Chapter 29

Sooo... Finally nearing the end. This fic has been so much fun to write, and it has been my most viewed-master piece!

Thank you all so much for the ongoing support from chapter 1 all the way to 30!

Into the late hours of the night, Tony was still in the workshop, and he still hadn't decided what he was working on.

He was back, and now he's locked up. Shouldn't that be a good thing? Tony kept wondering why he didn't feel like he was finished with Staine. He was in the fridge, he wasn't coming back. But maybe that was the thing. Tony had known 100% that Staine wasn't coming back before. Now, it was only a 99.9% that he wasn't coming back. And Tony didn't like those odds.

Doesn't matter, though, Tony told himself, going to finish the job would land him on SHIELD's bad side, and that was a bad place to be.

"Sir, if I may suggest, you haven't worked on anything for four hours. Why not use this time to rest?" Jarvis' clear British voice rushed through the speakers in the workshop.

"Sleep is for wussies." Tony shrugged, then to prove his point, he grabbed his tablet and set to work on a new suit.

"Butterfingers, I love you, but I wasn't kidding about the wine rack." Tony gently attached wires to the helmet of a suit, "Seriously move."

Butterfingers rolled across the room and pouted in the corner, making Tony feel slightly bad for snapping at him.

"Your guilt trip isn't working." Tony called over to him, but that only made him pout more.

Tony rolled his eyes and finished the helmet, "Alright, assemble the suit." He ordered Jarvis, then added, "Not on me, in front please." He'd learned from past mistakes that his suit's assembly mechanisms never really worked the first few times.

"Replace the gold trimming with silver, and I think we're... done." Tony said, tossing a rag back on his workbench after wiping his hands off.

"Silver?" Jarvis asked, fulfilling his request with the airbrushes, "Time for a change, then?"

"I think so." Tony nodded, admiring the silver and red shine of the new suit.

"Sir, Captain Rhodes is wondering where you are. He is present in the kitchen, I recommend you go up so that he doesn't assume that you've been billionaire-napped." Jarvis said sassily, earning a groan from his master.

"Fine, but while I'm gone, finish the top coat of paint and get the suit ready for deployment." Tony instructed, hopping up the stairs to the main room, where Natasha, Rhodey, Clint, Steve, and Bruce were already awake and eating breakfast.

"You were up early." Natasha said sarcastically. She knew full well what he'd been doing all night.

Tony decided it best not to argue with the Widow until she'd finish her coffee, so he went over to the machine and grabbed his own cup.

"Oh please, I bet he never even left the-!" Clint began, then stopped when Natasha looked at him like the idiot he could sometimes be. "Ohhhhhhhhhh!" Clint said after he figured out that yes, she had been being sarcastic.

"How do you not sleep. That'd be like, killing puppies." Clint murmured to himself until Natasha kicked him under the table.

"As much as I'd love to have this discussion again, Jarvis is doing my work for me at the moment." Tony shoved a muffin in his mouth, and with his now free hand, made a waving motion before going back down the stairs balancing his cup of coffee and half eaten muffin.

"How's the suit?" Rhodey yelled from the doorway, his voice booming over the music Tony had playing, which Jarvis then muted.

"Gettin' there." Tony answered, pressing an assembly button on his watch. The silver and red suit flew to him and assembled next to him in seconds.

"No gold?" Rhodey asked, after looking over it for a while.

"I swear, you and Jarvis have become twins." Tony said with a face-palm.

"So is the guy with the cape coming back anytime soon?" Rhodey asked after a while of walking around the new suit looking at the hidden weaponry.

"Thor? Wish I knew, space doesn't have cellphone reception though." Tony shrugged, pressing another button on his watch which made the suit fly swiftly back to it's place in the display case.

"Thor's back!" Natasha yelled through the commlinks, which were connected to the tower's speakers, sounding out of breath.

Something shattered in the main room, and Tony and Rhodey were suited up in record time.

"What's going on?!" Tony yelled through the comms, coming up to the main room to find Thor being followed through the bifrost's opening by multiple grey reptile-like creatures with purple laser shooters coming out of their eyes.

"Avengers Assemble!" Steve's voice boomed through the speakers, followed by a grunt as he threw his shield into an oncoming grey snake.

Hole in the sky. Gods, aliens, other dimensions.

This time though, when the memories flooded in, Tony used them to his advantage. What'd he do list time? Kicked ass. What should he do this time? Kick ass.

So many reptile-looking creatures flew through the bifrost's opening that the Avengers began doubting the ability to destroy them all. Natasha and Clint were on a roof, shooting arrows and bullets at the reptiles, lifted onto the roof by a now very green Bruce, who was smashing the aliens to pieces. Steve and Thor, like during the Chitauri invasion, stayed on the ground defending the streets. Tony, followed closely by a weirded-out Rhodey, flew into the sky and blasted the aliens to pieces...

But would the seven of them be enough?

CLIFFHANGER!

I love cliffhangers.

Well, not when I'm reading the story, but you get it. You don't get it? Well you do now. Get it? Got it? Good.

CAN'T WAIT FOR CHAPTER 30, JUST SAYIN'!

Favorite, Follow, and PLEASE REVIEW! For the FINAL chapter to come sooner!

-MarvelLuver