It was an early morning for Tony Stark, he woke up at three a.m. feeling haggard and bored, went into his lab and toyed with his robotic equipments until six thirty, and since he hadn't had any sleep besides the half an hour nap he took that day, Tony was feeling particularly annoyed.
Jarvis, his ever so loyal caretaker, strolled down to the steel barricaded room just as Tony was finishing up his final screw into the joint of his newly made mechanical arm. Jarvis let out an exasperated sigh.
"Sir, please, you have to stop these kinds of self-destructive actions. Children need eight hours of sleep. At most!"
"I'm not a child, Jarvis. I'm the smartest man you know." Tony replied, tossing his screws on the metallic table, making a loud clang. Nothing he hadn't gotten used to.
"Sir, that is very much up for debate." Jarvis sighed again, remove a cloth from his arm and handed it over to Tony for him to wipe off his sweat and grime. "I would ask for your father to stop you from working so late if I thought he was anything different from you."
"You're very right, Jarvis, old buddy, he and I are exactly the same." Tony grinned. "That's why we will never get along."
"Oh, young Sir." Jarvis gave a long sigh. The longest of the day.
OoOoOoOoOo
Tony dressed up in a smart suit and strolled down to his limo. His driver bowed at him as he walked towards the school with his head held high, sunglasses up on the bridge of his nose, and his mouth a cocky, defensive little smirk. Tony put a hand into his slacks' pocket as he walked, confident in himself despite the fact that he could hear all of the nasty whispers floating around.
"Tony Stark, if only he's poor, he wouldn't be so goddamn cocky."
"I heard his father just closed a million dollars deal with the Japanese Mechanical Organization of Tokyo!"
"Iron Man is looking extra fancy today as well, when will he accept that he's just like the rest of us?"
"He's not like the rest of us, he's on a totally different level!"
Tony smiled at all of the words he heard, he took pride in having his name floating around, creating rumors and exxaggerated stories everywhere he goes.
"I heard he fought with Captain America last week!"
"Hell yeah, Iron Man totally lost!"
Tony halted his steps, frowned, and glared through his dark sunglasses.
Lost? Tony didn't lose. If anything, he let Rogers off easy since he didn't want to kill him and commit a crime. That jerk was not worth going to jail over.
Stomping away, Tony silently fumed over his encounter with Rogers last Friday, and it was a fine day too.
Tony and Bruce, Tony's second in command and his best friend, was going over some detail about the upcoming show for the school, it was a laser light extravaganza remake of the classic movie, The Breakfast Club (the movie's raw idea and concept successfully captured the very essence and the ridiculousness that is teenagers in highschool, and was one of the many reasons why Tony convinced Bruce to recruit the necessary people and equipments to make the movie come to life, live on the next pep rally); everything was smooth sailing until Rogers barged across the hall, slammed his entire muscular weight into the Science Room, tripped over himself laughing, and smashed his shield onto the fog machine sitting on the floor. Tony was enraged almost immediately, disregarded Bruce's advice to cool down, he marched to Rogers, who was still rolling around laughing along with his equally buff friends standing by the doors, and Tony gave Rogers a fantastic slap across the face.
Steve Rogers was a mild mannered person, he was usually calm and collected in almost every situation, his demeanor was firsthand sweet and caring, he was very much like a big golden retriever. But when Tony Stark's hand came smashing across his face at lightning speed, Steve's high flying mood went straight out of the window, and his temper boiled up. He shot to his feet, clear blue eyes ablazed, and stared down at Tony, who was very much shorter than him.
"What the fuck Stark?" He snarled. Steve was repulsed by the idea of cursing, in fact, he did not curse at all, but whenever Tony was present, curse words after curse words came floating out of his mouth.
"What the fuck indeed, Rogers. How the fuck are you going to fix this?" Tony gestured aggravatedly towards the broken fog machine, still with the hard shield sticking out of it, electrical sparks flitting sharply into the air. Steve scoffed at the sight, although he very much wanted to apologize.
"That piece of crap is available in every fucking store. Go buy another one, rich boy." Steve hissed. Eyes boring into Tony's.
Tony stepped forward, getting closer to Steve and glared right back.
