CAEB - Those Nightmares we hide

by MikeyST

New York changed everything. But they'd never expected this. What Tony brings back through the wormhole sends the team on a journey that will push their delicate relationship to its very limits. Stark's reward for saving the world, is a voyage to gates of hell and they were all being dragged with him. Plenty of hurt and friendship fluff but no slash. Rated for language and violence

36. Chapter 36- Race Against Time

I got lost so many times when writing this chapter… I don't mean lost with what to write, but more like where the hell I am in the 70-page chapter and what the hell happened in the paragraph before this.

27,000 words is a ridiculous chapter length and I am sorry for the wait, but God I hope it was worth it. I tried really hard to tie up all those little loose ends I have been hinting at throughout this fic, I had to re-read the entire thing about 4 times to achieve it. I wasn't going to skimp, you guys deserve it done properly and I hope this has a bit of everything.

I really enjoyed writing this one. I hope it answers some questions and helps our beloved billionaire start moving in the right direction... eventually.

Trigger warning for self-harm.

Previously.

The countdown is on. The big day is approaching.

Still out of sorts from his breakdown, Tony is working full gas towards their final battle. Now able to cope with the noise the Makluhk's hive mind creates, his powers are strengthening rapidly. He is making great progress in the lab, but the portal closing machine, despite now having the completed algorithm is proving tricky to complete.

Thor had returned to Asgard after his injury fighting the Makluhk and learns that his father had been keeping information from them with regards to the foe they face, information which his mother agreed to share with him and is troubling him greatly.

Long before Tony gained control of the CAEB, he woke up to an injured Pepper, caused by the glass he had shattered in his sleep. Pepper's harsh words lead him into a panicked breakdown in the lab. Coaxed out it by Bruce and Rhodey, he reveals the cause of his nightmare to Bruce, and as a result his most guarded secret.

'…Tony had lost a fiancée and his unborn child in one night, and watched it happen.

"So, how did the crash happen?"

"That's where things get bad." Rhodey took a breath… Bruce's heart stopped. "Howard organized the crash?"

"You implied that Howard had abused him before."

"Yeah, something that Jarvis once said to me made me think that Tony's childhood was far from perfect… That's one thing that Tony has never told me himself and I doubt he ever will."'

Chapter 36- Race Against Time

14 days to go. Steve had asked that Jarvis put the countdown clock upstairs as well. Clint hated it. Apparently, it was to make them more focused, but it just made Clint feel sick. Watching the time slide away like this was killing him.

They saw less and less of each other each day and he was beginning to feel incredibly isolated. Tony had maybe come to the communal floor two or three times in the last week, he was there to eat and take a half hour break, but that was it. Clint only saw the rest of them at mealtimes, he spent his time training, or watching the clock. He felt pretty helpless really.

There was a familiar flash of blue energy that made a shiver run down his spine. Clint took a breath and turned around with a forced smile on his face. "Hey Thor. How's things?"

That damn tesseract was coming in useful, although Clint had hoped he'd never see it again after the battle he had to admit, they would be a little lost without it right now.

"Agent Barton, it is good to see you. Preparations on Asgard are going well."

"Glad to hear it." Clint tried to sound enthusiastic, he really did, but he was hardly pulling it off. Thor looked at his comrade and frowned in concern.

"You seem troubled."

"You know, just pre-battle nerves." Clint shrugged off the question.

"I understand." Thor nodded. "It is something with which I have much experience."

"I'll bet." Clint smiled weakly and the room fell silent for a moment. "How do you cope?"

Thor considered for a moment. "The worst part is the anticipation." He acknowledged. "Once you are in the heat of battle there is little time to be anxious."

Clint nodded a little despondently. He knew this from his own experience, but there were still 2 weeks to go. Usually he had only days, even hours to prepare for a mission, the preparation took up so much of his time, there was no time to get nervous.

"I think the only way to manage such feelings is through acceptance. Acceptance that you cannot control what happens, only prepare for it, and that worrying about it will grant no benefit. Acceptance that you may well lose your life, or your friends may lose theirs. The only comfort you can find is if your cause is worthy, that it is worth the lives sacrificed."

"Well I suppose saving the planet fits that." Clint conceded.

"Faith is powerful tool Barton. If you can believe in fate and accept that your path is out of your hands then it brings you peace."

"That's actually really helpful." Clint smiled. "Not easy, but helpful."

"That's why I also drink." Thor smiled.

Clint chuckleled. "Yes, I'm fairly sure that's Tony's go to method as well."

"Speaking of the man of iron, I must take these to him as he requested." Thor announced, holding up bag.

"He's in the shop, as usual." Clint said a little disappointed to be left on his own again so soon, which Thor seemed to notice.

"Perhaps when I have finished, I could show you how Asgardians drink away their troubles." Thor offered, and the light returned to Clint's eyes.

"I think I'd like that. Just don't tell the others."

"Yes, I believe that would be for the best."

…..

"What are you two doing?" Steve walked in on Clint and Thor, who were both lying on the rug at the centre of the common room laughing hysterically.

"Having a drink." Clint threw up his hands.

"Come, join us!" Thor boomed loudly.

"Yeah come on Steve, we're going to get absolutely hammered." Clint whooped.

Steve looked incredibly displeased. "I can't get drunk Clint."

"Oh Captain, you have to try Asgardian liquor, I guarantee you will become completely inebriated."

"He wouldn't let me try it." Clint grumbled. "Chuck us another beer." He gestured at Thor.

"I think you've had enough." Steve frowned.

"I'm not even tipsy."

"Clint, you are lying on the floor."

"Come on Steeeve don't be boring, have a drink."

"I don't think so."

"Oh, come one loosen up! Enjoy yourself a little."

Was Clint seriously doing puppy dog eyes on him? "Fine one drink." What harm could it do after all?

Clint whooped. "Yess Steve." He yelled, surprised that the Captain had caved to his drunken (yes, he admitted he was definitely a little bit drunk) request.

Thor sat up and poured a few drops of his Asgardian into a glass of whiskey and handed it over to the super soldier.

….

Half an hour later…

"Tony."

"Not now Tash I'm busy."

"You'll want to see this." Natasha held back a chuckle.

"Pretty sure I won't." Tony grumbled, more than a little annoyed at the distraction.

"Steve is Drunk."

Tony looked up sharply, taking a moment.

"Did you just say Steve is drunk?" He asked again, incredulously. He was exhausted, and hallucinations weren't out of the question. Natasha nodded simply.

"No fucking way!" Tony dropped all his tools with a clatter and ran for the door without hesitation.

This, he had to see.

…..

"Tony!" Steve yelled loudly. "Come and join the party."

Tony's ears were bombarded by loud dance music before the elevator even pulled into the floor. The sight was something else. The three men were stood on the counter in the communal kitchen, obviously having asked Jarvis to put on the strobe lights and were dancing, very badly with drinks in their hands.

"Yes, Tony come on!" Clint slurred and then tripped, nearly falling off the counter. Thor swiftly grabbed the archer's t-shirt and lifted him back to relative safety.

"Thanks Man." Clint hollered over the music, trying to pat the demi-God on his shoulder he ended up hitting his face on the first two strokes before his readjusted and met his target.

"Go and join the counter top party..." Tony considered for a moment. "Why not?" He threw his hands up and grabbed a bottle of Vodka on the table to Steve and Clint's loud woops. Thor and Steve grabbed one of the billionaire's arms each and lifted him effortlessly onto the countertop.

"Tony!" Pepper protested.

"Come on Pep, it's just a bit of fun." Tony threw his hands up and started chugging from the bottle.

"Tony not so fast!" Pepper protested. The billionaire hadn't eaten today that she could recall and that was 40% liquor.

"Chill out Pep. What's the worst that can happen." Tony ignored whatever Pepper's objection was to that and turned to Steve. "How did you get drunk anyway?" Tony yelled at the Captain.

"Thor's got Asgardian liquor!" Steve yelled back. "And it's amaaazing!"

"Sounds it!" Tony turned to the Demi god. "Thor hand it over I want in."

"I'm not sure Stark, it's not for mortal men. It has been aged for 1000's of years."

"Come on Pointbreak, it takes me forever to get drunk with the CAEB." Tony whined.

"Oh yes, of course!" Thor realised and handed over the flask. "Enjoy it Stark. I guarantee you have never tasted the like."

"Tony, no, come on this is getting out of hand." Pepper tried to reason but Tony seemed to have made up his mind.

"Come on you two, live a little. There's no harm being done." Tony protested

"Not yet there isn't." Natasha growled.

"We're all going to die in a fortnight anyway. Let's party!"

"Exactly!" Clint agreed.

Tony took the flask from Thor and immediately took a big swig.

"Stark I would not drink so much…. Never mind." Thor put a hand to his forehead, instantly regretting his decision to hand Tony the bottle.

Tony hissed instantly as the liquid hit the back of his throat and then he saw stars. Mere seconds he tumbled backwards like a dead weight and plummeted to the ground. Steve and Clint doubled over, howling with laughter

"Tony!" Pepper yelped in horror.

"Stark are you ok?" Thor jumped down from the counter, he was tipsy, bordering on drunk but nowhere near as wasted as the others. And certainly not wasted enough, not to be concerned.

Tony was laid on the floor staring at the ceiling and chuckling lowly.

"My fingersszz feel like noodlez." Tony slurred and burst out into hysterical laughter. He lifted his hands up and wriggled his fingers in Pepper's face, which only made him laugh harder.

"Oh great. Just great." Natasha huffed.

"You good tin can?" Clint called from the counter as he tried and failed to juggle some fruit.

"Wooo. This stuff is the best-est stuff ever!" Tony staggered to his feet and kept staggering sideways until he landed in a heap at the other side of the kitchen with a clatter. Pepper covered her face with her hand. "I'm good!" He yelled but didn't get back to his feet.

"I can't feel my face, is that normal?" Tony giggled, completely unconcerned but the fact his vision was swimming and he had no idea which way was currently up.

"I bet you can't flip off this counter." Steve slurred at Clint.

"Well I bet I can flip off this counter. I bet I could flip off this counter in my sleep."

"Well go on then agent Barton." Steve dared, staggering a little.

"I bet you can't flip off this counter." Clint fired back, prodding Steve in the chest.

"I bet I can do a double flip off of this counter." Steve bopped Clint on the nose.

"Fine! I dare you to do a double flip of this counter on the count of 3."

"3…" "1…" Clint and Steve said simultaneously.

"No, No Noooo." Steve grumbled. "Counting down." He drawled at Clint.

"Ooooo I get it."

"3…" They started again, this time in sync.

Pepper and Natasha were busy dragging Tony to his feet and getting him stable when they heard Steve and Thor counting down.

"2…."

"1." Clint jumped on 1 with a triumphant yelp.

"Go!" Steve yelled, jumping after the archer.

To Clint's credit he actually managed to flip. It was the landing he didn't quite master. Clint landed heavily on his coccyx and Steve sort of just, nosedived onto the glass table, which shattered spectacularly.

"Oh my God." Pepper yelled out hysterically.

"Did I do it?" Steve looked up at the groaning Clint questioningly.

"We did it!" Clint decided, raising a triumphant fist in the air and the pair started cheering.

"Plz tell me some body got that on cam-ra." Tony slurred, pointing at Pepper and then Natasha, shaking his head. "No?"

Natasha just glared at him. "Shame." Tony shrugged. "You didn't let me down did you J buddy?"

"The CCTV will have footage of the incident Sir."

"Way to go J!" Tony whooped. "Upload it to YouTube!"

"No!" Pepper pointed her finger at the ceiling and glowered at the AI.

"Thor how long is this going to last?" Nat approached the demigod who was now wearing a frown on his face. Tony, Pepper and Jarvis were having a 3-way yelling match in the corner, Pepper stopping Tony from doing something stupid using her override codes and Tony flinging the override of the override codes back at the AI in the ceiling.

"It is difficult to say. I do apologise Lady Pepper, Natasha, this has indeed gone a little too far." Thor looked a little despondent. "I was just trying to share Asgard's method of preparing for battle."

"By getting absolutely smashed?" Nat asked in disbelief.

"Yes. Drink has a habit of making one forgot their worries and the Hawk seemed very anxious this morning when I returned. I thought this would do them both good."

"It's ok Thor, not your fault, let's just wrap this up before something goes really wrong."

Then there was the sound of retching from behind them as Tony spewed all over the floor.

"Sorry!" The billionaire grinned apologetically, collapsing into the couch and going spark out.

…

'Morning sunshine.'

Steve very reluctantly opened his eyes but was relieved to discover that there was no light in the room. He could barely make out the silhouette of the other person, but there was only one man who could talk inside his head like that.

'Tony? What are you doing in here?'

'Returning the favour?'

'Cooked breakfast, Advil, Tylenol and coffee. Hangover cure of the Gods.'

'Hangover? What the hell happened?'

'How much do you remember?' He could hear the amusement in Tony's 'voice'.

There was a moment of utter silence as images of strobe lights, loud modern music, drinking and dancing, terrible, terrible dancing drifted into his mind and he cringed

'Oh God no. Never, ever, let Thor convince me to drink again.'

'From what I gather it was Clint that did the convincing.' Tony smirked in the darkness. 'How many of those Asgardian enhanced drinks did you have?'

'I don't know. I only asked for one, but after the first one Thor just kept handing me them.'

'And you kept drinking.' Tony said, clearly amused.

'Yep. That is some strong stuff.'

'No kidding.'

'How are you fine? You were completely out of it. I mean you were literally unable to stand.'

'The benefits of superpowers.'

Steve's head perked up a little. 'You couldn't?'

"Oh no, this is your first proper hangover, no short cuts.'

'Come on Tony.' Steve pleaded.

'Nope, you're on your own.'

'Pratt.'

"Language!" Tony said aloud suddenly. "You have to learn to take responsibility for your actions," he chuckled, mockingly.

Steve cringed and groaned at the sudden noise. "Asshole."

"Well who knew all you needed to get foul mouthed was one mother of a hangover."

"Just get out." Steve grunted.

"Don't worry I'm going. I don't like Grumpy Steve."

…

"You are looking rather alert considering what happened yesterday." Bruce said, a judgmental element in his voice.

"Ah Brucie you missed all the fun! Where were you hiding?"

"I was across town checking on the antivenom production… and fun? A broken table and three plastered Avengers is classed as 'fun' in your book?"

"Firstly, that party was legendary..."

"You mean all 5 minutes you lasted." Bruce chuckled with a raised eyebrow.

"And that's exactly why it was legendary. I've never been knocked on my ass so hard, it was such a rush! I've got to get me some of that Asgardian booze."

"Let's not have any more of that stuff in the tower ever again." Bruce mumbled as Tony continued.

"Secondly, with the CAEB I had all of a 30 second hangover so didn't lose any work time. It's a win, win."

"Yes, well the others weren't so lucky."

"Hey, it wasn't my idea, they were wasted when I got there. And it's Steve's first hangover, its only fair he enjoys it."

"Right, whatever." Bruce sighed. "What are you working on and can I help?"

"Running out of stuff to do?" Tony asked.

"Me and Fitzsimmons are nearly through the task list. Everything is under control, apart from you three apparently…"

"The Hulk would have loved it…"

"Focus Tony." Bruce cut him off, but he was smiling broadly. It was nice to see Tony a little happier for a change and despite the destruction of the party it could have gone a lot worse and it seemed to have done everyone the world of good.

"Fine." Tony chuckled. "It's just this damn machine really. Waiting for the next simulation to fail."

"I like your optimism."

"Yeah, well realism suits me better."

"How long?"

"4 hours and 53 minutes Sir."

"Why don't we take a break then, watch a movie?" Bruce offered.

"Maybe later, I should probably start on armour upgrades."

"Start? Tony have you not done anything on that yet?"

"Barely, I tweaked a few things, integrated those explosive discs that I made to take down the invisible flying death machines... but that's it so far. Just been too busy." He said dismissively.

"Tony, you can't go above and beyond protecting us and treat yourself as an afterthought."

"Why not Bruce?" And there it went. That relaxed happy demeanour was gone like the snap of fingers and the angry, repressed emotional mess was back. Bruce nearly smacked himself. He'd had to push.

"Tony, I'm sorry…"

"Do you guys not get it?"

"Tony look…"

"Why would I waste effort on saving my own ass when I'm going to die anyway! I could not live with myself if anything happened to any of you that I could have prevented…"

"Tony stop. Breathe." Bruce said firmly.

