Ironhusband headcanons or ironspouses (Pepper/Tony/Rhodey) headcanons.
!!!! I'm giving you both bcuz yes
Rhodey saw this tiny ass little idiot at MIT and just. didn't want to deal with him. have you seen Tony? he's a dumbass with the highest iq in the room, Rhodey wasn't about to handle it
unfortunately Tony saw Rhodey and latched onto him fucking immediately, so he had to
tony didn't have other friends, but Rhodey's friends were cool with him, and he eventually just got used to bailing his little idiot out of less than ideal situations
that's kind of how they got together in the first place. Rhodey was pissed about whatever Tony did, and Tony just kind of kissed him to make it better
it did not make it better
(they kept kissing anyways)
when Pepper started working for SI, Rhodey praised his lucky stars and got her phone number immediately. they became best friends so fast, Tony got whiplash
the two of them have one night a month where they get together and drink and complain about Tony's antics
it wasn't until they both bailed tony out one night that anything happened. he proposed it to Rhodey one night in bed bcuz they both make him feel safe and cared for, and hell, they're already friends, what's the harm in trying
turned out those nights Pepper and Rhodey spent together (although Tony joins them more now) were a lot better when it wasn't so innocent fun
If you’re still taking prompts, can you write Pepper and Rhodey competing at a carnival for who can win Tony the most prizes? Thank you!
thanks for the prompt! I’m never not taking prompts, technically, though it does depend on my free time and how much I vibe with it. feel free to send requests in anytime though and I’ll try my best!
“Well, I’d say the Iron Man meet and greet was a rousing success,” Pepper announces as they’re ushered away from the crowd gathered on the Coney Island boardwalk. There’s an element of surprise in her voice that Tony doesn’t quite appreciate.
“Of course it was,” he protests, voice overlapping Rhodey’s as he says,
“I was there too!”
Tony takes off his helmet and grins at Rhodey. “Yeah, but the Iron Man and War Machine meet and greet doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way, does it?”
Rhodey flips his faceplate up to scowl at Tony, but Pepper interrupts before they can get into one of their bickering matches.
“Sorry, Jim. The Iron Man and War Machine meet and greet was a great success. Now, we’ve got about an hour before we have to get back so we can--”
“Skee-ball,” Tony says as if transfixed, stepping out of his armor which then closes back up behind him and flies off, keyed to return to the base.
He crosses the way and stops in front of a row of Skee-Ball machines, all blinking and beeping noisily to attract customers. He pats his empty pockets, then turns back around to look at Rhodey and Pepper. He hasn’t carried cash since….1993 probably.
Rhodey exits his armor similarly to how Tony had, stepping out of the way as it takes off to follow the Iron Man armor back home. Then he walks over to Tony and pulls out his wallet, giving him two quarters for the Skee-Ball machine.
“Thanks,” Tony says, dropping the coins into the slot.
“I’ll put it on your tab,” Rhodey says wryly, then tucks his hands into his pockets and watches Tony fail miserably at Skee-Ball.
“It’s all rigged,” Tony complains afterwards, pouting.
Rhodey shrugs. “It’s just Skee-Ball.”
“It’s easy enough when you get the hang of it,” Pepper agrees.
Tony stares expectantly at both of them, until Pepper sighs and looks around for a machine to break a dollar into quarters. She hands two quarters to Rhodey, then the two of them play their own round of Skee-Ball.
Pepper beats Rhodey by 50 points, and they eye each other warily as their scores flash on the digital scoreboard.
“That was a fluke,” Rhodey says with zero inflection.
“Whac-A-Mole?” Pepper suggests calmly.
Which is how Tony ends up following Pepper and Rhodey down the boardwalk as they take turns at every game. Rhodey wins at Whac-A-Mole and the water gun race, while Pepper clinches two different ring toss games. Whenever a win nets one of them a prize they hand it off to Tony and continue to the next game, until eventually Tony is trailing after them with his arms full of cheap prizes.
“Guys?” he says cautiously, balancing a stuffed cat in a banana costume on top of the pile of prizes he’s carrying. “This wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Rhodey and Pepper turn back to him before they can pay the attendant at the milk bottle toss booth. It seems to break them out of whatever competitive trance they had both fallen into, and Pepper looks down at the money in her hand like it’s a wild animal about to bite her.
“Jeez, Tones,” Rhodey says in surprise at the amount of stuff Tony’s carrying.
“Yeah, jeez,” Tony repeats with a laugh. “I think you’ve proven yourselves, you can stop now.”
“Okay, but who got the most prizes?” Rhodey asks, which makes Pepper roll her eyes.
“Me, obviously. Weren’t you counting?”
They both look expectantly at Tony, who stares back at them and says, “Uhh…”
Pepper sighs and shakes her head. “This is silly. We’ll call it a tie.”
Rhodey glances back at her. “This time.”
Pepper gives him one of her ‘are you really challenging me?’ smiles she normally reserves for business meetings, and Tony just sighs. Why did he get stuck with not one but two surprisingly competitive partners?
“What should we do with these?” he asks, trying to distract them from what he assumes will become a lifelong quest to agonize him specifically.
