Secrets Don't Make Friends

Chapter 1: For Your Consideration

Tony was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Which was, he thought with a bitter twist of his lips, the understatement of the year.

Over the past three months things had seriously began to fall apart for the former CEO of Stark Industries. At the age of 31 he had been at the helm of his father's company for nearly a decade. It was a sad start, to be sure, taking over a multi billion dollar company after both his parents were tragically killed in a car accident. But the young Stark had managed to do it in stride.

To some he was America's golden boy, but most people considered him a playboy. He drank too much, he partied too hard, he was too wild and unpredictable. His early twenties had been a string of bad press. When he wasn't making a splash across the headlines with his latest scandals, he was buried in work.

Work that he had to keep his involvement in a complete secret. There were a few reasons, decided upon by both Howard and Obie years ago, but the fact of the matter was that Tony Stark was an Omega.

Omegas, he had been told since the time he was knee high, had no business in weapons manufacturing. Never-mind that Tony was an absolute genius, whiz, and could even give Howard a run for his money at the age of 14. Pretty early on his path in life had been decided.

To the world he would act the Alpha. His Omega orientation would be kept secret by conditioning and suppressants that would hide his scent and Omega urges. He was never to reveal his true nature to anyone, and any work he did on behalf of the company would be done in secret and under an alias lest his true orientation be discovered and his omega status ruin them all. Because Omegas simply did not build weapons. Who would trust a rocket launcher dreamt up by a soft hearted omega?

 It was bullshit. Omega rights had made great strides since Howard and Obie's time, but they had both been stuck firmly in the past.

He had all but single handedly taken over the R/D department at Stark Industries and stunned the world and delighted the United States Military with his tech. Tech that might have had his name on it, but none of the credit was given to him.

Perhaps that was what had rankled most. It was his genius that was keeping Stark Industries from failing, from going under. It was his tech that was wowing the world and winning contracts with the government. And yet the only accolades he was given was People's most handsome man of the year award (two years running, thank you very much).

Tony found freedom in his lab that he lacked everywhere else in the world. The freedom to simply be himself, his music blaring and new inventions coming to life beneath his fingers.

Everything had been going swimmingly, if he did say so himself, until his old mentor and God father had tried to murder him and in the process put his tech, his weapons, into the hands of enemies.

American soldiers being gunned down by black market Stark Industries weapons.

Innocent lives lost and towns destroyed.

No matter which way you sliced it, Tony was at fault. It was his weapons that had taken the lives of countless innocents. His name emblazoned on the side of those weapons that were killing the American Soldiers they were supposed to protect.

He had been too wild, too carefree, too sure in his own genius and by far too trusting.

He should have known better.

Putting Potts in charge as his acting CEO was probably the best move Tony could have made after he came back from Afghanistan and disbanded weapons manufacturing at SI. After everything that had gone down with Obie (the man who used to sneak him candy as a kid had literally tried to rip his heart out) Tony was finally able to focus on making the world a better place.