Prompt #316 - Dilapidated - Room for Improvement 5.0- Tekia – The Avengers/Exalted

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Room for Improvement 5.0
Fandom: Avengers/Exalted
Prompt: Dilapidated
Warnings: none
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After falling into a trap, the first order of business it to find out where you are. But, if where you are makes no sense, then what are you supposed to do? Traveling to the future is easy, just fall asleep, right? Waking up to a whole different world is harder. Luckily, Tony Stark can adapt to any environment.
White Song woke him by jumping on the bed, one knee on each side of his hips, and her hands on his shoulders. His eyes snapped open to see her grinning like she had lost her last marble. “Get up, Lost Path, there are people to see and food to eat and trouble to cause. Get up, dressed and let’s go.”
Then she was gone, the sheet over Tony’s limbs gathering air with her quick movements. He watched as her skirt trailed behind her as she passed through the frame. Once she was gone, he settled down against his pillow.
“Get up!” her voice echoed down the hall, making him jump in his skin.
He wanted to growl at her the way she often growled at him, but repressed the urge. He sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. Iron Dust’s clothes were already gone, and the water in the basin was already cool. He washed his face and hands anyway before heading for the bathing tub.
Wisp of Shadow was walking down the hall, elegant in his black leather and silvery armor. He wore a cape today that seemed more like a black cloud of death than cloth as it bellowed out behind him with every step he took. He nodded once to Tony, but then paused, turning toward him.
“Where has White Song’s lover gone?”
“I-Sorrow of Stars? He’s working in the city.”
Wisp of Shadow’s lips twisted into a thin frown. “Making plans that no doubt will disrupt my own. Where is White Song?”
“Here, Death Knight,” she said, coming up the stairs behind him. “Lost Path, hurry, I want to leave before noon.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Yes, your majesty.” He tipped an invisible hat to Wisp of Shadow and moved on down the hall. He knew that he should be paying more attention to what was going on between those two, and if Iron Dust was informed of what they were plotting, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care at the moment.
He didn’t have a doubt in his mind that it was him that Wisp of Shadow’s master was hunting for. While she was playing along, ‘helping’ Wisp of Shadow, she was extremely loyal to Iron Dust, and Tony didn’t doubt that no matter what was happening, Iron Dust knew all about it.
Once finished bathing and shaving, Tony dressed in the nice clothes White Song had brought him weeks before. He hadn’t had a chance to wear them since the first time they had gone out. They had gone out drinking a few times since then, and once with Iron Dust pulled along.
They had always gone out after hours, when the markets had already closed for the night, and the taverns were already in full swing by the time they arrived. He hadn’t gone through the town since that first day with Iron Dust, aside from a few short trips to the nearby market for fresh fruit and air.
Most of the slaves did the shopping, but White Song often grew irritable when she had to sit still too long. She also hated watching him pour over the armor.
He pulled on his boots and White Song pulled him out of the house, waving jauntily at Wisp of Shadow as he glared at them from the dark shadows behind a curtain. She led them through the throng of people crowding the streets until they arrived in the busiest area Tony had yet to see. It was worse than New York. Maybe equal to New York during New Years.
He wrapped his arm around White Song’s waist in fear of losing her in the crowd. She hooked her fingers in his shirt and pointed toward a stall that had silk lengths of cloth hanging from the poles supporting the striped canopy. Together they pressed their way toward the stall until White Song could peruse their wares. She compared two lengths of silk for a long moment, long enough for Tony to get bored, his eye wandering away from the stall to the people around them.
There was a man standing across the square, his eyes nothing but glittering spots under the shadow of his hood. When Tony caught sight of him, a cold shiver went down his spine and he unconsciously pressed closer to White Song. Quickly, he turned away. If the man was a god, who knew what Tony could do without realizing it to insult him. Then White Song would become and indentured servant as well.
White Song dragged him to the next stall and held up a hairpin to her golden locks before turning to Tony for his opinion. He shook his head and pointed to a different one. She traded the pins and held it up to her hair, bending down to see in the small bit of mirror the dealer held aloft for her. Decided, she pulled out a few shavings of green jade and paid the dealer.
