Bonus Chapter:
As we enter the finally stage of the battle. I thought I would recap on everything that's happened so far. Skip if you want, I didn't post this as a filler, the final chapter of Tony's fight will follow close behind.
This took me a fair time to write, simply because I had to skim read this entire fic again from the beginning and hell, it was a stark (ha-ha) reminder of the incredible journey we have been on. To get here.
3000 words to sum up 330,000 was not an easy task. I hope you can appreciate that.
The story so far….
As Tony delivered the nuke through the wormhole at the battle of New York, a prisoner in Asgard hosting the universe's most powerful being ended its life and in doing so released the powerful entity, leaving it free to find a new host. This entity, known as the CAEB, inhabits a new host committing a great act of sacrifice at the moment of the death of its previous host. At that precise moment the being it found, was Tony Stark.
Confused and afraid, battling the unknown energy inside him which was slowly killing him, Tony carried out a desperate search for answers while keeping his fears hidden from the team. Hope for Tony came in the form of a space virus brought by the invading Chitauri, which brought the Avengers back to the tower for testing. However, upon finding out he was not infected, his surprised reaction makes Bruce suspicious and Tony soon admits to the scientist that something is very, very wrong.
In the meantime, on Asgard, Odin had tracked the CAEB to Earth and Thor, back on Asgard and unaware of the crisis his friend has befallen, tries to find out all he could behind his father's back.
The CAEB finally emerged, separating from Tony who it had been draining for weeks. After a short fight, Tony was able to get the CAEB back inside him by passing a very strong electric current through the arc reactor, but the emergence had allowed Odin to locate him and he took Tony hostage.
After 4 months Thor has figured out with Loki's help that Stark was being held hostage on Asgard and that the CAEB had merged with him, meaning that it no longer controlled Tony, but Tony controlled it. A rescue was launched and finally free from Asgard, Tony and Thor manage to convince Odin that the CAEB was no longer a threat.
Back on Earth, Tony tried to get a handle on his power unsuccessfully. Tensions rose between the Avengers as Tony's 'training' ends badly when Steve over taxes him. While Tony is working on a contingency to protect the world from his power, a nightmare causes him to unintentionally hurt Pepper. Scared for them all, Steve calls Fury to inform him of what they have been keeping secret and SHIELD break into the tower that night, taking Tony away.
Fury forces the unfinished inhibitor on Tony, causing him immense pain before he is rescued by Coulson's team, who take him back to the tower.
After Steve's betrayal Tony separates himself from the Avengers, going to his Malibu home with Bruce and Rhodey, suffering through the 'meetings' caused by the unfinished inhibitor as they get worse and worse. With minor portals opening up across New York, the remaining Avengers eventually get overwhelmed by an agile alien aircraft and Tony is called back in. Tony asks Steve to increase the inhibitor strength resulting in him disappearing mid battle to suffer through a 'meeting'. Tony manages to use the merge to take out most of the aircraft, but with a drained reactor and feeling incredibly weak, he is barely able to catch Clint as he leaps from a building and the archer suffers a broken spine.
Steve is livid with Tony and the two nearly come to blows. It isn't long before Tony collapses, the suit no longer holding him up and the arc reactor completely drained. Happy arrives and get him away in the car leaving the Avenger's with nothing but questions about what happened.
With Clint recovering and the Avengers aware something is wrong, Tony finally admits to them what has been happening with the inhibitor and that he might not have very long left.
Bruce attacks Steve after learning that he'd changed the inhibitor settings before the battle, until Tony steps in and explains what he'd asked the soldier to do it.
Trapped in the penthouse until his next merge Tony starts going off the deep end, openly admitting to Bruce that once this is over, he doesn't want to survive, leaving their relationship strained, However Steve and Tony manage to patch things up as the team focuses on Clint recovery.
Waking up from another nightmare vision of the future, the team witness one of Tony's meetings for the first time, leaving them all feeling sick and Tony in a coma. Meanwhile Thor returns suggesting that Tony uses his visions to help them pre-empt the coming threat which does not go down well with the billionaire.
Finally, things begin to stabilise in Avenger's tower and Tony makes the decision to remove the inhibitor completely before he enters a vicious cycle with the meetings that would eventually kill him. With the inhibitor successfully disengaged, the team leave Tony to learn to control his powers naturally. The break through comes soon after when he teleports to Pepper who was in England at the time.
