Chapter Text
Something is poking him in the face... Did he fall asleep in a bush again?
No. The freezing, flat steel surface on which his forehead is pressed tells him otherwise— that, and the fact he’s sitting in a chair.
Sitting is a euphemism for the way his limp body is sprawled uncomfortably against the back of the chair he’s posed backward on. There’s residual sweat sticking to his skin, and when he finally peels his eyes open and rises his head, a big humid stamp of the shape of his forehead can be seen on the table it was pressed on. Upon further awakening, that table is actually his.
Did I— He fell asleep in his workshop. Again.
He looks at the screwdriver that was stabbing him in the cheek, blinking once, twice, before raising his head —God, his neck hurts— and looking at what’s in front of him. His vision is still blurry after his sad attempt at blinking away the veil clouding it, but he manages to recognize the machine laid on his table, or more accurately, the pile of unassembled parts of a machine, and notices the loose screws on it.
He looks down at the screwdriver again, then back at the screws, sighs, and berates himself out loud before taking action.
“’s not even the right tip.”
Quickly recovering from his 'sleeping beauty' crossover episode, he changes the screwdriver’s drive tip from an Allen to a Phillips and picks up his work where he left off. He might have fallen asleep in the process yesterday—or was it this morning? He vaguely recalls seeing the early hours of the morning displayed on one of his screens — but he had made significant progress in transforming the scraps of metals in his workshop into something more resembling his goal.
He had a lot of time to work on the design, after all. After yesterday’s shit-show, he had thrown his mechanics homework into the bin and postponed working on coding to focus his attention on the more physical aspect of his pet project.
The program for his robot could wait; compromising the progress he had made with his pent-up frustration wasn’t a smart move. He had finished drawing up the plans of each separate part in his three-hour physics class after his phone died, forcing him to stop scrolling and sending stupid reels to Rhodey and Pepper.
Has Pepper unblocked him yet?
Probably not, he had been very bored and had found her five other accounts to keep spamming her pure nonsense. After he’d been blocked on the last one —that he was aware of— he was creating another backup account when his phone died. The stupid cat videos would have to wait.
Betrayed by his own technology —he forgot to charge it— he had tossed it in his bag and started listening to the class.
Keyword “tried”.
Five minutes in, boredom had already gotten the best of him. He had stopped listening to the class entirely and got to work. Meaningful work that is, not the bullshit she has them do in that wannabe physics class.
Zoning out for the rest of these wasted hours, he had taken out his blueprints to continue his work, ignoring the pointed glares while his pen glided on the sheets, putting his mind’s flawless work on paper.
Time flies when you’re having fun—or whatever they say—and when the class ended, he skipped lunch and simply migrated to his next class after break to finish his plans. If the mechanic's professor realized he wasn’t working on the same thing as the rest of them, he didn’t say anything about it. He’s a nice guy, maybe Tony will try to learn his name.
Hours passed without his knowledge, and when he had been done perfecting his work, the class was empty except for a note on the whiteboard telling him to turn off the lights and lock up behind him. He did it because contrary to popular belief he’s not a complete asshole and had hoped in the Ferrari.
The drive back is but a blank canvas in the messy Picasso-like fresco that is his skull, and he has no memory of it, his mind at the time more preoccupied with the work that was ahead of him. After leaving the car for a valet to park it, he had rushed to his workshop, situated in the basement and accessible only from his room and the garage in case he needed to work on his cars.
Once he had started working in his usual frenzy, he fell back in the trance where only unanimated pieces of metal, messy wiring and other gadgets could grasp his attention. He had moved quickly all across the shop to gather materials, changed stations many times to accommodate whatever it is he was doing, ran around to gather more pieces, and generally made an organized mess of his shop.
Mess he now gets to wake up to, but it’s no different than usual.
Now a bit more awake and conscious, his gaze travels to a glass of water left on the edge of the table next to a plate of cold food, and he guesses Jarvis had come here at some point to remind him to eat, but he never noticed.
Downing the glass of water and groaning from satisfaction as the cold liquid meets his dry throat, he taps some random keys to power up his computer and looks at the time on the screen.
Five thirty. He still has about three hours before he needs to head to school, and that’s assuming he cares about his nine o’clock thermodynamics class.
Meh.
The next two hours are dedicated to more of his work. Moving around one of the bulkier and sturdier table, he tightens some more screws he left unattended, fixes the wheels that were unequally supporting the base where his creation would sit, and adds some wires to the robotic arm before he’s finally disturbed by a scolding voice.
“Sir.”
Grabbing the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face and rubbing his dirty hands on his jeans, he turns to Jarvis with a grin.
“Hey J, thanks for the water.”
Jarvis’s eyes dart to the untouched plate, and he drags them back up to Tony’s face, a frown disturbing his naturally neutral face. Tony tends to have that effect on him, he thinks, a bit remorseful. Turning away from Jarvis’s reproachful look, he busies himself with the wiring connecting the hydraulic arm to its wheeled base.
Unfortunately for him, Jarvis appears to believe he has an eating disorder.
“Sir, you assured me that you would eat.”
He did that, didn’t he? Grinding his teeth, he throws his head back and stares at the ceiling covered in dark, ashy marks. Oh yeah, I forgot about these. Inspecting the scorch marks a bit more, he realizes that some are older than others and tries to remember how they ended up there.
He remembers the most recent as the result of him setting his previous table on fire. The components on it at the time being incredibly flammable, a jet of flames had erupted upwards when he had short-circuited something else he was working on.
Everything on the table had caught fire, and since then, Pepper has been trying to force him to work on one thing at a time. She hadn’t been a fan of Tony when he showed up to school the next morning with first-degree burns on his arms. Good times. He doesn’t recall the older marks though...
“Sir.” Ah, right, Jarvis is still here, and he hadn’t eaten his fucking pasta or whatever the hell it was he had promised to eat. In his defense, having him agree to anything is easy when he’s focused on his work.
“Yeah, I know, I got caught up in this, my bad.” Sighing, Jarvis looks at the articulated mess Tony is blaming. If he’s curious about what it will become, he doesn’t show it, and when he looks back at Tony, his gaze softens even if it is still obscured by concern.
“It’s my fault to have assumed, I should have known that you hadn’t properly heard me.”
Acquiescing, Tony finally stops staring at the mysterious scorch marks to get back to work, quietly dismissing Jarvis by doing so. The man doesn’t leave, however, and keeps his eyes fixed on his protégé unbeknownst to him.
After quietly observing Tony work on his project, Jarvis, forever impressed by his young boss’s inventive mind but still more responsible than said boss, interrupts him. He has a class at nine after all. After calling for his attention twice to no avail, the man resolves to lay a gentle hand on Tony’s shoulder, not expecting him to jump out of reach. It’s not uncommon for Jarvis to be a source of comfort in Tony’s life, after all.
Hence, Tony’s reaction makes Jarvis’s level of concern rise, and his face overflows with visible confusion and worry. He quickly gets a hold of himself and forces his features to appear as calming to Tony as he can muster while he calls for Tony’s attention. The low whisper of his name goes unnoticed, and Tony shows no sign of awareness or recognition for a solid five seconds.
Those five seconds are the worst five hours Jarvis has ever endured as he’s forced to watch, incapable of fixing whatever has got Tony looking so distressed.
And while Jarvis is discreetly panicking, trying to get a reaction out of him, Tony is quietly drowning, the thundering sky above the surface disappearing as he sinks closer to the bottomless pit of despair he fell in.
He hadn’t known Jarvis was still there. He wasn’t aware of his presence, his head completely focused on the stupid fuse that didn’t want to cooperate. All he knows is that he was alone, and now he isn’t, and someone is touching him.
He reacts on pure instinct to move away from the hard and violent grip on his shoulder, and suddenly, his whole environment has changed. He’s in his cold and lifeless room; the curtains are drawn, the glass table is powdered, and someone is touching him. A flash of light. Quiet screams. His throat hurts too much for him to make a proper sound.
