you do it
The screen pans across the ocean, heading towards a beautiful mansion with the words 'MALIBU, CALIFORNIA' appearing.
“It’s a nice house, please tell me it’s my future house.” Tony tilts his head, interested.
“Oh, imagine the view you’d be waking up to.” Maria smiles at him.
Then, inside what looks like his workshop, Tony sits at his desk and claps his hands. The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go begins to play as blue holograms light up the air over the desk and the rest of the space. "Wake up, Daddy's home," says Tony, snapping his fingers in front of four holographic desktops.
“Whoa.” Tony breathes out.
“This is an amazing workshop.” Howard points out, probably too lost to realize that it’s his son’s because obviously, he wouldn’t compliment it then.
Maria just laughs at the boys admiring the technology.
"Welcome home, sir," says a mechanical male voice with a British accent.
“It sounds almost like Jarvis,” Howard observes.
“Are you saying I actually managed to create Artificial Intelligence?” Tony can’t believe his own ears, he only thought about it not so long ago, didn’t actually start yet, he didn’t have time for that.
"Congratulations on the opening ceremonies. They were such a success, as was your Senate hearing. And may I say," he adds as Tony's screens wake up and a YouTube video of the hearing comes up on one of them at once. "how refreshing it is to finally see you in a video with your clothing on, sir." In response, Tony just chuckles.
“All this tech though.” Tony on the couch also chuckles.
Over at the counter, there is a splash as a bot seems to attempt mixing something in a blender.
“Is that U?” Tony almost screams, looking at the screen amazed.
“What’s You?” Howard asks, also looking at the robot.
“I started making two robotic prototypes named DUM-E and U lately, for the annual MIT RDA.” he answers quickly, not even thinking about being snarky because wow! is he really staring at U right now?
"U?" calls onscreen Tony, and the bot turns its claw hastily in Tony's direction.
“It listens to you?” asks Howard again.
“They’re supposed to be imbibed with personality.” Tony shrugs, he’s not used to his father being interested in his work.
“It’s incredible.” Maria smiles in his direction so he grins back.
U knocks over the blender, the green drink inside spilling all over the counter and the floor.
“Oh, boy, you’re a disaster.” Tony laughs.
"I swear to God I'll dismantle you," grumbles Tony. “I'll soak your motherboard, I'll turn you into a wine rack."
“You would never.” Maria defends.
“Probably not, but I can always threaten a bit to get my point across.”
U lowers its’ claw with a mournful little squeak.
“Is it sad right now?” Howard asks, sounding breathy.
“Yeah, well, he disappointed me, it’s his fault.” Tony shrugs.
“If it’s supposed to learn you need to teach him first and I imagine you’re not good at cleaning even when you’re older,” Maria explains.
"How many ounces a day of this gobbledegook am I supposed to drink?" asks Tony filling a glass with a dark green liquid and bringing it up.
“What is it?” Tony narrows his eyes.
"We are up to eighty ounces a day to counteract the symptoms, sir." answers the AI as Tony finishes filling up the glass and drinks the smoothie-like liquid.
“Symptoms?” Maria voices.
Tony brings out the Stark Medical Scanner once again. “Check palladium levels,” he orders, stucking his thumb on the needle.
“Why on earth would you have palladium in your blood?” Howard asks.
"Blood toxicity, twenty-four percent," the AI says as the words appear on the device.
“What is it in the middle of your chest? I thought it was on the shirt but I actually think it’s glowing from under the shirt.” Maria narrows her eyes.
“The Arc Reactor,” Howard answers, sounding slightly scared if Tony’s ears aren’t mistaken. “You used palladium in the Arc Reactor and you… put it in your chest?” he looks closely at the paused video on the screen.
Geez, now he’s gonna have to hear his father being disappointed in something he didn’t even do yet.
"It appears that the continued use of the Iron Man Suit is accelerating your condition." As the AI speaks, the desktop on the far right of Tony's desk displaying a diagram of the Arc Reactor sitting between his lungs, surrounded on all sides by an inch of rather ominous-looking red.
“Stop using the suit, then.” Maria offers but Tony is pretty sure it’s not gonna be that easy.
"Another core has been depleted," says the AI, and Tony pulls up his shirt, taking out the Arc Reactor. He turns it over in his hand and pulls a large chip out of the back.
“Why is it inside my chest, what the hell?” Tony asks, horrified. Look, he loves robots, yes, but he doesn’t actually want to become one.
“Is it smoking?” Maria asks.
“Kinda like a used battery,” Tony says.
"God, they're running out quick," says Tony, throwing away the depleted core and reaching into a smallish wooden case for a fresh one.
"I have run simulations on every known element, and none can serve as a viable replacement for the palladium core." informs the AI.
“You have to try an unknown element,” says Howard. Yeah, ’cause there’s a list of unknown elements for everyone to look into.
Tony slides the new core into the Arc Reactor and clicks it back into its socket. "You are running out of both time and options," observes the AI. "Unfortunately, the device that is keeping you alive is also killing you."
“So I need this thing in my chest to live? Why would I need a medal in my chest?”
