“Ready to get shitfaced drunk?”
“Tony, you’re a minor”
“You’re not twenty-one yet either. We’re college students, Rhodey. What else do they expect?”
Rhodey had never met a sixteen year-old who loved to party as much as Tony. Granted, the only sixteen year-olds he knew were his neighbours, and he hadn’t seen them in forever, so maybe his statement wasn’t justified. Either way, Tony partied a lot. He drank, did drugs, felt up a few people and lived for the thump of the bass and the lights and the whole atmosphere. He forgot himself a lot.
Jake Macnimara was the victim tonight, a rich frat boy throwing this year’s main Halloween party at his mansion. He was a well-off twenty year-old in Tony and Rhodey’s program at MIT, and he had bragged about his house and his money for months before the party. Tony was rich, sure, but he didn’t like to brag about it. And he knew that if you actually valued your belongings (and your life) you definitely shouldn’t be a dick then throw a party. That’s just asking to be beat up.
Tony was going as a greaser this year, his hair gelled back with about half a bottle of product, sunglasses, skinny navy jeans and a black leather jacket. Rhodey was a dad on vacation, wearing a bright purple and yellow Hawaiian shirt, cargo shirts, and a grey visor. As soon as they got to the party though, Rhodey had wished that they had switched costumes.
There were about fifteen other guys going as a greaser, all clad in their leather jackets and gelled hair. It would be impossible for Rhodey to keep an eye on Tony, to make sure he was alive every few minutes. Rhodey wasn’t above handing him a glow stick, but he knew Tony would ditch it at the first opportunity. Rhodey was a mother by nature and it didn’t help that Tony didn’t have a great track record for taking care of himself.
“Here,” Tony handed Rhodey a red solo cup and took a sip of his own, getting most in the party Rhodey tried to keep track of how many drinks Tony took over the next couple hours, but lost count after four, and he wasn’t too sure when his world started spinning either.
He lost track of Tony, and decided that maybe he’d had enough to drink. Rhodey stumbled over to the fridge and grabbed a plastic water bottle, chugging the whole thing all at once and wiping his mouth on the front of his shirt. Tony was destructive at parties. Rhodey had to stop him from killing himself, he wasn’t here to completely lose himself too.
Rhodey found Tony finally, after turning a corner and running into him. He had a bloody nose and his pupils took up nearly his whole iris. His sunglasses were nowhere to be seen.
“Did you..?”
“I did a line of coke,” Tony said bluntly.
“But like, why?”
“What do you mean?” Tony asked, reaching for something.
“I don’t understand why-"
“Drink a little. You look stressed.” Tony had shoved a red cup into Rhodey’s hands. Rhodey took it, and then Tony was gone.
A game of beer pong started and Rhodey found himself somewhat roped into it. The crowd chanted his name when he got a ball in or when he had to drink, and it was all intoxicating, really. Rhodey threw the last ball into the cup at the end of the table, and the crowd went wild. Rhodey pumped his fist in the air as the other team had to drink, and he was being high-fived by everyone around him. The attention had him giddy, but he was quickly pushed out of the way as they set up for another round of beer-pong.
Rock Lobster was playing and the bass was pounding in Rhodey’s ears, filling him up and making him buzz. He felt like the ground was shaking beneath his feet. People were dancing in the middle of the living room, grinding up against each other, some were obviously doing more than just grinding, and he saw someone dressed exactly like Tony pressed up against a girl and realized that he had no idea where Tony actually was.
Rhodey found Tony waking down the stairs, his legs looking shaky. At first, Rhodey feared the worse (drug overdose! his mind was screaming), but he quickly noticed the messed up hair, the lipstick stains all over his face, the undone fly, and the very obvious hickey on his neck. There were full-on teeth marks on his pale skin.
“Was she a vampire?” Rhodey joked, walking up to Tony.
“Huh? Oh. Is it that bad?” Tony brought his hand up to his neck and gingerly touched the area.
