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Ben’s nightmare starts on December 23rd, 2009, when he’s climbing into bed after the work day from hell – they should ban wood burning fireplaces in New York City, especially combined with Christmas trees – and looking forward to having a couple days off work for Christmas. Just as he’s laying down, his wife says, “You got that Iron Man toy, right? It wasn’t in the closet when I got stuff out to wrap earlier.”
“Iron Man?” Ben asks.
May nods. “The action figure. Where did you put it?”
“Oh,” Ben says, as a creeping sense of panic makes its way from his stomach to his throat. “The action figure. Right. I, um…”
May turns to look at him. “You did not forget to buy that,” she says, voice firm. “That is the only thing Peter has talked about all month. He is obsessed with that damn flying tin can.”
“I thought we agreed Tony Stark was a horrible role model.”
“I don’t care,” May says. “That’s the only toy he asked for.”
“I got it,” Ben says. “Of course I got it.” He smiles at her, nodding. “C’mon May, would I forget that?”
He totally forgot that.
- - -
Ben heads out early the next morning, but not before he’s cornered by May and Peter in the kitchen. “Where are you going?” May asks. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
“We’re going to the parade!” Peter says, mouth full of cereal.
“Parade?” Ben asks.
May’s expression over Peter’s head is slightly pained. “It’s in Midtown.”
“You want to go to Manhattan on Christmas Eve?” Ben asks.
Peter nods. “Iron Man is gonna be there.”
“Wow,” Ben says. “That’ll be cool. We can’t miss that.”
“Ned is coming over so we can go once he gets here,” Peter says.
“Sure thing, buddy,” Ben says. “I just have to run over to the station real quick.”
May frowns. “You’re not on call, are you?”
“No,” he says. “I just left something there.” He steps closer to her. “The, uh, thing.”
May looks confused. Ben jerks his head at Peter.
“Oh,” she says, understanding dawning. “Right. Okay.”
“I might have to meet you there,” he says.
Peter frowns up at him. “You’re not going to miss it, are you? Because it’s really gonna be him there. He’s supposed to, like, fly in and everything.”
“I bet he is,” Ben says. “That sounds like something he would do. I won’t miss it.”
Peter grins. Ben ruffles his hair, and then grabs his coat and heads out on his mission to acquire the hottest children’s toy of the season.
- - -
Ben starts at Target, which is his first mistake, in a day of many mistakes.
The toy section is picked over, and definitely doesn’t have the Iron Man action figure. The next store he gets to doesn’t open until 9 AM, and there’s a line outside. He steps up to the end, and asks a man there, “Hey. Do you know if they have any of the Iron Man action figures in stock?”
The guy snorts. “What do you think we’re all waiting for?”
“So they do?” Ben says, relieved.
“God I hope so,” the man says. “Or my wife is gonna kill me.”
“Mine too,” Ben mutters.
The guy laughs. He sticks out a hand to shake. “Rajiv,” he says.
“Ben,” he answers. “Nice to meet a fellow procrastinator.”
“This is nuts,” Rajiv says. “I can’t believe they’re calling this guy a superhero now. I mean, the suit’s pretty badass and all. But last year he was getting shitfaced in Vegas on national television.”
Ben nods. “My kid thinks he’s the coolest thing ever though.”
Rajiv nods back, sighing deeply. “Mine too.”
A worker for the store emerges at 8:50 AM and hands out numbers to everyone in line. Ben is #12. Please god let them have 12 of these action figures.
He feels a bit bad for hoping for only 12, because the people in line behind him are also there for the Iron Man action figure. Evidently, everyone in New York is trying to buy this toy and has left it until Christmas Eve to do so. At least, he thinks, he’s not the only one who forgot. He’s got plenty of company.
Despite the number system, there’s a mad rush on the doors once they open, and Ben gets swept along in the crush of people, tripping and falling over a display of Barbie dolls just inside the door as a woman behind him shoves him in the back.
“Oh god,” he says. “I am so, so sorry.” He starts trying to pick them up.
From across the store, there’s a shout. “I got one!”
Ben turns to see a woman holding up the Iron Man action figure, waving it in the air.
Someone else yells, “That’s the only one!”
“I’ll give you $300 for it,” someone yells.
“$350!”
He stares, still holding onto a Barbie box. Rajiv winds up next to him again.
“Well,” Rajiv says. “We’re fucked.”
