This happens between Iron Beta and Iron Beta 2.

A lot of people think that my dad and I have ADHD. Or ADD. Or some other hyperactive disorder.

We don't, by the way.

We just get hooked on ideas.

Although, I have to admit, I do act slightly ADHD. Like in certain situations, only numbers make sense to me. Because math always makes sense, screw English.

Like this one time in Portugal, during the year-long Loki hunt.

Steve's POV

"Are we sure Loki is here?" Taylor sighs as she swipes across another holographic map floating in front of us.

"Have we ever been sure before?" I respond wearily as I study my own paper map.

"I suppose not," she mumbles.

"We have more evidence this time." Natasha points out.

"Yes," Tony nods, "one necklace like the one on the Zygones. One necklace. Which could belong to any museum anywhere."

"Quit being cynical." I scold. "We didn't have much else to go on."

"And, if it doesn't pan out to anything, at least we got to see Portugal." Bruce adds.

Everyone just shrugs, grumbles slightly, and turns back to their respective maps or chart.

"Steve," Taylor waves me over, "come look at this."

I lean over her shoulder as she enlarges a screen, a piece of evidence.

"It's a page," she explains, "from an old journal that's in a small history heritage thing here. It talks about a flying snake, like the Leviathans from Manhattan."

"Those were Chitauri though." I point out.

"Still." she shrugs. "Jarvis, pull up the lines I'm talking about."

The paper zooms in, and about a paragraph of text fills the screen.

"Cinco de janeiro de 1854.

Não existem serpentes voadoras, diário? Porque hoje eu vi uma grande serpente voadora.

Eu estava no meu caminho para o mercado , quando ouvi um rugido, muito parecido com um leão. Eu vi a cobra voando para fora de um grande buraco negro. Ele estava rugindo , mas com uma borda metálica…"

"Right." I blink at the screen. "Anyone speak Portuguese?"

Natasha, Bruce, and Clint all admit to being about half fluent.

"Alright then. Jarvis?" Taylor calls. "Translation please."

The screen blinks, then reappears, readable this time.

"Five of January 1854.

There are no flying serpents, diary? Because today I saw a great flying serpent.

I was on my way to the market when I heard a roar, much like a lion. I saw the snake flying out of a big black hole. He was roaring, but with a metallic edge..."

"1845?" Bruce speaks up. "That's…old."

"We're dealing with immortal beings here." Taylor points out.

"True." he shrugs.

I lean back against one of the tables we had set up in the small room we were currently holed up in. "So," I muse, "an ancient sighting of a big snake. Natasha, can you get these people on the phone? Try and find out who this journal belonged to."

Natasha gives a sharp nod, looks over Taylor's shoulder as she pulls up a phone number, and then taps her phone a few times and wanders away from the rest of us.

"What if this is Loki?" Clint looks at me, eyebrows raised.

"Then we look for more supernatural phenomena and try and create a trail, a pattern."

"Why would he be here?" Tony wonders out loud, protesting our strange looks. "What? This is a small country. Coastal. Near Spain. Loki, or the modern one we are familiar with, likes buildups and then big city battles. Stuttgart then Manhattan, Paris then London. Even the capital of Portugal, Libson, is not that big. Not on his previous scale, anyways. It makes no sense for Loki to be here."

"Well then it's a good thing he isn't." Natasha sighs, walking back over to us. "That was the owner of the historical center. The writer of that journal, Assunção de Bárbara, was proved to be insane not even half a month after writing this. She died on February 3rd, 1845."

"Did anyone else report anything?"

Natasha shakes her head.

"So we have nothing." We all snap our attention towards Taylor, who leaning against a wall, arms and ankles crossed. "We have nothing. " She repeats sullenly, but we can all see her eyes steadily darkening.

"We have been searching for months. Months. And we have nothing. Nothing to show for it. Our only leads are long dead, or insane like this chick, or both, and we haven't gotten anywhere. We aren't even on step one, more step -2.46. I've done this before, this searching game, and I can't do it again. You don't know what it's like, oh god you don't know. It's horrible, please, please, we can't do this. Why couldn't Loki have used math? Numbers make sense, they don't trick you, they don't lie to you, not like words, like humans, make you think one thing but mean another. Right now that's all we have, words, words of a crazy person, and we. Have. NOTHING!"

