Destiny Interrupted

Iron Man. Stark/Rhodes/Jarvis. R. 1500 words.

“You fuck your robot suit.”

Like a Catholic Girl on Prom Night

Suiting up is more of an ordeal than he’d imagined after Tony told him the process had been streamlined for this model. Rhodey keeps all his muscles in lock-down while Tony’s robot helpers fit each piece of the suit around him. Things whirr and click and he can feel the sheer density of the metal as it encases him. What he never senses is the true weight of it, not even after the last joint is secured and the main assembly units retract. The parts fit together so well he might as well be wearing a feather instead of a few tons of metal.

“How’s it feel?” The helper with the faceplate holds back, and Rhodey moves for the first time in a minute to keep an eye on Tony ducking into the chaos of metal arms and wires. “Fits okay? Not too tight? You’re not as slim and pretty as when I met you.”

“Feels fine.”

“Good, good,” Tony’s hand smacks flat onto the chest piece, slides down until his thumb taps against the glowing core. Rhodey almost thinks he can feel the pressure of each finger on his sternum. Tony’s head flicks up, the intent gleam in his eyes betraying his eagerness. “Well then, flight school 101. Stabilizers are on the palms, not the feet, so remember to keep those legs together like a Catholic girl on prom night.” Tony pauses for a beat, his head tipping to the side, and his smile turns knowing. “Scratch that last part. After Florida, you and I are both well aware of what Catholic girls are like.”

Rhodey had known better than to expect any sort of operational manual, but Tony can’t expect him to just dive in headfirst. “What about–”

Only Tony does expect just that, and cuts him off with a curt wave. “That’s it for the educational portion of our evening. Have fun, and don’t stay out too late. Daddy doesn’t want to have to worry.”

“I think I’ll start with walking.”

“If you want to be a big baby about it, that’s your call,” Tony says, strolling away. Rhodey feels a competitive sizzle in his veins. Luckily he’s known Tony long enough not to give in to Tony’s snide remarks. That’s what he tells himself most of the time, anyway. His competitive streak flares up again when Tony gives him this smug smirk and perches on the edge of his workstation. “Jarvis, give our good friend a little tutorial run down would you?”

“Shall I walk him through the suit’s full-functionality, sir?”

“Yeah, sure, the whole shebang,” Tony says, and Rhodey cranes his neck around enough to catch Tony sliding into a chair and calling up schematics. Back to work, because Tony never seems to be able to sit still.

The helper hands over the faceplate, music roars to life through the speakers, and just like that, James Rhodes might as well be alone in the workshop. He fits the faceplate to the helmet, and a vacuum hiss threatens to plug up his ears.

Sealed in, the suit is remarkably not claustrophobic. “The Mark IV contains a reality matrix, allowing the operator to experience his or her environment in real time,” Jarvis tells him. An elaborate HUD pops up overlaying the helmet’s video feed. “Walk forward, reach out and grasp the cup.”

Rhodey starts to ask how, but the suit moves with him the moment he makes the slightest effort. The machinery responds instantly to the will of his muscles. It feels like he’s floating at first, like doing underwater exercises in full gear. It’s the compensators in the suit, he realises as he settles in to the rhythm of moving with the extra mass adding more than a few inches to his height. A few steps towards the table where he’d left his coffee and he can’t keep the grin off his face.

“Will I crush it?”

“Sir, only if you want to.”

“You’d better not, that’s my favourite cup,” Tony’s voice echoes oddly, transmitted in loud enough that he sounds more as if he’s right next to Rhodey instead of across the room. Automatic amplification of relevant sounds, he guesses.

“Can you switch it so ‘Daddy’ over there can’t hear what I’m saying?”

Tony says, “Shy, sweetheart?” at the same time Jarvis acknowledges the change.

“How will I know if I’m gripping too hard?” Rhodey leans down, fingers poised to grab the cup. It seems so fragile now.

“The interior lining of the Mark IV is filled with pockets of reactive gel that performs as more than the suit’s shock absorbers. Micro fibres within the gel stimulate the substance via electric current to provide an appropriate level of sensation: heat, cold, pressure, or impact.”

Rhodey closes his hand around the cup, fascinated by the way it translates into fooling him into thinking he’s holding it with his bare fingers. The texture is a bit off, and he knows he needs to remain careful, because Jarvis might be enhancing his perception, but the exterior of the glove is still shiny, slick metal.

“The environment is filtered according to safety and my own discretion. In addition to cushioning the user from negative external stressing and compensating for tactile deficiencies during combat, the lining also provides for direct interaction between myself and the person operat-”

“Jesus!” Rhodey loses his hold on the cup, catching it by some miracle in the palm of his other hand. It teeters, porcelain clicking against the metal of his fingers before he sets it carefully back on the table. Behind him, he swears Tony’s chuckling under his breath.

“Sir, was that a bit sudden?”

“Sudden isn’t the first word that comes to mind. He would build you like that.”

“Sir, Mister Stark programmed me, he did not build me.” Jarvis sounds affronted, and Rhodey practically crawls out of his skin when the very real sensation of a pair of hands settling on his shoulders rockets through his nerves.

“My mistake,” Rhodey manages. His gait is awkward as he steps and pivots away from the table. Those phantom hands are still there, thumbs that don’t even exist kneading into the muscle of his shoulders.

“Relax,” Jarvis says, smooth voice purring it’s way straight into Rhodey’s blood. “Mister Stark requested that I demonstrate the full-functionality of the armour.”

“I don’t think he meant this,” Rhodey gasps. He stumbles back, jostling a workbench and sending a pile of spare parts tumbling onto the concrete.

“Are you sure about that?” Jarvis asks, and doesn’t need a body to leave a smirk hanging in the air.

“You doing all right over there, Rhodey? Your baby steps seem a little wobbly.”

Rhodey straightens and takes a calming breath. “Doing just fine, thanks,” he says, then glances down at himself. “You let Tony hear that one, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So what’s he do, climb in here when he gets lonely and tired of the bimbos?” Rhodey asks, idly testing making a fist.

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

Rhodey twists at the waist, nearly clipping Tony in the head with his forearm.

“Watch it,” Tony says. He wipes grease from his fingers with a rag, and then he’s inches away with his hands back on the chestpiece again. Inside the suit, Jarvis mimics the touch. “I’ve put a lot of time and energy into this thing, so you might as well get the VIP tour.”

“You fuck your robot suit.”

“Well, technically it’s probably more the other way around.” Tony prowls closer, and a flush of heat like a warm body presses up along Rhodey’s front. “Although if you promise not to fall forward and crush me, I can pop that cherry right now. Threesome?”

“Tony, I-”

“Say yes.”

Lips, soft and warm, both real and not, touch to Rhodey’s chest. On the HUD the readout of his pulse triples. It’s not just Tony’s hands transmitted through the suit either; Jarvis literally surrounds him, feather touches skimming along his limbs, spreading heat and chill in ways that make his head spin. He’s not sure if it’s his own body or Jarvis that moves the suit back until it hits the wall hard enough to leave cracks in the concrete.

Stone dust filters to the floor and Tony’s coughing but still there, plastered to his front, arms snaking up to disengage the faceplate. “Rhodey, don’t be a drag, say yes.”

When fresh air hits his face, and he sees with his own eyes the way Tony looks-hungry and a little giddy and focused entirely on him-Rhodey doesn’t really have any other answer to give.

*

End