…
i.
…
She's sitting away from the world, it seems. Her tie is discarded somewhere freely, and her hair hanging softly in the breeze. She reads a new book every third period beneath the old oak tree, and it seems like every boy can't stop but slow his pace and stray a little closer to the silent student.
Tony studies the harsh bruising on her thin wrist as she turns the page, and he's close enough that he can pick out the word 'Great Gatsby' on the cracked spine of the book.
"Spying?" A dry voice emerges from behind him, and Tony jumps up from his perch on the arm rest of the bench, his neglected mathematics text book flying off his lap.
"Of course not, Clint. Like anyone here is worth my time," he scoffed freely, waving a hand as he accepted the book back again.
He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I got Archery Practice. Don't be stupid, Stark,"
Tony watched Clint walk down the pathway to the practice fields, and he turned his attention back to girl almost immediately. She looked up at him, dark eyes greeting him with coldness.
…
ii.
…
It started off with the mention of her name.
His teacher in English broke the lecture off on the importance of God knows what to explain the arrival of a new girl from Russia. He tunes her out almost as she explains how English is not her first language, and how patience should be given.
It's about an hour later; she arrives in his art class when he's sketching out rather detailed robots.
She's a flurry of pale skin and bright hair, scowling at the class who greets her with numerous stares.
"I'm Natasha," she introduces herself, accent masking her words with a sharp edge.
She seats down in the back at the empty work desk to the right of Tony, and he can't stop looking at the scrap on her bare ankle, and the fading bruising upon her arm.
He coughs obnoxiously, and Steve glares at him from his spot to his left. He's finishing off the last bits to a portrait of a girl he knows from one of his art classes. Natasha looks up, and narrows her eyes at Tony's cheeky grin.
"I'm Tony. Tony Stark."
It's usually then he has the girl almost on his lap, seeking the money that he'll receive as inheritance. He assumes it's because she's new, and doesn't know about the vast moneys he'll receive.
Because she just scoffs and turns away.
That's never happened before.
…
iii.
…
He finds her during his study period. He knows, from hacking the school data base against Bruce's firm distaste, that she should be in the library with a tutor for language.
Not out in the hallway with bruised knuckles and some guy he vaguely recalls from the football team heaped at her feet.
She stares at him blankly, words strung together. Words he doesn't understand. Her shirt slips off her thin shoulder, and he can see violent red marks that string the answers together.
So he slowly approaches, and thinks on how to stay, how to not be a 'jerk face' and ruin everything. (That's what Steve called him two weeks ago when he commented during Lunch on what a lovely view she was.)
"Are you okay?" He calls. He tries to make the words soft, so they don't scare her away. And yet, all they do is crack against the silence.
She's forcibly trying to find her words, English and Russian sewn jaggedly together.
All he can understand is 'I didn't mean to hurt him like this'
So he carefully takes her by the hand, and pulls her away from the bloody the pulp that is the school's Linebacker.
Like guiding a nuclear bomb, he attempts to direct her far away.
…
iv.
…
They end up in some café on the other end of the city. They had managed to skirt around traffic, hoards of people and the occasional Police Officer.
He thinks he catches a glimpse of a kid from his Math Class, fading into the crowds before emerging a few blocks away again. Another block he thinks he can see Thor chasing after the kid.
Natasha though presses into him slightly. It distracts him easily from the two boys (brothers? He thought he heard Bruce term them as brothers once.)
"You okay?" He asks constantly until they make it to the café he discovered a while back. It's tiny but quiet, and sells a damn decent cup of coffee. Better than Starbucks, he admits to himself.
She'll nod her head yes, or work out a manageable sentence in English.
"What happened?" He asks once they're seated in some like corner with a waitress eyeing them like prey.
"He wouldn't stop grabbing me," she says harshly, tilting her chin up. He thinks the display of fear and unsettled emotion she had shown before was a trick, before catching sight of the brittle softness in her eyes.
Tony tries not to get mad, but he really can't help himself. Since day one, he's claimed her as his. He scribbled it out in permanent marker on the bathroom wall that she was TONY STARK'S AND NOBODY ELSES. Bruce had cringed, and questioned why he couldn't write on the stall like everyone else did.
