The end of the call was like a trigger to the engineer's brain.

Everything suddenly clicked into place.

Staring at the screen in horror, Tony took a moment to fully digest the information he had stumbled upon, before jumping from his chair and running for the door.

"Jarvis, call the others. We have a problem."

God damn stupid elevators!

Tapping irritably at the button labelled '71', Tony ignored Jarvis as he stated that continuously hitting the button would not make the hunk of metal move faster.

"Jarvis, remind me later to put some arc powered accelerators on the private lift."

"Yes sir."

Glancing up at the screen counting off the floors as they went past, chocolate brown eyes closed in frustration. How could he have been so stupid! Granted, he had thought that Obadiah was his friend and that the government wasn't that much of a dick, but still!

Reaching up to tug harshly at his perfectly styled hair, Tony blinked widely as the elevator made a customary dinging sound as it arrived to the top floor. Hardly giving the doors a chance to open, the engineer raced down the hallway and into the sitting room.

Looking up from where he was sitting at the kitchen table, Agent Coulson puckered his brow. "What's wrong Mr Stark? Jarvis just announced that you needed to see us urgently."

Breezing his way past the slightly older man, Tony ignored the question; instead, sweeping everything unceremoniously off the table and onto the floor. Including Coulson's completed reports and half full mug of coffee.

Staring at the caffeine splattered paperwork he had just finished, Phil snapped his head back up and eyed him with his 'I'm a Special Agent for SHIELD, don't fuck with me' look. "Why did you just vandalize my reports?"

"Oh-um I need the table."

Shifting chairs out of the way, Tony skimmed his hands along the underside of the glass slab, until he came across a switch and flicked it on. One of the many pains of moving or redecorating was that he always had a few items that Jarvis couldn't hack into until he had manually turned them back on.

"Jarvis," he yelled out, ignorant to the look Coulson was sending an equally baffled Harry behind his back. "Bring up folder divorce plan A, and the last folder I was skimming through in the lab."

Not even a second later, the glass slab came to life with documents, videos and designs. Making sure that everything was there; Tony turned around to face the team, but frowned when he noticed that they were two short.

"Where's Pussy Galore and ol' Stars'n'Stripes?"

"Right here."

Making their way down the hall and into the living room, a sweaty Natasha and Steve glared at the billionaire for the nick-names.

"Call me that again Stark, and your new title to tack to that ridiculously long list, will be 'unic'."

Too frazzled to take in the assassin's warning completely, Tony just nodded and turned back to the table. He still couldn't believe that he hadn't known about this; how could he have not known about this? He's a certified genius! How the hell did they keep this away from him?

"Tony?"

Feeling a soft, warm and extremely familiar hand land on his shoulder, Tony slumped in defeat.

"I figured it out."

The body beside him tensed in an instant. Out of everyone he had ever met, Harry was the only one that could tell exactly what he was saying without him full on spelling it out. Pepper could usually tell as well, but Harry was the one that understood every time.

"Figured what out?"

Breaking the silent conversation he was having with his husband, Tony turned around to face the confused team standing awkwardly behind him. "I figured out why the government wanted me and Harry apart."

Motioning for them all to sit down, Tony remained standing; pacing back and forwards. "It's no wonder I didn't find it sooner," he babbled, grabbing a plate of white choc macadamia cookies on his way past the kitchen bench. "I did put that gag order on Jarvis though, and I haven't exactly been active in the companies' system since the flash light was inserted, so really it's not my fault. It was their fault-"

Getting a bit dizzy from watching the genius round the room, Steve waited until the man made his way around the table for the umpteenth time, before reaching up, grabbing the genius by the shirt and shoving him into the seat next to him.

"Omph!"

Glaring at the smug looking blonde, Tony shuffled huffily in the ridiculously uncomfortable seat, and shoved another cookie into his mouth. "When Harry told me about the phone call he received, I brought up the footage saved by Jarvis, and took a quick squiz."

Raising an eyebrow, Natasha glanced at the rest of the group in a way that clearly said 'be quiet or suffer painfully'. The last thing Stark needed to know was that they had been eavesdropping on them. "What phone call?"

