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“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” Tony whispered. Frantically he looked through the piles of papers on his nightstand.
“Tony? Will you finally tell me what’s going on? I wasn’t done with my breakfast,” Bruce said behind him. The teen took a bite of the sandwich he’d snatched from the buffet in the Great Hall when Tony had suddenly panicked and dragged him back to the Ravenclaw tower.
“The owls,” Tony mumbled while emptying his backpack on his bed.
“The owls? What’s with the owls?” Bruce brushed some crumbs off his school uniform.
“They brought the letters.” Tony was now kneeling on the floor, looking under his bed.
“Yeah,” Bruce drawled, “that’s their job. They do that every morning, genius.”
Tony sat up, his hair a mess and dust on his nose and glasses. He looked off into space. “I’m dying.”
Bruce choked on his last bite. “What?! For real? Again?” He coughed, reminded of the time Tony had accidentally blown up one of the dungeons and not told anyone.
“DUM-E just killed me,” Tony said, and sat down on his bed amidst the chaos he’d made.
Bruce rubbed over his forehead. “I think you need to elaborate how your owl killed you by bringing you the Daily Prophet.”
Tony covered his face with his hands. “DUM-E must have found the love letter I wrote to Steve! I saw him deliver it to him in the Great Hall just now! That stupid bird killed me just now! Steve will read it and then I will have to change my name and leave the country!”
Understanding dawned on Bruce. He sighed and closed his eyes for a second. As much as Bruce liked to pretend that he was fed up with Tony’s shenanigans, the chaotic Stark was also one of his best friends. He sat down next to Tony and laid an arm around his shoulders. “Okay, I get it. So the cat’s out of the bag now, huh?”
“Yeah…Steve will read it after classes and then I can sign my own death warrant,” Tony said and lowered his hands. He fidgeted with the hem of his black and blue sweater. “He was never supposed to find out. I wanted to burn the letter.”
“Maybe it won’t be that bad. I told you before that the two of you would have great chemistry,” Bruce said, trying to cheer him up. “He might even reciprocate your feelings. You could beat him to it and confess your feelings for him. Tony, you’ve been in love with him since third grade, since you picked a fight with him in the potions classroom. If you man up now and confess to him then you still have one and a half years before we all have to leave Hogwarts. James thinks so too.”
Tony paused in his fidgeting. He looked up, stared at the wall. “James,” he said.
“Yeah,” Bruce repeated, nodding along, “he also thinks that you should confess. Not gonna lie, it would all save us from your constant swooning and moping and-”
Tony elbowed him. “No! I said James !”
“Yeah, I heard you!” Bruce rubbed over his ribs where Tony had nudged him. “James? Your childhood friend? Tall, dark, madly in love with his girlfriend Carol Danvers, Ravenclaw’s quidditch team keeper?”
“No, Bruce, you don’t understand!” Tony jumped up, his eyes gleaming. “James! Potions classroom!”
“James?” Bruce mouthed in confusion until it dawned on him. He blanched. “No! Tony, no! This is a horrible idea!”
“You’re a genius, Bruce! That’s why we’re friends!” Tony grabbed his wand and backpack, and was on his way to the door before Bruce could catch him.
Bruce closed his eyes, counted to ten, and debated whether he should let him be or cast a spell on him that would turn Tony into a teapot. He decided on the former and started to tidy up the dormitory before the other Ravenclaws came back and saw the chaos. Not that they weren’t used to Tony’s manic genius.
.oOo.
Maybe Tony should have listened to his friend when he’d told him that this was a bad idea. Afterwards one was always wiser, or something like that.
He’d apparently used up all of his luck when he’d sneaked into the office of the potions master to “borrow” some of the polyjuice, and then into the tower. While the dungeons had been empty, the Gryffindor common room was not. If Professor Fury ever found out that he’d stolen the potion, then Tony would probably rot away in one of the cells in the belly of the castle, and never see the light of day again. Azkaban’s dementors were nursery school teachers compared to an angry potions pirate.
Awkwardly, he hid behind a bookshelf and tried to become invisible. The damned love letter that he’d thankfully found in Steve’s nightstand felt like lead in his pocket. He’d tried the summoning spell, but the quidditch team captain was apparently a little paranoid and had secured his stuff with various protection spells. Tony’d had to search through everything by hand, which had taken him almost forty-five minutes. He was running out of time!
Tony rubbed over his nose. James Barnes’ school uniform smelled like his damned cat Alpine. The little monster had looked at Tony suspiciously from its spot on top of the wardrobe. He had once heard that cats could see through the magic of the polyjuice potion. Tony shifted awkwardly. A long strand of hair fell into his forehead. How Steve’s best friend could live with this mane was an enigma to Tony.
