Work Text:
“You will not inherit the company and its holdings.”
A young shetona spits out his drink. His father, an older hyune man, easily leans outside the splash zone of iced coffee.
“What?!”
The shout echoes throughout the upscale cafe they’ve chosen to meet in, drawing a few stares. When they alight on the pair, they slide back off. Compared to their usual antics, this is nothing.
Iron adjusts his cufflinks, unfazed. He checks his reflection in a nearby window, not a salt or pepper strand out of place. He tugs one down to frame his face artfully. Perfect. He smooths his waistcoat down as he resettles in his seat, rings glittering in the neon.
“You heard me.”
Steel wipes his lips with the back of his hand, long black ears twitching. His dad really knew how to piss him off. He puts his cup down before he can throw it in Iron’s face. Or worse, spill it down his designer hoodie. He puts on his best corporate smile and grits his question out through his teeth.
“Please. Explain. Why.”
Iron looks blithely off to the side, takes a sip from his espresso martini.
“Father.” Steel’s smile widens as he tacks the word on, a vein throbbing at his temple.
“Well, since my one and only dearly beloved son asked so nicely… It's nothing personal. In fact, that’s exactly why. It’s so not personal, I’m not just going to sign it off to you.” Iron smiles slyly at Steel over his glass. The same smile you’d see on a billboard or the side of a cargo wheeler. One floats past, giving a longer pause to the habitual flicker of Solution Nine’s electrope. Steel is treated to the sight of his father’s insufferable smile backlit by a larger, brighter version of it.
Iron continues. “What, I’ll give you my company when I bite the dust, the one I built from the ground up, just because you’re my son? You see how that looks, right?” Iron spreads his hands expansively, emphasizing the truly massive size of his holdings.
Iron Works Incorporated is the one of the latest and largest names in the game for nearly all of Everkeep’s needs. From entertainment consoles to civilian firearms to snack machines, they hold a sizable portion of the tower’s revenue and income generation. With a restrained growth policy and amicable rivalries with market competitors, stockholder satisfaction and profits are both rock-solid. It looks like smooth sailing ahead for the company… if it weren’t for the aging CEO refusing to wear a regulator, with no standing policy for succession.
Steel doesn’t necessarily want to be the next in line, but he certainly wouldn’t say no to the salary. And the benefits. And the luxury wheeler. Okay, he does want to be next in line to the bank account. Just not the executive position.
“Ugghh. So what the hell did you send me to business school for?!” Steel slumps back into his seat, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Months of lectures, seminars, and corporate training down the drain. Though he did enjoy the mixers.
“Oh, business school? The four years of it that you skipped out on for street racing? It’ll come in handy.” Iron empties his espresso martini, flagging the barista down for another, and the barista actually leaves the counter to oblige him. This isn’t even regular service, Iron just pays them enough to do it for him.
Steel groans, slumping in his chair until he can only see the ceiling, not his dad’s smug smile. Of course he knew about that. Leave it to Iron to figure something out but wait until it blows up in Steel’s face. He had to have gotten his sense of schadenfreude somewhere.
“Is that it? You’re not giving it to me ‘cause of the races?”
Iron inspects his fingernails. “No, it’s not because of the races. I’m just not giving you anything.”
“What?!” Steel slams his hands on the table, his coffee jumping and listing far to the side. He hurriedly rights it before cold brew gets all over his sneakers. The second shout draws less glances, the cafe’s patrons growing tired of the novelty.
“Well, from this point on I’m not giving you anything. You’ll keep your apartment, and your wheeler, and all your other things.” Iron ticks Steel’s worldly possessions off on his fingers, rings flashing. “I’m not a monster, you know. But I am a realist.” He fixes Steel with a stern gaze, brows furrowing.
“You’re not going to inherit the company, because you’ll have to earn it. I can’t rightly give you the keys to the kingdom if you don’t have the guts and the brains to rule, Steel.”
“And… how exactly am I supposed to earn it?” Steel raises a brow warily, wise to Iron’s tricks.
“Oh, you know. Get the signatures and approval of the board’s fourteen heads. A bit of glad-handing, a little showmanship. The usual.”
Steel scoffs, shaking his head. “Well, that’s easy. They love me.” He sent them fruit baskets all the time.
“Good, you’ll have a head start.” Iron nods sagely, swirling his new espresso martini.
“A what?!”
“I wasn’t being completely truthful. It is a little personal, you’ll love this one. Get this: it’s a race. The first to a majority of the board–” Iron doesn’t get to finish his spiel, Steel has already bolted out of his chair, running for the lift with coffee in hand.
There’s a violent screech of rubber on concrete, and Iron stands in time to see his son peel out of the garage on his modified wheeler, leaving dark slashes on the road behind him.
He takes a sip from his glass. It’s a good thing Steel caught on quick… but a shame he didn’t stay for the whole briefing. That would have been enough to cancel out his head start on all the other interns, assistants, and assorted rank and file of Iron Works Incorporated.