The first time Tony meets Rhodey they’re moving in together into some tiny apartment hoping to hell that their precarious meeting over social media while apartment hunting wasn’t about to go horribly wrong. To be fair to Rhodey everything turned out to be better than expected, Tony absolutely loved his new roommate. They had the same music taste, movie taste, and even their food preferences were the same. They also happened to have being supernatural creatures in common too but neither one of them knew that at the time.
Tony didn’t know about Rhodey until he came home one day to find Rhodey eating, of all things, a human brain. He stands there for a solid thirty seconds with Rhodey staring back at him, brain halfway to his open mouth. “Is that… a human brain?” he asks finally.
“No,” Rhodey lies and sticks it in his mouth.
“Oh my god, that’s disgusting, don’t continue eating it!” Tony yells, waving an arm around.
“Why not?” Rhodey asks. “I don’t complain about your diet.”
“One, my diet consists of things that are not human brains. Two, I have a human brain!” As if this was not an obvious ‘hide the brain’ situation, honestly. Tony couldn’t believe Rhodey was being so casual about this. Who was casual about eating human brains? Who did that?
“Okay first of all I resent you acting like this is not normal, zombies have to eat man. And two, you’re not human either so you can’t go complaining about that. I would be able to smell if you were human,” he says.
For a moment Tony just stands there gaping but he eventually gets himself together. “You can smell that I’m not human? Why haven’t you brought that up? Also, zombie?” Those were real? What the fuck. Tony had long since thought the supernatural community needed like pamphlets or something because every two years Tony found out some other mythical species existed. Last time it was kitsune and Steven was annoyed that, despite being from Nepal, everyone thought he was Japanese thanks to the origin of kitsune myths. The time before that was pixies and Steve was mad about being a cute ethereal creature because he was like ninety percent anger and ten percent spite wrapped in a tiny little body. It was amusing to watch.
He was still annoyed that no one thought to try and get them all together given that they were all in a mad dash to cover themselves from humans. Little bastards were vicious beasts and they had a penchant for killing things that were different that they didn’t like, which also included other humans. Despite living among them Tony wasn’t particularly comfortable with them. It was hard to be comfortable around people who would turn on you in a half second if they knew what you were. He was just happy he looked human enough that he didn’t get stuck hiding until Halloween.
“You didn’t know about zombies? Of course not, the supernatural community is a damn mess. Yeah, they’re real and I didn’t mention it because you’re looking at me like I just cannibalized someone. Its hard enough having humans after me because I’m black, I didn’t want to have you after me because I’m a zombie. We aren’t exactly well-liked. And telling you I could smell that you weren’t human would require telling you I was a zombie so I figured if you wanted to say something you would,” Rhodey reasons. In his defense that was all pretty solid.
“Okay, where did you get the brain? Also when did the zombie apocalypse happen and why wasn’t I notified?” he asks.
Rhodey rolls his eyes, “see what I mean? I am tired of people going on and on about the zombie apocalypse! First of all when we eat brains we’re normal, and second of all that’s just insensitive. I don’t go on and on about all those times humans started genocides with each other like that’s their natural state even if I wonder sometimes. But no, apparently zombies are all a bunch of shuffling idiots who eat people with no discrimination. I will have you know that we have types and I got the brain from the morgue. Obviously. I have zombie connections.”
Zombie connections. Jesus Christ, this was Tony’s life now. Sometimes he wished that his mom had been a normal human and that his father’s family didn’t have some weird genealogy and that they combine themselves in an attempt to revive their heritage via Tony. Joke was on them, Tony didn’t want kids so their eugenics experiment failed. Well, it technically worked, but it also failed because they didn’t account for Tony not wanting to reproduce. He imagined his family was as disappointed in him as Howard, not that he cared or even talked to them anymore. He long ago cut himself off from everyone but his mom and even then he stayed distant. She kept trying to convince him to come home and he had no interest.
“So what happens when you don’t eat brains?” Tony asks, curious.
“I uh… go a little crazy and go get a brain with no discrimination,” he mumbles. “But is that really worse than humans? I mean they don’t need a reason to go killing people, some do it as a hobby,” he points out.
