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Tony sits in the booth waiting, tapping a restless foot against the cheap linoleum floor. For the eleventh time, he wipes his sweaty palms against his thighs, before letting out a slow breath and shaking his head.
God, why is he so nervous? It’s not like he’s some pimply-faced teenager who’s never been on a date before.
But then this isn’t just any date, he reminds himself. This is something way more than–
Tony’s phone pings, a message from the person he’s waiting on popping up.
Honeybear: Gonna be a good 20 or 30 late - cab stuck in traffic. I blame you for not letting me take the suit
Tony shakes his head with a chuckle.
Tones: Sorry not sorry. Just following PT’s orders. It’s not safe for you to be back in WM yet. Plus, it’s admittedly fun to watch Mr. To-Be-On-Time-Is-To-Be-Late get all pissy at being the one running behind
He adds the tiny ::Shrugging-Tony:: emoji—courtesy of FRIDAY’s surprisingly excellent digital art skills—for good effect, then hits send. The replies come in rapidly not ten seconds later.
Honeybear: It’s shameful how shameless you are
Honeybear: What’s the occasion anyway? You only ever pick hole-in-the-wall joints when you have big news
Honeybear: You better not be dying again and only just telling me or I’ll kill you myself
I’m not dying, Tony writes back perhaps a bit too quickly. Despite having just been (rightfully) called out for being shameless, he still can’t think back on his fortieth birthday party without cringing. He’d nearly lost Rhodey for good that night, all because he was being an idiot.
Not that he ever entirely stopped being an idiot where his best friend was concerned. He’s hoping he can finally fix that now.
Honeybear: Good. So what is it then?
Tony grimaces, debating on how to respond as he looks down to his left where a dark blue gift box—complete with a teal bow on top, a single red rosebud nestled beside it—sits in the booth right by his hip.
Tones: You’ll find out soon enough
There’s no reply for a long minute, and Tony has wiped his palms twice more by the time his phone pings again.
Honeybear: As long as the shawarma is as good as you say I guess I can deal
Tony sighs with relief, smiling again.
Tones: You’re gonna love it. Just don’t get the #3. Barton didn’t leave the bathroom for nearly 30 minutes the last time the team came here. Legolas was greener than the big guy by the end
Honeybear: You could have stopped with the warning, y’know
Tones: Oh, I absolutely know
This time he adds ::Sunglasses-Shit-Eating-Grin Tony::—FRIDAY’s personal favorite of her masterpieces—before pressing send.
Honeybear: Sigh. See you soon shrimpy
Tones: See ya platypus
With that Tony sets his phone back down, closing his eyes and trying to hold on to the calm feeling that always came from talking to Rhodey. Unfortunately it didn’t last as long as usual, and within a few minutes Tony was back to tapping his foot and checking his watch again. It didn’t help that the cook behind the counter kept throwing him dirty looks every so often when he thought Tony wasn’t looking.
Is it really that bad of manners to wait to order until the rest of your party arrived? Tony wondered. Sheesh.
The bell at the entrance of the restaurant jingles then, Tony taking a deep breath in response before plastering on a big grin and twisting around to face the door.
“Hey honeyb—oh.” Tony stares, blinking, only for his face to fall when he realizes the sight before him is not a mirage. “Oh no.”
“Mr. Stark?” Peter Parker asks, jaw dropping with confusion for only a moment before he grins and waves. At his side is his best friend Ned, the kid who had tried to warn Happy about Toomes the night of the plane crash not two weeks earlier. “Mr. Stark! Hey!”
Tony cringes inwardly before forcing himself to smile again. It’s not that he doesn’t like the kid—he genuinely does—but all the same, he really didn’t need to have this particular meal crashed by him. “Hey Pete. And hello again, Ned.”
It had been no easy feat getting the school to let Mr. Leeds off with a warning for looking at “porn” over their wifi, but Tony had managed it with his own particular brand of snarky charm. He’d only met the boy briefly in the Midtown principal’s office right before their meeting, but it seems that hadn’t been enough for Ned to get over his celebrity awe. He continues to just stare at Tony with his jaw dropped even as Peter starts forward—Peter noticing quickly and walking back to gently take his hand and tug him forward, a fondly exasperated look on his face.
