Fic: Stronger Than Iron
Woo-hoo, first Avengers fandom story! Very excited to be able to combine my love of both Marvel and Minecraft. A great big thank you to the Nonie who prompted this on the AvergerKink page (link there is to the first page of the round this was found in, page 1 if anyone’s particularly interested).
Also available on AO3 for those who prefer that formatting.
Title: Stronger Than Iron
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Rating: PG
Summary: Steve and Tony in a minecraft like world where things run on redstone, the dark is full of monsters and diamonds make the best swords.
Tony startled sightly from the sudden loud ‘thwak’ that came from his pickaxe, blinking down at the now useless tool in his hand.
“Blast,” he grumbled, chucking the useless thing to the ground and digging around in his backpack in the hope of finding another one. Unfortunately it was fairly empty, only some food, an iron forged sword, seven tree seeds - he had no idea how they had gotten in there - and a small collection of the greatest treasures in the world.
“I’ll have to go home and make some more pickaxes…” He eyed his precious cargo. “Better take this, last thing I need in some moron trying to rob me.” Tony pulled out his sword; frowning slightly at the small cracks he could see beginning to form along its iron blade.
“Useless.”
Abandoning the area he had been mining through for now, Tony climbed towards the surface, the many torches he had dug into the stone and dirt walls of the cave system lighting his way. Upon arriving at the non-descript mouth of the cave, Tony cursed again.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he stared out into the darkness, puffing slightly from the climb.
Logically, he knew he should just go back into the safety of the lightened cave. But Tony was impatient, he especially hated having to wait for dawn to come just so he could move around outside without the threat of the various monsters that appeared throughout the night.
He stood staring into the darkness for a full minute before clenching his jaw and turning in the direction he knew home was.
Gripping his sword tight, Tony set off at a fast pace, eyes alert for any sign of movement and ears staining to pick up any of the familiar sounds of monsters. He managed to weave around trees and not trip over the uneven land for a few minutes; till he was halfway home and his good luck ran out.
A sudden loud growl came from his left, causing him to swing around, sword at the ready. Unfortunately he also managed to catch his foot on a small mound of dirt, falling over into a dip in the ground at the same time. Crashing into unforgiving dirt and stone, Tony had a moment to wince at the pain radiating from his calf, no doubt bruised if not scraped by the impact. Then, looking up, he saw a Zombie approaching him in the moonlight, sickly green arms outstretched and ratty clothing stained with dark liquids.
“Tony!” A sudden voice cut through the pounding of Tony’s heart in his ears. There was a squishing sound and the Zombie fell to the ground, dead.
Out of the shadows, Tony felt relief wash over him at the sight of his own personal hero, Steve, bow still in hand from where he had let forth the arrow to kill the monster.
“Notch, Steve; am I ever glad to see you.” Tony let out a breath, briefly contemplating the idea of flopping back onto the ground and letting his poor heart recover from the scare it had just suffered.
“What’re you doing wandering around at night? You’re not even wearing any armour, are you?” Steve scolded him, slinging the bow over his back and holding out a hand to pull Tony to his feet.
“My pickaxe broke.” Tony grumbled, taking the offered hand and allowing Steve to pull him up, wiping off his pants briskly - not that it made much difference as he spent most of his time covered in dust while mining or building.
“Of course it did.” Steve sighed, more with resigned exasperation then anything else.
“Come on, we’d better get back home, before anything else decided to attack us tonight.” Steve said, hand moving to rest on the hilt of his own iron sword that hung around his waist.
“Wait, what are you doing out here?” Tony asked suspiciously. Honestly, if Steve was going to preach about the dangers in the darkness, he should at least set an example Tony could ignore.
Steve stared at him in the muted moonlight.
“I was looking for you. What else would I be doing out here at night?” He asked blandly.
“And here I thought you just fancied yourself a midnight stroll with a touch of monster slaying.” Tony grinned, hand reaching out for Steve’s’ for a brief, affectionate squeeze. An amused huff and an affectionate tightening of fingers was all the response he got before they let go and returned to the situation at hand.
The two managed to walk quietly in the direction of home for another few minutes when a distant light finally greeted them. A low lying flat spread out between them at the edge of the forest and a large mountain wherein their home was located in the hollowed out centre.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Tony groaned, eyes trained on the miniature army wandering about the flat area between them and home. “What, was there a monster meeting sign we missed out on? Because I would have complained to the community about the location.”
