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For Jan, it started with the weird moment that was walking out of Club A and finding a blushing, babbling Tony Stark running away from an extremely confused-looking Steve Rogers. Tony’s embarrassed ramble faded into the distance toward his tower, cartoon-like. Jan imagined she could see smoke and question-marks coming up from Steve’s head.
Maybe she’d been spending too much time watching anime with War Machine.
“What was that all about?” she asked, sensing hot gossip.
“I… have perfect teeth?”
“Well, yeah,” Jan agreed.
“And, a perfect body?”
“I mean…”
“And he wants to hit them both sometimes? But differently?” Steve turned to face Jan as she blinked rapidly. “Is this some future slang I don’t know yet?”
“Uhhh… let me go talk to Tony I’ll figure this out I promise!!!” Jan squeaked, rapidly shrinking and flying off toward Stark Tower.
“What is going on with everyone today?” she heard Steve say to himself.
One hour ago
For Steve, it started after a perfectly normal morning. He’d gone for his morning run, picked up a smoothie at the coffee cart near SHIELD HQ, and spent some time studying recent history. He was on his way to the Power Gym to work off some energy when Bucky intercepted him on the paths.
“I wouldn’t go that way if I were you,” his friend warned him in low tones.
“Is something wrong?” Steve asked. He straightened up, scanning the grounds.
“Nothing dangerous… yet,” Bucky said ominously. “I think Stark’s gone crazier than usual. He’s taken Black Widow’s cardboard box and he’s doing a stakeout by the Forge.”
“Does he think the Time Fog is encroaching on that side of campus? Or that there’s some sort of invading force?”
Bucky gave him a dry look. “He searches for an answer, to a question shrouded in mystery. The path would be much clearer, if he’d study the right kind of history.”
Steve stared at his friend for a long time. “I’m gonna go talk to him. Thanks for giving me a heads up.”
He clapped Bucky on the shoulder and strode off toward the Forge. As he went, he could hear Bucky mumbling to himself. “Fine, ignore me. What does Bucky know? Not like Bucky was the one who got all the dates…”
One and a half hours ago
Tony got up bright and early for his latest project. Or, well, maybe he hadn’t really gone to sleep. But that didn’t really matter, and anyway, coffee. A lot of coffee. He just invented a hoverboard, okay, he could take some time on personal projects.
This one, for instance. This was a matter of utmost importance. Surely Natasha would understand that he needed her box? She had lots of other tools for stalking the principal, and he could make her more if she wanted. She could come by the Tower any time she wanted. He’d mentioned it enough times. Probably. Once more couldn’t hurt.
And Black Panther could come by anytime he wanted too, mmm. Tony peeked carefully through Natasha’s stealth outfit. He’d set himself up with a good view of the anvil side of the Forge, and T’Challa in his skin-tight catsuit working with Vibranium was quite… athletically impressive. Almost as good as Pepper, though that could be personal bias… Tony chewed on the end of his pen before adjusting the rankings on his pad of paper.
So far, he’d ranked eight students on the basis of hammer sexiness, himself in full blacksmith regalia included. After hearing enough of Thor’s self-proclaimed prowess, and admittedly feeling a little inadequate in the shadow of his hairdo, Tony had decided that a legitimate scientific study was necessary to determine who was the sexiest man with a hammer on campus. After establishing that Quake was about three times sexier with a hammer than Yondu, however, Tony had acknowledged the necessity of expanding the study to include all body-types.
Tony was practicing real science, okay? He had grading rubrics and everything.
He was also muttering to himself, but he didn’t notice that until Captain America traded places with Black Panther and Tony’s monologue stopped short. Cap was wearing his blue shirt, the one that brought out his eyes, and he was glistening already like he’d come straight from his run. When he picked up the hammer to test his shield…
Tony had to adjust his list. And some other things.
Since it looked like the study question had been answered, Tony picked up the stealth disguise and headed away from the Forge, determinedly ignoring the other questions that had been raised (and some other things).
Surely this… confusion was just because he was over-tired? That made sense. One time he’d gotten so tired he tried to make a robot version of himself! (Though he had been hanging out with Professor Pym earlier that day, so who knew…)
“Tony!”
Oh God, that was Cap. Tony stopped and knelt on the path nearby Club A, trusting Natasha’s stealth mode disguise to do its job...
Now
“An’ now ah ‘milated m’sef ‘n frn o’ cptn ‘mrca,” Tony mumbled around a large mouthful of cheese. Jan patted him sympathetically on the back, looking mournfully at the once-full platter of cheese, now ravaged and empty. “‘e’s gnna ate m.”
“He won’t hate you,” Jan reassured her friend. “I’m sure he gets lots of people telling him how they would marry a robot version of him.”
Tony swallowed massively. “I’ll just take a nap and tell him it was all a big misunderstanding. He knows how I get when I don’t sleep.”
“I think everyone does,” Jan reminded him. “It took three weeks for Loki to get the Asgardian Gauntlet right side up again.”
“Oh yeah. I thought I’d dreamed that.”
“Three weeks of it?!”
“Umm…”
“Anyway… you could do that, or you could tell him you were serious? But, in normal-people words.”
Tony looked at her like she had something on her face. “Why would I do that?”
Jan shrugged. “It’s sort of been obvious for a while, Tony. You guys argue a lot, and not like anyone else does. There’s clearly something else there.”
“I argue with a lot of people! Like Loki! We argue all the time! And then we spend time in the hot tub, and make up! Like normal people!”
“Uh-huh,” Jan said meaningfully.
“Wha- you- I-” Tony stuttered, high-pitched. “I don’t know what you’re implying. I’m going to sleep now, and this had better not have happened when I wake up!”
He flounced off to his room. Jan shook her head. Then she finished the cheese plate.
She’d try again after her summer beach party.