Chapter Text
“Do you think Steve can see my ass from there?”
Rhodey sighs, taking a long drink from his glass. He remembers a time when galas were less tiring and more entertaining. Watching Tony slyly use his sharp tongue against pompous politicians was an art form worth coming to these galas for, unlike this incessant pining that Rhodey now has to endure day in and day out.
They’re facing each other: Tony’s back and, more importantly, his perfectly framed ass facing Steve and Bucky on the other side of the ballroom, with Rhodey assigned to watching how tall, blonde, and – debatably – handsome reacts.
“Steve has supersoldier sight,” he shrugs, eyeing the mini cupcakes on the dessert table. They might provide enough distraction to soothe his tired nerves.
Tony shifts around, dissatisfied. “Yeah, but is he looking? Otherwise, there’s no point.”
Well, there was some entertainment in watching Tony pine, Rhodey relents to himself.
Something proud bloomed in Rhodey’s smile. Turning his attention back to his friend, he lets himself share in the miracle of the moment.
He didn’t think he’d ever see the day that his best friend found someone remotely worthy of him – although Rhodey couldn’t quite decide whether Steve’s foolish obliviousness made him less worthy of Tony or more worthy because Tony was equally oblivious.
Sometimes, two hopeless people deserved each other.
“You know,” he fondly rolls his eyes, “you could check for yourself.”
“Rhodey, the last time I turned to look at him, he glared at me,” Tony pouts.
“When Steve glares, it matters. When I glare, you laugh.”
“Honeybear, I know that your love for me has no bounds. Steve doesn’t love me. Yet.”
“My sanity has some bounds though,” Rhodey mutters under his breath. Distantly, he wonders what Steve was talking about with Bucky. He hopes Tony’s ass is driving Steve crazy, because Rhodey refuses to be the only one suffering from their pining.
Tony snorts incredulously. “Do you recall Professor Gill’s class?”
Rhodey decides it’s best if they both forgot about Professor Gill. “If Steve doesn’t love you, why are you so hung up on him?”
It’s mostly a rhetorical question. The exact reasons have been explained repeatedly to Rhodey, and he’s grateful when Tony doesn’t launch into another soliloquy about Steven Grant Rogers.
“That’s step four of the plan,” Tony huffs. “He has to like me first.”
“Tony Stark actually planning something?” Rhodey teases, laughing when Tony scowls.
“I’m also planning how to poison your food.”
Laughing harder, Rhodey leans on Tony’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t. ‘Cause then you’d only have Pepper, and she’s not going to put up with this.”
“Don’t tell Pepper about my plan,” Tony plaintively pleads.
“Then don’t talk anymore about your ass tonight. I’ve seen enough of it for a lifetime.”
“You love my ass. You keep saving it.”
That’s as much of a thank you that Rhodey can expect for tonight, and he accepts it warmly.
Days like these, he can almost forget being superheroes or the universe ending.
Here again is the young man Rhodey had stumbled upon all those years ago, with a heart that loved so freely and a mind as whip smart as his tongue was sharp. If Steve Rogers was what it took to bring that Tony back from the melancholy and the nightmares that haunted him so often these days, then Rhodey was more than willing to help.
Except, perhaps in a way that involved less ass and more talking.
“You know,” Bucky notes as lightly as he can, “if you hold that glass any tighter, it’s going to shatter.”
Steve doesn’t seem to listen, far too busy frowning at the other end of the room. For a fundraiser’s gala, neither of the Avengers seemed to be doing much to raise funds, apparently preferring to quietly moon over each other from a distance.
Well. Not quietly, Bucky revises as Steve sighs again. “Rhodey was glaring at me and now Tony is looking at me.”
That made little sense. Fixing a stern glare at Steve, he asks, “don’t you want him to look at you?”
“Yes, but not like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like he’s frustrated.”
“Sexually frustrated,” Bucky mutters.
He’s seen Tony Stark annoyed, and he’s seen Tony Stark choke when Steve bent over to pick up a wrench from the workshop floor. For a tactical genius, Bucky wonders how Steve couldn’t see Tony’s attraction to him. Sure, Steve might not be used to receiving that kind of attention, but Tony hadn’t been covert with his special attention for a certain supersoldier.
And after everything Bucky has seen since he escaped HYDRA, he knows that no one could be as deserving of Steve as Tony was – no matter what Tony chose to portray his Stark persona as, he was selfless, kind and true. Even if the selfless part was becoming a problem with him thinking that Steve deserved better.
“He’s probably upset that Rhodey wouldn’t dance with him,” Steve scoops at his cake forlornly.
Oh God.
Steve definitely deserved Tony. How much longer did Bucky have to put up with this before they got over their mutual hopelessness?
Really, Bucky is happy for Steve finally finding love.
