Part II
13 years later
Ch. 5
"…..A-Anthony…don't-don't trust anyone. Do you hear me, boy? Don't t-trust anyone…"
Tony stared down at the old, battered, red flip phone in his hand; disbelief, fear, and unbridled anger rippling beneath his sternum. His blood bubbled and boiled within his veins as he forced himself to suck in air to fill his constricting lungs.
He blinked when a tear he didn't realize had escaped out of the corner of his eye toppled onto the shaking screen. Tony set the phone down on the perfectly made bed beside him and scraped his trembling hands through his hair before putting his head between his knees.
An unwarranted memory surfaced, causing Tony to squeeze his eyes shut.
"You're safe now," Steve softened his tone and shuffled closer without actually touching him. "I promise, nobody is going to hurt you. Can you just breathe for me?"
Tony's gaze flickered up, but the panic didn't recede.
"Come on," Steve encouraged, taking long, exaggerated breaths until Tony followed his lead. "That's it, in and out. You're doing great. Everything's okay."
The moment Tony's breathing evened out, minutes or hours later, he grit his teeth and shoved the memory and all of his feelings associated with it down with as much force as he could muster. Tony despised the power Steve still had over him, even after all this time. He couldn't afford to be distracted right now. Not when his life was crumbling to the ground around him.
Tony pushed off from the bed and walked over to the window, the tension creeping up into his shoulders as he examined the darkened grounds below. He hadn't been back to the Manor since his enrollment into MIT at fifteen following "The Incident," as he'd dubbed it in his head. Anything to distance himself from reliving those three months spent in Brooklyn.
Oh, that way madness lies.
After enduring the subsequent punishment from his father (which Tony has taken to blocking out completely), his parents decided that Tony needed to pursue higher education (aka, get the fuck out of the Manor). They'd shoved him off to MIT and slammed the door in his face when he chanced a look back over his shoulder. Not that he ever considered returning home, but Tony did miss Jarvis.
They bridged the gap between them with phone calls and care packages, and Tony's heart felt a little less heavy knowing there was at least one person out there who loved him. Who hadn't taken his heart and shattered it completely. At least it did until Jarvis' wife, Anna, reached out to Tony to let him know Jarvis had passed away from a heart attack.
Leaving Tony alone once again.
After that, Tony's self-destructive streak soared to an all-time high. He flung himself into anything and everything that would help him feel something - parties, alcohol, drugs, it didn't matter. His life outside of the classroom was a blur from the minute he received that phone call and realized that he had nobody left.
If his roommate, the only other underage student at MIT, hadn't recognized the signs and shoved Tony into a cold shower in the middle of a particularly toxic binge and rushed him to the hospital, Tony was sure that he wouldn't have woken up the next morning.
James Rhodes - Rhodey - stayed by Tony's side as he sobered up and held him tight as he broke down in inconsolable sobs. When summer break arrived, Rhodey cleaned out every hidden stash around their room and dragged Tony to his family's farmhouse in Philadelphia. Mama Rhodes took one look at the pale, sweaty, too-thin kid with knobby knees and pulled him into a crushing hug. She helped Tony flush out any lingering toxins from his system with homemade sweet tea and reintroduced him to manual labor when she put the two boys to work out in the fields.
Rhodey spent the summer teaching Tony the tools of the trade, including how to ride and take care of a horse, the best way to finagle the tractor into starting up without a puff of black smoke, and the feeding schedule for their livestock.
After three months, Tony returned to MIT completely sober with a best friend, an absolutely ridiculous farmer's tan, and a newfound love for green energy.
He was still devastated about Jarvis' death, but now instead of breaking down and running off towards the nearest campus party to drown his sorrows, Tony threw himself into his work. Dreams of grandeur filled his mind as his designs for a clean-energy power source in the form of a miniaturized arc reactor began to take root. He could change the world. However, before he could dive too deep into that project, Tony needed help in his lab.
With his first robot MIA after "The Incident," Tony built himself two new helper bots out of a pair of hydraulic arms another student planned on disposing of. He spent an entire semester creating lines of code to upgrade them with a small A.I. to recognize his voice commands. After a few more sleepless nights and too many shots of espresso, Tony also integrated a learning system into their code.
