Chapter Text
Three days. Three days was how long Tony was able to distract the rest of them from his active enemies and the Rogue Avengers. It was three days before everyone was pointedly reminded that Tony actually needed the protection of his security and people on a regular basis. Three days before the first assassins tried to make it to him and the others found out.
Three days to shatter their tentative peace.
Tony knew something had gone wrong the moment he stepped into his official office at Stark Industries. It had been a fight to get even enough leeway to go to his official R&D office to get some work done. Granted, paperwork would never not be a bane to his existence but it was also something that, paired with certain oversight duties, couldn't always be done from home. Actual inventing was more often done in his private lab space but he had to be physically present to check the work of certain underlings. This was always going to be true if only because not everything could be known from just a video feed.
Tony already knew from a glance he was never getting out of a bodyguard of some type even at work ever again. Stephen was going to freak out and agree to making him take a sorcerer for one of his bodyguards when someone brought this mess up. Too bad, Tony had liked not having to worry about tag-a-longs for at least a little while.
"Tony Stark, last descendent of Tomas the Raider," a voice growled out from behind a group of stiffly standing employees.
"Tomas the Raider?" Tony asked with a delicate snort. "As far as I know I don't have any ancestors by that name or title. Now, I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I've never heard of someone by that name in my family."
"Then the betrayer took on a new name. The blood magic doesn't lie," The long haired man dressed to blend in with the employees said darkly.
The man lifted a hand to show off what he was holding. It was a glowing moving mass of blood red power tainted with shadows of darkness. Shadows that extended beyond the normal base dimensions of reality and echoed across multiple planes of existence to Tony's senses.
"If this is about the most recent magic stuff you need to take it up with my shiny new in-laws," Tony sighed dramatically. "Stephen is going to kill me for being late to our lunch date."
The blow of magic landing against his back was a surprise and sent Tony flying. It also, coincidentally, allowed his employees to run as the two attackers focused on him. Tony rolled with the blow but still felt a sharp edge slice through his shirt and skin. The cut wasn't deep but it was bloody and rapidly soaked his shirt, slicking up his skin under his clothes as he moved, dodging various spells. From the fact that they were focusing on blasting over special effects like poisoning or area effects Tony figured he could fight them like Iron Man over calling for help. He was wrong.
The third guy had been loitering in a way that made him look like a slightly trapped and scared employee. So when Tony turned his back on the man and tried to clear him an escape path the hero got hit in the back for a second time. This time he went down to his knees, trapped by the dark purple sludge the spell created flowing forward around him.
"Aw, hell," Tony cursed, recognizing that he was done for unless he was rescued.
"We will make you bleed and scream for the villages Tomas the Raider destroyed. The families he killed and enslaved. You will pay for what your ancestor did to our people!" The third attacker snarled.
"Gotta say, I'm used to people blaming me for what Howard did but not some guy that's been long dead that has nothing to do with me or my family," Tony snarked, clearly displeased. "I'm never getting out of the bodyguards my family insists on ever again after this bullshit."
"Between the spell and the American General Ross there was no chance we would pass you by," the first attacker smirked. "His price for hunting our target was that we would need to kill you or at least prove you unfit to protect and cripple you. The fact that you are also our last target only makes this double sure."
"You talk too much," Stephen's voice snapped out from the hallway as all three men were captured by the distinctive glow of the dimensional based magics of the Mystic Order.
The three attackers fought back but couldn't get free. Wong stepped forward to hastily contain the blood magic spell still hovering in the hand of the man holding it. Meanwhile, Tony watched Stephen stalk around him and mutter over the hardened sludge that had trapped him in place on his knees.
"You are never going to let me out of your sight without one of your Order as an escort again, are you?" Tony asked with chagrin.
The what do you think? look made the answer obvious. The three Masters who had come with Stephen to rescue Tony plus Wong sorted out the attackers and whisked them off to Kamar-Taj. They had gotten everyone new sling rings the same day the group had returned to Earth and checked in with the temple. Wong stuck around and played look out in case of a second ambush but left freeing Tony to Stephen for whatever reason.
