Chapter Text
The sun was setting low over the ocean, and it cast an incredible light over the boy next to him, all sandy blond hair and blue eyes that were far too aware of the effect they had when they turned on him.
Tony’s arm was draped around Steve’s shoulder and their bodies were tucked together on the sand, as they had been all summer. He positioned himself to hover over Steve, casting a shadow over his bare chest as he stared up at Tony with a smile too wicked to belong on a face so damn angelic.
“I have a great idea,” he said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “Let’s never leave this beach.”
Steve hummed in consideration. “Might get a bit chilly in a few months.”
“At least it’ll be quiet,” he murmured.
“There’s that.” Steve reached up to his neck and let his fingers slide up into his hair before he brought them back down to the base and dragged Tony’s mouth down to his own.
He sighed and lowered his chest to press against Steve’s, taking this opportunity to slide his hands through that salt-thick hair. His hand clenched around a handful as Steve’s hand on his hip rolled them both over and pushed his back into the sand. Despite every reasonable instinct telling him to shut up and enjoy this, his eyes flickered open and he broke the kiss, which was very difficult when Steve was leaning over him, licking his lips and letting his hand travel lower than acceptable in a place so public and usually populated with families.
He inhaled and was somehow still breathless. “What time do you leave in the morning?”
Steve frowned. “Seven.”
Tony grinned, already preparing to suppress the rush of this summer. He ached at the thought of not seeing Steve again, but he knew that once he returned to the same school, the same people, the same expectations, he would be swept up in the numbness that came with being everything Tony Stark had to be.
So he grinned, because the next few hours were all he had and he refused to think about anything beyond that. “Better make tonight count, then.”
Steve smiled at that, and pressed his lips to the space behind Tony’s jaw that made him weak, and their feet flicked sand across each other as they stretched and moved to get closer to each other, because there was no such thing as close enough.
-
The next two weeks Tony spent welcoming his friends home from their vacations as they returned one by one. Rhodey was home first, showing off his new cadet uniform in the California sun. He insisted on staying inside most of the time, making up for the complete lack of air conditioning at training camp. Tony rolled his eyes, but was glad for the opportunity to sit in the dark playing video games a few days more, putting off bumping into anyone he might see at school.
Pepper came home a week later with a fresh San Francisco tan and a purse full of stolen stationary from her internship. “They deserved it,” she insisted.
Following her came Natasha and Thor, who spent their respective summers in Europe.
“Germany is magnificent,” were the first words out of Thor’s mouth, and he went on to lecture Tony about the formation and architectural history of the country.
“How was Russia?” he asked Nat, and she just sighed.
“My grandparents are bigots.” She folded herself deftly on his couch and picked up a game control. “Home sweet home.”
The group was gathered around a bonfire that night, passing around a concealed bottle of gin - the only item from his father’s extensive collection that he could count on Howard not missing - when Pepper started in with the peer pressure.
“Seriously, Tony, what did you do all summer?”
He took a drink and passed the bottle to Rhodey, nerves kicking in his stomach. “Nothing.” He looked up to a collection of bored stares, blatantly disbelieving. “I just hung out, Jesus.”
“You never just hang out,” Natasha said, watching him carefully. “Did you meet someone?”
He scoffed and laid back, stretching his hands to rest behind his head on the sand. “I got Dr. Quill’s number.”
“Who is that?” Thor asked, taking the bottle from Rhodey. He typically needed twice as much alcohol to get half as drunk as the rest of them. He didn’t even cringe at the burn Tony could still feel in his throat, and Tony had plenty of practice with this whole underage drinking deal.
Pepper answered for him, shaking her head. “A professor at M.I.T. I can’t believe you turned that down, by the way.”
“Not like it was my choice,” he grumbled. That one topped the list of reasons to resent his father. How many seventeen year olds were offered a place at M.I.T.? Apparently just the ones whose parents had a tutor draw up a five-year plan that began with business school and ended with an executive position at the family company. The family-friendly, profit-scavenging, stiff-collar corporation that has already taken too much of his father’s attention. That five-year plan were the only years his father concerned himself with regarding his son. God forbid Tony be allowed to enjoy the present, or have any thought regarding his desires beyond an exec desk job.
“You’re deflecting,” Natasha said, a remarkable absence of judgement in her tone.
“He’s totally deflecting,” Rhodey agreed, taking the gin back from Thor. “This stuff is disgusting.”
“Fine,” he said, giving it up. It was still summer, and the last days of late-night heat were getting to his head, among other things. “I had a fling,” he declared.
Pepper made a smug little noise and Rhodey snorted. He sat up and ignored Natasha’s smirk. Even silently, he was being pressed for details. “He was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?”
“No,” Rhodey groaned.
“Tony,” Pepper said, and he met her steely gaze. “I will hurt you.”
“I don’t know what you guys have against Avril Lavigne, but fine. I got myself caught in a riptide at the beach, and he pulled me out. Gave me a little more than CPR, if you know what I mean.”
“I was wrong, I don’t want to hear this.” Natasha stood, pulled her shirt off right there, and wandered down to the shoreline, where she stripped off her jeans and dove into the sea. Thor shrugged and ran down to join her.
“I’m done,” Rhodey muttered, and rested the bottle in the sand near Tony with a rough cough.
“So what happened with the guy?” Pepper asked, and Rhodey tuned in to hear the answer.
