Tony’s 27 when he jumps out one of the unbarred windows in the top of the tower to prove he can fly.
He can, apparently, hovering a couple yards out of reach and grinning brilliantly. But of course he chose the middle of the day to nonchalantly fling himself out an open window, meaning everyone else on the floor first panicked and then clustered around the window he had used to escape, mage and templar alike, along with what seems to be an entire class of novices and one vaguely curious Tranquil.
“Tony,” Pepper grits out, her fingers curling dangerously against the window sill. Anger’s her usual response to Tony’s shenanigans, but it’s more obvious than usual that it’s just a cover for fear: she’s blanched all the way to the tips of her long, pointed ears. “Get. Inside. Now.”
“I’m really kind of hurt you’re not more impressed by this, Pep,” Tony says, affecting a wounded expression. “I’m pretty sure, short of contacting Andraste herself to clarify what she meant by that whole, ‘magic is meant to serve man’ thing, this is pretty much the most incredibly awesome thing that I could possibly do.”
“Yes, Tony,” Knight-Lieutenant Rhodes growls out from just behind Pepper, with elaborate patience, “It’s very, very impressive. Now come inside so we can show you just how impressed we are.”
“See, now, you say it like that, and it makes it sound like you’re going to perpetrate horrible violence on my person if I come inside-“
“That’s because you know me too well,” Rhodes sighs, rubbing his eyes.
”- and a: I am even more hurt now, sugar bear, and b: not terribly inclined to come inside, now,” Tony continues, without missing a beat.
“Blood magic,” someone hisses, from the back of the crowd, and everyone, including Pepper and Rhodes and especially Tony, turn to give the mousy junior enchanter responsible a murderously dry look.
“Really?” Tony says. “Really. I’m a force mage, genius. I can do things other than pick people up and slam them back down really hard! Like, uh, fly, apparently. Oh, and this-” A brief burst of blue white magic yanks the junior enchanter’s feet out from under him. Either the effort or the concentration makes Tony wobble dangerously in mid-air, however, and Pepper shrieks, making a motion that seemed to indicate she would happily forgo magic altogether to climb out and claw his face off personally. Steve carefully moves her aside before she can go through with it.
“Anthony,” Steve says. “Come inside. Please?”
“Steven,” Tony replies. “No. I am just having way too much fun, sorry.”
Steve tilts his head a little, considering. “You know,” he says, after a moment. “That does look pretty fun.”
“It is,” Tony agrees, warily, sensing a trap.
“Then you won’t mind if I join you?” Steve says, putting his hands up on the window frame.
“What?” Tony says, obviously thrown.
“Well, if you won’t come inside, I might as well come out,” Steve says, reasonably. He climbs up onto the sill, eyeing the window; it’ll be a tight fit, with the armor, but he can manage. Behind him, Pepper makes an outraged noise, and probably more clawing motions, but doesn’t interrupt.
“Steve, don’t be stupid,” Tony says, with a forced laugh, and Steve shrugs.
“I won’t the first person going out a window today,” he notes, leaning back and gripping the edges of the window frame. “Here I go,” he adds, as an afterthought, and as he tenses himself to throw himself out the window, there’s Tony, his eyes wide and his hands on Steve’s shoulders.
“Maker,” Tony breathes. “You ass.”
Steve grins at him. “I knew you’d catch me even if I did it.”
“Of course I would,” Tony says. “Catching wouldn’t be the problem. It’s the part where I manage to keep us both in the air that I might have had trouble with.”
—
Pepper lets into Tony with a blistering lecture that makes even Steve’s ears a little red, then grabs him in a fierce hug, hissing, “You stupid brilliant maniac.” Rhodes just gives Tony a hugely disappointed look and says, “You shouldn’t scare us like that,” which actually makes Tony look faintly guilty. In the end, after their lingering audience has been shooed away, it’s Steve that gets the responsibility of taking Tony back down to his room and “making sure the idiot doesn’t throw himself out of any more windows” until the First Enchanter and Knight-Commander can see him.
“Well, that was fun,” Tony says, sprawling out on his bed with a full body sigh. “Much more interesting than the dining hall at night and wow, I totally did not admit to breaking curfew right in front of the Knight-Captain, nope, that did not happen.”
Steve rolls his eyes, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “Tony,” he says, and Tony’s eyes snap to him; he looks a little scared, like he knows what Steve’s about to say. “Manipulating your force abilities to hover - that I understand. But how can you sustain it for that long?”
Tony stares up at him, eyes wide and dark, and finally he lifts a hand over his heart. “Looks magically clinging to life has some unexpected perks,” he drawls, with perfectly practiced casualness.
“Oh, Tony,” Steve sighs. He presses a hand next to Tony’s, feeling the tingling thrum of spirit magic and, beneath that, the steady thump of the heart it protects. There was a tense few days when Tony first returned with it, pale and haunted, that Steve was convinced they were going to declare the enchantment blood magic; Tony managed to argue that it was just another kind of healing spell, but even then Steve knew that wasn’t entirely accurate. “That much power, drawing from the Fade? This is dangerous,” he says, looking up into Tony’s eyes, and he shrugs.
“I’m a mage,” he says. “Danger comes with the territory. It’s not like I’ve got a lot of options; might as well do what I can with what I’ve got.” He rubs his fingers over his heart, brushing Steve’s hand. “And if worse comes to worst: I’ve got you around to put me down, huh?”
There’s no condemnation in his voice, nothing mean or mocking, just the simple fact that he’s a mage and Steve is a templar and they both know what would happen. But Steve still can’t bring himself to say anything, fingers pressed against the steady beat of Tony’s heart.
