So, I got back into fanfiction recently when a little head cannon went off over the Science Bros. It was keeping me from working on my novel so I figured I'd put it on paper and be able to return to my book. Well, I did get back to my book, but that little head cannon turned into a long fic and ideas for four other fics. So, I'm writing on several things at the moment (seriously, there are 7 docs open right now) and I'm writing a lot. Most of what's being written won't make its way up here as it's original work, but the fic should eventually all make its way up here.
As for this one in particular, this was prompted by Natasha Stark (3490) who Mister Fantastic discovered in another universe. I thought it would be fun exploring Tony as a female character and since we've got alternate universes, I could pick one where she wasn't with Captain America (blehck!) and run with it.
Not sure how long this one will be, but here's a chapter anyway.
M for Stark's mouth (both of them) and for future chapters (because I like the option of sexy times.) Needless to say, I don't own Tony, Bruce, Steve, Thor, Tasha, Clint or any of the rest of these wonderful characters. If I did, I would be fabulously wealthy and Tony and Bruce would be completely cannon.
For Science!
A call from Fury was never a good way to wake up but Tony preferred that to Captain Spangles waking him with a mission. Although Rogers knew how to command the team on the field, Stark was clearly calling the shots outside of battle. He liked being a leader in that way, but he could do without the phone calls at three in the morning. Didn't super-villains sleep?
"Yeah, yeah, Fury. Got it," he mumbled, hanging up the phone. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Tony called up his AI, "Jarvis, put in calls to Rogers, Thor, Romanov and Barton."
"Yes Sir," the disembodied, British voice answered. "And Doctor Banner, Sir?"
"Leave Bruce to me. You know how much he hates being woken in the middle of the night."
"Of course Sir."
As he changed out of his pajamas, he muttered under his breath and he called on his armor. He was still getting used to the Bleeding Edge, but as he caught sight of himself in the mirror, he was reminded just how much sleeker it was than his last suit. He left his face uncovered and went to wake Bruce.
Bruce hadn't been asleep for long when Tony's voice pulled him out of a nightmare. He woke with a start, gasping for breath and struggling to get his eyes to focus. The glow of the arc reactor was the first thing he was able to focus on. He processed this and calmed down. It never ceased to amaze Bruce the effect Tony had on him, more importantly on the Other Guy.
"Tony?" he asked, his voice still somewhat groggy. He got a good look and realized Tony was suited up. "What's wrong?"
"Sorry to wake you, but Fury called." Tony sat next to Bruce on the bed. "I'd have just let you sleep, but he seems to think it's a big deal. Is the Big Guy up for some late night partying?"
Bruce smirked. He normally would have been hesitant to get involved; even after all this, he still didn't quite trust himself not to hurt the team or worse, innocent civilians. However, it had been a while and the "Other Guy" was getting restless. This was just the sort of thing Banner needed to take off the edge that had been interfering with his work the past few weeks.
With a wry grin, he answered, "As long as you have him home by curfew, young man. The last time you two were out way too late."
Tony laughed. "Sure thing."
When Iron Man and the Hulk arrived on scene, the rest of the team was already heavy into the fight. Roger's terse voice scolded over the mic, "You're late Stark."
"Fashionably," Tony answered. "Besides, I brought everyone's favorite party animal."
"Let's just get this over with." No sense of humor on that one, not that Tony had expected any different, but Rogers was exceptionally grumpy so late at night.
"Don't get your spangly panties in a bunch, Cap. Have we figured a way into the Skrull lab?" he asked, narrowly dodging an attack.
"Thor is working on breaking through, but he could use a hand."
"On it!" Iron Man answered. They had encountered this type of shielding before. If they could find the source, Tony could hack their system, but the Skrull were getting better about their security. If Fury was to be believed, they didn't have time to search either. The only other way through these shields was brute force. Scanning the area, he found the Hulk and called out, "Hey, Big Guy, can you give Thor a hand over there? We need that wall smashed."
The Hulk perked up and in only a few moments, he was beside Thor, smashing the side of a building. Each hit of Mjölnir and the Hulk's fists sent ripples through the force field surrounding the Skrull lab until finally, they broke through.
"Thanks, guys." Iron Man flew in through the now gaping hole in the wall, calling up his scanners. The amount of unknowns showing up with each scan frustrated Stark. He hated working without all the variables and the extent of what he got from Fury was the Skrull might rip a hole in the universe.
As the others continued fighting the Skrull surrounding the building, Captain America caught up with Iron Man inside the lab. The pair moved through the halls quickly, without a word, Iron Man leading by a few feet. Just as they reached the center of the building, a huge pulse rippled past them, shaking the ground, the building, everything, followed by a nearly deafening explosion.
"Stark, what the hell was that?" Captain demanded.
As his screen lit up with a mess of numbers, Tony's voice turned dark, "According to these readings, it was one of my old suits' pulse bombs." They'd only just managed to get his tech out of Hydra's hands and now the Skrull had their hands on one of his suits? He blasted the door down and charged in to find the charred room littered with bodies and pieces of bodies. Even the Captain gave pause at the carnage. Not one of the Skrull were moving, but, in the center of the room, the familiar red and gold of an Iron Man suit was crouched down, scanning the room.
The suit stood to reveal a much slimmer design than anything Stark would have made, or fit into for that matter, but that didn't stop Iron Man. He raised his hand, the energy blade forming with a thought and threatened, "I don't know who the hell you think you are, but that's my tech and I'm taking it back, NOW!"
