AUTHOR'S NOTE: For those that don't follow me on Twitter, I had a poll about Christmas themed stories and by a WIDE margin "A Very Westeros Christmas" was voted to be posted as my Christmas gift to all of you!
Starting the week of the 15th I will be posting every other day a chapter of my Christmas comedy story which will explore Christmas in Westeros. These tales WON'T be canon in any way, shape, or form (considering one involves Stannis being hounded by Frosty the Snowman and another has Lil Bobby Baratheon wondering what Christmas is all about… yeah, not canon). But this is my Christmas gift to all of you. If you want to read it you'll need to follow me as an author and not merely follow this story to get notified when it is up.
And now, onto the story.
~MC~MC~MC~
Tony
The whip arced over his head, just missing him by inches, and struck one of the support beams, slicing through it and filling the hold with more smoke as the timber burst into flames. The other whip cracked, Tony sliding to the side so that it was only the wooden planks that were scorched from the weapon's kiss. He ducked his head a bit, the small fires that Vanko had started with his assault making the air impossible to breathe without choking. The rocking of the ship didn't help matters either as Vanko's landing had caused the ship to begin to rock and his repeated attacks were shifting the weight of the vessel and causing it to rise and fall. He knew little of sailing but he did have enough sense to know that a ship filled with moving weight was not a safe one. Tony was at the disadvantage, lacking the sea legs the pirate had, and thus every time he tried to get in position to do something about his foe everything would roll and he'd have to fight to maintain his balance.
His main advantage though was numbers. With him and Rhodes Vanko couldn't focus on one of them for too long and that would allow the other to recover. Case in point Vanko had managed to wrap his whip around Rhodey's leg and yank him off his feet but had been forced to release the knight when Tony had rushed him and delivered a stinging punch to the back of Vanko's head.
Of course that meant Tony was now the focus of Vanko's fury.
He fired off a blast from his gauntlet that clipped Vanko's shoulder, tearing a piece off his armor but did little to slow the other man down. Rhodey tried to take advantage and rush him but Vanko spotted him and shot his arm out, striking him in the chest and knocking him backwards before he leapt towards Tony, recalling his whips and instead deciding to settle things with his fists. Tony tried to leap back but the tight quarters made it hard to get any distance between him and the enraged Iron Born captain and he quickly found himself on his back, skull aching from the fall.
"Like all vain men you believe yourself superior because you hold a single advantage. A castle with high walls, a sword from Valyria, armor studded with glowing stones. You think that is all you need to hold yourself above the rest of the world." He raised his hand and the whips coiled in his gauntlet sparked but did not descend, instead causing his entire hand to crackle with energy. "But it is us, those you spit upon and scorn, that are better than you. For we take what we can gather and alter it and improve it until your advantages are little more than outdated relics!" He swung his fist down and Tony jerks his head to one side, managing to avoid the blow. Vanko snarled beneath his helm and brought his other hand down onto Tony's chest, the metal quickly beginning to heat up as he held Tony in place. With his legs pinning Tony's arms down he had not hope of blasting the marauder off of him. "You are a relic, Stark... and it is time for you to be cast aside like all vestiges!" Vanko reached down and grabbed Tony's face plate and he began to thrash as he felt the metal begin to heat up-
Vanko suddenly lurched back, falling off Tony and allowing his to rip his faceplate off and take a mouthful of cool sea air. In front of him Vanko struggled as Rhodey yanked him back, a heavy chain wrapped around his neck. The high collar and thick gorget meant that Vanko was in no danger of choking but it had startled him and causing him to topple to the ground. Rhodey was peppering him with blasts, rattling the Iron Born marauder, and Tony quickly looked about and found as piece of heavy rope with a hook at the end, clearly designed for boarding merchant ships. Nodding to himself he darted forward, ducking a wild swing Vanko sent him way and latching the hook onto one of Vanko's gauntlets before rushing around him, wrapping the rope around his foe's middle and forcing his left arm tight against his chest. Rhodey, seeing what Tony was doing, stopped sending out energy blasts and instead took more of the chain and swung it around Vanko, Tony reaching out and grabbing it before he made a quick noose and caught the man's other arm, locking that in place.
"When I say let go, let go!" Tony shouted, releasing the chain and the rope and leaping back before aiming both hands at the planks directly under Vanko's feet. "LET GO!" He fired, sending up a wave of shattered splinters that sprayed all over and Vanko had enough time to bellow before he plunged down into the dark lower depths of the vessel.
