WARNING FOR VIOLENCE IN A SCHOOL
Tony Stark was indestructible. Tony Stark was seventeen, and brilliant, and bowed down to no bitch. Tony Stark was a millionaire when he was still in the womb, had unlimited resources and wanted for nothing. He was a bastard with attitude, a force to be reckoned with, who felt so fiercely and yet held himself too tight to give any of it away to prying eyes, and he would never, ever back down from a fight. It wasn't in his nature, and it certainly didn't do him any favors. To be seventeen and brilliant and too stubborn to bow only made it easier for the blows to hit true.
The day Jarvis died Tony ate some unidentifiable drive-thru breakfast and climbed into bed, waking up after school to Bruce crawling in under the covers beside him and everyone else downstairs giving his parents their deepest condolences. They lay there a while, listening to Thor describe the many casseroles his mom had sent along with him, before Bruce asked, "Are you okay?"
The pillow under his cheek was still damp, but he nodded anyway, because even if missing Jarvis was going keep hurting like a bitch later it was muffled by shock and exhaustion for now. They'd gone to the nursing home at ten last night, and didn't leave until seven that morning. When Tony shuffled downstairs on Bruce's heels everyone looked up and smiled hesitantly. Steve was in the corner talking to a very subdued Dad about the grieving process, Thor was putting a casserole in the oven, and Mom was trying very earnestly to have a conversation with Natasha through Clint. But they all looked up when Tony came in. They took notice of him, they actively gave a shit, and it was the most people in one room to be there for Tony - without him breaking valuable public property first - that he had ever seen before.
He was Tony Stark. He was seventeen and brilliant and so acutely unbreakable, but only because he had very good armor protecting him.
That didn't stop people trying to break him, though. Tony wouldn't find out until weeks later that Dad didn't go to Amsterdam to get away from his family, but to negotiate and pay off the group of mercenaries Obie hired to kill Tony.
He found out much sooner that whatever he paid them apparently hadn't been enough.
Tony wanted so bad to call bullshit as soon as the lockdown alarm went off and Steve called for quiet while he turned out the lights. This was a goddamn school, shit like this wasn't supposed to happen, and even as Bruce and Clint and Tasha crouched beside him under the window he could only dismiss their attempts to pacify his anxiety. They didn't have drills after school, but the alarms were always ready when Tony Stark, seventeen and brilliant and a billionaire's son, was in the building.
There was a tap on the window above them, Thor's moonfaced grin shudderingly absent as he boosted his brother up to the window before climbing in. "We were sparring in the yard when Coach Ross commanded we come inside; what has happened?" asked Thor nervously, only to have his thunderous voice shushed. A peppering of gunshots reported from another part of the school. Natasha's hand closed tight over Clint's arm, not with fear but with deadly rage.
"Where's Stark?" an unfamiliar male voice echoed through the halls. Tony's heels dug into the tile and he pushed himself back against the wall, eyes bugging right out of his head. Five bodies arranged themselves in front of him, Steve standing at the front of the group with a paint pallet, white plastic smeared with red and blue, still clutched in his hand. "Tony Stark, he's seventeen and in this school right now, so where is he?"
"You can't have him!" Miss Hill's voice replied, cut off by a single shot.
Tony jerked so far back his head cracked against the wall. They shot Miss Hill. They shot Miss Hill. The footsteps thudded nearer, and Bruce's hand closed around Tony's wrist, comforting but not restricting. He looked up and saw that Bruce looked livid. He liked Miss Hill just as much as any other healthy male student did, but he was one of those kids that actually liked her as a teacher, too, who stayed after class to talk about books with her. Probably brought her apples or some shit. Tony never did a goddamn thing for her, except stare at her boobs, and there was like a ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent chance she'd just been shot looking out for him. That was so stupid, and reckless, and totally unlike her, she hated Tony, why would she do that?
You should just let them have me, I'm not worth this trouble, I'm not worth people getting hurt-
There was a vicious pinch in the flesh of his arm that stopped the terrified words slipping out of Tony's stupid mouth, Bruce glaring daggers at him. Steve, still holding the pallet like a shield, whispered, "You stop that attitude right now, Stark," and Tony didn't know what to do besides shoving his head between his curled knees.
