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For my Stony BINGO square “Smell.”
Aug. 5th, 2017 02:30 amvia http://ift.tt/2utbr6q:
For my Stony BINGO square “Smell.” Challenge was issued by @arukou-arukou
This is a continuation of this werewolf!Tony story I wrote last year. Mind the cut my mobile friends.
Steve moved into the shadow of the archway carefully and peered through the darkness. It was a crumbling ruin of an old castle surrounded by a mostly-standing wall and a wide stretch of overgrown lawn. He crouched down, balancing on the balls of his feet. 10,000 feet above him, Tony hovered in the clouds, keeping a careful distance from the castle. The odds that the castle was the one they were looking for was slim, but Steve didn’t want to take any chances with Tony’s tech.
He didn’t need to, but Steve still put a hand to his ear to shield the comm unit from the bitter wind. “You seeing anything from up there?”
“I’m not getting any strange readings,” Tony said after several seconds of nothing but wind. “But then again, I didn’t get any last time either. Nothing on infrared. Think we’re looking at another bust, Cap.”
Steve sighed and let his weight settle down between his heels. They’d gone through 30 abandoned castles and had gotten nothing for their trouble but some photographs. Rhodey and Nat were checking another ruin 50 miles south, and Clint and Thor were in Wales somewhere. The people who’d kidnapped him and Tony the year before had gone to ground hard, and even all of Tony and Nat’s concerted efforts hadn’t pulled them out yet.
“Well, at least I get to practice my photography some more,” Steve decided. “When we do start considering non-castle related options?”
“After we’ve exhausted all the castles,” Tony said, but he sounded just as weary of castle duty as Steve. Jarvis had analyzed the video that Rhodey had tracked down during his search the year before. From faint background details and sounds on the audio that even Steve hadn’t been able to hear, Jarvis had determined that there was an overwhelming likelihood that the Lunar Scientific Solutions Group was operating out of a castle ruin for their less-legal research. The chances of them still being in that castle were slim to none, but they had to hunt down every lead. More and more wolf shifters were disappearing every month. It was just starting to make the rounds through the media.
“Go ahead and land,” Steve said. The corners of his lips twitched upward. “We can camp out here tonight, if you want.”
“You know, Rogers, you’re not funny.”
Laughing, Steve shifted his weight so he could pull his shield off his back. He leaned back against the wall to take advantage of the scarce protection it offered. Once Tony was on the ground, they would clear through the castle on foot. The first approach they’d made on LSS’s legitimate business front had been met with a powerful EMP blast that had left Tony and Rhodey both virtually helpless in the street. He listened carefully for the distinctive whine of Tony’s repulsors and twisted to look up at him as soon as he’d caught the sound.
Against the dark sky, Tony was only visible because he was in motion. To anyone who wasn’t looking for him, he might have passed for a bird or a distant jet. Steve covered his face with one hand, feeling his cheeks heat up – no, he thought with an internal groan of embarrassment, it’s Iron Man!
Tony swung around the castle compound, making a leisurely loop over the grounds. He briefly disappeared behind the half-crumbled remains of the castle tower, and then emerged on the other side, bathed in moonlight. Steve admired him as he made a turn that looked easy. Considering the forces Tony was dealing with, it had to be exceptionally difficult, but Tony managed to look like he was breezing through most things.
Pressing his shoulders back against the wall, Steve shoved his weight back up to the balls of his feet and then rolled forward to stand. Tony curved away from the perimeter as he made the final turn to meet Steve at the archway, and Steve left the relative safety of the shadows to join him in the field.
A searing flash of light exploded from the ground. Steve flung his shield up, ducking down behind it automatically with an afterimage of Iron Man burned onto the backs of his eyelids. He’d barely registered the light before a concussive fwoom! made the ground under his feet ripple like water. He leapt blindly, but his supporting foot went out from under him, and the horrible vertigo rush of falling reached out to grab him.
(Keep Reading)
~*~
Tony blinked his eyes open. The HUD was dark, and the suit was dead silent, but the air inside was still at a comfortable temperature. He couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a few minutes. The last thing Tony had seen was Steve disappearing like the ground had just decided to swallow him up.
“Jarvis? J! Hey, come on, buddy. We’ve taken worse falls than that,” Tony said, but the suit remained dead and heavy around him. Without the power on, Tony was effectively stuck in a 400 pound coffin. He tried to shift the weight of the suit, but he’d landed on an uneven surface. From the pressure in his head, he guessed that he was at least partially upside-down.
“Damn,” Tony grumbled, suppressing a spike of panic. He was stuck in the suit, upside-down and potentially buried under rubble, he had no idea where Steve had ended up – and Steve didn’t have the benefit of a suit to keep him from being instantly crushed. “Stop thinking small,” Tony told himself, sucking in a breath.
1) He was breathing, and not in pain. 2) He was getting fresh air in, and not suffocating on CO2 which meant that the suit’s emergency procedures had functioned well enough to open the external vents when the suit shut down. 3) If he was getting fresh air, he was not entirely buried. 4) He could feel no pressure on his back or legs, so he probably wasn’t underneath anything. 5) No one was better at improbably surviving falls than Steve. 6) Tony had built internal emergency releases for a reason.
Wiggling his fingers experimentally to make sure everything work, Tony keyed in the release sequence to open the back of the suit. Cold air hit his sweat-soaked back and he pushed himself slowly up to his knees. He’d landed in what had probably once been siege pasturing for the medieval castle, but at present looked more like a testing field for explosives. At some point during the fall, he’d managed to get his left leg partially pinned, and his head had ended up facing down the slope of the new crater.
The suit closed up behind him as soon as Tony had stepped out of it, sealing again with soft hiss. He leaned back against the crater, taking stock of himself and mulling unhappily over the state of the armor. There was no way he was getting it out of the ground in the dark, and Steve was still out there somewhere, not to mention whatever – or whoever – had shot him down in the first place. The air around him was still and quiet except for the humming of insects, and the distant hooting of a lone owl.
As he climbed up the edge of the impact crater, he review the last few moments before he’d been shot down. There had been only a blip of warning as the energy gathered, and then a bright flash of light, a rumble like thunder, and a sharp impact on his chest. He hadn’t been fired on until he’d curved away from the perimeter wall, so it could have been an automated defense. Whatever it was, it shouldn’t have been enough to knock his suit offline without doing more damage to him, unless it had been accompanied by an EMP.
Tony shoved himself over the lip of the crater and ran for the wall. His left leg cramped badly, and he felt an automatic snarl ripping out of his throat. He was good at suppressing his wolf in stressful situations, but he’d apparently reached his threshold. His chest burned with the heat of an impending transformation, but he shoved it down and kept running. He absolutely did not need an uncontrolled shift when he was still wearing his skin-tight ballistic undersuit.
Flattening himself to the wall a dozen yards from where Steve had disappeared into the ground, Tony listened for any reactions to his movement. The bugs continued their nighttime racket, and the owl mocked him, hoot-hoot, for his trouble. Testing the ground carefully as he went, Tony crept closer to the hole that had swallowed his packmate. Steve was nowhere to be seen, and the crater dropped away into darkness.
