Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tony think he might have liked painting, once. It’s like engineering, isn't it? They're both about creation, about building something form the ground up. A bridge, an innovative new design, a painting. Same thing. Funny thing is, if you got an art major and an engineering major together, they would wholeheartedly disagree with that statement. 

Jarvis -- the first Jarvis -- used to paint. Tony remembers his painting room in the little house he shared with Ana, canvases lined up on the wall like blank soldiers awaiting instruction, shelves stacked high with jars and easels, paint in every shade you could ever dream in, half squeezed, fingerprints in matchng colours or interlly different ones, messy and colourful. 

Jarvis would stand in there, sit on the little stool, and just stare at the wall, for what seemed like a long time, but probably wasn't.

Once, Tony had asked why. He wasn't sure how old he was, maybe 5? 6? Doesn't matter. It was incomprehensible to him, the boy who couldn't keep his mind in check, who thought and ran and never stopped moving. 

“I’m waiting, Tony,” Edwin had said simply, and returned his heavy gaze onto the wall. Ana bustled around in the kitchen behind them.

“For what?” Tony had asked again, feeling dumb for a such a question. 

“Inspiration.”

“Ah,” Tony had said like he understood, when really, he didn't. Not at all.

And even if he didn't, he sat next to him on one of the chairs that were still too high, and stared at the empty wall, at the wood-panelling and the little divot and the way the paint was cracking in the corner of the windowsill.

He stared and stared, and nothing popped into his head. Evidently, something did into Jarvis’, though.

He got up in one fluid moment, and whisked a set of carefully placed paints from the small side-table where they had been resting. Quickly, and without a word, he started to paint with long, deft strokes, brilliant colors flowing from his paintbrush — wand , Tony had thought reverently. He makes a sunset, shiny, wonderful red and gold, like the most brilliant of crowns, the brightest of fires.

Tony stopped and stared, because his father had let him in the workshop a few times, and this is like that, only better, because while his father can fiddle around with wires all he wants, this is changing right in front of his eyes, this is shaping up and growing, and he does not have to wait to plug it in to see if it works.

From that day, Tony thinks he must have spent more time in that little room than his own bedroom.

Soon, he started painting himself, hesitant at first, then with laughter, casting spells of color without reprieve. He wasn't very good. He was a child, but Jarvis lets him use the paint and taught him how to command the brush, laughs when he calls it a wand. 

 Howard noticed, eventually, of course he did. Tony'd come back with smears of paint in his hair and under his fingertips. 

He wasn't too pleased. Howard Stark can't have a painter for a son. That'd be ludicrous. It'd be impossible. 

He gets whisked away from that room, stuffed into workshops and labs so fast his head spins and he burns his hands. He mourns the loss of it, because, as much as he liked engineering, it doesn't quite feel right. He is used to wood in his hand, not metal, not clunky tools. 

He's good at it, of course, he is his father's son, as they all say. He's a genius, is what he corrects in his head. He's whisked all around the world, but when he can — in between press conferences and business meeting that his father parades him around at, or galas and actions that his mother does, — he slips away, to the little room inside the Jarvis’ house, and paints and paints and paints.

He revisits his childhood in these visits, sitting in the lounge late into the evening, watching the flames crackle and munching on whatever Ana's baked up. He laughs, playing a strange version of football with Jarvis outside on the grassy lawn. He gardens with Ana, kneeling next to the flower bed with dirt under his nails and sweat beading on the his forehead, oh, if the private-school boys could see him now, he thinks, ruefully one day. Ana chides him in his native Hungarian so often he starts to learn it. When he replies mischievously one day, she stares and stares at him with wide, surprised eyes for a few moments then laughs so hard she has to sit down.

There, he loves and grows and has a home more than he ever did in that lonely house.

He is happy, surprisingly. 

Chapter Text

“Hi?" someone asks at the door, wearing a sloudy red hoodie, carring luggage.

"James Rhodes?” Tony asks, not looking up from his work. 

Chapter Text

The phone rings, once, twice. Rhodey lurches over the counter, grabbing the landline.