“I figured you were going to go with a comparison to trolls, but sure, humans. Real dicks they are. Once an ex girlfriend found out I was a dragon and tried to light me on fire. A dragon on fire. I breathe fire! My mom told me that I probably shouldn’t have laughed and spit some fire in her general direction but I thought it was funny. She had her witch friend erase her memory and Peggy told me I best keep the dragon thing to myself in the future.” In his defense that fire was nowhere near Candace, she was screaming for nothing. He had fantastic control thanks, she just surprised him and found him in a compromising position that there was no real explanation for. He had horns for shit sakes. He was convinced she thought he was the literal devil, which, rude.
“See? This is why I like to try and avoid them. Plus sometimes I can smell their brains and you know, salivating on them is social unacceptable. Don’t look at me like that, you drool over dinner too! Wait, don’t dragons hoard money or like shiny things or something? Is this why you like gold so much?” Rhodey asks, squinting at him.
Tony rolls his eyes, “no I don’t like gold because I’m a dragon and yes we tend to hoard things. Usually money. My family is actually pretty wealthy but I stopped talking to them ages ago. Now I mostly hoard knowledge because I live in a tiny rat hole of an apartment with a freaking zombie apparently and knowledge doesn’t take up space. You’re welcome,” he says in a tone that suggests Rhodey shouldn’t actually be thankful.
Rhodey throws back his head and laughs, “dude, that is hilarious. Come watch Mission Impossible with me.” And just like that things fall back to normal between the two of them minus some questions about the other’s species.
As it turned out zombies couldn’t bite people to turn them, they were born that way. Rhodey found this out when he took a chunk out of a kid he didn’t like in Kindergarten and got a lecture from his parents. Tony explained to Rhodey that no, he couldn’t walk around with a tail in a partial shift, he mostly just grew horns and the occasional scale. Zombies also didn’t rot, they just sort of lost all mental faculties if brain-deprived and ate someone. Dragons didn’t have any interests in princesses, humans were just a selfish species and through that dragons would be hoarding their royalty for some stupid reason. Rhodey had to admit that humans weren’t so selfish in thinking that zombies would want to eat them; they tasted better than supernatural creatures. Magic tasted weird, apparently, but so did humans on drugs.
Tony also had to explain, for some damn reason, that dragons were huge so he couldn’t just show Rhodey his dragon form. He learns that zombies don’t bleed though, and they had weird healing abilities but it required eating a large amount of brains to heal fast otherwise they healed way slower than a human. Tony had a highly boosted immune system and a literal thick skin even of it felt and looked human. He was also fireproof. Rhodey, Tony learns, does not like bugs because bugs had a weird thing for zombies and tried to crawl into their technically undead bodies. After that he agrees to not leave Rhodey to deal with the bugs alone because he’d be terrified of bugs too if he woke up with a cockroach family trying to make itself at home in his mouth at seven.
Rhodey learns that Tony was an experiment in dragon genealogy because his species was dying out and laughs when Tony told him he was never having kids. Two whole families poured everything they had into an experiment in genetics only to have it fail because he didn’t like offspring. Rhodey tells him that zombies came from Haiti and were rumored to be a result of some magic gone wrong. Tony tells Rhodey that dragons were probably the result of a human fucking something it shouldn’t have because humans had some really weird kinks. Rhodey looks up dragon dildos and raises an eyebrow at Tony in question, which leads to a lecture on being insensitive. And no, Tony’s dick did not look like that.
Tony asks Rhodey if his dick would fall off during sex as revenge, which leads to another lecture about sensitivity. Then they watch a zombie movie so Rhodey could point out all the inaccuracies. Tony informs Rhodey that Shrek was as fucked up as everyone thought it was because no, they could not reproduce with donkeys and he was deeply offended when one of his exes asked about it. Tiberius could eat shit; Tony would never fuck a donkey. Rhodey laughs at this for a solid hour before he asks how Tony felt about Eddy Murphy as a dragon. Tony tells him he always loved Mushu. Tony asks how Rhodey feels about the Walking Dead and Rhodey rolls his eyes and goes on a three hour rant about why he hates Rick and why all those zombies were inaccurate. Humans, he argued, would never win a war against hungry zombies because they developed superhuman strength when they had the munchies.
