Author's Note: Content! More content! Content with a kick! Content with a…

So I did a thing. This is it, jam-packed with flashbacks. What can I say? I love a good backstory. If you don't like flashbacks, then skip over the italicized portion.

This comes in as one of the largest chapters I've ever written, at well over 5,000 words. But don't worry, you will get to see the platypus reveal. Special thanks to all of you who read, review, follow and favorite the story! You know who you are. Each and every one of you make writing this worth it.

Enough of the sappy stuff, folks. Enjoy!

Natasha was left in an empty gym when the group of three disbanded. They had finally made a retirement joke about Steve and Clint that told her everything she needed to know. Her oldest friend was undoubtedly back at home on his midwestern farm with the family that she had also missed being a part of.

What if Tony and I split up? We could get more done with our own friends and family by ourselves.

Natasha's train of thought was abruptly cut off by the sound of Tony screeching out her name. She rushed to where he was flying through the hallways and they collided, bouncing off of each other in midair.

"What is it, Tony? I did some eavesdropping on Rogers, Barnes, and Wilson in the gym and you need to know-"

"SorryaboutthatitcanwaitjustcomewithmereallyquicklyyougottaseethisNat!" he yelped.

"Can you repeat that, except slowly?" Natasha asked, wildly confused as to what Tony spat out.

"No time- Rhodey- toilet- now!" Tony gasped, grabbing her by the hand and shooting back to Rhodey's rooms.

James Rhodes was taking a break from the seemingly never-ending series of forms and other mind-numbing important papers to fill out when a flood of memories hit him like a freight train. He sat down on a nearby bench outside of Pepper's official office and closed his eyes, reminiscing.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, decades ago…

A much younger James Rhodes returns to his dorm room and AC/DC blaring. A tinier version of Tony Stark is standing on top of his desk, playing an imaginary guitar to the music and kicking his papers and homework everywhere.

"Tony! What are you doing?"

"Rhodey! I told you I would be studying when you got back, and I heard about this one study on, um, how multitasking is a great idea, so I decided to throw on some music, and this really isn't what it looks like…"

"Tony, do I need to get you some mouthwash?"

"No, why would I need mouthwash?"

"Because you're talking a whole lot of bullshit and I can smell it from here. I brought back some snacks, so let's just try and study for finals."

"Snacks! Thank you, my dearest platypus! And we both know we're gonna ace finals anyway, so how about we enjoy these last couple of weeks we have together before we leave for summer break and then at long last reunite in the fall?" Tony said dramatically.

"You would make a killing as an actor, Tones. But seriously, we both need to review. The professors aren't going to make it easy for the students who think they can just wing it. Heck, there's even a rumor going around campus that one of the teachers accidentally made his study guide word for word from the final exam in his course. That's just even more motivation to just start studying already. Neither of us can afford to screw this one up, okay?"

"Okay. I'll get the radio if you pass me the chips."

"Deal."

They managed to get twenty solid minutes of studying before Tony started to get antsy. Rhodey could tell that he was internally stressing out about his schoolwork but trying to pass it off with his nonchalant attitude towards the exams. Tony wasn't nearly as subtle as he thought he was, and it certainly didn't help that he had been acting strangely in their shared classes over the upcoming tests.

"Alright. Let's take a break," said Rhodey. "Is there anything you want to do before we get back to it?"

Tony looked up, surprised. "Well, there is one thing I wanna do…"

"What is it?"

"Can we go up to the roof and set some of our old papers on fire? I already have a firepit set up, and a couple of fire extinguishers... and some lighters… and some hairspray if we want to make improv flamethrowers…" Tony said, somewhat embarrassed and shy.

"You had this planned, didn't you?"

"Yeah…" he replied sheepishly. "If you don't wanna we don't have to…"

"It sounds great already, man. Let's go." At that, Tony lit up with a wicked grin that almost made him regret agreeing to it.

Almost.

And so Rhodey was introduced to Tony's war on paperwork. Thankfully, the two managed to escape notice from campus police and not set a building on fire. The partially burned off eyebrows, however, were another story, and caught a lot of questioning glances from students and staff alike. It certainly wasn't the last time that Tony pulled off something entertaining with important papers he didn't want to work on.

Stark Enterprises Building. California.

