Isolated Incidents

Finally Having Some Fun

"You throw one more damn piece of popcorn at my face and I will end you," Rhodey threatened, bracing one hand on the little bar by the wall, and swinging the other wildly as he tried to keep up with the game's dance steps. Tony snickered from where he was standing just next to the game, a little carton of popcorn clutched in his hand.

"This is what fun is all about," Tony reasoned. "Come on, sour patch, you should really lighten up a little!"

The game jingled and Rhodey relaxed. He'd done it. He'd finally beaten the high score.

Tickets streamed out of the machine, and Tony bent down to collect them. When he had them all folded up into one long string, he draped it over Rhodey's shoulders like a boa. Rhodey laughed and grabbed the ends of the tickets, pulling them a little before he strutted around the arcade game happily. Tony laughed hard.

The two had already made an impression on the arcade staff, what with Tony being one of the most recognizable faces in the American public, and Rhodey being his usual happy-go-lucky self. They had been pretty star-struck at first, but Tony's secret talent was putting people at ease and it barely took 30 minutes for the staff to completely forget they had ever even been nervous to see Tony.

The two wandered between the games. Rhodey was much more interested in the "skill" games, like the dance game or the target-shooting games, while Tony was perfectly happy to throw away $50 on winning a stuffed animal in a crane game.

(Tony had won the stuffed animal in the end, but when he got it out, he noticed a young girl watching from behind another game and decided she was a far better candidate for stuffed animal adoption than he was. She'd taken the toy with a shy "thank you" and run back over to her mom, who was shocked to see Tony Stark, and then overcome with happiness.)

Tony stopped in front of a silly balloon popping game, his hand pulling Rhodey's sleeve. It wasn't like the ones at a carnival - in this one, you had to hit a button and spin a little needle around to hit balloons as they passed on a conveyer instead of throwing darts at a wall of balloons.

"Let's play this one."

Tony and Rhodey both put in a few nickels. Tony immediately started pressing his button wildly, not once thinking about the timing of it. Rhodey on the other hand, was almost fanatical about the timing of his button press, but he was rewarded with the happy sound of balloons popping after just 4 tries.

"How do you do that?" Tony asked, his lip pushed out in an unhappy pout.

Rhodey gave a dry smirk. "I try. I just really like these kinds of games, okay? I'm good at these kinds of things."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Alright, Mr. Air Force. We get it. You're a skilled guy."

"Skill has nothing to do with it," Rhodey teased. "I'm just an arcade master."

"A master at being a stupid... jerk-head."

"That was awful," Rhodey said through a laugh. "Are you that focused on randomly pushing a button you can't come up with a good comeback?"

"Shut up."

Tony finally popped a balloon with a triumphant shout, pumping his fist in the air as he finally won. A measly 3 tickets came out of the machine, but Tony pulled them out of the slot with a smile, tucking them in his pocket carefully.

They moved on to a racing game, each one laughing at the choppy graphics. It was clearly something created in the late '90s, with just enough detail to be recognizable, but still too pixelated and blurred to make out any distinct features of the cars.

Even the half-naked flag girl looked faceless.

When the race was done, Tony slid out of his seat and looked across the game floor to the one and only window not tinted black. The sun had gone down hours ago, but it was nearly pitch black outside, and there was only a couple cars left in the lot.

Tony nudged Rhodey's arm. "We should probably head back. I know Peter will be asleep, but this is the first time I've left him for something other than school and I'm starting to feel guilty."

Rhodey didn't even moan and groan.

"Of course! Let's go turn in our tickets and then we can go. They have these little candy things you have to try."

Tony and Rhodey headed up to the main desk and began unloading their tickets into the counting machine. When it was done, Tony took a look up at the wall. He wasn't overly attached to much, but the light-up car lamp in the corner was kind of cool, and he could always use another night light for Peter's room. He looked away, his eyes trailing over a pair of fake lightsabers, a set of LED flashing cups, and a enormous bouncy ball. He found himself staring at the lamp again, though, and sighed.

Rhodey noticed. "We'll take one of those light-up car lamps."

The attendant pulled a boxed lamp down for the two, but Tony put a hand on Rhodey's arm. "Honeybear, no. If we get that, we'll only have a few tickets left."

Rhodey shook Tony's hand off and pulled the lamp over the desk. "I know, but this would be adorable in Peter's room. We can spend the rest on candy, man, it's cool."

Rhodey asked that the attendant pull the rest of the tickets to use on candy, and began picking out the best flavors for the candy he was looking for. Tony watched with a small, secretive smile. There were times like this when Rhodey shocked Tony with his kindhearted nature or the way he just-

"Ready?"

Tony looked up at Rhodey, who had the lamp tucked under one arm and a bag of candies clutched in his other hand. Tony smiled.

"Sure, just let me do one last thing."

Tony pulled out his wallet and looked up at the attendant. "How many of you work here?"

The teenaged attendant looked a little nervous, then looked over at his coworker and back at Tony. "There's 7 of us total."

Tony counted through the bills in his wallet, then pulled out a stack. "You guys were great tonight, and this place is super cool. Thanks for not calling the press on us. This is for you and the others."

Tony put a stack of 7 hundred dollar bills on the counter and sent a dazzling smile at the teen. The teen looked stunned, then took the money with a shaking hand. "Thank you. Thank you, this is- Thank you."

Tony waved his hand. "It's nothing, really. I wish I had more on me, actually."

Rhodey was waiting by the door, holding it open with one arm and holding the goodies they'd won in the other. "Tones! Let's go show Peter the new lamp, come on!"

Tony laughed and jogged over, taking the bag of candies from Rhodey as he passed. "So which one of these is the best?"

"All of them."

Tony rolled his eyes and popped one in his mouth. It was pretty good! It was good enough to take a second one, and Tony took another happily.

"Take me home, Rhodey-boy," Tony said, hopping in the passenger seat of Rhodey's mom's car. "And don't even start on me eating all the candies."

Rhodey sighed exaggeratedly. "As you wish."