Author's Note

Pain.

Screaming.

Flicker.

Lights.

Can't.

Hold.

On.

Everything.

Hurts.

Can't.

Breath.

Help me.

Tony shot back into life, his body writhing in pain as he gasped for air, his lungs screaming to be inflated. He feels tears falling down his cheeks and he blinks. The sound of a wounded animal hits his ears, and he's puzzled for a few moments, until he realizes that he's the one making that noise. He tries to talk, but can't, his throat sore from screaming. It feels like there's a horse on his chest, and he can't breath. His body feels like it's being torn apart, limb from limb, the worst of it centered in his chest. His mind succumbs to the pain, and he returns to the dark abyss.

This time, he awakes more naturally. His eyes flicker open and he squints in the darkness. He fights the panic that rises back up in his throat, swallowing it back down as he tries to keep his breathing even. Every ragged intake and outtake causes a ripple of pain to shoot out from his chest and throughout the rest of his body. Tony feels the darkness seeping back into his body and puts up a fight, finding a spot on the rocks above him and focusing, putting all his energy into keeping hold of that one spot. After a few moments, but what feels like a lifetime, the black retreats and he's in control of himself.

He lifted his head slowly, glancing down at his body. He was wrapped in rags that were unrecognizable, his bare toes wiggling happily in the air. He felt alright, considering. Another wave of pain hit him, knocking his head back. His chest was on fire…wait. His chest. Tony's hands moved like lightning, pausing as they hovered over his torso. He started low, even though he knew there wasn't a problem there. It was his heart. He could feel it. When he hit the third rib, his fingers left the smooth skin and hit a bump. He winced at the contact, but moved forward. More mangled flesh, and he bit his tongue so hard as his fingers brushed the wound that he tasted blood. Only…this wasn't a battle wound.

He sat up too quickly, dizziness cutting through his vision. He pushed it away, his hands ripping the shirt from his skin and his eyes soaking in the damage, his fingers grasping and prodding at the flesh on his breast.

"What…what is this?" He whispered, his voice hoarse and broken, his eyes wide in horror. Fear took over, and he started scratching at his skin, drawing blood. The pain came in huge, crashing waves, only serving to fuel his panic.

Dirty hands snatched his wrists and yanked them away. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." A strange accent assaulted his ears, and Tony tried to pull away. His captor was strong – stronger than Tony ever had been, and after a few moments, gave up the struggle.

"Who are you…what have you done to me?"

A face. The man smiles, but it isn't one of those creepy ones that you run from, it's a kind, genuine smile. Tony relaxes, but only a little. "My name is Yinsen, and I, Tony Stark, have saved your life.

"Oh. Okay then."

xXx

The fire crackled and danced against the cave walls, casting shadows and warmth throughout the small room. Yinsen stood over the fire, a small iron pot buried in the wood, the flames licking at it's sides. He stirred the contents every so often with a crude wooden spoon.

Tony watched this from the opposite side of the fire, where he was sitting wrapped in a blanket, even though it was a comfortable temperature. The more he took in about his surroundings, the tighter he hugged his knees to his chest. He was trapped in a cave with a madman. Yup. Wonderful. He thought back to what he had been doing just a few short days ago. His pockets full with so much coin that he jingled as he walked. Women throwing themselves at his feet. The Jericho. Pepper. And now he was sitting in a cave with nothing. Oh. And a madman, although Tony was sure he thought that already.

"Doesn't do you any good." Yinsen spoke up, and Tony's blue eyes clashed with the older man's grey ones. "Thinking like that. It'll just get you depressed. Trust me, I know."

Tony opened his mouth to retort, then realized he had nothing to say. Yinsen smiled, then went back to his pot. A light humming filled the small room.

"Where are we? What did you do to me?" Tony asked after a few solid minutes of humming and stirring.

"The mountains, as far as I could tell." Yinsen said, bringing the wooden spoon to his lips to taste his concoction. It met his approval, so he scooped some in a bowl. He walked around the fire and handed it to Tony, sitting down next to the man. "I only have one bowl, but you need it more than me."

Tony took the bowl with numb hands, the blanket falling to the ground. The mountains. The mountains that lay across the never-ending desert. The mountains surrounded by darkness and clouds that never lifted, even though it never rained.

"The mountains."

"Yes, Tony. The mountains. And to answer your second question, you know exactly what I did to you, don't you?"