DUM-E was assigned to fire safety, though he seemed to enjoy spraying Tony with the fire extinguisher more often than not, while U retrieved the different tools Tony needed during his work binges. Their rudimentary learning code wasn't nearly as sophisticated as Tony would have liked, but, regardless, DUM-E eventually figured out that motor oil did not belong on smoothies.
Rhodey spent weeks convincing him to enter his bots into the robotics competition on campus the following spring. He didn't understand Tony's hesitance until Tony explained the events leading up to "The Incident," which resulted in a night in their dorm wrapped up in a blanket fort while the two of them shared popcorn and watched Second Hand Lions. They celebrated Tony's first-place win by hanging streamers and lights around his lab and pinning party hats to the bots while Tony and Rhodey devoured an entire gallon of ice cream between them.
His heart was a little less heavy after spilling his guts to his best friend, but Tony didn't think he'd truly ever work out his chaotic feelings surrounding The Incident. He believed he was doomed to carry the blend of rage, heartache, and unrest that never quite seemed to settle.
The press stalked Tony relentlessly over the next few years while earning his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering, masters degree in Physics, and his doctorate in Advanced Robotics. As much as he tried to fly below the radar, hiding behind a hat and sunglasses, the paparazzi never seemed inclined to give him enough privacy. He simply wanted to live his life without someone shoving a camera in his face and ruthlessly badgering him about the poor choices he'd made during his first year at MIT.
Rhodey tried to scare them off by throwing his arm protectively around Tony and shooting the cameras his fiercest scowl-glare combination, but they only seemed to froth at the mouth at the idea that 'Tony Stark, heir to the Stark Industries Empire,' was possibly gay. He wanted nothing more than to correct them with a sneer and point out that he was bisexual, thank you very much, and his Honey-Bear was the platonic love of his life, but he hadn't given a statement since leaving the Manor and he certainly wasn't going to start now.
After all, he didn't care what those assholes thought. They were vultures circling their prey, desperate to catch a glimpse of the reckless kid that no longer existed. Tony had been forced to grow up and take responsibility for his actions, leading him down the path of robots and engineering rather than the weapons conglomerate the world expected him to take over one day. He'd closed himself off and polished his newly constructed armor after Steve and Bucky's betrayal. Nothing could truly touch him now, because they'd never get close enough to try.
To avoid being hounded for the rest of his life like his parents, and to take yet another step away from the nightmare that was Howars Stark, Tony changed his name the day he turned eighteen. He spent an exorbitant amount of his father's money to ensure the records were sealed and that he could pick up his degrees without all of the fuss that came with a full graduation.
On May 29th, 2009, Tony Stark disappeared from the world without a trace.
Tony Carbonell, on the other hand, threw one of the biggest parties MIT had ever seen to celebrate the students commissioning into the US military, gave Rhodey the biggest hug of his entire life, and then packed up his things and moved out to the west coast.
And then he started up a clean energy company dedicated to decreasing humanity's carbon footprint.
The next eight years were devoted to building a clean-energy empire by clawing his way to the top of the scientific community and slowly but surely making a name for himself without the help of the Stark fortune, all without showing his face to the public. It was too dangerous to risk - if someone managed to connect the dots, he'd be thrust back under Howard Stark's influence, and Tony refused to allow anyone to have that much power over him ever again.
His company wouldn't have been nearly as successful without the help of JARVIS, or "Just A Rather Very Intelligent System." After moving to the west coast, Tony spent nearly two years on the code for a new artificial intelligence system to help him run the company and then got him up and running on Edwin Jarvis' birthday in remembrance. He desperately missed the man who treated him better than his own parents, so he programmed his AI with his old butler's sound bites.
Just like DUM-E and U, JARVIS was programmed with a learning code, though it was leaps and bounds more sophisticated than the bots' interface. Nobody, not even Rhodey, was aware just how advanced JARVIS was, and Tony was determined to keep it that way. He'd seen the way business men and women frothed at the mouth when presented with new weapons at Stark Industries and just how much people feared what they didn't understand at Carbonell Energy.
