Guilt For Dreaming

Chapter 6: I Feel Like A Group of One

The next few weeks passed in a blur of activity, the academic year seeming to finally hit its stride in a torrent of frustratingly time-consuming schoolwork (albeit work that he was fully capable of completing in his sleep). Tony felt as if he was making his way towards blending in – well as much blending in as a Stark ever managed. Emotionally however Tony was caught up in the horribly familiar cycle of uncertainty, guilt fuelled insomnia, and nightmares that had filled much of his adult life. Tony was aware that the bags under his eyes were deepening by the day. It wasn’t just the infuriating Hammer scion shooting him worried glances anymore, Cliquey Leekie had noticed, and even the usually collected Ms Ramesh had shot him a concerned look during their most recent lesson. Ben of course hadn’t deigned to comment, the man somehow always managed to be contrary.

Despite the lack of punishment for whoever had sabotaged his silicon vat Tony was making good progress on his self-regulated scientific work in the school’s eyes. Tony wasn’t entirely sure what it was he was doing that impressed everyone so much, but Tony was definitely the apple of Ms Ramesh’s eye. As such word about the harsh discipline she dealt out to anyone attempting to mess with Tony during her sessions was an excellent deterrent to the more unpleasant members of the senior class. Cord especially would no longer meet his eyes any more, choosing to resentfully direct his conversation towards the linoleum floor instead.

Whilst the reputation was embarrassing, at least the attempts at bullying had mostly tailed off, well; it could also be something to do with his own reactions to any attempts made against him. Between his sneering contemptuous response to any overt threat (seriously, these children literally had nothing on any of the people he’d mixed with during his adult life, and he included his friends on that list) and the news that had by now gotten around about Tony’s little zappy eveners meant that Tony was being left well alone.

Unfortunately that included the children that Tony had once hoped to befriend. He was once again years younger than, and years ahead of his so-called peers, and his actual age-mates all seemed terrified of him. Well apart from Hammer. And he didn’t count.

The utter lack of communication from home really didn’t help; perhaps naively Tony had thought that things might be different this time around. However much to his disappointment nothing at all had turned up for him during the postal rounds in the mornings. He’d been at the school for a little over a month and a half, Tony had honestly hope- no he shouldn’t have expected anything different. Since when did a Stark ever deserve sympathy from anyone else?

To Tony’s shame Hamme- Justin had noticed, and once again awkwardly shared some of the booty he’d gained from his overly-willing-to-shower-their-son-in-candy parents. The sugary crap was really beginning to pile up in the bottom of his trunk; Tony genuinely didn’t know what to do with it all. He’d lost his sweet tooth during the palladium debacle, and hadn’t yet re-learnt how to eat more than the bare minimum needed to stay healthy; the habit to ration long since ingrained during Thanos’ occupation.

~~~~~~~

The latest in a series of delays in acquiring a replacement dip vat had Tony in an even fouler mood by the time November proper had fully rolled around, the other students were beginning to truly avoid him on top of the usual age-gap induced shunning. Tony didn’t want to admit to himself that he was being unfair to Hamm- Justin, but well, he’d snapped at him over breakfast that morning over something incredibly trivial. (Loudly and snidely demanding that the other boy stop chattering about idiotic nonsense. An act he immediately regretted given the stinking hypocrisy of it, not that Hammer would have been able to spot it.) Still, Tony had something else to distract himself with today, he was willing to forgive himself for his pettiness.

As he made his way down to the gym with the rest of his classmates Tony bitterly reflected on how things had been going lately in this strange version of reality that he found himself inhabiting. His morning run had been excruciating - Tony hadn’t been able to carry out his usual practice of whiling away the mindless exercise by working through his usual schematics, instead having to focus on keeping his footing on the newly treacherous ground. Ben’s training regime increments had meant that Tony genuinely was getting fitter, he was sure that he was less winded after their sessions together nowadays. However that was little comfort when Tony was up to 7 laps around the school grounds (amounting to just over 12km) over frost encrusted slippery grass and hard frozen earth in the freezing winter pre-dawn, his breath crystallising in the air.

He had to admit that he needed to get his emotions under control, Tony was painfully aware that it wasn’t just Hammer bearing the brunt of his sleep-deprived temper these days. Tony had very nearly snapped at Mr D’Eath during a painfully biased history lesson declaring the US the centre of the world, luckily the man had barely noticed through his own haze of self-hate. However Tony dreaded to think what the consequences would have been if he’d acted that way towards any other staff member.

Tony trailed into the gym room reluctantly. Somehow he wasn’t surprised that the school rules meant that he was to be a member of the beginners group in his actual age group rather than de-facto senior year group that he was actually a member of. Though Tony had to admit that that was probably a good thing, but of course Hammer had signed up for one of the fencing classes as soon as Tony had let slip that he had to take it.

The hall was surprisingly full; Tony gulped, for once forgetting to maintain the façade of iron that he’d carried around with him all his life. The group was taken from Tony’s entire year group rather than the gifted pupils that he’d gotten used to seeing around the place. Tony glanced around and finally spotted the instructor, a cynical looking man, tall, bulky and yet flexible. Whilst the man had the body of an American footballer, all bulky shoulders and a distinct lack of neck, he had a long thin face with a strong jaw and an assessing gaze underneath those ginger eyebrows of his. Somehow he reminded Tony of Ste-.

As the children shuffled into the room the teacher, Mr La Guerta (Tony noted the surname with mild surprise, the man was pale enough that he probably burned at the first hint of sun) instructed them to line up by size, tallest to shortest. Tony was unsurprised by both the fact that he was the smallest child in the room, and the utter lack of care for the children’s self-esteem. He’d been expecting more of this sort of thing actually, given that he was in the school system in the seventies.

Fortunately despite his fears Tony wasn’t in the same class as Hammer, Tony was in the epee class, Hammer was learning foil. Tony had chosen epee since it sounded the closest to the actual combat training Ben had been giving him from the sparse information the leaflets they’d been provided with to help them to choose an option sport. Tony had been sorely tempted by tennis, but from the serious manner Ben had taken when “suggesting” he take up fencing Tony knew that it wasn’t really an option.

Tony eyed the protective equipment laid out on one side of the room dubiously; the padded suits wouldn’t do much good against an actual cutting edge. He guiltily double-checked that his daggers were all securely sequestered in their usual sheaves and hiding spots. Unfortunately Tony’s watch was stuck in the locker outside, school rules dictating that such things be removed to prevent glass going everywhere if it got smashed. Luckily Tony had been able to pass off his black “bracelet” as a wrist warmer, he already felt naked without the lengths of garrotte wire.

Whilst Ben had definitely noticed the presence of at least the two actual daggers, he hadn’t said anything about them. And Tony wasn’t about to stop wearing his actual protection whilst learning how to play a stupid sport; he’d already had to give up too many of his fallbacks. Tony thought that Ben had only noticed the knives because he hadn’t yet learnt how to conceal his own uncomfortable knowledge that they were there – but given the approving looks Ben had been shooting in the direction of their hiding places lately Tony had a feeling that Ben either agreed with his decision to keep them on him, or had noticed that he was making more of an effort to make his gait and footwork seem natural.

Tony only hoped that all of that effort would pay off during these lessons. It wouldn’t do to be found out during his option sport class of all places. Tony dreaded to think what Howard would do if he managed to get himself expelled. He dutifully shrugged on the padded protective gear and strangely shaped leather and plastic cups of the under-armour, completely forgetting to feign ignorance at how all of the archaic-to-his-eyes equipment slotted together. Tony only realised his mistake when he looked up to see all of the other students in the room still struggling to fit the groin-cup, let alone shrug on and resize the chest piece. He furtively hoped no one had noticed his mysterious competence with the protective gear.

Tony had no such luck; the instructor strode over and loudly congratulated Tony,

“Well done on a rare show of competence Mr Stark!”

A meaty paw clapped down onto his shoulder almost making Tony’s knees buckle with the downward force of it. The rest of the class looked on with a mixture of resentful envy and open curiosity. Tony gulped.

“Why don’t you be my first assistant demonstrator in class today Anthony?”

“It’s Tony.”

Tony mumbled out in response, in that moment truly the sullen six-year-old. Somehow Tony knew that it wasn’t really a question, he spent the next few minutes stewing in his own anxieties as the class painfully struggled their collective way into the slightly smelly protective gear.

Mr La Guerta beamed down at Tony with exaggerated friendliness; it was even more off-putting than Weepy Leekie’s brand of forced cheer. Phys Ed teachers always had that air around them, at least where Tony was concerned. Tony tried not to look nervous but he wasn’t sure he succeeded.

“The first thing I’ll be teaching you all is how to properly warm up.”

Tony almost let out a great whoop of relief,

“Tony here will help me demonstrate how to stretch properly so that you don’t pull anything during practice.”

Tony risked a glance at La Guerta’s eyes at the strange emphasis on his name there, but saw nothing more than friendly helpfulness in the blue orbs.

La Guerta ran through a painfully basic warm-up and stretching routine, which he made Tony copy. Tony made sure not to copy the moves too perfectly, adding a stumble that he wasn’t entirely sure passed muster in an attempt to feign the natural clumsiness that some children possess.

The next moment Tony genuinely did stumble, he’d been over-thinking his movements again, something Ben had only just begun to successfully wean him away from. Some of the group tittered mockingly at that, Tony did his best to keep his face blank only realising afterwards that that in itself was a tell.

Thankfully for his sanity La Guerta allowed him to rejoin the ranks of his classmates, Tony gratefully slipped back into the larger group shuffling his way into the centre of the mass of students so he wouldn’t be called on again.

La Guerta clapped his hands together, rubbing them theatrically,

“Now that we’re all warmed up I’ll begin demonstrating the proper safety and etiquette of handling an epee. Remember. Safety tip or no, these are offensive weapons. If I catch any of you pointing your swords at each other without permission, even in jest, there will be severe consequences.”

Tony was impressed by the sudden turn into deadly seriousness, from the scared looks on the faces of his classmates the point had been made and received. Whoever this La Guerta was he clearly knew how to handle a crowd.

The next lesson was a rather pointless bit of snobby sportsmanship by Tony’s estimation, but he supposed it was a sport, not… actual fighting to the death.

La Guerta strode into the central area of the room, and fluidly demonstrated a complicated set of moves that he called a salute. A salute. They then proceeded to waste half of the damned lesson making sure everyone had this useless bit of faux nicety down pat.

Despite his only partially put-on reluctant pupil act Tony paid rapt attention when La Guerta finally began demonstrating some basic forms. After half an hour’s worth of lecture on the proper etiquette for beginning and ending a match, and another lecture on the many and numerous offenses that would have the students expelled from the class permanently. Well, it was a relief to actually begin learning something halfway useful. Tony’s impression of the sport thus far was that it was a silly little game with far too many rules about fair play for it’s own good.

At a glance the opening form seemed simple enough, a basic stance to start a match from, however Tony found that he kept falling back into bad habits, dropping directly into the unfortunate, and painfully useless combo of the Wushu unarmed stance, and the starting stance of the mysterious sword form that Ben was in the process teaching him. Tony had a sinking feeling that he understood exactly why Ben had set him this little assignment.

Fortunately for Tony his inability to correctly drop into such a basic form seemed well within the bell-curve for the class, only earning him a surprisingly gentle correction on the stance from La Guerta as he walked around the hall assessing each of his pupils.

“Well done Tony, that’s a good try. But if you drop your left foot back like this…”

At that La Guerta gently nudged Tony’s foot back a couple of inches,

“I think you’ll find you’re much more stable, and you’ll find it easier to move.”

Tony resisted the urge to go limp with relief, which would utterly undo the progress he’d made towards holding the correct posture and form. Albeit progress painfully helped by La Guerta’s careful verbal prodding, and eventual manhandling… Damn he could really see why Ben had decided he had to take this class. Tony had honestly thought that the out-of-the-blue suggestion was a new and painful way for his erratic teacher to slyly poke fun at him.

Instead the lesson was more immediate, and even more important than the dig at becoming overconfident that Tony had assumed was being emphasised. Tony attempted to relax into the stance now that he had it, committing the thing to memory.

Tony was grateful for the other students’ clumsiness, on his next walk by La Guerta seemed impressed that Tony had managed to hold the form.

Tony’s redoubled attention had him automatically assessing the first move that La Guerta was deigning to show them. It was deceptively elegant. He gulped and redoubled his attention to the painfully simple swing that La Guerta was demonstrating at a speed that more resembled the Chinese practice of Qigong, than any martial art Tony had ever seen. And yet, Tony could tell already that the move was different enough to what he was used to that both picking it up, and defending against it would be an uphill struggle.

Ben’s point had been made for him, and the man wasn’t even there to gloat.

~~~~~~~

“So how was your first epee class?”

Ben’s eyes were sparkling with poorly suppressed mischief; Tony knew that he already had a very good idea.

“Guess.”

“I don’t have to guess, I know.”

Tony glared up at the older man, unfortunately the angle meant that he ended up looking straight up Ben’s nostrils and the effect was ruined. Ben continued, looking far too amused,

“You over-thought everything and ended up tripping over your own feet.”

“…Yes.”

“And…” Ben paused for effect drawing out the revelation with relish, “You almost stabbed yourself with your own sword.”

Tony’s glare intensified, making Ben cackle with laughter.

“Hey! I wasn’t that bad.”

“But it was bad, yes?”

“…Yes…”

“Good. Then I’ll introduce you to another discipline. It’s good practice to begin with multiple styles early.”

“Wait, what?!”

“Well. Ok, not good practice as such, but I think you at least will benefit from the experience.”

