Work Text:
Rhodey drew in slow, deep breaths as he made his way across campus, doing his best to quell the fireworks that seemed to be going off in his stomach. After spending months ignoring his feelings, and then a few more weeks dancing around them, and then a few days finally coming to terms with it, he had decided that this was it. Today was the day that he was going to tell Tony about his feelings for him.
He almost turned back three different times, his nerves getting the better of him. But somehow he made himself keep going, and before he knew it he was standing in front of the door to Tony’s rented lab space, drawing in one last deep breath for courage.
“Tones?” he called, stepping through the doorway. “You in here?”
“Rhodey!” Tony popped up from behind a table, face lit up in manic delight. “Just the man I wanted to see!” He practically bounced across the room, grabbing his arm and getting all up in his space in a way that made Rhodey swallow hard and fight back a shiver. “I did it, honeybear!”
“Did what?”
“Just… Just watch, wait.” He pulled Rhodey back closer to the door, and then made a show of clearing his throat. “Dum-E?” he called, and the machine he’d been working on for months lit up. “Come here!”
Dum-E whirred to life and then, to Rhodey’s surprise, he started rolling across the floor -- in the opposite direction to Tony and Rhodey.
“Shit, no!” Tony protested, but he was laughing and sounded pleased. “Wrong way, you doofus, over here.”
There was a pause, and then Dum-E spun on his wheels and started trundling over, going the right way this time. He stilled when he reached them, and Tony threw his arms around the claw neck.
“Aw yeah,” Tony crooned. “You did it, Dum-E! Who’s my big strong robot, huh?”
He turned to Rhodey then, his entire face lit up in a bright, beaming smile, looking as happy as he’d ever seen him. Rhodey couldn’t have kept himself from smiling back if he tried, feeling a little weak in the face of it. He could hear his own heartbeat, pounding in his ears, and god, he just loved him so much.
“I did it, Rhodey,” Tony was saying. “He responds to voice commands. I built a learning, thinking robot. And the wrong direction thing was just a glitch, I swear. He’s gonna get so much better.”
He was watching Rhodey expectantly, that hopeful look on his face that Rhodey knew meant he just wanted someone to be proud of him, even if he’d never admit that out loud, and Rhodey knew this wasn’t the right time to tell him. Feeling a weird mixture of relief and disappointment, Rhodey beamed back at him. “He’s already perfect, Tones,” he assured him, wrapping him in a hug. Tony immediately melted into it, and Rhodey felt pleasantly warm all over. “He’s amazing.”
Just like you .
Rhodey was grinning like an idiot as he ran up the front steps to the Stark Mansion, but he didn’t much care. He hadn’t seen Tony since his parents’ funeral just over a year, and he had missed him like crazy. They had talked as often as possible, had even taken to writing letters (despite Tony’s complaints about both being allergic to penmanship, and the speed of the postal service), but it hadn’t been the same. Rhodey had half expected that his crush might fade with some distance between them, but instead he’d missed Tony in a way that he hadn’t ever experienced before, like an aching hole in his chest, and it had only gotten stronger the longer they’d been apart. It was almost embarrassingly sappy, but he figured that was as good an indication as any that it was true love.
Bouncing impatiently as he waited for someone to answer the door, he fidgeted with the little box in his hands. It was a completely goofy gift -- he’d met a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy and so on until he’d managed to get his hands on a discarded nut from the Voyager 2 spacecraft -- but he knew it was exactly the kind of thing that Tony would nerd out over. He couldn’t wait to see Tony’s face when he opened it. And he was hoping that Tony would recognize it as more than just a piece of metal, would see the intentions behind it and then, when Rhodey told him how he felt, he wouldn’t be completely taken off guard. Because he knew he had to tell him, felt like he might explode if he didn’t.
The door swung open then, Jarvis welcoming him in with a warm, pleased smile, looking almost relieved. Rhodey did his best to be polite, but he wasn’t sure if he’d succeeded. Jarvis didn’t seem to mind at least, still smiling as he directed him to where Tony was apparently busy in his workshop. Rhodey had only been here a handful of times -- it hadn’t exactly been Tony’s top vacation destination in school -- but he knew the way instinctively, taking the stairs to the basement at a run.
