Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tony Stark was good at a lot of things, but planning for the future isn’t one of them. He was one of those live in the here and the now sort of people. He tackled the challenges in his life as they came and dealt with problems only when they became an issue. It served him well enough in life and at the time that was the only thing that mattered. However, as Tony stood in the middle of the desert injured and with no idea on where he should go he couldn’t help but wish that he had come up with a plan for what he should do after he escaped from that godforsaken cave.

When he and Yinsen were in that cave the two of them had been so focused on making the suit that neither one of them had given pause and thought about what Tony would do once he got out of the cave. Tony couldn’t help but snort in amusement at the thought that for once he didn’t know what to do.

“Sorry Yinsen but trying to not waste my life might be harder then we both thought.” Tony muttered as he fell to his knees.

Tony’s left ankle was screaming in pain, and his arms felt like somebody had taken a crowbar and repeatedly slammed it down on them. His chest hurt and he was covered in bruises. It turns out his crash landing had been pretty hard on his body. Tony had to keep moving because stopping in the middle of the desert in this heat in his condition would be a death sentence. However, his broken ankle was making that impossible and he didn’t even know which way he should go.

Tony let out a dark chuckle before he said “I’m probably going to die out here. After everything Yinsen and I did I’m still going to die out in the middle of the desert.”

“You are not going to die Anthony Stark.”

Tony jumped in surprise and almost fell face first into the sand upon hearing a gravelly voice speak from somewhere behind him. Even though his ankle was killing him Tony quickly stood back up and turned around. Standing there all up in his personal space was a man. The man was wearing a trench coat, a cheap suit, and a loose backwards blue tie. Honestly, the man looked like a tax accountant. He had dark brown almost black messy hair and a stubble.

However, what really attracted Tony’s attention were the man’s dark blue eyes. Tony had heard the phrase ‘eyes like sapphires’ before, but this was the first time Tony had ever seen someone whose eyes really did look like sapphires. The man was staring right into Tony’s eyes and it felt like he was staring right at Tony’s soul. Tony couldn’t help but stare right back at him. This had to be the oddest hallucination that Tony has ever had. If he was going to hallucinate anything he figured it would be those twins from the Maxim Christmas cover. Tony and his blue eyed hallucination could have spent an eternity staring at each other, but Tony Stark wasn’t a man who could stay silent for long.

“You know I always figured that if I ever started hallucinating people I would be seeing swimsuit models and not pretty eyed tax accountants.”

“I am not a hallucination.” The man then frowned before he said “I also do not help people with their financial or income statements.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you sunshine but you dress like you do.”

“I am not a ray of sunlight.”

Tony didn’t know if he should roll his eyes upon hearing that or smile.

“OK, if you’re not a tax accountant then what are you?”

“I am Castiel and I am an angel of the Lord.”

“Angels don’t exist.” Tony said without even thinking.

“That is your problem Anthony you have no faith.”

Tony just frowns and says “Can you not call me Anthony? I prefer being called Tony.”

The man just tilts his head slightly to the side almost as if he’s confused by the fact that Tony doesn’t like being called Anthony. Tony can’t help but think the head tilt thing sort of makes him look like a bird.

“If that is what you wish then I will refer to you as Tony.” Castiel says.

“Yes, that is what I wish.” Tony says.

Honestly, Tony could barely believe this. He was standing in the middle of nowhere talking to a hallucination that said he was an angel. If there was ever a sign that he had completely lost his mind this was it.

Evidently Castiel could read minds because the second Tony started to think that he had officially lost it the blue eyed man said “You have not gone crazy.”

“Are you reading my mind?” Tony asked. “Don’t do that it’s not polite.”

“My apologies?” Was Castiel’s gruff slightly confused replay.

Tony just shook his head and sighed.

“OK, so let’s pretend that I’m not crazy and you really are an angel. Why would an angel be here talking to me?”

“I have been assigned to be your guardian angel.” Castiel said. “I am ordered to protect you from danger.”

“Yeah, you’re a little late on that.”

“I have just been assigned to you, and that is not the danger that I am supposed to protect you from.”

“Then what are you supposed to protect me from because I can’t exactly think of anything that could be worse than a terrorist organization.”

The look that Castiel gave Tony upon hearing that was one that just shouted out ‘you don’t know anything’. All in all it was a look Tony was pretty familiar with. It was the same look that Pepper would give him on occasion, and it was a look that Obadiah would give him all the time whenever they talked about the board members of Stark Industry and their problems.

“This isn’t a good place to talk about this, and I don’t have the time to talk about this.”

“Why don’t you have the time?”

“Your friend James Rhodes has been searching for you. He’ll be here soon to rescue you.”

Without warning the blue eyed man raised his hand and touched Tony’s forehead with two of his fingers. The touch was brief and gentle, but the effect that it had on him was simply amazing. When Castiel touched him Tony felt warm inside. It wasn’t an overwhelming heat like that of the desert sun that was currently shinning down on them. It was a good sort of warmth that was more comparable to curling up under a warm blanket or sitting in front of a fireplace on a snowy day.

However, besides the warm fuzzy feeling that Castiel gave him the so called angel also gave him relief from his physical pain. His body no longer ached and his ankle was no longer throbbing in pain. He still had a few bruises and a cut here and there on his body, but the pain was almost nonexistent now. The relief from his pain had come so quickly that Tony almost didn’t know what to say. It’s not like the pain had faded away either. One second the pain was there and the next second the pain was gone.

“I healed some of your injuries, but not all of them.” Castiel said. “I believe it would be suspicious if you were completely injury free.”

Tony was about to say something to that, but he just fell silent when Castiel looked off into the distance.

“I believe your friend is here.”

Tony turned to look at whatever had captured Castiel’s attention only to see a helicopter was coming toward them. Tony stared at the helicopter for a few seconds, but after a few seconds had passed he heard what sounded like wings flapping from somewhere behind him. Tony quickly turned around only to see that Castiel was gone. The blue eyed man hadn’t even left any footprints in the sand. The helicopter reached Tony in record time, and when it landed Tony wasn’t at all surprised to see Rhodey come walking out of it.

Upon seeing Tony Rhodey just gave him a relived smile and asked “How was the Fun-Vee?”

Tony couldn’t figure out if he wanted to laugh or cry upon hearing that. He ended up settling on letting out a choked laugh accompanied by a teary smile….

----------------------

The house was utterly silent and the only sounds that Tony could hear were the sounds of his robots bumbling about in the lab. Tony hadn’t been home for very long, and he was physically and emotionally exhausted. He had given his speech and had pretty much told the world at large that Stark Industries would no longer make weapons. He was sure that all of the news channels and radio shows were talking up a storm about this, but Tony didn’t really care. He stopped caring about what the media said about him a long time ago. It also helped that he really wasn’t thinking about how he probably just shook up the news world.

He was too busy thinking about his time in the cave, the metal suit that he and Yinsen had made to help him escape, and about the fact that he now had the equivalent of a blue glowing nightlight permanently embedded in his chest. However, the thing that he was really thinking about was Castiel the holy tax accountant who was evidently protecting Tony from something. Normally, Tony would have chalked the whole angel thing up as a very strange hallucination.

However, the fact that Castiel had actually healed him stopped Tony from thinking that the blue eyed man was just something that his mind made up. Tony’s ankle had been broken. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know that. Both of his arms had been in a bad shape, and yet he walked out of the hospital with only one arm bandaged up and a promise from his doctor that his arm would heal perfectly with some time. His arm had hurt so much and Tony was sure that it was broken badly enough that he would probably need surgery.

Yet, that wasn’t the case for him. He walked out of the hospital with an injured arm, some cuts, and a couple of bruises. He still had shrapnel stuck in his chest, but the Arc reactor kept that from being a problem. His injuries were bad, but they were nowhere near as bad as what they should have been and Tony had Castiel to thank for that. Thoughts about Castiel were the ones that mostly popped up in his mind as he curled up on the comfortable couch. Honestly, this whole thing was making his head spin. Tony never believed in angels or God or any spiritual thing in general. He believed in science. He believed in what he could see with his own eyes. Yet, now he was expected to have faith in something that up until now he didn’t even believe in.

That is your problem Anthony you have no faith.

Tony couldn’t help but smirk a little when he remembered what Castiel said when it came to his lack of faith.

‘It’s a little hard to have faith in something that you didn’t think existed.’ Tony thought as he picked his Stark Tablet up from its spot next to his couch.

Tony quickly pulled up an internet search engine and quickly typed in Castiel’s name. Tony had been debating doing any research on Castiel on and off for a while now. One part of him was convinced that Castiel was still a figment of his imagination. He was just blowing his injuries out of proportion and while they hurt like hell they hadn’t been as bad as he thought they were. However, another part of him was sure that Castiel was real. There was no way he could go from feeling pain to feeling fine within a matter of seconds, and his ankle had been damaged Tony knew it.

Still, real or not Tony wasn’t completely sure what he was hoping to get by looking Castiel up on the internet. He supposed he was just looking for something that Castiel actually existed as something more than just a blue eyed guy that he may have imagined. Unfortunately, finding information on Castiel was proving to be harder than Tony thought it would be. Mostly this was due to the fact that Google seemed to be convinced that Tony spelled the name wrong and it kept asking him ‘do you mean: Cassiel’. It also didn’t help that their seemed to be an angel for everything in creation so going through long lists of names and descriptions was a pain. Tony almost gave up and considered asking Jarvis to search the internet for him, but just before Tony was about to ask the AI to start searching Tony’s eyes finally landed on the name that he was searching for.

Castiel: Castiel is the angel of Thursday.

“I wasn’t even born on Thursday.” Tony murmured to himself.

Before Tony could even begin to wonder why an angel of Thursday would watch over him he heard the sound of wings flapping which was quickly followed up by the deep voice of a man.

“You were born on a Friday so normally you would be one of Anael’s charges, but Anael cannot do the job so instead you were given to me.”

Tony’s eyes snapped up from his gadget and instantly landed on the blue eyed trench coat wearing man. Immediately the questions that Tony had for Castiel started to bubble up in his mind, but instead of asking the angel his questions he asked Jarvis a question.

“Jarvis you can see him, right?”

“I can see him, sir. He appeared quite literally out of nowhere.”

Well, at least Tony knew for sure that he wasn’t crazy. Or that he wasn’t imagining things at any rate. As if the prove that he was definitely not seeing things Dummy wheeled himself over to Castiel’s side and started to examine the dark haired man. Castiel just examined the robot in return and while the man was as stony faced as ever Tony could see some slight curiosity shining in the man’s bright blue eyes. The blue eyed man cocked his head ever so slightly to the side which sort of made him look like a puppy examining a new toy. At any other time Tony would have been perfectly happy to let Dummy examine the newcomer, but Tony had questions and he wanted answers now.

“OK, you two overgrown Labradors can examine each other some other time I have questions that need answering.” Tony said.

“I am not a dog.” Castiel said immediately. “This thing is not a dog either.”

Tony resisted rolling his eyes as he said “That thing is Dummy, and you are getting off subject.”

Tony placed his tablet down on the couch next to him and crossed his arms. “I have questions are you going to answer them?”

“I will answer what I can.”

“Right, so you’re an angel?”

“Yes, I am an angel of the Lord.”

“So where are your wings and halo?” Tony asked.

Castiel didn’t say anything to that. Instead the angel decided to answer the question without words. Without any warning the lights started to flicker and almost every electronic device in the room started to freak out. Tony’s eyes flicked about the room in surprise, but when they landed back on Castiel the man couldn’t help but stare. There on the wall right behind the man was the large shadow of wings. They were stretched open and they were quiet large. They may not have been the physical thing, but even as shadows the wings were one hell of a sight. Eventually the lights stop flickering and the shadow wings seem to draw themselves back into the human shaped shadow of the angel. Tony felt like he should say something, but for once his mind is blank.

He just opens and closes his mouth like some sort of dying fish for a few seconds before he finally reaches over to the little drink bar that he had set up near the couch and immediately grabbed a bottle of scotch. He didn’t even bother to pour it into a glass he just took a drink right out of the bottle. After taking one big swig of alcohol Tony lowers the bottle from his mouth, but he doesn’t put it back. The man figured he was going to need the drink to get through this question and answer session.

“What about the halo?” Tony asks.

“The simple act of seeing my halo alone would likely burn your eyes right out of their sockets.” Castiel explains.

Tony takes another big drink from his bottle upon hearing that.

“Seeing your halo alone?” Tony echoed once the bottle left his lips.

“An angel’s true form is overwhelming for most humans. Seeing an angel’s true form would burn your eyes out. Even hearing an angel’s true voice would cause most people’s ears to bleed.”

“So instead of your true form you have to go with the Constantine cosplayer look?”

For once Castiel’s stony mask falls and a look of complete confusion quickly takes its place.

“I don’t understand that reference.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” Tony says.

Castiel just frowned upon hearing Tony’s words, but instead of asking who Constantine is Castiel just continued with his explanation.

“This form is a vessel. This man allowed me to take over, and it is thanks to him that I can communicate with you.”

“So you are possessing some guy?” Tony asked.

“He asked for this.” Castiel said immediately.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you are still possessing some guy.”

Castiel looked like the wanted to argue with him, but the angel kept his mouth shut. Tony was more than happy to let the vessel subject drop now. The whole vessel subject was something that should probably be discussed another day, and Tony had other things to worry about right now.

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from asking “So what do you really look like?”

“I’m roughly the size of your Chrysler building, I have four heads, and one of them is a zebra.”

Tony can’t figure out if he wants to ask what the other three heads are or if he wants to try and imagine what a giant Castiel with a zebra head looks like. In the end Tony figured he could ask that question latter, and any attempt to imagine Castiel’s true from just ended up with the mental picture of a giant man with a zebra head so eventually Tony gives up on trying to imagine it. Instead Tony asks the main question that had been buzzing around in his head for the past few days.

“So what are you supposed to be protecting me from?”

Castiel seems to stand a little bit straighter as he says “I am to protect you from demons.”

“Demons.” Tony repeats.

“And other things.” Castiel adds.

Tony almost dreads asking this question, but he can’t stop himself from asking “What other things?”

“Vampires, ghouls, and any other supernatural creature that might try to harm you.” Castiel answers. “I wouldn’t worry about that though. I think we will mostly just have to deal with a few demons every now and then.”

In some messed up sort of way Tony figures Castiel thought there would be comforting to Tony, but all it does is cause Tony to quickly finish off his bottle of alcohol and grab another bottle to replace it.

“Why would demons be after me?”

“You are a rich man with a successful business and living a life that most people would be jealous of. Demons would like the power that it brings. People who make deals with demons would give up much to live your life.”

“Well, my life isn’t as great as they might think it is.” Tony grumbled.

Castiel said nothing to this he just continued to stare at Tony with his unnaturally blue eyes. Personally, Tony was just happy that the guy didn’t ask for an explanation.

Tony sighed and shook his head before he asked “So why does heaven care so much if I get killed by demons? Am I supposed to be doing something for God?”

“You are supposed to live.” Castiel answered.

“That’s it? I’m not supposed to do something grand and epic?” Tony asked.

“You are meant to live.” Castiel said. “It is up to you if you want to do something ‘grand and epic’.”

While Castiel didn’t physically do it Tony could just mentally see the angel adding finger quotes around the grand and epic part of his sentience.

“So from now on your just going to hang out with me and act like some sort of bodyguard?”

“I will stay with you until you are considered safe from the supernatural beings that wish to harm you.” Castiel said.

“Well, that’s just great.” Tony said before he quickly finished off his second bottle of alcohol.

He got his answers now, but they didn’t make him feel better. He had just escaped from that damn cave and now he had to deal with the fact that the things that went bump in the dark were real and they wanted to kill him. The only sort of good thing to come out of this was the fact that he now had an angelic bodyguard to protect him. Still bodyguard or not Tony figured it was safe to say that his life officially sucked…

Chapter Text

True to word Castiel decided to stick around, and it took a day and a half for it to fully sink in that Tony was now stuck with an angelic roommate. Well, it was more like having a living statue around more than anything. After dropping multiple bombshells on Tony the man had to work on something to keep both his hands and his mind busy. He wasn’t really ready to process any of this. The only thing around that needed any work done right now was his cars so he immediately started to work on those. Meanwhile Castiel remained standing right where he was while he just stared at Tony with his blue eyes. Tony was able to deal with having the blue eyes bore into his back for about half an hour before he snapped.

“Can’t you at least sit on the couch instead of just standing there like a statue?”

Castiel didn’t even say anything to Tony upon hearing that. He just automatically sat down on the couch. Having the angel sit helped to make it feel less like he was looming over him. However, Castiel sat so stiffly that it looked like he was waiting for some sort of enemy to come jumping out at any second. The sad thing was the possibility of a bad guy popping up out of nowhere to attack was actually possible if Castiel’s words were anything to go by.

However, Tony didn’t like to think about that. He had just escaped from his human captures not long ago so Tony wasn’t ready to think about how demons wanted to capture him so they could drink his blood and summon the Devil or do whatever the hell it is that demons do. Castiel still stared at him a majority of the time, but he would break his gaze to examine Dummy occasionally. Dummy was completely fascinated with Castiel. Butterfingers and You were interested as well, but they kept their distance. Dummy had no such problems. It also helped that Castiel seemed just as curious as the little bot was.

When Tony would occasionally glance toward them he would see Castiel studding the bot like it has the answers to the whole universe. It was sort of funny really. By the time two AM rolled around Tony decided to go to bed. Castiel just followed him like he was his living shadow.

Tony had awkwardly offered him a room only to have Castiel say “Angels don’t need sleep.”

Well, that was fine but Tony wasn’t going to have him loom over him all night.

Of course when Tony told him that the angel just said “I’ll stand guard from here then.”

The angel then proceeded to stand outside his door. Tony didn’t argue with him he just closed his door and went to bed. When he woke up in the morning and opened his door Castiel was standing there just as he said he would.

“Did you really stand there all night?” Tony asked as he made his way to the kitchen.

“I said that I would.” Castiel answered as he followed after him.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting you to actually do it.” Tony said as he walked into the kitchen. “Didn’t you get bored?”

“My duty is to protect you nothing else matters.” Castiel answered as he watched Tony makes two bowls of cereal.

Once he was done Tony quickly held one of the bowls out toward Castiel.

“This is for you, songbird.”

“I do not need to eat.” Castiel said. “Also, I am not a bird.”

“It’s a nickname, and eat it anyway it will make me feel less awkward about being the only one eating.”

Castiel just stared at the bowl like it had personally offended him.

Tony sighed before he said “Come on its Honey Nut Cheerios you’ll like it.”

Castiel let out a noise that sounded a lot like Pepper’s long suffering sighs before he slowly took the bowl from the inventor. Tony just grinned at him before he made his way to the living room and sat down on the couch. Castiel followed after him and stared at the couch for a couple of seconds before he slowly sat down. Once he was sitting he looked down at his Cheerios like he wasn’t sure what he should do with it.

“Well, go on and try it.” Tony urged.

Castiel glanced up at Tony before he looked down at his cereal and slowly took a bite.

His eyes widened ever so slightly once the cereal was in his mouth, and after a few seconds of chewing he swallowed and looked at Tony with his solemn blue eyes and said “I like this.”

Tony started to laugh upon hearing that. He looked and sounded so serious about the cereal that Tony couldn’t help but laugh.

Once his laughter had calmed down a bit Tony grinned and said “Welcome to the wonderful world of food. I’ll be introducing you to all sorts of foods starting from now.”

“I look forward to it.” Castiel said with his usual seriousness before he went back to enjoying his food.

With the conversation clearly over Tony flicked the TV on before he grabbed his Stark pad off of the coffee table. The news was on and it seemed that they had just finished talking about him because Tony saw the Stark logo on the screen quickly disappear only to be replaced with the weather forecast. Personally Tony was glad that he missed the part that was about Stark Industries, but to be honest he just had the TV on for the noise so even if they did talk about him he wouldn’t care too much. Castiel might care, but the guy looked like he was eating the food of the gods right now so Tony wasn’t sure if he was truly dedicating a lot of attention to the television.

