Fic: An Unsuitable Boy [Watchmen/Iron Man crossover]
Title: An Unsuitable Boy
Fandom: Watchmen/Iron Man
Pairing: Adrian Veidt/Tony Stark
Rating: NC17ish
Summary: Adrian knew the boy would be trouble. He didn’t realise how much trouble.
Notes: Since Watchmen is AH and its canon is so firmly grounded in late 1985, I’m screwing with Iron Man’s canon instead, which is kind of vague in any case. According to the film, Tony was born in 1970. Let’s pretend he lied about his age (he’s a narcissist, of course he’d lie about his age). Let’s add a few years and make him 17-going-on-18 in early 1985. And just for fun, let’s kill off his parents in late 1984 rather than when he turned 21.
An Unsuitable Boy
The boy is going to be trouble.
Adrian knows it from the start. He calculates just how much trouble Tony Stark will cause, then offsets the result against the potential for publicity. Child prodigies always make for good press. Child prodigies who grow up to become teenage geniuses with self-destructive tendencies make even better news.
He can handle Tony. Adrian knows what it’s like to be too smart, too rich, too much of everything. He can handle the boy.
*
New Year in New York. Snow spirals from a sky the colour of wet slate. The press shiver amongst the slush and grit in the plaza outside the glass-fronted skyscraper. Adrian checks his watch, checks his hair in the dull reflection thrown back by the lobby wall, then adjusts his coat across his shoulders. Another moment, and then he nods to the uniformed guards and the doors swing open for him.
He sweeps down the steps of Veidt Industries towards his audience, counting time all the while. He clips his pace, smile fixed, gaze sweeping the traffic. There. A limousine slides in from the street, engine purring as it nudges the pressmen out of the way. The car comes to a halt just as Adrian arrives at the top of the steps. Flashbulbs go off, and Adrian nods and smiles.
Timing is everything.
The limousine door remains shut. Adrian’s smile fades. Cold eats at his hands. He didn’t wear gloves, reckoning on only being outside for three minutes. He resists the urge to curl his fingers into fists and stares at the smoked windows of the limousine.
Time crawls forward, seconds dragging. The chauffeur gets out. He’s embarrassed, rigid with reflected shame. He comes around to the side closest to Adrian and opens the door.
The press advance, poking cameras and microphones into the darkness of the back seat. Adrian keeps counting, his smile forgotten, anger simmering. There’s movement from within the car, and the press fall back. Adrian takes a step forward.
Tony Stark clambers out of the limousine. He’s wearing sunglasses, a tailcoat over an Ozymandias t-shirt, a pair of ripped jeans, and unlaced sneakers. He sways, looks up at the sky as if he’s never seen snow before, and declares, “Fuck, it’s cold.”
Timing is everything.
Adrian lifts his arms, commanding, welcoming. “Anthony!” He keeps his tone level, but allows a spiked nuance to creep into his next smile. “Anthony,” he says again, noting with amusement the tightening of the boy’s lips, the slight upward tilt of his head. It seems Tony dislikes his full name. Adrian files away the observation. In any arena, it pays to keep an adversary off-balance. Not that Adrian considers Tony Stark an adversary. Not yet. Perhaps not ever, but there’s no harm in reminding the spoiled brat of his place.
Tony jogs up the steps like an obedient puppy. He has gold tints in his dishevelled hair. California boy. He stinks of whisky and cheap perfume. Slut. Adrian’s nostrils flare in disgust until he recognises the scent-Nostalgia by Veidt-and then the anger is back in his throat.
He places an arm around the boy’s shoulders, careful to project an avuncular impression. Tony gives a little twist as if to shake off Adrian’s touch, and Adrian digs his fingers tight into the boy’s upper arm. Tony goes still, but Adrian can feel him burning with emotion. Rage, humiliation, maybe just boredom-but emotion all the same, a backlash of it, and Adrian sucks in a breath at the promise of so much untapped potential.
Dipping his head, he murmurs, “Appearances are everything in this business.”
The boy remains motionless. Adrian can feel the heat from his skin. Snowflakes catch in Tony’s hair, melt and streak like tears on his face.
“No one cares what you do. It’s how you do it that matters. As long as you appear to be sincere, they won’t care if you’re feeding newborns to the flames of a great golden god.” Adrian squeezes Tony’s arm again. “Understand?”
Tony looks up, eyes invisible behind the shield of reflective lenses. He smiles, snarls, teeth glistening, an animal wounded and dangerous.
Satisfaction fills Adrian. This will be easier than he thought. “Ladies and gentlemen.” He turns and addresses the media with a glittering smile. “Thank you for braving the weather. Despite the cloud, we have a little ray of sunshine in New York today-” he tightens his grip further, shoves the boy forwards into the barrage of flashbulbs, “Mr Anthony Stark, fresh out of MIT, is joining me here at Veidt Industries at the request of his late father Howard...”
Tony presses back against the steel of Adrian’s encircling arm. The boy wants to bolt. He’s shaking, his teeth beginning to chatter. Maybe it’s the cold.
Adrian continues with his speech, slowing his words and pausing longer than necessary. He trots out the usual clichés about Tony’s father-visionary, driven, made the world a safer place-and plays down any comparisons between Stark Industries and Veidt Industries.
“Howard was keen for his son to learn about more than robots and weapons manufacturing.” Adrian flashes that avuncular smile again. “It’s all very well to be a genius in the laboratory, but it takes another kind of genius to market those inventions. Yes, even weapons need to be targeted at the right consumers these days, if you’ll forgive the pun. That’s why Howard wanted me to take young Anthony under my wing. I have a different kind of global reach. Anthony will learn a lot.”
The boy has stopped trembling. He’s frozen, still smiling. It seems he has nothing to say about this wonderful opportunity. Questions are hurled into the silence.
“How’re you doing, Tony? Is it true you wrecked your father’s vintage Ford after you got drunk at your parents’ funeral?”
“Give us a few words about how you felt when you were arrested for reckless driving and possession of a firearm. Did the gun belong to your father?”
Adrian disapproves of this line of interrogation. He nods at one of his tame reporters from the New York Times. The man raises his voice. “Mr Stark! Are you looking forwards to working with Adrian Veidt?”
Tony stirs. The rictus smile becomes a big grin, utterly dazzling. “Sure. It’s great. A great opportunity. I’m sure we’ll get along just fine and dandy.” He gives the press a jaunty salute and turns, sneakers squelching in the melted snow as he heads for the building.
Adrian lingers for a few closing words before he follows the boy. He catches Tony at the door. “You were late. Seventy seconds late. That is unacceptable.”
Tony stops in his tracks, his entire body stiffening. “My parents just died.”
“They died last year.”
“Nineteen days ago!” There’s a moment of silence. Tony breaks it first. “Shit. I didn’t...” He shakes his head. “Seventy seconds. Fuck. You want a doctor’s note or something? I can get one. Death certificates. Two of them. Maybe you’d like the press clippings, too? Video footage? A nation mourns. Grieving son buries parents. That’s me-the grieving son. The fucking orphan child. The-”
“You’re not the only person to lose their parents.” Adrian’s voice comes out clipped, brutal. He sounds heartless. He can remember what it feels like to lose both parents at seventeen, but the feeling is distant, cut off from real emotion.
The boy stares at him. He takes off his oversized sunglasses and continues staring. His eyes are large and liquid and dark, rimmed red and glassy with an overindulgence of alcohol-induced weeping.
A stab of lust goads Adrian. He’s not sure if it’s the boy’s eyes or the brittle vulnerability in them, but suddenly he’s looking at Tony with more than casual interest. If he wants to bed this boy-and he doesn’t know yet if he does-but if he wants Tony, Adrian knows he needs to seem sincere. Empathy is the key to seduction. He sets a hand on Tony’s shoulder, smiles into those uncovered eyes. “I’m truly sorry for your loss. Since it’s your first day here, I’ll overlook those seventy seconds.”
“You piece of shit.” Tony jerks away. He shoves on his sunglasses and stalks past Adrian, slamming both hands against the door to gain access to the building.
Adrian watches him. A kind man would understand the boy’s unhappiness. A kind man would make allowances for grief affecting judgement, and for the general lack of courtesy and respect.
Adrian Veidt is not a kind man.
*
Tony is late for the whole of his first week at Veidt Industries.
The snow has turned to rain. Adrian stands at the window of his office and broods, his mood as black as the clouds swirling outside. He should have known better, of course-should have expected such a sloppy attitude from a boy who’s inherited a fortune. Adrian inherited a fortune, too, a fortune gained just as distastefully as Howard Stark’s billions. Adrian’s father was a Nazi sympathiser. Howard Stark built bombs and traded in weapons. Which of them was worse?
The thought shudders from Adrian, and he rubs his hands over the sleeves of his suit as if ridding himself of a dozen crawling insects. He turns from the window and buzzes through to his secretary, requesting a pot of tea.
“At once, Mr Veidt.” She pauses, then adds with uncharacteristic breathlessness, “Mr Stark has arrived, sir.”
Adrian glances at his watch. Three hours and forty-two minutes late. “Thank you. Tell him I want to see him now.”