Ben looks down at the Barbie. It’s Veterinarian Barbie. Maybe Peter will want to be a veterinarian when he grows up? Maybe Ben can nurture that interest now? Instead of nurturing this desire his kid has to become a superhero? Surely being a veterinarian is better. Rescuing kittens and saving puppies. Peter likes animals.
He sighs and sets the Barbie down. “Where’s the next store?” he asks Rajiv.
“There’s a couple in Elmhurst.”
- - -
Ben and Rajiv decide to team up. There is strength in numbers, after all, and they are two parents on a mission. A very, very doomed mission.
The Iron Man action figure is sold out at every single toy store in Queens. They move on to Brooklyn, but aren’t having any luck there either.
“Maybe we should split up,” Ben suggests, “to cover Manhattan.” They’ve just left their tenth store in the past hour without any luck, and at this one the clerk actually laughed at them.
“I don’t think there’s a single Iron Man toy left in the tri-state area.” Rajiv sighs.
From behind them, someone says, “Hey!” They both turn. A man dressed as Santa is sitting on the corner, panhandling. “Did you two say you were looking for the Iron Man doll?”
Ben stares at him. Rajiv says, “Yeah. We are.”
Santa smirks at them from behind his beard. “You fellas are in luck. I got a hook up.”
Oh, Ben has a bad feeling about this.
- - -
They wind up in the back of a van with a logo for a catering company headed to New Jersey.
“We’re going to be murdered,” Ben hisses.
“I’ve got a good feeling about this,” Rajiv insists.
“Our bodies are going to wind up in the Hudson,” Ben says. “We’ll wash ashore, bloated and unrecognizable, months from now. They’ll have to use dental records to determine who we are. That’s if our bodies haven’t fallen apart. It might only be a foot that washes ashore. Or maybe we’ll never be found. Maybe we’ll just be missing forever. Our families will never know what happened to us.”
Rajiv turns to stare at him. “You’re a very negative person,” he says.
“I’m a realist.”
In the driver’s seat, Santa is singing along to Christmas songs on the radio. On a list of ways to die, killed by a fake Santa in New Jersey while trying to buy Tony Stark merchandise was not in Ben’s top ten.
The warehouse Santa takes them to looks just as sketchy as Ben was expecting. Inside, there are even more Santas, working on entire production lines of toys. He and Rajiv both stop to stare.
“Wow,” Ben says.
“Welcome to the North Pole,” Santa says.
Ben blinks at him. “This is, um…” Illegal, he thinks. “Interesting.”
“So where’s the Iron Man toy?” Rajiv asks.
Santa turns to another Santa, and Santa #2 heads off to go get the toys. Ten minutes later, Ben finds himself being extorted for $250 for what should be a $25 toy.
He’s come this far, though. He’ll be damned if he walks away from this without the thing.
Rajiv pulls the box open.
“Oh, no!” Santa says. “You can’t open that in here.”
Rajiv pulls the toy out. It’s painted blue and white. He stares at it.
Ben opens his own box. Blue and gold. Well, they got one color right.
“This isn’t Iron Man,” he says, holding the toy up.
“That is Iron Man’s companion,” Santa says.
“Iron Man doesn’t have any friends,” Ben tells him. “He’s an asshole who’s probably doing all of this as a publicity stunt and has brainwashed every kid under the age of ten into thinking that being able to build a metal suit and fly and shoot lasers is the absolute coolest thing ever and that if they all just become genius billionaires too then they can also be superheroes. But they can’t, because regular people do not become genius billionaires. Regular people do not become superheroes. And one day all of our kids are going to realize that they cannot become superheroes. But right now, they are kids and they think they can. And they want this damn doll. And this is not that doll.” He shakes the doll, glaring at Santa. “Where’s the doll?”
Santa holds up his hands. “So, we only have the companion doll.”
Ben takes a deep breath. In and out. “I want my money back.”
“All sales are final.”
- - -
After they escape New Jersey, Rajiv says, “Well, Manhattan next?”
Ben sighs. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Let’s split up. If I find two I’ll grab one for you.”
Ben nods. “Same,” he says.
Rajiv pats him on the shoulder. “Godspeed, my friend.”
Ben winds up at the Disney Store in Times Square. It’s his absolute last hope, since he cannot imagine a company with as wholesome an image Disney ever having anything to do with the likes of Tony Stark, but he overheard a woman at the FAO Schwarz in Rockefeller Plaza mention that there might be a late shipment, so here he is. There’s a crowd who’s also heard the news, but he winds up at the front of the group, pressed against the display that an employee has climbed on top of as they attempt to shout at everyone.
