Inspired by that mini comic of the demon lord with standards and the kid hero.
Tony is the Demon Lord in charge of watching over his subjects. He's powerful, strong and super busy with paperwork and preventing society from collapsing on itself.
On a bright and unsuspecting day, the door to his throne opens with flourish and in come Natasha and Clint. Two of his most trusted enforcers. They're dragging someone with them. The individual kicking and struggling in their arms.
"Hey, Stark. We've brought you The Hero," Natasha says. Direct and to the point. Tony loves that about her.
"Or so he says, anyway," Clint adds, smirking.
"Great. Just what I need. Another Hero," Tony rolls his eyes. Over the years, the number of self-proclaimed heroes began to increase. They were a nusance more than anything and quick to surrender when Tony showed his true strength. Nonetheless, like clockwork, a new hero would pop out and storm his home to 'end the Demon Lord and save humanity.' Aiming for the riches it brought and the legend they'd create.
Tony never makes it easy for them. He's going to make every last one of them work for it.
"All right, let's get this over with. You, Hero," he says with a flick of the wrist, keeping it dramatic. "You are finally here. Let us commence our legendary battle and make the world remember us -" he falls short when he finally takes a look at the hero.
"Why are you a child?" he blinks in desbelief.
The hero is indeed a child. A tiny, skinny thing with rosy cheeks and brown hair framing that round face. He's wearing a pretty cheap set of armor and the sword he carries could only be described as a butter knife.
"I'm not a child!" cries the little thing. His face scrunching from the offense. It makes him look like an angry kitten. "I'm the Hero!"
"You're, like, nine," Tony groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Is that oracle sending kids now? This is ridiculous!"
Natasha and Clint, who've been struggling to hide their smiles, throw their own two cents in the pile. "Yeah, he showed up by the bridge shouting he's the hero. We dragged him so he wouldn't get himself killed," Clint says.
"What do you want to do with him?" Natasha ruffles the hair of the 'Hero,' making the child squirm in outrage.
He sighs. "Let him go. Are you hurt? Where are your parents?"
The child frowns. "I don't have any. My aunt and uncle are gone, too."
"Fucking -" he inhales. "Okay, come on." He waves for the kid to follow as he steps down his throne. "Unacceptable. It's completely unacceptable. I will have words with that Oracle." With a wave of his hand, he materializes an apron and wraps it on. "What's your name, Kid?"
"...Peter."
"I hope you like chocolate chip."
Half an hour later, Tony brings a plate of fresh, baked cookies to the table he sat Peter on. The kid is kicking his feet and his eyes are wide at the sight. His happiness for the cookies shone brightly. "Here. I made these myself."
It's been a minute, but I'm happy to say I wrote something stony! And avac stony to boot.
This was heavily inspired by an old BL manga I read many years ago.
~~~
Tony wouldn’t say his time in Avengers Academy was bad. He wouldn’t say it was good either. As the son of a SHIELD agent and a HYDRA double agent, it was hard to find people to hang out with, let alone have any friends. What with the whole ‘he could be a double agent waiting to reveal secrets for his own benefit,’ thing looming over him thanks to his father.
It didn’t matter that his mother had been a dedicated agent who left his father the moment she learned he was double-crossing and raised him herself to be a good person. All her efforts were ignored and Tony was lucky to be called a backstabber at worst and a turncoat at best.
At least this school accepted him with minimal difficulty. Granted, he was ignored by the two main affiliates he was associated with, but at least he was able to study and hey! He was given permission to use the engineering room. He had that going for him.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom though. Sure, the one individual who managed to overlook his whole conflicted birth was not exactly a person to write home about, but Loki had a sense of fashion compared to most and always made sure Tony looked his best.
“No Asgardian prince will share common space with a pauper,” were Loki’s everyday words when he found Tony wearing his admittedly cheap outfits. Conveniently forgetting Tony wasn’t exactly carrying a nation’s treasury in his back pocket like the prince.
All in all, it wasn’t so bad. He had a sort-of friend but really an acquaintance who found his presence less annoying than most. He was given permission to tinker and experiment with tech and invent whatever he wanted. Within reason. He was given his education. He even managed to share space with some of the greatest names known! Both on Earth and from space.
Captain Marvel, the Hulk, Falcon, heck, he even managed to catch a glimpse of Moon Girl and had Iron Woman look at him once! The last one had made Tony’s entire day. What he would give to share, like, ten minutes with Iron Woman and pick at her brain. See how she worked. A dream come true.
Often, he would daydream of one day joining any of their groups. Just once. Even if it was only a minute or two. He would daydream of perhaps making a difference somewhere, even if small. Invent life-changing tech. Maybe even become a hero in his own right? Anything to show he wasn’t just a simple agent who was ready to turn their friends over at a moment’s notice.
What he would give for just a glimpse of what that would feel. Not having everyone watch your every move.
