Author's Notes: An Announcement! I asked on Twitter about review goals/rewards and got a tremendous response so I will be starting these with all my stories!
For those who do not know what I mean I will be setting goalposts for my series in terms of reviews. When a goalpost is hit I will include for that series a special reward chapter. This chapter WILL NOT AFFECT THE SCHEDULE! That means that if this story hits a goal and that week I am due to post a chapter I will post both the scheduled chapter AND the reward chapter! So it is only giving you guys rewards as thanks for reviewing.
Now, I want to make clear that I will not tolerate people artificially boosting the review total just to get to a goal. That happens and I am moving the goal post. I want only legit reviews. When a goal is met I will also list what the next goalpost will be.
For A Song of Metal and Marvels I will be using ALL the books for the goal… so the totals for A Man of Iron, A Crack of Thunder, and the upcoming A Shield of Man will all count towards the final goal.
Now then… what is the reward? Well I thought about if I should keep it secret or reveal it and for now I am going to play fast and loose with the rules… sometimes revealing, sometimes not. It will be how I feel.
But enough about rules, let's get to the actual reward! A Song of Metal and Marvels is currently at 3,821 reviews. When we hit the 4000 mark I will put out the chapter Captain of the Rose, which will be a One-Shot chapter focusing on the Company of the Rose and what they are up to in Essos. Let's just say that there is more than meets the eye with their captain.
~MC~MC~MC~
Tony
Standing on the outer balcony of his castle's tallest tower Tony looked down upon Iron Pointe and said, "You know, if you ignore all the problems… this will turn out to be the best thing that could have ever happened to us."
"…okay, who wants to smack him?" Pepper asked behind him, standing just inside the tower's high room.
"Whose turn is it?" Rhodey asked. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest and an eyebrow was quirked. It would have looked rather impressive if not for the fact that Tony knew he was only holding himself that way so to keep pressure off his injured knee. "I smacked him to get him to talk to Jon."
"I think Jon filled his quota for the year," Pepper pointed out. Tony turned to see Jon, a bandage still on his forehead and Jarvis' wrappings peaking under from under his tunic, open his mouth before nodding his head in agreement, memories of their battle in his workshop flashing through both their minds. Beside him Ghost was lying down, staring at him with red eyes. "I think it is my turn but honestly I'm not that much in the mood." She rubbed her shoulder. "I think I pulled something rescuing him from the ship."
"I completely had that handled," Tony complained. He had one arm in a sling and a sticky salve on his cheek that his maester swore would keep the wound from weeping blood. He also was spotting bandages all over body too though he had done more to hide them than Jon. "And why do you want to smack-"
"We could let Happy smack him," Natasha offered. "He did put up with a lot when he found out about everything."
"I'm okay with that," Pepper said. "Rhodey? Jon?"
"Works for me."
"Me too."
Happy for once actually smiled as he stepped forward, kneeding his right hand with his left. Tony, for his part, quickly threw up his hands to shield himself… or tried to only to remember one was restrained by the sling and the other was wrapped him heavy bandages coated in medicines. He winced in pain, still keeping an eye on Happy. "Come on… let's be fair about this… I'm pretty injured already! No need to add more to me!"
"He has a point," Phyllup stated.
"Thank you! I knew there was a reason I liked you even if you were working for a shadowy organization that is meddling in Westeros' affairs."
"You should wait until he is healed and then hit him," Phyllup continued. "That way you know he feels it."
"I hate you and I want you gone," Tony told the steward. Happy nodded though in agreement and walked back to keep an eye on the door, leaving Tony to focus on his family. "Someone mind explaining why you wanted to damage my precious head?"
"Maybe because you just tried to claim that Vanko and the Iron Born attacking our city was a good thing!" Pepper snapped.
"I didn't say it was a good thing!" Tony complained. "I said that if you ignore all the bad stuff it will be a great thing!"