Rhodey walked into Tony's seldom used office on business from the military. They wanted designs for a new stealth missile capable of destroying an entire city and escaping detection until the very last second. Justin Hammer's company had already bungled the job with a series of duds and weapons too heavy to get themselves off of the ground, and he had hoped that Tony hadn't heard about that mess quite yet. He knocked on the door and heard a far too enthusiastic "Come in!" than to his liking.

He opened the door and promptly ducked as a paper airplane soared over his head. Tony cackled from his desk, feet propped up and another one prepared for throwing. Rhodey cussed under his breath.

"Rhodey! What a pleasure it is to see you this fine Thursday morning. Oh, and did you hear about that one missile HammerTech utterly failed at making for the government? What. A. Shame. Honey Bear, if they wanted it done right, they should have came to me," Tony flashed a winning smile and stood up, arms spread wide. "I wonder if that has anything to do with your visit."

"You got me there, you little shit." Rhodey embraced his friend. "What's with the paper airplanes, Tones?"

"Pepper dropped off some order forms I have to sign off on. They're done, she isn't expecting them until later, so I thought that a little bit of rebellion might cure the boredom. I even arranged them in neat little rows all over my desk by design. Let's talk and fly a few."

It was a very entertaining meeting, despite Rhodey's initial protests. They eventually came to a decision after hitting each other with paper airplanes, throwing them at targets all around the room, and trying to outdo each other's designs. Only much later did Rhodey realize that there was a paper airplane somehow stuck in the leg of his pants. It was mailed back a few days later, not to Tony but to Pepper. The look on Tony's face when he was confronted about the paper airplane that should have been signed and turned in days earlier must have been priceless, because the passive-aggressive thank you letter from Pepper certainly was.

Avengers Compound, 2017.

Rhodey hated meetings with Ross, holographic or not, and he knew that Tony felt the same way. Lately, however, Tony was acting very strangely at meetings, namely because they were concerning Spider-Man. He knew that there was something going on between his friend and the vigilante, seeing as there was no way that the kid had been recruited to fight during the Avengers' 'Civil War', escaped Ross' notice for so long, gotten help during incidents on a ferry and on the beach of Coney Island, and acquired a high-tech suit without Tony's help. Ross had given Tony an ultimatum: Bring Spider-Man in and have him sign the Accords or get in big trouble and have someone else do the job for him. Ross had even sent forms to leave a paper trail, which had taken months to draft, and had digital copies of backup drafts if something had happened to the paper copies he had sent. There was no getting out of this for Tony.

Or so Ross had thought.

Tony was already late to the meeting when he walked in, carrying two baskets. One of them had the compliance and acceptance forms, and the other had a blender and fresh fruits. Murmurs spread throughout the other projections of people at the table and Ross scowled. Rhodey concealed his light amusement.

"Stark."

"Ross. I imagine my family name is rather unforgettable, nice to see that you haven't done the impossible and failed to recall it."

The general was fuming already. If you asked Rhodey, this was shaping up to be either hilarious, a disaster, or a potentially explosive combination of the two.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Oh. This stuff? It's my breakfast. Hey FRIDAY, pull up my recipes and the original shared files of the forms. Let's talk business," Tony replied. Rhodey could tell that he was up to no good with his passive-aggressive and apathetic behavior, but it was the subtle, nervous quavering in his voice that gave it away. What was he trying to do?

Ross' eyebrow twitched as he began his speech. Some nonsense about Spider-Man being a danger to the public until he signed the Accords. Tony prepared a smoothie, and just as Ross launched into the angry portion dragging Spider-Man's name through the mud, Tony started blending.

"As I was saying, Spider-Man is a reckless, unregistered vigilante who-"

VRR-RRR rrrr!

"Ahem! Just as a trustworthy source says, Spider-Man is a menace capable of destroying-"

VRR-RRR rrrr!

"According to the-"

VRR-RRR rrrr!

"Spider-Man is a-"

VRR-RRR rrrr!

"Stark! Would you stop that?"

"Don't worry, I'm almost done," Tony deadpanned, pouring the brightly colored mixture into two large glasses and sampling it. He made a face. "It needs more ice."

The other holographic members of the committee sighed in relief. Getting ice wouldn't be nearly as noisy, right?

They couldn't have been farther from the truth.

Ross continued his speech, stopping as a series of very loud clicking and clunking noises came from the nearby kitchen.

"What is it now? Colonel Rhodes, stop that noise at once!"

