3. Security Breach

The intruder was a boy. A teenager. And judging by the way he dressed in a worn-out blue hoodie and ragged trousers and no shoes, homeless as well. The boy had pulled his hood up, but Tony could still see the glint of icy blue eyes in the dim light. The boy's pale hand clutched a long, crooked staff that was probably meant to be used as a weapon, seeing how the kid definitely didn't need it for support. Tony blinked. Great. His tower's state-of-the-art security had been breached by an underage hobo. Something definitely wasn't right here.

The boy had by now walked across the room, and his free hand was already reaching for the tooth box. Now, that wouldn't do.

"Lights," Tony said clearly.

The room was lit up brightly, and the boy jumped backwards in surprise, blinking rapidly and pointing his stick at Tony. The boy's spindly legs bent in preparation to bolt, but Tony raised his hands in what he hoped was a calming gesture.

"Hi," he said to the boy, "Nice night, isn't it? Now would you mind telling me what the hell you think you're doing here?"

The boy's eyes were wide with shock, and in the light Tony could see that the kid looked deathly pale. If the kid hadn't just suddenly appeared into his penthouse without any warnings and somehow fooled most of his cameras, Tony could have thought of him just a poor soul searching for warmth indoors.

"You..." the boy finally spoke, in a voice that was a bit shaky from what Tony assumed was still shock, "You can see me?"

Okay. Weird. Tony crossed his arms.
"Sure I can. You fooled most of my cameras, but you're there, and I have two functioning eyeballs."

The boy looked around as if searching for the cameras and then some strange realization dawned on his pale face.
"Oh, you believe what you see with those machines. That explains it, I guess."

Then, in just a few seconds, all the traces of shock were wiped out from the kid's demeanour and he swung the stick over his shoulders.
"Well, as nice as this is, talking to an adult and everything, I'm just here to get something back."

Tony glanced at the box the exact same time the kid did.
"That box is yours?" he asked calmly.

"Nah," the boy said, "It's my friend's. It was stolen and she wants it back."

Tony took a few strategic steps to the side, closer to the table with the box. The boy's glacial eyes followed him warily, with vigilance that Tony had seen in the eyes of many agents and soldiers.

"You know, I'd gladly believe you, kid," Tony said and casually pretended to lean to a bar stool, all the while keeping his weight balanced so that he could spring to action at any time, "But you've kind of made yourself suspicious by sneaking into my tower. Do you know who the last intruder in my house was?"

The boy just shrugged his shoulders.
"I'll just take the box and get out. I promise."

"Uh, no, you won't," Tony said, "First I want some answers."

The boy was silent, still staring at Tony. It was unnerving, really. There was something off about the kid. Hell, there were a lot of things off about the kid. Especially the too-bright eyes. If Tony hadn't known Loki was in custody he would have suspected the kid to be under Loki's mind-control. But if Loki had somehow got free this quickly, the Asgardian security must have been laughable. And the kid didn't really seem mind-controlled. He was far too relaxed, too natural for that.

"What is that box?" Tony asked when the kid didn't seem to want to talk any more.

The boy's gaze wandered towards the box again. Tony's entrance had scared the kid away from the table, but he was still far too close to it for Tony's liking. Tony moved a step closer.

"It's just for memories," the kid said quietly, "Nothing you need to care about."

"I found that outside after that explosion," Tony said in a voice that was so friendly it was dangerous, "You know, the weird light thing. It was all over YouTube and everything."

The boy shrugged again. This was getting annoying.

Tony took another step and lunged for the box.

He moved a split-second before the kid did, but, as Tony learned when he crashed against the now empty table, this advantage wasn't enough. The kid jumped onto the table, grabbed the box and jumped off just before Tony's arm impacted the wooden corner. Tony stumbled, but managed to stay standing, lashing out almost blindly and catching a handful of hood. A very cold hood. He yanked the kid back, the kid gasping in surprise and falling into a heap of gangly limbs. The hood fell off the kid's head exposing messy, bleached hair. The tooth box slipped from the kid's fingers and rolled into a corner. The kid quickly tore himself free of Tony's hold and backed away, his stick raised defensively in front of him.

"Hey! Not nice!" the kid snapped accusingly.

There was a strange rattle somewhere in the corner where the box was. Tony spun around and saw the box suddenly rising into the air, wobbling in place for a while before steadying itself.

"Hey!" Tony shouted and decided it was time to actually start using the security system he had so proudly congratulated in his mind a few moments ago.

He took a few steps towards the box. He opened his mouth to voice his commands to JARVIS, but just then the kid's body collided with him, knocking them both over. Tony ended up on his back, and the kid's bare feet were planted firmly on his stomach. The dead wood of the kid's staff pressed threateningly against Tony's chest, right where his arc reactor was located.

"Don't touch her!" the boy growled, his voice suddenly colder than liquid nitrogen.

Her? Had Tony missed someone? Tony squinted at the floating box. To be fair, the fact that there was something holding it in the air would make more sense than it just floating on its own. And now that he looked closer at it, there indeed was a small speck of fluttering rainbow holding the box. A hummingbird?