His wife threw her hands in the air. "Oh yes, the bad stuff. So many small things to ignore. Very easy to do so!" She made a gesture towards Iron Pointe as it lay spread out before them. "Let's push aside for now the loss of life, shall we? We have two gates that are going to need complete repairs and another three that will need fixing. Four streets have suffered damage and we had two fires in supply buildings. Most of the stalls are destroyed and there is damage to that archway thanks to Vanko and you slamming each other around. Then there is the repaving we'll have to do and it isn't simply laying new stone but having to deal with the actual craters-"
"How do you know all that?" It was Natasha who asked but all of them were thinking it.
Pepper let out an aggravated huff. "I am the Lady of Iron Pointe, it is my duty to know such things. Especially when my lord husband has failed at the lord part of his title." Tony grimaced, feeling a pang of regret at how very right she was about that. "And now I really need to focus because he thinks this isn't a big deal."
"I didn't say that!" Tony complained, feeling his temper raise. He rarely got mad at Pepper but right now he was tired, his body ached, and no one was listening to him. "So stop putting words in my mouth! What I meant was that while in the short term this is a massive mess in the long run it is going to be great for Iron Pointe."
"Ah," Jon said and Tony grinned as he saw his heir clue in on what he was trying to get across. "Improvements."
"Pardon?" Pepper asked.
"Improvements," Jon repeated. "It's Tony, remember? When something breaks or has an issue he doesn't merely fix it… he sees it as a chance to make it better."
Tony wanted to clap but with his arms the way they were all he could do was point his good finger at Jon. "Hit it right on the head!" He turned back to Iron Pointe. "The gates need to be fixed but why leave them as is? Clearly they didn't work good against the Iron Born so we need to think bigger and better. I'm seeing ironwood from the North with a checker-pattern inlay of steel with hidden sunstones in them to reinforce everything. Perhaps a mechanism to raise and lower the locking beam. And there are some new systems from the Free Cities that I'd love to do some research on that would make opening and closing them go all the faster. Can't do much with the archway but I have an idea for the streets… we'd need a lot of tar from the Neck and finely crushed stones but it would make for a more solid road with better traction for horses. Plus I think in the winter it would actually help with the snows."
"Tony," Pepper said.
"For the keep itself I think we need to work on ways for us to defend the town without rushing out into the streets. That just causes problems for people trying to feel. Maybe build a few walkways, create towers that only connect to those walkways, things like that. Not sure how feasible all that is but if we get a good architect in here we can hammer out all the details. Pun not intended."
"Tony," Pepper repeated.
"Now the biggest issue was the fact that the Iron Born were able to attack us without us knowing because they didn't come directly into the view of our watchmen until it was too late. So why not set up outposts. 'But Tony,' you are saying to yourself, 'you are so handsome and smart but what if the attackers pick off the scouts sent to give news to us?' And first I would thank you for the compliments and second I would say this: underground tunnels. Now normally that would be horrible, stall air and all that, but if we use sunstones to light the way that reduces the smoke in the air and if I were able to come up with some hidden piping running down into the tunnels a scout could hurry down them without feeling too out of breath. Maybe even make them large enough for a horse-"
"TONY!" Pepper shouted.
"Yes?" Tony said as sweetly as he could, flashing Pepper his most innocent smile.
Pepper though clearly wasn't in the mood for the act. "Don't you think we have more important matters to discuss than what you want to build with coin we don't have?"
"We don't need the coin. Warden of the West, remember?"
"Yes, I remember I am acting Warden of the West," Pepper shot back.
Tony ignored that. "I think this proves that Ol' Tywin needs to give me some funds to better watch out for the Iron Born! Besides, what could be more important than Iron Pointe?"
"The fact that the ancient enemy of man is now marching on the Wall and seeks to destroy every one of us?" The man calling himself Nikolas Fury chimed in, making his presence known from deep in the tower's room, away from the others.
"...okay, admittedly that is a good point," Tony said before walking back into the tower proper. "So, do you want to have the super important conversation here or do we need a dark cellar with ritual candles and runes on the walls?"
