Day thirty-seven. 2:47 AM.
Barry's eyes snapped open like someone had just mainlined espresso directly into his retinas. Which, given his metabolism, wouldn't have done anything anyway.
The cave was a symphony of potential chaos: Tony, hunched over the disassembled Mark I like a kid on Christmas morning if Christmas involved potentially blowing yourself up with homemade armor; Yinsen, already awake and holding Barry's suit bundle like it was the Holy Grail; three guards outside arguing about soccer in Urdu; and that damn camera with its little red eye blinking like a judgmental robot cyclops.
"Showtime," Barry whispered, taking the bundle.
He moved to the shadows and started stripping. The civilian clothes came off in a blur—literally. Button-up shirt: gone. Jeans: see ya. Sneakers: adios.
The suit slid on like it was made for him. Which it was. By a genius. In a cave. With a box of scraps.
Barry had to admit—Tony might be arrogant, sarcastic, and occasionally insufferable, but the man could *build*.
The arc reactor harness clicked into place with a satisfying *snick*, and immediately Barry felt the difference. The humming in his cells, the constant vibration that had threatened to tear him apart for weeks—it all synchronized. Like his molecules had finally found the right radio station.
"How do I look?" Barry asked, stepping back into the dim light.
Tony glanced up from where he was attaching his leg assemblies and did a double-take that would've been comical if he wasn't currently strapping on several hundred pounds of experimental armor.
"Like a very fast advertisement for athleisure wear," Tony said. "If athleisure wear could punch through walls and had a glowing chest. Actually, I should patent that. Yinsen, remind me to patent that."
"You're putting on a suit of armor that may or may not explode," Yinsen said dryly, moving to help Tony with the chest plate. "Perhaps focus on survival first, entrepreneurship second?"
"I can multitask. It's one of my best qualities. Ask anyone. Well, don't ask Rhodey. Or Pepper. Or Happy. Or—actually, you know what, just take my word for it."
Barry moved to the cave entrance, his senses automatically cataloging everything. Guard One was smoking. Guard Two was checking his phone—no signal out here, buddy, sorry. Guard Three was walking a lazy patrol pattern that suggested he really didn't want to be awake at 2:47 AM.
Barry could relate.
"Three guards," Barry reported quietly. "Plus I'm hearing... wow, okay, a lot more deeper in. Maybe fifteen? Twenty? They're not exactly being stealthy."
"Why would they be?" Tony's voice came out slightly muffled as Yinsen secured the chest plate. "They think they're the apex predators here. They don't know they're about to get apex-predatored by a walking tank and a guy who can run through walls."
"I don't think 'apex-predatored' is a verb," Barry said.
"It is now. I just verbed it."
"That's not how language works—"
"Gentlemen," Yinsen interrupted, his tone patient but firm. "Perhaps we could have this linguistic debate *after* we escape from the terrorists?"
Tony's helmet locked into place with a series of mechanical clicks. The arc reactor flared to life, flooding the cave with blue-white light. Servos whirred as the Mark I powered up, and Tony lifted one arm experimentally.
"Systems check," Tony announced, his voice now amplified and slightly robotic. "Power at ninety-seven percent. Servos responding. Flamethrowers loaded and ready to make people regret their life choices. Structural integrity... well, I mean, it's held together with hope and spite, but that's worked for me so far."
"Inspiring," Barry muttered.
"I inspire," Tony agreed. "Yinsen, you good?"
Yinsen patted the pistol at his belt—six bullets, carefully hoarded, waiting for the right moment. "I am ready."
"Barry?" Tony's helmet turned toward him, the eye slits glowing. "How about you? You ready to run really fast and hit people who probably deserve it?"
Barry felt the Speed Force crackling under his skin, felt the arc reactor pulsing in rhythm with his accelerated heartbeat. He thought of Iris, of Joe, of his dad in Iron Heights. Thought of everything that had been taken from him, and everything he'd gained.
Powers. Purpose. A genius billionaire in a metal suit who made terrible jokes at inappropriate times.
"Let's go save the world," Barry said. "Or at least our small part of it."
"That's the spirit!" Tony raised his armored fist. "Now, who's ready for some percussive maintenance on this door situation?"
He brought his fist down.
The wooden support beam didn't so much break as *explode*, splinters flying everywhere like the world's most violent piñata. The entire entrance structure collapsed with a sound like God dropping a filing cabinet down a stairwell.
