Chapter Text
Only one more night of this hell. The test was tomorrow, at 2pm in room 115. He was down to…Tony leaned over and looked at the countdown clock that Dum-E was holding…12 hours and 36 minutes…fuck. This was all Rhodey’s fault. Take Shakespeare, Tony. You need the English credit to graduate. If you would have registered for classes on time instead of being a spoiled brat, you could have taken film studies like I did.
Well, Tony hadn’t been expecting Professor Kendrick to be a crazy bitch that actually tested them on the most specific irrelevant shit. So of course he bombed the midterm—he’d had better things to do then sit around memorizing Shakespeare. He was already accepted into masters programs for both physics and electrical engineering, what the hell was he going to use Shakespeare for? As much as his advisor tried fighting for him (Professor Strange was true to his name, but was generally useful) Professor Kendrick outright refused to let him just slide through the class. So now he had to absolutely ace the final exam so he could graduate and finally drop all the stupid subjects he didn’t need.
Tony rubbed hard at his temples and lifted his mug to his mouth. He groaned when it was empty, dropping his pen to save his place in Othello so he could brew more. Stumbling over clothes and various wires, he flopped across his bed to reach his beloved coffee maker. Rhodey got all pissy when he called it his life force. But, who was he kidding? The thing actually kept Tony functional.
He filled it with water from a bottle on the window sill and rummaged through his drawer for coffee grounds. His hand closed on a solitary flat bag. Six hours ago flashed through his mind when he had poured the last of his coffee and then made a mental note to buy more immediately. No. No. No. Not now. Not today.
Tony scrambled out of bed and tore apart his room looking for coffee—or anything with caffeine. Even that fruit coffee that Rhodey insisted didn’t really taste that bad. (It did.) Nothing. Not even a trace. This was Rhodey’s fault. It had to be. He dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed.
“You’ve reached James Rhodes. I’m currently unavailable, but please leave your name and a brief message. Tony, if this is you, I’m not calling you back until after you’ve finished your final tomorrow.”
Shit. Tony threw the phone down. Most of the dorm was already empty since tomorrow was the last day of finals and Rhodey was the only person he knew with a car. Not to mention, nothing was open at…Tony glanced at the time…2:19am. Now he had less than 12 hours. He slumped back down in his desk chair. He was going to have to go without coffee. Tony pressed a hand to his heart, hardly able to process that thought. He took a deep breath.
“You and me, Dum-E. I’m gonna make it through this, and then we get play with the new soldering gun and Rhodey won’t be here to stop me.”
The robot made no movement as Tony was still in the middle of updating the software and hadn’t powered it back up yet. It made Tony feel a little lonely. Even if Dum-E was far too trigger happy with the fire extinguisher.
Tony sighed and went back to reading all of the material he had ignored the rest of the term. At least he had managed to get a copy of lecture notes—which he literally stole from the guy that sat next to him with the sick metal arm and had photocopied in the administration building. Rhodey told him he wasn’t allowed to ask metal arm guy if he could play with his prosthetic, so he became meaningless to Tony. Well, until Tony needed his notes. He was probably an English major considering how many goddamn notes he took.
Tony paged through the notes on Othello and reread one of the passages that the guy had referenced and circled twice. This was the absolute worst. He was never going to survive this. Ten minutes had passed with no coffee and the words were starting to swim on the page.
Finally, he reached the end of the notes and threw Othello across the room and into a pile of circuits heaped in his closet. All he had left to do was read Hamlet and then probably just reread the lecture notes about a hundred times. He would have killed someone for some caffeine. His eyelids were already drooping and his brain was about to scream from all of this useless knowledge. Tony glanced at the countdown clock. 11 hours and 7 minutes. He wasn’t going to make it without coffee. He wanted to go to bed. He never wanted that! What he wouldn’t do for a damn can of Mountain Dew. Anything.
