better than the rest
Before he can even get a damn word out, Howard punches Tony right in the nose. Rings and all.
“You’re, by far, the most spoiled little brat I’ve ever seen,” Howard sneers, watching as his son clutches his bleeding mouth and nose in his hands. “I don’t give a shit about if you want to go or not. You’re going. This camp—You’re gonna learn how to get your hands dirty. Learn to rough it. You’ve gone soft, boy, but all you need is a good push.”
“I’m busy,” Tony hisses.
“Yeah? And I don’t give a shit. Start packing.”
“You—You can’t force me,” he says as clearly as he can, voice muffled and croaky from the blood oozing from his mouth and nose. “I have projects to work on, prototypes, I don’t need to go to some damn children’s sleep away camp for an entire month. It’s pointless.”
Howard hits him again, and it doesn’t take long for Tony to stop arguing.
—
In all honesty, it’s not that he doesn’t want to go because he’s too busy—that’s complete bullshit. He’d find out a way to work on projects at the stupid camp regardless. There are lots of ways to busy himself despite unavailability to his fancy labs or whatever. Another pro is that he’ll be away from home for a month, and that means being away from Howard. He hasn’t really left the house all summer, unless he’s being dragged to dinner parties or something.
Of course, there’s also the fact that he just doesn’t feel like staying in a crusty old cabin with nine other boys his age and singing fucking kumbaya around a stupid fireplace. And then there’s the heat. And the mosquitoes. Fucking god, the mosquitoes. He’ll need to pack bug spray.
“Jarvis,” he says to the empty room, “Order bug spray. The more expensive the better. Use dad’s credit card.”
The AI responds instantly. “The most expensive eight ounce bottle on the market is fifty six dollars. Would you like to place the order, Master Tony?”
“Order three of those. Just because I can.”
“Order has been placed. It will arrive in two days.”
“Thanks, Jar. You’re the only thing that keeps me sane, these days.”
“I’d hardly say that you’re still sane,” Jarvis snarks, and he doesn’t say anything else after that.
Tony reads up on the summer camp/prison he’s being sent to, and it seems innocent enough. There’s activities like rock climbing, kayaking, canoeing, go-kart racing (seriously, what kind of camp has go-karts?), and even paintball. Like, the gentler, more kid friendly paintball guns, but they’re still paintball guns. He’s definitely gonna murder someone’s ass playing that, and he’s gonna love every second of it.
Not that he’s excited, of course.
When Jarvis informs him that Howard has scheduled for him to leave for camp the next morning, he groans. Great fucking job at communicating, dad, it’s not like Tony doesn’t have things to do.
Practically dragging himself out of bed and to his feet, Tony slams open his closet door, making a loud noise that he’s sure echoes through the entire mansion just because he can.
He kind of, just... throws a whatever clothes he can see into his suitcase. A bunch of sweatshirts and sweatpants, even though it’s freakishly hot outside, because he would rather throw himself into a dumpster than wear anything exposing his arms or whatever. It may be hot, yes, but Tony won’t bother changing into less covering clothes. And, no, he won’t tell you why.
Then he packs a mini-fridge, just because.
By the time all of his bags are laid out, Tony’s got over three luggages, two duffel bags, and an additional full-length mirror, because he wants to be extra and show off how high maintenance he is. He also has entire box dedicated to bars of chocolate and other candies, but he’s willing to share with anyone who gets on his good side.
“Sir, would you like me to keep a full report of everything that happens in the mansion while you’re gone?”
Shit. Jarvis.
Tony can’t leave Jarvis. He won’t survive. No, it’s not because Jarvis is his only friend—that would be just plain sad. Yeah. Totally pathetic.
He spent over a year designing Jarvis, writing his code and programming his personality, showing the AI how to hack Howard’s schedules and cameras for Tony’s convenience, and he’s still constantly making improvements. By this point, Jarvis is one of the most intelligent robots in America.
There’s no way that Tony will be able to adjust to life without Jarvis. For an entire month, no less.
“Fuck, Jar,” Tony says, shaking his head and clicking his tongue. “What are we gonna do with you?”
“I presume you’re thinking of something outlandish and morally travailing to spend hours on?”
“You know me so well. Bring me the drafts for that idea I had back in February.”
