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Tony held his phone up high to show off the Red Light District behind him, and grinned brightly. He posted it for the media to enjoy, because he already had the reputation and couldn't ever refuse a little chaos, but mostly, he hoped Pepper would see it and get mad. Vindictive? A little.
But he had not deserved to be dumped. Not this time at least. The whole Mandarin fiasco had not entirely been his fault. He'd done his best to stop him, to help her…
Tony shook his head. No use letting those thoughts drag him down. What was done was done. He was in beautiful Amsterdam for a top-notch Science Convention, and if only he could find a goddamned Starbucks, he might actually feel better about himself.
Unfortunately, that wasn't to last. He was crossing one of the quaint little bridges over the canals when something shot past him and went bloop in the water. Tony froze, glanced into the murky canal, then around him, not finding anything out of the ordinary.
Bird poop. Maybe he'd just missed an aviary missile. Lucky, for once. He resumed walking when a large shadow loomed behind him.
"Fuck," he muttered as he turned around.
A giant plant tentacle arm was waving out of the water like a cobra. It didn't look like it had eyes, but it certainly seemed as if it was looking straight at him. And of course, he didn't have his armor. He was here as Tony Stark, not Ironman, although he should know better…
Running it was, he made it to the end of the short bridge, ducking a couple of times to avoid the tentacle. He looked behind him, sure he must be safe on solid ground, but the tentacle was growing, elongating, and Tony ran some more.
Soon, he noticed others running to safety, but also other tentacles growing out of other canals. They were everywhere, and you ran away from one only to run into another. Where were superheroes when you needed them? Did they not have any in the Netherlands? Captain Canal? Or Tulipman?
Tony stopped, out of breath leaning against a tall building. He took a couple more steps to the door and rang frantically to be let in, flipping through the contacts in his phone to find someone, anyone, who could help, but the window nearby burst out, sending shards of glass everywhere as another tentacle slithered out.
"Don't tell me they're coming out of the toilets," Tony said in annoyance.
Did the plant thing bear him? In any case, it lashed out at him and his home went for a five in the nearby canal. So much for backup.
Tony needed to find a place with no water, but around here, that was gonna be a tough one. A shrill scream drew his attention and he searched for the source, finding an older lady being dragged towards the canal by a plant tentacle. Tony caught up with her just before she was pulled over the edge, holding onto her arm but it wasn't enough. Now they were both being dragged forward. Tony managed to brace his legs against a bike stand, but now they were stuck in a tug of war with the poor lady acting as rope and babbling words he didn't understand but which he could guess at. A man of around the same age came running, his husband if Tony had to guess.
"Find something to hit it with!" Tony yelled at him.
He must have understood, but he hesitated.
"I won't let her go! I promise! Go!"
He left, his wife crying now, and Tony managed to get a better hold on her. He wasn't letting go. The husband returned with a heavy looking metal pole and began bashing the tentacle plant with more strength and speed than he would have given him credit for. Love, determination, desperation… he knew that look in his eyes. He'd had it once.
The tentacle let go abruptly and disappeared into the murky waters to pick its wounds. The man helped his wife up, thanked him in broken English and they hurried off. Tony needed a minute. His heart was beating much too fast. However, the tentacled plant wasn't having any of it and came back with a vengeance. This was the weirdest game of hide and seek, and judging by the screams, humans were losing. He turned to the left, hoping it led away from the canal to his right and not right into another one, but his hope was soon dashed away when a tentacle prodded its way into this narrow alley. He turned around to retrace his steps, but there was another one silhouetted where he had entered the dark alley.
"Fuck it," he sighed.
No issue, no phone, no superpowered friends when you needed them. No hope left. His shoulders slumped just when a hand landed over his mouth, another tugging him back, but not roughly. On the contrary, the hands were small and soft, and the strength used laughable. It was more a gentle invitation to shut up and follow rather than the abductions he was more used to.
So he followed. There was a book in the wall, a sort of alley in the alley, only even more narrow and dark than the previous one. He barely had room to back up, so turning around to face his savior was much like the yoga class Pepper had talked him into that one time. That's how he found himself face to face with an angel.
Or that was his first thought, because the woman who had pulled him to safety looked so pale and ethereal compared to their surroundings. She lifted a finger to her lips to shush him when he had opened his mouth to say… something stupid no doubt. Force of habit.
He heard it then, the patter and squelsh of leafy tentacles searching the alley, searching for him. The woman's large blue eyes focused on the entrance to their hidey-hole, then she grabbed his hand and pulled him back some more, flush against her.
"I usually buy dinner first," Tony whispered and the woman scowled at him, pressing her finger against his lips this time.
The nerve of her. He kind of liked it.
They waited, with bated breath, and for a while it was just them between walls. The solid one around them which both protected and trapped them, but also the wall of silence forced between them to hide from the monsters hunting them. They saw movement at the same time. The woman tensed, so Tony slipped an arm around her to comfort her, angling his body so that if one of them was caught, it would be him. He owed her that much.
One of the tentacles moved past their alley, and for a second, Tony thought the other one would too, but one of its leaves must have felt the void and it suddenly turned towards them and advanced. To make it worse, the second one followed.
Tony looked frantically around for something to hit them with but there was nothing here. This city was too damn clean. If this was an alleyway in New York, it would be full of useful trash.
