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“At some point in our lives, we will all be incapacitated.
“Removed from our selves. Replanted in a pot to grow new roots. It’s scary, isn’t it?” Tony Stark paced the stage, one hand firm on his walking stick. “To be taken away from our everyday, our every-hour, our every-second, and told, Make do with this.” He let the walking stick clatter abruptly to the ground.
“There are people for whom this would be an impossible feat,” Tony went on before his arrested audience. “Whose roots weren’t left intact, who must regrow from scratch—” he leaned forward and regrasped the walking stick, “or else be left behind.” The stage glowed red where he had been, marking his place in time, as he resumed his march ahead. “We are all aging,” he went on. “Cells dying, organs maturing and then deteriorating, minds ever-dwindling by the moment.” He allowed the walking stick to fall again, then walked beyond it. “We begin to reflect our age in our physique long before we accept it into our subconsciousness.”
As he treaded forward, he began to unconsciously shuffle, avoiding the longer, easy strides. “Like cars or other complex machinery, it is rarely the whole thing falling apart at once. From without, the damage can be nearly indiscernible.”
As he reached the edge of the stage and about-faced, his shoulders hunched slightly, unconsciously. He nearly wobbled. Yet at the press of a cufflink, a friend appeared at the far end of the stage, half Tony’s height and a mixture of black and jet-blue. The audience chuckled approvingly as the robotic Dobermann bounded across the stage. The robot dog paused to retrieve the walking stick, then loped over to its master’s side, tipping its head to offer the walking stick up.
The stage beneath the robotic dog began to glow blue. “Meet Doppler,” Tony Stark introduced. “My new—and improved—dog.” He took back the walking stick, then explained, “Doppler can fetch.” He allowed his metal wallet to clatter out of his pocket, which Doppler bowed and retrieved. “Doppler can sing.” He took back the wallet and resisted a smile as the dog sat on its robotic haunches and awooed melodically. The crowd laughed. “Best of all—Doppler can be customized. He can provide any service—any service at all—that a flesh-and-blood counterpart can.” He pressed on Doppler’s back, and the harness rebounded gently upwards, providing a stable platform for him to rest a hand on. Synchronized, they walked across the stage.
“You can imagine the utility,” Tony said, as he reached the opposite side of the stage and allowed a humanoid robot to load a box labeled “100 kilos” onto Doppler’s back. “If need be, Doppler can carry five hundred kilos for six hours at a time.” Tony and Doppler marched down the stage, the dog steadier than the man despite the weight on its back. When they reached the fallen walking stick, Tony retrieved it, parking it under his hand and ordering, “Off you go.” The dog tipped the crate heavily onto its side before bounding off-stage. At the press of another cufflink, the humanoid robot appeared fully on-stage, drawing appreciative murmurs from the crowd.
“Meet Io,” Tony said, extending a hand for the robot to clasp and shake gently. “Although far from the first, Io is the most sophisticated assistant robot in the world. Introduce yourself,” Tony encouraged, releasing the robot’s hand and gesturing meaningfully at the crowd.
The robot turned to its audience. “Hello,” it greeted. “My name is Io X1-907. I am a fully autonomous assisted living robot. My primary function is healthcare. My secondary functions are education and participation in cooperative tasks, such as games, sports, and constructive projects. I learn primarily by imitation. I come pre-programmed with over 10,000 command pathways. I speak almost 400 languages, including American, Chinese, French, Arabic, and BANZSL sign languages.”
“Imagine,” Tony said, walking stick under hand, Io X1-907 at his side, “a world where you no longer need a friend—or three—to break their back moving your furniture.” He indicated the box on the ground. Io neatly bent, scooped it up, and walked off-stage without missing a beat. The crowd murmured more. “Where you can reserve yourself for the important tasks.” Io returned, holding a bottle of water in offering. Tony took it and drank shallowly. “Where everything is just . . . easier.” Tony handed back the bottle. “This is the remote for the television. We’ve never mastered telekinesis. But maybe we don’t have to. Maybe all we need is a stronger shadow.” He tucked his hand around Io’s elbow, prompting the robot to offer it in support. They walked towards the edge of the stage; Io prevented them from toppling over, turning to him and recommending, “There’s a two-point-one meter gap in one stride; would you like to proceed?”
