Tony Stark would officially like to announce that the rumors of his promiscuity were greatly exaggerated. Look, it's not like he's claiming to be a virgin here—that drunken night in ninth grade at the McAllister's party did, in fact, happen, but he's sticking with 'no comment' for the time being. Point is, word travels fast in high school, and things weren't always this way.

From day one, Tony had stuck out in his eleventh grade class like a ten story building in an empty lot. Maybe it was because he owned most of the ten story buildings in the city—or at least his father did—or because his father's company had a headquarters worth a couple hundredstories with Tony's last name plastered across all four sides in lettering so big, aliens could see it from space. Whatever it was, anonymity was not his friend, and, okay, for a while, it had been great; every girl knew his name, every guy wanted his phone number, and there was no party in the city he ever needed an invite for. And if this also meant that paparazzi were beating down his door every night or attempting to sneak onto campus through the gym entrance, well, that came with the territory of being a multi billion-dollar businessman's son and a boy genius. But the thing was, the whole school—the whole world—might know Tony's name, but not a single one of them knew Tony.

Rationally, he knew it was a bit ridiculous to be hung up on such a simple little detail, conceited even, but, hey, he'd never claimed to be modest. There was a whole lot of buzz about having Tony Stark going to your school, or to have Tony Stark in your Math class, or to have a picture of Tony Stark puking his guts out at your party. His name was legend, his name was fame, but all this 'knowing about him' stuff sort of fell out the window once he'd made his appearance.

You see, Tony's day generally went like this: after he left his empty house, he'd drive the car he'd restored to school, and this didn't get much attention because (a) despite being an expensive project, it was technically an old crappy car and (b) there were a lot of old crappy cars in a school parking lot; he'd then walk to class and be run into by at least five different jocks who would send his papers flying across the hall, and, not bothering to look back to see who he was (because from anyone's peripheral vision, he was just another short, useless nerd wasn't he?), they'd run off without stopping to help; then, should a weekend party roll around, he'd arrive, take pictures with the hosts, talk to absolutely no one, get plastered, and then throw up in the back yard and walk home.

Google could tell you every last detail of Tony's existence, so, naturally, no one bothered to ask. In fact, Google would probably direct you to Stark tower and leave him well enough alone.

So, that was Tony's life—famous invisibility—until one day, it all changed because of a simple, stupid little lie.

It all started when Clint invited Tony to his archery tournament on a weekend where Tony had very serious plans to lay in bed and do nothing for 48 hours or build a new energy source—whichever really caught his interest when the time came. It wasn't as though he didn't want to support Clint—he did, really—but archery tournaments were weird. First of all, the fact that they even still existed in the twenty-first century when there were guns and targeting missiles was just plain nostalgia, if you asked him; second, they were boring. You'd wait around all day, watching a bunch of people shoot an arrow at a bullseye, waiting to cheer on your friend, only to have his turn go by in the ten second break you took to eat a handful of popcorn. Tony—the supportive, amazing best friend that he was—had been dragged to enough of these events to know what to expect, and he could just as easily cheer over the phone while he got some work done (or finished off a pizza to his head).

So he'd lied. Just a little white lie—no big deal—and claimed he had a date with a woman named Meredith McCall who attended a local City College (he had, in fact, met this exact woman at the hardware store last week; they'd hit it off pretty well, but he was underage, she was busy, and, anyway, he wasn't looking for a date; all in all, it was only a teeny tiny partial little lie).

Believe it or not, however, Clint was not exactly overjoyed at the news. "Meredith is not a sexy name. Meredith is the name of a librarian, and unless she turns out to be secretly sexy when she takes off her glasses and lets down her hair and fucks you sideways, it's not a name you want to be yelling out during climax—"

Tony clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late; their biology teacher, Dr. Banner, had walked by just in time to overhear and now stopped in his tracks. "By which, I assume you mean…?" he said.

"The stable and self perpetuating end stage of the evolution of a plant community. Why, what were you thinking?" Tony replied immediately, and he could have sworn he saw the doctor smile. If only just a little.

Dr. Banner had, well, a bit of a reputation at their school. Nine times out of ten, he was the sort of teacher whose class you'd dream to be a part of; he was cool, fun, easy going, and he always came up with the best experiments. There wasn't a second of his class that was boring—quiet and meditative at times—but never boring. But Dr. Banner, for all his merit, also had a notorious temper; get on his bad side, and you'd find yourself in the principal's office before you could even think to say you were sorry. All in all, he was Tony's favorite teacher in the school, hands down.

"Same," Bruce replied, "But I don't say it out loud. You know, someone could get the wrong idea. Innuendo is attached to everything you say."

Clint, in a classic display of dramatics, clapped a hand to his heart. "Innuendo? Whatever do you mean?"

Tony slapped him across the shoulder.

Bruce, still hiding that smile Tony would have sworn on his life was swimming just under the surface, told them simply to 'hit the books' then walked away.

The interruption was affective in derailing Clint for all of about five seconds before he'd jumped back onto the topic of Meredith and Tony's way-too-busy-for-archery schedule. "Come on. Come onnn. I'm going to win this year. I've been practicing all summer," he begged and he was close—so close—to actually making Tony feel guilty enough to give in, but at the last second, he broke through the act with a shit-eating grin and said, "And I need someone to distract this girl that's been following me around and wants to come 'support me'. You might like her. She's almost as crazy as you are."

