Lyria Stark
A/N: I wanted to do another Avengers story with Tony having a sister…and of course involving Loki because he's awesome lol.
Chapter 1
Out in the Atlantic Ocean the infamous red and gold Iron Man suit and a similar purple and silver suit were cutting a Pipe Transport line with laser cutters coming from their hands. Iron Man places a Stark Energy Reactor over the cut section and it lights up in a mere second. Iron Man and the purple suit rocketed out of the water and fly towards Stark Tower, with Iron Man calling the tower from his suit and connecting with his girlfriend Pepper Potts and tuning the other suit into the conversation as well.
"Good to go on this end. The rest is up to you guys."
"You disconnected the transmission lines? Are we off the grid?"
"Stark Tower is about to become a beacon of self-sustaining clean energy."
"Well, assuming the Arc Reactor takes over, and actually works?"
"I assume. Light her up."
As the two suits fly towards the Stark Tower the power is switched on and the Stark sign lights up with a bright blueish-white color.
"How does it look?"
"Like Christmas, but with more... me."
A soft snort comes from the other suit which Iron Man pointedly ignores.
"Gotta go wider on the public awareness campaign. You need to do some press. I'm in D.C. tomorrow. I'm working on the zoning for the next billboards."
"Pepper, you're killing me. The moment? Remember? Enjoy the moment."
"Then get in here and I will."
The two suits arrive at the skyscraper penthouse and Tony lands first to begin the process of taking off his suit through a hi-tech gauntlet of gadgets and robotic arms. His A.I. computer system, Jarvis, chimes in through his helmet before it pulls back from his face.
"Sir, Agent Coulson of SHIELD is on the line."
"I'm not in. I'm actually out."
As Tony walks fully into the interior of the penthouse Jarvis speaks again as the second suit lands to begin the process of being dis-armored.
"Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting."
"Close the line Jarvis. I've got a date."
Pepper stares up at the monitors of the reactor device and beams a bright smile at Tony as he walks inside, shedding the last of his armor. A smallish woman with long black hair falling in wild waves around her face follows shortly after. She's slightly shorter than Pepper with a fit yet soft look and bright green eyes. She follows Tony over to where Pepper is standing as they all check the monitors.
"Levels are holding steady... I think."
"Of course they are, I was directly involved. Which brings me to my next question: how does it feel to be a genius?"
"Well, ha, I really wouldn't know now, would I?"
"What do you mean? All this came from you. Well, both of you really but Lyria's involvement is kind of a given."
"No. All this came from that."
Pepper points to the small arc reactor in his chest plate.
"Give yourself some credit, please. Stark Tower is your baby. Give yourself... twelve percent of the credit."
The black haired woman, Lyria, winces and shakes her head before Pepper gives Tony an incredulous look. Lyria just lets out a low whistle and whispers in Tony's ear before Pepper can get her own back on him.
"Wrong thing to say brother dearest…"
"Twelve percent?"
"An argument can be made for fifteen."
"Twelve percent? For my baby?"
"Well, I did do all the heavy lifting. Literally, I lifted the heavy things. And sorry, but the security snafu? That was on you."
Pepper sits on a large comfortable looking sofa and pours two glasses of champagne, knowing full well that the other young woman doesn't drink alcohol at all. It is one of the few things about her that is different from her brother Tony. They're both prone to reckless behavior, both have genius level intelligence with technology, both have metal suits to fly around in, both love anything that gives them an adrenaline rush, and both love to annoy Director Fury…where they differ is that Tony loves alcohol and Lyria hates it, Tony is loud and Lyria is quiet, Tony enjoys living it up with expensive things and Lyria prefers to be more simplistic, Tony likes to sleep with any and every attractive female while Lyria prefers to wait until she finds her soul mate…if she ever does…though lately Tony has been solely focused on Pepper which makes Lyria happy.
"Oooooh."
"My private elevator..."
"You mean OUR elevator, brother dear?"
"...was teeming with sweaty workmen. I'm going to pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way later, aren't I?"
"Not gonna be that subtle."
"I'll tell you what. Next building's gonna say 'Potts' on the tower."
"On the lease."
"...Call your mom, can you bunk over?"
Lyria rolled her eyes at her brother and shared a small smile with Pepper as Jarvis chimed in again and interrupted the moment.
"Sir, the telephone. I'm afraid my protocols are being overridden."
"Mr. Stark, we need to talk."
Tony picks up his phone and looks into it at Coulson, while the two women try to contain their laughter at his rather childish antics.
"You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark, please leave a message."
"This is urgent."
"Then leave it urgently."
At that moment the elevator door opens and Coulson appears. Pepper smiles at the SHIELD agent dressed in a nice suit while Tony scowls at him and Lyria just crosses her arms and looks bored.
"Security breach."
Tony looks at Pepper.
"That's on you."
"Mr. Stark."
"Phil! Come in."
