Tony Stark
"Damn it!"
Tony flung the spanner wrench away from the control panel's pedestal as his curse echoed against the walls of the warehouse. He growled as Thor, massive coffee mug in hand, emerged from the temporary office nestled into the side of the cavernous chamber. Tony glared at the small battered cardboard box of toaster pastries resting inside the transparent walls of a diamond-shaped chamber a few meters away. He could have sworn it glared back at him, and if it had a tongue it would have been sticking out: You can't move me. Pbbbbbt.
"Twenty-third test today," Tony spat. "We're using that." He jabbed his finger at the glowing arc reactor in the corner, linked to the control panel and the chamber by thick cables that snaked their way across the floor of the musty warehouse. "That can power the entire Avengers tower without blinking. Could probably light up all of Manhattan and still have juice left over. Only working cold fusion generator in the world. Harvests energy off fused hydrogen like gangbusters. And it's still not enough power to move a box of breakfast pastries five meters!"
A breeze slipped through the open bay door that looked out on a remote stretch of grass and a long graveled driveway. The fresh breath of air ruffled Tony's dark hair and cooled the sweat that threatened to sting his eyes. Then it escaped out the open skylight above the clear-walled closet that was the source of his frustration, leaving him with more sweat.
"Not to mention the issues with the guidance system, " Jane Foster shouted from her whiteboard. "We don't have Heimdall to see where we're going. If could get more readings on the Asgard version in operation, I could get some idea of how to-"
"Are those my pastries?" Thor's question cut her off. Tony looked over to the chamber, where Thor was leaning against the transparent window and shading his eyes with his hands as he peered in. "Valhalla, no! Not the apple strudels!"
"Thor!" Darcy yelled. "You'll smudge the glass!"
"It's transparent aluminum," Thor snapped back. "Smudges won't harm it."
"Maybe we should take a lunch break," Jane countered. "We've been going since sunup."
"Good luck getting anything delivered out here," Darcy shouted back as she nudged one of the control panel's covers, tossed into the floor with the rest of Tony's tools, with her foot. "Pizza would be cold before it got halfway here." She looked up at Thor. "Unless you'd like to fly in a stack of pies."
Tony snorted a laugh as his stomach growled at the mention of food. "What about it, Point Break? Hammer up to a quick trip to Midtown? Or are you too busy looking for your brother?"
Thor took another sip of coffee and mumbled, "He's not in Manhattan." Another sip. "Not in Hell's Kitchen. Well, not on Ninth Avenue, at any rate."
"You got that coffee at Route 66, didn't you?"
"They have a door that rolls up. Allows me to observe the sidewalk very carefully. For hours. No, he isn't on Ninth Avenue."
"Mind going back and rounding up some meat-lover's specials?"
"I do not mind, but why are you here and not in the city, at your tower?"
"So if that decides to explode," Darcy said as she pointed at the chamber, "it only takes us with it, and not several million other people."
Thor's answer was drowned by a flare of blinding rainbow-flecked light that reflected off the chamber's windows. A boom rattled Tony's teeth and ricocheted through his head, as if Godzilla had just landed in the driveway.
"Was that… thunder?" Darcy asked.
Everyone looked at Thor.
"Wasn't me," he said with a massive shrug. "That was the Bifrost. The real one."
Two men that were clearly not Midtown pizza delivery emerged from the prism as it dissolved into regular sunlight. A steaming labyrinth had been burnt into the grass behind them.
"Thor, you know these guys?" Tony growled as he assumed a defensive posture.
"Stand down, Stark," Thor said as he beckoned the men to come closer. "They are of Asgard. And they are unarmed." As he walked towards them, he added, "And I know this one. What are you doing here, Theoric?"
Thor addressed a ginger-headed man with matching beard that looked straight out of Lord of the Rings. In fact, the pair could have been Aragorn's before and after photos. The redhead strode forward confidently with a dark jade green cloak flowing over his shoulders. Its lapels cascaded down his front until they crossed at his belt buckle, which he must have borrowed from the WWF. He was certainly built like a wrestler. A mustard-hued tunic ended in golden cuffs on his forearms. More gold sparkled in a line of buttons marching across his shoulders.
