Prompt by the lovely PrawnNetwork. Keep on keepin' on, luv.
"Holy shit..."
Everything gleamed, etched in green runes that would probably turn mortal bones to chicken soup. There were staffs, cloaks, swords and daggers and maces and every crum of gold or sliver of fabric was shelled in an emerald shield.
The cavern was filled with mountains of artifacts.
And he couldn't play with any of it.
"Is it, uh," Tony hummed, cautiously edging around a hungry-looking chest with what looked like human legs sprouting out of its sides. "safe to touch anything?"
"Probably not, Stark." Rogers replied through the comm link. "Wait for Thor." The good captain was cleaning up the remains of Loki's more elaborate traps involving several ticked off geese and a bucket of super glue.
Tony's armored hand twitched. Maybe, he reasoned, there's something Loki missed. The treasure trove took up the greater part of a hollowed-out hill, and surely the mad god hadn't enough time to enchant everything. His stint on earth wasn't terribly long. The self-proclaimed genius wandered past stolen paintings and statues, and felt more like the lost and foot-sore hobbit then the red-scaled dragon. Tony couldn't touch anything, and was close to giving up when he spotted a round, black box resting on a lone pillar. Nothing had been placed within several yards of it, and the stone ground had been swept clean but most importantly it wasn't green.
Holding his breath, Stark inched up to the pillar. Not all of Loki's enchantments were green, he reminded himself. But something drove him closer, the need to touch it, to steal a priceless object from his enemy, to win.
Iron Man shuffled closer and brushed the black box with his gauntlet. Nothing had exploded, or turned into lions, or became exploding lions so he closed his metal hand and lifted the ill-gotten prize.
1...2...
Tony breathed out and popped the case open. A thick, gold-banded rind was inside. It had a heavy red gemstone, a flawless square ruby, and gave the impression of breaking noses without having a hand to guide it. My precious, Stark huffed sarcastically. The ring was thoughtlessly pocketed in an empty missile storage container and the box returned to it's throne.
"Man of Iron!" Thor called from the glowing maze.
"Over here, Thunderpants."
Thunder god and mortal man quickly sorted what could remain on earth (not an awful lot.) and what would be locked away safely in Asgard. The ring rattled around in its new metal home and was forgotten.
Very, very far away, beneath the burning fire at the heart of earth, something stirred.
And it was Pissed.
"You lost it." The pale man said calmly, mopping up gravy and cheese curds with a limp potato wedge.
"I didn't lose it, it was stolen." His brother spat. He sawed away at his under-cooked stake, sharpening the knife with his anger. "I left it somewhere safe, and someone moved it."
"Safe, little one?" The term of endearment was soured with disapproval. "A gold ring in a cave? Things like that have a way of being found, War." The pale man paused to sip noisily from his straw.
"Well, where did you leave yours?!" War snapped, stabbing through the plate, and half an inch of table with his butter-knife. "You have a job, Death, same as the rest of us. We can't carry our true rings on our hands where anyone can reach it!"
Death twisted his lips into a thin smile that revealed more dagger-like fangs then a front seat view down the throat of a shark without showing a single tooth. He pulled a silver pendent out of his white collar as he leaned forwards, flashing an unearthly black opal before dropping it back into place.
"If one was brave enough, and fast enough, and stupid enough to reach mine," The eldest horseman replied dryly, "I would be tempted to let them have it."
War grumbled around a fork of tortured steak.
"Chew, please." His brother admonished softly, cleaning his hands on a napkin. Someday, he thought idly, I'll actually pay for a meal. Not today, of course. With both brothers in the restaurant, all that remained of staff and diners was a bloody mess. The waitress that served them had been stabbed to death by a grandmother angry over an imagined slight involving an ugly blouse. "Where is the ring now?"
War, wisely, swallowed before replying. "New York."
"I suppose I'll fetch it," Death sighed reluctantly. "Or Famine. I'm sure he'd love to."
"Oh, no!" War cried. "I'll get it, the others don't need to know!"
"Consider it your punishment." The eldest raised his eyebrow. It was a face recognized by all younger siblings as the 'if you were any dumber, i'd have to breath for you' face shared by many older brothers and sisters alike. "And a warning to the others. Teach our brothers a lesson in caution."
"There are more important things going on, Death!" Protested War desperately. "Like the apocalypse?"
"Oh, yes. That." Death rubbed his wrist irately. Ancient thoughts drifted towards teaching a lesson to a certain puffed up pigeon about Respecting One's Elders. "It can wait."
"W-" War was stunned into mute gum-flapping. "Wait? You're going to put the fuckin' apocalypse on hold?"
"Language." The indefinitely old and immensely powerful being reprimanded with a tone in the audio representation of slapping War's hand for a misdemeanor. The physical embodiment of destruction and bloodlust blushed like a six year old caught saying 'crap'.
"Well, we can't just reschedule the end of the world." The red horseman muttered, scraping a bit of the Benson's family at table four off his stake with a warped butter knife. "We've been waiting for it since the damn- darn lice-infested thing first popped up."
