Work Text:
“I was four or five when I built my first working robot completely from scratch. I built the one from Lost in Space – an exact replica with the waving arms and the voice. Remember? ‘Danger! Will Robinson!’ Remember?”
“Of course.”
“Dead on exact replica. I was going to be Will Robinson and we were going to have adventures. When my dad saw it, you know what he said?”
“Tony…”
“Well, yes, he did say that. But you know what else he said?”
“Tony… what is this?”
“Pep, play the game. I need you to understand before I show you this. Do you want to know what my dad said?’
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Everything I’ve given you and you go and copy someone else’s design? Do it again, do it better.’ Then he took the sledge from the work bench and knocked its head off. That was my dad and it was probably the best lesson I ever got. Why? Because I went back and I turned that robot into a fucking marvel. It had lasers. And it could fly, Pep. Fly. I was four, and the fucking thing could fly. Because it was my design. My robot. Will Robinson had fucking wet dreams about being me. But you know what it wasn’t? It wasn’t the robot from Lost in Space.”
“Tony, why are you telling me this? What have you made?”
“I need you to understand why I do what I do, Pep. I build things that no one else can. I build them just because I can. And sometimes they’re good and sometimes they’re not. But no one is going to tell me that I can’t build something. I’m Tony Fucking Stark. There is no problem I can’t fix with enough time and motivation.”
“Tony…”
“This piece in your chest, Pepper, this admittedly beautiful chest …”
“Tony…”
“It keeps you breathing. You should have died, Pep, but you didn’t. And you won’t. Because I fixed it.”
“Tony.”
“And it got me thinking about what else I could fix.”
“Tony, what did you build?”
He stood aside and let her walk into the lab where Butterfingers, Dummy, and You hovered over a figure lying on a table. Pepper knew who he was even at a distance. She gasped, pulling her hand to her face.
“Tony. What have you done?”
“I need your help, Pep.”
“Tony, you built Phil?!”
“Yes, I did. And now I need your help.”
“Me? What could I do?”
“I need to program him. That stuff that made Phil, Phil. You know… ass clenching and tie conventions. The things he liked.”
“Tony, I can’t help you with this. Did you call Bruce or Reed?”
“No. It has to be you, Pep.”
“Why?”
“Because I let them program Phil and he’ll wake up with a sanctimonious martyr complex trying to save the world from himself. But you… you can make him Phil.”
“I don’t know, Tony.”
“I do. Trust me. Because right now? He is not the robot from Lost in Space.”