Well. This is the direct result of a pair of prompts, given to me by parhom1991: 'Tony is often accused of being selfish. So, there is one counter-argument: Stark Industries still has staff. Let me explain the idea: Tony fires all the workers, leaving only the Creative Department for development and the Legal Department. All workers are replaced by automated assembly under AI control. Economic efficiency, cost savings on personnel will generate profits in the billions. And Tony doesn't do this, because a million people will be left without money to live.'

AND

'And the second idea sounds like "Where is the money, Johnny?!" After all, the "position" of SHIELD Consultant and subordination to the Act implies that Tony is paid for his services. And Tony is not obligated to "support" the Avengers in any way. And the fact that fandom, that canon loves the idea that Tony is forced to settle the Avengers somewhere on his property.'

Now, I've never gotten an actual prompt in my entire life, so I don't know if I did it right. I tried to combine both of them, because I'm an overachiever, and I also tried to inject some humor, because . . . well, let's be honest: Rogers and Company are absurd. Also, I like drama but I'm not a huge fan of angst, at least when I'm writing it.

So . . . that's it. Again, this is unbeta'd, so if you catch any errors or typos, please let me know. More importantly, let me know what you think of this. I'm nervous because of the aforementioned prompt, so I really want to know how I did with it.

Enjoy!

Show Me the Money! (pit)

Some days, entertainment just falls from the sky, like a gift from the heavens.

And sometimes, you have to make your own.

Like now.

Being the superhero he was, Tony Stark heroically held back a sigh as Steve Rogers pushed himself out of his chair and took an aggressive stance. According to the chart FRIDAY had just thrown up on the wall, where only Tony was looking and thus the only one to see it — in neon pink writing with violent orange glitter accents, really? — this was the fourth time in eleven days Rogers had pulled this particular move.

"You're so selfish, Stark," Rogers sneered, looking down on Tony with that air of superiority he'd had since literally the first minute they'd officially met, which caused Friday to add a second chart, this time in in acid green and school bus yellow, showing it was the man's ninth time spewing that phrase in the last — what the hell, he'd said it that many times in a week?

Oh, wait, they hadn't all been said directly to Tony. But he'd still said them — and Friday was tracking them, with permission from the Avengers that he knew full well they hadn't actually understood when they'd agreed to his terms for living in the Compound after being pardoned and subsequently grounded to the US for the next two years. Still, it was so familiar that Tony mentally mouthed along with the words. It was like listening to a broken record, complete with that scratchy screech that only comes from a bad DJ. He felt a coma from incipient boredom creeping up on him even as he leaned back and spread his arms across the back of the chair, waiting for the second half of the insult/reprimand/whatever it was the man was droning on about. "All you care about is yourself and how to make more money you don't need."

Oh, really, that old trope? Tony had naïvely hoped in the beginning that maybe the capsicle had an insult or three he hadn't heard yet, but given that the man had been defrosted for more than a year and still struggled with using a standard flip phone, he really had that tired accusation coming. Especially since he'd been listening to this crap — from every single one of them — since literally the beginning of their acquaintance. But he was finally more tired of them and their attitudes than he was willing to be their doormat to maintain peace (however false and malicious that 'peace' was). Honestly, he should have put a stop to this years ago, before Ultron, but his self-esteem had been . . . well, non-existent, and so he kept letting the insults and putdowns and hypocrisy slide in his efforts to make everything else work.

But that was then.

And unfortunately for Rogers, Tony wasn't just a genius, philanthropist, billionaire, former playboy. He was skilled at reading people . . . when he felt like it. He just rarely felt like reading people deeper than a surface scan if he didn't actually need to, since — like most engineers — getting too deeply bogged down in what made people tick tended to wreak havoc with his engineering and inventing skills. But beyond that, he was a numbers guy and he was exceptionally good at what he did.

So he tuned out the subsequent lecture on how awful he was for wanting to organize his time and prioritize his company over Avenging, since the former wasn't just how he made his livelihood, and thus, how the 'team' was able to live such cushy lives themselves — and wasn't it funny how none of them objected to that? — but it was also how the nearly one million people SI employed across four continents made their livings.

