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I hate magic, I hate magic, I hate magic… It kept repeating in his head the moment he laid eyes on the absolutely beautiful -no Horrible! Evil! Disgusting- merger of magic and science that had been placed upon HIS tower. From that moment on, he found himself doing little things without realizing it. The few times he does it makes the memories surface, of his dad throwing away his toy. “That isn’t normal! Magic doesn’t exist!” Even as an infant, bored, lonely, animating small rattles or happy stuffed bears that his nana had given him to make him happy, always they were thrown away. Most of the time before they stopped moving, stopped trying to reach for him when he cried and screamed for them to come back. Ever since he was old enough to move around, learn, he threw himself into science after that. Engineering to be more specific. If “SCIENCE” was the only magic he was allowed to do, he’d find a way to show his father he couldn’t take his friends away anymore.
Dummy was staying a good distance away from Tony when Pepper entered the lab. He must have gotten in trouble again. She blinked when the bot noticed her and rushed up to her, clicking and whirring and wrapping itself around her like she would protect it. “Tony, what did you do now, threaten to drown him?!”
“Who? Oh Dummy? No, I don’t know what his problem is today, he’s just been distant.”
Dummy lifted up toward him and gave a mechanical huff, looking at him like a beaten child. Seriously, what DID he do to scare Dummy off? He didn’t do anything other than… trip over him this morning, pissed off and annoyed and… “I threw him across the room; I thought I just pushed you out of the way. I threw you didn’t I?” Dummy huffed a response, nodding before going back to hiding behind Pepper. “Look, Dummy, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I’ve just had a bad day and couldn’t find the right tool and you were in the way and I told you to stay out of it.”
Dummy whirred, unconvinced and circled around so that Pepper was between them. “Tony, that machine must way hundreds of pounds. What do you mean you ‘threw’ him?”
“Uh, well, not really ‘threw’ him more like threw energy AT him… He just kinda got shoved by the force behind it?”
“You what?” Dummy went into some sort of fit, it took her a few steps back and wild –single armed- flailing for her to realize he was telling his side of the story, or at least trying. “JARVIS, can you translate that?”
“He wishes to inform you that Sir threw some sort of very cold psionic wave at him. When hit it him he has a memory disruption between the incident and seeing Sir working on something else. He’s not entirely sure how long he was offline.”
“Tony! What the hell did you do!?!” Pepper has definitely been around him too long, she wrapped her arms around Dummy as he went back to hiding.
“I didn’t mean to. I just meant to keep him out of the way until I found what I needed. I didn’t mean to knock him offline! Stupid. I shouldn’t slip up like this, I hurt my friend. It doesn’t exist. It’s not real…” The lights started dimming on Dummy when he assumed Tony was talking about him. “Science is real, magic isn’t. I can’t use it, science is the only constant.”
“Tony, what are you rambling about?” Tony jumped when Pepper laid a hand on his shoulder, snapping him out of years of repression compliments of his screw up of a father. “Magic?”
“Isn’t real,” Tony automatically said before he snapped out of it, blinking up at Pepper’s worried expression. “Don’t worry about it, it won’t happen again. Ever.”
Pepper could tell the ‘busy, back to work, have fun at your board meeting’ dismissal tone and stepped back to give him space. “Tony, if you have a gift, regardless of what it is, you shouldn’t squelch it. You should hone it, just like you’ve done with your mind.”
Tony turned when the door chimed open to watch her leave. Biting his lip he set down the tool he’d been using to put back together the broken section of armor. He sighed down at it, remembering what his nana had said the day she started working for them. “You have a very gifted boy Mr. Stark. I’d be happy to keep an eye on him for you. He’ll be a strong, smart young man someday, he will.
Tony smiled, familiar patterns and words forming in his head as a hand swung over the damaged armor. Instantly reformed, healing his nana had called it. Anything that could be hurt could be healed, anything that falls can rise, anything that lives can die and anything that you are can make you better. All it takes it the right words, the right thoughts, the right gestures.
“Sorry Dummy, I didn’t mean to,” Dummy whirred loud at him, arm shrugging up as if he didn’t even remember why he was worried anymore. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”
Maybe magic wasn’t so bad after all…