Chapter Text
Tony Stark was a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. He was also in the middle of being kidnapped by a fucking huge, scaly, iridescent dragon.
"What the hell! J.A.R.V.I.S! Dragon! I'm being kidnapped by a flying lizard!"
Squirming wasn't really the same in the suit. It was fitted snug to prevent jostling when he flew, but with his entire body clasped in one of the creatures hands, arms pinned to his sides and chest pressed into its palm he thought a bit of panicked, ineffective struggling could be excused.
Dragons. Seriously.
He had only been doing a perimeter sweep of the tower. An excuse to get in the suit and fly, no threats expected. Then again, who the hell expects to be plucked from the sky in the middle of New York by a mythical beast?
A charged up unibeam erupted from the arc reactor in his chest and scorched deep into the flesh of his would be Tony-snatcher's palm. The thing made a sound between a roar and a screech, pretty much exactly how he imagined a wounded dragon would sound.
It tossed him away, and JARVIS immediately stepped in to stabilise the suit until he could clear his head enough to take back control. Bless his beautiful, resurrected soul. His boy was getting all the upgrades when he got out of this scrape. All of them.
"Sir, I would suggest a strategic retreat. The unibeam appears to have caused some penetrating damage, but not enough to indicates you could defeat it unaided, without risking significant damage to yourself."
His A.I. was right of course. He could see the dragons scaly hand, and while the skin was blackened and pink flesh peeked through, it didn't look all that deep. Shit.
Tony wasn't a genius for nothing. He probably couldn't beat the dragon, but no way in hell was he leading it back to his tower. That tower housed four of the only five people Tony allowed himself to love now. Rhodey was safe off being a little airforce minion, but J.A.R.V.I.S's main servers, and the bots were in there and he had no idea what this thing would do if he disappeared inside.
The remaining Avengers were safe at the compound. Not that he cared or anything. Tony had been living alone at the tower with the bots since the Ultron fiasco, so no immediate backup would be forthcoming. It was just him and J.A.R.V.I.S against this thing.
The dragon was the colour of an oil sheen across the top of a puddle. An iridescent, muted rainbow lizard as big as a quinjet, with hands big enough to engulf Tony's entire torso and still have the claws touch, and opalescent, pale grey eyes the size of Tony's head, filled with shining points of silver and white and thundercloud grey. Oh, and it was currently hovering and staring at him in a way physics really shouldn't allow considering its size and the speed of its wing beats.
Tony's brain kept throwing up calculations in the way it always did, and the answers came out wrong. His answers never came out wrong, which could only mean one thing. Fuck magic. Seriously.
The nervous babbling tangent in his head snapped to a halt when an altogether different voice replaced it. Dark and silky, it spoke clearly, straight into his mind.
"Calm down little mortal".
His thoughts stalled in panic.
In his head. It was in his head, touching his mind! Touching the only good thing about him and he had no way to stop it. No defences. Nothing. He had nothing! No. No. Nononono. Please. Please don't let it take that from him. The great Tony stark, merchant of death, wastrel, whore, rich, arrogant bastard. The only part of him worth having was his mind, and now it was helpless and entirely at the mercy of a fucking dragon.
While his internal meltdown happened, externally, his shield of cocky assholery kicked in with barely a pause. "Soooo. Dragon. Big, huge talking dragon. Great, I love dragons! The names Tony. Tony Stark. You've probably heard of me. I'm a pretty busy guy and if it's all good with you I'm gonna head off. Things to do, tech to invent, minds to blow, and you can get back to whatever very important business talking dragons have. Right, good talk Norbert, see you around!"
He was so glad for the voice modulator in the suit, for making his babble come out sounding almost as cocky as he hoped and not like the panicked, squeaky, word vomit it actually was. His tech really was the best.
He made to turn away with a blatantly fake, jaunty wave when the velvet voice returned, sounding entirely too amused. What had he said that was so funny?
"I am a dragon. I have decided, to be the best midgardian dragon, I must have the best midgardian princess for my hoard. As you rule at the top of the tallest tower, you will be my princess. You may come quietly, or you may struggle, but I will only catch you again. Facing downwards this time of course, so your clever little weapon will only fire uselessly between my talons."
The voice gained a gently mocking edge, "I promise not to eat you, I'm sure your curious armour would give me dreadful heartburn."
"Excuse me?" He squawked, outraged. "Under this fine piece of tech, is a fine specimen of manliness. I may be rich, and beautiful, and on a few occasions we don't mention, I may have even worn a dress, but I can absolutely assure you, I'm the furthest thing from a princess!"
Who knew dragons could look so smug? He scowled under the faceplate as the rude, horrible creature's huge eyes crinkled at the corners, and one side of the mouth tipped upwards in what was clearly a smirking . What an asshole.
