When Tony offers to blow Rhodey, Rhodey realizes that what Tony is doing is trying to normalize his experiences. You can't really lose when you're playing on purpose, right? It's not like Rhodey wouldn't enjoy it ("New addition number four: the sex would be pretty fucking great"). And it's not like Rhodey cares what his parents would think. They're back in Louisinana. But Rhodey is not a crutch.
Rhodey refuses.
Years later, when Tony is missing, he thinks that maybe, maybe, Tony was asking for himself, for what Tony truly wanted. And then realizes, again, that Tony was never capable of doing that. Fortunately, after Afghanistan, they have a new Thing To Not Talk About.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-08-10 05:26 am (UTC)Rhodey, while not Tony-Stark smart, is still smart. He goes to MIT. He gets good grades. More significantly, as the military agency that's currently supporting Rhodey's education realized, he's very smart when it comes to people. He possesses a talent of stance and expression and attention that allows him to be both friend and firm authority. This will be crucial, twenty years from now, for Tony's sanity. In fact, Rhodey is a genius in this way, the polar opposite of autism in the spectrum of human contact. Who else could befriend Tony Stark? He'll be promoted to officer, and his team will love and trust him so much that they'll walk into death when he orders it.
So, unlike his professors, the staff in the stark labs, the housekeeping, or
Howard, Rhodey realizes, before all this (story) happens, that the way Obadiah and Tony behave around eachother is...Well, more important than that, he realizes what it means.
When Tony offers to blow Rhodey, Rhodey realizes that what Tony is doing is trying to normalize his experiences. You can't really lose when you're playing on purpose, right? It's not like Rhodey wouldn't enjoy it ("New addition number four: the sex would be pretty fucking great"). And it's not like Rhodey cares what his parents would think. They're back in Louisinana.
But Rhodey is not a crutch.
Rhodey refuses.
Years later, when Tony is missing, he thinks that maybe, maybe, Tony was asking for himself, for what Tony truly wanted. And then realizes, again, that Tony was never capable of doing that. Fortunately, after Afghanistan, they have a new Thing To Not Talk About.