His companion trailed behind him in a smoky gray tunic resembling a karate gi, edged in dark blue. It reached to his knees over a pair of blue trousers tucked into his boots, and his arms were jacketed in bronze instead of gold. He moved silently and gracefully, like Grasshopper on Kung Fu.
"Prince Thor," Mr. WWF said gravely, "I have become on behalf of King Odin and Lord Iwaldi to ask - and on behalf of myself-"
"What has you so shaken, Theoric?"
"It's Lady Sigyn, your highness-"
Tony was distracted from their conversation by the second man. Grasshopper wandered across the floor, nearly inducing whiplash as he turned his head this way and that, taking in everything, just like a first-time tourist in Times Square.
Darcy sidled up to him as he ventured near the experimental chamber.
"First time on Midgard?" she asked as she give him her own visual examination.
He jumped as she spoke, then laughed nervously. "Oh! Yes, madam." He frowned as he peered through the transparent walls. "Heimdall sent me to accompany Lord Theoric. I am Hjalmar, of the Einherjar."
"I'm Darcy. Welcome to Earth. You speak English?"
"It is the Allspeak."
"Oh." She frowned. "What's the All-"
"Einherjar?" Tony asked. "Thought you guys wore armor."
The young warrior jumped back and stared at Tony as if he had just appeared in a burst of Rainbow Brite. "Oh! Well, yes, we usually do." He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. "Heimdall thought we should blend in."
"Mmmm, wrong country," said Darcy.
"Wrong fandom," muttered Tony.
The young man ignored him as he stuck his head into the door of the chamber and sniffed at the metal. He leaned out, and his eyes grew wide as he spied the arc reactor in the corner. He pointed at it.
"A power source?"
"Yeah," Darcy said before Tony could stop her. "Great for running the microwave. Lousy for a Bifrost."
"What is a microwave?" He frowned again. "Wait. You are building your own Bifrost?"
"Yeah," replied Darcy. "It's just not working yet. Not enough juice."
"Why are you using juice? That's odd. How does it work?"
"Sorry. Power. I meant power. I guess you guys don't call it that in Asgard."
"Power. Fusion power?" He squinted at the brilliant blue circle within the arc reactor. "What is your collector made of?"
"Collector?"
"For the fusion element." Hjalamar bit his lip in thought. "I suppose Allspeak cannot translate everything. The simplest element… I don't know what you call it…"
"Simplest?" asked Tony. "Ah. One proton. Hydrogen."
"What do you use to compound the hydrogen? A metal in the form of a crystal lattice, yes?"
"I thought you spoke English." Darcy turned to Tony. "He's stopped speaking English."
"I know what he's saying, Darcy." Tony narrowed his eyes, calculating the danger of revealing too much. He had always kept the details of the reactor close to his chest, literally. It was a risk to reveal anything, but could it be worth it? Would this help?
He cast a glance over at Thor and Theoric. Their voices were urgent and low, but he could still catch an occasional echo of their conversation. The words trouble and dwarves bounced around his ears. He briefly wondered how the Asgardians had shown up on his very doorstep out here in the boondocks. He chanced a glance out the door, where Jane was poking around the stamp that the rainbow bridge had burnt into the ground. She knelt on the edge of it as she moved her hand-held scanner over the markings. Tony had had to guess at how the device worked; she was as protective of her own designs as he was of his.
The Asgardians, wrapped up in their own business, completely ignored her, as if her investigations didn't matter. Thor had told him once that Heimdall could hear and see whatever he wanted; it was part of his job as keeper of the Bifrost. If Asgard wanted to know anything about Tony's tech, they had other ways of spying it out. And they already had so much advanced tech that they wouldn't bother with what they would consider primitive Midgardian toys.
Well, spying worked both ways.
"Palladium," he said at last.
Hjalmar grunted softly. "I don't know what this palladium is… perhaps we call it something else… but have you tried uru?"
