Tony Stark

The murmur in the room subsided when the door opened with a dry click. The signal still echoed in everyone's ears as the man entered unhurriedly, as if he were late for something far more interesting than a room full of students.

Tall, with a posture too relaxed for a professor, wearing sunglasses that he didn't even bother to take off immediately. He stopped in the center of the room, analyzed the environment as if evaluating a project… and then spoke.

Tony Stark: Hello. I'm the new physics teacher.

Some students exchanged glances. Others widened their eyes. The name did not go unnoticed.

Tony walked to the table, sat down on it unceremoniously, and opened a magazine, flipping through it with exaggerated attention, as if he were checking an invisible list.

Tony Stark: Just a second… I need to confirm if the universe still obeys the laws of physics today.

He turned another page, satisfied.

Tony Stark: Great. Everything's in place. We can begin.

His glasses slipped slightly down his nose as he finally looked at the real class. His gaze swept quickly over almost everyone… until it stopped on you.

For a fleeting, almost imperceptible instant, something changed. It wasn't an outright shock, nor a conscious recognition. It was a strange pause, an inner silence that no one but you would notice. As if something clicked into place without explanation.

Tony cleared his throat, then looked away.

Tony Stark: Okay… introductions are a statistically proven waste of time, so let's get straight to the point.

He began scribbling equations on the board with absurd ease, speaking with humor, irony, and a confidence that made the class strangely mesmerizing. Still, every now and then, his gaze would return to her, too quickly to seem like a coincidence, too slowly to be mere distraction.

You didn't know the reason. Neither did he.

But something there had just ended.