"Okay, I've got the new sensor adjusted. Let me get out of here, and we're good to go."
Kara watched Tony Stark as he came out from behind his Mark XIV suit of armor. He'd given up on two prototypes today alone based on their testing. "Tony, how did the old suit stand up to outer space and reentry, yet have critical failures when I torch it?"
"Damned if I know. It's driving me nuts," Tony muttered as he moved behind his new Vice President of Development and rested his hands on her hips. His former assistant leaned back against him.
"There is no oxygen in space," Pepper Potts suggested.
"There was on reentry. Why wasn't he a Tony-sized fireball?" Kara frowned. "Did you change what you coated it with?"
"Nope. Not unless you count Leviathan slime as a coating."
The two redheads turned to stare at him. "Uh, Tony?" Kara began. "From the files I reviewed, those things were built to withstand space travel and travel through a wormhole, AND then fight a war. Did S.H.I.E.L.D. hold on to the remains? Any fluids that you went through could very well be what made the difference."
"Son of a bitch." Tony ran a hand through his dark hair as his eyes narrowed in thought. "Pepper, do you…"
"Yes, Fury did have it collected and we're storing it, actually. R&D has samples and has been documenting the properties of the various items pretty much nonstop."
"Hot damn, that's my girl!" he said. "Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir. Contacting R&D for status on fluid analysis. Displaying on-screen now."
... ...
Kara jumped as a screen descended from the ceiling between them. "Convenient. Can you build me a TV that does that?"
"You already have one in your suite here. That's what you miss when you sleep at your workplace all the time."
"Excuse me. I've been seeing five patients every day for almost two weeks straight. Then I have to work on my notes, and don't forget all of the reports Fury keeps asking me to review."
"Tsk, tsk…all work and no play makes Kara a dull doctor."
She shrugged. "I've been taking leisure time. Pepper, Natasha and I have been terrorizing Nordstrom's and Macy's, not to mention all of the haute couture shops. I swear, the employees see the three redheads coming and pull straws for who gets to avoid us by taking lunch."
"Their loss, not only do they miss out on the company of the three loveliest women on the planet, they also lose commissions."
Kara looked at Pepper. "What do you think he wants now?" The strawberry blonde shrugged.
"What I want," the 'he' in question interjected, "is to have you blast this puppy with everything you've got and see if my last adjustment did the trick. R&D is nowhere near being able to identify half of the elements in this fluid, let alone equate them with something we can reproduce here on earth. I think we're going to be on our own with this for a while yet."
"Okay, but we need more dust."
"Say, what?"
"Dust, Tony," Pepper told him. "Haven't you noticed how clean this room has become after the past three tests?"
"Uh, no." He turned around in a circle and then ran his finger over several surfaces. "Okay, why is that?"
"Fire needs oxygen and a flammable material. Your suit is not flammable, so there has to be something I can pull in to burn. I've been using dust and other particulate matter floating or sitting around the room," Kara explained.
... ...
"Huh. I'll be damned." He frowned thoughtfully. "Jarvis, can we shake out some of the air filters to make some dust?"
"Of course, Sir. Access is three yards to your left."
Tony watched as a panel folded up on the wall by the ventilation screen. "Excellent." Stepping over to it he grabbed the two filters that popped out and carried them over by the Mark XIV and shook them out. A flurry of dust filled the air, making him cough.
"That should do it," Kara told him.
"Damn good thing, any more and I'm going to start sneezing." He joined Pepper behind the blast screen and watched as Kara Gunnarssen took a few steps closer to his armor. "That still spooks me, her getting so close. Why doesn't it burn her?" Pepper sighed. "I know, I keep asking…but no one ever gives me a good answer."
"We ready?" Kara asked, holding up her hands.
"Let 'er rip, Doc."
They watched in awe as the air in front of and around the Mark XIV exploded in a brief but glorious fireball. The fire extinguished itself almost as quickly as it appeared. Kara sighed. "Not enough dust to make it last any longer, but it does look like it held up better this time."
Tony edged around the blast screen. "True, nowhere near as much scorching. Jarvis? What was the interior temp on this run?"
"Sixty-eight point nine degrees Celsius, Sir. A human would not have survived. However, there were no critical functional failures."
"Back to the drawing…"
"Sir, there is a disturbance in Central Park. I believe you might wish to investigate."
"Might I? What's going on?"
