Here we go! Sorry it's a little late; to make up for that it's also about 10 Word Doc pages longer than my usual chapters.
Love and hugs to all of you who have left reviews, faves and follows! I haven't been able to reply to all of the reviews as I had wanted to so I'm going to make an extra big effort to do so this time! There you go; incentive to review :)
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Steve stood back helplessly as Bruce pulled the defibrillator from its box and ripped Tony's shirt open. The inventor's chest was mottled black with bruising, and although the arc reactor was still glowing brightly there was no rise and fall of Tony's rib cage. He wasn't breathing.
"Steve, there's a BMV in the medical kit on the wall, I need you to bring it over for me." Bruce was calm and authoritative, knowing exactly what needed to be done. He twisted the arc reactor and the release mechanism gave a sharp click as it came free so that he could place it beside Tony's head before attaching the pads of the defibrillator to the man's chest. When Steve hurriedly brought the Bag-Valve-Mask over the doctor fixed it deftly over Ironman's mouth and nose. "You've watched enough medical dramas, you know what to do. Squeeze the bag slowly and steadily; try to mimic a calm breathing rhythm."
If there was one thing Steve was good at it was following instructions in a tense atmosphere. He didn't waste time with questions and simply did as he was told, well aware that his actions were necessary to keep Tony from oxygen deprivation. He also knew to move back out of the way when Bruce ordered him clear and the defibrillator sent a shock through the unconscious man's chest.
Tony jerked, but there was no other response and the machine at Bruce's side sent its data to Jarvis who immediately informed them that there was no systolic rhythm. No pulse.
The sirens were still blaring but neither of the two men bothered to tell the AI to switch them off as they battled to save their friend's life. There needed to be a break between each shock, and Bruce began the cycle of chest compressions as Steve continued to use the small pump that breathed for Tony.
And there was no response. Stark lay there completely lifeless.
"Come on Tony!" Bruce was leaning his weight onto both hands; compress release, compress release. Over and over.
"What's happening to him?" Steve asked hopelessly.
"Cardiac arrest. It must have been the damn chest trauma!" The doctor had made the count to thirty and sat back on his heels. "Clear, I'm going to try the defib again."
The second try did nothing.
"God damnit, Tony! Don't you dare die on me!"
That hadn't been an outcome that had featured in Steve's mind, but hearing Bruce say the words made the situation's severity suddenly very clear.
Shock could be fatal.
"Daddy!"
Steve's head shot up as Evie's shriek rang through the laboratory. The two women and Evie had come down to find the reason behind the alarms and now the child was screaming.
"Pepper! Get her out of here!" Steve waved his arm angrily at her, even as she tried to take in the situation with wide eyes. However, whereas Pepper had frozen at the sight of Tony unconscious and unresponsive, Natasha was much quicker and managed to grab Evie as the child tried to run to her father.
"Dad! What's happening?! Daddy!" Evie was no match for the assassin's strength and although she twisted wildly in Natasha's grip she couldn't get free.
"Tasha, get her out of here!" Steve repeated his order, but that was easier said than done with how hard the girl was struggling.
"Right, defib again." Bruce's words were stilted as he continued the chest compressions. He glanced up at Tony's lax face and scowled angrily, putting renewed strength into the CPR until he reached the count of thirty and then turned back to the small defibrillator. "Clear." Once Steve had sat back the doctor sent another current through Tony's body.
Nothing.
For a brief moment the only sound in the room was Evie's sobbing, before Bruce snarled and doggedly kept going. "Not today, Tony. Not today!" Sweat was beginning to trickle down his forehead, dripping into his eyes. He kept up the mantra of 'not today' with each compression.
"Bruce…"
"Don't you dare stop, Steve!"
"How long…?"
"As long as it bloody takes!" There was a tinge of green to the doctor's eyes that made his friend immediately take back any other questions he might have had. Bruce would not…could not give up on Ironman so easily.
He blocked out everything. Vaguely, in the background, he was aware of Evie wailing in Natasha's arms and of Pepper sobbing quietly. There was the soft noise of the air-pump that Steve was using, and the background hum of the machines. Bruce blocked it all out. All that he could focus on was his friend's ribcage under his hands as he manually forced Tony's heart to continue pumping blood.
Tony couldn't die like this. If Ironman was to die it would be in a blaze of glory saving mankind – not on the floor of his workshop.
It wasn't just sweat dripping down his face now. Bruce couldn't be certain but he was pretty sure there were tears too.
Time was passing. Far too much time and still no response.
"Bruce…" There was a gentle hand on his shoulder, Pepper's hand. She was sobbing so hard that she could barely speak. Bruce didn't want to hear what she had to say. "It's been over half an hour…"
Had it? That seemed almost impossible, but the ache in his arms said otherwise.
"Bruce…Too much time has passed…"
That wasn't something he wanted to hear. He glanced at Evie out of the corner of his eye and saw the child's desperate pleading expression. By all accounts it was the same look she'd worn when Loki had been snatched away infront of her. Now she was watching her father die.
Bruce wasn't about to let that happen.
And he didn't know how to prevent it…
Nothing was working!
"Bruce…"
He brushed Pepper off without a word, doggedly continuing with the chest compressions. He wasn't going to lose his best friend! Evelyn would not lose another parent!
Not today. Not today. Not today. Not today. Not today.
It wasn't working…Bruce knew that. The defibrillatorwasn't having an effect and there was only so long they could continue the artificial respiration. He couldn't lose Tony. But he was.
There was a second tap on his shoulder. Not a hand this time, but a small mechanical pincer that was accompanied by a quiet whirr. The doctor glanced up to see that Dummy had trundled up next to him, arm drooping as he took in the scene. There was something in the robot's grip that it gently placed down on Tony's stomach.
An Epipen.
Bruce stared at it.
"Good boy Dummy…"
It hadn't occurred to him. He was a doctor and it hadn't occurred to him. The vasoconstriction effects of the adrenaline were able to bring a body out of shock – it's why it was used – and with nothing else working Bruce was willing to give it a try. The Epipen was prescribed for Tony (he didn't have any known allergies but he played around with new materials so often it had been deemed a good idea to have one around just incase) so Bruce didn't have to worry about tailoring the dosage. Without wasting a moment the doctor snatched the small device up, pulled the cap off and jabbed the needle into Tony's thigh.
There was no visible response but he didn't expect one. Instead he finished the current cycle of chest compressions then motioned Steve back again and picked up the defibrillator for what seemed to be the hundredth time.
Tony's body jerked as the current raced through him again. This time, however, he drew in a deep ragged breath of his own.
"Tony?!" Bruce cupped his friend's face but although the man now breathed freely he wasn't conscious. However, the weak flutter of a pulse under his fingers was enough for the doctor to crack a small smile. "There's a heartbeat. Jarvis, I need you to get hold of the heart surgeon on Shield's Safe List."
"Already done, Doctor Cherington is on route and should be here within the next ten minutes."
"Great; we need to get a gurney in here and transport Tony up to the ICU-"
"Mr Barton is on his way down with one as we speak."
Bruce nodded with a sigh. "You are the very definition of a life saver, Jarvis."
"Thank you sir, I will do anything within my power to help him."
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The surgery lasted six hours. Shield had a selection of health professionals – the Safe List – that they trusted to work with agents or personnel and Jarvis had drafted in a top cardiac surgeon along with his team to operate. Bruce insisted on being in the theatre too, since he was well aware that Tony would hate to have anyone on Shield's payroll so close to the arc reactor.
It was possibly the worst six hours of the doctor's life since joining the Avenger's.
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The Avenger's – including Fury – were congregated in the main room, waiting anxiously for news of what was happening. Jarvis was refusing to speak to them, and instead was metaphorically hovering nervously around the operating theatre in an attempt to find out all he could.
It seemed forever before Bruce finally came up to tell them that it was all over.
"What happened?" Pepper was the first one to ask the question once the doctor had been sat down and given a large drink of scotch. None of the team – Tony excluded – would usually endorse drinking alcohol so early on in the evening but some situations really did require it.
"Cardiogenic shock." Bruce said quietly. He took a sip of his drink and grimaced.
