Chapter Text
The Beginning (option 1):
Tony fell forward and Rhodey caught him, dust and sand whipping in both their eyes.
“I got you,” said Rhodey directly into Tony’s ear, more breath than words.
“No, definitely not,” said Tony, snorting into his scotch. “Earlier.”
Rhodey rolled his eyes.
The Beginning (option 2):
“I have to go with someone,” whined Tony, “and, hey, look you’re already dressed.” He was messing with his own bow tie and pacing around the room in big circles, looping around Rhodey so he had to keep spinning to keep Tony in view.
Rhodey put his hands on his hips and tried really hard to glare.
“It’s my uniform, Tony, it’s not black tie–”
“Baby-cheeks, you’ll be the prettiest princess at the ball,” said Tony, moving closer in his loops. “You’re always the prettiest princess, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise–”
Rhodey pulled Tony towards him when the loop brought him close enough to grab. He swatted Tony’s hands away and finished the knot himself.
“Nobody ever doubted I was the prettiest,” he said, straight-faced.
Tony grinned.
“Oh my god, not even close,” said Tony, getting up for another scotch. Or. Actually, that wasn’t scotch, was it?
“We need to go deeper,” said Tony in a faux-deep, squirting the boxed apple juice into his crystal tumbler.
“…deeper?” said Rhodey, raising an eyebrow.
“Earlier, we’ll go deeper later,” corrected Tony, making an approximation of a lewd face as best he could around the hugely affectionate grin he couldn’t stamp down.
“Earlier than that?” asked Rhodey, honestly confused now.
“So much earlier,” said Tony.
In a hallway outside the dorms, in the vaguely communal area that was always a mess because it belonged to no one in particular and was thus no one in particular’s responsibility, a fourteen-year old Tony Stark dissected a television on the floor. He had Metallica blasting out of a speaker no bigger than a stick of deodorant but about the same shape.
“Man, could you keep it down?” asked Jim Rhodes, peeking his head out of his dorm room.
Tony didn’t hear him so he had to come closer, close enough to realize that Tony had headphones over his ears that were playing AC/DC so loud that it was canceling out the Metallica.
Jim Rhodes reached down and pushed the headphones off Tony Stark’s ears.
He meant to demand that he turn down that racket.
But he got distracted by the tangle of wires in Tony’s hands and so what he actually said was:
“Man, that’s amazing.”
“That’s the one,” said Tony.
“My god, you’re the worst,” said Rhodey appreciatively. “I had no idea how awful you were, but you’re actually the worst sap that has ever lived.”
“Shut up now,” said Tony, swinging a leg over Rhodey so that he could land on his lap. He’d given up on the tumbler and had the straw from the juice box dangling out of his mouth. Rhodey pulled it out of the way before he kissed him.