Chapter Text
Rhodey sits across from him and pulls out a book, “this is for you, welcome to the crazy and I apologize ahead of time,” he says and hands Steve the book.
He takes it and frowns, “’so now You’re Friends With Tony: Your Guide to Tony Stark’. Is this necessary?” he asks. Tony can’t be that bad, sure he was a little out of touch with reality because he was a rich kid who’s actions didn’t really have consequences but still, he wasn’t that bad, Steve was sure of it.
Rhodey shakes his head, “you have no idea, just keep the book because you’re going to need it,” he says and walks away. Steve, the sorry sucker, does indeed need the book though he doesn’t find that out until the next week.
- Always Remember Tony Stark Does Not Live in the Real World.
Example: he thinks a loaf of bread costs fifteen dollars
Hanging out with Tony always managed to get him in shit, so much so that his mom was starting to worry about him. He was pretty sure she and Rhodey’s mom talked shit about Tony whenever they got called into the principal’s office. Lately that was roughly once a week, sometimes more sometimes less. The latest call was because he was trying to buy Tony and Rhodey time to finish with the set up for their latest prank and he called Mr. Fury a twat. To be fair it was the first thing that came to his mind, even if it wasn’t the wisest decision he’d ever made. Boy had that pissed his mom off but that was nothing compared to the one eyed glares he got from Fury. It was a very sad and terrifying day when someone was scarier than his mom. Tony and Rhodey had gotten busted before they could properly complete the contraption which had made that whole ordeal totally not worth it until a week later when the contraption went off. Seeing Fury covered in pink glittery foam was totally worth his mother’s disappointed looks. However it did result in Tony roping him into another one of his elaborate, ridiculous and no doubt expensive pranks, which had landed him in the principal’s office. Again.
Tony was rich, he knew, but he had absolutely no concept of money or space. It was most obvious whenever they were at Rhodey’s of Steve’s places because he was fascinated with how tiny the apartments they lived in were in comparison to that monstrosity of a place he lived in. As much as Tony wanted nothing to do with Howard they shared their over the top and absurd taste in… well, everything. Tony would never admit it but he and Howard had a lot in common, including being out of touch with reality when it came to money. Once Tony had commented that his closet was bigger than the apartment Steve and his mom lived in which had resulted in Rhodey, Steve’s mom, and Steve sharing a three way look and Rhodey had sighed in annoyance. “Not everyone is super rich like you Tony, living in New York is expensive,” Steve says, exasperated.
“Well duh, but I mean, this doesn’t look like it costs much,” Tony says, looking rather confused.
Rhodey snorts, “Man shut up, you think bread costs fifteen dollars, you have no idea what things cost.” Steve’s mom looks between Tony and Steve with a confused look on her face. Steve shrugs, it’s not like Tony had to do the grocery shopping so why would he know?
“You know what, screw you Rhodey. You’re always bitching that I don’t know how much bread costs but you never actually tell me how much bread costs,” Tony crosses his arms and taps his foot dramatically. That was another thing he and Howard had in common, dramatics.
“Just go to a grocery store and find the damn bread,” Steve’s mom snaps. She was rather irritated with her kid’s sudden habit of getting in copious amounts of trouble because of Tony and frankly had no problem letting him know. Not that Tony noticed, Steve suspected that regularly receiving death threats and having the paparazzi crawl up his ass desensitized him to all micro-aggressions, either that or he didn’t care. Both were equally likely.
“I did, but then I got distracted by this cashier and ended up paying off her student loans and by then I forgot about the bread,” Tony says, looking lost and confused. His mom’s eyes bulge for a second because seriously, who had enough money to talk about casually paying off people’s student loans? “You know what, I’ll call Pepper.” He pulls out his phone and waits a few seconds, “yeah, no, it’s an emergency I swear. What does bread cost?” he asks. He frowns and looks at the phone, “I think she hung up on me,” he says. Steve smacks his palm to his face, he cannot believe Tony qualified finding out the cost of bread as an emergency. Poor Pepper, as if she didn’t have enough crap to deal with being Howard’s assistant.
- DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE ANSWER TONY’S DRUNK PHONE CALLS. If you do he will NEVER STOP CALLING. DO YOU WANT THREE A.M PHONE CALLS? NO? DON’T ANSWER.
Example: I answered once and to this day he still calls me at ridiculous hours of the night to ask stupid shit like “what’s your favourite math equation”. The answer is that I hate math.
It’s three in the morning when Steve’s phone starts to go off. He’d ignore it like the handbook tells him to but Tony was nice enough to give him the newest Stark phone so he felt obligated to answer. “Yeah?” he mumbled. If he was lucky Tony would make it quick. Probably not, Tony was worse than Polonius from Hamlet when he wanted to be.
