Prompt# 367 – Possession - Room for Improvement/ extra - Tekia – Exalted/the Avengers

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Room for Improvement (extra)
Fandom: the Avengers/ Exalted
Prompt: Possession
Warnings: none
Rating: PG-13
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.

When they arrived at the island, the small jet easily landed on the sand, despite the island not being there only a few months ago. Tony jumped out of the jet, feet steady on the ground, before he stomped his foot around him.
“It’s really here.”
“You weren’t expecting it to be?” Steve asked as he nudged Tony out of the way so the others could descend behind them.
Tony shook his head. “Despite my new abilities, I’m still a scientist at heart. I had to see it with my own eyes before I could believe an island could appear in a matter of weeks without so much as a smoking volcano.”
Bruce came to a stop beside Tony and looked around. “Where the hell did those two trees come from? They’re massive.”
Tony eyed the two trees that wove around each other, reaching ever upward. Their trunks were smooth until they branched out at the top in a thick bloom of green leaves. Tony licked his lips and fought back a grin.
“They are my lovelies.” He stepped forward, arms stretched out and ignored how White Song snorted. “I’ve missed them.”
For a long moment, nothing happened, only the leaves moving with the force of the wind. Tony dropped his arms to his side and huffed out a frustrated breath. He turned and found Iron Dust right beside him. Before Tony could react, Iron Dust snatched up his hand in a firm grip and sliced a knife’s sharp edge across his palm.
“Don’t forget that you must offer them something in return for their favor.”
Natasha chuckled. “So they didn’t return your affection.”
Tony waved a dismissing hand as Iron Dust held out his opposite hand. Tony made a fist, letting the hot beads of blood bubble up over his fingers and fall to the ground.
Again, they stood in silence, waiting. Tony dropped his hand to his side, disappointment growing in his chest. Before his hand could come to a stop at his side, a new touch grabbed his hand. He gave a start and nearly jerked his hand out of the way, but the grip was too strong.
He looked down at the top of Glare’s head as she bent over his cupped palm, lapping up the pooling blood. He grinned and placed his free hand on her head. “Team, this is Glare, a tree nymph.”
Iron Dust brushed Tony’s hand away from her head and then forced her mouth away from his still bleeding palm. She snapped blunt teeth at him, and he tisked at her, tossing a bit of Essence her way to ward her off Tony’s blood. She leapt back and curled her lip at him before coming back to Tony, pressing her small body tightly against him.
Tony knelt down and draped an arm over her shoulder as the cut on his hand healed with only a thought. “Where is your sister?”
She blinked large eyes at him before turning back to the trees. Sweet Leaf cowed behind the trunk of one of the trees, her own eyes steady on Tony. Tony waved his fingers at her, and she burst into motion, running toward him and colliding against his chest. Tony hissed with pain as she pressed against the reactor’s casing. Pain throbbed out from his center, and it was all he could do to keep his balance between the two girls. He clenched his eyes closed to better focus on pushing the pain away.
Twin wood rough palms cupped his face, and he opened his eyes to gaze at Sweet Leaf. Her head tilted to one side as she regarded him, somber and as silent as always. He offered her a smile and minutely shook his head. She blinked her eyes, slowly, and dropped her hands from his face. Then her eyes flicked over his shoulder.
“Never mind them, love,” Tony murmured. He brushed her hair out of her face and caught her gaze. “They’re my friends, and you can trust them not to harm you.” He glanced over his shoulder and saw Clint trying to look harmless, and as he was, compared to the nymphs, he was only succeeding in looking foolish.
Tony rolled his eyes and turned back to Sweet Leaf. “Stupid, sometimes, but harmless.”
Clint kicked sand at Tony, and Glare growled at him. Clint threw his hands up in surrender and backed up a step. “Call off your guard, Tony, can’t she take a joke?”
“They are rather protective.”
“A bit,” Iron Dust agreed as he knelt and put a hand on Glare’s shoulder, pulling her out from under Tony’s arm and toward him. “Have you spoken with the dragon?” he asked once he had her attention.
Another slow blink was his answer, and Iron Dust nodded once, pushing up to his feet. Tony followed his ascent with his eyes, accepting Glare back into his arms. “Don’t tell me you could find an answer.”
“Enough of one.”
“It,” Natasha started and then corrected herself, “She didn’t say anything. Even I couldn’t read between the lines with no lines to read between.”
Steve had knelt when the girls had first appeared, his eyes wide and full of wander. Now he looked up at Natasha. “You do very well with just expressions.”
Her lips curled up at the edges. “It requires an expression to read, as well.” She looked back at Glare, who was glaring at them over Tony’s shoulder. “I can read irritation in that expression, and that’s it.”
Tony soothed his hand down Glare’s back. “Don’t listen to them, love, they don’t understand that you’re perfect just the way you are.”
Her eyes shot to him, and then back to the others in the time it takes the heart to beat. He shook his head and turned his attention back to Iron Dust. “What did you learn about the dragon then?”
Iron Dust slapped his hands together, brushing imaginary dust from his fingers. “It was here.”
“And?”
“And that’s it. We need to go to the manse if we want to know more.”
“Not to be a party pooper,” Clint said, “but how are we supposed to get back to the manse? Before, we had the gear for such a trip. Now,” he spread out his hands, motioning to the jet, “well, we have nothing with us.”
White Song gripped Clint’s elbow and began marching him toward the water. “You don’t need, uh, equipment to descend. I’m all you need.”
