Zeus sat in his throne, unspeaking, staring straight ahead at the fire. The tense air in the throne room had gone undisturbed for nearly an hour. None of the gods dared interrupt Zeus' silence, even though it was just as possible that he was simply waiting for one of them to state their opinion first. It wasn't an angry silence, though it could change to one faster than Hermes could run a mile.
"I have been contacted by Odin," Zeus said, breaking the air. All the gods shifted in their thrones; the council had begun. "According to him, his sons' actions do not reflect on him and he wishes that we will not retaliate because of one rebellious child."
Athena spoke up. "We have honored the treaty for two thousand years. We do not travel to the Norse strongholds, they do not travel to ours. Perhaps this is an evaluation on our tolerance for their transgressions."
"Odin has disowned Loki. He rots in a cell for the rest of his life."
"Sounds merciful," Ares muttered.
"Sounds boring," Dionysus countered. "At least with torture, you'd have something to pass the time. Just sitting there will make you go mad in hours."
"Evil souls go to the Fields of Punishment, not Asphodel," Ares said. "Idleness is no penance."
"Alright, but is trespassing really on par with true evil?" Apollo asked. "Besides, do we really want to be picking fights now, with a certain demigod less than a year from his sixteenth?" All eyes turned to Poseidon, who did not react and kept fiddling with a piece of coral attached to his armrest.
"He's right," Athena hummed. "We could use this as leverage to gain the aid of the Asgardians if Kronos or Typhon rises. We are not as strong as we were millennia ago; we'll likely need it. In the meantime, there were no actual outlines for restitutions in the treaty. This may be a good opportunity to revise it."
"Their return has nothing to do with the Great Prophecy," Hera said. "For all we know, the two could be entirely separate events."
"The treaty does not need revision," Zeus stated. "Odin and I already agreed on that, and I have accepted Loki's punishment."
"He dropped an army on Manhattan!" Ares protested, before being quieted by a sharp glare in his direction from Zeus.
"Instead, this council is about his true son, Thor," Zeus continued. "According to the legacy Anthony Stark, Thor will remain on Earth, in Manhattan. Odin dismissed this as a young prince playing hero, but confirmed it to be true. He will be living and publicly displaying his powers in Manhattan after a short stay on Asgard. I believe it to be a thinly veiled attempt to observe Olympus, for whatever hidden reasons Odin has."
The council fell into another waiting silence, this one more tense as electricity crackled through Zeus' beard. Zeus slowly made eye contact one by one with the other gods. "Although he claims there are no such intentions, Odin agreed that my concerns were valid. He called for increased democracy between us, and agreed to have an Olympian stay in Asgard, as collateral for his son's safety in our territory, and a measure of goodwill.
"This council is about Thor, his actions, and our response. This council is about who will live among and learn from the Asgardians. This council is about diplomacy and who of us is best suited to, at least temporarily, abandon their patron duties and all that they know in the name of a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with a group we have ignored for too long. This may be the first step in insuring our lasting survival in this era. The threats of Kronos and Typhon have already been brought up."
"I'll go," Athena stood up almost immediately. "I can be a diplomat or a spy, father. I can learn and teach. I will represent Olympus."
"Woah, woah, woah," Hermes protested. "Diplomacy is my thing. Besides, if anything happens, I can be back faster than anyone else."
"And who will prepare for war with the Titans while you weave with the Asgardians, Athena?" Poseidon said, still fiddling with his coral. "Hermes, how will we coordinate without your messages, or are you afraid to face the consequences of your son's actions?"
"Oh, please, both of your mistake kids are hellish," Dionysus groaned. Poseidon crushed his coral in his fist. "I'll fucking go; not like I'm doing anything but helping Chiron watch the brats."
"Yeah, that will look great to the Asgardians," Aphrodite sneered. "You don't even bother to brush your teeth, and you still smell like cheap wine after three decades of sobriety-"
"Cheap wine?"
"Zeus, I'm sure you've already decided who will be going," Hera said. "Put an end to this bickering, please."
"I have," Zeus replied. "Apollo."
"What?"
"Odin sent his son, I'll send mine."
"But the sun! Music, prophecies, archery-"
"There are enough minor gods to take care of your duties in your absence."
"And when Typhon wakes? How are you going to fight a Titan without me and my bow?"
"You will be recalled to Olympus if our enemies rise. In the meantime, Artemis is more than capable of archery."