The pin pocketed away, White Song turned toward Tony. “We should buy you more clothes.” Grimacing, Tony let her lead him away, the man in the hood forgotten for now. After hours of shopping and buying and eating, Tony was ready to call it a day when White Song paused at a slave stall.
Tony went stiff with anger once he realized that they were selling the people crowded back in restraints. He was surprised to see that the salves all looked healthy and well fed, but that little consolation couldn’t outweigh the fact that they were slaves.
There was nothing he could do for them, here and now. He had no money, no power to back his name. He had nothing to help them with, even his armor was back at the house, in several disassembled pieces.
White Song rested a hand on his shoulder. “Look,” she said, nodding to an old man sitting huddled under a blanket. He had milky white eyes that he kept lowered, a rat’s nest of salt and pepper hair peeked out from under the blanket, and his tanned feet were bare. White Song waved aside the merchant and knelt before the old man, one hand reaching out to cover his over where he clutched the blanket. “What do your blind eyes see, Sightless One?”
Tony knelt with her, feeling like a creeper standing over them. The man’s head slowly turned toward him. His whole body seemed to shake with the effort, dilapidated as his health was. He wet his lips, exposing yellowed and broken teeth and rank breath.
“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice was as dry as the desert, and Tony felt his own throat ach for a glass of fresh water. “Creation will die if you stay. We will all be unmade by you.”
White Song abruptly stood, pulling Tony with her. “Nothing we don’t already know. Let’s go before we draw attention to you.” She wrapped an arm around his waist and leaned heavily against him. She pushed him away from the slaves and toward the open plaza.
Finally, away from the dozens and dozens of people pressing in on them, Tony asked, “Will you tell me what is being said about me? Will you please tell me how I’m supposed to unmake the whole world? I can’t even begin to plot how that could possibly happen.” He threw out his arm. “Who was that man?”
White Song arched a brow. “Keep your voice down. You don’t want the wrong sort to hear you say that.”
He glared at her until she held up her hands in surrender. “Alright. But to get details, you’re going to have to ask Sorrow of Stars.”
“We’re alone.” He caught her elbow and turned her toward a fountain. They sat. “Iron Dust will explain more, but tell me what you know.”
She sighed and leaned forward until her elbows were resting on her knees. She stared ahead at the people before them, her eyes seeing something he couldn’t. “Sorrow, no, Iron Dust told me once that Creation is a tapestry. The older it gets, the more ripped and shredded it gets. We, every living thing, is a thread in the loom, and those that aren’t are like moths. They eat at the weave, and it comes undone.” She slanted Tony a look out the corner of her eye. “Those of us outside of fate are like snags in the weave. Sometimes, we can see what’s going on in the pattern, and we can even change the pattern. Those of us that are older, more powerful, they are the ones that can really change the pattern. Iron Dust? He’s very powerful. Doesn’t look it, don’t I know, but he is.
“You? You’re only a few weeks old. Your magic is still growing. You come from a world so far advanced than ours. Who knows what things that are there that could destroy us all?”
Instantly, Tony’s mind went to the atom bomb, which his own father had help develop. It went to all the super villains that seemed to crop up from thin air. The weapons they developed could potentially destroy this whole world. It seemed, to Tony, such a delicate world. As if there was a fine sheen of something in there air that made everything here so fragile. He knew it was a wrong impression to have, after seeing the fights and drunken brawlings that he had. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Okay, I get that, I really do. I built bombs for a living once. But that’s killing people, that’s starting big wars. What do they mean by unmaking Creation? Surely what I have to bring to the table can’t unmake a world.”
White Song shook her head. “Magic made this world. Magic can unmake it.”
“Exalted magic? I thought you were made to protect this world.”
Her lips went thin and she glared at him. “We are. Exalts are. And you are one of us, but as long as you keep yourself distant from us, apart from those that work to protect Creation, you are a threat.”
She was right, he didn’t consider himself a part of this world, even though he was now Exalted. One of them.