Rhodey, to his credit, kept a completely straight face. "Tony is getting ice. You wouldn't like him when he's hangry."

Ross glowered at the reference to the Hulk and waited until Tony came back with ice in a bucket and another glass to continue. Tony chugged down the contents of his glass, poured the contents of the other full one back into the blender with a loud splorp noise that interrupted Ross again, and dumped the ice in just as the speech was starting to build into something serious. The cold, pissed off look in Tony's eyes betrayed the innocent expression on his face as he continued to interrupt the speech. When he was finished blending, he poured the smoothies, passed one to Rhodey with an unnecessary clunk and slide across the table, but he was careful to not spill any. Tony finished off the entire contents of the blender and listened to Ross' blabbering with the other people in the meeting, but the speech had already lost most of its intended effectiveness because of the constant, distracting soundtrack Tony had provided. The man himself was muttering about recipe issues while sneezing occasionally at big moments in the monologue and working on something on one of the holographic screens FRIDAY was showing to him- and only him. Even Rhodey couldn't see it through the opaque background of the projection.

When Ross finally finished his speech, Tony got up to put away the last glass, offer Rhodey another round, and grab ingredients. He returned with lemons, water, coffee, and ice. The bags under his eyes seemed to have grown in size. Tony chugged the coffee and started to put ingredients into the blender, starting with the water. The repetitive hand motions distracted Rhodey from what went in next, but it didn't escape the notice of the other members of Ross' captive audience. The gasps and pointing brought his attention back to Tony before Ross cut off his droning and turned around.

Tony had dropped the documents into the blender, topped them with ice, and tiredly threw in a bunch of unpeeled lemons. He was rubbing his eyes and moving for the on switch.

"STARK! Don't do it!" roared Ross, who had just registered the alarming contents of the blender.

Tony looked up and stared Ross down, making deliberate eye contact. "Don't do what?" he said, confused. He hit the button.

It took everything Rhodey had to not bust out laughing at the looks on everyone's faces. It was a card well played if he wanted to annoy the shit out of Ross and disrupt the meeting, but there had to be an ace up his friend's sleeve in a matter as serious as this. Spider-Man's ability to work freely and his secret identity were on the line.

"Oh. Oh shit, I'm sorry. FRIDAY, print me another copy of those forms, will you?" Tony asked.

"Sir, I'm afraid that the file has been compromised by an outside source and our printers are down for maintenance. Perhaps Secretary Ross can enlighten us as to why the file has been successfully hacked?" Even FRIDAY sounded apologetic.

"WHAT? Stark, if you tampered with the documents, I will have you ruined! It was foolproof!" yelled Ross, on the verge of a Hulk-sized temper tantrum.

"First of all, it was not me. FRIDAY can verify that the only thing I was working on this whole time were recipes that I post under a pseudonym online. FRIDAY, send him the smoothie files, please." Tony replied with an even tone, but anyone in the room, digitally or not, could tell that he was simmering with rage.

"Will do, sir."

"Secondly, don't you dare to even think about bringing me down over your mistake. You set this thing up in a perfectly hackable system. Any high schooler with a computer could lay waste to the oh-so-secure drafts alone. If you had taken me up on the cybersecurity offer, it might have cost a pretty penny but it sure as hell would have prevented this from happening."

Not content in his humiliation of Secretary Ross quite yet, Tony continued.

"And finally, do not take me for a fool. I signed those damn Accords, yes, but I have contacts: Lawyers, the media, more politicians than you could even think about threatening- and I know about that, Ross, because I did some digging. I can and will tear this whole thing you have going apart if you so much as look at me and my allies funny again. Good luck trying to re-do all of those documents. I'll be waiting. And in the meantime, you should just leave Spider-Man alone. He isn't a threat or a menace, he sticks close to home, and he's done more for the good of the people than you have in your entire life. Frankly, this entire thing has been a waste of time and resources while the real hunt should be for whoever was able to hack such important files. I'm out of here."

Tony practically stomped out before turning around. He looked at Rhodey, smiled, and changed his tone entirely. "Rhodey, dear, I left you a smoothie in the fridge. There's another one if you want it, but if you don't, Pepper can have it too. No strawberries in it and it's the one with a purple umbrella. Yours has a pink one. I'm going to take a nap."

Ross, red-faced and ready to explode, barely managed to sputter out a simple "Meeting adjourned." There was no doubt that he was facing an investigation based on Tony's claims, but he would be back. Maybe with his tail tucked between his legs, maybe not.

