Prompt# 348 – Papaya - Room for Improvement/ extra - Tekia – Exalted/the Avengers

[tekia.livejournal.com]

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

Tony found Bruce in the kitchen days later, his own tablet safely cradled between his elbows where they rested on the island, his cheeks resting heavily on his fists as he gazed with single minded determination on the screen.
Tony slipped onto the stool next to him and mimicked his position, his own tablet blinking to life with JARVIS’ apparent psychic abilities. Bruce hummed low in greeting as his finger drifted down to change the page of whatever it was he was reading.
They sat together for a goodly while before Steve and Natasha entered the kitchen, bags of food hanging from their fingers. Bruce and Tony looked up at the same time.
“We have a crew that does that,” Tony commented.
Steve smiled and shrugged. “It’s a type of therapy.” Natasha nodded as she put her bags on the counter in front of them. She assumed a seat as Steve began unloading the bags and putting things away. Bruce went back to reading, and Tony turned to watch Steve bend at the waist to put things into the fridge.
“And you need shopping therapy because?”
“Because being in a house with three geniuses is sometimes too much and I need to be reminded that not everybody is as unique as you three.”
Tony opened his mouth to protest Iron Dust’s genius level, but then paused, because, really, if he wasn’t a genius, then that disqualified Tony from that title as well. And, well, he couldn’t give that up. He’d won too many arguments with that word on his side to give it up.
Instead of protesting, he sniffed and turned back to the table.
Natasha had pulled everything from the bags, and Tony ogled the mass of fresh foods. And then he grinned when his eyes lighted upon a familiar silvery package. He made gimmie hands, and Natasha rolled her eyes as she tossed the blueberries at him.
He caught it easily and ripped it open before pausing only long enough to offer the first pick. And Bruce let himself be distracted from his readings long enough to pluck out a few and toss them into his mouth. Tony picked out his own selection and spoke around his mouthful, “What are you reading?”
“Astrology.”
“Astronomy?”
Bruce gave him a look. “Astrology.”
“Why?” Tony snagged his tablet and turned it to face him. His eyes skimmed the page, not really reading any of it, but retaining it all nonetheless. “Is this because of Iron Dust?”
“I saw him watching the stars a few days ago. He explained a few things to me, and it intrigued me.”
Tony turned his tablet back toward him and started shifting through the foods laid out before them still. Steve slapped his hands away from the grapes that were leaving little pools of water on the counter. Steve put a paper towel around the grapes and stuffed them into the fridge as well. Tony turned his attention to the next item on the counter.
“Iron Dust once told me that the things he knows could make a lesser man’s head explode. I’m not entirely sure he was joking. So, uh, be careful what you learn from him.”
He could feel their eyes on him as he looked back down at his tablet, now dark from inactivity.
“I’m not entirely sure you’re not joking,” Steve said from behind him. Tony shrugged and popped another blueberry into his mouth.
His fingers danced over his tablet again and he summoned up the blueprints of the tower once more. He dismissed much of the previous upgrades and even most of the original tower blueprints until only the outlines of the basic manse structure remained. He munched on the blueberries as he studied the mandatory lines.
If he made the house in Malibu into a manse…
He nearly startled when Iron Dust reached over his shoulder for a peach, the cloth of his sleeve rubbing against his elbow. His eyes snapped toward him, and he felt his lips tighten at his inattention. Iron Dust smirked at him, and Tony rolled his eyes. “Okay, I get it. I’m not a warrior, and I’ll never be as alert as you and, well, everybody else.” He held up his tablet. “I’m an inventor and I have a house full of super powered people to watch my back.”
Iron Dust didn’t say anything, and, as Tony turned back in his seat, Natasha rolled her eyes, but she was grinning. “Old argument?”
“New argument. He never had a problem when we were,” Tony waved a hand, “back there.”
“Back there,” Iron Dust said as he took a seat beside Natasha. She snatched Tony’s bag of blueberries and, ignoring Tony’s glare, she offered them to Iron Dust. Iron Dust smiled at her and accepted. He settled the bag in his lap, well out of Tony’s reach. “’Back there’, as you so quaintly call it, was filled with Essence. ‘Back there’, the Essence would have protected you far better than your human senses. Here, the Essence is thin in the air. Here, you have to rely more on your skills than on your Essence. It’s far more dangerous for you here.”
Sobered, Tony caught Iron Dust’s gaze and let his fingers go slack on his tablet. Now that Iron Dust had pointed it out, he realized that the Essence that he had quickly grown used to was now flowing weakly in his veins. He hadn’t been using his Essence at all since they had eliminated The Hour at Hand. He almost felt guilty about not noticing, but hey, life here was easy as pie compared to how it had been, back there.
“I would think it would be safer here,” Steve said. He was standing at the counter, a papaya in one hand and an eggplant in the other. “The stories I hear about, uh, back there, seem so much more,” he gestured with the hand holding the papaya. He seemed lost for the right word. “Everything.”
Iron Dust nodded. “More and Less. Although the two worlds are the same, they are very different. Yes, the world back there was so much more powerful and more dangerous than anything you have today. And yes, this world is so much faster and crowded. One can get lost in the crowd, and one can hide in the crowd until it’s too late to defend yourself.”
Bruce and Natasha were both nodding along with what he was saying, and Tony wished that he could save them from their pasts. He chewed on his bottom lip as he tried to understand where that line of thought had come from.
He had noticed, since returning from the other world, that his thoughts traveled down that path more than once a day. He had opened his house to his circle without much thought to it, well before he gained his second breath. Since his return, his only thought, aside from the manse, had been to protect his circle. To see them happy.
Despite his own inherent unhappiness.
He started again when a blueberry hit him right between the eyes. He glared up at Iron Dust, who smiled around placing another one on his tongue. “Don’t think so hard,” he said, “Your Essence will not lead you wrong, even if it is currently weak.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Don’t be smug.”
Bruce looked between the two of them. “Is your Essence stronger, Iron Dust?”
“Always,” he said, turning yellow eyes to Bruce. “But we lose Essence when we use it, and we have to regain it. In this world full of machines, the opposite of Essence, it is hard to replenish what we use.”
Steve finished putting away the groceries and pulled a stool around to the head of the table. He had a carton of juice and a pair of glasses with him. “So it takes you lot longer to replenish your magic. While it’s gone, are you guys defenseless?”
Tony snorted. “Hardly. We’re gods among humans.”
“Don’t let Thor hear you say that,” Clint said as he walked in. His eyes lit up upon seeing the twin glasses of juice sitting before Steve. Without looking away from Iron Dust, Steve held up the glass for him.
Clint took the remaining seat and gulped down the juice. “What are we talking about aside from Tony’s ego?”
“Astrology,” Bruce said before Tony could open his mouth. Tony gave him a flat look, and Bruce smiled gamely at him.