Guilt For Dreaming

Chapter 8:

If the Homework Brings You Down Then We’ll Throw It on the Fire and Take the Car Downtown

Tony and Ben were practicing their hand to hand techniques when they had a most unwelcome interruption. Their sparring match was just warming up, Tony beginning to lean on some of the more fluid moves that T’Challa’s Dora Milaje guard had taken the time to show him at the height of the intergalactic siege Thanos had been warring against Earth - despite the fact that at the time Tony had been nowhere near flexible enough to actually carry the movements out properly it had been a way to pass the time. Tony had finally begun to feel comfortable enough in his own skin to try out a few of the moves that, theoretically at least, he knew inside-out, and back to front. The attempt had been unsuccessful, and earnt Tony an amused and none-too-quizzical eyebrow raise from Ben in the process, when a wheelchair rolled its way into what had effectively become their private salle.

The wheelchair was followed by the nervous geek who’d been giving them the over earnest spiel about a school little league for some mysterious reason that afternoon – interrupting the perfectly good session of water filter tweaking that Tony had had planned. Tony frowned in their direction, and glanced up at Ben uncertainly.

Ben’s face was open and warm, welcoming and friendly. Somehow Tony knew it was a front. Ben briefly turned his back on the pair and shot Tony a warning glance, eyes eerily cold in his seriousness. Ben threw a subtle glare at the man in the wheelchair as if the dude had just run over a puppy, and reversed back over the poor thing for good measure. Tony decided to hold-off his own judgement, however he made note of Ben’s reaction; whilst Tony was no longer willing to blindly follow anyone’s lead, not anymore. Well, he was willing to take Ben’s opinion into consideration. Besides, putting up a friendly front was always a good delaying tactic. Tony warily straightened up from the lunge he’d been in the midst of executing, eyeing up Ben as much as the newcomers who’d interrupted their private match.

The mutual moment of inspection between both parties stretched out into an uncomfortable silence before the skinny guy who’d been droning on earlier seemed to shake himself, he stepped forward and stretched out a hand,

“Hello, I’m Doctor Hank McCoy, but, uh, you already know that…”

The geek trailed off awkwardly rubbing at the back of his neck and refusing to meet Tony’s eyes. Eesh. Tony had hung out with his fair share of nerds and dweebs over the years, but this guy took the expected asocial behaviour to a whole other level.

And this man was supposed to be a teacher?

Tony side-eyed Ben hoping to catch his opinion, so happened to be looking at him at just the right moment to catch the shift.

Ben stiffened, and shot a hate filled glare in the direction of wheelchair dude. Perhaps Tony should have expected it, but he was surprised when Ben’s unimpressed drawl was present in full force, shattering the thin illusion of welcome in an instant,

“Yes, we were introduced.”

Tony side-eyed his mentor in all things sarcastic, wondering where the sudden, almost overt, hostility had come from.

“In fact, I babysat the pair of you throughout the day. Don’t tell me, you’ve forgotten me already?”

With an effort that was clearly visible to Tony’s accustomed eyes, Ben reigned himself back in. He’d been expecting the man’s usual caution, not this barely controlled need to move simmering under the skin, poorly disguised as an off-colour sense of humour.

The nerd seemed to buy the excuse hook line and sinker and as for receding hairline and flares, well, he hadn’t even noticed the slip in the first place. Tony caught the ageing hippy staring at him with an overly benevolent, ‘I’m a kindly mentor’ look on his face, Tony found himself scowling.

Tony started reigning himself in, as he remembered how childish the expression made him look nowadays, and stopped. Actually, Tony could work with that, and at least it meant that Ben’s mini-meltdown had been subtle enough not to draw attention. Surtur take him, Tony had gotten too used to his mentor’s moods. Following Ben’s lead Tony aimed for something cautiously friendly, and missed.

“What do you want?”

A moment later Tony realised just how petulant he’d sounded, and after the momentary flash of embarrassment decided that it was definitely a good thing. Ben’s hackles were still up, anything that made his normally unflappable teacher panic like this justified the reaction. Hell - Anyone who elicited this sort of reaction from one of his allies deserved caution, it was just common sense.

The skinny geek looked taken aback for a moment before, after a moment of silent communication with floral-shirted wheelchair guy, he got on with the sales pitch,

“We were informed by a mutual acquaintance of ours that you’re a very special young man Tony.”

Tony bristled, not liking where this was going in the slightest,

“And, well, Xavier’s School for The Gifted specialises in providing a safe environment where talented individuals like yourself are given the chance to thrive.”

Tony had to admit that, despite all evidence to the contrary, this Hank had balls. The skinny nerd was soldiering on despite the obvious hostility from his audience, though perhaps it helped that he was currently all of 3 and a half feet tall.

“We would like to extend an invitation for you to attend our school during the summer holidays.”

Tony blinked. That… That really hadn’t been what he was expecting given Ben’s obvious caution. Trying not to look too obvious about it he glanced up at the other man questioningly, every line in Ben’s stance screamed unease and mistrust, at least if you knew him well. His open-handed gestures were just a little too open, a little too friendly, and a little too welcoming.

Ben pointedly ignored him. Taking the unspoken signal as read Tony decided to try and gauge where this sudden interest had come from. He didn’t remember anything about any special school making offers for him last time.

Keeping up the petulant act, Tony asked the all too obvious question,

“Why?”

“I’m s-sorry what?”

Hank was nervously fiddling with his glasses, in a move that was painfully reminiscent of Bruce at his most careworn, Hank pulled the frames off to pinch at the bridge of his nose before seeming to remember that he was trying to negotiate. His too happy to watch companion was giving him an exasperated look, Tony almost felt sorry for the man. With his milky complexion, thin gawky frame and self-protective posture everything about the guy screamed ‘nerd!’ and even more ‘target!’ What’s worse, the man was clearly in his mid to late 30s, and he still carried around the air of pathetic helplessness, even in the face of someone as unthreatening as Tony himself was.

Filing all of that speculation away for later use Tony decided that definitely-going-baldy-bald guy was probably the reason for Ben’s harsh reaction. Tony eyed the wheelchair bound hippy with barely concealed contempt - completely uncaring of whether the guy thought that Tony’s response was due to ableism in the face of the out-of-character panic that he could still feel emanating from Ben.

Tony glared.

“Well? Why should I go to this special school of yours? I’m attending a perfectly respectable establishment now thank you very much.”

In his anger Tony’s spine straightened, and his stance shifted, unconsciously shifting back into full-on corporate executive mode, with more than a hint of British snoot – learned from Jarvis, JARVIS, and Ben respectively.

There was a stunned silence.

“Well?”

Tony was unaware, but the sniff of disdain was pure Howard.

Between Ben’s ill-at-ease silence and the hippy’s oh-so-calculated “I’m harmless me” act Tony felt his ire rising. Just as the hippy opened his mouth, Tony ruthlessly cut across him,

“Really? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

The nerd was flashing looks at both Tony and Xavier, visibly panicking in the face of a six-year-old’s hostility. Tony mentally filed him under, ‘likely to snap, explosively’ and proceeded to ignore him.

“Really Young Master Stark, is that any way to treat someone who’s trying to help you?”

Xavier’s transatlantic accent only served to rile Tony up further, too reminiscent of the boorish men that Howard liked to spend all of his time with, and evenings when Tony was forced to be polite to the condescending morons.

“Your sales pitch is stellar thus far, really, well done.”

Tony slow clapped. Utterly uncaring of whether the sarcastic gesture even made sense in this time and this place. From Xavier’s puzzled expression Tony guessed that it hadn’t made it into popular culture yet, good. It gave him one more source of anger to fuel the fire building within him.

“Seriously. Why the hell would I want to go to your poxy little finishing school that no one’s ever heard of?”

 Tony consciously borrowed the insult from his compiled list of Jarvis’ most cutting responses to the staff, he didn’t think it had quite the same withering effect when he said it, but Xavier seemed to wince nonetheless.

“Especially when the staff appear to consist of an incompetent and a fool who doesn’t know how not to patronise a six-year-old who is due to go to University during the next academic year. I mean, seriously? Am I the only one who ever does the reading?” Tony’s exasperation was no longer feigned, “For gods’ sake, do some research.”

With that riposte, Tony made to storm out, ‘forcing’ Ben to supervise and follow him to the doors of the salle. Tony briefly paused at the doors, and looked up at Ben through his lashes, searching covertly for permission. Ben gave a tiny nod in response,

“No offense Mr Xavier but… Go fuck yourself.”

Hank’s face fell comically, seeming to crumple in on itself

Once the pair had finished storming out, Ben looked down at Tony, and in his driest tones said,

“Well that particular bridge was not only burnt, but the land it’s foundations were built on was salted, and the river dammed as well.”

Despite his words, Ben tone was wryly amused, and Tony thought, quietly approving. Ben looked down at Tony with both eyebrows raised, questioning,

“What on earth did they do to get you so worked up?”

Tony’s rejoinder was instant,

“What did they do to make you so jumpy?”

Ben’s face was suddenly furtive and guilty, the long planes of his face uncharacteristically weasel-like in that moment,

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about Kid.”

“Yeah right, Old Ben.”

Tony’s glare was heated, his round cherubic face attempting a fierce expression that did not suit it. Ben immediately pointed this out, in his typical roundabout fashion,

“You’ve got no leverage you know. I’ve no reason to tell you anything.”

Tony’s response was automatic, he made no attempt to hide the smugness in his tone,

“Which in itself is an admission, whereas before I only had conjecture and suspicion.”

Ben’s large nose crinkled in his displeasure.

“Damn.”

Looking skyward Ben muttered to himself,

“You know, sometimes you remind me far too strongly of Kenneth.”

Tony mentally reminded himself to ask Ben who Kenneth was when he had his guard down. One of these days the contrary ass was liable to tell him something.

“Okay….” Tony decided to drop the subject, true to his nature the man was as stubborn as a mule when he wanted to be, “If you won’t tell me why those two made you so nervous. Um.” Here he hesitated, genuinely unsure how to voice the question. Tony was still staring at his shoes when Ben reached out from his new position crouched in front of him on the floor,

“What is it?”

Despite his apparently reassuring gesture, Ben’s voice was cautious, promising nothing,

“Well…”

Tony bit his lip, then decided to hell with it. He’d just told a potential ally quite literally to go fuck himself purely because he made a current frie- ally nervous. Though to be fair, seeing said ally nervous had been a quietly terrifying experience. Tony admitted to himself, and resolved to fix, the fact that he may have transferred the childish impression that all of his teachers were perfect super humans onto Ben instead. Tony knew from bitter experience that even Superhumans weren’t perfect, indeed they were just even more human than everyone else, their flaws as exaggerated as everything else about them.

In a burst of exasperation, the question shot out of him,

“Why the hell has everyone been stalling on this university thing?”

“Huh?”

Clearly Ben hadn’t been expecting that question, damn. Tony wished he knew what question his mentor had been braced for. Ben recovered admirably,

“Well… I’m really not sure I should tell you.”

Ben stood back up and puffed his cheeks out as he considered it,

“Look, we didn’t have a deal as such. But fair’s fair. I’ll only drop the other question if you answer this one. And you know I can be persistent.”

Ben’s wry look confirmed that the older man was also thinking of their training session a few months back that had resulted in a very bruised bum for Tony, as he kept getting knocked on his ass – but also an extremely bruised ego for Ben, as the move Tony’d been attempting to force his muscles to carry out for the whole damned session finally paid off and landed Ben on his own posterior.

Ben pulled a face, and for a long moment Tony thought that his leverage wasn’t as persuasive as he’d thought it had been. Huffing out a sigh the older man folded,

“Fine. But you won’t like it.”

“I don’t care. I know they’ve been holding me back, I’m not stupid. I know what it feels like. They’ve even gotten Ms Ramesh in on it!”

The last part of that sentence came out in a childish whine of sadness at that perceived betrayal,

“Oooh. You’re really not going to like it.” Ben pulled his hand down his face, tugging on his lips as he went. “But you’re like a dog with a bone, and I don’t have that kind of patience anymore.”

Tony opened his mouth to point out yet again how he could make things awkward,

“Fine, fine. It was Ed, alright?”

It took a good minute for Tony to process that.

“Wait, what? You mean the reason why everyone’s suddenly been so interested in stopping me from moving on… It was Jarvis??”

After a long moment of muted silence, Tony broke the tension by saying,

“You’re shitting me.”