Tony examines the skin around the Arc Reactor's socket in the screen of another of his desktops. The veins standing out almost black.
“Well, that doesn’t look good at all.” snorts Tony. He’s officially dying. They are watching a movie about his death. At least that kinda explains why the Watcher needed them to watch it.
"Miss Potts is approaching," says JARVIS, and Tony hastily lowers his shirt. "I suggest that you inform her--“
“Mute.” Tony orders instead as the strawberry blonde from the Senate hearing approaches.
“You have to tell someone if you’re getting this sick,” Maria speaks, shaking her head in disapproval as she’s still looking at the screen.
Tony takes the images from his screens as the woman inputs a code on the key-log visible on the glass wall to his lab. The door opens and she’s coming closer on her impossibly high, high-heels. "Uh-uh!" protests Tony already, gulping another glass of his green drink.
"Is this a joke? What are you thinking?" the woman seems upset but controls her voice.
“What?”
“What did I do though? The AI was just proud of me!”
“What are you thinking?!” Ms. Potts demands, her voice raises.
"Heyy--“ Tony starts, holding up his hand. “I’m thinking I'm busy. And you're angry about something.”
“Never tell a woman she’s angry, son.” Howard slightly shakes his head. “She already knows that,” he adds and his wife sends him a glare.
“Do you have the sniffles? I don't want to get sick." He gets up and begins walking away from his desk, but the woman follows.
“Oh, because you’re so healthy at the moment,” Maria says exasperated.
“Did you just--“ begins the woman as Tony weaves his way through a maze of glowing holograms.
“Keep the distance.” Tony interrupts.
“Those holograms though?” Tony asks, directing it to no one in particular.
“Doesn’t even seem like there are any screens nearby to project it,” Howard adds, looking closely at the screen.
She doesn’t relent. "…donate our entire modern art collection to the…”
"Boy Scouts of America," finishes Tony, grabbing a largely expanded hologram of a human heart and shrinking it into a ball that fits neatly into one hand.
“I can do that with my holograms?”
“How does that even work?”
"Boy Scouts of America?" the woman is more upset with every second.
“Well, that’s generous of you,” Maria says.
"Yes! It is a worthwhile organization!” defends Tony, as he throws the hologram he'd just shrunk towards the back of the room where it sails straight into what seems to be the digital "goal post”, responding with a cheerful "ding!" and flashing the word "SCORE”.
“Amazing.” breathes out Howard.
“Digital trash can as a goal post. Genius right there.” Tony murmurs.
“It looks really nice.” compliments even Maria, shaking her head slightly at all that futuristic technology.
"I didn't physically check the crates, but basically, yes." He swipes images out of his way as he walks through his workshop, Ms. Potts still following. "And it's not technically our collection, it's my collection - no offense," he adds, turning briefly to her before going back to moving the holograms.
“Shouldn’t have said that, dear.” Maria winces.
The woman isn’t letting him win. "No, you know what? I think I'm actually entitled to say "our" collection [the scorekeeper sounds again] considering the time that I put in, over 10 years, curating that."
“10 years?” Tony’s mouth open. He’s known a woman - who isn’t his mom - for 10 years and didn’t drive her away just yet. Woah.
“Oh, really shouldn’t have donated it.”
"It was a tax write-off. I needed that." Tony defends his actions.
Potts is visibly losing patience. "You know, there are only about 8,011 things that I really need to talk to you about."
As they continue walking, there’s a bot that appears to be working at some part of one of the machines.
“Oh my god, DUM-E.”
"Dum-E!" says Tony sharply, snapping his fingers at the aforementioned bot. "Stop spacing out, Bridgeport's already machining that part," he says and the bot follows him, but then gives out when he sees Tony isn’t paying him any attention.
“Is he going back to--, are you kidding me?”
"The Expo is a gigantic waste of time," says the woman.
Tony places his hands on her upper arms. "I need you to wear a surgical mask until you're feeling better. Is that okay?"
"That's rude.”
“If you had told her your immune system is failing due to the palladium poisoning...” Howard shakes his head. “Otherwise it does come out quite rude.”
Tony walks off. "There's nothing more important to me than the Expo. It's my primary point of concern. I don't know why you're…"
"The Expo is your ego going crazy." Potts disagrees.
‘Actually, I think it is about legacy.’ Tony frowns, thinking that but not daring to speak out loud. ‘I’m pretty sure I’m dying right there, and the Expo is a great last act of one’s life.’
"Wow, look at that!" says Tony, pausing to pick up a framed picture of the Iron Man Suit’s helmet and shoulders in simple red and blue with the words IRON MAN painted on a black stripe across the bottom. "That's modern art," he says. "That's going up."
“Should’ve waited until she left,” Maria says.
“Who is she anyway?” wonders Tony. There’s something magnetic about her, even through the screen. “Hello, Mr. Watcher?” he looks up at the ceiling again and it stays silent again. Tony groans.
They disagree but Tony claims that it’s vital and the woman moves on. "Stark is in complete disarray," she says instead. "Can you understand that?"