Tony felt blood tricking down his face and reached up, wincing as his finger hit a sliver of wood that had been lodged in his cheek. He fumbled a bit but finally removed it, sure there were others but knowing now wasn't the time to worry about vanity. Instead he merely went to retrieve his faceplate while Rhodey aimed his cannon at the hole and fired off a blast of energy that made the entire ship tremble. Tony stumbled slightly as the ship began to list to the right and he could hear below them the salt water rushing into the hull.
"We're not going to be floating for long," Rhodey said as Tony, satisfied that his face plate was cool again, reattached it. It was warped slightly but would work well enough. "We need to get out of here."
"Luckily Vanko was kind enough to make us an exit," he quipped, activating the sunstones in his boats.
With a roar the whip-wielder burst back out of the depths of the ship.
Before either of them could react Vanko shot out a whip, though he chose not to electrify it. The answer to that riddle was quickly solved when he caught hold of a fallen beam and with a bellow yanked it up and swung it at Rhodey, smashing the knight and sending him slamming into the hull. Tony tried to move to intercept but Vanko used his other whip to grab Tony around the waist, this time activating the sunstones and copper to make Tony jerk as his armor began to heat up once more, his nerves crying out all around his stomach. Flicking his other whip Vanko released the large chunk of wood and then grabbed Rhodey, pinning one arm to his side as he began to roast him as well.
"Rhodes!" he cried out in desperation, trying to figure out how to get out of the situation. He lifted his hand and fired a blast right at Vanko's head but the sunstone-enhanced armor caused much of the damage to be reduced, meaning that all Tony had to show for his strike was a few small dents in the helm. With enough time he could puncture it but at that moment they only had seconds. Tony grit his teeth, reaching down and grabbing the whip to try and yank it free but all that did was cause his gauntlets to begin to heat up and he quickly had to let go. He mentally cursed himself for never getting around to upgrading his armor; had he never tried to give up being Iron Man and instead worked to improve upon the design like Vanko had he might have a chance. He didn't even have a sword like Jon-
Jon.
Tony lifted his hand up as the answer came to him. "Rhodey! Jon! The workshop!"
Rhodey struggled but managed to lift up his free hand, instantly cluing in on what Tony was getting at. Vanko, clearly thinking they were aiming at him, tensed his body. Sure enough the moment the two fired he ducked, avoiding the blow.
Just as Tony wanted.
Just like when he and Jon's beams had collided the energy from the sunstones began to consolidate together. Rather than smashing and splintering off like water hitting a wall the two energy blasts merged and began to swell, their surface rippling as Tony and Rhodey fed it more energy. But like a wine skin it could only hold so much and Tony shielded his eyes and braced himself for the impact. For while the blast was closest to Vanko he knew that he and Rhodey were still far too close to avoid-
The orb of sunstone energy violently exploded.
As his body jerked back Tony couldn't help but congratulate himself on figuring out Vanko's armor and using that knowledge to free himself and Rhodey. The problem with sunstones was they needed constantly contact from the conductive metal in order to activate their special properties. For all steels that Tony had experimented with this resulted in lightening the material until it was nearly weightless while also giving it strength far beyond the norm. There were variants, of course; the higher quality the steel the more it could withstand and the stronger it became. Cheaply gathered iron forged into basic steel could withstand a war hammer blow while high grade castle-forged steel brought in from King's Landing had survived having a boulder dropped on it. Tony's own colored steel was a step above that and it had taken either repeated blows from the likes of Ser Gregor or Vanko's whips to damage it. Valyrian Steel was a step above that though that was putting it mildly. Tony had never told Jon but Shadowfang, with its sunstone heart, was the most powerful sword in the world. Testing had shown that the sword resisted everything; even the secret methods Tony knew that allowed him to reforge Valyrian Steel would not melt the blade. No one would be able to take Shadowfang and craft it into a new blade. No, that blade was eternal.
What he wouldn't give to have enough Valyrian Steel to make a suit of armor from!
Other metals had different effects. Tony had stopped with silver when he'd discovered the blasts it could generate and Vanko had originally relied on copper to create his sparking burning whips. To use those properly one had to be able to press the metals onto the sunstone in order to activate their properties… and remove it so that one didn't have to deal with the stone blasting off energy for all eternity. Tony had created pressure plates that could be triggered by the hands or feet (or shoulders for Rhodey's cannon) that did the job but one had to maintain pressure as the moment one grew lax the power was lost. He'd thought about creating some sort of latch that would allow for continuous steady pressure without one having to tax themselves but had quickly ruled it out. As a blacksmith Tony understood how metal could catch in odd ways and at the worst times. A lock could become jammed, plates of armor could become stuck, weapons could become locked upon a knight's greaves when they went to draw their sword or ax. No, it was far too risky to not have a human manually activate the stones.
