Chapter Text
Admittedly, it wasn’t the smartest idea Tony’s ever had. In fact, he’s going to go on record that this was the dumbest idea ever.
And now he’s lying in a ditch, immobile and dying alone, having abandoned his security detail about a mile back.
Well, he’s not dying, but he’s pretty fucking close. Well, if a broken leg counts as close. Cause he’s pretty sure he’s got a broken leg, and he is way too pretty to play Lieutenant Dan .
And it’s kind of really embarrassing how he ended up here.
“Shit,” he tells his leg, black spots dancing in his vision. He’s not so much bothered by the physical pain as he is the inconvenience of it; his father is going to take this as yet another sign of Tony’s inferiority. That means more security detail, which Tony already thinks the current level is overkill, and more Howard yelling about the cost, dammit Anthony, I thought you were better than this. Or were my simple standards too high for an invalid like you?
“God fucking shit. Fucking goddamn shit biscuits,” Tony curses. The pain alleviates by like, two percent, so Tony spends the next ten minutes spitting every curse word Howard ever used on an engine at the cracked brick walls.
The pain is actually getting worse, though, so all of Tony’s crudeness is for naught; his vision blacks out for a bit, and the next time he hauls himself back into consciousness, he’s being lifted by two thick, muscular arms.
If he’s being honest, he panics a little, because he’s the famous son of Howard Stark lying unconscious with a broken leg in a semi-dark alleyway outside what looks like a shitty Mediterranean restaurant in what happens to be the bad part of Manhattan.
And Tony knows what good Mediterranean looks like, goddammit. He’s not going to kick the bucket next to shitty off-brand Nish Nush.
Also, he’s a high school junior with mental issues and a fucked-up home life. He’s allowed to be reckless, no matter what Rhodey or Pepper say.
So he opens his mouth. “Who… the fuck… are you?”
“Tony! You’re awake!”
And then he’s staring into the wide, blue eyes, familiar eyes, of his ex-boyfriend, Steve Rogers, football champion, and professional life-wrecker. “Are you okay?” he demands.
Instead of trying to stay awake and answering, Tony lets himself pass out again.
It’s the best option for all parties involved.
#
“Wow, I thought this was a high school locker room, but I must’ve accidentally walked into a nursing home. What’s with all the old people?”
Steve turns and grins at his best friend. “You know it’s me, Sam.”
Sam leans against the door into the locker room, and he’s talking loudly to be heard over the rabble of sweaty football players. Sweat drips slowly down his chocolate chest. Steve is also covered in sweat, but he’s got a reason; Coach Skull always seems to have a personal vendetta against him specifically.
Sam holds up his hand for a fist bump, and Steve obligingly bumps it. “Yeah, well, maybe you should try not being super old for a while. ‘Aight, Cap?”
“Please,” Steve scoffs. “That comeback was weak.”
“Yeah, well I spent my game on playing football well , which you might want to consider, white boy.”
“Um, which one of us is Team Captain again? Consider yourself.”
“Ouch, what a roast.”
Steve launches his shirt into Sam’s face, laughing. Sam plays it up on his next inhale, breathing extra deeply, then tosses him his shirt back. “Thank you for indulging my sweat kink,” Sam says with an over-the-top wink.
Steve hums and crams his stuff in his locker or backpack. “I’ve got a boyfriend,” he says, walking with Sam out the door. He holds his hand up to give Peter Quill a high-five on the way out, and receives a resounding smack on the ass the second his back faces the other boy. At this point, it’s basically routine. Steve’s face doesn’t even turn that red anymore.
Steve and Sam walk down the halls in a comfortable bubble of banter. Nobody interrupts them. It’s not that people don’t know Steve Rogers, Football Captain-slash-Longtime Champion, and Sam Wilson, Best Friend of Steve Rogers, it’s just that not a lot of people, and certainly not the general public of SHIELD Academy know them deeper than that. Only close friends know that Steve is going to use his football scholarship, if he gets one, to study art in college, and Sam was going to be a psychiatrist who worked with veterans.
It’s enough to make Steve a little lonely, at times, but then he remembers that he’s lucky to be alive , and especially lucky to have-
“Heya,” a familiar voice calls from behind them. Steve turns around and smiles as his boyfriend approaches them next to Natasha Romanova.
Bucky Barnes wraps a gleaming prosthetic arm around Steve’s waist while the blond lays a kiss on his forehead. “Hey, Bucky,” Steve greets.
“Are you driving me home today?” Bucky asks, kissing him.
