Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tony clung to the silver case as though his life depended on it.

The contents had been his life for the better part of two years. Between his pathetic budget and the way they made him submit paperwork before and after every test, it was a miracle he'd succeeded at all.

Once he had succeeded, the real problems had begun. Papers went missing, email accounts were broken into, and even the base server had been hacked, all obviously looking for more information on Tony's project.

When Rhodey had shown up in his quarters at three am and told him that they needed to leave now, he hadn't so much as questioned. He'd seen it coming a mile away, and he'd be damned if he was going to let the Air Force and their incompetence lose him two years of research.

It wasn't that he didn't love the Air Force.

They had bailed him out of trouble when he'd been short on options.

He'd been orphaned at seventeen while finishing his second doctorate. Obadiah Stane had proceeded to bankrupt Stark Industries in less than a year before magically going public with his own company, which just happened to be staffed by ex-SI employees. Tony, newly eighteen, had been left with a mountain of debt and little hope of paying it without going bankrupt himself.

Of course, Stane had offered to make it all go away if Tony agreed to work for him for, oh, ever or so.

Then the Air Force had come into it, offering to settle his debts in exchange for what he had left of his parents' property and Tony's agreement to accept a commission lasting no less than six years.

For that, Tony would be eternally grateful.

The problem was that the Air Force had rules. Things had to be done a certain way every time, no matter what. So when someone realized that there was a leak in the chain of command, it didn't immediately change the way information flowed through that chain. And when Tony's superiors decided that he needed to be moved because the location of his sensitive research facility had been leaked, the same group of people was notified: the group that had caused the leak to begin with.

There was right way, the wrong way, and the military way.

Funny, Tony thought as he watched the jeep he'd been in thirty seconds earlier catch fire. The military way seems a lot like the wrong way sometimes.

"Come on, Tony," Rhodey's voice interrupted the pointless chain of thought. "We have to get further away from the road. They'll see us if we stay here."

Tony didn't hesitate to follow. Rhodey was his best friend. He was the one person Tony knew wasn't behind the ambush. Someone in his chain of command was, though. Someone Tony worked with had leaked information about his research and location to... well, to whoever had just torched his jeep.

Whoever they were, they were in an unmarked black SUV, and they had nearly run the jeep off the road before screeching to a stop right in front of it and opening fire. Tony wasn't sure what had started the fire, but it seemed a little counter-intuitive if they wanted to steal his research. Still though, the black-shrouded figures were heading for the burning vehicle, doubtless to finish Tony and Rhodey off and steal the case.

So they slipped quietly into the woods north of the road, trying not to let the men from the truck catch sight of them in the dark.

Two men alone and on foot, with nothing more to protect them than a single handgun, in the middle of miles of Appalachian wilderness. It seemed like the beginning of a bad novel. Maybe he'd get lucky and they'd be saved by the lonely widow who wanted to feel a man's touch again. More likely, they were about to star in a remake of Deliverance. Tony did not want to squeal like a pig.

~*~

Tracking someone through the woods in the dark was a difficult feat, but it didn't seem to be much more difficult than escaping through the woods in the dark. Tony kept nearly tripping over exposed tree roots, uneven patches of ground, and even just a pile of leaves once.

What? He was a lab monkey, not a navy seal.

Wandering the woods at night had not been a part of his training. He kind of hoped it wasn't part of anyone's training. It really sucked. He knew how to use a gun and do some pushups. He could even climb a damned wall if he really had to (provided convenient grappling tools). Not breaking his neck had never come into it.

It probably didn't help that the briefcase was throwing his balance off. Yeah, it was totally the case's fault.

Rhodey turned and put a stilling hand on Tony's chest, and the two of them froze in place, listening. At first, all he heard was the sound of his blood rushing in his ears and his own ragged breathing. It sounded like a jet engine compared to Rhodey's calm, measured breaths.

After a moment he heard a twig snap in the direction they'd come from, and the crackle of a radio.

They weren't even a hundred yards ahead of the bastards, and they'd been moving for at least an hour. If his heart kept going at the rate it was, Tony was pretty sure there was a heart attack in his near future.

They weren't literally in the middle of nowhere, but they were miles from civilization and they weren't heading toward it. Their only hope was to lose their pursuers. Waiting for the cavalry to arrive was not an option.

Pulling a few inches away, Rhodey met Tony's eyes, making sure they were focused on him. He pointed in a direction almost at a right angle to the one they had taken for the previous twenty minutes or so, and mouthed out 'that way'.

Did Rhodey mean split up? Tony's breath caught. In an instant, he was four again and his mother had forgotten (abandoned) him in a store to go get lunch.

No, that wasn't it. Rhodey wanted him to go first. He was putting himself between Tony and the bad guys.

That meant two things. The first Tony had already known: Rhodey was the best friend he could ever have. He might have been protecting the information Tony was carrying, but Rhodey was faster and they both knew that the sensible thing to do was leave Tony behind and get the information to safety. The second thing was that Rhodey didn't think they were going to make it. He was putting himself in the middle to buy Tony time when he went down.

Tony decided that he wasn't going to let that happen. He went in the direction Rhodey had indicated, but he picked up the pace. They'd been moving slowly in order to stay quiet and keep Tony from falling down, but obviously that hadn't done them any favors.

While Tony wasn't any kind of athlete, he was excellent under pressure. He wasn't going to get caught, and he wasn't going to bring Rhodey down with him.

In a helpful change, the ground was growing firmer as they went.

They were nearing a large hill on their right. Tony supposed it had been a mountain millions of years earlier. The Appalachians had been taller than the Rockies, hadn't they? There was a good chance the hill was rocky, and so the ground around it was too.

As he stepped around a large conifer, the sound of rushing water filled his ears. There was a river nearby.

He tried to remember a map of the area he'd seen once. The new-something river. He thought it was at least five miles from the road. Was it possible they'd gone that far? How long had they been running?

A layer of pine needles almost gave way beneath his feet. He stopped to steady himself and checked his six. Rhodey was ten feet away, and looking behind himself. The look on his face when he turned made Tony's blood go cold.

Rhodey was scared.

Tony spun and headed toward the sound of water. It took him closer to the hill. He didn't know if that was good or bad. Why hadn't he paid more attention to his training? Why wasn't he in better shape? If they made it out alive, he was going to take up running. It would have been fucking helpful.

He sped again. Anything that scared Rhodey terrified him.

The ground was covered with condensation from the river. Every step he took was a crapshoot. Would he stay steady, or would he slip?

There was a low curse behind him, and the horrible scrape of skin on tree. Rhodey. He turned to look, but Rhodey had already righted himself.

Time seemed to slow for a moment as their eyes met. The men behind them must have heard that.

Sure enough, there was a crackle of radio, followed by an urgent voice. Tony couldn't hear what it said, but he didn't have to. Someone had heard. They knew.

Tony had decided to head for the river. Tony had decided to speed up. The water and pace made Rhodey slip. And now they were going to die because Tony didn't know how to evade capture in the forest at night.

What the hell kind of soldier was he?

Rhodey pushed away from the tree and ran toward Tony. He grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him toward the river. "No time left, we need to find a place to hide."

Tony followed without question. One foot in front of the other. No falling, no slowing, no room for another failure. Tony was not going to die in the Virginia wilderness just because the Air Force couldn't plug its own leaks. (or because he was incompetent as a soldier)

And when it was over he was resigning his commission. He'd given them eight years, almost nine. It was more than they had demanded, and it seemed to be a lot more than they deserved.

He just had to live through the night first.

They rounded a large outcropping of rock and there was the river. Okay, it wasn't the actual river, then. It must have been some smaller tributary that met or escaped the river. Tony was an engineer, not a geographer. He was lucky to remember the word tributary, let alone where one went.

It was only about a dozen meters across, a few feet deep, and it looked crystal clear. The sound of rushing water had been from a series of waterfalls where the smaller river flowed past the hill. It seemed to Tony that if he hadn't been running away from people who wanted to kill him, it would be a lovely spot for... picnics, or whatever it was lovely spots were good for.

Rhodey kept dragging him forward by the hand. They skirted the edge of the hill, which was indeed rocky.

Hide, Rhodey had said. Where were they going to hide? They weren't exactly spoiled for choice. There weren't many trees big enough to climb, let alone hide in. There was no way they could climb the hill—it was between five and ten feet of sheer rock along the river side. There were a few indentations, they even passed a small alcove big enough for a person, but he didn't think those would make a good hiding spot.

Tony felt his mind edging toward hysteria when another alcove on the right caught his eye. It was mostly like the previous one, except it seemed darker somehow.

He pulled on the hand Rhodey was clutching and motioned toward the area with the briefcase. Without hesitation, Rhodey headed in that direction.

Best friend, Tony thought. Even though it's going to be my fault if we die, he still trusts my judgment.

They slipped into the gap in the hill's stony exterior together.

~*~

When they reached the back of the alcove, Tony almost rethought his choice. It wasn't much cover, really. It might be the best they could manage, but they wouldn't know if they could do better unless they tried.

