Chapter Text
Tony checked the strength of his knot -- good and solid -- and looked down into the crevice in the side of the mountain. It looked very, very deep.
Deep enough that he couldn’t see the bottom.
That was good. The specific mushrooms he was looking for would shrivel up and puff into a cloud of spores if they were so much as brushed with the light of the sun. They were incredibly difficult to find, but they had a number of fascinating properties that made them ideal for artifice work.
Tony, as the kingdom’s leading creator of magical artifacts, relied on them for his most potent creations.
Unfortunately, his supplier hadn’t been seen for over a year, and Tony had been forced to go looking.
Fortunately, after a few months of travel, he’d located the man.
Unfortunately, Tony had located a memorial marker and the tale that he’d gotten into a territorial dispute with a cave troll.
Fortunately, the supplier had died with several debts unpaid, and for the price of a dozen or so gold coins, his former patron had consented to pass on the maps and notes that had been left behind. Which meant that Tony could go in search of the mushrooms himself.
Unfortunately, the best spot for the mushrooms, according to the maps, was just over the border and into drow territory. So Tony was going to have to be extremely careful as he did his hunting.
He checked his knot one more time, and then gingerly lowered himself into the crevice.
It was slow going; his small lantern seemed to cast light no further than the reach of his arm, and after he’d gone down twenty feet or so, there was a wind that made him sway like a poorly balanced pendulum.
Still, the reward was worth the trouble. He kept climbing downward.
It wasn’t until he’d gone a hundred feet that the rope made a soft twang noise, and Tony realized that while his knot had been quite sound, he hadn’t thought to pad it against the edge of the crevice, where it rubbed against the rock.
One of the strands had already parted. Tony stared up at the distant, pale sliver of light, and wondered if he should try to climb back up, or continue down and hope to reach the bottom. Climbing up would put more strain on the rope, and he wasn’t at all sure he could make it. If he climbed down, he would be stranded at the bottom with no way back out.
Either way, it looked bad.
The rope twitched and twanged again. Down it was, then. One way or another.
Tony began to shimmy down the rope as quickly as he could manage, all but sliding down its length. The quality of sound changed somewhat -- the echo of his breathing sounded different, and he hoped that meant he was nearing the bottom. He risked a glance down, but couldn’t see anything.
And then the rope snapped and went slack, and Tony fell.
Bucky checked his moonstone again, the very dim glow was almost full, which meant it was nighttime, topside. That was always best; venturing out of the caves was always dangerous, but more so in the sunlight. So long underground and his people could barely see on the surface, the sun was, if not quite deadly, at least very uncomfortable against skin unused to it.
The surface world was noisy and terrifying and full of people who bore no love for drow or dwarf, troll or trog. Surface dwellers could be very hostile. But they couldn’t see well without lanterns, and tended to sleep at night, which made it the very best time for short excursions above ground. The crevice that led upward wasn’t too hard to climb, if you knew where all the handholds were.
Bucky pulled on his cloak, belted it. The surface world tended to be windy, cold. Sometimes. He wasn’t sure what the season was, above. Below ground was always the same.
He turned the last corner and--
There was someone laying on the ground, a long slither of rope next to them like a dead snake.
Bucky melded back into the shadows, in case he’d been seen.
But there was only a soft, pained groan.
It wasn’t drow. Didn’t even smell like an elf. Bucky let himself drift a little closer, remaining in the darkest of the shadows where he couldn’t be seen.
The person -- whatever it was -- groaned again, and an arm moved, feeling around itself, on the floor of the cavern, then over its own body. There was a sharp hiss of pain, and the person moved again, pushing up onto one arm as it tested its leg.
“Broken,” it said, in the language of humans. It tipped its head back to look up at the top of the crevice, and then sighed. “Damn.”
Bucky fumbled in his cloak for his nightblade, made from blackened steel so it didn’t reflect even the tiniest gleam of light. He took several more steps closer. Obviously, he couldn’t leave a feral human wandering around in the caverns. He licked his lips, then, “what are you doing down here?” The human words felt strange in his mouth, all harsh and too full of choppy syllables.