Rhodey took a moment to just sit there after the call ended and soak it all in. And then all of the laughter he had been holding back burst over the dam and he found himself caught in a fit of laughter for the next ten minutes. Later, he asked for the footage to be played as he drank his smoothie and wound up snorting it on accident.

"Damn, does Tony hate paperwork," he said while cleaning. He heard a blender noise from the recording and lost it all over again.

The memories passed and Rhodey was left with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face. He wiped them away, got up, and knocked on the door to Pepper's office.

"Come in!"

Rhodey walked in and saw Pepper sorting through mounds of paperwork and folders on her desk, accompanied by an open laptop and a box of tissues. Her eyes were red and puffy, and Rhodey figured that she was crying recently, unless someone had made the mistake of sending her strawberries.

"Hey Pepper. Is now a bad time?"

"No, it's fine, have a seat," she said. He noticed that she was twisting her ring around.

"What are you up to?" Rhodey asked.

"Old paperwork, new paperwork, paperwork we never got pdfs or electronic copies of- I'm sorting it all. When I'm done I'm heading home to Morgan," she replied, sifting through the nearest pile and redistributing papers, typing away with her free hand.

"Pepper, it's almost sundown. Why don't you take a break and come back to it tomorrow?"

"I can't. I have to get it done. There was so much he left behind. Tony, he… He…"

"He always hated paperwork. I know, Pepper. It's okay if you don't want to tell me, but what's really on your mind?"

Pepper turned away from the computer, put her hands in her lap, took a deep breath, and composed herself. But that all went to hell when their eyes met and the tears finally broke free.

"James, it's been impossible to sift through everything Tony left behind. It has to be done but it's so hard to look at all of these little pieces of him day after day… I can barely look Morgan in the eyes when she asks about whether he's really gone forever, or when her face falls when she sees that whoever at the door isn't him. Just when I had finally thought that any child of ours could grow up in a world with him in it, we lost him. It was his time, I wanted to let him go and move on, but I don't know if I ever can!"

Pepper broke her composure altogether and started sobbing uncontrollably, but still trying desperately to get it under control. Rhodey moved closer and passed her the entire tissue box.

"Pepper. Pepper. It's okay. He was trying to hold on, and you gave him permission to just go and rest. He needed that to move on in peace, that was the best thing you could have done for him, and you had the strength to do it in his final moments. He loved you so much and wouldn't want you to go through this, so don't burn yourself out in the aftermath. I know it hurts to do this and raise Morgan at the same time, but you're so damn strong and you've got the rest of us. Let's just take this a day at a time and go home for the night. It'll all be here tomorrow and so will I. It's okay to feel like this, Pepper. We're all here for you."

Pepper cried into his shoulder from across the desk and eventually calmed down and gave a bittersweet smile.

"Thank you, Rhodey. You meant so much to him too. Even though Tony's gone," her voice trembled slightly and she paused, wiping away the final tear. "You'll always be a part of the Stark family. You always have been."

Rhodey smiled and she could see the tears gathering in his eyes. "Thanks, Pepper. How about we pack up before-"

A loud chiming noise came from the ceiling as an alert from FRIDAY. "Good evening, Boss. Rhodey, there seems to be a problem in your quarters. More specifically, my audio sensors have detected loud bumping and splashing noises coming from your bathroom. I'm afraid I don't know much more than that, seeing as no cameras are installed in private areas. Shall I send someone to investigate?" The A.I. chirped.

"I'll check it out, FRIDAY. Thanks." Rhodey sighed.

"I'll go with you. It's about time I go home, and I can stop there on the way out." Pepper said.

"Sure. We better get there quick, though. I have a bad feeling about this…"

Little did they know, they weren't the only ones heading back to Rhodey's rooms. The race was on.

Tony was forging ahead, yanking Natasha through walls, hallways, and a custodian who promptly yelped and dropped a trash can, while cackling madly the whole way. Natasha was cursing in Russian until she finally managed to yank him back mere inches from the door to Rhodey's room.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked, concerned and pissed off at the same time.

"I put a platypus in Rhodey's toilet. We gotta beat him back and I hope he's not inside already. This is gonna be hilarious, Nat! Watch and learn." Tony replied.

"You said almost the exact same thing about replacing Thor's Pop-Tarts with cardboard replicas and his coffee with decaf on April Fool's Day, and for how many days were you hiding in the vents?"