"You don't have to lie princess" it cooed in a shit-eating voice that told Tony it knew perfectly well he wasn't a princess, but it was blatantly going to ignore that fact because it was a huge fucking troll. Oh my god. Were trolls a thing? Unicorns? Pixies?
He couldn't help a small smirk as the image of Fury ranting at his SHIELD minions, covered from eyepatch to sweeping coat hem in pixie dust.
"Oh my god are pixies a thing? Because I need to talk to one." The dragons grin faded a little as it squinted at him in confusion.
"Your mind must be a fascinating place little mortal. I'd love to be able to open it up and just look inside." It gave an exaggerated sigh and hangdog expression -that Tony didn't buy for a second!- "but alas my mental abilities are not so great-".
Before Tony could fully process slightly tentative relief, the dragon darted forward. Snatching him out of the air, between one blink and the next he was out of the New York sky, and into a huge, dimly lit cave, more than big enough for the dragon to move around comfortably. The smug voice continued "-my teleportation is excellent however!"
The end of the sentence didn't register as a tide of panic rose to drag Tony under.
Chest heaving as he started to hyperventilate, he clawed uselessly at the smooth surface of the faceplate. JARVIS swiftly slid it open and he took quick, gulping breaths. His face turned red and tears started to leak from the corners of his glazed eyes.
"No! No! I won't do it! I won't. I won't." He whimpered, one hand clutching protectively over the arc reactor as the other braced him where he had fallen, trembling, to his hands and knees. He had resisted torture in a cave in Afghanistan for three months, there was nothing that could be done to him now that would make him build another weapon. He could take anything he had to. He probably deserved it anyway.
After Ultron, his hands were so steeped in innocent blood it would take ten lifetimes to get them clean. Tony would die in agony before he would add to that. He deserved this. He deserved to be tortured in a cave by a dragon. He was a murderer after all.
Images filled his head, the soldiers from the car that died protecting him In Afghanistan(too weak), people he had failed to rescue on missions(too slow), victims of Ultron(too reckless, your fault, all your fault). The insidious voice of self loathing hissed to him.
"-rk! Stark!" The weird rumbling voice in his head was accompanied by a massive claw coming to rest just above the arc reactor. "What is wrong?" It sort of sounded like it actually cared. Weird. He was Tony Stark, people only cared about his money, his fame, and his weapons. Why would someone be worried for him now? It wasn't J.A.R.V.I.S's voice, or Rhodey's.
Tony Stark doesn't deserve good things. He had really beaten all the odds finding Rhodey at MIT. Finding Pepper on top of that had been unbelievable. It had seemed too good to be true, and he had pushed and pushed trying to figure out what she was after. He'd had his trust broken, been beaten down, and used, and betrayed far too many times to believe in her goodness so easily. After months he had let her in a little, extended a little trust, and she had taken it and proved herself over and over until she carved out a little place for herself in his battered, damaged heart. It took being in a relationship with him to drive her away.
There were five people in the world Tony still let himself care about, and he built four of them himself.
That was a lie, but he told his shredded heart to shut up. If they didn't care enough to stay, he didn't care either. Right.
Even if the tower did seem cold without cap lounging with a sketchbook in the common room, or Brucie bear in the kitchen cooking something from a recipe he picked up in Outer Mongolia. Thor wasn't always around, but he didn't miss the boisterous joy of the man as he greeted the 'Man of Iron!'. He especially didn't miss the mini heart attacks as he turned round to find one of the spysassin twins. Right. There.
No, Tony didn't care, he was alone now, with his creations, and he knew he didn't deserve even that, but he wouldn't make the debt on his soul any worse.
"Don't care, cant make me. Never gonna build you weapons." His mind was sort of aware what was going on around him, but being back in a cave had sent his consciousness curling away inside while fear, and hopeless determination, and memories reigned.
He barely registered the voice in his head becoming true sound, the strange colours and textures making way for more solid, but no less smooth words.
The next thing he registered was a man kneeling over him with palms on his cheeks. The suit was open around him, but not torn or damaged. "Breathe with me stark" The dragon, no, the man insisted and Tony's mind sputtered gradually back up to speed like an old car.
The suit was open but not damaged, so most likely JARVIS had deemed the man safe enough to make him vulnerable, which was calming. Also the mans face blocked the view of the cave roof above him.
"Don't move" he croaked. The man arched an eyebrow in imperious question, but didn't move while he slowly regulated his breathing. Huffing a final sigh he closed his eyes. "I'm afraid of caves." He didn't want to see the scorn in the face of this stranger at such a pathetic overreaction, so he didn't open them.