AN: Long wait^^ sorry, I rewrote the chapter thrice and for the love of Stark I was stump on what to give Tony. You'll see read ahead. Long rant below though.

I don't own Avengers.


7 years later...

Everyone in the room fidgeted, not from nervousness, no, but from the sudden news that their CEO just died not two hours ago. Almost every staff within the building just stopped and silently mourned as the reports further confirmed the fact as it blared on the National News.

A car crash...and poor Maria was there too.

Howard Stark may not have the best characters as a person, but to those who work under his company, he was the best boss. No one was sure what was going to happen next, except one of the closest adviser and friend of their boss, Obadiah Stane.

The staffs and the present board members could easily see the unshed tears in the man's face as he stood before them in the meeting room. Obadiah had gathered the department heads an hour after they composed themselves, it was hard to force themselves to quickly set aside the death of their beloved CEO, but they should act as soon as possible. They had a lot to take care of; the media, the stocks, the ratings, planning the funeral and so on, there was no rest for a company as successful as the Stark Industries. The staffs had managed to skim over the sketch of their plans for their external affairs, deeming them mild importance, as they have yet to answer the most important question.

"Where's Tony?" Obadiah Stane asked, his voice an octave higher as he stared back at the line of staffs gathered in the meeting room of the Stark Industries.

The heir had been a whirlwind of bad streak after bad streaks, when Tony graduated from MIT -top of the class of course- his attitude made a hundred and eighty degree turn. The genius went to parties nightly, brought girls -and some boys (those are rumors though)- back to the mansion every other night, and the young man's drinking was worse than Howard's, the worst thing though was, the never ending arguments between the male Starks -every time those two met, Tony seemed to enjoy taunting Howard with whatever subject under the sun. The media had been scooping up one event after another as if their world was revolving around Tony, the public gave enough opinions on the matter that some of the recently hired staffs could not phrase a decent thought about the heir.

However, the older staffs, especially the ones in the R&D department, had created a view of Tony Stark that was placed in the positive spectrum, despite the heir's flaws, no one could deny that the genius had created magnificent gadgets, designed and enhanced their weapons system and with his innovation alone, Tony pulled the Stark Industries to the top. However, the help he gave was overlooked majority of the time and by the end of the presentation the credits still went to Howard, no one bat eye -even Tony- at the lack of recognition.

But back to question. They have absolutely no idea.

Despite the vast publicity of the heir, none of them knew where the young Stark goes, he just comes and goes as he pleases nowadays.

Obadiah seemed to get their silent reply and the just sighed and pulled out his phone. They watched as the man tapped his fingers on the table top in increasing rhythm. They saw Obadiah straightened on his seat.

"Tony, where are you?" the man spoke, the was a short silent pause and suddenly Obadiah's eye widened in disbelief. "Malibu?"


Tony eased back on his seat, holding up a hand and making his acquaintances pause their conversation. He silently mouthed at the duo the word 'work' and the pair immediately understood, they stood up, one had silently pushing a calling card towards him -rain check it seems- and they walked out of the small cafe they had been meeting in.

"Yes, I'm in Malibu, I'm just checking out the...sights." Tony answered making sure to give enough leer in the last word to give Obie the general idea of why he was there.

Not that he was here for the sight sights, but the sights, like the building and what not. Tony had been searching for a home -correction, he's making one-, for himself, one that would be under his name, built by his own money, and design with his own plans. Call it independence from Howard's name.

This was the first step of getting his privacy from the world- even from his company. With all the media scattered about in the gates of the his family mansion and the paparazzi going undercover in the streets below the Stark Industries. Tony decided it was time to smoothen out his lifestyle, all the chaos he made in three years was getting him sidetracked, and while it was a must to create a public image -reading the ridiculous headlines on the tabloids was fun- , the stress of maintaining it, combined with his growing pile of work in the R&D department and not to mention his... side job.

It wasn't surprising that one of three was going to be placed on coat hanger to rest.

Needless to say, Tony was making sure that no one -aside from those he hired- knows of his recent secret agenda.

"Tony, this might be sudden but." Obie answered and Tony noticed the slight shake in the man's voice. "Your parents died...in a car crash."

Blunt much?