"Artemis isn't even here-"
"It is my decision."
Ororo didn't want to bother Charles. He was still struggling with that headache she was sure he was downplaying, not to mention the near constant ringing of the phone he insisted nobody could help him answer. But a child simply walking onto the property as far as she did, something Logan could barely do undetected, seemed to be a big enough reason to both pull Charles away from his work and to update the mansion's security.
She led the child, Lyra, she had said, into a drawing room. Logan should be bringing Charles here shortly. Lyra took a short look around the room and then stared at Ororo, her eyes unsettlingly empty. And…red, a bright red like some cheap Halloween costume contacts. "Would you like to sit down?" She asked, gesturing to the couch and the few chairs that arced around the room, facing the ornate fireplace. Lyra sat down cross-legged on the floor where she stood, not breaking eye contact.
Her cloak tented around her, just barely splitting around and giving Ororo a glimpse of what she wore beneath. Leather, it looked like, matching the boots on her feet, and a green fabric. "My name is Ororo Monroe," she said. "I'm from Cairo, in Egypt, but I've traveled all over Africa and North America. Where are you from?" Lyra furrowed her brow. "Where did you live before coming here?" Ororo rephrased.
"My mommy made me a room to live in."
She wasn't understanding the question, Ororo realized, and she had a slight accent Ororo just couldn't place. "Was your room in New York?" Lyra shook her head. "New Jersey? Pennsylvania?" Ororo listed off the nearby states and Lyra kept shaking her head. "America?" Another head shake. "Do you know where your room was?" Head shake. "Do you know where you are now?"
"This is the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters."
"Thank you, Storm, I'll take it from here." Charles' voice filled her mind. Ororo relaxed, hearing a knock at the door. Charles rolled in seconds later. Logan stood behind him and motioned for her to leave the room. She smiled down at Lyra, though she didn't seem to see it; the child had turned her attention to Charles. A short list of tasks flooded her mind; Charles wanted a room prepared for Lyra, and for the other students to be kept away until he got to know the her. She set off to her tasks.
"Hello, Lyra. My name is Charles Xavier. Most of my students here call me Professor Xavier, or just Professor. This is my Institute, just for people like us. It's very nice to meet you, Lyra," He said, smiling at the child. He'd dealt with his fair share of scared, confused, or distressed kids before, and it seemed like Lyra fit squarely into the second category. Based on what Logan had told him, she didn't know where she was and she didn't know why she was here.
An interesting case, to say the least.
"You and I are something called 'mutants'. Do you know what that means?" The girl seemed to have psychic powers; normally Charles could hear everyone's surface-level thoughts just as easily as he could hear spoken words, and Jean had been working hard over the past year to hide those from other telepaths. Lyra's surface thoughts were silent, and he didn't want to pry deeper. She shook her head again. "It means we have special powers that make us different from most people. For example, Ororo, or Storm, as we call her, can control the weather, and Logan can heal very quickly."
"What can you do?" Lyra asked.
"I can hear the thoughts of others," Charles replied. "Although I cannot hear yours. Don't worry, I'm not trying to invade your privacy. Most people have very loud thoughts. Do you have a similar gift?" Lyra shook her head. "That's alright. I've heard you've mentioned your mother sent you here. I'd love to hear about her."
"My mommy trained me," Lyra replied. "She taught me to be powerful. The most powerful. She had to send me here because she made a mistake. I'm here to get stronger and then mommy will come back to get me."
"Who is your mother?"
"She's the most powerful woman in the world."
"What's her name?"
"I don't know."
Evan was glad that Monday was almost over. His last class of the day, was something he actually enjoyed; the teacher didn't care what he did. Evan preferred to mind his own business in the back of the classroom, watching the latest sports highlight compilations on his phone. The class was mostly empty, just like every class that day had been, and none of his friends had shown up.
Meaning, Evan was alone in class with half a dozen nerds he'd never talked to (beyond asking for the homework answers a few times), some kids whose parents had obviously forced them to be there, and that doucheass Pietro.
Pietro usually left him alone and did his work, like the responsible student he pretended to be, but today he seemed intent on getting his ass beat. "I mean, we might as well start using our powers, y'know?" God. How many times was he gonna say that, right out in the classroom? If the nerds weren't loudly arguing about their Pokémon cards or whatever, they'd have some explaining to do.
