I'm out of my head - hs AU

4

« I need help. »
〣

"Are you sure you're okay, Tony? You're acting a little strange." Bruce asked as he looked Tony up and down, seeing how hunched Tony was from what looked like exhaustion. Bruce figured had been from lack of sleep, and it was. Mixed with some other things as well like the fact that he's slowly dying and no one except his AI knows.

Tony was wearing sunglasses so that no one would be able to see his red eyes, red eyes from lack of sleep AND the arc reactor. And also because he looked more mysterious and hot in them, and he knew it. He could watch anyone as they stared at him when they walked by without being detected. Which begs the question: why even risk looking at all? But I guess Tony was worth the trouble. He also wore them to cover up the huge black eye he'd gotten from Tiberius, he didn't want everyone asking about that.The two friends were stationed at the entrance and Tony was leaning against a couple of lockers as he was talking to Bruce.

"I'm aces. Fantastic. Marvelous. Never the same. Show stopping—" Tony babbled, a smirk growing on his lips as he saw Bruce rolling his eyes at him.

"Okay, okay! I get it. You wanna be secretive again and not tell me, I'll find you later I need to talk to Thor."

"Later..." Tony mumbled and sighed, he crossed his arms over his chest as he closed himself off further. The tendrils had spread out even more over the night, and he feared he wouldn't be able to go to the beach with his friends in a while or at all if he were to fail to find a cure for his palladium poisoning. He wasn't going to lie, not even to himself like he often did, but he was scared. Terrified. He constantly joked about death and dying until he realized he was slowly dying himself.

As the next period was going to start people were walking to their classes, barely anyone came from the outside after a few minutes. Everyone wanted to arrive before the bell, but Tony wasn't concerned in the least. He had other things to worry about. The only reason he was even at school was because Howard would freak out on him and Maria would suspect that something was wrong, they both knew he hated school but he still had to go. And it was a public school or being homeschooled that were the options, and he did not want to be home 24/7.

Not like he actually needed to, he could go anywhere he want and have his lessons. But he didn't see that life for himself, he quite liked the attention he got in school. But that particular day he just wanted to be left alone, to figure out how to cure himself.

Steve's first period, art, had been cancelled due to the teacher being sick and not finding a decent substitute. So he got to school at around 10.25, his next class would be in 10.35 so he had 10 minutes to do whatever he wanted before it. It had been raining the whole night so he had put on a zip-up hoodie and a t-shirt underneath plus a jacket, he could get pretty cold.

He walked up the stairs to the main doors and took off his hood and like he did every day he looked around. To see if anything had changed or if any of his friends were in close range, but not today. He'd find them at lunch. The only person in the hallway was sitting on the floor with their back against the lockers and legs spread out over the floor like a starfish. They had spiky raven hair and a pair of shades to cover their eyes. Black jeans with a straight leg, a probably tight black turtleneck with holes for the thumbs with a dark grey knitted sweater over it. It emitted a soft glow underneath, it was so faint that Steve shouldn't have noticed. But he had stared for so long that he saw it.

While walking past he tried to be as discreet as possible. Especially after realizing it was Tony who was sitting there in his lonesome, looking really attractive sitting like that and dressing like that. Without noticing Steve's presence Tony took off his glasses and sighed deeply, running his hand through his hair. Steve's gaze was glued upon the boy, so much so that he wasn't noticing he were walking straight towards a couple of lockers. So like the idiot he is, he walked straight into them. Scaring himself and Tony, who hadn't noticed Steve entering.