Chapter Twenty-Five

Icarus Wings

Andromeda Galaxy

Filipima System

Open Space

Loki's been… irritated, angry, and snappy a lot more than usual in the past two weeks. Tony expected him to be a little more… well, bitchy after the whole passing out thing, but this surprised even him. The god spent an incredible amount of time meditating in their room, when he was absolutely not to be disturbed. Sure, the whole thing with the Filipima Space Patrol was a reminder that he was nowhere near his full-power, so it was no surprise that he wanted to work more on regaining it. It was still ridiculous. He talked with Juyu more than he spoke with Loki, which was saying something. Most of the time he was silently brooding or glaring, but once in a while Tony caught him looking at him with an unreadable expression for a few moments before he turned and left, looking angry. So yeah, Loki was definitely still pissed about the extra trouble Tony hung around their necks.

He was also certain that Loki was bothered by showing his cards, so to speak. Tony did his best to not even hint at what happened after they got away from the Patrol because of that. Loki trusted him, he knew that for sure. He considered him safe and trusted him to keep him safe when he was weak. That was a big deal. A big fucking deal. He also knew that Loki never wanted him to know that, so bringing it up would be just like rubbing Loki's nose in it. And Tony was not that big an asshole to point at a moment of weakness like that. Loki was prideful, it would make him angry beyond words. It was best to treat it like it was no big deal. He did that with most things about Loki. Sometimes Tony felt like Loki expected to be pointed at or looked at like he was a freak of nature when it came to his peculiarities. He wondered about that, but he did not know enough about Asgard to make any accurate guesses and he knew for a fact that it would be unwise to ask Loki about it. He turned against his own people and family for a reason, right? And there was that whole adoption thing Thor mentioned that he still knew nothing about. But he did not ask, not now anyway. Don't disturb the sleeping lion as they say, especially when said lion is very grumpy to begin with.

For that exact reason, while he was busy working on his suit, he still took the time to make the armour pieces he promised for Loki's boots. He could not do the vambraces unless Loki told him exactly what kind he wanted, so those were not ready yet. He left the metal to cool after he finished with the straps on them while he cleaned up on his workshop table.

He was finally finished with the DNI prototype for his suit. It was nowhere near as complex and perfect like the one the ship had, but he would not need to control so many systems with it either, so in theory it was supposed to work. He was also almost completely finished with the boots and the gauntlets. Now modifying the Mark V model – when he did not even have the original blueprints – was really quite a feat, if he could say so himself. Well, who was he kidding? It was an incredible feat, the modified design was better than the original, he was a genius. Unlike the original Mark V, he needed this suit in three main pieces instead of one. Luckily the smaller crystals they bought last time proved to be just what he needed for it. Each boot and gauntlet had a small energy source to operate on its own to a certain extent. They certainly had enough power to keep them connected to the DNI and to start the automatic assemble when needed or even to operate on their own for a while without having to connect to the main part of the suit. To not make any of them too thick and heavy, the boots contained the full-length armour for the legs, the gauntlets for the arms and the main chest piece had the helmet, and waist areas. It was great too, that in their deactivated form, the gauntlets almost looked like vambraces, so he had his fingers free. He would have to make quite a few tests in order to make sure that the three pieces connected smoothly. Well, it was technically five pieces, but the controls for the two boots and two gauntlets were connected, because they would always be activated together. The suit would still use power from his arc reactor of course, but the additional crystals gave him a lot of extra energy, so he did not have to rely on his reactor alone. The reactor kept him alive, it would be not too smart to tinker with it much, unless he had a sure way of building a new one. He did not.

With the DNI done he could get to his favourite part. Test flight. He was absolutely sure that everything was working just fine, but with the addition of the crystals along with the new energy type he used, he could not know for sure how to calibrate them. He had enough space in the cargo area for a little lift-off. Bigger tests would have to wait until they reached the next suitable planet.

