Hey, this is an slight AU where Bruce isn't the Hulk and Tony isn't Iron Man. SHIELD still exists and both men are still geniuses. Bruce's past is basically the same minus the Hulk and the government wanting to smash puny Banner. Tony's is the same more or less minus the cave terrorist incident.

Hope you enjoy and remember to review/follow/favorite and stuff at the end.

Chapter one:

There wasn't much Tony couldn't get. Best cars, best food, best service, best women. It was all available to him. He could get anything and everything he wanted. And anything he couldn't get by either shear charm or persistence he just had to continue throwing money at until he had what he wanted. Always.

Tony Stark had been born to a life of luxury and privilege. He'd been running Stark Industries for years and after his father had nearly run it into the ground he had built it up from almost nothing to it's former glory and beyond. But somehow that wasn't enough. Pepper, Rhodes, the media, the whole freakin' council had apparently decided it was embarrassing to have someone who didn't have a degree or two running an industry. It didn't matter to them that Tony was a genius in nearly every definition when it came to science and business - they needed a piece of paper to prove that, yeah, he knew what he was doing.

So here he was jumping through their circus loops, "show ponying" he called it. He hated it - not the attention; he loved that - the demanding however he could live without. And that was how he got here. Sitting through classes that made him wanted to bang his head against the school table. He hated being in those classes and he wasn't ashamed to show it. Snarky comments, falling asleep in class, working on personal projects in class, the whole shebang. All the teachers hated him anyway. Was it his fault he knew they were wrong and very often corrected them - and they called themselves professors? He was only there because attendance was mandatory, otherwise he could have passed all of their classes without attending a single class. Everyone knew it was ridiculous that he was in the students seat. He was a genius and knew everything and more than they could ever hope to teach him - all self-taught thank you very much. Tony Stark hadn't found one single person to match him intellectually in any of the professors that "the most advance college in America" had to offer him.

Except him.

There was one reason that Tony didn't give the whole educational system the big finger and ditch boring lectures and scornful, jealous professors of stupidity. He'd found that reason on the second week of his college experience.

That reason was named Doctor Bruce Banner.

Doctor Banner had been brought in only as a substitute because after a week with Tony the teacher had apparently elected to quit rather than put up with one more day with snarky Stark in his class. And that was how Tony had finally gotten interested in college...

As Tony waited for his last teacher of the day to appear he was severely annoyed when the bell rang and the professor wasn't there. People didn't make Tony Stark wait - even if he was just going to ignore them when they arrived. Tony slouched into his ridiculously impossible to get comfortable in chair. After a few minutes of twiddling his fingers he perked up as one of the sexiest, handsomest men he'd ever laid eyes on rushed into the classroom. He wore dark jeans with a purple button down shirt and carried a tattered leather briefcase.

The ruffled physician and brilliant scientist stood before a class of now-his-students not knowing where to begin. His name maybe. Yeah, that'd do.

"Hello." Bruce said lamely, as he ran his hands soothingly over his arms in a old habit from his childhood, "I'm Doctor Bruce Banner, I'll be teaching you from now on since Professor Hansen, uhm, quit." Bruce remembered hearing the aged professor as he packed up his notes, crimson with fury and cursing.

"That damn Stark!" The aged man had ranted, "If I have to hear him correct my equations one more time I'll blow a gasket! You'd think HE was the teacher with how arrogant he acts!" then he'd started shouting in more colorful words.

Bruce blinked back into the present and pulled away his glasses, rubbing at non-existent dust, before replacing them on his nose.

"Physical science." the brown eyed man in the front of the room with stadium-like seating began, "Is, by definition, any of the sciences, such as physics, chemistry, astronomy, and geology, that analyze the nature and properties of energy and nonliving matter. Some see science as a black and white field filled with only facts and tests but that's not true. Each day we make new advances in every field of science and the possibilities are limitless. Science effects everything we do and our every day lives in ways some of us don't realize..."

Tony listened as he spoke, in detail, about his experiences in making medicine in backwater countries and skimmed over other various projects he'd taken over the years, some for the military, some for SHIELD, some for bettering humanity. Eventually speaking about what relevance science had in today's world. He was actually very interested and Tony enjoyed his lecture. He seemed a lot less like a college professor and more like a regular guy who happened to know a lot about the world and science and people around him. Before they left he dug into his worn leather briefcase and handed out thick packets, tasking the class with reading and understanding the material and writing a two page paper that explained the relevance of science in modern society.

After class Tony had stayed behind. By the other students looks as they exited it was obvious they were shocked. Tony had always been the first one out.

"Doctor Banner." Tony sauntered up to the man writing notes with his head ducked.

"Mmm?" Bruce asked without looking up. There was something wrong about the gamma radiation's fluctuation in the second sequence. He began running figures and theories on how to adjust the fluctuation to desired perimeters.