The guards spun around, eyes wide, mouths opening to shout—
And Barry moved.
Time didn't slow down. That wasn't how it worked. Barry just sped up until time *seemed* slow, until the world became a frozen tableau of confused terrorists and flying debris.
Guard One was still processing the sound. Barry crossed twenty feet in what felt like a casual stroll—though he knew objectively he was moving at about 400 miles per hour—and delivered a precise strike to the man's jaw. The guard's head snapped back in ultra-slow-motion, spit flying, eyes rolling up. He'd be unconscious before he hit the ground.
One down.
Guard Two had his AK-47 halfway up, finger moving toward the trigger with glacial slowness. Barry phased his hand—god, that still felt *weird*—directly through the weapon's receiver. He vibrated at just the right frequency, scrambling the internal mechanisms without actually touching them.
The gun jammed. Guard Two looked down at his weapon in confused slow-motion.
Barry tapped him on the temple—not hard, just enough—and the man crumpled.
Two down.
Guard Three was actually doing pretty well, all things considered. He'd gotten his weapon up, was pulling the trigger, the firing pin moving forward with inevitable mechanical precision—
Barry moved faster.
He snatched the rifle out of the air—mid-firing sequence—twisted it away with a blur of motion, and delivered a quick strike to a pressure point Yinsen had taught him. Something about the vagus nerve and temporary unconsciousness and please-don't-hit-too-hard-or-you'll-kill-them.
Barry had been very careful about the "don't kill them" part.
The rifle discharged into the air with a sound like a firecracker. Guard Three dropped like a sack of extremely surprised potatoes.
Three down.
Total time elapsed: 1.3 seconds.
Barry stopped, the world snapping back to normal speed. Electricity crackled across his suit—the Speed Force's calling card—before dissipating into the night air.
"Okay," Barry said, slightly breathless despite not being physically winded. "That was... wow. That was actually really cool."
"THAT WAS COOL?" Tony's amplified voice boomed as the Mark I lumbered through the ruined entrance. "Kid, that was INCREDIBLE. You moved so fast I literally couldn't see you. You were just—" he made vague hand gestures with his metal gauntlets, "—a red blur of justice and probable OSHA violations."
"I don't think OSHA covers punching terrorists," Barry said.
"Everything is an OSHA violation if you're not creative enough."
Yinsen emerged behind Tony, pistol drawn, looking at the three unconscious guards with something like awe. "Extraordinary. You barely touched them and they simply... fell."
"Pressure points," Barry explained. "Plus, you know, hitting them really fast. Speed does most of the work."
"Don't sell yourself short," Tony said, his helmet scanning the canyon. "You just took out three armed hostiles in the time it takes most people to blink. That's not just speed—that's skill."
"Thanks, I—"
"EYES UP!" Tony suddenly roared.
Barry's enhanced hearing kicked in. Shouting. Boots on stone. The distinctive *click-clack* of weapons being readied. The entire camp was waking up, and they were *pissed*.
"Incoming from three directions," Barry reported, his brain processing acoustic data faster than any computer. "Main canyon, both side passages. I count... eighteen? Twenty? They're coordinating, which is unfortunate."
"Nothing we can't handle." Tony raised his arms, and the flamethrower nozzles ignited with a sound like dragon's breath in a wind tunnel. Twin streams of fire erupted into the darkness, painting the canyon walls orange. "ALRIGHT, PEOPLE! THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING! WE'RE EXPERIENCING SOME TURBULENCE, BY WHICH I MEAN I'M ABOUT TO SET ALL OF YOU ON FIRE!"
"Did you just make a plane announcement joke while burning people?" Barry asked.
"I multitask!"
The first wave of terrorists rounded the corner and immediately regretted their life choices.
Barry became a crimson blur, moving through them like wind through grass. A weapon here—*clatter*. A pressure point there—*thump*. Phase through a wall—*bzzzt*—emerge behind them—*surprise!*—and down they went.
Behind him, Tony advanced like a mechanical titan from humanity's darkest nightmares. The Mark I wasn't fast, but it was *inexorable*. Bullets pinged off the armor plating like angry hailstones. Tony's flamethrowers swept left and right, forcing terrorists to scatter, to break formation, to make the fatal mistake of running into Barry's patrol route.
