Chapter Text
“Oh, shit, I’m so fucking late, oh my god –”
Tony liked to imagine he left a comical blur behind him as he zipped past what felt like the whole student population in the corridor of SHIELD High School. People were already starting to go to their first-period classrooms, but Tony had English for first period and it was all the way on the other end of campus. He’d woken up late that morning since he’d been up all night, anxious about the day’s events and what could go wrong (in a word: everything), and worrying about seeing all the familiar faces from elementary – well, one familiar face in particular. But anyway.
Tony forced those thoughts to the back of his mind and ran through corridor after corridor, his bag a consistent rhythm of thuds against his back. People were shouting at him at varying levels of crassness to slow the fuck down and look where he’s going. God, this was not going to be a good day.
He’d almost made it in time, except, of course, he didn’t because let’s face it: he’s Tony Stark. The universe has it out for him. True enough, just as he turned the last corner, he hit something very warm and very solid, colliding with such impact that he actually fell on the floor.
“What the fuck even –” he started angrily, just as the person he bumped into started saying, “Shit, sorry, are you okay?”
He looked up, and he really should have known better, because his day was already going so badly and it wasn’t even first period yet, and now – now, nothing can possibly rid this day of its innate awfulness. Tony sat on the floor, frozen, wondering what evil he could have possibly done to deserve this. What level of hell did he have to be in to not only run into Steve goddamn Rogers, the face he was most anxious to see and generally the bane of his existence, but Steve goddamn Rogers who apparently shot up ten inches and looked like he'd injected some sort of super serum into himself, because what the fuck.
Christ, but he got hot.
Well, Tony thought, hearing his mental voice going a pitch higher, he’s always been hot. But this was something else entirely. To be honest, Tony wouldn’t even have recognized him if it weren’t for his stupid blue eyes and his stupid hair with its stupid old-timey part. Stupid Steve and his stupid part.
And, really, stupid Tony for thinking it was just a crush, just a little thing he could distract himself and move on from during summer. Stupid Tony for working out himself, for training and even being proud of the muscle he’d put on, naively thinking it might help his chances with Rogers. It was stupid of him to assume Rogers couldn’t one up him even with something like that. Tony’s not wrong very often, but he is, unfortunately, always wrong when it counts.
Tony closed his mouth. That was a start. At least he didn’t look like a fish out of water.
Rogers looked almost as surprised as Tony felt. He looked Tony up and down, and visibly gulped… for some reason. God, even his Adam’s apple filled out. Tony tried not to think about it too much.
“You okay, Stark?” He held out a hand to help Tony up.
God, of course Steve remembers him. After that thing with the – yeah, maybe not the time to recall awful ways to meet cute people.
Tony let out a vaguely “yeah”-sounding grunt, which was frankly more than what he expected of himself at that particular moment, thanks very much. He’s actually quite proud he got that out. Fuck, but this is turning out to be a really bad day, because of course Steve – gigantic, tall, incredibly muscley Steve – basically Steve 2.0, practically manhandled him up. He seemed to take Tony’s incoherence as an effect of his fall. His hand felt warm on Tony’s arms, and Tony’s never actually been manhandled quite like that, and he's surprised to find he doesn't really mind it and nope, no thanks, not today, Satan.
“God, I can do it myself, Rogers,” Tony practically spits, shaking himself free.
He’s not sure why he’s so pissed, but it doesn't stop him from acting that way. He’s just had a rough start to his day, and he was running so hard he was getting dizzy, and now he had to deal with stupid Steve Rogers suddenly being hot – again, he reminded himself that Steve’s always been hot. So maybe what was annoying Tony was that now Steve was hot in everyone else’s eyes, and now everyone would want him, especially since he was still being annoyingly kind and helpful and ugh. No.
“I’m not some senior citizen you need to help across the damn street,” he added, because apparently he wanted the guy he had an embarrassing crush on to hate him.
Rogers puts his hands up, and his eyebrows furrowed. “Just trying to help,” he said, and his eyes flashed defensively, “no need to be a dick about it.”
The bell rang just as Tony was about to say something that, he was sure, was scathingly witty as much as it was grossly immature. Rogers adjusted his backpack strap on his stupid muscley shoulder (how the fuck can Tony even see his shoulder muscles, how is that a thing), and walked past Tony without another word.
Tony just tried not to look after him. Losing battle, he thought to himself as he heaved a frustrated sigh, in more ways than one.
He’d managed to not only be late to Hill’s class (Tony 100% believe she could inflict actual physical pain with just a look), but also to piss off the last guy he’d ever want to piss off.
So far, so bad. Welcome to high school.