" stephen headed into the supermarket to find some 'lemons' "
a knight in shining armour
Stephen rushed passed the crowded gardens in front of the school. The end of the day always had everyone under stress as they looked for their parent's cars or friends. Stephen tried to find Tony but with no luck. He weaved through the crowd, almost tripped multiple times. He was moving surprisingly fast through the pack of people, those Combat Classes must be paying off.
Except, not for long. Stephen bumped into someone as they crossed in front of him and they both toppled on top of each other on the grassy side of the main path.
"Shit sorry-" Stephen muttered breathlessly, trying to stand up as he was on top. "Oh," he blinked, as he realised he had fallen onto the one and only Everett Ross.
"It's fine-" Ross began.
"You were moving quite fast," Carols's voice was heard from behind them.
Stephen rolled to the side and sat on the grass. Some of the exchange students were watching them in amusement. "Uh, yeah, I was just looking for someone,"
Gamora, who was there, smirked. "Alright," she helped Everett up.
Stephen got himself up. "Where were you guys headed?"
"We're going back to the house," Rocket shrugged. The exchange students lived in a house SHIELD provided for them while they attended the school. "Some of the others...uh, Val, Peter, Ned, and Jane have gone with Stark and Natasha to some stupid place-"
"Yeah," Darcy rolled her eyes. "Jane ditched me to go to this fancy-schmancy tower-"
"-Stark Tower," Peter (Q.) corrected.
"Stark Tower?" Stephen frowned.
"Yeah, some special tour or something," Carol shrugged.
Stephen didn't really react. "Oh,"
"Well, maybe do you want to come with us? We're doing some of the homework and this stuff is quite difficult," Ross asked.
"I normally have Jane to help me, but this would be fantastic! You're like, the smartest guy here," Darcy encouraged.
"Not the smartest-" Stephen began.
"Pfft, ignore Stark for a second," Carol cut him off. The group started to walk and Stephen found himself following.
The house they were staying at wasn't too far from the school and it was rather big, of course, to hold that many teenagers in.
"Welcome," Carol said as she opened the door. It was very much like a boarding school's wing. There was a 'common room' and some stairs that led up to rooms. The whole place was pretty messy, but considering a bunch of basically 'specialised' teenage students lived there, it wasn't as bad as it could be.
"...this is nice," Stephen commented.
"Now with this homework, I don't get the thing about physics," Rocket began.
"What about Physics?" Stephen asked.
"All of it,"
...SceneChange...
Tony leaned against the bench in the break room, amused at his friend's reactions to the tower he had just shown them. They continued to be awed at the coffee machine that was in the 16th floor's breakroom.
"This is cool," Ned exclaimed, selecting some options on the screen.
"This machine has more intelligence behind it than most items in people's households," Jane said, looking through every crevice and technicality. She had her notebook in her hand where she was scribbling stuff down.
"Look, my hot chocolate's coming out!" Peter announced, and the other two scrambled to the end of the machine, where it produced Peter's hot chocolate in all dramatic fashion.
"Nerds," Val grinned, crossing her arms where she and Nat sat near Tony.
"Who invented the machine, Tony?" Natasha asked, chewing on a muffin.
"I made it at about 3 am one morning when my dad got mad at me for using his coffee machine," Tony shrugged. "He refurnished it and then put it on the market,"
"Check out the 'hold my beer' option," Peter 'awed', pointing to one of the buttons as he sipped on his mug.
"There's an 'I've got exams tomorrow and I haven't studied' option too," Ned noted, amused.
Tony then suddenly entered a small coughing fit before groaning.
Natasha raised her eyebrow in concern. "We should probably go home so you can rest,"
"Uh, thanks," Tony mumbled, heading to the door. The others simultaneously followed him out of the break room.
He led them to the elevator and the group entered. He pressed some commands into the machine but stayed outside. "Um, you guys head out. I need to get some supplied from my dad's office,"
"Alright," Natasha shrugged, slurping on her 'I need a break' drink.
"Thanks for the tour!" Jane thanked just as the elevator doors closed.
Tony smiled in response but entered another elevator to the top floor. He sighed as he waited to the elevator to reach his stop but he managed to not fall asleep from exhaustion. As the elevator 'dinged' and stopped to a finish, Tony hoped out.
There wasn't anyone in the top floor, as the whole floor was basically Howard Stark's office and sometimes, his sleeping quarters on those long nights. Tony had an access card. This was also where Howard Stark kept some of his supplies and chemicals.