Tony shot out of his chair. There was a vending machine in the basement. One that was full of bottles of sweet, sweet caffeine. He pulled his wallet out from under his alarm clock and raced out of his room to the stairs. He usually at least pretended that he cared about his appearance. But not today. He did not care that his Scooby Doo pajama bottoms were hanging several inches above his ankle (because he’s had them since he was eight) or that he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt under his ratty Captain America hoodie. He was on a mission.
Tony will never admit to anyone that he genuinely hugged the vending machine when he finally reached it. Nor does anyone need to know that he got eighteen dollars back in quarters because he hadn’t paid attention to what bill he had put into the machine. He drained the first Mountain Dew bottle as the second one was dropped out of the machine. He got a third, just in case, and shoved all of the quarters into his front pocket.
Tony cradled the bottles as he walked back up to his room. He did not know who decided that elevators weren’t necessary for a six-story building, but he hated them. And he was only on the fifth floor. He was certainly not panting when he finally reached his door (he might have been, but that’s his business). He twisted the doorknob and leaned forward, only to ram right into the door. He stumbled back and turned the doorknob back and forth. Stupid automatically locking doors. Tony reached into his hoodie pocket for his keys, but only came up with a fistful of quarters. He dropped the bottles on the ground and they rolled a couple of feet down the hall. Frantically searching the only pocket he had, he threw quarters down in front of his door. No. He pressed himself against the door as if he could use osmosis to get through. His keys were still on his desk.
Okay, no problem. He’d call campus security. They’d come and open the door. No big deal. Yes, he looked stupid, but they’d all just have a laugh and then he can get back to studying. He still had almost eleven hours.
Well, except his phone was still sitting on his bed. Right where he left it after calling Rhodey.
Okay. There was an R.A. for this. He had one of those… right? Tony was pretty sure his name was…um…shit.
Tony took a deep breath and pressed his fingers to his temples. He was fine. This was fine. Everything was fine. He was totally fucked, but you know, that’s okay. He was actually fucking trying to pass this fucking class, but whatever. He’ll just take a summer class to make up the credit. His dad can remind him of how big of a fucking failure he was. It’s great. It’s fine.
“Are you okay?”
Tony lifted his head and quickly wiped his face. Fuck, was he really crying right now? The last thing he needed was for someone to see him like this. What the actual fuck was his life right now? He wiped his nose off on his sleeve and finally looked up at whoever had spoken to him. His heart dropped into his stomach.
Steve fucking perfect Rogers. The amount of time that Tony spent thinking about that goddamn specimen of a human was bordering on obsessive. No, he’d never actually spoken to him. He was pretty sure that Steve had no idea that Tony even existed. No one ever needed to know that Tony hacked the housing placement program so that he’d be sure to get a room on the same floor as Steve next year. It’s not like he was really doing anything wrong.
“Tony?” said Steve.
Tony’s heart exploded. He knew his name?
“Yeah, it’s uh…on your door?” said Steve. He was blushing.
Tony’s brain finally caught up with him. Shit, he had said that out loud. “Right, yeah. I’m…that’s me.”
“Good.” Steve scratched the back of his neck, stretching his shirt beautifully across his chest. Tony bit down on his tongue, to make sure he wouldn’t say that one out loud. “I…Are you really okay? I mean, it’s three in the morning and you’re…sitting on a lot of quarters.”
“I…” Tony hesitated. Steve clearly thought he was a raging lunatic. There was no real way to save face. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why did this have to happen today?
“I locked myself out of my room. Do you think I could use your phone to call campus security?”
Steve smiled sympathetically. It was really nice. “I would let you, but they’re actually closed. So you’d have to call the actual police, but they wouldn’t actually be able to do anything until 6 when the security office opens again.”
Tony ran his hands through his hair. Of fucking course it was going to be like this.
“I’d call Phil for you, but he’s out of town until the morning.”
“Who?” asked Tony miserably.
“Phil Coulson? Our R.A.?”
