"Jesus, caffeine, where is the caffeine?" Tony Stark grumbles as he enters the Assemblage High School library for the faculty meeting. Steve Rogers, the American history teacher, is smiling and waving at him, motioning to the empty seat next to him and the cup of coffee placed on table right in front of it. Tony usually hated morning people on principle, but morning people who brought him his life blood deserved second chances.

"Rough night?" Bruce Banner, the math teacher, asked with one eyebrow raised as Tony slumped in his seat and breathed in the heavenly fumes of his coffee. Tony mumbled something incomprehensible into his coffee. He thought maybe it was a rough night, what he could remember of it. He would tell Bruce about it later, he didn't need a look of patronizing pity from Steve Mr. Perfect Rogers this early in the morning.

For once, Tony was not the latest one to the faculty meeting. Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton walked in a few minutes after him, animatedly chatting. The two sat down next to Bruce, across from Tony and Steve, and Clint returned Tony's eyebrow raise with a quick, "Since we live so close, I thought Natasha and I ought to carpool. I mean, the price of gas is really high right now."

Tony looked at Bruce, fluttering his eyelashes and mouthing "Carpo-oo-ol." Bruce covered his face with the newspaper he had in front of him to hide his laughter from Natasha, Steve, and Clint. Tony was pretty sure Clint saw him, so he was going to get bitched at later, but it was worth it.

The library doors burst open and Thor Odinson, the gym teacher, came jogging in wearing Assemblage High School sweatpants and matching sweatshirt. He greeted his fellow faculty members, booming, "Brethren! You must join me on my next run. It was most enjoyable." Everyone avoided eye contact with Thor, knowing that the first person who looked him in the eye automatically agreed to a morning run in Thor's mind, which was a fate worse than death. Tony remembered the first time he mistakenly made eye contact with Thor after he had extended his weekly offer. His phone had been berated with text messages the next morning until he came out of his house and Thor was standing there, beaming. Tony had never run more than a mile a day in his life, but that morning he ran six, fearing for his life. Thor was a big guy and could rip anyone to shreds, okay?

Thor plopped himself down next to Loki Laufeyson, the European history teacher, who Tony hadn't even noticed until now. Loki always sat at the table next to the one everyone else sat at, until Principal Fury made him and Thor, who always sat next to Loki, move. The unlikely duo – Thor was a hunk of muscle with long blonde hair and a loud smile, while Loki was rather skinny, extremely pale, and had dark hair that was always greased back – conversed quietly. Well, Loki spoke in hush tones and once in a while Tony could hear Thor's shouts of "Verily!" Barton should really invite Thor into his English class the next time they go over Shakespeare, Tony thought.

Peter Parker, Tony's student teacher, strode through the library doors next, looking like he was playing dress up in his father's shirt and tie. The large brown leather briefcase didn't help his situation. Tony would have to talk to him about that later, when he wasn't having Peter doing the things he found boring about his job, like actually teaching his classes. He had been extremely pleased when Parker approached him with the offer to be his student teacher. Tony had immediately told Peter that it would be extremely "hands on," and then left him on his first day with his second period Electricity and Magnetism class to go bother Bruce and shout sexual innuendos into Rogers' class randomly.

Everyone sat up a little straighter when Principal Fury entered the room, followed closely by Vice Principal Coulson nipping at his heels like the little lap dog he was. Tony was still pissed at Coulson for writing him up for vulgar language after Steve had mentioned it to Coulson at lunch. A genius's vocabulary should not be controlled, especially by a former baseball player and his biggest fan. Rogers had evidently been some kind of college baseball star, but decided to be a hero and save "the children" by becoming a high school teacher rather than going to the major leagues. Coulson worshipped the ground Steve walked on, and sometimes Tony wondered who had more control over Coulson, Steve or Fury.

"It's another great day for education," Fury's patented sarcastic tone snapped Tony out of his thoughts. Tony looked up, questioning whether to stare into Fury's eye or his eye patch or both. Supposedly Fury had lost it in some kind of boating accident, but Tony was willing to put money on the fact that Fury had never been on a boat in his life. The kids had numerous theories, but his favorite was that Fury used to be some kind of spy and had lost it in a secret war of some kind. The eye patch was fucking intimidating, even if it did belong to a guy who considered a black leather jacket appropriate work attire. Like Tony could talk, though, since he was wearing extremely wrinkled slacks, a white button up with the sleeves rolled up, and a black tie that was permanently askew.