And he'd correctly guessed that Vanko had come to the same conclusion.
So the moment the energy exploded Vanko was startled and his whips stopped sparking, brining welcome relief even as Tony smashed through the side of the ship and nearly fell into the sea. He shot out his hands and balanced himself, scanning the ruins of the sinking vessel and letting out a sigh when he saw Rhodey's War Machine armor launch out of the hold-
Vanko hit him like a mine cart, the Iron Islander roaring as he wrapped his arms around Tony and shot the two of them away from the sea and back towards the shore. Tony twisted and turned and fought to free himself but like the krakens of the deep Vanko held firm, his thick arms refusing to budget as they began to spin about in the air. Tony struggled to get them to stop twirling about, so he might actually figure out where they were going, but every time he tried Vanko would reach up and try and rip off a piece of his armor, forcing Tony to return to merely getting the deranged maniac to keep his hands off him.
'I need to figure out a way to stabilize myself without always using my hands,' he thought even as he grabbing Vanko's wrist and tried to yank it from his breastplate. 'Maybe thicken the backplate and put in two sunstones that would be linked to my boots? Have to figure out a way to connect them so I didn't have to do two things at once… maybe use some copper to create some threads running up my legs… but would need to insolate them so I didn't char my skin-'
It was saying a lot that Tony could be in a mid-air battle and be drawing up plans for new armor.
Twisting his head Tony saw that he and Vanko had gotten into Iron Pointe proper and as such he finally had a chance to get rid of the lamprey that was clinging to him. Activating his boots he shoved them towards an archway, Vanko looking up just in time to get a face full of solid stone. There was a clang like someone taking a hammer to cold steel and suddenly Tony was free, able to thrust his hands out and slow his descent. Still he was too low to the ground to actually stop and hover so instead he chose to gracefully and elegantly slam into the ground and dig a 15 foot long trench in the hard packed earth of the side street.
Letting out a small groan Tony slowly began to sit up, wincing a bit as he touched his side; he was hopeful he'd merely bruised his ribs and not broken them and his head was ringing like mad from the fall. Bending his neck down he grunted before finally raising his head up to find himself staring at two rather bewildered Ironborn raiders. They were dressed in pants that stopped at the ankles with loose fitting shifts with leather and metal chest armor over the top. One had a glowing sword the other a spear and both of them were staring at him with utter surprise.
"Uh… hi?" Tony said, raising his hand.
The two invaders suddenly remembered that they were supposed to be attacking Iron Pointe and took a step forward… only for one to get blasted by a shot of sunstone energy while the other was struck from above by a figure in black who drove a tonfa into his temple, sending him bonelessly to the ground. Standing up the second savior brushed a lock of red hair from her forehead and Tony couldn't help but stare at how the black skintight outfit she wore left utterly nothing to the imagination. No, that wasn't true… it left just enough to make him instantly hard and wanting to see everything she hinted at.
"Tony, stop fucking my wife with your eyes," Jon complained as he flew over to them, his blast clearly having been the one to take out the first Ironborn raider.
"To be fair if I have fucked her with anything wouldn't you prefer it to be my eyes?"
"I'd prefer you to not fuck her at all!" Jon complained.
Tony looked to Natasha. "Seriously? This prude made you switch sides with just his cock?"
"Those that boast aren't always the best. And I was always on his side, Tony," Natasha said coolly though from the way she flicked her gaze towards Jon he got the sense she wasn't saying it merely for his benefit. "I've just been also working to save Westeros as well."
"Aren't we all," Tony said with a shrug before Jon shot him a look. "Okay, to be fair, and I am saying that a lot today, I was before I got all stupid and tried to stop being Iron Man… you know what, not the point at the moment." He got up and approached Jon and Nat, limping slightly thanks to his right knee throbbing in protest. "How are things in the city?"
"We're pushing the last of the Ironborn back," Jon said before shaking his head. "But we didn't do it cleanly. We've lost a lot of people."
"No war is ever clean," Natasha said. She reached up to touch Jon's shoulder only for her hand to drop at her side, afraid that Jon would reject her. Sometimes it was better to live with possibilities than confirmations. "I've managed to get almost all the civilians to safe areas but a lot of the artisans and craftsmen refused to leave."
"They're with me," Jon stated. "They also know about us."
"Us?" Tony asked.
Jon gestured at himself. "This." Tony opened his mouth but Jon held up a hand. "They said they've known since Oaker. Apparently you breed loyalty, Tony."
