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Tony once again sat on the couch in his lab, with DUM-E once again recording the scene. Instead of a selection of stim toys however, the coffee table in front of him held his laptop. Tony himself was holding and stimming with his fidget cube, looking directly at the camera.
“So I was going to start this by saying ‘you know who I am’, but that would entirely contradict the point of this video.” He stopped looking at the camera and now focused his eyes on the fidget cube, tossing it up in the air and catching it with his other hand, “We are doing a Q&A! Once again my intern thought this would be a fun idea, especially since a lot has happened since the last time I had an interview like this.” He picked up the laptop, “He actually found all of the questions and- let me go on a tangent for a moment.”
Tony set the laptop back down and stared back at the camera again, “He spent the entirety of our last lab session looking for these questions, and can I just say that some of you are fucking nuts? He didn’t read me all of the questions, obviously, but he did read me a couple that just… I mean one of the questions he found was someone asking me how big my dick is and… ok. Maybe I should just be used to it, and overall I am, I know people have perverted thoughts and some of us have little to no impulse control and just post whatever the fuck they think online. What I don’t understand is why people think that’s ok.” He pointed at the camera, “And before anyone brings up my shit, that came from being on drugs and drinking all the time, as well as it being a time before the internet was really a thing.”
Tony sighed, going back to tossing the fidget cube between his hands, “Long story short, I don’t want to hear my intern say ‘Tony Stark how often do you get hard’ ever again, please and thank you.” He smirked, “See, I used my manners too, so you better do it now. Anyway!” He stopped tossing the fidget, “Let’s actually get this thing started, shall we?”
He leaned forward to read the questions from the laptop, “First question. What is your name, age, and date of birth?” He smirked, “And in parentheses, nobody asked this. I just thought this would be a good first question to start, hahaha.” Tony rolled his eyes with a fond smile, “As I said, my intern wrote these. Well then, I’m Tony Stark, full name being Anthony Edward Stark but I hate being called Anthony.” He shook his head then continued, “I’m currently 46, about to be 47, and my birthday is May 29th.” He leans forward to read another question, “And no I won’t tell you what year, figure it out for yourselves.”
“Why did you make your suit red?” Tony shrugged, “I don’t know, I like the color red. I don’t typically wear a lot of color.” He waves his hand up and down, drawing attention to the black shirt and dark blue jeans he’s wearing, “I’ve always liked red though.”
“Do you have sensory issues? If so, how do you deal with them?” Tony hummed, “I was waiting for the autism questions to come up.” He ran his thumb across the small gears that were on the fidget cube, the pointiness of it helping him relax with the more personal question, “I do have them, I didn’t think that I did but I do. Well… I mean I kinda did know, I just didn’t realize that they were sensory issues. I’ve always had a thing with lights, which is actually why I wear sunglasses everywhere, which I notice is one of the questions on here.” He pointed to the laptop, reading the question, “Why do you always wear sunglasses, that’s why, now you know. The lights give me headaches and are just… unpleasant. There are also certain clothes I cannot stand to wear, so I just… don’t buy them.” He shrugged, “I think I’m fine with sound though? I mean I hate it when there’s a bunch of people talking all at once, it’s hard to process… all of that.” He waved his arms around, “But in general sounds don’t bother me too much, I think.” He shrugged again and sighed, “Look, I honestly haven’t known about this for that long, it hasn’t even been a year, so I don’t know absolutely everything yet, so there’s a chance that by tomorrow I will learn something or something will happen and I’ll realize that sounds are satan himself, who knows anymore.”
“What are some of your most common stims? Stimming is basically repetitive movements or sounds, fidgeting as most people know it.” Tony leaned back on the couch, thinking of the answer, “I feel like I’m always stimming in some way, especially now that I have stim toys that I always keep on hand.” He said while showing off the fidget cube, “I feel like I do a lot of stuff with my hands, like if I don’t have a stim toy with me I’m tapping stuff or rubbing my fingers together.” With the hand that wasn’t holding the fidget cube, he started rubbing his fingers together, “I also pace a lot, especially if I’m explaining something. Walk and talks, most are annoyed by them, or at least they were. Now I have an excuse to do them and can call them ableist if they complain.” Tony chuckled to himself as he read the next question, “How much money do you have? A lot of it.”
