“March 27th, 1971,” comes from the video. There’s a baby gurgling, pudgy hands swiping for a bottle. “Subject has been given two doses of the serum over the course of six months, but shows no outward signs of change or internal. This is test three.”
Howard insists on a Thanksgiving dinner. He serves Tony his own plate, cranberry sauce on turkey and mashed potatoes. A roll with butter on the side.
“Thanks?” Tony questions, raising an eyebrow. “You’re being weird.”
“Just eat your food,” Howard says. “It’s Thanksgiving, Anthony.” He shrugs. Puts the mashed potatoes into his mouth.
Finishes everything on the plate. Howard waits until the last possible moment to go to his board meeting. There’s no change with Tony.
They drink to celebrate early admittance into MIT. Howard pours the drinks. Tony wrinkles his nose as the taste hits the back of his throat.
“God, this wasn’t aged correctly.”
Howard is in his lab, recorder on. “It seems that the subject has had no effect with the serum. He is still…himself.” Not strong. Not America’s next hero. Just…just another Stark, and not even Howard at that. “Will resolve to end the testing.”
Tony doesn’t notice it until he hits around twenty-nine. Usually, something changes in the diet, in the intake of food. He should be slowing down, just a little bit. But he isn’t. He’s not even aging. He still looks like he’s twenty-two and straight out of Monaco from a vacation.
He wants to know why.
Finds out his genetic sequence is really fucked up.
And then he accesses Howard’s archives, something Tony swore he’d never touch for the longevity of his life.
His own father hadn’t even called him his own fucking name. It was subject. He had been experimenting on Tony for years, fucking decades. And all to see if Tony could finally measure up to perfectly little Captain America, paragon of virtue and manliness. Not a son who was “off,” not a son who was too sarcastic and too much of a freak.
He decides he needs to learn how to do make-up, special effects.
Makes a new technology that he sells to SHIELD as disguise-wear, and they don’t even think that he’s using it on himself.
At least he looks his age now. Drinks to that.
He can barely get drunk. He used to just think he had the tolerance of a damned giant. Now he knows that he was forced to be that way, and he didn’t even know.
Howard had a lot of “special occasion” bottles of choice.
He drank them all on an uneventful Wednesday, and only woke up with a slight hangover that was gone by eleven. He felt a little bit vicious, a little bit prideful.
Tony Stark is not Howard Stark’s Son anymore. He’s Tony Stark, inventor of the brand new, revolutionary phone, the weapons that make terrorists shake in fear, and Tony Stark, the Best One.
(Turns out he’s still as shitty as he always thought he was, he makes weapons that others sell because they can, and he really should’ve known about it, but stupid fucking Obie–)
He survives Afghanistan because of the serum. He knows it. He can feel his chest slowly on the mend, but it won’t be enough.
He becomes Tony Stark, pioneer for renewable energy and Iron Man. God, he loves Iron Man. He’s his own hero, and he cries when he sees a little girl in her red-and-gold tutu, grinning up at him through face paint.
“Hi Mr. Iron Man!”
He grins at her, signing a postcard. “Keep doing your thing, kiddo.”
They find him. He can’t even believe it. He drops the scotch, drops the ball. Shows more emotion than he should. Coulson probably realizes it.
Steve Rogers, of course, hates him. Because why not? Everyone else should, and it’s a damned miracle that Rhodey, Pep, and Happy don’t. Or maybe they do, and they like their perks and paychecks too much to say anything.
But…
Over the course of a couple months, things start to get better. Steve kind of thinks that Tony isn’t as bad as before? Natasha is nicer now, and they have drinking nights when everything is too much.
“I’m surprised at your tolerance,” she says one day. “You drink like I do.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had more years of experience.”
“Have you?” she teases. “I’m Russian.”
“I’ll drink to that,” he replies in her native tongue, sipping on wine more expensive than anything she’s ever seen. He’s like that. So casual with all the dripping decadence surrounding him.
They find Sergeant Barnes. Tony asks Steve how many Commandos he’s actually planning on having back, because he had met Dernier, and not all of them had to come back. (Uncle Jacques had been an asshole, but a funny one who could teach how to flirt in French.)
Steve just smiles sadly.
He needs a new arm, but no one knows how to give him an arm. The traditional cocktail of drugs won’t work, and Steve has a higher concentration of the serum.
Bucky and Tony are almost an exact match. Not that Bucky knows that, but then again, he probably also couldn’t tell the average Joe how to work an oven. The expression in his eyes is heartbreaking, devastating to see. He has lived too much of this life, but he does not remember it. (It would be such a Mood if it wasn’t so damn depressing.)
After Tony sees Bucky whimpering in pain over the arm when he thinks no one can see him, that settles it.
Tony drags out the tapes. Ignores how fast his heart beats, ignores how Friday asks him if he would like some chamomile tea because “your heart is at an alarming, rate, Sir.”
“I’m used to it, honey pie. Come on, let’s see those tapes.”
He studies them. Drinks a shit ton. He thinks it’s three bottles? It’s high alcohol-proof, so he can actually feel a little bit more buzzed than usual after three. God, isn’t it sad that this is his life? Putting on make-up to advance his actual face, dying his hair to go gray. (It’s fashionable, no?)
He grimly takes another sip of scotch and writes down that if they up the levels of morphine, it might work. Like, a ninety-two percent success. Which is pretty good.
Tony Stark gets to the last tape.
“I am delivering more serum to the facility, and the house. I am thinking that the subject might react more positively with more serum, perhaps I should do this in a hospital scene–”
He breaks down. Of course he does, twenty years too damn late. He can’t stop crying, ugly tears burning hot tears. Make-up streaks. He’s breaking at an alarming rate.
Friday alerts Rhodey, which alerts the rest of the team.
Tony is tired, and sad. They see more of his life.
“Tony…” Rhodey says, eyes wide. “Tony, what the hell did that monster do to you?”
Tony looks up, alarmed. “What the hell are you guys doing here without access?”
“Friday was concerned,” Rhodey answers. “As she should be, considering you never told me or anyone else that Howard injected you with serum and you were…”
There are bottles lying on the floor. Tony is drunk.
Bucky stares at him.
“You’re like me.”
“Had a little bit more time to be a fuck-up,” Tony says. “And that was by my choice.”
Bucky makes the first show of contact since his return two months earlier. It’s large.
It’s a hug.
YES 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 I’m loving this!!!
Testing…Testing
Published
Smile It Won't Suck Forever 