“Stark and Rhodes residence,” he greets.

“Is this Tony Stark?” a feminine, professional voice asks.

“Nah, I’ll get him,” he tells the woman over the phone, turning his head and hollering, “Tones! Phone!”

Distantly, he hears Tony yell something back from his half-workshop, half-studio.

A few seconds later, thudding feet announce his arrival. “Hey,” he pants, holding out his hand for the phone. There is a streak of paint on his forehead

Rhodey hands it over, “you have yellow on your face,” he tells him, laughing.

Half-heartedly, Tony rubs at it with one hand. “Thanks,” he says to Rhodey, then puts the receiver to his ear. “Yes, this is Tony Stark.” There's silence as the lady talks. Rhodey leans on the counter and continues making his sandwich.

He's on his first bite of delicious, ham-flavoured bread and cheese when Tony's face falls.

“Tones?” he asks, leaning forward. “What’s wrong?”

“My parents,” he whispers, “they're dead.”

Rhodey jerks back, blinking. “Oh, Tones, I’m so sorry.”

Jarvis often travels with them. Jarvis .

Tony brings the phone back up to his ear, cutting off the woman still talking, about funeral arrangements and cremations. “Obie’ll — Obadiah Stane will handle that. Call him. I — I need to know if anyone else was in the car.”

“I’m sorry, but I can't disclose that informatio—” she starts to say.

“No,” he says, leaning over the counter with a white-knuckled grip. “I need to know. Was there anyone else inside that car?”

“Yes,” she says, finally. “A butler, I think? Name's...Edwin Jarvis, I believe. Killed on impact.”

“Oh my god, oh my god,” he gasps, doubling over like he's’ been hit in the stomach, gasping for breath, he brings a hand over his mouth, and his eyes fill with tears. The phone clangs to the ground, skittering across the kitchen tiles.

Rhodey hangs up with a muffled, “sorry,” and hugs him tight, trying to help his grief.

He cries, shuddering, horrible cries and longs for a canvas, to let this pour out of him, to let it consume the canvas, infused with the paint.

He can't.

Jarvis is dead.

From that day, he promises himself not to paint, instead he throws himself into engineering with all his heart, trying to quell the built-in urge. Everytime he reaches for it, he pours himself a drink, instead.

He never mentions it. Not drugged, not drunk, not to the press, not to the handful that get close to him, not Pepper, not Happy. JARVIS knows, because JARVIS knows everything. JARVIS, Rhodey, Obie, these are the only living people who know. 

It stays that way.

A hot blonde tells him that someone is calling him some visionary name again, and it's all he can do to smile and say, “that's ridiculous, I don't paint,” and try not to let the lie show on his face.

I mean, it’s true. He doesn't paint. He can't.

He wants to, sometimes. It’s usually so late at night it’s morning and his eyes water with tears that never fall. Sometimes he dares, getting up from the workshop or shifting his latest one-night-stand off him and opening the drawer in his lab that he keeps painting supplies in, just to taunt himself.

He never does it.

His fingers might brush the bristles of a paintbrush, or sweep over the grainy texture of a canvas, but he never dares to spoil the last remaining, empty canvas from the Gateman's Guard.

He is not happy, but maybe he’s some twisted version of it, some magazine, hot off the printing-press, photograph version of it.  

Chapter Text

Then there is a ticking time-bomb in his chest — or the remnants of one — and Tony cannot help but long for a paintbrush, this shade of blue has never caught his attention before, and now it’s all he can think about. He lays awake at night and watches the light on the celing. 

He thinks he might break his vow.

It’s been long enough, Jarvis would tell him. Move on. Denying himself painting isn't doing anything. it isn't making him happier, or bringing Jarvis back. 

Pepper makes him go to an art gallery one night. She expects him to be bored, to want to leave, not to understand anything.

Instead, he is in rapture, he feels like a maybe 5, maybe 6-year-old again, finding this hidden world of wonder and art and freedom, without the pressures of being thebest, thebest, thebest.

Until then he had never looked at the finished product, not really, and when he did, all he saw was shapes, colors, not the meaning, not the full picture. It wasn't anything like the process, so why bother?

