Dawn had not yet broken over Flea Bottom. The light that pierced through the cracks in the den was a sickly grey, an end-of-the-world glow that brought neither warmth nor hope. It was the coldest hour, the hour of ghosts and last breaths, the hour when sleep was heaviest. It was the hour Groleau and his Black Hounds chose.
The first sound was not a scream, but the dull, dry crack of a support beam. It was followed by the heavy squelch of boots in the mud, an organized, disciplined tramping too deliberate for a simple drunken brawl. Tony was the first to wake, his survival instinct, honed by years of slavery, screaming a silent alarm in his skull. He sat up with a jolt, his heart hammering against his ribs, and saw massive shadows blocking the few exits of the lean-to. They were surrounded.
"Shit," he said, analyzing his chances.
The door, or what passed for one, exploded inward in a shower of rotten planks and curses. Ten, maybe twelve men, stocky figures reeking of stale beer and stubborn sweat, poured into the den. The Black Hounds.
The Gnats' awakening was a nightmare of confusion and terror. The youngest ones screamed, their cries quickly muffled by calloused hands. It was not a fight. It was a correction, a lesson in brutality administered by hardened adults to a gang of half-asleep children. Jem, jolted awake by the racket, roared like a caged lion and threw himself at the first man he saw, his bare fists crashing into a surprised face. He had the satisfaction of feeling a nose crack under his knuckles before three other brutes fell upon him, pinning him to the ground, his face crushed into the cold mud and filth. He struggled with the rage of despair, but his strength, so impressive against other children, was nothing against the combined weight of seasoned adults.
Lira was faster, and smarter. She rolled off her pallet, her two short knives gleaming in the gloom. She wasn't trying to win, but to wound, to create an opening. She slipped between two assailants, deeply slashing the arm of Koss as he tried to grab her. He howled in pain, but his accomplice was quicker, landing a vicious kick to her stomach that knocked the wind out of her and sent her crashing against the wall. Her knives were torn from her hands.
Tony had understood in a fraction of a second that the physical battle was a lost cause. His mind, working at a dizzying speed, had already assessed and dismissed all combat options. All that remained was the preservation of assets. As chaos reigned, he scrambled to his corner, not to fight, but to save what mattered. He slid Elara's notched wooden ledgers under a pile of shavings and tried to conceal the finalized prototype of "The Crusher" under a loose floorboard. That's when a shadow fell over him.
Groleau stood above him. The leader of the Black Hounds ignored him at first, his gaze sweeping over the scene with the satisfaction of a predator. He gave a nod, and his men redoubled their violence, ensuring every Gnat received their share of blows, a methodical and impersonal punishment. Then, his cold eyes landed on Tony. He bent down, grabbed the boy by the collar of his tunic, and lifted him effortlessly, forcing him to look.
"So, you're the little genius," Groleau growled, his foul breath hitting Tony's face. His mouth reeked of death.
To make his point, to engrave his dominance in the minds of all, he dropped Tony and seized "The Crusher." He examined the object for a second, not with curiosity, but with total contempt for the ingenuity it represented. Then, with a grunt, he smashed it with all his might against the central pillar of the lean-to. The oak wood shattered, the gears delicately carved by Kael flew into splinters, the yew-wood springs snapped with a sharp crack. Tony's work, the symbol of their hope, was reduced to a pile of dead wood.
The silence that followed was more terrible than the screams. The Gnats lay on the ground, bruised, sobbing, short of breath. Groleau planted himself in the middle of the room, feet apart, towering over the ruins of their enterprise.
"Listen to me, you rats," his voice was a low rumble, each word as heavy as a stone. "Flea Bottom is my kingdom. It's a rat hole, yes, but I'm the cat. And in my kingdom, the rats don't move, don't breathe, don't shit without my permission. Do you understand?"
He turned in a slow circle, his gaze passing over each terrified face. "You were clever. Too clever. You built toys, you made money. That's good. I like rats that work. But you forgot the most important rule: the cat always takes its share. Especially since your little toys are taking work from my men, and denying me privileged access to certain places."
He stopped in front of Tony, who had gotten back to his feet, his face impassive despite the pain radiating from his ribs. "From now on, you work for me. You will continue to make your little traps. Every week, my man will come to take my share. And my share is eighty percent. Everything you produce, I take four-fifths of it. With what's left, you'll have just enough not to starve to death. That is the price for being allowed to live on my territory."
To ensure the message was received, to plant an anchor of terror deep in the souls of the Gnats, Groleau walked over to the corner where one of the twins was trembling uncontrollably. He grabbed the boy by the arm and examined his right hand. He squeezed one finger between his thick paws, just until he heard a characteristic crack.
