Running Through The Halls

Tony pushed through the front door of Manhattan Public High School with a flourish, letting it slam against the wall. It was far from the dramatic entrance he was going for, as the halls were empty. Tony took his sunglasses off and wandered through the Math and Sciences wing. One door stood open, and humming drifted out. Tony gasped and burst into the classroom excitedly.

"Bruce!" Tony shouted. "They moved you back?"

Bruce looked up from his laptop. "I was wondering when you'd notice. Fury agreed to move me back on a trial basis. So that means no more joint classes and no more explosions, unless Vice Principal Coulson has cleared it and is present."

Tony collapsed against the side of Bruce's desk. "Yeah, yeah. You never let me play with the good chemicals anyway."

"That's because you steal them from the chemistry lab when you're bored and then test them out in my room. You're a physics teacher, Tony, and I teach math. You aren't supposed to have explosions in your class, however small you thought they'd be," Bruce teased.

Tony made a face. "I need coffee. Can we go get coffee?"

Bruce shut his laptop and followed Tony out into the hall and down to the teacher's lounge. Tony ripped open the door and everyone turned to them, their faces expectant. Thor, the gym teacher, was standing in the corner stretching his arms. His brother, Loki, sat next to him, his nose buried in a book that looked like it was from the fourth century. Natasha, the foreign languages teacher, leaned against the counter, a bright red mug in her hand. Clint stood next to her, a slim novel tucked in his back pocket. And across from Clint stood the gorgeous blond mass that was Steve Rogers.

"Morning, boys and girls!" Tony bellowed. "Are you ready to teach the snottiest children in all of existence?"

"They aren't all bad, Stark," Clint smirked. "You might see that if you stopped trying to blow them up."

Tony threw his hands in the air. "That was one time!"

Natasha passed him a mug. "I hear you've got a student teacher this year. Have you met him yet?"

He shook his head. "No, he'll be here soon. Loki has one, too."

"A young lady," Loki supplied. "She didn't seem too awful on the telephone."

Tony and Clint exchanged a look of terror.

"I think that was a compliment," Clint whispered.

Tony shuddered. "No way in hell. Too creepy."

Natasha glared at them reproachfully. "Come along, Loki. I'll walk you to class and you can introduce me to her."

Loki stood gracefully and they swept out of the room. A few beats after that. the door cracked open and someone stuck their head in.

"Is Mr. Stark in here?" he asked.

Tony straightened. "Present! You must be my new pet. Welcome to hell."

"Tony!" Bruce and Steve squawked in unison.

"What I meant was, you must be Peter Parker, my student teacher," Tony rephrased. "Welcome to Manhattan High. The mother hens are Bruce and Steve. Bruce has the room next door to us. The incredibly buff guy is Thor- one guess as to what he teaches- and shorty is Clint. This is the teacher's lounge. Coffeemaker, fridge, cabinet, table, chair. You get the idea. Let's go to class, Parker."

Peter followed Tony dutifully, looking nervous. Tony unlocked the classroom door an waved Peter toward a second desk at the back of the room. 

"That is your space. Feel free to stab anyone who invades it, unless that person is me," Tony told him. "Today will be easy. I've got a lecture planned, and then a short pre-test. Watch and learn today, because tomorrow's lecture is all up to you."

Peter's jaw dropped open instictively.

Tony laughed. "I'm screwing with you, Parker. Lighten up. You'll just be presenting some of my notes and then arranging the cretins in a seating chart. Think you can handle that?"

"Absolutely, Mr. Stark," Peter nodded.

Tony grimaced. "Oh, please, god call me Tony."

Peter chuckled. "Whatever you say, Tony."

"I like that attitude," Tony observed. "Keep that attitude. It will suit you well in my classroom, especially when I abandon you to fend for yourself."

"Mr. Laufeyson, who is she?" A female student piped up midway through his introduction lecture.

Loki looked up and caught the eye of the curvy brunette perched on the corner of his desk, watching him pace the front of the room.

"Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. This is my student teacher, Ms. Lewis. You will treat her well, or I will make you regret it to the fullest extent of my powers. Understood?" Loki smiled coldly.

Everyone nodded quickly. They may have been snotty, stubborn, little brats, but they did have some sense of self-preservation. This particular class was all seniors, many of them looking like they planned to sleep until graduation. One of these such seniors was sitting directly in front of Darcy Lewis, his eyes fixed to the pale legs stretching out from the hem of her knee length black skirt. Darcy felt him leering and sat up straighter, fixing a glare on him. His eyes never left her lower half. Darcy reached behind her blindly, coming up with a sheet of paper. She crumpled it in her hand and lobbed it at the creep, catching him square in the nose. He flinched, knocking hisbinder to the ground with a loud smack.

Loki paused. "Is there a problem, Mr. Stewart?"

""No. No problem," he mumbled, ducking his head.

"And will you be apologizing to Ms. Lewis?" Loki prodded roughly.

The kid's face was flaming. "Sorry."

Loki cleared his throat loudly.

