Fourth of July.

[quigonejinn]

In an act of pure public relations theater, Howard and Obadiah go to a Yankees game on the Fourth of July and conveniently allow the Esquire reporter to tag along. What could be more patriotic? They have four seats right behind the Yankee dugout, and to complete the picture, Howard brings four-and-a-half year old Tony, who eats a lot of hot dogs and keeps himself entertained through the first few innings by thinking about turnstiles and asking about the scoreboards and eating more hot dogs.

Howard and Obadiah talk about corporate branding, about the Israeli elections, the economy. Terrorists in Washington DC and how Tenerife might have been averted. Howard drinks beer; Obadiah cracks peanuts and flags down a roaming vendor so that Tony can get a box of Cracker Jack. Billy Martin cusses at points, and the game continues. The night deepens. Tony falls asleep in his seat with his head against his father's arm.

"He's a bright kid," Howard says when the reporter asks, and Howard touches the top of Tony's head, gently. "Not so much for baseball, but he built his first circuit board last week."

After the game, the car is waiting. It'll take the reporter back to his place first, but they stop halfway back to watch the Fourth of July celebrations over the East River.

...

It was supposed to be an article on Stark Industries and the two men at the head of it, but at the urging of his editors, who know gold when they see it, the reporter restructures the piece: he cuts out most of what Obadiah said. Instead, it's a profile on American patriot and weapons maker Howard Stark and his genius son, who sleeps through baseball, but wakes up for fireworks that bloom in the night and, at the age of four, already recognizes the smell of gunpowder.







Specifically, it's this game. The bit about Tony is from a comment that dafnap once made about Tony being a born weapons developer.




In short, if you haven't seen it already from amonitrate, go read this truly, truly, truly amazing breakdown of how the arc reactor could work.

Comments

[jamaillith.livejournal.com]

UM. FIRST OF ALL. IT'S FAR TOO EARLY/LATE/EARLY FOR ME TO BE READING THIS SORT OF THING OH GOD.

The last line, it killed me dead. Oh. Oh, fuck. Also, I love the atmosphere you create with so few words, just lovely. And I'm going to pretend that I know more about baseball than I do and be all YES. YANKEES. Because I'm guessing that's, like, the patriotic team, right? (I could be wrong, being English and all, wot, nevertheless.) And yes, because Tony is America, modern America, the America that was created in the sweaty jungles of Vietnam and the cold mountain deserts of the Middle East. There's a wonderful essay somewhere about how Captain America and Tony are just two sides of the same coin (or the same country), idealism and pragmatism respectively. I kinda love that idea.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

YES THE YANKEES ARE THE PATRIOTIC TEAM DO NOT LISTEN TO THOSE FUCKERS UP IN BOSTON AMERICA ONLY HAS ONE TEAM.

Which is to say that, yes, I'm a Yankees fan, and I like to pretend Tony would be one too. It fits with the whole arrogant, uber-rich smooth motherfucker who sleeps with supermodels and loves New York pizza vibe that he likes to have going on. (The novelization agrees, but in my heart, alas, I know that baseball is much too slow paced for Tony.)

[ferricent.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I'd never even considered Tony as being the modern (postmodern? I feel dirty when I use that word) chip off the old apple-pie-chevrolet-culturally-unified-by-a-righteous-world-war block that is his father. Totally sensical though.

You happen to have a link to that essay?

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent. Love how the change in focus of the article sets up so much, from Tony's life in the limelight and mythmaking to the roots of Obie's bitterness.

also: I adore this: Howard brings four-and-a-half year old Tony, who eats a lot of hot dogs and keeps himself entertained through the first few innings by thinking about turnstiles and asking about the scoreboards and eating more hot dogs.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Hot dogs just taste better at a ballpark. This is an empirical fact, and with Tony's love of junk food, I have to think that four year old Tony would just be in heaven. Heaven. Especially if he got to hang out with Dad and Obadiah while doing it.

And yeah. Trying to write Obadiah is my new itch.

Thanks, by the way, for the wonderful heads-up to the Iron Man arc reactor post. It was made out of sheer joy and awesome.