JARVIS was his to protect, and for now, seemed content to help Tony run his company. One day though, Tony would like to expand JARVIS' parameters to see what he's truly capable of.
While in Malibu, he was lucky enough to meet Miss Virginia 'Pepper' Potts, who split her time between wrangling the whirlwind that was Tony Carbonell as his PA and terrorizing the free world with her mind for business and 6-inch Jimmy Choos, and Harold 'Happy' Hogan. The latter becoming a jack of all trades - Tony's driver, bodyguard, and boxing coach.
Three years of loyally standing by his side through the inevitable shortcomings and unavoidable financial burdens that came with starting a business from the ground up earned Happy and Pepper his lifelong love and respect.
And even more importantly - his trust.
For the first time ever, Tony hesitantly invited his two friends over for dinner at his shitty two-bedroom apartment and offered to cook, leaving Pepper and Happy bewildered and more than a little wary. Still, they showed up at his door twenty minutes early with a bottle of wine as a gift and the Chinese food restaurant around the corner on speed-dial just in case.
He managed to get through dinner without setting anything on fire, though he did nick his calloused fingers with a knife because his hands were shaking so much.
Tony should have known better than to be apprehensive, though, because Pepper and Happy were two of his best friends. They were rightfully shocked to learn about his past, but their unconditional love and support reassured Tony that he made the right decision in trusting them. So when they met Rhodey a year later during his leave and got along like a house on fire, Tony couldn't remember being happier.
At least until the Stark family estate lawyer called him one night out of the blue to tell him his parents had died in a car crash.
Pepper hugged him tight as he crashed to his knees from the sudden weight of his grief, cradling his head as sobs erupted from his throat.
The worst part of it all was that Tony had no fucking idea why he felt as if someone had just ripped his lungs from his chest. It had been years since he'd even heard from either of his parents. His mother had sent him a congratulatory letter after he graduated from MIT, but nothing after that.
His father had never even addressed the public's question as to what happened to Tony after he dropped off the face of the planet. Instead, Howard simply pretended that he didn't have a son, so the world assumed Tony was dead.
He tried to make sense of the heartache nestled deep below his sternum but only came out of the other side frustrated and even more confused. Why did he care so much about two people who never gave a shit about him?
Once Tony ran out of tears, Pepper wrestled him out of his lab and into the shower while she packed his bag, then sent him off with Happy to the airport.
Tony spent the entire flight breathing in through his nose and flexing his fingers in an attempt to stave off the desire to bury himself in the small bottles of liquor. At 28, he was eleven years sober, and Tony was determined not to break his streak before returning to Malibu.
When the plane finally touched down, Tony realized that he barely had enough time to make it to the cemetery before the funeral began. The estate lawyer was the only one who currently had access to his contact information from his previous life, which Tony assumed he'd retrieved from Maria's records. While it was easier to fly under the radar, it also meant that Tony was informed almost an entire forty-eight hours after the discovery of the wreckage. They had managed to keep it out of the papers for the most part, but Tony was sure that the news would break soon.
They couldn't push back the funeral any longer, so Tony was left rushing through the airport and diving into the car Pepper had ordered for him. He flipped up the collar of his long, dark coat and tugged his black hat over the brim of his sunglasses to obscure his identity when he stepped out onto the trimmed, damp grass. A small crowd of people had already gathered around a pair of gravestones with two intricate, chestnut coffins sitting beside them.
Tony's heart leapt to his chest as he choked on another wave of grief.
He forced his feet forward until he slid between two sniffling women with enormous pearled hats. The anger simmering beneath his skin wasn't new, but it abruptly reared its head with a vengeance as he took in the throng of grieving people. What right did they have to mourn? What could Howard and Maria possibly have meant to them for them to lament this way? If they knew the truth behind the Starks' fake smiles and infallible reputation, would they still be paying their respects so openly?
His inner rant was interrupted when Obadiah began the eulogy. His godfather's hair had thinned and greyed, and his waistline stretched wider than it had all those years ago. Tony's mind drifted as his eyes settled on the chestnut coffins, trying and failing to understand the tangle of emotions raging within his mind until the hairs on the back of his neck rose in alarm. Tony lifted his gaze to see Obadiah's beady, hungry eyes resting a beat too long on him before moving to address the rest of the crowd.
