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Ásmær is born with his eyes open and his mouth shaped around the shadows of a scream. His blood boils red and silver through his veins, smoke drifting from his mouth with each breath. His little fists flail and feet kick, his flesh shifting peach-pink and metal-gold in strips of molten sunlight. His eyes burn white and then chocolate brown, bright with the glimmer of stars and collapsing worlds; and in breaths gasping with fire and smoke he howls a challenge to the blur of the Yggdarsil tree.
His mother trails fingers blue with ice and secrets against the curve of his furnace-warm cheeks, and hides the tremble of her lips in his hair.
~*~*~*~
“An heir. For you.”
Howard Stark has been courted by many in his day, but now his brilliant mind stagnates in spirits and wine. He blinks, bleary and tired, at the woman who stands on his doorstep with a child in her arms. There is something in her eyes that makes him afraid and fascinates him in equal measure, as if he had the answer to all the mysteries of the world before him if he only thought to ask. The words come, the plea (‘will I find him?’) but she merely lifts her chin, her lips drawing back into something like a sneer, and his eyes flit to the child instead.
“His name will be Anthony,” the mother tells him, and despite the drenching rain she stands as still and dry as he himself; a faint gleam to the fine curve of her eyes, her son steaming with heat and fire within the cradle of her outspread arms. For a second regret curls the sensual curve of her lips into a frown before her face straightens, cold and aloof, and she breathes plumes of white smoke between the sharp brittle lances of rain. “Anthony Ásmær, born son of kings beneath the eye of Yggdarsil. A child more than worthy of your house.”
There is a naked vulnerability in her admittance that he finds instantly appealing, a slow twitch that might almost be a smile curving the left side of his lips. She doesn’t even know who he is! Yet she stands before him in rain and storm, her eyes liquid and cold, her impeccable posture twisted slightly at the shoulder. There is something like fear in the curve of her lips and the incline of her neck, something like desperation in the long-fingered hands that hold so carefully to her son. Out of scotch and whiskey he meets the eyes of a god, and he wonders for one sharp moment on the nature of the monster that drove her here – for the beast that haunts her steps and brings her low; for a son clutched steaming and quiet in the harsh winter rain.
Far away he hears the ruffle of wings and the sharp caw of a raven, and he meets her liquid gaze.
He knows in that one glance his own future, knows he will be no gentle father to this boy, and knows in equal measure the depths of their shared desperation. There is no creature chasing him to bring madness and suffering, but his empire teeters at the edge of the abyss and his brilliant mind has long since started drifting towards ruin. There is nothing here for him on this ruined earth, so boring, so old, so slow. This boy could be his legacy. This child, this Anthony, could shape the future of Stark.
Anthony stirs, little fists flailing, and his skin steams in the rush of rain even within the grasp of his mother’s arms. Something stirs in Howard, some distant part of him recognising a challenge and raising to it. Anthony fades, no longer child or human, no longer god; but a puzzle, a machine, a thing to be studied, shaped.
Used.
The woman’s arms clench around her child before she steps forward, light on the marble of his entrance steps, and presses the boy into his arms. Anthony stares at him and stars wheel through those brown eyes, fire dusting skies gone grey with smoke; and Howard notices his high core temperature and the faint brush of fire over those little fists with something bordering on fascination. He juggles the weight of the boy between that of his scotch and mutters thoughts and equations under his breath. It is only after he has already turned to head back into the house that he remembers that he never caught the mother’s name.
When he turns back, she is already gone.
~*~*~*~
She returns only once, after a week has passed and Anthony lays gurgling and bubbling beneath the indulgent attention of the old butler Jarvis and the maid Maria. She comes only once to the sanctuary of his lab, her fine eyes dark and damp in the depths of his den, a quiet tigress come slinking tremulous and low from the shadows. She comes only once with the scrawl of a rune on her hand, and her lips tremble against the shell of his ear.
Howard picks up the knife and carves the rune into the soft flesh of Anthony’s palm and doesn’t flinch as the boy screams. The metal melts silver and molten against the boy’s palm but the blade holds true, and the rune burns in blood and fire upon the tiny hand peach-pink and burnt gold in the twisting sunlight.
He drops the half-melted knife and returns to the lab, leaves Maria and Jarvis to fret over the screaming boy; and meets her eyes in the depths of the gloom. Her words echo between them, her promise, but Howard doesn’t say a word.
She doesn’t come again.
~*~*~*~
Anthony grows, but the rune never fades.
Anthony’s four when he first trails hands peach-pink and plump through the shadows of machinery and wires, heart pounding in time to the sparks that jerk upon his fingers. Metal and plastic shape themselves to his fingers, burning glimmers and promises against his palms, and he scoops silver handfuls of wires to fall trembling through the air. At six his reflection gleams bright and brilliant from the smooth curves of the engine, his face broken wide with a laugh and stars dying bright deaths in the depths of his eyes. The board whispers prodigy and the media wonders genius, and Howard snaps at Anthony to stand straight for the camera and rests a calculating hand on his shoulder. The camera clicks and Howard takes back his hand, and Anthony watches him walk away.