Steve smiles dopily and nods. He can hear Sam and Natasha making gagging noises, but he’s in such a great mood today. Today is a great day . The week-long cold front finally broke today, which means soon enough it’s going to be warm enough that Bucky won’t growl about how his metal arm is “freezing his shoulder off, what the fresh hell,” and then putting said frozen fingers on the back of Steve’s neck.
Also, warm weather means Bucky starts wearing shorts and crop tops again, and there are obvious reasons why Steve likes that .
Bucky slaps his chest. “Steve.”
He tunes back in. “What?”
“I’m tired as fuck.”
“You drank the whole pot of coffee today, Buck.”
“So fuckin;’ what? I wanna stop by Starbucks.”
Steve scoffs. “I’m starting to think you just want Starbucks because it tastes good, not because you’re tired.”
“Blasphemy. How dare you.”
He knows the real reason Bucky is dragging his return home out; his awful adoptive father, Alexander Pierce, is the biggest douchebag ever, but Bucky is incredibly tight-lipped about his new home life and won’t let Steve go to the authorities about him.
Steve does the best he can by keeping Bucky out as long as his curfew can allow, and leaving it alone. But he sure as hell hasn’t forgotten it; when the time is right, he’ll bring it up again.
For now, though, he plays along. “Alrighty, then, Prince James, let’s head out.”
They say bye to Sam and Nat, then hop into Steve’s small, cramped car. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Bucky sings along to the Top 40’s playlist obnoxiously with the windows rolled down, and only gets louder every time someone honks or yells at them. They end up staying at Starbucks for a while, doing homework or college searching in comfortable silence. When they finally finish, it’s “hella cold out, Steve,” so Steve pulls out his letterman from his backpack and wraps the jacket around his boyfriend.
It's a great improptu date. All the good feeling evaporates anyway when they turn into Bucky’s apartment complex and the brunette’s smile slides off his face. He watches the building like a prisoner facing a firing squad and slides out quietly, dying sun illuminating his back. Steve rolls down the window.
“Stay safe, jerk.”
Bucky smiles tightly. “Will do, punk.” Then he squares his shoulders and walks into the darkened building.
Steve’s driving home, lost in thought, when he sees the body crumpled on the street.
At first, he thinks it’s another poor kid who’s been put out of their home, but then he sees the figure’s leg, bent at an unnatural angle, and then he sees the spiky black hair, and he knows exactly who that crumpled mess is.
He’s out the car before he even knows what’s happening, gathering his ex into his arms. Tony is cold and shivering, and Steve's careful not to touch the leg, acting out of mindless concern.
Tony slurs out something too garbled to be recognizable, and Steve says, “ Tony! You’re awake!”
And Tony, unsurprisingly, immediately passes out. Ever one to avoid feelings, huh, Tony? Steve thinks even while dissolving into a panic.
Steve eyes the distance to his car and starts pulling Tony’s prostate body towards it.
And to think, today had been a good day.
#
Tony wakes up in the hospital. He’s been here enough times that he’s grown to recognize the white walls and the nurse that scowls at him whenever he’s here, even though this is definitely a zero-sum relationship, given the wildly unfortunate fact that America doesn’t have free healthcare. Then again, it does appear to be nighttime now, so maybe blond-guy is just pissed at having to take the graveyard shift but. Semantics.
His leg is suspended and wrapped in a cast, which means he was right when he guessed it was broken. Just another example of why it fucking sucks when Tony’s right sometimes.
“Uh,” Tony croaks. “Hi?”
Blond Nurse Guy rolls his eyes so hard they practically bulge out of his skull and leaves the room, only to return two seconds later with Howard Stark trailing him.
His father is frowning hard, eyebrows low in disappointment. Tony physically curls into the blank sheets while his father’s severe eyes roam over him.
His relationship with the man is distant at best. Howard is a perfectionist, and he refuses to work with anything that goes even slightly wrong. On the other hand, Tony is a huge fuck-up, and he finds himself comfortable working with other things of his kind. Nevermind the fact that Tony finds ‘mistakes’ to be things you can work on, because you can explore them in case there’s something unseen, it’s more about the fact that every achievement Tony gets, Howard has already one-upped him in some way.
Tony built an engine at four? Howard could strip and rebuild the whole car.
Tony invented a green-energy source that was compact and practically endless? Howard found a way to turn it into weapons capable of slaughtering hundreds in seconds.
