Chapter 144: Iron Man — Nothing Left But Money
Tony stared at Rhodey.
He'd known this man for years. Trusted him with things he hadn't trusted anyone else with. And right now Rhodey was standing in the doorway of his own launch bay, blocking him from leaving, and Tony couldn't make it add up.
"Tony." Rhodey's voice was steady. The kind of steady that comes from having made a decision and committed to it. "You know I don't stop you without a reason. But I can't let you go."
"Why." It wasn't really a question.
"Because Ethan is my friend and he needs help right now, that's why. Don't give me anything about the federal government — I don't care, and I'm not scared of them." Tony's voice rose. "If you're still my friend, get out of the doorway."
Rhodey didn't move.
Tony had spent the last three days working every angle he could find. Stark Industries' legal team. Political contacts he'd accumulated over a decade of being the kind of person governments wanted at their tables. Every favor, every relationship, every resource he had access to — all of it pointed at Hell's Kitchen, all of it trying to find a lever that would make the federal operation stop before it started.
None of it had worked. The people on the other side of that decision had made up their minds and weren't interested in being unmade.
So he'd suited up.
And Rhodey had stepped into the door.
"You know the situation," Rhodey said. "Stark Industries has contracts with the federal government, with the military — long-term relationships that generate a significant portion of the company's revenue and provide technology the military depends on. If you show up in Hell's Kitchen tonight, you're not just making a personal choice. You're making it as Tony Stark. You're taking the whole company with you. Defense contracts, canceled. Existing partnerships, dissolved. Thousands of people out of work." He paused. "Is that what you want?"
Rhodey watched him, waiting for the calculation to land.
Tony had already run it. He'd run it three days ago.
He was also the person who had shut down the weapons division. He was also the person who, given a chest full of shrapnel and six months to think, had decided that what Stark Industries built next would be different. He trusted his own ability to rebuild things. He'd done it before.
The faceplate came down.
"I'm going as Iron Man," Tony said. "Not as Stark Industries. There's a difference."
He turned and launched.
The arc of flight took him across the city in a long clean curve, the night air around him, Hell's Kitchen visible on the horizon—
Rhodey hit him from above.
The impact drove Tony into a rooftop, and he rolled twice before the suit's stabilizers caught and he came up on one knee, staring upward.
Rhodey hovered, War Machine's weapons array tracking him.
Tony got to his feet slowly.
"You're using the suit I built you," he said, "to stop me."
"I don't have a choice." Rhodey's voice through the armor was flat. "I can't watch you take Stark Industries into this. And stopping you is a direct order."
Tony looked at him for a moment.
He thought about Ethan. About the night in the workshop when Ethan had handed him the new element schematic and said figure it out, like it was simple, like Tony's capability was something he'd never questioned. About the arc reactor no longer sitting against his sternum because of a Senzu Bean that Ethan had produced from somewhere and handed over without ceremony. About the Obadiah files — his parents — and how Ethan had given him that information with the quiet certainty that Tony deserved to know.
Ethan's only consistent flaw, Tony had decided, was that he charged too much money for things. This was, in Tony's estimation, the most forgivable possible flaw, because at least the man knew his own worth.
He's genuinely the least complicated person I know, Tony thought. No agenda. Just — wants to be paid fairly, protects his people, and apparently cannot be killed. I can work with that.
He looked back at Rhodey.
"Then stop me," he said. "Just remember you're flying in my hardware."
He was already accelerating when Rhodey came after him.
What followed was not, technically speaking, a real fight. Tony had designed the War Machine suit. He had also designed the Mark armor he was currently wearing, and designed it with his own capabilities in mind, and had been flying in it substantially longer than Rhodey had been flying in anything. He knew every timing gap in the War Machine's response system because he'd written the code.
Rhodey was good. Rhodey had always been good. But there was a ceiling on this particular contest, and both of them knew where it was.
Tony took a hit to the left shoulder, spun out, recovered, and put Rhodey into a controlled descent that left him hovering forty feet above the street and buying time to reacquire.
Tony didn't wait for reacquisition. He punched the thrusters and went.
Below him, Rhodey watched him go.
"I tried," he said, to himself, to the surveillance he knew was watching, to whoever needed to hear it. "He's faster than me. What do you want."
He held position, watching the lights of Tony's suit grow smaller against the Hell's Kitchen skyline.
Tony didn't look back. He was already calculating approach vectors, already listening to the fight frequencies coming out of the neighborhood, already looking for Ethan's position.
He pushed the suit harder.
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