Chapter Text
All day Sunday Steve struggled with what to do with the situation.
When he had come home earlier than expected on Saturday his mom had been concerned, and had become even more concerned when Steve blew off her advances to talk and simply locked himself in his room for the rest of the day, not even coming out for dinner. Sunday morning when he came out to take a shower his mom had cornered him and demanded that he tell her what was wrong. Steve had a hard time trying to explain it to his mother because he really didn’t think Tony would want him spreading his personal business around. But eventually his mom’s words got to him and everything came out like word vomit.
She was appalled that someone would treat another person that way, especially their own son. But luckily she understood the delicacy of the situation and didn’t push it. She knew that it wasn’t her business and while she wished she could help her son and Tony, this was just something they were going to have to deal with on their own. They were practically adults now anyway, so anything she could do to help Tony wouldn’t matter because he’d be 18 before it could make any difference.
All day Sunday Steve’s friends had texted him asking him how it had gone. He ignored them all, which probably wasn’t a good idea. Now they either had ideas about what he and Tony had gotten up to or they were just going to wait until tomorrow to corner him and force him to talk. And he knew that he did not want to talk to his friends about what happened with Howard Stark. Telling his mom had been one thing, and he felt bad enough for telling her, but telling a bunch of his and now Tony’s friends what had happened just seemed like a betrayal of trust.
Monday morning came and he had received a text from an unknown number that really concerned him,
I don’t know what happened but you better explain later. I’ve been trying to talk to Tony all weekend and he won’t answer. If you hurt him, I’ll hurt you. – JR
He didn’t know how Rhodey got his number, but he had a feeling it had something to do with Thor. As he got ready for the day and got into his car to leave, his phone buzzed again.
Look, I highly doubt YOU did anything to Tony but we haven’t heard from him since Friday. You saw him last, so if you can tell us what’s wrong, please do. I’m getting worried. – Bruce
He decided to try and avoid everyone at school today, which, in hindsight, was a bad idea because he had classes with Clint, Bucky, and Rhodey alone before lunch, so why he thought that would work was beyond him. No matter how many ‘I don’t want to talk about it’s or ‘It’s not my place to say’s he told everyone, even trying to go as far as to say nothing happened specifically between him and Tony, it didn’t matter. By lunch Steve’s friends were mad and convinced Tony had done something wrong, and Tony’s friends were mad at Steve and convinced he had fucked it all up somehow. Of course the fact that Tony decided not to come to school that day didn’t help any either.
Steve had decided that morning that he would try to talk to Tony at some point today. When he got to school, however, Tony was nowhere to be found. He looked for Tony at lunch, waited for him to show up to Psych, but the guy just wasn’t there. He had even gone as far as going to the Science Club to see if he was hiding there, but Bruce told him with a sympathetic look that he hadn’t seen Tony all day. Finally, he had decided to wait outside of detention and try and see if maybe he was there, but no one was in the room, not even Mr. Coulson.
Every day that week he went to school with the intention of seeking out Tony and trying to talk to him about what had happened. He didn’t want Tony to think Steve thought any less of him because of his father’s words, and he definitely didn’t want Tony to think that Steve blamed him for his father’s actions. He waited by the door to their psych class, he waited by Tony’s locker in the morning, he checked in with Bruce at the Science Club Lab at lunch, and he waited outside the detention room every day after school waiting for Tony to show up. Steve would text and call, but all his texts were ignored and all his calls sent straight to voicemail.
Finally Friday came around and the whole school seemed to be on edge. All of the ‘popular’ kids and all of the ‘geeks’ and the ‘jocks’ were all mad at each other, and the whole school could feel it. And Steve was really getting tired of it.
Friday at lunch Steve decided to go to Mr. Coulson’s office and see if he could talk to the man about Tony. Tony and Coulson seemed somewhat close when they were in detention, and since Howard Stark basically owned half of school and the school board, maybe Coulson knew a little bit about how to handle the man.
He was walking up to Coulson’s office when suddenly the door opened up and there, in the doorway in all his glory, was Tony. He looked a little worse for wear but he seemed to be pretty decent. His hair was a little mused and he had huge black bags under his eyes, but other than that he seemed—wait.
Those weren’t bags.
That was one very large black eye.
Anger like Steve had never felt coursed through his body, filling his veins and turning his face red. He could feel his body swell with the intensity of it. How dare Howard Stark lay a hand on Tony! Steve knew that Howard was a dick, but knowing and seeing that he hit Tony was too much for Steve’s already high strung emotions to handle.
