" i'm not a hopeless romantic like you are "

caught almost redhanded

another?

Tony had gotten to school a little later than usual and was walking through the halls of the school. At this time, most students had arrived and were roaming about the lockers. He had just closed his locker door after chucking his bag inside when he found Stephen waiting behind his door.

"Stephen? Hi?" he said, surprised at his appearance.

"Hey, Tony," Stephen smiled. "Independence Day is this Friday,"

"And?" Tony frowned, as the pair slowly made their way down the hallway.

"It's also Steve's birthday," Stephen reminded.

"Oh yeah, that's right," Tony pursed his lips. "I almost forgot,"

"Do you know what he's doing?" Stephen asked.

"Nope," Tony sighed. He suddenly stopped walking and pulled Stephen behind a corner.

"What's wrong?" Stephen frowned, trying to see what Tony was trying to avoid.

"Jessica," he muttered. The two peered around the corner and spotted the blonde speaking to another, taller, girl at her locker. Jessica then waved bye and left, leaving the other girl to lock her locker. "Hold a second," Tony stepped out and approached at the girl. Stephen lingered behind the corner in confusion.

Tony knocked on the locker door to alert her. "Hey, Liza, isn't it?"

It took a moment for Liza, Jessica's sister, to recognise the billionaire child. "Tony Stark?" she had a much stronger Swedish accent than her sisters. "I didn't think I would see you again after what you did,"

"Hey! I apologized later," Tony defended himself indignantly. He shook his head. "Anyways, I was just here to, well, apologise again. Your sister did quite put up a show about it all,"

"My sister?" she questioned, tilting her head in confusion.

Tony blinked. "Uh, yeah? Did she not tell you about our date yesterday?"

"My sister had a date with you?" Liza exclaimed. "Did you go kiss another girl afterwards?"

Tony scowled. "No, I did not," he sighed. "She asked me out but it turned out it was some sort of revenge scheme because of what I did to you last year," he explained the rest of the afternoon awkwardly.

Liza seemed not too bothered about her sister's shenanigans. "Of course she did. She hinted that she was going to do something about you. She is very immature, despite her intelligence. I will speak to her, but thank you for telling me about this,"

Tony smiled. "Well, I hope we aren't on horrible terms any more Liza. You are very attractive and I do hope you do well in your class with Mr Novak, I heard he's a pain,"

Liza smirked. "Well I hope things go well with your also rather attractive boyfriend," she winked at him before twirling around to leave.

Tony stood there baffled for a moment before Stephen came behind him. "Was that Jessica's sister?"

"Um, yeah," Tony shook off the confusion. "I talked to her about Jessica, everything's fine,"

"I see why you dated her, she's good looking," Stephen grinned.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, blonde hair and blue eyes, just my type," he said in a sarcastic voice.

Stephen looked forward as they walked. "What is your type then?"

"How about a smart and arrogant twerp who thinks he's better than me?" Tony looked up at Stephen.

Stephen just stuck his tongue out at Tony and firmly grabbed his hand. "I think your 'type' would prefer the term 'genius' instead,"

Tony glanced down at their entwined hands before saying; "I believe I'm the genius in this relationship, thank you very much,"

...SceneChange...

"Sorry, I'm late," Stephen panted, entering the door. Tony was behind, smiling.

"What were you late doing?" Natasha raised her eyebrows, her legs propped up against a chair.

Stephen low-key glared at her. "I was too busy convincing Mr Williams to not give Tony a 5 per cent bonus,"

"Which I deserved!" Tony pointed out, making a face at him.

"Did you now? Everyone can prank Fury,"

"But not everyone can -not- get detention for it!" Tony exclaimed back.

"It's got nothing to do with the maths assignment!" Stephen frowned, collapsing onto the desk table. "Plus, this idiot got distracted by the new locks on the janitor closet," he pointed his finger at Tony who just crossed his arms.

"Alright, now that we've gotten past the 'married couple problems', let's get to the real problem at hand," Clint said, pointing at a ridiculous drawing of Than on the whiteboard. "This is Than from Westwood as we all know,"

"Why has he got a drawing of a turd on his head?" Loki asked.

