Chapter Text
"You don't deserve what you say you love and then neglect//so bite your tongue, it's too dangerous to fall so young." - Night Shift, by Lucy Dacaus.
Dictionary
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CIPA
/sipɑː/
noun MEDICINE
- Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis. A rare autosomal recessive disorder of the nervous system which prevents the feeling of pain or temperature, and sweat production.
CIPA is exceedingly rare. It appears in bursts, usually, more commonly. A small town in Sweden alone has 48 cases. Japan is a leader for CIPA cases, but even the latest science doesn’t know why, and even then the numbers are minute. Infinitesimally small. There have only been 35 recorded cases in US history, 318 documented worldwide.
Well, Tony thinks, staring blankly at the statistics floating innocently next to his databank of CIPA resources, 319.
When Tony was born it really didn’t seem like there was anything wrong. He was on the smaller size, but even still he ripped open his mama upon his entrance to the world. She screamed, and the midwives tutted, nothing unusual really. Howard left the room when the blood started falling, mourning his idea of a picture perfect birth.
Tony was quiet. He snuffled peacefully as he was gathered up in white blankets, the blood wiped off his head. The nurse was young, not that Tony would remember. She had smiled at him, enamored. She had never held a newborn baby before, but everyone else had been running off to fix up Maria. Tony had waved his arm up at her face while she cleaned off the remnants of birth. He was to be the most content baby she ever held after a birth, and she would tell the story later to various friends at various parties.
“No really, he didn’t even cry once! Straight out the mom he was, not a tear, I swear.”
Howard Stark was never prepared to be a father, but like all Starks he resolved to excel at it. His boy’s birth certificate sat at the top of the mantle across from his office desk so his eyes could proudly roam over the height, weight, sex, health; all of it perfect. His strong baby boy. The perfect heir. He smiled smugly to himself and went back to building his empire.
Maria’s son had ripped her open on entry to the world, not that she was complaining. She was too tired.
She’d always wanted kids. A little boy, maybe a little girl so they could play together like her and her sisters. She’d wanted a lot of things in sunny Italy. But Anthonio wouldn’t roll around on the grass bathing in cicadas, giggling at how the grass stuck to gelato on his shirt. America was cold, and dull, and seemed to sap much of the life out of her. She was tired, was all.
Anthony never cried, not for food, not for diaper changes, not for anything really. It was for the best, Maria didn’t know whether she could have dealt with a screaming baby at all hours of the day. On the other hand, he was just so… forgettable. She drifted around the house to her heart’s content, days passing before she would blink and remember the sullen baby in the corner of the room, bleeding through the diaper and onto the clean linen sheets from diaper rash.
After a particularly bad rash that nearly had her calling for the hospital she makes a determined effort to pull it together. She took the rainbow variety of pills gathering dust in the medicine cabinet, she set alarms, for food, for changes, for when the day had bled into the next. She feels the pills dulling the deep black hole threatening to swallow her. She no longer feels the spark of joy when she looks at her son with shadowed eyes.
She keeps trying, pulls her husband up from his workshop for good old fashioned family meals, just like she remembers. She tries to drag up the remnants of memory of a family lasagne recipe, and sits at the table as the plastic, wrong taste spreads across her tongue. She swallows, exhaustedly, and watches as Howard throws the baby up and down, Anthonio squealing happily in a way she could never draw out of him. An alarm goes off behind her, and she starts pulling her bra off resignedly.
Anthonio gains weight, and smiles more. Howard re-emerges frequently, frowning at her but smiling at their son, still quiet but growing quickly.
“My little man. Going to be a genius like your father, eh? Going to be a footballer with those powerful legs maybe.”
The 2 months pass in a blur of feeding and changing and the occasional moments where Anthonio smiles and Maria feels like she can breathe.