The anger he was feeling must have shown on his face because Tony’s eyes widened and he took a step back. Before Steve could think about what he was doing, he reached a hand out to grab Tony’s arm so he could bring him closer. Tony flinched away from the touch, reeling away from the anger on Steve’s face, and shoved past him, speed walking down the hallway, barreling through a group of freshmen and knocking them all down without stopping or looking back. Steve turned and stared after him, a sadness and hurt filling him like he’d never felt before.
“Mr. Rogers,” a voice behind him said, accompanied by a hand on his shoulder. “I was wondering when you’d come to see me.”
Steve turned to look at Coulson, blinking back the tears in his eyes and trying to push down the angry flush on his face, failing miserably. Coulson looked sympathetic.
“Come inside. I think you and I should talk.”
Steve turned and followed Coulson inside, sitting in a chair across from Coulson’s at his desk. Coulson shut the door and sits at his chair behind the desk, facing Steve. Before Steve can say anything, Coulson reaches down into a drawer and pulls out a large glass jar full of nothing but snack size and mini candy bars. He pulls off the lid and takes out some Snickers and Hersey, before offering Steve his pick of the lot.
“You want some?” Coulson said, staring at Steve with a small smile. He looked sad. “Tony’s a bit of a bad influence on me, I must admit. I should really spend less time around that kid, but they keep assigning me detention duty, so I’ve spend most of the last four years around him.”
Coulson stops smiling as he says that and gives Steve and a look that Steve knows should mean something, but he just can’t figure it out.
“I know Mr. Stark better than probably any other teacher in this school,” Coulson said, putting the lid on the jar and putting it back into his desk. “Spending an hour a day, almost 180 days of the school year for four years with someone really teaches you a lot about a guy.” Steve nods, figuring as much, but not really seeing where the conversation was going.
“Of course, it also helps that I used to work with Tony’s father.”
Steve’s head snaps up at that, and he can feel the look of disbelief on his face. His emotions are just an open book today.
“Oh, yeah,” Coulson said with a frown. “Before I came to work here at the school as assistant principle, I worked on the schoolboard, so I had a lot of contact with Howard Stark.” Coulson doesn’t look happy about that fact.
“The Stark family is one of, if not the richest family in the country behind Bill Gates. Stark has dinners with ambassadors, he golfs Generals and Captains, parties with world leaders, and is on a first name basis with The President of the United States. Someone with that much influence is naturally going to have a lot of power over the small town he lives in. And he does have a lot of power. Over the school, over the police, hell… over the military; you name it and Stark’s name is probably all over their funding.”
Steve nods along, knowing a lot of this having lived in this small town for half his life.
“Having that much power can go to your head,” Coulson said, standing and walking around the desk. He took the chair next to Steve’s and turned it to face him. Steve turned as well. “I never liked Howard Stark. He was rude, misogynistic, homophobic, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he was a little racist. I was glad to finally get away from him, at least directly, by coming to work at Shield High. And then I met Tony, and I hated Howard a little more.”
Coulson shook his head, frowning at his shoes. “The more I got to know Tony Stark, the less I liked Howard. At this point I have almost little to no respect for the man.”
Steve nodded, understanding how Coulson was feeling after just one meeting with the man.
“Tony does well in school, does so well in fact that he could just not show up to school and still somehow end up the top of the class. Tony’s a seventeen-year-old genius in some no-body high school in the middle of absolute nowhere when that kid could’ve gotten into Harvard at fifteen. I could never figure out why he was still here at some stupid public school.”
Coulson was quiet for so long that Steve thought he was done talking before looking over at Steve so suddenly Steve jerked back in surprise.
“A couple months into Tony’s sophomore year a teacher found him and another boy making out in a janitors closet. It wasn’t the first time he had been caught, so they were written up for it. Cutting class to make out in a closet is generally frowned upon in schools. And since it had happened more than once and Tony didn’t seem to be stopping, the teacher decided it would be a good idea to call Tony’s parents. More specifically, to call Tony’s father directly.”
Coulson paused and looked Steve in the eyes as if determining whether or not he should tell Steve what he was going to say next.
“Tony didn’t show up at school the next day, and the Monday we got back, Tony somehow ended up with a black eye and bruises around his neck.”
Steve can feel his jaw drop a little as he looks at Coulson, understanding a little bit about why Coulson is telling him this story.
“I knew he couldn’t have gotten the bruise at school because he wasn’t here, and when he left detention that Thursday he was bruise free. I tried to talk to him about it in detention later that week, but I got nothing. ‘Sometimes people trip and fall down some stairs, Phil. It even happens to people like Tony Stark.’ That was the first time he ever called me Phil. I said to him, ‘Don’t call me Phil,’ and let it drop. What I wanted to say, should’ve said, was that stairs don’t leave hand shaped bruises on peoples necks and that no one wore cashmere turtlenecks in September.”