“We only have a very limited supply of the Iron Man action figures! Very limited.” He gestures to another employee standing next to him with a bucket of… plastic balls? “Amy is going to pass out a numbered ball to everyone and if your number is called then you will get an Iron Man figure, okay? Please form an orderly line!”
No one forms an orderly line. The chaos is the same as the chaos from the first toy store that morning that tried to do the number thing, and Ben resigns himself to not getting an Iron Man action figure. Peter will be disappointed. May will be angry – more so because he lied about having gotten it than that he forgot in the first place.
Maybe they have Veterinarian Barbie here. She came with some tiny plastic animals and an X-ray machine. That’s cool.
Before Ben can go check the Barbie aisle, a man from the crowd climbs up onto the display next to the employees brandishing a brown paper package. “Get back!” he shouts. “And give me the doll! I have a bomb and I am not afraid to use it!”
Ben stands stock still and stares as everyone around him starts screaming and running for the exit. The employees dive off the display platform to get away from the madman.
Bomb Guy shakes the package threateningly, looking around the store. “Where is it?!”
There are shouts from the crowd about calling the police, security. An alarm starts going off.
“Give me the fucking action figure!”
Ben takes a cautious step forward, toward the display platform, his hands raised. “Hey man,” he says. “What’re you doing?”
Bomb Guy looks at him, eyes wide. “Back off!”
Ben stops walking, keeping his hands up. “You don’t really want to blow up a toy store in Times Square on Christmas Eve,” he says.
“I will.”
“Okay.” Ben nods, placating. “But, there are a lot of people here. You could kill someone. It’s just a toy, man. Just a toy.”
“I’ve been everywhere in town trying to find it all week,” Bomb Guy says. “A bunch of Santas in Jersey swindled me for 500 bucks for a fake one. I have had it up to here–” He lifts the package to his eye level, shaking it again. “–with trying to play by their rules and shit. I want one of these damn things and I want it now so go get it from the back or the truck or wherever the fuck it is and give it to me.”
Ben presses his lips together. Everyone else has cleared out of the store. There’s a lone security guard hanging back, gun drawn, who looks like he’s never even held a gun before. “Okay, okay,” Ben says. “I get it. I’ve been doing the same thing. I met the Santas too. They’re assholes. But you can’t do this. You can’t hurt people to get it. What would your kid think of that, huh?”
“My kid doesn’t care about me. He only cares about fucking Iron Man.”
“I’m sure he cares about you.”
“No,” Bomb Guy insists. “I never see him. This is all he wants.”
“Well, you can change that. I’m sure he just wants to spend time with you. That’s what most kids want. They don’t want the stuff, they really just want you to pay attention to them. Take an interest. Care about them.”
Bomb Guy lowers the package a bit, looking at Ben. “You think so?”
“Yeah,” Ben says.
And at that moment, just when it looks like Ben has gotten through to the bomb-weilding madman, there is an almighty crash through the glass doors at the entrance of the building.
Ben ducks on instinct, hands covering his head, and when he looks up he sees none other than Iron Man himself standing on the display platform, in all his shiny armored glory, having grabbed Bomb Guy with one hand and the package with another.
After a moment Iron Man drops the package, and then Bomb Guy. “It’s just an iPhone,” Iron Man says. “Not a bomb.”
“It– It’s what?” Ben asks.
Iron Man looks down at him. “It’s not a bomb.” He hops off the display with a clank of metal, and then the faceplate lifts, revealing Tony Stark’s face. He shrugs, which looks like it doesn’t take as much effort as Ben would have expected in the armor. “Guy was bluffing.”
“Oh,” Ben says. “Well, I guess that’s a relief.” He can’t stop staring.
There’s honking and a screech of tires from the entrance, and Ben turns to see a sleek black town car skidding to a stop on top of the sidewalk. A redheaded woman in a skirt and blazer steps out of the backseat, stepping carefully around the broken glass on her high heels.
“Did you break all the windows?” she demands as she gets closer.
“It was an emergency,” Stark says.
She looks around the store. “This doesn’t look like an emergency.”
“Um, he had a bomb,” Stark points to the man on the platform, who’s still cowering. “JARVIS had an alert from the police. Civilians were in danger. That’s an emergency.”
Ben says, “You said it was an iPhone.”
