Disclaimer: Sadly I do not own Avengers EMH or the Iron Man Movies...

Chapter 1: The Avengers

The fight against Gravaton was won and Tony was really glad. He could not imagine what would have happened if this fight had lasted any longer since his armor was nearing the point where it would drain his live energy support system.

Luckily the others did not know of his little problem or they would not have agreed on the whole Avengers thing. Another possibility was that they would have worried every time they would fight another villain or even worse wouldn't let him into the team. Not that Tony was a real team player but he had been honest when he said what they could achieve together.

After they had all agreed to meet in a week in front of the Stark Mansion, which Tony would rename into the Avengers Mansion. Tony was the first to excuse himself from the place where they had taken down Gravaton with the excuse that he had much to do to be ready in a week. The real reason was that Tony had only 5 percent left in his armor and he didn't want it to reach the critical point in front of the others.

He reached his lab just in time. He took off his armor in blink and linked himself up to Jarvis to charge his 'battery' as he called it. He sighed in relief as he felt the pain lessen and as soon as he was able to he called Pepper to organize everything.

They had much work to do or to be more precise Tony had to work on the mansion while Pepper rescheduled his meetings and took care of the financial aspects of Tony's new project.

Pepper did not seem pleased with Tony's idea to upgrade the mansion by himself in only a week. She even went so far to insult him on the phone. But Tony could hear her concealed concern for his health since she knew he would probably work himself to death to finish at the deadline.

Another thing he could make out in her voice was that she seemed relieved that he wouldn't fight completely alone any more.

One week later...

Tony was finished in every sense. He had given it all to finish the mansion in time and had really done it.

Now he was exhausted and needed to change the core in his arc reactor. As soon as Tony was finished Jarvis spook up: "Mr. Stark, I want to inform you that you missed your meeting and that you are late for your meeting with the other Avengers. They are already waiting at the front door."

"Thanks Jarvis."

Tony put on his Mark VII and took the secret exit to leave the mansion.

As Jarvis had told him the others were already waiting and the Hulk did not seem happy about it... so he apologised and took them on a tour through the mansion.

As they had reached the living room Hank asked Tony if he had wasted the whole week to organize this and Tony grinned inwardly. He had saved the best for the end and showed them with pride the basement. The astonished faces were payment enough for Tony and he was really glad that they liked it.

The Hulk seemed to be the only one who did not enjoy the tour and he also seemed grumpier than usual. Tony could only hope that the Hulks mood would change with time since Tony had decided to live at the mansion too. He thought that it would be a good idea since he had now most of his equipment there.

Stark wanted to talk to the Hulk since he was part of the team, but Pepper stopped him before he could even take a step to follow the Hulk. "Tony you have work waiting for you at Stark Industries. I know that you worked the whole week at this..." she spread her arms out to indicate the things around them and carried on: "... but you have also a responsibility to your company!"

Tony knew that he couldn't argue with Pepper in that point even if he was stone tired and left the mansion to take care of his other business.

To Tony's surprise Nick Fury was waiting for him at the Stark Tower to talk about the Avengers.

He went on about how he would support the decision of Tony and the other Avengers from the shadows since he wasn't legally allowed to do that. Of course Tony did not buy Fury's story. The man had always something on his mind when he said things like that.

Luckily Tony did not have to put up to long with Fury since Pepper rescued him, by interrupting his 'meeting' with head of S.H.I.E.L.D., even if the reason for this interruption was definitely not good

"Excuse me, but I have to talk to Tony in private. It is really important!" said Pepper as she stepped into the room.

Tony took that as a cue to get Fury out of his office. "That's no problem. Mr. Fury wanted to leave anyway, isn't that right?"

Fury gave Tony what was supposed to be a death glare but he left anyway. As soon as he had left Tony's office Pepper told him about the Hulks rampage and Tony called the other Avengers.

"Avengers Assemble!"

He arrived at Central Park in the right moment to try to stop the Hulk from "smashing" Thor into pieces – though Tony doubted that the Hulk would succeed with that - while he was trying to calm down the Hulk Jarvis picked up some strange energy reading that surrounded the Hulks head. Tony was thrown aside like an annoying fly and had an unpleasant contact with the ground.

Wasp distracted the Hulk while Tony stood up and turned around to Thor who now standing behind him. As he told Thor about the energy readings around the Hulk that matched Thor's hammer, the Asgardian told him about dark magic that seemed to control the Hulk.

Said green guy ran towards them to attack them but Hank as giant was there to stop him even if it was only for a short moment.

They tried to stop their green team member but were badly beaten. At the moment where the Hulk wanted to smash Wasp he came to reason by himself and ran away.