“Steve?” Tony called, keeping a careful leash on the anxiety that made him want to whimper and pace. “Steve! I know how much you love hide-and-seek, but don’t you think it’s a little silly out here?”
Ears straining for any familiar noise, Tony gave into the urge to whine. The sound rasped against the back of his throat and came out high-pitched and louder than he’d intended. He nudged a pebble through the opening to judge the depth, but it hit in under a second. He could survive the fall. Provided that the pebble hit the bottom and not just another rocky outcropping.
“Fine,” Tony said under his breath. “Pepper is always saying I should get in touch with my wolf side. You better not suck at this,” he warned his wolf as he started stripping out of the undersuit. The moon wasn’t quite half full. Ever since his and Steve’s impromptu camping trip, Tony had started shifting more often than the required full moon, but it was still a rare enough occurrence that he felt a mingled thrill of anticipation and dread. It was accompanied by the familiar embarrassment that he’d never really gotten over. He cast a useless glance around the dark landscape, and dropped down to all fours.
Shifting on purpose had never been as easy for him as every other shifter he’d met. It was difficult to relax the iron control he kept on his beast, and it always felt horrifyingly like he was losing control of his bladder. His skin prickled, fever hot, and he imagined that the wolf was just under his ribs, twisting and struggle to escape its cage. He gagged, squeezing his eyes shut against the disorientating blurring of his vision. All at once, he felt like he was floating free of the ground. Sensation faded – the hard rocks and overturned earth under his knees, the cold wind, even the mocking hoot of that damned owl – and Tony was left adrift in the void, lost to pain and heat. He started to panic, scrabbling desperately for control, for air, but the wolf had its jaws in him.
Reality came back all at once. Tony found himself panting on his side, paws kicking weakly at the ground. It was different than transforming on the full moon, where he lost all sense of self and completely submerged into the wolf. He was still aware of who he was, and where he was, and what he’d been doing, but all of those things were distant. Unimportant. He rose up to all four legs and shook out his fur, casting off the last twinges of pain.
The world was soft blue, purple, gray, though identifying the individual colors was ultimately unnecessary. In many ways, everything was simpler as a wolf: things simple were. They didn’t need to be classified and broken down, and reasoned to death. They existed. That was all.
Lifting his muzzle to the air, he scented the wind. The owl had fallen silent, but he could smell it in the trees, along with dozens of other prey animals. Pines, cool water, a distant stench of decay. Closer to the ground he could smell pack. Moonbright pack human. Steve, he thought sluggishly. Tony cautiously followed the scent to the hole in the ground, prancing around it as he picked through the stones. The moonlight limned the edges of the rocky protrusions and cast deep shadows that made it difficult to judge the depth between footholds. His ears twitched as he followed the sounds of the night, conscious that there was a possible danger, but not of the variety the wolf could easily understand. Could be, and what if, and maybe, and future were all difficult concepts when he was in his shifted form.
Sticking his muzzle in the hole Steve had fallen in, he sniffed the air. It was damp, and smelled pungently of earth, and mildew. And also of Steve. He whined again, and then yipped twice. He couldn’t hear Steve at the bottom of the hole, but he could smell him somewhere close by. With his wolf eyes, he could just see the smooth floor, as well as a partially collapsed wall that served as a sort of ramp. He judged the distance carefully, muscles bunching underneath him, and then leapt. Tony hit the slant of the collapsed wall and scrambled in a bid for balance, claws raking across the hard stone and sending pebbles scattering down in his wake.
Jumping again before he rolled out of control, Tony hit the ground hard on his forepaws. He smacked into the opposite wall, and slid down into an awkward sprawl. Panting, he took a moment to take stock of where he’d landed, and then cautiously got back to his feet. He was sore from the impacts, but the pain was minimal and would fade. His human wouldn’t have had such a good time of it, because his human was fragile and not well balanced. Satisfied, he shook himself out and scented the air again.
Steve’s scent – like sunrise – was a strong beacon among all the musty smells of a place left abandoned. Tony made a circle of the room, examining a flat rock that was heavy with Steve’s scent, and then spending a long time sniffing worriedly over a smear of blood.
The scent trail led off into the darkness through an opening in the wall. Even his wolf’s far superior eyes wouldn’t be able to pick out much in those depths, but it didn’t matter. Where Steve’s sunrise scent went, Tony would follow.
~*~
The tunnel was straight and smooth. It was too dark for Tony to know its dimensions, but that wasn’t important. He kept himself pressed closed to one wall, and his nose to the ground, following Steve’s trail. In the close darkness, there was no sound except the huffing and sniffling of his own breath, and the scrape of his nails on the stone. Other than the bright scent of his packmate, the place smelled musty and abandoned.
When the wall beside him stopped, Tony slowed. Ahead of him was only the sense of open air. The wall turned off to the right, but Steve’s scent was in a cloud all around him, as if his human packmate had stopped to rest, or paced for a while. Tony investigated the open area cautiously. He put his nose to the ground and crept forward a few steps into the open. The ground remained solid. He couldn’t hear the rush of air over a sudden drop, or smell anything other than the same musty-abandoned scent and Steve. He went in a circle, nose brushing through the dust, investigating Steve’s steps.
Tony knew with the distant foggy understanding of his human brain that Steve would have stuck to the wall if he’d been unable to see. He would have gone around the corner and continued going right. He knew with the same human-thought that Steve would have been carrying a light. If he’d moved away from the wall, he still had the light with him. Tony bumped into another wall, and rose up on his hindquarters to sniff at it – Steve had leaned against it for a while. Dropping back to all fours, Tony continued in a circle, trying to make sense of the scent pattern. Had he doubled back and taken a different corner on the other side of the tunnel?
Sitting around wouldn’t get him anywhere. Tony moved away from the cloud of Steve’s scent, venturing down one tunnel until he was sure that Steve hadn’t gone that way, and then turning around and picking another. The third tunnel was the way Tony had come from, so he passed it to the fourth and picked up Steve’s scent, stronger, against the wall several body lengths down. It was accompanied by another smear of blood. Tony growled and picked up his pace, sniffing furiously. Steve’s scent was no longer following one wall, but weaving unsteadily between the two. The tunnel was narrow, and Tony’s packmate had either been moving too quickly in the dark, or hadn’t been able to keep his balance.
A low growl built in his chest the further he went and drops of blood became more common, until he was snarling almost without pause. His packmate was injured and too silly to sit down in one place and wait for Tony to come get him. Sometimes humans were frustratingly stupid. His pace built up to a lope as Steve’s rests grew closer together, and almost didn’t hear the distant scrape of footsteps over his own growling.
Tony skidded to a messy halt at the sudden sense of movement. A metallic-sweet smell that his human-thoughts recognized as vibranium burst into the air. Tony flattened himself to the ground awkwardly, and it flew over his head, moving fast enough to shriek with the wind of its passing. It hit the wall behind him with a painful clang, and Tony leapt away on instinct just before the object hit the ground and flew back at him.
“Stop where you are,” Steve rasped out.
Tony pressed himself to the wall and quieted the snarling in his chest. His packmate was human and humans had terrible senses, and his packmate might not recognize him. He crept forward, issuing a high-pitched yip, trying to tell the human that it was him. It occurred to him that if he shifted back to his human form, he could talk, but the wolf didn’t want to be upright, and he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to make sure Steve was unharmed. Besides, as a human, Tony would be just as stupid in the dark as Steve. He yipped again, lowering himself to his belly and sliding through the dust.