Tony heaved a dramatic sigh, he’d picked up the habit around Ben lately, he couldn’t for the life of him think why,

“…Yes Obi Wan.”

~~~~~~~

Justin sniffled and scrubbed at his eyes in a vain attempt to stop himself from crying.

The young boy was in his usual hiding spot – the crawl space above the senior year’s rec room, in actuality a space that had once been designed to be a sound engineers control booth when the rec room had been a performance space before the school had refurbished, and moved the theatre to a far larger, purpose built space.

The room had been half-heartedly converted into a supply cupboard, and subsequently forgotten about in the way of small claustrophobic rooms in old buildings the world over.

It – It wasn’t fair. He’d thought he’d finally be able to make friends at the school; it was so lonely all by himself back home. He’d been so happy, to finally have the chance to make friends with real people and not the staff that his parents paid for.

But, but – he was too clever. He was a nerd. No one wanted to be friends with the kid at the top of the Krelboyne class. No one. Justin had wished he wasn’t so smart. He’d even tried getting answers wrong on purpose, but it hadn’t helped. Everyone else had just laughed at him so he’d given up on that plan.

And then, and then. Tony had come. And he was awesome and amazing. And Justin really wanted to be friends with him. But. He didn’t like Justin. Not one bit. But. Tony was nice. He wasn’t mean. Or, he wasn’t mean nearly as much as everyone else, and he hadn’t pushed Justin around, or told him that they couldn’t be friends, or taken his stuff.

Only, now Justin wished he was cleverer. Next to Tony Justin was stupid. He wasn’t smart enough to be friends with Tony. He had to prove that he was smart enough to be friends with him, and then maybe Tony would smile back at him.

~~~~~~~

Tony had been surprised to find that he had the dorm room to himself that evening. As always staring at Hammer’s side of the room made his skin crawl, Hammer’s idea of a filing system really did make him grimace with distaste. He supposed that Hammer’s classes had overrun, or that Tony’s had under run. Tony had to admit that he had been relieved to find out that he wouldn’t be in the same beginner’s fencing group as Justin. Tony honestly hadn’t been sure that he’d have been able to not run the little shite through with his epee if the boy behaved how he thought he would and insist on becoming partners – special blunt tip or no.

He was sitting crosslegged on the floor at the foot of his bed, sorting through the trunk that contained the more sensitive items Tony had brought with him to the school. Well for a given value of more sensitive, at one end of the trunk the LPs Jarvis had bought for him were wedged safely against the flat end wall of the oversized box. Most of the rest of the trunk was stuffed full of the clothes and books he’d brought with him, as well as the oversized tape reels he’d been forced to bring with him in lieu of the tiny solid state memory drives he was used to carting around.

Tony was using the opportunity to check through the Hydra/SHIELD wavescans that his little computer had been automatically running. It was a good thing he’d set the thing up to save in only the most basic format, efficient programming or no the computer had been nearing it’s memory capacity with it’s woefully underpowered chips and minute hard drive.

Tony was happily sorting through the data he’d illicitly acquired, and copying anything that looked out of the ordinary, important or not, onto the tape reels. The work was slow going, but it was better than contemplating what was going on at home, he’d known that his mum was unlikely to reply to his letters. And Tony hadn’t even bothered to write to Howard… But well, Tony had hoped that the Jarvises would write more often this time around, and… He had a sinking feeling he knew why there was nothing but silence on that front.

As Tony rummaged through the trunk for another tape reel – he was already running out, he really needed to rethink this storage system – Tony’s hand encountered something hard and cold. His fingers automatically tightened around the object and Tony pulled it out blinking in consternation as the miniaturised Wicked Wand of Watoomb came into view, twin demon heads grinning grotesquely up at him from within the annulling ring.

Tony stared transfixed at the flickering play of light seeming to come from just under the surface of the wand. Christ. He’d almost forgotten that he’d had it. Despite his sarcastic words to Doom he had essentially stuffed it in the back of his sock draw and forgotten all about it. As if in response to his attention the dull orange embers brightened briefly to an intense golden glow – making Tony startle and drop the hateful thing back into the depths of his trunk.

He hastily reburied the accusing glow under a pile of dirty socks and got back on with clearing precious hard disk space.

~~~~~~~

The Ancient One peered into the future, this time using the chamber that contained the Eye of Agamotto – and its projections of the Earths. Once again she found herself drawn to that scene in New York; her future with the helicopter, the lightning and… the snow.

Not for the first time she ruefully appreciated the fact that as a magic user of some skill and power she was privy to the moment of her death. For the most part it was a bonus, definitely a bonus, many a sorcerer had gone off happily to the next great adventure having emptied their liquor cabinet and racked up mountains of debt secure in the knowledge that they’d never have to pay it off.

Many magic users were capable of remembering forwards, it was a skill. People on the whole were skilled at manipulating time, wasting it, saving it, killing it, gaining it, and losing it. 20/20 vision in hindsight was easy, in foresight more difficult but not impossible. Mages could generally see the outline of their possible futures stretching out ahead of them, and though they didn’t often speak of it, it was this very ability to feel the universe and all of its potential thrumming around you that made it possible to do what they did.

Ignoring the additional help that Relics and rituals provided, most magic boiled down to selecting the future with the outcome that you desired from the list of infinite possibilities ranged out before you and allowing your mind to slip into the desired time stream. Of course they didn’t teach it quite that way, it was an easy thing to understand once you were already there, but getting to that point of self-knowledge was the difficult bit.

Of course there was also the difficulty about just where all of that power came from, for the most part the school of thought taught at Karma-Taj was that drawing the power from parallel dimensions and invoking greater powers was the key. (Though terribly the Ancient One was aware that they were going to have to rewrite the phrasing there sooner or later, the more scientifically minded novices lately had pointed out that dimensions were a property of spacetime rather than a parallel plane of existence. The Ancient One had been able to fall back on an old mathematical argument about higher dimensional spaces to argue the point, but she could tell that like the Issaacian models of magic before hers that they were going to need a rewrite.) Of course you could draw the energy from other sources, such as the surrounding environment, or even your own life energy. Though these tactics were more risky, if you weren’t concentrating you could accidentally drain the life out of anything that was unlucky enough to be in the vicinity, or if using yourself as the source… Well a brain embolism was usually the first symptom of overdoing it.

When asked what magic was, most of the younger novices at Karma-Taj went on at length about quantum, and the units of magic smaller than the thaum, which had previously been thought to be the smallest discrete unit of magic – found to be some very strange particles indeed with several different flavours.

The more hidebound members of the order espoused the importance of ritual, properly dribbled candles and obeying the natural order.

And then there were those who didn’t feel the need to put the feeling into words, secretly thinking to themselves that the universe couldn’t make it’s bloody mind up about what it wanted to happen and that it only took the right kind of mind with the right kind of perspective to nudge things into place.

The three sanctums and the central monastery at Kathmandu were responsible for making sure that the right things happened. Not the good things, or the things that they especially desired, but the right things. The order ensured that tomorrow followed today, and yesterday came before tomorrow. And frankly, with the sheer amount of temporal chaos caused by nearly 8 billion humans going about their daily lives, the Ancient One thought that they were doing pretty well when no one noticed the odd missing hour caused by the near daily incursions into the mundane realm.

The Ancient One sighed, she could feel the press of the years upon her, drawing on the power of the dark dimension or no, the role of the Sorcerer Supreme was a taxing one. She only wished that she could say for sure which candidate was the candidate.

Kaecilius with his great natural talent, firey temperament and all too understandable motives for fighting the fight? To her consternation she could see darkness shrouding his future, but since his future was so tied up with her own fate on that snowy day, The Ancient One had no idea what his destiny held. Dear Master Drumm, with his uncertain future flickering disconcertingly between the darkness of oblivion and potential, not to mention his well-known proclivities? Mordo? Dear, hidebound Mordo? So caught up in following the rules and strictures of their teachings that he’d yet to catch on that there were times that exceptions had to be made? Master Wong? Who was so caught up in the mystic that he’d lost touch with the very people they were trying to protect?

Or even the others? This Strange who she could tell was just as tangled up in the events of her death as Kaecilius? Poor crippled Pangborn? Or… The Unknown Potential? Whose power was shot through with streaks that reminded her disturbingly of the power of the very Infinity Stone she was using to enhance her ability to remember the future?

Not for the first time she wished that she could see beyond her death, but where previously there were streams of possibility, remembered futures, after the day with the snow there was just a blank - the possible futures leading up to the moment itself frustratingly misty and unclear. The number of potential routes to that all too final destination overwhelming in their variety.

Whilst The Ancient One could tell that this day with the lightning and the snow was still years distant, in the long terms of her lifetime it was but a breath away.

She shook herself out of her musings on the nature of magecraft and concentrated on the projections the Eye of Agamotto was casting. The Ancient One felt that she was having more luck narrowing down the location of the Potential than she’d had in the mandala chamber, though of course the mandala was the more sensitive method. By their very nature using one of the Infinity Stones to find one individual was akin to cracking a walnut with a jackhammer.

The Ancient One thought that she could see a flicker of something in the region of the New York Sanctum. It was hard to tell though, ironically the great protective nets woven by the triad of Sanctorums overwhelming almost every other mystical signature on the five-dimensional map… However, no she was sure, there really was a flicker.

She was going to have to go to 177A Bleecker Street, Master Drumm would be upset by the unexpected visit. The relics always seemed to flock to her.

~~~~~~~

Tony successfully avoided Hammer’s attentions that morning by dint of reading the broadsheet papers, that were strictly speaking, laid out for the benefit of the teachers and the senior students. Though of course Tony supposed that he was technically in the senior year himself, so he had every right to be perusing.

He was attempting to re-familiarise himself with past or rather current affairs, Tony had noted with some surprise that the Trask Trials were due to take place later that year. Tony was familiar with the name – Trask Industries were one of many that SI had absorbed in the 90s when he’d expanded the company. But he honestly couldn’t remember reading about anything like this in the dossier that he’d skimmed about the smaller firm.

Trask himself was up before congress for selling state secrets, an event that had apparently been long drawn out by the classified nature of the materials involved, and the well-connected Trask’s lawyers tying the prosecution up in a mess of red tape.

From the sounds of it there’d been some big incident involving Nixon and … a football stadium a couple of years ago. Tony blinked down at the black and white photo in consternation, ok, sure he’d been a child. But he didn’t think he’d have been oblivious enough to miss this surely? A whole damned football stadium somehow upping sticks and landing on top of the White House???

Not for the first time Tony wished that he were free to move about as he pleased, trapped as he was as a six-year-old he was limited to using the resources available at the school. And excellent as they were for a facility of its type, the library didn’t exactly have a news archive.

Tony squirreled the relevant pages of the paper away in his book bag and made a mental note about finding out more information about the history in this place. It seemed that his mere arrival had had more of an impact on events than he’d anticipated. Tony was sure a football stadium landing on top of the White House would have been in every history textbook in the world if it had happened back home.

Wouldn’t it?

~~~~~~~

Tony’s attempts to find out if this Trask business was as big a deal as it seemed were stymied by the sheer amount of busywork the teachers were assigning.

Even Ms Ramesh had gotten in on it, it seemed senior year at Westchester Academy was taken incredibly seriously by the staff. For all that it counted for very little in terms of his final grades, given that this was the seventies after all, Tony had a veritable mountain of coursework to get through before the Christmas holidays.

Whilst the work was boring, verging on insulting at times, it still took time.

Tony’s lonely sessions in the library had now warped from frustrating research to mind numbing repetitive drivel. The tech classes especially felt archaic and pointless given how far CAD/CAM technology had moved on since this time.

Even so Tony did manage to find one short paragraph about the Cuban Missile Crisis/Paris Conference/Washington Hero incidents in the latest modern history textbook that the school had acquired all listed under the header Mutants. Apparently “Mutants” were an ever-growing concern in this strange new reality that Tony was rapidly beginning to understand was his now for better of for worse.

~~~~~~~

The first of the lessons integrating the new swordplay style were eye-opening, the teacher-student duo had now swapped to alternating lessons of hand to hand combat and swordplay, Tony wasn’t sure yet if he liked this new set-up any better than the old one. The swords that Ben produced from his bag of mysteries were even more exotic in appearance than the glorified knives that they’d used for the first half of the swordplay session. The objects that Ben pulled out of his nondescript duffle looked more like sickles than any sword Tony had ever imagined.

Tony eyed the gleaming objects dubiously. Somehow he didn’t think over analysing his movements due to a painful similarity to another disparate style was going to be a problem this time.

“What the hell are we going to do with those? Harvest wheat?”

Ben smiled beatifically down at him; he had a smile that transformed his face. It would be attractive if Tony didn’t see the mischief glinting in his eyes.

“Why we try to kill each other with them of course.”

Tony eyed Ben cautiously, whilst he was almost certain that Ben had used those words for effect, he was only almost certain. Not sure. Tony took a cautious step back. The move seemed to please the older man.

“Good! You are learning after all.”

Tony glared, Ben’s grin impossibly grew even wider Tony had the fleeting impression that he was like the Cheshire cat with a smile like that.

“Well then – this sword is called a Khopesh. Don’t go around telling people we’re using these, as far as the rest of the world is concerned I’m teaching you basic self-defence here.”

“Yes, yes I’m not a child.”

Ben merely raised an eyebrow at that slip. Tony was unfathomably grateful, which had him flushing with angry shame.

Without further ado Ben flashed through a rapid and deadly looking set of moves with the sword, the style was initially flashy, all intimidation and flair, before his expression changed and his movement became more economical, about dealing death rather than instilling awe and fear.

Aside from the deadly unpredictability that came with their shape, a trait that Tony dearly hoped they’d lose with familiarity, the reach on these blades was far greater than the shorter swords that Tony had gotten used to using – more akin to the elongated reach of the epee that Tony was still struggling to take full advantage of in his classes with La Guerta.