Tony turned to gauge how far into the rock face they had gotten, and it wasn't terribly reassuring. They couldn't be seen easily from the side, but they were barely covered that way. If someone actually walked by, they would definitely be caught. There was only a few feet between the hill and the river. The only dry ground on their side of the river went right by them.

He was about to ask Rhodey's thoughts when a sound caught his attention. Flowing water. That was to be expected, of course, but why was it coming from behind him?

He spun around to get a look and realized that to the right side of the alcove—a spot that had been out of his line of sight when they were just walking past—there was a rather large crack in the rock. It was a little less than his height and no more than two feet wide, barely big enough for a man to fit into.

That wouldn't have normally impressed him, but the sound of trickling water was coming from inside, as was a thin stream of water that ran down to join the river itself.

It might be wrong, but his instinct was telling him that the hollow echoing sound the water was making inside the crack meant that there was more room inside than it seemed. He wondered how much more.

Hunching over a bit, he took a tentative step into the opening. Instead of a hard rocky interior, he found soft blackness. Well that was it. He reached back with his free hand, grabbed Rhodey, and took another step.

Five steps later he was completely covered in darkness, but still hadn't reached the back wall of the crack—the cave? Yes, the back of the cave. In fact, the relatively small crack had widened into something that Tony couldn't even feel the walls of. He wondered just how far back it went. Not that it mattered.

It was a hiding place, not a childish adventure story. He wasn't going to find Narnia back there.

Rhodey was completely inside the cave and right behind him. He stilled, pulling on Tony's hand. "I think I hear them," he whispered.

Tony turned back toward the entrance to see the vague shadow of Rhodey pressed against the wall to one side of the wall. He pushed his own body against the opposite side, then paused and quieted his breathing, listening.

"I'm sure... way," a man's voice said, drowned out in spots by the rushing water and the thick rock around them. "...Stane wants... alive. No, not the other one..."

Stane. Always Stane. Would Tony never be free of the bastard? First he destroyed SI, and now he wanted to steal what little Tony had managed to make of his life. Tony would destroy his work before letting Obadiah Stane steal anything else from him. Better that no men could fly rather than that Obadiah Stane had exclusive rights to say who could and who couldn't.

Footsteps passed by at a jog, and the light was broken for a second as someone walked by the alcove. Tony's heart thumped painfully in his chest, so loudly that he irrationally wondered if maybe the man would hear it. Rhodey could surely shoot one, but after that, who knew how many would show up? And even more important, how long would it be before reinforcements came for either side?

Tony suspected the bad guys would get help more easily than he and Rhodey.

So they stayed in the cave, silently hoping that they would be overlooked.

A few moments later, Tony was once again struck with the notion that a sound happening behind him was important. A deep rhythmic sound, almost like breathing. Except that Tony could hear his own breath quite distinctly, and he could see Rhodey's chest rising and falling, and the sync was off. It was like watching a TV show where the lips didn't quite match the soundtrack.

Except, of course, that this didn't mean someone had made a mistake syncing sound and video.

"Tony?" Rhodey's voice was still whisper-soft and cautious.

Tony swallowed and nodded. "Yeah?"

He could see in the low light that Rhodey was watching him as closely as Tony had been doing in the opposite direction just a moment earlier. Watching his chest rise and fall. "That's, um, that's not you, is it?"

He shook his head slightly before remembering that the light might not be good enough for all the body language he was throwing out. "No. Not me. You mean the uh, the breathing, right?" His own breathing was still too fast from the hour or more they had spent running. He should have known just from that, really. Even if Rhodey was in better shape than Tony, surely he wouldn't be taking such deep, perfect, even breaths after spending all that time fleeing.

"Yeah," Rhodey agreed. "Not you?"

"No."

Rhodey's head fell forward into the light of the opening. "Are there any bears around here?"

"What am I, the bear whisperer?" Tony turned his head to peer into the dark of the cave. "How would I know if there are bears in here?"

"Not in the cave, Tony," Rhodey hissed. "In the area. Are there indigenous bears?"

Tony sighed in frustration. "What the hell do you think I do with my days, Rhodey? I'm not hanging out at state parks asking about indigenous wildlife, I'm working."

"So what you're saying is that you don't know." For a man whose life was in danger, probably from both sides, James Rhodes had a shitty sense of humor.

"No, Rhodey," Tony answered in a clipped tone. "I do not know whether there are bears in southern Virginia."

"I do," a smooth, oddly accented voice interrupted from the shadows. "There are, in fact, bears in this area. Black ones, some every bit as big as men."

That was not a bear. Well, Tony hoped it wasn't a bear.

The pounding in his heart threatened to overtake his hearing again. Had Stane's men circled around and found a different entrance to the cave? Did a hermit live in the cave? Was this the perverse hillbilly that Tony had been dreading? Was the banjo music about to start?

Rhodey didn't seem to be faring too much better. He stuttered his way through, "U-um, I'm sorry. We didn't, um, we didn't know there was anyone here."

There was a chuckle from the depths of the cave. "I should imagine not. You don't appear to be in any sort of position to go back out into the wilds, either."

"Well if the options are die here or die out there, I'm gonna go with—"

"Tony!" Rhodey smacked his arm, cutting him off.

Tony scowled at him. "What? I was gonna say die in here! I'd rather some toothless hillbilly hermit get my research than fucking Stane and his fucking mercenaries."

That brought out a sigh from his friend. "I was kind of hoping you hadn't caught that part."

"That asshole is like my personal bad penny," Tony said. "Always showing up in my life where I need him least."

Rhodes sighed again and nodded. "Well let's try to get through tonight, and then we'll see about Obadiah Stane." Turning toward the back of the cave, he continued, "I'm very sorry about intruding on your privacy, Mister um..."

"Your kind used to call me Loki," the voice came again. "That will do."

"Loki like the god of lies?" Tony blurted without thinking. Shit. Well if he'd ever wanted to be killed by a cave-dwelling hermit—

The answering laughter was something of a surprise. The vaguest scent of sulphur wafted by, making Tony expect to see a lit match, but nothing came. "Indeed. Quite like the god of lies. Do you know what makes a good lie, tiny one?"

"Hey now, that's just uncalled for," Tony protested. "I'm five foot eleven."

Rhodes coughed loudly.

"Ten."

The laughter came again. "Yes, exactly. The best lie is always truth-adjacent. So to lie well, you have to start with the truth."

That struck Tony as reasonable, not that he spent a lot of time trying to decide what made a lie good or bad. He nodded.

Rhodey gave him another shove. "I'm sorry for interrupting your privacy, Mr. Loki, but my friend and I are trying to avoid some criminals who want to kill us and steal our things. If you don't mind us staying just a little while before we get out of your hair, we'd appreciate it a lot."

"You do see, then," the voice seemed agreeable. "Truth adjacent."

Rhodes frowned. "What?"

"These criminals, they want to kill you. The man who came by said that your friend is to be 'taken alive at any cost'. Which clearly means that only one of you is to be killed." The voice was obviously pleased with itself.

Tony cocked his head and nodded again. "You know, Rhodey—"

"Shut it, Stark." Rhodey said. "Unless you want to go out there and have Stane's men take you alive? You think that's gonna end any way where you're happy?"

"Sure, if you wanna be picky about it," Tony pouted.

Another chuckle rumbled out of the darkness. Tony swore he could feel the vibration of it in the rocks against his back. Sulphur again, too. Did the guy chew brimstone or something?

Rhodey decided to try again. "Look, I think we got off to a bad start. I'm not trying to lie to you. I just really don't want to go back out there yet. When daylight comes we'll leave, and I promise we'll never bother you or your cave again."

"Is that right?" Loki asked, his voice still tinged with amusement.

"As funny as it is to hear you verbally kicking Rhodey's ass," Tony interjected, "it's true. We're not here to bother you or steal your cave. We just don't wanna die."

Loki made a thoughtful sound, and it seemed to make the walls tremble as well. "I have your word that you'll not return, or attempt to harm me or my home?"

"Yes," Rhodey answered immediately.

"Well then," that deep voice rumbled back. "I believe you have yourself a deal, gentlemen."

The scent of brimstone was suddenly overwhelming, and a burst of heat and light made Tony screw his eyes closed.

When he opened them again, he found a cozy fire in a pit a few yards in front of him. From the blackened edges, it seemed that spot of ground was often used for fires. There was a large cavern behind the fire, carved in smooth water-worn limestone. There were at least two large corridors leading away from the main room. Tony and Rhodey had ended up in a cavern like the ones that had made the nearby Shenandoah Valley famous.

Tony noticed all those facts in a distant, detached sort of way. His brain marked them 'file for later use'. They were rather probably going to be useless, though, since Tony figured later wasn't going to happen.

There was a huge creature in the middle of the room. It was like a lizard the size of a car, and covered with inky black scales that shone in the firelight, somehow making them look even darker. Its head was big enough to bite Tony's arm off easily, presuming it liked its food crunchy. The aforementioned head was full of wicked looking teeth that Tony thought would probably make short work of any resistance he might offer.

