I missed him. I missed him so much that it physically hurt. It had been months but it still felt like I was on the battlefield. I still saw him taking his last breaths and Pepper holding him. I saw as everyone stopped to witness his last moments. I saw everything every time I closed my eyes.
I was falling behind in school. I wasn't getting the answers right in decathlon, even spiderman was failing. Nothing stopped the sleepless nights or when I do get sleep, the nightmares. The days were living nightmares and the actual nightmares were worse.
I had lost at least ten pounds and the dark bags under my eyes had become a permanent feature of my face. The school and May were both worried. I was forced to meet with the guidance counselor once a week and May took me to a therapist. I couldn't tell them what was going on.
I couldn't tell them that I saw Mr. Stark's dead body or the building crushing me or everything Mysterio made me believe. I couldn't, they would find out about Spiderman and that was a major no no.
May tried to help and I think Pepper wanted to as well, but they couldn't understand. They could never understand what I went through. I couldn't tell May what happened because she would have freaked and I would have scared her. Pepper, well, I talked with her and she broke down crying, begging me to not become Tony.
So no, there was no one I could talk with about any of the crap I was going through.
"Young Sir?" FRIDAY questions and I look up from the desk scattered with papers.
Pepper told me that Tony left me a third of the company along with her and Morgan. She was trying to slowly introduce me to the daily workload that came with a multibillion-dollar company, but I was struggling. I can be thankful in the fact that Pepper decided that I was put in charge of the science division so I at least knew what I was kinda doing.
"Yeah, FRIDAY?" I ask, setting down my pen.
"I have been working on a project that I believe will benefit you greatly. I had one of the scientists prepare the outer housing I was unable to build and she is bringing it to your office as we speak. Mrs. Stark and the young miss will also be receiving similar packages soon," FRIDAY says just before the door opens.
A middle-level scientist walks through and she smiles at me and I return it.
"Hello, Mr. Parker. I have the device FRIDAY had me construct and the data downloaded into it," She says while coming over to my bed with a small wooden box.
She places it down and walks out of the room without saying another. I could swear there were tears in her eyes. I look down at the box and open it. Inside is a small black cube with blue LED lights on one side. I realize it was the holograph design that SI was working on.
"FRIDAY, what on earth is this?" I ask and it's almost as if FRIDAY sighs.
"You are becoming depressed sir. You do a good job of hiding it from others but I was programmed to look for this exact thing. Your depression stems from the loss of Sir and not being able to talk to anyone about what you have gone through. I do not have the correct programming to assist so I communicated with the elite coding team and worked with them on this," FRIDAY says and the cube flashes before pixels float up and form a figure.
It took a few moments for the pixels to take shape but when they do, I scoot my chair back and fall over in surprise. Sitting there, on the desk, was Mr. Stark. He laughs when he sees me on the floor and I am thrown back to when we used to have lab days.
"Mr. Stark?" I ask and he laughs.
"Not quite. I am T.O.N.Y., it stands for Talk Of New York," He says and I can't help but laugh, it really sounds like him.
"So, what exactly are you?" I ask uncertainly.
"I am a mixture of FRIDAY's observations on my real-life component and another coding. I am programmed to act like Tony Stark and help your mental state," T.O.N.Y. says and I can't help but frown.
"What?" I ask and T.O.N.Y. laughs.
"Well, I just want you to think of me as the real Tony Stark. After this explanation, I will revert to his personality and actions," T.O.N.Y. says and I nod.
"Okay," I say and T.O.N.Y. tilts his head.
"Whatcha got there kid?" He asks and his voice sounds just like Mr. Stark.
"Pepper has me going over project proposals, since, you know, I can understand what they are talking about. You can probably see it's not going that well," I say and T.O.N.Y. laughs.
"Yeah, Pep can be tricky about paperwork. She's locked me in my office until I do mine," He says and I laugh.
"Can you help?" I ask and he looks down at the papers.
"Well, it seems as if all of these would be good ideas but I like the one on the water purifier," T.O.N.Y. says.
We spend the next few hours going over how we could do all the projects and it feels so good to have him back, even if it's just a bunch of ones and zeros. I couldn't thank FRIDAY enough for this.
I got to have Mr. Stark back.