“….Tony?” Steve said finally, scent spiking with anxiety and relief. “Is that you?”
Tony barked. Barking was for cubs, but humans needed special consideration. He heard Steve hit the wall and sag down to the floor. Tony keyed in on the sound and wiggled forward, keeping himself low to the ground just in case Steve got jumpy again. His tail swished madly across the ground as he got within touching distance of his packmate. Steve held up a clumsy hand and knocked into Tony’s muzzle. Tony licked him. Steve curled forward so he was laying his entire weight across Tony’s shoulders. He was shaking and smelled strongly of blood and sweat.
“I am so happy to see you,” Steve said, and then started to laugh. “Feel you,” he amended, and then buried his face against Tony ruff and inhaled. Somewhat weakly and still laughing, he said, “Smell you. I didn’t know what had happened to you. I tried to call for you back at the hole, but the comms were fried and you weren’t responding. I thought you must have fallen in somewhere.”
Tony huffed.
“I know. I should have stayed where I was, but someone shot us down. I wanted to make it difficult for them to find me.” He curled his hands in Tony’s fur and scratched vigorously. It felt nice. “I heard you a ways back and I thought maybe you were the bad guys. Sorry.”
Rolling his eyes, Tony butted his head into Steve’s chest. He was rewarded with another rough scratch down his neck, and Steve shifted closer to cuddle against him. Tony struggled out of his hold enough to sniff at the human’s face and neck, looking for the source of the blood. He licked at what he’d found – metal tang and dirt, but clean – until he found the injury behind Steve’s ear. Steve tried to pull away from him, but Tony set his teeth around his packmate’s shoulder until he stopped moving. Though it made him laugh and squirm, Steve submitted to being cleaned after that, and Tony set diligently to the task.
“It’s just a cut,” Steve told him, but didn’t try to escape again.
Once Tony was satisfied that the wound was clean, he inspected the human for other injuries. He found no other open injuries, though Steve shifted away from him when pressed his nose to the human’s side. Tony growled unhappily, which got him a few firm pats to his ribs and a rough rub to the belly.
“I’m fine,” Steve said. “Thank you for the bath.” He sounded amused. “Since you’re still furry, I’m guessing you’re going to stay this way for a while?”
Tony wuffed out a breath. Since Steve didn’t seem inclined to let him go, he settled himself more comfortably across the human’s lap. In his wolf form, he was easily Steve’s equal in size, though his human-thoughts had never been comfortable with that. His human was small and lithe and good at things that the wolf was not. The wolf just happened to be better at things that mattered.
After several more minutes of sharing body heat and enjoying Steve’s pets and scratches, Tony gave Steve a final lick across the face and stood up again. They couldn’t stay down in the tunnels forever. It wouldn’t be possible to get back up the way they’d fallen down, so they needed to find another way out before water and food became an issue.
Steve huffed out a breath of his own, and then climbed up to his feet. “I’m turning the flashlight on,” he warned.
Flashlight was a concept for Tony’s human, but he understood enough to close his eyes. He opened them again cautiously after he heard the click of the flashlight. The tunnel was bathed in cold light, which meant little to Tony except that Steve would have less trouble navigating. Steve patted him affectionately between the shoulders, and then started walking. Tony trotted at his side, scenting the air as they went. Far down the tunnel, he could just hear the faint tinkle of water.
“I’ve been looking for a way up,” Steve explained, sweeping his light from side to side and occasionally pointing it toward the ceiling.
Tony didn’t bother to follow the progress of the light. He could tell by the way the sound of their footsteps echoed that there was no break in the tunnel for at least some distance ahead. Steve didn’t continue to chat as they walked, and easily kept up with Tony’s pace. When the wet-mildew scent grew stronger, Tony sped up. He found the water drizzling down the wall just before the end of the tunnel and stopped to investigate. The water was not clean, and it had made a puddle on the floor. Tony rose up his hindlegs and braced his forepaws on the wall. A slight breeze hit his nose. Tony wuffed and scratched at it.
“What did you find?” Steve asked as if Tony could answer him. He stepping up next to Tony and shone his light on the wall.
Tony pressed his nose to the source of the breeze. Water dripped over his nose. He sneezed and jerked back, shaking his head. Steve nudged him out of the way so he could feel along the wet wall.
“There’s a groove here,” Steve said. “And air…” he let his hand drift up the wall, stretching to the ceiling, and then down to the floor. He started pushing on the wall. Tony cocked his head, watching curiously as Steve shoved and pushed at what seemed to Tony to be a solid rock. Still, Steve seemed to have a purpose, so Tony eased up next to him and started digging at the ground.
Steve laughed. “You’re not helping, you big mutt.” He nudged Tony out of the way with one leg and kept up pressing on the wall.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, his human-thoughts snarled in indignation, though he wasn’t completely sure why. There was an abrupt grinding sound and Steve stumbled forward as the wall gave away under his hands. A small flood of water rushed out to soak their feet. Startled, Tony snagged the human by his belt and dragged him back. Steve nearly tripped on him, but was able to bend backward until he could touch the wall behind them and pushed himself back onto his feet.
Shoving Steve out of the way, Tony investigated the opening. A set of stairs led upward beyond the range of Steve’s light. Water leaked down the walls and trickled over the steps in a steady stream, gathering on the floor in bad smelling puddles. Steve squeezed around him into the space, pointing his light upward. Tony eyed the stairs uncertainly. The steps were narrow, and steep, and slippery. They would be difficult for him to use.
Steve put a cautious foot on the lowest step and leaned forward to look up the curve of the staircase. He stepped back. “You better go in front of me,” he said, pressing himself to one of the stinking walls. He gestured up the curving stairs and gave Tony an unnecessary cuff on the shoulder as he padded through the slimy puddles and up to the stairs.
Tony couldn’t smell much of anything over the stench of standing water, but he listened carefully as they went. He slipped twice, but Steve stayed close behind him and shoved him back up before he could lose much ground. He was thoroughly tired of the tiny slippery stairs by the time they made it to a door, and was only too happy to shoulder it open. The timbers were rotted and water was pouring out from below them. One shove from Tony’s shoulder, and it flew outward to hit the wall. Cold air rushed into the stairwell, flattening the fur on the top of his head. Tony’s paws were already soaked in the stinking water. He splashed through to the open air landing and let Steve pass him with his light.
The air had a strange burning scent that made his hackles rise. Tony followed Steve down another steep staircase onto a broken stone floor. He heard the skittering of a rat running for cover, the burnt scent grew stronger, but other than the wind screaming through the stones, there was nothing. Steve moved swiftly through the open space, crouched low as he went. Tony approved as he ran along beside him, and wondered why his human didn’t let him run like this more often. He and Steve were pack and they would hunt well together.
Across the broken stones, a door shoved open and a dark figure stumbled out backwards. Tony barked and sped up. Steve threw his metal disc as they ran. It whistled as it spun through the air, and then there was a yelp of pain and surprise. The figure dropped the box they’d been carrying. The disc hit the wall and returned. Steve caught it without breaking stride, and Tony opened his stride to pass his packmate. Another figure came running from the darkened doorway just as Tony hit the short stairs. He leapt, aiming for the human’s throat. They both went down in a tumble, his prey screaming with animal terror.