“Tony?” he called. The lights were dim for some reason, and he blinked as he stumbled into the room before his eyes had properly adjusted. “Guess who’s back, baby?” He waved the little box in his air. “And I brought you prese-ah, fuck !” he hollered as he was suddenly doused in a thick, bubblegum scented foam. “What the fuck?”
A second later the room was flooded with bright light, nearly blinding Rhodey, and there were footsteps coming toward him.
“Honeybear?” Tony said, sounding a little shell shocked. “Oh shit, okay. Just… Hang on a second. Don’t open your eyes! And, uh… Try not to breathe too deep either.”
He was gone before Rhodey could question what the hell that meant. Left sightless, Rhodey listened to the sounds of Tony’s footsteps, disappearing to the far side of the room. There were sounds of scrambling, and then water running, and then he was jogging back over again. Rhodey nearly jumped at the feeling of Tony’s hand, warm against his upper back, and then again when a cool cloth was pressed against his face, sliding carefully over his eyes with painstakingly gentle motions. When they felt clear, and Tony gave him the okay, Rhodey blinked them carefully open. Tony was staring back at him, his own eyes wide and concerned, though that was starting to ease a bit.
“Hey,” he said, his smile uneven. “Sorry about that.”
Rhodey smiled back, but felt his heart sink. Tony looked terrible; there were dark circles under his eyes, he was way skinnier than Rhodey had remembered him being, and he was pretty sure he could smell alcohol on his breath. None of this had been in Tony’s letters, and Rhodey couldn’t help wondering what else he’d been missing over the past year. Suddenly the relieved look on Jarvis’ face made a bit more sense.
He had a lot of questions he wanted to ask, beginning with, ‘what the actual hell?’ but Tony was watching him nervously, and Rhodey could practically see the anxiety spreading across his face. He sighed, scrubbing a hand through the foam still gathered in his short hair. “What was that?”
“Oh, uh…” Tony rubbed at the back of his neck, smiling that same crooked smile. “I was working on a new, non-lethal thief deterrent? There’s so much proprietary information here, and Dad had this crazy organization system that I don’t understand, and there are so many people and they all want things…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it stand up wildly. “So I thought, you know, I could train Dum-E? If he sees something he determines as a threat, like a weapon or something, he’s supposed to douse them with this foam that’ll stop them long enough for me to get away or call the police or set off an alarm of whatever. But uh, I’m still working on the formula for the deterrent, and then, you know, it’s Dum-E, so getting him to understand what constitutes a threat is pretty much impossible. Right now it’s just about anything that’s bigger than a wallet. You definitely shouldn’t have been on the list.” His rambling trailed off, still looking nervous but also so relieved to see him that for a moment Rhodey thought he might actually start to cry.
“Okay,” Rhodey said, offering Tony a smile in return. “Does it have to smell like bubblegum though?”
Tony gave a startled laugh, and then he was launching himself at Rhodey, wrapping his arms around his neck and practically crawling into his lap, foam and all. Rhodey returned the hug automatically, feeling Tony’s back shudder a little as he pressed his face into his neck.
“God I missed you, Rhodey,” he whispered, voice cracking.
Rhodey cast one last glance at the box he’d wrapped so carefully, now lying forgotten on the floor. This wasn’t the day for love confessions.
He wrapped his arms tighter around Tony’s back instead. “I missed you too, Tones.”
Rhodey frowned as he stepped through the front door of the Malibu mansion, but the lights stayed dim. “Uhh…” He blinked into the dark space. “Hey, J? You offline or something?”
“I can assure you that I am fully functional, Captain Rhodes,” JARVIS replied. “Welcome back to Malibu,” he added after a beat, and Rhodey’s frown deepened, because he could swear that JARVIS sounded… Colder than usual.
Telling himself it was his imagination, Rhodey waited a moment. There was no additional commentary from JARVIS, and he sighed. “Could I get some light, maybe?”
