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Tony is four and he wakes up thirsty in the middle of the night. They’ve only been in the California house for a month and the halls are cold and dark and he can’t remember where the light switches are. Eventually he finds the kitchen, but he stops outside the door because he can hear Mommy and Daddy in there and he wants to listen to what they’re saying. Tony pushes on the door softly and it opens a centimetre or two – just enough for him to peer through – but he doesn’t understand what he sees.
Mommy is kneeling on the cold tiles of the floor, naked but for the funny collar she wears sometimes – usually when Daddy is angry, Tony has noticed – and her hands are tied behind her. He can’t see Daddy, but Tony can hear him talking to Mommy and he’s saying weird things about how Mommy has been breaking the rules, and how she needs to be punished. Mommy doesn’t look upset though, and Daddy steps into view and tells her to undo his pants. Tony watches as Mommy leans forwards and works the button and fly on his Daddy’s pants with her mouth until they’re open and then Daddy grabs her hair and pulls it back and it looks like it hurts and Mommy flinches and Daddy says something too quiet for him to hear but he hears the last word and that’s bitch and Tony knows what that means and it’s a Bad Word that you’re not allowed to say ever, ever.
Tony makes a noise and Daddy and Mommy turn towards him and Mommy looks shocked and Daddy looks angry and so Tony runs. He hears his Mommy tell Daddy to go after him, but then Daddy says “Don’t forget your place, Maria, I give the orders” and there’s a sound that Tony can’t place.
Daddy doesn’t follow him, but in the morning he’s woken by Mommy and she says she’s going to talk to him about Adult Stuff. There’s a small bruise forming under her eye. Tony hides under his Captain America blanket and cries for ten minutes once Mommy leaves.
~
Tony is fourteen and he’s at MIT. As the youngest person there, he’s also the only person who hasn’t manifested yet as either a Dom or a Sub and he’s heard a rumour that there’s a betting pool on which one he’s going to be. He’s tried to guess himself, but it’s hard to tell. Tony is confident and loud – but whether that means he is going to be ordering someone around some day or if it means he needs to be knocked down a peg or two by a leather-wearing Dom is open for interpretation.
Dad gets drunk one night, during the holidays and tells him that whichever he was he was still going to have to earn his place in the company, Dom or Sub, Howard Stark believes you had to earn your place; Tony almost tunes his drunk ramblings like usual but then it gets interesting. Even if you’re a pussy Sub, Dad slurs at him, you don’t let some prick of a Dom tell you how to build an engine, don’t let ‘em near that. Don’t go losing my company after I’m dead just ‘cos you’re too fucking stupid to tell ‘em to get outta the workshop.
Tony takes that to be Dad’s version of the We’ll Accept You However You Are talk Mom gave him.
~
Tony is fifteen and he unexpectedly answers a question one of the stupider guys in the class asks him with a Yes sir and everyone laughs. Someone pinches his cheek and proclaims him the cutest little Submissive ever and Tony runs out and calls his Mom from his room.
She tells him not to worry about telling Howard, she’ll do that herself.
When he gets home the following break, Dad doesn’t even look at him.
Obi does.
Tony goes into his room one night to find Obi sitting in his chair wearing a bathrobe and apparently nothing else. Obi talks quietly, says that normally Tony would learn how to be a good Submissive from people his own age, but because he’s already half-way through his time at MIT and still the youngest person there that doesn’t seem possible.
“I don’t trust those people you’re at school with, Tony” he says, “I don’t trust them not to take advantage of you. But you’ve got to learn somehow.”
He tells Tony to come sit on his lap and Tony complies, he feels this tugging in his chest upon hearing the order and when he’s seated – straddling Obi’s legs and their faces an inch apart – the feeling abates and he feels kind of... good.
“You’re a very handsome boy.” Obi says as he brings a hand up to stroke the side of Tony’s face, and Tony can only melt into the touch. “Very good boy.”
They kiss for awhile, Obi’s tongue pushing past Tony’s lips and laying claim to his mouth. Tony’s jeans are stretched because of the way he’s spreading his legs and he notices eventually that Obi’s cock is hard and rubbing slowly against the crotch of Tony’s pants. Obi pulls back and smiles then pushes Tony off his lap and leaves him sprawled on the ground at his feet.
“You’re going to suck me now.”
Tony crawls forwards and grasps Obi’s erection in two hands, he looks up and tries to say how but Obi pulls him by the hair and his cock goes down Tony’s throat making him choke. He pulls back and coughs a little before slowly taking it into his mouth again.
Obi pulls his hair whenever he feels teeth and Tony reflects somewhat morosely that it doesn’t look like positive reinforcement is going to be his method of training, rather punishment to discourage bad behaviour. But that’s okay, because Tony doesn’t mind being hurt that much and a little hair pulling is hardly going to scar him for life, besides, he trusts Obi.
~
Tony is seventeen and he is finally done at MIT. Mom cries a little, Howard (he hasn’t been ‘Dad’ for a while now, only in front of the cameras because you can’t show weakness Tony, they’ll eat you alive) looks happy and proud but Tony suspects that has more to do with the flask Mom passed him and the people taking photographs all around them.
Obi ties him face down on the bed and fucks him with only a little preparation that night; he says he doesn’t want Tony to forget his place and deliberately bruises his back and hips.
