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(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)
This bar wasn't Tony's usual style. For one thing there was no music, for another the clientele, except for himself, were beaten-up looking rhinos. Rhinos. With matching added armor, plenty of black eyes and arms in slings. Tony knew a biker gang on the losing side of a war, and itching for someone to take it out on, when he saw one, so he barely glanced at them before beckoning over the nervously shaking spotted hog bartender returning from refilling the rhinos' beer. He grinned and passed over his black AMEX. "You take this?"
I mean, what the hell. Since Loki and Wanda had caught him in the crossfire of Christmas colored 'magic', ugh, magic, with each of them shouting conflicting wishes for the disposal of Iron Man, he guessed he was lucky to have wound up in one piece wherever this was, even though it was the weirdest place he'd ever been, including that Spring Break with Rhodey with the triplets who could do that thing with ping pong balls. He deserved a drink. He wondered where his armor wound up. Hope JARVIS was taking care of it.
"Yes, sir," the hog said, expression brightening. The rhinos looked like lousy tippers.
"Great. How about some hot saké, and sushi? Take out's fine, I'll pay and you can tack on a thirty percent surcharge." At first he'd thought the place vaguely Chinese, when he'd seen the giant panda and the little red panda eating at the noodle shop next door, but rhinos... China didn't have any rhinos. He was pretty sure. And he was absolutely certain nowhere had a community made up entirely of talking animals. Talking English, at that. Tony knew enough Mandarin to get by but he tended to lose his fricatives and plosives, so he was glad of that. So why shouldn't they take AMEX and serve saké and sushi? The hog seemed to think this a reasonable request, anyway.
A cute little bunny waitstaff hopped up to lay bowls of bar snacks on Tony's table, and he barely restrained himself from patting her on her fluffy cotton tail out of conditioned reflex. Pepper would be proud of his new maturity and restraint. "Mmm," Tony said as he munched appreciatively on the mixed peaches and peeled loquat fruit.
His saké arrived with admirable promptness. Tony noticed the articulation of the bartender's hoof-fingers and thought perhaps he could upgrade Dum-E and U along similar lines. A request got him a sheet of lovely rice-paper, and an inkstone with all the fixings, so he happily nibbled and jotted while awaiting the sushi. He was sure the Avengers or Thor, or someone, would figure out how to get him back soon, and it's not as if there was anything he could do from this side. If they had any technology higher than firecrackers and the wheel, he'd yet to see it.
The sushi came on a beautifully painted porcelain platter, shaped to hold various dips and condiments around the edge. Everything looked reasonably familiar and all smelled perfectly sweet, so Tony picked up his chopsticks and began tucking in on a tuna roll. The rhinos were grumbling, the bunnies were sweeping and being cutely busy, the hog was attempting to appease the rhinos with more beer... and then... it was like that magic moment when the music stops (but there wasn't any music) and everyone turns to the door (but there wasn't any door), impelled by the instinctive sense every healthy male above puberty has that an amazing female creature has come within range. She wore a musky, wild scent and a dress made of expensive sequins judging from the rustle.
Tony washed down the tuna with saké and turned to face the same direction as the rhinos, who were now even more disgustingly blotto. Tony wouldn't trust a rhino who couldn't hold his beer. "Well, well, well," he said after a moment, and a blink to be sure he wasn't imagining the vision before him, "what lovely eyes you have. Are they blue, or green? I can't really tell?"
The big snake stared at him for a moment, and then she let her eyelashes flicker over her remarkable eyes. "That depends on my mood," she replied. She had pink lotus blossom ornaments on her wedge-shape head, with no visible means of attachment. Tony was fascinated.
"Are you in the mood for sushi? I'd love to ..."
The biggest rhino leaped to his feet, overturning the table and knocking several of the other rhinos onto the floor. The bunnies squealed and ran for cover, mostly around Tony's table. He found himself with a lapful of bunny children, quivering. That was the only reason he didn't get up to show the rhino his place, of course. The hog wound his apron into knots and begged for them not to destroy the place. Again. The rhino bellowed, "Viper does not eat with bald, ugly monkeys!" He pounded his chest. "I, Commander Vachir, insist you dine with us."
"Well, now, that's just rude," Tony said. "I'm not bald."
Viper rolled her eyes. "Excuse me a moment," she said to Tony.
And then Tony sat there with his mouth open and eyes wide, idly petting bunny kids on their fluffy topknots as Viper totally devastated the entire tableful of rhinos with a display of hands-free, arms-free, ok, limbs-free Kung Fu that would have made Tony's old martial arts teacher weep for joy.
A few moments later she swept up to Tony's table, not an eyelash bent, nor a single petal of her lotus blossoms damaged. The rhinos made a few noises reminiscent of a building the Hulk had smashed, and then went silent.
"Barkeep," Tony called, "bring hot saké for the lady." He smiled as Viper somehow folded herself into the semblance of a chair, and took a ladylike nibble of a whitefish futomaki. "I'm Tony Stark, by the way. The Black Widow ought to see you fight. Hey, are you interested in joining my little group? We're the Avengers. Mighty heroes, defenders of the Earth, that sort of thing."
"Sorry, no." Viper had a sip of saké. "I already belong to the Furious Five."
"Ooh, I like that, it's got a ring to it." Tony tapped his saké glass against hers in salute and stretched out his legs to relax. Bunnies on his lap, a lovely and lethal lady sharing saké with him. Turned out to be a pretty good day after all.