"Tony Stark, pleased to meet you." he held out his hand in a gesture of friendliness. Anyone who followed Stark knew that this was rare. Tony Stark did not do handshakes. Not that Doctor Banner seemed to notice...

"Mm? Ah." That got his attention, "Mister Stark, pleased to meet you." Doctor Banner took the offered hand and shook it, "Is there, ah, anything I can help you with?" he seemed a little shocked but hid it well. He'd probably heard an earful about Tony already.

The man had a world-wary charm to him Tony decided. And up close he could tell the man was roughly his age. And those brown eyes and soft tousled looking locks of his. Definitely sexy. Not in that obvious way but the kind of way that made you just want to bundle the guy up and bring him home with you.

Tony's signature smile was dazzling, "Nope." he popped the 'p', "Call me Tony and I'll be great. How 'bout you doc?"

The taken aback expression on his teacher's face was priceless and adorable. If Tony could bottle up that coy adorableness he'd be, well...richer.

"Uh...I-I'm fine, thank you." Bruce answered nonplused.

Tony nodded, satisfied, before turning on his heel and leaving a very confused Doctor Robert Bruce Banner in his wake.

Bruce was very confused and suspicious to say the least. Based on Professor Hansen's rant Tony Stark was supposed to be the student from hell. He remembered a certain statement the professor had made which was already conflicting the Tony Stark he'd just met.

"He bolts out of the class the second the bell rings - he doesn't even hide how much he doesn't want to be there!"

Bruce's eyebrows drew together. Tony Stark hadn't done any of the things that Professor Hansen had accused him of doing and he had seemed to be one of few listening students, not to mention he had stayed behind to do...whatever that exchange could be categorized as.

.

.

.

Tony didn't hear the telltale clicking of heels that signaled Pepper's approach. He was too wrapped up in the packet that Bruce had handed out to the class. It was brilliant! His research on antielectron collision was pure genius. Tony just wanted to frame the papers and hang them in his shower. Because, damn, there wasn't anything sexier than a brilliant mind. He could just hump Bruce's beautiful mind, scratch that, he'll hump Bruce. Damn he was sexy. The brains just sealed it.

"Tony?" Pepper asked from behind the couch he was reading the notes in, when she got no response she leaned over and looked at the papers in his hands.

"Is that what I think it is?" Pepper asked aloud because it was honestly shocking if Tony was actually reading school work.

"JESUS!" Tony placed his hand over his thumping heart, "You need to wear a bell or something. Damn. Where did you come from?"

"Really?" Pepper rose a ginger eyebrow at him, "Wow." she swiftly snatched the papers from his hand, "What's so special about this that Tony Stark was so fascinated?" she tried reading the first paragraph her eyes fell on but couldn't make sense of it. Too much science mumbo jumbo.

Tony reached out for them, giving her the biggest pair of puppy eyes she'd ever witnessed, "Noooooo~ you can't take them, I haven't even done half the dirty thing I want to do with them!"

Pepper gave him an incredulous look and deadpan raised eyebrow, still keeping the papers out of his reach.

"My sexy notes~" he whimpered pathetically as he failed again to grab them.

"Tony Stark." she stilled him with a look, "I have papers for you to sign."

Tony frowned, usually he didn't mind but, "I have homework to do. Now gimme, gimme."

That sealed it.

"Oh my God, Tony what happened?" Pepper asked shocked and in her distracted state Tony quickly reclaimed his papers.

"I don't know what you mean." He said petulantly as he examined them for crinkles. None? Good.

"Who is she? A student at the college?" Pepper asked before she began rambling, "You're trying to impress her," she made an 'o' shape with her mouth, "YOU HAVE THE HOTS FOR A TEACHER!"

Damn her and her womanly intuition. Tony glared at her spitefully before he quite pointedly rejected, "No. I just thought I shouldn't have an F - wouldn't look good for the company, yadda yadda."

Pepper scoffed, placing her manicured hands on her hips, "Please. You can pass all those classes without attending any of them. What was that anyway? Science?" she took a moment to recall his schedule before pulling a face, "Didn't think you went for the old type."

Tony pulled an equally disgusted face, "Don't be gross, Peps. Like I would be interested in that old badger - or any of those other super-sized egos."

Pepper shrugged and in her very elegant and prim way she took a seat on the coffee table in front of him, "So whose oh-so-sexy notes are those?"

Tony frowned and glared childishly at her, "Can't I have notes I think are sexy without you interrogating me?"

"Tony-" Pepper began but was cut short.

"Fine. The substitute is sexy and genius. So what? It's not like I'm going to do anything Peps." he confessed indignantly, "I'll behave." he stressed the last word petulantly.

Pepper nodded, seemingly pleased with this. So long as a scandal didn't ruin any incoming business offers she was fine with whatever crush Tony might have on his teacher.

"Fine." she stood, all business now, "Now those papers."

Tony could be heard whining in the echoes of Stark Tower.

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