Phil! That was his name. Except that was fucking useless to know since he was no fucking help. Tony tried counting to ten to slow his breathing like Bruce taught him, but he didn’t even make it to three and he was already about to start crying again. Shit, fuck, fuck!
Steve crouched down next to him and put a warm hand on his shoulder. “You can sleep in my room, if you want. You can take my bed—I can just share with Bucky, he sleeps like the dead.”
Tony’s anger boiled through his pathetic self-pity party. “I only have eleven hours left to study for this fucking final! All of the fucking notes are in my room and I haven’t even fucking started reading fucking Hamlet. I’m going to have to take a fucking summer course and it’s going to fucking ruin my life because I can’t start the fucking masters program until fucking undergrad is fucking over. I only have one fucking play left before I don’t ever have to give a fuck about Shakespeare ever fucking again!”
“So you must be in Kendrick’s class,” said Steve. Why was he still there? With his hand rubbing circles on Tony’s shoulder and his fucking sincere blue eyes? What the fuck?
“Yeah,” sniffed Tony. Fuck, he’d started crying again. Not that it even fucking mattered at this point. Scooby Doo pajamas? He did this to himself. But they were so comfortable. Steve was wearing his usual snug khakis and a plaid shirt. Only he could make plaid look so good.
“Bucky’s been studying for that all week. Kendrick’s really…”
“A huge bitch?”
Steve shrugged. “No, she’s just really passionate about her field. I mean, you of all people should understand that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Tony, jerking out of his reach. He regretted losing Steve’s warm touch, but who the fuck did he think he was? Tony was nothing like that bitch.
Steve blushed again, all the way down to his shirt collar. Tony tried really hard not to find that adorable. “You’re…I mean, you do some really amazing things, but you…ah, can be kind of hard to talk to unless it’s about computers and stuff.”
Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Computers and stuff?”
Steve scratched at the back of his neck and hung his head. “I’m…it’s been a really long day. I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore.”
Oh great, now Steve looked like Tony had just kicked his puppy. Fuck, could this get any worse? It was time to turn this stupid shit around.
“I think I’ll just…sit out here until security opens again. Thanks though.”
“If…if you want, you can still come back to mine. Even if it’s just so you don’t have to sit in the hallway.”
Here it was, the golden opportunity to spend time with Steve Rogers. In Steve Rogers’ dorm. Maybe even sit on his bed. The bed Steve Rogers slept in. Tony’s heart fluttered and he took a deep breath to calm it. Because of all the days it had to be this one. He was a complete wreck, crying on a pile of quarters and wearing the stupidest clothes he even owned. But for some reason Steve still invited him to his room. Probably because he was the nicest person on the planet and felt sorry for Tony’s stupid fucking self.
“You can use my laptop, if that helps?”
“Unless you have a copy of all the Shakespeare lecture notes, I don’t think it will,” muttered Tony darkly. Steve’s face fell, and Tony mentally slapped his own forehead. Why the fuck was he sabotaging this for himself? The guy he’s been hero-worshipping all year was offering to help him.
“Well, I mean, you could probably look at Bucky’s notes. I mean, I don’t think he’d really mind,” said Steve. Was he looking…hopeful? Like he actually wanted Tony to go with him? Also who the fuck was Bucky? What kind of name was that?
“Is he even in the class?” asked Tony.
Steve nodded very patiently. “Yeah, he said he sits next to you.” Steve’s blush deepened. “I mean, not that we talk about you, or anything. He just…uh mentioned it once or something.”
Tony considered his options again. Okay, so he could sit here like an idiot in Scooby Doo pajamas and continue crying on seventeen dollars worth of quarters. Or spend time with the hottest guy on campus (probably the hottest guy on the planet) and have a chance at passing his fucking Shakespeare final.
“Okay, yeah, sure.”
Steve perked up like a puppy. Fuck, why did he have to be so adorable? “Great. Do you want help picking up all the quarters?”
