The blue light of the computer screen was my sun. It was the only body of light that dictated my circadian rhythm, the only warmth I sought, and definitely the only thing giving me a tan—albeit a pale, sickly, radioactive kind of tan, think zombie but less dead.
My room smelled like a combination of stale cheddar popcorn, three-day-old laundry, and the crushing weight of disappointment. It was a masterpiece of teenage lethargy. At nineteen years old, I had successfully turned doing "absolutely nothing" into an Olympic sport. If wasting potential was a gold medal event, I'd be standing on the podium, weeping as the anthem of mediocrity played in the background.
A version of myself now stood in tuxedo top and boxers with a mic and a golden trophy." I'd like to thank everyone who helped me get here ! Yes you especially homework, you've pushed me here more times than I can count! Oh and how could I forget about you my old pal depression you look lovely in that dress."
"Focus," I muttered to myself, scrolling aggressively through a forum thread debating the ethical implications of the Illuminati wiping Captain America's memory. "User NoobMaster69 thinks Namor was right? Delusional."
I typed a response with the speed and ferocity of a concert pianist playing Rachmaninoff. My fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard, the click-clack sound the only heartbeat in the room. I was brilliant. I knew I was. My IQ had been tested when I was twelve; the school counselor had called my mother in, eyes wide, talking about "gifted programs" and "future engineering degrees."
And what did I do with that brilliance? I used it to deconstruct the plot holes of the multiverse and optimize build paths in RPGs.Fanfic writer of the year and game developer like non before me.
The door creaked open. The light from the hallway spilled in, blinding and judgmental.
"Still awake?"
I didn't turn around. I knew the voice. It was Mom. Her voice wasn't angry anymore; that would have been easier. Anger implies passion. Anger implies that she still thought I could change. No, her voice was just... tired. It was the heavy, wet blanket of resignation.
"I'm reading," I said, technically telling the truth.
"It's three in the afternoon, honey."
I paused. Was it? I glanced at the bottom right corner of my screen. 15:02. Huh. Time flies when you're arguing with strangers about vibranium alloy and why Thor is really a craddle robber.
"I'm busy, Mom," I said, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth. "I'm researching... stuff. For that online course."
There was no online course. I had dropped out of community college three months ago because "the curriculum was too slow," which was code for "I didn't want to wake up at 8 AM."
I heard her sigh. It was a long, rattling sound that seemed to deflate her entire posture. She walked into the room, stepping over a pile of comics—The Superior Iron Man run, issue #1 gleaming on top. A silver-armored Tony Stark looked up at her, his face devoid of morality but full of ambition. I admired that version of Tony. He didn't let things like "ethics" or "feelings" get in the way of perfection, though I argue it's those two reasons why he failed.
"I need you to go to the store," she said softly.
"Can't Dad go?"
"Dad is working. Like he always is. To pay for the internet you're using."
Ouch. Direct hit.
Seeing myself shot through by her words with the mortal combat echo in the background. "BRUTALITY!"
"I'll go later," I grumbled, clicking on a new tab. Wikipedia: The Infinity Gauntlet.
"No, you'll go now," she said, her voice hardening just a fraction. "I need milk, bread, and eggs. I'm making dinner for your aunt tonight. She asked how you're doing."
I spun my chair around. "And let me guess, you told her I'm 'finding myself'?"
My mother looked at me. Really looked at me. She took in the greasy hair, the t-shirt with a mustard stain near the hem, the dark circles under my eyes that made me look like a raccoon with a caffeine addiction. Her eyes watered, just a little.
"I told her you were a genius," she whispered. "I told her that you were just taking a break. That you were going to change the world one day." She placed a twenty-dollar bill on the cluttered desk, right next to a lukewarm can of soda. "Please. Just... go to the store. Show me you can do one thing. Just one thing, today."
She walked out, closing the door softly.
I stared at the door. Silence rushed back in, but the comfort was gone. The blue light felt cold now.It's always like this...How long has it been since she even had a conversation with me about something other than chores*sigh* whatever.
Change the world.
"I can't even change my life," I muttered, self-deprecation being my primary defense mechanism.
I looked at the twenty bucks. Then I looked at the silver-faced Iron Man on the floor. Superior. That's what I wanted to be. Not this... waste. I had the brain for it. I could memorize complex schematics in minutes. I understood physics intuitively. But the moment I had to apply effort? The moment things got hard? I folded.
I stood up, my knees popping. "Fine. Milk. Bread. Eggs. The holy trinity of errands."
I threw on a hoodie to hide my shame (and the mustard stain) and stepped out of my room. The house was quiet. I avoided the living room where my dad's picture sat on the mantle—a man who worked sixty hours a week so I could rot in comfort.