Tony earned the Genius Child award for seven-through-ten-year-olds at age three? Howard was singlehandedly the reason the award even existed.
Tony knows he’s exceptionally smart, figured it out when all the other kids talked about how hard multiplication was when Tony was already studying quantum physics and the alternate dimension theory. (The same one Howard proved just months later. Yeah, it’s not hard to feel inadequate next to The Great Howard Stark, and especially easy when said Great Howard Stark tells you that you are inferior to your face, thanks a fuckton, dad.) He’s just not smart enough, and he never will be.
It took months of begging and the aid of his mother and Jarvis, back when he was still alive, to convince Tony’s father to let him stay in his grade. Howard was convinced that Starks were not meant to assimilate into the general population. Yeah, well, Tony was going to MIT in the next two years anyway, so fuck you , dad.
And it’s not just because he’s a Stark, no matter what Justin Hammer says, the fucking asshole.
“Hey, dad, what’s crackin’?” Tony asks, even though he knows his father will just ignore him.
Howard does ignore him, as predicted. Instead, the man asks, “How stupid are you?”
“Well, that’s subjective,” Tony starts to snark, but he barely gets the first word out. Howard steamrolls over him.
“No smartass answers, boy, I’m serious,” Howard barks. “What the hell were you thinking? Are you really so stupid that you tried to leave your security guard? This, Tony, is what happens to people who act like idiots . Jesus, boy, I knew you were stupid, but I didn’t think it went that far- ”
Tony tunes out his father at that point. It’s no use anymore, Howard’s only repeating what Tony already knows, so Tony blocks him out and thinks over the chemical roadblock he, Bruce, and Peter had run into the day before, when the middle school boy was at the high school for “tutorials,” which was more aptly named “dicking around with science shit.” At some point, Howard seems to notice Tony’s not paying attention, because he shoots him a glare so full of poison that promises only pain when they get out of the public eye, and then storms out.
Maria Stark slinks in after Howard leaves. She barely does more than coo over Tony, which does make him feel a bit better, but doesn’t really do much to quell the verbal lashes Howard gave him. Tony rolls his eyes. Though not as bad as Howard, his mother is pretty helpless, clueless at times, and a hopeless socialite. She didn’t use to be, though. At least, he thinks so.
She does make a few comments about his luck, though one catches his attention. “Oh, bambino, you are so lucky that nice boy of yours found you and not some ruffian from the streets.”
Tony ignores the slightly classist dig in favor of furrowing his eyes and saying, “Wait… what boy?”
Maria blinks. “Uh, it was… um,” she flails. “I might have forgotten his name,” she tells him guiltily.
That’s alright, because his mind is already whirling with thought, albeit slower than normal considering the pain drugs he must be on. “The boy,” can only be Steve because it’s the only viable option, considering Steve is the one that found him half dead.
Steve, who’s heart Tony broke a year ago. Steve, who moved on and showed up three months later with a foreign assassin (?) cyborg boyfriend.
Steve, who Tony still thinks about when he goes to sleep at night.
Tony squeezes his eyes shut. “Shit,” Tony says, because what the hell else do you say when life won’t stop fucking with you? Why is his luck actually this bad?
Maria frowns. “Language, darling.”
#
Three days after Steve dropped Tony off at the hospital and reopened the box of carefully untouched feelings, Tony rolls into SHIELD High School on a high-tech wheelchair that looks like he built it himself and sporting a bright red cast.
The crowd of teens is beside themselves. People practically threw themselves at Tony to sign his cast, or ask what happened in overly sympathetic voices. Tony drinks it all up, offering a thousand ludicrous stories about what happened while Pepper and Rhodey wait to ambush the genius from the sidelines about what the fuck happened, Tony .
Steve watches all of this with raised eyebrows. Bucky lets him, senses that Steve needs to not be interrupted right now. It doesn’t stop Bucky from sending him little, concerned glances while he chats with Natasha about their evil ballet teacher.
Eventually, Steve allows himself to be pulled back into the conversation. “What’s up?” Steve asks.
Natasha turns smoothly, a comforting blankness settled on her features. “What are you staring at Stark for?”
Bucky tries to rescue him. “The guy broke his leg, Nat-”
Steve shoots him a tired smile and answers the question honestly. Lying would only make Nat more suspicious. “I’m the one who found him with his leg,” Steve admits.
Natasha sits back. “What happened to him?” Her face does nothing to betray the worry Steve knows she feels. Once upon a time, they all used to be a team. Once.
Steve tells the truth again. “I don’t know.”