"—ed to stop being so selfish and self-centered and understand that we can't work with substandard equipment while you're off 'playing' with meaningless toys," Rogers was fuming when Tony finally tuned back in after deciding that the updated Stark Tablet was the better option to concentrate on (there was only so much improvement you could really make to a phone, after a certain point), mentally rolling his eyes at the man's ignorant dribble. It was hardly his fault that Barton didn't see the need to maintain any of his equipment that wasn't his bow, which had resulted in the strap on his quiver snapping at a truly inopportune moment. Hell, Maximoff didn't even bother with that. And Rogers being Rogers either failed or refused (Tony could go either way on that) to understand that not cleaning your bodysuits and neglecting everything that wasn't a weapon was a bad idea, as it naturally resulted in unnecessary damage due to extra stress that the material simply wasn't designed for.

And that wasn't taking into account the fact that simply going over your equipment yourself often showed weaknesses or stress or dangerous pressure points that he, their tech guy, could easily fix if he knew about them. But apparently, Tony was supposed to be a mind-reader in addition to being a tech whisperer. Which, yeah, he was the latter, but again: he couldn't whisper to tech that he didn't know was hurt.

Simple logic.

And thus, something that utterly escaped not just Rogers, but everyone else on his team.

Ah, there was the migraine. Right on time.

But that last snotty demand made it Rogers' tenth offense in seven days. And why was that important? Well, it triggered a certain protocol Peter and Pepper had dreamed up a few weeks after he and Peter had had . . . well, to be truthful, it had been an epic screaming match. Peter had been justifiably upset about his belief that Tony hadn't taken him seriously about the Vulture and the Chitauri weapons, while Tony had been equally justified in his fury that despite repeated and explicit warnings, the kid kept throwing himself in the middle of situations he could not handle because he simply didn't possess the knowledge or experience. And once they'd shouted themselves hoarse, they'd mutually agreed that they'd both handled things poorly and resolved to do better (and if Tony had gotten actual hives from the discussion and Peter had ended up with hiccups for two days, well, whoever was spreading those rumors was a lying liar who lied, Rhodey).

Pepper and Rhodes, who'd watched warily from the sidelines from the second or third shouted accusation, both literally pulled muscles laughing at them. And five minutes after being released from Medical with ice packs and ibuprofen, the IronDad and SpiderSon jokes had begun.

But he digressed.

"I know," he drawled, tilting his head back in a deliberately arrogant angle and grinning openly when Rogers gritted his teeth in response, nostrils flaring. "How silly of me to put my employees first and make sure they're taken care of, which helps ensure that my company continues to grow and thrive."

Barton scoffed at that, echoed by Rogers and Maximoff, while Wilson sneered again and said, "Stop making excuses, Stark. You don't work for SI anymore, s—"

Wait, what? What the hell was — oh, right. Romanova. She probably genuinely believed that, but even if she didn't, she'd still push that opinion at the team, because it was a good way to undermine Tony.

And for years, it had worked.

Well, no more. Tony had been thoroughly educated in just how bad he'd let things get, and how much bullshit that was. He made mistakes, sure, like every other human being on the planet, but he was more than those mistakes — and not everything he'd done had been a mistake. That lesson had taken a lot longer to sink in, but Peter and Pepper and Rhodey were nothing if not persistent (there might or might not have been a PowerPoint, but none of them were willing to confirm that).

And they had finally crossed the final line.

Tony. Was. Done.

"This is where you zip it. The successful businessman is talking now," he snapped, seeing Peter smother a grin and appreciating the kid's twisted sense of humor. Not to mention the irony. "Let me explain this to you so you'll actually understand. I promise I won't use words with more than two syllables," he continued, feeling his eyes ice over as he slowly rose to his feet and gestured. FRIDAY immediately responded by pulling up a spreadsheet showing each branch of SI, broken down by department, then total number of employees, then total cost to run.

And as promised, he explained it exactly like he would to a group of kindergartners.

