Ch7. Distracting Obadiah

"Tony, you can't be serious." Obadiah found Tony in the building with the massive arc reactor after the press conference. "Please, tell me this is just one of your over-the-top jokes. We can't close down the weapon manufacturing division of our company! The weapon manufacturing division IS the company, Tony."

Tony turned away from the arc reactor and towards Obadiah, inwardly grinning. He wasn't here to look at the reactor. That old device was useless to him and he studied it in his past life enough that he could now recreate it in his sleep.

Instead, he was here waiting for Obadiah.

It was time to make sure the old bearded baldy won't have the time to interfere with his projects.

"I already said my decision, Obie. The company products carry my name and I refuse to have my name associated with weapons anymore." Tony said, using the best stubborn expression he could muster to drive home how serious he was.

It also served to make sure Obadiah would think it was just another of Tony's childish tantrums. One that was disastrous and would cost both him and the company a lot of money.

The two had a brief stare-off before, "Fine..." Obadiah eventually said in resignation. Then at least give me something I could calm our shareholders with. Do you have any idea how much our stocks are going to drop after your announcement is aired? I need something of value."

'You have no idea.' Tony inwardly smirked. He knew exactly how his company's stock was going to drop. And he had plans to buy out every single sold stock with a false identity he spent hours setting up yesterday for one, Anthony Jarvis.

After all, JARVIS was in charge of that.

Tony even made sure the paper trails were perfect. The only people who could discover that Anthony Jarvis did not exist were those with connections and influence similar to Nick Fury but even then it would take enormous effort and the information would be worthless for them anyway.

Obadiah was definitely looking at Tony's chest, thinking about the miniature arc reactor when he asked for something 'of value'. Unfortunately for him, this Tony was not young, reckless, and recognized there was an effective way to shut Obadiah down now that he didn't care about his feelings.

"No. You are not getting the mini-reactor and that's final." Tony dryly said, giving Obadiah a disappointed look. "That's mine, period. But don't worry, I am working on something that will bring Stark Industries to new heights." He remarked with confidence while thinking, 'But you would not come along for that ride, my bald buddy.'

Tony did not need to work on anything new. He had a multitude of blueprints from his past life. He was in the past and introducing just one of his future projects early was bound to earn him millions if not billions.

There was a reason why he could afford to pay for the collateral damage caused by Avengers, after all...

With his piece said, Tony turned around while expertly ignoring Obadiah's exasperated expression, and walked away. His previous self would argue with the man but there was no need for that. Tony owned the controlling shares in the company and that meant his word was final. If Obadiah wanted to legally go around that, he would first have to put Tony to the side.

Hence, in his first life, Tony was sued by the board of directors and the control of the company was taken from him when he was too busy designing his suit.

But such a thing took an enormous amount of time and effort, and that was exactly what Tony was aiming for. Obadiah will now be too busy trying to take control of the company from him while having to keep the Stark Industries standing which meant he would be unable to pay attention to what Tony was doing with his free time.

The entire world was now watching the Stark Industries and it was an incredible diversion for Tony because nobody would pay attention to him after the initial rage. He will be just the reclusive dude who will be spending his time hiding in his workshop. Nothing interesting and everybody would assume he was hit by his kidnapping hard. That he was too afraid to even come out and party like he usually did.

That was fine by him.

He had more important things to do anyway...

...

A few days passed since the press conference and as Tony predicted, the company was a mess, Obadiah was too busy to even get six hours of sleep according to JARVIS's stalking report, and the reporters finally vacated Tony's lawn when they understood there was no scoop waiting for them because Tony had no intention to leave his house.

These last few days were heaven for Tony. He recreated FRIDAY and dare he say even perfected her. No silly restrictions that would prevent her development were added and she was just perfect.

Not as perfect as JARVIS, of course, but she would definitely get second place.

While JARVIS would keep his position as Tony's assistant for everything, after a few days of surfing the internet and filling her databases so she would have the required understanding of the necessary topics, Tony input a few blueprints for his inventions into her systems, letting her do the necessary calculations and maybe even think about improvements.

That served well as a learning exercise for FRIDAY while also improving his new products for when Obadiah will no longer be an obstacle.

Since he became younger, Tony would hate seeing the company and its workers suffer because of his decisions again. He would have made the same decision as he did in the past and stood by it if it was necessary, but he would have hated it.

Now though?

He knew well the normal people, mostly the factory workers, were hit the hardest due to his past rash decision. But right now he didn't care too much. Due to his intervention, they should not be fired willy nilly and would get their pay. And in two to three months, the production would restart. His time in the orange realm put things in perspective for him. Tony did not live his life for others. He had nothing against helping people but not at the cost of his own happiness.

Not anymore.

Unlike in the past, Tony did not start recreating his suit straight away. He remembered every part of his suits. Putting it all together would be a matter of a week, instead of months he needed to create his first suit. He didn't need to hurry with that.

Tony instead worked on recreating his Badassium. And he didn't care nobody called it that! In this reality, nobody knew about it anyway!

The palladium was killing him and Tony saw no reason to wait with the development of a Badassium-based arc reactor. He knew how, had enough materials, and had a few days to waste until the reporters backed off. He would definitely not do something stupid like waiting a year for Vanko before he started its development again...

In the end, Tony switched his arc reactor exactly four days later for the better, life-friendly, and poison-free version with no one the wiser.

Unfortunately, the technology that would allow him to survive the extraction of the shrapnel in his chest was not yet created and while he could do it, the shrapnel was far from a pressing issue right now.

It could wait.