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Chapter Text

James was well on his way to plastered with Mike and Reggie at the DKE party when he spotted a kid in the corner, being fed shots and loomed over by a couple of beefy white guys from the crew team. The kid couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16, and he looked like he was barely staying upright, though he was still talking animatedly to the crew guys (or maybe just the room at large).

James elbowed Reggie, then leaned close-but-not-too-close so he could be heard over the bass line. “Hey Reg! You know who that kid over there is?”

Reggie swung to look, and Rhodey stepped back quickly to avoid getting a face full of gerry curl. This was why he went drinking with other ROTC guys. . . less hair to avoid getting pummeled by.

“Oh, the little guy? That’s Stark.”

James blinked. “Tony Stark? Son of Howard Stark? Of Stark Industries? What’s he doing here?”

Reggie scrunched up his face, trying to think through the haze of alcohol. It was a little adorable, and James shifted back a bit more, bumping into Mike, who glared and then turned back to the coed he was trying to chat up. Finally a light went on for Reggie. “Oh! He goes here! He’s one of the freshmen!”

“Really? Isn’t he kinda. . . young?”

“Eh, probably. But he’s a Stark, y’know? Built that. . . that engine, or whatever, when he was just a kid. College wouldn’t turn away Stark genius or Stark money. It’d be. . . downright un. . . un-American.”

“Right. . .”

Reggie was looking at him curiously, a little more awareness in his expression than a few moments ago. James shook it off and turned back to Mike and his girl, who had magicked up a couple friends.

Over the next hour, as he chatted with one of the girl’s friends (Melissa) and even let her pull him out into the center of the room to do a bit of jumping and grinding to the beat, James kept finding his eye drawn back to that corner. Stark had finally lost the ability to stand, and was slumped back against a pile of coats, still running at the mouth even though no one appeared to be listening. The crew guys had multiplied and now numbered four or five, and they were laughing and nudging each other in a way that rubbed James wrong.

And then the biggest guy — it was always the biggest guy — started unbuckling his belt.

James cursed under his breath. Melissa was looking at him warily, but she was maybe 100 pounds soaking wet, so he doubted she could help. He looked around, but Mike and Reggie had disappeared, presumably to get lucky (or at least get more booze). No back up. Of course.

James did hesitate, for one long second — no one else was doing anything, no one else had even noticed anything was wrong, and maybe Stark liked to party that way. . . but Deb had made him promise, made him swear on the Bible and on the stuffed bear only she knew he still had, that if he ever saw a girl about to be taken advantage of by some sleazy college guys, he’d step in and get her home safe. Stark was not a girl, despite the pretty dark eyes James could see from across the room, but James would be damned if he thought Deb would accept that excuse.

Taking a deep breath to clear his head as much as possible, he excused himself to Melissa and marched over to the trainwreck in progress.

The crew guys didn’t even bother to look up at his approach. He coughed to try and get their attention, and when that didn’t work he just pushed between them and grabbed Stark and shouldered underneath him until he was mostly on his feet.

They had taken three bumbling steps away and James was just beginning to sigh in relief when a beefy hand fell on his free shoulder.

“Who the fuck are you, and what do you think you’re doing?”

James turned back to look his assailant in the eye. He kept his tone hard, like Captain Stevenson taught him. “I think Tony here has had a little too much to drink. I’m sure he was having a great time with you all, but he wouldn’t want to drag your partying down now that he’s practically passed out. I’ll see that he gets back to his room all right.”

The big guy set his mouth mulishly. “The party’s just getting started over here, and Stark’s the guest of honor. I think you should mind your own business before somebody finds out there’s a Robbury boy crashing a campus party and kicks you out.”

James felt his hands tighten into fists, but kept his face expressionless. “Well I think you should keep in mind that Tony’s underage, and that Papa Stark is highly unlikely to approve of his only son getting gangbanged by a bunch of douchebag legacy kids, and his lawyers certainly charge more per hour than your daddies’ lawyers do. And if you object to my presence at this party, you’ll have to take it up with my buddy Mike Coolidge, Deke Social Chair.”

James held the big guy’s eyes another second, waiting for his judicious name-dropping to sink in, then turned to go again. Stark’s hands were running up and down James’ face and chest and his face was buried in James’ collarbone, but James didn’t have time to deal with acceptable boundaries right now. Unfortunately, one of the other meatheads was either too drunk or too stupid to take his warning. He got up in James’ space and reached out to pull Stark away.

James took great pleasure in punching the meathead in the face.

There was a moment when everything seemed to stop — between the alcohol and the fact that these were MIT students, rather than students at some state school or the kids from James’ old neighborhood, apparently no one was prepared for a swift and decisive attack. The meathead fell back, holding his bleeding nose; the big guy let out a yell to the rest of his friends; but before anyone actually did anything James had Stark in a stumbling run out the door.

~I~

They ran down Dorm Row until Stark stumbled and fell to the pavement in front of MacGregor House. James dropped to his knees beside the boy to check that he was all right. He was making a strange high-pitched sound, and it took a moment for understanding to penetrate James’ alcohol and adrenaline soaked haze. Stark was giggling, giggling and hiccupping and trying to muffle the sound in the dying grass he had fallen onto. James just glared at him for a moment, this rich brat who had probably just gotten him banned from DKE parties for the rest of the year, his friendship with Mike notwithstanding. James had probably lost his coat, too, sitting in a pile somewhere back at the frat house. James felt extremely put-upon.

But hell, it wasn’t like Stark couldn’t afford to replace the coat for him.

So James started to laugh too, sitting down and leaning back on his elbows in the grass next to Stark. He was pretty sure this was not how Deb had envisioned him keeping his promise.