Now, with age and experience under his belt, he can pick it apart, see how each shade influences the next, how the painting comes together like the mechanical insides of a motor.

It’s far better than that 5, 6-year-old ever would have thought.

He spends the night leaving Pepper in the dust, and he would have felt bad but her face was worth it:

Surprised.

God, he’s Tony Stark , his name literally precedes him. If you're not surprised, you're about to be, and if you are, then it’s about to get worse.  

Still, not all of his enjoyment comes from blowing his usually unblowable (that sounds bad) assistant out of the water.

On the ride home, Pepper leans across the leather seat and asks, “what was that?”

“Uh, an art gallery, Pep. You were the one that wanted to go,” he plays dumb, an old trick he learnt from Ana herself. The thought stings.

“I know that, Tony,” she rolls her eyes. “I'm talking about you .”

He blinks, struggling to regain full consciousness. It’s been years since he’s had a flashback like that. “I know, I'm fabulous, why are you so surprised?”

“How did you know... so much?”

Silence reigns for a long time, until Tony presses the button for the partition to go up, cutting Happy off from view.

“Jarvis used to paint,” he says quietly, looking out the window at the dark sky, letting the sweep of the moon’s touch illuminate his face. That dull ache for a paintbrush calls again, but he just clenches his hand into a fist and doesn't say anything.

“JARVIS is an AI,” Pepper says reproachfully.

Tony chuckles a little, at that. “There was a Jarvis before.”

“Oh,” is all Pepper says, knowing this is a topic that she cannot push Tony into.

“His name was Edwin. He was British. He was married. He painted.” 12 words. 12 words, and Edwin Jarvis is summed up, his entire life, most of Tony’s childhood.

“He sounds nice.”

“He was.” Tony draws in a breath, “he looked after me most of my childhood, most of my teenage years, in fact. I...he was my father. More than Howard ever even tried to be.”

“Is he still around?” Pepper asks hesitantly.

“He died with mama,” never Howard, never Maria, never parents, just mama and now Jarvis.

“I’m so sorry, Tony,” Pepper whispers, resting her head on Tony’s shoulder. Tony blinks, and let his head roll back on the seat. He tries to ignore how picturesque this is, Pepper curled into him, the moonlight, his arc, all of it.

He closes his eyes.

Clenches his fiist.

He is not happy, he has not been happy in a long time, but maybe, just maybe, he is on his way.

Chapter Text

A week later, JARVIS tells him that Ms. Potts has finished refurbishing a new room. Curious, he heads downstair to check it out.

It’s beautiful, truly, really. Tony clutches a hand to his mouth and tries to blink back tears.

There is a stack of canvases long the wall, blank and empty. Shelves, piled high with supplies. A sink to wash brushes, a collection of mason jars and easels. It’s all clean and shiny and new, and the thought rubs him the wrong way. Jarvis’ things were never clean, they were splattered with old paint and dirty, no matter how much Ana scrubbed the one time she declared a spring cleaning and turned the room on it’s head.

“Do you like it?” Pepper asks quietly from behind him, and for once Tony does not jump, he only turns and hugs her tight.

“Here’s the best bit,” she says excitedly, guiding him inside from where he had been hovering in the doorway.

She turns and looks at the wall, and Tony actually does cry this time, because that's Jarvis , younger than he knew him but just the same, staring out from old pictures, his air-force papers, a few with Peggy, more with Ana and one with a Howard far younger than Tony ever knew him, him sitting on the bonnet of a car, Jarvis, hands tucked in pockets and leaning on the grill. Hell, even his dishonourably discharged form.

The main picture is one Tony doesn't remember being taken, which is strange because it’s a 6th sense built into his brain, he can tell from the other side of the room as soon as the camera shutter clicks.

The picture is one of him and Jarvis, right in the middle of the wall, bigger than all the others. There is sunlight puddling across the floor, dappled from the tree outside the window. He is sitting, cross legged on a stool, eyes caught in rapture, where Jarvis is standing, painting a half-white canvas in streaks of fiery colors, red and gold, his favorites. He looks about fifteen and his hair is long and messy on his head like it hasn't been in a long time, curly and natural, spilling over his forehead.

