Welcome to story #3 of this series! I can't believe we have a third story and this many words as we do in the 180 Days universe.

But then again, I can't believe Kate and I also know details for story #5.

For those of you who waited on this story being marked complete before you started it, bless you on your patience.

For those of you who didn't, we will do our best to give you our traditional biweekly updates.

Work Text:

"You could just relax a little," Bucky suggested, and Steve grit his teeth to keep from rolling his eyes. "I heard that."

Steve frowned. "Heard what?"

"You make a noise when you're trying not to roll your eyes at me. It's like a weird snort and grunt all rolled into one." Bucky closed the carton of eggs and added them to the grocery cart. "And roll them all you want, I'm not changing my position on this."

"You're acting like this is the nineteenth century and somebody's about to lose their dowry," Steve retorted, and Bucky actually did roll his eyes before he steered the cart into the dairy aisle.

Steve sighed at his back and scratched his fingers through his hair. To be as fair as possible (even though Steve felt a little like somebody'd lit his heart on fire and then forced him to hide the light under a bushel), Bucky was at least half right about their engagement. Sharing it with even one of their friends guaranteed that the rumor mill'd start churning, and suddenly, their relationship'd belong to everyone; Stark, Darcy, and Jessica Drew'd clamp down first, of course, but the rest of the staff, their heckling, and their inevitable comments about sex toys and self-warming lubricant would follow right behind. Never mind the parents and students who'd sniff it out in record time and open them up to god-alone-knew what other color commentary. And none of that even considered Natasha's sudden silence, or her distance, or the way she'd drifted past them in the hallway like a red-headed ghost.

But at the same time, a guy only got engaged once in his life. (At least, Steve hoped that'd be the case for him.) And when he loved you as hard as Bucky did, as loyal as Bucky did, it was natural to want to shout it from the rooftops, right?

"You can't blame me for wanting to shout about this from the rooftops," Steve said a minute or two later, and Bucky jerked his head up from his very serious study of non-dairy creamer. His jaw was tight, almost angling for a fight, and Steve sighed and rubbed the side of his neck. "I'm not saying you're wrong. You might even be right about most of it. But you've gotta understand where I'm coming from, Buck." When Bucky glanced back down at the containers of creamer, Steve nudged his shoulder lightly. "Just put the Thin Mint flavored stuff in the cart and talk to me."

Bucky snorted. "Maybe I wanted something new."

"You threatened to move back in with your mom when I bought the Almond Joy flavor last month," Steve retorted with a little grin. "You're not fooling anyone."

Bucky shot him a sharp little look, but he dropped the bottle of Thin Mint creamer into the cart at the same time. For a second, Steve thought he might walk off in another huff and abandon him there, but instead, he reached back and snagged Steve by his belt loop. Steve grinned and let Bucky drag him along like that, all the way to and through the check-out line. It maybe should've bothered Steve—not the public display of affection as much as Bucky's silence—but every time their eyes met, he saw the storm brewing on Bucky's face, in his far-away gaze.

They'd barely carried all the groceries into the house before Bucky crowded up behind Steve and rested his head on the back of Steve's shoulder.

"I love the hell out of you," he said, his voice low. "It's not like I don't want the world to know it. I just want it to be ours for a couple seconds, you know? No comments, no jokes, no nosy questions about when and where and how many people and what kind of ring. Just the two of us, no interlopers."

Steve grinned. "You're sounding like you wanna elope."

"If it involves you in thin linen pants on a beach, I am there," Bucky returned. Steve laughed a little, and Bucky kissed the back of his neck. "I know it's hard for you," he said as he pulled away and reached for the grocery sack, "but it's—"

"As much about Natasha as everybody else?" Bucky froze at the question, and Steve huffed a sigh. "For the record, that didn't exactly come out the way I wanted it to."