The sudden spike of hurt betrayal was shattering even with Ben’s quiet confirmation that he hadn’t wanted things to turn out this way.

~~~~~~~

Tony was surprised, and heartened when his end-of-month meeting with the school’s Landman & Zach attorney proved infinitely more productive than he’d dared to hope for. The long-winter had finally given away to stifling summer heat, making their usual small meeting room feel close and uncomfortable. The initial panic when their usual lawyer hadn’t been in the room hadn’t helped, at first Tony had been suspicious. However, once the reasons why began to emerge it rapidly became clear that Tony’s contract with the firm had just received a serious upgrade in terms of importance.

The lawyer had clearly been well-briefed on the situation, the man very carefully not acting surprised or treating Tony like a child once. Though it helped that after an awkward ten minutes of Tony genuinely being unsure if he could trust the new guy or not, Ben and their usual contact with the firm strolled in chatting as if everything was fine.

Starbucks were still digging in their heels over the hostile takeover deal despite the four-month deadline looming rapidly over their heads, and honestly Tony couldn’t blame them for that. However, one of his other filed patents had received a sudden surge in interest despite the fact that it had been filed away, and since then largely ignored, months ago.

The hi-res, non-degrading Polaroids were a go.

Ironically the money was coming from a war, however it wasn’t military, or a government (thank gods – Tony wasn’t sure his conscience would have allowed him to sign the contract if it had been, and he didn’t put it past the military to be underhanded enough to just go ahead and use the tech anyway), but the international federation of journalists who had noticed the potential. A war journalist had somehow gotten a hold of one of the very few prototypes of the film that had been manufactured on the tiny budget that Tony, and the fledgling firm all of his patents were filed under - Arc Technologies - were working with. They had been impressed by the prototype’s size, cross-compatibility, rapid development and the high quality of the images produced.

Tony had been shocked by the news, he honestly hadn’t thought the tiny numbers of prototypes produced would make it very far beyond the confines of Landman & Zach’s offices and staff. Tony had been resigned to the fact that it would be several years, if not a whole decade before he could start building any momentum on his goal to push tech forward, and yet here he was with a potential contract with Canon sitting in his lap, and a surprise bid from Leica of all people.

Tony made a mental note to remember to ask about just which employee of Landman & Zach had leaked the film when he was in a position to do so and give them a hefty bonus. Whilst the film wasn’t especially ground-breaking or at all world-changing, Tony was glad that the first contract to land on Arc Technology’s books was going to be for a product so completely innocuous. 

Tony listened with only half an ear as he scanned over the documentation, Leica and Canon had apparently both dug a little further into the on-record patents filed under Arc’s name, on the basis that any company capable of advancing their field of speciality this far had to be worth looking into. Apparently both firms were offering vast sums of money to be allowed to be the sole recipient of the prototypes of the batteries, and had even had their own scientists looking at the shock absorbing applications of the non-Newtonian fluids Tony had also filed at the patent office, with respect to producing more resilient models of camera and lens.

Tony felt gleeful at the idea that he could begin sneaking out such tech in such a harmless fashion.

It was a sign of how desperate both firms were to gain the upper hand over their competitors that they were offering to fund all of the charitable work planned for the filtration system, and back-up the Starbucks takeover. Though Tony noted their complete puzzlement about why a technology-based firm such as Arc should want to muscle in on a failing coffee chain.

By the end of the meeting Tony had hashed out a crude plan with the lawyers, Ben providing a surprising amount of insight into the harsh world of business. Arc Industries would be offering partial deals to both Canon and Leica allowing neither firm to hold a monopoly. Tony sincerely hoped that the proposed contracts would be accepted.

~~~~~~~

Exam season snuck up and overwhelmed them all. One moment Tony was sheepishly accepting an unexpected, and unexpectedly generous birthday present from Justin – a wholesale lot of several hundred cassettes as well as a heartfelt gift of a mixtape of all of Justin’s favourite songs, and the next the library was suddenly filled with newly industrious students.

Tony’s late-May birthday had often passed unremarked, at least until he’d earned enough freedom to mark them for himself. (Tony still shuddered reflexively at the memory of that ‘final’ party in Malibu.) Even so, Tony had been surprised when a small pile of packages greeted him that Saturday morning in the cafeteria. 

He and Justin had hared-off to their private room above the senior lounge, now nearly filled with LPs and torn into the things together. Tony had to admit that even a few months ago, the thought of sharing such a private and personal moment with the other boy would have been abhorrent. Now however, the thought of upsetting his… friend by obviously deciding not to include him… Well, it cut deeper still.

The first small parcel was another surprise object courtesy of Nick Fury. The super-spy’s continued interest in Tony was a puzzle. Tony really didn’t think he remembered the other man hanging around all that much last time, and yet, here he was staring down at a not-so-small stack of 45s that the man had taken the time to send him.

Whilst the 45s were an incredibly eccentric mixture of American-style pop, and stuff that was obviously native to the country Fury was currently posted in (Vietnam from the looks of the labels) there was also the odd bit of strange music hall ephemera, as well as a double disc Monty Python 45 that had Tony paranoidly wondering about what Fury’s source was.

Unfortunately for Tony’s sanity, Justin fell upon a Cliff Richards and the Shadows single with an expression of unholy glee. Trust the man to give Tony something that was simultaneously thoughtful, and seemingly designed to infuriate him.

Aunt Peggy had sent over another mysterious item of martial-arts paraphernalia – it seemed that she’d taken the news that he was learning self-defence to heart. Whilst he’d taken to wearing the silver bracelet, Tony thoughts guiltily turned to the extending baton that was still sat unused in the bottom of his trunk, and carefully inspected the strange objects. They appeared to be child-sized practice Sai, carved in wood. Tony had to wonder where she’d found them.

Ben’s gift had been more ephemeral consisting of a pile of bizarre candy from around the globe. Tony had been relieved that there wasn’t a new sword to start practicing with, though the gleam in the older man’s eyes promised he’d suffer for that traitorous thought later. Even Mr Reid had somehow heard about the date – and had handed over a large unopened carton of the hot chocolate mix that they still tended to share, despite the increasingly hot weather.

Despite the day of respite caused by the small unexpected celebrations Tony had to admit that he was feeling just as stressed out about the upcoming future-deciding exams as the rest of the school.

Even Justin was feeling the pressure, despite being an ickle-Krelboyne who should have been too young for such things. The other boy’s sudden unholy obsession with cramming made Tony want to wince in reminiscence. He had vague memories of caring that much about something that ultimately mattered so little.

The pair gave up on the library with the sudden influx of other students, more often than not they’d arrive to find their favoured table already occupied. The mass of warm bodies in the usually airy room made the already sticky summer weather unpalatable too.

Eventually the two, by mutual agreement, spent most of their study periods in their shared dorm room – alternating the record choice so that neither party drove the other mad.

In deference to the fact that he was sharing the space Tony tended to put his copy of Low or Young Americans on the turntable when it was his turn, rather than his usual choice of something loud enough to blast everything but the particular thought he wanted to concentrate on out of his brain.

 Justin on the other hand seemed determined to work his way through his entire, ridiculously large, considering the time-span in which he’d acquired it, LP and singles collection that month.

Tony had to admit that the other boy’s approach to studying wasn’t as irritating as he’d have previously given him credit for. Tony had been fully expecting Justin to continue his usual practice of picking one single to obsess over for the foreseeable future. Fortunately for his sanity, Justin had seemed to realise that his more usual habit of looping whichever song he was enamoured over that week would not be welcomed. It was a nice change.

Despite himself Tony was nervous about his performance in the upcoming tests.

Oh, it wasn’t that he doubted that he had the knowledge. Tony was self-assured enough in his intelligence at least, that things of this nature no longer made him nervous even though Tony was painfully aware that he still knew far too little about the History curriculum that he was currently focusing on cramming into his brain.

No, it was the necessity to self-edit. Tony barely managed that socially, all too aware of the judgemental stares whenever he did something to earn someone else’s ire – self-aware enough to spot that he’d done something wrong, but never equipped with the tools to fix it.

Tony was obsessively memorising the text books, trying desperately to cram the backwards outdated racist homophobic and sexist doctrine of the internationally awful 70s-schooling systems into his short-term memory. (There was no way on earth Tony was going to let that mind-set contaminate anything else.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Howard eyed up the latest missive from Anthony’s school with distaste. The boy had recently sat, and apparently received straight As for the CSE exams. A standardised qualification that held some weight in Britain of all places. Howard vaguely remembered signing off on the school’s request for some additional education when Edwin had all but shoved the paperwork under his nose with an irritated huff. Despite the gushing tone of the note he couldn’t bring himself to feel much more than unease. Why on earth was the boy taking British exams of all things? It was bizarre.

Still, the implications didn’t pass him by – Howard was aware that his son would probably want to head off to university soon. Howard wasn’t sure if the sensation roiling through his guts was pride or unease. He’d certainly been amused when Edwin had informed him, tone frosty, that Anthony had outright refused Xavier’s offer of spending time at the man’s little mutant clubhouse over the summer.

Despite the disapproving tone in his old friend’s voice Howard had been relieved that Tony seemed to see through Xavier’s veneer of civility as easily as Howard himself did.

After a little digging of his own, using SHIELD resources, Howard was almost certain that his son didn’t possess the x-gene. However, that relieving lack made Xavier’s sudden interest all the more troubling.

Perhaps it was all of that running around with Peggy he’d done during the war, but Howard strongly suspected that the man was a racial supremacist of the subtler sort.

Howard had only okayed the proposed meeting after much cajoling on Edwin’s behalf, he had no idea why his right-hand man felt so strongly on this issue, but with Ana’s recent health problems he hadn’t the heart to put his foot down, the Jarvises had gone through enough on his behalf over the years. If the man wanted his son consorting with mutants, after all that Howard had put him through, well, Stark Industries could probably take the resulting stock fluctuations, no matter what Obadiah had to say on the matter.

Howard had not been looking forward to seeing the disapproval on Edwin’s face when he turned down the invite to Xavier’s not-so-secret training facility.

Fortunately, his boy had done that for him.

Perhaps his son was ready to enter the wider world after all. It hadn’t escaped Howard’s notice that there was a sudden quiet influx of patents filed under his son’s name, entirely separately from Stark Industries. Clever boy.

It seemed his son was a fledgling businessman as well as an idealist, that unfamiliar warm spark sputtered in Howard’s chest again before dying out as the door to his office slammed open abruptly.

Obadiah strolled into the office as if he owned the place, Howard scowled in the tall man’s direction whilst subtly checking to see what on earth his secretary was doing out there. Whilst he was on the board of directors, Stane was not the CEO of this company, and didn’t own anywhere near enough shares to deserve special treatment - for all that he’d been there since the early struggles to push SI back into the forefront of the tech race of the post space-race era.

“What do you want Obadiah?”

His voice was tired, Howard was not in the mood to deal with the latest argument about who SI should and shouldn’t be dealing with. The SHIELD contracts weren’t lucrative no, but he’d been there at the founding of that organisation from the ashes of the SSR in the wake-of the furore of the over-zealous activities of the House of Un-American Activities after McCarthy’s sudden spectacular fall from grace. Howard was not going to let his people down. Not again.

The scenes of Finow flashed before his mind’s eye, bringing with it the familiar sensation of helpless rage.

Nothing he ever did would be enough to wipe his responsibility for that massacre situation clean.

Obadiah had ranted himself out whilst Howard hadn’t been paying attention, the great oaf excused himself with some supercilious remark that he paid no heed to.

Howard pulled himself to his feet to check on Beth, he was well-aware that she did not like Mr Stane, and honestly Howard himself was beginning to wonder how much damage it would do to push him off the board.

Beth was upset that Obadiah had barged straight-in, completely ignoring her calls for him to come back with an appointment, but she’d been otherwise unaccosted.

The prolonged time spent on his feet calming her down triggered the unpleasant hot-cold sensations in the not-yet-fully-recovered injury he’d acquired the previous summer. His idiot-son’s ridiculous contraption had somehow sliced clean through two of his metatarsals, a good deal of soft muscle tissue and a ligament. It had taken months to recover from, not aided by the fact that Howard refused to use a wheelchair like an invalid. Howard’s foot throbbed angrily at him.

Howard limped towards the cabinet he kept in his office for just such a situation, and poured himself a generous four or five fingers of scotch downing it angrily. The comforting burn combined with the lingering hot ache in Howard’s foot sparking off an idea. The first he’d had in what felt like eons at this point.

The hot burning sensation had Howard contemplating the well-documented (well, in the government facilities at least) propensity for mitochondria to put out prodigious amounts of heat under the right (or wrong) circumstances. If he could alter the prototype serum they’d been attempting to reverse engineer for decades now to work with the subject’s own telomeres to bypass the Hayflick limit with the aid of the serum’s own well-documented mitochondrion manipulation, then perhaps using the aforementioned proton-leak they’d be able to get somewhere.

As he started to hastily scribble down the proposed alterations to the serum’s formula Howard huffed to himself ruefully. Perhaps he should be thanking the boy for making that wretched toy after all.

~~~~~~~

With the exams, and the increasingly hot summer looming, Ben stormed right up to Tony at the start of one of his free study sessions and demanded,

“How did you know?”

Tony was utterly nonplussed, he honestly had no idea what Ben was talking about.

Ben grunted in frustration and rushed out,

“Star Wars. How did you know?”

Tony grinned cheekily up at the older man.

“The Force, Old Ben, the Force.”

Ben glowered. Tony decided to rub it in a little further,

“I’m surprised you didn’t find out sooner Old Ben – the film’s been out for a couple of weeks now. Did you miss it in your dotage?”

He shot his mentor his most infuriating shit-eating grin, Ben huffed and stomped away in just as much of a fluster as when he’d materialised. The other man’s departure earned him curious looks from the numerous students all sharing the study hall but for once he didn’t seem to care.

Tony quietly laughed to himself, and got back down to memorising the book that was the Literature assignment for the end of year high school diploma exam.

~~~~~~~~

Leaning back and staring up at the tree that had become his spot in the school gardens Tony exhaled in frustration. Once again Mr Reid wasn’t in his little guardhouse, Tony suspected that the perpetually bedraggled security guard had yet again tag-teamed D’Eath with La Guerta. The thought made him smile, the pair were slowly dragging the other man out of his protective shell though Tony doubted he’d be around to see the end-results.

One year, he’d been at this for a year and progress was frustratingly slow. His academic progress was actually coming along nicely, if much too slowly for his tastes thanks to Jarvis’s meddling. But at least in that realm there was visible, quantifiable progress. Even though the long-promised dip-vat had never materialised.