“You don’t want to keep them?” Rhodey teases. He spots a family with two kids walking by and he grabs two of the stuffed animals from the top of the pile. “Hey-- Want a toy from Iron Man?”
They pass out the prizes to kids on the boardwalk until there’s only one left, a keychain hamburger with big cartoon eyes. Rhodey grins and holds it back out to Tony.
“Here, this one’s for you,” he says.
Tony snorts and takes the keychain. “I’ll attach it to the keys to the suit.”
“That’s a good idea,” Rhodey says seriously, managing to keep a completely straight face. “Don’t want to lose those.”
Pepper swears under her breath and the two of them turn around to find her looking at her phone.
“We’re going to be late now,” she says with a huff. “How could we get so distracted?”
Tony laughs and loops his arm around her elbow, giving her a squeeze. “Don’t act like you’re blameless. I was the innocent party here.”
“And don’t you complain, you got a hamburger keychain out of it,” Rhodey reminds him.
“Do I sound like I’m complaining?”
Tony reaches out and loops his other arm around Rhodey’s, linking them all as they walk down the boardwalk like the Wizard of Oz gang. Neither Pepper nor Rhodey disentangle themselves from him, and Tony beams at the both of them. There’s never a dull moment with either of them around, that’s for sure. And Tony wouldn’t change a thing about it.
for the prompt thing: the avengers finding out about pep/rhodey/tony
Clint walked into the main room, a living room that connected to the kitchen to create a big open space. Sam and Steve were playing mariokart on the couch, squinting at the little screen of the nintendo switch that sat on the coffee table. Natasha was reading a book in the chaise lounge. Hope sat crosslegged on the floor, watching Project Runway recordings on the tv.
“Have you seen Tony?” Clint asked, “I’ve been looking for him. ‘Said that he’ll talk to me about new arrows today.”
“Said-what the fuck Sam!-he was out choosing wedding cakes with Rhodey for their wedding,” Steve answered, pushing Sam off the couch with his foot.
“You better hope I don’t get a blue shell man,” Sam muttered at Steve, climbing back on the couch.
“No,” Hope said, “He was out with Pepper today to fit her for her wedding dress for their wedding.”
“Pepper? I’m pretty sure Tony’s marrying James,” Sam said, “I remember because the day Obama repealed DADT, Tony invited him to their wedding. Rumor has it that’s the reason he repealed it.”
“Tony and Pepper were practicing their first married couple dance yesterday,” Natasha said, turning a page in her book. “They had me help them. They’re the ones getting married.”
“But Tony and Rhodes had a date night yesterday-fuck you Sam!” Steve cursed as Sam hit him with a blue shell and drove past him and over the finish line.
Wanda walking in on the kitchen’s side of the room, with floating flower bouquets behind her and an tablet.
“Hey do you know where Pepper is?” Wanda asked, making marks on the tablet, “I need to know which bouquet she wants for her and James’ wedding.”
Everyone else froze and looked at her.
“What?”
“Pepper and Rhodey are getting married?” Steve asked, bewildered. They all started fighting on who’s marrying who until Clint spotted Tony walking out of the elevator at the back of the room.
“Stark!” Clint yelled at him, power walking to him. The others went silent.
“Don’t worry Clint I didn’t forget your arrows.”
“I don’t care about that right now.” Clint put his arm around Tony’s shoulder to steer him back into the elevator to hopefully go to his workshop for the talk about the arrows. “Who’s getting married?”
“Uh, Pepper, Rhodey, and me,” was what the others heard before the elevator doors closed behind them.
“That honestly makes the most sense and we should have guessed it,” Sam said.
prompt me the “team lives together in the tower 2012 era” prompts
30 Tony/Pepper/Rhodey drabbles written for NaNoWriMo 2017
Finally posted all those November Fic Challenge drabbles to AO3 in case anyone wants to bookmark some. Mostly MCU, but there are a few Avengers Academy and various obscure comics ‘verses as well. Thank you to everyone who’s already reblogged or reviewed the fics, either on this blog or AO3!
Day twenty-six of the November Fic Challenge is a sci-fi AU! Except I took the easy way and made it a Star Trek AU. Thankfully you don’t need to know anything about Star Trek except what Vulcans are to read this because it’s mostly just relationship drama. You know, the good part of Star Trek.
“Hey, Stark! Your girlfriend’s here to see you!”
Puzzled, Tony crawls out from underneath a control panel to see who Ensign Parker is talking about, because unless something happened he wasn’t aware of, he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Lieutenant T’Pos is standing at attention near the entrance to Engineering, and he sighs and picks himself off the floor, dusting off his uniform as he makes his way over to her.
“Get back to work, Ensign!” he shouts to Parker, who laughs and leans in closer to Ensign Leeds presumably to gossip and not to get back to work.
“Do you need assistance controlling your subordinates, Lieutenant Stark?” the Vulcan standing by the door asks in lieu of a greeting. She doesn’t smile when she sees him, but that’s to be expected.
“I’ve told you a thousand times, Lieutenant, you can call me Tony when I’m off duty.”
“And yet it seems like you are never off duty, sir. Hence why I came looking for you here, instead of your quarters or the mess hall.”
Tony sighs and says, “Right, well, what can I do for you, Pepper?”
