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strinak · 13 hours

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( @grumpycakes On the occasion of her birth, the start of a story about birthdays, and getting everything you want, even though it's nothing you know how to ask for. Happy Birthday, Mel!)

-Another Year Around the Sun-

“Are you- Are you going to get that?”

Tony squinted at the schematic floating in the air in front of him. “Does it look like I’m going to get that?” he asked, taking a careful sip of his coffee. It burned the entire way down, and he exhaled on a cough. “Jesus, this is foul.”

“Yep.” Bruce gave him a slight smile from behind his safe, boring cup of tea. “Just like you like it.”

Tony saluted him with the cup. “Just like I like it,” he agreed. His phone stopped buzzing, and he gave it a look, nursing his coffee along with his grudge. As expected, it started vibrating again a moment later, shaking against the top of the workbench. “Jay, put him on the block list.”

“He will simply call the main line,” Jarvis said, with the sort of infinite patience only his AI could manage.

“And I expect you to hang up on him,” Tony said.

Bruce leaned across the workbench. “It’s-” He glanced up at Tony, his brows drawing up tight in an expression of concern. “Are you, I mean, is there-”

Tony took another sip of his coffee, letting the cup hang in front of his face as he punched the surface of his phone with one finger. The call connected, and there was a single second of silence, and then-

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BIRTHDAY BOY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUST TO YOU,” Rhodey howled into the phone with the sort of glee only a long time friend could muster when doing something unforgivable. On the other side of the workbench, Bruce rocked back on his stool, his eyes going wide with shock. “WE HEAR THAT YOU’RE THE BIRTHDAY BOY, SO WE’RE SINGING LOUD AND TRUE, EVERYONE WILL KNOW THAT YOU’RE A SPECIAL BOY, IT’S THE LEAST THAT WE COULD DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-”

“Die in a fire,” Tony said, and hung up on him.

Bruce was clutching his tea with both hands, his shoulders up around his ears, his expression horrified. “What was-”

“There was a diner down the street from MIT,” Tony said, making a minute adjustment to the schematic with a flick of his fingers. “And they sang that hellish ditty if you told them someone in your party was having a birthday.”

“Okay,” Bruce said, drawing out the word.

“Yeah, well it turns out that if you pre-tip the staff a twenty, they’ll sing it any time you ask. Such as every Sunday morning. When you’ve dragged your hungover, barely functional best friend into said diner with the promise of pancakes and coffee, and instead betray him with singing waiters who are just enjoying seeing him suffer.” Tony took a sip of coffee. “It was my birthday every single Sunday for two solid months.”

Bruce put down his cup. “Okay,” he repeated. “Why did you continue-”

“Honestly, I probably wanted the attention,” Tony mused. “And the pancakes.” His phone rang again, and he picked it up, putting it on speaker with a flick of his thumb. “How did you pass the military psych evaluation? In that you are clearly a sociopath?”

“Happy birthday,” Rhodey said, his voice full of glee.

“Actually, not my birthday,” Tony said, trying not to smile. “I had it legally changed specifically to avoid these sorts of betrayals.”

“Great, I can now call you randomly every day until I find the new one,” Rhodey said. “Gonna be our daily tradition.”

“I am blocking your number,” Tony said. “And by ‘blocking you,’ I mean, I am going to hack my way into every single cellular service in this country and make sure you get a busy signal any time you call anyone for any reason at any time.”

“A normal, rational response from a well-balanced man,” Rhodey mused.

“Says the man who memorized a song deliberately designed for trauma and has used it to harass me annually for literally my entire adult life,” Tony said. “Why would you memorize that? Why would you do that to yourself, let alone me?”

“You say that like I could possibly forget it, it’s an ear worm,” Rhodey mused. “And I heard it every Sunday for like three months.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Should’ve done less Saturday night drinking, and we wouldn’t have had to do Sunday morning penance.”

“You are the worst, you are a terrible friend, I don’t know why I even talk to you. I have replaced you. I have other friends now, better friends. Know what Bruce gave me for my birthday?” Tony asked, gesturing at Bruce, who was staring down at his tablet, trying to hide his smile behind the rim of his cup. “Coffee. Terrible coffee, but coffee.”

“Your favorite,” Rhodey said. “Hey, Bruce!”

“Hey,” Bruce said, raising his voice to be heard. “You coming for the party on Saturday?”