Spluttering, Tony eyed the group as they all looked back with polite confusion, and threw his hands up in exasperation. He was positive that he had already gone through all this with them; and if not, than Natasha, Clint and Coulson's natural curiosity and mad spy skills would have figured it out by now.

"You can't work with these people!" Stuffing another cookie between his lips, Tony moaned in appreciation; Harry's baking had always been to die for. Waving a crumb covered finger at the wizard, Tony coughed out. "You tell them love."

Rolling his eyes at the brunette, Harry forced down the blush that threatened to heat his cheeks as Tony let loose yet another orgasmic moan.

"Two months after Tony was captured, I received a phone call from one of the search teams," he mumbled, the information laid out on the table remained ignored by all. "The soldier told me that they had found the place Tony had been kept, and what was left of him. I refused to believe that he was dead until I saw the truth for myself. We've figured that I must have arrived at the camp an hour or two after Tony had escaped. There was still smoke and fire everywhere, and because of the amount of blood he had lost during his stay, my detection spells kept saying that he was in the mess of dead bodies and destroyed weapons."

"The soldier's name isn't important," Tony continued, the empty plate motivating him to start talking once more. "But who he was working for is."

Swiping his finger, the engineer watched as a photo featuring a sour looking soldier with grey hair and moustache to match, expanded to take up half of the screen.

"General Ross," Bruce whispered. His face crumpled with the memories of long past.

Nodding, Tony went to continue, but halted when the sound of thunder rolled its way through the tower. Glancing up at the roof, the team waited as another rumble echoed through the room with a shot of lightening following not long after.

Grinning, Clint turned back to the others, and put on his best Jack Nicolson impression. "Here's Johnny!"

The journey to Midguard for the God of Thunder was much easier than the time before. With the help of the Tesseract, the All-Father had not needed to conjure up as much dark energy to return him to this realm. Thinking back on his Father's proud face as he sent his eldest son back to the world he cared for so much, Thor waited for the end of the bridge to appear, before beginning the twirl of his hammer.

The trip to New Mexico had taught the blonde to always slow down before exiting the Bifrost, for fear of crashing head first into the ground and hitting a minivan.

Watching the dot before him grow larger and larger, Thor smiled ecstatically as the blurs of colour sharpened to the point that he could make out clouds and buildings. The last leg of the Bifrost disappeared in a whirl of colour and light, leaving the Asguardian to plummet quickly to the ground.

Tightening his hold on Mjolnir, Thor swung the mighty weapon above his head. The decent quickly slowed, and within mere seconds, he was stationary in the air. Keeping the momentum on his swing, Thor glanced around the area; his face threatening to split in two when he caught sight of the magnificent building sparkling in the afternoon sun.

His friend Stark was truly a visionary if he could design such a wondrous monument.

Calling forth the storm clouds the Bifrost had summoned, the blonde summoned a series of lightning bolts in happiness. Whirling around the mighty weapon, Thor hurled himself through the air and towards the mighty structure. Rain started to pour heavily against his face, as the Asguardian thumped on to the Iron Man landing pad.

"Point Break!"

Lifting his drenched head, Thor stood quickly from the crouching position he had landed in, as grinned broadly. His fellow warriors stood crowded around the doorway, none daring to go further for fear of getting wet. Striding his way towards them, Thor ignored the fact that he was soaked down to the bone, and grabbed Clint; whom happened to be the closest, and dragged him into a rib cracking hug.

"My friends," he boomed, letting go of the squeaking archer so that he could wrap his arms around the next person. "It is good to be among you once more."

Grunting in pain as a large hand belted down on his back, Bruce winced in agreement. "It's good to see you too Thor."

Ducking out of the way, just as an arm aimed for his shoulder, Coulson nodded a greeting to the Norse God. "It is nice to see you once more, Mr Odinson. I trust that the case of Mr Laufyson has been taken care of?"

Shaking off the excess water in his mattered hair, Thor felt his shoulders droop at the mention of his brother. "'Ey," he answered. "The All-Father was not as sparing as I had hoped. Loki has been sent to the realm of the Niflheim; to be bound to the Gjoll and watched by his daughter Hel until such time as the Ragnarok."

