out of company
every night, i live and die
spill my guts beneath the outdoor light
it's just another graceless night
- lorde, "perfect places"
4.
On Saturday, Tony goes off to see Pepper and Rhodey, since even though their breaks don't coincide with his, it's a weekend. "I missed you Honeybear," he says into Rhodey's armpit, his voice muffled. "And you too, Peps." Virginia Potts just watches the two with a fond smile as she waits for Tony's koala-hug.
"So, how's SHIELD High?" his best friends say in sync, and Tony giggle-laughs. He's so happy, to be back with the two people he loves most in the world besides his mother; his soul feels light and airy and expansive underneath his skin.
"It's okay," he says, "not close to anyone though."
Rhodey frowns. "I wish we could be there with you," Pepper tells him.
Tony shrugs, and smiles. "Me too." He makes a face. "Right now Bruce - the super smart science-y dude I was telling you about - is mad at me. But all my other friends are fine." By 'friends', he kind of just means the people he always talks to but doesn't really like, but whatever.
"What happened with you and Bruce?" Rhodey asks, his eyes narrowing. "Did he do something to you?"
"No, no," Tony says hastily. "Uh, nothing. I just...broke his friend's prosthetic." His smile turns into more of a wince. "I didn't mean to though, I swear."
"You broke someone's prosthetic?" Pepper says loudly. "Why?" she demands, almost as an afterthought.
"He called Becky a slut." Tony sighs. "I just got angry, I don't know."
Rhodey shakes his head, but there's amusement in his expression now. "Only you, Tony. I won't say the guy deserved that extreme of an action, but he sounds like an asshole."
"Uh, Barnes is, he's an okay guy, I think," Tony says, ducking his head. "He was trying to defend someone else and just so happened to be a dick. That's all."
Rhodey just hums in response. "So, Becky, huh?"
Tony shakes his head. "She's not a, not a crush or anything. Just a friend." There must be something reflected in his eyes when he says friend, serious and undercut with warmth, because Rhodey and Pepper just smile fondly at him and nod. They're both taller than him, especially because Pepper loves heels, so they both reach up and tousle his hair easily.
"So what are you in the mood for, huh, Tones?" Rhodey slings an arm around him. "We've only got today to catch up." Pepper and Rhodes have both got pre-break testing this week, so they can't afford to spend tomorrow - Sunday - out too, even though they both constantly remind him that they wish they could.
"Movie?" Tony says, and his face lights up a little with eagerness. "I've been wanting to see the new Star Wars flick for a while."
"Nerd," Rhodey grins, and Tony shoves him away.
"Star Wars is good, you dick, and you know it."
Rhodey crinkles his nose. "Yeah, but only the old ones. Now they're just trying to make money."
Tony huffs and looks at Pepper, who is offering no backup, just watching them both with a small amused grin. "Okay, fine, you might be right, but this was a childhood love, Rhodey. Don't take that away from me. Plus, Luke is still alive, and he's Anakin's son."
"Wasn't planning to," Rhodey says, backing down. He laughs fondly at his best friend. "And of course you'd go just to see a Skywalker, even if Luke's father was all old and ugly when he died. You've always had a thing for broody long-haired types."
"If you want to go see it, the next showing's in twenty minutes," Pepper points out, effectively interrupting them, and Tony yelps and grabs them both.
"Someone, Pepper loveofmylife, please please get us a ride," he says, and tilts his head up as the first raindrop of the day hits him on the nose. The sky is a beautiful grey, not the concrete grey of the sidewalk they're standing on but this cool, melting, silver-flecked dreaming color. Pepper pulls out her phone again to call a rideshare service while Rhodey wraps an arm around the shorter boy's waist, and Tony sticks his tongue out to catch another drop as it starts to sprinkle lightly. He's suddenly reminded of how when it rains during the night, raindrops glow golden when they pass down in front of streetlights.
Rhodey rests his chin atop Tony's head. "Should've brought an umbrella to protect you," he murmurs, and Tony can feel Rhodey smirking into his hair.
He realizes in this moment - like an epiphany - that he is happy, here and now, and as Pepper lifts her head and waits for their Uber to round the corner, he tugs Rhodey even closer and puts his head on his best friend's chest and tries to lock this feeling inside himself. He tries to remember the mother with the red umbrella and the baby carriage across the street, and the man in blue suit that rushes by them, and the Los Angeles buildings that seem to pierce the sky like large needles. His love for his friends comes into sharp focus with startling clarity like a head rush, and Tony closes his eyes and shuts them tight to save this snapshot moment in his mind forever and ever.
"Uber's here," Pepper says, and they all rush - sky spitting out licks of rain - over to the car idling at the curb, Tony laughing as a particularly large drop hits Pepper in the eye and she shrieks something considered unsuitable when in public.