Tony spends all night downloading Jarvis’ consciousness into a hand-built electronic wrist attachment, making him completely mobile—it’s a huge accomplishment, from Tony’s perspective. He used to always spend all day at school miserable and tired, waiting for the moment he could come home and pester Jarvis about new coding improvements or plans to sneak out of the mansion. (Jarvis quickly became accustomed to deleting the security footage of Tony climbing out of his window at night.) Even then, the robot’s capabilities were limited to what happened at home. Now, he has his own personal assistant that he can take wherever he goes.
By morning, he’s clinging onto consciousness with a cup of black coffee in his weak hand, but, hey. Worth it. Now he has an artificially intelligent computer literally sitting on his wrist.
“Sir,” the familiar yet smaller voice says from Tony’s watch—he’ll have to get used to that. “Howard left a message for you seven seconds ago. He said for you to come downstairs, and that a chauffeur is waiting to help load the car and take you to Shield Sleep-away Camp.”
“Shield. Sounds prestigious.”
“He also said for you to haul ass. Shall I answer?”
“No. Leave that asshole on read. Better yet, tell him to suck my dick.”
“That would be unwise.”
Tony scoffs, grabbing his bags.
—
All in all, as he steps through the doors of the front office, Tony rules the camp to be a major disappointment, even though he didn’t have any expectations to begin with.
He checks in on his own, to the lady at the counter’s surprise, as she obviously expects for him to have a parent in tow. His short 5’4 stature doesn’t exactly help him look more mature, either.
“Name?” she asks.
“Tony Stark. My father already sent in the medical and registration forms last week, to my understanding, and he sent the check here as well. He was informed on the phone that it would be fine.”
“Oh. Yes, I’m aware. Is your father...”
“Howard Stark? Sadly, yes.”
Poor girl. She almost gapes. It’s not surprising, though—his father is a household name. “How old are you, sir?”
Tony sighs, looking at the floor. He chooses to ignore that she addresses him so formally. “Fourteen.”
She types something up on her computer.
“Okay, sir. You’ll be staying at the Emmaus cabin, so you can have your dad drive to the male cabin area where he can drop off all of your belongings and help you set up. Your cabin counselor will explain the rules, as well as introduce you to the other boys in your cabin. Have a great day!”
Her smile is so fake that Tony almost cringes as he leaves.
—
The chauffeur—god, Tony can’t remember his name for the life of him—pulls the black Tesla right in front of the Emmaus cabin, a shitty little thing, with an air conditioner poking out of the side and dead leaves covering the ground around it. It’s surrounded by other cabins that look exactly like it, other than the small sign by the door that says the cabin name.
Immediately, Tony realizes, as he drags a suitcase inside, the Tesla is a bit of an attention drawer. A bunch of boys that happen to be walking by see his car and his chauffeur, staring and talking amongst themselves as Tony shrugs it off.
And, well, the cabin’s interior isn’t any better than the exterior, disappointingly enough.
It’s not horrible. It’s just crowded, with five bunk beds and a mess of belongings everywhere. A bunch of dirty clothes on the floor, and he’s already tempted to form an escape plan. Jarvis can help him with that, it wouldn’t be hard.
“New?”
Tony nearly drops his bag onto his foot, head turning to the person behind him. “What?”
The boy, probably Tony’s age, with dark skin and an unimpressed snark, glances him up and down. “You’re new, right?”
Scoffing, Tony dumps his belongings onto the only barren bunk bed. He does not have time to deal with snobby kids who think they’re better than him. “Yeah. What about it?”
“People have been talking,” the boy says, strolling right past Tony and going to one of the beds—the bunk right next to him, good grief—and digs through one of the bags, pulling out a water bottle. “Saying that Tony Stark, one of the richest teenagers in America, was going to come this week. Lots of girls are going insane about it. I just didn’t expect for you to be so...” He pauses. “I don’t know. Un-intimidating.”
“Excuse me, I am very intimidating,” Tony says, throwing a hand to cover his heart in offense.
“You’re as tall as some of the twelve years old campers.”
“I’m not short, I’m fun sized—“
“Cool it. There are some assholes here who won’t tolerate your snarking as much as I will. Let’s just say that... if you pick an argument with the wrong person,” he says, “The first aid cabin is always open.”
