Chapter Text
Justin Hammer’s name wasn’t always Justin Hammer.
He doesn’t really remember what it was anymore, but he knows that much.
Honestly? This ‘memories of another world’ thing was more a pain in the ass than anything else, at least at first.
It might’ve been cool if they remembered something useful— concrete dates, specific innovations, hell, even any tips of what stocks to invest in— but no, they had to get short end of the stick with weird dreams, identity crises, and a longing for a family they’d never had. Which was really unfair, because they couldn't even remember their own name, let alone any faces; they should not have been feeling wistful for tight hugs and warm laughter, the smell of freshly-baked bread and hot chocolate shouldn't make them tear up. Their parents felt wrong, which was unfair on a number of levels and if they thought about it too much, they'd just break down crying again for no good reason.
No cool pros, just a bunch of random cons for a schtick they didn't even sign up for.
Oh, and another round of puberty, because why the hell not. Like last time hadn’t been enough of a pain in the ass, and this time they were pretty sure some of these parts were new which meant even more awkwardness.
Ugh. They wanted a refund.
…okay, so it probably could’ve been worse.
Justin has vague recollections of going to sleep hungry, of huddling with their younger sibling under blankets because their parents couldn’t pay the electrical bill— so really, in the great scheme of things, being born as part of the 1% this round was. Something.
Trippy as hell, is what it was, honestly.
This family was loaded, and under other circumstances, they might’ve even been able to enjoy it— if, y’know, they hadn’t had the incredibly shitty luck of being born two years before Tony Stark.
“Look at what he’s doing, that could be you” this, “study hard, he’s going to be your rival” that— geez, if any other kid had been in Justin’s shoes, he would not have envied them.
If he didn’t already have a firmly established sense of self, it would have been a mindfuck of a childhood because for some reason, his father kept comparing them? And yeah, Justin could kinda see some of the parallels— they were about the same age, both firstborn sons and heirs to their parents’ respective companies— but that’s about where the similarities ended.
Look, Justin wasn’t a genius, okay? He was fairly bright for his age, if a bit quieter than most, but…he wasn’t a one-in-a-million prodigy. And, up until he was 6, that had been acceptable.
But then the press went wild because oh, look, Howard’s son built a circuit board at age four, and it all went downhill from there because suddenly, normal wasn’t good enough. Not for his parents, anyway.
Sometimes, he wondered what would’ve happened if it had been another kid in his shoes— how they would’ve handled the small army of private tutors and the extra classes they kept being signed up for in the hopes of finding something they excelled in.
The pressure of constantly being compared to a once-in-a-generation prodigy, and always being found wanting.
Justin wasn’t afraid of hard work— but it was grating, even for him.
He played along mostly because it wasn't like he had anything better to do and he was bored, but... six-year-olds aren't exactly known for their dexterity, so piano lessons were a bust. Chess was okay but he got a headache after a while, just about anything involving hardware made him go cross-eyed and after he 'accidentally' almost set a bench on fire that was the end of that. He'd never been a great artist either, and the more stuff they shoved at him, the less interested he was in trying.
Really, just about the only silver lining to this ‘second life’ thing was his adorable little sister, Stephanie.
She, at least, looked up to him: her gap-toothed smile didn’t hold any expectations for anything other than the piggyback rides he regularly offered, and this time he didn’t even have to worry about medical bills, or— or—
Anyway.
His family and the Starks run in the same social circles, because of course they do. His mother turned up her nose and muttered darkly about nouveau riche at home when they came up on the news, but that didn't stop her from plastering on a smile and going to just about every single high society gathering there was under the sun.
Now that he’s getting older, Justin’s being dragged along to all of the fancy shindigs with his parents, and it’s only due to two lifetimes’ worth of self-control that keeps his polite smile from wavering when he’s introduced to the bane of his existence.
“Hi, my name’s Tony Stark.” The little brat said, and Justin bit back a sigh as he shook his hand.