“Be there with bells on,” Rhodey said. “Can we hang out in a corner somewhere and avoid the frightening rich people that always end up at Tony’s parties?”

“God, please,” Bruce said, wincing.

“You’re no longer invited,” Tony told Rhodey. “Disinvited. I’m sending a drone to shred your invitation.”

“It was an email.”

“Even easier,” Tony said. He spun in a circle, one hand sliding through the air and pulling up a keyboard. “Worldwide computer virus. Targeting you and only you and your invitation.”

“How do you not know how your invitations went out?”Rhodey asked. “Was this entire party set up by a planner or something?”

“Of course not, that would be stupid,” Tony said.

Bruce took a sip of tea. “Stark Industries’ PR department planned this entire party.”

There was a beat of silence. “Tony…”

“I don’t need the disapproving voice out of you, and it’s not your problem, you’re uninvited,” Tony said, his fingers dancing over a holographic keyboard. “If you show up, you will be escorted off of the premises by someone, probably Nat, I owe her a favor, she likes throwing men around..”

“That’s a shame, I’ll just have to keep your birthday present.”

Tony’s fingers stilled. “What did you get me?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m uninvited.”

“You have a chance to buy your way back into my good graces,” Tony said. “What’d you get me?”

“A terrible bootleg Iron Man shirt I found in a street market in Guatemala,” Rhodey said.

Tony braced a hand on the workbench, considering that. “Terrible good or terrible bad?”

“Terrible terrible,” Rhodey said.

“What the hell is terrible terrible? What do you think that even means?”

“It’s TERRIBLE terrible, and it’s a shame you’ll never see it and find out.”

“Fine!” Tony tossed his hands in the air, ignoring the way Bruce was laughing. “You’re re-invited.”

“Ooooooooh.” Rhodey hummed to himself for a moment. “I’ll check, but I have a very busy social calendar, I’m not really sure I can squeeze in another party this late, should’ve gotten an invitation out to me a lot sooner if you wanted-”

“Shut up,” Tony said, grinning at his schematic. “You absolute embarrassment. You need to show up, Pepper says that Nicholetta Hertz has asked if you’re going to be there three separate times.”

“Nicholetta-”

“She was at the product release thing last fall?” Tony shifted some parts around in midair. “Tall? Gave the keynote speech? Wore a halter top dress and a pair of Converse high tops?”

There was a beat of a pause. “She wanted to know if I was coming?”

“Asked three times,” Tony said. “Pepper asked me to check if you were dating anyone. I told her that you’re a loser who is apparently getting into birdwatching-”

“It’s fucking interesting and god forbid I go outside without a gun strapped to me-”

“So no, you’re not dating anyone.” Tony paused, grinning. “Nicholetta likes to hike.”

“Don’t try to match make, you’re bad at it.”

Tony straightened up, his head snapping in Bruce’s direction. “Did you hear that?” he asked, gesturing at the phone. “Did you- I can’t be the only one who heard that.”

Bruce braced his chin on one hand. “I, I heard it,” he said. “And I might, possibly, agree with it.”

“Man’s got sense, I always said that the man’s got sense,” Rhodey said. “Don’t try to match make.”

“Fine, I’ll tell Pepper you’re not interested.”

“No, Pepper can do all the match making she wants,” Rhodey said.

Bruce was laughing, Tony could tell he was laughing, and he decided for the sake of his friendship that he wasn’t going to acknowledge it. “Saturday. Seven PM. If you don’t have the literal worst t-shirt I’ve ever seen in my life, I’m going to sell something to the US Air Force that you will regret for the rest of your long, painfully long career.”

“TERRIBLE terrible,” Rhodey said. “I’ll be there by six, I need to mock your outfit for at least half an hour before the rest of your guests show up.”

“Luckily, if my outfit is that bad, you’re bringing me the perfect thing to wear. To my own birthday party. In front of the New York elite, every superhero I can stand, and a bunch of the most vindictive reporters in the country.” Tony ripped a piece of the holographic schematic free and tossed it across the workshop. “It’ll be great. We should just take pictures of every person as they first catch sight of the terribleness.”

“I love a party with a theme,” Rhodey said. “Saturday. Six PM. Bruce, wanna spend the rest of the night watching Tone try to guess who all his guests are.”

“It’s, uh, it’s a problem when you don’t set your own guest list,” Bruce agreed.

“Hanging up on you now,” Tony said.