“Where did you get that?” he asks, reaching forward and touching the frame.

“JARVIS, the AI, dug it up.”

“I didn't know I kept it,” he murmurs. “Most of the stuff concerning my childhood I burnt after mama and Jarvis died.”

“It was pretty hard, huh?” she asks, fingers curling around his arm, just above his elbow.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I guess.”

She doesn't say anything more, and Tony is so grateful for the fact.

He spends all his time in the painting room, all his time tucked away in the ‘Gatekeeper’s Guard.’ That’s what the cottage that the Jarvis' lived in, many years ago, was called. He knows it's not the same, but he likes the poetic thought of it.

As much time as he spends, even more than the workshop, he can't get it to work . The colors won't pop, the canvas is just white, and as try as he might, it’s useless. He’s uninspired. His wounds are deep and old and scabbed over, he is so tired that even if he thinks back as far as he can remember, to the very furthest outposts of his memory, back when his mother laughed and his father smiled at him sometimes, he cannot summon any kind of angry or happiness or... anything . He guesses the well-trained instinct not to paint is ingrained too deep into him.

He’s groaning into his fist one day, frustrated with the lack of progress when Steve walks in.

“Tony? JARVIS told me you were down here?”

“Yeah…” Tony whines, resting his head in his hands.

Steve steps inside, and his breath catches as he sees the inside of the room. “Woah…” he sighs, awed. “I didn't know you painted?”

“I don't, apparently,” Tony sighs. “I’ve lost inspiration,” he says in way of explanation, serving Steve’s confused look.

“Oh,” Steve says. “Yeah. I had a big stint back in ‘32. Not fun.”

“How’d you get over it?”

Steve shrugs, “I don’t remember.”

They talk, and talk, and Tony thinks that while he’s destined to be an engineer, Steve is destined to be an artist, he talk about it not even like Tony does. Steve leaves and then Tony lays on the floor and tries to pretend the light from the window is shaded green and blocked by leaves.

It’s a few hours later when the silence is interrupted.

“ Sir ,” AI-Jarvis says, “ There is a team dinner, soon .”

“Thanks, JARV,” Tony replies, and his voice is croaky.

“ Sir… ” JARVIS pauses, an eternity for a supercomputer. “Are you alright?” He finally says, every circuit lined with hesitation.  

“When have I ever really been alright?”

There is another pause, this one several millennium. “I am not sure. My main reason for creation is to help you. Was Ms. Potts wrong to give you this room?”

“No,” Tony sighs, “Somethings you just have to dredge it all up, my old friend. Edwin Jarvis is one of them, for me.”

“I see. This process helps you?”

“Eventually, it hurts going through, though.” Tony tells him. Normally, JARVIS knows what to do, he knows everything about Tony...except this. They have never talked about things like this, they have never really had to.

“What is hurting you?”

“What if’s,” Tony chuckles, spread-eagle on the floor.

“Can you be more specific, sir?”

“Like...What if I’ve lost it, J? What if Howard ripped it out of me, replaced it with bolts and wires? What if I can never get it back?” He laughs again, staring at the ceiling, “What if, what if, what if.”

“What is ‘it’, sir?” JARVIS asks. Tony sighs but responds.

“I used to paint, in MIT. I’d take over the entire corner, and it would come so easy . I’d be half-dead after class or workshop, but then I’d pick up the paintbrush and it would be like a jolt of adrenaline right to my arm. Now...I just can’t. It doesn't work.”

“You haven't lost it, sir,” JARVIS informs him quietly, and Tony doesn't know if he’s imagining the voice of his dead butler, or the ever-present mind in the ceiling, made to love him.

“Thanks, J,” he whispers.

He is….happy. He is trying to be. 

Chapter Text

After Civil War, and all that happened, he is struck with some sort of fire. It's different than after mama and Jarvis (and now the Winter Soldier), this time, instead of tucking it away to die, he is opening his arms and welcoming it, ready to turn it into paint and pour it over the canvas. He is not even out of the hospital before his gown is stained with color.

