hey, isn’t this easy?
————————
One year earlier
—First Term (September-December)
November
As he was walking to the main library, he plugged in his headphones. Some mood music for his walk to occupy him. When he opened the door, he opened his chat with Rogers.
apollo: Don’t be late. We need to finish this project. Be there at 6:30.
Tony wondered if he was reading into it too much but, c’mon. How weird was that? Maybe he was analyzing that message too hard. So far the list included:
1. Perfect grammar (who does that? Also not to mention, the punctuation—Steve always texted him like he was mad at him)
2. 6:30 (what an odd time, why not 6:00 or 7:00?)
3: why was he reminding Tony? (was he questioning his intelligence, if so, that was highly unattractive.
Tony walked into the library and immediately headed to the third floor. Steve had already mentioned where he would be waiting. He goes straight to the corner where it is surrounded by shelves and sees him. Tony walks up to Steve’s table.
The next hour they work on their projects, sometimes they turn their laptop screen and comment. Very civilized.
Tony finally decides he has had enough with the glares Steve is sending him. “There is no good reason why we can’t sit here together and work on this project.”
“I got a good reason,” Steve replies.
“Which is?”
“I don’t like you.”
“Really? You can’t think of anything you like about me? Not even one thing.”
“I think you seriously need to get Grammarly, what is happening with your grammar on this slide?”
Tony rolls his eyes, at least this is familiar. “This is my first draft when I go over everything I’ll fix it.”
Steve looks at him with a face of doubt.
They ended up getting a 90 on the project.
Next week they are at the library. What a shock. When Steve swears and takes his phone out of the bag quickly. Tony takes his eyes off the book he was reading. He studies Steve's face and notices he is visibly paling, he asks. “Are you okay?”
Steve groans then puts his head in his hands. “I’m locked out of the house. I gave my key to Bucky last night then I forgot to ask for it back.”
“Just call your presid—” he stops halfway through the word, catching onto his mistake.
Steve raises an eyebrow, “hmm, who should I call”?
“Ghostbusters?” Tony offers.
Steve rolls his eyes.
“Don’t you have a house manager that will let you in the house?”
“You’re looking at him.”
Now it’s Tony’s turn to groan. “Who on earth allowed that to happen?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“You really thought you would never be in this scenario, huh?”
“You’re really not helping.”
“Rogers, surely someone is still up and will let you in?”
Steve turns to him, “Tony, what time do you think it is?”
Tony looks at his watch and whoa, he definitely did not expect to be at the library until 4AM . “Rogers, call someone who might be awake at this time, there’s gotta be at least one person awake in that house. Steve leaves to call, Tony begins to pack up his belongings. Rogers comes back after his call, smiling. “You’re right, someone was up.”
“Sorry, can you repeat the first part? I think I missed it.”
“Nope, you only get it once.”
“Never thought I would see the day.”
“ Now, don't get your ego too boasted.”
“Sweetheart, it already is.” Tony notices pink coming from Steve’s check, weird . They leave the library together then separate their paths to get home. They wave goodbye to each other.
Since he and Steve have been getting along after the 4AM incident. Tony has been waiting for it to come crashing down. It’s just how Tony’s life works. Something good happens, it never lasts. Steve somehow figures out his coffee order, now when he enters the way too early class he has a hot cup of coffee. He doesn’t think too much of it. Though maybe he should. Maybe his coffee is poisoned. Rogers wouldn’t do that. Maybe it's a prank? That would make no sense. Maybe he is testing out Pavlovian response on him. It was kinda working because now Tony would get excited about Wednesday’s class. He knew he would get a fresh cup of coffee and Steve’s silent remarks in his ear.
November comes finding out new stuff about Steve. Oh. That also becomes a thing. Steve. Somehow his brain had switched from him always being Rogers too now just Steve.
It’s also in November where their professor decided to pull a fast one on them. She thinks that instead of working with your partner, now you’re competing with them. She assigns the whole row of students the same project. Each row a different one.
“Are we still meeting at the library?” Steve asks as they are leaving the class. Tony nods, when he arrives to the spot, Steve is already starting the project, being very secretive about it. Honestly, Tony is confused about how the professor is not going to get bored by hearing every student talking about the same thing. Their meetings in the library still progress even though they are no longer working together. Now Tony is being the one secretive about his project.
