Star Dust (A Paladin Adventure)

The big book of truth

Tony's chapter starts out with two photographs: him as a baby (chubby, sweet, and harmless looking) and as Iron Man following the fight at Leipzig (mask off, grieving, bruised). There's a recap of his early life, his precocious intellect and education, and it's unfortunate that Mrs Stark doesn't come off very well. Quotations from those who knew Tony's parents  (they had non-disclosure agreements with their household employees before they were popular, so no insight from the staff) pain the picture of a mother who loved her son but who was ineffectual brokering a peace between her son and husband, a woman who knew her place. Ineffectual, but, as one observer noted, "she had a good life." Tony's not going to like that. Howard Stark is explained pretty well, I think. From his poor beginning to the wealthy company he built, his life is a study in ambition and intellect. Colin doesn't hold anything back and has somehow learned about his continuation of the supersoldier program. And the O lab at work. Shit. Colin's studied Tony closely; it's evident that he's not just rehashing facts but is also interested in why Tony's the walking, talking, thinking human car wreck he is. His battle with the bottle is described as both a coping mechanism that failed spectacularly and a self-punishment. His relationship with Pepper (who declined interview requests) is astutely dissected. There's a whiff of slut-shaming about Tony's long string of women, but his attempts to find meaning in his life are treated more gently. The kidnapping by the terrorists, shutting down the weapons division; these are treated with compassion but the unexplored consequences of his actions--like the unemployment of all those scientists--are not ignored.

I'm jolted to see my name, although it's stupid; I actually go back father with Tony than anybody, except for Jim, who he met at MIT. I'd forgotten just how far, though. In my senior year of college, a group of job applicants were getting a tour through Stark Tech, and I was among them.   The tour had ended in the lobby, and one of the lab managers was giving some concluding remarks. According to the source, Tony had approached me and asked me out for drinks. "Apparently his mistake was to imply that he could get her a job if she did. She gave him a withering look and turned him down. He didn't get rejected much, accustomed to scoring victories with his looks, charm, and quick wit; in fact the heir-apparent usually had too many women wanting to date him. He brushed it off at the time, but the source speculated that he carried a grudge."

"You never mentioned that," Steve said, looking up at me.

"I don't remember that happening," I said, puzzled. "I mean, I remember the tour, a bunch of soon-to-be-grads were invited in, but I don't remember anybody hitting on me. Huh."

We went back to reading. There's a good character analysis about the impact that his distant, never-pleased father and loving but disengaged mother had, the isolation of being  a genius, a star engineer, and the head of one of the most successful companies in the world. "Without real peers, Stark could have gone possibly one of two ways," Colin's final analysis read.  "He could have given up and withdrew, a weird Howard Hughes-like recluse, or embraced what set him apart, as he has done. And today we see Tony the showman, open to public scrutiny, celebrated for his considerable achievements and damned for his mistakes, which are usually, to be blunt, pretty spectacular fuckups. Ultimately, he cannot be condensed into a cool analysis in a SHIELD recruitment folder. Since the collapse of SHIELD, he has poured money into the Avengers, and thus, into the protection of the rest of us. Trying to live up to his father's long-shadowed legacy while creating his own is part of it, but it doesn't go far enough. He has a driving need to atone for past mistakes, and this sometimes makes him blind to the impact his current actions have, and the cycle continues."

Huh. "This seems weirdly incomplete," Bucky says flatly after finishing. Steve nods, and I look at the Table of Contents.

"So it looks like we all get our chapters, then the real discussion of the Avengers commences," I said.