Before, his paintings were gentle, no matter how vivid the color or angry the shape, they retained a certain... softness, he’s had his fair share of pain, heartbreak, but before, it was pushed away, shoved to the side and a drink pulled up instead.

Now, everywhere he turns, there it is. The reporters outside the hospital. The nurses, shy and asking in hushed voices. Pepper with her red-rimmed eyes and more than a few tears for her (not-any-longer) boss. Rhodey, in that goddamn wheelchair. The TV never stops playing the news, on and on about Steve Rogers and Natasha Black Widow and Clint Hawkeye.

Now, he could not be gentle even if he wanted to be. These paintings are angry and violent, uncaring. There is a savage, primal darkness, the gritty joy of getting dirty, smearing blood, but he revels in it without the mess...well, much. It still takes hours to scrub his hands clean.

Three weeks after he is left to die in Siberia, an anonymous, pop-up gallery appears in Brooklyn. There is much public speculation on what exactly occurred after the airport fight. People are still struggling to understand what happened between ‘Team Cap’ fleeing and Tony Stark in a hospital bed in Russia with severe damage to his chest.

The first in the exhibition is a small room, homey and cluttered, sink piled with paintbrushes and empty jars, behind though the doorway is a kitchen, where a woman with red hair has her back turned, washing dishes in the sink. It is titled, simply, the Guard.

After that, assorted snapshots:

Tiny hands, cradling a little curious board, soldered and done with unsteady hands. There is a vivid burn mark over one knuckle, and a few scratches and scrapes over the other fingers. genius

This one looks straight out of a renaissance painting, a dark-haired woman, smiling demurely, hands clasped in her lap, a bottle of pills and half-filled glass of dark wine beside her. She's holding a rosary and a silver cross disappears down her neckline. Her eyes are dark and untelling, like Mona Lisa. communion wine.

A man, tan, handsome for his later years. Half his face grinning brightly and strongly, teeth flashing, the other half is turned down into a scowl, eye narrowed. It’s just ambiguous and cartoon-ish enough not to be Howard Stark. Watch for the cameras.

The next big piece is a large canvas surrounded by smaller ones. The large is a corner of a well-worn room, paintings littering the space over beige wallpaper. They’re in even more varied styles, abstract, impressionism, cubism, surrealism, and a very interesting Madhubani-style work. The small paints surrounding are most of the paintings from the first, rotating around the larger canvas. It’s called Dorm room 314.

In front of a muted grey background, a boy sits on a throne. There is a hard set to his mouth that shows more than it hides, and his back is perfectly poised, arrow-straight. Two large, meaty, male hands place a lavish, golden crown on his head. The closer you look, the more details are revealed, the throne is made out of bone, the ruby jewels in the crow bleed, the boy looks looks scared, and the wooden beads of a rosary are slung over the corner of his chair, carelessly disregarded. the crowning. 

There's only a few next, spaced out. They’re all fast and blurry and a new, unique taste, some sort of abstract mixed with surrealism mixed with something else. It’s all models and long legs and cars and party lights, living the fast life, no end in sight. The longer you look at it, the more details you uncover. They give off the vibe of a racing mind, sex, distractions, living life like a racing track, fast, dangerous, tires squealing, only this time you do not wear a helmet. Living because you’re not allowed to die and there's nothing else to do.

A woman, blonde and pretty, but with a blurry face, standing in front of a car, silver recorder in hand. A man with slicked-back hair and orange glasses talks to her, face tilted so you can see his profile but not his features. I don't paint.

A soldier's grinning face, tucked into a helmet and desert army gear, the straps of a tan backpack striping over his shoulders, sweat beading off his skin, leaning on the window of a jeep, military base behind him, there's a military plane and an American flag behind him. platypus.

The next is the view from a backseat of a Humvee, ahead, there is a burning ball of explosion that vaguely looks like another jeep, and around the viewpoint, there are soldiers, thrown into motion. The most notable is a young, blonde soldier, desperation lining the still-baby fat of his. There has been special detail put into this one, it looks real, better than a photograph. american.

