I'm so sorry for not updating for like three weeks, exams are hell! Also I know this build up is slow but I prefer stories like that, anyway, I promise you don't have much longer to wait ;) for now, enjoy! (thankyou for the support, you guys are awesome)


Chapter 9

It had gone on for long enough and frankly, it had gotten boring almost straight away. There wasn't anything interesting or remotely funny about this incident, it was just pure annoying. He had sat resolutely in his seat up until this point but now he had had enough. He needed to sort this out otherwise he might start smacking his head against the desk and he really didn't want to do that for many reasons. The most important being that he didn't want to injure himself.

"Right, that's enough. I said SHUT UP!" The whole room went silent and stared at their teacher, shock plain on all of their faces. "I've had it with all your arguments. How are you supposed to complete this project if you jump down each other's throats every other second?"

"What are we supposed to do about it?" Loki asked Mr Logan.

"I think some team building exercise would be a good way to go." Everyone froze at that. Team building? Them? Was this a joke? "Maybe sport? A tournament?" Obviously not.

They all exchanged looks, all sharing a unanimous thought. They did not want to partake in this apparent team building, especially if it involved sport. Only a few of them, as in one or two enjoyed sport, while the rest avoided it at all costs, unless they needed to run for the bus.

"We don't need team building, we're fine. See, we're not arguing anymore," Darcy piped up, hoping that her comment would settle the matter. It did not.

Mr Logan stood shaking his head in the middle of the room. "This is not up for discussion. I'm tired of the bickering and you only have two months left to get this right. It might seem like a long time but it's not. So tomorrow, instead of a meeting, you will bring in some sort of sports clothing, you'll be sorted into teams and we are going to have ourselves a tournament and the sport we will be playing is rugby. Hopefully it will allow you all to get this anger worked out of you so that when we come back next week you will all be ready to work hard again."

They all collectively groaned. Rugby. Rugby! Most of them didn't even know how to play, but they supposed they would be told the rules before hand, but still. This was ridiculous. He was treating them like children. Well they had been arguing like children. Maybe they did deserve this.

"But it's supposed to rain again," Loki said, nodding towards the window.

"And? A little rain never hurt anyone."

A satisfied smile curled onto his face as he watched them all turn towards the window themselves. The clouds outside were dark grey, threatening rain already. They looked back at Mr Logan and released heavy sighs in unison. He had so done this on purpose. Much to his delight the rest of the meeting was spent in varying degrees of calm and quiet. Most likely due to the fact that they were all worried in case he extended their punishment even more by say, forcing them to help teachers with marking, or ask neighbours if they wanted their lawn mowing...for free. The thought was horrifying.

"I can't fucking believe him," Tony moaned as they left the classroom over an hour later. "I really can't. But I suppose on the plus side it wasn't us arguing for once."

Loki rolled his eyes. "That's not exactly a plus side if you ask me. Yes we may not have been involved but it is our jobs to stop everyone else arguing instead."

"Fair point," Tony agreed reluctantly.

They walked out of school side by side, not saying much to each other. When it was time for Tony to go right in order to get his car, they bid each other goodbye, Loki carrying on straight ahead, through the school gates.

As Tony drove past him a few minutes later, he noted the fact that as Thor caught up with his brother, Loki sped up. Not enough for Thor to be left behind, but enough that Thor had to hurry to keep up. There was also a distinct frostiness to his expression now that had not been there before. It had come to Tony's attention a lot lately that Loki didn't act the same around Thor, that he was short with him, often snapping, or just making sarcastic remarks, or else just ignoring him altogether. It always caused him to wonder what exactly had happened between them to make Loki act this way, because whatever it was didn't seem to bother Thor half as much as it bothered Loki.

This train of thought, though, always brought him back to that night which had technically been their first meeting. Why had Loki been so drunk? Tony supposed there had to be a reason. He didn't seem like the type to go out and get absolutely pissed so that he couldn't remember what he was doing. Especially seeing as Tony doubted he had touched or even been near any alcohol since then. So what had caused it?