Well, not much to be done there. He just had to buckle down and work harder than most to go against the whole school’s expectations of him. Every day he attended his classes, completed his extracurricular activities, worked on his shabby attempt at an AI and daydreamed about what-ifs.
“Yo, Clint, hurry up. You’re already late!”
Tony turned to look behind him where the Hawkeye and the Falcon were casually waving at each other. Going about their day like usual and walking around as if they didn’t carry big names on them.
He sighed and went back to his work. He was finishing up his coding for another attempt at Friday’s calculating. He was alone at Club A. The engineering room having been taken up in its entirety by up-and-coming SHIELD agents wanting to be the next big shot. As Tony was not in the mood to be constantly stared or pointed at, he decided to finish his coding in the one building devoid of bodies this time of day.
However, even if alone with nothing to distract him, he couldn’t help his mind wandering around the place. In particular, a rumor that had begun circulating around the Academy recently. A rumor involving the golden boy. Captain America himself.
What was the rumor? Why, apparently Captain America had a crush. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t exactly something worth talking about, but if one was following Captain America’s career closely, it was big news.
Captain America was a big name, and the person responsible for it wasn’t someone to ignore. Steve Rogers was kind, respectful, brave and a very, very private person. Especially with his romantic aspect of it. It was rare to ever see the guy go on dates or show even a lick of interest to anyone. One could say if he ever found love again the person lucky enough wouldn’t have to ever worry about his eyes straying.
Peggy Carter was a very lucky woman, or had been lucky, he would say. If the rumor held any truth, the founder of SHIELD was no longer the one holding the Captain’s heart.
According to hearsay, Steve Rogers had a crush on someone in the engineering club, and while Peggy Carter was a genius in her own right, she wasn’t exactly tech savy for the club. This left a few possible contenders. Excluding the SHIELD agents – because come on, why would Captain America go for a lowly SHIELD agent? – the heroes at the top of the list were Moon Girl, Ironheart, Shuri, Spider-Gwen and, of course, Iron Woman. There were more, sure, but the rumor listed these specifically.
Tony sighed again, tapping the end of his pen against the wooden surface he was working on top of. He should probably stop thinking about this particular rumor, but he couldn’t help it. Ever since growing up, he looked up to the idea of Captain America. Going against all odds to be the hero he was today. Tony couldn’t help but compare himself and his hardships with the guy, and somewhere along the way he kind of, sort of, maybe had gained a little bit of a crush on the hero, so hearing about the hero liking someone was a little painful.
If he had to guess, the one the Captain was crushing on was probably Iron Woman. The one and only Natasha Stark. He often saw the two hanging out with each other. Always together with their ‘click.’ It was only natural Steve would catch some feelings if they hung out every day.
Didn’t hurt any less though.
“Okay,” he said to no one. “Focus. Focus.” He couldn’t waste his hour of free time away thinking about this. He had coding to finish and nobody was going to help him with it. Loki was useless when it came to tech and didn’t exactly make for encouraging company, so it was now or never.
He slammed his pen down, harder than necessary, but the paper had no feelings to hurt so he didn’t particularly care, but he did utter a soft ‘sorry’ for disrespecting the code.
He got to work and made good progress. His calculations might be a little off but he could hammer it down once he had access to the engineering labs again. The important thing was he had the base to work with.
He decided to stop when he got stuck. He needed to test out his idea, but with no access right now to the computers at the labs, it was pointless to continue. He shuffled the papers together and stuffed them in his backpack. He still had twenty minutes left to kill time before his next class, meaning his next destination was the park. There, he was left alone and he could sit with his thoughts.
Ah, perhaps that wasn’t the best idea. The last thing he needed was time to think about the rumor again. Then again, he was thinking about it now as he attempted not to think about it. A vicious cycle.
As he was busy with his inner turmoil, he failed to notice someone getting closer from behind and by the time they caught his attention, Tony was left staring blankly at a flower in his face.
It was a rose. Very red and very much smelling of a rose. It was jammed right in front of Tony’s nose and he went a little cockeyed looking at it. The person at the other end of the rose was none other than Steve Rogers.
Whoa, Tony thought. He had never seen the Captain America standing so close before. Had his eyes always been that blue?
So enraptured by those eyes, Tony could do nothing as the Captain reached out to cup the side of his face and pulled him forward. Tony went wide-eyed when the hero placed a small kiss on his mouth. A peck, really. Tony barely felt it.
The hero pulled back and gave a blinding smile. Then, just as quickly as he appeared, he left the rose on his lap and disappeared, leaving Tony alone once more in Club A.
Tony placed his good hand over his mouth unconsciously, and as his thoughts started catching up he went bright red.
He just – he just – he – k-kissed -
A squeak he would deny for the rest of his life escaped him and Tony quickly scrambled to run back to his dorm to hide.
a/b/o wolf shifter au where Howard was in charge of a remote village of shifters who are hiding from humans. With determination and a firm hand, he's been able to make this village shine with proper amenities established deep within the forest. He had goals for the future of their home and knew his heir was going to make them true and lead their village to prosperity.
