During the lab work that Tony had immersed himself in, JARVIS had indeed done his one job. He had called Clint Barton, and, unwillingly, Clint had gotten himself out of the archery range and driven to the Stark mansion.

But Clint never quite made it into the labs. Instead, he had parked his small, black, convertible Mercedes-Benz just outside the door on the pristine gravel parking lot, walked into the foyer, and ran into a surprise.

Not one he was expecting, though, and most certainly not something Stark would purposely have waiting for him as a "hey, welcome back to my house" present.

A man was standing, leaning against the couch in the sitting room, wearing something Clint would never have wanted to see on another man, even from the back.

A long leather jacket of sorts that was adorned by flaps of green fabric covered over a set of leather pants and boots, all black. The sleeve Clint could see sported a highly decorated, armored cuff that spread for the entire forearm. From where Clint was standing, he could tell that there was gold glinting along the collar of the jacket, as though from a necklace. The most prominent feature, however, was the helmet. A grandiose crown embraced the man's head, and spiraled off in two directions to create something that looked like horns, spanning another foot higher. He must have been compensating for something.

"Hey, buddy, uh," Clint started, guessing that if he made himself known there would be a lesser chance of getting the "reindeer in the headlights" sort of look. "You looking for someone?"

The man spun around on the heels of his leather boots, the jacket whipping around him, to face Clint. Immediately, Clint knew that getting his attention was a bad idea. He was wearing some sort of leather armor vest under the jacket, again adorned with green. Along with that, the new stranger was holding a menacing-looking scepter in his other hand, the hand Clint couldn't see previously.

"Indeed I am," the man responded proudly, strutting towards Clint like some sort of supermodel. "I am looking for Howard Stark, the head of Stark Industries. I do believe this is where he resides." His accent almost sounded British. So Clint decided to ask.

"No offense, buddy," Clint said, rubbing the back of his neck and trying to avoid staring at the scepter, "but where're you from?"

"Me?" The man asked, as though it were a joke, placing his free hand on his chest. "I, I am Loki. Of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose."

"Uh, huh," Clint said, now not so sure of the man's-Loki's-sanity, "and this 'glorious purpose'," he said, making imaginary quotation marks with his fingers, "is what exactly?"

Loki shifted the scepter from his one hand to the other, and pointed it at Clint. "My purpose," he responded, "is to make a world free."

"Free from what?" Howard Stark asked, stepping out of his study, rubbing his hands together. His reading glasses were perched on the end of his nose, and he was disgruntled from having stared at a computer screen for so long.

Loki spun again on his heels, facing Howard. In one swift movement he had thrust the sharp end of the spear-like head into Howard's chest. "Free from freedom, Mr. Stark." He ripped the scepter away from the pierced chest.

Howard staggered backwards, his back hitting the wall. He fell into something of a fetal position, clutching his chest. He wordlessly looked up at his offender, eyes helpless and mouth agape. "Why?" He asked, breathlessly.

Clint stared wide-eyed at Howard's wounded body, and turned on his heels, running for the labs. Behind him, Loki released a laugh as menacing and as dark as the coat he wore. He needed to warn Steve and Tony-

"Clint!" Steve greeted him at the top of the stairs after a head-on collision with him. "I heard a loud thud, thought I could come up and be of assistance. Tony's still sort of recuperating, or well, tinkering, down in the labs, so I told him to-"

"Steve, look. We've got a bit of a bigger problem on our hands right now," Clint interrupted the super soldier with an air of urgency. He pivoted in a split second and began running back towards Howard's body...

Rather than looking, Steve grabbed Clint on the shoulders shouting "get down!" just as a beam of blue light flew past them. "What is going on?" he breathed, "make it quick."

"This freak in the leather armor and reindeer helmet-" Clint swallowed hard, catching his breath, "He stabbed Howard… Howard's dying, Steve… we have to help him…"

"You go get your archery stuff out of your car," Steve muttered into Clint's ear as he reached for the nearest chrome end table to use as a shield. "I'll hold whoever this guy is off until you get back."

