Tony's Welding

Living as a mechanic wasn't so bad. Sure, he missed the cars and the mansions, but he sure as hell didn't miss the board meetings and the deadlines and all of that company BS. In fact, Tony Stark could almost say that he was happy where he was, holed up in a car shop just outside of Weatherford, Texas, out in the boonies where the cattle still roamed and deer got into everything.

He felt content to mess with cars. Of course, Before he'd also worked on his fair share of cars, beautiful, sexy machines that purred and roared in turns, their maintenance and care just as important, if not more than, the work he did for patents. He'd downgraded since then, only really getting to work on Chevrolets and Fords and the occasional Toyota or Volkswagen. He treasured each and every Audi he saw, and laughed at the Cadillacs and their ilk. (Seriously. Rich Texans had yet to learn that a high price tag did not mean that their car ruled the road.)

But who's he kidding? He still has a collection out back that he tinkers with whenever business is slow. Old vintage cars, beauties that the old Tony Stark wouldn't have touched, because they most definitely didn't have the flash and pomp of that Lamborghini or Ferrari. The new Tony Stark, though? His cars were still his babies; he had an old 1975 Ford Bronco, fully restored, sitting behind the shop, just waiting for her first test run. Her body had a custom paint job – silver near the taillights, fading to black at the headlights. A few subtle streaks of electric blue mimed lightning on her sides. Tony'd named her Storm, because he'd picked her up from her previous owner (who'd left her to rot in a field, the heathen) in the middle of a typical Texas summer storm – lightning flashing every other second, thunder growling in the empty darkness and grumbling through the sky.

The blue on Storm's sides almost matches the effervescent turquoise of the machine in his chest, the reactor that Yinsen crammed into his sternum to save his life. As soon as JARVIS knew what he held in his chest, his AI had searched for some replacement for the palladium core. Tony knew it too; palladium would kill him in the matter of a year and a half, no matter what he did to try and stop it. So JARVIS scoured the periodic table, and Tony did the math, and created a new element. The new element, while confusing his taste buds for a short time, would keep him alive.

Right after his heart issue was fixed, Tony fled Stark Industries. There was no way that he could stay in the spotlight, not with a metal heart and new nightmares to keep him awake. Now, that's not to say that he didn't shut down weapons production and imprison Obadiah, because he did that first, but the memories wouldn't go away – Obadiah's office next door to his, Pepper's face when he waltzed out of the conference rooms, endless crates of weapons taken away, far away to the desert where Americans died. The never-ending stream of memories from Before was more than Tony could take. So he left, started over, reformed himself into a common man and smiled every morning, because he was living his own life for the first time.

The day everything went sideways started out perfectly normal. Business was slow, and Tony was in the back tinkering with Beast, his old '72 Ford pickup. As he poked around the engine block, trying to figure out why Beast coughed so badly when he tried to start, he heard a car pull up in front of the shop. Business was business, so he dropped his wrench on the tool tray and strolled around to the shop front.

There he found a beauty of a car: a 1967 Chevy Impala, in practically perfect condition, painted a glossy black with chrome trim. The driver stepped out of the car when he saw Tony and chuckled at his obvious admiration. "Yeah, Baby's pretty, isn't she?" he asked, a smirk on his lips.

Tony glanced up from his perusal of the front fender. "Baby? You call this sexy, beautiful machine Baby?!"

The driver shrugged. "Yeah. So?"

Tony snorted, "I can think of three better names for her right now."

"Oh yeah!" the driver challenged. "What?"

"Nyx, Valkyrie, and Christabelle."

"Christabelle? Where did that come from? I mean, the other two, yeah, sure, ok, but Christabelle?"

"It's a Robert Earl Keen song. Judging from the music I can still hear, you've never heard it. I honestly never would have, either, except that's all the radio out here plays. Old country music or new country music. I like AC/DC and Guns n' Roses a hell of a lot more than Garth Brooks or Taylor Swift, but I can rock to some of Keen's songs."

"Right. Where does Christabelle come in?"