Tony grabbed his Stark pad off of the coffee table and started pulling things up. The first thing he did was pull up the video footage from the security cameras that were set up in his house. The first thing of footage that he watched (or fast forwarded through) was Castiel standing in the hall. True to word Castiel really did stand right outside his door the whole time, and he didn’t move an inch. It was a little creepy if Tony was being honest and it really did make Castiel seem a little less human, but watching the angel’s simple pleasure at eating cereal right now sort of took the creepiness out of the moment.

Tony also watched the reveling the angel wings moment about two times in a row. Even on a small screen the scene was just as amazing as it had been in real life. It was also so dramatic that one could mistake the video for a clip from a drama TV show then something from a security camera. That particular video clip was saved and stored to be studied at a later date. Tony didn’t know much about angels, but if he was going to have one live with him then he should probably learn as much as he possibly could. Learning whatever he could about angels would also fulfill his own curiosity.

He quickly brought up an internet search engine and tried looking up a list of mythical monsters that he might have to be on the lookout for. He found a wiki dedicated to monsters found in folklore, but the huge number of possible creatures that could exist was a bit overwhelming. He quickly exited out of that and promptly decided that he would just ask Castiel about it later. Castiel would know more about the mythical world than anyone on the internet anyway. With that decided Tony started making plans to make a better arc reactor to go into his chest. He worked on that for a while, but after about half an hour had passed he heard the familiar voice of Pepper calling out to him as she walked down the hall.

“Tony, where are you?”

“In the living room!” Tony yelled out to her.

A few seconds later Pepper emerged from the hall carrying a stark pad in one hand and a cellphone in the other.

Her eyes were glued to the pad while she said “Tony, have you seen everything that the news have been saying about you today? The media is having a field day with your announcement, and a lot of people are saying that you’re suffering from everything from posttraumatic stress disorder to pure insanity.”

“The media has been saying that I am crazy since day one. Why should I care now?”

“I know, but none of this is...” Pepper started to say, but she trailed off when she lifted her head up from her pad and spotted Castiel.

Castiel just stared back at her with his startling dark blue eyes all while keeping a spoon in his mouth. Tony had almost forgotten that while he had been working on his arc reactor plans Castiel had left to get himself another bowl of cereal. Castiel popped the spoon out of his mouth and dropped it into the empty bowl while Pepper just raised a single eyebrow in curiosity.

“Who is this?” Pepper asked.

Tony opened his mouth to answer, but Castile ended up beating him to the punch and unfortunately for Tony the angel had to be truthful about his origins.

“I am Castiel an angel of the Lord.”

Tony felt like slamming his head against the wall and asking God why he had to send him an angel who couldn’t lie upon hearing that. Pepper just shot Tony a look that said ‘you know you have a crazy guy sitting on your couch, right?’ while Castile just had a vaguely confused look on his face like he couldn’t figure out why what he said was wrong.

Tony struggled for a second to come up with a way to salvage this whole situation and eventually he blurted out “He’s a bodyguard, and a trained nurse.”

Pepper was giving him a confused look now, and Tony just continued to make stuff up like his life depended on it.

“I hired him in case any other medical problems besides my heart pop up. My doctor suggested I have a trained nurse around for a while until we know for sure that I’m perfectly alright.”

Tony quickly looked at Castiel and said “Isn’t that right, Castiel? You’re my bodyguard and you can help me if something pops up?”

Castiel looked confused about this whole entire situation, and as far as the angel was concerned saying that he was an angel should have been all that he needed to say.

Luckily for Tony though the angel played along and said slowly “I am supposed to protect Tony, and I am well versed in the art of healing.”

Pepper gave Castiel a long hard look before she said “And the angel of the Lord thing?”

“It’s the name of the bodyguard group. It’s supposed to be about how angels can be warriors and healers so it’s saying their bodyguards are like guardian angels. It’s really stupid I know.”

Castiel actually looked insulted upon hearing that, but he’s the reason they were in this mess so Tony figured he could just deal with it. Pepper didn’t look like she was convinced, but eventually she sighed and shook her head.

“Fine, I’ll buy it for now.”

She looked over at Castiel and said “I’m Pepper Potts. It’s nice to meet you Castiel….?”

It was easy to tell that she was looking for a last name by the way she trailed off. Mercifully, Castiel picked up on it and gave her a last name before Tony had to come up with one.

“It’s Novak, but I prefer to be called Castiel Miss Potts.”

Pepper just nodded and Tony took this moment to jump back into the conversation. While holding his pad in one hand Tony picked up his empty bowl before he stood up.

“Hey, I’m going to take this to the kitchen. Castiel since you’re done eating why don’t you come with me so that you can put your bowl into the dishwasher.” Tony said.

Castiel just nodded before he picked up his bowl and followed the inventor into the kitchen.

Once they were in the kitchen and out of earshot Tony practically tossed his bowl into the dishwasher while he hissed at Castiel “You can’t tell people that you are an angel of the Lord.”

Castiel just tilted his head slightly to the side before he asked “Why not? It’s the truth.”

“Yeah, and saying the truth made Pepper think you were an escaped mental patient.” Tony snapped as he took Castiel’s bowl and put it into the dishwasher.

Tony sighed and closed the dishwasher before he looked over at Castiel.

“Look, I know you’re telling the truth but lots of people don’t believe in angels. Also people who do believe in angels won’t believe that the guy who dresses up like Columbo is really a winged warrior of God.”

Castiel opened his mouth to say something, but Tony just held his hand up to stop him.

“I know you don’t know who Columbo is just add that to the list of things that I need to show you.”

Castiel just nodded and he was quite for a moment before he asked “So you want me to say that I am your bodyguard?”

“You would be one of my bodyguards since Happy is technically my bodyguard too.” Tony said.

The man sighed yet again before he said “If anything the bodyguard thing is pretty close to the truth, and if you’re not comfortable with that just say that you are my friend or something like that just don’t tell people that you’re an angel.”

“I understand.” The angel said.

Tony’s shoulders slumped slightly in relief upon hearing that. The man knew Pepper didn’t really buy his flimsy explanation about Castiel, but he could worry about that latter. For now he could take comfort in the fact that Castiel wouldn’t be telling every human that he met that he was an angel. With that settled Tony ended up asking a question that had been bugging him a little.

“Why Novak?”

“Novak is the last name of my vessel, but I would prefer not to be called that.” Castiel answered.

“It’s not your name so it makes you uncomfortable to be called that, right?” The brown eyed man said.

Castiel said nothing to this, but the look he was giving Tony told the brown eyed man that he hit the nail right on the head. Well, his question had been answered so Tony was fine with letting the subject drop.

Instead the man just said “I’m going to go work on a better arc reactor. If this thing is keeping me alive then I should make sure it’s as up to date as possible.”

The man was about to ask the angel if he could tell Pepper where he was going, but a sudden thought ended up hitting him.

“Hey, how high is the possibility that you could get the shrapnel out of my chest?”

A thoughtful look crosses Castiel’s face upon hearing that and after a few seconds had passed the angel slowly said “It should be possible for me to get the shrapnel out of your chest.”

“Are you allowed to do that?” Tony asked.

“I am allowed to do whatever is necessary to keep you safe.” Castiel says immediately.

“Then go ahead, songbird. Hit me.” Tony says as he points at the arc reactor.

Castiel just gives him a confused look before he asks “I don’t understand why would you want me to hit you? Hitting you would be the opposite of healing you.”

Tony rolls his eyes and feels a long suffering sigh welling up within him, but somehow he’s able to keep himself from sighing. It seems like God didn’t just give him the angel who was incapable of lying he also gave him the angel who took things way too literally. At least he didn’t say anything about the nickname this time.

“I mean go ahead and use your magic, mojo, whatever you want to call it and heal me.”

Castiel shot him a look that just shouts out ‘well, why didn’t you say it like that?’ before he placed two of his fingers of Tony’s head. A few seconds pass and Tony doesn’t feel a thing. No warmth, no feeling in his chest, not even a tingling sensation. A confused look crosses Castiel’s face as the angel removes his fingers before quickly placing them back on Tony’s forehead. A few seconds passed by and again Tony felt nothing. Castiel finally dropped his hand down to his side and gave Tony a solemn look.

“I’m sorry Tony, but I can’t heal this.” The angel said.

He actually looked like he felt bad that he couldn’t help. Tony wasn’t really torn up about it. It was a shame that he couldn’t help, but the arc reactor kept him alive just fine so it wasn’t a major issue.

“Don’t worry about it. Any idea why you’re healing mojo won’t work?” Tony asked.

If the angel knew more about human body language he probably would have shrugged, but instead the angel said “I don’t know, but I have a theory.”

“Want to share with the class, Colombo?”

Castiel gave him a confused look, but before he could ask what class Tony was referring to the inventor quickly said “You want to tell me your theory?”

“I think your arc reactor acts like a sort of barrier over your heart. It protects it from any spell, magic, or Grace.”

“Grace?”

“It’s like a type of divine energy. It is what makes an angel an angel.” The angel explained.

“And it’s what gives you the ability to perform your magic healing?” Tony asked.

The angel nodded before he said “There are higher ranking angels then myself so one of them might be able to get around the barrier.”

“Think any of them would feel generous enough to try?”

“They would not help.” Castiel said. “I am sorry that I can do nothing for you.”

Tony just shook his head and said “As I said before don’t worry about it.”

Castiel still looked like he was bothered by the fact that he couldn’t help, but he let the subject drop. Since the conversation was done and over with Tony was more than ready to go back to his lab.

However, before he left Tony looked at Castiel and asked “Can you tell Pepper that I’ll be down in the lab?”

Castiel was quiet for a moment before he slowly said “I could.”

“Thanks I appreciate it. If she asks tell her I’m going to work on upgrading the arc reactor.”

As Tony started to make his way out of the room he continued to talk by saying “You can just watch TV or read a book or whatever. I’m planning on staying home all day today and I’ll probably be down in the lab for most of the day.”

Castiel was quiet for a moment before he said “Before you go there is something you should know.”

Tony just gave him a confused look and Castiel just ignored the look in favor of saying “If you need me just pray to me.”

“What? Like just say dear Castiel I need you amen?” Tony asked.

“Yes, if you do that I will hear you and come to you.”

“Do I need to say it out loud or in my head to make it work?”

“Either way works.” Castiel answers.

Tony says nothing to this he just leaves the room and silently contemplates how being taught how to pray to an angel in a trench coat somehow became a regular part of his morning…

-------------------

Pepper sighed as she watched the man on the TV scream that Stark Industries was doomed and everyone should abandon ship. People had been saying things like that ever since Tony made his announcement that they were done making weapons, but Pepper still hadn’t gotten used to hearing people say that the company was screwed and Tony had officially lost it. Weapons were Stark Industries main export, but it wasn’t the only thing that they made. They made phones, equipment for labs, and other technological marvels. The company would take a blow from not making weapons anymore, but it wasn’t going to completely collapse and cease to exist like everyone kept saying it would do.

As the man on the screen kept slamming down on a noisy button and saying that everyone should sell their stocks in the company Pepper’s eyes slowly shifted to her quite mysterious companion. After telling Pepper where Tony had run off to the man had been as quite as a church mouse. Other than his name Pepper didn’t know a thing about the guy. Pepper wasn’t buying the whole bodyguard thing for a second. Tony obviously didn’t feel like explaining who he was or why he was here, and Pepper doubted that Castiel would be willing to share what his connection was to Tony.

Honestly, after the whole ‘angel of the Lord’ thing Pepper was sort of wondering about the guy’s sanity. Castiel didn’t even seem to realize how much confusion he was causing for Pepper. Instead he was staring at the TV with more intensity then the show honestly deserved.

Pepper almost jumped out of her skin when she finally heard Castiel ask “Why is the man in this show so noisy?”

“I would have called him annoying personally.” Pepper answered.

The woman shook her head before she said “I think people just like watching the host being all loud and overdramatic.”

“Why?” Castiel asked.

Pepper shrugged before she said “That’s just one of the many mysteries of life.”

Castiel furrowed his eyebrows before he looked back at the television. He was staring at it with such intensity that she thought the man was trying to solve the mystery by staring it into submission. Pepper glanced back over at the TV and was about to ask Castiel if she could change the channel, but before the words could even make it to her lips JARVIS started speaking.

“Sir requires your presence in the lab.”

Pepper glanced over at Castiel in confusion, but the guy was a blank slate. She sighed before she said “Tell Tony we will be right there.”

Pepper got up from her seat and started walking to the lab while Castiel followed her quietly. As her heels clicked against the hardwood floor Castiel didn’t make a single sound. She couldn’t hear him breathing, and even his footfalls were utterly silent. If she didn’t know any better she could almost think he wasn’t there at all. It was a little creepy if she was being honest. This thought was dropped once they reached the lab. Tony was there waiting for them. His shirt was off and he seemed to be connected to some beeping medical machine. The glowing part of the arc reactor had been taken out of his chest and placed onto the little metal table that was sitting next to the chair that Tony was seated in. Pepper got a good look at the hole in Tony’s chest and upon seeing it Pepper was very grateful that she actually couldn’t see anything but inky darkness.

“Tony what are you doing?”

“Upgrading the arc reactor, or I’m trying anyway.” Tony said.

In Tony’s hand was a glowing arc reactor and Tony just smiled as he held it up.

“This thing is going to replace the old relic that I used to have, but I ran into a bit of a speed bump.”

“What do you mean by speed bump?” Pepper asked.

“There is an exposed wire in here and it’s close to touching the socket wall.”

“That doesn’t sound good Tony.” Pepper said as she frowned.

“It’s only causing a little bit of a short.” Tony said.

Pepper just rolled her eyes as she muttered “Oh, is that all that it is doing?”

Tony ignored the sarcasm and said “I need you or Cas to reach in and gently let the wire out.”

Castiel tilted his head slightly to the side before he said “Cas?”

“It’s a shortened version of your name. Your OK with it right?”

“I suppose I don’t have an issue with it, but how many nicknames are you planning on giving me? You already insist on calling me songbird.” Castiel said slowly.

“As many as I can come up with.” Tony answered with a grin.

Tony shook his head and said “Anyway, we are getting off subject.”

Tony motioned toward his chest and said “One of you guys want to help me with this? You both have smaller hands then me so you both can reach in and get the wire.”

Pepper was not found of the idea of actually sticking her hand into Tony’s chest. She bit her lip and looked over at Castiel.

‘For the love of god don’t make me stick my hand in there.’ She thought.

The look Castiel gave her was completely unreadable, but she thought she saw his mouth twitch into a frown for a few seconds. Without warning Castiel just stuck his hand right into the hole in Tony’s chest.

Tony twitched a little before he said “Hey, make sure the wire doesn’t touch the socket wall or we’ll end up with a horrifying version of Operation.”

“What’s Operation?” Castiel asked as if he didn’t have a hand in a guy’s chest.

“JARVIS add that to a list of things that I need to show him.” Tony called out.

“Of course, sir.” JARVIS said.

“It feels gooey.” Castiel said calmly.

“You’re digging through pus!” Pepper shouted in disgust.

“It’s inorganic plasmic discharge from the device.” Tony corrected.

“Interesting.” Castiel said, and he actually sounded interested.

“I think gross is the word that you are looking for.” Pepper murmured as she thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have to get the wire.

Eventually Castiel’s hand emerged from the hole in Tony’s chest and he was holding a copper wire. His hands were dripping with some sort of liquid and Pepper couldn’t help but frown.

“It smells horrible.”

“Yeah it does.” Tony said with a grin.

As Castiel continued to lift the wire up Tony quickly said “Now be careful there is a magnet at the end of it-“

Clunk!

“That you just pulled out when you shouldn’t have.” Tony finished saying as they all stared at the magnet that was attached to the end of the wire.

The machines that Tony was hooked up to started to go crazy, and Pepper knew that wasn’t a good thing.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Oh nothing I’m just going into cardiac arrest.” Tony said calmly.

“Oh god, what do we do?!” Pepper shouted out.

“Miss Potts you shouldn’t say the Lord’s name in vain.” Castiel chided like there wasn’t a guy going into cardiac arrest right now.

“That’s not important right now!” Pepper shouted. “Do we need to put the magnet back in?”

“No, don’t do that.” Tony quickly said.

He held the new arc reactor out to Castiel.

“Just plug that in.”

Castiel took the arc reactor and did just that. The second the arc reactor was plugged in Tony let out a loud yelp while the heart monitor that he was hooked up to calmed down. Once Tony was over the shock he took the arc reactor from Castiel and quickly slotted it into place in his chest.

“You OK?” Pepper asked.

“Yeah, I feel great.” Tony said with again.

“Next time you have to do something like that again just ask Castiel to do it.” She told him.

“Got it.” Tony said as he hoped off his chair and started to unattached himself from the heart monitor.

Pepper looked over at the still glowing arc reactor and picked it up.

“So what do you want to do with this?” She asked.

“Destroy it. Set it on fire. Smash it with a hammer. It doesn’t matter to me.” Tony said.

“You don’t want to keep it?” Castiel and Pepper asked at the same time.

They both shot each other surprised glances before they looked back over at Tony.

“Guys, I have been called many things. Nostalgic is not one of them.” Tony answered.

Tony then walked over the Butterfingers and started talking to the bot while Castiel and Pepper were left standing there with the old arc reactor.

They were quite for a moment before Castiel finally said “That went well.”

Pepper just glanced over at him for a moment before she looked down at the arc reactor that was in her hands. Castiel was weird and she didn’t know why he was here, but if he was OK with digging through plasmic puss to help Tony out and she didn’t have to then Pepper was OK with him being around…

Chapter Text

“Am I crazy?”

The confused look that Castiel shot him was expected, but Tony couldn’t help but enjoy seeing emotions flash across his face. He was such a blank slate when they first met, but Tony was getting a bit better at reading his emotions. The guy wasn’t the most expressive thing on the planet, but he has little signs that showed that he did feel. The slightest twitch of his lips, the narrowing of his eyes , and those damn head tilts of his were all signs of his emotions at the time and Tony was slowly learning to read them.

Castiel flicks his gaze down at the hologram screen that he had been watching Colombo on and pressed the pause button that Tony had shown him how to use. Tony had insisted that the angel start watching just so that he could finally start understanding his references. A few other TV shows had been added to the list ranging from the Constantine TV show to Dog Cops to Murder, She Wrote. At any rate even if it didn’t help with Castiel’s pop culture awareness it gave the angel something to do other than stand there.

Tony was snapped out of his thoughts about TV shows when he hears Castiel ask “Is this about your conversation with James Rhodes?”

Tony frowned upon hearing the name of his best friend. He had brought Castiel with him so that he could introduce the angel to Rhodey and tell him about this project that he was going to start working on, but after Rhodey told him that he needed time to ‘get his mind right’ the whole visit got cut short right then and there. Castiel hadn’t been near them when that whole conversation happened, but the guy seemed to know what they had talked about.

Tony briefly thought about asking how Castiel knew about the conversation, but he thought better about it in the end. Guy was an angel after all he probably had super senses that let him hear the whole damn conversation. Tony sighed while Castiel gave him his usual serious look.

“Do you regret your choice to stop making weapons?”

“No, I don’t regret it one bit.” Tony said immediately, and he meant what he said.

“Then why worry about it?” Castiel asked.

Tony sighed as he looked down at the hologram table that he was working on. The holographic image of the first iron suit that he had made with Yinsen was in front of him waiting for him to fiddle with the design.

“I don’t know I guess it’s because Rhodey and Obie keep saying I’m crazy for doing it.” Tony said.

He ran a hand through his hair as he said “I know that every single media outlet is saying the same thing, but I don’t care about that. I have never cared about what the media says about me.”

“Yet, when your loved ones say the same thing it makes you wonder about your choice.” Castiel stated.

Tony was silent, but Castiel didn’t need Tony to tell him that he was right.

“Tony, why did you choose to stop making weapons?”

“I didn’t want any more innocent people to be killed with the weapons my company made. I didn’t want those weapons to fall into the wrong hands and be misused anymore, and maybe I want to be known for more than just being a merchant of death.” Tony said.

Castiel’s deep blue eyes seemed to stare right through Tony as he asked “If you have your reasons, and you have already decided that you don’t regret your choice then why worry about what others think of it?”