He also learns that Rhodey had a preference for meat thanks to being a zombie and Rhodey learns that Tony’s diverse diet was due to being a dragon. And no, he refused to eat insects even though lots of dragons did. He had pride still.
“So,” Rhodey says on the third week of knowing what the other was, “are you the lizard in a skin suit that humans are always on about taking over the world?” he asks.
Tony starts laughing and sets down his peach- he loved fruits like most lizards. “I guess, yeah. I mean I am effectively a lizard in a skin suit. Have no interest in taking over the world though.”
“Good to know. Do you need like… a heat lamp or something?” Rhodey asks.
Tony shakes his head, “no, but I do need some sun once and awhile. I’d be okay if I went to a beach a few days a month in this form but I’m better off if I do it once a month as a dragon. That’s usually when I have lunch with my mom,” he says.
“So is she a dragon too? Or what went on there, exactly?” Rhodey looks genuinely interested and Tony sighs.
“Yeah, she’s a dragon and she can turn into one too. My dad has all the right genes for it but he never got the dragon form, just the tendency to hoard things. Usually currency. Because we’re dying out their families arranged their get together and they tried to arrange one too but I told them my species could go fuck itself, I’m not reproducing. They told me I was selfish and horrible, I told them they were right, and then I left to go selfish and horrible with my best zombie bud,” Tony says. His mom had hope but Tony wasn’t going to have progeny, he didn’t even like kids. Actually no, he loved kids, what he didn’t love was the possibility of treating them like Howard treated him. Plus he felt no strong need to have a kid so he didn’t want them. He felt parents should want kids before they had them, not be generally neutral or even negative to the idea of having one. Having a kid at that point would be more selfish than having one and treating it like shit just because dragons were rare. His family disagreed, obviously.
*
Rhodey has never been to a family dinner of Tony’s but eventually even he gets uncomfortable with the ‘save the species’ talk. “I think it’s weird you guys are so gung ho to get your kid laid,” he says eventually. Tony snorts into his wine, another thing his parents liked to hoard, and tries to cover it with a laugh.
“Well some of us had to make important sacrifices,” Howard tells Rhodey in a forceful tone, glaring at his son.
“Oh yeah, you got to marry a beautiful woman and blow a load, real sacrificial,” Rhodey says and Maria lets out a small noise of surprise as Tony laughs into his wine again.
“Excuse me?” Howard asks, turning his glare on Rhodey and tightening his grip on his knife.
“You can stab me all you want, man, I’m already dead. And I said that you didn’t make that much of a sacrifice. I spent the afternoon with Maria; she’s funny, smart, beautiful, informed, and educated. As if being married to her is some kind of hardship and neither was your orgasm. So maybe you should act like a single kid changed the whole course of your species. If you really cared you’d have a herd,” Rhodey points out.
“Uh, dragons don’t herd. Or really travel in groups, we like solitude,” Tony says.
Rhodey rolls his eyes, “just let me defend you man, it’s weird that you’ve spent the last hour and a half explaining to your father that you don’t really feel like reproducing.” His parents never harassed him about having little zombie babies. Mostly because they were a real bitch to feed but still.
“There’s no reason he shouldn’t- for the good of the species,” Howard says primly, reiterating his boring argument from before.
“He can’t reproduce,” Rhodey says before Tony can defend himself. “Well, not with a zombie anyways. Could you imagine zombie dragons? Sounds like a bad idea. Also we have twin dongs and no ability to compensate for that,” he says. Tony, who had decided to hide his face in wine, now spits it out across the table, accidentally spraying his mom with it.
Maria looks happy, which contrasted strangely with Howard’s silent fury. “I knew it! Howard stop looking at them like that, if Tony doesn’t want a child we can’t force him to have one. Even if it wasn’t extremely unethical it’s ill advised for dragons to reproduce when they don’t want to. It messes with their fertility. Likely why we had so much trouble conceiving Tony given how interested in parenthood you were,” she says, raising an eyebrow.
“There was nothing wrong with me!” Howard says, offended that Maria suggested there was.