Stark Industries booms.
Anthony grows beneath Howard’s absence and disappointment, beneath the glare of cameras and the impatient sighs of old men. He grows beneath Obadiah’s expectations and the weight of his own name, curls up in a bed too big and lonely in a house too large and cold. Jarvis and Maria raise him with all the tenderness they can but Anthony’s eyes still turn to trace Howard’s back, always a few steps ahead and stinking of scotch, desperate that maybe this time Howard will turn back and wait for him. Anthony grows as brilliant and wild as Howard, loud and dazzling and bright as a star, yet his eyes are bruised and broken behind the shadow of Howard’s back.
Anthony grows to be the heir that Howard was promised, but it was always only assurances for future and safety that bound their fates together. Anthony would be safe, and Howard would be saved.
Howard was never offered a son; nor Anthony a father.
~*~*~*~
Anthony sends off his application for MIT at fourteen.
Jarvis lives long enough to see him receive his acceptance – as if he’d receive anything but – then passes away as quietly as Maria had the year before.
~*~*~*~
MIT has two things going for it. One, Howard’s not there. Two, Anthony meets Rhodes.
Rhodes sighs and tolerates him with the same sort of bemused affection one might give an overly hyperactive puppy; a puppy that does everything that you tell it not to but is so adorable you can’t help but reluctantly love it. Anthony calls him Rhodey, calls him honeybear and studmuffin, and Rhodey sighs and calls him Tony and the name just, well, sticks.
He goes to MIT Anthony Edward Stark and emerges just Tony, and then tyres screech on a rain slick road and Tony picks up a phone that won’t stop ringing and breathes against the weight of the receiver.
Obadiah meets him at the gates in the black limousine, cool and composed, not a drop of moisture in his eyes for the man who had been his partner and ally. Tony curls low in the seats and stares out the windows, shades low on his nose and stars wheeling cold and brittle through the curves of his eyes. Obadiah steers him with a hand low on his back and Tony stops in front of the grave, the undertaker’s lips shaped around something that looks like a platitude.
Tony stares into Howard’s grave and waits to mourn for a man that never once cared for him.
~*~*~*~
Tony turns his ring and takes the reins.
He stands before the old guard and declares himself the new blood, ignores Obie’s sighs and wakes hangover and drained next to the latest bed warmer. He heads downhill as fast as he can, builds AIs so he’s not alone, and sends Rhodey texts in between invoices for the latest military order. He makes a single accounting mistake and poaches the one woman brave enough to notice it. Tony creates his own little world and positions himself firmly at the centre, cushions himself in this net of people and machines who somehow love him, and tilts his chin in front of the camera.
He stands in front of a crowd and slurs something that might be a lecture, stands in front of a woman and curls his lips into a smile, stands in front of a bottle and drinks until he’s drowning. He draws death on a piece of paper and leads Pepper to the floor to dance, charming and smooth and everyone’s favourite media whore. He yells at DUM-E in the lab and snipes at JARVIS in the kitchen and watches worlds twirl through the whites of his eyes.
He breathes beneath the weight of his own genius and arrogance, breathes beneath Obadiah’s expectations and Pepper’s strained smile and Rhodey’s disbelieving huff. He breathes blind to everything that’s not him, everything that’s contrary to this strange little world he’s created for himself. His name’s on everyone’s lips and the military basically begs at his door and it’s heady and wonderful and pathetic, and his eyes close against the twist in Obie’s lips.
Tony brushes past Rhodey onto an airplane, watches a stewardess twirl around a pole, spreads his arms before a mountain. He becomes another reflection of Howard and Obie and stands ten foot tall and then some in the face of his own arrogance and confidence, smile just this side of smug. He steps back against the recoil of a blast and spreads his arms, toasts to peace, and slides into the funvee.
A soldier lifts a hand, grin quick and bright and so young, and the world explodes.
Tony wakes in a cave, in a bucket of water, in the midst of a scream. A camera rolls and someone reads something and he can’t understand the words. A soft voice murmurs kind sounds and steady hands bring him back to life.
Yinsen closes his eyes.
Tony takes the cards that Coulson hands him and steps towards the microphone, back ramrod straight though he feels three quarters broken. Through the flash of cameras and echo of noise Yinsen gasps blood over his chin and looks at him with steady eyes, face pallid amongst gunfire and screams.
Don’t waste it.
Tony shuffles cards, feels the twinge of a bruise across his cheek, remembers hot sand and metal and a soldier’s bright grin before the world blew up. His own arrogance has cost other people – better people – their lives, has brought death gleaming in silver shards into his own chest. His fists clench and the rune carved with Howard’s own knife stretches against his palm, white and stiff against the calluses of his skin.
