Tony VIII: MIT

Not long after that beach trip and the serendipitous reunion with Wanda, it was time for Tony to head to MIT to start the next chapter of his education. He couldn't wait. In terms of lab equipment, he had everything he could ever need in his father's lab in the basement, but he hungered to learn from new professors and, hopefully, make new friends. Before he left, he visited Bruce, Parker, Steve, and Bucky in person one last time. Bruce was headed to Penn State to study biochemistry and considering a physics minor on top of that, but he was waiting to see how it went. Tony reassured him that he would be amazing in everything he set his mind to and promised to keep up with their regular check-ins, and Bruce said the same to him.

Parker hugged him goodbye and made him promise not to replace him with cool college friends. "Never," Tony promised. Bucky and Steve wished him the best and assured him neither of them would be applying to join them at that school. Only now that he was actually saying goodbye did he realize just how much he would miss these guys. Obviously he didn't see them as often as he did while still at Gravesen, but more often than he would living in Massachusetts. They all promised to make good use of video chats.

The drive was just over four hours, and they spent it listening to his mother's favorite classic Italian songs. For multiple reasons, Tony couldn't wait to arrive. He had his parents drop him off at the residence hall so he could check in and get his room key while they parked the car. "You guys remember the room number?" he asked before stepping out of the car.

"Yep. We'll see you soon," Mom said.

Once he got his key, Tony headed down the hallway to his room. Luckily, they were on the main floor, so he didn't have to spend every day going up and down a bunch of steps. Tony located his room, tried the handle, and found it unlocked. His roommate must have already moved in and left it unlocked. He opened the door and reflexively covered his head as something whizzed past his left ear—something fast. Daring to look behind him, he found the pulverized remains of a potato splattered on the wall and the floor behind him. Tony turned back to face the inside of the room, finding the nozzle of a potato gun still aimed directly at him, wielded by a brown-haired boy a few inches taller than him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked accusingly. His voice contained a hint of a southern accent.

"I…live here," Tony said. "Do you live here?"

He lowered the gun and his jaw dropped open. "Oh my God. When the site said my roommate was Anthony Stark I thought it was a scam. But you're really him."

"Not a scam. That's me."

"And you're just in regular housing? I thought you would've…bought a house just off campus or something."

"No. I wanted the authentic college experience. Although I have to say getting shot at by high-velocity vegetables was not something I expected to be a part of that experience."

"Sorry." He dropped the gun onto his desk and Tony walked over to admire it.

"Did you build this?"

"Yeah."

"Impressive."

The guy shrugged. "Well I did get into MIT."

"What's your name?" Tony vaguely remembered reading it when he registered for housing and got his room assignment, but it slipped his mind.

"Harley. Harley Keener."

"Where are you from?"

"Tennessee."

"Wow. That's a long way to come."

"It's worth it. At least I hope it's going to be. Are your parents here?"

"Yeah. They're bringing the first load."

"Cool. My mom and my sister were here this morning. Helped me move all this in. But I've just been chilling here for an hour or so. I'll go take a walk and give you guys some space to get everything in here."

"Great, thanks. I look forward to getting to know you."

"You too." With that, Harley left. Tony's parents arrived carting boxes a few minutes later.

"Where's your roommate?" Mom asked.

"He went for a walk so he won't be in our way while we're unpacking," Tony explained. "He also tried to shoot me in the head with a potato gun."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Is he a security risk?" Howard asked. Tony rolled his eyes. His dad had been somewhat reluctant to let him live in the freshman dorms, insisting it posed a risk to his safety, but Tony argued back harder. He'd made it eighteen years without getting kidnapped, and he doubted that streak would end any time soon.

"No, Dad," Tony promised. "Let's just start unpacking." They worked on getting all the big stuff done first. Tony saved things like clothes and desk supplies to do by himself later. Mom insisted on making his bed for him, and Tony didn't argue. Of course they'd checked this beforehand with the school, but they counted the outlets and made sure there were enough for Tony's wall unit and VAD battery chargers. On the wall above his bed, he hung up the drawing of the two of them that Steve had gifted him before he left Gravesen and beside it, the canvas Parker had painted for him last Christmas with the words describing how his friends felt about him. And, of course, tucked comfortably at the foot of his bed, he placed Friday. He'd debated bringing Butterfingers and Dum-E too, but decided that one stuffed animal would tarnish his reputation enough. Satisfied there was no more hard work to be done, he stepped back and prepared to say goodbye to his parents.

Howard got emotional. Even since the Arno revelation, Tony had never seen him quite like this. Both of his parents hugged him long and hard, reiterating that New York wasn't far off and he could come home any weekend he liked. "You have all your medication?" Mom asked for at least the third or fourth time."

"Yes." His pillbox had been the first thing he packed and the first thing he unpacked.

"Good. I'm going to miss you."

"I'll miss you too, Mom."

Now it was Dad's turn. "I'm so proud of you."

Tony tried not to cry, only partially succeeding. He'd waited his entire life to hear his father say those exact words. They tried to make excuses to stay a little longer, and Tony almost had to force them out. Then, he got to work on the last of his boxes. Harley came back about fifteen minutes after his parents left.

"Nice timing," Tony told him.

"I saw a really nice car leave the parking lot and I figured it might be theirs."

"Fair."

He worked mostly in silence for the next half an hour, wary of Harley watching his every move. "I thought you'd wear nicer clothes," he remarked blithely.

"Why would you think that?"

Harley shrugged. "Because you're rich."

"I also like to be comfortable. I only dress up when my dad drags me to some Stark Industries function or something."

"I guess that makes sense. Did you make those up on your wall?"

Damn, this guy was curious. "No. My friend Steve did the drawing and my other friend Parker did the painting."