"Come again? Not all of us have a medical degree." Clint sounded annoyed, but they all knew him well enough to know that he was trying to hide just how worried he was.
The doctor hunched his shoulders, staring down at the tumbler in his hands. "It means his heart was badly damaged when the drone took him out, and when he went into shock he suffered from a myocardial infarction. A type of heart attack." He swirled the amber liquid around in the glass listlessly. "We successfully implanted an intra-aortic balloon pump and that kept him stable until he came out of shock."
"I thought that the Epipen did that…" Steve said quietly.
"The adrenaline boost brought back a heartbeat, but only briefly. He went back into arrest almost the same time that we got him into the operating theatre." Bruce glanced up as a blanket was wrapped around his shoulders and he looked up to try and smile at Natasha. "He's been lucky, though. The odds aren't good on surviving cardiogenic shock but he's through the worst of it."
The words made most of the group visibly relax. It seemed that Fury was the only one to pick up on what else that could imply.
"And now that he's out of shock? What are his chances?" For once the director sounded genuinely concerned for Tony- which was a novelty in itself. However, in his line of work, Fury had obviously come across this sort of situation before and knew what it could entail.
Bruce looked ill as he threw back the rest of the scotch. "Not great. In an ideal world I'd want to put him straight onto the list for a heart transplant. But…"
Fury looked grim. "The arc reactor."
"Yeah." The doctor shrugged slightly. "Jarvis is monitoring him closely and he's stable, but it's going to be touch and go for a long while."
There was silence after his explanation. 'Touch and go' were tricky words. They could mean that Tony would be alright, and merely not at 100% for a few months. Or they could very well mean that the man only had a fifty-fifty chance of living through it all.
And the Avenger's knew from Bruce's expression that it was the second option. Tony was still highly likely to die.
"Can you help him?" The voice was unexpected and they all glanced up. "Will you be able to save him, Doctor Banner?"
"I can try, Jarvis."
"Please. I will help in any way I can." They had never heard the AI plead before. "He can't be allowed to die."
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"I have an army." Loki sneered.
"We have a hulk." Tony heard the words coming out of his mouth, but couldn't quite believe he was saying them. Of all the memories he had to relive it had to be this one! It hurt to see Loki standing there in all his glory and pain and anger.
"Oh! I thought the beast had wandered off." The God sneered, gesturing off aimlessly with his sceptre.
"Yeah, you're missing the point." As his body followed through the path of the memory and walked down the steps, Tony was only focussing on his lover standing before him. The look of hatred and scorn on the God's face was unbearable. "There's no throne. There's no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for us but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the earth you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it." Even the memory of the brandy he sipped was bitter as he watched Loki's expression turn murderous. Of all the moments he and Loki had had, why did he have to relive the moment that the trickster had hated him and attempted to kill him? For all that he loved the God, he felt fear as the tall man stalked towards him.
"How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?" There was a whine of growing power as Loki raised his sceptre and Tony lowered his gaze in trepidation as the blade approached his chest.
Tink
Despite the emotions the memory was stirring, Tony had to mentally laugh at the look of pure confusion on Loki's face. At the time he hadn't been able to appreciate just how comical and adorable it was. He wanted to reach out and trace his hand across the tightly drawn brow and smooth away the frown-lines. The memory wouldn't allow it.
Loki raised the sceptre again for a second try and again the melodious little clink echoed around the suddenly silent room.
"This usually works…"
He sounded and looked so genuinely confused that Tony wanted to hang a photo of the expression on the wall.
"Well, performance issues…" Damn his incessant need to insult people! He felt his body shrug mockingly. "Not uncommon. One out of ten-"
This was the bit he really didn't want to remember. That sudden dawning realisation on Loki's face as he realised that he was being mocked and the absolute fury that this stupid human would dare to do so.
The two men's gazes met and Tony had to look into the eyes of the man he loved and see only hatred and a wish for his death. Loki's hand fastened around his throat, choking him.
The pain was still very real, despite just being a memory, as he was thrown to the floor.
"Jarvis…any time now." He struggled to his feet, watching Loki circle round and too slow to dodge when the God grabbed him tight around the throat again and drew him close.
"You will all fall before me." Loki snarled into the man's ear.
Tony heard himself still calling out for Jarvis to deploy the suit, but in reality all he could focus on was how unfair it all was. To fall asleep every night hoping desperately to dream of the trickster only for this.
SMASH!
And he was falling.
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It was strange to see Tony so still and quiet. It didn't suit him. Tucked up in the white sheets of Stark Towers Intensive Care Unit he looked small and fragile. There was an oxygen mask over his mouth, an IV in his arm and an electrocardiogram monitoring his pulse. It was frightening to see the usually loud and boisterous man so silent.
Bruce had scanned Tony's other injuries and noted that although the fragments of shrapnel hadn't moved significantly in the time that the arc reactor had been removed, there were still extensive signs of stress to the muscle. Tony had a history of heart problems already – hence the reactor – and up until this point had already been in cardiac arrest at least three times in his life. They should have known that this would be coming. Bruce felt that he should have known.
It had been nearly five days since he'd collapsed.
"Evelyn, you shouldn't be in here."
The girl was curled up in the chair beside the bed, staring listlessly at one of her text books but glanced up as Bruce entered the room to check on Tony's condition.
"Why not?" She asked quietly. "I want to be with my Dad."
"Evie…"
"He's going to get better, you know!"
Bruce smiled slightly. "Yes, of course he is." He checked the level in the IV bag, aware of the child watching him like a hawk. "He should wake up soon." He added.
Because waking up wasn't going to be the problem. It would be telling Tony that he was going to spend however long he had left that he was living on borrowed time.
Ironman was over.
"What are you reading?" Bruce asked, trying to change the topic.
Evie flipped her book up at him – it was one of those texts trying to explain puberty to growing girls. "Dad gave me The Talk, now I'm reading up on it."
"Do you understand it?"
"I…think so. Most of it is disgusting."
The doctor laughed slightly. "Yes. Yes it is."
The girl watched him replace the IV bag with a new one, frowning as she realised that it was different. "What are you doing?"
"This will stop him from being dehydrated when he wakes up."
"Will he really wake up soon?"
"Yes. Of course." Bruce smiled at her.
He was right, of course, although they had to wait a while longer. It was another twelve hours before Jarvis alerted Bruce that Tony was beginning to gain consciousness, and Evie had been packed off to bed by that point, despite her protestations. It might have seemed heartless not to let her stay up but Jarvis had strict Views about bedtime, and had always maintained that a routine would help keep her level-headed when the Avengers were out fighting. He applied this logic to Tony being injured too.
So when the man finally started to stir only Bruce was with him.
Tony opened his eyes grudgingly in the same manner as when he had a hangover – as if any and every movement could cause an unimaginable headache. He squinted at the blurred figure of his best friend until Bruce's smile swam into view.
"Hey Tony, how are you feeling?"
"…Like shit…"
"Yes, that isn't surprising." Bruce checked the read-out on the monitor next to the bed and smiled brighter. "Your vitals are looking much better, though, even if you aren't." He picked up the glass of water on the bed-side table and helped Tony take a couple of sips through the straw. When the inventor rested his head back down on the pillow he squinted at Bruce in confusion.
"What happened? Can't remember…what happened."
"You remember the drone?" Bruce waited for the look of recognition in his friend's eyes, and once it was there he continued. "You had severe chest trauma and when you went into shock your heart stopped." He indicated the IV that fed into Tony's hand. "You're on dobutamine for now, but I think you're passed the worst of it so I can start lowering the dose."
"I had a…heart attack?"
"Not really." The doctor slumped into the chair beside the bed. "Look, you've just woken up. Let's leave this conversation for another time." He didn't like the sudden scrutiny in Ironman's gaze. "What?"
"Shock. You said shock…" Tony turned his tired gaze up to the ceiling and it spoke volumes for his brain-power that he could go from unconscious to critically analytical in such a short space of time. It was almost possible to see the cogs turning. "It was cardiogenic shock…right? That's why you don't want to talk about it." One hand crept down the blankets covering his legs until he felt the bulge of bandages wrapped around his left thigh.
