August 22nd, 1976
It was clear to the young boy crouched on the floor between a floral-patterned couch and the floor-to-ceiling beige curtains that the inside of the talking G.I. Joe's voice box hinged on the negator spring. The coiled piece of metal was supposed to move the tape that had the voice recordings on it, but at the moment it was poking out the back of the toy, which was lying facedown on the leopard-print carpet. He leaned over it and pulled on the sliver of metal, trying to lift it free of the rest of the contraption. "A buuullllet in the baaarrrrellll of yooooooouuuuuurrrrrr beeeee-" the toy slurred, before the spring came loose and the sound cut off entirely. The boy examined the spring for a moment, turning it over in his hands, before setting it aside and picking up the toy. He shifted so that his back was to the window and the light shone over his shoulder into the chest cavity of the toy.
He glanced up when the door opened. From his position behind the couch, he could just see a man sporting greying hair and wire-rimmed spectacles walk into the living room, holding a newspaper in one hand and a cup in the other. He walked over to the couch and sat down, reading the paper as he went. The boy watched him for a few moments and then returned to his examination of the toy in his hand. The voice box was glued to the front of the toy's chest, and he rather suspected that this was part of the reason the toy was generally very difficult to understand. He tried to pry the voice box out, but realized quickly that if he pulled too hard the device itself would break. Leaving the back of the toy and the spring on the floor, he stood up and leaned over the back of the couch across from the man.
"Dad," he said, "can I have some of the glue solvent you were using the other day?"
"Ask Jarvis," said Howard Stark as he turned the newspaper to page B8.
The boy started to turn away. Jarvis wouldn't be able to give him the solvent he wanted, the high-quality stuff that Howard Stark used for important projects like the arc reactor or the gene sequences that would, if all went according to plan, nearly double the output of some breeds of wheat. But it probably wasn't worth it to bother his father about it any more. He wasn't supposed to see the man working at all, and now he thought about it, he couldn't find a good alibi for why he would know about it in the first place.
"Wait," said his father.
Tony Stark turned back to his father slowly, clutching the G.I. Joe in his hands for security.
"What do you need glue solvent for?"
Tony held up the toy. "There's glue on the front of the voice box," he said. "It muffles the sound. And I was going to replace the tape."
Howard pulled his glasses off and held out his hand for the toy. Tony stepped forward just enough to deposit it in his hand. The older man looked it over. It was difficult to reproduce a face accurately at that scale, and the short blond hair stuck straight up from the head in a way it never would have on a real person, but it was clearly recognizable as a limited edition Captain America G.I. Joe doll. "Where did you get this?" he asked.
"Jarvis gave it to me."
Howard frowned with his forehead. "What were you planning on replacing the tape with?" he asked.
Tony shifted. "I saw some old newsreels outside the west-wing storage room the other day when you were in there. I was going to make some recordings from them."
An adult Tony Stark might have recognized the look that flitted across Howard's face as amusement, followed by a hint of sadness. The child who was actually present didn't know what to make of it and only stared in confusion. Hasbro had played enough commercials on television that everyone knew the doll's ten featured phrases, including such gems as, "Each one you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy's gun," and "Who are we? We're Howling Commandos!" The recordings were scratchy and difficult to make out and unrecognizable as Steve Rogers by anyone who had known him personally, or watched enough recordings of the man.
At his young son's suggestion, Howard could hardly help but imagine the doll with a new set of lines; things Captain America had actually said and meant, such as "Language, Morita," or "Eating Brach's fudge before you throw up does not make it taste better. Save it for after, soldier."
The man set the toy on the coffee table. "Don't you have more important things to be doing?" he asked.
Small eyes narrowed, laying the groundwork for wrinkles that would set in over years of stress. "I finished all my homework for the weekend."
"Work ahead, then. Don't waste your time with this toy. It's a misrepresentation of an American hero and I won't have it in my house."
"How do I know it's the doll that's got it wrong and not you? No one's as good as you say he was!" shouted Tony, and he turned and ran out of the room.
He did not speak to his father again for the rest of the weekend, and when he returned to the living room after dinner that day, the toy was gone, even the back of the chest cavity and the negator spring that he had left behind the couch.
