So, as all my writing seems to do lately, this story came to me at 2am in the morning. Who needs sleep?
What I like about this is that it doesn't just focus on one character or one story line. I think that sets it apart from many of the other high school fics floating around this site.
I don't own Marvel, ect.
The high pitched bell squealed, signaling the beginning of class. Two stragglers rushed into the room and took their seats.
"Barton! Banner!" Ms. Hill barked at them, "What have I told you about getting to class on time?" She didn't wait for the excuses they were undoubtedly trying to conjure up. "If it happens again, you'll be spending your afternoons with me grading essays, understood?"
The two nodded their heads in affirmation and shrank into their desks.
"You could at least try to not get into trouble," Natasha Romanoff whispered to her best friend Clint Barton, leaning forward in her chair.
"Hey, it's only the third time this week," he boasted back quietly over his shoulder, "You should be congratulating me or something."
"Yeah, I'll buy you a cookie later," Natasha rolled her eyes and fell back into her seat.
Hill flicked off the light and continued her lecture from the previous day on World War II. As she clicked through and explained the slides of notes projected onto the front of the room, her students silently and furiously copied the sentences detailing the Battle of Stalingrad. Then they moved on to the Battle of the Bulge. A snicker was heard in the back of the class regarding the name.
"Something wrong, Stark?" Hill's impatient query fell to the back of the class room where Tony Stark sat with his signature smirk displayed across his face.
Stark shook his head once, still smirking, and Hill let out a sigh.
"Immature prick," someone from the front of the room murmured under his breath. Everyone turned to face the voice, some with amusement and others with shock.
"What was that, Rogers?" Tony straightened himself out, addressing his insulter. Tension flooded into the room as did anticipation for the now imminent fight.
Steve Rogers turned to face him. "I don't see how a battle where thousands of men lost their lives is funny."
"My apologies, Captain America," Tony scoffed, shifting in his chair, "I forgot your sense of humor was removed along with your fashion sense," he said, motioning towards Steve's pale blue plaid button down tucked into pressed khakis. "Were you around when Hitler was marching through Europe or did Mommy America set that out for you?"
Steve unconsciously glanced down at his attire and then back at Tony. "Hilarious," he sneered, "Is everything a joke to you?"
"Only if it's funny," Tony smirked again and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Show some respect." Steve demanded, ignoring Tony's previous comment.
"Respect?" Tony repeated dryly.
"Yeah, I know it might be a hard concept for you rich boy-" Tony leaned forward, his hands gripping the desk "-but those people died because they wanted to protect their future. Maybe if you'd seen war you'd understand."
Tony mouth twitched and fell into a hard line. He promptly stood up, his chair falling with a clang behind him from the sudden movement. "You know what I did this summer, Cap'?" he tugged down the top of his Black Sabbath t-shirt to reveal a glowing blue circle embedded in his chest. It hummed almost inaudibly. Small gasps were heard thought the room as the other students gawked at the device sitting in his body. "Took a little trip to Afghanistan with Stark Industries. Lovely souvenir, don't you think? A roadside bomb went off and shrapnel lodged itself around my heart." He released his shirt and went back to gripping the desk. "I've seen war. I watched American soldiers die. So forgive me if I laugh at something so stupid as the name of a battle from seventy years ago."
He grabbed the chair and slammed it onto the ground in its upright position and sat down in it. Steve stared at him for a moment longer before clenching his jaw and turning back to the front of the room.
Natasha stared at Tony's chest, still in shock. She had known about the accident. She had been with Pepper Potts, Tony's friend and intern at Stark Industries, when the news reached her that stuffy July evening. Stark Industries did everything in their power to keep the incident out of the public eye and made the information strictly 'need to know'. Even the doctors who worked tirelessly on him day in and day out were payed hush money to never mention the billionaire teen's probably fatal injury.
Pepper had been a mess and was fraught with worry for days. Natasha had tried to comfort her which, she admits, she didn't do a very good job of. The only people who knew outside of the top SI officials and a handful of doctors were Pepper, James Rhodes, another of Tony's friends, and herself.
Okay, Natasha may have told Clint. They don't keep secrets from each other, not even ones that involve major cover-ups by multinational corporations. Neither of them, however, had ever seen the device.
When the doctors gave up on removing the shrapnel, unable to do anything else, they solemnly informed Stark that he would only have a few days before the metal pierced his heart. Not willing to just sit back and die, the boy genius quickly got to work on the arc reactor, he called it: a power source, designed to fuel the electromagnet in his body that was keeping the pieces of shrapnel at bay. The arc reactor was kept even more hushed than the accident itself. Only a handful of people had actually seen the thing.
Until now, of course. Tony had just revealed the entire story out of spite to a bunch of his peers. And judging by the whispers buzzing throughout the room, it sure as hell wasn't going to stay quiet for much longer. Pepper and Tony exchanged glances, knowing that he screwed up big time.
Hill collected herself and clapped her hands, regaining her students attention. "Okay that's quite enough. Another outburst from either of you and you both get to stay after class."
Reluctantly, the students all returned to the lesson with the occasional whisper or eye resting on the genus teen residing in the back of the room.