"LEFT SIDE CLEAR!" Barry shouted.
"RIGHT SIDE IS ON FIRE!" Tony responded cheerfully. "WHICH I'M COUNTING AS CLEAR!"
"That's not what clear means!"
"IT IS IN TONY STARK TACTICAL TERMINOLOGY!"
Yinsen, moving with the careful precision of someone who knew he was the squishiest target in this scenario, took up a defensive position behind a rock outcropping. He fired once—*crack*—and a terrorist who'd been trying to flank them dropped his weapon and fell back, clutching his shoulder.
"Five bullets left," Yinsen announced calmly.
"MAKE 'EM COUNT!" Tony yelled, then, to Barry: "KID! RPG! ELEVEN O'CLOCK!"
Barry's head snapped left. Sure enough, a terrorist on an elevated position was hefting an RPG launcher, lining up a shot at Tony's back. The Mark I's armor was tough, but an RPG at close range might actually penetrate—
Barry ran.
The world shifted. The terrorist moved in slow motion, his muscles flexing as he prepared to fire. Barry covered thirty yards in 0.4 seconds, reached the elevated position, and delivered a spinning kick that would've made a martial arts instructor weep with joy.
The RPG launcher went flying through the air in a graceful arc, still unfired, and clattered down into the canyon.
The terrorist looked at his empty hands in confusion.
Barry tapped him on the forehead. "Nap time, buddy."
The man dropped.
"NICE SAVE!" Tony's voice echoed off the canyon walls. "THOUGH I DEFINITELY WOULD'VE SURVIVED THAT!"
"WOULD YOU STOP SAYING THAT?" Barry shouted back.
"WHEN IT STOPS BEING TRUE!"
"IT'S ONLY BEEN TRUE ONCE!"
"ONCE IS A PATTERN IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!"
More enemies appeared, and these ones were learning. They hung back, used cover, coordinated their fire. A bullet zipped past Barry's head—close enough that he felt the supersonic wake—and he ducked behind a rock formation.
Okay. They were getting smart. That was problematic.
"Barry!" Yinsen's voice cut through the chaos. "The junction! We need to reach it before they establish a defensive position!"
Barry peeked around the rock. The left junction—their route to the vehicle depot—was about fifty yards ahead. Between them and it: six terrorists with AK-47s, using natural cover, establishing a crossfire that would turn the corridor into a kill zone.
"I have an idea!" Barry shouted. "Tony! On my mark, hit them with everything!"
"EVERYTHING? KID, I LIKE HOW YOU THINK!"
Barry took a breath, tapped into the Speed Force more deeply than he had since waking up in this cave. The training flooded back—not just running, but *technique*. The advanced stuff the Speed Force entity had drilled into him in that timeless training space.
Speed mirages.
He started running in a tight pattern, controlling his velocity with surgical precision. Each step left a lingering afterimage, a temporal echo that looked solid and real. One Barry became two. Two became four. Four became *eight*—all moving independently, all appearing to be solid targets.
The terrorists opened fire.
Bullets passed through afterimages, harmless as shooting ghosts. Meanwhile, the real Barry—moving in a pattern so complex it was basically three-dimensional chess played at superspeed—wove between their positions untouched.
"NOW!" Barry roared.
Tony's flamethrowers erupted at maximum output. The entire corridor became an inferno, flames reaching forty feet, the heat so intense that the rock walls themselves began to smoke.
The terrorists broke. Training, discipline, coordination—all of it evaporated in the face of literal hellfire. They scattered like roaches when the kitchen light comes on.
Barry moved through them. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
All down. All unconscious. All still breathing.
"JUNCTION SECURED!" Barry announced as the speed mirages collapsed. He wasn't even breathing hard, though he could feel the energy drain. Maybe a quarter of his reserves used. Good. Sustainable.
"THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL!" Tony lumbered forward, the Mark I's servos whirring. "YOU MADE LIKE EIGHT OF YOURSELF! CAN YOU ALWAYS DO THAT? BECAUSE THAT'S BOTH TACTICALLY BRILLIANT AND DEEPLY UNSETTLING!"
"It's exhausting!" Barry called back. "And I can't maintain it for long!"
"STILL COUNTS AS AWESOME!"
