Steve Rogers leaned his head back against the headboard of his bed, strumming at his guitar. As he held its mahogany neck tightly and ran his pick down its coated strings, he could feel the raw emotion escaping it, the sound flowing like a river and carrying itself into his ears. Rogers shut his eyes, feeling his lips curl into a wide smile as he hit that final note. Eventually its sound faded and he cautiously set his guitar by his bedside. That Ibanez GA5 was Steve's outlet. Every chord strummed on that guitar was another bit of stress released from his mind. He sighed dreamily as he stared at it, and after a moment of debate, he stepped toward his desk, flipped open a textbook, and began forcing himself to study.

And he studied for the wrong test. Shit, he thought. Steve ran his hand through his hair and groaned. What kind of idiot studies the wrong chapter? Worse, it was science. Rogers's grade in that class was already dropping dangerously low, and he couldn't risk another failed grade.

As the rest of the students made their way into the classroom, he found himself analyzing each one of them. Was he really thinking of doing it? Cheating wasn't in Steve's nature, but this test was really important. He outwardly sighed. No. It's wrong, Steve. Besides, there was no one in the class he necessarily thought he could cheat off of. Not with confidence, at least.

At this point the teacher was calling role and Steve remained in his own world until he heard his name. "Mr. Rogers."

"Here," Steve uttered just loud enough for the instructor to hear.
"Mr. Stark ... Anthony? Gosh, is he late aga-" she was cut off by the classroom door creaking open, answering her question.
"Sorry," Tony Stark said as he took his seat in front of Steve, "I got caught up in something."

Their teacher just frowned and stood up behind her desk. "You need to start minding your punctuality, Mr. Stark. That's the third time this week!" She stared at him for a second before he replied with a shrug. The woman sighed and finished role, which was when Steve got the idea. Tony, he thought. Of course! He hardly knew the kid, but one thing he did know was that he was a genius. If Steve copied off of him, he'd definitely make the grade.

The tests were soon passed out and the teacher took her seat at her desk, wiping some stray blond hairs from her face. Steve quickly went through the test and answered all of the questions that he thought he knew were correct, which was about five of the twenty-five. Then he glanced at Tony's paper every now and again, filling in the corresponding bubbles. He pretended to rub out answers and change them, hoping his act was convincing enough (not that anyone in the classroom cared). He waited a couple of minutes after Tony turned in his test to do the same, and he exchanged a nervous smile with his teacher as he set his paper on top of the stack. He glanced at Stark as he walked past. The dark haired boy was doodling in his notebook; Steve didn't care to find out what. He had done enough looking over Tony's shoulder for a while. He fell back into his chair, rubbing the back of his neck.

Sitting at the lunch table that day, Peter Parker caught him off guard by slamming a sheet of paper on the table in front of him. Steve blinked a couple times, and then turned to his friend quizzically. "What's this?"

"Baseball. You're trying out, right?" He inquired, crossing his arms.

"I don't know, Pete. I just don't think-"

Peter cut him off there. He took the seat next to him and set his camera on the table. "Come on, Steve! You and I both know that you have the best arm in the entire school! You'd be the starting pitcher or something!" Steve looked at his friend, then down at the signup sheet. He gave a sheepish grin, scratched the back of his head, and nodded. "Alright, fine. But you have to promise to cover every game."

Peter smiled and nodded. "Yeah, of course!"
The two of them ate their lunch in silence, which was kind of odd. Pete always had something to run past Steve that either made him think or forced him to engage in speaking. He didn't mind, though.

Today he found himself staring across the lunchroom at Tony Stark. He was grinning and laughing with all of his friends, who kept their eyes glued to him. Tony really was the center of attention.
Pete had turned to say something to Steve and caught his stare, following it for a second. Then he snapped his friend out of his daydream. "Tony Stark, huh? Jealous?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah... I guess. I mean, what is there not to be jealous of?"

Peter nodded.

"Hey," Steve nudged Peter with his elbow, "What do you know about him?"