It was a lizard the size of a car, that smelled like brimstone and started fires as though by magic.

Its glowing green eyes were focused on Tony, and when it opened its mouth, he was reasonably sure he was about to be reduced to ash. Instead, that deep melodious voice issued forth once again. "I'm afraid I've cheated, though. After all, I've allowed the two of you to believe something not even remotely truth adjacent, haven't I? I do not believe myself to be a hillbilly, and I'm certainly not toothless."

It was a fucking dragon.

~*~

Tony's brain seemed to go into blue screen of death as he stared at the enormous black creature in from of him. A dragon. Dragons were real. Loki was a dragon.

It was a dragon named after the god of lies.

Wait, the dragon had just told them he wasn't toothless. Did he go to the fricking movies?

"So not toothless, huh? Like "How to Train Your Dragon" not toothless," Tony finally asked, "Or like "you might get stuck between my teeth when I eat you in a minute" not toothless?"

The huge black head cocked to one side, green eyes boring into Tony. "Curious," It—um, Loki—said. "One of your kind hasn't had such a sensible reaction to me since I was practically a hatchling."

Tony rolled his eyes. "What, am I supposed to run and scream, or wet myself?"

"Well most react a little more like your friend," Loki motioned with his head over to where Rhodey was still standing motionless, staring at him. "And then when they finally gather their wits, they run screaming. Sometimes while wetting themselves."

"Huh. That sounds... boring." Tony said.

That made Loki nod. "I would have said tedious, but quite right." He turned to look at Rhodey. "When you come back to yourself, young human, know that the way you entered my lair is no longer a viable exit."

Now that got Tony's attention. He spun to look at the cave mouth, and sure enough, it seemed to be gone. The water still trickled down the floor, seeming to disappear into the wall where the opening had been.

"Neat trick," Tony frowned. "I'm guessing it's not smoke and mirrors?"

"Why should such things come into it?" Loki asked, his tone curious. "I merely willed it away. You two are more than enough human company for my tastes. I would rather not play host to your pursuers as well."

Tony nodded. That made total sense. Not a toothless (ha!) hillbilly hermit, then, but a hermit nonetheless. Of course, Tony imagined that if he were a creature of legend, he'd probably be a hermit, too. Especially if those legends consisted largely of men in shiny armor killing him so they could take his princess.

Rhodey spoke up, finally finding his voice. "If you'd like us to go now, we'd be happy to do that." To his credit, his tone was calm and steady, even as his words indicated a desperate need to escape.

"Why would I wish that?" Loki asked, looking genuinely surprised.

"Um, we broke into your cave—uh, home? And just, you know, acted like we owned the place. We didn't mean to be rude, but it was kind of an unintentional home invasion." Rhodey's reasoning was flawless. If Tony hadn't known him, he'd have believed that it was genuine. The sweat on his forehead and the way his hands kept clenching into fists told a different story, though. Rhodey wanted to get the hell out of there, like, yesterday.

Tony was not going to have Rhodey keep him from learning about dragons, though, dammit! When was he ever going to get the chance to do it again? It was such an amazing opportunity! Loki might be the last dragon alive!

Oh, how depressing for him. Maybe he wouldn't want to talk about it.

"So are there other dragons around?" Tony asked.

Loki looked back to him, and Tony fancied that he could see amusement in the depths of those glowing green swirls. "Are you thinking of hunting us down, tiny one?"

"No!" Rhodey jumped in. "He's not doing that. He just has an unhealthy inability to close his mouth."

Loki looked over at him and bared his teeth in a strange parody of a grin. "He does seem quite forward, if not always completely truthful. I find it... fascinating."

"Me?" Tony asked incredulously. "I'm fascinating? You're a fucking dragon!"

A deep rumbling laugh emanated forth from Loki, vibrating its way through the walls. "Believe it or not, tiny one, I knew that. Perhaps equally surprising to you would be the fact that I find dragonhood completely uninteresting. I've been living with it for quite some time. I'm rather used to it."

"Huh," Tony considered for a moment. "I ah, I guess that's a good point. Hadn't really thought about it that way. But I doubt you think we're interesting."

Loki's serpentine (oh, the wealth of bad puns) neck sinuously moved his head, complete with sharp teeth, down to look Tony right in the eye. "Indeed, tiny one. Under normal circumstances, I would have agreed with you without a second thought. You, however, seem to be something else."

"Tony?" Rhodey's voice was shocked, and Tony couldn't help but be a little offended. "Tony's only interesting in the way that a monkey on crack is interesting. People want to see how long he can keep going before he passes out."

"Did you just call me a crack monkey?" Tony frowned. Sure, it might be an apt description from a certain point of view, but Tony had a little self-control, dammit!

"Cool it, Tony, let me handle this." Rhodey stepped between Tony and Loki's giant sharp teeth, and it was rather a tight fit. He was pressed against Tony's chest in order to not be pressed against Loki's face. "Okay, Mr. Loki, I'm sorry we interrupted your solitude or whatever, but if you could just show us the way out, we'd be happy to go."

"And your friends on the outside?" Loki asked, his tone still amused, unless Tony was missing his mark.

Rhodey sighed. "Honestly? At the moment, you make me more nervous than they do."

"Because I locked them out?" Loki asked.

That gave Rhodey pause. "No." He seemed to consider for a moment, and then shook his head. "Because you locked us in, and you didn't say you were going to do it till after it was done."

"Ah," Loki nodded, seeming to understand. It looked to Tony more like he was patiently listening to a kindergartner's explanation of how Santa Claus got all the way around the world and left toys for billions of children in one night. "And my teeth are more frightening when you know you can't escape them."

Tony couldn't help it. He started laughing. It wasn't a rational response, or probably even a comprehensible one, but it was all his overtaxed brain could come up with. He had finally succeeded in making a flight suit after years of work, and what did he get? Woken in the middle of the night because fucking Obadiah Stane had sent assassins to kill Rhodey and kidnap him so he could be chained to a lab table and forced to make weapons. Then, in escaping Stane's men, they'd just happened to stumble into a dragon's lair. A fucking dragon?

That was the kind of shit that only happened in fairy tales. Tony was Ali Baba or some other fantastical bullshit. Soon he'd be tricking the fairy queen into giving him a wish in exchange for his shoes.

He was wiping hysterical tears from his eyes when he realized that Loki and Rhodey were both staring at him. Rhodey in shock and concern, and Loki... well, Tony was beginning to wonder if he had a facial expression that wasn't 'amused'. Or hell, was he really amused, or was Tony misinterpreting it? Maybe what Tony thought was amused was really "I'm about to make you into a tasty meal".

Absently, Tony wondered if he would be tasty.

"You okay, Tony?" Rhodey asked softly, as though their lives weren't in immediate danger, and they could just chat about their feelings or other useless crap.

It was just possible that Tony's mind snapped. "We're in a cave with a dragon at four goddamned AM, and we're being chased by mercenaries who want to kill you and steal my research. I don't think I can put into words just how not okay this is."

"If it makes you feel better," Loki interjected smoothly, "I have no intention of eating you."

Damn, if Loki were human, that voice could make Tony write bad checks. The not being eaten part was just gravy.

Rhodey seemed suspicious. "Why not?"

"Wait, you want him to eat us?" Tony was confused. Wasn't the whole point getting out alive?

"Of course not, but just because he tells us he doesn't want to eat us doesn't mean he won't do it." Rhodey explained, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You don't think he's a vegetarian, do you?"

Again, Loki laughed. "Indeed, I am not an herbivore. I do, however, find humans to be a bit bland for my preferences."

Ah, question answered. Tony would not be tasty. He was inexplicably disappointed.

"You've eaten people?" Rhodey was horrified.

Shrugging, Loki nodded his head. "In my defense, I was a child, and didn't realize at the time that your lot was sentient. Frankly, it was an experience I don't wish to replicate."

"You've eaten. People." Rhodey repeated, enunciating as though it meant something different.

"Yes, yes," Loki agreed impatiently. "We've covered that. My brother didn't stop teasing me about my effeminate reaction to the screaming for years, and quite honestly, I'm beyond it."

Tony frowned. "Your brother sounds like a great big bag of dicks."

Turning an irritated look on Tony, Rhodey made a zipping motion across his lips.

Oh, right, calling someone's brother names probably wasn't—

Loki's laughter once again filled the whole of the cavern. "Well said, tiny one. You humans come up with the most amusing insults. I must say, though, your speech patterns are much more informal than the last people I came into contact with. They were most staid and boring. Even as terrified of me as they were, they didn't say anything nearly as amusing as you."

"Probably because I'm not rambling out of fear," Tony shrugged. "It's mostly sleep deprivation and annoyance."

Loki's neck swerved around Rhodey's head, chin resting on his shoulder in a way that obviously made Rhodey very uncomfortable, and he stared at Tony. "You don't find me frightening?"

