Prompt#342 – Foodist - Room for Improvement/ extra - Tekia – Exalted/the Avengers

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Room for Improvement (extra)
Fandom: the Avengers/ Exalted
Prompt: Foodist
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Summary: After coming home Exalted, Tony has plans and ideas all but pouring out of his ears. Back in Creation, there was magic everywhere, and a little hard work wasn’t going to stop him from finding those wells of magic in his own world.

White Song’s eyes turned to Tony, wide with disbelief. Tony grinned at her, but she wasn’t smiling at him. His smile slipped from his face as he realized that she wasn’t behind him in this. “What?”
Her eyes flicked to Bruce first, then to Clint, both staring at her still, before she looked back at him, her head shaking. “No, you talk to Iron Dust about how stupid that idea is.” Then she turned on her bare heel and made a quick exit.
Tony watched her go, confused. His hand dropped to the counter, immediately closing all open programs. The excitement he had felt deflated like a released balloon. He pursed his lips and shrugged. “I hate when she thinks to be cryptic like that.”
Clint snorted. “She called you stupid.”
“Not me,” Tony said haughtily, his nose tipped up in mock arrogance. “Just my idea.”
“What exactly is a manse,” Bruce cut in before Clint could do more than open his mouth to retort. Tony drummed his fingers on the counter a moment before turning away and looking over the kitchen. His eyes lit up when he remembered he had stashed a bag of dried pineapples behind the boxes of Bruce’s teas. He shuffled the boxes around as he searched, absently answering the question.
“It’s like the ultimate feng shui. It’s a building built to harness the powers of Creation. It can funnel the great magic that is embedded in the very earth under our feet into a physical state.” He ignored how he knew he was repeating someone else’s words. Fuck that, he was an expert on manses. Compared to the rest of the human race.
So what if he was going to have to have Iron Dust standing over his shoulder watching his every move because, really, he hadn’t a clue how to go about building a manse. Sure, he knew how to build buildings, and he could figure out most of it on his own, from his memories from the past lives he had lived, even if those memories were few and far between, but the magic part of things he had to be extremely careful with. How many times had Iron Dust and Yinsen warned him against messing with the lines of the manse lease he throw off the feng shui and bring the manse down about their ears?
He gave a soft cry of triumph when he located his bag of dried fruit and ripped it open. He popped a handful into his mouth as he turned back to Bruce. “They’re places of great power, fanciful and elaborate. They’re built to show off a architect’s talent, and I like to show off .”
Bruce pulled his glasses out of his shirt’s pocket and perched him on his nose as he summoned the closed windows back to life. Tony watched him study the plans, trying to understand what Tony had left out because it was quicker to just put down the results and none of the work that his mind had done faster than the computer. He scratched at his chin and glanced doubtfully at Tony. “You’re trying to make Avengers Tower into that temple you found underwater.”
Tony nodded, mouth full, unabashed that he was quite obviously copying the temple. He had built it the first time, after all. Minus a few lifetimes ago. “I can’t bring that bit of sunken land back up from under the depths, but I can recreate the effect.”
Bruce and Tony bowed their heads over the project and didn’t see Clint roll his eyes and leave the room. They worked together on the counter for a few hours more, Tony sneaking food from each person that entered the kitchen for breakfast, and even fishing out his own hidden stashes of snacks the whole while. Most of them let him snack off their plates, Steve even going so far as to build Tony a plate of his left overs, which Tony promptly ignored. White Song followed Thor into the kitchen and the duo ate toasted pastries while they bonded over armor of all things. Tony couldn’t tell which one of them growled at him the loudest when his hand snaked out to snag one that had been until then ignored in the toaster.
White Song glowered at him. “You’re still working on that? I told you it was a stupid idea.”
Tony returned her frown. “I can do it.”
She rolled her eyes and polished off her breakfast in two quick bites. “I didn’t say you couldn’t do it, just that it was stupid. You have one manse, why do you need two?”
Tony worried his lip between his teeth a moment before he forced out, “Because I’m better.”
She arched a brow, and her lips curved upward on one side. “Better? Better than he that came before you? Better than the one that not only lived in a time where magic was in the very air, but was crafted out of that magic himself? You think to build something better than that? You think that what materials you have at hand here will hold a candle to the brilliance of the technology of the First Age?” She gave a bell chime of a laugh. “I’d like to see that.” She waved a hand at the holograms hovering over the counter. “By all means, continue. Just let me be here when Iron Dust finds out your plans.”
“Why do you ridicule his efforts?” Thor asked, brushing crumbs from the shirt stretched too tight over his chest. “Our Tony is very clever.”
“That he is,” she agreed, coming around the counter to pat Tony’s shoulder as if he were a child in need of praise. He glared at her, and she grinned. “But this is him biting off more than he can chew. You know it takes great knowledge and wisdom to put forth the effort to build a manse, yes?”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Of course. I have the knowledge, and Iron Dust has the wisdom.”
She laughed again, this time loud and hard enough that she wrapped her arms around her waist and bent over with the force of her laugher. Then she reached up and caught his chin in between her fingers, turning his face toward hers. “You’re so funny, sometimes, Iron Man. Do you really think Iron Dust would let you build a manse, using his wisdom, and not make it his?”