Clint gave a terse nod and bolted for the doorway, almost getting hit by another blast of blue light.

"Hey," Steve shouted to get Loki's attention, and it worked. Loki aimed the tip of his scepter at Steve and let it jolt out yet another blue beam. Steve let the end table reflect the energy before he saw Howard Stark's limp body.

"No..." he muttered to himself, and quickly and carefully scrambled to the man's side. "Mr. Stark, Howard?" He shouted to the closed eyes. "Please, you have to answer me! You've got to-"

Howard's eyes barely opened, but his mouth turned upwards into a faint smile. "I'm glad I get to tell one person this. Take care of Tony," he grabbed Steve's hand with a meaningful stare into his eyes, "please. He's important for everything. Everything, Steven. Promise me."

Steve choked back a few tears. "I... I promise, sir. You can certainly count on me to keep your son safe."

Howard's eyes closed, and he breathed a final breath, his neck relaxing and his head leaning back on the wall behind him.

The younger Stark came barreling through the door to the labs, a cord coming out of his arc reactor and attaching to some strange mechanism on his hand. "I heard a-" Tony started, a desperately confused look on his face.

But then he saw Steve. And he saw his father, limp, eyes closed, mouth hanging agape.

"Oh my god..." Tony ran over to his dad and grabbed his shoulders. "Dad, dad. Oh my god, no. Dad, you have to-"

"Isn't this sad," Loki spat at Tony. "The young protegé doesn't get to say any final words to his dear father that he loved ever so much."

"No, no. He's not dead, right? My dad's like a fucking superhero, he could never die," Tony's voice caught on the lump in his throat, trying to ignore Loki's taunts. "He's not dead."

"I'm afraid your pathetic attempts won't be any good," Loki continued to chide, "your father most certainly is-" He was cut off by an arrow with some sort of electrocuting mechanism at the end hit his chest.

"I'm pretty sure that's enough from you, Reindeer Games," Clint said as he lowered his bow. He had just returned to the main doorway of the Stark mansion.

Tony took this chance to stand up. But, because he was still getting used to the arc reactor and with the fact that he was already using the energy for extra equipment, his balance faltered. And Steve was right there to catch him.

Wrapping his free arm around Tony's hip, Steve whispered into his ear, "I thought I told you to stay downstairs."

Tony did not hear him. After regaining his balance, Tony walked up to Loki's face, pulled the scepter out of his hand, and threw it to the ground. "You, whoever you are," Tony spat in Loki's face, "killed my father."

He raised up the contraption, connected to his arc reactor by a wire, up to face Loki's chest and opened his hand to reveal his palm to the murderer. Inside, there was a small disc that glowed the same blue as his arc reactor, and was charging to fire some sort of energy blast, from what Steve could tell.

Tony pulled Clint's arrow from Loki's chest and, through clenched teeth, said, "you have ten seconds to either get out of my sight or say any final words you'd like."

Loki laughed a deep and sinister chuckle, wriggled out of Tony's way, grabbed his scepter, and went out the door. "This isn't over, Anthony Stark! And I plan to see you again soon, Steven Rogers!"

After Loki had cleared his line of vision, Tony collapsed at his father's body, sobbing and pounding the floor with his fist. "Why?" He wailed, "why did that... that..."

Steve came over and put his hand on Tony's back. "Tony, it's not your fault. Loki, he-"

Tony pushed Steve's hand off of his back and glared at him. "You were the one that told me to stay downstairs. I could have fucking saved him. I could have heard his last words. But you told me to stay downstairs. You're just lucky I'm too impatient to wait for long." He got up, and grabbed Steve's shoulders, which were at least three inches higher than his own. "I didn't get to hear my father's last words, because you decided to take control."

Steve's reaction was nothing but hurt. He didn't fight back. He didn't even look Tony in the eye as he threw insults at him. "No, you didn't. But his last words were about you," Steve muttered.

Tony huffed. "I barely believe it." He didn't take his hands off of Steve's shoulders.

Steve still averted his eyes. "'Take care of Tony,' is what he told me. 'He's important for everything.' You still don't believe me?"