However, he would be far happier if Steve would go kiss Tony so Bucky could figure out how to kiss a certain former pararescue pilot.
Nudging at Steve pointedly with his elbow, Bucky raises a brow. “He’s very clearly angling his ass at you, Stevie.”
That works the opposite of what Bucky was aiming for. If anything, Steve’s face grows more pinched, lips thinning in dissatisfaction.
“Yeah, but I don’t want his ass – well, I do, but I want his smile too.”
“Ask him for a dance then.”
“I’ll step on his toes.”
“Steven Grant Rogers,” Bucky grinds out tiredly, “that man blew his way out of a cave and trekked through the desert for days. He can handle having his toes being stepped on.”
“That’s the point,” Steve miserably stabs his blueberry cake. “He shouldn’t have to handle it.”
It takes all of Bucky’s restraint not to bang his head against the table. Pepper would have his arm if he destroyed the floral arrangements. Instead, Bucky takes three deep, long calming breaths, casting his gaze desperately around the room, searching for Sam or Natasha or anyone who might help him knock some sense into Steve.
Across the room, he meets Rhodey’s eyes.
He doesn’t know the Colonel very well, largely because Tony monopolises Rhodey’s time whenever he comes by the Tower, but maybe, he was the key that Bucky needed to figure out how to get Steve to kiss Tony.
Maybe Bucky had been thinking about it all along: it could actually be a problem of how to get Tony to kiss Steve.
As discreetly as possible Bucky tips his head towards Steve, a silent plea for help.
Slowly, Rhodey tips his own head towards Tony, nodding grimly back at Bucky.
A bright hope flares. He’s found an ally, a kindred soul in this suffering.
“Hey Steve?” Bucky asks with a smile, grinning at the slightly panicked look in his friend’s eyes, “I’m going to go talk with Rhodey.”
Eyes wide, Steve catches Bucky’s arm. “You promised not to tell Tony.”
“Relax. I’ll just distract the Colonel so you can have Tony to yourself.”
Preferably, you’d find the wits to declare your undying love without me having to declare a State of Emergency, Bucky quietly adds in his head.
Steve dubiously gazes across the room again, but his lack of an immediate argument speaks volumes.
When Bucky tugs him along towards Tony, Steve follows reluctantly, and Bucky thinks, hopes, that there might remain a real chance of a quick ending to all this.
He's wrong.
All Steve does is offer another blueberry cake to Tony and turn red when Tony moans around a forkful of cake.
They were in the Tower’s common room when they met. The team was piled together for the start of a Movie Night, and Bucky had just come home from an exhausting therapy session, but he had enough presence of mind to salute.
“Colonel.”
Rhodey’s eyes assess Bucky’s position on the couch next to Sam before he strides over to the empty spot Tony saved for him. Bucky tries his best not to wilt under the sternness of the gaze. There’s a clear warning, a fierce protectiveness over Tony that Bucky knows not to cross.
Something in Bucky must satisfy the Colonel because, at last, he nods. “Sergeant.”
They hold the gaze for a few more seconds before Tony pushes the popcorn bowl into Rhodey’s hands with a smirk. “Stop the dick measuring contest. We already know Air Force is better than Army.”
From Tony’s other side, Steve frowns. “You don’t have any proof.”
“There’s nothing to prove. Rhodey’s in Air Force,” Tony pats Steve’s shoulder consolingly. “Incidentally, so was your buddy Wilson.”
The frown on Steve’s face grows deeper, and Bucky feels compelled to cut in before Steve can act even more like a besotted fool. It’s unusual that Steve ever gets jealous of anybody. It’s also unusual that Steve is this infatuated with someone.
Still, one of them should at least remember their manners. If sometimes Bucky has the step up, then he supposes it's his occasional duty as a friend.
“Call me James, or, if you’d like, Bucky.”
“I’m a James too,” Rhodey laughs ruefully, the tension breaking, “but thanks to this genius, no one calls me that.”
Tony shifts around in the couch, leaning on Rhodey and jostling Steve – whose ears have taken on a curious shade of pink – in the process.
“James is a boring name, Rhodeybear.”
“Want to take that up with my mom?” Rhodey asks around a mouthful of popcorn.
Immediately, Tony pulls away, horrified. “No, thanks.”
“Thought so,” Rhodey grins victoriously. Then, to the rest of the Avengers, he explains, “we had a very interesting Spring Break together.”
The pink shade on Steve’s ears grows deeper, and Bucky thinks, oh no.
“Tony is too self-sacrificing,” Rhodey doesn’t bother with niceties, going straight to the heart of the matter as he slumps into the coffeeshop chair across Bucky.
It’s been two days since the Gala.