Tony snorted. "You said you don't wanna eat us. If you were gonna kill us, you probably would have started by now. So we're not food or victims. We're entertainment. And if there's one thing I can be? It's entertaining. Hell, back when I had money, I was the life of the fucking party. You like cursing? I can say fuck in fifteen languages. I can even conjugate it in the ones that have verb tenses."

Loki rolled his head on its side in a cat-like gesture, his slitted pupils watching Tony intently for a long moment. Then he nodded. "There is an exit from my lair on the other side of the mountain. I'll lead you there if you like. It's quite far from where you came in, unlikely to be populated by assassins."

Rhodey was stunned. "Seriously?"

Loki pulled his head back and looked Rhodey over somewhat dismissively. "He is entertaining."

Then he turned and headed down the path to the left of the room they were in, and a line of torches automatically lit along the wall. He turned to watch that they were following him, which really made Tony curious about what was down the right corridor. Wife and kids? Secret evil base of operations?

Dragon hoard. Dude. Dragons hoarded things. In the stories it was always gold, but Tony always thought if he was a dragon, he'd hoard something more interesting, like... oh, maybe cars, or robots, or computers. On the other hand, a pile of gold could buy a lot of cars or robots.

He turned to find that Rhodey had followed down the left path, and Loki was waiting for him to do the same. That amused look was back.

He shrugged. "Can't blame a guy for wondering, can you?"

"Indeed not," Loki agreed. "I've killed men for wondering before, but I never blame them."

"Tony," Rhodey ground out between gritted teeth. "I don't care what the hell you're doing or thinking, just stop it. Stop it, let us get the hell out of here alive, and then I will try not to kill you myself for making this mess even worse than it is."

Tony just shrugged, and shared a look with Loki. What can you do?, he tried to ask with his eyes.

"So," Tony asked congenially, "If you don't eat people, and you're not an herbivore, what the hell do you eat?"

For a second, the only sound was the echo of Rhodey's hand hitting his forehead.

"Deer, mostly," Loki told him. "Sheep once in a while. Cows. I don't have to eat often. I find killing animals for food somewhat distasteful."

"You don't like killing?" Rhodey asked.

Loki nodded. "It's quite disgusting. Blood and... other things, everywhere."

"Wait, lemme get this straight," Tony said. "You don't like killing your food cause it's messy?"

"Do you find it otherwise?" Loki asked, his tone of voice not changing from the light conversational tone.

"Huh," Tony said, eloquently. "You know, you're right. Probably why we buy our meat in shiny antiseptic packages at the grocery store. Nothing even resembling dead animal about them. Mostly drained of blood, definitely drained of any other bodily fluids, and completely nondescript."

Loki paused and looked back at him in wonder. "Truly?"

Tony couldn't help another laugh. "You know, according to popular fiction, any non-human carnivore is supposed to be disgusted that we eat our meat pre-packaged and cooked."

Loki's upper lip peeled back from his teeth and he made a sound that could only be classified as a snort. "How very human. You think all creatures more savage than yourselves. We taught you to cook your meat, you know, not the other way round."

"Seriously?" Tony asked. "Damn, if you wouldn't be dragged off to a shady government facility and vivisected, I'd take you out there. You'd probably like it. All kinds of pre-prepared, pre-cooked meat. Do you eat other things?"

Loki shrugged. "Sometimes. I do not require them as far as I am aware, but I do enjoy them. I also chew the golden rocks to feed my flames as necessary, but that is neither enjoyable nor nutritious."

"Golden rocks?" Rhodey stopped and turned back, confused. "Rocks 'feed your flames', so you eat them?"

Loki shook his head. "I chew them. They are stored to be used as needed. They are not food."

"Sulfur," Tony said. "That is so fucking cool. You store sulfur to make fire. Dragons can really fucking make fire, and it's science, not magic! Suck it, fairy tales!"

"You say that word often, along with its derivatives. It pleases you so much that you say you've learned it in other languages." Loki started down the long sloping tunnel again as he spoke. "What does it mean?"

"I am not getting paid enough for this," Rhodey grumbled. "I swear to God, Tony, if you start telling a dragon about fucking, I'm going to kick your ass right now."

Once again, Tony and Loki shared a look. Rhodey was a great guy, and Tony's best friend, but sometimes he was such a buzz-kill. Why couldn't Tony talk to dragons about fucking? Hm. Dragon fucking. Tony wondered how that worked. Where there penises, or some other kind of thing? Did they lay eggs? They were lizards, so it would make sense if they were cold-blooded. Tony had assigned Loki male pronouns based on his name, but was Loki even a boy dragon?

Damn. So many questions.

After a few long moments, Loki broke the silence. "Do your people still hunt mine for sport?"

Oh jeez.

"Definitely not," Rhodey answered succinctly.

Tony frowned in his friend's direction. "Only cause we don't know they exist, Rhodey." He looked over at Loki, who was taking oddly dainty steps toward their destination. He was watching Tony closely. "We think dragons never existed. That you're a story. And if we did know you were real—"

"He'd be too valuable to kill, as a single member of his species. We don't even know if he's the last of his kind," Rhodey finished for Tony, giving him another glare for good measure. He might as well have said 'don't tell the dragon the truth, stupid.'

Not having it, Tony shook his head. "At best, they'd stick him in a zoo. Put him in a cage so strangers could walk by and point and talk about the poor pretty dragon, and how he was the last of his kind."

"Pretty, is it?" Loki asked.

Shit. Tony had said that. He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his neck nervously.

"Regardless," Loki went on. "I have no idea if I am the last of my kind. My family were killed quite some time ago, and I came to this place to find solitude. I have not seen another dragon in many seasons."

"How many seasons?" Trust Rhodey to be suspicious and pump for information.

Loki's eyes dimmed, and for some incomprehensible reason, that bothered Tony. "Thousands," he said simply.

Thousands. Thousands of seasons was more than two hundred and fifty years. Loki had been alone for hundreds of years, without knowing if he was the only dragon left in the world. Tony's throat felt oddly tight, as though he was trying to swallow something large and dry.

"You don't have any kids?" Rhodey prodded, and Tony wanted to hit him. The dude had lost his whole family, and Rhodes wanted to know if Loki had kids?

 "Rest assured, human, as far as I know, I am the last of my kind." Loki sped his pace, passing Rhodey and taking a left fork in the tunnel, and a right soon after. "Your kind hunted us, remember? When last I was home, every friend or family member I had ever known had been killed."

"By humans," Tony said.

Loki nodded. "Most."

"Haven't you ever thought about going to look for more dragons?" Tony didn't want to pry, but he was curious.

"No," Loki answered. For a moment, Tony thought he'd been cut off, and wasn't going to press. Then Loki continued. "Those who raised me were the last of their kind. Majestic, golden creatures. They acted as though it made no difference what I was, but we always knew. I am black. I am a monster."

"Bullshit!" Tony spoke without thinking, or having a clue what the hell he was talking about. "You're fucking awesome, all black and shiny. If I were another dragon, I would totally fuck you."

A look of understanding crossed Loki's face. "Ah. Fuck."

Tony had the grace to blush.

"Your sentiment is kind, not to mention once again fascinating, but you do not understand. My kin, the black dragons, they were twisted creatures. They killed for amusement, tortured, ate sentient living beings, kidnapped important people so that they would have rescuers to play with."

"Were?" Tony asked.

"My family killed them. I was a hatchling at the time, barely out of the egg. The All-Father had hope that in raising me to be like his family, he could make me something more than my blood dictated." Loki's swirling green eyes were their dimmest yet, and while the expression didn't mean much, Tony recognized that tone of voice. Self-loathing.

"Um," Rhodey interjected. He sounded confused more than offended.

Tony looked over at him, ready to read him the riot act for being cold and unfeeling, when he realized what had Rhodey confused. A bare wall. They'd reached the end of the passage to find nothing but blank wall.

Must be another bit of magic, Tony thought. Magic? Illusion? No, just some kind of science Tony didn't understand yet.

Rhodey had turned back to look at Loki uneasily. "Twisted creatures who killed for fun, huh?"

Loki pulled his lips back from rows of sharp teeth. Tony wasn't sure how, but he was sure he recognized amusement. It was definitely a scary look, though. He could see why Rhodey was in the process of jumping to conclusions. Hell, he was pretty sure Loki was deliberately letting Rhodey jump to conclusions.

Loki twisted his neck down to look Rhodey directly in the eye, still grinning.

"Run, little human."

~*~

The scent of brimstone started to fill the air when Loki spoke, and Tony knew what it meant now. Loki was breathing out sulfur. If he used that sulfur in whatever way it interacted with his body, fire would ensue.

Rhodey stared up at him, horrified. "What?"

Loki drew himself up to his full height, which Tony thought had to be close to nine feet. "I told you to run. This is your last warning. Count yourself lucky that you received more than one."