“Tony,” Steve quietly admonished, pulling his sword from its scabbard and eyeing the monsters, clearly thinking of a plan of action.
“I hate monsters. We should just find all the monster spawners and we wouldn’t have this problem.” Tony muttered.
“Concentrate, Tony. They’ll notice us soon and we’ll loose the element of surprise.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tony sighed, holding his sword up at the ready.
“It looks like it’s mostly just spiders and skeletons… Oh, there’s a zombie back to the right.” Steve muttered, eyes trailing over them.
“Zombies and spiders and skeletons, oh my.” Tony snorted, knowing by the small huff of breath to his left that Steve was smiling despite the situation.
“Is that… oh my Notch, it’s one of those spider jockey’s. Think they’re so cool,” Tony growled, hand tightening on the handle of his sword.
“Tony, I’ll take the left half. Think you can handle the ones to the right?” Steve interrupted.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve given me the side with less monsters to kill.” Normally, Tony would put up a huge fuss about that, but the cracks in his sword worried him more than he was willing to admit.
“Right, let’s go.” Steve said before the two took off towards the monsters at a dead run.
The various growls and spitting from the zombie and spiders filled the air, accompanied by the ‘thwak, thwak’ of arrows from animated skeletons. Tony waved his sword around at the enemy like a madman, feeling a sharp sting and warm rush of liquid when one of the arrows went by his cheek too close for comfort. As he fought, Tony spared a glance at Steve, relieved to find him in the process of killing that stupid spider jockey.
As Tony managed to kill off the last of the spiders that had been on his side of the battlefield, he felt the give in his sword and it made a loud cracking sound as it snapped, the iron blade breaking off within the spiders’ body.
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Tony groaned, staring down at the stump of a sword.
“Steve. My sword broke.” He whined, mostly just because the danger had passed and he could. Looking over at the blond, Tony was slightly surprised by the man’s wide eyes and almost stricken expression.
Tony opened his mouth to enquire as to what was wrong, when a dreaded hissing sound came from behind him. Tony didn’t even waste time looking behind him for the source; he already knew what he would find. A terrible creature standing on four stubby little legs and as tall as Steve, matted green skin and a life’s goal of blowing people up.
That hissing sound belonged only to the Creeper.
He only managed a few steps before the Creeper exploded behind him, sending Tony, dirt and stone flying into the air.
“TONY!” Steve yelled out in horror.
Tony blinked in confusion, eyes staring up at the star filled sky. All he could hear was the pounding of blood in his ears and a general sense of dizziness. He blinked slowly, Steve suddenly appearing in front of his eyes, mouth moving and panic on his face. Tony slowly became aware of Steve’s hands on his body, no doubt checking for injuries.
“S’ve?” Tony tried to get his mouth working, blinking dust from his eyes and trying to force his thoughts into something of an orderly fashion.
“-s’ok, Tony. You’re alright.” Steve cupped his cheek in reassurance and Tony couldn’t even find it in him to flinch as Steve’s thumb drew across the cut there.
“Let’s get inside where it’s safe, ok?” Steve gently pulled Tony up and led him to the door, pushing a button hidden behind a rock to open it via the redstone. He helped Tony over to the bed, sitting him down gently before taking the bag from him and setting it on the floor.
“A sword and a pickaxe in just one day. You really need to carry spares with you.” Steve scolded Tony, reaching out and running his hands over Tony’s body, searching for injuries.
“Gonna fix that. I’ma invent somethin’ amazin’ to stop the prob’lm.” Tony murmured with a small smile.
“Yeah, I’ve no doubt.” Steve said affectionately, moving over to the small caldron full of water and dipping a piece of fabric in it that had been sitting there exactly for that purpose. Returning to Tony, he carefully wiped away the small bit of blood on his cheek and some of the dirt that had found its way to his skin on both his face and arms. Deeming Tony as clean and unharmed as he was going to be at that point in time, Steve carelessly discarded the fabric on the floor and raised his hand up to gently cup Tony’s cheek. The brunet leaned into it, eyes sliding closed easily.
“Bed,” Tony murmured, hand reaching up and latching onto Steve’s bicep, trying to pull the man down with him as he lent backwards, counting on gravity to be his friend. Steve laughed, but pulled away; causing Tony to let out a whine he would later refuse to admit to.
“I just have to take off the armour.” Steve said gently. Tony grunted, shifting around on the bed so he was lying down on his back slightly off centre in the bed. It took a mere minute, but Tony was already half asleep when he felt strong arms wrapping around his waist and a nose burying into his neck, warm puffs of breath heating his skin.