They pushed forward—Barry scouting ahead in rapid bursts, Tony providing mobile cover and psychological warfare via extremely loud commentary, Yinsen navigating and watching their backs with his dwindling ammunition.
They were doing it. They were actually *doing it*. The vehicle depot was just ahead, freedom was tangible—
Then Barry heard it.
"VEHICLE!" he screamed. "TECHNICAL WITH A MOUNTED GUN! INCOMING FAST!"
A pickup truck roared around a corner, engine screaming, a DShK heavy machine gun mounted in the bed. The gunner—a man with a beard that suggested he took his terrorist aesthetic very seriously—opened fire immediately.
.50 caliber rounds. Big enough to punch through engine blocks. Big enough to find the weak points in the Mark I's armor. Big enough to absolutely ruin Barry's day if one connected.
"COVER!" Tony dropped into a crouch, servos whining as the armor absorbed the impact stance. Bullets hammered against the metal plating with sounds like the world's most violent drum solo. Some ricocheted. Some penetrated partially before stopping. One actually punched through the outer layer before getting caught in the inner reinforcement.
"THAT'S GETTING THROUGH!" Tony reported, his voice tight. "THIS IS NOT IDEAL!"
Barry moved on instinct. The Speed Force surged through him as he channeled bioelectric energy into his hand. It felt like grabbing a live wire, like holding lightning itself.
The Speed Force entity's voice echoed in his memory: *Speed Lightning. Channel it. Control it. Don't burn yourself out.*
Barry thrust his hand forward.
Lightning erupted from his palm—not yellow, not natural, but electric blue and crackling with otherworldly energy. It looked like someone had bottled a thunderstorm and given it direction.
The bolt struck the technical's engine block with devastating precision.
Every electrical system in the truck immediately had a very bad day. The engine seized. The electronics fried. Even the radio exploded in a shower of sparks. The truck rolled to a stop, smoke pouring from its hood, the gunner looking down at his suddenly very dead vehicle in confusion.
"DID YOU JUST—" Tony's voice was somewhere between incredulous and delighted, "—DID YOU JUST EMPEROR PALPATINE THAT TRUCK?"
"WHO?" Barry shouted back.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'WHO'? STAR WARS? UNLIMITED POWER? THE MOST ICONIC—you know what, we're having a movie night when we get back. This is non-negotiable."
"CAN WE FOCUS?"
"I AM FOCUSED! FOCUSED ON THE FACT THAT YOU SHOOT LIGHTNING!"
They pushed forward, using the disabled truck as cover. Barry could hear more enemies converging—Raza's entire force mobilizing for one final push.
"The depot!" Yinsen pointed. Several vehicles were parked in a widened section of canyon—trucks, SUVs, all in various states of disrepair. "We take one and drive!"
"On it!" Barry blurred forward, reaching the depot in under a second. He moved from vehicle to vehicle at superspeed, checking ignitions, fuel levels, tire conditions. Most were junk. One had no engine. Another had bullet holes the size of dinner plates.
But there—a battered SUV with half a tank of gas and an engine that sounded functional. Keys still in the ignition. Someone upstairs liked them.
Barry was about to wave Tony forward when he felt it—that sixth sense that came with super-perception, the awareness that someone was aiming at you.
He spun.
Raza stood twenty feet away, pistol raised, aimed directly at Barry's chest. At the arc reactor.
Time didn't slow down this time. This was just regular, terrifying, real-time danger.
"Weapon," Raza said, his voice cold enough to freeze nitrogen. "You were supposed to be *our* weapon. Instead, you betray me. Help the American. Destroy everything I built."
His finger tightened on the trigger.
Barry could move. Could disarm him faster than neurons could fire. But something in Raza's eyes stopped him—not fear, but the look of a man who'd already died inside. Who'd pull the trigger even knowing Barry would kill him for it. Who wanted to hurt them as much as possible before the inevitable end.
A man with nothing left to lose was the most dangerous kind.
"You don't have to do this," Barry said, hands raised but ready. "We can all just walk away. Live to fight another day. Maybe take up a nice hobby. Woodworking? I hear woodworking is very meditative."
"You mock me?" Raza's laugh was bitter as poison. "You destroy my weapons stockpile. Humiliate my men. Reduce me to ash. And you make *jokes*?"
