Tony was deeming the portal a success. While it still might not have been tested yet, he was mentally patting himself on the back in celebration of his creation. Many had rolled their eyes at Tony's smug expression, but he chose to ignore them. There was no reason for him not to act a little conceited, he had just finished building a portable interstellar portal, for goodness sake. Modesty meant nothing in the field of science. With the combination of both Jane Foster's and his own genius, the duo had altered the plans of the Fenton's Ghost Portal to form a direct route to the Thunder-God's home, Asgard.
Looking over at the beautiful physicist, Tony watched Jane twitch in anticipation. Her fingers constantly tapped against her crossed arms and her eyes flicked between the main controls and the portal's gateway.
"Nervous?" Tony leaned over her shoulder and whispered playfully in her ear.
Jane, while full of tension and anxiety, didn't react to the invasion of her personal space, "A little," she admitted, glancing first at the generators then back at the portal.
Tony lent back to his full height and scanned the room for any notable progress. Scientists and lab assistants shuffled around hurriedly, reviewing notes and franticly tapping on computers. Tony found the once-open New-Mexico lab to be too crowded for his liking. He liked his solitude. However, despite his photographic memory and prodigal mind, he was not overly versed in astrophysics or Norse mythology. He had skimmed over it as a child before finding the stories inane to his mental development, hence the team of workers Jane had hired.
They were a waste of money in Tony's opinion, having basically the same amount of knowledge in the field as Tony did. But he was being generous, letting Jane take full reign of the project, with only his slight assistance every so often.
"Doctor Foster? Mr Stark?" Jane turned sharply towards the voice, Tony mimicking her at a lazier pace, "The portal is ready for activation. All systems are running at one hundred percent," announced one of the many faceless lab assistants.
Jane looked lost on what she was supposed to do next. Tony took charge, "Good. Galvanize all generators and run them at eighty-two – we don't want them to overheat for tomorrow. And double-check the astatine levels while you're at it. We're about to change history. Oh, and grab my phone, will you? I need to give my friend a call. He'd probably think this'd be pretty swell... for an old timer."
Jane threw Tony a confused look as the lab assistant hurried to do his bidding.
/ / /
Danny had an itch in the back of his throat he couldn't get rid of. He always got an itch when his ghost sense went off, but no ghosts had shown up in Amity Park in weeks, except for Vlad who'd taken over his room for the night, forcing Danny to run away to the ever-comforting cold, steel lab, filled with sharp pointy objects and big scary weaponry. It was still better than listening to the fruitloop sleep-talk though.
The rough scratchiness filled his throat again as he coughed lightly. Maybe he was just getting a cold. Shrugging off the thought and trying to ignore the itch, he continued rifling through the large cabinet where his parents kept their blueprints and plans.
It was Danny's chore to alphabetise them, although it would have been a lot easier if his parents had made any effort of sticking to the system, but they were always too overzealous about whatever big invention they had planned next to keep any sense of level-headedness, especially in their filing.
He was sorting through the letter 'O' now. Over half way. Danny was pretty relieved at that fact, having spent a good chunk of his night organising the files. Reaching the end of the folder, he moved on to the 'P' section.
Flicking through the blueprints, he paused. Skimming back to the front, he rechecked the folder of its contents, before hurriedly foraging through the rest of the cabinet. Reaching the end of the letter 'Z', Danny yanked out a slip of hastily scrawled-on paper along with his space-cadet pamphlet and growled. Tony was going to be in so much trouble when he got his hands on him.
/ / /
Whispers of excitement and expectation ran through the crowd of lab workers gathered around the large hexagonal frame, heads were bent to hide their murmurs and the portal's gateway received many apprehensive looks.
Tony stood in front of the metal structure, holding out his hands and gestured towards the room of quietened scientists, "Ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to consider something today. Each of you fine people have helped develop something that will change modern science permanently. Something that, up until this moment, had only been considered theory," Tony paused. Hearing the heavy silence teeming with eagerness, he continued, "Now, I present to you a revolution in astrological science. Based on my great colleagues, the Fenton's – er – generosity, we have come up with a method to create inter-dimensional gateways and allow humans to travel to other worlds relatively unharmed. In approximately seventeen minutes, we will begin our first test."
Applause broke out across the room. Jane seemed to lose some of her rigidness and stood with an easy-going smile. Stepping away from the portal, Tony found the atmosphere to have become much lighter and cheery, people mingled with one another as the countdown began.
Tony headed through the large glass doors, breathing in the crisp evening air. Exhaling, he looked up at the darkening sky.
"You know, for a place that looks so strange, this place is really hard to find," a voice called out from his left.
Swivelling his head around, Tony smirked at the man before him. Dressed in blue-washed jeans, a white button down and a duffel bag hoisted over his shoulder, stood Steve Rogers.
"Steve! How are you? I hope the flight in wasn't too much for your old bones?"
Steve snorted, "I'll live," gazing up at the modern glass building, he asked, "Now what was so important that you had to drag me out of bed at one in the morning?"
Tony stretched his arms out before dropping them by his side, "You seemed a little bored lately. I just thought you'd like to see something different. You're going to love this." Crooking a finger at the out-of-time man, he ventured back into the building, Steve following close behind.
/ / /
Steve gaped at the large metal structure in front of him. While he had seen some outlandish things in his life, including the Helicarrier, this had to be the strangest. The room was a mass of wires and lights, with a large hexagonal frame with heavy-looking metal doors seated directly in the centre, heavy-looking clamps holding the structure upright. Steve couldn't help becoming nervous at the scene in front of him. It reminded him a little too much of the mutational testing lab.
Walking up to the frame, Tony slapped a palm against it, "Isn't it beautiful? My one true love," Tony paused, "Don't tell Pepper I said that."
Steve hesitated, still uncomfortable, before asking, "Er… what is it?"
"A big hunk of metal that will help us change the idea of science permanently. More than either of us have yet to at least," Tony's eyes flashed to a large descending timer displayed on a monitor, "And we have one minute and forty three seconds to the homecoming of Jane's boyfriend."
"Who's Jane?" Steve asked.
"You'll meet her in a moment. She'll be the one squealing," Facing away, Tony called out, "Okay, everyone, to your places. Make sure those generators are all running – we wouldn't want to have a power-failure at a time like this, now would we? Let's get this over with. Jane, you coming?"
A pretty young woman in a lab coat trotted over and stood next to the two men standing by the frame.
The woman tilted her head back to look up at Steve, "Hi, Jane Foster. Are you Tony's friend, Steve?"
Steve blushed slightly, "I wouldn't exactly call us friends, ma'am, but close enough."
Tony had moved to stand next to a control panel, "Counting down in three, two, one…"
A gleeful smirk spread across the man's face as he pressed the button, retracting the heavy metal doors of the hexagon to reveal the other side.