The bell rung for the end of fourth period and the students of Atlas High were now quickly exiting their classes intent on catching up with friends and spreading along the latest gossip in the hour of lunch they had.

Pepper made her way to her locker and silently wished for the day to pass by faster. Robert was arriving at six. She threw the books she had taken out for class into her locker before doing the same with her backpack. She made a move to close it, but before she could, a loud noise caught her attention. A group of guys were making their way into the hall. She recognized most of them from her classes, but only one in particular stood out. Tony was in the middle wearing a slim white dress shirt with black jeans and matching Nike high tops with all the attention focused on him.

"Should I even ask who you're staring at?"

Startled by the voice, she spun around and slammed her locker door in the process. "Oh, hey! There was this noise and-"

"You don't need to explain. We've all done it." An embarrassed smile crossed Pepper's lips as her friend looked over her shoulder to get a better view of who she'd been staring at.

"I just don't see why girls like him so much," Pepper responded, turning around to look at them. As if on cue, a group of girls came up to Tony and his friends.

"He's smart, good looking, and rich. What girl wouldn't want that?"

"If you say so. You ready to go," Pepper asked, changing the subject. She didn't want to talk about him any longer.

The two of them started walking in the direction of the parking lot and she looked back to see if her locker had shut properly. What she hadn't expected to find was Tony behind her. He was alone this time and had waved at her. Not knowing what to do, she shyly returned him a smile and redirected her attention back towards Kristin, a girl she had met in AP Calculus. They made plans for lunch earlier in the day and Kristin had wanted to take her to one of the famous burger joints near campus.

Was he waving at me? She wasn't even sure. Without thinking, she turned around. It turned out the wave had been to her, which was now evident by the smile he shot her way when he saw her face again. She quickly averted her attention back to Kristin and internally sighed. She was wrong. Tony was still a problem.

"Congratulations, Stark. You were right," said one of his former teammates right outside his last class of the day.

Tony shrugged, taking his friend's extended hand. "It could had been either one of us." After a dreadful day filled with classes he cared less about, he had finally gotten some good news. During lunch, he passed Coach Martinez in the parking lot and was told he'd be the center midfielder for the soccer team this year.

"Just don't rub it in my face when practice starts."

"You know I can't promise that." He then ended the conversation and walked into class.

He had never been a fan of lab, but having it at the end of the day made it better. They never ran the full class period, which meant leaving early. If it wasn't for the fact that he was going to spend most of his evenings at Stark Industries, he'd be ecstatic.

"Tony?" At the call of his name, he turned around and saw Cassidy sitting at one of the tables. She's in this class?

"You want to catch up before class starts?"

As long as you don't make things awkward.

"Why are you dressed up?"

"Nothing important," Tony responded, hoping the topic would end at that.

He never liked his father and now the feeling increased ten fold. Howard was making him spend time at Stark Industries for something as little as skidding the driveway, which didn't make sense, since he'd been caught doing worse things and was never punished for them before.

"Mr. Stark," said their teacher in passing. "Please get off the table and into a seat. Preferably in the one I assigned you."

Silently thanking him, Tony said his goodbyes to Cassidy and walked off. A smile crossed his face almost instantly when he saw a familiar red headed individual sitting on a stool at his assigned lab bench. This is going to be fun.

"I knew you were lying," he happily declared.

Pepper looked up from her lab manual and could only think of two things when she saw the smirk on his face: the fact that she wanted to slap it off him and the fact that there was still 118 minutes until class was over.

"You know, Virginia, if you keep staring at me, I'm gonna start thinking you like me." He couldn't help himself. He had to tease her about her name and the fact that he'd seen her staring back at him multiple times during lunch.

She let out a long sigh. "Please don't call me that," she responded.

"Hmm, I'll think about it," Tony told her, taking the empty seat across from hers.

Mr. Jacobsen announced himself to the class immediately after. Once the unnecessary detailed introduction passed, he assigned the class the task of reading over the lab safety handout. When that was done, they had to get to know their lab partners. Apparently they were stuck with whoever they were sitting with for the rest of the year.

"You don't like me, do you," Tony asked, hoping it'd be enough to get Pepper to engage in a conversation with him. He asked about her classes so there wouldn't be awkward silence between them, but so far all she'd done was give him brief one sentence responses as if he was the last person she wanted to be paired with.

"I, uh...what makes you think that?" She wasn't sure where that came from.

"Never mind," he brushed off. He started rolling up his tie for fun until not knowing started bothering him. "Is it because of yesterday?"

"What are you talking about," Pepper asked, looking at him, still confused. But before he could tell her, everything clicked in her mind. "You think I don't like you because I'm brief with my answers?" He tilted his stool to lean against the wall and shrugged. "Maybe I'd say more if you actually gave me the chance."

Tony took her question into consideration and furrowed his brows. Give her a chance? What's she talking about? All I've been doing is asking her questions and all she's been doing...oh. "Sorry," he muttered. If he thought about it, he had been asking her a lot of questions. And most of his asking had been immediately after she responded. He was giving her no time to elaborate.

"And, just so you know, it's annoying."

"Well," Tony happily said. "I happen to think being annoying is the same as being adorable."

Pepper bit her lip and tried to keep the smile from coming out. She didn't expect that. "It also makes you sound like an ass," she countered, all the while packing up her things as Mr. Jacobsen dismissed them.

"An adorable ass," Tony pointed out, leaning forward so his stool was now centered back on the ground. "Which I do have, by the way. If you're interested, I'm-"

"That won't be necessary." She did not want to hear the rest of that sentence.

He smirked at the tiny hint of red that appeared on her cheeks.

"I'll see you Monday," she said to him before getting up and leaving. It wasn't long until she heard his footsteps trailing behind her.

"When did you want to start writing the lab report," Tony asked.

Pepper raised her brow. "Are you saying you want to start early?"

"Well, I am a nerd," he proudly stated.

She rolled her eyes. Is he ever serious?

"What was that?"

"What was what," she asked, turning the hall.

"You rolled your eyes at me!"

"What? No, I didn't," Pepper replied, in a tone that sounded convincing. Honestly, if she did, she wouldn't even know. It had become second nature to her.

"Why do you always make it a point to lie to me? First your name, then saying you had plans, and-"

"I'm not," she said, more defensively than she liked.

"Whatever. How about next Saturday?"

"Sounds good."

"My place?"

Pepper scoffed. "I don't think so."

Tony frowned. "Why not?" It was a legitimate suggestion on his part.

"I don't know you."

"You can get to know me," he suggested, throwing a smirk her way.

"I'd rather not."

"Afraid you won't be able to resist me?"

"Of course," Pepper sarcastically replied, rolling her eyes a second time.

"Your loss," Tony replied back.

She sighed. Darn it, she thought as they made their way into the parking lot. There was still 45 minutes until school ended and the keys to the car were with Peter. "How about staying after school or working on it at a coffee shop or something," she proposed, glad they had stopped in front of what she assumed was Tony's car, which was parked in the faculty lot. It would had surprised her if not for the fact that he never followed rules.

"But it makes sense if we do it at my house. I have everything we could possibly need," he responded, trying to win the disagreement through logic.

"Nope." He wasn't going to get his way with this. "So are you going to pick, or am I?"

Tony sighed, opened his car door and got in before turning his attention back to her. He'd let her win this time. "Alright. Whatever you want, Pepper."

Before she knew what was happening, he turned on his engine and sped off, leaving her in a small puff of smoke. She stood there, perplexed. That was rude.