Hands.
He can’t move; hands are gripping him too fucking hard.
He can’t yell; hands are choking him too fucking hard.
He can’t do anything; he’s too fucking wasted. He lets his body be rocked by the cruel waves of the nightmare possessing him. His body is nothing more than a rag doll in the hands of the monster. A flash of light.
“Sir”
He’s pushed against the cold, hard ocean floor as he drowns, choking on the absence of air in his lungs and the tendrils of the sea monsters filling his mouth. A flash of light.
“Anthony”
The darkness calls his name, it snarls and groans in his ears. It’s mean, filled with distaste and contempt. The disgusting, slimy seed of hate is once again planted in him, deep within his entrails, never to be dug up. A flash of light.
“Anthony, please.” A quiet whisper. His monsters don’t whisper; they yell and scream and spit in his face. This isn’t a monster.
Monsters don’t say please, they don’t ask, they just take take take—
“Wha-” The hard floor of the shop isn’t wet. It’s not dark like the ocean’s, and it’s not marbled tiles like his room’s. There are no curtains in the shop. All the tables are made of solid stainless steel, for glass break too easily. Stainless... He feels stained.
He blinks once, twice, but this time he’s painfully awake.
“I- Sorry, Jay, my nightmare just caught up to me.”
“Sir, must you absent yourself from your morning class? Or perhaps take a full day off? Shall I fetch-”
“I’m fine, Jarvis. You spooked me is all, nothing to concern yourself with.”
The irony. Both of them know Jarvis’s mind will never stop overworking itself regarding his worries for Tony’s wellbeing. His dismissal of what happened is nothing short of expected, but it still fails to appease Jarvis, who simply stares.
Staring, maybe in hopes that the sheer devotion he has for Tony is enough to entice the man to let down his guard.
It’s not, and Tony just stares back.
Jarvis accepts his defeat. For now.
“Very well, Sir. My apologies. It was not my intention to scare you.”
Tony just hums, a vaguely positive confirmation that he knows Jarvis would never willingly hurt him in any way.
“Hey, Jay.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He’s used to nightmares, really, this one is no big deal compared to the usual shit show in his head. He is rocking a massive headache, however, and even if he’s more used to the ones caused by hangovers, they’re usually fixed the same way.
“Could you get me another glass of water, please? With the blue powder.”
He doesn’t bother to listen to Jarvis’s answer and hastily climbs the stairs to get to his bedroom. Once in front of the sink, he pointedly avoids looking at his reflection in the mirror and curses the LED lights surrounding its frame because they make everything too fucking bright.
A flash of light.
He reaches for the faucet and turns it on, splashing cold water on his face to erase any residual horror the nightmare left painted on his face.
“Get a fucking grip, Stark”
A quick slap to the face before he gets out, then he grabs the glass Jarvis left for him, chugs it, and goes back to the bathroom to open the pharmacy and take three Advil.
One for the shitty restless night
One for the headache
One because he doesn’t like even numbers.
Standing in the middle of the doorway separating his bathroom from his living room, he contemplates the small cabinet next to the couch and the lock holding his whole life inside it. He shouldn’t. He really ought to hurry and leave for school, plus Jarvis would immediately tell something was wrong with him.
Not if I only do one.
He ponders for a total of three more seconds before his bitch of a headache suddenly doubles up in its efforts to kill him and starts prodding at him behind his right eye and buzzing in his temples. He presses a palm on his closed eye and hurries to kneel in front of the cabinet, skillfully unlocking it with one hand through force of habit.
Advils never fucking work.
He’s not desperate.
His movements are hurried as he flings the door open; the noise it makes when it bangs on the side of the couch rings painfully in his ears.
He’s not, really.
The headache never relents, forcing his skull open with its wicked claws, pawing at his steaming brain. The pain makes him clumsy, and the package slips and slides in his hand when he tries to force it open.
He’s not.
“Fucking open!” the not-desperate cry echoes in the empty room, but the silence that follows is deafening.
He’s not desperate.
He won’t allow it.
“Starks are made of iron.”, the choir of his father’s voice across the years repeats like a mantra.
Pull yourself together
Slowly, he fights through the pounding behind his eyes and regains his composure.
“One’ll be enough.”
He looks down at the package, the most recent, on his laps but then remembers about the shitty nosebleed he got the day before. He’ll do something about that later. Putting it back in the cabinet, he takes his month-old batch instead. Opening it calmly, he picks one small Ziploc bag from the top. Inside is enough for at least four doses, and he has to remind himself of Jarvis’s existence outside his door to not fold and take it all.
He sets everything he needs on the glass table, all usually hidden in the cabinet, and carefully lines everything up. He hunches over the table, admiring his work, and breathes in before finally taking off. His pupils dilate as his wings spread open and he soars through the clouds.
The pounding of his scrambled head is reduced to a low humming, the ringing in his ears quiets down to a soothing familiar birdsong, and his eyes are bright with adrenaline as he escapes towards liberty. Everything is better when he’s in the sky.
The cottony clouds of the blurred reality he’s made for himself welcome him with warmth, and he’s finally at peace.
Oh, how he loves to fly.
Rhodey had told him it was placebo effect. Well, fuck whatever Rhodey says, he’s never tried it, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. There’s nothing like it. High in the sky, everyone and everything is reduced to tiny dots, stuck on the ground while he escapes toward the Sun.
“Fuck I love coke”
Oh right! Rhodey set my toaster on fire, and it exploded to the ceiling! To be fair, thermodynamics is horrendously boring when he can basically teach the class himself. He won’t, but he could, and he’d do it much better. Instead, his leg bounces up and down, and he’s got a pen twirling in one hand, mind racing to places much more enjoyable than usual.
The monsters whispering in his head have gone back to the depths of the ocean, and they can’t reach him where he is. The cloud won’t let them.
He smiles, he’s been smiling the whole time since he left his room, and he feels good.
What he doesn’t feel is the pressure in his jaw as his teeth clench together, the nails of his other hand biting into his palm, and the thrumming beating of his heart. The clouds are too comfortable for him to acknowledge any of it.
Shit, I should take Pep and Rhodey to Japan! Or Italy, maybe then I’ll see Mom!
Sending a quick text to the group chat, he doesn’t notice the rest of the students leaving and the teacher coming to a stop in front of his desk. I’m sure I could build a rocket. Being the first guy with a mansion on the moon would be dope! The parties would be insane.
“Mr. Stark!” Shit what are you yelling for? His mouth moves, but he doesn’t pay attention to that.
“Mind your manners, young man.” The stern lady had apparently heard his thoughts, damn. Could she have been inside his head this whole time? Hello?
“Mr. Stark, I’m talking to you.”
Maybe not. Or maybe she’s just shitty with her psychic powers. Oh shit, he shouldn’t be thinking that if there’s a chance she can hear him. Oh, wait, right; He doesn’t care.
“Yes, hi, Stark is me, I am I, what can I do for you, Linda? Is your name even Linda? You look like a Linda, same hair, same face, same” he waves his hands in her general direction “vibe as a Linda.”
Linda doesn’t seem very impressed with him and tries to interrupt him.
Who does she think she is?
“Do you think Japan would be a good place to take my friends?” Confusion flashes across her face, but Tony completely ignores her attempts to place a word and keeps on speed-talking, almost out of breath, but he never relents.
“Yeah, I think it is. Have you traveled to Japan? You look like someone who never left the States, and that’s kinda sad. You should leave and let me teach your class, you’re very boring.” Linda appears to take offense to that, but then again, he always only speaks the truth, so he doesn’t care.
“Yeah, do you want to go to Europe or something like that? I’ll pay for it, so you don’t need to worry about the price. Two weeks from now, maybe in France?” He can’t hear himself talking anymore, just knows he is. As he goes through the contacts on his phone to look for his travel agent, the teacher rudely interrupts him.