"That was inappropriate," he shouts at her, and she says something even more unsuitable, which the Uber driver kindly ignores to chuckle at them instead.
The smell of the rain permeates his clothing and clings to him, fills his brain with a loose, fluttery happiness, and Tony can't help but think that as long as he's got his best friends, life can throw anything it wants at him. SHIELD is insignificant, Barnes and his friends are insignificant, nothing matters but the few people he loves that make life worth staying alive for. For them, he can take it. For this, it's worth it. And he might get really sad sometimes, the kind of sad where it hooks into your chest and grapples around your throat and the ache floods into you so hard you could easily drown, but the tiny raft his mother and friends provide him is just enough to keep his head above surface. And fuck, isn't that what matters most?
The car jolts hard over a bump in the road and the driver grunts out a quick apology as Pepper falls into Tony falls into Rhodey. "Get off me, you heavy lump," Rhodey says, but there's no heat behind his words and Tony can hear the laughter in his voice.
"It's all Pepper, she's on top of me, blame her," Tony says, and pokes the redhead in her side. "See, squishy. All her fault."
"I know both of you are currently broke and I'm not going to pay for tickets if you continue," Pepper warns him. "What do you say, Mr. Stark?"
"No, no, I'm sorry," Tony blurts out, and pouts at her as he adds, "Ms. Potts," as is tradition.
"There we go," Pepper says cheerfully, and then the car hits another bump and Tony's head collides with Rhodey's chin.
"Ow, you idiot!" Rhodey exclaims, even as he's patting Tony's head to make sure there's no damage.
"'M fine, Rhodey, jeez."
"It's not my fault you have no regard for safety whatsoever. You're not even wearing your damn seatbelt. Put it on now, Tony."
"But then I'll just have to take it off when we get there!" Tony protests.
Rhodey levels him with a glare. "Do you want me to do it for you? Because that'll just make things more embarrassing for you."
"Fine, fine, old man."
After a few minutes, the Uber pulls up in front of the local cinema and they pile out. The driver calls, "Enjoy your movie!" and then actually laughs at them. "You bunch are an entertaining sort."
"Thanks!" Tony replies enthusiastically, even as Rhodey and Pepper roll their eyes and pull him along.
"Hurry up, old man," Rhodey says, throwing Tony's own words back at him. "Or do I have to carry you?"
Tony flips him off as they head to the box office to collect tickets then enter the building, Tony vibrating with a sort of adorable glee that has his best friends secretly cooing at him. All in all, Tony thinks as they settle into cushiony seats in the very middle of the theatre, it's been a good day. And he's glad he's alive for days like these.
On the last day of break - a Friday that has the sky emptying rain onto the streets and buildings, unusual but not unexpected for the first day of December in Malibu, California - Howard talks to Tony for the first time. He'd first spotted his son Tuesday morning in the kitchen, but they hadn't talked. They don't often talk, Tony notes absentmindedly. And when they do, it's in yelling, like a secret language everyone can hear.
Anyway, he's sitting at the counter with a snug black AC/DC sweatshirt on, his bare legs swinging back and forth as he cups his coffee mug gratefully, when Howard steps imposingly into the room. A tie is neat around his father's neck and a similar coffee cup is in his hand. Howard regards his son with a chill in his eyes that Tony's gotten accustomed to over his sixteen long years.
The bag clenched in Howard's other hand rattles, and Tony's eyes shift down to it. There's something sick and eager in his father's eyes, something scary that isn't just bitter rage but more, and Tony's sixteen years old and strong but still he cowers back, just a little, on the stool.
"You know what this is, boy?" Howard says, clearly tired of waiting for Tony to ask. Like father, like son; the older man's never been patient.
"No, sir," Tony says. He eyes the bag. Maybe one of his dad's inventions? But what?
Howard places the bag on the table, clearly relishing in the tense, wary silence that's arisen between them. "It's a mutt," he says, finally. "A useless, filthy, piece of junk mutt."
Tony doesn't understand, but he's too smart to say this. His father's sadistic, but the man wouldn't kill a dog just to, what, make an example for Tony, right? So instead, he waits and holds his tongue, and watches as Howard neatly draws a clunky silver dog from the grocery bag.
Oh. Tony's blood freezes in his veins, shatters to pieces, and he wonders how he isn't bleeding yet.
"What are you going to do with it," he says carefully. He's mine, he wants to snarl, but forces himself to refrain. He remembers Company - yeah, that's what little lonely ten year old Tony Stark had named his dog, have a laugh - very clearly. He'd built the puppy as a kid, in order to have someone, something to love and talk to, in order to have something love back. The other children at school thought he talked weirdly and was snooty for always using "big words", and/or their parents despised his family. The teachers thought he was incredibly bright but problematic and withdrawn. So, he turned to what he knew best - scrap metal and wiring - for a solution. It wasn't until he was thirteen that he learned how to be popular, when he learned what being "liked" meant.