Not understanding a word the God had just spewed out, Tony nodded his head vacantly. "Yeah," he said slowly, his mind still trying to figure out what Ragnarok meant. "I think I just hit my daily dose of things to not look up."

Clapping his hands, the billionaire motioned for them all to once more sit down, as he grabbed another plate of cookies and passed it over to the drenched blonde. "Here you go Sparky. Love could you do something about the leaky faucet before I have to order a new carpet."

Not even bothering to reply, Harry waved his hand at the Asguardian, and muttered a quick spell. Blinking at the sudden chill breezing over him, Thor glanced down at his now dry chest and grinned warmly. "Thank you friend Harry, this is a most wonderful trick."

Shaking his head in amusement, Harry smiled softly as Tony leant over and placed a scratchy kiss on the corner of his lip.

"Not that I'm all for watching the happy couple go at it," Natasha snarked, clearly not in the mood to be sitting at the table for much longer. "But you had something to show us?"

Pulling away from the soft skin he had found just below his husband's ear, Tony glanced over at the red head and frowned. He was so going to get her back.

"Right." Pushing the photo away with a finger, the engineer sifted through the folder for a second, before enlarging another. This man looked to be in his fifties, the lack of hair not helping. "So Ross was the one to order the phone call to Harry-"

"What phone call?"

"-but he wasn't the only one. Jarvis, play the message found in Obadiah's system."

"Yes sir."

"Hey Ross, just rang to let you know that the dumbass has decided to scrap the project. He says that it is 'not worth his time', so if you want the bloody thing built, then you're going to have to find someone else. The rest of the plan is to still go ahead; Stark will be in Afghanistan next week so make sure that your boys are in position. I'll take care of the other one. Remember Ross, no loose ends."

The group sat quietly as the message played out, each listening to every word said in case it was important. Waiting for the audio to finish, Steve frowned. "So you're saying that this man, Obadiah, was also in on the plan?"

Nodding, Tony turned to the brunette beside him and winced. He hoped that the wizard didn't go off at him, but knowing his luck. "Do you remember that weekend we spent watching Star Wars and drinking all that soft drink?"

Raising an eyebrow, Harry grinned. "How could I forget? You set the house on fire after attempting to make a light saber."

Ignoring the chuckling sound coming from the birdbrain at the other end of the table, Tony continued.

"Do you remember what else I came up with?"

Any amusement that the wizard may have felt, was quickly washed away. Seeing the signs of an impending blow out, Tony raised his hands in self defence. "I know you told me to destroy it," he shouted, clenching his eyes shut as his body slid further down the chair. "But they were really good designs, and I buried them so deep that no-one should have been able to find them, let alone figure them out! And you said the same thing about the C-78, and that high powered jet, and the Robot ferret- ok, I should have listened to you on that one- but it was still really cool, and- why aren't you yelling at me?"

Waiting quietly for the genius to finish rambling, Harry stared down at his crossed arms and thought over what had happened. The addition to Tony's dumb ass idea really did answer a lot of questions he had previously had, but that didn't mean that Harry wasn't pissed. He had begged his husband to delete the design and forget about it, and Tony had sworn that he had.

"Um," not sure if he wanted to get between the pair, but needing answers, Steve coughed lightly. "What designs are you talking about."

Ripping his gaze away from the brooding wizard, Tony turned his attention back to the table, and sifted through the folder once more. Finding the file he was after, chocolate brown eyes watched as the blue and white designs filled the space.

"This," he waved at the screen, half in pride, the other in shame. "Was something that I came up with in a caffine, sugar coated hype, about a year before I stopped all weapons manufacturing. It was meant to be the first line of AI's to take over human soldiers in combat conditions."

Holding his hand up, Clint eyed the billionaire in exasperation. "Are you telling me," he spoke, jabbing a finger at the design. "That you designed a walking, talking version of the Iron Man that could think all on its own?"

Jerking his head in agreement, Tony glanced over at his husband, but quickly turned back when he could feel the temperature drop.