"Well that and I pay well," he said dryly.
Natasha looked about. "How are things on your end?"
"Oh, can't complain… well, except Vanko has sunstone armor."
The two just stared at him.
"…repeat that again?" Jon stammered.
"Vanko has sunstone armor. Figured out how I do all my tricks and everything. Rhodey and I took him on, I managed to get free and Rhodes is… somewhere. I saw him fly off but his armor might be messed up so he's probably off removing it so he can actually fight."
Natasha gestured at Tony in exasperation. "And where is Vanko?"
A chunk of stone crashed near them, making all three jump as Vanko screamed, "STARK!" and stormed towards them.
"Over there," Tony said before falling into battle position, Jon crossing his arms and activating his sword and shield. "Natasha, get to the high ground. We can take a shot but you-"
Vanko lashed out and Jon managed to deflect it before it caught Natasha around the throat.
"Got it. High ground. Safe distance." She turned and sprinted away from them, Tony watching from the corner of his eye as she easily began to climb up one of the high walls.
"She has skilled fingers," Tony said to Jon, the younger man making a rude gesture with his hand. "What? It's a compliment! No wonder you are so conflicted about her."
"You!" Vanko snapped as he stormed forward, flicking out his whips at the nearby buildings and cutting deep burning gouges into them. There was no reason to actually do so, not even for intimidation, so Tony reasoned that Vanko's sole excuse for his actions was the perverse desire to cause as much destruction as he could. Recalling his whips he jabbed a finger at Jon while lifting his mask with his other hand. "I remember you... you were the one at the track!" The right corner of his lip quirked up in a yellowed smirk. "So... who are you? The Essosi knight? Not the fat man who was running about. Perhaps you are one of Antony's bastards?"
"Oh, wrong Stark there," Tony quipped. "He's-"
Jon thurst out his hand and fired a blast right into Vanko's chest, sending the man skidding back.
"You cut off my joke!" Tony complained.
"He's trying to kill us! Stop trying to impress the murderer!" Jon said with exasperation.
Vanko slammed his faceplate back down. "Oh, now you are a different one, Centurion! Almost have the making of an Iron Born!" He snapped his arms forward and his whips shot out, Jon barely managing to dodge them. The ground cooked where the whips struck and Vanko let out a laugh. "But you are just a pale imitation of the real thing!"
Jon rushed forward, Tony taking to the air to lay down some cover fire, but Vanko was a magician with his whips and was able to slash at Tony's blasts and redirect them, bouncing them away from his form even as he marched towards Jon. Tony's heir swung his sword but Vanko caught his wrist, forcing Jon's hand back before kicking the younger man in the stomach, cackling as Jon grunted in pain.
"Hey Vanko!" Tony shouted, trying to draw his attention. "Why don't you-"
The Ironborn marauder lashed out with his free hand, catching Tony's ankle before retracting the whip. He let out a cry as he suddenly found himself being reeled in like a fish, his arms flailing thanks to the sudden change in direction. Suddenly he jerked to a stop and he looked down to find that Jon had smashed his shield into Vanko's face and was now hammering away at the inside of the pirate's elbow, try to free himself while also ensuring that Vanko was too distracted to keep pulling Tony in. He was still caught on the line like a trout but he at least had the benefit that Vanko hadn't activated the whip, meaning that Tony only had to deal with being caught and not having his boot melting off.
'But the moment he realizes it I am fucked. Think you handsome idiot, think!' Tony struggled to break free but all he managed was the keep the whip taunt and make himself spin in a tight corkscrew. 'Think better-urp-you gorgeous moron!' Tony swallowed a wad of bile that had risen up in his throat while thrusting his arms out wide, firing off the sunstones in his gauntlets, causing him to stop his spin and actually stabilize. He was still trapped but at least he found himself able to think. 'Can't get free… have nothing to cut myself loose. And if I let the line go slack he'll just go after Jon!' The Centurion was still pounding on Vanko but the Iron Islander refused to let go and his sunstone armor was making Jon's blows do little. It didn't help that he had Jon in an awkward position, with his right arm twisted and pinned so that he couldn't get good leverage to actually make his strikes worth anything. They were stuck in a stalemate but Tony knew that if he let the whip go lax that would be enough for Vanko to do some serious damage to Jon.
"Iron Man!" Natasha shouted from the top of a building. He twisted to look at her and she jabbed a finger at her boots. "His feet!"
At first he didn't get what she was trying to tell him but finally when he looked over Vanko's armor understanding dawned on him. With the sunstones in Tony's armor he should have been able to lift Vanko into the air even with the man wearing his own armor; after all the whole point of putting the sunstones in armor was to make it lighter. Tony had carried Ned easily enough so why did it feel like Vanko weighed as much as a loaded down wagon?
