The smell of corn dogs, popcorn and funnel cake continued permeating the cool February night air.
Rhodey sat waiting on the ferris wheel, going around the giant loop for what felt like the hundredth time. Up and down the ferris wheel went, Rhodey's friends cheering and clapping with every rotation. Their little crowd grew larger as more people probably saw his impulsive tumblr post, declaring his love for someone he had probably never even met before. Most probably came out to gawk and see if he was going to get his heartbroken in public or at the very least get the scoop on who the other gay kid was.
God. The other gay kid.
He was still getting used to being out. He had been hiding this part of himself for so long, constantly fearing that he would say something or do something that would give himself away. He didn't know what that could be, he was still Rhodey after all and his sexuality didn't change that.
He still wanted to go to MIT and eventually join the Air Force. He still put "Africa" by Toto on repeat in the mornings when he picked up his friends to annoy them, drank more coffee than any teenager should and secretly loved trashy daytime talk shows.
It was like his mother had told him. He could breath now. He was finally able to be more of himself than he had been able to be in the last four years, and he would continue being this way whether Blue showed up tonight or not. But he really, really hoped that he did.
What could he say? He was in love.
"He'll show up," his little sister Thea told him that morning as she forced him to try her special Blueberry pancakes that he knew were not a coincidence.
"Yeah, how do you know that?"
She smiled at him and added a couple extra blueberries on top. "Cause you're the nicest, coolest person around. He'd be an idiot not to show and you wouldn't love him if he were an idiot."
Rhodey wished he held her same optimism but he couldn't deny the warmth that flowed through his body at his sister's absolute certainty.
So, here he sat, going around for the nth time, the anxiety in his stomach building with every loop that Blue didn't show.
Carol, Sam and Natasha still cheered whenever they saw him but even Rhodey could tell that their enthusiasm was waning, their faces growing more concerned as they spoke in harsh whispers as the ride made its way back up.
The crowd around them had grown more quiet too. The hooting and teasing tapering off until they all looked at him with outright pity.
Maybe Blue didn't see his post. He had deleted his gmail account, maybe he deleted all of his social media in an effort to continue hiding away, removing all possible traces that could link them back to each other somehow. But EVERYONE had read that blog post.
When he walked into school this morning, backpack slung across his shoulder he knew there were people looking at him and whispering. He caught snatches of conversation.
"Do you think he will show up?"
"That was so brave…"
"I wish someone talked about me the way Jim does about Blue."
So, even if he had willingly ignored all social media, there was no way that he had been able to ignore the entire school talking about it. But what if that had frightened him off further?
Blue was very nervous. He had finally come out to his father over the holidays and he said it went well but Rhodey knew that coming out privately and coming out in a major social setting is an entirely different can of worms. Maybe the attention still was freaking him out and making him hide?
Or worse yet. What if Blue, having found out who he was, was no longer interested in him like that? What if he was disappointed in the guy he had been trading emails with the last six months?
It was real easy to come up with all kinds of preconceived notions and dispositions over email. Rhodey was even guilty of imagining Blue as some larger than life personalities at the school, anytime someone so much as shared a similar interest or taste as Blue had. He had done it with Tony when he mentioned how much he loved Halloween Oreos, he had done it with Steve when he found out he was going out of town for christmas to "the middle of nowhere," and he even had done it to poor, quiet Bruce for being interested in showtunes.
So, what if Blue himself had hyped Rhodey up in his mind and couldn't stand to reconcile that image with the truth?
That would hurt more than anything.
Not being good enough.
With everything that they had shared with each other, Rhodey didn't want to go through that kind of rejection, especially from Blue. He wouldn't be able to take it.
Rhodey flinched as the ferris wheel came to a halting stop, his basket rocking back and forth in front of the platform.
"Sorry, kid, that's the end of the ride. You're out of tickets." The ride operator actually looked at him with pity as he made his way forward to unlock the basket.
The crowd made various disappointing sounds and murmurs, cell phones being put down, no longer recording the spectacle because it was just too pathetic to watch someone get rejected so publically.
"WAIT!" A voice shouted and the crowd began to part.
Rhodey felt his heartbeat pick up, pounding in his chest, hoping that this was finally it. That Blue had finally shown up. He was taken aback when he saw Clint push his way through and leaping onto the platform, bent over and panting from the exertion.
"It's me, Jim. I am Blue and I love you so very much."
The crowd gasped looking back and forth between each other in shock. Had Clint's disastrous Homecoming proposal to Natasha all been some kind of weird and twisted front to hide his sexuality?
Rhodey rolled his eyes and sighed.