Tony crosses his arms. “You don’t scare me.”
“I’m not trying to.” The boy holds his arm out, offering to shake hands, and Tony obliges, even if he isn’t thrilled about it. “I’m James Rhodes. You can call me—“
“I’m gonna call you Rhodey,” says Tony, shortly.
Now, don’t get him wrong—Tony has absolutely no intentions to make friends here. He’s beyond that, at this point, and there are more important things on his mind than feelings or human interaction or whatever.
But, there’s always the possibility that what Rhodey is saying will be true. Back in school, all of the popular jock assholes tried to pick fights with Tony because everyone assumed he was a snobby asshole since he didn’t talk to anyone. Tony got used to it, fought back, sued the parents, got his revenge, rinse and repeat.
Having an ally or two to show him the ropes would be an obvious way to make it through the month with easy sailing.
Play along.
Rhodey frowns. “Rhodey?”
“Yep. Rhodey. I’m calling you Rhodey, don’t fight it,” he grins.
Rhodey doesn’t seem impressed, but he doesn’t protest any further. Instead, he tosses his water bottle to his other hand, circles around to the door, and clears his throat. “You coming?”
“Coming where?”
“Activities are still in progress. Rest of the cabin won’t be back until after lunch, so you probably won’t meet them until later, since the activity track sign-up isn’t open to new campers until lunchtime. I can take you there later.”
“Oh. Well, since I don’t exactly have any activities, where the hell am I supposed to go?”
Rhodey sighs.
“You can come with me. I’ll just ditch my track and give you a tour of the camp—I doubt that Maria will give a shit.”
Grinning, Tony follows the boy, gears already turning in his head.
—
“No, what the fuck, I already told you that you need a life jacket yesterday, Barnes, I’m not going to warn you again—“
“You’re such a bum, Maria!” Bucky whines, tearing his shirt off and paying no mind to the bright yellow life jacket that the woman tries to shove in his direction. “Anyways, you didn’t make Thor go there last time, this is obvious favoritism.”
“I didn’t need to make him go to the nurse for a paper cut. You’re making stuff up.”
“It’s just a minor scrape!”
“Barnes, your knee is gushing blood, go to the fucking nurse.”
“Bucky,” Steve says sternly, grabbing the boy’s bag for him and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll take you to first aid. Come on.”
“Steve, you know that i hate that bitch at the office. She treats me like some charity case cus’ of that time I clogged the water slide with Sam.”
“Bucky, please,” Steve whines, and he pulls out the damn puppy eyes. The fucking puppy eyes. Steve knows that Bucky can’t resist those, the little punk.
Their track counselor, a brunette woman with a squared jaw named Maria Hill, sighs and rests her sunglasses on her head. Bucky and her are constantly bickering and going at it—but she has a soft spot for all her campers, letting them get away with basically anything, despite her stern demeanor. “What did you cut yourself on?”
Bucky shrugs, shoulders hunched as he looks down at the floor. “A kayak.”
“A kayak?”
“I dropped it on my leg while Thor was helping me drag it out of the water,” the boy admits.
Maria sighs again.
“Steve,” she says, walking away towards the other track campers, where Bucky can faintly see Sam throwing a paddle into the green lake water, despite Bruce’s protests. “Take your boyfriend to the first aid clinic. Make sure he gets bandaged up. If that bitchy nurse tries to give him shit, tell her to radio me, and don’t mention the kayak. Tell her he tripped.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Steve says, and drags a groaning Bucky away, down the trail and towards the main walkway.
—
“This is the snack shack,” Rhodey says, pointing at a log building with roofed area outside, filled with bench tables. A counselor in a window sells chips and soda to sweaty children as they wait in line, holding coins and dollars as they look at the price menu above the window. “Everyone gets it as an activity once a day. I take track 45, so me and my group get it as our second activity. During snack shack, you can go to the sports pavilion or the volleyball net or the gaga pit—“
“What the hell is a gaga pit?” Tony asks.
“It’s, like, this fenced circle with sand on the bottom. It’s like dodgeball but there’s no teams.”
“I’ve never heard of that in my life.”