Somehow Tony could tell that this was going to be a steep learning curve, he was almost looking forward to it given that the rest of his days were taken up with mind numbing drudgery.

~~~~~~~

Tony resented the coursework, even the previously quiet and peaceful sessions in the library were now filled with avoidance tactics and ducking away from loud braying teenaged boys. Tony knew that his mood was descending into blackness, even Ms Ramesh’s calm aura and cool efficiency were beginning to grate. Tony felt as though the work he was doing were progressing at a snail’s pace.

To make matters worse Cord had redoubled his efforts to be sneaky and underhanded in his attempts to get his own back. Ms Ramesh’s calm competence brooked no trouble, but D’Eath’s more… hands-off approach to teaching meant that Tony often had to keep half-an-eye on Cord and his lackey’s whilst attempting to look like he was paying attention to the man’s history lessons.

Tony was in no doubt about just who it was that had sabotaged his drum, but of course he had no proof only his suspicions. Tony didn’t bother to bring his suspicions to a member of staff there was no point. Unfortunately this was another thing that he had plenty of experience with – what was the point in persecuting the bullies, he was a Stark, his dad would pay for it, and later he would pay for it. After all Starks could more than afford it.

~~~~~~~

Despite his fears La Guerta proved to be a surprisingly patient man, oh he ruled the class with an iron fist, he had to when he was in charge of a group of 20 children all armed with edged weapons. But the man somehow made the time to go around each class and check in on how each and every student was progressing.

To his shame Tony wasn’t progressing any faster than any of the other kids in the class. Hell, he was in the bottom half of the group he knew it.

It turned out that La Guerta was another Vietnam-war veteran, Tony was beginning to wonder just how many of them Mrs Kowalski had employed. Unlike D’Eath’s haunted visage La Guerta had come out of the other side of the grim experience determined to continue to make a difference and had chosen to teach children how to look after themselves.

Once Tony had learnt of the man’s background he’d been utterly surprised that La Guerta seemed to be the picture of perfect health, as far as Tony knew it wasn’t just the PTSD the veterans had to be scared of – but the side effects of the toxic allotropes of the Agent Orange that had liberally doused the battlefields, well, the whole country really.

Tony eventually found out that the man had been a Sergeant, leading his troop to safety when so many caught in the same situation behind enemy lines had perished. Tony grudgingly came to respect the man, if he could put on a friendly and helpful façade in the face of all of those experiences then what right did Tony have to wallow in his own past?

~~~~~~~

Thanksgiving came and went with depressingly little news from the mansion, aka none whatsoever. Tony wasn’t too surprised, beyond the minimum necessary to appease the press he hadn’t remembered the holiday ever being that big a deal in the Stark household. Howard had always claimed that anything he had to be grateful for he’d made for himself, and Maria, well she’d grown up in Italy. Hell, the Jarvises were British and Hungarian both.

Tony vaguely remembered Jarvis complaining about celebrating “idiotic stupidity that meant they packed several hundred shoes and no food” and the difficulty in successfully deep-frying a turkey, “the only way to make that damnably dry monstrosity of a bird even vaguely edible”.

The time continued to pass in a blur of busywork, swordplay and loneliness. Tony thought that he was slowly getting better at the actual swordplay, though of course Ben was keeping his own opinions close to his chest. At least, with the introduction of the curved Khopesh swords the knife-like swordplay with the shorter almost pear shaped blades was finally making some sort of sense, with Tony finally learning how to take advantage of his shorter stature, much to Ben’s approval. Alas the lessons with La Guerta were continuing painfully as ever, Tony was just about managing to keep pace with the class, but barely given the way that his over thinking habit had seemingly transferred from Ben’s lessons to the Epee sessions.

The schoolwork continued to be pitifully easy, even the so-called college-prep level classes, and SAT mock test sessions were dull dull dull. The only real source of difficulty in the lessons was, as ever, Tony’s future knowledge. However the sheer amount of time he’d been spending in the library meant that he was improving there too – Tony’s work was coming back with fewer red ink comments about fiction, and even more tick marks than ever.

Of course Tony’s “antisocial” tendencies, as Leekie oh so carefully put it hadn’t gone unnoticed. Peaky Leekie had pulled Tony aside one excruciating afternoon and enquired worriedly about whether or not he’d managed to make any friends yet.

“Tony, is everything going well? I that is to say, we, can’t help but notice how little you’re interacting with the other students your own age. Or rather, well, that is to say, the other students really.”

Tony gazed up into Leekie’s concerned eyes and saw nothing but warmth and worry there. He immediately raised his mental shields, distrustful of the apparent offer of help. In Tony’s experience there was no such thing as a freely offered helping hand, there was always a catch, a price to pay. And as things stood Tony was unwilling to pay it – he had too much to do, too many things to catch up on and deal with as it was then to go around creating debts for himself that would only come back to bite him on the ass later.

Weepy Leekie seemed to take Tony’s mistrustful silence as a cue to continue,

“Is there anything the matter Tony?”

Tony’s response was a nonverbal grunt of dismissal,

“No problems at home, anything like that?”

Another grunt.

“Is the schoolwork challenging enough?”

Another grunt. Of course it wasn’t, but Tony wasn’t going to willingly add to his workload, Leekie’s expression fell as he realised that Tony was unlikely to be forthcoming any time soon.

“Well, I’m here if you ever need anyone to talk to Tony. And I’m sure plenty other members of staff would be willing to help. I’m sure your classmates would welcome your company.”

The conversation dragged on, and went about as well as can be expected when a well-meaning but clueless adult attempts to intervene on a child’s behalf in a situation, that as an outsider, they can only really make worse not better.

The worst thing was Tony would probably have welcomed the intervention the first time around, but now? As an adult? He could only look on in bitter contempt as he wondered where on earth this concern had been when he actually was all of six years old.

“You’re not alone Tony.”

By the time Leekie seemed to give up on getting him to open up Tony was grouchy and bored. He’d even resorted to willingly playing with the new IQ puzzles that Leekie seemed to have acquired since the last time he’d been inside the man’s hatefully cheerful office.

Leekie worriedly patted his hand gently on Tony’s shoulder, before passing over a vile-green disc of a lollipop and sending him on his way.

~~~~~~~

The Christmas season snuck up on the school subtly, Tony first noticed that something was off when the tinsel appeared absolutely everywhere followed shortly by an oversized, yet somehow still sad tree in the main entry hall. A whole raft of smaller, even more sorrowful looking ferns appeared in the entryways of most of the other school buildings – even the guard post that overlooked Tony’s spot by the lake had one, albeit a small plastic example that totalled two feet.

The guard - Mr Reid, who turned out to be yet another Vietnam war veteran – had taken to bringing out a small mug of hot cocoa for Tony whenever he spotted him sitting under the tree for any length of time. Whilst he’d initially been annoyed by the constant intrusions to his attempts to meditate, Tony grew to welcome their short chats – and the warmth of the chocolate as the days grew colder and more bitter.

Reid was often to be found attempting to cajole D’Eath into being more sociable, usually roping La Guerta into his schemes. Tony admired the man’s efforts now that he was aware that they existed, but he thought that they were doomed to fail. D’Eath was too… Comfortable in the rut he’d ground for himself. Too caught up being bitter about the unjust war that he’d been conscripted into to even attempt to welcome the help that was being offered.

Tony swallowed around the now tasteless mouthful of chocolate, the sweet reconstituted milk turned sour in his mouth, Tony could have just been describing himself there. This meditation session had warped into a mind-walk of a different kind. Then again perhaps this introspection was more productive than the utter frustration than the attempts to reliably access _magic had become. Tony was still no closer to understanding why sometimes he managed to touch something, and at other times, such as the past couple of months he’d managed absolutely nothing at all.

Tony sipped at his rapidly cooling milk and stared out at the icy expanse of the lake, breath forming visible clouds in the air in front of him. This process was proving horribly frustrating, he had no one to teach him. Oh he’d skirted around the topic with Ben, given the breadth and depth of the older man’s knowledge Tony had thought that perhaps he’d be of more than some help here too. But either Tony’s hints had been too opaque or Ben was being deliberately obtuse, and no help had been offered thus far. Well beyond an interesting anecdote about the pre-Islamic Bedouin tribes, that Tony couldn’t quite parse as fact, fiction or myth. Though Tony recalled that Ben had given him a more serious than usual look down the length of his long nose.

Tony had to admit that he was unsurprised, but also depressed by the fact that his only regular companionship were once again, a security guard, and an individual paid to mind him. Still matters should improve soon, Ms Ramesh had confirmed that the replacement drum was due to arrive in January, so Tony should finally be able to catch a break from the fruitless busywork that was taking up so much of his time. Or at least that’s what he told himself whilst staring blankly over the frosted school grounds, Tony was trying to take this situation a day at a time. But… Time, time was stretching out before him like an endless desert.

Wasn’t this the dream? If only I knew then what I know now? Only that wasn’t the trick, was it. The key to happiness was; if only I didn’t know now, what I didn’t know then. Not this, this living hell of reliving past mistakes and interacting with ghosts day in day out all the while wondering why the hell he’d been the one to be given this opportunity… or curse.

Tony huffed out another visible breath and gave up the meditation session as a bad job poorly done. He clambered to his feet on the frost-slick ground and trudged over to return the mug to Mr Reid.

Perhaps he could find something useful in the library, thus far he’d learnt an awful lot about folklore the world over though nothing that had proved usable. Tony now needed to find primers on the myths of the shining ones, the sidhe and unsaelie, cold iron (what exactly was cold iron as opposed to just iron?), The Furies, coyote, anansi, djinn, Wisahkeha, Old Man Coyote, the shinigami, the tanuki (Tony had boggled at what they supposedly did with their testicles) and innumerable other mystical world theories. Tony had a sinking feeling that all of these myths were true, and none of them were. Given how both Loki’s and Strange’s seemingly inimical brands of magic had both worked, Tony was beginning to wonder if perhaps it was all true to everyone who was a practitioner.

That is to say, maybe… Maybe magic operated on belief, behaving exactly as the wielder believed it would. He snorted to himself; in that case maybe he should just pick up a stick and wave it around spouting dog-latin. Nodding at Mr Reid companionably Tony started making his way over to the library, somehow he doubted it, it couldn’t possibly be that easy. Could it?

~~~~~~~

The Christmas Holidays were a painful reminder that even with his closer relationship with the Jarvises all was not well at home. December came and went with no acknowledgement from his family, either by blood, or by choice. Truthfully Tony hadn’t expected any different, but he’d hoped, and it hurt.

He’d spent much of the first half of the holidays avoiding the small handful of other children left at the school, mostly surly teenagers from the upper years. However Hammer was one of the very few kids from the lower years in the same situation.

School rules, or rather Leekie had stipulated that the younger students at least, weren’t to be left entirely to themselves. There weren’t enough staff members left at the school to constantly supervise the small sad group of thirty or so kids of all ages and abilities – Tony suspected that only the truly lonely members of staff volunteered to stay behind for the full length of the Christmas break. Somehow Tony wasn’t at all surprised when he found out that D’Eath, Leekie and Smythe were the three members of the teaching staff that chose to remain for the duration of the holidays.

As such whilst the teens were more or less free to do as they pleased the younger students, Tony included, were trapped in a “buddy” system. And, as Tony’s luck was utterly unwavering in this respect, Tony’s assigned buddy was Hammer.

The three weeks spent in forced close proximity opened Tony’s adult-eyes to just how damaged Hamm-Justin truly was. Even at this age. Whilst he’d done his very best not to notice during term time, it was painfully obvious with this near-constant contact that Hamm- Justin was a sensitive child, who probably cried to himself in hidden corners. With the enforced close contact Tony couldn’t deny it any longer - the other boy’s eyes were puffy suspiciously often.

Tony resolved to make more of an effort with his roomie, Tony’s feelings towards him truly weren’t the boy’s fault, not yet anyway. He spent the entirety of the holiday making a concerted effort not to snap at the other child.

Ham- Justin’s response truly shamed him; the boy had a sunny personality underneath all of that social awkwardness. Just a little kindness had the other boy showing Tony all of his secret haunts around the school grounds, including several secluded spots around the perimeter that Tony doubted he’d have ever have bothered discovered for himself.

Tony found himself guiltily putting up with Ham-Justin’s near-constant chatter with far more grace than he’d have ever given himself credit for. The other boy was giving him a veritable goldmine of information about the school in return, and whilst he didn’t want to admit it, something about the boy’s behaviour reminded him of the most awkward of his children. There was something of Dum-E in Ha-Justin’s inept but endearing attempts to be helpful and kind.

The pair spent their days exploring the icy school grounds, avoiding the older children where possible and teaming up for the inevitable snowball fights when it wasn’t. Although Tony had to spend an unfortunate amount of time persuading Hamme- Justin that going out on the now-frozen lake was an incredibly bad idea, overall he had a horrible feeling that he was warming to the younger boy.

When Christmas Day came Tony was utterly unsurprised that he didn’t receive any presents, or even a card. Sadly he wasn’t the only child not to do so, but he was by far the youngest.

Christmas lunch was an obligatory chore that all of the students who were trapped at the school were forced to endure. The meal was awkward and hesitant, full of lengthy periods of silence interspersed with moments of forced cheer as the few members of staff who’d remained to look after the borders attempted to alleviate the glum atmosphere that had settled over the children like a cloak in the past couple of days.

Justin surprised and shamed him with his awkward and hesitant attempts at kindness, he insisted that they share his gifts. The other boy was forever making such an effort with him that Tony couldn’t find it in him to refuse. The pair of them spent Christmas afternoon gorging on a tin of Belgian chocolates together in their shared room.

Justin smiled stickily at him through a mouthful of chocolate, unsurprisingly the other boy actually liked the nougat ones, which was just fine with Tony and his secret appreciation for chocolate-coated “Turkish Delight” ironically made from pork gelatine, sickly with pink dye, and rose flavouring.

It was a moment of sticky revelation; Tony had been having a lot of those lately. Tony felt utterly utterly ashamed of the way he’d been treating Justin these past few weeks, he knew he wouldn’t be able to solve his issues with the other overnight, but he resolved that he’d make the effort. After all, the other boy had constantly been giving him, second, third, fourth and even twenty-fifth chances all this time, and Tony hadn’t even noticed.