"Because he's a sh*thead. Anyway," Clint continued. "He and literally every other year 9 Westwood out there used to have a SHIELD access card, all during the time the shooting happened. Natasha and I have opened our minds to the fact that a Westwood could've given their card to the shooters,"

Stephen frowned. "Right, but why Than? We can't just blame him because we dislike him, that's unprofessional,"

Natasha stood up. "That's what I said. But then we figured, we have nowhere to begin. So why not just get it over and done with and cross Than off the list. Maybe on the way we get some clues to the real suspect,"

"I see," Loki thought for a bit. She then nodded. "So where do we start? I have a flame thrower somewhere in my locker,"

After a second of confused silence (because why could you have a flamethrower, grappling hooks are way more useful everyone knows that), Bruce stood up. "Why don't we search his locker first. Tony can try to hack his phone and any odd activity,"

Tony stood up. "OR I can just-" he whipped out his laptop from his bag and began to type. "-hack into the school's mainframe and access his card from there. Fury did say that they used some form of ghost system to block our school to ID the card but maybe if I..." he mumbled nonsense only a few like Bruce could understand.

He put down the laptop and spun it around to show the screen to the others. "Nothing. His card is Level 9, just like ours, with the same access availability,"

"Couldn't he just erase any history on the card?" Clint asked, peering into the screen.

Tony shook his head. "Not even I could do that, the security system's too complicated for that. Anyway for any information to even just be disrupted would be to mess with the card's chip itself,"

Natasha stared at the screen before saying, "When they were here the last term...didn't they just have the visitors pass plus access to the gyms?" she stood up. "They weren't proper students, they could only use the special facilities. The card given to the shooters would only really need to be one to get through the front floors,"

"And?" Clint frowned. "They had access, we know that,"

Natasha shook her head. "No, I mean, now they have more access, right? Now that they're 'proper' students," she turned to Tony. "Didn't all exchange students get new cards? That means whatever's on this card happened after the shooting. His old card could have easily had stuff on it,"

"Well, that makes things so much easier for us," Loki groaned. So what do we do?"

"Nothing," everyone turned to the door where Than stood with a malicious grin.

"What do you want?" Tony asked, shutting his laptop.

Than walked in slowly. "You won't find my old card because it got shot during that whole scandal," he then did an over-exaggerated wink at them. "Keep your meddling hands out of this, your Avengers thing is the most kindergarten thing I've ever heard of,"

As he was about to leave, Loki called after him. "Are you scared we'll find you guilty? I honestly doubt it, since whoever was going to betray us would have needed to have some form of courage. Skill would have been needed and the scheme wouldn't have been able to be pulled off with someone like you. I don't know why we're wasting our time investigating you,"

Than stared at him before frowning. "You, out of all the cowards, dare to go against me? Throw those insults like Stark throws money?" he inched closer. "That scheme, whatever you called it, took four months to plan. Then we had to somehow create an alliance with Fury and SHIELD to even get access to this stupidly fortified school. any idiot would realise there's a secret somewhere around here,"

Loki crossed her arms. "So you're telling me that you and- who? Your stick-worth of friends- managed to get fully armed men into our school?" she turned to Natasha. "I think our prime target should be Malekith, he at least has an Enhancement,"

Than stepped forward and tried to grab Loki in anger except she ducked out of the way. "That derp is nothing compared to my intelligence," he growled.

"So you're telling us that this is a confession?" Clint asked, turning Than's attention to him. Clint was holding a camera, the lens facing Than.

He turned some shade of red or purple before realizing and lunged himself at Clint. Clint easily flipped over him, edging at the door, glancing at the others. than was recovering himself.

"Go to Fury!" Stephen exclaimed at Clint, who sprinted out of the classroom.

Than turned to the others. "This is more than just a petty high school drama," he took out what looked like a baton but had not-earth-like glowing purple blades sticking out of it.

"It was more than a petty high school drama when your people stuck a couple bullets in me," Tony glared at the bully, stepping in front of him, blocking him from the doorway. His gauntlet formed and his powered hand faced Than.

Than scowled and did some moves with the weapon he had taken out. "Get out of my way,"

"No," Tony said. "You are not moving until the authorities get here,"

Stephen watched this unfold before him. His face almost flushed white when Tony whipped out his gauntlet. Than seemed furious. "I will not be punished for this, there is no proper proof, you could've easily edited that footage,"

"There are security cameras," Loki shrugged. Than stared at the team. He had, for once, been outsmarted, and was going to get into an awful lot of trouble.

...SceneChange...

Tony crossed his arms in annoyance. "We aren't,"

"But you guys act like it so much!" Clint edged on, sprawled out on Tony's couch. The group were all laid out in one of Tony's living rooms.

Tony opened a soda. "Yeah well, I have very high standards, I'd never date anyone's who's such a-"

Everyone turned their heads as Stephen entered the front door, puffed out and almost tripped. "Oh hi, guys! Sorry I'm late, the guy at the store took years to bag these up," he chucked a bag into the circle.

"OOh, doughnuts, thanks!" Clint snatched.

"What were you guys talking about?" Stephen frowned, sitting cross-legged on the ground.

