not his first kiss
Tony can’t stay.
This entire summer camp thing was stupid as fuck and shitty on it’s own. He didn’t want to be forced to get along with a bunch of asshole teenagers, but Howard didn’t fucking care. He never cares.
Joke’s on Tony for thinking that he’d be able to adjust to this—this lifestyle so well. It was too good to be true. He was so fucking comfortable, so ready to spend a month here with the number of allies he’d made, and then he had to open his damn mouth and expose himself like that. It only makes sense that things wouldn’t work out in the long run. Not with his track record of fucking up good things.
“Jarvis, check the—check the heart. Is it the b-brain?”
Tony didn’t even get the chance to fully adjust to life at camp. He figured that he would eventually get into the swing of things, make a few friends and possibly climb his way to the top along the way. The first day started off good. Too good. Tony actually thought he would have a chance here.
“Nothing unusual, sir.”
He should have known better than to think he was anything better than what he is.
“Is it, like—a, a blood sugar thing? Maybe I was poisoned or s-s-something, why—why else would I...”
“Negative.”
He scoffs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
After his little meltdown in the cabin, and after stunning Steve to silence, Tony had turned around and walked away. The night is pitch black other than the three lampposts lighting up the main path, but he didn’t go in that direction anyways.
He sits at the edge of a lake. One of the smaller ones that’s off to the side of camp, past a line of trees and away from all the buildings. The only activity on this lake is a small motor boat that kids used to go fishing on, but Tony’s heard that no one ever catches anything, so it’s basically deserted. The rusty and abandoned looking boat on the shore is explanatory enough.
No one runs after him. No one goes to look for him. Thank god.
After a minute of considering the shit he’d be in if he’s not in bed by the time campers wake up for flag raising (he doubts that Rhodey and the cabin would be able to keep up a lie for him that would last long), he figures that heading back to the cabin and going to bed without any preamble to anyone would be the next best plan. He hopes that all the boys went to bed already, and that he won’t have to talk to them.
“The why else would... why does my head feel so light? And my heart is beating too fast, and my hands are clammy. Obviously something has to be the matter. You’re better than this, Jar.”
“Well, sir,” Jarvis says, “I would diagnose you with a severe anxiety attack.”
Tony is silent for a moment, soaking it in.
“Me?!” he says, because it’s damn near impossible.
Whatever. Enough said, and point made—he can’t stay in this hellhole for much longer.
And no. He is not thinking impulsively.
—
By the time the sun rises, Tony has the strings of a plan ready.
He’s the first one awake in the cabin, which allows him to be first in the bathroom and therefore the shower. He scrubs himself harder than he’s ever scrubbed himself before.
Okay, that’s a lie. But still.
When he sees the boys shuffling in their bunks, looking like they’re about to wake up, he’s the first one out of the cabin. He walks to the snack shack area and sits alone.
There’s only a few other campers awake this early, and most of them don’t acknowledge nor notice Tony’s presence there. He hopes to god that he’s left alone.
“Stark.”
Fucking god.
Like he’s said before; Natasha Romanov is an enigma to him. Maybe it’s her murder-strut, with her perfect posture and squared shoulders, but maybe it’s her piercing eyes and sharp yet blunt features. There’s also the fact that she’s fucking beautiful, but not in the same way Pepper is. Natasha looks like porcelain, like a russian doll. Pepper is suntanned and freckled, strawberry blonde hair wavy and textured, while Natasha’s hair is disturbingly silky and red. Pepper feels real. Natasha feels like something that would pop up into Tony’s fever dreams.
“What do you want?” he snaps.
She doesn’t seem fazed, not in the slightest. “Why was Rhodey losing his shit, calling me in the middle of the night trying to look for you?”
“I don’t fucking know. Because I had a meltdown in the cabin and ran away.”
“Where did you go all night?”
“None of your concern.”
“It’s my concern when it effects my friends,” Natasha states firmly.
Tony glares at her.