"What, you can't handle being right for the hundredth time?" Bucky retorted with a shrug. He tried to sound casual, almost disinterested, but Steve couldn't miss the tight line of his shoulders or the way he kept his head dipped, his face half-hidden from view. "I'm trying to be a better friend," he said quietly. "I texted her, I called her, and I keep getting the silent treatment. Which, according to you, I deserve, but—"

"I never said you deserved the cold shoulder," Steve defended.

Bucky snorted. "Either way, pretty sure that 'hey, got engaged while you were hiding from whatever's eating you' isn't the way I'm gonna mend this bridge."

He shook his head, almost like when he cleared the cobwebs after a lousy dream, and for a few minutes, Steve just stood out of the way and watched him start filling the pantry with a sort of surgical precision. If he kept his face tilted away from Steve a little, almost like he felt some kind of shame, well—

Well, it honestly made Steve's heart hurt a little, and he hated himself for it.

"You'll see her tomorrow," Steve said, shrugging when Bucky glanced up in confusion. "We'll be back at work full-time, complete with greasy Mexican food and brain-melting staff meetings. You can corner her and apologize to her face."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Because Nat just loves being cornered."

"Consider it revenge for all the times she cornered you and asked pointed questions about that cute art teacher across the hall."

Bucky whipped around so sharply, he almost dropped a can of soup. "There's no way you could know that."

Steve smiled serenely. "She'd close your door, but I'd catch you peeking at me through the window. Sometimes, your ears'd go red."

Bucky almost grinned. "This from the full-body blusher."

"Nice try with the deflection, but I know better."

"So you think," Bucky returned, but he also shivered when Steve reached up and very gently traced the curve of his ear with his fingertips.

Late that night, after they'd organized their work bags and set their alarms, Bucky'd traced lazy patterns on Steve's arm in bed. "She might not talk to me even if I corner her."

Steve pressed his lips to Bucky's shoulder. "You never know until you try."

Phil walked into the music room and felt a pang of sadness. He missed walking in and not immediately smelling May Parker's perfume, seeing her desk littered with coffee mugs, or hearing her sing under her breath. But that emotion quickly ebbed as he saw what updates the large classroom had been given. "Are those original pressings?" Phil asked as he walked toward the wall with new décor. A series of records and their sleeves were framed and hanging from a row of corkboard attached to the cinder block. Phil knew exactly what all the albums were titled, what tracks were on each record, and an embarrassing amount of random trivia about each. His father had raised him to love all things from the forties, including the jazz band The Howling Commandos and their lead singer, Peggy Carter.

If he had to pick a woman, it would be Peggy.

Just even thinking about the swinging tunes made Phil feel like he was on a road trip with his father on the way to some lake to go fishing. The music brought forth precious memories from his childhood and never failed to make him smile.

"I'd take them out and let you touch them for yourself, but my mom would kill me," the new music teacher answered.

Antoine Triplett—nicknamed Trip—had been hired at the end of the previous school year to take May's position as music teacher. Phil was immensely grateful that the man hadn't bragged about his musical lineage in the interview, because there was no way he wouldn't have geeked out. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that Phil caught wind of the fact that Trip was the grandson of legendary jazz trumpet player, Gabe Jones.

After learning this, Phil proceeded to apparently play a little too much jazz music in the house, because Clint kept turning off his hearing aids.

"As your mentor for your first year, I have a little tradition that I do with each mentee," Phil offered. "You're more than welcome to come over to house for dinner once a week—or every other week if that's too much of a commitment. My husband does the cooking, and it's really good food. We can discuss how things are going, get some out-of-school meeting hours logged, I can help you with lesson planning—as much as I can without being a musician, and whatnot—up to you."

"Sounds great," Trip replied with an easy smile. "What night works best for you?"

"We have a standing engagement on Wednesday nights," Phil said. He considered saying that Tuesdays were off-limits, too, but it'd been weeks since Natasha had come over for dinner and Phil wasn't entirely sure if she would ever resume her weekly meal date with him and Clint. "Other than that, we're really boring and free most nights. You're not allergic to dogs, are you? We have a bulldog."

"No, that's cool. Thanks for doing all of this."

