Tony Stark One-shots

A Thousand Words

Tony Stark was born into a world where there was a limit to how many words could be spoken a day.

Personally, he thinks that's utter bullshit.
(He's still working on a theory that evolution will deteriorate that spoken limit, but really!? Only a thousand words? There's so much to say with so little words!)

To have a limited amount of spoken words means that the words have to be used carefully.

When he was younger, Tony held on to his words closely. Howard Stark would have made sure Tony understood the importance of using his words during meetings. ("Having a voice when others already used there words makes you heard, Anthony." The man signed. It was routine to see his hands move in that familiar pattern every few days.)

Of course, Tony followed that rule to a certain point. As much as Howard was an ass, he understood that school taught students speech. Having Tony come home with his spoken words depleted wasn't surprising, so long as Tony wasn't heard speaking around his father he was safe to hear his voice.

As a boy, Tony would whisper 'goodnight' to Jarvis before he went to bed. Then, tucked in and with the covers pulled up to his shoulders, the prodigy would turn towards the window and begin counting the stars. He'd continue counting till his voice stopped him. Till he reached the end of his thousand words.

As Tony grew, he realised that not everyone was as meticulous about using their words.

College had been loud.

Everyone spoke. They used there words so carelessly. So freely. He could admit to himself that using his spoken words the way they did scared him. What if he needed them and Tony already reached his thousand word limit?

Still, the teen wondered, what would it be like to speak freely?

When Tony met Rhodey for the first time, he wasn't completely shocked to hear him speak aloud like his other peers did.

"I'm James Rhodes." The older teen said as he put a box of books down on his bed.

Tony wanted so badly to speak back, he realised. So he decided to.

It did take Tony a moment to prepare himself to speak. That doesn't mean, however, that he thought through his introduction.

"Yeah, hi. Hey, do you think that the cafeteria has donuts? Oh, I'm Anthony. I guess you should know that. Is that a poster of Tesla? That's so cool!" 971.

Rhodes stared at him for a while before laughing. "Come on, man. Let's go see if the caf has those donuts you want so badly."

He did it! He casually used his spoken words, for the first time.

It didn't mean that he wasn't careful with his limited words. Just that Tony didn't have to not use them. Tony knew the value of spoken words from his father but Rhodey was the person who heard Tony actually speak. He was the first to actually listen to the genius and would continue to for as long as his friend spoke to him.

A few years later would find Tony using his spoken words within a few hours.

"Don't leave me." Tony had curled himself around a headstone. "Don't leave me."

Mentally his mind supplied him with how many words he had left. 844.

He used 156 words. He begged Jarvis come back from the dead with 3 words repeatedly. Tony used 3 words in a phrase 52 times since he arrived and continued to use them until his throat was soar and his vocal cords reached the last thousand word.

Tony rarely, if ever, uses his words with Obie. He has J.A.R.V.I.S. to speak for him now, after all.

It's all for the better, truthfully. After discovering Obie's betrayal, Tony has never been more grateful that certain S.I. documents require Tony's voice to speak several passwords. (And solve some complicated equations. Tony is many things and paranoid is definitely one of them.)