When he wakes up, Tony Stark is standing over him, hands tucked into his armpits, like he's still cold. He's managed to find some sort of razor, though apparently wasn't up to the task of his trademark goatee, and just shaved himself clean.

"We could have stopped at a barber shop."

Tony shook his head. Coulson sat up, and picked up his suit jacket, "ready?"

Tony nodded. As they were leaving, Coulson stopped by supply, and quietly requisitioned a blanket and extra jacket, the poofy, government kind, that usually had the acronym for whatever agency emblazoned across the back. This one was plain, flat black. Stark took them, when Coulson held them out, without acknowledging that he was actually sweating, at that point, and still hugging himself when nobody was looking.

Tony sat sideways in the passenger seat, staring out the window as they drove. Coulson turned the heated seat on, on Tony's side, on full blast. They stopped once, at a gas station. Tony followed Coulson in, wandering the isles, settling on honey roasted almonds and a giant paper mug of tea.

'I came to in a pool. One of them was sitting at the edge. She smiled at me, and reached down. All I knew after that was cold, and pain. She was freezing tendrils, lines, of water. Human blood is mostly water, so that froze too. It was like the way lightning acts, seeking the path of least resistance, the areas of water with the most minerals to form catalysts for the formation of ice crystals. That was, obviously, inside my body, so that's what it froze, instead of just zapping through the water in the pool.'

Tony started snoring. Coulson looked over at him. He had turned the other direction, when he got back in, after they left the gas station, facing Coulson, his knees drawn up onto the seat, arms crossed, over the the absurdly thick layers of sweatshirts and blanket he had wrapped himself in.

The day after Coulson deposits Tony Stark at the Helicarrier, he gets a brown paper wrapped package, unlabeled as to the sender. He has it x-rayed, then opens it cautiously, as it has turned out to contain nothing more than a small stack of paper. It turns out to be a set of vintage Captain America trading cards, nearly identical to the one he'd lost to his own bloodstains, courtesy of Fury. He sets them up in plastic card holders, on the shelf right below the Iron Man trading cards that have taken their former place.

'They wanted me to build a portal, combining their power, and scientific knowledge, to allow them to cross into whatever plane of existence they so wished. They wanted to take over all of creation. I said no. They disagreed.'

When he checks on Stark, he finds him hard at work, building on the work Dr. Banner did, in tracking gamma radiation, to create a method of tracing the wholly unusual radiation signatures of cross-plane travel, so they can determine if any of the escaped creatures or criminals have ended up on earth. He's also wearing a winter parka, and Coulson notices the smell of unchanged bandages, well before he sees that the ones Stark was supposed to use that morning, are still sitting on his desk, unnoticed, and untouched.

Stark doesn't complain, While he sits, shirtless, and lets Coulson clean the pus and oozing dark blood from his back. Granted, he can't, not out loud. But Coulson has no doubt he could still manage to make an enormous fuss, if he were so inclined. But he's not.

'The showed me how their powers worked. It's fascinating, when I have a chance, I will try to explain it, though it's tied intrinsically to their neurological wiring, and no human, nor Asgardian would have a chance of manipulating it. However, if a computer were created mirroring that neurological wiring, it could use that power, tying it in with just plain energy and structuring it with complex enough programming, and create the portal they were searching for. I knew that, very soon after they showed me how their powers worked. I would not allow myself to tell them.'

Finishing with cleaning Stark's back, Coulson reaches for the bandages. The wounds are starting to heal, but would heal a lot faster if he wasn't allowing it to foster infection, by not bothering to change the dressings. As Coulson finishes the last of the bandages, Stark turns around, and looks at him. He's now bearing several days of stubble, and the burns on his chest are starting to fade, though there are a few blisters right at his collarbone, where the water was striking most directly.

"Need to say something?"

Stark nods, and gets up, walking to his computer, picking up a big, fluffy bathrobe on the way, and putting it on, as he reaches the keyboard.