Steve felt the color drain from his face, his eyes widening. This had been happening, at least that anyone knew of, since sophomore year?! All this time Tony had been getting… abused by his father, and no one did anything about it? Not even Coulson?
“Well, then why didn’t Tony tell anyone?! Why did you do something?”
“You think I didn’t try?” Coulson said, almost snappishly, before taking a breath and turning to Steve, trying to get him to understand. “Like I said, Howard Stark is a powerful man. Child abuse reports get lost very easily, apparently.” Steve’s eyes widened in understanding. “Like I said, look to the police, the school board: Howard Stark’s name is all over the funding. He’s probably got people who are loyal to him all over the town.”
“But I don’t understand,” Steve burst out, feeling entirely hopeless and frustrated in this situation. “Why doesn’t Tony just leave? Run away? Go somewhere like Harvard where he can get away from his dad?”
“Emancipation Laws in New York say that the state can’t issue emancipation orders. Tony would have to become emancipated through some other court action, receive parental permission, join the military, or get married to be emancipated.” Steve’s eyes widened, feeling even more helpless the more Coulson talked. “And even then you have to meet certain criteria: you have to live on your own, you can’t receive any financial support from your legal guardian, and you have to have a legally paying job…
“Well, what about school?” Steve asked, knowing immediately this idea would get shot down.
“Students in college under the age of 18 have to have a parent’s permission to live on campus. If the point of college is to get away from Howard, that’s not really going to help.”
Steve just stared at Coulson, finally feeling the severity of the situation, and also feeling more and more helpless and hopeless as to what to do about it. He just didn’t understand how someone could do that to a child, let alone their own child and let alone Tony. Tony was amazing, he didn’t deserve any of the treatment he got from his father.
Steve didn’t remember much about his father seeing as he had died back in Afghanistan in 2002 when Steve was only four years old, but what he could remember was nothing but good. He remembered his Dad playing hide-and-seek with him, always pretending that he couldn’t see Steve hiding in plain sight behind a chair. He remembered playing soldiers with his father and catching and killing all of the bad guys and saving his mother. Never once did his father raise his hand to Steve. Sure, he would get angry sometimes and yell at him over something stupid, but Steve could remember his father always coming to him later and apologizing, explaining that Steve had done nothing wrong really, he was just having a hard day.
He remembered the look on his father’s face as the Twin Towers came down, remembered knowing that was the day his life was going to change forever. Steve remembered hugging him for the last time before watching him walk away to the meeting point before leaving on tour. He remembered his mother holding them as they both cried when the soldier in formal military dress delivered the letter to their door one fateful morning.
He remembered nothing but love from his father and it pained him that these were memories that Tony didn’t have. Any memory he had of his father he most likely held in contempt and didn’t like to ponder. Which was unfair, because no one deserved to be loved more than Tony did.
Coulson sighed, looking at Steve sympathetically. “It’s a shitty situation, I know. With the whole of the military at Howard’s back, there’s likely nowhere that Tony can go where Howard can’t find him. Tony’s smart, but so it Howard. He’d figure it out. I just can’t, for the life of me, figure out what Howard’s plan is.”
“Plan?”
“Howard Stark has some plan for Tony, I just can’t figure out what. I don’t know why he’s keeping Tony here, why he’s trapped the kid. I think Tony’s the only one who can really answer that question, and he’s not talking.”
“I tried to do what I thought was right to help him,” Coulson started softly, again looking at his feet. “I’m an educator, a protector. I’m supposed to be able to help these children when they need it and can’t get it. But Howard Stark,” Coulson almost spits the name. Steve doesn’t think he’s ever seen Coulson this worked up over something before. “Howard Stark has trapped me in a corner, and now he’s playing with me, and it drives me insane. But I do what I can. I provide sanctuary for Tony, and if that’s the least I can do to help him then that is damn well what I’m going to do.”
Steve furrowed his brow, confused by Coulson’s last statement. “Sanctuary, sir?”
Coulson turned and gave Steve an appraising look before nodding.
“Mr. Rogers,” Coulson started. “Steve. Tony does a lot of stupid things to get detention. And sometimes he gets detention for some pretty weak stuff, stuff most students would simply get a slap on the wrist for. He’s had detention almost every day of his high school career since he was a sophomore, and somehow managed not to get expelled for it yet.”