"You reacted as Iron Man and not as an Apprentice Sorcerer. We will have to fix that when it comes to dealing with magic. For now, no, you aren't going to go anywhere but back to our current shared rooms," Stephen scowled. "You are ridiculously vulnerable to other magic users right now. I don't know why I thought it was okay to let you deal with non-magical business without at least sending back up with you."
"Pepper is going to kill us," Tony pointed out. "And we need to get Happy to log everyone we brought back with us for the security stuff. That's part of why I didn't just bring one of them with me as an assistant or something today."
"I will deal with Miss. Potts," Stephen sighed. "Hogan needs to know what we are capable of in any case and you trust him. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if our personal Dark Lord decided they were both part of your holdings and thus now a part of mine. I have no idea how he would officially class Rhodes or Vision. If we aren't careful he could decide they are both traitors to you and react accordingly. Especially since you haven't chosen to do anything about them and their less than stellar reactions to you since you became Iron Man."
"Yeah," Tony said unenthusiastically as Stephen started casting spells on the now solid gunk while trying to free him. "We got lucky that he investigated when Mordo attacked us and didn't just decide to kill the rest of the group as a threat to us. He's really touchy and overprotective now that he's found you again."
"I'm pretty sure he only let us come back to Earth because the Norns spooked him about something and Earth isn't especially dangerous to we native humans," Stephen admitted. He quickly found a spell that inched along liquefying the hardened sludge material trapping Tony.
"That sounds right," Tony grumbled. "If he ever figures out that one or both of us tend to be targets we are going to have a hard time arguing him out of just hiding us away. I don't exactly do well in captivity."
"Don't I know it," Stephen agreed ruefully as he finally got Tony's hands free.
Tony quickly joined him with the same spell to free the rest of his lower half. He left behind most of us pants, shoes, and socks but he was out of the mess in under twenty minutes once they started working together.
"Friday is having fun hitting the feeds and trash talking Ross. He's already in a fair bit of trouble because of her reports and other various attacks on him. I think several of our people have fallen in love with her for it," Stephen reported with no little amusement. "I almost had to order most of them to stay behind when she asked me to rescue you from the idiots. On the other hand no one was impressed with him considering his threats demanding all of us basically surrender to him. More than one of them were quietly impressed with your response to it once we got back. Which is apparently part of why everyone insisted on sleeping on our floor and the next two down. No one was thinking of officially being our staff now with how fast everything happened. The temple is upset at not getting everyone back and the Ancient One's current lack of freedom but we did get them to admit it was one of the better outcomes. Of course, we only gave them a rough summary of events from the first attack on the Sanctums to our return with you."
"They aren't happy about Stephen being nominally in charge and staying here with you. Not to mention the rest of us staying with you as well," Wong pointed out from where he was standing off to one side. "The revelations everyone else in our group were given haven't exactly been shared with the rest of the Order yet. We will have to bring the Masters Council up to speed on all of it regardless at some point. They will not be happy about any of it."
"I hear ya," Tony sighed as Stephen helped him to his feet and away from the once more solid sludge.
Tony groaned at finally being free and tried to remain unaffected by his ragged state of missing clothes and shoes. He didn't even have a sling ring for himself yet. Not that he had bothered figuring out the portal spell considering the flashbacks to the Portal in New York while fighting Loki. The others would only let him get away with avoiding learning that spell for so long. He could already tell just from today's events that no one was going to let him refuse to learn it.
"Boss! Call from Honey-Bear Rhodey!" Friday announced cheerfully.
"I'll take it back at the penthouse, Fri," Tony sighed. "If Stephen and Wong would be kind enough to provide the portal."
"Certainly," Wong agreed with an evil cheerfulness that had Tony side-eying him.
Wong ignored the side-eye and opened the portal, allowing the three of them to step through into Tony's living room. Tony surveyed the waiting Sorcerers and mentally conceded that Stephen hadn't been exaggerating about having to cut down on the rescue party. Friday chimed about opening the phone connection before Tony could say anything else and he had to refocus on his brother before he could deal with the quickly calming sorcerers.