Tony pulled himself off the ground and was all too aware of how much his pants hung above his ankles. “No, just leave them. I will need the Mountain Dew before I die from lack of caffeine.”
Steve handed him the bottle that he’d been sitting next to and got to his feet. “I live right there.” He pointed to the door kitty-corner to his. Tony definitely knew this, but he managed to keep that information to himself. Steve unlocked the door, but stopped before pushing it open.
“Uh, so I’m sorry about the music, but Bucky’s been in an Adele phase for the last couple of weeks.”
“That’s fine,” said Tony, shrugging. He did not know who Adele was, but he was not going to let that stop him now that he’s already gotten this far.
Steve pushed the door open and hung his keys on a hook just inside. Sure enough there was soft music coming from the shoddy set of speakers on the dresser between the two beds. The right side of the room was an absolute disaster. Clothes hung haphazardly on piles of books scattered across the floor like a death trap. There were posters covering every inch of the wall on that side of sci-fi movies Tony had never heard of, and several video games he had. Underneath the heavy covers on the bed, a single metal arm poked out and hung off the side of the bed.
“Metal arm guy,” muttered Tony.
“What?” said Steve, stepping through the mess to dig through a pile of notebooks on what must be Bucky’s desk.
“Nothing.”
The other side of the room was probably a military standard of clean. The bed was made so neatly it would probably pass the quarter test (if that was even a real thing). Books lined the ledge above his bed and framed pictures took up the rest of the space. Even his pajamas were sitting on the end of his bed, neatly folded. There was only one poster on Steve’s side of the room and it was the Titanic movie poster.
“I think this one is it,” said Steve, stumbling a bit as he held out a notebook to Tony. It was the right one. But Tony didn’t really want to explain that he knew that only because he had stolen the thing a week ago.
“Thanks.” Tony’s gaze went back to the Titanic poster. “Your favorite movie?”
“Um, no. Bucky couldn’t fit it on his side of the room.” Steve bit his lip, his blush returning.
“You jump, I jump.” Tony smirked when Steve’s blush deepened. God damn he was adorable. “Don’t lie, you’re a total sucker for a tragic romance.”
Steve opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He snapped it shut and reached over to his desk for a laptop that had definitely seen better days. He half-shoved it into Tony’s chest.
“The uh…the password is just ‘password.’ I’m gonna go brush my, uh, teeth. Make yourself at home. Buck could probably sleep through a hurricane, so don’t worry about him. I’ll be right back.” Steve grabbed the pajamas off the bed and his toothbrush from the top of his dresser before darting out of the room like it was on fire.
Not smooth, Tony. Damnit. Fuck.
Tony settled himself on Steve’s bed and opened up the laptop. It started whirring when he hit the power button and he watched as it took a full minute to even turn on the display. How the fuck did Steve function with this piece of shit? How fucking old was this software? Windows ’97? Was he living in the fucking dark ages? Tony paged through Bucky’s notes until he got to the lectures on Hamlet. He was halfway through when the computer (if he could even call it that) finally prompted him for the password. Tony couldn’t help wincing when it spent another five minutes getting the desktop loaded. This poor machine should really put out of its misery. Tony almost cried when he saw that Steve was still using Internet Explorer. He took a deep breath and clicked to open the browser. He stared at the tiny hourglass flipping over for several minutes before gently pushing the laptop as far away from him as possible and went back to the notes. Holy fuck, how did Steve get anything done?
Steve walked back in and put his clothes (also neatly folded) on his desk. He fussed around, pulling out a suitcase from under the bed and taking some plastic bins from the top shelf of his closet. (His shirt rode up when he did that. Tony certainly did not stare. That would have been rude. But oh, so beautiful.)
“Is it okay that I just pack a little?”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s your room.” Tony went back to the lecture notes. What the hell are ego ideals? Tony pulled the laptop back over and typed it into the search bar. At least the internet functioned at a fairly reasonable speed. Tony scrubbed his hand over his face. When was the last time he shaved?