Footsteps thudded closer, Death inched nearer with every fucking second and Tony was waxing poetic about it. He could stop it, all of it, and it would be so easy. Standing would be the greatest effort, then it would be fine, stepping over the still-living bodies of his friends, just a shove to get Steve out of the way, out the door and swallow some lead. The mercenaries would get what they wanted and leave his friends the fuck alone. Sure, Mom would be sad for awhile, but Dad would probably be happy his annoying little shit of a son wasn't around to hog the spotlight anymore. He couldn't think about how Bruce would react or it would totally break his resolve. Or his friends, because he had friends now and they might have actually cared about him if he stuck around much longer.
Then Bruce started sobbing like he could read Tony's mind, clinging to him - no, draping himself over Tony so all he could see was curly brown hair and all he could feel was warm and the frames of his glasses poking him in the eye. Moments later the door burst open, and the rest of the class was in hysterics. Natasha, the tough-as-nails daughter of a Soviet spy, was practically shrieking, while Clint incoherently begged to be spared. Even fucking Thor seemed to be worked up. If Tony could have been able to look up, he would have seen that there were no signs of tears in the eyes of any of his friends, or anyone in the room at all.
"Where's Stark?" the leader asked, cocking his weapon and looking warily around at the hysterical schoolchildren.
"Sir, I am a volunteer teacher," replied Steve instantly in his deep, calming voice. "I come here twice a week to teach children with special needs. Even if I did know Tony Stark, he wouldn't be in this classroom. Please don't swing your weapon around. You're upsetting them."
Still staring down at the floor between his feet, with Bruce slouched over him (covering him from view), some of the toughest people he'd ever met bawling their eyes out (diverting the shooters' attention), and Steve lying through his teeth (disarming the group as much as possible to avoid a massacre), Tony realized he was best friends with fucking maniacs. And geniuses. And he loved them. Steve kept lying, begging them to leave the poor kids in peace, they're damaged enough, and the entire class continued to panic until finally the gunmen left.
It was a long time before Bruce moved enough for Tony to lift his head, and ow, crick in the neck, but everyone was watching him with fear in their eyes that he wanted no part of. He didn't ask for them to lay on the wire for him. They could have handed him over and he would have understood. But they didn't. And Bruce was thumbing real tears away from behind his glasses.
Tony grabbed his face and kissed it. Like, he punched Bruce in the face with his face. Because why the hell not, if he was going to die in this godforsaken school anyway? Might as well make the end mean something. Not to mention, um, yeah, Bruce kissed him back. So that was why he and Betty broke up...
After staring breathlessly at Bruce for a few seconds, Tony couldn't help the (totally manly) squeak of "Son of a bitch," that came out of his mouth. Bruce grinned shyly. He was so fucking cute, so uncertain and defiantly happy all the time even though his life really sucked, and Tony didn't want to die anymore, not if he hadn't had the chance to learn every single thing in the known universe about fucking puppyface Bruce Banner.
He stood up and almost fell over again like a tit because the circulation to his legs had been cut off. So much for some majesty. "How long do you think it'll take the cops to get here?" he asked, though he was already doing the math in his head. Shield County was small, obviously, and the police were alerted every time the alarms in the school went off, so they could ideally be there within five minutes. Still, a lot of shit could go down in five minutes. "We need to buy time for the cops to get in, maybe even try to neutralize some of those crazy bastards."
"That's not your job, Tony-"
"Isn't it?" Tony snapped back, unsure of whose voice was coming from his mouth and why they sounded so much older than seventeen. "Those idiots are after me, people have been hurt because they're keeping between them and me, and Miss Hill might be dead for defying them, do you understand that? It's my fault, I'm the one who's putting you all in danger. If I just handed myself over when they came in here, they would be gone and everyone would be safe, but I didn't because you're all douchebags. If I can't save everyone in this school putting themselves on the line to keep me alive, then you can be damn sure I'll do whatever it takes to avenge them, and make sure no one else takes responsibility for my ass."
Faster than Tony could see, Clint was standing beside him. "Tasha and I can create a diversion, herd them all back toward the front. Right Tasha?" He signed what he'd just said and she nodded.