Tony’s eyes went wide as he realized, yes, Iron Dust wouldn’t put forth the effort to build a manse unless it benefited him. His smile turned sheepish. “We’ll have to keep it secret from him.”
He sniffed delicately when White Song doubled over laughing so hard her face turned red. Thor leaned over the counter to better see where she had fallen to the floor. “Is she well?”
Tony shook his head. “She isn’t right in the head.”
“Me?” she gasped between great bursts of laughter. “You’re the one that thinks you can lie to the Secrets Holder.” She slapped her flat hand against the floor. “This is going to be great.”
Tony shrugged. “I already told Iron Dust that I wanted to turn Avengers Tower into a manse. It’s too late to lie to him anyway.”
“It is always too late to lie to me,” Iron Dust said as he stepped into the kitchen, his hair a tangled mess from the winds that roared over the roof of the tower. Tony had offered him several hats and even to braid his hair before he went up, but Iron Dust always refused. Combing that mane had to be hell. Iron Dust merely pushed the weight of his hair off his shoulder and eyed Tony’s mostly empty bag of dried fruit.
Without taking his eyes off Iron Dust, Tony slapped his hand down on the shiny bag and pulled it closer to him. “Did you enjoy our skies? You’ve been up there for hours.”
Iron Dust tore his eyes away from the fruit and stepped closer to White Song so that he could brush a kiss to her cheek. Ever since the two of them had awoken in the modern world, a la Capcicle style, White Song had insisted upon more physical touches than ever before.
He hadn’t gotten the full story out of them, only that after Tony had left them, The Guardian of Kindled Fires, or Yinsen, as Tony knew him, had left them to pursue his own path and they hadn’t seen him again until the time came for them to enter their living coffins. They had joined in the war, White Song leading them with her beastmen brethren. Iron Dust had told him that his Maiden had come to him to tell him that he had to return to the manse, and that was all he would say on the matter, despite Tony’s stubborn demands to know more.
Tony had a feeling there was much Iron Dust wasn’t telling him, or White Song, but then again, what else was new?
“There is much light under the tower,” Iron Dust said. “The stars struggle to shine through it all.”
“You enjoy star gazing,” Bruce asked as he produced a jug of fruit juice from the fridge. They all had learned early on that Iron Dust would only eat food that hadn’t been processed. Tony didn’t think the tower had seen so much raw fruit and fresh vegetables before. And, luckily for them all, both Clint and Steve both knew and enjoyed cooking.
Tony shoved his uneaten plate of cold breakfast food toward him. Iron Dust took a moment to inspect the food before tucking in.
“I do,” he said in answer to Bruce’s question. “But more than that, my Maiden talks to me through the stars. All fate and that which resides under the watchful eye of Heaven is written in the stars.”
Clint snorted, but quickly sobered when Iron Dust arched a fine white brow in his direction. He shrugged. “We all make our own fates.”
Iron Dust gazed steadily at him for a long moment, long enough to make Clint squirm in his seat. Iron Dust turned his eyes back to the plate before him to spear a bit of egg on the end of his fork. “Humans are not outside of fate. You live how Heaven decrees you to live.”
Clint frowned. “That’s bull.”
Iron Dust’s eyes shot to Tony. “It means he doesn’t agree.”
Iron Dust nodded and looked back at him. “Agree or not, all is woven into the Tapestry of Fate, and your threads are set.” He paused to dip his head in hesitation. “But what pattern your thread creates, that is up to you. Your thread can be as bright or as vibrant as you want to make it. That is all within your control. But you being alive? You being who you are? That was set in stone long ago.”
“What did you mean, ‘humans are not outside of fate?’” Bruce asked, leaning on his arms on the counter. He was still wearing his glasses, peering intently at Iron Dust. Tony felt a curl of satisfaction that he finally got Bruce and Iron Dust talking. He wondered if he could get Jane and Iron Dust to talk. He was sure that she would love to pick his mind about the stars and the workings therein.
“Humans must abide by the laws of fate,” Iron Dust said as if that were obvious. Which it was. Tony frowned at Bruce, and Bruce waved his hand, dismissing the answer.
“What I mean is who is outside of fate?”
Iron Dust polished off the rest of the plate and pushed it away from him. Tony had an itch to pull the plate back toward him and insist, when Steve came back, that he had cleaned it himself, but there were too many witnesses.
“Those that can change fate are outside of fate. Those that can change fate, are not held by the same laws as the rest of the mortal world.” He turned slightly toward Tony and held out his hand as if presenting him. “When he was human-“
“Wait, Tony’s human,” Clint protested.
Tony blew a kiss in Clint’s direction as Iron Dust shook his head. “He was human once, but is no longer.”
All eyes in the room turned on Tony, and Tony preoccupied himself with opening the silver packaging of his dried fruits as noisily as he could. While he did enjoy being the center of attention, having something that he had been trained to hide be put so plainly out in the open left him feeling jittery and defenseless. His love of food would serve to distract everybody from how his hands were shaking minutely on as they quickly fetched small pieces of fruit to toss into his mouth. By the time he looked up to meet the staring eyes, his mask was back in place.
And White Song had come to stand close to him, her warmth steady at his side where their arms brushed.
She knew. She always knew.