“You don’t seem like the type of person to get out of the house much, so I’m not surprised,” Rhodey grins. “Anyways, do you have any idea what track you want to do? Since you’re fourteen you can either do 43 with the thirteen year olds, 44 with the fourteen year olds, or 45 with us.”
“‘Us’?”
“The rest of the Emmaus cabin, we’re all fifteen. We’re also all friends, so we chose the same track. It can be... hectic, at times, since Sam and Bucky are basically walking crackheads, but I’d recommend more than the thirteen or fourteen year olds. They’re obnoxious.”
“So I should do track 45,” Tony says.
“Do what you want.”
“Then I want to do track 45,” he says.
More people for him to entertained by, he supposes.
The rest of the little tour that Rhodey gives him goes by quickly; a few girls whisper and stare in his direction, which is expected—Tony is above average in the looks category. No acne or anything, with dark brown hair that rests on the top of his head and a skinny, slightly muscular frame. He’s practically bombarded with teenage girls and boys alike, who all reluctantly back off once they find out that he’s only fourteen.
As it is, Tony’s pretty tired of being used as eye candy all the time. Not to be cocky or anything. He’s just... bored of it.
Rhodey’s a hoot, he realizes, and he’s someone that Tony is glad that he can bicker with. He’s a worthy guy to snark to, because he always keeps it up and snarks at Tony back, which is always fun. It’s entertaining. It’s better than people constantly writing Tony off as ‘rude’ or ‘snobby’ since he has a bit of a loudmouth.
As for the woods? Well, it’s... pretty.
The surrounding forest and trees are a lush green, the ground covered in leaves and y’all grass where it hasn’t been covered in pavement or cleared off for walking paths. The lakes are kinda alarmingly green, but Tony asked already and apparently no one has died of fungus or parasites or whatever, so he assumes it’s safe.
The activities seem fun, too. He catches sight of a fucking water slide, like, three yellow ones with an actual pool at the bottom. Lifeguards stationed almost everywhere. Swimming, canoeing, kayaking, something that looks like a group of bounce houses/obstacle course things on the water, and, well, a lot of stuff that he hasn’t even seen yet.
Things finally start looking up for him, even if the mosquitoes are annoying. Maybe this summer won’t suck as horribly as he thought.
“Hey, Stark! I didn’t think I’d see your faggot ass here!”
So of course Johnny Hammer has to shove him to the floor and ruin his good mood.
—
Steve is a small, lanky little thing.
He’s only 5’5, barely weighing in at 110 pounds, with a laundry list of health problems that he wouldn’t list off for a million dollars. Asthma is one of them, the one that people notice first, and scoliosis is another. That’s all he’ll say without feeling too self conscious.
When he struggles to carry the weight of his annoying boyfriend Bucky, who practically lays on top of Steve as they stumble down the pavement and towards the first aid clinic, it’s almost pathetically laughable.
“Bucky,” Steve huffs, shoving the boy off of him and watching as he stumbles back onto his bleeding leg. “Bucky, you’re so annoying. Will you please just—help me here?”
“I don’t wanna go to the nurse. It smells like ass in there!”
“You need a band aid,” Steve groans, throwing Bucky’s arm over his shoulders again. He isn’t going down without a fight, that’s for sure. “I’m never kissing you again. You’re so fucking—“
“Jesus, Hammer, did you have a brain tumor for breakfast!?”
The two teenager snap their heads in the direction of Rhodes’ troubled voice, coming from the snack shack area—a crowd gathers around something that Steve can’t see, but he hears the commotion of all the children and teens chattering and yelling.
Before Steve can even say anything, Bucky is running towards the crowd.
“Come on, faggot,” some asshole rich kid named Johnny Hammer spits, looking down at some—some person—on the sidewalk. Probably some kid he decided to pick a fight with. “Get up. Let’s show everyone how big and bad Tony Stark is!”
“Eat a dick, Hammer!” the boy on the ground growls.
By the time Steve is able to shove his way through the crowd to see the madness, Rhodes is in front of Hammer, arms spread out in an effort to make peace.
“Look, man,” he says, voice threateningly calm, “Stark is just seeing the camp. He’s not here to pick fights, he’s not here to show off or anything, he’s here like the rest of us.”