Phil shrugged. "It's not that big of a deal."

Trip shook his head. "Man, I've heard some horror stories of mentor teachers from my education program. I'm glad I'm not going to be stuck in a situation like that."

"Thanks," Phil said as he shuffled on his feet slightly. "Everyone here is usually really nice, especially if you ply them with coffee. Only a few people you have to avoid, like old Missus Howard."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Phil then gathered his wits long enough to run through the important things Trip would need to know: how to enter grades, who to contact in what situation, the schedule for his classes and when he'd be on recess duty. He also warned the first-year teacher about the downside of filling someone else's shoes. "You're going to hear a lot about how 'that's not how Missus Parker did things' over your first year. Some days it will drive you insane, but just think about how the next person in this classroom will hear about all the great things you did."

Trip nodded and gave a shy smile. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

Phil went on to let him know about the breakfast spread Thor had set up in the cafeteria, how his group of friends sat together in the library for the staff meetings (which Trip was more than welcome to join), and how odds were good they'd be going out to lunch together today. "Not that you have to do any of that, well, I mean, you have to go to the staff meeting, but—"

"Nah, I appreciate the invitation. Thank you."

Phil nodded and turned to leave when something gleaming in his peripheral vision caught his eye. He looked in that direction and froze. "Is that your grandfather's trumpet?"

"Yeah," Trip chuckled. "I think he'd want me to bring some noise and funk into my classroom, don't you?" Phil didn't trust himself with any other response than a polite grin. "You wanna hold it?"

"Oh, no," Phil said, shaking his head. "I don't want to break it."

"It's made of metal. Seen a lot of action, so I don't think one new dent will make too much of a difference," Trip reassured.

The offer was incredibly tempting, but Phil declined. "Maybe some other time."

Trip shrugged. "It'll be here."

When Phil walked out of the music room, he saw Clint leaning against the wall in the hallway. His husband was smirking, arms crossed over his muscular chest, and staring intently at Phil's crotch. "Is my fly unzipped?"

"No, I was just looking for a wet spot." Phil rolled his eyes while Clint's smirked grew. "If you're going to blow his trumpet, I should at least get to watch."

Clint laughed as Phil shoved him into the wall.

Have a good first day with the staff. Don't kill Stark.

Principal Fury smiled at the traditional first day of school (with his staff at least) text from his wife. He was sure to get random updates from Melinda throughout the day on how the middle school was going to shake out this year. He was especially looking forward to her being on the same team as Wade Wilson. They were either going to work amazingly well together, or Melinda was going to kill him before October.

Jasper ducked into his office and placed a paper plate with a couple of frosted doughnuts on Nick's desk. "Made sure to steal a couple good ones for you before the staff descended in their feeding frenzy."

Nick arched an eyebrow at him. "You just happened to find time in your busy schedule to help Odinson set up the breakfast spread?"

Jasper shrugged. "Starting off the school year with a good relationship with the PTO president."

"You still have sprinkles on your shirt." Jasper swore and brushed himself off while Nick hid a smile. "I know how many texts I'm going to be getting from the middle school today. What about you?"

"Maria and I are keeping things professional, sir."

"Oh, is that why you spent half of your summer in her office?" Five years ago, his assistant principal would've floundered around for an answer. Now he just glared at Nick; he'd been trained well. "You two do what you want as long as it doesn't affect how my school is run. Her kids still staying with their dad?"

Jasper nodded. "At least till Christmas. Then they'll reevaluate things."

Nick didn't respond to that. He hoped the kids found the stability they didn't think they had with their mom, but his gut said the kids' dad was a pile of shit. And his gut usually wasn't wrong. "Well," he said as he stood, "I guess we should get this show on the road."

He gobbled down his doughnuts on the way there, and ignored Lewis glaring at him as he approached the library. "If your wife knew—" she started.

"My wife is well-aware that my doctor believes me to be pre-diabetic, whatever the hell that means, and yet she bakes cookies all the damn time. Pretty sure she just married me for my life insurance policy."