"Mr Stark," Couslon hissed, staring down at the engineer like he had just caught the man planning to blow the city up. "Of all the irresponsible, reckless, idiotic things you have done, this really takes the cake-"

"I know!" Unable to sit down any longer, Tony jumped from the chair. His hand automatically reaching for a tuff of hair. "It was never meant to go any further than this. Harry was the only one that knew about it, and he begged me to delete it, but the programming I had started writing was just too prefect to toss away; so I buried it."

Folding his arms, Steve puckered his eyebrows. "And now you're saying that someone found them and decided to build this robot?"

Nodding, Tony huffed loudly. "Obadiah was a friend of my Dad's and a better Father to me than my own ever was. I didn't find out that he had the entire chair board dealing underneath the table until I had built the first suit."

Snapping to attention at that piece of information, Harry stood from his own seat and made his way over to the torn man. "I didn't know that," he confessed, wrapping his arms around his husband's firm shoulders. "I heard that he had died, but I didn't know that he was doing such a thing."

Taking in the warmth and love from the hug, Tony looked at the rest of the team and pushed on. "My Will has a lot of fine print in it, but one factor that Obadiah always knew about, is that if I die, Harry receives everything. I was already doubting the continuation of weapons before Afghanistan, Obadiah knew that. He kept coming to me with old designs; I didn't even really look at, trying to get me to continue on. I think the only thing that stopped him from taking it to someone else half of the time, was the fact that I write most of my notes in code."

Bruce hummed in agreement. "When you asked me to look over that paper on the Arc reactor, it took me some time to figure it out."

Pushing the brunette back into his chair, Harry nodded too. "That's nothing compared to what it used to be like," he mused, ignoring the glowing numbers. "He showed me this paper on simple string theory when we were first dating, and I couldn't make out what language it was, let alone the actual content."

Snorting, Clint waved for them to go on.

"So from what I've gathered," Tony mumbled, his eyes not leaving the table. "Obi took the design to Ross, promising him the AI if he would in turn, help get rid of me and Harry."

"I understand the need to remove you," Thor frowned, his plate empty. "But why Harry?"

"Because I would have received the company," Harry explained patiently to the God. "And Obadiah would have known that the first thing I would have done is shut down the weapon's department like Tony was planning. With both of us out of the way, he had full control of the company and what they did."

"So from what we heard in the message," Natasha persisted, the pieces in her mind falling into place. "Obadiah passed on the design so Ross could still make it. Who would he been able to convince to do that?"

Swiping the screen once more, Tony pushed all the files aside and brought up a map of the world; small blue dots appearing in random places. "I've been thinking about that," he mused, his hair standing at all ends. "There's only a few people that would have been able to understand the design, and even less that would have been able to complete it. Doc, wanna give me a hand?"

Pulling his glasses out of his pocket, Bruce peered down at the map and hummed. "Well General Ross defiantly wouldn't have looked outside of America for help, he's patriotic that way; so we don't have to look any further than that."

The map zoomed in automatically, making Steve and Thor widen their eyes in surprise.

"Both you and Reed Richards can be taken off the list," Tony muttered, chocolate brown eyes watching as two lights went out. "And I think that we can take Xavier off the list too; he's too much of a softy to build my weapons."

Nodding in agreement, Bruce frowned when one particular light stood out in the north-west region. "Who's that?" he queried, pointing at the light. "I don't remember anyone with these qualifications in New York."

Frowning, Tony glanced over at the light. "I don't know; it better not be Hammer though, I thought that I gave Jarvis more brains than that."

Clicking on the dot, the team watched as a detailed description and previous academic list came up, along with a picture of a blonde haired, blue eyed man.

Raising an eyebrow, Bruce flicked his gaze up to the engineer. "I thought Pym was in Africa doing his whole subatomic particles experiment?"

"So did I." Whirling around to face the SHIELD agents, Tony scowled. "Did you lot know about this?"

Shaking his head, Coulson glanced down at the file, his phone already in his hand. "As far as we were aware, Dr Pym and his assistant were in Africa. Excuse me, I have to make a call."

The plain suited man stalked his way out of the room, leaving behind a very worried pair of scientists. Glancing back at each other, the pair silently mused over the recent discovery.

"Well," Tony hummed, breaking the staring contest so that he could eye the rest of the team. "I think we've got a lead on who's making Ross' army."