"This is an itemized list of exactly how much it costs SI to run each department," he said coldly, pacing in front of the screen and giving each moron staring blankly at him an equally cold look. "For comparison, about three years ago, a few of the Board members proposed the idea of eliminating all of the physical employees except those who work in Legal and our Creative Department so we could replace them with automated assemblies, run by a specially-designed AI."

Surprise and confusion blossomed across everyone's faces, but none of them actually spoke, not that Tony gave them a real chance to. "Well, Pepper and I were horrified by the very suggestion, but we knew we couldn't just dismiss the idea out of hand; there were too many people who were potentially agreeing. So I ran the numbers." A wave of his hand resulted in a second spreadsheet, with the resultant cost per department highlighted in yellow. Everyone's eyes went wide at the massive difference between the cost of people and the cost of machines.

"Exactly," he agreed, once more pacing in front of the screen. "Firing 98% of my employees would save SI nearly half-a-billion dollars a year. The board was actually salivating at the thought," he hissed, anger flaring back up at the memory of that meeting. "But I don't play that game, because I know from personal experience how much more people can do than machines when the chips are down, and so does Pepper. So we told the ones who were in favor of this scheme that in order to implement it, they would have to go to each and every employee individually and explain that they were being fired because machines were cheaper. A machine can't innovate, and has no intuition, and can't differentiate between moods, but hey, they're cheaper. The Board would have to tell each person to their face in a one-on-one conversation that they hadn't done anything wrong, but their paycheck and health insurance and daycare were being taken away not because the company was in the slightest danger of financial trouble — actually, we were netting almost 70% profit that year — but that wasn't enough for the Board, they wanted more."

Now the fools who called themselves 'heroes' looked sick, but Tony wasn't done yet. "And then, after they did that and individually fired each person in every department of each branch of SI, they would have to fire themselves and forfeit their retirements and dividends and stock options. Because if machines were so perfect that no humans were needed, then there was no reason to maintain a Board of Directors. The machines could decide what products needed to be invented and invested in, and since we'd have all that extra profit at our disposal, we could just re-invest ourselves instead of risking their money to do it."

He finally stopped, breathing heavily to control his anger, and glared at the assembled asshats, who were — shockingly — giving him matching disapproving looks at how mercenary he was being. After listening to Rogers lecture him on his greed and selfishness.

While Peter had moved to a corner and had actually webbed his mouth shut to keep from laughing out loud.

God, he loved his kid.

"So don't talk to me about greed," he snapped, pointing aggressively between the two numbers that mattered the most to a group of people who were too stupid and ignorant to understand any of it. "Especially since not a single fucking one of you actually work for a living. You're perfectly happy letting me be your sugar daddy, and I let you, so that's on me."

He paused, savoring the confusion that was slowly crossing each face, and added, "But not anymore. In fact . . . FRIDAY, be a dear and contact Representative Hudson, would you?"

"Of course, Boss," she replied. The Rogues' confusion deepened as the sound of a ringing phone filled the room, but before anyone (well, Rogers; despite his hatred of public speaking when it came to mission fuck-ups, he was perfectly happy being the primary person to castigate Tony) could gather the wit to speak, the call was answered.

"What can the Accords Council do for you, Doctor Stark?" she inquired as the room shimmered and a hologram appeared, showing the seven council members seated at their new round table and looking curiously at Tony.

"You can activate the Money Pit clause," he replied cheerfully, giving FRIDAY the signal to replace the company data with the charts showing the Rogues' offenses and slights that were both about money and directed against Tony. "I know several of you wondered why I insisted on that clause being added, and then why I set the break line as high as it is, but . . . well, see for yourself."

He gestured widely, indicating the entire screen, which was duplicated on each council member's personal tablet. And because she was a very thorough AI, not to mention vindictive (as were Pepper, Rhodes, and Peter, whose brainchild this protocol had initially been), FRIDAY also included clips of each occasion of the Rogues making disparaging remarks to or about Tony.

There were a lot of them.

Like, a truly appalling amount. Even the German representative was shocked, and he'd once had a bridge collapse beneath the car he was in.