“Next time it’s dark, how about waiting for me to get there before you take off into the night alone?” Steve asked softly.
“Mmmhm,” was all Tony managed, feeling content when a warm leg moved to pin down his own. A soft kiss was placed on the space where his neck met shoulder and Tony drifted away.
*
When Steve awoke the next morning the sun was shinning in through the window and his bed was empty. The clanking sound coming from the next room, however, told him where Tony had wondered. Dragging himself from the bed, Steve moved throughout their home to find Tony in front of their crafting table, his bag was discarded on the floor nearby and something was glinting off of the torch light from within the leather folds.
Curious, Steve crouched beside the bag and pulled out one of the sparkling items, only to almost drop it in surprise a moment later.
“Tony,” he breathed out, causing the clanking sound to stop and Tony to turn slightly.
“Pretty awesome, yeah?” Tony grinned, clearly pleased with himself.
“I’ve never seen one in its raw form before.” Steve admitted turning the large diamond in his hand so it caught the light.
“You think that’s awesome? Take a look at this.” Tony then turned completely, showing Steve what he had been working on.
The sword in his hands was the shape of any old sword with the handle made of wood but the blade, rather than the usual iron, was reflecting the light just as the diamond Steve still held did.
“Is that…?” Steve gaped at Tony.
“Yep, a Diamond Sword. I thought you might like it.” Tony grinned in pleasure at Steve’s speechlessness.
“Now, I’ve just finished making a pile of tools. What say you we go out and do something fun? I’m thinking we should build a tower, a huge tower: preferably with my name on top of it. Though with the right persuasion we can change that to just my initials. We could booby-trap all but the very top levels and sit back and watch people try and fail to get to us, I’ll use redstone traps, maybe a drop into some lava or a cavern full of cave spiders.”
Steve knocked Tony out of his slightly homicidal thoughts with a tight hug, sword carefully pushed out of the way.
“You’re brilliant.” Steve said, staring down at the genius, completely serious.
“Well, yes. You’re pretty great yourself.” Tony blushed slightly, a smile peaking out of the corner of his mouth. Steve, feeling no need to resist, lent down and kissed his lover softly before pulling back with a large grin.
“Come on, let’s go find the perfect spot for your tower.”
Also available on AO3 for those who prefer that formatting.
Title: Stronger Than Iron
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Rating: PG
Summary: Steve and Tony in a minecraft like world where things run on redstone, the dark is full of monsters and diamonds make the best swords.
Tony startled sightly from the sudden loud ‘thwak’ that came from his pickaxe, blinking down at the now useless tool in his hand.
“Blast,” he grumbled, chucking the useless thing to the ground and digging around in his backpack in the hope of finding another one. Unfortunately it was fairly empty, only some food, an iron forged sword, seven tree seeds - he had no idea how they had gotten in there - and a small collection of the greatest treasures in the world.
“I’ll have to go home and make some more pickaxes…” He eyed his precious cargo. “Better take this, last thing I need in some moron trying to rob me.” Tony pulled out his sword; frowning slightly at the small cracks he could see beginning to form along its iron blade.
“Useless.”
Abandoning the area he had been mining through for now, Tony climbed towards the surface, the many torches he had dug into the stone and dirt walls of the cave system lighting his way. Upon arriving at the non-descript mouth of the cave, Tony cursed again.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he stared out into the darkness, puffing slightly from the climb.
Logically, he knew he should just go back into the safety of the lightened cave. But Tony was impatient, he especially hated having to wait for dawn to come just so he could move around outside without the threat of the various monsters that appeared throughout the night.
He stood staring into the darkness for a full minute before clenching his jaw and turning in the direction he knew home was.
Gripping his sword tight, Tony set off at a fast pace, eyes alert for any sign of movement and ears staining to pick up any of the familiar sounds of monsters. He managed to weave around trees and not trip over the uneven land for a few minutes; till he was halfway home and his good luck ran out.
A sudden loud growl came from his left, causing him to swing around, sword at the ready. Unfortunately he also managed to catch his foot on a small mound of dirt, falling over into a dip in the ground at the same time. Crashing into unforgiving dirt and stone, Tony had a moment to wince at the pain radiating from his calf, no doubt bruised if not scraped by the impact. Then, looking up, he saw a Zombie approaching him in the moonlight, sickly green arms outstretched and ratty clothing stained with dark liquids.