“I can’t do this any longer,” he says.
“Do what?”
“Stay here,” he says absently, “In this godforsaken shit show of a sleep-away camp. I can’t keep up with this facade.”
“It’s been less than two days.”
“Two days too many,” Tony mutters.
The girl huffs. She smooths down her jeans, making a bit of a show as she plops down onto the bench next to Tony. Her posture still remains perfect, so Tony has to ask.
“Have you ever done dance before?”
Natasha gives him a funny look. “Why?”
“You have the posture of a dancer. Your feet are always planted firmly yet lightly, and your shoulders are always squared. You seem like you have the grace of a ballerina.”
“Have you ever done dance before?”
He nods, completely unashamed. “Tap, Hip-Hop, Ballroom, Tango, Ballet. I did gymnastics for a year or two.”
“Why did you quit?”
“My mother was the one who encouraged me to do it. When she left, the big guy wasn’t keen on me ‘wasting my time’ with anything not concerned with how he could make more money.”
Natasha gives another strange, strange look, a mixture of amusement and remorse.
“Ballet,” she says after a moment. “I’ve been doing ballet for ten years.”
“Do you like it?”
A shrug. “I enjoy the sport. Not the bitches and assholes who come with it.”
“What? Like, in the studio you go to?”
“The others in my class. They constantly harass me.”
“Maybe they’re just jealous.”
She shrugs again. “I suppose. I get all the lead rolls in our productions.”
“Like what?”
“Cinderella, Le Corsaire, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake.”
“Are you any good?”
“I wouldn’t have been doing it for ten years if I weren’t any good.”
Tony can imagine it. Natasha with her ruby red hair slicked into a bun, sporting a pair of leggings and a leotard, en pointe on her pink ballet shoes.
Then he imagines her as a ballerina while holding an assault rifle, which fits just as well.
“How are you planning to escape?” she asks, sounding less like ‘that’s ridiculous’ and more like ‘this is gonna be good.’
He shrugs. “I’ve only worked out a general idea, but the execution is up to if things go in my favor.”
“I’ll help you.”
He sighs.
“Okay, yeah. This is going to work.”
—
The Emmaus cabin doesn’t even attempt to hold their relief when they see Tony laughing with Natasha during flag raising an hour or so later.
They bombard him with questions as they all stand before a line of flagpole, counselors yelling at each cabin to stay in organized lines. Scott asks if he slept in the woods, Bruce gives him the basic ‘are you okay?’, Thor gives him a clap on the shoulder and asks where he went, Sam asks if he hooked up with anyone while he was gone, and Rhodey hits him on the head for being so stupid. Bucky and Steve don’t say anything, looking sheepish.
“I didn’t know you two were friends,” Clint says, pouting.
Natasha shrugs, but doesn’t elaborate.
“It was a spur of the moment thing,” says Tony.
“Babe, I thought you said that you thought Stark was a stuck-up snob,” says Clint, to which Tony does a double take. He was not aware of this.
“That was before I found out he was a fellow intellectual,” the girl says cheekily, placing a chaste kiss on Clint’s cheek. “Good morning, stupid.”
“You’re together?” Tony asks.
“Yeah. Since, like, two weeks ago. I’ll never forget the time we were both on dish duty, and Natasha threw a butter knife directly at my head. It was love at first sight.”
“You’re insufferable,” grunts Natasha, cheeks flushing as she turns away to talk to Rhodey.
Tony shrugs it off, shoving his hands into his pockets as he saunters off back to the cabin to grab his phone.
He doesn’t miss the way Steve and Bucky stare at him as he walks away.
—
It’s back to activities like usual, and their first one is the petting zoo.
“Tony,” Bucky grins, kneeling on the ground as he cradles a chicken-rooster-monster-thing to his chest, petting its feathers. “Tony, come pet her.”
“No!” Tony cries.
