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“Tony, don’t touch that.”
Tony’s one and a half, not old enough yet that he’ll remember this when he’s forty or even when he’s five. That probably explains why he never listens to the order, not when he’s ten or twenty or thirty-seven. The same goes for “Tony, get away from there!” “Don’t touch” means “do touch” in Tony’s book, and “don’t try” is guaranteed to turn into “do.”
This is probably why, when Tony’s two and a half and tugging at Dad’s leg, Dad snaps, “Tony, I swear to God you’re the most annoying kid I’ve ever met.” Tony keeps pulling at Dad’s leg, not caring that Dad’s well into his thirty-second hour awake or that he’s half-drunk, furious that he’s lost another lead on Steve Rogers’ whereabouts. Tony’s two. What does he know?
Dad picks him up by the back of his shirt. Tony’s t-shirt digs into his throat, making him cough. “Da,” he protests.
“No, stay out there. Go bother someone else for once in your life. Maria! Come here. Grab him. I don’t want him in my office. Stay out of my way, Tony,” Dad warns just before he dumps Tony in Mom’s arms.
Tony decides that the appropriate course of action now is to scream.
He does a lot of screaming in the next year. Tony Stark is the king of tantrums, screaming and thrashing and creatively vomiting on things he doesn’t like. His parents take him to a whole slew of doctors for his tummy troubles. Tony gets fifty different diagnoses and all kinds of awful-tasting medicine before one doctor takes a good look at him and says, “You know, he may just be understimulated.”
“Under…I don’t understand.” Dad frowns. He’s already angry because he isn’t at work. Tony’s fault, of course. Tony sticks out his tongue at him and swings his legs off the side of the examination table.
“Understimulated. Bored. Are you bored, Tony?”
The doctor is old and friendly. Tony likes his smile. He grins back. “Yes. Can I look at your stesscope? I wanna hear your heart.”
“He’s verbally advanced. My assumption is that he’s not being provided with enough—”
“Enough what? He’s got two playrooms. He doesn’t need more. Do you know how much we spent on his last birthday party?” Dad clenches his fists. Tony blows another raspberry at him. “Tony, stop that.”
“I wanna see your stesscope,” Tony insists. The doctor pats him on the head. “Please! I wanna see! I wanna listen to your heart. I wanna!”
“Hold on. Let me finish speaking with your parents.” The doctor pats Tony’s head again. “His toys may not be educational enough for his cognitive abilities. What I would recommend is an IQ test…”
Two weeks later, Tony learns the word “genius.” All of his old toys disappear and are replaced by model airplanes and toy cars that he can take apart and put back together. “Don’t put those in your mouth,” Dad warns. Tony makes a face. As if he would! Why would anybody eat a car?
Mom teaches him to read that year. The letters don’t mean anything to Tony at first, but then one day he looks over Dad’s shoulder to find that the newspaper makes sense. He goes from Dr. Suess to The Hobbit in the course of a few months. Though he can’t always sound out all the words, he picks up their meaning from context and moves on. He doesn’t have the patience for anything else.
By his fourth birthday, Tony’s finished all the model planes in his playrooms. He’s read all the books in his library, and he’s looked through the latest National Geographic five times. It’s a Saturday, hot and humid. Tony pulls on his rain boots and waits until his nanny is looking the other way before he runs out of the house and across the yard to Dad’s workshop.
Tony wants to build.
The workshop door is locked. Tony frowns. He can see the key, hanging from a hook on the doorway, but it’s far above his head. It’s probably even taller than Dad. How can he reach it?
Then Tony notices the trash can sitting just a little to the right of the doorway. He grins. All he has to do is move the trash can over and climb on top.
Moving the trash can takes more work than Tony had expected. It makes a lot of noise, too; something metal keeps rattling around inside the can. When Tony scrambles on top of the lid, the lid caves a little. Tony winces. He stands carefully, his ankles quivering. He still can’t reach the key. He goes on tiptoe, reaching—just a little bit more—
Tony grabs the key and immediately overbalances. The trash can crashes to the ground, bringing Tony with it. He yelps when he hits the concrete. His left arm hits hardest. Tony starts to cry as blood wells up in the gash on his arm. Crumpled pieces of metal and squashed beer cans from the open trash can surround him.
