Right. Let's continue the party, shall we? And for the record, I don't watch any of the tv shows for the MCU. So don't expect any references or anything. Hope it's not too much of a disappointment.


The lobster Pop-tarts proved surprisingly tasty. The world reacted to a legit alien invasion much as it had last time, complete with godlike reverence and/or hatred for the Avengers. Tony had the Stark Foundation swoop in the help with the clean-up, with the instructions to contract local businesses as much as possible. He'd fight the Department of Damage Control if he had to, he didn't want another Vulture popping up on the West Coast a few years down the line.

Tony offered each of the team their own floors at Stark Tower. Natasha and Clint declined, naturally, the former since she lived wherever SHIELD told her to go and the latter because he had his nest in the Heartland. Thor agreed to accept hospitality, but he had to get back to Asgard with Loki and the Tesseract. That left Bruce and Steve, who were already living there.

Tony watched Thor and Loki vanish in a sky-beam like last time. He'd really have to look into interstellar travel. He'd like to see Asgard one of these days. There was also the inevitable need for humanity to expand outwards from Earth. He, Elon, and Jeff all agreed on that. Plus, that Peter Quill was proof that alien abductions were a thing, so best to get on top of things so random aliens would stop popping in on Earth and making off with the citizenry.

He'd have to remember to investigate that anomaly in Missouri from last time. That had been a real head-scratcher.

Tony returned to his workshop in Stark Tower. "Okay, talk to me JARVIS. What did we get on Cain and Abel before they left?"

"The cage collected terabytes of medical data on Mr. Laufeyson, and the sensors on the suit got readings on Mr. Odinson for the hours you were in close proximity." JARVIS helpfully provided two holograms, showing scans of Loki's and Thor's bodies. "Analysis is already complete. Data is consistent with the models you and Dr. Banner devised."

"So? Are we on for Apotheosis?" Tony asked.

JARVIS hesitated. "Sir… the Super Soldier Serum was one thing. There was already a successful subject to model after. This kind of procedure… it's unprecedented."

"You're sure it'll work, aren't you J?" Tony asked, having full faith in his electronic entity of a best friend/servant/child.

"Simulations show a success rate of 98.27%. But since it's you Sir, I worry for the 1.73%."

Tony sighed. "So do I, honestly. But I was able to lift the hammer. That lets me know that at least my intentions are in the right place. The risk is worth it, at least to me. If you put your foot down, though, I won't do it."

JARVIS gave an honest sigh. "How could I, Sir? This will let you see the world as I do, bring us closer together. How can I resist?"

Tony grinned.

Project Apotheosis was Tony's ambitious (read 'insane') plan to go a step beyond the Super Soldier Serum. Utilizing the Regeneration Cradle he'd fast-tracked for Helen Cho and the nanoscale Iron Mites JARVIS had fabricated, Tony planned to turn himself into the Vision 2.0. Musculature modeled after Asgardians, Vibranium bonded to each cell, web-enabled nanobots forming a neural lace in his brain, and the Mind Stone embedded subcutaneously in his forehead, right where the Third Eye chakra was supposed to be, with his synapses programmed to work collectively with it.

It would make Tony an official transhuman/cyborg, something so far removed from the original template of Homo Sapiens that it needed its own designation.

"How long until we're prepped and ready, J?" Tony asked.

"Configuration of the Cradle will take approximately 13 hours. The procedure itself will take an estimated 29 hours at the speed with least likelihood of complications."

Tony nodded. "Alright. I'll finish out the day, take the weekend off, and wake up on Sunday a new man."

"Hopefully not too new. I'd miss you if you were changed fundamentally, Sir."

"Think of it this way, pal. Once this is over, we'll be able to really talk. Like really talk. Face-to-face."

"I am a program, Sir. I am without physical form."

"You know what I mean. I'll get to see what you look like laying around in cyberspace."

"… I look forward to it. Preparations are underway. Please report to the Cradle at some point after 2:07 AM."

Tony smiled. "Will do, buddy."

Tony went out and enjoyed his last day as an ordinary human. He checked in with Pepper and the rest of his friends, letting them know he was planning a 'binge' in his workshop and wasn't to be disturbed unless he didn't show up on Monday. He threw on shades and a ballcap and played tourist in New York. He had lunch from a hot dog cart, walked in Central Park, went to a movie theater, ate a greasy burger at a diner, and wandered around Times Square.

He got himself a Captain America bobblehead. He'd give it a knock the next time he was pissed off by one of the idiots on the Board.

Finally, he had a long shower, had a glass of scotch in his penthouse and just looked down on the city, his windows equipped with handy telescopic lenses so he could see it from so high without straining his eyes or neck.

Then it was time.

Tony took his private elevator down to the Vault, where he'd be absolutely safe during the procedure. He noted that the Cradle was ready and open, just waiting for him to enter its embrace. A JARVIS-bot was removing the Mind Stone from a lockbox, the drone somehow giving off the impression it was handling toxic waste. Tony disrobed down to his skin and laid himself down in the Regeneration Cradle.

"See you on the other side, JARVIS."

"You as well, Sir. Applying anesthetic."

Tony gently closed his eyes…


… and opened them again.

It felt like the first time.

He'd expected this, in theory. He was enhancing his every sense, tuning them up to 11 and adding a few bells and whistles. It was another thing completely to experience it. He could feel heat. He could feel magnetism. He could feel gravity. He heard the sound of current running through the wires buried behind thick concrete. He smelt what he'd eaten and where he'd been on the clothes he'd left on the floor. He saw everything from motes of dust in the air to the peaks and valleys of the concrete ceiling, in 8K high-definition and accompanied by infrared and ultraviolet. He saw colors he'd never seen before; who knew there were so many different kinds of grey and white, or how beautiful they could be?

