I Like this Little Thank You corner:) I think I'll keep it up!

discordchick: Oh, Quill's poor, misguided attempts at helping. I think that's why I love him.

amy. .9: Oh yes! Do watch GotG! You will get a kick out of it for sure! And thank you for the wonderful compliment:)

Ms. Hawkeye Thank you for reviewing and sticking with this! Things to come will hold a mighty big punch!

I Can Hear the Drums

Chapter 15

Tony sat in his private room with the glass of black scotch in his hand, considering just what he planned to do with it. He knew what Clint would say, which was the exact reason he hadn't contacted his friend and sober partner just yet. Clint would want him to put it down. Honor this little agreement they made in the rush of the moment; sobriety. The word tasted as bad as dry wine when he said it. He didn't have an alcohol problem.

At least, he didn't think so.

Stark returned the glass to his desk. He'd played this to and fro game for a couple hours now, as the artificial night fell down over the entire ship. Those who hardly ever slept, secluded themselves to the lower decks, allowing the mere mortals to have an uninterrupted eight hours of recharge. Tony was supposed to be taking advantage of that time. Instead, he often found himself lying awake at night, thinking of all those things he had already lost. It had been forty three days since Bruce Banner transformed into the Hulk and disappeared into the bow of a fleeing Kree Warship. In that time, an innumerable amount of events took place.

The Shi'ar Xavier anticipated to either remain neutral or join the War Council, instead turned the tables on everyone and aligned themselves with the Kree. They wanted to preserve peace and humanity in the galaxy. To do so, disarming the forces of Midgard seemed the only logical choice. The Skrull, who had to this point avoided taking sides, finally played their own hand, and were unsurprisingly joined to the ranks of the Kree. Three superior powers all bore down on Midgard's infant armada, the ships from the Nova Corps, a weak space fighter presence of Asgard, and the very backbone of Alfheimr. The lesser equipped galaxies of Oore, Dark, and Red all pledged what little they might spare, but they were no great armaments. For so long, their disputes rested at their own worldly borders. With the Nova Corps around to take care of trawlers, they required no need for great ships. What little they brought, Tony worked endlessly to retrofit.

Alfheimr, the once silent planet tucked in the very edge of the star charts, had become their savior. Rinon's ships were powerful and incredibly fast. No one knew precisely how many he had, not even the War Council. He might even fill the galaxy with their numbers. His silence on the topic frightened some. They questioned his motives, his loyalty, his very ambition. If this went sideways and they placed their entire faith in him, would they suffer at the hands of a dictator? Would he become the new Malaketh, a dark elf meant to destroy them all? No one had the answer to that but the leader himself, and unsurprisingly, he wasn't talking. The only ones who might support his character directly, was a motley crew at best.

Tony had met him on the field of battle when the Elf rode to Clint's rescue all those years ago. Thor had made a pact between Asgard and Alfheimr with Rinon, declaring peace between their nations. Odin, himself, owed his life to Rinon. They'd fought in the first Frost Giant war together, where Odin found and took Loki in. Rinon risked his own life to save the Asgardian king then. Such a favor was not easily forgotten. For the safety of their people, the lone queen Aralahael returned to Alfheimr with no plans to leave its border. Kings and queens needed to rule, to keep balance, and to guard those beneath them. She had no such talent for war, like her predecessor had. She left the efforts in Rinon's hands.

There was a gentle knock on Tony's door. It was either an Elf coming to fetch him with no idea of the proper protocol for Midgardian time zones, or another lost soul looking for commiseration in the dead of night. He took the glass off the table with the bottle of booze, and slipped them into his drawer. He thought of Clint's father as he did it. The man was a drunk. Even decades after his death, Tony had found four forgotten liquor-filled bottles stashed around his trailer. Clint only wanted the best for him. Hiding his bottles like that old man did only helped cement the archer's fears.

"Come in." He said.

The door sprang back to reveal a tall, blond figure. His chest was framed in a light grey shirt, and a pair of navy sweats that served as sleepwear this far away from the nearest Walmart. Steve leaned against the jamb. "I thought I might find you up."

"Cause you were? What, not off writing a VE-day speech for all the little people we will thank when this has ended?" Tony leaned back in his chair, and stacked his legs on top of his desk. The holographic, digital files scattered around him.

"You aren't packing to follow Linnor's ship."

"I've already packed." Tony replied.