As far as Tony knew, Howard was in a meeting on a lower level, so no unnecessary face to face moments needed to happen. Tony entered a small storage cupboard and took out a box when he froze.
"Welcome, Mr Stark," said an automated voice. It had greeted Tony as well, so Tony knew he wasn't the 'Mr Stark' it was referring to.
Tony had a technical assistance as well, although he was still developing it but his had a personality. Howards didn't. So it snitched Tony out right away.
"Your son is here,"
Tony cursed and shut the door closed and tried to see if he could calculate an escape.
"Tony?" Howard's voice echoed through the suite.
"Yes?" Tony replied, his voice getting a little high. I will be noticed on the way out. He can't hurt me. He can't afford suspicions raised.
"Come here,"
Tony slowly made his way to the main entrance room. "Yes?"
Howard stood there, with a briefcase. "What are you doing here?"
"I was giving my friends a tour of Stark Tower," Tony said honestly.
"Not in here?" Howard walked over to a kitchen bench.
"No, just the 16th floor and below," Tony hastily added.
There was silence as Howard served himself some water. "Congratulations on your Chemistry test,"
"Thank you?" Tony said, not knowing what he was referring to, as they just did the test yesterday and he didn't have the results yet.
"105 per cent, as usual," Howard stated. He put down the glass. "I have spoken to Mr Fury,"
Tony raised his eyebrow in concern. That could be good.
"You will finish this unit of work in your Chemistry, Physics and Biology classes and then you are transferring to MIT,"
Tony almost spat out the water he didn't have in his mouth. "What?"
"MIT, the school you belong to. I've had enough of these 105 per cents, these half-assed done assignments-"
"Half-assed?" Tony frowned, baffled at this conversation. He felt his emotions filing up,.
"Yes." Howard stared back at his child. "You belong to a good university which will expand your knowledge and abilities,"
"I belong where I want to. I like SHIELD!" Tony protested.
"You got shot at that school," Howard frowned. "It is supposed to be a school of defence, and yet it was infiltrated,"
Tony had to force himself not to say anything about Than and what they knew. His father probably already knew, being the co-founder of the school. "Well, I got the arc-reactor at home! I'm in danger everywhere,"
"That's not the point. It's too late anyway. You've been enrolled and accepted. As I said, you begin when your units end, which I believe is in two weeks," Howard finalised. He left to another room, leaving Tony completely bashed.
"This is so stupid," Tony gritted through his clenched teeth. He found himself with his nano-tech gauntlet forming on his arm, reacting to his emotion. In anger, and through his tears, his blasted a repulsive blast at a vase before leaving to the elevator.
He heard his fathers angry yelled but they were muffled out as the elevator lowered down to level 1.
...SceneChange...
Stephen almost fell asleep but was shook awake by Carol. "Come on sleepyhead,"
"Sorry," Stephen rubbed his eyes. "Just tired,"
"It's 5:30," Rocket rolled his eyes. "Is this all?" he held out the Physics worksheet they had been working on.
"Yeah," Stephen nodded.
"Great. Now I can work on my blasters," Rocket pulled out a toolbox with potentially illegal mechanical parts.
"Right..." Stephen stood up. "I should leave,"
"Aw okay," Darcy rolled off the couch and onto her feet. "Thanks for the help!"
"No problem," Stephen smiled and headed to the door.
As he was leaving, he got a message from his mother.
Mother: -can you get some lemons from the store?-
: -sure-
Stephen walked down the sidewalk and headed for the main town square. The SHIELD house was surprisingly close to the school and the main town, so it was convenient. And of course, Stark Tower was on the main town square along with the supermarket.
After a short glance at the skyscraper and wondering what Tony and his friends did in the 'tour', Stephen headed into the supermarket to find some 'lemons'.
...SceneChange...
If Tony didn't leave the Tower in such a rush or with that many negative emotions flowing through him, he might've noticed the Westwood students loitering around the entrance of Stark Tower.
The Westwood students weren't wearing their obnoxious yellow polo shirt uniform but Tony should've recognised them since one of them was Than.
Tony only noticed when he got a punch in the jaw as he entered one of the quieter streets heading off the main square. He was heading to the bus stop to his house when he was ambushed by three Westwood students with a body mass twice his size.
"What the hell-" Tony exclaimed, as he fell onto the ground. He spun around to face his attackers. His face went white when he realised it was Than and some of his friends.
"You managed to scramble right out of our hands when we were trying to find the arc reactor," Than grimaced, readying his knuckles.
