Heroic Histrionics

Tony is the kind of guy who when he does something, he does something. His cufflink collection is no exception to this, and you can actually tell his moods (assuming he’s been wearing button-up shirts recently that is) by the character of the cufflinks he’s been wearing lately. Mind, repeat cufflinks are unlikely unless he’s been really stuck on an emotion, but a repeat type, definitely.

He has some he’s made himself, simpler ones that he’s disassembled and added little bits of tech to that he can use for other means, but then there are old favorites he’s never tampered with. Of course, there are always cufflinks he wears on a theme, like his small variety of Iron Man themed things he wears when he wants to give a subtle reminder, but then there are the many that he wears on a mood basis.

Like the pair of golden cufflinks that when he was a teenager had white gardenias as their face. The paint had worn away from the wide face first, and now only the dark of the gold remained, the pattern nearly entirely gone from years of running his fingers over the face of them. They were the last gift he’d been given by Ana Jarvis before she died, and he often wears them when he’s exceptionally happy.

In a more general way though…

Unrepentantly Happy: Gifts from people he cares or cared about, the handful of geeky ones like his enterprise cufflinks.

Stressed out: Usually these are cufflinks with mild or nonexistent adornment, showing either smooth stone or metal and something he can rub his fingers across repeatedly without hurting his fingertips.

Tired or Jittery: Textured decoration, usually something with some kind of picture that he can trace and keep his attention on in the process.

Confident or Quietly Happy: Usually, this is when he whips out the ones he’s unlikely to fuss with at all, the ones that are interesting to look at but not really all that fun to play with.

Guilty: This is when he whips out the ones that are sharp, or have pokey bits to them that he can press his fingertips against to keep himself grounded in the moment. He also tends to wear some of the ones that Obadiah gave him when he’s feeling like this.

Creative: This leads to the wearing of his smallest, most functional of his collection, the ones that look nice but are easy to ignore.

Angry or Just Plain Grumpy: Sparkles. The ones with gemstones always come out when he’s angry, glittery and pretty and liable to draw the eye to his hands when he’s talking.

Depressed: Often this will lead to him putting the cufflinks in but not actually doing up his cuffs, or even noting which ones he had in if he remembers to wear any at all. Usually, it’s not obvious because this often leads to t-shirt under suit jacket days instead.

There are others as well, of course, but these aren’t all the time, and don’t account for sudden mood changes. They only account for ‘I woke up in this mood’ moods. Of course, sometimes he just feels like wearing a specific pair of cufflinks because he wants to, so there is no set system for all the time.

So after 2010 and the disaster of a birthday party when he got drunk, Tony finally put away the liquor. In fact, the only time any is even in his space is when he brings it in specifically for parties.

That doesn’t mean he got rid of the bottles. In fact, they were lovingly cleaned, then he picked up a new hobby. Figuring out how to make juices and other assorted non-alcoholic drinks look like what should be in those bottles.

Please note he’s made all juices as clear as possible via straining and such as needed. He has the habit of keeping his ‘alcohol’ stored cold as well.

Scotch

• Glenlivet: Black Tea.
• Aberlour: Pu Erh Tea.
• He uses other teas that are a variation of these two to get the shade he needs of color.

Vodka

• Coconut Water for all of them, though with different flavors that match what’s on the bottle for the flavored ones.

Champagne

• Different ratios of red and white sparkling grape juice for each type.

Kahlua

• Really good coffee.

Rum

• Light: Aloe Vera Juice.
• Dark: Blueberry Juice.

Midori

• Honeydew Juice.

Whiskey

• He uses apple ciders made from specific different types of apples that correspond to the shade of Whiskey he’s replacing.

Tequila

• Silver: White Cranberry Juice.
• Gold: Peach Juice.

Gin

• Lemongrass juice.

Wine

• Red: Raspberry or Cherry juice (it depends how dark it is supposed to be)
• White: White Grape Juice.
• Blush: Combinations of the above as needed.

Amaretto

• Dragonfruit juice with Starfruit Juice to tint as needed.

Irish Cream

• Chocolate Coconut Milk.

Bourbon

• Tamarind and Plum Juices in different ratios.

Vermouth

• Rosato: Pomegranate Juice.
• Bianco: Lychee Juice.
• Doro: Pear juice.
• Rosso: Blackberry Apple juice.
• Extra Dry: White Tea.

Absinthe

• Green: Kiwi Juice with Sugarcane juice added for the lighter variations.
• Red variation: Cranberry juice.

To Start, Tony’s list of triggers that cause him issues and where he got them:

People Taking His Stuff

• When he was a kid, older kids liked to take his things and claim credit.
• Often, the older kid would be believed if it was something not technology related.
• As he got older, instances of this situation just got worse. It led to being extremely protective of what he deems his own.
• People taking his things and misusing them just turned it into a type of fanaticism he’s not even sorry for.
• Afghanistan more or less ensured he’d never get over it.

Being Handed Things

• Started at ten by bullying kids offering him things and snatching them back.
• Intensified at the party when he was sixteen with the drugged drink.
• Turned into a proper phobia around 22 when someone slipped him a hallucinogen on some papers.
• Cemented at 25 as a ‘quirk’ after being handed ‘aspirin’ that turned out to be something a hell of a lot stronger. This event had no ill intent, but still put Tony off taking anything from people he didn’t know well.