The two of them stumble over to the booth front, Peter whispering something in Ned’s ear which seems to shake the kid out of his daze before turning back to Tony. “So, uh—what are you doing here?”
Tony fumbles for a second, spluttering, “I’m just, uh, waiting for—a friend. A good friend.” He pauses, brow furrowing. “Wait, what are you two miscreants doing here? It’s not even two. Shouldn’t you be in, I don’t know, physics or band or something?”
In unison, Peter and Ned point at their shirts, where Tony sees they’re wearing matching blue buttons that have TEAM CAPTAIN AMERICA printed in bright red all-caps.
Tony blinks. “I’m afraid I’m failing to see the correlation.”
“It’s Tuesday,” Ned says as if that explains everything.
“Yes, and?”
Peter nods at something behind Tony’s head, the man swiveling around to see a neon paper sign taped up that reads Wear your Team Cap button on Tuesdays and have a free soda on us!
Tony reads it twice before swiveling around to glance at the cook across the room, who—having caught Tony reading the sign—has the good grace to look slightly ashamed, eyes darting away as he goes back to his work.
“But don't worry, we’re non-partisan,” Ned explains, Tony watching as the kid pulls a second button from his pocket, this one a terribly gaudy shade of yellow with TEAM IRON MAN in red instead. “Once we get our soda here, we go to the pizzeria on 54th. They hand out free slices for Iron Man. Peter and I have a whole list of all the places with weekly deals close enough to walk to during our free period.”
“I had no idea my and Cap’s little lover’s quarrel had become so commercialized,” Tony mutters irritably, the two teenagers just shrugging in response.
“But like Ned said, we don’t really have a side,” Peter reassures him. “We’re just in it for the free food.”
“Good to know exactly how far your loyalty stretches, underoos.”
“The hanger is real, Mr. Stark,” Peter replies without shame, Ned nodding in agreement. “You’d decamp too if you’d been assigned the earliest lunch period.”
Before Tony can come back with a witty retort, Peter nods to Tony’s side, asking, “What’s that for?”
Tony glances down, silently cringing again when he sees Peter is referring to the gift he brought. With the red rose, it’s hardly something he can pass off as just being for a friend.
“That’s a gift for my date,” Tony replies honestly, sniffing uncomfortably.
“Oh,” Peter and Ned say at the same time, glancing at each other before Ned tentatively asks, “Is it Miss Potts?”
Tony chuckles, shaking his head. “No, it’s not Pep. The last break-up was the final one. I still care a great deal for her, but we both know it’s not meant to be.” He isn’t sure what it is that compels him to tack on, “It’s Rhodey. Uh, War Machine. My—my best friend.”
“Oh,” the two teens say in unison again, but this time with their eyes bugging out. There’s silence for a few seconds as they stare down at Tony, and he’s about to awkwardly move the conversation forward when Peter suddenly grins, excitement palpable as he exclaims, “That’s awesome, Mr. Stark!”
Tony blinks. “It is? I mean, yes, it is awesome—I agree. But you really think so?”
Peter cocks his head. “Yeah, of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, I just—he’s my best friend,” Tony says, waving his hand. “It’s probably weird to decide you want to date your best friend after half a lifetime of just being, well, nothing else but–”
He’s cut off by the sound of snickering, the two boys clearly trying to hide their giggles behind stoic looks before they glance at each other and break out into laughter.
“Sorry, Mr. Stark,” Ned says while Peter bites his lip sheepishly. “It’s just, that, well–”
The two boys lift their arms up together to show they’re still holding hands, from when Peter took Ned’s just as they arrived.
“Oh... Oh,” Tony replies, fully understanding now. He focuses on Peter. “So your Guy in the Chair is your boyfriend? That’s great, underoos. I had no idea.”