“Yeah. How old was she?”
“Not that old,” Tony huffed.
“Did she know you’re sixteen?” Rhodey raised an eyebrow, and judging by the sheepish look on Tony’s face, she didn’t.
“She was only eighteen!” Tony protested after seeing the look on Rhodey’s face. “Don’t get all upset about it, just because I can get girls and you can’t.”
“I’m not- oh my god. You’re just being so self-destructive tonight, like what’s the reason? I don’t understand-”
“You’re probably just not drunk enough.” Tony shoved another drink in Rhodey’s hand. It was like he produced the stupid red solo cups out of thin air.
Tony was gone by the time Rhodey looked up again, but thankfully he wasn’t far. He watched as Tony gave a wad of cash to a guy dressed as Maurice Richard and got a sandwich bag full of little white pills in return. Rhodey sighed and walked over to him, daring Tony to have them in front of him.
Tony had three before he noticed Rhodey waking over.
“You want some? I won’t even make you pay.” Tony shook the bag in front of his face before pocketing it inside of his jacket.
“Are you trying to get me drunk so I stop trying to keep you from killing yourself?” Rhodey asked, annoyed.
“Saw right through me.” Tony grabbed a beer. Someone bumped into him. Beer sloshed all over his leather jacket but Tony paid no attention
“I can’t tell if you’re serious,” Rhodey pressed.
“Then you’re not drunk enough. Come on, don’t be so uptight.” Tony nudged the beer still in Rhodey’s hands then chugged his own as if to demonstrate.
“You’re going to make yourself sick-“
“Ooh, brownies!” Tony exclaimed, completely skipping over Rhodey’s concern.
Rhodey wasn’t stupid. If somebody brought baked goods to a college party, they probably weren’t regular baked goods. Tony either didn’t know or didn’t seem to care (Rhodey assumed the latter), and took a rather large corner piece. Rhodey didn’t even touch one and watched as Tony practically inhaled it, crumbs getting all over his face and the front of his jacket. Tony brushed himself off carelessly.
He reached for another but Rhodey slapped his hand away. “Do you want to have a seizure? Go do something else.”
“Only if you let me disappear again,” Tony bargained.
“Oh my god. Fine. Just stay away from the brownies.” Rhodey threw his hands in the air in surrender and turned his back, and when he turned back around, Tony had disappeared.
Rhodey was finding it hard to enjoy the party when he was worrying his ass off about his best friend dying of a drug overdose. Tony was bad at parties, sure, but never usually this bad. He maybe only drank too much, but he never touched drugs unless Rhodey was beside him. And he never usually asked Rhodey to leave him alone, which meant that Tony was up to something. That, or he was just being more self-destructive than usual.
Rhodey ran into Tony next upstairs, about half an hour later, talking to a guy named Alex, who was stuffing something in his shirt. Tony gave a salute of respect and Alex ran off.
“What was he doing?” Rhodey asked.
“Stealing antique photos of Jake’s grandmother,” Tony answered.
“Why?”
“Because it’s the one thing you can’t replace.”
Rhodey didn’t want to dwell on that. “And what did you steal?”
“What do you mean?”
Rhodey motioned towards the bulge in Tony’s pants, his ears going red. He already knew what Tony was going to say.
“That’s a boner, Rhodey. You’ve never seen one before?” Tony wiggled his eyebrows.
“I’ve seen your dick. It’s not that big,” Rhodey deadpanned. Tony had forgotten to lock the bathroom door once and Rhodey wanted to bleach his eyes afterwards. Not necessarily because Tony was bad-looking (he wasn’t), but because Tony was busy living his teenage dream lip-singing Dancing Queen into his toothbrush.
“Way to boost a guy’s ego.”
“You’re like, sixteen! And you’re making this weirder than it has to be. What did you take?” Rhodey asked again.