"...Oh." Tony blinked, he place his palm over his heart and felt no change in beating, no empty dull feeling sinking into his stomach or the usual crying and waterworks when someone dies -those writers over-describe the feeling of lost, little lying word sleuths-. "Okay..." well, this was getting awkward. "Give me a minute."

He place the call on hold and rubbed a hand on his face. Tony has honestly no idea what to react about the news, he was not saddened -that's for sure- after the car crash incident seven years ago Tony withheld anymore feelings for his blood family. Their relationship with one another was akin to a oil and water, especially when Howard was concerned.

"You could have warned me about this, you know?" he whispered in a sigh as he stared up at the ceiling.

Tony picked up the phone. "I'll assume that I'm needed back in the home base." he implied rather than ask, though he did make sure to adjust his tone. Speaking nonchalant about the death of a relative would unnerve anyone.

"Yes. There are matters that we must attend to immediately." Obie agreed. "Get back to New York as soon as you can, Tony."

"Sure, sure. I'll be there by tomorrow." Tony didn't wait for Obie to voice out a complain and ended the call. The flight would take barely an hour but Tony decided that the company could wait, besides it would be better for Obie to be the one speaking the deaths of the Stark couple in front of cameras. Tony can't even imagine if he's the one talking, the end result would turn into a scandal that's for sure.

"Well?" he asked, turning his head to the side to see a dark mist floating by the corner.

It was fortunate that the owner of the cafe didn't complain about him renting the whole store for an impromptu meeting with his possible house contractors.

"Would you even care?" Death murmured as her body slowly formed, her skull tilted at the side with her question.

Another reason why he rented the place was because of Death, Tony has really no plans to let anyone see him talking to the air. If he went public, the world would know that he's past crazy already.

"...I... don't know." Tony answered truthfully and shrugged. "I don't know what to feel, Death...I mean- I-" he sighed combing his hair roughly. "I'll face that problem tomorrow, for now I just want take my mind off of this news."

Coward. The word passed his thought but Tony ignored it and stood up from his seat, adjusting his glasses casually. "Any significant updates on my work? The weapons I recently made was on mass production right now, but I made some adjustment last month on the recent missiles."

"None so far, the war in the other side of this realm was on stand still." Death answered as she hovered beside him. Tony had gotten used to the odd smell that clouded around her, but that doesn't mean he likes it. "The peace in this realm is starting to stutter your growth, in the near future you might need to find other use of my blessing to you."

Tony nodded in understanding, the blessing that Death was referring was nothing superficial like those in the comics, it was an innate understanding of cause and effect, the ability to see the butterfly effect of every weapon he made all throughout the world- or more specifically the continuous effects -devastating effects- of his creations.

The first time he fully experienced this, Tony had somewhat went into a dream like state for weeks, hundreds of hours worth of seeing first hand how much chaos he caused just by tweaking the formula for his missiles. The first thing that Tony saw during his inactive state was the hundreds of deaths of the enemy soldiers, it was followed by seeing the grief of the families of the dead- which half of the time caused death due to depression -suicides- and other times Tony would helplessly watch as the children of those families die because of starvation and poverty from lack of income, it continued on, shooting off to other areas causing harm and death.

Every loss, every blood shed, and every families destroyed...happened because of him.

Tony felt disgusted of himself.

He wished he had never took hold of Death's hand that time, but regrets was something that Tony was familiar with, in fact, he was too familiar that he easily overlooked those thoughts. Alcohol and those weekly night outs at parties had helped pull his mind out of those reminders, he was running away but he doesn't care. So long as he was with his passion, of science and engines, Tony would turn blind eye. At that moment, Tony knew he lost a part of his humanity.

At first, Tony saw this ability as a curse but as time passes on and with Death's guidance, he saw the growing tangle of events of his butterfly effect without him falling into a daydream -the ability sounds kinda feminine, now that he thought about it-. He had seen glimpses of the lives of the current 'generation' that had been affected by the first wave of his killings. Like a never ending weave of spiderwebs, and him as the spider, Tony could 'see', in a sense, those who were suffering by his actions. A beautiful chaos, made by his hands and drawn by the choices of his victims.

He was still far from mastering the ability, he could neither pinpoint the exact location, nor know the names of his 'current' victims. But Tony knew there were about a hundred of thousands of lives that were affected and Tony had seen glimpses of their lives, enough for him to see and realize other negative aspects that plague the world aside from the war that Tony was indirectly providing.

