Just a little one shot that I thought would satisfy both a Captain Hill itch and a high school AU itch.


Wine, Cheesecake, and High School

When Maria arrives at Avengers High in the morning, she's the first one there, aside from the janitors. She enjoys the silence of the hallways, knowing that in less than an hour, it would turn into a zoo of high schoolers. A zoo that she, unfortunately, was supposed to be in charge of.

"Maria."

Principal Fury gives her a short greeting as he walks in the front doors, his one eye and eye patch meeting her two for a brief moment before he disappears into his office.

"Maria!"

Assistant Principal Coulson greets her a little more enthusiastically when he arrives, which is a miracle considering how soul sucking she considered his job to be. Signing expense reports and monitoring attendance was not what she considered to be exciting or stimulating.

Neither is discipline, she ponders as she hears the last bell for First Period ring, just as Tony Stark strolls through the front doors, sunglasses still on his face and earbuds still plugged in. She notices his Black Sabbath t-shirt and curses him for having such good taste in music and yet, such a blatant disregard for normal civility.

"Detention." She says unenthusiastically, doling out a slip that Stark merely stares at for a second.

"Come on, Maria. My car broke down on the way here." Stark complains, not noticing the way Maria's frown deepens at his use of her name.

"Sure it did." She scoffs, seriously doubting that his Ferrari or whatever expensive sports car he decided to drive today broke down, "You've still got detention."

Stark groans, takes the slip, and continues sauntering off to class. She reminds herself that patience is a virtue.

She has to keep repeating that mantra when she is called into Mr. Selvig's physics class to calm down Bruce Banner, who is in the middle of terrorizing the classroom after some comment sets him off. The kid has legendary anger issues, but even he pales at the sight of her.

At least when she hands him the detention slip, he doesn't have a snarky remark to go with it. That alone makes him infinitely better than Stark in her eyes, although she really needed to call his parents in to figure out his whole anger management issue.

As soon as the bell rings, she's back out in the hallway, where it takes her all of five seconds before she has to get her pen and detention slips out again.

"Scott, what are you doing?" She asks as nicely as she can while Scott Lang fumbles with the lockpick that he tries to secretively slip into his pocket. His friends take off without a second thought, while he just throws up his arms and groans.

He tries to bullshit his way out of it, but she has the detention slips written out and pasted to his head before he can finish.

Already feeling frustrated with work, and life in general, Maria almost snaps when she looks at the clock and realizes she still has four more periods to go. Why couldn't the day just end already? She'd gladly welcome a fire, or a gas leak, or literally anything that could get her out of this school and back home.

She keeps walking the halls, keeping an eye out for more troublemakers when she sees Steve Rogers, all decked out in his letterman jacket and a weathered pair of jeans, laughing along with the rest of his football buddies in a scene right out of a corny high school movie.

She remembers him in his freshman year, when he was a scrawny kid that got beat up at school relentlessly. She had staged an intervention, and for the rest of the year, he had eaten lunch in her office. He had been so small and helpless then, and she had no choice but to pity him when he walked in with bruises and cuts all over his face.

Since then, all he's done is grown a foot and packed on thirty pounds of muscle after discovering a gym. Now, as she watches the perfectly sculpted man walk past her, flashing a modest smile that hasn't changed in four years, she silently thanks God for puberty. She had told Rogers that that he was a late bloomer, but damn, if only she had known that he would blossom into the finest flower in the whole freaking school.

She spends too long subtly admiring Rogers' firm ass in those jeans and not long enough paying attention to where's she's going, because she proceeds to walk straight into a wall, dropping her papers everywhere.

Cursing everyone and everything, she gets onto her knees and hurriedly tries to grab her forms before the wind whisks them off. Just as one scuttles along, carried by a breeze rolling by, it is snatched up by a toned forearm. Maria's gaze travels up to the chiseled features of Steve Rogers, who is immediately on his knees as well, oblivious to her staring as he grabs the rest of the papers and hands them to her in a neat pile.

"Here you go, Miss Hill."

He gives her a boyish smile and she melts a little.

"Thank you, Steve."

"No problem, ma'am."

