"The brown" was nothing more than a bad memory now, a metallic taste of misery that Tony was doing his best to forget. These days, the smell rising from the Gnats' hideout wasn't just fear and hunger anymore—it was also the sharp, woody tang of sawdust. The squalid den had transformed into a chaotic workshop, a buzzing hive where the sound of knives scraping wood and little saws whining had replaced the muffled sobs. Piles of wood scraps were stacked against the walls, sorted by type and size with a precision that stood out in the surrounding mess. The floor was a carpet of shavings, and in the evenings, a thicker stew—sometimes even with real chunks of stolen chicken (they weren't rich enough yet for good, honest meat every night)—simmered over a better-tended fire.
Life for the Gnats had improved in real ways. Hollow cheeks had filled out a bit, the most ragged rags had been swapped for second-hand tunics and breeches, and Pip's cavernous cough had almost vanished thanks to an expensive syrup bought from the herbalist they'd once robbed. Flick's wound, treated by a real healer who'd taken three traps as payment, was just a clean scar now. They weren't surviving anymore; they were starting to live. This new security came at a cost: work. Hard work, driven by a demand that had exploded far beyond Tony's wildest predictions.
The standard trap, which the streets had nicknamed the "Snap-Tooth," had become a must-have for every middle-class merchant. But the real cash cow was Tony's new model: "The Grinder." Designed for warehouses and manors, it was a bigger, more fearsome version made of solid oak, with a double spring mechanism of yew wood that could snap the spine of a medium-sized dog. Its price—five silver stags—was a fortune, but the rich paid for efficiency and peace of mind. The thing's reputation was so solid that one morning, a steward in livery, nose pinched in a scented handkerchief, had come down to the edge of Flea Bottom to order five for the Red Keep's kitchens. The deal, handled by Tony with ice-cold calm, had brought in more money in a single day than the gang had seen in their whole lives combined.
But this success had exposed a gaping flaw in the group: incompetence. Production couldn't keep up, and the reason was simple. Most of the Gnats were street kids, good at running and stealing, not precision woodworking.
Flick was the perfect example of this human bottleneck. Sitting on a barrel, he was trying to carve a trapezoidal cam, one of the key pieces in the "Snap-Tooth" mechanism. The knife slipped, taking off too big a chunk and ruining the perfect geometry Tony had sketched out. It was the third piece he'd wrecked that morning.
"Goddamn it!" he swore, hurling the wood against the wall.
Jem, who was overseeing the makeshift assembly line with the air of an overwhelmed general, approached. "What now, Red? Your fingers made of butter today? Tony said we gotta finish twenty before tonight!"
"It ain't that easy!" Flick shot back, his face red with frustration. "He wants it perfect down to the millimeter! It's wood, not metal!"
Tony, watching the scene, sighed inwardly. He couldn't blame them. You don't turn a thief into a craftsman in a week. He turned away from the impending disaster to focus on his real assets. In a quieter corner of the workshop, two figures worked in silence, absorbed in their tasks.
Kael, a twelve-year-old boy with a face so impassive he was often forgotten, was one of them. He'd spent his first weeks in the gang like a shadow, never speaking, just doing what he was told. But Tony had spotted a rare gift in him: perfect hand-eye coordination. He wasn't an inventor, but he was a genius mimic. Tony had shown him once—just once—how to carve the complex gear for the "Grinder." Since then, Kael churned them out like clockwork, his movements smooth and precise, each tooth cut with a regularity that bordered on the supernatural. He'd become Tony's master craftsman.
Next to him, sitting cross-legged, was Elara. At thirteen, she had a memory that was nothing short of prodigious. She couldn't read or write, but she forgot almost nothing. A face, a name, an order, a price. Tony had taught her a rudimentary accounting system, using notches on wooden slats and pebbles of different colors. One slat for orders, another for payments, a third for material stocks. Elara managed this primitive ledger with terrifying efficiency, reciting their finances from memory down to the last copper. She was the guardian of their treasure.
This new meritocracy, based on talent rather than seniority, was starting to create cracks. The tension boiled over when Jem saw Tony hand Kael the finest oak planks, the ones meant for the prestigious Red Keep order.
"Why's he getting the best wood?" Jem growled, his voice echoing through the workshop. "Flick and the others have been fighting for this gang for years, and you're giving the prize to a kid who didn't say a word a month ago!"
Tony turned slowly, his face expressionless. "I'm giving the oak to Kael because he won't waste it, Jem. This order's worth a hundred silver stags. Is Flick's pride worth that much?"
"We're a gang, not some maester's workshop!" Jem shot back, stepping forward. "The rules are the old-timers get respect!"
"The rules changed when we stopped eating rats and started selling them," Tony hissed. "The new rule is whoever does the job best does the job. End of story."