He winced. "I'm sorry, Ms. Lewis."

"Right then," Loki continued. "Thanks to Mr. Stewart, you all have earned your first assignment. I want a four to six page essay on sexism in the Middle Ages. You have two days, and I'd like at least twelve references, with a final summary of how sexism then is relevant to sexism now. That itself should be no shorter than three full pages. If I deem your essay unfit for my standards, or you fail to write the essay, you present it verbally to Ms. Lewis and I during your lunch period, and if the presentation lasts less than fifteen minutes, you will start over the next day."

The class room was silent. The look of absolute terror on the faces of his students warmed Loki's heart. Darcy was trying not to laugh.

Meanwhile, just a few rooms over, Steve was introducing himself to his American History class.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Mr. Rogers. Today I want to get an idea of what you already know and what I can expect to spend a bit more time on. It's like a trivia game. I'll read off the questions, if you have the answer, you know the drill. Oh, and the books you'll be using throughout the year are on your desks. Please take them with you when you leave."

And so it began, with Steve very quickly realizing that, if the response of his class was to be believed, he was lucky they knew how to spell America. A painful twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door and Principal Fury stepped in, followed by a girl with long, wavy brown hair, blue eyes, and pink cheeks. For once, Principal Fury was actually smiling. It was rather frightening.

"Mr. Rogers, excuse me for interrupting your class, but I wanted to deliver this young lady here personally. This is Becca Barnes. Her father and I were in the service together, and worked together in D.C. up until I started here. Her family's just moved to Manhattan a couple of weeks ago, and I promised to get her all set up. She won't cause you much trouble, unless you get on her bad side," Fury winked his one good eye and turned to leave.

Steve offered a bright smile to the new girl. "Becca, I'm Mr. Rogers. Go ahead and take that empty chair in front of my desk. We're going a general review of what we know, so just raise your hand if you know the answer."

Becca nodded her understanding and slid into the seat, tucking her grey skirt underneath her. For the next fifteen minutes, she raised her hand to answer every question Steve posed, even when he started veering off into lesser known areas. Steve found himself grabbing for obscure historical events, just in the hopes he could get the better of her. By the end of the hour,  Steve was pretty sure he was going to get along with her just fine. He was not alone in this opinion. When he joined his friends in the lounge for lunch, Natasha proudly mentioned a girl named Becca who was proficient is both Russian and French, and passable in Spanish, German, and Latin. Tony excitedly told them all about "that Barnes chick" who understood and giggled at his physics jokes.

"I've got her next hour for Creative Writing," Clint said between bites of an apple.

Steve looked up from his food. "I had her this morning. She's smart as a whip. She knew every question I could think of. Plus she managed to impress both Tony and Natasha on her first day. There hasn't even been a teacher who has achieved that."

"Parker, take a note!" Tony ordered suddenly.

Peter looked up, startled, his sandwich halfway to his mouth. He glanced around the room.

"Make a note that she is my favorite. No one ever laughs at my physics jokes. Therefore, I have decided she's my favorite, and I want her in the front row so we can appreciate each others' intelligence. Make another note that I should move Wexlar's desk into the hallway permanently," Tony added.

"Hey, Loki, where's your student teacher? She didn't show?" Clint asked.

Loki glanced up from his book, looking disoriented. "In the classroom. She said something about decorating."

Clint nearly choked on his apple. "She's decorating your room? You're letting her decorate your room? Oh, I have to meet this girl/"

The bell rang, sending them all scattering to their separate classrooms, ready to teach the masses of Manhattan.

Three hours later, Clint swung his door shut and started toward the parking lot. He nooded at Thor as he passed the gym and did the same to Bruce after they crossed paths. When he hit the Social Studies wing, he stopped dead in his tracks. Someone was singing. Not only that, but someone was singing Billy Joel. That was Clint's fucking jam. He followed the voice past Steve's empty room, past Mrs. Robinson's closed door, and into Loki's room. There was a short girl with dark brown hair standing on top of the bookshelf that was against the back wall. Her shoes had been left on the cold tile floor and she stretched up onto her toes, pressing a poster onto the wall. Clint leaned agaisnt the door frame and crossed his arms.

"So 'Captain Jack', huh?" he asked.

The girl jumped in surprise. "Motherfucking shit!" She dropped down onto the floor and put a hand to her throat. "Jesus, you scared the living shit out of me!"

Clint bit back his laughter. "I'm sorry about that. I'm Clint Barton. I teach English and some of the writing courses."

She took his hand and shook it. "Darcy Lewis, student teacher. Loki and Natasha warned me about you."

Clint raised his eyebrows. "Oh? That takes the fun out of torturing you."

"Well if you won't be torturing me, how about you help me hang these babies up?" Darcy patted the stack of posters.

Clint unbuttoned the wrists of his shirt and rolled the sleeves up to his elbows. "I think I can manage that. I'll still be torturing you, by the way."

Darcy climbed back onto the bookcase. "Bring it, bitch."

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Based on this prompt on tumblr.