Death silently finished off his drink. His little brothers didn't understand the way Death did. Without Earth, what were they? Personifications with personality were useless if there wasn't someone to pay attention. The eldest horseman had put endless years of thought into the whole 'apocalypse' business and found it to be one of the most ridiculous plans in existence. Why build to destroy? Why create millions of lives only to snuff them out with a careless wave of His hand? Trying to think of it from God's view didn't help, as the thought of allowing, no purposefully plotting to end all of Death's creations, his reapers, his brothers, was like trying to swallow his own scythe. It might be possible, but it would kill him.
"We- all of us, War- will go to retrieve your ring. It shouldn't take long."
And that was the end of it.
Death always has the last word.
Tony Stark sat in the basement with only the company of several friendly bottles. Pepper was in Italy trying to wrestle the company's stained reputation into submissiveness with the new 'Avengers' hype. Thor was in Asgard for the next few days and Bruce had taken up volunteer work. Tony secretly thought that his science bro had started thinking about What Comes After and was filling up his saintly card as fast as possible, but that thought was depressing so he drowned it in a bottle like the rest of his taboo contemplation as he ran his thumb over a sanguine-stone ring.
In fact, the only other person in the building currently was Rogers, kicking around in the kitchen half a dozen floors above. That meant no-one was there to take notice of JARVIS suddenly losing visual and in fact forgetting that the effected basement even existed. Death has that sort of impact, even on artificial intelligence.
"I'm going to rip out his spleen and use it to beat his loved ones to death while he watches paralyzed." War growled, walking through Stark Tower's closed doors, which were too frightened to insist that they were solid. Outside the building, cars crashed, brawls broke out, the bird flu was introduced to New York and a couple started alternating between pulling off each-other's clothes and and strangling their partner with a sock. Somewhere further up the building, Steve's souffle crumpled and caught on fire while the soldier ate cookie dough ice-cream in Stark's massive fridge.
"You will politely ask Mr Stark to return your ring." Death said firmly. War's iron-clad anger wavered at his brother's tone. "Then you will apologize for the inconvenience and put your ring in a proper resting place."
Pestilence snickered behind a withered hand while Famine wheezed out a bold laugh, leaning on his cane. Normally, the second oldest horseman would take his wheelchair, but the thought of being left behind and missing out on even a second of War's embarrassment urged Famine to his feet.
"You didn't even ask where they hid their rings!"War's fear-inspiring voice bordered on whiny.
Famine patted his shriveled belly with a shaking hand. "Ate mine. Seemed fitting."
Pestilence pulled out a amulet similar to Death's. Instead of an black opal set in silver, Pestilence's was a unearthly blue moonstone dangling from a bronze chain. "We take them with us." He sneered wetly.
"So they can't get 'lost'." Famine added helpfully.
War fell into silent seething as the brothers reached the basement. Everything was chrome and shiny and covered with gutted machines or half-baked inventions. In the midst of the inventor's tornado, Stark tinkered with a gold-banded ruby ring.
"Good morning." Death spoke genially, prodding War with an elbow that felt far more bony then it looked.
Tony dropped the ring.
"Uh, good morning..?" The 'genius' replied uncertainly. "Are you guys super-villains?"
"I want my ring back." War snarled, somehow putting to mind a viking in full steel armor while physically looking as dangerous as a drunk ferret.
His brother nudged him again with enough force to punch a hole right through earth and knock another two planets out of orbit.
"...Please."
"Are- are you gonna do evil things with it?" Tony tightened his grip on the ring.
"I apologize for the inconvenience," The horseman ground out the words like a death-threat. "Please give me back my ring." Famine had to sit down to keep from falling over, shaking with glee. Pestilence wasn't much better off, but wisely tried to hide it, with minimal success. The corner of Death's mouth twitched faintly.
"No."
They stopped laughing.
Stark slipped the ring onto his thumb and crossed his arms, feeling a little drunk with adrenaline and alcohol flooding his senses. He figured he could fend off two old men, a lawyer-looking fool and a sickly doctor while JARVIS called in Rogers or Banner.
War started to swell like a pissed cat. His plain features melted into a properly inhuman Personification and the smell of the dying and the dead swept through the room. The terror of a single soldier standing against an army hit Tony like a hammer and he stepped back without feeling either of his legs move.
Definitely super-villains, a distant smart-ass part of Stark snarked.
GIVE IT BACK! A war cry echoed hotly in the back of the mortal's head as War charged. Panicked, Tony struck the horseman in the face.
War was thrown back into an overburdened table, staggering as pain bloomed over his bruised back and shattered face. Blood dripped down his twisted nose as the realization set in; He didn't have his ring.
For the first time since he was only the angry thought between two fighting apes, War felt like the fool Death insisted he was and fell to his knees. He was still a Personification, immortal, but powerless. War looked desperately to his brothers.
Pestilence was clutching his amulet in both hands, looking sicker than ever. Famine chuckled smugly, taking out a phone to save the moment. (Famine was rather impressed by humans, both technology and personality wise. Maybe he would post it on tumblr.) And Death, the eldest, the strongest, smiled.
He pulled War up and wiped the blood from his little brother's face with a handkerchief and dared to smile as though the other horseman had just marked particularly well in a test. Rage burned in War's stomach as another epiphany followed on the heels of the first.