Tony thought that if things continued at their projected rate he’d be able to test out by the end of the academic year earning himself a small measure of freedom from the system, and hopefully, Howard. The number of hoops he’d had to jump through to get to this point had made him feel like a prize pedigree fucking terrier.

It turned out that as well as the exam preparation Tony had earnt himself another round of stressful testing by pure dint of his age. He’d needed to prove that he was mature enough to cope in the “real world”, Tony scoffed at the thought, as if academia was the ‘real world’, it wasn’t just about academic smarts this time. The sudden inexplicable care for his welfare was unwanted and stifling. He wasn’t sure what had changed this time around. He’d been packed off to MIT at 12 in the first timeline, was 7 really that different? It was only five years early.

Tony wondered what he’d done to earn such a change, Howard certainly hadn’t given a damn last time. As soon as the school was willing to okay it Howard had shipped him off without a second thought, and Tony had jumped on the opportunity to move to another state, further away from the mansion than even the school.

No, the old man had shown no hint of care this time either, it was definitely Jarvis’s interference. But why?

Ben had scoffed derisively at him every time he brought up his frustrations in their sessions, as if indicating that Tony’s too-slow progress in the field of swordsmanship was somehow comparable. Honestly Tony had very little idea about what Ben’s goal was nowadays, the insane crash course of styles from all areas of the world aside Ben seemed determined to impart some strange sense of knowledge to Tony. Not that Tony had a clue what that knowledge was, and contrary as usual Ben was keeping schtum about whatever it was.

Still, despite his perpetual lingering discomfort in his own skin, Tony had to admit that he’d learnt a lot under the man’s tutelage. And not just the self-defence that had been the initial goal of their sessions. Tony really had to admit to himself that he was going to miss the older man when he inevitably ended their sessions, Ben had been getting increasingly antsy and Tony had no idea what the cause was – other than the growing suspicion that Tony himself was beginning to bore him.

In the meantime, his fencing lessons had grown ever more frustrating – Ty’s constant irritating attempts to belittle Tony and the other members of the class however, had earned the other boy Mr La Guerta’s ire. Whilst the other members of staff (barring D’Eath) were willing to chalk Ty’s behaviour up to boyish high spirits, La Guerta had rapidly grown fed-up of Ty’s tendency to mysteriously hurt his practice partners whenever the man’s back was turned. Though La Guerta couldn’t conclusively prove anything, the Vietnam war veteran had clearly drawn his own conclusions from the fact that Ty was the common thread linking all of these little incidents in his class, and made a point of teaming up with the budding psychopath himself more often than not.

However, he was getting there, slow as he found the rate of completion – Tony had more or less finished all of the credit projects for his High School diploma, as luck would have it the coursework required for the CSEs he’d already taken, and the A-levels he was yet to sit, counted nicely as extra credit to that end too. So even given the high bias towards examination in this era, the end of year exams counted for less than they could have, not that Tony was particularly worried. (Well, apart from history. Much to Tony’s chagrin he just couldn’t bring himself to follow the doctrine of the seventies.)

The magical progress? Not so much. He’d been meditating regularly for a year with no real progress to speak of.

After that brief terrifying moment at the mansion he’d had nothing not a peep. Nada. Well that’s assuming that initial something had been magic and not stress induced madness. Doom had seemed to confirm that he had done something. But then Doom was as trustworthy as a snake.

He hated magic.

Even with all of the data he’d acquired over the years he was still no closer to tying the universal laws of physics to the little magical theory he’d managed to pick up.

Cloying red tendrils, blocking everything else out with their haze... What was that?

Tony blinked at the sudden lack of light, peering up owlishly at the figure looming above him, somehow Tony was utterly unsurprised that Tiberius Stone was scowling down at him.

Even with the distance he’d been trying to maintain from Stone, the other boy seemed convinced that they were rivals.

If anything, Tony’s attempts at not joining in with the classroom politics in the advanced Krelboyne group had been interpreted as cool arrogant aloofness by the other students. If the situation, and the dreadful memories that were dredged up weren’t so dire Tony would have laughed wryly at his terrible luck.

It seemed that no matter what he did, Ty was destined to become obsessed with him. The mad gleam was already there in the other boy’s eyes. Tony really had no idea how he’d managed to ignore it for so long the first time around.

Tony shook himself back to reality, the meditative state he had been deeply immersed in was making it difficult to come up with any quick plan of action.

The larger boy grinned down at them, knowledge of their relative isolation writ large across his face.

Tony glared. He knew he wasn’t supposed to use his training with Ben in a situation like this, it was supposed to be his ace in the hole. Hidden. Secret. The only advantage he’d have in a truly dangerous situation was surprise, he couldn’t waste all of that effort on something so petty.

And yet.

Ty leaned forward as if to yank Tony to his feet, still half in the trance state Tony willed the idiot to go away and leave him in peace. He had no idea what he’d done to deserve this treatment this time around.

Ty seemed to think better of grabbing him, and pulled back a leg for a kick, his spiked soccer shoes glinting in the bright sunlight.

Tony’s eyes zeroed in on the metal, the fear rose up unexpectedly, memories of a different set of feet, another beating, voices shouting at him in all the languages of the world, a cave, water, electricity, oh gods, surgery without anaesthetic, open heart surgery with only ether to stop him moving around too much. Conscious of everything being done to him, brain recoiling in horror as he failed to control his limbs and wrench away from the madman cracking his sternum op-

When Tony managed to drag himself back into the here and now Ty was running away in the distance, screaming.

Tony cocked his head, puzzled. He was still awkwardly tangled up in his own limbs, halfway out of the lotus position that Ty had disturbed Tony hadn’t even managed to stand up.

~~~~~~~~~~

It had taken longer than the Ancient One would have liked to make the trip over to the New York Sanctum. Or rather it had taken her a long time to prepare for the trip, the journey itself taking barely a moment.

She sighed – the Ancient One hadn’t wanted to leave the central Karma-Taj monastery in a lurch. However, all of the prepwork, especially the reinforcement of the great-wards encircling the planet had eaten far too much time, time that she could have spent searching for this new potential. Knowledge that on a quantum level at least, all time was happening simultaneously be damned.

She smiled wryly to herself, Master Drumm had already made a point of locking all of the relics away in glass cases, shooting her a meaningful look when she arrived. The Ancient One had wanted to tease him about his behaviour but had thought better of it. She wanted to get started on her little search as soon as possible, and playing at internal politics for her own amusement wouldn’t speed things along, quite the opposite.

 As always, the bustle of New York utterly failed to impress her, The Ancient One had grown used to the natural disorderly chaos in Kathmandu (despite her initial distaste for the place when Karmataj had been forced to up sticks from their old serene site in Tibet) – New York’s more modern, more artificial brand of busy just made her feel every second of her age. Always a dangerous thing for one such as herself.

The Ancient One had just set off for the relative oasis that was Central Park – impending bankruptcy or not, the vast space there was a haven, despite the occasional poster declaring “New York, Death City”. No matter what Drumm had to say about the dangers, the Ancient One had fended off more violent incursions than anything a few mundane crooks, and a jumped up Jack the Ripper wannabe could throw at her.

She was just crossing the road when the wave of power hit her, if it weren’t for her experience, the centuries spent channelling the fiery corrosive power that was Dormammu, the power that always threatened to burn through her at any moment… Well, The Ancient One dreaded to think what could have happened. Pausing for a split second, the Ancient One finished crossing the road before allowing the sensations to wash over her, there was power there, and fear and pain and rage. All born from the same icy terror. She could almost taste the depth of it, even for one such as her, saturated as she was, the energy was exhilarating.

 And then, it was gone.

As quickly as it had come, the wave passed. The power taking with it the swirl of chaotic emotion that had obviously birthed it. The Ancient One sighed, and decided that she was going to continue on her trip to Central Park anyway. It would be nice to see what changes had been made to the place since Hooverville had been torn down, it had been such a long time since she’d last taken the time to sightsee in the city.

Besides she had a direction to start looking in now, the wave had come from somewhere to the North of here. Somewhere surprisingly close.

No wonder it had taken this long to track the source down to America, the Potential was right next to the New York Sanctum, practically hidden underneath the eye of the sanctum’s all-encompassing footprint. As far as these things went there wasn’t a better hiding place.

~~~~~~~~

Charles rocked back in his chair – clutching at his head. A wave of pure concentrated fright had completely separated him from his sense of self, and time and place.

Blinking back the echoes Charles refocussed on his study to find Hank staring down at him in worried sympathy,

“Charles?”

“Hank!”

The exclamation of surprise was genuine, the other man hadn’t been there when the wave of emotion had hit. Charles blinked up at him, once again hating the enforced sitting position that was so necessary.

“When did you get up here?”

“When you were away with the fairies? Was it anything we need to worry about?” The concern in Hank’s voice took on a more personal flavour, he looked at Charles assessingly, “Or are your gifts playing up again?”

“No, no.” Charles could see from Hank’s expression that the other man didn’t believe him, “Well, it wasn’t my gift that was playing up.”

“Oh, shall I prep the car? Where were they?”

“No, no. Nothing like that I’m afraid.”

“Charles?”

“I can’t be entirely sure without using Cerebro, but I believe I know who was in such distress yes.”

Hank frowned at Charles at that admission,

“And we aren’t going to help them?”

“I’m afraid that any attempts to intervene prematurely would likely result in making the situation worse.”

“Oh. Who is it?”

Hank’s tone let Charles know that anything less than the truth would not be accepted, the other man had already drawn his own conclusions,

“Yes Hank” Charles responded to the unspoken question underneath that sentence, “It’s the Stark child again.”

~~~~~~~

Tony sighed inwardly when he saw Ty’s gang purposefully lounging around in the Krelboyne study room, terrorising the rest of the group before mentally shrugging. To hell with it. He’d tried for months to take the highroad, be the mature party, and turn the other cheek. …Well alright, with the odd brief and violent exception.

Now however Tony was coming to the end of his patience. Loosening the shackles around his inner cynical bastard Tony decided to channel Rick Sanchez for all that he was worth, what the hell. It could hardly make the situation any worse, right?

Fuck it, he’d lived under the yoke of Ty’s ridiculously ineffectual nickname for months now. Time to do what he did best and add a little spin to the tale. Assuming a cocksure grin and his most self-assured swagger, Tony strutted straight into the centre of the crowd and raised his arms in a grand sweeping gesture,

“What’s up bitches, I’m Tiny Tony!”

He channelled as much glee into that statement as he could cram in there, emphasising the by now hated nickname with extra volume. The clamour died down as belligerent and resigned expressions turned bemused, the crowd watching to see what he would do next. Feeling Justin’s gaze heavy on the back of his neck Tony spun around and winked reassuringly at his young friend, before continuing on the planned verbal tirade,

“Now I know you’re all wondering what I’m doing in here pissing on your cereal like this.”

Tony put on an exaggerated downcast expression for effect,

“And, well, frankly I’m here to remind you all of what happened when Cord tried to drag me into his silly little power games.”

Tony could tell that despite his dramatic entrance he wasn’t quite wooing the crowd with his usual skill, Tony could feel the aggression and anger that he was trying to keep stifled leaking out despite himself. Whatever had happened underneath the tree that day had really done a number on his already tenuous control.

The crowd of Krelboynes were as frightened of him as they were of Ty. Tony could feel it. The thought was uncomfortably sobering.

Ty sauntered over, followed by one of his more devoted hangers-on,

“What are you trying to do Stark? Prove you’re not a pussy?”

Not resisting the urge to roll his eyes Tony spat out the first retort that came to his head,

“You are both pieces of shit, and I can prove it mathematically.”

Crap. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been channelling his inner-Rick, Tony had wanted to charm his way out of this ridiculous situation that had built up not turn into a bully himself.

For a split-second Ty’s entire appearance changed, no longer a belligerent child but a small monstrous thing blinking at him with the same angry expression that had been on Ty’s face a moment before. Before Tony could contemplate a reaction beyond surprise the image had vanished leaving him glaring up at Ty once again. Tony tried not to let his momentary horror at whatever that had been show on his face, but he needn’t have bothered.

To Tony’s surprise, Stone didn’t seem to have his own come-back lined up, face reddening noticeably in embarrassment. Tony blinked as Ty’s face first paled dramatically, then crumbled into noticeable tears as he fled the room ignoring the plight of his hench… boy.

Tony decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and moved further into the room to get on with cramming for exams.

The larger boy backed away hurriedly as Tony sauntered past. Tony internally grinned, he still wasn’t sure what he’d done that day underneath the tree, but Ty was temporarily terrified of him.

Ty’s increasingly small crowd of sycophants stormed out of the weekly Krelboyne free-study session to the sound of cheering. Whilst the Krelboyne’s didn’t actually like Tony all that much, it seemed they couldn’t stand Ty either.

Tony ignored the strange flashes of other-ness that caught his eye as he settled down to study, grinning at H-Justin all the while. Damn, he really really hadn’t expected that to work.

~~~~~~~

Tony was still feeling betrayed by the fact that his academic progress had purposefully been slowed at Jarvis’s request. And, of course, the school had hurried to comply, since they didn’t want to lose the nearly bottomless funds that the Stark accounts no doubt represented. The cynical CEO in him suspected it was the school’s way of proving to Howard that he was getting his money’s worth. Howard had paid for a year’s worth of tuition, and that was what he was going to get – Tony’s wishes be damned. Tony had to admit to himself that Geeky Leekie seemed to care more than that though, so perhaps it really was due to some misguided concern for his welfare.  