He has everything and nothing, but he’s still breathing and Yinsen isn’t. He’s the poor little rich boy who opened his eyes too late to see the danger around him, the centre of his world tilting and splaying from its axis. He’s crafted his life to suit himself and stands before a sea of cameras with the weight of the cards in his hands and mind scarred by a young soldier’s quick bright grin before red tinted the sky and burned through the horizon.
Tony breathes, steps forwards, and throws the cards down onto the podium.
He steps out of the shadow of his own name and makes his life count.
~*~*~*~
“ ‘I am Iron Man’,” Nicholas Fury grinds, back straight despite the weight of his glower, and Tony steps carefully into his own lounge room beneath the heavy silence of JARVIS’ unease. Fury tilts his chin, sly and perilous, black coat sliding slow and sinuous against the heavy fabric of his trousers. He’s smoke and leather and danger, but for all that SHIELD may be the secret ninja society of secret Tony is a Stark. He knows who this man is.
“You think you’re the only superhero in the world, boy? You’ve just become part of a bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet.”
Tony swallows fire and smoke, tracks the burn of flame in the desert, of a camera phone and the world exploding, of a man burning to death in a metal suit. Fury’s eye flickers, hypnotizing as a snake’s, and Tony scratches his palm as Fury hulks another step forward.
“I’m here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative.”
~*~*~*~
Captain America is a dick.
~*~*~*~
Looking at Loki makes his head ache, a low pull in the depths of his temples. There’s something in those green eyes that calls to him, something that beckons him deeper, and Tony can’t help but stare.
Loki’s mind is like a bagful of cats but those emerald eyes are wide and broken and dead at the end of the suit’s guns, a nervous twitch to the curl of his jaw. His lips curl wide into a sickle smile blood red and gleaming in the broken street lights, but his hands are white and rigid around the length of the staff. A raven flutters overhead and Loki flinches like Death itself treads upon his grave. Tony lowers his hands.
They remember, scant hours later, that this is the god of mischief as well as lies; and that the humours that compel a god can shape the mortal world.
Or a mortal’s life.
An ant is introduced to a boot and a god lifts a smirk to a camera, disappears before his brother, stands before a control panel with a smile almost of amusement. A gun no mortal has ever fired is held in hands balanced and steady; and Coulson steps past the inadequacies of his betters and tightens his finger around a trigger.
He dies.
Tony stares at cards blood-slick and red, threatens a god, flies from a window, falls. He hoists a nuclear weapon onto his back and fixes his gaze on the horizon, counts down to the beat of a timer in his head and swallows as he breaches infinity. Around him spreads nothing and everything, stars and death and ships boiling purple and black through shadows of a sky that isn’t Earth’s, and Tony closes his eyes.
You know that’s a one way trip.
Somewhere someone sings, a quiet lullaby in the darkness of Tony’s rolling mind, and against the shadows of his closed gaze a tree stretches across the heavens and twirls branches thin as reeds through the shadows of the sky. His hands shift. The weight of the missile fades.
He lays down on the wire.
~*~*~*~
“You would be safer here,” the young woman says, serving him orange cake with her one good arm. “But you barely know yourself, do you?”
Tony reclines back into the delicate couch, grimacing and trying not to imagine the impact all this pink is having on his manhood. A wolf-pup comes to curl by his feet, tail wagging as he smiles, and Tony carefully drops one hand to the soft grey fur of the pup’s back. The pup curls into his leg, huffing happily, and the woman smiles at him. Stars wheel through her gaze and shadows flit, and if he looks closely he can almost see the shimmer of spirits in the fine curve of her eyes.
“I’m Tony Stark,” he tells her, with a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes, and continues to pat the wolf-puppy. “What else is there to know?”
She smiles at him, patient and sad, and through the secrets in her gaze he sees a dark-haired girl in the desert and a van that ran over a god.
~*~*~*~
The Hulk roars.
Tony jerks awake.
~*~*~*~
Loki walks behind his brother with his eyes a bitter green, metal gag curled cold and ominous against his lips, but his cheeks twitch as he grins sickle-bright against the shadows of the metal. The God of Mischief wears the mantle of a prince for all his hands are bound, and Tony feels something cold and dangerous trickle down his spine. For a second Loki meets his eyes, green sharp and crisp and burning, and Tony shakes the memory of ice-cold fingers and the taste of orange cake from the recesses of his mind.
Thor farewells them solemnly, face too old and tired, and Tony risks the occasion to pat the god on one impressive bicep. Thor’s lips twist into something that might have once been a smile, wane and small, brow puckered with thought as he turns to study his brother. Loki meets his gaze, eyes cold and challenging and lips curled with a jackal’s smile behind the gag, and the weight of Thor’s sigh carries across their group.
The Tesseract glows. Thor and Loki disappear.
