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After the third time Tony throws up and then passes out in his latest suit, Pepper calls Jim.
Tony protested that it was no big deal, that a little puke was nothing when it came to battling supervillains, and what would you like me to do, Pepper, not get to Latveria in time to stop Doctor Doom's latest Doom Ray?
Jim can't help but smile into the phone, because Pepper's Tony-impression is getting way too good.
In any case, Pepper is apparently not impressed by Tony's logic.
"He seems to think that he has no choice but to fly at Mach-whatever all the time and show up to every fight semi-conscious and covered in his own vomit," she tells Jim over the phone. Jim sighs, loud enough for Pepper to hear, because partners have to support each other, especially when their other partner is a stubborn, pig-headed adrenaline-junkie with precious little regard for his own safety.
"I've come close to it a few times, too," Jim admits. Actually, he totally threw up all over himself and the inside of the Iron Patriot suit last week, but that's not something he's about to admit to anyone, even Pepper. And he has extensive flight training that Tony doesn't; he should've figured that, if he was having trouble with the new, faster suit design, Tony would be even worse off. "This latest propulsion system is way faster than the inertial dampening systems can deal with."
"Rhodey," Pepper sighs. "Rhodey, my darling, will you take some time off and come and fix it? We miss you around here, and I think you need to intercede before Tony does himself some brain damage."
"I can't think of a better vacation," Jim laughs. He's got leave coming, anyway, and he misses them back.
*
Pepper greets him with a warm hug and an even warmer kiss; Tony's a little more subdued, shaking his hand and pulling him into a brief bro-hug, like he used to in the old days.
"Aw, someone's grumpy," Jim says, laughing. "C'mon, didn't you miss me at all?"
Tony's eyes narrow with the challenge, but he doesn't kiss him, backing up a step and pointing a finger at him instead. "No. No makeouts for you, Rhodey. You are a fun-ruiner. You are here to ruin fun."
"I guess I am, if you're really into vomiting and passing out," Jim agrees, trying to be reasonable. "Are you really into vomiting and passing out? Because I thought I knew all the edges of your sexual interests by now."
"It's stupid to make the suits slower," Tony says, as if Jim said nothing at all. Jim rolls his eyes in Pepper's direction, and she rolls hers back. "And I can't do anything more to dampen inertia, we just don't have the space for any of the components I've drawn up, not to mention the weight considerations, and – "
"Tony," Jim says. Actually he says it five or six times, but who's counting. Eventually, Tony blinks and looks at him.
"What?"
"You don't need a slower suit. Or better inertial dampeners." Tony furrows his brow; he clearly doesn't get it. It's funny, because Tony's a brilliant engineer, innovative, focused when he wants to be, but this has always been his weakness, ever since Jim's known him: sometimes he can't stop fixing the broken thing long enough to come up with a thing that wouldn't be broken in the first place.
"So, you're saying, some kind of biological mechanism, implants, maybe medication, yeah, I could get Bruce in on that but there are some concerns – "
Jim gives up and grabs him by the shoulders. "Tony. You need a bigger boat."
It takes a couple of seconds for the idea to filter through Tony's brain, but then Jim sees the light hit Tony's eyes as he gets it. Tony smiles, that killer smile of his that's all joy and enthusiasm and wonder, the smile that Jim fell in love with years and years ago. Jim smiles back; he can't ever help but smile back.
"Rhodey," Tony breathes, and then he's got his arms wrapped around Jim's shoulders and he is kissing him, hot and messy and fast, so that all Jim can do is listen to his flight training: relax, lean into the turns, and enjoy the ride.
*
Two weeks later, deep in the guts of what might one day, with a lot of work, be classified as a giant mess, Jim is starting to regret the proposal.
"I think I am literally being eaten by this pitch and roll channel assembly," he says, staring mournfully at the beads of blood on his fingers. "I think it is very slowly drinking all my blood and will eventually consume my life force."
"Don't be such a baby," Tony replies. He's underneath a chunk of fuselage a few feet away. He could've put it up on the lift, but Tony likes being underneath machines, surrounded by them, looking up at them like they're the night sky. It wasn't much of a surprise when he came up with the three-sixty holographic displays. Or the Iron Man suits.
Jim sucks his finger for a few seconds, then examines the wound. The bleeding has stopped, at least. He picks up his socket wrench and rejoins the battle with the PRCA.
