Secret Santa: Blood Makes Noise - part 2/2

[cap_ironman_fe]

Merry Month: LePeru
Title: Blood Makes Noise
Rating: Explicit
Universe: MCU/AU
Warnings: Consent issues relative to mpreg. Surprise!a/b/o. Consensual sexualized violence. Loose adaptation of Norse Mythology.
From: cluegirl / Kingsgrave

Link to part 1



~*~

"Amora can claim neither the rights of Wife, nor Queen," Thor said, pacing the length of the team's gathering room and back again, so that Tony couldn't help thinking of a caged and angry lion. "And the rights of a consort would never be enough to raise an army against the Crown of Asgard. But a son of my own getting?" He shook his head. "There are many who would follow the name of Thorson, even were he a babe in arm and his crown a far distant thing."

"The Mordred effect," Bruce observed, still a little giddy over the revelation of Amora's curse, and the samples he'd drawn from Steve and Tony once they'd finally put their clothes on and come out of hiding. "Worked well enough for Morgan Le Fay, the stories say."

"It has worked for many would-be Queens in many lands," the Lady Freya answered, stroking one of the enormous, fluffy cats she'd brought to the Tower with her. They were lying liars, those monsters, offering tempting expanses of belly to rub, only to turn into whirling, screaming masses of claw and tooth the instant anybody tried to take them up on it. Tony curled a little tighter against Steve's side, fingering his bandaged arm as it eyed him with purring disdain.

"The judgment of Kings and Princes is notoriously faulty where their fleeting pleasures are concerned," Freya went on, "and the mother of a King may often wield more power even than the wife. But our Prince Thor is the son of a wise father, and an even wiser mother, and is well protected against such machinations and magics. My cousin who seeks her throne through him must play a far more sidelong game."

"So basically we have an Asgardian honey trap that misfires," Clint waved an arm at Tony and Steve where they cuddled at the end of the sofa, "and somehow instead of getting Miss Hot Mess into Thor's pants, it gets those two into some kind of biting, clawing, wall banging, jungle-fuck frenzy on each other?" He shook his head, eyes tight with obvious strain, despite the surreptitious hand Natasha pressed to his knee. "Why didn't it make Tony and Cap both go for her? That was Amora's goal, wasn't it?"

Freya smiled again, and the glance she slid Tony's way was all too knowing. "Magic tends to be lazy," she shrugged one shoulder. "It is easier by far for a spell to seed lust where love already exists, than to carve space for it out of a soul indifferent. Had Thor hated Amora, perhaps her spell might have born her better fruit, but as it is, he cares for her not at all."

"So it wasn't just because I caught the spell on my shield and the rebound went wild?" Steve sounded relieved.

Freya smiled. "Even had I arrived in time to break the spell of lust upon you both, the channel in which it had flowed to bind you and Lord Stark would still have remained as vital as ever. As it will remain between you, now Amora's spell has run its course."

"It wasn't about love though," Natasha said, eyes sharply green in the winter light. "Not really. If Thor turns up in Asgard saying Amora's his true love and everybody has to so what she says now, nobody would buy it."

Steve stirred again, and Tony could feel the echo of his mind turning colder, harder, worried. It was quieter, more distant, that link that had buzzed and whirled between them before, but it was still present enough for Tony to pick up the drift of the soldier's thoughts.

"It was about her getting knocked up," Tony said as Steve's fingers tightened over his shoulder. "So she could come back to Asgard with a pretender to the throne." He didn't let himself shiver, didn't let the panic rise up into his throat as he stared at the dumpy little woman who didn't look all that hot, but apparently knew all there was to know about Asgardian sex magic. And fuck did he really hate magic just then, but he made himself ask the question anyway. "So what, exactly, did it do to us?"

Freya's smile turned a little softer, a little sadder. "Exactly what Amora intended, Tony Stark; it created the chance for a life where before there had been none. You and the Captain did the rest."