They linger only long enough to say their goodbyes. Tony shakes Cap’s hand, drags Bruce away from where he’s talking shop with Selvig, risks a wink in Romanov’s direction and grins at Barton’s laugh. He tosses Bruce’s bag into the car and launches himself behind the wheel, drives with no regard to anything resembling speed limits, and heads back to what’s left of the Tower. He ignores Bruce’s stuttered apologies and introduces him to JARVIS and Pepper, installs him in the lab closest to his own, then heads alone to the penthouse suite.
He stands and remembers fingers around his throat, the shattering of a window, and the gleam of a portal opening blue and brilliant above him.
Tony closes his eyes and sees stars, sees ships and death and the glow of the missile, blood and destruction hovering open before him in space. Whatever happened here they’re no longer alone, no longer spinning ignorant in their own spiral and universe. Thor had it right all along. Whatever they did with the Tesseract they’ve sent a message out – a pulse, a warning to all the other worlds.
He knows, somehow, that time is ticking down. The Earth is now ready for a higher form of war.
They are coming.
~*~*~*~
Fury calls, they fight, then go their separate ways. They’re called again and the delay lets the bad guy get in a lucky shot, blood and plaster and bricks spraying them as they coast onto the scene. There’s no one left to fight.
The cleanup is red as fire, as red as missiles and the burning dawn as they stand in the midst of shattered glass and metal and the scream of an alarm too late to do any help.
The Hulk is the first to find the remains – a countless parade of little objects, small fragile objects made useful or special only for what they represent. A briefcase stained red in one corner, a child’s toy covered in plaster dust, the glint of a diamond ring between cracks in bricks and cement. A thousand little things and none of it matters because not a one of these people were soldiers, not a one belonged anywhere near their insane world, and yet it’s Coulson all over again. It’s personal and it hurts in a way that it’s not meant to, because Tony stood in front of a god and swore to avenge their world yet a common ex-employee with a grudge and a mutation steps into a shopping mall and brings them to their knees.
They can threaten other worlds all they want but they’re useless as they are and they know it. When night finally creeps over the city and they’ve done all they can they stand together in the wreckage of other people’s lives; Cap fingering the straps of his shield, Bruce leaning exhausted and trembling in a borrowed trench at Tony’s side. Barton’s eyes are distant, fingers stroking his bow, and next to him Romanov’s hands tremble carefully over her knives. The helmet’s long since abandoned, even JARVIS’ soft sympathy too harsh to Tony’s ears; and he breathes in air tainted red with dust and blood and ignores the shiver of the chill in his lungs.
“We did what we could,” Cap says, slow and heavy as winter, but his lips tremble at the lie and Barton straightens with a snarl. Romanov’s eyes roll heavily in his direction, cold and chill and deadly, but her lip blushes beneath the bite of her teeth and her hands still flit over the knives at her belt. The Captain meets their gazes, broken and blue and worthless, and against Tony’s side Bruce carefully closes his eyes. “We’ll head back to SHIELD, report in to Fury, then I want everyone to take tomorrow and -“
“Move in,” Tony speaks harshly, over the dust blood-red and frozen, over their inadequacies and inabilities, and Cap closes his mouth with a click. Bruce pokes him in the side, hardly gentle, but his smile is small and weary and there’s pride in his eyes when he catches Tony’s gaze.
His face is as red as blood in the flickering firelight.
~*~*~*~
It’s that red that pulls them together.
It’s the red of pain and death and desperation, of sorrow and hopelessness and loss; of monsters and cards and ledgers. It is red that binds them together and that shatters them apart, time after time after time, broken and fragile the each of them for all their impossible strengths.
It’s blood that binds them.
At first.
They fight and buy victory with theirs and others’ blood; become a family between battles and takeaway. They stand united against the villain of the week, grimace on television and through numerous public relations jaunts, complain about who drank the last of the milk, leave clothes and towels and weapons scattered throughout the Tower. They scare off more than one cleaning crew and Steve puts the coffee on before Tony’s even awake in the morning, Clint falls asleep on top of the fridge, and no one – no one – breathes a word when Natasha turns up to breakfast with a spectacular case of bed-hair and Rainbow Dash turning cartwheels on her shirt.
(At least not to her face, anyway)
They start bathed in red and emerge suspicious and confused into something new, something better, and gradually instigate themselves into each other’s lives. They stand beside Tony at the centre of his world and it’s strange and ridiculous and weird; but it’s his and it’s theirs and he’ll fight tooth and nail for them, and knows they’re behind him every step.
Tony introduces them to DUM-E, to U and Butterfingers. He works on his tablet as Bruce banters with JARVIS between the sizzle of cooking eggs, researches arrows and widow bites and the strength of armour required to stop a flung shield (answer? A damn lot). Remembers a cave stained with the blood of those that had thought they could break him and jots down ideas for the Mark VIII and a new War Machine. He grins at the camera at the Maria Stark Foundation Ball, takes flowers to a non-descript grave in a non-descript cemetery, whines at Pepper about the paperwork, and drags the team to the little café down the street.