It's the scene from the ransom video, only now they are kneeling around him in a biblical style, straight from the bible, or perhaps the Pali Canon, and he is Buddha. The terrorists are holding flowers instead of guns, and they are in a meadow and not a dark cave. The man's eyes are closed, and he looks at peace, head tilted, chest clear of any blood or bandages. peace and love, losers. 

It looks like an old film strip, first, an arrogant man, smirking into the camera, sunglasses lowered down his nose. The next is the same man lying on his back, blood on his chest as he unbuttons his shirt with shaking hands. Then his arm bringing down on a sheet metal, there is grim determination there where egotism was. It ends with a close-up of his face, brown eyes wide-blown and scared, set to his mouth, blood on his face. this is an important week for you, isn't it?

A balding, middle-eastern man lies on puffy white clouds, but his neck is lolled back and his body is in an impossible angle, there is blood at the corner of his mouth and his eyes stare upwards. the plan.

The next looks straight out of a comic book, him soaring into the sky in rough, cobbled together silver amour. His helmet is off, and his head tilted upwards, grinning with the joy of flying. Not too bad.

A peace sign formed from a dirty hand, flung into the air. You can see blue sky and sweat and the way the fingers strain, it looks real and it looks incredulously happy. 

The next few are stunning, and the only word that can even try to describe them is: blue. Arc reactor blue, azure, cobalt, lapis, navy, ocean blue. It shines from his chest, illuminates the room, holograms, the Malibu ocean. It’s all blue.

A beautiful woman, only her face is snake-like, scales rippling over one corner of her malicious mouth. Her hair is long and red and curling, like fire on her dress; a short thing meant to tease him. Agent Rushman.

The next piece is surrealism, a tired, glassy brown eye staring from a fizzy flute of champagne bubbles floating upwards. Whatever I want to do with whoever I want to do it with.

A swirling wormhole ripped through space, edged with the blue of the tesseract (so, so different from the blue before) and showing a rippling curtain of stars, ready to be pulled aside by some ever-worldly deity. There is wonder and horror and awe, all of it, mixed together in a concoction of paranoia and nightmares. one way trip.

A missile floats away, tilting in zero-gravity, flying forward to where more leviathans swarm towards the opening in the sky, coming from the huge mothership of the Chitauri, watching the destruction from above like some kind of malevolent god. ENDGAME?

The next section is maybe the most...controversial of all. Some are old, happy, you can see it in the way the sweeps move, in how the paint swirls, that shade of red, not that one. Others are angry, new, dated later. All are tinged with some kind of foresight that makes even the happy ones sad, no matter when they were made.

Natasha is smiling in one, still in her suit after a mission, the light carefully crafted to give the best angles. She looks soft and innocent, gentle. Her red hair curls around her face in a short bob.

Steve is in another, his face still dirty and smudged with ash from a fight, there is blood on his forehead, but he’s never looked so...brilliant. Smiling goofily, he looks like a full nerd. His hair is blonde, falling over his forehead and into glacier-blue eyes that are crinkling at the corner.

This one is a play on the first brecklast. There's only 6, and they're eating waffles and cereal and coffee, not supper. They look like a family. 

Some sort of twisted family portrait, all of them standing in front of a quinjet, wearing battle armour straight after a mission. It looks perfectly domestic, if not for the knife Natasha is spinning between her fingers and the shield strapped to Steve's back, a gantlet on Tony's hand, the blood dripping off Thor's hammer.

The next section is grieving, there is sadness lined in every stroke.

This one is a different form, and it takes up half the wall. Little ceramic mosaic tiles, all hand painted. The pictures are all the same man, drinking a glass of scotch or in a party or a corporate meeting. In every one, his mouth is open, he is smiling like listening to an inside joke, eyes flicked to the side, talking to someone that isn't there. Some, he is wearing glasses, others, an earpiece. The whole pictures makes up the words, J.A.R.V.I.S. 29 years.