"Absolutely n-"
"Yes, and if they can be separated I could tackle one or two!" added Thor, proudly crossing his arms. Loki looked up at him with wide eyes, like he really really wanted to tell Thor how stupid an idea that was, and Steve continued to sputter indignantly.
"You are unsupervised minors!" he finally settled on after what felt like a lifetime of gaping.
Tony crossed his arms. "Then supervise us, asshole! We're going whether you like it or not, so lock the door before you leave and why the hell are you still carrying that stupid palette?"
Almost protectively, Steve hugged the palette to his chest. Still, his inner boy scout prevailed and the stupid reluctant Adult-look on his face was replaced by something even older and more fierce. "Never mind," he dismissed curtly, and tossed his keys to the horse girl from Mrs. Linwood's. "Maybe it'll make a good distraction." He led the way into the hall, holding out an arm to keep them back until he was certain the coast was clear.
They had no sense of organization even after years of being forced to divide into teams and throw shit at each other, but Natasha quickly proved she was more then a big red braid on legs. She smashed up her thrift-store phone against the lockers, did some fucking around with a length of wire Tony forgot was in his pocket, then used the bracelet Clint gave her to strap it to her wrist. With her hiding at a corner, they lured a lone gunman who lost the group around by yelling, "Tony get out of here!" and Tasha took him down with nothing more than the element of surprise and whatever the hell she had on her arm. She picked up his gun and discharged the round with one hand before shouldering it and walking away, braid swinging. Holy shit.
After a few hits and misses they figured there were eight gunmen - or, well, seven now that Natasha had zapped one. Since the school was a circuitous design and there were never after-school activities on the second floor, it was almost easy to pick off the gunmen one by one. Before turning corners Steve would stick his palette around like a white flag, either to signal the coast was clear or to have a fucking hole shot through it holy shit. They were splattered with shades of red and purple like blood. Tony swallowed to keep from losing his lunch over the image of Steve, the fucking boy scout who always wanted to join the army like his dad, covered in red like a battlefield.
Bruce's hand slipped into his. Tony probably looked like Steve if the stupid scared look on the little guy's dork face had anything to do with it.
They had to run a few times, and of course it was just enough to trigger Steve's asthma because that was their fucking luck. That and he left his inhaler in the classroom. "Get him back to the room," Tony told Thor, who lifted the guy over his shoulder as easily as he might a sack of potatoes.
Clint broke into the gym equipment room and stole a bow and quiver of arrows. The arrows were blunted for obvious reasons, but still packed a punch when shot by probably the best (and hottest, because wow) archer in the nation. Bam, bam, bam, three more down, four to go. Fuck, even without all the showmanship it was still cool as hell.
"Should we take their guns?" asked Bruce, looking very reluctant to so much as touch the weapons.
Kneeling down to at least take all the ammo out, Tony jerked away and hit the wall, staring at the Stark Industries emblem on the side of their rifles. "Fucking shit, Obie," he squeaked, but Clint was already hauling him back up to his feet to get a fucking hold of himself. Now was not the time to freak out. "Split up. I dibs Bruce, Clint and Tasha go that way. If we do it right we can get them to the front doors," he croaked, picking up one of the weapons Dad invented and grabbing Bruce's arm.
Weirdly enough, it was pretty easy to convince guys with guns not to shoot you, when their guns were pointed at the floor and Tony's gun (which was unloaded, yeah, but they didn't have to know that) was aimed at their chests. It took like two minutes to get them walking to the front of the building, weapons and ammo abandoned to an empty locker while Tony stuck the barrel of his useless gun into their backs, only occasionally looking down at the SI emblem. Something felt weird about the whole situation, it had been almost too easy, these whackjobs were mercenaries, they shouldn't have been scared off by a couple kids, even if one did have a big fucking gun.
It all made a lot more sense when the beefhead on the left twisted, jerked the gun out of Tony's hands, and clubbed Bruce with it. Real blood spread on the tile beneath him, and Righty pinned Tony to the wall with a hand around his throat. "You think I don't know when my own gun is loaded, you little shit?" he growled.