"I'm fine." Tony snapped, pushing Bruce away roughly.

"No, you're not." Bruce said sadly.

"I'm not going to have a breakdown, or a panic attack so back off."

"I know, Tony, but that doesn't mean you are fine."

"We've been over this. Just leave it alone Bruce." Tony almost growled.

"I know, and I'm not asking you to talk about it or..." Bruce sighed. "Just tell me what I can do. If you've got too much on your plate, that's what we're here for."

Tony didn't say a thing.

"Ok. I'm going to go. Sorry."

Bruce left.

Tony sat there for 5 minutes in silence and then spent the next 10 minutes throwing things at the dent in his wall.

…

"Simulation 125 failed."

Tony nearly sobbed in frustration but instead dug his nails viscously into his palms until the annoyance melted away.

"How far did we get."

"86.28%"

"So, a 0.03% increase." Tony sighed. "For 8 hours work." His hand balled into a fist. "At this rate we'll be ready by next Christmas!" He yelled and punched the wall hard. It hurt like a son of bitch. His knuckles were probably broken and of course he could heal it, but he really didn't want to. The sting from the crescent shaped cuts on his palms and the almost unbearable sting from his knuckles somehow calmed him. It would have healed by tomorrow and for now the pain would help him focus.

"Ok. Let's go again."

It was a race against time. And he was losing. Badly.

…..

"Talk to me."

Thor frowned, standing on the balcony overlooking the city his mind was anything but clear, but he was fairly certain he had not made it evident in his demeanour, so the Captain's question had taken him by surprise.

"I do not know what you mean Captain." Thor said, feigning confusion.

"Come on Thor, something's troubling you." It seemed the Captain was not buying Thor's act, but after his discussion with his mother, he did not yet wish to share it with his Midgardian friends.

"It is not of import." He sighed.

"Thor I may not be a spy, but yesterday… we were all drinking for a distraction." Steve started, forcing the God to meet his eyes. "I know I was."

Thor looked away a little, his gaze returning to the horizon as he considered the Captain's words.

"Clint has been nervous as hell for weeks and thinks no one has noticed, so you get back from Asgard and suddenly want to drink your problems away. What happened?"

Thor sighed.

"I suppose I can't keep it from you any longer."

…..

"You do seem troubled Thor, more troubled than I have seen you."

"We face a grave threat Mother."

"You do, but it is nothing you haven't faced before. You have fought in many a battle." Frigga stated, but it was more a prompt, that Thor failed to notice.

"There is so much at stake."

"Or is it who is at stake?" Frigga smiled knowingly. "Your friends, the avengers, you love them like kin."

"They are kin. They are as much family to me as you are, as father..."

"I know my Son. But they are stronger than even you give them credit for. Have faith." She squeezed his shoulders and somehow it made him feel like a weight had lifted.

"Thank you, Mother, but I fear you are stalling as much as I. Please tell me what you know."

"There is, as you know, not much remaining from the reign of Buri."

"The first King of Asgard." Thor frowned. "He founded Asgard, the Aesir and his youngest son founded Vanaheim and the Vanir."

"Indeed." Frigga smiled. "Now many records were lost during the war with the Dark elves, whom your Grandfather defeated, but there have always been legends, whispers spread between Asgard and Vanaheim of the time before your Grandfather, of Asgard's earliest days."

"Why have I not heard of such rumours?"

"They do not reflect well on Asgard, on our family especially. Your Father has done his best to keep them secret."

"On our family? Please Mother…"

Frigga stopped him with a simple raised finger, making it clear she was to be left to say her part.

"Buri had three sons. Bor, who succeeded him, Njord who founded Vanaheim and Mimir. Mimir was a healer, a scientist with no desire to rule and only the desire for knowledge. In his strive for omniscience he began to study magic, dark magic. It is said he performed a ritual, using the life force of his five most loyal followers and its result made the five of them not only immortal, but powerful and granted Mimir the Omniscience he had so strived for."

"But Mimir was killed, in the Aesir/Vanir war was he not?" Thor asked.

"In a sense and that is what your father preaches." Frigga sighed. "While your father tried to negotiate for peace, he gave over Mimir to the Vanir as a peace hostage."

"He risked the life of his Uncle?"

"Yes, and very soon lived to regret it. The Vanir cut off Mimir's head and sent it back to your father. But Mimir still lived."

"How?"

"As a living, talking head from what I hear, he cannot be killed."

"Where is he now?" Thor said, utterly shocked and confused.

"He dwells at the bottom of the well of wisdom."

Thor went white. He had visited the well many a time. It was a great attraction for children, but was notoriously dangerous and hence, was now kept under guard. It was indeed a source of great knowledge, but the visions it gave had been known to be highly subjective and often had driven men mad.

"That is disturbing knowledge, but I do not yet follow."

"It is not Mimir who is of import but his followers. The names of most of them have been lost to time, but the one is still remembered and when you informed us Stark's visions your father recognised it, I could tell. So, I did my reading."

"Kairon." Thor nodded in understanding.

"No Edraskil."

Thor frowned in surprise and then in intrigue. "Continue."

"Still within Buri's reign Mimir and his five followers were renowned as some of the most powerful beings in creation and revered for their knowledge which they shared willingly. Until one, Edraskil, craved more power and had the desire to subjugate and conquer." Frigga took a deep breath.

"The five followers were not graced with equal power, Mimir had a favourite. His most loyal friend gained the bulk of the power."

"Edraskil was jealous."

"Yes, but alone he did not have the strength to overthrow their master, all five of them were needed. So slowly he turned the followers to his side, one by one. But Mimir's favourite was too loyal, Edraskil tricked him into breaking the magic that bound them to Mimir, freeing them. Mimir blamed the favourite for Edraskil's crimes; he shunned him, cast him out which only drove him to join the others in their mission. They left Asgard and caused untold destruction and suffering throughout the galaxy which Asgard was powerless to stop."

"But they were stopped."

"Yes. In their eagerness to conquer they came across another entity, one far more dangerous and powerful who did not take kindly to their attempts to destroy it."

"The CAEB." Thor realised.

"Indeed. The CAEB as far as we knew had destroyed the five, but it has become clear it merely imprisoned them before continuing its own conquest. Mimir used his power to trap the CAEB into a host and Buri's final act was containing it on Asgard before it completed its mission of destruction."

The weight of all that had been said weighed heavy on his shoulders. Now he knew their story, yes, but it didn't help them. But it wasn't the history of the foe that ate at his insides and made him feel so hopeless, it was the history that he had never heard of, that he should have known… that all of Asgard should know.

"How much more of our history does Father keep a secret?" Thor said quietly, with a heavy sigh in his voice.

"Thor, you must not be angry with your father. He only does what he believes to be right, what he believes he has to, to protect us, to protect Asgard."

"Does he really?" Thor snapped. "Because the more I learn the more I find it hard to believe."

"Thor…" Frigga pleaded.

"And you keep things from me too, don't you? You know his secrets!"

"Thor, I swore an oath to your Father, he is my Husband. I break that vow only when I must. My word is my bond, you know that, and it changes for nothing."

Thor sighed. "I understand. I am sorry Mother."

"It is I who is sorry, Thor. And I am sorry that this knowledge is more of a burden than an aid. There is nothing in this tale to help you defeat them."

"All knowledge is useful Mother and one never knows what Stark can create from seemingly useless information. I cannot thank you enough."

"There is a very simple way to thank me… You have work to do my Son. Finish it and return home as soon as you can."

"Believe me mother, I will return to Asgard as soon as the battle is won."

"I don't mean after the battle Thor, I mean now. As much I wish that here was still your home it has been obvious for some time that you belong on Earth, with your friends."

"I think you are right." Thor smiled.

"I'm your mother I'm always right." Frigga smiled, and Thor smiled back. How that woman saw right through him, he would never understand.

…

Thor retold a condensed version of the conversation with his Mother to the Captain and Steve just listened intently, nodding occasionally.

"It is not the information that troubles me…" Thor explained. "In fact, it is very little use to our cause… but the more I learn of his past exploits the more I realise how little I know my father. I now see how easily he lies to me and has been lying to me for my entire existence."

"That's rough Thor. That's… really rough." Steve bit his lip. "I don't know what to say. The relationship you have with your father… There's not much advice I can offer, I never knew my father."

"I am sorry to hear this Captain."

"Hey, it is what it is." Steve shrugged. "And actually, between your experiences and the way Tony thinks of his father, I'm actually starting to think it's a good thing I never met him. If life has taught me one thing, it's that nobody is perfect, and nobody makes the right choice every time. All I got growing up was stories of my Dad, how he was a hero who died in the war and how he was the best man you could ever meet. Nobody speaks ill of the dead and I spent my whole life trying to live up to who I thought my Dad had been."

"I am sure your Father was the man you thought him to be Captain." Thor comforted.

"He probably was. But that still didn't mean he was perfect. I've seen people change over time, get bitter in old age. My point is you know someone long enough they'll disappoint you and you've lived how long?"

"1500 years." Thor admitted.

"Well I think that makes my point." Steve smiled.

"You make a good argument Captain." Thor smiled in return. "Your words of counsel are always of great help."

"Well 70 years on ice gives you a unique perspective."

The two of them chuckled.

"You want to come in? We're thinking of having a quiet, dark, alcohol free movie night."

"That sounds good to me Captain." Thor clapped Steve on the shoulder and followed him inside.

….

"Dr. Banner is requesting you come up for Movie night." Jarvis cut through the heavy rock in the workshop to relay the announcement.

"Nope, busy." He grunted dismissively, expecting his AI to take the hint and leave him alone.

"I believe Thor has information he wishes to share with the team."

"They can fill me in later if I let go of this before its finished it will explode… but don't you dare tell them that!" Tony grumbled and made transferred a wire from his left to right hands, taking great care not to let them touch. "Tell them I'm in the middle of something vital and can't just break off."

"As you wish Sir."

After 4 hours of coding, calibrating and mind-numbing calculations the fast simulation he had run, had shown that the improvement was again going to be too minute to be any help. So, he'd gone for a full remodel of the circuit board and electronics system, replacing all the wiring to silver.

A few more hours work, and the simulation was running once more. If this didn't get him more than 1% closer to the end goal, he was going to… he was going to break… something.

No sooner had he thought that, there was a large bang and a spark then the room suddenly went dark. Tony yelled out in frustration as the smell of singed electronics met his nostrils. He slammed his head down on the desk three times in frustration, trembling in annoyance and disbelief. He'd known it was a risk, reconfiguring the machine in this way made it more powerful, but his efficiency improvements obviously hadn't been enough, and he'd overtaxed the power source.

He rummaged in his drawer angrily until he found what he needed and then marched across the workshop, kicking anything out of the way in the darkness. He choked down a yelp as his foot collided hard with something immovable. That was most likely a broken bone.

"Damn it." He allowed the CAEB to give him a view of what was in front of him in the darkened room. The Car. He'd tried to kick the car out of the way. Idiot. He better not have scratched it.

A few minutes of routing around in some more wires and there was finally light again. He caught a glance of his reflection in the computer screen and he looked a mess. Great. And his foot was throbbing like there was no tomorrow. He could feel the CAEB reach out to heal it, but he stopped it. He deserved it for being so damn stupid.

And worse, his lab was a mess. He picked up the soldering iron bare handed and then flinched away when he realised it was still hot. Jesus Christ what sort of idiot was he today? He considered throwing the offending item across the room but changed his mind. He closed his hand around it again and breathed deeply. He could still feel it… The anger, frustration and anxiety rushing around inside him, clouding his head threatening to make him lose it all over again, but the pain cut through and for a moment everything was silent. As the nerve endings in his palm died, the pain faded, and his emotions came back. He hadn't even realised what he had been doing, but when he looked down again he was completely calm, but there were four more burn marks up his arm.

He looked down at them uncaringly. The CAEB would heal them, he could heal them now if he wanted but the way they stung was pleasant. The others would be furious if they found out, but he didn't see why it mattered at this stage. He just needed to get this done.

Another half an hour of replacing ruined components and connecting his spare arc reactor as a power source and he sat down on the sofa and ran the simulation again.

Only 7 hours to wait this time.

….

Coulson frowned as he rummaged through the cabinet.

"What are you looking for?" Pepper asked as she opened the fridge in search of a quick snack before her next meeting.

"Tony's scotch. I swear there were two bottles in here on Friday."

"There were, but I very much doubt there are any more. The boys had a bit of… Party."

"A Party?" Rhodey popped his head in, intrigued. He'd been running errands for Tony and Pepper the last few days, taking him away from the tower a lot… or that's what he told himself. In all truth he was trying to avoid his best friend as much as possible. He hated seeing Tony like this, especially when there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. But he'd been away long enough… he did need to check that Tony hadn't killed himself by overworking… or just plain killed himself, even though he could trust that Bruce and Pepper were firmly in control of that issue.

"Why does that sound like a bad thing?" Coulson frowned.

"Its best seen rather than told. Jarvis play the footage…" Pepper ordered, and the screens lit up.

"Oh, hell no, is that?"

"That is indeed Steve Rogers." Coulson frowned.

"How did they get Steve drunk?" Rhodey balked.

"How did they even convince him to drink?"

"Jesus Christ!" Rhodey exclaimed as Tony went crashing off the counter. He had never seen Tony wiped on his ass so quickly. Not by anything earth had to offer anyhow. "What the hell is that stuff?"

"Asgardian liquor apparently." Pepper grunted.

"What the hell are they…." Steve and Clint launched off the counter. "…Doing. Oh God." Coulson finished.

"Yes quite." Pepper sighed. "So now you know where the scotch went." Pepper smiled weakly. "Would you like me to have Jarvis order you some in Phil? Was there a reason you needed it?"

"You know what I think I'll pass." Coulson said slowly, his face going a little pale. "I'm going to go talk to agent Barton." He nodded politely and left the room.

"Should I…" Rhodey gestured towards the lift and Tony's lab.

"Best not." Pepper sighed. "He bit Bruce's head off this morning and the poor guy's still sulking. He just needs to be left alone."

"Hangover?"

"Not in the slightest."

"How… Ok Wow, that's…"

"Astonishing yes." Pepper said flatly.

"Are you OK?" Rhodey asked Pepper, concern etched on his face. The redhead looked close to falling apart, her beautiful freckled face lined with stress, worry and marked with the deep bags of exhaustion which hung heavy under her eyes.

"Not really Rhodey." She sighed, picking up a coffee. "But are any of us?"

Rhodey smiled weakly. "Not really." He replied in kind, drawing a small smile from Pepper's lips. "I should have been here, I'm sorry." Rhodey bit his lip.

"Nothing you could have done." She shook her head. "In fact, I'm kind of glad it happened, they all needed 5 minutes outside their heads and well, not much got broken, though I don't think Steve got up till Midday, which has to be some record."

"And Clint…"

"Looks like a zombie, eats like a horse and I think single-handedly drunk enough water to double to bill, but he's shaking it off slowly. Battered and bruised and nothing broken… apart from the table that is."

"Right well, I'll check on him when he's calmed down and, in the meantime, you need a break, I'm taking you out for dinner."

"Rhodey I don't have time…"

"You can make time, you're the boss remember?"

"Fine, you've twisted my arm. Just don't tell Tony you're stealing me away, he's pissed enough as it is."

"Well seeing as it was always him stealing my girls, he can just grin and bear it for an evening."

They both laughed as they made their way to the lift.

….

'Clint how you feeling?'

Clint was not expecting Tony's voice in his head at 7am the next morning. The archer was still nursing a headache and unshakeable feeling of nausea. He was too old to drink like that anymore. It had been over a day and he still felt hungover. He was going to skip morning training. He'd rather face the wrath of Natasha than the pain of a sparring match right now and that was saying something.

'Fragile.' Clint through back, very grateful that Tony was contacting him internally as his head was pounding something dreadful. His skull felt like fractured an eggshell that had already been dropped and one more impact would make his head explode.

'You can't still be hungover.'

'At this stage I can't tell if it's a hangover or alcohol poisoning.'

'Fancy playing with a rocket launcher?'

'In this case no. On any other day…'

'You know if you come up I can make that hangover go away.'

'Why does this feel like a bribe?'

'It's not a bribe… Rocket launcher!' He enunciated the last two words for emphasis.