Tony stared at Castiel for a few seconds before he looked down at the hologram of the old metal suit.

“It’s that easy, huh?” Tony asked out loud.

“It could be.” Castiel said. “Maybe one day once enough time has passed you can explain to your friends why you made the choices that you made. Maybe they will understand, or maybe they won’t understand.”

The angel looked down at his paused video before he said “I think the only thing that matters is that you don’t regret your choice.”

Tony smirked as he said “Look at you and all your words of wisdom.”

“Do my words of wisdom help?” Castiel asked.

Tony’s smirk turned into a genuine smile as he said “Yeah, they helped.”

“Good.” Castiel said with a slight nod.

Tony thought that was the end of the conversation, but Castiel ended up surprising him when he said something quite out of the blue.

“Also, the name of the man that James Rhodes kissed in collage when he was drunk was Ivan Braginsky.”

At first Tony was confused, but then it hit him. Tony had mentioned the time when Rhodey got completely drunk and ended up kissing a foreign exchange student to the new recruits that Rhodey had been talking to when he came to visit his friend, but he could never remember the student’s name. Evidently Castiel knew it though and the angel had no problem telling Tony what the name was.

“Did you just do what I think you just did?”

Castiel’s lips twitched upward for a few seconds, but the angel was able to hold back the smile. Instead the angel just said “I think I’m going to watch ‘Murder, She Wrote’ now.”

Castiel then looked back down at his screen and taped a few buttons and before Tony knew it the theme song to ‘Murder, She Wrote’ started playing in the lab. Tony just stood there and stared at the angel for a few seconds before he finally smiled and returned back to working on the suit design. If there was one thing that Tony could say about the angel it would be that the angel certainty made life interesting and sometimes he knew just what to say to make Tony feel better…

--------------------------------

“Alright, I think we are ready to give this a test run.”

Tony smiled a little as he looked down at the thruster boots. They were looking pretty good so far, but he had yet to see how they would perform. Dummy was standing nearby with the fire extinguisher at the ready, and You was ready to start filming. Butterfingers was off to the side ready to help if it was needed, but Tony felt pretty confident about this. There was just one more thing that he needed to do.

“Cas!” Castiel looked up from the video that he was watching and stared at Tony.

“You mind stopping your ‘Murder, She Wrote’ marathon for a moment?”

The sound of the main character explaining why some guy was the culprit quickly fell silent when Castiel pressed the pause button.

Tony started to grin as he said “You really like that show don’t you? You’re almost done watching the second season, right?”

“Yes, I am. The show is very thought provoking.” Castiel said. “The protagonist always catches the criminal no matter how hard they try to hide their crime. Obviously the heroin represents God and the criminals always being caught show how no one can hide their crimes from the Lord.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that is something that you are supposed to take away from the show.” Tony said slowly.

Castiel actually looked confused by that suggestion.

“Then what does it all mean?”

“It’s a show about a little old lady who solves murder mysteries. Not everything has to be connected to God or be symbolic.” Tony said as he shrugged a little.

Castiel actually looked a little thoughtful upon hearing that, and Tony decided that he should probably stop the angel’s train of thought before he ended up having a discussion about symbolism in TV media.

“Anyway, I’m going to test out my thrusters and see how well they do. Heal me if I end up breaking something.”

Castiel frowned as he asked “Do you think something will go wrong?”

“No, it will probably be fine.” Tony assured him.

“Probably?” Castiel echoed.

Tony just waved the concern away as he said “It will be fine, but just be on standby just in case I end up breaking something.”

“That does not reassure me.” Castiel said.

“It’s not reassuring me either.” JARVIS commented.

“Don’t worry so much. I’m telling you it will be fine I’m just being cautious is all.”

“Not cautious enough if you ask me.” JARVIS said with a sigh.

Tony just ignored the AI and started the test. “Alright, let’s activate the hand controls. You, start filming.”

The bot activated the camera while Tony activated the machine.

“We’re goanna see if ten percent thrust capacity achieves lift.” Tony said out loud.

“Are you sure you don’t want to try it at 1 percent first?” Castiel called out from the sidelines.

“I don’t think that would be strong enough to give me liftoff.”

Castiel said nothing to this, but the slight frown that the angel was giving him made it clear that he wasn’t happy about this.

“It will be fine.” Tony said before he activated the thrusters and took off.

Thwack!

Tony was barely able to register the fact that he just slammed into the ceiling and crashed into the floor. Dummy just looked down at him and started spraying him with the fire extinguisher. He wasn’t sure when Dummy finally stopped spraying him down, but when Dummy finally did stop he was covered in foam. Castiel was looking down at Tony with a frown on his face. His unnaturally blue eyes seemed to glow in the dim lighting of the lab, and the man couldn’t help but think that Castiel has some pretty eyes. Castiel was frowning down at him, and Tony just looked up at him and gave him a slightly pained smile. His head was killing him, and Tony wouldn’t be surprised if he had one heck of a lump from slamming into the wall.

“Everything was not fine.” Castiel said.

“Yeah, I’m starting to think I should have taken your advice on trying that out on one percent first.” Tony told him.

Castiel shot him a look that seemed to yell out ‘Gee, you think?’ upon hearing that. The angel knelt down beside Tony and brushed his fingers across his forehead. The second Castiel touched him the feeling of warmth washed over the inventor, and his head no longer hurt.

Tony grinned as he said “Have I told you how grateful I am that you can heal me so fast?”

Castiel looked like he wanted to roll his eyes upon hearing that.

“I’m not sure if my Father assigned a guardian angel to you so that you have someone to protect you from demons or if you need an angel around so that someone can heal you after you get hurt doing something dangerous.”

“It can’t be both?” Tony asked as he sat up.

Dummy looked like he was about to spray him again so Tony quickly shot a bot a slight glare.

“Don’t even think of doing what you’re thinking of doing unless you want me to fulfill my promise of donating you to a collage.”

Dummy quickly lowered the spraying mechanism and let out an almost sad sounding robotic noise before wheeled himself over to Castiel. The bot nudged Castiel in the arm only to have the angel give him a confused look for a few seconds. Eventually the angel awkwardly patted the bot in what was probably supposed to be a comforting gesture. Dummy let out a happy sound upon getting the pats, and Tony just rolled his eyes.

“Sure, go to the angel for comfort.”

Castiel watched as Tony stood up and stretched for a few seconds before he slowly asked “You would not actually give the robot away would you?”

“Nah, I wouldn’t really do it.” Tony said.

Honestly, Tony would never give away Dummy. The bot was a little slow sometimes, he had a tendency to screw things up more often than not, and there were days when Tony got frustrated with him he wasn’t going to deny that. However, Dummy meant well and Tony loved the little bot regardless of what he did.

“Are you getting attached to Dummy? Don’t deny it I have seen you two watch TV episodes together down here.”

Castiel tilted his head to the side as he said “I am slightly fond of him that is true, but mostly I’m amazed by him.”

The angel’s eyes flicked over to the two other bots that were in the room as he said “I’m amazed by You and Butterfingers, and JARVIS is quite amazing as well.”

“It’s nice to know that I am appreciated.” JARVIS said.

“Hey, I appreciate you tons!” Tony yelled out.

“Of course you do, sir.” Was JARVIS’s calm reply.

Tony rolled his eyes at the snarky AI, but he quickly snapped his gaze over to Castiel when he heard the angel say “Humans in general have made some wonderful things.”

The angel’s lips twitched up into a small smile as he said “Father gave you humans free will, but he also gave you the ability to be creative and humans have not wasted that gift. You have made music, art, stories, and all sorts of mechanical objects. It’s amazing really.”

“We humans have made quite a few bad things too.” Tony couldn’t help but add.

Tony couldn’t help but think about all of the weapons that he had designed through the years upon saying that. Castiel’s small smile never disappeared upon hearing that.

Instead, the angel brushed his hand across Dummy’s metal frame as he said “True, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have made some extraordinary things.”

The way Castiel said ‘you’ instead of ‘humans’ made Tony think that the angel knew he was thinking about his rather recant past in weapons making when he said that humans had made some bad things too. Tony didn’t call him out on it, and the brown eyed man had to admit that he appreciated what the angel said.

“Do all angels have that view on what humans create?” Tony asked.

“Some do, but other angel’s opinions of humans and their creativity are not that high.” Castiel said slowly.

Tony got a distinct impression that there more to that then what Castiel was saying, but he didn’t ask for details even if he did want to. Tony wasn’t stuck with those angels, and unless he actually had to deal with more angels he figured it didn’t matter.

“Well, at any rate I’m happy that I ended up with an angel who appreciates creativity.” Tony said.

Castiel looked a bit surprised to hear that, and the small half-smile that graced his face grew a bit bigger. Tony couldn’t help but think that the angel looked nice when he smiled.

“I’m happy that I got assigned to a person like you even if you do injure yourself a bit too often.” Castiel said with a slight smile.

“I’m just happy someone is around to heal Master Stark.” JARVIS added.

“Love you too JARVIS.” Tony said as he rolled his eyes yet again. “Anyway, now that we are all done appreciating each other I’m going to change clothes. Having this foam all over me is making me uncomfortable.”

With that said Tony made his way out of the lab, and as he left Tony couldn’t help but think yet again that the angel was good at cheering him up and while he didn’t say it out loud Tony appreciated this ability almost as much as he appreciated Castiel’s ability to heal…

-----------------------

“Miss Potts is coming into the lab.”

Tony barely registered what Castiel said. He was too busy working on the arm thrusters to really pay much attention to what was going on around him. He could hear Pepper’s heels clicking against the hard floor, but he didn’t bother to look away from his work.

“I was buzzing you did you hear the intercom?” Pepper asked as she placed a box down on the table.

“What?” Tony said as he finally looked up from his project.

He was sure he heard Castiel mumble something about wondering what the buzzing noise was, but his muttering was drowned out by Pepper’s talking.

“Obadiah’s upstairs.”

“Great!” Tony said as he stood up from his seat.

“I’ll go talk to him in a minute.” Pepper frowned a little when she was the machine that encased Tony’s arm.

“I thought you said you were done making weapons.” She said.

“I am. This is a flight stabilizer, and it’s perfectly harmless.” Tony said.

“So he says…” Castiel muttered from his spot next to Dummy.

Pepper just gave the angel a confused look while Tony gave him a mock glare. Dummy let out a beeping noise as he tugged on Castiel’s coat sleeve. Castiel glanced over at the robot before he patted the bot on the side. Tony briefly marveled at the fact that his robot seemed to be becoming best friends with an angel, but Dummy had always be curious about Castile so maybe it should not have surprised him all that much.

Pepper smiled just a tiny bit at the scene, but she quickly looked back over Tony when she saw him press a button that was attached to the flight stabilizer. The stabilizer was activated within a matter of seconds upon pushing the button, and Tony started to grin a little when he saw that everything seemed to be working fine. However, that grin quickly disappeared when the stabilizer released a sudden blast of power and the inventor was thrown to the floor from the force of the blast. Pepper let out a gasp of surprise while Castiel just let out a tired sigh.

“I didn’t expect that.” Tony said from his spot on the floor.

“I’m not sure why you didn’t expect it. Every time you mess with those flight stabilizers you always end up getting tossed about.” Castiel said.

“It’s only happened three times.” Tony argued.

“It’s happened four times.” Castiel and JARVIS said at the exact same time.

Castiel quickly fell silent while JARVIS just continued talking.

“I have each instance that you have been blasted off of your feet on film and saved in the database, sir. Would you like me to play the film to prove to you that it was indeed four times?”

Tony just frowned before he said “Remind me to reprogram you so that you’re less snarky.”

Pepper rolled her eyes before she asked “Have you gotten hurt any from being blown away?”

Tony grinned as he patted Castiel on the shoulder and said “A little, but my own personal doctor here has taken care of every injury.”

Castiel looked like he wanted to say something, but he must have thought better of it because he kept his mouth shut. Pepper sighed before she said “Well, I’m happy someone is taking care of you while you try to blast yourself through the walls.”

Pepper gave Castiel a small grateful smile as she said “Thank you for watching over him. It makes me feel a bit better to know that there is someone around to make sure Tony doesn’t accidentally kill himself.”

“I’ll try my best to keep him safe Miss Potts.” Castiel said seriously.

“You can call me Pepper, Castiel.” Pepper told him.

Castiel nodded slightly before he said “Very well.”

Pepper nodded back to him before she looked back over at Tony.

“We really shouldn’t keep Obadiah waiting.” Pepper said.

“We won’t don’t worry. I know how impatient Obie can get.” Tony said as he removed the flight stabilizer from his arm and unhooked it from his arc reactor.

As he placed the contraption down on the table Tony called out “Make sure to shut down everything in the lab for me JARVIS.”

“Of course, sir” The AI replied.

With that done Tony looked over at Castiel and said “Come on it’s about time that I introduced you to Obie.”

It didn’t take long for the small group to make their way upstairs where Obie was waiting. When they got upstairs Tony wasn’t at all surprised to see that Obie was playing the piano. Upon seeing Obie Tony smiled a little, but he was quick to notice that Castiel started to frown when he saw the man. The angel was examining Obadiah with great intensity, and Tony couldn’t help but think it looked a bit like he was staring right at the man’s soul. Tony thought it was a bit strange and made a mental note to ask Castiel about it later. Upon spotting a pizza box sitting on the coffee table Tony walked over to it.

“How’d it go?”

Obadiah looked up and stopped playing the piano for a few seconds upon seeing Castiel. He frowned slightly and upon having Castiel’s eyes bore into his own Obadiah looked back down at the piano keys and continued playing.

“That bad, huh?” Tony asked as he popped the lid of the pizza box open.

“Just because I brought pizza back from New York doesn’t mean it went that bad.” Obadiah said calmly.

“Sure it doesn’t.” Tony said as he plopped down onto the couch.

Pepper sat down on the couch next to him and picked up a laptop that was sitting on the table before she started typing something. Castiel continued to stare at Obadiah, but when Tony patted the empty spot next to him the angel got the hint and finally sat down. Tony wordlessly handed him a slice of pizza, and the dark haired man just stared at the slice like it was some sort of alien object.

“It’s pizza. Just take a bite.” Tony ordered.

Castiel did just that, but after taking a single bite he started to frown.

“I don’t like the black stuff.”

“The olives? Well, luckily for you half the pizza doesn’t have olives.” Tony said as he held out a slice that didn’t have olives on it.”

Castiel took the new slice and took a bite before he let out a hum of continent and continued to eat the food. He wasn’t devouring it with as much gusto as he would with Cheerios, but the angel seemed to be satisfied enough with the pizza to find it worthy of finishing.

Obadiah watched the exchange quietly as he played the piano before he finally asked “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Castiel Novak. Cas, this is Obadiah.” Tony said.

“It’s a pleasure to meet a new friend of Tony.” Obadiah said with a polite smile.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.” Castiel said, but the slightly pinched look that Castiel had told Tony that Castiel didn’t seem to mean that.

Tony stared at Castiel and frowned, but he quickly switched his gaze over to Obadiah when he heard the man speak.

“The meeting would have gone better if you were there.”

“You told me to lay low and that is exactly what I am doing.”

Obadiah stopped playing the piano and walked over to the coffee table and took a slice for himself before he sat down in the chair across from the couch. The whole time Obadiah was moving Castiel was watching him like a hawk.

“I was talking about the public and the press when I said that. This was a board of directors meeting.”

“This was a board of directors meeting?” Tony said with slight surprise.

Obadiah just sighed before he said “The board is claiming that you have post-traumatic stress. They’re filing an injunction.”

“A what?”

“They want to lock you out.”

“Is this because the stocks dropped 40 percent? We knew this was going to happen.”

“Fifty-six and a half.” Pepper corrected quietly.

“It doesn’t matter!” Tony snapped.

He took a deep breath before continuing by saying “We own the controlling interest in the company.”

“Tony, the board has rights, too.” Obadiah said calmly.

‘Fuck their rights.’ Tony thought, and was also very tempted to shout out. However, he kept quiet as Obadiah continued talking.

“They’re making the case that you and your new direction isn’t in the company’s best interest.”

“I’m being responsible. That’s a new direction for me, for the company.” Tony said with a hint of anger.

Aware that what he said probably didn’t sound that great so he quickly started backpedaling.

“I mean, me on the company’s behalf being responsible for the way that…” He quickly sputtered to a stop when Pepper and Obadiah just stared at him quiet equally tired looks.

Castiel was the only one who didn’t look tired. The angel just continued to munch on his pizza while alternating his gaze from Tony to Obadiah.

“I’m going back to my lab.” Tony said abruptly as he closed the pizza box and stood up.

He picked the pizza box up as Obadiah stood up.

“Tony listen I’m trying to turn this around, but you have to give me something. Something to pitch them.”

Obadiah’s eyes briefly flicked down to the arc reactor that was glowing in Tony’s chest when he said that.

“Let me have the engineers analyze that.” Obadiah said as he pointed at the reactor. “You know, draw up some specs.”

“No, absolutely not!” Tony said quickly.

“It will give me a bone to throw to the guys in New York!” Obadiah argued.

“It is staying with me.” Tony hissed out.

The two men stared at each other as if to try and stare the other person into submission. Finally Obadiah just sighed before he took the box from Tony.

“This is staying with me then.”

The man opened the box and said “Take a slice for the road.”

“Thanks.” Tony said dully as he snatched another slice of pizza before he started marching down the stairs that lead to his lab.

“You mind letting me see what you’re working on?” Obadiah called out to him.

“Good night, Obie!” Tony just shouted back.

Once Tony was gone from sight Obadiah just sighed and shook his head.

“That went well.” He muttered before he shook his head yet again. “I think I’m done here.”

Pepper and Castiel watched the man go, and once the man was finally gone Castiel stopped nibbling on his pizza crust and looked over at Pepper.

“I don’t think that went well.”

Pepper just sighed…

Chapter Text

The first thing Tony hears after finishing off the pizza slice that Obie let him snatch is the sound of flapping wings. He doesn’t bother to look toward the sound.

Instead he just says “I hope you didn’t do that in front of Pepper and Obie.”

Castiel’s familiar gruff voice is quickly heard as the angel says “I did it when I was alone.”

Tony nods slightly as he said “Good, I really don’t need to have to explain the whole teleporting thing now.”

Although, since it was starting to become obvious that Castiel would be sticking around for a long time so maybe they should let Obie and Pepper in on the secret. Would be easier to just tell them and show them then by having them find out of accident.

Tony was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Castiel say “I do not like Obadiah.”

“He’s not exactly my favorite person right now either, songbird.” Tony grumbled as he looked down at the flight stabilizer that he was working on.

“I do not dislike him because of his instance to try to mass produce your arc reactor.”

“So why don’t you like him?”

“He has an ugly soul.” Was the angel’s answer.

“You looked at his soul?”

“Yes, I did.” Castiel answered.

Tony just shook his head at that answer. Tony thought that by now he would have gotten used to all of the things that an angel could do, but evidently that wasn’t the case.

“So what do you mean by ugly?” Tony asked as he started working on the flight stabilizer once again.

Castiel walked over to the table that Tony was seated at and took a seat in the stool that was across from him.

“Human souls have characteristics. They can bright, dim, or covered in scars. ” Castiel explained. “Every single feature has a meaning, and for the most part all souls are different from each other in some way.”

Tony glanced up at Castiel as the angel said “A bright soul is a good soul. The brighter the soul the more righteous it is.”

“And the dimmer it is the less virtuous it is?” Tony guessed.

“Correct.”

“What about the scars thing?”

“Scars can be caused by two things. Some scares are caused from extraordinary painful experiences that the soul has had to endure.”

“So soul pain can be a literal thing and not just another name for psychological pain?” Tony asked.

Castiel nodded slightly before he said “The other types of scars are signs of grave sins. Angels and creatures who can see souls or deal with them can can tell if a scar is one of pain, or if it is one caused by committing horrible crimes.”

“Those scars come with labels?” Tony asked jokingly.

Of course Castiel took the question seriously because he shook his head and said “Scars of pain and scars from crimes committed look different from each other. However, there are no labels that tell the history of the scar and while angels know much we are not omniscient.”

