Chapter Text
Ever since Tony decided that he was at least semi-officially a slut, he had developed a worrying, if not slightly obsessive relationship with dental hygiene. Which is why he’s pissed off- or, it’s at least one of the main contributing factors towards it- when he ends up on the floor with a mouthful of blood thirty seconds after the bell rings.
“Ow,” he says, and thinks about wiping the blood off with his sleeve, but then goes with the theatrical option and spits it onto the tiles.
Because that’s what this is about, right? Theatrics. They’re both playing a role, if this is who he thinks it is-
“Get up,” the familiar voice says, and Tony doesn’t even have to look towards Darcy to know that she’s rolling her eyes at the both of them.
Tony grins, pushing blood through his teeth with his tongue. “Hey, Beef.”
Clint gives him a warning look, like, dude, don’t screw this up. “I said get up.”
“Yeaaah,” Tony says, drawing it out and letting it roll around his mouth. “I’m fine down here, thanks. Thought I’d have a kip on the floor, actually, thanks for reminding me.”
“Fucking weirdo,” one of Clint’s flanking guys says, stage-whispering it to the others so they snigger.
Tony sighs loudly. “Well, now that you’ve obviously beat me with your cunning and cutting wit, could you kindly piss off? We’ll be late for the bus if you try to damage my pretty, pretty face any more than you already have.”
He can feel the blood welling under his bottom lip, oozing down his chin in a way, which, with the split lip, which probably isn’t making him look wildly attractive unless you have a thing for it, which Tony doesn’t. Sadly.
“You guys go,” Clint says, and Tony watches as he puffs out his shoulders in that too-loose, too-worn leather jacket. “I’ll tell him what’s what.”
Tony mouths at him, you sound like a knob, and bites down on a smile when he gets another glare in response.
One of the guys- Skeet, he’s pretty sure, because he has him in English class and that’s what he makes everyone call him- digs his elbow into Beef’s arm. “Man, really? We ca-”
“Do you think,” Clint grates, “I can’t handle this fag on my own?”
Tony raises his eyebrows at him, finally wiping the blood away and trying not to think about how much a new shirt is going to cost, but it gets the job done: the others all glance uncertainly at each other.
“Nah, man, sorry,” Skeet says, shrugging quickly, leaning back. “We’ll just- see you tomorrow, Beef.”
“See you,” Clint says, jerking his head at them.
Skeet looks over at Darcy, who smiles icily. His lip curls upwards. “See you, Jugs.”
“Bye, assholes,” Darcy replies, one hand on the strap of her bag and the other pulling the finger.
They hoot, and one of them punches Clint lightly on the shoulder, saying something about go get some, before turning around and heading down the hall.
“Philistines,” Tony calls after them, and Clint discreetly stomps on his foot as the guys look back over their shoulders.
“Shut it,” Clint hisses out of the corner of his mouth, and Tony swallows his reply until the others turn back.
As soon as they turn the corner, Darcy pushes herself off of the lockers and comes towards them, arms folded. “That was fucking harsh.”
“Yeah,” Clint says, bending down and taking Tony’s hand when he holds it out. He hauls him up, and Tony watches as ‘Beef’ dissolves back into ‘Clint,’ losing the sneer and gaining a hangdog look. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” Tony drags his hand across his mouth again, down under his chin, along his neck. “But you could’ve gone for somewhere that doesn’t get blood all over my shirt, God. You know I stake everything on my face, right? No-one’s going to want to make out with a bruised, bloodied, albeit gorgeous guy.”
“Next time,” Clint promises, leaning over to pick up Tony’s bag.
Tony takes it, slinging one strap over his shoulder. “Can’t wait. Shake on it?”
He holds out his pinkie, and Clint’s smile makes him wonder, for at least the thousandth time since freshmen year, why the hell he does this.
And how everyone actually swallows it- there’s almost a tangible difference between Clint and Beef, and quite honestly, if Beef smiles like he’s doing now in front of the people who cringe away from him when he walks down the halls, they’d see through the ‘Beef’ act every time.
“Next time I punch you in the face,” Clint says, squeezing their pinkies together quickly before dropping his hand, “I’ll catch you somewhere that doesn’t make you bleed. But it has to look good.”
Tony extends his arm to his locker door, pressing it closed properly, which he had been doing before he had been punched. “You know what? We should learn that fake-punching thing everyone does in movies.”
Clint pauses as Darcy falls into step beside them, heading for the buses out back instead of the school bus out the front where they know the others will be. “That’s- could we do that?”