Between listening to Tony mope about Steve and managing the errant divisions of the Air Force, he hasn’t had much sleep. It doesn’t help that Carol is stopping by for a mission on Knowhere, with a time difference that changes every day, sending his schedule haywire.
Meeting outside of the Tower was the safest way to go undetected by Tony, who was always keenly curious of whatever Rhodey did with ‘the other side’. Nursing his cup of strong coffee, Rhodey laments all the time lost from not actively working together with Bucky to achieve a common goal.
“And Steve is an idiot who thinks Tony deserves better,” Bucky adds.
They really were a match made in hell. Martyrs who didn’t realise that their happiness stood right in front of them.
Rhodey wonders how the public would react knowing that the superheroes they adored suffered from the very human failing of emotional stunting sprinkled with childhood trauma.
“Right. How do we get them to admit they love each other?”
In front of him, Bucky brings out a metal flask and takes a swig out of it. “Hell if I know. You’re the genius who went to MIT.”
“I studied aerospace engineering,” Rhodey rolls his eyes, “not how to get two idiots to kiss.”
“Fair enough,” Bucky concedes. “What about we lock them in a broom closet together?”
Rhodey massages his temples wearily. “Tony blew his way out of a cave. Do you think he couldn’t blow his way out of a closet?”
“True,” Bucky sullenly agrees. “Steve would punch his way out, too.”
When Rhodey had mentioned the problem to Carol, she had lightly offered to lend Goose. Something about alien cats being perfect bonding material.
Fury, however, had overheard the call, and his horrified face told Rhodey to table the idea only for the most desperate of plans.
Some ideas flick through Rhodey’s mind. They might have to bring Pepper and Sam in on this, or even Natasha if things escalated further. A wardrobe makeover might be needed, a mixed-up date – some real jealousy was maybe needed to push them over the edge.
“Tony’s been trying to get Steve to notice his ass.”
“I noticed,” Bucky grits out. Then, gears turn, puzzle pieces slotting into place. Finally, a small smile. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
Rhodey grins.
“Sam,” Rhodey extends a hand across the table. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting.”
“By how much Steve talks about Tony and you, I feel like we have met, Colonel.”
Rhodey laughs. He certainly knows how much Tony talks about Sam too. “Call me James. Or if Tony’s already gotten to you, there’s no saving you and you can call me Rhodey.”
“Bucky told me this was about business?”
At the head of the conference table, Pepper nods. She motions at one of the cameras to bring up a hologram. “Rhodey and Bucky have kindly prepared a presentation for today’s agenda.”
“What?” Rhodey shrugs innocently, “I made it in a hurry. I do have an Air Force to command.”
“And I’m from the ‘40s. I don’t know how Powerpoint works,” Bucky echoes his innocence.
“Nobody believes that argument, James – both of you – but I have another shareholder’s meeting in thirty minutes, so let’s finish quickly, why don’t we?” Pepper says, but from the twitch of her lips, Rhodey knows that the shareholders are going to have to wait.
Pepper wasn’t Tony’s friend for nothing.
As she once put it: Tony was the serotonin to their braincells.
His abruptness and bright-eyed passion, his earnestness and wicked humor, were a breath of fresh air in a dull world.
While Pepper often had to pretend that she didn’t enjoy Tony’s chaos, Rhodey knows her far better than that.
She’s as invested in this as any of them are.
“Let me start with a brief reminder of our subjects,” Rhodey waves over to the next slide.
Sam stares dubiously at the screen. “How is Steve only supposedly hot?”
Bucky frowns. He hadn’t known that Steve was Sam’s type. “Rhodey put that in.”
“I’ve heard too much about his hotness to find him hot,” Rhodey defends himself. “Now, for any constructive criticism?”
Pepper raises her hand. “How about we start from scratch?”
“So,” Steve clears his throat. “You were out with Rhodey today.”
Hook, line, and sinker, Bucky thinks amusedly. It was almost too easy to get Steve to take the bait.
“Stevie, I love you, but you’ve never known subtle.”
Steve takes a couch pillow, throwing it at Bucky’s head. He misses, and the pillow lands miserably on the floor. “I can be subtle. Tony’s proof of that.”
“Tony is an oblivious idiot and the rest of the world can see you’re in love with him.”
“He not an idiot – ”
“Subtle,” Bucky grins.
Steve shoves him off the couch.
“Keep doing that and I won’t tell you what secrets Rhodey told me.”
Crossing his arms, Steve makes a face. “Fine.”
“I’ll tell you if you agree to go on a blind date with a friend of Rhodey’s.”
Steve’s face turns even more sour. “Natasha tried getting me to date other people. It didn’t help.”
Yes, Bucky heard about that lady from accounting. “Your type is apparently sassy, smart brunettes,” he tries to reason. “Rhodey knows a lot of smart people.”
“Does Rhodey think Tony doesn’t like me?”