Fury, who was seated at a small table, shook his head. "This is will, Stark, though I'd ask you watch your japes. Especially about this. It isn't a laughing matter."
"I don't know," Tony said, rubbing his chin with his still mobile hand, "seems pretty laughable to me. The Others were things my old nanny used to tell me about to get me to pick up my toys."
"I assure you that they are very real," Nikolas stated. They all sat at a simple table that was in the upper room of the tower, a basic thing meant for guards to have a bite to eat on or play some dice. Certainly not for discussing the end of the world. Tony thought it rather appropriate then that they use it, seeing as Nikolas was coming to the very last person who should be in charge of saving anything. "The first thing you need to understand is that even with all the Council knows it is only a drop in the bucket. There has been... much lost to us. But hopefully we can regain it back. I've already been doing that with my spies." He gestured at Phyllup. "While some of my agents are like Natasha, tasked with watching over people, others are tasked with gathering knowledge."
Rhodey held up a hand to stop Fury. "Just how many agents do you have?"
"Every castle has a maester. If they don't have one they are seen as unimportant. We aren't as narrow minded as the 'Knights of the Mind'. Every keep, castle, and fortress has at least one agent within it. Every town, village, and city as well. Minimum one. And that is only the official agents. The networks they create, their sources and their own personal spies, are a completely different matter. There is very little that goes on that we don't know about."
Jon frowned, reaching over to stroke Ghost's head. The direwolf was now so big that Jon didn't even need to bend his arm to do so when sitting in a chair and Tony knew that soon Jon would be reaching UP to do so. "That's... rather horrifying."
"I agree," Tony said with a scowl. "I don't like the idea that you are keeping tabs on me."
"Don't bother trying to get rid of us, Tony. You won't find us all." He paused. "And if you try you'd have to get rid of your beloved sheep."
"... my sheep is an agent?!" Tony exclaimed.
"He's joking," Natasha said with a roll of her eyes, only to pause when Fury merely stared at them. "Right?" she asked in a quieter voice.
Fury merely continued on. "The point is that I, and other high ranking agents, have been tasking our networks to learn all they can about the Others ever since we learned they were stirring once more. Their strengths, their weaknesses, their movements, their strategies new and old. All of it. We've gathered a lot but I know there is so much more out there. Unfortunately there isn't much time left."
"Before we continue," Pepper said, "I'd like a refresher on what exactly an Other is. I mean, I've heard the stories but I thought they were just... Northern Boogeymen, like snarks and grumpkins."
"Oh, they are very much real," Fury stated firmly. "The Others are... spirits, or something of the like. Creatures of cold and darkness. We're not sure what they actually look like but we do know that when they walk on these lands they prefer to do it in the body of others."
"The Others live in Others?" Rhodey asked.
"No, I mean they live in the body of others."
"So they find another Other and take it over?" Jon said, confused.
"No that's not-"
"If they like living in Other bodies why not just live in their own?" Happy asked.
"I heard a jest that started off like this about a man name Hoo," Tony muttered.
"Dead bodies, okay?" Fury said in frustration. "They take over the bodies of the dead!"
"...okay, that does make sense," Jon stated. "Well, as much sense as some magical spirit taking over a dead body…"
"You said something about trapping souls," Rhodey stated. "How do you know that? I assume that the Others haven't sat down and let you ask them all about their lives."
Fury nodded. "They haven't but that's why finding the records were so important. It was in the library of Barrowton that we found records of Other dissections. I won't… share the details of what happened but I will say that it confirmed the fears that the Others don't merely wear the dead."
Tony fought an urge to shudder at that. There were many things that he could handle, that he could smile about and mock with a jesting grin. But the idea that his body wouldn't be under his control, that some malicious force could control it while he was forced to watch… that make him feel ice water trickle down his spine.
"It sounds horrible," Pepper stated.
"It was," Fury confirmed.