He waits. He looks over the latest sales reports for his Ozymandias line of toys and board games. He uncaps his fountain pen and makes notes in the margin.
The door opens. A squawk of feminine laughter disturbs the peace, and then comes the clatter of china on a tray followed by Tony’s voice, deep and reassuring: “It’s okay. I’ve got it. Really I have. Perfect balance. Oops! Just kidding. It’s fine, look, you can see it’s fine-”
Adrian stifles a sigh. He puts down the pen and presses his fingers to his temples, forcing back the distant storm of a headache. Straightening, he folds his hands on the desk, the perfect commanding pose of a CEO.
Tony wobbles into the room carrying a tea tray in one hand. He’s halfway through getting changed, suit trousers and jacket draped over his other arm. His shirt hangs off one shoulder, a tie loosely knotted around his neck. His jeans are unbuttoned, riding low enough to suggest a lack of underwear.
“Hi, boss.” Tony dumps the tray on Adrian’s desk, flashes a grin, then resumes getting dressed. He buttons the shirt, feeding the collar through the loop of his tie before tightening the knot, then puts on the jacket. Only then does he kick off the jeans, his shirttails concealing what Adrian is trying hard not to look at. Tony hums a tune as he zips up his trousers. He looks pleased. Perhaps dressing himself is cause for celebration.
When Tony has finished folding his jeans-“It has to be done right”-Adrian reaches for the tray.
Tony beats him to it. “Shall I be mother?” His smile is brilliant and irritating. Without waiting for a reply, he arranges the teacup in its saucer, aligning the little silver spoon with the angle of the handle. He fusses with it, then lifts the teapot, swirls it slightly to agitate the leaves, and pours. He forgets to use the tea-strainer, but seems not to realise his mistake. “Milk and sugar, dear?”
Adrian grits his teeth. “I prefer the milk added first.”
“Oh.” Tony peers into the cup, his face a mask of sorrow. “Bad Tony. Assumptions make an ass out of you and me. Tell you what, let me drink this one, then I’ll make you a fresh cup just the way you like it.”
Breathe. Don’t rise to it. Tension rolls up Adrian’s spine. “You’re late again.”
“I was busy.” Tony sips the tea and looks startled. “There are tea leaves in this. Why are there tea leaves in this? Ridiculous. This is why I prefer coffee.”
Adrian resists the urge to smash the cup out of Tony’s hands. Voice steady, expression blank, he continues, “Effective immediately, I am withholding your wages for every minute you’re late.”
Tony laughs. “I don’t need your money. I’m richer than you.”
“Your father was richer than me,” Adrian corrects him.
An emotion so swift as to be indefinable ripples over Tony’s features. He places the cup in its saucer with enough force to slosh tea over the side. “You want to be judgemental about this? You think because some kid gets rich through their inheritance, it means they’re a bum? I work! I work hard!”
Satisfied with the reaction, Adrian leans back. “When I was your age, I gave away my inherited wealth.”
Tea slops from the saucer and splashes over Tony’s suit. “Only a fucking lunatic would give away five billion dollars!”
“Blood money.”
“No. No, it isn’t. Dad built weapons to ensure peace.”
Adrian smiles. “As I said-blood money.”
Tony wipes at the tea stains one-handed. He doesn’t let go of the cup and saucer. “You’re just pissed because you gave your money away, and I kept mine.”
The argument is valid. Adrian considers it, then dismisses it with a shrug. “I needed to prove myself. I needed to be free of the encumbrance of money.”
“Encumbrance?” Tony snorts. “I’m free of it, too. When you have five billion dollars, you don’t care about money. You don’t care about anything. You don’t need to care. You can pay people to care on your behalf.”
“Is that what you do?”
Tony stares at him. Finally he puts down the cup, shoving it across the desk towards Adrian so the tea from the saucer leaves a slick of milky spillage. “Drink your fucking tea, Mr Veidt. Maybe by the time you’ve finished, you’ll understand that I am not you, and while you harboured blood-guilt because of where your father’s money came from, understand that I don’t give a damn how Dad got his money. The only thing I care about is spending it.”
*
Tony arrives at work on time for the next two weeks. Never early, never late; always perfectly on time. It takes discipline to be so bloody-minded. Adrian knows this and respects it. He gives the boy a project playing the stock markets, and by the end of a day’s trading Veidt Industries is up by half a million dollars. The boy is alarmingly good with numbers and every bit as ruthless as Adrian hoped.
He summons Tony to his office and tells the boy that he’s pleased.
“It’s easy.” Tony drifts around the room, his restless mood echoed in the rumpled state of his clothes, the disorder of his hair. He wraps and unwraps his tie around his wrists, tying himself in knots, a cat’s cradle of nervous energy. “Buy, sell, sell, buy. None of it’s real. That’s how everyone should deal with life. Commodities. Illusions. Don’t get too attached. No regrets.”
He pauses in front of the glass-shelved display of Egyptian artefacts. He’s never seemed to notice before, but now he studies them with careful attention. The tie unravels from his hands and drops to the floor, forgotten. Tony hums, rocking on his toes as he stares at the artefacts. He silences himself mid-tune, sways forward, and takes down the unique, priceless bust of Nefertiti.
Adrian sits up straight. A flare of worry erupts in his belly, the taste of anxious nausea rising. “Eighteenth dynasty. Fourteenth century BC.”
Tony weighs the limestone bust in one hand. He grunts and puts it back, gently. “You have a lot of old shit.”
Surprise and relief hold Adrian still for a second. He’s used to visitors remarking on Nefertiti’s beauty, or, if they’re exceptionally rude and curious, asking him how he can own the bust when the original is meant to be in a Berlin museum. Tony’s remark is so diagrammatically opposite to the usual response that Adrian is amused rather than offended. “Perhaps I like old shit.”
The boy pokes at the Narmer Tablet. “I collect stuff, too.”
Adrian permits himself a thin smile. “Comic books?”
“Yeah.” Tony moves on to the next shelf. He picks up one of the Ozymandias action figures, holding it by the leg and swinging it back and forth. “I had a whole set of these when I was a kid. Fourteen sets, actually-one to play with, the other thirteen kept in their boxes for the day they became valuable.”
Adrian raises his eyebrows.
“I pulled Ozymandias to pieces within four days.” Tony returns the figure to the display. “Nothing personal. I needed the legs to fix my robot dog.” He gives Adrian a wide-eyed look, then shoves his hands into his pockets and meanders around the room. “These days I collect modern art.”
“Modern art is meaningless,” Adrian says. “The disjointed ravings of madmen.”
The boy smiles and tilts his head towards the bust of Nefertiti. “Everyone thinks Akhenaten was a madman. Out with the old, in with the shock of the new. Monotheism-what a crazy concept! A new style of art. It’ll never catch on. Bring back the old ways, the proper ways. Worth a fortune now. Worth stealing from a museum.”
Adrian takes a breath; exhales slowly. “It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
“Because this has meaning. It’s history speaking to us through the medium of art.”
Tony shrugs. His eyes are very bright. “Modern art does the same thing. Picasso’s Guernica. Narrative art depicting historic event. Am I right or what?”
Adrian narrows his gaze. “Technically...”
“And we’re all about the technical, aren’t we, Mr Veidt?”
Anger bubbles up, hot and sour. Adrian flattens his hands against his desk. “There is no comparison between the profound canons of Egyptian, Classical, or Hellenistic art and the wild spatterings of Jackson Pollock!”
“I agree.” Tony gives him a limpid look. “No comparison at all.”
*
Adrian walks into Tony’s office one day and finds him stretched out across the desk, scribbling on a handful of paper napkins.
Sir, you should really do this properly. A disembodied voice smoothes around the room, English-accented, the tone warm enough for a lover and brief enough for a servant. Sir. You have a visitor.
Tony rolls over and sits bolt upright, clutching the squares of flimsy, ink-stained paper to his chest.
“What...” Adrian doesn’t finish the sentence. He leaves it for the boy to decide where the question is directed.
“It’s a secret.” Tony brushes a hand through his hair, jabbing the ballpoint pen through the gold-streaked waves. His expression is guilty, vulnerable. Crumpling the napkins, he stuffs them together inside the open neck of his shirt. “Don’t look. You’re not allowed to look.”
“Is it for me?” Adrian makes no attempt to look.
“No.”
“You’re drawing it in my building, on my napkins, with my pen-”
“The napkins are from a diner. And the pen is mine.” Tony relaxes slightly when Adrian continues to keep his distance. “If it works, I’ll tell you about it.”
“Tell me even if it doesn’t work.” Adrian gives the boy a smile. “What’s the point in Veidt Industries having two geniuses if they don’t combine their knowledge?”
Tony considers this, nodding as he pulls the screwed-up napkins out of his shirtfront. He frowns, biting his lip as he tries to reassemble the sketch.
Just to remind you, sir, says that voice again, there was a double question implied in your visitor’s first utterance.
“There was?” Tony blinks. “I suppose there was. Okay.” He gestures around the room, a vague indication of everything and nothing. “This is Jarvis.”
“And what is Jarvis?”
I am an Artificial Intelligence construct, Jarvis replies. Delighted to meet you, Mr Veidt.