Without waiting for a response, he charged and the other suit took off through the ceiling. He chased after the suit only to be completely blind-sided as soon as he hit the air. The other suit crashed into Iron Man, pinning him down to the ground.
"Nice knock off, kid," a very female voice came from the suit. "But playtime's over." She raised a glove to his face, charging the repulsor. Just before the repulsor went off in Iron Man's face, she was knocked from atop him by Mjölnir.
"Stark, are you alright?" Thor asked, offering Stark a hand.
He took Thor's hand and stood, turning toward the woman, stuck underneath the hammer.
"Thor? What are you doing?" she demanded. "Get this thing off of me or so help me-"
"Shut up, fangirl!" Iron Man shouted. "Jarvis, analyze."
"It would appear her armor was of your creation, Sir, right down to the software configuration."
"Oh good," Stark replied. "Own it."
The suit shook and fought for a moment before shutting down. Iron Man motioned for Thor to take back Mjölnir and then picked up the suit. He nodded at Thor. "I'll see you back at headquarters." Then, over the mic, he added, "Good work team."
Back at Stark Tower, Tony had left the suit in one of the rooms specifically designed for keeping the occasional super-villain, while they waited to be transferred. He recalled his own armor with a thought and reviewed the data from the fight as well as the new scans Jarvis was performing. He told the AI to forward all his results to Banner before checking up on the imposter.
"Time to see who's cocky enough to pretend to be me."
Tony stood behind a two-way mirror, watching as mechanical arms removed her helmet. The woman in that suit could have easily been his sister, that is, if he had a sister. Come to think of it, she could pass for Maria Stark, had she not been long since dead and buried.
As the armor came off, however, what came out of her mouth was nothing like his mother. "I swear, I don't know how the hell you turned Thor against me or how you took control of my suit but when I get out of here, I will shove Mjölnir so far up your ass, Thor won't be able to call it back!"
"Jarvis, do a search for her face and see if you can find a match." Tony was staying as calm as he could. She was disarmed and so not an immediate threat, but he certainly didn't create the suit she was wearing. If she had such a perfect copy, who knew what other Stark tech she had her hands on.
Speaking through the com, he addressed her,"Hey there sweet heart. That's a pretty remarkable knock off, but maybe you should have used your own framework. Someone smart enough to copy my designs would have known better than to leave their security open for me to waltz right in. So, that means you're obviously not smart enough to copy my designs. Who made the suit for you?"
She scoffed, her face scrunching in disgust. "Your designs? Really? I'm Toni Stark and the Iron Man is my creation, you fuckwit."
"Sir," Jarvis interrupted. "I've found no matches within any public or private records."
"You just wait til my team gets here," she threatened, banging her hands against the glass. "You'll wish you never laid a finger on this sweet ass!"
Tony turned off the com, pacing as he waited on the rest of the team to return. "This doesn't make any sense." he muttered.
Bruce was the first to return. "Actually, I think it just might."
"Doc, you got an explanation for this psycho flying around in tech that is clearly Stark though I never made it?"
"Well," Banner began, running his fingers through his hair. Tony never would understand how someone so absolutely brilliant could be so nervous about sharing his theories. "I was looking over the data you got from her and found an anomaly."
Bruce handed a tablet to Tony, pointing to the anomalous data. "You see that reading there? I've only seen that level change twice. The first time was during one of our run ins with Kang and the second was in reports that Reed shared with me the last time his team visited. The reports covered his studies of parallel universes."
"So, what? She's either a time traveler or from an another dimension?" Barton asked, startling Tony. He hated how Barton could sneak into a room without anyone noticing. "Sounds like Twilight Zone."
"Well, maybe. Her readings aren't identical either, but that could be that she's just from a different time or universe than we've observed," Bruce continued. "Based on what she's shouting in there, I think it's probably the latter. Some of the worlds Reed found had little variances."
"Little variances?" Tony asked, not liking the sound of that. If they were so little, they'd hardly merit being mentioned.
Bruce looked away and scratched the back of his head. "Sometimes it's a change of events like, a battle lost or an accident avoided. He found one where I never had my accident." The expression to cross Bruce's face as he said that was something Tony would want to explore, but later. "In others, the variance can be as simple as conception of twins instead of one or a different gender child." Bruce made eye contact on that word.
"Huh." Tony turned back to the window, glad she couldn't see or hear them and tried to process this. "I make one sexy woman. Not that I'm surprised by that, just pointing it out."
"Please tell me we're not going to have see you in drag again." Natasha sighed as she joined the team, stepping in next to Clint. "Wasn't the New Year's party enough?"
Barton leaned in and informed his partner while Tony led Bruce to the room.
"I'm going to need a hand with this one."
The door whooshed open and Tony walked in. "Alright, Miss Stark- never thought I'd say that- I think we got off on the wrong foot. I'll let the doctor here explain."
He moved aside to allow Bruce to enter the room and Bruce awkwardly stepped ahead. Hand in his hair, he began to explain, "You see-"
He was cut off but a sudden thud to the chest as Toni wrapped her arms around his neck. "Bruce baby, my god, I can't believe I found you." She pressed her lips against Banner's while Tony watched on in stunned silence.
Bruce, equally stunned, stiffened and his watch beeped a warning.
Toni pulled away, concern darkening her eyes. "Baby, what's wrong? What did they do to you?"