Tony's only comment to the whole situation was "That went well..." and at the same moment an axe penetrated his armor. He fell to the ground and realised that his suit had taken so much damage that it was running now through his life support system. While Tony tried to get up without using too much energy – every movement hurt but he still had to get up to help the others – a woman in green and gold walked towards them with a really big guy at her side.

Jarvis voice broke his train of thoughts – as he concentrating on getting up: "Sir, I recommend you to get out of the armor. It has taken too much damage to function on its own and is draining your energy!"

"Tell me something I don't know..." Tony muttered, but still got up on his feet even thought a bit unsteady.

He heard Thor talking toward the woman and interrupted them. "Wait a moment you know these guys?"

"Aye, they are Asgardians like me. Her name is the Enchantress and he is her Executioner."

The Enchantress attacked Thor with a spell which enabled him to move and her Executioner swung his axe towards the still unsteady Tony. Tony wanted to use his repulsor but it was not working. "Great!" he exclaimed sarcastically. To Tony's luck Janet came to his rescue and distracted the Executioner from his original target. Hank – still a giant – came to support her and she flew back to Tony.

"Iron Man, now would be a good time for some kind of... something!"

"Sorry Wasp..." he panted – it really hurt trying to stand and talk, it draining him even further. "... armor has... not enough power... need some kind of... recharge."

As soon as he had finished saying this, the Enchantress captured Wasp and her minion had pinned Hank – who was now back to his normal size – under his foot.

The Executioner wanted to cut of Hank's head with his axe as the Hulk re-entered the scene and stopped him.

This interruption broke the spell that was on Thor, his hammer and Wasp, and they were free again. Thor summoned his hammer which flew directly towards him and as soon as it was in his hands Thor used it to create clouds with lightning. And this lightning fell down onto Iron Man!

While the Enchantress was mocking Thor that he had missed her Tony's armor rebooted.

"Sir, the armor has now 14 percent energy to work by itself. But I would still recommend getting out of it as soon as you can, sir."

Tony ignored the AI and resumed the fight against the Enchantress and her Executioner with the other Avengers. It took them a while but after a hard fight they had taken down the two evil Asgardians who turned tail and ran.

After the fight was over the Hulk left the team. He thought that they believed him to be a monster which was definitely not the truth. Tony knew that the Hulk was no monster since he knew Bruce Banner personally he could not believe that his alter ego was evil or a monster, maybe misunderstood but not evil... He still let the Hulk go to sort this out for himself.

The remaining Avengers returned to the mansion since they now all lived there.

Tony excused himself from the others and all but stumbled into his workshop. Jarvis had reprogrammed the machine that takes his armor off to do it at twice the normal speed and Tony was glad for it.

The moment the armor was off Tony collapsed on his knees and crawled towards his desk where he changed the chore of his arc reactor.

That finished he slid to the ground leaned against his desk and closed his eyes.

He felt like shit. His attempt to stand with such a damaged armor had not been one of his best ideas. He still felt as if his heart was beating to slow even with the strain of the armor gone and a replaced arc core, it would take a few minutes until it would be at a normal pace.

During this wait – for his heart to normalize itself – he heard the sound of the small wings from Janet's Wasp form as it grew louder which meant that she was on her way to Tony.

Maybe it would be better if she would not see him sitting on the ground. With that thought in mind he pulled himself up and into his chair and this just in time. The moment he sat, Janet – now back to normal size – had punched in the code to open the door to Tony's workshop and stepped into the room.

"Tony, are you alright?"

Tony turned his head towards her and gave her a small smile – that he hoped didn't look like a grimace. "Sure. Why shouldn't I?"

Janet gave him that I-do-not-believe-you look, but replaced it after a second with a faked thoughtful look. "Hm... Maybe because your armor was heavily damaged and the Hulk left the team right at our first official day as a team?"

Tony cringed inwardly at the last part. It was true, their first day and the Hulk had left them already... Maybe him being the (unofficial) leader of the group was not such a good idea... Before he could continue this train of thought Janet interrupted him with a loud: "Stop that! I can almost see the wheels in your head turning. Listen Tony, it's not your fault that he left us, okay?"

Since Tony didn't want to argue with Janet and because he was too tired to – he just nodded.

Janet seemed a bit relieved by that and began to turn around to leave as she suddenly stopped and turned fully back to him. She gave him a strangely familiar look and it took him a moment to place it. It was the same look Pepper and Rhodey give him when they are worried about his health.

"You seem a bit pale and the circles under your eyes are darker than usual... Are really alright?"

He gave her a sweet smile. "I'm perfectly fine. Just a bit exhausted after this fight, but who isn't?"

Janet did not seem to be convinced but left it at that and left Tony alone in his workshop.

As soon as she was gone Tony laid his head on his desk and sighed. That was a bit too close. It would definitely not get easy to hide his problem from the others... but he would still try to leave them in the dark as long as possible. He definitely did not need any more people on his list of concerned ones.