Give him back to me, or so help me god

Chapter 4: The Attack

Tony fiddled with his cufflinks for the billionth time ten minutes. They had been stuck in traffic for over half an hour now on the way to the Supreme Court. He'd dropped the Civic off at a garage in Chelsea, and then slid into the Rolls Royce that Happy had pulled up to the curb in a deserted side street.

The car lurched forward again, skipping a few feet closer to the Court – Tony could see it through the window now, but the mass of media littering the streets was making it almost impossible to reach. Tony threw his head back onto headrest. He was struggling to stay awake – which was not a new sensation, but he was steadily finding that the kind of sleep-deprivation that stemmed from working all night in the lab, and the bone-weary exhaustion of sitting up all night with the image of the kid bleeding out in an alley somewhere, were very different. One left him with itchy eyes, but a sense of achievement that tended to override the discomfort of being awake for forty plus hours. The other reduced him to an aching, nauseated, mess that – despite his exhaustion – just couldn't stop shaking.

The door across from him swung open despite the still crawling car.

"Wha-" Tony breathed, pulling back in his seat and throwing a look up at Happy, who sat at the wheel. The sudden thundering of his heart calmed almost immediately when a familiar set of leg braces began to fold themselves into the back seat beside him.

"I meant the baby-sitter comment, you know." Tony scowled as Rhodey slammed the door closed behind him, cutting off the camera flashes that had caught his every step into the Royce. "I can sit in a courtroom all on my own – despite what you and the Captain seem to think."

"Oh, I have no doubt." Rhodey said, glaring out the tinted windows at the paparazzi that were all but pressing their noses up against the car. "I'm here to protect Ross more than you." He pulled at his uniform, straightening out the creases must have formed during his shoving match to get to the car. "And I think Steve's just getting a bit antsy, locked up in the Compound all day." He added. "He's nervous something's going to happen when he can't be there to help."

Tony huffed, his attention turning out to the paparazzi as Rhodey's eyes drifted over to him. "It's Steve now is it?"

Without even sparing a glance in his direction Tony knew that Rhodey was throwing him a pointed look. "Fresh slate – that's what we said wasn't it?" Rhodey said. Tony shrugged. "Besides – even you call him Steve occasionally." Rhodey went on, clearly prodding for a response, his eyes boring into the side of Tony's face.

"Yeah, well, it's petty if I hold a grudge." Tony moaned zealously, pulling at his cuff links again. "Which is why I was reliant on you – my best-est, and oldest friend – to hold it for me, but I see how it is." Tony huffed. A smile was pulling at one edge of Rhodey's lips as he shook his head in the corner of Tony's eye. "Brawn over bros." Tony grumbled. "At least the kid still attempts to hate him – in that puppy-like, adoring, I would literally eat my web-shooters if you asked me to, Steve kind of way-"

The shadow of a smile had disappeared from Rhodey's lips. "You're babbling." He said, not an inch of room for Tony to argue. He was too experienced with Tony's brand of bullshit. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Tony shrugged, eyes still firmly fixed on the photographers blocking their way to the court stairs, and not on Rhodey's searching gaze. "Just looking forward to another wasted day of staring at Ross's face and waiting for it to spontaneously combust – I think I got close last time. Just a few tweaks of the 'force' and I'll be able to-"

Rhodey cut him off.

"-Happy said you went to see the kid."

Tony's eyes pulled away from the chaos outside the car to glare up at the back of Happy's head.