It turns out after hitting the sauce so hard that a steak would be jealous, Tony Stark becomes a real nowhere man.
His plan of escape had essentially consisted of pulling a runner, and then getting into his car and pulling a driver.
Tony isn't sure if language works like that, but he does know that every last inch of his body hurts.
The sun is bright, and the ground is hard, and his brilliant plan had pretty much been thrown out the window when, before he could even set foot on the bar's porch, a couple of guys had literally kicked him out the door.
It turns out the owner's friends didn't take kindly to his shit.
Tony looks like he's had a passionate love affair with a crowbar. He's limping and half of his face is swollen. He can hardly even figure out how to get into his car and he's just spent a half an hour digging around in the gravel of the parking lot for his keys. He swears half of the skin on his hands is gone.
He's driving somewhere but he's not sure where. And isn't that just the story of his life? He feels like he's gonna keel over any second, so when he sees the San Ardo diner pop up out of the grass like another weed in the middle of a sandy garden, he pulls into what he guesses is supposed to pass for a parking lot.
He also promptly passes out…only to yanked out of sleep god knows how long after by something banging against his car door.
After a moment to take stock of his confusion, Tony rolls down his car window to see a slender, middle aged woman with greying gold hair and an apron standing outside his car with her hands on her hips.
"You alright son?" She asks and Tony thinks thats a stupid question, but he keeps his thoughts to himself.
"I think?" He says and moving his lips causes the bottom one to re-split. He can taste blood and he grimaces.
"To heck you are, Jimmy Sellers says you've been parked out here all day. You been knocked out all this time?"
"Yes ma'am." Says Tony stiffly, without trying to move his bottom lip. He's been driving around south long enough to know this type of woman, and how you address them.
"Get out of that car, young man! First your going to clean yourself off. Then we'll see about getting you some food." Her skin has been turned to leather by the sun and it makes the blue of her eyes shocking. Tony doesn't know if he's ever seen anyone who looks exactly like her.
"I don't have any money. They probably took it, ma'am."
"Don't play the sympathy game with me, honey! They didn't take nothing you didn't owe Dick Amarillo and his tavern anyway. Oh yes, in this town of a couple hundred news flies. Don't think you can pull one over on Lucille Rainey!"
"I'm sorry ma-" Tony begins and the next thing he knows he's being bodily yanked out of his car by Lucille Rainey, a woman who doesn't look strong enough to lift a heavy sack of rice.
"And about that payment, a rough and tumble gentleman like yourself ever wash a dish?"
Tony begins to think back before realizing that a salt-of-the-earth woman like Lucille wouldn't appreciate any kind of answer along the lines of 'Daddy Stark had servants for that'.
"Yes, ma'am." He says. Lucille Rainey talks and talks as she shows him around the inside of her small diner. It's not jam-packed, but its comfortably full and reasonably clean. He manages to catch something about it belonging to her family before he's deposited in a small bathroom.
"Picking up strays again Lucille?" Tony hears someone say as he manages to steady himself against the sink.
"Oh sit on it, George."
"At least this one doesn't have rabies. That cat was foaming at the mouth. And the blood hound you found on the highway before that couldn't have smelled a raw steak if you dropped it on it's head."
"Ha ha George-"
Tony turns on the faucet and drowns out the noises of George and whoever else. He swears he can hear every pipe in the building creak as the water flows into the sink.
It gives him an idea.
Almost nothing makes Tony Stark happier than having an idea, so when he finally leaves the bathroom somewhat clean he feels pretty good and mostly human. In fact, he's five minutes to whistling as he strolls out into the dining room.
He doesn't know what could have happened over the course of the 20 minutes to turn everyone in the diner from disinterested or slightly bemused by him being there to clearly disappointed in him.
Tony doesn't know what he's done but he knows that look, and he doesn't like it. He feels the inclination to whistle curl up and die somewhere around his diaphragm.
"Young man!" Calls Lucille Rainey as she plonks a plate of pancakes so mammoth that just looking at it makes Tony's stomach cramp in front of a little boy half it's size. "Is your name Tony Stark?"
"Err…yeah? Yes, ma'am." He corrects.
"Is Howard Stark your Daddy?"
This time Tony isn't too stoned to realize that his anger is misplaced, and he simply nods.
"Why didn't you say so? The Stark scholarship for Science and Mathematics put one of my babies through college! He's an engineer for Stark Industries in Houston! You can have anything you like on the house!"
Firstly he realizes he must have read a lot of disappointment that wasn't there, because everyone seems just short of clapping for him. Secondly he realizes that the fact that he can't even escape the poltergeist of Howard Stark in a hick town (Population 600 and waning) in the middle of the desert in California makes him want to burn the place down.