“I’m his boyfriend now,” Ned clarifies, “but we’ve been best friends since we were eight. That’s why what you said was kind of funny, at least to us.”
Tony nods. “And that’s… working out for you two?”
He’d meant the question to sound casual but it’s obvious Peter and Ned can tell it’s genuine, the two of them smirking at each other before Peter replies, “Yeah. I mean—nobody knows me better than Ned.”
Tony nods appreciatively. He points at Peter. “And you asked him, or–”
“No, I told him first,” Ned says with no small amount of pride, Peter giving him an affectionate smile. “It was nerve-wracking, but I also think that I knew what he’d say? Like I already knew that he felt the same, even though we’d never talked about it before.”
Tony watches as Peter nods in agreement, giving him an encouraging look. “Do you feel that way with Mr. Rhodes, sir?”
Tony doesn’t answer at first, considering the question.
He thinks about how Rhodey had taken his hand when he first woke up in the hospital his senior year at MIT, having accidentally overdosed.
He thinks about how Rhodey had been the first person to show up at the mansion when his parents died, and the last to leave after the funeral.
He thinks about how Rhodey had pulled him into the fiercest hug Tony had ever received, face still lit up with relief from when he’d touched down in the desert and seen it was Tony, alive and relatively whole.
He thinks about how Rhodey always knows just what to give him for birthdays and Christmases, despite the fact he also knows very well Tony could buy himself anything he wanted. How the man seemed to know exactly which films to suggest when Tony was in a bad mood, throwing popcorn at his forehead and telling bad jokes at the movie’s expense until Tony smiled and relaxed. How he wasn’t afraid to pull Tony into an impromptu dance-off on the lab floor when he was stuck on a problem with one of his projects. How he didn’t hesitate to ask Tony to help out with his PT, never once blaming him despite Tony’s own lingering and massive amount of guilt over his spinal injury.
How he trusts that Rhodey knows beyond a doubt that Tony would do anything for him, just like he’d always done for Tony.
“Yeah, I do feel that way now you say it. I think… maybe he’s realized it a lot longer than I have.”
The two boys smile at him, Tony sniffing uncomfortably again—not used to being so vulnerable with anyone outside of his make-shift family, much less actual children.
He’s pulled out of his thoughts when Ned sighs with contentment, saying dreamily, “I can’t believe all the ironhusbands RPFs were right.”
Tony feels his lips turn down. “Excuse me? Iron husbands? RPF? What’s–”
“What Ned means to say,” Peter interjects, shooting the other boy a look before smiling at Tony again, “is that that’s really great, Mr. Stark.”
Tony lets out a long breath. “Thanks, kid. I just hope I’m right. Because I don’t know where to go from here if I’m not.”
“Well, if he doesn’t feel the same way,” Ned says after a beat, “would you still want to be his best friend?”
“Of course,” Tony replies immediately, knowing in his bones it’s true. “He’s my Rhodey, no matter what he says or how he feels.”
“Well then,” Ned says with a shrug, “what’s there to be worried about?”
Tony raises an eyebrow, before slowly nodding. “You make a good point, kid.”
The entrance bell jingles again just then, the trio turning to see Rhodey walk in using the braces Tony had designed for him, honing in right away on his best friend and coming over.
“Hey Tones, sorry I’m—who’s this?”
Tony smiles. “Rhodey, I’d like to introduce you to my intern Peter Parker and his boyfriend, Ned–”
“Edward Joriz Leeds at your service!” Ned says as Rhodey shakes his hand with a bemused look on his face. “It’s an honor to meet you, Sir War Machine. I mean, Sir Rhodey. Er… sir.”
“You’re his favorite superhero,” Peter explains as Rhodey grips his hand in turn.
“Jim or Mr. Rhodes is just fine, kid,” the man says to Ned, then to Peter, “So you’re the intern Tony talks about all the time, huh?”
“You talk about me? To Mr. Rhodes?” Peter asks Tony, looking amazed and slightly embarrassed.