[splash-the-cat.livejournal.com]

It was supposed to be an article on Stark Industries and the two men at the head of it, but at the urging of his editors, who know gold when they see it, the reporter restructures the piece: he cuts out most of what Obadiah said. Instead, it's a profile on American patriot and weapons maker Howard Stark and his genius son,

Oh, yes. THAT. That fits right in with something I've been thinking about, wondering how much of Obadiah setting out to kill Tony was less about Tony himself, and more about Tony paying for the sins of his father. During the fight Obadiah says *he* built the company, and that made me think of how the relationship between Howard Stark and Obadiah was exactly that - Howard the genius, the hero, the marketable figure getting the limelight, getting the credit, and Obadiah Stane always being cut out of the credit for what he saw as his success, his hard work.

And then he sees himself doing it all over again with Tony.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

And then he sees himself doing it all over again with Tony.

Yessss. Clearly, the solution is ridiculously wrong and hot porn with said young sprout to kill him.

Which is to say that I'm really glad you liked that part. That's the bit that really sunk the story into my head and made me go MUST WRITE THIS. DO NOT CARE HOW TIRED I AM. It could drive a man to slightly, uh, extreme measures over the course of a lifetime, right?

[katanath.livejournal.com]

oh, FLAIL. Tony is so the little kid who loves things that go boom.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

So very, very, very much is. Even as the littlest Stark.

[ferricent.livejournal.com]

The simple, sleepy, summer way in which this is written is perfect for lil' Tony on the 4th of July. You've got the de facto cocktail of Americana (the 4th, hotdogs, baseball, fireworks, the military-industrial complex) to a tee here. The pre-IM dynamics of Stark n' Friends against this backdrop (esp. considering the significance the movie and fanworks have placed on Tony's patriotism/dark model Americanism) is fascinating to read.

And yeah, Obadiah's possible feelings about being shunted for the Starks' story (again and again) continue to infuse his porn actions with a wonderful, smoldering, resentful evil. Glad to see a bit of that being exemplified.

Also: FIRST CIRCUITBOARDS. (!!!) EEEE!

I am overwhelmed.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Also: FIRST CIRCUITBOARDS. (!!!) EEEE!

Such are the depths of my obsession that I always get a little annoyed that the Apogee montage shot for that is Tony, obviously more than four years old, standing with Bill Gates. I mean. WHERE IS MY FOUR YEAR OLD TONY? ALL BIG BROWN EYES AND CHUBBY, BIZARRELY AGILE FINGERS AND SMILE BETWEEN SHYNESS AND SMIRKING?

And yeah. I'm fascinated by Howard Stark and Obadiah, which in my cracked out head means that I desperately want to write them, but there's so little to hang a writerly hat on. We get Obadiah, but all we really get about Howard is his media savvy at conveying PATRIOT. And the fact that he pimped Tony out as a six year old.

[brigittebod.livejournal.com]

You're awesome, you know that? I'm 100% behind you re:this new obsession, even if I miss the crazies from the 19th century. At least you parted on friendly terms.

What I like about this in particular (btw great other fics and even greater vids) is, you get the impression that there is no one thing that went wrong with these people, it was a lot of little things adding up to a whole lot of dysfunctionality. Just the Howard Stark School of Parenting, and who cares about That Guy Who Tries Too Hard To Be Hip/Interesting When You Have The Budding Genius Right Here. Obie must have gotten that a lot. Here he kept this company together and made it great and saved it from God-knows-how-many reefs by being a savvy businessman, and all anyone focuses on are Sr and Jr who have the common sense of a canary. And this went on for, what, 40 years?

If you'll forgive my rambling, I also got the impression he was a frustrated engineer himself. I think that paralysis device was his own invention, just listen to him when he says the government didn't approve it. He's all "Hey, remember this thingie? This thingie I made? And that those fuckers didn't buy because they thought if it wasn't invented by YOU PERSONALLY it couldn't be all that great? Well, weren't they wrong? MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!1!"

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Dude, rambling is all I do. And why would I possibly object when it's as interesting as:

"Hey, remember this thingie? This thingie I made? And that those fuckers didn't buy because they thought if it wasn't invented by YOU PERSONALLY it couldn't be all that great? Well, weren't they wrong? MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!1!".