Bruce noticed where the man's attention was and sighed heavily. Tony just didn't know how to stop thinking about things. Even when recovering from a heart attack.
"You had to…stick a pump up…my leg. Didn't you?" Stark rasped. "It was that bad…?"
"It still is that bad, Tony."
"Will I die?" The question was quiet but emotionless. Tony turned his head slightly to face his friend, looking mildly curious. "Is this going to kill me…?"
Bruce had faced such questions in the past. It was one of the worst but inevitable parts of being a doctor and something he had handled enough in the past. But not with a friend. Never with a friend.
"Yes." He said simply.
"Oh. Okay. Great…" Stark swallowed thickly, fixing his gaze on the ceiling. "How long?"
"I don't know. It could be ten years, it could be ten days."
"Grand…"
Bruce felt his own chest constricting tightly, a lump blocking his throat as he watched his friend try to absorb that news. "Tony, I'm…"
"Don't. Don't say you're sorry." Tony raised a hand to his face – ignoring the IV line connected to the back of his hand – and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I've had medical death sentences before. This isn't new." He sounded so tired.
"Look, we don't have to talk about this now." Bruce moved to sit down on the side of the bed, reaching out to rest his hand on top of his friends'. "You've been unconscious for nearly six days, the best thing right now is to rest and let your body heal."
"How's Evie been?"
It was a question that the doctor had been dreading. "She's terrified, but keeping it together."
"'Course she is; she's a Stark." Tony tried to smile, but the expression didn't reach his eyes. "Starks are champs at keeping it together under pressure."
"Do I sense another Game of Thrones joke coming on?" Bruce asked sardonically.
"I hope not. Most of the Starks in that one die. I don't intend to do that for a while."
"Glad to hear it."
Tony sighed heavily and tried to smile again. "So…If I'm on a time limit I'd better get my act together in finding Loki, huh? Jarvis, make a note of that please; Get arse in gear and find Loki."
There was an uncharacteristic pause before the AI answered. "Of course, sir."
"You okay, Jarv?"
"All the more so for seeing you awake, sir. This was the first time I have had to experience the emotion of panic, sir, and I did not enjoy it one bit."
"I'm sorry, Jarv, I'll try not to do it again."
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To begin with they took it one day at a time.
As Bruce had said; there was the chance that they could lose Tony at any moment and although the longer he lived the better his chances were, the team still fretted around him.
It wasn't just the physical implications either. Everything had been turned on its head both within the Avenger's Initiative and more intimately within the Stark household.
Tony couldn't do anything that required physical exertion. He couldn't go for a walk, couldn't go shopping, wasn't allowed to use a hammer in the workshop. Hell, he couldn't even walk up stairs and was resigned to taking an elevator if he wanted to go anywhere in the tower. He had cut down on the drinking when Evie was born, but now wasn't allowed any alcohol whatsoever and for a long while Bruce was even restricting his diet. Up to and including decaffeinated coffee that, up until then, had been banned from the tower.
All of these things were bearable. Even being unable to do the heavier manual labour in his workshop was something Tony could live with – especially since it meant that there was a greater possibility that he would live. However, there was one thing that was horrendous.
He could no longer use the suit.
Ever again.
The very thought was stifling.
His team seemed to think that the suit – whilst obviously extremely important to him – was still just that; a suit. But it really really wasn't. The suit – in all its incarnations – represented his freedom and his life.
It had been born from darkness and desperation, baptised in the blood of both his friend and his enemies and had lifted him from Hell and back into the arms of his family. There was nothing Tony couldn't do when he was in the suit. It was everything about him that he had hidden from everyone all his life. Every new version had a little piece more of his soul in it. Every rivet, screw, circuit and wire had been placed under the influence of strong emotions. Anytime he had needed to let off steam, he had gone and worked on the suit. Anytime he had been upset he had gone and worked on the suit. Celebratory, sad, happy, drunk, frustrated; pretty much every emotion had at some time or another been hammered, welded or riveted into the suit.
It wasn't simply made by Tony, it was Tony.
And in the worst way possible it had been taken away from him.
He could sit there, all day every day staring at the symbol of his freedom and know that he would never ever be able to use it again.
It was…well, the term 'heartbreaking' might have been appropriate if it hadn't been for the medical emergency he'd just survived.
Once upon a time Tony might have succumbed to depression in such a state. However, he had one thing that his former self hadn't had; a support network. Jarvis and Pepper had always been there for him but now when he found himself staring morosely out of the window at the perfect flying conditions he had a child to distract him. When he wanted to have a drink with the group to celebrate something he had Natasha; who could make a virgin daiquiri that genuinely seemed alcoholic.
Nothing was perfect, nothing was easy and nothing was the same, but his friends and family – close enough as to be the same thing really – were able to keep him from falling down the black pit of despair that could have easily swallowed him whole.
They took it a day at a time and slowly things began to fall back into place.
For the first time since Loki had been taken they spent Evelyn's birthday at home – a quiet affair of films and junk food that suited the eleven year old perfectly. She had grown up considerably since Tony's accident; favouring sitting quietly with her father now, rather than tearing around the place like she used to.
It came and went without incident, as did Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
And finally, finally Tony went back into the suit work-shop for the first time in the six months since his accident and started looking at the Ironman armour once more in a different light. The team work up the next morning to Jarvis fretting that the man hadn't slept and was still working, just as he once had.
It was a comforting return to the familiar even though it left them all wondering what Stark could possibly be doing down there.
The answer came sooner than they expected when Ironman – fully suited up – stomped into the living room and challenged Clint to a game of table tennis. The suit looked very much the same as when they'd last seen it – well, obviously the damage had been fixed, but other than that it seemed essentially the same.
"Uh…Tony? Are you alright?"
"Never better! Come on, I want to test the new flexibility!"
Bruce and Clint stared at him. This was not really surprising to be honest. They had been expecting Tony to have some sort of rebellion against the strict rules his new medical condition imposed upon him and to be frank, trying to play ping pong whilst wearing the suit wasn't the worst that could have happened. Even so, Bruce was still unhappy.
"Tony, the weight of that thing alone could be too much for you-"
"Trust me, it's fine." Tony had moved to the table and was throwing a bat from hand to mechanised hand. "Come on Clint, I want to see how the new wrist joint functions!"
Barton took up his own bat rather cautiously, looking between Bruce and Tony. "Um…I'm sure a couple of rounds won't do any harm…"
"Good boy, this is why I still feed you."
Bruce held his hands up in surrender, sitting back down on the couch. "Fine. One short game and then take the suit straight off again."
"Yes Dad." Tony shifted his weight from side to side in a parody of a professional tennis player before serving the ping-pong ball to Clint. He must have known that against the professional sharp-shooter he didn't really have a hope in hell of actually winning, but Barton went easy and allowed him to get a few shots in.
Whatever Tony was testing seemed to be working since he returned the ball easily, light on his feet and the joints of the suit working effortlessly.
Very light on his feet.
Bruce narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Tony, I'm just going to go down to the workshop. I'm sure you won't mind."
"Huh?!" Tony spun round, the ball pinging off the back of his helmet. "No! There's some…uh…Bruce! Wait!"
However, the other scientist had already left the sofa and was calmly walking towards the staircase. Stark dropped his bat and rushed after him, still protesting loudly and Clint followed – obviously sensing some form of entertainment.
"- Really important experiments, full of radiation, really not worth the risk –" Tony was trying and failing to get infront of Bruce to stop him and was beginning to look like a guilty puppy. It was almost as obvious as a teenage lad trying to hide his porn stash after knowing that mum's already found it.
Bruce calmly entered the code into the doors and although Tony screamed at Jarvis to deny entry the AI just replied apologetically that he thought it was probably better to allow Dr Banner in. There was a very childlike mutter of 'traitor' from the billionaire in response.
As the door slide open they heard a child's laughter at Tony's comment to Jarvis and Evie stood up from her stool by the work bench to wave them over.
"He's sulking now!" She proclaimed happily.
True enough Tony – another Tony, or at least one not wearing a suit – was sat on the floor surrounded by wires with a rather curious visor and pair of gauntlets on and pouting grumpily. He pulled the headgear off to glare up at his two friends and as he did so the suit that had been walking behind them powered down.
