Chapter Text
Inside a snowflake, like the one on your sleeve, lay the small town of Whoville, the home of the--
"--biggest jackasses I have ever met!"
Yeah, he'd said what he'd said. Now, there was a lot Stark didn't like, from the laughter of kids to the purring of cats. He didn't like sugar or sweets or anything nice, he liked nothing but his own personal paradise.
Tony glared around his little cave that he called home, his eyes searching through the piles of junk he'd collected for new inventions, old machines that he'd created that had more often than not ended in an explosion, and the little scraps of furniture he'd stolen that made up a little crevice of a bedroom where he'd been for the past twenty years.
The man covered his ears, his face scrunched up in deep annoyance and loathing as he tried desperately to drown out the blasting symphony of music that was loud enough to reach his ears even all the way up in the mountain. He groaned, barely able to hear his own voice.
"Do they ever shut up? No respect for their neighbors. Damn assholes!" he called over the sound of the music. There was, of course, no response save for the squeaky beep of his longest companion, Dum-E. The little robot opened and closed his claw, as if trying to comfort his creator from where the hunk of metal sat below the balcony that the man was currently hanging over, "You think that after two months of bells and singing they'd--"
Tony's voice was cut across, not by the music that had already been filling the cave, but by the bright flash of a red light and the screeching of his alarm. The man shot up and glanced at the screen overhead flashing the word, 'Intruder!' A callous grin spread across his face.
"Dum-E! Grab the new thing!" A beep, "Yes the one I just built! What else?"
Tony swung down a pole, dropping him to the first level of his cave. He landed roughly by his bright red door, grimacing at the way his knees cracked with old age. Disgusting.
Nevertheless, his mood wasn't dampened as he grabbed the golden mask resting on a stone crevice next to him and placing it on his face. It connected to a camera outside, showing the terrified yet daringly bold faces of a group of teenagers all bundled up against the cold.
"--say he lives there in a boiling cave, and he only comes down when he craves the taste of Whoville flesh!" fibbed a boy, jumping at the end of his sentence at the girl next to him, who gave a small scream.
"Shut it, Flash! There's no way he eats flesh!" the blonde girl responded with a slap, readjusting her red and green headband with a look of annoyance.
"Ha, you're afraid of Stark!" the first boy teased, a mean-spirited grin on his face.
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"If you're so 'not terrified,' why don't you go knock on the door?" a different girl dared.
"Yeah, touch the door!" the last boy said, and there followed a chorus of dares to the first boy the blonde girl had deemed Flash.
"Fine. I'm not a pansy, I'll go do it! And I better see a new Flim-Flopper under my Christmas tree for this."
The boy climbed up from behind the rock all the kids had been huddled on, and now that nobody could see him--well, he thought nobody could--his bravado was replaced by a vivid fear. Did this kid actually think he was going to eat his flesh? He hoped so. He'd love to have that kind of reputation down in Whoville.
Flash stumbled over to his door, each step halting and shivering, and despite the cold, Tony had a strong--and accurate--suspicion it was because of him. The kid was barely a few feet from the door when he sprung.
With the pull of a lever, his door swung open and his most recent armor popped out of the floor and encased him. It was definitely his biggest one yet, and when the boy saw it, he froze in his tracks. All eyes were on him, so with a pleasant smile, he yelled.
"AHHHHHHH!!"
In unison, the kids screamed, "AHHHHHHHHH!!!!" and slipped around in an attempt to escape. He watched with mirth as they stumbled, slipping in the snow until they were rolling down the side of his mountain. He stepped out of the suit, which immediately returned to its original spot. It was just a prototype and wasn't ready for any kind of flying or blasting. Just scaring the shit out of some kids.
"Serves them right, little brats, coming up here and disturbing me with their stupid Christmas joy or whatever," he bitched, turning as Dum-E rolled up beside him, beeping, "Most fun I've had all day though. I'm sure the city is filled with people as jumpy as they are... Grab my cloak, we're going out!"
"Sale on Aisle Three!"
"Welcome to FarFingle's!!"
"Merry Christmas!"
