On The Run

Mistakes

Chapter 11: Mistakes

Rhodey was watching television in the den when he arrived, every so often walking from one side of the room to the other to test out his new leg. He insisted he got more and more used to it every time he used it, but he still stumbled quite a bit. No one said it of course, but Tony was sure Rhodey knew that the odds weren't good that he would be able to go Avenging for quite some time. "What did he say?"

He shrugged, grabbing a bottle of vodka out of the sideboard and taking a shot without even thinking about it, "He asked me if I knew where Rogers and the others are. Like usual. I told him I didn't."

"That's not the truth."

"Not all of it."

Rhodey glanced at him curiously as he turned the channel to golf-a sport he loved to watch but no one else did, "Tony, do you really know where they went?"

He shrugged, "No, not really. I haven't heard from Rogers or Romanoff in days. I have my suspicions though-suspicions I haven't exactly shared with the Secretary of State."

"You're treading a thin line, Tony."

He smiled humorlessly,"I always tread a thin line. Besides, what if I guess correctly and they get captured again? You know what the next step could be..."

"Solitary confinement."

"Exactly," Ross had mentioned it once or twice in passing, talking about how the close proximity of the cells was probably one of the main factors leading to their escape. "Better to claim deniability."

"I suppose so," Rhodey changed the channel, flipping through the television guide listlessly. They bypassed a couple of news channels, where different newscasters squabbled over just where the (ex) Avengers had escaped to and whether or not they'd had an inside man helping them-potentially one of the three sanctioned members of the team. "Did you find anything interesting during your little trip down memory lane?"

"Nothing I didn't guess before," He glanced at his friend's metal leg, its general shape still visible even beneath his pant leg. "Are you sure the leg is comfortable enough?"

"It's fine. Look, you're making a much bigger deal out of this than you need to. You made me a bionic leg, Tony. That should be enough for anybody-and it's more than enough for me." Tony could tell he was lying, if only a little bit-and he understood why. It shouldn't have happened. They shouldn't have been fighting in the first place, Vision shouldn't have gotten distracted, he shouldn't have taken that shot...but they'd all made mistakes, they'd all been frightened, and the world had taken advantage of their discord to pull them apart like cotton candy. They'd torn apart when they should have been pulling together-and now it was too late to go back.

Sometimes, knowing what he did now-that the Winter Soldier had murdered his parents and Steve had known about it, however indirectly, for a long time-he wondered just how much he would give to go back to a time when things were simpler. When he thought his parents' deaths were simply bad accidents. When he could still trust Captain America.

He sighed, "I'm sorry, Rhodes."

"Yeah," Rhodey added softly, looking at his new leg and not at Tony. "I'm kind of sorry too. Not about the Accords, but that things got this far."

Thinking about it too much was making Tony sick; he set his empty shot glass down on the coffee table and stood up, making sure he looked at anything but his best friend. "Hey, I'm going to get some dinner started. You good with frozen pizza? It's all we have left. I'll pick something up tomorrow."

Rhodey nodded, a slow grin spreading across his face,"Meat lover's?"

"The one and only."

For a few minutes, Tony could pretend things were back to normal. For just a few minutes, he could stop seeing the spaces where the other members of the team should have been-now conspicuously empty.