~_~_~
They returned home, quiet and subdued. White Song left him at the door to the workshop, and Tony stood over his armor, lost in thought. He had always said that his armor wasn’t a weapon, for all that he used it to fight against super villains. He ran a hand over the stone gauntlets, missing his stabilizers and repulsors. He was truly defenseless in this world.
His eyes went to the tools and armors lying about the workshop that belonged to Wisp, and he thought that he could make something to which defend himself. He could build a rudimentary system that could help him fly.
Then he shook his head and turned away. No, that way led to the unmaking of this world. He needed to focus on getting back to his world. His time.
He sat at the table and pulled the clock toward him. JARVIS had found the proper time, and together they had set the clock, so the pendulum slowly counted the seconds, and the soothing sound of the tick of the gears inside filled the silence.
Counting the seconds until he could leave.
Nearly two months had passed since he had arrived in this world, and he was more than ready to return home. Return to his … family.
Tony trapped Iron Dust the moment he came through the front door. He grabbed his arm and dragged him through the house, passed the slaves that had learned to wait up for him, and out the back door, to the work shop. He thrust Iron Dust into darkened room and turned to lock the door behind him.
He waited thirty seconds and then slapped the flat of his palm against the door. He heard a gasp and the sound of hurried footsteps rushing away from the out building. Breathing a sigh, he turned to Iron Dust.
“No more half-truths. Tell me everything. Why am I here?”
To his credit, Iron Dust didn’t try to act surprised or confused. He nodded once and found a chair. “Why? Because you fell for the trap placed for you. Not exactly, you but whoever it was that could overcome the spells and become Exalted. It was a race, and you were the one who got to the finish first. Congratulations.”
Tony snorted and found his own chair. He pulled one of the tools toward him, just so his hands had something to do while they talked. “Okay, I get that. That makes sense. Who put the trap there?”
“I don’t know. I have ideas, but we don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“What?” Finally, Tony seemed to find something that surprised him.
“The trap, you were there.” Iron Dust frowned, and Tony shrugged. “You were in a casket. You and White Song and Wisp of Shadows and our Hunt buddy, the red guy. There was another guy too, but I don’t know him.”
“Yet.”
“Yeah, I’m from the future, I’m sure we’ll meet him soonish. Anyway, I went into the temple, found your caskets, and then they opened, they attacked, and then I was here. Why were you there?”
Iron Dust’s gaze had gone distant. They had lost their brown color, once more returning to the bright yellow Tony hadn’t realized he had missed. His hair was also back to its original color. He really was Iron Dust once more.
When several moments passed and he still hadn’t said a word, Tony reached out.
“Iron Dust?”
He jerked, as if he had forgotten that Tony was still there. He blinked his eyes and licked his lips. “I was dead?” Before Tony could answer, Iron Dust shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I know already how I will die, the rest doesn’t matter.”
“How?”
“In a moment of self-destruction I let myself see my end.”
“Sounds familiar,” Tony said, remembering his own willing ebriection while facing death. His wasn’t nearly so clean of a memory. “Do you have an idea of why you were there?”
Iron Dust shook his head. “We will find out together, I think. You said it was in a temple. Describe it to me?”
Tony sat back and scratched at his beard. “It was underwater. It wasn’t always, I think. Once, it must have been above water, because there were balconies and arching windows that had to be sealed off. It was made out of,” here his eyes went wide as he realized, “jade. The whole place was made out of jade and marble.”
Iron Dust nodded. “What color?”
“White and black jade. It looked like it had been carved with magic. There were pictographs on the walls and it was the most beautiful craftsmanship I have ever seen. The walls seemed alive.”
“It’s a manse, they would be.”
“Manse?”
“Great places of power built by the people of the First Age. They built these places to be in perfect harmony with the world around them. Lay lines and sources of power are all taken into consideration when building a manse, and they seem to come alive.”
“What does the jade do?”
“Jade is a magical material. It focuses magic. This manse you speak of is an air aspect manse, underwater.” He frowned. “If I knew the writing on the walls, maybe I could find out more about it.”
Tony reached for his blotter and quill. “Luckily for you, I have an eidetic memory.”