JARVIS didn’t actually respond, but after a few seconds the lights came on, just a little too dim to be quite comfortable.
“Okayyy,” Rhodey muttered. He shook his head. “Where’s Tony?”
“Sir is indisposed at the moment, Captain Rhodes.”
“Indisposed?” Rhodey repeated, taken aback. He’d been talking to Tony less than an hour ago, he’d known he was on his way over, and while it wasn’t exactly uncommon for him to get distracted with something and forget, Rhodey was always given full access to everything. “What do you mean, he’s indisposed? And I’m a Major now, JARVIS, you know that. What the hell is going on?”
There was another long silence before JARVIS spoke again. “Sir has been encouraging me to consume media and information, to help me better understand the human experience.”
“Uh huh…” Rhodey knew that; Tony had mentioned as much to Rhodey, talking about how he wanted JARVIS to learn and make his own conclusions independent of what Tony thought or believed. “And?”
“And I’ve noticed similarities between your own actions and behaviours in certain popular media.”
Rhodey arched an eyebrow, flopping down on the long sofa and folding his arms over his chest. “I’m not following.”
“I believe, Major Rhodes, that this is the point in which I ask what, exactly, your intentions are with Sir.”
Rhodey choked on air. “My intentions ?” he repeated incredulously. “Are you threatening me? What the fuck, J? I’ve literally known you since you were born.” And then he clued into what, exactly, JARVIS was saying. “Holy shit,” he hissed, looking around frantically in case Tony had suddenly wandered into earshot. “You… I mean, you can… How… You know ??”
JARVIS sounded confused. “It was a simple matter of observing your behaviours and comparing them to the media for analysis, and then observing the physical changes to your body when in proximity to Sir -- primarily a mildly elevated heart and respiratory rate.”
“Oh my god,” Rhodey moaned, burying his hands in his face. “How is this my life?”
“For what it’s worth,” JARVIS offered. “I believe Sir remains unaware of your feelings toward him.”
“Yeah, no,” Rhodey agreed, still mumbling into his hands. “That is a fact that I am all too aware of.” He heaved in a deep sigh before letting his arms drop back down to his sides. “Okay JARVIS. So first, we’re gonna have to have a talk sometime about monitoring people’s vitals without their knowledge or consent. But, uh, in answer to your first question…” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Shit, J, you gotta know by now that all I want is for Tony to be happy. That’s all I care about. Everything else is just… Whatever.”
“And you think that he would be happy with you?”
“I think that ship has sailed,” Rhodey admitted, feeling a pang in his chest as he finally said the words out loud. “It’s been years. If something was gonna happen… I think we’d have found our way there by now.”
It was quiet for long enough that Rhodey thought JARVIS had gone into sleep mode, or whatever AIs did in lieu of unconsciousness. He was about to try his luck again at figuring out where Tony was in this ridiculous palace of a home when JARVIS spoke again.
“Well,” he said, his voice warmer. “I wouldn’t give up hope entirely, Major Rhodes.”
Rhodey and Tony were sprawled in the front seat of one of Tony’s roadsters, two and a half movies deep into their Evil Dead marathon. Like the dork he was, Tony had decided they were going to project the movies onto the wall of his workshop, so they could watch from the car like they were in some kind of 1960s drive-in.
He hated how much he loved him sometimes.
RIght now though, he was feeling lazy and satisfied, full on pizza and wings, and just the right side of tipsy on the beer he’d brought, laughing as Tony recited the movie word for word, complete with altering his voice to try and mimic the characters.
Stretching out his arms and back (and resisting the urge to take advantage of the movement and hook his arm over Tony’s shoulders, because he wasn’t twelve ), Rhodey kicked his feet up on the dash, shifting on the seat a little in the process.
“Hey,” Tony protested, not actually sounding that concerned. “That’s a custom dash, asshole. Feet off. Or else.”
“Oh yeah?” Rhodey snickered. “Or else what?”