Her expression doesn’t change save for the slight furrow of her brow that always appears whenever someone uses that nickname for her. “I was hoping you could help me with a...personal problem.”
Tony blinks in surprise. Pepper never spoke about personal anythings with him, or anyone else, he imagines. “Sure, uh, let’s go somewhere a little more private?”
“Here is adequate,” she says, but lets Tony usher her out of engineering and into a corridor with less people.
“Is something wrong?” he asks once they’re alone.
“Quite the contrary. I require your assistance courting a friend of yours.”
“Courting, like―you want to date?” Tony can’t hide the shock from his voice. He’s known Pepper since they both started on the USS Resilient at the same time all those years ago, and she’d never shown any interest in being romantic with anyone. Much to his disappointment.
“That would be the human word for it, yes. I was hoping you could give me some advice on courting Lieutenant Rhodes.”
That was an even deeper blow than the first. Vulcan-human pairs weren’t absolutely unheard of, and everyone in Starfleet knew of Commander Spock. But Tony had always consoled himself with the assumption that she wasn’t interested in humans, and that was why she hadn’t shown any interest in him. Apparently, she just wasn’t interested in him, period.
“Oh! Yeah, sure,” he says after an awkward pause, realizing she’s waiting for a response. “Rhodey’s amazing, you have great taste. I’m sure he’ll say yes.”
“Lieutenant Rhodes is an excellent helmsman, and very handsome,” she agrees with a nod. “Though I do not think you can guarantee his answer will be a positive one.”
“Nah, come on, you’re amazing too,” Tony says, smile slightly strained. “You’d be perfect together.”
“Thank you, Lieu―Tony,” she corrects herself, giving him a slight bow. “You are an ‘amazing’ person as well.”
Hardly, Tony thinks to himself, but out loud he just says, “You’re off duty now, right? Let’s go get drinks and gossip about Rhodey. We’ll have a plan whipped up in no time.”
Tony spends the evening telling Pepper about the kinds of things Rhodey likes and traditional human methods of courting. She listens to a list of gifts that are considered romantic, a look of consternation on her face.
“Would it not be easier just to tell him my feelings?” she asks when he’s done listing things off.
“Sure, if you want to come on too strong,” he says. “You’ve got to scope him out first, see if he’s interested.”
Pepper continues to frown. “Wouldn’t discovering his interest also be easier if I asked?”
“And scare him off? You guys live on the same ship, Pep, if you make things awkward you can’t just avoid him.”
“I would not just avoid him,” she protests, but she seems to consider his words anyway. “All right. I’ll will test the proverbial waters with some of these methods you’ve explained. Thank you, Tony. I do appreciate the help.”
Tony tries to smile, and knocks back the rest of his drink. “Of course. It’s no problem.”
A couple days later, Rhodey comes up to him as he’s heading back to his room after his shift and says,
“Hey, Tony! You’ve got to come see this.”
Curious, Tony follows him down the hall to his quarters instead, and when Rhodey keys open the door, a startled laugh escapes him. The room is filled with flowers of all colors, on the desk and the shelves and the bed, even some on the floor. Rhodey steps through them to pick up something else from his desk, showing it to Tony.
From a secret admirer, it says, and Tony has to stifle another laugh. Oh no, he hadn’t realized Pepper would go for the most dramatic possible option when he was giving her suggestions.
“Rhodey, you handsome bastard,” he says, punching him lightly in the arm.
“Do you...I mean, any guesses who it’s from?” Rhodey asks him, looking oddly expectant. Why would he assume Tony knew? Aside from the fact that Tony actually does know who his secret admirer is, but Rhodey doesn’t know that.
Tony shrugs and plays dumb. “No clue. Has anyone been trying to get cozy with you lately?”
Rhodey sets the card back down on the desk with a frown. “Not that I’ve noticed.”
Hmm, that’s no good. He’d have to try and get Pepper to ask Rhodey to dinner or something. Even just to grab a cup of coffee.
“I’ll keep an ear out for any gossip,” Tony promises, then lights up as if suddenly thinking up a brilliant idea, “Hey, why don’t you ask Lieutenant T’Pos if she’s heard anything?”
“Is this an ear joke? Because that’s not very nice.”
“What? No! I mean, she’s in communications, you know how those people love to gossip. Maybe she heard something.”
“Pepper doesn’t seem like the gossipy type,” Rhodey says, skeptical.
“Oh, trust me, there’s more there than meets the eye,” Tony says. “It wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
Rhodey doesn’t look entirely convinced, but finally he nods. “Okay, I’ll try. Thanks, Tones.”
“Anytime,” Tony replies, and it almost sounds entirely sincere.
“So when I said replicate him some flowers, I didn’t mean every flower in the database,” Tony tells Pepper the next time he sees her, the two of them alone in an elevator.
“You did not specify which kinds he liked,” Pepper answers, looking at him like it’s entirely his fault. “So I thought, better safe than sorry, as they say.”
“Luckily, I think he found it kind of charming. Maybe just reel it back a little next time?”
She looks thoughtful, then nods. The elevator slides to a stop, and Tony adds quickly before the doors open and he walks out,
“Oh, and I told him to ask you if you heard any related gossip, ask him to get coffee if he does!”
