School Troubles
Tony looked over at Sage, a bit worried. Normally he loved when she’d come sit with him in the workshop after school, but today it felt like she was escaping from something. He understood, of course. He was no stranger to escaping things in the workshop, but her escape felt stifling. It felt like she was keeping something from him, and he was dying to know what it was she was hiding from. She seemed off today. She hadn’t said a word to him today, which was sort of normal, but she’d barely said anything to the bots either. Butterfinger nudged her with a sad beep, and she patted him absentmindedly, looking zoned out. Tony lost it when she sniffled.
“Sage, what’s wrong?”
Her eyes snapped to him, widening in what he was praying wasn’t fear. “What- I’m not- nothing’s- everything’s fine.”
“Bullshit.”
Sage flinched slightly, and Tony cursed himself.
“Honey, you’ve been ridiculously quiet today. You’re ignoring the bots, you haven’t said anything to me, and I know you’ve been crying. I’m inattentive, not blind.”
She bit her lip, eyes welling up with tears as her face crumpled. “I- um. It’s nothing, really. J-just stupid ch-chemistry.” She let out a sob, and Tony crossed the room in a few quick strides, immediately pulling her into a hug.
Neither of them knew how long they sat there, but eventually Sage’s tears ran dry and they pulled apart slowly, Tony keeping one hand on her back, rubbing in soothing circles while he handed her a tissue.
She laughed wetly, noting softly, “I got tears on your shirt.”
Tony waved it off. “Shirts wash. You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
Sage blew her nose and avoided his eyes. “You remember how, when I moved in, I told you I really like my school?” He nodded, and she continued. “I do. I mean, it’s got a lot of… problems, but I love my school, and I wouldn’t give it or my friends up for the world. That being said, I’m about two days away from dropping Chemistry. And I know that’s dumb, okay? I know. We’re only halfway through first semester, and if I drop it now, I’ll lose the class credit, and all the work I’ve put in up to this point will have been worthless.” Her voice broke, but she scrubbed at her eyes and continued, leaning into Tony. “I was really psyched about Chemistry at first, ya know? It seemed like a cool class, and I was expecting to get one of my favourite teachers from last year, and I thought it would be great. Obviously, I was wrong.” She motioned to her face weakly, obviously indicating her tears. “The teacher… ugh. He just… He doesn’t know how to teach me. I’m primarily an auditory learner, and all the teaching he does caters to visual and kinesthetic learners. When I ask him questions to try and understand what he’s teaching, half the time he doesn’t understand the question I’m asking. The other half of the time, he says ‘oh, it’s just simple algebra.’ That pisses me the fuck off. Because I’m good at algebra. Don’t tell me that it’s fucking algebra, explain it to me so that I can understand. I just…” She choked back a sob and looked down at the tissue crumpled between her hands. “I want to understand. I want to learn. I so badly want to understand what he’s teaching us, and I want to understand the reasons behind it, and why the things happen, but I can’t. I can’t learn when he can’t teach me. I’ve been trying so hard to figure this stuff out. I look stuff up, I look up YouTube videos and TedTalks and articles on various websites to help me figure this stuff out, but at this point, I’m just teaching myself. And I know for a fact that it isn’t any better for the rest of the class. I’ve talked about this with other students, none of the rest of them get it either. I’ve cried twice at school. I don’t cry at school. Or in front of people in general. Ever. I hate showing any sort of weakness in front of anyone I’m not one hundred percent comfortable with, but it’s happened more than once. I can’t do this anymore.”
Tony pulled her back into a tight hug, feeling her shudder against him, and trying to process everything Sage had just told him. He wasn’t equipped for this. He was just figuring out how to deal with his own emotions, much less someone else’s. He needed backup. “Kiddo, I know you’re struggling, but to be frank with you,” he smiled as she giggled, “I’m a little lost here. We’re going to figure this out, though, okay?” He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Let’s go upstairs. We’ll have a powwow with Loki and Bruce and get you a cup of tea and come up with a solution, okay?”
She nodded, leaning into him slightly, eyes closed as if she was trying to compose herself. “Okay,” she whispered softly, standing with him, and gladly taking the hand he offered her.
---
“I’m out of my depth, here, Loki. I never had this problem. And if I had, Howard wouldn’t have helped me with it. I don’t know what to do!”
Loki put his hands gently in the crooks of Tony’s elbows, and looked him in the eyes, trying to convey his calm to his lover. “Anthony, it’s alright. Sage is a brilliant girl, I’m sure we can figure out some way to help her survive the rest of the class long enough to get at least one credit for the class. I’m not sure I want her taking the full semester, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. There are steps we can take, and people we can turn to and utilize. You do know what to do. If you didn’t why would you invite Banner?”
“Well, Sage seems to like Bruce, and I figured he’d be able to help her with some of her questions because I’m not good at the whole teaching bit, but Bruce loves Sage, and-”
“Darling.” Loki held Tony’s darting gaze with his own, fixed one. “Listen to yourself. You knew exactly what to do, you utter buffoon. You brought someone in who was, admittedly, more knowledgeable in the topic at hand and who would be able to help with the situation. My love, for a genius, you can be quite dense at times.”
