Authors Note:Usually I'm not a fan of writing AUs, don't get me wrong, they're absolutely fabulous things, and strangely the majority of my pairings seem to have been introduced to me that way, with the exception of an obvious few but I've never really got along with them. I like to challenge myself, see whether or not I can make something seem realistic. However, when I saw a picture of my absolute favourite pairing at the moment depicting Steve and Tony as college kids I couldn't help myself. It's been a while since any plot bunnies have hit me, at least not to the same all-consuming degree as this, and I'm hoping to whatever gods there are that it kicks me in the behind and gets my creative juices going since they're practically non-existent after this first year at college. I'm taking some liberties ect, but that's the fun part of AUs. I'm going to try and keep to the verse as much as possible, but Stark will not be going to MIT at 15, I can't deal with a 19 year old Steve perving on Tony at that age. xD There might be quite a few errors in this fiction – being English I have to admit I don't know much about the American education systems or American Football for that matter. Consequently my google search bar and Wikipedia is being completely swamped, but I'm still going to get things wrong! Sorry in advance and let me know if I do do anything wrong. Ta. :)

For all those, if you're still hovering about, waiting for an update of Alone Again I'm going to have to put it on the back burner for now, I'd been slowly chipping away at the next chapter whenever I got any free time during semesters but my computer went on the fritz and wiped everything – I'm just incredibly lucky all of my work had been handed in but everything's gone. Half written fan fictions I'd been musing over and my nearly finished chapter. I'm (I hope understandably) pissed off about it, and I don't have the patience to try and rewrite it at the moment. Sorry, but I hope you enjoy this.

Enough with my long ass A.N and on with the fiction – enjoy guys! xxx

Warnings: Some pretty offensive language, severe bullying, homophobia ect.

Prologue

"Little faggot!"

Steve's head whipped back to crack against the southern wall of the gym as a well aimed elbow connected to the underside of his jaw and pain immediately bloomed from both points. This had become somewhat of a habit. It could be argued that he probably had it coming when he'd squared up to Thompson for shouting lewd comments across the basketball courts at Peggy Carter. He didn't regret it. The boy had no business saying those things to a girl – especially not in front of both her friends and his.

Saying that to Thompson, however, had bought him to his current predicament, and without missing a beat Steve raised his fists and took a shot of his own, ignoring the dampness he could feel at the back of his head sliding down his neck. Distantly he wondered how he was going to explain the blood to his mother, and, he thought with a grimace, his father who'd expressed on more than one occasion that he profusely disagreed with the scraps his son always seemed to get into.

The much bigger boy easily knocked his punch aside and grabbed the front of his shirt, slamming him back against the wall, pinning him without much difficulty. Steve could hear Thompson's friends yelling encouragement from the crowd assembled to watch the display and he pushed as hard as he could at the boy's chest, trying, and failing, to dislodge his fists from his shirt.

"Stop squirming you little bitch," Thompson growled out, slamming him back into place against the hard brick, the rough texture digging into his skin. "Wouldn't put it past you to be enjoying this either. Perhaps if you behave I'll let you suck my – Argh, shit!"

From over the boy's shoulder Steve watched as Bucky stormed towards them, hands fisted at his side, closely followed by Peggy. He opened his mouth to tell the brunette to stop, that this was his fight, but the look in his friend's eyes had him snapping it shut quickly as the older boy drew his arm back and swung his fist towards to side of Thompson's head. Stunted, the bully was knocked off his feet and would have dragged Steve down with him too had Bucky not grabbed him by the back of the shirt.

"Get the fuck out of my sight."

From that one hissed sentence Steve knew he was in trouble, the older boy never cussed, not unless it was really serious. Red pooling in his cheeks the blonde snuck a glance at Peggy who just sighed in exasperation and sent him a pointed look.

She turned her back on him and starting ushering away their quietly muttering audience, "Shows over people, go home, you've got to have better things to do."

And then they were alone.

Staring at his feet Steve waited for Bucky to say something, but his usual reprimand didn't happen. In fact, the brunette didn't say a thing, he just stood there, face like thunder glowering at him. Clearing his throat after another moment of uncomfortable silence Steve looked up and opened his mouth.

"Bucky, I – "

"Don't even start, Steve," he cut across him and ducked down to collect his friend's bag from the ground, shoving it into his hands. "Let's just go home, your mom's going to go mental when she sees you."

Steve couldn't do anything but agree, and swinging his bag onto his shoulder he quietly fell into step behind the older boy. As the adrenaline slowly left his body he realised that his friend was doubly right – his mom was going to have a fit when she saw the damage. Running the tip of his tongue across his busted lip Steve sighed and raised a hand to gently prod at the dried blood matting his hair at the back of his head. That was going to really smart in the morning, he absently mused.