The human -- he assumed -- went still. It twisted around, trying to see him, but apparently didn’t. “I fell,” it said after a moment. “I was looking for mushrooms.” It hesitated, then said, “Are you going to kill me?”
“Do you need to be killed?” Like an animal in too much pain to survive? Bucky crept a little closer, trying to discern features. Rather a lot of dark, messy hair, and some on its face, too. Too tall to be a dwarf. Must be human. Probably a male. Bucky thought only male humans had beards.
“If I’m being honest, I’d rather not. But I broke my leg in the fall -- I should be grateful I didn’t split my skull open, really -- and I’m not sure I can leave. So if I’m trespassing or something, I’m very sorry, but I can’t do much to fix the situation right now.”
“What kind of mushroom?” Bucky wondered. He let himself actually come out of the shadow, close enough to the human to touch. He’d never actually seen a human before, just heard stories of them. They really weren’t so monstrous. The human’s teeth seemed normal enough, not sharp and pointy. His ears were rounded at the top, which looked strange. Exotic, really. Bucky’s fingers darted out, not quite daring. He’d heard that a human’s skin could burn a drow to cinders, but he couldn’t feel any unusual heat radiating off the man. Maybe he had poison skin, like one of the dart frogs.
“Oh!” It wasn’t until Bucky had nearly touched him that the man actually spotted Bucky. “Shit, where did you come from?” He pressed his hand to his chest. His breathing seemed a little fast. Maybe because he was in pain. Or maybe humans just breathed like that all the time. “I, uh. We call them deepshrooms. Sort of... purple, with white spots on the cap that glow just a little bit?”
“Brightcaps,” Bucky said. The phosphorescent mushrooms were quite useful. He supposed there were some growing wild in this part of the cavern-system, but quite a few more back home. They were grown in large fields by some of the wealthier farmers. “Yes, we know them. You want them, and then you will leave again? Or are you too hurt to climb?”
The man looked at him, considering. “I would like to leave again,” he said carefully. “But I can’t climb -- my leg is broken. With a splint of some sort, I could walk. A little.” He looked around, as if trying to find some other way to move himself, but shook his head. “Maybe I can figure something out. If I had a couple of deep-- brightcaps, I might be able to make the rope into a good binding. And then...” He patted at his pockets. “I’m sure I’ve got something useful in here.”
Bucky sat back on his heels, pondering his obligations. First, he absolutely needed to get topside, do his harvesting and hunting to keep his family fed. He could not leave a wild human loose in the caverns. Not being able to walk, the creature might still be able to drag itself closer to the clusters of drow who lived there. It might hurt someone. And chances were very good, someone would hurt it. They would kill it and then live in fear for many months, waiting to see if the humans would retaliate. Families would be angry, and if anyone learned that Bucky could have prevented that-- well.
Bucky heaved a sigh. It shouldn’t be Bucky’s decision to decide this human’s fate. But the Gods had dropped the human right in Bucky’s path. No one went down this way, except him, and sometimes his sister. It was one of the old ways. “Right, then,” he said. “We will make a deal then, you and I. You are hurt, and if you do as I say, I will bring you to my sister who can see to the healing of your hurt. If I do this, you will not yell and scream and fuss and set up a bad echo in the caverns for weeks and weeks. You will be calm and quiet and you will not try to harm anyone.”
The human looked at him again, frowning slightly. “I have a broken leg,” he pointed out. “There’s a point at which stoically enduring pain is impossible, and I’m probably going to reach that point if it gets poked at or dragged the wrong way or... something. But I have no intention of hurting anyone, really. Can your sister really heal me? I can pay, maybe.”
Bucky didn't want to make promises he could not keep. "She will decide. It is her home, I am just her brother. Do you have food? I was going topside to hunt. If you do not, you will have to wait until I get back, and then I will have to haul you and the kill."
The human was shivering. Either from pain or cold. Bucky took off his coat. The human could wrap it around himself to keep warm. "Here."
