CHAPTER 2

Ugh...

Tony Stark always felt sluggish after his checkups with his heart doctor, but today's anguish was particularly insufferable. This could most likely be explained by the fact that the appointment was scheduled for four o'clock in the morning and Tony generally enjoyed his beauty sleep. But he didn't bother to question when his maid awoke him and hurried him downstairs claiming that his heart doctor had come for his monthly checkup, probably because he was still struggling to assess what in the world would make his staff think that they should vivify him by bursting through his door and screaming "The doctor's here!"

He thought a simple knock on the door and a pleasant "Tony, darling~" would suffice.

The school's late bell rang throughout the empty hallways as Tony, with his backpack slung over his shoulder, made his way to his first period science class. As he approached the door to his classroom, he remembered that he forgot his doctor's note.

Whatever...

Tony yawned and slowly opened the door, trudging to his seat. "Sorry," Tony muttered, "I got caught up in something."
He felt the teacher's cold eyes on him as he practically fell into his seat and dropped his bag on the ground beside him.

"You need to start minding your punctuality, Mr. Stark. That's the third time this week!"

To be honest, Tony wanted to come back at her with a remark that would set the whole classroom into hysterics. But, even so, his desire to embarrass his science teacher was far outweighed by the fact that he was outrageously tired and wanted to get through the school day peacefully. Particularly without another visit with the school principal. When he noticed that the instructor was awaiting a rebuttal, he shrugged, hoping she would just move on.

Thankfully she did exactly so and was passing out their tests about five minutes later. Stark was overly prepared for this test, but he took his time, making sure his groggy eyes weren't deceiving him. About halfway through the test, Tony thought he felt someone staring at him. So he rested his elbow on his desk, placing his head in his palms at an angle. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he confirmed his suspicions. The guy behind him (Rogers, was it?) was copying his answers.

Had he been in the mood, Tony would've come up with some creative method of getting this kid caught. But today really wasn't the day, so he decided to just let it slide this one time. He quickly wrapped up his test, not bothering to look over his answers since he already knew he was right, and pulled out a notebook. He didn't feel like getting in trouble for sleeping in class, which this teacher had a strict intolerance of.

Before he knew it, the cover and the first two pages of his notebook were covered with numerous crude drawings scattered throughout.

At the lunch table that day, Tony was much livelier. He had just gotten out of his gym period, where he, almost immediately, got hit in the arm and managed to sneak off into the bathrooms and take a good nap.

Pepper Potts, Stark's vice president and one of his closest friends, was going on about something drab and political. If it was to flaunt her knowledge at the new set of girls sitting at the table or simply Pepper being herself, he could not care to tell. But either way, he knew it was starting to bore and/or scare their guests at the table, so he promptly made a comment that got everyone laughing and sent them into their own side conversations.

"Don't look now," his friend, Bruce Banner, started as soon as there was a silence, "but I think that guy over there is staring at you."

"Hm?" Tony peered over Pepper's shoulder and found that same Rogers kid from science class looking dreamily in his direction. "Oh yeah, that's the kid who copied off of my science test today. His name is Steve, right?"

Bruce nodded in response to his question and Ms. Potts arched her eyebrow in disapproval. "Haven't we gone over this before, Tony? About how you -"

"'About how you simply cannot allow someone to cheat off of you blah blah blah pride blah blah blah blah,'" Tony mocked her playfully, "Yes, Pepper, we've gone over this plenty. C'mon, it was one time. In my defense, I was sleep-deprived due to my irregularly scheduled doctor's appointment this morning."

Pepper didn't even need to ask. She knew exactly how all of it went. Howard Stark, being the busy man that he was, scheduled plenty of appointments, due dates, and meetings of a wide variety throughout his work day. And because his life was so jam-packed, he was often very tired and disorganized. As you can imagine, this often caused many miscommunications and, therefore, his habit of being late to a chunk of said appointments, due dates, and meetings.

This was a habit he had, unfortunately, passed down to his son.

Potts was soon snapped out of her thought processes when Tony had asked her a question. "Hey, what do you know about that kid, anyway?"

"Nothing interesting, really. He's just your average student."

"Tell me about him, anyway."

"Well," Potts tried to remember what she had learned, " his best friend is that Parker boy who's always trying to talk to you about the school newspaper, he lives with only one parent, he has a near-horrifying grade in science," she smirked, "Oh! And he's rather athletic. He plays baseball."

"Perfect."

"What?"

" ... Nothing."

Bruce spoke up again. "A little bit spacey, isn't he?"

Tony glanced over Pepper's shoulder to the boy again. This time, though, he noticed and became quite flustered, gathering his things and his friend and quickly escaping the cafeteria. How adorable.

Tony decided right then that Steve was the perfect person to help him out with his plan to earn the attention and praise of his father. It was going to be tough going, though, considering that this plan of his involved trying out and then making the baseball team. And Stark wasn't athletic. Under any definition of the word. With someone like Steve to help him survive tryouts, he could carry out his plan with ease. Hopefully.

Seeing that his friends had begun cleaning up their things already, Tony quickly gathered his together and threw them away, heading to his next class.

Tony felt himself yawn for the fifth time in the past half-hour. Math was an absolute bore. As he felt his eyelids giving up on him, the sweet savior of the afternoon's release bell rescued him.