Steve harrumphed. He took a few strides inside, and let the door close automatically behind him. Tony only had one chair in the room, so he headed to the small port-hole window and looked down into the vast Vanaheim oceans where they orbited. The world was appreciably quieter after the second Kree attack. All of their work shifted underground, and progressed at an astounding speed. Alfheimr's new masons combined with the Drio's dwarves in such numbers, that competency and speed were driven to other-worldly standards. By the end of the Midgardian week, they expected one quarter of the new fleet to be complete. In a month, it would be not only finished, but in the air and operational. How Rinon had churned out such efficiency in his people, Steve could only speculate.

Tony's special project, a ship that could take all the energy of Galactus and feed it into a continuous loop to trap the being for all time, was the top of their priority list. He'd worked day and night since the minute Clint left to sort out his calculations and higher mathematics to make sure it worked seamlessly. His hands were tied, though, unable to stay planet side and see the Bethlehem Star completed himself. The front needed Banner and Banner wasn't there. Tony was going to correct that himself though Steve tried to convince him out of it.

"Are we doing the right thing?" Steve asked, looking down at that world.

Tony chuckled, and considered busting out that bottle of scotch.

Steve looked at him through the reflection of the porthole glass. "I'm serious. Maybe Ligsri is right. None of us know anything about these Sarhorns, who they are, or where they come from. Why are we banking so much on them?" He turned away from the world now to consider his friend. "Tony, how'd we even get here?"

Never the one to miss an opportunity, Stark smirked. "Well, when two scientific minds really love each other, they come together and have what is called a brain child. And from that one encounter, a spaceship is born, which aligns even the evilest of powers with the good, like Loki Laufeyson and Clint Barton."

Steve didn't take the bait. "Are we sure we understood him right? I mean, we were all so focused on Clint and getting him better."

"You know what your problem is? You are letting a Frost Giant, whom I don't even completely understand when it comes to why he agreed to join us, get into your skull."

The Captain shrugged. He was too weary with his heavy thoughts to argue.

Tony went on, "I know what I heard. And I know what I saw. I might have no idea how, or why, or what the motives are for the Sarhorns to tell us everything we know. But I trust my own experience. I saw that thing climbing out of this black hole, and try to swallow up a billion lives. If we stop now, and that happens, how could we ever sleep at night knowing we could have stopped it and gave up trying?"

Steve folded his arms. Tony Made incredibly valid points. "I thought I was the one working on a VE-Day speech."

Tony grunted. "Yeah, well, I was brooding. You bothered me."

"Thinking about them out there?"

"You'll have to be more specific."

Steve pushed off from the window, crossed to the bed, and sat down. He let his upper half fall into the mattress. He and Tony might have been partners, teammates that were nearly close enough to be called friends. But the man was also incredibly frustrating. He wasn't sure why he ended up in Stark's room for consolation in this hour of doubt. Maybe because he'd tried Natasha first, and she turned him away at the door. She planned to leave with Tony by the artificial morning. It bruised him a little to feel that rejection. He wasn't crazy. She was a legitimately married woman who once had a fling with him. Her heart was never in it, not the way it had been with Clint, but Steve made the tragic mistake of getting too close to her. She wasn't called the Black Widow for nothing. He'd actually fallen into that trap, which had claimed so many other targets in her past. She had the keen ability to put on that happy face and continue on, as if the entire world revolved around one man, and one man alone. The time that she let herself pretend to adore Steve, was the happiest in the Captain's life. He couldn't seem to abandon that hope. Merely being around her was like a drug he couldn't shake. Then, with Clint's second marriage, it seemed Steve had everything he could have ever wanted. Natasha clung to him more, seeing Clint's happiness and never wanting to interrupt it. When Marie died, all of Steve's dreams died with her.

"How does he do it?" Steve asked.

Tony opened his drawer to consider the bottle hidden inside, and then he wondered a second time why he was hiding a bottle at all. "Who does what?"

Steve sat up. "Clint. How does he do this to us? The entire reason we're even here is to try and keep him from jumping. The entire reason we even got here was to try and save him from cancer. He has more friends off of our planet than on it. Every girl that meets him wants him. How did this happen?"

Tony slid the drawer shut. "If you would get over yourself for a minute and think of the big picture, then you might realize that we aren't just trying to save Clint. We're all apart of this stupid galaxy. All of our lives are on the line. It's weird that I'm saying this to you. Seems like we had this conversation before but I was on the receiving end of you. Besides, that's his super power."