~~~~~~~

Ben declaring that he had a present for him during their next session surprised Tony. Given his snorting dismissal of the concept of Christmas as a worthwhile reason to celebrate Tony had assumed that Ben was part of the group that somewhat understandably ignored the holiday in it’s entirety, especially given his insistence that they keep up their lessons during the festive period. The older man smugly passed over a large parcel wrapped in brown paper, Tony genuinely didn’t know what to say or think about that.

Well, he didn’t until he opened it,

“You shouldn’t have.”

A gleaming example of the blacksmith’s art lay there in the velvet-lined wooden case, the deadly looking length of steel glinting up at Tony with malice aforethought.

“It’s no trouble. Well, actually it was a lot of trouble finding a bastard – well you modern idiots with your modern terms call them hand and a half swords now, but well I think it will suit your style.”

“No. Really, you shouldn’t have. It’s taller than I am.”

“You’ll grow into it.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you.”

Despite his sniping Tony tentatively reached down to caress the wrapping on the handle, he’d thought that it was leather at first, but it turned out to be twisted metal cord, wound tightly around the hilt. The cross guards were simple, yet Tony already recognised that the slight tilt to the shape could be used to catch an opponent’s sword if the wielder was skilled enough.

He’d never really thought much about knives and other edged weapons beyond sending SI the specs for lighter, stronger more durable metallurgical combinations, well, until he’d become an Avenger. When he’d started to personally design the daggers and combat knives that the superspy duo relied so heavily upon.

Tony recognised that the gleaming length of death that lay before him was a work of art. He gathered up the courage and gingerly hefted the thing out of the box. His six-year-old frame could barely manage the weight sadly and he almost overbalanced completely, but he could tell that it was excellently balanced with a fine edge. This wasn’t the kind of sword that relied on sheer weight to plough its way through armour despite being as sharp as a blunt butter knife, no this sword was for slicing.

Examining the edge he noticed a subtle curve to the blade that had looked straight at a first glance, it wasn’t obvious but the blade had a gentler version of the curve that the short-swords Ben had been using to teach him possessed.

He looked up at Ben through his lashes, the other man merely looked incredibly smug, his sphinx-like grin betraying little but satisfaction at a job well done.

“Good. I’m glad you like it.” A pause, and then the penny dropped, “We’ll begin training with it tonight.”

Tony gawped at him, Ben was insane!

~~~~~~~

Tony had crashed onto his lumpy mattress burying his face in his somewhat flat pillow, uncaring that he was still in his sweaty workout clothes. Everything ached, he was exhausted. Somehow, and against all common sense, even his hair ached. He’d been on the verge of passing into a dreamless (if somewhat smelly) sleep when a shy cough disturbed him,

“What?”

He asked grumpily, tone just shy of completely dismissive.

“Um, here it’s for you.”

Tony grudgingly rolled onto his back and peered up at Hammer peevishly.

Justin shyly passed Tony a familiar square shape, wrapped in garish orange and green paper. Tony gaped embarrassed; he hadn’t thought to get anything for the other boy.

Justin seemed to feel the need to explain again,

“It’s for you.”

Tony managed to push a quiet “thank you” out past lips and a tongue that had suddenly turned to rubber. He didn’t know what to say to this not really. Rhodey had always been so good at steamrolling right over any embarrassment Tony might have had at being the son of a multimillionaire, yet being unable to reciprocate with presents. And later, well he hadn’t really had any friends to give presents to. Pepper, for all that they’d grown to love each other, not in love, he’d later realised but love, somehow didn’t count, not when she’d literally seen him at his lowest and still hadn’t left.

Doing his best not to tear the paper, everything about the flat parcel precious Tony carefully revealed the record waiting underneath the garish gift-wrap.

He almost burst into shocked laughter, but held himself back just in time. If Hamm-Justin was anything like Tony, and Tony knew in his heart of hearts that he really really was, then the other boy would be upset if he thought that he was laughing at him. And nothing could be further from the truth.

The revealed record was Young Americans, by David Bowie.

It seemed that Justin had definitely noticed that Mr Bowie made up the majority of Tony’s small but precious collection of vinyl. The nasty little voice that followed him around constantly whenever Justin was in the vicinity wondered just when the little sneak had looked inside his trunk. Tony swallowed down his immediate suspicious reaction when he saw the trembling lips and suspiciously bright eyes of the other boy,

“Don’t? Don’t you like it?”

Tony looked up surprised,

“No Justin”, the other boy’s face fell, “I love it.”

~~~~~~~

Edwin peered worriedly down at the pale form of his sleeping wife. She’d been unwell so often lately. But he’d been terrified when she’d simply been so fatigued in the lead up to Christmas that she’d barely been able to get out of bed in the mornings.

It had come to a head the day before Christmas Eve when she’d literally been unable to make herself get up, and ever since Edwin had rushed to be back by her bedside at every possible moment.

Ana looked thin, stretched and worn out. Edwin had put it down to overwork – the SSR, sorry, SHIELD had been busy lately. Resources stretched over too many conflicts, each one with it’s own distinct threat to America and the greater world.

Edwin wished that he hadn’t been so blind. There was clearly something very wrong.

He was determined that Ana would go to the doctor as soon as the appointment could be made. He’d nearly lost her once, he wasn’t going to let something as mundane as an illness take her from him, not after everything they’d been through together.

Of course Edwin had made everything worse by snapping at Howard earlier that day, but his old employer hadn’t responded how Edwin feared he would. Instead of the violent anger Edwin had been expecting Howard’s expression had immediately dropped into grave concern.

“What’s wrong Jarv?”

“I’m so sorry Mr Stark, Ana is unwell I – I’ll. I’m sorry.”

Howard had taken one look at Edwin’s face, clapped a hand on his shoulder and all but shoved him out of the door.

Edwin had been surprised, and humbled by the level of concern that Howard had suddenly shown towards himself and Ana. Howard had insisted that Edwin could take as much paid-leave as he needed. Edwin honestly couldn’t remember feeling this level of fond exasperation with his employer, except possibly when the man had brought Bernard Stark into their lives. Edwin smiled ruefully, for all that he’d forgotten why, there had been a damned good reason he’d stayed in the man’s employ for all of these years.

He stroked Ana’s silvered hair, still showing it’s strawberry tones where Edwin’s had succumbed to greys years ago. She’d always seemed so strong, capable and healthy. He’d honestly thought that Ana was just overworked. Edwin bit down on the urge to apologise to his sleeping wife for the umpteenth time, he’d probably only wake her, Ana needed the recuperation time, and Edwin could do without adding to his reasons for feeling guilty.

~~~~~~~

“Ok Velma Kelly – if you say so. I’ll make sure not to stay at the Hotel Cicero any time soon.”

“You know…” Ben mused, seemingly talking to himself, “A nice young lad like you really shouldn’t be referencing a very adult musical that hasn’t had a run that he’d actually be allowed inside.”

Tony winced at the slip. He’d thought he’d been doing better at keeping his references in check.

“At least it wasn’t wrong this time?”

He asked in a hopeful voice

“No…” Ben mused playfully, “Not wrong. Just wildly inappropriate for a six year old.”

Ben sighed, before continuing,

“Well. If you don’t want to be doing the Cell Block Tango and all that Jazz I suggest you get back on with the lesson.”

Tony grinned in chagrin and got back on with the motions of the katas Ben was walking him through. Well, Ben never called them katas, nothing so pretentious as that.

This week during their hand-to-hand session they were focussing on the usefulness of elbows as weapons, they were hard, bony and relatively pointy parts of the human anatomy, useful for jamming into throats, kidneys and other squishy bits. However like all joints elbows were a risky choice of weapon, Ben was teaching him the finer points of avoiding damage whilst dealing out the maximum amount of pain.

It helped that Ben was so willing to act as a crash test dummy in these classes, Tony often wondered how the older man wasn’t a giant walking bruise with the amount of punishment he was willing to put his body through.

In their previous practice bout Tony had accidentally rammed the hilt of his brand new sword straight into Ben’s nose, instead of reacting with anger Ben had merely continued the move he’d been making, blood gushing everywhere. He’d taken Tony by surprise and landed him flat on his back, again. Maybe he should try out the turtle of fury moves that Jarvis had taught him.

Ben had then proceeded to calmly explain to him, whilst covered in gore, that stopping because he’d thought he’d hurt his opponent was the exact opposite of the point of this exercise.

Tony did think that he was making progress, at least better progress than in his epee class but he hated that everything was taking so long.

~~~~~~~

New year’s rolled around and there was still no news from the Jarvises. Tony dreaded the arrival of the letter, he was a genius afterall, and though he didn’t remember the exact dates of Ana’s illness he could more than put two and two together.

Tony’s obsession with working out whether or not he could afford to attempt to alter the timeline deliberately had taken on a new sharper edge. Whilst he’d been a child whilst all of this happened the first time around Tony still remembered precisely what the diagnosis had been, once they’d finally found one after several sets of conflicting opinions from multiple medical professionals.

Tony had to admit, even if he somehow convinced first Jarvis, and then the doctors to listen to him the diagnosis was a grim one. Even in the era he’d just arrived from ovarian cancer had been a killer. And of course Ana’s diagnosis had been delayed by all of the scarring she’d previously sustained helping his father…