Tony looked down at the little folder sat on Geeky Leekie’s desk in satisfaction, it had taken nearly a whole academic year. But he’d finally gotten through all of the stinking coursework for the numerous international qualifications he was taking.

It was with a sense of accomplishment that Tony was finally able to begin the drawn-out process of university applications, heart in his mouth Tony handed over the SAT application form to Leekie.

Whilst the exams themselves were still to come, Tony felt that he’d more than earnt the hard-won permission to begin the university application process. The knowledge that it was Jarvis of all people that had slowed everything up this past year still chaffed.

They’d discussed Tony’s situation at length, Tony had opted to take the standard US High School level diploma. As well as the British CSEs he’d already put himself through, Tony was going to sit for the supposedly tougher O-Levels, the International Baccalaureates that were recognised by most of the Commonwealth nations, and the Japanese equivalents (whose name amusingly enough Leekie couldn’t pronounce).

However, the nearly interminable academic repetition hadn’t been anywhere near as infuriating as the sudden round of psychological evaluations that had crawled out of the woodwork as soon as he’d finally completed all of the academic brew-ha-ha (well, apart from the dreaded exams that were scheduled for late June).

Tony could see Jarvis’s fingerprints all over this little intervention. Only, of course the man was nowhere to be seen, leaving Tony trying desperately not to vent spleen at Leekie – one of the individuals with university veto power according to Ben. Tony still couldn’t quite believe the sheer number of obstacles that had been put in his way this time around. No one had seemed to care when Howard had shipped him off to MIT back in the day. Tony genuinely wasn’t sure what was different now, but it was infuriating.

After several months of negotiations with neither side getting anywhere the final obstacle in his path had finally and unexpectedly okayed everything. Due to the sheer length of the list of qualifications Tony was going to be earning himself at the end of the term, the psychologist the school had brought in had finally thrown up his hands and declared Tony ready to apply for university. Tony had been left boggling at the anti-climax, Tony really couldn’t quite believe how many variations of the same thing he’d been required to fill out over and over again just to prove he was ready for university.

~~~~~~~

Tony spent much of the next two weeks debating with himself just which university he was going to end up focussing his application on, rather than focusing on the upcoming exams that he probably should have been concentrating on revising for. He took to wandering around with prospectuses in hand, constantly reading the information, even in the cafeteria, a room ripe with hazing potential (purposefully ignoring the occasional flash of unbelievable strangeness that would occasionally pop-up in the corner of his vision). Justin, bless him, did his best to warn Tony of any looming threats. The one would-be bully who’d gotten too close for comfort had earned himself a timely reminder of just why Tony’s electricity-enhanced nerve pinches were whispered of in fear around the schoolyard.

For some reason that Tony hadn’t managed to fathom, the few remaining seniors in Cord’s inner circle had taken to habitually wearing football armour on their shoulders. Or at least they’d tried to, after one week of this behaviour Mr D’Eath had gotten fed up of the situation. The dour man had taken one dour look at the class and ordered in a voice that brooked no challenge,

“Everyone wearing inappropriate sporting equipment. Out. Don’t come back until you’re properly attired for the classroom.”

Tony’s wary admiration for the man had grown. Though he’d half wanted to see just what the idiotic group had been planning, and was a little upset that his wait-and-see approach to the situation had been stymied.

Of course, the distraction of just which university to focus his nebulous plans for the future on was still a pressing one. MIT had many advantages, not least of which was the guarantee that he’d bump into Rhodey again. Much as Tony hated to admit it to anyone, he missed his honey bear like a physical ache. Sure, they’d spent months, even years at a time apart from each other. But this? This enforced separation with no end in sight? This was different. Tony swallowed down the hot surge of homesickness that threatened to overwhelm him, and tried to stop his heart from ruling his head. There was nothing that said Rhodey would even like him this time around. They’d certainly had a rocky first few months, who’s to say that the mysterious catalyst that had triggered their friendship would even appear this time? Tony was certainly none the wiser about why the older man had decided to be friends with him all those years ago.

Perhaps he should take that advice about business school after all? Much as he hated to admit it the old man had a point. Obie certainly wouldn’t have been able to get away with half as much as he had if Tony had only been paying attention. Half-heartedly flicking through the prospectuses to Yale and Harvard, heart sinking as Tony saw how behind the tech and R&D aspects of their curriculums were Tony resisted the urge to just give up and throw the paperwork across the dorm room. H-Justin wouldn’t appreciate yet another invasion of his precious personal space, even though Tony knew that the other boy probably wouldn’t say anything to him about it.

Tony frowned down at the lackadaisical curriculum laid out in the Yale prospectus. He knew he was being unfair. The STEM curriculum was at the cutting edge, amongst the top five in the country. Yet compared to MIT the Ivy League schools just didn’t compare, and Tony knew that if he committed to business with no option for another subject – well he’d go mad.

And yet, MIT. The world-renowned tech school just didn’t have the same allure that he’d thought it would.

Tony had been putting the promise of university, and the freedom that came with it, on a pedestal – a distant goal to be reached and attained. As if that meagre achievement would solve all of his other problems overnight. And yet somehow, now that decision time was looming, MIT wasn’t the beacon of hope that Tony had assumed it would be.

  It really didn’t help that Tony’s memories of MIT weren’t all sunshine and roses, of course they weren’t. He’d shown up at the university as a snotty nosed 12-year-old, ego inflated by his meteoric rise through the paltry academic challenges presented by high school. …Well his fellow students hadn’t taken well to his attitude, or the fact that he genuinely did have the smarts to back it up.

No. There was a reason that Tony had been avoiding the MIT prospectus, being truthful with himself, the sickness he felt in his stomach every time he glanced through the glossy magazine wasn’t entirely down to the possibility of missing Rhodey.

 So… If the unthinkable was true, if MIT was really out, where else? Definitely not Yale. Harvard? They were well known, even in the hyper-competitive realm of Cambridge Massachusetts for their research and education in all of the fields that Tony cared about – and they had a pretty good reputation on the business end of things too. Princeton?

But no, somehow the idea that Howard was merely the next state over was sickening. Moreso now that Tony knew his father was watching his business endeavours. Whilst Howard had never shown that much interest in Tony’s academic career once he’d defied the older man and gone into computer science and engineering against his wishes, well, for some unfathomable reason Howard was showing more interest this time.

Where the delays had Jarvis’s fingerprints all over them, the sudden inexplicable removal of roadblocks was Howard’s speciality.

Eschewing the Ivy League Tony started to think further afield.

Stanford? It was in California at least. Tony would be back on the West Coast, with most of the USA between himself and his father. Somehow even that didn’t seem far enough away. Especially given the unspoken expectation that he attend somewhere closer to home.

Picking up and cursorily flicking through the international prospectuses Tony contemplated his options. The University of Tokyo? NIT? At least they focussed on the subjects that Tony preferred, and it would be easy to get lost in that megacity. Tony flinched, no, though the chance of running into her was slim in the extreme, Tokyo was inextricably linked with Ru. He couldn’t. Especially since Tony was well aware that their first ‘coincidental’ meeting had been no coincidence.

Sighing Tony didn’t even contemplate China or Russia – there was no way he’d be allowed that far away from Howard’s influence. He started to peruse the Eurotrash. Switzerland was always nice… But no, without the influence of CERN there was no way Howard would give him permission to bury himself in obscurity somewhere so far out of the way, no matter how good the skiing was there.

Glancing down Tony didn’t dare think of it when he spotted the option. Surely not? Was the answer really that simple?

~~~~~~~

After all of that build-up, the nervous anticipation that had infected even the way Tony viewed the past couple of months, despite the way that he’d literally gone through the entire process before… Well the end of year exams were a hell of a let-down.

To Tony’s chagrin, after all of that stressing, and the number of hours he’d spent debating with himself over whether or not he should write down his actual opinions, or merely the opinion that the curriculum the school had decided upon required. Well, the damned high-school diploma end-of-year exams had been an absolute breeze.

The science and math papers actually turned out to be surprisingly fun, once he realised how basic the things were. The math paper especially was almost insulting, Tony ended up twiddling his thumbs for more than ¾ of the allotted time available. The science paper was slightly more of a challenge, due to the sheer amount of anxiety Tony felt about remembering what tech was/wasn’t available. He was rather relieved when the techniques & technology questioned turned out to be about fractional distillation techniques. A method that hadn’t much changed since the invention of accurate lab-glass, even in Tony’s time.

Tony had been almost disappointed when he realised that D’Eath had completely avoided any of the topics that he’d been getting so worked up over in their history lessons, the bulk of the exam focused on American history, thankfully skirting the knotty issue of the treatment of the Native population and focusing on the events and battles that took place during the Civil War and the War of Independence – both topics that Tony actually knew quite a bit about beyond the curriculum, due to his aforementioned research on battlefield tactics.

To his relief, the main essay question focused on the minutiae of the build-up to the second world war, and how the European approach of appeasing Hitler for several years had probably lead to a far greater catastrophe than would otherwise have been the case.  Of course, Tony had ruefully admitted to himself, when midway through the allotted time he realised he’d answered all of the questions on the history paper, and had over an hour to kill… It probably helped that he’d grown up with first-hand accounts from people who’d actually lived through some of the situations in the paper.

Tony wasn’t sure if it was possible to be more relieved, he’d turned the page fully expecting the nasty moral-testing question to pop-up at him, and instead realised that he’d reached the end of the exam paper. In the end, he’d gotten bored enough that he’d ended up fleshing out his answer to the question with additional information about Japan’s march through much of the Pacific region, and the reasons behind the country’s pre-emptive attack on Pearl Harbour. He’d ended up putting forth the argument that the second world war didn’t start in 1942 as the woeful current American textbooks had it, or even 1939 as in Europe but in 1937 when the Empire of Japan expanded its war on China to the entire region.

Tony had to admit that the stance might not win him any points when the exams were being marked, but he’d been bored nearly to tears by that point. Of course, he’d been left in a jittery state of excited nervousness for the rest of the day, the lack of the expected moral crisis leaving its own mark in its wake.

Perhaps inevitably the one subject that Tony hadn’t bothered to carry out a huge amount of prepwork for ended up being the toughest paper by far. Tony had decided against rereading the annotated version of the novel they’d been studying in English Lit, perhaps foolishly relying on his eidetic memory to help him and sticking with just reading the text itself. He regretted it immediately, when Tony realised that he couldn’t’ remember if his ideas about the overarching themes of the piece at all aligned with the accepted opinions that D’Eath had made them learn. Damn. Tony really wished that he’d paid more attention.

The remaining international examinations ended up being a rather perfunctory affair, however Tony should probably have expected it given his treatment earlier in the year when he’d sat the GCE’s.

Tony ended up spending a full week holed up in Leekie’s office sitting exams nearly back to back whilst the rest of the school was out celebrating its newfound freedom. Even Justin had looked upon Tony’s decision less than sympathetically, pointing out (correctly) that international universities definitely accepted high school diplomas as proof. (And that Tony would have to go through a whole extra set of exams again if he applied for them.)

Tony had had to admit that the other boy had a point, especially when at the very end of the interminable stretch of examinations, much to his chagrin the English Lit Baccalaureate paper referred to an obscure Shakespeare play (Coriolanus) that Tony only had the dimmest memory of half-heartedly reading at a conference, decades ago, rather than anything he’d studied recently. Tony had muddled his way through the question hazarding guesses as to what they meant about the themes of the play from his knowledge of the film adaptation. However, he had a feeling he hadn’t gotten away with it.

Apart from that minor hiccup, the only real difficulty that he’d had with the numerous curriculums in the end had all been provided by the arts end of the spectrum – it wasn’t that Tony didn’t understand the analysis, or even that he didn’t appreciate the literature (apart from that one play…) the IB exams focused heavily on Kafka’s the Metamorphosis, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (overlapping neatly with Tony’s CSE qualifications), and poetry from a number of sources ranging from the dark era of War Poetry, Byron’s romantic studies, and Pablo Neruda’s seminal works.

No – it was remembering precisely which exam board favoured which analysis that was the issue. Well, that and the utter chore that working through Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the Original Old English for the O-Levels proved to be. As an individual who regularly quoted Machiavelli and Plato in casual conversation, Tony certainly was no stranger to the world of classical literature, no matter what the rest of the world liked to think.

In comparison, even the small jump-up in content provided by the more focused, and slightly closer to university level content used in the A-levels wasn’t as challenging. Tony only had 5 subjects to get through for these particular examinations, Physics, Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Chemistry and Biology – and as such had no particular trouble with the things. (Despite a brief hairy moment in the Physics exam when he couldn’t for the life of him get a linear-relation on the graph question from the dataset provided, Tony eventually had a ‘duh!’ moment and swapped to a log-hyperbolic plot – slapping himself loudly on the forehead over his own brief moment of utter stupidity there.)

In total Tony had ended up spending nearly two more weeks confined to the exam rooms than everyone else, to much mocking from Cord, Taggart and especially Ty (who’d eventually gotten over his fright). However, Tony figured that the international options (and the inevitable reputation-boost) that this approach opened up were more than worth the trouble.

