This is different from the previous chapter and i am trying something new. If people like it i will continue and probably make it into a separate story. So tell me what you think!
Tony is four when he wonders if his father loves him. His fingers are small and chubby and the circuit board in his hands whirrs gently. His father spares him only a passing glance and it is Jarvis, faithful, loving, caring, way too good to be true Jarvis, that puts a hand on his shoulder and quietly tells him he did good. He doesn't say he's proud, because that would be stepping over boundaries that Tony has never cared for, but it shines in his eyes all the same.
Tony is five when his Father first tells him that Starks have iron in their blood. Mother tells him they have gold in their hearts and Jarvis that they have steel in their mind. Tony is tired of metaphors and just wants someone to tell him the truth.
Tony is six when his mother teaches him how to play the piano. He is on her lap and her fingers cover his as she guides him. Slowly the melody of the lullabies she sings to him at night drift through the air. These are some of his favourite times, when his mother isn't away trying to make up for his father's War Monger reputation. And her depression isn't so bad that she turns to drinking. For now he enjoys his Mothers soft voice and perfume that smells of honeysuckle and jasmine.
Tony is eight and at one of his mothers charity banquets when a large man says something to him in Russian. He doesn't understand so he smiles politely and nods. Later Jarvis tells him the man had said "Tony Stark, you will be more brilliant then your father one day. I am sure of it". Tony is eight and that is the first time someone has ever measured him against Howard and doesn't find him lacking, it is also his last. He resolves to learn Russian and he never forgets the man's face. (It's a painful kind of irony that four weeks later Tony is kidnapped on the orders of a large man with a Russian accent, this man however isn't the first to betray him so he doesn't feel too bad about setting the man's safe house on fire. It is only the man's misfortune that he is still in the house)
Tony is nine when Father becomes Howard. His parents had been fighting, Mother hadn't wanted him to go on the latest arctic trip and Howard was angry and drunk. He struck out carelessly and the blow glanced off Maria's cheek, they both had been shocked. Howard had muttered something unintelligible and took a bottle of scotch with him to the lab. Maria had turned to get a drink of her own and went to her rooms, she still found time to sing him to sleep that night. Tony had been furious and had resolved to kill Howard. It's not like it would be hard, Starks were born to be weapons anyway.
Tony is eleven when Howard teaches him to shoot, he has already been taught multiple forms of martial arts but Howard thinks it's time he learn who to use the weapons that he will one day make. Howard tells him from the beginning that "you'll never be as good as Captain America but you might as well have some skills". Tony wonders if he is being intentionally cruel.
Tony is seventeen and the Winter Soldier kills his father but not his mother. The press labels it as an accident, Howard was working with volatile chemicals and they just reacted. The explosion destroyed most of the lab and Howards body was unrecognizable. Only Tony, and possibly Maria and Jarvis know the real story. By seventeen Tony was an old hand at kidnapping and revenge, so he had Jarvis investigate all of Howards enemies. It was for that reason that he wasn't surprised when he woke to see the Winter Soldier scoping out the mansion. Tony had opened the door and let him inside, he didn't yet know how to completely cover his tracts so he instructed the soldier on how to make the chemical cocktail. Funny how no one thought it was a coincidence that the explosion never touched anything outside the lab despite the fact that the walls were never reinforced. The Winter Soldier left as quickly as he came and Tony never did figure out why the assassin hadn't killed him too, though he had several theories. No one questioned it, after all Howard wasn't the only inventor to be killed by their creation