#BECAUSE ITS AN MIT FIC OF COURSE RHODEY IS IN THIS | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

preciouspeterbparker · 4 years ago

Text

i wish i were, part 3

part one

part two

summary: it’s getting harder to pretend that everything is okay.

word count: 4.2k

warnings: step- inc*st, smut, underage sex, suicidal ideation (oops), ANGST, depression, self-harm mention (doesn’t actually happen, just intrusive thoughts), it’s all mentioned very casually so if this is triggering for you please don’t read!! <3 , ambiguous ending

this is the last part y’all! thanks for going on this ride with me. this was my first multi-chap fic and it kinda gave me the confidence to know that i’m capable of writing longer stuff without it being super shitty lol. sorry that it’s taken me so long!!

love you all

- bloo

It's getting harder to pretend that everything is okay.

Peter hates to say it, fuck, the thought physically pains him, but he’s glad the school year’s almost over. He’s glad that it’s almost time for graduation, time for Tony to leave for the special summer program MIT invited him to participate in.

He just wants to stop feeling like this, never wants to feel like this ever again. He always feels heavy, weighed down, like his clothes are soaking wet. It’s a feeling that goes deep into his bones, leaving him cold, aching, and tired.

It’s a good thing there’s not really any work left to do for school, other than exams; Peter spends most of his time in bed, headphones on and staring at the wall, the one that separates his room from Tony’s.

He keeps hearing Pepper’s voice in his head. He thinks you hung the moon, babe. It’s so cute. The words make him burn inside, make him want to dig his fingers in and peel his skin back until the feeling spills out of him. Until his blood spill out, until he doesn’t have to deal with this anymore- Fuck-

That’s how his brain is working, now. The intrusive thoughts have reached new levels. Peter’s always had them, he’s been passively suicidal for most of his adolescence, but it seems that any minor inconvenience has him ready to end it all. But it makes sense, he supposes. He’s already hurting, already weary and withdrawn. It really wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge.

Too bad he doesn’t really want to die. He just wants everything to...stop. So that he doesn’t have to feel like this.

And because the universe is obviously enjoying fucking with him, the first thing he sees walking out of first period is Pepper walking down the hallway, a faded black t-shirt hanging from her shoulders, exposing the bright red of her bra straps.

Peter recognizes the garment immediately.

It’s the Black Sabbath shirt, the one he’d kept under his pillow for over a week. The one he’d spilled multiple loads of cum onto before finally putting it in his laundry and carefully slipping it back into Tony’s room once it had been washed.

And now Pepper’s wearing it. Which means Tony gave it to her.

Peter stops, freezes right there in the doorway of Mrs. Flannigan’s classroom. He blinks, staring blankly in the direction the blonde had gone. His classmates protest behind him, pushing forward until he snaps out of it. Taking a few stumbling steps to the side, he leans back against the wall.

He feels like he can’t breathe. Some kid walking down the hall looks at him funny, and he realizes that there are tears rolling down his cheeks. Hastily wiping them away, he slowly pushes himself off the wall and starts making a hasty exit to the bathroom, head down and eyes trained on the linoleum.

Then-

“Hey, Peter- Wait, Pete what’s wrong, what happened?”

Shuddering, barely able to contain the sob that threatens to rip its way out, Peter ignores Tony, just pushes past him and doesn’t stop moving until he’s locked in the private restroom.

With his back to the door, Peter slides down til his butt’s on the cold ground, arms wrapped around his knees as he tries to muffle his cries as he sits there, shaking.

He just wants it to stop.

***

Something’s up with Peter, and Tony has a sinking feeling that it’s got something to do with him. But he doesn’t know what he possibly could have done.

They’d had such a nice time celebrating his birthday. He even had a new photo in his wallet, a polaroid of him and Peter cheesing goofily into the camera. Looking at it brings a smile to his face.

He really does love his little brother. Though he was young, Tony can remember life before Richard and Peter came into their lives. He remembers being an only child as lonely hours spent trying to entertain himself while his mom was busy working, trying to support him as a single parent. He’d been ecstatic upon meeting Richard and finding out that he had a little boy, too, that he was going to get a brother.

Tony knows that he and Peter haven’t been spending as much time together as they usually do, but he just chalked it up to it being his senior year. He wanted to spend the time with his friends, with his girlfriend, making the best of their last bit of time together before everything changes.

Peter’s words from his birthday ring in his head. I don’t want you to...forget me. Maybe he’s feeling left behind?

He’s only got a little over a week left until graduation, and then a week after that he leaves for MIT. That’s not much time at all.

The teen resolves to make some more time in his schedule to spend with his younger brother. Rhodey and the guys and Pep can deal for a couple days.

***

Peter’s pulled out of the clusterfuck of ruminative thoughts that have kept him awake for the past week by the squeak of his bedroom door being opened. He blinks under the covers, instinctively curling in on himself. He’s been under here for hours, but he still feels so cold.

Tony’s voice comes through the small crack he’s created between the door and the jamb, one eye peeking inside. “Peter? Are you….” He pauses and clears his throat before continuing softly, “Are you okay?”

The lump under the covers that is Peter shifts a little. His voice is dull and monotone when he replies, as apathetic as he can muster. “...Just leave me alone, Tony.” So much for that. Even saying his brother’s name hurts, a lot more than he thought it would, making his voice crack pathetically. Peter pulls his hands up to his chest and tries to quell the sudden surge of emotion that rushes through him, stifling a whimper. Please just go away.

Of course, instead of listening for once in his fucking life, Tony opens the door further so that he can slip inside. It closes behind him with a soft click and he takes a tentative step towards the queen bed that’s pushed up against the walls in the corner of the dark bedroom. "Pete…" Peter can hear him softly pad over to the nightstand and flick on the small lamp sitting there. His breathing in the quiet room is near deafening to Peter. “I…” He hovers there for a minute before sighing and sitting at the foot of the bed. “I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong. So that I can… I just want to help, Pete.”

The silence stretches on uncomfortably between them and even under the covers, Peter can feel the worried gaze burning him alive.

His skin is crawling with how badly he wants to crawl out of the covers and into Tony’s lap, the way he would when they were younger and he was upset. He needs to get Tony out of here. He can’t-

Peter moves so that his head is exposed, but he looks down at the bed rather than the other teen. "No, it’s fine. I mean I-, I’m fine," Peter sniffles, blinking furiously in an attempt to will the tears away. Fuck. His- fuck, his throat is tight, he can't swallow. His mouth falls open, a shuddering breath escaping as the muscles in his throat spasm. "I get it, Tony. I promise I get it, I really do. I do. She's-"

Fuck. He must really be exhausted, he wasn’t supposed to say that, wasn’t supposed to let on the truth of why he’s upset. Peter's eyes flit around like he's on speed, darting from one focal point to another without him truly seeing anything. His voice is hoarse, thin. It's as small as he feels. Miniscule. Insignificant. He’s gonna ruin everything but he can’t make himself stop. "I mean, I can’t- I can't compete with-" The words come to an abrupt halt, his mouth snapping shut.

Tony nudges Peter’s foot with his knee. “What? Peter.” He bumps against Peter again until the younger boy looks up to make eye contact.

That stupid fucking crease forms between his older brother's eyebrows. Peter wants to slap him. Or kiss him. Mostly he wants to scream.

"Peter, what? Compete with who? Are you talking about Pepper? I know we haven’t been spending much time together, but I’m gonna fix that before I leave, I promise. I don’t want you to feel left behind, not at all but I still don’t get- What’s this got to do with -," Tony starts, placatingly. But there’s something in his eyes, in the barely there tremor in his voice- And Peter suddenly realizes that Tony knows, has to know at least a little bit.

He swears his vision flashes red for a second. "It has everything to do with her," Peter all but shrieks, nails digging crescent-shaped welts into his palms. He feels overwhelmed, trapped. Like a hermit crab without its shell- vulnerable, horribly exposed. It comes out without his consent, and so does his fucking stutter. Fuck it all. "And I know- I know- I know I'm fucked up, Tony, I know it, but I love you, the way that you love h-huh-her.”

He takes a shuddering breath, reeling from saying the words out loud for the first time. “I'm sss-suh-sick, and g-gross and you- I know I'm a fff-fuh-freak and nnn-now- now you’re gonna hate me!" Peter sobs, his entire body shaking as he works himself towards an anxiety attack, a panic attack, a heart attack, fucking something. “I can’t even fu-fu-fu-fucking talk-” There’s snot and tears running down his face, he’s upset himself so much he can’t get through a fucking sentence. He knows he’s making a fucking fool of himself. He’s so stupid, why did he ever think that anything could come from this. He just wants it all to stop, he wants Tony to leave so that he can figure out some way to fix this, to make it all go away-

Tony’s staring at him, mouth parted, dark eyes wide and concerned. "Baby, what- I could never hate you, babydoll." It’s like the nickname comes out instinctually, the sound of Peter’s stutter instantly taking him back to the way he would console Peter when they were much younger, pulling him into his arms and rocking him like his own little baby.

He climbs on the bed and burrows into the nest of blankets and pillows that Peter has created, but he stays sitting up. His arms wrap around his baby brother and pull him up into his lap so that he’s close to his chest, in spite of the younger’s attempts to squirm away. “Calm down, Pete.” Tony presses his lips to Peter’s head when his cries only increase, frowning at how hot the skin of his forehead is. “You’ve gotta calm down,” he soothes. “C’mon, it’ll get better once you calm down, baby, you know that.” One of his hands glides up and down Peter’s heaving back.

Gasping, Peter shakes his head. He buries his face in the space where Tony’s pec and arm meet, taking a shuddering breath through his mouth. He’s trying to calm down but it’s not working. “I’m so- I’m so ssss-sss-suh-sorry, Tuh-Tony!” He feels like he’s gonna pass out. Shifting a bit, he pulls his head back in an attempt to get some more air. They almost make eye contact but he hurriedly looks away. He’s ruined everything. Tony hasn’t reacted to his confession yet but Peter knows that it’s gonna be bad, it’s gonna be so bad when he does.

What’s he got left to lose?

Peter can't help himself; he leans in. The tips of their noses brush, and he pauses there for a moment. He can hear Tony's sharp intake of breath through his own heaving as they finally lock eyes. The look in Tony's chocolate depths is- Peter doesn’t really know. Tony's never looked at him like this before, no one has.

“Tony,” he whispers shakily, breath catching in his throat before closing the distance between them. Time stands still for a moment before something breaks, the tension snapping like a rubberband pulled too tight. Their mouths meet and Peter immediately whines at the feeling of Tony’s lips on his, body instinctively arching up against his brother’s, too lost in it to feel embarrassed of how easy he is to get worked up.

It’s...everything he ever dreamed of.

Tony’s hands move to cup his cheeks, and Peter’s own hands find their way into the other’s dark, wavy locks as their mouths move against each other. There’s a swipe of tongue across his bottom lip, timidly asking for entrance. The younger obliges immediately, letting the warm muscle slide into his mouth where it meets his own. It sends shivers down his spine and he keens when his tongue is sucked into the wet of Tony’s mouth. His dick begins to fill rapidly in his sweats, leaving him feeling lightheaded and a bit disoriented.

Peter’s never made out with anyone before, but this-

He thinks he understands what all of the hype is about, now.

They pull apart, both gasping for air. Tony moves his head slightly, taking heaving breaths that blow onto the exposed skin of Peter’s neck, and his entire body seizes. The elder brother pauses, eyes darkening, before he latches his mouth there and sucking, hard- Fuck, Peter swears he’s about to cum in his pants.

“Tony.” The name is all but ripped from his throat, ragged and wanton and filthy sounding. He didn’t know he could feel this good. There’s precum steadily leaking from the slit at the tip of his cock, and though he can’t see it at the moment, he’s sure there’s a wet spot staining the crotch of his pants.

More moist air on the sensitive skin of his neck, now slightly red from being rubbed by the stubble covering Tony’s chin. “Shit, Peter,” comes the eighteen year old’s wrecked gasp and his hips shift, nudging his own erection against Peter’s thigh. “Fuck, fuck.”

Peter feels like he’s losing his mind. “Tony, Tony lemme- Wanna touch you, please-,” he says, unable to put together a full sentence. The cock he’s been dreaming about for almost a year is within his reach and he doesn’t know how they got here, has no idea what’s going to happen after, but he’s so fucking close to getting what he’s wanted for so long but thought he could never have. His hands flutter restlessly near the front of his brother’s basketball shorts and the bulge that’s pressing insistently against the loose material.

“Yeah,” Tony gasps, shifting Peter out of his lap so that he can lie down on the bed on his side and then he pulls Peter down with him, facing each other. “Me too, can I…,” he trails off, the fingers of his right hand running down Peter’s body from his shoulder down to the sharp point of his hip bone.

All Peter can do is nod jerkily, already reaching to tug at the dark red fabric that’s wrapped around the older teen’s waist. He lets out a desperate, frustrated sound when they get caught, but Tony’s hands take over for him, so he pushes his own pants down to his knees instead. His dick hangs down heavily once it's free of its confines, and there’s a quiet thud as Tony’s slaps against the dark hairs smattered across his lower belly.

Looking at his big brother’s cock for the first time in the dim lighting makes Peter’s mouth water. He can make out the slight shadow of a vein running the length of it, and his tip is big, a drop of precum sitting there just waiting for him to lick at it. He’s bigger than Peter, in both length and girth. It’s perfect, something right out of his fantasies.

Tony rocks his hips forward and their erections rub against each other, prompting them to let out synchronous groans. “Holy shit,” Peter whines, his own hips stuttering as they start to rut against each other in earnest. They quickly get into a slightly stumbling rhythm. It feels so good, their cocks both so hot, so hard. He already knows this is going to be over before it really even starts but he couldn’t care less. “Tony, Tony, yes-”

The brunette all but growls. “That’s it, Petey. Fuck, your cock feels so good, I never- Shit,” Tony pants before spitting into his palm and wrapping his hand around both of their shafts. “Fucking hell-” His toes twitch against the inside of Peter’s ankle. “Pete-”

Peter’s movements get jerkier, his hips stuttering at the feeling of Tony’s wet hand, the way their dicks are sliding against one another. He’s so close, so fucking close. “Please,” he whimpers, fingers digging to Tony’s shoulders where he’s holding on in an attempt to ground himself. HIs tongue licks at his brother’s bottom lip. “Wanna cum, Tony, lemme cum-”

“Yeah, fuck, yes Peter, cum, cum for me-” Tony groans, the speed of his stroking increasing. The rhythm is jerky, and it’s so uncoordinated when combined with their frantic undulating, but it feels amazing.

“Tony, Tony, Tony,” Peter chants as his orgasm slams into him like a brick wall. His muscles lock up, and there are probably crescent-shaped welts in the skin of Tony’s shoulders and back. Thick, white ropes of cum shoot from his cock and make a mess in his brother’s hand. A whine escapes him as he grows more sensitive in Tony’s grasp.

The feeling of the warm liquid smearing over his erection is what does the older teen in. He crushes his mouth to Peter’s as he cums, fucking into his fist and rubbing against the other’s softening cock, licking lewdly into the wet of his mouth. “Pete,” he sighs, pulling away after he’s ridden out the wave of his orgasm.

“I love you,” Peter whispers contently, snuggling in and pressing a kiss to a freckle on Tony’s shoulder. This is everything he’s ever wanted, to be held in his big brother’s arms like this: like a lover. Maybe he was worried for nothing, maybe everything will be okay. Sure, they’ll have to hide it from everyone, especially Mom & Dad, but once they’re both in college… They have different last names, no one would ever have to know. They could be happy. Peter just wants to be happy, just wants this feeling to stay.

Tony shifts slightly and takes a deep breath, the puff of air ruffling Peter’s sweat-slick auburn curls. “Pete,” he says again, softly. “I love you too, I do.” He pauses, pulling back slightly and loosening his hold on the younger boy and rolling onto his back so that they’re both looking up at the ceiling. “But I-”

Peter freezes, the afterglow fading instantly. His heartbeat picks up, and there’s a slight ringing in his ears. He grips the sweat damp comforter in his hands, fingers twitching restlessly, stroking back and forth over the fabric in an attempt to soothe himself. No. No, no no, this isn’t- Tony- He can’t-

Another heavy sigh. “We can’t- We can’t do this again, Pete,” Tony says into the quiet of the night, still slightly out of breath from exertion. His voice is soft, gentle. He’s trying not to hurt Peter; Peter thinks that’s bullshit.

There’s a lead weight in his stomach. He feels like he’s drowning. He feels like he’s gonna be sick. He feels dirty. He feels-

He’s so tired of feeling.

Tony hesitates before pulling his shorts up and sliding out of the bed. He reaches out, brushing his fingers over Peter’s hand, jerks back when the younger immediately tenses and recoils from the touch. “I’m sorry,” he whispers before hastily making his way to the door, shutting it gently behind him.

“Just go, Tony,” he croaks before rolling over in the bed, away from the love of his life his brother.

Peter lays there for the rest of the night, unmoving, staring at the ceiling, tears running down the sides of his face, seeing nothing.

If only he could feel nothing, too.

***

“Where...where ya goin, Pete?”

Peter is putting clothes in a small duffel bag. He makes a mental note to remember to grab a new thing of toothpaste when he gets his toiletry bag together. “I’m, uh, gonna go stay with Ned. For a few days.” More like a few weeks, but he doesn’t need to tell Tony that.

It’s only been two days since they-

Peter’s already had enough. He can’t be here, he can’t skirt around the elephant that is his feelings towards Tony, can’t handle the awkwardness in the air as his stupid fucking brother tries to go on as if nothing ever happened. As if it meant nothing to him.

As if Peter meant nothing to him, means nothing to him.

Peter can...he can be okay with that. He has to be. But he can’t be here. He can’t.

“What about mom and da-” Tony cuts himself off, and Peter can tell that’s not what he is really trying to ask. Of course he’s so fucking disgusted, so fearful of someone else knowing, that he can’t even say it. No, what he really means is-

“I didn’t tell them I kissed you, Tony,” Peter hisses, tears burning in his eyes. He yanks the zipper of his bag closed, biting back a scream when it gets stuck for a second. “I’m not stupid. Why would I tell them what we did? I don’t want them to hate me, too. Don’t worry about what I told them, they said I could go.”

Maria and Richard are under the impression that Peter’s just stressed about his grades and going a little stir crazy. When they’d talked last night, Mom had frowned gently at him, mentioning how down he’d looked lately and letting him know that he was loved and cherished. Dad had actually been the one to suggest spending some time with Ned; maybe seeing his best friend would help pull Peter out of his funk.

If only they knew.

Tony gapes at him, an incredulous look on his face. “But what about Tuesday? You’re gonna miss my graduation? For what, to fuck around with Ned? Peter-”

Something in him snaps. He clenches his jaw, swallows harshly. Glares tearily at his brother. “Would you please just stop it?”

The taller boy sets his shoulders and crosses his arms, defiant. “I don’t want you to go.” His eyes are narrowed, searching Peter’s face. For what, the younger has no idea. Nor does he care.

“It doesn’t matter what you want, Tony,” he yells, glad that Mom and Dad are out at the grocery store, getting supplies for Tony’s graduation party. His voice cracks on his brother’s name. Always on his name. “Not anymore. I don’t- I know you don’t- Do you know how much it hurts me? To- to hear you? To know, to have to listen to-”

Tony’s mouth opens, but no words come out. “Hear us? You- you heard us? When?” His eyes are wide. He must realize exactly what Peter’s talking about, when he’s talking about, and he looks uncomfortable, vulnerable in a way that Peter’s never seen him before. Something ugly deep inside the younger teen feels satisfied for a moment before it deflates. He’s left feeling just as drained as before.

Tony continues, “Peter, I-” He cuts himself off, looks away.

Of course he can’t even come up with something to say.

“For fuck’s sake, Tony, you don’t have to explain everything to me!” It comes out as a sob. Peter feels like he’s a volcano; the words are erupting and he can’t do anything but allow it, powerless to stop them. “Nothing you say will make it better! I know you’re straight! I know it’s- that it’s wrong. I know Pepper is-,” he chokes, gasping. Why is this happening? Everything is going so fast. How is he freezing and on fire at the same time?

“She’s gorgeous and I’m just the path-th-thetic little br-brother who th-thinks you hung the moon.” Peter’s spluttering, flapping his hands at his sides as he tries to do something with the energy humming inside him. He wants out, he needs Tony to go so that he can finish packing. He has to get out of here.

Tony takes a step towards him. “No, Peter, how could you-”

Peter’s sniffling, eyes squeezed shut. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides, trembling. Why won’t Tony just leave him alone? He just wants to be alone. “I know I’m ugly and I- I bet you can’t w-w-wait to go to MIT, to go away from me!”

“Babydoll,” is what leaves Tony’s mouth, so soft Peter almost doesn’t hear it. His hands are shaking as they land on his younger brother’s cheeks. Warm tears are gently brushed away by his thumbs. “Pete.”

Brow furrowed, Peter slowly opens his eyes and blinks the tears back in order to look at his brother. Tony looks...scared? What does he have to be scared of?

Peter tries to pull away, out of Tony’s grasp but the older teen just clutches him tighter. “Tony- What? It’s fine, j-just stop! Let me go, I need to finish-”

Tony closes his eyes and crashes their lips together.

don’t hate me

@spidey-sins @silkystark @thegreenmetblue @snailshome @hp-nv-221b @lemondrop313

if you wanna be untagged lmk

#starker #tony x peter #tony stark x peter parker #starkercest #bloo writes bad things (tm)

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westiec · 4 years ago

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fic I want to see: five futures Tony/Rhodey/Pepper deserved but never got

Hey there friend! I'm going to take advantage of the @goodintentionswipfest to finally answer this ask by posting what exists of the fic I totally never finished writing you for this prompt before I burned out real hard on writing last year. Hope you get a little bit of fun out of what's here. <3

1 - MIT meet, 100% less drama

Tony meets James-call-me-Rhodey Rhodes at MIT. In other universes, they were on campus at the same time, but the whiz kid playboy tearing up the mech-e department and local bar scene seldom crossed paths with the steady grad student getting a masters in aircraft design courtesy of the Air Force.

In this one, they are inseparable.

Rhodey's got a way of following his train of thought that Tony's never encountered, and his intuitive understanding of flying machines outstrips Tony's own. (Tony is determined to catch up, but Rhodey never makes him feel bad for having to. Entirely unlike Howard, he thinks, and feels disloyal for the thought.) They bounce ideas off each other and make each other sharper, better, and it's a feeling of belonging Tony never expected to find. When they build an AI - a Turing-complete AI!! - Tony jokes about them becoming parents without ever going on a date, and the look of wistful fondness on Rhodey's face is all the encouragement he needs to finally ask him on one.

After graduation, Tony owes years to SI and Rhodey owes years to Uncle Sam, but they keep in close touch, with plans to go into business for themselves one day. Times being what they are, no one asks, and no one tells, but he and Rhodey both know that the much publicized dates with various eligible ladies are for maintaining appearances and nothing that will really come between them.

When Howard and Maria die, Rhodey must cash in every favor he has to get the leave, but he's there for the funeral. Tony is pretty sure his steadfast support is the only reason he could stand to be sober those first couple weeks. Stark men are supposed to be made of iron, but Rhodey's always been the one with a core of steel.

Rhodey never trusts Obie much, and - continued relationship with Tony notwithstanding - Rhodey is an impeccable judge of character. A few years later, an internal audit proves his instincts right when Stane is caught laundering company assets to sell weapons on the black market. Terrified at the thought of his weapons in the wrong hands, Tony quietly begins to diversify SI's business model - clean energy, healthcare, [THIRD THING] - things that can build the world up instead of tear it down.

Eventually Tony is able to hire Rhodey away from the military to be his chief airframe designer and personal test pilot. They move out to California to oversee the autonomous search-and-rescue drones they're developing, and set up in a preposterous mansion overlooking the ocean in Malibu, with their ever growing family of bots and JARVIS to make the huge place feel full.

Despite having no qualms shout their personal AI butler and robotic lab assistants, Rhodey calls him bougie when Tony brings on a driver, Harold-call-me-Happy Hogan, and a personal assistant, one Ms. Virginia Potts. Happy's a solid driver and a cheerful guy, but Ms. Potts is a downright revelation. She's the second person he's met now who has no trouble keeping up with his mile-a-minute mind, and though her competencies lie along a different line than his or Rhodey's, he quickly realizes they are no less remarkable. He also plain likes her in an easy way he so seldom clicks with people. Tony might be a little bit smitten.

After a while he realizes Ms. Potts-call-me-Pepper (and seriously, did Tony miss a memo on alliterative nicknames?) seems smitten too, though not with him. Rhodey's no longer active duty, but old habits of discretion die hard, so she has no way of knowing when she strikes up a flirtation with the airman that he and her boss are more than just business partners. Rhodey's flustered, and Pepper's embarrassed, but Tony's always had a big heart, and he loves nothing quite so much as making the people he cares about happy. He can see the way his honeybear smiles when she's around, and it's obvious how much she lights up with him, and he's a genius, right, but he doesn't need to be to see that they'd work. So he tells them to go for it, as long as Pepper doesn't mind sharing and Rhodey doesn't mind being shared, and they look at him like he's grown a second head because what they want is all of them together.

They totally work.

2 - IM1, BUT HAPPIER?

They meet when Lt. Rhodes is assigned the Air Force liason to Stark Industries. Warned in advance, Rhodey was expecting brash, crass, and totally out of control, but what he found in Stark, Jr. was someone with a passion for machines and an excitement for invention unlike anyone he's ever met. When they realize they'd been on campus at the same time, Tony (“please, Mr. Stark was my father”) declares them the Brass Rat Pack, which makes him roll his eyes, but doesn't make a Sammy Davis, Jr. joke, which bumps him up a couple more points in Rhodey's estimation.

3 - IM2 BUT WITH SOME DAMN COMMUNICATION

Rhodey was always going to get a suit. Tony's best friend, the best pilot he knows, AND one of the few people in military he actually still trusts? Of course. He offered Pepper one too, but he seemed to expect her to turn him down, because then he offered her the position of CEO. Insisted, really.

So Pepper becomes the head of Stark Industries while Tony and Rhodey become Iron Man and War Machine. The military brass doesn't love having one of those suits and all of their secrets in the hands and head, respectively, of such an unpredictable element, but knowing that Colonel Rhodes is liasing most of his activities goes a long way toward quieting the grumbles. The men's joint testimony on just how far off any imitators, foreign or domestic, are from duplicating the technology convinces Congress that Team Iron Man's op-sec, while unorthodox, is effective.

Rhodey takes some well deserved R&R and joins Tony and Pepper in Monaco. It's new still, this thing between them all, but it's good.

4 - POST-IM2

AVENGERS FAM DAMMIT

Aliens invade New York, and Rhodey is so glad he stole that damn suit.

5 - POST-IM3

IN WHICH WE AVOID CIVIL WAR

RESCUE HAPPENS

Rogers and Romanoff bring down SHIELD, and Pepper is horrified to realize how close she came to being murdered by the state. After Killian, after Extremis, she knows she could be considered a threat, but seeing her name, and Tony's, and Rhodey's, on the kill list in the data dump is chilling.

+1 - After Everyone Lives

"Meguna Petunia Stark-Potts-Rhodes, out of the lab and inside for dinner!"

Morgan laughed. "Not my name, Dad - and anyway, wouldn't it be Potts-Rhodes-Stark, alphabetically?"

"You know, you'd think that, but your pops actually called dibs on the anchor leg years ago…"

"A relay's got four legs, Dad."

"What did I ever do to deserve a jock for a daughter? Tell you what, find us a Q who doesn't run screaming, and we'll consider it."

"What are we considering, Tony?"

"Morgan thinks our polycule needs to be a quadrilateral, apparently, and I'm blaming the track team. I've told her we're only considering candidates with Q last names; we're so close to a straight."

"Tony, you've never been close to straight in your life."

Mom gestures at the two bickering and pleads, "Just not another guy, please, darling, I'm outnumbered already."

"I dunno, you usually like tha-"

"Tony!" Mom and Pops shoot him identical stern looks.

Family. She wouldn't want it any other way.

If anyone made it this far, thanks for reading! @allofthefeelings I'm sorry the full fic never made its way out of my brain, but thank you for the prompt anyway! And thanks again to the Good Intentions WIP Fest!

#good intentions wipfest #bring out your dead #tony/rhodey/pepper #tony stark #james rhodes #pepper potts #westie writes

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lightneverfades · 4 years ago

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Tehee! The Frostiron Holiday Wishes challenge ❆ is officially closed for submissions, and OPEN FOR CLAIMS! 🎅🎄 (Wishlist)

Sorry for the delay in posting the wishlist! And thank you so much to everyone who’s submitted prompts! :D ♥ ♥ ♥

For those not aware of the challenge, you can see what it it’s all about in the original post here! :)

*** This post was last updated: 12/8/2020 ***

Rules for Claiming a ‘Wish’

❆ Artists can claim as many ‘wishes’ (idea/prompt) as they want and fill them (as all prompts are not designated to a specific artist)!

After you’ve picked up a ‘Wish’ to Fill

❆ Please be sure to contact me (lightneverfades) via message which one you chose! ❆ When you finish creating the artwork for the wish (ideally before Dec 24), please be sure to send me the art/fic/etc you’ve made! (If you need help sending it to me, let me know and I’ll help!) ❆ I know you might be excited, but the surprise is what makes this fun, so please keep your artwork a secret until Dec 24 & 25!

❆ On Dec 24 & 25 (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!) 🎅🎄, I will post a MASTER POST including links/photos/etc of all the artwork/completed fills received for the prompts below! :)

Types of Fills ✨

❆ Any type of fan works is allowed - That means fan fics, fan art (drawings, digital graphics), fan videos and fan mixes!

Note: *= Anything with this means I couldn’t directly tag the user’s name. (Please contact me and I will edit it so that it works!)

FAQ ✨

Q: Is there a word limit? A: Nope, there is no word limit! ;) Although it will be ideal if the fic in general is a complete work!

Without further ado, here are the wishes received for the challenge! ♥

Requester: @kimmycup Rating: G (General audience) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Invasion fic where Tony figures out Loki was mind controlled before Loki does: "But I WAS in control. Thanos didn't control me like I did Clint." "Yeah sure. And if you wanted to take over the world, what would you do?" Loki spluttered, fully aware that plan was dumb. Still, he would KNOW if he were controlled... Right? "But I wasn't mind controlled! It was me!"

Requester: @kimmycup Rating: G (General audience) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Loki in Tony's MIT sweatshirt.