"Time travel, Tony? Really?! I leave you alone for 3 months and you wind up in a fight that sends you through time?! You are so dead when I get my hands on you, brother. You are so very very dead. I swear that you are not getting out of this one," James Rhodes said flatly over the phone. "And don't you dare to tell me that you met Merlin or whoever when this Dr. Strange's dad person rescued you! I won't believe it."
"Platypus! You know I didn't mean to do this to you," Tony said sincerely, ignoring the Merlin crack that he would need to respond to later. "It's not like I'm trying to give you a heart attack. You spent too long trying to keep me alive. Don't worry I'm not trying to make your job harder. Instead, I am going to make your day. You know that guy that's trying to eat the Earth or rather was trying to eat the Earth? Well guess who just got married on accident to his son before we got back? I swear I had no idea this would happen! I swear, I swear, this was not my intent when I got slammed to that other planet, but you know me. Rhodey, my dear you have no idea what I dealt with when I was away. There was no technology it was all magic! Magic I tell you! I could not stand being unable to build stuff."
"So you went and learned magic instead?" Rhodey asked unimpressed. "Tony, what have you done?!"
"Er, define that? What I did today? What I did while I was gone? What I did last week on Earth?" Tony asked, dodging the question.
Stephen quietly cornered him to deal with the cut on Tony's side that hadn't been seen to at the office. Meanwhile someone else fetched Tony a new shirt from his room. A third person held the first aid kit for Stephen as he patched up the inventor.
"Wait, what happened today?!" Rhodey demanded, catching on to Tony's verbal dodge easily.
"Um, just got attacked by some asshole blood magic users at SI looking to kill me for an ancestor I didn't know I was related to? Oh and they said they got cleared by Ross to hunt their target as long as I was disgraced or removed on top of that. It just happened that I was the target either way," Tony said in a what can you do sort of tone. Stephen scowled at the injury but packed up everything once he had finished patching Tony up and let the man be, earning a bright smile from his husband in the process.
"...You absolute menace," Rhodey said in despairing amusement. "Did you actually let security help this time? Or did you do something stupid and blow out another wall?"
"Hey! I resemble that remark," Tony huffed. "And, yes, I did get rescued for once instead of rescuing myself. Stephen showed up with some of our new people. It was kind of nice not having to juggle distracting the bad guys, figuring out a way out, and then arranging it. Incidentally, tell whoever bugs you about them that magic has been around since long before Merlin and that it counts as a learned skill. Just like welding, and firing rockets. Any human can probably do it but that doesn't mean they will have the skill or the stubbornness not to get eaten by the power they are using."
"Thanks... Your Stephen is standing right next to you isn't he?" Rhodey asked in amusement.
"Not quite but he is using the general sound system to talk to you rather than taking the call in actual private," Stephen answered with laughter dancing in his eyes as Tony spluttered and squawked in indignation.
"At least you seem to be able to keep up with him," Rhodey said ruefully. "I always had trouble doing that and usually I was the one stuck pulling him out of hot water."
"If you weren't the one to dump me into trouble in the first place," Tony accused immediately.
"Hey, that's what brothers are for," Rhodey said smugly.
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Tony laughed before turning serious again. "Feel free to tell whoever that Ross demanded our entire group surrender for being basically human lab rats and collared dogs or be charged with Treason and getting executed. That's why I let Friday loose on him and anyone who tries to protect him. He forced me to present the Accords to the Avengers in the absolute worst way possible. I can see him trying to basically tag and enslave anyone he even remotely sees as powerful in less than traditional ways. I'm not playing the game more than I have to, not anymore."
"How bad, Tones?" Rhodey asked seriously.