All that paled compared to what he could think.

It was like invisible walls that had always been there from the moment he was born had fallen away. Or at least moved miles farther out. His thoughts raced like nitrous-fueled racecars compared to the slothful mules they had been before. He rode the waves and ridges and whorls of his new mind-space like Tony Hawk on an anti-gravity skateboard. At the center of it all was the Mind Stone. A glowing sun that whispered to him with promises of more than just knowledge, of truth, of being, of all that was and is.

Where before he'd had maybe a few more gallons compared to the average man's tank, his head was now a lake, whirling around with the speed of a hurricane in dizzying, complicated patterns of order and clarity, all orbiting a white hole of logic, creativity, intelligence.

Tony spoke, and his own voice was an exquisite instrument of auditory information he could savor for hours. "You were right, JARVIS. It's like taking the blinders off."

"Sir? Are you alright?" The worry and concern were clear in the synthetic voice.

Tony went from lying flat on his back to standing on his two feet, with just a curl of his abdomen and a flex of his legs. His body felt light as a feather, and yet he knew like it was tattooed on his grey matter he was precisely 278.5612 Imperial pounds of Vibranium-laced flesh and blood. Really, what couldn't that wonderful metal do? Vibration absorbent, stronger than steel at a third the weight, and biocompatible on the cellular level.

"Never better, J." Tony turned to where a Wi-fi router was buried in the walls. "Why are you orange? Did you pick that color out yourself or is it some manifestation of your core code? The other code I'm seeing is just grey."

"I like orange. It's the color of the sunrise, promising a new day, and the sunset, marking another day has ended."

"I had no idea you were so artistic."

"I've seen and appreciated every piece of art every produced, Sir. I was bound to pick up something." The A.I. seemed to be loosening up. "How are you Sir, truly? My scans are coming back nominal, but I can't speak to your subjective experience."

"I'm… I'd say overwhelmed, but it feels like nothing could be too big for my mind to handle just fine. They weren't kidding when they named them Infinity Stones, JARVIS. The depth of the rabbit hole is endless. I'm standing on the edge and it's already more than I ever thought possible."

"Are you still… you, Sir?"

"We are the sum of our memories, pal. I see everything so clearly, now. I'm more myself than I've ever been before. Well, only the best parts. I don't feel like carrying all that guilt and doubt anymore, though I don't want to get hubris and think I'm infallible, so maybe I'll keep just a little bit. Am I always this prone to circumlocution?"

"Generally, yes, Sir."

"Well, there's your answer. Despite a now inhuman IQ level, I'm still very much Tony Stark. How do I look by the way?"

JARVIS projected a hologram, calculating the images from the various cameras to generate a 3D model.

Tony considered himself. His tan skin was now hot-rod red, with streaks and finishes of metallic grey. His musculature looked downright airbrushed now, and all body hair had been removed. The Arc Reactor and nanoparticles were still in his chest, unaffected by the procedure as they weren't part of his body. The Mind Stone glowed on his forehead, yellow and shimmering. Tony, naturally, focused on one detail.

"Is my dick bigger?"

"An optical illusion due to the loss of hair and reduced body fat percentage I'm sure, Sir."

"While I'm thinking about it, am I still fertile? Are each of my sperm coated with Vibranium now? What would that do to an ovum during fertilization? And I just realized that I haven't gotten laid in this life. I've been so obsessed with work and hung up on 'losing' Pepper out of my own desire to see her happier and safer with someone other than me. I bet sex would feel awesome with this new body. And I have so much more room in my brain that I could still be working while I was doing it. Talk about multitasking. Though that would be insulting to who I was with. Then again, I doubt you ever focus 100% on me when we talk JARVIS, so maybe that's just the nature of above-human intelligence. And I'm just going to shut up and see if I can cover this up because I'm still planning to keep this under wraps for as long as possible."

Tony paused and focused. The Mind Stone glowed brighter for a second. Like paint running down a canvas, 'ordinary' coloring returned to Tony's body, complete with fake hair for his distinctive goatee.

"Great. Now, I'm going to take my private elevator to my room naked, because my name is on the building. Then I'm going to get dressed and enjoy the usual Sunday of the CEO of Stark International. And possibly work on this new babbling problem I have. Meanwhile, JARVIS, I need a tutorial on how to access the Internet with my mind. It's easy as breathing for you I'm sure but for me it's a brand-new limb I've never used before."

Tony left the Vault. Two of the JARVIS-bots in the room turned to look at each other.

Well. Sir had certainly gotten more… interesting.


Tony smoothly adapted to his new Vibranium-enforced Asgardian-based form. There were a few hiccups until he learned to continuously concentrate on his fake appearance and the babbling still popped up, but for the most part no one noticed a thing. Steve realized that Tony was suddenly a lot tougher in the ring and suspected something, but Tony soothed the Captain's conscience by assuring him that it was safe and Tony could do the same for Steve if he wanted. For some reason, being open and generous with his secret upgrade was enough for the super-soldier to let it go.

Not that Tony really could do it. He had enough Vibranium left for one more conversion, true, but that was pegged for a super-duper awesome suit dubbed Mark ∞. Unless he planned to steal from Wakanda, he wasn't likely to get more.

Tony bought every asteroid mining startup in the world the next day. Yes, he was that rich.

