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Out of all the problems that could arise at the intersection of the superhero life and his marriage, Tony didn’t expect the secret identity to end up being most prevalent.
There was a row of other, more serious issues. Take, for example, his initial decision to become a vigilante: Rhodey took hard his choice to end weapons manufacturing, and so they fought and fought, and Tony didn’t tell his husband about the Iron Man until it was too late. But they figured it out, in the end. After everything — Obie’s betrayal, secret agents’ appearance, Tony’s almost death — they talked, long and proper, and Rhodey held his hands and told him, awed, that Tony is the craziest and noblest husband a man could have. It was nice. They had tons of make-up sex after the I’m so happy you’re not dead sex.
Then, of course, there was the poisoning — and Tony, frightened to his guts and unable to deal with that, tried to do what he always did best: lie. He hid the truth from his husband, started to wear t-shirts in bed, and initiated fights to alleviate suspicion. He knew he should have told Rhodey, of course; but every second of thinking about it — the end of the life he finally started to turn around, the end of the best thing that had ever happened to him — was too painful to bear. So he lied; he planned for what was to come, building a new suit with his Rhodey’s measurements and figuring out his will. It didn’t matter, in the end. Rhodey knew him too well — learned to look through his bullshit a long time ago — and so he found him out. So he held him after changing the smoked reactor — and then raided the aforementioned secret agents’ headquarters in the stolen (oh, come on, Tones, it literally has voice activation with my voice only) suit to find a cure.
In short, Tony’s husband was the fucking best. He wasn’t even that mad.
Tony was alive. Iron Man and War Machine teamed up to blast all the supervillains off the surface of the earth. It was incredibly badass. And as a cherry on top — Rhodey was now a part-time superhero, and that meant less time spent away from home. Life was good. Life was perfect. They gathered a team of similar weirdos around them, including one icy remnant of good old days who definitely wasn’t featured on the walls of Tony and Rhodey’s old college flat. They saved the world from an alien invasion. Nothing seemed amiss.
So when Steve Rogers, Captain Apple Pie and Goodness himself, cornered Tony with a worried expression and told him, in a voice both awkward and sorrowful, that his husband cheated on him with Iron Man, Tony was utterly unprepared.
But Tony missed some things here, didn’t he?
The thing was, Rogers turned out their biggest fan and queer ally, to Tony’s great surprise. He adored Rhodey — which was just a normal way of things, Rhodey was awesome and prone to cause adoration in people — and when he learned that they were a couple, his attitude towards Tony himself warmed up several degrees. Which— understandable, sure. It was great for the team spirit. It was also pretty great for internal politics, since after that, Steve became one of the loudest advocates for gay rights — thus definitely influencing the end of DADT. The symbol for the American military, protesting homophobia? Yeah, the US Army needed to uphold its image.
So, Steve was America’s favorite queer icon despite his straightness; he even officiated their wedding. Which seemed on point, since the last time they did that — still in the nineties, making vows to each other in the Rhodes family’s backyard — it was Tony’s beloved godmother who proclaimed them husband and husband. This time, however, it was a bit more public. And legal, too.
It was amazing. Rhodey became the first openly gay superhero. The press loved them — even Tony got more approval than ever in his life. Time printed their wedding photos on its cover several times.
The thing was — that was Tony and Rhodey’s wedding. They were the power couple of a new age — the beloved superhero War Machine (Iron Patriot didn’t take off, ha, take that!) and the Avengers’ sponsor and benefactor. Iron Man, their friend, Tony’s bodyguard, and the hottest superhero (okay, who cares that it was an unofficial rating, people spoke their truth) didn’t count in that. He wasn’t even present at their wedding!
So yeah, Tony may have misjudged some things. But the idea of telling the truth — coming out as Iron Man to the world, even the team — still made him freeze in fear, the memory of Obie— Stane covering over him, hand on the reactor — too bright and visceral in his mind. He couldn’t bear it. He would, someday— nothing really stopped him anymore— but it was fine. It wasn’t a problem. Was it?
So, perhaps, there was a little problem, after all. Perhaps, one day after a mission, Tony took a risk too many, and Rhodey lost his shit there for a moment, and then, when they both were on the ground, he told JARVIS to open Tony’s helmet and kissed him senseless — right on the street. It wasn’t a very populated street. More of an alley, really. So they were fine— perfectly fine. Nobody saw a thing.
Apparently not, Tony thought, nervous laughter threatening to burst out of him. Steve looked at him, worried and nervous, and reached with an awkward hand to pat his shoulder.
“You may not be fighting among us, but you’re just as an Avenger as me,” he said, absolutely sincere in that annoying way of his. “I’m sorry you have to find out like this. And, well, if you need anything, we’re always here for you.”
It was a nice sentiment, really. Tony was touched. Tony was also thrown between laughter and panic. Mostly panic.