Steve started humming along with the music as he pulled clothes out of the dresser and piled them into the plastic bins. Tony forced himself to look away. The alarm clock next to the bed read 4:38a. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Tony opened the next bottle of Mountain Dew and drained it. His hands were starting to shake from all the sugar, but that was fine. He was awake, that’s what mattered.
“Is there a copy of Hamlet around here?” asked Tony. Steve startled at the sound of his voice and dropped a pile socks on the ground.
Steve glanced over at Bucky’s disaster of a desk. “You can use mine, if you want. Books are alphabetical by author.”
Of course they were organized. Steve Rogers was the strangest college student to ever exist. Tony ran his finger down the spines and plucked Hamlet out.
“Why do you have a copy?” asked Tony.
Steve shrugged. “I like it.”
Tony blinked at him. “So… you know it pretty well?”
“Yeah?”
“So you could teach me?”
“About Hamlet? I’m not like a professor or anything. I just know what they play is… you know, about.”
“Perfect. Come over here and teach me.” Tony scooted closer to the wall as Steve tentatively sat down next to him. Fuck, he smelled so good.
“Okay where should I start?” asked Steve, taking the book from Tony.
“Let’s pretend that I’ve never actually read it.”
“Have you actually read it?” asked Steve.
“Okay, let’s start with the fact that I haven’t actually read it.” Tony smiled up at Steve. “Except the sparknotes. I read those.”
Steve sighed. “Okay so it starts out with the guards trying to convince Horatio that they keep seeing the ghost of the dead King Hamlet.”
“Hamlet’s dead?”
“No, his father is. They have the same name.”
“That’s not confusing, or anything.”
“It makes sense. Anyway, they talk a lot about what’s been happening in the kingdom and how things aren’t really going well…”
Bucky’s alarm started blaring, making Tony and Steve both jump. Steve pushed aside the heavy blanket they’d put over the window as a makeshift curtain. The sun was out and there were cars lined up at the dorm across the street filled with boxes and laundry baskets.
Bucky’s hand shot out of the blankets and slapped aimlessly at the ledge until he finally found the alarm clock. This was the fourth one he’d had this month since he kept forgetting that his prosthetic was a lot heavier than his other hand. He’d cracked the last one clean in half.
“Did you even go to sleep last night?” croaked Bucky, stretching out underneath the comforter. “Just because I said I’d drive doesn’t mean you get to sleep the whole fucking car ride.”
“Um,” said Steve glancing over at Tony. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned. Steve had never seen Tony like this before—he’d always been so put together and confident. Never even in his wildest dreams had he imagined that he’d get off work and find Tony Stark locked out of his room in Scooby Doo pajamas. This kind of thing didn’t happen to Steve. He even had the same Captain America sweatshirt as Steve. (Something that Steve was never ever going to mention to Bucky or he’d never hear the end of it.)
“What, you’re not going to sass me for my bad language? Is it my birthday?” Bucky finally sat up and his face went through a range of expressions before settling on confused.
“You know Tony,” said Steve, mentally willing Bucky not to make a big deal out of this. Yes, the guy that he’s had a crush on all year was actually sitting on his bed. They can talk about this later when Tony was not right there looking absolutely amazing.
Bucky’s face stretched into an amused grin. “Hey Stark.”
Tony’s posture stiffened. “Hi.” He moved his leg away from where it had been resting against Steve’s for the last several hours. Steve barely stifled his groan of disappointment at the loss. Bucky flopped back into his pillows while Tony climbed out of Steve’s bed.
“Ready for the final today?” asked Bucky.
“Yeah, sure,” said Tony breezily. He straightened out the front of his sweatshirt like it was an Armani suit. “Can I use your phone to call security?”
Steve nodded dumbly. “Or, I could see if Phil is back? He’d be a lot faster.”