He rolled his head to face Tony, eyebrow arched, and then blinked. Tony was much closer than he’d realized. He’d slunk down in the seat, leaving him a few inches lower than Rhodey, and he was looking up at him with lazy, hooded eyes. He was Rhodey’s favourite version of Tony, comfortable, and happy, and beautiful, and his breath caught a little at the sight of him.
Something changed in Tony’s expression then, his eyes narrowing slightly like he was trying to get a read on Rhodey. Whatever he saw made him swallow, tongue sliding out over his upper lip. Rhodey couldn’t tear his eyes away, only vaguely aware of the fact that he was moving closer and closer to him. Tony didn’t seem to mind, lips parting slightly before he shifted just enough to face him more squarely. Rhodey could feel his heart racing as Tony got closer, eyes dark, and --
There was an almighty crash from the corner. Tony pulled away, whipping his head around to stare over the back of the car, eyes going wide. “U!” he cried, launching himself over the back of the car. Rhodey let his forehead fall against the seat of the car for just a moment before looking up to where U had apparently managed to crash into the wall and tip herself over.
“Seriously?” he whispered to himself before climbing out of the car to help Tony get her righted.
Rhodey hadn’t been able to get that almost kiss out of his mind. At first he’d thought he’d imagined the moment, that his horniness had taken what was a normal, friendly moment between the two of them and twisted into something more. He didn’t think that was it though. There had been something in Tony’s eyes when he’d leaned toward him, something hopeful and yearning. And then there had been that look he had given him as they’d called it a night, looking, well, sad, like he’d missed an opportunity.
Rhodey had been so convinced that any romantic feelings on his part were unrequited that he almost wasn’t sure what to do with the idea that they might not be. But he knew, no matter how many times he’d failed before, if there was even a sliver of a chance that Tony felt the same way, he had to at least try and confess his feelings.
Of course, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t change the circumstances as much as possible.
Rhodey waited until he knew with absolute certainty that Tony was out of town, settled solidly in Hong Kong for five days worth of meetings with no quick way back to California. Then he headed for the Malibu mansion, waiting for JARVIS to get through his cursory greetings.
“J? I need your help.”
***
Tony shuffled in the front door, exhausted. It had been a long week of meetings, and things going wrong, and while he wasn’t generally much of a sleeper, all he could think about was crawling into bed and sleeping for the next three days.
“Hey J,” he mumbled, dropping his briefcase right there inside the door. “‘S good to be home.”
“Welcome back, Sir,” JARVIS replied, his familiar voice soothing something in Tony. “Uh, Sir, if I could direct you to the workshop, your assistance is required.”
Tony couldn’t help his groan. “Come on, J. I left you in charge. Can’t you handle it?”
“Sir, it’s absolutely imperative,” JARVIS told him. There was an almost imperceptible pause before he continued. “DUM-E is a hazard to himself.”
Cursing under his breath, Tony headed for the stairs, stomping his way down to the ‘shop and then glowering when the lights stayed dark. “JARVIS? What the fuck? Are you malfunctioning or something?”
Then the lights came on all at once, and Tony found himself blinking at the sight in front of him, wondering if he’d fallen asleep on the flight home and was, in fact, dreaming. “The fuck?” he whispered, a slow smile crawling over his face.
Rhodey was standing on the far side of the room, lined up beside Dum-E and U, all three of them holding signs. Dum-E’s read ‘WILL YOU,’ U’s said, ‘GO OUT,’ and with a crooked smile, Rhodey was holding up his own sign reading, ‘WITH ME?’
Dum-E’s sign was upside down.
Tony started laughing, couldn’t help himself. “You serious with this, Rhodes?” he asked, not even trying to hide how absolutely delighted he was. “This is some sappy shit, even for you.”
Rhodey shrugged, unapologetic. “Tony, you have no idea how many times I’ve tried to say something to you, and it seemed like every time your kids got in the way. So I figured… Maybe it would be easier if I got them to literally spell it out.”
Tony cleared his throat, feeling his throat go tight. “Only you, Rhodes,” he said, his voice rough.