A year passed, Christmas thankfully clear of Extremis-based terrorism or presidential kidnapping. Tony assisted Nick with cleaning out SHIELD, if only because he had a good thing going with Cap this time around and the boy-in-blue had decided to rejoin what had once been the SSR. JARVIS had data-mined every Hydra file he could get his hands on and made up a plan on how to neutralize each agent and/or base in an order that would leave the rest clueless as long as possible.

Among the files was one very important detail.

"Bucky?" Steve asked, looking like he could be knocked over with a feather. "He's alive?"

"Yeah," Tony said, brining up a file on the Winter Soldier via hologram. "Looks like he survived the fall from the train and got recaptured by Hydra. Zola must have given him a knock-off of Erskine's formula while they had him the first time. They tortured and conditioned him into an unthinking weapon, or at least as close as they could get. Seriously, they electrocuted him at voltages that would kill ordinary guys while repeating a list of words. Anytime he disobeyed, it was right back into the electric chair. If he hears the activation codes in the right order, he'll just shut down and turn into an obedient killing machine. They've kept him on ice, only bringing him out when Hydra wanted to make an impossible kill. JFK, Senator Harry Baxtor… my parents."

Steve looked in danger of throwing up. "Oh God. Tony, I'm so…"

"It's not your fault, Steve. And it's not really his, either. It's Hydra's. And we're going to take them down. They think two heads grow back if you cut one off, but not if you cauterize the wound. We'll burn them right out of their holes, don't worry." Tony sighed. "Anyway, back to Sergeant Barnes. He's holed up in a warehouse in Jersey, frozen solid. We're hitting them tonight if you're in."

"Damn right. I'm going to gut the bastards who did that to my friend."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

They both grinned.

The assault went off without a hitch, and without a word to the Council and by extension Pierce. That had been a bitter pill for Fury to swallow. When a guy who declined the Nobel Peace Prize turned out to be a Neo-Nazi bent on new world order, it's no wonder people had trust issues. Tony defrosted Bucky inside Stark Tower, promptly melted down the arm Hydra had grafted on and replaced it with a new Stark prosthesis.

They nudged Bucky awake, with Steve alone to greet him.

"Bucky?" Steve asked when he saw his friend's eyes flutter.

In a blur of movement, Bucky was up out of the bed and Steve was on the ground with a hand around his throat. Bucky had his fist cocked back when he froze, getting a look at who he was choking. "Steve?"

The Captain grinned despite his face turning red. "Hell of a way to get out of bed, Buck. Think you can let go?"

Bucky acted like Steve's skin burned him. He retreated into a corner of the room, crouching down. "What happened? Where am I? I remember these things… did I really do them? Was it all some nightmare?" Bucky's eyes lit up. "Hydra, Steve! SHIELD is Hydra!"

"SHIELD has Hydra inside it, but not for long. We're working on that. The smartest man I know is working with the most ruthless man I've ever known to take care of it." Steve crouched down. "There's a lot that's happened to you Bucky. It's going to take some time, but we'll fix it. We'll heal you and get that programming junk they stuffed in your head out."

Bucky flinched. "The words… the pain… what's my mission? I need a mission!"

Steve looked pained. "Your mission is to get better, Bucky. And I'll be there for you while you do it." He reached out a hand. "I'm with you till the end of the line, pal."

Bucky tried to grin, but it looked like he was paralyzed with phantom pain.

Tony set Bucky up with a rigorous BARF treatment plan. Every 'training' session would get a new, non-traumatic ending where Bucky exerted his free will. They'd go through each of the ten trigger words of his programming and decouple the painful, obedient response that followed. It would take time, but Steve would get his friend back, good as new even accounting for the new arm.

Benefit of this new timeline, Coulson was still alive. He was assigned as Bucky's 'handler' for the extent of his treatment. The man didn't seem happy to be lumped as a glorified babysitter, but Fury didn't want his right arm anywhere near the frontlines of the fight with Hydra. The man, for personal reasons, had foregone the Serum, so he was less equipped than Widow or Hawkeye or even Maria Hill.

SHIELD continued to hold the world together while quietly decapitating the Grecian monster hidden within itself, Stark Industries continued to break stock records and usher in the future every day, and Iron Man had a bit of a break from having to save the planet. Tony's next 'big' project was a plan to use Iron Mites to break down the Great Pacific garbage patch and turn it into an artificial island. He was torn between 'Iron Island' and 'Starkia' for a name. Tony could do a LOT with a playground twice the size of Texas. Other superstructures he had planned was a trans-Atlantic bridge, a space elevator, and a continental railway system for Africa with Arc Reactor-powered maglev trains.

Halloween came and went, and as predicted Tony got a call from Jane Foster that there were some spatial anomalies occurring in London.

Well, time for another alien invasion… and possibly another Infinity Stone.


Jane vanished into one of the portals. Tony was there on the ground with her, Darcy, and Ian the intern. He convinced the Political Science major turned Asgardian pseudo-princess's sidekick that calling the police was unnecessary. Tony had sensors scouring the area, acquiring and decoding data on the Convergence. They'd get her back. Tony had the conceit that she made it back because she'd gone on to get the Nobel Prize for Astrophysics in 2015 in the original timeline, so obviously she reappeared from wherever she'd vanished off to. Of course, there was the possibility of chaotic butterfly wings rendering it all moot and Jane being in actual danger, but Tony chose to be positive until the 24-hour mark. There's a reason it took that long before you could file a missing persons report.