"Coulson will inform you of what paperwork you need to fill out this week. Yes, Stark, even you. Thor, please remember that sometimes things just need a 'Yes' or 'No' answer and not a lengthy statement asserting that you are 'for' or 'against' something. On another note, Rogers, stop sending kids to my office for cursing and texting, just look at them with your stupid puppy dog eyes and make them feel bad for it. It's much more effective. That's it. If you need me, I'll be in my office. Please do not need me," and with that final sentence, Fury walked out of the library.

"Why do I feel like every time he talks it's just a bulleted list of insults?" Bruce sighed.

Coulson began passing out all the forms for that week – attendance, payroll paperwork, monthly co-worker surveys that were supposed to promote an open atmosphere and togetherness. Tony had suggested they all just go get drunk to promote unity amongst the faculty, but Coulson had vetoed that the minute Steve had turned a disapproving eye on Tony. Steve's disapproval face was the worst. It took everyone back to the time when their mother, or in Tony's case, his nanny, caught them in the act of stealing a cookie from the cookie jar, or, in Tony's case, blowing up the garage.

"God, Coulson, my hand's barely recovered from the last round of surveys," Clint groaned, but immediately shut up when Coulson gave him his patented eyebrow raise.

Coulson smiled at Steve as he handed him everything he needed for the week and Tony wondered if Coulson ever smiled at any other time. Paperwork and Steve, Coulson's two loves. He'd have to discuss the children's name possibilities with Bruce later. Tony grabbed his paperwork from Coulson and chugged the rest of his coffee, muttering his thanks to Steve. He then stood up and left for his classroom.

Tony didn't believe in decorating his classroom. Steve had decorated his classroom and it looked like America had thrown up all over it. Physics was not cute and he didn't want kids coming into his class expecting it to be. The only thing Tony had changed about the original classroom given to him was his desk chair. He had gone out and bought a state-of-the art recliner that only slightly resembled a desk chair for in-class napping purposes. On days he didn't want to do anything, he just gave his students a college-level physics problem and slept while they tried to work it out. Tony was a master of barely getting by. He didn't even need this job, with all the money his parents had left him, he just needed something to do during the day so he wasn't sitting around twiddling his thumbs. Besides, Bruce, his best friend from college, had mentioned an opening here and he thought it'd be a blast. It hadn't been a blast, but the people weren't bad.

"Parker," Tony greeted as his student teacher walked through the door, "What are the lesson plans for today?"

"Well, I thought I could go over Murphy's Law with the Physics classes and Ohms with the Electricity and Magnetism students," Peter responded as he opened his briefcase and carefully piled the pop quizzes the students had taken yesterday into stacks in order of class period. Dear lord, that kid was eager. Tony barely had to lift a finger with him around and that's just the way he liked it.

"Sounds like a plan, Stan. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see what Bruce is up to." Tony left the classroom and headed a hallway over to where Bruce taught math. He found Bruce working a math problem on the board for a few students who had come in for early morning tutoring. Unlike Tony, Bruce loved his job. He had won "Teacher of the Year" three years running and probably would keep winning it until the end of time. Bruce was extremely nice and made sure all of his students were capable of passing his class.

"Yes, Mr. Stark?" Bruce looked up from the board and addressed Tony. The two had been best friends in college, but Bruce maintained a professional work environment. There was a huge difference between the Dr. Banner who taught at Assemblage High School and the Bruce who got drunk with Tony on the weekends.

"I need to update my bet on the Barton/Romanoff relationship pool," Tony smirked - So much for professional work environments.

Most of Bruce's early morning tutoring students had been trained to ignore Tony's antics, so no one even batted an eye. Bruce sighed, a normal state of emotion when Tony was around, and pulled out his ledger. He flipped to the page the Barton/Romanoff dating bet was on (the faculty had a lot of pools going. The latest was how long it would take before Loki would burn the school down. The dude was a crazy bag of cats) and informed Tony, "You currently have fifty dollars on October 22, which is almost one month away. What are we changing it to this time? Is this because of the carpool thing?"

"Damn right this is about the carpool thing. Let's move up to October tenth. And, raise my bet to a hundred," Tony forked over the extra cash. He was going to need to talk to Barton about how to casually flirt in the carpool way. There was no way he was losing to Bruce, who had bet it would take Barton until after New Year's because he "figured Barton was a resolution type of guy."

The bell for first period rang and Bruce's students for his Calculus class poured in. Tony sat down in Bruce's desk chair to watch until Bruce kicked him out. "Mr. Stark, I think you have a class." Tony looked at his watch – it took Bruce fifty two seconds, just about average. Tony sauntered out and returned to his classroom to take attendance or, rather, to watch Peter take attendance.