“Tony!” A sudden voice cut through the pounding of Tony’s heart in his ears. There was a squishing sound and the Zombie fell to the ground, dead.
Out of the shadows, Tony felt relief wash over him at the sight of his own personal hero, Steve, bow still in hand from where he had let forth the arrow to kill the monster.
“Notch, Steve; am I ever glad to see you.” Tony let out a breath, briefly contemplating the idea of flopping back onto the ground and letting his poor heart recover from the scare it had just suffered.
“What’re you doing wandering around at night? You’re not even wearing any armour, are you?” Steve scolded him, slinging the bow over his back and holding out a hand to pull Tony to his feet.
“My pickaxe broke.” Tony grumbled, taking the offered hand and allowing Steve to pull him up, wiping off his pants briskly - not that it made much difference as he spent most of his time covered in dust while mining or building.
“Of course it did.” Steve sighed, more with resigned exasperation then anything else.
“Come on, we’d better get back home, before anything else decided to attack us tonight.” Steve said, hand moving to rest on the hilt of his own iron sword that hung around his waist.
“Wait, what are you doing out here?” Tony asked suspiciously. Honestly, if Steve was going to preach about the dangers in the darkness, he should at least set an example Tony could ignore.
Steve stared at him in the muted moonlight.
“I was looking for you. What else would I be doing out here at night?” He asked blandly.
“And here I thought you just fancied yourself a midnight stroll with a touch of monster slaying.” Tony grinned, hand reaching out for Steve’s’ for a brief, affectionate squeeze. An amused huff and an affectionate tightening of fingers was all the response he got before they let go and returned to the situation at hand.
The two managed to walk quietly in the direction of home for another few minutes when a distant light finally greeted them. A low lying flat spread out between them at the edge of the forest and a large mountain wherein their home was located in the hollowed out centre.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Tony groaned, eyes trained on the miniature army wandering about the flat area between them and home. “What, was there a monster meeting sign we missed out on? Because I would have complained to the community about the location.”
“Tony,” Steve quietly admonished, pulling his sword from its scabbard and eyeing the monsters, clearly thinking of a plan of action.
“I hate monsters. We should just find all the monster spawners and we wouldn’t have this problem.” Tony muttered.
“Concentrate, Tony. They’ll notice us soon and we’ll loose the element of surprise.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tony sighed, holding his sword up at the ready.
“It looks like it’s mostly just spiders and skeletons… Oh, there’s a zombie back to the right.” Steve muttered, eyes trailing over them.
“Zombies and spiders and skeletons, oh my.” Tony snorted, knowing by the small huff of breath to his left that Steve was smiling despite the situation.
“Is that… oh my Notch, it’s one of those spider jockey’s. Think they’re so cool,” Tony growled, hand tightening on the handle of his sword.
“Tony, I’ll take the left half. Think you can handle the ones to the right?” Steve interrupted.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve given me the side with less monsters to kill.” Normally, Tony would put up a huge fuss about that, but the cracks in his sword worried him more than he was willing to admit.
“Right, let’s go.” Steve said before the two took off towards the monsters at a dead run.
The various growls and spitting from the zombie and spiders filled the air, accompanied by the ‘thwak, thwak’ of arrows from animated skeletons. Tony waved his sword around at the enemy like a madman, feeling a sharp sting and warm rush of liquid when one of the arrows went by his cheek too close for comfort. As he fought, Tony spared a glance at Steve, relieved to find him in the process of killing that stupid spider jockey.
As Tony managed to kill off the last of the spiders that had been on his side of the battlefield, he felt the give in his sword and it made a loud cracking sound as it snapped, the iron blade breaking off within the spiders’ body.
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Tony groaned, staring down at the stump of a sword.
“Steve. My sword broke.” He whined, mostly just because the danger had passed and he could. Looking over at the blond, Tony was slightly surprised by the man’s wide eyes and almost stricken expression.
Tony opened his mouth to enquire as to what was wrong, when a dreaded hissing sound came from behind him. Tony didn’t even waste time looking behind him for the source; he already knew what he would find. A terrible creature standing on four stubby little legs and as tall as Steve, matted green skin and a life’s goal of blowing people up.
That hissing sound belonged only to the Creeper.
He only managed a few steps before the Creeper exploded behind him, sending Tony, dirt and stone flying into the air.
“TONY!” Steve yelled out in horror.
