A/N; I am entirely reader-supported. Here are my special thanks to those of you who enjoy my writing enough to support me with your hard earned money on my pa-atreon page. Not just them though, special thanks to everyone who even just reads this story, reviews it, favourites or follows it. You're the reason I keep going. Thank you. Welcome to this new story, feel free to check out my other work if this is your first.
"Clark. Can I call you Clark? Well, Clark, I've heard loads about you. Some call you my second coming, you know," Stark had a motor mouth. He spoke quickly and barely ever without stopping. On the walk to the private office, we'd already spoken about close to three topics. By "spoken," I mean he'd talked at me while I had the decency not to interrupt him. Considering he'd stopped this time, it seemed like he was finally interested in getting my own take on something.
"That makes no sense," I relented and engaged him.
"Of course it doesn't. I'm me."
"I meant we have completely different focuses. I'm the computer guy, and you're the Weapon of Mass Destruction guy." The last bit was just to irritate him.
"Ex-weapon of mass destruction guy, I'll have you know. I'm more interested in consumer products these days."
"Not a popular choice."
"Yeah, the stock market guys are having a field day with it. I've gone from the richest guy in the world to the second richest and back again more times than I can count."
"Well, suddenly getting kidnapped, being rescued, and then announcing a new direction for your company, and then arresting your Chief Operating Officer before rounding things up by declaring yourself a superhero is a lot to digest in the span of a few months," I commented drily.
"I see your point. I see it. But that's not why I called you here." Finally, getting to make some progress.
"But before that, though. How's MIT treating you? Have the old foggies managed to become less annoying in the time since I've been gone?"
"Oh. The place is lovely. A few arseholes here and there, but altogether, I can't really complain. I get my space to do my own thing."
"You've got Wilson, don't you? The fucking asshole failed me in my time."
"You didn't attend the classes?"
"Thought it was a bluff."
"Well, that didn't end up going well for you, did it?"
"He's the only lecturer who does that bit. 'Attendance in my classes is very mandatory.'" He said the last bit in a pretty good impersonation of the MIT Programming Theory Professor, and I was ashamed of the way I burst into a full-bellied laugh at the joke.
Without my powers, I wouldn't have noticed the glint in his eyes when I finally laughed. Oh, Stark is good. Very fucking good. I'd let down my guard way too quickly. Who'd have thought that a tech billionaire could ever be charismatic?
"Well, I can get you away from all of it. Even Wilson and his madness," he said, his tone seemingly flippant.
"Get me away?"
"Yup. A job at Stark Industries. I'm pivoting to consumer tech, and you've got a lot of expertise on what consumers want and what drives them. Being the biggest social media guy on the block has served you well." Finally getting to the reason for the summoning, I see. I could now see the method behind the madness. The party, the music, the offer of alcohol, even the incessant chattering and jokes. He'd been trying to get me to like him. No, to want to work for him.
"The offer is truly an honor, Mr. Starkā¦"
"But you'll have to refuse?" The man of Iron asked, cutting me off halfway, and I just nodded. He smiled, hiding a twinge of discomfort before downing another glass of whiskey. The office he'd led us to was roomy and already had multiple bottles prepped in a corner. After emptying his glass, it was to that mini-bar he went.
"I understand you. I really do. The temptation to build your own shit, to not have to answer to anyone must be huge. I can promise similar levels of autonomy in Stark Industries. Your own offices, your own department, your own people," he rattled off while pouring himself another drink.
"But still under you, Mr. Stark."
"Tony, please. Mr. Stark makes me feel old."
"You are old," I said, stressing the verb.
That one got a laugh from him. When Tony laughed, he laughed with his whole body, and something about it made me want to join him. The man dripped charisma from head to toe. He'd have had quite a time as a politician.
"I guess I am. But still."
"Ok, Tony then. I love my freedom too much to give it up like this, and besides, I am building something already amazing. Giving up on Future Industries is just something I cannot do."
"No matter the number I offer?" He asked, in a clearly last-ditch effort.