“So Pepper doesn’t know anything about the flowers,” Rhodey tells him that evening. Tony looks up from the datapad he’s reading and tries not to sound too excited as he says,
“Oh? That’s unfortunate.”
“She was really insistent about me drinking coffee, though,” Rhodes says, frowning slightly. “So I gave in and had a cup and she just sort of watched me drink it.”
Tony wants to groan and put his head on the table. He clearly should have been more specific in his instructions. “Probably a Vulcan thing,” he says instead with a shrug.
“Maybe.” Rhodey pushes his food around his plate with his fork, silent for a moment. “Hey, are you sure you don’t know who put those flowers in my room?”
Tony tries not to sound too nervous as he says, “Um, yeah. Why do you ask?”
Rhodey shrugs, setting his fork down. “I just thought, maybe it’s someone in our friend circle?”
Tony stares back down at his datapad so his face doesn’t give anything away. “Oh, maybe. Who do you think it is?” Rhodey doesn’t answer for a long moment, and Tony finally looks up to see what the problem is, but Rhodey’s just staring at him. “Jim? You okay?”
Rhodey finally looks away, breaking his gaze. “Sorry. No, I’ve got no idea. That’s why I’m asking.”
Tony smiles encouragingly, nudging Rhodey’s leg under the table with his foot. “Hey, we’ll figure it out! They’re probably a super babe but are really shy.”
Rhodey laughs and shakes his head, expression brightening a little. “Sure, Tony. You keep telling me that.”
This time Tony tracks down Pepper after her shift is done so they can talk.
“You’re only going to hear me say this once, but you were right and I was wrong.”
Pepper tilts her head slightly. “Why would you only say it once when it is true more often than that?”
“Nope, don’t distract me right now. Flowers and coffee dates aren’t going to work. You should just ask him directly.”
“Would this not be off-putting for a human?” she asks.
Tony sighs. “I think my brilliant plan’s just making Rhodey anxious. I should’ve known, he’s not good with surprises.”
Pepper doesn’t say anything and her expression doesn’t change, and Tony eyes her warily. He nearly jumps, startled, when she finally does speak. “I appreciate the honesty. I will go ask him now.”
“What, now, like, right now?” She’s already turning to walk down the corridor, and Tony follows after her.
“I believe he will be in his quarters at this time,” she says, unperturbed. “Would you please come with me?”
The last thing Tony wants to see is his best friend hooking up with his crush, but Pepper looks expectantly at him, and he just nods and keeps following her.
“Maybe you should slow down, think this out,” he tries as they make their way to the proper deck. “Don’t rush into things.”
“It was your advice that I be direct.”
“Yeah, but my advice has been pretty bad so far.”
“I trust you, Lieutenant. Your advice has come from a place of caring.”
That flusters Tony long enough that he has nothing else to say until they come to a stop in front of Rhodey’s door. Pepper doesn’t hesitate to knock.
When Rhodey answers the door it’s clear he’d been sleeping very recently, but he looks at the pair of them in surprise. “Tony? Lieutenant T’Pos?”
“May we enter?” Pepper asks, and Rhodey looks over at Tony, confused.
Tony just shrugs, but Rhodey steps back and lets them into his room. The place is still full of the flowers Pepper had snuck in, but the bed and desk chair had been cleared.
“Is something wrong?” Rhodey asks once everyone’s in. Tony leans back against the closed door, feeling awkward.
Pepper, however, seems to feel no such thing, because she gestures at the edge of Rhodey’s bed. “Please, sit. I have a question to ask.”
Slowly, Rhodey sits and waits. Pepper clears her throat, fiddling with the cuff of her uniform for a moment.
“I like you very much, James. I had hoped to use human methods of courtship to make that clear, but I’m afraid I did not understand as much as I’d hoped.”
“Oh, the flowers...” He glances around the room, then over at Tony, glaring. “You knew who did it.”
Tony winces. “I couldn’t just blab. She came to me in confidence.”
“I appreciate the help Tony provided, but I feel I must be more transparent,” Pepper admits. “Would you be interested in fostering a relationship of that sort?”
Rhodey doesn’t say anything for a long, painful moment. Tony forces himself to stay silent and not interrupt. Finally, Rhodey responds with an answer Tony wouldn’t have expected in a thousand years.
“You’re wonderful, Pepper. I mean it. But I have a confession too.” He takes a deep breath and looks over at Tony. “I’d kind of hoped the flowers were from you.”
“Me?” Tony squeaks, flabbergasted. “You―you like me?”
“Since the Academy,” Rhodey says.
“Well, this is awkward,” Pepper says after another moment of silence. “I was always under the impression that Lieutenant Stark had some sort of crush on me.”
Tony silently prays for an asteroid to hit the ship and put him out of his misery right now.
“You knew?” Rhodey asks her, eyebrows raised, because of course Tony had never shut up about Pepper around him, and oh god, he’d kept talking about his crush on another person while his best friend was pining for him. For years!
“For some time now,” Pepper says. “I was under the impression it was a human faux pas to bring it up in conversation.”
Tony buries his face in his hands. What a disaster.
