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[Soft piano is playing. Tony Stark's mother, Maria, sits at a piano. A young Tony is on the couch.]
Maria Stark: Try to remember the kind of September. When grass was green . . . [She stops singing as Howard Stark walks in, but continues playing.] Wake up, dear, and say goodbye to your father.
Howard Stark: Who's the homeless person on the couch?
[Tony, wearing a Santa hat, staggers to his feet and chuckles.]
Young Tony Stark: This is why I love coming home for Christmas . . . right before you leave town.
Maria Stark: Be nice, dear, he's been studying abroad.
Howard Stark: Really, which broad? What's her name?
Young Tony Stark: Candice.
[Howard pulls of Tony's hat.]
Howard Stark: Do me a favor? Try not to burn the house down before Monday.
Young Tony Stark: 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 Stark: We might have to make a quick stop.
Young Tony Stark: At the Pentagon. Right? Don't worry, you're gonna love the holiday menu at the commissary.
[Maria stops playing the piano.]
Howard Stark: You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential. If that's true, you'll be a great man some day. I'll get the bags.
[He walks out of the room, and Maria stands up.]
Maria Stark: 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 Stark: 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 is standing in the background. Howard and Maria walk out, leaving the two Tonys.]
Tony Stark: 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. Huh.
Tony sighs. He really wished it was like that
[He blows on a candle and everything around him shimmers, then starts to dissolve. It's a hologram.]
Tony Stark: 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.] Plus, 611 million dollars for my little therapeutic experiment? No one in the right mind would've ever funded it.