Behind Raza, Barry saw movement—Tony and Yinsen approaching. Tony's flamethrower nozzle was raising, aiming at Raza's back.
"DON'T!" Barry shouted.
But Raza heard. Understood. Spun—
*CRACK.*
The gunshot echoed off the canyon walls like the period at the end of a sentence.
But it wasn't Raza who fired.
Yinsen stood behind the terrorist leader, pistol still raised, smoke curling from the barrel. Raza staggered, looking down at the red bloom spreading across his chest with something like surprise. His pistol clattered to the ground.
"You..." Raza's voice was fading, "...you shot me."
"Yes," Yinsen said simply. "You talk too much. It's been annoying me for weeks."
Raza fell.
Yinsen stood there for a moment, looking at the pistol in his hand. Then at Tony and Barry.
"Go," he said quietly. "Take the vehicle. Go now."
"You're coming with us!" Tony's amplified voice couldn't hide the emotion. "That's the plan! All three of us!"
"Plans change." Yinsen's smile was sad but genuine. He moved to a defensive position behind an overturned barrel, checking his pistol. "I have four bullets left. I hear at least thirty men coming. Someone needs to buy you time."
"No," Barry said immediately, moving forward. "We don't leave anyone behind. That was the promise. All of us or none of us."
"Barry Allen." Yinsen's voice was gentle but firm. "You are very fast. But you are not fast enough to fight thirty men, protect Tony in his slow armor, and drive us all to safety. The mathematics don't work."
"Then I'll make them work—"
"My family is dead," Yinsen interrupted. "Remember? My wife. My children. They died while I lived. I have nothing to return to. But you two—" his eyes moved between them, "—you have Pepper and Iris. You have lives to reclaim. Promises to keep."
"Yinsen—" Tony's voice cracked.
"I am choosing this, Tony Stark." Yinsen chambered a round with a decisive *click*. "I am choosing to make my death mean something. To save two men who can change the world. Who *will* change the world, if you honor my choice and survive."
The sounds of pursuit were getting louder. Footsteps. Shouting. The metallic chorus of weapons being readied.
"When you build your next miracle," Yinsen said, looking at Tony, "don't waste it on weapons. Build something that saves people. Something that matters."
The first enemies appeared at the canyon entrance.
Yinsen fired. A man fell.
"GO!" Yinsen roared. "Honor my choice! Live! TELL YOUR WOMEN THE TRUTH!"
Tony stood frozen in his armor, every servo locked, unable to move.
It was Barry who moved first. He crossed to Yinsen in a blur, fast enough that the older man barely registered it.
"Thank you," Barry said simply, meeting his eyes. "For everything."
"Run fast, my friend," Yinsen replied. "And remember—don't waste your speed on things that don't matter."
Then Barry was at the SUV, sliding behind the wheel. Tony finally broke his paralysis and lumbered toward the vehicle, climbing awkwardly into the bed—the Mark I too bulky for the interior.
Barry hot-wired the ignition with superspeed precision. The engine roared to life.
Behind them, Yinsen's pistol cracked again.
*CRACK.*
Then again.
*CRACK.*
Barry gunned the engine. The SUV's tires spun, caught, and they rocketed forward down the canyon access road.
In the rearview mirror, Barry saw Yinsen's silhouette against the canyon entrance, pistol raised, firing his last rounds. Buying them seconds. Precious, priceless seconds.
Then the automatic weapons fire started. Sustained. Devastating. Overwhelming.
The pistol went silent.
"Yinsen..." Tony's voice was barely audible over the engine.
Barry pushed the accelerator to the floor. The SUV screamed as he pushed it past safe operational parameters, the engine redlining. The canyon walls blurred past. The sounds of pursuit faded.
Neither of them spoke for five minutes.
Ten.
Finally, Tony's voice emerged from the Mark I's helmet, thick with emotion: "He stayed behind. He chose to die so we could live."
"He made his choice," Barry said quietly, his enhanced vision picking out the route ahead through the pre-dawn darkness. "We honor it by surviving. By keeping our promises."
"Yeah." Tony was silent for a long moment. Then: "When we get back—I'm shutting it down. All of it. The weapons division. No more missiles. No more selling to the highest bidder. No more building things that end up in the hands of people like Raza."
"That's a big decision."
