Biography | Quentin Beck

Saturday, July 25th, 1987

Well well, another year of college, what's new? Nothing much, just the fact that Quentin was an adult now! A whole eighteen years old with Tony trudging along behind him with one more year to go. However, Tony did graduate today. It was quite nice actually. Howard and Stane had even showed up. They tried to take him home but he wanted to stay for Quentin.

Well he hadn't been in the dorm for a long while. Not for any bad reasons of course, Quentin assumed he was just grocery shopping, it was his week to do it. Beck was of course once again in the lab working on his illusion tech. 

He was a bit obsessed with getting it done but who could blame him, he had been working on it for years. Quentin took a sip of water before putting it back down at his work area. He leaned back and wiped some sweat off his brow from under his goggles. All was calm until the traditional heavy footsteps were in range. Only this time it was followed with some giggling.

"Whoa, it's really clean in here." Wait who is- 

"Oh yeah, my friend loves to clean up."  

A thousand thoughts just clung to Beck's brain like a tumor. Who is that? Why are they here? Is he being replaced? Is Tony sick of him? Was it real? Was he manipulated again? Is Tony fake? Is-

"Hey Q-Tip, you in here?"

Quentin didn't answer, the thoughts had come back.. what was going on? Why did he feel this way? Tony asked again and this time he was able to hear it more clearly. "Um," A quick stutter. "Yeah."

"His name is Q-Tip?" The strange voice had said followed by some laughter. Quentin's stomach twisted and turned, he felt sick. If there was one thing he didn't like it was being laughed at or made fun of. His delusional sickness straightened up after he heard Tony explain.

"Oh. That's cute."

"Yeah, I'm quite the genius." Tony turned to the open lab door then back to the person he had brought.  He knew Quentin well and he could definitally sense the anxiety that leaked out of the room. "Could you excuse me for a moment?"

"Sure thing, where you going?"

"Not far, I won't be long. You can have a seat while you wait." The young Stark left the person in the main room before walking into the lab.

Just as he figured. Though he was on the pathway of recovering into a calm state there were things that proved that he was in fact panicking. The hand that held a tool was shaking. His breathing was heavier than usual and the table was shaking a tad bit due to his leg bouncing under it. Quentin always had the fear of abandonment or being replaced but the fear seemed to be getting worse and more extreme than it was.

Tony went ahead and closed the door to make sure their conversation would be harder to hear before sitting down next to his best friend. Quentin knew he was there but he didn't look up at him, it would probably make him more nervous thinking about if he was in here to kick him out or not. He didn't want to think this way about Tony and he even knew he would never do something like that but these thoughts seemed to have him on strings, controlling his emotions without his consent and he couldn't figure out why. 

"I know you as well as I know myself so I just want to tell you that I'm not here to kick you out or yell at you." His reassurance convinced him enough to look up from his work which caused Tony to smile and ruffle his hair a bit. "I want you to come out here and meet someone I met on the campus."

The stranger felt awkward sitting alone but he didn't question Stark. He didn't have to wait too too long cause the lab door had slowly opened up and he and another young looking boy had walked out. This must be the person that Tony was telling him about. Luckily he was told before hand that the person known as Q-Tip has severe trust issues so that there was no confusion going forward.

"Quentin, this is Rhodey. Rhodey, this is my best friend, Quentin."

"Hello Quentin. As your friend said I  am Rhodey but you can also call me James. It's nice to meet you." The somewhat taller man stook out his hand. He was wearing sweat pants and a baseball tee. Quentin was still of course pretty nervous but he didn't want to be rude so he carefully shook the boy's hand.

"It's nice to meet you too.. um- you can call me Quentin or Beck, I answer to both."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Tony could see that Quentin was still tense and nervous so he had an idea. He wrapped each arm around each friend and pulled them closer to him. "Alright ladies, how about we go out to dinner so we can get to know each other better, what do you say?"

"I'm down." Rhodes responded.

"Quen?"

Quentin seriously was not trying to be a pain so he pushed those feelings down deep and gave a simple nod of agreement.

"Alright then, to my car. Rhodes would you mind sitting in the back seat?"

"Not at all, your car your rules."

With that they were off. Sneaking out of the dorm like it was a secret mission. If someone found out what dorm Tony Stark was in they'd be doomed. Luckily the mission was a success.