Tony blinked in confusion, eyes staring up at the star filled sky. All he could hear was the pounding of blood in his ears and a general sense of dizziness. He blinked slowly, Steve suddenly appearing in front of his eyes, mouth moving and panic on his face. Tony slowly became aware of Steve’s hands on his body, no doubt checking for injuries.
“S’ve?” Tony tried to get his mouth working, blinking dust from his eyes and trying to force his thoughts into something of an orderly fashion.
“-s’ok, Tony. You’re alright.” Steve cupped his cheek in reassurance and Tony couldn’t even find it in him to flinch as Steve’s thumb drew across the cut there.
“Let’s get inside where it’s safe, ok?” Steve gently pulled Tony up and led him to the door, pushing a button hidden behind a rock to open it via the redstone. He helped Tony over to the bed, sitting him down gently before taking the bag from him and setting it on the floor.
“A sword and a pickaxe in just one day. You really need to carry spares with you.” Steve scolded Tony, reaching out and running his hands over Tony’s body, searching for injuries.
“Gonna fix that. I’ma invent somethin’ amazin’ to stop the prob’lm.” Tony murmured with a small smile.
“Yeah, I’ve no doubt.” Steve said affectionately, moving over to the small caldron full of water and dipping a piece of fabric in it that had been sitting there exactly for that purpose. Returning to Tony, he carefully wiped away the small bit of blood on his cheek and some of the dirt that had found its way to his skin on both his face and arms. Deeming Tony as clean and unharmed as he was going to be at that point in time, Steve carelessly discarded the fabric on the floor and raised his hand up to gently cup Tony’s cheek. The brunet leaned into it, eyes sliding closed easily.
“Bed,” Tony murmured, hand reaching up and latching onto Steve’s bicep, trying to pull the man down with him as he lent backwards, counting on gravity to be his friend. Steve laughed, but pulled away; causing Tony to let out a whine he would later refuse to admit to.
“I just have to take off the armour.” Steve said gently. Tony grunted, shifting around on the bed so he was lying down on his back slightly off centre in the bed. It took a mere minute, but Tony was already half asleep when he felt strong arms wrapping around his waist and a nose burying into his neck, warm puffs of breath heating his skin.
“Next time it’s dark, how about waiting for me to get there before you take off into the night alone?” Steve asked softly.
“Mmmhm,” was all Tony managed, feeling content when a warm leg moved to pin down his own. A soft kiss was placed on the space where his neck met shoulder and Tony drifted away.
*
When Steve awoke the next morning the sun was shinning in through the window and his bed was empty. The clanking sound coming from the next room, however, told him where Tony had wondered. Dragging himself from the bed, Steve moved throughout their home to find Tony in front of their crafting table, his bag was discarded on the floor nearby and something was glinting off of the torch light from within the leather folds.
Curious, Steve crouched beside the bag and pulled out one of the sparkling items, only to almost drop it in surprise a moment later.
“Tony,” he breathed out, causing the clanking sound to stop and Tony to turn slightly.
“Pretty awesome, yeah?” Tony grinned, clearly pleased with himself.
“I’ve never seen one in its raw form before.” Steve admitted turning the large diamond in his hand so it caught the light.
“You think that’s awesome? Take a look at this.” Tony then turned completely, showing Steve what he had been working on.
The sword in his hands was the shape of any old sword with the handle made of wood but the blade, rather than the usual iron, was reflecting the light just as the diamond Steve still held did.
“Is that…?” Steve gaped at Tony.
“Yep, a Diamond Sword. I thought you might like it.” Tony grinned in pleasure at Steve’s speechlessness.
“Now, I’ve just finished making a pile of tools. What say you we go out and do something fun? I’m thinking we should build a tower, a huge tower: preferably with my name on top of it. Though with the right persuasion we can change that to just my initials. We could booby-trap all but the very top levels and sit back and watch people try and fail to get to us, I’ll use redstone traps, maybe a drop into some lava or a cavern full of cave spiders.”
Steve knocked Tony out of his slightly homicidal thoughts with a tight hug, sword carefully pushed out of the way.
“You’re brilliant.” Steve said, staring down at the genius, completely serious.
“Well, yes. You’re pretty great yourself.” Tony blushed slightly, a smile peaking out of the corner of his mouth. Steve, feeling no need to resist, lent down and kissed his lover softly before pulling back with a large grin.
“Come on, let’s go find the perfect spot for your tower.”