"Long enough, but this should go over better!" he shot back. "C'mon, I hear footsteps already. Let's hide in the shower."

She followed him into Rhodey's neat rooms and slipped behind the shower's sliding glass door, crouching beside Tony. The two were concealed further by the towel hanging in front of them on the door's towel rack.

The sound of two voices got closer and closer as Tony and Natasha waited, with Tony practically vibrating in anticipation. The only other noises that he could hear were the sloshing of toilet water, the soft whirring of the air conditioning, and the sounds of his own breathing combined with that of Natasha's. The door to the hallway opened with a click and he could eavesdrop at last.

He picked out Rhodey's voice as the last one to be speaking, but he completely froze over who the other one belonged to. Don't. Don't give yourself that hope. It couldn't be…

Natasha's ears perked up ever so slightly- it was one of her almost imperceptible tells Tony had picked up on over the years. "Shh, Tony. It's okay. It's okay. Here it is, just relax and enjoy it," she whispered soothingly.

All Tony could do was nod and watch the door to the bathroom, transfixed. The handle slowly turned, and then stopped as Rhodey announced, "If there's somebody in there, come on out, nice and slow with your hands where we can see them, or prepare to get your ass blasted to kingdom come. Especially if it's you, Wilson."

It was dead silent for a moment. Even the platypus had wisely stopped splashing around. Seconds seemed to stretch into hours before the door finally burst open. Rhodey leaped inside, brandishing a suit gauntlet on his left arm and bracing it with his right, quickly surveying the room and pointing the weapon all around the room. He visibly relaxed and beckoned a second figure in, retracting the nanotech gauntlet into the reactor on his chest before prying the thing off and sticking it in a pocket in the toolbelt on his braces.

"It looks safe, but I don't know why FRIDAY gave the alert if there was nothing to worry about."

"She hasn't been updated in a while, not without…" Time seemed to stop for Tony once Pepper walked in the room, but Natasha kept him grounded with a hug from the side, squeezing gently and murmuring quietly. His eyes welled up with tears, and the dead genius was rendered utterly speechless for the first time in what felt like years. Tony was utterly paralyzed in her presence and watched the scene unfold with Natasha.

"I think she's doing ok, Pepper. FRIDAY's still years ahead of her time. He left a whole lot more good in the world than we realize."

Pepper laughed softly. "I guess you're right about that."

The two smiled with tears of bittersweet reminiscence in their eyes, unaware of the other pair in the room doing the same. However, the silence seemed convenient to the unseen platypus, who promptly decided to start making noise again.

Splash!

"What was that?" asked Pepper, jumping in surprise.

"I don't know, but I think that it came from the toilet-"

Slosh, slosh, slosh.

"Dammit. Pepper, I need you to pass me the plunger from that closet and turn on all the lights. I'll hold the lid down."

Splishy-splashy, splishy-splashy.

"All set, Rhodey."

[Insert watery sound effect here]

"I'm about to open it, do you think you can help me out if it starts spraying everywhere?"

"Of course."

"On three. One, two, three- SHIT!"

The platypus had somehow leaped from the toilet into Rhodey's arms, drenching him and splashing water everywhere. Rhodey and Pepper stared in horror.

The platypus stared back.

Tony could again swear up and down that the little thing winked. Then all hell broke loose as it started thrashing in Rhodey's grasp, who shrieked and dropped it.

"Get the door get the door get the door!" he yelped, grabbing the plunger and jabbing it at the little mammal. It was skittering all over the floor to either avoid the plunger's plunging or cause maximum chaos. The ghostly spectators suspected the latter.

"I'm trying, but I locked it!" Pepper shot back while struggling frantically with the door. She screeched in alarm as the platypus went after her instead, chased off by Rhodey, who crashed into her when it slipped away. The two untangled and split off. Pepper climbed the nearby sink and kept trying to unlock the door as Rhodey swung with his plunger from a perch on the toilet.

The platypus seemed to be having the time of its life terrorizing the two of them but seemed to know its reign of terror was drawing to a close. Pepper had unlocked the door and was guarding it with both zeal and an aggressively waving towel that Rhodey was glancing at thoughtfully. He braced himself against the wall and snatched the bath towel that Tony and Natasha were hiding behind from the rack on the door and turned back towards the platypus.

