00:00:00 | The Bird and the Playboy
A fucking rich boy! Sam is so angry she could spit. She did know of the black man next to him. He was military as well.
“Tony Stark! Nice to meet ya!" His voice echoed after her and she stopped, turning around incredulously.
Storming back over to him, she jabs him in the chest with her finger. “You’re shitting me right? Son of the Howard Stark?”
Hazely-brown eyes narrow and she clenched her hands, staring at him.
A pen is pulled out and she is jotting down her number. “I go back overseas in three days.”
She’s gone again, disappearing into the crowd in a whorl of curls and anger.
She vanished, heading to the pub down the road. She needed a drink to clear her head of the knowledge she was bound to the son of the richest man in America.
Tony’s smile falls a bit when she mentions his father, because why does that have to be what catches her attention why, accepting the number in a bit of a daze, opening his mouth to— to, he doesn’t know, apologize for something or explain or even invite her out for coffee, but she’s gone before he gets the chance, which is just as well.
At least like that she maybe hasn’t noticed how he’s frozen up a bit.
"You okay?” Rhodey asks, and Tony purses his lips, then shrugs.
“I met my soulmate just now, Rhodey. And I just, I don’t know, but I expected it to, to feel awesome. Nirvana, y’know? Not like I just stepped in dog shit because I’ve been defined as son of Howard Stark again.”
Rhodey makes a sympathetic noise, putting his arm around Tony’s shoulder and pulling the younger boy along with him. “Gotta get to know her, give it some time, all that jazz. Just text her tonight and see what’ll happen.”
Tony nods, tightening his grip on the number again. If he lost it—
"She’s a Corporal, Rhodey, and gorgeous.” He playfully pushes his elbow into his friend’s side, all grins and silly teenager again. “It’s okay to be jealous.”
"Yeah, yeah, just text her, you idiot.”
Which Tony does, later, though he also writes, deletes and re-writes the text four times before he ends up sending anything. This is way harder than any of his classes.
[text: Corporal] Got time to meet up before you leave? T.
He takes a breath, and then, because he’s a compulsive texter, shoots some texts after that in rapid-fire succession.
[text: Corporal] If you feel like it, I mean, you don’t have to, or anything.
[text: Corporal] We can just text I guess? Learn each other’s fave colors and middle names and whatever random shit we can come up with.
[text: Corporal] I built a robot once, he can learn, you should meet him sometime.
“Oh my god,” he says, quietly, looking at that last text, “why am I even allowed a phone I can’t be trusted with that thing this is terrible—”
She finds drinking doesn’t help and takes to walking the streets, dressed in a leather bomber and blue jeans.
Her phone buzzed with an unknown number.
[text - unknown] yeah sure.
[text - starkly one] Im out in central park if you want to meet me there.
[text - starkly one] I might be a bit drunk rn.
[text - starkly one] I’d love to meet him.
She flops down in the grass and stares at the sky. She doesn’t know what possessed her to tell him where she was, except she was lonely. She was leaving for the middle-east in a few days, not likely to come back.
She rolled over and looked at her phone [text - starkly one] im sorry about my attitude at the college today. it was rude of me and you didn’t derserve it