AHAHAH. OH OBADIAH. I do love that couch scene even if it kinda hurts to watch because OMG TONY'S LITTLE BETRAYAL FACE, but yeah. He loves that little device? And I read him as an ex-engineer, too. I think katanath was talking about it in another thread about how he's probably an engineer who went to business school, and I like to think about how Obadiah might have been a freakin' business genius who would've been hailed as one of the great business minds of the last half of the 20th century if it weren't for the fact that everybody thinks he just hitched his star to the genius chromosome in the Stark familiy.

saved it from God-knows-how-many reefs by being a savvy businessman, all anyone focuses on are Sr and Jr who have the common sense of a canary. And this went on for, what, 40 years?

True that. True that. It's enough to drive you to murder. XD *is going to end up an Obadiah apologist, she knows it*

[dafnap.livejournal.com]

Obadiah cracks peanuts and flags down a roaming vendor so that Tony can get a box of Cracker Jack.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Obie looking out for Tony far more than his own father does, recognizing the chance to mold the kid when he's the most pliable and did I mention ow?

"Not so much for baseball, but he built his first circuit board last week."

And Howard, already teaching Tony that the best way to his heart is through building something he can use, something worthwhile, because being four years old isn't enough, and lord, that's not pressure or anything.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

because being four years old isn't enough, and lord, that's not pressure or anything.

Four. Years. Old. I mean, how old is Tones in that shot with Bill Gates? (And OK, now I have this total burning thought about Howard hiring what later becomes Preston Gates & Ellis, high-powered West Coast law firm specializing in tech and doing a fair bit of lobbying in DC? And that being how the photo op comes about. Man.)

And yeah. I bet Obie would totally be the favorite uncle. Christ. You wouldn't notice the assholery and slights until you got way, way older. And probably not if you started thinking of him as your surrogate father because that's what you expect from dad, right? Right.

[obsession-inc.livejournal.com]

::ducks into thread to say HI DAFNA!::

::ducks out::

[nolivingman.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. Poor Tony, his dad takes him along to a ballgame as just a prop.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Howard Stark must have been kind of an asshole to put his son on the cover of Popular Mechanics as a six year old.

[obsession-inc.livejournal.com]

he cuts out most of what Obadiah said. Instead, it's a profile on American patriot and weapons maker Howard Stark and his genius son, who sleeps through baseball, but wakes up for fireworks that bloom in the night and, at the age of four, already recognizes the smell of gunpowder.

GUH. Not just the last line (which OMG), but that subtle knife you slide into Obadiah, cutting him out for a four-year-old. GAH.

Man, you know how I love your tiny!Tony stories. Cracker Jack (that Obadiah gets for him!!)! Hot dogs and MORE hot dogs! Turnstiles! Scoreboards! And oh, lordy, Howard touching the top of Tony's head while the little boy is sleeping on his arm. Oh, my heart. You could write this sort of thing for forever and I would still be over here squeaking and making incoherent flaily sounds of joy.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

You could write this sort of thing for forever and I would still be over here squeaking and making incoherent flaily sounds of joy.

Oh, given the intensity and burning of my obsession with Tony and his daddy manpain, you may, indeed, be ROLLING YOUR EYES eight months from now, and I'm telling the eight hundredth totally overwrought story about how Howard only let Tony have DRAFTING PENCILS not CRAYONS because you can't make BLUEPRINTS with CRAYOLA.

<3.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

The evil chuckles I am making do not translate well in text, but you can take them as read.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

It's a good setup for porn a couple years down the line, isn't it? God almighty.

[ghostrunner7.livejournal.com]

Oh. this. this is it. this is cool.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is a lovely period piece (I'm right in thinking "Tenerife" is the air crash in the seventies, right?), and yes, little Tony as the political football between Stark Sr and his right-hand man, ignoring the baseball and scoffing hot dogs. And learning the smell of gunpowder!

And *thanks* for the link to the arc-reactor thing. Sounds very well thought-out.

[ghostrunner7.livejournal.com]

This. This takes my breath away, truly.