The human flinched a little, and then stared up at Bucky. “Oh. You-- Thank you? I, I have a little food, but not much. I wasn’t expecting to be here for very long. But I can-- oh, wait, I think...” He opened one of several pouches he had and pulled out a ring. It was remarkably ugly, a bright, gaudy gem set in gold, but it reeked of magic. “You can use this. It will make you stronger while you wear it. Easier to carry things. Like deer. And injured humans.”
“All right,” Bucky said. He tucked the coat around the injured human like he was a child. Handed him one of Bucky’s spare waterskins. “Stay here-- do not move much. I will be back for you.” He patted the human’s shoulder through his coat, still not knowing if the human’s touch would be poisonous, but not wanting to leave without some gesture of good faith. He took a few steps and started climbing up the wall toward the exit.
“You’re going to just climb?” the human said, sounding utterly nonplussed. “All the way up?”
“You have eyes, do you not?” Bucky called back. Once he found the first set of marked handholds, it was an easy enough climb. “Watch me.”
“It’s got to be at least five hundred feet,” the human protested weakly.
Bucky waved, because he was a cheeky bastard sometimes, and continued climbing. He’d made longer climbs, although admittedly, the deeps were marked with actual ladders and resting platforms.
Watch me, the drow said, as if Tony could see more than shadows in this cavern. He managed to follow the shape of the drow partway up the wall, maybe thirty feet or so, before everything became blackness.
He wrapped the drow’s cloak more closely around himself -- that had been a surprise, but he wasn’t going to protest it. The cloak was tightly-woven and soft and warm, and it was cold down here. Tony tried to pull his leg into a somewhat more comfortable position, but the spike of pain convinced him quickly to leave it be. Instead, he laid back, letting the cloak serve as a blanket, and dozed off.
When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t in the cavern anymore.
Or maybe he was, and this was a fever-dream. It was still dark, but not nearly the all-consuming black of the cavern. But he could see, a little, like waking in the night and making his way through the room by a sliver of moonlight.
He was lying on something soft and warm, definitely not a rocky floor, and seemed to be in a small room. The drow’s cloak was gone, but there was a blanket over him of the same soft cloth.
He appeared to be alone, and his leg was throbbing in pain. He debated the options for a while and finally decided on, “Hello?”
The woman who came into the room was not the drow he’d seen earlier, and she was carrying something small that glowed. She sat it down near him. “This is a lantern,” she said, twisting it. Two interlocked clay pots with holes, and as she turned it, it gave off more, or less light. It still wasn’t what Tony would consider bright, not even as much as a single candle. “You may adjust it to what is most comfortable for you.” She sat down on a cushioned stool near his bed.
“Thank you?” He left it where she’d set it, but he did pick it up to look at how it was put together. Clever thing, really. “Um, sorry, who are you?”
“Natasha, of the Black Widow clan,” she said. “My brother brought you home like a stray bat and says ‘can we keep it?’ Who are you?”
“Tony. Tony Stark. I’m an artificer. It’s... good to meet you? You live here? What about the drow?”
Natasha looked at him for a long moment. “Do you need more light, then? You cannot see me?”
“I can see you,” Tony said. He had no idea what that had to do with his question.
“Then it is a silly question,” she said. “What about the drow… indeed.”
Tony blinked. “Do you mean you’re a drow?” She looked nothing like a drow, pale skin and bright red hair.
“I did say we were the Black Widow clan, yes?” She pulled back her hair a little to show off a delicate, elongated ear with a sharp tip, dotted all up the lobe and shell with silver jewelry. “I am drow. You are human. You are human, yes? I confess I’ve never actually seen one before. You’re much less terrifying than we have been led to believe.”
“...Likewise.” Tony blinked up at her. “Also, much paler.”
She looked down at her own arms, turning her hands. “Did you think we would be tanned by your sun?”
“No, I mean... I thought the drow were dark-skinned. To blend in with the darkness in the caverns.”