Tony got his teeth into the human’s shoulder so they wouldn’t run, and dragged them back out the door.
“Good job, Tony,” Steve praised. He had one knee on his prey’s spine and was tying their hands back.
Screaming, Tony’s prey tried to struggle away. He bit down harder on the tough hide, worrying his head side-to-side to subdue them. Tony had the human back down the stairs and nearly to Steve’s side by the time he’d finished with his own prey.
“I’ve got him,” Steve said, patting Tony roughly on one side. He grabbed Tony’s screaming prey by one arm.
His human-thoughts were telling him to let go, but this was Tony’s prey. He growled unhappily.
“Iron Man, let him go. Tony!”
At the sharp bark of Steve’s voice, Tony reluctantly let go and backed away. Steve rolled the screaming human onto their stomach and pulled their arms back. Tony’s ears pulled back and he felt himself growling in displeasure as Steve tied their prey up and started going through their pockets. He came up with a small object and started poking at it.
“Clint, it’s Steve. Oh – Good. Okay.”
Tony twitched his head curiously while Steve talked at the box. Tony could hear the box talking back – his human was not confused about it, and Tony didn’t think it was important. One of the prey rolled over and tried to inch away from Steve’s feet. Tony let him get a few feet away and then stood up and walked over. He planted one paw in the middle of the human’s back. Steve nodded to him. Tony watched the other one while he settled his weight more firmly on his whimpering captive.
“Yeah, Tony’s here with me, but he got hit with another EMP or something, so we’re going to need help getting out of here. Can you call Rhodey? I… borrowed a phone from one of the local ‘residents.’ We’ll secure these two and search the rest of the castle. Not sure, but we’ll find out.”
Steve put the box away. He looked down at the prey under Tony’s paws. “Clint and Thor are already on the way. They headed this way when we went dark on comms, and they should be here in about twenty.”
Crouching down at Tony’s side, Steve asked, “How many of your buddies am I going to find in that castle?” When the prey didn’t respond, Steve tapped him on the shoulder. His stiff protective clothing had been torn open by Tony’s teeth, though the skin underneath was unmarred. “You know he’s a shifter right? That’s Iron Man standing on your spine.”
“Fucking shit goddamnit mother – ”
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Steve interrupted.
For some reason, Tony’s human was amused. Tony let his tongue lull out of his mouth and then leaned forward enough to lick Steve across one cheek.
“It’s just us!” the prey squeaked when Tony shifted to lay more of his weight across the human’s back. The human had to struggle to breathe around Tony’s bulk. “Just… cleaning out the gear! Swear.”
Steve considered that for a moment and then gave Tony an affection scratch behind the ears. “I’m going to leave my teammate here with you and go see if you’re telling the truth.” His voice was bright and cheerful, but he finished by saying, “I sure hope you are.”
~*~
The other human-packmatess arrived in a flying box that made an annoying noise. Tony eyed it from his place with the captive prey and wondered if he could do enough damage to it to make it stop. He growled. Underneath him, the prey sobbed and moaned. It was a very strange creature, even for a human. The annoying sound slowed and then stopped, though a fast tickticktick remained as a familiar pack human jumped out of the box.
“On four legs and everything, huh, Stark? Someone musta really pissed you off.”
Tony yawned and took his weight off the prey. The human gasped and rolled onto its side so it could pull its legs up. Tony thought about sitting on it again, but decided not to. The pack human approached – he smelled like a bees’ nest, oil, and pine trees.
“You’re not gonna bite me if I come over there, are you?” He put a hand to his chest. “Clint. You remember me?”
Huffing out an irritated breath, Tony left the prey to Clint with his bees’ nest scented fingers and went in search of Steve. Above ground and without the mildew scent to confuse his nose, Steve was easy to find. One intact hallway led to a door that smelled newer than the surrounding stones. It was standing open, and Steve was inside, staring down at a handful of papers. He looked up as Tony shouldered past the door.
“We need to find these people,” Steve said. He was a human and he couldn’t really growl, but his voice sounded like it as he clutched the pages in his hands. Tony sat down and watched him, growing bored now that there was apparently no more danger and their pack had arrived. Steve drew in some ragged breaths, and then set the pages down and smoothed them out. “Once you feel like being on two feet again, we’ll go over these together.”
Tony quirked his head. He didn’t want to give up the body so soon. It felt nice to be out in the air in his fur. Usually he just had the confines of his den. The toys were nice, and there was always plenty of food, and new things to smell, but he liked being outside. Steve grabbed a box and started loading papers into it. Other papers were scattered around the room like fallen leaves. Tony scratched at one until he got it off the floor enough to get his teeth around it, and then carefully brought it over to drop in Steve’s box. Steve rewarded him with a pat on the head, and Tony went to retrieve another page.
~*~
The prey had been tied up and secured against one wall of the flying box, and all of their toys had been piled up in another corner. Other than Steve’s box of papers, there had been other boxes of all sizes in a larger box that smelled like stale food and musk. Tony had torn the cushions apart just for being offensive while Clint had laughed. His human’s metal clothes had been dragged into the flying box and left on the floor by Thor – who smelled like rain and lightning and spice – and Steve was seated at one of the benches with a book in his lap. He’d taken the book from the prey’s toybox.
Tony butted his head against Steve’s hand. When Steve didn’t take his attention off the book, Tony reached up to drop a paw on his forearm. Steve finally moved the book out of the way so Tony could put his head on Steve’s knee. He yawned and heaved out a breath. He was hungry, and smelled like stagnant water, and wanted to sleep. Steve put a hand on his head and ran his fingers over Tony’s ears – that was the good thing about humans. Their hands weren’t very good for running or digging, but they were good for petting.
Before Steve, Tony hadn’t gotten petted often. Sometimes his nightdark human-pack Rhodey had played with him and scratched his neck, and sometimes his sunbright human-pack Pepper had rubbed his belly or petted his back. Tony’s human didn’t let them very often. He hated the wolf. Steve was different – moonpale and sweet metal scent, and whenever the wolf was allowed out around him, Steve would pet him all night. Once they had even slept in Tony’s den together.
“If you’re going to stay like this for a while, you’re getting a bath when we get home,” Steve said.
“Wow, you are feeling brave tonight,” Clint said. He was sitting in a different part of the box, pushing and tugging and pulling at it.
Clint and Thor and the other human-packmates were new. Tony still wasn’t sure if he trusted them, but Steve trusted them, so it was alright.
“Tony will have a fit tomorrow if the penthouse smells like sewer water,” Steve said back.
“Tony won’t have to be annoyed with it at all if Tony just changes back into Tony.”
Tony’s ears twisted at the sound of his name. Steve scratched them. His fingers were cold, but Tony didn’t mind much, even when Steve decided to pet his muzzle and drag his fingers down between Tony’s eyes. He scooted closer, starting to get cold with the water seeping through his fur and the whistling sharp-smelling air of the flying box. It still made too much noise. He sighed.