Rhodey huffed out a laugh, then shifted a little awkwardly, a tinge of nervousness creeping into his smile. “So?” he prompted. “Is that a yes?”
“Are you kidding?” Tony demanded. Without waiting another moment, he strode forward, hauled the sign out of Rhodey’s hands, and wrapped his arms around his neck. Meeting Rhodey’s eyes steadily, he didn’t bother hiding the way his own were tearing up slightly. “Definitely, one hundred percent, a million yeses, would you hurry up and kiss me already cause I’ve been waiting like fifteen years to find out what your mouth tastes like, and -- mmph !”
Tony made a startled noise as Rhodey cut him off with a kiss. An instant later, he was moaning softly instead, curling his hands tighter over Rhodey’s back as he returned it, slow and soft and perfect. When they pulled back a few moments later, neither one of them could stop grinning at each other.
“I um…” Rhodey hesitated a moment, twisting his face up like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to tell Tony this or not. “I asked the bots for permission to ask you out? They gave us their blessings, so we’re all good there.”
Tony couldn’t help laughing, still giggling as he kissed Rhodey again, harder this time. “God, only you,” he muttered. “Nobody else would even think to do anything like that. I love you so much.”
And probably it was too soon to be saying that, when they hadn’t even been on a single date, but if anything it felt overdue. And judging by the look on Rhodey’s face, he felt the same.
“I love you too, Tones.”
Rhodey resisted the urge to yelp as Tony pulled into the garage at a breakneck speed, parking the Audi haphazardly in its spot. “God, c’mere,” he mumbled, grabbing Rhodey by the tie and yanking him across the seat to kiss him, hot and heavy and wanting. “Fuck, you were so hot tonight. Love the way you look in a suit.”
Fingers scrabbling at Tony’s chest, Rhodey let himself be manhandled, moaning into Tony’s mouth as they made out all hungry and desperate. He yanked at Tony’s shirt, hauling it out of his pants and getting it most of the way unbuttoned before he remembered himself and pulled back so he was breathing hard against his lips instead.
“No, no wait,” he protested, head tilting automatically as Tony started to bite down his jaw. “Not here, come on. Last time we did this in the car, you bitched for a week straight about the stains on the upholstery.”
Tony snickered against his neck, the sound turning to a hum as he slid the palm of his hand up Rhodey’s thigh. “I can’t help it if you look incredibly good in my car,” he insisted, pulling back to grin at Rhodey with dark eyes. “Come on, honey. I promise not to bitch you out this time.” He leaned forward to kiss him again, thumbing at Rhodey’s nipple through his dress shirt as he did. For a minute Rhodey almost gave in, distracted by how good Tony felt against his skin.
“No, come on,” he said, reaching his hand down Tony’s open shirt and scratching blunt nails over his abs. “I got plans for you. Wanna take you apart. Take my time, stretch you out on the bed and fucking ruin you.”
Tony stared at him, and then, with a high-pitched wheezing noise, started nodding almost frantically. “Yes,” he said quickly. “Yes, please, let’s go.”
The two of them tumbled out of the car, heading for the stairs, and only made it as far as the closest table before Rhodey had to haul Tony in for another kiss. He pressed him up hard against the metal, shoving a thigh between his legs and grinning against his lips when Tony practically melted against him. Tony’s long fingers grabbed at his shirt, pulling it up to get at the bare skin of his back before sliding them lower, moving beneath the waistband of Rhodey’s dress pants to grope at his ass. Rhodey thrust his hips up against him and then cupped Tony through his pants in retaliation, biting at his lips.
“Fuck, Tones,” he mumbled. “Driving me crazy.”
“Can’t help it,” Tony retorted, panting against his lips. “I want you so bad.”
Rhodey was seriously considering delaying his bedroom plans -- they were both young, they could go again, probably -- unable to move more than a few inches away when all of a sudden there was a sudden shock of cold through his body. Gasping, it took him a second to process what was happening until he looked at Tony and found him just as shell shocked and just as soaking wet, water dripping into his open mouth. As one, they turned to stare at the guilty looking robot holding an empty bucket.
“ Dum-E !”