Tony comes so hard he blacks out.
When he wakes a few minutes later he is alone.
~
Tony is eighteen and his parents are dead.
Obi takes over the company and doesn’t have much time for Tony anymore, he just pushes a bottle of alcohol into his hand and leaves.
He’s tried going to other people but Obi finds out and punishes him for it every time.
He’s still Obi’s, then, it’s kind of comforting knowing he’s got someone looking out for him. He just wishes that Obi had time for something other than punishments these days.
~
Tony is twenty-one and he inherits Stark Industries, as per his father’s wishes.
Obi smiles, showing a lot of teeth, and says he’s so happy that Tony finally has what he deserves.
Obi leaves bruises all over Tony’s body, but he kisses them all better afterwards.
It feels good to be loved again.
~
Tony is twenty-two and he has a fight with Obi. There’s a lot of screaming and Obi tells him that he wished he’d never taken Tony on as a Sub because he is worthless, absolutely worthless. Tony leaves and gets drunk, picking up some anonymous man in a bar and lets him fuck him using only spit and soap as lube in the bathroom; it burns a little, but afterwards the man kisses Tony’s tears away and tells him how fucking perfect he is, so amazing, gonna make someone real happy one day darlin’ and apologises for hurting him while petting his hair.
It’s the best sex Tony’s ever had.
When he stumbles home hours later Obi is there and he calls Tony a slut and a whore, fucking him bareback on the couch and then using a ten dollar note to wipe come off his stomach before shoving it into Tony’s mouth and leaving.
~
Tony is twenty-three and he invents an artificial intelligence that he is slowly teaching to run his house. Obi says he’s really proud of Tony and suggests he calls it JEEVES. Tony calls it JARVIS instead and gives the man who does his dry-cleaning $5000 to come and read a selection of novels into a microphone to give JARVIS a voice.
Obi asks if he can come into the workshop sometime, but Tony’s busy and the newly made JARVIS locks the door. Tony spends the entire next day tied to the bed, at the end of the day Obi isn’t Obi anymore: he’s Master.
~
Tony is twenty-four and JARVIS has learnt enough to be able to make phone calls by himself, which is why it’s not such a surprise when the police turn up on Tony’s doorstep claiming they’ve had a report of abuse. Tony laughs it off and tells them that JARVIS clearly was over reacting and promises to make a large donation to the Police Department to pay them back for their troubles.
Master sits down with Tony and makes him write in a code into JARVIS’s most basic programming that makes him unable to alert anyone in any way of anything that Master does in the house.
“JARVIS is a machine, Tony, he clearly doesn’t know your limits like I do and we don’t want any more mistakes do we? Better safe than sorry, right?”
Master is uncharacteristically gentle as puts gauze over the cuts in Tony’s back.
~
Tony is twenty-six and he sleeps with the daughter of an investor on Master’s orders. When they’re finished, Master calls him a whore and
He doesn’t remember what happened after that.
Tony sleeps with a lot more people, on Master’s orders of course, always on Master’s orders, and he always pleases them before himself just like he was taught. Sometimes they are men, mostly they are women – it really doesn’t matter to Tony, what matters is that he makes them happy and good things happen for the company.
Tony reads about his sexual escapades with various important people in some trashy magazines.
“They think you’re a slut, Tony,” Master says, “Guess that’s exactly what you are.”
He sleeps with more and more people after that, not just ones who can help Stark Industries, but models and actors, musicians and artists, a few members of Parliament and a few of their wives. Tony Stark’s reputation as a playboy is formed in less than a year, and for some reason no one ever realises that prior to his twenty-sixth birthday he’d never been known to have a relationship with anyone.
Master calls him a Good Boy, and Master calls him a slut. It feels the same, either way.
~
Tony is thirty-one and he hires a cute twenty-something to be his personal assistant. Her name is Virginia Potts, but she prefers to go by ‘Pepper’ for some reason. He doesn’t bother remembering her name – real or otherwise – until she wakes him up for a meeting one morning by untying his ankles from the bed.
“You should really be untied before you go to sleep, Mr Stark,” she says, her voice firm and disapproving, “you don’t want to accidentally cut off circulation during the night.”
She doesn’t comment on the scratches down his chest, or the burn marks on his thighs. There’s the sound of someone moving in Tony’s en suite, it’s Master but Potts assumes it’s a one-night stand and asks if she should escort him or her out.
“Nah,” says Tony, pulling on some clothes, “it wouldn’t do to have her be seen by the press doing the walk of shame.”
“Famous?”
“And married,” Tony grins, and limps out the door.
~
Tony is thirty-seven when he is kidnapped in Afghanistan.
Yinsen helps him through.
Post-Afghanistan, Obi is different. His touches are unfamiliar and strange; once Tony would have thought that it wasn’t his place to judge Master, but Obi isn’t his Master anymore – he’s changed. Or maybe it’s Tony who has changed?
Tony is slumped on his couch, his Arc Reactor is missing and Obi was the one who took it. JARVIS can’t do a thing because of that code from so many years ago. Tony is thirty-seven and alone, and he’s not sure how he got here.
And then Obi is dead.
And Tony killed him.
And that’s all there is to it, really.