And then one morning the alarm goes off for Anthonio’s first meal and she hits snooze. And again, and again, and again, until she throws the phone weakly across the window. It doesn’t break the phone, nowhere near, but it muffles the noise as she goes back to sleep. She lies in bed all day, time passing in big leaps. She blinks and it’s midday, she blinks and it’s night. She blinks and she’s not sure. She breathes.
Her body seems to melt into the bed, skin fusing with the thousand thread count sheets, her mouth dry and unmoving. She thinks idly of Anthonio, lying in the cradle somewhere by her back. She doesn’t look, she doesn’t think. She tries not to. She watches shadows on the wall and considers how the oxygen flows in and out of her lungs, she dissolves.
She couldn’t tell you what time or even day it is when quiet footsteps sound on the floorboards. A voice whispers “Up you come Anthony.” and her face crumples in unknown emotion.
Edwin Jarvis carries Anthony out of the room, and Maria allows herself to be dragged back into sleep.
Master Anthony was a Stark, so Jarvis was always going to take care of him. It was 2 months in when he realized he was going to be taking a much more active role than the average caretaker. He had kept his distance as of then, so as not to impose on Mrs Stark. It was on the 3rd day of neither Anthony nor Mrs Stark emerging from the bedroom that he threw wind to niceties and went in.
To say the room stank would be kind. There was rotting food spread across the floor, pills scattered amongst the debris, piles of unwashed clothes coating every surface. Anthony himself smelled awful, lying wanly in parallel to his mother, unmoving.
He cast a sorry glance at Mrs Stark’s form, scooping up Anthony by the armpits and carrying him out, uncaring of the fluids leaking onto his suit.
The sight of Anthony in full lighting and undressed nearly dissolved all sympathy for Mrs Stark. His skin was weeping horribly from several areas, but most noticeably his groin. He was skinny, unnaturally so. It was harrowing to see the cheekbones of a baby. He was also covered in his own filth, caked in it as high as his chest.
Most concerningly, his skin was frighteningly hot to the touch, and completely dry. Jarvis immediately decided a bath was the best course of action, cold, definitely.
He watched, brows furrowed as Anthony gave no reaction to the water lapping out his skin, red leaking from the sores and into water as Anthony watched on impassively.
–- -
Jarvis was to become much more involved in Anthony’s care from that point on. He roused Mrs Stark every day, left her to feed Anthony, left pills on her plate, persuaded the senior Stark away from his mechanics and up to his family more often.
Slowly persuaded Anthony away from the frighteningly high fevers that plagued him so frequently.
Anthony recovered, and Jarvis was rewarded with his giggles, his soft smiles, the filling of baby fat on his grinning cheeks.
The newest crisis did not take long to appear. The Master Stark was taking a more keen interest in his child now that he was old enough to somewhat interact with his environment. Despite all of Jarvis’ cautious attempts to tell Mr Stark that Anthony was just simply far too young to speak let alone be IQ tested, it all went over his head. Mr Stark began running his tests, and Jarvis left Anthony alone with him in the workshop, slowly backing away, a sick sense of dread rising in him as he watched the doors shut.
It was Mr Stark who realized it.
Jarvis felt horrible, all the time he’d spent with Anthony without noticing, the guilt of it almost ate him out hollow as he sat in the tastefully decorated waiting room of an obscenely expensive physician.
While Mr Stark had been testing Anthony, his hearing, his pupil response, sensitivity to stimulation, and lots of tests Jarvis couldn’t even hope to pronounce the name of, he had discovered a few things.
Anthony was ambidextrous, and showed early signs of intelligence, which Jarvis was completely unsurprised by.
He was also almost entirely blind in his left eye.
Howard had lost it, storming around the workshop, checking and rechecking Anthony’s eyesight as the barely restrained panic kicked in. Anthony had a doctor's appointment booked within the hour, Jarvis had driven them to the place while Master Stark drew up contingency plans in the back and cursed his defective heir.
Jarvis worried his hands in front of him. Anthony babbled on the floor between his feet.