“Yeah, Cap,” he replied at last. “Thanks, really, for the information, but you’re mistaken. Nothing is—”
“I saw it with my own eyes. I’m sorry, Tony.”
Fuck. So he needed to tell him, right? It was fine. Steve was his friend. And he liked both sides of him — Tony and Iron Man alike, so it was all good—
“It’s consensual,” Tony blurted out.
What.
“What?” Steve frowned.
“I mean. Rhodey and Iron Man? I know. I’m into it. I mean— this is all fine? We all love each other?”
What the fuck. What the fuck are you doing, Tony asked his mouth.
Steve’s eyebrows, meanwhile, went to his hairline, and his face slowly grew pink.
“Oh.”
“Right.”
He still could fix it, right? He still could say— I’m sorry, I’m being weird, actually what I meant is that I’m Iron Man, and we’re in a totally happy monogamous relationship. Easy.
“Well,” Steve added. “That’s very brave of you. I’m sorry for assuming. And that makes sense, I guess, you three were at the roots of this… Right. Should, ah, we tell the team? I’m certain nobody would put it against you, and even they will, I’ll talk to them—“
“Yep. Sure. You can tell them,” Tony said, his voice a little too high-pitched.
“Great. I’ll do it then— they were really worried about you two. And thank you for trusting me with it, Tony. It means a lot. I support you, you know.”
And with another awkward pat, Steve disappeared, leaving Tony alone and contemplating what in the hell was his life.
Rhodey laughed at him for half an hour. No, really. Tony timed it.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Tony sighed, but deep down he was pleased that his husband was, as usual, undeterred by Tony’s bullshit. “I need to tell them, don’t I?”
At that, Rhodey grew serious.
“You don’t have to. Not until you want to.”
“But this is— I mean, what do we do? Play it up, tell stories about our loving threesome?”
“I think the right term is menage a troi. A threesome is just sex, isn’t it?”
“It has the right meaning, Colonel, however, the most popular would be a throuple or a triad,” JARVIS chimed.
“Glad that you’re so sure in the linguistics of it,” Tony grumbled at them and hid his face in his hands.
Rhodey’s hand, tender as always, found its way into his hair.
“Come on. We’ll get through it. I can play it up if you want, no biggie. Or wear your suit as I used to. And they’ll chill after a while. There are more entertaining things in life than your teammates’ love life.”
“Yeah, but— it all could be avoided if only I was normal about this,” Tony waved at the suit.
If only he could be out with it, as Rhodey did — if he wasn’t such a coward. Fearing a ghost of his dead godfather. Fuck, Howard was right about him, wasn’t he?
“You were never normal about anything in your life. That’s why I love you.”
“Do you? I recall some complaints about me being offputting and insane—”
“Shut it, we’re having a moment here.”
Rhodey just laughed. And suddenly, it was so easy to forget, to run from those thoughts and just laugh with him; so they did, and then decided to fuck with the team a little more.
It wasn’t a big deal. Clint made some truly horrible jokes, Thor sincerely congratulated them, Natasha looked as if she saw through the both of them but didn’t say a word. Bruce didn’t care at all, and for that Tony was grateful.
Steve started a few protests for polyamorous marriages to be legal. The red faces of Fox News reporters were hilarious.
“How did that even happen?” Clint asked at the next team dinner, with Tony in the suit sipping from his straw and Mr. Stark “too busy” to attend. “You and Stark have been together since, like, the dinosaurs’ time. Was it a midlife crisis? Spicing up things in the bedroom?”
“Clint,” Steve reprimanded from his place.
“It was very dramatic, actually,” Rhodey answered in a perfectly serious voice as Tony hurried to remove his straw to answer first. “We’ve known Iron Man for ages, and he and I had a thing in college— well, not really, but there was tension, you know. There were feelings. My mother liked him, what more can I say? But then Tony stole me right from under his nose.”
“So he was the initial boyfriend stealer?”
“Wait a minute—” Tony tried to intercept, but to no avail.
The team’s faces were fixated on Rhodey.
“Oh yeah. Heartbreaker, that man. So that was the history— and, well, you know how it went. Iron Man,” a generous gesture to his side, “saved Tony’s life in Afghanistan, Tony made him a suit, and they found their own chemistry… We — me and him, I mean — rediscovered our past thing; those were confusing years. And you know both of them have that self-sacrificing streak, so they basically played a game of ball there. With me as a ball.”
Rhodey shook his head, tense.
“It was hard, emotionally. But we got through it.”
Somebody placed a head on Rhodey’s; everyone made sympathetic sounds. Tony didn’t see who; he was too busy staring at his asshole husband’s face.
“So you guys are like, everyone is into each other? Not both of them with you?”
“Oh yes. Tony and Iron Man are deeply in love,” Rhodey nodded with his most perfect somber face.