"Oh, well. I guess it can't be helped now," his companion suddenly said in a voice that was more singing than speaking.
And in English, too. How lucky was he?
"Do you have anything to hurt those things?" Tony asked, holding his hand out.
"Not anything you can use," she replied, showing off a polished piece of intricately carved wood, as pale as her hair.
"Are you going to poke them with that?" Tony asked, glancing nervously at the approaching tentacles. "That's not going to be enough, sweetheart. Got anything bigger?"
"I don't want to hurt them," she replied, waving her stick. "Just keep them away."
Tony looked on in awe as a wall of bricks suddenly assembled in front of them. They were safe, but also walled-in. Tony tried not to panic.
"That's… something."
The woman didn't reply, staring at her newly created wall.
"I'm Tony, by the way. Thanks for saving my hide out there," he offered his hand, even if they were so close the angle was kind of awkward.
Her hand slipped between them and she slipped it into his although there was not much shaking involved.
"Luna Lovegood. It's nice to meet you," she sing-songed.
Tony bit his lip. So many puns. So many possibilities to flirt. But it was neither the place nor the time. Although…they were trapped in between walls, just the two of them, with nothing to do, their bodies pressed against one another…
"Oh," she gasped. "You're glowing!"
His vest was open, his tie astray, and his arc reactor glowing through his shirt.
"Are you a fairy?" she asked next.
"Are you kidding me?" he asked back. "I'm Tony Stark."
She blinked at him.
"Yes. Nice to meet you," she repeated slowly as if he was the daft one.
"Ironman?" he insisted.
"That's a nice nickname. Mine's Loony, it's not so nice."
Wow. Tony wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. She really didn't know who he was. It was new, and that by itself, was very enticing. Then what she just said combined with her ethereal appearance and the bit of magic she had done compelled him to ask something he never thought he would ask before.
"Are you a fairy?"
She laughed, the sound like musical bells and he thought she might have put him under her spell and he didn't even mind. They waited, and talked. One thing to be said about their close proximity is that he wasn't cold, but standing up so long, his legs were starting to cramp. He shifted, but his knee slid against her middle and she gasped.
"That was not on purpose," Tony said. "Please don't sue me."
Her cheeks were an alluring shade of pink as she simply shook her head.
"I think they've gone," she said instead.
"How would you know that?"
"I can't feel them anymore. Can you?"
"Erm…no?"
She was definitely weird. He wanted to know more about her. He would even find the patience to wait for her to tell him instead of snooping online for her like he usually did. Maybe over dinner? Yeah, for sure. The most expensive dinner in this country that didn't involve salad or calamari.
"Alright, then. Finite incantation," she said waving what he now thought of as a magic wand, and the wall of bricks disappeared. No tentacled monsters behind, he was glad to see. They extricated themselves from the narrow alley into the slightly larger one, and looked both ways. He couldn't hear any more screaming, but there were plenty of gunshots. Army, probably. He'd hate to get in the crossfire, so they inched slowly to the exit he had first come through.
"I'll look around, see if it's safe. You stay here," Tony said, but she tugged on his sleeve, like she had when she saved him, and he let her, not sure why because he usually hated people pawing at him. But her touch was like butterflies, and she got up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss as light as a summer's breeze. Tony was stunned, so when she gestured at him to go on, he did.
Damn. He wasn't going to buy her dinner. He was going to buy her a whole restaurant. Tony hurried towards the light at the end of the alley. Once at the corner, he peaked onto the canal street, grinning when he did indeed spot soldiers as well as the familiar black of SHIELD uniforms. He waved at them and they approached cautiously. The threat was not entirely dealt with then, but that wasn't his problem. Not today.
"Hey, Luna!" Tony called over his shoulder. "It's safe, come on out!"
When he didn't hear her approach, Tony turned around.
"Luna?"
He peered into the darkness, but there was no trace of her, and he knew he should be able to see her, even in the dark alley, because she glowed like Venus in the night sky.
"Luna!?" he called again.
He started walking back into the alley, but someone pulled him back into the light.
"We got him," a SHIELD drone said unto his com unit. "Mr Stark, please follow us to-"
"No! Wait! I have a friend who was there. Right there."
Two of the agents gave each other a look, then sent a couple more to check out the alley while they stood guard, as if they thought he was trying to hoodwink them. Tony supposed he did have a reputation, especially where SHIELD was concerned.
"Clear," came the response back over the com.
"No one here," said the other.
"No, but there was!" Tony insisted, struggling against their hold on him. "Let me go. You have no right to arrest me."
"We're not," agent prime said easily. "Our mission is to bring you back safely, by any means necessary."
Tony did not like that evil grin of his. Whoever was in charge of recruiting at SHIELD needed a sanity check asap. Rationally, Tony knew he had met Luna. He could not have possibly imagined someone like her, no matter how crazy people thought he was sometimes. He also knew Luna had magic and was a fairy of some kind, so she could have easily magicked herself away to safety and he had no cause to worry about that. Finally, he had her name, so he knew he could find her again.
And he would, or his name was not Tony fucking Stark.
"Fine," he muttered, holding out his hands in front of him as if they were in chains. "Take me to your leader."
Tony glanced back one more time at the alleyway as he was led away to the one eyed pirate, and he could swear he heard her laugh echo against the brick walls.