Author's note before we start:
Hey, everyone! Welcome back. I got done with editing as much as I could, but if you notice something, please don't hesitate to point it out! I don't have a beta reader and my editing skills suck, lmao. Not to mention that sometimes the document manager on this site sometimes just... messes with my stuff.
Tony Stark sat on a bean bag in a spare room with a tablet in his lap, wearing a ferocious scowl and bags under his eyes deeper than the pockets on men's jeans. Lines of data, numbers and readings, blurred into each other as they jockeyed for space on the little screen. He rubbed his eyes, taking a sip of a long-cold coffee.
God, he was tired. He had barely slept since the Shadow swept up the greater New York City area, three days ago. Three. Days. While it wasn't the longest time he had gone without sleep, he was exhausted physically and mentally. There was so much to do, between the research into the shadow creatures and actually fighting them. He had barely slept, and the only times he ate was when Pepper made him eat something to prove to her he wasn't forgetting to eat. So maybe she had a point, there.
So far, all they had to go off of was a story the Chitauri tech girl, Aubrey, had told them before she disappeared. It was a pretty tall tale to believe. Dimensional travel, magic, and a war that spanned generations? Sounded like a bad mix of a fairy tale and a Star Trek episode.
But shit, it was all they had, aside from a few lines of data, a few captured monsters, and a fallen city.
His phone buzzed, and he reluctantly put down the tablet.
"Stark," he answered.
"Tony?" a familiar voice asked, and Tony perked up just a bit.
"Rhodey! Please tell me you're not with Pepper on this,"
"With Pepper on what?"
Tony breathed a sigh of relief. "Nothing, nothing. You rang?"
There was a moment of silence as Rhodey decided whether or not to pursue the topic, but he just said, "Captain just found something you might like."
He downed the rest of the cold coffee in three gulps. "If you mean this sarcastically, I'm going to scream."
Rhodey chuckled on the other side of the line, but he sounded weary. "I mean it, Tony. Hawkeye and Captain just got off patrol, and they've brought someone you might want to talk to. Dr. Banner is on his way to the conference room close to the lab with the white rock. We've got techs and upper agents coming to the meeting, too. A civilian with a scanner just got us some info, and their friends are at the base too." He emphasized the word "scanner" heavily.
Tony thought for a moment, connecting the dots, then stood up. "Done and done, meet you in five."
Three minutes later, yay for punctuality, Tony finally slid into a chair. The base they were using was discursive in how to get from room to room, but at least JARVIS could point out paths for him to take. Most of the Avengers were assembled in the room, with the major exception of Thor, Widow, and Falcon, who were out on patrol. Hawkeye, Steve, and Banner were already seated. Tony waved at Rhodey especially. A few faceless ex-SHIELD agents and other scientists sat or stood around the room, despite the long table with plenty of open seats. The room itself was private and secure, painted in light colors, with most of its illumination coming from electric lighting.
A tall person wearing a green, black, and white flag pin in their t-shirt and their fluffy hair pulled back into a low ponytail stood at one end of the room. They had a gym bag at their feet, and were in the middle of plugging in a USB drive into a computer, pulling the relevant information across the screen to be viewed by the projector. Their every muscle screamed tension and nerves. They were clearly the one Tony was supposed to meet.
When they took a final headcount, they cleared their throat. "Alright, good, everyone's here." They sounded nervous.
"My name is Morgen Pereira. It's, uh, it's an honor to meet you all."
Most of the present Avengers inclined their head, but Tony just gestured for them to continue. Pereira cleared their throat.
"When the portal opened above us a month ago, I decided to start some research, and do some scans. My team and I got trapped in the basement of a friend's place of work, and we continued to collect data on the situation."
They fumbled with a remote, and the image on the projector changed, showing photos of the portal and data relating to the images. The date was a week before the portal re-activated.
The meeting lasted maybe an hour, and Mx. Pereira's nerves barely eased the whole time. They talked vaguely about how they acquired the information, but went into detail about energy fluctuations and stages of being.
Tony, through a haze of exhaustion and caffeine, understood four important points. First and foremost, this person really deserved to be on the team of scientists he kept around him. The sheer scale of the data they had sorted through to create this slideshow showed a talent for presentation, at least, and one that was severely lacking in his team. Secondly, there was no way in hell this person wasn't the one who had built and used the Chitauri scanner. Seriously, they even used pictures taken from the angle that only the scanner could have gotten. Thirdly, they used way too many long words to be understood by anyone with any fewer than two PhDs.