Climate change, poverty, corruption and many other causes...

Some part of him that was chained deep in his mind, thought that is could at least provide help -the 'for the better' help and not the 'for the good of the country' help- even at a small scale, maybe he could at least shed a bit of extra time for the victims...that, and a part of him was just wishing to ease his conscience, the one that seeks unvoiced redemption from unnamed victims, the one that was long ignored and kept deeply hidden.

As insignificant as the thought was, it was because of that that Tony drew various plans of gadgets, softwares and near engineer marvels that could help the people have a better life. Unfortunately, every one of it was still in the papers, he did not have the time nor the privacy to continue further. Still, the thought never left his mind, always whispering at the back every time he created a missile or designing an upgrades for the warfare.

It was a shallow thought but it gave a small glow of hope that Tony tried to cling to, a warped notion that his curse could be a blessing too.


"Jarvis?" Tony blurted in surprise when he saw the family butler standing idly before hotel room.

The man was still impeccable in his suit, almost- Tony added when he saw the pink tinge at the edges of man's eyes.

"Sir." Jarvis greeted with a nod and Tony's heart clenched when he saw the devastation in man's feature.

Tony might be insensitive most of the time but when it concerns the people closest to him, he tried to do emotions. Keyword; tried.

"I wanna ask about how you manage to find me with all the routes I traveled, but I think the question would be better off unasked." Tony started with a rueful smile, Jarvis stared at him for a few seconds and Tony saw a flash of sadness in the butler's gaze. "So...Wanna drink?"

Jarvis nodded and Tony was half surprised, he did expect the older man to agree but Jarvis never drank any alcohol for the last 21 years of his life.

They silently entered the room with a flick of Tony's keys and the two men made their way into the bar.

"...How're you taking this up?" Tony asked, if a bit blunt -he was still trying emotions though-.

"I should be the one asking that question, sir." Jarvis replied and took the first step behind the bar.

Tony wiped a palm over his face and sighed as he watched Jarvis prepare their drinks. "You should know by now what I felt for him." he answered and nodded in thanks when a glass of whiskey slid over his place.

"And your mother?" the older man asked and took a sip of his own shot.

"She's...well...I guess I'll miss the walks we did." Tony shrugged and took a long drink. "But Howard? I dunno...a part of me is...upset? That he's gone and the other is relieved- sort of." he scoffed he then muttered. "No more talk about spangles."

Jarvis just nodded maybe in a rueful fashion. "You're quite hang-up on those in your youth."

"I tried that time, Jay." Tony replied with a resignation in his voice, no matter how offended he was at the question he couldn't quite stop himself from reminiscing. "I'm still not good enough to compete with a dead man...well there were that moments but it wasn't enough." he ended with a shrug as he took another sip.

"Moments?" Jarvis asked.

"Yeah." Tony answered with a nod. "Howard kinda looked at me at a new angle, if you know what I mean. But every time I tried to see what the heck that meant, I always missed the cue."

Jarvis remained silent and Tony's eyes drifted to the melting ice in his drink. He might been talking nonsense for all he knew but the words had left his mouth was something that he needs to speak.

"I think Howard was relearning what he thought of you, sir."

"Maybe." Tony whispered. "But nothing changed."


The funeral was nearly a joke to Tony. No disrespect, but half of the people that knew Howard was probably partying for his death. Not that it was funny but when Tony saw how...fake some of the mourning expressions of Howard's colleagues wore during the ceremony, he was glad that the public, much more known, personality he made up over the years had became a norm to the people that they didn't even thought to look twice. The nonchalant attitude he has regarding the company had gave his future 'colleagues' a second thought.

He was still regarded as genius, a playboy, and maybe a soon to be billionaire if being shackled to the CEO title would be discussed.

Oh, Tony knew about that burden. Only people with the Stark blood would be the one going to take care of the company -Obie's hold was temporary until the paperwork was finalized-. He could handle the job, paper work and doing inventions -no problem-, but board meetings? Nope, the boredom of hearing statistics and what-not would be better used for his lab work, or better yet taking a more direct work on his side-job.