…so, the Stark heir his parents kept going on about was a kid. Actually a kid, which just made this mess that much more pathetic because part of Justin had almost been starting to want to buy into this rivalry thing, but.
In this life, and the last one, they’d been an older sibling.
This time, despite everything, he could tell he was softer— he had never gone to bed hungry, never had to worry about the roof over his head, or being solely responsible for his younger sibling’s health and safety— but.
Old habits die hard.
Of course Justin’s father hears “the Starks are sending their seven-year-old heir to boarding school” and thinks “good idea, why didn’t I think of that?”
Of course.
Of fucking course.
Steph had cried when they’d packed their things, and for that alone, Justin would never forgive their parents.
The other brats at boarding school are more invested in the Hammer-Stark rivalry than they are.
…this was going to be a long 9 years, wasn’t it.
One of the perks to going to one of the most elite boarding schools in the world was the options. Certainly, Justin doubted other places offered skiing and fencing and over eleven languages in their electives.
Not that he was complaining: it was definitely a way to keep busy, certainly much better than the constant attempts at one-upmanship that came part and parcel with cramming the richest heirs, heiresses, and honest-to-goodness royalty in one place.
At the end of the day, though, they were all kids. Bratty, entitled little shits who were still at the stage where they constantly went “my father will hear about this!” and Justin had way better things to do with his time than engage in those petty little playground attempts at power plays.
So he dove into everything the school had to offer, bouncing from elective to elective like a ping pong ball, and trying not to think too hard as to why Spanish had come so easily to him, though he’d never studied it before— or why he’d felt a pang when the instructor had congratulated him on his accent. Turns out that this hobbies thing was a lot more fun when he was the one choosing it, rather than some random adults trying to drill it into his head.
Somewhere down the line, Justin…kinda made a name for himself? Apparently?
Ugh, they’d never understand these people.
Okay, so apparently he’d kinda become an older brother figure of sorts to the brats around here? Somehow? Even though he hadn’t exactly been planning on doing anything of the sort when he saw an underclassman struggling during practice, or stopped fights before they could start in the common room because he’d just sat down and didn’t have the patience to move all his stuff somewhere else to study.
Didn’t make sense to him, but apparently it happened often enough for some of the professors to write ‘good leadership skills’ on his transcripts, so whatever.
As a bonus, it made his old man happy. Not that Justin gave a damn about what he thought about him personally, but the increase in his ‘allowance’ [it was in the triple digits, like hell he was calling it that] was nice.
Among the hobbies Justin bounced between, there were a few that raised more eyebrows than others.
Knitting, for instance, was something some of the more annoying brats liked to laugh about. They eased up when they found out he sent the scarves and hats he made to his little sister, but… eh, whatever.
Sewing, too— apparently it was okay if it was framed as a Boy Scout-esque ‘know the basics so you can always be prepared!’ way, but the moment he did any sort of embroidery there went his respectability.
Well, at least nobody gave him a hard time about cooking. But then, his chilaquiles had some of these brats’ eyes watering just from the smell of it, so.
It still didn’t sit well with him sometimes— kinda like how puberty had Not Been Fun on a number on levels, but hey, if all else failed, he could just ignore it harder.
It hadn’t failed him yet.
Stephanie insisted on going to boarding school with him when she got to the age he’d been shipped off at.
It was…nice, having his little sister around again.
It was a good thing Justin had been okay with being designated the heir of Hammer Industries, because Steph was… exactly like he remembered her.
Cheerful, upbeat, startlingly devious and manipulative when she wanted to be, and just a tad bit spoiled.
…okay, so Justin had probably contributed a bit to that last one. In his defense, he’d been doing his best to shield his sister from the staggeringly high expectations he himself had to deal with, but look, he wanted at least one of them to have some semblance of a happy childhood, okay?
Goodness knew he hadn’t [not this time, nor the last].
Stephanie wasn’t interested in the family business, was more interested in pursuing a career in the arts.
Justin, of course, encouraged her wholeheartedly.