His laughter cut off abruptly as Stark rolled over so that his face was in James’ lap, and his hands started fumbling at James’ zipper.

“Stark! What the fuck, man?” James jumped back up to his feet.

Stark peered up at him from where he had been pushed onto his back. “You don’t wanna blow job?”

“You’re drunk, asshole. I’m not those fucking douchebag crew guys. I’m not gonna make you blow me just ‘cause you’re too young to handle your liquor.”

“Can drink fine. Like givin’ head. Good at it.”

James crossed his arms, feeling the chill air suddenly. “Yeah, sure you are. But you’re not in any state to do that now. You can’t even sit up straight!”

“Can too.” Stark levered himself up, then started listing to the side. James crouched down beside him quickly, grabbing him by the shoulders to keep him from falling. Stark immediately tucked himself into James’s shoulder and started mouthing wetly at his collarbone.

It felt kind of fantastic.

James shivered, then pushed Stark’s face away. “C’mon. Let’s get you up and back to your room. What dorm are you in?”

Stark pouted. He closed his eyes and leaned into James’s arm, then flailed his arm vaguely in the direction of the river. “That one.”

James pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right. Can you tell me the name of your dorm?”

“Something. . . with a B?”

“Baker, Bexley, or BC?”

Stark screwed up his face and fell back into James’ chest. “Dunno.”

“What does it look like?”

“There’s. . . bricks.”

James was very impressed with himself, refraining from strangling the kid. “Those are all brick buildings. This whole goddamn campus is made up of brick buildings. You’re gonna have to narrow it down some.”

“McCormick Hall isn’t brick. Like McCormick Hall.”

James groaned. “How the hell do you remember that, but you can’t remember where you live?”

Stark grinned dopily. “Sleep there more’n in my room. Lossa girls there.”

“And what, they take you in like a stray?”

“Toldja. Like givin’ head.”

“For fuck’s sake, Stark. Can you get your mind out of the gutter for one second and conjure up somewhere I can plant you so you can sleep this off?”

“Wanna sleep with you. . .”

“Too bad. You have your own bed somewhere. Tell me where it is, I’ll tuck you in, and then you’ll sleep by yourself. You’ll thank me in the morning.”

Stark whined. “Don’ like sleepin’ ‘lone. . .”

James closed his eyes and sighed. He was freezing everywhere except where Stark was pressed hotly into his chest, and he had to pee. David was spending the weekend at his girlfriend’s, so he did have a spare bed. . . “Fine. C’mon, get up, I’ll take you back to my dorm. But if you throw up in my roommate’s bed you’re paying to clean it.”

~I~

The stumble to James’s room went quicker than he expected, Stark managing to walk mostly under his own power. His hands continued to wander into James’s personal space, but he was surprisingly quiet, given that he had seemed to be running at the mouth the entire time James was watching him back at the frat. In the dorm James set Stark up in a bathroom stall, feeling like a preschool teacher, then finally relieved his own bladder; unlike a preschooler, Stark did not have to be reminded to wash his hands, though he was keeping his eyes mostly closed against the fluorescent lights. James decided not to check the stall to see what kind of mess the boy might have made of his aim.

James steered Stark to his room, then grabbed a couple tumblers and went back to the bathroom to fill them with water. He also grabbed the trash can to empty, because he knew how to plan ahead.

Back in the room, Stark had successfully gotten his shoes off and was staring at James’s bookshelf. He was swaying side to side just a little, but actually seemed a bit more present than he had thus far in their acquaintance.

James pushed one of the tumblers into his hands. “Drink that. This bed—“ waving at the bed closer to the door “—is my roommate’s. You can sleep here tonight, and I’ll toss the sheets in the wash tomorrow morning.” James placed the trash can by the head of the bed. “If you can’t make it to the bathroom during the night, use the trash can. If you make a mess you’re the one who’s gonna be cleaning it up. Understand?”

Stark watched him over the rim of the cup, then nodded.

“You need anything to sleep in?”

A head shake.

“All right, make yourself comfortable. I’m gonna get ready for bed.” James grabbed his pajamas and his toiletry basket, took Stark’s now-empty cup from his hands to refill it, then headed back to the bathroom. He changed in the stall he had used before, brushed his teeth, then had to just stand for a moment and marvel at the surreality of having Tony fucking Stark in his room. He was glad the dorm was mostly empty, because he really did not know how he could explain how this was his life.

MIT had its share of the progeny of the rich and famous, and James mostly kicked their asses in class (and out, occasionally), but this was a Stark.

Back to the room for the last time, and James was locking the door behind him when he panicked about what message that was sending. He turned to look at Stark who was watching him almost soberly from James’s desk chair.

“So what’s your name?”

James blinked. “You’re only thinking to ask that now?”

Stark shrugged. The movement was surprisingly elegant on his narrow shoulders.

James handed him the refilled tumbler and picked up his own water to drink. Hangovers were joys he tried to avoid at all costs. “I’m James.”

Stark cocked his head to the side, then shook it. ““No, you can’t be a James.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve fucked at least seven. . . no, eight Jameses already. James is boring, I’ll have to—“

James started, then broke in quickly. “You’re not fucking me.” It was really, really important that that be said.

Stark smiled slowly, looking nothing like the sloppy drunk at the party. “Of course I am, shut your mouth. No, you can’t be a James, you have to be someone else. . . what’s your last name?”

James was starting to get the idea that Stark didn’t get told “No” a lot. “Rhodes.”

“Too serious. God a middle name?”

“Rupert.”

