Light of my Life (STONY)

Passages

A/N: Soooo in Iron Man 1 Tony is said to be 17 when his parents died, yet later on in the rest of the films it said he was 21, which doesn't make any sense because he was underage when they died which is why Obadiah took over the company. I'm going with he was 17, making his date of birth 29th of May 1974 :))

He looked at the clock, to see 4:23 AM glaring back at him. He sighed. No sleep again. He hadn't slept in two days. He was tapping away at his computer, talking to his personal AI he'd invented, asking about one of his latest creations.

"JARVIS, gimme stats. Go."

"Sir, your father is 12 metres from the lab."

"Shit. Shut everything down, turn off the lights." He was used to this. Silently, he tiptoed across the room to his kitchen area. He had one because he never ate with his family. His last family meal was months ago - it was his mother's birthday. He opened the fridge and pushed an almost invisible button at the back of the bottom shelf. The shelving for the fridge slide to the left, revealing a passageway. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him. He heard his father's voice.

"Godammit, Tony. Where are you, you need to go to bed." The boy held his breath although his passage was soundproof. He was stuck to the spot. He pushed the button next to him and the fridge shelves slid back into their original placement.

"Tony, I heard that. Where are you? Screw it, I'll follow the sound..." he muttered.

Tony knew that he had to get away from his position fast. He turned and walked down the passageway about 10 metres and then grabbed the torch from a built-in shelf next to him. He also took a quick look at the CCTV - his dad was looking all over for him. Thankfully, he didn't know about his son's secret passageway. He'd made his own computer server, too, so anything he was working on was saved onto it. His server was 100% secure, only he knew how to get on. Tony flicked on the torch and continued on down the passage. It was then that he heard his dad open the fridge.

"Fuck," he breathed. He turned his torch off and stood stock-still.

"That kid never has anything to eat..." He shut the doorway. Tony breathed a sigh of relief and walked the rest of the way down the passage, following the correct trail. It was like a maze, and lead to any necessary room in the house. Bedroom, bathroom, lab, kitchen, living room, gym, etc. He was about 10 metres from the end of the passage, so he took a look at the CCTV screen next to him. There was one at this point at every opening, so if he was about to be flushed out, he knew where he could go and where he couldn't.

He couldn't go directly to his room, because there was someone there. He held his breath at his mother sat on the end of his bed, wearing a dressing gown and looking slightly distressed.

Because the last time he went through his en-suite bathroom, the door to it was locked from the inside. He could go through there and come back out but she would hear the cupboard open and close, so instead, he looked for rooms that he could go to. The gym, for example, was empty. It was near his room and would be believable if he said he couldn't sleep and went to the gym to tire himself out. Unfortunately, with that lie, he would have to make it look like he had, which meant a 10-minute extremely intense workout, and he was not ready for that. He heard the door to his bedroom open and someone spoke.

"Maria, he's not there. Let's just go to bed, I can't be bothered with him anymore."

"Howard. He's your son, don't be horrible."

"He can't hear me."

"It doesn't matter." Tony rolled his eyes. He'd never had a very good relationship with his father, but it hurt either way. Once they left the room, he waited until they were back in their own quarters and he opened the door into his bathroom. He didn't wanna go back straight to his bedroom because his bathroom was locked from the inside and he wouldn't be able to get back in. He hit the button and waited for the door to slide open before he crawled through his cleaning cupboard and onto the floor. The button to close the doorway was inside one of the draws under the sink. Once he pressed it, he waited until he heard it shut, closed the cupboard door and collapsed onto his bed.

"J, you can come back online."

"Pleasure to watch your escape, sir."

"Pleasure to not be caught, more like." Tony rubbed his eyes and looked at his alarm clock - it was 4:56. 33 minutes since he last checked. He desperately wanted to go back down to the lab and look at what he had to do next, but instead, he grabbed his school bag from next to his desk, fell onto his chair and made a start on homework he hadn't done. He was gonna be nowhere near finished if he attempted all of it, so he focused on math and physics and once they were finished, it was 6AM exactly. He took a cold shower and brushed his teeth. His eyes were bloodshot from where he hadn't slept and he'd ruffled his hair with his towel, making it all spiky. Impatiently, he flattened it and ran product through it before getting dressed in his daily black hoodie, black jeans and black sneakers. He preferred not to be seen. He stayed in his room until about 6:50 and then went to get a coffee. Once in the kitchen, he grabbed a cafètier (coffee press), put in the coffee, let it brew and poured himself a mug.

"Morning kid."

"Dad," he replied shortly. "Coffee?"

"If you've got some going and wouldn't mind sharing." Tony poured a mug of coffee with milk and 2 sugars and placed it down on the counter between him and his father.

"Where were you last night? I went to your room because I thought I heard you and you weren't there."

"Oh, I couldn't sleep. I went to the gym, stayed until way too late. Sorry, you might've heard me go. I'll be quieter next time." Howard nodded with a look of disapproval on his face.

"Your mother checked the gym."

"I went from the gym to the pool in the back, have you got everyone checking up on me now? I couldn't sleep, story over." Tony snatched his mug up from the table and left, leaving his father to watch his back as he left. The boy was pissed off - he'd lied but he'd been followed, and he'd been lied to, because he knew his mother didn't check the gym. So why the fuck had Howard lied.