Tony sticks out his thumb as he sees another car coming up the road. He isn’t too hopeful; according to his watch, he’d been out here for one hour and twenty two minutes. Felt like a hell lot longer though.
To his surprise — and immense relief — the car does pull over. He opens the door to sit in the back, and jolts. There are three teens sitting inside and he recognises two of them as girls in his grade. All of them are unfairly hot, which made Tony feel pretty damn insecure and that was saying something. The last one is a rather handsome ginger in the driver’s seat.
“Hey, Tony,” Maya Hansen says (interested and friendly, Tony thinks, safe to flirt with), turning around in her seat to smile at him. He smiles back automatically and is about to respond when the other girl interrupts him — Virginia Potts.
“Why are we picking up a hitch-hiker?”
“I dunno, why are you such a bitch? Stop acting like you don’t know me.” Maybe he shouldn’t be insulting the people offering him a ride. Maya wrinkles her nose and turns back around but the handsome ginger laughs. Huh.
Potts speaks up again. “My uncle died two days ago.”
Wow. Uh, hit the brakes, he wasn’t expecting that. “Is it too late to say I’m sorry?”
Apparently it is too late because the handsome ginger chances a look behind him at Tony and swerves the car violently, almost landing them all in a ditch. Tony nearly topples on top of Potts who shrieks (and Tony thinks he does, too) but Maya doesn’t really react as much she probably should to almost getting into a car crash which worries Tony slightly. Is this normal?
“Stark! Get the fuck out of my car!” the guy yells. Tony has absolutely no idea what he’s done, other than call Potts a bitch (which he regrets, for the record!) and he’d laughed at that.
“What did I do?” Tony yells back. Maybe it’s just his face. His dashing good looks tend to piss people off quite a lot (Rhodey says it’s his ugly mug and annoying hitch-hiker).
“Aldrich, will you calm down?” Potts yells also. Wait. Aldrich? As in, Aldrich fucking Killian? How did he not recognise him?
“Don’t yell at me, you bitch!”
“Hey, relax, man! Just ‘cause we had a little spat a few years back—”
This seems to be the wrong thing to say because the guy gets out of the car and pulls open his door, dragging him out, almost ripping his arm off (furious, his mind blurts out, which… wow, no shit, Sherlock!). Killian shoves him on the ground and Tony would probably fear for his life if he wasn’t used to his sort of treatment. Nonetheless, he holds his hands up, as though dealing with a rabid animal, and honestly, Tony can see the resemblance. “Okay, okay, my bad! Jesus Christ!”
Potts gets out the car as well, slamming the door and Tony watches as they have a little argument on the side of the pavement. Killian grabs her arm and Tony is about to get up and tell him in no uncertain terms to back off but Maya beats him to it.
They had it handled. Tony groans, his head landing backwards on the dirt and he takes a few seconds to just lie there. When he opens his eyes, Maya and Potts are standing over him.
“Okay, I recognise that somehow, in some shape or form, this is my fault. Uh, my bad?”
The girls both roll their eyes. They don’t offer to help him up, but they’re clearly expecting him to get off the god damn ground, Stark. Jesus Christ.
“What happened to Peter Pan?”
“Drove off, the asshole. This is all your fault.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Lay off him, Ginny.”
Tony’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. “Oh, you know what’s funny? You’re a ginger and, uh, your name is Ginny…” He trails off, spotting the furious look on her face.
“My name is Virginia!” she shouts, looking dangerously close to shoving him on the dirt like Killian had done. “If one more person makes that joke, I will genuinely shave my hair off.”
“Relax, Kim Possible,” Tony says (should he be antagonising her? frustrated. close to actually angry). He rather likes her hair. “Uh, am I back to hitch-hiking?”
“And us with you, apparently,” Maya says. “C’mon, Ginny, he’s not that bad. He’s kinda funny. In a dork way.”
“Ouch.”
Tony gets up, and this time, they’re all sticking out their thumbs for a ride the next time a car comes up the road.
“You’re Tony Stark, right?” Pepper asks him. He’s already given her a nickname and she seems to prefer this over Ginny. “I honestly expected you to be more of an asshole.”
“Thanks.”
