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For the first time in his life, Tony was working with a philosophy he was pretty sure would have the rest of the team demanding a video recording of the event.

Tony was keeping his big mouth shut.

The point of the experiment had been to test the Tesseract with decent equipment and minds made to understand it: see if clean energy derived from the cube really was possible. He'd talked to Bruce and Thor a long time before he agreed, reluctantly admitting that his curiosity was getting the better of him. If it could be channeled, contained...vibranium had some pretty amazing properties that could have been amazing to test...

The containment field had fallen. For once, Tony was being sensible: get the suit before doing anything remotely stupid. Problem was, he never got there.

There was an explosion, a wash of blue and black, unbelievable head-cracking pain...and then he was out.

When he came to, there were men standing over him. He wondered if he'd been abducted again, but the desert he was in didn't...well, it didn't feel like Afghanistan. The men could have easily been locals, but their clothes were more Prince of Persia than Taliban.

He got roughed up a little for not speaking the lingo. His hands were bound, and he was hustled through some kind of camp in the process of breaking down. Tony said nothing, but he kept his eyes wide open. He saw what looked like a bonfire still smoldering, tried to analyze the dialect being spoken...then mercifully, heard something that sounded like English. Sure, Tony lost some hope when a guy dressed like King Arthur showed up, but he stayed resolutely silent as the man in armor ordered him lashed to a stake in one of the remaining tents to wait on someone called Khaleesi.

Now Tony was tied up in a tent, trying to see if he could get free of the hide thongs binding his hands, and wondering exactly how far away from home the Tesseract had dumped him.

Maybe it was a good thing he didn't have the suit: they were probably gonna burn him as a witch because of the reactor in his chest. They wouldn't understand Iron Man, much less the basic idea of...

Hell, they probably barely understood iron, based on the swords they were carrying.

He was pretty sure his wrist was bleeding when the tent flap opened, admitting King Arthur and a tiny albino girl dressed like the would be Princes of Persia. Without hesitating, the knight stalked over and kicked Tony's side.

"On your knees before your queen."

Tony just glared at him, motionless until the guy backhanded him. Tony tasted blood, but only when he felt the sting of a swordblade digging into his neck did he finally struggle to his knees, his tether to the stake in the center of the tent barely allowing him that much mobility.

Shooting the knight another dirty look, Tony finally let his angry gaze fall on the girl, tongue snaking out to swipe at a bead of fresh blood on his lower lip.

Current Mood: anxious

Tony was trying very hard...well and truly trying...to pretend that Loki and Daenerys hadn't propositioned him, and that he hadn't accepted.

It had been a strange, hectic year, everyone could agree on that. Loki had turned himself over to Heimdall, only to be sent back to Earth for judgment. Fury hadn't trusted the government, so he'd negotiated a private sentencing with Loki: he would remain in SHIELD custody until the entire team could present a unanimous vote to free him.

Making the Targaryen girl agree to it was probably the hardest part.

So far, Loki had two votes of eight to release him (one being Thor, and the other being Steve after Loki had kissed a little ass and had asked Steve if he would sketch him), but the rest of the team wasn't about to fall in without proof of his intentions. To be fair, he had it better here than he did in Asgard: he was restricted to the SHIELD operations base just outside of Vegas, they didn't try to bind his powers, Loki didn't try to escape, and he even got "rec time," allowed to go out once a week with an escort. As far as war criminals went, he was living the high life.

Lately, he'd been courting Tony, which annoyed the crap out of him. Tony didn't like Loki, never would, and sure as hell would never vote for Loki to run loose. Not after what he did to Coulson, not after what he tried to do to Tony, and definitely not after what he did to Stark Tower.

...the little platinum blonde, on the other hand...

Daenerys had been downright pleasant, and came bearing gifts Tony couldn't say no to: Valyrian steel. Visions of Rearden Metal danced through his head, among other things, and he had to admit: the dragons were kind of cute. In a weird, scaly, lethal sort of way, but Tony could appreciate lethal: he liked things that blew up.