The office assistant had the nerve to look impressed, and Nick suddenly found himself pitying the men in her life more than usual.

Nick entered the library and moved to the head table where Pepper was organizing all the handouts and forms for the first half of the day's monotonous review of rules and regulations. The guidance counselor kept glancing over her shoulder at the room's other occupants.

The principal was proud of how well his staff bonded together. Sure, there was always a teacher or two who was hell-bent on keeping their private life private, but for the most part everyone seemed happy to be around each other. Half of the staff was practically each others' relatives at this point, and that usually made Nick happy.

It also made him pop antacids at night for fear that something could go wrong. And apparently his fears were valid. Because instead of sitting at the long table with men who were practically her brothers, Natasha Romanoff was sitting at a table with the two teachers who didn't believe in socializing with co-workers.

"You wanna tell me why Romanoff looks like she wants the earth to up and swallow her?" he asked Pepper.

The counselor's eyes flickered from Natasha over to Stark's end of the table, and Nick sighed as he spotted an extremely forlorn Bruce Banner.

Shit.

He'd heard rumors about the two of them being an item, and he'd sincerely hoped it'd worked out. Both of them deserved some happiness in their life. But instead, it looked like he might have a major problem on his hands, because half of the long table seemed to be focusing on the kindergarten team leader, while the others were whispering to each other while unsubtly looking at the gym teacher.

Barton rose from his seat and stood next to Natasha, arms crossed. The two exchanged some words that Nick couldn't quite hear before Natasha shook her head, gave in, and moved to the open seat between Barton and Danvers. At the opposite end of the table from Banner.

"Is this gonna be a problem?" Nick quietly asked Pepper.

"We're trying very hard to not let it become one, sir."

Nick Fury'd sat in on a lot of parent conferences with Pepper Potts over the last four school years. Which meant he knew exactly what her face looked like when she wasn't able to fully tell the truth.

It wasn't until they were making car pool arrangements to head out to La Mesa that Bucky realized someone'd slipped away. He pressed his hand to Steve's back, leaned in, and said, "I'll be right back. Leave without me if I'm gone too long." Steve's face turned concerned for a moment, but he nodded and played along.

Bucky spent the walk from the library to the gym with his heart thudding in his chest. Cornering Natasha was never a good idea, no matter what Steve thought. She could be like a wild animal, and when she was scared and hiding, confronting her usually resulted in both of them walking away with injuries.

He found Natasha messing with papers on her desk, and she jumped when she saw him standing in the doorway of her office. "Sorry," he apologized as he raised his hands in a surrendering gesture.

"What are you doing here?"

"Came to ask you the same question. Why aren't you coming to lunch?"

"I've got work to do."

"We've all got work to do, Nat," he said as he slowly moved into her space. "It's forty-five minutes with your friends."

"I'm not hungry."

Bucky rolled his lips to keep himself from calling her out on her shifting excuses. Instead, he took note of how she continued her morning trend of avoiding any and all eye contact with him. "Natasha," he whispered. It only caused her to still, nothing more. "Please tell me what I have to do to earn your friendship again."

He'd apologized more times than he could count, even consulted all his sisters and his ma on what to do, but nothing seemed to work. It only served to deepen the tear in his heart that his best friend of a decade couldn't even look at him.

"Why aren't you telling everyone about the engagement?"

The question literally knocked Bucky back on his heels. "How did you—"

"You told me you had lunch with Steve's mom," Natasha answered in a tone that dripped in the mood of you're an idiot. "Did you really think I thought you were just going to exchange favorite recipes?"

"Sorry," he whispered.

"And you're not telling everyone? I figured Rogers would hire a sky writer."

Bucky scratched the back of his neck, a tic he'd picked up from Steve. "I kind of want to keep it quiet for a while."

She stared at him intently for a moment. "I don't need you protecting me."

"That's not—"

"Bullshit."

Bucky sighed and hung his head. He apparently wasn't going to win anyone's favor with this whole mess. "I didn't want to rub it in your face."