Stepping outside was an assault on the senses. The sun was too bright, the air was too fresh, and the birds were singing in a way that felt mockingly cheerful. I put my headphones on, blasting AC/DC. If I was going to do a mundane quest, I needed a soundtrack.
I walked down the suburban sidewalk, hands in my pockets, kicking a pebble. My mind drifted, as it always did, to fiction. If I were in the MCU, I wouldn't be a bum. I'd be in a lab. I'd be building armors. I'd be fixing the timeline.
Why be Ultimate when you can be Superior?
The Ultimate Universe Tony Stark was a mess. A brilliant mess, but a mess. He had a brain tumor which turned out to be an infinity stone, he was an alcoholic, he was reckless, and think the Reed of his universe killed his human body at some point. But the Superior Tony Stark? The one inverted by magic? He was perfection. Efficiency. Ego, sure, but backed up by results.
"If I had that chance," I whispered to the empty street, "I wouldn't waste it. I wouldn't be this."
I reached the intersection. The convenience store was just across the street. The little walking man on the signal box lit up white. Walk.
I stepped off the curb.
I was thinking about the Prime armor. nanomachines. Psionic connections. No bulky suit-up times. Just pure thought made manifest.Which in my humble opinion was even better than the Endo-Sym armor as you didn't go delulu from wearing it.
I didn't hear the horn. My music was too loud. Thunderstruck was reaching its crescendo.
I didn't feel the impact initially. I just felt... weightlessness.
For a split second, time dilated. That's a real thing, by the way. Adrenaline floods your system, and your brain overclocks to find a solution to impending doom. My brain, in its infinite wisdom, processed the image to my left.
It was a truck. A classic, isekai-delivery-service, six-wheeler truck. The grille looked like a snarling mouth of chrome. The driver looked terrified.
Oh, I thought, with a strange detachment. Truck-kun. You found me.
Then came the pain. It wasn't cinematic. It wasn't a dull thud. It was the shattering of geometry. My body, which I had neglected for nineteen years, suddenly became very important to me as it was folded in ways anatomy textbooks strictly advise against.
The world spun. Sky. Asphalt. Shoe. Sky. Truck bumper.
I hit the ground. Then darkness crept in, it slammed shut like a vault door.
The last thing I thought about wasn't my mom. It wasn't the milk. It wasn't the potential I wasted.
It was irony.
I'm dying a bum, I thought as the static overtook my brain. I'm dying as a footnote. No armor. No legacy. Just a grease stain on 4th Street. Live like a loser, die like a cliche.
And then, there was nothing. No light. No angels. Just the absolute zero of non-existence.
The emptiness was comfortable. It was like my room, but without the smell of stale popcorn and the judgement outside. I could have stayed there forever. No expectations. No moms asking for errands. Just peaceful, eternal laziness.
But the universe, apparently, hates a slacker.
The pressure started slowly. A rhythmic squeezing. Like a giant hand trying to wring out a sponge. It was annoying at first, then uncomfortable, then terrifying.
What is this? am I in a python?
I tried to move my arms, but I was pinned. I was wet. I was warm. And I was moving, seemingly against my will, toward a very tight exit.
Oh God, I panicked. Is this Hell? Is Hell just being digested forever?
Then, the noise. It was muffled, like hearing a conversation through a swimming pool wall, but it was getting louder.
"PUSH!"
The voice was shrill, filled with agony and rage.
Push? Who's pushing? Stop pushing! I'm comfortable here!
"I swear to God, Howard!" the voice screamed again, vibrating through the very walls of my prison. "If you tell me to breathe one more time, I will rip your mustache off and feed it to you!"
Howard?
The pressure intensified. My skull felt like it was being compressed in a vice. I felt a rush of cold air hit the top of my head. It was shocking, freezing, and utterly rude.
"Almost there, Maria! I see the head! He's... well, he's got a good-sized head!" a male voice shouted, sounding panic-stricken.
"SHUT UP ABOUT HIS HEAD AND GET HIM OUT!"
Maria?
Suddenly, the world slipped. The friction vanished. My shoulders cleared the hurdle, and gravity—sweet, terrible gravity—took hold.
I was grabbed. Giant, latex-covered hands seized me. The air was freezing. It felt like I had been dunked in a bucket of ice water. My skin was sensitive, raw, and exposed.
Why is it so bright?!
I tried to open my eyes, but everything was a blurry, gelatinous mess. Shapes and colors bled into one another. The lights were blinding halos of white.
I tried to speak. I wanted to say, "Excuse me, put me back, I wasn't done being dead."
But my vocal cords wouldn't cooperate. My lungs, filling with air for the first time, burned. The instinct took over. The biological imperative to clear the airways.
"WAAAAAAH!"
The sound ripped out of me. It was high-pitched, pathetic, and loud. I sounded like a... well, like a baby.
Wait. No. No, no, no.
I flailed my limbs. They felt stubby. Heavy. Useless. I couldn't feel my fingers properly.