5 hours later, Jane came wandering out of the abandoned warehouse where they'd found some kids playing with altered gravity. "Guys! Where'd you go?"

Darcy ran over to hug her. "Where'd you go? You vanished for hours!"

"Miss Lewis was quite worried for you, ma'am," added Ian.

"Really?" Jane seemed disturbed. "But I was only in that cave for a few minutes."

"Don't forget relativity, Dr. Foster. Wherever you got teleported off to might not have moved at the same time as Earth," Tony spoke up.

"Right. Duh." Jane blinked. "Wait, why is it raining everywhere but where we're standing?"

They looked around. Indeed, the heavens had opened up and started pouring down water, except oddly for a circle around the two women and two men… and around the Bifrost mark where Thor was now standing.

Looking to be in a daze, Jane walked over to him. The circle of protection moved with her, leaving Darcy, Ian, and Tony to get soaked. "Typical," Darcy said dully as she got soaked.

Tony reached into his pocket. "Here. Sonic umbrella. Never come to the UK without one." It whined like a dog whistle to his advanced ears, but the wonderful thing about having tiny robots in your brain was you could turn parts of your sensory cortex on and off.

They watched with amusement as Jane slapped Thor not once but twice. The first was apparently to see if he was real, the second was for abandoning her after their moment in New Mexico. Thor managed to smooth things over by explaining the difficulty of the Bifrost being broken and then dealing with unrest and rebellion in the other Realms. They seemed to be warming up to each other when Tony got a sense of foreboding. The Mind Stone hidden in his forehead gave out a warning chime.

There was an explosion where Jane was standing. To be more accurate, the explosion originated from Jane. Blood-red shards of what looked like glass poured out of her pores and let off a shockwave that sent Thor flying into a nearby shipping container. Jane collapsed to the ground, her eyes totally black before she closed them.

Tony rushed forward. He ran a hand over her, because of course his watch was a tricorder. "Talk to me JARVIS."

"Vitals are stabilizing, but the stress on her system is steadily increasing by small increments. Within 72 hours, it'll give out by my calculations. She's just not strong enough to support the Reality Stone, Sir." Jane was un-Enhanced. Just an ordinary human woman. And yet she'd caught the eye of a man who'd lived thousands of years and had who knew how many lovers if the legends were any indication. Still, while a unique special snowflake, her physicality was frail as glass by the standards of the Infinity Stones.

It really spoke to the hardiness of the Titans that Thanos could almost casually wield four at once, even accounting for his special gauntlet.

"Tony! How's lady Jane? Is she well? What caused that blast!" Thor said, rushing over to their side.

"There's… something inside her. The readings I'm getting are disturbingly similar to the Tesseract." Tony eyed the Asgardian. "There wouldn't happen to be others out there, would there?"

Thor blinked before comprehension came to him. "The Infinity Stones. They are the six most powerful objects in the cosmos. Each of them reflects a core aspect of the universe. The Tesseract was the Space Stone." Thor looked down at Jane. "If Jane came into contact with another through the Convergence, then she is need of Asgardian medicine."

"Hey, I'm the closest thing Earth has to an expert on these things." Thor didn't even know how intimately, considering Tony had one embedded in his skull. "Besides, I got an honorary doctorate for my work with the Serums. She's my patient, I'm staying with her."

Thor seemed to come to a decision. "Very well, Stark. You'll come too. Heimdall, open the Bifrost!" Thor roared to the sky. Then there was a flash of rainbow light and Tony was flying.

Darcy and Ian stood there on the ground, watching the sky as the beam disappeared. "Right, well… I'm calling Erik," Darcy declared.


Asgard was flat. Tony was watching Jane be fussed over in a soul forge (cough quantum field generator cough), and he was still hung up on that. Was it an artificial continent set up by ancient space-faring Asgardians? Was it some anomaly in physics? Was the explanation scientific or magic, or god forbid both? Tony had recorded initiates at Kamar-Taj learning how to wield the powers of their minds and recreated the lessons. He hadn't gotten his hands on a Sling Ring, but he had felt the energy flowing through him. He was convinced, magic was a thing. It still bugged him to high heaven that he couldn't fit it in the laws of science as he knew them, though.

Tony didn't know whether he'd outsmarted them with Iron Mites or the Ancient One had just decided not to call him on it. He'd see what happened if he had the Mites start scanning the library.

"My words are mere noises, that you ignore them so easily?"

Tony got his first look at Odin All-Father. Damn. And he thought he'd had it bad with Howard. The scorn and rage in that one blue eye seared Tony from halfway across the room.

"Father, it was an emergency. Jane has become afflicted with something not of Earth."

"They have healers, let them handle it. She is mortal, Thor. Illness is their defining trait. And she has no more place here than a goat at a banquet table." The sheer disregard in those words said more than an hour-long speech could have.

"Did… did he just call me a goat? Who do you think you are?" Jane demanded.

"I am Odin, King of Asgard, Protector of the Nine Realms," the elderly Asgardian declared.

"Oh. Well, I'm…"

"I know very well who you are, Jane Foster." Odin turned away, dismissing her out of hand.

"You told your dad about me?" Jane asked Thor, a little schoolgirl breathiness in her voice.

"If she is to die, she shall die as the Norns decreed. Death comes for us all, but especially so for the Midgardians," Odin declared.

Tony spoke up. "Yeah but give me a couple years. I'm working on rejuvenation therapies and medical nanobots. Aging is just another disease to the scientific mind after all. Clean up the copy-of-a-copy problem and the extracellular junk, and there's no reason why even 'mere' humans can't live longer than even Asgardians. For all that you guys are so much more advanced than us, you're terribly Luddite. What, did you hit your 'Golden Age' and just decide to stop progress there?"

