Toy Soldier 4

"OK," Xander said once they had everyone awake and ready to hear his story. "I dressed as Tony Stark, but someone screwed with things so when the spell hit, instead of becoming Tony Stark my mind was stuffed into his body."

"Who's Tony Stark?" Giles asked.

"Rich playboy superhero from Marvel Comics," Willow rattled off quickly.

"Seriously Giles," Buffy complained, "how can you not know this? He's Iron Man! I don't follow comics and even I know who he is."

"It's not like he's Judge Dread, Tank Girl, or the Doctor," Giles replied.

"Anyway," Xander interrupted them, "Tony is friends with a powerful magic user who was able to figure out what had happened and why I couldn't return to my old body."

"Dr. Strange?!" Willow exclaimed wide eyed.

"Exactly," Xander agreed. "Sharing a brain with Tony Stark made it simple to design a machine that could quickly clone me a body to have Dr. Strange move my mind to."

"And Tony Stark looked like a taller more muscular Xander Harris?" Giles asked doubtfully.

"No, but while working on making me a body, he decided to make himself one as well, and I got the benefits of his planned upgrades, which included free genetic surgery so I would look like me," Xander explained.

"How'd you get all the muscles?" Buffy asked.

"Gamma radiation exposure," Xander explained. "Not enough to hulk anyone or even turn our skin green, but enough to give us some major muscles in a short amount of time."

"At least we'll be able to tell you and Alexander apart," Giles said.

"Yeah, I'm a lot taller," Xander agreed.

Buffy groaned. "That's a horrible joke. Alexander is dust in the wind, Xander took his head off."

"Just how strong are you?" Giles asked, stunned at the thought of Xander ripping off a vampire's head with his bare hands.

"I used a sword," Xander replied, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, right," Giles replied embarrassed.

"It's you, it's really you," Willow said in wonder before jumping on Xander and holding him tightly. "Don't you ever do that again!" she ordered tearfully.

Xander wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back. "I promise, no more dying."

"It was horrible," Willow whispered. "He kept climbing up to my window and trying to get me to let him in."

"What? You should have told me!" Buffy exploded.

"I couldn't," Willow said. "You'd have killed him."

"He, I... it was already dead." Xander told her, "Elvis had left the building," he joked. "That was a demon wearing my corpse. Sure he had good taste in his choice of targets and my dashing good looks, but he wasn't me. I'm me and I wasn't in there."

"He was all I had left of you," Willow said sadly.

"Well I'm back and I'm not going anywhere," he promised.

"Why do you feel all hard?" Willow suddenly asked.

"Xander!" Buffy snapped, causing the two to stare at her until they realized what she meant and they both turned bright red.

Willow jumped off of Xander like he was on fire. "Chest all flat and solid... n-not that other kind of hard!" she sputtered out quickly.

"I've got body armor on for added protection," Xander explained, "you dirty minded girl you."

It was Buffy's turn to blush at that.

"Did you bring back anything from Marvel?" Willow suddenly asked, trying to distract herself from thoughts of Xander's... thing.

"Just me, body armor, clothes, and a sword," he told her. "Oh, and some gems."

"A sword?" Giles asked.

"Gems?" Jenny added.

"Just body armor?" Willow asked disappointed.

"Tony doesn't hand out his tech and you know what every government in the world would do to get their hands on it," Xander told Willow, tossing a Crown Royal bag to Jenny and pulling a sword out of his duster and handing it hilt first to Giles.

"These are... They're made out of precious gems, aren't they?" Jenny asked in shock as the Crown Royal bag was emptied on the table showing it was filled with dice of all types.

"Don't ask me where Tony got them," Xander said, "we didn't think of it while joined and he didn't mention it when he gave them to me."

"The gem value alone is insanely high but I think David Nesbit would give you his first born for those," Jenny said.

"This is Norse runes but I can't quite make them out," Giles said with a frown.

"It's called The Son's Daughter," Xander said. "Apparently it was made for Sif to kill... shadow spawn, but then she lost her hair and got it replaced with gold which made it seem a bit insulting, so Thor gave her a pair of goats instead. It's a bit of a pun in Norse apparently."

"Thor gave it to you?" Giles asked in shock.

"It makes me feel warm and tingly," Buffy said, obviously resisting the urge to grab it.

"Different universe, different rules, not our god Thor," Xander said.

"How much do you remember?" Willow asked.

"Everything," Xander replied. "And let me tell you, Stark's partial X-Gene goes nuts when he has guests over. We were running almost a dozen train of thoughts at once and forced to invent new tech like mad to keep from going crazy."

"Yoink!" Buffy said as she suddenly snatched up the sword while Giles looked through a book on runes.

"A four sider made of diamond with gold glued in places for the numbers," Jenny said in awe. "You could buy an apartment building in New York with just this one die."

"Do you still have the suped up brain?" Buffy asked.

"I'm a Campbell's soup kid," Xander agreed, causing Willow to give him a look that made him feel naked and made him very glad the cod piece under his pants was designed to hide any reaction. He mentally blamed his reaction on Tony. Tony's DNA was absurdly attracted to redheads and much more hormonal than he was used to.

Everyone flinched as the sword Buffy was swinging flashed like the sun causing a yelp of pain and a great deal of Gallic cursing to come from the stacks.

"Angel?" Buffy called out.

"It has some special features," Xander said blandly, desperately trying to hide is amusement.

"Give me a second," Angel called out, "it was like I was exposed to the sun for a moment."

'Thank god his hair gel acted as a filter to protect him from the harmful rays,' a part of Xander thought, amused but surprised himself by not immediately saying it.

Buffy reluctantly set the sword down and went to help Angel.

"That's a handy effect for when Angel's not around," Giles said sharing no concern for the vampire as he examined the sword.

"Thor made me his blood brother or something with that sword," Xander told him. "It is my new favorite weapon."

"Could you build a set of Iron Man armor?" Willow asked.

"The tech here doesn't exist for it," Xander told her. "Plus the cost would be insane and once more 'every government in the world would hunt me down for it.'"

"Can you build things other than the armor?" Jenny asked trying the Crown Royal bag shut.

"Sure, his armor was the culmination of a lot of different ideas coming together, he was still a genius and worked on a lot of different projects," Xander said. "Tony gave me the bag of gems so I could start my own business. He suggested I aim for something other than munitions though. I was thinking medical tech and home appliances myself."

"I'm still seeing spots in front of my eyes," Angel said, as Buffy lead him to the table.

'Nice to see you've been getting some sun,' Xander did not say aloud.

"No comments?" Angel asked Xander, surprised to see him alive, looking so different and not making smart ass comments.

"Yeah, what gives?" Buffy asked suspiciously.

Xander smiled broadly. "My new brain actually has a filter that keeps me from just saying everything I think"

"Tony always said whatever was on his mind," Willow said.

"Billionaire, genius, philanthropist," Xander said, "who built a suit of armor that let him go toe to toe with the gods."

"So he had a filter, but his ego was just so large he never bothered to use it," Jenny said in realization.

Xander grinned broadly.

Angel just groaned and rubbed his temples.

"What?" Buffy asked.

"He doesn't need to say the comments aloud any more, I'm so used to them my brain's going to automatically come up with them," Angel replied.

Xander just grinned.

Typing by Falkun