Handshakes

• Tony’s had people slip everything from phone numbers to death threats to him this way.
• The phobia about them really hit after 24, and he’s still suspicious that this is the way he was grabbed that year.

Hospitals

• Any time he’s been hurt enough to go to a hospital, he’s somehow ended up with something going wrong. Reporters, being left alone, the wrong drugs.
• When he was nine he broke his arm and they had to recast it because the first doctor made a mistake when fixing it.
• When he was thirteen he was given a set of drugs that had a poor reaction that nearly killed him.
• When he was twenty someone tried to prescribe him for medication he didn’t need nor want.
• After Afghanistan, the aversion turned from an aversion and low burn suspicion into a full-blown phobia.

Water

• Waterboarding in Afghanistan.
• When somewhat recovered, was fully revived when his house fell on him in Malibu years later.

Sand

• Again, Afghanistan.
• The caves constantly had sand blowing in, getting into his clothes and making the air dusty.
• The jaunt through the desert where he was sure he was going to die.

People Touching The Reactor

• Obadiah. The Fucker.

Suffocation

• When he makes jokes about people wanting to throttle him, they’re not usually jokes.
• He’s had people try to smother him off and on since high school when he wouldn’t stop talking.
• His time in Afghanistan turned it into a phobia.
• New York turned it into a paranoia.
• Malibu made it so that the very idea of being without enough air will make him have a panic attack.

Stars

• He’s fine, usually, but after New York if he stares up into the stars, they freak him out.
• Like, really freak him out. It pisses him off something terrible.

Small Dark Spaces

• Started at 24 by whatever happened he can’t remember, he took to an open remodel of his Malibu home to counter it.
• Afghanistan reset the recovery of that particular issue to Zero.
• Malibu made him unable to handle being in any kind of confined space he doesn’t know he can get out of.

Foreign Languages

• He’s fine if he understands the language.
• Afghanistan made many middle-eastern languages a no-go that make him twitch when he hears them.
• Anything that isn’t English, Italian, German, or Hungarian being shouted at him will always make him flinch, even if he does understand it.

Kidnappings minor, major, and almost the one time that needed to count.

Seven

• The kidnappers were attempting to bribe Howard.
• He was recovered quietly after three days by Peggy.
• He was physically entirely fine.
• He doesn’t really remember this at all.

Twelve

• This was the kidnapping that led to boarding school.
• He was grabbed between home and school.
• He was only gone for a day, and managed to run away on his own.

Sixteen

• During college his drink was spiked.
• Rhodey intercepted the group as they were about to haul Tony into a car.
• They regretted it.

Twenty-Four

• Tony was in Europe at a party.
• No one realized anything was wrong for three days.
• It was another week and a half before he was tracked down.
• He can’t remember most of it.
• He found himself unable to handle the smell of lemon for months after.
• He’s still not sure how he got away, just that he knows he did.

Thirty-Eight

Afghanistan. Obadiah is a fucking asshole. So many issues. Worst kidnapping he ever had. Rhodey brought him home.

Forty-Two

Mandarin Situation. Aldrich Killian, also an asshole. Rhodey and Pepper to the Rescue!

Tony’s Degrees, when and sometimes why.

Doctorate of Engineering

MIT He insisted on a Doctorate so he’d have the right to make people call him ‘Dr. Stark’ when it suited him. He jumped through the extra hoops to make it happen.

Master of Computer Science and Robotics

MIT

MBA

MIT

Performance Arts, BA

Age 22 after failing to close a deal because he didn’t know how to say what he wanted to say.

Master of Biomechanical Engineering

Age 25 after the field opened up and he realized he kind of seriously needed to know this. MIT was happy to have him back

.

Pirate Certification

Age 41 after he first heard of the practice. MIT.

Please keep in mind that Tony only bothered to get a degree in these things because it suited him. He definitely knows about more fields than the above list implies, and is always learning more.

Languages Tony knows, how much he knows of them, and when he learned them!

English

Reads, Writes, and Speaks fluently. Childhood language.

Italian

• Reads, Writes, and Speaks fluently.
• Childhood language via his mother.
• A bit rusty from disuse.

German

• Speaks and Reads fluently.
• Childhood language via his father.

Hungarian

• Speaks fluently.
• Childhood language via the Jarvises.
• Very rusty.

French

• Reads, Writes, and Speaks fluently.
• Learned in high school.

Spanish

• Reads, Writes, and Speaks fluently.
• Learned at 20 after misunderstanding someone thinking that Italian and French would carry him in the conversation.
• She slapped him really hard for the miscommunication.

Russian

• Reads and Speaks fluently, has never had cause to write it.
• Learned after being thoroughly humiliated by a Russian girl when he was 22 because he couldn’t understand her.

Japanese

• Speaks fluently.
• Learned for business purposes when he was 23.

Mandarin

• Understands.
• Picked up enough to not be left unaware when people spoke it around him at 30.

Dari

• Can speak it fluently, can understand most writing in it.
• Learned at age 32 after the whole 9/11 thing and the first hints he might end up visiting Afghanistan in the future.

ASL

• Fluent, but better at reading than speaking. Sometimes absently throws a sign from it into his hand movements when expounding a point to someone out loud.
• Learned this at sixteen when he made friends with a deaf woman also into robotics at MIT.