quigonejinn | Windows.

It should be clarified: it isn't all men during this period, and it's not entirely a habit that Tony gives up afterwards. Once in a while, when he's in the mood. Pepper knows about it, in fact. Has a separate dry cleaner on call in the mornings so that there aren't questions about why it's been Oscar de la Renta for three months, then suddenly, a Cavalli tux with initials on the inside cuff in black silk thread.

And yes, when he was over there, Tony tried mechanic for a week and a half until 1) boredom, as fixing diesel engines doesn't exactly compare after four years in MIT robotics labs, putting things together that made DARPA wet its panties, and thirteen years before that with an unlimited budget in his father's R&D department, putting things together that made Wall Street wet their imported Italian silk panties 2) he blew something up. Accidentally, mind you. And charm and a smile and a nice round ass weren't getting him out of paying for destroying half of a trucking depot, so he put a call in to the family accountants, and in retrospect, this is how Obadiah finds him in Brussels.

Stories about Obadiah and Howard bumming it during the early days of getting the company on its feet aside, it's probably the shittiest hotel room that Obadiah has ever been in. Tony is surprised that it'll even fi -- wait, no, he takes that back. He's eminently aware that the room will fit two people, even two men. It's just that usually, the bodies involved are a little more naked and whole lot more, ah, intermingled. Still a small room, though. Windows narrower than Obadiah's tie; Tony hasn't worn one in two years.

"Tony, my boy, this is not exactly what your father had in mind when he left you everything."

Obadiah isn't smoking a cigar, but Tony swears he can suddenly smell one.

...

So no, it wasn't all men. Tony wants you to know this, but he also has the memory of the first night. "Spaghetti! Spaghetti!" is probably the only Italian that Tony knows, but it was somehow enough to find this guy in Berlin, of all places, and there was a lot of liquor involved, probably a good amount of coke, too, and was Ecstasy on the street at that point? It might have been. Probably, if it was. At that point, though, it wasn't even the liquor or the drugs or the money. Tony still had a couple grand in his pocket. The guy was pretty good in bed, and Tony remembers a memorable round of groping in the taxi, followed by a walk through the hotel lobby -- hey, I think Dad called me and Mom once from the lobby of this place once, after that meeting where the Brits were begging to buy Stark Interceptors -- then nice sheets. A mouth on his bare shoulder, and bless second-tier NATO countries for having shit military budget that couldn't afford Stark equipment because it meant a good long blowjob punctuated with breaks for what must have been Italian for, "Your cock tastes great."

A good long blowjob, a nice place to sleep for the night, and Tony can't even remember if he blew the guy back. It must have been pretty good, though, because when he woke up, there was something ridiculously six million lira on the nightstand.

That's an exaggeration. Kind of. Tony never even took out the trash as a kid, OK? Much less get paid a quarter every week for it. His job was to sit around and be a genius. When he was at Cambridge, he won a semester's supply of beer, free, from a local brewery in exchange for fixing their aeration problems, so he basically forgot to spend his allowance for three months, and at the end of it, he went, Shit. And bought himself a Benz he never even drove. He just had his mom's driver take it down to the Long Island house; it's probably still there with all of the twelve miles that Rhodey put on it before he flipped the fuck out at Tony for not having any insurance on it.

"What, you need insurance? To drive?"

So yes, in the morning, Tony sits up in the sheets, realizes that he's stark naked except for a hickey about the size of a British pound coin on the inside of his thigh, and, laughing, slides over to count the first honest night's work he's ever done.

...

"Christ, Tony, if you were that hungry, you should've just gone and gotten some money. You know who your dad banked with over here, right? They would have recognized you even if you'd lost your ATM card. Or you could have called me."

Tony is in between bites of -- he's not exactly sure what he's eating. Pork, maybe. With some kind of sauce. And rolls. Not a cheeseburger, but it's not bad, especially if he tears off chunks of the rolls and stuffs them in his mouth at the same time as the pork-and-sauce. And they're at a restaurant, and Obadiah ordered for them both in whatever ungodly, not-English language they speak here.

"Bat wath -- " Tony swallows to clear his mouth, but doesn't hold back on gesturing with the fork in his hand. For the past couple months, when he's been in places with tablecloths, he wasn't exactly being paid to think about the food. "That was the fucking point."