Fourthly, and probably the most important, they'd somehow broken down the portal into a series of numbers that could be changed into a mathematical equation. Which, when translated into proper English, meant they could create their own portal if given the proper energy source.
"All you'd need would be a powerful object of some kind that matches the energy source used by the people who made this portal, to act as an anchor and a kind of road. It calls to something that matches its energy signature," they explained, "If, uh, if anyone here has read the work of Dr. Jane Foster, this is going to sound familiar. We can match these readings with a directional anchor, and we can open a portal to a place that matches the energy of the anchor. So, uh, if we can find out where these monsters are coming from… yeah? Um, questions before I move to the next important bit?"
Tony leaned forward in his seat. Many others did the same. A few scientists did ask for clarifying questions, but Tony was only making plans to somehow get around SHIELD and get them onto his team. A brief glance to Rhodey resulted only in a shrug.
"And, uh, no one else? Okay, uh…" They pulled the bag up from the ground, and pulled out a series of journals, marked with colored post-it notes. They set them on the table, stacked in a way that suggested that they would not be passed out, then pulled up a new file on the computer. On the projector read, in bold font, "Hyrule".
The computer nerd cleared their throat to cut off any questions, "This is where the portal would come out. These journals, written by a friend who never told us what she was experiencing until recently, tell us everything. She went missing during the attack on New York, but left these behind. My team and I have picked through them and found the most relevant information."
What followed was the most mind-bending thirty minutes of Stark's life. But hey, at least Morgen made it very clear what was happening, at least according to a yet-anonymous source who Stark was pretty sure was the vigilante girl.
So, to take it from the top.
One, she'd been having dreams which informed her of a separate dimension. In those dreams, three goddesses (or, well, their acolytes) trained her to be a powerful warrior, diplomat, and general aide, promising her greatness if she did.
One and a half, the separate world has magic, and is also home to a quasi-Medieval society of elves, mermaid-like people, rock people, and monsters, plus, apparently, a race banished to a completely different dimension of that reality.
Two, while all of this would have gotten her written off as delusional, just last month all of her training became more important as a coup d'etat by a power-hungry resident of the banished species sent their rightful princess somehow spiraling into their own universe, which completely screwed up the way that the event was supposed to go, making it important that she be brought in to help the universe right itself.
Three, somehow the power-hungry nonhuman found a way to send his armies to Earth, irrevocably screwing up the way things were supposed to go forever.
So, in conclusion, they at least had a name to go off of. Zant. The Usurper King. The one who is currently trying to conquer all of Earth.
As the room dissolved briefly into concerned muttering, Tony grabbed the first journal off the stack and flipped casually through the pages. The dates on this one went back maybe a few months, and a lot of the writing was hasty. Actually wait, no, that's just her handwriting.
Rhodey tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, did you get any of that?"
Tony flipped the page. "Kinda. Just… hm." His head pounded. He could practically hear Pepper telling him to drink more water and less coffee.
The room got louder, people throwing questions at Mx. Pereira almost faster than they could answer.
"I really think… that this whole thing is just a little over the top," Tony admitted quietly, "Just… all sorts of things, happening at once. More than a little overwhelming."
Rhodey nodded, "I had enough of magic when I met Thor."
Tony snorted, getting more comfortable in the fancy chair and pulling the journal up closer to his face. He flipped to the later entries, where it seemed that Ms. Aubrey had started to panic further, and write down as much as she could.
Steve, across and to the right of Tony, got to his feet. "Thank you for your help. Your work, and that of your team's, will save millions of lives."
Morgen seemed to inflate at the praise, and Tony felt a very hypocritical urge to check them on that pride. After all, they had gotten the information through an extremely illegal source, and expected to get off scot-free. Before he could say anything, however, Hawkeye raised his hand.
"Hey, yeah, before you go, I have one last question for you, which I'm sure everyone here wants to ask," Hawkeye stated with a brief sweep of his hand.
Morgen fidgeted, "Uh, yeah, sure… Um, ask away."
"Stark?" he requested. Tony pulled out the tablet and wirelessly connected to the projector, pulling up two pictures, one of the scanner and one of Jennifer Aubrey, aka Goldwings, from Ruben Miller's yearbook, gesturing for the computer geek to look. Morgen turned around, and immediately paled to a nearly grey color. Tony found himself slightly impressed with the chameleon-like color change. They almost matched their white graphic tee.
"So. I assume you know what these are?" Barton asked rhetorically, "Because you'd be in a lot of trouble if you do."
