It was true. Steve totally had a soft spot for the Downey kid, always making sure to pay extra attention to him when he showed up to class in hopes of encouraging him to continue coming to school. He was convinced that if Robert just had a good teacher, if he had a reason to like school, he wouldn't be such a delinquent. But then, Steve had a soft spot for lost causes.
"Wait, did you guys have a fight?"
"What?" Tony frowned. "No."
"Aw come on, just go apologize already and get him back," Robert complained, "Class is boring without him. We haven't even done an experiment."
"Would you sit down already?" Tony didn't like where this was going. "We didn't have a fight, he's out visiting family. And you know what, I resent the implication that—"
"What, that we're smart enough to know you're dating?" Robert snorted. "It's not rocket science."
"We're not fighting, we're not dating, and it'd be none of your business if we were doing either." Tony sighed. "I don't want to hear another word about it. Back to the topic at hand, we're working with waves and optics today, and there's a couple of equations you'll want to write down before we get started—where do you think you're going?"
"Robinson's room." Robert smirked cheekily, already halfway out the door. "I'm gonna tell him you're sorry so he'll take your dumb ass back and class can be fun again."
"Go ahead." Tony waved a hand, though he was gritting his teeth. "And when you're done discovering how wrong you are, you can keep on walking that 'dumb ass' of yours down to Cogman's office."
"Whatever." Robert just sneered, disappearing out the door.
"So!" Tony declared, clapping his hands together in an effort to move on from Robert's disruption as quickly as possible, lest the others get ideas. "Waves and optics! Someone give me a definition of either, and we can get the ball rolling here."
Though class moved on smoothly, Tony couldn't help but dwell on the fact that none of his other students had looked particularly surprised at anything Robert had been saying. Was he that obvious? If he was, did Steve know? And if Steve knew about his feelings but hadn't said anything…well, that was probably a pretty clear indication he wanted things to stay the way they were, wasn't it?
Not that Tony was willing to give up so easily, but…it still stung, and it still reminded Tony exactly how out of practice he was with this whole wooing thing. Hell, he was even pretty rusty at the actual dating part.
God, he felt old. What he needed was some good old fashioned engineering to take his mind off it. After his all-nighter Monday night and almost-all-nighter last night, he'd put together the finishing touches Rhodey's suit. It was a pretty fantastic ride if Tony said so himself—not Iron Man fantastic, but hey, nothing was—and he was sure Nick would be more than pleased with it.
It had a hidden, remote operated kill code even Nick's crack tech team shouldn't be able to find, just in case Rhodey ever got too close to unmasking him, but otherwise it should be able to hold its own and then some. The weapons were a couple marks back from what Iron Man had up his metaphorical sleeve, but that could be played off easily by the fact that theoretically Tony was building from scratch.
He'd been working in one of SHIELD's outposts so far, but now that he'd finished, he'd be moving to their main headquarters this afternoon for testing, and the potential to meet the Cap Squad up close and personal. Nick had said it'd be unlikely he'd bump into them, but Tony was determined to make the unlikely happen.
He had to admit, he was curious what Cap was like when he wasn't interacting with a supervillain. Would he be more open to Tony's advances? Not that he was interested in Cap, or anything—well, okay, what red-blooded human being wouldn't want into Cap's spandex, but that wasn't the point. He wasn't going to fuck the guy, he was just curious if he was more receptive to a non-supervillain, was all.
Purely scientific, clearly.
"So, there's this guy…" Rhodey drawled.
Tony spat out his coffee. Really, it was just a good thing he hadn't been holding a soldering iron or anything else dangerous, he would've without a doubt added another burn to his collection.
"What the fuck?" Tony answered elegantly. "Since when do you swing for my team, Rhodes?"
"I don't." Rhodey snorted. "That's how you begin this conversation, though."
"What conversation?"
"The conversation where you tell me who you're seeing, you sneaky little bastard."
Rhodey gave him the side eye, made slightly more intimidating by the fact that he was suited up in the War Machine armor minus a faceplate, and Tony was just in his ratty inventing clothes. Tony fidgeted under Rhodey's gaze, putting down his coffee and attempting to pocket his phone without Rhodey noticing.
"I'm not seeing anyone."
"You've been texting someone since the moment you walked in that door—yeah, I saw you put your phone away just now, smartass—and when you're not busy giggling like a teenage girl at whatever they said, you're grinning like a cat with a canary in its paws. Subtlety, thy name sure as hell ain't Stark."
"I did not giggle."
"If it makes you feel any better, it was a very manly giggle. I'm as disturbed as I am intrigued about how it came out of your mouth."
"I hate you."
"No you don't, which is why you're going to tell me all about the guy who's managed to get the unflappable Tony Stark in a tizzy."
"How do you know it's a guy? Maybe I'm sexting a gorgeous supermodel, and I laughed because I'm so fantastically lucky."
"It was a giggle, not a laugh, and you weren't horny, you were happy. Which is less and less the rarity it once was, but is still good to see. Not to mention I caught a glimpse of the picture id from here—don't even try to tell me the owner of that jawline is a woman."
"He does have a freakishly gorgeous jaw, doesn't he?"
"So what's gorgeous' name?"
"I haven't decided if I'm done hating you yet, try again later."
"C'mon Tones, I told you about Julia," Rhodey wheedled.
"Are you really comparing him to that trainwreck?"
"Well, I can't judge his character if you won't even tell me his name! You can't go around saying 'him' all important-like if you don't give me a little information to work with. Why're you being all secretive, is he your drug dealer or something?"
"God no." Tony snorted, finding the image of Steve of all people dealing crack in some back alley obscenely hysterical.
"Oh fuck, please tell me he's not a student."
"Give me some credit—"
"Tony—"
"He's not a student, Jesus! Calm down." Tony held his hands up innocently. "I swear on my life, he's totally legal."
"Older than those Maxim models from last year, I hope. I know they were technically legal, but you're pushing fifty man, it doesn't look good—"
"I am not pushing fifty!" Tony gave a disgruntled sound of indignation. "Stop saying that you jackass, someone's going to believe you. I'm thirty-six, I'm barely pushing forty."
"Wrong side of twenty-five to be dating cover models, all I'm sayin'." Rhodey grinned.
"Well, he's twenty-seven, so you can fuck off, thanks." Tony made a face.
"Ouch."
"The fuck does 'ouch' mean?" Tony glared. "He's older than twenty-five, you insensitive prick."