“No, thank you,” Tony said. They retreated towards the center of the stage. He could feel the exhaustion creeping over him, his metal heart thumping steadily but his soul a little weary. “Today, you might be young, and strong, and fit,” Tony said, releasing Io’s arm, a yellow shadow appearing on the ground as the robot dutifully returned backstage for his closing remarks.
“You might think you can’t be knocked down a peg.” He gesticulated at the large patches of color—the red light from the cane, the blue light from the matching dog, the yellow lightbulb moment of Io—and said simply, “But you can. And you will. No one spends their entire life in one place.” He retreated to the blue marking, adding, “Some come to terms with incapacitation rather early in life. The fact that we are not in control of our own game.” He paced back to the red marking, lingering. “Others take time. Years. Those lucky to live long will know what it is like to lose something.” And again, he allowed the walking stick to fall.
“When I was your age,” he said, voice softening, “I thought it was weakness, to reach out and take that step. To call out. To even acknowledge that I was not as strong as my peers.” He reached down gingerly for his pantleg and elevated it, revealing the bionic limbs left behind. “I thought these were loss. In a way, they are. They’re the loss of youthfulness, of vigor. As they decayed, I was left with two options.” He gestured and a human aide brought out a wheelchair. It was the best Stark Tech could do, and it practically wheeled itself out, but as he took a seat in it, it put bile in his throat, sadness in his voice as he said, “For years, I felt like half the man I had always been. You forget how much height is part of your world until it’s drastically reduced.”
He sat with that remark for a few seconds of silence, the auditorium quiet enough his own heartbeat seemed loud in his ears. “But this was the price I paid for living. This was the next chapter. I had two choices. For a time, I chose this.” Then, carefully, he planted his hands on the chair and stood up, looking around and musing, “You might think it was that easy. The transition. It wasn’t. I had to give up all hope of recovering what once seemed possible. I had to surrender. Surrendering—it changed me.”
He reached for his walking stick, then planted it underneath his hand and walked towards the edge of the stage, confronting his audience directly. “We don’t get to choose what happens to us,” he said clearly. “Let me repeat that. We do not get to choose what happens to us.” And he let it steep, let the silence impress his message as assuredly as his presence did.
“We get to make choices every day. But we do not get to choose what happens to us. We do not get to choose what weather precipitates or what person speaks to us in a kind or ungentle tone, or what catastrophes will eventually befall us, as we make one revolution around the Sun after another. We can only choose to keep living, no matter what happens to us.
“And many of us do. Some of us don’t. It is our mission, as a species, to be able to help them, as assuredly as we help those who are visibly in need.”
He leaned on his walking stick for a long moment, catching his breath. Then he resumed.
“I was one of those people,” he said, to echoing silence. “Who did not want to live, to carry on in this weary, miserable world. But I did not want to cease to exist. There was still a spark of life in me. There will always be a spark of life in you, no matter how dim it seems, how dark the days ahead reveal themselves. Life is inextinguishable. Every person,” he said, very seriously, “is as alive as you or me.
“And I want you to really resonate with that, to really understand, in your heart, in your deepest sense of being, that the same spark that compels you to want exists also in every person you meet. And what you see, so often around them, is simply the weather. Take away those storm clouds and you will see the person underneath clearly. And you will not believe what they have been through.”
Looking into the eyes of so many faces, Tony said simply, “I see my fellow man as I have never before, for I have seen the pain and tribulation behind you. To live a long, happy life, you will encounter stormy weather. And if I am up to the task—I know you are. There is nothing that separates us, cosmically speaking.
“We are, all of us, just as capable of surviving, of adapting, of overcoming what happens to us. It was not I who decided my body would fail me over time, but I made the choice to plant new roots, to survive long past my planned extinction. I will be here only once. I want to make it count. To ensure that I have squeezed every drop of life out of this body before finding out what happens after. I can’t be satisfied if I haven’t tried my damnedest.”
Drawing in a beleaguered breath, Tony finished, “Look upon those among you who are in need not with resentment or fear but compassion. You will become them—even if only for a brief window. We are all those people, underneath our veneers of good fortune. We all have the same spark of life inside us, however it manifests. Whether our body requires a cane, or a dog, or a robot to maintain that light, look upon the person with profound relief. We are getting closer, every year, to compassion over dread.