Natasha snorted. "Because the two of you aren't sickeningly sweet all the time anyway."

"Nat—"

"You're going to be late for lunch. You should go."

She turned her back on him, and Bucky had a sudden flash back to a moment years ago. Natasha was wearing black then, even though it'd been two months after Alex's funeral. Bucky'd been deployed overseas when his friend was buried. He'd heard from mutual friends that Natasha wasn't handling Alex's death all that well, which was to be expected. She'd looked thinner and empty, and it'd completely gutted Bucky. He'd made a promise then and there that he would never let her look like that again, and he'd failed.

"I'm sorry," he apologized.

"For getting what you want?" she questioned. "That's a stupid thing to apologize for."

"For letting you down," he corrected.

She shook her head. "Things fall apart, James. I don't know why I didn't expect any other outcome for my life."

The silence hung heavy in the air between them, and Bucky felt at a loss on what to do. Comforting words never soothed Natasha. Physical contact like a hug could end in him limping out of her office. He knew that she was basically walking around like a spiky porcupine to keep everyone away, but he couldn't find a weak spot in her barrier. It needed to be found soon or else he was going to lose her forever.

"I need a best man."

The words were out of his mouth before he knew the thought was in his head. He wanted to kick himself for pulling her into wedding planning, but he needed an excuse to keep her close and talk to her often.

"Call your brother, maybe you two can have an actual conversation," Natasha replied, face still hidden from him.

"I want it to be you," he told her, and that finally caused her to look up at him. "I know it's really shitty of me to drown you in wedding planning when you're going through this, but your best man is supposed to be your best friend, and you're the only person in the world who fits that bill."

He could see the rebuttal on her lips and he held his breath. "I don't know," she started. "Shouldn't you pick a sister?"

"You are my sister," he replied honestly. "C'mon. Put on a hot dress and make everyone there drool all over you."

She shook her head. "The last time I did that at a wedding—"

"He's an idiot."

For a second, the fierceness he associated with her flared back into her green eyes, and he didn't even care that it was directed at him. "You don't get to say that about him. You don't know what happened."

"Then tell me," he pled. "Please—"

"You're going to be late for lunch," she repeated as she once again when back to organizing whatever she could get her hands on.

"Yeah," he sighed, feeling like a deflated balloon. "Want me to bring you back something?"

"I'll be fine," she huffed.

He debated his next question before giving in to full-on brother mode. "But you're going to eat something, right?" Her glare was all the answer she was going to give, and he once again raised his hands in surrender. "Okay. See you later."

"Are you, uh, okay?" Peter Parker asked, and Bruce blinked over at him.

In retrospect, Bruce probably should have expected Peter's question, nervously blurted as he peered down at his lesson plans and pretended to look busy. Bruce knew Peter'd finished his first set of plans weeks ago, because Bruce'd looked over them then, the same way he'd looked over Peter's proposed room layout and some of his ideas for different learning stations in the classroom. Peter approached everything with a sort of twitchy enthusiasm that generally made Bruce smile even if, sometimes, he suspected it all came down to not disappointing the beloved Aunt May (and the memory of his equally beloved uncle).

Bruce'd wandered over to Peter's classroom specifically to look in on his progress and maybe glance over his first week lesson plans one last time. Now, standing in front of Peter's (oddly arranged) bookshelves, he watched the other teacher shuffle papers nervously.

Bruce forced a smile. "Pardon?"

"I just—" Peter started, but then he frowned at himself and shook his head. "I'm not saying that you're giving off bad vibes or anything, but I thought maybe you, I don't know, wouldn't be fine? Since Miss Romanoff's living back at her own place and all?" Bruce frowned, and Peter threw up his hands. "Not that it's any of my business, but I know what that sort of thing means, and—"

Bruce shook his head and waved him off. "I'm fine."