Tony cries and cries, but nobody comes. After a few minutes, he catches his breath and stands. His arm is still bleeding, and it hurts, but he has the keys to the workshop. Maybe Dad has Band-Aids in there.
As soon as Tony pushes open the door to the workshop, he forgets all about Band-Aids. He drops the keys on the tile floor in his rush to look at all the fascinating, shiny things his dad has built. There are jet packs, rifles, metal shields, blueprints of skyscrapers, and half-constructed engines lying around everywhere. A hot rod, half-covered by a blue tarp, sits in the back corner. Tony walks over to it and runs his fingers over its red-and-gold shell. Instead of wheels, the car has repulsors. “Dude, it can fly,” Tony says to himself. “Awesome!”
“Tony, what are you doing in here?”
Tony flinches at the sound of Dad’s voice. He grins when he turns to face him, though. “Dad, did you make this? Did you build the whole thing? Can it fly? Can you show me?”
“No, I can’t show you. You’re not supposed to be in here. Get out. Get out.” Dad shoos Tony away from the hot rod. “How the hell did you cut your arm like that? Jesus, did you get blood on the car?” Dad brushes his fingers over the car’s hood. “No. Good. That’s lucky. How many times have I told you not to go in my workshop?”
“I was just looking.” Tony wanders over to one of the half-built engines. “You’re missing the air control valve, Dad. The engine’s gonna stall if you don’t fix it.”
“Yes, I know that. Now get away from there. How did you even get in here?” Dad pushes Tony toward the door. “Where’s your nanny? What’s her name, Helen?”
“Harriet. But Dad, I want to look. I want to help you fix your engines. Dad, let me look!”
“No! This is my workshop. Get out. Go inside. Find your mother. Tell her Harriet’s fired. Can’t leave you alone for five minutes.” Dad picks Tony up and lifts him over the fallen trash can. “Look at that mess you made. See? I can’t trust you with anything. Go on. Go inside.”
“But I—”
“Go!”
Tony doesn’t have nannies for months after that. Instead, he stays home with Mom, listening to her sing along to old records and helping her balance books, or he goes to work with Dad. At home, Tony’s allowed to make noise; when Mom’s not looking, which is most of the time, he jumps on her bed, draws on his closet wall in Sharpie, and builds three failed catalytic converters in the basement. He’d rather be at work with Dad, though, because it means getting out of the house. Pretty ladies in tight skirts work as Dad’s secretaries. They give Tony lemon candy and Dad kisses on the cheek that leave lipstick stains that never quite fade.
Dad usually leaves Tony with them and their gossip, but on days when they’re sick or pregnant or on vacation, Tony’s stuck with Dad. On those days, Tony hides under Dad’s desk, fiddling with hidden drawers and reading comic books with a flashlight. He cracks his bubblegum too loud. Every five minutes, Dad has to nudge him with his foot and say, “Tony, just shut up. Okay? Shut up and let me think.”
The office smells more and more like scotch. Tony learns from watching just how to pour it. Dad likes three ice cubes in it, no more, no less. Someday, Tony thinks, he’s going to drink scotch in an office with pretty girls just like Dad. He’ll build cars and planes and guns like him, too. Maybe Tony’s guns will be even better than Dad’s.
“Tony, Tony, don’t you know how to behave?”
Obie says this on the first day he meets Tony. Tony’s five, all scabby-kneed and wide-eyed, both mischievous and eager to please. He starts first grade in two months; he tested out of kindergarten before he even entered it. The Stark Expo’s coming up this summer. Tony is supposed to go to a photo shoot with his dad this weekend. Tony’s excited. He loves playing dress-up.
Obie is one of Dad’s friends. Tony’s heard his name before, mostly when he was hiding under the kitchen table while Dad and the guys from work drank their scotch. Obie’s huge compared to Tony, even compared to Tony’s dad. Tony thinks Obie looks a bit like a troll. He starts to say it, but Dad pinches his arm, and Tony shuts up.
Obie brings Tony a model airplane with blue wings, as if Tony doesn’t have a hundred of them up in his room. When Dad squeezes Tony’s shoulder warningly, Tony rolls his eyes and says “thank you” anyway.