Nevertheless, the funeral was taking a bit more -okay, very- political than he liked. The eulogy of the guests was bordering to something akin to a failed experiment and the amount of double meaning words gave enough hint for their expectations when Tony took the reigns. Aside from the department heads of the Stark Industries, Tony's close family members -Rhodey and Jarvis to be exact-, the usual media -which were thankfully packing up...slowly...understandable, because-

"Mr. Stark."

Tony looked up from the bouquet of flowers he dropped near the head stone of Maria and looked behind him. There was a line-up of men in uniform near the treeline, with Obie hovering beside them. Tony narrowed his eyes at that.

The man might be his godfather, but Tony knew how ambitious the man was during the tutorial he spent with him...Hopefully the benefit of doubt that Tony gave him would prove his suspicions wrong.

His eyes quickly shifted to the man walking towards him.

And had no fucking idea what his name was. Though, remembered the man's three worded eulogy for Howard.

Fortunately, he saw enough of those girl scout pins during his visits that he recognize what title to label. "General." he greeted, pulling up an eyebrow in a silent question.

"My condolences for your loss, Mr. Stark."

Tony's raised brow twitched at the name. Great, he got Howard's nickname too. "I don't want to be rude, General, but I'm still..." he glanced back to his mother's tombstone. "Mourning."

"Of course, of course." the man nodded placatingly. "I'm just here to inform you that the secretary of defense wants to meet you sometime during this week."

"Sure." Tony answered flippantly with a wave. "I'll make a note of that."

The uniformed man nodded and walked back to the small gathering. As the seconds passed, turning into minutes and moved on to hours, Tony still lingered before the deathbed of his parents, the guests had already left, even Obie ran out patience and he was left alone in the rays of the sunset.

"Is she peaceful?" Tony whispered when he smelt the familiar scent of Death.

"Regretful, child..." Death answered, her voice echoed eerily in the perfect setting.

Tony sighed. "But you got her right?"

"Yes, I do."

"That's good enough." Tony answered and pushed his hands in his pockets. "So, a new chapter to start." he mused, sparing one last glance at the headstone and slowly turned around. "Anything I should expect?" he asked as he walked away. His steps were languid almost like he was talking a stroll in the park.

"The usual..."

Tony huffed, rolling his eyes and gave a chuckle. "Of course."


Stress, this was something that Tony was familiar with, but now that feeling was something that he started to hate. With the additional paper work and meetings added to his projects as well as seeing glimpses of death and suffering throughout the day, Tony was ready to drop everything. Ridiculous idea considering that this was just his third day in work.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Tony forced the haggard groan that grumbled behind his throat when the door of his office -decorated to his usual style- banged open and in stepped a woman. His PA that was conveniently provided by Obie a day after he sat on the CEO seat.

"Mr. Stark, it's time for your one o'clock meeting with the board. The one, if I may remind, that you postponed three hours ago. I pushed the following schedule..." the woman started, listing off the numerous meetings, the weekly department check ups, and the stack of paperwork that he needs to sign, which was starting to take form of a mountain at the edge of his desk.

Tony silently sighed and rubbed his temples. He held up a hand- immediately silencing the woman- Jen? Kate?- from her ramblings- or rather nagging. His mind might be stressed of all the leftover work from Howard, but the woman had entered his room eight times and called him over for the intercom ten times, just this morning.

It might be due to the leer in her eyes or the underdressed office attire she wore -really, who wears that kind of skirt to work? What kind of standards did Obie has?- but Tony got the feeling that maybe his playboy persona got the first taste of it being a con in his line of work.

"Alright." he muttered, and waved her away. "I'll-" Tony blinked, words dying abruptly in his mouth when the smell of her flowed in the air.

His PA shivered suddenly and he saw the wave of anxiety wash over her features and her hand started to shake. Tony raised a brow, this was the first time he saw the effect of Death's presence to a human. Still it was interesting development to say the least.

"I'll come over right away." he continued, waving a shooing motion with his hand.

The woman eyes started to roam around his office and stared back at him, so like a deer caught with headlights on. "Sir?"

"Go." he muttered and watched as the woman hurriedly walk out of his office with shaky steps. Tony waited for the seconds to pass before he leaned back on his seat, throwing the pen on the table with a small clatter. Letting out a groan, Tony stretched.

"I thought we got an understanding of meeting in privacy?"