"But how can you trust those records?" Natasha stated. Tony looked at her and found it rather interesting that she looked confused. He made a mental note that Fury (or Lannister, though Tony was still puzzling out who he might actually have been before he became the spymaster he was) didn't share everything he knew with those in his employ. It was something that might prove useful when Tony decided to pry Nat away from the one-eyed ass and ensure she was firmly in their camp. "There are no written records from the Age of Heroes… what few that might have survived would have been written in the runes of the first men. How can you be so sure-"
"Because the records don't come from the Age of Heroes," Fury said with a rumble of annoyance, the same one Tony tended to get when someone told him that it was 'impossible' to do something so why bother trying? "Everyone loves to claim that the Others haven't been seen in 8,000 years but that simply isn't true. While they haven't appeared in full force for that long there has been the occasional awakening throughout the years, with many of them being misclassified as something else. Necromancers, Ice Mages, sorcerers, so on." He paused, leaning forward and tapping the table with his finger. "And the one in Barrowton is very important for us when it comes to the concerns we need to discuss today. From what we have been able to learn from legend and lore is there are two different kinds of Others. The first are the battalion leaders, powerful warriors and deadly if not properly equipped but of no great magical power. It is the second type that concerns me: The Court."
"Hmmm," Tony said dryly. "That's a good name. Simple but Dramatic."
"For once you are right when it comes to names," Rhodey said. When Tony opened his mouth to dispute that he merely said, "The lord of Iron Pointe who deals in Iron could only come up with Iron Man?"
"Yeah well…. Fuck you," Tony said lamely before turning back to Fury. "Alright, continue on cyclops."
Fury started at that before letting out a huff, muttering something Tony couldn't quite make out before continuing. "The Battalion leaders can create wights-" Jon stiffened at that and so did Tony; he remembered the tales from his childhood of the shuffling undead, created from corpses and set to murder the living and swell their ranks. He'd always played it off that he was too big and mature to believe such tales only to huddle on his bed clutching his wooden training sword for protection, the only time he actually wanted to hold the bloody thing. "But the Court can create more Others. They are also supposed to be far faster and stronger than a normal Other and command greater magic than the basic versions. Everything is second and third hand but while any Other is written of being a terror-inducing creature the Court is something far, far beyond them."
Happy frowned, hand resting on the pommel of his sword. "So basically it's the difference between a hedge knight and a member of the Kingsguard." When Fury nodded he added, "I want as much research as you've gathered. If Lord Antony is going to be fighting these things then I want to know what he'll be up against."
"What makes you think he'll be fighting him?" Fury asked.
"Why else would you be here?"
"Fair enough."
Natasha cut in, her annoyance at being cut out of the loop so great she wasn't hiding it. That made Tony smirk. "You said Barrowton held that information as well as info that would be important to what we need to discuss. What was it?"
"No, better question," Pepper cut in, "how did they have it? Because I have a feeling that it's important to know that."
"It is," Fury said. "Barrowton, nearly 8000 years ago, had a second son that would have been a maester, had their order existed at the time. As it was he merely was a learned man and when Brandon the Breaker needed help-" at that Jon sucked in a mouthful of air, "-he called upon him to inspect them."
"Them?" Rhodey asked.
"The Night's King and the Night's Queen," Jon whispered, his voice low and full of horror.
"…fuck," Tony whispered, only half listening as Jon and Fury took turns sharing the tale. He didn't need to hear it… he remembered it from his childhood nightmares.
The tale was one that had never left him, one of those childhood memories that simply refused to dislodge itself from one's brain, like an embarrassing moment that one would dwell upon even in their old age despite the fact that no one else remembered it. He had heard the story several times and the gist had always been the same: the Thirteenth Commander of the Night's Watch had come upon a wildling woman with pale skin and bright blue eyes standing near the gate of the Nightfort. Instantly stricken he had taken her to the top of the Wall and forsaken his vows, making love to her right on top of Bran the Builder's greatest creation. The moment he had spilled his seed into her he'd also lost his soul to her and from day forth he was her's to command. The Commander took the name The Night's King and for thirteen years ruled the Night's Watch with his Night's Queen at his side. They had done unspeakable things... quite literally, all the storytellers had refused to say what the two did that was so awful... until Bran the Breaker along with the Joramun the King-Beyond-The-Wall had joined forces and slain them both, freeing the Night's Watch from the couple's evil.