Tony took his hands off of Steve's shoulders and turned around toward the labs. "I'll be working on... this," he motioned with his repulsor-clad hand, "in the labs. If you need me."

Steve shared a glance with Clint, and Clint shrugged. "Probably a good idea to at least go sit down there with him. Make sure he doesn't blow anything up."

Steve nodded, and both of them started down towards the labs, when Tony, without his repulsor on his hand, stormed past them, heading upstairs again. Steve said nothing, but simply watched Tony go over to his father's body in an attempt to pick it up. After one try, Tony fell to the ground, his hands still under Howard's neck and knees. "Damnit!" Tony hollered, and tried again, only to fall harder and gasp as the arc reactor glowed a bright blue in his efforts.

"Tony…" Steve walked over cautiously, "Please… let me help…"

"Haven't you helped enough?" Tony spat in Steve's direction. He could barely stand up in his current state, so he resorted to laying across his dad's body. He sobbed until the collar of Howard's shirt was soaked with tears.

Steve couldn't help it any longer. He went over to Tony and sat next to him, wrapping a large, strong arm around Tony's relatively feeble frame. Steve nuzzled his chin into Tony's shoulder and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. No words could express Steve's sympathy for Tony and guilt for Howard. But this would have to do.

It took a few moments, but eventually, Tony ran back down to the lab. Steve took this as an opportunity to bring Howard Stark's limp, cold body over to the couch. He lay the corpse down on the sofa like he had only been sleeping.

Once Clint and Steve finally caught up with Tony in the lab, they witnessed the young inventor sitting in a relaxed position, tinkering with the thing he had previously donned on his hand, which was now sitting on a holder on the desk in front of him. The skeleton surrounding it had a glove look to it.

"Hey, Stark," Clint asked, "what are you planning to do with that thing?"

Tony just kept working, not responding to anyone's requests or questions.

Steve's eyes fell to the ground. To occupy his and went over to go look through the piles of scrap metal that Tony had laying around. Next to the pile of metal, Steve noticed a table that had multiple military-grade shields sitting on it.

"Tony, what is this?" Steve asked.

Tony didn't even turn around. "Clint knows," he muttered, his eyes not leaving his experiment. Steve could tell that, despite his attempts at comforting Tony, the young Stark was still mad. Steve couldn't blame him; Tony still thought that, if Steve hadn't kept him downstairs, his father would still be alive.

"Clint?" Steve asked in the direction of the archer.

Clint shrugged, but then said, "I remember him saying something about you always using shields. Like that end table, and apparently like that metal lab table when Bruce went all Hulk on your guys' asses."

"Heh, oh yeah..." Steve replied, turning red and rubbing the back of his neck.

"Apparently these are all tricked out. We've got one that apparently has like electric nodes that shock whoever touches the outside when you press a button on the inside, and..."

Steve wasn't listening. Instead, a round, chrome-plated piece that was laying under the table caught his eye. "And what's this?" he held it up, observing that there were two leather arm straps on the back of it.

Clint's jaw dropped. "I'm-uh, I'm not sure. Hey, Mr. Grumpy Pants," he shouted over to Tony, "care to answer one question for us? What's this?"

Tony looked up from moping and tinkering to glance at the shield. He turned his head back down. "Hell if I know," he muttered. "I think-" he couldn't bring himself to mention his father, "I think he told me it was vibranium. Stronger than steel, a third the weight. Oh, completely vibration absorbent. Super rare, only that much on earth..." Tony sort of faded out.

Steve strapped on the shield to his arm, and held it up to Clint.

Clint gave him a thumbs up. "Looks good."

Steve turned to Tony and held it up, but Tony didn't see. "What d'you think?"

Tony turned around, and Steve saw that he had the repulsor strapped to his hand now, with more metal around it (it looked more like a metal glove now). He lifted up the repulsor-equipped hand, and all Steve heard was a high-pitched charging sound before he held up the shield to protect him from a series of energy blasts.

"Yes," Tony nodded as Steve lowered the shield to reveal his wide-eyed panic. "I think it works."