“Mr. Stark! This behavior will not be tolerated in my classroom! If you don’t enjoy this course, you can either leave it or shut it, but I don’t want to hear anything more from you. Now—”
Big breath. Wow, oxygen!
“Kay, see you never. Bye, Linda!”
He takes the paper she had put on his desk to shove it in the nearest trash can, ignoring the recycle bin next to it, and heads to philosophy. She doesn’t call after him, but he vaguely registers her sigh of resignation. She needs to take a chill pill.
While philosophy is as uneventful as always, Tony finds himself captivated by Professor Xavier’s speech and feels compelled to interrupt him, many times, to encourage him and tell him he’s doing a very good job.
Never before has the complexity of human connection been so interesting, he wonders what’s new. After the umpteenth instance of Tony audibly wowing and voicing his agreement with whatever it is Professor Xavier is telling the class, some nondescript haters have apparently had enough of him. Took them a while.
“Oh my God, Stark, shut up.”
I don’t want to. Also, I fucked your girlfriend.
“Man, can you stop fucking talking?
Nope. Better men have tried to shut me up, it’s impossible.
“Shut the fuck up, fag.”
I saw you tongue-deep in your best friend Saturday.
The teacher must think they’re more annoying than him because he does a one-eighty on his wheels and looks at them severely, the exposed skin of his bald head creasing with the force of his frown.
The last guy who spoke seems to have realized his mistake and is already apologizing to their teacher, who has been happily married to his husband for decades now. Maybe throwing that slur in front of him wasn't the best idea.
“Please, all of you, settle down.” He hits the class with the fatal ‘I’m not mad, just disappointed’ look and resumes after a tense few seconds of silence. “If we want this educative experience to achieve something for this class, we cannot allow hate and petty feelings to get the better of us and divide us. Might I remind you that Mr. Stark here is the only student who’s been actively participating today?”
The man is surprisingly composed, not lashing out at any of them for their disturbing behavior. Tony knows a few someones who could learn from him.
He smiles a Tony and, oh, what is this? A male authority figure is pleased with him? Yeah right. He might as well just give him head right now because Tony is not buying it. His calm behavior may be refreshing, but Tony knows better than to put his faith in older people.
While the nondescript bitch that called him a slur is getting an earful on acceptance and assigned a two-page long essay due next week on the power of love or whatever, Tony decides he’s had enough.
The excitement that had kept him energized had gradually worn off, and he’s now really close to the ground, and he doesn’t want to be here when he lands. Whatever it was about this whole thing that had got his attention doesn’t have it any longer, and he’s way too fucking tired for this shit.
If he’s to be the center of attention, he’d rather it be on his own terms, not some old man making him up to be a victim.
“Mr. Stark? Where are you going? The class is not finished, and I would love to hear more of your insight.”
Ah! Bullshit.
“Yeah, sure whatever, hey dipshit” he looks at the three guys, and when he spots the scrawny-looking asshole who had spoken first, he fires “I fucked your girlfriend”
He lingers by the closed door after exiting the class to listen to the screaming match that has started between that guy and whoever’s holding him down so he doesn’t run after the “Fucking asshole” who fucked his girl. He smiles, but the satisfaction is short-lived.
The ground is so close, he can practically taste it. His pasty tongue is ill-fitting for his mouth, too big, and he keeps accidently biting it.
He bangs the back of his head to the wall on which he’s resting and regrets it immediately as the feeling echoes through his teeth like an electric shock. He must have ground his teeth together without knowing, they hurt like a bitch. For the longest time, he just stays there, eyes covered with the thick veil of apathy as they stare at nothing in particular.
Everything is slower on the ground...
Time passes. He is not aware of it, but it definitely does because suddenly, the door opens with a loud bang as students exit the classroom, making his ears screech in protest. Is it break already?
He should move before the guy can act on his threats and beat the shit out of him. He really should, he seemed rather pissed, and he will probably want to take a breather outside the classroom. Yeah, he should really go.
He doesn’t. What’s the worst that could happen? If he does get beat up, it’ll give him a reason to go home early.
He doesn’t like being on the ground, not here, not anywhere. The sky is much more enjoyable. Here, it seems like the earth wants to swallow him down and gnaw at his bones before spitting his carcass out.
He misses flying.
Comon, Stark. He tsk at himself. You’re not an addict; get a hold of yourself
He doesn’t miss flying. No, he only needed it this morning to get through the headache, and he did, so he’s done for today. I should go find Rho-
“You motherfucker!”
He collides back on the wall he had started to walk away from before he feels the pain in his face. The fist had connected with the soft tissue of his cheek, sparing his jaw but not his teeth. He brings one shaking hand to his face to feel the injury and hisses at the pain, bracing himself on the bricks with his other arm.
The blond, scrawny kid isn’t done, that much is evident as he yells at the person trying to calm him and rises his fist again, ready to strike the left side of his face this time.
Fuck that. Tony has uses for his face, it wouldn’t do good to get it broken.
“You little fuck!” Kicking the guy’s right leg, he takes the opportunity given by the sudden imbalance to dodge the punch and knee him in the balls. No mercy, bitch.
The crowd —because humans are morbidly curious creatures and therefore are attracted to violence— boos him for his foul trick, but he doesn’t care.
Dorian —someone had cheered his name— is folded in two, probably cupping his crotch to try and salvage any chance for future children. Tony needs his hands unbroken for hias manual labor, so he aims to kick him in the face, but Dorian’s hand grabs his ankle, and he uses the momentum to pull at him and send Tony falling on his back. He catches himself on his elbows but doesn’t get the chance to get up before Dorian’s weight settles on his middle as he prepares to plow Tony’s face.
If the person that had tried to reason with the douchebag is still watching, they’re not manifesting themselves. No one ever does, but Tony can’t blame them. Humans are hypocritical creatures, even when they’re trying their best. Their desire to help fight what’s wrong is corrupted by the easy entertainment before their eyes.
Everyone watches. Some might say later that what happened was fucked up and wrong, that they shouldn’t have fought. Others will happily retell the events to all their friends and their mother, not taking any side but glad for the distraction the fight brought to their day. Some, most of the school, will say Tony had it coming, deserved it. Some, way less, will disagree and say he was a victim. In the end, it doesn’t matter what they say because not one fucking soul does anything.
It’s alright, he doesn’t want them to.
He watches the fist speed toward his face, his lips twitching upward as he anticipates the hit. It never comes.
Professor Xavier has finally gotten past the crowd, and Tony silently watches every spectator clear the scene as he rolls up to him and the man sitting atop him, fist unmoving above his face.
The man must have spoken, for Dorian hastily removes himself from Tony and straightens up, looking anxiously at the bald man. Again, something surely just came out of the professor’s mouth, for he’s now looking directly at Tomy, but he doesn’t care.
He’s tired, his teeth ache, and he loathes the way he’s being looked at; He’s not a little boy in need of comfort.
“Tony, my boy—”
“Don’t call me boy.”
Now that he’s standing, the professor has to look up at him with his sickeningly kind eyes. Interrupting their stare-off, the idiot opens his mouth to explain himself, and he and the bald man break eye contact so he can listen to his student.
“—slept with Amanda!” Oh my God, get over it, dude. Tony is so done with his repetitive ass that he rolls his eyes so far to the back of his head, he can practically see his brain and its lack of fucks to give.
While Dorian is whining about his cheating girlfriend, Tony picks his stuff from the ground and starts walking away. He’s had more than enough of this bullshit.
“Mr. Stark? May I inquire where you are going?”
“Away.”
With nothing else to add and no mind to hear what the other has to say, he passes the door to the stairs and leaves before the other students get a chance to see him coming back from break. Professor Xavier can’t force him to stay and listen to his bullshit about reconciliation and understanding and communication and human connection and whatever other crap he’s probably filling Dorian’s head with.