Sam was right. Steve would end up thinking of it that way. They needed damage control before the entire plan backfired led to Steve spending their meticulously crafted weekend moping instead of getting Tony’s prized ass.
“No,” Bucky quickly explains, “Rhodey thinks you need practice at wooing men.”
“Do you really think it will help?”
It would help more if you just asked Tony out yourself. “Yes.”
“Fine,” Steve relents as mulishly as before.
“Promise me?” Bucky wheedles.
“I promise.”
“Perfect. Because the date’s tomorrow, and Sam’s waiting downstairs to give you a makeover.”
“Hey!” Steve protests indignantly, “you promised to tell me what Rhodey told you.”
“We can do that on the way to the store,” Bucky laughs, winking at the camera for JARVIS.
Rhodey doesn’t need to wait long before Tony marches into the kitchen, hands on his hips with an air of extreme betrayal.
“What did you talk about with Bucky?”
Stirring the pot of pasta, Rhodey smothers his own smile. “Hello to you, too. We talked about you.”
“Me?”
“You’re what we have in common. Of course we talked about you.”
Tony takes out a large bowl and two plates, an old habit from their days in the MIT dorms: for the safety of everyone involved, Rhodey did the cooking, and Tony helped prepare the dishes. He used to also be on dishwashing duty until he reinvented a dishwasher complete with an AI. The renowned S.O.A.P. (Self-Operating Abyss for Plates) still adorned the kitchen at Rhodey’s mother’s house.
“Details, Colonel. Full debrief, now.”
“Well, for one, Steve is going on a date tomorrow,” Rhodey begins carefully.
He feels a twinge of guilt at how Tony’s face crumples in on itself, and while Tony tries his best at a brave face, he had never been good at hiding anything from Rhodey, and his misery bleeds into his words. “I did tell you he isn’t interested in me.”
“Bucky baited him into it.”
Half a lie, but still half a truth.
“Bucky is an ungrateful peasant,” Tony mutters angrily. For a second, Rhodey thinks he needs to remind Tony of his company’s strict No Murder policy. But the next second, the tension bleeds away into defeat. “If he thinks the person would make Steve happy. Then – ”
Tony shrugs helplessly.
Turning off the stove, Rhodey gestures for the bowl, which Tony brings over sullenly.
“You know what would work?” Rhodey asks as he scoops the pasta from the pan into the bowl.
“What?”
“Go out with another blond hunk. Show Steve what he’s missing out on. Have a good time getting to know someone else.”
A surprised snort. “I thought you’d suggest talking with Steve.”
“I’ve suggested that many times before,” Rhodey pointedly emphasizes, “and you seem to never listen to reason. So I thought why not something unreasonable?”
Tony makes a noncommittal noise, trudging along after Rhodey to the dining table. They sit next to each other, Tony clearly torn between pieces of himself.
Rhodey had prepared for that, though, purposefully cooking the familiar pasta to mollify him. Eventually, Tony properly settles into the chair, picking up a fork. “Thank you for coming by and cooking.”
“You can thank me by going out with this friend of mine. His name is also Steve. If romance doesn’t work out, I think you’d still be great friends.”
His last name happens to be Rogers and his middle name is ‘in-love-with-Tony’.
Squinting suspiciously at him, Tony scoops the pasta eagerly onto a plate. “Why have you never mentioned him before? Should I be jealous of anything?”
“You were too busy with your Steve,” Rhodey deflects. Tony was to preoccupied to notice his tells. “Seriously. You need to go out. Stop being cooped up and stressed inside.”
“I don’t think you liked it the last time I was stressed outdoors.”
“You know what I mean.”
Tony gives him a crooked smile. It was still shadowed by his misery over Steve seemingly finding someone else, but it was real. “I know. Now tell me about Carol.”
Rhodey decides he’s pushed enough for today.
He wants Tony to be happy, but he’s fluent in Tony’s language of pushing and pulling. After all, Rhodey knows the young boy who dreamed of the stars, who grew up to be the man who thought he was no longer worthy of the stars.
There’s a lot to say. The most important is: “She’s desperate to hear from you.”
“Tell her I’m doing fine,” Tony says around his mouthful of pasta. The pasta does nothing to hide the pleased note in his words.
It’s always nice knowing someone cares about you. Rhodey only wishes that Tony would realise more people loved him.
“She wants you to be doing better than fine.”
We all do.
“Tell her I’m with you, then.”
When Tony gives him another crooked smile, Rhodey decides more firmly than ever that he’s going to do whatever it takes to get Steve to act on his feelings for Tony.
If it took setting Goose on both of them, so be it. If Rhodey had to bargain with Strange to create a new mirror dimension to shove both of them inside, he was ready.
Besides, how hard could it be to get Tony to be happy?