The petting zoo is a nasty, rusty old thing. The main part is a wooden building full of chicken coops and horse stables, even some goat enclosures. There’s another cage outside of it with other birds, even some ducks and turkeys, then there’s a danced off area with even more goats and an emu. A fucking emu.
Bucky, like a jackass, had locked tony into a chicken coop with him in a desperate attempt to make Tony touch one of the animals. When the taller boy places the chicken on top of his head and inches closer to Tony’s face, who’s backed up into the wired wall, he screams bloody muster.
“Tony,” Bucky laughs, almost hysterical, “Just touch the fucking bird.”
“No!”
“Pet her!” The chicken starts flapping, feathers sticking up everywhere and wings flapping uncontrollably, making Tony scream even louder. Steve stands on the other side of the wire, looking concerned. “Tony?”
“He won’t touch Betsey!” says Bucky, letting her down to the floor.
“He’s trying to make me touch that thing,” cries Tony, shaking the wire, trying to get out. “Steve. Let me out, your boyfriend is a lunatic, I swear—“
The chicken pecks at Tony’s feet, and he just about orders Jarvis to send an attack missile down onto the camp. “OHMY FUCKINGGOD—“
“Bucky, get the bird off the floor!”
“LET ME OUT OF HERE!” Tony barks.
Steve undoes the latch from outside, and the brunette practically flies out and falls onto the dirt floor. “Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew—“
“How dare you disrespect Betsey like that?” gasps Clint, approaching the scene with a chick in his cupped palms.
Chest heaving, the boy pushes himself off to the floor, dusting off his sweatshirt. “I hate birds,” he breathes. Bucky emerges from the cage, laughing hysterically as he throws his arm over Steve’s shoulder, who’s snickering himself.
“Here,” Clint says, holding out his hands. “Hold the chicky.”
Tony hesitates. “No.”
“Dude, it’s literally a baby.”
“No. It’s a bird. What if the mother sees me holding it and tries to attack me?”
“Just hold him!”
“It’s gonna poop on me!” Tony groans, despite the fact that he accepts the animal, awkwardly cupping it in his hands. It’s small with brown and yellow patterning, eyes like little beads as it sits calmly. Its claws are sharp. Its beak is sharper—like a little hook.
“Oh my god,” Bucky smiles. “Someone, get a fucking camera! Stark is holding a chick!”
“I’m gonna throw a fucking bird into the shower while you’re bathing if you don’t—“
“Why is everyone screaming?” Hill asks, standing before the teens with her hands on her hips; a true ‘person in charge’ kind of pose. “Did the chickens peck someone’s eyes out again?”
“Again?!” Tony shrieks, throwing the thing back into Clint’s arms and running out of the petting zoo. He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until he’s far, far away.
When everyone laughs, pulling out their phones and recording Tony scramble away and into the woods, he decides that it’d be funnier if he just didn’t come back.
—
During lunch, Tony’s plan needs to be set in motion.
After running away from the petting zoo, (with Sam recording the whole thing, briefly making Tony snapchat famous) he shoots Natasha a quick text asking if they can meet and discuss his escape.
They meet at the snack shack, both of them buying orange soda and sitting atop a bench, sweat sticking to their foreheads.
“Well, I mean, are there any protocols that call for major camp evacuations? Like, where all the counselors would be preoccupied and wouldn’t immediately notice a camper vanish?”
“During lunch everyone is pretty much in the same place,” the girl shrugs. “Well, at least, the campers are. Track counselors and other staff are off doing whatever.”
That’s going to be an issue. In order for him to escape, he needs to guarantee that no counselors will find him before he can get through the woods. From there, he can have Jarvis send a Stark Industries chauffeur to pick Tony up or even send a private jet. That’s all dependent on if he gets caught or not, though.
It’s a shame, really. If he leaves today, that means his chances with Pepper would be a waste of time. His short companionship with Rhodey would be meaningless because they’d never speak again, and then there’s Steve and Bucky, who for some reason, he feels wrong about leaving behind.
“What about Maria?”
