"See that's the thing people forget, he gave me the Kingdom. 'Long lives the Queen' he tells me. 'Long lives the Emperor, I tell him.'" Mob AU. Tony should own the city, the coast, the country, the world, but doesn't want it. So he builds it for Pepper. And when people cause trouble because they don't like that, he takes it all. But will the world be better off with him in control?
It started at a hole in the wall diner. The diner was an old 50s style greasy spoon that sat under the highway in a less then reputable part of town. It was long and narrow and no matter where one sat in it you could see the whole place, a nice bonus for those with less than reputable jobs and had enemies. Though the place was a dumb and the people who worked there were old bitties, the food was good, the coffee never stopped pouring, and strangers were left to themselves.
There's a time, before the day starts and after the previous day ended; for most that time was for sleeping, but for a few it was their time. A time where they were not at peace but the closest they believed they could ever get to.
The diner was open 24/7 and at this time, before a new day started but after the last day ended, it was a guarantee known that there would be two customers in the diner. The first was red headed young woman- well a kid rather- who always sat in the far back booth on the East end of the diner. Each day she'd order tea and whatever she first saw on the menu, and then she would go to work in a small note book she always carried in her bag. The second, was a young guy- younger than the girl but most didn't think so- who would sit on the center stool at the counter. He'd order the same thing every day- black coffee and nothing else. He was usually slumped at the counter, regretting all the alcohol he had drank the night before, because at this time he would start to feel a hangover. He never brought anything with him, so he usually ended up snagging a pen from the waitress and draw all over the napkins and placemats, sometimes he'd take the sketches when he left.
The waitress who worked this shift every day would talk to both and was a sweeter old hag, polite and almost motherly when she'd tell the boy every once in a while 'you gonna kill yourself if you keep drinking the way you seem to.' She spent most her time while they were there watching those two, trying to figure them out and then gossiping all her theories to gruff old cook that worked with her.
So this was the routine at the hole in the wall diner for over a year before anyone said a word to each other. In late September one day the girl walked into the diner, her bag lighter than usually because of a big work order, and went to her booth. "What'll it be hun?" the round old waitress said with a hint of an accent. The girl looked at the menu for a moment then ordered a tea and French toast, with NO strawberries. The girl watched as the waitress sauntered away towards the kitchen, then slipped her worn out leather bound note book from her bag. She opened it carefully and started inspecting the pages and detailed notes in it. She was so engrossed in the book that she didn't notice the boy until he was sliding into the booth across from her with coffee in one hand and spinning a pen in the other.
She simply glared at him, the glare itself threatened to kill him if he did not leave.
He smirked at her with bloodshot eyes and said lowly "You must be good if your ledger is as well taken care of as I believe it to be."
If she hadn't been as good as she was with keeping her features neutral, she would have gaped at his insinuation and its accuracy.
"And a good poker face." And bared his perfect white teeth in a monstrous version of a smile, "you are most definitely good at what you do."
She regained her full self-control and shot back innocently "excuse me but why are you here and what are you talking about?"
"I am here because I'm curious and I'm talking about your 'chosen profession'" the last two words were enunciated to have been air quoted. "You're a dealer." He stated simply, "and a damn good one at that is my assumption."
"Leave." It was her only response as she looked him dead in the eye while her hands closed he book. He didn't. He just sat there looking back at her, her oceanic blue sparkling eyes to his dull brown bloodshot ones.
"I'm Tony." He stuck his hand out across the table; she continued to glare at him as he left his hand hanging in the air. "You aren't going to introduce yourself? Alright fine then, I'll do it for you." He smirked, retracting his hand, he raised his voice and said "Hello Tony, my name is Pepper, on account of my hair being as fiery red as a Pepper and my gosh how did you know what I do?" She just continued to glare at him, even while the waitress returned with her French toast and tea.
"So my name is Pepper, like the spicy plant, pepper? You are a moron."
"You don't deny that you're a dealer." He stated not at all surprised.
"Do you deny you're an alcoholic?" She smirked viciously back at him.
"I drink often but no not a full out alcoholic. Yet. I'll know when I am one, believe me. But you, I know, are a dealer. Not the high end college kids stuff, but the hard core stuff that has a consistent demand."
She just continued to eat her French toast, glaring at him, refusing to react to anything he said. He continued to ramble on how he could tell what she did and that she was good at it for about five minutes until he abruptly stopped. She had become so used to the incessant babbling that she actually looked up when he stopped.