"Could you actually piss off?" Evan replied. He'd been trying his best to ignore Pietro for the past twenty minutes, but he'd left his headphones in his room that morning, making it kind of hard to block out whatever came spilling out of his mouth.
"Think about it, we could be just as famous as Stark! All we have to do is flaunt what we got. The others and I are gonna make a grand demonstration, after this New York shit dies down, and get our names written in gold along with the Avengers!"
Wow, this dude was actually braindead. "You think being a little fast makes you Avengers material? Please, you'd get splatted like a bug on a windshield." Besides, using powers in public was a surefire way to get on some government hit list. The Prof had drilled that into his head enough times for Evan to dream about it.
Pietro shrugged. "I'm offering, if you want to join us in fame and fortune. As a friend."
"A friend?" Evan couldn't help but to laugh. "We haven't been friends since you stole my shit and left me strapped for two thousand to fix that locker room you trashed!"
"Water under the bridge, my dear Evan." He moved back to easily dodge Evan's fist. "Tell your X-Buddies that they're invited, too, whenever we decide to do it. I know Lance would love to see Kitty Cat come along for the ride."
Stark Tower was decorated in the kind of minimalistic décor Bruce had thought only existed in magazines and on trash reality television. He never would've guessed that Tony would decorate his own building in white and grey and black and furniture with legs so thin it seemed to float. The guest bedroom-more of an apartment, honestly-Tony had led him to after the doctors finally gave him the medical 'all clear' had almost zero personal touches. He was longing for some sort of personalization or clutter or anything.
He kept the tv on. It took up almost an entire wall, and Animal Planet was having a marathon of a show about kittens, puppies, whatever a baby hedgehog was called, piglets, and every other baby animal that could be caught on camera. The soft tinkling background music was overlaid by little squeaks from the animals and soft narration, accented by occasional commercials for dog food and kitty litter and heartworm pills and orthopedic socks.
It was mindless and relaxing and not at all stressful.
Bruce fiddled around the room, apartment, suite, whatever, half listening to the television, scanning through the pulp books adorning the floating bookshelves, flipping through the fashion and gossip magazines tucked in a drawer on the coffee table, doing anything to occupy his mind.
He was starting to go stir crazy. Bruce hadn't left the room since he closed the door behind himself two days ago, out of fear that any little thing would set him off. Now, he was wondering if having nothing to set him off would actually be the thing to set him off. Did that even make sense?
Bruce showered and dressed himself in a plain black t-shirt and jeans, ignoring how Tony had managed to get his exact size without asking him. He probably had some kind of body mass scanners built into the building. Bruce made his way to the door, pausing with his hand on the doorknob for almost a full minute before holding his breath and pulling it open.
The hallway was empty, but did add shades of red to the otherwise consistent color scheme. A welcome change.
Bruce wandered the halls, finding himself lost almost immediately. Still, it wasn't too hard to find an elevator and he got in.
Where the hell were the buttons?
"What floor, Dr. Banner?"
Bruce almost jumped, but remembered something Tony had said about his A.I. It's name was Jackson, or Justin, or something. He hadn't been paying much attention, but he still racked his brain for anything Tony had mentioned about it. What an interesting piece of technology. He'd never looked much into Artificial Intelligence, it wasn't in the area of computer science he had fallen into when he started working on computational physics. "Um, Tony's lab?"
"Mr. Stark has asked me to inform you that you have full freedom throughout his labs, but to not touch his armors," the A.I. responded. "Which lab would you like to visit?"
Which lab? "How many does he have?"
"There are eleven floors of labs in the tower. There is a robotics development lab, a biophysics lab, a medical research facility, a chemical development lab, a-"
"Where does Tony spend most of his time?"
"He has his own personal lab, where he develops his armors and prototypes for new products."
"That one." The elevator began humming softly, the only indication that it was moving. Within seconds, the elevator doors slid open, and Bruce stepped out into Tony's lab. "Thank you, um…"
"I am Jarvis."
"Yeah. Thanks, Jarvis." The lab was shaped in a giant oval and, judging by the far window, it was near the top of the tower. A few suits of armor in various states of construction and disrepair were hung on one wall, and the other wall was covered in enough tools to build Rome in a day, all organized in a way that Bruce was sure was Tony's own system. It looked like disorganized chaos to him.