"No, you're not Clint."
Clint's face squinted up in pain and he sighed as well. "You're right, I'm not, but this is just so brutal it makes what I did look like a roaring success."
"'Is there a point to this?"
"Oh yeah! Yes! Look, let me pay for one last go. I owe you this at least."
"The very least," Rhodey mumbled as Clint turned toward the carnie and handed him a wad of bills.
"That's enough right? For one last go?" The man nodded his head and Clint turned back to Rhodey and tapped him lightly on the shoulder with his fist. "Go get 'em tiger!"
He actually had the audacity to wink at him.
"Don't touch me, Clint."
"Oh right," he laughed sheepishly and faded back into the waiting crowd.
The ride operator rolled his eyes and turned to the group of young people. "Last call for the ferris wheel..."
The crowd had gone deadly silent. In the distance Rhodey could hear the sound of the screams of people on the rollercoaster as it went around a loop. Music was playing somewhere and game masters called out to passerby's that this might be their lucky night.
"I can't watch this. This is too awful," Sam murmured and hid his face behind his hand.
Natasha shoved his shoulder in annoyance but even she glanced over at Carol with a grimace, wondering what they were going to do if this really was it and Blue didn't show.
Rhodey huffed and laid his head down on the safety bar. He couldn't watch this anymore. He should just get up and go home, hide under his blankets and not come out until graduation. Even then he might not. Maybe not until it was time to pack up and move it to Boston in the fall. This will have blown over by then right?
Images flooded his mind of all the memes and sad gifs that would be generated from this night, going viral, following him to Boston, following him to the Air Force. He would never make officer, never be able to pilot a plane without someone taping a picture of his sad face, sitting alone on this stupid carnival ride in the freezing cold.
"I'd like a ride, if it's not too late."
Rhodey's head shot up and the crowd gasped again, but it was different from when Clint had come bursting his way through in desperation. No, Rhodey knew this voice, and it held the same nervous trepidation to it that always came through whenever he would hide and read his emails.
Blue.
"Oh my god, it's Tony!" Rhodey heard Carol gasp to Natasha with a sense of wonderment.
And there he stood at the edge of the platform, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet in nervous anticipation. His hair was mussed where it looked like he had been running his hands through it constantly, his hands shoved into the front pocket of his dark blue hoodie.
It took a minute for Rhodey's mouth to catch up with his mind, sitting up fully and scooting over a little bit.
"Um. You know I'm waiting for someone right?"
Tony offered him a small smiled and cocked his head to the side, "Yeah, I know."
Stunned Rhodey scooted over completely and Tony came and sat in the basket beside him. They were both not very tall or big people but still their thighs brushed against each other in the confined space and Rhodey felt a rush of warmth from where they touched.
He hazarded a glance back at his friends and they were all wide eyed and smiling. Carol shooting him a thumbs up and blowing a kiss. Rhodey could feel his cheeks start to burn and turned back to Tony beside him.
Tony was watching him with a shy intensity from underneath those long lashes. Rhodey met his gaze and they both smiled again as the carnival operator finished locking the basket and moved to start the ride one last time.
"It's you," Rhodey said wondrously.
"It's me," Tony replied softly, a nervous huff of laughter coming out with his confirmation.
Rhodey couldn't believe that one of his hunches had actually been right. This whole time it had been Tony that he had been baring his soul same Tony that stole french fries off his plate at lunch, and helped everyone with their homework because he was taking all of the advanced placement classes and probably should have been skipped ahead to college long ago, and liked to build robots and gadgets. The same Tony that loved Halloween Oreos and threw big Halloween parties at his house when his parents were out of town.
The same Tony that had teamed up with him to crush everyone at beer pong that night and sing karaoke with. That he had worked up the courage in the mirror to ask if he was Blue, to come out to him so that he could finally kiss him senseless like he had wanted to the entire party, until he had walked in on him half naked with Pepper that is.
"But that night at the party?"
Tony ducked his head and Rhodey could see the blush spreading across his face as he smiled and scrunched up his face. God he was adorable.
"Yeah, I was drunk, and confused. I still thought that this was something that I could change but I can't force myself to be something that I'm not. Pepper is my best friend and honestly it ended like a few minutes after you saw us." He shook his head to clear his mind, remembering that evening with some embarrassment. "I couldn't do it. It's not who I am."
Rhodey understood what Tony was saying. There had been a time when he too thought that he could just will himself to behave and think a certain way so that he could be "normal."
"And you're Jewish too?" Rhodey asked with a grin, remembering his unorthodox Hanukkah excursion with his father when he had come out.