On the couch before the warm fireplace sat some students, obviously doing their homework. Tony’s inner Ravenclaw shuddered when he saw the state of their books and notepads. He glanced at the clock on the wall and cursed under his breath. He had less than ten minutes left to get back to the toilet where he’d changed into the borrowed red and gold accentuated uniform before he’d transform back into his own self.
Tony ducked his head and made his way over to the entrance, not making eye contact with anyone. He’d almost reached the door, could almost smell the scent of freedom, when someone behind him piped up.
“Hey, Bucky! What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at quidditch training?”
Tony froze. Trying to stay calm, he shrugged nervously and bounced on the balls of his feet. That had been Lang - Scott Lang - another friend of Steve’s.
“On my way to the pitch,” he grunted. Tony cleared his throat, trying to disguise his voice. The one downside with polyjuice was that it didn’t change one’s voice along with the appearance.
“James? Are thou okay? Thou sound weird.” That voice belonged to Thor, the exchange student from Norway.
Tony jerked into action and stalked towards the exit, not bothering to turn around or keep up the facade. He could feel his skin start to prickle, the first sign of the polyjuice losing its power. He ignored the worried voices behind him. When he finally reached the door it swung open before he could grab the handle. To his horror, the two people he really didn’t want to walk into stood before him, looking at him with eyes as wide as saucers.
“Bucky ? What’s going on here?” Steve Rogers, captain and keeper of the Gryffindor quidditch team, asked. He was still wearing his workout gear, a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead despite the icy February air. His hair was a little tousled from the wind outside, and his blue eyes were almost glowing in the light of the fire behind Tony.
The Ravenclaw stopped and stared for a moment. Steve was so handsome. If Tony hadn’t known him since before he’d hit a growth spurt and beefed up in fifth grade, then he wouldn’t believe that the tall, muscly guy that was standing before him now was the same scrawny boy that had accidentally broken his nose once when he’d walked into one of the flying books in the library in second grade.
Tony had never seen him from this angle. He was still waiting for his own growth spurt. Usually, Steve was almost a head taller than him, but now, in Barnes’ body, he was at the same level. The Gryffindor was one of the most popular students in the whole school. Only Natasha Romanoff - a Slytherin - or Sam Wilson - a Hufflepuff - came close to him. Peter Parker, a fellow Ravenclaw and hobby photographer for the student newspaper, regularly wrote articles about the class president, who’d stayed the same stubborn but loveable dork that he’d been before his sudden popularity, to Tony’s delight.
“Merlin’s saggy left-” James Barnes, the real deal, appeared next to Steve, with a horrified expression on his face.
Tony swallowed heavily. His face was starting to burn, and he could feel a tingling underneath his skin. The polyjuice was ceasing to work! Tony squeezed past Steve and Bucky who tried to grab him when he started running. With flapping robes he ran down the hallway, never looking back. He heard someone shouting behind him but Tony didn’t stop to look.
He ran until he reached the girls’ bathroom on the second floor, where the Moaning Myrtle lived in a toilet. He collapsed in one of the stalls, panting and sweating, and clutched his face. Everything was burning, Tony’s skin felt like it wanted to crawl from his skull. It hurt like hell!
But it was over faster than Tony had expected. He opened his eyes, and was met with hands that looked familiar again. His hair was short, and Barnes' clothes hung from his slender frame like an oversized tent. Tony fished his glasses from his backpack when his vision became blurry again. He let his head fall back against the wall of the stall.
The Moaning Myrtle appeared next to him. “Back again?” She asked curiously. “Got what you were looking for, loverboy?”
Tony shot her a half-hearted glare. But one of the corners of his mouth ticked up in a victorious smirk. Myrtle had allowed him to use her bathroom as a hide-out, so he couldn’t really be angry with her. He put his hand in the pocket of the large robe where he’d put the letter.
“Yeah. It was a close call, but I found it. It’s right here…in my…pocket…” Tony trailed off. He retracted his hand and checked his other pocket. Then he checked the inside pockets of the robe and the pockets of his pants. “ Fuck .”
Tony stood up hastily. He had to hold onto the door of the stall for a minute to take deep breaths. His head was spinning from the aftereffects of the polyjuice. He checked all of his pockets again and again, his heart dropping into his guts.
“Fuck,” he breathed again and stared at Myrtle.
The ghost put two and two together and started cackling. “You lost it? You really lost it? Oh, this is wonderful! You go through all the trouble of stealing Fury’s polyjuice, bribing the house elves to give you Barnes’ clothes, sneaking into the common room of another house, and then you lose the thing you came for?!”
She giggled and laughed at Tony for longer than what would have been necessary. Tony fell back against the wall and sank to the floor. His life was over. Changing his name and moving to Madagascar did start to sound plausible after all.