Tony gives Pepper a confused look.
"Phil?"
"I can't stay"
"Uh, his first name is Agent."
"Come on in, we're celebrating."
"Which is why he can't stay."
Tony gives Coulson a strained smile that clearly screams go away in the most polite manner Tony is capable of. Lyria snorts softly from her spot on the sofa and Coulson turns to look at her.
"Miss Stark, how have you been? Mr. Stark, we need you to look this over. Soon as possible."
Coulson tries to hand Tony a large flat computer of sorts while Lyria pointedly ignores the man.
"I don't like being handed things."
"That's alright, `cause I love to be handed things. So, let's trade."
She passes her glass of champagne to Coulson and takes the file from him, then takes Tony's champagne glass from him and passes the computer over instead.
"Thank you."
"Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday."
"This isn't a consultation."
"Is this about The Avengers? Which I...I know nothing about."
"The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought. And I didn't even qualify…Neither did my sister for that matter."
"I didn't know that either."
"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others…and Lyria is defiant, willful, and a danger magnet."
"That I did know."
"This isn't about personality profiles anymore."
"Whatever. Miss Potts, Lyria, got a minute?"
Pepper raises a finger at Coulson with an apologetic look.
"Half a moment."
Pepper walks over to Tony who places the files from the device into his own databases. Lyria moves to stand in front of Coulson, looking less-than-pleased to see him. He in turn takes on a slightly sheepish, and almost apologetic look.
"I know you are still angry with SHIELD for certain events of the past, but I promise you things are better now. Director Fury is good at what he does and…"
The young woman cuts him off, not willing to listen to whatever he has to say. She lets a set of lavender wings unfurl from behind her and stretches them out, which Coulson knows is a threat display and he takes it seriously.
"Honestly? I don't care. I don't care about SHIELD, or Fury, or any of it. I care about my brother. That's all. If anything you, Fury, or SHIELD does takes him from me…I will hunt all of you down and kill you. Slowly and very painfully. Is that clear…Agent Coulson?"
"Crystal clear Miss Stark, though I sincerely hope it never comes to that.
"You and me both Coulson."
While those two were having their conversation, Tony and Pepper were having one of their own.
"You know, I thought we were having a moment."
"I was having twelve percent of a moment. This seems serious, Phil's pretty shaken."
"How could you notice? Why is he Phil?"
"What is all of this?"
"This is, um..."
Tony expands his arms and different profiles appear in holographic form floating in the air in front of Tony and Pepper.
"This."
Screens appear of Captain America in action, the Hulk roaring as he attacks the Army at Culver University, Thor fighting the Destroyer in Arizona, and another is of Loki and the Tesseract, to which Stark and Pepper look on in awe. Tony also notices a couple clips of him and his sister which make him scowl slightly, concerned for her safety.
"I'm going to take the jet to D.C. tonight."
"Tomorrow."
"You've got homework. You've got a lot of homework."
"Well, what if I…didn't?"
"If you didn't? You mean when you finished? Well, um...then..."
She whispers something in his ear. Tony GASPS. Coulson looks away in embarrassment while Lyria laughs at him.
"Square deal. Flash date."
Pepper kisses him softly and Tony looks like he practically melts.
"Work hard."
Pepper walks away from Tony and over to Coulson.
"So, any chance you're driving by LaGuardia?"
"I can drop you."
"Fantastic. Oh, I wanna hear about the um, cellist. Is that still a thing?"
"She went back to Portland."
"What?"
As Pepper leaves with Agent Coulson in the elevator and their voices fade out, Tony grabs the Tesseract in holograph form looking rather worried. Lyria walks over and hugs him from behind, also eyeing the holographic cube. Tony notices her wings are out and gives her a curious look since she usually only calls them out when she absolutely has to. She generally prefers to use the suit he built for her so people don't stare as much or ask a lot of awkward questions that she can't answer. The wings had shown up when they turned 18 and neither of them had any idea why, though it helped that she could make them vanish.
"So, what happens now? Why does SHIELD want you involved in this? What about me? My file is in there too. What if they try to drag me back into something I don't want Tony?"
"I have no idea Lyria, I have no idea. I can promise you this my sweet angelic little sister. If SHIELD thinks they're going to do anything to you that you don't want, then they had best think again. I will have Jarvis hack into every file they have until I know every single secret they have…and if they mess with us, then I'll just have to tear them apart from the inside out."
"I'm only younger than you by like…five minutes Tony…"
"Still younger though."
Lyria smiles up at Tony as he envelops her in a warm hug, the two siblings enjoying the moment of calm before what they can only assume is going to be one massive storm.
I already warned Coulson that if they try to take you away from me I will hunt them all down and kill them in the slowest and most painfully way I can think of."
"That's my girl. Iron Man and the Amethyst Lady…together we can do damn-near anything."