"Your mother wouldn't like you using that language."

"Fuck that." Tony looks over, and then, with every shred of dignity and defiance he can muster, he reaches over and slides Obadiah's plate over so that he can get started on Obadiah's serving of pork-and-sauce-and-tasty-rolls-that-are-still-warm-inside. And he gestures with his fork for the waiter to bring them some more goddamn wine.

...

He wants you to know that it wasn't just men, that he totally enjoyed the work, and that he didn't fucking do it because it was some kind of fucking rebellion. Quitting the family business to come to Europe was rebellion. Bending over for fun and profit was just that -- bending over for fun and profit and coming all over somebody else's hand while somebody else kissed him and somebody else watched.

Back at the hostel, stuffed under the mattress, Tony actually has a stack of bills that could choke one of those big fucking Belgian horses with hairy feet.

After eating both of their dinners, he orders three desserts.

...

It's cold and clear when they go back out on the street. Obadiah pays, of course, and Tony is wearing a long-sleeved shirt and the same pair of dirty-ass jeans that he's been wearing for about a month or so, and he crosses his arms and tries to eye-fuck the wind into not blowing so hard right through his shirt. It doesn't work. The street is empty, and the moon is low and yellow.

Thank God Obadiah has a driver. Hotel guy, it looks like. Not one of his usual staffers.

"I don't even fucking know what to call you now," Tony says while he slides into the back seat and Obadiah ducks down to follow. "I mean, the fuck? I don't care how many bottles of Chateau La Fifi I drank. Mr. Stane? Am I back in fucking high school?"

Never mind that Tony went to high school for a total of three-and-a-half weeks before he got so bored that he went back to fucking around in the labs at Columbia and arguing (and winning at arguing) with short-listed Nobel Prize nominees about miniaturization problems. Obadiah doesn't say anything for a while, not even after the driver has closed the door and come back around the front, and Obadiah just looks at Tony in the light from the street lamps.

"You got anything back at the hostel you need to pick up?"

"I'll piss myself laughing if I ever have to say, 'Obadiah, will you please tell the Board about this year's quarterly results?'"

Obadiah interprets this, correctly, as No, so he says a couple words to the driver, and the car swings around in the narrow street. Tony assumes that they're going back to the hotel, which is good because his fingers are so fucking cold they're going to drop off at the first knuckle or something.

...

There was a guy who wanted to see Tony do his wife. Which, fine, Tony has no problems with that. Consenting adults and all that, and at twenty one, he is definitely adult. And definitely consenting. Met them both at the same, reasonably upscale hotel bar -- upscale enough to be looking for something like him, downscale enough not to meet people he knows from home, which he likes to avoid unless he's feeling particularly risk-prone, and the wife wasn't bad. Neither was the guy. Older, but definitely not in the unthinkable arena. So they went up, the three of them. Nice hotel, but it was Parisian, so no elevator, and Tony remembers the winding stairs and watching the guy put his hand on the small of the wife's back as they went.

"Non, non," the guy says, halfway up. Tony speaks French the same way the Pepe le Pew does, so it takes some gesticulating before he understands what the guy wants. He wants Tony to walk up the stairs with his hand in the wife's back, so Tony does what the guy wants. The wife is wearing one of those dresses where the back is all lace, and when they get back to the room, Tony does what the guy wants, too. There's one of those three-part angled dressing mirrors so that you can see what you look like on the side.

Wife sits on a backless chair and pulls her skirt up. Tony looks at the guy for confirmation. Guy nods. Then Tony kneels down in front of the woman, back to the mirror, and goes down on her. Remember, the back of her dress is all lace, so the first time Tony actually touches the woman is when his tongue meets her clit.

Husband watches in the mirror, then makes Tony crawl over on hands and knees and blow him.

...

"I'm going to take a shower," Tony announces about ten seconds after he steps over the threshold of the suite. Not the best in the hotel -- and Tony knows what the best suite looks like, has knees that are intimately familiar with the back of the sofa in that suite, actually -- but he figures Obadiah probably came over in an evermotherfucking hurry to get him to go back, so the place was probably already booked, and well. Yeah. Snotty motherfucking Europeans.