Master Stark wore circles in the carpet, the cigarette between his lips blowing out plumes of smoke as he muttered.
“Stark?” A stern faced man in a white coat called, and Jarvis practically shot to his feet.
Master Stark looked at him.
“Tell me how it goes, Jarvis.” He said, nodding.
Jarvis faltered. “Does Sir not-”
“No, no.” Master Stark said, firmly, resuming his pacing.
Jarvis’ hands slipped under Anthony’s arms, lifting him to his chest. It felt like a theft, in some horrible way, even as it also felt like Anthony slotted in like a puzzle piece.
He carried him into the aggressively white office, placing him carefully on his lap.
“Alright, so I know we’re here because Anthony here is seemingly having trouble with his eye, correct?” The doctor said, not looking up from his notes.
“Yes Sir.” Jarvis replied, gently prying Anthony’s hands off of his tie.
“Alright then, I do have to warn you that this may be a defect, as we would expect to see some form of distress if this was a recent development.” The doctor said, tone somber.
Jarvis gulped. He had been employed by the Starks for over a decade. He had served Howard Stark personally for all those years. His responsibility and respect towards the man was tantamount to family.
He knew that should Anthony leave this appointment without his vision restored, Howard Stark would not look back. Anthony would never see his father again.
“Alright.” the doctor intoned, wheeling his chair over to face Anthony, who eyed him curiously.
Jarvis tried not to think about how Anthony turned his head to look at him, almost like a bird.
“Right, let’s just…” the doctor trailed off, pulling an eye torch from his pocket, shining it first into Anthony’s right eye. Anthony blinked up at it, shocked. He started whining slightly, reaching towards it. The doctor huffed impatiently, readjusting it to the other eye. That was when he completely stilled.
Jarvis tensed, feeling the change in atmosphere. The doctor pulled back, eyes wide. He leant back in, gripping Anthony’s face tightly and tilting it upwards, shining the light in various directions over his left eye.
“Can’t be…” Jarvis caught him muttering. The doctor pulled back again, white coat flapping slightly, face disconcerted.
“Right. I need him up here, now.” He said briskly, gesturing to the chair in front of some large apparatus.
Jarvis picked up Anthony again, hesitantly, depositing him in the chair, and moving to support his tiny head.
“No, no.” The doctor said, impatiently, batting his hands away. He gripped Anthony’s face again, wrenching it upwards. Anthony turned his full head to see Jarvis, standing at his left side. When he caught sight of Jarvis, out of reac, his face crumbled, eyes screwing up with wailing sobs.
“Oh for God’s-”
The doctor pulled Anthony’s head again, using two gloved fingers to open his eyes.
Jarvis desperately forced back the urge to wrench Anthony away from this man and never return.
The doctor held Anthony’s eye open mercilessly, ignoring his thrashing, and used a dropper on it before letting it shut and his hands drop. Anthony turned around desperately to him, and Jarvis couldn’t hold himself back any longer. He rushed over, scooping up Anthony and soothing him as he bawled.
The doctor observed them coolly, and Jarvis bit his tongue. He was here for Anthony. This was necessary.
“I suppose that would work.” The doctor said flippantly, lowering the chin rest to Anthony’s height on his lap.
It took a lot of cooing and Jarvis jingling his keys behind the light of the machine, but eventually he persuaded Athony’s head into the correct position, and the doctor pressed a button that made a light go off with a sharp snap .
Anthony pulled back, resuming his crying, but apparently the doctor had gotten what he needed, because he pulled back, humming thoughtfully. Jarvis watched him, heart in his chest.
“What is it?” He eventually inquired, quietly, as if saying it too loudly would break the kind of purgatory they were in.
“Anthony has a large corneal abrasion. I don’t know why the hell he hasn’t been screaming muder, but I would suggest you refrain from allowing him to dig his fingernails into his eyes.” He said, patronizingly.