The answer was his boots. Tony could see that there were two spikes on either side of Vanko's boots, the pieces having merely looked like ornamental decoration until the Iron islander had put them to work. The pirate had somehow designed them to fire down into the ground, allowing him to have a bit of extra grounding so that he could use his whips without yanking his body about. It was how he could grab hold of objects or people and not be pulled off his own feet.
It was a rather cunning design. Impressive even.
Too bad Tony then had spent years designing armor and thus understood how to take a brilliant idea and make it into a flaw.
Jerking his left arm over his body Tony began to move himself through the air in a wide curve. The line remained taunt and Tony watched as slowly the arm that wasn't holding Jon began to arch away from the younger man till it was raised stiffly to Vanko's side. And then… Tony began to go further. Metal groaned and Vanko began to struggle but Tony kept at it, forcing the marauder to attempt to twist his body in the same direction. But Jon had clued in on what Tony was doing and began to press in the opposite direction, Vanko letting out a cry of pain as his shoulders began to twist back towards each other. Finally with a roar Vanko let go of Jon and moved to try and undo the spikes.
Jon lashed out and cut the whip holding Tony before he drove his blade right into an exposed spot in Vanko's armor.
The chainmail underneath saved the man's flesh but it still caused Vanko to lurch and Jon pressed the advantage, swinging his arm blade again and catching Vanko's helm. The armor was ripped away, exposing Vanko's wild features. Jon moved in for the kill while Tony worked to stabilize himself but it wasn't Vanko's cry that filled the air. Tony righted himself in time to seem Jon falling back, a black X burned into the surface of his chestplate. Vanko shot out a whip and grabbed hold of an abandoned wagon, his gauntlets pulling the whip and wagon back so that it smashed into Jon, knocking him down to the ground in a daze.
"JON!" Tony cried out, flying down to try and get to the young man, only for Vanko to set his sights on him. He lashed out with his electrified whips, one wrapping around Tony's right arm. Instantly he could tell that something was different as the burning heat in the metal was FAR more intense; Vanko had clearly done something to increase the energy going through the lashes. Vanko, still grounded with the spikes, twisted his body and hurled Tony into a building, the door shattering as he hit it and causing him to land inside the main room. The shutters were smashed within seconds and then the second whip came in, catching him around his left arm, Tony barely able to struggle before Vanko pulled both whips to him. The result was Tony's body crashing into the wall while his arms were yanked in two directions.
"I am going to split you in half and then decorate my new ship with your bones!"
Tony grit his teeth as he was pulled tighter, struggling as best he could. There was a POP! And Tony screamed as his left arm was dislocated. And still Vanko pulled-
"BITCH!" Vanko roared and Tony stumbled as he suddenly was freed. Hurrying as quickly as he could outside, his left arm hanging like deadweight, he saw that Natasha had leapt down from her perch and struck Vanko right in his exposed face with her tonfas, breaking his nose and sending blood gushing down his face. She dodged a few of his blows but her own strikes didn't do much thanks to his armor and trying to get to his head would have put her too close to a killing strike.
"Natasha, down!" Tony shouted, activating his boots and rushing forward, belly just barely avoiding skimming the ground. He rocketed at Vanko and hit him hard, taking a page out of the Ironborn pirate's book and lifting him up into the sky before shooting back towards the sea.
Finally Tony spotted what he was looking for and arced downward, balancing the need for a quick descent with the ability to pull out of it. Below him one of the Ironborn ships bobbed in the water, listing to its right a touch and he could just make out a hole that had been punched in its hull. Rhodey's work, most likely. There were signs of a fire though they wouldn't be what brought the ship down and clearly the crew had gone overboard, knowing that the vessel was a loss cause. Pulling up slightly Tony let go of Vanko and the sudden action took the man by surprise, causing him to flail a bit as he dropped like a rock. He fired up the sunstones in his own boots but it was too late and all he did was smash his shoulder into the main mast. Tony landed more comfortably though his dislocated shoulder screamed at the sudden stop in motion.
"Not a smart move, Antony," Vanko said, getting to his feet, tongue darting out to lick at the blood that poured from his nose. "You couldn't defeat me even with help... on your own?" Vanko grit his teeth as he extended his whips, it clear he was favoring his left shoulder thanks to the hit. "You are nothing without them! You've stood on the backs of others to raise yourself up time and again but now? Now you have no one to prop you up! You will die on this deck!"
