Standing Alone There Without Its Lover

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/2125107.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Iron Man
(Movies)
Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Character: Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, Sam Wilson (Marvel), James "Bucky"
Barnes, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Jacques Dernier, Natasha Romanov,
Darcy Lewis, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Sarah Rogers
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - High School, High School
Language: English
Series: Part 5 of Leaves of Grass
Stats: Published: 2014-08-12 Words: 1916

Standing Alone There Without Its Lover

by hellhoundtheory

Summary

Pepper and Sam make a last ditch effort to stop Darcy's ploy. They find that the health
teacher has more allies in administration than they thought.

Notes

Title from Walt Whitman’s Calamus-Leaves

Pepper and Sam team up with Tony’s friend—the health teacher in the high school a town over,
James Rhodes—in order to tell Principal Fury their concerns about the video directed by one Miss
Darcy Lewis.

Sam hadn’t known Tony even had other friends who could tolerate him, but apparently ‘Rhodey’
was equally as accomplished at reigning in Tony as Pepper or even Sam himself. Anyone who
could handle Tony could probably handle the bundle of crazy that was Darcy’s scheme. And,
Rhodey didn’t know Steve or Bucky, so he wasn’t even biased.

“And why, am I meeting you here instead of waiting in the drive-thru at Dunkin and regretting my
occupation?” Nick Fury asks the moment they come into his office. It had been a long time since
Pepper was at school, and even then, she still felt like a child who had gotten into trouble every
time she came into Fury’s office.

“And who the hell are you?” He rounds on Rhodey. Pepper pinches the bridge of her nose and
reminds herself that this is for the kids. If she hadn’t scheduled this morning meeting, if she had
waited until the afternoon, Darcy would have already shown the movie.

“Hi, I’m James Rhodes, the health teacher over at—”

Fury interrupts him, asking Sam, “What did Darcy do this time?”

“Sir, it’s more what she’s about to do…” Sam starts.

“So she hasn’t done anything yet?” Fury raises an unwavering brow, and Sam shrinks.

Pepper jumps in, “You must know about her scheme to get Steve and Bucky together, and so far
nothing’s been untoward, but I think she’s going to go too far with…”

“The movie that she already sent in for approval? Which was the reason we hired her in the first
place?”

Rhodey had seen some of the footage, and as a health teacher of ten years, was not pleased, “You
mean to tell me that you’re going to let her show that? To high schoolers?”

The coldest of Fury’s glares lands upon the health teacher, “Miss Darcy is an accomplished
speaker on sex education and she is renowned in her field for putting the fear of god into those kids
while still educating them. I’ll happily let her play any film she wants so long as I never have to
hear about another student coming into the nurse’s office with a damn rash on their genitals. Now
if you’ll get the hell out of my office, I need my coffee and to not be dealing with this bullshit. The
only one of you who is a health teacher and has a say in that curriculum is this fool, and I don’t
know him. So I’d appreciate if you never brought this up again.”

And so, Pepper, Sam, and Rhodey were unceremoniously shoved out of the office by Maria Hill,
who had, “Actual work to do,” She said with a smirk that Fury returned.

Pepper gasps in realization as they walk Rhodey out to his car.

“What?” Sam asks.

“They’re totally in on it. Did you see the way Hill and Fury looked at each other? They are in
cahoots!”

Rhodey pauses after opening his door, already regretting the outing and wincing at the use of the
word cahoots, “Look, I have to get to my actual job, but maybe you should just let this happen. The
film isn’t so bad from an education standpoint, though I think it may be a little mature.” The
downright offended looks he gets from the two tell him all he needs to know. Stubborn fools.

“I’ll see you guys.” He drives off without so much as a glance.

“Maybe he’s right.”

“Or we could go to Pierce. He’s on the Board,” Pepper suggests.

Sam shakes his head, “That man is a snake. There’s no way in hell he wouldn’t get someone fired.”

They walk back to the building as the buses start rolling in, which is, of course, when Tony comes
walking up for bus duty (something that is not required of the teachers but that Stark does anyways,
out of some strange desire to see all the un-caffeinated and unhappy faces of his students).

“Was that Rhodey’s car I just saw?”

Sam, coward that he sometimes can be, conveniently decides to remember, “Oh, man, I have to
install an update on my computers. Sorry, guys, I gotta go.” At which point he leaves Pepper to
deal with a less-than-happy-camper Tony Stark.

“Tell me you did not just bring my best friend here and NOT tell me.”

She flounders, grasping at words and finding none, mouth shaping around a series of almost words
and not making anything other than vague syllables. Tony’s hands fly up.

“I knew it. You’re trying to stop Stucky from happening. You’re a traitor to this school.” Pepper
knows Tony is masking something with overdramatic pointing, but she can’t quite figure out if it’s
actual hurt or not.

“I’m sorry?” She says, not knowing what else to say.

“Look. I get that you don’t want us interfering, but I’ve been trying to teach Whitman for years
without Coulson getting in a tizzy because that’s what his class learned when he taught AP Lit. I
finally got it because the sucker loves love.”