.oOo.
The day after the mystery burglary, Steve leaned in the doorway of the Great Hall. It was dinner time. Most of the students came to different times of the evening, so it wasn’t as crowded as during breakfast. He'd been standing here for a while now, students had started to notice, but Steve didn't care. He was waiting for one particular person. The Gryffindor finally spotted his target stand up and leave the hall together with his friends.
Tony Stark drew attention to himself whether he wanted to or not. Steve had known him since third grade, when the dark-haired boy had picked a fight with him in the potions classroom. Steve had had a strong opinion about him for a while. Tony Stark had a certain attitude. Being handsome, smarter than did him any good, and from an old wizard family with more money than Steve would ever make in ten lives, it was probably just natural. But things had changed.
When the little group of friends came closer, Steve ducked behind the stone pillar so they wouldn't see him. Tony, the shortest of the boys, was nervously fidgeting and whispering with Virginia, a fierce Ravenclaw redhead. With a flick of his wand, Steve glued Tony's feet to the ground and the other sixth-grader came to an involuntary stop. Confused, he looked at his friends who looked equally surprised.
Steve stepped forward and put an arm around Tony's shoulders from behind. He felt Tony tensing up and had to hold in his smirk. "Hey, guys, I'd need to borrow him for a second there. 'S that okay with you?"
The group of Ravenclaws grinned at them. It was James Rhodes who answered him. "Sure, keep him if you want to. But we gotta warn you, he can be a handful."
"Don't worry, I take good care of my stuff," Steve said with a wink. Tony stuttered and blushed next to him. It was adorable. Steve released Tony's feet with a short spell, and pulled him into his side. He led him down the hallway to their left that would take them to one of the quieter corners of the castle.
When they stopped in a little window alcove that looked over the Great Lake, Tony ducked his head and crossed his arms over his chest, avoiding Steve’s gaze.
“You broke into the Gryffindor common room yesterday and tried to steal my stuff,” Steve stated, keeping his voice neutral, wanting to see how Tony would react. “Are you aware that I have to inform the teachers of that?”
Tony flinched and looked up at him with horror in his eyes. Steve had only seen that look once before, in fourth grade, when their Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, a middle-aged man of the name Professor Coulson, had taught them to fight a boggart. To everyone’s surprise, the creature had transformed into Tony’s father, the famous wandmaker Howard Stark. That incident had changed how Steve thought about the other boy. Steve had stopped disliking Tony just for his family name, and to his own surprise he’d fallen in love with him not long after.
“You-you have no proof,” Tony spluttered. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than here.
Steve felt bad for teasing him, but he’d waited long enough for this. This was his chance. “I don’t? The houselves and the Moaning Myrtle told me something different. And then there’s the incident with the stolen polyjuice. Professor Fury is furious, so to speak.”
The Gryffindor fished the letter that a certain owl had brought him the day before from his pocket. Tony blanched. Steve had a hard time pretending to be calm.
“There might be an easy solution to this whole dilemma,” Steve said and thumbed at the corners of the letter that he’d already read more often than he could count. A warm feeling spread in his belly whenever he thought of the sweet words inside. "You want the letter back and need me to keep your little secret."
Tony looked like he wanted to throw up. “What? Do you want money? And here I thought you had decorum.”
“No, I don’t want money from you, Tony,” Steve said with a crooked smile. He shook his head. “I want something much more valuable... I want to go on a date with you.”
Tony blinked up at him with bright red cheeks. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. He closed it and tried again. Then, “I thought- but you…what? I mean, yeah- no, uh, you and…I and, we, no, that’s not, I mean, yes, but-”
“I could be talked into accepting a kiss instead, though the date would definitely be-” Steve started but was cut off when Tony grabbed the front of his sweater and pulled him down to crash their lips together. A happy little sigh escaped Steve’s lips, and he wrapped his arms around Tony, kissing him back with enthusiasm.
They came up for air what felt like hours later, both of them with red cheeks, kiss-swollen lips, and equally dorky looks on their faces. Tony's nervous fingers skimmed over the lapels of Steve's uniform.
"I'm keeping the letter," he said.
Tony squeaked. "What? Why?! I thought you said you'd give it back?!"
"Nope, I never said that. It's just what you wanted to hear," grinned Steve. "You wrote it for me, and I'm not giving it back if it means I can blackmail you into going out with me."
"You don't need blackmail material for that, you idiot," Tony mumbled shyly.
Steve grinned from ear to ear. He dipped a squeaking Tony and kissed him deeply, planning to take his new boyfriend out to Hogsmeade as soon as possible.
A gray owl came flying to the window they were standing by. Its eyes twinkled in delight.