Start of an Initiative

"Mr Barton" Coulson greeted, as the other boy barged out of the Directors office, a self assured smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.

"Hey Phil" Clint waved, somewhat shocked to be almost running into the guy, even though everyone knew he practically lived in the schools offices, always running errands for the board. Shutting the door behind him, successfully ignoring the vibe of death that was radiating through the door from Director Fury's office. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to piss the man off so much this time... Well actually he was pretty damn aware of how he'd pissed him off but that totally was beside the point and getting a dock in scholarships living funds.

"I'd prefer if you wouldn't call me that, Mr Barton" Phil said, giving him a sharp smile, already trying to make his way around the other, sometimes Phil felt that Barton was around every damn corner the amount he ran into him if he didn't know better he'd say the other was stalking him, but he did know better. Barton was just an idiot that was always in trouble.

Clint just rolled his eyes and threw his arm around the others shoulders, "Aww come on Philly, is that anyway to treat one of your oldest buddy's?"

"Mr Barton" Phil said in farewell, bobbing his head politely as he shrugged off the Clints arm before heading out of the main offices. Leaving the other to pout behind him.

"Jerk" Clint muttered sulkily, scuffing the ground with his toe, before he readjusted the strap of his bag and heading out to find Tony.

"Hey, Clint!" Tony grinned, ducking out from the hall and immediately clapping the other on the shoulder, looking far too pleased with himself as he half-looped an arm around Clint's back, falling neatly into step with him.

"So! Howard and Maria are both off on some company mandated... Trip, thing- Free grog, and uh, oh, hey, I'll invite Phil," He added, a smirk tugging at his lips as he marched onward down the corridor. "You know," he waggled his brows at Clint, "Phil?"

"Actually," Pepper cut in, heels clicking against the linoleum as she quick-stepped to catch up to them, eyes glued to the notice clutched in her hands, "We have that placement test, on Monday? So maybe it would be best to just not go and throw another massive party, you can't possibly be-"

"The pool, the hot tub," Tony was saying, ticking things off on his fingers as he went and completely ignoring Pepper, who was doing her best to ignore him. "Maybe just leave it as an open invite, I mean, yeah, it'll be flooded, but what's a party without people you hate?"

"It's just such a bad idea, Tony, you need to just stop, just stop for one second and think-"

They both stopped, Pepper glaring and Tony grinning, and then he shrugged loosely and turned back to Clint. "So, free shit, heaps of people... You in?"

"Mmm" Clint hummed, tapping his chin in mock thought, "I dunno, it depends buddy. Archery Tourn' on Sat, coach'll kill me if I'm hungover... What if it's on Saturday night?"

"Sure, yeah, can do." Tony said easily with a flippant wave of his hand. Pepper tried to speak up again and Tony shifted slightly to be standing in front of her, effectively shutting her up.

"Anyway. Like Mr. Coulson will come to a lowly college bash" Clint said sourly, pulling a face in his frustration, "He'd never get off of his high horse for the likes of us"

With a very put upon sigh he slung his arms around the others shoulders and started dragging the pair down the corridor with him.
"I mean, what's his problem anyway, when did we become pariahs to him anyway. What ever happened to video games in the den, late night sesh's getting high as a kite, stealing your parents booze and joy riding with their cars?"

Pausing midstep with a highly exaggerated expression of shock on his face, Clint dropped his arms so he could turn and stare at his friends in mock horror.

"Oh good god." He whispered, "That was you. Phil wasn't ever with us!"

Dropping to his knees, in the middle of the now crowded corridor, he clutched dramatically at Tony's legs.

"PHIL HATES FUN." He stage whispered, in horror.

"Yeah, hates fun, and- Clearly the only one with issues here," Tony remarked dryly, side-stepping from Clint's reach - something was not even unusual as acts of dramatics went, really, considering, and that should probably be more alarming than it was, "Also? I do not throw 'lowly college bashes', I throw spectacular gatherings, with unbelievably expensive liquor and excellent company."

Tony said this with a suggestive wink in Clint's direction, nudging at him with his foot as Pepper massaged her forehead with the fingers of one hand, other still clutching tightly to the piece of paper with a list of important dates, half of which were now circled in highlighter. "I mean, come on, what better way to kick off the year than a giant party? It's perfect."

"Tony" Clint whined, making grabby hands after his friend, "We need to fix this... Fix him!"

"What better way to make the best start to the school year even better than completely ruini-" Chucking a sideways glance at the very disapproving and rapidly getting more annoyed with their antics Pepper, he cleared his throat, deciding to change his choice of wording,
"I mean, re-educating someone on their lifestyle choices and showing them more viable options for their futures?"

"Come on Tony? Pepps? It would be benefiting humanitarian causes removing that stick from Coulsons ass!"