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Uru?"
Darcy leaned in closer to get a better look at the man. She poked at his bronze bracer. "Are you an engineer in Asgard or something?"
Hjalmar shook his head. "No, but I do work for Heimdall. And my cousin's stepbrother's aunt helped build the new one in Asgard. She showed me some of the designs. Uru would-"
"A dragon?"
Thor's shout cut him off. Tony, Darcy, and Hjalmar all turned to face the pair. Theoric held his hands up in a supplicating gesture. As Thor shook his head in disbelief, Theoric waved Hjalmar over.
The young Einherjar sighed, slumped his shoulders, and muttered as he shuffled away, "Sorry."
"The Einherjar can deal with a dragon without me, surely," Thor was saying. "I'm already-"
"But this is for Iwaldi," Theoric said. "And for me. For my Sigyn. For someone in trouble who only wanted to help others."
"But-"
Tony eyed the forgotten sack of shackles that Thor had left beside the office door, then followed in Hjalmar's footsteps.
"Hey, Point Break," he said, "Did I hear you say dragon? Is this a damsel in distress situation?"
Thor sighed. "Apparently. There's a dragon loose in Nidavellir. Do you remember me telling you about the realm of the dwarves? Apparently it wandered over from Muspelheim during the Convergence."
"These are your Midgardian companions?" asked Theoric. At Thor's affirmative grunt, Theoric nodded respectfully at Tony and added, "Yes. Much distress. And he's responsible for a great drought in that land."
"And now he's holding your girlfriend captive?" Tony turned to Thor. "You'd better hurry before she's dinner!"
"And they're wasting time coming to fetch me!"
Tony poked at Thor's massive bicep. "And you're a prince. Isn't your job to go rescue people from dragons?"
Theoric cleared his throat. "We have reason to believe that the problem is, er, rather less urgent than normal."
"What could be un-urgent about a dragon?" Darcy asked.
"It's complicated," said Theoric. "There are, um, mitigating circumstances. Apparently, Sigyn refuses to leave. We need Thor to help us get her out."
"You mean, talk her out?" Darcy scratched her head. "She wouldn't leave, not even with you?"
"Correct, m'lady. It's difficult to explain, my prince, unless one is actually there. Please, my lord. It's Sigyn."
"You're right, it is complicated," Darcy observed.
"I have things to do here," Thor groaned. "I already have a mission. To find Loki. And find my friend Selvig. And… and…"
Tony tried very hard to not look at a certain sack of shackles. "It's your job, big guy. Go ahead, kick some dragon ass. Think of it as sword and sorcery stress relief." He put a chummy arm around Darcy's shoulder. "Don't worry, if your brother pops round for tea, we'll take care of him. We have your handcuffs handy."
"Very well," Thor sighed as Jane padded back inside the building. "I can't fight you all. Jane, I will return soon." He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead as he summoned Mjolnir.
"We'll return to Asgard briefly to gather the troops and to arm," Theoric said as they moved towards the door, "just in case they are needed."
"In case?"
"We will return you to your companions as soon as possible."
Hjalmar waved at them as he halted at the center of the burn mark as Tony and company watched from just inside the door. "Farewell, Midgardians! Farewell, Lady Darcy. I hope we will meet again."
"Bye!" Darcy waved back.
The Asgardians looked up. As Thor called out for Heimdall to extend Bifrost, Jane raised her device and desperately punched some of the buttons on it all the way through its blinding boom.
"Gotcha," she whispered.
Darcy sniffed. "So, who's gonna go get pizza now?"
"So, that was… helpful," Tony said. He explained Hjalmar's suggestion about the uru to Jane.
"But what good will that actually do us?" Jane demanded. "Knowing we should use uru, actually having uru, and knowing how to use it are all different things." She pointed at the Bifrost landing strip. "Our only source of it just left the planet. And Thor isn't going to let us use his hammer for this, that's for sure." She shook her head. "It's useless."
"Useless?" Tony raised an eyebrow as he looked back at the small office door and the abandoned sack beside it. "Maybe not."
