On the outside, the Stark family home was a grand three story mansion with a rather large lawn surrounded by a large stone fence that blocked out most of the traffic noise from the city. The gardens were well tended and extensive, with large oak trees framing the house. The house itself was a beautiful red brick, with dark brown accents on the window sills. The windows themselves had been imported from an old manor somewhere in England and glinted in the New York sun.

What you couldn't tell just from looking at it was all the adjustments Tony had been making below the actual house. It had started small, only retrofitting the cellar to a state of the art workshop. Not that he'd actually needed it at the time. In fact the only reason the house had said workshop was because he'd told pepper to make sure that all of his estates were equipped with one. She'd included the mansion only because he owned it. He hadn't set foot in the building in well over a decade. Since the attack on New York though, Tony had taken another look at the place.

This was what Tony had been working on in the past few months while Bruce was busy doing his own research. Under the house, under the new workshop even, were three enormous underground floors. There was a gym, complete with an Olympic-size swimming pool, sauna and steam room. There was a fully functional operating theatre, an Arsenal, a firing range. A battle training area that could withstand almost all of his weapons, a secure computer room that held backdoor passes into Shield, and the Pentagon. There were three cells that even the hulk would have a hard time breaking out of. There was even a war room. And the whole thing was powered by an arc reactor separate from any other power source.

He'd kept the whole thing a secret from everyone but Pepper.

Taking the shiny new elevator down to the fourth level, Tony stepped out and was immediately greeted by the beautiful Sue Richards (ne-Storm).

"Afternoon Tony."

Tony gave the woman one of his best grins and held his arms out. "So what do you think of the place?"

"It's great! Reed's been playing with all your toys."

"Well you know if you guys ever need a place to stay..."

"I think I'd miss windows," She declined with a smile. "and my husband. Somehow he got ahold of some schematics of yours and he's been buried in them ever since."

"Schematics?"

Sue wrinkled her nose. "Some... Rocket shaped thing that Reed tried to explain. I got lost at 'trans-cybernetic-crossplatform'."

"Oh yeah, I've been meaning to have him take a look at those. Did he happen to see the-" Sue held up a hand to interrupt him.

"Don't ask me, you're going to have to talk to him, and later. We have more important things to discuss, don't you think?"

Tony sighed regretfully and nodded. "What's the situation?"

"Come with me and I'll show you."

Tony followed the blonde, not so discretely checking out her ass as he did so. Just because he was in a serious relationship with Pepper didn't mean he was blind. Sue led him into a room that had been converted into a temporary workspace. Tablets and computers covered the surface area and Sue handed him one containing medical documents.

"We've got him locked up in the holding cell you asked for, and Reed added his own touches for extra precaution, but honestly Tony? He's not going anywhere fast. We ran several scans and what we found wasn't good. He's got the most severe case of heat stroke anyone has ever had while still being alive. In fact, the only reason he isn't dead is because of his biology. You know how I was complaining how heavy he was? Well that's because his body is hyper dense and extremely resilient. His organs would have cooked through otherwise. As it is, he's fighting off long term dehydration, first degree burns on ninety percent of both arms and his feet. His immune system is shot so we have to keep the cell quarantined. He's already suffered two minor seizures and his lungs are a mess. There might be some internal scaring of the lungs which would lead to a number of problems later on."

Tony studied the images on the tablet in his hands, taking note of the smudges that marked the damaged area in Loki's lungs. "Problems how?"

"Well, it depends on the severity of the damage. If there is any sort of infection, which by the way, the chances of that are high considering how low his immune system is. He could develop anything from minor breathing restrictions, to full on asthma. But that's better than if there's scarring. Scarring in the lungs is dangerous because it can't be reversed and there is little you can do to treat it. And it leads to more serious problems later on. Because the scarred tissue can't work like regular tissue, it won't be able to transfer oxygen into the bloodstream. He could suffer a wide range of side effects from that, from shortness of breath to heart attacks."

Tony felt his eyebrows rise as she listed off all the side effects. "So what you're saying is...?"

Sue sighed unhappily. "I'm saying that we got him out of the hotbox, but he's not out of the fire yet. He hasn't regained consciousness yet. We've got him on a pretty powerful IV drip that Reed custom made for his biology. We also have him wrapped in ice packs to bring his core body temp down. There's not much else that can be done at this point. We can only wait to see if he wakes up on his own."

There was silence as Tony scrolled through the (extensive) notes the Richard's had compiled. "Ok," he said finally, "What do we do now?"

Sue shrugged, "Watch him for now, take care of any problems that come up. I'm guessing even if he gets better you're keeping him in that cell right?"

"Yeah," Tony agreed, "he's still a war criminal. He has the deaths of hundreds on his hands. He still deserves to be locked up, just..."

"Not like that? I know. I agree completely. I know Victor hasn't done damage to the same scale, but I wouldn't even wish that fate on him." Sue paused, and for a moment looked unsure of what she was saying. "Tony?"

"Hm?" he grunted, his attention back on the tablet.

"When I was getting him out, I passed by a few more cells that looked custom made. I mean, they weren't all ovens." Tony looked up at her when she paused and he knew what she was about to ask. "There was one, I just glanced at it, but it looked like... It was a freezer Tony."

Tony nodded. He knew exactly which one she was talking about.

"They made that one with my brother in mind, didn't they?"

Tony waited a beat before nodding again. "Yeah, it looks like they did. They have cells and back up plans for each of us. You should see the stuff they came up with for Bruce. Makes Loki's personal hell look like a small trip to the tanning bar." he gave her a small rueful grin. "Don't worry about it, I'm currently making my own 'back up plans', just in case. You're all getting a copy when I'm done, I promise."

She gave him a small weak smile in return. "Thanks Tony."

"It's what I'm here for,"

Thank you for everyone who reviewed! I'm glad you all are enjoying the story so far. Next chapter Thor comes in, and we actually get to see how Loki is doing. I've got the whole story planned out, and about half of it written, only, its the last half thats done and I need to finish the middle. Don't worry, I'm getting there though. I hope to continue updating every monday. Keep letting me know what you think, and if there is something you would like to see I'm always open to suggestions if it will fit in the storyline!