Steve blinked, but didn't say anything. The concept never really dawned on him that way.

"I never liked the guy, not at first. He came to me for help, and I told him no. That decision actually almost killed him too. His father hated him. I can't tell you how many times he left Clint bleeding on the kitchen floor. Everyone in SHIELD turned against him. Fury turned his back on him. The world itself, the entire population of planet Earth, and, for a little while, myself included, all looked at Clint like a two-bit has been, ex-Avenger. You did that too. His own brother took from him the only real and great thing in his life, and murdered it before his eyes. Our government arrested him and whipped him, in public, as a traitor. He had a wife. Twice. He saw his ex murdered in his arms in the last big war and the other died the same day as his baby."

Tony was digging up history. He reminded Steve of Clint's abusive father, the day he was possessed by Loki and nearly killed everyone on the Helicarrier, and the time he left SHIELD, the Avengers, and the hero business behind to become the world's most hated person just to uproot the HYDRA infection. People robbed him when they passed him, beat him senseless, shot him, stabbed him, and left him breathless in emergency rooms all because they hated him. And Tony was also right; for a little while, Steve had fed into the lies, though he would never admit it. That was a darkness in his heart he could never quite escape.

"And what do we know about Clint now? He wanted my help, and even knowing me is what nearly killed him. The people he killed under Loki's possession were all members of HYDRA he'd been investigating all along. He took all the world's hate on himself, all so he could find HYDRA for this team and take them out. The only reason our government took him, was because he helped save thousands of mutant lives by getting them out of our country. That's his super power. He doesn't try to be a hero. He is one. Even when he doesn't know anyone is watching. He's our humanity, Steve. A check and balance. He is the only one on this team who will call us out on our own bull. You're America's boy, that's your agenda. I'm rich, I want to change things. That's my agenda. Clint . . . He doesn't have an agenda. He came from nothing, and there is no reason he wouldn't go back to that to save even a single life."

Steve chewed on those hard words Tony pushed at him. He knew Stark was right. He told himself all those same things in the past. Clint could never be assigned a value to the team, he was that important. He'd been there since the very beginning, risking his life and limb to support them every single day. He didn't always make it out unscathed, and very rarely did they leave a mission with Clint completely intact. But that never mattered to him. In fact, he tried to hide his humanity more than he displayed it. In one of their darkest days, when Scarlet Witch had literally taken over the world, and the only way to stop her rested in a death sentence, Clint accepted the job with no second thought. He would make that sacrifice play every single time. Steve and he were a lot alike in that respect. Perhaps that is what attracted Natasha to him at all.

"You sound very red-white-and-blue when you take that kind of tone," Steve said, smiling.

"Yeah, well, I was brooding, and that's my brother you're talking about."

"You aren't actually related."

"Neither is Thor and Loki."

"Yeah, but they were at least raised together."

Tony leaned forward. He pulled down the collar of his shirt to display the ring of rope burn still circling his neck. "When that Kree hanged me in the middle of his warship after attacking New York, just to destroy the confidence of the rest of our heroes, Clint shot him in the face, on live television, and saved my life. You didn't. T'Challa didn't. And Hank Pym sure as hell didn't either. Then Clint found his way on board, piloted a spaceship out of our atmosphere, and crashed it, imagining that he was never going to make it out alive. Then he found me, dragged me out of the rubble with my broken neck, and bartered us a trip back home from Mars." Tony rested back in his chair. "No, we weren't raised together, but he's still my brother."

Tony's desk pulsed suddenly at the far left corner. A communication was coming in from a different ship. He dropped his feet to the floor, hovered his hand over the beacon, and pulled up. The call log expanded to hover over his desk. Clint's face appeared.

"Speak of the devil, we were talking about you," Tony said. "I think someone on the playground is jealous."

"Oh, shut up, Tony," Steve said, though he smiled. He stood from the bed and walked over for the camera to pick him up. Clint looked a little worse for wear. The last time they spoke, he explained the problem with the onboard automated piloting system. He was forced into twelve hour flight shifts with Loki. The toll was apparent.

"How you holding up?" Tony asked, masking the concern in his voice.

"Guess who I found?" Clint asked, ignoring his question.

"Finally!" Steve exclaimed. "Where are you?"

"Cross Lake. It's a moon between Oore, Hyth, and Red. Denali Rizzo, Bill's cousin? He has a diner here, and gave me the tip."

