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Tony watched the firemen storm the lab and pressed his lips together. This was very… not good.
“Tony!”
He turned to see Bruce Banner.
“Hey Brucie,”
“What the hell happened?”
“There might have been a small, teensy, little explosion in my lab area,”
“A little explosion?” Bruce asked, the vein in his forehead starting to throb.
Tony was in deep shit now- technically, Dum-E should be in deep shit since the one- one - time Tony needed him to use the fire extinguisher the bot was too busy beeping at the blender to notice the small, insignificant fire until it somehow got to the fucking motor oil. It all went downhill after that.
Motor oil wasn’t even that fucking flammable so Tony really didn’t know how it all got so fucked up so fast.
“It’s mostly… my… portion of the lab,” Tony said quietly.
Bruce pinched his nose.
“Did you get hurt?” he asked.
“No,”
Bruce muttered something that sounded like ‘thank god’ before he looked at the lab.
“Dum-E ok?”
“Yea,”
Bruce hummed gently.
“Why was there motor oil out?”
Tony flushed slightly.
“Dum-E puts it in my smoothies,” he admitted.
Bruce looked like he was .3 seconds from dragging Tony to the nearest hospital.
“It’s fine, Brucey. I catch it in time,”
“Ah,”
“Usually,”
“Tony-” Bruce started and then sighed softly.
“Why?”
“He just gets so proud of himself, it’s hard to say no,”
“Motor oil is dangerous!”
“Is it though?”
Tony all but ran to talk to the firemen before Bruce could kill him. The firemen told him that the explosion had in fact been contained to his section of the lab and he was very lucky that no one had been hurt. Tony thanked the men and turned his gaze to his ruined lab. Dum-E was almost obsessively extinguishing the blender despite the fact that the fire was out and the blender wasn’t even remotely smoking.
“Thanks Dum-E,”
The bot beeped at him. Tony looked around the lab again before quickly deciding that he would start his clean up some other day.
“Alright, kid, head to your charging port. We’ll start cleaning up tomorrow,” he said.
Dum-E set down the extinguisher, chirped at the blender, and rolled off to his charger.
“Night, Dum-E,”
He received a chirp in return. Tony did one last sweep of the lab, making sure that nothing else was going to spontaneously burst into flames before he headed home.
Unfortunately for Tony, the subway was ungodly crowded.
Fortunately for Tony, there was exactly one seat open.
Unfortunately for Tony (again), a guy his age had also caught sight of the open seat.
Tony twisted through the crowd, trying to get to the open seat before the other guy, but when he turned to sit down on the terrible plastic seat, he found himself sitting on the guys lap.
Hm .
They both froze for just a second before Tony folded his hands on his lap, easily accepting his fate. He wasn’t going to move. The guy had stolen his spot and now he had to suffer the consequences.
“Excuse me,” the guy said.
“You’re excused,” Tony replied.
“Dude! Get off my lap!”
Tony dug his heels in, trying to make himself as heavy and impossible to move as he could. The guy pushed and prodded at Tony until Tony gave in and turned on the guys lap to push and prod him back.
“If you would-”
“Stop pushing me-”
“Just get off-!”
“This is so unreasonable!”
There was a lull in the fighting as the guy looked up at Tony incredulously.
“ That’s what was unreasonable?” the guy demanded, immediately jamming his fingers into Tony’s ribs.
“Why are you trying to jam your fingers into my liver?”
“Your liver is on the other side,”
“What?” Tony asked as he looked at the right side of his body.
The guy almost succeeded in pushing Tony off his lap.
“That was not cool, sour patch,”
“What the hell did you just call me?”
“Sour patch,”
“My name is Jim Rhodes,”
“And mines Tony Stark, nice to meet you, sour patch,”
“Oh my god,”
For a few stops they were silent. Tony was content to scroll on his phone, looking for new pretty things he could buy for his lab.
“Why, exactly, are you sitting on me?” Jim asked.
“Because I accidentally blew up part of the lab today and you stole my seat. Now, you’re my seat,”
“I didn’t steal your seat,”
“You saw me trying to get to this seat and you took it, because you’re petty,”
“ I’m petty ?!”
“Yes you are, kudos to you for admitting it,”
That earned him a pinch to his side. Tony did not deign to get off of Jim’s lap until his stop.
“Same place tomorrow?” Tony called after him.
Jim shot him a dark glare before walking out of the subway car.
Tony looked around the car, searching for a place to sit when his gaze landed on the guy from the other day- huh, he was shockingly handsome when he wasn't actively trying to steal Tony's seat. What was his name again? John? Jack? James- Jim! His name was Jim. A name that Tony absolutely wasn’t going to call him.
“What’s up sour patch?” Tony asked, plopping himself down on said mans lap.
“Are you for real?”
“Your lap is way comfier than the seats,”
“I hate you,”
Tony grinned at him.
“Love you too, sour patch,”
Jim (Tony really needed to give him a real nickname) sighed, resting his head against the window behind him for a moment.
“Blow up another lab?”
“No,” Tony scoffed.
“Just cleaning mine up from the last explosion,”
“Have you ever thought about not causing an explosion?”
“Shockingly has never occurred to me, thank you,” Tony said, really laying on the sarcasm.
“Glad to help,”
“This is why I call you sour patch,”
“Pick a new one, anything,” Jim pleaded.
“As you wish, platypus,”
“I… I don’t fucking want to know,” Jim muttered.
Once again, Tony didn’t get off of his lap until it was Jim’s stop.
Every time the subway was crowded, Tony found himself perched on Jim’s lap. After the third time, Jim stopped questioning it. Not long after that, Jim permanently earned the nickname Rhodey (along with a few choice others like sour patch, and platypus).
One evening, Tony plopped himself down on Rhodey’s lap and Rhodes just looped his arms around Tony’s waist, his forehead pressed against Tony’s shoulder.
“Rough day?” Tony asked.
“Yea,”
“I’ll nudge you when it’s your stop,”
“Thanks, Tones,”
Tony smiled softly.
“Of course, honey bear,”