This is a prequel to the previous chaoter x I don't know if I'll continue from after the first chapter, but I might - so read and review x I would re-organise it so the prequel was first, but this doesn't really make sense without reading that x
If I put more chapters in I'll label them with the chapter number and title this prequel x Please read and review x
Tony hadn't realised how weird he was before. Sure he'd learnt a long time ago not go move as fast as he could do, but he couldn't work out what was wrong with what he could do.
Couldn't the others do it?
And if they couldn't, of he was special, why wasn't that a good thing? His mama told him he was special, special in a good way and not to listen to anyone who said otherwise.
He'd believed her.
That had all changed now.
This was one of his earliest memories, and was certainly not his most happy, even it was perhaps the most enlightening of everything.
"You're a freak! An abnormality." His father shouted at him, drunken and angry.
Tony had just stared at him, eyes wide in fright and brimming with tears at the words. He didn't quite understand their meaning but he understood the intention, the hatred behind his father's tone.
Howard threw his glass with deadly aim.
Tony scampered out of the way, his speed inhuman and ears twitching in terror. Howard looked murderous at the sight, baring his teeth viciously.
Tony scuttled up the stairs as fast as he could, not stopping until he'd reached his room and locked his door behind him, not coming out until morning, despite Jarvis' frantic knocks.
He avoided his father for the next three weeks, but never forgot what he'd said.
He and his father had never gotten along, even less since Howard had called him an abnormal freak.
At the time he hadn't realised how wrong Howard was - to treat a child like that, his own son.
He still didn't believe that it wasn't normal, but other people said it was wrong, so it must be.
But what did he know? His emotional capabilities barely surpassed that of a child's.
But he wasn't a child anymore, not really, looking down at his parents graves.
He was truly alone now, but hadn't he already been before?
Maria Stark, who despite everything, had cared about him and loved him in spite of her drunken tendencies and weak will that had led to her staying with Howard despite everything. She had allowed Howard to make him into a science experiment, but if she'd said no he still would have done it anyway.
Tony could admit that he would miss her and that he'd loved her, but he would be hard pressed to say anything else.
Howard Stark, the man who had destroyed him humanity, his life, for his own personal amusement - for nothing more than to see if he could. Howard Stark had been playing God, and no one had liked it, not even Howard. After all being God hadn't found Captain Rogers - so what were they worth? What worth did any of them have to him?
It was only his wife and son after all. Howard hasn't minded stepping on them to get to the big picture.
No, he wouldn't miss Howard at all. Howard was the cause of everything wrong in his life and then some. He had been abusive, drunk and absent. So absent that Tony doubted he would notice the difference now that Howard was gone.
His ears twitched in fury and, for once, at Howard's funeral, he did not suppress the impulse.
He knew that, wherever he was right now, Howard would be shaking with fury.
He was glad.
Tony hid his instincts after that, knowing that what Howard had told him was fundamentally right - he was abnormal. But that didn't make it a bad thing.
But abnormal things were locked up and studied and replicated and Tony had better things to do with his time than break himself out of various cages. Things like partying and alcohol.
He'd been relieved to find out that he could drink alcohol. When he was fourteen he'd snuck into Howard's lab (not father, never dad) and failing to find records of the experiment that he was, he'd tested his blood. He was good for things like chocolate - which he'd already known - and most medicines and coffee and alcohol.
He'd been so relieved that he'd poured himself a glass from one of Howard's prized bottles of brandy, lined along the shelf. It had been his first taste at alcohol.
But he could drink alcohol, and he knew that it was only a fraction of luck and Howard's further meddling that allowed him to.
He could drink alcohol so he was damn well going to do it.
And he did. He drank his way through MIT, picking up girls (and a few guys) as he went. He also picked up Rhodey, who stick around for reasons Tony could fathom, and somewhere near the end Virginia Potts, who was quickly, and affectionately, nicknamed Pepper.
Both of them had stuck around longer than anyone else had, ignoring him odd habits and the way his eyes gleamed in the dark. It seemed they both had a policy of don't ask, don't tell, one that Tony greatly appreciated.
They'd stuck around for this long.
He had a feeling that they be around for quite a bit more.
For the first time, he was alright with that.
He made weapons, just like Howard did, because that was all people expected him to be, wasn't it? A mirror image of Howard, someone he could hate everything he looked in the mirror.
When he went out he got Pepper to check how he looked. He pretended it was for her admiration, but knew that it was do that he didn't have to look at his own reflection.
He was glad that Pepper played along. She always did seem to know when to push, and when to leave it alone.
He liked her more than ever for that.
So the weapons manufacturing continued and he saw Howard Stark in every reflective surface until he was blown up in Afghanistan. At first he thought about giving up, about giving in for the first time.
Maybe it was time - he'd proven he would never amount to anything.
Nothing beyond what he'd been created to be.
He was a cat, of course he was terrified of water. They'd picked the best way to torture him, water in his ears and his nose and his mouth until there was water in his lungs. He was drowning in water and despair and the fear that everyone reeked of. He struggled in his captors grip but his cheetah's strength had long since been suppressed at the memory of Howard and his fury.
He was less now of what he was than he'd ever been before, and it had taken him this to realise it. He had been hiding himself for so long in the memory and fear of a dead man.
Maybe this would be the end. He would be ready and waiting for it when it came.
And then his eyes reflected off the car battery and shone gold, gleaming in the darkness of the cave.
He had been created for this. And maybe he could be more than that. More than an a experiment.
For the first time since Howard died he consciously tried the wriggle his ears, desperately trying to remember the feeling that he'd almost forgotten so long ago. He thought of how silly he looked and almost stopped, just as his left ear wriggled.
He smiled slightly before it darkened into something colder as he looked at the wires leading out of his chest.
He needed to do something about that.
Then he needed to escape.
And then he needed to figure out what he was, not what he'd been created to be.
He built the Iron Man armour and never looked back. The second model was painted gold to always remind him of his eyes, of the light in the darkness.
That he had the strength of a cheetah inside him, he just needed to remember that.