Requester: @worstloki Rating: T (Teen and up audiences) Trigger warning: nothing nsfw please >:) Wish (Prompt/Idea): Tony and Loki both having panic attacks at the same time. just make it wild. whatever the reasons are, maybe it's the same reason? maybe they have shared triggers? maybe it's separate reasons? maybe the other avengers are around and don't realize the incoming attacks and keep bringing up bad memories? maybe one of them notices the other is freaking out and defends them? maybe drags them away only to also start having a panic attack? whatever. they're both freaking out and just kinda do that. they then bond over it. (this can be crack or angsty I don't mind)

Requester: Nivael * Rating: E (Explicit) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): I’d always had that idea in my head, that Loki somehow took notice of Tony during the events of Thor 1, when he was on earth/watched Thor on earth.He fell in love with the mortal that was at the same time so different yet similar to him. So when he fell from the Rainbow bridge and into Thanos’ hands he planned to sabotage earths invasion from the very start to save Tony. Fast forward to at least after the end of Thor 2, (when Loki takes Odin’s place in the MCU) Loki escapes to earth after Thor thinks he’s been killed by the dark elves. He knows Thanos won’t rest until the infinity stones are his and the earth is still in danger. So he watches Tony to keep him save. With all the self hatred and lack of self esteem he harbors, he does not plan to actually act on his feelings, because he does not think he could be worthy of Tony. Plus, he invaded earth, caused lots of casualties, he’s an ugly Frost giant and the god of lies...so... yeah. He cannot think of one reason why Tony could be interested in him.But his feelings draw him to Stark and one day while following him, Loki gets careless and Tony discovers him. (Maybe Loki even discreetly intervenes a few times when Tony is in danger and Tony doesn’t notice until one day he does...?). So Stark confronts him and bit by bit (because Loki is not very cooperative and the least he wants is for Tony to discover his "ugly" emotional secret) he uncovers the truth about Thanos, the invasion and how Loki feels for him. I can imagine Loki to react ashamed, dismissive and maybe aggressive when Tony finally finds out. Tony, not being stupid, already suspected something to be fishy about the invasion. With how much Thor told him about Lokis wit and cleverness, he finds it hard to believe that Loki would make so many obvious mistakes. But now that he knows, all makes sense.Loki still watches over Tony, but keeps his distance. Until one day he saves Tonys life during a (random) attack and gets badly injured. With Lokis life on the line Stark realizes he has feelings for Loki and he takes him in to take care of his wounds. Healing takes some time so the two have plenty of time to get to know each other and deepen their feelings. Smut may follow :D (Oh... I am SO SORRY this became so much. God, it is too much, isn’t it? And sorry for my english o.o)

Requester: Nivael * Rating: E (Explicit) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Loki and Tony are in an established relationship. Things go great, but Loki is still unaccepting of his Jotun heritage and body. While Tony is completely fascinated by it, partly because Loki tries to hide it so hard. So he gets a fancy magical gadget from Strange (amulet, bracelet,...?) to be able to avoid frostbite so he can touch Loki even when he's in his Jotun form. Then there will be smut! :D

Requester: @brianadoesart Rating: T (Teen and up audiences) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): MERMAIDS. I like mermaids. Either a fic or art, but I just want more content of mer-Loki or mer-Tony. I always enjoy versions where Loki is an underwater prince who falls in love with a stupid human inventor by the name of Tony. He's never been 100% happy in the palace with Thor and the others, so he often would go to the shore to watch the humans. He sees Tony working on the beach one day and becomes interested in him from there on. Basically a little mermaid type thing... I am easy to please. I just like mermaids.

Requester: @brianadoesart Rating: G (General audience) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): A.... Among Us au....... Impostor Loki protecting his crewmate friend Tony from the other impostors.... I..... Tony and Loki as Among Us beans...

Requester: @arandomsewer Rating: M (Mature) Trigger warning: Mentions of trauma and past abuse and racism, maybe sex? Just some drama and comfort Wish (Prompt/Idea): I just want him to live on and being supported by his Friends and his brother recognizing him, that's basically the prompt. Tho here's the details of the Idea I had: Loki is living at the tower with the others (of course) too proud to say out loud how much he likes life on earth... The usual.Something happens and suddenly the magic that made him look Asgardian is just not working anymore. Understandably, he freaks out. Im talking hides in his room, crying, anger, hate, on himself and others... The whole lot, he just throws a major fit.The others know him and kind of understand and are patient... But it’s not getting fixed. Days pass, and he's stuck like this. After a while Tony snaps him out of It, and he slowly calms down and starts learning to accept this side of himself. It’s specially strange to him how he can just walk in a room and no one treats him different. How the others are even fascinated by this form. I expect Thor being shocked and curious and snapped at and reminded how he (and his people on general) have been unfair to Loki... And of course, there's the romance with Tony, Who loves him in all his forms (and they fit together 'cause he's kinky and Loki a shapeshifter)Also imagine Loki being terrified of touching Tony and then finding out he's cold to the touch but not actually dangerous (my headcanon: he's the son of Hella. Half giant and half Asgardian, and the actual heir... But that's for another fic)

Requester: @brianadoesart Rating: G (General audience) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Tony has been living alone for so long that Pepper and Rhodey decide to find him a roommate. They've tried living with him themselves, but they're both so busy it didn't really help Tony's loneliness. So they put out an ad for someone who specifically works from home. Choosing to keep it secret WHO they need a roommate for, they get some applicants, but not the crazy amount they normally would. Rhodey and Pepper go through all the applicants, even meet with them, and they choose a nice, smart author named Loki. He's the perfect candidate- he's even excited by the idea that his new roommate has no idea he's even GETTING a roommate. He finds it funny. They introduce Loki and Tony and sit back and watch everything unfold. Obviously it ends up with Tony and Loki falling for each other in the end, but seeing the shenanigans of them trying to cohabitate would be hilarious. Just watching them learn each other and begin to care about each other. I would like to see it.

Requester: @brianadoesart Rating: T (Teen and up audiences) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Cupcake shop au!!! One of our boys owns a cupcake shop and the other one is a FREQUENT visitor to said coffee shop. Lots of people think its because they have a sweet tooth, but they're just hopelessly in love with whichever one owns the shop.

Requester: @loufeysson Rating: M (Mature) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Hi! my prompt is teenage Tony and android Loki in a futuristic universe (in the style of Black Mirror, maybe?) 🥺👉🏼👈🏼 Thank you!

Requester: @blancoluna Rating: M (Mature) Trigger warning: CRACK, haha Wish (Prompt/Idea): Basically Friga wonders where she went wrong, asks the Oracle and goes on a guilt trip realizing she messed up to Valhalla and back. The idea is, being a queen-godess of family, she should be able to do something about it, maybe traveling in time or something... And Loki's gonna need powerful allies and Friends, like the Avengers, for example Now the same, but with detail. This is the way I imagined It. Perhaps it’s too much drama? I just don't know how to tackle It or how to go from here:After everything that happened, Frigga wonders where she went wrong, not just with Loki, but with Thor who didn't appreciate his brother, Odín, who treated him unfairly and even the servants, Who didn't respect him.She wonders if she could have done anything, and the guilt wont let her sleep until she goes to the well of wisdom, the Oracle, to seek answers.She is warned the truth may be even more painful. She may not like the answer... But she goes in.It is way worse than she thought: in one second she is reminded of all the times she should have acted, and chose not to, and she sees how It affected her family.She could and should have done something, and she had plenty of time, but at every chance she chose not to. And its perhaps worse than what Odin did because she knew It was wrong but chose to do nothing about It.But even more: It is confirmed to her that not only Odín never gave Loki a chance: he didn't find him. He stole him from the temple where he was guarded. He is not just the son of Louffey, but also of Hella, and thus, the actual heir to the throne of Asgard.She was supposed to be the godess of family, and here she was, consumed by guilt and shame, by having followed blindly a King Who abused her children and betrayed his own heir, aside from many other crimes.But Frigga can't just spend the test of eternity crying. She must do something. She was raised by witches!!Will she manage to get her hands on the time Stone? Or Will she just travel to another dimension to warn a younger version of herself? Will this be the beginning of a new multiverse? The possibilities are endless, when the godess of family must avenge her child...But first: for him to have a better Life he would need support, allies... Friends. (Enter the Avengers)

Add-on: Frigga having this vision was just meant to be a one shot that would connect many different alternative stories, all with the 'what if Frigga did something for Loki' as a common base. All of them would be Frostiron 'cause I honestly believe they are just meant for one another! It is just so open to so many possibilities... That I never got to writing any of them.

One of the first ideas I had following this concept was of Frigga introducing Tony and Loki early on somehow: as kids they would be like 'imaginary friends' then Tony manages to contact him and they are webcam buds... As young adults, they would help each other go a different path than they did in other lives.... and when Loki needed help, he had allies to back him. (The Avengers, whom Tony may have introduced to him earlier)

Requester: @snarkyship Rating: T (Teen and up audiences) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Human/no powers AU. Sort-of-enemies to friends to lovers.Tony rents this house/bungalow by the sea for the summer, with a kind of private beach where there is also a cute gazebo. Only that the gazebo is exactly halfway with the other property (by some mistake?). And the tenant of the neighbour bungalow is Loki, who's not so keen on sharing. So Loki&Tony will start a "war" to gain possession of the gazebo, doing their worst using the excuse of "this is my half, I can use it as I want". ((Optional: there is a table right in the middle, so at the beginning they sit at their own side glaring at each other, before starting deploying more convoluted tactics)).Mischief after mischief, they will start to know each other and of course everything will end with one of them inviting the other to their half for a romantic dinner and they'll end up sharing more than the gazebo <3((I hope it's enough clear and but also not too detailed??))

Requester: @snarkyship Rating: T (Teen and up audiences) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Finally Tony has managed to locate Loki's whereabouts. And it turns out the godling lives in a pretty loft in Manhattan, with all the comforts and the most advanced midgardian technology ((lighting, temperature and everything controlled by a tablet - the Stark latest model!- , appliances linked to the wifi, and has that roomba a knife??)).Tony decides to have a little fun: who said Loki is the only one who can do a little mischief?? So he takes control over Loki's apartment hacking its system; he starts with some flickering lights, the roomba changing suddenly trajectory to stab him, then blasting music in the middle of the night and so on.And Loki would be so frustrated: at the beginning he thinks about some failure in the inferior midgardian technology, then he'll think to be under attack, but he can't feel any magic signature!! Maybe he'll freak out a little, because there is some kind of unknown entity??? ((And while he may be using all the technology without problems, it doesn't mean he fully understands its working)).Tony will have fun, but he also will discover some cute aspects of Loki's personality, like he sings to his plants and he likes to wear fuzzy socks ((ok it sounds voyeuristic, but Tony would respect part Loki's privacy, maybe he'll spy on him only when in the living room or kitchen)).((And maybe he would help Loki as well? Like, the godling had a nightmare after falling asleep on the couch, and Tony would gently woke him up with music))Loki will eventually understand that Stark, the most clever midgardian, was behind all of this, and well, he's the God of Mischief, he can appreciate a well planned trick. Time to return the favor ;)

Requester: @martiszcz Rating: M (Mature) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Someone is trying to break them up by making Loki jealous, mentioning Tony's playboy years, talking about the time they slept with Tony, talking about how much time he spends with some friend (Pepper, Rhodey, I don't care who) but Loki doesn't react - they trust each other.

Requester: @shinindragon Rating: T (Teen and up audiences) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): The Avengers + Loki fight a villain. Loki uses a lot of his magic, eventually almost draining his energy completely when he protects Tony from getting hurt. When the battle is over, they return to the tower, all of them exhausted. Tony notices Loki doesn't look well, he asks if he's okay. Loki barely gets a word out before he collapses into Tony's arms, unconscious. Thor carries Loki to Tony's and his bedroom, explaining to Tony that he'll be alright, it's just exhaustion from an excessive use of magic. Tony stays with Loki, taking care of him. Fluff and with a sprinkle of angst.

Requester: @lightneverfades (Lol yup, shamelessly requesting as well haha!) Rating: T (Teen and up audiences) or M (Mature) Trigger warning: N/A Wish (Prompt/Idea): Detroit: Become Human AU - Young Tony Stark is neglected by his father, who is the CEO of CyberLife corporation. He craves for his attention and approval but doesn’t get it, causing him to become so bitter one day that he sneaks into one of the labs to sabotage whatever work he is doing. Tony comes across an abandoned RK800 model (also known as ‘Loki’), about to be taken apart for parts. He salvages the model before it gets destroyed, feeling sorry for this inanimate object that’s being thrown away so carelessly. He rebuilds Loki again in secret, and Loki becomes his friend through lonely times (Tony is there to help Loki understand humans, life, language, etc and Loki just keeps Tony company). Tragedy strikes the Stark family though, when his parents die in a car accident. Loki is there to help him and as Tony starts to grow up and become a man (he continues to fix Loki when he breaks down or updates him), Loki’s system starts to show signs similar to that of human emotions, although Tony is completely unaware of this. At a certain point though, Tony - in one of his bad moods - decides that he doesn’t need Loki anymore and shuts him down and puts him away in storage, resolving to move on with life without these ‘distractions’ to keep him company (image a scene where Tony is angry and throws that frustration and loneliness onto Loki, who tries to calm him down and sooth away his anxiety (’I understand you’) but Tony’s all (‘But you’re just a machine!’) and although Tony isn’t aware, Loki feels a spark of hurt, though even he can’t explain what this emotion means.) Years pass and eventually Tony forgets about Loki. He earns a name for himself, having taken over his father’s company (which still creates androids and in addition, creates weaponry of mass destruction as well). Obadiah is watching over Tony’s company (he is the one who ‘suggested’ he focus on building a name for himself and to shut out any ‘distractions’ that get in the way: namely Loki. Over the years, he saw how Tony interacted with the android and he had the uneasy sense that the android had matured into something more than its primary use. He considers Loki a threat). The events of Iron Man happen, with Tony being captured by the Ten Rings and then escaping. During his days confined at home to recover, he stumbles upon Loki and decides to reboot him again (partly out of guilt and partly because he’s lonely again). He finds comfort with Loki once more. Tony decides to crash the charity party by making an appearance with Loki as his ‘bodyguard’. Obadiah sees this and is not happy about this strange attachment Tony has over this android. Loki helps Tony build his first prototypes of the Iron Man suit, and they get to reacquaint themselves. One day, Loki sees on the news that there are a number of deviant android cases and is confused by what he sees, but it soon dawns on him that he might be feeling emotions for Tony, finally understanding the true meaning, especially when Tony is injured (while Loki is out on an errand) and Obadiah ambushes Tony by stealing the mini arc reactor in his chest. Shortly afterwards, to spite Tony, Obadiah hacks into Loki’s system and tries to eradicate the ‘deviancy’ he sensed in Loki years ago and turn the android against Tony (he tries to make Loki kill him). It doesn’t work - on the contrary, it finally frees Loki. Together, Tony and Loki go against Obadiah, who is intent on destroying them and taking over CyberLife corp.

Requester: @lightneverfades (Lol yup, shamelessly requesting as well haha!) Rating: T (Teen and up audiences) Trigger warning: Sickly, happy song cliches! xD Hah! Wish (Prompt/Idea): In which Tony or Loki (you can choose) is cursed by Amora to relive a week in which their lives suddenly become a musical and everyone around them spontaneously bursts into dance and song. (I have this image of Loki bursting into song about something ridiculous and Tony’s like, “What the HELL, what’s going on!”). This could either be enemies-to-lovers or it could start from them already being in a relationship. Bonus points if the Avengers team all burst into song together and there’s actually lyrics!! (Then I can actually make up a tune/sing it during the last month of 2020 so this year ends with rainbows and fluff and HAPPY FROSTIRON THOUGHTS! XD)

Requester: @lightneverfades (Lol yup, shamelessly requesting as well haha!) Rating: T (Teen and up audiences) or M (Mature) Trigger warning: FLUFF OVERLOAD! <3 Mpreg (might not be everyone’s cup of tea) Wish (Prompt/Idea): Loki has a kid with Tony (eeehehe, go all in with the loving and caring Tony fussing over his pregnant enemy-turned-boyfriend-turned-husband), calls her Morgan. Tony is obsessed with buying baby clothes for their daughter to the point where he has a closet dedicated to socks (lol he can’t get enough of small baby clothes and the potential to make his daughter look like a rainbow?!). Lol, I don’t even know! Just domestic bliss I guess! <3 Bonus points if Tony buys Christmas sweaters for his fam, including the Avengers, who dote on baby Morgan like their own (Thor with his anime eyes). Or even better, if baby Morgan grows up and plays little tricks on Uncle Thor and Loki and Tony chuckle in the background as Thor lets his niece do whatever she wants, cause he loves him too much to care, lol~

Requester: @lightneverfades (Lol yup, shamelessly requesting as well haha!) Rating: M (Mature) Trigger warning: CRACK, haha Wish (Prompt/Idea): Loki is a yoga instructor and one day Tony goes to one of his classes and finds out the best positions to ‘relax’ - body, mind and soul >:D. (I love puns, so go crazy hahaha!)

#frostiron #frostiron holiday wishes challenge #christmas #yayyyy #challenge #tony/loki #ironfrost #loki/tony #au #fanfic #prompts #fills #requests #so many cool ideas #i am shameless in that i have submitted four prompts to my own challenge lol but i am selfish hahaha

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ceealaina · 4 years ago

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Title: You’re Feeling Just the Same Link: AO3 Rating: Teen Major Tags: MIT Era, Fluff and Humor, Idiots in Love, Pre-Relationship, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Shenanigans Summary: Rhodey's a softie at heart. So when he's walking to campus one day, and sees what appears to be a dead groundhog on the street, he goes to move it out of the way becauses he's just that kind of guy. Only it's not dead, it's just sunbathing in the middle of the road like a dumbass.

He names it Tony.

What follows is a series of ridiculous events in which one James Rhodes accidentally adopts a groundhog, and finds himself trying to hide both it and his feelings from the real Tony. Word Count: 6,774

My long-awaited (by me) fic for the IronHusbands Big Bang. I had an absolute blast working on this. You can find Jay's incredible companion art here, and if you love yourself at all, you'll definitely check it out. Thanks, Jay, for being so wonderful to work with!

And thank you to feyrelay for letting me scream about this story over and over again!

*****

It started, as these things always seemed to, on a Wednesday. Rhodey was walking to campus, lost in thought about how ridiculously, desperately in love he was with his roommate, when something caught his eye on the road up ahead. There was a small, brown shape on the pavement, still too far away to make out exactly was, but Rhodey had a pretty good idea.

“Please be a paper bag, please be a paper bag,” he muttered to himself as he moved closer. He’d woken up this morning to Tony looking absolutely gorgeous in worn sweatpants and a threadbare tee. His hair had been a wild mess and his eyes had held a manic gleam behind those adorable glasses of his. Rhodey has wanted to kiss good morning him so badly that for a moment he had thought his heart might explode.

He couldn’t take anymore heartbreak today.

But as he moved closer, his fears were confirmed. A small groundhog was lying on the road, sprawled on his back with his little feet up in the air. Rhodey felt a pang in his chest. He’d always had a soft spot for animals, and this little guy looked so innocent that it hurt to see him like this. Strangely there wasn’t a mark on him, no sign of blood, and Rhodey wondered if he had maybe scared himself to death instead. That felt even worse, somehow.

The road was usually fairly quiet, but his location might make it difficult for cars to see him. Rhodey hummed a minute; the groundhog might already be dead, but the idea of leaving him there to be crushed beneath the wheel of a car felt wrong. Making a decision, Rhodey stepped off the sidewalk. He’d just move him off the road and into the grass, where he could rest in peace or whatever.

He had just bent over to scoop him up — making a mental note to wash his hands very thoroughly the second he got to campus, and to start carrying a pair of work gloves in his bag — when the groundhog shot to life with a low ‘chuck-chuck’ noise. Rhodey yelped, equally startled, and the groundhog shot up onto the grass. For a long moment the two of them just stared at each other in mutual surprise before the groundhog chattered at him angrily and then waddled off into the bushes on the far side of the sidewalk.

“Well, fuck you too,” Rhodey called after him, a little disgruntled. He hesitated a moment longer after it had disappeared into the shrubs, and then continued on his way to class. “Excuse me for tryin’ help. Not my fault you decided to sunbathe in the middle of the street like a dumbass.” He huffed a laugh to himself. “I’m gonna call you Tony!” he threw back over his shoulder before making at face himself. “Oh my god, I’m yelling at a groundhog. Pull it together, Rhodes.”

***

Rhodey usually liked to vary his route to campus, but the next day he found himself heading down the same street, telling himself that it was just in case and that if there was no sign of the groundhog, he could stop worrying about it. But, as it turned out, he was right to worry because sure enough, in almost the exact same place, he found the groundhog again, lying apparently lifeless on the side of the road.

“Okay, seriously?” he asked as he moved closer. This time he could hear actual snores, little snuffling sounds that were kind of adorable. “What, would you like me to bring you a little trifold mirror next time, so you can work on your tan?”

The groundhog opened its eyes, blinked at him, and apparently deeming him No Longer a Threat, closed them and wiggled against the hot pavement.

“You are one weird marmot,” Rhodey informed him, moving closer still. “Come on, get up you dumbass rodent. You’re gonna get run over by a car and then we’ll both feel bad.” The groundhog still didn’t move though, not even when Rhodey was standing right next to him. Wondering if groundhogs were people biters, he took a risk and nudged it with his toe. Looking very puto out, it finally got to its feet, chittering at him again as it wandered off into the bushes. “Ungrateful!” Rhodey called after it.

That afternoon, after Tony had headed back to the lab with a “bye, Honeybear! Save me some dinner!” Rhodey found himself digging out the Yellow Pages, trying to find someone who could safely rehome his new little pfriendet. But apparently groundhogs were considered irrelevant at best and a pest at worst. The city’s animal services didn’t care, and after the fifth private company he called talked about gasses and poisons, he gave up on that route.

Really all it came down to was tricking the groundhog into new habits. When Tony kept sleeping through his eight am Physics class, the one that demanded mandatory attendance, Rhodey had ‘trained’ him into getting up with coffee; he figured this wasn’t really that different. If he could figure out what the groundhog liked, he could lure him away from the road and then get him to associate the designated safe zone with food. Three weeks tops and the groundhog would be safe and Rhodey could stop worrying about it, easy peasy.

Problem number one was, of course, that he had no idea what groundhogs even liked to eat. One trip to campus later, and he found himself immersed in the reference section of the library, sitting at a table with three different ‘G’ encyclopedias, two ‘W’ encyclopedias, and a handful of possibly relevant farming and gardening books that he’d been directed to by a bemused looking librarian -- he supposed that groundhogs weren’t the biggest research topic at MIT.

By the time he made it back to the apartment, it was dark out, Rhodey was exhausted, and he knew more about groundhogs than he’d ever planned. But he also had a good idea of how to lure Tony Jr. away from the road. There’d been a few different ideas about what groundhogs liked to eat, but he planned to start with apples, carrots, and -- weirdly -- cantaloupe (five different sources had sworn by it). He let himself in the door, distracted by planning when he could make a trip to the grocery store, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he was greeting with a, “Fucking finally!” from the kitchen.

“Jesus,” he muttered, glaring as Tony came out of the kitchen.

“Where the fuck were you?” he demanded. “You weren’t home when I got back, no note, no nothing. I was worried , Rhodey. I thought you’d died .”

“Drama queen,” Rhodey grumbled with a fond eye roll. “Chill out, Stark,” he added, shrugging off his jacket.

Tony huffed, striding back into the kitchen. “You laugh, but it only takes a minute to get kidnapped, Sugarlumps.”

“Yeah? Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Rhodey said, following him down the hall but detouring past the kitchen to flop out on the couch.

“Uhh… Only the one time. I don’t know, I think that’s kind of an outlier though. They weren’t very competent kidnappers. Like five stars for the actual snatch and grab, and 0.001 stars for managing to hold on to the target.”

Rhodey shook his head; he couldn’t tell if Tony was kidding, but he had a funny feeling he wasn’t. “Your life is weird, man.”

“No shit.” Tony reappeared in the kitchen doorway. “Hey, where were you actually though. This is supposed to be your free night.”

Rhodey ignored the warm little thrill that lit up his belly at the thought that Tony knew his schedule. It didn’t actually mean anything, Tony’s brain was just… Like that. He may not always know what day it was, but he did know what was supposed to be happening at any given time. “At the library,” he told him honestly. “Last minute research project. I forgot all about it.”

That was at least mostly true, but Tony still squinted at him suspiciously. “That doesn’t sound like you…”

He shrugged. “Happens to the best of us, right?”

Rhodey felt like the fact that he was hiding something was written all over his face, but after another moment of suspicious staring, Tony shrugged too. “Yeah, guess so,” he acknowledged, sliding back into the kitchen. “Still, leave a note next time! I was expecting dinner.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes, grinning up at the ceiling since Tony wasn’t there to see the besotted look on his face. “Ain’t your housewife, Tones.”

“Luckily your sugar daddy’s got it covered,” Tony retorted, returning this time with two plates piled sky-high with Chinese food. He passed one over to Rhodey, who took it with an appreciative groan, before flopping onto the couch beside him, leaving almost no room between the two of them. (That didn’t mean anything either; Tony had never had a sense of personal space.) He held up a forkful of food, pointing it in Rhodey’s direction with a crooked grin that he couldn’t quite interpret. “To last minute research projects.”

***

Rhodey wasn’t even surprised when he arrived the next afternoon -- after a detour through the grocery store -- to find his groundhog friend sleeping on the road again. “Dumbass,” he muttered under his breath, pretending he didn’t hear the fond note in his voice. “Okay Tony,” he announced in a louder voice, waiting for the groundhog to open his eyes. “Here’s the deal.” He slid his backpack off his shoulder as Tony watched him warily, reaching in and pulling out a fresh bunch of carrots. Tony’s nose wriggled in interest. “You get your dumb ass off the road, and in exchange you get a nice juicy bunch of carrots. Sound like a fair deal?”

Tony made a couple of interested grunting noises that Rhodey chose to interpret as a yes. Snapping the first carrot into haphazard, uneven pieces, he put the first one right by Tony’s head, the next one a little farther, then a little farther until he had a trail of carrot pieces leading to an empty lot that had overgrown into something resembling a meadow. In the middle of said meadow, he dumped the rest of the carrots in a little pile.

It took a few minutes, but Tony’s nose wiggling increased and slowly he rolled over onto his stomach and wandered over to the first carrot piece. Still eyeing Rhodey a little suspiciously, he bit into the vegetable, eating it quickly. Rhodey held his breath, but when nothing happened Tony wandered over to the next carrot and then the next one. Rhodey followed him from a few feet away as he slowly moved over to the field. When he found the pile of carrots in the middle, he made a startled squeaking noise that sounded like nothing more than pure delight, running over to the pile and shoving his face into them. It was adorable, and Rhodey beamed, feeling entirely too pleased with himself.

“Phase One a success,” he crowed, whistling all the rest of the way to campus.

For the next week, Rhodey showed up every single day with some kind of snack for Tony. He’d follow the same routine, luring him safely to the field where he��d leave a whole pile of treats waiting for him. It seemed to be working, and even if it was wreaking havoc with Rhodey’s schedule a little, he figured it was only for a few weeks.

“Okay dude, what the hell?” Tony hissed as Rhodey slid into his typical seat beside him, late for the third time that week. “Why are you always late to labs now?”

Rhodey busied himself with pulling his notebook and pencils out of his bag. “Reasons,” he hedged, not meeting Tony’s gaze. Sure, he could probably just tell him the truth, but he could just imagine the jokes that Tony would level him with. Somehow it was easier to just… not.

There was a moment of silence from Tony, long enough that Rhodey started to get a little nervous. Did Tony somehow know? Had he seen him with groundhog Tony, and now he was going to get made fun of extra hard for not even being man enough to own it? But then Tony made a sudden noise of understanding.

“Did you meet someone?” he demanded, a note of delight in his voice. “What’s her name? Ohhhh. What’s his name?”

Rhodey swallowed hard, going full dumbass in the face of Tony’s sudden interest, and his easy acceptance of the idea that Rhodey had a secret boyfriend. “His name is Tony?” he offered, before he realized how that sounded and his eyes went wide. “Fuck! I mean — not you. I mean, not not you, you’re very attractive, but…”

He trailed off hopelessly, wanting to bury his face in his arms but feeling like that would make him even more pathetic. Tony was watching him with a strange glint in his eyes, but before he could say anything there was a throat clearing from the front of the room.

“Mr. Stark, Mr. Rhodes. Unless you would like to teach the class yourselves…?”

Tony opened his mouth like he was going to offer to do exactly that, but Rhodey gave him a swift kick in the ankle first. He rolled his eyes but relented and didn’t bring the subject up again.

***

It was on the second week that Rhodey realized he may have created a problem for himself. He and Tony Jr. had developed something of a… Working relationship. The groundhog seemed to know him now, had gone from perking up at the sound of Rhodey’s footsteps to actively waiting for him at the same time every day. The problem was, he was waiting for him in the road. And Rhodey had been so sure that his plan would work that he hadn’t bothered to think of an alternative. The luring him away part was working like a treat, but he had no idea how to get Tony Jr. to start waiting for him literally anywhere else.

He had kept up with his routine in the meantime, hoping that maybe Tony Jr. would suddenly clue in and start waiting for him on the sidewalk instead. Which is why he was there on Friday, when the car full of rowdy, probably newly-licensed teenagers came flying down the road.

He had been a few feet away, grinning when Tony sat up on his hand legs to ‘greet’ him, nose wiggling rapidly in anticipation of whatever the snack of the day might be. He heard the car before he could see it and reacted on instinct, racing to close the distance between he and Tony -- who, amazingly, didn’t run further into the road -- and snatching him up just in time. He lost his balance in the process, rolling to the far side of the sidewalk and ending up lying on his back in the grass, a very bewildered groundhog nestled against his chest as the oblivious car flew by.

For a minute, Rhodey tensed. He and Tony may have had something of a rapport, but he also knew that groundhogs could be vicious little fuckers, even beyond being a wild animal. He was fully expecting a bite to his arms or chest, but after a moment Tony wiggled and yawned, stretching out on his chest like a damn cat, before shifting enough to nose at Rhodey’s backpack, squashed uncomfortably beneath him. Rhodey let his head roll back, staring up at the sky before he sighed.

“Fuck it,” he decided. “Let’s go home.”

Rhodey would never say it out loud, but there were times when Tony -- the human one -- being the heir to the Stark empire worked in their favour. For example, he was pretty sure he had Maria Stark to thank for the fact that, when they’d started out looking at dinky, one-bedroom apartments, there had ‘suddenly’ been a nice, two-bedroom-plus-office available in their price range. Or how it was Tony’s last name that had given him unfettered, private access to one of the MIT labs, letting Rhodey claim that apartment office for himself.

Or for Tony Jr, as the case now seemed to be.

It had been surprisingly easy to get Tony Jr. set up in there. He’d built him a little cardboard box tunnel system, piled some hay and alfalfa in the corner, brought in a little kiddie pool and then some bunny toys he’d found at the pet store, because he figured a groundhog was still a rodent, right? He’d been worried that there wouldn’t be enough stimulation for him, but Tony Jr. had delved right into everything, and definitely seemed happy enough.

So now he had a groundhog secretly living in their No Pets Allowed apartment with Tony carrying on none the wiser. What even was his life sometimes?

***

Rhodey slipped out of the office after refreshing all of Tony Jr.’s supplies, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he found Tony waiting for him at the end of the hallway. “Jesus Christ, man,” he gasped, keeping an ear out for any strange, groundhog-related noises that Tony might be able to hear. “Don’t do that.”

“Okay, twitchy,” Tony replied with an arched eyebrow. “What, were you watching weird porn in there or something?

“No!”

“Cause you know if you find weird porn you gotta share. That’s the rule, Rhodes.” Tony nodded like he’d made some kind of actual point, and Rhodey rolled his eyes.