The main piece of the armour, the actual chest plate, was half-done. He still needed to do a lot of work on the electronics, find a way to add a few crystals and of course all without making it too heavy. He had to be able to carry its weight without activating it. Luckily, alyndor was perfect to solve that problem, but it would still take some time to get used to it. At least it's going to keep him in shape. He still needed to work on the helmet, but he would be done after that. It felt good to see the end of a project. If all went well he could be done after a few days of hard work. Worst case scenario was two weeks, if the tests did not end well.

When he was done putting his tools away he grabbed Loki's armour pieces and headed towards their room. He could've called Loki to the workshop through the intercom, but being face-to-face always made it easier to get the god to actually listen.

He found him sitting on the floor in their room, like many times in the past days.

'What do you want, Stark?' the god asked as soon as the door opened. His tone was biting again.

'Hello to you too, grumpy. I have your new armour pieces.'

Loki opened his eyes and turned his head towards him, taking in Tony's dishevelled look, his eyes glancing up and down for a second. Yeah, so his sleeveless shirt was dirty as hell and his hair was way too long and chaotic, but he never really bothered with appearances while working.

'Yes, I know. I stink and I'm dirty. That happens when it comes to metalwork, you know with the hot as hell forge and the heavy physical work.'

Loki stood up without making any comment and Tony held out the armour pieces for him.

'You're getting better at this,' Loki remarked after taking them.

'Yeah, practice makes master,' Tony shrugged.

'Indeed.'

'Don't expect me to ever learn your fancy engraving skills though,' Tony continued.

'That is quite alright,' Loki answered. 'I would not trust your taste anyway.'

That came out a lot less sharp as his previous words, so Tony took it as a good sign.

'By the way, I'm ready to test out my new fancy boots,' he told him. 'Wanna come?'

'Now why would I be interested in that?' Loki asked while he walked to put away the armour pieces. He did not want to work on the enchanting just yet then.

'Because I will either fly around so I need someone to witness my genius, or I miscalculated and will crash into a wall, in which case you are allowed to laugh, well snicker, a little… quietly.'

Loki turned back around and Tony caught a hint of a smile on his face.

'Oh very well, if you insist so,' he said. 'And while I'm there I could give you my instructions for my new vambraces.'

'I knew you did not forget about those,' Tony said and followed Loki when he turned to leave the room.

Tony did not like the silence, so he continued talking on their way there.

'So, the engraving you did for your vambraces look pretty damn awesome. Snakes are not really my thing, but even I could see that there is quite some talent-'

'Save your flattery and just say what you want,' Loki interrupted.

'I was thinking whether you could be convinced to do just a little something-something for my suit.'

Loki frowned a bit. 'I thought you did not want magic anywhere near your technology,' he said.

'Oh, I'm not talking about enchantment, but the regular engraving.'

'You want me to decorate your armour?'

'Okay, so the reason I came up with this new suit design is because I want to be able to have it on me without carrying around a big conspicuous case. It's impractical. Rule #3, don't pack more than you can carry. So this way whenever we land I will be already wearing my suit, only it will not look like a suit. It will look like regular armour.'

'Practical and hidden in plain sight,' Loki concluded. 'That is indeed smart.'

'Thank you. Now, after I looked at what you did with your armour and vambraces, I realized that even in its deactivated mode it's still too… unusual looking. Especially with the crystals, cause some of them are on visible places. But, if it would have some vaguely similar designs to your armour, then…'

'It would be believable that it is just personalized armour, while making the energy crystals look like simple decorations,' Loki finished instead of him. 'I imagine that the weapons in your armour are also hidden while it's deactivated.'

'I don't have as many weapons in it as in my usual suits, but yeah, what little I have are not noticeable.'

'Very well,' Loki nodded. 'What did you have in mind?'

'Nothing over the top, okay? I was thinking like on the outer side of the gauntlets, the side of the boots, and maybe shoulder area.'

'Helmet?'

'That doesn't need decoration.'

'And not fond of snakes, what exactly do you want to have on it then?'

'I don't know, something non-figurative?' Loki huffed.