Steve nodded, knowing this, but not really understanding what it had to do with his question. Everyone knew this, they all thought it was just because Tony annoyed all the teachers because, well, Tony could be pretty annoying.
“I’ve been assigned detention duty basically every week since Tony’s come to this school. Howard Stark may have power, but I have power too. I can access the permanent records of every student. Howard Stark cannot. He can see Tony’s, but he can’t do anything to it but look. I, however, not only have to power to look, but I also have to power to edit, or more specifically, delete.”
Steve’s eyebrows were practically to his hairline by now. “Wait. Tony said he was deleting them. He told me he was hacking into the account and deleting his and my detentions off of our permanent records.”
“The computers are just for show, Steve. Fury and I aren’t stupid: there’s a reason it’s so easy for Stark to hack it.” Coulson rolled his eyes, smirking. “Principle Fury and I, we’re what you might call paranoid. There is paperwork for everything. Tony may delete the recording of the detention, but I delete the actual paper work. And by delete, I mean throw out the detention slip. At least this way Tony thinks he’s doing it on his own and not getting help from me.”
Steve nodded, understanding the how, but something he still didn’t understand.
“But why? How does getting rid of a paper trail give Tony sanctuary?”
Coulson sighed. “Tony spends hours after school in detention. He’s a mechanical engineer, but he hangs out with Bruce Banner and Reed Richards in the Science Club every time they meet. He goes to football practice with Thor Odinson, he goes to archery practice with Clint, and even sits around to watch James Rhodes’ drill practice after school when he can. Tony Stark could not show up to school a single day in his life and still somehow be at the top of his class. Tony Stark doesn’t have to be here. He chooses to be here. He may not always go to class, but he is always at this school, every chance he gets. He does anything and everything in his power to not go home unless it’s just him and Jarvis there. Fury and I know why. And I’m hoping after everything I told you today, and after meeting Howard Stark yourself and seeing Tony today, you know why too.”
And just like that, everything clicked into place. Tony being so afraid when his father had come home. The tense lit to Jarvis’ voice when he announced Mr. Stark’s presence to Tony. Bruce’s text, ‘I highly doubt YOU did anything to Tony… haven’t heard from him since Friday… we’re really worried.’ YOU did anything to Tony. He doesn’t think Steve did anything to Tony. Did Bruce know? Did Rhodey know? Just how good at hiding this was Tony? And how long has he been hiding this from everyone?
“Like I said, I don’t know why Howard is doing any of this. It all seems a bit extreme, but I’m not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of Howard Stark’s mind. But I do what I can to help Tony, even if it isn’t much.”
“This had been going on since sophomore year,” Steve starts, his voice sounding hollow to even his own ears, “and no one has noticed? He hasn’t told anyone?”
“I highly doubt no one else has noticed,” Coulson sighed sadly. “It likely has more to do with the fact that no one can do anything about it. No one has the power. Once he turns eighteen he’ll be better off. Howard won’t have any hold over him legally and he’ll be able to get out from his grip. And Tony probably realizes that, if he’s still here and hasn’t tried to run. He’s probably just binding his time. Only a few months to go.”
They sat in silence for a while, Steve trying to comprehend everything Coulson had told him when Coulson suddenly said something that made Steve’s blood run cold.
“You know, I don’t think the physical aspect has been happening since sophomore year. Tony’s been extremely careful around his father, but until today, I haven’t seen any more marks or anything on Tony. I haven’t seen him like this since that day sophomore year, at any rate. Something must’ve happened to really piss Howard off. I just can’t figure out what.”
Steve froze, unable to breathe. It suddenly felt like a sauna in the office, while simultaneously feeling like a vacuum, all the air sucked from the office space, leaving nothing but the fiery panic Steve was feeling in his stomach.
Something must’ve happened to really piss Howard off.
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Was this his fault? Was Steve being with Tony the trigger? He remembered the way Howard’s eyes had darted back and forth between Tony and their clasped hands and felt all the air leave him like a punch to the gut.
He was rude, misogynistic, homophobic, and it wouldn’t surprise me if was a little racist.
Fucking fag son and faggot fucking boyfriend.
Steve jumped up out of his chair so quickly he almost knocked it over. Coulson jumped a little, startled by Steve’s sudden movement and cutting off whatever he was saying because apparently Coulson was still talking.
“T-thank you,” Steve stammered, looking pale and uncomfortable. “For telling me that. I, uh… I’ll remember that. I’m going to be late for class, I better go.”
Steve turned and bolted, not even registering Coulson shouting his name behind him, or the fact that he had run right past Tony, who had tried to stop him.