“We could try. How hard could it be? I make the face, do the noises, Darcy stands in the back and makes the smacking sound-“
“You put too much effort into this,” Darcy says distractedly, raising a hand to wave at someone Tony can’t see unless he turns his head, which he honestly can’t be bothered doing at the moment, because everything hurts and he’s still swallowing blood every few seconds.
He tongues at the split where one of his molars had cut into his cheek at the impact of Clint’s fist, and winces.
Clint catches it. His face tightens, and he says, “Seriously, I’m sorry-”
Tony shrugs, one hand pressing gingerly against his jaw as he tries to judge the swelling, the other hand rooting around in his pocket. “‘S fine. My fault for not remembering that you were supposed to do it after the bell.” He stops, still poking at it with his tongue, his hand closing on empty air. “Actually, scrap that, it’s totally your fault and I hate you. You can either grovel madly at my feet, or-“
“You forgot your bus money, didn’t you?”
Tony pushes out his bottom lip, making the already swelling bruises look worse than they already are, and his hand comes out of his pocket, sadly empty, and makes jazz hands.
Clint snorts before he can stop himself. “I’ll pay for you. Shit, you always milk this.”
“You punched me in the face.”
Darcy slings her arm over his shoulder, and bumps her hand against Clint’s forearm so quickly it could be accidental. “Bitch, bitch, bitch. You’re the dumbass who agreed to it.”
“I’m helping him keep up appearances,” Tony says, and it tastes stale from all the times he’s said it, all the times they’ve all said it, all the times they’ve avoided each other in the halls, all the times they haven’t helped each other up until everyone else had left. “He doesn’t have to punch some innocent bystander, and I go and find someone who’s into this kind of stuff. It’s a win-win.”
“Sure,” Darcy says.
Tony bumps against her arm. “Scars are sexy, right?”
“Fuck yes,” she says, and a clump of dirt comes loose as she kicks it. “But bruises aren’t.”
“Like I said, I’ll find someone.”
“That’ll be an interesting Craigslist entry.”
“Ha, ha,” Tony says, ducking out under from her arm so he can get into the bus without being crushed against the side of the door, stepping out of the way to get paid for.
There are only about seven other people on the bus, and most of them are in the back. Tony nods at Natasha, who doesn’t nod back, but blows a smoke ring in his direction.
Tony slides into a window seat before Darcy can, dropping his bag between his feet. She kicks his ankle, ignoring his yelp, before sitting down next to him in the aisle seat.
Clint takes the seat behind them, and glances back to check who’s in the bus before leaning forwards. “And sorry about calling you, uh. Yeah.”
Tony glances back at him, craning his neck. “How many times do I have to tell you it’s fine? It’s not real, you’re playing a part.”
It’s sort of uncomfortable, how often they go over this, and how unstable it sounds when he says it, like it’s going to fall apart unless they keep holding it up.
“And besides,” Tony says as the bus jerks forwards, “I’ve been called worse. Slut, queer-”
“You don’t need to go through the entire list-”
“-fag, man-whore, cheating bastard-”
“Oh my god, we’ll be here all day-”
Darcy slots her hand over Tony’s mouth, her smile too loose. “Yes, we all know you fuck around, you adorable British slut, you. Stop yelling it to the world.”
“Never,” Tony says into her palm, muffled. He licks her hand, and her nails dig into his cheeks.
She finally remembers the new bruises when Tony flinches involuntarily, and her hand bolts back into her lap. “Fuck. Sor-”
Tony lets his forehead drop to the seat in front of him, and it jolts when the bus goes over a pothole. “Why is everyone apologizing? What have I said about apologizing? We don’t apologize, it’s awkward and overdone and all it does is makes things worse, ugh, shut up.”
He knows they’re both sharing a look without even checking, so he lets his head rest on the seat for a few seconds before straightening up. “Aspirin. I need aspirin. I got punched in the face, therefore I need aspirin. Aspirin is good. Aspirin will fix things.”
“You know, there are times when I think you just let your mouth keep going while your brain turns off.”
“I am shocked and insulted by that horrendous insinuation, Clint.” Tony stretches his shoulders backwards until he hears a pop, and ignores the look he gets from both of them for it. “So, do either of you lovely pe-”
“For some reason,” Darcy says, “we don’t carry painkillers around in our bags.”
“Why not? That’s stupid. You should try to keep them handy, in case someone comes up and punches you in the face.”
“You agreed,” Clint says, too loud, and they all stop for a second, looking back at the other people on the bus.
None of them have seemed to notice the conversation, but there’s a guy who looks a few years too young to have stubble that has a full-grown beard, and he’s looking at them disinterestedly before turning back to take a cigarette from the girl next to him.