To that end, he was perfectly fine to let Daenerys hang out with him. He enjoyed her company, she seemed to appreciate that he liked her dragons, and he knew it annoyed Loki. Pepper didn't seem to mind it, fortunately, and she went all kinds of interesting shades of red when he teased her about giving Dany longing looks. He even liked the weird little thoughtful look she got while her freckles were vanishing beneath the blush, those made things really interesting at night...

Pepper was fine with it, all right, until the big fight at SHIELD headquarters.

Loki and Tony were arguing, and the girls were trying, unsuccessfully, to referee.

"I don't know why you're so fixated on me and your girl, Mr. Freeze, but if you have a crush on me, all you gotta do is ask."

"Had I any desire for a man's affection, Stark, I hardly think you would be up to the challenge!"

"Old and new gods be praised, if flesh could end this, I would beg you both come to my bedchamber!"

The blunt offer did the job, shocking them both into silence while Pepper stepped in with a wisecrack about how they were both pretty, and if she had to get out a ruler she was going to castrate them both with it. The fight ended with both men having to step in before a few heated words between the girls got out of control.

The next morning, Dany invited him over for dinner, to fix up the whole mess, and Tony accepted with the hidden meaning thick in the air. It was a hell of a way to call a truce, and Tony knew he'd probably do the same thing if he were in Dany's shoes and she was trying to kill Pepper...

He had a feeling that, if Loki didn't know he was coming to dinner, he definitely didn't know Daenerys was having fantasies about him and Tony doing God knew what.

Pepper sent him off with a kiss and a bottle of wine, making him repeat that he was, in fact, going to be at SHIELD headquarters and that it was, in fact, a felony to kill anyone even if it wasn't under the watchful eyes of one Phil Coulson and half the US government.

"You should come. There might be an orgy."

"Tony? I don't want to know. I really, really don't."

"Do you wanna know if either of them are any good?"

"Tony..."

"What if Dany says she has a thing for redheads?"

Pepper had blushed, bit him the next time she kissed him...and hadn't said no.

It was the only reason Tony smiled as he wound his way through the corridors of the military complex, locating Loki's cell...which was, in fact, a set of guest quarters with an armed guard at the door. Oh well...at least privacy was guaranteed?

Flashing his badge, he was admitted inside, calling out over his shoulder as soon as he was done flashing both guards a mock salute while the sliding doors closed.

"Dan? Jack Frost? Anybody home?!?"

Current Mood: confused

It got weird after New York, so they took some time.

That left Tony chasing after Bruce and dragging his teammates clear across the country just to keep himself amused. It led to building EDI and not saying something when Clint stole a kid. It led to building a suit JARVIS could use and building a casino...there was a lot of building. Stuff to do, things to work on, it kept his head out of the wrong places. The ones that led to him drinking and blowing things up and generally doing the sort of stuff that had nearly cost him everything when he thought he was dying.

He really, really thought he wasn't ever going to have to do that again. That was the point of it all, wasn't it? Build a particle accelerator in his house, rip his workshop to shreds, save his own life...no more dying.

So now he was building something else, namely a body for EDI, so he didn't have to think about all the fights that came after New York, how Pepper wasn't there when he nearly died, how she hadn't picked up her phone...how things started going wrong again, and next thing he knew they were circling each other the way they used to: both of them scared, angry, wanting, and neither of them with the guts to just move forward and do something about it.

So they took some time. Pepper managed things off-site with EDI's help, and Tony built a lot of things. He built things so he wouldn't tear himself apart, brick by damaged brick.

EDI's new physical frame was nearly done, he just needed to work out the kinks with hair and skintone. With the empty body stretched out on a table in the middle of his workshop on his floor of Stark Tower, he was struggling to ignore the fact that Pepper was in town and getting stuff done and generally just being amazing again because he wasn't sure if this meant she'd had enough time. He didn't know if she could cope with what he was doing, what he'd become with the rest of this team...he didn't know if they, Pepper and Tony, could survive another nuke in space without a phone call.

