FIC: Flight (MCU, gen, PG)
flight (MCU, gen, PG)
written for dazzledfirestar for Rhodeyfest
Rhodey is five when his father takes him on his first plane ride, a cross-country flight to Dallas to see Rhodey’s grandmother. Rhodey sits in the window seat, where he can watch the land outside the window-hard plastic, not glass like the windows at home-grow smaller and smaller as the plane rises, where he can watch the plane ascend through the clouds.
***
Rhodey’s MIT roommate turns out to be wunderkind Tony Stark, both a blessing and a curse. Tony works late into the night sitting on the floor of their dorm, papering the carpet with calculations and schematics. Rhodey prefers to study in the library due to Tony’s earsplitting, base heavy mood music, and he’s there one night when Tony ferrets him out.
“Rhodey!” he says, eyes wide. He brandishes a blueprint. “I’ve had a breakthrough. Come, right now. I need you.”
Rhodey scratches his eyebrow with the eraser of his pencil.
“I have a test in the morning, Tony,” he says. “Eight a.m., thermodynamics. I have formulas to memorize.”
Tony, who misses half his classes due to romantic entanglements, oversleeping, or the belief that he is smarter than his teachers, scoffs.
“Rhodey, this is important.”
“Not more important than my grade point average.”
Tony pouts. Rhodey sighs, and claps his book shut.
“Half an hour,” he says. “Then I’m back to studying, for real.”
“You won’t regret this,” Tony says, which is hilarious, but Rhodey follows him anyway.
In the quad, Tony has set up a launch pad. A four foot rocket, sleek and dangerous looking, sits in the center. Rhodey stops in his tracks.
“Tony, no,” he says.
Tony hunkers down by the base of the rocket. He opens a side panel and tinkers a bit, then closes the panel back up.
“This is going to be spectacular,” he says.
“That thing’s not going to explode, is it?” Rhodey asks. He does a perimeter sweep with his eyes; it’s late, so there aren’t too many students out and about. Still, they are very close to the dorms...
“It shouldn’t,” Tony says. He produces a remote. “Stand back.”
They both take a few steps away from the rocket.
“Would you like to do the honors?” Tony asks. He hands Rhodey the remote. There is a big, red button on it, so Rhodey doesn’t need to ask what to do. Tony’s designs are like that-straight-forward but ostentatious. Not unlike Tony himself.
“Five, four, three, two, one,” Tony says, and Rhodey presses the button.
There are sparks, and there is smoke, and they are both coming from the bottom of the rocket as it shoots into the dark night sky. The fuselage spins slightly as it rises, but the fins keep it on a steady trajectory, the nose pointed at the moon.
Rhodey grins, and claps his hand on Tony’s shoulder.
“A perfect launch,” he says.
***
Rhodey is unprepared for his first time in the cockpit. Not technically-he has mastered the flight simulator, first in his class. But as the small fighter jet shoots into the air, the bright blue sky giving way to clouds, Rhodey is unprepared for the beauty and the savagery of flight. The sky is beautiful, and mastering the controls is an art, but the plane cuts through the air like a hot knife, and there is a violence to the action-the engines burning, the nose of the aircraft piercing the sky-that is frightening.
Still, the beauty outweighs the fear, and Rhodey has never felt more at home.
***
Taking the suit into the air the first time comes as naturally as breathing. It is like reflex, muscle memory; he just lifts into the sky.
Rhodey has been in the air as a passenger, as a pilot. In the small cockpit of a fighter jet, there is very little separating you from the elements-just a simple sheet of plastic between you and the atmosphere, the clouds just inches above your head.
But this...he flies like a bird, like an animal that is designed for flight. And it’s magnificent. Rhodey flies like he breathes, and he understands intrinsically that this is what he’s meant to do the rest of his life.
War Machine: reporting for duty.