I'm out of my head - hs AU

8

« I need help. »
〣

In the relax room Tony had asked Steve to turn around. So that he wouldn't have to see the tendrils slowly crawling along his torso. He had definitely told Steve more than enough. Tony had laid down on the couch for a few minutes, Steve refused to leave his side, despite having a class. Once Tony claimed he should also go to class he tried to stand up. He began by sitting, feeling dizzy. Once he tried to stand, he immediately fell forward on his knees, Steve down by his side in a second. Tony told Steve he didn't need the help, that he needed to be able to stand on his own.

They didn't have any classes together, so he wouldn't be able to help him anyway. Tony had left in a haste, and Steve stood still on the spot after exiting the relax room. He couldn't really move, he was thinking deeply about Tony's situation and how he felt like shit for not being able to truly help him. Just make him feel worse by babying him, he guessed at least.

Eventually, a teacher saw Steve in the hall during class. And did he have a hall pass? No. So he'd have to sit in detention that day. But he figured it was worth it. It didn't bother him. He knew that what he had done was the right thing, that helping Tony was worth it. He thought about the percentage for the rest of the day, 39%...He couldn't let go of the number. Of the effects it had on Tony, and he couldn't wrap Tony's will to go to school around his head. He could barely sit up straight, and he had told Steve when they texted that he didn't even like school because it was too easy for him. And he couldn't concentrate either, leading the pieces of paper in his notebooks empty. Before, during and after class. Sam and Bucky noticed during lunch that Steve's head was somewhere else, and given Sam's interaction with Steve earlier that day he figured it had something to do with the fact that he had broken into Tony Stark's locker. Both Sam and Bucky had deduced that Steve most definitely had a thing for the genius, a thing he didn't want to admit to for whatever reason.

And, they were correct. Steve's head was somewhere else, and it had everything to do with Tony Stark. The blond thought about what Tony wanted to hide from him when changing out his palladium core, what he could possibly want Steve to miss. He tried to convince himself that what he had thought a day prior, about having a crush on him, was false. That he just liked the way he looked. And Steve had been lonely for so long that he mistook his interactions with Tony and twisted them, making them seem more embarrassing and flirty than they had been. Also telling himself that Tony was just flirty in general, that he acted like that with anyone he didn't thoroughly despise.

"We really need to hook those two up, look at this boy." Bucky whispered to Sam, pointing to Steve who stared into nothing with a longing yet confused look. Sam stifled a laugh as he watched Steve dig himself a deeper and deeper hole, agreeing with Bucky that they needed to set the two of them up.

Both Bucky and Sam had had a couple of flings, that turned out to be nothing special, over the years at Shield. Steve was always the one to tell them that he didn't like anyone and that he didn't want to ask anyone to homecoming or go on dates or be set up. It's not good to assume anything, so the two of them were very respectful about the fact he never liked anyone, but they came to speak of it one day on the phone with each other. They thought Steve was asexual, even aromantic. It was not something they paid much thought to, it was not their place to put a label on their friend. But it came up in conversation and they were wondering. But, once Steve told him about his embarrassing encounter with Tony on the beach their theory was shattered and they talked rigorously about it later the same night Steve had told them. They just knew that Steve had developed a crush, which did not leave them too surprised.