Mx. Pereira hesitated, eyes glancing from one stony face to the next.
Rhodey didn't waste time backing up Barton's claims. "We have reason to believe you willingly participated in the trade of Chitauri tech. It's… a little hard not to draw some conclusions after you conveniently have a scanner and are in contact with the person who set up the scanner."
"My work just saved Earth," they argued suddenly, "You can't lock me up for that!"
"No, but I'm pretty sure that vigilantism and buying and using Chitauri tech is," Hawkeye retorted, "I'm familiar with the group Ms. Aubrey, and by extension yourself, are a part of."
Morgen looked pretty desperate. A few agents began moving closer.
"You can't do this!"
Tony decided he didn't like where this was headed and put a hand up to stop the advance of the agents, standing up. "Hey, hey, guys, dial back the intensity. They're scared shitless enough. And they are right; they did just save our asses. An arrest is a little bit much."
"See! Thank you, thank you so much," they said in relief as latched on to the save. Tony made a face and put a hand out to shush them.
"Vigilantism and illegal tech," he reminded them. Their face fell.
"Alright, that's fair," they admitted, "But shouldn't I get a, a lessened sentence for using the tech to save us all? And my team had nothing to do with the Chitauri stuff, I swear," they promised, putting their arms up in a "hands off" gesture.
"Could you please stop saying "saved us all"?" Hawkeye requested as Steve spoke up.
"What do you think your sentence should be, keeping in mind that you have broken several laws?"
'Hm. Fair, good to see if they'll own up,' Tony considered while also thinking, 'Steve's visited too many preschools recently.'
"I think Cap's been visiting too many preschools lately," Rhodey joked quietly. Tony snickered.
"I'd love to see how they spin this for themselves, though," Tony remarked, "They're smart, but, unfortunately, so am I." Rhodey rolled his eyes in reply.
Mx. Pereina thought for a moment, shifting from foot to foot.
Banner finally spoke.
"We could use you and your team in the labs. You seem to have a pretty good head start on the portal business, and it would be to everyone's benefit if you could continue your work," he offered. Morgen clapped, and pointed.
"Yes! I could do that. Me and my team, we could work to help you."
"Not enough," Hawkeye replied casually. Steve gave them a Look.
Morgen sweated a moment before continuing, "And, uh, I tell you everything about who got me the Chitauri stuff?"
"Halfway there, buddy, keep going," Hawkeye encouraged sarcastically. Morgen shot him a half-baked glare before realizing exactly who they would be glaring at and stopped. They hesitated, fingers bouncing over their arm nervously. Tony gave them a hint and flicked the journal. His fingernails made a very satisfying thwack against the cover.
"… I'll tell you everything I know about Goldwings," they finally muttered, "But I refuse to tell you about anyone else in the Streetside Heroes."
"Touching." Rhodey called sarcastically.
"No, really, I won't," they snapped firmly, "And don't pressure my team to try either. They don't know anything about it aside from the occasional tech job. But I swear, we were careful. No civilians got hurt, and we rarely went after really big stuff. We had rules, and we stuck to them. Our central mission was teaching civvies how to escape if anything went bad here. We tried to dissuade them from vigilantism if we could. I don't care if I have to do jail time, I'm not budging on this."
There was a moment of silence.
"Great time to grow a spine, there," Tony finally sighed, "But we could use some direction in the labs. Depending on what happens, who knows. I'll try to get you house arrest and a fine."
Morgen nodded gratefully.
"First, spill," Hawkeye demanded, "What do you know about Jen Aubrey?"
The scientists took that as a sign that they wouldn't get anything interesting from them and filed out, murmuring between themselves. The door swung shut with an ominous click.
Morgen sat delicately at the table, recognizing an interrogation when they saw one, glancing nervously at the crowd. "W-wait. I need to… I want to know what happened to her, first."
Tony glanced at Hawkeye, whose face seemed shuttered.
"She's missing," he said bluntly, "The day of the invasion. I confronted her about the scanner, then the Shadow appeared and I couldn't track her down in the resulting chaos."
There was a beat of quiet as Morgen narrowed their eyes at the archer.
"…No, you're lying. You knew she had something to do with the journals, and not just the scanner. I want to know what, exactly, happened to her after the comm shut down."
"What makes you think that?" Banner tried to bluff. Morgen, and Tony with them, rolled their eyes.
