“No one,” Tony said in a soft rumble, and slowly lowered his head to rest on the arm he didn’t have curled around Steve’s waist. One glowing blue eye shifted to fix on him, though Tony’s head was still pointed towards the mouth of the cave. “No one alive. Just you.”

He hesitated for a moment, smoke curling out of his nostrils. “Howard never knew, as far as I know. My mother...” he trailed off. The side of his wide mouth twitched, into something that might have been an attempt at a smile. “Apparently being so endangered that you’re mythological is a good reason to hide. And for a long time it...didn’t matter. I couldn’t shift.”

Somehow he managed to keep from glancing towards his own chetst, at the circle of scarred and pitted scales.