“I will keep that in mind. What’re you doing sneaking around like some kind of troll?”

“I wasn’t sneaking! I was looking for you. Because I wanted to know what the fuck this is.” He hefted up the full cantaloupe that Rhodey had been storing in the fridge, lifting it up above his head.

“It’s a cantaloupe, Tones.” Rhodey didn’t hide the way he was laughing at him as he pushed past Tony, moving to flop down on the couch in front of the television. “How do you not know that?”

Tony followed him, still cradling the melon in question and peering down at it speculatively. “I don’t know, I’ve only ever seen it cut up in fruit cocktail. I didn’t know it looked like this.” He frowned, lips pursing in that adorable little pout that Rhodey found absolutely irresistible. “It kind of looks like a brain.” He grinned then, holding it up against his forehead and taking wide, staggering steps toward Rhodey. “Yarrrrrrgh,” he groaned in what Rhodey was pretty sure was supposed to be his best impression of a zombie. “You’re going to eat my braiiiiiiiiins.”

Rhodey blinked back at him, trying very hard not to laugh. “See, now I’m just confused. Are you the zombie, or the zombie victim?”

Tony stuck his tongue out at him. “Spoilsport,” he grumbled, setting the cantaloupe down on the table and sprawling out beside Rhodey instead. “But really, why do we have a cantaloupe in the fridge? I’ve known you for three years, Rhodeybear. I’ve never once seen you eat cantaloupe… Oh shit!” He sat up, a manic gleam in his eyes. “Is it for your new boooooyfriend?”

He dragged the word out like a 12-year-old girl at a slumber party, and Rhodey huffed, squirming a little. The only boyfriend he wanted was Tony himself, but it wasn’t like he could just say that. “Shut up, Tones,” he grumbled instead, turning on the television and missing the little frown that crossed over Tony’s features.

***

Rhodey had heard about skunks, and raccoons, and even foxes being kept as pets before, but never groundhogs. As it turned out, there was apparently a reason for this.

Tony Jr. liked him well enough. He perked up as soon as Rhodey stepped into the room, nose twitching in a way that was the cutest thing that Rhodey had ever witnessed, outside of Human Tony’s attempts at waking up before eight am. He’d started rushing Rhodey at the door, nosing at his pockets for whatever treats he’d brought him, and if Rhodey sat on the floor with him for a bit, Tony Jr. would snuffle around him before snuggling in with his back along the lengths of Rhodey’s thighs, sometimes munching on a snack he’d dragged over, sometimes just drifting off to sleep with soft little snores. He was adorable.

But he was also a destructive little fucker. And Rhodey hadn’t even known that groundhogs made sounds before, but he was loud. There had been a few times where he’d had to fake a sudden coughing fit while watching TV with Tony, so he wouldn’t hear Tony Jr. skittering around over the floor, doing whatever it was he did to entertain himself. On one particularly memorable night, Rhodey had picked up the phone while Tony was in the kitchen and proceeded to hold a very loud, very fake fifteen-minute conversation. He’d hastily mouthed to Tony that it was “a guy from his lab” and then, feeling incredibly stupid, pretended not to notice the way that Tony’s scowl grew deeper and deeper as his TV watching was interrupted.

Unfortunately, whatever Tony’s suspicions were, Rhodey didn’t manage to do much to assuage them over the next few weeks. It was a few days later that Rhodey slipped out of the office, locking the door behind him (just in case) only to turn around to find Tony leaning against his bedroom door, watching him with an expression somewhere between suspicious and confused.

“You don’t usually lock that, do you?”

His tone sounded more curious than upset, but Rhodey felt himself breaking out into a sweat anyway. “Uhh. I have… Gifts in there. For… People.”

Tony’s expression shifted, going blank. “People,” he repeated, clearly disbelieving.

Rhodey winced, but if living with Tony had taught him anything, it was to dig in his heels. According to Tony, show enough confidence and you could get away with anything. (Funny how that always seemed to work out so much better for Tony than it ever did for Rhodey.)

“People,” he repeated anyway, as confidently as he could manage. “For… Christmas.”

Tony’s eyebrows arched. “Wooow,” he drawled. “The first week of October. Look at you go, Rhodes.”

It was probably a sign of just how far gone he was for the other man that Rhodey recognized the exact tone of Tony’s voice, the ‘hurt but trying to mask it with sarcasm’ edge that he usually only reserved for conversations with his father. Rhodey wasn’t sure what about his dumbass behaviour would cause Tony that much pain, but he hated being responsible for it with every fibre of his being. For a minute he almost caved and confessed everything then and there. But while he was working out where to even begin, Tony just sighed and shook his head.

“Sorry,” he told him, like Tony had absolutely anything to apologize for when Rhodey was secretly hiding a groundhog in their apartment. “I’m just having a day. I’ve gotta run though. I’ve got a meeting with the engineering department -- apparently they don’t know if I’m making use of my excess of lab time responsibly.” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned, back to being Rhodey’s Tony, and the moment passed.

It was a couple weeks after that that Rhodey, alone in the apartment, had gone in to check on Tony Jr. only to find him happily munching on one of Tony’s spare EuroAV cables.

“Oh shit,” Rhodey yelped, lunging toward him because he was pretty sure there was no way that was part of a healthy, balanced, groundhog diet. He was starting to wonder if his groundhog was part cat though, because the second he saw Rhodey coming his eyes went wide and he started to back under the chair in the corner, dragging the wire along behind him.

What followed was a truly embarrassing twenty-minute wrestling match in which Tony Jr. got the better of him many, many times. Rhodey’d had no idea that groundhogs could be so fast. Or so crafty.

Eventually he’d emerged victorious -- or as victorious as he could consider himself when he was flushed and sweating and was going to have to buy Tony a new EuroAV cable -- and locked the cable’s remains away in the cupboard while Tony Jr. went to sulk in the corner. He went back out for some water and very nearly screamed when he came across Tony, standing there and staring at the door.

“Tony!” he yelped instead, resisting the urge to grab at his heart as he narrowly avoided a heart attack. “Jesus Christ, man. What are you doing here? I thought you had class.”

Tony shrugged. “Dr. Campbell cancelled.” He paused a moment, considering. “I heard noises,” he told him, looking Rhodey up and down. Rhodey followed his gaze and fought back a wince when he saw how rumpled his shirt was, and how a couple buttons had popped off, letting bits of chest peek through the fabric. “Everything… Alright?”

“Oh yeah,” Rhodey said airily, internally panicking. “Just… Physics problems. You know how it is.”

Tony stared back at him, unimpressed, but before he could speak Tony Jr. decided to wreak havoc with something, a large crashing noise echoing from the room behind him. Rhodey tried to keep his expression from revealing anything and Tony’s face fell, whatever he was thinking left unsaid.

He stayed suspiciously quiet the rest of the evening, stuck in his head, and Rhodey tried to push down the guilty feeling pooling in his stomach. He ordered in the barbeque ribs that Tony liked for dinner, hoping to make it up to him a little, and Tony at least joined him to eat, the two of them camping out in front of the television.

There was an old Star Trek rerun playing, and they watched in relative silence until halfway through the episode when Tony, apparently, just couldn’t stand it anymore.

“I don’t understand why you won’t just tell me his name!” he burst out.

Rhodey startled, so caught off guard that for a moment he couldn’t even parse what Tony was talking about. “Who??”

This seemed to bother Tony even more; he huffed and folded his arms over his chest. “Your boyfriend! The ‘guy from your lab’ that you’ve been seeing. The dude you were fooling around with in the office earlier. Honestly, Rhodes, we’re supposed to be best friends. It’s getting a little weird that you haven’t even introduced us.”

“Oh. Uh…” Taken aback, Rhodey scrambled for any kind of explanation. “It’s not… I mean… There’s not really any introductions to make. It’s nothing, really. It’s not… Like that.”

Tony stared back at him for a long moment, squirming like he wanted to say something else, but all he did was lean back into the couch cushions again, arms still folded across his chest. “Right. Okay.”

Rhodey didn’t know why Tony would be so invested in meeting his supposed hookup, even if he actually had one, but bringing it up didn’t seem like that best plan either. He wanted to get Tony as far away from subjects that could circle back to the groundhog residing in their apartment as possible.

The thing was, Rhodey was a mission oriented kind of person. He could compartmentalize, focus on one thing at a time. And he became All. About. The groundhog. (Because, if he was truly honest with himself, focusing on Tony Jr. meant he didn’t have to think about how desperately in love with Tony he was, how his feelings were only getting stronger every day despite knowing there was no chance in hell of them being reciprocated.) So it was easy to put it aside when Tony started acting… Quirkier than usual, to tell himself that it was nothing, just Tony going through a phase.

He started to worry a little, when on the nights that it was Tony’s turn to cook, he started making (or ordering) food for one. The first time he figured was a one off -- he’d had a late appointment with one of his profs, and then a meeting with a project group, so he’d given Tony a heads up that he might not be back until late. He probably just hadn’t known when to expect him. And Tony’d never been great at figuring out portion sizes anyway, always cooking either far too much or not nearly enough. It wasn’t a big deal; Tony always bought too many groceries too (although Rhodey had a feeling that was slightly less accidental), so it wasn’t too difficult for him to scrounge up a late meal for himself.

But then it happened again. And again. And again after that.

After the fourth time in a week, Rhodey was feeling panicked. Maybe Tony had heard the scratching or the little squeaking noises that Tony Jr. made sometimes, and thought they had rats or squirrels or something. Maybe he was trying to avoid leftovers, so he didn’t encourage them. He was hesitant about asking Tony about it; if that was what he thought, he wasn’t sure it was the best idea to draw further attention to it, in case Tony started to wonder why those noises only ever seemed to come from Rhodey’s suddenly locked office or something. Rhodey never been one for avoiding, though, and he couldn’t fix it if he didn’t know what was happening.

But when he finally asked him about the lack of dinner, mentioning it as casually as he could manage, Tony just gave the wall over Rhodey’s shoulder a very pointed look. “Oh sorry,” he told him, a forced, off-hand tone to his voice. “I just didn’t know if you’d be around to have dinner here. You know, with your active social life.”

“Uh…” Rhodey scratched at the back of his head; Tony clearly had his knickers in a twist over something, but he was fucked if he knew what. He hadn’t mentioned the groundhog at least, so he probably hadn’t found that out. Maybe he’d had another hiccup with the robot he’d been working on for the last few months. “Sure man. Active social life, right.” He considered asking, but honestly the last few weeks had him exhausted and if it was anything serious, he knew Tony would end up telling him eventually. He wasn’t great at keeping things to himself.

And sure enough, a couple days later, Tony seemed more or less back to himself. He’d locked himself in his room for all of Friday night, while Rhodey had holed up in the office with Tony Jr., blasting Star Wars at high volume as his rodent friend tore around the room, chasing the tennis ball that Rhodey had picked up for him.

Presumably Tony had solved whatever coding issue had had him all wound up in the meantime, because when Rhodey got up on Saturday morning, he met him with a triple batch of pancakes (only a few of them burned) and a sheepish smile. They didn’t talk about it -- they never did -- but Tony made a point of being extra nice, letting Rhodey take the syrup first and grabbing him the juice when he moved to get it from the fridge. Rhodey just beamed back at him and some of the guilt evaporated from Tony’s face.

They talked about nothing for awhile, just normal, mindless Saturday morning stuff until Tony cleared his throat and shifted a little. Rhodey arched an eyebrow, watching him expectantly.

“Uh, you know… I heard you watching Star Wars last night. We could all watch a few movies together, if you wanted? I’ve had my shots, Rhodey, I promise.”

Rhodey felt his eyes go wide, knew that panic was written all over his face. His shots? Was Tony talking about rabies? Did he know? “I…” He croaked out the word, trying to figure out what to say next, but almost immediately Tony seemed to reconsider, his face falling a little.

“Unless you guys are like… Doing stuff. You know, while the movie, and… Okay, never mind.” He cleared his throat again, awkward now, and took his empty plate to dump in the sink.

Rhodey blinked at him, head spinning from the whirlwind that had just occurred. “Who’s we?” He was pretty sure they were talking about two completely different things.

Tony just rolled his eyes. “Haha,” he drawled, “You’re hilarious.”

And before Rhodey could tell him that he hadn’t actually been joking, Tony was heading back down the hall for his bedroom and leaving him even more confused in his wake.

***

They continued on like this, Tony running hot and cold -- but definitely veering into cold territory more often than not -- as Rhodey threw himself harder into caring for Tony Jr. in turn. Mostly that went okay, but Tony Jr. would go through phases where he was just the worst (not, Rhodey supposed, unlike his namesake). Which was how he ended up spilling an entire can of soda on himself one evening when Rhodey was just trying to hang out and watch a movie with him. Rhodey sighed hard, staring back at Tony Jr. as he blinked up at him with the sugary drink dripping from his snout, startled into stillness.

“Come on, man,” Rhodey protested. “You’re not helping me out here at all.”

Tony Jr. just made a soft little chuck-chuck sound, something that Rhodey thought sounded almost apologetic, and he couldn’t help grinning a little.

“Alright, you twerp,” he sighed, picking him up. Tony was at the lab again, so Rhodey didn’t hesitate to take him into the bathroom. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Tony Jr. waited patiently as Rhodey filled the tub, checking to make sure the water wasn’t too hot or too cold. He was a little nervous putting Tony Jr. in the tub, in case he lost his shit entirely and went feral, but he actually seemed to enjoy it, making happy little chittering noises and wriggling around as he settled into the warm water. Rhodey hadn’t wanted to add soap, worried it would disrupt a groundhog’s delicate little ph balance or something, but rinsing him off with fresh water seemed to do the trick just as well. Tony Jr. splashed around happily, and Rhodey found the entire experience surprisingly pleasant, laughing and talking away to the little guy as he got him all clean.

He hadn’t heard the front door opening, too distracted with what he was doing, but he definitely heard the sharp, sudden knock on the bathroom door. Tony Jr. chirped but before Rhodey could respond, Tony was flinging the door wide open.

“Okay asshole,” he announced without preamble. “I get that you’ve found the love of your life, and that he’s a million times better than me, and you’re a week away from leaving me forever because you’d never fall for me, but this is still a communal space and I would appreciate it if I could shower in a space that doesn’t contain a stranger’s come.”

And then, as Rhodey was still trying to process what the fuck had just happened, Tony stopped and looked around the bathroom. Breathing hard, he took in Rhodey, crouched shirtless on the bathmat, and the full bathtub containing Tony Jr.

“This… Is not what I was expecting,” he admitted. “Is that a groundhog?”

“Yes it is,” Rhodey replied without hesitation. “But I’m a lot more interested in what the fuck you just said.”

“Oh, uh…” Tony was flustered now, all his bravado gone, and he edged toward the doorway. “I wasn’t, I mean. I didn’t… I wasn’t saying anything,” Tony finally managed to mumble out. “Just… Long day.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Rhodey told him dryly. And then, because there was no way he was letting it go at that, “What was that about me being a week away from leaving forever?”

Tony whined under his breath. “Do we have to do this now?” he grumbled, eyes dropping back to the groundhog, still splashing around in the bathtub. “You seem… Busy.”

And true, Rhodey probably had a lot to be embarrassed about here too. But Tony was shifting side to side in that way that meant he was feeling especially awkward, and so Rhodey called his bluff.

“You explain what on earth you’re talking about,” he told him, folding his arms across his chest. “And I’ll explain, uh… This.”

Tony huffed again, unconsciously mirroring Rhodey as he crossed his own arms. Hunching his shoulders up around his ears, he settled his gaze somewhere above Rhodey’s head. “I just… You’ve been so busy lately, with your new guy or whatever. And he’s here all the time, and I hear you laughing and you sound like you’re having such a great time and it's not like jealous, I’m just -- okay, I am jealous. I fucking love you, you asshole. And I’ve missed you the past few weeks, and I never see you, and I know we’ve both dated before but you won’t even tell me about this guy, and… I don’t know. It just felt like this time it was maybe something more serious. And I know it’s not like you were ever going to get that kind of serious with me but I just… I’m not ready to lose you yet.”

Rhodey blinked at him, feeling a little like he was going to pass out.

And the rest of what Tony had said caught up to him. “My guy?” he repeated, wondering what on earth Tony meant. And then Tony Jr. splashed the water, catching Rhodey’s attention. He looked over at him, back at Tony, over to Tony Jr. again, and his eyes went. “Oh,” he breathed, catching on. “Oh.”

And then he couldn’t help it -- he started to laugh.

“Okay, seriously?” Tony burst out, staring incredulously at Rhodey, apparently over his inability to look directly at him. “Seriously ?” He grabbed a spare roll of toilet paper, throwing it at the other man who was bent in half on the bathmat, laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes. Tony Jr. chittered angrily at him. “I can’t believe I even like you. I just confessed my love and you’re fucking laughing at me.” He threw another roll of toilet paper at him for good measure. “You’re such an asshole.”

Rhodey shook his head, still choking on his laughter. “I’m not… I’m not laughing at you.” He cleared his throat, beaming up at him. “You’re in love with me?”

“I’m…” Tony shook his head, sliding back into a mumble. “Don’t make fun of me, man.”

“I’m not,” Rhodey promised, getting to his feet and moving toward him. “I swear I’m not. Tony, the ‘guy’ I’ve been seeing? Is the fucking groundhog.”

Tony wrinkled his nose, looking adorably confused. “What?”

Rhodey just sighed. “I’m saying, I don’t have a boyfriend, doofus. You’re the only guy in my life. And, uh…” He stepped closer still, catching Tony’s hands to unfold them from his chest. “I’d kind of like it to stay that way.”

Tony squirmed a little, a pleased smile crossing his features. “You would?”

“Yep.” He nodded, running his thumb over Tony’s palm. “We seem to suck at the communication thing, so let me be very clear here. I’ve been embarrassingly in love with you for an embarrassingly long time. Forget asking you out. Tony, I want you to be my boyfriend. Are we on the same page?”

Tony gave an adorable little giggle, and then he was standing on tiptoes, giving Rhodey a soft, sweet kiss on the lips. Rhodey let him, for a moment, and then he was looping an arm around Tony’s waist, pulling him up tight against his bare chest and kissing him properly. Tony made a startled little sound before he melted into it, giving just as good as he got.

They kept kissing until there was another splash behind them, Tony Jr. chittering in annoyance at being ignored.

“Ah, right.” Still grinning like a goofball, Tony leaned back and arched his eyebrows at Rhodey. “I think you said something about an explanation for the groundhog in our bathtub?”

“Yup,” Rhodey agreed, stepping away first to take a towel and scoop Tony Jr. out of the tub. Tony watched in bemusement as the groundhog snuggled right into Rhodey, the other man slipping past him to take him back to office. “Just let get him resettled first. I don’t want Tony Jr. to catch a cold.”

Tony nodded in understanding, then frowned as he watched Rhodey carry him down the hall. “Wait,” he called after him. “Tony Jr.? Rhodes, did you name your groundhog after me??”

@ironhusbandsbigbang

#ironhusbandsbigbang2020 #james rhodes #tony stark #ironhusbands #mit era #shenanigans #pre-relationship #getting together #idiots in love #fluff and humor #happy ending #fic #my fic

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winterironbang · 5 years ago

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Story Previews:

Below you will find the names and summaries of the entered stories, please take care to read through them and be aware of any warnings when thinking about which piece it is you wish to claim. Make sure to have two in mind when choosing as your first choice may already be taken.

To claim a story, send an email to [email protected] with the titles of your top two favourites. Claims only begin on March 24th at 10am GMT, please wait until this time to submit your claim, or else it will NOT be counted.

I’ve had people in the past try to submit claims via ask and they have not come through, please send in the claims via email only. Thanks.

1. Title: HandShook

Summary: “Get me a handshake, Tony, that’s it. Don’t break anything and please do not turn this into an interspecies war.” -James Rhodes

Tony Stark is the first man in the history of the human race to breach the heliosphere keeping space-faring humanity from the rest of the universe. Bucky’s people, the Aldori, a technologically advanced, space-faring race, watch him do it. The Aldori demand a meeting to establish diplomatic relations and determine whether or not humans will prove to be a threat to them. Without letting the Aldori know that only Tony’s ship is advanced enough to make the trip, Rhodey is forced to send him as ambassador.

Simple right? Except the handshake Tony is supposed to capture on film for Rhodey is intensely intimate to the Aldori.

The Aldori decide to go through with it. Their people are at war and they need these humans, who are apparently so advanced that they can skip through ‘The Trench,’ to either join their cause, or, at worst, remain neutral.

They’ve married off royalty for political alliances before. It’s a good thing Prince Bucky came back from the war only partially damaged. He’s perfect for an alliance with an untested race of people.

Current word count: 21,637

Warnings: 1) Bucky and Tony engage in an act of public handshaking which within the world would be roughly the equivalent of public nudity/a public sex act 2) Bucky forms an accidental mind meld with Tony as a result of a really good handshake--bare hands touching is very intimate for his people. Tony doesn't know about this for a very brief time. During which he 'feels' Bucky's feelings for him which are predominantly affectionate. -the mind-meld may result in telepathic sex which hasn't been written yet. (So: Tony engages in an intimate act without knowing it's considered intimate. Bucky accidentally Bonds with him, creating a mental connection as a result. Pseudo accidental marriage. Light (I think?) Dub con of the making someone else feels your romantic feeling for them type.)

2 Title: Tony’s New Friend (working title) Summary: When Tony is forced to come home for his summer break at MIT, he thinks it is going to be a disaster. He’s right. But it also ends up being a lot more exciting than he thought too. Who says urban exploring is a bad thing? Current word count: 14432

Warnings: None A/N: It’s not finished yet, but I’ll have a better summary/more finished by time you pick it. Promise. (This is turning out longer than I thought)

3 Title: No Title Yet/Canon-Divergent from CA:WS

Summary: After helping Natasha and Steve with the Project Insight fuck up, Tony agrees to help with their Winter Soldier problem. Namely, find the man and keep him non-hypnotisable. But of course the Winter Soldier, being the Winter Soldier, finds Tony first.

Current word count: 5.181

Warnings: Maybe some gnarly description of the connection between the metal arm and Bucky’s skin. Nothing too bad, but I guess caution is best. There might be a scene of adjusting a new arm, but since I am no doctor, I don’t know how detailed I will describe that yet.

A/N: This is a canon-divergent fic, that has Steve, Nat, and Sam ask Tony for help with the Helicarriers instead of, you know, dumping all of SHIELD’s info online xD Steve tells Tony about his parents and Tony, taking a few days to deal with it, then decides to help him with the Winter Soldier, thus creating BARF sooner, with Helen Cho and Bruce Banner (so no Quentin Beck). Bucky in the meantime, having managed to evade HYDRA, finds him because the arm needs repairs.

4 Title: The Daemon In Me (tentatively)

Summary: Tony Stark is, as far as he knows, the only person who can see daemons, a manifestation of a person’s soul that, naturally, shares their Mark.

Several years after his parents’ deaths, Obadiah Stane arrives to inform him that Howard had arranged a marriage for him, and it’s time to meet his prospective husband. There’s just one tiny hitch.

The groom doesn’t have the same Mark as his daemon.

Current word count: 5050-ish

Warnings: Implied/referenced child abuse, Howard’s A+ parenting, alternate universe – daemons, alternate universe – soulmarks, implied/referenced arranged marriage

A/N: This is definitely alternative universe but it’s incredibly vague on details of such. It’s also not finished yet, but Tony and Bucky will definitely meet, beat the bad guys and end up happily ever after (I can’t be more specific, because this was supposed to have been a completed fic).

5 Title: The Tangled Tale of Winteriron

Summary: Prince James was born to the kingdom of Brooklyn via the miracle of a magic flower. Kidnapped at a young age, his best friend and betrothed Steve Rogers tears the kingdom apart to find him.

A thief named Iron Man is currently on the run from the king’s guards. Hiding in a secluded tower, he finds himself tied up by a young man with a whole lot of… hair?

Current Word Count: approximately 9500 words

Warnings: Emotional manipulation and abuse

A/N:

6 Title: Winter Witcher (may change) Summary: Twenty years ago, the Witcher Bucky rescued the King and Queen of Stark from a monster that had moved into their castle. Pressed to name a reward above and beyond the coin he’d been promised, he claimed the Law of Surprise, electing to let destiny choose his prize. Before he could return to find out what it was that he’d won, another monster locked him in ice. Tony of Stark has always known that his marriage would be a political one, but he’s discovered that his betrothed and his chief counselor are conspiring against him. Left with no time to plan an escape and isolated from his few loyal friends, Tony’s desperation and determination unlock a conduit of chaos within him that takes him far, far away, right into the arms of his destiny. Current word count: ~25,000 (finished but unedited) Warnings: Dubcon (sex drug/magic) A/N: This draft is complete, but if our artist has additional ideas, we’re happy to discuss how to work them in! This is basically “Episode 1” of what might turn into a whole series of stories, but as this is the “pilot” episode, it should stand on its own.

7 Title: Your eyes aren’t rivers there to weep (But a place for crows to rest their feet)

Summary: Bucky sat up slowly, pain throbbing from his temple to the nape of his back specifically. "You’re an absolute idiot, you know that? Didn’t you know your AI can’t detect magical traps?”

“Oh sure, ‘cause we fight many villains who like to hide portals in the floor? You’re a bigger idiot for following me, Barnes.”

-or-

Tony disobeys orders during a mission and causes him and Bucky to fall through Doom’s time travel portal, forcing them to survive together in a tropical rainforest, to their utter reluctance.

Current word count: 11 800

Warnings: None

A/N: This is an unedited WIP! I added the outline for what I plan for the reminder of the story at the end. :)

8 Title: Wings in my Soul (Stars in my Eyes)

Summary: After being spaced when his ship is destroyed, Bucky assumes his life on the run is over. His life is unexpectedly saved by one of the most advanced spaceships he’s ever seen, and the sentient AI running it. T-0N33 is so real, Bucky quickly finds himself questioning how thin the line is between machine and man. Together, they flee from HYDRA’s spreading influence and the megalomaniac Technopath, Zola. Throughout space battles and hijinks, they ask themselves: Can an AI have a soul and more importantly, can they fall in love?

Current word count: 7,838

Warnings: Nongraphic violence

A/N: ^o^ gay bois in SPAAAAAAACE

9 Title: Here, There and Neverwhere

Summary: After a long quiet night at the pub, Bucky was ready to have a simple night in. However, as fate deals its hand, Bucky gets dragged into a series of events that pulls him out of his new normal to a game where Gods and magic reign supreme. A handsome and charming magician Tony helps Bucky stack his deck, granting him a chance to survive.

When the wheel of fortune spins, will the odds be in their favour?

Current word count: 5086

Warnings: Canon typical violence

A/N: Rating is currently T but could go up to M or E

#winteriron bang #winteriron #ironwinter

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persephonesfill · 5 years ago

Text

mise en place

a/n: this came to mind one day when i was upset and asked my followers to send me Tony headcanons. It was originally going to be a drabble and of course ended up being full blown fic. thank you @greatkingunderthemountain for sending in your headcanon! Enjoy!

summary: mise en place: the act of putting everything in its place. Or, Tony Stark is a human disaster when it comes to most things. Relationships. Taking care of himself. Opening up to people. Cooking isn’t one of them.

ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

rating: aside from some stony smooches, this is pretty gen.

warning(s): h*ward stark is mentioned but don’t worry he’s dead lol

“How much milk?”

“Stop when you feel like there’s enough,” Jarvis instructs, standing next to the dark haired little boy who can’t be no older than eight.

Inky brown eyes look up at him from beneath a mop of chocolate curls. “You’re not going to tell me what to do?”

“No,” Jarvis says. “My mother always told me to never measure anything. The food tastes better that way.”

The little boy wrinkles his nose. “What if you mess up?”

“Making mistakes is a part of the cooking process, Tony,” Jarvis says, stooping down to look the him in the eyes. “Sometimes those mistakes make for the best meals. Think. How many meals do we have now that were made by mistake?”

Tony’s face lights up and Jarvis can practically see the little wheels in his head turning. Even with all that he had accomplished in his short life so far, Jarvis will perhaps forever be in awe at how fast the boy’s mind goes, Tony often jumping to (usually correct) conclusions in mere seconds when it took grown men hours to put the pieces together.

“Chocolate chip cookies,” are the first words to leave Tony’s mouth. Jarvis chuckles, shaking his head. The boy’s sweet tooth is notorious in the Stark household, of course the first food that came to his mind would have been a sweet.

“And what kind of world would we have without chocolate chip cookies?” a familiar voice asks teasingly. One Ana Jarvis makes her way into the kitchen, her heels tap, tap, tapping, against the dark cherry wood floors.

“An awful one,” Tony says seriously.

“I’m more of an apple torte girl, myself,” Ana says, tying an apron around her waist.

Tony’s eyes widen. “What’s that?”

Ana leans down to Tony and whispers conspiratorially, “It’s like apple pie, but better because it has cream cheese.”

Tony’s eyes grow round and pleading, “Ooh, Jarvis can we make that for dessert?”

Really, how was he supposed to no to that face?

“Of course we can. Dinner first.”

Tony nods and with shaky hands, pours milk into the pot of flour and melted butter. He stops, stands on the very tip of his toes to peer into the saucepan, before pouring a little bit more. With a satisfied nod, Tony put the milk on the counter while Ana whips the mixture with a whisk.

“Very good, sir,” Jarvis says with soft smile. “You’ll be a master in no time.”

With flour in his hair and sticky palms, Tony launches himself at Jarvis who finds his arms full of dirty, sticky, boy-genius. Jarvis has never been happier.

It’s just Tony, Jarvis, and Ana in the mansion. They dine on macaroni and cheese and do end up having apple torte for dessert. As Jarvis tucks him into his bed, the smell of green apples and cinnamon linger on the air. That night, Tony dreams of hundreds of apple tortes falling from the sky. He thinks they might be just as good as chocolate chip cookies.

***

Ana passes on a beautiful summer day when Tony is fifteen, Jarvis following her soon after. Tony hangs up his apron and doesn’t pick it up again. Not for a while.

***

Being friends with Rhodey, Tony decides, is like lazing around in the sun after a storm.

It had been a rocky start at first.

“Are you lost?” Rhodey had asked him.

Tony had been sitting on his bed with his hands in his lap, unsure of what to do with himself. Howard and Maria had left just as quickly as they had arrived, both of their schedules occupied by SI business and charities and they were just oh so sorry that they couldn't stay for long. With Jarvis and Ana gone...Tony had...he had no one.

And that's how Rhodey had found him; a scrawny 15 year old who looked like he was 100 pounds soaking wet, sitting hunched in on himself as if he were trying to make himself smaller.

Tony had crossed his arms and straightened his spine, ignoring the sting of tears that threatened to fall from his eyes. Lifting his chin, he said, "Do I look like I'm lost?"

"You look like you should still be in middle school," Rhodey had said dryly, tossing his dufflebag onto the bed the opposite of Tony's. "What are you, like twelve?"

Tony had bristled, sadness quickly giving way to anger and if he was being honest with himself, embarrassment. "I just turned fifteen," he had said through gritted teeth.

"You're a baby!" Rhodey had said brightly.

"I'm not a baby!" Perhaps crossing his arms petulantly hadn’t helped his case.

Rhodey had nodded putting both hands in the air in surrender. "Alright, you're not a baby. But for real, man, what are you doing here? Where are your parents?"