“I fell like a dry wet nap,” Tony groans. Normally Steve would appreciate Tony’s strange but enjoyable humour but at the moment he wanted to clobber him. He had school tomorrow and so did Tony though he never seemed to show the effects of his late night binge drinking in public. Probably the result of having the paparazzi up his ass his whole life. Steve guessed he learned pretty fast to look perfect all the time, the rest of his family did even if it was far from the truth.
“That’s what happens when you drink your problems Tony, get a therapist,” he mumbles into his pillow.
“I don’t need a therapist, I have Pepper. Do you think insects have thoughts? I don’t wanna squish a fly with a family.” Steve sighs; he was in for a long night if Tony thought flies held any familial resemblance to humans.
“Pepper is not a licensed therapist Tony, plus that poor woman has enough to deal with working for that travesty you call a father. And no, insects to not model the nuclear family, or any other family model. Most humans don’t either despite what idiot politicians like to spout.” He pulls himself into a sitting position and turns on his bedside lamp, maybe if he was lucky he could finish that homework he still had to do. Or better yet he could get Tony to do it; he certainly owes him after a discussion about fly families.
“Pepper managed to make Stark Industries nearly single handedly decimating the entire Middle East sound likes a good thing, she should be a therapist. She can make anything sound good. And I take offence to you calling my father a travesty, that is just so mean to all the travesties out there, they have not done anything to deserve such treatment,” Tony says haughtily, “and maybe flies have single parent homes, you don’t know.” Steve wishes Tony was there to appreciate the dramatic eye roll he just received, he put his whole face into it, Tony would be proud.
“Flies only live for like a month, tops, and they are extremely annoying. Who cares if they have families? So what happened this week for you to drown your sorrows, hmm? And you’re doing my math homework; remember to show your work and crew a couple up. I am not a genius, or good at math for that matter.” Tony had offered to tutor him once and it went horribly, Rhodey had to play referee while the two of them yelled at each other about trigonometry of all things. Tony seemed to be under the impression that everyone should be able to trig in their heads like he does. Steve told him that if he was going to be an ass he wasn’t helping him with English homework anymore and he can suffer with trying to figure out what the fuck the metaphors were with his stupid mathematical brain. Rhodey had been particularly displeased with that development and demanded they kissed and made up before he got stuck helping Tony with English again.
“Fine, flies don’t have families. If I turned into a cat would you keep me?” Tony asks.
“No, cat hair irritates my lungs and I value breathing more than you. Rhodey might keep you though, he likes cats. Of course that’s provided his mom doesn’t know it’s you, she’d probably send you to the humane society. Or PETA, you better hope for option one because PETA would euthanize you.”
“Ouch, yeah ok. So funny side note I was in line at Starbucks the other day and I heard these people talking and one of them said something along the lines of ‘’it’s my country!’. Anyways you know when you hear that its white people being racist so I started listening to their conversation for shits and it turned out it was a couple of disgruntled Canadians complaining about how people from the U.S call Timbits donut holes. From what I gather they are the same thing but the Canadians seemed insistent that they were to be called Timbits and that people from the U.S should know that before they cross the border. Or read the tag under the donut holes, anyways I thought it was hilarious that the Canadians were so pissed,” Tony says, snickering a bit.
He, for whatever reason, entertains Tony’s stupid scenarios and anecdotes while Tony answers his math questions. Steve makes sure to screws up a few because Tony was incapable of messing up a math question intentionally. The curses of being a genius and a perfectionist. “So,” he says after awhile, “what happened?” He figured Tony would talk now, he was mostly sober and he’d distracted himself long enough.
Tony makes a soft sound on the other end, sounding vulnerable for once. “I, ugh, I got in a fight with my dad,” he says quietly.
“I figured, what did he say that made finding the bottom of a bottle seem like a reasonable solution,” he doesn’t mean to sound like he’s judging Tony even if he kind of was but that’s how Tony took it.
“Look, you don’t get it, you don’t know what it’s like to be a disappointment to you dad,” he says and at least its true.
“No Tony, I don’t know what it’s like to be a disappointment to my father, mine is, well, dead. I have no idea what is going on in that head of yours, I’m not even going to try and figure it out otherwise I’ll have to come up for a reason why you’d try and stick six Twinkies in your mouth at once. I do know, however, that no matter how much you drink you’re not going to drown out your problems, Tony. That’s why alcoholics either learn to cope or die addicted, you’re a strong person Tony, you’ll get through this,” he murmurs, yawning. He was going to kick Tony’s ass tomorrow for this.
“I don’t feel strong,” Tony mumbles back.
“You may recall that Twinkie comment, yeah; you tried to stuff six Twinkies in your mouth in front of the whole school. I think you have to be pretty strong to publicly embarrass yourself like that and not actually give a damn. Like truly not give a damn, I don’t think I know anyone with enough confidence to have a serious conversation with Fury with Twinkie goo all over their face. And then there’s you.” Tony laughs, which is kind of the point so he feels a bit better. Tony, despite all his issues, was actually pretty amazing though Steve kept that to himself. No need to let Tony lord it over him if he told him.