Castiel tilted his head slightly to the side as he said “Angels can at least see the scars. If a human looked at the soul of another human they wouldn’t be able to see the scars. To your kind it would just look like a big ball of light.”

“OK, so what Obie has a soul that’s so dim that it couldn’t even work as a good nightlight?”

Castiel frowned as he said “Your friend’s soul is dimmer then most souls. The light produced by a firefly would be brighter than his soul.”

The angel wrinkled nose slightly as if he smelled something unpleasant as he said “He also reeks of greed.”

“Greed has a scent?” Tony asked with a lopsided smile.

“It is more of a feeling then a scent, but greed comes off of the man in waves.”

Tony couldn’t help but think it sounded like Castiel was ranting about a coworker that he didn’t like, but it was delivered in such a monotone way that it was sort of funny in an odd sort of way.

Tony decided to cut into the monotone rant by saying “I’m pretty sure my soul isn’t much better, songbird.”

Castiel cocked his head slightly to the side and gave Tony a vaguely confused look like the angel couldn’t comprehend what he heard.

“On the contrary your soul is brighter than most souls.” Castiel said.

Tony almost couldn’t believe what he heard.

“You do not believe me.” Castiel stated.

“I’m having a hard time believing it.” Tony confirmed.

“It matters not if you do not believe it is still true.” Castiel said with such conviction that Tony knew that there was no arguing about it.

“Just go watch ‘Murder, She Wrote’.” Tony said as he motioned to the table where the angel usually watched his show.

The angel stared at him for a long time before he said “You do have a bright soul Tony.”

Without waiting for a response the angel turned and went over to the table where his show was waiting. Within a matter of seconds the sound of the main character Jessica explaining how a particular murder could have been pulled off filled the room and it didn’t take long for Dummy to wheel himself over to the table so he could watch too. Tony just rolled his eyes as he looked down at his worktable and continued working.

As he worked Tony couldn’t help but think about what the angel said about his soul. The angel had no reason to lie about something like that and it was obvious that the angel believed what he said. However, even after hearing what the angel said Tony still couldn’t believe it. Quietly the man couldn’t help but think that he would never believe the angel’s words even if he saw it with his own eyes…

----------------------

“Alright, we are going to start off with 1% thrust capacity.”

Tony activated the thrusters and much to his relief he didn’t go flying into the wall like last time. He hovered above the ground the ground for a few minutes before he gently landed to the ground. Castiel was watching from the sidelines. His expression was completely unreadable so Tony didn’t know what he thought about the fact that he didn’t slam into the ceiling this time.

“Okay, let’s try 2.5 now.” Tony said out loud.

This time he went up a bit higher, but he had control of his movements. He tried moving around only to end up accidently hovering over to the cars.

“OK, this is not where I want to be.” Tony said as he tried to move himself away from the automobiles.

He hovered over the tables only to cause the papers that were sitting there to start flying around.

As the papers fluttered about and rained down on Castiel like snow the angel calmly said “This won’t end well.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth, sir.” JARVIS said.

“OK, the comments from the peanut gallery are not appreciated.” Tony yelled out as he used the thrusters on his hands to push himself away from a wall that he almost ran into.

“What’s a peanut gallery?” Castiel asked in confusion.

“Not a good time for me to explain!” Tony yelled out.

He was able to drift back to the middle of the room and carefully land back down to the floor. He stumbled back a little once he landed, but he was able to stay standing.

“Yeah, I can fly.” Tony said a bit proudly.

“You can fly slowly at any rate.” Castiel muttered.

“It’s not my fault that I can’t teleport like you can.” Tony said.

“It is not teleporting it is flying.” Castiel corrected.

“Hey, if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck.” Tony replied.

Castiel tilted his head slightly to the side and gave him the most confused looking expression to date.

“What do ducks have to do with this?” Castiel asked with confusion.

Tony just threw his head back in laughed. The talk with Obie had been a downer, but this suit he was making and Castiel’s obviousness was helping to make everything better…

--------------------------

OK, this was it. Today was the day that he would be testing the suit outside of the lab. He had the suit on, JARVIS was connected to the suit, and everything seemed to be working. JARVIS had already voiced his displeasure at the idea of having him go out flying, but Tony had already dismissed that. He glanced over at Castiel only to see the angel giving him a vaguely concerned look. However, while the angel probably agreed with JARVIS that this was a bad idea he was keeping his mouth shut.

“So how do I look?” Tony asked.

“You look like a very shinny robot.” Castiel answered.

“Not quiet what I was looking for when I asked that question, but I’ll take it.”

Castiel frowned slightly before he slowly asked “You will be carful won’t you?”

“I’ll be as careful as I can be.” Tony said.

“That does not fill me with confidence.” Castiel said.

“It will be fine Cas.” Tony reassured him.

“If you say so…” Castiel muttered.

Tony just smiled at the angel from behind the mask before he took off and started to fly. Flying through the sky had been absolutely exhilarating. The suit handled like a dream, and being able to fly above the city at night with all the lights on had been amazing. Unfortunately, he couldn’t fly up too high without the suit icing over, but he figured he could find a way around that problem eventually. Either way flying was an amazing experience, and Tony couldn’t help but wonder if Castiel felt this happy when he flew.

‘I’m going to have to ask him about that one of these days.’ Tony thought as he flew back home.

Once he was home and floating over the roof he said “Turn off.”

The thrusters shut themselves off immediately and within a matter of seconds Tony was crashing through his roof and then his piano. His fall was only stopped once he slammed into one of his cars. The rest of his cars started to fill the room with the noise of their alarms, and a few seconds later Dummy was spraying him with the fire extinguisher.

When Dummy finally stopped Tony looked up only to see Castiel staring down at him with his impossibly blue eyes. Tony imagined that Castiel probably had something to say. The angel would most likely tell him that he told him to be careful, that his flying outside was a bad idea, or even ask if he was OK.

However, instead of saying any of that Castiel just opened his mouth and said “You still fly too slowly. Also, Pepper brought you a package it’s on the table.”

Tony just sighed in response…

---------------------------

“Proof that Tony Stark has a heart.”

The words were said softly like Castiel had read some sort of scared scripture from the Lord, and not simple words that Pepper had carved into a mantelpiece. It wasn’t what Tony had been expecting Pepper to do with the old arc reactor, but then again Pepper always had the ability to throw him curve balls every once in a while. Either way hearing the words made Tony smile from his spot behind his computer monitors.

“Nice isn’t it? I think it really ties the room together.” Tony commented.

“I suppose?” Castiel said obviously not completely getting what ties the room together meant.

The angel was quiet for a moment before he said “I think it shows that another person can tell that you have a good soul.”

Tony frowned just a bit upon hearing that subject being bought up again. That topic was one that Tony was done discussing, and he was more than ready to let it fall by the wayside. Tony really wanted to change the topic now, and God must have been listening to his thoughts because the TV that had been turned on for background noise gave him just that.

“Tonight’s red-hot red carpet is right here at the Disney Concert Hall, where Tony Stark’s third annual benefit for the Firefighter’s Family Fund has become the place to be for the L.A.’s high society.”

“You’re having an event and you’re not attending?” Castiel asked as he stared the TV.

Tony frowned as he said “I didn’t know it was happening. JARVIS did I get an invite for that?”

“I have no record of an invitation, sir.” JARVIS answered.

As the announcer jabbered on about Tony’s disappearance from the public after his press conference an idea started to form in Tony’s head.

“How do you feel about going to a red carpet event songbird?” Tony asked.

“Didn’t JARVIS say that you didn’t have an invite?” Castiel asked.

“As you said it’s my event. If I want to go in and bring a plus one with me I can.” Tony said with a slight smile. “So how about it?”

“I have a feeling that even if I didn’t want to go you would drag me along anyway.” Castiel said with a sigh.

“You got that right.” Tony said, and that was all that needed to be said about the subject.

It didn’t take long for Tony to get ready for the event. After years of getting ready for high society events and quickly slipping clothes on after one night stands Tony could get dressed and look fabulous within a matter of seconds. Tony was also able to straighten out Castiel’s loose backwards tie, but he wasn’t able to convince the angel to leave the trench coat at home. Castiel had a strange attachment to the coat that Tony didn’t completely understand, but if Cas wanted to wear the thing to the event then Tony would let him do just that.

Upon arriving at the event everyone acted how Tony expected them to react. They shouted, they took pictures, and they yelled out his name in a vain attempt to have him come over and talk to them. Cas stuck close to him and looked around warily like he expected one of the people to leap out of the crowed and come charging at them. The sad thing was it was totally possible. It happened to Tony once at a gala that he went too. Personally, it was that event that made the gala remotely interesting. The thoughts of events of the past faded from his mind as he approached Obie.

“What is this world coming to if a man has to crash his own party?” Tony asked.

Obie chuckled slightly before he said “Look at you. Didn’t think I would see you here.”

Obie glanced over at Castiel and said “I didn’t think I would see your friend here too.”

From the vaguely uncomfortable look that Cas was wearing now Tony could tell that the angel wasn’t overly thrilled about being here.

Tony shrugged before he said “Yeah, well here we are.”

Tony pated Obie’s shoulder and started to walk past the man.

“Listen, take it slow tonight. I think I got the board right where we want them.” Obie said before he got too far away.

Essentially all Obie was doing was telling him not to fuck up all of his hard work.

“You got it.” Tony promised.

“I was just getting a little cabin fever. We’ll just be a minute.”

Tony took hold of Castiel’s hand and said “Besides I have to show Cas the wonders of a red carpet event.”

With that said Tony proceeds to pull Cas inside all while hundreds of photographers snapped their pictures. Tony was sure that quite a few rumors would be started up because of those pictures, but Tony didn’t care. It wouldn’t be the first time someone said that he was having a relationship with some guy. It would be one of the few times where said relationship was only a friendly one and not a sexual one. Although, all of that stuff about rumors and relationships could probably be said about his relationships with girls too.

‘Although, now that I think about it Castiel looks like the sort of guy that I would pick up.’ Tony thought absentmindedly.

He sort of wondered why that was, but he quickly chalked it up to the blue eyes. Tony was always a sucker for blue eyes.

His thoughts quickly drifted away when he heard Castiel ask “What is so wonderful about these red carpet events?”

“The alcohol.” Was Tony’s blunt answer.

“I fail to see what is so great about them.” Castiel said.

“That’s just because you haven’t tried it yet.” Tony said as he pulled him to the bar.

“Give us two glasses of scotch.” Tony ordered.

As the bartender set about making their drinks Tony looked out at the crowd that was spread out about the room. There was nothing but a wave of black suits and dresses as far as the eye could see. The wave was only broken apart by the occasional colorful dress. A quick glance over at the angel made Tony think that maybe Cas had the right idea on wearing the coat. It helped make him stick out among the crowd. The bartender hands them their drinks and Tony takes a big swig of it like a thirsty man in a dessert.

Cas takes a quick sip before he crinkles his nose and says “This is disgusting.”

“Trust me Cas we’ll be able to find a scotch that you like before the night ends.” Tony says.

Castiel gives him a look that tells the inventor that he doesn’t believe him, but his eyes quickly snap away from Tony to look at something past him.

“Tony someone is approaching.” Castiel murmurs.

Tony glances over to see a short haired brunette walking toward him.

“Mr. Stark?” The man says.

“Yeah?”

“Agent Coulson.” The man said.

“Oh yeah you’re the guy from…” Tony started to say before he trailed off.

“Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division.” Agent Coulson and Castiel say at the exact same time.

Coulson and Tony both look over at Castiel only to see the angel staring down at his glass of scotch like it had just insulted him.

“The name is too long.” Castiel said serious as ever.

Tony couldn’t help but think that Castiel had just read his mind upon hearing that. Coulson gave Castiel a long hard stare like Cas was a puzzle that he could figure out if he just stared at it long enough. Castiel ignored him in favor of looking at a small list of drinks that they had set out at the bar.

Coulson returned his gaze back to Tony and said “Yeah, I hear that a lot.”

The man didn’t even pause in his speech as he said “Listen, I know this must be a trying time for you, but we need to debrief you.”

‘Like hell you do.’ Tony thought.

Tony didn’t know what this Strategic whatever was, but he did know was that he wasn’t interested in whatever the heck it was that they were trying to do with him. Coulson kept babbling about something, but what he was saying was going in one ear and out the other. This was not what Tony really wanted to listen to while here at this party. Tony could hear the music get a bit louder and he could see a few couples moving toward the section of the floor that had been sectioned off as a dancing area. An idea quickly popped into the man’s mind and as far as Tony was concerned this idea was a pretty good way to get away from Coulson’s division thing.

“Yeah, that’s great. I’ll tell my assistant to set up the date.” Tony said all while reminding himself to tell Pepper to ignore any calls from Coulson.

“Come on Cas.” Tony said as he looked over at the angel.

The angel was looking at him with wide eyes as he held what looked like some sort of fruity alcoholic drink that he was enjoying up to his lips. The blue eyed angel had just enough time to set the drink down before Tony pulled him toward the dance floor.

“Where are we going?” Castiel asked.

“Dancing.” Tony answered.

“I don’t know how to dance.” Castiel grumbled in that gravelly voice of his.

“Just follow my lead and you’ll be fine.” Tony said. “It’s a simple dance so you’ll get the hang of it.”

Castiel frowned, but allowed the inventor to lead him into a slow dance. It took a couple of minutes of practice and having Tony’s toes stepped on, but eventually Castiel got the hang of it.

“You used me to get away from the agent.” Castiel stated.

“Was I that obvious?”

“You were completely obvious.” Castiel said. “I think that agent knows that you won’t set up a meeting.”

“He’ll live.” Tony said. “I do have to ask how you knew about his little group.”

“His group is not as secret as it might sound. It was created shortly after World War 2.”

“You’re starting to sound just a bit like a history book.” Tony said.

“Is that a bad thing?” Castiel asked.

“It might be. History was never my favorite subject in school.” Tony said.

“No I suppose your favorite subject is dancing.”

“Why songbird if I didn’t know any better I might think you were teasing me.” Tony said with mock surprise.

The smallest of smiles briefly crossed Castiel’s face, but it disappeared as fast as if appeared. Tony was a little sad to see it go. Castiel looked rather nice when he smiled.

The man pushed the thought to the side as he said “I was never crazy about dancing, but my mother insisted that I learn how to.”

Tony spun them around and Castiel’s coat fluttered about behind him as they turned.

“She always found a way to make dancing fun so I never minded.”

“She didn’t have a teacher do it?” Castiel asked.

Tony grinned as he said “Nope, she taught me herself.”

“It sounds like she was loving mother.” Castiel said.

“She was.” Tony answered as he felt the slightest ping of loss.

His mother was a wonderful woman as far as Tony was concerned, and while the pain of her passing had faded it would never go completely away. The song finally ended and another one began, but Tony decided that they were done for the night. As he lead the angle of the dance floor and back to the bar. The agent was long gone and Tony was more than happy about that. As he ordered another drink from the bar a pretty blond woman in a black dress walked up to them.

“Fancy seeing you here.” The woman said looking like she really wasn’t happy about seeing him.

Tony recognized her as the reporter that he slept with once, but her name escaped him.

“Carrie?” Tony guessed.

“Christine.” The woman corrected.

“You are horrible with names.” Castiel stated as he stared at the alcohol bottles lining the wall.

Tony just playfully smacked Castiel’s arm and returned his attention back to the woman. He remember that her name started with a c that was worthy of celebration as far as he was concerned.

“You have a lot of nerve showing up tonight.” She said as she gave him a rather sour look.

Quietly, Tony started to wonder why he slept with her. The answer of course was that she seemed spirited and she was pretty when she wasn’t making sour faces.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard her ask “Can I at least get a reaction from you?”

“Panic. Panic would be my reaction.”

“I was talking about your company’s involvement in the latest atrocity.” She said.

“Yeah. They just put my name on the invitation. I don’t know what to tell you.” Tony said without even listening to a word that she was saying.

“They didn’t give you an invitation.” Castiel commented from the sidelines.

Tony shot Castiel a slight glare while the angel just gave him a confused look like he couldn’t understand why telling the truth was a bad thing.

“I actually almost bought it hook line and sinker.” She said as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying right now.

“I was out of town for a couple of months, in case you didn’t hear.” Tony pointed out.

The woman pulled some photos out of her pocket and held it out to him. “Is this what you call accountability?”

Tony slowly took the pictures from her and listened as she said “It’s a town called Gulmira. Hear of it?”

The pictures were of the town and right there in all its horrible glory were Stark weapons.

“When where these taken?”

“Yesterday.” The woman answered.

She stared at him like he was to blame for everything wrong in the world. In a way she probably thought that was true, and in some ways Tony thought she might be right.

“I didn’t approve of this.” Tony said, and it was the truth.

“Your company did.” She said obviously not caring for said truth.

“I’m not my company.” Tony said as he turned toward Castiel. Castiel stared back at him calmly and said the one thing that was on both of their minds.

“Obadiah has a lot of explaining to do.”

--------------------------------

Obadiah lied. Obadiah lied about everything. Tony could feel all of the trust that he had for Obadiah crumble into dust as he stared at his reflection in the restroom mirror. Obadiah had never talked to the board to try to sway them away from selling weapons. He had been right there selling weapons to the highest bidder all while leaving Tony completely oblivious to everything. He was the one who filled the injunction against him.

As far as Tony was concerned Obadiah should have just stabbed him in the back with an actual knife and be done with it. Tony’s grip on the restroom sink was so hard that he was surprised that he wasn’t breaking it. The reflection that stared back at him was that of a man who had been thrown for a horrible loop and hadn’t come back unscathed. Tony sighed as he looked down at the sink.

Castiel had once said that Obadiah had a dim greedy soul and Tony hadn’t taken that too seriously. He had known Obadiah for most of his life so he thought he knew the man pretty well. Obadiah had his vices and Tony knew it. However, he never thought Obadiah would do something like this to him. Obviously, he needed to take Castiel’s soul reports a bit more seriously. Tony sighed as he ran a hand down his face. He had asked the angel to stay near the exit and wait for him there. Tony wanted to splash some water on his face and take a couple of seconds to calm down before he plastered a fake smile onto his face and went out into the waiting crowed outside.

Tony walked out of the restroom only to be slightly surprised to see two men and a woman waiting there. This bathroom was far away from the party, and it was located on the second floor that required climbing a large grand staircase to get to. There were restrooms that were closer to the party to go to, and the whole reason Tony went to this one was due to the fact that no one would be around. Yet here these people were and they looked like they were waiting for him.

“Tony Stark.” The woman practically purred as she took a step toward him.

Tony recognized the woman as the lady he had seen when he first stepped onto the red carpet. She had asked if he remembered her and Tony had answered truthfully when he said he didn’t remember her. Thinking on it now he was pretty sure her last name was Wickerbottom, but he was drawing a blank on her first name. Was it Wendy? Willow? He was pretty sure it was something that started with w.

Tony decided that it didn’t matter what she was called and instead said “Do you all need something because if you don’t I really need to leave.”

“Oh, we only want one thing Stark.” The woman said. “We want you to die.”

Without warning the woman’s eyes turned black, and a quick glance at the two men showed that their eyes had also turned black. Tony took a step away from her, and the woman’s smile grew bigger.

“Why did you have to try and stop weapon production?” She asked. “Do you know how much death your weapons cause? How much distraction it brings? The fear and hate that it causes?”

The woman brushed her hair back and said “Your weapons are like a gift to us. We feed off chaos it causes it’s absolutely delicious.”

“Not to mention how many people sell their souls to use just to bring back loved ones that were killed by your weapons. I think I lost count of how many people that we got from deals like that.” One of the men chimed in. “It was wonderful, but then you had to go and pull your head out of the sand. You had to stop it all.”

The woman lashed out at him and before Tony knew it he was pinned to the wall and the woman was choking him. Tony struggled in her grip as she gave him a large predatory smirk.

“We don’t need you anymore. Obadiah put a stop to your nonsense, and under his rule things will be just peachy for us.”