And just like that Tony's mood had soured even more. He didn't want to be reminded of the fact that both of his parents had left him to fend for himself. A dark cloud had gathered over Tony's head anyway.

Steeling himself, Tony had shrugged. "Don't know, don't care. Howard and mom are always busy."

Rhodey's brows had furrowed as he looked Tony over. Did he...did he not know who Tony was? "Howard..." Rhodey had said before his eyes widened.

"Are you...are you Howard Stark's kid?" Rhodey had asked.

"Unfortunately."

And there it was. The truth was out, not that Tony tried to keep it a secret much anyway. Sooner or later everyone was going to find out the great Howard Stark's son was attending their school and they'd all come oohing and ahhing before the day was over. Tony had closed his eyes and waited for the gasps and the questions and the sucking up-

"Dude, your dad's a dick."

Tony's eyes had shot open and later on Rhodey would tell him that he had looked like a bull frog.

"What did you just say?"

"I mean no offense," Rhodey had begun, sitting down on his bed. "But who leaves their 12 year old kid alone at college?"

"I'm fifteen!"

"Same thing," Rhodey had said with a wave of his hand. "It's a dick move."

Within five minutes of meeting, Rhodey had thought he was lost, called him a baby, and told him his dad was a dick.

"Yeah," Tony had said after a minute. "It was a dick move. It was a huge dick move."

Rhodey had nodded seeming so sure of himself like it was a fact of life. The sky was blue. Humans needed oxygen to live. Howard Stark was a dick.

"Seems like you're stuck with me for a year, boy wonder," Rhodey had said laying down on the bed languidly.

"Or you're stuck with me," Tony had said. "People tend to get tired of me." He meant for it to come out as a joke but the words had sounded hollow to even Tony's ears.

"Aw, I doubt that," Rhodey had said. "I'm tougher than I look."

"We'll see," Tony had said dismissively. Everyone always left eventually.

But judging by the glint that had entered the other man's dark eyes, Rhodey wouldn't back down without a fight.

***

Rhodey stays. Rhodey stays and Tony flourishes under his attention like a long forgotten toy finally being picked up and played with again. He stays when Tony takes too long getting ready in the morning.

"You can't rush perfection, platypus," Tony would say while gelling his hair.

Rhodey stays when Sunset Bain works her deadly magic on Tony and sinks her claw-like nails into his back, taking his dignity and Stark Industries secrets with her.

Rhodey stays when Tony gets drunk for the first time after Howard and Maria blow him off on the first family weekend of the school year. Rhodey, strong, kind Rhodey, shares his parents with Tony the entire weekend. Captain Rhodes and Mrs. Rhodes are just as sweet and kindhearted as their son and accept Tony with open arms.

Rhodey stays and Tony loves him for it. And for the first time in a long time, Tony wants to cook.

Their dorm building has a community kitchen that’s only ever used for late night experiments by the Chem majors. Tony swears he’s heard explosions from the kitchen before, but that doesn’t deter him. And he’s so hungry.

Despite it being a prestigious school, the food at MIT, like all school sanctioned meals, is crappy and inedible. And after the whole debacle with Sunset, Howard had cut Tony off until further notice. If Tony saved up his measly check he got from working in the school’s post office, he could probably have enough money to make an actual honest-to-god home-cooked meal for himself and Rhodey.

Tony makes up his mind the week before midterms. He’s killing it in Calculus and Biology couldn’t be easier, but if he has to read one more passage of Hemingway’s bland, uninspiring prose, Tony’s going to rip his hair out.

“Don’t do that,” Rhodey says, voice slightly muffled from the pillow he has resting over his face. “It’s your best feature.”

“One,” Tony says throwing down The Old Man and the Sea with perhaps a little too much force, as his desk rattles when the book lands. “That’s false. My ass is definitely my best feature.”

Even from underneath the pillow, Tony can tell Rhodey is frowning. “Gross,” Rhodey says.

Tony grumbles. His ass was his greatest feature. But he decides to forge on. “That’s hurtful, honey bear,” he says. “Why are you being mean to me? Are you hungry? You’re only mean to me when you’re hungry.”

Rhodey sits up and the pillow falls from his face and into his lap. “I’m starving, Tones,” he said. “You know what I would die for right now?”

“Me,” Tony says without hesitating.

“Close, but no,” Rhodey says and Tony loves him even more for that. “I want some candied yams. Don’t even need anything else with them.”

“Candied yams?” Tony asks. The name evokes feelings of joy and sugar and well, Tony’s always had sweet tooth. His interest is piqued.

“My mom brought us some on Family Weekend, remember?"

To be fair, Tony doesn't remember. All he remembers is basking in the fact that Rhodey's parents actually seemed to like him.

"How does she make them?" Tony asks and makes sure he's listening carefully.

"She gets a couple of sweet potatoes and peels them and cuts them into slices. She lets them soak in some water then she throws them in a skillet with butter, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Tones," Rhodey groans and flops back them, his hands clutching at his stomach. “I’m gonna die if I don’t eat real food in the next twenty-four hours.”

Tony can’t help but roll his eyes. And Rhodey calls him dramatic.

“Don’t die on me just yet, honey bear,” Tony says and reluctantly reaches for his copy of The Old Man and the Sea, “if you die, who’s going to suffer through Hemingway with me?”

"The next poor sucker to be your roommate," Rhodey says and gets a pillow to the face by courtesy of Tony.

"Living with me is a blessing!" Tony replies, feigning anger, except he's grinning wide enough that his cheeks are starting to hurt and the effect is ruined.

Rhodey in retaliation throws both his pillow and Tony's at Tony in quick succession. Tony yelps as both pillows make their mark.

Tony narrows his eyes. "Oh this means war, Rhodes."

"Aw, that's cute," Rhodey coos, "I'll be sure to go easy on you, Tones."

All thoughts of Hemingway and Santiago and that fucking Marlin flee Tony’s mind as he stands from his chair and makes a running leap towards Rhodey’s bed.

Rhodey’s grin quickly melts from his face and is replaced with a look of utter terror as 120 pounds of pure spite land on him with the deftness of jungle cat.

Rhodey let’s out a yelp before swearing and him and Tony are grappling each other. In their struggle, Tony wriggles the wrong way and both of them are tumbling off of Rhodey’s bed and onto the wooden floors of their dorm.

They hit the floor with a loud thud that surprisingly doesn’t have someone knocking at their door to see if they’re alright.

In that moment, Tony can’t help but think of what Howard would say if he saw them. “Quit being childish,’ he would sneer, his face turning down into a frown Tony was all too familiar with. “This behavior is unfitting of a Stark.”

But as Rhodey’s laughter, ringing brightly like a bell, warms Tony from the inside like the sun, he can hardly bring himself to care.

***

On the day of their last midterm, Tony makes three batches of candied yams. The first batch he made, he didn’t let cook long enough and the sweet potato slices crunch in his mouth and taste vaguely of carrots instead of the cinnamony confection Rhodey had described. His second batch, he overcooks, the potatoes turning to mush in the pan. Right when he’s ready to give up, angry tears welling in the corners of his eyes, Rhodey pokes his head into the kitchen.

The other man’s eyes light up at the bag of bright orange sweet potatoes mocking Tony on the counter.

Rhodey doesn’t say anything, he just takes out four sweet potatoes and gets to peeling them. His hands are a blur as he makes quick work of the first sweet potato and starts on the second one like its nothing.

Tony wipes his face, grabs a sweet potato of his own, and gets to work.

The third batch is perfect, Rhodey tells him, practically moaning after carefully biting into a still steaming slice. Tony taking that as a good sign, digs in himself. His eyes close as the sweet, piquant syrup the sweet potatoes created floods his mouth and he has to agree. Candied yams may just push chocolate chip cookies down a spot on his favorite dessert list. Apple tortes are still first but candied yams, Tony decides, are damn close.

***

On a bitter, cold December’s night, Howard and Maria Stark are killed in a car crash along some deserted back road and something in Tony cracks.

Rhodey and Obadiah stand beside him as they lower his parents caskets into the fresh upturned earth and shield him from the view of the gaggle of reporters who had somehow made their way into the funeral and buzz around him like incessant flies.

Tony pokes mindlessly at his food at the repast; the food tastes like ashes in his mouth.

***

The next time Tony cooks, it’s on a plane halfway to California from Monaco. Pepper sits across from him, regal and golden in the sun’s rays parting through the clouds.

He’s not sure if it’s the knowledge of his forthcoming demise or something else, something more potent than he’s ever felt in his life, but she’s never looked more beautiful and the urge to say or do something has never been stronger.

And so Tony cooks. His head spins the entire time and his hands tremble as he flips the omelette and everything down to his marrow is screaming.

The omelette comes out blackened and burnt on one side and undercooked on the other and in that moment Tony hates the arc reactor with a ferocious intensity, wants to rip it from his chest, consequences be damned.

Even though it saved his life and gave him Iron Man, he detests it for taking this away from him.

Tony swallows his pride and sets the dish down in front of Pepper anyway and tries not to fall apart when she asks him what it is.

***

It isn’t until Natasha points out that he’s shivering when Steve realizes he’s still cold. They had fished him out of the Atlantic not even three months ago and yet the chill of the ice follows him around like a ghost. For a moment, he thought the serum had malfunctioned, but SHIELD’s medics had reassured him that his body temperature was normal.

“Perfect, even,” the medic had said with what Steve supposed was a comforting smile.

Perfect. Just like the rest of him.

The future—the present, he thinks, chiding himself—is just as strange, just as foreign as the feeling of warmth.

The food is strange and the people are stranger and he just wants to go back home. He never thought something as trivial as food would upset him; Steve was a child of the Depression. They were lucky if they had something other than boiled potatoes for dinner any time of the week.

He remembers the nights when their rations ran low and his mother would scrape whatever was left from their pantry and seemingly make a meal out of thin air. He remembers the hotdog-and-potato plates, and the creamed chip beef, and the thick sliminess unique only to egg drop soup. Sometimes when they craved something sweet, his mother would make fresh soda bread with dried currants and caraway seeds.

Sometimes the food didn’t taste great, he’ll admit that. But it didn’t taste terrible either. It tasted familiar. It tasted like home.

***

After living together for several months and bearing witness to many of the man’s brave (and stupid) exploits, Tony, Steve decides, is an enigma. He’s a contradiction, a logic puzzle that sits at the back of Steve’s mind and in his idle moments, he wants nothing more than to piece him together and make sense of the puzzle.

Some days, when Tony smiles at him (one of his real smiles that lights him up from the inside out), Steve figures that he’s close to figuring him out.

He’s still arrogant, especially on the battlefield, but whenever he watches Tony topple firewalls and HYDRA agents alike (often at the same time), he thinks that maybe Tony deserves to be a little arrogant.

There’s a sadness to Tony too. It’s one Steve recognizes because he can feel it in himself. It feels like the Atlantic Ocean flooding his mouth and sapping the strength from his bones. He sees it in Tony when he thinks no one’s looking. He sees it when someone brings up his past, the drinking, the parties, the carelessness and a rotten taste fills Steve’s mouth when he remembers what he said on the Helicarrier.

“Stop pretending to be a hero,” he had spat like a snake shooting its venom.

And part of him shatters like glass when he remembers what Tony had said; “Everything special about you came out of a bottle.”

Steve doesn’t try to block that day from his mind. It would be doing a disservice to both him and Tony. They had gotten off on the wrong foot in the beginning, practically itching for a fight. And now...Steve doesn’t know what to call them now. All he knows is that Tony drives the cold away. With his blinding grin and his near manic energy and his big brown eyes, whenever Tony directs his full attention at him, it’s like he’s laying out in the sun.

***

Tony still confuses him, even with his warmth. Steve is especially confused when Tony asks him out on a date, beating Steve to the punch, and he’s even more so when Tony tells him to come up to his penthouse suite.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting when the elevators door open and he steps out, but it sure as hell isn’t Tony Stark in the kitchen. He knows a few details about Tony’s life, he’s solved a bit of the puzzle; he knew Tony had butlers and maids growing up, but not once did he think Tony knew his way around a kitchen. But he does.

Tony’s a whirlwind, flitting from one pot to the other putting Steve in the mind of a little hummingbird flying from flower to flower in search of nectar.

Steve stalks into the kitchen and is immediately hit with the scents of his childhood. Mutton and onions and potatoes and carrots and underneath the savory mix, he can smell currants and caraway seeds.

Tony yelps and nearly drops the fresh loaf of soda bread he pulled from the oven when he sees Steve standing in the kitchen.

“Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me,” the genius says and sets the baking pan down on the counter-top. Tony had decided to dress down. He’s wearing black jeans and a ratty AC/DC t-shirt that shows off forearms (not that Steve is looking, he’s a gentleman, after all) and his hair is product free. Steve feels slightly overdressed in the dark blue button-down Natasha said matched his eyes and black slacks.

“Who said you could come early,” Tony says, but he’s all smiles. Steve can’t help but smile back as he shakes away his shock, his nerves and steps closer to the genius.

“Would you believe me if I said I just couldn’t stay away?” he asks, sliding his hands into his pockets.

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Rogers,” Tony says and plants a kiss on Steve’s cheek. His skin burns where Tony’s lip touched him. He wants to feel that burn all over his body. “But this was supposed to be a surprise.”

Now Tony’s pouting and look, Steve prides himself on being a gentleman and considerate, but he can’t help but lean forward and kiss the pout from Tony’s lips. It’s only fair after Tony kissed his cheek. Tony’s lips are soft and warm, and Steve finds himself kissing him a bit harder, chasing that warmth, needing it like he needs air.

Tony kisses him back, parts his lips and presses his small, lithe body against Steve’s. His arms wind around Steve’s neck and Steve’s settles his hands on Tony’s waist.

Eventually the need for air wins out and Tony’s pulling away from him. Steve wants to chase his lips but he settles for leaving his hands on Tony’s waist. They feel like they belong there. Likewise, Tony leaves his arms wrapped around Steve’s neck.

Tony looks up at him with fondness and lust his eyes. His lips are swollen and pink and his chest heaves slightly. A very large, very horny part of Steve practically purrs in satisfaction that he was the one to do that to the great Tony Stark.

“As much as I enjoyed that soldier, I’ve got a heart condition. You can’t just kiss me breathless like that,” Tony jokes.

“But it was so fun,” Steve replies, playing along.

“We also need to eat,” Tony says. “I spent all evening working on this meal and I’ll be damned if it goes to waste, Rogers.”

Steve knows when he’s beaten; “Fair enough, genius. I know that’s soda bread,” he says, gesturing to the loaf sitting on the counter. “But what else did you cook?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise but someone had to show up early and ruin everything.”

“My punctuality is part of my charm.”

Tony arches a fine, dark brow, “You? Punctual? The man who slept in the ocean for nearly seventy years?”

It’s weird, being able to joke about what happened to him now. But with Tony it feels fine, like it’s all in the past. What matters is now; this place and the people who go with it. He misses Peggy and Bucky and his Howlies but Stark Tower, the other Avengers, Tony, he wouldn’t give them up even if he had the chance.

“Okay, I may not have the best track record. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“I made Irish stew, soda bread and for dessert I was thinking of shortbread and Irish coffee?” Tony bites his lip and his eyes are impossibly wide as he looks up at Steve. “Is that okay?”

It’s probably, no definitely, too soon, but in that moment, Steve Rogers thinks he could be in love with Tony Stark.

“That’s fine. More than fine, actually,” he says and he means it.

Tony gives him that blinding grin and Steve wants to kiss him again.

***

The lamb meat falls off the bone. Steve dips his soda bread into the broth, lets it soak up the flavor. The sweetness of the currants and the savoriness of the stew are like a symphony of sensation in his mouth.

Later on, he does the same with his shortbread, dipping the sweet buttery biscuit into his coffee. Tony takes a sip from his coffee, barely suppressing the grin of satisfaction that hasn’t left his face since Steve took his first bite. The taste of the whiskey melds sweetly with the butter of the shortbread and lights a fire inside of him in the best way.

Tony gets whipped cream on his nose and his lips and Steve kisses it away. Tony tastes like chocolate and coffee and cream. He’s never tasted anything sweeter in his life.

They stay like that standing out on Tony’s balcony kissing and touching each other and simply being.

“There’s this French saying,” Tony says, when he pulls away. His eyes shine in the dark of the night. “Mise en place.”

Steve knows a little French from his war days, his long, hilarious conversations with Jacques coming to mind. “Everything in its place?”

“Yeah,” Tony answers. “It’s mainly used for cooking. Have all your ingredients and utensils lined up from the beginning. Makes it easier in the long run.”

“Mise en place,” Steve repeats. The words flow off his tongue. “Works for a lot of things.”

“Like us?”

“Like us,” Steve agrees and Tony kisses him again. Everything in its place indeed, Steve thinks.

#stony #stevetony #steve x tony #superhusbands #marvel #mcu #steve rogers #tony stark #stony fic #imperialstark fic #imperialstark writing #my fic #my writing

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losingmymindtonight · 5 years ago

Text

Whump: Hostage

AN: Y’all I mean it when I say that this one is long. It’s over 11k. So, if you’d rather read it on the AO3, I’m linking it right here.

Just a little housekeeping before we proceed! This is set post-Endgame, but with a few tweaks to pieces that I didn’t like, because this is fanfiction and I can do that. For one, Tony’s alive. Steve did not go back to Peggy. Bruce is not... that weird Hulk/Bruce thing.

This is technically a continuation of my last bingo square, which was AU: TV/Movie! You don’t need to have read that for this to make sense, but it would definitely help! If you haven’t read that other fic, just know that May died sometime after Endgame and Tony adopted Peter.

There’s a little ‘bonus scene’ at the end of this, from Natasha’s POV. It’s my version of an end credit scene, I guess. If I’m being honest, I don’t even know why it’s there, but it is.

This boy is long, and some parts are edited a lot better than others. Did I mention that this thing is 11k yet? Because it is, and I think I’ve gone insane.

EDIT: I’m a dumbass and I forgot to mention that this one is based off of a West Wing episode, just like the last square. If you’re a West Wing fan and it feels familiar, that’s why!

WARNINGS: kidnapping, mentions of date-rape drugs (but no sexual assault, just a brief mention near the end, and not in reference to something that actually occurred), non-consensual drug use, a couple mentions of alcohol, lots and lots of ruminations on a missing persons case, discussions of death (I don’t think there’s anything too graphic, but it’s there).

“Suma cum laude from Columbia. Columbia, Rhodey. Did you know that their acceptance rate is 5.1%? That’s the second most selective college in the Ivy League.”

Rhodey didn’t look nearly as impressed as Tony thought was appropriate. He just took a sip from his whiskey, tone dripping with sarcasm. “So you’ve told me.”

“That’s more selective than MIT.” He gestured with his own glass, although his was filled with some of Morgan’s apple juice. “Their acceptance rate is 7.9%. That’s a 2.8% difference.”

“Yes, Tones. I, too, am capable of basic math. Even though I did graduate from MIT, which is obviously the inferior institution here.”

He glared. “Yeah, well, did you know that Peter graduated on a 4.0 GPA? You know how hard it is to graduate on a 4.0 GPA at an Ivy League school?”

“I don’t know. Probably about as hard as graduating on a 4.0 GPA at MIT. Which I did, by the way.”

“Are you ever gonna let that one go? I’m the visionary of a generation, but I got one B in an English class and my best friend does a mutiny.”

“Yeah, well, your son managed to make an A in English.”

“He did, didn’t he?” He grinned, still drunk on the memory of Peter in his cap and gown, leaning down so that Morgan could adjust the tassel. “I think he made a 99 in that course, too. He’s smarter than you and me, Rhodey. I’ve been telling you that for years.”

Rhodey held up a hand, stalling him. “I’m sorry, you remember the exact number?”

“Of course he remembers the number, Rhodey,” Pepper sighed, slumping down at Tony’s side with a glass of wine in her hand. “He used to pin the screenshots from Canvas up in his office.”

Used to? He thought, a little incredulous. He still had them there.

“Listen,” he griped, “there are worse crimes than a father being proud of his child. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Sure,” Rhodey said, not even trying to conceal his amusement. “By the way, I thought that his security detail did a good job of blending in today. If I didn’t personally know all of them, I wouldn’t’ve suspected a thing.”

Tony snorted. “Let me tell you something: when it’s your kid, you don’t want them to blend in. You want them carrying a sign that says, I’m carrying a loaded gun and the safety’s off.” He swirled a finger around the rim of his glass. “But, yeah. I think Peter even managed to forget about them for most of it, which was the goal.”

“His speech was lovely as well,” Pepper interjected. “Very polished. He’s grown up a lot.”

A dagger of nostalgia pierced through him. “Oh, don’t remind me. I swear that I was coaching him through his first awkward date just a couple of days ago. What the hell is he doing going off to California all alone? It’s ridiculous.”

Rhodey snorted. “Sorry, I don’t get it. Are you proud of him or are you trying to lock him in the house and never let him out? I’m just trying to make sure that we’re all on the same page here.”

A chime from Rhodey’s phone interrupted the conversation. The man glanced down at the screen, expression darkening at whatever it was that he found there, and then quickly excused himself.

Tony didn’t really think anything of it. Rhodey got a lot of calls and texts that weren’t pleasant. It came with the territory of being such a high-ranking Colonel in the military. Nobody on Earth would call that a relaxing job. Plus, he still flew the occasional mission as War Machine. Not every superhero was quite as ready to leap into retirement as Tony had been.

Minutes trickled past with Rhodey out of the room, and Tony and Pepper found themselves constantly circling back to their favorite topic: their kids. They (well, it was mostly him, but Pep joined in occasionally) reminisced and complained, in the pride-struck kind of way, about the bittersweet upheaval that the upcoming months would bring to their lives. It was nice. It was quiet. It was a taste of the peace that he’d fought for through all those years as Iron Man.

Isn't that the mission? Isn't that why we fight? So we can end the fight? So we get to go home?

He’d ended the fight, and the endgame had been so much better than he could’ve ever imagined. When he’d said that to Steve, he hadn’t even had a home. His home had been the Avengers, even if he wasn’t ready to admit that to himself. But after Thanos, after hanging up the armor and looking into a future, a real future, he’d built a home. He’d built a home out of a dozen scattered bricks: the scarred shambles of his and Pepper’s baggage-laden love affair, a pregnancy test that was never meant to be positive, and a frightened, orphaned teenager with nowhere left to go. He’d taken those foundations, and he’d built and built and built until they were sheltered. Until they were home.

The pain of letting Peter leave, of releasing his grip and watching him run off to California to be his own person, to build his own home, his own life, was such a new, privileged kind of pain. It hurt, but in a gentle way. In the way that good things sometimes ached in the beginning, before they settled into a normalcy.

Tony had just decided that he’d be happy to live through a hundred moments of Peter graduating college (just so long as he could feel this proud with each repetition) when Rhodey surged back into the room, chest heaving.

He knew, somehow. He knew from the moment he saw the look on his best friend’s face. He knew even before Happy, who was not supposed to be here, who was supposed to be with Peter at some graduation party in the city, came barreling in at his heels. He knew.

Maybe it was a father’s intuition, maybe it was just paranoia, but he knew, and that knowing was the absolute worst thing in the world.

Everything froze.

“Rhodey?” He set his glass down on the coffee table, half-rose from the couch, wanting to ask but desperately not wanting to hear the answer that came after the asking. “What’s-”

“Tony, it’s Peter.”

The world had broken into color and chaos. The drinks had been cleared away, the coffee table in the living room swiped clean. Pepper was in the kitchen, babbling on the phone to about a dozen different people at SI, trying to organize whatever and whoever she could. The team was on their way: the new and the old. He’d spoken to Steve for a stunted 30 seconds, had pulled himself out of his adrenaline just long enough to process his promise of I’ll be there in an hour before hitting End Call.

He was sitting on the floor, now, back pressed against the couch, clutching the TV remote in his left hand for no reason other than to be holding something.

“Is Morgan still in her room?” He whispered, because that was… that was all he had left. God, he couldn’t live without one of them, how would he possibly survive losing them both?

“Yeah, Tony.” Happy seemed hesitant, like he wasn’t sure how much information he was meant to be revealing. “Pepper checked on her. We’re letting her sleep.”

“Okay. Okay.” He closed his eyes. Tried to steady himself on a home-grown foundation that had just lost one of its most vital supports. “Okay. Tell me everything.”

Rhodey knelt beside him, hand heavy on his shoulder. “Tony, are you sure that you shouldn’t-

“Yes, I’m sure,” he snarled, although he wasn’t really sure what he was sure about. He wanted his child back? Yeah… Yeah. He was sure about that. He was sure about regretting the fact that he’d ever let Peter leave his sight. “Now, will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?”

Happy sighed, pushing the coffee table out of the way and joining Rhodey on his knees in front of him. It was funny, in a horrible, morbid, stomach-twisting sort of way. Three of the most high-powered men in the country were kneeling on the floor, falling to pieces because a single kid was missing.

“He was with his friends, at a club,” Happy started slowly. “We had two of his guards in there with him, blending in and keeping their distance, and a group of six more stationed on the outside. He got up to go to the bathroom. One of the guards followed, the other stuck by his friends so they could have eyes on him when he came back. We don’t really know what the hell happened after that. As far as the guards saw, he never came out of the bathroom. One of them went in after about ten minutes, checked all the stalls. His phone was on the floor, but he wasn’t there, so they raised the alarm. We scanned the perimeter, and found skid marks and one of the external guards down by the kitchen’s loading area-”

Tony hated panic, hated situations that threw him in the deep end like this. He wasn’t used to being slow, to being one step behind everyone else, but that’s exactly what this was. He was handicapped, stuck in molasses because this was his child. There was nothing… There was no way that the word efficiency could slot into the haze settling over him.

“What, uh,” he shook his head, trying to clear it, to knock his thoughts into something orderly and complete, “what do you mean, one of the guards was down?”

“They’re dead, Tony,” Happy breathed, and even though his own turmoil, Tony could see the pain on the man’s face. “Whoever took Peter shot them in the head. By the time we got to the scene, there was nothing we could do.”

Peter’s never going to forgive himself for that.

He didn’t even have the presence of mind to feel guilt over the fact that his only concern was for Peter. The guard… he’d feel bad about that later. He’d compartmentalize it, because it was selfish and horrible and very unheroic, but nobody mattered more than Peter. Nobody mattered more than his kid.

“Why… Why didn’t he hit his panic button?”

“That’s the question.” Happy scrubbed a hand down the front of his face. Every inch of him looked tired, like he’d been running on empty for weeks and weeks and weeks, except it hadn’t been weeks. It had only been a few hours since Peter had been taken, only a few minutes since Tony had been told, but it felt like… it felt like decades. “We found it out in the alley, a few feet away from where we think the getaway car must’ve been parked. He never pushed it.”

“He didn’t push it?”

“No.”

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. Sure, Peter could be a brat about security sometimes, but he did use the resources he was given. He’d hit the panic button multiple times before. Why didn’t he do it now? Why?

He shook his head again, swallowed hard past the lump growing in his throat. “So… So he knew them. He must’ve.”

“Or… Tony, you know I don’t wanna be the person to break this to you, but he was drunk. He’d already had about half a bottle of champagne and a few shots by the time he was taken. One of the guards said he was stumbling when he got up to go to the bathroom, and his friends told us that he seemed pretty wasted.”

That shouldn’t have mattered. Peter was… he was 22, for god’s sake. He’d just graduated valedictorian from Columbia. The kid was allowed to drink some champagne, to get a little-

“Wait, no.” He ran a few numbers through his head, cold and ice and dread sprouting up in his lungs as they refused to compute. “That… he was stumbling?”

“Yeah. That’s what one of his detail said, at least.”

“No, that… that doesn’t make sense, Hap. He… He shouldn’t’ve been that out of it already. His… His metabolism. It’d take more than some champagne and a few shots to get him that drunk. He’d need… He’d need something else.”

Realization snapped over Happy’s face, and he lunged to his feet, kicked the leg of the coffee table irritably when it got in his way. “Fuck. Shit. Why didn’t I think of that? They drugged him. They must’ve.”

Rhodey rubbed Tony’s shoulder, his calm presence the only anchor in wave after wave of helplessness, failure, fear. “Then they were inside the club. Or they had someone helping them.”

Happy was nodding restlessly, already working furiously on his phone. “I’m gonna call the guys on the scene, tell them to detain the bartender and anybody else who might’ve had access to the kid’s drink. And I’ll have someone get his glass and that bottle of champagne for testing.”

“You go,” Rhodey said, slipping forward to settle down at Tony’s side. “I’ll stay here. Hold down the fort.”

“Got it.”

Happy was rushing for the door. Tony could still hear Pepper talking in the kitchen. The team must’ve been most of the way to the cabin by now, scrambling over themselves because this was… it was all too much. Too awful to comprehend. Tony’s brain couldn’t process it. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that Peter just… wasn’t going to come home. Wasn’t going to walk through the front door, a little tipsy and a little unbalanced but fine. Safe and loved and present. Ready to fly off to California at the end of the summer and leave a very, very proud Tony behind.

“Happy?” He called out, voice rough. The man went stock-still in the doorway, just barely turning to let him know that he had his attention. “Call me as soon as you know anything? Even if… Even if it’s bad. Just… please. Call me.”

That’s my baby, he thought, chest constricting at the bone-crushing loss of it all, if he’s dead… if he’s… if he’s never coming home, then I need to know. I need to know.

“I will, Tony. I promise.”

The Avengers blew into the cabin like a choreographed hurricane.

Tony had rarely had a chance to admire their efficiency from afar. He was usually on the outskirts of the disasters, working alongside them. But now he was the disaster. He was ground zero.

Rhodey brief them on what they knew so far, and the living room was quickly transformed from a haven of fireplace and colorful throws and family movie nights into a control room. The only thing that wasn’t touched was the couch Tony was leaning against. He didn’t even realize that it was because of him until Steve sat down on the carpet, brow furrowed in concern as he set a cautious hand on his knee.

“Tony, I want you to let Bruce examine you.”

He scoffed at the suggestion, bitterness rolling over him so suddenly that he felt swamped by it.

“And I want my child back,” he snarled. “Guess tonight’s just gonna be full of disappointments for all of us, huh?”

“Tony.”

“Don’t even start with me, Rogers.” He didn’t know why he was being so cruel to Steve. The man didn’t deserve it. He was just… the closest target. The easiest thing to despise. “I’m just not in the mood.”

“Tones,” Rhodey whispered, dropping down pacifyingly between him and Steve, “listen to me. You know that your heart’s weaker after the Snap. If I’m hauling your ass to a hospital, I’m not looking for your kid. We’ve gotta prioritize, here.”

Even in this state, Tony was clever enough to know when he was being manipulated.

Luckily for Rhodey, he was just too goddamn tired to care.

“Fine,” he growled. “What the fuck ever. Just do it.”

Rhodey was right, unfortunately. He didn’t have time for a heart attack right now, didn’t have time for his body to be anything but functional. After they brought Peter home, well… then it didn’t really matter anymore.

He blinked up at the ceiling, ignoring Bruce as he tugged out his arm, clipped something onto his finger.

Bring him home, he prayed, although to who, he didn’t really know, please, just bring him home to me.

Apparently, his blood pressure was high.