They’re not heroes. There’s not a one of them without red in their ledger and blood on their hands, but they fight every day to be better than they are and Tony thinks Coulson would approve. There are lines between them and broken bits, fragile edges and glass shards, but they wake up every morning and save the world and somehow it works out okay. Red follows them, their blood and others’, but they walk with their eyes open and return home to movies and pizza and the quiet sound of chewing as they wait out the night until the red dawn’s unsteady promise.
They’re not heroes, but they’re the damn closest they can be.
They make it work.
~*~*~*~
They go to the café and Tony banters with Clint, drags Bruce into his latest brilliant scheme, lets Steve loose on the internet. Natasha watches them with something that may be a smile on her face, and cleans her fingernails with a knife a good two inches shorter than the one she normally uses. They save the world and eat burgers with fries.
The waitress brings them orange cake, after, and smiles with her face half in shadows.
~*~*~*~
Thor returns breathing lightning and echoing with the burst of thunder, clouds dancing through the bright blue of his gaze; but his eyes are aged and shoulders tense as he steps into the lounge during Team Movie Night, Mjölnir dragging from one tense hand. Only an Avenger could see the drain in his bright smile and the stress in his tight jaw, and not one breathes a word about the task that had taken him to Asgard originally.
“Friends! I return with thanks from the Allfather himself!” Thor booms, attempting a wide grin that echoes wrong across the room, clouds wet with storms and rain thickening his voice where once there had been only the sharp burst of lightning. His smile struggles to hold purchase on his lips, small and tight and trembling, and Tony straightens from his half-curl against Bruce to consider the thunderer. Thor’s smile fades, shoulders hunched as if he’s faced a blow he can’t absorb, and there’s something vulnerable and almost small about him, faint and damaged as he’s never before been.
“Excellent, great tidings, so on. Come here.”
Stars flit through the whites of Thor’s eyes, thunder sparking in fine circles, before the wide shoulders of the God of Thunder lower and he staggers towards them. Bruce shifts over on the coach, dragging his feet in closer to himself as Tony curls against the arm of the couch, and the thunderer collapses between them with Mjölnir falling heavy and hard beside his feet. The demigod’s breath leaves him in a deep sigh, exhaustion darkening the blue of his eyes, and Tony realizes for the first time that as much as Thor wears their seeming the creature beside him is far beyond the keen of man. There are secrets and depths to Thor that make Tony breathless with curiosity, but the blue eyes that meet his brown are broken and cold and shattered even as worlds wheel through the depths of his gaze.
Clint stretches out, offering Thor pizza from his own plate, and Natasha pours him a soda without a word or the slightest twitch of her eyebrows. Thor takes both, his smile still sad and small, and Steve hands him a napkin and shows Thor how to fold the pizza to eat it. Bruce presses in on Thor’s other side, briefly brushing their shoulders together, and slowly the tension leaks from Thor’s shoulders until he’s warm and liquid and bright between them – his eyes still too strained and sad, his smiles slow and small, but his voice booms at his normal volume and his questions are fast and loud. Tony tucks his feet under himself and glances at the god from the corner of his eyes, watching clouds and stars shift through those bright blue eyes, but if Thor notices he says not a word.
In silence they welcome him home, and Thor slowly closes his eyes.
~*~*~*~
Time counts down without a single person but Tony realizing it, counts down until battle with nothing but movies and fights and training to mark their progress.
Time counts down.
Tony studies the scars on his palm with a quiet intensity that would surprise the others, tracing the shadows of a knife with a finger that doesn’t tremble. The arc reactor glows a soothing blue in the darkness of his room, his own personal night light, and when he closes his eyes the blue travels to his dreams.
Far away a tree scratches mournfully at the curve of the sky, and warm arms hold him close in the rush of winter rain.
~*~*~*~
A lullaby plays, quiet and broken, words fragile whispers against the shell of his ear. His fists flail and feet kick and he wails, broken and hiccupping for breath, knowing somehow that this is the end. Something flickers through his vision, long and fragile against the curve of the endless sky, and he howls a challenge red with fire and smoke to the shadows of the distant tree.
The lullaby plays, softly sung and shaking, and he dreams of ravens and the tremble of soft lips in his hair.
Tony dreams of a single blue eye and jerks awake with his lungs on fire.
He chokes on stillness and silence, gasping for air in the depths of his room, heart pounding beside the reactor with a fear he can’t name. His palm itches and it burns, his blood, his palm, his mind, and over JARVIS’ increasingly frantic concern Tony arches his back and screams.
Outside his window flaps the shadows of birds and a blinding light splits the heavens. The Tesseract spins in Asgard but it was Earth that released her pulse, and it is to her that they come for war.
The alarm screams over Tony’s howl, wires burning with electricity and cackling, and JARVIS snaps open the locks on the Iron Man suit.
There’s no more time, no more games or preparation. They’re no longer coming, no longer dodging sneak-footed and sly around the shadows of the mortal coil, no longer allowing Earth space and room to breathe.