“We wear paint, when we go above,” she said. “My brother was wearing it. So that the topside creatures don’t see us. You are all blind, but white skin against shadow is very noticeable. Of course, some of us are darker, naturally. Like humans or dwarves. We are of many sub-clans.”
“Oh.” That... made sense, didn’t it? Humans came in a dozen shades of tan and pink and brown. And the surface elves, too, had a whole rainbow of colors to them. “So the... the all-white hair, that’s not really a thing, either, huh?”
“Why would any who are not old have white hair?” She shook her head. “I think you topsiders have too much gossip and not enough fact.”
“Well, that’s probably true,” Tony admitted. “But it’s not as if any of you have turned up for an interview. So we make things up, based on, you know, glimpses and the occasional lost item. Pitch-black skin and white hair, worshipers of a spider-god, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, well, the spider gods, they’re real,” she said. “Not just one, you know, but--” She gestured. “Clan of the Black Widow. And the High Priestess, she’s a follower of the Goliath Bird Eating God.” Natasha leaned in close. “She’s a little full of herself.”
“That... sounds like a god -- and a spider -- I want to never see. Ever.” Tony felt pretty strongly about that, actually. “So that was your... brother? Who found me?”
“Yes, Bucky. I swear to you, he does this many times. He has brought home wounded rabbits, and birds with broken wings. Never a human, though. You are the first. But we will take care of you, and then you may go back to your people. When you are well enough. And then we will close the crevice. One human, not so bad. But you let many in, and they are like rats. Everywhere, eating everything.”
“Well, that’s... probably not too far off.” Tony lived as a hermit for a reason. “Your brother’s name is Bucky?”
“Yes,” Natasha said, blinking again. “Do you have problems with your ears? Short little things that they are. I knew humans were all night blind, but I thought you could hear.” She reached out as if to tug on his ear, to stretch it a little.
Tony ducked away. “I heard, I just didn’t... It just sounds so... normal.” A little silly, even, though Tony didn’t know if it would be offensive to say so.
“We are people,” Natasha said. “Not monsters in the darkness. Like you. Not so monstrous. But, satisfying my curiosity about round-ears is not what I meant to be doing. How is your leg? We set the bone, but I did not want to spellwork on you without your-- do you have a sister who would grant permission, or is it all right for you to say for yourself?”
Tony blinked. “I don’t-- I’m an only child. Sisters speak for their brothers?” That seemed an odd arrangement. What if a family had no girl children? Or many girls -- who would speak for the boys, then? And why couldn’t the boys speak for themselves?
“I don’t know your ways, forgive me,” Natasha said. “Here, women speak for the house. For the clan. By law.” She made a face and wobbled her hand a little. “It is more tradition than truth, but Bucky must ask permission. He knows I would give it. For some strange priestess to heal his wounds. If you-- if you want.”
“Huh. For us, it’s mostly the men who are in charge of the households. But yes, please, of your kindness.”
Natasha nodded. “I will do this, then,” she said. She turned the blanket down to show the splint that someone -- Bucky, probably -- had made of strips of cloth bound right with Tony’s rope. “It was a clean break. It will heal well. You will have to stay here, no more than a few weeks. My magic is not so strong.”
She held out a hand over his leg, fingers moving in arcane motions, flicks and circles. She murmured words in a language that Tony didn’t speak, that didn’t even sound like elvish. Thick and somehow liquid at the same time.
He’d been healed before; usually it was a cool, soothing wind over his injuries that left them feeling a little tingly, but much less painful.
This was heat, instead, like hot coals had been shoved into his leg and were trying to melt the bone, to fuse it back together like so much steel. Tony found himself gripping the blankets on either side of him, teeth clenched around a thin whine, eyes firm-fixed on his leg as if trying to prove to himself that it was swollen and bruised-looking but not actually blistering from the heat.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. Tony sagged, panting.
“There,” she said, tucking the blanket back around him again. “It will be a few days yet, until you can bear your own weight without pain. In the meanwhile, I will send Bucky to you, to keep you entertained.” She paused for a moment at the mouth to the little cave-room. “Welcome to the Underdark, Tony Stark.”