"Dammit Rhodey, listen to him," Tony heard himself say. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but he definitely wanted Rhodey to do as he was being told. He knew Loki wasn't the monster he had painted himself to be; he'd never been so sure of anything in his life. He also knew that Loki wasn't kidding when he said he wasn't going to give another warning.

When Rhodey tried to reach a hand out to Tony, Loki moved between them. He reached forward with his huge arms and turned Rhodes around. There, behind where he was standing, was a crack in the wall. It was similar to the one they had come in: just barely big enough for a man to pass through.

It also hadn't been there a minute before, Tony was sure of that.

The scent of brimstone intensified, and Loki started to draw in a breath. Rhodey had to know...

"Tony, come on!" Rhodey yelled before running for the opening.

The rational part of Tony's brain said something about trying to escape. It sounded forced, even to him. It also sounded like it had no belief that any attempt would work. Loki had stepped between Tony and the escape route.

As soon as Rhodey passed through the crack, it disappeared.

"Is that really the other side of the mountain?" Tony asked him, concerned for his friend's wellbeing.

Loki turned and flopped down on his side facing Tony, staring at him through curious green eyes. "It is. If your friend starts following the strange glow of artificial light now, he should be in the nearest town before the sun reaches its zenith. And your pursuers are still miles away, on the other side of the mountain, looking in the wrong place. Is that acceptable?"

"It's awesome," Tony nodded. "Except..."

Loki just watched him.

"You did notice that I'm still here, right?"

Grinning again, Loki inclined his head, then leaned it out to set it down right in front of Tony. "I did. You were so curious before that I couldn't help but assume you had more questions. So, tiny human, now you can ask all the questions you want."

Tony felt his eyes go round. "All the questions I want?"

"You aren't afraid that your questions will anger me, and to my surprise, they have not yet done so." Loki pushed his head forward again, actually pressing it into Tony's leg.

Tony thought about it for a moment and then asked, "I'm never leaving here, am I?" He was already sure he knew the answer, but he was confused about the reaction he was having to that knowledge. Where was the fear? Or hell, at least the annoyance at not having been asked?

Loki grinned again. "Not if I can stop you."

That was when Tony realized he still had the case with his research. He held it up. "This is gonna be a problem."

"What about your aluminum box is a problem, and how can I help you solve it?" Loki asked, pressing his head again Tony's leg again.

Absently, Tony reached down and scratched Loki's nose. Just as he realized how stupid and crazy that was, he also realized that Loki was pressing into the touch. Experimentally, he ran his hand up the long smooth snout and scratched behind where he assumed the ear openings were.

A deep rumbling sound filled the cave, making the walls vibrate even more strongly than they did with Loki's laughter.

He was purring.

Tony was making a dragon purr.

How had it gone from the most annoying day of his life to the best day of his life in under an hour? It was simple, he supposed. He had met Loki.

"Hey," Tony said, a thought occurring to him. "How do you know this case is aluminum? It's not like aluminum in the wild looks like this."

Loki gave a motion that felt a little like a shrug and he pressed his head up into Tony's scratching fingers. "It smells of aluminum. How do humans think we find gold?"

"You smell gold?" Tony asked.

"Indeed," Loki agreed. "But we were supposed to be discussing why your case is a problem."

"Oh yeah. Well, the Air Force is going to send people out looking for it. Rhodey will tell them I'm out here alive and need help, so they might send someone for that, but for this?" Tony brandished the case. "For this, they'll send out every person they can."

Loki looked miffed. "They find an aluminum box more important than one of their own? It seems the humans have not changed since I knew them."

Laughing, Tony dropped the case on the floor and sat down next to it. Almost immediately, he had a lap full of dragon, as Loki pressed his head in close again. "It's not that they find the case more important than me," Tony denied half-heartedly as he started petting the dragon in earnest. Even had he believed in the existence of dragons, he would never have expected to do that. "It's what's in the case."

"Is it another human? It doesn't smell or sound alive. It isn't gold. What else could be more important?" Something in Loki's tone seemed so strangely innocent that Tony didn't want to tell him more. Just let him think that humans didn't kill each other over things as ephemeral as ideas.

Of course, that wasn't why Stane was planning to kill for the plans. Money and power were his goals, just as they always had been. It was just that he planned to use Tony's ideas to get them.

"Something is disturbing you, tiny human." Loki pushed up into his hand, and Tony realized that in his considerations, he'd stopped petting and started glaring off into space. "I prefer you undisturbed. You are much more entertaining that way."

Tony chuckled. "Okay, if I'm staying—and I'm not accepting this whole forever thing—but if I'm staying even for a little while, you're gonna have to call me Tony. I don't call you giant dragon."

"That would be foolish of you," Loki told him. "I am quite small for one of my kind. I shall acquiesce to your demand, however, Tony. I do not think it suits you, but if it is what you wish to be called, I shall do so."

Tony snorted. "My mother would love you. She used to complain that she gave me a perfectly good name, and I insisted on ruining it. As far as what's disturbing me," Tony thumped the case at his side. "This is all the work I've done in the last two years."

"Those men wish to steal your work," Loki concluded. "And then they wish to enslave you to do more of it?"

Tony nodded. "That's about the size of it."

"Do you wish me to kill them?" Loki asked, in a tone he might use if he was asking whether Tony wanted lunch now or later.

For some reason, it was endearing. Maybe it was the shock. "Nah, Stane'd just send more."

Loki seemed to catch on. "Ah, then this Stane is the problem. He is their leader?"

"Well, he hired them. You know what a mercenary is?" When Loki nodded, Tony continued. "He hired mercenaries to steal my idea."

"This idea must be very impressive," Loki rubbed the side of his head against Tony's chest. He really was like an enormous, scaly, cold-blooded cat.

Tony grinned at that. He was supposed to be talking, though, about his work. "It's a flight suit," he told Loki. He was breaking all kinds of laws by saying that. He wondered if it was technically treason, sharing classified information with a dragon. Eh. He'd never been good with rules. "Unlike you, men can't fly on their own. So I invented a way for us to do it."

He thought Loki looked impressed. He supposed if he was going to spend the rest of his life as a dragon's kept boy, at least the dragon seemed to be impressed with him.

~*~

Tony woke slowly, as he always did, and the remains of a strange dream stuck with him. Something about growing wings, and flying off into the sunrise, leaving everyone he cared about (Rhodey) and everything he wanted to escape (Stane, the Air Force... everything) behind.

Even knowing he'd never see Rhodey again, it was oddly freeing. He'd always felt like he was holding Rhodey back, anyway. Maybe without Tony Stark as a millstone around his neck, he'd be able to have a wife and kids, like Tony knew he wanted.

Maybe everyone would be happy if Tony just disappeared.

He opened his eyes to complete darkness. That seemed strange. The sensation of something warm and moving next to him wasn't as strange, but the fact that it was draped all along his back was. Even when he went home with guys, they weren't generally that big. Also, Tony Stark was not the little spoon.

There was something soft and lovely wrapped around him, and it smelled somewhat familiar.

His brain came into focus as the wet gritty scent of limestone cavern made itself known. He had fallen asleep while petting a dragon. That seemed like a smart thing to do. Fuck, the stuff he'd told the dragon. The stuff he'd told Loki. He was pretty sure they were on a first name basis, given the fact that Loki had told Tony he was staying.

Tony wasn't going to give up on getting out just yet, but he didn't see a reason to piss off the dragon who currently controlled his continuing existence. It was inevitable that Loki would get sick of him, probably sooner rather than later, and he just needed to make sure that instead of killing him when it happened, Loki let him go. So he would stay, and play nice, and wait for Loki to get bored.

Gods, that sounded boring.

The military would come and search the forest as soon as Rhodey found his way to them. James Rhodes, unlike most people, was a rocket scientist. He was smart enough not to tell the Air Force that they had found a dragon in a cave, and it had taken Tony prisoner. He would tell them that they had been separated, and Tony still had the case. The Air Force would be everywhere in less than a day.

Maybe Loki would decide that Tony wasn't worth the trouble, and just eject him back out into the wild. He wouldn't be the first, or, Tony suspected, the last to decide that.

It still stung, every time. Even with that one blonde woman who had been the worst one-night-stand of Tony's life. In fact, maybe it had been worse, because even the woman Tony didn't want had rejected him.

He finally placed the scent. Down. He was wrapped in a down blanket, and a dragon was spooning him. When he opened his eyes, glowing green eyes were already focused on him.

"Did you sleep well, little one?" Loki asked him gently, and hell if that wasn't weird, nothing was.

He paused for a long moment, trying to gather his thoughts. Rationality seemed to slip through his fingers like water. So he just went with it. "Yeah. How long did I sleep? Or do you not use like, hours and stuff?"

Loki chuckled, that deep rumble that made everything vibrate, right down to Tony's bones. His morning wood made itself inconveniently known. Dragon, he told himself. It doesn't matter how sexy the voice is, you don't even know if it has any recognizable genitalia attached.

"So, no?" Tony prodded.

"I have a clock, little one—Tony." Loki answered after a time. "Winding it is difficult, but I do own it."

