True to his word, they have the next meeting in one of the Bain family houses in dry Arizona, where even the lizards beg for water, as Ty likes to say.
Everything is fine, their first moves have worked well. Tony putting pressure on the military has won Lex a few hundred thousand in stocks, and that was just a test run. Both have bigger plans that are already promising.
Ty's idea has also gone well, and with the help of Whitney, a few enemies of both his and Sunset's are having pretty unfortunate rumours circling right now. With some assistance from Tony, they are also sex offenders in at least 10 states, (the fun is figuring out which).
There are no problems, and soon people are filling out into the arid desert air, where a line of glinting cars wait, ready to whisk the affluent teenagers to somewhere with air-con.
"Hey, Whit," Tony stops her from following the others and leaving.
"Tony?" she returns, turning around.
He's grinning, sly like a cat and with a certain childish joy that she hasn't seen on him for a long time. "When I first saw you come out of that cute little corvette, do you know what I thought?"
She plays along to his game, batting her eyelashes and leaning forward.
His smirk grows wider. "I thought you had done it. You had convinced everyone you're a little, defenceless kitten, led only by daddy's trust fund and high teas."
She half-jerks back. She had been expecting some leered comment or a proposition for sex. Not...whatever that was. "What?"
"I remember the fierce little thing when we were younger. You wouldn't bow down to anyone, and now your back is bent."
"You don't know anything about me, Tony," she spits, swinging her bag onto her shoulder.
He frowns, "is that not nice?"
That stops her. "What?" she asks again.
He looks confused, "I..I was trying to be nice. Was that not a nice thing to say?"
She closes her eyes and almost weeps, because now she realises that apart from a few charity galas, he has not had much genuine human interaction. His snobby schools are not the best place to get that, home is no better, and anyone he meets knows him as the press paints him, partying every weekend, sleeping with any girl that smiles at him. "No, Tony," she whispers hoarsely, "it's okay."
"What bit was bad?"
"You said I was bending down to everyone. The bit before, about knowing me when I was younger, that was...okay. Not the best, but okay."
"Oh," she can see him processing the information for a split-second, but then his face is clear. "Thank you," he says cordially, and goes to leave.
This time, she stops him, "want to know what I think of you?"
He grins slickly and says smoothly, "oh, please, and be honest."
She opens her mouth to say something sweet and fitting into her box, but what spills out is so extraordinarily different she has to stop and blink. "I think you're so twisted up you don't even know what you feel, who you are. You don't even have a clue on how to get there, every try is a dead end and you're lost again in press smiles and those suits that your father makes you wear. "
He does not surprised, not even hurt, just tired.
"You were happy, once," he says, moving forward to rest his palm on her cheek. "You were young and free, and you would run down to the beach and play with the other children in the sea, but now…" he blinks, and it's like he's looking into her, "you're the same as me. Lost. Your version of yourself is somewhere between housewives' gossip and that grinning ten-year-old, uncaring about manners."
She flinches back and he leaves.
"Tony," she says, catching him outside his favourite diner in New York. He freezes, violet sunglasses (where the hell did he get those?) halfway down his nose, sending watery purple shadows down his cheeks.
"Whitney," he says back, voice even.
"I...I know we didn't really —" she stutters, unsure how to say anything. Tony is a force, and when he is happy it's amazing, warmth, and magnetism drawing you into his path like a celestial body, a gravitational orb that you cannot help but get pulled into. She used to think he might be magic, watching him at galas, the people swirling around him, controlling the crowd like the moon does to the sea. When he is angry, it is the opposite. There is something in the back of your mind screaming, get away! Get away! Even if he's not doing anything even remotely dangerous, the alarms still blare.
"Make up?" he supplies, and his cool tone is almost friendly, but it lacks... something, that something that makes it Tony. This is only a shell, something not even the people he hates is given.
"Yeah."
"Yeah," he sighs, looking bored, and Whitney curls in on herself. Tony has a way of making her feel like an ant, tiny, inconsequential, and about to be squished under his shoe.
"If you wanna — do...something?" she was going to ask to the movies, a normal, date type thing.
"Like what?"
At least that's not a blatant dismissal. "The movies?"
His lip curls, "that's...awfully civilian." If it was said in the last tone, it would have made Whitney turn tail and run, but now it has just the start of Tony again, and she smiles, gaining confidence.
"Sue me, I feel like being normal sometimes," she shrugs.
"Wanna buy me dinner, first?" he jerks his head at the doors and Whitney blushes.
"Well, sure."
He smiles, that press smile, learned from his mother and not his father, and Whitney at least preens at that. It's not Tony, but it's good enough, for now.
Later, when the sky is streaked with the most fantastic sunset, all pink and purple splashed onto the canvas of the sky like a mistake but that can't be a mistake, it's practically holy, divinity in a few fleeting moments, they stand in an alley and try to pretend they don't know what about to happen.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and it's only sad because the end is already there, standing and staring, tapping a clock on it's wrist. There is no honeymoon period, no happiness, no giddiness, just flat time, energy sapped just by looking down the long road. This is bound to end, and they both know it. Whether it ends badly is anyone's guess.
Tony closes his eyes and tries to convince himself that this is a good idea.
He's never been good at following advice, not even his own.
He leans forward and so does she. They are locked in a standstill, the quivering moment before their lips touch is strung out like a taut line, each breath warm and suspended between their mouth. Inhaling each other with every breath, Whitney dares to romanticise.
Then the moment is broken and their lips are on each other's.
It's everything that Tony thought it would be: nothing.
No spark, no fire, just a kiss. No zing of heat, not electricity, just Whitney's admittedly smooth lips on his. Any other horny teenage boy would call it heaven, lip-locked with a girl like Whitney, smooth and tan and beautiful. He would just call it...life. Huh, he really is living up to that moniker, Playboy-genius-millionaire - that's what the papers are calling him, right? Emphasis on playboy.
It's a good kiss, but it's nothing like what they used to describe in the romance novels he used to steal from his mama's bedside table.
He didn't really expect anything else, although he is tired of feeling nothing.
He still can't convince himself to stop trying.
He and Whitney go to that movie, and Tony supposes it's a date, but he just...doesn't care. Even when he drops her off and she looks up at him with those blue, blue eyes and says, "I had a lot of fun with you tonight, Tony."
Tony figures this is the spot in the movies where he kisses the girl goodnight. So, for once in his life, he plays along and kisses her soft and slow and gentle outside her plated door, 291. And when she pulls back at the end, flushed and pink, with sparkling, joyful eyes, he figures he's done something right, for once.