"It'd be okay if you weren't fine, too." Bruce felt his brow crinkle at that, but Peter just shrugged and fidgeted a little in his chair. "My freshman year of college, my high school girlfriend and I split up," he said after a moment. "I was, well, kind of a huge mess. We'd planned our whole lives together, and even though that's not the same thing as whatever's up with you and Miss Romanoff, I kind of thought . . . "

He trailed off, his lips pressing into a tight line, and for a moment, Bruce watched him shuffle his lesson plans. He knew Peter meant well—May'd once rolled her eyes and called him incapable of both common sense and intentional insult—but at the same time—

Bruce sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. "It's not the same as what you went through, no," he admitted, and Peter flinched slightly. "I'm not devaluing what you said. Or your relationship. In a way, your breakup was probably worse."

Peter frowned. "Uh, how exactly does that work?"

"You planned your future together. Had a unified vision, from the sound of it." Bruce shook his head and glanced down at his hands. "My relationship was, well, different."

The last word hung in the air, and Bruce turned away, back toward the bookshelves. He ran his fingers over the spines of titles he'd seen time and time again at book fairs or up in the library. Somehow, they reminded him of the life plan he used to have and, worse, the one he'd briefly imagined with Natasha.

When he finally drew his hand away, he sighed. "Fool me twice, shame on me," he murmured to himself.

"Aunt May says that all the time," Peter chimed in, and Bruce twisted around again to see that the other man'd ditched his lesson plans to come over and sit on one of the student desks nearest the bookcases. "It was kind of her favorite saying when I was growing up."

Bruce's lips quirked into a tiny smile. "Did you get goaded into a lot of trouble by your friends?"

"More like I goaded her into believing me when I was totally lying," Peter retorted, and he grinned when Bruce chuckled. "I sort of got into more trouble than I was worth? And every time, once the dust settled and she picked me up from detention or somebody's house or from the police station—which only happened once—she'd just shake her head and say 'fool me twice.'"

"It's the risk you run when you care about someone," Bruce pointed out.

"That's exactly what she said, too." Bruce fell quiet at that, his hands sliding into his pockets, and Peter glanced down at his sneakers. "I'm not qualified to actually help you with any of this," he admitted, "but I'm pretty good at listening to people talk about things I have no experience with and offering pretty useless advice."

Bruce almost chuckled. "I'm not sure there's any advice you could offer. I think the situation is what it is."

"Maybe, but you still obviously care about each other." Bruce frowned, but Peter just shrugged. "Trust me from my college break up: you don't carve out that wide a berth when it doesn't matter. Or spend all your time and energy avoiding eye contact during a staff meeting."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "I wasn't avoiding—"

"Yeah, and Barton didn't keep stroking the inside of Mister Coulson's thigh when he thought nobody was looking." Bruce snorted a laugh, and Peter mock-glared at him. "It was disturbing. I'm pretty sure my aunt looks at them as, like, her hot younger brothers or something. I don't need to think about them like that."

"You're starting to sound like Tony."

"Maybe Tony's saner than I usually give him credit for." Bruce actually laughed at that, and Peter grinned as he hopped off the desk. "My point," he said after a beat, "is that you can care and be not-fine, and that's okay. It probably makes more sense than all the other reactions you could have."

"Such as?"

"Silly-stringing her car, for instance." When Bruce blinked, Peter raised his hands. "I absolutely don't know anything about this from experience. It's just an example."

Bruce grinned. "Did you fool your aunt twice, in this hypothetical?"

Peter shrugged. "Well, I did mention that she once picked me up from the police department . . . " he replied, and Bruce couldn't help laughing again.

"Care to make a wager on today's game, Mister Rogers?" Barnes asked with a gleam in his eye, and Tony seriously considered vomiting all over the gymnasium.

As far as Tony Stark was concerned (and don't repeat this to another human being or even particularly intelligent house plant), the yearly dodgeball game between the various grades and the specials was a sacred ritual. It deserved its own Olympics-style fanfare and theme, never mind an opening ceremony and symbolic fire-phallus.