Stark looks at him, eyebrows raised. “Who are you?”
Ben raises a hand in a little wave. “Ben Parker,” he says. “Hi. My kid is obsessed with you.”
Stark grins.
“Oh, don’t tell him that,” the woman says. “It feeds his ego.” She looks down at her phone. “Where are the police? What’s taking them so long?”
“We don’t need police,” Stark tells her. “I provide security now, remember?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re supposed to be waving to people at a parade right now, remember?”
“Yeah, that’s not as fun.” Stark looks around the toy store. “I thought we made toys of me now. How come they don’t have any me toys?”
Ben snorts. “There aren’t any ‘you toys’ left in this city,” he says. “Trust me. I’ve been looking for one all day. Along with everyone else in New York.”
Stark frowns, confused. “What?”
Ben decides that if anyone deserves to have this story unloaded on them, it is Tony Stark himself, who is the cause of all of Ben’s current problems. “My nephew, Peter, thinks being a superhero is the coolest thing ever and all he wants for Christmas is your action figure. Because he thinks you’re the coolest thing ever. Which, well…” Ben shrugs, and Stark looks almost amused. “But I forgot to buy one. And then I lied to my wife and told her I had bought one, so I’ve been to every toy store in existence today trying to find it, and it’s completely sold out. I even wound up at a super sketchy warehouse full of fake Santas in New Jersey selling knock-offs. And now I’ve just dealt with a guy who was driven to threatening people with a bomb trying to get one of the damn things.”
Stark looks at the guy on the platform. “He was pretending to have a bomb in a toy store to try and get an action figure of me?”
“Yes,” Ben says.
“And there are people selling knock-offs?”
“A whole warehouse full of fake Santas. In Jersey. For $250.”
A look of unholy glee spreads across Stark’s face. “Wait until I tell Rhodey about this.”
The woman sighs deeply. “I knew we shouldn’t have approved merchandise.”
Stark’s still grinning when he looks at Ben again. “How old is your kid?”
“Eight,” Ben says.
“I’m sure we can get him something,” Stark says. “What’ve we got, Pepper?”
The woman – Pepper? – frowns at Stark. “Toys?”
“Yeah,” Stark says. “For the guy’s kid.”
“I do not keep ‘you toys’ in my purse,” Pepper tells him.
“You should start,” Stark tells her. “Who knows when I’m gonna run into children in need.”
Pepper rolls her eyes.
“Hey, what about Expo tickets?” Stark says. He looks back to Ben. “You want to go to the Expo?”
Ben blinks at him. “The… Stark Expo?” They've been advertising that for next spring and it’s in Queens, but tickets are outrageously expensive.
“That’s the only one I run,” Stark says. “How many tickets do you need?”
“Um,” Ben says. “Three, I guess. You really don’t have to–”
Stark waves an armored hand at him, giving Ben a good look at the repulsor that sits in the center of his palm. “Nah, you'll have fun. Kid’ll love it. Get ‘em tickets to that, Pepper.”
She nods, tapping away at her phone. And then asks for Ben’s email and phone number. He asks her about sending something to Rajiv too, who went through so much with him today, and Pepper says they’ll arrange something.
Later, after Ben has given a statement to the police and is allowed to leave, he looks back towards the Disney store. It’s a wreck, roped off by police cars and caution tape now, and Stark and his assistant are long gone.
He can’t help but think that Stark was not as much of an asshole as he’d expected. Egotistical, sure. That had come across loud and clear even in the ten minutes he’d spoken to him. But he’d been… kind of nice, actually.
Perhaps not quite as bad of a guy as he’d thought. Still a horrible role model though.
- - -
On Christmas morning, there is no Iron Man action figure to open. May seems confused, eyes narrowed at Ben when the last present has been unwrapped and the toy has not emerged from the mess of paper strewn across the living room, but Peter actually seems pretty content with the stuff he has gotten and doesn’t seem to miss the toy.
It might help that they did remember to get him a new Iron Man themed backpack, so there is at least something branded in there.
“Hey, buddy, I got one more surprise,” Ben says.
Peter looks up from the floor, where he’s already unboxed some new LEGOs.
“It’s for all of us,” Ben says. He grins. “I scored us tickets to the Stark Expo next year.”
Peter’s mouth drops open. “No way!”
“Yes way,” Ben says. “You get to go see him in person.”
May is staring at him too. “How did you manage that?” she asks.
“I’ve got connections,” Ben says with a grin.