Steve wasn't familiar with Cross Lake in particular, but the corner of those three systems did bring something to his mind. "Clint, that's awful close to the Black Hole."

"I know. It's only a day's travel from here. Pete says he doesn't have the Gauntlet yet. I'm leaving our Quinjet here with Denali, and the two of us are boarding the Milano. I think Pete's holding something out on us, but I don't know just what it is yet. I'm going to snoop around once I'm on board. Any word on Bruce?"

"We've been tracking him for the past month. Finally the ships are gathering together. Rinon sent two teams, one with Linnor flying lead, and the other with a friend of his, Lirrie, in a support ship. They're joining Logan, T'Challa, and Storm in one of our new long range cruisers and heading straight past Midgard. They think the Kree are operating out of an old base near Svartalfheim's moon, Krith. We'll know more by tomorrow when I head out with Natasha and Rinon."

Clint nodded as he absorbed the information. Krith made sense. He didn't know it personally, but the Svartalfheim he did. It was the place where Malekith and the Dark Elves were banished to by an ancient, and still living, former king of Alfheimr by the name of Doodle Bygrove. As far as Clint knew, the larger world was uninhabitable, making the moon a logical choice for a base of operations. It was strategically promising for anyone hoping to control the Mars Portal, as only Midgard and it's cluster of planets stood poised between both Krith and the entire Kree Empire.

"Have we sent any support back home? That's awful close if they feel like squeezing us in." Clint asked.

Tony answered, "That's Logan's job. Once they find Bruce, they're going to scout the place out. If it's nothing, they stay by Earth. If it's something, we're going to have to deal with it which is why Rinon, Tasha and I are bringing up the rear. We leave in a few hours."

Clint looked down as he turned the notion over in his mind. Something wasn't sitting right with him, but he didn't share precisely what that may be. "What about your project? The Bethlehem Star? Is it ready to suck Galactus into a vacuum?"

"Almost. Faraday brought some of the Alfheimr scientists with him. Between them and the Nova Core, I finally have someone that understands what I'm trying to do. They think the system will be operational in the next three weeks."

Steve agreed. "I don't like the idea of splitting this up on multiple fronts, but that's what we've been given, and we have to make do."

Clint nodded his understanding. He raised his head, rubbed the scruff on his chin and said, "All right. I'll check in again when I know more. Tony, start trying to design ways to track the Gauntlet. I was thinking of using the old plans from Loki's staff, and how we tracked that before. Do you have those? Keep it buried though, I don't want Pym accidentally getting his hands into something he can't control. You know what? Do me a favor and send him to Cross Lake. He can pick up the cruiser Loki and me are leaving behind. This is a good time to get started really tracking the Gauntlet, if he's off your ship."

"Since I'm leaving with Rinon, I can pick up whatever equipment I need while I'm by Midgard." Tony replied. "It's not going to be easy. Bruce cracked the code first. I'll backtrack through his data and see what I can manage. The other problem is this scale. I don't have sensors placed throughout the galaxy, monitoring gamma data. Even if I did, the fluctuations would be astronomical. To coin a phrase, that is."

"What do you need to make it easier?"

Tony shrugged. "An Infinity Stone."

Clint laughed, shaking his head. Once the stones were assembled in the Gauntlet, a great power was required to force them to separate. Vision, who had been entrusted with the Mind Stone for years lost the power when the first Infinity War struck them. In essence, Tony's request was a pipe dream. "Ok, sure, I'll get right on that. I've got to run. Keep me posted. Clint out."

"He seemed confident." Steve remarked as Clint faded away.

Tony didn't want to say what he thought. He wanted to get Steve out, if only to dive into the waiting bottle in the darkness of his thoughts. "Look, I'm beat. I might actually sleep for a little bit, so clear out and gimme a shot at it."

Steve was surprised at the idea, but relented. He pushed off the desk, and took a long fading glance at the spinning Vanaheim world. "Try to get some sleep, Tony. And be careful out there," The Captain said, then disappeared through the door.

Tony settled into the darkness a second time. He'd been charged with an important task that same day Clint's death sentence was signed. He needed to build a ship. But not just any ship; this one required specifications that the minds of mortal men had not even begun to imagine. The inner workings were complex, scientifically improbable, and never before attempted by even the most advanced minds in the galaxy. Only Tony Stark's Sarhorn-given equations held any hope of completing it, and trusting those detailed workings to others had only resulted in disaster. In essence, he'd been told to build an Ark, without boards, nails, hammers, or help of any kind.

