Work Text:
It was all going well, Tony thought. At least as well it can get with almost every Avengers in the same room.
Tony had arranged a party for the Avengers. Steve asked him why he did this out of the blue. "It's been too long! It's boring lately, and I figured you guys missed my face!" Was his reply with his usual arrogant tone. But really, after the Infinity War and all that, everything became more... cautious. After the war, Tony had realised that anyone and anything could just disappear in a second, and he knew that everyone else realised that too. He thought everyone, including him, needed a rest and a time to drink and laugh.
And it was the right choice, seeing as everyone looked completely relaxed, drinks in hand, laughing at Thor trying to chug a whole bucket of alcohol down. Tony released a breath he didn't even know he was holding. His eyes scanned the whole room, making sure that everything was going right and flowing smoothly. His eyes abruptly stopped at someone who was chatting with Bruce. He grinned from ear to ear and made his way to that someone.
"Hey, Stranger! How you doing without all that mumbo-jumbo magic duty you have?" Tony laid his arm over Stephen's shoulder, head leaning just a little bit, a smirk on his face. Everyone could see Stephen rolling his eyes, but only Tony could the affection behind the action. "I hope you do know that the 'mumbo-jumbo' is protecting your reality," Stephen lightly punched his shoulder, chuckling.
"Douchebag."
"Asshole!"
And with that, they started to banter and banter, not that anyone was surprised. In the middle of their 'arguing', one comment from Tony had set them both cackling and they continued their conversation as usual, talking about anything they could. And when nobody was watching, Tony sneaked a few touches here and there, and every time, Stephen would give him one of the most angelic smiles.
It was all going well, except for the few disarray (caused by an arm wrestling match). Nothing happened, no world-ending battle, no life-threatening match, just drinks and bliss. At least that was what Tony thought almost an hour ago.
Never jinx anything. Tony thought as he observed the mess— no, wreckage, around him. He couldn't even process how this happened, it was fine just ten minutes ago! He was going to grab a drink, chatting with Thor on the way. Just as he arrived, he felt a rumble. He didn't even get to ask anything before the ceiling came crashing down, revealing a... something. He couldn't even describe what the creature looked like! It was freakish and it didn't even look 3D! It looked as if it was paper, which was creepy. Tony let out a sigh. Well, no use dwelling on the creature's appearance, the other Avengers were already outside, battling. Good thing I didn't forget about the suit, he thought. Quickly putting his suit on, he headed to the battlefield.
As soon as he was near, he could already hear the yelling, screeching, courtesy of the creature, and the sounds of guns blasting and destruction. Just the usual. He was hovering near the monster, already powering up after he shot a blast, which had made absolutely no damage, which was impossible! He also noted that almost every weapon left the creature unscratched. The others were only distractions seeing that it was just swatting the attacks away.
He grunted in frustration as it deflected his blast again. He saw an orange sparking in his peripheral vision that made his head turn, and there he saw Stephen walking out of his portal. He looked the same to anyone, except he changed his attire from a dark blue suit, that looked absolutely ravishing on him, to his usual wizard costume, that looked equally as ravishing on him—not that he would admit it to anyone. Too bad Tony wasn't just anyone, because he noticed his pale complexion, paler than normal.
"Hey, Merlin! Where'd you go? We could use a little help over here!" Tony shouted just loud enough for Stephen to hear. As he landed on the ground, he could sense Stephen's eye roll. "Yeah, yeah. Look, I sensed something abnormal in the dimension's energy. It looked as if something, or someone, barged in."
Now he is the one eye rolling now. "Pretty sure the answer's right in front of us, Merlin!" He raised his arm to point towards the very obvious intruder, right before it struck a blow at the ground with such great force, the ground shook. Stephen and he took a step back, unsure how to approach the enemy.
"As I was saying, the main cause of the change isn't the monster, it was only a part of it. Somehow, a powerful energy managed to cause a rift in our dimension—leaving a gap for anything to enter." Stephen lifted his hand to pinch his nose bridge, which was a bad sign. This meant that this situation was more serious than they thought.
"The other sorcerers are struggling to close the gap but it's proven to be futile."
"What, you guys can't just super glue it?"
Tony was met with a glare. He raised his hands to either side of his head. The sorcerer was about to retort when he felt the rift breaking, the gap expanding in size, simultaneously as a blue portal emerged above them.
They didn't get the chance to say anything, because as soon as the portal emerged, a human body fell out, landing on debris. Quickly blinking out of their confusion, they approached the unmoving body with vigilance. Once they arrived, their face were tainted with shock, jaws dropping.
"Do i need glasses or is that a teenage girl's corpse?"