Right of Last Refusal (I)

"-. 30 March, 1989 .-"

"I don't think this is quite what you expected when you made me 'pinkie swear' to call the moment I finished MIT, but I finished MIT. It sucked. Have a nice life, Wonder Boy."

Damn right it was nothing like he expected. He hadn't even begun to passive-aggressively goad his dad into setting up career opportunities. He didn't think he'd get that call for at least three more years!

"Kid, ma says you called. It's sweet and all but I've moved out. Please don't bother her again, will you?"

Not that his dad was ever home much to goad into anything, but it was the principle of the thing! He'd have thought Richard would have the decency to at least graduate instead of getting himself expelled!

"Kid, what did I say? Stop bothering ma, she has enough on her plate right now."

And what straight-C student even gets themselves kicked out of college for poor grades and 'belligerent conduct in the lecture hall' anyway? This was not fresh! The bastard had used a loophole to get out of their bet!

"Kid… Seeing as the mortgage and five years' worth of bills have mysteriously vanished, ma nagged me into 're-establishing some manner of communication even if she has to carry my end of it herself,' I will now take ONE question. Make it good."

Two years later the dick was still taking months to call back, and then only from public pay-phones in the middle of the night just to make sure the answering machine would take the calls instead of him. He'd even gone and somehow secured compliance from his own butler!

"Jarvis!" His name was Anthony Edward Stark and he was not happy. "I seem to recall I asked to be alerted of any and all calls from Richard no matter how late in the night."

"Indeed, sir."

"Please do explain why this has yet to materialise."

Edwin Jarvis beheld him calmly. "If that is indeed your command I will of course abide. But given the nature of the issue, I must insist you make it an order before I comply, master Anthony."

Tony Stark blinked in surprise, actually taken aback enough to stall his irritation. "… Explain."

"I have had the pleasure of conversing at length with Mister Rider myself and find myself sympathetic to his position."

Tony felt his irritation crawl over him all over again. "Well how the heck am I even supposed to know his position if he doesn't talk to me!?"

"Perhaps use that as the subject of the question he has agreed to?"

"While we're still interacting through his mom?" Tony asked in disbelief. "Are you crazy?"

"I am sure I have no idea, Master Anthony."

The rest of that talk was uncomfortably reminiscent of the rare 'conversations' his old man deigned to let Tony engage him in, whenever he bothered being home at all. Tony didn't like it. Jarvis was supposed to be a refuge from all that. He did, however, get what he needed out of it to make a decision though. Even if what he needed wasn't necessarily what he wanted.

So when he next called the implausibly forbearing Gloria Rider, he asked her to ask Richard if he would kindly give Jarvis permission to share whatever it was they had talked about pretty please with hot dogs on top?

A few days later, Jarvis told him that Richard had called and gave his consent on the proviso that Tony never call him or his again.

Tony had to give it to his old school buddy, he sure knew his ultimatums. Because honestly, what the heck had he done that had pissed him off so badly? It couldn't have been anything in college because jealousy over Tony's age and genius never seemed to be a thing with him, and anyway they'd still been fine when Tony graduated. It couldn't have been anything from high-school either. Not even the bet that forced Richard to get the grades he needed to make it to MIT in the first place. It had been a fair deal: Richard bet Tony didn't really have what it took to hack the Pentagon on pain of never doing drugs again if he succeeded. And Tony had bet him that he'd so dare and the drugs could go fuck themselves very much, please and thank you, if Richard promised to do his best to get into MIT if he pulled it off.

It hadn't even been mean-spirited – Richard had gotten into the same fancy boarding school Tony attended, hadn't he? If Tony had been on any less crack at that post-Homecoming party, he might've even thought to force the older boy into shooting for a scholarship. Not that it was technically possible after the guy had spent the first three years of high-school before Tony's admission solidly making C's across the board. But exams could be re-taken, especially when you had a buddy who was richer than God to grease the wheels.

Richard's grades had always smelled off anyway. Nobody manages to be a straight-whatever student unless they're deliberately aiming for it. Especially someone who could mix and match used car parts the way Richard did even on his worst day. The guy had the best intuitive grasp of applied mechanics of anyone Tony had ever seen. Exceptional eye for spotting lucrative deals too, now that he thought about it.

Also gambling. Or at least ruining everybody else's enjoyment of such. He was terribly sensible like that.

Well too bad for Richard because Tony was not about to be intimidated out of a course of action once he was resolved. Which he was. Especially after his altruistic gift had basically been thrown back in his face like that!

Unfortunately, the discussion with Jarvis went sideways pretty much the moment it started and didn't recover one iota by the time it was done.

"So let's see if I got everything…" Tony said flatly, feeling hollow and rung out as he stared out the window at the setting sun. "Richard's dad and uncle both die in a car accident about a month after I leave college. And the only reason Richard doesn't drop out immediately instead of getting himself expelled through sheer belligerence – on account of him needing to make money for his mother and brother now instead of waiting to build a career over the next 5 years – is because he doesn't want to renege on our bet."

"Yes, Master Tony."

"By then, his mom manages to get a job as a 911 emergency operator. But even that borderline miracle in the middle of a recession isn't enough to let them make ends meet. Because the aforementioned recession has already managed to fuck them over like it did pretty much everyone else."

"Indeed, Master Tony."

"And when Richard does finally manage to get out and… proceeds to do whatever, I sweep in to magic wand away all of his family's financial problems, incidentally trampling every last of his sacrifices."

"Quite so, Master Tony."

All because Tony's lofty plan's for someone else's life had been derailed. And so he wasted no time destroying every apparent obstacle in his journey to put to task the ones responsible for daring to have designs of their own on their own lives.

Those had been Richard's closing words, as paraphrased by Jarvis second-hand.

Tony momentarily felt a spark of outrage over them, because wasn't that the same as Richard using the dare to make Tony accept his designs on his life?

But even at his most drunk and self-deluded he wouldn't have been able to actually fuel that thought. Coercing someone into following your idea of an ideal life path wasn't the same as them coercing you out of drugging your way into an early grave, metaphorical or not. And hadn't Tony done the same loophole abuse for no worthy reason, when he 'lived up' to his promise not to do drugs again by going on to instead become an alcoholic? Sure, that wasn't the why, but it was the what.

"Perhaps think twice before also filling up young Robert Rider's college fund, hmm?" Jarvis said after their talk was well and truly done.

Tony always flirted with depression – it was why he drank so much, or maybe it was the reverse – but his façade of forced positivity really took a beating that week, all the way to the weekend. Jack, Jim and Grant knew how to pound his head in, that was for sure. Sometimes he wondered how Jarvis could stand picking up after him so consistently.

"The day you die, Jarvis, will be a very dark day."

"Likewise, Sir. Breakfast will be ready in ten. If that is all?"

"… Yeah, sure."

"May your day be better than your night, Sir."

Depression or not, though, it wasn't like he hadn't traced things to their source. Just because he'd agreed to give up on one avenue of contact didn't mean he didn't have others.

Which was why on the fateful day of 30 March 1989, Anthony Edward Stark left the house at six A.M., got in the 1988 Lamborghini LM002 pickup, and drove out of mansion, town and eventually the state of California altogether.