You know how some kids from certain religions or abusive households go off to college and that’s their first experience trick-or-treating on Halloween, being taken by their friends who were like you’ve never??? Gotten to dress up and get free candy???? Well WE’RE DOING IT NOW.
Well. Tony goes off to college and he overhears Rhodey and a few of his AFROTC buddies talking about whether or not to dress up for the party they’re going to (will girls think they’re cool or lame if they do?) and he tries not to bother Rhodey when he’s with his older friends but he can’t help it, the questions are bursting out of him. “What did you dress up as? Did you really get free candy? Was it fun?” And he knows he’s done something wrong because all of them are staring at him silently, so he looks down at his feet and mumbles an apology and starts to leave, but one of the guys grabs his wrist before he can and softly asks, “You never got to go trick-or-treating as a kid?” “No,” Tony admits, which isn’t really a lie–he’d gone trick-or-treating once, maybe, but he was too young to remember it. He does remember Ana unwrapping a tootsie roll for him.
So Rhodey and his friends forgo the Halloween party they were invited to, and instead drag Tony out to pick a costume (“No, you can’t be a sexy cat.” “Sexy cats have no gender, Rhodey!” “You can’t be sexy until you’re eighteen.” “Oh.”), get all made up (they decided on going as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and go trick-or-treating. A couple of the older boys go on ahead, playfully complaining that Tony is too slow, but really they’re just going ahead to ask people to please be nice to the main group because the fourteen-year-old has never gotten to trick-or-treat before. Tony has the time of his life, and he chatters so happily as he bounces along in front of them, endless energy from the excitement. “This was so fun! If you guys don’t like Good and Plenties I’ll trade!” The older boys just watch him fondly, smiling.
(And then Tony drags them up to a sorority house to trick-or-treat and they’re mortified up until Tony says, “They brought me trick-or-treating because I’ve never gone before! Aren’t they nice?!” And the girls just ‘aw’ and melt with fondness over these guys taking their friend trick-or-treating for the first time.)
((“I’m the best wingman so you can just give me your Good and Plenties,” Tony tells them seriously once they’ve all got dates set up with the sorority girls. They all obediently drop the candy into his jack-o-lantern bucket because holy shit, he’d done that on purpose. He really was the best wingman.))
Consider: tony and rhodey have been together for more than three decades.
More, of you count those collage years where Tony was pining like the textbook definition of “lovesick puppy,” and sure, although they were most definitely more than friends, Rhodey had refused to so much as kiss him until he was an actual adult.
It had frustrated Tony as much as it had made him solidify the decision that James Rhodes was one of the good ones.
LemonGrenade 