She rolls her eyes though, “Howard I’ve always wanted kids, face the facts. The problem was you. Now Tony, when did you and Rhodey start dating?” she asks, interested in what her son had to say.
Tony opens his mouth then closes it for a moment. Rhodey almost jumps in with a fake story but then Tony decides to jump in with his big mouth and lack of thinking and brilliantly says, “as of about ten seconds ago just to piss Howard off.”
*
Rhodey gives Tony a look and Tony sighs, “what?”
“Really man? I defend your honor and you came at me like that? This is the last time I save your ass,” Rhodey warns him.
“Well it was true! I didn’t even know you were interested,” Tony says in his own defense.
“Oh please, I know you’ve caught me staring at your ass. I’m jealous. All this talk about black people and asses and I’ve got a white people butt,” he mumbles.
Tony snorts and starts laughing, “white people butt? We have diverse butts thank you. But you’re right, mine is definitely a better butt. Still doesn’t make you interested, that just makes you observant.”
“Well now you know I’m interested. I’m not about to date someone who doesn’t know I’m a zombie and I’m not telling someone that on the first date, they’ll ask when the damn apocalypse is,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“I asked that too,” Tony points out.
“And now you know what an insensitive jerk you were,” Rhodey tells him. “Also your father tried to set you up with that poor Christine Everhart person like seventeen times, I had to help a brother out.”
Tony smiles, “well you did meet the family and sufficiently piss off my father. Those are all plusses in my books. Oh, and mom likes you. I know she seems easy to please but that’s because she likes you, if she didn’t you would have known and winning a dragon’s affection is not easy. We have natural trust issues, always thinking people are after our hoards,” he says.
Rhodey snorts and starts laughing, “so that’s why you don’t let anyone lurk around your lab spaces and refuse to give people your designs. That explains everything honestly. And why you always watch me suspiciously when I go into the fridge like I’m seriously about to eat your nasty ass kale and green peppers.”
“You leave my lab alone, people want my knowledge and they aren’t getting it! They’ll use it for evil!” He knew they would, it was what most humans and even most supernatural creatures did. He was just protecting what was his, that was perfectly natural.
“Sure honey, lets go home and watch some Game of Thrones,” Rhodey says.
“Those dragons are not even close to accurate and suggesting we would have some kind of keeper who controls us if offensive,” Tony says automatically and Rhodey laughs.
“Tony the blonde likes the dragons, she’s like the mother of them or something,” Rhodey points out.
“We have no mother dragon except for, you know, our mothers. I’m just saying those dragons are no better than those shitty fairytales in which we get slayed by knights because we were chilling in a castle that also housed some human they wanted,” Tony says as he follows Rhodey along. Rhodey laughs but Tony reminds him of the thirty minute rant he went on after they watched Scouts Guide To the Zombie Apocalypse.
*
“No, Tony we can’t keep him,” Rhodey says. “This is ridiculous, where did you even find him? Put him back there!”
“I can’t just put him back, he’ll die!” Tony says, distressed.
“Well we can’t keep him! Where will he put him?” Rhodey asks.
“I’m right here, you know,” Harley tells them, looking between the two of them.
“We can find a way. We have to keep him though, I’ve decided,” Tony says with a note of finality in his voice.
Rhodey rubs his eyes, obviously wondering how in the world he has gotten to this. He was the one who spent too long staring at Tony’s ass thought so he felt Rhodey brought this upon himself. “Tony we can’t keep a whole child, he has to go back to his parents,” he says. “Oh my god, you kidnapped a child! Tony I love you but you cannot kidnap children because you want them! That’s a crime!” Rhodey says, running his hands over his bald scalp in distress.
“But his parents are dead, we have to keep him. No one in the human world, which is where he’d be shuffled off to, would know how to care for a dragon! We have to take him. My parents would help, they’re always whining and crying about having kids. Now I have one,” he says.
“You still kidnapped a child Tony, go put him back!” Rhodey hisses.
“I have no family,” Harley says.
“See, he has no family. We’re his family now. We can claim he’s my cousin if the cops show up,” Tony says confidently.
“Tony, I swear to god if you start hoarding children we will need to have a discussion,” Rhodey tells him and Tony jumps up in glee, knowing he won this argument.