Amandine, or whatever her name is, was a good fuck, but not worth all that.
Why did he even come to this class today? He always skips philosophy, or as much as possible without failing the class.
He’s tired. His feet are heavy as he crosses the campus’s length to get to his locker, eyes half closed because the light is too fucking bright. Break has ended, but some students are still hanging around the hallways, and he bumps into some of them while walking. He hears the insults; he just doesn’t care. Where the fuck is Rhodey?
Tony would be in philosophy for another hour if he followed his schedule, but Rhodey doesn’t have any classes from eleven to one in the afternoon, which means he’s somewhere around here. After memorizing Rhodey and Pepper’s entire schedules, he, of course, knows where they spend their free time on campus. On Wednesdays, Rhodey starts in Physics class at nine, and when he gets out at eleven, he generally has a ton of homework. To the library then.
He picks up Rhodey’s lunch from his locker, the code to the lock committed to memory a while ago, and heads there.
Sure enough, he finds Rhodey in the library, hunched over a textbook with another student. He discreetly walks toward them to surprise and scare his Sourpatch but stops when he sees who he’s with. ‘The fuck is he doing with Barnes’s friend?
He keeps approaching their table but stays hidden enough to listen to their conversation but not be seen, the bookshelf next to them a nice cover.
“Ok man, wait, we have to finish this for Friday? Man, she’s really trying to kill us.”
“C’mon Sam, fourteen pages is not that hard, we’ve seen worse.” Rhodey, forever the number one student, keeps writing down his equations as he talks. After comparing his answer with Wilson’s, he switches pages.
“We’re all good on this one. See, it’s not that bad, man, stop complaining.” He elbows the other playfully, smiling despite his comment, and resumes working on their assignments.
“Yeah, it’s not hard, just time-consuming, and I have practice today and tomorrow. Coach will kick my ass if I’m too tired to play.”
Even as he whispers, Tony can hear how bothered Wilson is by the prospect of neglecting his training for homework. It’s no secret that Nick Fury is less than lenient with his team; the school director and coach of the football team is known for pushing the players to their limits, training them to be the best of the best.
Something that sits very well with his father. After all, Howard Stark just began funding SHIELD’s football team a month ago to celebrate the start of the year, it wouldn’t do good to make a less-than-formidable impression.
Tony doesn’t care about football, however, and his eyes roll back to shake hands with his brain again. Football players are always complaining to anyone brave enough to listen about training. Seriously, who cares that your quads hurt or that you caught the flying ball? Want a medal? No, not a medal; you need a whole trophy!
As they continue whispering to one another and scratching things on their papers, Tony decides to send a text to Rhodey.
The phone in his friend’s pocket chimes with a notification, earning him a dirty look from a girl sitting at the next table.
“Thought you said it was on silent.”
Rhodey simply hums, reading the text Tony just sent him. “I’m done with Professor X, you free right now?” it says, and Rhodey immediately types and sends an answer asking where he is. Leaving his phone open on the table to see if Tony answers, he starts to pack his things, finally answering Wilson.
“Some contacts aren’t.” At that, Wilson not-so-subtly looks at the contact in question and makes a face upon seeing who it is. What that face means is more complicated to decipher between books than just listening in on what they’re saying, but Tony can guess curiosity in his tone when he speaks next.
“Stark, uh?”
“Yeah.” Rhodey’s tone changed. He stares at Wilson like he’s daring him to say something about it.
“So, you’re really friends with him.” It’s not said with the same hate or resentment he usually hears in others talking about him. No, Wilson seems more intrigued. He respects Rhodey, respects his judgment, but is still doubtful that the infamous Tony Stark deserves his attention. To be fair, so is Tony.
Rhodey takes a deep breath, stands up, and shoulders his bag before looking at his classmate dead in the eyes.
“I know you and your friends talk a lot of shit about Tony, Sam. I heard you yesterday, I know you and the others saw me.” Right, because Barnes and his little clique can’t keep his name out of their mouths.
His eye roll game is unmatched by now, and he bites back a sigh of exasperation as Rhodey continues.
“I like you, Sam, you’re cool, but Tony is my brother in everything but blood, so be careful what you say around me. Some of the things you’ve heard about me are more than just rumors.”
Listening attentively, Tony wonders for the second time this week what he did to deserve this kind of friendship. He really ought to bring him and Pepper to an all-expense paid vacation. If not for their unwavering loyalty and solid friendship, they deserve it for putting up with him.
Wilson might be less of an ass than Tony thought because he takes it all in strides, accepting the thinly veiled threats for what they are, and just cocks his head to the side, grinning.
“So you are dating?” Yeah, Wilson isn’t a complete asshole, good to know.
The question sends Rhodey laughing, earning him another dirty look from the same girl, and Tony feels it’s the right time to come out of hiding.
“Yeah, we are. You coming, Honeybear?” Tony doesn’t whisper, not because he’s above that but because the girl with a staring problem is now leaving, tired of the disturbances.
“Tones, hey.” Melting in his best friend's embrace, Tony already feels a lot better. The ground isn’t as scary with Rhodey beside him, and his friend’s body heat chases away the cold that Tony hadn’t even known took possession of him.
Ignoring the rest of the library for a few seconds, Tony lets the tension bleed away while he takes his first full breath and stabilizes himself. The line he did in the morning was pale in comparison to what he does on the weekend, but on an empty stomach and tired body, the flight down had hit harder than the punch.
His quiet recovery lasted maybe three seconds, but they were more than enough for the irritating cluster of his mind to shape itself into something more sustainable for the day. His friends will know something is up, but the rest of the world will be blind to his struggle, at least for today.
“Sup, Stark.” Peering at the other man between the arms and shoulders protecting him from the world, he takes a second deciding whether or not to acknowledge him. Rhodey seems to have befriended him, and he is the less arrogant and bitchy member of the football team. That doesn’t mean a lot, considering they’re all massive cunts, but maybe he’s different.
“Wilson.” Then, to see if he’ll own up to it or be a two-faced hypocrite like most “So, you’re talking shit?”
To his credit, the man isn’t unsettled by the fact that Tony was listening in to their conversation.
“Yeah. I mean, you are kind of a bitch to the math teacher. Poor man can’t even place a word without you interrupting.”
“Correcting. He was wrong, and I don’t want to fail my class because of his mistakes.”
Rhodey had released him while they were talking but kept a hand on his shoulder, grounding him.
“That’s cool, man. Just saying you could be a bit nicer when you tell him. The last time you left, he felt so bad he couldn’t teach for the rest of the class.”
He would retort that it’s not his fault their teacher is a sensitive mess, but Rhodey knows him too well to let him do that and tightens his grip on Tony’s shoulder just a bit for a second. A second is enough for him to think of the last time he was in calculus and what he said to the recently divorced teacher.
“I guess you’re right. Rhodey, you’re good to go?”
“Yes, let's go. I’ll see you later, Sam. Text me if you need help with that.” He motions to the pile of physics homework before walking away with Tony, not before he nods goodbye to Wilson. The guy is chill, Tony decides, it’s a shame he hangs around such assholes.
Once outside, Rhodey stops whispering.
“I have to go grab my lunch.”
“Nope.” He pops the “p” sound and adds, “I got it.”
“Thanks, man. You got yours too?” He looks down at Tony from his slightly taller stance, knowing the answer already.
“Nah, I’m not that hungry.” He is hungry but wasn’t when he left the house, so he had refused Jarvis’s offer, saying he’d buy something instead.
“Good thing Mama packed more then.”
Tony would die for this man. If it were for him to decide, he’d give Rhodey the rest of his life expectancy so the amazing man could live longer. So he could live a normal and simpler life, a life without Tony. A life without being woken up at three in the morning by a paranoiac Tony having a panic attack, without having to pull up at some random house party to collect a passed-out Tony, without having to endure his constant bullshit, without forcing himself to tolerate him, without-
“Tones, hey”
“Hum? Sorry, I was...”