But instead of participating in the pageantry their teambuilding rightfully deserved, Tony had to suffer through nauseating display that was the Rogers-and-Barnes flirtation hour.

He wondered whether he'd been a merchant of death in a past life or something.

"You're going to hurt yourself if you keep rolling your eyes like that," Pepper commented as she walked past in her capri yoga pants and perfectly sized school t-shirt. Tony pursed his lips, ready to whistle at her magnificent ass, but he stopped when she held up a finger. "No."

Tony plastered on his most innocent face. "No what?"

Pepper narrowed her eyes. "I can practically smell when you're about to make a lewd comment, and the stack of paperwork on my desk promises that I am not in the mood."

"Unless I put you in the mood," Tony returned, and she rolled her eyes at his eyebrow waggle. She bent down to tie her shoes, which offered so much fuel for so many amazing comments that he literally had to bite the inside of his cheek for a second. At least, until he added, "I can be an equal-opportunity letch if you'd prefer. Wolf-whistle at the Jessicas. Ogle Darcy's terrifyingly tight t-shirt. Snap Danvers's bra."

"If you want to lose your hand, you go right ahead," Danvers said from behind him, and Tony nearly leapt out of his shoes. She wore a tank top and shorts, because apparently, dodgeball counted as uniquely serious business. She also crossed her arms under her chest. "What, no witty comeback?"

"No, just picturing whether you'd use a butcher's knife or a katana, because I think it's kind of fifty-fifty," Tony retorted, and Danvers actually cackled before she went to join her team. Tony's nigh-on scientific selection process for the two Specials teams once again relegated Natasha and Carol to the same group, only this time, they also included Mount Rogers and the new music teacher. Tribble? Triple? Something like that, anyway. Tony's group of pathetic stragglers (including Coulson and, sadly, his wife) looked like limp-wristed diaper babies compared to all the corded muscle before them.

Tony wondered if somebody'd rigged his deck of team-selection notecards.

"Today's tournament is brought to you by the new coffee pot in the teacher's lounge," Darcy Lewis announced from atop the bleachers, and everyone turned to her in appropriately reverent admiration. She wore a skin-tight Procrastinators of the World Unite Tomorrow! t-shirt that kind of made Tony wonder what her after school plans were. "Coffee: the lifeblood that helps us survive all those very persistent small people who clog up our lives for eight hours a day. And a moment of silence for Greta, our sadly dead old coffee pot that Stark still denies breaking."

"I deny it because I'm innocent!" Tony reminded all of them for the fifty-seventh time, and he swore to god that the entire staff rolled their eyes in perfect unison. "The Constitution says that I'm innocent until someone proves me guilty."

"Bill of Rights," Barton corrected.

"You only know that because you're married to the most boring man on Earth," Tony retorted.

"And still we probably have more sex than you," Coulson said blandly, and Tony shuttered.

"Enough heckling from the peanut gallery, your master of ceremonies is talking to you!" Darcy shouted into the bullhorn, and the feedback alone was enough to make them all cringe. She planted her free hand on her hips. "You know the rules: double elimination tournament brackets, team with the last teacher standing advances, no bonus points for bloody noses. By popular vote—and by that, I mean I had my b—buddy pick a team at random last night—Specials 2 has a bye on the first round. Let us now pause to threaten their reproductive livelihood and insult their mothers, because they deserve it."

Most the "insults" came in the form of everybody laughing at Darcy's line while the shitheads on the second specials team—you know, the hot, muscular shitheads who Tony wanted to systematically destroy—exchanged high-fives and congratulatory back pats.

"We are so fucked," Tony muttered to no one in particular.

"Speak for yourself," Jessica Drew returned. She'd smeared liquid eyeliner on her cheeks like war paint. "We've got the new kid, and he's spry as shit."

"I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or not," Peter Parker muttered. Drew clapped him on the back hard enough he almost fell over, and Tony snorted at both of them.