“Of course I do—but only about how much trouble you are,” Tony replies flippantly, Peter rolling his eyes as Ned snickers.
“In any case, it’s nice to put a face to the name,” Rhodey says, then gesturing to the booth, “I assume you two are joining us to eat?”
“Actually we were just leaving,” Peter says quickly, starting to tug on Ned’s arm as he guides them both toward the door. With all the subtlety he can muster—which is to say, none—Peter winks at Tony, adding, “Have a good lunch!”
“Thanks, guys,” Tony calls back, and by the way their smiles soften, Tony can tell they got his meaning. “See you later, Pete. You too, Ned.”
“Did you hear that? He said he’d see me later too!” Ned stagewhispers to Peter just as they disappear through the door out into the busy Manhattan streets.
Rhodey slides into the booth across from Tony. “So that’s the infamous intern.”
“Well, and he’s Spider-Man.”
Rhodey’s jaw drops. “He’s what? Tony, that’s–”
“Not important right now,” Tony interjects with a wave of his hand.
Rhodey looks like he wants to argue, but instead he just sighs. “Fine, but this is not the end of the conversation, you hear me? We’re having a long talk later about you recruiting a teenager to fight Captain America.”
“And I’ll happily take whatever you want to throw at me then,” Tony replies honestly. “That’s just not what I asked you here to talk about right now.”
Rhodey frowns, not missing the shakiness in Tony’s voice. “Everything’s okay, right? Because you’re doing the sniffing thing you do when you’re nervous.” His voice goes low as he leans in over the booth table. “I swear to god, Tones, you better not have been lying when you said you were–”
“I’m fine, honeybear,” Tony says, sniffing again. “I’m just…. well, uh. Look, I know I usually know exactly what to say but… I even practiced this speech in the mirror about twenty times this morning and I’m still having trouble—shit, uh, okay, how about this.” He grabs the box with the rose on top, and holds it out to Rhodey. “Here, this is for you.”
Rhodey stares at the gift for a few moments, brow crinkling. Slowly he grabs the box from Tony, setting it down in front of him. He looks between the rose and Tony’s wide-eyed gaze a few more times before gently setting aside the flower bud and pulling off the top—carefully pulling out the gift.
He stares at the rather shabby-looking homemade origami animal for a few moments as Tony watches on nervously, before clearing his throat. “Uh, this is very nice, Tones. What’s it—what’s it supposed to be, exactly?”
Tony grins. “It’s a platypus! For my platypus. I think the googly eyes gave it a little extra pizzazz, don’t you?” When Rhodey doesn’t reply, instead continuing to stare at the poor misshapen creature, Tony bites his lip, adding, “But that’s, that’s beside the point. It’s what it’s made out of that matters.”
Rhodey raises an eyebrow at him. “Paper?”
Tony scoffs. “You wound me, honeybear. Just unfold it, will you?”
After another beat Rhodey shakes his head with a small smile, looking amused as he starts to pull it apart. But when he gets stuck on a corner, he must pull too hard, a sudden tearing sound causing Tony to gasp as the creature is ripped across a bunch of its folds, pieces of the tiny monstrosity falling down onto the formica table between them.
“Oh, crap,” Rhodey mutters, looking down at the table before back at his two hands, each holding the last bits of what was once—if you squinted really hard, anyway—an origami platypus.
“Oh,” Tony replies dumbly. “Oh, that’s… that’s unfortunate.”
“It wasn’t actually anything important, was it?” Rhodey asks casually, carefully placing the pieces in his fingers into the box before swiping the rest off the table and into it as well.
Tony laughs nervously, trying to hide his horror at seeing his plan go so terribly off the rails. “Of course not. Though letting DUM-E fold it was probably a mistake, in hindsight.”
“What’s really going on here, Tones?”
Again Tony stutters, opening and closing his mouth without actually saying anything—unsure how to say what he wants to convey without his usual fall-back mechanism of grand gestures. An idea comes to him suddenly, and he fumbles at his pockets, eventually pulling out his keyring. Hastily he pulls one of the keys off, before holding it out to Rhodey, dangling it in his face. “Here, this key, just—just look at it.”