"It's the right decision." Tony's helmet turned, looking back at the canyon receding behind them. "Yinsen died to give us a chance. I'm not going to waste it building better ways to kill people. I'm going to build something that actually *helps*. Something that matters."
"What?" Barry asked.
Tony looked at the arc reactor glowing in his chest. At Barry's suit. At the impossible reality they'd just survived.
"I have absolutely no idea," Tony admitted. "But I'll figure it out. Because that's what I do. I figure things out. Usually after breaking them first, but still."
Barry almost smiled. "That's very on brand for you."
"I'm consistent. It's one of my few virtues. That and my incredible humility."
"You're about as humble as a peacock in a mirror store."
"Peacocks are *very* humble! They're just also fabulous!" Tony paused. "Wait, are they? I should Google that. If I had Google. Out here in the desert. Where there's no signal. This is the worst."
The SUV raced through the desert as the sun began to rise, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. Behind them, smoke rose from the canyon complex. Ahead, somewhere, lay salvation.
"We'll make it matter," Barry promised, his hands steady on the wheel. "His sacrifice. We'll make it count."
"Damn right we will," Tony agreed. "Starting with movie night. And proper introduction to pop culture. And getting you a better backstory than 'mysterious guy from nowhere.'"
"About that—"
"Already working on it. Trust me. By the time we land in the States, you'll have a complete identity, a plausible history, and a salary that would make most people weep with joy. It's the least I can do."
"Tony—"
"Kid, you helped save my life while wearing a suit I designed. You shot lightning at a truck. You made *eight* of yourself. You're from another dimension and you can run through walls." Tony's voice was firm. "I'm taking care of you. That's not up for debate. That's happening. Deal with it."
Barry felt something warm in his chest—and it wasn't the arc reactor.
"Deal," he said quietly.
They drove in companionable silence as the sun climbed higher, two impossible survivors heading toward an uncertain future.
A genius in experimental armor who'd decided to stop making weapons.
A speedster in a crimson suit who'd decided to become a hero.
Both alive because a good man made the hardest choice.
"Hey Barry?" Tony's voice was quieter now, almost vulnerable.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. For not leaving me behind. You could've. Could've run at superspeed and been at that outpost in minutes. But you stayed."
"Of course I stayed," Barry said. "We're a team. That's what teams do."
"Yeah." Tony's helmet turned forward, watching the horizon. "Yeah, I guess we are."
The SUV crested a ridge, and in the distance, Barry's enhanced vision picked out military vehicles. American flags. Salvation.
"There," Barry pointed. "Outpost. Maybe three miles."
"Then that's our stop." Tony adjusted the Mark I's systems. "You ready for the world to meet you, speedster?"
Barry looked at his gloved hands, crackling faintly with residual Speed Force energy. Thought of everything that had brought him here. The particle accelerator. The lightning. The impossible journey between worlds.
Thought of Yinsen's last words: *Don't waste your speed on things that don't matter.*
"I'm ready," Barry said. "Let's go make a difference."
"Now you're speaking my language."
They approached the outpost together—a walking tank and a red blur emerging from the desert like something out of mythology.
Soldiers scrambled. Weapons raised. Radios exploded with chatter.
Tony's amplified voice boomed across the sand: "HELLO, GENTLEMEN! I'M TONY STARK, THIS IS MY VERY FAST FRIEND BARRY, AND WE'VE HAD A VERY INTERESTING MONTH! WHO'S READY FOR THE WORLD'S WEIRDEST DEBRIEFING?"
Barry couldn't help but grin.
The Flash had arrived in the Marvel Universe.
And he'd brought Tony Stark along for the ride.
This was going to be interesting.
---
# Interlude: Rhodey's Very Good Day
Lieutenant Colonel James "Rhodey" Rhodes had been flying search patterns over the Afghan desert for thirty-seven days.
Thirty-seven days of nothing.
Thirty-seven days of sand, rocks, more sand, occasionally some interesting rocks, and then—plot twist—even more sand.
The Pave Hawk helicopter thrummed beneath him, the rotors making that distinctive *whup-whup-whup* sound that had become the soundtrack to his recurring nightmares. In his dreams, that sound went on forever while he searched an infinite desert for his best friend's body.
"Sector Seven-Delta clear," his co-pilot reported, voice flat with the kind of exhaustion that came from hoping too hard for too long. "No contact. No wreckage. No—"
"I know," Rhodey cut him off. "Mark it and move to Seven-Echo."