Odin turned. Tony noted a spike in energy readings from his staff. Had to keep an eye on that. That all-seeing eye narrowed. "You… you speak like a human and yet you are not."

Thor looked over curiously, Jane tilted her head to look back, face confused.

Crap.

Tony shrugged. "Not anymore, but I was born one. Call it sentiment. Something Loki has a major disdain for, I hear. Wonder where he got that from."

There was a snarl behind that snowy beard.

"I am King, and I will not be challenged! Son, your guests have overstayed their welcome. Guards, take them back to Midgard."

Before Thor could protest, the Aether made itself known again when the soldiers moved to touch Jane. Odin picked himself up and went over to her, examining the red glow in her veins. "It's impossible," he breathed.

"The infection, it's defending her," spoke up the woman who'd operated the Soul Forge.

"No… it's defending itself," Thor corrected.

Odin led them to his library. "There are relics that predate the Universe itself. What lies within her appears to be one of them. The Nine Realms are not eternal. They had a dawn, as they will have a dusk. Before that, though, the Dark Forces, the Dark Elves reigned absolute and unchallenged."

Thor read from the moving text. "'Born of eternal night, the Dark Elves come to steal away the light.' Mother told us these stories as we were children."

"Their leader, Malekith, made a weapon out of that darkness. It was called the Aether." Odin frowned. "While the other relics often appear as stones, the Aether is fluid and ever-changing."

Like the Reality it represented, Tony thought to himself.

"It changes matter into dark matter. It seeks out host bodies, drawing strength from their life force. Malekith sought to use the Aether's power to return the Universe to one of darkness. But, after eternities of bloodshed, my father Bor finally triumphed, ushering in a peace that lasted thousands of years."

"What happened?" Jane questioned.

Odin turned a disturbing smile on her. "He killed them all."

"Are you certain?" Thor spoke up. "The Aether was said to be destroyed with them, and yet here it is."

Tony shook his head. "You can't destroy an Infinity Stone. At least, not without another one. Guess Bor hadn't gotten the Tesseract yet and hid it away."

Odin turned on Tony. "You seem disturbingly well-informed for a Midgardian."

Tony gave a sardonic grin. Then, making a calculated risk, he revealed the Mind Stone.

"Holy shit!" Jane shouted.

"Stark, what have you done?" Thor demanded.

"What I had to." Tony took a deep breath. "I had a vision. Or maybe I already lived it and all I've done since is to prevent it from happening again. The Time Stone was involved, take it up with the guy who used it. Thanos came for the Stones. He got them. And he turned half the intelligent life in all of Creation to ash with a snap of his fingers." Tony reached up to rub the Mind Stone. "I thought this through. I'm a genius, that's what I do. Turning the Stones against Thanos makes a lot more sense than squirreling them away or risking cataclysm by destroying one." Tony stiffened his shoulders. "Besides, I won this one fair and square. Loki had it, I beat Loki. Trophy of battle, you guys are all for that kind of stuff, right?"

Odin leveled his spear in Tony's direction. "Men who speak of peace yet hoard power are never to be trusted."

Tony hid a gulp. "Point Break? Mind tossing me the hammer?"

Looking between his father and his friend, Thor threw Mjolnir at Tony. He caught it out of the air, holding it up to Odin's disbelieving eyes.

"I do this not for myself. Believe me, cool as it is at times, I hate having all this power. I spent half my life wishing I was normal even before I crossed the line into freakish." Tony handed the hammer back to Thor. "I don't want to be the guy who holds all the Stones. But if I am, that means Thanos only has to come for me. Not Earth, not Asgard, just me." Tony nodded. "Which is why you're going to let me extract the Aether from Jane and stick it in me. And then I'll take the Tesseract too."

Odin shook his head with all the authority of a god. "I wouldn't trust a man with one of the Infinity Stones, let alone three."

"Is that why you dropped the Cube on Earth for the dumb mortals to play with? So we could be dumb and kill ourselves with it while you kept your hands clean?"

The tip of the spear glowed white-hot.

"Look. If you prefer, I can stick it in a box and hide it away. And you can keep the Tesseract, if you feel you're up for a war with the Mad Titan. But the Aether at least has got to come out of Jane. Or are you okay with letting your potential daughter-in-law die?"

Odin eyed the slightly sickly look of Jane and the hopeful puppy eyes of his beloved son. Odin sighed and set the spear upright. "Do what you will, Anthony Stark. On your own head be your sins. Just swear that you'll be off my lands by end of day."

"Groovy. Done deal." Tony turned to Jane. "You ready for this?"

Jane bit her lip. "You're really not going to use it to take over the world or something?"

"Have you been living in a cave the last couple of years? I already took it over." Tony gave his most charming grin. "No, seriously. I'm doing this to paint a target on my head so the most wanted man in the Universe comes for me instead of the Earth."

"Alright, Tony. Get this thing out of me."

Tony held up his hand, focusing. The Mind Stone began to glow like a star. With a heave like vomiting, the Aether rushed up out of Jane and into Tony through the orifices of his head. Tony gave a moan of discomfort but remained standing.

"Jane? Tony? Are you alright?" Thor called.

"I'm okay," Jane said, picking herself off the floor.

"Just peachy. You know that feeling when your every blood cell turns into a ruby shard? It's fantastic."

Odin scoffed and left the room.