The confrontation was head-on, the air thick with electricity. It was Lira who stepped in, slipping between them. "Enough." Her voice was calm but sharp. She turned to Jem. "He's right. The money keeps us alive." Then she looked at Tony. "But he's right too. Flick and the others are our people. They might not be skilled, but they're loyal. Find them work."
Tony held her gaze for a second, then nodded. Lira was the glue still holding this fragile structure together. "Fine. Kael and Elara run the workshop. The old guard, you form the supply and logistics team. Your job's to bring us the best materials and deliver the orders. It's just as crucial."
The solution eased the crisis, but Jem's resentment lingered, thick and visible. He still felt like the leader, the one whose physical strength protected the group, but he wasn't the engine anymore. He enjoyed the comfort—he ate better, slept warmer—which made him unable to chase Tony out. He was trapped by the improvement in his own life, a spectator to his own fading authority.
******************************
That night, after the others had fallen asleep, Tony stayed awake, a silver stag from the Red Keep order in his palm. Moonlight filtered through the roof, illuminating the sleeping faces. Pip and Pock, curled up together, weren't coughing anymore. Flick, despite his frustration, slept deeply, his healed leg resting without pain. He looked at them, not as a gang leader, but as a weary adult looks at a playground.
He was a man in a child's body, and this band of lost kids had become his burden, his responsibility. It was like running an improvised orphanage, where the future of every soul rested on his shoulders. The thought was exhausting and strangely motivating.
He clenched the silver coin in his hand. The cold metal was a passport. "What the hell am I still doing here?" he thought, bitterness rising in his throat. "With this coin, with the plan for just one of these traps, I could leave this rat hole. I'd walk up to Steel Street, step into Master Theron's workshop, the best carpenter in the city. I'd plop the 'Grinder' on his bench and watch him weep with joy. Apprentice? He'd pay me to be his master! I'd sleep in a real bed tonight. Eat roasted chicken. Have tempered steel tools, a clean workshop... No more mud, no more Gnats, no more dealing with a bunch of jealous incompetents led by a moron who thinks with his fists..."
The vision was so clear, so tempting. A life of comfort, respect, creation without constraints. A life worthy of his genius.
"...But at what cost?" The thought hit him with the clarity of metal. "I'd be his employee. His golden goose. My inventions, my plans, my profits... they'd all belong to him. He'd reap the glory, the wealth, the power my ideas generate. I'd just get the comfort. A life of luxurious servitude."
He looked down at Flea Bottom, visible through a wide crack in the wall. It was a swarming, stinking cesspit. Hell on earth. But it was his hell. The Gnats might be incompetents, but they were his workforce. This business, this first rung on the ladder of his new life, was his property. Here, he wasn't a genius apprentice. He was the master, the boss, the founder. Leaving this place for the comfort of a workshop wouldn't be a promotion. It'd be abdication. A betrayal of himself. Tony Stark never ran from challenges.
"You don't become a king by accepting to be a well-paid pawn. You build your own kingdom, even if you have to start on a pile of shit."
And there were the kids. These rough, desperate children who depended on him. He didn't love them, not really. But he felt responsible for them. Abandoning them now would condemn them to go back to the "brown," to violence, to slow death. His genius pride couldn't tolerate that. He wasn't saving the world, but he was saving his own.
He got up and walked over to Kael, asleep near his makeshift workbench. He picked up a half-finished piece of wood and examined it. His decision was made. He wasn't running. He was transforming. Turning this band of broken arms into a real organization. His organization. The first stone of his future empire.
*************************
Far from the buzzing Gnats' workshop, in the stench of a clandestine tavern that served as headquarters for the Black Dogs, news of Tony's success had arrived not as a rumor, but as an insult. Groleau, the scarred leader of the gang, slammed his pewter mug on the sticky table, silence falling instantly around him. Across from him, Koss—whose cousins ran the rat hunters—had a dark face.
"It's true, boss," Koss said in a raspy voice. "A steward from the Red Keep. In livery and everything. He came down to the edge to buy the brats' toys. He doesn't even look at us, but he's paying silver stags to kids."
Groleau grimaced, his scar stretching like a white worm. "And meanwhile, your cousins ain't bringing in jack. Rat hunting might not have been much, but it was ours—a way into all those rich bastards' secrets. Every tavern keeper, every butcher paid us to get rid of the vermin. Now they're paying kids for a wooden gadget." He leaned forward, his cold eyes fixing on Koss. "This ain't just about rats. It's about control. Those Gnats are taking our revenue and drawing the lords' eyes to our turf. Enough. Go get the others. We're paying a little visit to that damn gang. Time to explain how business really works in Flea Bottom. With blood and steel, not wood shavings."