"For a limited time only, 90% off!"
"Save thousands this holiday season!"
Peter stumbled along behind his aunt, struggling to hold the mountain of presents that were stacked in his arms, and struggling to find the said woman due to the fact that he couldn't see anything either. The colorfully wrapped boxes were stacked too high and wide for him to even try and peer around without the whole stack of presents slipping from his arms and crashing on the ground. So at the moment he was left to flounder around and hope May hadn't forgotten about him.
As though his panicked thoughts had summoned her, he heard her voice frantically going down the list, "We got a meecher for your teacher, a Friggly Fed for Ned, two Snogglehorns for my friends, and... okay, so now we just need--Peter? Peter! Where are you, hon?"
"Here!" he called, trying to find her by the sound of her voice. A present was pulled from the stack in front of his face, allowing for him to see the crinkly smile of his Aunt's face, "May?"
"Yeah?"
"Doesn't this seem like a--I don't know, a bit much?" he asked, looking around the store in confusion. There were so many people all bustling buy, pushing money into tills and pushing each other aside in the hopes of getting to some last minute sale. Signs all around the store were filled with the names of toys and perfumes and every which of some new shiny kind of thing for sale.
"This is what Christmas is all about! See? Look at everyone's smiles!" May insisted. He glanced around the store with a frown. There were smiles, sure, but he saw more tantrums and frustrated cries at the sight of toys no longer available than anyone would care to admit. Still, he gave a hesitant nod anyway.
There was no point in worrying his Aunt. This would be their first Christmas without Ben, and he didn't want to ruin what little joy she had left about the holiday season, even if he didn't particularly get it.
"Great! Can you come with me to work? I'll take everything home with us afterwards, but I'm already running a bit behind."
"I'll just stick with you, Aunt May," he said as they walked out of the store, "I'm the best mail sorter in town." She rolled her eyes, "And all my homework's done, so I'm free."
"What about your friends?"
"They said they were doing something on the mountain today. It'd take forever to find them."
"Well, if you're sure. But no peeking at your presents, mister!"
He crinkled his nose in amusement, pretending to peer very intensely at the presents as though he could see through the wrapping. She smacked him lightly on the head.
The two had only been walking for a few minutes, swept up in the Christmas crowd as they hurried towards May's workplace, when someone barreled into him. At least, he thought they did. He fell down with the force, all the presents he'd been carrying bruising him as they landed on top of him, forcing small oomphs! of pain as they did. He rubbed at his head, turning just in time to see a dull red cloak disappear into a sea of bright colors.
Tony was having a lot of fun. He should come down here every Christmas, there were just too many fools and idiots to mess with! There were overeager salesmen to swipe from, kids playing in the street that were easily tricked, and people carrying boxes of presents that were just so easy to knock over, like taking candy from children, which he'd done.
He'd just finished knocking over a boy with a mop of curly brown hair and a box of presents higher than himself, gleefully sucking on a candy cane, when there was a commotion on the other side of the street. The group of kids he'd scared down the mountain were now hawking their tales of fear, covered from head to toe in snow.
"It was Stark! Stark attacked us!"
All heads turned and all conversation ceased, even cars and little kids stopping in their tracks to stare at the kid that had dared to try and knock on his door. He pulled his hood a little farther over his face, watching intensely as Mayor Ross stepped out of a store.
"Did someone say...Stark?" the man asked, his voice a threatening whisper that captured the crowd. The boy, Flash, cowered.
"Uh, hello, Mayor Ross."
"I don't need to remind you all that this Christmas marks the one thousandth Whobilation, Whoville's most important celebration! And the Book of Who says very clearly "Every size of Who we can measure knows that Whobilation is a time we must treasure!" So, please tell me that you weren't on Mount Crumpit, disturbing Stark, our greatest enemy. I don't believe I need to remind anybody of what he's done to this town. The trouble he's caused! So, Flash?"
"No. No, sir. It was, an uh, it was a prank!"
Ross let out an incredibly fake sigh of relief, "Well, that's good to hear. Now you four run on home. You heard it here folks, there is no Stark problem! Carry on with Christmas!"