The door isn't entirely closed yet, and Obadiah turns to watch door click shut, then turns around and looks at Tony. "You going to stay here tonight?"

"Where the fuck else am I going to go?"

Obadiah is wearing a suit. One of the travel ones, Tony thinks. Light gray. White shirt with cufflinks. Trust Obadiah to get dressed up to bring his partner's stupid fucking son home from Europe. Obadiah doesn't say anything, though, and the cufflinks are dark blue with just a single line of gold down the middle. Obadiah just keeps on standing there, looking at him, and Tony rolls his eyes.

"I'm going to take a goddamn shower."

"All right," Obadiah says, but doesn't move. Or say anything beyond that. Just stands there with his suit and shirt and cufflinks and looks at Tony with that mild, slightly concerned, but also slightly disinterested expression. Beyond, behind Obadiah, Tony can see all the lights of the city and the yellow, yellow moon, large as good old American quarter.

So Tony yanks his shoes off. Then his socks. Then pulls his shirt over his shoulders and drops it on the floor next to the shoes. Strips his jeans off, drops them on the floor, too, and no, he's not wearing fucking anything underneath, so he's going to fucking walk bare-assed to the bathroom and take a goddamn shower.

...

When Tony comes out of the shower, a good forty-five minutes later, Obadiah has lit up a cigar and put the television on. It's CNN, in English, and Tony vaguely remembers the talking head that's on right now. He met her once, he suspects, at one of his mother's stupid, stupid parties. Obadiah has also opened up one of the windows that look onto the square, so there's cold wind blowing through. To draw the smoke out, not because it's banned -- when somebody is sleeping in a suite this expensive, nothing is banned, but Obadiah doesn't want the place to smell like smoke afterwards, Tony suspects, and Tony has a towel around his shoulders, but nothing else. He's dripping into the carpet, in fact, and he can feel water dripping down his shoulders. His fingers are pruned up from spending so long in the shower, and it strikes Tony that walking around naked in front of his father's best friend and probably the only person who still even remembers that he's alive is probably not a good idea.

He doesn't even have more than a suspicion of whether Obadiah likes guys.

"It's fucking cold," Tony says.

Obadiah is sitting in front of the television in an armchair and the cigar in his left hand.

"You want, you can close it." Obadiah says, mild as anything, as if they're discussing something as simple as a window closing. Which, on some level, they are.

Tony looks at Obadiah for another moment. The television goes to commercial, and Tony crosses over, gets down on his knees. Obadiah watches him without a word the whole time, but he does put his hand on Tony's hip -- no, slides it over so his hand is in the small of Tony's back. He puts the cigar on the table, in the ashtray, then Tony gets down on his knees and undoes the front of Obadiah's trousers with his teeth.

...

Tony thinks: he's going to blow Obadiah, and Obadiah is going to come down his throat. Tony will swallow, and when he wakes up, he'll be back in America. Maybe New York. The apartment overlooking the reservoir in the Park.

What happens is this: he starts to blow Obadiah, but he gets about three inches of Obadiah's cock into his mouth and has just started to bob his head and apply tongue at the same time when Obadiah hauls him up and kisses him. Hard. It's the last thing that Tony expects, and he doesn't do more than open his mouth, which Obadiah seems to be fine with. He sucks the corners of Tony's mouth, gets the taste of his cock out of Tony's mouth and replaces it with the taste of his tongue and mouth and the cigar he'd been smoking, then moves his mouth down to Tony's neck and shoulders. The beard brushes over Tony's collarbones, and then his chest, and then Obadiah bends his head down and licks Tony's left nipple. It tightens, and Obadiah kisses Tony again, then pulls back.

"You like that kind of thing?"

"Not really." Tony shrugs to let Obadiah know he doesn't care too much one way or the other, and he knows Obadiah is looking him over again. There's a bruise on Tony's hip and another on the inside of Tony's left arm. Thumbprint sized, and after a moment, Obadiah makes up his mind.

"So get down on your knees again."

And Tony does, and Obadiah loosens his tie.

...

Tony thinks: he's going to start blowing Obadiah again, maybe lick his balls a little. Wrap his hand around the base of the cock, maybe run the tip over his cheek and lips, and then Obadiah is going to come on his neck and chest. Tony will lick the come that ends up on his hands, and when he wakes up, he'll be back in America. Maybe New York. The apartment overlooking the reservoir in the Park.