"That piece of crap is worth more than your rent, asshole, and you just ruined it with your stupid little toy." Tony grumbled. "You're gonna be the one to pay for that."
"Or what?" Steve mocked.
"Or Imma make sure you will never be able to see the fucking light of day." Tony threatened, coming close to shouting.
Clint Barton, one of Steve's close friends, although usually laid back and a troublemaker, barged in after he sensed the dangerousness of the situation.
"Okay, okay, guys, let's break it up." He said, separating Tony and Steve. "Stark, I promise we'll get you another fog machine, alright. Steve, say you're sorry."
"Fuck no! He hit me for no good reason."
"I'm going to..." Tony swore, fighting against Clint to get to Steve. Bruce immediately came over and yanked his friend back.
"Tony that's enough," he said, tightened his hold when Tony attempted to break free at the sight of Steve challenging him. "You won't like it when I'm angry, Tony." Bruce warned then tossed his gaze over at Clint. "Just get us the fog machine by Monday. The pep rally is next week. We still have a lot to do."
"You got it Hulk." Clint smirked, pushed Steve back with a strong flung of his left arm, and the two stalked outside, Steve still glaring threateningly at Tony, who took the gaze with stride.
After the sprawlers had left, Bruce let Tony yanked himself out of his loosened hold, and the rich boy began to curse up a storm.
"I cannot believe you just let them get away with it, Banner! The show's next week, how the hell are we supposed to fix up a brand fucking new fog machine to match up to the one we just lost? You know as well as I do that the mass-produced machines never spew out more than a small measly amount of smoke at a time! We need the smoke to be constantly pouring for the effects of the laser lights to work!"
Bruce scoffed at his friend's dramatic attitude, he knew well enough that Tony did not give a damn about the broken fog machine, he and Tony could fix that up in an hour or two; What Tony was truly angry about was that Steve Rogers was the one who had broken it. And the feud between Tony and Steve had gone back for as far as third grade, when the both of them ratted each other out to get out of trouble; although their incredibly opposite personalities did not help.
Tony felt his body vibrating in rage at the memory as he continued his trip towards his first class, ears still ringing with the crashing sound of his beloved fog machine being mangled apart by that stupid shield that captain america wielded around like an idiot. Barton was to delivered a new one to the science room today, Banner was going to be the one to receive it since Tony was still too pissed off to be polite to anybody that is a part of the physical education department. Tony gritted his teeth, that stupid hawkeye better do good by his words, the pep rally was this week, and without the fog machine, Tony was going to use Rogers and his friends as the replacement.
A pair of heavy gloves shot across his face and slammed onto the wall of lockers next to him. Tony stifled a gasp of surprise at the disruptive sound. He ripped off his sunglasses and whipped his head to the direction where the gloves came from.
Surprise, surprise, Tony mused, it's stupid Steve and his band of idiots.
"Oops, sorry, Stark, did I frighten you?" Steve mocked while walking over from the opened field section of the school.
The Avengers Academy had a section of land that was opened wide, exposed completely to the natural sun and sky, all the while right next to closed off section where there were walls and ceilings. Imagine a big in size and height glass building, on each level there's a big splotch of land for students to sit, laid down, or just simply walk around on, and in the middle of these lands there is a glass elevator built right smacked into the ground, connecting each level to the main power circuit board. Making sure that everything in the Academy was connected and recorded.
When Steve and his friends stepped out off the elevator, Steve saw the unmissable swagger of Tony Stark, cruising down the hallway, his hands in his pockets. Steve couldn't help but pulled out his gloves from sparring practice, and threw them as heavily as he could, right at Tony. In a split second, Steve regretted it, but as Tony instinctively stopped his steps before the gloves could hit him, Steve was pissed off again.
"What the fuck is wrong with you Rogers?" Tony glared at Steve. His brown, angry eyes weren't hidden by the sunglasses anymore.
"That should be my question, Stark." Steve said, stopping in front of the smaller man. "Don't think I've forgotten about last Friday, you piece of shit. I always retaliate in full."
"Oh Rogers, I'm so scared." Tony mocked, leveling up by puffing his chest, eyes glaring right into Steve's.
Clint sighed, "Not again." He had thought that this peaceful period would have lasted longer, but of course Clint should know better than to hope, Steve and Tony never lasted as long as they had that month without fighting.