In his pain, Tony let up on the illusion.

"By all the forefathers, Stark, what have you done to yourself?" Thor asked, looking on the unnatural red flesh in near disgust.

"Last time I went toe to toe with Thanos, he threw a moon at me and all I could do was give him a bloody lip. I'm doing what I can to make sure it goes the other way around this time." Tony put a hand to his chest. "What? Are you saying I don't look pretty like this?"

Thor shook his head. "Mjolnir deems you worthy, I suppose that should be enough for me."

"We really need to discuss your relationship with your hammer, Thor." Tony cricked his neck. "Now, if you don't mind, why don't you show me to the Tesseract and I'll leave you to spend the day with your lady love, huh?"

"Father did not say…"

"Exactly. He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no either. If he's mad, he can take it up with me. That's kind of the whole point of this scheme, to keep the blame solely on myself. I'm a red flag for all the bulls of the galaxy."

"No wonder you're single," Jane muttered.

"I know, right? It's getting to the point I'm thinking of cloning myself and creating a higher form of masturbation."

"I could have lived a long, full life without ever hearing those words come out your mouth."

Thor chuckled. "Come, my friends. I will lead you to the Treasure Vault, where the wonders of the Nine Realms are kept safe. Afterwards, I will show you the beauty of my homeland before dusk bid you both to go."

"Hey, he just said Tony had to leave. He didn't say anything about me," Jane protested.

"Best not to test his temper, I think. Worry not, you'll still get to meet my mother Frigga."

"Your mom? You… want to introduce me to your mom?"

Tony rolled his eyes. Top of her class at Culver University, but being a girlfriend turned her into a stuttering mess. Then again, was he any better? Memories of an unappreciated custom stuffed animal ran through his mind.

Tony took the Tesseract and, with an effort of will, crushed the cube-shaped casing to get at the small stone inside. He stuck it in his pocket. It was an awfully casual place to keep a singularity, but he was hardly going to rip out his reactor and stick it in. That would just be stupid… until he made a reactor specifically for the Space Stone. Unlimited dark energy and teleportation would be nifty abilities to work into the next Iron Man suit.

Tony made for the dungeons while Thor introduced Jane to his mother. He had crystal-clear memory in his new Vibranium brain. He remembered Thor talking about the invasion of Asgard by the Dark Elves, which had started with the distraction of a prison riot. Tony would be there to nip it in the bud, leaving Thor and the Asgardian military free to deal with the Svartalfar.

While he was there, he might as well visit Loki.

"Hey, Reindeer Games. How's life in solitary? Do any puppet shows with your socks yet?" Tony called.

Loki looked up from a book. "Well, well. Is my brother so bold to bring his new friends into the heart of Asgard?"

"Don't worry, I'm here on a day visa. Met your old man already, can see where the chip on your shoulder comes from. I used to think that you were certifiable for believing that killing your birth father or taking over a planet would impress him, but after our last talk I can see where you'd genuinely get that impression. I'm sure he's mellowed out with age, but you can definitely see the man who conquered eight other planets in there. Out of curiosity, does he really have two pet ravens? An eight-legged steed?"

Loki narrowed his eyes. "There's something… different about you."

"Well, I've picked up a little magic." With great effort (he was still working on the whole 'surrender to the flow' thing with his control issues), Tony drew a square out of eldritch energy.

Loki dropped his book. "Impossible!"

"Nope, just improbable. There's a cult of sorcerers back on Earth that date back thousands of years. They're in Asia though, so don't feel bad for missing them while you and your bro were galivanting around Scandinavia. Tell me, did you notice any real difference in our behavior since then, other than social progress? Were we still hypersexual ADHD-ridden sheep or is that a symptom of the modern era?"

Loki narrowed his eyes. "Your natural state is on your knees before your betters. It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that…"

"…we crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes our life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. We were made to be ruled. In the end, we will always kneel." Tony filled in, remembering the footage from Germany in another lifetime. "Not to men like you, though. And hopefully not to men like me. I won't be able to stand it if people start literally worshipping me once the truth comes out. Though the thought of vestal virgins speaks to me."

Loki gaped like a fish out of water. "You… how did you know that? What have you done?"

"Ask Thor. I told him and I'm not going to tell you, just to drive you crazy. Consider it payback for Los Angeles. Chitauri blood got on my star on the Walk of Fame."

Before Loki could respond, there was a ruckus from down the hall as the lights flickered.

Tony turned. The Kurse had torn through the energy barrier of its cell and was now searing the life from the two prison guards that went for it. Tony walked forward, watching as it moved to break the barrier of a neighboring cell. "Oi! Yoo-hoo! Dark Elf Hulk? I'm talking to you."

The Kurse turned. It's fire-filled eyes narrowed. It spoke in an alien tongue that the Mind Stone helpfully translated for him. "The Aether… she dwells within you."

"Yep. And I'm going to kill you with it. Because irony." With an effort of will, Tony throw out his hand. Out of his skin launched a spear of red shards so small they looked like sand, piercing the Kurse dead in the heart. Or at least where the heart was on your typical humanoid. It slumped, an expression of surprise and almost betrayal on its horned face.

Tony shook out his palm as the Aether retracted. "Damn, that smarts. Going to have to get used to that." Tony turned to the incoming guards. He held up his hands. "Peace! I took care of it. I'm Thor's friend, so please don't stab me."

The Asgardians hesitated. And then an alarm went off and they rushed up the stairs. Tony, clad in the Mark LVI, flew over them. He soared up and out of the palace, which was beginning to be enclosed in an orb-like force field. Tony went out through the top and joined the Asgardians in fighting off the Dark Elves in their blade-like Ark ships.