Everyone seemed pretty damn concerned about it, which was just… honestly, it was hilarious.

Did they think it wouldn’t be high? His child was off god-knows-where with god-knows-who, probably drugged and confused and afraid and desperately in need of his father, and Tony was supposed to be calming down for the sake of his blood pressure?

His blood pressure could go screw itself, for all he cared.

Of course, nobody else seemed to share his viewpoint. They all fussed over him. Pepper tried to get him to do some bullshit breathing exercises, while Bruce called Cho and bickered with her about medication and preventative measures.

He really didn’t know how to explain to everyone that there was only one cure, and it was his child, safe in his arms.

Until that happened, there wasn’t a drug or a pill or a yoga technique in the world that could save him.

Happy burst into the room without any ceremony.

“I’ve got the results from Peter’s drinks.”

Tony staggered upright, shoving Clint’s hands away as the man tried to steady him. He felt breakable, like a single touch might send cracks down his spine, into his bones and down through the ground. Like one wrong move might split him apart.

“And?”

Happy winced. Physically winced, like the words he was about to say weighed a thousand tons. “They found gamma hydroxy butyrate, more commonly known as-”

“GHB,” Tony finished, and he was surprised by how numb he felt at the news. It should’ve terrified him. At the very least, he should’ve felt something. Instead, he just stared at it clinically, chemical formulas and sterile facts filling his head in place of the things he just couldn’t think about. The things he didn’t want to face. “It’s degreasing solvent mixed with drain cleaner.”

God. Drain cleaner. Someone… Someone had given his kid drain cleaner.

“Exactly,” Happy said, voice small and unsure. “And in low doses-”

“In low doses,” he breathed, “it’s a date-rape drug.”

Pain streaked across his old bodyguard’s face: a cocktail of guilt and terror and shame. “Yeah, Tony. It’s… It’s a date-rape drug.”

He swallowed. “That’s, uh, that’s why he was stumbling. Why he didn’t hit the panic button.”

Happy nodded. “Yeah. From the looks of the doses, it was probably meant to knock him out, but with his metabolism…”

Tony finished the sentence in his head. With his metabolism, it probably just made him feel awful, sick, confused. He probably wondered what the hell was happening to him. He probably wanted me.

“He was awake when they took him,” Tony whispered, nauseous. God, he was awake when they took him.

“That’s our best guess. And, uh, Tony…. Listen, I don’t really know if I should be telling you this, but-”

“Tell me,” he ordered, voice somehow sharp and resigned all at once. He… He had to hear it. He had to hear everything. It didn’t matter if it gave him nightmares for the rest of his life, didn’t matter if it was the worst thing he’d ever heard.

It was the only link to Peter that he had.

Happy was silent for a few seconds, then let out a defeated breath. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Peter’s phone. Tony knew it was his because of the case: pink and green and godawful to look at. The kid had only bought it because Morgan had liked it so much.

“We’ve gotten all we can from this, so I thought I’d give it back.” He handed it over, and Tony slid his fingers over the case, borderline reverent. He could still imagine it in Peter’s hands, or charging on his bedside table, or getting tossed onto the couch in favor of playing a boardgame with Morgan. Tiny, insignificant snippets of life, and yet they mattered so much. They’d mattered so much. “We think he was using it when they grabbed him.”

He tilted the phone to the light, watched his reflection warp in the glass screen. “What was he doing?”

“He was texting you.”

Something icy gripped his chest. When he finally managed to force words up his throat, his voice came out hoarse.

“What’d he say?”

Happy just gestured at the phone, expression pinched. “Bathroom didn’t have any service, so none of them sent, but it’s all still there. We didn’t delete anything. D’you know his passcode?”

“Yeah,” he said. Peter just doesn’t think that I do.

“Okay. Well, I’m… I’m gonna get back to work. I’ll come back if we find anything.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to read it, Tony.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Alright.”

He heard rather than saw Happy move away, just barely caught him murmuring, “don’t let him spiral,” to Rhodey before he left.

Sure enough, Rhodey was right beside him within a few seconds, voice lowered in a guise of privacy, despite the fact that the room was still packed with Avengers, all pretending not to watch but definitely watching.

“Tony, it’s late,” he whispered. “Don’t do this now. Get some rest, and you can face it in the morning, if you really have to.”

“No,” he said, more forceful than he’d intended, but then again, Rhodey just didn’t understand. He was holding his child’s last words in his hands. How could he not read them? What kind of father would he be if he didn’t? “No. I need to do this now.”

He left the living room before anyone could stop him.

Happy’s car was already gone by the time he got to the front porch. He briefly considered settling down in one of the rocking chairs, or the porch swing, but every one of them carried a dozen memories of Peter, of summer days and fall nights and laughter and warmth and the kid’s head pressing heavy on his shoulder and he just couldn’t. He couldn’t face them.

He sat on the floor, back pressed up against the cabin, knees drawn to his chest.

He unlocked Peter’s phone. The brightness was up, but it automatically adjusted after a second or two. He opened the messages app, clicked his contact icon, and read.

hey tony? i thimk i fucked up (ERROR: not delivered)

i feel super super gross (ERROR: not delivered)

:( (ERROR: not delivered)

plz dont be mad i didnt mean to grt thsi drunk (ERROR: not delivered)

ugh fuck batgroom service (ERROR: not delivered)

i just kinda wish u were here to yell at me rn (ERROR: not delivered)

The front porch was nice at sunrise.

He’d spent so many hours out here, with Morgan and Peter. Both of them tended to be up early: Morgan because she was a child, Peter because he carried things that no child ever should. He’d sit with them, curled up under one of the afghans Pepper liked to buy from pop-up markets, and watch the sky become an oil painting.

That’d be a pretty smoothie, Morgan would say, pointing at the horizon, and Peter would laugh like she was the funniest thing in the world.

And what would it taste like, Mo?

Like a smoothie!

He heard the door swing open to his left, and while he knew it wasn’t Peter, a tiny part of him wanted to keeping pretending.

“Tones?”

Rhodey. Right. Of course it was Rhodey. Who else would come out here this early, ready to pick his ass up off the floor?

“Did you find anything?” He rasped, still staring out at the lake, watching the daylight step into the clouds, wishing he was watching Peter instead.

“Not yet.”

He just barely inclined his head in response. The answer should’ve hurt him, should’ve stung or panged or something, but it didn’t. After a while, pain just become pain. There wasn’t a scale anymore, wasn’t any room for additions or levels. There was just pain. Pain, and a family missing child. That’s all Tony had.

“I need you to tell me something,” he whispered, then swallowed. His throat scratched, dry and hot, “and I need you to be honest with me when you answer.”

Rhodey sat down beside him, leg braces glowing gently in the yellow-red dawn. “I can do that,” he responded, solemn.

“Do you… Do you think he’s already dead?”

Rhodey’s answer came immediately. “No.”

“Are you lying?”

“If I thought he was dead, I’d tell you.”

“Do you promise?” He balled up a fist, resisted to urge to slam it through the nearest object. “If you… If we reach a point where you think he’s dead, do you promise to tell me?”

He knew he was asking a lot. He could tell, because Rhodey’s breath caught, and he paused. Considered.

“Yeah, Tony,” Rhodey murmured, with all the enthusiasm of someone bartering away their soul. “I promise.”

“Good.” It wasn’t, but it felt like the right thing to say. “This is… This is bad, Rhodey.”

“Yeah, Tony, I know.”

He dropped his head into his hands, strained and exhausting and defeated. Peter was all it took, and Iron Man was down, decimated, conquered.

“If… If they show me a picture of him alive,” he whispered, and he knew he was saying something awful, admitting something dark and frightening, “and then they tell me to aim missiles at… at some hospital full of refugees on the Syrian border, they’re counting on the fact that a father would-”

“But you wouldn’t.”

His head snapped back up, and he nearly laughed at the conviction in Rhodey’s voice. God, had everyone really forgotten who he truly was? The heroism of Iron Man was an act. It was a stage curtain, drawn down to hide the monster underneath. Tony Stark was not a good man. He was certainly not a selfless one.

Yet he was so good at pretending that even his best friend believed the ruse.

He turned to stare at Rhodey, voice low. “I might.”

And that might be the most important thing I’ve ever said to you.

The corner of Rhodey’s mouth quirked up, like some part of this was actually amusing to him. “There are people around you who won’t let you.”

He couldn’t possibly be this good at deception. Had Rhodey actually forgotten? Had he forgotten that Tony hadn’t always been an Avenger, that the Merchant of Death was still a title that haunted him? Somedays, he was almost certain that he was more Merchant of Death than he was Iron Man. More a war-profiteer than he was an idol.

“What about a picture?” He said, because he didn’t know how to stop. He’d never known how to stop. “They’ve got a knife to his throat, and they tell me to send a Jericho missile to a bunker in Afghanistan?”

Rhodey shook his head. “You shouldn’t think of images like that.”

This time, he did laugh. Rhodey flinched, concern etched in every inch of his face, because yeah, Tony probably looked like he was losing his mind. And wasn’t he? His child was missing. There was no sanity to this.

“All I can think of are images like that.”

“Tony…”

“I know it's a strange time to bring this up,” he said, and he knew it was abrupt, but nothing seemed quite so linear anymore, “but I forecasted this once. I made up a scary story a few years ago for Peter so that he’d take his protection seriously, and I… and I went too far. And I scared him.” He let out a breath, years-harbored shame rising in his chest. “And he cried. And this… this was the story.”

“Tony-”

“I’m supposed to keep him safe.” His shoulders jerked, his breath hitched. He bit his knuckles to hold back a sob, ribs creaking under the strain of keeping it in. “That’s… fuck, Rhodey, that’s my only job. I’m supposed to keep him safe.”

“You can’t protect him from everything.” There was a pause, hesitant. “The world doesn’t stop spinning just because he’s your child. He’s gotta find his way just like everybody else, and you were letting him do that.”

He wished it was as easy as that, as straightforward and simple to navigate, but it wasn’t. Once again, they’d found their way back to the same frustration he’d been helping Peter cope with for years: being a Stark was not normal. Nothing around them would ever be normal. Sure, the world didn’t stop spinning, but they had to operate differently inside of it, just because of Tony and his curse of a last name.

The money was nice. The fame was even pleasant, every once in a while. It certainly had been when he was young. But now? God, Tony just wanted quiet. He didn’t want this for his children. He’d give anything to drop off the radar, live in some middle-class neighborhood, buy a lawnmower, argue with Pepper about school districts.

“But they took him because he’s my child,” he pushed. They took him because they know it’ll break me. “This… This wouldn’t’ve happened to another kid, Rhodey. You know that.”

“Maybe not, but it did happen, and that’s what you’ve got to work with. Now, come inside,” Rhodey ordered, slicing a knife down on the conversation, as if ending the words could end the horrors still playing through Tony’s head. “Come inside, sit with your wife, and let us fix this.”

There is no fixing this. This will never be fixed.

But instead of staying that, he just did as he was told, and hoped that the next few hours wouldn’t bring him doing something awful in Peter’s name.

It was such a pure name, washed clean by kid who carried it. It didn’t deserve to be sullied by Tony’s true nature, by the darkness he dragged behind him like a chain.

God knows that enough had already been sacrificed on that altar.

It was daylight, and there were reporters outside.

Happy and his guys were keeping them back. Apparently, they’d released details of Peter’s kidnapping to the press in the hope that someone might’ve seen something, that they’d come forward with information. In these kinds of cases, one detail, one first person account, could be the difference between life and death.

They’d set up a hotline, and the team was already chasing a few leads, but the reporters were chasing the story, the sensationalism of it all, and Tony hated it.

His child wasn’t a headline. His child was a child. A living, breathing, precious person. Something be cradled and adored and protected. Not something be exploited for a melodramatic hook.

Pepper and Steve would talk about it in tense, hushed tones. A couple of the Avengers had gone out to talk to the gathered press, just once or twice, but Tony didn’t have a clue what they were saying.

What did other parents do when this sort of thing happened? When their child was taken from them? He remembered a few high-profile kidnappings, all distant and wobbly in his head. What did they do? Did they print flyers? Did they give interviews? Did they beg?

Wait. Wait. That’s… That’s exactly what parents did.

They begged. They pleaded. They told the kidnappers that they’d do whatever they wanted, as long as they got their baby back.

He staggered to his feet, a little wobbly but emotions finally hardening into something tangible, something he could focus on.

There were only a few things on Earth that Tony Stark was willing to swallow his pride for, and this… this was one of them. His children would always be one of them.

He was going to beg.

He only made it about four steps towards the cabin’s door before the team noticed. There were a solid few seconds of scattered glances, a rapid exchange of responsibilities, until Natasha stood and took the lead.

“Tony?” She grabbed at his arm, expression somehow soft and fierce all at once. “Tony, what are you doing?”

“I’m gonna make a direct appeal.”

The whole room went silent. He made the mistake of glancing at Clint’s face, and the raw pity there made him want to scream.

“Tony,” Nat said, voice quiet, coaxing, lowered like he was stupid, “you can’t.”

“I’m his father,” he choked out, because at the end of the day, that was the only thing that mattered, the only explanation that he should ever have to give. “I-I don’t even know why I’ve waited this long. I-”

And then Steve was there, reaching for his other arm, voice as calm and solid as it always was.

“Come on, Tony, let’s think this through-”

“Get away from me,” he snapped.

“Tony-”

“I’m going to make a direct appeal,” he repeated, and even he knew that he sounded like a broken record, but he just… all he could see was Peter. The stupid grin on his face earlier that day, when Morgan had barreled into his chest and he’d scooped her up off the ground, spinning her like she was the one who just graduated, like she was the most valuable thing he’d ever held. “I don’t know why I waited this long.”

Nat sounded a little desperate now, pulling hard at his sleeve, warning. “Tony, I know that you’ve convinced yourself that you’re doing what’s right, but you’re not thinking straight-”

And then there was Pepper.

She planted herself between him and the door, firm and solid and Tony knew, he knew that he wasn’t getting past her. He knew it from the moment he saw the look on her face: devastated and loving and calm.

“Stop it, Tony,” she said, soft and kind.

He grabbed for her, taking fistfuls of her shirt and clinging. He felt like a little kid, confused and lost and alone. He was navigating whitewater rapids without a map or a paddle. He couldn’t… He couldn’t do this. People weren’t built to survive this kind of thing. It wasn’t possible.

“I… I have to make a direct-”

“No,” she murmured, cutting him off. “No, Tony, Natasha’s right. You can’t.”

“Why not?”

He had meant for the question to be abrasive, angry, but it just came out broken.

“It can be seen as negotiating with the people who took him,” Pepper said, not apologizing, not pulling punches, “and if their goal is to destabilize us, or Stark Industries, or the Avengers, then they're going to see you and know that they're succeeding.” She let out a breath, composure cracking just a little, just at the corners. “You… You can’t make a direct appeal.”

He knew she was right. He’d known she was right long before he’d even made the choice to do it.

It still felt like he’d been torn in two.

He sank to the floor. He was vaguely aware of Natasha grabbing his elbow, guiding him down so he didn’t hurt himself. She pushed him up against the wall, then stepped away, gave him the room he needed to crumble.

“Honey,” Pepper whispered, voice hitching, hands tracing down his face. He didn’t know when she’d joined him on the floor, but he… he was so glad she was there. He was so glad that someone was still there. “Honey, I…”

“I’ve seen other fathers do it,” he croaked. “Before. In… In other kidnappings. I’ve seen other fathers do it.”

“I know.”

“I thought… I just thought that, that maybe if I tried, then I would’ve… then I would’ve done something.”

“I know.”

“I can’t stand not doing something. I have to be doing something.”

“I know that, too.”

His eyes jerked up, meeting hers in a clash of long-harbored panic. “Pep… What if he’s…”

“He’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re not other fathers,” she said gently, a sad smile on her face. “Other fathers make direct appeals because that’s all they can do. They’re going to want to negotiate, Tony.”

“I… I can’t negotiate, Pep. Not… Not for him. How could I?”

“I know that. That’s why I’m going to do it.”

He blinked. That was… a good idea. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. Pepper had never, ever lost a deal that mattered. Ever. She had a spotless track record. And while she loved Peter, she wasn’t as shredded by this as he was. Her head was still above the water, at least for now.

Pepper had joked, once, a little bitterly, that Peter was all Tony’s kid, she just helped out with the details. He knew that wasn’t entirely true, of course. She’d stepped up for Peter in ways that had mattered beyond her comprehension, but she wasn’t entirely wrong, either. Peter had been his kid long before he’d been Pepper’s. And that changed dynamics. It had to.

“You have to bring him home.”

“We will, Tony,” Pepper said, and Tony wished with everything he had that he could drown himself in her belief, her faith. “We’re going to do everything we can to bring him back to you.”

He tried to ignore the fact that, as promises went, she’d just given him a pretty unstable one.

Tony was still sitting on the floor, staring blankly into nothing, when the alert chimed in.

He didn’t think anything of it, at first, and he supposed that he’d been doing a lot of that tonight. Staring past the obvious, overlooking the signs because ignorance was so blessed and calm compared to knowing.

But then Natasha’s face went hard, and she was waving for Steve, and then he was waving for Rhodey, and then he was waving for Pepper, and Tony realized that something had just gone very, very wrong.

He staggered upright, making a beeline for the rapidly growing group huddled around Natasha’s laptop. He couldn’t see past their shoulders, couldn’t even hear what they were saying, because so many voices were intersecting and overlapping in every other beat, and it was enough to make him want to scream.

“Is it Peter?” He snapped, and Steve swung to face him, face a mixture of pity and concern.

“Tony…”

That was all the answer he’d needed. It was Peter, then. Hell, what else would it be?

Something else had happened to Peter. Somewhere in his gut, he knew it was bad. Awful. Nothing that he wanted to see.

And yet he knew that he had to.

He tried to push past Steve’s restraining hand, craning his neck to catch of glimpse of the screen. “What is it?”

“It’s a ransom note,” Natasha said, forever to the point. He’d never appreciated that personality trait more than he did in that exact moment.

“And they sent a picture,” Steve added.

The world snapped to a halt. He felt hysterical. Unhinged. And Steve… Steve didn’t understand. None of them did, except maybe Clint. He was a father and he’d been torn away from his child. He just… He just wanted him back, even if it was in the form of a picture. Even if it was through a ransom note.

“Is it of Peter?!” He tried to lunge forward again, and failed. Damn Steve’s super strength. He wished he had the suit. “The… The picture. Is the picture of Peter?”

“Yeah, Tony, it is, but you have to understand-”

“Let me see,” he snarled. “He’s my kid. It’s for me. So let me see it.”

To his surprise, the group all exchanged glances, different people in varying degrees of sympathetic pain, and parted.

The image had obviously been taken with a polaroid camera, and then scanned or faxed alongside the handwritten ransom note. The quality was bad, but it was clear enough to show details. It… It wasn’t grainy enough to spare him.

Peter was tied to a chair, a dirty gag shoved into his mouth, digging into his cheeks. The kidnappers had tossed a newspaper into his lap, proof of life with the date clearly shown, but that wasn’t what caught Tony’s attention. No, it was Peter’s face that ached, somewhere deep in his gut. If he was a spiritual man, he would’ve said that it ached in his soul.

He knew his kid. Knew his eyes like he’d never known anything else. And that photo? It was wrong. Peter wasn’t just scared: he was drugged out of his mind. In fact, it was the general lack of fear in the kid’s gaze that disturbed him the most. He looked too incoherent for any emotion other than exhaustion.

He’d seen Peter high before, always after Spider-Man related injuries, but it’d never been like this. It had always been monitored, consensual, safe, and nothing they’d given him had ever made him vacant. He was usually just sleepy or giggly or both. He’d… He’d never looked so detached.

It made Tony want to hold him, shield him, but now he couldn’t do either of those things and it hurt.

“Oh, god,” he gasped, panic attack smacking right into him without warning, without a single chance to batten down the hatches. “Fuck.”

The world tilt-a-whirled. He felt Rhodey grab him, push and pull and tug him until he was sitting on the couch. His head was shoved between his knees, and conversations pinged around above him without any of the words computing. All he could hearseethink was Peter, Peter, Peter.

If I was a better father, none of this would’ve ever happened.

Eventually, someone grabbed his shoulders, hauled him upright, and it took him a full minute to realize it was Rhodey.

“Tony,” the Colonel said, and he sounded serious, like whatever he was saying was final, no arguments allow. “I’m going to call Bruce, alright?”

Yes. Yes. Bruce… Bruce would be good now. He’d heard them whispering about sedating him earlier, off in corners and hallways, when they thought he was too absorbed in his grief to notice. At the time, the thought had made his heart race, terror and revulsion making him paranoid. He couldn’t check out. He couldn’t. What use would he be to Peter like that?

Now, he’d lunge for just about anything that would take this feeling away. That would let him pull back from the grainy images of Peter’s eyes: glassy, unfocused, afraid and confused and lacking in that spark that would lull Tony into moments of forgetfulness. Moments when he’d genuinely have to remind himself that Morgan was the one with his DNA, not Peter.

“Tell him,” he gasped, eyes squeezed shut against the things he didn’t want to see, the photo that he’d never be able to forget, “tell him that I want whatever it is that Peter got.”

He didn’t know how long he slept for, but he knew that when he woke up, he woke up groggy. Groggy enough that, for a shamefully calm half hour, he forgot that Peter was missing.

And then he remembered, and he lost his child all over again.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. must’ve alerted Pepper when his heartrate spiked, because she slipped into the room within two minutes. She sat beside him, hand resting on his hip through their comforter. Her eyes were red, but she smiled like it was just another Tuesday, like their entire world wasn’t crumbling down around their feet, and he envied her. He envied her the composure. The ability to catalogue the things that were important and the things that weren’t.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey.”

“I thought you’d sleep longer than this.”

He pursed his lips, ignored the implicit suggestion in the words. “Anything new?”

“No.”

He nodded, took in the disappointment slowly, wondered how long he could survive living in limbo. There were thousands upon thousands of unsolved missing persons cases in the United States alone. Every hour that crawled by lessened their chances of bringing Peter home alive, or even bringing him home at all. How could Tony possibly be one of those parents, the ones who spent the rest of their heartbeats agonizing over their child’s loss?

Are they still alive, hidden somewhere out in the world, vulnerable and unprotected? Are they dead? Which option is better: knowing that they’re alive, and suffering, or dead and free? Oh, god. What was it like, at the end? Were they afraid? Did they cry? Did they call out for their dad, because he was the one person who was always meant to save them?

Tony hadn’t been there for the start of Peter’s life. And now it might be over, Peter might be gone, and he hadn’t even been there for that, too. Couldn’t even say if it had happened.

“What time is it?” He asked, just to distract himself. Besides, every hour marked a dwindling statistic. Tony needed to know if they stood a chance, if there was still even a sliver of hope, and someone must’ve closed the curtains after he’d gone to bed, so he couldn’t quite see if there was daylight or darkness behind them.

“7:30.”

“Oh,” he whispered. That was later than he’d thought. The graph in his head nosedived. “Bruce gave me something.”

Pepper’s face twitched, eyes bleeding sympathy. “I know. I’m so sorry, honey.”

“They gave… They gave Peter something, too,” he choked out, “and… and he said that it made him feel sick and I wasn’t there to take care of him.”

Pepper’s blink lasted a good few seconds longer than it should’ve, as if watching Tony crumble was too much for her to watch, but the rest of her stayed steady. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He swallowed, trying to stamp down the perpetual helplessness that had taken residence in his gut, replace it with something else, something he could hold.

“How’s Morgan?”

“She’s okay. She’s been asking to see you.”

“I wanna see her.”

“In a minute.” Pepper slid her hand through his hair, voice soft, the kind of tone she used with Morgan or Peter when they were upset. “Try to relax a little first.”

“I had a dream,” he blurted. He knew that this was probably the opposite of what Pepper meant by relaxing, but he couldn’t help it. “I was in Peter’s bedroom, but it was… it was before. Right after May died. Remember… Remember how he wouldn’t get out of bed?”

For a split second, Pepper’s face flashed from composure to devastation, but it was so brief that it was easy to imagine that it had never happened at all. “Of course I remember. He wouldn’t get up, so you used to go in there and sit with him.”

“Yeah,” he whispered, and he smiled despite himself. He treasured those memories just as much as he wished they’d never happened. Helping Peter grieve for May was an ongoing tragedy, and one of the hardest things he’d ever had to watch, but once the initial aftershocks ended, Tony had gained a second child. “He’d curled up in my lap, and I was holding him. We didn’t… We weren’t even talking. I was just holding him.”

He swallowed, breath hitching. He met Pepper’s eyes, trying desperately to convey something that just wasn’t possible to capture in words. A loss, a fear, a weakening hope.

“Pep,” he whispered, hoarse and crackling, “Pep, I was holding him, but then I woke up and he wasn’t there.”

She didn’t say anything. Didn’t apologize, or promise that they’d get him back.

She just reached out and took his hand.

It was just past 11:00 when Rhodey pushed into the bedroom.

For a split second, Tony assumed the worst. But then,

“We found him,” Rhodey breathed. Beside him, Pepper gasped, like she couldn’t believe it. “Happy got a lead and, well, it doesn’t really matter. But we’ve got him, Tones. Steve’s got him.”

The flight from New York to Calverton, Virginia took an hour. They left Morgan back at the cabin, with Clint’s wife. Tony half considered bringing her, but he didn’t know what shape Peter would be in, physically or mentally. And he… he didn’t want to frighten her, although he supposed that was a moot point after the last 48 hours.

When this was all over, Tony promised himself that he’d apologize to both his children, for lots of different things.

For now, he just wanted Peter. He wanted to hold him, like in his dream but real. He wanted a moment that he couldn’t wake up from.

He mostly ignored Rhodey’s explanation of how they’d tracked the kidnappers down. It was complicated and had something to do with a gas station and a random college kid who’d seen Peter’s picture on the news. Happenstance, really. They’d gotten lucky.

“Is he alright?” Pepper asked, and Tony was glad that someone rational was thinking of the important things. “Did they hurt him?”

“The medics think that he may have a clavicle fracture,” Rhodey said. Tony could feel his eyes on him even though he was staring at his feet. “His kidnappers set off some tear gas and stun grenades when the team went it, so he’s got some irritation and ringing in his ears. No sign of sexual assault, but he’s still pretty out of it. They’re running a tox screen to make sure we’re not in danger of any overdoses.”

Tony looked up. He flexed his hands out in front of him, wincing when his wrists popped. “Is he asking for me?”

“Yeah. Steve said that that’s pretty much the only thing he’s said, too. Asked where you were a couple times and checked out.”

Tony bit his lip. Peter had been drugged, beaten, surrounded by doctors he didn’t know and thrown right into the chaos of a crime scene, and yet he’d still looked up at strangers and asked for him.

“Does he know I’m coming?”

“The medics told him.” Rhodey reached across the seats and grabbed his elbow as they started to descend, engines whining. “Hey, look at me. You sure you’re good to do this?”

He blinked, barely even processing the words.

What kind of question is that?

“This,” he started, quiet enough that there was no way Rhodey would’ve heard him if they didn’t have headsets, “is my job.”

“If he sees you upset, it’s gonna make him even more upset.”

“He won’t see me upset.”

Rhodey groaned, and it kind of hurt that nobody seemed to believe he was capable of parenting his own goddamn kid, no matter what emotional state he was in. “Tony, you’re-”

“Very good at this,” he finished, cutting off whatever Rhodey actually meant to say. He imagined he wouldn’t’ve liked it much, anyway. “I’m very good at this.”

“I know you are, Tony, but this has been a rough-”

“He won’t know I’m upset,” he snarled, voice dangerous, and it felt so good to have a purpose. To have something to curl over and protect. “He won’t.”

Rhodey sighed, defeated. He didn’t look like he believed him, but Tony didn’t really care. “Alright. Just be careful, okay? Don’t go overboard.”

Overboard. Of course he was gonna go overboard. He was gonna go overboard with absolutely everything for the rest of Peter’s life.

He didn’t bother walking when the helicopter landed. He just bolted, weaving through police and paramedics and FBI agents and what felt like a thousand other pointless uniforms. Pepper and Rhodey both tailed him, not missing a beat.

Nobody had told him where Peter was, and it was pitch black outside, midnight having only recently come and gone. The only light came from the dozens of different emergency signals spread out across the field, blue and red and yellow and every other color of the rainbow, all blinking at their own dizzying frequencies. There was no logical way that he should’ve been able to find his kid in that chaos, and yet his feet just took him there, like they’d walked this path a million times, even though he wasn’t sure that he’d ever been within a hundred miles of Calverton before.

He saw the security before he saw his kid. There were about ten guards holding a perimeter around the solitary ambulance, and Tony made a mental note to give Happy a goddamn raise once this was all over.

And then there was Peter, and every single mental note he’d ever made evaporated into thin air.

He was slouched over on the back of the ambulance, orange shock blanket folded over his shoulders. He was bloody, bruised. There was dirt and ash all over his face, but none of that mattered at all because he was still the most beautiful, wonderful, breathtaking thing Tony had ever seen.

“Peter!” His voice broke with the force of the shout. “Peter!”

Despite everything, Peter recognized him right away. His head turned towards the sound, and his arms lifted up, fingers curling weakly in the air.

“Tony?”

“Here,” he gasped, skidding to a stop in front of the kid. “I’m right here, Pete. I’m right here.”

He grabbed Peter’s face between his hands, dragged the pads of his thumbs along the curve of his cheekbones, brushing away tear-smudged grime, and all his anguish evaporated. Gone. He knew it’d return, at some point, probably in the folds of night, far away from where anyone but Pepper could see it, but for now he was calm, capable. He felt in control, because that was the only thing he was allowed to be. Because that was exactly what Peter needed him to be.

He’d meant what he’d said to Rhodey. He was good at this.

“Hey there, buddy,” he whispered. He sniffed hard against the tears building in his throat, but he was grinning so wide that his cheeks ached. “You really got yourself into a mess this time, huh?”

“He’s been a little too close to unresponsive for our tastes,” one of the medics offered, and he glanced up to her. She had a sympathetic smile on her face, soft and kind, “but we were hoping that having dad here might help.”

He nodded, hoping that his expression conveyed the thanks he didn’t have the breath to voice, and turned his attention back to Peter. “Hey, hey,” he cooed, shifting Peter’s face a little, trying to get a reaction. “You with me, squirt?”

Peter looked dazed, pupils blown so wide that Tony could barely find any brown in his eyes at all, but there was recognition there, too. Drowsy and subdued, but recognition all the same.

“‘M with you,” he slurred, blinking hard. “I don’ feel very good.”

“I know, squirt. We’re gonna fix that, okay?”

Peter nodded, then slumped forward into his chest, nose digging into the crook of his neck. “‘M sorry. Didn’… Didn’ mean it.”

Tony had expected the apology, but it still felt like a slap in the face. “Shh, shh. None of this was your fault, kiddo.”

I’m sorry I didn’t do enough to protect you.

“‘M so glad you’re here,” Peter mumbled, and Tony wondered if he even knew that he was talking. “Kept asking for you. They said you w’re coming.”

Tony could feel each one of Peter’s breaths on his skin, warm and slow and relaxed. He’d heard about hostage victims being keyed-up on release, jumpy and paranoid, and just here his kid was: practically dozing off in his arms, murmuring apologies and sermons of faith, easy and relaxed just because Tony was here. Because Tony was holding him.