There were of course variations to the tale. Tony had heard it said that the Night's Queen was a wildling sorceress, a priestess of the Others, or a White Walker herself. How the two died differed as well; some claimed they had been driven back into a pit of flames that caused the Night's King to roast like a piglet on a spit while the Night's Queen melted into water, others claimed that they were tossed from the top of the Wall with the commander's manhood chopped off and a weirwood branch stabbed into the Queen's nethers, and that Brandon the Breaker had used the first Ice (not the one Ned currently had) to cut off their heads. Even the name of the Night's King had been different. When Tony had been at his family castle he'd been told by his nurse that the Night's King was named Antony and it was a warning that even good little boys could become monsters if they didn't behave. Yet when he and his parents had gone to Winterfell just after Lyanna had been born Old Nan had told him, Brandon, and Ned that the Night's King was named Brandon. Another storyteller, one from White Harbor, had sworn that the Night's King name was Mauvais.
But the basics of the story had remained the same and even as he'd grown older and come to see that it was all just fairy tales it had stuck with him.
And now Fury was telling them it was all real.
"People were told that the bodies were destroyed in different ways to prevent what secret followers that might have remained from learning the truth. The body of the Night's Queen, along with the pretender Night's King and several of her living Other Thralls, were brought to Barrowton to be examined by the Lord's second son," Fury stated. "That was how we learned quite a bit concerning the White Walkers and how they function and behave."
"You mean some of the Others lived?" Jon said, horrified at the thought.
"Yes, but only the Thralls, the ones that hadn't quite been turned fully into Others yet. At least according to the records. That's how it was learned why only the Night's Queen was able to bypass the Wall. The woman that had been the Night's Queen the Council believes was a follower of the Others, a wildling woman who thought that by serving the Others she would be spared. Foolish, as the Others want only themselves to exist, but some still try. Of course some also come to long to be like them, to become one of them."
"Like the Targaryens who wanted to be dragons," Phyllup stated.
"Exactly. The wilding, as far as we can determine, seduced the Lord Commander and got him to take her to the top of the Wall and, based on the injuries reported on her corpse, stabbed herself with a mortal blow before fornicating with the Lord Commander. Being there, on top of the Wall itself, allowed the magics Bran the Builder used to build the Wall to be just weak enough that, with the desecration of the Lord Commander's vows, the Night's Queen's spirit or essence or... whatever the hell it might have been... was able to possess the dying wildling girl's body. The only Other to ever breach the Wall who had come from the Lands of Forever Winter. The only member of the Court to do so… thank whoever is watching out for us."
Tony though frowned, picking up on something else. "Pretender Night's King?
"The Lord Commander wasn't the true Night's King... the Queen merely dubbed him that, probably wanting the poor bastard to believe he was something more than her slave. But no, he was merely an Other Thrall, a human with some of the powers of an Other. The true King..." Fury trailed off, closing his one eye. "Pray to whatever Gods you follow he never gets across the Wall."
"You said the Night's Queen had returned," Jon said. "That she had taken control of Sansa. How, if the first time the Queen had to get over the-" he paused. "No, wait... she died on our side, didn't she? Or her host did."
Fury nodded in approval. "Exactly my thought, Jon Stark. Exactly my thought. Since the Queen's vessel died on the Southern side of the Wall the Queen has been in Westeros for all these years."
"Then why only attack now?" Rhodey asked even as Tony opened his mouth to ask a very different question. "It's been thousands of years. What? Is she... lazy?"
