Ever since the incident with Tony's 'passing' marks in math, Howard Stark had withdrawn further and further into himself, like a turtle pulling itself into his shell. He absolutely refused to believe that that little dark-haired child upstairs in the bedroom with the Captain America bedsheets was his son, that somewhere along the way he'd been replaced through some mad government scandal or something of the like. And though Maria had a gentle talk with Tony an hour or so after his father had stormed out of his room, banging the door closed behind him, even though Tony's marks in math were improving at a rapid, impressive pace, Howard still refused to believe that there wasn't something inherently wrong with Tony.

Whenever Maria tentatively tried to broach the subject with Howard, on good nights when he wasn't blind drunk and raving at the ceiling about governmental conspiracies and intelligence agencies that Maria had no idea about, he would just sigh, turn over and face her, his dark eyes holes in his face.

"The boy has no direction," he said, whenever she tried to talk to him about Tony. "I don't know, Maria. Sometimes I just don't know what I'm going to do. Stark Industries needs a successor, and I'm not so sure I want to entrust my multibillion-dollar company to someone who doesn't have the motivation to keep it going and will only run it dry to the ground with his fantasies and what have you."

Maria wanted to protest that Tony did have a direction, but that he was only seven years old and wasn't quite ready to explicitly state what that particular direction was, but Howard always cut her off before she could get a word in edgewise.

"You think too highly of the child," Howard said, an air of finality in his voice that signaled the conversation was over. "He'll never get anywhere in life if he has his head in the clouds and can't bring himself back down to work at sums and integrals. You need that to be an engineer, and no son of mine is going to be anything but that. You understand, Maria?"

No, she wanted to say, she didn't understand what his obsession was with making sure Tony knew how to derive the circumference of a circle or the volume of a cylinder. She didn't understand this mad need to focus solely on math, math, math, didn't understand why Howard frowned at the parent teacher conferences Maria forced him to go to whenever Tony's teacher smiled and praised Tony's vivid imagination and creativity. Maybe it was the very fact that she forced him to go to these things; she just wanted the appearance of a solid, supportive family unit, and Howard certainly couldn't present that image locked up in his study with a bottle of cognac, now could he? At least in that one area he'd agreed with her: he needed to maintain a positive image to keep the company's stock in good shape, to maintain a competent appearance for his professional life.

"So what you mean to tell me is," Howard said, interrupting the teacher's gushing praise about Tony's summarisation skills, "is that you place much more emphasis on the humanities."

"Well, you see," the teacher began, but Howard cut her off. Maria shot a sideways glance at him, but he didn't look back at her.

"Where is the arithmetic? Where are the integrals, and the derivatives, and surface areas? Do you teach computer science, coding, programming? Python, C, C++?"

The teacher looked dumbfounded, and Maria really felt for her. She was a young girl, probably just fresh out of school herself, and she still had that rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed look that showed she was - or tried to be - optimistic about the world and everyone in it. She was far too young to truly understand pain and fear and anger, and Maria shot her an apologetic look that she didn't seem to catch.

"Er, no, Mr. Stark, they are only in third grade -"

Howard sighed in disgust, shook his head, muttered something derogatory about the American education system, and even from this angle, Maria could see the beginnings of tears forming in the girl's eyes.

"At any rate," Maria said cheerfully, too cheerfully, too forced, "we're glad to know Tony's doing well in school. If you have any pressing concerns about his work, please don't hesitate to call us."

And with that, she took Howard's hand and dragged him out of the classroom. The teacher was far too glad to see them go.

Howard would not speak to Tony for two years.

"So can you say anything other than 'shh'?" Tony wanted to know, sitting at his desk and doing a math worksheet. He was his times tables and kept getting stuck on the 12s, and the Whisper Man was being no help at all, being that he could only say 'shhh'.

"Shh."

"Yeah, can you say anything besides that?"

"Shh."

Tony groaned in frustration and stared at his times tables worksheet in despair. The 12s were so tricky; he always got caught up with 12 times 11.

"But you understand me, don't you?"

"Shh." This one sounded slightly affirmative, but that might just have been Tony's imagination. Tony frowned

Tony frowned up at the black monitor speckled with green spots that hung above his desk, fiddled with the small instrument on his bookshelf, the huge lens reflecting light onto the opposite wall. The Whisper Man spoke through that, he was sure of it, because when he whispered the green spots would light up a little bit brighter and move around.

"Okay. One shh for yes, two shhs for no. Okay? Do you understand?"

"Shh."

"Can you say anything besides shh?"

"Shh shh."

Tony frowned. "But you can think of other things besides shh, right?"

"Shh."

"...Can you help me with my math homework?" Tony asked, looking up at the screen hopefully. The green dots lit up, swirled around, stopped.

"Shhhh...?" This one sounded questioning, almost as if someone were saying, "Sure...?" like they weren't very sure they could but would most certainly try. Tony took it as encouraging.

"Okay. Good. Can you remind me what 12 times 11 is? 121?"

There was a brief pause, the green dots swirling frantically on the screen. "Shh shh."

"132?"

"Shh."

Tony beamed, writing the answer down in the little box. "Thanks, Whisper Man, you're the greatest."

"Shh."

Before Tony went to bed, he told me that he would have to try to figure out a way so that I could talk to him, because this whole 'shh'ing business was really getting rather boring. I can't help but agree, and I'm very glad that he didn't ask me to try to count 'shh's to help him with his math homework. The mere thought of trying to 'shh' 132 times is frightening; I can feel my lips drying out already.

Not that I can feel my lips. I still can't. I just assume they're there.

He said I was the greatest. I don't know if you heard, but if you didn't, you'll just have to take my word for it.

It makes me feel all fuzzy inside, warmer than I've felt in a long time.

Tony tells me a lot about his dad, and about his dad's company, and about how his dad is scary and frightens him a lot and likes to drink the brown stuff from the funny glass bottles. His dad wants him to be an engineer, or so Tony said, and engineers have to be super super good at math.

I really do hope Tony figures out some way so that I can talk to him, in words instead of 'shhs.' I can't imagine I'll be particularly helpful when it comes to trying to help him with derivatives or what have you, if I'm just sshing all the time.

I wonder if I still remember maths from school? I'll have to check. It's not like I'm short on time or anything.