Tony doesn’t finish his sentence, can’t when Rhodey is looking at him like he sees clearly through his mind. It might have been a single second or a full minute, but after Rhodey is done perusing whatever it is he could see on Tony’s face, he pulls him in and holds him against his chest, tighter than before.
Nuzzling in the crook of his neck, Tony breathes in the familiar and comforting natural smell of his brother and lets his shoulders relax with a sigh. He feels Rhodey’s cheek pressed against to top of his head and loops his arm around the man’s back, his anchor.
“I love you, Tones. No matter what anyone says, no matter what you think, no matter what I have to do to convince you, that will never change.” His whispers are calm but strong, the conviction he puts in every word hardening his voice, but the small circular movements his hands are making on Tony’s back keep the same softness.
In return, Tony’s hold on the man tightens, and he hides between his shoulders. He doesn’t need to talk for Rhodey to understand him.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Right. Rhodey is not going anywhere. He’s had thousands of reasons and opportunities to leave and let Tony fend for himself, but he never did.
That’s what Tony tells himself, playing it back as many times as necessary before his breathing steadies. He hadn’t even realized he was out of breath, but Rhodey had; he always does.
He knows.
As the thought finds its way to Tony’s brain, he remembers his friend's behavior while Tony had been talking to Wilson. Rhodey had never stopped looking at him during the whole conversation. While Tony had been chatting away, Rhodey had been busy examining him, noticing all the twitches and shivers, his still dilated pupils, and the clench of his fists.
Yeah, he knows.
He knows Tony got coked up before class and chose not to blatantly tell Tony because that would just make his resting place in the ground deeper.
His grip slowly loosens before he lets go of Rhodey, and his friend’s hands, who have been making calming motions on his back the entire time, fall off only after Tony starts moving.
“You hungry?” The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.
“Yeah, let's go.” The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.
Once seated in the cafeteria and eating the fantastic chicken stir-fry noodles Rhodey’s mama had prepared for the both of them —Rhodey insisted on that— he finally asks Tony about the bruises he’s been eyeing since the library.
“Oh yeah, I got in a fight.” A piece of chicken falls from his mouth as he says it, and he quickly puts it back, munching on it like a starved man. Mrs. Rhodes's cooking is way too good to waste. The love she puts in all of her meals is different from the kind Jarvis does, a sweetness and warmth replacing that of a mother he’s practically a stranger to.
Rhodey doesn’t seem to think so, however, and when he bangs his elbows on the table to rest his head in his hands with a grunt, some noodles drop from the fork he’s holding. Tony snatches them before Rhodey can see them and savors the sugary crisp of the chicken while waiting for his brother to talk.
“Who was it, and did you deserve it?” Rhodey does that. When Tony is a bitch to people and gets a little shaken for it, Rhodey usually doesn’t get too involved, just takes their names in case things turn sour in the future.
“I fucked his girl. He didn’t appreciate.” The face pan Rhodey mentally gives himself is so intense Tony can read it in his eyes as he blankly stares at him. He takes another bite, offers some to Tony, who has already finished his portion, all while never getting rid of the deadpan expression.
“Yeah, you’re an ass, you deserved that one. Who was it, though?”
“Some guy named Dorian, and I only recognized him because he has her face tattooed on his forearm. Stupid if you ask me.”
Rhodey looks genuinely surprised when he hears that.
“Amanda cheated on him? She’s head over heels for that guy, when was this?” Of course Rhodey, big gossip that he is, would know who the douchebag’s girlfriend is.
“I don’t know, some party a few weeks ago, maybe in January.”
“The one where I found you in a bush?”
Bushes are very oddly comfortable to sleep in when he’s wasted. There must be something in the leaves that reacts with the chemical compound of alcohol in his blood, it’s the only explanation.
“Yeah.”
Rhodey stares, but this time, he’s appalled at some revelation he came to. “No no no man, you slept with Cassandra that night.”
“How d’you know that? I don’t recall you being in the room.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t recall shit from that night. She’s the one who texted me after you passed out in the middle of it. And you weren’t in a room.”
“I thought you found me in a bush?”
“I did.”
Oh. Well, that explains the rash he had in January.
“I mean, they look very alike, right? One of us, not me though, could be wrong.” Now that he thinks about it, he has no fucking idea what Amanda or Cassandra, whoever they are, look like.
“Amanda’s black, Tony.”
Damn, Dorian’s tattoo artist should really consider changing career. That, and stop whitewashing portraits.
“Oops. You gonna finish your plate or?”
“Alright, see you later, birdbrain.” Bucky watches Sam and James Rhodes disappear into another hallway after their physics class, both of them heading to the library to do their homework. He would have gone with them if it weren’t for his promise to Steve to meet him at the gym.
That, and while he wasn’t obvious about it, it seems Rhodes is not a fan of him at the moment. Not that Bucky cares, but they weren’t on bad terms to begin with, and he’d rather let things settle between them than get on this guy’s wrong side.
Not that Bucky couldn’t take him, he just doesn’t want to go through all the trouble.
So there he is, making his way through the hallways in the opposite direction of the two others, when he catches wind of a commotion nearby. Turning the corner, he finally sees the mass of people cheering and booing at whatever it is they’re all here for.
And “here” is right in front of the fucking stairs he was about to take.
God fucking damn it.
Ignoring the grunts and complaints of everyone he pushes around to get past the crowd, he ignores whatever is going on —probably a fight— and hurries to the door. Some people try to talk to him, but he just ignores them and squeezes past bodies to escape the horde caging him in.
There are too many people, and he hates people.
It’s only when he’s finally at the door that he realizes who is fighting after paying more attention to the crowd's cries of encouragement.
Stark?
What did the idiot do this time?
His question is answered fast enough while he stays by the door for a few more seconds. The context is easy enough to understand, the other guy can’t stop yelling about his girlfriend.
For all he would love to see Stark get beat up, the crowd is enough to discourage him from it, so he leaves, running down the stairs to hurry back to Steve.
“Hey man”
Steve is already waiting for him, his little sketchbook open and a pen in his hand. Before he closes it, Bucky gets a glimpse of a woman’s face with lengthy pale hair and Steve’s smile: Sarah.
“Oh, hi Buck. You ready?” The blond man gets up to greet him, putting away the sketchbook and hiding his mother’s portrait from prying eyes. She died a year ago in October, and Steve’s health had taken a big hit after the funerals, nailing him to bed like in the old days.
In those moments, he had let only Bucky see him, refusing visits from their friends.
Bucky has been here for Steve from the beginning; he’s seen him at death’s door in hospital beds, with tubes everywhere and the steady beeps of the electrocardiogram to remind them that he was still alive even if he didn’t look like it.
Bucky saw Steve rise from nothing and get better through sheer will and the determination not to listen to the doctors telling them he wouldn’t survive. Bucky saw Steve work his ass to become the man he is today; go from the scrawny little kid everyone would laugh at to the muscular and powerful man those same people now admire.
He has been and will be there till the end of the line.
Steve hadn’t wanted the others to see him sick that’s why he had refused all their visits. However, even after he came back to full health and could go back to school, his important loss of muscular mass had not gone unnoticed.
Now, he didn’t want to go back to being the scrawny Brooklyn boy with an asthma pump as his sole weapon, so since then, he and Bucky went to the gym twice as much as before to gain back what he’d lost.
“Yeah, let’s go. I got your shake, by the way. Here, vanilla just like you.”
“Go to hell, Buck.”
After two hours of bickering over whether or not Steve had skipped leg-day Monday, which Bucky is adamant he has, they make use of their last hour to shower and eat before Bucky has to go to his programming class.
It is, as always, uneventful. Some moron next to him is trying to code with Python instead of JavaScript like they were instructed to, and Bucky spends most of his time in the first hour watching him struggle with mocking eyes.
