Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, they belong to Marvel (and Norse mythology :D). I am very sad about this, but I have borrowed them to write my own story.

Song for the day: 'Physical', by Haley.

Quote for the day:

Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: [walking in on Stark's robots trying to get him out of the Iron Man suit] What is going on here?

Tony Stark: Let's face it, this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing.

Virginia Pepper Potts: Are those bullet holes?

Warning: Heavy drinking.

Chapter Two – Mother Earth.

Water, and darkness. Tony sighed heavily as he worked at disconnecting the transmission lines, hearing it echo back to him within the confines of his suit. It would be while he was at the bottom of the river he would get an itchy nose. Seconds later Jarvis confirmed he had succeeded in his task and he heaved a sound of relief as he blasted himself from the water into the air. If this worked not only would Stark Towers be self-sustainably lit and ran for a year, but he could take off the suit and scratch his nose before celebrating with Pepper.

As if his thoughts summoned her, Pepper's voice sounded over the transmission device while her image appeared on screen. "Have you disconnected the transmission lines? Are we off the grid?"

Tony grinned as he took a sharp left around the corner of one of the buildings, "Stark Tower's is about to become a beacon of self-sustaining clean energy."

Pepper responded with her normal sass, and Tony felt his excitement grow as he headed towards home, watching in a mixture of awe and relief as the towering infrastructure slowly relit from the bottom, the glass sides glowing with light. Landing with a thud, Tony walked down the steps, suit being removed every step of the way, ignoring Jarvis' warning of Agent Coulson being on the line. As soon as his head and hands were free he scratched his nose with relief before swooping over to Pepper and spinning her around in his exhuberance.

"Told you it would work."

"Of course you did, now put me down."

And then he opened his mouth ruining the moment momentarily. Right note to self, next time tell her more than 50 per cent. Focus on Pepper Tony, she is the only one who will repeatedly put up with you and does the whole interacting with others/dealing with emotion thing for you. Swiviling his head Tony grinned as he took in the chilled champagne. Time to save this for turning sour. "I'm going to pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way later, aren't I?"

"It's not going to be that subtle."

The humour in her voice had Tony sighing in relief, even as he made a mental note that he was going to need to buy her something expensive or worse make a public appearance. "I tell you what, the next one is going to say Potts on the tower." Please work.

She smiled at him, "On the lease."

And we are back in business Stark. He winced, dramatically drawing air between his teeth and pulling his champagne glass back, "Call your mom can you bunk over."

Finally a laugh, Jarvis took that moment to interrupt, "Sir the telephone. I am afraid my protocalls are being overridden."

Tony snarled mentally as Coulson's voice sounded from his phone demanding that they needed to talk. He tried to make the agent leave but within seconds the man himself was walking out of the private elevator. The elevator no-one other than Pepper and himself was authorised to use. Throwing an evil look at Jarvis' nearest camera he nearly missed Pepper's greeting of the agent.

"Phil?" Okay how are they on first name terms? "His first name is Agent." Okay that was lame, his brain supplied, real smooth. Tony mentally groaned as he followed Pepper over to greet the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent. Why was he being handed something. "I don't like being handed things." Ah blessings to Pepper she was taking whatever it was that he had been expected to take.

"Offical consulting hours are between eleven and five every other Thursday," he snarked as he lost his champagne to Pepper and gained the black covered computer off her.

"This is not a consultation," why was the man not drinking the expensive champagne Pepper had handed him?

Pepper's next words filtered through his brain and he groaned as he started to open the computer. He had thought he would be rid of that Avengers nonsense. Suppose he had better see what they wanted from him. He flung the images around the room and just like that Pepper was leaving him to travel to D.C. because he had homework. Tony really didn't like S.H.I.E.L.D. Even if Pepper was whispering promises for later, that meant he had to wait. He'd never been good at waiting. And he still didn't know why the agent was Phil.

Left alone, the open bottle of champagne mocked him. It wasn't until much later that night Tony even started to look at the information he had been given. As interesting as the information on the people Agent Coulson was suggesting he work with was, the question of why they suddenly wanted him onside was calling to him more.

Dread settled in his stomach as he read through the folder he had been presented with. Since S.H.I.E.L.D. knew he was working on clean sustainable energy the sales pitch of to why they were working on the thing called the Tesseract did not sit well with him, but pushing that to one side for now the knowledge that an object of sheer radiation was in the hands of an apparently insane immortal, who had single handedly killed several of Fury's best sent him back to his drinks cabinet. Nursing a single malt Tony settled in to read further.

Dawn had broken on the horizon when he finally finished reading on the object known as the Tesseract, and the now wanted terrorist known as Loki. Rubbing a tired hand over his face Tony stumbled up and casting a longing glance at the half empty bottle of single malt, dragged himself to the kitchen and to his expresso machine. He had much more reading to do and he needed to be awake, not drunk to do it.

The dregs of his sixth cup of coffee were stone cold by the time he finished reading and Tony sat back, face pale in the late afternoon son. Fury apparently had a plan, and he was in on it. Nodding slowly he pushed to his feet and recalled all of the information onto the computer. He needed to shower first, then, and only then would he call Coulson and arrange a lift to where ever Fury wanted this group of misfits to meet. Hanging his head as he reached his bedroom door Tony hung his head. He really hoped no one expected heroics from him, although he was planing on reading up on Gamma-radiation and where the science filed was on the study. After all if he was going to join this mad cap adventure he would at least be able to join with his fellow genius and have interesting conversations.

AN: Let me know what you think please.