“Why do you hate the orbeez stress balls so much?” Tony slightly cringed, thinking about the toy in question, as well as rolling his eyes, “If you didn’t know, I reviewed a bunch of stim toys a while back and if you read the comments of that video you’ll see that a lot of people actually agreed with me! But like I said in that video, the texture of the ball itself as well as sounds it made when you squished it were just disgusting to me.” He then glared at the camera, “I am also aware of the memes that came from that clip. I didn’t realize what I was saying while making it because I was to focused on hating the whole sensory experience of that fucking thing. But yes, I have seen the memes, haha Tony described something as wet and juicy, very funny.” He rolled his eyes again, flicking his free hand, “And now you got me thinking about that goddamn ball again.” He stimmed like that with a grimace on his face for a while, “Maybe I do hate some sounds after all, see! I said this would be the case.” After about a minute he continued on with the questions.
“Do you struggle understanding sarcasm? Sometimes I do, what happens more often is people don’t understand MY sarcasm, because I don’t sound sarcastic enough or something.” He shrugged, “What do you do in your free time? Work in the lab, if I’m not doing that then I’m watching movies or tv shows with… whoever I’m with.” From the look of his face it looked like he wanted to give out names, but decided it was for the best to leave it out.
“What’s your favorite color? Red, as I said before.”
“Why do you always wear sunglasses? I already answered this question.”
“What is one misconception you had about autism before getting diagnosed that now, post diagnosis, you don’t have?” Tony smiled, pointing at the laptop, “Now that is a smart ass question.” He held the fidget cube between two of his fingers and spun it, “Probably the biggest one is that autism is a spectrum. I heard the phrase ‘autism spectrum disorder’ before, but I guess I never realized just how wide that spectrum really is. When I found out that I could be autistic I found it all so strange, I grew up in a time where all of this knowledge just wasn’t a thing. So finding out that autism wasn’t just ‘the nonverbal kid who rocks and cries disorder’ and was something that I experienced and have… it was a lot. It’s still a lot.” Tony looked down and shook his head, “That sounds terrible, what I mean by that is… is that there were so many misconceptions that I grew up with that I’m still trying to break down today. Internalized ableism sort of stuff. That… that I shouldn’t move the way I do, or that I shouldn’t be bothered by certain things, that I should just be able to understand everything and everyone immediately. I don’t know, and there are reasons for that, and those reasons are ok and valid. That’s what I meant.”
Tony cleared his throat, once again pushing his thumb against the pointy gears on the fidget cube. He then smiled, “In parentheses, this is the exact wording, now that Tony Stark has confirmed he’s autistic I gotta know if he’s a ‘socks on always’ or a ‘socks are the devil’ autistic.” He chuckled, “Socks on always. I also run cold, though that’s probably due to my fucked up heart, but still having socks on keeps me from freezing.”
“Have you been making Stark Industries more autism friendly since your diagnosis? Yes! But not just autism friendly, we’re trying to make Stark Industries more accessible, period.” Tony perked, moving his hands as he spoke, “We’ve already changed all of the lighting from the harsh fluorescent lights to some more warm toned ones. We’ve added a sensory room in one of the staff lounges, and we’re going to add more in the future, just trying to work out where to put them. We also have a group of people communicating with the blind and deaf communities to figure out how to make it more accessible in those ways too. The elevators and the signs have braille on them, and a year or so ago we had it so the elevator actually told you what floor number you pressed and what floor you’re currently on, but we’re communicating with them to see what else we should add.” Tony’s smile was wide, flapping his hands a couple times, before looking back at the camera and stopping himself. He shrugged slightly, “I’m excited for the changes.” He said as if he needed to justify himself, “Don’t know what else to tell you.”
As he read the next question his eyebrows perked up, “Stepping into vulnerable territory here, what are your meltdowns like?” He went quiet for a moment, looking like he was still reading the question, a small smile forming, “My intern wrote that they didn’t know if this was too personal or not and if it was I didn’t have to answer it.” His smile grew bigger, waving off the camera, “It’s ok kid.” He sighed and stimmed with the fidget cube as he thought, “I mean they’re not nice? I don’t know exactly what whoever asked this wants to know. Often times there’s crying, hitting of things or myself, fucking hate being touched unless I give the ok…” He went quiet for a moment and shrugged again, “I don’t know. I know there are some videos of me as a kid having meltdowns in public, so if you are really curious or an asshole I guess you could search those up, they’re not fun though.”