'That is so ordinary,' he said. 'Symbolism is important even if it is not magical in nature. What warriors wear on their armours is always symbolic and has its own personal meaning, not to mention it is supposed to send a message to all that see you.'

Tony thought about it for a bit, his mind completely blank. 'I have absolutely no idea,' he admitted.

'Your name means something that is strong and powerful, but also violent and fierce. Maybe you could do with some wolves.'

'Wolves?'

'Although you're more likely to follow your own mind and pursue knowledge and you do not necessarily have the spirit of a warrior. Stark can also mean something complete and absolute. Technology and science is the closest craft you humans have to the magical arts. The Yggdrasil maybe?'

'Yeah, but I'm Iron Man, I can't have a tree on my armour. It would confuse people.'

Loki chuckled. 'You are proving yourself quite a forger, an inventor, a creator.'

'Fire then?'

'I say creation, you say fire. Most would not turn in that direction.'

'There's no creation without fire, there's always a big bang somewhere and it always includes some fiery inferno. Birth of a star, right there, huge explosion, the star is the sun for the planets, without its heat no life can exist. I'm not even gonna get into details, I proved it in one sentence.'

Loki smiled widely, this time even his teeth showed. 'Are you stating your opinion or are you flattering me again?'

'Don't let it go to your head Mr. God of Fire,' Tony chuckled. 'Fire sounds good, unless it's some tacky flames. Those are so out of style.'

'Dragon is a cliché. Phoenix?'

'Phoenix is not a cliché?'

'Not insofar as they are purely magical beings. A symbol used by sorcerers and alchemists, not warriors. It is a burning sun, rebirth after destruction by fire.'

'Chaos?'

'Sometimes,' Loki smiled.

'My armour, remember? Not yours.'

'Oh, but you have such a chaotic nature, Stark.'

'From you, I'll take that as a compliment.'

'Take it as you please.'

'Yeah alright, I actually like that. I even used it before.'

'Did you now?'

Tony thought back on his speech at the Stark Expo, the wild cheering crowd, the dancing Ironettes, and how he forced the wide smile on his face even if the palladium poisoning was almost the only thing he could think about around that time.

'Yeah,' he said. 'The crowd loved it. It was something like; "From the ashes of captivity never has a greater phoenix metaphor been personified in human history".'

'How humble.'

Tony laughed in answer to that. 'I built my first armour in captivity, so in a manner it was true. They tried to bring me down, steal what was mine and make me disappear, but instead I created something greater than ever before.'

'And destroyed them,' Loki finished.

'Barton told you that too?' Tony asked.

'No, it is just something you would do,' Loki said simply before glancing at him, his lips curling up into a smile. 'You have this thing for avenging.'

Tony couldn't help it, he laughed again.

x-x-x

When they arrived back to the workshop, they found Bee standing alone in the cargo area, just staring ahead of herself. The usual creepy display, Tony started to get used to it. Loki was not delighted to see her at all, and that was putting it mildly. He stayed at the workshop area while Tony walked a bit closer to the girl. He was starting to figure out how big a personal bubble she needed in order to not get tense and edgy. If you left her enough space, she was just a calm silent presence.

'Hey Bee,' he called, but he did not get a reaction. So Tony walked in front of her to get in her line of sight. 'Bee,' he called again and after a moment her currently green eyes focused on him. 'Doing alright there?' She blinked a few times, like she was just noticing where she was and nodded at Tony. He turned around to see what the girl was looking at, but there was nothing but a few boxes and crates.

'Did the boxes insult you or something? I could dish out some retribution,' he said, then smiled a little. She did not of course, but her brows did furrow a little in a curious manner. It was a lot better kind of look than the emotionless staring.

'Okay then,' Tony said, since he had nothing better to say. 'Feel free to stay, I will be flying, and I love having an audience.'

He smiled again and went back to the workshop area to put on the boots and gauntlets and the new DNI.

'You should not let them see what kind of technology you have at your disposal,' Loki warned leaning against the workbench.