Tony continued to claw at her arms, but it was doing nothing to her. Tony could feel himself growing lightheaded. With nothing left to lose Tony did the only thing he could think of. He kicked his legs out at her and kicked her right in the stomach. The woman released her grip on Tony and stumbled back. As Tony gulped down precious air the woman crashed into the railing and fell over it. Tony was able to get to his feet just in time to see the woman crash to the ground below. When Tony looked down at her he wasn’t greeted with a pretty sight. He neck had been snapped from the landing so now she lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. He head was lying in an unnatural angle that caused Tony to wince just by seeing it.

‘I killed her.’ Tony thought. ‘I freaking killed her.’

These thoughts of his were quickly dropped when he saw the woman open her eyes yet again. She sat up and snapped her head back into position, and the sickening sound of bones snapping could be heard up on the second floor. As she stood up one of the men snorted.

“Great job killing the guy. You really showed him.” One of the men mocked.

“Shut it!” The woman snarled.

The man just smiled as he said “Well, I guess it’s my turn. How do you feel about being skinned alive?”

‘Castiel if you can hear me now would be a good time to show up, amen!’ Tony thought.

He honestly didn’t think the whole prayer thing would work, but Tony was quickly starting to learn that he should never doubt Castiel tonight. A few seconds after he sent out his prayer he heard the familiar wonderful sound of wings flapping. Castiel was standing in front of him facing the two black eyed men. Castiel didn’t make a sound as he slammed the two men into the ground.

He must have used his holy energy to kill them or something because Tony could see light shining out of their eyes. The second the lights died down Castiel quickly flung himself over the railing and right onto the woman. The sound of bodies falling to the floor was quickly followed by a loud gasp. Tony quickly scrambled over to the railing and looked down at Castiel only to see that he had missed the lightshow.

Castiel was staring up at him with a grim expression while the woman laid at his feet like a broken doll. Tony felt a little sick to his stomach when he saw that the woman’s neck was once again broken. Castiel was by his side within a matter of seconds and the quickly took hold of the man’s arm.

“We need to leave.” Castiel said.

Tony closed his eyes for a second only to hear wings flapping in his ears. Tony could have sworn he felt the softest touch of feathers on his skin for a brief second when he heard Castiel’s wings start to move. When Tony opened his eyes he was once again standing in his living room.

“I need to take care of the bodies.” Castiel tells him as he releases his hold on Tony’s arm.

“Those were demons, right?” Tony asks before Castiel can fly away. “I just saw honest to God demons didn’t I?”

“You did.” Castiel said before he disappeared into thin air.

Tony doesn’t know what to do with himself now. Honestly, he felt like he was drowning. Obadiah’s betrayal, demons trying to kill him, and the pictures of a village destroyed by his company’s weapons were racing about in his mind and fighting each other for his attention. This was all way too much stuff to deal with at the same time. The demon’s taunts seemed to be playing over and over again in his head like a broken record, and mixed in with the monster’s taunts was Obadiah’s voice telling Tony that he was naïve.

Tony felt like he was getting close to having a panic attack which was not something that he needed right now. He needed something to keep him busy. Mindlessly Tony turned the TV on and grabbed one of the arm gantlets that belonged to his armor. He plopped down on the couch and started working on the gantlet. He was staring right at the TV as he worked, but he wasn’t really seeing what was happening. He was sure JARVIS asked him if he was OK, but Tony didn’t give him an answer. Tony couldn’t give him an answer even if he wanted to. Tony wasn’t sure how long he sat there staring at the TV, but after what felt like an eternity Castiel finally returned.

Tony stared at the angel as Castiel and the angel stared right back at him.

Eventually the blue eyed angel broke the silence by saying “I bought the car back.”

Tony totally forgot that they had left the car there. Not that it mattered really. Tony could buy fifty brand new cars and still have plenty of money left in the bank.

Tony decided to not comment on the car and instead ask “Where those demons possessing people?”

“They were.” Castiel answered.

“Those people are dead now aren’t they?”

“They are.” Castiel answered. “They were doomed the second those demons took them over.”

Castiel continued to explain by saying “Demon don’t heal the damage that is done to the humans that they possess. The injuries might not show, but every single bit of damage that is done to them is still there. The demons will keep the human alive, but once they are gone the injuries will finally start affecting the host.”

“And then the injuries will kill them.” Tony murmured.

“Correct. As you can imagine demons care little for human life so they aren’t gentle with their hosts.”

“Can a human be saved if they are taken?” “They can be if they have been recently possessed or if the demon has been rather careful with their host, but demons being careful with their hosts is unheard of and it rarely happens.”

Tony was quiet now and Castiel was quiet for a moment too before he slowly said “Tonight has been a long night for you.”

“Understatement of the century.” Tony muttered.

Castiel stood there in front of the TV awkwardly for a few seconds while Tony tried to think of what he should say or ask next. Eventually Castiel slowly made his way over to the couch and sat down next to Tony. Once he was seated he reached out and gently pulled Tony over so that the inventor was laying his head on the angel’s shoulder. Tony could feel Castiel gently run his hand through his hair in what was probably supposed to be a soothing manner.

It was pretty awkward, and it only became more awkward when Castiel asked “Is this comforting? I saw people do this on TV and they said it was comforting.”

It was more awkward then comforting, but it was still comforting in its own weird way and Tony would take any comfort that he could get.

“It’s perfect Cas.” Tony said all while refusing to point out the awkwardness with the whole situation.

Castiel nodded slightly as he continued what he was doing. Tony just sat there quietly and accepted the kind if awkward gesture. After the night that Tony had no one could blame him for taking any comfort that the blue eyed angel was willing to give…

Chapter Text

Things were quiet between Castiel and Tony for a while. Castiel had stopped patting Tony’s head like he was an overgrown cat and had placed his hands in his lap. He was staring at the television watching the news broadcast. Of course they were talking about Gulmira because Tony Stark’s life officially sucked. Tony sighed as he tossed the screwdriver that he was holding onto the table and picked up a tablet that was laying there. He brought up a blank list that could be typed on before he looked over at Castiel.

“Is there a way to keep demons out of the house?” Tony asked.

Castiel glanced over at Tony and said “There are ways to keep demons from breaking into a home.”

“Great, type those ways up on here.” Tony said as he held the tablet out toward the angel.

Castiel slowly took the tablet from him and stared down at it as Tony said “I don’t want to be caught totally unaware like that every again. Type down ways to keep them out of places, ways to hurt them, and whatever else you think is important.”

Tony got up from the couch and started to walk out of the room.

“Where are you going?” The angel asked.

“Gulmira is being attacked so that seems like a good as place as any to test out the armor’s abilities in a fight. Also, I really need to punch something.”

“Oh, have fun then.” Castiel said as he turned his attention back to the tablet.

Listening to Castiel one would think Tony said he was going to see a movie with friends and not going off to a village filled with trigger happy men with guns. Any other time that would have made Tony smile, but for now Tony just shook his head and walked off toward his workshop where the rest of his armor was waiting for him…

-----------------------------------

Tony’s head ached and the American military almost shot him out of the sky, but he felt better now. Gulmira had been taken care of and Rhodey somewhat knew what was going on, and he was covering for him. Obadiah’s betrayal still sat heavy in his heart, but the fact that he had friends like Rhody helped to ease the pain a bit. The armor had done quite well today, and for the most part it didn’t need any major repairs. It needed to be cleaned and some of the paint needed to be redone, but he could leave that to the bots.

Of course as he was trying to get out of the armor Pepper appeared and promptly freaked out about the bullet holes. Tony decided that she had horrible timing. Then again she never had great timing. He had lost count of the times that Pepper had walked in on him doing something that was embarrassing and usually stupid. Tony was sure she was about to quit right then and there, and when he asked her to hack the mainframe she ended up saying the magical words. Of course he talked her out of it she said something that actually made him pause before she left.

“You’re all I have, too, you know.”

For some reason that made Tony think of what Yinsin had said to him once. That he was a man that had everything and nothing. At the time he thought that was completely true, but now he had to wonder. He had Pepper. She was a close friend, and a wonderful assistant. He had Rhodey one of his oldest friends, and one of the best that he could ask for. He didn’t have Obadiah supporting him, but he supposed he never had that man in his corner. It didn’t matter. To make up for that he had an angel on his side. An angel that loved cheerios, watched ‘Murder, She Wrote’ way too often, and had a voice of gravel. Not things that he would normally associate with the word angel, but Tony wouldn’t have Cas any other way.

Upon thinking of the angel he figured that he would be done with the list that he asked him to make so he might as well pick that up. Upon reaching the living room he saw Castiel sitting there waiting patiently. On the television was the news talking about the latest military ‘training session’ that had a few problems. Tony smirked when he saw Rhodey on the screen, but he quickly shook that off and looked over at the angel.

“I did as you asked.” The angel said.

The tablet was sitting on the table waiting for Tony to look at. The man picked the tablet up and saw that Castiel had made quite a detailed list. Some was a list of supplies that they needed and explanations as to what the items did. Holy water was like acid for demons so being stalked up on that would be useful, salt could be placed at the doors and windows to keep demons out, and iron was useful against many supernatural creatures.

Other things on the list consisted of what modifications they would have to make to the house to make it safer. Castiel had even made a list of symbols and spells that they would need to carve or paint around the house. Personally, the symbols looked more like they should have been used to summon demons rather than repel them, but if Castiel said they would work then they would work. Tony was already trying to figure out how he could work in a way to make it so that his suit could spray holy water.

“Heck of a list.” Tony said.

“The holy water will be easy to get. I can make that on my own.” The angel said.

Tony nodded slightly before he said “See if you can’t turn the water in the sprinkler system into holy water. It would be useful if we can just flick a switch and have holy water rain down on the demons.”

Castiel nodded and Tony continued talking by asking “Can you carve and paint the stuff tonight? There is some paint in the workshop that JARVIS can guide you to.”

“I can do that.”

“Make sure to sort of hide that stuff when you do it. I don’t need Pepper to think I really lost it and joined a cult or whatever. JARVIS make sure he doesn’t make that stuff obvious and out in the open for everyone to see.”

“Of course, sir.” JARVIS said.

“There is one more thing.” Castiel said.

The angel held his hand out for the tablet and Tony wordlessly handed it to him. The angel brought something up and handed the tablet back to him. On the screen was a symbol of some sort.

“It’s an anti-possession symbol. You need to find a way to get that onto your body.” Castiel explained.

“Like a tattoo?”

Castiel just shrugged a tiny bit before he said “That works.”

Tony just smirked as he said “Look at you using body motions to show emotions and thought. Your becoming less and less like a living statue every day.”

“I have to learn them considering how much you humans use it. You can’t see my wings so I have to learn these things from watching TV then so be it.”

“You show your emotions with your wings?” Tony asked with some slight interest.

Castiel nodded slightly before he said “Angel wings can show emotions just as much as your human faces can.”

“Huh, didn’t know that.” Tony said.

The brown haired man quickly shook his head before he said “Anyway, it’s nice to know that I am getting you addicted to television.”

“Television can be quiet intriguing.” Castiel said with complete honesty.

“Just stay away from the reality shows. I don’t need you rotting your brain anymore then you already are.”

Castiel shot him a confused look and Tony smiled. The man started to leave the room, but he stopped once he reached the stairs that would bring him to his workshop.

“Hey songbird?” Castiel immediately looked over at him and Tony mentally applauded at the fact that he had used the name enough that the angel automatically responded to it.

“I can count you as being one of my friends, right?” Tony asked with some slight hesitation.

“Yes, I am your friend.” Castiel said.

There was no hesitation when he said that. In fact listening to Castiel the angel made it sound like he just stated a simple fact. The sky was blue, Obadiah was a jerk, and Tony was friends with an angel.

Castiel tilted his head slightly to the side as he said “You’re the first human friend that I have had in a very long time.”

Tony felt sort of honored about that for some strange reason.

“Why did you ask?” Castiel asked.

“No reason.” Tony said quickly.

“Now if you don’t mind I have to find a tattoo artist who can keep their trap shut…”

--------------------------

Tony sighed as he sat down on couch. He had gotten the anti-possession tattoo like Castiel had said he should, and it still hurt a little. Tony had been able to track down a tattoo artist who wouldn’t go blabbing to everyone that she just gave Tony Stark a weird tattoo. She was a nice girl with tattoos all over her body. Tony could have spent a whole day alone staring at all of the details that were included in the tarot card tattoos that she had on her arms. She had done tattoos for plenty of celebrities before and Tony was just one name on a long list of people that she had worked on. She didn’t ask about the company, his shutting himself away, or his refusal to make more weapons.

Instead she talked about what sort of tattoos she did in the past, and shared some funny stories she had of people freaking themselves out before they even got into the tattoo chair. Tony liked her, and if he ever had to get another tattoo he would go to her. Not that he was planning on getting another one. Tony wasn’t a tattoo sort of guy. The one that he had just recently gotten placed on his thigh was enough for him. Tony glanced over at Castiel only to see the angel was knelt down in front of the wall painting small symbols onto the wall with a small brush. The symbols were small and easily missed. You would only see them if you were really looking for them. Castiel was actually better at hiding the symbols then Tony thought he would be.

Every once in a while JARVIS would make a suggestion where he could paint the things, but for the most part Castiel was doing a good job of it on his own. Tony was about to say something about it, but before the words could even make their way to his lips Castiel’s head shot up from his work. His brush was carefully placed into the black paint container before he stood up and walked to the window. He pushed the curtains back a bit only to frown at whatever it was that he saw outside.

“What is it?”

“Demons.” Castiel answered. “They shouldn’t be able to get in after the symbols, but we can’t leave them there.”

Tony saw a silver blade seem to magically appear in his hand.

“Don’t go outside until I have taken them down.” Tony was about to ask how may where out there, but Castiel disappeared before he could ask.

Tony sighed, but he could feel the chills running down his spin. He only ran into demons once, and once was enough for him. He didn’t like the thought of them being out there, but he knew Castiel would take care of them. His phone started ringing, and upon seeing Pepper’s name he quietly sent out a thanks to anyone who was listening for the distraction. He reached out for the phone and Pepper didn’t waste any time in calling out his name.

“Tony?”

Tony was about to respond, but some sort of mechanical sound caused him to freeze up. He slumped slightly in his seat, and Tony felt a bolt of fear strike him when he noticed that he couldn’t move a muscle.

“Tony? Are you there?” Pepper’s voice calls out as his phone is slipped out of his hand.

“Breathe.” Obadiah said way too closely to his ear. “You remember how to do that don’t you?”

Obadiah holds a little device up to his face and asks “You remember this one, right?”

Obadiah makes his way around the couch and stares at the little device with a smile on his face.

“It’s a shame the government didn’t approve it. There are so many applications for causing short-term paralysis.”

He sits on the couch and pulls out the ear buds that allowed him to avoid becoming paralyzed himself.

“When I ordered the hit on you, I was worried that I was killing the golden goose.” Obadiah says as he pulls out a machine from the small suitcase that he has in his lap.

It looks like an over sized bottle opener to Tony, but for some reason his mind isn’t focusing on that. Instead his mind was focusing on the fact that Obadiah said that he was the one who tried to assassinate him. The news isn’t as surprising as it should have been, but it still sort of hurt to hear. Obadiah inserts the machine over the arc reactor and Tony knows what it’s for. He’s going to pull the reactor right out of his chest. Tony wonders if he should call Cas now.

The demons are probably still out there, and Castiel is probably fighting them right now. Would calling to him distract him and get him hurt? Demons could hurt angels couldn’t they? Tony’s thoughts were briefly cut off when the arc reactor was ripped out of his chest. Obadiah admires the arc reactor and Tony chokes for a brief moment as the pain of shrapnel making its way slowly to his heart hits him. Tony’s mind is blank for a few seconds, but he comes to his senses right when he hears Obadiah say something that caused his blood to freeze right in his veins.

“Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this. I would have preferred that she lived.”

Obadiah then slowly walks away leaving him to slowly die alone in his own living room…

------------------------

There was only one more demon left. The corpses of dead demons surrounded Castiel their blood staining the grass below them. The last demon was staring at him and wearing a demented grin that would make the Cheshire Cat jealous.

“I was wondering why the few demons that went to that party never returned. It figures an angel was sent in.”

The demon tilted his head so far to the side that Castiel was surprised that he didn’t snap his neck.

“Why would an angel be here though? Stark is a rather sinful man.” The demon asked.

He sounded so amused as he asked that. It was like he thought that Castiel protecting Tony of all people was some great joke.

“The only sinful creature here is you.” Castiel said.

Within a blink of an eye Castiel had his hand wrapped around the demons neck and was holding him down to the ground. The demons grin never went away as he said “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“What do you mean by that demon?” Castiel asked as he narrowed his eyes.

“Our darling Obadiah was here.” The demon said.

Castiel scowled as the demon let out a wheezy laugh.

“Oh, Obie is wonderful. Do you know how many people he has had assassinated? He usually doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, but tonight he’s making an exception.”

Black eyes bored right into Castiel’s bright blues as the demon hissed out “Obie is ripping his heart out right now. I am going to die tonight, but your boy toy is dying with me.”

The demon wasn’t even given the chance to scream as Castiel used his grace to kill him. He dropped the lifeless body to the ground and stood up. His wings were closed tightly against his back, but they twitched slightly with the need to return back to his charge. He opened his wings up wide as one name escaped from his lips

“Tony…”

Castiel hoped he wasn’t too late to help him…

--------------------------------------------------------

“Dummy you are amazing, and I will never donate you to anyone for as long as I live.”

He would probably end up threatening the bot with the possibility of being donated to a collage later, but it didn’t matter now. Tony was pretty damn proud of his robot right now. Tony was sure that he would die on the floor of his workshop, but Dummy hag giving him the old arc reactor that Pepper had given back to him. He could celebrate the fact that he wasn’t going to die tonight later. He needed to save Pepper before Obadiah killed her. Unfortunately, Tony was having a hard time getting up right now.

“Tony?!” A voice yelled out. “Tony!?”

Tony wasn’t given the time to figure out who was yelling out his name because in a matter of seconds Rhodey was by his side and flipping him onto his back.

“Where’s Pepper?” Tony gasped out.

“She’s fine. She’s with five agents. They’re about to arrest Obadiah.” Rhodey told him.

Tony allowed Rhodey to pull him to his feet as he wheezed out “That’s not going to be enough.”

He needed to get his suit on, and he needed to get it on now. He wasn’t able to take a step toward the armor before he heard the fluttering of wings. Within a blink of an eye Castiel was there in the lab. His coat was fluttering in the breeze that his arrival had created.

“Jesus Christ!” Rhodey yelled out. “Who are you, and where in the hell did you come from?!”

“I came from the backyard, and last I checked it wasn’t in hell.” Castiel said.

Tony couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that Castiel wasn’t being sarcastic with that answer.

He turned his gaze over to Tony and said “I was worried about you, but I see that you are fine.”

“Thank Dummy for that. He gave me my old arc reactor to keep me going.”

Dummy let out a small mechanical chirp upon hearing his name and Tony almost wanted to smile upon hearing it.

“They told me that Obadiah came here. They knew what he was planning, and I think they came to make sure everything ran smoothly.”

“You took care of them?” Tony asked already knowing that by 'them' Castiel was talking about demons.

“I did.”

“I’m sorry can someone please explain the magic teleporting man to me?” Rhodey cut in.

“I will once this whole mess is over and Pepper is here to hear it too.” Tony said as he put on the armor.

“We are telling them about me?” Castiel asked.

“We might as well. The genie is out of the bottle with Rhodey, and I was thinking of telling Pepper anyway.” Tony shook his head slightly before he said “Anyway, I need you to find Pepper. Keep her safe while I deal with Obadiah.”

Castiel nodded before he disappeared. Rhodey jumped a little when the angel vanished, but Tony was pretty used to it by now.

“You have so much explaining to do when you get back.” Rhodey said.

“I know.” Tony said as he allowed the faceplate of his armor to cover his face.

“Is there anything you need me to do while I wait you here and wonder what the hell it is that you got yourself involved in?” Rhodey asked.

“Yeah, keep the skies clear.” Tony said before he activated the thrusters and shoot through the roof and started to make his way to where he knew Obadiah would be…

-----------------------------------

“Pepper!”

Pepper about jumped out of her skin when she heard her name yelled out. When she turned to see who was yelling she was a little surprised to see Castiel speed walking toward her. The agents around her tensed and they looked like they would try to bring him down.