Tony closed his eyes. It wasn't possible. He should be dead. His arrows were made to kill. The point shattered after impact, breaking off into the blood stream, slowly making their way through the body, and eventually to the heart, where they slowly and painfully kill their host. Tony's arrows were the reason why the rebels were still rebels, and not the new Royal Family. Even a shot to the arm would result in amputation at the very less, and that's if it was caught in time.

He had been shot twice. In the chest. He should have been dead less than a moon after impact. But here he was, breathing, talking, walking. Living. There was only one thing that could have prevented those shards from killing him.

"Magic." Tony said the word so softly that even he couldn't hear himself, but Yinsen's face broke out into the largest grin Tony had ever seen.

"That sigil there, on your chest, it's keeping those nifty arrows of yours from burying themselves into your heart. Brilliant idea, by the way. I've heard whispered stories about the great Tony Stark, but this was the first time I've seen your work in action. Would have killed you if I was a lesser man." Yinsen talked a lot.

"My favorite thing though, isn't your weapons, Tony. It's your armor." Yinsen continued, standing up and walking over to a corner of the cave, where he picked up an old Stark breast plate from a few years ago, when Tony first discovered the idea of layering small panels instead of fastening the entire body from a single sheet.

"So much sweat and blood mixed in with the metal." Yinsen said. "But there's something else in here, too. Something familiar. Am I right?"

Tony's eyes narrowed. "I use spells on my armor, so what? That's simple stuff, to stop rusting and denting. That's not magic, it's parlor tricks compared to the voodoo you stuck on my chest."

"But you don't enchant these pieces, you don't have a magical bone in your body." Yinsen's eyes got a far away look, and a tear dripped slowly down his face. "Did we survive? Are there more of us out there? Am I not the last one?"

Wizards. Yinsen was talking about wizards. Hell, Yinsen was a wizard.

"I…I'm sorry." Tony said, forcing the words out of his mouth. "That's just the work of a magician. There's no more Wizards. They were all killed during the war."

Yinsen visibly shrunk, and suddenly Tony realized exactly how old the man was. If he was a Wizard, that would mean he was at least a thousand years old.

"So I'm alone…" Yinsen hit the ground hard. Tony wondered how long Yinsen had been sitting in this cave, holding on to a sliver of hope that his brothers and sisters were still out there, looking for him. The same kind of hope that Tony now held on to, although it was shrinking as every second went by.

"No, you aren't. There aren't any more Wizards, but there's a ton of magicians, people with a small amount of magic in them. Jarvis – he's a few hundred years old, he's the one who enchants my armor. He's one of them."

Yinsen sighed. "If this is the best he can do, then he is but a shadow of my people." He threw the breastplate aside with a clatter.

"So you really are a Wizard?" Tony had to ask. He grew up on bed stories about the great Wizards of old. Legend told that they were seven-foot giants who had the power to control the sun and the moon. They had familiars and objects that bonded with them magically to enhance their power. They were gods among men.

"I was a Wizard. Now, I'm just an old man who lived beyond his time." The sadness that seeped through Yinsen's voice was palpable, and for the first time in his life, Tony wanted to give someone a hug.

"Wait…was?" Tony asked, confused. He was robbed of an answer as three short knocks came at the large iron door that marked the only way out of the cave. Yinsen scrambled to his feet, gesturing for Tony to do the same.

"Stand up, put your hands above your head, and don't say a word."

Tony did as he was asked, and the iron door opened in front of them. Out poured five or six men, all armed to the teeth with Stark weaponry and armor. Tony ground his teeth together in anger at seeing his work in the wrong hands. The first thing he was going to do when he got back was find the bastard who was selling his stuff to the rebels, and kill them slowly. If he got back.

"Ah. I see that you are awake, Mister Stark. Welcome, to my humble abode." Out of the mass of rebels came a man who walked with purpose and power. While the men around him were decked in full armor, he wore a simple tunic tied at the waist, with light breeches and sandals meant for walking in the desert. His face was chiseled and wind-worn and his eyes sparkled with a constant hate. He stared at Tony, and Tony stared right back.

"A bit drafty." The blacksmith bit, and the man laughed.

"I'm sure you'll manage." He turned to Yinsen. "Wonderful job you did with him, Wizard. I didn't think he'd survive, after getting two arrows to the chest."

It was Tony's turn again to bare the man's gaze. "I'll make this simple for you, Stark. I want the Jericho. I want one hundred of them, don't bother with the arrows. You deliver, and I let you go."

Tony narrowed his eyes, tensing his body. "I refuse."