Throughout the course of the holiday Tony’s resolve hardened into something resembling the steel that he’d been known for throughout his adult life. Ana, and Edwin, deserved all of the help that he could give them.

~~~~~~~

As the short holiday came to an end Tony thanked the gods he didn’t believe in that Hammer, or Hammer’s parents at least were rich. The boy had taken his newfound role as Tony’s friend extremely seriously, and as such declared that they needed to improve their shared room. The first evidence of this new situation had appeared that morning. Sitting on top of the unwrapped parcel in the centre of their shared room was an RCA cassette, a VHS tape of The Man Who Fell To Earth. Justin had gleefully asked his parents for both the film and a VCR machine, and his parents, whilst sociopathic little shits just like Tony’s own, at least liked to splash their cash about in lieu of actual parenting.

Tony peered at the cassette in poorly disguised wonder, he honestly had no idea how Justin had even heard about the thing, Tony certainly hadn’t been aware that there was a movie. Justin snatched the cassette from his unresisting hand and excitedly inserted it into the clunky loading tray of the VCR machine.

The machine in question was a glorious example of seventies analogue engineering, a massive, ridiculously oversized box, with a top loading compartment for the tape. Which looked utterly tiny when compared to the (oversized) cathode ray TV casing that Tony had brought with him.

In a show of foresight Tony had left the 70s era ports well alone, so his computer, to the casual observer at least still looked (mostly) like a standard TV-set. The nixie tubes were a source of some puzzlement, though thankfully even now months later Justin still claimed that he liked the warm orange glow they gave off at night.

Fortunately the monitor would be able to receive the signal the shiny new VCR player gave out just fine. Justin and Tony had the means to play the illicit little cassette, it was rated 18, and apparently Justin’s parents had had to import it from the UK for him. Something about the US version of the film being shorter.

Glancing sidelong at Hamm-Justin Tony pressed play the satisfyingly clunky play button on the machine, it was probably rated as highly as it was for a reason, for all that films tended to decrease in rating as they aged and social mores changed Tony remembered (or rather had been aware of in this time) Bowie’s reputation for pushing boundaries.

The boys settled in to watch the flickering images in their shared dormroom, sat side by side on the marginally less lumpen of the two mattresses. The somewhat clichéd choice of opening music (Holst’s Mars) almost had Tony snorting derisively but he stopped himself just in time. Ha-Justin would almost certainly be upset by that, the other boy was very sensitive to people disliking either him, or his belongings. It was something Tony was only just beginning to grasp the full extent of, and he had a nasty feeling that the personality trait had lasted well into the other’s adulthood – which would explain an awful lot about their interactions. Tony settled down to watch the film, mindful of Justin the whole time.

The themes of utter isolation practically leapt out of the screen from the very first shot of Bowie, somehow utterly adrift in the familiar, yet somehow utterly alien environment of America. Bowie made the most human alien. It hit horribly close to home. Like Tony Bowie’s character, Mr Newton was stuck in a world that he didn’t know or recognise, finding precious, commodities that everyone else took for granted, and unable to understand why everyone else thought he was the odd one.

The talk of Mr Newton having nine Basic Patents, and the amount that that level of advanced technology would be worth got Tony onto seriously scheming for the future. He didn’t have any cash right now to pay for a trustworthy lawyer of his own, but he needed to think about this, if things continued according to plan he wouldn’t be able to rely on the school attorneys for very long.

He might be able to build a whole new tech firm entirely independently from SI. He could push the tech industry forward by about 40 years easily, but did he have the right? Tony wasn’t just thinking of the technology that he himself had pioneered. The apparently wondrous instant film, and the strange metal golf balls that this movie used to replace LPs, had Tony wondering about CDs, MP3 files, solid state drives, digital cameras, mobile phones and tablet devices.

Tony snorted at the character of the lecherous old Professor who was somehow having sex with multiple voluptuous young students, but the metallurgist was an important character with an important point to make. If Tony pursued his ideas too quickly, people like him would become suspicious. And if dubiously academic academics with no real motive could help to upturn a multinational corporation, and it had actually happened outside of fiction, Tony dreaded to think what an organisation like SHIELD could do with the proper motivation.

The films themes of economic instability caused by that level of technological advancement, that quickly… Well Tony was aware that it was all too possible. Even at his own natural rate of inventing, there’d been tech that he’d felt the need to keep back. Even with the enmity between Pepper and he, his CEO had often agreed with him.

Christ the parallels between himself and Newton were piling up horribly, the descent into alcoholism, the way Newton eschewed New York in favour of a more out of the way part of the world, even building himself a mansion within a large plot of private otherwise empty land, and moving much of his companies R&D division with him.

He was utterly taken aback when Try To Remember blasted out of the little flickering TV-set; that was his and his mom’s song. The film’s use of the song, beautiful white horse running for the sheer joy of it, a family together, colours heightened and saturated, yet fading to a melancholy empty desert, somehow matched his own melancholy and faded memories of the song.

Throughout the film he was surprised by how, it simultaneously felt ridiculously modern, and yet incredibly (hah) of the seventies. He grinned at this Newton’s ability to follow several TV-shows simultaneously, it was a talent Tony also possessed, but he didn’t like to advertise it, people already thought he was enough of a freak as it was. The scene where Newton ended up shouting at the multiple TV-feeds to “get out of my mind, leave my mind alone!” reminded Tony uncomfortably of those early months when he’d lost control of extremis. The informational overload was as close a representation of the sensation as he’d ever seen. There was a damned good reason he generally favoured loud, concentration absorbing, hard rock.

The ferrety lawyer, Farnsworth’s defenestration nearly had Tony flashing back to his own trip out of a window when Loki had abused his tower’s arc reactor, but he pushed the image down with some effort. Not in front of Hammer. Besides he shouldn’t be focussing on that, it was selfish, it wasn’t Loki’s fault, that had all been Thanos’ doing.

Tony chuckled when he recognised the hideous forest-print wallpaper in Bowie’s improbable, yet somehow terrifyingly realistic, hotel room/prison, for all that it was apparently the height of seventies chic it looked just as bad on tape as it did in the mansion.

The vivisection carried out on Newton was painfully close to the fate Tony had managed to prevent for the other Avengers when he’d worked to undermine Ross, if less obviously horrific.

By the time the film ended on a broken and disenfranchised Newton sitting drunkenly in a bar Tony had become completely unaware of his surroundings, he wasn’t entirely sure if what he’d just watched was a work of genius, an absolute masterpiece, or the worst thing he’d ever seen. On several levels the film made no sense whatsoever, but on several others Tony felt that once again the themes that Roeg and Bowie had touched upon came far too close to his own emotional state.

Tony too was a human alien, left utterly adrift in a world that wasn’t his own, amongst people that couldn’t even attempt to understand him, nor he them. Of course if he thought about it too closely, Tony was aware in a distant way, that that had nearly always been the case for him. He’d never fit. Too clever for his peers, too young for the adults, hell he’d been too clever by three quarters for the adults as well.

It really hadn’t improved when he’d reached adulthood either, he knew he didn’t know how to have a human relationship, didn’t understand the emotional back and forth’s that underpinned almost all human interaction. He honestly didn’t know why Rhodey put up with him, he’d scored his best only friend that SI-Liaison job so that he’d have a reason to stay.

Even Newton’s love life reflected his own, the one human woman that he’d managed to find a connection of any sort to, the initial confused interactions, the brief period of domestic bliss, then he first drove her to stress with his inability to communicate, and then away from him entirely. Pepper hadn’t quite pissed herself in fear of him, but the utter terror he’d read in her eyes when she’d found out that Sokovia was all his fault…

Newton’s utter inability to mould his own way of thinking to match those of the people around him, the inability to slow down, explain to people who should understand and have his back already. Yeah Tony found that he had far far too much in common with this character, especially now that he was literally a man out of time.

By the time the film rolled to an end Tony was utterly pulled into the character’s sense of utter desolation and loneliness. He was horribly aware that whilst he was utterly adrift in this world, like Mr Newton the world he’d just left had been utterly doomed, he had no home to return to.

Gradually remembering that he’d just watched an adult film full of adult themes and adult scenes with a six-year-old Tony guiltily wondered what Justin had made of the whole experience. Whilst Tony had been captivated by the sheer tragedy of the plot, and themes of isolation, greed and corporate espionage he wasn’t sure there was much there to hold an actual six-year-old’s interest, not to mention the fact that there were several graphic depictions of sex, and that full-frontal nudity shot of Bowie with an equally naked woman. He somewhat unwillingly turned his head to face Justin.

Tony could read Hammer’s face like an open book, a short one at that, that he’d memorised years ago, Justin on the other hand was a different beast entirely. The other boy was staring at him glassy eyed.

“Ham-Justin?”

Justin practically squeeed at Tony like a Japanese fan girl at a convention (and he should know, he’d met, and bedded, more than his fair-share of them, well pre-Afghanistan at least), Justin glomped Tony. Christ he’d accidentally helped invent the attack hug thirty years early. As Tony caught his breath Justin eased up, eyes shining Justin squeaked out.

“David Bowie! He’s so! He’s so!”

Tony groaned internally, he recognised a fan-crush when he saw one, he’d been on the receiving end of them often enough. The cynical jaded adult in him pointed out that Hamm-Justin possibly being gay might have caused a few issues for the boy at home; their parent’s generation really hadn’t been the most understanding about this sort of thing. And Tony had just been personally responsible for introducing the boy to one of The Gay Icons. Crap.

He turned to Justin and did the only thing he could think of,

“Do you want to listen to some of his records with me?”

The boys crept into the senior’s lounge, shared LP stack in hand. Technically Tony had every right to be there, just not at this time of night.

As well as Tony’s own small but precious collection they had a selection of albums that Hammer had been hiding somewhere in the tragedy that was his organisational system.

Tony had to admit that he was intrigued by what kind of music Ham-Justin would have liked as a child.

Tony inspected the communal LP deck with distaste, he carefully put aside the copy of Wish You Were Here someone had forgotten on the deck, slipping the delicate vinyl into the sleeve that depicted two men shaking hands, one of whom was on fire. Whilst he could probably afford them, Tony didn’t want to make himself any more enemies than were absolutely necessary this time around. He casually whipped out a miniature microscope that he’d cobbled together in the advanced labs to inspect the cartridge head. Surprisingly the needle looked nearly new.

Ah right, now he remembered; last week one of the older boys had earned himself a terms worth of detentions when he’d spilt a beer on the deck whilst a record had been on the turntable, he supposed this was either the replacement needle, or a replacement deck.

Fortunately for the boys’ attempts at secrecy Tony was no stranger to carrying out minor electrical adjustments on the fly, Tony stripped down and rewired two sets of headphones so that they were both slaved to the same audio jack from the deck.

With their combined strength the two boys pushed together two of the squishy brown armchairs that littered the room, creating a mini-nest of sorts for themselves.

Ha-Justin insisted that they should both listen to Young Americans first. Tony agreed with only mild reluctance, he was nearly as excited by the prospect of new Bowie music as the new-superfan beside him.

Fortunately the master didn’t disappoint. The first song, apparently about a young American woman’s life, though Tony could tell there was more to it, could only be described as a masterpiece. Though Tony was surprised by the fact that the man was working in yet another new musical genre, so far there’d been glam rock, rock, and eurosound and now it was soul.

The pair of boys lay side by side in the little nest they’d built for themselves, sleepily enjoying the music. The whole album was a glorious laid back sound-scape, though unfortunately it’s easy-listening qualities were proving mildly soporific to the two six year olds who were both out well past their bedtimes.

The final song was a blast of surprising noise though,

“Fame!”

Tony startled out of his mild doze at that, paying attention to the lyrics again. Christ, he’d been right, Bowie really did understand the cost of living in the public eye.

“Fame, what you get is no tomorrow.”

Tony snorted in agreement with that line, and listened enraptured to the rest of the song, he was startled by the ending – an impressive, though probably synthed, run down three octaves worth of Bowie repeating Fame until the song faded away.

Despite their earlier sleepiness, Justin insisted that they play one of his album’s next,

“Honestly Tony, you’ll love it. You’ll see – uh hear.”

Tony was thoroughly surprised by Hammer’s choice of album, he pulled out a Deep Purple record, Machine Head. It was far closer to the Hard Rock that Tony tended to favour than anything he’d have expected from the Hammer heir. The boy shyly admitted that his babysitter, a man who from his description, sounded suspiciously like Otto out of The Simpsons, had given it to him.

Tony didn’t need much persuading to put the LP on, though he did take care to make sure the volume wasn’t turned up too high, just in case the album really was that much louder than the one they’d just listened to. Whilst Deep Purple weren’t ACDC, or Black Sabbath, they were definitely up there with the greats of the genre, and loud to boot.

He smiled as the familiar tune blasted out on the headphones. Justin was bopping along to the music enthusiastically, slowly inching the chairs apart from each other in his excitement.

By unanimous vote the boys immediately turned the LP over to side two, as the unmistakable riff from Smoke on the Water thrummed out over their headsets Tony smiled up at the ceiling. He thought he could just about work out how to be, if not actual friends, friendly acquaintances, with this version of Justin Hammer after all.

~~~~~~~

The holiday concluded with Hamm Justin showing Tony his final hidden spot in the school grounds, Tony had to admit it was a hidden gem. Due to it’s past usage as a sound booth the room had it’s own private hallway and entrance, as well as a second emergency exit via a hatch in the ceiling and a pull-down stepladder.

And well, H-Justin had shown him the forgotten room above the common area that they could use as a hidey-hole if the need arose. Tony wasn’t completely oblivious, he realised how big a deal this probably was to the other boy.

Something in him shifted and felt lighter than it had in weeks. Tony found it easier to make small talk with Mr Reid, and even managed a convincing smile for Sneaky Leekie when the perpetually interfering blitherer asked how he was.

Ben noticed Tony’s mood shift during their next sparring lesson. He commented on it just as the spar was heating up, spearing Tony’s attention so completely that he managed to rapidly catch him in a headlock,

“Good. You’re less caught up in your own head.”

Tony could only tap out in response. After a long moment of discomfort Ben eased up and let him go, massaging his neck Tony glared up at Ben who merely looked down at him coolly.

“You still need to learn to ignore these distractions Tony.”

Ben’s tone was chiding, Tony felt his face reddening, he was aware that he still wasn’t much good at sparring. Ben seemed to read his mind,

“No. No – your technique is fine. But you need to learn to stop that brain of yours from becoming a liability in a fight.”

Ben poked Tony in the centre of his forehead in demonstration Tony glared up at him, rubbing at the sore spot.

“Fine. I get it.” Tony paused considering before, “Well… Maybe you could help me there.”

Tony didn’t bother to try for subtle, with Ben there was no point.

“Yes?”

“Well, I’ve got a meeting with the school’s patent lawyer coming up. And I know I need an adult chaperone for the first meeting. Um… I don’t want it to be a member of staff… And well – I’m not even sure if some of my ideas are even safe to give to the public.”

“And you want me there?”

Ben looked incredulous, and distrustful.

“Well… Yeah.” Tony saw the even more dubious look on Ben’s long face, “Alright, no not really. But you’re better than one of the teachers. And… Well… Jarvis trusts you.”

‘And I trust Jarvis’ passed between them.

Ben cast a considering eye over Tony,

“What’s in it for me, and what’s the catch?”

“Um… My undying gratitude?”

“Nice try.”

“Um… Well I’d like you to look over the designs and tell me if there’s anything you think I shouldn’t put out there.”

Ben looked deeply contemplative

“…And in turn, you actually get to look at my designs.”

Tony could almost see the automatic scoff, before Ben reined it back,

“Why on earth are you trusting me with this? You don’t know me from –_heh- Adam.”

“Like I said, Jarvis trusts you.” Tony paused for effect, “Besides, do you honestly think I’d show you anything actually worth stealing?”

This startled a laugh out of Ben,

“Fine Kid, I’ll do it. But it’ll cost you.”

“What?”

“Well… If these designs of yours are worth anything near what you seem to think they are, how’s 5percent of all profits.”

The response was automatic, Tony didn’t even have to think about it,

“Please! 0.5 percent.”

“Three.”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Deal.”

Tony and Ben shook on it.

~~~~~~~

Tony felt around inside his mouth with a probing tongue in horrified fascination. He hadn’t remembered this being so …disgusting. He had a wobbly tooth, he could feel the pulp underneath. He wasn’t actually all that squeamish; in his line of work he’d long since outgrown that tendency – both lines of work both the weapons manufacturing and the superheroing business.

…But, he’d seen that cross-section of a child’s skull at the Smithsonian. And right now, that was his skull. Somehow it was a genuinely squicky thought.

Still, from the looks of it he’d already lost a few baby teeth, so it wouldn’t be too bad, right?

Of course Hamme- Justin noticed his distraction that morning and asked him about it in that utterly guileless way of his, Tony could see why Justin had been a bit of a tag-along, there was just something pathetic about the boy - a sort of helpless hopelessness that didn’t inspire protective feelings but instead anger and the desire to break something.

To the right sort of mind Justin was a target, and Tony had to admit, after years of Ty’s grooming, that he’d possessed the right sort of mind.

Shaking himself into the present just in time to notice Ham- Justin’s face beginning to fall Tony forced himself to reply to Justin’s attempts at a friendly overture with an equal amount of childish innocence.

“I’ve got a wobbly tooth.”

“Oh coooool!”

Tony was taken aback by Justin’s reaction,

“Wha-?”

“The tooth fairy will give you a dollar when it comes out!”

“Oh.”

Tony had to admit that he was surprised that Hammer was excited by the prospect of a dollar, when his parents regularly sent him gifts worth hundreds of dollars. Still money was money he supposed. In that at least he suspected that his and Justin’s upbringings had been identical.

“Has it gone all dangly yet?”

Tony struggled not to inhale his porridge at that accidental double-entendre from the six year old, he choked down his current mouthful at turned to Justin unheeding of the grotesque sight his half-full mouth must have presented.

“What?!”

“You know – the fun bit!”

Tony tried to keep his breathing even; a six year old shouldn’t be finding this discussion so hilarious, but well…

“Ham- Justin what on earth are you talking about?”

“You know – when you can get your tongue right inside the tooth, and it’s gone all hollow, and it’s only hanging on by a teeny string?”

“Oh.”

Tony lost his appetite for his porridge at that rather graphic description. It seemed young boys universally had a fascination for all things unpleasant. Whilst Tony did have an iron stomach when it came to gore, he preferred not to add to the list of things he dreamt about unnecessarily.

“No. It’s just a bit bendy at the moment.”

“Tony? Are you ok? You’ve gone pale.”

“Yeah – yeah, I’m good, thanks Justin.”

Tony had forgotten about that particular aspect of losing a tooth – of late whenever he’d lost teeth it was because they’d been knocked out of his head rather than the long slow drawn out process that Ha-Justin was relishing so much.

The two boys spent much of the rest of the day together, Justin endeavouring to distract Tony from his tooth issue with loud music, and later attempting to further disguise the sound booth. Tony had to admit the none-to-subtle plan worked.

The final week of the Christmas holiday was spent in a whirl of sharing music, exploring previously inaccessible sections of the school together and - once Tony remembered that they actually existed – working their way steadily though a carefully rationed stash of candy, including an oversized bag full of half-melted candy corn that had been lounging at the bottom of his trunk since before Halloween.