"We both know the numbers don't matter."
"Not to you, at least. Fifty million pounds is a hell of a trust fund."
Of course, he knew about that. Was it a power play? Hinting that he knew about my 'true' origins for some sort of advantage.
I never advertised the fact that I was the bastard of some English Lord, so it would make sense for him to assume it was something I was keen on hiding. Not that I really cared, but someone who knew little about me would be perfectly justified in making such an assumption.
"Yes, it's quite a safety net," I said, playing off his words in the same way I would if I did actually care about keeping my origins a secret.
"Indeed. But I get your point. It was all a pipe dream either way. They call you the next me. No way would I have taken such a deal. Instead, I have another proposition for you. How do you feel about investment?" He asked, switching threads in an instant.
"From Stark Industries or Tony Stark?" I asked.
"Tony Stark, please. It turns out having so much of my personal wealth in a single company is a pretty terrible idea," he said, taking another sip of the whiskey. This was his third glass so far, and if I couldn't literally see the palladium killing him, I'd be worried about his alcohol consumption.
"I see," I said, getting the point.
"An investment from Tony Stark would be pretty useful. But the PR effects have to be properly weighed." Like I said earlier, public opinion about him swayed with the wind. But there was one general consensus: the man was a bloody genius.
"I get what you're saying without saying, kid. You can give it to me straight. I'm simply not the most popular guy around these days," the genius admitted, and I pounced on it.
"So you can see why I am hesitant to accept your investment."
"It'll be anonymous. I'm putting my own money down, not Stark Industries', and unlike the publicly traded company, I don't have to trumpet my investments to the rest of the world," he said idly. I nodded at his words.
"But people have ways of finding out what they shouldn't," I said simply. The press had a history of finding out details of transactions that would best be kept from the public eye.
"Between the both of us, I'm sure we have the capacity to prevent that from happening," Tony said while chugging down another glass.
"But that's not the only reason I'm here. I want to invest, and I want to give you some useful advice. One genius to another," his voice was noticeably less upbeat.
"Hmm?" I made the sound with my mouth to show he had my full attention, which he did. Or rather, he had as much of my attention as I would ever devote to a single task. Kryptonian minds were not human ones after all. We were superior. I silently chastised the part of my mind that sounded like Zod that had spoken those words even as I agreed with them in substance. I'd had the pleasure of being both at different points, and the difference was night and day.
"Get an office. A big one. Hire loads of people. Software engineers, product designers, manufacturing people, and people to manage all those people. A server room too. All your excuses of proprietary tech are beginning to get old and people are already whispering."
"That?"
"You're being supported by someone big. Someone big and foreign. The fact that no one has any clue of how you keep things running, and the fact that your apps have managed to explode in popularity so quickly are doing you no favors on that end. You don't want stuff like that on you, trust me. The American Government has crushed companies bigger than yours for accusations of less."
"There's nothing like that happening," I said instantly.
"Of course, there isn't. I know AI code when I see it. But you don't want to advertise that you have one of those, do you? You'd quickly find yourself target number 1 for a whole host of nasty things." I blinked at him, mind unraveling his words.
"I don't have anything like that."
"Sure you don't, kid. Sure you don't." His smirk was infuriating. Like he knew more than everyone else in the world and was not shy to let us know. It was a huge part of the reason I wanted nothing to do with Tony Stark. The arrogance. The undeserved arrogance. But even at that, I saw his point. From the eyes of an outsider, I took a good look at my company. Three apps released in a relatively small time frame. Each of them a smash hit, and each of them running smoothly with no bugs, glitches, or flaws (Kelex could not make imperfect code. He'd sooner delete himself). It was odd for a new company like mine. And I was doing it all from a penthouse in Massachusetts.