“You mean Maria Hill?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Her and Barnes are always arguing. She seems nice. I’m pretty sure she goes to her counselor cabin during lunch, though.”
“I’m thinking,” Tony says, opening his can of soda with a ‘pop!’ sound. He watches as children and teens alike run around the area, playing in the gaga pit or running around playing tag. “The counselors wouldn’t all be together, but maybe there’s a way to get them all to go to the same place.”
“How so?”
“Staging an accident. Calling for all staff to be somewhere, for something important.”
“I still don’t get how we’d get all of them at one place. How would we communicate to all of them at once?”
He takes a sip.
“They all carry their radios on their belts, right?”
“Yes. It’s required.”
“Maybe we could ‘borrow’ one, per say.”
Natasha, with her ruby red hair, looks up at the clear sky. Her gaze is unfocused, yet as clear as an eagle. She reminds Tony of a spider. Thin, crawly, able to get around stealthily.
He’d be leaving her behind, too.
“I like your style, Stark.”
—
For lunch, the dining hall serves turkey wraps, but Tony doesn’t eat much. He sips on his chocolate milk and taps away on his phone.
When Bruce asks him why he’s being so quiet, Tony doesn’t lie to him. It’s because he has a lot on his mind.
More specifically, he can’t stop thinking about Steve and Bucky. The power couple of camp; complete opposites yet so alike. Steve, with the raging fire in his heart despite being too strong for his weak body, and Bucky, who keeps the boy in check, the human epitome of a flaming trashcan.
They won’t stop fucking whispering to each other.
It drives Tony insane.
Maybe it irritates Tony because there’s a chance that they’re talking about him—yes, that’s always a possibility, and it’s something he’s grown used to. People always whisper about Tony. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re being secretive in the first place, and Tony wants to understand, to be part of it. (Scratch that.)
“I’m gonna go grab ketchup,” he says to no one, getting up from his chair and abandoning the table. He tends to abandon Emmaus a lot more than he realizes.
Of course, the ketchup was just an excuse for him to send the signal to Natasha that they need to make their first move. A simple tap in the shoulder is all it should take, yet Tony finds something in the way, Natasha’s table just a scene in the short distance.
“Mr. Stark!” a small, young voice cheers, clinging onto Tony’s midriff. Curse his genes for making him so short. So accessible.
He’s annoyed at first, but then he sees the small boy with a familiar mop of brown curls.
“Peter!” he grins, hugging the top of Peter’s head. Tony bends down, swooping the eight year old up into his arms, Peter giggling all the while. “What are you doing, kid? Come on, go back to your cabin.”
“Well, you’re up too,” Peter says pointedly as Tony sets him on the floor. “I wanted to say thank you.”
Tony looks over the kid’s shoulder to the sight of Natasha glaring at him, mouthing words that he can’t make out. She’s probably trying to say something along the lines of ‘what the fuck are you doing, we have a plan to carry out.’
Natasha can wait, Tony decides. “For what?”
“For the happy meal,” Peter grins. He’s missing a front tooth, which frankly, is adorable. It’s not often that Tony finds children adorable; most of the little brats that run around during Stark Industries business parties are spoiled, meaning that when Tony was forced into the kids’ section at dinners, he’d constantly have to babysit a pack of snotty and obnoxious elementary schoolers who ran around and broke expensive furniture. Howard would always blame Tony for any damage done at the end of the night. Needless to say, Tony fucking hates kids.
“Where’s that weird green guy? Loki?”
“Uncle Loki is on dish duty. He’s wearing rubber gloves and an apron and everything,” he giggles. “The mean lunch lady said on the walkie talkie that they needed someone for dishes. His cabin voted him up.”
There’s something about Peter that makes Tony gleeful. Maybe it’s his shy, gentle, and quiet demeanor that makes him less irritating than the rest. He’s innocent, you can tell just by his big eyes alone, and Tony wants to protect him. He has to protect him.
“Stark,” Natasha says sternly, approaching the two boys with a hand on her hip. “I need you.”