They’re here.
~*~*~*~
Thanos presses his step against Midgard, and the world trembles beneath his feet.
There’s no Tesseract and no mystical staff, no Selvig to build portals to other realms, but Thanos simply threads the fabric of the worlds between his palms and tears apart the seams of their universe. The Chitauri flood New York burning pride and glee, screams rising in a cacophony of sounds both barbaric and strangely beautiful. They’ve learnt from their mistakes but the Avengers have too, falling into formation as neatly and easily as a breath.
Next to Cap the Hulk studies the creatures with sharp green eyes, lips drawn back in an ugly snarl, and Tony launches himself and Hawkeye into the sky as Thor hefts Mjölnir at Widow’s side.
The battle is more desperate than it is heroic and they all of them bleed for it. The world spins on, a little slower and a little older, but Thanos is a foe the likes of which they’ve never faced before. The bones of destroyed worlds hang between his teeth as he laughs, ready to kneel before the throne of Death and offer her world-ash and his outstretched hand. Thor throws his hammer, rains lightning on their foes, but in the mess of blood and war and death he may well have swatted merely a fly. They’re outmatched and they know it, hopelessly outnumbered and fighting impossible odds; but they’re united and there’s no version of this where Thanos can win, no throne that he can claim and no victory that he can steal. Thor breathes Ragnarok and Cap roars orders down the com and across the blistering winds, but Tony calculates odds and ignores the burning of his palm.
They may not be able to protect the Earth but they’ll sure as hell avenge it.
The Hulk goes down, roaring challenges as he does, and the building Hawkeye’s on collapses in on itself as Thanos laughs. Widow dives to avoid the blast of a Chitauri weapon and Cap throws his shield like his life depends on it. Tony lifts his hand again and again, feeling the lurch of the repulsor against his palm, and it’s death and madness and the lullaby playing gently against his ears. He lifts his hand again and hisses as the repulsor finally snaps, metal sharp and slick against his palm and dyed with the red of his blood.
Thor howls something that sounds like a challenge or a curse, and from the distant horizon comes the flutter of wings. Far off the sky burns silver and the Bifrost opens with a sound like a sigh.
Thanos turns, still laughing, and the Asgardians arrive.
~*~*~*~
They win. Red with blood and pain and anger, red with dust and fear and horror; they fight the all of them and win with blood and force and no small amount of pure Stark genius.
They win.
No one mentions what they’ve lost.
~*~*~*~
Thanos kneels but his hands clench within his bindings and his smile is a dreadful, burning thing. His gaze glows with something that has never been human, world dust and stolen souls darkening the curl of his eyes. The Asgardians bark orders over the top of his head and the Avengers stand back, stiff and drained, wordless as around them New York slowly crumbles into flames. Fury himself makes an appearance, shoulders heavy and single eye brittle and cold, but his voice snaps like the tail of an angry snake and even the Asgardian warriors jump to attention when he barks at them.
Bruce curls a blanket tighter around his shoulders and comes to sit with Tony, pressing their shoulders together as a medic drags shard after shard of metal from the broken skin of Tony’s palm. Beneath the long tweezers the rune stands neatly dissected, stark white against the calluses and burns on his hand, but Tony doesn’t wince. The tweezers are gentler than Howard’s knife.
“They’re taking him to Asgard,” Bruce mumbles against his shoulder, curling down into the depths of his blanket, and despite the heavy armour Tony curls his shoulder as much as he can to tuck Bruce’s head against his neck. Bruce huffs but doesn’t protest, eyes still too green and skin burning too warm, and they watch the Asgardians circle around their captive even as their Thane jogs over to Thor. “I guess Loki could do with the company.”
Tony snorts loudly and takes his hand back as soon as the medic finishes, too used to disapproving stares to even raise an eyebrow. Bruce cuddles against him, thick purple blanket clenched tightly in white-knuckled hands, and Tony throws any hope of maintaining his Mr Unhuggable appearance and snuggles back. Bruce gives the best cuddles.
“Team Lets Take Over the World for Crazy People is a go,” Tony mutters, burying his snort in Bruce’s dust-coated hair. The other man grunts something that may have been a laugh, small and soft against the naked skin of Tony’s neck, and Tony turns his eyes back to Thanos. The creature – he won’t call him a man even if he wears something vaguely like their form, provided you squinted and looked sideways – watches him steadily, grin wide and jagged on his scarred face, and something like ice trickles down Tony’s spine even as the Asgardians move to surround their captive. The Thane remains, tall and proud at the side of his golden Prince, and Tony feels a moment of vindictive glee that not all Asgardians are buff, young and handsome.
The sky splits open, slivers of light like rainbows capturing the little group and their single captive, and as dots float around Tony’s vision their shapes disappear up as if stretched before fading from view. When he blinks the sky’s as normal as it’s ever going to be, still and broken above them, the distant sounds of sirens and shrill orders a crescendo of noise. Bruce stirs against his shoulder, huffing a sigh beneath his breath, and Tony shifts to press the curve of his cheek once more against Bruce’s hair.