Tony laughed. "Half-Jewish. And barely even that. I think my dad is afraid that Grandma will come back from the grave for him if we don't at least try to honor tradition during the holidays."
"And you're white," Rhodey joked this time dispelling any of the remaining awkward tension.
"I am," Tony grinned again and it was contagious. Rhodey found himself wanting nothing more than to press those soft lips to his own.
"Guess you can't have everything."
And god there it was that same laugh from that night at the party when they cackled their whole way through "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher. Rhodey's heart was pounding with anticipation as they reached the top of the ferris wheel and came to a stop.
"I didn't think you were coming," Rhodey said softly and brushed the tips of his fingers against where Tony's rested on his thigh. Tony reciprocated the touch.
"'I didn't either. I didn't know what I was going to do until I started walking towards you. This whole time I finally realized that I have been worrying and focusing so much on how everyone else would react and what everyone else expected of me. I was denying myself the opportunity be who I really am and to have what I really want."
Tony senses that he has been rambling and tucks his chin in a bit again. Rhodey doesn't say anything, just takes in everything he can about this amazing guy beside him.
Tony's voice comes out in a quiet whisper, his dark eyes darting to look anywhere but directly at Rhodey.
"Are you disappointed that it's me?"
Rhodey would have laughed in his face if he thought that Tony wouldn't have immediately taken it the wrong way. How could this perfect man sit here beside him after Rhodey had spilled his guts online and to everyone he knew about how much he was in love with him? And that had been before he knew it was Tony. Knowing who he was now...his heart was close to bursting.
He couldn't believe that just a few minutes before, Rhodey had been the one worrying that he himself was not good enough.
Rhodey reached his hand out to catch Tony's cheek. His thumb gently brushed against his jawline where patchy attempt at a beard was trying to come through, Tony's eyelids fluttering involuntarily beneath the touch.
"How could you ever disappoint me?"
The sincerity in Rhodey's voice had Tony's lower lip trembling as he turned his head to the side and started to clear the distance between them. Rhodey's lips met his halfway and they both smiled into the kiss as the crowd down below let out a whooping cheer.
Tony pulled back first, his eyes still halfway shut, unable to keep the absolute bliss off of his face.
"I steal clothing. You laugh but I'm serious. Hoodies, shirts, hats. They will all become mine. I drink a ridiculous amount of coffee, I can stay awake for days when I have an idea I want to work on. I only watch cheesy 90's action movies and B science fiction. There is no in between. AC/DC is my idea of relaxing music. I am entirely over affectionate once you get to know me and I am prone to hyperverbality."
Rhodey chuckled lightly to himself at the last one, as if he couldn't see that here and now for himself but he thought Tony's ramblings were precious.
Tony continued to rattle off all of these things, watching Rhodey's face for any sign of disapproval but all that he seemed to find was careful amusement that grew with each potential flaw he listed.
"Is that supposed to scare me away? If anything it's honestly making me love you even more." Rhodey said, cutting off his flow of words.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Rhodey said and cupped Tony's face in his hands again and brought him back to his lips again.
The kiss this time was longer, their lips pressed together and Rhodey knew that he would never get over how soft Tony's lips felt against his. Rhodey moved a hand from Tony's cheek to curl around the hair at the nape of his neck, soft curls sliding through his fingertips as Tony gripped the front of his t-shirt. He moaned softly against him, pulling back for a breath and then diving in for more, tongue brushing against Rhodey, begging for entrance.
They broke apart when the ferris wheel lurched back to life, grabbing each other's shoulders in support as the basket rocked with motion.
The ride operator looked a little red in the face as they made their descent and they both busted out with laughter having almost entirely forgotten where they were and who all could see them.
Rhodey stole one more kiss before the ride reached the bottom and wrapped an arm around Tony's small shoulders to bring in close to his side.
Coming out had been incredibly difficult and oftentimes painful, especially having been outed against his will. He didn't think that he would ever forgive Clint for stealing his voice like that, but after mourning what was and trying to navigate this new world where now everyone knew that he was gay, Rhodey took the control back.
He laid waste to everyone's gossip and preconceived notions as to who he ought to be and instead, fully embraced who he really was.
All of that led him to this moment.
To this night, on this ferris wheel with this man.
Tonight was the first night that Rhodey could say that he was finally able to sit back and let himself breathe like his mother told him he could.
He ran a hand through Tony's hair and pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head and felt him sigh against his chest.
This was where he was meant to be and who he was meant to be with, and he couldn't wait to finally start living the next part of his life without the old fear that had always held him back.
They would navigate this new world together.