'Why do you want play with a rocket launcher? And have team overprotective approved this?'

'It's just for training.'

'Ok, that means they haven't approved it then.'

'Two words. Hangover cure.'

'Fine I'm coming.'

….

"Tony man, maybe we should stop..."

"Come on feathers, we've barely started." Tony huffed.

They had been in the green room for 2 hours. Tony had cured Clint's hangover as promised, but now the archer was getting decidedly worried about the billionaire. He was going at this like a mad man. Attached to a damn glucose drip Tony was still eating tonnes to stay on his feet, he'd had Clint fire weapon after weapon at him, whilst he either deflected the hits or controlled the blast and man it was cool. Clint had been more than nervous when Tony had told him to fire a prototype Helicopter-mounted Machine gun at him. Apparently, it could fire 90 rounds per second but had never reached production before Tony shut down weapons manufacture.

CAEB or not, Clint had been sure this wouldn't end well, they'd argued for 15 minutes, before he'd finally agreed, and the way Tony had deflected the bombardment of shots had been like something off the matrix but had also had him staggering across the room as fatigue hit him like a truck.

"You know, most of the benefit of training comes from the recovery…" Clint suggested as Tony got back to his feet. The engineer had barely taken a rest before insisting they move on with the next weapon and Clint was getting concerned. Tony was working like a machine, and apparently training like one too. It all just gave him flashbacks to when they'd tried to train him to use his powers before and they all knew how that had ended. But there was something else eating at Clint, his instincts screaming at him that there was something wrong. Tony had turned up with a busted face and Clint had been reluctant to ask, knowing the billionaire would likely bit his head off. Stark may have been trying to be his usual, pleasant yet infuriating self, but Clint could almost see the anger bubbling under his skin and he had snapped at the archer's fair few times. Apparently, the cuts and bruises were the result of an accident in the lab. Clint was sceptical.

"Are you going to fire the damn thing or am I going to have to get Dum-E and butterfingers to hold it and U to fire it?"

Clint sighed and nodded. "Fine, but Tony just one ok?"

"I'm going 3 rounds Barton, need to test my stamina."

"Isn't that what we've been testing all morning?" Tony just glared at Clint and the archer sighed, caving. "Fine, 3 shots… then I'm out and if you ask for more after that I'm telling Steve."

"Whatever, just fire."

Clint grumbled to himself as he placed the ear defenders back on and slipped the safety glasses off the top of his head. He shouldered the rocket launcher with a grunt and aimed lazily, pointing the thing slightly away from Tony so minimal damage would be done to the reckless billionaire if he screwed up with the CAEB.

"Point it at me Barton, I'm not going to break." Clint saw Tony mouth, but he couldn't really hear the engineer.

"Not on the first one Tony."

"Fine." The engineer grumbled and raised the palm of his hand ready to take the blast. "Fire."

But Clint didn't, he put down the rocket launcher suddenly and recoiled.

"What the hell happened to your hands?" For someone with sharp eyesight Clint couldn't believe he hadn't spotted it sooner. Tony's hands were an absolute mess.; knuckles swollen and bloody, palms raw and burnt and as Tony shrugged with a roll of his eyes, his long sleeves lifted slightly revealing more burn marks along his inner forearm.

"I told you I had an accident in the lab."

"Why don't you heal them man, they look damn painful?" Clint exclaimed.

"Saving my energy for this, I'll sort them out later and by that, I mean after we finish, so hurry up."

Clint could never really tell when Tony was lying… not when Tony didn't want him to know and Clint wasn't sure if it as because Tony was too tired or just didn't care, but the lie was written on his face plain as day. Tony had done this to himself and he had no intention of healing it. The man was crumbling in front of him and Clint knew if he said anything now he may just shatter.

"I…" Clint was desperate to say something, yell at him for being so stupid, tell him to go to bed they weren't training any more today, even just pull the guy into a hug and try give him any sort of comfort from what must be churning in his head, but he knew he couldn't. Tony was fragile but holding it together… debatably. They'd all agreed they just needed to get him to the finish line, but the others were going to hear about this.

Clint shook his head and decided not to say anything else. "Ready?"

"Yep."

Clint fired the rocket launcher just to the right of Tony and the room lit up blue, before orange as the missile exploded. Clint crouched behind the protective screen that Tony had set up, but he barely needed to. Not a trace of heat or smoke leaked into the room as the ball of blue energy enveloped the explosion and quashed it into nothing.

"Nice." Clint smiled, but he couldn't help looking at Tony with a worried expression. "Round 2?"

"Ready." Tony nodded.

On the third shot it all went to hell. Clint didn't even bother stepping behind the screen after he fired, because Tony seemed to have this down to such an art for he didn't feel any need. But when the explosion was half way to being quashed from existence, a thick glob of blood ran from the corner of Tony's mouth and more ran in rivulets down from his nose.

"Tony!" Clint yelled in warning but something in the man's face told him that he already knew.

"Get down!" Tony yelled. Blood spraying from his mouth. But Clint didn't move fast enough. The CAEB's blue energy swept him roughly from his feet and prickled at his skin. Clint yelped as he felt himself thrown back behind and out of harm's way just as the explosion rang in his ears. He quickly looked up, only to be cut off from the rest of the room by a blue shield. He managed to make out the figure of the engineer through the translucent wall of energy. The billion, much to Clint' relief, had also shielded himself, though the explosion seemed to have thrown him into the opposite corner of the green room. Finally, the shield dissolved in front of him and he rushed to his feet, moving over to the billionaire.

"Tony, you with me? I'm calling Bruce."

"Nah, feathers I'm ok, just lost concentration… sorry."

"Tony you're bleeding again."

"Oh." Tony said genuinely shocked as he spat blood on the floor of the greenroom. "Ok, maybe 3 was too many."

"You Think?" Clint said exasperated. "Come on…"

"Clint honestly, I just overdid it. CAEB's sorting it, I just need some rest." Tony held out his hand, expected Clint to help him up but instead the archer scrutinised him thoroughly. The cuts on Tony's hands and face were healing in front of his eyes with a tinge of blue light beneath the skin. He assumed that Tony was letting the CAEB heal whatever internal damage he had done and got the other injuries healed as a freebee.

Clint sighed again ad finally took Tony's hand to help him up and once he was sure the engineer was steady he let go and followed Tony back to the lift.

…

"Guys we need to talk."

Clint marched into the common room at dinner time with a worried and determined look on his face. It was a rare occasion where most of the avengers seemed to be in one place at the same time.

"What's up Clint?" Steve frowned.

"Its Tony. I'm really worried."

"What happened?"

"It's the way he's training, it's… insane."

"Clint?"

Clint took a breath and looked away from Natasha. "I think he's hurting himself." He spat out finally. "In the lab I mean… purposefully. He has… had…" he corrected, "injuries and he's not healing them, yet he cured my hangover without a second thought."

"What sort of injuries?" Bruce frowned.

"His palms are cut up and… burnt, both his hands, his knuckles are a mess. It looks like he's smashed his face against the wall and he kept itching his arms like…." Clint stopped suddenly. "But he was wearing long sleeves."

"I don't understand…" Steve started, "why would Tony deliberately hurt himself?"

"He's barely holding it together Steve, channelling everything he's trying to avoid into anger." Bruce sighed. "I mean, I've been looking into psychology for a while now with all that's going on with Tony… People self harm for various reasons, but mainly its to cope with emotional distress."

"How does that help you cope?" Steve asked.

"Sometimes it's a way of grounding yourself… if you're having a panic attack or anxiety attack the pain can drag you out of it, help you realise what's real and what's not. I know it's hard to understand and I don't know the exact case with Tony... I'll talk to Rhodey, see if it's happened before."

"I suppose I can see." Steve nodded slowly.

"I'm thinking more along the lines of cry for help." Clint argued. "I mean, Tony's proud and hates attention no matter what he may come across as. We all know how he hides he's hurting to the point of killing himself, but he could hide these injuries if he wanted to, he doesn't seem to care. I mean, he can twist our minds to perceive him as fine, yet he gives me some half-baked excuse about a lab accident which is probably the least convincing lie he's told in his life."

"You think he wants to be helped?" Bruce asked curiously.

"I don't know, maybe Tash can you get a read on him."

"I can try, but I hate to say it, I can rarely get a good read on Tony."

"He needs watching again." Bruce said solemnly. "I know we said leave him, but if he's hurting himself he could easily go too far, one cut too deep and…"

"I'll keep an eye on him." Thor said unexpectedly. Heimdall's words were ringing strongly in his head. He had to take care of the engineer, though it was evident from the other's struggles it was not going to be a straightforward task.

"Thor…" Bruce started sceptically.

"There are things I need to discuss with him and you all have preparations." Thor reasoned. "None of you have cause to be there, entering without reason will draw Stark's suspicion, which I gather usually causes a negative reaction. I have no further tasks for the day whilst you all must work or train and most importantly sleep. I will not try to engage him in conversation, simply be present to prevent him harming himself."

"That actually sounds like the best way, but you'll call for back up if something happens?"

"Of course, Captain."

"I can pop down to talk to you and try get a read on him at some stage." Nat nodded in agreement.

"Yeah well, he's in his room now, so we have a few hours before he'll be up and kicking again." Clint grunted.

"How deep did he go today." Natasha asked.

"Bleeding but no loss of consciousness." Clint stated plainly.

"Great." Natasha rolled her eyes.

"So, regards Thor keeping watch, what do we say?" Steve brought them back into focus.

"Ok." Bruce conceded.

"Ok?" Clint asked.

"Ok." Natasha agreed.

"OK." Steve confirmed.

"Ok." Clint nodded.

"Am I supposed to say Ok too?" Thor asked. "Is this some sort of Earth custom?"

"No Thor, you're good." Steve smiled.

"Right, I've got to get back to work." Bruce announced, though the worry was as evident in his face as it was the others'.

…

"Stark. You missed the movie last night."

"Sorry pointbreak, been busy."

"So, I gather."

"You need something?" Tony said a little irately.

"Yes, the purpose of my presence is two-fold. Firstly, I brought the armour and weapons you requested."

"Oh yeah, fantastic just dump them over there." Tony waved vaguely as he carried on working. The man looked ragged and tired, though the injuries Clint described were not yet evident.

"And I also return with news regards the being we faced."

"Yeah sure, fire away I can multitask."

As Tony listened to Thor relay the tale of the five asshole beings they were going to have to fight, he nodded to himself. Edraskil certainly fitted the creature he'd seen in the cave; impulsive, power hungry and devious… he was going to be the loose cannon in the battle. He had also seen the animosity and tension between him and Kairon, who had to be the one who had tried to remain loyal. He still knew next to nothing about the other two. They had been for less outspoken, but despite Edraskil's clear desire to lead, Kairon had been the authority in that room. And if what Thor said was true and they weren't created with equal power then it had to be Kairon that held the advantage.

Kairon was the real threat. He was smart, observant and inherently cautious. Unlike Edraskil who seemed to be all about death or glory, Kairon held the value of his own life in much higher regard. Everything was calculated, if he saw unnecessary threat, had any inkling they were going to lose, then he wouldn't stick around, and this would all be for nothing.

"Stark?" Thor broke Tony out of his trail of thought, clearly having been trying to get his attention for some time. "Were you even listening."

"Heard every word, just thinking it over." Tony Huffed. Honestly, now even Thor was scolding him like a child. And now, despite the fact that they'd discussed everything they needed to discuss, the God was hanging around seemingly with no intention of leaving.

Clint must have dobbed him in and Thor was the only one left for babysitting duties. Well if that was the case, maybe he could drive the demigod out by acting like one.

"Jarvis work playlist max volume."

Thor's ears were ringing after an hour. He had no idea how the human could work with all this noise, but he stood firm and left Tony alone to work whilst working on a few things of his own quietly in the corner.

"Thor." The music cut off finally and Thor resisted the urge to sigh in relief. "Just been analysing your Asgardian metal, and well, it's a work of art."

"Asgard has the finest forges outside of Nidavelir."

"Nidaval…what?" Tony grunted.

"It is the place where Mjolnir was forged, in the heart of a neutron star. Only the greatest weapons in the galaxy come from there."

"Right cool, anyway back to the point, I'm guessing they're currently busy making more of this stuff back home right now."

"Yes Stark."

"If they increase the tempering temperature by 18- 20 degrees and maintain the same cooling rate, the fraction of austenite in the steel component of the alloy will increase, improving the durability of the armour and by adding a final quench to room temperature you will improve the percentage of martensite improving the balance between the hardness and toughness."

Thor just stared at him.

"I can see the experience that has gone into refining the forging process and it's so nearly perfect… I don't know an awful lot about the alloy used here, there is a metallic alloying element which is certainly not of earth, but otherwise this is very close to an engineering steel and with a couple of tweaks, well…"

"These words mean nothing to me Stark, you will have to write it down for when I return."

"Maybe I should just pop up with you and talk to the smiths." Tony said half jestingly then realised that, that wasn't such a bad idea. And he definitely wanted to have some stronger words with that Pratt Odin.

"Perhaps, that would be an easier means of coordination." Thor considered quietly but his thoughts were cut off within seconds as the music started again.

…

Another dawn, another day in the lab. Another day of the machine not working.

He'd done everything he could to the team's weapons. The replacement hubs were ready. The machine was running another simulation. Next it was Step 5, sorting out the CAEB.

Tony sat and thought about everything he had managed to do so far…

Smashing glass. Enhanced strength. Power outages. Frying electronics. Enhanced metabolism and healing rates. Altering appearances. Earthquakes…. Those had been the first manifestations of the CAEB's powers, but he'd barely revisited many of them. He hadn't tried to manipulate electronics or create any more earthquakes, he had only used his enhanced strength in panic, including most recently strangling poor Steve under the influence of Makluhk venom.

Then the true CAEB had unleashed itself. It had flung people across the room effortlessly. Clint's arrows had disintegrated to nothing in front of him. The latter could be very useful if he could master it.

He had also started a fire. Again, a good weapon. He didn't know how fire would affect the Makluhk, or those Mega-wolves, or the weird poisonous thorny insects, which he expected would all be coming their way in a few weeks' time, but well, fire is fire. Nothing likes fire.

He had slowed time on the bus when he was trying to contact Coulson after Fury had kidnapped him. He couldn't even remember doing that, but he needed to try it again.

Instantly healing himself and others. He'd got that down. As was teleporting and shielding, but he had only teleported himself so far. After escaping the Asgardian dungeon, he had sent the destroyer back to Odin and that was early days… maybe he could send away other things too. Teleport people on mass, that was worth a shot. Maybe he could just teleport the entire army into a volcano and call it a day. He chuckled to himself at thought. If only.

Nevertheless, it was risky to practice. As was the mind control. If he could tell the soldiers just to go home, then the fight would be over before it started. The charity ball had been a useful opportunity to test his powers on a larger audience, but he doubted they would just let him loose on the public to try it again. And aliens were very, very different to humans, it would take him time to learn their minds and make the connection and that was something he was just going to have to do on the day.

One thing he was certain of was that he could definitely do with another look around that damn Cave. After his near mistake with the Makluhk he wanted to be sure the enemy were not aware of the CAEB and he wanted to know if they were planning anything new. He could only feel good about how prepared they were (the portal closing machine being the exception) but that worried him. This felt a little too easy. They were too prepared. Those Bastards had to have something up their sleeves and he wanted to know what it was.

He turned his attention back to the list of powers he knew he could master and started doodling absentmindedly on the corner of the piece of paper, before he had a thought.

"Energy."

"What?" Bruce looked up from his computer at Tony's outburst.

"It's what all my powers have in common." Tony said slowly. "I can either use my own energy or manipulate the energy around me."

"Right." Bruce said slowly. "Are you trying to figure out what you can do or something?"

"Essentially." Tony nodded.

"Well based on that Tony, you could do pretty much anything."

"I know. But in terms of raw power, I'm limited by my own strength. And there's only so much sugar I can eat."

Bruce was quiet for a minute. "Why don't you get the energy from a different source."

"Huh?"

"So, if you want to do something bigger can you channel other people for a kick? Tap into the power grid, I don't know…"

Tony gave a wry smile. "Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all."

"But you will have to be careful Tony, remember the damage that power does to you."

"Yes, don't want any major internal haemorrhaging spoiling my fun." Tony sighed.

"Yes, I'd prefer that not to keep happening."

