Your Rhodey

It had been nearly three months by the time Tony woke up from his coma after being recovered from Siberia, before he fell back in another from stressing his heart and still healing ribcage from when it had been shattered. Another two months later, he woke again and began to improve. He was hospitalized for another month before he was released to return home.

Rhodey was deeply worried. The first time, Tony had had a severe panic attack once he was conscious enough to remember what had happened. He'd been delirious still, and had cried and screamed bloody murder that Steve was going to kill him, was going to let his friend kill him like he did his parents, before he'd slipped back into another coma.

Rhodey had been furious.

He'd had his suspicions when they'd finally recovered Tony from the abandoned HYDRA base in Siberia- thank everything that it was abandoned or Tony and the suit would have been easy pickings. The only reason Tony hadn't died permanently was the fact that his injuries and the freezing temperatures had caused him to pass out quickly, thus preventing the adrenalin from wearing off and causing him to panic and puncture both his lungs, or from going into shock before help could arrive in time.

By the time they'd reached him, he'd been dead for nine minutes. One lung had collapsed and the other followed in suit on the evacuation jet they loaded him into at top speed to the nearest hospital after they'd managed to resuscitate him.

He'd flatlined three times on the operating table, already having had a weak heart after the arc reactor's insertion, subsequent heavy metal poisoning and then its removal, recent events non-withstanding, each time taking longer to restart his heart. The damage to his chest was so severe they'd had to inject him with a high dosage of Tony's modified (and safe to use) version of Extremis so he wouldn't die again. That dose when the reactor had been removed was probably the only reason he'd initially survived long enough they were able to revive him in Siberia, despite how little they'd used during the surgery.

Rhodey had wondered, sometimes, in the long nights at his best friends' bedside, whether Tony had not wanted to come back. Then, he wondered, and felt worse, because Tony had never wanted to become a superhuman. The only blessing was that it was the modified version he'd had during the arc removal surgery. Then, he'd only slightly advanced his healing. Now, he had a healing factor much better than Rogers' and he was a bit stronger than he was as well, among other enhancements that result from the serums use. They weren't sure how much stronger, as Tony wasn't in the right mental state to be testing those sorts of things right now.

Tony hadn't spoken a single word since he'd woken up the second time. Silence and Tony were not two words that Rhodey had ever come to associate with his best friend. After everything he'd been through, he'd always bounced right back.

Oh, Rhodey knew that he never came out unscathed, he wasn't ignorant like the majority of people in Tony's life. He knew Tony had been developing various mental issues and ticks from a young age, and every blow added to the pile and increased the potency of the ones already present, often removing any progress he'd made on them since the last incident.

Rhodey wheeled himself over to his friend, who was sitting on the couch, half curled into the corner and staring blankly at the wall, as he had been wont to do since his return. He still had the cast and brace on his torso to restrict his movement and prevent the plates and pins, artificial and regrown bones from shifting and healing wrong, despite Extremis, they were being cautious and taking the healing one step at a time rather than risk all at once and something going wrong in the healing process caused by Extremis. They really didn't want to take any chances with his health even if Extremis appeared to have healed him well with no further complications.