Steve looks over at him from where he is staring intently at his laptop. “Hacking into my laptop? Seriously, Tony?”
“What are you talking about?”
Steve reads off of his screen, “In the corner, it says, Steve Rogers: Former Favourite Student.”
It’s no secret that Tony and Steve are competing for the best spot in this class. They’re both very competitive (not to mention rivals). They have been competing with everything in class. From their marks, their seats, their discussion points. Tony smiles.
“This is a new low, you're not even denying it.”
“Maybe you will finally learn the valuable lesson that is; don’t make your passwords so obvious.”
“I mentioned that I liked the Iron Man Comics when I was younger one time!”
“Nope, Rogers, you mentioned that you were crazy obsessed with Iron Man that you covered your bedroom wall with posters.”
“I should have never told you about Iron Man.”
“That is not what you should be getting out of this. Just don’t make your passwords so obvious, IronMan123, really?”
When Tony gets back from the library, he sees everyone is getting ready for a movie night. The big bowls of popcorn on top of the coffee table. He grabs a handful when he hears Rhodey scolding him for eating like a caveman. As he settles down, he feels his phone vibrating.
apollo: I am about to hack into your school account.
Tony grins then replies.
Tony: normally a hacker would not let the person who they are hacking into know
The reply comes shortly.
apollo: YOU CHANGED MY PASSWORD?? THE PASSWORD TO MY OWN LAPTOP?
Tony: not so much a hacker anymore me thinks
apollo: You want to tell me what the new password is?
Tony: I think you need to be a better hacker, just don’t think this is the job for you you’re going to be unable to find any places of employment all because you tried to scheme your way into your acquaintance's laptop
apollo: Run-on sentence.
It's sort of becoming a thing. Tony realizes he has a lot of things with Steve. Almost like inside-jokes. But not inside-jokes, because they most certainly are not friends. They are rivals who happen to be acquaintances in a class about a dead man. But if they were friends this would be an inside-joke. Tony’s fast texts that he never double-checks for typos, grammar, punctuation versus Steve’s thoroughly checked texts.
Tony: is editing my grammar really important now? Once again you are a horrible hacker
apollo: Have the decency to help a former friend
Tony takes a second. Former friend? Is that what they were? Had he missed them being friends? And now they had already moved on? In the middle of his crisis, someone complains about his phone screen so he rushes to his room.
Tony: maybe if I wasn’t a former friend, I would give it to you
apollo: Does frenemy work better for you?
Tony: nope say I’m your friend
apollo: fine, my friend would you be so kind as to share my password
Tony: tonystarkisthebest1234
apollo: You’ve got to be kidding me.
Tony: Nope it was a very strong password just like the person it is after
apollo: I didn’t even know passwords were allowed to be so long
Their little feud for the project carries on. Towards the end of the month when they are sitting at Steve’s spot in the library Tony realizes something. “Steve. Steve. Steve.” He was trying to get his attention. “We’ve been so busy trying to be better that we completely overlooked all the other people on our row. All the other candidates!”
Steve looks over at him. “Who? You’re seriously worried about people on our row? Thor Odison? He’s too busy being pretty and riding off the success of his TikTok fame.”
Tony raises an eyebrow. “So that’s your type? Pretty guys?” Steve rolls his eyes, “I like what I like, simple as that.”
The day before their presentation Tony texts Steve.
Tony: we still on for drinks?
They had decided to get over their nerves for their presentation tomorrow they would meet up for drinks. This was a harder obstacle than Tony would have thought since they couldn’t be seen together. It would wreak havoc on their frats. In the end, they had decided to meet at a club far enough from their university that they wouldn’t meet people they knew.
They sit in a booth together. As soon as they sit down Steve starts, “I’m surprised you agreed to this.”
“Well, I was contemplating it, but I am not opposed to your performance tomorrow when you are hungover.”
“Try to disadvantage me all you want, I am still going to win.”
“What exactly are you winning, Steve?” Shit, shit, shit. It’s only Steve in his brain, not with his mouth.
Rogers leans in. “Obviously, I will win by getting a higher mark.”
“It’s cute that you think that’s going to happen. Maybe I should let you think you have the upper hand.”