When class finally ended, Hill sighed in relief and dismissed her students.
"Jesus Christ," Clint exclaimed to Natasha as he caught up to her in the hallway, "I mean I heard about it but... holy shit."
"Tony's lucky to be alive," she replied, hugging her books to her chest.
"That's for damn sure..." Clint said, twisting his head to look behind them. "Hey how did-"
"I don't really want to talk about it anymore." Natasha cut him off. She coolly ran her hand through her fiery curls.
"Okay," he surrendered and threw his hands up in the air. He knew better than to press a subject that Natasha didn't want to talk about. And a hard learned lesson it was; he still had the scar, now faded, just under his chin.
They walked in silence until they reached her next class.
"Barton?" Natasha spoke quietly as she stopped in front of her English room, somewhat lost in thought.
"Mmhm?" his head snapped up to meet her radiant green eyes.
"Don't join the military." she smiled softly and disappeared into room 221.
Clint nodded, smiling to himself.
"Yes ma'am," he whispered as the tardy bell chimed, and he started his jog to his classroom, well on the other side of the building.
"Yo, Hawkeye!" Darcy Lewis called from the sandwich line to the cafeteria newcomers at the beginning of lunch. "Hey man, how's it goin'?"
Clint spotted her and smirked, inclining his head. "Hey Darce. Good day. You hear about-"
"-Tony? Yeah, that's crazy. Jane was pretty upset when she heard."
"Yeah, I bet." Clint shuffled and looked at his feet. "Nat was pretty shaken up too even if she'll never admit it."
"What I don't get is how he was able to hide that flashlighty thing in his chest for a month without anybody noticing."
"He's Tony Stark," he said placidly, "That kid can do anything."
The two teens eventually made their way through the lunch line and sat at their usual table, waiting for the others to arrive. Pepper was the first to turn up, followed by Jane Foster, then Natasha, and then finally Tony.
"I want to see it," Jane demanded before Tony had even set his tray on the table.
"Shouldn't we go somewhere a little more private for that, like a janitors closet or something?" he winked.
She hit his arm. "You know what I mean."
Tony sighed. He quickly looked around the cafeteria before pulling down his shirt to reveal the glowing blue light emitted by the arc reactor keeping him alive. Jane sucked in a breath.
"Dammit Tony, how could you keep something like this from us?"
"Hey, hold on. Pepper knew," he released his shirt collar and took his seat between Jane and Pepper, "Oh and so did Romanoff." He tilted his head at her across the table.
"Guys!"
"We were basically blackmailed into silence," Natasha explained, shooting a look at Tony.
"Not my fault," he retorted. He took a greedy bite of his not-quite-cool-enough pizza. "I was silenced too, ya know. Try living with a battery in your body." Tony tapped his chest where the reactor plate was.
"I didn't even hear anything on the news!" Darcy chimed in.
"Stark Industries is very thorough," Pepper credited, "I still don't know if that's a good thing or not."
"Doesn't matter now, not unless they plan to pay off the entire school." Tony's lip twitched. Pepper placed a kind hand on his shoulder.
A thunderous wave of laughter erupted from across the cafeteria and the group turned in a synchronized manner to face it. Oh, it was just Thor Odinson.
"Kid's got on helluva set of lungs in him," Tony noted. Then he smirked and shouted over to him: "Hey, God of Thunder! Do we get to hear the joke?"
Thor perked up at the nickname and smiled a wide toothy grin. He momentarily left his friends to journey through the maze of tables and people. "Maybe another time, Iron Man," he boomed, slapping Tony on the back.
Tony pursed his lips together. "Iron Man?"
"It's fitting, is it not? As long as you don't go around killing everyone..."
He shrugged. "Has a nice ring to it, actually."
The God of Thunder grinned again. "Yeah, I thought you'd like it."
"Hey," Tony called as Thor turned to return to his table, "I'm having a little get-together tomorrow night." A "little get together" in anyone else's book would mean a couple of friends grabbing a pizza. Not Tony. For Tony, a little get together consisted of the entire class partying and drinking well into the night at his lakeside mansion. "You should stop by after the game."
"Very well, my friend," Thor said happily, "If it's going to be anything like your last one, count me in."
"That's my man!" He exclaimed, clasping a hand on his friend's muscular shoulder. "See you there."
Thor bellowed a laughed and inclined his head before excusing himself.
"He better kick some ass at tomorrow's game," Clint said after he was out of earshot, "I've got twenty bucks riding on him."
"You bet on the football game?" One of Peppers eyebrows shot up.
"All he has to do is put up twenty eight points," he mused.
"Not going to happen," Darcy smirked, "Were playing Gotham High. We'd be lucky to get fourteen."
Jane rolled her eyes. "I should have known..."
"Wanna bump this up to thirty bucks, Darce?" Clint asked playfully.
"You're on." She stuck her hand out and the two shook on it.
I also wanted to stick fairly close to the actual universe so Tony kept his Arc reactor. But I don't think I'll have Bruce turn into a giant green rage monster. Even with crazy hormones and everything, even I think that one is a little far fetched.
But there you have it! Updating might be a little sporadic because I have two other active stories going but I'll try to alternate around.
Let me know what you thought!