'It's fine,' Tony told him.

'It is said that Skrulls are excellent spies,' Loki added.

'Yesterday, when Juyu didn't notice you coming into the kitchen, she chocked on a sip of water when she startled so hard that she almost fell out of her chair. Yeah, I can see how she's a master of subterfuge.'

Loki just sent him a mild glare in answer to that. Tony didn't care. It was funny. The first completely normal, innocent and ridiculous thing he saw her doing.

When he was done putting on everything he walked a bit further away from the workshop so he wouldn't destroy anything important in case of a miscalculation. With the gauntlets being operational he should have no problem with flight stabilization and everything else. He was still excited. This suit was like something new he had to build from scratch, and not just an upgraded version of the previous ones. He did not even have JARVIS this time. He had to do all calculations on his own. Alright, so Loki had a little input here and there, but mostly theoretical ones, and it was always Tony who had to work out the details and implementation.

Bee was looking at him curiously and Loki was also paying attention. Well, hopefully he won't smash to a wall. That would be embarrassing. He activated the new DNI and compared to the ship's controls there was a ridiculously small amount of incoming information. It was basically just two signals that told him that the boots and gauntlets were successfully connected. With this DNI he won't be getting too much input only after it was completely ready.

'Okay, if I catch on fire I do hope one of you will be kind enough to put it out.'

'I will try my best to save you from such a humiliating end,' Loki droned.

Oh well, here goes nothing. Since he was used to control the whole ship and all its systems via DNI, compared to that starting the thrusters and activating the gauntlets was nothing. He did not lift off from the ground that fast, but it was still a bit more sudden than he anticipated. He could luckily stabilize himself mid-air before he hit anything. The boots would have to be able to lift him up along with the full weight of the armour. Tony himself was too light in comparison. He took a few moments to get used to the connection, the feel of being in the air, but at this point he had a lot of practice with flying so it really did not take long.

'I accept congratulations right about now,' he said as he descended down a little and flew closer to Loki. The cargo area was really not big enough to properly test things out, but he had over a hundred feet in width and almost thirty feet in height even with the cargo and the workshop taking up a lot of space.

'Yes-yes, well done,' Loki said with the expected amount of enthusiasm. That is, none at all.

'I am writing history here. I'm combining technology from two different galaxies,' Tony insisted.

'Please, do not expect me to sing praises,' Loki said, but there was a mild smile on his lips again. That was basically a Loki seal of approval.

'Yeah, whatever,' Tony told him and flew a bit higher again, closer to the ceiling. 'I can fly, so I am awesome.'

He changed directions, slowed down, descended and flew up again to test his controls, but it was perfect. No glitches, no nothing. He certainly outdid himself with this one. It did not look like Loki would give him the deserved praise so he flew a bit down where Bee was standing looking at him.

'I bet you appreciate my genius,' he said. He grinned encouragingly, not that he expected any sort of reaction from the girl, but it could never hurt.

She tilted her head, looking at him hovering in the air. Then the skin started to ripple on her bare shoulders, the flesh shifting. Before Tony could open his mouth to ask what was going on something started to grow out of her back. Tony felt as his eyes widened at the sight. It was like the skin came alive. It stretched out and formed like it was skin-coloured plasticine, then it turned green like the girl's original skin. It took only a few moments, but Tony just stared in surprise all the while. Then the strange green appendages moved a bit, then shook and took on a more solid shape. In a blink it became clear. Wings.

'What the…?' he asked. Not feeling like a genius at the moment. The wings were green and thin, looked like something between batwings and insect wings. But he could not look at them for long, because the wings started beating, very fast to that, again like that of an insect's or like a hummingbird's. Bee lifted up to the air easily and reached the spot where Tony was hovering smoothly.

'Okay,' he said. It was a strange sight really. 'So you can fly too,' he stated the obvious.

He wanted to look at Loki and ask if he knew Skrulls could do this, but he was at the moment too fascinated by the rapidly flapping wings on the girl's back.

