It had never been strange for Tony to see himself on television, or at least to hear his name bandied about. From the first, he'd accepted as the normal state of affairs watching his dad at rallies, or on talk shows, or (in his most genial, least recognizable capacity) directly addressing the nation at large in some canned pre-Games pep talk. Stark was a household name, and Howard with his smiling wife and tie-strangled son were a reasonably common image to match. His volunteering had intensified the focus; his father's death had shifted it. Now it was his face on-screen, eyes directed toward some unseen interviewer, saying things like the kid's got the stamina of a carthorse on speed, I mean, you should see him go through a plate of eggs, it's a wonder of the natural world and you know everything I touch is gold, Honoria, you've seen my bedroom and that score is horse[censor tone] and the Gamemakers are a bunch of nearsighted [censor tone] who couldn't count to twelve if I gave them two extra fingers - here you go, guys, you can use these if you want, no charge -
... He lacked some of Howard's polish, maybe. Honestly, he was glad the resemblance was imperfect - it was too close for comfort as it was. But aside from the uncomfortable sensation that if he looked hard enough, he could see his dad's face layered under his own, there was nothing particularly odd about sitting down to find himself watching the roundup of his more colorful commentary from last year's broadcasts.
Except that he didn't remember half of them, but. Whatever.
Stranger by far to be so suddenly so much further out of the limelight, and to watch (from the corner of his eye, which wasn't so rapt on his own face as he probably wanted everyone to imagine) the tentative, halting, almost painfully delicate movements of the one other person in the room. Beside his silence and apparent determination to take up as little space as humanly possible, the coarse bombast of Tony Stark, mentor's voice and the gross, careless sweep of his hands brought to mind ... He didn't know what it brought to mind. Some connection he wasn't making, some picture that wasn't quite ready to resurface in his consciousness. It struck him, that was enough. Ideas didn't always tumble out fully-formed.
Whatever it was, that little bout of near-eloquence passed, and he had to roll his eyes when the kid sat on the floor - honestly, there was a perfectly good chair two feet away; and he ventured an open (if mild, for him) look of curiosity at the paper he seemed to be attached to. Who could guess what that was - he didn't need to get into the nitty-gritty of household operations. A moment or two later, satisfied, he looked back at the screen, in time to catch one of the more elderly Gamemakers starting in on a discussion of what makes a Victor that Tony could probably have recited from memory, having heard it every year on TV and at many of the official functions he'd been unlucky enough to be dragged to as a child. He groaned. "That guy always smelled like old cheese."