Showing your pain
only generates more pain, dear king.
Hide it behind a charming smile,
And a suit of red,
And just maybe, you'll survive.
Tony, Age 6, Boarding School: Flashback
At noon, Jarvis took a walk with me outside while I vented my thoughts.
Jarvis sighed. "You have not been enlisted in the military."
I begged to differ.
Tony, Age 22
Tony's POV
Once again, I'd been drafted into the military. Or so it felt. Schedules. Meetings. Peanut's teacher yammering from people who rather talk about work that actually get to the act of doing it. Plastering on a smile for meet-and-greets.
You'd think that as head of a multi-million-dollar industry, with degrees in engineering and robotics, that I'd get to choose how to spend my day. That I'd get to lose myself in R&D for as long as I pleased.
But Obie insisted that that wasn't how the real world worked and that even if Howard had lived, more would be expected of me than to just tinker in R&D until Dad retired.
I did spend a lot of time in R&D, but even there I had orders to follow. I was to design and produce things to aid the military. See what I mean? Drafted. With no military rank to show for it. Correction. My rank is Chief Executive Officer.
The king is dead. All hail the king. In school, my classmates hadn't liked being bested by someone younger than them. Likewise, as an adult. I heard the mutterings. But whereas as a kid, they'd express that discontent by punching or ragging on me, the adults in my employ kept it to mutterings. Kings can cut off heads. Or in modern terms, fire the malcontents.
So far, I'd only had to chop off two heads. The rest of the underlings decided to fall in line.
It was the press that decided to watch my every move and nip at my heels at any indication that a 22-year-old should not be in charge of a multi-million dollar company. Therefore, I had to stay united behind the Stark name and represent the company as a C.E.O. should. Hence, schedules, and meetings with boring yammering and plastering on a smile to chat up boring people.
At least some of the women were single and hot. And if there weren't enough of those around at the social elite required gatherings, I could always slum it in the clubs.
Tony, Age 6, Boarding School: Flashback
Remember to read every day (non-school stuff) and try to make some friends. Play is just as important as work. Run around and have fun, my darling.
Mom
Tony, Age 22
Tony's POV
I wasn't all that great at the reading for fun thing. I'd done it as a kid before the entertainment industry exploded. But there was just too much else to do to laze about reading the latest Stephen King.
Mom kept trying to get me to make friends. Another thing I'd failed spectacularly at.
But I could, and did, follow her directive to run around and have fun. What was the point of having mega dollars if you didn't flaunt it.
My newest purchase was a Lamborghini. I rolled on up to the entrance of Stanley's, the current hotspot. The valet opened my door. I got out and made my way to the entrance.
The valet followed me, begging, "Sir. Sir…," with his hand out.
I knew he was expecting me to hand over my keys so he could park my baby in the proper place. Not happening. Do you know how many idiots crash a car with that much power within seconds of putting it in drive? Then there were the ones that would Ferris Bueller it, joyriding. Uh uh. My car. No one else was getting behind the wheel. I shoved the keys in my pocket and shoved a $20 bill into his out-stretched hand. I bypassed the line and went straight to the bouncer, giving him $100 and a death glare, "My car does not get towed."
"I got a curt, yes, Sir, Mr. Stark."
I flashed a Cheshire grin. Damn it felt good to have even those outside of my realm bend to my will. As long as you could keep them from throwing eggs at you, kings got respect wherever they went.
I started out at the bar, "Give me whatever's new on the scene." I was handed something blue in a cocktail glass with salt on the rim.
"Buy me one?" The boobs that presented themselves in front of me were just barley covered by fabric of a similar color to the drink.
"Be a shame to keep a matching set apart," nodding my glass towards the skimpy, tight lycra. "Barkeep, one for the lady."
I wasn't interested in the Q&A of life stories, and thank god, neither was she. We each slammed down our drinks and then moved to the dance floor so we could do a bit of foreplay before the real action got started later that night.
I ended up taking two home with me: Ms. Boobs in Blue and her counterpart in red. Sharing is one of those things you're supposed to learn as a kid, but that kids suck at. So I felt superior that I was doing such a great job of it tonight. Didn't hurt that I was the thing being shared.
But I'd limited my drinking to the one blue concoction and a beer. Maybe I should look into hiring someone I could trust with my cars. Part of why Dad had Jarvis drive him everywhere was so he could work while he drove. And part of it was so he never drove drunk.
Sigh. Time to carbon copy Dad again. As much as I wanted to be different from Howard, it seemed that at every turn I was matching him act for act. Photos and tales tell that the California house was basically the Playboy Mansion of the 1940's-1960's and that Dad preferred one-night stands to commitment before Mom came along.
Flashback
There was an empty swing and I went for it. The swing pride, mostly girls, didn't seem to mind my presence. There were two other boys and we started to see who could swing the highest. We all got pretty high. Then one of them upped the ante, asking who had the courage to jump from the swing while it was zooming upward. I went for it! For about 3 seconds I was Peter Pan flying through the air, before I came tumbling to the ground.
Tony, Age 38; First Flight of the Red Armor
Tony's POV
Scootch aside Peter Pan. I had high speed flight. No wonder the kid in the film was always grinning. This was great! Even the heart thumping adrenaline rush of spiraling towards the ground sent chemicals through my body that gave me a boost, making the high of Jarvis re-starting the armor at the last moment even more exhilarating.
Not that I was going to leave the freezing issue as it was. I wasn't suicidal. I shoved the part of my brain that was already working on solutions to the background and re-focused on the emotional high of owning my own personal roller coaster that I could twist and turn and swoop with.
My ultimate landing was hardly better than my near crash. Pepper was going to freak when she saw the holes and my insurance adjusters would pinch their lips and debate cancelling my policies.
Dad's, 'Ready, shoot, aim." policy was one that gave indigestion to those on my, admittedly tiny, nearest and dearest list. Could I help that I came from his loins? No. Is it my fault that Howard was the guiding force in how to live my life? No. Be it nurture or nature, I took after my father.
So people would just have to deal with my impulse issues. But aim was the third part of that saying which meant now I needed to fix both the icing and landing issues.
Tony, Age 6, Boarding School: Flashback
I went for the Monopoly group. They didn't want to let me in, saying I probably didn't even know how to count or read, but the nighttime nanny ordered them to let me join.
I rock at this game! Obie bought it for me for my birthday. I pleaded with him to play it with me. Dad teased him, saying he should have bought me a toy I could play with on my own. But it was my birthday, so Mom pushed Dad into playing too. Since that day, it's mostly been my nanny playing with me and sometimes Jarvis, but I did get Dad to play while we were on the jet flying to Europe. It's a really long flight. He insisted on teaching me buying and selling strategies, so that it was a lesson, not just a game. That's why I'm so good at winning; I've got technique.
Tony, Age 38; Iron Man 1
Tony's POV
"I'm the one that instigated the injunction against you. Smile for the camera, Tony."
Ow. Like majorly, ow. My own godfather and I didn't see it coming.
I'd been trained in the business end of things almost as long as I'd been trained in tech. Obadiah had been the one to kick it off with tutoring me on how to read a room and with Monopoly lessons in buying and selling. Dad had said that even if I didn't manage that part of the business on a daily basis, I needed it to know it so my employees wouldn't step out of line and screw me over.
But Obadiah was my godfather. It was supposed to be his duty both as second in command of S.I. and as a pseudo family member to look out for my interest. I was supposed to be able to have full trust in him. And god did it hurt that that trust was gone.