They banked left, the desert tilting beneath them like the world's most boring kaleidoscope. Brown. Tan. Beige. Occasionally some rocks in a daring shade of "slightly darker brown."
Tony was out here somewhere. Had to be. Because the alternative—that his best friend since MIT was dead in a cave somewhere, his genius extinguished by terrorists with third-grade educations—was unacceptable.
Rhodey had been through every stage of grief during these flights. Denial ("He's fine, he's Tony Stark, he's talked his way out of worse"). Anger ("I told him not to do the weapons demo himself, but does he listen? No, because he's TONY STARK"). Bargaining ("God, Allah, Buddha, whoever's listening—I'll never give him shit about his dating habits again if you just let him be alive"). Depression ("He's gone and I never told him he was my best friend because we're guys and we don't say that stuff").
He hadn't quite reached acceptance.
Refused to reach acceptance.
"Colonel?" His co-pilot's voice had changed. "I'm getting... that's weird. Command is calling us. Priority channel."
Rhodey's heart did something complicated. Priority channels during search-and-rescue meant one of two things: they'd found something, or they were calling off the search.
He wasn't ready for either.
"Patch them through."
Static, then: "Razor Two-One, this is Desert Command. Break off search pattern and RTB immediately."
Return to base. Rhodey's stomach dropped. "Command, Razor Two-One. Negative. We still have fuel for another ninety minutes of search—"
"Colonel Rhodes." A different voice, higher-ranking, with the kind of authority that made even veteran pilots sit up straight. "This is General Matthews. Return to base. That's an order."
"Sir, with respect—"
"We found him, Rhodey."
Time stopped.
The helicopter kept flying, the rotors kept turning, the desert kept being aggressively beige, but Rhodey's entire world just *stopped*.
"Say again?" His voice came out strangled.
"We found Tony Stark. He's alive. He walked into Forward Operating Base Courage about twenty minutes ago." A pause. "Well. 'Walked' might be generous. He's wearing some kind of armored suit. And he's got... company."
Rhodey's brain was doing something between a cartwheel and a system reboot. "He's *alive*?"
"Alive. Conscious. Talking. Apparently hasn't stopped talking since he arrived, which should tell you everything about his condition." The General actually sounded amused. "Get back here, Colonel. Your friend wants to see you."
"On our way." Rhodey's hands were already moving, adjusting course, pushing the Pave Hawk to maximum speed. "ETA fifteen minutes."
"Acknowledged. And Rhodes? Fair warning—things are about to get complicated. Stark's not alone, and what he's brought with him... well. You'll see."
The channel cut off.
Rhodey stared at the horizon, at the forward operating base now visible as a smudge in the distance, and felt thirty-seven days of grief and fear and desperate hope suddenly transform into something else entirely.
Relief. Pure, crystalline, overwhelming relief.
"He's alive," Rhodey said out loud, testing the words. They felt foreign in his mouth after weeks of assuming the worst. "Tony's alive."
"Sir?" His co-pilot looked over. "You okay?"
"No," Rhodey said honestly. A grin was spreading across his face, huge and unstoppable. "I'm about to fly back to base and hug my best friend who I thought was dead, and then I'm going to kill him for making me think he was dead, and then I'm going to buy him a drink, and then I'm going to kill him again. I'm the opposite of okay. I'm having feelings. Multiple feelings. Simultaneously."
"That's... a lot of feelings, sir."
"It's Tony Stark. Everything's a lot with Tony Stark."
The Pave Hawk screamed across the desert, pushing past recommended speed limits, because regulations could go to hell. Tony was alive. Nothing else mattered.
As the FOB grew larger in the windscreen, Rhodey could see unusual activity on the ground. Lots of vehicles. Lots of personnel running around. And—was that—
"Is that a *crowd*?" his co-pilot asked.
It was. Soldiers, officers, support staff—everyone who could find an excuse to be there was gathering in the central compound area, all staring at something Rhodey couldn't quite see yet.
They touched down in a whirlwind of dust and noise. Rhodey was out before the skids fully settled, running toward the crowd, his heart hammering harder than it had during any combat mission.
The crowd parted as he approached—rank had its privileges—and then Rhodey saw it.