"Ah, we had indeed." Death's voice answered and with a flourish of mist and smoke, her body formed sitting languidly on the couch by the side. "However, I have a situation that will most likely disregard that understanding."

Sighing when the cracks of his joints echoed in his bones, Tony stood up and meandered his way to the minibar at the corner of his room. "And that is?" he asked not glancing back to his visitor as he poured a glass of his liking.- scotch of course.

"Your butler."

His fingers slackened heir hold and his ears might have gotten deaf when the sound of broken glass didn't reach his ears. "What!?" he asked, turning around fast to face Death.

"Accident, he's been teetering to my hold in the past three hours."

"Why are you just telling me this right now?" Tony asked, dread and fear sank into his stomach like boulders.

"I would had thought you would have heard of it already, the practitioners in the room had been mindful to call for their patient's relatives...I heard the call, but affirmation? No- hence my surprise visit."

"What the heck?" He strode back to his desk and took his phone. There wasn't any emergency call nor an alert for him. Jarvis might be incognito in terms of public appearance but everyone in the company knew him.

Except for his PA.

"Shit." Tony seethed. "Don't get him yet...please." he pleaded a second before he walked out of his office.

Tony made a beeline to the open office by his door, surprising the PA who was...fucking polishing her nails. "What. Are. You. Doing?" he asked, voice barely higher than a whisper but his exit seconds ago had garnered the attention of the paper pushers walking out of the elevator.

There was no reply from the PA aside from the rising flush of red on her skin and her gaping mouth. "You're fired, effective immediately." he rushed sparing a glare to the female and walked towards the elevator, passing the recently arrived paper pushers.

He would have let an angry rant after that, might be a good stress relief, but he had no time.

Tony pushed the button on the elevator -better make a private one, he noted- and turned around and gestured one of the staffs.

A lanky man hesitantly approached. "Sir?"

"I have a board meeting in five minutes, tell them that I'm not available for the rest of the afternoon-uh no, make that the next two days. All meetings will be rescheduled after I find a new PA- and you." Tony called waving another staff closer. "Those papers need my sign?"

A meek nod was his answer.

"Alright, you get to rearrange the mountain on my desk, segregate it into departments and in terms of urgency. I finished a stack back in there so make sure those returned to the department heads. Understood?" he asked raising a brow at the two. "Also, I might've dropped a glass somewhere in there, clean it up will you?"

"Yes, Mr. Stark."

"Good." as if on cue the elevator door behind him let out a ding as it opened. "Oh and the girl I fired, clean up. I don't want to see you when I get back."

He entered the lift and raised his voice. "I mean it."


AN: I'll cut it off here.

I followed the MCU timeline, where Howard and Maria died in 1991, also the year where Tony became the youngest CEO at 21. Iron Man movie happened in 1999 -making Tony 29- which is where another time skip would happen after chapter 5...I think. I need to advertise Tony's little gift from Death.

So about the ability. I greatly limited my ideas to Tony's title: Merchant of Death. Being apprenticed to Death must have it's perks, so I came up with an ability for Tony. Now you might be confused -heck I'm a bit confused as well- but to put it in simple terms. Tony has the ability to 'see' the effects of his weapons- like seeing the whole process of butterfly effect of his weapons in his mind. But since there's a lot -I mean a lot- of things that could be affected by blowing a person up; geography, bacteria, diseases, fuck a lot of things that made me go crazy with the cycle of cause and effect, I decided to just put focus on the human lives that Tony -to be blunt- destroyed, families and the tragedies they experience, Tony could see that. He still can't master it, yet, as I mentioned before he could only see glimpses- but in time (MCU- Iron Man movie) he could pinpoint the people who were affected by his weapons. Which means in the coming chapters Tony can see the lives of the millions of people worldwide, who are they and where they are. That particular talent is just the first part, since I need Tony to have a bit of grounding, so to speak, which opens a door for the second part of the ability.

Tony won't be too OOC, I promise. He's still the lovable jerk but a teeny bit serious and lower moral standards when it regards to life. But come the movie and I'll redevelop his character.

The next bit...I need a reader's input for this. When you read 'Merchant of Death' what comes to your mind? I have an idea of my own, but I like to read your thoughts about that once mentioned line in the movie. That and please review!