"Not lazy," Jon said. "The legends only stated that the Others were driven back, deep beyond the Wall. I'm willing to bet that they don't heal like humans, do they?"
"They don't," Fury confirmed. "They are living spirits who take over dead bodies, using the souls they trap inside as fuel. If their forms are injured it can take centuries for them to cure the damage and if it is slain they might never be able to take form again." He paused, jaw working as he rubbed his stubbled chin in frustration. "Or, at least, that's what the legends say. So much has been lost who knows. One Agent I know has heard rumors the Night's Queen has been whispering in the ears of witches ever since… claims to have talked to a sorceress called Maggie the Frog who claimed that a dark spirit tried to take control of a lord's daughter but only managed to mark her-"
Tony clapped his hands. "Okay, great, lovely history lesson, I'll have Jarvis give you a honeyed spoon as reward later but for now let's focus on the important thing: how do we save Sansa?"
"What?" Pepper said, startled by his comment. "Tony-"
"Blinkie here told us the Night's Queen has taken over her body and trapped her soul. Which means there must be a way to… I don't know… untrap her. Or whatever word you want to use. So how do we untrap her and kick Queenie out?"
"It doesn't work-"
Natasha cut Fury off. "How do you know that the Night's Queen is in Sansa?"
Happy shook his head. "I can't believe we're having this kind of conversation."
Fury glared at her. "I've gotten reports."
"From who?" Natasha challenged.
"Does it matter?" Fury asked.
"In this case yes it does. I'm not risking my family on a wild goose chase."
"Your family?" Fury asked. "Agent, have you forgotten-"
"I am Natasha Stark, wife to Lord Jon Stark of Iron Pointe," Nat challenged, causing Jon to look at her with a mix of emotions, not all of them good. Tony though was rather impressed by how the Black Widow of Dorne was standing up to her boss. "My loyalty belongs to them now. Not you. I will work with you, Fury, if your goals match what is best for them but don't assume you have my blind trust. Not anymore. I owe you much but my loyalty is to my family. Now who the hell did you get this information from?"
"I think you're going to have to tell them, boss," Phyllup stated with a casual smile.
Tony did want to get back to the topic of saving Sansa but he saw the logic in what they were asking. If it weren't for the fact that he'd recently spent a day fighting a flying Iron Born warrior with lightning whips he would have scoffed at Fury's claim that the Others were real. Part that, and the deep knowledge that all of the North, especially the Starks, held that the Great Enemy was still out there dashed his disbelief. But still, he did want to make sure that he trusted the source before he went back into King's Landing, especially with Joffrey and the rest of the Lannisters arming the scorpions to take him down.
'Besides,' he thought with a grin, 'any info Patches Patchington is forced to give out is always a good thing to know.'
Fury looked around the table, trying to find an out, but seeing no friendly faces that were willing to side with any possible argument he might have had in keeping the knowledge hidden he finally sighed. "Varys."
"The Maester of Whispers?" Pepper asked. "You work for him?"
"He works for me," Fury said darkly.
"That… makes a lot of sense," Tony muttered. "By the Gods Old, New, and Refurbished, why didn't I think of that? Man worked for Aerys and then Robert… seems to play every side… of course the eunech is a spy!" Tony slapped the table. "Is he really a eunech? Or does he have a massive cock that-"
"No!" half the table shouted.
"What?"
Rhodey glowered at him. "We do NOT want to think about Varys with a horse penis!"
"Which he doesn't have," Phyllup stated.
"Well, he could," Jon said. "He'd just need to go to a barn and-OW!" he rubbed his shoulder where Pepper had smacked him. "Oh, so Tony can say shit like that but I'm only allowed to sit around and brood?"
"You don't brood you pout moodily," Natasha stated with a grin.
Pepper though wasn't in a joking mood. "You want us to trust The Spider?"
"Varys has been pivotal in monitoring the situation in King's Landing," Fury stated. "And not just since we began to worry about what the woman claiming to Sansa was rather than who. He kept an eye on Robert, on Aerys, on Rhaegar-"
"He allowed Rhaegar to kidnap Lyanna," Jon said sternly.