The room went silent on that -- not stunned, precisely, and not resigned, but waiting. All of them appalled, uncertain, afraid to disbelieve. Tony couldn't even think the words -- feeling around the impossible shape of them like probing the socket of a missing tooth. He couldn't be... like that. It was impossible. But some part of him knew; it was true. He was... There would be a baby. His. Steve's. He thought of the string of condoms he'd gone running to find when Jarvis had said Steve was finally on his way -- the ones he'd completely forgotten about once Steve's scent and teeth and hands were on him.

This was, in its own way, more terrifying than AIDS had ever been.

"Is... is it certain?" It was Steve who found his words first. On the other side of the room, Bruce sat forward in his chair, eyes wide, guilty fascination mixing with horrified amazement on his face -- a researcher to the bitter end. Natasha's face was sphinx-blank, betraying her nerves as clearly as Clint's openly squicked grimace, and Thor's funereal gravity.

Tony closed his eyes, wondering if this was what shock felt like when it came on its own, without blood loss.

"Oh yes, Captain," Freya answered. "You are both of you quite potent, and the spell was a canny one. Your seed has caught quick, and now Lord Stark's welcome holds it fast."

'Breathe,' Tony thought, or maybe it was Steve. Either way, the air sounded far too much like a sob when he took it in.

"And..." Steve's hand stroked tiny circles against Tony's arm, and his thoughts were delicate, tentative as he chose his words with terrified care. "Is there... anything you can do? To help?"

"To help do what, exactly?" Freya's voice was hard and edgy, a clear warning.

"Whatever Tony wants," Steve answered without hesitation or fear, and Tony felt the cramp of anger in his guts unspooling as quickly as it had knotted up. "Human men can't... we can't have children by ourselves. It's just not possible, but if Tony wants to try, then he'll need a lot of magical help to make it happen." Steve's wide, warm hand stroked down Tony's arm again, and Steve's glance was a quick, furtive thing. "But Amora had no right to inflict this on him... on us at all. If Tony doesn't want the child, then he shouldn't have to put his life at risk."

"It's true," Bruce spoke up then, clearly worried, "the hormones, the arrangement of the organs, the bone structure -- it's all wrong in men. Even if Tony weren't Iron Man, even if he didn't have a ridiculous excess of heavy metals still in his system, he'd have to have magic backing this up in order to survive gestation."

"Unless we found a surrogate," Natasha said, and suddenly Tony felt like sobbing with relief. "A woman could gestate the child and give it birth. Maybe even raise it away from the crosshairs, if we were going to be smart about it."

"Can magic do that?" Steve leaned forward, suddenly eager. "Could the baby be taken out of Tony and put into someone who could... someone who wanted to carry it?"

Freya's answering smile was warm and not a little sly. "To the relief of many a shieldmaiden and at least one royal prince of my acquaintance, yes -- such a transfer is not at all beyond my skills." Thor looked like he didn't know whether to bluster or to sink into the floor, but stiffened up defiantly when he noticed Tony staring. So there was definitely a story there!

"If all are agreed," Freya went on as if she hadn't noticed, "The child need not even know that she who bears it is not, in fact, the mother who conceived it."

"Not like that's ever backfired before or anything," Clint groused, fiddling with an arrowhead Tony was certain he hadn't had a moment ago. "Still, it's probably better than painting a target on the kid's forehead. That'd be one hell of an interview process though -- wanted, surrogate mother for possible superbaby; security clearance and combat experience preferred."

"I don't want it," Tony said, before Clint's edgy giddiness could get him shaking again. "In me. I can't." He took a deep breath, sat upright from the cradling slouch against Steve's warmth, and tried not to shiver. "I can't do that. It's too much -- I never wanted kids, and I. Never. I mean fuck, can you imagine what kind of a parent I'd be? I can barely manage to care for robots -- Howard would be father of the century by comparison!" He scraped a hand through his hair, resisting the urge to tug. "But that doesn't mean I want it ..."