Despite the relative ease with which he’d completed the exams, nearly a solid months-worth of scheduled testing had taken its toll. The international qualifications had been squeezed in at all hours around the school’s own tests so that they wouldn’t drag out too long on either side of the official exam season – the A-levels carried out nearly a whole week before everything else. All of the mental jumping from one perspective to another had left Tony drained despite the fact that there wasn’t all that much difference between what was expected from him in each set of exams.

~~~~~~

The last couple of weeks of the school year were a strange time – most of the students were happily enjoying the summer weather, taking advantage of the sudden increase in free time that they suddenly found themselves with. With the end of year exams finally out of the way Tony was free to focus once more on his university applications.

Justin was amongst the lucky carefree section of the school’s population, whilst he had enough common sense to not fill their shared room with loud obnoxious repetitions of certain singles on a loop, Tony had to admit that he was mildly jealous of the fact that Justin was able to spend his afternoons lounging about in their room listening to the proto-walkman and reading whatever took his fancy.

Tony had expected the other boy to spend his days outdoors like almost everybody else, but perhaps he should have realised that Justin really wasn’t an outdoors kind of person.

In direct contrast a significant proportion of the seniors, Tony included, were still frantically spending their time cramming, this time for the SATs, and numerous other university entrance exams.

In the end, after much pondering, Tony had decided focus on applying to Cambridge, specifically to St Cedd’s college rather than his old postgraduate haunt at Corpus Christi. He remembered his time there earning his third doctorate fondly, no one had tried to kill him, or use him (much) for corporate espionage, and no one he’d met there had turned into a bona fide supervillain on him years later. Of course, by that time, the next generation of young genii had made their way into the upper echelons of higher learning, so as well as the ever-infuriating Reed Richards, Tony had occasionally shared company with T’Challa, Hope, and Helen Cho.

Of course, it helped that Cambridge and MIT had an exchange programme, one that Tony fully intended to take advantage of when he turned 14 and Rhodey turned up there. Tony knew he’d gone there when he was 12 the first time around, and he felt loathe to mess around with his MIT timeline too much. However, Tony couldn’t bear the thought of going through those two years of utter desolate loneliness again. Or the time spent avoiding anyone related to a fraternity like the plague. At least that particular aspect of US-university life hadn’t quite made its way across the Atlantic even by Tony’s time.

Tony whizzed through the SAT tests, mostly uncaring about the results now that he’d decided to apply to a University with its own separate entrance exam. The main thing he had to focus on was not referencing things that didn’t exist yet. A task he’d gotten better at, but still had to expend far too much conscious effort over.

If Leekie was surprised that Tony had opted to take every single subject test available – barring the languages, of which Tony only opted to take Chinese, French and Italian – the man hadn’t shown it.

Tony could tell that several of the other seniors had been surprised to see him in the language exams, given that he’d never shown up to any of the school’s optional lessons. Tony kept his face carefully neutral as he strolled in to the rooms to sit the things. (The Chinese was a risk, but Tony figured it would get reconfirming his fluency out of the way so was worth it.)

Whilst Tony felt the usual frustrations over the patronising content of the science questions and the points of view required for the history and literature papers Tony felt as though he’d acquitted himself reasonably.

The two main SAT exams proved a mix bag for Tony. Predictably he whizzed through both halves of the mathematics paper in less than half of the allotted time, finding the majority of the questions insultingly easy. The non-calculator half of the exam was especially irritating given the simplicity of the solutions requested; however, Tony was well-aware that he wasn’t the best judge of these things.

The logic tests disguised as reading comprehension had Tony finding fault with the questions themselves – Tony found it incredibly frustrating to completely leave out his own knowledge on the topics chosen, and rely on the fact that the questions didn’t want Tony to actually apply that knowledge to the situations presented.

However, overall Tony wasn’t actually too stressed about the results. His natural competitiveness aside, Tony was aware that the entrance stipulations that Cambridge required relied more on their own internal interviews and exams than any standardised scores Tony received here. Just as the Ivy League and MIT had their own biases and preferences, the University of Cambridge had its own sense of pride when it came to their ability to select the best students using their own methods.

When it came time to sit the individual university application papers Tony paid far more attention to the entrance exam for Cambridge than the MIT papers this time around, the exact opposite of his behaviour the first time. Somehow even a whole ocean didn’t’ seem like enough distance to put between himself and Howard, especially when Tony bore in mind the rueful memories of Howard flying all the way out there in Tony’s late teens just to break up a burgeoning relationship. (Bizarrely the only other thing Tony really remembered about that final unpleasant week in Cambridgeshire was the weird ‘West-Ham’ themed Ents the college’s boaties, and rugby club had organised in Clare Cellars.)

~~~~~~~

Unfortunately, academic progress or not, and the school’s written affidavits stating that the staff believed he was mentally fit to enter the big bad world of further academia notwithstanding; there was one final obstacle to Tony’s plan to go to university the next academic year.

Howard.

Somehow, and he really didn’t know how, Tony had completely forgotten that until he turned 18 Howard owned him. And his father hadn’t yet given his consent. Whilst Tony hadn’t actually received anything to imply Howard was going to refuse, he didn’t put it past his father.

Justin was bearing the brunt of Tony’s nervousness with remarkable calm, his response to Tony’s frequent outbursts of chattering had become routine, putting an LP on and talking at length about just why he liked it so much. Justin’s current obsession was actually one that Tony found he could get behind – which surprised him considering the hopeful and overtly religious overtones in the song. Tony wasn’t sure how, but Justin had discovered the Beatles during the summer term, nervously listening to ‘Help!’ on an irritating loop during the long build-up to their shared exam-season.

The other boy had since progressed onto George Harrison’s solo work, specifically the Hare-Krishna, drum banging, flower throwing, religious chanting but wholly upbeat song My Sweet Lord. To Tony’s continued chagrin Justin was definitely far more into singles than LPs, which still tended to mean plenty of looping of a single track, let alone a whole album.

Something about the mixture of nonsense phrases praising multiple different deities and belief systems was utterly relaxing in a way Tony hadn’t expected. He had a feeling that Justin knew-so too, from the way the other boy unerringly chose that particular song every time Tony started to get the jitters.

~~~~~~~~

Whatever Ty had awoken that day under the tree Tony couldn’t control it. He’d been able to more or less ignore the problem during exam season, with the long practice of denial he’d chalked it all up to stress. The need to read overwhelming his and everyone else’s need for human interaction, and giving Tony the space to ignore and otherwise forget what had happened. However, now that human interaction beyond Justin was back on the menu Tony kept getting flashes of something, every now and again he’d look at a person and they’d be different, warped, twisted, strange.

Geeky Leekie’s eyes had a strange cast to them occasionally; something told him it was literal x-ray vision.

Mr Smythe, the Krelboyne teacher looked shrunken, and small, tiny and timid rather than his usual stern cast.

It happened more often with the adults, but some of the children had other selves too.

Ty was absolutely terrifying under this Other sight of his, the other boy was a literal monster to this strange new vision. Tony wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at this apparent confirmation.

The morning he’d looked up and Justin had been different had shaken him, the other kid looked even younger, bruising on his face, heart literally bleeding out of an all too familiar looking hole in his chest. Justin had asked him what was wrong with a hurt look in his eyes and Tony couldn’t take it, he’d rushed over to hug the other boy, and pretended not to notice the surprised moue on his face when they’d pulled apart.

The next time Tony met up with Ben it caught him unawares halfway through a sparring session. He ducked down to avoid a pinch grip, and when he spun back around to face Ben, he’d changed. Gone was the short-clipped hair, replaced by a savage mane that reached his shoulders, and stood up in every direction. Instead of his usual workout gear Ben was wearing a strange set of brown tiled armour, over flowing off-white robes, a huge sword, gold metal glinting through dripping blood was clenched in one hand as if it weighed nothing, worst of all was the expression on his face. Under a thick streak of blue war paint and blood Ben’s face was a cold rictus grimace, eyes fierce with the joy of killing, mouth turned up in a cruel snarl.

Tony let out a shout of fear and fell back. Ben in the midst of a move couldn’t quite slow his momentum in time and they fell to the floor in an ungainly tangle of limbs.

“What was that?”

Ben asked, voice harsh with concerned anger. Tony kept his mouth shut, peering up at the older man warily, half expecting the vision in white and blue to come back. The harsh lines of Ben’s face shifted into outright concern at Tony’s continued panicked breathing.

“Tony?”

Ben didn’t bother asking stupid questions like ‘Are you okay?’ when he so obviously wasn’t. Instead he backed off, and proffered a bottle of water once Tony had managed to calm himself down seemingly sensing that his presence wasn’t helping. Once Tony vaguely resembled a functioning human being again Ben asked, voice grave, with his usual uncanny perceptiveness, 

“What did you see?”

“What?” Tony was surprised, but probably shouldn’t have been, “How could you tell?”

Ben just looked at him,

“When did you awaken The Sight?”

“The what?”

Ben heaved a put-upon sigh, using his nose to extend the length of the sound to great effect, his nostrils flaring with his irritation.

“How on earth did you open your Third Eye without even realising what the hell you were doing?”

Tony didn’t bother answering, the question was clearly rhetorical.

Ben had stormed to the far corner of the room, a stream of invectives that Tony was beginning to recognise and understand, much to Tony’s chagrin, following him. The older man rifled through the large case that he always seemed to have with him at these lessons, carelessly spreading the sword cases out on the floor in his haste.

With a muted look of triumph Ben produced a thick tome,

“Here, take it.” Ben shoved the positively ancient looking book at Tony, forcing him to grab it or let the obviously precious volume fall to the floor.

Tony was unsurprised by Ben’s lack of care with his belongings at this point, but still.

“I can’t believe how stupid you were after that talk we had too… Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to open yourself up like that without any kind of shielding in place?”

Tony was still bristling at the harsh tone of Ben’s lecture when he caught the next sentence, seemingly intended for Ben’s ears only,

“Urgh I might have to get in touch with an old ‘friend’ of mine, the bloody Witch of Donan Wood…”

Tony could hear the inverted commas.

“What talk?? The Witch? Ben, what the hell are you going on about?”

Ben’s whirled around in fury, grabbing Tony bodily by the shoulders and pushing his face directly into Tony’s,

“I warned you to keep your head down, and now you go and do something as stupid and reckless as this?”

“No, you didn’t. I’ve been asking you questions all year about magic! And you never once hinted that you knew anything about it!”

Tony was incensed, he’d been obliquely asking for help for months now, and Ben had ignored him at every turn. Tony hadn’t exactly been subtle about it either, and Ben was a master of picking up on cues.

“And why the hell were you blue? What the hell were you doing going all Braveheart like that?”

At the ‘wrong’ reference Ben seemed to deflate. As suddenly as his frightening anger had appeared it left, leaving the man’s eyes shining at him dully, old and tired their changeable colours gone mute and flat. Ben shut his eyes tightly, pinched at the bridge of his nose, and didn’t even attempt to hide the subject change,

“I’m coming with you to Cambridge you know.”

“What? Why? Why Cambridge?”

“Ed doesn’t trust anyone else with your safety, I’m still your teacher, you’ve got a long way to go.” Unspoken between them was Ben’s assertion that Tony had decided upon Cambridge, Tony hadn’t told anyone that, “Besides, that dump of an antique store runs itself, my staff knows what to do. I might go and visit old Chronotis in St Cedd’s, see how he’s doing.”

Tony hugged Ben as hard as he could, trying to convey that despite the initial shock well, he wasn’t that frightened of an angry dude with a sword. How could he be after Ultron, Thanos, Loki, and hell, Cap? If Ben could obliquely offer his unwavering support, who was he, Merchant of Death to do otherwise?

“Thanks Obi Wan.”

Tony hoped that Ben recognised his acceptance of his dark side or whatever that had been. As Tony had said to Cap all those years ago, he didn’t trust anyone without one.

Ben seemed to take Tony’s silent acceptance at face value, shooting Tony a grateful look before conceding,

“It’s too late to start anything now. But believe you me – we will be talking about your third eye. And just why you decided to do something so reckless.”

Ben snatched the book back from Tony’s lax grasp, shoving back into the depths of the case. He proceeded to ignore Tony until he got the message and left the salle, ruminating miserably about the situation.

~~~~~~~

“Well Tony, it’s been a very busy year for both of us, hasn’t it?”

Ms Ramesh smiled down at him warmly, for once Tony found that he didn’t mind the automatic condescension of the adults he interacted with. Not when she’d been in his metaphorical corner for the whole damned year.

“I’ll miss you Tony, I do hope you realise how high my regard is for you. How high all of our opinions are.”

Tony was flabbergasted, he’d never been on the receiving end of such warm, unsolicited, genuine praise before. Not like this.

“I wish you the best of luck at whichever university you choose to go to, I know you’ll do brilliantly.”

The slight woman bent down and hugged him warmly, stunning Tony into freezing awkwardly, unsure how to behave.

“I’ll be leaving the school at the same time you’ll be, I’m off to a teaching post in Massachusetts next month. Don’t be a stranger Mr Stark, if you pick one of the Ivy League schools I expect the occasional visit.”

