That's not what a static variable does in C.

A static variable in C does two different things depending on what scope it's defined in: if it's in file scope, it is local to a source file (compilation unit); if inside a function, it's a variable that has only one instance and not separate instances in every function. C also has static functions and static class members in C++ but those also mean something like one of these and not default values like you're saying.