"You weren't supposed to figure it out that quickly!" He snapped.
"Tony, you're acting like a child whose joke has been ruined-" Clint started to say, but Bruce pushed him out of the way to get a better look at the readouts on the computer Tony was connected to.
"Tony…this is amazing! How long have you been working on this?" The other scientist was scrolling through the data, his eyes lighting up.
Stark pulled himself to his feet – stripping off the gauntlets and remaining wires. "I'd planned it years ago but didn't see the point in all the time and effort it would take. I remembered it when I was still bed-ridden and the moment I could get back into the workshop I started implementing it."
"To be fair, sir, I did a lot of the work." Jarvis sounded put out and Tony smiled tiredly.
"True. Once I told Jarvis what I was planning he put everything into place. I just needed to explain to him how things needed to be put together and sort out some of the programming."
"It's…what? Running off of muscle movements? But how were you sitting down to use it?" Bruce was now turning the visor over in his hands. "Surely you'd have to imitate the movements you'd want the suit to do to make it work."
Tony beamed. "To begin with yeah. But then I figured that that's not really a good thing for me to do what with a bad ticker and all, so I adapted the idea." He held up one of the pads that had been attached to his shoulder. "It's like a bionic limb; I just upgraded the tech. It works off of the muscle stimuli that are unconsciously sent when I think about making a certain movement. Needed a fair bit of work though, that's why it's taken me so long to test drive it. I've had to train myself and the program to learn every type of muscle movement I might make to make the suit react. It's kinda like a full body sign language."
Clint looked slightly bemused. "That sounds like a hell of a lot of work."
"Worth it though." Tony slipped a gauntlet back on and made the suit walk over to its podium on the far side of the workshop. He then handed the piece of tech to his daughter and turned back to his friends with a broad grin. "Don't you see? With this I can be Ironman again! Sure, it won't really be me out there, but it will be as good as having me with you. And it's stress free on my part! Win-win situation! I can still fly the suit, just by remote control instead, and you don't have to worry about me keeling over and dying in mid-air. Perfect!"
Bruce returned the infectious grin. "You know what? I think it might well be."
"Uh…" Clint looked between them. "Seriously? Is this a thing?" He flicked his finger against the visor. "You lock yourself away for a few days and 'boom'! New suit with ridiculously advanced tech, simple as that?"
Tony shrugged slightly. "Well, I wouldn't say simple. I had Jarvis started on this months ago – I've just spent the past few days checking it all over." He pushed the archer away from his precious work. "But it felt good to know that I was still able to work on something, even if only doing the theory." He glanced up at them, eyes suddenly hard and cold. "I will not be useless! I am Ironman and a stupid medical ailment isn't going to stop that!"
"It's still risky-"
"Yeah, so I built in fail safes. I can sit on the sofa directing the suit and Jarvis can monitor my vitals. If he notices anything wrong with me or if I get dangerously stressed then he will cut the link between me and the suit and fly it himself."
"Why not just have Jarvis fly the suit himself anyway?" Clint asked, well aware that his question was a little less than tactful. "Sure, I know you want to be doing something, but you could work on upgrades and Jarvis would do the grunt work."
Tony rolled his eyes in the usual familiar gesture of disbelief over how thick his team mates could be. "Haven't you ever seen or read I Robot?"
"Will Smith film, right?"
"That's the one."
Clint scrunched his face up in confusion. "What's blowing up a female version of Jarvis got to do with this?"
"Yes, sir, what has blowing up an AI very similar to myself in all respects got to do with this?" Jarvis sounded both hurt and annoyed as he responded to Barton's question.
Stark held his hands up in surrender with a chuckle. "Sorry Jarv, I didn't mean it like that. If anything you're far more likely to go Skynet on us and create the terminators. No I meant the problem is that as much as you have an emotional capacity, you are still governed by the rules of probability. In a pinch you would follow the odds and rescue the person with the greatest chance of survival."
"That's not such a bad thing, sir."
"No, but that's just not how humans work. We'd save the kid with less of a chance of survival than the granny who would be easier to save. And even then that's not definite. We're complex creatures and as amazingly advanced as you are, you still aren't quite human."
Evie looked up, finally taking an interest in the conversation. "Neither am I! I'm a frost giant! RAWR!" She curled her hands into claws and bared her teeth. Tony laughed and patted her on the head.
"Yeah, my super scary Jötunn."
"So…Have you spoken to Fury about this grand plan of yours?" Clint was still prodding the new machinery, but rolled his eyes and removed his hand again when Tony picked up a wrench and eyed his fingers threateningly.
"Not yet, kinda hoping I could have some team back-up when I do" He glanced between the scientist and assassin hopefully. "If you guys can persuade him that it's a good idea then maybe he won't be quite as mad when I use it regardless of his answer."
Bruce glanced back at the computer screens before nodding slowly. "Yeah. I guess we can try."
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Fury…Well. He took some convincing.
There was no way he'd have ever taken Tony's word on it alone, but having Bruce backing up the science helped. Obviously the science of the suit wasn't the problem, but Ironman's heart problems were more than enough worry on their own. In the end it took Jarvis bringing up the data from the tests on the new suits to prove that Tony hadn't been under any unusual stress whilst using the new set-up and that there were fail-safes should anything seem amiss.
Fury wasn't happy, but in the end he also didn't have a good enough reason to say no.
The first time the Avengers were called out after that, Ironman was back with them. His absence had been noticed by the media and left unexplained so seeing the suit flying with the team again made headlines across America. The group arrived back home to find Tony sat on the couch in the living room, visored and gauntleted up and grinning smugly.
It was Pepper who made the decision to keep her boss' heart condition and the fact that Ironman was now unmanned a secret. She had determined that firstly people would be more likely to try and take Tony out if they knew he had an existing condition and also that as selfish as it sounded, the shares in Stark Industries would sink like the Titanic if it was known that the Stark behind the name was dying.
And so life returned to something that could vaguely approach normal.
Tony was still careful about everything he did, and after a brain-wave one night put a small chip into the arc reactor to monitor his heart at all times. It not only watched his pulse and blood pressure, but was also able to detect any stresses on the muscle, or tears that might develop. So far so good, nothing had come to light.
It would have been hard to get through the holiday season without alcohol, though, if it weren't for Natasha. The Russian mixed up a drink that, among other things, included beetroot juice, ginger and tabasco and was capable of mimicking the immediate effects of alcohol – most notably the burn in the throat – whilst not containing any alcohol whatsoever. It also had the added side-effect of not ending in a hangover the next morning, which Tony rather appreciated.
With that one recipe they started working out other details and by Christmas there was a large selection of faux-drinks stocked up. Easily enough for Tony to pretend to get wasted on at any rate and Evie was thrilled to learn that she was allowed to drink them too since technically they didn't contain anything untoward.
This time was also the first festive season when the girl sorted out the lanterns on her own. After that first Christmas without Loki they had made sure to keep up with the tradition of setting off the lights each year and the first Christmas of living with Tony's heart problem Steve had helped set it up. However this year, now twelve years old, Evelyn dealt with it when she realised that it was too much to ask for on top of all Tony's medical problems.
And…Well, time moved on.
Jarvis furiously worked on the data from the telescope, Tony grew more proficient at using the new type of suit, Fury became less – well they didn't like to use the word protective but that really was how it came across – of Ironman and as months turned into years Evie continued to grow up.
It hit home just how old she really was when Tony accidently spotted her and Pepper coming back from the store with a box of tampons. He'd had to go and have a quiet freak-out in his lab whilst trying to come to terms with the thought that his little princess was actually becoming a woman. Still, for all of his sudden squeamishness, Evie certainly seemed to appreciate it a few months later when he found her lying on the couch in the main room looking very sorry for herself and wordlessly handed her a hot water bottle.
She really wasn't a little girl anymore and it seemed to bug her as much as it did her father.
And so suddenly as to be unbelievable, her birthday's were coming and going. All those years, passing in a flash. That tiny screaming baby Stark had helped into the world was well on her way into adulthood.