He could see Bucky watching him, thin lipped, from the corner of his eye and not for the first time Steve found himself ashamed of what he'd done. Not for defending Peggy, of course, he was still adamant that he'd done the right thing there. But he was ashamed for not backing down or walking away when Thompson started mouthing off at him, he should have left before punches started to be thrown. He really should have known better, especially when he knew that he'd get into these scraps and it would be Bucky who came to finish them.

It was always Bucky who pulled his ass out of the fire and he couldn't help but wonder why the boy had put up with him so long.

He just couldn't…help himself.

All it took was for someone to call him a coward…call him a faggot and he'd be ready to defend himself. His dad had said that a man who walked away from a battle was less cowardly than those who started them. But he never started fights…he just didn't back down from one. As for Bucky…Well, he'd told him time and time again that they could say whatever they liked, it didn't make it true and so long as he and Steve knew they were just harshly said lies, what did it matter?

He'd never been able to tell his friend that it mattered that people like Thompson called him a 'little fag' because he was starting to think it was true. Bucky was always talking about girls, which one's were attractive, which one's weren't and which ones were complete 'dames'. Steve had never really been able to get involved in these conversations much; frankly he hadn't wanted to.

After all, how did you tell your best friend that actually the high pitched giggles of girls and the developed curves of a woman didn't do anything for him? It was the gruffness of a man's voice and the sharp planes of their bodies that made shivers run up his spine.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled finally and saw Bucky's shoulders tense before he glowered at him.

"You do this all the time Steve. It's gotta stop – I get that you did it to make Thompson leave Peggy alone, I get that there's always a goddamn reason behind why you do it. But why can't you just see that we hate watching you get hurt? Me, your parents, hell even Peggy's started asking me to get you to stop. I'm not always going to be there, you know that. I graduate next year and I'm not going to be around to watch out for you when I'm at high school," the brunette groused, his gaze and voice softening as he continued. "I just don't want to have to worry about what state I'm going to find you in at the end of the day."

Steve understood. Honestly he did. But it was different for Bucky; he was big, stronger, the good looking one. Everything he wasn't. He didn't care that that the boy was a year older than him, that puberty had obviously done wonders for him – Steve was skinny, more bone than skin, and less muscle than he wanted to be. He couldn't even do what he wanted and join the junior's football team because of his size, even though his illustrious friend had joined the year before. Stuffing his hands into his pocket he pouted, wrapping his fingers around the rejection letter and stared at the floor.

The movement didn't go unnoticed and before he could even hope to fight off his friend, Bucky had pulled his wrist and swiped the paper from his now exposed hand. Steve watched in silence as Bucky's eyes surveyed the writing before he sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"So this is what set it off? I know it's your dream, Steve, really I do…But don't you think – " Bucky paused, cherry picking his words and Steve scowled at him, already knowing that he was going to say. "You've been applying for two years now, maybe you're strength doesn't lie in sport. You're not an idiot, I bet if you – "

"I can do it!" Steve snapped, shocking the brunette into silence with the force of his exclamation. "You wait and see Bucky, when I get to high school things'll be different. I'll get onto the team; I'll show everyone they were wrong. You'll see."

There was a long stretch of silence before Bucky chuckled and reached over to ruffle his hair with a wide grin. "Right. But you've gotta get to high school first, so don't pick any more fights, alright?"

Satisfied with the nod he received the brunette carried on walking, smirking when Steve had to jog to catch up, "Your mom's still gonna kill you though."

Steve groaned quietly and felt the back of his head with another grimace. As much as he didn't want to admit it, Bucky was right. He would be lucky if he made it through the night, let alone until high school once his mother saw the blood on his collar.

Damn it.

"Tony, would you come here for a moment?"

With a long suffering sigh, Tony looked up from the circuit board he'd been reconstructing for the last half an hour and turned mildly apathetic eyes to his mother. He knew what this was about; he could see the slight worry etched into her usually kind face that only ever appeared when she thought her husband and son were about to have another confrontation. He slowly pushed himself up to his feet, dusting imaginary dust from his trousers and tossed the screwdriver to the floor with the spare parts.

It wasn't like he'd been getting anywhere anyway. He hadn't been able to concentrate since he'd handed his mom the envelope when he'd got in from school.

It felt like an eternity before he reached the woman in the doorway, hands dug in his pockets and trying to ignore the mild panic he could feel starting to race through his body. Glancing down the hallway he could see the door leading down to his father's lab was ajar, and as if summoned by the mere thought of him, Howard Stark had pushed the door open and blocked the doorway, bracing himself against the frame.

Tony was pinned by the man's unwavering gaze, and even if he had wanted to follow through with the irrational desire to flee he would never have been able to. He could tell his father had hit a snag in whatever it was he was currently developing down there – not that he would know, of course, he wasn't allowed near any of his inventions. Howard's face was set into a slight scowl, dark circles under his eyes, hair sticking out at odd angles where he'd run his fingers through it in frustration, the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to his elbows and the waistcoat he perpetually wore, even in the house, was undone, hanging open from his frame.