Then he's off with his buddies again, like he was some superhero who had just swooped in to save the day and she was his damsel in distress. A superhero with the manners of someone raised in the 1920's and the looks of a Hollywood leading man.

When she returns to her office, flustered beyond belief, she opens the door to the sight of Jane Foster, the office assistant and resident saint among the frustrating and perplexing students that Maria has to deal with all day.

Foster has seen the look on Maria's face before, so she doesn't ask about it and instead, silently takes the papers from Maria to file them away. Maria barely has time to sit down at her computer before the door to the office is thrown open, to reveal a hulking figure, a mess of blond hair and muscles.

He strides into her office like a Norse God, and her jaw drops at the sight of the man, who has biceps the size of her head. It takes her a second to realize that he is the exchange student they've been expecting all week from Norway.

She manages a greeting to his perplexed face. He then declares something in broken English and throws a coffee mug to the ground, shattering it and spilling tea all over the floor.

It is at that moment that Maria officially decides that he's Coulson's problem.

Unfortunately though, Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton are her problems, since she's the one who catches them in the middle of planning a prank to flood the school with the water fountains and sinks when she's on a bathroom break.

Detention slips are give out liberally, as Maria starts nursing a migraine that she is too young to have.

Maria checks the clock, hoping that the school day can just end so she can go home and watch The Bachelor with a glass of grocery store wine and a slice of leftover cheesecake that she's been hoarding since Fury's birthday bash last week. Then, Steve Rogers walks into her office with slumped shoulders like he used to when he was a freshman and Maria realizes immediately that it's going to be a long afternoon. She ushers him into a chair and tells Coulson that she'll lock up, so he can feel free to go home.

She sits down in a chair next to him, and then Steve starts. Peggy Carter, their current exchange student from London, is going back in a week, and he isn't happy about it. Not at all. She comforts him as best as she can, listening to him talk about Peggy and how great of a friend she is to him.

Maria isn't good at this sort of thing, but she puts her hand on his shoulder, and Steve rests his head on her hand. She feels like it isn't enough, but then Steve's breathing calms down and he locks gazes with her, gratitude in his big blue eyes.

Unable to control herself, she lifts her hand up and runs it gently along the side of his face, softly cradling his wonderfully defined chin. Steve leans into the contact, and immediately, she knows that she's in trouble.

It all happens so fast, all at once, and before Maria registers what is going on, she's kissing him. Passionately. He runs his hands along her back and she moans softly as he finds a sensitive sport and gently kneads it. She returns the favor by throwing her arms around his neck and deepening the kiss.

She knows it's wrong. It's so far beyond wrong, but she can't help it. He's moaning now too, as her hands start roaming that muscled torso under his shirt and start traveling down. Realizing what she's about to do, she stops suddenly, and breaks the contact.

"I'm eighteen." He says, as if it excuses all of the lines she has just crossed.

She shakes her head.

"No, I'm sorry. That was unprofessional and inappropriate and uncalled for."

She starts listing off every word she can to help describe her shame.

And Steve just stares at her, until she finishes apologizing.

"I'm sorry too, ma'am. You could lose your job over this, and I wasn't thinking of the consequences."

He looks genuinely sorry. It's as if he's not even capable of lying.

Damn it. Why does he have to be so damn chivalrous and make it so hard for her to feel ashamed? Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

And then, as she notices the way his eyes subtly trail over her body, she realizes that these office visits are going to become a regular thing. And the worst part is that she's excited.

What was she going to tell her family? Hey, I know you wanted me to get a boyfriend, so I picked up this student at the high school I work at. But don't worry, he's eighteen, so it's okay.

She can imagine their shocked and horrified reactions. That is, if they don't make a mad dash to call the police first.

"I'm sorry. This can't happen again."

Steve nods. But she sees a glint of defiance in his eyes and she knows he's not listening to her.

Knowing exactly what she was going to be in for next week, Maria stands up and ushers him out of the door, following behind at a distance and remembering to lock the office up in spite of herself.

She watches Steve stroll down the hallway, looking back at her the entire way, and she can't help but smile a bit. The wine and cake were going to taste a lot sweeter tonight.

She could deal with the shame some other time.


So I guess that's a happy ending? Well, that's as happy of an ending as I could get out of it.

Thanks for reading!