“He’s a friend! Don’t shoot!” She shouted.

They all looked toward Coulson for permission to relax their guard. He hesitated for a moment before he slowly nodded.

As the other agents took their positions Pepper asked “Castiel is Tony OK?”

“Obadiah ripped his arc reactor out and left him for dead, but he was able to use the old arc reactor to replace it.” Castiel answered.

Pepper almost wanted to sit down and just process the fact that Tony almost died tonight. However, she didn’t have time and instead all she could do was ask “Is he OK?”

“He is, but he will be making his way here. He will be fighting Obadiah soon.”

“Fighting?” Pepper echoed.

“Of the physical sort.” His gaze moved from Pepper to the door as he said “It involves the armor.”

Pepper knew what he was talking about now.

“Does Obadiah…?” Pepper started to say before he trailed off.

“I think he does.” Castiel said.

“You know a lot about this don’t you?” Coulson said.

Castiel didn’t even respond to the question. Instead he just continued to stare at the door and say “Expect a reckoning when you get in there.”

Pepper was unnerved now, but she walked toward the door and tried to unlock it with her badge. After trying three times and not getting any results Coulson finally walked over to her side.

“Let me try.” He said as he placed a small device onto the door.

“Oh, is it like a tiny machine that will hack the system for us?” Pepper asked.

“It’s a bomb.” Castiel stated before Coulson could even say a word.

Pepper wasted no time running over to Castiel upon hearing that. When the door was blown off of its hinges they all entered the room. The place was like one big electronic dungeon. The lights were off, and the only light in the place were the ones provided by the machines. It didn’t take long for them to stumble upon a silver suit of armor. It was a bit bulker then Tony’s armor, but Pepper could see the resemblance between the two.

“You were right he was making a suit.” Coulson said quietly.

“I thought it would be bigger.” Pepper said.

Obadiah always liked big and extravagant things.

“It might not be the only one." Castiel spoke as he looked around the area.

“True enough.” Coulson said.

The agents slowly spread out among the area and Pepper started to look around as well. Castiel stuck close to her, but Pepper didn’t complain. Pepper couldn’t help but notice the huge amount of chains that seemed to be hung up around the place.

‘This place really is like one huge technologic dungeon.’ She thought as she stared at the chains.

Castiel had been looking at something else, but when his gaze fell to Pepper he tensed up.

“Pepper get away from there.” Castiel ordered.

Pepper was about to ask what was wrong, but the sight of two glowing eyes appearing from the gloom behind the chains caused her to clamp her mouth shut. She felt Castiel grab her arm and yank her back as a much bigger robot appeared. Castiel pulled her along as they quickly scrambled out of the room. Pepper stumbled at first, but once she got her footing she was running right alongside Castiel.

She heard bullets hitting metal and the crashing sounds of people being thrown around like ragdolls. Pepper didn’t need to look back to know that the agents had failed to bring the man in the armor down. They burst out of the building and stumble to a stop in the parking lot. Castiel still has a tight grip on her arm, and the man was still tense. Pepper heard her phone ring and she looked at it only to see that it was Tony. She quickly answered the call and put it on speaker phone.

“Tony!” She yelled out. “Castiel said you were OK, but are you really?”

“I’m fine. Castiel is with you? Good he can keep you safe. Pepper you need to get out of there. Cas fly her out of there or something.” Tony said.

“Fly!? Tony what are you talking about!?”

Tony never got a chance to respond. The silver suit broke through the very ground of the parking lot and loomed over them like a murderous giant.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Obadiah asked from inside the suit.

Castiel pushed Pepper behind him and a gust of wind started to whip around him. Pepper could swear she felt feathers brush against her cheek, but that thought was dropped when Obadiah took a step toward them.

“You will not harm her.” Castiel growled out.

“What are you going to do to stop me?” Obadiah asked in amusement.

Castiel glared at the man, but before he could respond a red and gold blur slammed into Obadiah and they both went flying off out of view. The sudden wind started dying, and a few seconds later they could hear what sounded like sirens and people screaming.

“Tony…?” Pepper asked.

“Tony.” Castiel confirmed.

It was quiet between them for a moment before Pepper asked “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know.” Castiel answered, and he honestly sounded like he really didn't what to do.

With nothing more to say the two stayed in the parking lot and hoped Tony wouldn’t get himself killed…

----------------------------------

It was over. It was finally over. The icing problem hadn’t been something that Obadiah hadn’t counted on, and that seemed to be his downfall. He wasn’t sure where Obadiah fell, and he didn’t really care. He knew he was on top of his building that had the giant arc reactor in it so Obadiah probably fell close by. He was out of energy and more than ready to get out of the suit.

“Pepper..?” Tony called out.

“Oh thank God! Tony are you OK?” Pepper yelled out over the phone.

“I’m almost out of power. I’ve got to get out of this thing. I’ll be right there.” Tony said.

Tony heard something heavy land on the roof behind him before he heard Castiel yell out “Obadiah isn’t dead yet!”

Tony had just enough time to get the faceplate back down and stumble backward before Obadiah punched him in the face. He tried to shoot him with one of his gantlets only to see that the gantlet on his left hand had been knocked off during the fall. Obadiah quickly grabbed hold of him and started squeezing. Tony could hear the metal crumbling in Obadiah’s strong grip.

“Weapons status?” Tony wheezed out.

“Repulsors offline. Missiles offline.” JARVIS answered calmly.

“Try the flares!” Tony yelled out.

The suit released the flares and that was enough to make Obadiah release him Tony gasped and scrambled to hide behind an electric box that was on the roof. As Obadiah looked around for Tony the inventor tried to get into contact with Pepper and Castiel.

“Pepper?”

“Tony!” Pepper immediately answered.

“Listen, we’re going to have to overload the reactor and blast the roof.” Tony told her.

“How are you going to do that?” She asked.

“I think he means for us to do it.” Castiel said.

Pepper stared at Castiel with wide eyes before she said “What?!”

“Look, just go to the central console, open up all the circuits. When I tell you to so you are going to hit the master bypass button. It’s going to fry everything up here.”

Pepper glanced over at Castiel only to see the man making his way into the building. Pepper followed carefully after him. Once inside they went right to work.

“Start pulling the levers over there.” Pepper ordered as she went to main counsel.

Castiel did as he was ordered as Pepper set everything up at the counsel. The second they were done they both looked up at the skylight that was overhead. They could see Tony standing on the glass above them.

Castiel made his way to Pepper’s side while Pepper told Tony “OK, we are ready to go. Now get off the roof.”

They all saw Tony take a single step back before the sound of a machine gun being fired could be heard. The glass above them shattered and Pepper let out a loud yelp of surprise. Castiel threw his arms over her head as if in an attempt to protect her. Once the glass had stopped falling on them they looked up to see Tony hanging onto one of the metal frame of the skylight. They could hear Obadiah yelling something, but Pepper couldn’t quite make out what he said.

“Tony!” Pepper yelled up to the man.

He didn’t respond and Castiel frowned as he looked up at the man. The sound of something exploding sounded above them.

“Press the button!” Tony yelled down to them.

“Won’t it kill you?” Pepper shouted back up at him.

“Just do it!” Tony shouted back.

With nothing more to do Pepper slammed the button and watched as a bright energy like beam shut up toward the roof from the giant arc reactor. The light was so bright that it caused her to slam her eyes shut from the blast. She felt someone grab her arm, and over the loud noise of the blast she heard the sound of bird wings flapping. She felt the wind blowing around her, and the softest touch of silky feathers brushed up against her face. She heard a loud crack of thunder which was followed by the sound of an explosion. She shrunk a bit into the side of who she was guessing was Castiel when she heard the explosion. Eventually everything fell silent and the only thing that Pepper could hear was a storm rumbling overhead.

“You can open your eyes now.” Castiel said.

Pepper slowly opened her eyes, but once she saw the building that they had been standing across the street from them her eyes grew wide.

“What?” She whispered.

They were standing on a roof of a building that was across from the Stark building that had the giant arc reactor in it. Then again maybe that should have been used to have the arc reactor in it. The building was still standing, but it looked like it had been hit by an earthquake.

“So everyone is still alive, right?” Pepper heard Tony ask from nearby.

She snapped her head over toward his voice only to see Tony standing next to Castiel. His helmet was gone, one of the hand pieces was gone, and it looked like his armor had just survived being hit by a minivan. All in all the armor looked like it had been through hell, but Tony was alright.

“Everyone is still alive except Obadiah.” Castiel said.

“Good riddance.” Tony muttered.

Pepper shook her head before she asked “How did we get to the roof?”

“Thank Castiel for that.” Tony said.

Pepper looked over at Castiel and asked “How…?”

“I’ll explain when Rhodey is with us, but not tonight Pepper.” Tony said with a sigh. “Tonight’s been a long night.”

“Alright.” Pepper said softly.

She switched her gaze from Tony back to Castiel. The man was staring at the destroyed Stark building with a completely unreadable look on his face. Pepper’s mind was racing with questions. How was he able to get both Tony and her out of the building before it blew its lid? Who was he really? He wasn’t a bodyguard Pepper knew that much. She had so many questions, and absolutely no answers. Pepper didn’t like that very much, but Tony had said that she would be getting answers soon. She wanted answers and she wanted them now, but Pepper could be patient. If this job had thought her anything it was being patient.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Tony say “Well, other than the fact that we just blew up our giant arc reactor I think tonight went rather well.”

Castiel and Pepper just sighed in response…

-----------------------------------

“Iron Man, huh?”

Pepper sighed at the grin that spread across Tony’s face as he read the story that they had printed in the newspaper. It hadn’t even been a full day yet and every single news outlet in the nation was going nuts over Iron Man. It was doing much to inflate Tony’s already too large ego. Pepper was exhausted. The whole battle with Obadiah had been tiring, and Pepper was only running on about two hours of sleep. She hadn’t slept well after that fight. Her mind was racing with questions, and after scrambling to not get killed and help Tony beat Obadiah it was a little hard to sleep after all the excitement.

The fact that Tony would be explaining just what the heck was up with Castiel after this press conference just helped make her feel pretty jittery about today. She could hear Rhodey talking on the television starting up the conference that Tony would be joining in just a few minutes. Pepper straightened out the wrinkles in her black dress and bit her lip. She sort of wished she had something to keep her hands busy. She had bought some makeup and bandages to cover up some of the scrapes and cuts that Tony had collected from the battle with Obadiah, but he didn’t need them. He looked fine and she couldn’t see a scratch on him.

When she had commented on it Tony had just started to grin as he patted Castiel’s arm and said “I had my personal doctor take care of that.”

Castiel had just frowned at that and gave out a little huff that made him sound like a vaguely pissied off bird. While Pepper was lost in thought Tony was still going on about the Iron Man name.

“I like the name. It’s not correct because the suit’s a gold-titanium alloy, but I still like it.”

“It’s not like they know what the suit is actually made of.” Castiel pointed out. “Also, you only like it because of the Black Sabbath song.”

“It’s good to know that you actually remember my music lessons.” Tony said.

“Yes, your music lessons that consist of yelling what the name of a band is when a new song comes on in the workshop.” Castiel said.

“Hey, if I have to listen to your detective shows then you can listen to my music.”

“I hate to interrupt…” A voice spoke out.

Everyone snapped their eyes over to Coulson upon hearing that. Pepper sort of forgot that he was even there.

The agent held out some cards toward Tony and said “Here’s your alibi.”

Tony took the cards from him as the agent said “You were on your yacht.”

“Yeah…” Tony said slowly as he read through the cards.

“We have port papers that put you in Avalon all night, and sworn statements from 50 of your guests.” The agent finished saying.

Tony frowned slightly as he said “There’s nothing about Stane here.”

“That’s being handled. He’s on vacation. Small aircrafts have such a poor safety record.” The agent said.

“But what about the whole cover story that it’s a bodyguard?” Tony asked.

“It’s not that unbelievable. You already have a bodyguard that follows you around everywhere.” Coulson said as he stared at Castiel.

The blue eyed man returned the stare without saying a word. Neither side was giving in an inch, and it was only when Tony started to speak did Coulson finally look away from Castiel.

“It’s still kind of flimsy.”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Mr. Stark.” Coulson answered.

Castiel gave a disbelieving snort and Coulson quickly snapped his gaze back toward the man. Castiel didn’t return the gaze and instead stared at the television.

Coulson stared at the man for a few seconds, but just when the silence was starting to grow uncomfortable Coulson said “Just stick to the official statement, and soon, this will all be behind you.”

The man glanced over at the TV before he said “You got 90 seconds.”

He started to walk away, but he stopped when Pepper called out his name.

“I just wanted to say thank you very much for all of your help.” She said when the agent turned to look at her.

This time it was Tony’s turn to snort in disbelief, and after shooting the man a quick glare Pepper returned her gaze back to the agent.

“That’s what we do. You’ll be hearing from us.” Coulson said.

“Oh that’s great to hear. I would be so upset if I couldn’t see your sunny face again.” Tony said sarcastically.

“Tony!” Pepper hissed.

Tony just smiled while Castiel sighed and shook his head. Pepper was sure she saw a ghost of a smile appear on Castiel’s face, but it was gone so fast that she was sure that she had imagined it.

Pepper shook her head and started to say “We will be hearing from the Strategic Homeland…”

“Just call us SHIELD.” Coulson cut in.

“Right.” Pepper said as Coulson walked away.

Once he was gone Pepper clapped her hands together and said “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“You know, it’s actually not that bad.” Tony called out.

Pepper held his suit jacket open for him as he slipped into it.

“Even I sort of don’t believe that I am Iron Man.”

“You’re not Iron Man.” Pepper said with a slight smile.

“Am so.” Tony argued.

“You’re not.”

“I thought he was. He wore the armor.” Castiel said almost innocently.

The smile that Tony wore upon hearing that was big enough to split his face.

Pepper just gave Castiel a mock glare as she said “You are not helping.”

Castiel just gave her a vaguely confused look as Tony said “You know, if I were Iron Man, I’d have this lover who would know my true identity. They would be a wreak, ‘cause they would always be worrying that I was going to die, yet so proud of the man I’d become.”

“We are very proud of you Tony you don’t have to fish for complements.” Castiel said without looking away from the TV.

“You don’t have to say that and sound so sarcastic.” Tony said.

Castiel ignored that in favor of asking “If your lover could fight crime with you would the situation be different?”

“Now there is an idea!” Tony said with a grin. “You know now that I think of it I could totally make armors for you guys.”

“Tony no.” Pepper said.

“We could call yours Rescue, Pepper.” Tony said all while ignoring Pepper's no. “As for you songbird we could use your nickname as your superhero name.”

“Songbird?” Castiel said with a slight smile.

“Yeah, it really rolls of the tongue. Of course then I would have to share the nickname with other people and I don’t think I could do that. Let’s name you Cobalt Man instead.” Tony said as he continued to smile.

“Tony no armors.” Pepper said more firmly.

“Alright, but tell me if you change your mind.” Tony said.

“Just go give your speech.” Pepper said as she pushed him toward the door that would lead him to the conference room.

As they entered the conference room Tony took his spot at the podium while Castiel and Pepper stood on the sidelines.

“Been a while since I was in front of you. I figure I’ll stick to the cards this time.” Tony said as he waved the cards about.

Polite laughter could be heard from the crowd. Pepper looked out at the crowd of people only to have Castiel nudge her in the arm. Pepper looked over at him only to see him motion toward a blond woman who was sitting at the front. Pepper recognized her as Christine the reporter that Tony slept with once.

“She will be trouble.” Castiel warned.

Pepper bit the bottom of her lip and hoped Castiel would be wrong.

“There’s been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and the rooftop…” Tony started to say only to be cut off.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared, despite the fact that you…” Christine started to say almost smugly only to be cut off by Tony.

“I know that it’s confusing.” Tony said with a bitter smile. “It is one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I’m a superhero.”

Between the clicks of cameras Pepper heard Castiel mummer “There goes Coulson’s story.”

“I never said you were a superhero.” Christine said.

Pepper felt like she wanted to hide under a rock now.

“Didn’t…?” Tony started to say only for Christine to shake her head no.

“Well, good, because that would be outlandish and fantastic.” Tony sighed as he said “I’m just not the hero type. Clearly.”

“He’s rambling now.” Pepper murmured.

“With my character defects, all the mistakes I’ve made, largely public.”

“True heroes are not without flaws.” Castiel murmured. “Flaws make you human.”

Pepper shot Castiel a look only to have her gaze go over to Rhodey as he whispered something in Tony’s ear.

Tony nodded as he held the cards up and said “Truth is…”

He looked out at the crowed quietly for a moment. Pepper had a feeling she knew what he was going to do.

“He isn’t.” She whispered.

“He is.” Castiel confirmed.

“I am Iron Man.”

Everyone quickly shot out of their seats and started shouting out questions while Tony just stood there with a ghost of a smile on his face.

Pepper looked over at Castiel only to have the man say “If Coulson truly thought Tony was going to stick to the cards then he really doesn’t know Tony.”

“You knew this was going to happen.” She said.

“I did. I also saw the reporter on the TV and knew she wouldn’t accept the cards that easily.” Castiel said.

Pepper just sighed and shook her head before she thought ‘So much for all of this being behind us…’

Chapter Text

The car ride back to Tony’s house had been quiet a trip. Tony was grinning like a maniac, Rhodey had his head in his hands, Pepper was wondering why she ever thought Tony was going to follow the cards, and Castiel was staring out the window watching the world pass them by.

“You couldn’t stick to the cards.” Rhodey muttered. “You just couldn’t stick to the cards.”

“I didn’t think it went that badly.” Tony said.

“Then you must have been at a totally different conference then me.” Rhodey muttered.

“Things might have turned out better if you had just gone with the bodyguard thing” Pepper murmured.

“Face it Pepper if Carol’s questions were anything to go by it’s obvious that no one was going to buy that flimsy bodyguard thing.” Tony pointed out.

Pepper sighed before she grudgingly agreed that Tony was probably right about that. If the bodyguard thing was already falling under scrutiny only three seconds after being used then chances are it wouldn’t be something that could stand for very long. Not to mention just how much work would go into keeping the whole charade going.

“Her name is Christine.” Castiel corrected. “I don’t understand why you can never remember her name.”

Tony shook his head and said “Hey, I remember that it started with a c.”

“That is all that you ever remember?” Castiel asked with a bit of frustration in his voice.

“He’s never been good with names especially if it’s the names of people that he has had one night stands with.” Pepper muttered.

Castiel rolled his eyes before he returned his gaze back to the window. Rhodey looked at Castiel before he moved his gaze over to Tony.

“So we are actually going to talk about your magic teleporting man when we get to your house, right?” Rhodey asked.

“It’s what I said we would do.” Tony confirmed.

“Teleporting?” Pepper echoed.

“Guy just appeared out of nowhere in front of me when Tony was lying on his workshop floor gasping for breath.” Rhodey said.

“It’s not teleporting.” Castiel grumbled.

“It still looks like one, songbird.” Tony said.

Pepper heard Castiel grumble something under his breath, but Pepper couldn’t figure what he was saying. It sounded like a different language, but it wasn’t one she recognized.

“We will explain when we get to the house, but no sooner than that.” Tony said in a tone that seemed to say that the conversation was over for now.

The rest of the car ride was sort of quiet after that. Castiel spent the rest of the car trip staring out the window watching the world go by while Tony just closed his eyes and allowed himself to rest for a few minutes. As for Rhodey he kept alternating his gaze from Tony to Castiel to Pepper only to repeat the process all over again. Every time Rhodey looked at Pepper he always had a look on his face that said one thing and one thing only.

Who is Castiel?

Every time he looked at her Pepper couldn’t help but shrug. She didn’t have any answers for him much as she wished that she did. Castiel had always been a strange sort of puzzle that she had never been able to figure out. He appeared out of nowhere and pretty much became Tony’s second shadow. He never talked about his past, about his family, or about any friends really.

Pepper knew very little about Castiel, and any attempts to piece together what little facts she did have on the guy just lead to her creating an incomplete picture. She knew what he was like more or less. He had a strange obsession with Murder, She Wrote, most idioms seemed to fly right over his head, and he said strange things sometimes. Also, apparently he had the ability to teleport. Pepper could feel a headache coming on already. As if the whole Iron Man thing wasn’t already complicated Castiel’s very existence had to go and make things even more confusing and complicated.