"Maybe I can fix that too." Tony said thoughtfully and Bruce though there might as well be a cartoon lightbulb above his head.

"How?"

"With some clever tech. Bio regulation and stabilization through vibration maybe, or EM waves?"

"Tony, we've just about got your implant right, do you really want to go messing with it so close to the battle?"

"I'm not talking about the implant, Bruce. I'm talking about an exoskeleton. Something I can build into my under-armour and use in conjunction with the suit."

"That could work." Bruce nodded in consideration.

"Yes, it could." Tony smiled and instantly pulled up a hologram and started drafting a design.

"I take it you're not coming up for lunch then?"

"I doubt it, but if you could…"

"Someone will bring you something down." Bruce rolled his eyes.

"Thanks, Brucie."

…

Tony had spent the next two days flitting between the lab and the green room. He'd synthesised the exoskeleton that afternoon and was currently stood in the lab with it strapped to him, but deactivated.

He should really test this in the green room if he was going to be completely safety conscious, but he equally wanted to fully monitor the device and how it interacted with the CAEB and his own body chemistry. He could of course move all his equipment up to the green room, but that would take the better part of a day and he didn't have time for that shit.

"Jarvis, initiate isolation protocol."

"I would request you inform Dr. Banner of this Sir."

"Fine give him a call I'm going for a test drive."

…

"So that's all that's left in the lab?" Steve clarified.

"Yes." Gemma nodded with a smiled. "Manufacture will take us up to the day, but we are nearly ready."

"What's left on the countdown?" Fitz asked.

"Don't even mention the countdown in front of me."

"Clint…" Natasha reasoned.

"Nope." Clint said adamantly.

"9 days." Steve replied.

"You're going to pay for that." Clint aimed bitterly at Steve.

"How exactly do you plan on doing that?" Natasha challenged.

"I don't know yet, but I'll think of something." Clint grumbled.

"Where the hell is Tony, I swear down he is always late."

"Fashionably." Pepper scoffed." But I can't wait much longer, Coulson and I have a meeting with the president in two hours."

"Tony probably isn't coming." Bruce explained.

"What? Why?" Steve asked curiously.

"These meetings where his damn idea in the first place and he's missed most of them."

"Two of them Clint." Nat corrected.

"Is he ok?" Coulson asked.

"He's fine, but he's had a new idea." Bruce rolled his eyes. "It could be a while before we see him out of that lab."

"We don't have time for new ideas Bruce, I hate to pressure him, but we are kind of relying on that machine." Steve sighed.

"He's still on that, but this will be a massive help."

"Anything exciting?" Coulson asked.

"Potentially some help making the CAEB more powerful, I'm keeping an eye on it." He added reassuringly.

"Well then, let's get down to business."

"Thor, have you informed every one of the information you received from Asgard?"

"I believe everyone now knows the tale." There was a general nod of confirmation in the room. "However, I have been offered the use of a technology from Asgard that will be incredibly useful in preventing civilian casualty in the…."

"Isolation protocol initiated. Main workshop. Level 47 security in place."

Everyone turned to Bruce, who was on his phone.

"What the hell does that mean?" Clint asked.

"The workshop can be completely isolated from the main building. Someone's initiated it." Natasha stated.

"By someone, you mean Tony?" Steve asked for clarity.

"Yes."

"How do you even know that?" Clint asked.

"I read the emergency protocol's list."

"Nerd."

"Emergency?" Thor asked.

"It's not necessarily an emergency." Pepper looked warily at Bruce, who seemed to be a little flustered by the conversation he was having privately in the corner. "Tony uses it very occasionally if he is going to test something big and dangerous."

"It isolates any shocks or tremors from impacted the rest of the tower." Gemma added.

"What did Bruce say he was working on again?" Clint asked.

"Something to improve the power of the CAEB…" Phil offered nervously.

"If it was CAEB related he'd be in the green room, wouldn't he?" Clint asked.

"Well he should be…"

"Everyone relax." Bruce interrupted, having hung up the phone.

"What's going on Bruce?" Pepper asked.

"Tony's testing the exoskeleton."

"The what?" Clint frowned.

"It's a device to help him channel the CAEB better."

"Like the implant?" Natasha asked.

"Yes and no. It's far more powerful and more focused on minimising the damage to his body by taking the strain. We think he could find more power if he doesn't use his own energy but channels it from external sources."

"And he's testing it now?" Steve asked nervously.

"Jarvis and I are keeping a strict eye. He is going to channel the tower, but the worst that could go wrong there is a power outage."

"God knows we've had enough of them."

"Can we postpone this meeting, I want to make sure he's ok?"

"Yes, I suppose we're going to have to." Steve sighed. "We'll try again tomorrow, hopefully with some feedback from the man himself."

….

"Dr. Banner says he will monitor the data from outside."

"Great. Activate."

"Have we a plan in mind Sir?"

"Do I ever."

"One would be preferred on this occasion."

"Yeah well, I works better when I wing it."

"Debateable."

"Shut up J, I'm concentrating."

Tony took a few deep, nervous breaths. "Just chill", he told himself. Relax, keep the focus small, search for the energy. The amount of energy surrounding him hit him like a wall of sound and noise and colour hat he hadn't been expecting… it reminded him of his experiences the times he'd been suddenly reacquainted with the CAEB. Energy. He'd been feeling it all along, just blocking it out to save his sanity but now it only seemed to sharpen his senses. He couldn't just see, but feel the electricity buzzing in the machinery around him, dancing through the wires and bleeding into the air. It was pulsating in his own chest, the arc reactor on the surface and below his heart beat, his pumping blood, even the synapses firing in his brain.

It was insane. He could sense Bruce outside, holding a tablet, Steve operating the coffee maker, like before only infinitely more clearly. The server room a few floors down, a helicopter on its flight path a mile up and the entire city of buzzing burning bumbling energy.

Now he had to harness it. He had imagined it would be hard, but by thought alone it seemed to migrate towards him. WAIT! He had to pick a source, a small source which wouldn't result in another citywide blackout.

"Jarvis?"

But Tony never heard the answer, although he knew the AI had. Instead his attention was torn away, fixated on what he saw. It was an orange ball of light, but more than that. The ball was comprised of an intricate interlocking network of threads, so nearly tangible but from what Tony could sense, not quite there. It was ordered, perfect, engineered yet in some ways it looked almost organic. He could see it calculating… not calculating, thinking. It was thinking, and he could feel waves of different frequencies bouncing from it that somehow resonated a feeling within himself. Confusion, curiosity, concern.

"Jarvis." Tony whispered in awe.

"Sir, are you ok? You seem to be experiencing some sort of episode."

"You're beautiful." Tony smiled, looking at the orange ball he knew was his AI.

A strong wave of confusion rolled through the AI's form.

"Sir?"

"Never mind, what did you say?"

"I suggested you use lab emergency generator 4 as your source."

"Location?"

Tony could, of course, sense the emergency generators of course, but there were 4 of them, he had no idea which was which, on sense alone. One lit up in his vision as Jarvis' signal highlighted it to him.

"Right then. Something difficult…"

"Perhaps you should start with something not difficult." Jarvis suggested.

"What would be the point in that?" Tony chuckled. He looked around the room for inspiration and glanced over the ragged old sofa. He loved that thing but had been looking for a new one for ages. He'd never found the right one, they were all too hard, or so soft that they ate you alive. The only other sofa that was passable was the one Pepper had got for upstairs and if he was honest, he had been meaning to move that down here and get a new one for upstairs, but quite frankly he had neither had the time or motivation to organise it.

He remembered the list he'd made of things he needed to try, or work on. He hadn't tried to teleport anything big yet, so he might as well start now while he had the extra juice.

….

One-minute Steve was sat on the floor reading a newspaper. The next he was keeling backwards. He landed on the floor heavily on his coccyx.

"What?"

Steve jumped to his feet

"Isolation protocol lifted."

"What?"

"Steve?" Natasha asked walking in, hearing his cry of surprise. "Why are you… Where's the sofa."

"I don't know?" Steve looked around. "I mean I was sat on it… and then it just…"

"Just what Steve?"

"Vanished."

"Everything Ok with Tony Jarvis?" Nat asked.

"The sofa has been relocated to the workshop. Mr. Stark has ended the test of the exoskeleton."

"Right."

"Hey Guys, hold up, Where's the sofa?" Clint bumbled into the room.

Nat sighed. "You know what, someone else can explain for a change, I'm off to bed."

…

With 7 days to go Tony finally appeared in the common room for the first time since movie night. He headed for the couch, via the fridge and practically collapsed into the soft cushions with a grunt and relieved sigh.

Bruce had informed them all that Tony had apparently been experimenting with he exoskeleton for the past few days and had made a list of things he had been trying out with the CAEB power.

"How goes the CAEB shit." Clint asked, not really expecting an answer by the way Tony buried his face into the leather of the new sofa.

"So far everything I tried I can do." Tony mumbled.

"That's amazing Tony, really amazing." Steve encouraged.

"But…" Tony prompted.

"You look exhausted please don't overdo it"

"Yes Mom." Tony dismissed it lightly and Steve didn't rise to it.

"What sort of things have you tried?"

"Not much yet. I've been more fine-tuning stuff. Teleporting energy manipulation, I broke quite a lot of things." Tony smirked.

"That's cool, but can you make a fluffy pink unicorn." Clint grinned childishly.

"I cannot make things out of thin air. I'm pretty sure it breaks some law of physics."

"Thermodynamically that should be possible. The first law of thermodynamics states…"

"Energy cannot be created nor destroyed only transferred from one form to another." Clint said, and everyone stared at him incredulously. "What? I listened in school… sometimes."

"Nearly spot on Clint." Bruce nodded, slightly impressed. "So yes, theoretically if Tony could find enough energy, he should be able to create things."

"Yes, but I could neither generate enough energy myself to achieve that, nor hold that amount of energy from another source without exploding." Tony quipped, with a bite in his tone.

"And nobody wants to be cleaning your guts up off the green room all, that's just gross." Clint scoffed.

"Thank you, Clint, never knew you cared." Tony huffed.

"Bruce said you could channel energy from other sources?" Natasha pried. "Not just mechanical sources, but biological as well?"

"If you are asking if I've tried channelling people yet, the answer is no. And I don't see why I'd need to, we're fighting in a city, not exactly a shortage of power and I don't want to accidently make someone go kablooey."

"Granted Stark, but this is a war, what if the enemy, or even our own government cut power to the city, it wouldn't' hurt to explore all our options." Steve reasoned.

"Are you volunteering to get turned into soup Rogers?"

"Yes, because I trust you Tony, you aren't going to explode anyone."

"Well aint that cute, we can write that on your gravestone. 'Trusted Tony Stark and exploded.'"

"Tony come on." Steve huffed.

"I'm not doing it Steve and that's final." Tony buried his face back into the new couch and was silent, telling them that, that was the end of them matter.

"Ok, well ermm I got to… go clean my arrows." Clint said awkwardly and scarpered.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "We're just going to leave you to crash Tony, ok, but don't moan when come back to cook dinner. You have a perfectly good bedroom if you don't want to be bothered.

Tony gave a weak grunt in response as the others left him alone.

…

Exoskeleton mark 3 was currently under construction. The blowing up problem that had been a seemingly parasitic problem of the mark 2, he was 98% sure he'd fixed.

Tony of course hadn't told the others of the 3rd degree burns he had suffered when that thing had back fired as he was trying to teleport a car over from Malibu. The CAEB had fixed him good as new and he tried again to the same result.

Tony was sat, in the lab just killing time. Another simulation was running, and the 3D printer would probably tale the rest of the day to finish printing the exoskeleton

There was something he needed to do, and he'd been putting it off. There wasn't even a single cell of him that wanted to go back there, not after last time, but he needed to know.

He looked around the room and his eyes fell on the fried exoskeleton and the one that was incomplete. He could do it without, he'd done it before… Yes, he'd been semi-delusional and bleeding heavily afterwards, but now he had the implant and he was stronger.

He could deal.

…

He was back there, in that cold, blackened place. The faint purple glow that lined the walls seemed duller this time and Tony could feel it. This planet, this heap of rock he was skulking around in, buried deep beneath the surface and so far away from everywhere he knew, was dying.

The energy that radiated from the rock grew dimmer and dimmer with each passing moment. Tony drank in its radiation, the feeling of a strange unknown alien power helped banish the chill that threatened to eat hi down to the bone and he took a breath. He was here for a reason and he had to stay focused.

But as he moved around the empty void of low ceilings and icy stone, in the darkness he could find nothing, sense nothing, or no one. They weren't here. The 4, somehow, had a route out of this place. The room where he had caught them planning last time, seemed completely unchanged. He now had a full view of the map of the portals and the algorithm that had nearly driven him insane, but that was nothing new. Maybe this was a good thing. Maybe that meant they weren't on to him and the CAEB, that the preparations they had made were aimed in the right places.

He breathed. He had found the piece of mind that he was after and now it was time to get the hell out of here before…

"How are you here again mortal?" A voice from behind him growled.

Damn. Too late.

He turned, knowing he was still invisible, but came face to face with Kairon and his four followers. Tony took a breath. It was time for his usual game, pretend not to be utterly terrified in the face of certain death.

"You think your little trick can hide you from us? You may not be visible, but I sensed you, just like I did before, and I brought you here then, do not think I will not do so again."

"You think I'm trying to hide? I just don't know this thing works yet." Tony's voice sounded disembodied in the room he was just out of phase with, though he supposed now he had been discovered he may as well try to cross over into this other dimension before he was dragged there like before.

"What thing? How are you doing this. You are of Earth. Humans are so primitive..."

"I'm smarter than your average earthling." Tony said immodestly, as the room came into sharp focus. The looks on the faces of the five told him he had successfully become solid in the room.

"Nevertheless, you should be dead. You were bitten by the Makluhk, how did you survive its venom?"

"Yeah, well I'm pretty hard to kill."

"So, I gather." Kairon mused.

"I hear you guys are Asgardian, so why so ugly?"

"Who told you that?"

"My buddy Thor."

"Odinson." Kairon growled. "Why does he fight with you?"

"I don't know, he just likes fighting."

Kairon growled. "You talk too much."

"I get that a lot. But you didn't answer my question, what happened to your faces?"

"The one thing that can stop us, the thing that trapped us here"

"Lord Kairon, you should not reveal…" The Green clad follower spoke up. Ever the voice of reason Tony remembered, but Kairon cut him off angrily.

"Shut up Urzus. If I required, your council I would ask." Kairon roared and Urzus cowered. Urzus, another name to Tony's list of bastard aliens he needed to kill.

"The one thing that can stop you huh. What is that?" Tony asked with feigned interest.

"Why are you here human?" The Navy one demanded, the voice and close proximity made it clearer to Tony that 'Navy' wasn't a he, but a she.

"I'm pretty sure that's obvious." Tony chuckled.

"Silence EIthusa." Kairon ordered. Kairon, Edraskil, EIthusa, Urzus. Tony ticked them off in his head. But what about Mr. Black stood back there in silence?

"You mean to find our weakness, some way of defeating us, but there isn't one, you and your planet will lose, you will burn and there is nothing you can do to save them." Kairon roared, triumphantly.

"Right fine we'll just give up now then." Tony shrugged.

"Have you considered that you may be divulging as much to me as you have gained. Perhaps more." Urzus chuckled.

"I don't really care." Tony shrugged with a flick of his head.

"You are reckless." Kairon's eyes narrowed.

Tony chuckled. "No shit."

"Yes. Perhaps you have forgotten you last visit, I see now the scar had healed." Kairon leant forward to touch Tony's neck. The Engineer simply leant away without moving or giving up his ground.

"I remember quite well. That wasn't very nice." Tony said, patronisingly.

"I dislike recklessness and I dislike spies." Kairon growled. "Perhaps if you are so difficult to kill, I should start trying now."

A flare of energy erupted around Kairon as he got ready to strike.

"Ok time to go." Tony hissed in panic.

He snapped into his body so hard he cringed at the whiplash. He patted himself down quickly for injuries but couldn't find any. He sighed in relief. That had been close. Too damn close.

And then it hit him. Pain. In a wave that knocked the breath clean out of his lungs. Shit. There was the downside to astral projection to another dimension. Being dissociated from his body gave him no idea how hard he'd pushed and now the pain was hitting him like a train.

