Chapter Text
So listen: Things never went like they are supposed to, that was clear. It's like, Murphy's law or something stupid like that. Which explains that it wasn't his fault that people started to think he stands over the law and the rules. It somehow evolved into that notion that whenever Anthony Edward Stark was concerned, people got what they wanted, no questions asked.
Your father left you and your sister five years ago, which you told me standing in your gross-ass backyard-shack trying to appeal to my empathy I traded years back for a four-some with Miss Universe, World and USA and now your mother died in a car accident which means you have no idea how to get by and the only other person who ever showed you that they cared was me so you put my number in for emergencies in hopes I can help you?
Look, I got this giant big-ass tower in New York and enough money to feed the entire world and maybe I had a lab experiment go wrong and got somehow some disease named empathy so: Welcome to my humble abode I totally did not re-design to be kid friendly with a workshop for you while buying your sister a pet fish.
Lost your moody and handsome as fuck war-buddy 75 years ago, who got mind-controlled by HYDRA, who also killed my parents, for which I was madly pissed at him, but empathy seems to be able to mutate if one doesn't pay attention to it and you want him back so badly, you even ruined our friendship, at which I'm equally pissed at you but try to be the bigger person, because you are the beacon of morality and I want to stuff it so far down your throat you choke on it?
Congrats, he got a new not-so-shiny-metal-arm which I regularly update when I'm bored and an all-time ticket to stay after I started therapy and got buddy-buddy with him, all the while I can hold my generosity over your head 'til kingdom comes and deny you your visit rights until you learn how to apologize to people.
You are an orphan who somehow got bitten by a genetically enhanced spider in an internship at Stark Industries, which totally wasn't your fault, and after your uncle died at a crime scene and your aunt had the worst luck and died of cancer not long after that, which wasn't your fault either, you have no place to stay because New York rent is a bitch and you still go to high school?
Whoops , I have no idea how an apartment at my tower popped into existence, custom-designed to your tastes in which you can stay rent-free indefinitely; How a lab for you in which you can develop your web-shooters and spider-suits in came out of nowhere and also how, after you expressed that you wanna be a hero, a newbie place on the Avengers team was made for you, which has absolutely nothing to do with me, thank you.
You are a blue alien made orphan by a megalomaniacal purple asshole which tried to kill half the universe because he got delusions of grandeur who pitched you against your green step-sister you have a love/hate relationship with and punished you for losing against her by exchanging body parts with machinery to teach you an entirely unnecessary lesson and now you're stranded with me on my home planet and don't know what to do after we killed him?
Okay, maybe I repaired the damage to your android-parts and promised you maintenance, negotiated with the World Security Council to give you an Earth-valid Identity with papers and shit and built you a guest room in my tower which is an absolutely decently sized normal-human-living-space and not at all another apartment, Rhodey, I don't go around the universe and adopt all living beings into my tower, so stop spreading nonsense about my very serious, most-probably deadly disease.
That said, you see that he evidently, absolutely, 100 percent had no hand whatsoever in the fact that broken, helpless people started moving into his tower and got supported and cared for, supplied by his money and name for them to have a better life and they somehow morphed into a big group of people helping each other.
That they catched his disease (he is neither a virologist or a biochemist so it's not his fault, Bruce ) and started to act like a family didn't have anything to do with him, because he swore years ago that he will never ever, in his entire life, under no circumstances gonna have any children. Which means that his entire team of superheroes called the Avengers is crazy and brainless, because they see things that aren't there.
Like him being a loving Dad to his tower roommates (who would be the best kids one could imagine if he had kids, just saying).
When Tony was four years old and crying in his butler Edwin Jarvis arms, he contemplated if children are mistakes, just like his father said. The thing was, last week he went into his fathers workshop to show him his self-build circuit board. His father told him how proud he was and praised him so much, so that he even celebrated it with Tony by giving him his first sip of whiskey, like real men do. Tony was thrilled and glad he pleased his father, that even the alcohol burning his tongue couldn't diminish it. So naturally he went into his fathers workshop days after to present him his new achievement, only for his father to yell at him and tell him off. He even threw a glass at Tony. A glass which shards Jarvis now plucked out of his hands little Tony threw instinctively up to protect his face.
With tears in his eyes he asked Jarvis why his father would do that, but he received no answer to that, instead Jarvis took him into his arms, petted his hair and told him everyone makes a mistake from time to time so he shouldn't take it too seriously. Even though Jarvis' words calmed Tony, the hurt he felt in his little chest was heavy and cold and so much bigger than he was able to express. So he decided to do his own hypothesis on the assertion his father made that day.
Tony got his second evidence to his hypothesis at his parents charity gala at age six. He hated the gala with all these unimportant faces, but had to stand between his parents and smile welcoming to all of them, even when he was bored out of his mind. Every stranger congratulated his parents on their genius son and how Tony would some day change the world, like his father did. Tony himself tried to not groan at every instance it happened, while simultaneously trying not to tug and pull at his very uncomfortable tux his mother strong-armed him into. If every gala worked like this, he sure as hell would never go to any of them when he was a grown-up. He had better things to do, like finishing his engine he had in his room so his father would grant him a workshop too. As he thought about that he flinched violently when suddenly a high-pitched screeching began on the other side of the gala room and people parted like the red sea to watch a young girl losing it.
Tony guessed her around five years old, while she tried to throw herself on the ground but was prevented by her father, who held onto her by her arm. She started kicking and screaming louder, which should be impossible by human standards but she still succeeded. With big, shocked eyes and a pale face Tony watched her parent's attempt to sooth her and catched her reasoning for her temper tantrum: She didn't want to wear her shoes anymore. As his mother apologized to the people she was talking to and went over to the ruckus to defuse it, his father got two drinks from the bar which one of them he handed over to Tony and motioned for him to drink. His father stated with a startling nonchalance:
"See, boy, this could be you if you weren't born a Stark. Children are the plague, this is the perfect example. If you ever behave like this, I will ship you over to boarding school faster than you can say microeconomics , are we clear?"
