take a chance on me

chapter one

so take a chance, take a chance on me 

i got real big plans, baby, for you and me

why don't we - "big plans"

~NO POV~

Tony Stark was a genius. Everyone knew that. As much as the odd asshole liked to complain and whine and bitch about Tony being a fake, about him paying his way through school and having a store-bought IQ, Tony was a genius, and everyone knew it. But he didn't show it off much. 

Mostly the media showed it off for him. Howard, whenever Tony did something good, would rather show off Tony's genius and get fame and attention for it rather than congratulate his son and be proud of him. And the media, when they weren't shaming Tony for doing things that a regular teenager does, would overeagerly hype up Tony's smartness.

Tony never really got the chance to decide who he was, and decide how he wanted the world to see him. He discovered his intelligence at a young age, but instead of having his parents be proud of him for it, they publicised it. So from a young age, he was labelled as the genius Stark heir.

And then, growing up, he earned the label of spoilt rich kid. Just because his father had money, did not mean he did too. He had a fancy watch because Howard demanded he wore the family heirloom, and he had high-tech devices, but that was because he made them himself. But because of the few things he had that showed off his wealth, he wasn't a spoilt rich kid.

Howard Stark was a money-hungry, fame-seeking, greedy man. He prided himself in being rich and smart, young and successful, powerful and respected. The Stark name was his first and foremost priority, and then came his money, and then came his company and so on. Somewhere down the line, there was Tony. But he was pretty far down the line.

Howard adored the idea of having a picture-perfect son. He was elated when he found out Tony was also a genius, albeit jealous because Tony was smarter than he was at his age, and immediately ran to tell the world just how smart his son was. To the media, Howard was beyond proud, but all Howard really cared about was the fame.

Howard signed Tony up for every competition possible, and although a lot of them were fun, like the robotics competitions, Howard drained the fun out of it by pressuring Tony into always winning. Howard wanted Tony to have a respectable name and a reputation to fear, and he made sure Tony got it, for his own sake.

Really, Tony would've killed to be just as normal as everyone else. The money didn't do much for him when Howard was so stingy about it, and the Stark name mostly attracted gold diggers and snobby upper class people. Honestly, not even being a genius was that fun. 

Tony was a senior in high school at sixteen, which didn't feel as impressive as it sounded. Because he was a younger student, he often found it hard to make real friends, friends who didn't want to just use him for homework to copy and test answers to cheat off of. It made people jealous of him, envious of him. It made people hate him without really knowing him.

That was what bothered him the most, about the whole 'genius, famous rich kid' thing. He had people assuming things about him when he didn't do anything, when he didn't have the chance to show who he really was. He hardly knew who he was, but he wasn't just a genius, famous rich kid. And hardly anyone ever tried to see that.

He'd grown up with the genius title, and then the rich title, but by the time he got to high school, he adopted a new title. Attention-seeking teenagers liked to make up rumours for their five minutes of fame, so quite a lot of people liked to claim they'd slept with Tony, just to feel cool. 

Tony didn't get why. He was five foot eight with messy, slightly-curly hair and doe eyes. He was attractive, sure, but he was also young. He didn't see how people could believe the playboy titles when he was hardly capable of forming a full non-science related sentence without stumbling on his words or having people drone him out.

Tony knew how to make himself look good, sure, but he was the walking definition of a nerdy teenager, and people still classified him as a playboy. He knew how to look good in front of a camera, knew how to flirt and charm his way out of trouble and to get what he wanted, but that was just a front. Eventually it was easier to just have a front, to be unlikeable to not get hurt.

Tony didn't really know who he was. But he was sick of the titles and the rumours and the persona everyone had created for him. He was sick of the assumptions and the hatred, and the unwanted popularity for bad reasons. All Tony wanted was friends, friends who actually liked him and didn't just want to use him.

Tony also wanted love, sometimes. But all teenagers wanted that. He wasn't sure he'd find that.

He did find friends, eventually. A small circle of friends, but he still found them. 

He had James Rhodes, who he immediately called Rhodey, because one-syllable names were too boring. In return, Rhodey called him Tones, but Tony didn't mind that as much as Rhodes minded Rhodey. It stuck, eventually, and so did their friendship. Rhodey found Tony on a day where Tony couldn't pretend, and the real Tony won Rhodey over.

Rhodey liked the Tony that was an unfiltered nerd who needed at least a litre of coffee a day to survive. Your heart will give out if you keep that up, Rhodey would always say, and in return Tony would laugh and say you can't get rid of me that easily.

It was true. Once Tony found Rhodey, he was not going to let Rhodey escape. Luckily, Rhodey didn't want to. Even though sometimes Tony really was unbearable, snappy and short-tempered, Rhodey still stayed. 

Rhodey was the only person who had ever liked Tony for Tony, and not because he was Tony Stark. And that was incredibly rare. Rhodey didn't want anything but real friendship from Tony, and that meant everything to him. Rhodey was honest, and he looked out for Tony, and he was like a brother to Tony.

Hell, even his mom had started to love Tony.

It was so rare, and so unbelievable to Tony that he'd found one singular friend, that he was even more surprised when he made a second friend. Virginia Potts, who was a year older than Tony, just like Rhodey. Tony also nicknamed her immediately, calling her Pepper because she always had pepper spray on her and once almost sprayed it in Tony's eyes by accident.

Pepper was smart and stubborn, and she never took Tony's bullshit, ever. She was quick to call him out on his flaws, but only to remind Tony that he didn't have to pretend to be someone else to protect himself. She was incredibly insightful, and had figured out a lot about Tony without him even doing anything to expose himself. 

And he trusted her for that, somehow. He also respected her highly.

Most days, Tony felt like absolute shit. Most days, he'd resent every title he'd ever been given, and the rumours, and the assumptions. Most days, Tony wanted to curl up into a ball and scream because all he wanted was a normal life as a normal teenager.

And most days, when he felt like that, he reminded himself he had Rhodey and Pepper. 

Howard Stark believed in quantity over quality.

Rhodey and Pepper made Tony see that quality was so much better than quantity.

if u came here after tony whump i love you.

very scattered let me live im trying

due to attachment issues and tradition im still using the stupid sign off i came up with in 2020

cinnamon <3