The rest of the night carries on. They carry one conversation then another as the drinks they consume add up. Tony convinces Steve that they should go dance after Steve’s protest on how he doesn’t want to. They make their way to the dance floor, Steve has no clue what to do with his hands, it shows. He awkwardly bops his head while Tony laughs, feeling the drinks settle in.
“You’re the president of a whole fraternity and you don’t dance.”
“No, I can dance.”
It’s endearing how much Steve is trying. He puts his hands on Steve’s hips. “Watch me. You have to loosen up your hips.” Steve being tense under Tony’s touch is certainly not helping. “Stop being so tense.”
Steve watches Tony moving his hips then takes a sip of his beer, “I am not tense.”
By the end of the night, it’s all eyes blurry and warmth under his fingertips. Tony doesn’t think about the warmth of Steve’s body near him, he doesn’t think about the glint in Steve’s eye when he speaks. He doesn’t.
When their professor reveals that the highest mark in the class is a tie between two students, Steve and Tony immediately turn to each other. He’s nervous. He knows his presentation was good, but Steve’s was great. He doesn’t even care if the highest mark was him. As the paper gets handed to all the students, he begins to drum his fingers against the chair.
He receives his paper then immediately turns it face down onto the desk.
Steve gets his back then turns to Tony. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, absolutely.” What is wrong with him? It’s just a mark. Tony’s never been nervous to look at a mark before. This is a new feeling. He locks his eyes with Steve. “Could you please flip it?”
Steve looks at him apprehensive but nods. He turns the page and breaks into a huge smile. “We did it! Got the highest mark! What do you know, we still got it.” Tony sighs with a look of relief.
He pushes through the rest of the month if he doesn’t think about the feeling he felt they won’t catch up to him. It’s what he always had done. He was too busy to process anything in his life. When his parents would get into screaming matches, when Howard would leave for business trips for months, he would just focus on his AP courses instead. As long as he directed his energy elsewhere, everything would be fine. That’s what he is going to do now.
————————
One year earlier
—First Term (September-December)
December
“You know I thought you were going to be one of those huge pretentious dicks who think the humanities classes are useless.”
“Did you really think so low of me?”
Steve smiles at him under the yellow library light across the table where all their books are spread out. “My first impression of you was that you were a—what did you call it? A trust fund baby?”
“Okay, that’s fair.” Tony looks down at the book of poetry they are currently meant to be analyzing. But every time he reads the same sentence over and over again, not retaining any of the information. “I don’t think the humanities are useless, I’m not going to just think lowly of someone if they're a liberal arts major. What even is your major?” Tony asks but he has an inkling he knows what Rogers is majoring in, the paint on all his clothes is a dead giveaway. Not to mention the leftover paint smudges on his hands and face. Sometimes he would see a smudge of paint on his arm. He would want to go over it with his own fingers. He shook those thoughts out of his head.
Rhodey forces Tony to go to a party, clearly Tony’s excuses to not attend were not working. As they enter, he glances around the room, unsure of what he is looking for. Halfway through his look over the room, he spots Steve. Who is in a conversation with a dude wearing a football jersey and Bucky.
Oh, how a difference a month makes. If it was October, Tony easily would have marched up to Steve, then proceeded to yell at him. If it was November, he would simply just turn his eyes anywhere else. Now it’s December, Tony simply just nods and shyly smiles. Steve lifts up his beer.
“Did you hear?” Is what Tony hears when Natasha finds him. It’s like she’s got tunnel vision for spotting Tony at a party. He can never seem to find her but she can spot him easily. You would think her natural red hair would make her more noticeable, but she’s like a secret spy who hides in plain sight. Tony excitedly turns to Nat, always ready to gossip with her. Sue him, the drama was petty and childlike but it was entertaining. Plus, Nat always seems to know everyone’s business. Once again, secret spy. He shakes his head to indicate he has no idea what she’s talking about.
“Clint—”, ahh yes, Clint Barton, if Nat was a secret spy he was definitely secret spy number two. Who also happened to be in Steve’s frat. Which was his rival frat. Nat was killing him, what was about to do, go join the frat? Stop being petty Tony, he realizes when he doesn’t hear a word Natasha said to him.
“What happened to Barton?”