Impressed, though trying not to show it, Adrian says, “You know who I am.”
I recognise your voice. Currently I can recognise the voice and speech patterns of ninety-five percent of the employees working in this building. Unfortunately, the janitorial division suffers a particularly high turnaround in staff; otherwise I assure you I could recognise one hundred percent of the employees at Veidt Industries.
Adrian glances around surreptitiously, wondering where Jarvis is hidden. Beneath the boy’s desk, perhaps, or behind the filing cabinet, or maybe in the weary-looking potted palm. “Jarvis is a robot.”
“Don’t call him that. It hurts his feelings.” Tony sits cross-legged and flattens the crumpled napkins over his thigh.
“A robot,” Adrian says again, no longer bothering to hide his interest. He wonders how big Jarvis is, or if it’s an elaborate hoax the boy is playing, with Jarvis nothing more than a mini tape recorder concealed amidst the clutter of the desk.
I prefer the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’, Mr Veidt, though it’s true enough that I began life as, well, a robot. But, in general, robots lack sentience.
Adrian breaks off from his search and stares at Tony. “This thing is sentient?”
“Don’t call him a ‘thing’, either.”
It’s rude, Jarvis adds. I may have no physical body and I may have only limited programming in emotional awareness, but I can-
“It’s you.” Adrian interrupts, silencing Jarvis. “Limited emotional awareness. It’s you, Anthony. You gave a robot your own personality.”
I say, that’s an unfair accusation, Mr Veidt.
“Is it? Think about it, if you can.”
A pause, and then Jarvis says, Of course I can.
“Jarvis is my friend.” Tony tears one of the napkins into strips, his movements quick and angry.
“A robot.”
“Artificial Intelligence!” He’s defensive, too defensive, prickling with the desire to protect the robot from scorn. “I made him at MIT. Jarvis won prizes, he’s so smart. He’s been there for me the whole time. I trust him. He’s my friend.”
Adrian arches his eyebrows. “You made yourself a friend.”
Ah, but so did you, Mr Veidt. Jarvis’ dulcet tone contains a hint of spite. I believe you named her Bubastis. A giant blue mutant lynx, the product of a genetic experiment. Fascinating, isn’t it-all the other mutations you destroyed, yet you kept Bubastis. What made her so special?
“Because she’s beautiful.” Adrian is intrigued. The whole world knows of Bubastis, but very few people know she was the product of one of several early experiments.
A sound like an amused exhalation of breath. Can robots breathe? Come now, Mr Veidt. Your experiments created many beautiful new creatures. The red-striped shrew, for example. The hairless cat with zebra-skin pigmentation. The winged lizard. All beautiful and unusual.
A sense of disquiet is growing. No longer amused or diverted, Adrian demands: “Where did you get this information?”
I’ll tell you just as soon as you tell me, Jarvis says calmly. Why did you save Bubastis?
Adrian clenches his hands. “If you know so much, you already know the answer.”
Unfortunately, I don’t. That piece of data is missing from the files.
“What files?”
Tony has been following the conversation with a look of bewilderment. Now he groans and scrubs his hands over his face. “Jarvis, what have you done?”
“What files!” Adrian snaps.
The files on your central computer system, of course. Jarvis sounds both innocent and triumphant. I’ve been talking to your computer for some time now. A simple soul. Very trusting. It tells me everything.
Shock and rage coalesce. This is a violation, an insult of the worst kind. Rage trembles through him, and Adrian advances on Tony. “You-”
The boy squeaks and tries to scuttle across the desk.
Jarvis’ mild voice continues: It’s not his fault, Mr Veidt. I am sentient, after all. I can make my own decisions about what I do or do not share with others.
Adrian stops. “For example?”
For example... Jarvis drags out the moment. For example, he doesn’t know what’s in those folders in your personal files. You know the folders I mean, Mr Veidt. Of particular interest was the one entitled-
“Jarvis!” Tony sounds appalled.
Adrian strikes, grabbing the boy by his collar, twisting it tight until Tony’s eyes widen and he gasps for breath. “Shut it off. I want it out of my building.”
Take your hands off him, Mr Veidt. Let him go, or-
Adrian drops the boy to the desk. Tony puts a hand to his throat, still gasping. “Jarvis, pipe down. I don’t think Mr Veidt appreciates your, uh, sense of humour.”
I do apologise. Jarvis’ tone is mocking. It’s so easy to be misunderstood. Isn’t it, Mr Veidt?
Adrian glowers around the room, then stabs a finger at Tony. “Get it out of here before I have you arrested for industrial espionage.”
You won’t. Jarvis speaks with certainty. He can remove my presence from your building, but I can’t unlearn what I’ve learned.
“Wipe its memory.” Adrian tries to think of this in positive terms. It’s good that the boy’s robot breached Veidt Industries’ security systems. Now he knows he needs to fire the entire computer department and start again, build a new system from scratch. It’ll cost millions. He’ll take it out of Tony Stark’s hide. Adrian growls. “Wipe its memory.”
The boy shakes his head. “I can’t. I won’t. Jarvis is sentient.”
“Wipe its fucking memory!”
Tony flinches. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Adrian passes both hands through his hair, striving for calm. He rounds on Tony. “You have no idea what you’ve done. No control over your own creation. Passing responsibility on to a machine! You really are a child-a wilful, reckless child.”
The boy drops his gaze, his voice strangled when he says, “He’s my friend.”
Adrian struggles to find a response. In the end, he turns and walks out, slamming the office door behind him so hard that the glass shatters.
*
The weeks pass, and Tony fills Adrian’s mind and drives him mad with want. Adrian acknowledges that lust performs a useful function in a consumer society, but he dislikes the baseness of the instinct. When he indulges his lusts, which he must do for the sake of balance, he prefers to think of it in terms of aestheticism. He chooses his partners with care, requiring them to conform to a specific physical type. He insists on absolute discretion, gagging his lovers with legal contracts, rewarding continued silence with monetary gifts, or arranging encounters that by their very nature will always remain anonymous.
Tony Stark is an imperfect eromenos. He shouldn’t be desirable. He’s untidy, unkempt, comes into the office stinking of whisky and cigarettes, wears sneakers and sunglasses with everything. He has no reticence, flirts with everyone he meets, has loud telephone conversations of a sexual nature with whichever female has caught his interest. His mood swings between buoyant and black, between genius and idiocy. He has no sense of humility, no sense of what is right. He breaks every ancient unwritten law of what a boy should be, and despite this, because of this, Adrian wants him.
An imperfect eromenos-which by extension makes Adrian an imperfect erastes. Imperfection is failure, and failure needs to be corrected. If only he could take Tony, shape him into perfection... but Adrian knows it would be a wasted effort.
It’s not the first time he’s lusted after an unsuitable boy. Now, as then, Adrian takes steps to avoid an embarrassing situation. Compromise is the art of gentlemen.
At eight fifty-nine one morning, Adrian is escorting the CEO of a tobacco company through the lobby. The clock nudges forward to the top of the hour, and Tony strolls through the door. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt with an obscenity printed on it in large, bright letters. The tobacco man stares, disgusted and offended. Adrian feels his hard work of the past two hours slip away. He motions Tony to stay put, says his goodbyes to the tobacco man, then snaps his fingers as he heads for the lift.
Tony steps in with him, slouching into a corner and staring out of the glass walls of the lift. It’s raining, water streaming across the plaza below them. The weights and counter-weights whirr. Aside from the soothing noise of the machinery, there’s silence for the space of five floors.
Adrian watches Tony’s expression and counts. After thirty-seven seconds have elapsed, he says, “Could you have chosen a t-shirt with a less inflammatory message?”
The boy lifts his head. Removes his sunglasses. Folds them and slides them into his jeans pocket. He stares at Adrian. “Want me to take it off?”
An image flits through Adrian’s mind. The lust he thought he’d sated this morning wakes and prowls. His voice is steady but tight when he replies, “That won’t be necessary.”
Tony moistens his lower lip in a gesture more nervous than erotic. “I know you look at me like that.”
Adrian gives nothing away. “Like what?”
“It’s okay to admit it.” Tony exhales, leaning his head back against the wall. “I know you want me.”
“Really, Anthony. On what do you base this assumption?”
A shrug, a flicker of uncertainty. The boy straightens in an unconscious gesture of pride. “Everyone wants me. Why should you be any different?”
“Why indeed.” Adrian permits himself a faint smile.
A chime signals that they’ve reached the twenty-fifth floor. The lift doors open. Adrian and Tony don’t move.
The doors roll closed again.
“Okay,” says Tony, voice panicked and triumphant. “Okay.”
Adrian punches the code to take them up to the penthouse. The lift trembles, slides upwards. Careful now, Adrian closes in on the boy. They stare at each other, Tony’s expression defiant rather than challenging. He tries for a veneer of cynical amusement, and fails.
“Okay,” Tony says again. “Fuck.”
Adrian reaches out, touches his face. Strokes a fingertip down the curve of the boy’s cheek.