At least Pepper could take some small comfort in the fact that they would be getting some answers once they returned to Tony’s mansion. That alone helped make Pepper feel a bit better, and right now Pepper was going to be grateful for that if nothing else. When they eventually did make it to Tony’s house Tony ushered them into his living room before he grabbed some glasses and alcohol to put down on the coffee table. Pepper took note of the fact that the alcohol Tony set out mostly consisted of the drinks that she and Rhodey liked. Castiel opted to skip the alcohol in favor of apple juice.

Once everything was set up Tony sat in a chair across from them, stared them right in the eyes, and said “Castiel is an angel.”

It was quiet for a moment before Rhodey finally said “What?”

“Castiel is an angel.” Tony repeated. “He has the whole halo and wing thing going on.”

Pepper was instantly reminded of the time when Castiel said he was an angel of the Lord. When she had heard that she had thought that Castiel may not have been the sanest person around, but now Tony was saying it too.

Rhodey just stared at Tony with disbelief before Tony finally sighed and said “Castiel cue the lightshow.”

Castiel stared at the man for a few seconds like he didn’t know what the heck he was talking about, but a light bulb must have went off somewhere because eventually Castiel nodded and stood up. The lights started to flicker and every single electrical device in the house started to freak out. As the lights flickered on and off what appeared to be the shadow of wings coming right out of Castiel’s back.

They were big and Pepper watched as they slowly opened up. It was pretty freaking dramatic, but some of the drama was taken out of the situation due to the fact that the whole time this was happening Castiel was drinking apple juice out of his glass like nothing was happening. Meanwhile Tony was watching the whole spectacle like it was a show at Disneyworld. Eventually everything turned back to normal, the wings disappeared, and Castiel was left standing there with a half empty glass in his hands. Pepper mindlessly reached out for one of the alcohol bottles and started to pour herself a glass.

‘Wings.’ She thought in stunned disbelief. ‘He has wings.’

Immediately she remembered the feeling of feathers brushing against her skin. It always seemed to happen when they flew. Or should she say teleporting? Honestly, she didn’t know which one to go with. She was going to ask about it, but Rhodey beat her to the punch.

“No way. This is not real.” The man said almost forcefully. “This has to be some very elaborate prank.”

The serious look on his face showed that if it was a prank Rhodey sure as hell wasn’t appreciating the rather elaborate joke.

“You think I would joke about this?” Tony asked.

He didn’t sound offended in the slightest, and the small grin that graced his face almost made it seem like it was a very elaborate prank that Tony was enjoying.

“You’re Tony Stark.” Rhodey said without missing a beat. “You preformed some rather elaborate pranks on me in collage.”

“You prank a guy once with a bunch of robots and he never lets you live it down.” Tony said with an amused sigh.

The man shook his head before he said “I can do the electrical freak out easy, and the wing effect could be created. However, even I haven’t figured out how to teleport people around yet.”

Rhodey looked like he was going to say something, but Castiel cut him off.

“If that is not enough for you I can make my wings visible for you.” Castiel said slowly.

“You can do that?” Tony asked with some curiosity.

“I can do that. Our wings are usually in the ethereal plane, but we can bring them out so that they can be perceived by the mortal eye.”

“Ethereal plane?” Pepper echoed slowly.

“I think that question is best saved for another day.” Castiel said.

Pepper just nodded unsure of what else to say as Tony asked “So why didn’t you tell me about this before, and this isn’t against some angel law or anything is it?”

“You never asked, and my ‘lightshow’ was enough to convince you.” Castiel said while adding finger quotes around the word lightshow. “Also, it is not against the rules to show our wings to mortals. It is rarely done though, and there are some angels who think regular mortals shouldn’t see our wings at all.”

Castiel looked over at Rhodey and asked “Would seeing my wings be enough for you?”

“Sure…?” Rhodey said slowly like he was amazed that this was something that he was actually being asked.

“Even if it wasn’t enough I definitely want to see your wings, songbird.” Tony said as he sat up a bit straighter in his seat.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all.” Castiel said with a slight smile.

There was no warning or sign that the wings would appear. One second he didn’t have wings and the next second he did. They just seemed to materialize from thin air. Everyone stared at his wings with wide eyes. They were beautiful and Pepper could barely figure out which detail she should take in first. The wings were huge, and Pepper was sure that the wings were almost as big as Castiel. The very tips of the wings were just barely able to avoid brushing up against the ground.

As for the color the wings were best compared to a white opal stone. His white wings had flecks of shimmering colors sprinkled around on it. If she didn’t know better she would honestly think that his wings really were made of opal. The feathers looked very soft, and Pepper couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to brush her fingers across them. However, before her fingers could brush up against a feather Castiel moved his wing out of the way and folded them tightly against his back.

“I am sorry Pepper, but I have to ask you to not touch my wings.” Castiel said.

She drew her hand to her chest and asked “Will something bad happen if I touch them?”

“No, nothing bad will happen.” The angel said. “No one touches an angel’s wings unless they are a close friend or a lover.”

“Oh, it’s OK I understand.” Pepper said quickly.

She wasn’t bothered by the fact that she was not classified as a close friend. She didn’t know Castiel all that well so of course she wasn’t bothered by that fact. Castiel’s wings seemed to relax a bit after she said that and they didn’t fold up quiet as tightly against Castiel’s back. While he didn’t show it on his face Castiel’s wings gave Pepper the impression that the angel was relieved to hear that Pepper wasn’t mad upon hearing that.

“Pepper you are taking this in a lot better than Rhodey is.” Tony commented.

Pepper shifted her eyes away from the wings over to Rhodey. The man had decided to skip using the glass that Tony had set out for him in favor of just taking a drink right from the bottle.

When the bottle left his mouth Rhodey asked “What about the halo?”

“Evidently seeing the halo would burn our eyes right out of their sockets.” Tony said with a slight smile.

The alcohol bottle made its way back to Rhodey’s lips before Pepper could even blink. As he took another big gulp of alcohol Pepper finally decided to ask a question that had been floating around in her head for a while now.

“When you flew us out of danger I could have sworn I felt feathers brush up against my skin. Was that your wings?”

“Yes, even when hidden they can still sometimes be felt.”

“And heard if the wing flapping sounds are anything to go by.” Rhodey added as he placed his bottle down on the table.

Castiel nodded as he said “Yes, I can’t muffle the sounds of my take offs or arrivals.”

Rhodey sighed as he ran his hand over his face.

“OK, so we have an angel among us.” Rhodey said. “Not a sentence I thought I would ever say.”

“To be fair it’s not that happens a lot. Angels don’t come down to earth like I have often.” Castiel said.

“So why are you here?” Pepper asked.

Castiel stared at her and Pepper frowned slightly as she said “If angels don’t come down to earth often then why have you?”

“I was given a mission.” Castiel said.

Tony quickly cut in by saying “Yeah, when I said Castiel is a bodyguard I wasn’t lying about that.”

Rhodey and Pepper stared at Tony for a couple of seconds before they both looked over at Castiel.

“I was ordered to protect Tony.” Castiel clarified.

“Protect Tony from what?” Rhodey asked. “From people like Obadiah?”

“No, I am supposed to protect him from demons.” Castiel said.

No one said a word when he said that. It was so quiet in the room that you could hear a pin drop. Pepper and Rhodey looked toward Tony as if to see if this was a rather bad joke, but Tony wasn’t smiling. He was just staring down at his glass of scotch looking like a man who had seen too much too soon. Pepper struggled to come up with something to say, but Rhodey just stared right at Tony with a very serious looking expression.

“You have been attacked haven’t you?” Rhodey said.

It was worded like a question, but the tone suggested that it was more of a statement. Rhodey knew the answer to that question already, but he still had to ask.

“Yes.” Tony answered simply.

“Demons attacked last night. They were the reason why I was not here when Obadiah attacked.” Castiel explained.

Tony was quit for only a moment before he said “They attacked me at the charity event too. Castiel saved me from them.”

He said it so nonchalantly that one would think he was talking about some sort of mundane event. However, the face he was making didn’t fit with his tone of voice. He looked serious and he was staring down at his glass like it had all of the answers to his unasked questions. To Pepper this all felt like some sort of crazy dream. Tony was running around as Iron Man, Obadiah was a traitor, and an angel was standing in Tony’s living room drinking apple juice.

None of this felt real, and Pepper wanted to just wake up and go back to normalcy. This was no dream though, and normalcy died screaming a long time ago. Then again with a guy like Tony maybe normalcy had never existed in the first place. Rhodey hadn’t said a word, but he was staring at Tony and Castiel with calculating eyes.

“Why do demons want Tony dead?”

Castiel shrugged while Tony sarcastically said “Because I’m awesome.”

Rhodey just shot Tony a frustrated look upon hearing that. Tony ignored it in favor of drinking his alcohol. Pepper didn't coment on how Tony sounded a bit bitter when he said what he said.

“The demons were focusing their efforts on Tony because they wished to have Obadiah replace him, and they were not happy about the fact that his company stopped making weapons.” Castiel said.

His wings straightened up from their slightly relaxed position as he said “Demons love chaos, death, destruction, and despair. Obadiah gave them all that and more with everything that he did, and that reason alone the demons adored him and wished to see him alone running the company without Tony’s interference.”

He placed his empty glass down on the coffee table and looked at the humans as he said “With Obadiah dead the demons should mostly lose interest in Tony. A few may try something, but for the most part they will consider this whole thing as a lost cause and a waste of resources.”

“So Tony is safe now?” Pepper asked feeling hopeful, and feeling sort of stupid for feeling hopeful.

There was no way it would be that simple.

“For now he is. As I have said before protecting Tony is my job, and even if I am given a new mission to do I have been ordered to protect him until the end.”

That was a little comforting to hear, but only a little.

“I do not think we need to worry much about demons for now, but I would suggest that you both learn how to keep them away for the sake of safety.” Castiel said.

“How are we supposed to keep demons away?” Pepper asked.

Tony just gave her an almost maniac grin, and Pepper knew that it didn’t mean anything good.

“Well, first you guys are going to want to get a tattoo…”

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“All things considered I thought that went rather well.”

Castiel frowned a bit as he stared out the window and watched as Pepper and Rhodey drove their cars out of Tony’s driveway and started making their way home.

Castiel showed no reaction to what Tony said, but right when Tony thought Castiel would not answer he said “I don’t think they were happy about getting the tattoos.”

Tony shrugged as he said “I wasn’t exactly happy to get a tattoo either, but you don’t hear me complaining.”

“You are sort of complaining now.” Castiel commented.

“Smart ass.” Tony muttered as he rolled his eyes.

At any rate Pepper and Rhodey really were not too thrilled about the idea of getting a tattoo. Tony had called the tattoo artist that did his tattoo and she did the job without comment. Pepper got the tattoo on her hip and she got it as small as she could possibly get it. She would always be able to cover it up unless she wore a string bikini. Rhodey got a tiny one on his chest. Tony had originally thought of putting his own tattoo on his chest, but he had decided against it since he figured that the arc reactor took up enough room.

Pepper and Rhodey had stuck around after getting the tattoos to ask questions, but Tony didn’t have much in the way of answers for them. He told them how he met Castiel, but that was the only question that Tony could answer without any difficulty. Castiel quickly drilled information into their heads about how they could make their homes safe from demons, but to most of their questions he was pretty evasive. When asked who gave him his mission he just said his superiors gave him that job but he didn’t say who. He was open about the fact that he wasn’t the one who was originally planned to be given the task and that an angel named Anael was supposed to take the job, but Anael could not do it.

When Rhodey pressed a bit more for answers Castiel had been pretty blunt and answered with a firm “She’s gone.”

Tony wasn’t sure what that was all about, but he did get the distinct impression that Anael was a sensitive subject for him. Rhodey must have got that too because he avoided bringing her name up again. While he was a little vague about his mission he was more open about angels in general. He told him that he was the angel who ruled over Thursday, and he told them his rank in heaven. It was sort of boring to Tony, but Rhodey was interested in the solider talk. Pepper just found the fact that there was more than one type of angel to be interesting. Tony ended up learning what Castiel’s other three heads looked like. Apparently to go along with the zebra head Castiel had the head of the tiger, and the head of a Red-tail hawk. When Tony had asked what the forth head was Castiel struggled to answer that one.

Castiel eventually ended up describing it by saying “It looks a bit like a white porcelain mask. It’s the only way I can think of to describe is so that you all can understand.”

It wasn’t the greatest description, but it was the best one that Cas could come up with so Tony accepted it. By the time that Cas got to the point where he was describing his true from Rhodey and Pepper had been a bit overwhelmed with angel info so they didn’t exactly question it very much. Rhodey and Pepper ended up leaving once it got late enough, and while they got some answers Tony knew they had left his home with more questions than they did answers.

Tony was pretty sure that they wouldn’t be getting any good understandable answers anytime soon. Castiel was an enigma that Tony still hadn’t completely figured out yet. The man sighed as he ran a hand down his face and glanced over at the feathered mystery. Castiel just cocked his head slightly to the side like the curious overgrown bird that he was.

“It’s nice that we don’t have to lie to Rhodey and Pepper anymore.” Tony said with a slight smile.

“Yes, it is a relief. I do not like lying about what I am.” Castiel said slowly.

“I know, but you can’t tell everyone what you are. Most people would think you were crazy if you did.” Tony pointed out.

“I understand, but that does not mean I have to like it.” Castiel grumbled.

“Well, we all have to do things we don’t like sometimes songbird.” Tony said with a slight smirk.

Castiel nodded a bit before he said “I am starting to figure that out.”

“Starting to?” Tony said slowly. “What you never had to do something that you didn’t want to do when you were up in heaven?”

“When we are given orders we follow them. You do not question the orders that you are given.” Castiel rattled off.

The line sounded so practiced that Tony had a sinking suspicion that the line was something that got hammered into the angel’s head the second he started to exist. Tony really didn’t like thinking about that. It just sounded off, and being off was never a thing that you wanted to associate with heaven of all places. For a brief second he had to wonder just what heaven was like, but he didn’t want to think about that.

Tony quickly change the subject by saying “So your wings"

Castiel said nothing, but before Tony could even say another word the wings appeared into existence. Tony couldn’t help but stare at the wings upon seeing him. They were still just as magnificent looking as they had been when he first saw them. If he had to compare the wings to anything he would probably say they looked like they were made of opal stones. Yet, somehow saying they were like some simple stone just felt like an insult to Castiel. His wings were just that magnificent.

“Tony?”

Tony is snapped out of his thoughts when he hears Castiel call out his name. Castiel was standing there looking almost nervous. Castiel wasn’t the most emotional being on the plant, but Tony had picked up on his habits enough to get a general idea of how the angel was feeling. His head was lowered down slightly so that his chin was almost touching his chest, and he was looking at Tony with sort of pinched look like he was a little worried that he may have said the wrong thing. The angel’s face was almost always set on neutral, but right now his mouth was titled down slightly in a frown. His eyebrows were knitted together in such a way that they just helped set the worried look that Cas had going on.

Also, while Tony was no expert on reading wing body language he was going to assume that Castiel keeping his wings closed and practically glued to his body was probably not a sign of relaxation. All in all Castiel looked tense, and a little worried. What Castiel seemed worried about Tony had no clue. Was a worried about a human touching his wings? That could be it. If Castiel was to be believed angels rarely if ever let humans touch their wings. For a brief second Tony thought that maybe Castiel was worried that Tony was repulsed by his wings or something like that. However, that thought was abandoned as quickly as it sprang up. There was no way that Castiel was thinking something like that.

“Are you going to…?” Castile started to say only to trail off.

The angel ended up just motioning toward his wings instead of finishing his sentence with words.

“Are you sure it’s alright?” Tony asks with some slight hesitation. “I mean I know you said it was OK with close friends, but I’m human and I don’t want to get you in trouble with the might angel council or whatever the heck it is that you call your higher ups.”

Castiel looks surprised that Tony asked that, but the small slight smile that crossed his face told him that Cas appreciated the fact that Tony bothered to make sure that it was OK. Tony was happy that he asked, but he had to admit he really hoped that Castiel wouldn’t take back the offer. He really did want to touch Castiel’s wings. Where they soft like a fuzzy blanket? Did they feel hard like the opal stone that they resembled? Where they cold to the touch? Warm to the touch?

Tony was curious, and he would never be able to rest easily until his curiosity was officially satisfied. It was just how it was with him. When he was curious about something he would do as much research and experimenting as he could until his curiosity had been officially satisfied. Not being able to satisfy his curiosity drove him insane. Also, besides his curiosity Tony had to admit that he got a bit of pleasure out of the idea that he would be one of the very few people out there who had the privilege to actually touch an angel’s wings.

God knows he didn’t deserve the privilege, but somehow he got it and by god he was going to cherish it. Luckily for him Castiel didn’t seem to want to take revoke his offer. Castiel seemed to relax a little. His shoulders slumped as he lifted his head up so that he was looking right into Tony’s eyes. His wings slowly drooped down into what Tony could only assume was a more relaxed resting position.

“It is kind of you to make sure it’s OK, but you really don’t need to worry. I said it was alright so it’s alright.” Castiel reassured him.

Tony nodded before he reached out toward Castiel’s left wing. His hand stilled once it was only a few inches away from the angel’s wing. Tony hesitated for a couple minutes, but just before he could reach out the rest of the way Castiel moved his wing so that it was pressed up against the palm of Tony’s hand. Tony was a little surprised that Castiel did that, but his surprise was quickly ignored in favor of running his fingers down his wings.

‘His wings are like silk.’ Tony thought almost absentmindedly.

Actually, saying that they were like silk was almost an insult to the angel’s wings. His wings were just that soft. However, besides silk Tony couldn’t think of what else to compare his wings to.

“Songbird, your wings are amazing.” Tony murmured.

Castiel looked a bit embarrassed by the praise, but he also looked rather pleased.

“You really like them?” Castiel asked hesitantly.

“How could I not like them?” Tony asked as he ran his hand down the wing.

Tony took his hand away only to see a stray feather fall away from the wing and flutter to the ground.

Tony watched the feather fall with wide eyes, and the second the feather touched the ground Tony blurted out “I’m sorry, but is that bad?”

Was causing a feather come off an angel’s wing bad? Tony really hoped not. He would rather not be struck down by someone up in the sky for doing so. Castiel seemed unconcerned with the feather.

“Actually, I am rather grateful for you getting rid of the feather.” Castiel said as he knelt down and picked the feather up.

“I have groomed my wings recently, but there are a few places that I cannot reach so I have a few lose feathers that really need to be taken care of. I was a little worried that you would notice how messy they are.”

Messy? If they really were messy Tony sure as heck didn’t notice. They looked picture perfect to him. Then again Tony wasn’t an expert on wings so he wasn’t a great judge on the subject.

“You groom your wings?” Tony finally said.

“Of course I do. You wash your hair don’t you?” Castiel said in a tone that suggested that he didn’t understand why Tony was surprised by this bit of information.

“I do.”

“Then I don’t know why you are surprised. Grooming my wings isn’t all that different from you washing your hair. They both need to be maintained.”

“I guess I’m just surprised that your wings don’t stay perfect or that you don’t have a magic spell to take care of that.” Tony said.

The angel just shook his head upon hearing that.

“No, usually angels have their friends and loved ones help maintain their wings. Helping to maintain a friend’s wings is considered a great bonding experience.”

“So can’t have one of your angel friends help you with your wings then? You can pop up into heaven to get your wings cleaned if you want. I’ll be fine on my own for a couple of hours.”

Castiel just looked down at the feather in his hand as he said “I have no one to help me with that. Anael used to help, but that was a long time ago. The few other friends that I had that could help are no longer around.”

Tony felt a little bad for bringing the friend subject up now. Castiel had always been pretty vague about Anael, but the no longer around bit made him think that Castiel’s other friends were dead.

‘What could be strong enough to kill an angel?’ Tony thought.

