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It was Friday, and thank God for that, Jim Rhodes realized with relief. Sure, this semester's class schedule meant that Friday was pretty busy for him, but this had been one hell of a week and it was nearly over.
On Tuesday, Tony'd had an idea for his latest project, which Jim had been dragged into helping with, and the working model had caught fire ten times since then. And that was only one example. In between putting out those fires and the more metaphorical ones from clashes between his fellow ROTC cadets, Jim had struggled to find time for his homework lately.
Technically, the first draft of this paper for his data analysis class ought to be typed up. But, luckily, only his proofreading partner would see it today. The professor need never know. Jim flipped open the speckled cover of his composition book and found the page tagged with a yellow sticky note. He hurriedly counted out the pages, ticking back just the corners, and tore the relevant ones out all at once. Then he stuffed the loose sheets into his data analysis textbook, and hurried out of the apartment.
****
Angelina Gong's worried expression cleared as Jim opened the classroom door. She smiled at him as he took his seat -- and maybe twenty seconds later, the professor went to lock the door. (Some professors weren't nearly so strict about punctuality, but Jim had already advised Tony not to sign up for this class when the option opened up.)
"I thought you weren't going to make it," Angelina whispered, as he took a seat beside her. "You're usually here before me."
"I slept through my alarms. It's been a long week."
She let it go at that, though she did crack another, more wry smile when he took out his first draft as instructed. Thankfully, she didn't say anything as she handed over her neatly typewritten carbon copy, just took his slightly crinkled notebook paper and smoothed it against the desk.
"Sorry," he said.
"Don't worry about it," she assured him, "You have perfectly legible handwriting, so it's not like you're making more work for me. Angelina uncapped a red pen, and Jim bent to dig one out of his bag to do the same.
They worked in silence for a little while, and only once did Angelina have to ask him what a particular word was.
Then Angelina made a choking sound, and Jim looked up from the proofreading with alarm. Her face was bright red, and when she noticed his attention, she glared.
"This," she hissed, peeling off one of his composition pages and shoving it toward him, "better be a note to you!"
Confused, Jim took it. He had to rotate it so that he was holding onto the shorter edges of the paper, in order to read it.
'Plans For the Weekend?' was written along the pre-printed red line in black marker, and below that were two large, imperfect overlapping circles in a Venn diagram. The one on the left was labeled 'Me', and the one on the right was labeled 'You'. The overlapping section read 'Your Dick'.
Jim drew a sharp breath in through his nose, and felt his mouth twist -- he wasn't sure if he wanted to frown or smile, actually. Instead, he settled for growling out,
"I'm going to kill him."
"Oh," Angelina said dryly, "so it is for you."
Jim stared at her for a second, before his brain caught up. He said the words that were so often on his lips after one of Tony's jokes, and he said them sincerely, "I am so sorry..."
"Just put it away before Professor Dudley sees."
Angelina giggled as Jim hastily crinkled up the sheet of notebook paper and shoved it into his bag. Clearly, now that she knew it wasn't some sort of awkward come-on directed at her, the graph was amusing.
Luckily, that was the only incident for the class. Well, until the very end.
Jim apologized one more time, and said to Angelina, "Thanks for being so understanding about this."
"No problem. Oh, and Jim?"
"Yeah?"
Angelina's dark eyes sparkled with mirth as she said, "Have a nice weekend."
Jim blushed, shaking his head, and muttered, "Thanks."
****
Tony Stark was in a very good mood. He'd figured out how to implement his processing improvements without setting circuits on fire. He'd finangled a make-up test for the one he'd missed in Business Management the week before. And he was heading back to the apartment he got to share with Rhodey, and neither of them had any pressing obligations until Saturday afternoon. Now to find out if Rhodey had gotten his little note...
"Oh, Rho~odey..." Tony couldn't resist calling out in a sing-song voice as he closed the front door behind him. "Are you home, honeybunch?"
Something bounced off of Tony's head. He spun around and saw a wadded-up ball of paper on the carpet. He grinned, then stooped to pick it up.
Unwrinkling it from the ball shape confirmed his suspicions. It was the diagram that he'd scribbled into Rhodey's composition book after hustling his sleepy friend from the kitchen table to the bedroom.
"My classmate saw that first."
Oops. Tony plastered on a bright grin and bounded up from his crouched position to Rhodey's side. "Well, I meant it to get to you."
"You're lucky she thought it was funny," Rhodey replied. He still had a stern look on his face, but Tony hoped that this was just a put on.
"Oh, 'she'!" Tony shed his backpack and flopped dramatically along the back of the couch. "At least it wasn't some guy thinking you were flirting? Or the teacher! Ooh, that could be much worse..." So don't hate me for what did happen, Tony finished silently in his own head.
Rhodey's lower lip poked out a bit. Success! He'd never waver in stern-face if he was really upset with Tony!
"You are very lucky that Professor Dudley never saw it."
"How lucky are we talking here?" Tony asked, sitting up. "Will I be luckier tonight?"
Rhodey folded his arms over his chest. Tony kept smiling. Finally, Rhodey smirked back. "I got your proposal, sure, but I think it needs some refining." He grabbed a manila folder from the coffee table and passed it to Tony.
Tony flipped it open, and barked out a laugh. The folder contained a single sheet of computer paper with a greyscale pie chart, titled 'Plans for the Weekend'. Each slice of the circle was labeled with a sex act.
"Why is 'Tony sucking dick' at 20% when 'Jim sucking dick' is only 10%?"
"If you turn your attention to the section labeled 'Tony riding dick', you'll see that I allocated the other ten percent there."
"Aha..." Tony stroked his chin thoughtfully, "Yes, I see."
"Empirical evidence says you enjoy the latter more."
"Very true," Tony admitted. He dropped the folder to the couch and hopped off the back of the couch. "All right, then. Good plan, let's get started!"
Rhodey put a hand on Tony's chest to stop him from flinging himself into Rhodey's arms. "Not until ten p.m., Stark."
Tony stared at Rhodey. "What?!"
"You'll throw off the math." Rhodey responded calmly, with a biggest grin on his face. Tony made an offended noise and zipped himself back up. As if he didn't notice, Rhodey continued, "Besides, I'm taking you out to dinner first. Get dressed in something that doesn't look like we're going to an AC/DC concert, please."
"Oh, all right. But only because you accounted for handjobs."