Chapter Text
Tony yawned as he walked down the street. He was wearing a very worn t-shirt and a pair of jeans, both covered with sporadic spots of grease and oil. His face and hair was in disarray.
He was a man on a mission.
After surfacing from his current bout of marathon engineering, Tony went to his private coffee-making-device in the workshop only to find that he had a tragic loss of the life-giving liquid. He'd even gone as far as going upstairs to find any traces of coffee. Finding none there, Tony remembered that JARVIS would know if there was any caffeine in the tower. JARVIS dutifully informed him that there was none.
Tony knew what had to be done.
He needed to get to the nearest place that sold coffee.
(JARVIS told him that he should sleep instead, but Tony ignored that. Coffee and work were more important.)
Tony figured that in his current state of sloppiness he could pass as a Tony Stark fan and that he wouldn't need to wear a disguise. It was foolproof.
With directions from JARVIS, Tony found a place that he'd never been before. Granted, Tony didn't go out to places without Pepper ordering him to, but that was beside the point. Entering the establishment, Tony was hit with the mouth-watering smell of ambrosia.
Tony realized that he'd paused in the doorway smelling the coffee in the air, when one of the waitresses approached him.
"Can we help you sir?" She sounded faintly disgusted. Tony wasn't surprised.
"Yeah, uh. Yes. I need a coffee, black as my soul."
The waitress blinked, but nodded and walked back towards the work area part of the café. Tony realized that he was still in the doorway, and he staggered further in. His eyes were getting heavy, and a headache had shown up, but that didn't stop him from admiring the décor. It was light and upbeat, but dim enough that it didn't make him want to die. The place clearly had been visited by a good designer/interior decorator in its past. Briefly, Tony pondered on whether he should ask the owners who the designer was, but then he remembered that he already had a few good ones on his payroll.
Tony starts to wonder if he needs sleep. It could wait until after coffee.
"Here's your coffee sir. That'll be three dollars."
Tony handed her a twenty, figuring he could tip again later and searched for a place to sit.
Instead of finding a place to sit, Tony's eye caught the most spectacular suit he had ever seen.
The suit was light brown, but it seemed to sparkle in the light. Every minute move of the owner of the suit sent the suit shimmering in glory. Tony swore he heard angels sing as he observed the suit and its unique fabric. Maybe it was a design thing? Or was it just the fabric?
Tony only realized that he'd sat down at the table with the person behind the suit when there was an awkward throat clearing.
Distracted from his admiring, Tony's eyes flicked up to the guy’s face.
"Wow, your face really suits your suit."
The guy's face was aesthetically pleasing, his hair tied up in a manly ponytail, strands of it falling in his face. Tony wouldn't be surprised if the guy was some sort of model.
"Um... thank you?"
Tony blinked. This guy had a nice voice, even though it sounded a little croaky. Wait, thank you for what? Oh, he said the thing about the face out loud. He winced, and took a gulp of his coffee.
It wasn't a black coffee. It was practically all milk. Tony would have been impressed with the sass if he wasn't practically asleep.
As it was he ended up exclaiming, "What is this abomination?" and taking another gulp. He wasn't one to waste coffee, even if it was not made to his preferences.
"Are you okay sir?"
Oh, yeah, Tony was sitting with the suit guy.
"Yeah, gimme a sec, I'll wake up after this."
Tony then proceeded to down his whole coffee, burning his tongue.
It took another three seconds for the coffee to wake him up a little, and in that time, he realized that he really needed to work on his social skills.
"Hi, sorry, I haven't slept for something like five days. One hundred and forty-four hours. No, that's six days. I really like your suit." This wasn’t a good attempt at socialization. "I need another coffee. Do you need another coffee?"
The guy paused and stared at Tony in something akin to horror. "I—"
Tony cut him off. "I'll get you one anyway."
Tony stood up and walked back to the counter. "That was mean of you, but I'll forgive you if you give me a plain black coffee, a large one, and another one of whatever that man over there ordered before."
The lady stared at Tony for a second. "Of course sir."
Tony leaned against the counter and realized that the lady serving him now was actually a different lady to the one that met him at the door. Wow, he needed to wake up.
"Here you are sir. Eight dollars, please."
Tony handed her a twenty. He had another three twenties in his wallet. Three more coffees.