“Hang on, toots,” he says. “The kid just gave me an idea.”
—
When the cabin clears off their table, Tony automatically volunteers for dish duty, much to everyone else’s bafflement.
“But... I thought you were grossed out by it,” Scott says slowly. “Even I think it’s gross. You have to spray clean, like, a hundred trays and put them on a conveyer belt. It’s not a fun time.”
“I don’t care,” Tony shrugs. “It’s just dish duty. I know how to get my hands dirty.”
Bucky gives him a quizzical look. “Alright, Stark.”
When he gets behind the lunch counter, the same grouchy lady from breakfast hands him an apron and a pair of gloves.
“Go behind the window,” she says, shoving him through the kitchen doors. “And accept trays from the campers. Use the big hose-faucet thing that’s dangling to spray down food, then pass it to the kid next to you, who’ll put it on the conveyor. You have fifteen minutes to do every last tray. Go.”
Loki, drenched in sink water with his hair thrown into a last-minute messy bun, scowls when he sees Stark, yet also seems relieved to see someone else helping. “Oh, look. It’s you.”
“Odinson,” Tony sneers, taking his place by the window and beginning to accept food trays from a line of campers, a few of them gaping at the fact that Tony Stark would be doing such a job. “I saw your little friend. Peter.”
“That’s not my friend, that is my minion.”
“He’s a little doll,” Tony corrects. “He calls you Uncle Loki.”
“It’s an endearing term,” Loki blushes. “He does it to everyone.”
“Right.”
After a minute or two of spraying down the mustard off of plates and forks, Tony’s already got a group of thirteen year old girls from the Zion cabin at the window trying to get his number. He ignores them.
“Come on, dude!” one of them whines, holding up her phone. “We all think you’re, like, really cute. If you could give us a chance—“
“There’s a line behind you,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. “If you don’t have any crusty trays, cups, forks, spoons, or knives, then I think our business is done.”
“We’re not leaving,” one of them says. Before Tony can spray them in their faces with sink water, Loki shoves his way to the window, disgust ever so present in his scrunched up nose.
“Look,” he seers, pointing at them with his rubber glove, “If you don’t get your ugly VSCO girl asses out of the line right now, I’ll report you to Rumlow for sexual harassment on a fresh meat.”
“Aren’t you Thor’s brother?” a girl scoffs.
“Adopted,” he says shortly.
“You mean that hot blonde guy who hangs out with that gay couple? Steven and Bryce, or something like that?”
“Steve and Bucky,” someone corrects.
The girl in the middle, short with a blonde ponytail and a seashell necklace, twists up in disgust.
“Ew,” she sneers, looking at Loki like he’s a weasel dipped in grease. “You hang out with them? The gays?”
“It varies from moment to moment. Problem?”
“Being queer is a sin. That entire Emmaus cabin is full of freak shows, even if they’re popular,” the girl says, which is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Something inside of Tony snaps, an idea clicking in his mind—one that would have horrible consequences but would be oh so worth it in the moment.
He slides off his rubber glove, bringing his hand to the blonde girl’s face, cupping her cheek. All of her friends gape at the scene, eyes widening before Tony can even make a move, and before the girl can even utter a word.
“What are you—what are you doing?”
He leans in, kissing her on the lips.
It lasts for a second or two, and he pulls away with a quiet peck, showing off his signature Prince Charming smolder. She covers her mouth in shock, cheeks bright red as the other girls squeal. Others in line watch it happen. They all gasp while turning to each other, sure to gossip.
“By the way,” Tony says to her, elbowing Loki when he notices the boy gaping at him in disgust. “I’m bisexual.”
He wishes he could record the girl’s face right now, holy hell.
“Be careful, honey,” he grins cockily. “You might catch the gay.”
He tears off his apron and his other glove as he turns away, abandoning the lunch room and grabbing a walkie-talkie from a table as he walks by.
“Stark!” Loki barks, but Tony’s already out the back door.