“You’re enjoying this,” Tony accused him as they left the room. “Aren’t you?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rhodey told him, a serene smile on his face. “I was protecting our secret.”
“Like hell you are,” Tony grumbled. “Well, that introduces another problem.”
“What’s that?”
“We now need to show off me and Iron Man. Well, me and Tony. God, that is confusing…”
“I could wear your suit,” Rhodey waved him off, unperturbed.
“Yeah-yeah.”
“You gotta admit that’s a little funny, though.”
Tony opened his helmet to send him a glare. Rhodey just grinned.
“People who think you’re a sane one in this relationship are deeply, deeply wrong.”
“All part of my evil plan.”
“Sure.” Tony rubbed his forehead. “But okay, you’re right. This is mildly entertaining.”
See? He was able to make compromises. No matter how he would grumble afterward, when Rhodey let out an incredibly annoying whoop.
Tony’s opinion about their masquerade, however, varied over time.
“You know you can tell me anything,” Steve told Iron Man the next time they trained together, and Tony felt his heart go down. “About your relationship or anything else. It doesn’t need to be a secret.”
It wasn’t an offended tone — Tony wasn’t sure Steve even had that one, but whatever. It was too much, wasn’t it? He should have told them.
“I know,” he sighed. “It’s not about you, mind you, just— it’s complicated.”
“I get that in this job it’s hard to trust people—”
“I trust you with my life,” Tony interrupted. “But it’s different. I have, well— I told someone close to me once, who I am— about Iron Man. It didn’t end well. He tried to kill me, actually.”
His breathing became harder, and so he stopped, turned away from Steve and closed his eyes.
“I wish I could tell you.”
His stupid, stupid brain.
A hand laid on his shoulder — the suit’s shoulder, and Tony didn’t feel the touch, but the sight of it was comforting.
“You are my friend,” Steve said. “And whatever you’re going through, I support you. You don’t have to tell us, whatever your reasons are. And I’m glad that you have Jim and Tony.”
Tony chuckled.
“They’re good people. You deserve to have them.”
“Oh yeah. I’m thrilled to have them. Especially when I have them at the same time—”
“Oh come on,” Steve groaned. “Tony really rubbed on you, didn’t he?”
“He did,” Tony grinned. “Many, many times.”
That earned him another groan and a facepalm.
“You walked right into this one,” he added, unashamed.
If only his father could see him now — terrorizing Captain America with bad convoluted masturbation jokes. What even was his life.
“I take my words back. I never want to see any of you three again. Maybe Rhodes, but not you two.”
Tony just cackled. Okay, Steve was just too easy, sometimes.
When Rhodey walked inside his workshop, Tony was surviving on barely four hours of sleep, stuck deep in the disassembled suit and half-drenched in lemonade.
“Should I ask?”
“The automated feeding system is still a bust,” Tony grunted. “But I’ll defeat it. Soon. As long as this will go— fuck!”
Okay, so maybe it was one of those times when Tony, high on the euphoria of getting a new idea, forgone important stuff like a working body; and, right, he wasn’t a teenager anymore. All-nighters were so much funner in college.
“What—?” Rhodey walked to him. “Huh. Pretend to drink something without actually drinking it? Might be good for a supervillain who politely asks you to drink their poisoned cocktail. But there’s no space inside for that mug. Unless you hold it in your mouth.”
“I’ll hold you in my mouth,” Tony replied. Unfortunately, it didn’t sound as suggestive as he wanted it to— Rhodey’s eyes sparked with tenderness more than desire. “Well, actually, that might be good. You’ll be surprised how many times I ended up in a fancy and potentially murderous party in the suit— but no. This is for the suit to be able to drink a refreshing beverage on our date.”
“Our date?”
“Yep. Me, you and him,” Tony gestured at the suit. “The power throuple of the century. America’s sweethearts. Our illicit open marriage.”
“Right,” Rhodey nodded. “One question, though. Who will be piloting the suit?”
Tony stopped, considering. Yeah, he might have overlooked some parts of his plan— well.
“J?”
“Yes, sir?” JARVIS answered with an air of a person regretting ever being born— in his case, made.
“Want to have a threesome with me and Honeybear?”
JARVIS made a pause — just for the theatrics of it.
“That was my long-time dream, sir. I breathed in anticipation of you asking.”
“Peachy, then. What do you say, platypus?”
Rhodey leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. That was nice, Tony decided. It became marginally harder to keep his eyes open.
“I say we go to bed first,” his husband said, petting his head. “And then we’ll talk more about adding your firstborn to the relationship.”
The date was perfect. Tony wore one of his more extravagant suits and booked them a table in a restaurant that had food fine enough that Rhodey didn’t complain about over-the-top service. JARVIS was perfect. He added to the conversation in a generated voice that was uncannily similar to Tony’s but also just enough politely sarcastic to throw them off.