"What do you want?" He asked seriously when she met his eyes. His eyes were no longer a dull brown but a vibrant dark mahogany brown with gold flecks. She was surprised by his question and couldn't stop herself from asking, "What do you mean what do I want?"
"Your goal, what do you want."
"In what context?"
He paused for a moment "in life perhaps? What do you want to have or to be someday, I mean."
"Oh." She seriously thought for a moment then replied honestly, for the first time in years, "I want the city, the coast, the country, maybe the world. I want to own it."
He studied her for a few minutes that felt like hours to her. The sun was rising behind her through the window and it made her have a halo almost around her. He finally said almost to himself, "You want to own it all, the power, the money, the rule of law; you want everyone to bow to you." She just watched him in fascination as his eyes danced with hidden thoughts rushing around. "You want to be the Queen, own the underworld that we are in now, correct?"
This question forced her back into the conversation and she answered, "Yes. I want to be in charge of all the business that takes place around here and beyond."
"Do you think you could do it? Will you do it?"
"I know I can and I will." She responded with surety he had never seen within anyone else ever.
"Long live the queen." He said raising his mug to the sky for her.
After that day, sometimes he would come over to her booth and sit down to talk. It started with him just giving her suggestions on how to conduct more business and who were reliable and good to work with, and eventually turned into a friendship of sorts. Neither had every depended on anyone other than themselves, and this new consistency of having another person was both strange and extremely attractive.
At the same time, her business was increasing and she was rising in the city from street dealer to small time street supplier, with the help of Tony's foresight and insight. Though they both knew, he knew way too much about this city's underworld, neither commented.
It was mid-January when the girl, who had accepted the name Pepper, actually arrived at the diner before Tony. Immediately it set off warning signals in her head. In the almost year and a half she'd known him, she had never walked into the diner without seeing his back to the door hunched over the counter. She went to her regular booth and quietly slipped her hand gun out of her bag, lying on her lap as she looked at the menu and waited for the old lady to come and take her order. She went about her time in the diner as usual, looking through her book, making plans and such. He didn't come to that diner that day. Though she thought it odd, she didn't spend much time thinking about it and just went on with her day.
It was all over the news by the time she walked into her crummy studio that night. 'Mob Kingpin of the East Coast Killed in Car Crash.' If there was one name to know in this town, it was Howard Stark. The man was King. He owned the drugs, the guns, and the girls that the East Coast thrived on. His family had held power since Prohibition and now the King was dead. The news said this son was supposed to take over in his place, but the son Anthony Edward was nowhere to be found. With the throne empty war and chaos were breaking out up and down the coast. Police feared massive bloodshed, and they were right to fear it, for the street ran red all that week.
By the end of the week, the coast had been divided. Smaller empires were planting stakes for their territory. Pepper spent that week, directing her boys so that she could keep her piece of territory she had carved out while under Howard Stark. It wasn't large, just six square blocks that were all her own. She made the rules for them and all those within her Kingdom followed her.
Nearly two weeks after Howard Stark's death and the subsequent war, she was walking up the stairs to her studio when she saw a hunch figure sitting against her door. She drew her gun and slowly crept her way towards the door and the body. When she got closer she couldn't tell who it was so she cocked the gun, the body did not move a millimeter but it spoke softly.
"It's supposed to be all mine. But I never wanted it. I mean I could control it all, own it all, but why. The only aspect I like about all this is the weaponry. I don't care about killing with the gun, I like making the gun. So here's my problem, I don't want the title and the rule as King. Long live the King? Fuck the King. I don't want his Kingdom. I want the Empire; I just don't want to be King." The body darkly chuckles as he continues, "The great Howard Stark, the King of the East Coast, the Heir of a long line of illegal royalty. To the righteous he is- was- a murdering criminal. To the criminal underworld, he was King- he was a God. And Maria, oh Maria, the perfect beautiful Queen; she was a socialite that could make any man swoon and any woman jealous." The body goes still again staring at the wall across from it. "No one knew the real Howard and Maria Stark. They never knew both were raving drunks. She truly cared for nothing but herself. And him, he was an abusive monster, that only cared about keep his Kingdom and thickly lining his pockets with money. So no, the Kingdom is supposed to be mine, I'm supposed to be like him. I don't want to rule." The hall became silent after that. Pepper kept the gun trained on it.
After a couple minutes of tension filled silence, the body whispered with stoic strength "I want more than the Kingdom, I want the Empire, but I don't want to rule. So here is my question for you, my dear Pepper." Tony turns his head just slightly to look at Pepper in the eye as she lowers her gun, "If I give you the Kingdom, will you rule it so that I can take the Empire?"
