Spiderman Oneshots

Rulebreaker

Tony Stark was an enigma. Luckily, James Rhodes had always enjoyed solving puzzles.

The first and most important step was to separate the problem into smaller pieces, and that was the way James began to understand Tony. He had certain rules that he could always be relied on to obey. Once James had learned these rules, he started to be able to predict the seemingly random actions of Tony in any given situation.

Tony was a complicated person, and the number of rules James had noted were almost innumerable. There were some simple fundamentals, though, that anybody who knew Tony personally was likely to notice.

Tony was a drama queen. Okay, maybe this one wasn't a rule, exactly, but it was still an important part of understanding him. Tony lived for big reveals and shocked expressions. If he had a secret he would hype it up as much as possible before revealing it at the most unexpected moment. He rarely told anyone what he was working on at any given point until it was finished or needed PR attention before a release. Telling the whole world he was Iron Man had probably been the most euphoric moment of his life.

Tony was a sore loser. If he became aware of an area in which he wasn't already number one, he would not stop until he'd managed it. He despised not knowing things or being slower than anyone else - if he was meeting with an expert on Jupiter's moons tomorrow you'd better believe he'd become an expert on the subject overnight. Any implication that someone else was better than him at anything was met with badly concealed hostility.

Tony didn't like being handed things. He would pick them up off a surface, or sometimes take them from the hands of someone he trusted, but he would never, ever, accept something that was physically offered to him.

Tony was protective of his personal space. James liked to joke about him being territorial, but he respected Tony's sacred areas through college and into the wide world beyond. Tony's labs were open to a select few, and only if he wanted you in there. If he told you to leave, you left. You never entered uninvited, or at least without some warning.

Tony didn't trust strangers. Nobody would guess this, given his fame and constant media presence, but Tony was always wary around people outside of his close circle. His guard was never down in public. The tabloids never got to see his true smile. It took years of shared experiences and extreme two-way respect before he would feel truly comfortable in a new person's presence.

Tony wasn't a fan of children. He treated it like a game, wrinkling his nose or scoffing at the mention of small humans, but James had seen how he was constantly awkward around anyone much younger than 20. Tony was an expert at dealing with people, but children just couldn't be manipulated or engaged in the same ways. Tony had never figured out how they worked, and tended to avoid them as a result.

Tony liked loud music. AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Queen, you name it, he loved it. The more shouting involved and the louder he could blast it, the better. It was a wonder the man wasn't already deaf. On the occasions James was allowed access to Tony's lab, there was always music blasting from the ceiling. He didn't understand how Tony could focus, but it seemed like it was impossible for him to work without it. Even if someone requested a serious conversation, Tony wouldn't stop the music, only turn it down a little or step outside to talk.

Tony didn't play well with others. When he first debuted as a superhero, he'd been determined to fix all the world's problems by himself. It took him a while to learn the value of teamwork within the Avengers and battle in general, but when it came to science stuff he was resolute in his solitude. Tony was a genius with lightning-fast thought processes, and anybody else trying to tag along just slowed him down. The closest James had seen to him working with someone else was when he would sometimes discuss an idea with Bruce or Helen Cho, but even that never went beyond the theorising stage. Any actual work, Tony did alone, and enjoyed all the more for it.