Prompt#321 -Rubbery- Room for Improvement - Tekia – Exalted/the Avengers

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Room for Improvement
Fandom: Exalted/The Avengers
Prompt: Rubbery
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
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.

“We’re not attacking the village! We’re trying to help!”
He snarled, eyes now dark with rage as they looked Tony up and down. “What do Dragons have to gain from helping a nameless village in the forest? No, you’re here to destroy, it’s what you do best.”
His hands were glowing yellow and grey. Something crawled up Tony’s back that made him fall back on his heels, fear tensing his muscles. When the man made his move, Tony was ready, dodging out of the way and around the bodies of the dead.
White Song followed, still in her large cat form, tail whipping about wildly behind her as she growled at them.
Tony glared at her as he took a full hit from the sword on this gauntlet. “You’re not helping!” She bared her teeth at him. “Right, pay attention to the demigod trying to kill us.” He fell back again, letting the sword swipe over his head.
The man was fast on his feet, nearly a blur, but, with his Essence thrumming through his blood, Tony could see his moves as if they were being passed through water. He had no weapons at his disposal, and only the gauntlets for protection, and those were made out of a stone that he only half believed to be magical.
Well, he did enjoy testing his tools out on the field.
He just hoped they were strong enough to hold out long enough against the sword. With a final gulp, Tony reached out and caught the sword between his armored hands and gave a bark of a laugh as it worked. He had caught the sword!
The man kicked at his chest and Tony screamed at his foot connected with the arc reactor. He dropped the sword and fell to the ground, clutching at his chest over the armor. His chest throbbed in pain. He had taken hits from Thor in the armor and never felt an ounce of pain; hell, he’d trained with Captain America and even suffered a punch to the chest from the peak of human perfection, and still had never felt like his arc reactor had just been shoved several inches into his chest cavity.
When the man made the mistake of standing over him, Tony wrapped his hand around his foot and pulled him off balance. When the man lost his footing, White Song leaped and landed on his shoulders, dragging him to the ground. She stood with her paws on his shoulders, long teeth gleaming inches from his face.
The man wasn’t afraid, glaring up at the cat, his hand reaching wildly for the sword that had fallen to the ground.
Tony struggled to his knees, then his feet. He stumbled forward and kicked the sword out of the way. “Will you listen? I’m not a Dragon Blooded.”
The man snorted. “You wear the armor of a coward Dragon Blooded.” His eyes flicked briefly to the gauntlets, clearly different from the armor despite both being red. Tony held his hand out, flexing his fingers, watching the armor move with him.
“But I’m not. Why are you people so racist?”
White Song screamed, an eerily human scream from that cat’s throat, as he punched her away from him. She crumpled on the ground, curled up. Tony took a step toward her, and then froze as the man flipped to his feet. Without any armor, the man was much quicker than Tony, and was on him before Tony could defend himself.
They grappled, Tony doing all he could to keep the man from finding any holds on the armor. There was a faint frown on the man’s face as Tony wiggled out his grasp. “You have no style,” the man murmured more to himself than to Tony.
Tony held up his hands before him, fists at the ready. “Sorry, you have that wrong. I’m all about style. Ask my friends.”
The man shook his head. “No, you weren’t trained. What’s your name?”
“T-Iron Man.”
White Song was struggling to her feet now, shaking her head slowly to clear it before she turned her eyes to them. She wobbled on her feet as she turned her whole body toward them. Tony felt fear coil in his stomach at how weak she seemed to be.
Tony turned his eyes to his opponent, reminding himself to keep his attention on him. “Iron Man,” he repeated, a sneer in his voice, in the curl of his lip. “Not a Dynast name.” Then the man rushed Tony.
Tony started. “Wait.”
Their bodies collided again. This time, Tony fell and kept falling. During their fight, the man had pushed and pulled until Tony was well inside the burnt village. He was drawn into a trap and, as his back slammed heavily against the ground.
The late sunlight didn’t reach down the pit Tony had been thrown into, and he could only see the vague shadow of the man looking down at him. Tony sat up, calculated the distance and knew that the jet boots were more likely to land him against the side of the pit than the top without the hand thrusters. He cursed and cursed again when he heard White Song scream again.