Usually they keep everything quiet: Darcy and Tony not making eye contact with Clint, least of all talking to him- but things have slipped through the cracks. Accidentally smiling at each other when something happens in class, not taking Tony up on it whenever he gets too cocky, being too friendly when they shouldn’t.
“Pepper will have some,” Darcy says, and Tony pretends not to see how her eyes keep flickering down to check the swelling. “Try not to bleed the fuck out and die before then.”
Tony smiles, but the throbbing in his mouth has only gotten worse since getting up off the floor. His lips feel heavy, like he should be slurring. “Duly noted.”
They sit in silence for the rest of the bus ride, and Darcy shares an earbud with Clint, who leans his head against the window so no-one sees the wire running between them.
Tony watches them both, and realizes that from here, the only telltale sign is her quiet humming along, and Clint tapping the same staccato beat against the hole in the knee of his jeans.
Really, Tony should be put off by the fact that one of his closest friends is paid monthly via massive checks that his dad writes out.
But when Pepper opens the door, her hair in a slick mess down her collar, her sweatpants sagging around her waist, and he can’t bring himself to care about said massive checks.
He steps inside and closes the door behind him, shrugging off his jacket. “Popcorn?”
“Rice,” she replies, bunching her hair up and twisting a hairtie around it. “Microwave. Go.”
He makes a face, toeing off his shoes and leaving them in a trail behind him as he heads to the microwave. “Why are we out of popcorn?”
“We’re not.” Pepper drops down onto the couch and leans over, feeling around for the remote on the ground instead of walking the six inches to grab the other one. “I felt like rice.”
“Sure, but why rice?”
“I felt like it,” Pepper repeats, lifting her feet up onto the couch and lifting up her ponytail so it drapes over the end of the couch when she lies down. “And I’m the responsible adult here, so shut up and get a bowl.”
Tony pushes the button on the microwave so it dings and unlocks, and opens the cupboard door.
“One bowl,” Pepper calls from the lounge. “We can eat it with separate forks. I don’t want to wash any more dishes than I need to.”
“You don’t want to wash one extra bowl?”
“Hey, unless you want to do the washing up-”
Tony bends down and puts the other bowl back, and starts to pour the rice into it before realizing that it’s not going to work. “It’s not big enough. Your bowls are pitifully tiny. I’d be ashamed if I was a bowl.”
She flops his hand at him. “Use the fruit bowl, then.”
“There’s fruit in it.”
“Really?” She frowns, genuinely confused, looking over at him.
He tilts the bowl towards her, showing her the half a dozen lemons and three limes.
“So there is.” She waves her hand again, and lies back down. “Those were probably for the vodka. No wonder I don’t remember it. Tip them into the pitiful bowl that I am now horrifically ashamed of, even though I’m not a bowl, and use the fruit bowl for the rice.”
It hurts to smile, but he does anyway. He tips the rice in the tiny bowl back into the bag, and narrowly avoids spilling the lemons across the bench when he puts them in.
He wipes the bottom of the fruit bowl with his shirt, keeping clear of the blood- on his shirt, not the bowl- and tips the rice into it.
He reaches over to the drying rack, grabbing two forks that are reasonably dry, albeit slightly soggy, and wipes them on his shirt before sticking them both in the rice and picking up the bowl.
He’s 99% sure this isn’t allowed- being this close with your therapist, that is. Having a key to her house on his keychain, knowing that she hates her mother and never knew her father, knowing what she looks like when she’s wasted with a sloppily-done mud mask on at 3 in the morning.
Which, by the way, is hilarious.
And he’s 100% sure she’d get fired if he told anyone that they stopped having sessions at her office three years ago and started coming over to her house, because it was easier, they both hated her office, and here they can watch movies on her flatscreen, which is the most expensive object in her entire house.
Tony had first met her five years ago, when he was eleven and she was twenty-two and had just got her licence. He had been enrolled in therapy because his dad (who comes around every two months or so to pay for the bills, booze and a haircut, before going off on another business trip) got forced into it by a counsellor at Tony’s old school, since apparently moving countries is ‘taxing on a child’s mental/emotional development.’
They had bonded over their unnecessary use of big words to freak people out, their shared hatred for therapy- she had only gone into it because she also hates everything else, and this way she had proof that everyone else’s life sucks more than hers does- and that they had both just moved to America from England.
Bonded over Britishness, they say sometimes, and grin.
Granted, it should be weird- she’s more than a decade older than him and doesn’t seem to have many other friends than the elusive ‘Maria and Sif’ that Tony has met twice while they were both fighting over who would get to puke in a toilet bowl and who would get the sink- but again, Tony can’t bring himself to care.
Besides, she’s pretty much the only British person he knows, and he gets to make all the jokes around her that no-one else gets, because everyone else is American and therefore only care about hamburgers and string cheese. And Snooki.