Bruce jerks back with a sharp inhale, still-green eyes wide and wounded, and Tony blinks across at him in surprise.
“Bruce-“
“You’re boiling,” the scientist mumbles, tone thick with concern and something bordering on suspicion. He lifts one hand from his blanket to brush Tony’s hair from his brow, but yanks his hand back before his fingers make any but the smallest touch. Tony blinks at him, struck momentarily speechless, as Bruce – his Brucey! – leans back further as if he’s dangerous, green eyes flickering warningly from the arc reactor to Tony’s brow and back. Tony stares at him, blinks twice, and snorts on a breath.
“I’m fine-“
Grey smoke clouds his vision, plumes and burning metal; red embers burning bright as stars within his slightest breath. Behind the shield of smoke and flame Tony snaps his mouth shut, eyes conveying all he can’t say; and through the slowly clearing storm of smoke Bruce meets his gaze.
Between fire-smoke and brimstone those brown eyes burn, and Anthony Stark sits with skin of peach and gold with eyes the white of collapsing worlds; of flame and smoke and war.
“Tony-!”
It’s Tony’s sole warning before something solid hits him with the force of a train and the Iron Avenger goes flying.
For a long moment after Tony hits the dirt – and he’s never been more grateful for the armour than he is now – there’s silence, Thor’s mouth slightly agape; Bruce staring at him as if he’s never seen him before now. Tony doesn’t risk looking to Steve or the others, gaze turning slowly but irrevocably towards the Thane beside Bruce’s green-eyed stare. The Thane stands still as if frozen, only the slow twitch of his fingers around the hilt of his sword indicating to his thoughts; and in the shard of metal that forms his blade Tony’s reflection simmers captured in hellfire and brimstone, eyes burning like dying stars.
“Loki’s child,” the Thane murmurs, thoughtful and quiet; knuckles white-skinned despite the even drawl of his voice. His lips curve into a slow grin, broken sunlight drifting golden and sharp through shattered slivers of sky. The Thane shifts, a slow dangerous levelling of his weight, and Tony feels fire like blood pound through every inch of his being.
“Lokison,” the Thane breathes, a slow question, and Tony doesn’t turn – can’t turn – from those sharp eyes bright with stars and shadows, from his own reflection captured in the glint of the Asgardian’s blade. He’s aware suddenly of the fire that crawls along his skin, of the breath that gasps coal-black and staggered from the depths of his lungs, of the slow slide of his own skin as it melts into liquid metal and slivers of gold. A slight breeze rustles the air around the curls of the Thane’s helmet, but Tony breathes his confidence to himself and staggers to stand.
“Riight,” he drawls, ignores the way his voice trembles on the smoke that tickles his lungs, of the itch in his palms as he pushes himself to his feet. He doesn’t stagger even in the weight of the suit, watching his own reflection in the curl of the Thane’s helmet until he stands as tall as he can. He’s Tony fucking Stark and he knows himself even if he doesn’t, and he’s not going to play frightened damsel to some stupid Asgardian’s delusions. He steps forward, suit groaning slightly with the motion, lifts a hand he only realizes after a moment is still without the repulsor. Thor’s gaze flickers to his palm, blue eyes bright and stricken, and Tony swallows sharply and takes another step forward. “I don’t know where you’re getting your info from, but your PA is in serious need-“
“Lokison,” the Thane says, and Tony’s jaw closes itself for him with a click. The Thane eyes him slowly, worlds burning in the depths of his gaze, and far away a raven caws. Tony jumps without quite meaning to and sees the flicker of shadowed wings against the endless expanse of broken rubble around them. Something chills inside him, the arc reactor strangely heavy against his ribs, and he turns to meet Thor’s storm-sharp gaze.
Thor regards him silently but for the first time something almost like loss burns the depths of his gaze and vanishes in the slight tightening of his lips. The Prince seems almost to be considering his moves, his shoulders squared and feet braced, but there’s something in the tightness of his gaze and hold of his jaw that makes Tony’s heart stutter in his chest. His eyes turn without his will, tracing Bruce’s green gaze as the scientist slowly stands, holding his blanket with fingers white with tension. Clint’s steps forward, hefting his bow with a hand that looks deceptively relaxed, Natasha at his side with more knives in her hand than he’s entirely comfortable counting. He holds his breath before he turns to Steve, but the Captain’s face is white and set, jaw tight and hands clenching convulsively around his shield. Shadows shaped like wings dance across the sky, but the Thane’s gaze never flickers.
“Ásmær Lokison,” the Thane murmurs finally, voice like death and ash; then quieter still, “Anthony Lokison.”