Tables covered in trinkets and blueprints were scattered throughout the floor, and as he stepped past each project, holographics popped up detailing the finer details of the project and the obscure science principles that would make each little thing work. He stopped in front of a tiny sphere the size of a pea that faintly glowed a deep blue. The blueprints proclaimed it to be an 'Edible Doctor 0.4.9', and the hologram beside it elaborated.
The blue ball was supposed to be a pill that could diagnose any number of internal conditions, from stomach ulcers to pregnancy to a failing liver, almost instantly. Ambitious, but it was obvious that Tony had focused more on the technical aspects of the device, fitting so many transmitters and sensors into the small robot that he seemed to have completely ignored making it safe for human consumption, or even resistant to the PH level of stomach acid.
Bruce could've rolled his eyes if he wasn't so glad to have something to occupy himself with. He set to work scrawling over the flaws in the blueprints, quickly figuring out how to operate the holographic and modifying the design.
He was just getting into the flow of things when he heard loud footsteps behind him. Bruce whipped around, seeing Tony walking towards him from the elevator. "Hey, Tony. I hope you don't mind, but you had some obvious issues with this pill. I wrote some notes down."
"Oh, good. I was planning on handing that design down to my scientists, but I wasn't sure if I should hand it off to medical research or biological nanotech," Tony said. He leaned over Bruce's shoulder and glanced over the new blueprints. "Why'd you change the shell from an aluminum alloy?"
"Stomach acid could dissolve the aluminum and damage the electronics inside."
"Yeah, I want it to be digestible."
Bruce tried to tap the hologram, quickly adjusting to a gesture when his finger fell through the nonexistent screen. "The lithium in your batteries could kill someone. You'll have to change out something if you want this thing to be safe."
"Oh, shit." Tony scrolled through the hologram. "Thanks, Bruce, I owe you."
"I'd say I owe you, instead. You've gotten SHIELD, and every government in the world, really, off my ass." It would've been so easy to turn him in instead, and Bruce knew Fury would've rather put him in a seven foot thick lead coffin somewhere in Antarctica.
Tony shrugged. "It's whatever. But hey, listen, I've got something I want your input on. Something really cool."
Now his interest was piqued. Tony hadn't been phased by SHIELD's helicarrier, so that put whatever he was about to see at a few orders of magnitude above that. "Let's hear it."
"Alright, so I've got a blueprint drafted for some preliminary floorplans," Tony said, leading Bruce out of the lab and into the elevator. "Bedrooms, conference rooms, living spaces, training areas-"
"Hold on, hold on," Bruce cut in, holding his hands up. "Training rooms? Tony, what, exactly, do you have blueprints for?"
"Well, you know how we all kind of decided to keep the Avengers together-"
"In case of threats to the world, Tony."
"Yeah, but I'm three world threats deep," Tony replied. "So, if the next three years are going to be as crazy as the last three, I'd rather have us all together. You, me, Thor, Cap, Clint, Nat, and no SHIELD."
"Widow and Hawkeye work for SHIELD, Tony. I don't know how you think you're going to get them without SHIELD, even if your little Avengers plan does play out," Bruce said, following Tony into what was likely his office. Sure, it had been nice to finally be appreciated for what he could do, but The Other Guy was a little too dangerous, even if they had reached an agreement in recent months.
"Yeah, I've got some people working on that," Tony said. "But, look, I think this could work." Tony pulled up a hologram of a mansion, enlarging and manipulating the image until it was a top-down view. The floorplan was visible for all six floors, depending on how deep in the image Bruce focused. "This is the Stark Manor. It's currently an art museum, but that collection won't be too hard to relocate. It's already got a pretty deep basement with fortified rooms. My father was a security nut, for all the good it did him, so that could be expanded without much trouble."
The hologram rotated and changed to have about a dozen or so basement floors instead of three, in the shape of a pyramid. It flickered between the original hologram of the manor and the new one. Bruce inspected the layout, and he had to admit it was pretty impressive.
"So I was thinking that we can have an underground hangar, too, since there's enough space on the grounds to get a small jet out, if it can lift off vertically, but that's almost a non-issue," Tony continued. "I'm almost at a prototype stage for some jets, since I can just integrate the Iron Man tech into a much larger scale-"
"Alright," Bruce finally cut him off. He knew how scientists got when they discussed a passion project. "I'm in, just to get you to shut up. But I don't want to do anything other than research. The Other Guy has no reason to come out unless Loki comes back with another army."