Tony has dyslexia.

He is five when they find out. He is sat on his mother's lap, half-heartedly staring at the book in her hand. Sometimes paying attention but mostly just resting his head in that special place between her neck and shoulder, listening to her heartbeat and calm, even breathing.

"The girl wore a pretty white dress," she says, one hand running through his hair, catching on the snags, the other gripping tightly to the book. "Read the next line, Tony. That's a good boy."

He yawns and looks at the book. Reading holds no interest for him. He spends most of his private lessons half-asleep before Jarvis comes and takes him to his room for the night. He blinks slowly at the page. He already knows some words already.

T

O

N

Y

That spells Tony.

M

A

M

A

That spells Mama.

But here is no "Mama" or "Tony" on this page that he can see. He frowns, stares hard. It begins, The, byo, is.

"Tony?"

The letters are swimming. He leans back. "I don't know," he says. "I don't know what it says."

"Tony, you need to try."

"No!" he hides himself in her neck. Why doesn't she understand? "It's too hard! The words move! I don't wanna!"

"Tony," she always uses his name when she speaks to him, uses it to pull her child back to reality. "Tony, what do you mean "the words move"?" she sounds worried but not upset.

(She is never upset with him)

She let the book fall to the floor with a thump and hugs him tightly.

"Mph," he says into her shoulder.

"Tony..."

He is getting sick of his name. "The words move like this!" he says, and wriggles his fingers for good measure. He looks back at the book. The, byo, is. "The, byo, is," he says. "The, byo, is."

"The boy is..." she closes the book. "Come with me," she says, and puts him down on the floor. He misses her immediately. The inches feel like miles and she won't take his hand. "Let's go speak with your father, shall we?"

For all his faults, his father never shouts. He does not raise his voice at them, even if Tony has done something particularly stupid. (Like talking back, like breaking glasses, like not knowing how to read...)Neither does his father ever question his mother; he only stares hard at her until she shrinks down and leaves. But today she does not shrink. She rests Tony against her and stands tall while he hides in her skirt. As they talk (argue) he thinks of all the things the boy could be.

The boy is good.

The boy is smart.

The boy is nice.

His mother calls for Jarvis to take him away while they have a "discussion" (to fight, all because of Tony, stupid, stupid, stupid, T

O

N

Y)

He knows as his hand slips from the soft material that he won't be seeing his mother for awhile. He flinches as he is taken away because even if they are not yelling, he can hear them loud and clear through the walls of his home.

The boy is STUPID.

Later that night after Jarvis has tucked him in, he sneaks out of his room to go to the parlor. He wants to find the book, wants to know what the boy is, so, so, badly. He'll read it, memorize it and recite it tomorrow so his parents won't worry-that he's stupid-about him. He freezes in the doorway.

His mother is in the chair, the book in her lap. Her hair is damp and falls over her face. She does not look up, only trails her finger over and over the glass full of something golden as the ice tinkles cheerfully.

Over and over.

She picks it up and takes a long drink, refills it from the bottle on the side table. Her shoulders begin to shake and he backs up, leaving as quietly as he came. "Howard?" she calls out, hopefully. Her voice quivers and he does not sleep well that night with it still ringing in his ears.

Time passes but he finds that no matter how old he gets, how much he accomplishes, how far he escapes, he is never anything more than The Boy.

Howard Stark's boy.

Then there is MIT and there is Rhodey and he isn't The Boy so much as he is TonyfuckingStark.

He appreciates it so much he spends his time trying to be the best friend he can. It's actually much harder than he thought it would be, seeing as how must of his time is spent around robots and not, like, actual human beings.

But still he tries.

And he thinks Rhodey is starting to really appreciate how much Tony does for him.

You know, just like, the little things.

"Stark! Why is there nothing but porn in the DVR!? What happened to my movies?!"

"Happy birthday!" He laughs as the angry man attacks him with a can of soda. "Stop! Stop! You wouldn't hit a dyslexic guy, would you?"

Rhodey doesn't even pause. "Oh no, that shit's not gonna work with me! Disability or not, you're still Tony! Which means you're still an asshole!"

He begins to cry and pretends it's from the laughter.

Then after Rhodey, there is Pepper. She tolerates his "shenanigans" even less and calls him 'Tony'.

He thinks he might be in love with Pepper, if just a little bit.

She keeps him centered, tethered to her like a balloon even if all he wants to do is float away.

The boy is flighty.

She cleans up after him, takes out the trash and makes sure that The Boy, Howard's creation, stays unblemished, and Tony Stark stays (relatively) sane.

She hates The Boy almost as much as he does and okay, so maybe is completely and utterly head over heels in love with her.

Which is why he didn't want to tell her. Tony, although completely and utterly flawed, is supposed to be more than human. He is supposed to be unbreakable, perfect in everyway.

Instead, he has gray hair and still can't read very well.

He once read that reading gets easier as you get older because you're able to sort of deduce what the word was.

Nope.

Double nope.

Looks like life pushed him back into the mud before he could catch that particular bus.

Just another slide in the "Ways Tony Stark's life is completely and utterly shitty" show.

Instead, he makes Pepper read. She never questions him, bless her, but shoots him an irritated look. He smiles when she reads performance reviews and monthly goals and businessy things like that, making that sexual harassment complaint sound like a glorious epic. He tells her so and she blushes a deep red, rolling her eyes.

"You can't just say things like that, Tony!" she complained to him after he likened the face he made when she caught him asleep naked on the couch to a glorious orange sunset.

"Why not?" he asked, genuinely confused. If someone told him something like that he would be completely flattered.

"Because!" she said. "It's not professional!"

"So?" he asked.

She growled and seemed about ready to throw the damn reports at him. "Just read these, sign them, and get them back to me. Before next year, please."

"Can't."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Can't."

"And why not?" she was revving for a fight, he could tell.

"Dyslexic. Reading's hard."

She blinked and stared at him. "You're dyslexic?"

He yawned and stretched. She flushed and averted his eyes as he scratched at his chest. What was it like to have inhibitions, he wondered? "Yup."

There was a fairly long pause before a pillow came crashing down on his face. "Cover yourself up," she ordered. "You're not getting out of this that easily." She sat down on the far edge of the couch as he adjusted himself. "God help me," she muttered as she opened the first file and began to read.

He looked at her and smiled. He leant back and closed his eyes.

The boy is fine, he thinks.

AN;

Dyslexia in itself comes in many forms. Some people with dyslexia have trouble reading words with letters that look alike such as a, e, c, d, or b, q or g, or y, while other times the letters just get mixed up. Dyslexia also makes it harder for people to recognize voices, making or being able to tell when words rhyme. I do not have dyslexia but a very close friend of mine does so I went with his branch.

Forgive for any mistakes I made.