broken arms and big mistakes
dots and dashes on the wall;
you tell me about the falls
of kingdoms and champions
you've seen a thousand times before
- "dots and dashes" by silversun pickups
2.
Tony doesn't mean to break Barnes's arm, he swears. But it happens anyway, and it starts like this:
Shy, adorable Bruce Banner with the head of floppy brown curls is getting ganged up on in the hallway. By Ty Stone, and a couple of his other lackeys. Becky's there, and she's shouting at them to stop, but no one's listening to her.
Tony's about to go up, go and confront them because it's Bruce and Tony knows intuitively that the guy hasn't done anything. But then there's a movement from beside him, and then James Barnes is storming up the hallway hissing, "What the fuck do you think you're doing."
Tony follows him, but James seems to have it under control. He melds into the rest of the gathering crowd as James continues, "Stone. Something you think you should be doing right now?"
Ty sneers, his face contorting. "Yeah, Barnes? You gonna tell me?"
"Yeah," James responds, his eyes dark. "You should be fucking off, that's what."
It's funny actually, because Ty throws a punch first, not Barnes. Then the two boys are slinging fists at each other in the hallway and Bruce is scrambling back with his glasses in his hand and looking a cross between angry, relieved, and petrified. Barnes is seething and Ty's shouting, something like "You don't belong here, f-g!" Tony's blood turns cold in his veins but he can't help but watch as Barnes spits back furiously, "Don't - use - that - word, you ugly piece of shit."
Tony notes a few goody-goodies in the back slinking off, presumably to tell a teacher, but it doesn't matter much to him until Barnes flings an arm at Becky of all people and says, "Tell me when you want a break, Stone. Your blonde little slut's waiting with her legs open for you when you decide you've had enough." In the corner of his eye, Tony sees Becky flinch, knows Barnes's jibe has hit close to home, knows that's what her mother likes to say when she goes out of the house. And maybe it's because he's high strung with the knowledge that this was almost a perfect day or maybe it's because Barnes doesn't know shit about Becky or their crowd, but suddenly he's charging forward into the brawl and slugging Barnes in the face.
"You don't call her a slut," he yells, and James is so surprised - arms falling to their sides - that for a second Tony thinks the fight's over. But then the other boy reels back and slams his fist into Tony's cheekbone and Tony thinks, Fuck, nevermind, as he staggers backward and almost slips to the floor.
He spots Ty out of the corner of his eye, looking relieved to just not be the one getting pummeled anymore, and he'd roll his eyes if Barnes's knuckles didn't crack into his jaw right at that very moment, sending him to the floor. Barnes bends over and swings again, and Tony feels the blood coming sluggish and thick from his nose. It doesn't look like the other boy is going to stop, so in one fluid motion Tony corkscrews around on his ass and swipes Barnes's feet off the floor. As James falls, he rolls to the side and grabs one of Banner's textbooks like a sword.
And all he can think about is getting it to stop, because all of a sudden his insides are hot and shaky, and he barely even thinks about what he's going to do before he's bringing the edge of the textbook down onto Barnes's prosthetic arm. And then again.
On the second swing there's this awful grating crunch, because Tony's time in the workshop has actually made him pretty strong, and Barnes's clunky arm looks to have been made by HammerTech or some shit company like that. (SI does have a minor prostheses line, but since Howard focuses mostly on providing weaponry to the army, the prices are pretty damn expensive.)
There's a pause and a collective gasp that Tony hears as if he were underwater, and he watches numbly as all the rage drains from James's face to be replaced by horror. "Stark," he says slowly. "You...my arm."
"Shit," Tony says, now that what he's done is glaring him in the face. The words get caught in his throat, like sludge. "Shit, um, I'm so fucking sorry Barnes, I didn't mean to, I..." But does it matter if he'd meant to? He's broken someone's prosthetic.
Most of the faces in the crowd are curious, or just shocked, and some are even gleeful, but Tony sees the accusing gazes as well. The ones that say, what the fuck have you done? He looks at Bruce, who meets his eye before glancing away.
"Daddy's little rich boy," Barnes snorts, but he's still pale and unsteady. "Of course you didn't mean to. People like you have Daddy's money and Daddy's lawyers to back them up, so why would you ever have to worry about consequences?"
Tony would like to shoot back that money doesn't equate to happiness, but he knows he would just sound like a brat so he pushes down the bitterness swelling in his chest. "I can...get you another arm," he offers quietly, ashamedly. "Um, my dad won't let me use a Stark Industries patented prosthetic but I can, um, make you one."
Barnes just looks at him with utter loathing. "Thanks, but no thanks," he spits out. "A store-bought IQ doesn't mean you can just waltz into a lab and build an arm, Stark." There's a low chuckle from the crowd at that, even though everyone knows - should know - Tony's intelligence wasn't paid for by Howard. The tabloids, they wouldn't hesitate to bash on Tony's stupidity if that were the case.
"I'm sorry," Tony says, because there's nothing else he can think to say. But the words sound stilted and false, even to his own ears. As he sits there, struggling to find something that would possibly express how fucking sorry he is, a sandy-brown haired boy comes forward and helps Barnes to his feet, saying, "Let's go." With a jolt, Tony recognizes the other guy to be Clint Barton from the gardens, and now Clint is glancing at him with disgust in his eyes. Bruce Banner gathers up all of his textbooks into his backpack and then scurries off behind them, because apparently James is part of their little table group.
Wow, Stark, you've really fucked things up. Like usual, Tony thinks to himself as the crowd - half of them watching him almost nervously as they go - begins to disperse. Ty, on the other hand, lets out a loud whistle even as he's still trying to stop the blood leaking from his own nose. "Thanks, Tones," he says, clapping Tony on the back. "Didn't know you had it in ya." Ty laughs as he shakes his arm out, turning to leave. "Smart move, using the textbook." Tony can't even muster the strength to reply and just watches Stone go before leaning against the lockers, squeezing his eyes shut to make everything go away.
"Hey." He looks up to see Becky, sweet beautiful Becky, looking at him with something like sorrow in her eyes. "You didn't have to do that, you know."
"I know," Tony says tiredly. He doesn't want to lose her too. "I'm sorry about it, I'll try to see if Banner can get scans of Barnes's arm so I can build another."
"No," Becky says with a surprising amount of force. "I meant...defending me." She touches his face; her fingers are cool against his aching skin. "People call me a slut all the time, Tones, you know that." A corner of her mouth quirks up humorlessly.
"Doesn't make it okay," Tony mutters sulkily. Becky laughs a little, but just as quickly sobers up again.
"Will you be okay?" she says, softly. "Your cheek and jaw are already really swollen."
"I'm fine," Tony says. He looks at her, this girl who he's only known for two and a half months and has already had sex with twice. The blonde curls framing her face make her look Southern and pretty. "Nothing I'm not used to."
Becky can make of that what she will, but for now she just looks at him with her grey-blue eyes and runs a hand through his hair and they stay like this, her head on his chest, until the teachers arrive.