Streams of code, flitting past, green and fast and endless. A hand reaches out from the numbers, but his fingers are crumbling, dissolving into software before they can reach. Bye, buddy.

The next paintings are dark, filled with fear and glinting color.

A pair, the first, a hyper-realistic shot of an old, silver car, about to collide with a tree. Inside the car, there is dark shapes visible, people, caught in that moment between flying and falling, where you are somehow both. Did you know?

In the last, another realistic painting that looks more like a photo than anything else. A boy, recognizably Tony Stark, is painfully young, eyes big and wide, a tremble to his lip, but his jaw gritted. He looks hard, determined; trying to lock back grief, but he also looks so terribly crushed, innocent in a way you cannot fake. Red-and-blue police lights light the scene, and there is a tear shining the corner of one of his eyes.

Yes.

Chapter Text

The public response is incredible. Most wonder over the identity of the painter; how they know these things, if it really is Tony Stark. The gallery is flooded, pictures shared across the world. Some savage part of Tony laughs, wonders if this is what Jarvis had in mind when he told him he should show his work.

Tony finally schedules a press conference, apparently to clear up something over ‘Civil War’, and the gallery is not forgotten, no, but it is pushed aside.

Most of the questions about Rogers, Barnes, Tony’s apparent betrayal over the Accords, or is it theirs? Christine, from the crowd, sees how Tony’s jaw tightens minutely, how his hands flex a few times before they settle around his water.

“Mr. Stark, what do you say about the recent gallery opening about your life?” she distracts artfully (hah), giving him a break. Tony’s thankfulness shows in his eyes, and he takes a moment to answer.

Then he smirks, leaning into the microphone, “Well, I think I’m a pretty brilliant painter.”

The reporters roar, jumping to their feet. It's a strange parallel to all those years ago, “I am Iron-Man.” Again, he’s exposing himself.

Christine tips back her head and laughs. Oh, god, she thinks, only Tony.

The reporters jump on the idea, steering away from Civil War entirely. Tony answers questions about his mother, the accusations of alcoholism, his father, child abuse, more and more until the crowd is giddy on the information. Even if he never says, ‘my father hit me’ or, ‘mama drank’, or anything else, it’s still more than anything they could have imagined. Tony never, never talks about his childhood.

It is a golden rule to those who have know him, or more accurately, have been reporting on him long enough. You stay away from his mother, his father, his childhood, don't throw around the Merchant of Death, and you’ll get the best pieces, the interviews, the gossip and the tips on him right from him.

From there, it devolves into a whirlwind. More people come out. A few girls (and boys, but people ignore that, they've known him, Tony Stark, so long, it can't be true, can it?) step up as well, displaying paintings, of them, of a thousand different things, of cities and cars and beautiful, lovely, delicate, sparkling things, given, commissioned, but tossed until plucked from the trash with admissions of, ‘this is beautiful, why are you throwing it away?’ and then,   ‘oh, I guess it’s alright. You can have it, if you want.’

More galleries open, filled with all his remaining MIT paintings, a few from his childhood, spirited away by a maid before he could destroy them in the grief of Jarvis passing. These ones are not as big as the first, of course, but there is still a steady flow of people, in and out, pictures uploaded to every social media platform.

And Tony’s in the middle of it, throwing details like glitter, even passingly mentioning Edwin Jarvis, once, in an interview with Christine. She just looks up from her notepad, surprised. Tony smiled, lifted his eyebrows and asked if there was a problem. Christine shook her head and scribbled down the name.

Then the Rogue's return, and yes, the press notice, but it’s a passing fancy, and soon they are on Tony again, and his new life of a painting and laughing and living, he says, his new motto.

Nobody misses the subtle dig.

Chapter Text

For the first time in years, Tony visits the house where he grew up.

The curtains are mouldy, the floorboards rotting in some places. There's a few broken windows and evidence of squatters, but Tony doesn't care. He bypasses all remaining mentions of his parents and heads straight to the Gatekeepers Guard.

He holds his breath as he steps inside.

Oh.

Even holding it, air is knocked from his lungs.

