Awakening

*bows* As I haven't done a disclaimer in a while: don't send your law hounds after me as I don't own anything Disney or JK do, thank you ;)


"You should've gotten this looked at beforehand." I scolded my father as I waved my hand over his leg. Healing had never been my strong suit with magic, and while it was something I could do with my Immortal powers, I still wasn't as good at it as Mortem or Vitam.

"Yeah, no." Dad said with dedication as I healed his leg the best I could. How on earth he had managed to walk around with a fractured femur I had no idea, not to mention the muscle damage done by the suit and the two inch long scratch something.

"Jarvis, I thought you called the paramedics or something after we got here?" I asked, trying to remember if he had said something along those lines.

"Sir had me cancel the order." Jarvis grumbled throughout the lab, and I rolled my eyes at my father's typical tactics.

Huffing I pulled my hand away from his leg and gave him a stern look. "Well, I was able to mend the scratch and the fracture, but the muscle damage is just going to have to heal on its own."

Dad made a face and I gave him a glare as I crossed my arms over my chest. "That means you need to try and stay off of it for the next few days until the swelling goes down."

"And you can't just heal it why?" Dad drawled in annoyance and I smacked him on the arm.

"Because you nitwit, healing isn't my forte, just be glad I was able to do this much!" I growled at him before Bruce walked over from taking care of Thor, Rogers and Barton.

"Thor had a small puncture wound just below his ribs and although it seems to be almost healed by now, I patched it up anyway. Barton's right arm is lightly sprained and his back is badly bruised, but that's about it. Rogers seems fine, his own healing has already taken care of whatever injury he may have had." Bruce reported to me as I nodded.

I had already healed Bruce's sprained wrist, and had set him on the others while I worked with my stubborn father.

"Jarvis, why don't you lead the others on a tour while I finish up with Daddy dearest here?" I suggested, knowing that I would have to look at Dad's Arc next and that wasn't something he wanted others seeing.

"Of course," Jarvis replied dutifully fully aware of the reason behind my request. "If you all would follow the sound of my voice I shall show you what remains of Stark Tower."

"Come on guys," Bruce said as he ushered everyone else out. Thor had given me a questioning look while Barton and Rogers looked confused for the millionth time that day, but no one protested.

Apparently, they were always as idiotic as they acted.

Once the rest of the team left the lab, the lights dulled and the singular glass wall became tinted, and Dad laid his head back with a sigh.

"What a day," He muttered and I nodded sadly as Jarvis pulled up both my own and Dad's vitals as well as the Arcs' stats.

"I know," I sighed, the wall in the back of my mind seemed to be getting heavier, if that was at all possible. It was weighing on my mind more, and I had a feeling that it wasn't going to last much longer.

"Was it a good idea," Dad mumbled mostly to himself as he rubbed his sore leg, "offering for them to stay I mean."

"I don't really know," I answered softly with a shrug. "We hardly know most of them…and you barely know any of them. I don't think it'll be easy…especially until things with Romanoff are worked out, but I think…I think this is how it's supposed to be Daddy. They're your team now."

What I didn't say was that they were very close to being part of our family now.

I would wait on that.

We enjoyed another few moments of silence before I shifted my stance and tapped Dad's Arc with a finger.

"Ok, shirt off. I want a look at your Arc; I'm not happy with the way it died." I told Tony as he started at me in shock.

"How on earth did you know that?" He asked me crossing his arms over his chest and I rolled my eyes at my father.

"Let's just say that Bruce and Xavier were very concerned over such a fact and were projecting their mental worry loud enough for Mortem to pick up on it." I told him and poked his Arc again.

It was true, Mortem had let me know about his Arc, even if it had only been a few minutes ago.

"So let me check it." I gave him a stern look and he sighed, before coming up with a compromise.

"Fine, but only if I can check over yours afterwards; yes, mine went dark but yours got destroyed and I'm still not one hundred percent sure how much damage Romanoff caused." Dad said stubbornly and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to worm my way out of this one.

"Alright, alright, we have a deal, now Jarvis, anything of concern since the fall?" I asked the AI as dad lifted his shirt over his head and I started inspecting the Arc with an experienced eye.

"It seems that whatever Loki tried to do to sir caused a buildup of conflicting energies in the Reactor, and when it was put under strain by suddenly being in a vacuum, it failed prematurely. Most of the foreign energy has dissipated, but a small amount still remains and is battling the Penitonuim."

My eyebrow twitched at the name, while I had been flattered that Dad named the newest element after me, it got a bit irritating after a time.

"I thought we agreed that the name was Starkanuim?" I asked as Dad stiffened slightly as I twisted the Arc and pulled it slowly from its socket.

"No, you basically told me to call it that. I personally voted for badassium but you shot me down." Dad pouted playfully and I gave him a glare.