Tony shudders, closes his eyes. His lips part. He sways forward. Adrian waits. The boy makes a needy sound, opens his eyes, and launches himself at Adrian. The boy’s mouth is hot, his kisses desperate. He snakes against Adrian, clinging tight as if he’s frightened of falling.
Adrian takes a handful of mussed, gold-streaked hair, holding the boy still to receive the kisses he wants to bestow. There’s an art to kissing, and Adrian has no wish to be slobbered over. Tony needs to be taught proper appreciation of kisses. He’s a quick study. If he applies himself, he’ll be competent within the week. Adrian gives him more, lips and tongue and teeth, and the boy quivers greedily.
“Yes,” Tony gasps. “Yes, yes, yes.”
The lift stops and they break apart. Adrian straightens his tie before he steps out of the lift. Tony follows, staring at the luxurious surroundings of the suite, his emotions transparent. Adrian studies him, wondering how best to play this game. Bed, couch, floor? It would please him to fuck the boy on the floor. His body aches at the thought. His mind goes blank, desire blinding him, deafening him. He reaches out again, cold lust demanding release, and meets the fire in Tony’s eyes.
The bedroom door clicks. A hesitant voice interrupts. “Mr Veidt?”
Shock immobilises him for a second, and then Adrian lets go of the boy. Smothering a curse, Adrian turns to face the whore he fucked last night. “You were dismissed four hours ago.”
The whore comes forward. He’s half dressed and offers a tentative half-smile. “I fell asleep. I’m sorry.”
Tony sucks in a breath, eyes wide as he stares at the whore. This close, the physical resemblance is unmistakeable. Dark hair, dark eyes, soft mouth, broad-shouldered and not too tall-a less rumpled facsimile of Tony Stark.
“Hello.” The whore looks at the boy with open curiosity, then with dawning realisation. “Oh. You must be-”
Adrian gives the whore a vicious look. “Don’t.”
Tony laughs. “I am. Whatever you were about to say, that’s me.”
“Get out.” Shame and anger fire Adrian, robbing him of the build-up of desire. He seizes the whore and shoves him towards the lift, stabs a finger at the call button. The doors slide open and Adrian sends the whore sprawling against the glass wall. “Get out!”
The doors shut. The lift descends. Adrian’s shaking, the taste in his mouth bitter, fury and longing and humiliation. He can’t turn around just yet.
“Should I be insulted?” Tony wonders out loud. “I’m not, by the way. Although maybe I should be insulted, because I think I’m better-looking. Much better-looking. And younger. Probably cheaper, too. How much did you pay him?”
Adrian turns, holding onto his temper with difficulty. “Shut up.”
“Is that what you like?” Tony raises his eyebrows but not his voice. “You prefer fucking an avatar to the real thing?”
His arrogance-and his perspicacity-take Adrian’s breath away. The situation threatens to slide out of control. “Perhaps you’re second best.”
Tony gives another crack of laughter. “Never. I’m the best there is. Try me. Come on. Try me, take me, taste me-”
Sometimes control is overrated. Sometimes there’s nothing to be gained from thinking. Adrian grabs the boy and hauls him across the room. Tony laughs again, breathless, eyes glittering. He twists free and drags the t-shirt over his head. In the split-second when Tony’s blinkered by the garment, Adrian knocks him off his feet. The boy topples backwards over the side of the couch and lands with a grunt of complaint.
Adrian drops down on top of him. White scatter-cushions are dislodged and tossed to the floor. Their clothes follow, crumpled, torn.
“I want to be on top.” Tony squirms out from beneath Adrian and reverses their positions. “I’m always on top.”
It’s not what he’s fantasised about, it’s not what the perfect eromenos would do, but Adrian allows it. Imperfection brings its own rewards. The boy settles himself astride Adrian, an assured horseman. He backs up, humming softly. His hands slide over Adrian’s cock as if in fascinated wonder. His touch is rough, clumsy, too eager. Adrian tries to rein him back. “Wait-”
“Can’t.” Tony grins. “C’mon. Do me.”
The earlier anger surfaces. Adrian doesn’t like being used. He knows the boy is a slut. He wants to stake his claim, even if he’s only one of many. Tony will not forget him so easily. Adrian spits into his palm and strokes it over his cock. Not ideal, not perfect, but neither is Tony. Adrian guides himself in and pushes up, hard and sharp.
The boy’s eyes widen. “Aw, jeez.”
Adrian thrusts harder. Tony groans and slumps sideways, hands clawing. Adrian clutches at him, and the boy struggles feebly. “Hurts. Shit, it hurts.”
“You’ve never done this before,” Adrian says, voice strangled with disbelief.
“Had a man’s dick in my ass? No. Never.” The boy grinds down, teeth bared in a snarl, sweat streaking his face. “Fuck, it hurts.”
Adrian doesn’t know how to continue. “Why me?”
“Maybe because I wanted to see the smartest man in the world clueless for once.”
“You arrogant prick.”
Tony grins. “Takes one to know one.” He wriggles, breathes; rocks back and forth, breathes again. “Doesn’t hurt so much now. You gonna fuck me or do I have to do everything myself?”
Adrian fucks him. Without tenderness, without consideration; just raw physicality. He makes Tony ache and bleed, and through the glimmerings of tears and the voice rubbed dry and the sticky, messy exhaustion, Adrian hears Tony laugh. Not the laughter of madness, but a warm, rich chuckle of genuine amusement, genuine pleasure.
“Tomorrow,” Tony says, “let’s do that again.”
Adrian stares. His anger is brief, the fire already sated. He gets up and dresses in calculated haste, anxious to be away from the couch, away from Tony’s warm, languid nakedness of body and spirit.
Time for a retreat. This battle is lost. He cannot defeat a hedonist.
*
Six days later, Tony brings him a blueprint and a yellow file containing detailed technical specs for a guided missile system. They sit on the rug in front of the open fire in Adrian’s penthouse, while behind them the rain batters against the windows. Tony is barefoot, toes digging into the soft pile. He’s taken off his tie and is playing with it, wrapping it around his ankles.
Adrian wonders if the boy is aware of what he’s doing, what signals he’s sending. Probably not. Tony has no subtlety when it comes to seduction. Putting the thought from his mind, Adrian studies the blueprints and suggests amendments. Tony listens, argues, and finally accepts. He starts redesigning the weapon.
“This was what you drew on the napkins.” Adrian gets to his feet and goes over to the sideboard. He pours drinks-whisky and ice for the boy, mineral water for himself-and carries them back to the rug.
“Yep.” Tony takes the cut-glass tumbler, gulps at the whisky. “I’m always designing weapons. I guess if I were a poet, I’d always be writing poetry. I’d be a bad poet. But I’m good at designing weapons.” He holds out the annotated blueprint. “Want it? You can have it.”
Adrian shakes his head. “It’s unnecessary.”
“It’s very necessary. Don’t you watch the news? The Doomsday Clock-”
“It needs a name.” Adrian nods towards the blueprint.
Tony blinks, frowning at both the interruption and the non sequitur. “A name? Dad always numbered them. Stark Mark V. I always hated the rhyme. Bad poet. Weapons should sound scary. ‘Stark Mark Whatever’ doesn’t sound scary.”
“Then name it.”
“I’m no good at that sort of thing.”
Adrian rattles the ice in his glass. “Name it after a battle.”
The boy smiles. “Waterloo?”
Adrian chuckles. “Guagamela.”
“What the fuck is Guagamela?”
“It’s where Alexander the Great defeated the Persians.”
Tony wrinkles his nose. “Nah. The name has to fit on an order sheet. Besides, you think those clowns in the military will be able to spell Guagamela?”
“Good point.” Adrian sips at his water. “Kadesh. Site of Rameses II’s victory over the Hittites.”
Tony gives him a look. “I thought that was a draw.”
“But you like the name?”
“I like it. A bit esoteric, but it’s got more going for it than Guagamela.” Tony crunches an ice cube as he jots down three sets of formulae on the back of the blueprint.
Adrian nurses the glass in his hands. “One day soon, we’ll have no need for weapons.”
Tony glances up. “You reckon?”
“I know.” Adrian resists the urge to smile, hugging his knowledge tight inside. If only he could tell the boy his plans... but no one can know.
Tony taps his fingers against the tumbler. “Having a weapon is a deterrent.”
“Doctor Manhattan was supposed to be a deterrent. His presence has merely made the Soviets more determined to attack.”
“That’s because Doctor Manhattan is-was... kind of still is-human, and humans get emotional and make mistakes. Weapons don’t make mistakes.”
Amusement curves Adrian’s lips. “But humans choose when to fire the weapons.”
“Um.” Tony drains the remainder of his whisky. “Maybe I should develop a range of smart weapons. Bombs that can think for themselves. Set parameters for conflict assessment and let the weapon decide.”
“Maybe,” Adrian says, and takes another sip of water. He considers remarking on Tony’s avoidance of responsibility, but he lets it slide. There’s little point in chastising the boy. In the coming months, Adrian will take on all the responsibility, all the guilt, on behalf of the whole world. And after the apocalypse, Tony Stark’s weapons will no longer be needed. The thought stills Adrian’s mind. He doesn’t want to render the boy as obsolete as his weapons. Perhaps he can think of another way to use Tony.