“Of course I was coming,” he managed to choke out. “I’ll always come for you, Pete. I’m always gonna come for you.”

“Mm. I know. Always got me.”

He’d never deserve this. Never. He could spend the rest of his life devoted to charity, to selflessness, and yet there would never come a day when he would deserve his children.

It should’ve been a disheartening thought, but it wasn’t. It was humbling. It made him feel grateful.

He found the gaze of the nurse who’d first spoken to him, fingers threading slowly through Peter’s hair. “Can I take him?”

“Of course,” she said. “But he’ll need x-rays to confirm that fracture, and fluids, and I wouldn’t let him go unmonitored until his tox screens start coming back clear. You have someone back at base who can do all that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then he’s all yours.”

He wrapped the shock blanket more firmly around Peter’s shoulders, dreaming of the moment he could tear it off, burn it, and replace it with one of the red fleece ones Pepper had brought back from a conference in Colorado at the end of Peter’s senior year. He couldn’t wait until they could finally peel off the layers of this night and replace them with new memories, with new things, with good, peaceful, mundane things.

“I’m gonna take you home now, Pete,” he whispered, fisting his hand desperately in the back of the kid’s shirt. “We’re gonna go home.”

Peter slept straight through the helicopter ride back to New York, legs stretched over Tony’s lap like a cat. He woke up just long enough for Tony to guide him to his bedroom (Tony had to coach him up the stairs like it was his first encounter with the concept), but he was out again as soon as he reached his bed. Cho and Bruce both assured him that there was nothing to be concerned about, that his body was just burning off the drugs, but it didn’t stop him from laying Peter against his chest and keeping a finger on his pulse.

Cho and Bruce must’ve sensed that he wanted nothing more than to be left alone with his kid, because they rushed through the process of converting Peter’s bedroom into a makeshift hospital suite. Peter roused a little when Cho placed his IV, but only enough to make a mild noise of displeasure and bury himself more firmly into Tony’s arms. Otherwise, Peter seemed perfectly content to let Tony deal with the world for him.

That was fine. That was more than fine, actually. It was exactly what he’d been wanting to do for days.

Pepper wandered in and out of the room, spreading her time between them and Morgan. Bruce popped in to give him the tox screen results, but he left almost as soon as he came. He didn’t know what the rest of the team was doing, but he knew that Rhodey had stayed behind in Calverton, with Happy.

The longer he spent unwinding, the more he wished he’d asked better questions.

He didn’t have a clue what had actually happened to Peter, didn’t know if his kidnappers were captured or dead, or if they’d escaped. He didn’t know anything.

Steve knocked on the doorframe after a few hours of pointless wondering, shifting nervously on his feet. It was as if Tony had put an impassable barrier around Peter’s bed, the kind that no one could see but everyone could feel. Nobody was brave enough to touch it.

“You can come it,” he said, amused. “I don’t bite.”

Steve took two steps forward, then stopped, clearly having no intention of moving any farther. “I don’t mean to intrude-”

He rolled his eyes. “What do you need, Steve?”

“The press is clamoring for a statement,” Steve said, after a brief moment of hesitation, “preferably in person.”

Tony pushed some of Peter’s hair back from his forehead, forcing himself to ignore the tiny cuts and bruises littering the kid’s face. “Giving a statement would involve leaving this room.”

Steve just nodded. “I understand.” He gestured in Peter’s direction, stiff and unsure, like he was treading on ice. “How is he?”

Tony smiled. He really didn’t know why everyone seemed so determined to dance around the topic of Peter, especially now that he was home. It wasn’t a touchy subject, it was Tony’s favorite subject.

“He’s sleeping, safe and sound.”

“I’m glad.”

“They ran a tox screen,” he offered. “He’s got GBH and ecstasy and a couple other pretty nasty things in his system. Cho’s confident that the fluids should help him metabolize it. F.R.I.D.A.Y. confirmed that he’s got a small fracture in his collarbone, but his healing should take care of it pretty quickly once his body recalibrates.” He smiled, eyes never leaving Peter’s face. “He’ll be back to playing Mario Kart with Morgan in no time.”

“Good.” Steve walked around to his side of the bed, steps slow and measured. “Do you want me to give you the details of everything now, or later?”

“Give me the essentials. Are they dead?”

“Yeah.” Relief shot through him. “Clint got two with his arrows. The other one was sleeping when we came in. He tried to grab a weapon, but Nat got to him first. Sam found Peter locked in a closet in the back bedroom.”

The rage he felt at the detail conflicted with the tenderness that rose with every second he spent with his children. In the end, he set the anger aside. He didn’t need it, right now. It wouldn’t made Peter heal faster.

“You sure there were only three?”

“We’re looking into it, but we’re nearly positive.”

He dipped his head in Peter’s direction. “How was he when you found him?”

Darkness swooped over Steve’s face, and his voice went hard. “Not great.” A pause. “You think he’ll be alright?”

“Without a doubt,” he said, and he meant it. “He’s a tough kid, and he’s got a good therapist. Pretty sure there isn’t anything he can’t tackle and come out the winner.”

“And what about you?” Steve asked, as sincere as Tony had ever heard him. “Will you be alright?”

He smoothed his palm down Peter’s back, and thought back to his dream. He’d imagined the whole thing wrong, he realized. The joy he’d felt then hadn’t captured even a single fraction of the joy he was feeling now.

“Of course I’ll be alright,” he said, like it was obvious. “I’ve got the best family in the world.”

Natasha had never been in Peter’s room before. Then again, she’d very rarely been the cabin, either. Tony had gone out of his way to keep his family shielded from everyone, even the team.

After everything they’d been through, she had a hard time blaming him for that.

Tony and Peter were both asleep when she poked her head through the door. She guessed that it was probably the first time either of them had had any real rest in days. Even unconscious, Tony had placed himself between Peter and the door, arms wrapped tightly around the kid, as if someone was going to try to steal him when he wasn’t looking.

Bruce and Cho had turned the bedroom into a makeshift hospital room, monitors and an IV pole tucked up in a corner, but it didn’t change the cozy atmosphere. A few framed sci-fi posters littered the walls, but there were family pictures as well: everything from photobooth strips to professional portraits.

For a brief few seconds, she let herself wonder what it would’ve been like to grow up in a place that felt like a home.

Pepper ended up catching her attention before the thoughts could go too far. She was the only other person in the room, and, unlike Tony and Peter, she was actually awake. She beckoned for her to come in, posture as relaxed as Natasha had ever seen it.

“Hey,” Pepper greeted, voice just above a whisper. “Are you here for Tony?”

“I am.”

“Can it wait?”

Her eyes flickered up to the pair curled around each other on the bed, and she made her decision without a hint of hesitation. “I’ll make it wait.”

Pepper shot her a genuine smile. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. How are they?”

Pepper leaned forward in her chair, and brushed the back of Peter’s hand gently. It was a mother’s touch, kind and adoring. She tried not to stare.

“Peter’s still pretty out of it, but he’s been talking to Tony, so that’s a step in the right direction. It might take a while for his metabolism to clear out all the shit they pumped into him, but his vitals are holding steady.”

“Did the tox screen come back?”

Pepper sighed. “It did. It’s a miracle Tony didn’t have an aneurism when Cho read it to us. They gave him GHB and ecstasy, among a few other things, but there’s nothing we can do about it except wait.”

That certainly wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. She hadn’t said it out loud, but she’d been prepping herself for the possibility that by the time they found the kid, they’d have already OD’d him.

She’d seen those kinds of bodies before, and they weren’t pretty. She wasn’t sure how Tony’s would’ve handled it.

Speaking of which…

“And how’s Tony?”

Pepper’s face softened even more at the mention of her husband. She reached out to adjust his shirt, tone warm. “His baby’s back, so all’s right with the world again. At least for now.” She let out an exhausted breath. “And after everything that’s happened, I’ll take for now.”

She wondered if Pepper had slept since Peter’s graduation. The more she analyzed the past few days, the more she came to the conclusion that she hadn’t.

“I doubt Peter’ll be allowed out of his sight for the next few weeks.”

“Weeks?” Pepper snorted, a rare slip of her polish. Natasha guessed that she saw it more than the boys did. “Oh, Peter’s going to have Tony following him around for the next decade at least. It’ll be sweet for a while, because at first he’ll actually enjoy the coddling, but then both of them are going to make my life a living hell.”

Natasha just smiled. There wasn’t even a hint of genuine aggravation in Pepper’s voice: just relief. “You can’t wait, can you?”

Pepper’s face lit up. “God, Nat, I’ve never been more ecstatic over the thought of the two of them snipping at each other in my life.”

She laughed, careful not to disturb either of Pepper’s charges, then took a cautious step towards the door. As much as she enjoyed Pepper’s company, there were still a million things to be done. She’d handle the paperwork, and she’d let the parents handle the kid.

She wasn’t really qualified for the gushy stuff.

“I’ll let you spend some time with your family.”

“Actually, Nat, before you go…” Pepper paused, chewing on the words, “just, well, thank you. People are never able to forget that Peter’s Tony’s child, but they tend to overlook that he’s mine now, too. He’s been mine for nearly six years. And I know that I’ll never love him like Tony does, but… but I still love him, and I’m still grateful.”

“I’m just doing my job,” she said, smile tight.

“It’s a good job, Nat.”

She backed the rest of the way into the hall. “Yeah, it is.”

The door clicked shut, and she just barely inclined her head to the security guard that was stationed outside of it. They’d be a common presence around here, for a while, at least until Stark re-found that tenuous balance between keeping his kids safe and letting them live.

She’d been worried about Peter, before. If there was anyone in the world who understood trauma, understood what it could do to your soul, it was Natasha Romanoff, but she knew now that Peter Parker had something that she’d never had.

He had people who gave a shit. People who’d make sure that he was fine.

She wondered if he knew how lucky he had it.

#wooo it's a monster #me: my irondadbingo is going to be short little ficlets!#also me: *writes 11k words*#help #irondad #irondadbingo #tony & peter #tony stark #peter parker #losingmymindtonight writes

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parkrstark · 6 years ago

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i pour my heart into your hands

This is written for my love @losingmymindtonight...it’s not much and it’s not very good, but I hope you can still enjoy it. I love you so much and the world really is a a better place since you came along. I have no idea what’d I’d do if I didn’t have you by my side through all of this. I doubt I’d be where I am. I thank God every day for you. And I hope one day I can give you all of this love is person, but until then, I’ll take our late night conversations...even if you always fall asleep...so this fic, this fic is for you and the words you said to me one night I will never forget.

Tony wasn’t a stranger to not sleeping. For him, it was as common as breathing.

Insomnia claimed him every night before sleep could. Maybe at one point in his life sleep used to try and put up a fight, but now it must have known it was fighting a losing battle. No matter how loud exhaustion begged, sleep never answered.

Insomnia was never alone though, so maybe sleep just wasn’t invited. Maybe the VIP list consisted of only insomnia, fear, and anxiety.

It was really nothing new, so most times it didn’t bother him. He could easily distract himself with other things like tinkering in his workshop or working through emails and stuff Pepper put aside for him.

It was lonely as hell and sometimes even the bots weren’t enough to keep the pit in his stomach from making itself known. The empty feeling could only be numbed with alcohol-- and lots of it.

That was, until Peter Parker came into his life. It didn’t happen right away, but soon after the whole Coney Island fiasco, Tony started having him the lab and working alongside him.

They worked well together. When Tony lacked something, Peter filled it. They meshed perfectly and before long, Tony completely forgot what it was like not to have a little shadow of his by his side.

Peter became a constant in his life, just like the insomnia. But also just like the insomnia, he was invited to the late nights. He was more often than not up until the early hours of the morning watching movies or doing something in the lab with him. Even if it wasn’t all night, it was something.

And selfishly, Tony loved it because he finally had someone to chase away any worries that may have been bothering him. It was easy to forget about everything bothering him when he had the kid by his side. He wished it was always like that.

However, the kid didn’t share Tony’s knack for staying awake for days. He actually had a surprisingly healthy sleep schedule. And as much as Tony hated seeing the kid off to sleep, he’d rather him get the sleep he needed than drag him down with him. He could deal with the lonely nights. He was used to it. He hoped Peter never learned the feeling.

And the kid could fall asleep just about anywhere. And he did.

It didn’t matter if they were at a lab desk or on the couch, Peter knocked out when his body needed the sleep. Sometimes Tony found himself feeling a little jealous, but if it had to be one of them, he was glad it was Peter.

As the months and years passed, Tony became an expert in knowing when the kid was getting sleepy enough to fall asleep. He’d talk slower and rub his eyes to try and chase away the drowsiness. He’d get even clingier than usual, looking for someone to cuddle up with and fall asleep. (Tony will never forget the first time Peter caught Rhodey after an exhausting mission and he was the kid’s pillow all night).

When he saw these signs, he knew to cajole the kid to a couch or bed so he could sleep normally. He learned early that if he didn’t persuade the kid in time, he was caring a Spider-Kid lump to his bedroom in the tower. And his back did not appreciate him very much for that.

Unfortunately, time kept ticking and before either of them knew it, Peter graduated high school. And then it was time for college and Peter packed his bags for MIT. Which again, selfishly, Tony wasn’t too happy about when it came to moving him in. He always knew the kid was going there-- he had the brains and the passion. He was a perfect fit. He just didn’t think about the part where he’d have to leave him there...

No more dropping by the Parkers for dinner every now and then. No more picking him up from school and taking him to the lab. No more watching the kid drool all over himself during movie nights. No more worrying about him webbing around Queens at all hours of the night.

They kept in touch of course. There wasn't a day when Peter wasn't blowing up Tony’s phone with text messages. It wasn’t the same as talking in person, but it was enough.

Just like always though, when it started getting late, Peter crashed. Tony was left awake as the notifications stopped for the night.

The funny part was, was that it was never an official goodnight either. They'd be in the middle of talking about something and suddenly, Peter would stop responding. After the first time it happened, Tony panicked and had Karen (of course, he installed her in the kid’s phone) scan Peter and relay to FRIDAY and Tony that he was in fact just sleeping. From then on, Tony always knew the kid had just passed out mid-text.

One night, close to finals, Peter had video called Tony. He was exhausted and all of his studying was taking a toll on him. He was working himself to the bone. Tony told him to take it easy, but of course, he didn’t listen.

Peter was laying down in bed, holding the phone to his face close enough that it could shine some light on him. It was enough illumination for Tony to see the bags under his eyes.

Just like always, Tony was awake and welcomed the distraction from his own mess. Not only was he a distraction, but he made Tony feel calm and at peace for once. He genuinely felt a million times better when talking to him.

“You look like crap, kiddo.”

“Oh, thanks,” Peter mumbled, yawning loudly.

“Sleepy?” Tony grinned, teasing clear in his voice.

“Shut up. You know my brain needs its 9 hours of sleep,” he replied sluggishly. “Doesn’t work without. I’m a mess.”

“9 hours? Is that even possible?” Tony joked, although truthfully, he couldn't remember the last time he'd slept longer than 6 hours a night. His average was about 4.

Peter rolled his eyes; he wasn't good at disguising his sassiness when he was exhausted. “You're ridiculous. You actually concern me. You may know?”

Despite the genuine worry in Peter’s voice, Tony chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. I concern myself too.” He paused to shrug his shoulders. “But I've turned out fine so far.”

“Surprisingly.”

“Hey, none of that. Don't bully your old man. He's fragile in his old age.”

Peter smiled softly, his eyes drifting shut before fluttering back open again. “Not my fault. Make it so darn easy.”

“I liked you better when you were in high school and afraid of me,” Tony said, lowering his voice so it was more soothing to help Peter fall asleep.

“Never afraid of you. Just starstruck. Big difference.”

Tony watched as he struggled to keep his eyes open. “Oh, yeah. Both of them made you have a little respect for me. So I don't care which we go with.”

“Saw you drop a slice of pizza on the floor and pick up, dip it in ranch dressing and eat it without hesitation. All my respect for you is gone,” Peter replied, his eyes shutting closed again. They stayed shut for a few seconds before he peeled them back open.

Tony smiled at him and said, “You know you can go to sleep right?”

“M’fine,” he lied, trying to widen his eyes even more. Tony could see the desperation in his eyes to sleep.

“You need sleep, Pete. I don't wanna keep you up.”

Peter shook his head, his curls bouncing slightly. “If I wanted to sleep, I would have just fallen asleep already.”

Tony laughed. “Tell me about it, kid. You always fall asleep when I'm talking to you. Am I that boring?”

It was meant as a joke, but in less than a second, Peter answered genuinely, “No, I fall asleep talking to you because you make me feel safe.”

Tony paused, his mind unable to understand the words Peter just said. “Pete--.”

“I'm serious,” Peter said, finally letting his eyes shut for good. “I'm can fall asleep ‘round you ‘cus I know I’m safe. Thank you.”

Tony couldn't understand why this kid would trust him of all people. Or why he would even waste his time with him. But there was something that drew Peter to him and he hoped it never disappeared. Because he'd give anything for that kid. He'd die for him. The kid didn't understand just how much he meant to Tony. Even if Tony told him so every day, he still wouldn't understand. It was indescribable.

But if Peter trusted him, then he going to protect that trust with everything he had.

Truthfully, Tony enjoyed the times that Peter stopped answering and was finally asleep. Because even if it meant leaving him all alone, at least he was getting some sleep. He was safe and asleep.

Which speaking of, Peter was safe and finally asleep on the video call. He was asleep with his head on his pillow and his phone resting in his hand, though the view from the phone camera was slightly crooked now. He was snoring softly and Tony knew he was out for the night.

He smiled and said, “Goodnight, Petey. I'll be here when you wake up.”

And until you do, I’ll keep you safe.

#happy anniversary my love #iron dad #peter parker #tony story #shannon writes #insomnia

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tonystarkissist · 6 years ago

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IronDad Bingo Fic #6

Trope: Bullying

Trigger Warning!!! Lots of self hate. Small mention of suicide and self harm.

Requested by anon. Thank you for the request!

The tabloids have always been known for their blatant hatred for the mess of a human being named Tony Stark. Of course, there were those select few reporters and articles that highlighted his few wholesome qualities, but people weren’t quite as drawn towards opinions not laced with drama and hostility.

The first truly demeaning article published about him that he could actually recall was when he was about 14 years old, attending a special gala with his parents during his Christmas break. His father had been giving a speech, and, yeah, Tony had snuck a couple drinks over the course of the evening, but this guy started choking on an olive in the middle of his father’s spiel and he didn’t even have any time to think before he was jumping into action. What was he supposed to do? Ignore the poor man? But in his drunken haze and fervent panic, he couldn’t quite remember the typical operating procedure to perform for a choking person, so he acted on instinct and reeled back his fist to send a punch straight into the man’s gut. It worked though, and the olive went sailing across the room, but the idiot demanded to press charges after he caught his breath and realized he was a Stark. And, of course, since no one else had witnessed the event in its entirety, young Tony had been labeled as a hostile, drunk, know-it-all without an ounce of human decency at the age of 14, and that title followed him all through his teenage years and into adulthood. The choking man had been set on getting his money and he wasn’t at all put out by the fact that it would require tearing down a somewhat innocent boy in the process.

His father had been pissed, even after Tony had finished explaining his side of the story. The press had been having an absolute field day with the abomination of a human being that turned out of Howard Stark’s son and Howard was beyond livid… and his mother, well… she had been disappointed. She didn’t speak a word to her son for nearly three days after the event. How could Tony blame them though? He had never done anything particularly noble, and he wasn’t known to be a truth-teller, but he had just wanted to help. He supposed that was what happened when you tried to help a person, so he didn’t go out of his way to try it out again.

After that, trouble just seemed to follow him. The press disregarded his accomplishments and highlighted the many many mistakes that only seemed to worsen the older he became. You couldn’t really blame the people either, because the mischief Tony Stark got up to was pure reporting gold. It granted them thousands, if not millions, of extra readers every time he didn’t something particularly stupid. The non-scientific community weren’t quite as interested in his inborn genius, and his amazing creations, lectures he gave, and ideas he had. People had always, and would always, be drawn to drama. And Tony Stark was the absolute Drama King.

So, over the years, he grew used to it. He grew used to the bullying comments made by human rights advocates, anti-war hippies, even some of his ‘friends’, and anyone else really… because they weren’t wrong. He was a selfish, immature, irresponsible, violent, impulsive, rich brat, and he’s long since accepted that fact. He remembered how the comments used to bother him as an adolescent and young adult. The self-hate, and depression that stemmed from the thought that everyone in the world, including his own father and mother, hated him with a passion. He had tried multiple times to prove his worth to the world, but he had always messed it up some way or another. And no matter how many so-called friends he would acquire over the years he could always see right through them. He could practically hear them talking and laughing about him behind his back. He knew they only wanted his money. But he didn’t care. He was fine with lying to himself for a while to gain a couple good friends even if they only lasted a few months.

He at least found one good friend, and Rhodey was probably the only reason why he hadn’t accidentally or purposely overdosed during those years at MIT, and even several years after.

He got over the deception quickly though, disregarding the people after realizing it wasn’t worth it to spend his time pleasing them, because the only person he should work on pleasing was himself. So, that’s what he spent the next few years doing. Spending every waking minute to prove to society just how right they were. To prove to his father that, yes, he really was all that the man believed him to be.

It wasn’t only the press and dumb college druggies either. After he took over the company… it was rare for anybody to take him seriously. His ideas were typically discarded by the board and Obie; nothing he wasn’t used to. His employees and coworkers had no respect for him even though he was the boss! He’d hear the whispered rumors as he walked down the halls, most regarding his inability to run the company or his nightly, drunken escapades, and he’d grit his teeth in annoyance before fleeing to his workshop to create something unquestionably amazing to prove his worth even though he truly believed every word the spoke.

Eventually, after a few years, R&D grew to respect his inventions, and the board members were impressed with the advancements he was making for the company. When it came to management… it was rare for anybody of any worth would actually listen to him. So, at about 26, he just stopped trying.

Even the people who worked for him believed the tabloids, so, really, what hope was there for the ordinary people of the world to look beyond what the magazines and newspapers said? He couldn’t expect the world to respect him, trust him, and believe in him when his own company wouldn’t… when his parents hadn’t.

The whispers and the shame never stopped… so he never did either.

Then, he had been kidnapped, tortured, and traumatized. He had had an epiphany in that cave. He realized how much he had done to hurt the world, and people in general during his years of spite fueled by self-hate, and he was determined to do everything in his power to fix it.

He became Iron Man, and he had pronounced his identity without hesitance, because he needed to be accountable for his actions. He couldn’t stand behind a mask, avoiding the responsibility and inevitable repercussions that would befall upon him during his doings as a superhero. He had already gone down that road during his years of selfish ignorance, and it had only brought trouble. He was determined to be accountable for his own actions, because honesty formulated trust, and he wanted people to trust that he genuinely cared.

Of course, when the news of a new enhanced robot-like being had shown up in California, and it had defeated another robotic enemy, the people had been both terrified and ecstatic at the possibility of someone, or something, there to protect them. Then, the people had learned who was really behind the mask, and it only went downhill from there.

Tony would sit on his couch every night for the following weeks, toying with a gauntlet, clenching his teeth until his jaw cramped as he watched reporters go on and on about his irresponsible actions, inability to protect them, and the unavoidable careless mistakes he would eventually make just as he had in the past.

Pepper and Rhodey had both encouraged him to watch the positive reports that were being given about him instead, because they knew about his tendency to spiral into a pit of self-hatred at the slightest mention of any of the deeper insecurities he’d been dwelling over for years, but he knew better. People didn’t want positive when it came to him. People wouldn’t believe those things; they’d disregard them as laughable lies and move on to the interesting, problematic portion of Tony Stark’s personality.

He tried. He really did. He did everything in his power to help the people and prove to them that all he wanted to do was help.

His public image went up and down through the following years. People would slowly begin to trust him and look up to him, but then sometimes he would mess up, and people would hate him all over again. Still, even despite the rare good, there were still many, many people who resented him during those times. They could always find some reason to hate him. There were fan pages dedicated to spreading their hatred for him and some news outlets were still fascinated with fabricating any lie they could to make everything that went wrong in an Avengers battle to be his fault. Which was cool, he was fine with that, because not all of it was really that wrong.

He had developed a disgusting habit through the years as a result. He’d sit down once a month and watch the negative reports about himself on the TV, always zeroing in on his blinding flaws. Sometimes his teammates would come close to catching him in the act, but he was always careful to make sure they never found out. He didn’t want them to know how the world really felt about him; to introduce the hatred the world rightfully harbored for him… but perhaps they already did. It would give them more ammunition to use against him. They were the first true friends besides Rhodey that he had ever had, and he couldn’t risk losing them because they found out how insecure, hated, and terrible he really was. Heck, Steve had already been influenced by the press and tabloids on their first meeting, and the hero had believed every word he read. Tony was too scared to find out who the man would trust when it came between the world and Tony Stark himself.

Tony had always been one to focus on the negative rather than the positive, especially when it came to himself. His self-image had already been ruined as a teen, despite the front he put up for the tabloids, and whenever a particularly demeaning characteristic that he had been hyper-aware of for years came to light, it sent him spiralling into a fit of depression and anger and he’d lock himself down in the lab, destroying, and days later rebuilding, his proudest accomplishments over and over again. It made him feel some sense of control.

He always sent Dum-E and U out of the room though, and he always shut down JARVIS for the night… he didn’t want to risk hurting them during his monthly fits of rage. He hated himself so much on those nights. He hated that he couldn’t be what people wanted him to be, and that he couldn’t live up to the high standard all his other teammates seemed to accomplish without a problem.

Years later, he was doing the same thing. His teammates, his friends, were gone… they betrayed him. The people of the world were terrified of him and all he stood for. His best friend was crippled because he was selfish, and the love of his life left when he refused to give up the one stable thing left in his life; the one thing that kept his head above water, knowing he was at least trying to help people. But everything was still his fault. The world knew it and they weren’t shy to tell him to his face. Everything was just so, so much worse.

So, just like every first Saturday night of the month he’d sit down in his workshop, bottle of scotch ready in his hand, and he’d instruct FRIDAY to stream the latest ‘lies’, as Pepper had called them (but he knew better), that had been circulating that month. He’d pay attention to the complaints given by citizens, especially when they suffered some sort of hardship as a result of an Avengers mission, and he’d do his best to reimburse them with both financial help and physical labor to rebuild anything they had lost. Any major disheartening actions or qualities brought to light that month would be mulled over intensely, worked through his brain a million and one times, before he set forth a plan of action to fix it. It didn’t always work. In fact, it rarely worked, but he tried. He tried so, so hard.

***

Peter loved going to spend time with Mr. Stark. After the Ferry incident had happened, the genius invited him over to the compound for some special training. Peter had been beyond excited to train with Tony Stark himself. He had always looked up to the man ever since he was a small child. He was his hero.

He remembered back when he was a bored thirteen year old, literally obsessed with the Avengers, particularly Iron Man, and he’d spend every waking moment scrolling through Twitter or Tumblr, or Facebook to find anything as to what they’d been up to that day. He had run across some not so nice thoughts expressed by some haters, and he didn't hesitate to set them straight. He had always been a hardcore Iron Man stan, and he couldn’t stand that they would speak of his hero in the way they were. Because the man was human, and he was allowed to make mistakes sometimes. Thankfully, the positive fanbase for the man was much larger than the negative. Iron Man was by far the most loved of all the Avengers, but still the most hated. And that had always pissed Peter off.

So, yeah, now he knew Tony Stark, his hero, personally, and he was allowed to visit every week! Sometimes they’d train in one of the training room and sometimes they’d go down into the lab to mess around with his suit or another project.

This week, though, he hadn’t been able to make it to the Compound because of Decathlon and the ridiculous amounts of homework he had to squeeze in between patrols. But Happy had said the Mr. Stark probably wouldn’t mind him stopping by on the weekend. So, here he was, Sunday morning, jittering excitedly inside the elevator as it descended to Mr. Stark’s workshop in the basement.

He hadn’t been greeted by FRIDAY, which he found a bit odd, but perhaps he assumed he was just down for maintenance for a couple hours. No biggie.

The elevators eventually opened, and the first thing he noticed was Dum-E and U chilling in the corner of the hall outside of Mr. Stark’s lab entrance. Peter quirked a brow curiously at the bots, and the two robots whirred excitedly at the sight of him. He greeted them with a smile and a pat on their arms before punching in the code to enter the lab. He was met with another bout of confusion as he glanced around the complete chaos and utter destruction that had befallen the room.

“Uh,” Peter mused with wide eyes, “Mr. Stark?”

“Kid!” Tony responded in surprise, popping up from behind the destroyed hot rod engine. “What-what-what are you doing here?”

“Oh, um, Happy said you probably wouldn’t mind me coming over this weekend.” Peter answered in a panic. What if Mr. Stark did mind? What if he hated Peter now? Oh goodness! Mr. Stark hated him for sure.

“Oh,” Tony mused tiredly. He glanced around the lab with a tight frown before returning his gaze to Peter. “Sorry for the mess kid. C’mon in. If I had known you were coming, I would have cleaned up a bit.”

“It’s alright Mr. Stark,” Peter responded hesitantly. He slowly made his way across the room until he was standing on the other side of the hot rod, watching as the man worked his magic on what looked to be a unsalvageable piece of machinery. “What-um… What happened in here?”

Tony chuckled under his breath, waving his arm dismissively. “Oh, I do this every month. It gives me something to do.”

“You-you destroy everything?” Peter questions, utterly perplexed.

“Well yeah,” Tony answered lamely, “that way I can rebuild it.”

“Oh, cool,” Peter drones quietly, “what are Dum-E and U doing outside?”

“I sent ‘em out there so they wouldn’t get hurt. Grab that wrench over there for me, will ya kid?”

***

The two of them got a lot closer as the weeks passed. Peter started staying over on the weekends once May picked up the weekend shift so she could come home earlier during the week to have dinner with her nephew. Peter had a blast on those weekends. He had his own room and everything, which was absolutely epic! He and Mr. Stark ate dinner with Pepper and Rhodey sometimes, and they’d watch a lot of movies too. Peter loved it.

They’d always stay up super late in the labs, or watching movies, on Friday and Saturday because, well, Peter didn’t have school or go home because May was expecting him.

But then one Saturday night was different…

“Alright, why don’t you call it a night and head up to bed, kiddo.”

Peter frowned and cocked his head to the side in confusion as he casted his mentor a questioning gaze. Mr. Stark never sent him to bed early, in fact, it was usually the opposite. It was typical for Peter to be so exhausted that he had to convince Mr. Stark that, yes, he needed sleep because he was a growing teenage boy.

“Uhhh… it’s only like 10 Mr. Stark. I’m not tired.”

He saw the man’s jaw tighten. “Just… just go to bed Peter. Watch TV, play on your phone, whatever. I don’t care. But take your project up to your room with you.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter whispered softly, his eyebrows furrowed. He tightened his grip on his web shooter. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Peter,” the man responded tersely.

Peter didn’t argue anymore. He slowly started to gather his project into his arms. He eyed the man suspiciously once more before slowly making his way out of the room, but Mr. Stark didn’t say another word. He went up to Mr. Stark’ personal floor and was met with Pepper quietly lounging on the couch with her STARKpad in her lap. She glanced up at him curiously when he stepped into the room and Peter quietly admitted to her that Mr. Stark had sent him to bed early for some weird reason.