She smiled warmly at Tony once more, before walking out of the large double doors, and surreptitiously ‘bumping into’ Mr Smythe. Tony scoffed, and they thought they were being so subtle too.

~~~~~~~

Tony sat down with Ben during their next sparring session. It had been a strange couple of weeks, spent in a series of firsts and lasts. This lesson was another, the entire session spent in a frank discussion with the pair sat cross-legged opposite each other on the floor.

“So, Tony, what exactly have you been doing, and how did you manage to open your third eye?”

Tony fell back on sarcasm and instinct, honed over decades of people only pretending to care when it suited them,

“You mean my trouser snake? Nudge nudge wink wink. A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.”

Ben looked utterly unimpressed by Tony’s lapse into pop-references, even though Tony did have a legitimate excuse for that one. …Okay, so it wasn’t his best line. But Ham-Justin had gotten into Monty Python lately, his parents somehow overlooking the rather adult content of the records they were sending their son in the mail. Despite himself Tony was beginning to develop a taste for their puerile mix of silly stupidity and sly cleverness.

(Tony had snatched the needle straight off of the copy of Derek and Clive (Live) that Justin had somehow gotten his hands on when the second track of that particular album had started playing, revealing the surprising depth of rudeness that was acceptable in British humour in this backwards era. Whilst Tony didn’t normally believe in censorship, being a staunch supporter of allowing people to make their own choices within reason… Well, Tony genuinely hadn’t been sure that Justin, in all of his wide-eyed innocence, would understand not to repeat the jokes within earshot of any concerned adults. Justin had been rather upset with Tony, until Tony had explained at length that under no circumstances whatsoever was Justin to repeat any of the jokes he heard on this particular LP to any adult ever. Once Justin had convinced Tony that he got the message, the pair of them had surreptitiously put on their paired headphones, the set filched from the senior lounge, and giggled their way through the entire lewd album.)

Ben still looked disapproving and worried, Tony gulped and tried his best to be truthful, the past few months had taught him that Ben was a secretive ornery bastard but not one who was likely to stab him in the back. He hoped.

“Meditation? Mostly meditation… Um. Ok this is really difficult to verbalise. Er… Clearing my mind, trying to think about nature and all that wet squishy crap”, Tony hesitated trying to work out how to talk about Extremis without talking about Extremis, “focussing on the idea of manipulating energy… And um… just letting thoughts come as they will.”

“Huh.”

Ben looked thoughtful, they spent a while with Ben prodding for information before the older man seemed to decide that that was enough discussion and he launched into a lecture about what he wanted Tony to do next.

“Okay, well first things first. We’re going to adjust your meditation routine. From now on we’re going to be focussing on looking inwards.”

“What?”

Ben misinterpreted the look of blank shock on Tony’s face, having no knowledge of the struggles Tony had been going through in the past couple of months trying to do exactly that,

“Well, until you know yourself I won’t be able to point you towards which school of magic you should be focusing on.”

The M-word. Tony resisted the urge to pull a face at the mere mention of the word magic, it was the whole point of this discussion after all. No matter how little he liked that fact.

“Wait – school of magic? Like Hog- “

Tony stopped himself and tried to think of another magical school, sadly Harry Potter had overtaken popular culture so much that his mind was a blank. Luckily apart from a sharp look as Ben spotted that Tony had been about to make another one of his ‘wrong’ references Ben seemed to understand what he meant,

“No. No, more like a style. Similar to the different styles of swordplay or hand to hand fighting that we’ve been practicing. Actually, I’ll run with that analogy – the type of sword you have, determines the style of magic you’re capable of doing. Capiche?”

Choosing to ignore the too-easy innuendo he could draw from the metaphor Tony decided to take the information and run with it,

“Ah. Gotcha. So how many different ‘schools’ are there?”

Ben grimaced, pulling his hand down over his face,

“Far too many. There are probably twice as many as there have been cultures on this planet, and likely a few more besides. Anyway, all of that is academic if you get yourself killed, or worse, before you get off the ground.”

Tony didn’t bother to ask what was worse than death, he’d been there, and from the look in Ben’s eyes suddenly weary and ancient so had he.

“So – maybe I shouldn’t keep going?”

“What?! No. No that would probably be the worst thing you could do. You’ve struck a bell that can’t be unstruck Tony – you have to go on there is no going back. No, as you are now, you’re like a beacon proclaiming ‘eat me!’ to all sorts of nasty things you don’t even want to think about too hard in case you accidentally summon them. Or worse, you could fall into the Tear.”

Ben’s face seemed to go grey at the end of that little spiel, no it didn’t so much turn grey as slowly drain of all colour.

Tony looked at Ben askance. Given how much the other man seemed aware of, impossibly, Tony was unsurprised by that admission.

“No..” Ben continued seemingly talking to himself, “You’ve already taken the most difficult step – you’ve found the path. You have to keep going, the way back is closed to you now.”

“Oh well you’re just full of cheer today Old Ben.” Tony huffed, Ben’s talk of doom and gloom getting the better of him and making Tony snap in frustration.

“However, there are multiple paths to take from here Tony,” Ben continued unabashed, before pausing significantly, “I want you to promise me one thing before we continue with this.”

“What?” Tony asked suddenly wary

Ben looked pleased by his caution,

“Good, good perhaps this wasn’t such a bad idea on your part after all. I want you to promise me that you will make no deals, no matter how minor, without knowing the full terms and conditions, the ramifications, having read the small print – all those business deal ideas are perfect for this – without knowing what you’re getting yourself into first.” Ben’s tone dropped still further from the deathly serious oath-making cadence that was so familiar from the Asgardians to something darker still, “There are beings out there that would take advantage of your ignorance.”

Ben’s changeable eyes gleamed at him as Tony tried to absorb the lecture,

“Oh.”

Tony considered, Ben’s request seemed reasonable enough, and the business-man metaphor was apt. Tony knew from bitter experience just how cut-throat that world was, and from the snippets he’d caught from both Loki and Strange over the years… Well the magical end of things wasn’t any better.

“I’ll try my best.”

“Promise me.”

Putting on a Yoda voice Tony spat out sarcastically;

“Do or do not there is no try.”

Ben’s eyes narrowed at the obvious reference to something, but otherwise didn’t react, gazing at Tony implacably.

“Urgh! Fine! But didn’t’ you just say that I shouldn’t make any deals without knowing what they were first?”

Ben’s jaw ticked in the way that told Tony that he was amused but unwilling to show it, he was otherwise still,

“Urhg! Okay! Okay! I promise – no deal making without reading the small print and understanding the consequences. Alright?”

“Good. For now, we’ll be focusing on whether you’re a mage or an …invoker, for want of a better term. That’s essentially what everything boils down to, barring one or two, or several other related disciplines.”

Tony decided to ignore the ramble and instead focus on the heart of the matter, though he made a note to ask Ben about these other groups later,

“The difference being?”

“Well… How to explain so you’d understand. Roughly speaking in layman’s terms… A mage has their own internal, replenishing power source. They can rely on their core, but it can be depleted. An invoker… They rely on external power, they have none of their own so to speak, but are skilled at manipulating the energy around them. Invokers generally rely on ambient magic, deities, or other planes of existence to fuel what they do. Mages tend to react on instinct, pulling from within themselves.” 

“So, being a mage is easier?”

“Yes and no. Um… So, for instance a skilled invoker could quite easily channel a careless mage’s own power back at them and use it as a weapon.” Ben paused for a moment and added thoughtfully, “And being honest a truly skilled invoker is probably capable of channelling more energy than a mage would ever dream of attempting to use.”

“So… Mages can’t channel any real power?”

“No, it’s just given the rather rigid schools of thought that have sprung up these past couple of millennia, most wouldn’t even think to try.”

“Mages… They’re a source of magic?”

“No! No.”

Ben breathed out heavily, not quite a sigh, but definitely a sign of exasperation. Tony was beginning to recognise the difference in his annoyed exhalations, and he thought that this one was targeted internally. After several long moments, with Ben seemingly studying the cracks in the ceiling in minute detail the older man continued.

“So, this isn’t widely known, or talked about. Not anymore. And a lot of it is conjecture on my part. But… Mages are able to innately harness and channel power. It’s a talent, it comes naturally to them. Just as storing power for a rainy day is instinctual.”

“Oh. So, they’re really just Invokers?”

“No.” It was Ben’s turn to make a wordless sound of disgust, “Urgh. How to explain...”

Tony watched with amused worry as his mentor in all things sarcastic and violent seemingly struggled for words for once,

“Mages have a power well – a reservoir or… say a battery of slowly replenishing magic that they tend to rely on. Invokers are taught how to channel external sources often in far greater amounts than mages even consider wielding but they have no natural internal ‘batteries’ of their own which isn’t to say that you can’t learn to build reserves.”

Ben seemed to battle with himself for a moment before adding,

“In short, everyone has the potential to be able to use magic. It isn’t an exclusive club like they’d have you think. But there’s a damned good reason why they’ve always made out that it’s rare… It’s bloody dangerous. Dangerous to learn and difficult to carry out safely. The very process of learning will change you. Unequivocally and irreversibly. You’ll be tempted by shortcuts that you shouldn’t take. All magic has a price. It takes just as much effort to do something magically as it does to say, just physically get up and move it yourself.”

“Huh. Your battery analogy sounds like it should be a capacitor metaphor instead.”  Ben shot Tony a look that said, no you’ve completely misunderstood and I can’t be bothered to continue trying to explain this to you, “Ok, I think that makes sense. It’s a better break down than any other I’ve found. How do we find out which I am Obi Wan?”

“Not so fast.” Ben huffed at him, “Look it’s difficult to explain this to someone who isn’t already well-versed in the dogma and doggerel that the different schools espouse.”

“…Yeah, I’m getting that.”

“But, it basically boils down to willpower, intent and belief. There is no wrong way to go about this.”

“Wait what? But you just sai-“

“But there are ways that are riskier than others.”

Tony leaned back, resting his weight on the palms of his hands. It was his turn to contemplate the ceiling for a while.

“…So, what you’re saying, well, confirming really, is that all of the theories are correct. But that some of them are… more repeatable than others?”

Ben shot Tony a wry grin,

“Yes. I wouldn’t have put it that delicately myself. But yes.”

“Huh. I was beginning to suspect as much.”

Ben clapped his hands together loudly in a false display of enthusiasm, making Tony jump and glare at him.

“Right! Now to work out if you’re a mage or just an overly curious idiot who’s started himself down a path he doesn’t fully understand.”

“Hey!”

Ben shot Tony one of his ‘cheeky’ grins in reply before rapidly settling back into the serious subject matter at hand.

“Now don’t go getting all excited, I’m not going to be teaching you anything.” Tony held his tongue, resisting the urge to demand reasons, “Inherently there’s nothing I can teach you. The type of …magic that I have to work with is so different from whatever you might have that there’s no point. But I can talk you through a few of the basic techniques that everyone should know safely. Though thankfully it looks like you were 90% of the way there by yourself anyway. First things first. Mage or no?”

Ben easily sprung to his feet from the cross-legged position he had been maintaining, making Tony envious before he remembered that he too was able to do so with ease nowadays.

Tony followed him over to the case that Ben always brought along to their lessons, he watched curiously as Ben rummaged through the mysterious and loudly rustling contents. After a prolonged and increasingly awkward silence interspersed with frustrated swearing, and increasingly loud rustling Ben produced whatever it was he’d been looking for with a shout of triumph.

“Aha! Got you, you little bastard!”

Tony shot Ben an amused look, Ben had never bothered to hold his tongue around Tony. He could only hope that Ben didn’t let slip in front of Jarvis, that would be awkward. The object that Ben proudly thrust towards Tony as if it were some holy relic was even more bewildering than anything Tony could have imagined, it was a lump of rock. Shabby, beige coloured, sandy, actually leaving trails of sediment in Ben’s palm it was so crumbly.

“And what am I supposed to do with that?” Tony gulped, after all of their joking earlier… “I hope you don’t expect me to eat it.”

Ben shot Tony a heated look, huffing exaggeratedly.

“No.”

“Well?” Ben shot Tony an infuriatingly blank questioning look, “What do I do with it?”

Ben grinned,

“I’ll warn you now, this could take a while.”

Tony shot Ben a look,

“I suddenly find that I’ve got the time.”

“You do what you have been doing. Meditate. Open yourself up to the possibility of magic, and get to know yourself and your surroundings. Only this time, you use the rock as a focus.”

“Right, and when will I know which I am – mage or invoker?”

“When the rock either starts to glow or crumbles.”

“Okay…” Tony hated it when Ben drew things out like this, “…And, which means which o-mighty-Tim, and why?”

Shooting Tony a look Ben continued the explanation,

“Glowing – the stone’s energy is resonating with your inherent magic, hence the glow.  Congratulations you’re a mage - The easiest reaction to produce is light for a rookie.”

“Okay… And the crumbling?”

“If it crumbles you’ve just drained the energy from the rock, and you’re an invoker.”

“Okay… So, should I expect it to be endo or exothermic?”

“Hah!” Ben gave a bark-like laugh, “Always trying to bring everything back around to science. Neither. This isn’t science Tony I’m not even sure if there would be anything measurable, other than the obvious end result of course. This lump of crumbling edifice is designed specifically to separate out the novices.”

Tony eyed the rock’s surface, seeing nothing that suggested it had been worked.

 “Huh. Fine. What happens afterwards? Mage or invoker – what’s the next step?”

“Then we find you a neutral teacher, one who’s willing to step outside of the hidebound old farts who seem determined to pigeonhole magic.”

“Wait – if you’re so determined to avoid labels why are you making me do this whole one or the other routine??”

“Well, as I mentioned, you can learn to use aspects of both of those two main styles of use regardless of your natural affinity. But… It’ll make it far easier to decide what the first steps should be, and who we should search out to teach you. You do need to pick up the basics as soon as possible Tony.”

Ben had proven to be a veritable font of information in the past, Tony knew that he shouldn’t be surprised that the older man knew so much about this too, and yet somehow, he was.

“So people lean one way or the other, but most can do both?”

“Bugger – I’m terrible at this. English is such an imprecise language. But yes, I think you have the gist of it. Just about anyone can learn to manipulate what is within or what is without.”

Tony decided to put forth the question that had been bugging him for months,

“Yes, that’s all well and good, but what exactly is magic?”

Ben looked pensive for a moment before cautiously putting forward,

“To couch this in scientific terms that you would understand…” The next sentence, and the amount of insight into Tony’s brain surprised him; “Think of it as like the Higgs Boson particle, we know it’s there because we can see its effect – holding the universe together. We just haven’t been able to prove its existence because it’s a slippery little bugger.”

Tony grimaced, that little spiel would have held a lot more water with him a few years ago – back before the Higgs Boson had been discovered. Tony appreciated Ben’s point though, and all of the effort he’d gone to, to make this little lecture palatable. Tony couldn’t imagine breaking all of this down into bite sized chunks, and yet somehow Ben had managed to clarify points that Tony had begun to believe he’d never get to the bottom of.

“So… Basically we don’t know.”

“Precisely.” Ben thought about it for a moment, “Though do too much of it and you’ll turn your brain to cauliflower cheese.”

Tony blinked at him,

“What, literally?”

Ben nodded sagely.

“And you didn’t think to tell me that earlier????”

“Well, I didn’t know what you were doing, not for sure.”

Tony glared at the older man,

“If you’d warned me I wouldn’t –” Tony cut himself off in his frustration glaring impotently at Ben,

“Let me get this straight, oblique warnings about eldritch horrors eating your very soul don’t phase you, but a little parting shot about brain damage and you’re quaking in your custom-made sneakers?”

Ben was looking incredulous, he continued in that tone of his perfectly pitched to irritate,

“Besides, by the time I noticed it was probably too late. You were well down that path already, weren’t you?”

Tony didn’t want to admit it, but Ben was probably right. Doom hadn’t made that intensely irritating statement for nothing. Dammit he wished Fri or JARVIS were around to bounce ideas with.

“So… Is there any way we can turn off this ‘Sight’?”

“Nope! You’re gonna have to live with it until you learn more control.”

The grin Ben shot Tony at that statement was angelic, Tony wanted to kill him.