Adrian smiles and says again, “Maybe.”
Fandom: Watchmen/Iron Man
Pairing: Adrian Veidt/Tony Stark
Rating: NC17ish
Summary: Adrian knew the boy would be trouble. He didn’t realise how much trouble.
Notes: Since Watchmen is AH and its canon is so firmly grounded in late 1985, I’m screwing with Iron Man’s canon instead, which is kind of vague in any case. According to the film, Tony was born in 1970. Let’s pretend he lied about his age (he’s a narcissist, of course he’d lie about his age). Let’s add a few years and make him 17-going-on-18 in early 1985. And just for fun, let’s kill off his parents in late 1984 rather than when he turned 21.
An Unsuitable Boy
The boy is going to be trouble.
Adrian knows it from the start. He calculates just how much trouble Tony Stark will cause, then offsets the result against the potential for publicity. Child prodigies always make for good press. Child prodigies who grow up to become teenage geniuses with self-destructive tendencies make even better news.
He can handle Tony. Adrian knows what it’s like to be too smart, too rich, too much of everything. He can handle the boy.
*
New Year in New York. Snow spirals from a sky the colour of wet slate. The press shiver amongst the slush and grit in the plaza outside the glass-fronted skyscraper. Adrian checks his watch, checks his hair in the dull reflection thrown back by the lobby wall, then adjusts his coat across his shoulders. Another moment, and then he nods to the uniformed guards and the doors swing open for him.
He sweeps down the steps of Veidt Industries towards his audience, counting time all the while. He clips his pace, smile fixed, gaze sweeping the traffic. There. A limousine slides in from the street, engine purring as it nudges the pressmen out of the way. The car comes to a halt just as Adrian arrives at the top of the steps. Flashbulbs go off, and Adrian nods and smiles.
Timing is everything.
The limousine door remains shut. Adrian’s smile fades. Cold eats at his hands. He didn’t wear gloves, reckoning on only being outside for three minutes. He resists the urge to curl his fingers into fists and stares at the smoked windows of the limousine.
Time crawls forward, seconds dragging. The chauffeur gets out. He’s embarrassed, rigid with reflected shame. He comes around to the side closest to Adrian and opens the door.
The press advance, poking cameras and microphones into the darkness of the back seat. Adrian keeps counting, his smile forgotten, anger simmering. There’s movement from within the car, and the press fall back. Adrian takes a step forward.
Tony Stark clambers out of the limousine. He’s wearing sunglasses, a tailcoat over an Ozymandias t-shirt, a pair of ripped jeans, and unlaced sneakers. He sways, looks up at the sky as if he’s never seen snow before, and declares, “Fuck, it’s cold.”
Timing is everything.
Adrian lifts his arms, commanding, welcoming. “Anthony!” He keeps his tone level, but allows a spiked nuance to creep into his next smile. “Anthony,” he says again, noting with amusement the tightening of the boy’s lips, the slight upward tilt of his head. It seems Tony dislikes his full name. Adrian files away the observation. In any arena, it pays to keep an adversary off-balance. Not that Adrian considers Tony Stark an adversary. Not yet. Perhaps not ever, but there’s no harm in reminding the spoiled brat of his place.
Tony jogs up the steps like an obedient puppy. He has gold tints in his dishevelled hair. California boy. He stinks of whisky and cheap perfume. Slut. Adrian’s nostrils flare in disgust until he recognises the scent-Nostalgia by Veidt-and then the anger is back in his throat.
He places an arm around the boy’s shoulders, careful to project an avuncular impression. Tony gives a little twist as if to shake off Adrian’s touch, and Adrian digs his fingers tight into the boy’s upper arm. Tony goes still, but Adrian can feel him burning with emotion. Rage, humiliation, maybe just boredom-but emotion all the same, a backlash of it, and Adrian sucks in a breath at the promise of so much untapped potential.
Dipping his head, he murmurs, “Appearances are everything in this business.”
The boy remains motionless. Adrian can feel the heat from his skin. Snowflakes catch in Tony’s hair, melt and streak like tears on his face.
“No one cares what you do. It’s how you do it that matters. As long as you appear to be sincere, they won’t care if you’re feeding newborns to the flames of a great golden god.” Adrian squeezes Tony’s arm again. “Understand?”
Tony looks up, eyes invisible behind the shield of reflective lenses. He smiles, snarls, teeth glistening, an animal wounded and dangerous.
Satisfaction fills Adrian. This will be easier than he thought. “Ladies and gentlemen.” He turns and addresses the media with a glittering smile. “Thank you for braving the weather. Despite the cloud, we have a little ray of sunshine in New York today-” he tightens his grip further, shoves the boy forwards into the barrage of flashbulbs, “Mr Anthony Stark, fresh out of MIT, is joining me here at Veidt Industries at the request of his late father Howard...”
Tony presses back against the steel of Adrian’s encircling arm. The boy wants to bolt. He’s shaking, his teeth beginning to chatter. Maybe it’s the cold.
Adrian continues with his speech, slowing his words and pausing longer than necessary. He trots out the usual clichés about Tony’s father-visionary, driven, made the world a safer place-and plays down any comparisons between Stark Industries and Veidt Industries.
“Howard was keen for his son to learn about more than robots and weapons manufacturing.” Adrian flashes that avuncular smile again. “It’s all very well to be a genius in the laboratory, but it takes another kind of genius to market those inventions. Yes, even weapons need to be targeted at the right consumers these days, if you’ll forgive the pun. That’s why Howard wanted me to take young Anthony under my wing. I have a different kind of global reach. Anthony will learn a lot.”
The boy has stopped trembling. He’s frozen, still smiling. It seems he has nothing to say about this wonderful opportunity. Questions are hurled into the silence.
“How’re you doing, Tony? Is it true you wrecked your father’s vintage Ford after you got drunk at your parents’ funeral?”
“Give us a few words about how you felt when you were arrested for reckless driving and possession of a firearm. Did the gun belong to your father?”
Adrian disapproves of this line of interrogation. He nods at one of his tame reporters from the New York Times. The man raises his voice. “Mr Stark! Are you looking forwards to working with Adrian Veidt?”
Tony stirs. The rictus smile becomes a big grin, utterly dazzling. “Sure. It’s great. A great opportunity. I’m sure we’ll get along just fine and dandy.” He gives the press a jaunty salute and turns, sneakers squelching in the melted snow as he heads for the building.
Adrian lingers for a few closing words before he follows the boy. He catches Tony at the door. “You were late. Seventy seconds late. That is unacceptable.”
Tony stops in his tracks, his entire body stiffening. “My parents just died.”
“They died last year.”
“Nineteen days ago!” There’s a moment of silence. Tony breaks it first. “Shit. I didn’t...” He shakes his head. “Seventy seconds. Fuck. You want a doctor’s note or something? I can get one. Death certificates. Two of them. Maybe you’d like the press clippings, too? Video footage? A nation mourns. Grieving son buries parents. That’s me-the grieving son. The fucking orphan child. The-”
“You’re not the only person to lose their parents.” Adrian’s voice comes out clipped, brutal. He sounds heartless. He can remember what it feels like to lose both parents at seventeen, but the feeling is distant, cut off from real emotion.
The boy stares at him. He takes off his oversized sunglasses and continues staring. His eyes are large and liquid and dark, rimmed red and glassy with an overindulgence of alcohol-induced weeping.
A stab of lust goads Adrian. He’s not sure if it’s the boy’s eyes or the brittle vulnerability in them, but suddenly he’s looking at Tony with more than casual interest. If he wants to bed this boy-and he doesn’t know yet if he does-but if he wants Tony, Adrian knows he needs to seem sincere. Empathy is the key to seduction. He sets a hand on Tony’s shoulder, smiles into those uncovered eyes. “I’m truly sorry for your loss. Since it’s your first day here, I’ll overlook those seventy seconds.”
“You piece of shit.” Tony jerks away. He shoves on his sunglasses and stalks past Adrian, slamming both hands against the door to gain access to the building.
Adrian watches him. A kind man would understand the boy’s unhappiness. A kind man would make allowances for grief affecting judgement, and for the general lack of courtesy and respect.
Adrian Veidt is not a kind man.
*
Tony is late for the whole of his first week at Veidt Industries.
The snow has turned to rain. Adrian stands at the window of his office and broods, his mood as black as the clouds swirling outside. He should have known better, of course-should have expected such a sloppy attitude from a boy who’s inherited a fortune. Adrian inherited a fortune, too, a fortune gained just as distastefully as Howard Stark’s billions. Adrian’s father was a Nazi sympathiser. Howard Stark built bombs and traded in weapons. Which of them was worse?
The thought shudders from Adrian, and he rubs his hands over the sleeves of his suit as if ridding himself of a dozen crawling insects. He turns from the window and buzzes through to his secretary, requesting a pot of tea.
“At once, Mr Veidt.” She pauses, then adds with uncharacteristic breathlessness, “Mr Stark has arrived, sir.”
Adrian glances at his watch. Three hours and forty-two minutes late. “Thank you. Tell him I want to see him now.”