Thinking it was best to drop that line of thought because he was starting to pay more attention to that rather than the road. Once again concentrating solely on his driving, Tony managed a safe journey home, happy to finally be away from school and the teachers who would not stop with their onslaught of homework.


Much to all of their dislike, the end of the next day came round far quicker than they hoped. Though, despite all of their complaints, they all managed to bring in appropriate clothing. Unfortunately, it just so happened that the rain began as they trudged towards the changing rooms. At first it was a few light spots hitting the backs of their heads but, by the time they had finished getting changed and were waiting for Mr Logan to arrived, it had turned into a downpour.

"He can't seriously expect us to play?" Clint asked, hope still in his voice that it might be called off.

"Naa, he's not the type of teacher to go back on a promise, no matter how harsh it is," Tony replied miserably.

"Come friends, this is a wonderful opportunity for some friendly conflict. It will be fun," Thor piped up.

"Yeah," agreed Steve. "It really isn't going to be as bad as you all think."

Everyone in the small changing room turned round to stare at the pair with exasperated looks on their faces. They all knew that these two were the sportiest out of them all and actually did exercise for fun. For fun! They were used to training in all weathers so a little bit of rain didn't bother them. While for the rest, who usually refused to exercise for fear of death, saw this competition as a punishment from Satan himself.

There was a knock n the door then it was opened slowly and Natasha's head appeared around it.

"Is it safe to come in? None of you are naked right?" She asked, but didn't wait for a reply. Instead choosing to throw the door open and allowing the other girls to walk in behind her, all dressed in sportswear.

"Well it's a little late even if we were," Loki replied, smiling at her as she sat next to him.

For the remaining time while waiting for their teacher to arrive, they spent it talking and joking in small groups. They were trying to lighten the mood before they were soaked by the rain and smothered in mud from the ridiculously slippery ground. By the time Mr Logan did arrive, most of them could safely say they were no more excited in the idea than they had been before. With muffled groans so as not to anger him, they trudged outside, awaiting their instructions.

It was on his way out that Tony caught Darcy staring at him with a grin on her face. He looked both to the left and right of himself but there was nothing else around him that was remotely interesting. Glancing back at her, he saw that she was still smirking at him.

"Is there something on my face?" Tony asked, walking over to her. She shook her head, her smile widening. "What is it then?"

"He likes you too, you know," She said suddenly, lowering her voice so that no one could hear. Not that anyone else was there, they were all already outside.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Loki. He likes you too," She said very slowly, over pronouncing every word as though he wasn't smart enough to even know what two plus two was.

"Eh..." Tony basically squeaked, then pulled himself together. He sat beside her and leant in close. "Who said I liked him?"

Darcy sent him an oh please look before replying. "It's so obvious I'm surprised he doesn't even know. But seriously." She turned and sat cross-legged on the bench, directly facing him. "When did you start liking him?"

"Tha-that's- that's not important. What is important is that you promise not to tell anyone, including him." Darcy placed her right hand over her heart and nodded, though, when he mentioned not telling Loki, her face dropped. She opened her mouth to protest. "Nope, no means no."

"But he likes you too!" She whined

"And how do you know that for sure?" Tony asked doubtfully. At that moment he became acutely aware how odd this conversation was to have in the boys changing room when they were supposed to be warming up outside ready to play rugby. He really hadn't expected his day to culminate in this conversation.

"The way you look at him when you think he's not looking is the exact same way that he looks at you when you're not looking. Damn I wish you would both just look at the same time and this whole tension thing will go away and you can just like make out then get a room somewhere. What? I'm just saying it like it is," She said, noticing his shocked expression. "And now that you've stopped arguing as much it actually seems that you might work out and not just rip each other's heads off."

"Thanks...I think," Tony replied hesitantly. "But wha-"

At that moment, he was interrupted from a loud shout coming from the doorway. "Are you two just going to sit there gossiping or are you going to join in?" Mr Logan cried.