"You think I don't know when my dad's shit's been tampered with, fucking asshole?" Tony shot back, voice strangled around, well, being strangled. He didn't look at Bruce, couldn't, not when there was so much attention on him now. That was they key, keeping them looking at him, then he would be a smear on the wall and Bruce would go home.
The one with the gun looked up from the handful of rounds he'd been feeding into the weapon. "That's him?" he asked incredulously. "Thought he'd be taller."
"Common mistake," agreed Tony with a jerk of the head. "You gonna put that big shiny gun to good use and leave my buddy alone?"
Lefty cocked his gun with a nasty-ass grin. "It would be my pl-" He was cut off by two wires embedding themselves into his neck and back and pumping him with electricity, hitting the deck and flopping like a trout. The gun discharged and Righty, still working hard at crushing Tony's windpipe, had his foot blown out from under him and they both went crashing to the floor. Tony untangled himself with a few well-aimed kicks and looked up.
A few feet down the hall, taser still aloft, was all five-feet-eight-inches of Phil Coulson. His glasses were still sitting lopsided on his nose, knobby knees knocking together. Somehow Tony thought that when people did shit like that they instantly became cowboys or something.
"Coulson, what the fuck?" Tony screeched, unable to do much else when surrounded by unconscious mercenaries moments after coming face-to-face with his own mortality. Jesus.
Pocketing the taser, Coulson's white face flushed red. "D-don't make me regret it, Stark," he said.
Then the police showed up, because wasn't that always how shit like that went down? Tony was covered in blood that wasn't his and his ears were ringing from the gunshot, but he didn't let them put a stupid blanket over him until Bruce was looked at by paramedics. Tasha and Clint had cuts and bruises from a gunman who had refused to go down easy and fought dirty, but they grinned bloodily at Tony when they made it to the front of the school with the unconscious ringleader dragged between them. Miss Hill was found, and she was shot but still alive. Tony's throat felt tight and hot when she staggered out of her room clutching her shoulder, but he almost definitely blamed it on the strangling.
By the time the gunmen were corralled out of the school and the kids were allowed out of lockdown, a perimeter had been set up outside where half of Shield County was waiting for their kids. Coulson was the hero of the hour, the first to leave the school to cheers from relieved neighbors and friends as he held his taser like a trophy. Clint and Tasha followed him out, giving him playful shoves to the shoulder before the three of them walked to Principal Fury's car (Yeah, apparently Fury had been doing the foster parent thing a lot longer than any of them really knew. No wonder Coulson was such a stickler for the rules, though Tony couldn't really hold it against him now).
Thor and Loki jumped over the barriers to be pretty much attacked with love by their parents, hugs and kisses abounding. Steve, still clutching his stupid palette out in front of him, led the rest of the students out, looking winded and nervous with so much responsibility but taking it all in stride. They looked at him like a superhero. Bruce had woken up, and no matter how fine he said he was he still had to be carried out on a stretcher. Pulling up the rear (heh), Tony dazedly wondered who would be picking him up, until he heard one voice roaring up over the noise of the crowd.
"That's my son! Get out of the way, that's my son!"
Dad knocked over the barrier, white-faced, even while Mom sobbed and told him to just wait Howard, running across the yard of the school with something wild and dark in his eyes. Tony didn't even think, he just held up his arms like he did when he was little and wanted to be carried, and Dad actually tried, first just gripping Tony by the sides of his ribs and pinning him in place like he might blow away, and staring at the bruises blooming on his neck. Then he pulled him up as hard as he could, Tony's toes dragging in the gravel but definitely not leaving the ground. They were the same height, now. When had that happened? Giving up on that plan, then, Dad pitched forward and hugged Tony so tight and so fierce that they both fell over into the dust but just kept holding on like their lives depended on it.
"They had Stark weapons, Dad," Tony croaked into Dad's shoulder, and Dad started crying, fingers digging like fishhooks into Tony's back but he didn't mind because the pain meant it was real. Dad was saying something about how he was gonna fix it, he was going to track down every illegally-acquired Stark weapon and destroy it, even if it meant going himself, but Tony had other ideas and just hugged him tight.
There wouldn't always be days like this, where everyone lived and there were hugs and declarations of love and all that sissy shit, but Tony was determined to have this one day, this one victory, all to himself.