“Ignore him,” Steve said, curling over and wrapping his arms around Tony’s neck. “You’re fine in whatever body you want to be in.”
For my Stony BINGO square “Smell.” Challenge was issued by @arukou-arukou
This is a continuation of this werewolf!Tony story I wrote last year. Mind the cut my mobile friends.
Steve moved into the shadow of the archway carefully and peered through the darkness. It was a crumbling ruin of an old castle surrounded by a mostly-standing wall and a wide stretch of overgrown lawn. He crouched down, balancing on the balls of his feet. 10,000 feet above him, Tony hovered in the clouds, keeping a careful distance from the castle. The odds that the castle was the one they were looking for was slim, but Steve didn’t want to take any chances with Tony’s tech.
He didn’t need to, but Steve still put a hand to his ear to shield the comm unit from the bitter wind. “You seeing anything from up there?”
“I’m not getting any strange readings,” Tony said after several seconds of nothing but wind. “But then again, I didn’t get any last time either. Nothing on infrared. Think we’re looking at another bust, Cap.”
Steve sighed and let his weight settle down between his heels. They’d gone through 30 abandoned castles and had gotten nothing for their trouble but some photographs. Rhodey and Nat were checking another ruin 50 miles south, and Clint and Thor were in Wales somewhere. The people who’d kidnapped him and Tony the year before had gone to ground hard, and even all of Tony and Nat’s concerted efforts hadn’t pulled them out yet.
“Well, at least I get to practice my photography some more,” Steve decided. “When we do start considering non-castle related options?”
“After we’ve exhausted all the castles,” Tony said, but he sounded just as weary of castle duty as Steve. Jarvis had analyzed the video that Rhodey had tracked down during his search the year before. From faint background details and sounds on the audio that even Steve hadn’t been able to hear, Jarvis had determined that there was an overwhelming likelihood that the Lunar Scientific Solutions Group was operating out of a castle ruin for their less-legal research. The chances of them still being in that castle were slim to none, but they had to hunt down every lead. More and more wolf shifters were disappearing every month. It was just starting to make the rounds through the media.
“Go ahead and land,” Steve said. The corners of his lips twitched upward. “We can camp out here tonight, if you want.”
“You know, Rogers, you’re not funny.”
Laughing, Steve shifted his weight so he could pull his shield off his back. He leaned back against the wall to take advantage of the scarce protection it offered. Once Tony was on the ground, they would clear through the castle on foot. The first approach they’d made on LSS’s legitimate business front had been met with a powerful EMP blast that had left Tony and Rhodey both virtually helpless in the street. He listened carefully for the distinctive whine of Tony’s repulsors and twisted to look up at him as soon as he’d caught the sound.
Against the dark sky, Tony was only visible because he was in motion. To anyone who wasn’t looking for him, he might have passed for a bird or a distant jet. Steve covered his face with one hand, feeling his cheeks heat up – no, he thought with an internal groan of embarrassment, it’s Iron Man!
Tony swung around the castle compound, making a leisurely loop over the grounds. He briefly disappeared behind the half-crumbled remains of the castle tower, and then emerged on the other side, bathed in moonlight. Steve admired him as he made a turn that looked easy. Considering the forces Tony was dealing with, it had to be exceptionally difficult, but Tony managed to look like he was breezing through most things.
Pressing his shoulders back against the wall, Steve shoved his weight back up to the balls of his feet and then rolled forward to stand. Tony curved away from the perimeter as he made the final turn to meet Steve at the archway, and Steve left the relative safety of the shadows to join him in the field.
A searing flash of light exploded from the ground. Steve flung his shield up, ducking down behind it automatically with an afterimage of Iron Man burned onto the backs of his eyelids. He’d barely registered the light before a concussive fwoom! made the ground under his feet ripple like water. He leapt blindly, but his supporting foot went out from under him, and the horrible vertigo rush of falling reached out to grab him.
(Keep Reading)
~*~
Tony blinked his eyes open. The HUD was dark, and the suit was dead silent, but the air inside was still at a comfortable temperature. He couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a few minutes. The last thing Tony had seen was Steve disappearing like the ground had just decided to swallow him up.
“Jarvis? J! Hey, come on, buddy. We’ve taken worse falls than that,” Tony said, but the suit remained dead and heavy around him. Without the power on, Tony was effectively stuck in a 400 pound coffin. He tried to shift the weight of the suit, but he’d landed on an uneven surface. From the pressure in his head, he guessed that he was at least partially upside-down.
“Damn,” Tony grumbled, suppressing a spike of panic. He was stuck in the suit, upside-down and potentially buried under rubble, he had no idea where Steve had ended up – and Steve didn’t have the benefit of a suit to keep him from being instantly crushed. “Stop thinking small,” Tony told himself, sucking in a breath.
1) He was breathing, and not in pain. 2) He was getting fresh air in, and not suffocating on CO2 which meant that the suit’s emergency procedures had functioned well enough to open the external vents when the suit shut down. 3) If he was getting fresh air, he was not entirely buried. 4) He could feel no pressure on his back or legs, so he probably wasn’t underneath anything. 5) No one was better at improbably surviving falls than Steve. 6) Tony had built internal emergency releases for a reason.
Wiggling his fingers experimentally to make sure everything work, Tony keyed in the release sequence to open the back of the suit. Cold air hit his sweat-soaked back and he pushed himself slowly up to his knees. He’d landed in what had probably once been siege pasturing for the medieval castle, but at present looked more like a testing field for explosives. At some point during the fall, he’d managed to get his left leg partially pinned, and his head had ended up facing down the slope of the new crater.
The suit closed up behind him as soon as Tony had stepped out of it, sealing again with soft hiss. He leaned back against the crater, taking stock of himself and mulling unhappily over the state of the armor. There was no way he was getting it out of the ground in the dark, and Steve was still out there somewhere, not to mention whatever – or whoever – had shot him down in the first place. The air around him was still and quiet except for the humming of insects, and the distant hooting of a lone owl.
As he climbed up the edge of the impact crater, he review the last few moments before he’d been shot down. There had been only a blip of warning as the energy gathered, and then a bright flash of light, a rumble like thunder, and a sharp impact on his chest. He hadn’t been fired on until he’d curved away from the perimeter wall, so it could have been an automated defense. Whatever it was, it shouldn’t have been enough to knock his suit offline without doing more damage to him, unless it had been accompanied by an EMP.
Tony shoved himself over the lip of the crater and ran for the wall. His left leg cramped badly, and he felt an automatic snarl ripping out of his throat. He was good at suppressing his wolf in stressful situations, but he’d apparently reached his threshold. His chest burned with the heat of an impending transformation, but he shoved it down and kept running. He absolutely did not need an uncontrolled shift when he was still wearing his skin-tight ballistic undersuit.
Flattening himself to the wall a dozen yards from where Steve had disappeared into the ground, Tony listened for any reactions to his movement. The bugs continued their nighttime racket, and the owl mocked him, hoot-hoot, for his trouble. Testing the ground carefully as he went, Tony crept closer to the hole that had swallowed his packmate. Steve was nowhere to be seen, and the crater dropped away into darkness.
“Steve?” Tony called, keeping a careful leash on the anxiety that made him want to whimper and pace. “Steve! I know how much you love hide-and-seek, but don’t you think it’s a little silly out here?”