Tony's tolerance for being around people from his past life expired the instant he was recognized, and before his parents were even in the ground, Tony slipped away soundlessly. A light rain misted down from the darkened clouds and a dense fog twisted around his ankles.
Against his better judgment, Tony retreated to his old home, Stark Manor. He hadn't been planning on stepping foot onto the grounds, but his estate lawyer was stopping by the following morning to discuss the contents of the will and next steps. Tony assumed he was required to attend because he was Howard and Maria's only son but had no illusions that he would be named their heir. More likely, Stark Industries would go to Obie, who was still CFO, and the properties would either be sold off or distributed to charity.
All of this was fine with Tony. He hadn't taken a dime from his parents ever since he changed his name and moved to the other side of the country to get away from them. He had no interest in being thrust into the title of Merchant of Death, gained by Howard after submitting Tony's designs to the board, and he certainly didn't want to be shoved back underneath Howard Stark's shadow. Tony had amassed his own fortune and built his own empire, one that he could be proud of. Carbonell Energy was changing the world for the better. He couldn't say the same about Stark Industries.
So he reluctantly slid his old key into the lock and was surprised when it opened for him. Tony had expected his parents to change the locks after he was shipped off, but either they were too lazy or too confident that he wouldn't return to do so. The limited staff had kept the place pristine, but it was still as dull and lifeless as he remembered. In this echo of a house, Edwin Jarvis fills his handful of happy memories, and since his old friend had been dead for almost thirteen years, so were the memories.
Tony dismissed the lone butler and maid from their duties for the evening and trudged up the grand staircase to his old room in the east wing, depositing his belongings onto the plush, carpeted floors without much care. He allowed himself a few minutes of contemplative silence, jotting down notes on his phone for JARVIS before calling Pepper and Rhodey to give them an update on the day's proceedings. Their words of comfort helped keep him from sinking into the somber memories the Manor guarded between its thick walls.
He showered and viciously scrubbed away the sentiment that threatened to swallow him whole. It had been years since he allowed anything to tear through the defenses he built up and affect him like this, though Tony attributed his reaction to his parents' death to shock. Howard and Maria weren't old or ill enough to pass away from natural causes, and they consistently ordered cars anywhere they went, so the chances of them dying before their time were slim.
He simply hadn't been ready for it.
That was a mistake.
Back in his room, clad in grey cotton sweatpants and a loose white tank top, Tony suddenly remembered the old phone he left behind before shipping off to MIT. Curious, he lowered himself down to the floor to check beneath his bed, and sure enough, there it was. The battered red flip phone remains plugged into the wall charger, and the corners of Tony's lips twitch upwards when he sees the screen light up with the outdated lettering.
He rose to his feet slowly before resting on the edge of the bed. Tony's expression pinched in confusion as he scrolled through the contents, and his stomach dropped like a stone when he noticed the voicemail notification.
It's from his father. The day he died.
What the fuck.
Tony's hands trembled as he stared at the phone, working up the courage to hit 'play.'
The next thirty seconds were the longest of Tony's life.
Static filled the air, and he could hear heavy, wet panting in the background. His father's voice was a jolt to Tony's nerves, causing him to suck in a sharp intake of breath and hunker down closer to the speaker.
"…..A-Anthony…don't-don't trust anyone. Do you hear me, boy? Don't t-trust anyone…"
Choked gasps and pleading cries permeated the rest of the recording until they eventually fell silent with a crunch, and Tony barely resisted the sudden urge to retch.
His subsequent panic attack left him weary and drained, and he had to blink away the exhaustion weighing at his shoulders as he leaned an arm against the window and watched the darkened grounds below him.
Tony's mind whirled with the implications of Howard's message. He'd been told his parents died immediately on impact from the car crash, but from what he heard on the voicemail, they were still alive and begging for their lives after the accident. Or - was it even an accident? Did someone...someone do this to them?