~~~~~~~

The last days of the school term passed in a blistering heat haze, though the literally warm atmosphere of those last weeks of the summer term wasn’t all sweetness and light. Despite the fact that Tony was finally done with the veritable mountain of schoolwork (at least three quarters of which had been undertaken voluntarily on his part) there were still other pressures at work at the school.

To Tony’s continued annoyance the final week at the school was interspersed with several more attempts on his person. For all that Tony was no longer the miserable little boy he’d once been, it was all he could do not to fall victim to the newly enthusiastic efforts of Edwin Cord and Tiberius Stone to corner him. It didn’t help matters that Tony felt the inexplicable urge to draw H- Justin of all people under his wing, and protect the boy from the worst of their targeted aggression.

Anyone who wasn’t in the ‘popular’ crowd was fair game, anyone that the boys deemed too stupid, or too clever was fair game. And sadly, Justin’s well-known association with Tony, and the boy’s own vying for the top-spot on the grades list of the Krelboyne class painted a large neon target on his back.

If it wasn’t one group it was the other, Tony was only grateful that the insurmountable difference of a ten-year age gap meant that the pair of them never once thought about pairing up together throughout the rest of the school year, their possible team-up for the LP-carnage notwithstanding. Tony had never been happier about the strange politics of school-life than he was in this moment. When you were six, ten years was a literal life-time, and when you were nearing adulthood, and desperate to prove yourself one, there was nothing more uncool than hanging out with a little kid.

It was proof of how desperate Cord had gotten, and a crack that Tony hoped to drive a wedge into. Taggart was still shooting his lord and master resentful looks over that perceived loss of cool once gossip and rumour had done the damage Tony couldn’t and revealed the dirty secret to the otherwise successful plan to ruin all of Tony’s and Justin’s possessions. He could only hope that the pair of increasingly small groups didn’t wise-up to their mutual targets. It was remarkable how blind the two separate groups of bullies had been to that little example of overlap.

Something about the hot summer sun, and the relative freedom that the end of exams brought with it had worked the two groups of thugs up into something of a frenzy.

Of course, both sets had learnt their lessons well, Ty’s group avoiding Smythe and La Guerta like the plague, and Cord’s group skirting around D’Eath like he might skewer them all at any moment. Though being fair to the teens they probably believed that he might, Tony still remembered the man’s reaction to the bullying incident in the cafeteria with cynical glee. Both groups avoided Leekie at all costs. Somehow his warm office and disappointed tone was more of a deterrent than any threat of bodily harm with the paddle to both groups.

Whilst Ty had temporarily been dealt with by his Rick routine, and whatever it was that had happened when Tony had opened his ‘Third Eye’ Cord and Taggart were like bad pennies, continually popping up unexpectedly and attempting to cause trouble whenever they appeared.

There was yet another near miss in the cafeteria, involving copious amounts of the unpleasant goop that masqueraded as putenesca sauce. Tony wasn’t entirely sure what would have happened if whatever they’d been attempting had gone according to their malicious plan. He didn’t really want to know or think about it too hard. That sauce had been hot enough that it was on a roiling boil. Fortunately for Tony, the plan, whatever it had been, had been scuppered when one of the staff members serving up the dubious pasta had spotted the pot bubbling away in the wrong corner of the cafeteria and heaved it away – much to the visible dismay on Cord and Taggart’s faces.

Tony wasn’t sure what he’d done to reignite their ire, the Ivy League nonsense they’d been spouting last week was truly nonsensical. However, Tony had to admit that the sudden existence of free-time was beginning to drive him stir crazy, so perhaps that was the cause rather than anything that he’d done.

The pair very nearly discovered Tony and Justin’s hiding space above the senior common room, if Tony hadn’t been so hyper-aware of his surroundings due to their constant irritating attempts to humiliate him they might have succeeded in finding the hidden den.

Tony wasn’t really worried about losing access to the room for his own sake. But more about what the loss of the small sanctuary would do to Justin. Tony was painfully aware that he was leaving the other boy high and dry in enemy territory.

Despite the stress caused by the continued efforts of his so-called peers, somehow Tony was more relaxed than he had been all year. The knowledge that he had access to someone with, theoretical if not practical knowledge of just what Tony was trying to do with the m-word was a bit of a relief. Tony had to admit, if only to himself, that he felt a bit of a fool for not thinking of asking Ben sooner.

He’d been fumbling around in the dark for nearly a year before he’d gotten the idea through his thick skull that Ben was even vaguely trustworthy enough to ask a direct question of that sort to. And even then, Tony had only really admitted he was working on the problem because his hand had been forced. It was bizarre in hindsight, after all, Ben was in on his scheme to earn as many patents to his name as possible, from a ground level at that. If that wasn’t his subconscious wanting him to trust the older man Tony didn’t really know what was.

Despite the building anticipation and worry about whether any of the universities he’d applied to would accept him (and what on earth the strange caveats to said acceptance were going to be) Tony had to admit that if felt freeing to know that there was someone who knew, or had guessed at, at least part of his secret.

Ben would never say so out loud, would never ask, and that in itself was a comfort. Of a strange sort, admittedly.

~~~~~~~

Tony still felt betrayed when every time he thought on the fact that many of the hoops he’d had to jump through were organised by Jarvis. Tony had eventually coaxed the full story out of Ben, just in time for the older man to vanish on whatever errand it was that had him promising to “Meet you at St. Cedd’s.” Apparently, Jarvis had had doubts about Tony’s mental stability ever since the incident with Howard’s foot. Tony had to say he thought this was deeply unfair, he wasn’t the one who’d rained down wanton destruction on an innocent child’s toy, was he?

A letter turned up during the last week of the summer term it was a bittersweet affair, Ana had just gotten out of hospital after her latest attempt to gain a diagnosis came back inconclusive. Jarivs apologised for missing Tony’s birthday, and promised that there’d be a surprise waiting for him when he came home for the summer.

Tony wasn’t sure what he felt about that missive. Obviously, his attempts to warn Ana about just what she was suffering from had fallen on deaf ears.

~~~~~~~

Tony and Justin rounded the corner towards the library and stopped dead in their tracks.

The path was blocked.

Ty, and his dwindling mob of resentful Krelboynes were gathered in the courtyard, chattering excitedly amongst each other in malicious anticipation.

More alarmingly, behind the small gathering of children was a selection of the more unpleasant members of Tony’s senior class.

Edwin Cord and Jack Taggart, were, of course, at the centre of that little gathering. Standing proudly, as if they’d achieved something monumental.

Being fair to them, whilst gathering a group of children together into a mob was a rather pathetic achievement, Tony had to admit that crossing the decade wide age-gap was quite something.

Though Tony couldn’t help but notice that Cord’s group of sycophants had shrunk significantly since the beginning of the school year.

“Well, well, well.”

It was Cord who started things off,

“If it isn’t the little Stark spawn, still thinks he’s too good for the Ivy League, ey?” Cord sneered, “Wants to join the Eurotrash in Cockbridge.”

If Cord hadn’t been so self-aware of his ‘image’ Tony knew that the pretentious ass would have spat at that last line.

Ty merely spent the majority of the little speech grinning smugly at Tony, like the proverbial cat with the canary. Tony wondered what on earth Ty thought he was going to achieve here. Did the idiot think that Tony would hesitate to rat them out on the off-chance that they actually managed to do anything?

He’d already proven unequivocally that he lacked a shit to give, successfully rendering the ridiculous nickname worthless. Dammit, Tony had genuinely thought that he’d dealt with this before the exams. Making sure that Justin was out of harm’s way, without making it obvious that he was protecting the other boy Tony pushed his way forward into the heart of the small crowd.

“So, this choice selection of fools wishes to act the wise man finally?”

The blank looks Tony received for that bastardised quote had him internally grinning,

“You’ve not changed with the times, is it any wonder you’ve had nothing but constant failure in this endeavour?”

A couple of the brighter seniors’ expressions were beginning to slowly lift in realisation.

Tony took a bow, choosing to use and abuse his favourite quote, one he’d often misused before,

“It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.”

Twirling with an almost jester-like bounce in his step Tony had made his way right up to Cord without any of the others in this fragile alliance realising what he was up to.

Tony noted gleefully that the brighter students had already started drifting away from the commotion he was causing, perhaps remembering the incident at the beginning of the year.

Casually, almost lazily, Tony reached his hand up and poked Cord in the chest. Uncaring that the action emphasised their height difference. Cord flinched back violently, though otherwise nothing happened.

Tony quickly hid his disappointment. What the hell. Surely, they were only here for one thing, why wouldn’t they just get on with it?

Cord’s unwilling display of weakness had the majority of Ty’s crowd vanishing from around him despite (or perhaps because of) the boy’s angry calls for the ‘pussies’ (again with Ty’s obsession with that word) to stay where they were.

Tony continued quoting, willing the rest of the idiots to get what he was practically shouting at them,

“No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.”

The much smaller group were all looking at Tony suspiciously clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tony looked around in exasperation,

“No? No one? Oh fine. I’ll do it myself.”

Tony pointedly removed his by now infamous watch and handed it to H-Justin before sauntering over to Cord.

Tony grinned right up at the far larger boy, adding a touch of suggestive leer to really get the self-important twit angry, it worked.

Cord punched him right in the nose.

Tony stood there passively for a good thirty seconds, letting that image sink in for the curious bystanders.

Large aggressive senior hitting a much much smaller child in an unprovoked attack.

Seeming to think that Tony’s lack of a response was their cue to start a beating the small mob of idiots moved in. Tony allowed the diminished mob to surround him, watching with some satisfaction as Ham-Justin was left well outside of the circle of violence.

Tony was aware that he was almost, but not quite, completely hidden from view by the bystanders. Perfect. Just the right amount of utter confusion.

Tony let them get a few hits in for the look of the thing, before executing his (slightly mad, he was willing to admit) plan.

Tony extricated himself from their clutches with a few well-placed nerve cluster pinches. Earning himself a clearing in the circle of children. Eyes meeting Ty’s hateful glower Tony proceeded to attack himself in much the same manner as a certain lead character with mental issues from a film that had become damned near iconic in his time. Of course, in Tony’s era of smart phones, and the iconic status of the movie in question, well, this insanity would never have worked. But Tony was willing to take every advantage he had over these idiots if it meant H-Justin was going to be safe in his absence,

“No! Please! Ty! Don’t what are you doing?”

Tony sent himself crashing to the ground, punching his own eye with an accuracy that he surprised himself with.

As one the mob seemed to jump back as if frightened of a rabid dog.

He turned to Edwin Cord, crawling on all fours he approached as if in supplication, purposefully smearing dirt and blood over the older boy’s trousers and shirt in the process.

Cord extricated his hands from Tony’s clutching fingers with a noise of disgust, Tony used that moment to smear dirt and blood all over them.

The resultant scrabble ended with Cord actually striking Tony again in annoyed frustration, busting a knuckle on Tony’s teeth, and splitting Tony’s already bruised lip. Which made Tony grin bloodily up at the snob,

“Eddie? Eddie, buddy? Please? No!”

With that loud exclamation, Tony sent himself back into the feet of the few remaining older boys closest to the frozen ringleader. Their expressions of aghast horror said it all.

“Don’t you remember the time I helped you out in lab? No please!”

Tony hauled himself face first through the dry dusty ground that had hardened under the sweltering sun, tearing through the thin shirt and trousers that he’d chosen to wear that day, and earning himself a few nasty scrapes and gashes in the process.

“No! Taggart what, what are you doing? Why? Tagg-  What no!”

Taggart now also shared the same smearing of blood, dirt and blood-hydrated mud that encrusted Cord’s hands. Though unlike Cord the fool hadn’t hesitated to get his licks in. As such the other boy’s shoes were already scuffed, and Tony was sporting the beginnings of a nasty bruise to the abdomen.