"According to the song, she was-" Tony stopped when he noticed the other men clambering out of Baby. (He'd start calling her Valkyrie; it fit her better and sounded much more… fierce.) Clambering really was the right word for it, because as the other guy unfolded himself from the seat, he just kept getting taller. Now, Tony was no slouch at five seven, but these two…they made him feel like a dwarf. The driver was easily six foot, while this new guy was obviously even taller than that.

The other guy approached, an open look on his face. "Hey, I'm Sam, this is my brother, Dean. Sorry about him; he gets a little worked up about his car."

Tony grinned, "Nah, I totally get it. I was the one who started it, anyway. So, Sam, Dean, what can I do for you two?"

Dean looked down at his feet. "Yeah, Baby's been running a little slow lately. I honestly don't know what it is; I've checked everything I can think of."

"Oh?" Tony prodded, getting into his element, "No offense, but did you build her from the ground up? I don't want to blunder into a custom modification and screw her up."

"Yeah," Dean grinned, "She's taken a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. I didn't mess with anything major, just some better shocks. Sam and I sometimes get into… interesting situations, and I didn't want Baby's undercarriage to be knocked to hell."

Tony nodded. "Good," he muttered, "That means it's not a modification to something, just a part not behaving. That I can fix."

Dean grinned even wider, almost bouncing in place. "Awesome. Listen, can I borrow a car? Sam can stick with you as a sort of collateral. I just need to run to the nearest motel and get us some rooms."

Tony nods absently as he pops open Valkyrie's hood, peering at her engine. "Take Storm, she's hard to miss. Oh, and if I find a scratch on her when you get back, I will eviscerate you with a wrench. Capisce?"

He barely registered Dean's solemn agreement, already focused entirely on what could be slowing Valkyrie down, even a bit.

As Tony worked, Sam poked around. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to look up and find the guy shoulder-deep in one of his less-organized toolboxes, across the shop from where he'd last been. A man that tall had no business moving that quietly. Occasionally, Sam would ask a question, seemingly out of the blue, about topics as random as the location of graveyards and where the nearest convenience store was (and did that store sell salt?).

Valkyrie definitely deserved her designation as a warrior. Her frame was obviously two different ages, the separate parts welded together at the joints; the older-looking sections had stress marks, big ones, speaking of some major wreck – probably a T-bone if Tony didn't miss his guess – that practically reduced her to scrap. That Valkyrie was in such perfect condition revealed just how much Dean had done for this car – most older car collectors gave up theirs for scrap if the frame was bent slightly; Valkyrie's had obviously been twisted all to hell. Tony had to respect Dean, if only for that.

Dean roared back into the shop in Storm, immediately climbing out and laughing. "Dude, what did you do to her? She rides like a dream and, damn, but has she got some oomph!"

Tony grinned, glad to see that his tweaking had done some good. "Oh, just fiddled with the fuel-injection system and the steering. Nothing big."

Dean half-smiled, knowing the modesty of a restorer, and turned to his brother. "Hey, Sammy, I got us a room at a motel down the road. It's grungy, but we've had worse."

Tony looked up, knowing the question before it was even asked. "No, your baby isn't fixed yet. You can borrow Storm until I'm done, as long as you keep the paint job spotless and her gas tank full. Storm does love to guzzle."

Dean nodded knowingly, glancing at his brother, who immediately asked, "Hey, Tony, do you mind? I need to speak with my brother in private for a minute." Tony acquiesced, walking around the corner of the shop to go mess with Beast again.

When he came back, Storm and the brothers were gone, and the trunk of Valkyrie was open. "Huh," Tony grunted, seeing nothing inside. Maybe they needed their duffel or something.

Tony fiddled with Valkyrie all night, finally settling on replacing the seals on her oil system and improving the fuel injectors. Just for kicks, he gave her the full Tony Stark tune-up, going over every inch of the engine and repairing any sort of imperfection, no matter how slight.