Loki had been missing for seven years. Tony had been living with a terminal heart problem for three of those. If the trickster was even still alive, Stark was running out of time in which to try and save him.
The Christmas of Evie's fourteenth year was the same routine that they had slipped into. Quiet, comfortable and familial. For all that only Tony and Evelyn were related, the years had slowly bonded the team from colleagues to friends to family. Even Thor – a Pagan God in his own right and therefore quite entitled to demand a proper Yule – was more than content to celebrate the birth of a different religion's God simply because it was how the rest of the Avenger's had been brought up.
Each team member brought something slightly different to the festivities, which had – over the years – cemented into their Christmas traditions as a mismatched family. Natasha introduced the tale of Babushka that she retold every year, and always insisted on making Russian specialities that she remembered from her childhood. Steve insisted that every stocking had to have an orange in it. Clint knew how to make Danish cinnamon cookies from his time touring in the circus and would pull the recipe out each year and take over the kitchen. Bruce surprised everyone with his mum's method of slow-cooking the turkey and after the first time it was always his job to make sure that the bird was cooked to perfection. It took a while for Thor to get into the swing of things, but after a few years he had worked out the main elements of the Christian festival and introduced the team to some Aesir games that were played after the main meal at Yule. Tony and Evie continued their little lantern tradition each Christmas evening, and each time the Christmas greetings sent out with the lights became just a little more hopeless.
And finally there was Pepper's input.
After a brief, but sadly unsuccessful relationship with Happy, she went back to spending her Christmas's with Tony – and therefore everyone else – and brought her own little custom of watching Love Actually. It was something that the others never complained about so swiftly became part of the day.
This particular Christmas they had just started talking again as the credits rolled when Jarvis interrupted the conversation.
"Excuse me, sir, might I speak with you a moment?"
Tony waved his non-alcoholic eggnog at the ceiling. "It's Christmas Day, Jarv, what could possibly have come up?"
"That's just it, sir. It is Christmas, and as I have observed over the years, it is customary to give gifts."
"Did you get me a gift, Jarvis?" Tony asked teasingly.
"Yes, sir."
That was almost slightly scary. Tony knew his AI was beyond anything ever seen before, but it was still rather awe-inspiring to realise that the robot had developed an emotional capacity large enough to understand the want to give a present to someone close.
"In a manner of speaking." Jarvis continued smoothly. "It's taken a while but I have managed to gather together all the data from the telescope, extrapolate it, run it through my algorithms and analyse the results."
The credits on the TV screen vanished to be replaced with the 3D renderings of nearly two hundred planets, moons, asteroids and other celestial bodies.
"I have determined that these are the planetary objects that are likely to have a liveable atmosphere. According to my workings; the data from the telescope is showing all of these to have atmospheres very similar to the one this planet is believed to have had roughly a billion years ago. This means they a very likely to be similar to us now."
Tony stared at the collection of small spherical and near-spherical shapes on the screen.
"Loki's…On one of those?"
"I believe it is highly likely, sir. I will give the data to Master Thor to deliver to Heimdall and hopefully we shall soon know which one."
"Jarvis…I love you. You know that, right?"
"Thank you, sir. Merry Christmas."
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Thor left on Boxing Day to take the coordinates Jarvis had compiled to the all-seeing watchman. There was no way of knowing how well Heimdall would be able to focus on an area outside of the nine realms, but he himself had stated that with the coordinates it would be much easier for him to try.
Even Tony didn't fully understand how it was meant to work. From what they could gather, Heimdall could see anywhere within the nine realms (something that despite Thor's best efforts they also couldn't really get their heads around the concept of) but trying to see beyond that boundary required guidance as to where to look. In the end the best way Tony could visualise it himself was as if Heimdall was searching the internet. The nine realms were his desk top and therefore he could 'see' everything within them. However, outside of the nine realms was like the infinite expanse of the internet – and that it was almost impossible to find one single piece of data without help. The coordinates Jarvis had given were the stellar equivalent of Googling the whereabouts of the chitauri and now Heimdall only had to go through the few search results.
Or that was how Tony figured it, anyway. He was also pretty certain that it was nothing like that in reality, but what the hey.
Almost the moment that Thor left Tony went back down to his lab and locked himself in.
To begin with they left him to it, but after he missed two meals Bruce was sent down to find out what he was up to. Jarvis had been unusually silent, refusing to help winkle Tony out of the lab and would only give cryptic remarks about it being 'unsafe' down in the workshops. And if that didn't scare Bruce then there was little else that would!
However, it seemed that however unsafe said workshops were, Stark was actually being rather sensible and doing his work by remote. Bruce found him sat outside one of the high containment laboratories, watching through the bullet-proof glass as a remote controlled suit pottered around inside the area.
"Tony? What are you up to-?"
Tony raised a hand to silence him, never taking his eyes off the suit whilst his fingers danced over the laptop he was holding. The concentration on his face made it clear that this was far more than just a little science experiment. Bruce came and took the spare seat next to him, looking over his shoulder at the laptop screen.
For a moment Banner was bewildered by the images and numbers shooting across the monitor before he paled, turning to look in horror at the suit inside the room.
"Tony-"
"Not a word, Bruce."
"But Tony…"
"Shut up."
Because Bruce knew those numbers. He knew the little Greek symbols that scrolled across the screen.
He was a nuclear physicist after all.
And most of all he knew those symbols and knew how they related to the deceptively small object that the Ironman suit was working on inside the contained room.
"Tony – No! Listen to me! – how well shielded is it in there?!"
"Well enough."
"And if it goes wrong?!"
Tony glanced at him; a brief look that said 'oh yea of little faith' before turning back to the job in hand. "I don't mess up."
Bruce continued to stare at his friend in horror. "You know we said you shouldn't do anything high stress!"
"I'm not stressed."
Jarvis cut in to confirm this. "He's right, Dr Banner, his blood pressure and pulse rate are both within acceptable levels given his condition."
"Good boy, Jarv, have a Scooby Snack."
"But Tony that's a –"
Tony sighed theatrically, hit a button that caused the remote-controlled suit to pause and turned to glare at his friend.
"Bruce. Dr Banner. Mr Mean and Green. Why are you trying to tell me what I'm making? I am perfectly aware of what I'm making in there and of how bloody dangerous the end product will be." He snapped. "I'm not exactly being careless here."
Bruce stared straight back – all too used to Stark tantrums to be put off. "Carelessness isn't the point, Tony. What happens if there's an earthquake and that thing is set off? You'd level the city! And for Gods sake I thought you weren't making weapons anymore!"
"This one won't be aimed at humans." The icy coldness in Tony's voice was something that had almost never been heard before. Sure he often sounded angry or pissed off, but this deep and dark hatred was something else.
"This is for the chitauri?"
Stark's jaw clenched, his hands curling into tense fists as he stared woodenly through the glass into the work shop. "They hurt Evie. They made her bleed and they made her cry. She had to watch her mother sacrifice himself for her safety and that has been her living nightmare ever since! So they will burn."
Burn was an understatement.
The little object inside the containment room looked for all the world like one of Tony's usual missiles that were situated in the suits shoulders. However, the box labelled 'U235' made it extremely clear that this missile was not one anyone wanted to be near. Uranium 235.
A nuclear missile.
"You see, I found some of my Dad's old files." Tony sounded a little stilted as he checked the calculations on the screen infront of him. "Evie wanted the filing cabinet that was falling apart in my office so I cleared it out. Mostly full of out-dated junk and party invites from the sixties. And then there was one little folder buried at the back that suddenly gave me an idea. Dad worked for the government during the war, you see. Of course you know that already; it's how and why Steve exists. Anyway, he did more than just help mad scientists create super-soldiers and he always always kept records of what he was doing. So I found this."
He gestured blindly towards the work surface that was covered in paper-work. Bruce had to stare at it for a moment before his gaze was drawn to one folder in particular. Brown and stern, it had the title redacted – a thick black line obscuring any and all text on the front. However, when Bruce flipped it open the bold print inside hadn't been masked and he dropped it like it had turned into a poisonous snake.
The folder fell to the floor, Howard Stark's clear handwriting proudly declaring the name of the plans.