Ears straining for any familiar noise, Tony gave into the urge to whine. The sound rasped against the back of his throat and came out high-pitched and louder than he’d intended. He nudged a pebble through the opening to judge the depth, but it hit in under a second. He could survive the fall. Provided that the pebble hit the bottom and not just another rocky outcropping.
“Fine,” Tony said under his breath. “Pepper is always saying I should get in touch with my wolf side. You better not suck at this,” he warned his wolf as he started stripping out of the undersuit. The moon wasn’t quite half full. Ever since his and Steve’s impromptu camping trip, Tony had started shifting more often than the required full moon, but it was still a rare enough occurrence that he felt a mingled thrill of anticipation and dread. It was accompanied by the familiar embarrassment that he’d never really gotten over. He cast a useless glance around the dark landscape, and dropped down to all fours.
Shifting on purpose had never been as easy for him as every other shifter he’d met. It was difficult to relax the iron control he kept on his beast, and it always felt horrifyingly like he was losing control of his bladder. His skin prickled, fever hot, and he imagined that the wolf was just under his ribs, twisting and struggle to escape its cage. He gagged, squeezing his eyes shut against the disorientating blurring of his vision. All at once, he felt like he was floating free of the ground. Sensation faded – the hard rocks and overturned earth under his knees, the cold wind, even the mocking hoot of that damned owl – and Tony was left adrift in the void, lost to pain and heat. He started to panic, scrabbling desperately for control, for air, but the wolf had its jaws in him.
Reality came back all at once. Tony found himself panting on his side, paws kicking weakly at the ground. It was different than transforming on the full moon, where he lost all sense of self and completely submerged into the wolf. He was still aware of who he was, and where he was, and what he’d been doing, but all of those things were distant. Unimportant. He rose up to all four legs and shook out his fur, casting off the last twinges of pain.
The world was soft blue, purple, gray, though identifying the individual colors was ultimately unnecessary. In many ways, everything was simpler as a wolf: things simple were. They didn’t need to be classified and broken down, and reasoned to death. They existed. That was all.
Lifting his muzzle to the air, he scented the wind. The owl had fallen silent, but he could smell it in the trees, along with dozens of other prey animals. Pines, cool water, a distant stench of decay. Closer to the ground he could smell pack. Moonbright pack human. Steve, he thought sluggishly. Tony cautiously followed the scent to the hole in the ground, prancing around it as he picked through the stones. The moonlight limned the edges of the rocky protrusions and cast deep shadows that made it difficult to judge the depth between footholds. His ears twitched as he followed the sounds of the night, conscious that there was a possible danger, but not of the variety the wolf could easily understand. Could be, and what if, and maybe, and future were all difficult concepts when he was in his shifted form.
Sticking his muzzle in the hole Steve had fallen in, he sniffed the air. It was damp, and smelled pungently of earth, and mildew. And also of Steve. He whined again, and then yipped twice. He couldn’t hear Steve at the bottom of the hole, but he could smell him somewhere close by. With his wolf eyes, he could just see the smooth floor, as well as a partially collapsed wall that served as a sort of ramp. He judged the distance carefully, muscles bunching underneath him, and then leapt. Tony hit the slant of the collapsed wall and scrambled in a bid for balance, claws raking across the hard stone and sending pebbles scattering down in his wake.
Jumping again before he rolled out of control, Tony hit the ground hard on his forepaws. He smacked into the opposite wall, and slid down into an awkward sprawl. Panting, he took a moment to take stock of where he’d landed, and then cautiously got back to his feet. He was sore from the impacts, but the pain was minimal and would fade. His human wouldn’t have had such a good time of it, because his human was fragile and not well balanced. Satisfied, he shook himself out and scented the air again.
Steve’s scent – like sunrise – was a strong beacon among all the musty smells of a place left abandoned. Tony made a circle of the room, examining a flat rock that was heavy with Steve’s scent, and then spending a long time sniffing worriedly over a smear of blood.
The scent trail led off into the darkness through an opening in the wall. Even his wolf’s far superior eyes wouldn’t be able to pick out much in those depths, but it didn’t matter. Where Steve’s sunrise scent went, Tony would follow.
~*~
The tunnel was straight and smooth. It was too dark for Tony to know its dimensions, but that wasn’t important. He kept himself pressed closed to one wall, and his nose to the ground, following Steve’s trail. In the close darkness, there was no sound except the huffing and sniffling of his own breath, and the scrape of his nails on the stone. Other than the bright scent of his packmate, the place smelled musty and abandoned.
When the wall beside him stopped, Tony slowed. Ahead of him was only the sense of open air. The wall turned off to the right, but Steve’s scent was in a cloud all around him, as if his human packmate had stopped to rest, or paced for a while. Tony investigated the open area cautiously. He put his nose to the ground and crept forward a few steps into the open. The ground remained solid. He couldn’t hear the rush of air over a sudden drop, or smell anything other than the same musty-abandoned scent and Steve. He went in a circle, nose brushing through the dust, investigating Steve’s steps.
Tony knew with the distant foggy understanding of his human brain that Steve would have stuck to the wall if he’d been unable to see. He would have gone around the corner and continued going right. He knew with the same human-thought that Steve would have been carrying a light. If he’d moved away from the wall, he still had the light with him. Tony bumped into another wall, and rose up on his hindquarters to sniff at it – Steve had leaned against it for a while. Dropping back to all fours, Tony continued in a circle, trying to make sense of the scent pattern. Had he doubled back and taken a different corner on the other side of the tunnel?
Sitting around wouldn’t get him anywhere. Tony moved away from the cloud of Steve’s scent, venturing down one tunnel until he was sure that Steve hadn’t gone that way, and then turning around and picking another. The third tunnel was the way Tony had come from, so he passed it to the fourth and picked up Steve’s scent, stronger, against the wall several body lengths down. It was accompanied by another smear of blood. Tony growled and picked up his pace, sniffing furiously. Steve’s scent was no longer following one wall, but weaving unsteadily between the two. The tunnel was narrow, and Tony’s packmate had either been moving too quickly in the dark, or hadn’t been able to keep his balance.
A low growl built in his chest the further he went and drops of blood became more common, until he was snarling almost without pause. His packmate was injured and too silly to sit down in one place and wait for Tony to come get him. Sometimes humans were frustratingly stupid. His pace built up to a lope as Steve’s rests grew closer together, and almost didn’t hear the distant scrape of footsteps over his own growling.
Tony skidded to a messy halt at the sudden sense of movement. A metallic-sweet smell that his human-thoughts recognized as vibranium burst into the air. Tony flattened himself to the ground awkwardly, and it flew over his head, moving fast enough to shriek with the wind of its passing. It hit the wall behind him with a painful clang, and Tony leapt away on instinct just before the object hit the ground and flew back at him.
“Stop where you are,” Steve rasped out.
Tony pressed himself to the wall and quieted the snarling in his chest. His packmate was human and humans had terrible senses, and his packmate might not recognize him. He crept forward, issuing a high-pitched yip, trying to tell the human that it was him. It occurred to him that if he shifted back to his human form, he could talk, but the wolf didn’t want to be upright, and he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to make sure Steve was unharmed. Besides, as a human, Tony would be just as stupid in the dark as Steve. He yipped again, lowering himself to his belly and sliding through the dust.