“Tony. He is married. As in, he has a whole ass wife! We are literally children and now you’re telling me people in our age group are getting married?”
Tony’s mouth drops. “Hold up. Do you mean engaged?
“Nope, he literally has a wife,” she replies.
“Nat, how do you even know this?” It’s safe to say, Tony is shocked. The longest relationship he had was probably with the bottle of ketchup in the fridge, it has been in there for months.
“Well, I was talking to Bucky.” Tony raises an eyebrow which causes Nat to punch his shoulder, and ow. “Apparently when they were in the locker room, his teammates noticed he had a wedding band on the necklace he wears.”
Tony takes a moment. Teammates? Locker room? God, for his rival frat, he sure does no close to nothing about them. He must have not hid his confusion well since Natasha’s next sentence is about how the football guys and all the people in his frat were sad they hadn’t known. He makes a point in his head to remember that they play football.. Rhodey plays football! That’s why the day before his first Shakespeare class when they entered Centerpointe he was glaring at Clint. They knew each other from football! Also being in rivals frats, but maybe Tony wasn’t the only oblivious one. Steve was just as clueless as Tony and didn’t even know it was Tony who sat next to him until the teacher said his name.
He takes a sip from his red solo cup then sees Steve. He wonders if Steve also plays football. He certainly is built for it. That’s just from an objective point, nothing else. Nat obviously sees him staring at Steve.
“Hey, you two went the entire month of November not yelling at each other at a party, don't break the streak now.” She tugs on his arm then leads the way.
Next Wednesday after class Tony finds himself at the library. With Steve. At Steve’s spot. Just push forward, don’t have time for feelings to catch up with you, he thinks to himself.
They continue working on their new project. “How to analyze Shakespeare’s plays on the page and in performance.”
“This is strange, isn’t it?” Steve says and turns to see Tony’s doe eyes looking up at him.
“What is?” Tony asks innocently.
“You and me. Being friends.”
“We’re not friends, Rogers.” Tony says, but he’s smiling, just a little. “Speaking of, why aren’t we friends? Why do our fraternities hate each other so much?”
Steve looks up at him, mouth open wide. “You don’t know?”
Tony shrugs. He knows fraternity rivalries are inevitable but they tend to be fundamentally ridiculous. Sometimes the beef between the two houses is necessary. Nobody is going to get over a physical fight or property damage. The origins vary, sometimes you live close to another house, causing a rivalry just by simple proximity. Or sometimes it would start by always competing against each other in various rec sports to get first place.
“It’s actually really ridiculous how this rivalry is still going on. It’s a natural thing, that where fraternities are there are fraternity rivalries. Sometimes the rivalry is justified, but a brother getting punched in the face is not something to shrug off. Also not easy to justify a rivalry when the first punch was thrown in 1948. After the president of your fraternity shouted to our president something about his mom. The details are a little hazy.”
Tony started laughing. “That's what this is all about?” He said pointing in between him and Rogers.
Steve smiled then, his cheeks turning red. “What makes this so ridiculous. Is that it doesn’t really matter why two fraternities are rivals. What makes the rivalries so ridiculous is the things they make us say and think. You hate everything about them. And it’s even more stupid when you start to nitpick every little thing about them. One time I walked by your house and saw that you hung an awful painted banner, and I thought to myself ‘Damn, their pledges suck, they can’t even paint a fucking banner’.”
“To be fair, you’re looking at our banners with an artist's eye, of course, it’s going to be bad.”
“And what eye am I supposed to be looking at it with?”
“Okay, fine, I’ll give it to you. Our banners are not the greatest.”
“Not the greatest! The number of typos I see in them! Is nobody double-checking them? How many different ways can you spell fraternity wrong?”
“Hey, it’s a long word okay? Plus it’s normally the pledges fucking up the banners.”
Their talk was interrupted when Bucky Barnes approached their table. No, Tony thinks it’s Steve’s table. He has no attachment to this isolated area of the library.
“Hey, Tony,” Bucky says nicely.
“Hey, Bucky,” Tony replies.
Steve looks back and forth between them. “Why is this so civil? This is not normal. Are you two about to fight in the library? Please don’t.”
Bucky smirks. “Calm down Stevie, Tony and I go way back.”