Stark scoffed. “What are you, British? No. Just, no. Not happening.” He made a point of thinking for a moment, resting his cheek on his hand, which was propped up on the elbow he had set proprietarily on James’s desk. “Fine. Rhodey’ll do. Now c’mon, lets get naked.”

James found himself backing up against the door to the room, though Stark had made no move towards him. “No! I told you, you are not fucking me. You are drunk. And like twelve years old!” And then Stark was standing up, was— “Stark. Stark! Put your god damn pants back on!” James turned to face the wall, not at all thinking about the flash of red that had peeked through Stark’s open fly. He was eye to eye with the light switch, and decided that it was way past bed time. He plunged the room into darkness, the bit of light coming through the window from the fields outside just enough to make familiar shadows out of the furniture, and sighed in relief. Crisis averted.

James strode swiftly to his bed, taking care not to run into Stark, then burrowed under his covers. “Go to sleep, Stark. Remember the trash can.”

Stark grumbled a “Fine” and crossed over to David’s bed. James was pretty sure he heard Stark leave his pants on James’s desk chair, but the room was dark and James couldn’t see the boy, so that was fine. Just to be safe, though, he turned his back to the room and shut his eyes tight.

~I~

Morning came too soon, the dorm blinds a dirty shade of white that let in more sun than it kept out. James woke up feeling not as bad as he had expected — with all the time he had spent keeping an eye on Stark at the party, he hadn’t gotten nearly as drunk as he usually did on Saturday nights. He also hadn’t gotten nearly as drunk as Stark himself.

The boy was still sleeping, face mashed into David’s pillow, legs tangled up in David’s sheets. James couldn’t help a quick peek, but despite the disarray Stark was still covered in all the important places. James debated for a second, then scribbled a quick note that he left on the (thankfully still empty) trash can, gathered up his clothes and toiletries, and headed to the bathroom.

When he got back to the room Stark was just stirring. The boy stretched languidly, face screwed up, then started to roll out of bed. He landed flat on his face when the sheets refused to give him up without a fight.

He blinked a couple times, staring at the carpet, then looked up at James. His eyes were very round. “Where. . .” Then his expression changed from befuddlement to alarm, and he pushed himself to his feet. “Be right back!” And he bolted from the room.

Wearing nothing but a Black Sabbath t-shirt and bright red briefs.

James contemplated just locking the kid out. Maybe it’d teach him not to go home with strangers. But for some reason he suspected that this would not be the first time Stark would have had to make his way back to his dorm pantsless, so instead he grabbed Stark’s jeans resignedly and made his way back to the bathroom with them.

“Hey Stark! Which stall are you in?”

A groan came from the stall on the end. “Too loud. . .”

“Yeah yeah. Here’s your pants—“ James tossed the jeans over the door— “come get your shoes when you’re feeling more human, okay?”

“Mmmmmhmmm. . .”

James left the room door open, so Stark would be able to find him again, then started stripping David’s bed. After a second of thought, he stripped his own bed as well; it had been a couple weeks, and his sheets were old enough that the color shouldn’t bleed. Besides, his mother trained him to wash large loads — there was no point wasting water, after all. He tossed everything into the laundry basket and set it by the door, then sat down at his desk to wait for Stark to reappear.

Stark was quicker than James predicted, making his way back to the room looking surprisingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in less than ten minutes. He swaggered in cockily, looking James up and down and then throwing himself on James’ stripped bed.

James rolled his eyes.

“Rhooooodey.” The way he drew out the nickname might have been sexy if his voice hadn’t cracked a bit halfway through.

“My name is James.”

Stark shook his head. “Told you. Can’t be a James. Jameses are boooooring. Had, like, at least six of ‘em already.”

“Last night you said eight.”

“Oh, eight could be right. They’re so booooring I might’ve forgot some of ‘em.” Stark grinned as he looked up at James coyly through his eyelashes.

James was not amused. “You can’t possibly have had sex with eight different men named James. You’ve only been here half a semester.”

Stark scoffed. “What makes y’think I didn’t have sex until I got here?”

“You’re like twelve years old!”

“Am not. I’m fourteen. And a half.”

There was a beat of absolute silence as James tried to wrap his brain around the fact that Stark was actually serious. Then he exploded, jumping out of his seat to pace. “Oh my god. Seriously? I was joking! I thought. . . this fucking campus is full of fucking pedophiles!”

“Pretty sure they’d be hebephiles, not pedophiles. I’m not a fucking kid.”

“Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Stark, there is just so much wrong with that statement. . .” James scrubbed his hands over his face, forcing calm. “What are you even doing here, if you’re that young? Shouldn’t you be in some ridiculously expensive private academy somewhere up in New Hampshire?”

“Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.”

“That’s not. . . God.” James stopped to look, really look, at Stark. He seemed defensive now, his former loosely seductive sprawl tense, closed off. He also really did look fourteen. But fourteen wasn’t so long ago for James that he couldn’t remember wanting desperately to be taken seriously, to be allowed to make whatever mistakes looked so attractive, despite Mom’s insistence that he’d regret them. So.

Quieter now, James asked, “Do you remember much from the party last night?”

“Eh, a lot of it.”

“Those guys from the crew team, did you come to the party with them?”

“Nah— well, sort of, in that I ran into them on the walk over, but I didn’t know them before that. They knew how to party though. I haven’t gotten wasted that fast in weeks.”

“Right.” James thought that was just bravado, because Stark’s expression was still shut down. “And do you remember what they were about to do when I came over and grabbed you?”

Stark’s mouth twisted in a cynical approximation of a grin. “Well that big guy — he never told me his name, he’s probably a Howard or something — was about to pound my not-so-virgin hole into the floor.”