He sets the rice down on the coffee table, not bothering to worry when the glass wobbles, because it’s one of the strongest tables he’s ever come across, and that counts ones that are made of steel. He’s honestly expecting it to shatter when one of them props their feet up on it. They’ve run into it, tripped over it, kicked it, danced on it, and Tony can’t see how glass that thin can realistically take that much abuse without breaking into a million pieces.
She grunts, and heaves herself so her feet are flat on the floor and her back is straight. “Since I’m responsible for your mental health, or whatever, I’m required by law to ask how your day was.”
“If it helps, I promise not to go on a shooting spree.”
“That does help, actually. I’m declaring you sane at the moment, and I don’t want to damage my credibility by fouling it up with my favourite client.”
Tony slings his feet up on the coffee table, prodding it experimentally with his toe first to see if today’s the day it finally gives it up and splits down the middle. “You just say that because you get to go home early.”
“You’re the only one who actually gives me a stimulating conversation to work with,” Pepper says, and yawns widely, covering her mouth. “The bad movies and greasy foods are perks. You didn’t answer my question.”
Tony watches half of the rice fall off her fork before answering. “It was lovely. Glad times were had by all. You?”
She perks up, like she’s just remembered, and the rice spirals down her shirt. “I brought some shoes! You want to see the pretty shoes I brought?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“You,” she says, picking a grain of rice off a button and picking it off her finger with her tongue, “are the most boring bi kid I’ve ever met. There’s got to be a side of the rebellious gay guy in you, screaming to let him out and let him see the shoes-”
“That’s offensive in a billion and three different ways,” Tony says flatly, “and because I am a mature and sensible person, I’m not going to make a comment about having a guy inside me.”
Pepper’s hand flies to her mouth as she laughs, and then half-chokes on the rice. “Good idea. People might think I’m a bad influence. Oh, and I learned how to punch properly.”
“That’s worrying. You’re worrying.”
“You can talk. Okay, so you have to put your thumb like-”
She curls her hand into a fist, untucking her thumb from inside it and pressing it under her knuckles.
Tony nods, forking rice into his mouth and trying not to wince when the fork brushes against one of the splits. “Yeah, I saw that on TV.”
She glances over at him, and then looks back at her arm. “And you draw back, and when you punch, you twist your arm, like- and bend your elbow a bit, obviously, don’t make your arm too straight, otherwise you’ll break it.”
She mimes another punch into a cushion, and Tony nods again. “Thanks, but I think if I was ever in a situation where I needed to punch someone, I wouldn’t think strategy. I’d probably just flail out and slap them. Or kick them in the balls.”
“Good man,” she says. “Hey, speaking of punching, your face looks like mashed potato. Do I need to go beat someone up? Or call their parents? Calling their parents would probably be the responsible adult thing to do, b-”
“It’s nothing,” Tony says. “It was-I told Clint he could pull his whole ‘Beef’ act on me, so he didn’t have to punch some poor freshman instead. It’s a status thing.”
When he risks a look at her, she’s looking back at him with her fork in her mouth, her eyebrows raised. “Have I ever told you that your relationship with just about all of your friends are really, really unhealthy?”
“Like my relationship with you?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Ugh. Don’t go there. You’re actually my most normal friend, if you can believe it. And our relationship might be a tad unhealthy, but all the interesting ones are.”
She nudges him with her bare foot, grinning, and he skims the end of his fork along her toes, poking it into her heel.
“Speaking of unhealthy relationships,” she says, twisting her foot underneath her, “How’s whatshisface?”
It’s probably sad that Tony knows who she’s talking about. “Hey, do you have any aspirin? I want some aspirin. For my face. Which is currently screwed to shit.”
She gives him the side-eye, but points her fork towards the cupboard. “Third shelf, behind the various liquor bottles which you’re still not allowed to touch.”
He pushes himself up off the couch, putting his fork back on the bench as he passes. “And that’s going to stop me drinking. Which, by the way, is so hypocritical I think I might actually faint the next time-”
“I may be a bad influence,” Pepper says into her rice, “but you can get pissed off your face with your own alcohol. Do you have any idea how much that costs? No, to the right- the right- righter- to the right, you moron, didn’t you learn anything in first grade- there, you’ve got it.”
Tony dry-swallows them, taking one more pill than the box advised, and twists the lid shut before shoving it back. “Movie?”
“Movie,” Pepper agrees, and reaches for the remote again.
Two hours later, they’re still watching it, occasionally bursting out at how unrealistic the blood is, or how the girls can’t run in shoes like that.
They’ve been off the clock for a while, but neither of them says anything.