Tony nodded silently and tried to keep his face straight as the whiskey burned his mouth and throat, Stark men were made out of iron, after all; While burning the image of the girl, now thrown over her father's shoulder with a snotty and tear-streaked face, into his brain.
His third to 10th affirmation that Children are Mistakes did Tony collect throughout his school life and his 11th at his high-school graduation at 13 years old. He had never had a problem with school, it was easy, even if half the school hates you for being more intelligent than they are. Some rumors here, some soaked backpacks there and some afternoons locked into the bathroom stalls doing his homework until the janitor made his rounds were nothing on him. It would have made him a spineless ninny in his father's eyes, which he couldn't risk, to be honest. He already let himself be talked into hacking into the Pentagon by his older fellows, who promptly snitched on him and his father needed to come to school because of it and Tony earned himself a good beating.
The only one he could trust was Tiberius Stone, he thought. He was Tony's age and a sophomore, instead of a senior like he was, but still something Tony called a friend, up until his mentioned graduation. Tiberius waved at him who stood next to Tony's mother in the crowd, she came without his father of course, before Tony got handed his diploma and tried to not look like a dwarf between his 18 year old peers. He tried not to run to his mother, saving some dignity here, but Tiberius came up to meet him at the stairs so Tony shot him a grin, only to be tripped by him and getting himself a broken arm after he completely lost his balance and fell like a wet sack of potatoes down the stairs.
"See if you can engineer with a broken arm, Tony. I'm going to be the number 1 one day, so you better start practicing to lose or your fall from grace will be even harder than this."
Tiberius put on a show of concern over Tony, he really should become an actor instead of engineer, he thought and tried not to wail like a baby. He never broke a bone before and it hurt like hell, but apparently nothing, what a bit of time and a cast couldn't heal. Stark's are made out of iron and all that jazz. And if he happened to make plans of revenge and destroy Viastone Corp. one day then, welp nobody's gonna know.
At age 16 as he finished his fourth try at the world's first AI ' DUM-D ' at MIT, he learned that children are not only a mistake, but the worst kind of humans possible. After his talk with the dean to discuss if his AI project could grant him a PhD he went back to his testlab and robot only to find him demolished . Tony was never unreasonable angry in his life before, but at that time, in that moment uncontrollable rage overtook him to the point that he not only thrashed the testlab, he hacked into the school system to find everybody who had access to the lab and deleted their blueprint files, canceled orders on their name and took parts of their college fees to donate to various charities.
Still furious he got up and out to a party he heard of, got himself not only mindlessly drunk but high on whatever drug they sold to wipe his brain blank, just so he got a pause from his wrath. If Rhodey was later called to get Tony out of the house, he didn't mention it. Ever . He just prevented him from choking on his vomit and hydrated him regularly with water until Tony fell into a coma-like sleep.
"They destroyed DUM-D ," Tony said, voice rough and eyes bleary, when he woke to Rhodey's movements. But Rhodey said nothing, just nodded and moved on with his task and left Tony to pull himself together alone.
Days later as he assembled DUM-E , his fifth attempt at the world first AI with updated software for self-defense, he got wind of the rumor that five students got kicked out of MIT for sabotaging a student. Frowning Tony tried to ignore the gossipers in the lab until Rhodey came by, at which he looked up. He silently put a coffee-to-go by his side, nodded once and left him alone again to assemble his robot in peace. It took Tony an embarrassing long moment to shake himself out of his stupor staring dumbfounded at his coffee and if he sported a stupid grin all day, then nobody said anything about it.
Maybe he had one friend after all.
When December, 16th 2001 happened, he got his conclusion to his hypothesis Children are Mistakes . What else was he, locked into his room, crying like the child he was, denying to eat and scream at anyone who cared to knock? His mom was dead , killed by his father who drove them against a tree, probably drunk as always, who also died at the crash site. No matter how much he tried to pull himself together, he couldn't. For days he tried to feel resent, he tried to feel agonized, he tried to feel anything : remorse, despair, frustration, dismay, guilt, hope, longing; But all he got was a bottomless pit inside of him. Massive, dark and hopeless and never able to climb or crawl out of it again.
Eventually he got dragged out of his room, made CEO of his company and forced to socialize at board meetings. The board members decided to let him grief and gave Obediah Stane the position of COO and Tony didn't argue.
On Jarvis' death day the black pit became a void and he turned into a lifeless shadow. Over months he filled the void in him with alcohol, sex, drugs and weapon development, occasionally writing some lines of code for an AI in honor to JARVIS and doing some SI work, but never succeeding.
And as the day came on which Virginia Potts stormed into his office, slammed papers on his desk to rant at him about being reckless with his calculations, he realized that a spark ignited in him. The security threatened her, demanded she leave immediately but she claimed boldly to have pepper spray with her and Tony's spark burst into flames as he started laughing out loud. And so the woman with the imaginary pepper spray became Virginia 'Pepper' Potts to him and his Personal Assistant which did anything and everything he required her to do.
But what she never knew was that on that day, she made the void in him seem a little less consuming.
He still stands to what he concluded years ago, that's not even a question. Children are Mistakes and he has a hypothesis to prove it, can even write it down if people demand it. And he knows because even at the age of 33 he still feels like a child and makes mistakes which hurt and had hurt millions of people. So if his hypothesis includes him, nobody's none the wiser.