That makes Howard lean in closer to the screen and focus on listening, because of course.
Tony makes a face. "Why's it so - no, our stocks have never been higher, you are -"
"Yes, from a managerial standpoint, but -"
" - well, if it's messy, then let's double back -"
"Let me give you an example--“
"Let's move on to another subject--“
“You two talk fast.” Maria chuckles.
There’s a framed painting hanging on the wall above the counter where Tony was planning to put up the new framed piece, and he eyes it for a moment before raising the picture he’s carrying.
"Oh, no, no, no, no!" shouts Potts, quite hoarse by now. "You are not taking down the Barnett Newman and hanging that up--“
“But why not?” frowns Tony.
He reaches the corner of the lab and quickly climbs up onto the kitchen unit. "I'm not taking it down," he argues. "I'm replacing it with this." He takes the Barnett Newman painting off its hooks and puts it down next to him. "Let's see what I can get going here!" he adds cheerfully as he begins hanging up the Iron Man art.
“Don’t jump on the furniture like that.” Maria scolds.
"Okay, fine," huffs Potts. "My point is, we have already awarded contracts to the wind farm people--"
“Hey, that’s cool. Clean energy!”
"Don't say wind farm, I'm already feeling gassy,"Tony waves away.
"--and to the plastic plantation tree, which was your idea, by the way. Those people are on payroll…”
“Is Stark Industries going green?” asks Howard. “What about the weapons division?”
"- everything was my idea -"
"--and you won't make a decision!"
"I don't care about the liberal agenda anymore!" Tony turns and spreads his hands. "It's boring-" He hops down off the counter. "boring, I'm giving you a boring alert, you do it."
“This isn’t boring, it’s called being responsible,” Howard says.
“Oh, what I am seeing here is you in your thirties, darling.” Maria answers and Tony wants to throw up at hearing him being compared to his father.
Howard just seems like he feels betrayed and then turns back to the screen.
Potts looks baffled. "I do what?"
Tony looks like he'd just had an epiphany. "Excellent idea. I just figured this out. You run the company."
“Oh, you can’t be serious!” exclaims Howard.
“Careful, you sound sexist,” Tony warns.
"Yeah, I'm trying to run the company--" the woman is fuming at this point.
"Pepper, I need you to run the company," Tony is adamant. "-well, stop trying to do it and do it-"
She’s getting really exasperated. "You won't give me the information I need--"
"I'm not asking you to try to do it--"
"-in order to-"
"-I'm asking you to physically do it. I need you to do it."
Pepper's shoulders go up. "I am trying to do it--"
"Pepper, you're not listening to me!" shouts Tony.
"No, you're not listening to me-"
"I'm trying to make you CEO!” the woman named apparently Pepper stops. She looks at Tony as if he'd grown a second head. “Why won't you let me?" he asks.
She looks startled and shocked, then leaning forward and scrutinizing Tony. "Have you been drinking?"
“Only something green and nasty.”
"Ah, chlorophyll," answers Tony.
“So that’s what that is.”
He steps forward and places his hands on her arms. "I hereby irrevocably appoint you chairman and CEO of Stark Industries effective immediately. Yeah, done deal. Okay?" He walks away.
“Well, that was easy.” shrugs Tony.
“Are you completely serious right now? We just lost the Company?” Howard doesn’t look too pleased.
“Hey, if she was better at the job, which she is--“ Tony shrugs.
“It’s just the CEO position.” Maria calms down her husband.
Pepper is too shocked to speak. Meanwhile one of the bots rolls over holding a tray with glasses and champagne.
“U is more helpful than DUM-E, why doesn’t it surprise me?” Tony chuckles.
Tony reaches for them, pouring the champagne into the glasses. "I've actually given this a fair amount of thought, believe it or not. Doing a bit of headhunting, so to speak, trying to figure out who a worthy successor would be. And then I realized it's you. It's always been you."Pepper falls down into a chair, so Tony continues to explain his thought processes. "I thought there'd be a legal issue, but actually I'm capable of appointing my successor. My successor being you." He hands her a glass but she doesn’t take it. "Congratulations? Take it, just take it."
“Her expression is perfect.” Tony laughs.
“Well, she does have a reason, dear.” Maria answers.
Pepper’s shaking her head, a happy and surprised expression on her face. "I don't know what to think." She takes the glass.
“Don’t think, just drink.”They tap glasses and the woman laughs slightly.
Tony catches his mother looking at him with this expression on her face she always gets when she asks him about girls, so he just sinks further into the couch.
In a snowy alleyway in Russia, a man hands Ivan Vanko a letter.
“Ugh, this guy again.” Tony groans. He actually wonders whether this Ivan will kill him first or he’ll have to suffer through the palladium poisoning.
Then, Vanko retreats further into the darkness and opens the letter that contains a fake passport and a ticket for the Grand Prix De Monaco Historique.
“Why Monaco, what is in Monaco?” Maria asks, narrowing her eyes. Her voice sounds edgy and Tony wishes it’d stop showing this man even if just for her sake.