“….Tony?” Steve said finally, scent spiking with anxiety and relief. “Is that you?”
Tony barked. Barking was for cubs, but humans needed special consideration. He heard Steve hit the wall and sag down to the floor. Tony keyed in on the sound and wiggled forward, keeping himself low to the ground just in case Steve got jumpy again. His tail swished madly across the ground as he got within touching distance of his packmate. Steve held up a clumsy hand and knocked into Tony’s muzzle. Tony licked him. Steve curled forward so he was laying his entire weight across Tony’s shoulders. He was shaking and smelled strongly of blood and sweat.
“I am so happy to see you,” Steve said, and then started to laugh. “Feel you,” he amended, and then buried his face against Tony ruff and inhaled. Somewhat weakly and still laughing, he said, “Smell you. I didn’t know what had happened to you. I tried to call for you back at the hole, but the comms were fried and you weren’t responding. I thought you must have fallen in somewhere.”
Tony huffed.
“I know. I should have stayed where I was, but someone shot us down. I wanted to make it difficult for them to find me.” He curled his hands in Tony’s fur and scratched vigorously. It felt nice. “I heard you a ways back and I thought maybe you were the bad guys. Sorry.”
Rolling his eyes, Tony butted his head into Steve’s chest. He was rewarded with another rough scratch down his neck, and Steve shifted closer to cuddle against him. Tony struggled out of his hold enough to sniff at the human’s face and neck, looking for the source of the blood. He licked at what he’d found – metal tang and dirt, but clean – until he found the injury behind Steve’s ear. Steve tried to pull away from him, but Tony set his teeth around his packmate’s shoulder until he stopped moving. Though it made him laugh and squirm, Steve submitted to being cleaned after that, and Tony set diligently to the task.
“It’s just a cut,” Steve told him, but didn’t try to escape again.
Once Tony was satisfied that the wound was clean, he inspected the human for other injuries. He found no other open injuries, though Steve shifted away from him when pressed his nose to the human’s side. Tony growled unhappily, which got him a few firm pats to his ribs and a rough rub to the belly.
“I’m fine,” Steve said. “Thank you for the bath.” He sounded amused. “Since you’re still furry, I’m guessing you’re going to stay this way for a while?”
Tony wuffed out a breath. Since Steve didn’t seem inclined to let him go, he settled himself more comfortably across the human’s lap. In his wolf form, he was easily Steve’s equal in size, though his human-thoughts had never been comfortable with that. His human was small and lithe and good at things that the wolf was not. The wolf just happened to be better at things that mattered.
After several more minutes of sharing body heat and enjoying Steve’s pets and scratches, Tony gave Steve a final lick across the face and stood up again. They couldn’t stay down in the tunnels forever. It wouldn’t be possible to get back up the way they’d fallen down, so they needed to find another way out before water and food became an issue.
Steve huffed out a breath of his own, and then climbed up to his feet. “I’m turning the flashlight on,” he warned.
Flashlight was a concept for Tony’s human, but he understood enough to close his eyes. He opened them again cautiously after he heard the click of the flashlight. The tunnel was bathed in cold light, which meant little to Tony except that Steve would have less trouble navigating. Steve patted him affectionately between the shoulders, and then started walking. Tony trotted at his side, scenting the air as they went. Far down the tunnel, he could just hear the faint tinkle of water.
“I’ve been looking for a way up,” Steve explained, sweeping his light from side to side and occasionally pointing it toward the ceiling.
Tony didn’t bother to follow the progress of the light. He could tell by the way the sound of their footsteps echoed that there was no break in the tunnel for at least some distance ahead. Steve didn’t continue to chat as they walked, and easily kept up with Tony’s pace. When the wet-mildew scent grew stronger, Tony sped up. He found the water drizzling down the wall just before the end of the tunnel and stopped to investigate. The water was not clean, and it had made a puddle on the floor. Tony rose up his hindlegs and braced his forepaws on the wall. A slight breeze hit his nose. Tony wuffed and scratched at it.
“What did you find?” Steve asked as if Tony could answer him. He stepping up next to Tony and shone his light on the wall.
Tony pressed his nose to the source of the breeze. Water dripped over his nose. He sneezed and jerked back, shaking his head. Steve nudged him out of the way so he could feel along the wet wall.
“There’s a groove here,” Steve said. “And air…” he let his hand drift up the wall, stretching to the ceiling, and then down to the floor. He started pushing on the wall. Tony cocked his head, watching curiously as Steve shoved and pushed at what seemed to Tony to be a solid rock. Still, Steve seemed to have a purpose, so Tony eased up next to him and started digging at the ground.
Steve laughed. “You’re not helping, you big mutt.” He nudged Tony out of the way with one leg and kept up pressing on the wall.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, his human-thoughts snarled in indignation, though he wasn’t completely sure why. There was an abrupt grinding sound and Steve stumbled forward as the wall gave away under his hands. A small flood of water rushed out to soak their feet. Startled, Tony snagged the human by his belt and dragged him back. Steve nearly tripped on him, but was able to bend backward until he could touch the wall behind them and pushed himself back onto his feet.
Shoving Steve out of the way, Tony investigated the opening. A set of stairs led upward beyond the range of Steve’s light. Water leaked down the walls and trickled over the steps in a steady stream, gathering on the floor in bad smelling puddles. Steve squeezed around him into the space, pointing his light upward. Tony eyed the stairs uncertainly. The steps were narrow, and steep, and slippery. They would be difficult for him to use.
Steve put a cautious foot on the lowest step and leaned forward to look up the curve of the staircase. He stepped back. “You better go in front of me,” he said, pressing himself to one of the stinking walls. He gestured up the curving stairs and gave Tony an unnecessary cuff on the shoulder as he padded through the slimy puddles and up to the stairs.
Tony couldn’t smell much of anything over the stench of standing water, but he listened carefully as they went. He slipped twice, but Steve stayed close behind him and shoved him back up before he could lose much ground. He was thoroughly tired of the tiny slippery stairs by the time they made it to a door, and was only too happy to shoulder it open. The timbers were rotted and water was pouring out from below them. One shove from Tony’s shoulder, and it flew outward to hit the wall. Cold air rushed into the stairwell, flattening the fur on the top of his head. Tony’s paws were already soaked in the stinking water. He splashed through to the open air landing and let Steve pass him with his light.
The air had a strange burning scent that made his hackles rise. Tony followed Steve down another steep staircase onto a broken stone floor. He heard the skittering of a rat running for cover, the burnt scent grew stronger, but other than the wind screaming through the stones, there was nothing. Steve moved swiftly through the open space, crouched low as he went. Tony approved as he ran along beside him, and wondered why his human didn’t let him run like this more often. He and Steve were pack and they would hunt well together.
Across the broken stones, a door shoved open and a dark figure stumbled out backwards. Tony barked and sped up. Steve threw his metal disc as they ran. It whistled as it spun through the air, and then there was a yelp of pain and surprise. The figure dropped the box they’d been carrying. The disc hit the wall and returned. Steve caught it without breaking stride, and Tony opened his stride to pass his packmate. Another figure came running from the darkened doorway just as Tony hit the short stairs. He leapt, aiming for the human’s throat. They both went down in a tumble, his prey screaming with animal terror.
