Chapter 3
“Tony I saved you a seat,” Thor says patting the seat in question which would make sure he was the only one next to him would be Thor. Tony smiles at him from the doorframe of the teacher’s lounge.
“Or you could sit next to me,” the sandy blonde man from earlier, who Stephen now knows is Clint Barton the gym teacher, says.
“Sorry guys I’m not staying. I just came down to grab Rhodey’s water bottle. I have to take a look at his chair,” Tony says.
“Does he often let you look at his chair?” Thor asks.
“I...Yeah,” Tony says and Stephen can sense there is something else to the story and is about to ask but suddenly he is escaping out of the room and Rhodey rolls in shortly after Tony leaves and goes to the fridge and opens it and pulls out two tupperware containers.
“Tony is looking for you,” Clint says.
“I know, and I also know how he is when he works on something. Which means I knew he’d forget his lunch. He’s constantly forgetting to eat and sleep,” Rhodey says settling the two containers on his lap before rolling out of the room.
“So, how long have you guys been trying to get with Tony?” Stephen asks sipping his tea.
“Since we each started here years ago,” Loki says.
“And none of you ever made a move?” Stephen asks raising an eyebrow.
“We kinda nearly burnt down the school last time we tried that,” Clint says.
“How?” Stephen asks staring at the men in front of him.
“Well, school was over for the day. All the students had gone home and Thor was about to ask Tony out. So, Loki locked him in his classroom. I locked the doors to the stairwell to keep Thor out. Bucky, the third grade teacher, locked Nat and I in here. Steve, the art teacher, pushed Bucky into Bruce’s classroom, now your classroom, when he was working with a bunsen burner,” Clint says.
“From that day on Nat has banned us from asking Tony out until we can agree on one person to do it. Which as you can see from the story we can’t do,” Clint says.
“And he still hasn’t figured out that you all like him?” Stephen asks shocked, because honestly that whole thing isn’t very subtle and neither was the display this morning.
“Look man, Tony is smart, like super smart, like Einstein smart. But he is dumb,” Clint says.
“I don’t think he’s dumb. I would say he is innocent if a bit naive. It’s...sweet,” Loki says and the others nod.
“Yeah, sweet is the word I’d use,” Clint says and a glance at the clock has them scurrying to meet their classes as they come back from recess. Stephen glances over and sees three teachers he’s hasn’t met yet. One is a woman who must be the Natasha that instigated the time of peace and the other two, men, one blonde and one a brunette they must be the Bucky and Steve that Clint had mentioned.
“Hello, I’m Stephen Strange, the new science teacher,” he says and the three look at him.
“Natasha,” the woman says.
“Steve,” the blonde says.
“James, but people here call me Bucky,” the brunette says.
“I take it Clint passed along the rule regarding a certain teacher,” Natasha says and he nods.
“Good,” she says and then motions her kids towards the staircase.
“She is scary,” Steve says and Bucky nods and they head towards the stairs with Bucky’s class.
“Hi,” a tiny voice says and Stephen feels a tiny tug on his pant leg and looks down and he sees a young boy standing there looking up at him with big brown eyes covered by curling brown hair.
“Hello there, are you a duckling?” Stephen asks and the boy smiles and quacks making Stephen smile.
“Let’s get you back to your teacher,” Stephen says holding his hand and leading him over to where Tony is counting heads and when he sees the boy he relaxes.
“Peter, there you are. Don’t scare me like that,” Tony says and motions the child to his class.
“Thank you Dr. Strange,” he says.
“Stephen please,” Stephen says and Tony smiles softly and Stephen watches as Tony goes towards his classroom.
“You’ve got it as bad as everyone else does huh?” Rhodes says rolling over to him.
“Am I that obvious?” Stephen asks.
“No, but I’ve watched everyone else enough to know the signs,” Rhodes says before leading his class off.
Stephen returns to his classroom and reads over the lesson plan that Tony made for him. His handwriting is swirly and there are smiley faces dotting his ‘i’s and flowers on his ‘o’s and he smiles.
Even the man's handwriting is cute.
Stephen looks out into the hall as Tony helps each student pack their backpacks.
Others be damned. Stephen is going to ask him out.
What's the worst that could happen?