"Shut it, brat!" he roared at the kid, who was screaming at the top of his lungs. "If you want me to break another one, I'm willing."
"And you, genius," Groleau said, his eyes locking onto Tony's. "If production ever slows down, if you try to cross me, or if you get the urge to pack your bags... I will come back. And I will break your little friend's fingers. One by one. Slowly. Until he's a puppet." He released the boy, who collapsed, sobbing. "The future of his hands rests on your obedience. One of my guys, Koss, will come every day to supervise your work and your sales. Consider him your new boss."
With those words, the Black Hounds withdrew, taking with them the money they found, the already-built traps, and the dignity of The Gnats.
--
The fear, once the adrenaline subsided, curdled into an acidic anger. The den was a silent battlefield, filled with whimpers and the smell of blood. Jem remained prostrate, his face a mass of bruises and cuts, his eyes empty. He had failed. He was no longer a leader. The silence was broken by Flick. His face swollen, his lip split, he struggled to his feet and pointed a trembling finger at Tony.
"There! This is what happens! This is your fault, Tony!" His voice was raw, broken by pain and rage. "We were fine before you! We stole just enough to eat, nobody paid us any mind! You put a target on our backs with your plans and your fucking traps! Now look at us! We're their slaves! We work for them! We're more miserable than before."
Several other Gnats nodded, tears of frustration streaming down their dirty cheeks. The accusation was unfair, but it was simple. It offered a culprit for their misery. Others, like Lira, remained silent, too busy tending to the wounds of the younger ones, their mutism a heavier reproach than any shout.
Tony remained motionless, his gaze fixed on the debris of "The Crusher." Flick's words didn't really reach him. He was in shock, but it wasn't the physical pain that paralyzed him. It was the shame. A cold, familiar shame that chilled him to the bone. He barely defended himself. "I just wanted... for us to make it," he whispered, but his voice was lost in the ambient despair. He had failed. Worse than that, he had brought the monster of his past back into the present.
That night, and the nights that followed, sleep was a luxury Tony could not afford. While the others slept fitfully, he sat in the dark, his back against the cold wall, listening to the sounds of the city that never slept. It was in this silence that the demons of his two lives came to haunt him.
The feeling of Groleau's fingers on the collar of his tunic... It wasn't the fear of death that had frozen him. It was the feeling of being property. Of being seized, appraised, and put to work by a master who held the power of life and death over him and those around him. It was Myr. It was the foreman's hand on his shoulder, the slave trader's gaze sizing him up, the invisible collar that constantly reminded him of his status. He had thought himself free after breaking his chains, after burning his tormentor's house to the ground. What a joke. He had merely changed cages.
His mind drifted further, to an older, more modern memory. A cave in Afghanistan. The feeling of a car battery keeping him alive, the voice of Yinsen, and the faces of the Ten Rings terrorists. They too had seen his genius. They too had caged him, forcing him to build for them under the constant threat of death. Groleau was just a stupider, grubbier version of Raza. The situation was the same: build for the master, or watch those around you pay the price. The blackmail over Pip's hands was nothing less than the threat that had loomed over Yinsen.
And the destruction of "The Crusher"... that pile of shapeless splinters on the floor... That was the Snap. It was the feeling of absolute powerlessness, of seeing years of work, of sacrifice, of hope, reduced to nothing in the blink of an eye by a being whose only logic was brute force. He had seen half the universe disappear. Here, he had seen half his soul extinguish as he watched his creation be annihilated.
He closed his eyes, his jaw clenched. A single, hot, rage-filled tear traced a path down his dirty cheek. He had wanted to do things differently this time. No bombs, no weapons. He wanted to build, to create, to rise up through pure intelligence, through commerce. To climb the ladder, step by step, to prove that genius could thrive even starting from the mud. He wanted to be Iron Man before he had even touched a piece of iron.
--
What naivety.
This world, this cesspool of violence and despair, didn't need a builder. Not yet. It needed a predator. It needed the Tony Stark from before the cave, the one who didn't see the world in terms of good and evil, but in terms of threats and dominance. The one who understood that peace is achieved only through technological superiority and overwhelming firepower.
A glacial smile, devoid of all joy, stretched his lips in the darkness. He had his plan. He still had his gold. And he had a new clarity. Groleau had made a fatal mistake. He had wanted to make him a slave. But he had only succeeded in reminding him of who he really was. And for that, he was going to take everything that belonged to him.
Groleau awoke the merchant of death he had been, and he was going to sell him death. Stark style: brutal, overwhelming, and final.