With Clint recovering well and Tony enjoying his new power, he uses it to play an elaborate shoelace trick on Steve which leaves him in deep water with the captain. Chasing him through the tower in revenge, Steve gets Tony trapped and he teleports away unconsciously out of panic. The incident teaches them that Tony's powers are limited by his physical strength and in his drained state he has a vision of the battle to come, which is both terrifying to him and the people witnessing what it did to his body.
Tony uses the vision to build up a detailed plan for the battle and begins to narrow down the predications for when it will take place. The team start making preparations for armour, weapons and evacuation of the city, whilst Tony begins working on a machine which will be able to close the portals when they open.
Tony gets his first glimpse of the enemy when he unwittingly uses astral projection and ends up in their dimension of reality, getting a glimpse of an algorithm that will help him create his machine. The incident freaks the team out as Tony marches to them, throat bloodied from Kairon's attack and speaking an unknow language as if in some sort of trance.
With SHIELD and Asgard aiding preparations, Tony's powers continue to develop. He creates an implant to support his powers, rather than inhibit them. He discovers he can communicate with people telepathically as well as sense they're location and general emotions and is also able to share his vision of the future with them, collectively, so they are all aware of what they will face.
The Avenger's get called in to rescue Coulson and some of his team who went dark on a mission. With Tony's powers they overcome issues with their communications and locating Coulson and Fitzsimmons is made easy. However, Coulson gets shot in the rescue and a guard raises the alarm on their escape. Tony manages to heal Coulson from the injury which would have killed him, while the others lay siege to the compound and later creates a shield to completely neutralise an explosion which would have killed all the hostages that they had just freed.
Tony uses his new-found powers to slowly help heal Clint's back, but also suffers visions of the deaths of all the Avenger's. Determined to change the fates of his family he throws himself into his work whilst the Avengers try in vain to keep him to a healthy work schedule.
Driven mad by the constant visions and his failure to create a working algorithm that matched the one he glimpsed in the other dimension, Tony slowly starts to crumble. Eventually he reaches breaking point. After disabling Jarvis and refusing to leave the lab, the Avenger's finally realise how poor Tony's mental state is when he has a panic attack and goes catatonic.
Pepper, Rhodey and Bruce ensure Tony is forced to rest and recover, but progress is slow. Tony's confidence is shattered from his failure to get the algorithm to work, however, Fitz comes to the rescue, realising that Tony had been right all along as the other dimension used a different number system to that of earth making Tony's algorithm correct.
With something to work with preparations move forward. Tony is still fragile and kept under a close watch. The Avengers then face their next threat, the Makluhk, sent as a test from the other dimension which prove to be a formidable enemy with a venom which proves nearly fatal to Thor and Tony. They communicate with a hive mind which has been infiltrated by Kairon to render them under his control and Tony tries to manipulate it with limited success.
With 4 weeks to go, Tony is gaining control of his powers but is still in a dangerous mental state. The team are worried, but at a loss what to do. The machine still isn't working and is driving the engineer insane.
Thor returns to Asgard where he is warned by Heimdall that Tony has no intention of surviving what is to come. Frigga informs Thor that the beings orchestrating the coming attack were once Asgardians, who gained immense power from his great Uncle Mimir, and raged hell on the galaxy before being defeated by the CAEB and banished to an alternate dimension.
The nerves are affecting all of the Avengers and Thor takes it upon himself to help them relax and raise their spirits with some Asgardian liquor, which results in three very drunken Avenger's, namely Clint, Tony and to everyone's amusement Steve.
Tony channels his mental torment into anger and training, pushing himself too far on a regular basis. After convincing Clint to fire a rocket launcher at him repeatedly in the green room and the archer notices signs of self harm, Clint calls a team meeting declaring something needs to be done about Tony's path of self destruction. Meanwhile Tony discovers he can be much more powerful if he can channel external energy sources. He creates an exoskeleton to help him do so.
Again, projecting himself to the other dimension in his sleep, Tony learns that the beings have not realised he is the CAEB, but in the process he overexerts himself greatly, causing a citywide black out and massive internal haemorrhage. While tying to help Tony, Coulson pins the billionaire on his back, causing him to panic. Tony blasts the agent against a wall, raising questions within the team as to why being on his back causes such a reaction.
Tony finally admits to Steve, and the rest of the team how Howard abused him as a child, and how he organised the death of his fiancée and unborn child 30 years ago which rocks the team, especially Steve. He also, finally, starts accepting help when he is in a bad mental state, seeking out Steve and Bruce and the company of the Avengers. The machine continues to prove problematic, although progress is finally being made.