'One of them is approaching manhattan. I think, it's not possible to be sure yet. But there's a 70% chance. Otherwise, it's just interference from a satellite that picked up a similar radiation signature.'

"Seventy percent is enough to be worried. And given it's your seventy percent, enough to act on. I'll have Maria Hill get in contact with Captain Rogers. Is there any way to increase the certainty?"

'I would have to get closer. Trouble is, as I get closer, if it is one of the creatures Loki released, we'll also be getting closer to its intended target, and depending on what or who it is, it could detect the sample of terrestrial radiological material I'm using for comparison, and target it as an energy source.'

"So the detector could draw an attack."

'Basically, yes.'

"And where is it now?"

'Almost to New York.'

"Are you comfortable risking an attack?"

'It's almost to New York. That's where everyone is, right? Yes, of course.'

"Then lets pack the detector, and go."

'I knew, from Afghanistan, that I couldn't just not talk. I'm not strong enough for that. And every sound I made when she send those lines of freezing through me, or put freezing stones on my back and arms, felt like losing. I bit my tongue, so I couldn't talk. I swallowed one of the stones, so it froze my throat, and I couldn't make sound, couldn't scream. The bite mostly healed, and swallowing the stone froze my intestines, and even though I couldn't scream, I was trying to for three days, until it passed, and I couldn't bring myself to do that again. But I kept biting my tongue. I honestly don't know if, past a point, I wasn't just hoping I would bite deep enough and bleed out...but they always froze it if I bit that deeply.'

Tony's expression, when they round a corner, and find Clint and Natasha standing there, is completely frozen. He just stands stock still, and stares at them. The knew he would be here, and Coulson as well, but Coulson guesses from their expressions that they hadn't been informed just how bad it was. Coulson grips Tony's wrist, gently pulling him towards the two agents, "how did the others take it?"

"Angrily," shrugs Clint, "they want to see both of you."

"It looks like that will happen soon enough. Did you bring it?"

Clint sets down the large case he was carrying, and Coulson picks it up, knowing full well Tony wouldn't be able to carry something that heavy in his current state, "I had them bring the most portable version of your suit, in case there is an attack."

Tony looks at him, looks at the case, and nods.

"Tony, Bruce is on the line, Hill said you needed some things from the tower," Natasha held out her phone. Tony stares flat, for a moment, then shakes his head, turns around, and walks in the other direction. Coulson nods to the other two, and follows after him. He is crouched on the floor just around the corner, mouth open, face red, like he was trying to force himself to speak.

Coulson kneels, gripping Stark's wrist. The smaller man's pulse is quick, erratic, but he seems okay, just stressed out. Gripping his arm, Coulson pulls him up, "they're waiting for you. Dr. Banner wants to help, agents Barton and Romanov are preparing SHIELD intercept, and Captain Rogers is with Thor, ready to respond to an attack."

Tony leaned against the wall, watching Coulson. Coulson offers a hand, Tony obliges, spelling into Coulson's palm, 'I can physically speak. I just can't.'

"I know. I'm not remotely surprised."

Tony glares at him, and he shakes his head, "Agent Hill was captured, in an operation in Somalia, four years ago. When we got her back, she couldn't fire a gunshot without breaking down-she had been forced to kill two of the other members of her team. She was promoted to Fury's second in command three months later. It took five months after that, for her to be able to so much as hold a gun again. We see so much crazy, extraordinary stuff, that extraordinary trauma is pretty much a given. We just try and work around it."

Tony doesn't react, for a minute, though his fingers stay lightly in contact against Coulson's palm, 'have you ever tried to stop that?'

"Stop...us getting traumatized? As in, stop putting ourselves in that kind of danger?"

Tony nods.

"If we were capable of that kind of self preservation, we wouldn't be working for SHIELD in the first place."

Tony hesitates for second, but then a grin spreads across his face, 'I have an idea.'

Coulson sleeps, while Tony works, in a corner of the lab, in case something goes terribly, terribly wrong. He's woken around five hundred hours by repeated, insistent clanging. Sitting up, sees Tony in the Iron Man suit, on his front, on the ground, repeatedly pounding against the floor, making a dent in the thick metal.