Then the adults sit down at Dad’s desk to talk. Tony’s left on the Persian rug to play with this airplane and a box of spare parts. He studies the pieces of metal in the box, the screws and the tiny rotors, and suddenly it clicks: this is an itty-bitty version of the stuff that Dad has in his workshop. If he puts these parts together the way Dad puts the big parts together…
Tony’s fingers are bloody by the time he’s attached the motor to his new airplane, but he doesn’t care. It looks right. It feels secure. The airplane sits on the rug, patiently waiting for Tony to tell it to take off. On a whim, Tony draws on eyes and a smiling mouth with a magic marker. “There you go, Eagle,” he says proudly. “Ready to fly? Dad’s gonna love you.”
The Eagle smiles back. Tony thinks it agrees with him. With one sticky, scabby finger, he flips the switch on the Eagle’s belly. The motor growls. The airplane shakes. Tony holds his breath.
And then the Eagle takes off! Tony whoops as it flies up toward the ceiling and then loops back down by a potted plant. The plane makes jet sounds the way Dad’s real airplanes would. Tony giggles when it swoops around his head—and then gasps when it heads straight for Dad’s desk. “No, no, no—”
“Shit!”
The Eagle crashes into the desk, right on top of the pile of papers Dad and Obie were discussing. Dad’s scotch goes everywhere; some of it rains down on Tony’s head. He wipes a hand across his face to get rid of the burning feeling and then licks his hand. He gags. Scotch tastes gross.
Then Tony doesn’t have time to wonder why Dad drinks something that nasty because Dad’s right there, shoving the broken remains of the Eagle in Tony’s face. The Eagle’s smiling face is fractured. Tony’s stomach turns upside-down. “He broke!”
“What the hell are you doing, Tony? You could have killed somebody with that thing! You do not fly planes inside.” Dad shakes Tony once by the front of his shirt. Tony reaches for the Eagle, but Dad turns and dumps it—him—in the wastepaper basket by his desk. Tony’s eyes well with tears.
“Hold on, now, Howard.” Obie fishes the plane out of the basket. Tony sniffles. He’s afraid Obie will break the plane more, but he cradles it in his huge hands like he knows how fragile it is. “Look at this. Tony, did you build this?”
Tony nods, swiping a hand under his snotty nose. “With the parts you gave me.”
“Even the parts in the box?” Tony nods again. Obie’s eyes widen. He crouches in front of Tony. Even like that, he’s huge. “Are you telling me you built a working motor out of scraps?”
“But it failed,” Tony says miserably. “The Eagle crashed.”
“That’s okay, Tony. We’ll get you another Eagle.” Obie’s hand on Tony’s shoulder is heavy. Tony’s knees buckle a little. He would be afraid, but Obie is smiling. “Howard, this is great. Look at this. This is fantastic! Do you know how much money we could make off of this? Your kid’s a genius!”
Tony brightens. “I know I’m a genius. I had to take an IQ test so I’d stop puking on stuff I didn’t like.”
Obie gives Tony a funny look. “You’re a weird kid, Tony. I like it. You’re going to make us look really cool. You know that? Really cool.”
That night, Dad lets Tony come into his workshop. Together, they build an engine, a real one, one bigger than Tony himself. Dad makes Tony do most of the work, not that Tony minds, but Dad does the heavy lifting. By five in the morning, Tony’s exhausted and tearful. The engine runs, though. It works like a charm.
“Good job, buddy,” Dad murmurs. It’s the first and last time he calls Tony that. For the last time, too, he picks up Tony and carries him to bed. Tony’s asleep before he hits the mattress.
Tony and Dad bring Tony’s big engine to the photo shoot on Saturday. Everyone’s impressed, from the photographer to the pretty girls who feed Tony Pixy Sticks to keep him happy. Behind the camera, Obie flashes Tony two thumbs up.
“You’re a real whiz kid,” the reporter who’s interviewing Tony says.
Tony bats his eyelashes and shows his muscles. “I know.”
That summer is full of ups and downs. The ups are the rollercoasters Dad built into the Expo, Tony’s ride in a flying car, Tony’s new nanny who lets him eat candy for breakfast and cookies for dinner. The downs come after the Expo ends, when Dad stops ruffling Tony’s hair and goes back to his quiet, angry obsession with finding his friend who died in the war.
“Behave,” Mom tells Tony on the first day of first grade. She smoothes his hair back and tightens the straps on his bookbag. “You have to be a good boy at school, understand?”
