Imagine If You Assembled The Avengers: Volume 3

It Was the Right Thing to Do (brother!Rhodey x reader)

Your brother had been standing by the window that looked out and towards the drive to the compound for hours, but to him, time was just as immobile as he was. His legs shook despite the tight braces that held them; so much so that FRIDAY had alerted Tony that there seemed to be a malfunction in them, leading him to find his best friend as quickly as he could. He had expected to find Rhodey on the ground and cursing his creation, instead stopping quickly at the sight of a man conflicted and berating himself in silence. He knew that sight all too well.

After the battle in Germany that left many of his friends confined on the Raft and had left him wearing these braces for the rest of his life, he had tried everything he could, pulled every string and called in every favor he could to get you back home with him. You had been dating Rogers for just over a year at the time, but he never thought that it would be enough to leave the two of you standing on opposite sides of a battle that never should have happened. You were both raised in the military, both had signed on and committed to the cause, but you had left the structure and rigidity of it when the Avengers offered you a spot on the team. It hurt to see you leave that behind as he stayed on, but now that he was injured none of that mattered, and this team was all he had left.

He wasn't sure if he had you anymore, and that was terrifying him into his immobility now.

"She's coming home today?" Tony asked softly, trying to approach carefully. His friend didn't flinch, so he continued towards him and took a stand at his side. Tony wanted to lend his support and would do anything that Rhodey asked of him, but the man was too damn stoic. He was about to put a supportive hand on his shoulder, but Rhodes waved him away.

"Yeah," he finally spoke, "the judge said she should have been here by now. Ross promised to have her here before noon."

"And we believe him?"

"It's all I have to believe, Tony. Once she's here, I don't know if she'll even talk to me," he answered silently, his voice shaking. "I'm on the wrong side, remember? I'm part of why Steve's on the run."

Tony scoffed loudly and shook his head in disgust at how this had all played out, disappointed in not only Rogers and his team, and that damn friend he just had to protect, but also for how he had handled it as well. "Yeah, and he's why she got thrown into the Raft in the first place."

"That was really more on you, Tone."

"I'm the one following the rules for a change!" he quickly defended himself. "And how is this now about me?"

"No, you're right, I'm sorry," Rhodes conceded in a huff, "I'm just nervous. It took a lot of convincing just to get her to come back here. She's on house arrest for the next two years, and she almost took Barton's offer to stay with him just to avoid me. Well, me and a lot of you."

"Hmm, fine," Tony gave in, albeit very reluctantly. The two men stood together and watched again in silence, the space between them heavy and nearly intolerable to maintain. All that Tony wanted for his friend was for this to go as smoothly as possible, after he had already been through so much. Harboring guilt was a specialty of Stark's, and where James Rhodes was concerned, he would let that guilt destroy him before he would cause any more pain for the man. Once he had realized that he didn't allow that same concession for you, and that Rhodey was right, he promised silently that he would never let either of you be forced to take his side by virtue of your relationship with him. Tony had known you for years, and you were his family, and it only took one look at you for him to take his guilt to new heights.

You looked nothing like what he saw of you in Germany; Tony felt the shift in Rhodey's demeanor as you came into sight, stepping out of the back of the government transport and waiting for your handcuffs to be removed. As the steel of the cuffs fell away, the deep bruises from their pressure was clear even from this far away. You looked gaunt and fragile, as if your body was barely holding itself up by its own power. Your skin looked dry, and your eyes sunken from dehydration or maybe even starvation. Tony watched in complete shock, appalled that they could have treated you this way, and appalled that a man he had dared to trust might be the reason for it.