Just when he thought he was home free, Tony felt someone take him by the arm. He turned his head to see that reporter kid smiling nervously at him.

"Tony Stark!"

"Um..P... Percy...? Perry-?"

"Peter," the boy corrected.

"Yes!" Tony snapped his fingers, "Anyways. I've really gotta go. Believe me, I would love to stick around and chat but I have that one thing I gotta get to -"

"I'm not here about the paper, don't worry," Parker smiled. " I just have a favor to ask of you."

"Er... I'm not so sure I'm up for that."

"It's about my buddy Steve ..." he hesitated, evidently not knowing how to say it. Tony stopped. He gently pulled his arm out of the other boy's grip. "I'm listening."

"He's been ... er ... He has this thing he's doing. And, uh, he just wants to talk to you -"

"No problem. I'll help you out," Stark replied briskly, sounding disinterested.

"Oh. Okay then. Thanks!" Peter glowed in a disturbingly cute way and Tony just waved a hand.

"Don't mention it."

With that, the boy ran off into a crowd of students all rushing to get out of the doors. Tony leaned against a row of lockers, running his hand through his hair and making his way out of the building.

Walking home, the only thing he thought about was baseball.

The next day, Stark turned a corner as he maneuvered through the school halls to get to lunch. There was Steve, walking to the cafeteria, the only other person in the hallway. Here was his chance to make an impression.

"Hey! Rogers!" he called out as sped up his pace to catch up to the other kid. The poor boy seemed to freeze in his tracks. It was almost comical. It's almost like he's scared of me. How cute, Tony thought as he approached Rogers. "Steve!"

This time, the boy turned around. He looked pale. "Was I mistaken? It's Steve, right?" Of course, this was only in attempt to get this shy kid to say something.

"Y-Yeah. Steve Rogers," as the boy said this he stared at Tony's hand. Stark was getting impatient so he decided to speed the process up. This slow kid obviously needed a kick start or something. "Well?" Tony moved his arm around, smirk still plastered on his face. This time Steve took his hand and shook it lightly, as if it was a delicate thing that was easily screwed up.

At this, Tony couldn't help but outwardly laugh.

"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," Tony said as he pushed the cafeteria doors open for him. He had tried to make a point of looking at Peter as he said this, but he felt as if Rogers didn't catch it. "Oh," was all the kid said. How boring.

He was about to start asking Steve about baseball when heard Pepper's familiar voice cutting in. "Tony! C'mon! We want to talk to you about some things!" Tony turned and smiled at her, putting up a finger and looking back to Steve. "Sorry, looks like they need me over there. I'll see you around, Steve." he started over to the table when he thought of a way to mess with him.
"Oh, and by the way, what did you get on that science test?"

Steve's face was absolutely priceless.

Tony shot him a wink and sat down in his usual spot at the lunch table, where he finally let out a laugh. His friends looked curious as to why he even bothered talking to Rogers, but he knew it would be too hard to explain. "That was probably one of the worst conversations that I have ever had," he said.

It was so funny and awkward, but he couldn't help but believe that the exchange went perfectly well. After all, he had Steve right where he wanted him. The boy was bound to want to redeem himself, and Tony would give him a chance to do so when the time came.

Pepper's classic look of "Tony, what the hell are you up to?" Was plastered firmly on her face. "Now, Pepper. No need to be getting any ideas. You know I don't -"

"You plan on using him for something, don't you?"

"Well, uh ... See, here's the thing, Ms. Potts-"

"You're taking advantage of him! Ugh, Tony!" She groaned, rubbing her temples. Stark noticed that one of his closer friends, James Rhodes, was back at school, recovering from his flu. "Rhodey! Hey! Did you get your makeup work alright? Y'know -"

"Tony! Seriously! You can't just keep -"

"Pepper, I was -"

"Using people for your own gain and -"

"Now, I need to stop you there. I'm not just -"

"Expecting to dispose of them -"

"I do not 'dispose' of people! That's quite an exaggera-"

"It's selfish, Tony!"

Tony went silent, staring at Pepper for a moment before leaning across the table, whispering just loud enough for her to hear.

"My father has barely five minutes to spare on me every day. He has no excuse to speak to me unless it's in front of the press or his co-workers. I need Steve to get me onto that baseball team so that maybe he can spend a few more minutes on me every now and again. Is that wrong, Pepper? Call me selfish, but I want what millions of other kids in the world have. And I'm working for it."

All of the students around him went silent as Tony stood up, looked down at his feet, and then calmly exited the cafeteria.

"Dad, I need you to sign this sheet for me," Tony approached his father in his study, sliding the parental consent and concerns portion of the athletics signup sheet in front of him.

"I'm kinda busy, son," Howard said, scribbling his signature on some seemingly important papers.

"It's just for baseball, Dad. If you'd only give me a minute ..."

"Yeah?" Howard skimmed the rest of the document he was working on and took up the one Tony had handed him. He signed his name in the appropriate places and wrote down the dates, then came down to the section that was labeled "Medical Concerns", his pen hovering over it. "Oh, you can just leave that blank," Tony snatched up the paper quickly. "Thanks, Dad."

Howard nodded, typing several phrases on his computer before yawning audibly. Tony slipped out of the room quietly, heading up to his room to forge a physical examination.