He waits. He looks over the latest sales reports for his Ozymandias line of toys and board games. He uncaps his fountain pen and makes notes in the margin.
The door opens. A squawk of feminine laughter disturbs the peace, and then comes the clatter of china on a tray followed by Tony’s voice, deep and reassuring: “It’s okay. I’ve got it. Really I have. Perfect balance. Oops! Just kidding. It’s fine, look, you can see it’s fine-”
Adrian stifles a sigh. He puts down the pen and presses his fingers to his temples, forcing back the distant storm of a headache. Straightening, he folds his hands on the desk, the perfect commanding pose of a CEO.
Tony wobbles into the room carrying a tea tray in one hand. He’s halfway through getting changed, suit trousers and jacket draped over his other arm. His shirt hangs off one shoulder, a tie loosely knotted around his neck. His jeans are unbuttoned, riding low enough to suggest a lack of underwear.
“Hi, boss.” Tony dumps the tray on Adrian’s desk, flashes a grin, then resumes getting dressed. He buttons the shirt, feeding the collar through the loop of his tie before tightening the knot, then puts on the jacket. Only then does he kick off the jeans, his shirttails concealing what Adrian is trying hard not to look at. Tony hums a tune as he zips up his trousers. He looks pleased. Perhaps dressing himself is cause for celebration.
When Tony has finished folding his jeans-“It has to be done right”-Adrian reaches for the tray.
Tony beats him to it. “Shall I be mother?” His smile is brilliant and irritating. Without waiting for a reply, he arranges the teacup in its saucer, aligning the little silver spoon with the angle of the handle. He fusses with it, then lifts the teapot, swirls it slightly to agitate the leaves, and pours. He forgets to use the tea-strainer, but seems not to realise his mistake. “Milk and sugar, dear?”
Adrian grits his teeth. “I prefer the milk added first.”
“Oh.” Tony peers into the cup, his face a mask of sorrow. “Bad Tony. Assumptions make an ass out of you and me. Tell you what, let me drink this one, then I’ll make you a fresh cup just the way you like it.”
Breathe. Don’t rise to it. Tension rolls up Adrian’s spine. “You’re late again.”
“I was busy.” Tony sips the tea and looks startled. “There are tea leaves in this. Why are there tea leaves in this? Ridiculous. This is why I prefer coffee.”
Adrian resists the urge to smash the cup out of Tony’s hands. Voice steady, expression blank, he continues, “Effective immediately, I am withholding your wages for every minute you’re late.”
Tony laughs. “I don’t need your money. I’m richer than you.”
“Your father was richer than me,” Adrian corrects him.
An emotion so swift as to be indefinable ripples over Tony’s features. He places the cup in its saucer with enough force to slosh tea over the side. “You want to be judgemental about this? You think because some kid gets rich through their inheritance, it means they’re a bum? I work! I work hard!”
Satisfied with the reaction, Adrian leans back. “When I was your age, I gave away my inherited wealth.”
Tea slops from the saucer and splashes over Tony’s suit. “Only a fucking lunatic would give away five billion dollars!”
“Blood money.”
“No. No, it isn’t. Dad built weapons to ensure peace.”
Adrian smiles. “As I said-blood money.”
Tony wipes at the tea stains one-handed. He doesn’t let go of the cup and saucer. “You’re just pissed because you gave your money away, and I kept mine.”
The argument is valid. Adrian considers it, then dismisses it with a shrug. “I needed to prove myself. I needed to be free of the encumbrance of money.”
“Encumbrance?” Tony snorts. “I’m free of it, too. When you have five billion dollars, you don’t care about money. You don’t care about anything. You don’t need to care. You can pay people to care on your behalf.”
“Is that what you do?”
Tony stares at him. Finally he puts down the cup, shoving it across the desk towards Adrian so the tea from the saucer leaves a slick of milky spillage. “Drink your fucking tea, Mr Veidt. Maybe by the time you’ve finished, you’ll understand that I am not you, and while you harboured blood-guilt because of where your father’s money came from, understand that I don’t give a damn how Dad got his money. The only thing I care about is spending it.”
*
Tony arrives at work on time for the next two weeks. Never early, never late; always perfectly on time. It takes discipline to be so bloody-minded. Adrian knows this and respects it. He gives the boy a project playing the stock markets, and by the end of a day’s trading Veidt Industries is up by half a million dollars. The boy is alarmingly good with numbers and every bit as ruthless as Adrian hoped.
He summons Tony to his office and tells the boy that he’s pleased.
“It’s easy.” Tony drifts around the room, his restless mood echoed in the rumpled state of his clothes, the disorder of his hair. He wraps and unwraps his tie around his wrists, tying himself in knots, a cat’s cradle of nervous energy. “Buy, sell, sell, buy. None of it’s real. That’s how everyone should deal with life. Commodities. Illusions. Don’t get too attached. No regrets.”
He pauses in front of the glass-shelved display of Egyptian artefacts. He’s never seemed to notice before, but now he studies them with careful attention. The tie unravels from his hands and drops to the floor, forgotten. Tony hums, rocking on his toes as he stares at the artefacts. He silences himself mid-tune, sways forward, and takes down the unique, priceless bust of Nefertiti.
Adrian sits up straight. A flare of worry erupts in his belly, the taste of anxious nausea rising. “Eighteenth dynasty. Fourteenth century BC.”
Tony weighs the limestone bust in one hand. He grunts and puts it back, gently. “You have a lot of old shit.”
Surprise and relief hold Adrian still for a second. He’s used to visitors remarking on Nefertiti’s beauty, or, if they’re exceptionally rude and curious, asking him how he can own the bust when the original is meant to be in a Berlin museum. Tony’s remark is so diagrammatically opposite to the usual response that Adrian is amused rather than offended. “Perhaps I like old shit.”
The boy pokes at the Narmer Tablet. “I collect stuff, too.”
Adrian permits himself a thin smile. “Comic books?”
“Yeah.” Tony moves on to the next shelf. He picks up one of the Ozymandias action figures, holding it by the leg and swinging it back and forth. “I had a whole set of these when I was a kid. Fourteen sets, actually-one to play with, the other thirteen kept in their boxes for the day they became valuable.”
Adrian raises his eyebrows.
“I pulled Ozymandias to pieces within four days.” Tony returns the figure to the display. “Nothing personal. I needed the legs to fix my robot dog.” He gives Adrian a wide-eyed look, then shoves his hands into his pockets and meanders around the room. “These days I collect modern art.”
“Modern art is meaningless,” Adrian says. “The disjointed ravings of madmen.”
The boy smiles and tilts his head towards the bust of Nefertiti. “Everyone thinks Akhenaten was a madman. Out with the old, in with the shock of the new. Monotheism-what a crazy concept! A new style of art. It’ll never catch on. Bring back the old ways, the proper ways. Worth a fortune now. Worth stealing from a museum.”
Adrian takes a breath; exhales slowly. “It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
“Because this has meaning. It’s history speaking to us through the medium of art.”
Tony shrugs. His eyes are very bright. “Modern art does the same thing. Picasso’s Guernica. Narrative art depicting historic event. Am I right or what?”
Adrian narrows his gaze. “Technically...”
“And we’re all about the technical, aren’t we, Mr Veidt?”
Anger bubbles up, hot and sour. Adrian flattens his hands against his desk. “There is no comparison between the profound canons of Egyptian, Classical, or Hellenistic art and the wild spatterings of Jackson Pollock!”
“I agree.” Tony gives him a limpid look. “No comparison at all.”
*
Adrian walks into Tony’s office one day and finds him stretched out across the desk, scribbling on a handful of paper napkins.
Sir, you should really do this properly. A disembodied voice smoothes around the room, English-accented, the tone warm enough for a lover and brief enough for a servant. Sir. You have a visitor.
Tony rolls over and sits bolt upright, clutching the squares of flimsy, ink-stained paper to his chest.
“What...” Adrian doesn’t finish the sentence. He leaves it for the boy to decide where the question is directed.
“It’s a secret.” Tony brushes a hand through his hair, jabbing the ballpoint pen through the gold-streaked waves. His expression is guilty, vulnerable. Crumpling the napkins, he stuffs them together inside the open neck of his shirt. “Don’t look. You’re not allowed to look.”
“Is it for me?” Adrian makes no attempt to look.
“No.”
“You’re drawing it in my building, on my napkins, with my pen-”
“The napkins are from a diner. And the pen is mine.” Tony relaxes slightly when Adrian continues to keep his distance. “If it works, I’ll tell you about it.”
“Tell me even if it doesn’t work.” Adrian gives the boy a smile. “What’s the point in Veidt Industries having two geniuses if they don’t combine their knowledge?”
Tony considers this, nodding as he pulls the screwed-up napkins out of his shirtfront. He frowns, biting his lip as he tries to reassemble the sketch.
Just to remind you, sir, says that voice again, there was a double question implied in your visitor’s first utterance.
“There was?” Tony blinks. “I suppose there was. Okay.” He gestures around the room, a vague indication of everything and nothing. “This is Jarvis.”
“And what is Jarvis?”
I am an Artificial Intelligence construct, Jarvis replies. Delighted to meet you, Mr Veidt.