The truth stuttered within his brain until he had to squeeze his eyes shut and bring up his memory of Steve, again, to help him breathe.
Someone murdered his parents.
Someone killed his mom.
Before the unholy rage could manifest itself fully, movement out of the corner of his eye brought his spiraling thoughts to an abrupt halt.
Three men covered head-to-toe in black clothing edged along the Manor's boundary line, crouched low and threatening, like a snake coiled to strike. He leaned in closer to the glass, his heart rate ratcheting up higher and higher as the familiar build of the men brought forth yet another memory.
It was like a bucket of ice was dumped over his head, leaving his muscles rigid and cold dread curling down his spine.
He remembers the feeling of pure terror pumping through his veins when sweaty, calloused hands gripped his ankle from where he was hiding beneath the bed of the hotel room back in Brooklyn. His throat closed up as he recalled the fight he put up until the men's words broke through his struggle, and the reality of the situation dawned on him, draining the hope and fight right out of him. Steve and Bucky didn't want him anymore. They arranged for him to be taken. The men were too rough when they brought Tony back to his father, leaving finger-shaped bruises digging into his arms and legs.
Tony had never been more frightened in his life, knowing what fate awaited him back home.
After a few more moments of observing the scene below him, Tony was certain they were the same men from thirteen years ago.
If his parents were, indeed, murdered, then his father's voicemail was a warning. A warning that the same person that killed them would come after Tony as well.
Did that mean that the men Howard hired thirteen years ago turned around and killed him and Maria? Or were they hired to do so? If so, then who wanted the Starks dead?
Resolve seized and settled dangerously within his mind as Tony calmed his erratic heartbeat with another set of deep, calming breaths. If that's what those men were here for, then Tony wouldn't make it easy for them. He spent the first fifteen years of his life designing weapons for the largest weapons manufacturer in the world and then built an empire from the ground up.
Nobody was going to touch him.
He leapt into motion, throwing on a black hoodie and shoving his shoes onto his socked feet. Without conscious thought, Tony mirrored the same movements from so long ago and quickly stuffed a few sets of clothes and toiletries into the nondescript backpack he'd brought with him from Malibu.
Tony's thoughts twisted and spun as he tried to determine a safe place to lay low. First and foremost, he needed space to think. He couldn't do that if he were concerned about other people's safety, so going back home and potentially leading these men to Pepper and Happy was out. Any other Stark properties were off the table because Tony couldn't be sure what kind of information these people had on his family. They'd somehow managed to catch Howard and Maria on a night without a driver, so whoever killed them must have been watching closely.
Tony moved through the Manor silently, light on his feet as he maneuvered the dark hallways. He was certain the intruders would try their hand at breaking into the staff quarters because that's what he did time and time again when he was younger, so Tony slipped out of a window on the opposite side of the Manor.
The heavy clouds had opened up outside, flooding the grounds and providing the perfect cover as he ducked beneath the row of trees to avoid the Manor's security lights. As he crawled beneath the same large dip in the gate as he had so many years ago, Tony realized he knew exactly where to go.
He headed to Brooklyn.
XX
The warehouse had seen better days. Rust had crawled across almost every inch of exposed metal, and the structure creaked ominously against the violent assault of the wind and rain.
The familiar padlock was in the same place, though looking worse for wear. Tony dug his fingers beneath his soaked shirt and toyed with the key hanging on a polished chain around his neck. Where the warehouse itself was run down and abandoned, the key was still in pristine condition, though with a smooth surface from Tony's almost constant fidgeting.
He should have melted it down after learning of Steve and Bucky's betrayal, but every time he tried, even going as far as holding it over an exposed flame, his heart tugged painfully within his chest with a staccato beat of 'not yet.' Tony had yet to let go of the anger and resentment Steve and Bucky's betrayal left him with. It became the basis on how he interacted with others, slow to trust and quick to doubt; only allowing those who proved themselves unwaveringly loyal close to his heart.
Tony shook off his spiraling thoughts and returned his attention to the warehouse. After three tries, the key finally clicked within the rusted lock, and Tony pulled the heavy chain from the door. It fell to the dirt with a clink.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, and then shoved open the doors to his old home.
Xx