"I see," Petrovic finally said, her voice shaking a little. "What, uh, what option did you wish to take?" she asked carefully, meeting his gaze in a deliberate snub of the baffled team watching them with wide eyes.

Hmm. He hadn't thought that through quite all the way, had he?

Decisions, decisions . . .

You know what, he was pissed off and feeling a little vindictive himself. And the stress these assholes had put him under for the last few days had caused him to actually have Engineer's Block, which wasn't good for the continued health and well-being of himself or his company.

Also, it was just plain rude.

"Let's put it to a vote," he replied, watching with thinly-veiled amusement as the Council collectively choked in surprise while the Rogues continued to stare in confusion.

And Peter actually turned around in his corner, shoulders shaking from the force of his laughter. A hundred bucks said he'd be on the ceiling in the next ten minutes.

"So, Rogers and Company," he said, sweeping his hands around in a meaningless but fun grandiose gesture as he gave them his full attention for the first time since the lecture had commenced. "You have violated the Money Pit clause, leaving you with two choices. You can choose to continue living here, but you will immediately begin paying rent at the current fair-market price, which is . . . oh, thanks, FRI," he said to his darling AI as she obligingly put those numbers up for everyone to see. "Looks like it's $8000 a month per person. Now, that does include water, trash, sewer, cable, and wi-fi, but not the current cleaning service. You will also be responsible for your own food and the cost of any equipment I provide, a percentage of which will be negotiated with the Accords Committee, since they'll have to make up the difference."

He stopped and watched with unabashed glee as everyone but Maximoff turned varying shades of green or white. Not a single one of them could form words, which was immensely satisfying to see, and Tony felt zero shame for enjoying it.

And he wasn't done.

"Or," he continued, trying to keep things professional (though he probably failed, given the fact that Peter finally couldn't take it and did, indeed, climb to the ceiling so he could lose himself in hysterics to his heart's content), "you can immediately move to an Accords-approved location and just pay back the full cost of any and all equipment and maintenance I've provided starting from the day you signed your pardons."

Again, being the wonderful — and wonderfully spiteful — AI that she was, FRIDAY tossed those numbers up as well.

Wilson actually fainted when he saw just how much his (stolen from SI, thank you very much) Falcon wings cost to build, and the expense of maintaining and upgrading them was a similar amount. None of them owed less than two million dollars.

The rest of them all went Hulk-green, to the point that Tony was suddenly seriously worried about finding himself in the middle of vomit-fest, which . . . gross. Romanova, however, would die before showing anyone that kind of weakness, Barton wasn't about to let her out-do him, and Maximoff hated Tony too much to let him win. Rogers was just too dignified to throw up in public, apparently.

Well, thank heaven for that. Tony paid his cleaning staff very well, but there was a limit to what they could reasonably be asked to do.

But that didn't mean he couldn't push the envelope. Not much; it was clear he was toeing the very edge of the line, but his entire life had been about finding the limit (of everything) and then obliterating it. But there were levels of obliteration and not everything had to be punched into submission.

This was a lesson that Steve Rogers still hadn't learned.

"Of course, either way, you'll all have to get jobs," he cheerfully informed the leeches who had masqueraded as his team for so long. "Minimum wage will be rough, too, even though I'll be nice and charge you the 'at cost' price instead of the final retail value we typically set. And I'll just charge one combined consultant fee instead of five," he added comfortingly, watching out of the corner of his eye as Peter was forced to web his feet to the ceiling to keep from falling as he once again convulsed in hysterical laughter. "But that's the only thing most of you are qualified for, and I can't hire you for SI even if you were qualified, and neither myself nor SI can provide references, as you've never worked for either of us, so . . . yeah. But you do have some options, which is a plus."

He stopped again, noticing for the first time that every single member of the Council was in the same boat as Peter: trying to hide their amusement and what looked a lot like vicious satisfaction at this long-overdue and equally deserved comeuppance.

The Rogues, however, collectively appeared to have been hit by a bus.