"Pepper, we'll have to cover it up and grab it on the count of three. Ready?"

"No, I'd like to spend the next half hour yelling at a platypus and standing on your sink. Of course, Rhodey."

"Here we go then- one, two, three!"

They dropped their towels over the annoying mammal in almost perfect sync, springing into action once it was covered. Pepper lifted the wriggling bundle up and Rhodey secured it with another towel.

"Where do we put it?" Pepper was frantic and on the verge of shouting.

"The shower!" Rhodey replied in a similar manner, pulling the door back.

"Got it!" Pepper rushed to drop the perturbed platypus in the shower, where it passed through Tony's face. With that, Natasha finally started cracking up at the look on his face.

Rhodey practically slammed the door shut, and all was quiet for a solid ten seconds with the potential exception of Natasha's laughter, inaudible to the living. Pepper broke the 'silence' with a choked snorting noise, and Rhodey turned to face her. She was red all over and visibly shaking.

"Are you alright?"

And the dam broke.

"BWAHAHAHAHA! That was so-" Pepper was consumed by a fit of laughter. Of course, Rhodey couldn't help but join her in it at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Natasha shook her head and chuckled as a fourth voice joined them. She looked over, and Tony was in utter hysterics at his prank's success. He had been dead silent the entire time, taking in the spectacle with wide eyes and a blank expression. Natasha smiled, glad to see him happy in spite of seeing an unreachable Pepper again.

As all good things do, the laughter filling the room eventually faded and came to an end. Pepper wiped the lingering happy tears from her eyes, but Tony was satisfied to see that the smile never left her face.

Pepper was the first to start talking again. "What do you think we should do with it?"

"The platypus? I'd try to find out if it lives around here or see if we can give it to somebody who knows what they're doing. Let's come back to it in the morning and I'll see if I can settle it in for the night."

"Alright. I'll see you tomorrow, preferably with a wildlife handler on call. That reminds me… Morgan is wondering when she'll see her Uncle Rhodey again. Do you think you can visit anytime soon?"

Rhodey smiled. "Maybe this weekend, definitely the next. And as long as she doesn't climb anything that would make me suit up to get her down, I'm game."

"I'll make sure to tell her that. No repeats of last time. And Rhodey?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. This was-" Pepper gestured to the mess in the bathroom, lost for words.

"A disaster. Tell you what, I'm not telling anyone until that thing in my shower is gone. Good night, Pepper."

"Good night, Rhodey." And with that, Pepper left the room.

Rhodey stood still for a moment and shook his head, surveying the room. He started to clean it, picking things up from where they had been knocked to the floor. "Damn platypus," he grumbled. "Of course it had to be a platypus. Not even a rat or a frog. A platypus! Do they even live around here? What do I do with it? Good lord, this seems like something Tony would pull!"

He paused, as if shocked by the words that had slipped out so effortlessly. "Wish you were here to see this, Tones." Rhodey murmured. When he had finished, he took a washcloth and soaked it in cold water from the sink. Tony and Natasha looked on in confusion as he approached the shower. He quickly slid the shower door open, dropped the wet washcloth in front of the platypus, and shut it. "There you go, you little coincidence. Drink from it, roll in it, I don't care. Do your platypus thing in there until I can kick you out." Rhodey walked out of the bathroom, muttering something about FRIDAY deleting all audio recordings and not being able to use his own bathroom without a pervy platypus watching.

Sensing that their time to watch anything interesting was up, Natasha pulled Tony after her back into the hallway. She watched him expectantly.

Tony blinked at her before launching into a recap of the whole thing. "Holy shit, Red! Did you get all of that? They thought it was Sam, then the platypus jumped clean out of the toilet at Rhodey like a dog and then they started yelling and climbing on things it couldn't reach-"

"Tony."

"And they had to throw things at it to keep it down! Rhodey, defending himself with nothing but a plunger from another platypus? That was hilarious! Pepper was so freaked out trying to get the door, I kinda regret that part but the whole thing was amazing overall…"

"Tony."

"I didn't think it would go that well, best prank of my career by far. Who else can say that they summoned a platypus and put it in their best friend's toilet? This almost beats the time I unscrewed a chandelier at that one school my mother wanted to put me in. Terrible place, by the way-"

"Tony."

"Oh! I'm sorry, Nat. I cut you off, didn't I? What were you going to say?"

"Look behind you, Tony. We have a visitor."