“Sure.” Tony gives Mom a big kiss. “Whatever you say!”
He knows that giving her his sweet, wide-eyed look is the key to never getting in trouble again.
“Siddown, Tony,” his first-grade teacher growls, five months into the school year. “Right now.”
Tony keeps poking the boy next to him in the line outside the restroom. “D’you want to build a spaceship at recess? C’mon, I brought stuff from home.”
“We can’t build a real spaceship,” the other boy says doubtfully. “Can we?”
“Sure we can!” Tony wraps an arm around the other boy’s shoulders. “I have parts for a motor. Screws and rotors and everything. We could use the batteries from our flashlights to power it, and—”
“Tony!” Tony looks up at the sound of his teacher’s voice. She looks furious, but maybe her face is just made that way. When the teacher points at the time-out wall, Tony smiles brightly at her and doesn’t move. She scowls. “Nope! Come here. Right now.” Tony crosses his arms over his chest. He yelps in surprise when she lifts him up under the armpits and drops him by the time-out wall. “You know better than to touch other people!”
“But I was just—” just messing around, Tony means to say. His teacher cuts him off.
“It doesn’t matter. You know the rules. You don’t touch people.”
“But he—” But he didn’t mind!
“Anthony.”
Tony crosses his arms and kicks the wall. “I didn’t do anything!”
“Oh, no. You do not kick. Sit down, Tony. Sit down.” The teacher pushes at Tony’s shoulders to force him to sit. Tony crumples, kicking the wall again on his way down. His face flushes. “Wait there.”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“You’re going last. You misbehaved. You know better. Johnny, go on.”
The teacher turns her back to Tony, paying attention instead to the boys on the other wall. The boy Tony was talking to shoots him an anxious look. Tony pokes his tongue out at him. The boy glances at their teacher and then crosses his eyes at Tony. Tony covers his mouth to stifle a laugh. “You lose!” his friend mouths. Tony points at him and pretends to shoot him. His friend slumps against the wall.
“Tony!” As soon as his teacher addresses him, Tony scrambles to his feet. She shakes her head. “No, you can’t get up yet. Sit down. You’re in trouble. Stop talking to Jason, or he’ll have to sit, too.”
Tony’s friend shrinks back when his name is mentioned. Tony pouts. “I wasn’t talking!”
“I know what you were doing. Sit.”
“But I have to pee!”
Tony’s teacher sighs. She crouches in front of him. Her expression softens from frustration to concern. Tony widens his eyes, hoping…maybe he’ll get a reprieve. “You’re in time out, Tony.” The teacher’s voice is gentle. It makes Tony’s ears burn. “You made a bad choice. You go last. If you had to pee that much, you should have made good choices. You didn’t, and now you’re in time out.”
“I wasn’t talking!”
“No, don’t argue with me. I know what you did. You were touching Jason, and then you were talking to him while you were in time-out. That’s not okay. You have to keep your hands to yourself. You know how to behave.”
“I was behaving!” Tony’s voice goes higher. He has to pee so bad. He can’t wet his pants like a little kid, or Dad will be furious, and Mom will be ashamed. Either that, or they won’t care, and Tony’s nanny will be the one screaming at him tonight. Tony hits the wall with his fist. “I have to go to the bathroom. You’re mean. I hate you!”
Tony’s teacher’s face closes off. Immediately, Tony knows he’s made a terrible mistake. He doesn’t really hate his teacher. She brings him extra copies of Popular Mechanics from home and gives him stickers when he’s been good. She might be mean, and Tony might really have to pee, but he doesn’t hate her. Hate’s a big, bad word. “I’m sorry,” Tony says. “I’m sorry!”
His teacher shakes her head. She stands, towering over him, and Tony knows he’s messed up even worse than he’d thought. “Nope, sorry’s not going to fix it. You’re not going out to recess. You know better than to speak to me like that. If you don’t know how to make good choices, then you can’t play with everyone else. Hey, girls! What are you doing?”
Tony’s teacher walks off to yell at the girls who are giggling and splashing in their restroom. Tony stares after his teacher, his dark eyes wide. His face feels numb. His stomach hurts, and the tightness in his bladder feels unbearable. There’s a weird pounding in his ears; his classmates’ voices sound like they’re coming out of a tunnel. “But I can make good choices. I can. I can.”