*Them.*
Tony Stark stood in the center of the compound, wearing the most ridiculous suit of armor Rhodey had ever seen. It looked like someone had welded together pieces of missiles and random scrap metal into a vaguely humanoid shape. The helmet was off, revealing Tony's face—thinner, older, exhausted, but *alive* and grinning like he'd just pulled off the world's greatest prank.
And next to him stood a kid—couldn't be more than twenty-five—wearing what looked like a superhero costume. Bright red and black, form-fitting, with some kind of glowing device on his chest. The kid was talking animatedly to a cluster of stunned soldiers, his hands moving at almost-too-fast-to-follow speeds.
"—so then he built an arc reactor, which is this thing—" the kid gestured to his chest, "—and it saved my life, which was great because the alternative was 'molecular destabilization,' which sounds cool but is actually very fatal—"
"TONY!" Rhodey roared.
Tony's head snapped around. His grin widened impossibly further.
"RHODEY!" Tony spread his arms—well, the armored arms—wide. "Honey, I'm home! Miss me?"
Rhodey crossed the distance in five strides and did something he'd never done in their fifteen years of friendship.
He hugged Tony Stark.
Hugged him hard, metal armor and all, the suit's plating digging into his ribs, not caring about regulations or military protocol or the fact that fifty soldiers were watching.
"You asshole," Rhodey said into Tony's shoulder. "You magnificent asshole. I thought you were dead."
"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Tony's voice was muffled but warm. "Also, ow. Also, I missed you too. Also, I have so much to tell you. Also, please stop crushing my arc reactor, it's important."
Rhodey stepped back, hands on Tony's shoulders—the metal ones, because that was apparently his life now. "What happened? Where were you? And what—" he looked at the kid in red, "—or who is *that*?"
"Long story," Tony said. "Involves caves, terrorists, engineering miracles, and interdimensional shenanigans. Also, this is Barry Allen. He's very fast. Like, stupid fast. Like, 'breaks physics' fast."
The kid—Barry—waved. "Hi! You must be Rhodey. Tony talked about you a lot. Also, I can run through walls. It's complicated."
Rhodey looked at Tony. At Barry. At the armor. At the glowing chest reactors on both of them.
"I've been gone for five minutes," Rhodey said slowly, "and you've adopted a superhero."
"Technically he adopted me," Tony corrected. "Also, I had a whole character arc. Very transformative. I'm not making weapons anymore."
"You're WHAT?"
"See? I told you he'd react like that," Tony said to Barry. Then, back to Rhodey: "It's fine. It's all fine. Everything's fine. Well, not fine. Yinsen's dead. That's not fine. But we're alive, and I have plans, and—" his voice cracked slightly, "—and I'm really glad to see you, man."
Rhodey pulled him into another hug, shorter this time, but no less fierce.
"Welcome home, Tony," he said quietly.
"Thanks." Tony's voice was rough. "It's good to be home. Weird. But good."
Rhodey released him and turned to Barry, who was still standing there looking awkward and way too young to be wearing tactical gear.
"Barry, is it?"
"Yes sir. Um. I should mention—I'm from another dimension. Just so you know. In case that comes up."
Rhodey looked at Tony. "Another dimension."
"Another dimension," Tony confirmed. "I told you. Interdimensional shenanigans. It's been a month."
"I need a drink," Rhodey said.
"I need several drinks," Tony agreed. "And a cheeseburger. And a shower. And to call Pepper. And to destroy my weapons division. And to figure out how to get Barry home. And possibly therapy. Lots of therapy."
"In that order?"
"Approximately."
Rhodey shook his head, but he was smiling. Couldn't help it. Tony was alive. Weird, traumatized, wearing homemade armor, apparently friends with an interdimensional speedster—but *alive*.
"Come on," Rhodey said. "Let's get you both debriefed, fed, and on a plane home."
"Music to my ears," Tony said. Then, louder, to the assembled crowd: "SHOW'S OVER, PEOPLE! GO BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED MILITARY OPERATIONS! NOTHING TO SEE HERE EXCEPT A GENIUS BILLIONAIRE AND HIS VERY FAST FRIEND!"
As they walked toward the command building—Tony's armor clanking with each step, Barry moving with an energy that suggested standing still was physically painful—Rhodey allowed himself a moment of pure gratitude.
His friend was home.
Everything else they'd figure out.
One impossible problem at a time.
---
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