"Dead," Steve finished when he faltered, and there was something so relieved in his voice that Tony couldn't help reaching to tangle their fingers together. "I never thought I'd be a father either," Steve went on, "and it scares me, a little, what could happen. Ours isn't a great life for a kid to be part of, but..." and here, he smiled at Tony, a little helpless, a lot mushy, and so, so earnestly gorgeous it made his chest ache. "I can't help thinking how bright a kid of Tony Stark's would be."

"I was thinking 'dangerous,' myself," Natasha snarked, and if Tony hadn't been thinking the very same thing, he'd have thrown a pillow at her.

"There are many upon Asgard who would welcome the blood of Midgardian heroes into their clans," Thor offered. "My companion Volstaag is a doting father, and his-"

"Volstaag?" Clint asked, turning to stare, "Isn't he the one who threw Sif through the window at Steve's birthday party?"

"She has known worse," Thor shrugged, oblivious to Steve's expression of horror.

"I need time," Tony groaned, scrubbing at his face with both hands and hoping to stop the debate in its tracks. "I can't make this decision right now." Pepper, for one, was going to take at least a week to stop screaming at him over this when she heard about it, and Rhodey was probably going to need two. Tony didn't even want to think about telling Fury. "I need time, and maybe my weight in alcohol. Except for how I probably can't have any on account of being fucking pregnant!"

There. He'd said it. He'd fucking said it, and it was utterly ridiculous, but nobody was laughing. Least of all himself. Fuck. His. Life!

"Then time I shall award you," Freya said after a silent moment, nudging the cat from her lap and standing, graceful and majestic, and suddenly every inch the sex-goddess Thor had named her on introduction. "In payment for the transgressions of my kinswoman, Amora against the Avengers. Come to me, lovers of Midgard."

She held out her hands, imperious until he and Steve both got to their feet and took hold. "You will have three years' time," she said, fixing each of them in turn with a grave stare. "One year for each of you thus affected, to determine the fate of your child; whether to be raised within your own clan, fostered in another's, or not."

Tony gasped, flinching when he felt the woman's words take hold of him, wrapping tightly around something deep and intangible inside of him. At his side, Steve's sharp, ragged breath betrayed a similar sensation on his part -- distant from Tony now, as it hadn't been before, shielded from the reach of his senses.

"What..." Steve swallowed, and his fingers clenched tight around Tony's own, heated counterpoint to Freya's cool grasp. "What do you mean, 'or not'?"

"Fear not, Captain -- I will not leave Amora's spell to run its course," she frowned, and Tony had the sudden idea that this small, round woman was going to bring hell to pay if she caught up with her hot mess of a cousin any time soon. "Your bonded will not die of his burden. At the end of three years, Amora's spell, and all it has wrought, will unravel," she said, dropping their hands and turning away as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

Tony might not have felt the disappointment surge up in Steve's breast, but he couldn't miss seeing it sweep across his face. Steve would never say a word, he realized, just like he had never let himself imagine being a father back when he'd been small, sickly, or later, embroiled in a deadly war. He'd hold to hope though, and he'd yearn.

And there was something to be said, after all, for getting to see what the child of the pinnacle of human potential might look like, wasn't there? Tony might be the world's worst dad, but couldn't Steve make up for that somewhat? Especially if Tony was around to make sure the kid didn't die of vegetables, homework, and clean living. He gave Steve's hand a squeeze, and smiled. "Bet she'll have your eyes," he said, half joke, half dare, and, he was shocked to realize, all promise.

Steve beamed, beautiful in the low light of the afternoon. "Three years, huh?" he said, "We can figure something out by then, I'll bet."

"Sure," Tony let himself grin back, let himself believe, let himself raise a middle finger to the cold ghost of a cold father, and a lifetime's assumption of failure. "We can do this. We beat the Chitauri, the Red Skull, and the Mandarin -- how hard can one little baby be?"

"Oh," Natasha smirked as the rest of the team hurried to knock on wood, "this is gonna be fun..."