Pepper didn’t say anything to that, really, which was even more weird. She just nodded her head sadly in acknowledgment and bid him goodnight. So, Peter hung his head, fled to his room and sat on his bed. He tried questioning FRIDAY, but she didn’t give him an answer. She remained uncharacteristically silent.

He waited an hour or two, listening closely for Pepper to go to bed, or even Mr. Stark, but Peter had a feeling that the man wouldn’t be going to bed early that night. He couldn’t help but think back on that first Sunday he came to visit Mr. Stark and the absolute disaster of a lab he had found when he went to greet the man. It made a gross feeling pool in his gut, and he really, really didn’t feel good about that look on Mr. Stark’s face when he left the room.

Eventually, he could hear Pepper’s soft footsteps move down the hall and her and Mr. Stark’s bedroom door close behind her. It was nearing midnight by then.

“Hey, FRIDAY? Is Mr. Stark going to go to bed soon?” Peter questioned in a whisper.

She didn’t answer, which only seemed to increase his anxiety. His senses tingled uncomfortably, and the anxiety gave birth to fear.

Peter jumped from where he was seated on the bed and he dashed for the door. He tiptoed down the hall, past the master bedroom and took off running towards the elevator. He jittered anxiously as he rode the elevator down to the basement floor, to the workshop.

The doors opened too slowly…

He rushed out in a flurry of limbs and wide eyes. Something was very, very wrong. He was met with the familiar sight of Dum-E and U huddled in the corner of the hall, emitting sad whines. Peter’s heart picked up speed and his breaths came in short, panicked bursts as the twinge in his neck became more prominent. He could hear yelling and crashing, and banging coming from the other side of the glossed glass and he rushed for the door to punch in the code… but it didn’t work. He punched it in again, and again, and again, but it wouldn’t work. The banging and crashing continued and Peter whined desperately. Something was wrong with Mr. Stark. Something was very, very wrong.

In the midst of his panic, there was a long, slow beep, and the door unlocked with a short click. Peter stared at the door for a moment, and he instantly knew who it was. He turned up his head to smile thankfully at the ceiling before grabbing the handle, throwing the door open and rushing into the room.

He was met with quite a sight.

Tony stood at the center of the room with a sledgehammer in hand as he swung it angrily into the side of the hot rod over, and over, and over again. The workshop was in ruins. Peter’s desk was covered in scrap metal, mangled bolts and ruined tools, and Tony’s was blanketed in old projects leaking oil, looking beyond repair, and a glass bottle that had been shattered. Amber liquid pooling around the surviving head of the bottle. Peter watched with his breath caught in his throat as his mentor released an angered shout, swinging the heavy hammer over his head to bring it down forcefully onto the hood of the car. Then he dropped it. He collapsed to the ground, bracing his back against the ruined car and hanging his head in his hands.

He was done.

There was nothing left to destroy that Peter could see. He slowly gazed over the destruction. In the corner of the room he saw the news on the TV playing, with several holographic screens alongside it to display articles of some sort.

He felt tears begin to bubble behind his eyes as he stepped closer to the side of the room to see what exactly was being played on the screen. It was news coverage of the Rogue Avengers… and Tony’s face was displayed in the corner as the reporter went on bashing shamelessly into him, blaming everything on Tony Stark and his selfish actions. Peter shook his head in denial, eyes wide with fear, clenching his teeth in anger as he stared through the tears to focus in on the reporter’s face. The TV flickered momentarily as it autonomously clicked to a new channel, and he was met with a different reporter. She spoke about leftover Stark weapons that had been uncovered in Eastern Asia earlier that month, accusing Tony Stark of forcing his company to deal under the table once more to make up for the loss of funds from the cleanup work he was paying for in Sokovia.

Peter’s face fell, horrified at the awful lies escaping from the womans mouth, and his attention quickly snapped over to stare at the holographs.

‘Tony Stark is responsible for the fall of the Avengers: Rumor has it he attacked Steve Rogers and arrested his teammates, denying them a fair trial-’

‘Tony Stark is just as selfish and immature as he was when he was a child’

‘Iron Man gives up. He was never worthy of being called a hero. He only fights for himself’

“Mr-Mr. Stark?” Peter whimpers pitifully, unsure of where to turn or what to feel. Everything was just… it was all so, so, so wrong. The world was so, so wrong.

Mr. Stark didn’t answer him. So, Peter turned away from the screens and carefully made his way across the room to where the man was still hunkered against the destroyed car.

“Mr. Stark?”

He was met with a defeated groan.

Then the man’s head was lifting and Peter saw his eyes. His expression was empty, his eyes rimmed red from tears. His gaze dropped to the man’s knuckles, which were split open and bleeding down the length of his arm and fingers.

Peter couldn’t help but cry.

“They’re so, so, so wrong Mr. Stark.” He cried, dropping to the ground beside his mentor to wrap his arms around his waist. He leaned into him and cried into his shirt, squeezing him hard. “They are so so so WRONG! You can’t listen to them. They’re so wrong.”

He felt a hand lift to pet his head, but there were no words to accompany the attempt at a comforting gesture.

“You’re so amazing Mr. Stark. None of this is your fault. None of this was ever your fault, and it never will be, because you’re good. You’re so, so good. You’re human… but you still try even after you mess up. And that’s so, so good Mr. Stark.”

The hand curls into his hair, gripping locks between their calloused, bloody fingers, and Peter can feel the ripple of a sob vibrate through the man’s chest.

“So good,” Peter whispers, tucking closer to the man with an insistent shake of his head. “So, so good.”

***

After that. Peter spent the first Saturday of every month, tugging his mentor to the Living Room, where he, Pepper, Rhodey and Happy would all sit on the couch watching the positive reports about Iron Man on the big TV. They watched random YouTube videos of little kids rambling happily about Iron Man and how much they love him and want to be just like him. They look at Memes, tumblr posts, and Tweets praising Tony and his compassion and love for the people. Pepper always brought fan mail for him to read through too, and it seemed like Tony enjoyed that part the most.

He’d always cry as he read through the letters and looked at the drawings. He cried every time, but Peter always made sure he got lots and lots of hugs, because Mr. Stark needed to know how much people really loved him.

Sorry if this feels rushed guys. I wanted to finish it fairly quick while I was in the mood. And thank you @irondadbingo again for the bingo card.

#irondad #irondad fic #canon divergence #tony stark has issues #he needs a hug #irondad bingo #self hate #bullying #peter is there for his irondad #peter loves his hero iron man #the press are jerks #marvel #iron man #tony stark is sensitive #tony stark

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gothlokid · 6 years ago

Text

How They Met

(unofficial tittle, I don’t know if I’m ever gonna use it in a real fic but this is just a little snippet that came out)

Steve/Tony - 5k - college au (no mature/explicit content)

Tony’s vision is somehow bleary and his legs don’t feel like they are strong enough to support himself at the moment. Yet, he abandons the stool he had been sat at the bar, trying to stand up – because one minute he was sure he was talking to Rhodey and in the other there were three empty tequila shots glasses right beside him and no Rhodey.

Looking around himself, Tony notices the bar is packed and a little dark, there’s loud music spilling from the speakers and loud chatter amongst the tables around him. It makes his head spin a little.

Where the fuck is Rhodey?

He said he would stay with Tony, keep an eye on him, make sure no one found out the fake ID he had once again forged. Pff, as if. Computer genius Tony is, no one would ever tell the ID is fake. He hasn’t graduated in Computer Science (and Engineer, not that he likes to brag) for nothing (obviously he didn’t graduate from MIT only for that. But it has its perks). And so, what difference does it make that he’s one year younger than what his ID says? It’s not like he hasn’t been living in a University campus since he was fifteen. It’s not like Tony had never had an illegal drink in his life.

“Not outside campus, you dickhead. For a genius, you can be a bit thick sometimes, Tones,” Rhodey had said just as Tony had shown him the laminated card, begging Rhodey to go out with him for his birthday.

“Nobody will know. Nobody outside will know me, c’mon.”

“Yeah, no one will know Tony Fucking Stark.”

Tony had rolled his eyes and grabbed his leather jacket that was lying on his bed, putting it on anyway. “I’m going out either way. You can come with me and make sure no one finds out, or you can leave me be, can leave me all unsupervised, just turned twenty and illegally drunk, to hear an earful from father dearly that you didn’t keep an eye on me. Still want that internship, James?” He quirked a brow at him.

“I’m your roommate, not your nanny, for fuck’s sake, contrary to what your father’s thought of me for the past 5 years,” Rhodey had groaned, as he also grabbed his jacket and shoved Tony across from their dorm towards the door. “But fine, if you as much puke near me tonight, I’ll leave you alone to deal with your father, then. And the internship is a low blow, shut up.”

Tony had smirked, knowing that Rhodey would never leave him alone. He knew how to persuade his best friend, even if it was with empty threats (or light banter. The Internship was Rhodey’s anyway. Not that Tony had any say in who his father took inside his own company, but even though Howard barely cared for what Tony was doing, his academic and professional paths were guaranteed, and so was Rhodey’s).

Contrary to what had happened a couple of hours before and what Rhodey had told him, Rhodey had indeed left Tony alone, fucked off to God knows where with God knows who as Tony’s pissed drunk all by himself trying to make his legs work.

“Where’s my Rhodey?” He slurs, whining out loud. He doesn’t even know why he’s calling Rhodey his. He isn’t his. Well, he is his best friend, his roommate, his partner in crime… but not his. No, ew. Not Rhodey.

Tony turns his head around, trying to catch a glimpse of the tall back guy he calls his best friend around the place. That should be enough to find him, goddamnit. Rhodey is over 6 feet tall, what is all that height for if not for Tony to try and find him in crowded bars as he’s drunk? Rhodey is fucking useless, that’s what he is. He is Tony’s useless friend and Tony can’t even walk two feet in front of him without feeling like he’s gonna fall face first and Rhodey is not there to pick him up.

Instead, there are arms securing Tony just as he was almost certain he was gonna trip over his own feet. There are strong arms embracing him and Tony finally looks up to see that those are certainly not Rhodey’s arms.

“You’re not my Rhodey,” he hiccups as he tries to focus on the face that’s very close to him.

Blue eyes blink at him with a soft and concerned gleam. “No, I’m not. I see you’re looking for him, but for that, you need to make sure you’re in one piece.” His voice is soothing and Tony is somehow still trying to figure out why there is an angel – a beefy angel by the way his arms feel around Tony – holding him, who also sees to be worried about him.

“My savior,” Tony laughs, tries to smile at Beefy Blue-eyed Angel, but he’s not sure he can feel his face. “At least someone in this damn bar cares about me. One point for Angel, zero for Rhodey, boo hoo.”

There’s a chuckle from blue-eyed angel and Tony thinks he has never heard a sound so soft in his whole life. “No angel. Just Steve.”

“Still better than a Rhodey.” Tony feels Steve leading him back to the stool he had just tried to walk away from.

He sits back on it again and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment, trying to make his head stop being all woozy. “Thanks, though. I’m sure I’d have fallen very ungracefully if it weren’t for you.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t have been a pretty fall.” Steve takes the seat beside Tony and Tony opens his eyes to finally take a look at the man in front of him, finally able to see the full picture.

And wow. Just. Wow.

He knows this face. He has been staring at this face for the past four months and–

“You’re pretty.”

That’s his drunk sluggish brain talking because in four months Tony hadn’t been able to produce one word towards Steve. And yet right now, his mouth has no filter, is simply spilling something he had thought since the first day he saw Steve in the same class as him.

It might also be the alcohol, but Tony sees Steve’s face getting a flush that wasn’t there before.

“I, hm…” Steve clears his throat.

“Oh, sorry, I–” Tony shakes his head, aware that he must’ve said something stupid.

Of course, that was stupid. He doesn’t know Steve and Steve doesn’t know him, even though they’ve been classmates for quite a while.

Well, but he does know Steve, that’s the thing. He knows Steve is somewhat recluse, on the verge of shy, keeping it mostly quiet in class, taking notes on his notebook on a desk in the corner of the room, sometimes doodling pretty things Tony can’t make out from where he’s sitting (but that he knows that are pretty). He knows Steve plays for MIT’s soccer team as he sometimes goes to class in jerseys and sweats with his name on the back. He also knows Steve must be studying something in Architecture or Planning since he always runs off after class to that department building (leaving Tony to sadly trail back to his classes in Mechanics). He also has a very good hunch that Steve is a few years older than him – who isn’t in this goddamn University anyway? – but not that doesn’t actually matter.

He knows plenty about Steve if his stalking (“It’s more of an observatory skill, Rhodey, fuck off.”) is anything to go by. But the thing also is, Steve doesn’t know Tony and doesn’t know that Tony has been having a full-on crush (“again, I just like to observe things and things that are beautiful deserve to be admired, Rhodey, I don’t have a crush.”) on him since the semester started and Tony found himself doing an elective class, in which this God Entity with the name of Steve Rogers also happened to be taking part of.

And that’s where Tony should’ve drawn the line. Because that’s all he knows about Steve. He doesn’t know Steve outside of their class together and just because he’s drunk off his ass, it doesn’t make calling Steve pretty at all alright.

“No, don’t be sorry.” Steve is calm and if Tony can say, he seems endeared, even. “I, well. Thanks.” There’s that chuckle again and Tony takes the opportunity to see Steve smiling, shyly, with his eyes downcast and, fucking hell, he never had the opportunity to look at Steve from this up close, and God forbid his drunken state, but all he wants is to kiss that tiny cute smile on his lips, because it’s the most beautiful and endearing thing Tony has ever seen in his life. “It’s just, being called an angel and pretty on the same night? That’s quite a lot if I’m being honest. I’m flattered.”

Tony can see how bashful Steve is and as much as he doesn’t want to embarrass him even more, God, what he wouldn’t give to keep seeing that face, that sweet pretty face and keep it only for himself.

“Right, I’ll try to tone it down, save some other compliments for some other time.” Tony tries to wink, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t succeed because Steve is trying to keep himself from laughing out loud.

“Anytime. I know you’re busy still trying to find your Rhodey now, aren’t you?”

And if Tony were a decent and sober person, he wouldn’t take the tone of Steve’s voice as an indication that he sounds jealous. Is he jealous? Of Tony? Does he even know Tony? If he knows Tony, then he knows that Rhodey is not his-whatever he’s thinking right now. And if he doesn’t know Tony, then well, it’s only Tony’s duty to make sure Steve has no doubt that there isn’t anything that’s his and that he isn’t anyone’s either.

“Not mine.” Tony waves his hand in front of his face. “Not that I’d like him to be mine.” He knows he sounds like every other drunk person, but he swears he’s making sense in his head. “Not that I want to be his either.” Oh, God, no. He doesn’t sound coherent even if he tried. “There’s no Rhodey. And no one else, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

Steve is looking skeptically at him, but slightly biting his bottom lip, trying to suppress a smile. “Right, ‘cause that’s very relevant. So you’re looking for a Rhodey that’s not yours.”

Tony can hear the teasing tone in Steve’s voice and as much as he is appealed by the fact that they are bantering (and maybe flirting, Tony doesn’t even know at this point), he really wants to make his point across. “He is my friend. That’s what he is. But no Rhodey, because he’s not here right now, and we’re not– he’s not my-whatever, he’s not mine if you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t, but thanks for clearing it up.” Steve shrugs, running a hand through his light and well-trimmed locks.

“Just making sure you understand that I really meant that I’m saving up more compliments for you for next time.”

If Tony thought he had sobered up at least a little, now he’s pretty sure he hasn’t and that he’s still a drunk with no filter in his mouth because he wasn’t even planning to say that.

“You’re pretty drunk, pal.” Steve shakes his head, but the tiny smile is still lingering on his lips.

“No pal, just Tony. And thanks.”

“Thanks for what?”

“Calling me pretty even when I’m drunk.”

Tony prides himself with how clever and witty he still is while drunk because the laughter he earns from Steve after that is too precious and it has made the whole semester of observing (yeah, he’s gonna stick with that, thank you very much) the other man completely worth it.

“Only returning the compliment.” Tony sees it must’ve taken all the willpower in Steve to say that because he’s not even looking at Tony when he ducks his head and plays with a loose piece of wood from the bar counter. And that only goes to show how Steve’s a braver person than Tony, who had been dumbly paying attention to Steve for months on end and didn’t find the courage to say anything to him while Steve, on the first chance he got, not only managed to save Tony for an ungraceful fall but also flatter him.

“That’s cheating,” Tony rolls his eyes, trying not to show how affected he is by Steve light flirting (because keeping the goddamn butterflies in his stomach still is a really hard task – or maybe that’s his empty stomach talking, who knows).

At that Steve perks up his head, confused. “What?”

Tony laughs slightly, moving the stool a bit closer to Steve, trying to balance himself as so not to fall. “You’ve started ahead of me. I said I had a few other compliments for you, but here you are, already trying to make me think of other things to say to you. I wanted to save it, can’t use all my ammo only in one night.”

If Tony’s coming out strong, he doesn’t even care because Steve licking his lips nervously and running his hand again through his soft hair is a sight for his sore and bleary eyes.

“I’ll tell you what,” he starts before Steve can say anything again, but making the other man catch his full attention, “the only way to outrank you now, is by buying you a drink.”

Steve leans against the counter, head resting on his palm, intrigued. “Didn’t know this was a contest.”

“Of course it is. You already came out too strong, wooing me with your angel face and knight in shining armor attitude and all that. I have to up my game.”

“Wasn’t trying to woo you. Just wanted to help, that’s all.” Steve clears his throat and Tony has a hard time believing what comes out of his mouth when the blush is back on his face, making his blue eyes glint brighter.

Tony smirks because even in his drunk state he knows when someone’s trying to approach him and he doesn’t know how that happened that it’s Steve of all people who is trying to make a move on him, even as shy as he seems, even as uncertain as this all looks.

“Right,” Tony slaps one hand on the counter and straightens himself on the stool, trying to feel more confident than he’s ever been regarding his unsolicited – and not deep – feelings for Steve. He’s just turned twenty and he has the boy of his dreams’ attention all on him. He couldn’t have asked for anything better tonight, the only thing left for him is to go for it. “But I am.”

He sends what he thinks is a glaring smile at Steve and turns to the bar, ordering a beer bottle for each one of them. It’s not like he can get any drunker than he already is and if he can buy Steve one drink and keep him in his company a little longer, then that’s what tonight’s all about.

Turns out, Tony can get more drunk as he and Steve share not only that one beer. Tony doesn’t even know how many others he has drunk as the night goes on as he and Steve keep on talking. He doesn’t even know what he and Steve talk about. All he knows is that those blue eyes are too soft for that strong body, and they keep looking at Tony as if he’s the most interesting thing Steve has ever looked at. He gets lost in them and in Steve and in the time and doesn’t even see the night going away, too entertained by Steve’s smile and shy but interesting personality.

He would like to remember what they talked about because he’s pretty sure at some time Steve must’ve told him a joke about their professor and Tony had never laughed so hard in his life and he wants to remember every bit of every word Steve has told him. All he knows is that he wishes he remembered Steve telling him that they’ve probably had enough, that Tony wasn’t even making any sense anymore but still laughing along with him, and putting his hand on Tony’s shoulder and squeezing him tight. Tony wishes he could remember when they thought it was reasonable to leave the bar, with Steve holding Tony by his waist and dragging him back to campus, telling Tony that he wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to end up in a dumpster in the morning. Moreover, Tony regrets not remembering what Steve told him as they stood by his dorm door as Tony probably lingered longer than acceptable staring at Steve’s well-carved face and probably told him something stupid about how his cheekbones were to die for and that he wanted to kiss him. He regrets with all his being not remembering if Steve had indeed kissed him.

All Tony remembers, actually, is a blur of a night as he wakes up to Rhodey shoving a pillow to his face.

“What’s that for?” He mumbles, trying to open his eyes, only to realize that had been the worst decision of his life as the sunlight reaches him and his head starts pounding.

“For not telling me you let your fucking crush escort you back to your dorm?”

Rhodey is standing by Tony’s bed, arms crossed over his chest with a dark brow arched at him.

“What are you on about?” Tony shakes his head trying to soothe his headache and finally focus on what’s going on. He pushes himself up on his bed in a sitting position, rubbing his hand over his eyes and scratching on his still growing beard.

“I leave you for a minute and you manage to throw yourself on his arms, apparently.” Rhodey rolls his eyes and reaches for the nightstand, fetching a glass of water and handing it over to Tony. He also shoves a couple of pills into his hand.

Tony is too sleepy and hungover to deal with whatever his best friend is saying and doing, but he accepts the water and the pills without protest, taking a moment to drink from it and have another liquid in his body that isn’t alcohol. When he finally chugs the glass empty with the pills, he feels his head clear a bit and he processes Rhodey’s words.

“First, you didn’t leave me for a minute, you wanker.” He places the glass back on the nightstand. “You were gone and didn’t tell me. I looked around and you weren’t there! And… that’s all I remember, really.” Tony frowns, forcing his brain to remember what had happened just after that.

“I went to the bathroom, I told you!” Rhodey rubs one hand against his wrinkled forehead. “When I came back, you were engulfed by no other than the dude you’ve been drooling over the past months.”

There’s a short-circuit in Tony’s brain. “Stop fucking with me,” he says sternly.

“Ain’t fucking with you, Tones. Why would I?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m drunk? You want to pull one on me, take advantage of my poorly state. Mock me, as you always do. May–”

“You’re stalling, Stark,” Rhodey laughs sarcastically. “Don’t be in denial. You were hanging out, some might say flirting with Steve Rogers last night, I saw it with my own eyes. I wouldn’t fuck around with that.”

Tony’s pretty sure his eyes are about to leave his face as he fixes Rhodey with an intimidating look. “Then why didn’t you do something about it?”

Rhodey snorts. “What would you have wanted me to do? More importantly, would you have wanted me to do something about it? You looked very smitten with Steve’s eyes only on you.”

“Stop it, James!” The pillow Rhodey had attacked Tony with flies back at him as Tony tries to find something to wipe the smirk off his friend’s face. “If you’re messing with me…”

Rhodey catches the pillow and throws it back on the bed and walks over to sit beside Tony. “Dude, why would I mess with you?”

“Because you’d never let me talk to Steve if I was that drunk, so drunk that I can’t remember talking to him myself. So drunk I must’ve said something stupid and you’ve let me do it!” Tony punches Rhodey on the arm.

“Tones,” he slaps Tony’s hand away as he chuckles, “I only let you keep talking to him because I’ve never seen you with a smile as big plastered on your face as you had, and only because I saw he was smiling back at you the same way. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to let you have that after sulking for him for months.”

“I wasn’t sulki–”

“Oh my fucking God.” It was Rhodey’s time to punch Tony back. “You were, Tony. So hard. God only knows what I’ve had to endure listening to you talking about ‘his arms, buddy, his fucking arms could rip me apart’. Yeah. That was sulking and pining and sexual frustration,” he explains with a pointed look as Tony rolls his eyes.

Okay, yeah, maybe he was.

“Right, fair enough. Thank you for that then, apparently. But you’ve–,” he shakes his head, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, trying to make his brain remember something, anything about last night. “You said you’d be there with me, and you’ve let me with him and I don’t even know what we talked about. I– Rhodey, what the hell did I do?” He pinches the bridge of his nose, not daring to imagine what kind of an ass he must’ve made himself in front of Steve.

Rhodey’s hand come to rest on Tony’s shoulder, making him look at his best friend again. “Honestly? Dunno, man. I figured you’d be okay with him, that something would come out of it. I came back to the dorm and you didn’t return for a few hours later. I heard you in the hallway and you were loud and talking, but I couldn’t make out what it was. When you came inside, you didn’t even say anything. I asked if you had a great night and you said ‘marvelous’ and lie down and fell asleep like this,” he gestures to Tony’s body, making him look down at himself to notice he’s still wearing last night’s clothes.

“I–” Tony tries to make sense of what James is saying, tries to piece together the night but still comes flat with nothing. No memory whatsoever of spending a few hours with Steve. His brain can be a very big let down sometimes. What does it matter if he’s only twenty and already on his way to graduating on his Master in Mechanical Engineering if he can’t even remember flirting with the boy he’s head over heels? “Fuck.”

“Well, yeah, that’s precisely what you didn’t do last night.”

“Fuck off.” He pushes Rhodey away playfully. “No seriously, Rhodey, fucking hell. What am I supposed to do now? I apparently had the night I’ve been dreaming of for months, and I can’t even remember it. Happy fucking birthday to me, thank you universe.”

“I get off on how smart you are for some things and how dumb you are for others,” Rhodey says, pulling Tony into a half hug. “It’s not like you can’t just go after him? Meet him again? Think, Tones, just think, use that big brain of yours for the matters of the heart too instead of only creating useless computer interfaces and dumb robots.”

“Stop saying my robot is dumb.” Tony tries to wriggle himself away from Rhodey, pouting stubbornly.

“You realize you named it Dum-E.”

“He’s a prototype!” Tony uses all his strength to kick James and let him fall off the bed. “He’s dumb now, sure, but he’ll get better.”

“That also goes for you if you don’t fucking do something about you and your big ass crush on Steve.”

Tony inhales deeply as Rhodey stares at him with those big brown eyes as if he has the answers to all of Tony’s problem. Sometimes he does and Tony hates that his best friend is always right.

Honestly, he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have survived for as long at MIT if he didn’t have Rhodey beside him and now, there he is again, making sure Tony doesn’t make another mistake, one he’s taken too long to solve (why he still doesn’t know. He’s never been one to be shy around people he fancied. In fact, he always got what and who he wanted easily. Why Steve Rogers has been the first one to have that effect on him, Tony would yet figure out).

What follows then is that Tony puts his big brain to use and tries to come up with a plan to get to talk to Steve again. Thing is, there aren’t a lot of opportunities. In fact, when he thinks about it, there’s truly only one.

Crammed by final projects and tests and essays to hand in, Tony can’t find the time to look for Steve around campus. His stalking/observatory skills don’t come in handy because Tony hadn’t allowed himself to actually find out where Steve lives, (that’d be too creepy, even he has to admit it) and so, the only chance to see him would be at their joint class. But that problem with that there lays in the fact that their Professor had given them two weeks to complete their final assignment, resuming class on the day of their deadline only for the students to hand it in.

It seems the universe’s not working on Tony’s side lately and so he has to rely on this sole opportunity, hoping that Steve shows up to hand in his final paper at the same time as him, otherwise planting himself at the front of the classroom waiting for him will have to be the only other option (“too creepy, Tones, if you still don’t want to be called a stalker”). He doesn’t let himself think over his plan too thoroughly. If it’s meant to be, then it will, because letting his heart take over his brain at this point in the semester won’t do for him. He has a Masters to focus on and if he gets to have even if it’s just a little bit of Steve, then that’s just his luck.

Two weeks is a long time though and Tony tries to pretend he’s not apprehensive about this whole Steve deal. He feigns his anxiety for the number of things he has to work on, but in reality, he knows he’s a ball of nerves because of Steve because he couldn‘t stop thinking about him. When it comes to the exact science, nailing his studies or doing rational things, Tony doesn’t even have any problems, but when it comes to things he can’t have control over, that’s when he starts to doubt himself.

Folder in hand with an essay on the evolution of technology and its effects in modern times revised over and over and only finished two hours ago, Tony walks towards his classroom, aware of his surroundings and the people around him, trying not to look so obvious that he’s looking for a specific pair of blue eyes, broad shoulders and light golden locks. He feels himself walking as slow as he can, taking his time, giving Steve his time to just fucking show up so Tony can– well, can say anything, he hasn’t even thought about what he’s gonna talk about to him, but he knows he will. If only he shows up, that’s it.

There’s no reason for him not to. Steve’s been a very participatory student in class, Tony has noticed, even as shy as he is. He’s attended every class, has given presentations and handed in other assignments. Why would he not hand in their final paper and fail an elective class? He has to show up, Tony prays to whatever God that there is above him.

But for the long minutes Tony stretches on as he makes his way down the front of the class, chats a bit with the professor after handing in his essay, stalls him by making up questions and doubts he doesn’t even have or bringing up facts he knows the teacher is not even interested in, Steve hasn’t showed up yet.

Tony sighs deeply, holding his satchel bag tightly over his shoulder and making his way out of the classroom with his head held down. He feels defeated by destiny and he doesn’t even believe in it, but that’s only because he thought he had a shot at speaking and seeing Steve one last time because apparently, he blew the one he already had with him by not remembering a single thing that happened. There it goes two weeks of overthinking if he would ever have a chance with Steve again by feeling like a complete failure and utterly disappointed in himself (even if all his exams grades showed that Tony still continued to be the genius that everyone took him for).

His self-deprecating thoughts are washed away from his mind just as he’s about to open the door to leave the classroom, only to have it almost slammed against his face.

“Fucking hell!” He stumbles backwards, sure he’s gonna fall on his ass with all the other students looking at him when he feels a hand holding him by the arm.

“Second time’s a charm, Stark.”

When Tony looks up, he pretends he doesn’t feel his stomach lurching, that he doesn’t feel like his whole face is gonna split open by how hard he wants to smile.

He scolds his expression, but still smirks as he balances himself up again with Steve’s help.

“Was counting on that.”

He isn’t even sure what he’s talking about, but as Steve keeps his hand on Tony’s arm, looking at him with those piercing blue eyes, Tony remembers how Steve had held him back that night, preventing him from falling for the first time.

Little did he know it hadn’t been the first time Tony had fallen. For Steve, he’s sure he’s been falling for the past four months.

“Took you long enough.”

If Tony had been nervous that Steve wouldn’t respond to whatever flirting or mention of their time together, he now leaves a sigh of relief because the uncertainty he remembers feeling from Steve that night, that has completely vanished with the way Steve is smiling at him – with confidence, with as much relief as Tony’s feeling.

“Nothing like the last minute,” Tony jokes as he lets go of Steve and fixes his bag. “Could say the same to you,” he gestures to Steve’s folder in his other hand and then looks back to the front of the class as the professor is already gathering his stuff to leave, “don’t wanna keep you from handing in your paper, sorry.”

“No, you’re not– Sorry I slammed you with the door.” He scratches the back of his neck.

“No problem, big guy,” Tony smiles. “I should be saying sorry for standing on your way. Even now. Go on, or else Mr Durant will be on his merry way.”

Steve nods and smiles faintly at Tony, taking one step away and making to move towards the professor but then abruptly stops, turning back to Tony again. “I– Hm, do you want to– I mean, could you wai–”

Tony doesn’t even have to let Steve finish what he’s about to say to understand what he means to ask. He knows and he wants and–

“Yes, of course. I’ll be outside,” he winks at him before opening the door and stepping outside, leaving Steve to turn around, but not before seeing a big and lovely and hopeful smile on his face.

#i don't even know what this is but i like it very much #kind of a birthday fic?#this is unbeta'ed so yeah any mistakes are my own #i might delete this later lol #stevetony #stony #stony fic #stevetonyfic #fanfic #no explict / mature content #my writing #steph talks

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ironhusband · 4 years ago

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Rhodeytony seasons of love master post of headcanons

What I didn’t miss too many days and decided to make up for it this way, not at all!