'I told you we could shapeshift into anything.'

Tony looked down where Juyu stood, looking up at them. He did not notice when she came in.

'I know I'm no expert, but I kinda just expected you to be able to shift to other people. You know like, changing colours, mimicking faces.'

'No, anything,' Juyu said. Bee started flying around a bit, with no care to the world. Maybe she was just inspired by Tony flying around.

'Animals?' Loki asked.

'Yes,' Juyu replied. 'But not all of us can change size considerably. That is a special skill.'

'And you can also shift partially as I see.'

'It is almost easier,' Juyu replied then her eyes slid over to her sister and watched her flitting around in the cargo hold. The expression on Loki's face told Tony that he was a lot more curious about it than he let on, but did not let him ask further questions.

'She did not fly for the sake of flying in a long time,' Juyu said wistfully while she walked a bit closer to where her sister was.

Tony landed and walked a bit closer to Loki. The god had his eyes on the flying girl.

'She totally stole the attention away from my new boots,' Tony said.

'We need to ask more questions about their powers and abilities,' Loki said.

'You think so?'

'We must know how great a danger they can actually be,' the god said. He knew that the girls could hear them, so Tony didn't even try to lower his voice.

'Or how great an asset,' Tony said. Loki finally looked at him. 'They've been behaving, no sign of ill intentions. It's been weeks. If they're our allies, their strength is our strength. Am I right?'

Loki seemed to contemplate that for a moment.

'I suppose,' he agreed finally. When Tony looked back at the girls again Juyu had wings too and she was up in the air with her sister. It was a strange sight, even for him.

'Come on,' he bumped Loki on the shoulder. 'We have a bunch of stuff to so, forging, engraving, time's ticking.'

He was surprised when Loki simply bound his hair together in a low ponytail with a leather band he pulled out of his pocket, then turned towards the workbench without arguing. Tony turned his attention back to his gauntlets.

'Next time you have a bad mood you could just come join me here,' he said. Not looking up at the god again. 'Something to work on always helps me clear my head, something to focus on, you know. It gets my mind off of things.'

'Yes, that would be good right about now,' Loki told him.

If Tony would have been the sharing and caring type, or someone who believed that everything could be solved with some talking, he might've asked more about it. But he knew himself and he liked to think that he knew Loki, so he was sure that this was not the time to push for answers. It would just make things worse. So instead, he asked what kind of new vambraces Loki wanted while answered Loki's inquiries about the engraving that would go on his suit. This was better, at least Loki looked a lot less angry. In fact, he looked almost completely peaceful, and that was very rare.

So he worked on his suit in the company of the God of Chaos while two Skrull girls were flying around in the cargo hold. Life was sometimes strange like that.

x-x-x

Skrull Trivia - Powers and Abilities

Shapeshifting:
Skrulls are able to alter their forms into that of anything they can imagine, be it organic or inorganic. It must, however, be solid. They can assume the form of someone but not their powers. When they imitate an inorganic object, they take on it's appearance, but not it's properties. They can also use their abilities to grow extra limbs. They have no apparent size limit, as they hev been seen to assume the form of a common housefly, and shapes many times larger than their normal selves.

Elasticity, Plasticity, Elongation:
Their shapeshifting abilities allow them to alter their bodies in much the same way as Mr. Fantastic, so that they can stretch to great lengths, or form other shapes with their bodies, such as balls, parachutes, or anything else.

Size Alteration:
They are also capable of altering their size independently of altering their form, allowing them to grow or shrink while maintaining their current form

Flight: They are able to fly by shapeshifting a pair of wings onto their back, or turning their arms into wings.

Mimicry:
Skrulls are cunning spies due to their ability to mimic sounds and voices. This is mainly used in conjunction with the shapes they shift into.

Weapon Formation:
Skrulls are able to use their shapeshifting abilities to form weapons with parts of their bodies. For instance, they can shape their arms into blades or clubs. This ability makes them dangerous hand-to-hand combatants.