"Winding it?" Tony asked. "What is it, from the stone age?"

Loki blinked. "The what?"

Tony considered for a moment, and tried again. "When exactly did you get it?"

"I removed it from an abandoned home southeast of here. It was a very large farm, but the servants left, and the remaining people were unable to work the land on their own." Loki explained carefully, obviously trying to communicate a situation that hadn't made any sense to him.

Tony decided that Loki thought ill enough of humans without adding slavery to the pot. Maybe another time.

Instead, he dragged the topic back to the original intended one. "So you went in after everyone left, and took their clock?"

Loki shrugged. "Among other things. I like the way humans live."

He took a few deep breaths that Tony was starting to recognize as a sign to keep his head down. Tony took the cue, and buried his face in the soft blanket wrapped around him. He was relieved to find that he was still fully clothed. He supposed if it was hard to wind a clock, undressing a person would also be difficult.

There was a flash of warmth, and a moment later, Tony tentatively pulled the blanket off his head. Sure enough, there was a cozy fire in one corner. The fire, however, was secondary to... everything.

They had to be in the room to the right of the main corridor that Tony had been curious about. It was—sweet baby Einstein, it was just like something from a fairy tale. There was an indentation in the middle of the floor, and it was fucking full of gold. Gold! Gold coins, and jewelry, and gilded trinkets were strewn haphazardly into the pit.

Oddly enough, the rest of the room was even more interesting.

It looked as though Loki had tried to decorate it. Tapestries were hung as tightly together as possible, in what appeared to be an attempt to cover the rough limestone of the walls. There were rugs all over the floor, giving a similar effect. There were lovely pieces of antique wooden furniture: chairs and a table that Loki couldn't possibly fit into, a velvet covered chaise lounge with matching pillow and a blanket draped across the edge, and a half dozen other rooms worth of furniture arrayed stylishly throughout the cavern.

Loki had made himself a human home, with human things that couldn't possibly be of use to him. Very expensive human things. Loki had damned fine taste.

"Well at least I know you haven't trapped me here to make weapons," Tony chuckled. "But I should warn you, I'm not much of a carpenter." He turned to find Loki watching him expectantly. "What? Did I say something wrong? Already?"

That seemed to confuse his host, who looked back up at the room, and down at Tony once again. Tony blinked rapidly. Loki hadn't ever had occasion to show his collection to anyone before. He was waiting for Tony's response.

"This is fucking amazing, Loki. How did you get all this down here?" He was trying to keep Loki's attention diverted from the inevitable search party, that was all. He wasn't trying to make his dragon captor happy. And hell, it was really impressive, and he was curious.

Loki seemed to puff up a bit, which absolutely wasn't the cutest thing Tony had ever seen. "The same way I let you and your friend get in and out. Do you really like it?"

"You saw us running last night, didn't you?" Tony asked. "You showed me that opening and let us in deliberately."

Obviously disappointed by the change in subject, Loki drooped a bit, but nodded. "I was watching. You were interesting. People don't come here often. I don't really mind, mostly, but..."

Everything pulled into crystal sharp clarity. Loki alone in the mountain for gods only knew how long. His family dead, and apparently not all that supportive when they'd been alive. The world empty of dragons and full of humans, who would kill dragons given the opportunity. And then two humans running through the woods, in need of help. People who received help were sometimes grateful, weren't they? It had been some time since Tony got help from anyone who wasn't either Rhodey, or under orders to help him, but he was pretty sure he could figure out how to be grateful.

Tony pulled the blanket around himself and leaned on Loki. "So tell me about the tapestries. Where did they come from? Hell, how did you hang them? They look great. And no mildew in a cave this wet. You must take really good care of them."

His head lifting again, Loki grinned down at Tony.

Yeah, being grateful wasn't so hard. Especially when it meant he got to listen to that voice speak with such passion on the subject of his marvelous acquisitions. Loki didn't even seem to notice that Tony was looking at him instead of the brocade.

~*~

"You know, Loki, I could bring a generator in, set you up some electric lights," Tony called over his shoulder, examining the torches Loki had set into the walls. "Hell, we could even do something with solar power, so you wouldn't have to rely on the outside world."

Loki's chin slid onto his shoulder, and he looked at the torch, too. "Is it hopelessly old-fashioned?"

"Well, a little," Tony admitted. "But I know how you like the art, and I was thinking maybe some old-school wall sconces would be right up your alley."

Loki's eyes glowed bright. "Wall sconces? What are those? Draw them for me?"

Grinning, Tony scratched Loki's head and nodded, then headed back to the lair.

Well, Tony called it a lair. It sounded wicked and dragony. Loki just called it 'the bedroom'. He had this romanticized notion of humanity, and believed that their customs, words, and things had to be superior. They had defeated dragonkind for rule of the planet, after all. There had to be some merit.

It had been four days.

It was funny, how much things could change in four days.

Tony was planning solar panels and wall sconces. It wasn't that he was planning on staying, never that. It was just that whenever he so much as mentioned the idea of leaving, Loki started to look like an abused kitten. It wasn't just that, though. It was also that Loki listened to him, and not in a 'keep the annoying genius happy' kind of way. Tony said solar panels, and Loki wanted to know what and why and how. And he cared about the answers.

So two hours later, they were standing on the mountaintop, looking for a convenient place to put solar panels.

Absently, Tony realized that it was the first time he'd been out of the cave since the night he and Rhodey had stumbled in. It occurred to him that he should run away, or something like that.

"Here would be good," he called to Loki. "Lots of sun, won't interfere with the local wildlife. And you could run the wiring through the cave walls?"

"Easily," Loki confirmed.

He was watching Tony curiously. Not as though he expected him to run off, but as though he were confused by Tony's attitude. Seeing as he was confused himself, he couldn't really fault the concern.

Tony ignored it all and grinned. "Well hell, Loki, with electricity, there's a lot I could do down there. I could get you a working clock that you don't have to wind, for one."

"That would be marvelous. I do enjoy the human magic—sorry, electricity." Loki wasn't the least bit sorry and they both knew it. Sorry wasn't something either of them did very well. Take Tony's captivity. Loki wished it didn't make Tony unhappy, but he wasn't sorry enough to send Tony back to civilization.

Tony just rolled his eyes in amusement. "It's not magic, Loki. It's easily explained with rational thought."

"As are all forms of magic," Loki agreed. "Yours is to harness the power of lightning. The All-Mother used to tell stories of dragons who could do such. She said that they had eyes like lightning, and tempers to match."

"Were there a lot of kinds of dragons?" Tony asked, leaving off the 'before humans killed them all' part.

"So said the All-Mother," Loki said wistfully. His eyes were distant and dim. "Every color of the earth and sky, she told me once, and each a personality to match. The All-Father said she was being fanciful, and that such stories were useless."

"He really was a douche nozzle, wasn't he? She sounds kinda nice, though." Tony sat down on a flat rock on the mountaintop and looked at Loki. He was even more beautiful in the sun. He was completely out of place in the forest, but it seemed that the animals had become used to him. The birds still sang in the closest trees, and a squirrel ran past with a nut tucked under one tiny arm, not so much as sparing the enormous creature a second glance.

Loki sat down in a small patch of grass across from Tony. "She was wonderful. When I was a child, and the others wouldn't play with me because I was a monster, she took me hunting with her. She taught me all of my magic."

Tony bit his tongue. His own mother hadn't taught him much, but Walt Disney and a small bunny had taught him that if one had nothing nice to say, he should keep his goddamned mouth shut. Tony was very bad at following that advice, but sometimes even he was circumspect. Better to let Loki think of his mother than to point out how shitty everyone else had been.

"Do you like our home, Tony?" Loki asked out of the blue, and wow. Our home. Tony had known Loki intended to keep him, but that was something else entirely.

He let himself fall backward and stared at the sky.

Our home.

When he was a child, he had lived in 'the family manor'. At college, it had been 'the school's dorm'. When he'd joined the Air Force, it was the BOQ. No one had ever told him that a home was his before, and suddenly there was Loki, with this place that he had been building for centuries, giving that to Tony without so much as a second thought.

Four days, and Loki wasn't just demanding that Tony stay, he was inviting Tony to be a part of his home. Even Rhodey had never done that, and Rhodey was as close to a normal human relationship as Tony had even been.

He would never forget the time Rhodey took him home for Thanksgiving and introduced him to the whole extended Rhodes family. It had been amazing, and beautiful, and Tony had been so uncomfortable that he'd started going back to 'the family manor' to avoid further invitations. It had been too much for Tony. Too many people, too much attention, and he just hadn't known what to do with it all.

Loki was demanding everything Tony had, but he was just one person—er, one dragon. For some reason, it didn't seem like so much with Loki.

Remembering that there was a question he still needed to answer, Tony nodded. "Yeah, Loki. It's a nice home."