"Wait, what- Stick up his-" Pepper started, looking between the two of them in what looked like mortification, offence. Tony lifted a brow and turned his full attention to the young woman.

"Ah, yeah? You know, the one that just... Magically appeared and has been seriously impacting on his quality of life?Shit, I just want to see him smashed, or high, or- Clint, can you imagine him high? Giggling, making stupid-ass comments? Have you ever seen the guy just stop and not be an unstoppable force of boredom and-"

He paused, mainly because he could practically feel the way her eyes were narrowing, and he quickly backtracked, which was a pretty poor effort. "And that, you know, doesn't mean he's boring, maybe just could use some more-" He cleared his throat and her brows only kicked up a little on her forehead. "Right, uh, no. And by high, I meant-"

"Tony."

"Pepper. Anyway, Clint, can you imagine that?" He asked quickly, and the two of them glanced back at Clint.

"Uhhh" Clint edged, glancing nervously between Pepper and Tony, he was feeling a little like the kid between two arguing parents here, a life experience he never really thought he'd get to experience. He wasn't too sure he was enjoying it really.

"Well, it would be awesome as all hell, but also wrong. Morally wrong. Shame on you Tony Stark. Shaaaame" He said waving a finger in Tony's face, waiting for the predictible moment where Pepper rolled her eyes to give Tony a double thumbs up, before going back to the serious shaming he was giving.

Tony grinned widely in the face of both Pepper's growing scowl and Clint's shaming fingers, which carried about the same amount of weight as they did effort. Pepper's fingers shot up to tuck back a strand of copper hair, and he immediately slammed on a serious expression to try and save himself from Pepper's wrath (he was a bit late with that one). She shoved the annotated sheet of paper at him, and he tried to frown at her over the frantically fluttering paper as he childishly refused to take hold of it.

It stuck over his face for a second, leaving him with the double vision of both Pepper's scowl and a notice about the upcoming placement test; at best, mildly alarming.

"Tony, this is serious,you have a lecture in ten minutes and I swear-"

"Pepper..."

"-Look, I know that you're totally incapable of actually... Showing up, to most of these things, but if you would just give it maybe a tiny, tiny, little bit of attention this time around, you'll probably actually not-"

"Pepper."

"-The same kind of thing all over again, and I know you already know half of everything that's covered in the introductory sessions, but it's really something that you should consider actually attending, for once, at least, and-"

"Pepper!"

"What?" She asked, looking slightly flustered. "What? Tony? Because you always end up just leaving me to try and... And... What?"

"I swear, you and Coulson." Tony shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets and huffing out a sigh. "Really. Not even kidding." He finally took the piece of paper anyway, and gave it a cursory glance over, just so that Pepper didn't actually implode out of sheer frustration - she was wired, this morning, and it was probably (entirely) his fault. His act of 'accidentally' leaving timetables and course outlines and everything else lying around among her own things was always a great freaking idea, because seriously, watching her stress and worry herself stupid over his habitual absences was outright hilarious... and, well, it was actually handy every now and again; what with her actually knowing where he would be so she could (hopefully) shove coffee at him.

"You're-"
"Amazing?"
"...Impossible."

She quirked a small smile and ducked away from the two, neatly stepping further down the hall for her first lecture of the day. Business management. Yeah, he was hiring her the moment they were out of here.

That woman scared him.

"Man she can be scary" Clint muttered, inadvertently mirroring Tony's thoughts, before shrugging and throwing Tony a grin. That girl could be like a paperwork tornado sometimes, she could probably get the devil to sign himself away if she put her mind to it.

"Sooooo..." He started, grinning like a lunatic, "Are they done? Cause you said they'd be done and I know you don't always keep to deadlines, like with that time with the AA? Artificial... Oh It's AI isn't it? Whatever. Important thing here is, are they done?" Clint babbled, before lowering his voice slightly and continuing, "Falling off of that building sucked y'know? If that flying bucket of bolts hadn't shown up, I would've been toast! Falling sucks man, sucks."

"So are they done?" He asked, using his best begging face on Tony, jutting out his bottom lip in as big a pout as possible.
'Chanel your inner puppy'He thought with gusto, if wibbling his lip slightly.

---

"So umm..." Steve started glancing around the class in trepidation, "My name is Stebe- I mean Steve! Steve Rogers and I'm er, I'm going to be handling this class for the first term, but uhh don't worry because Mr Morenstein, the teacher for this class, well I guess you already knew that since you just would've gone to the Lecture with him right before you came here and he would have told you who he was..." Steve sidetracked rubbing the back of his neck, "But yeah, he'll be taking the classes every Friday and the Lectures every first Monday and second Wednesday. Donny, I mean Donald Hale, will be your other Tutor, he'll be taking you on Thursdays and Wednesdays with Mr. Morenstein. The rest of the time it's just me, Mr Morenstein will drop by sometimes to make sure everything's going fine, which it will be, don't worry."