A demon was the first answer that came to mind, but Tony didn’t ask Castiel if that answer was correct. Tony usually didn’t like not having answers to questions, but this was one of those rare instances where he really didn’t want to know the answer. Tony watched as Castiel just stared down at the feather for a few minutes. After a couple of minutes had passed Tony sighed and finally said something that he had been thinking for a while now.

“I can help you groom your wings if you want.”

Castiel looked surprised that Tony had made such an offer.

“Really? You don’t mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind Songbird. You saved my life from demons enough times that it only seems fair for me to help you out in some way.” Tony said.

Tony smiled a tiny smile as he said “That’s only if you are OK with it.”

“I would like that." Castiel said as he offered Tony a smile of his own.

Tony couldn’t help but admire the angel’s smile. It wasn’t a tiny smile nor was it a half smile that Castiel tended to give. Right now Castiel was giving him a large smile that was very close to being a grin. Castiel’s wing were gorgeous, and nothing could match their smile. However, at that very moment Tony could not help but think that Castiel’s cheerful smile came pretty dang close to his wings beauty…..

Chapter Text

You shouldn’t be here.

That’s all Tony could think about as he lay curled up in a ball on the floor in the middle of the cave. A car battery was hooked up to his chest, and he somehow knew it was keeping him alive. In the back of his mind a voice whispered that the car battery should have been unneeded. He had something else in his chest that kept him alive. However, when he tried to think of what that thing could be his thoughts fade away before he can give the question any sort of deep thought. The question of what he was doing here popped into his mind again to fill the void. What the hell was he even doing in a cave anyway? Tony tried to think of how he ended up here, but his thoughts were a disjointed mess.

He couldn’t focus on anything. Any time he tried to focus on figuring out why or how he ended up here his mind would grow fuzzy. His mind would jump from one feeling to another without rhyme or reason. Whenever a thought jumped into his head it would be quickly replaced by another one before he could even begin to focus. The only thing that he could really focus on was the fact that this wasn’t a good place. That he didn’t feel safe here. The little voice in his head frantically whispered one sentence over and over again in his mind like a broken record.

You shouldn’t be here.

Tony wishes he could tell the voice to shut up, but he can’t. His mouth feels like it’s glued shut, and somehow he had a feeling that the voice wouldn’t stop even if he did tell it to shut up. He clamps his eyes shut and tries to focus, but he frowns when he hears someone speak to him.

“You are pathetic Tony.”

Tony opens his eyes only to see Obadiah Stane standing in front of him. He was standing tall and proud, and his suit was in pristine condition. However, he looked wrong. The grin on his was downright inhuman. It was so big that it could have split Obadiah’s face in half. His eyes were pitch black in color, and those eyes alone made Tony shift back a little in fear. His back slams into the rock wall of the cave before he can really put any distance between them. Tony desperately wished he could get farther away from Obadiah. The man’s eyes make Tony shiver in fear, and he wanted nothing more than to get away from the man.

To Tony Obadiah looked like a demon. That was the only way that Tony could think of to describe Obadiah right now. He looked like a demon. He wasn’t sure why he was instant on thinking that Obadiah was a demon. It was something about the eyes that made him think that. They were the eyes of a demon. That was a single truth that Tony had no problem questioning. Tony frowned as he reached out and pulled his car battery into his arms. He’s not sure why, but the fear that Obadiah would rip the only thing keeping him alive had suddenly overtaken him. His mind is spinning too much for him to figure out why he would think that, but he doesn’t feel like questioning it. He just clings to the battery and stares up into Obadiah’s black soulless eyes. Obadiah just continued to stare down at him with that twisted grin on his face. He almost seemed to be amused by Tony’s discomfort.

“Oh, come now Tony don’t be scared!” Obadiah says cheerfully. “You’re supposed to be a superhero! Superheroes don’t get scared!”

Tony scowls and wishes he could snap at the man, but his mouth stays firmly shut. The voice harshly whispers it’s one lone sentence over and over again in his head in a louder tone.

You shouldn’t be here.

Tony isn’t given time to get annoyed by the voice because Obadiah joyfully says “Of course you and I know better. You are no hero Tony Stark. If you were a hero, you would have been able to save Yinsen.”

Tony feels some conflicted emotions upon hearing Yinsen’s name. The most overpowering emotion was sorrow. Sorrow over the fact that he wasn’t able to save the man who saved him. Sadness griped his heart tightly and he just wanted to cry at the thought such a good man dying. However, buried deep in his sadness was the feeling of anger. How dare Obadiah speak Yinsen’s name? How dare Obadiah act like he was somehow better then Tony. Obadiah was a monster. Tony’s mind was too scrambled to even think of how he knew that Obadiah was a monster, but somehow he just knew that Obadiah was the worst of the worst. This man’s hands weren’t just covered in blood he was pretty much covered from head to toe in it.

Obadiah’s twisted grin never grew any smaller as he knelt down and put his hands on his knees. He tilted his head so far to the left that it made it look like his head snapped. Tony winched a bit at that observation. Distantly he knew that he had seen someone’s neck snap before, and it wasn’t something that Tony ever wanted to see again.

You shouldn’t be here.

The voice in his head was a little more frantic sounding now, but to Tony it sounded distant. All he could focus on were those cold black eyes that were staring into his own brown eyes.

“You are so selfish Tony. You only care about yourself.” Obadiah says cheerfully. “That little angel boy toy of yours is going to die protecting your ungrateful ass. One day those demons that are hunting you will tear your angel into pieces.”

Tony wasn’t even able to say anything to that because Obadiah suddenly stands up and says “In fact who’s to say that the death of your angelic friend hasn’t already happened?”

The man steps to the side, and once he is no longer standing in front of Tony the brown eyed man is greeted by a horrifying sight. Lying there only a few feet away from him as Castiel. The angel was lying on his stomach in a puddle of blood. His head was turned so that he was facing Tony. Cold dead eyes stared right at him, and the warm spark of life that made Castiel’s eyes seem to glow was long gone.

The angel’s wings were out, but they were almost unrecognizable. Instead of opal wings shimming with bright colors his wings were dull and filthy covered with drying blood and stained with mud. His wings look like they had been broken like someone snapped every bone in Cas’ wings and then allowed the feathery appendages to lie wherever they fell. Stabbed right in the middle of Castiel’s back was the angel’s very own knife. Tony wanted to reach out toward the angel, but he was frozen in place. All he could do was sit there and stare at the broken form of the angel.

“Won’t be long until Rhodey and Pepper join him in death. I think the demons would just love to tear them apart.” Obadiah practically sang out.

Obadiah leaned down toward Tony and the man shivered when he heard Obadiah whisper in his ear “Everyone who gets near you gets hurt. So why not do the word a favor and kill yourself?”

Tony clung to the car battery in his arms even tighter as he heard Obadiah say “It would be so easy Tony. All you have to do is pull the only thing that’s keeping you alive out of your chest. Come on and join me in hell where you belong.” Tony clamped his eyes shut as the voice in his head started screaming.

You shouldn’t be here!
You shouldn’t be here!
You shouldn’t be here!

“Tony?”

Tony was barely able to hear his name being called over the shouting in his head, but he did hear it. It didn’t sound like Obadiah. This voice was rough like it’s owner gargled gravel just to get that voice. Tony recognized that voice within a matter of seconds. Tony slowly opened his eyes and he almost felt like smiling when he saw Castiel standing there alive and well. Obadiah was long gone and standing there in his place was the blue eyed angel that Tony was so familiar with. The voice that had been screaming in his head fell blissfully silent the second Tony saw the angel. The car battery that Tony had been clinging to like it was a lifeline was gone leaving only the arc reactor in Tony’s chest behind. The fog that had settled in Tony’s mind and kept him from thinking faded away, and Tony could think clearly now.

“Songbird?” Tony called out softly as he pushed himself up into a sitting position.

The nickname slipped out of Tony’s mouth before he could even think to stop it.

“You were having a nightmare Tony.” Castiel says.

“Oh….” Was the only thing that Tony could say after hearing that.

That explained a lot. That explained what he was doing in a cave that looked so much like that nightmarish place that he had been jailed in. It explained why he had a car battery hooked into his chest only a few seconds ago instead of the arc reactor. It also explained that weird twisted version of Obadiah. Obadiah was dead, and thanks to the fact that Tony knew that angels and demons existed he knew that the bastard had gone straight to hell when he died. In his nightmare it figured that his mind would take Obadiah and turn him into what he truly was. Obadiah had been a demon wearing human skin in life, so why not make him what he really was in his dreams?

Tony scraped his nails against the rock that was under him and asked “So are you really here, or are you just something that my mind created to end the nightmare?”

“I’m really here.” Castiel says. “Angels have the ability to travel into people’s dreams.”

At any other time Tony would have joked that Castiel shouldn’t make it a habit to pop into Tony’s dreams like this, but he really wasn’t in the right mindset for that. He felt calmer now that he knew that he was just dreaming, but the things that he heard Obadiah say cut him deep. Some people said that dreams were messages from the unconscious mind. If that was the case Tony wasn’t too thrilled with the messages that he was getting.

Tony sighed and closed his eyes as he asked “How did you know that I was having a bad dream?”

“Jarvis told me. You were struggling so much in your sleep that he got worried. You wouldn’t wake up when he called out to you, so he asked me if I could help you.”

Tony didn’t know if he should be grateful for that, or a bit embarrassed that Castiel had at least seen a bit of his nightmare. Castiel didn’t seem bothered by the fact that he saw a dead version of himself in Tony’s nightmare. He looked as passive as ever, but there was a hint of concern on his face for Tony.

Castiel was silent for a moment before he asked “Do you want to wake up?”

“What time is it?” Was Tony’s reply.

“Almost two in the morning.” Castiel answered.

‘I haven’t even been asleep for a full hour then.’ Tony thought with a frown.

Of course is mind wouldn’t even wait to spring a nightmare on him.

“I probably shouldn’t. Much as I wish I could stay awake twenty-four seven my body needs some rest and an hour isn’t going to cut it.” Tony said as he opened his eyes and looked at the angel.

The angel nodded and after a brief moment of hesitation he asked “Do you want me to stay with you until you awaken naturally?”

“Yes.” Tony said without a moment of hesitation.

He didn’t want to be left here in this dream version of that damn cave all alone. That and if he was being honest he wanted Castiel close to him. Seeing that lifeless husk version of Cas had shaken him a bit. Having Castiel there and talking to him just helped to reassure him that Cas was alive and well.

“Alright then.” Castiel said with a nod of his head.

The angel looked around at the cave and asked “Do you want to be somewhere else?”

“Yes.”

“Where do you want to be?”

“Anywhere but here.” Tony answered.

Castiel nodded and within a blink of an eye the cave was gone and instead they were in what looked like a park. Tony could feel the grass pressing up against his hands, and a cool refreshing wind ruffled his hair. He could hear the leaves rustling in the wind, and the chirping of birds in the distance. It looked like it was early in the afternoon during a warm spring or summer day. It was warm, but not too warm. The breeze was refreshing and not too cold. He could hear some people laughing cheerfully in the distance, and around him he could see a few people milling about just enjoying an evening in the park. Nearby he could see a lone man flying a kite. The man was smiling, and it was clear that all of his attention was focused on that kite. All in all, it looked like a perfect afternoon.

Even Castiel looked a bit relaxed here. The wind caused his coat to flutter in the breeze, and the slight smile on Cas’ face made Tony think that the angel was enjoying the breeze. Tony had to admit that he was enjoying it too. Tony wasn’t much of an outdoors person, but even he could find some joy on being outside on a warm breezy day. The angel walked over to Tony and plopped himself down next to Tony. Their shoulders were touching, but Tony didn’t mind. The touch was comforting after the nightmare that he had endured not too long ago. The silence between them was peaceful, and Tony would have been alright with just sitting there in silence with the angel until he woke up. However, Castiel seemed to be in a talking mood.

“This is a recreation of my favorite place in heaven.” The angel said.

“Heaven has parks?” Tony asked in a joking tone of voice.

“Some places of heaven do. When humans die and go to heaven they create their own personal piece of heaven. It’s a special place that takes the form of a day or place that makes its owner happy.” Castiel explained.

The angel watched the man flying his kite as he said “For a child who died young her heaven is re-living the day that her family celebrated her birthday at an amusement park. For an old actress who died of old age her heaven is a never ending New Year’s Eve party that was held during the final hours of 1925. For an elderly man who died in a car crash his heaven is just spending time with his wife in their farm house during a never ending spring day.”

Castiel pointed at the man flying the kite and said “And for an autistic man who drowned in a bathtub in 1953 his personal paradise is flying his kite in the park on an eternal Tuesday afternoon.”

Castiel let his hand fall back into his lap as he said “This is just a recreation of that heaven. It was always my favorite, so it was the first thing that came to mind when you said that you wanted to be anywhere else but that cave.”

Tony stayed silent as he allowed himself to think a bit about what Castiel said. That was a bit of interesting info on heaven. Tony had to admit that he liked the idea that people could have their own little part of paradise when they went up to the holy kingdom in the sky. Tony mentally shook his thoughts about heaven away. He should probably get back to the topic at hand rather then getting lost in thought.

Tony was only silent for a moment or two before he finally said “I can’t blame you for liking this place. It’s not what I would regularly go for, but I got to admit it’s nice.”

Tony flops back onto his back and stares up at the sky. White puffy clouds slowly roll by in the sky, and Tony can’t help but notice just how comfortable he is now. Castiel is still sitting next to him watching the kite fly around in the sky.

“You can lay down and cloud gaze with me you know. You don’t have to sit there and look so stiff.” Castiel doesn’t respond, but Tony does hear some movement.

When Tony glances over to his left he sees that the angel has laid down next to him. Cas’ dark blue eyes were locked onto the sky, and while he looked as serious as ever he seemed much more relaxed and comfortable.

As Tony moved his gaze back toward the sky he hears Castiel ask “Do you want to talk about your nightmare?”

“No, it’s over now anyway. I would much rather leave it in the past.” Tony said.

“Alright.” Castiel said.

Tony couldn’t help but feel relieved that Cas wasn’t pushing Tony to talk about it. If it had been Pepper she would have asked pushed him to talk about it, and while Rhodey would probably let the nightmare topic go after a bit Tony’s friend he would have questioned him about it at least a little Castiel didn’t do any of that. He allowed the subject to drop when Tony wanted it to be dropped. He would only talk about it when Tony wanted to talk about it. Tony had to admit that he liked that fact. Tony didn’t like to be pushed or prodded to talk about his feelings or issues. He would only talk about that when he was good and ready. As for his nightmare he was more than prepared to never talk about it. His nightmare was just that. A nightmare. A bad dream that was best left forgotten. Not much time had passed since Obadiah’s betrayal. It was only natural for Tony to have some bad dreams after having to deal with that.

Honestly, it was a miracle that Tony hadn’t had more nightmares. Tony slept peacefully most nights. When he did have a nightmare it was always in that cave. Usually he dreamed of Yinsen’s death. Dreaming of a dead Cas was new. Tony didn’t want to ever see that again in his dreams, but he knew better then to think his dreams would have mercy on him. When his brain decided it was time for Tony to have a nightmare it didn’t exactly hold back. Seeing a dead Castiel had been shocking. Cas always seemed to powerful to die. He was an angel. A heavenly solider of God. The thought that an angel could die seemed like an impossibility to Tony.

Hell, he wasn’t even sure if angels could die. It’s not like he and Cas had exactly talked about the ins and outs of being an angel. Tony was still figuring out how to help an angel groom his wings without accidentally pulling out good feathers. As for the rest of the angel info he knew very little. He had a rough idea of what Castiel’s true from looked like. Thanks to Castiel’s conversation with Rhodey and Pepper Tony had a basic idea of what heaven’s military was like. Only a basic one through because honestly solider talk board him to tears, and from what little he heard it wasn’t a heck of a lot different from any other military. Rhodey found that to be quiet fascinating. To Tony the whole thing just bored him to tears.

However, other then what he heard from Cas he didn’t know much. Tony wasn’t exactly religious in any way shape or form. His mother was Roman Catholic and thanks to her Tony had some faint memories of going to church when he was a young child. His mom tried to attend church regularly, but that slowly came to a grinding stop the older Tony got. She got rather busy trying to keep her husband from drinking himself into oblivion. Howard was slowly starting to drink more and more and when he wasn’t drinking he was either getting absorbed into his work or searching for Captain America in the Antarctic.

Tony’s mother usually went wherever Howard did. She even went to the Antarctic with him a few times, but Tony was pretty sure that she did that just to make sure that Howard didn’t stay in the Antarctic. Howard’s mission to find the long dead hero may as well have been an obsession. As Tony got older Howard got drunker and Tony’s mother did everything she could to just be out of the house away from her husband. She was either busy working with some charity, hanging out with friends, or just whatever else she could find to do. Still, she tried to make the weekend the time when she and Tony could just spend time together. Since it was one of their rare times that they could go out and spend time together his mother didn’t bother dragging him to church much.

“I’m sure God won’t mind if I spend some time with my only child.” She had said when Tony asked about it once.

Tony was willing to accept that answer then, but nowadays he was sure that the other reason she didn’t go was because she didn’t want to want to be judged or hear anyone say anything about her family. Howard’s drinking habit wasn’t exactly a secret, but it wasn’t spoken about in public. However, it was most definitely gossiped about. Tony was sure that people looked down a bit on his mother for having a drunkard for a husband. He was sure she got a lot of pity too, and the last thing Maria Stark would want was pity.

By the time Tony was six the church visits stopped, and the only time he went into a church was to attend a funeral. So if the church ever had a special seminar where they talked about the inner workings of angels he definitely missed it. Tony really should ask Castiel if it was possible for an angel to die. He wouldn’t ask right now. He had just calmed down from having that nightmare. There was no reason to get worked up again so soon. Besides that seemed like a conversation that he should have with Castiel when he was awake.

Tony was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Castiel say “Tony?”

“Yeah Songbird?”

“If you have a nightmare again will you want me to come into your dreams to end it like I did with this nightmare?”

Tony actually had to think about that. Normally, he would have said no to that question. Dreams were usually intimate affairs, and Tony wasn’t fond of the idea of anyone seeing his innermost fears. Yet, strangely he was OK with Castiel seeing his fears. He wasn’t thrilled at the idea of it, but he was OK with it. As for why Tony had a few guesses. For Tony Cas had been there since the very beginning of Iron Man’s tale. He had seen Tony struggle with guilt, he had watched as Tony slowly put the Iron Man suit together, he was right there with him when Obadiah started to let his friendly mentor mask slip, he protected him from the things that went bump in the night, and he had front row seats to Tony’s brawl with Obadiah. He already saw Tony struggle with his fears and guilt. He already knew everything so what was there to hide? Hell, he fought demons just to protect Tony so he was already fighting one of his fears. Castiel didn’t judge, or at least he didn’t seem to judge him. Castiel just seemed to look worried about how shaken up Tony was. Castiel didn’t pry either. If Tony wanted to talk Castiel was willing to talk and give Tony his thoughts, but if Tony didn’t want to talk Cas didn’t force him.

However, more importantly Castiel could stop a nightmare dead in its tracks and Tony was all for using that ability if he could. It was usually pretty obvious when Tony was having a bad dream. He would toss and turn pretty widely, and vocally he wasn’t very silent. It didn’t happen all of the time, but it happened enough that Jarvis could give Cas a heads up a majority of the time. Tony was totally fine with Cas pop into his dreams if that meant that he wouldn’t have to watch Yinsen die in front of him again and that he wouldn’t have to hear a demonic Obadiah gloat over him while he stared at the lifeless form of Cas. Tony really didn’t need to see those things again.

“Songbird, if Jarvis tells you I’m having a nightmare I give you full permission to pop on in and take us to the place where a man flies his kite on a never ending Tuesday afternoon.”

Tony glanced over at Castiel only to see that the man looked surprised by what Tony said. The man got over his surprise quickly enough and offered Tony a small lopsided smile. Tony couldn’t help but smile himself upon seeing that. Castiel smiled so rarely that it was always a bit of a treat to see a grin on his face.

“So what do you want to do until you wake up?” Castiel asked.

Tony just continued to smile as he stared up at the sky.

“For now Songbird let’s just sit back and enjoy the Tuesday afternoon…”