“What?!” He turns to Tony waiting for proof, Tony nods. Steve looks like a disgruntled pelican looking back and forth again. “You two know each other?”
Bucky nods. “Remember, the year you got suspended then had to switch school—” He gets cut off by Tony.
Who points a finger at Steve. “You! Mr. Teacher's pet! Got suspended? For an entire year?”
Steve puts his head in his hands as Tony deals with the shock. Bucky laughs. “God, don’t fall for his little innocent act, the stories I have.”
Steve slowly brings his face up, “I still don’t know how you two know each other.”
“Well, Tony also got suspended from his boarding school. So while he was switching schools he went to ours for a semester. It’s actually pretty funny, y’all missed each other just by a little bit.”
Steve’s face is comical. Tony turns to Bucky. “What are you doing in the library? I don’t think I saw you ever go once in high school.”
Bucky gives him the finger then reaches out of his pocket to give Steve the house key. “Don’t come home too late,” he says, leaving the room as fast as he entered.
“Little goody two shoes, got suspended?”
“Hey, you got suspended too.”
“Ah, yes the parallels to our lives, we are different sides of the same coin.”
“So what? You and Bucky act like you hate each other. Although, you guys are cool with each other. All because you had one class together in high school?”
“Yep, I say we have given some truly Oscar award-winning fights.”
“So, that whole fight at the intramurals volleyball game was scripted?”
“Yep, and also the fight at the coffee shop.”
“I’m going to need time to process this new development,” Steve says, still staring intensely at Tony.
Surprisingly the next time they meet is not at the library or class. Tony quite literally runs into Steve while at the coffee shop. Their collision causes Tony to drop his phone. Sadly, the muffin he was holding onto for dear life slips out of hand. As he steadies himself, he looks up to start yelling at them about his food. When he notices he quite literally bumped into Steve.
“I think you dropped this, you’re lucky I caught it before it fell on the ground.”
Tony is seriously contemplating if this is real life. He had been in his lab for too many long hours, that they had blended in together as one. “Thank you for your service, I shall repay you by naming my firstborn after you.”
“A simple, thank you would have worked.”
“You’re telling me you don’t want my first born to be named after you? Going once, going twice.”
“I actually wanted to talk to you about something.” Shit. Now Tony is processing what Steve could talk to him about. Tony hadn’t even done anything all week. He’d been cooped up in the lab. “Have you been checking your emails?” What an odd question to ask. Tony thinks about the last time he even checked it. Steve continues, “obviously, by the look of your face I know it wasn’t any time recently.”
Tony nods.
“Well, if you had checked you would see that we are starting a new project next week. It’s worth ¼ of our grade. Instead of our strictly usual seat partner, you get to choose your own. Did you want to work with each other? I honestly don’t think I’ve talked to anyone else in that class except for you. What do you think?”
“Be careful, Rogers you might become codependent on me.”
“You wish.”
“Well, for our last project, I guess I could be convinced to work with you.”
Steve rolls his eyes, “enjoy your muffin, that I helped save because of my amazing quick reflexes,” Steve says as he backs away.
“The only reason my muffin was gonna fall was that you ran into me!” Ha, he ended up getting the last word.
Next Wednesday, Tony accepts Steve’s offer of the coffee. As he begins drinking it, the professor goes over the last project of the semester. This year was going by really fast, he actually enjoyed it so far. A vast improvement from September Tony wishing for it to be over. Now he was dreading the exam season. Plus the extra stress added onto it by going home for Christmas break. He was excited to see his mom, not so much his dad.
Opposite to the first time. For the last time, they have to choose a project Tony goes up and selects one for them. He quickly signs their name to Analyze Macbeth through knowledge of historical context. Tony had studied all about Macbeth in high school, it actually was his favourite Shakespeare play.
The rest of the month is dealing with New England winter, cold nights, dark nights starting at 5. The highlight reel of the month looks like this: a snapshot of Steve grinning at a passage in Macbeth, a snapshot of Pepper, Rhodey, Nat, Peter, and him playing Clue on their Game Night. This then leads to the snapshot of Tony winning the game of Clue because while they were playing checkers he was playing chess, a snapshot of the last Karaoke Night of the year.