“HAAAAAAAAAPPY BIIIIIRTHDAAAA-” Rhodey started, and Tony hung up on him.

He braced both hands on his workbench, his chin dipping in a nod. “I need better friends,” he said.

Bruce nodded. “Don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said, his voice apologetic. His eyes tipped up, and he smiled. “But…”

Tony turned, following his gaze, just in time to see Steve bounce his way down the stairs. He hit the ground, his feet skidding as he headed for the lab door. Almost against his will, Tony smiled, watcihng with affection as Steve punched in his door code and tossed it open.

He grinned at Tony, his cheeks flushed and his hair still damp from a morning shower. “Happy Birthday!”

Tony grinned at him. “It’s way too early for that much enthusiasm, Cap.”

“Get used to it.” Steve strode across the room, snagging a sweatshirt off of the hook as he passed it. “Let’s go!”

He tossed the sweatshirt at Tony, and Tony’s hands came up to catch it with more instinct than grace. But he managed not to end up with it draped over his head, and he counted that as a win. “Go? Go where?”

“Birthday,” Steve said, stopping as the bots rolled up to him. With a grin, he gave each of them a quick high five. “Hello, boys, Bruce is babysitting today, you’re all going to be good for him, right?”

“They will not,” Bruce said, smiling down at his tablet.

“First of all, if there’s any bot sitting to be done, Jarvis is going to be doing it,” Tony started, tossing the sweatshirt onto the workbench. It didn’t land in his coffee. He was doing great today. “And second, go WHERE? I have a prototype processing, the fabrication units are working on the next phase of the build, and I have six other projects to-”

Steve came around the end of the workbench, his long legs eating up the distance, all of the bots trailing behind him like the stupidest little Disney parade. “Bruce.”

“Bruce?” Tony parroted.

Bruce raised his cup, still looking at his tablet. “Bruce.”

“Doctor Banner and I have the situation well under control,” Jarvis said, his tone crisp. “Should your expertise be required, we shall reach out to you immediately, but you are not nearly as indispensable to this part of the project as you might like to imagine.”

Tony’s eyebrows arched. “Rude.”

“Bruce has got the workshop, Pepper’s handling the business side of things, Thor’s camped out on the tower roof and promised he’ll take care of any Avengers problems, Natasha is leading Fury on a wild goose chase through Vatican City right now,” Steve said.

“I wondered where she’d gone last night,” Tony said. He blinked. “Wait. You’ve just sidelined my work, my company, my superheroing and the less than secret spy organization that spends a third of its time trying to annoy me. That’s like, four of the five things that try to kill me on a regular basis.”

“He’s the man with the plan,” Bruce said, sipping his tea.

Tony was pretty sure this shouldn’t be a turn on. He was pretty sure it was anyway. “So that just leaves-”

“Coulson just dumped a 8000 piece puzzle onto the kitchen island,” Steve said, his arms crossed over his chest. “And Clint’s going to find it in-” His head cocked to the side as he considered. “Jarvis?”

“He is currently on the elevator now,” Jarvis said. “Three minutes. Twelve seconds. And counting.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.” Steve grinned at Tony, wide and bright and perfect, and Tony went a tiny bit dizzy for a second. “Five out of five.”

“Clint hates puzzles,” Tony pointed out.

“Yes, he does. He also can’t resist color matching and shape recognition. He’s going to be saying curse words in languages no one here even knew existed,” Steve said. He straightened up, and reached out, picking up the sweatshirt. “Birthday. Let’s go. I’ve got plans.”

Tony considered the sweatshirt. Considered Steve. “What kind of plans?”

“Best birthday ever,” Steve said, and he said it with such conviction that if Tony wasn’t already head over heels in love with him, that would’ve sealed the deal. Steve held the sweatshirt out to him, a bribe or a peace offering, Tony couldn’t tell. But he held it out, with a quick, hopeful little smile. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I mean, I did before you said those exact words and now I’m sure that it’s a terrible idea,” Tony said, just to hear him laugh. He took the sweatshirt, being careful not to grab Steve’s hand instead. That would’ve been just embarrassing. “Can I eat breakfast at least?”

Steve wrapped an arm around his shoulders, force marching him towards the door. “That’s step one!”

Tony looked back over his shoulder. “Help.”

Bruce gave a little wiggle of his fingers. “Haaaaaaaappy Birthday,” he sang.

“This is going to be terrible,” Tony said, and he was honestly looking forward to it.

#fanfiction

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