“Not sure why I need a key to your Rolls Royce, but–”
“Shit, sorry—wrong one,” Tony says, pulling his hand back and switching out the luxury car key with a far simpler one. “Here, this one.”
He watches as Rhodey takes the old nickel-silver key from him, examining it in his palm. “What’s this from?”
“It’s my key from the first dorm we shared, back in college,” Tony replies with an eager grin.
“Tony, we were supposed to return those! They charged me fifty bucks for that!”
Tony grimaces. “Look, it’s—what I’m trying to say is that it’s the key to my heart, honeybear. I’ve been carrying it around for decades, and I only just a few months ago realized why. Now—now I want you to have it.”
“Rather have the money. I had to eat ramen for a week,” Rhodey grumbles, only for his expression to go soft when he sees the hurt in Tony’s eyes. “Wait, are you serious? You’re serious.”
Tony swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Yeah, I’m serious. I… I’m not really the best at this stuff, admittedly. And especially with my best friend, but, Rhodey, I—I love you. Not just love you, I’m in love with you. And I guess I was wondering if you would want to go out on a real date. With me, I mean. Sometime.”
He holds his breath, watching Rhodey’s eyes widen. “Tony, you’re really in…” He trails off, scrubbing a hand over his face. “This is—this is quite the surprise. I gotta admit, you’ve really caught me off guard here.”
Tony nods, face going blank as he tries to hide the sharp pain in his heart at hearing Rhodey’s rejection. “I completely understand. We never have to mention it again. I knew it was a longshot anyway, forget I ever–”
Rhodey reaches out a hand, putting it over Tony’s own. “Stop, Tones. Sorry that didn’t–” Rhodey sighs, chuckling to himself and smiling fondly at Tony. “What I meant to say was—yes, this was a surprise. But not a bad one. I feel the same way."
Tony blinks, looking down at Rhodey’s hand over his and back at Rhodey. “Really?”
In response Rhodey moves his hand from Tony’s up to his cheek, cradling it. “Really. But you know what is a bad surprise?”
“What?” Tony asks, barely able to follow the conversation for the rushing in his ears.
“That you decided to ask me out in an anti-Team Iron Man establishment,” Rhodey replies with a grin, nodding up at the neon sign that Peter had pointed out to Tony earlier. “What do you say we hit up the taco place on 47th? They give out free dessert quesadillas and I happen to have an Iron Man button in my wallet.”
Tony turns his face into Rhodey’s hand, kissing his palm lightly. “Sounds perfect, honeybear.”
Together they get up, Rhodey carrying the box but putting the rosebud in his front jacket pocket before taking Tony’s outstretched hand. He gives it an affectionate squeeze as they head out the door, Tony leading him down the block toward where he’d parked.
“So what was the origami thing, anyway?” Rhodey asks him as they make their way along the sidewalk.
Tony waves a hand. “Just a deed to an island in the Bahamas.”
Rhodey stops walking, turning Tony to face him. “Tell me you’re joking. What was I gonna do with an entire island, Tony?”
“Well, firstly you could have housed your lack of imagination there,” Tony quips. “Then we could have gotten freaky.” He pauses. “With our hearts, I mean. Freaky with our hearts. Unless…”
Tony raises his eyebrows suggestively, Rhodey merely rolling his eyes at him before pulling Tony back along to walk again.
“What have I gotten myself into,” he mutters, but he’s smiling fondly at Tony all the same.
Tony grins back, still riding the high of the fact that his best friend—hell, the best man he knows—said yes. He really loves Tony that way, too. “Hopefully something good.”
Rhodey eyes him tenderly, and then seeing the stupidly lovestruck look on his face, chuckles. “What are you looking at, shrimpy?”
Tony leans in, giving him a soft peck on the lips. In this moment, there’s no doubting—he’s the luckiest man in the world.
“I’m looking at you, platypus. Just you.”