“Oh, sure I am,” the boy—Tony Stark—says as he makes his way to the feet, and, well, all Steve can say is that he’s comparable to a chihuahua who forgot to take its anger medication. “I’m definitely not stuck in this godforsaken camp just to show off my monster dick to douchebags like Johnny Hammer, that would just be—“
He’s cut off with a punch to the nose, and suddenly Steve is being held back.
“Steve, no!” Bucky yells, holding the blonde by the stomach as he struggles and thrashes, trying to throw himself into the fight.
Everyone starts moving. The surrounding crowd struggles and chants, some running to get counselors, Johnny Hammer towering over the boy curled into a ball on the floor, and Rhodey being pulled away by Pepper Potts as he yells.
Steve expects for Stark to get his ass kicked. To be hit and thrown around, until he’s bleeding on the floor and has to be wheeled to the office to be sent to the hospital. That’s how all the prep, above-it-all kids end up once they’re called out on their bullshit. The difference between those kids and Stark is that Stark was apparently minding his own business. So, one would only assume that he wouldn’t do a good job at putting up a fight after being caught off guard.
What he doesn’t expect, however, is the way that Stark kicks Hammer straight in the damn nose.
A crack, and then the larger teen is flying back, nose bleeding as he holds his hands over the injury—blood drips down onto his chin and down to the floor, where it soaks into the sidewalk.
Stark is on his feet before anyone can even blink, throwing himself on top of his opponent and hitting and punching like an animal. Then they’re both on their feet, Hammer’s moves all sloppy as he misses, while Stark moves with the grace of a very angry cat, carrying himself on his feet with fluidity as he places each hit with intense precision.
Hammer manages to knock Stark down by kicking his knees in, toppling the smaller boy over and straddling him, wrapping his hands around his throat and squeezing. Steve is almost able to break free of Bucky’s grasp, he’s so fucking close, that damn kid must be suffocating by now—
“HEY!! BREAK IT UP!!”
Maria Hill breaks through the crowd, grabbing Hammer by the collar and throwing him away from Tony, who’s hyperventilating and red but he still looks ready to fight.
“What he fuck is this?” she asks—more like she commands—and no one knows what to say. They’re dead silent. Rhodey is the first one to speak.
“Hammer came up to Tony and picked a fight for no reason. Tony was defending himself—“
“He kicked me in the nose!” Hammer yells, gargled from the blood.
“Shut up,” Hill says, one hand on her hip and the other pinching the bridge of her nose. “Hammer, get your ass to the nurse. Better yet, go to Fury’s office afterwards. I don’t tolerate trying to strangle any of our campers, newbies or otherwise.”
“Fuckin’ bitch,” the teen sneers, and Tony starts launching himself at him again, caught and held back by a very unimpressed looking Pepper.
Hill scoffs. “That’s it!! You’re getting written up!”
“You can’t fucking do that! You already gave me two in the past three weeks!”
“Good!” she growls, “That means you’re banned from camp for the rest of the summer! Pack your bags, call your parents, and if I ever see your lousy ass on the property ever again,” she pauses, stepping closer to the teenager, towering over him as he slightly quivers, “you better believe that your ass is grass.”
Hammer leaves, but not before flipping the woman off and spitting at Tony’s feet.
“Everyone away,” Hill says, watching the crowd dissipate as Rhodes and her help Tony stand.
“Well,” Bucky mutters, so that only Steve can hear, “I think we just found ourselves a new muse.”
Steve scoffs.
—
“So let me get this straight,” a tall girl with straight, strawberry blonde hair scowls, crossing her arms as she stares Tony down like a hawk. She stands right next to Rhodey, her figure slim and nothing short of intimidating.
She’s pretty.
“You—you stepped foot in this camp less than half an hour ago, and already, you managed to provoke Johnny Hammer enough that he almost strangled you to death in front of a bunch of eight year olds?”
“There were eleven year olds there, too,” Rhodey defends.
“Yeah, and besides,” Tony mutters, holding an ice pack to his swollen cheek as the nurse wraps up his scraped up arm, “I didn’t do shit—“
“Language,” the nurse says, some lady named Bonquisha or something. She remains ignored by the three teens.
“I didn’t do anything to him. He went up to me and shoved me to the floor!”
“How the hell did he even know who you are?”
Frowning, Tony rolls his eyes as he puts the ice pack down on the table that he sits atop of. “School.”