James kept his voice very even. “And did you want him to?”

Suddenly Stark was rolling off the bed and sliding into his shoes. He flashed James a megawatt smile that got nowhere near his eyes. “Hey, so I like a bit of gay sex every once in a while — you really don’t know what you’re missing if you’ve never had a prostate massage, and there’s nothing like being spit-roasted by a couple of big burly guys. . .”

James grabbed Stark’s arm; Stark flinched, and James dropped it like he’d been burned. But it did halt Stark’s retreat and turn his attention back to James. “Stark. I have no problem with gay people. What you like in bed shouldn’t matter to anybody but the person you’re doing it with. I just want to know if I was right to come over and pull you out of there, or if I should have minded my own business.”

Stark’s smile faltered, and he kept his eyes focused on a spot just over James’ shoulder. Finally he said, quietly, “Nah, you did good.” James felt his mouth crook up a bit in relief. Stark’s eyes slid over to his for just a moment, then crinkled in response. “You’re a good bro. I’ll see you around, yeah?”

James let himself grin fully. “Hey, you know where I live. Feel free to drop by any time.”

Stark beamed, then awkwardly punched him in the shoulder once and strode out of the room.

Chapter Text

James did not end up banned from DKE parties, thanks to Mike vouching for him; Mike also found James’ coat the next day and returned it. It was filthy with spilled beer and God-knew what other fluids, but it was nothing a bit of scrubbing couldn’t fix. David didn’t even notice that his sheets had been washed and his bed remade. So it turned out his intervention ended well all around.

(Well, for him at least. He was pretty sure he’d broken the meathead’s nose, but he wasn’t going to cry over that, and Mike hadn’t given those assholes his name, so there wouldn’t be any disciplinary action.)

It was several days before James saw Stark again, and then it was only a quick glimpse of the boy’s profile as James was rushing across Killian Court on his way to class. It was long enough for James to see that he was flanked by a couple girls — women — that James recognized from his Writing and Rhetoric course, and long enough for James to read in their body language that they were flirting with Stark. James paused for a moment, on the verge of heading over to them, but this wasn’t a dark frat house and Stark wasn’t drunk, so James shook his head at himself and continued on his way.

He had looked up “hebephilia” while studying in the library the previous day. It had taken half an hour and a lot of different spellings, but a medical dictionary finally yielded “Sexuoeroticism that hinges on imagery of or activity with adolescents.” James didn’t want to know why Stark even knew that that was a thing.

The next Friday night James was settling in for a quiet night of problem sets — he usually believed in studying hard and playing harder, but midterms were approaching rapidly and he was willing to sacrifice one of his party nights to maintain his impressive GPA — when there was a commotion outside his door. Before he could shout "It's open” Stark and what he could only describe as an entourage were falling into his room from the hallway.

“Rhodey! Didn’t see you at any of the parties on campus, so I decided to bring the party to you!”

Stark threw himself into James’s bed as the three — no, four — others arranged themselves on David’s bed, his desk chair, and the floor. The entourage included two girls — the same ones James had seen Stark with earlier — and two guys, one of whom James was startled to recognize as Reggie. Everybody had something in their hands — the girls were carrying a case of beer and a bottle of cheap vodka, Reggie had an armful of chip bags, and the unknown guy had some paper cups and a couple gallon jugs of cranberry juice. Stark had walked in empty-handed, but as soon as the door was closed his pulled a bag of weed and some rolling papers out of his jacket pocket.

James spent a long moment wondering again how this was his life. He opened his mouth to protest the invasion, but Stark was giving him the most ridiculous pair of puppy-dog eyes he had ever seen, so instead he just sighed deeply and closed his textbook. He supposed he could study Saturday night.

“I told you before, Stark, my name is James.”

Stark grinned at him unrepentantly. “Well my name’s Tony, but you don’t see me getting all huffy over you calling me ‘Stark’. Besides,” and here Stark — okay, Tony — leaned towards James confidingly and gave an aborted wave in the direction of the cranberry juice guy, “that guy is a James. He’s a fucking biology major, and a minute-man to boot. You don’t wanna be lumped in with him, do you?”

James looked at the guy, who was busy pouring equal parts vodka and cranberry juice in the cups and passing them around. Then he looked at the girls, at fucking Reggie, and asked Tony quietly, “Have you slept with everyone in this room?”

Tony set to work rolling joints, the grin still turning up the corners of his mouth. “Technically, you are the only person in this room I’ve slept with. However, I have had sex with all the rest of them.”

James lowered his head to his desktop and banged softly.

A hand, covered in minor scrapes and electrical burns and holding a joint, entered his field of vision a few moments later. “You smoke?”

James looked up to discover Tony had already lit one for himself, and had passed around the others. “Wait wait wait!” James jumped to his feet, pushed his window open a couple inches, grabbed his towel from the closet and stuffed it under the door. When he turned back to the room at large the girls were giggling quietly and Tony had raised an eyebrow sardonically.

“Really, Rhodey? It’s just pot. Nobody cares if you smoke pot in college, hell, I’ve gotten high with professors already. . .”

James stalked back over to his bed, getting in Tony’s face and poking a finger into his chest. “Nobody cares if you smoke pot in college. But I am not a Stark, I don’t have a daddy who can donate a lab to keep me from getting expelled. So I will take whatever precautions I feel necessary when you burst into my room and light up, understand?”

Tony blinked up at him. This close, James could tell that he had done some pre-partying — he reeked of alcohol and his eyes were unfocused. It took some of the power out of his next move, an admittedly impressive leer. “You are really ridiculously hot when you’re angry, you know that? Hotter even than in that uniform you were wearing the other day, I didn’t know you were in ROTC, I never would’ve let you just put me to bed if I had seen you in your uniform last weekend. . .”