The two shared a laugh and settled in to study all of the many files, images, and video clips that had been given to them. Lyria's eyes kept drifting back to the tall dark-haired man in green and gold armor, not that Tony noticed as he was in hyper-focus mode, but something about him made it hard to tear her eyes away and focus on what she needed to do.
The next day a large black flight vehicle known as a Quinjet lands on a massive SHIELD battleship called the Helicarrier. It has two runways, one with direct access to a hangar at the rear which is aligned along the spine of the vessel. Agent Coulson and Steve Rogers walk down the ramp, meeting up with Natasha.
"Agent Romanoff. Captain Rogers."
"Ma'am?"
"Hi."
She turns to Coulson for a moment before returning to speaking to Steve.
"They need you on the bridge. Face time."
"See you there."
Agent Coulson walks away leaving Steve with Natasha, the two begin walking towards the railing of the ship. Dr. Bruce Banner is standing nearby looking nervous and shifting around a lot.
"There was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice. I thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?"
Steve gives her a confused look, apparently not realizing that there were trading cards of him.
"Trading cards?"
"They're vintage, he's very proud."
Banner doesn't notice them walking away at first as he is nervous as hell being where he is. He moves around a lot, as people keep walking in his way, until he finally makes his way over to the pair.
"Dr. Banner."
Steve walks up to Banner and shakes his hands.
"Oh, yeah. Hi. They told me you'd be coming."
"Word is you can find the cube."
"Is that the only word on me?"
"Only word I care about."
Bruce gives Steve a somewhat grateful smile and gestures to the controlled chaos around them.
"Must be strange for you, all of this."
"Well, this is actually kind of familiar."
Natasha watches the two have their bonding moment until she hears a loud groaning noise and feels the big ship shudder slightly.
"Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breath."
Suddenly the Helicarrier starts shaking a lot more as it begins to rise slightly out of the water.
"Is this is a submarine?"
Bruce looks over at Steve with an odd look on his face.
"Really? They want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?"
They both move closer to the edge of the Helicarrier. Four enormous fans mounted on the sides cause the carrier to lift into the air in flight. Steve watches in awe while Banner adopts a sarcastic smile.
"Oh, no. This is much worse!"
The bridge of the ship is a flurry of activity with dozens of agents sitting in front of their view screens and running from one spot to another. Agent Maria Hill shouts her instructions and then turns to Nick Fury, who is standing at the command center looking out over the activity.
"We're at lock, sir."
"Good. Let's vanish."
The Helicarrier rises high into the sky. The entire ship is covered in reflective panels which, when activated, cause the carrier to blend in with the sky and renders them nearly invisible. Steve and Banner walk through the glorious, gleaming bridge, as Director Nick Fury turns from his position at the central station to address them.
"Gentlemen."
Steve gives Fury 10 bucks, referring to an earlier statement about never being surprised again. Fury walks over Banner and extends his hand to Dr. Banner who reluctantly shakes it.
"Doctor, thank you for coming."
"Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh... how long am I staying?"
"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear."
"Where are you with that?"
Nick Fury turns to Agent Coulson to explain, while Natasha Romanoff eyes an image of Agent Clint Barton, known as Hawkeye, on a computer screen.
"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."
Natasha butts in, still eyeing the image of her partner Clint.
"That's still not gonna find them in time."
Bruce chimes in with an idea that Fury is all too willing to try as nothing else seemed to be working for them.
"You have to narrow the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?"
"How many are there?"
"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"
"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please."
Natasha nods and walks off, leading Banner down the hall.
"You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."
Fury turns to Coulson to get an update on his mission.
"Coulson? How successful were you last night?"
"They seemed interested but you know how they are…I wouldn't hold your breath Sir. I also got a threat display from a very unhappy little Lady who has no trust in us whatsoever."
"They? They who?"
"They, Captain, would be the Stark twins…Tony and Lyria."
"Howard Stark had twins? Well…I'll be. Are they doing alright then?"
"They're both billionaires so I'd say they're doing just fine in that respect."
Fury pulls up an image of the two, taken at one of Tony's many parties, and Steve could instantly see the similarities between the two and their father. Howard had been his friend and he hoped to be able to become friends with the man's children as well. As they are waiting to locate Loki using satellite facial recognition, Coulson and Steve move to stand side by side, looking out the massive windows over the sea, while Fury returns to his monitors.
"I mean, if it's not too much trouble."
"No, no. It's fine."
"It's a vintage set. It took me a couple of years to collect them all. Near mint, slight foxing around the edges, but..."
"We got a hit. Sixty-seven percent match. Wait, cross match, seventy-nine percent."
"Location?"
"Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse."
"He's not exactly hiding."
"Captain, you're up."
Steve nods at Fury and heads down the hall where his suit is waiting for him, though there appear to have been some upgrades. Coulson, who followed him, tells him he helped with the redesign and the improvements to his shield. Steve suits up and heads to one of the jets where Natasha is waiting for him.