Nat stares at the table Tony’s commanding like she’s fixing to walk over, but the bell rings and they all have to go to class. Bucky lays a kiss on his mouth, murmuring, “See you at lunch, punk,” into Steve’s mouth, and then he and Nat stalk to their class.
#
Bucky and Natasha have off-campus Physical Education, so Nat drives him in her beautiful bright red car that is way out of her pay grade that she won’t tell where it’s from, dammit, and takes both of them to ballet class every school day and Saturday during eighth period.
Bucky seriously thinks these might be the best parts of the day, minus whenever he goes out with Steve.
Because, unbeknownst to most people, Natasha is, in fact, a huge gossip.
“When do you think Peter Quill will get a date with Gamora?” Bucky asks her, smirking.
Natasha laughs. “Don’t you know? He already did.”
“Stop playing with me. No shit?”
“It’s confirmed. They’re not telling anyone, though.”
“How come?”
“Gamora’s dad is a huge asshole. They’re trying to keep it secret.”
Bucky grunts. “I know what that feels like.”
Natasha glances as him, then slowly takes a hand off the steering wheel to grab his prosthetic by the hand, broadcasting every movement. The contact is... nice. Definitely better than he ever got in Russia, and at home Pierce never touches that arm.
When they reach their ballet teacher’s studio, the Red Room, their учитель insists on their class performing The Firebird Varganova style, instead of classic style, which means they have to alter practically all of their framework. Natasha prowls along the sides with the most displeased expression humanly possible, blowing one single red curl that escaped her bun out of her face, tutu splayed around her waist.
Bucky is one of the two boys in the class, and has the misfortune of being good at ballet, so he so he gets the absolute honor of being dragged around as the lead male.
By the time practice ends, his feet have a permanent cramp in them, and his arms are shaking from holding fifth position for so long, but it’s a satisfying pain. Ballet has a way of smoothing out all the noise in his head, taking away all of his anxieties.
Natasha rants to him about the switch on the drive back; she’s always been pretty conservative about ballet. Bucky secretly also enjoys modern ballet, but he’s pretty sure Nat would actually murder him if she found out, so he just growls along with her vauge threats to destroy the Red Room.
Two minutes before eighth period ends, the duo arrives back at the school. Technically, they don’t have to come back, Principal Fury is familiar enough and exhausted enough with Natasha that “skipping” the end of school would be overlooked. Also, ninth period is only study hall, so it’s not like they would be missing anything. They could go home.
But without fail, every day Nat returns them to the school. Bucky knows it’s because she, and Sam, and Steve, want to keep him away from his foster father, and he couldn’t be more grateful, even though it annoys him to all hell. He doesn’t need protecting.
He tried explaining all that to Natasha once, on a drive just like this one, and Nat had just laid a gentle hand over his mouth. “I’m not good at emotions,” she’d said, “but just let me have this.” He hadn’t brought it up again. Not while he still owes her so much.
A blond-haired boy outfitted with a purple shirt and black jeans jogs up right as Nat slams her door shut. It’s Clint, because of course it is.
Bucky holds up his left hand for Clint’s signature fist bump, but Clint leaves him hanging in favor of darting to Natasha and gripping her by the shoulders, a move very few people are comfortable enough to do.
“Fuck you too?” Bucky tells the empty air in front of him.
Clint ignores him. “Stark’s throwing a party. Saturday.”
Natasha’s reply is smooth. “And you know this because…?”
“He was in the cafeteria, got a text on his phone, and then stood up and basically announced he was having a party on Saturday. Everyone got excited ‘cause they get more time to fake being nice to him about his leg.”
“That sounds like Stark,” Natasha sighs. “Guess I better cancel my Saturday plans.”
“Doesn’t this guy have a broken leg?” Bucky asks.
“He’ll be fine,” Clint offers. “He’s got Pepper to smother him.”
“Okay,” Bucky says, dragging out the ‘o’. “Have fun, I guess,” he calls as he starts to walk away. He’s only half mocking.
Clint doesn’t even look his way. “You’re coming too, Jamie.”
“ Don’t call me Jamie, and why would I go to the party of my boyfriend’s ex?”
Natasha huffs at him. “Don’t be a pussy, Jamie. Stark parties are legend. Everyone’s gonna be there.”
He scowls. “And I look like the type of person to submit to peer pressure to you.” It's not a question.
“You’re going,” Clint tells him. It’s not a request.
Bucky narrows his eyes and utters his famous last words.
“Make me, fucker.”