James snapped his fingers under Tony’s nose. “Hey. That’s enough of that.” Tony’s eyes focused a bit more, and he offered the joint again. James sighed, reached over Tony to open the window a bit wider despite the cold, then took it and settled down on the floor next to Reggie.

He smoked in silence for a few moments, watching the people who had invaded his room with Tony. The girls, curled up on David’s bed, were talking politics with Other-James, who was sitting on David’s desk chair. All three had voted for Reagan, which somehow did not surprise James in the least. Tony tried to insert himself into their conversation a couple of times, but their responses were invariably condescending, and after a bit he fell silent and started roaming around James’ room, touching things. He spotted David’s collection of tapes and started going through them, looking for something to play.

Reggie was sitting with his head tilted back against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest and spread just a bit, arms draped over them, his drink in one hand and his joint in the other. It was a gorgeous pose, and any other night James would have been sneaking surreptitious glances for his next shower, but tonight all he could see was Tony, offering Reggie his body with the same readiness that James might offer him a pencil.

After a moment to screw up his courage, he nudged Reggie and asked quietly, “So, how’d you fall in with this crowd? I didn’t think you knew Stark at the party last weekend.”

Reggie smiled bemusedly. “I didn’t. It was the wierdest thing. I was finishing up in the physics lab this afternoon when Stark burst in and offered a blowjob if I’d let him copy my results. I guess he’s in the other section? And hell if I’m gonna turn down a free blowjob. . . then afterward he said he had a dime bag and more booze than he could carry and wanted to party, and did I want to come with? And then I ended up here.”

James felt sick. Every time, he hoped that Tony was joking, or exaggerating at least, and every time it turned out he was telling the truth. He took a long drag on the joint, then said very levelly, “You know he’s only fourteen.”

Reggie turned wide eyes on him. “No shit. Seriously? Fuck, that makes me feel a little dirty. . . I figured he just looked that young.” Reggie took a sip of his drink and watched Tony consideringly. “Must be a born cocksucker then. The things he did with his tongue. . .”

James couldn’t help himself. “Did you at least reciprocate?”

“Fuck no! I’m no faggot!”

It was Reggie’s air of outrage that was the final straw for James. He pushed himself roughly to his feet, because he had to move or he’d end up taking a swing. Without another word he took the three strides to the other side of the room, where Tony was still crouched over David’s tape collection, clearly keeping half an ear on both conversations happening around him. James crouched down next to him and nudged him with his shoulder.

“Hey. Thanks for coming by and pulling me away from my studying. Don’t know what I was thinking trying to be good on a Friday night.” Tony turned to him with such a blatantly hopeful look on his face that James made himself smile, even though the rage coursing through his veins was still making his hand shake. “But did you have to bring these assholes? You know they’re just going to end up making a mess, and then I’m going to be stuck washing my roommate’s sheets. Again.”

Tony looked befuddled. “It’s not much of a party with only two people.”

James shrugged. “Parties are overrated. Sometimes it’s more fun just hanging out with friends.”

Tony clenched his jaw and looked determinedly back at the cassettes. His next words were so quiet James could just barely make them out. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t have any friends.”

James nudged Tony with his shoulder again. “Hey. You’re supposed to be a genius, right? Do I really have to spell out that that was me saying we can be friends, so you don’t have to come up with an excuse next time you want to hang out?”

“Oh.” Tony was blushing. It was absolutely adorable. He shook himself, then shot James an arch look. “So you wanna get me alone again? Wanna do dirty, dirty things to my nubile young body? Regretting your chivalry last weekend now? Can’t say I’d complain. . .”

James rolled his eyes and smacked the back of Tony’s head lightly. “That wasn’t a come-on, idiot.”

James twisted around so he could sit comfortably while still facing Tony and took the last drag on his joint, letting it mellow him. Tony turned to look at him fully at last, his shoulders losing a tension that James hadn’t even been consciously aware they were carrying. And then Tony smiled shyly and mirrored James’s position on the floor; he reached up to grab a couple of the beers, opened them both, then handed one to James; and they spent the rest of the night talking robots and Star Wars and ignoring everybody else in the room.

~I~

After that it was like James had acquired a shadow.

Catching a quick lunch in the dining hall? Tony was already sitting at James’s usual table eating a burger and fries. Attending a guest lecture on the latest advances in string theory? Tony flopped down next to him five minutes into the lecture and immediately started passing notes. Working on problem sets in Barker Library, because David’s parents were visiting and the room was a bit crowded? A spit ball hit the back of James’s neck and when he turned around Tony was grinning from behind a library cart.

It was incredibly flattering and only a little bit creepy.

Of course, after a while, other people began to notice. The ROTC guys mostly didn’t care, though James did get ribbed a bit about brown-nosing and setting himself up to defect to the private sector. But overall, they accepted Stark as an honorary one of them, because he was a Stark and because he had apparently almost blown up one of the Bexley Hall kitchens in some drunken mad scientist scheme.

But James’s friends in the dorm weren’t so tolerant. Reggie, in particular, seemed absolutely baffled by the way James suddenly hung out so much with Tony. It was deeply frustrating to James that, after weeks (okay, maybe months) of James nursing this stupid crush and wracking his brain for excuses to hang out with Reggie, the instant his crush evaporated in mild disgust Reggie was suddenly always around. And poking at him.

“So seriously dude, what’s with Stark hanging around all the time?”