Impressed, though trying not to show it, Adrian says, “You know who I am.”
I recognise your voice. Currently I can recognise the voice and speech patterns of ninety-five percent of the employees working in this building. Unfortunately, the janitorial division suffers a particularly high turnaround in staff; otherwise I assure you I could recognise one hundred percent of the employees at Veidt Industries.
Adrian glances around surreptitiously, wondering where Jarvis is hidden. Beneath the boy’s desk, perhaps, or behind the filing cabinet, or maybe in the weary-looking potted palm. “Jarvis is a robot.”
“Don’t call him that. It hurts his feelings.” Tony sits cross-legged and flattens the crumpled napkins over his thigh.
“A robot,” Adrian says again, no longer bothering to hide his interest. He wonders how big Jarvis is, or if it’s an elaborate hoax the boy is playing, with Jarvis nothing more than a mini tape recorder concealed amidst the clutter of the desk.
I prefer the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’, Mr Veidt, though it’s true enough that I began life as, well, a robot. But, in general, robots lack sentience.
Adrian breaks off from his search and stares at Tony. “This thing is sentient?”
“Don’t call him a ‘thing’, either.”
It’s rude, Jarvis adds. I may have no physical body and I may have only limited programming in emotional awareness, but I can-
“It’s you.” Adrian interrupts, silencing Jarvis. “Limited emotional awareness. It’s you, Anthony. You gave a robot your own personality.”
I say, that’s an unfair accusation, Mr Veidt.
“Is it? Think about it, if you can.”
A pause, and then Jarvis says, Of course I can.
“Jarvis is my friend.” Tony tears one of the napkins into strips, his movements quick and angry.
“A robot.”
“Artificial Intelligence!” He’s defensive, too defensive, prickling with the desire to protect the robot from scorn. “I made him at MIT. Jarvis won prizes, he’s so smart. He’s been there for me the whole time. I trust him. He’s my friend.”
Adrian arches his eyebrows. “You made yourself a friend.”
Ah, but so did you, Mr Veidt. Jarvis’ dulcet tone contains a hint of spite. I believe you named her Bubastis. A giant blue mutant lynx, the product of a genetic experiment. Fascinating, isn’t it-all the other mutations you destroyed, yet you kept Bubastis. What made her so special?
“Because she’s beautiful.” Adrian is intrigued. The whole world knows of Bubastis, but very few people know she was the product of one of several early experiments.
A sound like an amused exhalation of breath. Can robots breathe? Come now, Mr Veidt. Your experiments created many beautiful new creatures. The red-striped shrew, for example. The hairless cat with zebra-skin pigmentation. The winged lizard. All beautiful and unusual.
A sense of disquiet is growing. No longer amused or diverted, Adrian demands: “Where did you get this information?”
I’ll tell you just as soon as you tell me, Jarvis says calmly. Why did you save Bubastis?
Adrian clenches his hands. “If you know so much, you already know the answer.”
Unfortunately, I don’t. That piece of data is missing from the files.
“What files?”
Tony has been following the conversation with a look of bewilderment. Now he groans and scrubs his hands over his face. “Jarvis, what have you done?”
“What files!” Adrian snaps.
The files on your central computer system, of course. Jarvis sounds both innocent and triumphant. I’ve been talking to your computer for some time now. A simple soul. Very trusting. It tells me everything.
Shock and rage coalesce. This is a violation, an insult of the worst kind. Rage trembles through him, and Adrian advances on Tony. “You-”
The boy squeaks and tries to scuttle across the desk.
Jarvis’ mild voice continues: It’s not his fault, Mr Veidt. I am sentient, after all. I can make my own decisions about what I do or do not share with others.
Adrian stops. “For example?”
For example... Jarvis drags out the moment. For example, he doesn’t know what’s in those folders in your personal files. You know the folders I mean, Mr Veidt. Of particular interest was the one entitled-
“Jarvis!” Tony sounds appalled.
Adrian strikes, grabbing the boy by his collar, twisting it tight until Tony’s eyes widen and he gasps for breath. “Shut it off. I want it out of my building.”
Take your hands off him, Mr Veidt. Let him go, or-
Adrian drops the boy to the desk. Tony puts a hand to his throat, still gasping. “Jarvis, pipe down. I don’t think Mr Veidt appreciates your, uh, sense of humour.”
I do apologise. Jarvis’ tone is mocking. It’s so easy to be misunderstood. Isn’t it, Mr Veidt?
Adrian glowers around the room, then stabs a finger at Tony. “Get it out of here before I have you arrested for industrial espionage.”
You won’t. Jarvis speaks with certainty. He can remove my presence from your building, but I can’t unlearn what I’ve learned.
“Wipe its memory.” Adrian tries to think of this in positive terms. It’s good that the boy’s robot breached Veidt Industries’ security systems. Now he knows he needs to fire the entire computer department and start again, build a new system from scratch. It’ll cost millions. He’ll take it out of Tony Stark’s hide. Adrian growls. “Wipe its memory.”
The boy shakes his head. “I can’t. I won’t. Jarvis is sentient.”
“Wipe its fucking memory!”
Tony flinches. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Adrian passes both hands through his hair, striving for calm. He rounds on Tony. “You have no idea what you’ve done. No control over your own creation. Passing responsibility on to a machine! You really are a child-a wilful, reckless child.”
The boy drops his gaze, his voice strangled when he says, “He’s my friend.”
Adrian struggles to find a response. In the end, he turns and walks out, slamming the office door behind him so hard that the glass shatters.
*
The weeks pass, and Tony fills Adrian’s mind and drives him mad with want. Adrian acknowledges that lust performs a useful function in a consumer society, but he dislikes the baseness of the instinct. When he indulges his lusts, which he must do for the sake of balance, he prefers to think of it in terms of aestheticism. He chooses his partners with care, requiring them to conform to a specific physical type. He insists on absolute discretion, gagging his lovers with legal contracts, rewarding continued silence with monetary gifts, or arranging encounters that by their very nature will always remain anonymous.
Tony Stark is an imperfect eromenos. He shouldn’t be desirable. He’s untidy, unkempt, comes into the office stinking of whisky and cigarettes, wears sneakers and sunglasses with everything. He has no reticence, flirts with everyone he meets, has loud telephone conversations of a sexual nature with whichever female has caught his interest. His mood swings between buoyant and black, between genius and idiocy. He has no sense of humility, no sense of what is right. He breaks every ancient unwritten law of what a boy should be, and despite this, because of this, Adrian wants him.
An imperfect eromenos-which by extension makes Adrian an imperfect erastes. Imperfection is failure, and failure needs to be corrected. If only he could take Tony, shape him into perfection... but Adrian knows it would be a wasted effort.
It’s not the first time he’s lusted after an unsuitable boy. Now, as then, Adrian takes steps to avoid an embarrassing situation. Compromise is the art of gentlemen.
At eight fifty-nine one morning, Adrian is escorting the CEO of a tobacco company through the lobby. The clock nudges forward to the top of the hour, and Tony strolls through the door. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt with an obscenity printed on it in large, bright letters. The tobacco man stares, disgusted and offended. Adrian feels his hard work of the past two hours slip away. He motions Tony to stay put, says his goodbyes to the tobacco man, then snaps his fingers as he heads for the lift.
Tony steps in with him, slouching into a corner and staring out of the glass walls of the lift. It’s raining, water streaming across the plaza below them. The weights and counter-weights whirr. Aside from the soothing noise of the machinery, there’s silence for the space of five floors.
Adrian watches Tony’s expression and counts. After thirty-seven seconds have elapsed, he says, “Could you have chosen a t-shirt with a less inflammatory message?”
The boy lifts his head. Removes his sunglasses. Folds them and slides them into his jeans pocket. He stares at Adrian. “Want me to take it off?”
An image flits through Adrian’s mind. The lust he thought he’d sated this morning wakes and prowls. His voice is steady but tight when he replies, “That won’t be necessary.”
Tony moistens his lower lip in a gesture more nervous than erotic. “I know you look at me like that.”
Adrian gives nothing away. “Like what?”
“It’s okay to admit it.” Tony exhales, leaning his head back against the wall. “I know you want me.”
“Really, Anthony. On what do you base this assumption?”
A shrug, a flicker of uncertainty. The boy straightens in an unconscious gesture of pride. “Everyone wants me. Why should you be any different?”
“Why indeed.” Adrian permits himself a faint smile.
A chime signals that they’ve reached the twenty-fifth floor. The lift doors open. Adrian and Tony don’t move.
The doors roll closed again.
“Okay,” says Tony, voice panicked and triumphant. “Okay.”
Adrian punches the code to take them up to the penthouse. The lift trembles, slides upwards. Careful now, Adrian closes in on the boy. They stare at each other, Tony’s expression defiant rather than challenging. He tries for a veneer of cynical amusement, and fails.
“Okay,” Tony says again. “Fuck.”
Adrian reaches out, touches his face. Strokes a fingertip down the curve of the boy’s cheek.
Tony shudders, closes his eyes. His lips part. He sways forward. Adrian waits. The boy makes a needy sound, opens his eyes, and launches himself at Adrian. The boy’s mouth is hot, his kisses desperate. He snakes against Adrian, clinging tight as if he’s frightened of falling.