He heard a deep exhalation and realized that Loki had been worried about his answer. He was like some dude who had just carried his wife across the threshold and was waiting anxiously for her to tell him if the house was up to her standards. Tony started to chuckle at the notion, but then he sat straight up.

"Loki, you know I'm not a girl, right?" he asked without preamble.

Loki cocked his head. "I am aware that you are a male human, yes."

"So you're not seeing a cute little nest of magical half-dragon half-human babies in our future." It was a statement, but Tony's cursed voice turned it into a question at the end.

Loki sighed. "I am aware that we cannot produce children, Tony. If only you were a dragon."

"I'd still be a dude," Tony countered. "I hope."

"But you would be a dragon," Loki reiterated, as though it would... oh.

Tony tried to dance around the subject. "You guys can like, um, like the frogs?"

Affronted, Loki sat up straight and narrowed his eyes. "I beg your pardon?"

"You know," Tony gesticulated, then realized Loki would have no idea what he was talking about. "Those frogs that can change their gender so they can have tadpoles."

"There is no changing of genders, but my magic would enable me to create eggs if you were a dragon." Loki sighed and stared off into space again. "Mother used to do it for same-gendered mated pairs all the time. She taught me."

"Damn," Tony was impressed, against his better judgment.

Loki met his eyes again, looking terribly sad. "You don't mind, do you? Not being able to have hatchlings?"

"I, um, what?"

"When I was a hatchling, all mated pairs were allowed a clutch at least once. I cannot offer you that." Letting his eyes fall back to the ground, Loki tentatively leaned forward and put his head in Tony's lap. "I fear I am not much of a mate."

Automatically, Tony started petting Loki as his mind raced. Mate.

Loki thought they were mates. Holy shit, he didn't think they were going to... Tony held back a shudder. He was pretty sure he wouldn't live through a thing like that, so he hoped that Loki's libido was stunted by the inability of human males to lay eggs.

On the other hand, it was their lair. Their home. So they couldn't have kids, or sex that didn't end bloody and gruesome for Tony. He was pretty sure that installing light fixtures and discussing the placement of furniture was a thing that married couples did. And damn if he hadn't been enjoying it.

"I don't mind not having eggs," Tony conceded. "I mean kids. I really like eggs. Dude, is that gross for you?"

Loki cracked an eye open, the light in it dancing with amusement. "Are they dragon eggs?"

Tony snorted at him. "Weren't we just talking about how a lack of dragon eggs was happening?"

"Then I do not see why you need refrain from eating bird eggs," Loki said. "I shall procure you some when next I leave the lair to hunt."

Loki had been pretty damned good about that so far. Tony was pretty sure he was stealing food from campers, given the cooler of beer, the newly processed fish, and even the camp stove from the day before. Still, at some point, Tony was going to have to go into town and buy things. Hell, the solar panels weren't going to buy themselves.

He wondered if Loki was going to see it as an infringement on his ability as a provider for his helpless human mate, Tony needing to do some things himself. Hm. Maybe they could get some wifi and a physical address, and just order shit online. Loki sure as hell had enough gold to buy things. Small countries, perhaps.

A rumbling sound issued forth from Loki, and it took Tony a moment to place it.

A snore. His lazy cold-blooded mate had fallen asleep while sunning himself on top of the mountain, with his head in Tony's lap.

Damn. They really were married.

~*~

It wasn't hard to get used to waking up next to Loki. With the thick down comforter wrapped around him, and Loki soaking up and retaining Tony's own warmth, it was a rather comfortable way to sleep.

Waking up alone was cold and uncomfortable, and Tony didn't like it. Sleeping on a pile of gold wasn't all it was cracked up to be in the stories. Sleeping on a dragon is much better.

It was odd, though. Loki usually slept later than Tony, and didn't even want to get up when Tony was ready. The fact that he was gone was unsettling. Tony ignored the little voice in his head that pointed out how he was acting like a worried little house-frau.

Come to bed, sweetie...

Standing, he dropped the blanket, and was assaulted by the smell of himself. Ew. Gods, he hadn't bathed in a week. How had Loki not noticed and said something? No wonder he'd vacated the bed (bed? When had he started thinking of a pile of gold as a bed?) earlier than usual. Tony wanted to escape himself. He could only imagine how Loki felt.

Even worse, he didn't have any clothes to change into after taking a bath. He just had to wash the ones he was wearing and—what, run around naked while he waited for them to dry?

Not a chance.

He had somewhat reconciled himself to the idea that Loki thought of him as a mate, but only in an abstract sense. He was still a soft squishy human, and Loki was still a giant scaly dragon. He didn't want Loki getting any ideas because Tony started wandering around naked. He liked his penis attached and his... orifices... intact.

He gave the blanket a good sniff to make sure that he hadn't gotten it covered in human-funk. When he was satisfied, he folded it and set it on top of the hoard, then went out into what he still thought of as the main cavern. It was the cavern where he and Rhodey had entered the lair for the first time, and it was completely undecorated. He wondered if they should do something about that.

On the plus side, what it had was a pool of water that was fed by an underground spring.

In the negative column, it was also Tony's supply of drinking water, and he was absolutely not going to dirty it up by bathing in it.

Thankfully, Loki was in that cavern. He could just let Tony out to the river to take a bath, and...

Hm. Something about his posture was off. Something was wrong. "Loki? You okay?"

Loki was silent for a long moment, then he turned his head and looked at Tony. "There are more of them than I expected."

More of them? Tony was about to ask who, when he realized that he already knew the answer. The Air Force had finally arrived. More than a week late, but apparently in force.

A week earlier, Tony would have been thrilled by the opportunity to escape. Well, maybe he would have been thrilled. He still didn't know everything he wanted to about dragons.

All Tony wanted in the present was a goddamned shower, and maybe some eggs. "Do we have any eggs left?" he asked Loki, heading over to the cooler where he'd been storing their ill-gotten foodstuffs. Nope. Damn again.

He uncapped a bottle of orange juice and took a long swig. Couldn't go getting scurvy, after all. The whole internet ordering thing was looking more and more appealing. What he really needed to do was find one really expensive thing, talk Loki into selling it, and then they'd be set in the bank account department. Well, once they had a bank account. It wasn't as though they were lacking in expensive things.

Trying to talk a dragon out of any piece of his hoard, though... well, it was just as hard as one might expect.

Loki was watching him with a droop in his posture that set Tony's teeth on edge. It only took him a minute to recognize why. It looked just like he always felt when someone he who was supposed to care about him let him down and abandoned him. Loki had thought that Tony was going to leave him.

How could Tony convince him otherwise?

It wasn't as though Tony could point out how little he was leaving behind. That wouldn't be reassuring at all. He had to actively choose Loki, not fail to choose his crappy empty pre-Loki life.

"Are they digging?" he asked as casually as possible.

Loki shook his head slightly. "Not yet. Your friend is trying to talk them into it. They think he's wrong about the area, since if there was a way into the mountain, it would be obvious."

Rhodey. It figured. "Has he found the spot where you kicked him out?"

Shaking his head again, Loki motioned toward where the trickle of water escaped the main cavern. "He's there, where you came in."

Tony looked at the rock wall for a moment as though he could see through it. He wondered how Loki saw everything like that. Damned magic. Tony had asked him once how it worked, and the best answer he'd gotten out of Loki had been something about how he wished for a thing, and it happened. Sounded like nonsense to Tony.

He sighed and looked back to Loki. "How many?"

"There?" Loki asked. "Just him. The others are looking further downstream. They think perhaps he's mistaken about where the entrance was. It was dark and he was under strain, after all."

Tony nodded. "Welp, I gotta take a bath anyway. Lemme out, and I'll talk to him."

Loki looked taken aback. "Out?" Then he sighed heavily. "You want to leave. Of course you want to leave."

"Not leave, you big scaly lump. Bathe. Talk to my friend. Be back in half an hour." Tony walked resolutely toward where he knew the crack was. "I smell, bad, and I want it to stop. Oh yeah," he turned around and went back to the wall where he'd rested the case with his research. "This'll help, too."

Loki made an odd noise behind him, but Tony resolutely did not turn back. He wouldn't even make it out the door if he had to look into Loki's giant green kitten eyes. Jesus, he just wanted a bath. You'd think Loki wasn't a grown damned dragon who'd been taking care of himself for hundreds of years.

He followed the trickle of water, watching as it flowed into what looked like solid rock. Then the crack was suddenly there in front of him, and Tony flinched away. It was so bright. Maybe he needed to spend more time outside, if the sun was going to affect him like that. It hadn't seemed so bad the time he'd gone out with Loki.

He crouched down and shuffled through to the outside world, where the light was even worse. Holding the case over his head as he exited the cave, Tony frowned at the bright afternoon sun. The reflection off the water made it even worse. He squinted to block most of it out, and hoped that his eyes would adjust quickly.

"Tony!" came the familiar, if near-hysterical, voice of his best friend. "Oh God, Tony, I thought you were dead!"

Tony grinned, turning his face in the direction of the voice, but keeping his eyes too narrow to see much. "Me? Dead? Takes a lot more than a couple of Stane's men to do me in. They prove it was him, by the way?"

