WHO: Elias Salazar → Tony Stark WHEN: Late morning/early afternoon of March 10 WHERE: His home, the sidewalk in front of Sweet Nothing's, then the workshop in his home SUMMARY: Elias has two run ins with men that are some version of a father in his life, then Tony has a very different experience with his own. All of this weighs heavier on Elias than he'd like. WARNINGS: Allusions of infidelity. Difficult relationships between parent and child. Just a lot of sad.
The day had started on a sour note.
Though Elias had slept in and enjoyed a late morning jog with Jarvis, he arrived home to find three missed calls on his phone that had gone missed thanks to the sound being off on his ringer and his airpods securely in his ears. It was no mystery who all three of the calls had come from, especially as his phone lit up once more with his step-father's contact information on display.
It had been a call that Elias had been expecting. As it was, he had been surprised that Grant had waited as long as he had to call. Weeks had passed since he'd paid off his mother's medical bills and he'd wasted no time making Sofia feel unfairly guilty for the role she had played in Elias finding out there had been a balance for the bills at all. Part of him had hoped that his step-father had simply realized that there was no reason to be upset. He had been able to pay a large dent in the two years that they had existed; perhaps it was fair to allow his step-son to finish it off. It had been a small part of him that had hoped it, a part of him that still couldn't help but lean toward optimism when it came to his relationship with his mother's husband. He rarely listened to that voice, though it had grown louder with every passing day.
Needless to say, the conversation that he had shared with his step-father had extinguished any hope that Elias had been nursing. Though it hadn't been a necessarily explosive conversation, Grant had gotten his point across -- he should have talked to Grant first, his finances weren't any of his business, he had told him that it was taken care of. Rather than argue, Elias had just let his step-father talk and, once it seemed clear he was done, he made an excuse about work and hung up.
The day had only soured further after he had calmed himself down, largely in thanks to Jarvis setting his large head on Elias's knee and stared up at him with his big, sad eyes, and then left the house in search of something baked and covered in icing for lunch. He had found it, as well as a few extra donuts and a coffee, at Sweet Nothings. When he left the shop and stepped out onto the sidewalk, he found himself facing the other man he was supposed to call father.
Since he had arrived in Dunhaven, Elias could count the number of times he had seen James Scott on one hand and could count the number of times he had spoken with him on one finger. The sightings had always been brief, never anything more than a glimpse as he ducked behind shelves at the grocery store in a way that might have been comical had it not been for the fact that he was hiding from the man who had donated half of his DNA. Had Annie not been part of the picture, Elias knew that he would have checked out of the hotel as soon as that first conversation had been over with and he'd be living in DC proper or Baltimore, rather than this small town. He had no true desire to have a relationship with a man who clearly wanted nothing to do with him, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt when his thoughts lingered on it when he was feeling most vulnerable.
It was during those moments of vulnerability that he came up with all sorts of witty and sometimes biting things he wanted to say to his biological father. Suddenly face to face with him, though, exactly none of those scripted words came to mind. Elias simply hesitated, watching as the other man continued to stride in his direction. Church was clearly out, otherwise the man wouldn't be in this part of town at all, but none of that mattered to him in that moment.
A few steps away and James Scott looked up, recognition clear in his eyes as he met Elias's gaze. There was no hesitation, though. His pace didn't slow. After a beat, his eyes flickered away from his son's and he walked by, as though he were just another stranger. A fist seemed to squeeze around Elias's heart.
A jostle and immediate apology from someone else leaving the bakery stirred him into movement, though the drive back to his house was a blur. He came inside, leaving the coffee and baked goods on the counter before immediately closing himself into his workshop. It was the one place that he could guarantee some sort of privacy; though the space wasn't off limits to his sister by any means, normally he was working when he was in there and usually that left him undisturbed. Not even Jarvis could come in there, Elias wanting to keep the dog from hurting himself. In that moment, though, he could have used his dog's calming presence.
Normally it wasn't hard for Elias to shrug off the fact that he had lost the one positive parental figure in his life. He didn't even have grandparents of his own. He certainly wasn't going to count the Scotts as his and while Grant's parents had always been kind to him, it was hard to think of them as his grandparents when their son was so keen to make sure he knew that he wasn't Elias's. His mother's relationship with her own parents had been frayed from the moment she'd come home pregnant, yet another relationship that his existence had torn apart -- a thought that he normally wouldn't let himself have, but in that moment settled firmly in his mind.
Closing his eyes, Elias felt himself tense up. In one fluid motion, he stepped in toward the nearest workbench and shoved hard on the toolbox that was sitting on top of it. It was suspended in air for just a moment, taking with it several pages of notes that he hadn't realized were stacked on the other side, and fell with a resounding crash as the paper fluttered down around it. He had thought that it might make him feel better, to let out some of this pain that seemed to have settled around his heart, but it didn't. Instead, it just gave him papers and screwdrivers to have to pick up.
Elias blew out a long breath, bending down on one knee to start collecting the papers. He looked at them, realizing that he was going to have to sort through and figure out their order, when suddenly he was in a different workshop. Different, yet incredibly familiar. Tony flipped through the book of notes, all in his father's tidy script, as a projector played take after take of Howard Stark introducing the expo to the world. When he reached the end, finding only blank pages after useless information, he let the notebook fall into the waste bin. So much for that.
Reaching forward, Tony took a long sip from his drink, the ice clinking against the glass. He wasn't sure what Fury expected of him -- well, no, he knew exactly what the man expected, but he didn't know how he was meant to produce the results he wanted and that Tony himself needed. Before his mind could dive too deep down those thoughts, though, the images on the projector caught his attention. The mood seemed to have changed, from his father trying to be professional and on script to something else entirely. It wasn't until he heard his name that he looked up, realizing that his father wasn't scolding a younger version of himself in the background like earlier, but was addressing the camera itself.
"Tony. You're too young to understand this now, so I thought I'd put it on film for you." He gestured behind him, toward the model. "I built this for you… and someday you'll realize it represents a whole lot more than just people's inventions." The camera panned over the model, showing Tony a layout of buildings he already thought he knew. "It represents my life's work. This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out and when you do… you will change the world."
Howard paused for just a moment before saying the words Tony had always yearned for, but had never been given. "What is and always will be my greatest creation… is you."
As Tony soaked in the words and started to understand just what it was his father was telling him, Elias dropped the papers once more. The emotions of the other man seemed to settle around his shoulders, a sense of appreciation and relief after a lifetime of feeling less than adequate and unable to be who it was his father wanted him to be. It had only been a handful of sentences and perhaps it didn't make up for all of it, but it was more than he'd had before… and Tony was thankful for it.
But, as Elias stared down at the mess he'd made, he felt his shoulders slump as his own emotions overtook Tony's. He would never get that. There would be no secret video where one of the father figures in his life would admit to some shade of pride in him. It didn't matter how much money his company earned, how many degrees he could hang on a wall, how many lives he changed or saved with the technology he helped create. None of it was enough, because he wasn't enough.
Despite all of the similarities between Elias Salazar and Tony Stark, this was one difference that he wouldn't be able to ignore.