Tony picked himself up by the collar, and staggered his way over to Ty, giving the other boy a broad bloodstained grin.

Ty staggered back aghast, clearly still fearful of Tony for more reasons than the ghastly spectacle he was making of himself in that moment,

“No! Ty? What are you doing?? I don’t even know you? Why are you so obsessed with me? With Hammer? ACK! NO! JUSTIN!”

With a loud choking noise Tony heaved himself over to Justin and winked at the shellshocked boy – smearing his blood over H-Justin’s face and ‘accidentally’ pulling on the younger boy’s shirt as he heaved himself upright.

Tony calmly turned to the stunned ex-mob, and as if nothing had happened calmly quoted,

“The offenses one does to a man should be such that one does not fear revenge for it.”

Before allowing himself to collapse into a protective huddle on the dust dry floor, worrying at his torn lip to make the blood drip more gruesomely.

In the same exaggerated accent, he’d taken when he’d reclaimed the ‘Tiny Tony’ nickname Tony rolled over and facing the cloudless sky said,

“I’m Tyler Durden, bitches.”

As expected the loud commotion he’d caused had the teachers bursting into the courtyard.

Smythe and Ramesh.

Perfect.

Tony had espied the duo having a sneaky make-out session a couple of corridors down from the courtyard. Tony had been relying on the fact that they’d need to neaten up before they came bursting in to pull this off.

From the thunderous expressions on their faces, Tony’s plan had worked perfectly. 

~~~~~~~

To Tony’s shock, and admiration, Smythe and Ms Ramesh made their not-so-subtle secret relationship a public matter.

Disappointingly Mr La Guerta showed his not so subtle disapproval of the relationship just as publicly as the now-outed couple, Tony had thought better of the man.

Tony’s rushed scheme worked out better than he’d expected, in response to Tony’s purposefully gory injuries the majority of the mob were under suspension, with Damocles threats of instant expulsion for any further infarctions – which was the result Tony had been aiming for. Tony had hoped that by showing the idiots that their actions would have consequences, then they’d think twice about attacking H-Justin next year.

However, Cord, Taggart and Ty as the ringleaders, and known instigators of trouble throughout the year faced harsher punishments. Given that it was the last week of the school year, and two out of three of the ringleaders were seniors the punishments were mostly symbolic. However, the fact that they were meted out at all was significant.

Cord and Taggart had both been involved in previous acts of violence against other pupils. However, they’d never been caught targeting students of such importance to the school before. As such the pair were expelled. Tony found the confirmation that it was the money the school cared about disgusting, but, well, he’d banked on it.

Taggart, being a scholarship brat was sent home in disgrace that very afternoon. Tony felt a twinge of guilt, before remembering that it was the guy’s last week at the school anyway. It wouldn’t really affect anything for the thug, beyond sending a distinct message to anyone else who thought that Justin made an attractive target.

Predictably the parents who could afford to kicked up a stink.

Somehow Leekie managed to coerce convince the Hammer, Cord and Stone familys to turn up to a series of discussions about the violent incident, as if that would make any difference to what had (supposedly) happened. As Tony had relied on, the wall-of-silence effect was in full force. No one was talking about what had happened, so Leekie and Kowalski had assumed the worst.

 Tony suspected there’d been a missive to his own parents, and was quietly relieved that they’d obviously declined to attend.

The rivalry between Hammer Tech and Cord Industries had the improbably named Drexel Cord upping the stakes of his threats against the school to such a ridiculous extent that Tony had almost laughed in his face during the ‘friendly’ meeting that Leekie had organised.

The man was another one with no sense of believable threat.

Leekie had stood firm against Cord’s empty threats, explaining that after multiple violent incidents that the school had no choice but to expel their son, no sign of his usual nervous tell – flicking his combover back into position – as the usually friendly man’s spine stiffened in the face of such overt hostility.

Whilst Drexel was clearly used to having his own way in such situations he clearly hadn’t counted on the fact that Ham-Justin’s parents were cut from a similar cloth. In the icy precise tones of the British upper-crust H-Justin’s mother coolly enquired about how they’d raised their own son, triggering an infuriated reddening of the overbearing man’s complexion before he’d stormed from the room dragging his scowling boy behind him.

In turn the Hammers had taken one look at Tony’s spectacularly bruised face, thanked him for protecting their son, and haughtily declared that they were taking their son back to the ‘safety’ of the British public (AN :– in the UK ‘public school’ refers to incredibly exclusive private schools) schooling system (which Tony privately questioned) the next academic year. It was only Justin’s puppy dog eyes that earned him permission to finish off the school week with Tony, his obvious affection earning Tony more assessing glances from the snooty couple.

Leekie had ended up organising a second meeting with the Stones, which the Hammers declined to attend. Despite the fact that several days passed between the two awkward occasions, Tony’s bruises hadn’t faded one jot merely darkened unpleasantly, the sore reds purpling and gaining an ugly brownish yellow tinge.

Ty’s parents contested the expulsion notice, and almost succeeded in reducing his punishment to a suspension. However, their involvement meant that Ha-Justin’s cold, but otherwise doting parents also dug their heels in about the situation getting their ‘solicitors’ (Brit-speak for lawyers) involved.

Tony had honestly been shocked to find out that Hamm-Justin was actually an ‘old-money’ scion. Hammer had been born in ‘Surrey’ wherever that was.

Mrs Kowalski impressed Tony with her firm stance on the situation, whilst the Stones were subtler with their threats they did make threats, none of which successfully landed. Mrs Kowalski was visibly angry that the Stone’s ‘upstart’ of a son had cost the school clients in the Hammers, and was probably stricter about the situation then she otherwise would have been.

If the Stone family business had already turned to ViaStone, and the journalism that Ty liked to use and abuse so much Tony might have been worried. As it was, Tony was aware that the company was involved in a long, expensive three-way defence contract battle with both Stark Industries and Hammer Tech.

A battle that SI would probably win if past history was anything to go by.   

~~~~~~~

With trembling fingers Tony opened the envelope, he didn’t know why he was so nervous, he’d been through this before.

He’d been accepted, he was going to St Cedd’s College Cambridge to study mathematics. It wasn’t the same college he’d gone to the first time around – King’s, the college that Tony had childishly chosen at the time to make Howard even more furious that he’d disobeyed his orders to go to England to get another “unnecessary” degree. King’s reputation for breeding communists and spies had attracted Tony like a moth to a flame, but this time Tony had chased the Professors most likely to be able to actually help him.

For instance, Chronotis had quite a reputation, for both his brilliance and his eccentricity. The college also had strong ties to the university’s Engineering and Materials Science departments, with accommodation available in both the centre of the historical city and right next to the burgeoning science park in West Cambridge.

The college fostered an intense three-way rivalry with both Emmanuel college and Trinity Hall. They viewed Emmanuel as an unwelcome neighbour, and interloper. The rivalry been there from the very beginning, when in 1584 the new “upstart” college Emmanuel had moved in next to St Cedd’s on reclaimed monastery land. From the start, St Cedd’s had been disgruntled by their new neighbours. The rivalry had become permanent when Emma had built their New Court (in the 1600s…), extra student accommodation directly overlooking St Cedd’s then Master’s Lodge and accompanying private garden. Amongst the collegiate at Cambridge the rivalry between St Cedd’s and Emma was as infamous as the rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge to the general public.

The rivalry with Trinity Hall owed to a dispute over who actually had the rights to the boating-sheds along the riverfront (and indeed some of the very land on which Trinity Hall was actually built), ‘Tit Hall’ arguing that since the sheds were on their grounds, that they had right of possession, St. Cedd’s responding that Trinity Hall were squatting on grounds that they’d originally intended to build their library on.

Tony had to admit that he was pretty fucking excited to be finally getting out of Westchester. Though it was ironic that he’d taken, and passed the entrance exam for university before the results for his qualifications had actually come in.

Shaking himself out of his euphoria Tony forced himself to actually read the letter. Ah, there was the catch – despite passing the internal entry exam with flying colours, the inability to conduct a face to face interview meant that his offer hinged upon whether or not he managed a high-grade point average, or managed to get a 1 at the CSEs, or straight As in the o-levels as well as the required run of straight As in the a-levels.

Given that Cambridge, and thus St. Cedd’s was situated in the United Kingdom Tony wasn’t surprised that the most emphasis was placed on the CSEs, o and a-level results with the other qualification results being relegated to more or less a footnote status. The genteel assumption that the UK-based qualifications were better did amuse him, it seemed some things never changed.

Tony sensed the bemused tone of writing in the letter – the Cambridge staffers just as puzzled about his choice to take multiple, very nearly equivalent qualifications as nearly everyone else he’d talked to this year.

To Tony the explanation was obvious; he wanted his academic achievements to be infamous and unquestionable. Whilst he hadn’t done much to combat the issue, it still rankled that even with seven doctorates to his name, and an eighth on the way Tony had been called ‘Mr Stark’ by Cap and SHIELD alike. Petty as it was, Bruce only had the two PhDs, both in overlapping fields and Strange was only an MD.

~~~~~~~

Tony spent much of his last days at the school enviously watching, and hearing about infamous leaving parties that the Senior year were participating in, both on and off of school grounds. Despite technically being a Senior himself Tony was not deemed old enough to have permission to leave school grounds, and besides none of the seniors would even dream of inviting a puny seven-year-old to one of their parties. Especially not one who’d managed to get two of their number expelled in the last week of school.

 Whilst part of him was rather disappointed that the opportunity to spend some time trying to be a normal kid had utterly passed him by again, Tony had to admit that the rest of him was relieved that he’d managed to completely sidestep the knotty interpersonal politics of high school. From what he’d seen Underoos had had a very hard time of it at school, and that was despite the fact that he was a witty and all around fantastic kid attending an academy set-up especially for the nerds.

Yeah, on the whole Tony was grateful that he’d managed to skip the hell that was both junior and senior high both times around.

His own tiny going away party the day before term was due to end was utterly unexpected, Tony felt a flash of fondness for Justin, he was genuinely going to miss the other boy. Justin had managed to arrange a small gathering in the Krelboyne lounge; Leekie, Mr Reid, Mr D’Eath, Smythe (to Tony’s chagrin), and Ms Ramesh were all there.

Tony had to admit that it was rather sad that pretty much all of his friends at the school were staff, but he was past caring at this point. He had a legitimate reason for his struggles to relate to the children that were supposedly his own age this time.

La Guerta wasn’t there, which Tony had to admit was a relief. He’d been half-expecting to see the red-headed giant of a man given that the other two Vietnam veterans on staff were present, but Justin had organised the little party, and had no reason to know the guy given that he took his classes with a Mr Serpico. Then again Tony didn’t know how Justin knew about Reid, so perhaps Justin was aware of Tony’s current feelings on La Guerta.

Justin had put himself in charge of the music that evening, of course. Somehow, Justin had smuggled the LP deck down into the room alongside a truly ridiculous number of LPs and singles. Fortunately for Tony’s sanity the younger boy had the social graces to accept other people’s song choices, something that Tony wasn’t entirely sure he’d have been capable of at that age.

The small event wasn’t as awkward as it could easily have been, as per usual Ms Ramesh somehow managed to utterly bypass the usual societal limitations, somehow balancing the tightrope of charming and assertive simultaneously in the friendly spontaneous four-way debate that broke out between Reid, D’Eath, Justin and herself.

The afternoon wound down gradually, with Tony reluctantly accepting a copy of Mr Reid’s, Ms Ramesh’s and Leekie’s contact details before they’d all parted ways.

Tony dreaded having to go back to the mansion during the summer. It was ironic really, in the past he’d always yearned for the much-vaunted freedom of summer. At least until he’d grown up a little and realised that he couldn’t escape the misery no matter where he was. This time however Tony was dreading having to face both his parents, and the Jarvises again. Their lack of acknowledgement of his birthday hadn’t gone unnoticed, and Tony was quietly feeling terrified about what that might signify.

Whilst Tony thought that he had implicit permission from Howard to go to St Cedd’s, well, his father was nothing if not changeable and taciturn. One wrong move this summer and all of his progress this year could come to naught, and selfishly, without the Jarvises there to act as a buffer... Tony privately thought that he was doomed.

Most of all though, he was not looking forward to facing the Jarvises again. The knowledge of Jarvis’s betrayal still stung sharply, not lessened by the paltry weeks that he’d had to deal with the information. As for Ana, Tony really didn’t know how he’d be able to face her, he never had worked out how to deal with grief healthily. All of his coping mechanisms involving drink, drugs and reckless promiscuity at levels that would have shocked someone like Hugh Heffner. It was even worse having to face the person who was the focus of those emotions whilst they were still alive, and try to put on a brave face for them. Tony didn’t think he’d be able to manage it.

He wouldn’t even have the interference that he’d been hoping for in Ben’s presence, the older man had vanished on whatever mysterious errand it was that he wanted to run and Ben was refusing to leave word about when he might return, beyond confirming that he’d “see you at St Cedd’s”. Tony found that he kept repeating that sentence in the privacy of his own head, as if he was attempting to convince himself that the older man was telling the truth.

Tony surprised himself by hugging Justin tightly the next morning before they were forced to part ways. Justin with a veritable vanload full of LPs in tow as his parents arrived to pick him up early the next morning. Tony had been surprised when they’d greeted him with courteous, if not actually friendly, nods.

Tony was relieved when Jarvis finally showed up on the school grounds, a full two hours later than the pick-up deadline, with an apologetic look on his face and a spark of utter exhaustion in his eyes.