Living My Best Life - Stony

eight

STEVE'S POV

"Please tell me you like movies."

"What?"

"Movies. You like movies, right?"

We were sat in the school cafeteria, and I was sat next to Tony. Opposite us were Nat and Bruce, and Rhodey and some others were sat at the other end of the table.

"Steve loves movies," said Nat, putting a forkful of pasta into her mouth. "He always said he did. What's your plan, Tony?"

"Nat what the fu-"

"The plan is I wanna take you dinner and a movie," said Tony, taking his lunch from his bag. "My treat."

"Tony, I don't know. My mom..."

"I spoke to her this morning and she's fine with it. The film I chose was the Goonies - they're doing a rerelease in our theatre since everyone loved it so much. It's actually at the drive-in and I can take a van from my house, some snacks, please. But, if you don't wanna go then that's fine, we can just do something else-"

"And when were you planning this for?" I was blushing slightly and Tony chuckled and pulled his hoodie over his head to take it off since he was hot. It ruffled up his hair and he ran his fingers through it making it accidentally messier. I laughed and he quickly attempted to fix it but he really didn't care about how he looked - he just wanted to see me smile.

"I'll pick you up at 7?"

"Tonight?"

"You can't do tonight?"

"No, I can. I'll see you later." The bell rang and I swung my bag over my shoulder and headed off to the chem labs.

"Steve!" I turned around to see Nat jogging towards me. "You okay?"

"Just peachy."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, no, I'm fine. Seriously just worried about the chem test."

"We don't have a chem test."

"Yes, we do. Professor Endozer announced it last week."

"Shit, he did. I haven't studied, can I-"

"Have my notes?" Nat nodded and I pulled my notebook out of my bag and flicked to my study pages. "So, it's this bit, this and this. Oh, and know this bit - he didn't say it would come up but better to be safe than sorry."

"Thank you. So much, I owe you."

"Five bucks?"

"Sure," she laughed. She handed it over and became deeply immersed in what she was reading. Our teacher was always late so she was guaranteed about ten minutes of study time, and she was good at retaining information in the short term like that. She was also probably planning to cheat but at this point who can blame her.

"Steve?"

"Mhmm?"

"You've made Tony so happy. Before you got here, he hardly ever turned up or spoke to us. You've really bought out the best in him. Thank you." I smiled and turned to face the lockers. One of them - the one opposite me - had been kicked in and had dots on it. '∙∙∙∙ ∙ ∙-∙∙ ∙--∙'

"Hey, Nat. Whose locker is that?"

"What?"

"That one, opposite me."

"It's Bruce's... why?"

"There's morse code on it. It says help."

"It's probably nothing."

"Okay..." I wasn't so sure. The last time I ignored a comment like that, I lived to regret it.

The teacher didn't end up arriving so we went and sat in the cafeteria until next bell and sat, daydreaming until the end of the day. I met up with Tony just outside the gates to say goodbye.

"I'll see you later, okay?" I nodded and gave him a quick hug before running to get the bus.

Once home, I showered and threw on a shirt and some jeans. The shirt was a blue flannel button-up and my jeans were plain black so I stuffed some plain black socks onto my feet and slipped my feet into dark blue sneakers.

"Mom, can you drive me to Tony's?"

"What?"

"I told you when I got in, we're going to the movies."

"Oh, okay. Yeah, I can drop you. Give me two minutes to put some shoes on, take the keys and meet me in the car."

"Okay." I grabbed the keychain with the car keys and the apartment keys on and ran down the stairs three at a time and sometimes just jumping the staircase to get to the parking lot underneath the apartment block. Once there, I unlocked the car and jumped in the passenger seat, dropping the keys into the centre console. I sat in silence until she arrived.

"Where am I dropping you exactly?"

"The Stark Industries building. You know, that massive tower in the middle of New York that says Stark Industries on it?"

"No need for sarcasm."

"Sorry." She left the parking lot and I stared out of the window as she drove. I lost all train of thought and my mind slipped in and out of consciousness and blurred sight. 

Suddenly the car jerked unnaturally and I snapped out of my weird state of mind, to see the place spinning around us and I looked to my left - my mother had cuts all over her face due to a smashed windshield and her head was hit on her steering wheel. Panic surged over me and I screamed as I felt something sharp stab into my leg and something else pierced the skin of my chest before everything went black.