Tony sat back down with the suit guy and handed him the coffee. Tony then gulped down half of his own coffee, burning his tongue further. Tony woke up a little more. The guy was watching him silently. Tony was surprised he hadn't left, to be honest.
"I'm not really good at social interaction on a good day, and I can tell that this is probably coming off as borderline creepy, but I really just wanted to ask you where you got your suit because it's glorious."
Tony leaned back on the seat and sipped at his coffee, waiting for a response.
The guy was silent for a few more seconds before he replied. "This was my friend's dad's suit. I don't know where he got it."
Tony refused to make a dying noise, and sighed instead. "Okay, thank you. I'll go now."
Tony stood up to leave, but found himself unable to move. The guy had caught his shirt. Tony noticed that the guy was also wearing gloves. They were nice on the eyes, and seemed to be made of leather. Tony wondered how he missed such lovely gloves when he first met the guy.
"Wait! I have a question for you. Oh, sorry." The guy let go a little sheepishly. Tony noticed that he had an accent. He wasn't awake enough to pick it out though.
Tony shrugged and say back down with the guy. "Okay, sure. Shoot."
"Why have you been up for six days, and why are you covered with grease?"
"That's two questions." Tony answered instinctively. Wait was that an insult? "The grease adds character, thank you very much."
The guy was shaking his head. "I'm not saying it doesn't, I just want to know why." The guy's voice was sounding nicer. Tony liked it.
"Well, they both have the same answer actually. I've been working around the clock for nearly a week and I work with machinery, so there's grease everywhere. Not copies of the musical Grease, no, that would be horrifying. No, I mean the oily slick stuff." Tony paused. "Not lube though."
The guy across from him seemed to be a bit flummoxed. "Grease the musical?"
Tony blinked at the guy. "Yeah, what about it?"
"I. What is it? I've never heard of it."
Tony had to take another gulp of coffee. "What do you mean you don't know? Grease is a formative musical that everybody is supposed to watch. Same with Hairspray. There are rules, suit guy, and you're breaking them."
"Hairspray? Suit guy?"
"Good Lord, you are a lost cause. Hairspray is a musical about segregation set in the 19 somethings. Good morning Baltimore? No? Uh, the guy in drag, what's-his-name, the actor, uh... Travolta!"
"Are you sure that these musicals are a must see?" The guy's eyes were brighter than earlier though, so Tony was counting it as a plus.
"Yes. Absolutely."
"If you say so then."
"I do. I absolutely do. Even DUM-E likes them."
"Dummy?"
Tony paused. Oops. He took another gulp of coffee. "Yeah, DUM-E. He's my robot. Bucket of bolts really."
"And he... he likes musicals?"
"Yeah. He likes whistling the songs."
"But he's a robot."
Oh. Tony didn't even know why he felt disappointed. Most people didn't think that robots deserved to have likes or dislikes, Tony didn't know why he expected this stranger to be any different.
The guy continued speaking, "I mean, I've read about some of the newest robotic stuff that's out there, but I don't think that they've quite achieved sentience like that."
Tony felt himself light up again. "No, but they have! Have you heard of AI?"
"Like Siri in the Apple phones?"
"Ew. Apple. But, yeah, kind of like that. Siri’s what the general consumer believes the most advanced AI is. There are further advanced? More advanced…?” Tony paused to think about the wording, but decided that it didn’t matter. “There are other AI’s out there that are further than Siri. Siri’s good, yeah, I’ll give them that, but can it make decisions on its own? I don’t think so.”
“Like Skynet?”
“What? No, shut up. You're thinking about this the wrong way. Go back to Siri for a second. It is dormant, it only ever comes up when you ask it questions. Sometimes the answers are elaborate, but often it'll mishear, or it'll say that it doesn't understand. Are you with me so far?"
The guy nodded. "Yeah, but why is Siri an it and your Dummy a he?"
"Okay, yes, I'll get to that bit." Tony cleared his throat and took another drink, only to find it empty. He frowned. "Right, so imagine instead that Siri makes logical leaps, like it has enough data at its fingertips, you’d think that it’d be able to carry a conversation, right? But it doesn’t. Siri always sits and waits to be acted upon. Acted upon? What is this, the eighteen-hundreds?