Tony undid his fly and pulled out a small, orange prescription bottle. Rhodey stepped closer to read the label. Adderall.
“Want one?” Tony unscrewed the child safety lock and popped a couple of pills in his mouth. He shook the bottle in Rhodey’s face.
“It was literally touching your dick. I’ll pass,” Rhodey snorted.
“Just the container. And for the record, it was between my jeans and my underwear.” Tony shoved the bottle back in his jacket.
Rhodey was going to retort but Tony had already jumped down the stairs and was weaving his way through the party. Rhodey sighed, but didn’t attempt to follow. Tony was small and quick enough that it would be impossible.
Rhodey joined the game of pool, trying to keep his mind off of Tony, Tony overdosing, Tony getting alcohol poisoning, Tony, Tony, Tony. But the game lasted only ten minutes until someone jumped on the pool table and yelled, “I JUST SHAT ON JAKE’S DAD’S COMPUTER!” and a fight broke out, effectively breaking the pool table in half and ending the game. Rhodey stepped away from the commotion and went into the backyard to see if he could find Tony again. He was bad at pool anyway.
He found Tony sitting at the edge of the pool, attempting to play jenga while heavily intoxicated with three other people. Rhodey watched at a distance, trying to keep himself as far as possible from the couple having sex in the pool in front of everyone but still wanting to keep an eye on Tony. The tower fell on one of the other guy’s turns, and in a moment of impulse or drug-induced adrenaline (Rhodey didn’t ask), Tony picked up one of the pieces and threw it at the couple, hitting the dude in the back of the head.
Tony was too busy laughing to run away, and the dude stomped over to Tony, fully naked. He delivered a swift punch to the face then left, and Tony was lying on the ground, laughing so hard he was crying. He was as high as a kite, it didn’t take a genius or even a proper adult to deduce that.
Rhodey ran over to Tony, assessing injuries. The skin over his cheek bone had split from the impact, and his whole eye and the area around it was red; it was going to be a pretty nasty black eye tomorrow. Tony’s bottom eyeliner was smudged with his tears, and he looked like a mess.
Tony was having the time of his life.
“You’re going to be the death of me.” Rhodey held out a hand for Tony to take.
“Live a little.” Tony took his hand and Rhodey pulled him up.
“Literally, what the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to get killed?” he hissed angrily. Of course Tony wanted to get beat up. He loved picking fights.
“If you’re upset, then leave me alone.” Tony turned around, disappearing into the crowd.
Rhodey rubbed his eyes. He was getting tired. But it was going to be impossible to drag Tony away from all this.
After wandering around aimlessly and chatting with a few of his classmates that seemed to be sober enough to hold a conversation, Rhodey found Tony an hour later at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette. Rhodey frowned. Tony hated smoking, said it stunk and reminded him too much of his annoying Godfather who only wanted to teach him how to run a business. Rhodey thought that was a reasonable thing to teach him, considering he was the named heir of a company, but Tony didn’t like it.
“What are you doing?” Rhodey demanded.
Tony blew smoke in his face and Rhodey coughed.
“You hate smoking,” he pointed out once the taste of cigarette smoke left his lungs.
“You’re right.” Tony coughed then extinguished the cigarette in the counter, leaving a black smudge.
“What?” Rhodey asked, confused. Tony wasn’t making any sense.
“That was nasty. Need something sweet. Candy.” Tony left the cigarette on the counter and looked around for food.
“Why are you smoking when you hate it? You know you hate it,” Rhodey continued.
Tony shrugged, but found the bucket that was full of candy for the party and pulled out ten packets of skittles.
A few minutes later, Tony was throwing up the rainbow in the bushes beside the pool outside, Rhodey awkwardly patting his back. Between the awful gagging noise Tony was making, the stench of vomit, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bass making Rhodey feel like the ground was wobbling beneath his feet, he wasn’t feeling too well either.
“Why would you do this to yourself, man? I don’t understand.”