"You should be Stark, and you should know that I never make empty threats." Steve hissed.
"And you should know, Rogers, that I will never stop not taking them seriously. Like come on, Cap'" Tony's voice lowered to a whisper as he fluttered his eyes around Steve's face. "How long have we known each other?"
Steve's face flushed at the nickname Tony said, the smaller man hadn't called Steve that since eighth grade when Steve accidentally kissed Tony's girlfriend at the time, Pepper.
"You're right, we've known each other for far too long for anything any of us could say to the other to be surprising." Steve deepened his tone. Blue eyes lowered to brown ones cautiously. "So less talk, more do huh?"
Steve swung his fist, Tony immediately jumped back, hitting his back against the lockers painfully as he successfully dodged the hit. Steve frowned, the distance was too close for him to make the struck less painful, he was half-glad Tony had been able to dodge it. The momentary shock that a fight had broken out disintergrated as Tony lept up, closed his ankles around Steve's waist, hoisted himself up the taller man's body, and began raining down punches on Steve's face.
Tony's fists bruised quickly as Steve's face snapped side to side, Steve would have defended himself if he wasn't so busy trying to balance himself with Tony on top of him, the smaller man loved using this position whenever they fought. Steve's hands went under Tony's butt and flicked the man in suit off of him, like he had done many times, making Tony went flying and landed on his back behind the more muscular man with a loud groan. Steve turned around swiftly and yanked Tony up, then without a warning, Steve tossed Tony straight into the wall of lockers, enticing a louder groan of pain to come out of Tony.
Steve stalked over, grabbing Tony up by the collars of his shirt and began pummeling at Tony's sides and stomach with his whitened knuckles. The pressure from the hits kept Tony up right against the lockers as he tried to cover himself. Slamming his forehead against Steve's, Tony successfully drove the larger man away before he delivered a round house kick to Steve's temple, knocking the blonde off of his feet. Shouting in pain, Tony tried to refocus, his new suit and gelled, quiffed up hair was no doubt messy and Tony was going to murder Rogers for that.
Tony watched Steve struggled for balance while quickly took a fighting stance, which Steve soon replicated. Tony glared at Steve, his stomach aching along with his spine but Tony fought through it. Steve might be an all rounded fighter but Tony would be damned if he let Steve walk away without a scratch. This wouldn't be hard since Steve's face already began to swell up in dark, purple bruises.
Steve snarled quietly in anger and frustration, Tony was never the most athletic of people, he was weak without his special effects, but fuck if he wasn't stubborn as all hell. Steve always dreaded fighting with Tony, not because he was afraid he would hurt him but because Tony just wouldn't stay down. Stark would just keep on popping back up after being smashed against the ground, spat out some smartass bullshit, then attack again. After a while, Steve would get tired, began to feel guilty, and called off the match. Tony would then taunt him relentlessly for weeks.
"Come on, Cap, are you gettin' soft on me?" Tony asked sweetly, a glint of malice entered his eyes.
Steve growled and dashed forward, slammed his knuckles into Tony's face, snapped the smaller man's head backward, and sent Tony crashing onto the ground.
Steve fell backwards on his legs, his blue eyes widened in shock, What the actual fuck, Steve thought as he gazed down at the immobile body on the ground. Tony Stark, aka, Iron Man was lying unmoving on the cold tiles, head straight and eyes closed, busted up mouth opened while his nose started to gushing out blood. His limbs spread out like a starfish causing his clothes to be even more rumpled. Steve went down on his knees immediately, straddling Tony's hips, completely unaware of the shocking gasps of the people around him, and grasped at Tony's face with his big palms, his face crunched up in concern.
Tony's face was beginning to welled up, Steve winced, cupping gently at Tony's cheek. He thought Tony had had his defenses up.
"Stark?" Steve asked quietly, tapping gently at his face. "Stark, can you hear me?" A little louder. "Tony!"
"Rogers, get him to the nurse right now, he's out cold." Bruce, followed closely by Clint, the one who brought him over, said calmly. Bruce's eyes narrowed behind his thin framed glasses.
Wasting not another second, Steve scooped Tony up in his arms and rushed down the hallway to get down to level eighteen, the Health Inspection center.