Chapter Text
"Although many ponies of high intelligence do receive their marks late, it has become clear that there is a statistically significant correlation between an intelligence quotient in the Profoundly Gifted range and the early appearance of a mark (precocious endeiknumarche)." - McColt, H.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Stark got his cutie mark at the age of four. It made national news.
Iron Pony doesn't have a cutie mark. That was national news too.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony's mark is a metal gear. It appears sometime between when he takes apart his father's Apple II and when it's back together mysteriously capable of receiving transmissions from Voyager 1. Howard holds a press conference and shows him around to all the high society of North America and at least 30% of the high society of Europe. The President makes an appearance at Tony's cute-ceanara. The mark - and his age - are considered sure signs that he will grow up a genius just like his father.
When he's 15, he joins MIT's "Free Flank Federation". Its mission statement is "To free young ponies from the bondage of their marks and end discrimination against the markless". He's the only member that neither has an embarrassing cutie mark nor is a blank flank. He quits after three months.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No one thinks it's odd that the original Iron Pony suit doesn't have a mark, because it was built in a cave, after all (though he did have time to make a nice intimidating mask), and because most of the people that see it are kind of distracted at the time, anyway. The next suit, people start to notice. They figure it's probably a secret identity thing - other closeted superheroes normally put an alternate mark on their costumes, but, well, he hadn't been expecting to go out in public so soon, right? He probably just hadn't had a chance to figure a mark out yet.
After that one press conference - you know the one - people start asking a lot of questions. Well, a lot of them are "Do you really think that it's responsible to operate what has been described as the world's most powerful weapon while inebriated?" and "What do you have to say to the potential investors who may be concerned about the Stark Industries CEO putting himself in mortal danger on a regular basis?" But some of them are about Iron Pony and his blank flank.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He only comments on it in one interview. (He slept with the reporter before the interview - and during, depending on how you define 'slept' - but that's probably unrelated to his candor. He sleeps with most people who get exclusive interviews with him.)
"I always had trouble with the whole idea of cutie marks. People have more than one special talent sometimes, but can't have more than one mark to represent that... Sometimes what a pony wants to do with his life might not be the thing he's best at, or he might have to spend his life doing something he's really good at that that isn't what he loves, and either way, which one should his mark show?
…so many marks are metaphorical, or unclear. I've always kind of suspected that half of these ponies were just getting completely random marks and coming up with some [inaccurate] explanation as to why it made sense, like the 'prophecies' of Nostradamus…
I didn't give Iron Pony a mark because he needs to be able to do whatever he has to do, in whatever situation he's in. You're supposed to let your life be decided by something that shows up on your [flank] when you're a kid, your talents and dreams are probably still changing, and that's just what you're stuck with, the rest of your life… Iron Pony wasn't going to have to deal with that. No way."
The rest of the interview is a standard fluff piece. Tony likes the part where they spend half a page discussing his (awesome) hair.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Natasha's report to SHIELD has a full paragraph detailing the mental problems Tony is demonstrating by not putting a cutie mark on his suits. Tony disagrees with most of the things she says in it. He does not disagree with the last sentence: "In short, Mr. Stark is too [redacted] clever for his own [redacted] good."