Rhodey grinned. "They damned well did. His command contact caved. He's going to prison, Tony. Stealing state secrets, attempted murder... hell, if we hadn't found you today, it might have been murder."

Huh. Stane going to prison for Tony's murder. It probably wouldn't happen, but Tony did like that symmetry.

"I should go get the guys," Rhodey said, and Tony's eyes were finally working well enough to allow him to see his friend turn downstream.

Tony grabbed his shoulder. "Yeah, about all this, buddy," he searched for a way to continue for a long moment, and then decided that showing was best. He shoved the case into Rhodey's hands, and hoped his friend was as smart as he thought he was.

Rhodey stared at him. Looking back and forth between Tony and the case for a full minute, Rhodey started to shake his head. "Oh no. No way. What the hell are you thinking, Tony?"

"It's complicated, but—"

"There's nothing so complicated you can't explain it to me. You were taken hostage by a—" Rhodey lowered his voice, "a dragon, Tony. I thought I had lost it for a while, or maybe they were right about how the strain had made me forget what really happened. But now you're out, and we're getting the hell out of here and never coming back to Virginia."

And what could Tony say to that?

Oh yeah. "Nope."

"The hell do you mean, 'nope'? We came to get you out of here, to save you from that—that thing!" Rhodey gesticulated wildly, an action made more complicated by the aluminum case in his hands.

Tony scowled at him. "You're my best friend, Rhodey, so I'm gonna say this instead of reacting badly. His name is Loki. He's a dragon, not a thing, and I do not need saving."

"This is Stockholm syndrome, Tony," Rhodey denied. "You're in a stressful situation, and your mind is adapting. You think, what, you have something in common with a... dragon... that lives in the middle of nowhere and kidnaps people for entertainment."

"I am entertaining," Tony grinned at him. Then he remembered why he'd come out in the first place. A bath. Yes, the river should do nicely. The current wasn't too strong, and it had the added benefit of being right there. What he wouldn't give for some soap. And a razor. And a towel or three. Damn, he needed to find a way to get some stuff.

Tony almost started shrugging out of his clothes, then it occurred to him that the easiest way to wash them would be with him inside. Plus, the bonus of not stripping down in a spot where Air Force personnel might wander up and get an eyeful.

"I don't have Stockholm syndrome, Rhodey," he said as he stepped into the river. "I like it here."

"You like it here." Rhodes' tone was flat. "What the hell are you doing, Tony?"

Tony took a dozen careful steps into the water, till it was almost up to his chest, and took his shirt off to scrub it together under the water, and used it to wash the worst of the muck off of his skin. "What the hell does it look like I'm doing? Taking a bath. I'm freaking rank, man."

Rhodey was getting exasperated. "Because that thing has been holding you prisoner!"

"We've talked about you calling him a thing, buddy. Loki has given me everything I need, promise. The lack of bathing is no more his doing than when you drag me out of the lab because I won't stop working to eat, sleep and shower." Tony did his best to look serious and sincere, not the easiest feat while you're also trying to bathe in a river while almost fully clothed. "And I have been eating and sleeping."

"So he's not holding you prisoner?" Rhodey looked dubious, but Tony recognized the 'about to crack' look.

Tony made a show of glancing in both directions. "Do you see him forcing me to stay here?"

He looked back down at his shirt, and it wasn't a pretty picture. Between the unexpected run through the forest, the week of continuous wear, all the dirt, and then the using it as a washrag, Tony was pretty sure it was a total loss.

Huh. Now there was an idea.

He dunked his head under the water and scrubbed vigorously at his hair for a moment, then came up and started wading back to the water's edge.

He grabbed the shirt by an edge that was already torn, and ripped the rest of the way through. Grabbing a jagged looking rock from the edge of the river, he gouged at his hand until he drew blood, and smeared it on the soggy remains of his shirt.

Rhodey just watched in horrified fascination.

"I'm dead serious, man," he said, looking his friend in the eye. "You're the only good thing I have out there. I don't have a family, or a great career—no, we both know the Air Force was a stopgap at best for me, so don't give me that Air Force for life crap." He took a step back and made an expansive gesture at the mountain. "I have something here."

"A dragon," Rhodey said, looking more confused than annoyed. And maybe a little hurt. "You're saying you have nothing in the outside world, so you're giving it all up for a dragon?"

Tony sighed. "Replace the word dragon with the word woman, and it's a conversation you expected to have with me at some point, right?"

That shut his old friend up. A concerned look crossed Rhodes' face that reminded Tony of his own panic at the thought of dragon sex and egg laying, so Tony held up a hand to forestall any comment to that effect.

"Don't even go there. We're a lot alike. We're both lonely. We like each other. What else do you really need in life?" Tony was half worried that there was going to be a rational answer for that, but really, he knew there wasn't. Even if there was more for other people, there wasn't for him.

If Rhodey had an answer, it was probably because Tony wasn't telling him the whole story, but he wasn't going to start waxing poetic about Loki's eyes as deep green pools that he longed to dive into.

Rhodey didn't answer at all, though. He just looked at Tony for a long time. "You're completely serious about this. You know it means no more lab, or internet, or Victoria's Secret commercials?"

Tony grinned. "About that, old buddy. I was hoping you might do us a little favor. First, the shirt and case go to the boys out there looking for me. The case is all they really want, and the shirt will be enough to call off the hunt for what's left of me."

Rhodey frowned, but nodded. "Probably."

"Then I want to see about who owns this land. Because once you sell a few things your dear friend Tony left you, it's going to be you, or a reasonable proxy that I can mock up on the internet. Truth-adjacent industries. And I'm going to have a lab, and the internet, and whatever the hell else I need."

"You saying you're a kept man?" A hint of a smile crossed Rhodey's face.

Tony grinned. "Call it what you want, being a captive princess has its perks."

~*~

Something was poking into Tony's back when he woke, so he gave Loki a shove, and then huffed happily when whatever it was moved. He'd kicked the comforter off to somewhere in the night, but it wasn't cold, so it didn't seem to matter much. Loki felt cooler than usual, so he snuggled back into him.

It was interesting, how things had turned out.

If anyone had told him a year before that he was going to move in with a dragon, start an internet company that catered to people who couldn't—or just didn't want to—leave their homes by delivering all things big and small, and be incredibly rich, he... well he wouldn't have laughed, so much as he'd have asked if the person in question wrote fiction for a living. The whole thing was ludicrous. And yet it was.

And gods was it good.

Rhodey still visited regularly. Once he'd gotten over the notion that Tony had given something up for Loki, he'd actually warmed to the situation. He told Loki in confidence that he wasn't sure he'd ever seen Tony happy before. Of course, Loki had told him. He was too damned smug about it not to.

Stane was still holding up the legal system with his slick lawyers, but things weren't looking good for him. It was about time things went poorly for that old bastard.

All things considered, it was a life so good that Tony couldn't have conceived of anything better.

Every now and then, Loki had his dark moments. He disliked himself even more than Tony ever had, and that was saying something. Of course, the Starks hadn't raised Tony to believe that he was a monster who didn't deserve happiness. That wasn't the problem, though, and he knew it.

Loki felt bad because he couldn't offer Tony the things a 'real mate' would. The truth was that Tony didn't miss sex that much, and while he was fascinated by the notion of children, he wasn't sure if he was missing anything by not being able to have them. All he wanted was what he had. If only he could convince Loki of that.

He ought to get up and make breakfast, though.

Rolling over onto his back, he stretched his arms high over his head, bumping into Loki with one of them. When Loki made a little 'oof', and rolled off the hoard, Tony sat up and looked at him. Was he sick? Tony certainly couldn't shift Loki's weight, let alone with one arm. He sat straight up and started to pull himself to his feet, concerned that something was wrong.

Loki was staring up at him from the bottom of the mountain of gold, shock written across his features.

"Tony?" he asked, confusion in his voice.

"Dude, duh," Tony rolled his eyes. "You been sleeping with someone else while I wasn't looking?"

He paused. Was he sick? There was something wrong with his voice. He looked down as though he could see his own throat, and realized that it didn't matter. His throat was not the problem.

The fact that he was red and scaly seemed to be the problem. Loki was looking up at him, and not down. Fuck, even with Tony four feet off the floor on the pile of gold, he must be huge. Like... huge.

He sat back down, hard.

Loki slowly crawled up to him, and ran his hands over Tony. "It's... you're... Oh no. Oh no, Tony, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."

Tony considered that for a moment, cocking his head to one side. Loki's fault? Of course it's Loki's fault, his brain helpfully pointed out. Only one of you could possibly turn someone into a dragon, and it's sure as hell not your unmagical ass.

"I'll fix it," Loki was promising. "I don't know how, but I'll make you—"

"Shut up," Tony told him in his suddenly deeper, rumbling voice. "And come sit on my lap."

He'd show Rhodey five foot ten.

And he'd show Loki a whole lot more than that.