Pepper came in to the front room of Stark Manor at ten, shifting through the next day’s schedule and getting ready to go home, when she came up short. The house had been quiet all day and it was dark now; she had assumed Tony was working downstairs in his shop. But he wasn’t. And she could immediately tell something was wrong.
Nothing was out of place. No, the bland modern art on the walls hung straight; the inoffensive, minimalist sculptures on the mantle were all in their places; the indoor waterfall that poured in the middle of the spiral staircase was trickling calmly over the smooth river rocks that had been imported from overseas. The soft mood lighting from the waterfall was the only source of light in the room and it cast everything in a dim, fuzzy orange glow. The whole room was perfectly, neatly in place, and the piano sat in the middle of it, a magnificent center piece that hadn’t been played in years. Until now.
Tony was sitting at the bench, fingers flying over the keys. Occasionally, he’d hesitate, but he seemed to be playing from memory, and Pepper was surprised, and impressed. It made sense, she thought. Tony had an incredible amount of hand dexterity; he spent every spare minute of his time in the basement, turning wrenches, screwing down bolts, soldering circuits. And she already knew he was somewhat musically inclined; he occasionally took a break from building to pick up one of the Fenders in the basement and play Led Zeppelin or John Lennon. But hearing Tony playing classical music at the piano was not something she’d ever pictured. Tony was always surprising her.
“I didn’t know you played.”
“Mm-hm,” said Tony, brow furrowed in concentration as he continued. The notes echoed through the house, sweet and sad and lovely. Pepper shifted her weight onto one leg, leaning against the wall and clutching her papers, listening. It was rare to see Tony express himself like this. He spent an enormous amount of effort to act bored and shallow most of the time. It was only in his shop that she ever saw glimpses of the real Tony. In public, he swaggered around with a smirk that covered up whatever thoughts he was thinking. It was a remarkably effective defense.
Now, the usual smugness was missing. He seemed lost in thought, and his face was expressionless, his eyes glassy. One song merged into the next. Pepper looked down at her paper and noticed for the first time, with a jolt, the date written on them.
It was March 13th, two days before the anniversary of Tony’s parents’ death. Suddenly, his uncharacteristic sentimentality made sense.
“Did you learn as a child?” she asked.
“Lessons since I could reach the keys,” confirmed Tony. “Everyone played.” He hesitated on a note. Pepper couldn’t tell whether the pause was caused by uncertainty in his skill or from a purposeful consideration of his next words. “Me. My mom. Obie. Jarvis. My dad. Everyone played. No one talked. Just played. You knew how the stocks were, how the shareholders were feeling, where profits were at, everything, just from the music. You knew when Jarvis was stressed out, when Dad was tired, when there was bad news.” He leaned into the music with a flourish. “Our own personal soundtrack. I guess you could say that the piano tuned us.”
Pepper smiled faintly. “I never hear you play,” she said.
“It was Obie that taught me. Once a week until I was twelve. Him and me, on the bench.” The music shifted abruptly, became less melancholy and much darker, slower, and Pepper understood why Tony didn’t play anymore. She imagined the two of them seated, thigh to thigh, and the gravity of Obadiah’s betrayal hit her.
“He taught my dad, too,” added Tony, still feeling out the dirge. The deep, sad notes washed over Pepper, rich and warm as words. They spoke of loss, not only from death, but from trust. It was a deeper sadness than that of mortality. Over the notes, Tony’s voice continued, its tone shockingly casual. “Dad didn’t play much. Mom did. Not as much, later on. He got headaches. It drove him crazy when we made too much noise. She would walk past and play the same eight notes.”
The complex symphony he’d been playing with all ten fingers was suddenly eight clear notes, played with one index finger, like a child. “E E F G G E F D,” recited Tony.
“Beethoven's Ode to Joy,” said Pepper, recognizing it instantly.
Tony nodded. “Very easy to play. You can start on any note, too. She would walk past and play those whenever she was happy. It was like laughter.” He picked them out again, and Pepper knew what he meant when he said they were like laughter.
“Was she pretty?” asked Pepper.
“I guess,” said Tony, shrugging one shoulder and going back to his symphony. “You know, I don’t remember her well. Not at all. We weren’t close. I wasn’t close to either of them. I mostly just remember—” He interrupted the symphony again and tapped out the same eight crystal-clear notes as before. “But she did that less and less as I got older. Dad drank. Sometimes, I would pass the piano and play those notes, just to piss him off.” He banged on the low end of the keyboard suddenly, and Pepper jumped at the loud sound. “I don’t know why I did that. She took the blame for it. He blamed her.”
“You were a child,” said Pepper quietly.
Tony resumed playing. “Maybe the reason I don’t remember her as well,” continued Tony, “is that I feel like my mother and I had some closure that my father and I lacked. Her last words to me were… decent ones, I guess. Motherly. You know. She cared about me. I got that, at the end. That she cared.”
“Oh?” prompted Pepper. Tony almost never opened up. She was scared to break the spell, scared that if she said the wrong thing she would lose him. The piano washed over both of them, freezing time, providing a backdrop for Tony’s narration, drifting lazily around the house and rolling into the corners like a harmonious fog.
“The last thing he said to me was literally telling me I was stupid. ‘Stop acting so stupid, Anthony.’ He was very nurturing like that.” Tony’s voice was dripping with sarcasm; there was a bitter venom to it that made Pepper’s heart pound. Tony’s anger had fermented for a long time and sometimes, when he spoke of his father, it spilled out, red-hot and blistering.
“And your mother,” she prompted, hoping to redirect the conversation.
“Her last words to me,” said Tony, eyes closed as he remembered, fingers flying over the keys, “were ‘Don’t stay up too late, Tony.’” The music stopped and six familiar clear notes played. Pepper waited, but the other two didn’t come, and the six faded and settled like dust over the house, leaving it draped in a thick silence.
Tony turned to her. “He had a headache that night,” explained Tony. He played the six notes again: E E F G G E—
The cut-off was jarring, sudden. Pepper realized that those notes were part of her last words. Pepper could imagine so clearly the hand playing them, dropping, the silence that followed. The absence of those last two notes communicated lifetimes of hurt. A husband and wife. A father and son. And a mother and son, separated by silence, by secrets, in a house so large and empty that it echoed and amplified not only the notes that were played but the ones that never were.
“I’m sorry,” said Pepper.
Tony stood. “Don’t stay up too late, Pepper,” he said. He tapped out the six notes, closed the lid to the piano, and strode past her. She heard the door to the shop slam, and its echo through the dark, empty house was a dismissal, a fitting end to an eight-note love song that would always be left unfinished.
- End -