“So… he’ll be fine?” Jarvis questioned, the ever present tension releasing from his shoulders somewhat.
“I wouldn’t say that. This is the biggest abrasion I’ve ever seen. It’s his whole eye. He has literally tried to scratch his eye out, there could be some long term side effects.”
“But he’s not blind?” Jarvis questioned.
“No.” The doctor replied, “He’s not.”
It would take weeks for Jarvis to recognize that the emotion he had felt as he walked back into the waiting room and gave Mr Stark Sr the all clear was disappointment. It would be years before he realized the cause of such emotion was just how close Anthony had come to being his, and only his.
It passed, eventually. There were weeks of antibiotic treatments, injections because the infection had reached so deep in Anthony’s eye. Jarvis never lost the disconcertion every time he saw Anthony prodding curiously at the eye that by everyone’s knowledge should be agonizing. He eventually had to resort to placing goggles on Anthony permanently, after one incident resulted in the physician bringing up removal of the eye.
It was all worth it, to Jarvis.
Because it healed. Anthony healed. He would be left with reduced eyesight in his left eye, but there was no reason to think it would affect him too negatively. And it didn’t. Anthony grew, soared, and said his first words, unbelievably early, at 5 months.
“Arvi’!!”
Jarvis felt a warmth spread up his chest, pulling at the corners of his mouth. He didn’t tell Mr and Mrs Stark, and it was worth it for the week of responsiveness from Mrs Stark after Anthony uttered a garbled “ama”.
Howard Stark was delighted, hands rubbing gleefully.
“The boys a genius Jarvis! Earliest talker ever, he’s going to be legendary, an icon of his time. Perfect. My Tony.” He said, swinging ‘Tony’ by the arms in a big circle, laughing.
Jarvis would later think fondly upon the following 2 months, of all the Starks plus him and Ana most nights, dining at the end of the long pine table, of Ana’s rich food and Anthony’s laughs. Howard’s purchase of toys, that he insisted were ‘educational tools’.
He had not once thought that the miracle could be disrupted by something as banal as teeth.
It was past midnight when Maria snuck into Anthony’s room, now separate from hers so Jarvis can better access him. She had been lax with her son lately, Anthonio left to survive on formula. Howard retreated to the workshop after he came up and Anthony had chomped down on his finger with no hesitation. Howard had reared back, shaking the digit angrily.
“Fuck! I think the little bastard’s growing teeth.”
Sure enough, when Jarvis had pried a grisly Anthony’s mouth open he had the beginning nubs of white poking through the soft pink gums.
The constant whining afterwards from Anthony had grinded on Maria’s nerves; she had grown unused to hearing Anthony cry for anything.
She had pulled away, but when sleep refused to take her for the second night in a row she found herself drawn to Anthony’s room. Loathe to ignore the impulse considering how scarcely it preyed upon her, she walked on quiet feet into his nursery.
Something in her softened and relaxed at the sight of Anthonio, face slack with sleep and a thin line of drool running down his cheek, onesie covered chest rising and falling rhythmically. She moved closer, skinny hands dipping inside the crib. She didn’t feel like a thief, as she often did when she picked up Anthony. She felt… soft. Like she could slot Anthony back into the hollow he left inside her and everything would even out. She cradled him to her chest, hum-singing a song only half remembered from her youth.
She swayed back and forth in the moonlight, Anthony snuffling into her neck quietly, slight sucking noises echoing through the room. She closed her eyes, at peace, his sleep warm tiny body pressed against hers, becoming one.
That was when she felt warm liquid dripping down her back.
Her initial reaction was resignation to the fact that Anthonio had drank too much before bed, and evidently the diaper had not been able to hold up against the onslaught. She was okay being covered in pee, she could sacrifice her silk nightgown for 5 more minutes with her piccolino.
But after a minute, the stream didn't stop, the warm stickiness continuing to run down her back. She could begin to hear it drip drip dripping onto the floor below.