Thirdly he realizes that he's starving.
"I told you that was that Howard's boy." Says the voice Tony recognizes as George and he looks over to find a man with a round beer belly and a bushy mustache. He's like if Santa Claus fell out of a bottle of whiskey every christmas.
"Thank you ma'am." He says and sits down in an empty booth in the far corner. He starts absently playing with the silverware. Whether he likes it or not he's like his dad and his hands are itching for something they can play with, take apart, and put back together. They'll settle for nervously fondling cutlery.
"Rumor has it he cut you off. That true, boy?" Asks George and Tony clenches whatever he's got in his hands until they turn white.
"Now George, mind your potatoes-"
"I heard he cut you off till you get your act together, and judging by the mess you made of Dick Amarillo's place last night I'd say you're doing just fine!"
Tony feels almost euphoric knowing he's going to tear this George a new one. He's halfway out of his booth to rip the guy's mustache clean off his face when something clangs to the floor next to his foot. He looks down and sees that it's a knife. He then looks at his hands and sees the fresh blood welling up. He realizes that he was holding the knife the wrong way, and suddenly he just feels tired. He crumples back into the booth.
"Can I have some pancakes, Mrs. Rainey?" He asks as he presses his bloody hand against the table top, just so he doesn't have to look at it.
"Surely, you'll have to wait a bit though, I've got two orders before yours and Peggy's out sick today."
The name Peggy turns to Pepper in his head and before Tony knows what he's doing he's ready to run out of the restaurant and start looking. It's been about a day since he last saw her and god knows where she's ended up. He's halfway to the door when he feels a hand on his arm.
"Now, young man, you've had a bit of a time. You sit and eat your food."
"But Pepper-"
"Whatever it is we'll worry about it after you've got some food in you. I even set down the local paper for you, give you something else to think on while you wait."
"Yesterday my…friend Pepper and I had a fight and I haven't seen her since!" He insists, unable to keep the vulnerability out of his voice and Lucille Rainey's eyes soften.
"All them rich boys are alike, ungrateful little sons-of-bitches. Can't be bothered to do a thing right." Mutters George and Tony is about to do something drastic, but the look in Lucille's eyes sends him right back to his booth.
"I'll call Al Ruiz for you, he's the Police Chief. He's always got an eye out. You sit down and relax honey. I'll take care of everything."
For the first time in a long time Tony Stark genuinely wants to thank someone for something. Before he can do it however, the object of his gratitude has bustled away, and is rapping one obnoxious whiskey soaked Santa Claus on top of his bald head.
Tony is starting to feel like things might just start looking up. A part of him realizes its somewhat irrational, but he feels like there's nothing Lucille Rainey doesn't stick her nose into that dares to not straighten itself out.
Then he opens the paper and promptly slams his head against the table top.
Loki Lauff has caught the local parish's eye as a corruptor of youth and wager of grievous sin on white bread american ideal. There is a nearly page long article listing his offenses and showing pictures of him in the kind of outfits that would probably have gotten the stuffing kicked flat out of him if he wore them in any other circumstance.
Before Tony remembers that he hates the guy on principal, he's kind of intrigued.
His eyes fall on a picture of the long, lithe man with his arms outstretched and head thrown back, his collar bones and the tendons of his neck pulled taught in stark relief. His long black and blue hair is almost in a bee hive and he's got glittering gem-studded and almost sculptural pieces covering each of his nipples. His nails are painted silver and the silver peters out halfway to his elbows. He's painted on a pair of the fullest red lips Tony has ever seen and he…he hasn't got any eyebrows!
Tony is only stuck on the lack of eyebrows for a moment. Who does that? People need eyebrows! They are the cornerstone of any decent face! The captions, proclaiming the man a homosexual and a deviant, quickly take his attention however.
He feels the need to do a victory dance. A homosexual would never be interested in Pepper! His internal victory dance skids off of cliff onto jagged rocks when he realizes that Pepper is going to most likely murder him for being such an asshat when she's found, and then it won't matter how gay or not not gay Loki Lauff is.
Then he comes across the part of the article where it warns parents against letting their innocent children attend Loki's ungodly smut-fest, in Los Angeles, in approximately one month's time.
Tony's victory dance rolls out of the jagged stones that killed it and is resurrected in a flash of heavenly light. If he can get Pepper tickets to that ungodly smut-fest she'll have no choice but to love him forever!
Tony shoots a smirk straight at George just to piss him off.
Howard Stark's money behind him or not, let it never be said that Tony Stark is not a genius.
Review Replies
SoramimiIsInWonderland: Yo wish be my command.
Madtrek: Thanks so much! This thing is actually epic in length and slowly kind of forming it's own universe. The plot gets really cray.