Peter grinned with pride. "I've done a lot of articles on him for the newspaper! He's held the title of State Science Fair Champion since the 7th grade, his father sponsors the baseball, football, and basketball teams, he's student council president, and if I'm not mistaken, he's dating Pepper Potts."

Steve nodded and leaned back in his chair. "So I guess it was a good idea to copy off of his science test this morning, eh?"

Pete gaped at him. "You cheated off of Tony Stark?"

"Keep it down!" Steve shushed him. "Yeah, I copied off of his test this morning. What's the big deal? I'm sure plenty of people have cheated off of him before."

"Well, yeah, people have TRIED ... But he always finds a way of getting you caught. I would know, he did that to me in math class last semester."

"Wow ..." Steve said. "I wonder why he didn't turn me in."

"I don't know about you," Peter smiled, "but I would just consider myself lucky and move on."

"Yeah," Steve muttered, still staring in Tony's direction. Suddenly, Stark met his gaze. Rogers quickly turned his head picked up his belongings.

"C'mon, Pete. Let's get to gym."

Peter Parker was one of Steve's closest friends. The two of them had established that they were a team. High school survival buddies. This said, you can assume that Pete could tell when Steve was acting strange.

So when Steve started spacing out during a game of dodge ball, it didn't take two years of a blood bond to see that something different was going on in Rogers's head. Peter dodged a ball that flew past his head, grabbing it as it bounced against the wall of the gymnasium. He tossed it to Steve, who looked puzzled as he caught it. "H-Huh?"

"C'mon, Steve! Throw it! You act like you've never played dodge ball before," Pete caught another ball coming to him and threw it at a player on the opposing team, missing horribly.

"Oh. Y-Yeah."

"Jeez, Steve! What's gotten into yo-" he was cut off by a ball hitting him in the head. Peter fell to the ground, he was out cold. Steve turned his attention to the guy who threw the ball at his friend. He was laughing with his friends, that jerk.

Rogers reared back and whipped the ball he was holding in the kid's direction, hitting him in the stomach and sending him stumbling backward. The kid's friends stood in shock for a second, then went to help the winded boy.

Steve knelt down beside Peter and lifted the smaller boy's arm over his shoulder. He walked his friend to the bleachers, trying to get him to regain full consciousness. He shook the boy a little bit. "Pete? C'mon, Pete. Get up!"
He started to groan and opened his eyes. "Ugh... Steve? What happened?"

Steve smiled. "You got drilled in the face. Let's get you to the nurse." Pete stumbled as he stood, starting to walk alongside Steve and out the door of the gym.

As they made their way to the nurse's office, Steve frowned at Peter, who had a bloody nose. "I'm sorry. It's my fault you got hit. If only I was paying attention, it wouldn't have happened!"

"That's okay, Steve. Really. I'm not that hurt, actually. Just tell me one thing..."

"Yeah?"

"What were you daydreaming about back there?"

Steve let out a long breath and hesitated. Great, Rogers. What do you say? "Oh, I've just been obsessing over this guy all day and I kind of want to write a song about him!" like it's nothing new?

"I guess ... I guess I was still thinking about Tony Stark."

Peter looked confused for a second, and then his face glowed with some form of realization. "I get it. You're feeling super guilty! I should've expected this from you, Steve."

"Uh..."

"Don't worry, Steve. Tony isn't gonna get you killed or anything-"

"That's not really it, Pete," Steve said kind of sheepishly.

"Oh...?" Peter slowed down, his head tilted slightly to the side.

"You see, well, I just keep thinking of this kid. And I've been thinking ... I wanna write a song."

Peter stopped in tracks. He was looking at Rogers as if he belonged in an asylum. "Okay. So. Lemme get this straight. You copy off of a guy's test, and then suddenly you have the urge to write a song for him? Isn't that a little weird?"

"Not necessarily for him just ... about him," Steve let out, fidgeting a little.

"What about him? You hardly know Stark, let alone have a relationship with the kid."

"That's the thing, Pete. I just have the drive to write a song about him, but I don't even know him. It's not like I asked for this or anything. It just happened and now I want to write for - about - him."