The Manhattan Project.
"I thought you didn't want to be like your Father."
"I'm nothing like him. He helped design this monstrosity to win a war. I'm doing it for personal revenge. I'm now officially a bigger arsehole than he could ever be."
For a long moment Bruce just stared at his best friend.
"Tony…"
The inventor clenched his fist tightly for a moment, anger flitting across his face before he dropped his head to rest on the thin top edge of the laptop screen with a pained sigh.
"I want them dead, Bruce." He said hoarsely. "I want to destroy each and every one of those creatures."
"You can't destroy an entire race, Tony."
Tony let out a choked sort of laugh – the parallels to Loki and Jötunheim were too much for him to miss. "And why the hell can't I? These fuckers invaded my planet, killed my species, kidnapped my lover and hurt my daughter. I. Want. Them. Dead."
"And nuking them will make all of that better?"
"It'll damn well make me feel better!"
"Did that work the first time?" Bruce didn't remember Tony flying a nuclear warhead through a wormhole, but the Hulk had made it pretty clear that it wasn't an experience anyone wanted to repeat.
There was a telling silence in response to the question whilst Tony stared pointedly into the room where his suit was closing the casing on the newly completed missile. "I…" The inventor shook his head slightly. "I feel like I have to do something, Bruce. I'm sitting here, not knowing if Loki's even alive anymore and I need to do something. It's been seven years. Evie's almost grown up, I'm now saddled with a terminal heart problem, life has had to move on and that sucks."
"You built the most advanced telescope the world has ever seen." Bruce countered softly. "Hell, NASA is still trying to even come close to something like it. That sounds like doing something."
"But it's not enough!" Tony slammed his fist down on the work-surface. "Seven years, Bruce! God only knows what Loki has been put through in that time! Hell, for all I know they killed him the moment they had him. I could have spent all this time only to find a grave. Or maybe they didn't even dignify him with that." His whole posture was tensed up, curled over the laptop as he tried to bite back the emotions that were fighting to get out. "And what happens if I do get him back? Huh? What then?"
The man looked tortured, and Bruce reached out to gently rest his hand on Tony's shoulder, a reassuring touch whilst not interrupting his friend.
"I say I love him." Tony whispered. "And I do. Really, I do. But now I wonder how that can be true. We barely ever saw each other and it's been so long. My memory could well be turning him into some sort of ideal. I could be in love with a memory that isn't even real any more. Maybe hadn't ever been real." The tenseness was becoming gentle shivers and his breath hitched in his throat. "I'm so afraid, Bruce. What if he isn't what I remember? What if they've broken him so much he doesn't remember, or doesn't care or his mind isn't even there anymore? What if I never get him back?"
The last words were slurred as an unsurprising sob overtook them.
"Tony…" Bruce pulled his chair closer to allow his friend to slump into him. "Tony, don't do this to yourself…"
"I want them all to burn."
"I know, Tony. I know."
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Bruce kept Tony's little project to himself. They had further words on the matter, but never reached a resolution beyond the inventor agreeing not to make any more of the missiles. He never told Bruce that the one alone would be more than sufficient.
However they were both distracted when Thor returned a day later, declaring that he had given Heimdall the coordinates and had been sent back to wait until if or when the Gatekeeper might find something.
This resulted in the motley crew sitting in the cinema – which had ever more been used as their conference room due to the comfy chairs – discussing what the next plan of action should be. After all, even if Heimdall were able to pin-point Loki's exact location down to the nearest millimetre they would still have the issue of getting that far across the universe.
"-So the Bifrost is entirely out of the question?" Steve didn't seem to be able to get his head around the point. It had been explained quite thoroughly that the bridge had never quite recovered from having its end smashed off (which Thor was quite contrite about now, although it really had been the best way at the time). It was doubtful if Heimdall would have been able to send anyone that far even before the breaking, but now it was certainly out of the question.
Which all in all rather buggered their plans for reaching Galaxy IC 1101.
"Look, can't we just fix the bloody bridge?" Clint asked. He had his head in his hands, whole posture speaking of exasperation. "And by 'we' I mean the two resident geniuses."
"Yeah, sure, let me get my book on 'How to Fix Magic Bridges For Dummies." Tony snapped in response. "And don't swear infront of Evelyn!"
Said girl rolled her eyes. She had insisted on being present for the meeting – and since it was technically a logistics discussion there was no valid reason to refuse her – and had so far stayed quiet with her tablet in the corner. "Dad, I know how to swear, I'm not a kid."
"Are you 21 yet? No? Then you're a kid."
Evie scowled and pointedly turned her back to her father.
"Um…" They had Jane on video-call up on the big screen and she looked uncomfortable interrupting the family tiff. "So, I've been working on the Bifrost for years now. I can't claim to know how it works exactly, but from what I've got so far it looks like there must be some way to strengthen it. The math at least suggests that it would be possible."
Tony turned back from trying to stop his daughter from sulking. "Math? Ooh, gimme!" He made grabby-hand motions. Jane smiled indulgently and a moment later the equations streamed along the screen underneath the video.
To most of the group they were completely incomprehensible, just strings of numbers and Greek letters. Tony frowned at the data and Bruce sat up a little straighter in his chair staring at the screen. Evie gave it a go, but without knowing the background to the calculations she didn't have much of a chance no matter how good her maths was.
"I've gone over it quite a bit myself, you know." Jane sounded slightly annoyed at how her work was being scrutinised by the two men. "As I said; there's a possibility for something here, but what that is I'm not quite sure."
Natasha shook her head slightly. "Anyone else not got a clue what's going on right now?"
There was a show of hands from the rest of the room.
Bruce jumped in before Tony could make a condescending remark. "It's hard to describe without you having a solid background in theoretical physics, but what you're seeing is the Bifrost's working broken down into mathematical formulae." He held up a hand to stop Stark from trying to butt in. "I won't go into details, but what we can see from this is that there are constants that would allow the Bifrost's effects to be amplified."
Natasha slowly nodded before shaking her head again. "No. Maybe I'm losing something in translation."
"Nope. English is my first language and I don't have a clue what he's talking about either." Clint said blankly.
"It's very simple. The Bifrost is like the transporters in StarTrek and Heimdall is like Scotty. And right now the transporters don't have enough power, but there's a way for Scotty to give them more."
Everyone turned to look at Evie where she sat smirking at them.
"You look worryingly like your Möhdy when you smile like that…" Thor said slowly.
"Well I'm right, aren't I?"
"Yes…But that's still rather impressive." Jane said.
"You do know who my parents are, right?"
Tony grinned whilst patting his daughter on the shoulder. "Alright, Birdy. Stop showing off." She stuck her tongue out at him and he pretended to smack her on the back of the head. "So, everyone get it now? Bifrost needs a bit more juice if we want to get to the other side of the universe."
"And I take it no-one knows what would do that?" Steve asked.
Thor shrugged hopelessly as the collective eyes of the room turned to him. "The question has never arisen. It would take a great sorcerer to know how to extend the Bifrost's reach. And unfortunately that sorcerer would be Loki."
"Yeah, that sucks." Clint rested his chin on the heel of his hand with a sigh. "Can't you just hook the damn thing up to a power-source of some sort?"
Tony huffed with sarcastic laughter. "Oh yeah, let me just stick the almighty Norse Duracell Battery in and we're set to go!"
"Don't be a dick, Tony, I just meant if the Vikings are hiding anything like the Tesseract that could help."
The inventor shrugged and looked at Thor. "I dunno. You got anything as powerful as the Tesseract? That thing could probably have done it considering the readings we got off it. Looked like it was made of pure energy – could have been handy. So yeah. Anything like that floating around?"
The God looked confused at the question, glancing around at the curious faces. "I do not understand. Why do you assume the Tesseract is gone? We have it still on Asgard. But!" He held up a hand as Bruce tried to interrupt with an exclamation. "But, there would be no way to link it to the Bifrost. They are two completely different energy sources. I agree that its power would be more than enough, but there is no link. You would need to connect the Tesseract's unique form of energy to the magical energy of the Bifrost."
"And…what? You don't have guys who can do that for us?" Bruce asked.