"I don't think so," Tony said before he rocketed forward. Vanko tried to move forward but he stumbled, the spikes he'd used to ground himself twisted and extended out and thus making it hard for him to easily move about. Tony took advantage, darting right and swinging out his good hand to fire at Vanko's exposed head. The Iron Islander managed to raise his hands to guard against the blast but that gave Tony the seconds needed to grab an iron bolt and, just like he'd done to Jon, drive it into Vanko's left gauntlet right where the whips coiled up. His aim was true and the bolt smashed the sunstone that powered the whip back, lodging in place and preventing it from hitting the copper. "That's the thing you got wrong about me, Vanko."
The pirate tried to catch Tony with a blow from his remaining good whip but he was able to duck under the strike and then fired a blast into the back of Vanko's knee. While the greaves were think and enhanced by sunstones he wasn't covered in the special metal from head to foot. No, much like Tony he had to wear chainmail under his armor and Vanko had never gotten around to putting tiny sunstones in the links to strengthen them too. As such all it took was finding the right spot and Vanko was just as endangered as any warrior who thought themselves invincible so long as they were in plate.
The stingy-haired man went down hard, bone shattering from Tony's strike and making him unable to stand. That didn't mean he wasn't still dangerous and the marauder proved that by lashing out with his working whip, clipping Tony's bad shoulder and making him cry out in pain. But with Vanko's shoulder also injured the blow wasn't as strong as it could have been and that gave Tony another opening to attack.
"You look at the War Machine or Centurion and think of the three of us I'm the weak link. No cannon, no sword, lighter armor build... what chance to do I have? And I'm not a fighter like those too. I can make a sword but I can't use it." Vanko tried to lunge forward but Tony caught him on the chin with his knee and sent him lurching back. "But that's the key... I might not be able to use the armor like them... or even you... but no one, not a single one of you... understands it like I do!" Tony darted back when Vanko tried to strike him again and then rose in the air. "I see every strength, every weakness. I know every point to hit to take someone down and I know just how much my armor can take! And that, Vanko? That is why I'll always be better than you!"
Vanko let out a roar, the blood from both his broken nose and the blow to his chin staining his teeth crimson as he lashed out... with his regular whip. Tony let it wrap around his middle, smirking as he pressed the balls of his feet as hard as he could on the sunstone pressure pads in his boots. he rocketed up and Vanko had enough time to realize his error before he was ripped from the deck and sent trailing after him. Tony though only rose high enough to get Vanko moving before he flipped back down, rushing towards the rising murderer who had dared to invade his castle.
Tony's fist smashed into Vanko's skull and he grinned as he felt man's left eyesocket shatter under the strike. The blow drove him right back down and Vanko hit the deck hard, nearly breaking through it. But the timbers held and Tony was able to grab his foe and toss him against the mast, his hand reaching down and grabbing the functioning whip, hissing in pain even as he wrapped it around Vanko, the other man's armor beginning to glow red as he felt the same damage he'd inflicted on so many others. Once Vanko was secured Tony backed away, yanking off his left gauntlet and gingerly lifting his faceplate so he could blow on his fingers.
"I think I'll let you stay there... cook in your armor like the slimy squid you are," Tony said with a slight sneer. "You could have left this all behind. Gone off and used the sunstones to be rich and happy in the Free Cities. Or been, I don't know, a better person. Done what I did and protect people. But instead..." Tony groaned as his left arm jerked slightly and he was reminded of his dislocated shoulder. " Instead you attacked me. And why? Because of something I didn't even do! I wasn't there when your family was killed! My people weren't there either! Iron Pointe hadn't even been rebuilt! So why the hell come after me? Why come after any of us?"
"You... you wouldn't understand," Vanko said with a groan, his words jumbled thanks to his cracked jaw. "My family-"
"Don't give me that shit," Tony said, cutting him off. "You attacked my family, pal. My family. And that is why you are where you are." Tony leaned in and jabbed his finger at his chest. "No one... will ever hurt my family again."
Vanko let out a cough. "You say that... but how will you protect them... when you are with the Drowned God?" And then Vanko shifted and Tony looked down below the coiled whip to see that Vanko was bringing his hands together. For while Tony had disabled the sunstone that controlled one of the whips... he hadn't done anything to the ones Vanko used to stabilze his flight.
A familiar globe of crackling energy was forming between Vanko's hands.
"You… you lose," Vanko said with a bloody smile.