"During the fight for New York, the Streetside Heroes went out to help citizens evacuate to safety. I stayed behind to make sure that everyone was coordinated and had the latest information, and monitor our equipment. Part of that evac was a mass call focused on me. Before her comm went dark, I heard her try to explain herself to Hawkeye and Black Widow," Morgen explained pointedly, "And she called for help from you two moments before the Shadow, and I heard her scream. Tell me the truth. What the hell did you to to her?"
The Avengers drew back a bit as the weight of the accusation hit them. Tony glanced to Hawkeye again, taking in the low anger in his gaze.
"We did nothing. When the Darkness fell, it affected her somehow. I took her back to base, but she disappeared."
Mx. Pereira narrowed their eyes further. Hawkeye sighed.
"Tony, do you have the cam footage?"
Stark requested the security files from JARVIS, who pulled up the brief footage of the team assembling in the wrecked tower before drawing back. Stark paused the footage at the best moment to see the creature Hawkeye brought home.
Morgen stared in mute horror. "She…"
"I don't know why that happened," Clint cut them off, "But it wasn't anything we did."
Mx. Pereira stared a moment longer before pointing to a corner of the frame.
"What is that?"
Tony looked at the black and white shape with vibrant orange on top of its head. Rhodey explained.
"A squadron of monsters ran towards the facility where we were keeping the creature, and I brought it to the Tower for safe keeping. When the Shadow fell, well, that's just what happened to it."
"It solidified, and the two of them vanished minutes later. Literally, into thin air," Tony summed up, dismissing the camera footage. "Now, your question time is over, and I have to ask again. What do you know about Jennifer Aubrey?"
Morgen turned away from the now-blank wall with a helpless grimace. "Apparently? Nothing."
…/…
The third explosion of the morning was, at that point, only a mild nuisance to Dr. Banner. Hulk didn't even stir as he sighed and double-checked the energy readings coming from the test site a mile away. Around him, a mix of his old team and Mx. Pereira's friends winced and checked what went wrong on their various computers. Once Mx. Pereira's account of the day had been recorded and punishment decided, the minds in charge of breaking down the New York portal's energy output had quickly been shuffled into the labs to try to re-create the phenomenon in a controlled setting. Unfortunately, the work was slow.
One of his new lab assistants leaned over his shoulder, her dark bob brushing into her eyes. "Hah! I told Kobi it wouldn't hold over seventy."
Banner drew back, making a note on a tablet with a wince. "I thought he said eighty?"
The ex-vigilante-scientist waved a hand, "Same thing when the energy output's so high."
"I call bullshit, Eupheme!" a young man wearing something between a hipster's and a musician's outfit shouted from across the room, where he was re-calibrating the machinery for another test. His headphones had his name, Kobi Ren, scrawled on the middle piece.
"Bet you I'm still right, Poine!" the woman, Avery Collet, shouted back, not looking up from her screen.
"Guys, they said no vigilante names on government territory," the third, and youngest ex-vigilante-scientist reminded them. He was young enough that exasperation only made him seem childish.
"Sorry, Finn," the two pests chorused for the second time that day.
Banner kept typing. It was almost like having Tony in the labs, when those two got into a competition. Was that just a mechanical engineering thing? Bruce hoped not. He worked with quite a few, after all.
Dr. Banner checked over the information from Mx. Pereira's USB drive again.
"Alright, so I think I see what went wrong. We need to let the energy level off at just after the third stage, not before."
Kobi groaned. "You said that last time."
"Hey, which one of us cracked the mathematical equation for this thing?" Banner argued.
"You, but you also spent an hour before the first test freaking out over where you misplaced a variable," Collet pointed out.
Banner was about to reply when a brief notification from the messages app made him pause.
Tony Stark: hey, back from rotation. updates to the portal project? pereira's code holding up?
Banner sighed.
"Hey, Stark's asking for a check-in, what do I say?" he asked the team.
"Tell him it's going great: we've made a bomb!" Ren suggested enthusiastically.
"Code's fine, tech's fine, but nothing's stable. We're missing some element, and it probably has something to do with magic," Collet stated more practically, "It's a pretty huge theme in most of this invasion, and probably with this stuff, too. Maybe Stark's bringing something back?"
Finn just nodded. Banner typed his reply.
Bruce: The kids are telling me they're missing something in the mix, and it's probably magic in origin. I can't tell what it is, since the energy levels seem fine. I might go back to analyzing the monsters to see if they've got something we can use with the portal.
Tony Stark: good news! I caught us a magic monster. Come check it out!
Banner's mood picked up significantly.
"Stark did, in fact, bring something that would help. I'm leaving my team in charge while I'm gone. Do not do another test without me," he ordered, already heading for the door.