"Are you having a temper tantrum, or is something wrong?"

He gets up, and sees Tony trying to reach back, further than he's able, towards a catch on the back of the suit. Coulson pulls it, and latches all along the edges release, Coulson pulls them, and lifts away the hinged pieces, until he can pull Tony out. The back of Tony's shirt is soaked with blood and pus.

Tony sits up, gasping, and pale. Coulson relieves him of the shirt, and soaked bandages, peeling them off as gingerly as he can. All the blisters are popped and oozing, now, and those that were starting to heal are re-opened. Coulson pulls Tony to his feet, and finds Tony suddenly leaning into his side and chest, dizzy, exhausted, and pained.

"Why couldn't you get it off?"

Tony, leaning with his head on Coulson's shoulder, slides a hand across Coulson's belly, to the middle, and shakily traces, 'voice command. Hurt too much to reach the emergency latch.'

Tony falls asleep, while Coulson is rebandaging his back. Coulson tucks a sweatshirt under his head, covers him with his fluffy robe, and goes to look at what he was doing. There's a thick set of wires going to the detector, from the suit. Only, the core from the detector is sitting in a box on the desk, and the power readings on the computer are much higher. Tony was turning the detector into bait. Except Tony isn't in the suit, it should be powered down. Coulson heaves the suit up, so he can look. There's a palladium core, jerry-rigged onto the front of the suit. Using it as an unmanned drone, Tony could distract the thing they were tracking, and send it anywhere in the world, keeping the creature away from major populated areas.

Coulson is woken from his sleep by the sound of banging on metal for the second time that day. Only this time, it's someone trying to break through the door into the lab. Tony is crouched, holding the suit up, in front of him hand reaching down into it, apparently readying the repulsor in the chest to fire. The lock finally gives, with a creak and a crack, and the door slides open...to reveal Clint, of all people, waving away smoke from the explosive arrow he had used to break the lock.

Tony sinks back with a sigh, letting the suit slump into his lap, glancing up in mild surprise, when he finds Coulson behind him, putting his gun away. Clint steps in, looks around, and opens the door, all the way, letting Natasha in as well, and closes the mangled door behind him, setting his quiver down, "we were worried."

It's all the explanation he gives...and, Coulson reflects, it's really all that's needed.

Tony heaves the suit out of his lap, and climbs shakily to his feet, pulling his floofy bathrobe tight around himself. Coulson makes a mental note to find him something slightly less ridiculous to wrap up in, as the parka smells from when he didn't change his bandages, and the jacket isn't heavy enough. Natasha walks forward, "you didn't have to run. I mean, if you were upset or scared by something...we were told what you went through. It's okay, you're not trained for that, and even if you were, it's hard."

Tony shakes his head, and steps towards her, giving her a small smile, and touching her hair. Clint grips Tony's shoulder, "seriously. What happened?"

Tony looks at the two of them, and backs up, a little bit, not even half a step, but just edges away, a little. Clint instantly lets go, clearly not wanting to hold Tony somewhere he didn't want to be. Coulson expects Tony to flee, honestly. But the smaller man turns, and looks at Coulson, just a little bit pleadingly.

"He can't speak."

'The hall was stone, or ice, it was difficult to tell, there. It was cold, anyway, and dark, the walls rough-hewn, and I was naked, but I didn't die of hypothermia, by whatever power. The cell they kept me in had a clear front, which definitely was ice. I saw him, when he came, at first. I know he saw me, he was there once when I was being taken from the cell to the pool.'

It's almost here. They still don't know precisely what it is, but it's tracking the power signature when Tony flies the suit, the detector/bait bolted to the front, and wired to the palladium core. The creature doesn't seem to be entirely in their dimension yet, they can track it, through its radiation signature, but not see it, on satellite, or radar.

