Prompt#343 – Incorporeal - Room for Improvement/ extra - Tekia – Exalted/the Avengers

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Room for Improvement (extra)
Fandom: the Avengers/ Exalted
Prompt: Incorporeal
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.


Bruce shoved his glasses up his nose. “Since when were you not human? Were you ever going to tell us?”
Tony shrugged. “Slipped my mind.” Bruce frowned and opened his mouth to form a protest, but Tony began speaking before he could utter a sound. “The thing is, back in that other world, we, us, us that are not human, were hunted.” He shrugged again, careful to keep Bruce’s gaze locked with his own. In a distant part of his mind, he knew it was an obvious tell, but he couldn’t force himself to break the contact. “After everything, it’s habit to keep that close to my chest.” His fingers almost reached for the reactor, but he forced them down to the table before they could move too far.
“What are you, if not human?” Clint asked, now tipping his empty glass on its edge and rolling it in the ring of sweat it had left behind. “Are you like Thor now?”
Tony grinned and waggled his brows. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
White Song leaned over his shoulder. “Thor is a god to your people, yes?”
Clint turned his steady gaze on her. “He’s a demigod. He controls thunder. He’s stronger than any human, and he’s immortal.”
“Only gods are immortal,” Iron Dust commented as he snagged the bag of fruit from Tony. Tony glared at the bag that was no longer in his hands, trying to remember if he had a second bag elsewhere. “And elementals,” he amended after popping one chunk of fruit into his mouth. He made a face and deposited the bag back in Tony’s hand.
Sighing, Tony tossed the bag onto the counter. “But you, who has lived far longer than any of your kind could possibly hope to live, are not immortal?”
Iron Dust shook his head. “We didn’t live through the time we were in the deep sleep.” Deep sleep. That’s what they had taken to calling their time in the caskets. They were neither alive, nor dead as far as Tony had gleaned from Iron Dust’s short answers to his questions. If he didn’t know any better, he would assume that Iron Dust himself hadn’t known how the casket’s had worked. Tony wasn’t nearly that stupid.
He would wait. Time wasn’t an issue in getting answers from Iron Dust. And neither was persistence. He would wait, and, when he was ready, Iron Dust would let his secrets come to light.
“We were,” he paused here to let a small, sardonic smile curve his lips as he shot Bruce a glance, “outside of fate.” Bruce shook his head, but he was smiling.
“So, then, back to who lives outside of fate,” Bruce said. “’When Tony was human’…?”
Iron Dust nodded. “When he was human, it was written in the stars the life he would lead. He was meant to be great, for his star was very bright indeed. It was resplendent in the sky, and I’m sure many astrologers in this world would have taken note of his star.”
Tony’s eyes tipped up as he through back. “I used to receive tons of mail from hacks that claimed that my stars were auspicious. I always ignored them.” He lowered his gaze to find Iron Dust frowning at him in an absent sort of way. “I didn’t believe in that sort of stuff. Not back then.” He offered Iron Dust the smile that had often gotten him out of trouble with Pepper. Usually because at that point she knew it was pointless to argue with him any longer. Iron Dust seemed immune to the sight.
“It matters naught. They probably couldn’t read the signs correctly anyway,” Iron Dust went on, disregarding the efforts of humans. Tony really needed to introduce Pepper and Iron Dust and convince her that it was merely fate that made Tony such an ass to people. Proof was embodied in the seat next to him. “As a human, there couldn’t be much you could do to achieve greatness.”
Tony snorted. “I was a prince of a realm that had no royalty.”
Clint snorted at that. Iron Dust ignored him.
“His path was laid out before him.” He closed his eyes. “I can’t see it now, but the stars would have spoken of his fate to those that could read them correctly.”
“Why can’t you see it now?”
Iron Dust’s eyes opened slowly and focused once more on Bruce. “Because he is now outside of fate. Not even Heaven knows what he is capable of doing. The choices he makes, he makes on his own.” Those eerie yellow eyes roamed over Tony’s face, and Tony suddenly felt very naked and alone. White Song smoothed a hand down his back, calming him in a way that almost angered him, but instead settled him. These people were here with him, for him. The distrust and hatred between their species couldn’t matter, here, now.