"If he hadn't you wouldn't have been born," Natasha reminded him.
"Wait, what?!" Happy exclaimed.
"Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar are my parents," Jon ground out, spitting out the name of his birthfather like it was poison."
"Didn't we tell you that?" Rhodey asked. "I thought we told you that."
"…NO!"
"Okay, we need to make a list of things we haven't told Happy before his heart explodes," Tony jested before looking at Fury. "But Jon does bring up a good point. A lot of horrible things happened while Varys was spying for you."
"And don't blame him for that, blame us," Fury pointed out. "Blame me. I made the choice. My mission… well, you don't need to know what it used to be but now it is about ensuring we survive the upcoming Second War for the Dawn. And I trust Varys and what he saw."
"I don't," Natasha said coolly. When the others gave her a look she frowned. "A long story… involving a lot of red in my ledger."
"There is a reason why you both have spider nicknames, isn't there?" Tony asked, Natasha merely nodding. "Huh… should have put that together." He looked at Phyllup. "You have a spider name too-?"
"The point," Nat said, interrupting him, "is that I don't care what Varys saw, if I don't have more proof-"
Fury cut her off. "Clynt is in King's Landing too."
Tony was startled by the change that came over the Dornish woman. She instantly went from scowling at Fury to sitting back in her chair and nodding in agreement. "Right. The Night's Queen is in King's Landing."
"Who is Clynt and why did he make you agree so quickly?" Jon asked with a hint of jealousy.
"Someone I trust almost as much as I trust you," Natasha said softly.
Tony held up his hand before Jon could speak. "We are getting off track here and need to focus."
"You are the one that brought up Spider-Nicknames," Pepper pointed out.
He didn't respond (mostly because he didn't have a good answer). "I am going to ask again: how are we banishing the Night's Queen from Sansa?"
He had the sense that any other person would have shown him pity but it just wasn't in the spymaster's nature to do so. Rather he said rather bluntly, "We don't."
"We will."
"It doesn't work that way, Stark," Fury said.
"Says who?"
"All the research-"
"Yeah, a bunch of documents, copies from older documents that were copied from even older documents. And done by maesters who probably thought a lot of it wasn't true. Pardon me if I don't trust the wisdom of men long dead."
"Everything has matched up," Fury stated. He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I get it… this is a guilt thing for you. You didn't save the girl and now you want to make up for it by saving her. Well it's not going to happen. She's dead, you failed-"
Jon drove a dagger into the table an inch from Fury's fingers.
"I don't like you," Jon said coldly. "I haven't liked you from the moment I found you cooking outside my cabin acting like it was your right to be there. Finding out you arranged my marriage and wedded me to a spy who was supposed to keep tabs on me didn't help." Natasha flinched at that and looked down at the table, Tony finding it very odd to see the woman look so… forlorn. A glance a Pepper and Rhodey showed they saw it too and Tony silently decided that when this was all settled his next project would be getting Natasha and Jon fixed. They were good for each other and deserved happiness, fuck the secrets between them. "You revealing that you planned to take me to Essos purely so that you could use me as some pawn to help get you control of Westeros only made me loathe you all the more. Now finding out you allowed my mother to be taken by Rhaegar-and no I don't care if they were in love or not my grandfather and uncle died along with thousands of others because of their foolishness so fuck me being born if it could have saved them-" Natasha wasn't the only one to hiss in outrage at that thought and Tony added something else he'd need to fix in Jon's brain, "-only makes me hate you all the more. So you will show Tony the respect he deserves. No… more than he deserves. Because if you don't?" Jon leaned forward and Ghost slowly turned, staring at Fury with blazing eyes, lips curling back to reveal his fangs. "Winter is Coming. But it will come sooner for you."