But that shouldn't have happened. He had been channelling the power of the lab. He looked around and realised that it was dark. There was the scent of singed electronics in the air. Something had gone wrong.

He yelled out. The pain was unbearable, and it was everywhere. He fell to his knees and clutched his skull, searching from relief. He felt weak, shaky, breathless. Then he smelled it.

"Shit." Toffee apple. He was going to have a seizure and he was pretty sure he was haemorrhaging internally.

He was in trouble. He'd gone too far, and Jarvis would be fried. He had to get to the other's and fast.

For the first time tony was scared. He was dying. And he was terrified.

…

Coulson hadn't been able to sit down and just have half an hour to himself in as long as he could remember. Between battle planning, his normal SHIELD duties, monitoring Fitz and Simmons and joining Ward and May on another mission last week, he was running on fumes. They had another progress meeting in half an hour which would be in the conference room downstairs, but for now he as sat on the couch in the common room overlooking New York as the sun began to set with a book in his hand.

He had barely noticed Natasha wander in to join him. She knew how valuable peace and quiet was to everyone at the moment and could do with a little herself. She settled for Netflix and headphones.

The suddenly it went dark. There was the unmistakeable sound of equipment powering down. There was very little light in the room as the twilight as had taken hold. Natasha looked up from her tablet.

"What's going on?" Coulson looked up as Natasha took out her headphones.

"Power's out? Jarvis?" There was no answer and Natasha frowned. "Emergency power should be coming on any second."

But after nearly a minute nothing had happened at all and Coulson got nervously to his feet.

"Is it supposed to take this long?"

Natasha got tried to log into the tower diagnostics on her tablet, but the connection wasn't loading, the whole system must be down.

"Natasha look outside." Coulson said, his voice dangerous.

Natasha turned around instantly to look through the windows and it hit her like a train. Even with the power out inside the building it shouldn't have been this dark, they were in a middle of a city at nightfall, light should have bleeding in from outside, but the city was dark.

"Where was Tony?" She asked urgently. Suddenly she had a tight knot in her stomach. Something was wrong she just knew.

"In his lab… do you think he got the machine working?" Coulson asked tentatively. "Was it an EMP?"

"No, the Stark pad is working, it must just be the grid."

Low level lighting suddenly flickered on.

"Thank God, emergency power."

"We need to find him."

They hit the stairs and started heading for the lab. Coulson cursed the emergency lighting. Why was it always red? Like they needed a reminder something was wrong, and it made it damn near impossible to see. Coulson stumbled a little in the darkness, one hand on the railing for guidance as he tried to keep the flying assassin. Natasha seemed uncharacteristically worried and he knew better than doubt her instincts.

"Coulson!" Natasha's voice rang out in the stairwell and the agent picked up speed. He nearly ran into Natasha in the darkness.

"Romanov?"

"He's here."

Coulson let out a breath of relief as he made the last few steps. "Stark what is going on?"

Tony was hanging onto the railing panting for air, his skin seemed to be covered in a sheen of sweat. He was barely standing. Something clattered to the floor, falling from his hand. Natasha rushed forward, looping Tony's arm over her shoulder before he could fall.

"I got you Stark."

"Nat…" Tony grunted.

"Talk to me. What happened?"

"I miscalculated." Tony wheezed and coughed harshly. Natasha tightened her grip as Tony's weight got heavier and his chest heaved with hacking coughs.

"Tony, Tony…" A faint voice rang out from the object on the floor that Tony had dropped but moments ago. It was Tony's phone. Coulson picked it up hastily as Bruce's voice rang through. "Tony, please talk to me, where are you?"

"Bruce, It's Coulson..."

"Phil, what's happening where's Tony?"

"We've got him, south stairwell."

"I'm coming."

"Shit!" Natasha's voice snapped Coulson's attention back to the billionaire who Natasha was still holding up. His palm was outstretched and trembling, coated with blood from his coughing.

"We need Bruce now!" Natasha lowered Tony quickly, but gently to the floor. He was still conscious but fading fast. He lay tried to lift his head but didn't seem to have the strength. Instead he seemed to lay back in acceptance, panting weakly with sweat drenching his skin.

"He's on his way." Coulson relayed. He glanced back at the phone screen and Bruce had already ended the call. Tony shuddered against an invisible cold and let out an involuntary groan. Coulson's jacket was off in a second, he fell to his knees and wrapped it around the trembling engineer's shoulders.

"Tony…" The agent started but was cut off by a clatter above them that sounded like a door opening.

"Bruce!" Natasha yelled out, praying that the doctor was nearly with them.

"No, it's Steve." The Captain's voice rang down from a few floors above. "What's happening with the lights?"

Tony suddenly jerked retching horribly Natasha quickly threw him onto his side, but what came out of his mouth wasn't vomit. The liquid was dark, thick and smooth and there was a lot of it. Too much.

"Is that…" blood. Phil could tell simply from the smell of it. The foul, sickening metallic odour permeated the space. Coulson's chest tightened in horror.

"We have to get him to medical now." Natasha choked out.

"Captain!" Coulson yelled urgently.

Steve hadn't heard that tone in Phil's voice before. It was a cry, mixed with horror and desperation that had had him leaping over the railing, dropping three floors before swinging himself to land next to the others.

Coulson and Natasha were knelt next to Tony and a puddle of, oh lord, was that blood? Steve was frozen for a moment as his brain processed the scene. The billionaire was on his back, trembling and mumbling seemingly out of it, his breathing had escalated from rapid to panicked as he wheezed desperately for air.

"Stark, breathe, you've got to…"

Tony suddenly made a sharp move to sit up, clutching his chest violently, hand over the arc reactor.

"Tony no stay down." Coulson's hand moved towards Tony's shoulder, pushing him down forcefully.

"Don't pin him!" Steve shouted desperately, but it was too late. A flash of blue erupted in the red lit corridor and Coulson was flung into the air violently.

"Phil!" Nat yelled out as the agent thumped heavily into the concrete wall of the stairwell.

"Coulson? Nat?" Bruce's voice suddenly erupted from below.

"Bruce up here!" Steve yelled.

"Coulson?" Natasha was at the agent's side the second Bruce was there to take over.

"I'm ok." A grunt acknowledged.

"Someone want to fill me in?"

"Tony's puking up blood and he CAEB flung Coulson against a wall." Nat said simply.

Bruce took a breath. "Nat, take Coulson to the infirmary, tell them to prepare for an extra patient. Then can you go let Clint and Rhodey out of the armoury with the override code. It locks down automatically when the power is cut." Bruce said shakily.

"On it." Nat nodded, wide eyed. She looped Coulson's arm over her shoulder and headed towards the door silently.

Tony twitched violently.

"Give me that phone."

Steve retrieved the phone for Bruce. Bruce tapped on the screen and soon a bright, steady light shone from the camera flash.

"Here hold that." Bruce handed Steve the makeshift torch and began to palpate Tony's abdomen through his shirt, searching for signs of pain on the engineer's face. "Tony, can you tell me anything, anything about what happened?"

But Tony wasn't there, he was staring off into space. The light from Tony's phone highlighted the blood still running thick and slow, down the billionaire's face and suddenly Bruce noticed the way Tony' hands were curled and twitching, the way his breath was coming in short sharp pants.

"Shit, he's going to seize."

As if on cue, Tony's entire body tightened and went rigid, twitching lightly. Choked grunts as the spasms grew stronger and within seconds Tony's whole form was shaking violently.

"Oh my… What do we do." Steve asked frantically

"Wait till he stops seizing, get him to medical… and pray."

"Pray? Bruce…"

"There's nothing I can do Steve! Either he will heal quickly, or he will need major surgery because I'm pretty sure he's haemorrhaging internally, but there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it until he stops seizing and we can get him to medical and into the hands of some real medical professionals so just hold the torch and when I say carry, carry!"

"Sorry. I'm sorry." Steve tried to calm, himself, Tony bleeding to death he could handle… well he said handle, but he meant deal with without panicking, but with a seizure. There was something more terrifying about watching someone writhe on the floor, completely out of control of their body, than almost anything else. It was unnatural and looked painful and there wasn't a damn thing they could do but watch and wait and… pray indeed.

"No, it's my fault." Bruce sighed.

"No, Bruce." Steve said in comfort, while he helped the Doctor hold Tony on his side, until Tony's quivering frame finally came to a halt.

"Carry?" Steve asked, but Bruce it seemed had several things to check first.

"Tony?" He asked, finger on Tony's pulse. "Tony?" He tried again, but there was no response from the billionaire. No snarky comment, not a grunt of annoyance, not so much as a flutter of his eye lids.

Shit.

"His pulse is weak and thread, but its there." Bruce sighed, relief and worry mixing in a dangerous tone. "Carry." Bruce ordered, and Steve didn't waste a second.

He ran the billionaire all the way to medical and handed off to the doctors as he was ushered out of the way. Bruce brushed past him in the corridor a few minutes later. He wasn't stopped from entering. No one would dare.

Steve stood near the door, staring at the frantic movements of the medics. The incessant beeping of the machines and the cries of alarm just made Steve's breathing increase and the panic rise in his chest. What was happening? Was he going to be ok? Why was everyone so worried?

"Steve take a breath." Natasha was suddenly by his side. "It will be ok."

Steve did as he was asked. "Ok. Thank you, Nat."

"You good?" She asked.

"I'll be good when Tony's good." He said firmly. "Do we know what happened?"

"No, I…"

"Someone please tell me what the hell happened!" Rhodey roared as he barged his way into the Med bay.

"Rhodey, we'll talk outside." Steve asked calmly.

"We'll talk right here!" Rhodey insisted, angrily.

"Outside!" Steve roared, and everyone stopped, stunned. Rhodey's jaw clenched angrily, but he turned his back to the room and marched back into the corridor as Steve followed. The captain had a stern and determined look on his face as he closed the door to Tony's room.

"Steve, Rhodey…" Clint was late catching up the anxious airman and ground to a halt when he saw the look on the faces of the two men in the corridor. "I'm interrupting something." He said certainly.

Steve sighed, and his face softened a little to speak to the archer. "It's ok Clint, just go in and Nat will fill you in."

Clint gave a curt nod and moved away quickly, making sure to shut the door behind himself.

Finally, alone and a little more composed Rhodey turned to the Captain, in a mixture of worry and confusion.

"Steve, what the hell is going on? What happened?" The airman spoke quietly, his face pale.

Steve took a breath. Rhodey looked torn apart with worry, but Steve didn't have the answers he was craving, none of them did.

"We don't know Rhodes. Ok?" He started, tentatively. "All we know is the power went out, Bruce got a panicked phone call off Tony asking for help. He was a mess when we all got to him, bleeding… He told Nat and Coulson He'd miscalculated, he was sorry… that he needed help."

"So, the CAEB then." Rhodey spat bitterly.

"I think that's a safe bet."

"Why does he keep doing this?" Rhodey yelled out, but quickly composed himself, steadying his breathing. Steve waited, just simply putting a hand on the Colonel's arm to steady him. "What's wrong with him, is he going to be ok?"

"Major internal haemorrhaging I heard Bruce say..." Steve said sternly. "But we have to trust the CAEB is doing its thing."

"It's the CAEB that put him in there in the first place."

"I know Rhodey…"

"Guy's." the door behind them suddenly opened and Clint popped his head out. "Sorry to interrupt but, he's going to be fine, blood pressure and heart rate have stabilised, he's coming around." Clint nodded, his face a little pale. "Thought you'd want to know." He added to justify his interruption.

"Thank you, Clint." Rhodey forced himself to offer the archer a weak smile as Bruce appeared at his shoulder.

"Rhodey, he's asking for you."

Determination flooded the airman's face as Rhodey moved quickly towards the door, towards his friend but he was blocked by something solid. Steve stood firmly between the airman and his target.

"Steve, what are you doing? Let me through!" Rhodey protested in disbelief, trying to side step the super-soldier, who just blocked his attempt.

"No…" Steve began but was cut off by the angry Colonel.

"Let me past Steve!" Rhodey growled.

Bruce moved Clint out of the way irately, so he could get through the door and into the corridor. Tony needed them right now and they were having some sort of childish stand-off. "What is going on here?" He demanded sharply.

"I'll let you through in a minute. There's something else I need to talk to you about first." Steve said firmly to the Colonel, who glared back at the Captain with some ferocity.

"What?" Rhodey hissed.

"Bruce, how's Coulson?" Steve asked, but it sounded more like an angry quip.

"What's wrong with Coulson?" Rhodey asked, growing more and more irritated by the second.

"He's fine, a little bruised and concussed but nothing serious." Bruce explained calmly. "What is this about?"

"Yes, Steve care to explain?" Rhodey spat.

"Coulson pinned Tony on his back, and Tony blasted him against a wall."

"Clint go back inside." Rhodey said firmly.

"Oook!" Clint held his hands up and retreated instantly. He wanted nothing to do with whatever 'this' was.

There was a moment of silence in the corridor and Rhodes and Steve stared each other out.

"What do you want me to do about it? Apologise? It aint my fault." Rhodey scowled, folding his arms and pulling himself up taller.

"I know it isn't Rhodes, but this is getting out of hand." Steve's tone was form, but reasonable in an attempt not to escalate the situation further. "First, he strangles me, now Coulson… I don't care if it's me he lashes out at, or Thor we can take, but he could have killed Coulson. If it was Nat, or Clint, or God forbid he hurt Bruce and the Hulk starts tearing the place up, it would be a disaster!"

"You want to make sure it doesn't happen again? It's really very simple." Rhodey glowered. "Don't pin him on his back!" He shouted the last part.

"Why?" Steve barked. "What is the deal with it?"

"Back off Steve." Rhodey warned.

"We don't know." Bruce said truthfully. He'd had enough of all the squabbling and secrecy.

"Bruce!" Rhodey protested.

"Come on Rhodes, he's right." Bruce pleaded. "Whatever happened today could have ended very badly for Phil and Tony would never forgive himself if it had. You can trust Steve and he needs to understand."

"Well there's not much to understand." Rhodey huffed. "He never told me why."

"But..." Bruce prompted.

Rhodey sighed and conceded. "But it is something to do with Howard, he's never spoken about it, and he's not going to, so just accept it and leave it."

"I can't do that."

Steve marched off.

"Steve!" Bruce called after him.

"Rogers, where the hell are you going?" Rhodey's terror came out in the form of rage as he bellowed after the Captain. The last time Steve Tony had a been kidnapped by SHIELD, a series of events which he was not going to let happen again.

"Oh relax." Steve spat back, spitefully. "I need some air and space to think. Just go and see Tony."

…

Tony came around slowly. His eyes flickered open a few times, but he was too weak and exhausted to hold onto consciousness for long, but he could feel the CAEB buzzing inside home. He was getting stronger with every passing second but as his eyelids prised themselves apart and stayed that way. He felt not too dissimilar to when he's been used as a chew toy by the Makluhk. But as the room came into focus the CAEB suddenly went berserk. His senses were instantly bombarded by an onslaught of voices and emotions that made pain radiate through his skull and his already throbbing insides churned sickeningly.

"You gave us a scare there Stark." Nat spoke calmly, but he could feel the anxiety roll off her in waves in a way he had never felt from the assassin before. Then he realised she was holding his hand and that was most likely the reason the connection was so stiflingly strong. It wasn't the only overwhelming feeling in the room. Clint was anxious too, and there was something going on outside the room and it was bad. The negative, angry energy rolled into the room in waves and he honestly thought he was going to pass out again if it didn't stop.

He knew he shouldn't, not this soon and not while he was so weak, but he let the CAEB listen in to what they were saying, concentrating hard.

"Tony what are you doing?" Clint shook him anxiously as he came back into the room and realised the monitors were beeping out medical alerts at the Engineer's state.

"Nothing." Tony was trying to sever the connection to their emotions. He couldn't stand this anymore and he was trying to search for pepper, the only thing that could ground him when he was like this, but it was all too much.

"Tony…" Natasha started, but just one more sensation and he thought he might explode.

"Just get out!" He yelped.

"Stark?" Nat asked and Tony almost cried out as his own gut twisted in time with hers.

"Get out please, I can't… just, get them to go an argue somewhere else, I'm too tired and it fucking hurts."

"Ok." She nodded, understanding dawning. "Ok Tony we're sorry." She let go of his hand and Tony instantly relaxed a little.

"I'll go tell them you're awake, see if that will shut them up." Clint offered, and Tony nodded weakly.