Tony activated his boots but he only got up a foot before the sunstone orb exploded, sending him crashing down. He rolled onto his back, getting a quick glance at the mangled remains of what had been Vanko only moments before, as the entire ship came apart and let out a cry as the mast fell on top of him, his armor the only reason he wasn't crushed to death. Still, he struggled to free himself but with only one good arm and being tangled up in the rigging he couldn't even budge.
He turned and his eyes widened as he saw the sea sweep over the edge of the ship and onto the deck and he managed to suck in a mouthful of air before he and the ship were plunged into the black depths. He twisted and fought, his hopes that the water might allow him to more easily escape the rigging dying as he found himself still entangled like a fish in a net. He looked up and could see that the surface was rapidly racing away from him, the sun growing smaller and smaller as the sea grew darker. He thrust out his left hand and blasted at the mast and was finally able to get it off him but he was still caught in the ropes and they held him tight. He dimly had the image of being in a spider's web and he began to thrash, trying to break free. Firing off the sunstones in his boots only caused the ropes to get tighter and blasting did little good as he couldn't see anything to actually hit.
'Pepper...' Tony thought as his vision got blurry and his lungs began to burn. He stopped fighting and an odd peace came over him. Iron Pointe had been saved. He'd made up with Jon. Rhodey had armor now. They'd be okay. They'd all be okay.
They'd... all be... okay.
They'd...
They...
Light suddenly pierced the darkness and Tony felt arms grabbing him as a brilliant light, like a small star shining in that black watery hell, shone down on him. He opened his mouth to say something only to remember that he was in the ocean and salt water poured in but before he could even feel the pain of that he was jerked forward and the surface raced back towards him, the sun growing larger and larger until suddenly he was yanked from the Drowned God's domain and he could cough up the seawater he'd swallowed and take in a much needed mouthful of air.
"Try not to wiggle so much," his savior complained and they bobbed a bit before steadying out. "I only figured out how to fly this thing 10 minutes ago."
Tony looked up and even with his lungs burning and his throat feeling like someone had shoved a rusty sword into it he couldn't help but laugh. For there was Pepper Stark, his fierce and determined wife, wearing the purplish-blue and silver armor that he'd created in secret just for her, in case there was ever an event so dire, so dangerous, that she would need it.
"That… was some rescue," he managed to get out, his voice gravelly.
"Don't put yourself in a situation like that again… I don't want to make it a habit to do this over and over."
"You know even if I promise that it will be a lie."
Pepper let out a sigh as she began to descend. "I know."
"…it looks good on you," Tony said softly.
"It could look like a sack of shit and I'd still be thankful for it. It let me save you."
"I am torn between being humbled by that and annoyed you'd think I'd make armor that looked bad." Pepper didn't say a word to that and instead focused on landing, managing to do so far more delicately that Tony would have expected. Already running towards them was the rest of their family and Tony sat on the ground, staring at them in turn.
Rhodey walked over and lifted his faceplate. "Vanko?"
"Dead. And I know that for sure this time."
"Good."
Jon had already bent down and begun to undo the armor on Tony's right arm, motioning for Jarvis to hurry over so they could pop it into place. "The rest of the Ironborn are fleeing… we have men giving chase and we'll take as many as we can but the threat is over."
"Double good-AAAAA!" Tony let out a cry as Jarvis popped his right arm back into place. "Fucking hell Jarvis, warn a man next time!" He weakly rotated his right shoulder, gritting his teeth before he let his eyes scan over them all. "Rhodes… Pepper… Jon… Nat… Jarvis… Phyllup… random white man with an eyepatch… Happy… I just want to say that-wait." He went through what he'd just said again before his brow furrowed. "Okay, have I met the random white man with an eyepatch before?"
"You haven't… I have," Natasha said. "Antony… Nikolas Fury."
Tony looked the figure up and down carefully. "Lannister?" The man with the eyepatch didn't even move. "Come on, I can tell you are a Lannister. I'm friends with Tyrion. I've spent time at Castlery Rock and that place is swarming with Lannisters-"
"I am, Lord Stark," Fury said, cutting him off, "but would you kindly not fucking shout my name to everyone around? Unlike you I try and hide my identity."
"Oh, not that many people know I'm Iron Man."
Jon coughed. "The entire town does."
"…outside of Iron Pointe."
Fury merely continued to stare at him. "Lord Antony, if you are quite done… we have important matters to attend to."
"Yeah, no offense, but I just took down an insane Ironborn captain who tried to lay siege to my castle. I doubt whatever you have to say tops that."
"The Others have returned, the Night's Queen has taken over you cousin Sansa's body and trapped her eternal soul inside while she manipulates King's Landing, and the rest of the Court of the Others is preparing a full assault on the North, the Night's King's first strike before he seeks to wipe every living being in the world."