Rhodey is a rocket scientist and Tony is an engineer so you would expect that if they followed the recipe for fireworks, everything would be A-Okay. But of course, those two genius boys can’t ever let anything be simple. So when they try to make fireworks for Rhdoey’s family fourth of July party, there might have a close call with Tony’s fingers and the grass in Rhodey’s yard is burned to the crisp. Mama Rhodes is Not Happy.

Rhodey doesn’t often get drunk without Tony, but during the era between Ultron and Civil War where Tony is retired, Rhodey is a new Avenger and they miss each other terribly, the team makes Rhodey drink two shots of Nat’s too strong booze, and he maybe leaves him a voicemail before being wrestled into sleep. “Toooooony,” he whines into the phone, “I love you. I love you very very much. Did you know that your friends are the best? Because they are! Sam, you are the best! Tell Tony you are the best. No, but for real though, I miss you. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. You should leave your stupid Malibu house and come live with us. Your friends are the best. And you are the best. It will be so fun. And then I won’t miss you anymore...” The next morning Tony calls him and tells him, “that’s the worst way you could have asked me to move in with you” but by the afternoon boxes start showing up.

Tony is often up by 3 AM so 3 AM voicemails aren’t uncommon, even if Tony hates leaving them (”it’s not 1993 who has an answering machine?”). He especially stays up and leaves voicemails when Rhodey isn’t there to drag him to bed. He’s usually a little bit manic, and just a tad longing at that time. But Tony’s sane enough while leaving them so it’s mostly just ramblings about Rhodey’s suit and its modifications and muses about Tony hijacking a military plane to see him. Rhodey sometimes uses them as a way to relax when he’s away and missing his husband.

None of them knit the ugly sweater. Roberta does. Tony cries when he gets his first ugly sweater from her because he knows more than anyone it’s a right of passage into being a Rhodes, and he finally gets a family. Tony wears the sweaters all the time because it fells like knowing someone cares for him. Rhodey, however, isn’t that touched by the ugly sweaters, and resumes to be seen with them. He doesn’t touch Roberta’s ugly sweaters on any day but the extremely cold or laundry day. That is why Tony is Roberta’s favorite.

Neither of them screams first in the haunted house. Our two prankster boys pull all their resources in Halloween and create a haunted house out of their MIT dorms, making everyone scream. Some of the things they invent for the house shouldn’t even be possible so people scream more than at any haunted house because they are convinced there’s magic involved. It makes Tony and Rhodey fall to the ground laughing.

Rhodey pulls Tony back in for the lazy day. Not only because Tony’s mind is so busy that he gets up way too early because he’s dreamed of an equation, but also because Tony gets up way too early for the time he fell asleep, and Rhodey wants to make sure his boyfriend gets at least some sleep. Besides, Tony needs to learn what a lazy day is and Rhodey wants cuddles when he’s finally home.

Tony is on the fall festival’s planning committee out of spite (one of the students there KICKED HIS CHAIR) and pure mischief and makes sure to ruin it in some way every year, or at least antagonize everyone else. He and Rhodey scheme every year how to torture the planning committee.

Tony wins Rhodey a stuffed platypus at the carnival and Rhodey wins Tony a faulty tape recorder. I have this exact scene in road trip fic.

Tony is the ice skating pro because he was a dancer as a child and part of his training was ice skating, but even he can’t skate without falling on his ass with how tightly Rhodey is holding on to him. Tony never takes Rhodey ice skating again, but him, Natasha, and Jeanette all have fun while ice skating together. Rhodey is upset about not getting ice skating dates with his boyfriend anymore, especially with how tight he gets to hold on to Tony in the ring. But he still likes to watch videos of Tony mastering the skill.

Rhodey makes the best hot cocoa! He learned the secret recipe from Mama Rhodes and will not share it, not even with his husband. Tony always pouts over not getting the recipe (”you’ll butcher it, no way”) but he’s happy to have his husband to make it for him, because it tastes like heaven and he’s the luckiest person on Earth for it. The Avengers also enjoy Rhodey’s hot cocoa in the winter and also try and figure out the recipe. None have succeeded so far. Mama Rhodes is delighted by so many superheroes enjoying her recipe.

Cuddling ensues when they get snowed in. Tony hates the cold and the boredom it all entails so he’ll leech on to Rhodey for warmth and entrainment. Tony sort of gets on Rhodey’s nerves by the end of it, but he finds Tony super cute when he falls asleep on his chest. It ends with Tony making himself so insane he creates robots to shovel all the snow away. It somehow works.

Tony doesn’t much like the holidays because they bring back too many bad memories but he finds how Rhodey’s excitement adorable. Rhodey’s near childlike joy at getting presents on Christmas morning makes the holidays bearable for Tony. Rhodey insists they create their own traditions (like his parents did) when they get together and rent their own apartment during their MIT days, and so they create a few. During Thanksgiving dinner, they each get to make one dish and they order the rest of dinner to make up for the lacking food (Rhodey only made the turkey Tony only makes the cranberry sauce). Their tree is purely for decoration as they exchange gifts privately with each other, and it’s a rule that they must make all the decor for the tree. As they grow up and get more family members, the thanksgiving tradition is stopped but they leave the Christmas ones and create a few more traditions. For Thanksgiving, their small tradition is getting each other a gift card for a restaurant they recommend, a memory from the old times. They never eat at the table, but instead set up a buffet and allow people to mingle on the couches while they eat the food. Tony does the shopping for Thanksgiving and Rhodey does the cooking, except the cranberry sauce, because it’s easy and Tony can handle it. For Christmas, they have a lazy day in bed instead of wake up to see their presents. The Avengers might leave them presents under the tree but Tony and Rhodey only care about the gifts they give each other. Every new bot gets its own sock stocking and they let the bots decorate their socks. They both leave the suits in a random square in New York with the sign “they want to be dressed for the season!” and watch the different creations of Iron Man and War Machine “snow”men. It happens a few years in a row.

Rhodey hides the mistletoe right above Tony’s workshop door because he knows Tony’s always there and he’s one of the only ones allowed in, so Rhodey’ll get plenty of kisses. Plus, he gets some adorable pictures of Tony kissing his bots.

Tony hides the mistletoe in frequently-used spaces (notable mentions: Fury’s drawer when he leaves his pencils and the hanger on which Clint hangs his arrows) because he’s a little shit, and wants everyone to hate him. “I’m going to make you some of my hot chocolate, Tony,” Rhodey says as he opened the cupboard for the pot. Tony desperately tries to hide his smirk, “okay, hubby.” It takes a few minutes before Rhodey says, “fine, I’ll kiss you, but no hot chocolate for you.”

The season which reminds Tony of Rhodey is spring. Because Rhodey is just as lovely and beautiful as the season is. Spring reminds him of Rhodey’s passion and intelligence, the way everything turns green so quickly reminds him of how quick Rhodey is to develop an idea. It reminds him to pick flowers for his husband and finally being in the season to buy Rhodey’s favorite fruit, strawberries.

The season which reminds Rhodey of Tony is winter. Because Tony hates the winter. He hates Christmas and snow and rain. He hates the cold and the blackouts. So whenever something especially winter happens, like snowmen building or Christmas shopping, Rhodey thinks with a fond smile “oh, Tony would hate this”.

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tempestaurora · 6 years ago

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endgame opinions

spoilers under the cut. i’ve opened my dms so feel free to come and scream/yell/cry/whatever with me. this turned out really long because i start speculating half way through as well as talking about opinions.

let’s start with harley keener, my son, who was literally only in the movie for a second, at the fucking funeral. are you kidding me. and a lot of people don’t know what ty simpkins looks like now?? so even my friend didn’t know who he was until i started physically vibrating in my seat

HOWEVER, he and peter are in the same location, which totally opens up a plausible reason for them to know each other, become best friends/brothers/roommates at MIT

it’s sad that it was just him standing alone though, like no one stood with him, like his mother or anyone. that’s sad.

i wrote a harley keener infinity war fic so like,, feel free to read that to get the harley keener endgame feelings we DESERVE

aNYWAY, good film

i enjoyed it a lot for the most part, like i have so few complaints its unreal

it’s a genuinely funny film that didn’t feel like it was shoehorning in comedic relief, but like the movie was SUPPOSED to be lighter and funnier and drama was happening in between

i didn’t care for the ending in the slightest fuck that

i’m pissed about being lied to by the directors about a canon gay character. they sat up there on their high horses, congratulating themselves for a job well done for diversity, when it was just a fucking extra with no name, referring to a male partner twice. that’s it. you’re fucking kidding me if you think that’s diversity, if the russos truly think that was worth getting our hopes up for.

you know who could’ve been confirmed lgbt? valkyrie. steve. bucky. tony. (and no, tony appreciating steve’s ass doesn’t confirm our bi father, son and holy spirit on screen, unfortunately.)

that’s a fucking joke, russos. i hope they’re fucking ashamed of that.

(i really was watching that final bucky/steve scene and hoping for some hint of, it was always you, you know and got fucking nothing. i barely even ship stucky and i know that it should’ve been them)

the clint/natasha fight on vormir was the best scene, hands down. there’s no competition here. it was the best moment of the film, and despite my annoyance at the russos seeing that the audience didn’t appreciate gamora dying to further a man’s arc, and then fucking doing it again, i really did like that scene

i figured nat was gonna die but i didn’t think i’d actually be sad about it

as soon as they said they were going to vormir i knew the fight would happen and it lived up to every expectation and some

the barton home cold open was fantastic

why the ever loving FUCK was carol danvers so forcefully advertised to us?????? why were we told over and over and over that carol was gonna kill thanos, that she was gonna save the day, that the avengers literally had zero chance without her????? she had four minutes of screentime what the fuck

i appreciate her and peter’s interaction though that was cute and he was wrecked

the peter/tony reunion was cute af, glad they finally got their hug

also, i always wanted peter to call him tony but like that???? nah

side note, don’t remember in the slightest what rhodey and peter said as tony died because i was sitting there going, he’s not actually gonna die, obviously, that’s not gonna happen, they’re gonna make us think he will and then he’ll come back so i missed both their goodbyes

i know it was a 3 hour film but there was space for... more. there should’ve been more. where was rocket and groot’s reunion? where was bucky and steve’s?

where did valkyrie get a fucking pegasus from

bruce and hulk’s new system is hilarious but the fact that he dabbed pains me

bruce wielding the gauntlet was so incredibly left field i loved it, like no one guessed that he’d be the one to bring everyone back. no one

scott did great

i’m not sure if i can settle myself with this five year time jump for a whole host of reasons

1. do we have, officially, a new cassie lang actress? is our iconic abby ryder fortson leaving us for an older actress???

2. far from home takes place, supposedly, a week after endgame. it was one of the reasons i believed tony wouldn’t die, because it seems like a wholly upbeat film - and y’all saw his face at the funeral, he was fucking gone - and it’s even been confirmed to be lighter and funnier, so there better be some fucking low blow that takes peter out on the tony front (but did the writers/directors even know tony had died when they made the film? will it be ignored altogether?) back to the main point:

2a. it’s around the year 2023 and as soon as the entire world comes back, there’s a two week field trip to europe that peter and all his classmates have somehow paid for, signed permission slips for, and arranged, despite the fact that they’ve all been dead for five years. and i mean all. literally the entire main cast of spiderman is still in peter’s class, they haven’t grown up and moved on. the entire fucking cast got dusted.

3. we didn’t really get to see tony and steve make up??? they kinda just brushed over everything

i almost cried seeing ned leeds and peter reunite

okay now the biggies:

i’m Not Okay with tony stark dying

i’m not

it’s not just that he’s my favourite character and i care about him above all others, it’s that his entire arc has been about first, accountability, and second, leaving the fight. yes, it’s also got a lot of heart motifs and mentions of sacrifice too. i understand that. but tony has been wrestling with his father’s legacy and the kind of father he’ll be since day one.

he deserved his happy ending.

not just five years. not just a daughter who will know OF him but not know him, who’ll forget the short time of memories she has in due course. he deserved to grow old with his daughter and his wife and the kid whose photo he placed on the shelf in the kitchen, where he could see it every day.

he does deserve rest. but he deserves the kind of rest where he’s alive.

i have said before that if tony stark dies, i stop watching the mcu, and tbh, might actually go through with it. i don’t know if i really want to watch the films, knowing he’s gone? (and that they could’ve used either the time stone, or, you know, their time travel machine, to go two weeks back, grab that tony and bring him into the present. say, hey, you died, but now you can keep living.)

and steve.

oh steve.

i love steve rogers, i do. i absolutely adore steve rogers. but i’m about the same level of angry about his ending as i am about tony’s.

and honestly? it’s only because it’s not him. it’s not the him we know. my friend said that cap went and settled down because he’d finally learnt the lesson tony had been teaching; that maybe there is a reason to set down the shield and live a quiet, good life. but i don’t like it. it opens time anomalies, inconsistencies. it doesn’t feel like him.

since cap came into the 21st century, his story line has had a motif of moving on. about getting with the times, learning new music, new references, finding old friends and having to decide whether he should hold onto them and risk what he has now, or let them go. he’s been staring at a photo of peggy carter since 2011, he made peace with her life when he visited her in hospital, he let her go when she died. he watched her, through her office window, be director of shield, knowing she was about to have a life that she loved. she has children, a family.

it doesn’t feel like the steve rogers i know to take that away from her

but at the same time, i understand that sometimes, he should get to be a little selfish. he was selfish when it came to protecting bucky over all else, and it ended with mixed results.

i loved the final scene, of he and peggy dancing and kissing, but i think i would’ve loved that scene just as much, if not more, if it had happened in the afterlife. with an about time from peggy.

on the same subject: bucky and sam.

i’m super happy with sam being the next captain america (does this mean we’ve been lied to about the whole falcon and winter soldier tv show? is it actually a captain america and winter soldier show?)

i think bucky knew what steve’s plans were, though it would’ve been nice to have some on-screen confirmation. i think that’s why he seemed relieved that steve was sitting on the bench; he knew what steve was going to do and was glad he’d lived long enough to pass the torch once and for all

HOWEVER, the time anomalies i mentioned:

peggy carter’s established timeline is broken

does sharon carter exist? if yes, does this timeline’s steve rogers still make out with her

if steve goes into the past, the steve that he already was and his whole existence in the 21st century will still happen. that means he’ll look for peggy. that means he’ll find her. with him. in the future/present. steve is therefore made aware of the future - would that then effect how he acts with civil war/infinity war etc? would that then erase the events that happened, limiting steve from going back?

does he tell anyone that hydra is in shield

does he get bucky the fuck out of hydra or does he let his best friend be tortured for 70 years

i think bucky should’ve been a part of the sam/captain america torch conversation. if only because steve’s narrative has focused around bucky since 2011 and it ends with a don’t do anything stupid while i’m gone / you’re taking all the stupid with you - that’s not a satisfactory ending lads

much of me thinks steve and tony’s outcomes should’ve been switched. tony wants a quiet life, steve has said many times that he can’t imagine giving up the fight, living as a civilian in obscurity. i think it’s a cruel way to end it.

plus steve is ALWAYS the one making speeches about sacrifice, but he’s never the one to actually make the sacrifice. it’s always tony.

i’m happy for steve, i am.

i think i’d just be happier if morgan could grow up with her father and if pepper wasn’t a single parent and peter didn’t have to navigate the rest of his life - super powered and not - alone

side note, far from home taking place a week after endgame: nick fury wasted no fucking time jumping on spiderman. like, tony absolutely protected him from fury before infinity war, and the dude’s barely buried and fury’s making his move on peter - not cool

anyway, i genuinely did enjoy the film. i find it incredibly difficult to believe this was shot immediately after infinity war because the tone is so different, and i was remembering all those photos we had from reshoots and realised none of those scenes made it in the final cut.

it was a good film. probably the most emotionally mature of the mcu. not my favourite. i’m angry about the ending. nebula should’ve killed thanos at least once. cool that gamora’s back. sad about nat. devastated about tony. happy for steve on the surface, until i spend 2 seconds looking deeper. loki’s probably alive because the timeline changed and they replaced the tesseract in 1970, not 2012, so officially, loki never goes to asgard jail anymore

but for real: how does steve replace the tesseract in the past when it’s now the space stone? how does he get that past anyone at all?

edit: I SOMEHOW forgot about rescue, the moment i’ve been waiting for for a decade

i love her, i love the suit, i love the pepper was incredibly badass with it with zero hesitation. i wish someone had said the name rescue like i wish someone had said captain marvel - but no dice. it’s such a rad suit and seeing her and tony fight side by side was so cool

edit 2 bc im a dumbass: CLINT MY ARROW BOY I LOVE YOU, YOU GOT ALL THE SCREENTIME U FUCKIN DESERVED

#endgame spoilers #avengers spoilers #avengers endgame #marvel #mcu #bethany talks

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ckyking · 7 years ago

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MIT and projectile weapons

i'm supposed to be writing reports rn but let's ignore in favour of tiny ball of rage tony, m'kay? m'kay.

okay, i love all of the fics where tony could stay in his labs without eating or sleeping for like 72 hours if left to his own devices and has like 10 cups of coffee lying around, but i firmly believe that he knows how to take care of himself and does it...when he thinks he can.

i mean, he brought food and a change of clothes amongst other things to the helicarrier in avengers? he knows his body needs food and sleep and all of those other disgustingly human things if he wants it to do what he wants. without input, you don’t have any output. simple.

but that’s his Peak Engineering Mode, where he sleeps at 5 hours a day (less if he has an idea that won’t stop at just notes/blueprints) and snacks constantly and tries to at least eat one full meal every day.

compare this to Desperation Engineering Mode where all of this gets thrown out of the window in favour of getting everything done right here right now i.e mark ii, ultron, the entire fucking civil war if you replace engineering with trying to keep everyone together and/or relatively safe.

(the results are equally as amazing – from an engineering pov – in both cases but goddamn let the man live! “i am one falling screw away from a panic attack” is not a good look on anyone, tony. on anyone.)

where was i going with this again?

oh, yeah, the cups. i am 100% certain that having at least two cups on hand at any given time is a leftover from his MIT days. not for the reasons you would think tho.

people learn very fast where they stand with him when they startle him out of one of his inventing binges (because MIT!tony doesn’t know the meaning of moderation (yet) and his base mode is “sleep is for the weak”). because he has a List of people that are allowed in the lab while he’s busy inventing as in, if he can’t recognize you in a split second, you get something thrown at your head while he gets the nearest thing that counts as a weapon.

because tony has the reflexes of a startled cat (and he is already a tiny ball of rage to begin with) after several kidnapping attempts, which redoubled after he got out of the private school howard stashed him into with its director carter-mandated shield protection service.

which is not that feasible for a teenager who refuses any bodyguards given to him...by escaping at the nearest opportunity.

he’s used to the kidnappings anyway, so what’s the point of lugging someone around and making himself even more different that he already is?

so, projectile weapons when startled in the place he’s most vulnerable. because he’s in pretty visible places the rest of the time and/or with rhodey, so no biggie.

rhodey is pretty much the only one accepted on the List, and takes pains so stop tony from giving someone a concussion...again. hence the giant “KNOCK BEFORE YOU ENTER” at the door and deliberately leaving empty cups around so tony will reach for that instead of, you know, a wench. or a hammer. or, on one memorable occasion, a part of dum-e’s strut.

and speaking of dum-e, don’t think he didn’t notice that, especially at the easily influenced stage after he just came online.

each time a non-rhodey person visits:

“tiny creator, do we like them? do we hate them?”

*tony startles*

“ok we doN’T LIKE THEM”

“DUM-E NO”

anyway, this was how dum-e lost his fire-extinguisher privilege to u until a few years later. which, coincidentally, matches the moment jarvis came online.

because jarvis, of course, screens everyone who enters/wants to enter the lab and notifies tony appropriately....most of the time.

like that time natasha went down to the ‘shop after the avengers move into the tower and jarvis “forgot” to warn tony...and natasha had to put her super spy reflexes to use when tony whipped a knife at her head. because that’s what he was working on at the time...coincidentally.

(listen, jarvis is a Stark™ which makes him, by definition, very good at holding grudges and being petty. and he still isn’t happy with shield infiltrating stark industries)

(there was only a 12% chance that it would hit her anyway, that’s completely within acceptable range)

(“NO IT’S NOT JARVIS WHAT THE HELL”

“I’m truly sorry, Sir, I thought it a rite of initiation. Should I queue up the footage of DUM-E and Colonel Rhodes’ first meeting?”

“That wasn’t it and you know it!!!! But queue up it anyway, that thing is hilarious–i’ll never get tired of it.”)

#tony stark #dum e #jarvis #u #james rhodes #tony and his robot children #iron man #marvel #avengers #my stuff #marvel hc

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lightneverfades · 4 years ago

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Frostiron Holiday Wishes Challenge ❆ 🎅🎄Master Post!

Thank you to all those who’ve submitted a prompt/wish and lovely artwork/fics for these wishes! Here is a compiled list of all the prompt fills received! :D <3

Requester: @kimmycup Wish (Prompt/Idea): Invasion fic where Tony figures out Loki was mind controlled before Loki does: "But I WAS in control. Thanos didn't control me like I did Clint." "Yeah sure. And if you wanted to take over the world, what would you do?" Loki spluttered, fully aware that plan was dumb. Still, he would KNOW if he were controlled... Right? "But I wasn't mind controlled! It was me!"

❆ Fill: By @worstloki Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638613717830008832/

Requester: @brianadoesart Wish (Prompt/Idea): Cupcake shop au!!! One of our boys owns a cupcake shop and the other one is a FREQUENT visitor to said coffee shop. Lots of people think its because they have a sweet tooth, but they're just hopelessly in love with whichever one owns the shop.

❆ Fill: By @worstloki Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638613402351239168/

Requester: @snarkyship Wish (Prompt/Idea): Human/no powers AU. Sort-of-enemies to friends to lovers.Tony rents this house/bungalow by the sea for the summer, with a kind of private beach where there is also a cute gazebo. Only that the gazebo is exactly halfway with the other property (by some mistake?). And the tenant of the neighbour bungalow is Loki, who's not so keen on sharing. So Loki&Tony will start a "war" to gain possession of the gazebo, doing their worst using the excuse of "this is my half, I can use it as I want". ((Optional: there is a table right in the middle, so at the beginning they sit at their own side glaring at each other, before starting deploying more convoluted tactics)).Mischief after mischief, they will start to know each other and of course everything will end with one of them inviting the other to their half for a romantic dinner and they'll end up sharing more than the gazebo <3((I hope it's enough clear and but also not too detailed??))

❆ Fill: By @worstloki Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638612819398606848/

Requester: @loufeysson Wish (Prompt/Idea): Hi! my prompt is teenage Tony and android Loki in a futuristic universe (in the style of Black Mirror, maybe?) 🥺👉🏼👈🏼 Thank you!

❆ Fill: By @lightneverfades (yours truly haha!) Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638487122698010624/

Requester: @lightneverfades Wish (Prompt/Idea): Loki is a yoga instructor and one day Tony goes to one of his classes and finds out the best positions to ‘relax’ - body, mind and soul >:D. (I love puns, so go crazy hahaha!)

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://snarkyship.tumblr.com/post/638415118181580800/

Requester: @martiszcz Wish (Prompt/Idea): Someone is trying to break them up by making Loki jealous, mentioning Tony's playboy years, talking about the time they slept with Tony, talking about how much time he spends with some friend (Pepper, Rhodey, I don't care who) but Loki doesn't react - they trust each other.

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638434199159865344/

Requester: Nivael * Wish (Prompt/Idea): Loki and Tony are in an established relationship. Things go great, but Loki is still unaccepting of his Jotun heritage and body. While Tony is completely fascinated by it, partly because Loki tries to hide it so hard. So he gets a fancy magical gadget from Strange (amulet, bracelet,...?) to be able to avoid frostbite so he can touch Loki even when he's in his Jotun form. Then there will be smut! :D

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638434042873872384

Requester: @loufeysson Wish (Prompt/Idea): Hi! my prompt is teenage Tony and android Loki in a futuristic universe (in the style of Black Mirror, maybe?) 🥺👉🏼👈🏼 Thank you!

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638433959345274880/

Requester: @arandomsewer Wish (Prompt/Idea): I just want him to live on and being supported by his Friends and his brother recognizing him, that's basically the prompt. Tho here's the details of the Idea I had: Loki is living at the tower with the others (of course) too proud to say out loud how much he likes life on earth... The usual.Something happens and suddenly the magic that made him look Asgardian is just not working anymore. Understandably, he freaks out. Im talking hides in his room, crying, anger, hate, on himself and others... The whole lot, he just throws a major fit.The others know him and kind of understand and are patient... But it’s not getting fixed. Days pass, and he's stuck like this. After a while Tony snaps him out of It, and he slowly calms down and starts learning to accept this side of himself. It’s specially strange to him how he can just walk in a room and no one treats him different. How the others are even fascinated by this form. I expect Thor being shocked and curious and snapped at and reminded how he (and his people on general) have been unfair to Loki... And of course, there's the romance with Tony, Who loves him in all his forms (and they fit together 'cause he's kinky and Loki a shapeshifter)Also imagine Loki being terrified of touching Tony and then finding out he's cold to the touch but not actually dangerous (my headcanon: he's the son of Hella. Half giant and half Asgardian, and the actual heir... But that's for another fic)

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638433872244326400/

Requester: @kimmycup Wish (Prompt/Idea): Loki in Tony's MIT sweatshirt.

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638403067804598272/

Requester: @worstloki Wish (Prompt/Idea): Tony and Loki both having panic attacks at the same time. just make it wild. whatever the reasons are, maybe it's the same reason? maybe they have shared triggers? maybe it's separate reasons? maybe the other avengers are around and don't realize the incoming attacks and keep bringing up bad memories? maybe one of them notices the other is freaking out and defends them? maybe drags them away only to also start having a panic attack? whatever. they're both freaking out and just kinda do that. they then bond over it. (this can be crack or angsty I don't mind)

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638402945408499712/

Requester: @shinindragon Wish (Prompt/Idea): The Avengers + Loki fight a villain. Loki uses a lot of his magic, eventually almost draining his energy completely when he protects Tony from getting hurt. When the battle is over, they return to the tower, all of them exhausted. Tony notices Loki doesn't look well, he asks if he's okay. Loki barely gets a word out before he collapses into Tony's arms, unconscious. Thor carries Loki to Tony's and his bedroom, explaining to Tony that he'll be alright, it's just exhaustion from an excessive use of magic. Tony stays with Loki, taking care of him. Fluff and with a sprinkle of angst.��

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638402848705675264

Requester: @blancoluna Wish (Prompt/Idea): Basically Friga wonders where she went wrong, asks the Oracle and goes on a guilt trip realizing she messed up to Valhalla and back. The idea is, being a queen-godess of family, she should be able to do something about it, maybe traveling in time or something... And Loki's gonna need powerful allies and Friends, like the Avengers, for example Now the same, but with detail. This is the way I imagined It. Perhaps it’s too much drama? I just don't know how to tackle It or how to go from here:After everything that happened, Frigga wonders where she went wrong, not just with Loki, but with Thor who didn't appreciate his brother, Odín, who treated him unfairly and even the servants, Who didn't respect him.She wonders if she could have done anything, and the guilt wont let her sleep until she goes to the well of wisdom, the Oracle, to seek answers.She is warned the truth may be even more painful. She may not like the answer... But she goes in.It is way worse than she thought: in one second she is reminded of all the times she should have acted, and chose not to, and she sees how It affected her family.She could and should have done something, and she had plenty of time, but at every chance she chose not to. And its perhaps worse than what Odin did because she knew It was wrong but chose to do nothing about It.But even more: It is confirmed to her that not only Odín never gave Loki a chance: he didn't find him. He stole him from the temple where he was guarded. He is not just the son of Louffey, but also of Hella, and thus, the actual heir to the throne of Asgard.She was supposed to be the godess of family, and here she was, consumed by guilt and shame, by having followed blindly a King Who abused her children and betrayed his own heir, aside from many other crimes.But Frigga can't just spend the test of eternity crying. She must do something. She was raised by witches!!Will she manage to get her hands on the time Stone? Or Will she just travel to another dimension to warn a younger version of herself? Will this be the beginning of a new multiverse? The possibilities are endless, when the godess of family must avenge her child...But first: for him to have a better Life he would need support, allies... Friends. (Enter the Avengers)

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638402661807521793

Requester: @brianadoesart Wish (Prompt/Idea): A.... Among Us au....... Impostor Loki protecting his crewmate friend Tony from the other impostors.... I..... Tony and Loki as Among Us beans...

❆ Fill: By @snarkyship Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638403011653353472/

Requester: @kimmycup Wish (Prompt/Idea): Loki in Tony's MIT sweatshirt.

❆ Fill: By @shinindragon Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638390052569907200

Requester: @brianadoesart Wish (Prompt/Idea): A.... Among Us au....... Impostor Loki protecting his crewmate friend Tony from the other impostors.... I..... Tony and Loki as Among Us beans...

❆ Fill: By @kimmycup Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638390059063803904

Requester: @brianadoesart Wish (Prompt/Idea): MERMAIDS. I like mermaids. Either a fic or art, but I just want more content of mer-Loki or mer-Tony. I always enjoy versions where Loki is an underwater prince who falls in love with a stupid human inventor by the name of Tony. He's never been 100% happy in the palace with Thor and the others, so he often would go to the shore to watch the humans. He sees Tony working on the beach one day and becomes interested in him from there on. Basically a little mermaid type thing... I am easy to please. I just like mermaids.

❆ Fill: By @lightneverfades (yours truly haha!) Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638511932186525696/

Requester: @snarkyship Wish (Prompt/Idea): Finally Tony has managed to locate Loki's whereabouts. And it turns out the godling lives in a pretty loft in Manhattan, with all the comforts and the most advanced midgardian technology ((lighting, temperature and everything controlled by a tablet - the Stark latest model!- , appliances linked to the wifi, and has that roomba a knife??)).Tony decides to have a little fun: who said Loki is the only one who can do a little mischief?? So he takes control over Loki's apartment hacking its system; he starts with some flickering lights, the roomba changing suddenly trajectory to stab him, then blasting music in the middle of the night and so on.And Loki would be so frustrated: at the beginning he thinks about some failure in the inferior midgardian technology, then he'll think to be under attack, but he can't feel any magic signature!! Maybe he'll freak out a little, because there is some kind of unknown entity??? ((And while he may be using all the technology without problems, it doesn't mean he fully understands its working)).Tony will have fun, but he also will discover some cute aspects of Loki's personality, like he sings to his plants and he likes to wear fuzzy socks ((ok it sounds voyeuristic, but Tony would respect part Loki's privacy, maybe he'll spy on him only when in the living room or kitchen)).((And maybe he would help Loki as well? Like, the godling had a nightmare after falling asleep on the couch, and Tony would gently woke him up with music))Loki will eventually understand that Stark, the most clever midgardian, was behind all of this, and well, he's the God of Mischief, he can appreciate a well planned trick. Time to return the favor ;)

❆ Fill: By @lightneverfades (yours truly haha!) Link: https://lightneverfades.tumblr.com/post/638390071764074496/

#frostiron holiday wishes challenge #frostiron #master post #hehehe #ahh need to compile before the end of the year!#thank you so much to everyone who submitted prompts and fills!#this was so much fun!#love this fandom

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