"That's because sometimes you have the worst names for things." I informed my father dryly as Jarvis' scans on the Arc rolled through the air.

"Well, the socket and baseplate seem unharmed," I said slowly as I let my sparks dance across my fingers and into the mental in Dad's chest. "But I still think we should replace the Arc just to be safe."

Dad nodded a grim expression on his face. "Yeah, I had a feeling that I would need a new one."

"U," I called out and the bot that was basically my brother looked over from where he was poking Butterfingers, "get me a new Arc for Dad, he needs a replacement."

U whistled happily and rolled over to the secret compartment that was locked to everyone who wasn't in the lab at the moment.

A moment later U dropped the new Arc into my hand with several loud chirps before nudging Dad with his claw and happily rolling back to his 'brother'.

"You gotta love those bots." Dad muttered to himself with a chuckle and I nodded with a hum.

You really truly had to.

"Ready?" I asked my father as I reached my hand down into the socket carefully and gripped the connection on the baseplate.

"Yup," Dad replied as he popped the "p" and trying not to grimace I quickly pulled out the Arc.

Thankfully, there was almost no immediate risk for Dad if an Arc was removed. Because of the size of his baseplate we had been able to alter it after the Obie incident so that it retained a small charge just in case the Arc ever died or was removed.

It was because of this that Dad hadn't suffered any serious damage when the Arc had died during his fall.

Swiftly placing the Arc on Dad's desk I plugged the new one into his chest, and patted his arm as he jolted just slightly as it was reconnected.

"Your turn," Dad told me as he slid his shirt back on and got out of his chair. With a nod and a sigh I pulled my own t-shirt off while Jarvis raised the tilted medical table out from the floor. (Dad had been paranoid and installed three when the Tower was built.) Climbing onto the table Dad brought over his previous Arc and handed it to me.

Because my own baseplate was smaller and more condensed in my chest, we hadn't been able to alter it as much as Dad's. Not to mention the reach of the Arc's system took up more of my chest than Dad's as I was much smaller.

Dummy rolled up with a tray of miniscule tools as Dad had Jarvis scan me again.

I rolled my eyes at Dad's worry but decided to let him do what he wished.

I had a feeling that examining me himself would put his mind at ease.


Tony's POV

I had been ecstatic when Penny let me take a look at her own Arc, socket, and baseplate. Her system was slightly more eccentric than mine and while was basically powered the same way had a different purpose.

It was because of this I had been relieved to find that meager repairs I had done while being totally out of it had saved Penny from any problems, and I had been even more relieved to see that Mortem had indeed healed Pen from any physical injury caused by the bullet.

The very same bullet that still sat innocently in my jean's pocket, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't forget about the small piece of metal.

Sadly, Penny's baseplate was still rather banged up, and while there was no longer a gapping whole in it, it was just barely working the way it should.

It had taken me ten minutes to convince Pen to let me fix it.

I had never really done any hard core repairs to Penny's baseplate or any other system that was powered by her Arc. Sure, I had replaced her Arc plenty of times and had helped her as she made her own slight upgrades, but there was only so much I could do when the majority of her system was deep inside her chest.

It had taken a lot of very long tools, Dummy holding a flashlight, and Jarvis providing a holographic projection of what I was doing, to get the baseplate completely repairs.

All in all it was over an hour later when the two of us left the lab and made our way back upstairs to the others.

"Do you think Pepper's tracked Romanoff down yet?" Pen asked in amusement though I could tell that she was slightly worried about something.

Ever since her strange attack earlier, she would sometimes get a faraway look in her eyes and wince. I didn't know what was wrong with my daughter, hell I didn't even know what had happened.

But I knew that it hadn't all been good.

I really wanted some answers to the many questions floating around my head.

"It's Pepper; no doubt she's already tracked down both Romanoff and Fury and is still chewing their ears off." I replied with a small smile as I imagined what my fiery girlfriend was doing to the director and agent right now.

"True," Pen nodded and I had to stop myself from just picking her up and never letting go again.

"So…want to go make sure the idiots haven't messed up the Tower even more?" She asked and I nodded.

"Oh yes." I replied and the two of us quickened our pace. "And we also need to plan our revenge on Romanoff."

An evil grin spread across Pen's face, matching the one adorning mine.

"That'll be fun." She giggled and I had to agree. It would be very fun.

As I glanced over at my daughter I realized a few things.

One, I would be able to wait a little while for answers.

And two, it was just too bad that I could still feel the abyss in the back of my mind.

Though I now doubted that it would ever really go away. But hey, who ever said that sanity was a necessity?


Look, another update! See, I'm slowly getting back into rhythm!

Hope you liked it, I know it wasn't anything super special.

Explanations for Bruce and Tony (and somewhat Thor) will be within the next few chapters.

You guy's all rock, don't forget it! R&R
Cp