Tony sets about flying the suit away from New York, but the creature only tracks it for a little while, before starting to move away, at which point they have to go and get its attention again. It's slow going, and though since they're basically just sitting there with a computer map and a joystick, it's still preventing them from preparing in other ways.

Coulson finally declares that Tony is officially removed from that duty, because they need him more elsewhere, and it's wearing him out. It's almost midnight, and he's been at it since seven that morning. Tony refuses, flat out, not trusting anyone else to do it. Coulson marches out, finds Agent Irwin, and escorts him into the lab. Tony glances up to glare, and then stops, looking the Agent up and down, and surrenders his seat, following Coulson out of the room, at what is increasingly less a swift walk, and more a stumbling shuffle.

Coulson had had a hunch Tony would have been legitimately impressed by a man who played Gattaca in the middle of a global crisis, and threatening end of the world.

Tony falls against the hallway wall, and Coulson stops, gripping his arm, "Dr. Banner and Captain Rogers will meet us at the tower. Agents Barton and Romanov are readying choppers. They will fly ahead to make sure the location is clear, while we pick up Rogers and Banner."

Tony nods, steadying himself, and walking on, despite the fact he's clearly at the end of his endurance. Coulson doesn't let go of his arm until he's in the helicopter, which is good because he just about collapses trying to climb into it. When Coulson goes to move up to the pilot's seat, Tony pulls on his suit jacket, and he stops, offering his hand, 'where's Thor?'

"Looking for Loki."

Sitting in the chopper, Coulson glances over at Tony, sitting in the co-pilot's seat. He's trembling. Exhaustion, and fear, fighting for dominance in his body, and him putting up a desperate, losing fight against both. His hair is still longer and a bit unkempt, and his skin is so pale it seems almost translucent. The blue-white glow from the arc reactor doesn't help make him look any less wan, either, in the dark cockpit of the chopper. At this point, it's more a question of when he collapses, than if he will.

Coulson reaches forward, as the radio buzzes on its holder, and confirms that he's listening. A junior Agent's voice comes over, sounding strained. There is a small team on the ground, under the path Agent Irwin is leading the creature on, and something is very wrong. Their scattered, frantic attempts to explain, when it's clear they don't even know what they're facing, isn't making it any clearer what's actually happening.

Tony leans forward, trying to reply. After several moments of straining, a strange, strangled sound escapes him, like he choked on a hiccup, as do a few frustrated, terrified tears. He clearly knows what the creature is, and what's happening down below its path of travel, and it's scaring him, to the point where he's hyperventilating.

Coulson makes the executive decision to fly much, much faster.

When they land at Avengers tower, Tony less exits the aircraft, than falls out the door before Coulson to get around the nose, and lands in a heap. Captain Rogers and Dr. Banner, who had waited for the blades to slow before approaching, get there just as Coulson is helping him back to his feet.

Steve takes one look at Tony, who at that point is standing solely due to the intervention of Coulson's shoulder, which he is leaning against, scoops him up, and starts to carry him inside. Tony kicks, until Steve has to set him down or risk dropping him. Tony assaults Steve's chest, until he fishes the Starktech phone out of the supersoldier's shirt pocket, slides it open, and starts typing, showing it to Coulson.

Coulson turns right back around, gets on the radio, and starts calling for more agents. And probably the national guard.

'There had been a lot of death, in that place, over the millennia. Prisoners killed, wars that took place there. The bodies were buried under the stone, apparently. Or, at least, sealed there, somehow. Not buried, because they were perfectly preserved, and you could see them, layers upon layers, under clear stone or ice. Or, at least, that's where they were, until they brought one of those creatures through. It was one of many, apparently, from what the guards were saying, but the only one they'd managed to capture. They thought they could use it to create an army, somehow; I didn't understand how. I don't think they did either, actually, given what happened when they walked it through the central area of the dungeon. All the bodies of all the prisoners...and captured monsters...that had died, were preserved under that area. Until, then, they weren't exactly bodies, anymore. Nor were they under stone. It only lasted a few hours, before they fell back, and were dead again. But a few hours was a few hours too long.'