It looks the same.

Exactly the same. Wonderfully so. Nothing is moved, and it seems to have fared remarkably well in comparison of the manor, the only evidence of the time away is a slightly mouldy smell and the thick layer of dust.

He sits in the middle of the living room, on his knees, in front of the fireplace, and nearly weeps.

This is where he grew up, with the fire going and Jarvis sitting on that faded burgundy armchair, Ana with her feet up on the couch, no matter how undignified Jarvis says it is. He makes himself get up and move to the kitchen, where it hits him so strong he sways on his feet.

This is where Ana baked and Jarvis set things on fire. The only recipe he could do was creme brulee, and Tony can still taste the charred sugar on his tongue.

He only spends a few minutes in the kitchen, then braces himself, and walks into the bedroom.

It hits him like a truck — no, an air-plane, a jumbo jet of nostalgia and hurt and memories like an old, faded t-shirt, wrinkled and worn, but the best thing you’ve ever worn.

This is Ana, with her perfume and her lipstick, and he can see her now, sitting at the vanity, doing her hair. He loved to watch. Red, he remembers. He loved the color, how she would unfurl the waves from her rollers in the mornings, coil them at night.

Here, she spritzed him with perfume and laughed when he sneezed, here she pecked him on the lips with shiny red lipstick, leaving faint impressions. Here, he watched her religiously every night, had her evening routine memorised, knew every step before she did it.

There is photos on the bedroom dresser, sun-stained and yellowed, but clearly Tony. He must be young, about six, smiling into the camera. Jarvis is holding him around the shoulders, Ana standing behind them, daring a mischievous smile into the camera. He doesn't remember where it was taken, but the thoughts strikes him that they look like a family.

Huh. Tony Stark having a family.

The thought almost makes him sick, he holds a hand over his mouth and stumbles outside, throwing open the door and collapsing into the grass. It stains his knees and dirt gets underneath his fingernails, and that brings back even more memories, Ana with her wide, floppy hat, planting tulips. Jarvis, wearing one identical to Ana, reading a book. Him, tanned, digging into the fertile earth with his bare hands.

He wretches himself away from it, stumbling over to a patch of trees by the gate, where the flashiest car he owns is parked, just to annoy dad and make Jarvis tut his tongue and smile.

For a moment, he lets himself rest, lean on the bonnet, rest his forehead on the cool metal. He counts to ten, lets his heartbeat echo in his ears. He pulls out his phone from his pocket, dialling a number he knows by heart.

“Hello, WHiH World News, where can I direct your call?”

“Christine Everhart, please.”

“Right away,” the receptionist says, and there's a click as his call gets processed.

“Hello,” Christine answers, there is the tapping of computer keys in the background and a kind of focus in her voice Tony remembers from his own.

“Hi, Christine,” he says lazily. The typing stops. “Did I ever congratulate you on leaving Vanity Fair?”

“You sent flowers,” she says reservedly.

“Ah. Were they nice?”

“Very,” she answers, amused.

He’s about to launch into one of his rambles when she cuts him off, sensing it.

”How are you?”

“Eh,” he sighs, “going through some PTSD, unresolved trauma, a heavy guilt complex, alcoholism plus all the struggles of my life. What’s up?”

“You're the one who called me,” she says, and he can hear the raised eyebrow.

“You got me,” he admits, and then continues before she can cut in with a witty comment, “I’d like to do an interview.”

“An interview? About what?” it’s not uncommon, no, it’s just surprising. Tony's given out far more than he usually does, and any more from this point is killing overkill several times. The others are drunk and giddy, but Christine’s only suspicious. She wonders if Tony’s trying to flood the market, make any gossip about him worthless.

There’s a pause, and Christine can hear birdsong behind him. She wrinkles her brow, trying to hear more.

“Tony?” she asks, unsure if he’s still there.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, “uh, it — it’s about, well, my childhood.”

“Still on that? ” Christine teases.

Tony laughs, honestly and earnestly, “yeah, I guess. This one, though. This one is — is big .”

“Who?”

“Ana and Edwin Jarvis.”