~~~~~~~~~~

Charles Xavier frowned as he felt it again, that itch on the edge of his consciousness. He’d been feeling that strange sensation on and off for months now, and never once managed to get to Cerebro quickly enough to pinpoint it. Not for the first time he cursed the painfully bulky and awkward chair and everything that it stood for.

It… It felt horribly like Logan’s mind had that terrible, wonderful week in 1973. But it couldn’t be could it? No it wasn’t the same at all, and yet something about the mind niggled like a sore tooth, his mental tongue wanted to probe it.

Damn, he really had been thinking about this for too long; Charles knew that he wouldn’t have thought up a truly disgusting metaphor like that in a normal frame of mind.

He wheeled his chair outside as quickly as he could, scratching wryly at his hair, it was thinning rapidly despite the fact that he’d stopped using Hank’s nerve serum. Charles stared at the newly hidden entrance to Cerebro, he wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for, but he hoped that he’d know it when he saw it.

Charles knew whoever or whatever was causing that constant sense of discordant jangling was probably close by it was unlikely that the signal would be quite this irritating if they were in another county.

Then again telepathy wasn’t the most predictable of masters.

~~~~~~~

The first week of January term loomed and with it the first parcel Tony had ever received at the school. It appeared in the final weekend before lessons started, and was huge and unwieldy. It’s appearance in the canteen during the weekly post-afternoons created quite a stir amongst Tony’s the small group of students that had trickled back to the school before term started.

Tony had been utterly taken aback at its arrival. He’d never received anything before, and it was huge. It really was a sizeable box, the staff member on duty, (Sneaky Smythe of course who else?) when it appeared had had to escort it and Tony back to his room. Tony would never have been able to lift it, let alone carry it to the lower-year dorms. Inside was a selection of wrapped parcels, a letter and LP from Jarvis and Ana, with large instructions to read the letter first. The contents of the note were both explanatory and heartbreaking. Jarvis apologised for missing Christmas, explaining that Ana had been feeling poorly, from what Tony had found out years later an extreme understatement given that she’d been hospitalised for months during that first bought of weakness, but that she was slightly better now. Tony had been dreading this news ever since he’d put two and two together over the summer. This was the beginning of the mysterious illness that had claimed her when he was at MIT.

My Dearest Tony,

Apologies about the rather quick note, Ana has taken poorly and I’ve been looking after her.

I’m so sorry that you couldn’t come home for Christmas Tony, but my dear boy with things the way they are at the mansion believe me you’re better off at school with other children your own age.

I do hope this note finds you well, Ana and I both miss you, and we’re looking forward to seeing you again when the summer holidays come around.

Enclosed are the presents that I should have posted to you before Christmas, and I’m truly sorry for the delay, but you’ll be pleased to know that Ana is feeling better now.

Take care,

Edwin Jarvis

Blinking back the tears, Tony attempted to stuff the letter away; he refused to cry in front of Smythe, especially over something so apparently trivial. On the other side of Jarvis’ hasty note was a rather longer letter in Ana’s elegant script, Tony pointedly read the entire letter. Jarvis and Ana had saved up and bought him a small portable turntable with built-in speakers, and the latest David Bowie album that had only just been released. As well as the presents from the Jarvises they’d also forwarded a small gift from Aunt Peggy, and a little something from that nice agent Captain – now Commander Fury. There was even a parcel attributed to “Mom” but somehow Tony saw Ana’s hand in it.

Smythe proved surprisingly helpful, he claimed that since it was a late Christmas present there was no need to follow the usual rules about parcels (usually supposedly limited to small sweets and allowance sized gifts so that the scholarship students wouldn’t be left out, though in practice this never happened) so long as Tony obeyed the more general rules about noise and lights out then the turntable was to be allowed.

Smythe even helped Tony do the heavy lifting, Tony had glared when the man had suggested that he should do the technical aspects too, and backed off.

Tony ran his hands reverently over the parcels, apart from the turntable everything was wrapped in gaudy paper. Aunt Peggy’s military neat wrapping, Jarvis’ butlery professionalism… And surprisingly Fury’s utter inability to form a neat looking parcel. Tony was somewhat taken aback that the man had obviously cared enough to send him something.

Tony neatly peeled the tape away from the small parcel Aunt Peggy had sent over, enclosed was a wooden case and another note,

Tony,

Edwin tells me he’s teaching you martial arts. I can’t wait to see how you take to his signature Tortoise of Fury move. I’ve sent you a little something that should help to that end.

Hope to see you soon. I’ve got plenty more spy stories to tell you my dear!

All my love,

Aunty Peggy

Tony cautiously opened the little wooden case and was surprised to see an extendable baton nestled inside right next to a chunky silver-coloured bracelet.

The baton was unexpected, it reminded Tony uncomfortably of Tasha’s signature style. Still, Aunty Peggy had sent it. Tony was determined to learn how to use it properly.

The bracelet was a bit more of a puzzle, until he realised that Aunty Peggy had probably asked Jarvis what he’d been doing lately, and Jarvis had likely told her about Tony’s black “bracelet”. Of course once Tony started examining the thing he rapidly realised that it was one of her spy gadgets, though he couldn’t quite work out what it was actually supposed to do. The thing too old fashioned for him to parse the purpose of.

Fury’s …mud (and quite possibly blood) spattered package and note contained something wholly unexpected,

Tony,

It’s not quite a robot dog but if an old soldier judged you right I think you’ll like it.

If not, tell me next time we see each other and I’ll see if I can’t get you something better.

Yours,

Nick Fury

Tony blinked nonplussed at the note. Nick seemed to genuinely care, as he’d so often claimed in their interactions. He didn’t trust him, or it.

Nestled in the centre of the small package was a cassette player, it was no Sony Walkman, the thing was far too bulky for that, and besides it would be nearly a whole decade early if it had been. Whilst it looked utterly outdated to Tony’s 21^st Century eyes it was right on the edge of modern tech in this era. Tony was touched. Fury must have somehow gotten hold of a prototype, it was just small enough that he could have conceivably clip the thing to his belt if he’d been an adult. However it still had the oh-so-essential record/copy functions that made these early “portable” players so oversized.

Tony had to admit that he was grateful for the thing – he’d be able to jury rig a vinyl to cassette recording system fairly easily.

The parcel accredited to Maria actually contained an item that she might just have sent, it was an 8-track cassette copy of the Fantasticks soundtrack complete with the song Try To Remember that the pair of them played so often together on the grand. Of course Tony had no way to actually play it, but the thought that had gone into the very nearly usable gift touched him.    

It was either poor or good timing depending upon how you looked at it, Tony had just hidden Peggy’s presents and placed the new Bowie album on the turntable with no little reverence when Hamm-Justin walked in. The other boy lit up at the sight of the turntable - before visibly checking his natural enthusiasm. Tony suppressed the urge to flinch in reaction to that body language, he cautiously nodded the boy over, and Ha-Justin bounded across to Tony’s side of the room, and the deck, face lit-up with joy at the implicit invitation.

They now shared a means to play records privately in their room together. Tony would actually be able to listen to the precious LPs that Jarvis had bought for him now.

Low matched Tony’s melancholy mood with nearly uncanny accuracy, it synced with the almost complete isolation he was feeling at the school, as well as cold desolation he was feeling at the news (Well, confirmation really) that Ana was unwell.

However the album wasn’t utterly desolate, Tony felt that there was a thread of hope… Or something like it running through the hour of sound.

Tony spent the time listening to the LP laid on his lumpy mattress staring up at the ceiling and reminiscing about good times spent with Ana, Jarvis and Aunt Peggy.

Something about the piece had even stilled the usual multiple trains of thought leaving him feeling mellow and calm, if not actually in a better mood than when he’d first plunked the disk onto the turntable.

The only schematic that continued to develop in a meaningful manner whilst listening to the album was a moot one considering that the means to produce it weren’t even a gleam in the inventors eye yet – said inventor probably being a child right now.

Tony was trying to work out if it was possible to integrate a non-newtonian liquid into a basic frame so that he could develop a lightweight alternative to the bulky, and above all heavy stab-proof and bullet-resistant jackets that police forces the world over were required to wear.

Tony had just about gotten together a viable theory about keeping the weight down when the strangely distant feeling LP cover caught his eye.

From one liquid with unusual properties and potential for military applications, as well as more socially minded ones, Tony’s thoughts meandered onto another. The orange cover of Low spun his mind onto the dull orange glow of Extremis, the almost malevolent gleam of the stuff adding an unwelcome spike of anxiety to his thoughts.

Tony wasn’t surprised when the turn of his thoughts rapidly derailed from one red-headed woman that he was on the verge of losing to another, he had to admit that any thought about Extremis still triggered a painful helpless rage despite the fact that Pepper had survived the incident.

Tony ended up mentally rewriting the coding that he’d memorised years ago so that the payload the techno-organic virus delivered had even more offensive capabilities than the insane fusion driven temperature changes of the original unstable variant that mad Killian had enjoyed playing with so much. Instead of relying on fusion to produce fire Tony had produced a variant that ran on endothermic entropy changes, absorbing ambient energy from its surroundings. Theoretically anything above absolute zero would provide enough power to keep the recipient ticking over.

Tony had to admit that his thoughts had wandered when he caught himself wondering what Maya Hansen’s childhood had been like. It was moot, there was no fucking point in trying to perfect Extremis now, Tony wasn’t exactly going to encourage her if he ever saw her again, and he certainly wasn’t going to go anywhere near Killian’s mad schemes.

Thankfully the instrumental side of the LP calmed Tony’s thought processes down significantly from the worried turmoil that had returned with vengeance after the initial ebbing away, something about the gentle soundscape was utterly soothing.

Tony’s favourite new song of the night was a wordless piece, which wasn’t to say it was instrumental. It wasn’t, Bowie sang in a strange language, formless sounds slipping fluently off his tongue. The isolation clear in every syllable, for all that there was no actual linguistic communication to speak of.

It was only after the music stopped that Tony realised he’d fallen into a deep trance at the instigation of the atonal wordless music. He hoped that H- Justin hadn’t noticed anything weird going on there. He risked a glance at Justin, the other boy was dozing quietly, eyes blankly roving the threadbare rug that ran the length of the central area of the room.

Hamm – Justin had sat quietly enough for the duration of the music, but it was obvious to Tony that the instrumental half of the album had bored the boy silly. Still he supposed he owed the boy some credit, Tony had damned near forgotten that he was there in the room with him.

~~~~~~~

Charles Xavier rubbed at his receding hairline, on the one hand less hair to comb, on the other more face to wash. Before settling back into his chair, and pulling on the cerebro headset. He’d felt something… Something strange, and nearby too.

There!

He automatically honed in on the mind shining like a beacon to his telepath’s senses, not the usual muted white glow of a norm or the blazing red of a mutant but something other. He had to know more.

Charles attempted to skim the surface thoughts of the fascinating mind that lay before him and was stymied by a wall of sheer noise. Even with the mechanical assistance that Cerebro provided, and the relatively short physical distance between himself and the other, the feedback was instantaneous and painful.

It has to be pointed out about Charles Xavier that he saw nothing wrong with his actions, that is to say, if it had been someone other than Charles Xavier carrying out these actions he would have thought that they were doing something wrong, but he saw nothing in he, Charles, carrying out the actions to cause alarm.

Usually Charles thought nothing of altering the flow of his thoughts to match those of the individual he was skimming, it was a near automatic response after all of these years and he barely thought about the slight twists, the hops and skips Charles’ mind took to sync with that of a strangers and slip past the natural mental defences that most people had erected without realising it.

Sometimes the sensation was joyous, sharing in the giddy exuberance of a six-year-old girl for instance was an innocent pleasure. Sometimes the experience left him feeling vaguely nauseous, such as that time he’d had to get into the mind of that priest in the Bronx, with the unfortunate predilection for teenaged boys. Charles pushed away the memory of that twisted mind with a grimace of distaste.

This mind however… This mind. He couldn’t keep up, what he’d initially taken for mental defences akin to the brutal coldness of Emma Frost’s particular brand of telepathy had really proven itself to be so much static. There was just so much information. Far too much to process let alone understand.

Most people thought in their native tongue, or tongues. It was usually the work of a moment to sync himself and slip inside, an uncanny “gift” with languages a pleasant side effect of his mental gift. This mind however, he caught glimpses of mathematics, unknowable symbols blinking past in no language that he’d ever encountered before, and multiple streams of pure information. So many streams of pure thought…

Charles tried once again to sync himself up with the mind, and was rewarded with a jolt of disorientation and hot pain that threatened to disconnect him from Cerebro dangerously. Charles hastily made a mental note of the mind in question, and in his case that phrase was more literal than it was for most, and reluctantly began the process of withdrawing from Cerebro.

In his haste to withdraw Charles missed the void of information that was hovering in close proximity to the fascinating puzzle in front of him. Charles hadn’t even managed to confirm whether or not this was a case like Logan’s. He wheeled himself up to the main levels of the house in resigned frustration.