“He went back to New York,” he said casually, like he hadn’t been thinking about him since he left. He’d been having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, always chasing his dreams of those blue eyes and broad shoulders back into unconsciousness.
He kept talking. “We hooked up all summer, and he drew me, that was incredible. Have you ever hooked up with an artist, Rhodey? I recommend it.” Pepper’s lips turned up in the faintest smile, and Tony knew when he needed to compensate. “Not afraid of PDA either; we’re both banned from Baskin Beach.”
“God, really?” Pepper tossed a handful of sand his way. He grinned and squinted against the attack. They were banned for sneaking in families who didn’t know they had to pay to get onto the beach, but there was nothing wrong with letting his friends assume the worst. Making out was way more fun behind lifeguard stands than in front of strangers and tourists anyway. The best option was always bribing his way inside the lifeguard shack, but that was a whole other story.
-
School started a week later, and Tony stared up at the brick misery that was Rydell High from his ’57 Thunderbird, sleek and shining red in the early morning sun. He grabbed his jacket from the passenger seat, not that he’d need it in this weather.
Even slung over his shoulder, the leather was armor, and he would kick this year’s ass as long as he had his car, his jacket, and his friends. His friends, who were heading across the lawn to meet him, already rowdy with the rush of seeing their classmates, and more importantly, showing off that their summer glows were the light of the hallways. Everyone else was dim in comparison.
Natasha was the first to reach him, grinning and chewing gum in that lopsided way she made effortlessly cool. She slung an arm around his shoulder as they joined the rest of the group.
“Long time, no see,” Pepper said, and shoved a light elbow to his arm.
He smirked in return, and glanced around, taking in the dewy grass, clear windows and rusting lunch tables that felt disconcertingly like coming home for uncomfortable family gatherings. Except that instead of butterscotch grandmothers, this place was full of the jackasses who kicked him around in third grade, and the scrawny kids he kicked around in ninth. He regretted that. These days, he only picked fights with the jocks and guys from their rival school, Belmore, who clearly had no taste and always took shit too far.
“’Sup, T-Birds?” someone called from behind Tony. Natasha smiled and Rhodey nodded in greeting.
“Hey, man,” he said.
Tony turned and laughed. “Wilson, buddy, one of these days, you’ll actually spend a summer having fun. Is there even an ounce of fat left on you?”
Sam was all lean muscle and glowing dark skin in the sunlight. “Got my pilots license, bet that’s more than you can say.”
Tony rolled his eyes, but his gaze caught on a badge stitched into Sam’s grey cotton cardigan. He squinted. “Is that what I think it is?”
He crossed his arms, chest puffed out proudly, emblem on display. “Falcon Crew’s gonna rule this year, Stark.”
“Hell yeah,” Clint shouted, jogging over to the fast-forming group, Bucky and Peggy in tow. Clint half-jumped on Sam, their matching jumpers as ridiculous as it gets. He slid down, and Sam clapped him on the back. Tony noticed the glint of light on a clean, near-invisible hearing aid. He’d upgraded.
“What’s up with the uniform?” Rhodey asked, and inclined his head to Bucky. “James.”
“James,” Bucky returned, and everyone else gave a long-suffering sigh. The response was almost as ingrained as the James’ tradition, which started on the first day of high school as a joke and continued through senior year as a compulsion.
“Do I really have to say it?” Sam asked, eyeing the jacket in Tony’s hand.
“What?” Thor asked, and looked around at his own group. “Oh,” he chuckled. “He has a point.”
Tony’s black leather jacket fit right in with the ones Natasha and Rhodey had on despite the heat, and Pepper’s white tee could have come off the same rack as Thor’s, though admittedly the sizing was a bit different.
“It’s called style,” Pepper remarked, brushing her bangs away from her eyes.
“Alright,” Clint scoffed. “Call me when you join this era.”
Natasha raised her eyebrows. “Are you forgetting what you wore the entire month of January?”
“Purple’s always cool,” he dismissed.
“Purple is never cool,” Rhodey laughed.
“Let’s wrap this up, boys,” Peggy said, taking Bucky’s arm in hers. “We get first shot at the new guy, by the way.”
“New guy?” Tony asked, interest piqued.
“Don’t even think about it,” Pepper muttered.
He made an indignant sound and stood up straighter. “Who says anyone gets first shot?”
“You did when you poached Nat,” Clint stated.
He scoffed. “She was my friend first.”
Clint ignored him and looked at Natasha with mock-betrayal. “You’re a traitor.”
“I never liked bowling,” she shrugged.
“But you’re so good at it,” Clint protested in frustration. She just smirked. She was used to being the best.
Tony couldn’t help but smile whenever he thought about the fact that the self-dubbed Falcon Crew started out as a bowling league when they couldn’t get the school to fund a club. They were never actually a threat to his crowd.
They didn’t need any new members, anyway. This was senior year, they only needed each other. And to fuck around, of course, because if Tony isn’t at least arrested before his dad ships him across the country to an Ivy League, what is the point? The moment he walked through those doors would be the moment his self-destructive tendencies kicked it up a few notches. Tony 2.0: Senior Year. Nothing and no one on his mind but the renewal of his reputation. It was a bittersweet taste, but it was the only focus that could keep him sane.
With that thought in his mind, he walked away from the Falcons without a goodbye and waited for the others to follow him inside.
“You okay?” Pepper asked at his side.
“I’m awesome.”