"And now that Specials 2 knows that their asses will be well and truly handed to them in the next round," Darcy cut in, "our first round is Specials 1 versus the kindergarten, first grade, and pre-k teachers! Noncombatants, clear the gym, and let's play ball!"

Darcy then immediately held her cell phone up to the bullhorn and blasted the Olympic Fanfare through it while the teams lined up, mostly because she understood the pomp and circumstances in a way that others didn't. Tony surveyed the competition with his best and most ruthless face, trying very hard to swallow down his disappointment that Bruce hadn't shown up. If anybody needed to blow off some steam, it was his platonic life partner and forever-BFF.

"He wanted to work on his room," Pepper said at Tony's side. He blinked at her, and she cocked her head. "You really think I don't know who you're looking for?"

"Maybe I'm just running the odds in my head," he shot back. "I might be the Nate Silver of elementary school dodgeball statistics."

On his other side, Coulson huffed a laugh. "And I'm the most boring man on Earth."

Tony shrugged. "Another thing proven by statistics," he said, and barely dodged the guy's very well-thrown elbow.

The games went by as quickly and sloppy as they usually did, with Tony's team trouncing their competition and the fourth-and-fifth grade team doing the same to the second-and-third grades. But the second-and-thirds rallied in the second elimination round, advancing just in time to face—and then lose to—Tony's team. True to Tony's predictions, the second specials team roundly smeared the fourth-and-fifth grade teachers into the ground without breaking a sweat.

Tony hated them.

"And now, for the championship!" Darcy announced once they'd gulped some water and stretched, and there they were: Tony's band of idiots versus the most terrifying clump of teachers the world'd ever seen.

"You know I ran a whole lot this summer, right?" Danvers asked as they assumed the usual positions.

"You know I spent a lot of time in my pool?" Tony fired back, and half their damn team snickered.

In retrospect, because hindsight (like the other specials team) was a bastard, Tony didn't know how the teams got whittled down to just him and Pepper versus Natasha and Danvers. Maybe it was fate, dumb luck, or just the fact that Rogers kept mooning over his fucking boyfriend instead of throwing the dodgeballs, but either way, Tony ended up staring down the two women with fire in his eyes—and in his heart. Balls flew around him, flung with a vengeance, as he and Pepper both hopped, skipped, and jumped out of the way.

"This is still not a better workout than sex!" he reminded her at one point, and she rolled her eyes before flinging a ball right at Danvers's midsection—and missing by a half-inch at most.

Tony grinned at her, even winked, but then he saw his opening. Because in the Pepper-versus-Danvers exchange, Natasha'd lost track of a couple of the balls, and now she was running off to collect them. She bent to pick one up, and Tony— For the first time all afternoon, he had a clear shot. The clearest shot. The kind of shot that, in a movie, would involve heavenly choirs and a spotlight on Natasha's not-unimpressive rear end.

He pulled back his arm back, ball clutched in his hand. The crowd was laughing and cheering, Darcy was commentating, and Bruce—

Bruce wasn't there.

It hit Tony like a flash of vengeful lightning that Bruce, the guy who'd been part of the staff longer than most of them, the guy who'd brought Tony to the damn school, he was not in the room.

He knew the second he released the ball that he threw it a whole lot harder than was maybe recommended.

Natasha raised her head just as Tony released the ball, her eyes wide with surprise either at who'd thrown it or how fucking fast it was coming. She moved like a blur of red hair and white tank-top, her body twisting to get her hands in front of the damn thing. She clamped her fingers around it a half-second before it slammed into her gut, and by some miracle, she held onto it even as she staggered back a half-step.

"And that's Stark, down for the afternoon!" Darcy crowed from her spot in the bleachers, but Tony hardly heard her. No, instead, he just saw (and felt, and maybe even somehow heard) the red-hot flash of anger across Natasha's face and the way she tightened her jaw.

Because she knew how hard he'd thrown it.

She knew why he'd thrown it.

And when she spiked that ball into the ground before she stalked off to help protect Danvers from Pepper's last couple futile throws, Tony knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was so, so fucked.