“Anyway,” Tony continues, swatting away the thought with a careless hand, “I was trying to say is that my AI can do that. They are advanced enough to carry out conversations, they can start them even. They don’t have preferences – likes, maybe? Yeah, DUM-E likes musicals. He technically doesn’t have a gender, I guess, but he doesn’t like being an ‘it’. Also, my AI’s don't get dismissed when they're not needed, they're on and learning 24/7, so by being around me they observe casual human interaction, and sometimes they like to replicate that; hence the gender thing. Does that make sense?"
"I think so." The guy replied. He pushed the coffee that Tony bought for him towards Tony. "Here, you can have mine."
"But this is yours."
"It's okay. Thanks for buying it, but you look like you need another one."
"Yes, I do."
"What I think you're saying," The guy said, jumping back on topic, "Is that you've developed an AI program that is, well, partially sentient. Domesticated animals make those kinds of small logical leaps. Is that what you're saying?"
"Almost." Tony frowned. "Close enough that I'll let it slide."
The guy huffed out an airy chuckle.
"What's your name, anyway? I think I skipped that part." Tony blurted.
"James." The guy looked a little uncomfortable and surprised at the answer that came from his own mouth.
Tony nodded, ignoring the awkwardness. "I know a James. He's one of my best friends, but he's off saving America somewhere."
James looked up, the question clear in his eyes.
"He's a colonel. Air Force. He's actually the reason I've been working so hard this week."
"Why?"
Oh. Tony set himself up for that. He took a swig from the coffee. It wasn't too bad.
"He, uh. He had a crash a little while ago. Like, a little over a week ago. He was alright, no harm, no foul. The other guy with him lost his right leg up to the knee. Rhodey was telling me how bad his army buddy was struggling to find work and an affordable prosthetic. I wanted to help."
James looked even more uncomfortable. He rubbed his gloved hands together. "You've been making prosthetics?"
"Yeah. I got a whole bunch of prototypes out last month, and we found a few people to test them for us. I've been trying to fix the bugs."
"You. You work for Hammertech?"
"No! Ew, heavens, no. Filthy traitor tongue. Stark Industries. That's my do."
James nodded and looked around the café.
Tony didn't know what went wrong. Tony then realized that he'd never given his own name. Although, Tony was famous. The guy probably already knew his name. James hadn't reacted to him like he was famous though, so Tony figured he'd introduce himself anyway.
"I'm Tony, by the way. Nice to meet you."
James looked back towards Tony, a faint smile crossing his face. "Nice to meet you. I'd be living a musically and technologically oblivious life without meeting you."
"What a shame that would be."
James' smile grew. "Absolute tragedy."
The door chimed in the background, but Tony ignored it. "You'll see. John Travolta in drag is something you'll never forget."
James chuckled. "I'll bet."
"You're mocking me. You watch it, and you'll love it. You'll probably be horrified by it too."
James rolled his eyes and smirked. "Can't wait to be scarred for life."
"It's not scarring. You'll feel liberated. Find your sense of patriotism and watch the segregation of Americans fall under the weight of music and dancing."
From beside them a voice piped up. "That sounds more scarring than anything."
Tony's head jerked up. And up. This blond guy was tall.
"Stevie." James greeted. His voice sounded different to a second ago. "I didn't see you come in."
"You have muscles bigger than my head." Tony added.
Stevie (?) snorted. James rolled his eyes. "Steve here could probably demolish a building with his biceps." Sarcasm. Tony rather liked this guy.
"I could not Buck, don't exaggerate." Steve huffed. "I could probably break a watermelon between them though."
James sighed.
Tony was missing something. He wasn't sure what the something was though.
"So, who's your friend?" Steve asked James as he slid into the booth beside him. James shifted over to make room for his equally bulky friend.
"This is Tony. He likes your dad's suit."
Oh. Huh. Tony figured they were dating. People generally don't borrow clothes from the parents of someone they aren't dating. Tony found himself happy for them. The two of them fit together nicely.
"Yeah, do you know where he got it?" Tony couldn't help himself. It was a gloriously magnificent suit. It didn't look like anything he usually got.
Steve looked both amused and confused. "No, sorry."
Tony sighed. Wait, if they were partners then this was probably a date. Tony was gatecrashing and cockblocking. An overall terrible combination.
"Well, thanks anyway." Tony stood. "I'd better go. I've got more work to do. Do you want your coffee back?"
"You're going?" James looked a little unhappy.
"Yeah, I still have some things I need to fix with the hands. Fingers and anatomy are the worst. I'm an engineer for crying out loud!"
