[RP] If you love someone, better help his ass get free

[beingabadass]

Despite his best efforts, Rhodey's not sure he's kept track of time correctly. If his count's correct, it's been nine weeks, but he hasn't been certain for a while now. Still, it's better than just letting the time pass; it's not like he has much else to do than try and keep track. So he tries. He's not sure if he's technically waking up in the morning or not; there's no way to tell in this room they're keeping him in, but he'll count it for now. Waking up and going to sleep are a shitty marker for time, but they're what he's got, because unless he's even more off-base than he thought, the times they drag him out to try and get information are random. (Probably not actually random, but he can't figure out the pattern behind it.)

They also don't end very well for anyone. Not for the people keeping him prisoner, because all he does is tell them, calmly, just how fucked they're going to be when he's found. And not for him, because they don't take very well to being told how fucked they're going to be. He might do a little better keeping his mouth shut altogether, but he does it for himself. It's easier to deal with if he keeps reminding them -- reminding himself -- that people are coming for him, and he's just gotta wait.

So he mouths off to them in a way he should be way too smart for, telling them that they should hope it's the military that comes for them. Because if it's not, it's going to be Tony, and then they'll really be in trouble.

And even though it's been nine weeks with no sign of rescue, he still keeps telling them the same thing. Keeps telling himself the same thing. Because Tony's going to find him, and he refuses to have any doubt about that.

Comments

[nottheworstthing]

It's funny the subjective way time moves; the way hours can slip away like moments, the way the space of a few heartbeats can draw out into a brief eternity. The way frantic hours turn into sleepless days turn into agonizing weeks, and even as the odds grow ever longer, dreadful hope never quite relaxes its grip.

Once - not even all that long ago - if Tony'd had to name the most excruciatingly drawn-out time in his life, it wouldn't even have been a question. Afghanistan. Of course it was Afghanistan; three months in that cave was another lifetime, lived in another world. But that was before. Before Rhodey turned up missing, before days became weeks became months with every single lead they could turn up hitting a near-instantaneous dead end. Before people started whispering about moving on and accepting the inevitable where they think he can't hear.

He hasn't paid a blind bit of attention to anything else since, immersed in increasingly obscure and creative detective work. The company have given up pestering him (Pepper's intervention, he'll find out later - he's officially been on personal leave for quite some time now). It's been a good four days since the last time he spoke to anyone other than JARVIS. No-one else has attempted to talk to him since the last gentle attempt to persuade him to face facts ended...poorly. His world at the moment is one of hacked servers and grainy security footage. He's been keeping an eye on the military's own search, but it's going nowhere fast.

The day he finally hits pay dirt, he hasn't slept in about eighty hours and might generously be described as an absolute mess of a human being. But all trace of exhaustion falls away the second he realizes what he's looking at, a jolt of adrenaline hitting him like a lightning strike. Inside the space of an hour he's got every scrap of info laid out in front of him like a map and is in the process of blackmailing, bribing, or otherwise coercing everyone he can lay his hands on into helping out with the most rapidly planned rescue mission in history.

Everyone knows he's a changed man these days. He's cleaned up his act; he's a hero now. But for all that's true, he has few scruples about helping those who deserve it get what's coming to them, and absolutely none when they've had the stunning lack of judgement to hurt someone he loves.

The attack on the base is planned with military precision, exacting thoroughness, and absolutely no mercy.

The first explosion rocks the bunker to its foundations, walls trembling and dust raining down the the ceiling even in the depths of the holding cells. They're well trained, whoever these goons are - they'll figure out the details later if any of them are intact enough afterward to bother rounding up - but they were in no way prepared to face Iron Man tearing through their ranks like a rogue missile.

A second explosion, closer this time, the ground shaking underfoot like an earthquake. And there, just on the edge of hearing, the whine and thump of repulsors.

[beingabadass]

There's the sound of an explosion followed by dust and dirt falling on him where he sits on the edge of his shitty cot. Rhodey quells the automatic urge to look up; he's already got enough disadvantages to deal with without adding shit in his eyes to the list. Instead he goes very, very still, and listens very carefully to the noises that follow, the sounds of combat coming for them and the already-starting sounds of motion and panic above him growing louder.

He smiles, and stops to consider his options. It doesn't take long: he can already hear that they're coming down, and while he knows that one or two other cells are occupied, he's pretty sure that's it. Even if they come for him last, they'll get to him pretty fast. Guards, maybe, so that if -- when, definitely when -- Tony and whatever cavalry he may have bothered to bring get through everyone upstairs, they don't get a clear shot. Executioners, also a possibility -- they're probably pretty aware they're fucked, so why keeping them alive? Those are the most likely possibilities.

He'd rather not fight what will probably be multiple men alone, unarmed, and at less than peak condition, but if he was going to do it, now's the best time. It sounds like everyone else will be too busy to give backup. And on the chance they're coming to kill him, he decides, slipping as quietly as possible over to stand besides the door as the sound of a key in the lock sounds, he'd rather strike first.

All he has to do is survive till he gets to Tony, or Tony gets to him. That's more than doable.

He gets the drop on the two to come busting in when he comes out swinging before they even finish registering that he's not visible from the door. His lack of physical response has made them misjudge him - either think he doesn't have the guts without weapons at his disposal, or doesn't have the strength. So one goes down fast, the other gets his head slammed into a wall a couple of times. Might be concussed, dead, or just knocked out; Rhodey doesn't care and doesn't have the time to figure it out, and it gets him out.

He's trying to figure out the best chances for getting up to where the fighting is without also getting killed along the way, or if it'd be better to find somewhere to stay put, also without getting killed along the way, and debating the merits of just shouting Tony's name til he gets down here to provide cover and hoping JARVIS makes sure he hears, when all considerations are basically taken from him by an attack from behind.

Well, at least if he wanted to draw attention to himself, the involuntary shout he makes when his arm is wrenched and twisted (he's pretty sure that's a dislocated shoulder, and while it wouldn't be the worst injury he's gotten, that alone makes it hard not to react to the pain) is as good a way as any.

Hopefully the other guards are busy with their own hostages, or things are about to get worse.