Tony refused to talk to Clint for the rest of the day.

As predicted, Tony spent the weekend in mild states of productivity with long stretches of sloth-like entertainment in between. On Saturday, he spent an hour building a robot that could bring him soda from the fridge, and for the rest of the day, he'd sat on the couch and had the bot bring him one Coke after another while he watched a Star Wars marathon on TV. Sunday, he updated the bot to use the microwave, therefore single-handedly perfecting a couch potato slave that provided him with Bagle Bites and Hot Pockets through a long day of the bridal channel (there were no witnesses. It never happened. Shut up).

By Monday morning, however, Clint was back at his side and pestering him for details over his 'romantic weekend date.' Tony had had quite an intimate time with his pizza (the cheese at that place on the corner was to die for), but as this just wasn't the sort of story Clint was expecting, he'd had to be creative.

"Oh, she was great," he'd said, nodding and grinning—a technique he'd perfected after hundreds of charity dinners, parties, and other various public appearances that his parents actually tolerated him for. "Instant connection."

"Are you going to see her again?" Clint asked.

"Nah. We had a good weekend, why ruin it by—"

Before Tony could finish his sentence, Clint had stopped in his tracks and stilled Tony with one hand to his chest. "You spent the whole weekend together?" His eyes gleamed something dangerous, and he wiggled an eyebrow. "The whole weekend? Just the two of you?"

Tony thought of his robot with a Mountain Dew in his claw and a strip of cheese falling down his face and into his lap. He then imagined locking himself away in his bedroom with a beautiful woman for the weekend. It wasn't hard to choose the more "desirable" image.

"Yeah," he said, and shrugged, real casual, like 'no big deal, I had crazy monkey sex with my college fling all weekend long; how was the tournament, Big Guy?'

Clint looked one word away from an aneurism. "The whole weekend? You dog! You might just live up to your reputation after all," he said, shoving Tony in the shoulder so hard he actually stumbled back a step before regaining his balance.

Before Tony could say another word—and oh, he had some words ready, alright, dozens of them, hundreds of them, actually, because once the idea had been lit in his brain, he couldn't stop, the need to brag and boast and tell Clint all about his hypothetically amazing weekend nearly overwhelming (and maybe his social life had become so pathetic he needed fake girlfriends to make up for it, but he was pointedly not thinking about that)—Steve Rogers passed by them in the hall.

Steve was your average jock—blue eyes, blonde hair, bulging muscles, and a body the shape of an upside down triangle with unreal proportions—except that there was nothing average about him. Because Steve was kind where the 'average' jocks of their class were rude and obnoxious; Steve was gentle where they were brutish. And when Steve bumped into him before class, he apologized a thousand times over and picked up every last paper he'd made Tony drop.

Tony had had his first real interaction with Steve at a party in the eighth grade. The two had somehow gotten caught up in a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven and been locked in a bedroom alone together; AKA, the night of Tony's dreams—the chance to finally, finally, kiss the boy he'd had a crush on for years; for Steve, it had been nothing but nerves.

Tony couldn't exactly blame him. He'd taken his time growing into his own. They both had, really. Back in middle school, Tony had been even more nerdy than he was now and with less muscle, messier hair, and not enough practice covering up his bruises with make-up (Pepper Potts, a girl he worked with at the school paper, had taught him that in the ninth grade). Steve, for all his endless good looks, had been at least a foot shorter, a couple dozen pounds lighter, and carried an inhaler everywhere he went.

Just a couple of lost kids, they'd sat on the bed of whosever party they were at, and simply stared at each other as the clock winded down.

"214 seconds left," Tony had said, checking his watch for the time.

Steve blinked. "How do you do that? I mean, how do you do math so fast? And sound like a grown up?"

Tony remembered smiling at the sincerity of the question. Steve's tone had been purely curious, impressed even—not teasing. Still too young to let the incessant bullying he'd endured thus far simply roll off his shoulders, Tony had needed that reassurance. He didn't tell Steve then that the reason he was so good at math was because he had to be, because if he slipped up, if he fell behind, if he wasn't smart enough, his father would hate him even more than he already did. He didn't tell him that he sounded like a grown up because at thirteen years old, he already was. That he had to be. Masquerading in expensive suits and an IQ too high for his own good, he played the role just the way his father wanted, and hated every second of it.

"Don't worry," he'd said. "I'm not as smart as I think I am."

Steve had shaken his head. "No. I think you're smarter."

They hadn't kissed that night; Steve hadn't been ready. But Tony had been dreaming about it ever since.

Now, seventeen years old, Tony was more of a kid than he ever was—lost and confused with no idea where he belonged, sounding like your average teenage sob story: who am I? What's my purpose in this vast universe, will I ever know? Problem was, Tony did; his purpose had been set out for him before he was ever born.

As he passed by, Steve caught Tony's eye and smiled, and, not for the first time, Tony wished for his grand purpose in the universe to be that and that alone: making Steve Rogers smile at him every day for the rest of his life.