50 Shades of Tony

by Virodeil

Tony chooses to think differently, see the little details, in the aftermath of the Battle of New York. The arc reactor in his chest is failing for the second time, at that. These, coupled together, sees him pelting down quite a different road than what anyone expects, including himself. An alien family, a pre-made romance, some inherited species change… oh, my! – *(MULTICROSSOVER)

33. The Slow Road to Recovery

50 Shades of Tony
By Rey

Chapter 33
Tony Stark and the Slow Road to Recovery

General warning for: aftermath of and recovery from traumatic captivity

Credit to: The fanfiction story It's Not the Raptor DNA by SkullsandDuggery for the name Elise for the big white dinosaur hybrid

Stark Tower, New York, United States, 2nd October 2016

791. Persistence
"Afa, you were rescued from a horrendous situation mere days ago!" Fié sighs, exasperated. Tony shrugs, continuing to dress himself for Chan-Chan's birthday party, carefully not looking at his worrywart lover. His persistence might make them relent, if it lingers long enough. He doesn't really want to do this, but….

792. Excuse
Tony sits by the unguarded door that he knows leads to a functional and unobstructed bank of lifts. He watches a bewilderedly happy Chan-Chan revelling in her surprise birthday party from that uncustomary place, and tells Pepper excuses when she tries to draw him out. He's just… not there yet.

793. Far Beyond
"What I had while in that place, it's far beyond Afghanistan," Tony confesses at last while cuddling Fié close, long after the party. "Strange. Good. Bad. Glad – relieved – mostly. Nobody died for me. But that Apophis guy was so… unhinged. Even worse than the Ten Rings combined," he babbles on.

794. Likely
"Thought it's just like Afghanistan. Thought the demand's likely about tech, n'I could make a weapon to break free that way." His voice wavers, but Tony can't care less about it. He's on a roll. "Thought I could save my cellmate… but they saved me instead. I was so useless."

Antarctica, 20th October 2016

795. Task
Various people have been tasked to distract Tony from further thoughts of his captivity, it seems. Day and night, he's always accompanied by someone or three. Fié's rarely with him, but Sai'yo – Fié's unknown first cousin, apparently, child of their long-lost aunt – is always there, and it's a comfort, surprisingly.

796. Ebb
Tony begins to explore the land with various things, once the trauma has ebbed slightly. The open spaces are confusingly both daunting and freeing, but he does appreciate the lack of soldiers tailing him, though they're friendlies. He appreciates his anonymity, too, here: He's just another broken person among many.

797. Control
The latest exploration nets Tony an ancient structure buried deep beneath the layers of ice, soil and rocks, also a portable portal and a few frozen bodies. It's an outpost of a people called the Alterans, who also built the portable portals, according to Ýoluti. Tony sets to controlling it.

Ýmirheim, November 2016

798. Programme
Tony feels like he needs to be in charge of something – anything – tangible, and restoring the Alteran outpost took too little time to finish. So now he's really trying to restore Ýmirheim to better than its old glory. Accordingly, he churns out programmes with his family and board of advisors.

798. Lucrative
Ýmirheim's made a lucrative business selling arts, ores and pearls. Tony uses the funding to jump-start new-and-improved farms and build vessels to transport the produces safely and efficiently. But he also sets aside funding from his own coffers for a fleet of small-but-sharp battleships. He hasn't forgotten Chulak, at all.

800. Slavery
"They never tried to help you when their 'god' wanted me to rape you, and now you want me to free them from slavery?" Tony's aghast when Sai'yo tentatively proposes a rescue mission – read: takeover of Chulak – as the Ýmirheim restoration project begins to run in earnest. And they nod.

801. Whereabouts
Sai'yo's only half-milaða, and that half really doesn't agree with milaða constitution. Fié and their other cousin want to keep this youngest one alive, though, so they're hunting down the whereabouts of their shared grandmother, the Monarch before Fié's mum, to… "make" Sai'yo a full milaða, as Tony understands it.

802. Tack
Tony bonds with Sai'yo slowly but surely, through caring for the pack and pet animals the palace keeps. Surprisingly, Sai'yo needs no tack to ride any of the mounts, and befriends even the prickliest and wariest animals so quickly. Oft-surfacing family trait, Fié claims: afinity with animals. Tony envies them.

803. Label
Tony doesn't know what to label his relationship with Sai'yo. They're certainly closer than someone's newfound cousin to the said someone's spouse should be. Then again, the milaðen seem to approach relationships in extremes: either extremely close or extremely distant. The absent former-monarch grandmum who ignored the devastations, for instance.

Antarctica, 5th December 2016

804. Eloquent
Elise, one of the big, white dino hybrids, is very… eloquent. With sign language alone, she chastises Tony about moping round and not preparing for Christmas. She's just found out about the joys of that holiday, it seems, and in any case, "Looking only to the past ruins the present."

805. Bolster
Time totally alone with Fié usually means blanket-and-pillow fort for the sprogs, overseen by the other adults, who also participate, sometimes. But apparently, Sai'yo's… too new or something, too unfamiliar with the abundant cuddly relatives and friends, because they're cocooned alone inside a fort walled high with bolsters, during that.

Antarctica, 25th December 2016

806. Formation
The saner refugees of the magical civil war agree for the formation of a totally new government, although not even the sanest ones wish to return to UK any time soon. It's a self-gifted Christmas present, in Tony's satisfied opinion, as they approach the day in much better spirit afterwards.

807. Triple
Happiness shared is happiness doubled, people say. Apparently, the sprogs heard it from somewhere and disseminated it among themselves. And, just as Tony's settling in among them – with Fié, of course, and dragging Sai'yo into the mix – they parade in front of him and ask how to triple the happiness.

808. Garden
"Share with strangers, not only among you" is the idea that Fié finds rather on-the-spot for tripling-the-happiness plan. And the nearest "strangers" are the milaðen in charge of the cold-climate farm…. Well, with the abundant non-farm space still available, the sprogs come up with making a garden for the farmers.

809. Mystery
Tony finds it somewhat of a mystery, how everyone begins to cheer up, while toiling in the cold to make a garden which they likely won't use for themselves. But then, it's also somewhat of a mystery, how he's come this far… and how he's growing excited with gardening, too.