When said moron realizes Bucky is already finished, he makes his first smart decision and begrudgingly asks him for help.
“Hey man, do you, huh, I mean, can you help me with this man?”
“You tried with Java?”
“Pfff, that’s for noobs. Not that huh, not that you’re a noob or anything Barnes.” Maybe Sam is right; starring is his superpower. Seeing he won’t get anything else but a judgmental glare out of him, the guy leaves him alone and goes back to angrily tapping his keyboard.
Another hour goes by and Bucky has lost interest in the raging idiot’s failure, so he gets up and asks the teacher if he can leave. Except it’s not really a question, more like a statement.
“I’m done, see ya.”
The graying man couldn’t care less and just waves him out while keeping his eyes on the screen in front of him. Now out of class, he digs his phone out of his pocket and decides he’ll be the bigger man and text Stark first, telling him they need to meet soon.
He doesn’t bother waiting for an answer and heads to the changing rooms, aiming to get at least half an hour of stretching and running in before the others show up for practice.
Once stretched and on the tracks, he runs in the huge gym that the school newly renovated to be twice as massive, thanks to Mr. Stark’s money. Running the field outside in February would have been torture, but Fury wouldn’t have hesitated to have them endure it, claiming it’s good for the nerves to work out in the cold. Since the inauguration of the ameliorated gym, most of the team members worshiped the Stark patriarch. And Bucky and Steve, who despise the cold —due to personal traumatic reasons—are not above being grateful for a warm place to train.
Running here is different than where he used to. He’s better at remembering that now, his pulse quickening because of the physical effort and nothing else. He’s not running after Steve or Becca, trying to save them from themselves or whatever human scums lurking in the alleys. He’s not running from a drunkard with a broken bottle threatening to gut him for stealing his equally stolen money. He’s not running to the hospital with Steve’s frail body hanging over his shoulder.
He's just running.
And getting yelled at—wait, what? Da—?
“Earth to Bucky, hello?” Oh, it’s just Sam.
Right, he isn’t running from anyone. His dad isn’t here.
“What do you want?” Venom oozes out of his mouth, staining his voice with what is sure to be interpreted as anger at his interlocutor.
The venom comes from a much deeper place however, deep between Bucky’s entrails where a weak, cowardly, and egoistic child is crying and running away from his responsibilities. Here, the anger and resentment have a purpose. Here, Bucky spits at the pale figure to get up and stop being such a crybaby, to pull himself together and be a man. His dad is here, someone has to get hit, and it can’t be his little sister.
Outside is another story; his alcoholic father is not the one in front of him, Sam is, and he doesn’t know that Bucky’s rightful anger isn’t aimed at him but rather at a sickening afterimage of himself.
“Chill out man, damn. Fury’s here, get out of your head.”
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
Even running has its limit to how much it can distract Bucky. However, one of the only reasons he puts up with football is the sport’s great efficacity at changing his mind. With his head in the game, he can’t wander off to unsavory memories. With Fury barking in his ears to go faster, to tackle harder, to be better, he can’t hear his father’s voice. With Steve running next to him, he doesn’t need to worry and go look for him.
So now that the clock has struck six, practice can begin and he’ll give it his all, if only because running after something is better than running from himself.
It’s drenched in sweat and with aching limbs that he returns to the changing room, the pleasing idea of a second hot shower floating in the forefront of his mind when he bothers to check his phone for the time.
The most recent notification is a command from Stark to meet him at his house. He’s tempted to curse him out and remind him that he won’t take any order from him but opts to rush to the last stall instead. Forgoing a shower after football practice would be torture for him and anyone in his vicinity, and he can afford to skip on the school’s heated water supply. It’s always cooler in the locker room, but better than at home.
Lukewarm water droplets fall freely onto his upturned face, the smaller ones cooling as they make their way down to his feet. The comfortable sting of their refreshing body hitting the surface of his skin grounds him to he present, and now the only voices he hears are his teammates’. While the others complain about how cold their showers are, Bucky is just content to not be pummeled by fucking ice cubes.
Clean, dry as much as two seconds of towelling will allow, and calmed down, Bucky can finally leave SHIELD’s ground to go to sleep.
Except the buzzing of his phone he has just picked up tells him otherwise—tons of notifications from one Tony Mother-Fucking Stark asking to know where he is and why he isn’t already at Stark Mansion. The lock screen stares back at him while he contemplates faking his death to avoid the inevitable. No can do; it looks like rest will have to wait.
With a few taps on his friends’ shoulders and half-hearted good-byes to the teammates he’s less familiar with, he steps into the cruel wind and steels himself for the hours to come. While not a tourist attraction, the Starks’ first residency is a known location and, unlike Tony Stark’s number, Bucky doesn’t have to ask around to know which streets he must turn on. Maybe if the younger Stark could keep his father’s reputation clean and stop being the unpaid equivalent of the school’s common whore, his address wouldn’t be public knowledge, but with things as they are, everyone at SHIELD is predestined to learn one way or the other how to get to Tony Stark’s room.
Bucky may never have been there himself, but a good number of his classmates and teammates had and boasted about it loudly enough for him to figure out his way to the mansion. What he didn’t know was how fucking ostentatiously gigantic the mansion is. Slowly pulling into the paved and —Heated, really?— driveway, he’s about to switch off the ignition when a guy dressed to the nines appears next to him. After he’s rolled down the window and sent a confused look to the overdressed-for-the-driveway-underdressed-for-the-weather guy, the surely cold man finally bothers to explain him what the fuck he’s doing here.
“Mister, may I take your keys and the liberty to properly station your vehicle?” Bucky has never been addressed so politely yet looked down upon so nastily, like he’s the gum stuck under the man’s most worn pair of shoes.
“I can park it myself, thanks.” His voice doesn’t leave any room for negotiation. It’s his car. It might be a shitty pile of rust of wheels, but it’s his. He paid for it, repaired it all by himself, and plans on keeping it as long as the decrepit metal box can be safely driven. Eh, safety is relative.
“Very well, Mister, if you would please move your vehicle over there.” Pointing to an outdoor parking spot, the —what even is this guy’s job? Buttler? Driveway attendant? Professional parker? — man retreats to wherever he emerged from.
At least he doesn’t have to go in the garage, he wouldn’t know which of the six doors to pick. Who needs six garage doors? How many cars do they have? Why?
It’s with those questions filling his mind that he walks to the door, where another equally overdressed man welcomes him, although this time, the kindness seems genuine as he introduces himself.
“Welcome, Mister Barnes. Young Sir Stark is waiting for you and has asked that I show you to his workspace. If at any point during the evening you find yourself in need of assistance, my name is Jarvis, and you may call on me or any other member of the personnel for help.”
Well, that’s a lot of words to say Stark can’t be bothered by rudimentary politeness and show up to the door himself. The guy—Jarvis— seems like the nicest person here at the moment, so Bucky won’t take it out on him and awkwardly returns the smile Jarvis gives him.
“Thanks, huh, Jarvis.”
“You are most welcome, Mister Barnes. Now, if you would please follow me, I believe Young Sir awaits your arrival.”
“Yeah, let’s go.” Wait, am I supposed to thank him again? Shit. “Thanks. Thank you, I mean.”
Following Jarvis further in the belly of the beast, Bucky’s carefully composed face doesn’t let any of his resentful awe at the mansion’s size slip. There are so many stairs, Bucky is confused as to where they all lead. The bright and immense luminaire in the center of the central staircase blinds him and paints everything in its white light, making the estate appear even brighter and bigger.
Climbing the left one and making a sharp turn to the right, they make their way down a dark hallway, the lights having all been turned off. Once in front of the only door in this part of the house, Jarvis knocks twice, and when he hears no answer, asks Bucky to wait a few seconds while the man verifies if it’s okay for them to enter.
“Please follow me. Young Sir Stark is in his workshop.”
