Author's Note: I know. I should be ashamed of myself. Considering all the stories I have in progress, I hardly needed to start another, right? But I've been mulling this concept over for at least a year, and so I like to think that I've got a pretty good grip on it.
What's the concept? What if – long before Tony Stark ever went to Afghanistan to demonstrate the Jericho in a "live arena" – his recklessness led to permanent consequences? This scenario would have no effect on the events of the movie at all, because according to the laws of movie canon, the creation of Tony Stark as Iron Man is due almost entirely to Obadiah Stane's desire to take over Stark Industries. So now I have a whole new set of circumstances to play with, a fresh perspective to explore character.
I'm sure it'll be most fun.
Also, as you might see, I'm playing these off the Pepperony 100 challenge.
Disclaimer: if I owned Iron Man or anyone associated with it, I'd probably still write fanfic, but then it wouldn't be fanfic. It'd be canon. Lucky for the Iron Man 'verse I'm on the outside looking in. Credit Stan Lee, Universal, Marvel, and whoever else for intellectual property. Credit Jon Favreau, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, et al for bringing them to life.
Prompt #48 – Shock
Tony supposed he was a man now.
He felt anything but.
The restaurant was one of the best in town. The room dinner was going to be served in provided complete privacy. The waiters who would eventually be doing the serving were welcome for the additional, unknown service they would be providing…
…at least he didn't think Obie would kill him in what was ostensibly a public private room.
Either the air was hot and unmoving, or it was just him and his visions of doom that made it that way. His tie was much too tight – again, probably on account of doom. Tony tugged at his collar as he secretly envied the ease with which his best friend wore his formal airman's uniform. Then again, Rhodey had no reason to be nervous. He was just here for the moral support…and possibly to stand as the one witness that might save his neck.
"You don't think he's going to attack me or anything, do you?" Tony's nerves manifested themselves in the uneven pitch of his voice. Damnit. Any arguments that he was a man weren't going to be effective if he sounded like a prepubescent kid.
"I doubt it."
Tony wished Rhodey could have worked up a more convincing tone himself.
But then Obie arrived – confident, charming, and as in control of the entire room as he always was – and so Tony lost the opportunity to request one last pep talk. In the shadow of his friend's – his self-designated foster father's – charismatic presence, Tony felt his own confidence take another blow. Which was why – when asked by Obie what this sudden request for a meeting was all about – instead of making the first move in what should have been a carefully choreographed discussion, he blurted out over the canapés –
"I'm going to be a father," his voice cracking unusually high on the first syllable.
Obadiah said nothing. He was settled into his oxblood leather wing chair, glass of merlot in one hand, one eyebrow raised as if the older man – this father figure – were waiting for the punch line of the joke to be told.
"I mean –" the words stumbled drunkenly off his tongue. "I've gotten someone pregnant. I just found out. Yesterday."
Still Obie said nothing. He set down the wine glass, pulled a cigar out of his inner coat pocket. As Tony tried to ignore the sweat starting to bead on his upper lip, he held back the irrational need to comment that cigars were usually saved until after the baby was born. And usually by the father.
Which was going to be him in this scenario.
God…forget about the sweat on his lip. The stuff condensing into droplets on the back of his neck were far more irritating. He wanted desperately to reach back and wipe them away –
"Someone." The word wasn't a question, but Tony provided the required answers nonetheless.
"Eleni. I met her when I was in Paris. She's French. A, um…a French model, to be exact."
Obie nodded slowly. Deliberately blew out a stream of cigar smoke. Carefully rested one ankle on his knee and clamped down on the cigar with his teeth so he could steeple his fingers in front of him. Tony would much rather have been anticipating blows than fighting off the urge to shift in his seat like a guilty child under the force of that gaze.
"A model?"
Tony nodded, trying to hide his misery.
"Well then. She'd probably be agreeable to a…discrete…solution to this situation you accidentally find yourselves in." That indulgent voice became suddenly hard, the only sign that Obie understood this to be something more serious than a child's faux pas. "At least, it'd better be accidental, boy –"
Tony cringed and nodded. "Yes, but –"
"Then all that's left to do is find the right clinic. Not that you can have anything to do with it, of course." With a great sigh Obie leaned forward and rested a heavy hand on Tony's shoulder. "I'm glad you came to me, son. I'll take care of everything."
"I don't think you understand." Tony's voice cracked again. "I'm going to keep it."
Obie's eyebrows slammed down into a tremendous frown. "What do you mean, you're keeping it?"
"The baby." Tony took a deep breath and forced some steel into his spine, because he'd prepared for this, damnit. He was a man now, and men made their own decisions. "I talked with Leni and she agreed that I had just as much right –"
"Tony, you're nineteen. You're a kid yourself still." Obie shifted from comforting to patronizing and more than a little critical in seconds.
"I'll be twenty in three months."
"And in fifteen you'll be CEO of your father's company. But only if everything goes according to plan." It didn't need to be said that children had nothing to do with the plan. "This is your legacy, Tony. This kind of recklessness isn't going to help you."
"I'm not going to kill one legacy in exchange for another." Tony's voice grew heated. "This kid is the only living member of my family that I've got now, accident or not. Aren't you the one who told me that if you're man enough to get a woman pregnant, then you're man enough to deal with the consequences?"
"I said that so you'd remember to always use a condom." Obie's reply is sharp. He snubbed out his cigar in the lead crystal ashtray near his elbow and ran his hands over his bald head. "Fine. If abortion isn't an option you're willing to consider, then we can still take care of this quietly. There are plenty of good boarding schools in Europe, though our first step is going to be a paternity test. We can't be too careful. You – and your net worth – are well known in the circles you run in. This woman could just be after a handout."
"Leni doesn't want any money," Tony mumbled as he slouched back in his chair. Collapsed into it to be honest. He hadn't actually expected to live through this discussion, though clearly the battle wasn't won yet. "She doesn't want anything, actually." Not even any contact with the kid. Tony was going to be the only family this baby was going to have. "She says her career is more important to her."
"At least one of you is thinking clearly." Obadiah was clearly still upset.
"Yeah," Tony said numbly. He traded glances with Rhodey, who might as well have been invisible during the entire discussion.
Somehow he didn't think Obie had really gotten it yet. Tony was planning to involve himself in his child's life far beyond simply writing checks to some outrageously expensive and reclusive Swiss boarding school.
He was going to be a father.