"Can you tell me what's wrong?" Bruce asked.

"I'm exhausted, and I can barely breathe with all the shouting and the worry and the …." Tony panted, nearly hysterically.

"It's ok." Bruce said calmly. "I'll go sort them out."

"Can you get Rhodey in here please?"

"Of course." Bruce made his way to the door Clint had disappeared through only moments before.

"Tony just take a breath." Natasha said comfortingly, and her emotions seemed to have retreated completely as she exuded nothing but calm. "What do you need."

"I just need to talk to Rhode then I need some peace."

"Ok. We'll leave as soon as he gets here. I imagine Pepper is already on her way, do you want to see her when she arrives?"

"Yes," Tony grunted. Sleep was threatening to take him again and it would have if it weren't for all the emotional mess flying around the room.

When Bruce came back in with Rhodey, Clint and Steve tight on their shoulder, Natasha ushered them away as requested, leaving the billionaire alone with his best friend to recover.

…..

Bruce sat down heavily into the couch, exhaustion written in lines across his face.

"Do we know what happened?"

"We all know the same amount, and until Tony is up to talking that's all we're going to know." Natasha said firmly.

It had been an hour of getting Fitzsimmons out of their locked lab which for some reason had more complex override codes than the armoury. Then they had, had to fill in the scientists and Pepper when she arrived on the situation.

Bruce had then taken it on himself to start Jarvis on a reboot which had been ticking away for the last 4 hours and the crashed heavily into the couches, anxious, confused and waiting for news from the med bay.

"Hello Avengers. Power is now back online, system rebooted and fully functional in 48 seconds. Please stand by."

"Oh man Jarvis, it's good to hear your voice buddy."

There was a slight buzz and whirring, followed by a stale pause for half a minute until the lights blinked back to their normal white light. There was a collective half-hearted cheer in the room which Clint clapped for too enthusiastically.

"All systems back online. Security override still required on door's 85, 192 and 198."

"What are those doors?" Gemma asked curiously.

"Probably some of the other labs on your floor and Tony's workshop. Everything unsafe is programmed to shut down until it gets the override. We'll do it later." Natasha sighed tiredly.

"Jarvis is Mr. Stark ok?" Fitz asked.

"He is recovering Dr. Fitz but has requested privacy."

There was a tired silence in the room for the next few minutes as everyone tried to reset their worry and alarm back to 0 after such a crazy few hours at the tower, but no one seemed to be managing it.

"Hang on a second, where the hell is Thor?" Clint asked, realising the very large missing person from the room. How had they not noticed before?

"Shit!" Bruce exclaimed.

"Bruce?" Natasha asked nervously.

"Door 198."

"What about it."

"The green room. Thor was in the green room training."

"It's been 5 hours!" Gemma exclaimed in alarm.

"Crap." Clint chuckled.

"It's not funny Clint." Nat huffed.

"Is a little… Ow! Ok sorry. You know the override codes, right?" Clint asked Bruce.

"The point is I don't, so it a completely Hulk proof zone."

"So… we need Tony?" Clint asked.

"No, I know them too." Steve scratched the back of his head and marched towards the lift with purpose and they all piled in.

It took about 15minutes for Steve to type in the relevant digits but finally the door to the green room slid open and a very angry and disgruntled Asgardian stepped out.

"Comrades, if this was some sort of prank I must say I did not find it amusing."

"No prank Thor, we're sorry it took so long, but… well, there's been a problem. Come downstairs and we'll fill you in."

…

"Tony, I need to know." Steve marched into the room with a look of determination on his face. Tony felt it instantly a mix of exasperation, resolve, nervousness and the low-key bubbling of anger. His shoulders tensed up immediately, but he didn't look the Captain in the eye.

"Need to know what?" Tony said calmly, engrossed in his StarkPad, still sat in the infirmary by order of team overprotective. He had asked to be left alone, but trust Captain Bossy pants to march in demanding answers when Tony felt barely awake and very ready to bite someone's head off.

"About Howard." Suddenly the air was thick with tension and animosity. Tony in his place. "About why you panic on your back."

"I'm warning you Steve, stop there and get out." Tony's voice was almost a growl and whether it was the CAEB or just Tony, the air seemed to hum in a threatening manner, which suddenly had Steve's nerves rolling round his stomach like a stormy sea.

"No Tony. I…" He stuttered, his resolve suddenly leaving him as doubt took over. He had expected a sour reaction, but the tangible threat in the air had not been on his lists of things to worry about.

"Steve, I know you mean well which is why I'm trying, very hard I might add, not to get really, really pissed at you right now, but believe me when I say you do not want to know."

"Tony, I know that I hold your father in high stead, but that doesn't mean I will contest anything you say…"

"It is because you hold him in high stead I could never tell you." Tony said, slowly and clearly.

"Tony, if this is because you don't think I will believe you, or that I was friends with your father and you hate that…"

"This isn't about me Steve, it's about You!" Tony snapped, stopping Steve in his tracks. The air thrummed violently and then stilled into silence as Tony looked away, a faint tinge of blue fading from his irises.

"Me?" Steve hadn't expected that in the slightest.

"Yes you!" Tony sighed and lay back defeated. "I can't tell you because you worshipped him, and he worshipped you. You were all he talked about Steve, how amazing you were, he never stopped looking for you in that ice… My point is that maybe my Father was the great man he is so famed for being when you knew him, but he didn't stay that way."

"Tony, I know that, that's why…"

"I don't want to spoil your memory of him." Tony blurted out and Steve fell silent.

Tony looked away, finally putting down the StarkPad, seemingly resigned to the fact that Steve was now going to want him to talk about it.

Steve looked at Tony in surprise and admiration. For a moment he wasn't sure what to say. He had always assumed that Tony's strong objection to telling Steve anything to do with Howard was because he thought that Steve wouldn't ever believe Howard could do wrong. To learn that all this time it had been about simply not spoiling Steve's memory of a person he had once admired, shocked him a little.

"Tony you can't ruin that for me. I'll always have those memories. The fact is, he's dead and gone and his memory isn't what matters to me you are. You're my friend Tony, I'm here for you, we're all here for you and if your father changed, if he wronged you in any way, he doesn't deserve the great reputation that had been shoved in your face your whole life. You need to be honest with me."

"I don't know if can talk about it right now." Tony said defeatedly.

The flash of hurt at the memory of his father made Steve tense. He had always imagined Howard to be a disapproving Father, someone a bit too harsh on their child that Tony resented him for but now, knowing Tony, knowing how he reacted to being on his back… He dreaded to think what the man had become.

"That's fine Tony, whenever you're ready, or Just give me a ball park, because right now I'm imagining the worst." Steve said a little anxiously.

"God no, he wasn't a monster or anything…" Tony said, but strangely, he wasn't convincing. His mask slipped a little, or was that a crack forming at the mere mention of Howard?

"Why don't I believe that?" Steve said, non-confronttationally.

"Steve don't." Tony pleaded, tiredly.

"I'm sorry." Steve nodded, knowing now was the time to stop pushing. "I'll see you at lunch."

Steve made towards the door when suddenly he was stopped by an unexpected voice.

"Mainly he just ignored me." Tony sighed. Steve turned around and looked at the Engineer in surprise. Tony continued without prompting.

"Especially when I got a bit older, nothing I ever did was good enough, but I kept trying to impress him, until I was about 14 then I acted out." Tony said casually as Steve made his way back to sit on the edge of the bed.

"That's abuse in its own way Tony." But Steve knew there was more.

"Yeah well, he also hit me a few times." Steve tensed. "Mainly when he was drunk, it was usually just a smack when I was a kid, it was worse when I was older." Tony threw that out there so casually that it hurt Steve. It was like he thought this was normal, ok, even that he had deserved it. It was so wrong, he wanted to scream but he stayed calm.

"Did he ever put you in hospital?" Steve asked, and Tony shuffled in his chair, pausing with a sigh before answering.

"Just the once. I was 8 I think. He was roaring drunk, I messed up something… I'm not sure what, but he hit me over the head with a pipe. I don't remember much after that, but I have flashes of him holding me down… on my back and hitting me over and over…"

"Tony." Steve breathed raggedly, and it was only then Tony realised he was barely maintaining his own composure.

"Pin me on my back and I go straight back there, into the mind of a frightened 8-year-old who wanted nothing more than to make his father proud." Tony smiled, and Steve couldn't understand why.

"Tony?"

"I grew up pretty fast after that. Major reality check. And nothing like that happened again, Jarvis kept a strict eye on things until he died."

"You built Jarvis when you were 8?"

"No… I… Jarvis was. Edwin Jarvis was…"

"Tony stop." Steve said firmly. Tony hadn't even noticed the super solider lean closer to him, but suddenly a comforting hand was wrapped around his upper arm and blue eyes and blond hair were filing his vision. "Relax just breathe, everything is ok. You don't need to say any more."

Tony realised he was shaking, his breathing ragged which is why Steve had reacted. He nodded slowly, pressing a hand to his chest as he realised it was burning with lack of oxygen.

"Breathe with me." Steve said encouragingly, and Tony did, following the motion of the soldier's chest until his breathing as back under control.

"Thank you." Tony sighed.

"It's ok Tony, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed you like that."

"No, you didn't push me Steve, I…" Tony sighed. "There's more. When I was about 17 he did something which I can never ever forgive him for." He conceded. "But I can't ever talk about it, I can't… I don't… I don't want to have to remember that again, but if you ask Rhodey…"

"Tony it's ok you don't have to."

"No, it's time I, I trust you all and its time people knew. Bruce knows already and Rhodey, but… no one else. Ask Rhodey to come see me."

"I will." Steve smiled, putting a little distance between them again. "Do you want me to go?"

"I… Stay until Rhodey comes, would you?"

"Of course." Steve nodded and settled back into the chair at the side of the bed.

…

Rhodey had come back from the infirmary and gone straight to Bruce. The Doctor and the Colonel looked equally shocked and nervous and just a little bit relieved. A meeting had been called immediately. Steve, Thor, Nat, Clint, Coulson and Pepper sat nervously on one side of the room and just listened as Bruce and Rhodey retold a story that they could barely believe had happened.

…..

They all walked out of the meeting in shock.

Everyone minus Fitzsimmons had been asked to go to the meeting room on the 18th floor that evening, none of them knew why, not even Pepper. When they arrived, they found Steve, Bruce and Rhodey stood staring out over the city, Rhodey's shoulders were tense with worry and nervousness and a little bit of sorrow. Bruce looked a little green. What the hell as going on?

Pepper was confused and anxious, but as Rhodey started talking that confusion turned to shock, horror, worry… disbelief. But most of all, but it made a lot of things make sense.

Howard had organised the deaths of Tony's fiancée and unborn child. His own father had betrayed him, caused him all that pain and risked the life of his own Son in the process, just to save face. Not only that but Tony had been abused countless times and hospitalised at only 8 years old. It hurt her immensely to think of what Tony had been put through, but it also hurt her a little that he hadn't told her this, that even now he still wasn't telling her this, but Rhodey was. But she more than understood his reasons. She also now understood why Tony had always been so fiercely overprotective of her, why he had taken so long to commit to a relationship with her, why he always threw his own life on the line so recklessly in protection of her. He would rather die than go through the pain of loss again.

She needed to find him.

Thankfully that was not difficult, he was still in the infirmary and felt her stormy emotions coming from miles away.

"Hey Pep." He said nervously.

She simply climbed onto the bed with him and wrapped him in a hug. "I'm so sorry." She choked, tears threatening to pour down her face.

"You're not mad?" Tony asked

"What reason could I possibly have o be mad at you?"

"That I didn't even have the balls to tell you all myself… to tell you first, that Bruce found out before you did."

"It did hurt at first." She admitted. She wasn't going to lie about that. "But now… That you told me, at all means the world Tony. Considering you've kept that secret, alone, for nearly 30 years... Bruce explained the circumstances as to why you told him and again, I am so very sorry about that night. I should not have reacted like that, I must have made you feel horrible."

"Don't be. It's me who should be sorry."

"No, it isn't. And Do not apologise for not being able to say it to our faces, I can't imagine how hard it must have been to let us know at all. I am so proud of you Tony. If you never want it mentioned again, it won't be, if you ever do want to talk about it I'm here, we're all here… Just know I'm here that I don't think of you any differently."

"You have no idea how much that means Pep." Tony smiled a little and tightened his arms around her. "How did the others take it?" He asked nervously.

"They're shocked and upset. Not with you of course." She added quickly. "They want to see you, but we put them off for a little while."

"Thanks, I don't think I can deal right now."

"That's what I thought." She smiled, pulling away. "Doctors have cleared you anyway, so why don't you come up and get a few hours' sleep in your proper bed."

"I…" Tony started hesitantly, but Pepper read his mind.

"I'm not going to leave you Tony, I could do with a nap as well."

…

"Hey."

"Hey Cap."

It was Tony's first day back in the lab, Pepper had been keeping away from everyone for the last few days, so he could recover in peace. Things were going along with the training and preparation but there was a definite mood of uncertainty and shock in the tower, which was not good for moral.

Neither was the fact that Clint had smashed the countdown clock after the meeting saying it was a fucking stupid idea and if he's see's it put back up he'll set it on fire.

"You need anything?" Steve asked, it wasn't far off lunch time and in terms of their list of priorities, maintaining Tony's blood sugar level was listed as urgent and ongoing.

"No, I'm well stocked." Tony answered amicably, gesturing at a full stocked mini fridge and pulling open a draw full of, well, anything he could possibly want to eat.

"I wanted to have a chat if you're up to it?" Steve approached cautiously.

"Yeah you and everyone else." Tony scoffed a little bitterly.

"I'm sorry Tony, if it's a bad time…" Steve spoke calmly, trying not to rile up the engineer on his first day back to relative normalcy.

"No Cap its ok, I'm just being an ass." Tony sighed. "I realise I've been doing that a lot recently."

"Everybody handles stress differently and hell, I don't think there is anyone on the planet who has had to deal with more stress than you."

"Yeah I know. Some people yell and scream, some get hammered, my Dad got hammered and pushed his children down the stairs."

"Tony, man, don't do that." Steve pleaded.

"Do what?"

"Dismiss what happened to you so simply. You act like it was completely normal for someone to treat their child like that, like it doesn't even bother you, hell sometimes I wonder if you think you deserved it."

"Maybe I did." Tony said quietly, it was low enough for Steve to wonder if it had been intended to be heard or not, but Tony knew about his super-hearing, so he made a judgment.

"Tony, I think you know that you didn't, that you don't, that you never will deserve it."

"Passing stuff off like that Cap, it's the only way I can deal with it. I have to convince myself it's no big deal otherwise it becomes a big deal and I can't cope with the fact I'm actually broken."

"I know it may feel like it Tony, but you're not broken, or not in a way that can't be fixed. And what you're doing, it's a very short-term way of dealing with things."

"Well it's worked for 30 years." Tony grunted.

"Has it?"

"Not really." Tony admitted. "But just adds to my quirky personality." Tony smiled, and Steve chuckled.

"That it does." Steve said, not really sure where to go from here. "I accept right now Tony that there really isn't time to try anything, but I need to know, we need to know why you are hurting yourself."

Tony sighed.

"Is it a coping thing, or a cry for help? Because I realise we kind of just decided to leave you be and not push the issues and that we'd work on fixing it after the battle, but if you need help now, you have it Tony and I'm sorry if we alienated you by doing what we did."

"Honestly, it's not that simple. Sometimes it's the anxiety, when it gets bad the pain is stronger and it makes it go away for a second. Sometimes it's an honest accident, but I don't heal it because I deserve it for being so stupid…"

"Tony…"

"I know Steve, I know I don't deserve it, but when I'm in that headspace reason means jack shit. Now and again yes, it is to punish myself."

"The machine?"

"Yes. I just… it's like the damn thing is omniscient and laughing at me, keeps lulling me into a false sense of hope and then breaking for no apparent reason."

"I can't even start to understand what you're up against, but is there a better way? I mean, I know you can't actually hurt yourself long term with the CAEB, but it doesn't do much for our peace of mind, not that its about us…"

"Steve you don't need to tiptoe around me. You're not going to offend me and if you've got the wrong end of the stick I will tell you."

"OK." Steve sighed. "How can we help you Tony."

"There's nothing, I mean apart from the machine there is nothing left that's causing me this stress."