“Stark,” Tony staggers out once his jaw unhinges, over the sound of rustling wings and magic, the soft barely perceptible rustle as the others shift with slow deliberate menace. The Asgardian’s eyes flicker up again, cold and ancient, and Tony pauses to grasp desperately at his thoughts at the moment of brief reprieve. The Thane looks back at him, cold and still, but those narrowed eyes dance to his palm and Tony follows his gaze, knows what he will see – the broke remains of scar tissue and knife marks, and a father that turned away as he screamed. “I’m Tony St…”
The rune is gone.
Around them the ravens sing, broken shattered snatches of notes, of yells and rustled screams. Far away sirens scream and New York crawls itself out of the ashes, but here in the ending of the world there’s only the crescendo of wings unfolding; and Tony looks finally into the depths of the Asgardian’s star-bright gaze.
“You should be chained, Destroyer of Worlds,” the Thane murmurs, cold and slow, and steps forward a single movement across rubble and dust and blood. His sword drags slow and treacherous through the dust, drawing jagged patterns of death and doom, and Tony’s eyes flicker to the blade quite against his will. In the sharp metal his shadow burns red as flames, stars and worlds wheeling through the white of his gaze, and he tears his eyes away with a gasp that burns smoke and fire into the air around him. “You should be bought low as your sire is low, torn from the coil of Asgard and all the worlds of the Yggdarsil tree; string broken from the hands of the Norns, Valhalla banned to you and your kin. Your very existence threatens Ragnarok, Lokison.”
“What-“ Tony manages to get out, none of the Stark charm in his voiceless gaping, and the Thane looks at him across the rubble and takes a second step forward. Something changes in his expression, his jaw tightening, before his fingers curl slow and sinuous around the hilt of his blade and the Thane starts to lift his sword.
“You are your father’s son, Lies-son,” the words are heavy, quiet but with the sure knowledge that only one so thoroughly indoctrinated in their own mythology could manage, eyes burning with stars and death. Tony stares at him, not sure what to say, and the Thane’s lips curl into a white bloodless smile. It’s as dark and twisted as the grin of Thanos, and the fire that trickles through Tony’s veins runs cold as ice. “You should never have been suffered to live. I will stand were they have failed.
“Lokison,” the Asgardian breathes like a curse, and Tony reflexively ducks the sword that comes swinging for his head.
Something snaps, the world bursting into sharp relief around them, and with a bellow that shakes the very ground the Avengers launch themselves into action.
~*~*~*~
They’re not heroes. The legends of myth may be noble in stilling their blades, but they live in the real world.
They stop before they kill him.
Barely.
~*~*~*~
Later, when Tony’s finally untangled himself from Thor’s exuberant hugs and Bruce’s gentle touch, from Natasha’s careful frown and Clint’s thoughtful gaze; when he’s managed to convince even Steve that he really just needs them all to fuck off for a bit because this is a kind of a bit to deal with, damn it; he heads into the lab.
Fury comes for him there.
Fury comes for him there in the sanctuary of his den, his single eye bright and hypnotising, lips white and thin; a sly serpent come slithering languid and fierce from the shadows. Fury comes for him there with an eye that swirls white with stars and collapsing worlds, and Tony steps flame-shoed and smoke-shimmered into the grip of the spy’s gaze.
“How?” he asks, gestures with a fistful of flame and embers, and Fury’s slow smile spreads quiet and sinuous over the curl of his teeth. A single drop of poison falls, splatters against the floor, and beneath Fury’s feet the cement smokes and discolours to black. “How?”
“You’re not the only superhero in this world,” Fury murmurs, and his trench slides slow and dangerous through the shadows – like the spread of a raven’s wings, or a snake’s hood. “Not even the only Asgardian. It’s easier with practice. You’ll have plenty of time.”
“How?” Tony asks again, genius fading to tired exhaustion, and sits on the couch. It groans under the weight of the armour but he doesn’t move, not even to brush DUM-E away when the bot comes over to chirp at him with a smoothie in his claw. Tony watches him, more tired than he can ever remember being, and swallows a mouthful of fire. “Why…”
“Lokison,” Fury says, and the look in his eye is cold and still and frozen. “The rune that turned even the Allfather’s gaze. We’ll need a knife.”
Fury scratches the sign onto Tony’s palm with the tip of a pocket knife, and the rune burns flame-red and gold in shivers of light. Long after the flame trickles from his palm Tony sits beside Fury on the couch and breathes measured deep breaths of pure Earthian air without the stink of smoke against his nose.
Fury shifts, body sliding slowly against the cushions on the couch, and the weight of his presence is heavier than the very Earth itself.
~*~*~*~
Far away a lullaby plays, soft and quiet against his ears, and he dreams of a wolf-pup loyal and small, chasing the rattling tail of a snake; and a young woman who eats orange cake half-buried in the depths of a large oak tree. He dreams of the swirls of stars in white eyes and of worlds caught in the branches of a tree.
Tony dreams of marvels, and the press of trembling lips to his hair.