Again, Peter just stared. Finally, he started walking alongside his friend again. "And I got nailed in the face for this? You're a weird guy, you know that, Rogers?" He playfully punched Steve in the arm, laughing. "I'll help you out in any way I can."

They finally made it to the nurse's office and Peter gave Steve a smile. "Thanks, Steve."

"No problem. It was the least I could do," he waited for the nurse to come over and close the door, and then he turned to walk down the hallway again.

"You copy off of a guy's test, and then suddenly you have the urge to write a song for him?"

The next day as Steve was sluggishly making his way toward the cafeteria, he heard a voice call his name. "Hey! Rogers!"

Steve froze in place. He became as stiff as a board. If he had heard correctly, that was the voice of...

"Steve!"

... Tony Stark.

He slowly turned around and met the other boy's smirking face. "Was I mistaken? It's Steve, right?" Tony held out a hand.

"Y-Yeah, Steve Rogers," he found himself simply staring at Stark's outstretched arm. He couldn't move his own.

"Well?" Tony shook his arm around. Steve cautiously moved his hand to Tony's and shook it. The other boy just laughed. "What do you want? I-I mean, sorry, can I help you or something?"

"Oh, it's nothing, really. I just thought I'd say hi. I mean, we're classmates and everything," he pushed the door open for Steve, who self-consciously noticed a couple heads turn when they made their entrance. The remark itself sounded different. It had an almost sarcastic essence about it but, at the same time, what reason had Stark to be sarcastic?

"Oh," Steve managed. For some reason he was borderline speechless. Tony stopped him and opened his mouth to say something when Pepper called from their lunch table. "Tony! C'mon! We want to talk to you about some things!" her voice was so clear and warm, it was beautiful. Stark shot her a smile and nodded, holding up a finger to tell her to wait. He turned back to Steve. "Sorry, looks like they need me over there. I'll see you around, Steve," he started to strut over to his table but stopped and turned around briskly, remembering something. "Oh, and by the way, what did you get on that science test?"

Steve's eyes widened at the rhetorical question as Tony gave him a quick wink and hurried back to his table. As Rogers watched the other boy sit down with his friends, he let out a long sigh, partially of relief, partially of pure terror. Then his attention turned to Peter, who was waving him over.

Steve sat down next to his friend. "Hey," he greeted wearily.

"How was your conversation with Stark?" Parker was giving him a look that was absolutely devious.

"Pete ... Please tell me that you weren't the one who convinced Tony to talk to me."

Peter smiled. "I might have suggested that you were worth talking to."

"You're kidding me."

"It didn't go well?"

"Well," he hesitated. "It didn't go bad ... it just didn't go great."

"Tell me," Pete leaned in as if he was a school girl awaiting the latest gossip.

"He just said hello and introduced himself, then his friends called him over. And he knows I cheated off of his test."

Peter paused, thinking it over. Finally, he shrugged. "It could've gone worse. He looked like he was in a good mood, right?"

"I guess," Steve placed his right elbow on the table, resting his face in it. Pete patted his back, not saying a word for a couple minutes. Then went on for the rest of the lunch period about a new camera he was hoping to buy with the money he earned from his paid internship with the city newspaper. The whole time Steve found himself thinking about how terrible his exchange with Stark went, glancing at him occasionally.

Yeah, that could've gone better.

That afternoon Steve and Peter were taking their normal route home from school. "Hey, you wanna come over this weekend? I've got the coolest new video game I want you to play with me," Pete was walking backwards, struggling to keep his balance. Steve smiled.

"Yeah, sure. Though, I'll probably be busy practicing. Baseball tryouts are next Friday and I haven't thrown in months."

"Oh, that's alright, Steve!" Parker waved at him as he reached his aunt's apartment. Steve waved back and headed up a couple of floors to his own.

He didn't actually plan on practicing that much, but he really didn't feel like playing video games. He imagined they were way more fun if you're good at them, which Steve wasn't. Not at all.

Rogers pulled out the key to his apartment, rushing up to his room as soon as he entered. He fell onto his bed and threw his school bag onto the ground.

Then, he grabbed his guitar.