“Whatever,” replied Tony, resting a hip at the edge of Steve’s desk. Steve bit his tongue to keep from asking what had just happened in the last two minutes to make Tony act like this. Cold, distant. Five minutes ago, Tony had been giggling at a joke Steve told him. (Just because Bucky thought he was too sophisticated for puns didn’t mean that Steve’s jokes weren’t funny.)
Steve took his phone off the dresser and shot a text off to Phil, asking if he was back and if he could open Tony’s door.
Phil responded seconds later that he’d be right out.
“Phil’s back. He should be able to open the door for you in a minute.”
“Thanks,” replied Tony. “See you around.”
“See you at the final,” called Bucky while Tony walked out the door without so much as a backward glance at Steve. He was just tired, and stressed out about the final. That didn’t stop Steve’s stomach to drop somewhere around his knees with disappointment. He totally screwed up.
“What an asshole,” snorted Bucky, rolling out of bed and shoving his long hair out of his eyes. Steve collapsed back on to his pillows and groaned.
He had completely destroyed his chances. All year he’d been waiting for a chance to talk to Tony, or even to spend time with him and he’d finally gotten it. Tony was funny and sarcastic, and he’d even let Steve sit and probably bore him to tears talking about Hamlet of all things. Of course, it also might have gone better if he hadn't waited until the last possible day of term to talk to him.
“Is that my notebook?” asked Bucky, snatching it off Steve’s bed.
“Yeah, I let Tony look at your notes since he got locked out.”
“Punk, I never said you could.” The opening notes of Adele’s “Hello” crackled through the speakers and Bucky cranked up the volume to sing along. “I’m in California dreaming about who we used to be.” Bucky dug through the clothes on his floor and pulled out a wrinkled t-shirt.
“Seriously?” Steve shook his head when Bucky sniffed the shirt before pulling it over his head. “Also, we’re leaving the minute you get done with that final, so you might want to start packing.”
Bucky pouted and flung himself into Steve’s lap. “But I still have to study.”
“We’ve had a whole week to pack.”
“You’ve had a whole week to pack, some of us have actual finals that aren't just arts and crafts projects.”
Steve shoved him to the floor. “It's because all of my finals were due last week and it's not—”
“I know, Stevie, calm down.” Bucky launched himself back onto Steve’s bed. “Hello from the other siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!”
“Buck!” Steve shoved him, but he clung onto Steve’s waist. His prosthetic pinched Steve’s side painfully and he yelped, before shoving a hand over his mouth.
Bucky let go and held his hands up. “Shit, I'm so sorry.”
“It’s fine, it didn't even hurt that much,” lied Steve. “And watch your mouth.”
Bucky tucked his left hand under his back. “I haven’t gotten used to the pressure sensors yet.”
“I know, I said it was fine.”
“Let me see—”
“Bucky, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Bucky twirled a lock of his hair around his finger while Steve tried to subtly rub at his pinched skin. That was definitely going to bruise.
“So you finally talked to Stark. How’d it go?”
“Amazing,” Steve deadpanned.
“Oh, come on. He was practically sitting on top of you. Did you tell him his pajamas were cute?”
“No!” Steve groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “He was locked out of his room. I just let him sit in here for a while until he could get a hold of someone that could let him back in.”
“So you got done at work at 3, and it probably took you like 8 minutes to walk back here from the security office. My alarm went off at 10:20,” Bucky sat up to glance around Steve’s side of the room.
“Your bed is still made, so that means he caught you before you’d left to brush your teeth, so I’d say you two have been together for the last…” Bucky scratched his chin while doing the mental math. “Seven and a half hours?”
“What’s your point?” asked Steve. He could feel his face heating up despite his best efforts not to blush.
“Steven. Grant. Rogers. You stayed up all fucking night talking to Tony Stark and all you have to say is ‘what’s your point’? Duh, the point is that you’re still totally into him, I fucking knew it.”
“Bucky, watch your language.”
“Oh, no. This is not about my language, Steve. You told me you were over him!”