Tony coughed then straightened out, wiping his mouth in his sleeve. He dug into his pocket. “Look. Fireworks.”
Tony pulled out a small vile that Rhodey recognized from the lab. His heart skipped a beat.
“You could kill someone!” Rhodey gasped, trying to wrestle it from his grasp, but Tony held on and was quick to move it out the way of Rhodey’s hands.
Rubidium in a little vile filled with oil. An alkaline metal. In water, it reacts so quickly it could kill someone.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Rhodey begged.
“I’m high as a kite, Rhodey. Watch me.”
Tony opened the vile quickly and dodged Rhodey’s hands, who didn’t dare come close to Tony after it was opened. Rhodey tried one last time to grab him by the waist but Tony quickly ran and stood on the diving board, tipping the contents, oil and all, into the pool. He dropped the vile and took off, stepping back from the diving board and sprinting somewhere amongst the party.
Rhodey didn’t think twice and ran. An explosion ran in his ears a second later, but it thankfully wasn’t that strong. People were screaming and walking around, dripping wet with pool water. Rhodey carefully searched for Tony, but it was dark outside and he was wearing all black. Once again, he wished that Tony had been wearing a brighter costume; he just kept losing him.
Smoke was everywhere, but no one was yelling for help and injured; Rhodey counted that as a win. He held his breath as he searched and dodged the spray from a fire extinguisher. People were laughing again, voices mingling into each other instead of the shocked silence that came with an explosion. They got over it pretty quick. Rhodey continued to look around.
“WHO BLEW UP MY FUCKING POOL?!” Jake was yelling, standing on top of a folding table. The table gave away underneath his weight and a ripple of laughs and clapping hands filled the air. Rhodey stifled a laugh himself. As much as Tony was an asshole and damaged property, Jake was even more of a dick and kind of deserved it. Tony wasn’t a bully, just annoying, but Jake had no problem degrading others because of his wealth.
Rhodey finally spotted a figure in the tree in the corner of the backyard. As he drew closer, it became clear that it was Tony, straddling two branches that were closer together, leaning against the trunk of the tree about fifteen feet above the ground. Rhodey swung up to join him, squatting on a limb and holding onto an above branch to keep himself steady.
“No one was hurt.” Tony said. He sounded tired. Rhodey guessed that the high had worn off.
“You’re lucky it’s such a large body of water and a small amount of rubidium,” Rhodey scolded.
“Uh huh.” Tony nodded. “There was only two grams left.”
They watch the scene below. Sirens were blaring in the distance. People were screaming and running away, and from their height, Tony and Rhodey could see a bit of the front yard and the people driving away quickly. Someone had called the fire department for the explosion or for the party in general; the red trucks and lights were easy to spot in the distance, about half a kilometre away.
“You could’ve killed someone, Tony.” Rhodey said, not about to drop the subject.
Tony shook his head. “I’m not stupid. I waited until everyone was out.”
“I still don’t understand why you’d act all irrational. Do you know the trouble you could’ve been in? What you still might be in if they catch who did it? I thought I knew you better than that.”
Rhodey had meant the words to be somewhat scolding and disappointed, but Tony just shrugged. Someone jumped the fence below and to the left of them, and several others followed suit. The fire trucks were closer, and police cars appeared in the distance as well. They were about to get busted, but there were still a few oblivious party goers.
“I don’t understand you sometimes,” Rhodey finished.
Tony shrugged again. He looked like he was going to cry, but Rhodey meant those words and Tony had exploded a fucking pool so maybe he deserved to feel bad. Property damage and all that. Even if Jake deserved it.
Elton John was hammering in Rhodey’s ears, the sharp notes of Bennie and the Jets making his head pound, but Tony didn’t seem to mind. He hummed a bit, drumming his fingers on his thigh like he was playing the piano notes. Someone brought the strobe lights outside so that the smoke created some sort of haze, making the lights shine everywhere. The lights passed over Tony’s face and Rhodey realized he actually was crying; it had been too dark to tell before.