"Again; Loki."
"Huh."
Tony had copied Clint's pose; chin on the heel of his hand. "So it's just a question of linking two different energy sources. That doesn't sound…too…hard…" He trailed off under Thor's condescending gaze. It was un-nerving really – usually he was the one pulling that look on the God. "What? It's not that easy?"
"No. You would need the connection to be of both energies and you do not have the magical capabilities to make such an object."
"Oh." Tony sounded like a put out teenager. He sat back in his chair with a scowl as the conversation of the others washed over him. He didn't like being told that he couldn't do something.
Bruce was quizzing Thor on any other objects that could possibly do the same job as the Tesseract whilst the rest tried to keep up with the conversation but Tony's mind couldn't let go of the problem freshly presented.
So…They needed something that was linked between two separate forms of energy. He'd done such things before. Of course, it helped to be familiar with said energies first. It was probably comparable to turning heat energy into kinetic; except that the bridge and the Tesseract didn't have the cogs between them like a steam engine would. So…apparently Loki was the expert in these sorts of things.
Wonderful.
Irony at its best.
But Tony's mind was nothing if not brilliant at finding unusual answers to things and he settled back to think as the half-baked theories were thrown about around him. The clue was Loki…he was sure of it. What had Loki ever told him about magic…?
He vaguely remembered the book the trickster had given him at Evie's first Christmas that detailed magic and such, but – having memorised it – he was pretty certain there was nothing in there about different forms of magic (magic, energy, whatever) let alone linking them. Loki had, to all intents and purposes, given him what translated as 'Magic For Dummies'. Not useful in the current situation. After all, it wasn't like Tony had the thousands of years' experience that Loki did. Hell he didn't even have the flashy Glow-Stick of Destiny. Well, he did, hidden in the bottom of a drawer in his lab where Shield would never know about it, but that wasn't the point.
Creepy, mind-meldy, evil blue thing that it was…
Tony sat bolt upright in his chair, one hand going up to his mouth.
"Oh!"
"Tony?" Bruce lent forwards in alarm. "Are you alright?"
"Oh! Loki was – is, was…is a genius!" He grabbed the tablet off of Evelyn – who gave an exclamation of indignation, but didn't actually try to hang onto it – and quickly accessed his own files on it. "Look, look, look!"
The image of Jane on the cinema screen shrunk so that it only occupied half the area and the rest was taken up with a photograph of Loki's sceptre. Clint's eyes hardened when he saw it, but the rest of the group looked politely blank. Tony looked between them all before groaning in exasperation.
"Seriously? Brucie, do I have to explain this to you?"
Bruce actually glared at him. "Tony, other than those few moments with it in the lab on the helicarrier I barely saw that thing. You've got to remember that I spent most of the invasion as the Hulk."
"I…Yeah. Sorry." He didn't look it, but Bruce would take what he got when it came to Tony's apologies.
"No matter. What's your point, Tony?"
"Well, I did a few scans on it and Loki's sceptre was using the Tesseract's energy. God alone knows how that worked, since it never really came into contact with the thing, but still – I've got some theories on it. Anyway the Tesseract and the sceptre definitely had a thing going on there. However, I also found traces of Loki's own magic in it, so it can obviously channel both." Tony explained animatedly. "As far as I'm aware it can use both types. Maybe it can link them too!"
"And do you know how on earth to do that?" Bruce's sceptical tone made Tony's wide grin slip. "It's all well and good saying that the sceptre has the capabilities, but you still don't know how the damn thing works."
"Well, not in so many words, but surely if we stick one end into the Tesseract and the other into the bridge then maybe…?"
Tony was not one known for such slap-dash and – well, let's face it – childish plans. He looked around at the other's expressions; ranging from confused to devastated and his shoulders slumped.
"Look, Tony. We know this means a lot to you, but even you have to know that sounds like a stupid plan." Jane said sympathetically. "You can't stick a sceptre into a magical rainbow bridge. There's a special observatory that has to be activated – you know this! – and the bridge itself is just that; a bridge! Jamming a spear into the magical concrete won't suddenly make it work any better. You'd need a link-up to the podium in the observatory and as far as I know only Heimdall's sword can do that. Right Thor?"
"Indeed." Thor glanced at Tony's crestfallen face with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, my friend, but Jane is correct. Only Heimdall's sword can link to the Bifrost."
"But I could link to the sword…?" Tony didn't even bother to make it sound that empathic this time.
"I do not know how that would be possible, I'm afraid."
The inventor nodded slightly, swiping his finger across the tablet with a hopeless sigh so that the image of the staff spun around. "Brilliant. Bloody brilliant. So what would-"
"Do that again!"
"Huh?" Tony glanced up to see Thor now sitting forwards, staring intently up at the image on the screen. "Do what again?"
"Make it spin again." There was something in the God's voice that made the others aware that he had just had a Tony-like brainwave.
"Uh, sure."
The sceptre on the screen spun around again but this time more deliberately and slowly, showing the weapon from all angles.
"What have you spotted?" Natasha stared at the image, but clearly wasn't seeing what-ever it was that had drawn Thor's attention so acutely.
She didn't get an answer. The God was scrutinising the sceptre, his eyes half closed as he watched it slowly rotating. It was strange to see Thor concentrate so fully on something.
Then the thunder's expression cleared and became a huge beaming grin that was much more familiar.
"Oh Valhalla!" He sounded incredulous. "My brother is indeed a genius!" He rose to his feet, momentarily ignoring the questions from the others in response to his exclamation. "Look here!" He poked the image of the staff, although not hard enough to damage the LCD screen. "The blade structure on the end of the staff!"
"Yeah? So Loki liked pointy things when it came to weaponry, so what?" Clint looked bemused.
Thor turned to face the archer, his gaze bright and almost feverish. "So, I am almost certain that that blade would also fit into the Bifrost podium! My brother must have redesigned it after the chitauri gave it to him!"
"What? Are you sure?" Tony stared down at the smaller image on the tablet, then zoomed in on the bladed end of the staff.
"I am certain! Loki never has just the one plan."
Steve looked incredulous at the idea. "Thor, you can't possibly think that Loki tampered with that thing purely on the off chance that he'd one day need to link it into the Bifrost."
"He did want to use the bridge to destroy a planet once." Jane suggested dubiously. "Any chance that was his thinking?"
"Or maybe he just hoped that if he was one day captured by the chitauri then there would be someone who cared enough to use it to save him." Tony shot straight back. "Thor, are you sure it would do the link-up?"
"Pretty sure." Thor sounded excited, but after all these years was smart enough not to give the scientist an unrealistic answer. "I can not guarantee it, but it certainly seems the case. We would need to ask Heimdall if it is possible – he's the only one to know for certain."
"Great!" Tony jumped up from his seat, clapping his hands together. "I'll go get it and you can take it to him and ask!"
This earned him a collective set of accusing stares and he shrugged slightly. "Alright, so I stole it back off of Shield a month after the invasion. So sue me!"
"Does it still work?" Thor asked eagerly.
"Uh…I guess? I haven't looked at it in years."
"Then let us go find out!"
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Tony was less than happy to have the whole team inside his lab, especially since Clint insisted on poking things solely to annoy him. The sceptre had been unceremoniously hidden at the back of a drawer and after so many years essentially having been forgotten there was a lot of junk piled on top of it.
Tony tried to ignore Thor's disapproving glare as he pulled it out from under a large collection of broken chemistry glassware. The sceptre didn't appear to be harmed by its long stint as a dust-collector but when it was finally pulled out into the light there was something very obviously different about it.
"Isn't the blue bit meant to glow?" Natasha was the first to voice what the rest of them were all thinking. "I'm sure I remember it glowing."
"That's because it was." Tony gave the staff a shake, in the vain hope that it would suddenly light up again. The stupid thing remained obnoxiously dead. "Okay. Give me a moment." He whistled and beckoned Dummy, who trundled over hopefully. "Jumper cables."
The robot fished around on the work bench before holding up two crocodile clips that were plugged into the mains. It dutifully removed the sceptre from Tony's grasp and attached both cables before chivvying everyone out of the way.
