Little Victories - Young Tony Stark

Tony is left to help his mom clear up the mess after one of Howard's drunken rages. He's too young to 'fix' things so he uses his brain to help himself get one over on his dad.

“Mom?”

“I’m fine Anthony, please… just leave...I’ll be out soon. I promise.”

Twelve year old Tony pressed his forehead against his mother’s bathroom door and squeezed his eyes shut. He should have stayed with her. He knew it was wrong to hide like a coward. He’d been selfish and stupid but once his dad had started shouting he’d just wanted to be anywhere but here. So he’d run and hid, who does that? He knew exactly who... scared little girls did that. Despite his best efforts, he’d turned into the one thing his dad hated more than anything. A p***y. He’d crawled under his bed and cried like a helpless girl while his dad screamed and threw things.

He’d heard the familiar sound of the mirror in his mom’s bedroom shattering. Another seven years bad luck. What a joke. There was enough bad karma in this family to last several lifetimes without his dad adding to it. But money, it seemed, fixed everything. If you had enough, you could make anything go away. The maid would come soon and clean up the mess in silence and his mom would replace the broken things with something new and more beautiful and everyone would go on as though it had never happened. In a few days she’d be wearing a new piece of jewelry, probably something custom ‘because Howard simply adore her’ and all would be forgotten.

But it was never truly forgotten was it? It hung in the air like a poison cloud. Everyone walked around holding their breath in case they slipped up and let the truth out because once they did it would break the spell and the Kingdom would come crashing down.

He bit down on his wobbling bottom lip, it tasted salty from his tears, and swiped at his puffy eyes. It was time to man up now and stop crying. There was work to do.

He walked to the phone in the hall and pressed the button.

“Housekeeping.” The voice was cheerful and sunny - Jane.

“H- hi uh, Jane?” Tony said hesitantly, his voice was rough from crying. He should have waited but it was too late now. “Listen, I’ve broken the mirror in my mom’s room while I was messing around again. It was an accident. Can you send someone?… “ he winced, “before my dad gets back?”

There was an unmistakeable pause on the other end. He knew he wasn’t fooling anyone but Jane knew the drill so she played along. Howard Stark paid well enough to keep very loyal staff, they all knew.

“Sure thing sweetheart.. no problem. I’ll send someone right away… is uh... is anyone hurt?”

“Umm,” Tony thought carefully as he chewed his lip. From the sounds of the argument, his mom probably was but since she was locked away, he doubted she wanted anyone’s help right now. “Umm no. I think it’s fine. It’s just the mess.”

“Okay, I’ll be there real soon. Hold tight.” The phone went dead and Tony replaced the handset carefully. He looked at the mess in the room. Some of the pieces of mirror were quite big so he piled them up together to make the clean-up easier.

“Anthony?”

Maria’s voice was strained and broken. He moved back to the door hopefully and pressed his ear to it. “Yeah Mom?”

“My dressing table. Can you bring me the concealer from the top. It’s the green one.”

“uhh yeah okay. Hold on.” The green one - she always acted like this was the first time they’d done this. His heart sunk a little as he moved to get it. She had bruises. If she was covering them up, it was probably either her face or her neck. Everything else she’d just cover with clothes. ‘Fashion’ covered a multitude of secrets.

He tapped on the door and heard the lock click. He knew better than to open it all the way so he thrust his hand into the gap and felt her hand touch his. “Thank you darling. You’re always such a help to me.” She squeezed his hand before closing the door but he didn’t have time to speak again because Jane had just arrived with the dustpan and brush.

If she was shocked at the mess, she had the good sense not to show it. Instead she got straight to work. Time was always of the essence. It all had to be erased as quickly as possible before people got upset. “Hey sweetie,” she said as she began putting the bigger pieces he’d collected into a cardboard box. “Why don’t you head down to the kitchen? Sarah says she has some ice cream with your name on it.” Her tone was signsongy and light. Like this was a perfectly normal day and he was getting a reward for playing along.

He looked at the little crystals of glass scattered over the thick carpet. It looked like someone had thrown diamonds on the floor. It was beautiful. “Hey, no harm done Kiddo,” Jane continued and nodded reassuringly before she scooted him from the room and closed the door.

His stomach growled suddenly and he narrowed his eyes. Sure, he’d go and get the damn ice cream but not until his work was complete. He had one last thing to do. Everyone else was happy to let his dad get away with it. He was the big man of the house and no one ever questioned him but that didn’t mean he got to do what he wanted without consequences. He had to pay for it somehow and Tony knew the perfect way to do it.

He went into his dad’s office. A big and intimidating room filled with oppressively dark mahogany furniture. He closed the door behind him so no one would discover what he was about to do. His dad would be away for hours now. He’d sleep off his hangover somewhere quiet before he came back to the house, then he’d slink up to bed and the next day would start as normal. Just like the world had been reset.

He opened the deep bottom drawer of the great hulk of a desk. No one bothered to lock away alcohol around here, it was as common as the over the top vases of flowers his mother insisted putting everywhere to ‘cheer the place up’. The drawer was filled with bottles. His dad’s private drinks ‘cabinet’. He grabbed an opened bottle of scotch and examined the label. ‘White Heather’ Howard’s favourite. He smelt it and tentatively took a mouthful. It burned his throat and made him cough but it didn’t taste as bad as he remembered from before and the warm feeling you got in your chest afterwards was kind of nice. He took another swig, this one bigger and knelt on the floor behind the desk.

He’d tried emptying it away down the toilet before but from past experience this only made his dad angry so he learned to be smarter about it. The key was to do something he wasn’t going to be able to figure out in a hurry. Something only Tony knew about.

Unzipping his fly, he rested himself against the neck of the bottle and waited. At first he thought he wasn’t going to be able to do it but eventually, after a few minutes of willing himself and impatient praying to the God of urination, he finally got success. His urine mixed with the amber whiskey and disappeared completely. He smelt the bottle again. You’d never even know it was there. Perfect.

He smiled as he tightened the lid and grabbed a pen from the top. He made a little mark on the bottom of the label so he’d know which bottle was contaminated when he came back later. He wasn’t about to drink his own piss in a hurry.

He zipped himself up and ran his hand over the desk with a smile as he headed downstairs for the promised ice cream. He may be too young to win any wars but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still claim a few victories along the way.