They both got to their feet and exited the changing room, noting happily that the rain was now nowhere near as heavy as it had been before.

"Are you excited," Loki asked, walking over as soon as Tony appeared on the pitch where they were playing. "Because I know I am," he said, very sarcastically.

"Oh yeah totally," Tony replied, an equal amount of sarcasm in his voice.

Just as they made their way to the centre of the pitch where the others stood, huddled together, Tony glanced back and saw Darcy smile at him then gesture to Loki before giving him a thumbs up. He rolled his eyes in response to her miming to which she glared back.

When they were all finally together, including Darcy, who had been taking her sweet time to cross the field, two captains were chosen and they were allowed to choose their teams. As no one was totally for the tournament except Steve and Thor, they were made captains. Steve was allowed to choose first. By the time that everyone had been sorted onto teams, most were even more unhappy than they had been before. This was mostly due to the fact that they had been left until last and so had only been picked because there were no other relatively good people left. In the end the teams were, for Steve: Tony, Clint, Pepper, Phil and Maria while for Thor: Loki, Bruce, Natasha, Jane and Darcy.

Seeming impressed by the speed up in the proceedings, Mr Logan went on to explain the rules. Unfortunately he then had to explain them again to the group as most had no idea what he had meant the first time or had just generally not been listening. After they all had a fairly good idea of what they were about to do, they started to get into position. As with all sports games, the start was slow, the players hesitant. This was intensified by the fact that they had no idea what the hell they were doing.

But it didn't take much longer for them to get properly into it. They got to grips with the rule that you can't pass forwards and were all soon okay with being tackled to the floor after it had happened to them all at least three times. To everyone's surprise, Darcy turned out to be a great asset to Thor's team and scored three tries while Steve had only managed to score one for his. After that shock, the players started to get angry. And that was when they all started to get competitive and play a little bit dirtier. Not long later, Mr Logan was blowing hard on his whistle, calling the game to a halt.

"What the hell was that?" He demanded, marching over to the centre of the field where Clint stood, staring innocently at a point just above Mr Logan's head.

"What was what?"

"That! What you just did. You deliberately tripped Jane then shoved Bruce out the way just so they wouldn't tackle Steve."

"Is that not allowed?"

"No it's bloody well not! Anymore of those snarky comments and you'll be off the pitch, understand?"

Clint mumbled a "Yes Sir," before turning his back, pulling a face as he walked away. After that, everyone became aware of their more harsh movements but they didn't do anything about it. They either tried doing moves while Mr Logan wasn't looking or else just tried to be discreet. They just assumed that even if he did see then he didn't comment, obviously he wanted this game to end sooner rather than later. Stopping it continuously would only delay.

Unfortunately, it was Steve rather than their teacher who stopped the game next time. He managed to get the ball passed to him but, instead of running then passing to someone else, he stood stock still, in the middle of the pitch, and attempted to say something.

"Alright guys just stop for a minute, I think we all need to just calm down-"

The last of his words, however, were of a muffled cry of pain because Thor had gone pelting at him and grabbed him round the waist before toppling him over backwards. Rather unluckily for Steve, it seemed the blonde mountain of a man had not heard his shout to stop the game and had tackled him, thinking that it would be a good opportunity to gain some ground. As everyone else on the pitch watched him fall to the ground, they howled with laughter, mostly at the total look of surprise on both Steve's and Thor's faces.

"Right, that's enough. I give in," Mr Logan conceded. "I don't want to risk any more injuries so I'm calling it quits, go get your things from the changing rooms then go home but when you come back next week, I expect no arguments."

They all let out huge sighs of relief although some of them had actually enjoyed it by the end. They all chatted animatedly about the game as they trudged back across the field, noting briefly that it had stopped raining. The ground was still very wet and, as Loki joined Natasha, Clint and Tony, he slipped and tried to grab hold of Natasha. She instinctively pushed him away and he went cascading into Tony and they both fell in a heap on the floor, Loki on top.