Clint looked over his shoulder as White Song pulled him firmly into the water. “Help,” he said, his voice thin. Thor laughed and followed.
“Come, Clint, we’ve been there before.”
“With safety equipment!” He threw his free arm wide. “She’s making me go without so much as a snorkel!”
When the water abruptly sucked him under the surface, he gave a garbled shout. White Song easily pulled his head above the water before pressing her mouth to his. Even from this distance, Tony could see how wide Clint’s eyes had gone and how red he had turned in the face. Laughing, Tony turned back to the others.
“Cap, you can hold your breath?”
Steve nodded and, together with Thor, followed Clint and White Song under the softly lapping waves. Tony dropped his arms from around Glare and turned to Sweet Leaf. “Will you take Natasha?”
Sweet Leaf’s eyes went impossibly wide. She shook her head quickly, almost shrinking in on herself, hiding behind Tony’s bulk so that Natasha couldn’t see her. Startled, Tony looked between her, Glare, and Iron Dust. “I don’t understand.”
“Her hair is red.”
Out the corner of his eye, Tony saw Natasha’s hand make an aborted movement toward her hair before she stopped her action and deliberately dropped her hand back to her side. “What does that matter?”
Iron Dust addressed her. “The air over the oceans is owned by the Storm Mothers. And they rule the seas. Those that travel by the seas are subject to her whims. And she hates red heads.” He glanced at Glare. “Will you take her?”
Glare’s glare turned darker, but before she could respond, the waters around them erupted. Glare and Sweet Leaf ducked away into the safety of the trees. Natasha pressed against the solid bulk of the jet. The others that had been in the water were all thrown into the air as the dragon surged from the ocean, it’s long black body winding up out and over them all.
Soaked, Tony shook his hair out of his eyes and tried to gauge the size of the dragon. “No wonder we could see the thing in satellites.”
He only saw a flash as Iron Dust was suddenly in motion, racing across the short distance of the island toward the retreating dragon.
Tony cursed and jumped to his feet. His grasp missed Iron Dust only just. He cursed again and took off after him. “Wait! What are you going to do? Sprout wings and fly after it?”
And it seemed as if that was what Iron Dust did, leaping into the air an ungodly distance. He attached himself to the dragon, and then hands grabbed Tony as he splashed thigh deep in the water. He was pulled to a stop, and could only watch as the dragon took Iron Dust high into the sky.
He shrugged the hands off him, spitting out a curse. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“It’s coming back,” Clint said.
And it was weaving through the sky back toward them.
“Now is when you ask what are we supposed to do now?”
“Iron Dust has this under control. Trust him.”
They couldn’t see Iron Dust from their angle as the dragon swooped overhead, and could only watch in awe as it dove back down into the water. As the hands on him hadn’t resumed their hold, Tony dived in as well. He felt Thor beside him, strong strokes cutting through the water.
Below the depths, the manse nearly glowed with Essence, white and pure. Closer to the surface than before. Something pulled at Tony’s chest, urging him to press on.
The dragon and Iron Dust had disappeared, and Tony could only assume that they had gone inside. Thor reached the doors first, grabbed a secure grasp on the frame, and reached back for Tony, pulling him into the manse before following.
Tony didn’t even notice the effort it took for them to reach the manse, breath steady and pulse fast only because of his worry for Iron Dust.
The main hall was empty, dry even. Licking his lips, Tony glanced up and down the two halls that shot off from the main hall. “Where did they go?”
Steve arrived behind them, his arm around Natasha, who was flushed and panting heavily. She clung to him a moment before forcing herself away from him. She glanced around them, taking the time to steady her breathing. In that time, White Song and Clint arrived, but Tony was down the hall, headed for the room that housed the hearth stone.
Where had they gone?
Before he could reach the far room, a shout drew him back to the main hall. He arrived with a squeak of wet shoes. He ducked under the massive body of the dragon thrashing on the walls, water splashing everywhere.
He saw White Song drop to all four, fur rippling over her body, her size shrinking into a lithe panther. She crouched low, yellow eyes watching one spot as it moved around over their heads.
Steve and Clint had pressed themselves down, one with his hands over his head, the other unable to resist watching. Thor stood unchallenged in the center of the room, unafraid. Natasha stood in the doorway between one hall and the next, gun in hand, eyes narrowed.
Tony paid them all no heed, searching for Iron Dust still.
Just as he caught sight of him, the dragon writhed, twisting and turning, flailing and thrashing. One leg caught Tony across the face, knocking him back with a sickly squelch. Neon colors flashed before his eyes, and his gut felt like it was trying to force its way up his throat. His hand scrabbled up the wall, looking for purchase.
His breath caught somewhere behind his nose, and he felt something he hadn’t felt since his second breath. Nausea. He let his eyes slip close, and let himself slide into darkness.
In the darkness he felt something waiting for him, something familiar and safe, and he wanted it. He wanted it closer, and he wanted it to surround him, make him safe. He wanted it to take away the thoughts that never left him, the fears that plagued him. The sorrow that he felt in his soul.
And then he realized what it was that was waiting for him, that he was reaching for.
When Tony next opened his eyes, he didn’t know who he was.
Well, he knew who he was. He was The Most Gifted One. He was a warrior without equal and renowned for his clever inventions and for his weapons that helped save the world.
He also knew that he had been dead for a very, very long time, and this body wasn’t his own.