Thor takes Tony to Asgard, to make checks on their preparations, and Frigga gives him some very helpful lessons in controlling the CAEB, which leaves Tony uplifted as well as better able to block out the emotions of people around him.
The evacuation of New York is announced and there is wide spread panic across the nation. Things become very real all of a sudden for the Avengers. Tony is painfully close to getting the machine finished, but he only has 2 days.
Tony leads a meeting, briefing the armed forces, police and secret services of the plan and what is required of them. The city will be isolated from the rest of the planet by an Asgardian shield and no humans other than the Avengers will be present in the fight.
When a General questions Tony's fitness to possess the CAEB power, Steve, as well as surprisingly Nick Fury stands up for Stark firmly and after the meeting the two reach an amicable understanding, putting the past to rest.
With a day to spare Tony's machine passes the simulation. They have a way to close the portals. Everything is ready and Tony has reached a place finally where he knows now that he will do everything, he can to survive the coming battle and to come home to the family he has built.
They spend their last night before the battle joining the pre-battle festivities on Asgard which are thoroughly enjoyed, but Tony is still haunted by his visions of his friend's death at Edraskil's hand and has been unable to find any definite way to ensure they all survive. His number one priority is the safety of his friends.
After enduring moments of terrible anticipation but also enjoying times of laughter and comradery in the empty city, the portals open and the battle begins. Tony is instantly rendered helpless by an attack from Kairon. It takes help from Frigga and Heimdall to remove the powerful being from his head and get him back in the game.
Nothing about the fight is smooth sailing. 1000's of civilians, people the avengers have saved before are brought back into the middle of the battle. Tony is able to teleport them out once they have been rounded up by the Avengers but is still unable to use the CAEB's power until the 5 beings have come to Earth and are trapped by his machine closing the portals.
When the 5 finally arrive, beating Tony to a pulp, the machine fails to deploy. In the end Tony has to use his own power to close the portals, leaving him unconscious for several hours, but when he awakes, the 5 are trapped and the CAEB can be used at full power.
With the CAEB slaughtering the enemy, the allied forces are gaining the upper hand, however it does not last long. Kairon cuts power to the city, frying the electrics and removing Tony's sources of energy to channel.
Severely inhibited by the lack of power Tony turns to channelling energy from other beings, but Edraskil uses the moment to attack. Terrified of his vision coming to pass Tony attacks Edraskil with extreme prejudice, ordering the others to stay back. When Tony gets into trouble, Rhodey flies in to help, but gets taken out by Edraskil. Enraged by the death of his best friend Tony obliterates Edraskil, draining him of all his energy which he then uses to release the Makluhk from Kairon's hold and they agree to fight for Tony, their new alpha.
Definitively on the losing side of the battle Kairon and the remaining 3, turn to their last resort, raising all the dead soldiers of the allied forces to fight as a zombie army for them. The allied forces are once again on the back foot. Tony is running out of energy and resolve.
They turn their focus to attacking the now weakened 4. As Tony fights Urus and Ethusa alongside, Sif, Frigga, Thor and Heimdall. Steve is saved from attack by the undead by Natasha, who is gravely injured. Thor goes down for good fighting Urus and Ethusa and is severely hurt. Tony is unable to do anything to help the Asgardian prince.
Taking energy offered by Heimdall, Tony is finally able to defeat Urus and Ethusa, but the cost has been high. Knowing that he and the allied forces have little time left against the unkillable army of the undead, he looks to the future. With knowledge of how to proceed he teleports the allied forces to safety, ignoring Steve and Clint's protests behind the shield as he goes to face Kairon and Vinam alone.
"The CAEB!" Kairon roared in anger and took a step back. He could feel the terror, the shock and betrayal rolling off them in waves. He was glad these were the last things they would feel, the same things every one of their victims would have felt.
"In the flesh." Tony smirked. It was time. "And now I'm going to burn yours." As ran forwards to attack, he felt a feeling he'd felt once before. The same feeling that had started him on this horrific path. He wasn't fighting to survive this. He wanted to, but it wasn't the way it was supposed to be. This was his last fight, so he'd better make it count. He'd already changed the future.
Now it was time to fix it.
He smiled. It was time."
And so… We reach the end. Brace yourselves. The next chapter awaits.