"But if the machine was done and finished and everything was ready can you honestly tell me you'd be 100% ok, back to normal?" Steve pried, knowingly.

"Honestly… probably not." Tony conceded.

"So, bearing that in mind and bearing in mind the machine isn't done and given the situation we're in… how can we support you now."

"You've all got enough on your plates." Tony shrugged. "I'll be fine."

"No Tony, we have time."

"I don't know Steve." Tony sighed, his words were honest.

"I get that. I do. No pressure, but next time you're in that state, just have a think what would help and let us know ok?"

"Yeah, yeah sure." Tony smiled weakly.

Steve patted the engineer on the shoulder and made a move towards the exit.

"And Tony…"

"Hmmm." Tony looked up again, already only half paying attention as he delved back into his work. "What?"

"You're are the bravest person I've ever met Tony Stark. And you're the best of all of us."

Tony opened his mouth to say something, anything, to protest, to tell Steve he was an idiot, to make some snide comment that would likely start a fight… but he had nothing. Just awe and disbelief as Steve disappeared.

…..

"How many suits do you need Tony?"

"These aren't suits feather's they're drones."

Tony had been busy splitting his work between the ever-present step 1: the damn machine; Steps 5,6 & 7. CAEB control, Armour upgrades and finally he'd got around to step 7: creating more soldiers, but of course these weren't just any soldiers… they were soldiers with a purpose.

"I thought you didn't do drones." Clint scowled prodding the head of the drone Tony was working and quickly catching it as it nearly toppled off. There was a loud clatter as a few small and intricate looking components fell to the floor and Clint frantically tried to gather them up and replace the head on the armour.

"Just put it down before you break anything else birdbrain." Tony chuckled, and Barton was incredibly glad Tony was in a good mood. Actually, he had been in a good mood a lot lately and it was a very nice change.

"They're a taskforce dedicated to protecting civilians above all else and providing us with emergency back up and ammunition when called."

"Your own private bodyguards."

"Our bodyguards." Tony corrected. "And they are also going to protect the hubs at all cost. What's the point in me putting in all the work to create the damn things if the enemy just destroy them."

"Valid point. So, you I'll be controlling these too?"

"Nope." Tony smiled and glanced upwards.

"I will have that pleasure Agent Barton."

"Wow, so J is joining the fight!" Clint smiled.

"I will not be fighting if I can avoid it agent Barton."

"He's going through a pacifist phase." Tony scoffed.

"Logic dictates that conflict is never the best resolution to a problem."

"Yeah, whatever Spock you'll be suiting up with the rest of us so get over it."

"When will they be ready?"

"Just finished the programming, manufacture will take us up to the day unfortunately, but they will be ready."

"Awesome, you free for lunch?"

"Where there's food there's me." Tony chuckled. "I'll be up once I've finished reattaching the poor thing's head after you decapitated it."

"Sorry." Clint called back into the room and the elevator doors slid shut.

….

Tony had been better. Better than he had been in years. Better than he had been in as long as he could remember and even though he had this whole, huge, overwhelming battle looming over him, the potential end of everything he knew and loved, he felt like a weight had been lifted.

Of course, that initial feeling of weightlessness hadn't lasted as long as he'd hoped it would. Everyone had been asking him how he was, and he'd passed over the first few, answering them honestly, because he knew they only asked because they cared, and he cared about them too… hell he could even admit now that he loved them all like family… even Steve, he chuckled to himself.

But after a while it had definitely started playing on his nerves and by the evening he had definitely had enough. He had locked himself in the lab, made improvements to the machine and set another simulation going, one that if it didn't work he was going to lose his shit. He had made the final tweaks to the soldiers and practically invented a new type of smart retroreflective panel and installed them into his suit. He could now fly around in his favourite red and gold colours and go invisible or hell, even change the paint job whenever the fuck he wanted. If he was going down in this fight he was going to go down looking like the $5 billion this damn thing had cost him to make.

This sui was the most advanced thing he had ever created yet carried less weapons of all but the mark 2. He had enough to defend himself and blow massive great holes in the enemy they'd be facing but there was one major difference now. He was the weapon. Not the suit. Him.

The exoskeleton had been perfected and integrated into the suit's mainframe.

He had nearly checked the final item off the list when Thor walked in.

"Tony…"

"If you're going to ask if I'm ok pointbreak you can fuck off, cos I aint talking."

"That is not what I am here about."

"Good." Tony huffed. He hadn't meant to be so offensive… well actually he had, he wasn't in the mood for sharing anymore feeling, he was empty, drained, his emotional tank was empty, and he had nothing left to talk about save the fact he was so damn sick of people asking him how he was… but anyway, that apparently wasn't why Thor was here.

"Though I would like to say, if I may, that telling us of your past, was incredibly courageous and I am honoured that you trust us… trust me with such secrets of your life."

"Well gee, thanks pointbreak." Tony said sincerely. That made a refreshing change. Of course, Pepper had said it, Rhodey hadn't shut up about how proud he was of Tony and Bruce had showered him in praise, but he had not expected it from Thor.

"When we last spoke alone, you suggested a trip to Asgard to inform the smiths of your suggested improvements."

"That was a joke Thor."

"Regardless I think it a good idea."

"Good idea? Thor…" Tony sighed. "For one thing, there isn't time now, the weapons will be made and all that and secondly, and don't get me wrong, I'm sure Asgard is great and all, and your father too, but last time I was on your planet it wasn't much fun for me."

Thor's stomach sank. After all that had happened in the year after the battle, he too had forgotten much of what the Avenger had been through.

"And your brother's there as well and yes, he helped get me out and all, but I'm not even going to pretend to like him since this was all his fault in the first place…" Tony rambled.

"I apologise." Thor nodded. "I did not think of these particular connotations to your visit."

"Yeah, well no biggy, I'll just write a note."

"Before you make up your mind Stark…"

"Kind of already have." Tony quipped.

"My Mother has requested to meet you."

"Your mother?"

"Yes."

"She helped me, right? Or helped you to help me anyhow."

"Yes, she did. She is a talented sorcerer, it is from her that Loki learned his tricks."

"Not selling it Thor."

"Of course." Thor nodded, getting back on track. "The point is she thinks her grasp of Magic may make her able to assist you in understanding your own powers and improving your control."

"So, you want to turn Asgard into a Hogwarts for CAEB possessing billionaires… and who would she be, Dumbledore? Or would it be McGonagall because she's a woman?" Tony contemplated.

"I do not understand…"

"How have we not introduced you and Steve to Harry Potter yet? J add it to the list."

"Yes Sir,"

"Stark I…"

"No sweat pointbreak I'll think it over."

"Thank you Stark, I believe this could very well be to your benefit."

"I'll consider it. No promises."

"That is all I ask. I hope your work goes well."

….

"You know what I don't even care, I'm stooping to this level. Please, please, please God let this work. I'll sell everything I own and put on a priest collar, spend the rest of my days kissing your celestial ass, just please let this work!" Tony yelled at the ceiling. He knew this was very, very, very desperate, but he was very, very, very desperate. He didn't know how many more failed simulations he could take.

Tony took a deep breath, flicking a couple of switches and then clicked 'run' on the screen.

Tony stared at the screen for the best part of 6 hours, before the inevitable happened.

"Simulation failed."

Tony let his head fall onto the desk heavily. He couldn't take this. He couldn't take any more of this. If he didn't do this, it was over. They were all going to die, and it would be his fault.

"I'm sorry Sir."

"Not your fault J," Tony sighed. He wanted the pain, he needed the pain. He turned his head, so his cheek was flush on the desk and he could see around the room. There wasn't anything within reach that could do the sort of damage he was considering inflicting on himself and despite his desperation for a reprieve, he didn't have the will to go and search for something. The one thing that was in reach, was his phone, so he picked it up and dialled.

"Tony?" Bruce's voice cut through the room a few moments later as the Physicist stepped out the elevator and approached the limp billionaire who was still laid on his desk.

"Bruce." Tony sighed and sat up slowly.

"Are you ok? What's wrong?"

"Movie night."

"What?"

"I need a movie night."

Bruce glanced at the screen, looked at the way Tony's hands were shaking slightly and most of all saw the river of pain running through his hazelnut eyes and his face darkened momentarily as he understood.

"Movie night. Sure." Bruce smiled softly.

"Come on." He put a hand on Tony's shoulder and guided the exhausted engineer to his feet. "I'll round up the others. What do you want to watch?"

"I don't… I don't care I just…"

"I know Tony. I know." Bruce soothed.

…..

"What's going on?" Steve asked Natasha softly. "Did someone call a meeting."

"Bruce called a movie night."

"But Movie nights are Tuesdays?"

"Yes."

"It's Saturday?"

"Yes, it is. But he's bringing Tony up from the lab. Somethings off."

Steve was about to ask what but at that moment the elevator doors slid open and Bruce stepped out, Tony tight by his shoulder looking incredibly on edge. It was written on his face plain as day and Steve was a little taken aback, not only by the fact Tony was letting it show so readily, but the fact he was here at all. It meant he must have asked for help. It made Steve smile slightly, until he took another look and saw how shattered and vulnerable Tony looked right now.

"Right. Well, I believe it's Nat's turn to choose tonight." Steve said, trying to establish an air of normalcy.

"Pass." Nat sighed and pointed at Clint. "Forfeit to Clint, I can't deal with him whining all the way through again."

"I believe Sir added the Harry Potter series as next on the 'watch list'."

"Oh my God of course, how did we miss showing you guys that." Clint threw his arms in the air, but Tony shook his head.

"Not tonight J. Clint picks." Tony said quietly, and the others tried not to give him more attention than he was comfortable with in this state. Tony wanted to be with them, really with them when Steve and Thor saw that for the first time. He wanted to be able to laugh genuinely at their inevitable stupid questions and tease them for it and see the look on their faces.

"Yes!" The archer started whizzing through movies on the screen, frantically trying to decide on one. "Yes, you'll all love this. It's got dragons!"

"Here we go." Natasha rolled her eyes aloud."

"Hey quit moaning, you forfeited." Clint threw a handful of popcorn at Natasha who just picked it off her shirt, piece by piece and ate it.

"So, I did. I knew I'd regret it."

"Shh it's starting." Steve asked, and everyone fell silent.

It took a good hour for Tony to start interacting with them, it was on the second film he seemed more like his usual self, he and Clint arguing like an old married couple, making jokes, largely at the expense of Steve or Thor. But by the end of How to Train your Dragon 2, strangely, Tony was fast asleep on Bruce's shoulder.

"I'll take him to his room." Steve nodded as everyone started making for bed and Bruce nodded gratefully. His shoulder had been numb for a good half hour now and as much as he didn't want to wake Tony, he was getting slightly worried he was going to lose an arm.

Tony stirred as Steve took hold of him, eyes opening he looked the Captain in the face briefly but seemed to decide that he couldn't be bothered or was just too tired to fight it. He closed his eyes again and relaxed.

They weren't far from Tony's room when Tony tapped him on the shoulder wanting to be put down.

"You good?" Steve asked with no insinuation.

"Yeah just wiped."

"Bruce noticed." Steve grinned. "Think you owe him a new arm."

Tony chuckled a little. "Night Rogers. Thanks for the lift."

"Tony?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you for going to Bruce."

"Yeah well we all know I can't carry on like this. And I don't want to carry on like this anymore."

"It's really good to hear that Tony." Steve smiled. "You know what screw that. Stark I'm proud of you."

Tony raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

"I made a snap judgement when we first met," Steve continued, "and even though I thought I'd got past it, I was still judging you months later and I made so many damn mistakes because of that. One thing I realise now, and even if you never realised it yourself is you Tony are the best of us all and I'm sorry for all the crap I put you through. I'm here if you need me, we all are, in whatever way you need us. I hope someday you can learn to trust me again."

"It's not often people can admit that they were wrong Cap. I appreciate that. And I do trust you. I trust all of you, I never would have told you those things if I didn't."

"Thank you, Tony."

"No, Thank you Cap."

"Now get some rest."

…..

The next morning Tony blinked at the screen in disbelief.

Simulation failed.

Those were the words he had read last night and nearly lost the will to live… even more… whatever.

Simulation reached 93% completion.

Those were the words he hadn't seen and oh my God… This was amazing.

93%... that was an 6% jump on the last one. 6%. If he managed that one more time… This was great. He'd been so taken up in another failure last night that he hadn't realised the breakthrough he'd actually made.

So, rerouting the power had worked, now surely the final calibrations would prevent the premature failure and lift off. He had nothing else left to do now, just one final push to the finish. He could do this.

He was Tony Goddamn Stark, and he was going to fucking do this!

….

"I can't believe I'm doing this." Tony mumbled to himself and Thor readied the tesseract

"Relax Stark, the Asgard we will visit is not the one you remember."

"I Frigin hope not." Tony grunted.

"My Father knows what is happening, but we will not be in his presence for the time you are here. I have one final task to complete before I return you to Earth, but I will be leaving you with my Mother, Frigga, Queen of Asgard, she will not let any harm come to you."

"Thanks, Pointbreak. Let's get this show on the road."

"Are you ready Stark?"

"As I'll ever be, come on get it over…" The world spun in a flash of blue as he was ripped from the earth as he could feel the strange and nauseating sensation of every atom of his being separated. When everything settled his knees gave out instantly and he collapsed to the ground.

"…with. Shit." He turned onto his side and vomited once, rolling back on to his back and closing his eyes to try and escape the terrible queasiness tugging on his insides.

"Stark? Stark? Are you well?"

"Well he clearly isn't well Thor, else he wouldn't have emptied his stomach on the lawn."

"Man of iron, can you hear me?"

"What the fuck sort of teleport was that." Tony growled, opening an eye and stretching out an arm for Thor to help him up.

"I have never seen anyone have a reaction quite like that to travel by tesseract, most say it is the best means of teleporting they have experienced."

"I don't even want to know what the other methods are like then." Tony groaned and tried to hold back another wretch.

"No, son this is not what it seems. Mr Stark, I am Frigga, queen of Asgard."

Tony almost groaned again.

"Well, your highness, lovely to meet you, sorry for barfing on your lawn. What a first impression."

Frigga laughed lightly. "I do not believe your reaction to tesseract travel was typical Stark. Most beings… even Asgardians, our senses are too dull to feel what teleportation requires. A separation and reconstruction of the atoms, but I believe the CAEB allowed you to experience this fully."

"Torn apart and put together again, not quite in the right order? Yeah, that sounds about like what I felt."

"This is quite an inconvenience to you. I do not dare imagine

"I am sorry Stark, if I had known."

"Not your fault Goldilocks, but I'm going to need a minute before I can do anything constructive."

"I must go complete my task. I hope your time together is useful, though be warned mother, Stark has a habit of dangerously overstretching himself."

Tony mustered the best bitch face he was capable of pulling while feeling this awful and aimed it at Thor.

"I will take good care of your friend my Son. You needn't worry."

"Thank you, Mother." Thor smiled and leapt into the air as his hammer spun almost faster than could be seen.

"Huh, that's a much better way of travelling." Tony scoffed as Thor flew over the great ocean and towards the rainbow bridge. Then suddenly Tony realised for the first time what he was looking at. He was on an alien planet, a beautiful planet. With a moon in the sky he did not recognise and that shone even in the day, with a sun that did not quite glow with the same colour or brightness as the one he had basked in all his life, this place took his breath away. Their world was quite literally flat, sail to the horizon and you would fall off the edge of their earth. The thought of it made him chuckle, but he was quickly lost again as he gazed at the way sunlight sparkled and danced on the surface of the tranquil waters and the sky was lit up gold as it reflected off the breath-taking city beyond. He was on another world, not many humans could say that, and the memories of his last trip into space flooded back into his mind, they did not scare him any longer. Asgard, despite having nearly been his grave less than a year ago, had just restored his faith in the wonder that the universe held. In a matter of days, he would have to fight to keep this incredible reality safe. He couldn't think of a more worthy cause to die for.

"I will see if we can find another method for you to travel home. I do not wish for you to experience that again." Frigga cut off his trail of thought and he looked at her, still blinking a little in awe.

"Neither do I, but if it can't be done it's fine. I've had worse." Tony shrugged.

"Yes, and some of that was at our hands."

"You don't need to be sorry for that, you helped me get out of there and I am grateful for that."

"I still need to apologise on my husband's behalf."