They three were all they had in the entire world. The laws and the rules set down thousands of years ago had no hold over them. The wars and plots and schemes of the past were nothing to them.
So what if Sidereals weren’t to be trusted? Iron Dust was nearly as dependent upon Tony as he was upon Iron Dust.
White Song had warned him time and again, but Tony trusted Iron Dust. It might be folly like she said, but he did. He couldn’t help himself.
Iron Dust was Yinsen’s brother, in a way, and, more than that, he was Tony’s mentor. And if Iron Dust ever did betray him, well, Tony knows well in advance that he walked into it with both eyes wide open.
Despite all her warnings, Tony didn’t think Iron Dust would ever do so. And he was quite sure that she didn’t feel he would either.
Their circle.
That’s what they had called it before, the bond between the three of them. The words resonated within him, and he could feel the incorporeal bond that held their souls together. He could feel it as if it were a ring of gold that linked them physically instead of merely an idea put into his head.
Iron Dust returned his gaze to Bruce. “With that burden he has taken, his actions, unless grand in nature to affect those around him, are hidden from the sight of Heaven.”
“What about me,” Bruce asked in rush. He flushed and took a deep breath, his hands clenching into fists before him on the table. He closed his eyes as he gathered himself. “Was it fate- was it Heaven’s design that I- that the Other Guy exists?”
White Song tilted her head to one side as she considered Bruce. Tony had mentioned in passing at some point about Bruce’s condition, but he really hadn’t gone into detail. White Song had accepted his ability to transform into a different creature without blinking, and Tony didn’t think she fully understood what Bruce had gone through. It was a joy for him the way it was for her, embracing her nature.
Iron Dust studied Bruce as he forced his eyes open. “You greatly dislike your other self.”
Bruce’s face was ugly in a flash before he could control his emotions. “Yes,” he bit out. Tony wanted to reach across the table and offer a touch, but he stayed his hand. White Song was rubbing off on him if he was considering offering physical comfort in a way that didn’t involve sex.
Iron Dust nodded. “I have read all of your stars. All are bright and resplendent, speaking of your auspicious destinies. The path you walk is narrow and dangerous.” Bruce huffed a breathless laugh. “And it has led you into trying times and great emotional turmoil.”
Bruce muttered, “You can say that again,” under his breath.
“And because of that, you are a stronger man than you have ever been. It has led you through trying times, and you have come out of it greater for the experience.”
Bruce squared his shoulders. “What use of the Other Guy does Heaven have, if this was all fate?”
Iron Dust didn’t speak right away, and Tony sat up a little straighter when he saw a hint of green come to Bruce’s skin tone. Then Iron Dust broke the moment by reaching for that bag of fruit. He poured a few squares into the palm of his and, shook them, and tossed them indelicately on the table. He leaned forward over them, one hand coming up to push his wild hair back over his shoulder. With that same hand, he reached forward and pointed to one chunk of pale yellow fruit.
“In your time since his awakening, you have fled over the breath of the known world, yes?”
Bruce hesitated, nonplussed at the change of tone of the conversation. “Yes.”
“And in that time, you have come in contact with many people.”
“Yes.”
“People that you have helped with your knowledge.”
Bruce shrugged. “Sure, but I’ve harmed far more during one of my- uh- episodes.”
Iron Dust looked up from the fruit and caught Bruce’s gaze with a smile. “Ah, but what you don’t know is this.” He pointed to another bit of fruit. The three gathered Avengers stared at the fruit, confused. As one, their eyes went to Iron Dust’s face for explanation. “Those that you helped would never have received help had you not been on the run. They would never have been saved, had you not been strong enough. I see five.”
“Five what?” Clint asked, leaning over the fruit as if he could read the hidden messages Iron Dust so clearly could. “There are seven bits of pineapple.”
Iron Dust slanted Clint a look he didn’t see, but clearly stated Iron Dust’s opinion of his mental capacities. “Five lives that were needed, but without Bruce’s help, would have perished.”
Bruce slowly gathered a chair under him, his despondent gaze on the fruit. Tony finally gave in and reached out, covering one hand with his own. He curled his fingers around Bruce’s and held on. Bruce kinda looked like he was lost and needed something to hold him down.
The grip Bruce returned assured Tony that he hadn’t been wrong.