Their parents weren’t entirely happy about it, but…wasn’t like they had much to complain about. Not when Justin was always in the top ten of his year, not when the professors practically gushed over his responsibility and work ethic.
He was no Tony Stark, but he’d made a name for himself nonetheless.
“So, we’re supposed to be rivals?” The bane of his existence said once, at yet another gala. “Howard says so, anyway.”
“Seems that way,” Justin shrugged as they pilfered a flute from a nearby table, carefully not commenting on how he’d referred to his father by his first name. Wasn't like they had much room to talk about strained relationships, not when they'd taken to using their father as a textbook example of what not to do as a parent.
“You’re not really acting like one.”
“Well,” Justin sipped at his flute before making a face when he discovered it was champagne and not apple cider like he’d hoped, “it’s nothing personal, just business. Healthy competition, y’know? Someone’s got to.”
Stark eyed him for a moment, before giving him a brilliant smile. “You know, I think I’d like that.”
Justin would never, ever understand these people.
In the time Justin Hammer got his degree in business, Tony Stark got several Ph.Ds.
Not that he envied the guy: the idea of being shoved into the limelight after losing his entire family? Hard pass.
For some reason, Tony Stark seemed to think they were friends.
Why.
Sure, Justin tried to be as cordial with him as he did with anyone else, but… how on Earth did that translate into being friends?
“You look at him like he’s a kid,” Steph says once, laughing, “you look at all of us that way, haven’t you noticed?”
“Well, to be fair—”
“You’re only a few years older than us, but you keep acting like you’re dad. More like a dad than our actual dad, sometimes,” her smile dropped for a moment, “don’t think I forgot that time he didn’t even call for your birthday.”
Justin made a face. “But what’s that got to do with anything?”
She sighed, then gave him a smile and a look he couldn’t quite decipher. “You’ll figure it out eventually.”
By the time Justin Hammer became the CEO of Hammer Industries, Tony Stark had held the same post in his company for over half a decade.
Yet…well, something weird was going on.
Maybe it was because Justin’d had more time to prepare for the cutthroat world that was the defense industry, but—
For some reason, he couldn’t help but think Tony was softer than he’d thought.
No-brainer contracts that would have been a cinch to broker, passed over simply because their distributors didn’t pass their incredibly high standards; buyers who wanted in, but whose past associations— very, very far in the past— meant SI didn’t even consider them.
Justin couldn’t understand it.
For someone in the industry, Stark’s morals were…unusual. Respectable, from one perspective, but remarkably naive from any self-respecting businessman who wanted to turn a profit.
He was fairly certain the only reason Stark Industries was considered number one in the sector was because of the constant influx of new designs; they just were turning down too many contracts for him to think otherwise.
Sure, sometimes Hammer weapons found themselves in the wrong hands— much more often than Stark weapons, regrettably— but it was one of the hazards that came with the business. They’d both known it from the get-go; Stark weapons were considered the best for a reason, even though somewhere down the line, his company’d gotten a reputation for no-frills dependability and ruggedness to the point where unscrupulous individuals would do anything to get their hands on either. Wasn’t like there was anything they could do about it, not when money talked in ways laws didn’t.
Why Stark was so hung up over it, he just. Couldn’t wrap his head around.
Stark was proclaimed dead, and there was strong evidence to indicate the attackers had been using his guns.
…well, fuck.
“This is fine,” Justin muttered as his personal headache proceeded to come back from the dead only to say his company was going to stop doing the thing it was known for and making an ungodly mess in the stock market while at it, “it’s not like it affects me much, anyway.”
Overnight, Hammer Industries became number one in the defense sector.
Justin was not a happy camper about the spotlight.
Even more so, when he had to take additional measures so his sister could continue enjoy the privacy she’d had after pursuing her dreams as an artist because the press didn’t want to leave well enough alone.
“You know, you could’ve given me a warning.” Justin scowled when he saw Tony at the next gala.
“You handled it well enough, didn’t you?”
Ugh.
His headache was back, and worst part was, the smile he got more than made up for it.