"About Tony's dating standards," Natasha answered before Tony could say anything. She took a mouthful of doughnuts.

Stephen shrugged. "Can't be too high, looking back at all his ex's," he said mindlessly.

Bruce raised his eyebrow. "What does that make you?"

Stephen paused when he realised what'd he said. "Um," he glanced down, hiding the rather obvious blush that had formed.

"You set yourself for that one mate," Sam chucked him a soda. "Relax,"

"Hey, isn't your birthday soon?" Stephen asked Steve, changing the subject.

Steve looked up. "Uh, yeah it is actually,"

"What are you doing for it?" Loki questioned, who was leaning on Wanda.

"Nothing really," Steve muttered.

"Nonsense," Tony stood up. "I'm going to throw you the biggest party this world has ever seen," he pointed at Steve.

Steve looked blankly at his friend.

"My father's going to a stupid conference on Independence Day so the house is ours," he took out his phone. "I'll send out invites, it's going to be wonderful,"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Natasha poked Tony's leg. "Having a big party?"

"It's fine. Now Steve. apart from Nat, the cheerleaders. Yes or no?" Tony asked, typing into his phone.

Steve looked surprised. It had not been the first time Tony had thrown him a birthday but he didn't expect it this time. "Um, I don't really mind? Whoever wants to come can come to be honest,"

"Great," Tony made a dramatic last tap on his phone and moments later everyone's phones beeped.

"I...thanks," Steve smiled.

"Okay, um I think the new kids are coming soon," Wanda said, looking at her phone. "Most of them are staying at this hotel place so they're all coming at once,"

"How soon?" Tony asked.

"I don't know, Peter (Q.) said about ten minutes,"

"Cool, I'll get more chips," Tony left to the kitchen.

A few seconds later, Stephen stood up. "Sorry, does anyone know where the bathroom is?"

"Down the hall to the right," Natasha pointed.

"Thanks," Stephen turned around the corner but paused for a bit before smirking. "Too short?" he faced the open kitchen room behind the living room.

Tony stood there, tip-toeing on a stool, trying to grab more chips. He hopped down with a pouty face. "Can you help?"

Stephen got onto the stool and took down a couple of packets of chips. "Here you go. Why do you store them up here?"

"I don't use this kitchen that much so a lot of things are in inconvenient places," Tony shrugged, getting some bowls from the cupboard.

Stephen put his hands in his pockets. "That's on the richest things I've ever heard,"

Tony glanced at him. "What? Don't normal people have four to five kitchens?" he said sarcastically. "Next you'll tell me that six living rooms and a helicopter landing pad in the back yard aren't normal,"

Stephen stepped a little closer before saying something completely off-topic. "So what are you're standards then?"

"Huh?"

"Before, you guys were talking," Stephen asked, awkwardly smiling.

Tony opened his mouth. "Oh. Right, that. Um," he the edges of the bowl he was holding. "Well honestly, I don't know. What you said is right, they really can't be high looking at my previous hook-ups," he rubbed his neck, also awkwardly.

"You must have some standard," Stephen insisted. "Do you ever imagine, like, your future spouse or something, and them just being perfect- why are they perfect?"

Tony stared at Stephen. "Well, I don't know. Maybe, they're nice,"

"No shit," Stephen rolled his eyes.

"Alright, don't laugh," Tony made a face. "I'm not a hopeless romantic like you are. I don't spend my time thinking about the perfect guy,"

"Guy?" Stephen looked down at him.

Tony realised what he'd said. "Oh, um, I meant- I don't know what I meant-" he spluttered.

"I thought you came out when you kissed me but sorry for my assumptions," Stephen laughed awkwardly, glancing at the ground.

There was some silence before Tony shifted the weight on his feet clumsily. "I-well," he mumbled before stepping forward and tried to kiss Stephen. Now [I] say try, because this short child couldn't reach Stephen's unsuspecting lips. This ended with Tony losing balance and having to grab the benchtop of the counter to not fall onto Stephen.

Stephen just smirked more, much to Tony's dislike. Tony was blushing furiously. "Curse you and your height,"

"Do you want me to help?" Stephen placed his hand on Tony's arm to pull him back up onto his feet. He leaned down a bit before slowing.

Tony stared at his counterpart, finding it difficult to see past the heat that had accumulated on his cheeks. "Thanks," he whispered before tiptoeing again to place his lips onto Stephen's.

The chaotic and messy kiss was conveniently and quickly interrupted by a knock on the front door.

what even is this shit show tbh guys

AND BY THE WAY

go follow SHIELD academy to get updated on the comic/graphic novel if y'all interested! i posted it a while ago and it's on this same account,,

thanks/DJ