"You don't." Tony could feel the pain of guilt and remorse rolling off Frigga in waves. "He apologised for himself and although it could use work I have accepted it now. And I get why it had to happen. If Odin had been right, what he did would have been the only thing to do.

"But he wasn't. Right, nor would he listen to reason when presented with it."

"With all due respect your majesty, it doesn't matter. It happened, its done, I barely remember it anyway because I was drugged up to the eyeballs. And quite frankly it feels like so long ago and so much has happened since then, I sometimes just feel like a dream.

Frigga frowned at him, studying his face intently and Tony suddenly felt very vulnerable.

"You sense emotions, my Son said."

"Yes."

"Tell me what you sense from me."

"I try not to pry."

"You try not to, but I can tell mine are bothering you now aren't they."

"I wouldn't say bothering."

"They are upsetting to you. They are loud and instil similar feelings inside you, feelings you do not want."

"I'm getting used to it. Actually, your emotions are pretty quiet compared to a human's." Tony looked away awkwardly, hoping they would soon pass this part of the conversation.

"Do not get used to it. Control it. Don't let them control you."

"How?" Tony sighed. "Believe me I've tried, but… I'm not saying it can't be done just that I don't know how."

"Nor do I… Yet. But there are some things I think I can help you with immediately."

"Well, I'm more than willing to try."

"Are you?"

"What?" Tony asked in confusion. "That's why I came I…"

"That is not quite what I meant. I did not mean to offend, simply make a point." Frigga considered her words for a moment. "I can sense your power Stark and it is great. My magic is no match for it in terms of strength, but magic can be easily commanded, it is versatile… tell me, what does the CAEB feel like to you."

"It's hard to say… it's a part of me. A part of me that I… I don't like."

"Why don't you like it? You don't like the power."

"It's not that I don't like the power, I don't like how this power behaves."

"You feel it is alive Stark? That is has behaviour."

"Yes."

"Interesting, but you said it is a part of you… Is it associated with behaviours you don't like, behaviours of your own?"

"Kind of it's hard to explain."

"Just try and I will see what I can understand." Frigga instructed.

"I like power, I mean, I build my suits to be more powerful to be stronger…"

"But do you build your suits specifically to become more powerful?"

"Yes, so that I can protect…"

"The people you love." Frigga finished.

"Yes." Tony nodded.

"OK. When you are in your armour what is it like, what does that power feel like."

"I feel confident, safe… in control. Whatever I want the suit to do it does, it is perfect, precise, predictable... The CAEB is none of those things, it is unpredictable, it is unprecise, I cannot trust the power I am wielding."

"You dislike the lack of control."

"The CAEB doesn't want to be controlled, I can tell. I know that we are the same entity now, so it makes no sense, but I still treat us as separate things in my mind."

"Maybe that is you first mistake. Not that fact you treat them as separate things but that you are trying to be the one on control."

"You want me to let it take the reins?" Tony asked, a little horrified.

"Neither of you should have the reins, you should share them." Frigga explained. "I can feel the battle inside your soul. It fights you Tony. You fight yourself. Your constant striving for the unachievable, for perfection. Most would kill to hold the power you do, yet you despise it."

"I know what power does, and its never good."

"And that is why it is only you who can bare this Tony Stark, only you who can defeat these creatures."

Frigga fell silent as Tony decided not to respond, but realisation had dawned in those deep chocolate eyes that Frigga decided she could work with.

"Thor said you had a list… may I see it."

"Yeah." Tony patted down his pockets and handed over a crumpled and messy piece of paper, which Frigga studied intently.

"Of these which you have crossed out, which do you find least draining?"

"With the exoskeleton, they are all fine to do…"

"I would prefer to see you work without this… exoskeleton, I simply mean to gain an impression of the power you have and the toll it takes on you."

"Ok, well, I'm not sure, Shielding is probably easiest, or at least I've done the most of it…"

"What do you require?"

"It works best if something is fired at me, or I have something explosive to work with."

Frigga nodded, and held out a small round object to gain Tony's attention and then rolled it on the ground towards him.

"Interesting." She frowned in intrigue and nodded with a small smile. "Very interesting. Now try that again, but I want you to listen to my instructions."

She rolled another small metal sphere and Tony repeated his actions, instinctually enveloping the explosion in a ball of energy and then prepared to begin smiting it from existence.

"Now hold it there." Frigga said, and Tony looked at her puzzled. "You feel that energy? Not the CAEB's but the energy of the explosive?"

Tony nodded.

"You can feel it, but you chose to dissipate it into the environment. Yet, from this point you are able to manipulate it any way you want, even store it. Can you see that?"

Tony's hands shook a little from the strain of keeping the energy contained. "Yes, I suppose."

"Do not fight it Stark, your desperation to control the explosion is what is draining you. It's like fighting a current in a river, you may hold your ground for a time, but you will not beat the water in the submission. Flow with it, feel it and guide it, but do not order it."

Tony closed his eyes and concentrated, slowly his shoulders began to relax and the energy in his hands seemed to still. The tension went from his body as his eyes snapped open glowing blue and he gasped in relief.

"That is incredible Stark." Frigga shook her head in astonishment. "You master this far faster than I anticipated."

"Yeah, but what do I do with it now." The energy was now longer enveloped in a ball of the CAEB's shield but spread between his hands as if he were simply holding it.

"Whatever you want." Frigga smiled as Tony started passing it from hand to hand experimentally. "Try to use it, you have control of its explosive force, return it to your attacker."

"No offense, but I'm not going to attack the queen of Asgard."

"Very well, try first on an object."

Tony grinned evilly as he selected what he wanted to obliterate. A statue of Odin exploded into shards of marble in a large poof of dust and a few guards who were stood close by started.

"Oops I didn't mean to do that. I am terribly sorry your highness."

"Very funny Mr. Stark, very funny." Frigga said with genuine amusement, she let him enjoy the moment for a while before she returned to their focus. "Now, you channelled that energy into the same way as it came to you. An explosion still became an explosion, but this is energy and it can be transformed into any form you wish."

She rolled another ball across the ground and watched as Tony handled the energy more quickly.

"Good, now try something else, perhaps something from your list but it does not have to be. Use the energy for something else."

"OK…" Tony considered. Something else, something else… how about the opposite. From a destructive force to a creative force. "How about this?"

The pieces of the statue started moving back together as Tony guided the energy towards it. The statue slowly but surely started to reform, even the specks of dust on the ground retaking their places and the Guards looked on half terrified, half amazed, but before he could finish his hands started to shake.

"Ok stop there, you feel that point?"

Tony nodded and suddenly had to let go. The pain exploded through his skull and he fell to his knees, catching his breath. Frigga was there, helping back to a seat by the fountain and giving him chance to recover.

"Yes, that's what I thought. You used the energy you had control of and it wasn't enough to complete the task, so you started channelling your own… we must work on preventing this where possible as it will drain you very quickly."

"The exoskeleton…"

"Is like a suit of armour, useful and protective, but one must first learn to fight without it." Frigga acknowledged. "We will do some practise with your device active, so you can become accustomed to how it interacts with your abilities, but first I will teach you without."

"Fair enough."

"Let's continue."

"Can I have a minute."

"Indeed, you may. You need only ask; my wish is not to overstrain you."

"Thanks." Tony smiled and looked around again at the view, savouring it. He should have done this months ago.

….

Tony watched in awe as time slowed down around him. He could see each wing beat of the strange little Asgardian bee's in slow motion as they went about their business. He found himself staring at the way each droplet of water splattered on the paving as it fell stray of the fountain. When time slowed, it was like stepping into a different world, he had been eager to test his ability to manipulate time for months, but the more important powers had taken precedence, but he was so glad to have finally got the chance to do so. It was like stepping into heaven, everything was serene and calm and eternal, he truly could escape change.

But it couldn't last. The energy he had gathered for this was limited and he felt the point they had talked about, the point at which the energy he had absorbed fizzled away and was used up and he had a choice. Drain his own reserves to continue, or stop? He stopped and smiled at the control he had found as the world popped back into full speed, which was slightly dizzying, but incredibly exhilarating.

"Incredible Stark, truly incredible."

"This is unbelievable… I have spent months trying to do this and we make this much progress in an afternoon."

"The experience I share with you took many millennia to perfect. Understanding fundamental principles is what you enjoy, this is all we have done today and although I expect you wish to try more… I feel we should stop at this point."

"Can we just…"

"Stark, I understand your eagerness to achieve as much as you can today and leave with no question unanswered, but you now have all you need. With the control and the skill, you have mastered today, you can apply this to anything you can imagine. You can unlock the full extent of the CAEB's power as long as you have an energy source great enough."

Tony nodded. He knew this was true. He didn't need to try every trick in the book, because he knew he could do it now, he knew how.

"I don't know what to say. Thank you doesn't seem to cover it."

"It is nothing compared to the thanks we and the rest of the galaxy, maybe even the entire universe, will owe you in a few days' time. Good Luck Mr. Stark."

"Thank you."

"Actually, maybe you should try one more thing before you go, it may also fix the problem of your transportation home."

"Ok, hit me." Tony smiled.

"Look into my mind and you will find a location, I want you to go there."

Tony paused a moment. This was a little different than manipulating energy, but he'd done it before, he took a deep breath and….

…

Thor stood on the surface of the other planet, wearily looking out over the barren desert landscape. The soil had long since become dry and infertile. The red copper rich earth looked like it had been bathed in the blood of a million fallen warriors and under the orange light of an aging sun it had led Thor to picture this place in his mind when he thought of Hel. He supposed neither was far from the truth, this planet had seen so much death. Its people had suffered so much at the hands of invading species and tyrannous rulers, he could not understand why they still remained so passive. This had been his last chance to convince them to stand up and fight, but despite informing them of the danger to themselves they seemed not to believe it was their battle to fight.

The issue of course was his father. Odin had kept this, and so many stories concealed that everyone thought them to be myth at best. Only Asgard believed the CAEB was real, that the 5 beings existed and that the earth, the nine realms were in grave danger.

He sighed wearily as he contemplated what had just occurred. He had explained the graveness of the situation to them, the danger to themselves and their people. If earth was lost, the rest of the worlds would soon follow, but they could not see. They would not fight, would not 'waste' the lives of their people to save another world.

He had failed.

He needed to head home, to Asgard and report his failure to father and to retrieve Stark. It had been many hours and the man was likely growing anxious. Thor had promised he would be safe, but he had been gone much longer than he expected, and the man of iron had suffered much at his Father's hands and would be as uneasy on Asgard as Thor felt in this place. However, he needed a moment before he summoned use the tesseract; a moment to contemplate his failure in this mission.

"You didn't fail."

Thor turned on his heel sharply, raising Mjolnir and glowering at the figure behind him. He recognised him instantly and for a second thought it could not be possible, before he remembered who indeed he was.

"This place is a bundle of laughs." The man scoffed and lazily kicked a small cluster of rocks around the red surface of the wasteland, staring up at the sky.

"Stark?"

Tony seemed to ignore Thor's confusion, he just picked up a couple of rocks and rubbed them between his fingers, tasting one experimentally. "It's not your fault they're a bunch of idiots. We'll just have to save they're ungrateful asses anyway."

"I would prefer you not read my mind Stark."

"I didn't read your mind Thor, I read your mother's and before you start she let me. But your emotions are kind of screaming like they're trying to be heard by the whole universe."

Thor frowned. The man of iron was acting strangely indeed, but he did not seem ill, or anxious, in fact he seemed unnaturally at ease.

"I've never felt them so loud." He pondered. "But I reckon that's because you let it all out when you think you are alone, don't you? You shouldn't bottle stuff up like that it's not healthy and before you say it I know I'm a hypocrite."

"Stark. What are you doing here?"

"Although actually, thinking about it, I don't think I need to hear your emotions anymore, or anyone's… not unless I want to I guess I should be able to just turn it off."

Tony seemed to focus for a moment and then everything in his posture relaxed. "Great." He smiled. "Quiet as a mouse. If only I figured that out months ago, how much shit would that have saved? Why do people say as quiet as a mouse? Mice aren't that quiet. I remember when I was a child and we had an infestation in the mansion attic and all night I could hear them squeaking and scratting about. They certainly were not quiet. Well they were when the pest controller killed them, but the saying isn't 'as quiet as a dead mouse, is it? I mean you could say as quiet as a dead elephant and that would still make sense, because anything that is dead is quiet, because its dead!"

"Are you quite well friend Stark?"

"I'm fine Thor. I get I'm acting a little stoned right now but well, things are good and sue me if I get a little philosophical when I'm happy."

Thor frowned. "It seems you and my mother have made progress."

"Yeah, she's a badass your mom. You should tell her more often you know, she'd appreciate it."

Thor chuckled to himself. "You are right, and I will make more of an effort." He said sincerely. "But what are you doing here?"

"Just an experiment. Apparently, you could use a lift home."
"I have the tesseract, I do not need assistance and I think we both know you would prefer not to use it again."

"Well that's for certain. And that's part 2 of why I'm here. I know its not as cool as an infinity stone transporter but…" Tony put his hand on Thor's shoulder and suddenly the scene around them changed instantaneously. There was no feeling of movement, no stomach-churning nausea that was usually associated with teleportation, but there they were, stood in Asgard. A blink of an eye and they had travelled millions of miles without so much as a gust of wind to signify the motion.

"Stark… that was…"

"Sorry, was it a bit rough? First time with a passenger, I tried to filter out the quantum…"

"Stark, that was incredible." Thor cut him off sharply.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't feel a thing, usually teleportation is rough and nauseating, the tesseract and the Bifrost are two of the best means I have encountered, but this was more efficient, I felt not a single sensation."

"Huh, cool, I guess."

"My son." Frigga's pleased voice broke their conversation.

"Mother." Thor smiled back at Frigga. "You and Stark have made progress I trust."

"The speed at which he learns things has surprised even me."

"Well you know what they say about a good teacher."

"My mother does not compliment lightly." Thor acknowledged.

"I think we have also established a mental link strong enough to work between the realms, so should you require more assistance Stark, you know how to contact me."

"Thank you, really I can't tell you how amazing today has been."

"You have all the tools you need now. Control the energy and from there you can do anything you perceive. Trust that you have the foundation and spend time with your family before the battle. You will be drained from the day's exertions, please rest well."

"I will."

"The same goes for you my Son."

Tony wandered away a little, sensing the need for Thor to be alone with his Mother.

"Stark has changed more in this day than he has in any way since I have met him."

"His strength of character is immense."

"That it is."

There was a pause as Thor tried to gather his words.

"Mother… I often forget it because you are a queen and my mother, but you are as wise as any scholar of our people, you have so often given me counsel that has prevented me making a grave mistake and as well as this you are one of the most fearsome warriors Asgard has. I do not thank you enough for all you have done for me nor do I always give you the respect you deserve. I only hope one day to be worthy of the support you have given me."

"Thor, you have this obsession with being worthy and that is your father's fault. A child should never have to prove their worth, a parent should love them regardless of what they achieve as I do… as your father does but would never admit. I am prouder of you than I could ever express and if you must obsess on your worthiness, then believe me when I say you are more than worthy."

"I thank you mother. I just need you to know that you are appreciated and for life of me I cannot recall a time in the last millennia when I have told you this, which is more wrong of me than I can express."

"If you are trying to say goodbye my Son, you do not have to be so flattering. I know as well as you the risks of the battle you are to face, I live with the worry and the knowledge that you may not return, and I know all you have to say to me."

"This is not so much a final farewell mother, though I realise it may be the last time we speak… it was in fact prompted by something Stark said to me, he said you were a 'badass' and I should tell you once in a while."

"A 'badass'." Frigga frowned. "And this is a term of endearment?"

"As far as I can tell it means you are a fearsome warrior, or strong of character. The nuances of human speech are exhausting."

"That I do agree with. There were many things Stark said today that I did not understand."

"I believe there are many things that Tony Stark says that his own species do not understand." Thor chuckled. "I think he revels in people's confusion on occasion."

"Well that is a comfort to know." Frigga joined in her son's laughter. "Take care of yourself my son and take care of Stark. He has an immense weight to carry and a long way yet to carry it."

"I will Mother. I will."

….

Well, powers progress, healing, team bonding and a little bit of angst… Ok, fair amount of angst. PLUS, Asgard Frigga. I hope I ticked all the boxes for you. We have one more chapter before the battle begins. I hope you are prepared, because anything could happen. Anything at all.