Which was what happened when you pissed off the only member of the team who could stop one with his bare hands: he ended up hanging from the ceiling and laughing himself sick. So, really, they only had themselves to blame.

And on that note, Tony was done. He deserved to break out in hysterical laughter too, dammit, but he couldn't as long as they were in the room. But his self-control was fading fast, so he subtly cleared his throat and addressed both groups.

"I think that four days is enough time to come to a decision," he mused, mostly to the Council, as he studied the calendar on the bottom corner of the screen, before turning to the Rogues so he could fully enjoy this. "That will put us at two days before the end of the month, which will give you enough time to pack and move out if you choose that option. And if you decide to stay here and pay rent, we can avoid any prorated charges and just start fresh. Oh, that reminds me: if you decide to stay, we'll need a non-refundable $1000 security deposit as well as first and last month's rent up-front. Just in case," he finished, sounding positively gleeful and not giving a damn.

"Is that acceptable to the Council?" he inquired, turning to face them fully. He knew that Romanova understood just how screwed they were now, though whether she'd actually tell anyone was another matter. And if he didn't leave the Compound immediately, and maybe the country, she'd be riding his ass for the next four days, trying to blame his ego while simultaneously flattering it, in hopes of getting him to knuckle under again. The fact that he'd finally learned to recognize her manipulation techniques still hadn't registered in her own egocentric head and he wasn't about to enlighten her. But he didn't feel like dealing with it, either. So when Hudson took a quick silent vote and got approving nods from the other six members, he grinned.

"Of course, Doctor Stark. That sounds more than reasonable," she told him before getting out of her chair and moving to stand next to Tony. And even though she was a holographic image, her disgust was palpable. "I'd tell you how despicable you are, but it'd be a waste of breath," she informed the group, eyes narrow and contempt dripping from every word. To Tony's resigned acceptance and the Council's obvious shock, this blistering condemnation did not provoke even the slightest hint of shame or remorse.

Instead, it made Barton and Maximoff sneer with affronted pride, Wilson (who had only just come to) straighten in clear insult, and Rogers puff up like a peacock. Romanova was the only one who maintained a neutral expression, but it was a thin veneer at best. Thankfully, Hudson had raised several children, so she was easily able to head off the obvious tantrum. "You will be in the Accords New York location tomorrow at 9am and we will discuss the logistics of things," she snapped, eyes sparking with anger. "Doctor Stark's presence is not necessary, but you five will be present and on time, or your pardons will be revoked and you will be sitting in a prison cell by noon while we arrange for your criminal trials. I'd tell you to have a good day, but I wouldn't mean it and I refuse to lie for no reason. Therefore, we will see you at 9am."

And with that, she made a sharp cutting gesture and FRIDAY obeyed, ending both the projection and the phone call, while Tony moved smoothly to the door. Peter hastily tossed his dissolving solution on the webs covering various parts of his person and met him there, eyes glowing with humor and so much pride that Tony actually stumbled. Even now, he wasn't quite sure what to do with pride and approval, though he'd finally learned not to brush it aside. Instead, he pulled his kid into a side-hug before opening the door.

But Peter, demon-child that he was, paused just over the threshold, leaned back inside, and chirped, "You know, this is an excellent time and place to talk about your life choices."

And before anyone could blink, including Tony, the little bastard shot three layers of webbing across the table, catching everyone's hands and literally forcing them to stay seated for the next two, maybe three, hours.

His self-control finally snapped and Tony doubled over, laughing so hard tears came to his eyes, while Peter spun around to face him with the biggest shit-eating grin Tony had ever seen that wasn't on his own face, and stepped forward to snatch his dad in a giant hug.

"Congrats, Dad," he said loudly enough to be heard by everyone on the floor. "You're finally free from the money pit. Now will you buy Hulu for me?"

And Tony, still wheezing with laughter, could only shake his head. "Yeah, Pete," he finally managed, turning them both around so they could leave before the affronted looks from the conference room set him off again. "I'll buy Hulu for you. Do you think Pepper would like Baskin-Robbins?"

~~~
fin