For a moment neither of them registered what had just happened. Then, suddenly, they became very aware of their position. Making eye contact for the briefest of seconds, both panicked, struggling to get to their feet. Loki made it up first, scowling at Natasha who was holding back laughter. What was odd though was when he glanced just behind her he saw Darcy smirk at Tony before winking then moving away. He looked at Tony himself, noticing the faint flush in his cheeks. What was that about? Was there something between them or did she do it because of what happened with himself at Tony? Silently, he prayed for the latter.

All of them were in better spirits when they finally left the school grounds. Loki was secretly thrilled that Tony was walking home with him. Apparently his car had broken down that morning and he couldn't be bothered to fix it before school. Loki had asked why he didn't use any of the others as there had been at least four cars in the garage when he had been in there. Tony explained that Rhodey had banned him from driving any of the other cars to school for many reasons, one, so that he didn't show off anymore than he already did (Loki scoffed at that) Two, he didn't want them broken or damaged and three, the cars weren't technically his anyway.

"So are you coming to mine?" Tony asked, after a few beats of silence.

"What?"

"To mine, are you coming? It's a Friday so no school tomorrow and I invited everyone to come chill at mine for the evening, I told Natasha to tell you but she must have forgotten. So got any plans or are you free?"

"I'm free," Loki replied. "But I want to get a shower first." He thought for a moment. "If you want you can stay at mine for a while whilst I get ready, it shouldn't take long and it means I don't have to walk to yours alone."

"Sounds like a plan. Wait, your parents will be cool right? You don't need to give them like a week's notice before you make plans or anything?"

"No they'll be fine," Loki laughed. "Thor only said this morning that he was meeting Jane after school and mother said it was fine. I think she will just be pleased that I have a social life, a few months ago I went through the phase of never leaving the house or even my room. I only left to use the bathroom or to get food. After that period she has always encouraged me to leave."

"Yeah I understand, I've been through a few phases myself."

There was a loud laugh that sounded behind them and they both whipped around. Clint was standing there, a hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his outburst.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Tony demanded.

"Walking home," Clint answered.

"More like stalking us, why didn't you say you were there?"

"I was going to but then it was funnier to listen to you guys talk without you knowing I was there."

"Damn you're a quiet walker, you should be a ninja or something," Tony praised, though he was still annoyed that Clint had been there the whole time. He had been happy that he got this time with Loki alone but now it had been ruined and they had technically not been alone the whole time.

"More like a secret agent," Clint winked and both Loki and Tony rolled their eyes. "The next James Bond for sure. But anyway, speaking of phases, remember Tony when you went through your 'scene' phase."

Tony groaned audibly and looked extremely pained as Loki burst out laughing.

"Are you serious? Tony had a scene phase? I wish I had been there to see it," Loki laughed.

"No, no you really don't!" Tony assured him. "And hey, don't make me feel bad, everyone had a scene phase."

Clint and Loki exchanged looks and began to laugh again. As they all carried on walking, much to Tony's dismay, Clint proceeded to tell Loki even more embarrassing things about him. Half the time he was actively denying them while the rest of the time he spent in different states of embarrassment. Finally, thankfully, Clint left, turning into a street that led to his house.

Just before he left them he said, "So I'll see you soon but I might be a bit late, I'm meeting Natasha on the way."

"That's cool," Tony replied, and once Clint was gone he added, "You know, I think there's something going on between those two."

"Hmm," Loki agreed. "Lately I've been thinking the same."

They carried on walking, mostly in silence, Loki only once commenting that his house was down the next turning. Tony felt his phone vibrate in his pocket; he pulled it out and opened the text message.

It's always good for the future boyfriend to know how embarrassing his crush used to be, you'll thank me later. Also remember to flirt, chicks love when you flirt so I'm assuming it will work with Loki too. Final thing, don't fuck up. Good luck – Clint.

And with that most helpful piece of advice fresh in his head, he waited for Loki to unlock his front door before following him into his house.


I don't profess to know much about rugby it just seemed something fun to do (again thanks to Hannah). I hope you liked it, please review?! :)