“Not a compliment.”
They’d taken a ride with this creepy old man and that had gone about as well as taking a ride with Aldrich fucking Killian had and ending up with Tony probably breaking two of his fingers punching the guy in the face. What was he made of, metal? Luckily, he’d dropped the three of them off near a fast food joint, so he’s now shoving fries and soda into his face. Maya looks vaguely disgusted, but Tony has never been civilised when eating and he’s not about to start just for the chance of sucking face with some girl he’s just met.
Tony lifts a hand and gestures for the waiter to come over, paying the check mindlessly. Perks of being rich. He asks where they are (about twenty eight miles away from where he should be, which is astounding — the creepy old man had definitely been leading them the wrong way).
“Where are you lovely ladies heading?” Tony asks, ever the gentleman. “I suppose the least I can do is make sure you get a ride back.”
“We were just gonna go wherever Aldrich took us,” Maya responds, making Tony recoil. “So I guess we’ll just go wherever you’re heading.”
He expects Pepper to argue but she just sighs and says, “Might as well.” Absolutely awesome. New friends!
“How are you going to get us a ride though? You’re, like, fourteen and I am not hitch-hiking again.”
“I’m fifteen,” Tony corrects but somehow he gets the feeling Pepper doesn’t really care, so he continues, rubbing his hands together, standing up. “And so was Killian, so I know you don’t really care. Besides, I won’t be driving.”
Happy pulls up next to them, wearing a white button up shirt, slacks and get this, a tie. Where was he, a job interview? He looks incredibly unimpressed.
“Hey, you’re dressed up real nice. All for me?” Tony asks, jumping over the door into the convertible, glancing at his stony expression (frustrated but not actually angry, Tony deduces and files the information away) as he buckles himself in, used to Happy’s remarks about how the law is actually something he has to follow, apparently. Huh. Who would’ve thought?
“I had a date.”
“Really? Good for you, bud. Step on it. Uh, this is Pepper and Maya.”
“Great,” he says, not very enthusiastically. He steps on it and Tony pats him on a back. Happy’s a real one.
Maya has her phone out in the backseat, her nails tapping against the screen and the sound is mildly infuriating but Tony’s a mature teenager and he won’t say anything, even as the tapping increases in frequency and grates against his eardrums and what is the point of getting nails done if they just got in the way of everything? He asks Maya this and she gives him a dirty look, before going onto explaining the importance and cultural significance of getting your nails done and Tony wishes he hadn’t asked. He thought he talked a lot!
Interestingly, halfway through her spiel, he finds himself actually listening to her explaining how hard it was to pick out what you wanted for your nails. “So, wait, do you prefer matte or glossy?”
“I prefer glossy usually, but matte is good for when I’m going for casual, professional, y’know? It kind of depends on the vibe and colour and fit I’m going for too.” He’s leaning over the back of his seat, she’s leaning forward in her seat (definitely interested. Whether it’s in the conversation or him, he isn’t sure yet). Slightly uncomfortable but an entirely possible position to make out in.
“I think I’d prefer matte. Glossy is cool, too, though. Kind of gives femme fatale vibes, if you know what I mean. You know Natasha Romanoff? She gives femme fatale vibes. Like her.”
Maya knows Natasha Romanoff, because literally who doesn’t know Natasha Romanoff? “Oh, yeah, definitely. If you ever got your nails done, what colour would you pick?”
“Uh… I dunno, I don’t think about this stuff often. Red, maybe?”
Maya squints at Tony for a few seconds before glancing at his hands, inspecting them. “Oh, yeah. You probably look great in red.”
“You probably look great in anything. And nothing.”
Pepper makes a retching sound and Happy bangs his head on the steering wheel. Tony doesn’t want to be driven into another ditch so he wisely tries not to make any more sexual jokes (and fails).
After Pepper’s numerous attempts at appropriate conversion, he takes pity on her and decides to let her change the topic to something more suitable for sensitive ears (read: Happy).
“How d’you know Killian anyway?” Pepper asks
“Son of a friend of a friend of a father.” Tony doesn’t really care about how they knew Killian. All he knew was that he never wanted to see that bitch again. Fucking bastard.