“We are getting closer every year to accepting this pain that is inherent in our lives, that is universal in our experience, and yet, like us as individuals, is so myriad as to share little crossover. My pain is not yours, but we are, you and I, human beings. We are too similar to hate each other. Why look with dread upon this?” He lifted the walking stick, letting his audience observe the simple wooden staff one last time, and finally said, “Thank you.”
. o .
“That was beautiful,” Steve said, standing backstage, one hand resting on Doppler’s fur-less head. “Really. That was beautiful.”
Tony nodded absentmindedly, then sank gratefully into a chair, sighing out what felt like half his lungs.
“The mind is willing,” Tony mourned, “the body is not.”
Steve said in that familiarly sandpapery tone, “Nobody expects you to do it forever.”
“No,” Tony agreed, rubbing one flesh knee absentmindedly, “just as long as I can.”
Steve gave Doppler one last pat, then said, “All right; down, boy,” and the dog lied down, waiting for further instructions. “You okay?” Steve asked, stepping up to Tony.
Tony nodded, one hand still gripping his walking stick. No matter how strong his half-human, half-robot body, his balance was still failing with age. Some things were simply harder to reverse than others. Some were impossible. But that was okay. “The spark of life goes on,” he said simply.
“Would you care for a coffee, sir?” Io offered conciliatorily, holding a piping hot beverage on a tray.
Tony couldn’t help a huff of amusement. “This,” he said, solemnly but amusedly, “this is why I invented assisted living robots.” He swiped the mug from the tray carefully. “Thank you, Io.”
“Most welcome, sir.”
“I’d say watch your heart,” Steve mused, voice soft, worn after all the years of barking orders and keeping kids in line, “but I don’t suppose that’s a big issue.”
“One more reason why I love the modern world,” Tony said seriously.
“Real modern,” Steve agreed, shaking his head when Io looked at him. “I’m good. Thank you,” he added anyway. “Rather go home, if it’s all the same to you,” he told Tony softly.
“What, you don’t want to hear the talk about the benefits of rollercoasters?” Tony asked, resting his chin on his hand. “I thought that sounded interesting.”
“I don’t like rollercoasters,” Steve reminded patiently.
“Really?”
“I’ve never liked them.”
“What’s not to like?”
“They’re too tall,” Steve said stubbornly.
Tony huffed a laugh. “Sounds about right.” He planted his stick and sighed. “I don’t want to get up.”
Steve offered a hand. “Grab me instead.”
“No, that’s still getting up,” Tony complained, but he sighed and complied, heaving himself upright—admittedly, mostly with Steve’s help—before leaning against Steve. “I don’t need a stick. I have you.”
“You always have me,” Steve murmured. “Come on. I want a malt. From that diner on the corner.”
“Old man.”
“I want one,” Steve insisted stubbornly, immune to such character critiques. To be fair, he was the oldest man alive—by a healthy margin, too, at 152. News anchors loved him—he was the “new Mr. Rogers,” to many, despite his official title of Captain. Steve had gone soft with age, from the firm-handed leader to the gentle, sleepless wizard that guided those who sought his counsel through any and every storm. Emphasis on sleepless—Steve hadn’t slept a wink in thirteen years. His mind had suffered for it, but he was still the man Tony loved. Aside from the occasional moments of exasperation or worry, he was pretty damn well-off, for his age.
“All right,” Tony allowed, tucking his arm around Steve’s elbow, allowing Io to take the walking stick. “We’ll get a malt.”
Steve had a steadier gait than he did, which was helpful. They were complementary opposites, Tony had often insisted. Underneath the veneer of great age, Steve’s body was structurally sound, strong, but his mind was losing its sharp edges, that brilliant, mover-shaker tactician giving way to a humbler soul who simply desired to rest and be well with his family. While Tony had done everything to ensure his own body could keep up with his indelible mind, Steve had simply aged gracefully, becoming America’s golden sweetheart, who rarely but sincerely made televised appearances.
Given the choice between a failing body and a failing mind, Tony would always choose the former, yet he didn’t feel bad for Steve—mostly because Steve was happy, if confused at times, lonely in his own soul at times, wanting for something Tony could not give at times. Tony felt the same longing, in his own way—he yearned for the days when he was wholly human, when he was young and dauntless and unmarked by the passage of time.