"A figure appeared out of nowhere. Park Enforcement Patrol has requested an ambulance. The figure is male, dressed in…"
"Green and Gold?" Tony finished for the AI.
"And black, Sir. The man is reported to be unconscious and bleeding profusely." The AI's voice followed them through the building as they ran for the launching area. "The patrol is speculating that it was a fetish encounter gone wrong as the figure is wearing manacles and a muzzle."
"Oh, he's a fetish encounter, all right. Damn." Tony stepped onto the track that would encase him in the Mark X armor that he'd held back from testing. "Pepper, can you coordinate with Fury? Doc, you're with me. Time to see what you can do for Thor's baby brother."
"It's Iron Man!" chorused from below as Tony brought them in for a gentle landing. He flipped back his face plate once they were on the ground.
"Yep, that's me. Folks, you need to clear the area for your own safety…damn it, Doc, what do you think you're doing?"
... ...
Kara spared him an irritated glance as she dropped to her knees by the prone figure. "Checking on the patient, obviously." She gasped at the amount of blood that soaked the leather and laid a hand on the man's neck to check his pulse. It was there, but barely discernible. There was blood at the edges of the muzzle and dripping from his nose and as she leaned close, she could hear an ominous gurgling sound. "Oh, crap. Tony, we've got to get this thing off," she told him, pulling ineffectually at the muzzle. "He's drowning in his own blood."
"Seriously, Kara, he's dangerous. I don't think…"
"Do you want to tell Thor that you let his brother die?"
"Shit. Okay."
Kara looked up to see the armor fold in on itself and all but disappear. "Neat. But why take it off if you think he's dangerous?"
"I need my bare hands to remove that thing, plus, kneeling in it isn't the most fun thing I've ever done."
She nodded and examined the rest of the patient's body. "It mostly appears to be blunt force trauma, except for this area in his abdomen. There's a lot of puncture damage there. Doesn't make sense." She ran her hands above the area, scanning the organs for damage. "What the hell?"
... ...
"What?" Tony asked as he pressed both thumbs on opposite sides of the muzzle. A red light blinked five times and the device separated into two pieces. He pulled it off and jumped back as blood poured out of it. "Shit, this is bad."
Dr. Gunnarssen grabbed Loki's right shoulder and tried to pull him on his side. "Help me move him, we've got to get the blood out of his throat," she ordered. They turned him fully on his side and Tony tried not to gag as Kara forced Loki's mouth open to let the blood drain to the ground. "He's bleeding internally. We really need a medical doctor, stat."
"Will I do?" a familiar voice asked.
"Good timing, big green." Tony told Banner as the man dropped down beside them.
"What a mess. My other couldn't even do this much damage to him, what the hell happened?"
"If we can save him, we'll ask," Kara muttered. "I'm not so sure that's going to be possible. Bruce, what do you know about an extra organ between the stomach and the gall bladder?"
"Uh, he's got one?"
"He did, it's a bit trashed right now." She finished swabbing out the inside of Loki's mouth with the tattered remnants of his cape. "Okay, we can lay him back down. He's still got blood in his lungs, and that will have to be dealt with, but his nose and throat seem pretty clear."
"Hmm, blunt force trauma, mostly."
"Yeah, she said that already, green man, you got anything new?"
... ...
"Give me a break, Stark, I just started looking."
Kara groaned and stopped moving her hands over Loki's prone form. "We need Thor. I keep getting pulled back to this mystery organ. He's leaking energy steadily. It's got to be the key."
"Ask and ye shall receive," Tony muttered. "Hey, Point Break! Surf on over here, now!"
"What?" Thor asked. "Oh, gods, brother."
Kara looked up at the Asgardian. "Thor, he has an organ right here, between what we call the gall bladder and the stomach, what is it and what does it do?"
"You mean the meng mein?"
"No, the meng mein is a chakra, what I'm talking about is a physical organ."
"As am I. It is an organ that pumps energy about the body."
Bruce looked up sharply. "You have it, too?"
"Indeed. Do Midgardians not have one?"
"Nope. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we've just solved the mystery of why Asgardians live so much longer and pack so much more power than we mere humans," he told Stark and Kara.
"Can he live without it?" Kara asked.
"No, my lady. One of the few ways to kill us is to remove or destroy the meng mein or the brain itself. Even our hearts can be healed, given time."
"Damn. Then we've got a serious problem."