A soft piano begins to play in the living room. Tony Stark's mother, Maria, sits at a piano as young Tony is on the couch.
Maria: "Try to remember the kind of September. When grass was green...~"
She stops singing as Howard Stark walks in, but continues playing.
Maria: "Wake up, dear, and say goodbye to your father"
Howard: "Who's the homeless person on the couch?"
Tony, wearing a Santa hat, staggers to his feet and chuckles.
Young Tony: "This is why I love coming home for Christmas...right before you leave town"
Maria: "Be nice, dear. *To Howard* He's been studying abroad"
Howard: "Really, which broad? What's her name?"
Young Tony: "Candice"
Howard pulls off Tony's hat.
Howard: "Do me a favor? Try not to burn the house down before Monday"
Young Tony: "Okay, so it's Monday. That is good to know. I will plan my toga party accordingly. Where you going?"
Maria Stark: "Your father's flying us to the Bahamas for a little getaway"
Howard: "We might have to make a quick stop"
Young Tony: "At the Pentagon. Right? Don't worry, you're gonna love the holiday menu at the commissary"
Maria stops playing the piano.
Howard: "You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential. If that's true, you'll be a great man someday. I'll get the bags"
He walks out of the room, and Maria stands up.
Maria: "He does miss you when you are not here. And frankly, you're going to miss us. Because this is the last time we're all going to be together. You know what's about to happen. Say something. If you don't, you'll regret it"
Howard walks back in.
Young Tony: "I love you, Dad. And I know you did the best you could"
Maria leans in to kiss Tony on the cheek, and when she leans back, an older Tony Stark stands in the background. Howard and Maria walk out, leaving the two Tonys.
Tony: "That's how I wished it happened. Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, or BARF. God, I gotta work on that acronym. An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to...clear traumatic memories"
He blows on a candle and everything around him shimmers, then starts to dissolve. Revealing it to be a holographic projection.
Tony: "It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport . . . or all the things I did to avoid processing my grief, but..."
He takes off his glasses before waving them around by the arm.
Tony: "Plus, 611 million dollars for my little therapeutic experiment? No one in the right mind would've ever funded it"
He is standing on a stage in front of a large crowd. A sign reads MIT Alumni Honors: Tony Stark.
Tony: "Help me out, what's the MIT mission statement?"
The crowd began to recite the statement with Tony.
Tony: "'To generate, disseminate...and preserve knowledge. And work with others...to bring it to bear on the world's great challenges.' Well, you are the others. And, quiet as it's kept... the challenges facing you are the greatest mankind's ever known. Plus, most of you are broke"
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