Looking out to the class, Steve sighed a little in relief at getting the introductions out of way, if a little badly, he hated public speaking, it was so much easier when he was Captain. No one knew he was little Steve Rogers that used to get beat up everyday behind the gym then, he was just Captain America and Captain America always knew what to say.

"Today we'll just be going over student introductions, don't worry, no name games or anything silly like that, just give us your name and your preferred medium. I'll also talk you through the assessment schedule and we'll have a quick go over of the absolute basics, which yes, I know most of you are sick of doing this every time you start a different art class, but this will be the last time. From tomorrow onwards you'll be thrown headfirst into the course so it's better to make sure you have the basics down than to immediately fall behind because you didn't know something as simple as the color spectrum."

Throwing a quick glance around the room, Steve was relieved to see that everyone seemed to be showing at least a little interest in what he was saying. He was pleased that he hadn't bored them yet, in fact, there were even a few students taking notes. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad as he had thought?

"...So any questions?"

"Oh, yeah, right. okay, nearly done." He said, glance shooting back to Clint, blinking himself out of his reverie as Pepper clipped off down the hallway, "We're like, three jugs of that hazel-swirl coffee away from that being a completely, entirely finished-" Clint would really have been toast. like, completely, he was understating it so badly that Tony had to physically restrain himself from starting up a bitchfest of exactly how not to do things; as demonstrated by Clint.

"And it all is pretty neat, isn't it? I'd love to get my hands on the designs. I'd look good, in those colours, I've decided." Tony mused lightly, managing somehow to keep the smirk off his face. Practiced ease. besides, it was way easier for everyone involved - which really was just Clint - if he kept that to himself. Really. Totally not worth it. The whole drama, responsibility, whatever saga.

"I'll have them done by tomorrow. And seriously, stop falling off things. It's ridiculous. Made the news too, you know, that camera angle is just- Seriously. Edges? People normally avoid them for a reason. Oh yeah, in addition to which, you don't have any armour. You're an idiot. Tomorrow. And don't make that face. Every time you make that face, Coulson twitches violently."

---

Natasha calmly lifted her arm into the air, posture rigid and face blank regardless of the attempted casual environment. She hadn't spoken a word since she got into class, and had even chosen to sit at the secluded edge of the table, staring steadily at Steve throughout his entire ramble - which, she decided - was ridiculous in a completely acceptable way. He seemed nervous, yes, and quite openly friendly, but very much confident that what he knew could be useful, and that in of itself was enough for her to decide she liked him.

"What is the current level of study, that you are undertaking?" She asked, "Bachelor, post-graduate... Honours?" She continued, pausing with each possibility and then leaning forwards a little onto her table to really look at him, face as blank as ever, and gaze extremely narrowed in, and it was potentially a little cruel, to be shoving someone so flustered underneath the spotlight again in such a way, but... well, she wanted to see if he got quite as flustered after having somewhat steadied himself. Very humorous. And there weren't many people that could be on the receiving end of her stares - no matter how harmless she proclaimed them to be - and not feel uncomfortable.

Eyes drifting to the side a goofy smile flitted across Clints face as he let out a barely audible sigh with a "I wish" contained within.
Snapping his fingers in his own face, because he was pro-active like that, Clint shot Tony an award winning grin. Well it would win awards if there were awards for that sort of thing and- Goddamn it there were awards for that! Why wasn't he winning and... And he was getting really off track with this, what were they talking about again?
"It was all camera angles anyway!" He whined, casually high fiving another archery team member as they walked past even as he pouted dramatically at Tony "The thing was right below me, of course it would look worse than it was!"

"Besides" He huffed, posture changing entirely in as instant, "I do so wear armor. Just because I don't walk around in a behemoth of metal contraption or wearing medieval chainmail doesn't mean I'm not protected. I can't wear that junk anyway Tones, I'm an archer, I need mobility."

---

Startled slightly by the abrupt question, Steve let a relieved smile play across his face for the fact that someone was actually asking a question and not just leaving him floundering in silence at the front of the room.
"Uhm, Honors actually... This is my first time tuting a class this year, I mean this year is my first time tuting a class"
His disorganized ramblings probably weren't instilling a huge sense of confidence in his abilities here, so Steve cut himself off with a small cough of self derision and slapped his best 'Captain' smile upon his face.
Exude confidence and people will think you're actually confident. Steve had trouble applying that when he wasn't in a mask.
"I used to teach classes at the community college though, plenty of prior experience so no worries there- And I'm sorry, I didn't ask your name...?"