Prompt#346 – Non Sequitur - Room for Improvement/ extra - Tekia – Exalted/the Avengers

[tekia.livejournal.com]

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

As Tony lounged on the couch, his tablet propped up on White Song’s head where it rested on his stomach, he ignored Pepper where she sat on the side chair, trying to give him a report on the state of his company. As hard as he ignored her, he knew that he was retaining everything she said. On some level, he had always had the ability to recall everything anybody had ever said to him, and he had used that to his advantage for the larger part of his adult life.
So he gleefully ignored Pepper’s voice droning on about numbers and points and results. Instead, his focused on the tablet in his hands, and the building taking form under his fingers. Quite a while ago, he had wanted to disappear into his workshop, but White Song’s heavy weigh held his legs in place, and she had skills at ignoring his complaints almost as perfected as his at ignoring Pepper’s.
Well, maybe hers were better, because when he poked her in the shoulder, she turned her head and sank fangs into his finger. He quickly learned that when the overgrown cat lady was comfortable, not to disturb her.
See, he can learn new things.
Pepper sighed, drawing his attention for the first time since she started her reports. He glanced up at her, brows arched. She frowned at him and shook her head.
“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”
“Sure I did.”
Her lips thinned. “But you weren’t listening.”
“No, I wasn’t,” he admitted. He felt White Song turn her head toward Pepper and braced himself.
“I was,” she said, her voice thick with sleep. “But I didn’t understand half what you were talking about.” Pepper smiled gently at her.
“Of course you were listening; you’re polite. Tony wouldn’t know polite if it bit him on the bare ass.”
White Song nodded in agreement. Pepper was out of his reach, but he could still bop White Song on the head with the tablet. She sniffed at him and rolled away, her eyes turned toward the hall. Seconds later the elevator doors slid open and two pairs of footsteps made their way toward the living room.
Tony swung his legs off the couch and slid the tablet under the cushion as Iron Dust and Bruce entered. Both men arched their brows at him, and he grinned in return. “What’s up?”
Bruce entered the room proper and shook hands with Pepper. “Hello, Ms. Potts. How are you today?”
Pepper stood as she shook his hand. “I’m well, Bruce. How have you been? How was your vacation?”
They descended into a discussion that quickly lost Tony’s attention. He leaned heavily against White Song’s shoulder. “Are you and Bruce dating now?”
Iron Dust smiled and slid in between the arm of the couch and White Song. His eyes were intent upon Bruce’s back. “He lost his path long ago. It will take much time for him to find it again.” He leaned heavily on White Song’s opposite shoulder. “He needs much guidance.”
The three of them turned to watch Bruce and Pepper murmur together. Bruce did a double take when he noticed them staring at him and went faintly pale.
“Are they plotting?” he asked Pepper. She stared at them with no small amount of fear.
Tony grinned. “No time for plotting!” he announced and leapt to his feet. He clapped his hands together and spun on his heel toward the kitchen. “There’s a million and one things to get done before next week’s Event.”
Pepper crossed her arms over her chest and tapped one foot. “That’s what I’ve been telling you all week.”
He waved a hand in a nonchalant fashion over his shoulder. “You have all of SI business under control. I’m talking about getting White Song and Iron Dust ready to meet the public.”
All eyes were on his back as he walked out of the room, already making notes about clothes and identifications via JARVIS. He grinned at the silence he left behind him.
When Iron Dust came to him later that night, Tony had already buried himself in the guts of the Iron Man armor. The beast that he had returned with had been set aside in favor of a new model. One that mixed the technology that he had always known and the technology that his Second Breath had gifted to him. And wasn’t it a beauty?
Iron Dust entered on silent feet and near scared the exaltation out of him when he dropped the tablet on the table next to him. Tony jerked in surprise, his heart pounding against his ribs, and his Essence spiking in his blood. He held a hand to the reactor and glared at Iron Dust.
Before he could say a word, Iron Dust smirked at him. “Had I been an enemy, you would be dead now.”
“Had you been an enemy, JARVIS would never have let you in.”
Iron Dust dipped his head in acknowledgment of JARVIS’ protective protocols. “Still, you grow too unawares while you’re working.”
Tony looked down at the tablet. He rested a hand on the blank surface and let the smile drop from his face. “I’ve built this tower twice. I’ve remade these schematics several times. It doesn’t look like I’m going to make this into a manse, does it?”
“No.” Iron Dust found a chair and pulled it close to sit beside Tony and the guts of the armor. “Did you forget that a manse is a place of power? That it takes the very Essence of the Earth and pools it into one location?”
Tony shook his head. “It’s too dangerous to have in the middle of a city of this size.”
“Much less in the form of a tower that gets attacked regularly.”
Tony nodded and they fell into silence. And then Tony reached out and touched his fingers to Iron Dust’s arm. “I want you to be happy. You and White Song.”
Iron Dust didn’t even blink at his non sequitur train of thought. He caught Tony’s gaze in his own and allowed his carefully constructed mask of calm to slip just enough to let his sadness to show through his eyes. Tony wanted to reach out and pull him into his arms. He didn’t, though, because they needed to talk.
Tony needed to know that they both were here to stay. Logically, he knew they couldn’t leave, couldn’t go back to the Second Age, but, just like Steve, he wanted them to want to be in this time.
“White Song will be happy anywhere.”
Tony smiled. “She’s adaptable like that. I think she likes being around women, though. The two of you traveled too much with just the two of you.”
“It was her choice to travel with me.”
“You have her under your spell.”
Iron Dust shook his head and dropped Tony’s stare. “I’m no sorcerer. That’s your department.”
Tony grinned. “No, I saw you make that spell that brought me back here.”
Iron Dust waved his hand as if to dismiss that thought. “That was The Guardian. He is … was very talented in that aspect of Exaltation.”
Tony stared out at nothing in the quite workshop.
For so long he had worked in silence while in Wisp’s forge that he now found his music distracting and irritating. He almost hated how he enjoyed the quite.
Far more quite than the cave, too.
He shook his head and gave in to the urge to touch. He wrapped his fingers around Iron Dust’s wrist and held on. “I want to tell you about Yinsen.”