What happens is this: he starts to blow Obadiah again, and Tony doesn't manage to come off as nearly as pro as he should be at this point. Maybe it's the familiarity. Maybe it's the dinner, followed by wine, but Tony gets into it. He moans and licks and is messy; he rubs it over his cheek as planned, but he doesn't plan on licking his mouth at all the places that Obadiah sucked on it, and then he gets down to the business of fitting as much of Obadiah's cock into his mouth and possibly down his throat as he can manage. He brings Obadiah's hand into his hair, brings the fingers down to the mess on both of his cheeks, and then slides it back into his hair, which is still wet, and when Obadiah pulls him off, Tony almost whines in disappointment until he realizes he's being shoved face-down on the bed.

Obadiah gets on top of him, and yes, that's Tony's spit slicking the tip of Obadiah's cock against his back, and Tony is already twisting his head around to see where on the headboard he can hold onto. That curlicue over there, maybe. Or since it's a four-poster, he can just hang on for dear life. Yes. That's a plan. He arches his back under Obadiah's hand -- and then, that hand turns Tony over, and Tony is looking up at Obadiah, lit from the back by a lamp on the dresser.

"I'm not going to put my dick any further in you beyond your mouth," Obadiah says. "Until we get back to America and get you run up with a full medical slate."

Tony looks at him. Obadiah took off the tie, but he's still got the jacket. The shirt. The cufflinks. Tony is twenty-one and sitting naked on the bed. Thumbprints. Wet hair. Mouth and cheek shining from being messy and having Obadiah's cock in his mouth and over half his face.

"You're not that good a lay," Tony says, tilting his chin up. "I'm not going back just for your dick."

"You want a drink, Tony?" Obadiah moves off before Tony can cuss at him, and when he comes back, he's got whiskey, neat, in a glass. He hands it to Tony, and Tony, out of reflex, takes it.

"Drink it," Obadiah says, and Tony, again, out of reflex, takes a drink.

"That's not all I'm offering, Tony." Obadiah looks at him, and Tony looks back up. He swallows.

"You think I came over just to get you to stop picking swingers and salesmen up in hotel bars? Stark Industries needs you. Your father's company needs you."

...

The next morning, Obadiah's hotel driver comes up to find out what he'll be doing for Mr. Stane that day, and he finds, to his surprise, the boy from last night not only still there, but walking around the place like he owns it. Eating toast, changing the channels, looking out the window. Dirty jeans and barefoot in a t-shirt from the hotel lobby, and the kid wanders past him, still eating toast, without looking so much as in his direction. The driver has passable English, a job requirement, so he understands the kid when, from somewhere in the next room, he yells, " -- can't get a fucking shirt, when is the goddamn tailor coming?"

Obadiah looks up from his copy of the Financial Times, and in eminently passable Dutch says, "Daan, I'd like to introduce you to Tony Stark."

A moment passes, and then Tony Stark comes back into the room with a sheaf of papers taken from the desk in the other room. "Obie, what the fuck did you let R&D do to my dad's development pipeline?"

And Obadiah smiles at the driver and folds up his newspaper, then reaches over and closes the window.

Written last night in the collab Googledoc. Prompt from

atrata, who said:

Also, Dafna(P) & I want to read about how, when Howard and Maria are killed, Tony runs away to Europe and disappears. He takes a bunch of money out of the ATM, and decides he's just not going to be Tony Stark for a while. And it's totally awesome, because one night, he picks up this older gentleman and they have pretty decent sex, and when Tony wakes up, there is money on the nightstand. He is tickled pink by the thought of this -- some has PAID him to DO SOMETHING, and that something was SEX. But eventually his money runs out, and he can't get more because he doesn't want anyone to find him, and he tries to get a job as a mechanic or something, but he's a little too competent until he blows something up, and yeah, someone, for the love of god, write rentboy!Tony. Naturally, Obadiah eventually decides he is tired of Tony's hijinks and it's time for him to man up, so Obie goes to get him. And, you know, he might as well have a little fun while he's at it, right? RIGHT.

Double thanks to

dafnap for after-the-fact handholding. There is, in fact, shame in my game.

Expansion kit of this fic available here.