However it wasn't his father's general unkempt appearance that bothered Tony; no, it was the score card clutched in his right hand. His score card.

A few very colourful profanities ran across his mind as he stared back.

After a moment of so of the unwavering silent war father and son seemed to waging on each other, Howard sighed irritably and gestured for the boy to follow him into the dining room. For a moment Tony considered ignoring the request and started plotting his escape where he could hole himself in his room for a few hours, maybe even days, until Howard had calmed down, but when Maria gently placed her hand on his shoulder, he made no attempt to push away from her guidance.

Awkwardly Tony sat himself at the foot of the expansive table and folded his hands in front of him, continuing to eye his father with a mixture of distrust and distain. So what if he hated him? The feeling, so much as he could gather, was rather mutual. He watched silently as Howard paced back and forth a moment before turning to stare at his son, making his way towards him with evenly placed strides.

"You're probably wondering why I asked your mother to get you."

'Not really', was his immediate response and Tony bit the side of his mouth to keep his snide remarks to himself, if only for his mother's sake. Howard slid his score card across the hard, dark mahogany towards him and Tony merely glanced down at it before turning his gaze to the opposite wall. Any other parent would be over the moon, he thought quietly, if he had other parents he would have been patted on the back, congratulated, told well done, been given a huge ice cream sundae or maybe even been taken out to dinner. But he wasn't any other child, and his father was not like other dads.

Instead he was the genius child of their time and he had the genius father, founded of Stark Enterpise who's only form of congratulations was leaving him the hell alone. So long as he didn't do anything wrong he would be left in peace, but now…

Howard sighed heavily again and jabbed his finger down on the paper, leaning over to force his son to look at him. "Would you mind telling me what exactly this is?"

"I believe they call it a score card. They're used to inform a child's parents of his achievements and shortcomings at school."

The sarcastic remark was out of his mouth before he had a chance to stop it and Tony glared back at his father, slowly looking down to the letter leering at him beneath Howard's finger. One single A stared back at him amidst a sea of A+'s. Strange how one little letter could mock him so much.

"Don't get smart with me, Anthony," Howard snapped and pulled himself up to his full height, folding his arms. "Perhaps you'd like to start explaining why my son only got an A in physics?"

Tony didn't answer immediately. If he was being honest it was entirely his own fault. His teacher had it in for him ever since he'd mouthed off one lesson that the way he'd been teaching the class was not only long winded and difficult to understand but was also very wrong. He knew it wasn't any of the homework they'd been assigned over the year, the look of shock and perhaps nausea as Mr Hobbs had put his work on the stack of paper had been enough to tell him he'd gone 'beyond the call of duty', and he knew for a fact he'd aced that exam. Honestly they could have tried to make it hard for him.

But how could you explain that to a parent? Especially one who was still eying him like he was a bottom feeder in an aquarium.

After another moment or so Howard tapped his foot impatiently and raised an eyebrow at his son, "I'm waiting."

Seeing no other option Tony reluctantly looked up at his father and forced himself to answer. "My teacher doesn't like me, I answered every single question correctly, he must've blamed it on my working out not being clear, but I don't need to work it out on paper, he just hates me because I'm smarter than he is…"

"If you knew he would want the working out why didn't you just write it down? It would have taken thirty seconds," Howard demanded, lips pursed and tone clipped, digging his fingers into the fabric of his sleeves.

"Because there was no point! He knows damn well that I could answer any question on that paper quicker than he could. Why should I play dumb just so – "

"I don't give a damn if your teacher is a drooling imbecile; if he tells you to do something, you do it. You got that Anthony? I don't care if he tells you that you need to write down the working out or if he tells you you're doing something wrong even when you know you're not. You keep your mouth shut and you do what he says or smile and nod and continue to do it the way you were doing it anyway. Consider this a life lesson, people are going to make you do things you don't want to do all the time and you can't mouth off at them every single time they do."

Tony sat in silence, biting his tongue to remain silent and glared down at the table; half hoping it would set on fire. He could hear the logic in his father's words, of course, but that didn't mean he had to like it. His eyes snapped up tersely and the brunette jumped to his fee, thin lipped.

"Now, you're going to go and apologise to your teacher for your behaviour – I don't care how much you've got to suck up to him, I don't want anything like this happening again. You understand, Anthony?"

Hands balled up and shaking at his sides Tony nodded once, staring back at his father with eyes ablaze, before turning on his heel and stomping out of the room when he was dismissed.

He didn't need to do any of that. His father had got it wrong. He would never depend on anyone to get what he needed. People everywhere would know his name. People would be awed by him. He was wrong.

That night two boys from two very different backgrounds stared up at the ceilings of their rooms in the darkness.

That night two boys made a silent pledge to themselves.

That night two boys shared a single thought, 'Just you wait and see.'