“I’m not…I mean I’m…so what if I have a crush on him?”
Bucky howled with laughter and Steve dropped into his pillows wishing he could get sucked up into a hole in the ground and stay there forever.
“He literally said two words to you on the first day of last term. One of those words was someone else’s name.”
“It was loud okay, he probably just didn’t hear me.”
“Thanks, Pete,” said Bucky, still cackling like the worst best friend on the planet. “All because you handed him his pen, which he threw on the floor and was too lazy to pick up himself.”
“Please, Bucky.”
Bucky sat up and yanked Steve into an uncomfortably tight hug. “Poor Stevie. Well at least you gave him your number, right?”
Steve groaned and buried his face even further into his pillows. He didn’t even think of that! Why was he such an idiot?
“Come on, he was here for 7 hours!”
“Please do not rub it in. Don’t you still have to study?”
“No, I’m going to fucking own this final—”
“Bucky!”
“—what I need now is food. I’ll buy you pity breakfast, it’ll be fun.”
“I’m not hungry.” Steve’s stomach took that opportunity to express exactly how hungry it was. Bucky rolled his eyes.
“Put some shoes on so we can go eat some pancakes. Then you can come back here and pack like the crazy person you are. Good thing we’re stopping to pick up Peggy from Yale so I’m not bored to death the entire car ride while you sleep.” Bucky picked up Steve’s face from his pillow. “Hey, you’re a great guy okay? If Stark didn’t see that, then it’s his loss.”
“Thanks, Buck.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty awesome, I know. Now get your damn shoes on, I want pancakes.”
Tony was going to pass this final. He had a fresh cup of coffee (it was his third, but who was counting?) and his head was now crammed with a ridiculous amount of Shakespeare knowledge. He arrived a full hour before the test and sat in one of the desks surrounded by Bucky’s notes. He had two hours to finish the exam, and then he could go back to his dorm and fucking sleep. 78 hours without sleep was bordering on a strange limit that made him far more dependent on caffeine than he was really comfortable with. Happy had started noticing. That was never a good sign.
“Hey Stark,” said Bucky, sitting down next to him. Tony didn’t like that he knew him by name now. He was going to go back to calling him metal arm guy. That was cooler anyway. “Are those my notes?”
Tony swiftly slid all of the photocopied notes back into his backpack. “Can I help you?”
Buck—metal arm guy raised an eyebrow at him. Tony mimicked the expression. He spent one night (morning?) in the guy’s dorm and now all of a sudden they were speaking?
No. That was not necessary.
“I heard Steve helped you study.”
“And?”
“He knows his stuff. He’s a pretty great guy.”
Tony blinked at him. “Is this your way of telling me to back off or something?”
Bu—metal arm guy grinned and Tony felt like he was suddenly playing a game he never meant to join. He kept eye contact with him though, because no way was this fucker going to beat Tony Stark.
“Steve wanted me to give this to you.” Metal arm guy slid a piece of paper across Tony’s desk. “I guess you must not be as much of arrogant asshole as you like to think you are.”
Tony could see a couple of digits. That was probably Steve’s number. And he wanted Tony to have it? Like to talk to him? Tony swallowed back the hope fluttering up through his stomach and swept the paper onto the floor between them.
“I don’t know, maybe.” Buck—metal arm guy actually looked shocked. Tony picked up his bag and moved to another desk across the room. It was just a game. They probably had a nice long laugh about exactly how they really felt about Tony once he’d left.
Professor Kendrick arrived, cutting Tony’s spewing short. She handed out the exams and prattled on about honor codes or whatever. Tony was already reading the first question. He had this final.
Tony was the last one to finish with only 14 minutes left to spare. After he handed his paper to Professor Kendrick, he made his way back to the door. That piece of folded paper was still on the floor. He picked it up and stuffed it in his back pocket before hightailing it back to his dorm. Fuck, when did he get so weak?