In any case, Company could jump, and run, and play ball, even if he couldn't bark or anything: Tony had thought installing pre-recorded noises would be too pathetic, make his shame feel too real.
But that fucking metal dog is Tony's, even if he finally put Company away when he was fourteen and felt too old and had met Pepper and Rhodey by then anyway. It's a painful reminder of how empty and vast his childhood had been, but it was also the best thing about it after Jarvis died.
"How did you manage to keep this piece of shit away from me?" Howard says slowly, his voice a mocking drawl, and Tony realizes his father must be drunk, or at least buzzed enough. Normally Howard's much more composed, much less loose with the vulgarities. In front of him, his dad is dangling the dog by a front leg. "Is this supposed to be a dog, Anthony? Is this your pet?"
Tony just sits, and looks at his father, and waits. There is nothing he can do but let what will happen happen, and he doesn't really care, anyway. He doesn't care. Meanwhile, Howard finds the panel on the dog's underbelly and pries it off. Then he flicks the switch to on, and Company's eyes light up. His tail wags and his mouth opens at Tony, because even though he technically only has the most rudimentary of chips for a brain, of course he recognizes his creator.
Tony feels sick. At thirteen, he'd upgraded Company's chip so that the dog could actually respond to outside stimuli, even though he's nowhere near as advanced as anything Tony's developed recently. Yet because of that...the dog has real animal emotion, or at least acts like it does, even if... Even if... He knows what's coming next, feels the hollowing out of his gut, even if it still doesn't prepare him for the quick way Howard rips Company's tail from his body.
(The thing is, almost nobody ever understood why Tony's tech was and is so precious to him, not even Rhodey or Pepper. Sure, Rhodey - being fairly tech-savvy as well - tried to get it, he really did, but only Jarvis seemed to really comprehend the way his charge felt about his inventions, the way a mother should care for her child. And now, in this moment, Tony realizes that Howard must know how he feels. His father must know - they're more similar than he'd like to admit - and yet here he is, killing his son with one swift, sharp action.)
Company's eyes shut in pain, and it's all fake, it's all just stupid actions Tony programmed into him to make him more real, but as Howard tears another limb slowly off the dog, Tony can't help the word that bursts from his mouth: "Stop!"
Howard looks at him. It's a hazy look, the kind where the person looking at you is not really seeing you. Briefly Tony wonders if another reason why his father seems to hate him is because he looks a lot like his grandfather, and only a little bit like his actual dad.
"What did you say, boy?" Howard says calmly, so calmly it could be mistaken for kindness in a different situation, as Company's eyes flutter and his mouth snaps open and closed jerkily in a mechanical rendition of pain.
"I told you to stop," Tony says angrily, and he reaches for his dog.
Howard shoves his arm away. "No," he says, and his face becomes heavier. "Why should you deserve anything, you worthless piece of shit? You know what your grandfather used to do when I brought vermin like this home - live ones, not this crappy waste of mechanisms?" Tony's father forces his face closer to his son's. His breath is a thick mix of alcohol and coffee. "He'd shoot them dead, Anthony. And I was a better son than you'll ever be. So what makes you think you deserve shit, huh? What makes you think you deserve this?" Howard's eyes flash; there is something psychotic there that Tony isn't sure he's imagining, and it frightens him. "Those animals always loved me, boy!" his father snarls, his voice not quite a shout but still achingly loud. "But you - you have to make your friends out of the scrap metal I throw away, because nobody and nothing will ever want you."
"You're only pissed because you wouldn't have been able to make that when you were ten," Tony mutters, his heart black in his chest. He hates this whole fucking family - his grandfather, whose beatings and chilly fury made his father what he is; Howard, who is not violent but is cruel all the same.
Howard's face closes off in less than a blink of an eye. For a long moment, he just looks at the mangled, sparking dog gripping by its throat in his white-knuckled hand. "What did you say?" His voice is quiet, crazed.
"Shut up," Tony whispers.
Howard spins around in one fluid motion and hurls the puppy as hard as he can against the wall. Company breaks under the impact, falling to pieces on the tiled floor. He shakes his finger in Tony's face, point having been made, and says coldly: "Don't you ever speak to me like that again." Then he straightens his tie, drinks the rest of his coffee as Tony sits still as stone on the stool, and slams the cup down in the kitchen sink.
The door cracks hard as Howard exits the house, and Tony can almost feel the entire mansion shake under his body.
Even after his father's car has left the massive driveway, the gates closing shut behind him, Tony stays silent and still on his chair at the counter, Company's body just visible from his vantage point. His sobs - when they come - are paper-thin and noiseless, the tears glistening on his cheeks the only evidence of the ache bone-deep inside his body.