The man smiled.

xXx

Two moons, maybe three. Tony wasn't sure what time meant anymore, or if it even still existed. All he could think of was the pain. They held him under water until he sucked for air, then pulled him out and pounded on his chest until he coughed it all up and then it started all over again. They threw him outside into the desert, chained to a piece of rock until his eyes were filled with sand and his throat was coated with the stuff and his skin was red and bursting from heat blisters. Then they held him underwater again, and the cycle started over.

"Let's try this again, shall we?" The man was back, standing as tall and proudly as before. Only this time he had to look down at the shivering heap of bones that Tony had become in order to look him in the eye.

Yinsen helped him stand, but once Tony got his footing back, he pushed the Wizard away. He brought his head up slowly, his entire body burning and shaking from the effort.

"You build me one hundred Jericho crossbows, then I let you go." The man's teeth were unnaturally white, like the bleached bones of an animal who perished in the desert and was picked clean by the birds.

"No you wont." Tony said.

The man laughed. "No, I wont."

They shook.

xXx

The cave was cluttered with discarded pieces of ore and forging materials. A roaring fire was burning in a hole dug in the dirt, the temperatures almost to those needed to smelt. Tony sat on a rock, holding a small knife in his hands, running his thumb along the side of the blade.

Tony had been in low places before. When he told his father he wanted to be a blacksmith, Howard Stark had disowned his son, throwing him out on the streets. Tony lived as a thief for several cycles of the moon until he wandered into a town where there was a blacksmith in need of an apprentice. For years, he ate with the pigs and worked from dusk until dawn for nothing but a disapproving frown and a kick in the ass. He knew what it was like to have absolutely nothing left.

This was worse. If he made the Jericho for the rebels, they would kill him, then overthrow the crown. Or worse, they would keep him here, in this cave, to continue to work as their slave until he keeled over dead. People would die. Innocent people. Pepper. Rhody. Jarvis. Or, he could refuse, and they would torture him some more until they got tired of him, then would kill him, more slow than fast. Which meant, he had only one option left.

Tony wondered if he would be strong enough, to take the knife and plunge it into his heart. Would he get halfway there, then lose nerve, sitting here with a knife stuck halfway out of his chest, slowly bleeding out. No, he had to do it all the way, and he had to be quick, or Yinsen would just bring him back again. He couldn't deal with coming back again.

He gripped the handle of the blade with all his might, and closed his eyes, going through the motion in his mind. Three…two…wait. Tony opened his eyes and let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He had to know. Before he died, he needed to know.

"What did you mean, you were a Wizard?" Tony looked at Yinsen, who was leaning against the cave wall, his eyes closed, humming a soft tune. His eyes opened at the sound of Tony's voice, and he sat up, cutting off his hum mid-note.

"Exactly that. I'm not a Wizard anymore. Not a drop of magic left in my body."

"Well..where'd it go?"

Yinsen smiled, a sad smile. "Like I said, you are not a magical person, Tony. Not an ounce in your blood. Spells need magic to work."

Him. Yinsen wasn't a Wizard anymore because he was a Wizard. Him. Tony Stark, the blacksmith to the crown, was a Wizard.

"Oh." That was the only word that Tony's brain could comprehend.

Yinsen chuckled, a genuinely happy sound – the first the old man had made in a very long time. "I didn't need it anymore anyway. I'm stuck here, in this cave, bound by magic more ancient than I. I'm the last of my kind. An old man. Those people out there, they want to kill and maim and spread their evil, and you have to stop them, Tony. You couldn't do that if you were dead."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Tony squealed, jumping off the rock, the knife dropping from his fingers onto the ground, forgotten. "I could have zapped the dicks with lightning or crushed them with rocks! They tortured me!"

Yinsen shook his head. "I gave you my magic, Tony, not my skill. You're about as useless as a newborn with a bow and arrow."

Tony pouted. It was a sight.

"But –" Yinsen put up his hands. "—I can teach you. I don't have much strength left Tony, and I have been dying for the past thousand years. But I can teach you everything that I know about magic."

Tony thought about the word outside of the cave, on the other side of the desert. A world full of normal humans who hated magic and everything about it. People who burned all the scrolls and hunted down all the magical creatures that populated the forest, and who would burn a man because they thought he might have used a little bit of magic. He thought about how he would he persecuted, and probably killed, even if he stood at the top of the castle and used his powers to strike down every single rebel, murderer and rapist in the realm. And then he thought, fuck them.

"Let's do this."