The tension was gone from the hallway, but the silence once again remained. Tony sat there waiting for any response as Pepper thought through everything she had just been told. Feeling her head start to spin, she said quickly, "Come inside, there is more to this I need to know before I can answer that question."
He slowly stood up, still leaning against the wall 'almost for support' she thought and she walked around him to unlock the door.
They walked inside, as she flipped the light switch up he made a b-line for the leather couch in the middle of the living room. He laid down on the couch as she turned into the kitchenette to turn on the kettle for tea. While she did that her mind was running wild, 'he's offering me the city? He can't do that, he's smart and he's given good advice, but he can't offer me this! And Starks? Where did they come in? The only one that could take over the Stark's Kingdom is their son- Anthony…' That last thought jumped out of her mouth before she could think it through "Anthony Edward Stark is the only one that could offer me the City. Tony?"
Not moving on the couch she heard muffled "If you are honestly just figuring out Tiny is short for Anthony, then you aren't half as smart as I give you credit for Pepper."
"Holy, OH MY GOD! Are you seriously telling me you, the son of Howard Stark, don't want the power that can LITERALLY be handed to you!?"
"Yes. I am offering it to you, no real strings attached. So, back to the question at hand, do you really want it like you said you did?" He sat up to look over the couch at her.
"Yes. I want it." She said look him straight in the eye.
He smiled, an actual genuine smile she'd never seen before, and said proudly "then long live the Queen."
They spent the next four hours, him explaining everything that goes on in the city. Who is who, who does what, where this or that comes from, who is dependable, who is dangerous, and every other little nuance detail only the King- or in this case Queen- needs to know before taking over the throne.
Near the end of the information session- as Tony thought of it- Pepper started to wonder how he come to know all this, besides the- duh son of Kingpin explanation.
"Tony?"
"Hmm."
"Did your father teach you all of this?"
Tony looks up from his coffee and the map of the City they've been looking at, and gives a self-deprecating laugh, "Howard, only taught me how to dodge a flying object through trial and error. I watched and studied and taught myself everything I would need to know if I chose to one day take over the Kingdom."
"Oh, I see. You're too smart for this world then Tony. You could've left and made something of yourself."
"So could've you. You have a head for business and money, could've gone to college or something and work on Wall Street. Still could, I guess if you wanted to?"
"Need to graduate high school for that. Why didn't you go to college? You're obviously smart."
"I did graduate high school, when I was thirteen. Actually I have an IQ of over 200. I took some of those IQ tests."
Pepper was shocked, she knew Tony was smart, but this? This was unexpectedly impossible. "And you didn't escape when you could've? You are stupid, Tony."
"If you need to know Pepper, though I am a genius, I was a kid- susceptible to suggestion. I was told I was too young by too many people and… some other stuff. Plus I was twelve when I found alcohol, so no I wasn't in the right frame of mind to make decisions like that because by the time I graduated high school I was an alcoholic and I didn't care. Not about me or the Stark name or anything. That's how you found me in the diner right?" He drank the rest of his coffee in one slug and finished by saying, "So, no, I never could've gotten out, didn't care if I did, still don't."
Pepper didn't respond to that little tangent, too many dangerous things were said, so she just moved on. "Ok so I know all the players, the whats' and the wheres', so all that's left is how are we going to do this.
"Have you ever played chess?" He asked with a twisted grin.
"I know how to play and the ideas behind it- you out think your opponent."
"You got it. Anyway, chess is life; life is a game of chess I mean. Everyone is a player on your board. And everyone's' board has to fit into your board. Do you get what I'm saying?"
"Big picture made up of a bunch of little pictures, kinda?"
"Yep, ok you got it, anyway the key is to let each piece think its play for itself. You let them play for you and everyone is convinced they are their own piece so if the piece is lost then no one looks at you."
Pepper interjects "But if everyone is playing for themselves, how can you win? Tony I don't like this metaphor."
"It's not a metaphor; it's how I see everything. Anyway, you don't have to win, you just have to make sure that when the game is over, and your name is the one that's spelled out on the board by the pieces themselves." He smiles "Big picture Pep, everyone sees your name, doesn't matter what's left on the board, in the end it's you they remember- you're the winner in the end."
Pepper smiled, "So we will own it all and everyone else will give it to us and automatically assume it's ours."
"I'll have my Empire and you shall be the Queen. Long Live the Queen." Tony said, and they both raised their mugs to the future Queen.