Then her body was falling into pit toward him. He braced himself to catch her. True to her cat body, she twisted in the air until she was descending with her paws extended and landed on top of him. They fell to the ground together, Tony gasping for breath under her weight.
“Sir, the left jet boot has malfunctioned. I’m afraid you can no longer fly at all.”
“Yeah, thanks, JARVIS.” He thumped his head back on the ground as White Song pushed herself upright on her feet. She blinked her wide eyes in the darkness, her head turning left and right before she sat back and changed into her human self with only a small silvery glow.
“This is an underground cave.” She pointed. “If you can’t go up, let’s go this way.” She moved around him, one arm held tight to her side where he must have kicked her.
Tony rolled onto his stomach. “Go that way, into that cave? No light, no idea where we’re headed?” Yeah, that sounded like something he didn’t want to do. She reached down and pulled him to his feet before leading the way away from the light and into the cave that led who knew where.
“Yes, let’s get going before Iron Dust has to look for us.”
The cave was dark, the air damp and chilled. Tony shivered, rubbing his hands over his arms. Fear crawled under his skin, reaching up his throat and turning his thoughts inward. Only the warm hand that settled on his lower back kept him grounded, reminded him that he wasn't in Afghanistan still. When his fear, his memories, made him stumble, White Song was there to hold him steady and keep him going.
He silently wished Iron Dust was with them. The Sidereal not only would have an escape all planned out, but Tony was sure he could distract him from his thoughts. Iron Dust had that talent, keeping Tony distracted.
Shaking his head, Tony blindly reached behind him for White Song's hand and entwined their fingers together.
"Do you have a clue where we are?"
"Underground," she murmured. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his tunic as she pressed her chest to his back, giving him directions in the dark with minute pressures from her body. Could she see in the dark, like a cat too?
Tony snorted. "I know that. I was there when we fell into the pit. How far away from the lake do you suppose we are?"
Her hand snaked around his waist and she rested her chin on his shoulder. "Far enough that Iron Dust is going to be angry with us when he discovers us gone. Let's hope that we get out of here before he gets back."
Tony nodded, knowing that she couldn't see him in the darkness. He put a hand to the arc reactor absent-mindedly and tapped his fingers against the case that still throbbed from the kick to his chest. He could feel faint tremors coursing through his body, and thanked his armor for keeping his shaking from White Song. Then again, animals could smell fear. He bet she could too.
She hadn't asked, and he knew she wouldn't, but he needed to talk.
"I was held prisoner in a cave for three months, once." Her arm tightened around him and she made a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat. "Someone I trusted ordered my death, but they kept me alive to build weapons for them. That's what I was famous for. Building weapons."
He grasped her hand and brought it up to cover the arc reactor. "My own weapons did this to me." Her hand was warm in his, her skin soft and dry. He could feel sweat beading at his hairline and in the palms of his hands. His skin felt rubbery against hers. He had thought that this terror was something of his past. Apparently it was closer than he had let himself believe.
“I’m not afraid of the dark, or of small spaces, but caves. Yeah, I avoid those. This is my first time being in a cave since then. They look nothing alike.”
He felt White Song nod, her cheek brushing his. “We’ll get out soon. There’s fresh air coming from that direction.” Her hand brushed his as she pointed the direction they were currently walking.
“Good. That’s- That’s good.”
“You know that you can make light, right?”
Tony froze before he chuckled. “I knew that.” He closed his eyes against the darkness and commanded the Essence in his blood to obey his command and flooded to his brow and brought his caste mark to life. Light turned his lids red and his eyes popped open to see the dark cave lit up as if they were holding sixty-five watt light bulbs.
He touched a hand to his brow. “What does it look like?”
“Hum?”
He turned toward her, tapping a finger to his brow. “I haven’t seen it, but the source of the light, what does it look like?”
Her eyes flicked to his brow. “Half a sun. You are Twilight, the sorcerers and inventors of the Solars.” She caught Tony’s hand in hers and pulled him after her. “They’ll have a trap for us at the end of the cave, if they’re clever.”
“Yeah, that seems logical. We’ll need a plan for escape.”
She shook her head. “We’ll have to fight.” She made a face full of distaste. “Try not to kill them, they’re only human.”