Her voice steadily rose during her ramble/rant, and the last word was a scream, maybe a roar, as she lashes out in a blur of black and sends a metal fist into the wall behind her, punching through with a metallic smack and the crackle of breaking plaster.

We all jump back at her outburst as she slides slowly down the wall, pulling her knees up, folding her arms on top of them, and burying her head in her arms, slowly rocking side to side.

Tony slowly steps forward, the expert in dealing with his daughter. He crouches down about a foot in front of her, being careful never to touch her.

"Is it a code silver?" I hiss at him.

He shakes his head. "This isn't panic," he whispers, "just a garden variety meltdown. Frustration, not fear."

"Taylor," he calls softly, "Fibonacci."

I blink at him in surprise, as do most of the team, but Bruce's eyes light up and Taylor freezes in her rocking. "Where?"

"16."

"987."

"Good, good." he nods, and I'm still confused, "Plus 510."

"1597."

He nods again. "1597 + 987?"

"2584."

"Now 2584 + 1597."

"4181."

"Okay, okay, good, now come on, you can finish it."

"6765, 10946, 17711, 28657." she rambles off, and with each number her voice became a little less shaky, and by now her eyes were peeking over her arms, just visible.

"There we are," Tony nods. "Now, quadratic formula."

"Negative B plus or minus the square root of B squared minus 4 times A and C, all divided by 2 times A." she recites, her calculator brain slowly restarting.

I'm still clueless.

"Right. Now, Compound interest?"

"A equal p, parentheses 1 plus r over n to the n times t power."

"Good. You okay now?"

"Yes." she starts uncurling herself. "Thanks."

"No problem." he reassures her. "You can look up some equations on the plane later. I know your teachers will love you for it."

"Okay," I whisper slowly, "who just understood a word of what was just said?"

Taylor, Tony, and Bruce all raise their hands. Bruce congratulates Tony on his quick thinking after checking Taylor over with a careful eye, and then we're all back to our maps like nothing happened.

Except it did, so I look to Bruce for explanation.

"Starks are geniuses." he explains. "You understand that, right?"

"Yeah," I nod, "they only brag about it 24 hours a day, seven day a week."

"No, Steve, you don't get it; they really are brilliant. It's more than just a title, a bragging right. Tony is 39 points smarter than Einstein – do you know who that is?"

"A really smart guy in Germany, he did something with relativity and the speed of light?"

"Yes, yes. Now, take his brain and add about 25%."

"Wow." I whisper.

"Now put that into those two heads over there."

"Um…"

"Yeah," Bruce nods with slight awe, "and they call me a genius."

"Okay." I stutter, still taking in this new revelation. "Tony said it wasn't a Code Silver. Then what was that?"

"That was that huge genius brain shutting down."

"Shutting down?! Like brain damage, or-"

"No, no, no!" Bruce quickly backpedals. "Not physically. I'm pretty sure their brains run on ten to fifteen different levels simultaneously, and sometimes those levels collapse. Tony, of course, can kick start her mind back into gear by feeding her simple math…simple for them, anyways."

I suck a slow breath in to absorb this. "Okay, so what was it?"

"That was Taylor reciting the Fibonacci sequence."

"She asked where?"

"Where to start. Tony said the sixteenth number, or 987. Taylor's brain automatically recited up to number….23, I think."

"Automatically? Like, on its own?"

"Yep. Pretty sure she could to that for a few years now."

"I swear I will never understand the modern world." I groan.

"Well," he smirks, "they don't exactly make it easy."

I groan again. "Come on, let's…just get back to the maps. I need to focus on the task at hand."

Right. So…minor meltdown, but all's ok.

An explanation for the brain sizes, if you don't get that:

Einstein had a 160 IQ. If you've read Iron Beta 3, you'd know that Tony and Taylor have 199 and 198 IQ's, respectively.

160/4 = 40

160 (Einstien) + a quarter of that (40) = 200 (about Tony's IQ).

Get it? If not, PM me with any other questions.