He read the next one and chuckled, “Again with the vulnerabile questions, what was it like growing up undiagnosed? Really fucking hard, I’ll tell you that.” Tony sighed then rubbed his hands, “That’s a bit unfair to say. Now I’m not gonna bullshit here and say that I didn’t grow up with a lot, and I mean a lot of privilege. I know I did, and I’m learning more and more just how lucky I was.” He bit his cheek, “I am also not going to bullshit and pretend that my childhood was 100% perfect, because it wasn’t. And if I’d known I was autistic then…” He went quiet, the only sounds being made were the little clicks from the fidget cube, eventually he shrugged, “I don’t know, it just would’ve been different.” He rubbed his face and said, “To get back to the question, it was a lot of doing something and not understanding why, I would get criticized for things and not know what I was doing wrong. I knew I was different, I just didn’t know how. I remember thinking about how I wish that there was a word that could just perfectly describe why I was ‘fucked up’.” He chuckled, “Little did I know.” He continued chuckling then sighed again, “It was hard not knowing why I was the way that I was, or the way that I am. I am super glad that I know now though.” He let out a small smile.
“Five more then we’re done.” Tony said, “What’s your favorite food? Cheeseburgers, specifically the ones from Burger King. Burger King has a lot of personal meaning, believe it or not, but the burgers are also just really good too.”
“Any comfort tv shows or movies? One of my go-tos is Back To The Future.” Tony smiled wide and looked directly at the camera, “You gotta realize, I didn’t really watch movies growing up, that just wasn’t a thing at my house. So I honestly didn't start watching a lot of movies until I was 15 and going to college. Back To The Future released right before I went to college and was the first movie I saw in theatres.” He looked away from the camera, his smile growing wider, “It was so cool.”
Tony looked back at the laptop, this time his free hand was snapping. His excitement of thinking about Back To The Future caused him to take a little longer to read the question, “Uhhhh,” Tony chuckled, “did you drink water today?” He looked up while thinking through his day, “I did! I did, I filled a glass of water to take my meds with and I actually finished it.” He said with a proud smile, then it turned sheepish, “Probably should have another one after this though, that happened at 8am and now it’s almost 9 o’clock at night.” He shrugged, “I’m still working on it.”
“Two more.” Tony said, “What’s your favorite thing that you’ve ever built? I mean-“ He smirked, “it’s gotta be the Iron Man suits, right? Those are my babies.” He looked at the camera, “I’ll always have a soft spot for DUM-E though, he was my first baby.” An excitable whizzing sound was heard, along with the camera moving around, Tony laughed at the shenanigans.
“Ok! Ok! Final question, focus up DUM-E.” The camera repositioned itself to how it was before, and once Tony thought it was ok he read the final question, “Why did you get diagnosed?” He smiled softly to himself, “As I said before I grew up knowing I was different and was begging for an answer as to why I was. I don’t like not knowing things, and to me this just seemed like the one problem I couldn’t solve. So when I found out that I could be autistic I immediately went looking towards getting a diagnosis. To me, it’s confirmation. It’s proof that all of the struggles I face are real, that it’s not all in my head or that I’m doing it for attention. My brain is neurologically different than others, it’s not something I need to fix, it’s an explanation for everything.”
“Now, this is not to say that you need a diagnosis to be autistic. Self diagnosis is valid and anyone who says differently are just plain ignorant. I also understand that not everyone can get a diagnosis, and in some cases getting a diagnosis can make things worse. I was made well aware of my privilege when it came to this. For me though, getting a diagnosis was a step I wanted to take and has made me feel a lot better, especially on those days where I have a lot of doubts.”
Tony clapped his hands together, rubbed them rapidly then shot them out excitedly, “We’ve answered all the questions! Well… I did, all you did was watch.” He smiled and closed the laptop, “I hope you’ve all learned something about me today. If you hated any of the answers I gave then… I don’t know, fuck off I guess.” He shrugged once more then gave a peace sign, “You know who I am, now get out of here.”