The server space thing was something I was shocked that I hadn't even considered. Sure, I ran everything off of a single server somewhere in my apartment, but the only reason that worked was that it was 90% Kryptonian tech. If I chose to pivot to selling servers, I'd probably eclipse whatever I was doing with social media in hours. That actually wasn't that bad an idea, now that I considered it. Move to providing infrastructure. Cloud computing wasn't really the monster business it was in my old world, but if I cornered the market in its infancy, I'd be well on my way to multibillionaire status.
The numbers stopped mattering after a point, but they began to matter for a completely different reason after that point. As things stood now, I had a shit-ton of money. But still not "fuck you" money. The kind of money that would be a superpower on its own. That was my goal. Partly because I'd spent my past life poor, and partly because I wouldn't be satisfied until I was at the top of the food chain in every ocean I swam in. That was freedom. Being the bigger fish. Not just the bigger fish, the biggest fish.
"I'll take your words under advisement, Tony."
"Good. Now back to my investment."
"You still own close to 67%, do you not?" He asked, and I nodded.
"Good, why don't we just know that down to 51. I'll take 16% of Future Industries off your hands for let's say, 5 billion." The shock on my face, played up for his benefit, was a joy to him.
"No. Make it 10 billion," he said, changing his mind instantly. Tony Stark could afford to toss around billions like they were candy. This was all a game to him, and I struggled to figure out his motivations here. What could be the point of handing money over to me just like that?
"You're pumping up the value of Future Industries for some reason," I said to him, and his smile got wider (if that was even possible).
"Yes. Yes, I am."
"Why?"
"Partly because I can, and partly because I want to see what happens. Use the money to do the things I've told you. You need to be seen contributing to the economy with your company if you want any hope of not being crushed," he said, a wide smile in place.
"Alright, Tony. I'll take your money and your wisdom in the spirit both have been given," the billionaire nodded, before taking yet another sip of whiskey.
"Good, now onto the final reason I asked you to come here," he said, picking up a tablet and passing it to me.
I looked at the tablet, consuming everything on it, and running the mental calculations in my head.
"Consider it a test. I want us to work together on more things in the future. Figure that out, and we'll be golden, Clark. Now, get the hell out of here. I can already feel the stick up your ass beginning to migrate to mine," he said, shaking his head before whispering to himself, "A teenager who doesn't drink?"
I just swallowed my laugh and walked out of the office, wasting no time in leaving the building itself and getting into my car.
"Kelex, please look through skyscrapers in Manhattan. Find us a fitting headquarters," I said, revving up the engine and just going on a drive. Stark had just, albeit inadvertently, sped up a lot of my plans. That kind of money wasn't supposed to be available to me for at least a year and then some.
"Kal-El, are you sure it is a wise idea to set up a base of operations in New York?"
"Because of all the shit that's going to happen there in the future?"
"Precisely, Kal-El."
"Well, we're setting up there because of the shit, not despite it. For some reason, New York is like some sort of central gathering point for all the shit that happens in the movies and comics. When shit hits the fan, the shit tends to be launched from New York, and the fan tends to also be within the state."
"And this is a good idea why?"
"I never said it was a good idea, Kelex." The AI actually audibly sighed at me. He really just sighed and popped up an image of him shaking his head on the car's display.
"Then why?"
"Because I'm bored. I thought life played on easy mode would be fun, but apart from that conversation with Tony Stark, nothing I've done has meant anything. I mean, sure, I've made money by the boatloads, but after you do it enough, making more from essentially doing nothing stops being fun."
"Shall I prepare your supersuit, then?" Kelex asked sarcastically.
"Yes. Well, maybe not spandex. Scratch that, definitely not spandex, but a supersuit of some sort would not be a bad idea."
"You're changing, Kal-El."
"Am I? I don't think so. I think I'm just growing up from being that scared boy I originally was. Now, I spend less time looking over my shoulder for SHIELD or some sort of agency coming to take me armed with kryptonite bullets or some shit."
"For the five thousand and eleventh time, Kal-El, I can assure you that there are no kryptonite deposits on the planet or anywhere within this solar system."
"That you know of," I reply, continuing an age-old argument that had somehow managed to last for close to three years.