Morning dawned on him asleep under Valkyrie's undercarriage, snoring up a storm and drooling on a wrench. Storm's roar woke him, and he rolled out from under Valkyrie, just in time to see the brothers climb out of his car. And did they look like shit. Dean had a black eye and what looked like bruises from someone trying to strangle him around his neck, and a cut just above his eyebrow. Sam wasn't much better off, with a bruised cheek and what looked to be claw marks on his hands.

"Well," Tony started, "You two look like crap."

Dean snorted with a twisted smirk. "Yeah. Some trouble last night; two bastards were trying to get into Storm." As Tony sprang up to fuss over his baby, Dean reassured, "They didn't get the paint. We stopped them before they got that far."

Tony sighed in relief. "Thanks, you two. Last thing I needed was some lowlifes trying to steal my baby."

Sam spoke up from where he was gingerly leaning on Valkyrie. "So? Is the car ready to drive?"

Tony nodded. "Yep. I gave her the Tony tune-up, which basically means I tinkered with practically everything until it worked at 150%. If you have any problems, I'll give you my number; don't need her performing worse because I messed up something you did, Dean."

"Thanks," Dean muttered, taking the slip of paper. "Here's my cell. You know, in case anything weird happens."

"Weird?"

"You'll know what I mean. If something does happen, call that number, and Sam and me'll be here as soon as we can."

Watching them drive away, Tony stared down at the number scrawled on a slip of paper. Shrugging, he turned to go and fiddle with Beast. He wasn't going home until Beast was running perfectly.

The next morning, Beast was running smoothly, so Tony drove Storm home, hoping to crash for twenty four hours straight. However, when he saw his door practically ripped off its hinges, he sighed internally and grabbed his shotgun from behind the seat. "Ain't no rest for the wicked," he muttered as he climbed out.

Walking into his house, he found puddles of what looked to be blood on his floor. "What the hell?" he murmured as he stalked through his kitchen, seeing something disturbingly like claw marks marring the cheap linoleum. Coming to his bedroom, he realized that there was no way this thing was human. His bed, his wonderful luxurious bed, was literally ripped to shreds. The memory foam mattress cover lay in pieces on the floor, interspersed with shreds of fabric that were once his sheets. The mattress itself had deep furrows in it, ripped through the padding into the springs beneath. Having seen enough, Tony pulled out his cell and called Dean.

"Yeah?" Dean answered.

"Dean," Tony said, "I think I know what you mean by weird now."

"What? What do you mean, man?" Dean exclaimed. Tony could hear Sam in the background talking, and the squeal of Valkyrie's tires as Dean turned her around.

Tony waved his free (well, sort of free) hand around, shotgun pointing every which way (except at himself, because Howard trained him better than that). "No, no, I'm fine. It's just… my house is a mess, and I don't think a person did it. Or anything else. This blood on my floor-" He ignored Dean's shocked exclamation at the word "blood" and soldiered on, "-it's not natural. It's too red, for one, and it's also really runny for having sat here overnight."

Dean cursed, then said, "Don't worry, man, we're just two hours away if I swing it right."

Tony nodded, then sighed, "Good." He hung up, hearing Valkyrie's engine gun in the background of the call.

Just over two hours later, Valkyrie roared into the shop, where Tony had returned to. Tony basked for a short second in the pride that he'd been the one to make her roar and purr like that. Then Dean and Sam burst his bubble by barreling out of the car and running up to him, eyes scanning him. "Hey now," Tony quipped, "I said I was fine on the phone. It's just my house that's a royal mess."

Tony led them to his house in Storm, and when they walked inside, they cursed in tandem. Sam looked like he just bit into a particularly sour lemon, while Dean just looked pissed off. When they reached the bedroom, Dean cussed a blue streak while Sam bent over the debris.

Tony finally cracked and demanded, "What the hell is going on? You two obviously know, so tell me!"

Sam glanced up and then stared at his fingertips, which he'd dipped in an extensive blood puddle. Dean was the one who answered, "You wouldn't believe us."