“I can’t believe you tried to get him to help you woo someone else when you knew he liked you!” Rhodey says, standing at last.
“I assumed since he did not bring it up, it was not serious.”
“Can we please stop talking about me like I’m not here!” Tony interrupts, straightening up. The other two stop arguing, and Tony sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “What now?”
Nobody answers for a moment, then Pepper says,
“We can try this arrangement.” The two men look at her, and she gestures between the three of them, drawing a triangle. “I would not be opposed.”
Rhodey and Tony look at each other, startled. “What, like a ménage à trois?” Tony asks.
“I do not know what that is, but it sounds more agreeable than the three of us going our separate ways unsatisfied.”
“You seriously think that could work?” Rhodey glances between the two of them, but he’s not dismissing the idea outright, to Tony’s surprise.
Then again, Tony’s kind of surprised he’s not dismissing the idea either. It’s got a kind of appeal to it, the more he thinks about it. Rhodey’s been his best friend for years, and they’ve always stuck together and had each other’s backs. Kissing him doesn’t sound like a terrible idea too.
“Hey, if anyone can figure out how to make it work, we can,” Tony says with a grin. He goes over and takes a flower from the desk, handing it to Rhodey. “These were half from me anyway, it was my idea.”
Rhodey laughs and takes the flower from him. “They’re lovely,” he tells him, then hands the same flower to Pepper. “And I’d love to try fostering a relationship of that sort.”
Pepper takes the flower more carefully, spinning the stem between her fingers. “That sounds...awesome,” she says, testing the unfamiliar word, and Tony and Rhodey laugh.
Whatever the future has in store, they’ll boldly go toward it together.
Day twenty-three of the November Fic Challenge is clothes sharing! Just a short series of snippets for this one. Established Pepper/Tony/Rhodey set who knows when.
“Pepper, have you seen my sweatshirt!” Rhodey shouts out the bedroom door, and Tony groans and pulls a spare pillow over his head.
“It’s too early, go back to sleep,” he grumbles.
“Some people have to go to work on time,” Rhodey replies, picking up the rest of his clothes from the floor and putting them back on. “Vacation’s over, buddy.”
Tony rolls over, trying to ignore him and go back to sleep. “I can be as late as I want, I’m sleeping with my boss.”
Rhodey grabs the extra pillow and whacks him with it. “Seriously, where’d you throw my sweatshirt?”
Tony sits up, scowling at him, and grabs the pillow back. “On the floor? How should I know.”
“It’s not here. I don’t remember taking it off outside...” Rhodey tosses aside the blankets, including the one Tony’s curled up under, and Tony whines and reaches for it. “Good morning, Mr. Melodramatic.”
“Rude,” Tony mutters, but leans up so Rhodey can give him a kiss.
“Pepper’s making coffee, help me find my shirt so I can leave.”
With a sigh, Tony rolls out of bed, helping Rhodey hunt for the missing sweatshirt, but it’s nowhere to be found in the bedroom. Tony pulls on a pair of sleep pants and heads to the kitchen.
“Pep, have you seen―oh. I found the culprit, sugar pie!”
“I thought I was your sugar pie?” Pepper asks, standing by the coffee machine with a mug in her hands and Rhodey’s MIT sweatshirt on her chest.
“No, you’re my honeybun,” Tony says, skirting around around the counter and going to give her a good morning kiss.
Pepper wrinkles her nose and mutters, “Morning breath” as Rhodey walks into the kitchen.
“I thought I was your honeybun?” he says.
Tony sidesteps Pepper to reach for a mug. “No, you’re my honeybear, keep up. Also Pepper stole your shirt.”
“I see that,” Rhodey replies, leaning against the counter. “Is she going to give it back?”
Pepper grins at him over the top of her mug. “Nope.”
“I guess that’s it, then.” Rhodey sighs dramatically, getting up and going to give her a kiss. “Keep it safe until I come back?”
“Of course.” She gives him a peck on the cheek. “Coffee to go?”
“If you can get this gremlin out of the way,” he says, looping an arm around Tony’s waist and pulling him away from the coffee maker. “I’ll call next time I’m in town.”
“You better,” Tony mumbles, twisting around so he can give Rhodey a kiss. “Be safe.”
“Those aren’t your pants,” Rhodey says instead of saying hello.
Tony frowns, standing with his hands on his hips. “What makes you say that?”
Rhodey points at his feet, where the yoga pants are trailing past his ankles and he’s standing on the cuffs. Tony looks down, then back up at him.
“Maybe I like long pants.”
“They also say ‘juicy’ across the ass.”
“None of this precludes them being mine.”
“I was with you when you bought them for Pepper? You laughed as you chose the bright orange pair because she hates orange.”
“Yeah, that plan really backfired, she wears them all the time.”
Rhodey raises an eyebrow. “And so do you, apparently.”
Tony shrugs. “They’re super comfy. You want a pair?”
“No thanks.” Rhodey laughs and closes the gap between them, pulling Tony into a hug. “Can’t believe you didn’t even dress up to see me.”
Tony presses a kiss to Rhodey’s lips, soft at first, then lingering. “I did dress up,” he says once they pull away. “I put on yoga pants that make my ass look great. You’re welcome.”