The hummingbird fluttered over to the boy. It was holding the box firmly in its... hands? Okay, so it wasn't a bird after all. The boy nodded to the tiny bird-woman and fished out a gleaming snowglobe from his pocket. Tony decided he didn't even try to make sense of what was going on at the moment. The kid had knocked the wind out of him, and the kid's feet were freezing and hindering Tony's efforts to catch his breath. That was something a bit more real that he could focus on.

"Ready?" the kid asked the bird-woman. It nodded and chattered in a shrill voice. The boy turned back to Tony, his too-bright eyes apologetic, "Hey, sorry about this."

"What-?"

The kid's stick impacted with Tony's skull, and for a second Tony saw stars. There was a strange, warped sound somewhere to his left, and a flash of light chased the stars away. The kid's barely existent weight left Tony, and Tony rolled to his feet even as his vision was recovering. He could barely catch a glimpse of a wormhole in his living room before it closed, leaving him alone.

Tony spared another look around the room. The table the box had been on had toppled over. Tony realized his T-shirt was coated in a fine layer of frost. His head was still hurting, solid proof that he was very much awake and hadn't just got really drunk and hallucinated the whole thing.

"JARVIS?" Tony called, surprisingly calm despite the situation.

"Yes, sir?"

"What the hell just happened?"

"Ya did what?" Bunnymund gasped.

"Bunny, he just told us what he did," North said helpfully, "I think it was job well done."

"He hit a bloke in the face!"

"Head," Jack corrected, feeling it was necessary to be specific, "The side of his head. I even saw him getting up before I left. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't have him following me! And freezing a guy isn't as safe as the cartoons make it look!"

"Ya mean you have tried that?" Bunny asked.

"No!" Jack said defensively, realizing too late he had said it too quickly, "Look, I got the box back. That Stark-guy will have a headache for a while but otherwise, no harm done."

"Stark?" Tooth repeated, "Anthony Stark is the man who saw you?"

"Yeah, that really rich guy who likes to fly around in a metal suit. The same guy who bumped into Sandy the other night."

"Bumped into" might be a bit inaccurate, seeing how the metal man had flown right through Sandy, almost causing the poor dream weaver to fall off his dreamsand cloud in shock. The others looked at each other with worry. Jack had a sinking feeling he had messed something up. He was regrettably good at that.

"Guys?" he asked carefully.

North was quick to lay a large hand on his shoulder.
"No need for worries yet," he said reassuringly, "But men like Stark seeing us as threat is never good."

Sandy made a few sand-images of sleeping people and then waved his hands in a manner that seemed to wipe away all the bad memories.

"Sandy is right," Tooth said, "Most adults who somehow manage to see us usually dismiss us as dreams or just forget about us very quickly."

"But for a while, you should be extra careful," North added, "Is always good to be alert."

Jack nodded. To be fair, being seen by an adult was a very exciting concept for him. It was deemed very rare even among the most popular spirits, and now Jack, who had spent centuries being invisible to everyone, had pulled it off, even if it was mostly just because Mr. Stark trusted his electronic eyes so much. He would have gladly visited Mr. Stark again, if just to mess with him a little. But the others were right: Stark was a powerful man in more than one way. It was probably best if he didn't play with fire.

He hoped Mr. Stark wouldn't decide to bring the fire to him either. It could get very messy very fast.

Nick Fury watched the reports pile up. After the strange energy phenomenon in the sky above Manhattan, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been extra meticulous in surveying the area. There was definitely no need for anything like the Chitauri so soon. All alien forms of energy needed to be investigated, so S.H.I.E.L.D.'s field agents had been equipped with some cutting-edge scanners for catching sight of the energy signals before they could turn into something more than just fireworks. To be fair, these energies weren't completely alien. Fury had seen hints of them before in his work. And it made him determined to make sure it would be S.H.I.E.L.D. that solved this before the Pentagon would decide to take too much interest in it. In light of that, they were quickly running out of time.

"Look at that," said agent Hill, pointing her slim finger at one of the screens, "One of our men got some interesting shots near Stark's tower."

Fury looked. Indeed, it seemed the strange cold wave that had swept over New York after that night had a source. And that source had stayed for a long while in close proximity of the Stark Tower just a few hours ago. It had disappeared all of a sudden, but it had been there. It could have been a coincidence, but one didn't believe in such things in Fury's line of work. It was time to contact Stark again.

Author's Note: So last time I sort of debated whether to put this and Chapter 2 together so I decided not to and instead promised myself to update this really fast. After this I might slow down with the updates a bit because I need to do some maybe heavy-handed editing for the chapters following this one. Like I said: I probably stretched the belief-rules a bit, seeing how it was enough for Tony to believe there was someone in his room to see Jack, and the same with Baby Tooth - who was probably in Jack's pocket at the time Tony checked the cameras or was simply so small Tony didn't pay attention to her... Hopefully that's not too distracting.

Everyone's still being so awesome! Thank you all so much! And for SongOfTheBirds: I gladly accept your hug and hug you back, feeling very much loved!

The idea of Tony flying through one of the Guardians was thanks to Kagirinai-Eternal. Thanks again!

The last intruder in Stark Tower before Jack was of course Loki in the film.

Oh, and Tony didn't do all that well in this chapter, but hey, the guy was just woken up and had a weird sub-zero homeless kid and a hummingbird-woman in his room so give him a break. And I have a feeling Tony will have a rematch with Jack in the future... *evil laugh*