They practice their presentation more times than Tony has ever practiced for anything in his life. His whole life motto had always been to just wing it. But he can see that Steve is stressed so he agrees to go through it as many times as Steve wants. It’s when they are practicing when Steve mentions he’s excited to visit his mom. In Brooklyn. Which means Tony is going to be in the same area as Steve. Well, there was a whole bridge that separated their Burroughs but the point still stands. Somehow the conversation shifts to obscure knowledge then, useless academic insights that they know. They both agree that all knowledge is worthwhile knowledge.
Knowing them, they breeze through their presentation. Tony honestly can say he enjoyed this class. Although in the beginning, he was sort of acting out. But that was probably because as Shakespeare would say, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
He and Steve head to the library for one last time. They drop off the books they had signed out and head to Steve’s corner area. They sit there in the excitement that is that they finished their project. All the nerves and stress leaving his body slowly.
“I actually got you something,” Tony says, reaching into his bag. “An early Christmas gift.”
“Tony, you really didn’t have to,” Steve says, but still moves closer to Tony to get a peak. Tony drops the poorly wrapped gift in front of Steve.
He had been walking past the bookstore when he saw the poster. He hadn’t even thought it through, Tony immediately bought the poster.
As Steve carefully takes apart the wrapping, Tony waits. He immediately hears laughter, that’s good, right? This means that he thinks it’s funny, so Tony’s plan did work. Tony turns and Steve's smile is so bright.
“This one is definitely going on the wall,” Steve says, proudly lifting up the Iron Man poster.
“Truly honored, that it has made it onto the wall.”
“Thank you, Tony it’s really nice of you.” Steve’s hand rests on Tony’s thigh, Tony was heating up and had no idea why. They must have turned up the heating in the library, that was the only possible solution.
Tony immediately tries to turn his eyes anywhere else, he’s always been a little bit weird when people thank him. Then with the whole Steve touching him, it added up together.
“I actually got you something too, but it’s a little bit unconventional for a gift.” How is Steve always surprising him? He thought he was the only one with the idea of giving a gift today. Now it’s Steve’s turn to reach into his bag while the one hand resting on his thigh moves up to cover Tony’s eyes. He feels something placed into his lap, then Steve’s hand comes off of his face. He sort of missed the weird sense of heat. He looks down at his lap then throws his head back in laughter.
“Shut up! How?” He exclaims as he waves the DVD of Ratatouille in Steve’s face. It was only a couple weeks ago where Tony had expressed his concerns that they took the movie off of Netflix. Which caused Tony to rant about for weeks. Mainly ranting how all he wanted to do was watch it, was that too much to ask for? He had been seriously contemplating just illegally watching it from a sketchy website when Steve had yelled at him about getting viruses on his laptop.
“I saw it while I was out doing errands, made me think of you since it’s all I’ve been hearing for the past month.”
“Thank you, I’m going to spend the entire break cherishing this cinematic masterpiece.”
Steve nods, “as you should, I honestly don’t know why this movie is such a big deal for you, I’ve never seen it.”
“Well, now that I have the physical copy of it you are welcome to come over anytime to watch it.”
“It’s a date.” Everything happened so fast. Tony’s brain finally caught up, they were close. Really close, they both looked at each other. Steve’s blue eyes staring into Tony’s brown eyes. Tony had no clue who leaned in first. All of a sudden, their lips were pressed into each other. This was good, like addictively good. Tony moved his hands to grab Steve’s face. Steve deepens the kiss, Tony can hear tiny noises that he is making all because of Steve.
Steve’s lips and tongue felt nice and hot against his. His skin was radiating heat. Steve’s hands came to Tony’s waist, Steve wrapped his arms around Tony’s body.
Steve pulled away then, started sucking the area on his neck. Steve proceeded to kiss the area. He was driving Tony insane, Tony makes a noise that is much louder than he thought it would be. Steve pulls back, he’s breathing heavily with wide eyes, his cheeks bright red. Steve stares, “this was not a smart idea.”
Tony’s brain is still catching up when he hears Steve’s apology and some curses. Steve is moving backward, grabbing his bag, then rushing in a way that he is not running but is certainly faster than a walk. It was all happening so fast, that Tony stands still until Steve completely disappears from his line of sight.
“Oh,” Tony says, in the empty library corner, touching one hand to his lips.