“You okay?” Rhodey asked.
Tony nodded, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the sandwich bag of pills. “High’s gone.”
Rhodey watched as Tony popped a couple pills in his mouth and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Rhodey didn’t say anything, just turned his head to look at the fire truck and police cars as they pulled aside to the curb beside the driveway. He swung down from his spot after a few seconds, landing on the other side of the fence as the tree branches hung over it. “We should run. They’ll catch us if we don’t.”
Tony snorted, gesturing to Rhodey's shirt. “They’ll catch you. You’re a fucking highlighter.”
Tony stayed in the tree for a little bit while Rhodey stood underneath him, wondering if he should just grab Tony by the waist and go or let him get caught because after all, he was underage and he was the one who exploded the pool. Maybe getting into some trouble would make Tony realize that his actions had consequences, and then maybe he’d stop being so determined to accidentally kill himself every chance he got.
The music stopped playing and lights were dimmed in the house. Someone yelled that the police were coming and more girls screamed, their high-pitched voices making Rhodey’s neck hairs stand straight up. A chant of ‘fuck da police’ started up for some reason, and Rhodey was just about to run for it alone when Tony moved suddenly.
“Let’s go.” Tony swung himself over the fence. He ran with surprisingly good footing considering the amount of drinks he had consumed. Rhodey followed, having significantly more trouble, but they both made their way far, far away, back to campus a good two kilometres away, until Tony collapsed on the grass face down in front of their dorm hall.
“Tony?” Rhodey asked, worried that the drugs and alcohol and everything might’ve finally taken their toll. Tony rolled over, his face illuminated by the streetlight above them.
“Come lie down for a bit.” Tony gestured for Rhodey to lie down beside him.
Tony was a mess. His eyeliner was messed up from tears, his cheeks were bright pink from alcohol, and his shirt was undone and covered in beer. He smelled like alcohol and vomit. The cut on his cheekbone was bleeding still, and his hair was all over the place, sticking up like gravity had zero effect on it (with the amount of gel in it, it probably didn’t). Rhodey sat down beside him with his hands behind him to support his upper body until Tony put a hand on his chest to push him down.
“Okay, okay,” Rhodey said, lying down fully. The grass made the back of his neck itch.
Tony propped himself up on his elbows and reached into his coat pockets. He pulled out an impressive amount of brownies wrapped in plastic wrap, a bag clearly filled with bright edibles, his bag of pills from before and a prescription bottle of Adderall that he had stolen from the washroom. Rhodey was about to say something about being an addict until Tony searched his second pocket and pulled out all sorts of candy, chocolate bars, all sealed and packaged, the stereotypical Halloween candy.
“I've never been trick or treating, never even handed out candy; no kids would knock on the Stark family mansion, no way. And once I got to boarding school, it just wasn’t a thing anymore,” Tony said as he unwrapped a Snickers bar. “Private school kids don’t really do Halloween.”
Rhodey didn’t know what to say. He took a box of smarties from Tony’s collection, and after making sure it was sealed properly, he tore it open and poured it into his mouth. Chocolate and carnauba wax filled his taste buds, making him want more. Tony chewed on his chocolate bar, tucking the wrapper into his pocket and reaching for a pack of peanut m&ms, ripping the yellow wrapper apart and pouring them all into his hand. He threw them all into his mouth and once, throwing his head back like he was taking pills.
Together they sat, eating candy, Tony’s hand shaking from sugar or drugs or nerves or whatever. He reached for the brownies or the pills every minute or two but Rhodey was careful to direct this hand to something else.
“You’re going to make yourself sick again,” Rhodey warned after Tony had polished off his third pack of Reese’s peanut butter cups.
“I’m making up for all the Halloween’s I’ve missed,” Tony complained, reaching for the brownie again.
And suddenly Rhodey understood.