"I'm a baby. You're the one who ordered fancy ostrich skin leather for the seats. Better hope we don't get any vegetarian superheroes in the Avengers."
"You and Pepper wanted me to build something more comfortable to ride in, so I am building something more comfortable to ride in." Tony pauses, and there's a low, ominous clanging sound. "Fuck. Rhodey, can you hand me a – wait, wait, never mind, I got it."
"Don't break that," Jim says. He almost doesn't hear himself saying the words; after all these years building things with Tony, it's practically a reflex.
"I'm not breaking anything," Tony protests, annoyed. "And the ostrich leather is sustainably farmed, organic, from fucking ethically treated ostriches, I swear to god these ostriches have, like, a better life than I do. Or a better life than you do, maybe, at least."
"Thanks," Jim says dryly. He bites his lip, and finally gets the last component slotted into place, without any blood this time.
"I just mean, probably the ostriches don't have penthouses, but it's a nice life."
Jim sighs and stands to stretch. "Jesus, Tony, stop explaining."
Tony wheels himself out from underneath the assembly he's working on. He's greasy and sweaty in his tank top and jeans, hair wild, a wrench in his hands. He couldn't look more like a photo shoot from a gay porn magazine, and the really annoying part is that he knows it.
"Make me," he says, licking his lips.
Jim raises his eyebrows. "Really? On the creeper cart? In the middle of a jet engine?"
"C'mon, we can christen it," Tony says, dropping the wrench and pushing himself up on his elbows.
Jim drops slowly to his knees next to Tony, leaning down until his lips are next to Tony's ear. "We christened it yesterday," he says, softly.
Tony leans up for a kiss, but Jim pulls back slightly, just half an inch, and holds Tony's wrists so he can't come up any further.
"I think it wore off," Tony says. Realizing that he's not going to get any further by pushing, he leans back, trying for sultry. He does a pretty good sultry greasemonkey, Jim's gotta admit.
"Maybe when you finish those spot-welds I asked you to do yesterday," Jim says, laughing. "Then I'll fuck you on the creeper cart."
He stands up again. Tony huffs.
It turns out that fucking someone on a creeper cart is needlessly complicated. Who would've thought. But it's the kind of thing where, hey, at least you can say you did it. Plus, of course, Tony's spot-welds are perfect.
All in all, Jim thinks it's probably a lot better than anything any ostrich has got going on.
*
Eventually the jet comes together, and a week later it starts to look less like a pile of exploded junk and more like something people could fly around in.
"Repulsor-jet technology," Tony grins, as they test the first engine. "Everyone's gonna be jealous."
"Boeing is gonna be insufferable. And so's the military, for the record," Jim says. He can already imagine the dressing-down he's going to get from his superiors for not getting Tony to build one of these for the Air Force. But fuck it. Jim's just glad that Tony fixed it, years ago, so that the Air Force doesn't have the rights to anything he builds with Tony.
Tony's look is all smug self-satisfaction. "I know."
"You realize that now we have to make three more of those," Jim says, gesturing at the engine.
Tony groans and throws himself forward, landing face-down on the cold dirty concrete of their hangar.
"Why did I let you talk me into this," he says, lips moving against the floor.
Jim smiles down at him fondly. "Just remember the vomit," he says.
*
The funny thing is, neither of them really plan it, but after designing all the big stuff – engines, afterburners, empennage, landing gear, INS, ILS, all that – they start incorporating the little stuff without talking much about it. It just starts to come together, all the little touches that they didn't think about beforehand.
"I – is that a cupholder?" Tony asks.
Jim smiles. "You're on your way home from a tough mission, kicking back in your ostrich leather seats, you're telling me you don't want a beer?"
Tony doesn't have anything to say to that, so Jim puts a cupholder on the other side, too.
Then the next day he's busy on the hydraulic press when Tony walks by with what looks like a huge stack of carpet samples in his arms. Jim frowns down at the superplastic titanium alloy he's working with and resists the urge to blow on it to speed up the process.
Later, though, when the components are finished, he finds Tony sitting at one of the tables they usually use for sketching, surrounded by books full of fabric, rubbing one of the samples up against his face.
"We putting up curtains in the superfast repulsor-powered fighter jet?" Jim asks. Tony glares at him.
"We're going to need to pad the inner surfaces of the craft," he says. "Just in case we ever take damage in the air."
"And you want to make sure you fall against something soft." Jim looks down at the samples. "And – aesthetically pleasing."