"You gave the shooters access-" Tony began but was cut off by another punch to the jaw. He fell onto his back and tried to sit up but one of the others kicked him in the side.
"If we are getting imprisoned or something, at least we're going to get what we came for," Another of the Westwood's smirked.
"You can't- you can't take the arc reactor out unless you have the tools," Tony coughed.
"I have the tools," Obadiah's voice came from behind Than as he revealed himself. The dark blonde haired brute was holding some thin tools.
"You kept them?" Tony wheezed in dismay. It had been a couple of years ago since Obadiah had attempted to plagiarize Tony's work, including the arc reactor when Tony invented it.
"Of course," Obadiah passed the tools to Than, who bent over Tony.
"Are you ready?" Than whispered.
Tony held out his hand in front of him. "Nope," and blasted a temporary paralysing shot right into Than's face.
As Tony scrambled backwards, Than flew back and landed onto the road.
"He killed him!" one of the others exclaimed, running over to Than's motionless body.
"He's just p-paralysed," Tony muttered, his head whirling.
Obadiah turned around to face him, picking up the tools Than had dropped. "Not too fast, Stark,"
...SceneChange...
When Stephen had left the supermarket and saw the faint blue blast from behind a building he knew something was wrong. Not everyone he knew had something that could blast blue energy. In fact, he only knew one person who could do that.
So he sprinted to the empty street, which he was going to walk to anyways since his bus home was on that street. He was greeted with a wild scene.
Two Westwood students were wailing over a motionless body, which Stephen later identified as Than, and Obadiah bent over Tony.
Tony.
Stephen dropped the bag of lemons and felt power rush to his hands. "What are you doing?" he said in a loud voice, walking up to Obadiah and Tony.
To his surprise, Obadiah almost fell back in surprise and quickly stumbled backwards. "Um- I-" he stuttered, holding his arms up in 'surrender'.
"What are you doing?" Stephen almost yelled, swiping his hand at the tools Obadiah had. They basically disintegrated in Stephen's hands.
Obadiah's face went pale and he ran off. The Westwood pair had begun to help Than to his feet, who was now conscious.
"Leave," Stephen growled at them.
"We are," a Westwood meekly replied and the trio limped away.
Stephen suddenly felt cold as all the energy and power left his body and he almost collapsed onto the concrete with Tony. He settled with falling to his knees and crawling over to Tony.
Tony was leaning against a pole with bruises and a couple of cuts on his face and arms. "Are you alright? What were they doing?" Stephen asked, caressing Tony's profile.
"What about you? What...was that?" Tony mumbled. His head was beginning to hurt.
"What do you mean?" Stephen frowned, sitting a bit straighter as he felt his energy slowly regaining.
Tony's eyes searched Stephen's face. "You...were glowing, your eyes were glowing," he tried to explain, but a cough interrupted.
"I was?"
"Yeah, I could almost feel the...power radiating off you," Tony tried to grin. "You also disintegrated those tools,"
"I guess I did," Stephen glanced back at the dust that was the remains of them. "What were they doing to you?"
"They wanted the arc reactor," Tony replied, slowly trying to get up.
"Here," Stephen stood up faster and help him up. "Hold on a sec," Tony held onto the pole for support as Stephen quickly grabbed the bag of lemons he had dropped earlier and then ran back to Tony.
"Come on, your bus stop is the same as mine right?" Stephen put his arm around Tony to support him as they walked down the street.
"Yeah," Tony nodded.
END of chapter
uhh,, this is a slightly shorter chapter than usual,,, um,, authors block anyone?
i'd just like to say that i have realised how many reads this book and the original have,, uhh the love and feedback ive had it huge...like- ahhh *throws kudos back*
um, also, quick thing, i am still in the progress of drawing the 3rd page of the comic (lineart and colouring) AND ive filmed some of the process so in a bit im thinking about doing a 'how i draw comics' tutorial video type thing to post on my youtube,, um but ill update more on that when ive finished more! ahah,
anyways, thanks for the endless support, ily all :D
stay tuned for the [hopefully not] slow updates, lets see how nice school wants to treat me,
and inspiration! if you have any songs that inspire ironstrange or highschool/au than i will gladly accept! i can't find any good songs or playlists,i think spotify has cursed me TwT
[um, for you guys on have had no updates on the progress of this chapter but on wattpad ive been updating my readers about my authors block TwT um, so sorry for the lack of updates on new chapters on here!]
thanks/DJ