I pulled out the folded papers and opened them, glancing up at Flash with an incredulous expression, "What exactly am I looking at?"

Staring back at me was a page filled with photos of me with Happy, mostly from various times he'd driven me places. Along with an official looking summary report identifying Happy as my father. What in the hell?

Of all the things I had been concerned Flash might approach me with, I hadn't even thought of this, it was just too bizarre.

Flash looked smugly back at me, "I knew there was no way someone as bad as you in science could have a father that worked at Stark Industries,"

No, of course not, he was just the man behind the whole operation.

Holding back my scoff, I tuned back into the rest of his sentence, "so I had someone look into you, and saw you coming and going from there with Harold Hogan—Stark's main security dude. Must be pretty nice knowing someone so close to the great man himself."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to proceed. If I went along with this ludicrous idea, Flash might drop his investigation. If I tried to refuse it, then he might keep digging, putting us at risk of him discovering the truth. Even though his investigator seemed somewhat incompetent (since he hadn't seemed to realize I always spent the night at the Tower which would be weird behaviour for the head of security's child), I couldn't take the risk.

Ugh. I had to do this, and I had to do it right, or Flash would never believe me. Wincing internally, I handed the papers back to him, forcing a composed expression onto my face, "These prove nothing."

His eyes narrowed, "It proves everything."

"All it proves is that I know him, not that he's my father."

"Deny it all you want, I know the truth. And unless you do what I tell you, I will spread it all over this school, and even to the media—and then it won't matter how much you try to say it isn't true, everyone will believe it anyways and your secret will be blown."

I sucked in a breath, the secret of me being connected to Stark Industries? Yeah, that would be blown if he did this. And if that many people cared, it followed there was a high risk that someone could look closer and figure out it wasn't Happy I was related to, but Tony or Bucky, or both. Dang it.

Trying to brush aside the rising panic in my chest, I swallowed before answering, "Look, how about we put aside the threats for now, and just deal with the stupid tutoring thing, unless you don't want that reference letter?"

He glared at me, "Of course I want the reference letter. I shouldn't even need to help out an idiot like you to get it, I've more than earned it already with my academic excellence. How about you just get someone else to tutor you, you improve, and I get to claim the credit, but we don't have to spend any more time together."

Surprisingly, not a bad plan. I'm sure Rose and Peter wouldn't mind helping me out a bit more with the material. Even though it left a bad taste in my mouth thinking that Flash would get the credit for it.

I sighed, I didn't really have much of a choice. "That works for me."

"Great, now back to this," he waved the papers in the air, "let's talk about what you're going to do for me."

Gritting my teeth, I gave him a tight smile, "Just tell me already."

Clearly thrilled with feeling like he had one over on me, he grinned widely as he spoke, "While I excel in science and all the other important courses, my scores are a little lower than I'd like in History. Why spend my precious time on such a useless topic? Anyway, you had the course last semester, right, and word is you did pretty well. So, you're going to complete some assignments for me, I'll sign my name, and you get to keep staying incognito."

I didn't really have much of a choice, did I? At least not for now.

"Fine."

He beamed at me, "Perfect. Here's the first batch. One is due on Monday." He pulled some papers from his bag and dropped them in my hands.

"Oh, and don't forget there is a quiz next week in Biology—make sure my tutoring is already making you improve by then."

I glared at him, turned, and left without saying another word. I stopped by my locker to grab the rest of my stuff, then started to make my way out of the school.

"Hey, I was just about to text you, but this is even better!"

I smiled at the sound of Taylor's voice, reaching up to brush some hair out of my face as I turned toward where he was coming out of an adjoining hallway, "Hey, what's up?"

For the second time that day, he joined me in walking through the halls.

"Well, I'm waiting to get a proper answer from this really awesome girl I know, any chance you could help me with that?"

I felt my heart speed up a bit, and desperately hoped I wouldn't say or do anything stupid. Exhaling, I decided to go with a bit of teasing, "To be fair, I don't remember a question actually being asked. Hard to give an answer to a non-existent question."

He scrunched his nose at me, "Semantics. But fine," his lighthearted tone dropped to something slightly more serious and he brushed his hand through his hair, turning to me with a nervous expression, "Would you like to go on a date with me?"

Pretty sure my heart just stopped for a moment, because OMG.

I gave him a wide smile, "I'd love to—but it's a bit more complicated than that."

He sighed, "Cuz of Rose?"

I nodded, "She doesn't even know I like you; I can't just drop it on her that we're going on a date."

"What if we just didn't tell her? We go on the date first, and if it goes as well as I think it will, we can tell her afterwards—she just doesn't need to know there was already one date before that."

"I'm not lying to my best friend. How about this? Give me one week to talk to her—I can try and slowly warm her up to it before telling her, then we can go on a date?"

The butterflies in my stomach were really hoping he would say yes to that—and not decide this was too much trouble and just cancel the whole thing.

He thought for a moment, adorably chewing on the inside of his lip as he did, then nodded. "I suppose I can live with that. So how about next Friday for our date then? I can pick you up at 7?"

"Better make it 6, I have a feeling my dad will want me home earlier in the evening."

Oh god. Dad. This was going to be a fun conversation.

He smiled at me, eyes twinkling, "Sounds like a date."

We'd reached the edge of the school grounds by now, and as I turned to head towards to the subway, Taylor sheepishly pointed back toward the school, "I actually still need to get my stuff from my locker, but it was worth the extra steps to talk with you. I'll see you around!"

I chuckled and waved him off as he jogged back to the doors, before continuing on my way home.