Chapter Text
“James Rhodes, my man!” a familiar high-pitched voice draws his attention just as he opens his wardrobe locker, and he barely resists the urge to roll his eyes in annoyance. Justin Hammer . Great. And here he was naively hoping for a pleasant start to his morning…
“Dr. Hammer.” Forcibly, he relaxes his shoulders, turning away from the locker to face the lanky slick-haired surgeon that’s striding toward him with a repulsively smarmy smile on his bespectacled face. Does his best to plaster on, what he hopes is, a civil enough smile in return. “What can I help you with?”
Hammer’s lips stretch out even further, impossibly wide. He reminds Rhodey of a hyena, laughing tauntingly over its prey. The comparison disturbs him, sends an unpleasant shiver down his spine.
“Rhodes, Rhodes, Rhodes, my colleague, my brother, my friend,” Hammer flops his scraggy form squarely into his personal space, draping one arm unceremoniously over Rhodey’s shoulder. It’s all Rhodey can do not to throw him right off. “You have it all wrong. It’s what I can do for you .”
Rhodey ignores the invitation for further chatter a moment, contemplating. Justin Hammer is an up-and-comer, and though there are plenty of people who don’t like the guy, himself included, he thinks it wise to not antagonize him. “Well?” He asks, sliding his OR scrubs over his head. “What can you do for me, then?”
“There’s this patient. Make or break kind of a deal. I’d do it myself, I have the expertise, but the guy is a huge jack ass, doesn’t know talent when it slaps him in the face! I’m tempted to let him die on the table, to be honest, it’d be doing the world a favor. But ‘do no harm’ and all that, so I was thinking about letting you take a crack at it.”
“Are we talking thoracic surgery or neurologic?” Rhodey has a rare double specialty, while Hammer’s a general surgeon (exceptionally gifted, according to his own frequent proclamations, though Rhodey suspects he is more well connected than he is capable), so it could go either way.
“It’s a complicated heart case, though the patient is mostly a head case.” Hammer laughs at his own joke, grinning at Rhodes’ eye roll. “Look I just want you to know what you’re getting into if you accept the case. You can’t blame me for not warning you, you know?”
“You know I’m due for surgery,” Rhodes prompts, tying on his surgical mask. He’s curious despite himself, and he knows he must be giving at least some of that curiosity away, judging from the brief predatory spark he sees in Hammer’s eyes.
“Well if you’re interested, I’ll catch you for a consult after. Take a look at his chest CT.”
Hammer holds up his phone, images of the CT on it, and Rhodey pauses, unable to believe his eyes. “What am I looking at?”
“Exactly what it looks like.”
Exactly what it looks like, right, Rhodey thinks. Because what it looks like is a massive lump of scar tissue surrounding a piece of metal that sits mere centimeters away from the heart enlarged from the stress of the horrific injury. What it looks like is something out of an old medical textbook with X-rays pictures of soldiers who miraculously managed to survive having pieces of shrapnel in their chest. What it looks like is a picture of a dead man walking.
“How the hell is this guy even still alive?” he blurts out, the shocked question slipping out unbidden. “That heart’s so damaged I’m surprised it’s still beating.” He pulls the phone closer, fascinated by the images. “He a soldier?”
“Soldier, bah!” Hammer’s face folds into an expression of disdainful disgust. “Stark’s a weapons designer. Merchant of Death, they call him. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? He did make a career out of blowing soldiers up, though. So, I guess, this is kind of… poetic justice?” He laughs, seeming just a tad too delighted for someone discussing a man’s life-threatening condition. It leaves an unpleasant taste in Rhodey’s mouth. Even if the subject of their conversation may not be as… virtuous of a person, it’s still no excuse to talk about him like that.
“He’s on a transplant list,” Hammer adds, interrupting Rhodey’s train of thought, “but you can see how complicated it would be.”
“You’ve done surgery on this guy?” Rhodey asks skeptically. For all Hammer touts his skills, Rhodey has never been particularly impressed with the man’s work. He’d seemed more selective with his cases, keeping them confined to those he was sure to succeed on or those who would bring him prestige. Rhodey knows that it sometimes takes risks to make a good surgeon an excellent one but Hammer has always struck him as someone who has too big of an ego to take on more complicated patients.
“Well, yeah! Saved his life!” Hammer boasts, voice full of bluster. “Would you believe he threw a drink in my face after? Threatened to sue me!”
Rhodey narrows his eyes, his sharp gaze drilling into the other surgeon, and Hammer squirms, obviously uncomfortable.
“Look,” Hammer puts up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Boss lady says we gotta make nice with this guy. The dude’s rich. You play nice, you probably end up getting that grant you’ve been angling for, just saying.”
“What’s Pepper Potts got to do with this case?”
Something flickers across Hammer’s face - an odd expression, wolfish and unkind. But it’s gone as quickly as it appears, and the other surgeon relaxes visibly, favors Rhodey with a sleazily conspiratorial look.
“Personally? I think everything she has to do with it happens between the sheets, you know what I’m saying?” He laughs again, winking at Rhodey as though inviting him to join in on the fun. “He’s not only rich, but he’s also an entitled prick, using his connections to get moved up on the transplant list.” Hammer leans in close, voice dropping down to near whisper. “You know that kid in 302? Parker? I hear Stark just got him bumped down the list so he could get his place. That’s just between us, of course.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Rhodey feels anger flare hot and ready in his chest. He knows that kid, of course he does. Everybody in this goddamn hospital knows Peter. The kid’s the most precocious, sweetest, brightest 15-year-old he’s ever met, and he won’t live to celebrate his 16th birthday if he doesn’t get a heart transplant some time in the next few months. To hear that some entitled rich prick has just made that wait even longer makes his blood boil. This guy has to be some special kind of narcissistic bastard if he’s pushing people out of the way, or sleeping around with people to get what he wants.
“I’ll do a consult, Hammer,” he grits out through clenched teeth. If nothing else, he can put this patient in his place, grant or no grant, he’ll show him that not everyone’s soul is for sale. “But you’re going to owe me big time.”
Hammer, for his part, seems completely unbothered by his fury. More so, he appears strangely pleased by it. “Whatever you say,” he replies, wiggling his fingers in goodbye as Rhodey shoves past him on his way to the surgical suite.