Tony growled. "Try me. I know burglars, I know cougars, I know bear, and this is none of those. So what the hell is it?"

Dean sighed. "Listen. Me and Sam, we… we hunt the stuff that goes bump in the night. Vengeful spirits, demons, vampires, werewolves, you name it and there's folklore about it and we've probably seen it. You're right. This thing wasn't natural. From the blood, I'd say it's some kind of Fae. What I want to know is why did it tear your house apart? You don't have any heirlooms from Ireland, do you?"

Tony chose to ignore the question in favor of sputtering, "Vengeful spirits? Werewolves? Listen, I can tell that you know your cars but are you sure that you're not going slightly cuckoo?"

Sam looked up and grimaced, "I know it's hard to believe, but… this Fae attacked you specifically. It was looking for something. Do you have anything from Ireland or England in this house?"

Tony shook his head in a negative, launching back into his argument. "But is there solid proof that you can show me? Because I know I come across as a bit weird, but inside I am a man of science. Can you prove to me, scientifically, that this thing exists?"

Sam shrugged. "Do you know of anything on this planet that has bright red, non-viscous blood and claws so sharp that they cut though linoleum?"

Tony stuttered to a stop at that rebuttal. Maybe… maybe Sam had a point. He didn't know of anything like that. Bowing his head, cowed Tony muttered, "No."

"That's what I thought," Sam stated matter-of-factly. "Now. Dean and I are going to stay the night here with you. Maybe this thing will come back."

The brothers holed themselves up in the hallway adjacent to the living room, where Tony laid on the couch trying to sleep. With them they had some heavy artillery – a sawed-off shotgun apiece, and Dean was carting around a foot-long knife. They had propped the front door closed behind them, making sure that if it was opened, it would make enough noise to wake the dead.

When the brace clattered to the floor, Tony huddled into the couch, trying to breathe evenly. Two shots blasted his eardrums, followed by a God-awful screech from the corner of the room. Tony shot up when he heard Sam's yell and Dean's answering bellow. He found Sam lying on the ground with a freaking claw stuck in his arm and Dean standing over him, leveling a shotgun at the monster into the corner. Tony grabbed an iron poker sitting by the fireplace, remembering something about Fae and iron from an English class in fifth grade (technically it was eighth, but he was the age of a fifth-grader). He hurled it at the creature, and it screeched again and just… disappeared.

Dean stared at him, then at the poker, finally asking, "Did you actually know that would happen, or were you just throwing something for the hell of it?"

Tony opened his mouth and closed it, cocking his head. "Educated guess," he stated.

Sam giggled from the floor in a decidedly hysterical manner, and Dean immediately crouched to help his brother. Grabbing the claw, he turned to Tony. "I need an Ace bandage, a shit-ton of gauze, and some kind of antiseptic. Alcohol would be fine."

Tony almost told him that Sam needed a hospital, but he saw the hard look in the brother's eyes and turned to go gather what Dean needed.

As Dean treated Sam's arm, he told Tony about the Fae. When he mentioned that some people brought them over from Ireland trapped in objects of magical power, Tony blurted, "There's this old drunk just down the road from me – well, ten miles down the road, but he's technically my neighbor - and his house just… man, no one goes near it. Even the mailman leaves the packages by the mailbox. I heard from this guy with a Caddy – stupid sonofabitch – that the old drunk had a pet that would kill anyone that got near it, something huge."

Sam got his sour-lemon look again and Dean cussed under his breath. Looking up, the elder brother stated, "We need to get to that house tonight see what's up."

Tony held up a hand. "Whoa, whoa, there is no freaking way that you are leaving me here. This Fae thing is after me and you are nuts if you think I'm going to be left alone while it's on the loose."

Dean nodded his head, conceding the point. "Can you handle a shotgun?" he asked, glint in his eyes,

Tony can't help the ire that rose in his gut, that festering hatred of how Howard brought him up. He laughed once, harshly. "I was learning how to assemble automatic rifles at thirteen. You think I can't handle a freaking shotgun?"