So he didn't ask, he didn't speak up. Instead, he tried to figure out a way to alter the layer of fiberoptic silicon over EDI's frame that would utilize light to mimic the appearance of human skin, and the micro-mesh that would form a solid, woven helmet to protect her positronic brain and still disengage to simulate human hair, allowing her to pass for normal.

He built so he wouldn't tear himself apart, brick by damaged brick...wondering if he still had a Pepper to his name.

Current Mood: anxious

Tony couldn't remember the last time he'd been so active. Not since he was a teenager had he fucked, been fucked, and wanted to fuck so goddamn much. Not that his sexual appetites were anything less than healthy, but there was a level of crazy to wanting it all the fucking time. She was staying on Tony's floor of Stark Tower, not just a room in the hotel, and they were spending weekends in Boulder City, and it was taking forever to get the hang of forging Valyrian steel...one, because it was complex, and two: he kept getting distracted.

He was also sleeping now. Which was kind of a revelation. Hell, even the rest of the team was noticing that he didn't drag as hard after a fight, because he'd gotten eight hours the night before.

"Hey! Heyheyhey, get back here! C'mon!"

Tony was stirred from his thoughts by a shot of dragonfire, leaving him glowering at the little cream and gold brat that was flitting around his lab. He'd insisted Daenerys give the kids (as he called her dragons) free run of the place, despite Pepper's shrieking about the property destruction after they set the grand piano in the living room on fire. He'd just slipped out of bed after having sex with Dany, again, and wasn't tired enough to sleep. The kids had followed him to the lab, so he'd let them in, and now he was trying to coax Viserion down from the ceiling to try some stuff with him. He'd been listening to Dany give them commands, and he knew for a fact that the little gold punk knew his name...

And seriously, who didn't want to be able to train a dragon?

Sitting on a stool in pajama pants and nothing else (he was far less self conscious about the reactor these days, he liked the look Dany got on her face when she looked at him without a shirt on), he snapped his fingers again at the little gold monster staring at him from the top of a filing cabinet nearby.

"Viserion, front and center!"

The dragon perked, then finally sailed back down to sit in front of Tony on the work station, gazing up at him with liquid gold eyes.

"Okay, better." he relented, reaching out to stroke his little head. Viserion trilled, leaning into the touch and flicking his wings restlessly.

"Yeah, I can dig it. Too much to do." Tony agreed with a nod and a little smile, tilting his head to one side as one of the dragons trumpeted behind him, and the smell of fire filled the air, but Tony ignored it when he didn't hear anything ignite or smell anything burn. "Fine. Well, while Mom's asleep? Let's see if we can't teach you something new...or improve what you already know. I don't exactly speak old high Valyrian, or whatever that garbage Dany spews is, but let's give it a shot, 'kay? Uh...what's that word she uses when she wants you to fly..."

Current Mood: curious

Valyrian steel, an unknown and as yet untested metal...of course Tony had to take the dragons out to play.

Dany was cute, no question, but Tony wanted the dragons and nothing else...at the moment. It was a little scary, purchasing the land out in Boulder City for the forge, assembling it all and making sure it was all in working order. It brought back a lot of bad memories, memories that still haunted him in his sleep, stone and damp and the choking smell of slag and smoke...

Pepper picked a few acres overlooking Lake Mead, well landscaped with the forge constructed in a clearing surrounded by trees and flowers and fountains...an oasis in the desert. There was even a little creek running across the property, and Tony really could have kissed Pepper for it. It was everything he needed with as few reminders of his abduction as possible.

It wasn't enough, but the reassurance of that consideration helped...that someone out there cared enough to try and help him forget.

He invited Daenerys up to the ranch, and beat her there by three days, making sure he had some time to organize the forget the way he wanted...beat back some of the shadows with long walks along the creek and visits to town to stop the panic attacks that he carefully hid, attempt to banish the nightmares he made sure to hide from his bedwarmers by sneaking away when he was done with the latest blonde to work with JARVIS or EDI on his laptop. In the end, he wasn't comfortable, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't freak out Dany with some stupid flashback episode.

It was hell...but Tony wanted, needed, hungered for something new. And her dragons could give it to him.