It was to Fury's credit that he merely stared Jon down, not even budging. "Fine. But it doesn't change the truth of the matter, no matter how much you hate me and threaten me. Your sister," he turned to Tony, "your cousin? She's not come back. You wouldn't want her to come back to… that. The Night's Queen is altering her body, twisting it into her vessel. Besides, there is no known way to banish an Other from their host without destroying the body."
"That's because I wasn't around," Tony said firmly.
"Oh really?" Fury pressed. "I thought you were just the temporary Warden of the West."
"I was wrong," Tony stated simply. "I'm more than that. I have to be."
"…good, glad to hear it." Fury sounded rather pleased.
Tony blinked, lips puckering together as he went through what had just happened. "You did all that just to get me to accept I had to be Iron Man, didn't you?"
"Just a bit," Fury admitted. "I still don't think you can save Sansa but hell, we have one of the Seven running around, a green knight with the former Heir of the Iron Islands in the Riverlands, and the less said about the massacre at Harrenhal the better." Under his breath, so low Tony barely heard it, the man muttered, "Still need to figure that one out."
"If the goal wasn't to save Sansa than why tell us?" Jon asked testily, stilling brimming with anger over the insults piled onto Tony and his loathing over how Fury had controlled his life.
Fury turned to him. "Because I can't have you freezing up when you see her. She isn't your sister anymore, at least the flesh isn't nor the spirit that drives it. Your sister is just a sunstone powering the armor the Night's Queen wears. Armor that she has altered to suit her needs. She can't be saved."
"If that is true then we'll at least ensure that Sansa knows peace," Tony stated firmly and with utter conviction.
"And then?" Fury pressed.
"We avenge her."
"Avenge," the spymaster said, rolling the word about on his tongue. "Avenge. Funny you should mention that. You see... there was an idea. To bring together-" He paused, looking at Jon.
"What?"
"Last time you interrupted me. I wanted to make sure I could get this speech out this time." Jon waved his hand in acceptance and Fury opened his mouth only to shoot a look Tony's way. "Please don't be cute. We'll all see it coming."
"Fine," Tony said with a huff.
"There was an idea," Fury began again, "to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them… to fight the battles we never could. Your family? Iron Man, Centurion, the War Machine, Natasha, perhaps even Lady Stark? You are just the first step. The first pieces in creating a team that will be able to save not just the world but all that will come after us. To stare down the Great Enemy of all mankind and, remembering the terrors they visited on us once before and seek to do so again, finally avenge us once and for all."
"Who else do you have in mind?" Jon asked. "You must have other members of this 'team' in mind."
"Brienne of Tarth, for one. If we can track down the man calling himself Thor Odinson he'd be another. I have a couple of other candidates in mind and I am sure more will begin to pop up soon. It seems like your arrival has awoken something... caused magic and wonder to return. Case in point the next recruit I want... someone I am hoping you'll help me bring into the fold, Lord Stark."
"And who is that?" Tony asked.
"Daenerys Targaryen, the Firestar."
~MC~MC~MC~
Author's Notes: SO we get some more info on the Others, in-story confirmation on how Nightsa came to be, and set up for Book 3.
One of the things I wanted to make clear here is that everything isn't okay with the Westerland Starks. Jon especially. He started the series thinking he was merely a bastard. Now he finds out that his birth is directly related to a lot of his family dying, his father may or may not have raped his mother (for those who questioned Ned stating that Lyanna and Rhaegar discussed names… they very well could have when Rhaegar was taking her away… but even Ned isn't for sure. Lyanna was delirious with a fever and rambling when Ned found her. She could have run away and been happy with Rhaegar the entire time and he with her… or he was using her just to get another daughter for baby Aegon… or Rhaegar tricked her and raped her. Unless Lyanna suddenly comes back to life to tell us we'll never know.), his wife was sent to spy on him, and oh yes the Council almost kidnapped him to use as a puppet Hand to rule Westeros… well, Jon has a lot of issues and loathing for himself. Book 3 will be him dealing with all that.