Now, why the way to a workshop would be through a room, Bucky has no idea, but he doesn’t voice it out. It’s only inside said room that he understands. The “room” is the equivalent of a one-story house; of course it would have a workshop in it. Making their way through the room’s rooms—again, this is more a house than a room at this point— Bucky notices a bathroom, a living room, a door to what appears to be a home-theatre, and even more doors. Now, his first guess is that one of these doors surely leads to the workshop, but no, there’s another staircase for that, going down this time.
No wonder he’s such a brat, the guy’s life is flooded with cash.
Leading the way down the way too fancy glass stairs, Jarvis taps away at a fancy keypad to open the sliding glass doors to— This house has more hallways than the fucking school!
The moment the doors open, music fills his ears, only growing louder as they approach the last door. Another code is entered on yet another keypad, and they’re granted access to what Bucky guesses is Stark’s workshop.
When Self Esteem starts to play, Bucky is forced to admit Stark doesn’t have shit music taste. Whatever, it’s one of The Offspring’s most popular songs, he’s probably just a poser.
Said poser is facing his five screens and has his back to the door when they enter the room, and with the music covering the sound of their entrance, the shithead has no idea of their presence.
“Okay, so, I want you to do this- Yes, that’s it. Now, you’re supposed to- No, no you’re not supposed to be like that, what the fuck is this? Why? Oh, that’s why, alright, this works fine. Now, why aren’t you working?”
“Sir.” Jarvis, for all that he calls to him, seems perfectly aware that Stark doesn’t hear him.
“Why? Is it? No, that’s not it, okay, cool cool cool, got it. Ugh, I need coffee, where the fuck is my coffee? Nope, empty. Okay, guess I’ll just kill myself then.”
Please do.
“Sir.” This is undoubtedly routine for Jarvis, for he looks as used to this as he is to breathing. Watching him approach the mumbling man, Bucky remains unmoving, unwilling to disturb the pattern the butler seems to follow.
“Oh wait, I’m an idiot! There, fixed it! I’m a genius. Take that, Howard. Oh, wait, I have to tell Rhodey and Pep. Where’s my phone? Shit.”
“Sir.” Third time’s the charm, and now that the song has come to an end, Stark finally hears Jarvis.
“Hi J. Hey, did you see my phone? And how was your day? Also, could you bring me coffee, please? I’m starving. Oh, never mind, I found it! Oh, wait, you need to see this, look! I programmed the robot so it could make coffee on its own, so you won't have to do it anymore. I’ll need to order a coffee machine for here when it’s completed. Four shots of espresso and double the sugar, my mouth feels wrong. The other moron isn’t here yet?”
If Bucky thought Tony Stark was a motormouth before, now he doesn’t know what to think of this impressive display of incessant noise coming out of the man’s shithole he calls a mouth. No, truly, it’s impressive how many things the guy can say without actually talking about anything interesting or important. Also,
“I’m here, asshole.” He almost looks at Jarvis apologetically for his inappropriate language but doesn’t because he’s right, Stark is an asshole.
“So you are. Well, this night just got a lot less nice. J, my coffee, please.” Well at least Bucky knows he’s not the only one considering jumping off a bridge to escape the shit show this night promises to be; The insolent child looks like someone just shot his mom in front of him.
What a dick.. Not only does this spoiled brat have a butler, but he can’t even show a bit of decency towards him. He feels terrible for Jarvis, it must be such a pain to work for this entitled man-child and pretend to enjoy it. He’s an outstanding actor because, for all the disrespect that’s thrown at his face, he manages to pretend to care about Stark’s health successfully.
“Sir, perhaps the reason you’re hungry is that you haven’t eaten anything since noon. May I suggest you go without coffee for the rest of the night and bring you a plate of what was made for dinner? I can also bring you one if you’re hungry, Mister Barnes.”
Bucky had not eaten anything since lunch with Stevie, and the appealing idea of fresh and warm food that most probably isn’t a sandwich makes his stomach roar. But, while he appreciates the thought, he would rather fight to the death with a grizzly bear than accept food from Tony Stark and eat in front of the man. Food is sacred.
Diving back into his screens, the Stark’s disgrace waves off Jarvis’s concerns and repeats his demand for more coffee before the butler leaves. Then, everything is quiet for a while.
A battle of will has just begun, the competitors fighting to show who’s the most stubborn.
Stark is quiet except for the tapping of his fingers on his keyboards; Bucky is quieter and almost stops breathing to make less noise.
Bucky ignores him, looking everywhere except where Stark is, and tries to remain unimpressed with what he finds in the workshop; Stark ignores him harder, fully invested in whatever he’s doing.
Stark cracks his neck, breaking the silence first to Bucky’s satisfaction, who then cracks his neck, back, fingers, and knees to assert dominance in this bone-cracking competition.
When Jarvis comes back with a cup in both hands, he hands one to both of them and gives Bucky a little milk jar and one of sugar so he may adjust the coffee to his taste.
Unlike Stark, Bucky feels no joy at the prospect of impending diabetes and doesn’t add anything to his cup except for a drop of milk. When he brings it to his lips and slowly begins to sip on the hot liquid, Stark throws his drink back and makes the content of his cup disappear in his mouth.
If Bucky’s count is correct—and it always is— they’re now two for two. If he can get Stark to mess up somehow, he will win the—
“Sir, I don’t think it is very polite of you to ignore Mister Barnes in such way. Don’t you both have a project to get started on?”
Overjoyed when Starks startles at the interruption of their competitive stillness, Bucky must reign in his face so his expression doesn’t budge. Ah! I win, take that sucker. The satisfaction lasts for about two seconds before the butler turns to him.
“As for you, Mister Barnes, I expected more from you. How do you plan to lead your project to successful completion when you can’t act any better than the man you are so eager to dismiss?”
Silencing the boys’ retorts with a look and a command to hurry and begin their work, he exits the room with Stark’s empty mug, leaving Bucky baffled and silenced while a pouting Stark grumbles something under his breath. Not so focused on the very mature competition anymore, Bucky at last registers with astonishment what Jarvis said to Stark.
“How come you’re not throwing a tantrum? I didn’t think you’d let your butler talk to you like that.”
With a huff, the other finally gets up and leaves his nest of glass tactile keyboards and bright screens and goes to another side of the huge room, sitting at what appears to be a table hidden under a pile of junk.
“It’s Jarvis. He can do whatever he wants, he just chooses to be polite.” You should take notes.
Feet anchored to the epoxy floor, Bucky stays static where he is, and Stark is forced to beckon him after another sigh of despair. Bucky, grown up that he is, chooses to move toward the table but does it at an excruciatingly slow pace, leaving four seconds between each step. To his pleasure, Stark’s eyes dramatically roll at Bucky’s antics, and he keeps the same rhythm across the whole room despite the complaints.
Now finally in front of the table, after what must have been minutes, Bucky notices what the junk covering it actually is. Diverse parts of metal not yet welded together, wheels fixed to some kind of platform, more wires than hair on his head, and a tremendous amount of lose screws are scattered on the steel surface of the table.
“There’s no chair.”
“Sucks for you. Gimme the notes. Someone has to carry this project, and it surely won’t be you.”
“If you wanted the notes, you should’ve shown up to class.”
Stark seems determined to start another battle of will and keeps his eyes on him while Bucky roams around the workshop to find something to use as a chair. The desk chair the other man was sitting on earlier seems comfortable enough.
“If you touch my chair, I’ll have Jarvis gut you and serve you to your team of doped buffoons when they’ll come to diner.”
It’s a great chair; with armrests, a leather cushioned seat, and —roller-skate wheels? Ignoring the threats, he lets one hand skim across the texture of the smooth cushion, his calloused fingers tracing the detailing in the dark leather.
“Hey, your overgrown gorilla, this is a designer chair for fuck’s sake, hands off! This costs more than your organs are worth on the black market.”