"Oh." James seemed to be torn about something. "I. Um. Have a good day, then?"
"Yeah, you too. Are you sure you don't want your coffee back?"
A small smile came back to James' face. "No, you keep it."
"Okay then. Good talk. It was nice meeting you." Tony headed for the door before he remembered that James had a friend (boyfriend?). "You too Steve!"
Tony let the door close behind him, cutting off any reply. He sighed, finished off James' coffee and threw the disposable cup in the bin. He turned to head off when James bounded out of the store.
Tony paused, distracted by the absolute beauty of the suit in front of him. It shimmered like water in the sunlight. Tony felt like a cat, being distracted by something so shiny.
"Hey, uh..." James let the sentence trail off awkwardly. He bit his lip and straightened before trying again. "I really enjoyed talking with you today. I. Uh... I."
Tony decided to try save him. "I did too. I'll admit, you're probably the first human interaction I've had all week."
"Could I have your number?" Came tumbling out from James' mouth in a rush.
Tony blinked and thought about it. The guy was smart and kept up with Tony well enough, from what he saw. Pepper said he needed more friends anyway. "Sure."
They do the awkward phone exchange before James bids him goodbye again, and Tony goes back to the tower.
Tony sits in his workshop and stares at the number. He felt an inordinate amount of joy at being semi-successful at making a friend.
"J," Tony says, "Call Pepper."
JARVIS doesn't respond, mostly because he gets passive aggressive when he's treated like a phone operator. The call gets put through to Pepper anyway.
"Tony, I can't talk right now."
Tony knew that sentence was code for 'I have a lot of work right now, running your company, so make this quick'. Tony would mourn how domesticated Pepper had made him, but Pep would probably smack him for thinking that way.
"Pep, I made a friend."
There was silence from Pepper. "Please tell me that we aren't going to have another PR nightmare. I don't think they can handle another sex scandal. You haven't caused one in years; they'll have forgotten how to do it."
"No, Pep, I went out to get coffee, there was this nice guy there and we became friends."
"You're sleeping with men now? Tony..."
"No, stop making the word ‘friends’ a euphemism! I'm straight. I always have been and always will be. And I promised you that there would be no more sex scandals ages ago. Not after... whatever."
"Let me get this straight Tony," Tony could hear her put her pen down. This suddenly became a thousand times more important to her. "You made a friend, one you don't find attractive and you're going to do what with him?"
"Yes, I made a friend. I think he's aesthetically pleasing, probably good eye candy, but I don't swing that way. And I'm not going to do anything with him. Friend things maybe? I'm not using him for anything though. I just wanted to let you know I made a friend all on my own while covered in grease."
Pepper groaned. "You didn't."
"I totally did! His name's James. I also met his friend? Maybe his boyfriend."
"Covered in grease." Pepper didn't sound pleased.
"Yes?"
Pepper sighed. "Okay. There's nothing I can do to change that. I'll also make sure no paparazzi caught you like that."
"This is why you're my fav, Miss Potts."
"I know. Please be careful with this Tony."
"Cross my heart Pep. I know how to look after myself."
JARVIS cut in. "I believe Ms. Potts would be more inclined to believe that if you didn't go get coffee while covered in grease, Sir."
"That's offensive."
"But true." Pepper said. "Go take a shower, Tony. Then go to sleep. I can hear you slurring."
"I'm not drunk though."
"I know you aren't. You have a slightly different slur when you drink compared to when you're tired."
"Huh. Really?"
"Yes Sir."
"Go shower Tony. I'm proud of you for making a new friend, but I also need to work. I'll talk to you later."
"Okay Pep. Love you."
Pepper sighed. "We've talked about this Tony."
Tony sighed too. "I know. I meant friendship love. You're still one of my best friends, Pep. Bruce is my sciencebro, Rhodey's like a brother, and you're the CEO of my major corporate business steadily taking over the world. But you're all still my best friends. No denying that."
Pepper sighed again. "No, there's no denying that. Will that be all Mr. Stark?"
"That'll be all Miss Potts."
JARVIS cut the call. "Ms. Potts has a point Sir. You need a shower before the paint peels in protest."
"Rude. I'm going."
"Very good Sir."
"Also, J, put in an order for twenty cases of the coffee we usually get. I don't want to run out again." Tony called out as he walked towards the elevator.
"Of course, Sir."