Chapter Text
tony didn’t believe in school projects.
He believed in ideas, sure. wild, brilliant, world changing ones that came to him at 3 am when he was halfway through a can of red bull and pretending he wasn’t procrastinating. But poster boards and rubrics? Yeah, no.
“tony, we’re presenting in two days,” bruce reminded him for the fourth time that morning. His tone had the kind of exhausted patience only tony could earn. “You said you’d handle the demonstration part.”
tony, sprawled across the chemistry lab table like he’d just fought in a war instead of third-period physics, raised an eyebrow. “I am handling it. Mentally.”
bruce’s sigh was pure despair. “You mean you forgot, didn’t you?”
tony shrugged, flashing a grin. “Define ‘forgot.’”
“tony.”
“okay, maybe I misplaced a few details. Like the entire project.”
bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re supposed to demonstrate renewable energy with a functioning model, not another one of your ‘theoretical masterpieces’ scribbled on napkins.”
tony sat up, spinning a screwdriver between his fingers. “relax, brucey, I’ll build something in an hour. Maybe a tiny arc reactor—”
“No miniature nuclear cores!”
Tony smirked. “You’re no fun.”
<><><><><
By lunch, Tony had convinced himself that he’d definitely get around to starting it.
He didn’t.
Instead, he found himself in his usual spot under the bleachers with a sandwich and his tablet. bruce had gone off to meet with the science club, tony was “strategizing,” which mostly meant staring at the clouds and pretending to be productive.
pepper walked by and gave him that look, the one halfway between admiration and disbelief.
“project still not done?”
tony grinned without looking up. “Define ‘done.’”
She rolled her eyes. “You know Banner’s going to kill you, right?”
“Please. He’s too morally stable for murder.”
“You’re hopeless,” she muttered, but there was a small smile on her lips as she left.
Tony leaned back, shutting his eyes. The hum of campus life blurred into background noise chatter, laughter, a whistle from the football field. Somewhere out there, life was happening. He’d just rather sleep through it.
He didn’t know that the new transfer student, Steve Rogers, was joining his history class next week.
And that history, for once, was about to get interesting.