(Tony just had to be better, different, and one step ahead of everyone else.)
He offers coffee.
She accepts tea.
…
v.
…
They don't really talk much.
They fill spaces.
Tony rambles briefly about ideas and dreams, scripting them out in equations and ink. She tells him after sneaking into his apartment bedroom about her past. Not all of it, mind you. Just the pieces that are crumbling away like ashes, and she just can't stop it all from weighing her down.
She teaches him how to sew flesh up pretty. He teaches her how to make the perfect cup of coffee.
('As black as Principal Fury's heart, my dear.')
Some nights she has to call him from the payphone booth down the street because she just can't make it up the fire escape to see him, and other days she has to force him from the science labs because the teacher won't stop worrying at the amount of explosive chemicals he's studying(playing) with.
He never asked her to go out with him, just decided to take her. She relented slightly, and allowed him to have her.
From there, they kind of fit together. He's loud and careful, and she's silent and blunt.
He makes her the best equation in the world for Valentine's Day, because it only proves the awesomeness of him and her together. She doesn't understand it, but she laminates it and carries it around in her back pocket. Running her fingertips along the edges of it brings a fluttery feeling to her stomach she can't quite place.
(In return she teaches him how to swear in Russian. She regrets it violently after three hours.)
Natasha tells him about her Uncle Ivan briefly, and after that every cop in the city (which isn't quite enough) surrounds the ratty apartment she's been living (dying) in.
She's furious. She fights against several policemen before they finally get her down with sedation.
She disappears for a few days.
…
vi.
…
Of course, he's a damn genius. They can't keep him away from what is his, so he decides to just take her back.
He tracks her down to the hospital she's being restrained at. The very one his Father funds.
He smuggles himself through the creepy hallways until he finally pushes himself into her room.
She's angry when she lays eyes on him though. Hisses something is Russian he knows is a curse. A violent, visual curse. So he cringes, but snaps back.
He thinks about how they found her naked in her closet, with the scent of sex and blood so strong in the air. The way she screamed herself hoarse. How they had to drug her.
They drag Tony away from her after she collapses.
(He wished he knew how to fix everything. But really, wasn't he just a kid with too much attitude and money?)
…
vii.
…
After three months, she returns to school.
Not to him.
No one knows about her. They assume she was sick. Not torn away from her Uncle who raped her every night, and placed under suicide watch. Not betrayed by someone who was never meant to betray her.
He apologises. Flooding her locker with forget-me-nots, Chai and Peppermint Tea Boxes, and letters beggingpleadingdemandingasking for forgiveness.
It takes about six days for a letter to slip into his locker, asking for a copy of his equation on why him and her equaled awesomeness, because something happened to her own.
(and to stop sending me damn flowers.)
It's a little different afterwards, because she has new scars on her wrist, and she no longer cringes when he touches her.
He demands that she moves in with him, and tells his father to sort out the mess. Tony tries not to act surprised when he actually does sort out the mess, but rather nods his head and carries the banged up suitcase into the guestroom for Natasha.
He frames his equation and nails it above her bed. She laughs when she catches sight of it.
…
viii.
…
He can't help but feel responsible for her, and she knows this isn't a one way street.
When she skips a meal, he lectures her until she makes up for it. When he's studying away like a maniac, she has to coax him into his bed. When a boy tears up her copies of Hamlet and Great Gatsby, he hacks the system and flunks his final marks. If a girl dares to look at Tony far too long, Natasha jumps head first into the equation and forces the unwanted party away from the resolved answer.
They graduate, but they never show up to the ceremony. Instead they sit with feet dangling off the fire escape and drink vodka raw.
He tells her for the first time he loved her.
It takes three more sips from the bottled liquid fire to coax the forbidden words free.
…
ix.
…
"I love you," she allows.
…
x.
…
They find happy endings warped with beginnings etched with endings.
Tony knows his beginnings started with cold eyes and delicate wrists, and Natasha knew she had begun with obnoxious coughs and slippery smirks. Endings sought after were soaked with resolved people.
But neither one were resolved, so they pushed on freely. Battering against the world until nothing stood but two.