XXXXX JULY 2011
Only a year until I was officially no longer a college student, and I was actually looking forward to it at this point. In the past year, Future Industries had seen nothing but expansion. We hadn't launched any more apps, focusing on optimizing and doubling down on the apps we did have. And we were also working on a product of our own. Top secret to all but a few high-ranking engineers and product leads outside of the team presently working on it. It was also the first thing Future Industries would be launching that wasn't entirely formed from Kelex and me.
If I had ever told myself that I'd be thankful for Tony Stark's suggestions, then I'd have thought myself a liar. But he was right. Simply building an office and hiring engineers had had so many unforeseen benefits. Not the least of which being ideas. When I'd told them I foresaw Future Industries being more than just the social media guys and going into actually futuristic and innovative consumer electronics, I hadn't expected the nerdy computer science and engineering majors to pull up with half a dozen inventions each every other day.
A bit of an exaggeration, but still. Don't get me wrong. Not all of them were good. In fact, most of them were terrible things that could never see the light of day, but in every bucket of shit, there was a nugget of gold (not in real life, unfortunately). A few of them were long-term projects, but one of them was short-term enough that we would be releasing it by the end of the year at the latest.
As I drove through the streets of New York, heading to the skyscraper I'd claimed for myself. We'd move headquarters sooner or later. After the Chitauri invasion though, when real estate would be at its cheapest. The fact that Stark Tower and over a dozen other buildings towered over mine wasn't something my ego would be comfortable with for long.
When I drove in, I was almost immediately assaulted by Drew, my secretary holding a tablet. I picked it up and looked through all the plans for today while nodding and striking out the things I didn't think I'd be able to get to. Tony had called me up with an invitation to attend the Stark Expo, and I was looking forward to enjoying the show.
XXXXXX
When pandemonium erupted, I was pleasantly unsurprised. Everything followed the plot of the ending of the second Iron Man movie perfectly. Killmonger did his entrance. Hammer's drones went haywire, and chaos just ensued. I just remained in my seat while everyone around me ran around like headless chickens. If they paid attention, they'd have even noticed that none of the drones seemed to be posing much of a threat to the crowd in general.
I mean, sure, if I wasn't bulletproof, I'd be a tad bit more worried about the things flying around, but that was beside the point. My phone chimed, and I looked at the text I'd received.
With the Stark Expo essentially destroyed, it was almost the perfect time for someone else to ride the news cycle once all the uproar over the madness ended. I knew Tony would be much too busy with his discovering a whole new element schtick to care about me hitting the market with a competitor product to his when his company stock would be at an all-time low (or close enough). Speaking of stock, I asked Kelex to buy up as much Stark Industries stock as he could once the drop-off began tomorrow. It would be steep. Even Kelex's most generous models placed the company down a minimum of 50% at the very least.
Confidence in Tony would also be at an all-time low. To the average person, it looked like his private activities were beginning to affect his role as CEO of the company. If I didn't like the man, I'd hatch some silly plan to hijack the company from his control, but instead, I just chose to settle with making a healthy penny when the stock eventually rallied in a month or two.
I ducked as a piece of shrapnel sailed through the space my head was previously occupying, and I gave up on watching the live-action fight between Iron Man and Whiplash. It was more or less over at this point in time.
XXXXX - October, 2011
When I walked into class today, a few minutes early as usual, it was to an unusually full class. I took my usual seat and ignored the urge to find out why everyone had chosen to show up for today's lecture, or why they were all so early.
In fact, I didn't even think about it until someone slipped me a note asking me to stay behind after class. Interesting.
A/N: Done and dusted. How does it look? It doesn't feel perfect, but it feels good enough, and that's all that matters. We've got the next three chapters of this story, along with the next five chapters of another fic that I uploaded at the exact same time as this one (an OCSI into a firebender during the 100 year war in the ATLA universe) all available on pa-atreon, and you can read all of that right now just by heading to the link on my profile or searching for my username up there. Feel free to have a look.