The bastard knew that would happen.
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr Stark. We should have lunch, some day." Death gestured for Pestilence and Famine to leave, gripping War tightly as he ushered them out. "Until next time."
Within seconds, Tony was alone again, cradling his bruised hand. It wasn't until later that evening that he tried to show Steve, who was nursing the Loki of all brain-freezes, what happened that he noticed JARVIS had been disconnected from the basement and that none of his teammates had been aware of the security breach. It was for the best, though. If the Hulk or Captain America had entered the scene...
Death may have saved Tony's life.
War was sulking. He was a champion sulker, being a stranger to defeat. But defeated he was. By a mortal.
Death had urged him right into that trap as a lesson to Pestilence and Famine, and to War himself. Which was all well and good except instead of letting any of the horsemen turn the impudent jackass into a puddle of sarcasm with their lessons learned, The Grim Reaper pulled them away like children who didn't want to leave the park.
He could still walk through walls, or chose not to let people notice him, or nudge their minds into interesting shapes, granted they were off guard or weak-willed, but he couldn't overturn a tank with a flick of his fingers and felt the agony of his injuries, lacking the impenetrable skin and immeasurable strength supplied by his ring.
War was bitter, ripping grass up as he watched some soldiers shorten the lives of themselves and others. Even the wholesale slaughter wasn't enough to cheer him back up, so he ramped it up a bit and convinced someone to blow up a school, only to find it was empty. The soldier responsible fell to his knees and praised his luck, which didn't help War's mood at all.
"It's a good thing it was empty," Pestilence flopped down beside his brother. "Death would-"
"He can shove his sense of moral up his bony ass!" War exploded. Pestilence glanced around nervously, half-expecting the eldest to pop into existence and berate them. Death kept a far closer eye on Pestilence then either of his brothers, seemingly always concerned over the youngest, most vulnerable horseman.
"I'm just saying," The sickly being continued. "you shouldn't go out of your way to kill a bunch of mud-monkeys. There's usually a schedule-"
"A schedule! You sound like a mortal, Pest. Humans order time into segments and spend their miserable lives counting down to their graves. Mortals bother with petty morals. They are below us and worse of all-" War flushed in anger. "Worse of all, Death caters to them! He finds them amusing! He put that damn mud-monkey before me, his own fucking brother!"
Pestilence fell silent and let his brother rant. He was right, after all. Wasn't he?
Death felt he had made many mistakes over his long, long existence. He had tried his best, doing his job and teaching his brothers. He had stood by Famine, showing him how to plant the seeds of hunger in Leviathans (Death may have over done it). He had guided War during the first battle, when Heaven clashed with Hell and all was brimstone, chaos and betrayal. He had knelt beside Pestilence when the young being had given the first child the very first cold, using illness as a means to strengthen humans, not weaken them.
Death may have been to lax in the beginning, insisting Famine and War discover their unique powers on their own. He had hoped they would make mistakes and learn from them. Instead they turned cruel, corrupted by freedom and abilities gifted to children.
War took enjoyment in culling Mankind, in watching families tear one-another apart in anger. Death had failed to teach him how battle could change people for the better, could keep the world fresh and new by rooting out tyranny and allowing humanity to grow.
Famine let his own hunger drive him. He hollowed people out and filled them with relentless need because he felt he lacked something himself. Death didn't know what Famine was starved of, and decided to let the dark horseman figure it out on his own. It was a choice he still dithered over.
Watching his brothers wreak havoc made Death more unyielding. With the creation of Pestilence, brought into being by humans and likely to end with them as well, Death tried to be more hands on. He walked his youngest brother through human camps, and took him out with hunting patrols. Death showed Pestilence the impact sickness had, how it gave the weak rest and made those who survived it hardier. He watched his baby brother longer and closer, hoping to teach at least one being the value of a human life. Sadly, Pest was more human then any. The progression of medicine hit him hard, and Pestilence sacrificed how he believed it should be done, the way Death had taught him, and instead settled for efficiency. He became moody and frustrated, distancing himself from his brothers.
But for all the flaws of his brothers, Death loved them. He thought about the Archangel Michael, who cast down his own brother, and felt the first tinge of disgust he had ever had towards another being. He thought of his counterpart, God, and the disgust deepened. For all the mistakes he had made, Death felt safe in the assertion that they weren't as bad as His. Of the same caliber, possibly, but on a smaller scale. God had been too distant to humanity, and too close to his angels. Mankind didn't notice his absence but Heaven certainly did. Would it be the same if Death disappeared? Would Pest and the reapers panic or declare war while Famine and War didn't even register anything different?
Death wasn't much of a meddler most times, but as he rubbed the black gemstone of his true 'ring' he realized that earth was the battleground of His mistakes, and that was definitely in his jurisdiction.
Perhaps he would let the 'iron man' keep War's ring awhile longer.
Fun facts! War's gemstone, ruby, represents passion, while Death's, black opal, is rebirth and death. Orange aventurine is used to suppress hunger during fasting for Famine, and Pestilence's gemstone is moonstone, meant to encourage health.