Tony snaps his fingers and points at Jim. "Exactly."
Jim sits down next to him. "I like the blue," he says, pointing at one of the ones Tony's singled out.
"You would," Tony grins.
The most important little touch, though, is the emergency supplies. It actually takes some serious design work on Jim's part to find a way to fit everything he wants into the small space, but still have it all be accessible if you're in a rush or incapacitated.
"Hey hey, where'd you even get that?" Tony asks, when he sees Jim carefully stacking ampoules of morphine into the modular supply cupboard he's built.
"What, the morphine? I didn't." He picks up one of the ampoules and shakes it to demonstrate its emptiness. "I made these. I just needed some that were the right size and shape to make sure everything fit."
He watches as Tony looks down, taking in the field of pressure bandages, rescue blankets, cold packs, eyewash, scissors, wound glue – everything Jim thought they might need. There's room enough in the jet to lay a person down, if need be, and Jim can unfortunately imagine all too many situations where they might have to.
"You're really planning ahead, huh," Tony says. He sounds hoarse. Jim looks up to meet his eyes.
"Well, I don't know about you," he says, slowly, "but I don't spend weeks building something like this if it's not going to be a way of life for me." Jim spreads his hands, indicating all the emergency supplies. "Who knows what we'll end up fighting in the future. Who knows where this plane's gonna go down, or how long rescue will take. Who knows what kind of state you might be in someday when I have to fly your ass home."
Sitting down next to him, Tony sighs. He takes Jim's hand, threading their fingers together, and holds on tight. It reminds Jim of Tony's homecoming, years ago, back when the scars around his old arc reactor were still fresh and red. He'd held Jim's hand then, too, trusting him, and Jim had held him up.
"Who says I'll be the one injured?" he asks. "You do plenty of stupid things, I might have to look after you."
Jim lifts their joined hands and kisses their knuckles. "God, I hope not," he says, softly.
Tony chuckles, leaning over to kiss Jim on the cheek. His free hand is playing around with one of the fake morphine bottles.
"I can get some morphine for these," he says. "I know a guy."
"I figured you would," Jim says.
*
After it's finished, Tony and Jim avoid the fact that it's finished for five or six days.
"I've still gotta touch up the paint job in a few places," Tony says.
"I want to look at that lock actuator again," Jim says.
Between the two of them they fuck around, polishing and poking, tuning and spot-welding, sewing down an imaginary loose piece of ostrich skin, until eventually they can't pretend anymore.
"Look," Jim says, over sandwiches one afternoon, as they sit staring at the perfect, shining fuselage. "It's done. We should just call it done."
"There's a thermal bypass valve that I – "
Jim meets his eyes. "Tony. It's done."
Tony nods, taking a bite of his roast beef on rye. "It's done. I mean, maybe we'll have to tinker with it sometimes, but for the most part – " He cuts himself off when Jim threatens to throw a water bottle at him. He raises his hands in surrender, still holding half a sandwich in his hand. Mustard drips down onto his wrist. "It's done, it's done."
"Good," Jim sighs. The thermal bypass valve is bugging him too, but that can wait for later, he figures. Maybe in a month or two, on a weekend.
"Hey, Rhodey," Tony says. "Thanks for building this thing with me."
"Yeah," Jim says, staring up at the biggest, most beautiful thing that he and Tony have ever made together. Or, well. Second-biggest. "Thank you."
Tony kisses him, then, all mustard-tangy and slick, and Jim laughs into the kiss, because this thing, what they have together, is built to last.
*
"We call it – The Quinjet!" Tony waves his hand in an elaborate ta-da! motion, showing off the gleaming, gorgeous, perfectly-engineered feat of human ingenuity sitting in the hangar below. Pepper gasps and grips Jim's hand.
"Wow," she says. "Wow, you guys, seriously. This is beautiful."
"It's our baby," Jim says, unable to keep the stupid grin off his face.
"Our new home away from home," Tony agrees. He glances over at Jim, and Jim nods back at him.
"Wow," Pepper says again. She stares at their masterpiece for a few seconds.
"Drink it in," Jim says.
"Take your time," Tony says.
Pepper nods. "So, how are you going to get it out of here?"
Jim meets Tony's eyes. They both look at the size of the hangar door. Then they look at each other again. Then they look at the Quinjet, then back to the hangar door.
"Uh," Tony says.