Adrian takes a handful of mussed, gold-streaked hair, holding the boy still to receive the kisses he wants to bestow. There’s an art to kissing, and Adrian has no wish to be slobbered over. Tony needs to be taught proper appreciation of kisses. He’s a quick study. If he applies himself, he’ll be competent within the week. Adrian gives him more, lips and tongue and teeth, and the boy quivers greedily.
“Yes,” Tony gasps. “Yes, yes, yes.”
The lift stops and they break apart. Adrian straightens his tie before he steps out of the lift. Tony follows, staring at the luxurious surroundings of the suite, his emotions transparent. Adrian studies him, wondering how best to play this game. Bed, couch, floor? It would please him to fuck the boy on the floor. His body aches at the thought. His mind goes blank, desire blinding him, deafening him. He reaches out again, cold lust demanding release, and meets the fire in Tony’s eyes.
The bedroom door clicks. A hesitant voice interrupts. “Mr Veidt?”
Shock immobilises him for a second, and then Adrian lets go of the boy. Smothering a curse, Adrian turns to face the whore he fucked last night. “You were dismissed four hours ago.”
The whore comes forward. He’s half dressed and offers a tentative half-smile. “I fell asleep. I’m sorry.”
Tony sucks in a breath, eyes wide as he stares at the whore. This close, the physical resemblance is unmistakeable. Dark hair, dark eyes, soft mouth, broad-shouldered and not too tall-a less rumpled facsimile of Tony Stark.
“Hello.” The whore looks at the boy with open curiosity, then with dawning realisation. “Oh. You must be-”
Adrian gives the whore a vicious look. “Don’t.”
Tony laughs. “I am. Whatever you were about to say, that’s me.”
“Get out.” Shame and anger fire Adrian, robbing him of the build-up of desire. He seizes the whore and shoves him towards the lift, stabs a finger at the call button. The doors slide open and Adrian sends the whore sprawling against the glass wall. “Get out!”
The doors shut. The lift descends. Adrian’s shaking, the taste in his mouth bitter, fury and longing and humiliation. He can’t turn around just yet.
“Should I be insulted?” Tony wonders out loud. “I’m not, by the way. Although maybe I should be insulted, because I think I’m better-looking. Much better-looking. And younger. Probably cheaper, too. How much did you pay him?”
Adrian turns, holding onto his temper with difficulty. “Shut up.”
“Is that what you like?” Tony raises his eyebrows but not his voice. “You prefer fucking an avatar to the real thing?”
His arrogance-and his perspicacity-take Adrian’s breath away. The situation threatens to slide out of control. “Perhaps you’re second best.”
Tony gives another crack of laughter. “Never. I’m the best there is. Try me. Come on. Try me, take me, taste me-”
Sometimes control is overrated. Sometimes there’s nothing to be gained from thinking. Adrian grabs the boy and hauls him across the room. Tony laughs again, breathless, eyes glittering. He twists free and drags the t-shirt over his head. In the split-second when Tony’s blinkered by the garment, Adrian knocks him off his feet. The boy topples backwards over the side of the couch and lands with a grunt of complaint.
Adrian drops down on top of him. White scatter-cushions are dislodged and tossed to the floor. Their clothes follow, crumpled, torn.
“I want to be on top.” Tony squirms out from beneath Adrian and reverses their positions. “I’m always on top.”
It’s not what he’s fantasised about, it’s not what the perfect eromenos would do, but Adrian allows it. Imperfection brings its own rewards. The boy settles himself astride Adrian, an assured horseman. He backs up, humming softly. His hands slide over Adrian’s cock as if in fascinated wonder. His touch is rough, clumsy, too eager. Adrian tries to rein him back. “Wait-”
“Can’t.” Tony grins. “C’mon. Do me.”
The earlier anger surfaces. Adrian doesn’t like being used. He knows the boy is a slut. He wants to stake his claim, even if he’s only one of many. Tony will not forget him so easily. Adrian spits into his palm and strokes it over his cock. Not ideal, not perfect, but neither is Tony. Adrian guides himself in and pushes up, hard and sharp.
The boy’s eyes widen. “Aw, jeez.”
Adrian thrusts harder. Tony groans and slumps sideways, hands clawing. Adrian clutches at him, and the boy struggles feebly. “Hurts. Shit, it hurts.”
“You’ve never done this before,” Adrian says, voice strangled with disbelief.
“Had a man’s dick in my ass? No. Never.” The boy grinds down, teeth bared in a snarl, sweat streaking his face. “Fuck, it hurts.”
Adrian doesn’t know how to continue. “Why me?”
“Maybe because I wanted to see the smartest man in the world clueless for once.”
“You arrogant prick.”
Tony grins. “Takes one to know one.” He wriggles, breathes; rocks back and forth, breathes again. “Doesn’t hurt so much now. You gonna fuck me or do I have to do everything myself?”
Adrian fucks him. Without tenderness, without consideration; just raw physicality. He makes Tony ache and bleed, and through the glimmerings of tears and the voice rubbed dry and the sticky, messy exhaustion, Adrian hears Tony laugh. Not the laughter of madness, but a warm, rich chuckle of genuine amusement, genuine pleasure.
“Tomorrow,” Tony says, “let’s do that again.”
Adrian stares. His anger is brief, the fire already sated. He gets up and dresses in calculated haste, anxious to be away from the couch, away from Tony’s warm, languid nakedness of body and spirit.
Time for a retreat. This battle is lost. He cannot defeat a hedonist.
*
Six days later, Tony brings him a blueprint and a yellow file containing detailed technical specs for a guided missile system. They sit on the rug in front of the open fire in Adrian’s penthouse, while behind them the rain batters against the windows. Tony is barefoot, toes digging into the soft pile. He’s taken off his tie and is playing with it, wrapping it around his ankles.
Adrian wonders if the boy is aware of what he’s doing, what signals he’s sending. Probably not. Tony has no subtlety when it comes to seduction. Putting the thought from his mind, Adrian studies the blueprints and suggests amendments. Tony listens, argues, and finally accepts. He starts redesigning the weapon.
“This was what you drew on the napkins.” Adrian gets to his feet and goes over to the sideboard. He pours drinks-whisky and ice for the boy, mineral water for himself-and carries them back to the rug.
“Yep.” Tony takes the cut-glass tumbler, gulps at the whisky. “I’m always designing weapons. I guess if I were a poet, I’d always be writing poetry. I’d be a bad poet. But I’m good at designing weapons.” He holds out the annotated blueprint. “Want it? You can have it.”
Adrian shakes his head. “It’s unnecessary.”
“It’s very necessary. Don’t you watch the news? The Doomsday Clock-”
“It needs a name.” Adrian nods towards the blueprint.
Tony blinks, frowning at both the interruption and the non sequitur. “A name? Dad always numbered them. Stark Mark V. I always hated the rhyme. Bad poet. Weapons should sound scary. ‘Stark Mark Whatever’ doesn’t sound scary.”
“Then name it.”
“I’m no good at that sort of thing.”
Adrian rattles the ice in his glass. “Name it after a battle.”
The boy smiles. “Waterloo?”
Adrian chuckles. “Guagamela.”
“What the fuck is Guagamela?”
“It’s where Alexander the Great defeated the Persians.”
Tony wrinkles his nose. “Nah. The name has to fit on an order sheet. Besides, you think those clowns in the military will be able to spell Guagamela?”
“Good point.” Adrian sips at his water. “Kadesh. Site of Rameses II’s victory over the Hittites.”
Tony gives him a look. “I thought that was a draw.”
“But you like the name?”
“I like it. A bit esoteric, but it’s got more going for it than Guagamela.” Tony crunches an ice cube as he jots down three sets of formulae on the back of the blueprint.
Adrian nurses the glass in his hands. “One day soon, we’ll have no need for weapons.”
Tony glances up. “You reckon?”
“I know.” Adrian resists the urge to smile, hugging his knowledge tight inside. If only he could tell the boy his plans... but no one can know.
Tony taps his fingers against the tumbler. “Having a weapon is a deterrent.”
“Doctor Manhattan was supposed to be a deterrent. His presence has merely made the Soviets more determined to attack.”
“That’s because Doctor Manhattan is-was... kind of still is-human, and humans get emotional and make mistakes. Weapons don’t make mistakes.”
Amusement curves Adrian’s lips. “But humans choose when to fire the weapons.”
“Um.” Tony drains the remainder of his whisky. “Maybe I should develop a range of smart weapons. Bombs that can think for themselves. Set parameters for conflict assessment and let the weapon decide.”
“Maybe,” Adrian says, and takes another sip of water. He considers remarking on Tony’s avoidance of responsibility, but he lets it slide. There’s little point in chastising the boy. In the coming months, Adrian will take on all the responsibility, all the guilt, on behalf of the whole world. And after the apocalypse, Tony Stark’s weapons will no longer be needed. The thought stills Adrian’s mind. He doesn’t want to render the boy as obsolete as his weapons. Perhaps he can think of another way to use Tony.
Adrian smiles and says again, “Maybe.”