“She’s going to complain you’re stretching them out,” Rhodey says, but he doesn’t try to deny that they make Tony’s ass look good, so he counts that as a win.
“Yeah, what else is new. Come on, I’ve got to show you these sweet new mods I made to the latest War Machine update.”
Pepper, as expected, does complain about Tony stretching out her pants, but she forgives him when he lets her peel them off him that night.
Rhodey steals things that no one notices until it’s too late. A tie here, cufflinks there. Gloves or a scarf or a pair of socks. He says it’s because their stuff is nicer than his, but they know Rhodey likes to have something of theirs with him when he’s away.
And sometimes he does it just to rile them up.
“He’s trying to kill me,” Tony moans, resting his phone against his forehead. “I’m going to kill him.”
Pepper reaches over and snatches the phone from him to look.
“Text him and tell him he’s too old to be hooking up with anyone on Grindr,” Tony continues unperturbed. “Go on, do it.”
Pepper opens the shirtless photo from Rhodey and her eyebrows shoot way up. “I can’t believe Rhodey’s sending you sexy pictures. How come I don’t get any?”
Two seconds later, her own phone beeps. She drops Tony’s phone on the bed and picks up her own instead. It’s a different photo, Rhodey still only in his underwear, but instead of the plain black boxer briefs Tony normally wears, she can see red lace poking out from the bottom edge of the photo.
“He’s definitely ruining my underwear,” she says with a frown, and Tony scrambles to grab her phone and take a look.
“It’s a good color on him,” he says, and Pepper hums in agreement. “We can get back at him. You still have his MIT sweatshirt? That, and a pair of the same briefs of mine he’s always wearing.”
“On you or me?”
“Uh, you?”
Pepper sits up, taking her phone back from Tony. “I’ve got one better: MIT sweatshirt and no underwear.”
Tony laughs and leans in for a kiss. “You are an evil genius, you know that?”
Pepper just smiles and gets out of bed to go dig up Rhodey’s sweatshirt so they can send a photo back.
The next time Rhodey visits them when he’s in town, it’s a particularly enthusiastic reunion.
Day thirty of the November Fic Challenge is future fic! Or ‘ten years older’ as my prompt list says, so I set this ten years after Infinity War even though it hasn’t happened yet. We’re also pretending nothing bad happened in IW and the iron fam is alive and well and married.
“I can’t believe it took this long to get you back to Venice,” Tony says, dragging two large suitcases into the elegant villa where they’d be staying the week.
“Technically we’re in the countryside outside of Venice,” Pepper says, a few steps in front of him. She looks around the place as she walks, taking note of the open architecture of the villa’s interior.
Rhodey brings up the rear, standing in the doorway and looking out over said countryside. “Also this trip was my idea.”
“Yeah, but you were clearly influenced by me.” Tony drops the suitcases in the front hall, groaning. “Jeez, Rhodes, what’d you bring with you, a whole suit of armor?”
“Unlike you, I plan on wearing clothes at some point this week.”
“There’s a pool and a hot tub out back,” Tony points out.
Rhodey mutters something that sounds like “We’re getting too old for this” as he walks past, and Tony catches him around the waist, gently swinging him around so he can kiss the frown off his face.
“We’re never too old to enjoy ourselves,” he says, nudging his nose against Rhodey’s. “Hence the second honeymoon.”
“I think it’s just called an anniversary,” Rhodey replies, though he smiles at last, setting his hands on Tony’s hips.
“Nope, second honeymoon. Because you weren’t there for our first one.”
“Doesn’t that make this his first honeymoon?” Pepper asks, returning from her quick survey of the villa’s first floor.
“Semantics,” Tony says, shrugging. “Stop fussing and relax, both of you.”
Pepper walks over to them, giving Tony a kiss on the cheek and saying, “Nobody’s fussing except you.” She takes Rhodey by the hand, stealing him away with an added, “Come see the rest of the place, Jim, it’s lovely.”
Tony watches them walk away, expression fond, then bends to pick up the suitcases again and haul them into the bedroom. Seriously, if War Machine was shoved into one of these bags he wouldn’t be surprised.
They spend the evening settling into the villa and resting after the trip. Rhodey cooks dinner and they eat it out on the back patio as the sun sets in front of them, and they stay out there as the stars begin to dot the darkening sky. They curl up on a wicker loveseat, Rhodey tucked in the middle, and Pepper sips at a glass of wine while the boys point out constellations.
“Can you believe how long it’s been?” Tony says, head resting on Rhodey’s shoulder.
“Since what?” Pepper asks with a soft laugh.
“Since everything. Since we met. Since Iron Man.” Tony dyes the gray out of his hair more often than he likes. Pepper has lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Rhodey complains of aches and pains that don’t have to do with his back injury. “Maybe we are getting old.”
“If you’re going to keep being this romantic, I’m going to leave,” Rhodey jokes, but he shifts to drape an arm over Tony’s shoulders, running his fingers through Tony’s hair.
“I never thought I’d have that. Getting to grow old.”
“It was pretty touch and go there, for a bit,” Pepper says lightly, but she reaches across Rhodey’s lap to take Tony’s hand and squeeze.