It was only when Hank exclaimed in alarm at the sight of him that Charles realised that there was blood trickling from his nose and ears.

~~~~~~~

Unfortunately at the end of that surprisingly peaceful weekend, another package of a sort arrived at the school. Tiberius Stone walked into Westchester Academy for Privileged Boys on the first teaching day of Spring Term, and was an instant hit with all of the other pupils.

Mrs Kowalski had walked nervously into the canteen at breakfast on the first day of term, Tony had cynically wondered what on earth the silly woman was so excited about, when he saw him. Strolling in behind her, and already pulling knowing faces in all the right places to make the other children laugh cruelly.

Tony sank down in his seat and tried not to let the memories overwhelm him.

Tyberius Stone, all of six-years-old in real terms and already pushing a thousand years old in terms of pure malice and evil.

The change in the school was near instant after that, it was either join him or become one of his victims. Tony wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed it the first time around. How had he missed this, the psychopathic behaviour had been there, visible for all to see from day one. It wasn’t something that Tony had induced by being Tony at all.  

Despite being immediately placed into the so-called Krelboyne class with Hammer and the other unpopular dweebs Ty was an instant hit with Tony’s whole age group. If he actually gave a damn about what the little shits thought about him Tony would be jealous. As it was he was impressed, Tony had remembered that Ty could control a crowd. After all, Tony himself had learnt his lessons the hard way there… But it was shocking to see how soon it had all started.

With his current levels of experience dealing with sociopaths and villains from all walks of life Tony could easily see underneath the mask, what he saw was terrifying. There was a coldness there, an emptiness. Oh he faked it well, even at this age, Ty had always been even better at wrapping the press around his little finger than Tony had been.

And yet, Tony could see the cracks in the mask. Whenever Ty thought that someone wasn’t looking he had this smug looking superior smile. Tony had a feeling that he knew what the problem was; Ty had always looked at things differently from everybody else. And one of the ways he viewed things differently, was that he viewed people as things.

Unfortunately Ty had seemed to take Tony’s apparent unaffectedness by his “charms” as a personal affront, a challenge. Despite the relatively few opportunities they had to interact, given their utterly separate schedules – Tony in the senior class, Ty in the Krelboynes - Ty seemed to start popping up absolutely everywhere.

Tony was just leaving Ms Ramesh’s study group session; the dip vat had been delayed yet again. They were planning an alternative source of study – Tony had half-heartedly suggested a study on the viscosity of non-newtonian fluids, mind still on the schematics for lightweight body-armour, which Ms Ramesh had jumped on with a surprising amount of enthusiasm considering how basic Tony thought the study was.

As such Tony was distracted with a whirl of science when he stepped out of the classroom he crashed straight into Ty. The larger boy grinned down at him meanly as Tony was sent sprawling to the floor by the force of the impact.

“What’s the matter you queer little faggot?”

Tony had to resist the urge to snort at that pitiful attempt to be insulting, especially given what he knew about adult Ty’s later inclinations, Ty hadn’t even managed to be threatening the larger boy’s whiny voice utterly undermining his attempts at menaces.

Tony levered himself up onto his elbows and made a point of looking comfortable where he was, it was a trick he’d learnt fighting innumerable ‘supervillains’,

“What’s the matter Caligula” Tony wasn’t able to resist a subtle jab that would have incensed his Ty, “afraid I’m going to replace Incitatus in your senate and actually do something useful, or worse do a Claudius?”

Tony shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was, when the jab clearly missed it’s target entirely and sailed straight over Ty’s head. Right, of course, he and Ty hadn’t read the Compendium of Roman History together, never would now. Damn. And it had been such a good jab.

Blinking in incomprehension Ty’s face rapidly recovered it’s belligerent cast,

“What’s the matter Tiny Tony?”

Ty’s singsong mocking voice had Tony rolling his eyes. Heaven help him, what the hell had he seen in the twit?

Levering himself up Tony made to walk away, Ty’s meaty paw clamped around his upper arm, without thinking Tony flinched violently and ended up with his back to the wall.

Ty looked satisfied by this reaction,

“Yeah, that’s right. You should be scared, pussy.”

If Tony hadn’t been struggling so hard to keep the flashbacks at bay he’d have found the crude insult hilarious if infuriating given his 21^st Century attitude to these things. As it was he was grateful when Ty finally left seemingly satisfied with his intimidation attempt, allowing Tony to get his act together and scurry off in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately for Tony Cord and Taggart had witnessed the whole thing from Ms Ramesh’s lab, the new nickname had soon spread throughout the whole damned school.

~~~~~~~~

Edwin listened with some interest to the discussion that Howard and Maria were having that evening. Despite his continued worry about Ana’s health, well, she had insisted that he still take care of the Stark’s business.

“After all”, she’d argued, “We can’t both be out of work when I’m stuck in here costing us both money.”

Edwin had had to concede the point, the bills for the hospital stay whilst the doctors tried to work out what was wrong were extortionate.

It transpired that Tony’s IQ tests had come back in, and the results were off the charts. From the way the psychiatrist that Howard had sent to the school with the tests explained it, there was below average, average, above average, smart, genius, and finally the latest category …super-genius.

Edwin had had to repress a snort at the faintly ridiculous category; Americans had such a way with naming things. Apparently the latest title was used to categorise individuals who weren’t just at the extreme end of the bell-curve, but warped the scale so much that the chart would need to become logarithmic just to fit the new data points on the same page.

Apparently Tony was in extremely select company in earning himself this new definition. According to the doctor, one such cohort lived right here in New York state, and had volunteered to mentor younger members of the small group should the need arise. The man had waived his right to anonymity, insisting that since he worked at a school anyway, a little bit of additional childcare wouldn’t make much of a difference to him.

Howard had grimaced at the name that was supplied to him however,

“Huh, seems my boy is a freak after all.”

Edwin wondered bemusedly what it was about the name Charles Xavier that had changed Howard’s demeanour from the unfamiliar one of a proud parent to his more usual angered disappointment. However he was heartened by the proud glow that suffused Maria’s features, Howard certainly hadn’t been making their lives any easier these past few months and Maria could certainly do with something to cheer her up.

~~~~~~~

Leekie dragged Tony away from the first weekly-unsupervised session of free study time with his own age group of the new term. Since it was letter writing day he was stuck here with H - Justin rather than at the supervised free sessions that he participated in with the college prep group. Tony had to admit that he was still grateful for the small kindness that Leekie had obviously been involved in though that feeling of goodwill was fading rapidly given the latest addition to their year.

Tony had spent the brief ten minutes that he’d been stuck in the session watching Ty’s interactions with the other kids in their year group in horrified fascination.

The cherubic blonde had quite a crowd of admirers gathered around his table, forced laughter echoing around the hall as Ty’s gaggle of cronies hung onto every word that he said.

It hadn’t escaped him that Ham– Justin was watching Ty’s interactions with their year-mates enviously, Tony honestly couldn’t see what Justin was so jealous of – Ty had them ensnared with fear, not respect or friendship.

Tony hadn’t resisted the urge to sneer in open contempt at Ty and his gaggle of hangers on when the crowd had all glanced over in their direction. Beside him he’d felt Ha – Justin shrink into himself, Tony had nudged him gently and offered a tentative grin,

“Hey, Justin.”

“Huh?”

“Thanks for the advice on the tooth.” Tony grinned widely, exaggeratedly enough that Justin could see the gap where the loose tooth had been, and by happy coincidence Ty could see Tony’s lack of reaction to whatever he was trying to do.

Tony could almost feel the hairs on the back of his neck singeing, Justin gave him a watery grin, all too aware of the malicious group at the other end of the hall.

Unfortunately for Tony’s peace of mind Leekie had chosen that moment to waltz into the hall and collect him, Tony only hoped that Smythe’s iron rod of classroom discipline extended to his frequent check-ins on his class.

As Leekie guided him to his office Tony couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt about leaving Justin alone like that. If he’d known that he was going to be called away he wouldn’t have riled Ty up so much. Tony hoped that Justin would be ok.

When Leekie led Tony to the office Tony had to admit that he confused about what was going on.

“Now, Tony. I’m sure you’re curious about why I’ve asked you to come here.”

“Well, “

“Your session with the school patent lawyer is today.”

The penny dropped. Tony had forgotten all about it, despite making that deal with Ben, and the sheer length of time the pair of them had spent arguing over the designs. Tony had to admit he’d been worried that Leekie was going to try to give him another pep talk, he’d been dreading it caught up imagining what on earth Weepy Leekie had gotten himself worked up about this time.

Tony’s relief was short-lived, whilst attorney client confidentiality was one thing, the school required chaperones for the students’ first meetings with the lawyers. Looking around Tony was glad to see that the office in question was plain and small. Good. That would make things easier.

Wrapping his mask of petulant six-year-old tightly around himself Tony said,

“I want Ben.”

“I’m sorry what?”

Leekie looked taken aback by Tony’s sudden temper.

“I. Want. Ben.”

“Tony, Tony. Surely you can see that I’d be better able to see that your interests are adhered to?”

“I want Ben. He’s under my employ. You aren’t.”

Leekie looked almost upset by that, but Tony wasn’t about to let this mild twinge of guilt stop him. Jarvis trusted Ben with Tony’s life. Therefore Tony trusted Ben. At least, Tony trusted Ben to sit in on this first crucial meeting far more than a screw like Creepy Leekie. Ben and Tony had even signed a contract; Ben had raised an utterly unsurprised eyebrow at Tony’s ability to draw one up on the fly. Besides Tony trusted Ben to put an edged blade to his throat, he could count the number of people he trusted that much on one hand and still have fingers left over. Tony knew that Ben was the better choice.

Leekie sighed heavily and cleaned his glasses,

“Very well. You’re very lucky Tony, I know he is on school grounds today.”

Tony rolled his eyes obnoxiously, he’d made his own luck; Tony had pre-arranged this with Ben weeks ago. He’d just forgotten that today was, well today, given that Ty was around the place.

Leekie left to fetch Ben. Tony purposefully maintained the veneer of precocious six year old that had taken so long to cultivate. He had to balance this carefully, until he had access to the kind of funds needed to start hiring his own trusted people.

Well, he had to keep up the child-genius façade.

Tony and Ben had carefully gone through the designs that he’d thought might be OK to release to the public a few years early. There had been one memorable idea that Ben had vetoed altogether (Tony had included the working file for how to produce Brown Noise in a fit of pique. As the son of a weapon’s developer he’d come up with weapon designs from a young age the first time around, so why not a childishly effective weapon this time? But Ben had cited something about three monks on a boat and clammed up.)

Tony had otherwise been careful to tread the fine line between keeping the designs relatively harmless, whilst displaying enough inventive genius to hook the lawyers. For the time being he wished to be seen as the golden goose. Tony was going to have to milk that role for all that it was worth.

As such the slim file of designs that had accumulated in the lockbox of … well patent-lawyer bait, was a carefully erratic collection of ideas, the exact kind of thing that an idiot savant child would come up with:

• The entirely novel coffee filtration system that he’d developed when he realised he had a flair for this sort of thing – and an accompanying doodle of a Starkbucks coffee shop, with his beard in place of the more usual mermaid logo. Tony had thought that this one was cheeky, but it had made Ben snort with laughter, and the design was entirely harmless so he’d left it in there.
• A set of chemical formulae for more reliable hi-resolution quick developing film, an old design that he’d fiddled with in the 90s when he’d gotten fed up of his polaroids fading after a couple of years. Of course the stuff had become defunct with the rise of digital photography, however for the time being the chemicals were harmless, and should net him a tidy sum.
• A low energy water collection/filtration system that should enable communities in arid regions to be able to gather hydration from more than just potentially contaminated groundwater… The exact kind of thing a naïve child would come up with after being assigned that world sociology assignment last month for instance.
• The logical conclusion to his non-newtonian fluid ideas were appended, Tony only hoped that the equipment that came out of this would help protect people the world over.
• A full schematic outline for a handheld gaming device, which coincidentally contained several basic patents for a flexible polymer semi-conductor screen, stable solid state memory, and… A far greener, and less likely to spontaneously combust variety of high-energy density battery that made lithium ions look like button cells.
• A much much more efficient design of jet engine, complete with a set of “theoretical” musings about how to produce a superalloy that would increase the operating temperature, and therefore the fuel efficiency.
• Another schematic for a handheld telecoms device, with an attached schematic for a handheld portable music device.

And finally…

• Tiny misaligned motors for purposefully producing vibrations… And an accompanying sketch of the devices installed in gaming devices, and to provide tactile feedback in remote control unit. In a discreet corner, in a seemingly different hand, was a final sketch of its potential filthy uses.

Tony eyed the lawyer suspiciously, whilst the designs were carefully harmless he didn’t want to lose them and have to start on this little project from scratch. It had taken him a while, a long while of carefully not writing things down, before he’d been able to come up with that short list of designs that matched his stringent criteria. The designs had to be 1) harmless, 2) entirely his own, and 3) not too far ahead of current tech.  

Though of course that first confiscated coffee machine design had triggered this whole slightly mad scheme, Tony remembered that he’d managed to patent a few idea of his own once he’d gotten to the relative freedom of university. However that was still months, if not years off and Tony needed to start building a nest egg now.

Included in the pile of papers was the draft contract that he and Ben had drawn up together, with plenty of space for amendments and lawyery annotations.

The lawyer had been eyeing Tony whilst Tony had been eyeing him, Tony knew that the school employed the firm Landman and Zach to watch out for their student’s interests. Although the firm wouldn’t have been his first choice, Tony liked their reputation for putting their client’s interests first, even when it put them in a relatively awkward position. Of course he’d have to drop them for a more transparent firm in the future, but for now they would suit his purposes nicely.

Tony found the fact that he couldn’t push his designs out there incredibly frustrating, but for now he had to be content with drip-feeding ideas to the world. Whilst it wasn’t quite on a par with his green energy project that he’d had going back home, Tony thought that the jumps towards providing clean water for the world laid out in that little dossier would be a step in the right direction.

The lawyer grinned the grin of someone who was about to become very very rich, and knew it,

“Well Mr Stark, what would the terms of a potential contract with Landman and Zach be?”

Tony grinned his best shark’s grin back, the school had chosen well. The lawyer wasn’t putting on false airs or talking down to him, merely treating him like another client.

“It’s Tony please. Let’s get down to business.”