Pepper’s mouth hangs open, “Excuse me?”

“I mean, I definitely think that the kids need to get their heads out of their asses and figure it out,
but we all know that it’s Darcy’s movie that’s going to do the trick, not anatomy or gay poetry.”

While Pepper had known that Darcy was the most enthusiastic of the entire group, she had
mentally been blaming Tony for the fiasco, because he was the one who started it, really.

“You’re telling me that you care more about your curriculum than tormenting those boys?”

“That’s about the gist of it, yeah,” Tony says before striking off to annoy tired freshman just
getting off the bus.

Pepper can’t help but call after him, “Tony?” He turns around, eyes wide as if to say, ‘go on,’ “I’m
glad you got to teach what you wanted.”

“I’m glad you got the stick out of your butt.”

Pepper’s red when she makes it back to her classroom, and she’s not sure it’s with anger.

~
Jacques and Natasha do lesson plans together. Not just because of the Plan, but because they’re
friends and it’s easier to get work done when neither of them like to speak English if they don’t
have to and they don’t have any other languages in common.

Apparently, Natasha just had to speak, because English is infiltrating his headspace and he’s
working to translate it because when he’s in French-mode he doesn’t quite understand things
sometimes.

“Have you ever met James?”

“Bucky, yes. He picks Steve up from club international. His sister is in French I. Why?”
“But you’ve never seen him without Steve or his sister?”

“Non. Pourquoi?”

“I always thought he was lonely. While he’s a great Russian student and plenty talkative in any
language, I thought he was sort of like me when I was in school. Good with the teachers, less so
with the students. Then I saw him with Steve and it was like he was a whole different person.”

“Steven is the same. So bright all the time, but when he is with his friend, he looks happier than
anything.”

She glances over at the worksheet he was drafting, “So that’s why you’re asking them to conjugate
‘sucer’ with ‘pénis’?”

“I thought you didn’t speak French, Romanoff?”

“I dated a guy.”

“And did you suce son p—”

“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you,” She threatens, going back to the homework she had
been grading.

~
Darcy is gleeful when sixth period rolls around and Steve and Bucky take their usual seats. She
liked her room in particular because it didn’t have desks, but tables for two that allowed everyone
to have a partner and meant that no one would be alone when it came time to work on projects. On
this day in particular, she liked it because it meant that a certain two students would be close
enough to touch for the entire time they watched her film.

She had just microwaved popcorn, and she opens it with delight and toes out of her shoes, ready to
watch the show.

Of course, she watches her other students for any indication that there are other romances in the
mix, but the man-on-man portion that features a skinny blond and average brunet—Darcy thinks
that she must have psychic powers, even thought she had chosen those stars in particular mostly
because she liked their other work—really only piques the interest of Steve and Bucky. They keep
stealing glances at each other while the other looks away. When that portion of the movie ends,
their eyes finally meet.

She looks down nary a moment later and sees them playing a game of footsie—mostly involving
them rubbing their ankles together—and knows her job is done.

The bell rings and she flicks on the lights, happy to let them go off on their own and to never know
what they get up to in their spare time. Until she spots the sketchbook.

Well, I never did go by halves.

She grabs a couple condoms from her health-teacher approved stash and writes a quick note,
skipping after the boys who linger in the hallway.

“You left this in my class.”

~
Natasha knows showing the film is futile when Bucky comes in with a grin on his face and almost
forgets to greet her in Russian. But when he does, it’s like a breath of fresh air and the words flow
almost naturally from him.

Apparently love and language were great bedfellows.

“So I wanted to show you the kind of film Vladimir Putin’s administration bans from film festivals.
I expect a three hundred word essay on it by tomorrow.” The rest of the class groans.

Bucky absently writes the assignment in his planner, still grinning like an idiot.

This is going to be a long school year.

~
Jacques is fairly certain the grin on Steven’s face has nothing to do with the dirty words on the
worksheet the teacher hands out and everything to do with the fact that Miss Darcy walks into his
room saying that the plan was successful.

So, he printed out worksheets for nothing, but at least his students would know how to swear. And
write dirty limericks. Both are highly important French skills, in Dernier’s book.

~
Pepper hears about it when Darcy comes skipping into their office like a child with a sugar high.

Sam hears about it when Pepper calls and says, “It’s over. We don’t have to fight anymore.”

Tony hears about it when he asks Pepper out for coffee and she asks if it was because Stucky was
official or because her butt was stick free.

He says it’s because Rhodey called him and told him that he would have to be an idiot not to ask
her out.

The day after, Clint takes one look at the sketch of Bucky sleeping that Steve had nestled in his
sketchbook and knows.

Bruce knows when he has to shoo them off of his door, which happens to be very near Steve’s
locker. He drinks his orange tea with a smile.

~
Fury and Hill hear about it when Sarah Rogers brings in cupcakes for the teachers, “To thank
them.”

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