"…okay, admittedly that is eyebrow raising," Tony said.
~MC~MC~MC~
Author's Notes: Hey, I managed to do what Iron Man 2 couldn't- give Vanko a satisfying final battle!
Originally the plan was, before I gave Pepper the Rescue Armor, to have Natasha be the one to save Tony as I was going to originally have a subplot where Tony learned that Nat was meeting with Fury (but thought it was an affair) and revealed it to Jon, so not only was Tony fighting with jon but he was fighting with Natasha and thus her saving him was them patching things up. But things changed and we get the Rescue Armor!
This ends the massive battles of this story and now we move into the epilogue chapters of this story. The Aftermath of the Battle of Iron Pointe, The Battle of Blackwater, The Invasion of Winterfell (thus making, as maesters would call it years later, The Night of the Three Battles), along with the Fall of the House of the Undying. First up we'll travel to Qarth and find out what has happened to Dany since she unleashed her powers on the warlocks.
But before that, something I promised a few reviewers a few chapters back that I only now am getting too:
omake
In a small in at the Crossroads sat three adults, siblings each of them. When they'd least seen each other they'd all been children, the oldest still a year or two away from her flowering, the youngest a baby. This would have been quite normal for the Seven Kingdoms, as it was quite a few children found themselves separated thanks to fostering and marriage pacts. What made this meeting different was that the eldest of the three had been the baby… and they had only been separated for 2 years.
"So," the nearly silver-haired woman of ten and eight with cold blue eyes known as Sansa Stark said awkwardly, idly touching her finger to a bead of water on the table. There was a light CRACK and it turned to ice. "You two skipped your childhoods too."
"Yeah," Arya, who was now the same age as her sister and resembled their Aunt Lyanna so greatly the ghosts of Rhaegar and Robert were fighting to see who got to force her to marry them.
Rickon, now the oldest at thirty years of age, shook his head though. "I grew up to this age I just ended up in an alternate dimension where the Children of the Forest taught me how to fight and have a taste in awesome music." He held up his hand and signaled for the barkeep to bring them 3 glasses of the strongest liquor he had on tap. "How did you two end up adults?"
"A blue skinned woman and a man that controls metal used an ancient spell to warp me to adulthood," Arya stated, glaring when she noticed a few men checking her out. While she might have been an adult in the body she was still a child in her head and thus still thought most men had cooties. "Sansa?"
"Evil spirit that fought in the Long Night took over my body and aged me up." She gestured at her hair. "Also slowly altering my form to look like hers. Apparently I'll get black lips and blue skin neck."
"Wait…" Rickon said, holding up a hand, "the being that did this to you was blue?"
"Well, she was before she died… again," Sansa stated.
He turned to Arya. "And you?" his sister nodded. "Yondu, the leader of the Children that raced me… he's also blue. So is that the trick? Blue people make kids grow up faster?"
"I… guess?" Arya said slowly, considering what Rickon was asking. The three of them lapsed into silence, the barkeep bringing their drinks. "So… suddenly have boobs and an ass is weird."
"Very much so," Sansa said. "I didn't get to use them much since the Night's Queen pretty much always controls my body but…"
Arya nodded, cupping her own tits. "Yeah… I'm having to relearn to walk and I keep knocking over things with my hips." While her breasts weren't as large as Sansa's she made up for it in the ass department, having one that when saw it, as Baelor the Blessed had once stated, "when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist, And a round thing in your face. You get sprung".
Rickon shrugged. "Again, that's why my way worked best. Took longer but I grew into these rugged good looks."
Arya rolled her eyes. "Sure." She took a sip of her drink before blinking. "Wait a minute… Sansa, if the Night's Queen controls your body how are you hear talking to us?"
"Oh. That. Well, she can give me control whenever she wants and oddly enough for a monster that wants to kill everything she is real big into siblings having drinks together."
Rickon snapped his fingers. "So you're Killer Frost in this story!"
"no, she's DC," Sansa reminded him. "And Mr. Chaos said this will be strictly Marvel. No 'Child of Thunder' or 'Last Son' world mixing."
"HEY!" Deadpool yelled, storming over and jabbing a finger at the three. "I'm the one that breaks the fourth wall!" He paused and waved to the readers. "Hey guys, hey Batshark. Oh, I see Boris posted first again. W8W, okaywriter, Nimbus always looking good. Zim and Docholiday are here, that's good. Kaos, the other Chaos in our lives, Harbinger, Kalaong, everyone else I am missing because there are so many of you… see you in book 3! I'll be in Dany's chapters! Bye!"