Tony got his teeth into the human’s shoulder so they wouldn’t run, and dragged them back out the door.
“Good job, Tony,” Steve praised. He had one knee on his prey’s spine and was tying their hands back.
Screaming, Tony’s prey tried to struggle away. He bit down harder on the tough hide, worrying his head side-to-side to subdue them. Tony had the human back down the stairs and nearly to Steve’s side by the time he’d finished with his own prey.
“I’ve got him,” Steve said, patting Tony roughly on one side. He grabbed Tony’s screaming prey by one arm.
His human-thoughts were telling him to let go, but this was Tony’s prey. He growled unhappily.
“Iron Man, let him go. Tony!”
At the sharp bark of Steve’s voice, Tony reluctantly let go and backed away. Steve rolled the screaming human onto their stomach and pulled their arms back. Tony’s ears pulled back and he felt himself growling in displeasure as Steve tied their prey up and started going through their pockets. He came up with a small object and started poking at it.
“Clint, it’s Steve. Oh – Good. Okay.”
Tony twitched his head curiously while Steve talked at the box. Tony could hear the box talking back – his human was not confused about it, and Tony didn’t think it was important. One of the prey rolled over and tried to inch away from Steve’s feet. Tony let him get a few feet away and then stood up and walked over. He planted one paw in the middle of the human’s back. Steve nodded to him. Tony watched the other one while he settled his weight more firmly on his whimpering captive.
“Yeah, Tony’s here with me, but he got hit with another EMP or something, so we’re going to need help getting out of here. Can you call Rhodey? I… borrowed a phone from one of the local ‘residents.’ We’ll secure these two and search the rest of the castle. Not sure, but we’ll find out.”
Steve put the box away. He looked down at the prey under Tony’s paws. “Clint and Thor are already on the way. They headed this way when we went dark on comms, and they should be here in about twenty.”
Crouching down at Tony’s side, Steve asked, “How many of your buddies am I going to find in that castle?” When the prey didn’t respond, Steve tapped him on the shoulder. His stiff protective clothing had been torn open by Tony’s teeth, though the skin underneath was unmarred. “You know he’s a shifter right? That’s Iron Man standing on your spine.”
“Fucking shit goddamnit mother – ”
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Steve interrupted.
For some reason, Tony’s human was amused. Tony let his tongue lull out of his mouth and then leaned forward enough to lick Steve across one cheek.
“It’s just us!” the prey squeaked when Tony shifted to lay more of his weight across the human’s back. The human had to struggle to breathe around Tony’s bulk. “Just… cleaning out the gear! Swear.”
Steve considered that for a moment and then gave Tony an affection scratch behind the ears. “I’m going to leave my teammate here with you and go see if you’re telling the truth.” His voice was bright and cheerful, but he finished by saying, “I sure hope you are.”
~*~
The other human-packmatess arrived in a flying box that made an annoying noise. Tony eyed it from his place with the captive prey and wondered if he could do enough damage to it to make it stop. He growled. Underneath him, the prey sobbed and moaned. It was a very strange creature, even for a human. The annoying sound slowed and then stopped, though a fast tickticktick remained as a familiar pack human jumped out of the box.
“On four legs and everything, huh, Stark? Someone musta really pissed you off.”
Tony yawned and took his weight off the prey. The human gasped and rolled onto its side so it could pull its legs up. Tony thought about sitting on it again, but decided not to. The pack human approached – he smelled like a bees’ nest, oil, and pine trees.
“You’re not gonna bite me if I come over there, are you?” He put a hand to his chest. “Clint. You remember me?”
Huffing out an irritated breath, Tony left the prey to Clint with his bees’ nest scented fingers and went in search of Steve. Above ground and without the mildew scent to confuse his nose, Steve was easy to find. One intact hallway led to a door that smelled newer than the surrounding stones. It was standing open, and Steve was inside, staring down at a handful of papers. He looked up as Tony shouldered past the door.
“We need to find these people,” Steve said. He was a human and he couldn’t really growl, but his voice sounded like it as he clutched the pages in his hands. Tony sat down and watched him, growing bored now that there was apparently no more danger and their pack had arrived. Steve drew in some ragged breaths, and then set the pages down and smoothed them out. “Once you feel like being on two feet again, we’ll go over these together.”
Tony quirked his head. He didn’t want to give up the body so soon. It felt nice to be out in the air in his fur. Usually he just had the confines of his den. The toys were nice, and there was always plenty of food, and new things to smell, but he liked being outside. Steve grabbed a box and started loading papers into it. Other papers were scattered around the room like fallen leaves. Tony scratched at one until he got it off the floor enough to get his teeth around it, and then carefully brought it over to drop in Steve’s box. Steve rewarded him with a pat on the head, and Tony went to retrieve another page.
~*~
The prey had been tied up and secured against one wall of the flying box, and all of their toys had been piled up in another corner. Other than Steve’s box of papers, there had been other boxes of all sizes in a larger box that smelled like stale food and musk. Tony had torn the cushions apart just for being offensive while Clint had laughed. His human’s metal clothes had been dragged into the flying box and left on the floor by Thor – who smelled like rain and lightning and spice – and Steve was seated at one of the benches with a book in his lap. He’d taken the book from the prey’s toybox.
Tony butted his head against Steve’s hand. When Steve didn’t take his attention off the book, Tony reached up to drop a paw on his forearm. Steve finally moved the book out of the way so Tony could put his head on Steve’s knee. He yawned and heaved out a breath. He was hungry, and smelled like stagnant water, and wanted to sleep. Steve put a hand on his head and ran his fingers over Tony’s ears – that was the good thing about humans. Their hands weren’t very good for running or digging, but they were good for petting.
Before Steve, Tony hadn’t gotten petted often. Sometimes his nightdark human-pack Rhodey had played with him and scratched his neck, and sometimes his sunbright human-pack Pepper had rubbed his belly or petted his back. Tony’s human didn’t let them very often. He hated the wolf. Steve was different – moonpale and sweet metal scent, and whenever the wolf was allowed out around him, Steve would pet him all night. Once they had even slept in Tony’s den together.
“If you’re going to stay like this for a while, you’re getting a bath when we get home,” Steve said.
“Wow, you are feeling brave tonight,” Clint said. He was sitting in a different part of the box, pushing and tugging and pulling at it.
Clint and Thor and the other human-packmates were new. Tony still wasn’t sure if he trusted them, but Steve trusted them, so it was alright.
“Tony will have a fit tomorrow if the penthouse smells like sewer water,” Steve said back.
“Tony won’t have to be annoyed with it at all if Tony just changes back into Tony.”
Tony’s ears twisted at the sound of his name. Steve scratched them. His fingers were cold, but Tony didn’t mind much, even when Steve decided to pet his muzzle and drag his fingers down between Tony’s eyes. He scooted closer, starting to get cold with the water seeping through his fur and the whistling sharp-smelling air of the flying box. It still made too much noise. He sighed.
“Ignore him,” Steve said, curling over and wrapping his arms around Tony’s neck. “You’re fine in whatever body you want to be in.”