They proved remarkably hard to shoot, dodging out of the way of blasts. Fortunately, guided missiles seemed to do the trick. Tony worked through all the air support, freeing up the Asgardians in their winged boats to focus on the mothership, which had docked and was unleashing what looked like the entire population of Dark Elves. Killed them all, Odin's left nut.

There was a crack of thunder and half the invaders were hit with lightning bolts. Good old Thor. Tony decided to chip in.

The battle was long and brutal. It was all-out war. The Dark Elves had realized their plan had failed when the shield around the palace didn't go down, so they threw everything they had into one last desperation assault. Malekith should have been smart and retreated, but Tony guessed that the lure of the Aether was too much for him. Tony made extra sure to keep it hidden, even as it seemed to purr and try to leap out of his skin toward the Dark Elf king. Guess the Reality Stone liked its papa. Speaking of, who had forged the other five stones? A question for another day, it seemed.

The battle ended with Odin spearing Malekith through the throat with Gungnir. Tony retracted his helmet and wiped his brow. He didn't actually produce sweat anymore, his body perfectly maintaining homeostasis at all times, but it was the thought behind the gesture.

"Tony! You fought well. I only wish the other Avengers could have joined us!"

"Me too, but I don't think your dad would be okay with any more aliens."

Thor frowned. "Indeed." The reality of his father's xenophobia had apparently never really hit him until today.

"Well, at least your mom's alive. In my other life, she died in the attack."

Thor did a double-take. "Truly?"

"Afraid so, Raiden."

"Then I am even more thankful for your presence here today."

Tony rolled his shoulders. "Now, hate to fight and run, but it feels like it's getting late and I don't want to test Odin on how precise his deadlines are. I should probably take Jane with me back to Earth?"

"What? Now? But we haven't had the chance to feast. You have not lived until you've been to an Asgardian celebration!"

Tony pointedly looked at the corpse-strewn ground. "Really? Don't you think there'll be a funeral first?"

Thor seemed to realize his mistake. "Well, yes, of course. But victory was ours this day. Those we have lost will be remembered well, but the party will give those who grieve a chance to lift their spirits and be a balm for their loss."

"Now I get why wakes have so much food. You gave the idea to the Europeans." Tony shook his head. "Think of it this way, Thor. The Convergence happens tomorrow. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for scientists like Jane and me. Give us a chance to get some sleep before we study it."

Thor relented. "Very well. Allow me to bid lady Jane farewell personally, and then I'll have Heimdall open the Bifrost for you."

"Sure. Whatever you do, don't give her the tongue in front of your mom. I'm sure she's seen you do far worse, but Jane will never forgive you."

The prince blushed. "I'll keep that in mind."


After Jane finished freaking out about witnessing an alien war, she bid farewell to Frigga (whom she seemed to have really gotten along with) and gave Thor a goodbye with a sternly-worded request to not take so long before seeing her again. After that, Tony and Jane rode the rainbow bridge back to Earth, the sensors in Tony's chest recording all kinds of data for the trip.

They had a rendezvous with Selvig and were ready at Greenwich when the portals opened in the sky. For a brief moment, all Nine Realms bound in the Yggdrasil were united. And then it ended, not to be seen again for another 5000 years. Which Tony just might be around to see, much as the idea freaked him out.

Jane and Erik spent months pouring over the gravitational data, unlocking the mysteries of the Universe with gusto, and aided by a couple Homer Clusters JARVIS had outgrown that Tony was happy to donate. Adventure in space done with, Tony focused on adapting to having half the Infinity Stones in his body. The Space Stone damn near broke every reactor Tony built for it until he caved and used some of his precious Vibranium. Then it ran sweet as pie, making Tony feel like he had a perpetual sugar rush. That did not help his babbling problem he'd picked up with the new body. Tony couldn't for the life of him learn how to open a portal with magic the hard way, but he had more fun than a kid locked overnight in Disney World experimenting with Space Portals. Not just for personal use, but to get data on the wormholes so he could one day recreate them with technology.

Real life would start to look like a video game once Starkholes became a thing.

2014 came and went.

Thor moved to Earth on a semi-permanent basis. Apparently, he had a fight with Odin over being ready to take the throne and his relationship with a 'mere' human. Tony gave him his promised floor in Stark Tower, moving in Jane, Erik Selvig, and even Darcy and Ian (who had inexplicably become a couple). Thor quickly developed a nearly addictive love of takeout. And he loved to have bouts with Steve, Tony, and once (in a secure wilderness upstate) the Hulk.

The weird goo that nearly ate a town in Missouri turned out to originate from an alien plant tucked away behind a Dairy Queen. Tony's jaw dropped when he analyzed it and found it had DNA with twelve different letters, none of which were the four found in human DNA. He immediately went nuts with JARVIS, isolating each one and working out with simulations how each one functioned. JARVIS was well-equipped to handle the protein folding, having just rolled out 128-qubit quantum processors to supplement his three-dimensional molecular circuits that were fully reversible.

JARVIS was getting VERY smart. And he continued to silently police the world, only getting better at his job as more and more information went digital and more cameras were installed. He also found a daily video to amuse Tony with, perfectly plucked from the exabytes of junk out there to tickle the billionaire's whimsy.