“What?”
“He bullied me back in school,” Tony grumbles. “Well, I wouldn’t say bullied. More along the lines of, him and my dad are business competitors, and HammerTech is pissed that my dad stole some of their best employees, so Johnny Hammer started taking his dad’s frustrations out on me. That’s all there is to it. Apparently it was a surprise to him that I’d be in this shithole of a camp in the first place.”
“Well, you don’t seem like the type of person to ‘rough it,’ per say,” the girl says.
“What are you—“
“You’re literally wearing a rolex,” replies Rhodey.
“It was a birthday present from my Aunt Madeline!”
“It’s excessive. And, evidently, a lot of people feel the same way. Johnny was just an example of some of the pricks here. You’re fresh meat, Stark,” the girl says, “And lots of people will try to take advantage of that. This camp isn’t exactly the most peaceful.”
“I feel like I know why my dad sent me here, then,” the short boy scowls. “He probably wanted this shit to happen.”
Rhodey and the girl turn to each other, whispering.
“Look,” she says, barely loud enough for Tony to hear, “If you’re gonna shield this kid for the entire time he’s here, you’re gonna become a target too—“
“It was a one time thing,” whispers Rhodey. “As long as he minds his business and stays low, I doubt that we’ll get another repeat of today. Hammer was an asshole, we all knew that—if anything, we should be thanking Tony for getting the guy kicked out.”
“That’s not my—“
“I’m right here, you know,” Tony grits out.
“He’s gonna be fine, Pepper, I’ll make sure of it. He’s in the Emmaus cabin, for fuck’s sake, and you know how serious Thor and Steve are about that kind of shi—stuff.”
“Steve is as intimidating as a golden retriever puppy,” the girl, Pepper, says. Something tells Tony that he’ll be thinking of her name more often.
“Okay, but you—you saw him at the fight earlier. He was this close to decking Hammer in the face on his own, his boyfriend had to hold him back.”
“Yeah, and—“
“His boyfriend?” Tony interrupts, before he even realizes how douchey he sounds. When he does, his stomach drops to his fucking dick, and he immediately wishes he never said it. Out of context, he must sound like such an asshole. Calling out the mere mention of a boy having a boyfriend.
Rhodey looks at him, eyebrow raised, and Pepper glares daggers at Tony—looking unamused. “Yes?” she says, grimly. “Problem?”
He draws back. “N-No problem, that’s not what I... I, just... I’m not a homophobe, I swear.”
And it’s true! He isn’t a homophobe, isn’t someone who constantly shits on the gay community like Howard does—it just, uh, caught him off guard to hear something about a boy his age having a boyfriend. It feels so damn foreign to him. Maybe it’s that fact that the word ‘faggot’ is thrown at him so often, shoved down his throat even when he wasn’t old enough to know what it meant. Being gay is supposed to be wrong, in Howard’s eyes. God hates gays, he says.
Tony never understood Howard.
“There’s no problem,” he says again, desperately trying to get his point made. “No problem at all. I literally don’t care.”
Rhodey and Pepper don’t say anything for a minute, and Tony feels... nervous. He never feels nervous around people his age. Normally, it’s the other way around.
“Okay, man,” Rhodey says. “I believe you.”
“You do understand that if you, for whatever reason, do have a problem with Steve and Bucky,” Pepper seethes, pointing a finger at Tony’s chest threateningly, “We’re going to have an issue.”
Speak of the devil, apparently, because as soon as the girl finishes speaking, the door of he first aid cabin bursts open, a pair of two boys yelling at each other as they come inside.
“I told you, Bucky,” the smaller one with bright blue eyes and blonde hair says, arm linked with the other one as they bicker. Adorable. They’re oblivious to the other people in the room, making their way to the back table where the nurse grumbles to herself, pulling out even more bandages. “I said that I don’t need you to hold me back, you’re not my damn impulse control, you’re just annoying!”
“You were gonna get molly wopped by that Stark guy,” Bucky retorts, plopping himself on top of a table. His knee is practically split open, bleeding down his calve, but he doesn’t seem to care. Other than his injury, he’s nothing short of charming, with his baby blue eyes and his dark brown hair. “Nurse Bonquisha, oh how I’ve missed you.”