They were playing ping-pong down in the game area. Neither of them was any good, so it was really just an excuse to put off doing problem sets. They hadn’t been talking, so the question took James by surprise as he was returning Reggie’s serve and he shanked it, sending the ball flying. Reggie glared, then trotted off after it. James rubbed a hand over his face and debated the merits of just leaving, heading back up to his room and avoiding Reggie until he went away.

But James hated passive aggression, so when Reggie got back to the table and wafted the dusty ball over to James’s side of the net, James caught it and laid both it and the paddle down on the table. Hard.

“Look, what is your problem with this? I like Stark, he’s a good kid, so we hang out. That’s it. You certainly didn’t seem to have a problem with him when he was blowing you and providing you with free booze, so what’s your problem now?”

Reggie had the grace to look a little guilty. “No problem, not really, it’s just. . . weird, right? I mean, he really is a little kid. . .”

James glared. “He’s almost a week older than he was when you, again, let him blow you and provide you with free booze.”

Reggie rubbed the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at James. “I know, all right! I feel gross about that now. He’s the same age as my little brother! That’s just all kinds of wrong. . .”

James remained implacable. “So again, what’s your problem with me hanging out with him?”

“I don’t know.” Reggie shrugged, still shame-faced. “I just. . . I can’t figure out what you guys would do together. Like, are you—“ he made a lewd gesture with his hands— “are you guys boning or something now?”

James felt a spurt of panic, but clenched his jaw and glared harder. “Okay, one, not gay. Two, why the hell is sex the only thing you can think of Tony providing? He’s a fucking genius, like smarter than you and me combined, and he has a great sense of humor, and he likes to hang out with me. So we’re friends. That’s it. You’re welcome to hang out with us too, if Tony doesn’t mind, or you can shut the fuck up about it and leave us alone.”

“Okay, okay!” Reggie held up his hands placatingly, eyes wide and focused on James’s face again. “I’m sorry I asked. Take a chill pill, dude, I was just curious.”

“Right.” James consciously relaxed his jaw and sighed, rolling his shoulders to release some tension. “Well, I should really get started on my statistics problem set. I’ll see you around.” Then James turned on his heel and marched back up the stairs to his room.

~I~

From then on, Reggie avoided James, and James avoided Reggie, and Tony was always around, finding James for at least one meal a day, dragging him out to parties at least one night a week, and hanging out in James’s room at the oddest times. Tony had latched onto David, much to James’s amusement, the instant he found out that David’s dad worked for George Devol at Unimation, and David himself had actually touched the very first PUMA.

Mrs. Kim told Tony he was an absolute darling, after he spent half an hour fanboying over Mr. Kim the next time they came to visit David. A week later a card came in David’s mail, addressed to Tony. It was plain card stock and simply read “It was a pleasure to meet such a charming young man. Take care of yourself.”

Inside the card was a crisp ten dollar bill.

Tony’s face when he saw that someone had given him — a Stark! — a gift of petty cash was priceless, and James wished desperately that he had a camera. Not that he would have been able to take a picture — he and David were both doubled over, shaking with laughter.

When they heard James and Tony were staying in the dorms for Thanksgiving, the Kims invited both of them to come home with David. Tony brought Mrs. Kim an enormous bouquet of orchids.

Thankfully, James never had to deal with the awkwardness that would have ensued had Tony hit on David the way he seemed to hit on everything else that moved. The first time Tony had stopped by the room on a weeknight when David was in, David and his girlfriend were curled up around each other on David’s bed. Tony did a double-take when he burst through the door, clearly processing the sight of two people he didn’t know where there was usually an empty bed, then flashed them the smile James was already calling Tony’s public smile.

He strode forward, all his frenetic energy suddenly corralled, redirected into keeping his back straight and head high. “Tony Stark. You must be the mysterious David.” He thrust his hand at David’s chest and David took it, goggling a little. James buried his face in his hands in second-hand embarrassment at Tony’s ridiculousness, so he missed when David introduced Grace. The next thing he knew Tony was shepherding him out the door, throwing a “Let’s do lunch!” over his shoulder at David with an honest-to-god finger pistol.

As soon as they were out in the hall with the door closed behind them, Tony’s shoulders loosened and his smile turned genuine. Still. There was no way James was letting that pass by without comment. “What are you, a pod person? What have you done with the real Tony Stark? And why do you think ‘let’s do lunch’ is something actual people say?”

Tony blinked, his smile slipping. “People say ‘Let’s do lunch.’”

James just shook his head. “No. No they don’t.”

Tony pouted and crossed his arms. “I say ‘Let’s do lunch,’ and I’m people, so people say “Let’s do lunch.’ That’s the transitive property in action, Rhodey, you must have taken elementary logic by now. . .”

James grinned and ruffled Tony’s hair, just to make him pout harder. “Nope. That’s terrible logic, Tony. What kind of genius is that sloppy? You aren’t ‘people’. You’re ‘a person,’ singular. So you saying ‘Let’s do lunch’ means that ‘a person’ says ‘Let’s do lunch,’ not ‘people’.”

Tony stuck his tongue out at James, then squirmed out from under James’s hand and started trying to fix his hair. “Fine, be pedantic. But all this talk of lunching aside, I’m starved, just spent the last fourteen hours trying to work out a tricky bit of coding that I finally got, because I am a genius, thank you very much, and was headed to the dining hall. . .”

The next time Tony found David in their room he was more his normal self, and James chalked it up to nothing more than surprise (and possibly a bit of sleep deprivation). But even though Tony did loosen up, was soon chattering as much to them as he was to James, he never propositioned either David or Grace.