“Why d’you change the wheels then, if it’s so fucking precious?”
“Because it rolls better, idiot. How do you not know that? Don’t answer that— I don’t care. Just, oh my god, just get over here. There’s a stool somewhere in here, take that and leave my stuff alone. The sooner we’re done with this shit, the sooner we never have to be in each other’s vicinity.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Stark.” Ok, maybe he’s having too much fun messing with the guy, but every time he witnesses Tony’s eyes take a trip to Lichtenstein when he protests his entitled demands, an angel gains back their wings, and Bambie’s mom shoots a poacher.
Oh, and exasperating Stark is the only thing keeping him from drinking everything this place has to offer, alcohol and other unknown chemicals altogether.
“Alright, keep standing around like and idiot with a shovel up your ass then, but we need ideas. I can’t keep seeing you; it’s slowly killing me, and I can’t have wrinkles this early in my life. Give me—” Under the pointed look crushing him, Stark corrects himself. Staring is the best superpower in the world if it gets idiots to think before they speak. “Ugh, you’re insufferable. Can you give me your notes so I can go over the instructions?”
Entitled brat. Maybe he should have starred harder?
“Oh for fuck’s sake! Please. Here, you happy now?” He accentuates the word by slamming his hands on the table, and the pieces of metal collide and make a small ruckus at which he winces.
“You can do better than that. I don’t think Jarvis would approve.” His grin only serves to anger Stark more. He’s on the verge of spitting what is probably another insult or threat when he stops moving altogether, his face losing all indicators of emotions other than boredom. Killing his retort in the womb, he only sighs and leans back in his chair before pulling a laptop out of nowhere.
“Stark.”
Opening the device, the man runs his fingers quickly on the keys, not granting an ounce of attention to Bucky anymore. Huffing, he walks over to the table and places himself in front of Tony, hands clasped to the chilly surface.
“Stark, what are you doing? This is supposed to be a team effort, you can’t just work on your own.”
Not looking up at the admittedly ironic statement, Stark presses more keys, and after a final push of buttons, he stands and walks over to a massive printer where he doesn’t have to wait long before coming back with the papers he so desperately wanted.
Bucky knows their professor has not shared the documents with them online; the man is a firm believer in the good ol’ ways. It’s a surprise he had even managed to make the notes on a computer and then print them for the whole class, Bucky has no idea how the fuck Stark found them. He’s not going to ask, though, because he doesn’t want to give any ground to the man and also because he’s certain he won’t get an answer.
Resolved to endure the silent treatment, Bucky finds the stool and goes to sit as far away from Stark as possible, which isn’t much considering the table is nearly disappearing under whatever project the other man is working on and only the spot right in front of him has been cleared.
Still, Bucky pushes some things around so he doesn’t have to face the man directly, dropping parts on the ground. He’s ready for the angry berating that is sure to follow after he places what looks like the gripping fingers of pliers back on the table, but it never comes. Stark doesn’t even look in his direction.
Now, Bucky doesn’t willingly notice it, but he is observant by nature, and the bags under Stark’s eyes are a good indication as to why the man suddenly isn’t as responsive. The man can’t go a day without partying or fucking someone else’s lover, of course he’d be too tired to work on their project. What an ass. He can’t help the satisfaction that stirs in him when he admires the bruise left on the man’s face from his fight. He hopes it still hurts.
The countdown to eight-thirty passes in relatively soundless distaste, Stark doing whatever while Bucky tries to find experiences he shares with the man. The list is short, with the top three items being having been born, breathing, and learning to walk. Now he must figure out a way to turn these into shared trauma because that’s all they have in common, and Professor Curtlles will not get anything better out of them. It's his fault for pairing them up.
He's about to call it a day when Stark speaks up.
“You ever got beaten as a kid?” What?
“What?”
“I said—”
“Yeah, I heard you I’m just confused as to why the fuck you would ask me that.”
Ever the little shit, the younger Stark doesn’t look at him, and Bucky stands up and starts packing his stuff before he finally answers.
“For the project. We have to talk about trauma, I’m asking you about trauma. Seems easy enough to put together, even for someone as daft as you.”
“It has to be shared trauma, dickhead. You never got hit by anyone, and it shows. Even if I did get my shit rocked as a kid, which is none of your business, we couldn’t use it because life cuddled you too much.”
“You don’t know shit about my life Barnes.” Still not looking at him, Stark’s eyes are focused on his sheet, but Bucky can see his hand tightening around the pen he’s holding.
“I know you’re a piece of shit, and I know I’m leaving.” He’s about to exit the room when the other opens his hateful trap once more.
“I might be a piece of shit but at least I’m not a sheep. How does it feel renouncing your free will and making your whole life about Steve Rogers? I bet you really enjoy his dick with how well he confines you to his shadow. The goodie two shoes and his little lap dog, how cute.”
Mother Fuck—
“Motherfucker, you keep Steve’s name out of your filthy mouth you hear me? You don’t have a fucking clue what we’ve been through, you couldn’t even fathom it.” The only thing keeping him from jumping to Stark’s neck and strangling him is his grip on the door frame and the thought that he’d get kicked out of football if the team’s funder found out he assaulted his son. He can’t afford losing his place on the team, his scholarship depends on it.
Instead of choking him to death, Bucky turned around while talking and is now pointing a menacing finger at Stark, his stare more murderous now than ever today.
Stark only smirks at that, finally looking Bucky in the eyes. He looks incredibly tired, but Bucky couldn’t care less if Stark’s extracurricular night activities got him too tired to even breathe.
“’ night, Barnes.”
“Fuck you, Stark.”
With that, he rushes out of the room, hurrying through the corridor and up the stairs, only to exit the immense apartment he ends up in to then go back down another flight of stairs after getting across yet another hallway. This house is way too fucking big.
Jarvis isn’t in the surroundings to hear him curse out his boss and the lack of secret passageway, but he nearly trips and has a heart attack when he almost crashes into none other than Howard Stark, in the entrance with a domestic taking of his coat for him. Bucky’s face doesn’t let the man see how shocked he is to meet him in person, but deep inside, he is geeking out when the face of futuristic technology turns to him with a smile.
“Ah, Mr. Barnes. Jarvis had told me you would be there, I’m glad I could catch you before you left. How are you?”
Lucky for him, Bucky mastered the art of acting nonchalant years prior and doesn’t combust with excitement at meeting the face of engineering advancement. It’s a near thing, though.
“Mr. Stark, it’s an honor to meet you in person. I’m great, thank you, uh, sorry for intruding your home, I have to work on a project with your son, I’m sure you already know. How are you?” Oh my god, I sound like Steve when he sees Peggy.
“Wonderful, thank you. I’m sorry you have to put up with Anthony. Tell me, how did your practice go today?” If the man is paying for them to play, it only makes sense that he’ll want to know if his money is being well spent. Bucky takes the time to explain to him in great detail how far they’ve come and how each player is quickly perfecting their play.
“The new gym you paid for is awesome too, it’s really helpful this time o’ year.”
“I’m glad the gymnasium is proving it’s worth. You know, Mr. Barnes, it’s to help brave and perseverant men like you that I find interest in funding SHIELD’s sports team.” Taking a moment to evaluate him, the better Stark resumes, “You’re a great player, Mr. Barnes, but I also know of your record. You didn’t end up at SHIELD for nothing, and if it weren’t for your talent on the field, your brain would have gotten you a scholarship someplace else. I’m proud to be funding your future.”
Bucky can barely hold back the stupid smile threatening to spread across his face after Howard Stark’s declaration. He can’t remember the last time his father ever told him he was proud of him, doesn’t know if he ever did say something positive to Bucky except congratulating him for stealing some junk to burn during winter.
It’s with warm thank-yous that Bucky finally leaves the premises, turning on the ignition and turning up the heating as high as possible before he calls Steve.
“Buck?”
“You’ll never guess who I just met.”