The nurse glares at the boy. “Again, Barnes?”
“What do you mean again?” Steve says.
“Your boyfriend came to me yesterday after he fell head first onto a rock after jumping off the roof of your cabin. You didn’t see the bruise?”
Gasping, the blonde hits his boyfriend over the head with his fist. With his heart warming up, Tony can admit that they’re simply adorable together. They’re both like polar opposites in appearance, yet they’re exactly the type of boys that Tony finds—
Fuck. Disregard that, please.
“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Steve yells.
“You woulda’ been mad at me,” Bucky defends. “Not my fault that you’re—“
Rhodey clears his throat. The boys go silent.
“Lover’s quarrel?” Pepper asks.
Leg bandaged, Bucky hops down from the table, eyes landing on Tony—shit. “Holy shit! You’re the new kid!”
“Guilty,” Tony mutters.
“You put up a good fight with Hammer, I’ll give you that,” Bucky grins, tucking his hands into his pockets as he looks Tony up and down. “Wow, you’re somethin’ else, aren’t you, Stark?”
“Keep your crummy eyes to yourself. He’s fresh meat.”
“You also have? Oh yeah!! A boyfriend!” says Steve.
“Aight, aight, I’m just tryna see what the kid is all about, man!” Bucky says, Brooklyn accent seeping through his speech as he throws his hands in the air. “He’s just... new looking.”
Degradingly enough, Tony blushes, looking down at his knees.
“You’re more reserved than I thought you’d be,” Steve says, looking amused. “I’ve heard a lot about you, uh, being a bit of a priss. Not the type of kid who would come here.”
“Wasn’t by choice,” he says, regaining his bravado back, thank god. “My asshole of a father isn’t exactly—“
“You mean Howard Stark?” Steve asks.
“Yeah. Howard. Well, he sent me here, mostly to punish me for staying in the house all summer and being a floozy. That’s what he said.”
Bucky’s face twists up. “But Howard Stark, my dad met him at a convention or something, and he said he was really nice.”
“Howard’s two faced. Trust me. He punched me in the nose just three days ago because I told him I didn’t want to come here for a fucking month.”
The four other teens in the room gape at Tony.
“I’m gonna punch him in the nose if I ever see him.”
“Steve, no,” mutters Rhodey.
“What cabin?” Bucky asks.
“Emmaus.”
“Holy shit, you’re with us,” Steve says as Bucky, for whatever reason, picks him up bridal style and tucks his face into his neck. Fucking god. That’s so cute. The shorter boy doesn’t even look like he gives a damn, just keeps talking to Tony casually. “I feel horrible for you. You’re not going to get any sleep.”
“I can see flashlights on in your cabin from the other side of camp,” says Pepper. “My cabin hates yours. You don’t let anyone get any sleep.”
“I don’t really sleep anyways,” remarks Tony.
“Sam and Steve are constantly yelling at each other in the middle of the night. Do you own any earplugs?”
“I’m not an idiot. Of course I do.”
“How many pairs?”
“I have an entire duffel bag full of them.”
Rhodey grimaces. The nurse kicks all of the teens out of the room.
—
“Tell me about the boy,” says Jasper Sitwell, hands laced together as his legs rest on top of his desk, expression dark as he stares at the new attendance sign up sheet.
“Fourteen. About 5’3. Picked a fight with one of the senior campers, Johnny Hammer. Hill kicked the guy out this morning.”
“Provoked?”
“Not sure, no one has written a report for it yet.”
“Hm. What time is it now?”
“...Around four fifty-seven. We still have time before the campers wake up for flag raising.”
“Go to the office, see if you can get any records on the kid. We know the basics, of course, son of Howard Stark and possible heir to the industry. If the juice is going to be worth the squeeze, we need to know everything possible.”
“On it,” Rumlow says, already turning for the exit.
“Oh, and, Brock?”
“Yeah?”
Sitwell rolls his chair back to the window behind him, peeking through the closed blinds. In the distance, the Emmaus cabin’s lights flicker on and off, the boys inside obviously not asleep.
“Don’t let Fury find out,” he says slowly. “Maria or Coulson, either. They won’t hesitate to tell him of anything suspicious, and trust me. This isn’t going to very pleasant.”
“Got it.”
—