"It's a boy!" the male voice announced, sounding breathless. "Maria, look, it's a boy!"
"Give him to me," the woman—Maria—gasped. Her voice was wrecked, exhausted, but laced with an imperious demand. "Howard, give me my son before I break your balls."
Jesus, this lady is aggressive, I thought, still crying because the cold air was assaulting my sensitive skin. And who names their kid Howard in this day and age?
I felt myself being wrapped in something rough—a towel. The texture was abrasive against my new skin. Then, I was passed from the nervous hands to a pair of warmer, softer arms.
The smell hit me. Sweat, yes, but also a faint, expensive perfume. Lilac and something metallic.
The crying subsided, mostly because I was exhausted. Being born is a workout. I blinked, trying to clear the gunk from my eyes.
The blur slowly resolved into a face.
She was beautiful. Sweaty, hair plastered to her forehead, dark circles under her eyes, but undeniably beautiful. She looked down at me with an expression I had never seen directed at me in my previous life. It wasn't disappointment. It wasn't resignation.
It was absolute, consuming adoration.
"Hi," she whispered, her finger tracing my cheek. It felt huge, like a sausage. "Hi there, little one."
I stopped squirming. The warmth radiating from her was better than any monitor glow. It was real.
A man's face appeared over her shoulder. He was wearing a tuxedo. Who wears a tuxedo to a delivery room? He had slicked-back dark hair and a mustache that looked like it had been groomed with laser level precision. He looked familiar. Painfully familiar. But that stache my God, i'm jealous
"He's perfect," the man said, his voice dropping an octave, losing the panic from earlier. He sounded smooth. Charismatic. "Look at those eyes, Maria. He's looking right at me. He's analyzing me."
"He's a baby, Howard. He's wondering who the man in the penguin suit is," Maria chuckled weakly.
Howard. Maria.
My tiny, undeveloped brain began to fire synapses. The neural pathways were fresh, unburdened by years of internet brain-rot.
Wait. Howard Stark? Maria Stark?
I looked at the mustache again. It was iconic. It was the mustache of a man who built flying cars and helped defeat the Nazis.
No. Way.
I tried to gasp, but it came out as a hiccup.
"What should we name him?" Maria asked, looking up at her husband.
Howard smiled. It was the smile of a man who owned the future. He reached down and let me grab his finger. My tiny hand wrapped around it instinctively. His grip was firm.
"I've been thinking about this for months," Howard said softly. He looked me in the eyes. "He needs a name that carries weight. A name that commands respect."
Don't say Tony. Don't say Tony.
"Anthony," Howard declared. "Anthony Edward Stark."
The world seemed to stop. The hospital sounds faded away. The beeping of the monitors became background noise.
Anthony Edward Stark.
I was Tony Stark.
I was the billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.
I was the Merchant of Death.
I was the guy who snapped his fingers and saved the universe.
My mind raced. This was 1975. I was in the past. Or a past. Which timeline was this? Was this the MCU? The Comics? Earth-616? Earth-199999? Was I the Ultimate Tony? Please God, don't let me be the alcoholic one with the tumor.
"Anthony," Maria tested the name on her tongue. She smiled, tears leaking from her eyes. "Tony. My little Tony."
Howard kissed Maria's forehead. "He's going to change the world, Maria. I can feel it. He's going to be better than me. He's going to be..."
He paused, searching for the word.
"...Superior."
My heart hammered against my tiny ribs. Superior.
A second chance. A real second chance. I wasn't the bum in the room anymore. I wasn't the disappointment. I was the heir to the Stark legacy. I had the knowledge of the future. I knew about the arc reactor. I knew about Thanos. I knew about the Winter Soldier killing these two people looking at me with so much love.
Oh God. The Winter Soldier.
I looked at Maria. She was smiling. I looked at Howard. He was beaming.
They were going to die. Unless I stopped it.
A fire lit in my chest. Not the arc reactor, not yet. But something hotter. Ambition. Determination.
I wouldn't just be Iron Man. I wouldn't just be a hero.
I would be Superior. I would fix everything. I would save them. I would build a suit of armor around this world that actually worked.
An enstein dressed baby popped up with his finger pointed upwards." Not literally of course"
I looked up at Howard Stark, my father, and tried to say, "I am Iron Man."
I opened my mouth. I put all my willpower, all my reincarnated genius into those words.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
The scream echoed through the delivery room, loud and piercing.
Howard laughed. "That's it! He's got Stark lungs! Let them hear you, Tony! Let the whole world hear you!"
I cried louder, fueled by the sheer absurdity of it all. I was in a diaper. I was bald. I was helpless.
But not for long !
Watch out, world, I thought as Maria rocked me. If i'm going to be Iron man, then i'll be the greatest Iron Man in the multiverse !