The town continued in its disgustingly merry shopping, all but one boy that was still picking up the presents that Tony had knocked from his hands. Clearly, he hadn't done enough yet today.
Peter wandered behind May as she moved boxes around from cubby hole to cubby hole, sometimes handing him a letter or a package to deliver up front as he pestered her with questions. After Flash had run down from the mountain crying out about Stark, the teenager couldn't stop thinking about the so-called 'menace.' Stark had come to town a few Christmases before, usually causing some hijinks or setting off some really cool explosions that honestly Peter just liked to try and get a glimpse at before May had dragged him away.
But he never like, killed anyone, and no one had ever ended up seriously injured. There'd been reported acts of theft or accidents that had ended in small injury, and everyone in Whoville acted like it was the end of the Whos all together. He just didn't understand why everyone acted like the guy was some fire demon that had come to destroy the whole town and ruin Christmas somehow.
"May, I don't get it."
"Get what, honey?" she asked, swinging on a ladder to reach a high up mail cubby.
"Why won't anyone talk about Stark?"
She rolled her eyes in amusement, "You kids sure do have an obsession with Stark. Well, you see...hmm, Stark is a Who, who. Well, he's not a who, he's a--"
"A what?"
"Exactly! And he just doesn't want to be a Who, he's happy being a What that wreaks havoc on us Whos. He's just not welcome here, hon."
"But, why?"
May opened her mouth to answer, but was distracted by pestering calls on mail and gift wrapping that needed to be done. She gave him an apologetic look, "Sorry, honey. I'll be right back. Can you take that stack of boxes to the back? I'll be there soon to help."
He smiled and nodded, picking up the large stack of boring brown boxes that he was sure were going to be bright red and green by the end of the day. The teenager walked towards the storage room, his feet carrying him there on memory, once again unable to see over the towering stack that he held.
As he approached, the boy heard the strange sound of letters hitting the wall accompanied by a gleeful laugh. Curious as to what someone else was doing in the storage room, he pushed open the door, and rushed to try and put the boxes down on a nearby table. Weirdly, there was nobody around, until he turned around that is.
Crouched up in the upper corner of the wall was Tony Stark.
They both stared in shock at each other, neither of them sure how to react as they were shocked into stupid silence at the sight of one another. The silence, only filled by the rumbling of presents being wrapped on a conveyor belt behind him, was finally broken by the confused beeping of a small robot that had planted itself just under Stark, snapping the man out of his apparent stupor.
"You're--you're--"
"Tony Stark?" the man suggested, jumping down from where he'd been, landing barely a foot away from Peter. The teenager backed up on instinct, wobbling on his heel as he felt it go over the edge of the pit of presents.
"Y-yeah. What're you--"
"Oh, just doing some...holiday shopping."
"Oh! Did you need any help or--"
Peter was interrupted by the flashing of red lights, spooking him over the edge of the gift-wrapping machine as the sirens sounded, screaming out, "STARK IS IN TOWN. STARK IS IN TOWN. STARK IS IN TOWN."
The boy yelped as he landed among the presents and unable to get a grip. He began to panic as he was sucked down, the conveyor belt of presents pounding down atop of him. He looked up, blinking in confusion as the man he'd been talking to glanced over the edge coolly, not an ounce of urgency in his expression.
"Well, that worked out better than expected," the man commented, walking away.
Peter gaped, shocked. Mr. Stark muttered something that he couldn't make out, but there was nothing the boy could say as he was sucked down further, his legs now crushed by the much too large presents. Maybe the town had been right about Mr. Stark, maybe when they'd talked of his maliciousness and how dangerous he was, they'd been right.
With nothing else to do, he cried out despite being muffled by the boxes, "Help! Hey!! Anybody!! I'm stuck, I'm--"
A hand grabbed onto his ankle, pulling him up. The boxes that had been on top of him toppled off as he was dragged out of the hole and dumped on the ground. He blinked, dazed, as he looked around the room, searching for his savior. All that he caught was the door swinging shut and a bright blue glow disappearing as it was swallowed up by the red alarms.