Tony scowled at him, hands still clenching at Loki’s sleeves from his momentary panic. “But, I just feel like…” He ducked his head and wouldn’t meet Loki’s piercing green eyes. “This is something I should be able to help her with.”
“Anthony.” Loki’s voice was softened considerably, and he drew Tony closer, his hands moving to the small of the other man’s back. “You are helping her. You don’t need to be the one instructing her to be a help. Getting someone who will be able to teach her the concepts properly and answer the questions is the best help we can give, particularly if we aren’t the ones who can teach those concepts or give those answers. She knows you love her, darling. Do you truly think that she would have brought this to you if she didn’t? The last time this happened, she hid in the library with me for a week, frantically reading that damned textbook and scribbling down notes on her own.”
“She-” Tony’s eyes snapped to Loki’s, looking hurt and disappointed.
“No. Don’t do that to yourself. She came down to you this time.” Loki smiled softly. “She knew you would help, when she was ready to ask for it. She knew I would not press the matter until she was ready and willing to talk. She knows you love her, and she quite obviously returns the sentiment. Bringing this to you was a step forward, my love. We’ve made progress. We may not keep that, and we need to be ready to accept that, but we have made progress.”
Tony sighed and dropped his head to the crook of Loki’s neck, closing his eyes and blowing out a deep breath. ‘You’re right. You’re right. Thank you, babe.”
Loki smiled gently and kissed Tony’s temple. “Any time, my genius.”
---
Bruce and Sage were huddled over her Chemistry book, mugs of tea pushed to the side for now in order to make room for notebooks and loose papers and Bruce’s hands.
“This notebook is a disaster. Why is he making you glue things in?”
Sage shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. It drives me nuts. I asked him once, ‘hey, Mr Lafitte, could I just keep these in a folder?’ and I shit you not, he goes, ‘no, I want you to have them all in one place where you can find them.’ I was like, ‘really? Because gluing them in a notebook keeps them so much more organized?’ I’m just… so done with him. Like, I’m almost to the point where I don’t even care if I lose the credit, and I’ve been working to get all my credits in super early. Like this is pissing me off, and frustrating me, and I can’t take it.”
“Tony,” Bruce turned to him as soon as he entered the room, “This is ridiculous. This teacher is garbage and you know how much I hate describing people like that. He is useless as a functional teacher. He’s teaching this material like they should already know it, and he’s not teaching it in any comprehensive manner that I can decipher. She’s given me her notes from this teacher and the Biology teacher she had last year, and I’ll let you guess which of the two makes any sort of sense.”
“Not this Lafitte, I’ll wager.” Loki had a sort of cold fire burning behind his eyes, promising retribution. “Why is this man allowed to teach if he is doing so poorly at it?”
“That’s what I want to know! My best friend’s mom is president of the board, and I can’t figure out why Susan isn’t doing anything. Like, my friend, Riesling, is struggling more in this class than I am! Not that you’d, you know, actually be able to tell that I’m barely getting by in this class, because my barely getting by is still well above average, but that’s not what’s important!”
“Wait, what’s your grade?”
“Tony-”
“Anthony-”
Bruce and Loki glanced at each other as they said Tony’s name at the same time. Sage giggled.
“No, come on, I’m just wondering.”
Sage bit her lip. “Well… It’s an A, but-”
“That’s my girl!” Tony held his hand up for a high five, and she gladly gave him one.
“Tony, this doesn’t change the fact that Sage isn’t learning the material. She’s a brilliant test taker, but that only goes so far.”
“Yeah, yeah. Um.” Tony dragged a hand down his face. “How bad is it, Bruce? Could you help tutor her?”
“Of course, but-”
“Please, Doctor Banner?” Sage turned her best puppy dog eyes on the man until he gave in.
Bruce sighed. “I would never say no, you know that. But this needs to be fixed, Tony.”
“And it will be. Guarunteed. Let’s just… get through the semester, and then I’ll flounce in guns blazing, okay?”
Sage snickered at the mental picture, but Bruce nodded, resigned. “Alright, well, we might as well get to work.” He slid one mug of tea toward Sage, noting dryly, “We may need something a bit stronger.”
“I’ve already begun a pot of coffee, Doctor Banner.”
“Thank you, JARVIS.”
“Alright, well, I think we’ll leave you two crazy kids to your studying-”
Sage caught Tony by the sleeve before he’d quite stepped away from the table and looked like she wanted to say something. “Hey, um…” She cleared her throat. “I just wanted to say thanks. For, you know. This. Everything.”
He slid his hand into hers and squeezed gently. “You don’t have to.” He smiled at her, and took Loki’s hand with his free one. “You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah.” She grinned at Bruce, then back at Tony. “I think we’ll be good.”