After a bit of observation, James figured out that that was a line Tony never crossed if he could help it — he would hit on just about anything that moved, yes, but never anybody that seemed to be in a relationship. He never walked up to couples, and the instant any person he was chatting up let a name slip that seemed to have some emotional weight attached to it Tony backed off, even if the person had previously seemed interested in him.

And that was what continued to boggle James’s mind — exactly how many of his peers actually did take Tony up on his (usually blatant) propositions. An average Friday or Saturday night with Tony soon took on a somewhat worrying pattern. Tony would drop by sometime around ten with a bottle of something hard and they’d do a bit of pre-partying while listening to WMBR’s weekend metal show. Once they were pleasantly buzzed they’d head out to the most absurdly themed frat or house party in the area. They’d spend some time circulating at first, greeting friends and acquaintances and drinking some more (though Tony never again drank as much as he had the night of the DKE party); then at some point, James would be pulled into a conversation with someone other than Tony for more than thirty seconds, and the next time he looked up Tony would be hitting on a complete stranger.

Sometimes the person turned Tony down, and he’d come back to Rhodey’s side for bit. Sometimes the person reacted badly (either a straight guy offended by the offer or a girl with a possessive boyfriend Tony hadn’t spied before hitting on her) and James would have to head over and defuse the situation, peaceably if possible but forcibly if necessary. And sometimes the person accepted, and Tony went back to his or her room, leaving James at a party that was significantly less fun than before without a backwards glance.

James finally asked, exasperated, why Tony felt the need to find a hook-up every time they went out. Tony froze, then pulled out the cheerful leer that James was starting to despise. “Well, Rhodey, if you would just give up your uncompromising heterosexuality long enough to pound me into a mattress, I wouldn’t have to find a hook-up, now would I?”

The words were flirty (and filthy, and James was definitely not going to think about Tony’s voice and those words the next time he was in the shower) but Tony’s expression was all wrong, a smile on his lips but his eyes distant the way they rarely were around James anymore.

So James shut up about it, but he kept watching, and at the next party, when Mike pulled James toward some of his frat brothers and Tony started to slip away, James grabbed Tony’s arm and pulled him along too, and as soon as James said something to get Mike to talk to Tony himself, Tony relaxed and started chattering away like normal. He didn’t try to slip away again that night.

Every party after that, James pulled the same stunt, pulling Tony along with him when somebody wanted James and working the conversation to include Tony as well. And while Tony did still sometimes end the night in somebody else’s bed, he started dragging James with him when he spotted somebody he found attractive, rather than looking for someone attractive when he felt like James no longer wanted him around.

~I~

Unfortunately, as soon as that was resolved, Tony gave James something else entirely to worry about.

The first two times Tony had propositioned him, rolling on the grass in front of MacGregor House and then later when James poured Tony into David’s bed for the first time, James was able to brush off as just an effect of how completely trashed Tony was.

The next two times Tony had propositioned him, when James was looming over him yelling about lighting up in his room and then when James told him they were friends, James was able to brush off as Tony just defusing emotional scenes with humor.

But after James started his campaign to make sure Tony knew he was welcome at James side even when James wasn’t actively talking to him, Tony started propositioning him all the time.

Eating dinner in a quiet corner of the dining hall? Tony looked up with a grin and whispered, “You know, if there were a tablecloth, I wouldn’t mind ducking underneath it and sucking you off.” Passing notes during a guest lecture on the possibility of brain-connected prosthetics? Underneath James’s “Shut up, I’m actually trying to pay attention, dork,” Tony wrote, “But Rhoooodey, this is booooring, and if we sneak out now we can pull each other off in Prof. Keane’s office.” Working on problem sets in Barker Library because somebody had set off a stink bomb in the dorm? A condom hit James in the chest, and when he looked up Tony was bent over the back of his chair and waggling his ass at James.

That one really did go too far. James threw his pencil down, stood up so abruptly that his chair nearly overturned, grabbed Tony by the scruff of the neck, and pushed him into the nearest (thankfully unoccupied) bathroom.

“Tony. I will say this one more time, because you are apparently not getting how serious I am. We. Are. Not. Fucking.”

Tony pouted, then slid his hand along the waistband of James’s pants. “Fine. How ‘bout I kneel down and blow you?”

James ripped Tony’s hand away, wrapping his own around it and pinning it to the wall. “NO! We are not having any sort of sex!”

“But why nooooot?” Tony whined like the child he was, but his eyes did shift a little guiltily when he felt the way James’s grip shook with adrenaline.

“Because you are fourteen fucking years old! You can’t vote! You can’t even drive!”

“You know, you’re only twenty fucking years old. Which means you can’t drink. And yet you did plenty of that last weekend. . .”

“I said no, Tony! It doesn’t matter what the reason is, when somebody say no, you need to drop it!”

There was definitely guilt on Tony’s face, but his mouth went on anyway. “But I want to know the reason!”

James dropped Tony’s wrist and turned away, rubbing his hands over his face. “Oh my god, Tony, would you just leave it alone already?”

“It’s not ‘cause you’re straight.”

And there, that chilled James all the way through. Did Tony — could Tony know? Had he figured it out? “What do you mean?”

The response was mercifully quick. “I mean, I know you’re straight, but nobody’s that straight.”

James exhaled slowly, willing the tension from his limbs. “Look, Tony, has it ever occurred to you that I just don’t find you attractive?”

“Please,” Tony scoffed, and James couldn’t help but smile at his affront. “Everyone finds me attractive. At least attractive enough for me to go down on them.”

“You’re just going to have to let me be mysterious, Tony.”

Tony grumbled, but let it drop after that, and didn’t proposition James again.