"Have fun!" Finn called to him as he left. It was a bit hard to imagine such a sweet guy joining a vigilante group.
Banner made his way to the unofficial menagerie where the biologists observed the craziest specimens the team found. He had to slide around pods of scientists in stopped in the halls as they discussed recent developments, apologizing quietly. The grey halls seemed to blend into each other until he found the elevator.
The creature Tony had brought home looked like a stereotypical magician. A long black robe with reddish-purple highlights covered most of its body with the exception of its arms, which were thin and covered in leathery black skin. Its face was covered by a hood and a mask with two bright spots painted on like eyes. Ropes held the robe around its waist impossibly tight. Currently, it hovered in an electric cage, one of the many traps they had created to capture and observe the monsters currently overrunning New York.
"Ta da!" Tony exclaimed as he exited the suit, looking more battered, and slightly deranged, than ever, "It's a wizzrobe!"
"That's… a very apt name for it," Banner considered.
"Journals say the Hylian name is just as on-the-nose about it, so the English word matches," Tony explained briefly, "But it does magic!"
As if on cue, a howling chant erupted from the creature's mask, and the floor near where Tony stood turned black. Stark rapidly jumped out of the affected area as the floor suddenly grew long, thin spikes. If he hadn't moved, he would have been impaled. A scientist hit a button, and the bars shocked the creature, making it shriek and circle the small space.
"Amazing," Banner breathed, "Fucked up, but amazing."
"I know right? I get you the best gifts. This one's especially unique because it was commanding a group of those shadow beasts. We caught it as it was exiting the portal," Stark bragged in one long breath, "Just be careful of… that."
"Yeah, 'course," he replied, not really listening. This sort of magic flew in the face of science, but damn was it interesting to observe. He cleared his throat.
"Right, thank you Tony. Now please take a nap," he commanded gently.
"Halfway there," the genius replied with a two-finger salute, "Please keep the explosions somewhat quiet for me."
"Will do," he chuckled, watching Stark leave, or rather stumble out of, the laboratory. The wizzrobe was pushed into an observation room.
"Let's hope this was the missing piece," Banner murmured as he joined the flow of scientists on the observation deck.
…/…
Pepper Potts turned the page of one of the journals Mx. Pereira and their team brought to them, and wrote down another quick note. Journal was a bit of a loose term. All of these journals were practically diaries, just ones with extremely important information. While much of it was available on the USB drive, a good chunk of the data had simply been skipped over.
Like, for example, an explanation of Hylian magic. Written when Jen was maybe 13 years old.
"Hylian magic can be divided into two categories: Divine and Demonic. Demonic is not practiced often on Hyrule, and is, predictably, used mostly by demons and has been outlawed in Hyrule. Divine magic can be divided into two schools: Light and Dark. Dark magic is much less often used, often being utilized in rituals, and focuses on using personal deep feelings to direct magic. Unfortunately, it tends to corrupt people, and a lot of the schools of dark magic are banned. Light magic tends to focus on drawing from the environment to power spells, especially like asking for power from the Goddesses. From there, it is focused through an intent, like you are writing mental code in your soul for how you want to create change in your environment. The effort is exhausting, and if you mis-cast it costs even more energy.
I use a very strange mix of both. It's… neither really feels right. I can call for power, but I can't use it. I don't have enough of a reserve to draw from myself all the time. I have to call, then use. Call, then use. I wonder if that's why most humans aren't magic."
Pepper picked up her pencil and jotted down a note, "Magic is dictated by will and direction. Can an AI replicate that? Or just living things?" She underlined it, and marked it with a colored post-it.
Above that was the note, "Hyrule = Divine magic-saturated environment, all Hylians rely on magic to survive, cannot leave a specific area. Earth is nonmagical, not even magic-neutral, with wells of magic. Effect of magic on humans = Shadow sickness?"
She wondered if that was why the girl had transformed. Did she count as a magic creature because she tried to use Divine Magic? She wrote "Effect of introducing opposite magic to a magical creature? Warping?"
Research was slow, but it was coming along. Pepper glanced at Tony, who was mercifully passed out in bed. She gently caressed his outstretched hand, and even in his sleep he squeezed back. A small smile flickered on her lips. He worked himself half to death all the time, and she worried for him. At least in quiet moments like these she could have him to herself.
Her pencil tapped a quick rhythm for hours, punctuated by the scratching of graphite on the notepad.
When Tony finally woke up, she had something to give him. Will and direction, the keys to use magic. The missing piece of the portal.