We all face tribulations, Tony thought, trying to tamp down the way it made him feel when Steve greeted the woman behind the counter by name, sweet as summer and twice as golden, insisting that they just wanted malts but accepting a table, anyway. We’re all making it through.
Tony felt the weight of Doppler on his feet, passively monitoring them. He saw, in the corner of his eye, Io sitting at a bench in the lobby, keeping passive watch but knitting a scarf so as not to appear hostile. The Dopplers and Ios of the world would make their way into the mainstream eventually, but he was glad they were already in hospitals and assisting in senior care homes. He cherished that his work would help where he was not able to—Iron Man inspired countless young technicians, but it was the way his technology could give humans peace, put the tension out of Steve’s shoulders and give him his own legs back, that made him feel his life’s work was worthwhile.
Io did more than learn—it also guarded, just like Doppler. It guarded their physical bodies—and it guarded their spirits, their peace of mind. Steve trusted Tony, and he trusted Io as an extension of Tony, and Doppler as an extension of Tony, too. Maybe Tony could not eradicate stormy weather—but he could give them better gear. “I’m very happy,” Tony said, his voice slightly deadpan but loud enough to be heard as Steve sipped quietly at his chocolate malt. “This feels good,” Tony explained, gesturing vaguely. “Being here.”
“Yeah,” Steve agreed, leaning back a little, giving Tony his full attention. “I like these a lot. I’ll miss them.”
I’d miss you, Tony thought, reaching across the table and squeezing Steve’s cold hand, grateful that he could age gracefully alongside him.
Tony didn’t know if he would live long enough to see a world where needing equipment to live would be seen as normal, good, rather than dreaded, feared. Nobody wanted to think about being the red shadow, left behind, tormented by what was and could never be. Fewer still could imagine themselves as the blue shadow, treated not as a liability but as a simple spark of life too precious to be lost in the cold, stormy weather ahead. But maybe, just maybe, Io would walk alongside people and give them more than peace of body, comfort in their own skin—but peace of mind, that the world did not always have to be a frightening place among friends.
“You should try some,” Steve encouraged, pulling him back from his thoughts, nudging Tony’s malt towards him. “It’s good.”
Tony didn’t bring up that they’d already had malts four nights in a row. He just sighed, said affectionately, “Old man,” and retrieved his malt.
“I love you,” Steve said, openly and seriously.
Tony squeezed the hand he’d captured gently. “Love you more.”
“No,” Steve said stubbornly. “You can’t.”
“I can’t love you?”
“Can’t love me less than I love you,” Steve said, then frowned. “Can’t love me more,” he insisted.
“Too late.”
“No,” Steve said. “I love you.”
Tony squeezed his hand again. “I love you, too.”
“I’m not that old,” Steve said. “Can’t pull the wool over my eyes yet.”
“Of course not.”
“I haven’t married you,” Steve said, sounding surprised with himself. “I was supposed to do that.”
Tony said wryly, “Here, I thought we had a thing going on already.”
“No,” Steve said. “I was gonna marry you.” Then he shook his head. “And then I lost the ring,” he pieced together, frowning. “Why didn’t we get married?”
Tony said, “If you’re asking me to get down on one knee—”
Steve looked at him with those serious blue eyes. “I love you,” he said again, and this time, it sounded like, Marry me.
“Okay,” Tony said quietly.
Steve smiled, then pulled his malt closer to himself, beaming like Christmas morning. “That was a good speech you gave,” he said, like he’d ticked off the note on his to-do list at last. “I think the kids’ll like it.”
“What kids?” Tony teased.
Some would say their lives were not full, wanting for children and wives and white picket fences. Tony would say, I don’t think there’s a drop more that would fit in my cup. His heart was full of Steve.
“You know,” Steve insisted, refusing to have the wool pulled over his eyes. “The ones in school.”
The college kids, then. “Hope so,” Tony said seriously. “They’re the ones that’ll get the most use of them. Someday.”
“Someday,” Steve agreed breezily. “I like today. Today’s good.”
“I’d say so,” Tony agreed, robot dog at his feet, robot assistant keeping watch, would-be husband before him. “I love you,” he said seriously.
“I love you more,” Steve said immediately, and Tony squeezed his hand in good-natured rebuke, unable to stop a big smile.
“Never gonna let that go?”
“Never,” Steve said, and Tony knew he meant it.