Confused, she spun Anthony round, his face unnaturally pale bathed in the moonlight. The presence of the dark trails marring his face didn’t really register in Marias’s sleep deprived brain before Anthonio opened his mouth to smile at her and a cascade of blood poured down, drowning the bottom half of his face in black.
Maria screamed, pulling her hands away, leaving Anthonio to seemingly float in the air for a millisecond that stretched out, his face still stretched into a grin, blood smeared over his lips like bad lipstick. Then he was falling, landing with a resounding thud on the floor. From there his screams joined with Maria, as the blood soaked into the plush carpet.
From then on Jarvis’ life revolved around Anthony’s teeth. He had rushed into the room, roused by the racket in the drk of the night. Ana had escorted out a pale faced and shaking Maria, and Jarvis had picked up Anthony with frantic hands, checking his tiny form for anything broken.
Anthony stopped crying within a minute of being held, and Jarvis looked at him, discomforted. Anthony’s face was screwed up as his jaw moved up and down, and a thin rivulet of blood began running down his cheek. Jarvis’ eyes widened, hand rushing to pry open his mouth. When he managed to wrench Anthony’s jaw down, something small pink and warm landed in his palm.
When Howard Stark was informed that his son had bitten off part of his own tongue in the middle of the night Jarvis had pleaded for hours for Anthony to be able to see a doctor, if not for the event itself then for the nasty bite marks that still covered his entire mouth. Howard clattered around the workshop, refusing, until eventually he had threatened Jarvis with the sack.
“ My son is normal Jarvis, do you hear me? He’s just a boy, he’ll grow out of it.”
Jarvis saw much less of the Starks after that.
He spent his days exhaustedly watching Anthony, falling asleep head in hands just to wake up to part of Anthony’s mouth bitten open again. It was futile to try and stop him, no matter what items you stuffed in his mouth to chew on instead, he would inevitably revert to his own flesh. Jarvis grew more and more concerned, nothing he could find in his battered library copies of child rearing books described anything even similar to this. He didn’t know if he could keep doing it, never sleeping, always worrying.
Mrs Stark had only seen Anthony for minutes at a time after the first incident, and the last time Master Stark had emerged he had found Anthony yet again having his mouth scrubbed out. He had grabbed Anthony by the jaw, lifting him.
“You will stop this now boy, do you understand?!”
Despite being completely unbothered by the method of picking up, Anthony had cried for hours after the yelling. When bruise fingerprints appeared on the sides of Anthony’s face, Jarvis didn’t say anything, just added Arnica cream to Anthony’s ever expanding first aid bag.
Howard was sick of his son’s nonsense. He was nearly 1 year old, and by all standards should know better than to be biting his own face open. Fucking abnormal. Even the youngest, dumbest of children knew not to do such… macabre things. He would just have to learn. If the masses see you bleed they’ll never view you as a god.
He had deliberately cultivated an air of mystique around Anthony, and refused to have his well laid plans ruined by said child’s ridiculous behavior. The press had caught no glimpse of him in nearly a year, and the tension was beginning to dissipate, they were losing interest. He couldn’t leave it any longer. It would be helpful to allow Anthony out of the mansion as well. No need to add paleness to his list of undesirable qualities.
So it was exactly 2 weeks before Anthony’s birthday when he arranged to have the editor of AmericaDaily to meet him in the Stark home for an exclusive interview plus photos of the youngest Stark. Suddenly the whole world was buzzing with talk of Anthony - the newest royalty of American culture. Howard felt success keenly, could almost smell it on the wind like an enticing meal, and he longed to dig his teeth in. He would not let this be ruined.
On the day, he dragged his wayward wife out of her room, pushing her into the bathroom with strict instructions to clean up. He scrunched his nose up in disgust at the state of the room, and made a mental note to employ a maid for the living quarters of the house. Such a hovel was not befitting of a Stark.