Both brothers glance up at that, but seem to get the vibe that there wasn't anything else that Tony was willing to say on the subject. Dean coughed and asked, "So prove it."

Tony stood up, walked outside to Storm, pulled his shotgun from behind the seat, and brought it inside. He primed and loaded it with the practiced ease of a man used to guns, loading a shell into the barrel. Walking outside with the brothers trailing him, he simply stated, "Name your target."

When Dean chose a tree about fifty yards away and five inches in diameter, Tony almost scoffed. Firing, the bullet blew straight through the center of the tree, shooting splitters out the back. Dean, approaching the tree with Tony, grunted and nodded, glancing up. "Our dad would've liked yours," he commented, striding back to the house.

That night, after leaving Valkyrie on the side of the road, sacrificing speed for stealth, the trio stalked down the road, shotguns held at their side, loaded with iron rods. Dean swore that the suckers would put the Fae down for long enough that they can salt and burn it.

As Tony walked, he heard something behind him; leaves crunched every so often, and something was definitely breathing heavily in the brush. He glanced at the brothers, cocking his head toward the brush. They nodded; apparently they knew about it and wanted to lead it somewhere.

That plan didn't exactly work out. The Fae attacked before they even got within a mile of the old man's house, springing from deep in the brush. It went for Tony first, and he fired at it, hitting its arm. Falling out of the way, Tony hoped that he gave the brothers enough of an opening to fire before the thing could grab him. Two shotguns fired over his head and the Fae dropped right in front of him, claws inches from his ankle. Dean glanced at Sam, and both pulled out lighter fluid and salt, pouring it liberally on the creature. Lighting it up, Tony could have sworn they he heard something screech. Dean sighed, "Well, now that that bitch is dead, let's see why it's wandering free."

When they got to the old man's house, they found the door hanging off its hinges and claw marks all over the walls and floor. The man himself was dead on his bed, and had obviously died some time ago, if the stink meant anything. The brothers sprinkled salt on him too, then let his corpse burn. Something about a violent death leading to malicious hauntings, and not wanting anyone to die because of that bastard. Tony didn't argue. They left the house burning behind them as they walked back to the car.

Back in Valkyrie, Sam turned to him and asked, "Why is there something blue shining through your shirt?"

Tony glanced down at his chest to see that his shirt had apparently ripped as he went down, and the arc was indeed shining through the single layer. "Well," he muttered, "It keeps me alive. I call it an arc reactor. It powers an electromagnet in my chest."

"Why do you need it?"

"Shrapnel."

Apparently his voice came across flat enough that they knew to stop asking. They seemed like the type to know about things you just don't talk about. About five minutes later, though, Dean glanced up and asked, "How much energy does it put off?"

Tony grimaced and said, "A lot. Maybe five Gigajoules per second."

Dean looked confused at the number, but Sam's eyes went wide and he blurted, "But that's five times the power generated by a nuclear reactor!"

"Yeah," Tony muttered, "Believe me, I know. It used to be only three, but that element was poisoning me, so I switched it out."

Dean snorted and nodded to himself, glancing at Sam. "Maybe that's what the Fae wanted with you. The energy in your…thing."

Tony looked at the man, asking, "Why?"

Dean sighed, "Some need to steal energy to survive, which is why it went after you; if Sam's right, you're basically a buffet. The signature of that thing probably sticks around for days after you leave, drawing things like that in like moths to a porch light."

Tony growled at the thing in his chest, this thing that had already endangered his life once and now apparently painted a target on his back. "How do I stop them from noticing it?" he asked.

Dean grimaced. "I don't know. We can look over some books to see if there's an answer, but you may just have to be on your watch."

When they got back to the shop, Tony climbed out of Valkyrie and turned around. "Thanks for the help, guys. Come back if she acts up again."

Dean grinned at him a little. "Sure, Tony. You call us if something seems weird again."

Tony nodded. "Believe me, I will."

Hope you liked it! Please review; they make me keep writing. School's starting up again.