Crazy MCU Ficlet?

[icarus_chained]

Erm. There was a prompt of comment_fic. And I sort of lost control of it slightly. So ... Have a small companion piece to Running Hot, Rolling Low, in which James Rhodes ends up in bed with Maria Hill and Nick Fury?

Title: A Little Fraternisation Between Friends
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: James Rhodes, Maria Hill, Nick Fury, Tony Stark. Rhodey/Maria/Nick
Summary: Rhodey wakes up in bed with Maria Hill and Nick Fury, and Tony is somewhere between impressed and terrified
Wordcount: 1267
Warnings/Notes: Um. Crazy?
Disclaimer: Not mine.

A Little Fraternisation Between Friends

Rhodey woke up with a screaming hangover, and Tony Stark standing over him. It was not a good way to start a morning.

Not an unfamiliar way, of course. But still definitely not good.

"You know," Tony said, in an atypically quiet voice, "I don't know if I should be impressed or terrified right now." And it was hushed, it was quiet, something that was entirely alien when Rhodey was visibly sick and at his mercy over here, and they'd spent enough time with the positions reversed that vengeance was really the only sensible option. Not even Rhodey could contest that. But Tony ... Tony had been presented with a hungover, dog-sick James Rhodes, and Tony was being quiet.

In fact, when Rhodey managed to squint enough to bring his face into focus, Tony's expression wasn't even remotely gleeful. More like awed. And a little horrified.

Well. That boded well, didn't it?

"... Jim?" Maria's voice came thick and grouchy behind him, the bed moving as she twisted inelegantly towards them and managed to elbow him in the kidneys in the process. She burrowed into his back, her head between his shoulder blades, and in the midst of pain and confusion as his brain decided to reluctantly cough up some memories, Rhodey felt a little rush of heat at that. "Is that Stark? Because it's too early for Stark."

Tony's expression did something comical, a little twist that wanted to be affront, but was still too caught up in being stunned to quite manage. Rhodey almost growled at him for that. Really, after all the shit he'd had to walk in on Tony doing in the mornings, Tony could not fault him for having woken up beside a hot, kick-ass lady ...

"I concur," came the low snarl from even further behind him, while Maria tensed against his back like someone'd shot her, and suddenly Tony's expression made so much sense. Through the wave of stunned horror, Rhodey suddenly refound his sympathy.

"It is," Nick Fury growled, "too damn early for Stark bullshit. Love of god, Rhodes, haven't you got a lock?"

"... No," Tony said, eventually, into the ringing sound of silence. He said it very carefully, and with the air of a man who knows he is toying with something explosive. "No, Rhodey does not have a lock. At least, not a me-proof one. In future, though, I may consider getting him one. In the interests of ... of maintaining our mutual peace of mind."

"That's nice." Fury's voice all but dripped sarcasm, and Rhodey felt Maria's head press shaking into his back, the quivers of her shoulders transmitting themselves down his spine. "Why don't you go and do that, Stark. Now, maybe?"

Gently, Rhodey felt his hand drift upwards almost of its own accord, and his own knuckles press against his mouth. He bit down. Absently.

Tony, with that grin of his that only showed up when he knew he was beat, that queasy, daredevil smirk, backed off a step, his hands tapping a quivering tattoo on his thighs. "Yeah," he said, bright and casual. "You know what? Why don't I go do that." Nodding to himself. "Yup. Sounds like a plan to me. Ah. See you, honey bear?"

Rhodey nodded, his teeth too tight around his knuckles to risk speaking, Maria's hands too desperately tight on his hips to risk moving. So he nodded, and Tony, showing a truly startling amount of sense for once, beat a sudden and very hasty retreat.

Leaving them alone. The three of them, curled in bed together. The Air Force pilot, the SHIELD agent, and Nick goddamn Fury. Because why not?

"... Maria?" Rhodey managed, after a very long moment, his voice trembling a little on a brightness that was only partly fear. "I'm not sure I'm remembering last night very well. Ah. Maybe you could help me out?"

She shuddered a little, the stifled snorts of her laughter audible now, the white-knuckled grip of her hands probably going to leave a bruise. He pressed back into her, into the heat and the mildly hysterical humour of her at his back.

"Sure," she said, breathlessly. "I can do that." Nick, somewhere beyond her, was a looming spectre of silent amusement.

And suddenly, despite the quiet horror of it, of waking up to Tony Stark while in bed with, of all people, these two ... suddenly, despite that, Rhodey felt a little rush of something that he thought was very, very far from regret.

"It's all a little hazy," he said, bright and warm and laughing silently to himself, "but I'm getting the impression that we got very drunk, you and I. And then, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, we decided to proposition your commanding officer. Together. And for reasons I'm not completely sure of, your commanding officer said yes. And then ... then we came back here, and we did some ... very athletic things, with said commanding officer. Am I ... Do you think I'm getting that right, so far?"

"Sounds ... sounds right to me," she agreed, levering herself up to prop her chin on his shoulder, her lips pressed tight together and a wicked, half-terrified glint in her eye. Rhodey looked up at her, his head splitting open around the hangover, his stomach tied in queasy knots, and found himself grinning inanely all of a sudden.

He'd have thought this might be what it was like, being Tony Stark. Except, judging by Tony's expression, this hadn't been Tony at all. This had been all him. All them. All James Rhodes and his crazy competent, badass lady taking Nick Fury for a ride and, if his fragments of memory were anything to go by, having a damn fine time in the process.

Yeah. Suddenly, he didn't think he was regretting very much at all.

"You know," he said, very slowly. "I think that either you and me should stop getting drunk in public, or ..."

Maria leaned down, her nose brushing his, her smile teasing a few inches from his. "Or?" she said, and there was that quiver in her voice, that little adrenal spark that he'd first fallen in love with, in a dive bar off base while waiting for the next assignment. Maria Hill, the coolest head on a rally stage, the best damn co-driver on the field, and the scariest, most exhilarating hands to have on a wheel that Rhodey had ever seen.

"Or," he said, sick as a dog and more alive than ever, hot and thick and right from the gut, "we should try propositioning your commanding officer a lot more often."

And then there was a rough, dry chuckle around her smile, and another pair of strong, scarred arms reaching around her waist to smooth over Rhodey's hip, and somewhere on the other side of the bed Nick Fury pressed his lips to the back of Maria's neck, and shook his head at the pair of them.

"If her commanding officer gets a vote," he told them, quiet and amused, "then he could stand another proposition like that. Hell, he could stand another twenty!" He paused for a second. "Just, Rhodes?"

"Yes?"

"Next time, fix the damn lock, will you?" He tugged them back against him, hand firm on Rhodey's hip and Maria snug between them, and growled into the crease of Maria's neck. "I can't deal with Stark at the best of times, let alone when I've got a fucking hangover. Alright?"

And Rhodey looked at Maria, and she looked back at him, and they smiled in perfect unison as they said:

"Sir, yes sir!"