Thank fuck it’s not a house tour.
He’d employed the skills of a makeup artist for the day, so he didn’t have to concern himself with Maria in that regard. She could and would follow basic instructions for today, there was no time for that maudlin nonsense.
He strode down the stairs to be greeted with the sight of the camera crew setting up in front of the fireplace and said makeup artist smearing foundation on his son, who was swinging his head around angrily.
Grinding his teeth together, he swept over.
“Anthony!” he commanded. Anthony paid no respect to him, pulling his head further away from him and the makeup artist, tears brimming traitorously at his eyes. The makeup artist seemed near tears herself as the carefully applied mascara threatened to spill down his cheeks. A shame as well, to see on such a pretty fair face.
“Anthony!” he yelled again, gripping his son’s arm tightly in his fist and pulling his body around.
“You will listen to me boy, you hear me.” Anthony’s face crumbled further, and his jaw began working furiously.
“Oh for fuck sake not this fucking nonsense aga-”
He pulled away, gripping his fists tight and releasing, drawing in deep breaths through his nose. Now was not the time, not while observed. Family disputes should be handled in private, and responsibly. No need for garish bruises or dramatic canings. Just some good stern discipline.
When he turned around, a haggard Jarvis had his finger wedged between Anthony’s teeth, Anthony who was happily smiling, all trace of tears gone.
“Can I do you now, Sir?” the make-up artist questioned.
His eyes roamed her up and down hungrily. Yes, he wouldn’t mind that. He dialed up the charm.
“Of course sweetheart.” he said deeply, smirking.
She flushed, hurrying over to a spare armchair. “Mind if we settle here?”
“Not at all.”
It was an hour into the interview and subsequent continuous flashing of camera lights that it went wrong. The lights were hurting Jarvis' eyes from afar, he had no idea how the Stark’s had been keeping it together with the lights aimed directly in their eyes, but it was clear Mrs Stark and Anthony were waning.
Master Stark was the opposite. His eyes gleamed bright in the lights, looking more at home in front of the group of starstruck magazine staff than he ever had sat with family in the room. He threw his arms up and down, conducting gasps and laughs from the crowd, drunk on attention. Jarvis suspected he might also be drunk on other substances, but that wasn’t his place to think, let alone say.
“Come on Anthony, smile!” He bellowed, face pulled up, falsely cheerful for the cameras.
Anthony watched on unmoved.
Howard’s face twitched, and he leaned in to Mrs Stark and Anthony, whispering something.
“Smile!” the camera operator called, and in the second before the camera went off, Jarvis saw what was going to happen.
Anthony’s mouth moving around, twisted up unhappily, smoothing out into a smile as he pulled up his lips…
“Oh-” Jarvis gasped, reaching out towards the child preemptively.
The flash went off, perfectly highlighting the blood once again running down Anthony’s face, taking with it all the makeup caked on. It ran down his mini suit, blood soaking the pressed white relentlessly.
Anthony’s grinned, looking over to Jarvis for approval, crimson smeared across the porcelain white of his teeth.
“Do you have any idea the amount of money I had to fork out to get this removed from the cameras and minds of those people today Maria?” Howard fumed. “Any at all?”
Maria shook her head white faced as the beautifully captured image of her son with a blood stained toothy grin swung in front of her face.
“More than your entire little Italian house.” He hissed in her air, gripping the junction between her shoulder and neck tightly.
He pulled back, and she allowed herself to breathe.
He did as well, straightening up and tugging his jacket straight.
This won’t happen again.” he stated calmly, looking back at her with cold gray eyes.
“Yes.” she hurried to say, hiding shaking hands behind her back, perfectly demure. Perfect.
“Good.”
The next week Anthony’s custom retainer was made, to be refreshed every month, and the entire house seemed to let out a sigh. Jarvis was simply glad to be able to sleep in a bed at night again. The blood soaked baby grows laid forgotten in the attic.