But something about that last proposition stuck with James, niggled at him as slightly wrong. There was a hint of. . . desperation, almost, to the way Tony had been pressuring him, and to the way he had practically begged to know why James wouldn’t have sex with him. There had been a thread of what James could only call fear that had grown in Tony’s voice with every “No” James said to him. But that just didn’t make sense.

Finally James decided to put his brain to work.

He started seeking Tony out on the rare occasions Tony hadn’t already come to find him, and paying close (but hopefully subtle) attention to the way Tony acted around other people. And after a couple weeks, James was able to conclude that Tony had spoken nothing less than the truth, that first time he had invaded James’s room, when he said he didn’t have any friends.

He knew everybody, and most people liked him, or at least found him amusing. He had had some form of sexual contact with at least ten percent of the School of Engineering. Yet James himself seemed to be the only person in the entire college that actually sought out Tony for his company. People would ask where he was going to be any given night, because if he said he was going to be at a party it was guaranteed to be a good one, and if he said he was going to be in his room they knew they could swing by and take advantage of his personal alcohol supply. But no one ever invited Tony to hang out in their room, or to go to a concert with them, or even sat down with him in the dining halls.

James was pretty sure it was because he got so excited about things.

Tony really didn’t look his age — he was short, but stockier than most 14 year olds, and all the partying meant he constantly had bags under his eyes. But as soon as he lit up about something, about going to see The Terminator last month or the latest snag in the computer program he was writing (based on ideas from The Terminator, of course, which James had to point out seemed like a really bad idea), his voice got high and he started rocking back on his heels, and those moments just hammered home how much of a little kid he still was.

It must have been hell for Tony, at the ritzy private academy where he went to high school. The students at MIT were at least nerds themselves, and when they got past how young Tony was they’d sometimes engage in science fictional thought experiments with him; James just couldn’t see prep school kids ever getting that far with him. They probably just saw his irrepressible excitement about dorky things as the epitome of uncool, and beat the shit out of him.

And that was when everything clicked.

James was lazing on Tony’s bed, theoretically outlining his final paper for Writing & Rhetoric, but really just watching Tony while Tony’s attention was on his computer and trying to puzzle the kid out. He pictured Tony at twelve, probably several inches shorter and maybe twenty-five pounds lighter, his eyes huge and dark, his mouth a pouty slash of red across winter-pale skin, his hands smaller and more delicate. He pictured a pack of rich jocks, fresh off growth spurts and packing on muscle, expecting everything they want to fall in their laps, and, of course, ridiculously horny.

He pictured them putting their hands all over Tony.

And then he wondered when stuffing Tony into a locker turned into pushing him to his knees and stuffing his mouth with their cocks.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

“What?”

Tony had steel in him. He hid it under the mouth he let run a mile a minute and the way he brushed off or twisted any conversation about personal things, but he had pride and no matter what they did to him he wouldn’t have let them see him break. Motherfucking assholes.

“What is it?”

Hand jobs and blow jobs hurt less than black eyes and dislocated shoulders and bruised ribs. How long did it take for Tony to offer rather than being forced? He was smart, and he read people better than he let on. Three times? Two? Maybe after that very first time, and with him proposing they could pretend he was actually consenting and not feel the tiniest bit guilty. Cocksucker wanted it, after all. Pin-dicked fuckwitted tools.

“Seriously, what’s wrong?”

And Tony was so starved for affection, so quick to accept any blame other people placed on him, so good at hiding how much he was hurting if you weren’t looking. How long was it until they twisted that coerced offering of himself into something like mascot-hood? Twisting fucking rape, and James wouldn’t shy away from the word, into a bit of fun that they could joke about with him? Give him entry to their clique, and with that entry all the acceptance Tony craved, provided he continued to service them? Continued to. . .

“Rhodey! Answer me!”

Tony’s face was inches from James’s, wide-eyed with worry, and his hands were shaking James’s shoulders.

Oh. I guess I was cursing out loud.

James froze, torn between the desire to grab Tony and shield him from the world and the burning question of whether any of the times James had touched him casually had made him think that James expected that same sort of service.

He reached up slowly and pulled Tony’s hands off his shoulders, but didn’t let them go. Looking Tony straight in the eyes he said, “You know I’m never going to make you have sex with me in exchange for my friendship, right?”

Tony blinked, but he really was a genius and James could see him tracing the path of James’s thought in a matter of seconds. His face shuttered closed and he started to step back, but James gripped his hands harder and held eye contact.

“I like hanging out with you, Tony. I like hanging out with you because you’re funny and smart and kind and just fucking all-around amazing, and I am going to keep hanging out with you as long as you like hanging out with me. You are my friend. I don’t give a damn who you have sex with, so long as you really want to have sex with them and they don’t hurt you, but you don’t ever have to have sex with me. And if anybody ever makes you feel like you are obligated to have sex with them, I will find them and I will hurt them. Because you don’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that. Do you understand me?”

Tony blinked rapidly, mouth falling open in shock. He pulled against James’s grip again, but it felt perfunctory. James took a deep breath.

“Can I give you a hug?”

Tony closed his mouth slowly, then nodded twice, staccato. James slid off the bed and straight into Tony’s personal space, then carefully enfolded him in the gentlest, most sincere hug James had ever given. Tony’s arms came around his waist and squeezed.

They just stood there, entwined, for a long time. Eventually, Tony loosened his hold and they parted by degrees, heads turning away and arms falling to their sides. Neither stepped back though, content to stand chest to chest breathing the same air. Finally, James pulled himself back up on the bed and patted the spot next to him.

“So c’mon, tell me again why what you’re programming isn’t going to turn into Skynet?”