“Thank you. For sticking with me,” Tony says, squeezing Pepper’s hand back.
“We made it this far,” Rhodey points out. “Can’t quit now.”
Tony lets out a quiet hum of agreement, absently rubbing his thumb over Pepper’s wrist.
The moment of silence is broken by Pepper, who says, “How are you this maudlin and you haven’t even been drinking? It’s our second honeymoon! Tomorrow we’re going to play tourist in Venice like pros, then come back here so one of you can eat me out on that incredibly comfortable couch in the living room.”
Rhodey snorts so loudly he chokes, and Pepper just hands over her glass of wine for him to take a sip afterwards. Nobody protests her plan, however.
The week goes by far faster than Tony wants it to. Pepper and Rhodey let him spoil them as much as he wants, and for a few simple days they don’t have to worry about anything except each other. But like all good things, it has to come to an end sooner or later.
Rhodey shuffles into the bedroom where Tony’s packing the suitcases and Tony glances up, Rhodey’s mere presence enough to make him smile. Okay, so maybe not like all good things. Sometimes, against all odds, good things do stick around.
“Are you going to sigh every time you put something away?” Rhodey asks, raising an eyebrow at him.
Tony pouts, tossing a pair of clean socks back into the case. As promised, he’d managed to avoid wearing more than the minimum amount of clothing while lounging around the villa, and thus has plenty of clean clothes to pack back up.
“I tried to help,” Pepper calls from the bathroom where she’s gathering up their toiletries, “but he got bristly.”
“I’m not bristly! I’m just. Lamenting.”
“We had a whole week. It was a good week.” Rhodey leans down and presses a kiss to Tony’s forehead. “Now finish up, breakfast’s ready.”
Tony hastily dumps the rest of his clothes into the suitcase and stands, helping Pepper shove the toiletry bags into the suitcases wherever they’ll fit so they can go join Rhodey out in the kitchen. The omelettes he makes are a far cry better than any Tony’s ever made.
“Why don’t we make this a yearly thing?” Rhodey suggests while they’re eating. “Venice doesn’t have to be an ‘every ten years’ kind of thing, you know.”
Tony pokes at his omelette, looking thoughtful. “Sure, why not? Doesn’t have to be Venice, either.”
“I don’t know, I’m kind of fond of Venice,” Pepper says with a small smile, glancing over at Tony.
“We’ll hold a yearly vote,” he says, stealing a mushroom from Pepper’s plate. “All in favor?”
“Aye,” Pepper says with a laugh, and Rhodey nods.
Tony raps his knuckles against the table, mimicking a gavel. “The ayes have it. Third honeymoon will commence in one year.”
“We can’t keep calling it a honeymoon,” Rhodey says.
“Says who?”
“Says the guy who makes the omelettes you keep calling heavenly.”
“I side with the omelette guy,” Pepper chimes in, knocking Tony’s fork away as he tries to take another piece of mushroom.
“See if I take you anywhere nice for third honeymoon,” Tony mutters, but he can’t help smiling at the two of them.
It doesn’t matter where they go, or how often they go there. What matters is that Pepper and Rhodey are with him now, and continue to stick with him as the years go by. It’s what makes the years of struggle to get to this point worth it. And Tony wouldn’t give that up for anything.
Day twelve of the November Fic Challenge is a rule 63 AU. This was just supposed to be a few snippets based around the prompt of ‘hair’ so I could take a break after writing such long fics the last few days but this still ended up over 1k words.
“I hate him,” Tony announces as she bursts into the room, slamming the door behind her. “I can’t believe someone as busy as him still finds time just to annoy the shit out of me.”
Rhodey looks up from where she’s lounging on her bed with a textbook. Tony’s pretty sure she’d been sleeping instead of studying, but now is not the time to tease her for it. She stomps over to her desk, pulling open a drawer and sifting through all the junk.
“Tones? What’s wrong?” Rhodey asks, setting her book down and getting off the bed. Tony ignores her, having found what she’s looking for.
“Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s great,” she says, taking the pair of scissors with her into the adjacent bathroom. Rhodey hurries after her.
Tony stops in the middle of the room, looking at herself in the mirror. Her young, short, scrawny self, too much makeup on her face, totally out of place in a school like MIT. She silently thanks whoever may be listening for having found at least one friend in Jacqueline Rhodes, then takes all of her long hair into one hand, lifts the scissors, and cuts.
“Shit, Tones,” Rhodey whispers as fifteen years of growth falls to the floor. “Tell me you didn’t just chop off all your hair because you’re pissed at your dad.”
“I chopped off my hair because I’m pissed at my dad,” Tony answers, unrepentant. She stares at her reflection, the messy ends of her hair hanging unevenly around her ears. She looks like an idiot, but she feels good. Lighter than she has in ages.
Rhodey laughs, coming over and gently taking the scissors from Tony’s hand. “Here, let me clean you up. How short do you want it?”
They’re silent as Rhodey evens out her hair, turning it into something a little more respectable. When she’s done, she sets the scissors down on the edge of the sink and asks,
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Tony shakes her head. “Maybe later.”
Rhodey, bless her, just gives Tony a hug and then points at her hair on the floor. “You’re the one cleaning that up.”