~~~~~~~

By the end of the day Tony was very nervous about Justin’s welfare, Tony hurried out of D’Eath’s English Literature lesson on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the original Old-English with as much haste as he could muster. Tony hadn’t seen him since he’d been dragged off to that lawyer meeting. It was a relief when he spotted the other boy in the canteen apparently none the worse for wear.

Tony nervously dropped his tray of mystery slop claiming to be bigoli in salsa next to Justin and cautiously took a bite. His taste buds were assaulted by salty fishy… crunchiness. Pasta wasn’t supposed to be crunchy. Was it? Even by his low standards this was borderline inedible, having delayed long enough he got on with the inevitable,

“Hey –H- Justin.”

“Hi Tony.”

H-Justin’s voice was timorous, somehow smaller than usual. The boy offered Tony a watery smile,

“What was the Krelboyne class like?”

“_Awful.”

Tony grimaced before cautiously giving H-Justin an awkward pat on the shoulder, he’d never been any good at this sort of thing.

“Wha- What happened?”

“Tiberius Stone.”

The name was spat out with all of the hatred a six-year-old could muster,

“What did he do?”

Gods, Tony wished he wasn’t so bad at this shit.

“He was better than me.”

“Wha-?”

“He was better than me.”

Tony gave Justin an utterly blank look; he wasn’t entirely sure what H-Justin was trying to get at. Justin huffed at him, before seeming to understand that Tony genuinely didn’t get it, somehow that made it all come spilling out of the other boy in a long stream of words,

“I, I was trying so hard to be clever enough. I wanted to be good enough, so I could join the smart class like you. I, I, I mean I know I’m not clever. Or smart. Or f-funny. But you’re so nice about it. I thought if I could only be at the top of the Krelboyne class then maybe I’d be good enough.”

Tony was aghast,

“Justin – you are smart. That’s why you’re in the Krelboyne class. And that’s not why I’m friends with you anyway.”

Tony stumbled over the word friend, but he didn’t think Hammer noticed, “You’re… You’re the nice one. Not me. I’m not nice. You’ve been so…”

Tony struggled to find a word that a six year old would understand, he wasn’t entirely sure he managed it either, “patient.” Tony muttered out a bitter sentence, “More patient than I deserve.”

Justin sniffled seemingly mollified by Tony’s inept declaration, and wiped furiously at his eyes, trying to avoid looking at one particular corner of the large room.

Tony glanced over in the direction Hammer was avoiding, Ty was there surrounded by his rapidly acquired gang of followers and hangers-on. They were alternating between putting their heads together whispering and peering over in Tony and Justin’s direction maliciously.

Tony felt a cold icy fury overtake him,

“There was more wasn’t there.”

“Stone smashed my diorama for the science fair.”

“Oh.”

Tony hadn’t even been aware that there was a diorama, much less a science fair for the younger kids. He side-eyed Justin guiltily,

“Just…”

“He smashed my volcano diorama! I hate him. He’s a bully. And Mr Smythe didn’t do anything!”

In lieu of finding anything appropriate to say Tony settled for squeezing Justin’s upper arm, and refocused on eating his extremely crunchy pasta. Tony was determined not to give Ty the satisfaction of a reaction but he knew that Justin had been targeted because of him.

~~~~~~~~~

Despite all of the distractions that came with the start of the new term, not least of which was the unexpected and unwelcome early appearance from a certain Tiberius Stone, Tony spent much of the first half of January agonising over whether to try and point the doctors in the right direction with regards to Ana’s illness.

On the one hand Tony wasn’t sure that anyone would even listen to him, let alone act on his suggestions. But on the other it would be the height of selfishness to sit back and do nothing… Wouldn’t it? Or would the selfish thing be to attempt to change history? After all the history books were – would be – full of Tony Stark’s mistakes whilst he tried to make the world a better place.

Eventually it was Hammer of all people who convinced Tony to finally sit down and rattle off the note to the Jarvises suggesting that they check up on Ana’s ovarian health.

Justin, the irritatingly observant little shit that he was had noticed, and worried, over Tony’s even more obvious than usual insomnia.

Eventually with his persistent nagging gentle encouragement Tony worked up the courage to send off the letter that he’d been drafting and redrafting every letter day since he’d put two and two together about the date.

He only hoped that it made a difference. Tony really hated being six and powerless again, though even he had to admit the cute factor did up his ability to manipulate considerably.

~~~~~~~

After the absolute disaster of the classes before Christmas, and Ben’s less than sympathetic reaction to Tony’s misfortune, Tony looked forward to the latest of the weekly option-sport classes with dread.

Despite the level of training he’d received over the years from multiple instructors and Ben’s excellent tutelage in… well whatever the sword fighting disciplines he was teaching Tony were called, Tony was barely able to keep up with the lessons taught in the class.

Between the constant aforethought he had to put in not to accidentally fall back on Ben’s teachings, the constant need not to reveal his actual level of knowledge in martial arts, and the downright bloody stupid rules in this sport… Well.

To make matters worse Ben was of the opinion that Tony had chosen the easy option on that front, the rules for epee were apparently much, much more fluid than the other two fencing disciplines that the school offered. And from the arch look Ben had given him when the topic came up, Ben had clearly believed that Tony knew this when he’d chosen the sport rather than the more mundane reality that Tony had panicked and purposefully picked the option that sounded halfway useful.

Tony was painfully aware that he wouldn’t be finding this whole situation so upsetting, if it weren’t for Jarvis’ lack of response. In one of his many many letters Tony had asked Jarvis to help teach him fencing; he’d even gone so far as to admit that he was struggling. Something that should have had the man worried for him. And yet – apart from the worrying news about Ana’s health, silence. Tony had vague memories of Ana and Jarvis sparring together with long thin swords that with an adult’s hindsight had probably been epees.

He admitted to himself that he was being unreasonably selfish, Tony knew why Jarvis hadn’t replied to any of his letters. The note confirmed it. And the extravagant Christmas gift more than showed that the Jarvises cared. And yet… Tony resented the lack of a response.

Tony reluctantly filed into the class that had rapidly become his least liked, even taking into account the awful utter boredom that was the weekly general science class with D’Eath and the relatively mixed selection of talent the college prep group.

He struggled into the stale smelling padding and plastic protective armour, grimacing in distaste at the smell of rotting rubber and stale sweat. Tony looked up just in time to spot Ty grinning evilly over at him. Shit. What the fuck did he want?

Tony had done his absolute best to fly under Ty’s radar this time around, and yet somehow he’d still caught the asshole’s attention. Tony didn’t know how he’d done it he could only hope that the interest was a passing one.

Due to the added nerves about just what Ty had in store for him that day Tony did even more poorly in the lesson than he usually did. Even La Guerta’s usually amiable response to the students’ slow progress was overtaken with frustration,

“Come on Tony make an effort – what’s with you today? You’re normally much more focused than this.”

Tony bit down on his automatic sarcastic retort and instead nodded at the man in chastened acknowledgment. The tall ginger man gave Tony a serious look before moving on to showing one of the other children how to do a certain slashing move correctly so that it didn’t go anywhere near the face-guard.

Despite himself Tony kept stumbling over his own feet, and of course true to form Ty was quick to spot Tony’s clumsiness and latch on like a dog with a bone,

“Oh look, Tiny Tony’s such a klutz.”

The childish taunting brought Tony to his senses Ty wasn’t a threat. Not like this. Not yet.

He’d just about managed to focus fully on the lesson when Ty purposefully made his way over from his spot and started up again,

“Go on then – show me what you’ve got Stark.”

Tony glanced briefly his way and then got back on with practicing the move. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

“Oh well done, the little baby got it. Tiny Tony did it everyone!”

Tony resisted the urge to roll his eyes, for decades he went by the moniker the Merchant of Death. He hadn’t liked it, but it was what it was. Playground insults were… well, insulting.

“Boys stop it, I’ve had just about enough of you two today.”

Tony pointedly didn’t say, ‘but I didn’t do anything!’ but it was a close-run thing.

“I want you all to get into pairs.”

Of course Tony being who he was ended up being one of the stragglers with no willing partner. La Guerta started moving around the group pairing up the remaining kids at random.

“Standard bout form. Everyone gather round, gather round. I want you all to only use the moves I’ve been teaching you in these classes. That means no ‘improvisation’ Jenkins.”

His worry came to a head when just as Murphy’s Law predicted; Mr La Guerta paired Tony with Ty. The other boy grinned maliciously at him, clearly at home with the sword in a way that the other students simply weren’t. Tony pushed down the fear, the other boy was a child for god’s sake! He’d faced down supervillains and a multitude of aliens intent on the enslavement of, or failing that the outright destruction of the planet earth. Six year old Ty Stone wasn’t a threat.

Tony fidgeted nervously as he watched the current pair face-off against each other. The bouts were his most hated part of these lessons, fighting with an audience, trying desperately not to show his other skillset, and trying desperately not to shame himself. It was a difficult set of conflicting outcomes he had to manage here. Tony rarely felt as if he’d made a good account of himself, and Mr La Guerta’s too sympathetic smiles often had him grinding his teeth irrationally. Tony wasn’t bad at sparring dammit!

Fortunately for Tony’s sanity he and Ty weren’t made to wait for long, they were the third pair to fight in front of the others.

The pair of boys bowed at each other and began their match, Ty immediately started taunting Tony – in that particular whiny tone unique to children everywhere,

Tony made the salute by rote, noting that Ty’s form there at least was desultory.

“En garde!”

Tony fumbled with the heavy mesh mask before pulling it on over his head and tightening the straps. Tony had to admit all of the safety gear was some of his least-favoured aspects of this sport, he and Ben had made a point of carrying out their sparring in street clothes and be damned with the resultant bruises.

“I see you aren’t wearing your precious watch Anthony.”

Tony resisted the urge to roll his eyes, childish as the attempt was he needed to pay attention to what his feet were doing. He cast around desperately; typically La Guerta was on the other side of the damned room dealing with something in the crowd of murmuring boys.

Tony assumed the starting stance when he spotted La Guerta making his way back to the mat,

“Pret?”

Tony assumed the starting position; he noticed that Ty fell into place far more fluidly than he did. Typical.

“Allez!”

Ty feinted left, Tony saw the move for what it was, but Ty’s advanced level of sneakiness alarmed him. Had the other boy always been like this?

Tony had been seeing the evidence piling up, but still, it was difficult to believe the evidence of his own eyes… Not when it meant that H- Justin had been right about their relationship all along, and that… It had always been rotten. Tony swallowed, he owed Hammer an apology, not Justin, Hammer, Vanko’s stooge …And continuing in the vein of being totally honest with himself, Tony’s onetime best friend.

Tony gulped and refocused on the match, just in time to block a vicious swipe from Ty’s sword. He blinked, Tony was sure that move wasn’t legal. Was it? He couldn’t be sure. Tony cursed himself for his inattention.

Ty’s cherubic face was smiling wickedly.

“What’s wrong twerp – does Tiny Tony want a letter from mummy? Wha wha wha – no one ever writes to Tony. Poor baby.”

Tony blinked. More surprised than annoyed. How on earth had Ty known?

The fact that Ty had barely been at the damned school for a week and already was privy to the school gossip engine was irritating. Tony was perpetually out of the loop there, having to rely on H- Justin for most of it, and Ty already knew that Tony never got any letters?

Tony really couldn’t be fucked with this situation, if he’d actually been six perhaps he would have allowed Ty’s pathetic attempts at being a wit rile him up. As it was Tony was swallowing back the urge to mock the childishness of the insults.

Ty was a child. Tony… was a child.

They were children fighting with swords. For gods sake! Not for the first time Tony wished that he’d stuck with the tennis like last time, Tony was good at tennis. _{He was better than Ty at tennis…}

Tony huffed out his frustration, if this were an actual no holds barred fight, well. Tony would probably win. Despite the fact that Ty was tall for this age, and Tony was, as ever, and oh so eloquently pointed out by his opponent, a squirt.

Ty was circling jabbing the tip of the epee in exploratory attacks, trying to find an opening. The match was rapidly devolving into pure viciousness, if it didn’t end soon Tony was worried about what he’d be forced to fall back on. Ty was by far the better fencer. But Tony knew he was the better fighter. If this were really a life or death situation he wouldn’t have hesitated to end the duel with a couple of the moves that Ben, or one of his numerous other teachers had taught him.

La Guerta was watching their match with an assessing eye, Tony knew that it wasn’t a coincidence that he’d paired them up. The ass probably thought that it was character building or some other dross.

Ty managed to score a hit with a quick jab whilst Tony was distracted, though, likely thanks to Ben’s training, Tony just managed a counterattack leaving them even.

The bout timer was running out, and the only jabs being traded were Ty’s childish attempts at riling Tony up.

In the end Tony decided to finish it, he risked a quick glance, La Guerta was watching distractedly, the rather inept duo in the near-corner of the hall were doing something they shouldn’t be. And if Tony was any judge, he’d soon be distracted by the …yep. Good.

Tony whipped out a move that was almost certainly completely illegal. He didn’t care, he needed to show Ty that he wasn’t an easy target. Needed to prove to the bully and budding psychopath that he wasn’t prey.

Turning the epee as if it were one of the curved Khopesh was difficult; the balance was completely off, but not impossible. Whipping the sword around in an elegant, and unpredictable whirling flurry Tony rested the blunted tip at Ty’s throat, before casually knocking aside his opponents attempt at a counterattack and prodding in quick succession at Ty’s sternum, stomach, groin and knee.

Tony had proven his point. He’d made 5 hits. Ty was glaring murder at him, cold blue eyes glistening with hate, even as he dropped the sword with a heavy clunk and conceded the match.

La Guerta whirled around at the sudden clapping and jeering,

“Where are the salutes boys?”

Tony hastily whipped out a salute, as Ty fumbled for his fallen epee glowering all the while.

“Well done Tony, we’ll make a fencer of you yet!”