"I'm not sure they won't just push me over into being an Avengers level super villain, Rhodey," Tony admitted ruefully. "With Stephen's new dad being a very literal Interdimensional Dark Lord... Well my new daddy-in-law would probably delight at us going Dark Lord and happily supply whatever we didn't take for ourselves. Now, that's not in our plans but the shit that Ross tried to pull on us? If everyone's pulling that then to keep our freedom to actually defend the planet we won't have any choice. I don't exactly want to be a super villain even if it would free up some options for actually defending everyone."
"What happened to you demanding I take your leash?" Stephen said in faux offense. "You think I can't actually stop you?"
"Of course you can stop me," Tony snorted. "It really is the collateral I am more worried about. That and stopping that incoming alien armada. You and I have a fall back now. The rest of the planet? Not so much unless they are willing to basically accept us as overlords so that we can stand between them and your new dad."
"Point," Stephen conceded.
"And you won't share exact plans with me since I didn't actually listen to you when you tried to show me Iron Man before the raptor incident. On top of that I had to follow orders when I was ordered to try to take one of your armors. Don't think I didn't realize you rigged it so that I had to take it and synced the anti-theft stuff to me so that it didn't kill me. It fried one of the techs that were ordered to rip it apart for some of your secrets," Rhodes said ruefully.
"Meh, you and I talked that out and it wasn't like I didn't get that you had to follow orders. Plus, when you got War Machine I was literally dying of heavy metal poisoning. Not exactly thinking straight even if my genius let me compensate for one hell of a lot while compromised," Tony snarked back.
"You should have told us, Tones," Rhodey said quietly. "We would have been there for you instead of just thinking you were acting out. I thought it was a dangerous trauma response, not a mix of PTSD, reasonable paranoia after what Stane did, and heavy metal poisoning. You covered yourself so well that none of us had any idea, Tony. Not until you told us after the Expo clean up."
"Well part of getting my shiny new sorcerers and Doctor-Sorcerer husband meant that a memory sharing spell was cast on me and Stephen," Tony admitted wanly. "He's seen all of it through my side since the attack in Afghanistan. He watched me create Iron Man and everything after that. His memories started at his car crash back last February. We happen to be pretty well matched even if we didn't make the conscious choice and it was magic weirdness that married us."
"I can promise you that I have no plan on giving Tony up," Stephen promised with a smirk. "We are a package deal now and Tony knows it."
"Well, that explains how you sat through magic lessons," Rhodey laughed. "You watched Doctor Strange's memories and didn't have to do more than pay attention while he learned it."
"There are still some basics that I can't get," Tony winced. "A mix of past trauma and a problem twisting my head around some parts of it. Nothing unusual when working with higher level metaphysics that act and react in response to both will and power. It becomes really moldable at that level. Stephen and his sorcerers just learned it with an Asian cultural base of sorts. I noticed it didn't need the cultural aspects and went from there. I'm still working out the kinks of my personal methods but I can summon phantom armor for me and Stephen now. No more needing the physical armor as long as I can maintain the power flow... Which right now lasts about two seconds. So not really a fall back yet."
"You are impossible, little brother," Rhodey said in fond exasperation. "Don't kill yourself with your experiments, okay? We would all miss you."
"Yeah, I'll make sure one of the Master rank Sorcerers is hanging around to help when I'm experimenting with it from now on," Tony promised ruefully, his eyes skittering over his magical audience shyly.
"How badly did you piss off Potts?" Rhodey asked with an audible smirk.
"Uh, she still wants me to give up Iron Man," Tony said with clear pain in his voice.
"...I'll talk to her," Rhodes sighed. "Get some rest, Tony. Spend some time with your new hubby. Relax. I'll try to get the Brass to be reasonable about this mess."
"Yeah, talk later?" Tony asked hopefully as Stephen pulled the inventor into his arms.
"You bet," Rhodey said happily. "Bye."
"Bye," Tony said gratefully and allowed Friday to end the call.
"You've got a good brother but then you picked him out for yourself didn't you?" Stephen asked, amused.
"Sort of, yeah. Except I think he picked me out instead," Tony sighed.
They spent the rest of the day relaxing and just spending time together while watching Ross' reputation go down the toilet on the TV.
In the end it turned out to be a good day.