Jacqueline Rhodes always wanted to be a pilot. She’d gotten this far and she wasn’t going to stop now. Even if Tony kept trying to get her to stick around.
“Look, if those idiots don’t know what they’ve got, you can always come work with me,” Tony says, throwing a grape up in the air and then catching it in her mouth. Her hair’s still short five years later. Jackie thinks it looks good on her. “I don’t care what Howard says.”
“I’m not going to quit the Air Force,” she replies, shifting slightly on the comically large pool inflatable she’s lying on. Tony’s floating not far away on a similar inflatable, a big bowl of grapes balanced on her stomach. “I’ve been hearing they might actually let women fly combat missions soon.”
Tony snorts, clearly unimpressed. Jackie agrees, but she’s not going to give Tony more fuel for her argument to get her to jump ship.
“I’m thinking of moving out here,” Tony says, popping another grape in her mouth. “That way dad won’t be able to nag me 24/7.”
“Won’t you miss your mom?” California is nice, but Jackie can’t imagine being an entire country away from her mother. Even though she knows if she’s ever deployed she’ll have to deal with being even farther away, that feels different.
“I’ll visit sometimes. There’s always the phone.” Tony falls silent, then tugs at the ends of her hair. “I need a haircut.”
“Again? It’s already pretty short.”
“Says the girl who always has a crew cut. You should grow it out.”
Jackie shakes her head. “It’d be ‘unprofessional’.”
“For the army? There’s women with longer hair.”
“White women,” Jackie retorts, and Tony frowns, silent again. Probably trying to find a counter-example and failing. “Anyway, I like keeping it short. Easy maintenance.”
“Fine then, I’ll cut my hair like yours. We can match.”
“Oh, no,” Jackie laughs, “you’ll look like some sad orphan out of a Dickens novel.”
Tony throws grapes at her until Jackie paddles close enough to flip over her pool floatie and dump her into the water, bowl of grapes and all.
Tony’s parents die the next year. Jackie finally get deployed as a pilot to the Middle East. Tony moves the company to Malibu. The world keeps turning.
“I’ve got pepper spray and I’m not afraid to use it!” the tall, lanky redhead at the door says, facing down a guy with twice his muscle mass, and Tony laughs and calls out,
“No need for that, come show me what’s so important you’re threatening my security for.”
And that’s how Tony meets Virgil Potts, thereupon renamed Pepper, and Pepper saves the company nearly two million dollars in accounting mistakes and is promoted to Tony’s personal assistant.
Tony likes Pepper. He’s smart, efficient, no-nonsense to a degree that helps Tony focus when she needs to. He’s cute too―she particularly likes his freckles and the really ugly way he blushes. He’s an amazing assistant, so Tony only hits on him a couple times as expected and then leaves him be. Assistants don’t last long with her and she’d like to keep this one as long as possible.
And Pepper, to her surprise, stays. Even when he has to fish her out of a tangle of limbs after a wild party the previous night, or she gets so drunk she can barely make it through a board meeting without embarrassing herself. Pepper stays. Pepper is solid and dependable and unchanging. Predictable.
And then.
She squints at him one morning, drinking a truly foul concoction to try and get rid of a hangover before a press conference. “Are you growing out your hair?”
Pepper stops sorting papers, frozen in place. He seems...scared, and Tony frowns, confused.
“I am,” he answers after a moment, clearing his throat and going back to work. Tony just shrugs and drinks more of her terrible smoothie.
She doesn’t think anything of it again until one day she realizes his hair’s long enough to pull into a ponytail, and she tugs at it playfully, sitting down on the couch beside him.
“Like the ‘tail. You look kind of like a pirate.”
Pepper gives her a look. “That’s all you need to be a pirate, a ponytail?”
“You could get a big gold earring too. And a parrot.”
“I’ll consider it, Ms. Stark.”
Tony’s tinkering in the workshop when Pepper walks in. That’s nothing unusual, but the sound is. She pulls off her goggles and turns around, looking for the source of the clacking, but she finds only Pepper standing there in a charcoal gray suit with a clipboard in hand, long hair not in its usual tight bun, and when she looks down―
“I need you to change some things in my files,” Pepper tells her. There’s a moment of silence that seems to last forever, and then Tony says,
“Are those my heels?”
“Yes,” Pepper replies, and holds out the clipboard. “They’re small changes, name and gender, but I figure the CEO who built half the systems we use can do it no problem.”
“Oh,” Tony says, looking down at the papers on the board, then back up at Pepper. Then she does a double take, looking back down. “Oh, you’re making Pepper your official middle name? That’s...”
If Pepper didn’t know any better, she’d say Tony was blushing. Tony never did know how to handle sentimentality very well.
“I like it,” Pepper admits. “I don’t mind if you keep using it. It’s a lot better than Virgil.” She wrinkles her nose slightly as she says it. The name ‘Virgil’ had always chafed, for multiple reasons.
“Virginia Potts,” Tony reads off the paper, sounding it out. “I like it. Very regal. Still kind of nerdy. It fits you.”
“You think?” Pepper says, smiling a little. Tony smiles back, holding out her hand, and Pepper takes it.