If Tony had hoped that the ensuing electrical charge would do anything then he was sorely mistaken. The blue gem didn't seem to react in any way at all.
"Well that was anticlimactic." Clint flicked the blade with his finger and it rang almost bell-like. "Any chance you have any magic that Loki gave you? Something tells me that electricity isn't going to cut it."
"No. I guess we'll just have to hope someone on Asgard can fix it."
"Sir, might I remind you of something?" Jarvis' voice was quiet and unobtrusive, reminding them that he had been watching the whole situation unfold. Tony waved a hand at the ceiling, allowing him to continue. "Sir, Loki did gift magic to you. Or at least, to your daughter."
Evie was looking thoroughly confused at the statement. "Jarvis, I don't have anything magical."
"You do, Miss Evelyn. Your Möhðy made sure that you were watched over by it every night since your first Christmas."
Evie looked at Tony in dawning comprehension just as an understanding smile spread across the inventor's face.
"My God…Loki really is a genius! He's given us everything we need!" Even as Tony was talking, Evie had already left the lab – jumping up the stairs two at a time. "Talk about planning ahead – he must have thought it all out years ago!" He removed the sceptre from Dummy's grip and placed it down on the work-surface, blade angled to the side so that it lay still.
It was…hard for Tony to really explain how he was feeling in that moment.
Seven years, and so much blood, sweat and tears and now they seemed tantalisingly close to finally finally getting somewhere close to retrieving Loki. It was relieving and terrifying and amazing and bat-shit insane all at the same time.
He really couldn't have explained it even if he'd tried.
"Dad? I've got it." Evie appeared at his side again, shaking him out of his thoughts. She sounded quieter, the excitement lost from her voice now that they were about to see if their plan would work or not. The teen held her hand out and with it a small glowing object.
One of the stars that Loki had given to her as a Christmas present when she was still a baby. Glowing a soft red – even after all these years – Evie had somehow snipped one off of the invisible thread that had linked it to the others.
"Okay, here goes." Tony didn't bother with silly questions like was she sure she wanted to give one of the precious stars away; There was nothing Evie wouldn't do for Loki. He let her drop it into his hand – the 'no handing Mr Stark things' rule didn't apply to his child, of course – and after considering how dangerous what he was about to do was, gave it to Dummy. The robot had to hold it in its cupped pincer after realising that the amorphous piece of glow would slip through a pincer grip. Then it hovered uncertainly and for all intents and purposes looked to Tony for help.
"Well, I don't know, do I? Just…" Tony waved his hands vaguely towards the sceptre. "Just poke it a bit and see what happens." He quickly gestured at everyone and they all took a large step back in response.
Dummy whirred unhappily at their reaction but dutifully swung back round to face the staff and hovered its glowing pincer over the blue gem.
"Well go on then." Tony prompted.
The robot continued to sound displeased, but obeyed and dropped the star onto the area that had once glowed.
It didn't explode. Which was a bonus.
Infact to begin with it didn't do anything. The tiny ball of light just sat there on the inert surface and looked innocent.
And then, just as Clint was about to make a sarcastic remark about time wasted, there was a change. The star started to seep into the gem as if it were a sponge; the glow sinking in and slowly vanishing.
"Um…" Tony raised an eyebrow. "Well, that was kind of disappointing…."
And then it happened. The noise was very similar to that when Loki had powered the staff up to turn Tony into his mindless zombie; that growing whine like an engine revving.
The gem lit up to the very familiar blue glow that had once haunted all their nightmares. Clint took a further step back as Tony slowly picked up the sceptre. It was curiously warm to the touch, humming ever so gently in his grip.
"Oh wow."
"Don't you dare Tony!" Bruce saw the look in his friend's eyes and quickly put his hand on the man's arm. "You don't even know how to use it!"
"You are no fun, Brucie." But Tony did put it down again. It cast a blue glow along the chrome worktop. "So, once it's hooked up to the Tesseract it should be all systems go!"
Natasha had commandeered Tony's favourite swivel-chair and now swung it from side to side. "Will that be as complicated as this was?"
"No." He sounded far more confident than he had any right to be. "Reason being – at least if my theory is correct – it doesn't need to be in contact with the Tesseract, just near it." He raised a hand to forestall the obvious 'but how do you know that?' that was winging its way to Steve's voice-box. "I've seen the video footage of when Loki first arrived on Earth out of that portal. He paused before attacking. There was a distinct moment when he appeared to look down to check that the sceptre was working before he used it."
"So?"
"Soooo, my guess is that he was waiting to see if it had charged up. From what we saw during the whole invasion, that staff never once made physical contact with the Tesseract. It just needs to be near it." Tony picked up the sceptre – this time in a less threatening manner – and held it out to Thor. "And once Heim-a-whatsit has had a look at this he can tell you all that I truly am a genius and yes, the plan will work. Oh, and someone should call Jane and explain all this to her."
Thor accepted the staff rather hesitantly. "I shall depart for the Bifrost immediately." He turned to leave, then glanced back at Tony. "Thank you for all of this, my friend."
The man shrugged, embarrassment colouring his expression. "What can I say? I want him back as much as you do." He looked uncomfortable expressing the sentiment, but Thor seemed to appreciate it.
The God left from the balcony that had once been the centre place for his and Loki's show-down. Maybe he realised it, maybe he didn't, but either way long after he'd left Tony and Evelyn remained outside.
"We're gonna get Möhðy back, right?" The girl was leaning over the edge of the railing, the wind whipping her hair away from her face.
"We're going to do our best." Tony copied her pose, resting his arms on the bar that ran around the edge of the balcony.
"Yeah." Evie picked some crumbling paint off the metal and watched it fly away in the wind. "Optimism, Dad." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "You really think there's a chance, don't you?"
"Chance for what, Birdy?" Tony asked, entirely too nonchalantly.
"Chance that he's still alive." She rested her chin on her folded arms and stared out across the city. "I want to believe that there's going to be a happy ending for us all but it's been so long…"
"Evie?"
"What if he doesn't remember me anymore…?"
Tony turned to face his daughter as she stared up at him miserably. He smiled softly and cupped her cheeks, his thumb wiping away an errant tear.
"I can't think of any mother who wouldn't know their own child, even after all this time." He said gently. "I mean, look at you; you haven't changed all that much, have you?"
Evie laughed slightly. "Oh of course not. Just puberty, a growth spurt and seven years' worth of living."
"He'll know you. If nothing else, I can promise that he remembers you and loves you."
"If we find him."
"When we find him."
Evie leant into him and Tony slung his arm around her shoulders.
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Three days later Thor reappeared.
He crashed through the windows of the living room – seemingly uncaring about the raining shards of glass. Entirely ignoring their cries and swearing he looked up from the low crouch he was in.
"Heimdall has found the chitauri."
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The Other snarled at the two chitauri that cowered infront of him. The body of a third was sprawled across the floor behind him, neck twisted backwards at an unnatural angle.
"You come before me with tales of the prisoner overpowering and killing one of you. How is this true?!"
One of the luckless creatures jabbed at the other – evidently a universe-wide gesture for 'well go on then'. This caused the second one to stumble forwards slightly, stammering in fear. Its language couldn't be accurately translated into English, but for all intents and purposes its explanation was stuttered and filled with platitudes as it tried to make its master understand what had occurred.
And the Other was not impressed in the least.
"The thing is crippled! He cannot speak, cannot stand and can barely use his hands and he overpowered one of you?!" He flicked his hand in a quick motion – similar to backhanding somebody – and the neck of the unlucky spokes-chitauri snapped back. As the body dropped to the floor the Other turned on the remaining one. "How much do the scientists still wish to do?"
'Scientists' was not a word they had, but what he used equated to basically the same thing.
"They say they can always learn more, mighty one."
"They've had long enough. Collect the data and close it all down."
Realising that it might make it out of the encounter alive, the single chitauri bobbed its head eagerly. "And the prisoner?"
The Other grinned; a mouthful of sharp teeth gleaming in the dull light.
"Destroy him."
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Yeah, I know. I'm mean, aren't I? See you all for the next instalment which is the one I think a lot of you have been waiting for!
Love and hugs!