Then, Tony was born. All the pride Howard had felt for the first three years of his child's life disappeared when non-alpha characteristics began appearing as Tony grew up. No dominating traits. No aggressive behavior. Nothing.
Howard couldn't have a non-alpha take charge of the village and made plans to arrange a marriage for Tony and have an alpha of his choosing take over instead, but those plans went down the drain when Tony didn't show omegan traits either. Not an alpha and not an omega. Tony ended up presenting as a beta of all things.
The disappointment Howard felt was indescribable. As a beta, Howard couldn't marry his son off as nobody in their right mind would willingly subject their child to a beta mate. They were useless in the grand scheme of things - plain. Betas were rare, but carried nothing enticing about them. Neither creating a dominating figure nor a submissive image, people were not scrambling to get their hands on them, and nobody was going out of their way to make them leaders.
And now Howard was stuck with one that offered nothing for his dream.
As the years went by and Howard became feeble, while Tony became stronger, he began to get desperate. With his mate out of the picture, and wolf shifters mating for life, he was out of options. He had to personally pick who would lead them to their future, but he first had to make sure nobody would challenge his selection.
Even if unlikely, he couldn't risk Tony usurping his choice or have the beta's followers, who were spewing forward-looking nonsense, back him as their leader.
That was not a chance he could take.
Which is why, during a harsh winter season on Tony's 19th year, he had ordered Tony to personally go and negotiate for supplies and took a small entourage to assist him. They were to leave the safety of their home and only had the trees and the snow for protection.
Regardless of any preparation done, Howard knew none of them were going to come back.
He stared out the window, looking down at his people and watching the snow fall lazily on them. At this moment, he imagined the fear they were probably feeling. Of the terror at seeing all those hunters rush them. He wondered how long they would last. Would they all fight? Would some of them run away in an attempt to survive? Would they beg to be spared?
Would Tony be killed instantly or would it be slow?
He wondered what ramifications he was going to face for making a deal with the demons of their world.
The consequences, he later found, was staring at the very child he believed dead for years, discovering those hunters didn't kill him as he had ordered, but instead imprisoned him for their sick game of what boiled down to dogfighting, and this child surviving the impossible.
Chapters: 1/?
Fandom: Naruto (Anime & Manga)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka, Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Characters: Umino Iruka, Hatake Kakashi, Uzumaki Naruto
Additional Tags: Demon AU, Human Umino Iruka, Demon Hatake Kakashi, Demon Team 7, Comfort, Animal Traits, animal features, Umino Iruka-centric, Uzumaki Naruto is a Ray of Sunshine, Domestic, Making a Village, Alliances, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Smut, Fluff and Humor
Series: Part 2 of As a
Summary:
The winds of change were blowing and as Iruka recovered from his injuries, his and Kakashi's villages started negotiating a possible alliance between humans and demons. Appointed as liaisons, the two must work together to make sure it all goes smoothly while also exploring their new relationship.
This mostly consisted of Iruka taking the bulk of the work while Kakashi worked hard to get him into bed.
Oh, and that talk of intermarriage was serious, if Kakashi had any say in it.
~~~~~
Getting the sequel to As a Species started! This au was too fun to leave and now I have an excuse to keep writing fluff and now smut! Expanding on this world is going to be an adventure.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The winds of change were blowing and as Iruka recovered from his injuries, his and Kakashi's villages started negotiating a possible alliance between humans and demons. Appointed as liaisons, the two must work together to make sure it all goes smoothly while also exploring their new relationship.
This mostly consisted of Iruka taking the bulk of the work while Kakashi worked hard to get him into bed.
Oh, and that talk of intermarriage was serious, if Kakashi had any say in it.
Chapters: 24/?
Fandom: Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Prompto Argentum & Cloud Strife, Cor Leonis & Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough & Cloud Strife
Characters: Cloud Strife, Prompto Argentum, Cor Leonis
Additional Tags: Crossover, Memory Loss, Hurt/Comfort, Domestic Fluff, BAMF Cloud Strife, dad cloud strife, Uncle Cloud Strife, Cloud and Aerith are here to mess up prophecies, Cloud Inadvertently changes events, Cor Leonis Is Not Amused, Uncle Cor Leonis, Updating tags as I go
Summary:
“I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but the circumstances could’ve been better.”
He didn’t bother to reply. The sounds of the wailing infant were enough.
“So? You got a name? Don’t keep me waiting here.”
A name. He couldn’t recall any name for himself. The harder he tried to remember, the more distant it seemed to become. However -
The voice spoke it with such conviction. With no room for doubt.
“My name is Cloud.”
It was a good a name as any.
Cloud wakes up with no memories of his past and no knowledge of this new land, but for the sake of his new blond-haired and freckled charge, and with help from a disembodied voice, he's willing to fight anything. Including half-baked prophecies.
