Chapter 1
Howard, with his steadily decreasing patience, tried to hide his annoyance as Tony kept on tapping his finger against the table. He raised his whiskey to his mouth and paused seeing it was already empty. Jaw clenched, he tried to keep his mind on the failed prototype. He had to figure out what could’ve possibly changed for it to not work when it had been working smoothly before.
However, after the fifth failed attempt and the alarming deadline for the demonstration Howard was getting frustrated. Hence, the irritation at his son increasing at an alarming rate.
Tap. Tap. Tap
His left eye twitched as he silently cursed at himself. He never shouldn’t have allowed Tony to come to the lab. He had no one to blame but himself. With great effort he pushed the thought away and focused on the damned invention. No matter how advanced, a weapon that had to be thrown away after firing once was useless, it would be entirely too expensive.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Would you stop tapping your finger” Howard finally snapped.
Finally the tapping stopped. He never had appreciated the silence more in his entire life. He took a second to enjoy it, opened another whiskey and looked over his first draft, starting over again.
Shuffling sounds caught his ears again.
What was the boy doing? Was his new purpose in life to never cease annoying him? At this rate he was never going to be able to concentrate. He counted to ten and exhaled, just as Maria had once advised him. It was as effective as Tony trying not to disturb him, which meant not effective at all. Metal continuously screeched as Tony tried his best to be loud and irritating as possible.
“Anthony” his voice came out harshly and angrier than he expected.
Tony flinched, stopped doing whatever forsaken thing he was doing and looked at him with wide eyes.
Howard felt a hint of guilt and reminded himself that it was not his son’s fault that he had had a fall out that morning with Peggy after dealing with SHIELD scientists, who really shouldn't be called scientists. Nor was he responsible for the irritating board members. He definitely had nothing to do with Obadiah assuming Howard would’ve managed to figure out the problem and making the date for the weapons demonstration, even though he had been working for days without sleep trying to figure it out. Though it would be a great relief if Tony could stop making that awful sound.
“What are you doing?” he asked finally, his voice tense.
Why Tony seemed to perk up at that, he would never know. “Um..I-uh-I was trying to build the engine..but I..um..couldn’t” Tony looked down and shuffled a bit more.
“Maybe you should do this at another time”
“Oh” A disappointed look passed through his face “I think I can probably do it now” he nodded, clearly lying.
“Be quiet” he warned him, “I don’t want to hear another sound”
“I’ll be quiet, sir” Tony promised, looking at him gravely.
Howard focused on the damned weapon again and true to his word, the boy did stay without bothering him. However after what seemed like a lifetime to him as he continuously failed, he even briefly considered retirement, the telephone in his office room began to ring. The sound grated his nerves and he angrily got up, walked to the room and answered it with an angry, “I’m busy”
“Ah Howard! How’s the weapon turning up?” Obadiah's voice came through the phone.
“It’s a work in progress” he snapped, “Which wouldn’t have been the issue if you hadn’t gone behind my back and made the deal on your own”
“You said it worked”
He gritted his teeth and briefly considered testing the next prototype on Obadiah, “I didn’t say it’s finished. If you had any idea about weapon manufacturing you would’ve thought twice about it.”
“Howard you know how much money we could make with this deal… and how much we would lose if we fail to give what we promised, the damage it would do to the company’s reputation. We need-- ”
He slammed the receiver and ripped the cable off. He stormed back to the workshop and started to take apart the weapon. An idea started to form in his head. Maybe..
Shuffling. More shuffling.
Then, “Dad..”
He took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice controlled, “Tony, don't you have studies to do?”
Tony shook his head feeling confused, “I finished everything because you said.. you’ll work with me in the lab”.
He had been waiting very eagerly until he got to work with his dad. So he had done everything his tutors had given for him. He had even finished studying things he hadn't even done yet. He had helped Jarvis and mom and had been behaving good this whole week.
‘Maybe dad had forgotten about it’, he thought, feeling a bit disappointed.
Dad let out a frustrated sigh, “If you can’t do that on your own, go annoy Jarvis. I have important things to do.”
Of course dad has important things to do, Tony knows that, he has to be the most important person in the world. But dad was always busy, so he had thought that maybe because dad did tell him that he’ll work with him, he wouldn’t be bothering dad. Turns out he was wrong. Tony felt terrible for disturbing and annoying him. But he really did need dad’s help, he wasn’t tall enough to solder the wire at that angle and the thing was too heavy for him to put on the floor. He stared at it gloomily, he’s six years old and still can’t even build an engine by himself. Why should dad even bother working with him if he can’t solder a wire? He shook his head at himself, what kind of a Stark is he? He was going to do it by himself, he wasn’t some dumb kid.
Feeling determined he took the small stool and carried it over to the table, put it down on the floor being very quiet. He felt a bit breathless, it was a bit heavy for such a small stool. He looked at dad, seeing him working undisturbed, Tony climbed onto it and nodded to himself seeing he could reach it now.
He started to solder, wondering why he hadn’t just done this without ever disturbing dad. After a while he finished, looking at the work feeling a bit proud. He had to show it to dad, he looked over and saw dad busily taking apart some weird part. Deciding that maybe he should wait until dad finished working, he looked down at his work.
He felt like slapping himself as he saw that he had missed the wire in the back. He had almost shown it to his dad!. He hurriedly took the soldering iron and reached the back learning forward, on his toes trying to connect the wire properly when he suddenly slipped.
White hot searing pain in his hand made his sight blur as he stumbled off the stool miraculously landing on his feet. The soldering iron slipped from his tight grip as his hand jerked away, his scream got stuck in his throat. Gasping in pain, Tony looked at his hand through his blurred sight, clutching it tightly with the other hand. It looked..bad. Really bad.
He bit his lip in pain and he felt like throwing up.
It hurt. It really hurt. It really really really hurts.
He didn’t know anything could hurt that bad. He was sure was the worst hurt anyone could feel. His throat felt like something was stuck in it and he couldn’t speak. Tony wanted to cry for Jarvis, he always knows how to make him feel better. He waited a second for the room to stop spinning and blinked until he could see a bit more clearly.
‘Stark men don’t cry’, he reminded himself fiercely through the blinding pain.
“Tony what did I say about being quiet” he heard his dad snapping at him angrily and saw him looking up from his work. Everything felt so far away and all he could think about was how much his hand hurt.
Suddenly dad stopped and rushed forward, “What the hell did you do?” his voice was furiously.
Tony stumbled as dad pushed him away without even looking at him and pushed away the soldering iron he had used.
With a sinking feeling Tony saw that he had burned dad’s blueprints. The iron had burned through to the table. Huge holes from a lot of papers stared at him accusingly.
He opened his mouth to apologize but the words were stuck in his mouth.
“Goddammit” dad swore loudly, absolutely livid.
Tony felt a flash of fear, he had never seen dad this angry. He had messed up soo bad, he had to try to help dad somehow to clean up his mess. He tried to ignore his hand, which was nearly impossible to do as it hurt soo much and stepped forward, “I-I’m s-sorry. I didn’t--” he stuttered.
Dad whirled towards him, eyes flashing with anger, breathing heavily “You-”
In a flash Tony was falling down, shoulder colliding heavily with the rack causing few screwdrivers to fall on him scratching his arm lightly. He blinked in shock, cheek stinging, eyes tearing up.
…...Dad hit him.
Fearfully he looked at his dad and saw him clenching his fists and stepping away from him. An unreadable expression passed through his face, “Get out” he said through gritted teeth.
Tony didn’t need to be told twice.