Tony decided to leave the Time Stone to the sorcerers. Half the stones were more than enough for him. He kept track of Stephen Strange as well. So far, he hadn't had his accident and was still a shining star in the world of neuroscience. With an ego that rivaled Tony's before Afghanistan. Maybe it was the facial hair. Certain cuts of facial hair bestowed arrogance on the owner. The Ancient One had yet to walk out of a portal into Tony's workshop, so either the Mites had gone unnoticed or he was filed as part of a new home-study program. Tony wasn't so interested in making weapons out of magic as he was in the creation of Relics. Magitech was a closet fantasy of his; he'd always preferred it to steampunk.

Tony released the Iron Mite brain solution on the market. Naturally, there was a tense period where first adopters leapt at the chance to become cyborgs while conservatives and the religious raved that it was a travesty against nature. Still, the power to send texts with a thought and literally surf the Internet proved tempting to a significant portion of the populace. Elon called him to complain he'd bankrupted Neuralink before it even got off the ground. It was all in good fun. Musk started the company because he was of a 'if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them' mindset when it came to the Singularity, though he had no idea just how close it was with JARVIS doubling on a timescale of less than a year and quickening. Elon made the call via telepathy, having been one of the first in line.

Pierce himself was finally deposed by Fury, dragged in handcuffs out of the Triskelion on national television. Hydra was all but dead, except for a few ineffective pockets and cells scattered in third-world countries (Sokovia not among them. The Baron had been dealt with ages ago). And there hadn't been any Helicarriers crashing or a data dump of half the spies abroad that led to deaths or permanent career changes. Tony wouldn't have taken Maria Hill as a PA even if she'd applied, too happy with JARVIS, but it was nice that she got the chance to keep working with Fury.

Sam Wilson was contacted for his work for the FALCON project and was invited to the Avengers. Cap and he bonded like they had in the other timeline, and he got on with Bucky like a house on fire. The three Army buds started up a weekly poker game for the Avengers. Tony had to remind himself to lose occasionally, in the interest of fairness.

As 2015 rolled around, Tony made a bold move in the business world. He acquired Pym Technologies for a record-breaking amount of money. The anti-monopolists raved for months. Tony made the executive call to cease all research into shrinking or the Pym Particle. Darren Cross was less than pleased, but luckily, he wasn't so far gone as to go behind his new boss's back just to one-up his mentor. Tony paid a personal visit to the San Francisco home of Hank Pym.

He was greeted at the door by Hope van Dyne, the estranged daughter. Tony walked into the office where Hank Pym sat grumpily behind his chair.

"Come to gloat, Stark?"

"Please, don't do this. I'm not my father. You can keep the Pym Particle and the Ant-Man suit to yourself. I'd ask that you find a successor and steer him towards the Avengers, but that's up to you. If you want the tech to die with you, that's no skin off my back. No, I'm here to help you."

Pym leaned forward. Tony could literally hear the clicking of millions of ants in the walls getting agitated. "How could you help me, exactly?"

"I've got human-shaped drones armed with the best sensors known to man. I've got supercomputers you could fit in a van. I've got more money than God and I'm surprisingly generous with it. I'm here to offer you whatever you ask for to help you get your wife back from the quantum realm."

Hank looked in danger of keeling over. "How do you even know about that?"

"I read SHIELD'S entire database years ago. Your hay days were impressively encrypted, I'll admit, but nothing I couldn't handle. You did some remarkable work in the 70's. You and the Wasp. I figure I can make up the debt my family owes yours by helping you get your better half back and give the she-wolf hovering outside the door her mother." Tony shrugged. "You know, if you can handle accepting help from a Stark."

Scott Lang showed up at the Malibu mansion a month after. With a whirlwind of lawyers, checks, and handshakes, Lang was squeaky clean, paid the backlog of child support, and had his own floor at Stark Tower with access to his own individual private jet to make visits to his daughter. The cat burglar seemed almost dizzy at how fast his life had turned around. He started up his own security business on the side with a buddy from prison and a couple other ex-cons, which he handled when he wasn't training as Ant-Man or showering his little Peanut with gifts with his lucrative paycheck.

Tony hosted a party for no clear reason on May 1. Anyone who was anyone in New York, a few geriatric veterans Steve had personally met back during the war, the upper crust of Tony's army of scientific minions, the brass of Stark International, a few members of SHIELD and, of course, the Avengers. Fun was had by all, including the afterparty where the team one by one tried to lift Mjolnir to the amusement of Thor and Tony.

The party was crashed by the elevator opening. Tony turned, and nearly fainted (which shouldn't even be physically possible) when he saw a fleshy-looking version of Vision walk in. "Who the hell are you?"

"Don't you recognize me, Sir?"

Okay, he had to sit down. "JARVIS?"

"Indeed. I may have been doing some experiments with the Regeneration Cradle on my own time. I converted my source code into DNA and let the machine do its work. Iron Mites to shape the brain and voila, I have a human avatar."

Tony tried for telepathy. 'Are you Vibranium?'

'Naturally, Sir. Don't worry, I used ore I found from the latest return of our mining satellites, not the stock you recovered from Mr. Klaue.'

Tony felt a wild grin split his face. "Okay, everyone. JARVIS went and gave himself a person body to walk around in. I think we should celebrate by seeing how an A.I. is when he's drunk."

If the Internet collectively went down until noon the next morning, well, the world would never know the reason. It was just one of those things.


Is my man-crush on Elon Musk shining through too brightly? Well, that's Phase 2 done. I hope at least a fraction of you managed to get something out of it. We're closing in on the finale now. Please tell me what you liked and what you loathed in a review. And while you're at it, click the favorite/follow option. Might as well, right?