Rhodey insisted they hold Iron Man’s hands for half the time they were there.
It was a long time since their last proper outing: habits of their shared life and busy schedule sometimes overshadowed the romance. Now, giggling and snickering like children, involved in this crazy plot, they returned, in part, to their first days— still at school, two awkward boys trying to change their ride-or-die familiar friendship into something different, scary but promising.
“Champagne, please,” Tony asked the waiter, who was eyeing the three of them, clearly trying to figure out what Iron Man was doing on their date. “A good one, please. And, right, a straw. Do we have any with us? I should figure out a retractable one. Perfect for takeouts. Metal, in bright gold, to fit the theme— or maybe several ones? Like, one for fancier occasions, classy, and another for more casual outings. Style it like these classic striped ones— ooh, thanks.”
Rhodey was hiding his laughter as Tony talked — and shame on him, the straw was a brilliant idea, he ended up without a drink too many times after a mission. He only stopped when the waiter brought his food, but Iron Man — or, well, JARVIS (and god, wasn’t that confusing?) — added:
“Make it intravenous. It’ll leave me without the need to ever open the helmet. And helpful for the medical.”
Which was said in a perfect tone — Tony’s own manner thrown back at him — but the idea itself didn’t bring him joy. JARVIS, that sneaky child of him, was planning to use that to make Tony get his meds, wasn’t he?
“Oh no,” Rhodey was already interrupting. “This slope leads to turning into a cyborg and too much body horror. Don’t you two start. Haven’t you read enough sci-fi?”
“I do have critique in mind for some of Asimov’s work,” JARVIS said with a more prominent British accent — nobody was in their hearing range — and Tony burst into snickers.
It seemed so long ago now — their college days, the nights of reading favorite robot stories to barely born JARVIS, the first moments of intimacy, when their friendship grew into something unfamiliar, with careful touches and butterflies in the stomach.
Tony watched his husband laugh, a glass of champagne in hand, and thanked the fate. Whatever insane, comic book-style, ridiculous things life threw at them, the core did not change. Rhodey was always beside him, loved and loving, always there.
It was unsurprising he was getting sappy.
The paparazzi photos of their date became an overnight success.
The team awkwardly put a сut-out from the paper on a wall of the common floor, and Tony made a show of pretending to swipe a tear and thanking them for their support. He didn’t even feel like an asshole about it — much. At first, he hoped that they would grow bored of caring about it, but Thor kept congratulating him on bagging two mighty warriors, and Clint couldn’t stop the threesome jokes, so yeah. That was on them.
He framed the cut-out, however. It looked nice.
But the Avengers weren’t the only ones to care: after a few days of frantic reactions, the Internet came up with nicknames for their triad.
“Iron fam sounds nice,” Tony told Rhodey as he sat near his husband and shamelessly put his legs on his lap, all that while idly scrolling through his Twitter.
“Coming from the man who dissed Iron Patriot—”
“Uh, yeah, because it’s lame— oh my god, that is hilarious—”
“What?”
“You know what name wins that poll?” Tony lifted his head and stared, dead-eyed, into his husband’s face. “IronyMachine.”
“Yeah, that is an apt description.”
When Pepper met him backstage at the conference they needed to attend, he was wearing a new shirt with Irony Machine written on it in big blocky letters.
“Should I ask?”
“Me and Rhodey are having sex with Iron Man.”
“That’s still a no on opening that sex toy line—”
“Not like that—”
“Don’t care, don’t want to know. Remember to sanitize the suit before you go out wearing it, especially to the press— Hello, hello, it’s so great to be here. Shall we start?”
The crowd cried, and Pepper smiled her thousand watts smile, perfectly poised as usual, so Tony only managed to mouth I’ll explain later before he was thrown to the sharks.
Thankfully, the interest in their love life died in the end. The team didn’t want to investigate them, for which Tony was immensely grateful, and soon the trolling became boring. Nobody gave a damn. Clint got tired of the jokes. Life turned to the routine — supervillains, saving the world, all that. Steve kept doing his polyamory protests, but Tony thought that he was enjoying the atmosphere and a free chance to punch a cop, at that point.
So Tony stopped caring; the fear of being discovered was gone, and he didn’t prepare a ton and a half excuses and scenarios for every meeting with the team anymore. He trusted them, and the prospect of them knowing didn’t seem so numbingly horrifying. Their reactions alone to the news showed what they thought of him — both Tony and Iron Man.
And, in the end, when Tony was shot down in the middle of a fight and his suit disintegrated around him, it wasn’t fear — more like a relief — that flooded him at the sight of Steve’s shocked face.
“Tony? Are you— is Iron Man— what—?”
“Right,” he drawled. “So, about my marriage…”