"Oh, neat. Do they go here?"

"No. They're both still in high school."

"Okay. Do you have any friends who go here?"

"Not yet." Obi went to a different school. Justin had applied to MIT—Tony knew because he literally never shut up about it—but the admissions office must've been looking out for Tony because he didn't get in. He didn't think he could survive four more years of Justin Hammer fanboying over him, although at this rate it seemed he might be getting similar treatment from his roommate. Harley left him alone for the rest of his unpacking, busy tinkering with his potato gun. At last, Tony put away the last pair of socks and closed all his drawers with a sigh of finality.

"That's the last of it," he announced, hopping up onto the bed.

"You sure about that?" Harley asked.

Tony glanced around the room. There was nothing left but the empty boxes which he'd stowed under the bed. "Yep. I'm sure."

"What about the backpack you're wearing?"

"Oh, this?" Tony's hand flew to the strap almost always present across his shoulder. "No, this stays with me."

"What's in it?"

"My heart."

"What?"

"Well, not literally. I have a ventricular assist device, and I need to be constantly connected to a power source. The controller and batteries stay in this backpack," Tony explained. He lifted up the hem of his shirt and revealed the sterile dressing covering his driveline site and the wire feeding out of it.

Harley's eyes widened like a cartoon. "Whoa. Is that also what that thing's for?" He pointed to the wall unit beside Tony's bed. "I thought it was just a fancy Stark tech alarm clock or something."

"No, it's for the VAD. I plug into it at night so I can charge the batteries."

"That's so cool." He hesitated. "I mean…that sounds really inconvenient, and I'm sorry you have to handle all that."

"It's fine," Tony assured. "I have friends who have to deal with worse." His collection of equipment paled in comparison to Steve's. "And it is pretty cool. Want me to show you how it works?"

Harley nodded eagerly, and he spent the rest of the evening explaining all the equipment to Harley. He was endlessly fascinated by all of it, and Tony couldn't help but be a little proud that he'd blown this guy's mind. In return, he asked Harley to tell him all about his potato gun, and offered to help him make another, even better one, at the first opportunity. Harley agreed. Tony couldn't wait for the semester to begin so he could get to work.

~0~

The first few months flew by in a blur. Tony, in addition to all his coursework and helping Harley with the potato gun, also got permission for lab time to work on another, infinitely more important project. He plowed forward with an idea for a power source that had lingered in his brain for years, only now he had even more drive to make it work. If this succeeded, he could eliminate the need for people with VADs to constantly be hooked up to an external source of energy. Tony spent hours in the lab every week, but he knew it could be years before he got the design right, and further years after that before he turned it into something medical grade.

Before he knew it, Thanksgiving arrived and he returned home for the first time since moving in. The holiday proceeded much the same as usual, with his mother preparing far more food than three people could ever eat. "Tony, there's something I need to discuss with you," his father announced just after the last bite of pie on the table was consumed. He sounded gravely serious, and the pessimist within Tony started screaming that terrible news awaited him. Tony held his breath and waited for the announcement that he was dying, or the company was tanking, or something equally as horrible. What he heard instead was completely different. "I'm retiring when you graduate college."

"Why?" Tony asked.

"Because I'm getting old," he said frankly. "And I want to spend more time with your mother."

"Oh." For the longest time, Tony had expected his father to maintain his position as CEO of Stark Industries until the day he died—because, for the longest time, his father had busied himself with nothing but work. Tony used to think he would rather be at the office than home, and in all likelihood that used to be the case. But in the time since the Arno revelation, his priorities had shifted dramatically. "So…what's going to happen to Stark Industries?"

"Well, there is one Stark I had in mind as my successor," he said jovially.

Tony had always known that he would inherit the company, but it had always seemed such a distant eventuality. Now that he was actually faced with the prospect of becoming the CEO, it freaked him out a bit. He didn't know how to deal with foreign governments and oversee weapons manufacturing and a million other things that occurred behind the scenes of a massive company like Stark Industries. Frankly, he didn't think he even wanted to do that. Tony wanted to continue the work he'd just started at school, with the goal of helping people and not hurting them. Constructive versus destructive engineering, the primary divide between his and his father's preferred areas of expertise.

"But I don't want to make weapons," he announced with less confidence than he felt. He was afraid Howard would reject him if he expressed any intention to fundamentally change the company.

"Well," Howard began. "I started this company from scratch to make what I wanted, what I was good at making. But I'm afraid it's not going to be that easy for you."

"What?"

"It's more difficult to completely change the mission statement of a company that size than it is to start from scratch."

"Change the mission statement?"

"I'm not going to be one of those retirees who looks over your shoulder and judges your every decision, claiming that's not how I would have done it. I plan to enjoy my retirement. When you take over, Stark Industries will be yours."

"So…I don't have to make weapons?"

"Make what you want to make. You'll be in charge."

"Wow. Okay." Tony hadn't expected it to be that easy. He'd feared his father would lecture him on the historical significance of weapons manufacturing and how integral his company was to the security of the United States of America. Yet he'd just expressed his support for whatever direction Tony chose to take the company. A smile crept onto his face, and a memory surfaced: King T'Challa and his mission to ensure the best cancer treatment reached every corner of the globe. He used his country's incredible resources to honor the memory of his father and uncle and attempt to prevent more deaths like theirs. Tony wanted to embody that mindset of helping and healing instead of intimidating and destroying. When he took over Stark Industries, his first order of business would be to redirect research and development from weapons to medical devices. With the vast resources and sky-high budget the company possessed, he could easily finalize a design and start production of his new self-sustaining VAD power source.

I have a strong urge to get a custom sticker or poster that says, "High-velocity vegetables." It's such a wonderful combination of words.