Respect | S. Rogers [1]

35 | INVENTIONS

March 1975
The Stark's Mansion, New Jersey

Rose and Tony were in one of the common rooms in the house, the latter was once again building up one of his car toys after he had disarmed it, Rose was supposed to be helping but she just gave him the pieces he couldn't find. The boy had just finished when his father came into the room. Grabbing his car he immediately ran over to hug him.

Howard awkwardly patted his back. "Hey, son."

"Hi, daddy look what I did!" The little Stark started explaining to his father what he had been doing previously but stopped when he was interrupted. Rose watched the exchange from her seat.

"It's nice, Tony. That wheel's crooked though... Jarvis said dinner's ready so how about you go and clean up before we eat," he dismissed making his son shrink doing as he said. "Hi, Rose, you staying for lunch? What?" he asked upon seeing the hardened look on Rosemary's face.

"You know, he was really excited to show you that," she deadpanned.

He set his suitcase down, raising his shoulders in defence. "I told him it was nice."

"That thing was more than nice and you know it"

"What else was I supposed to say?"

The Thompson woman was getting fed up, it seemed that Howie became less sensible with his child whenever Maria was away. The woman had been visiting her mother who was ill, and since Rose had been out of the country in missions for a while, she had offered to stay with Tony that afternoon so that Jarvis didn't have too much on his plate, she had missed the boy dearly so it was also for her.

"Oh, I don't know. Wow, Tony, that is incredible, you're such a smart boy. So, proud. Love you'. Something along those lines," she lectured. "You know, the truth. Even if he wasn't this smart, showing him a little praise and love instead of finding a flaw in everything he does would be nice."

"Rose, if I tell him every time he does something great that he's doing it great he won't reach his potential," he explained.

"But that's the thing, Howard! He's not supposed to be doing great stuff, he's about to be six years old, he's supposed to be playing with toys, drawing terribly, learning how to add numbers, not re-building or adapting toys or doing freaking circuit boards, but he is. And instead of congratulating him all you do is tell him what he's doing wrong!"

"I'm doing this, so he can better Rose. You think I don't see how smart he is? Hell, he's probably smarter than I was at his age. But he'll never be great if I don't push him to be better." Those words just made Rose angrier. "If he's not the best then he won't be what he was made to be, what he can be."

Howard Stark had his own view regarding parenting and his son's upbringing, and he meant good, he did. He loved his son, he just didn't know another way of showing it.