The Kree and Shi'ar were banding together like a tangle of attack dogs. Haladarrel was dead, and word reached them that Doodle Bygrove, the distant relation of Haladarrel, was now in poor health. The old elf was nearing seventy-five hundred years. He'd taken the murder of his king and kin very hard.

Tony's hands were tied to his desk. He wanted to work on the ship, but he couldn't spend more than a few days on Vanaheim without risking a fast old age. The dwarves and elves helped where they could, but he needed to be there, to touch and feel and make sure every part of the ship's containment unit worked the way he required it too. Bruce and Clint were gone. He couldn't trust Hank Pym. T'Challa became more distant the longer he struggled with his coming betrayal. And now, even Steve had his doubts. The only one he had left to really rely on was Rinon, and even that former king suffered heavy scrutiny at present.

Only adding to Tony's overwhelming anguish was his own mortality. The worlds might make a great deal of Clint's mortality, which was a keen focus for Stark, but they often overlooked something he tried to hide himself. Tony wasn't anymore super-soldier than Pepper Potts. He might have full use of his body again years after his neck snapped under the Kree warrior's noose, but that didn't mean he wasn't still an old man and getting older. He had a knee full of arthritis, a shooting pain down his spine form and old chip fracture, and a wrist full of bony spurs. All the experts say that drinking kills livers. Well, his already took a nose dive. Keeping Clint alive was a worthy distraction from his own looming death. Tony Stark had liver cancer, and short of some young buck donating him a new one, or him magically regrowing one, he was going to die before Galactus ever showed up.

He opened his drawer, removed the bottle, and poured himself a glass. He was already dying. What did a little more poison in the pot matter? He'd ask Clint to forgive him for it later.

:(:):(:):

Jetlag didn't exist in space. At least, that was Natasha's opinion. She deserved the ability to sleep when she planned to, wake when she wanted, and not be interrupted by the constant movement of those creatures who did neither. That, unfortunately, wasn't the case. Steve was up late, not a surprise, but the last thing she needed was to stroke his tender affections. It was cute on Earth, but she'd moved on, and he obviously hadn't. If he'd been any other ex-boyfriend, she might have been more forceful, and dangled him from a skyscraper and left him there. Clint wanted her to be nice, never an easy task, but she decided to humor his sensibilities.

Her room was no longer safe from his attempts at a late night conversation, so she decided to work out instead. She'd spent much of her life keeping her physical abilities at peak performance without Clint as her partner. While a different routine wasn't easy to fall into, it would help her grow into a more efficient fighter. Perhaps she'd even find one of Xavier's mutants to spar against.

Within fifteen minutes of reaching the gym, setting her things out, and combing the participants for a worthy opponent, she saw him. Steve, apparently having little success in other conversations, made his way into the gym as well. Inwardly, she groaned. He did little else nowadays that didn't include firing his bow at every target he could think to create. The video of him getting an official beat down from Clint's masterful arts had affected him greatly. Natasha watched it. Twice. While there was an air of importance to the lesson, she knew that Clint enjoyed it, just a little bit. Some people liked to give him grief for being a mere man, but it was displays like that which reminded the world of his value, not as a person, but as an Avenger. Besides, what human with a XX chromosome didn't enjoy watching their husband destroy their wife's ex?

It was a typical thought in her mind. She cared little about the feelings of others, especially those she'd moved on from. She didn't like to dwell on past relationships, as, more often than not, they were based on a fake identity to begin with. She held no real animosity for the Captain. He simply fell for her like every other man did. It was good to know her old talents hadn't gone by the wayside, even after Clint made an honest woman out of her. She might have even decided to spar with the Captain, but while her own feelings might have subsided long before, his had not. It wouldn't be fair.

Deciding against staying, she packed her things into her towel, and slipped out the side door. There were still four other massive training rooms to tuck into that didn't include watching Captain America, diving from a forty foot drop, only to miss his ceiling-arranged targets. No one could say he wasn't trying his hardest to be Clint's sacrificial lamb but the facts remained. Clint was irreplaceable.

The first ante-room held a few of Nova Corps' men, all full of sweat and missing their shirts. Some dove behind their lockers, as if to hide themselves from the sight of a woman. No matter where they existed in the galaxy, men couldn't help certain sensibilities. Others, however, noticed the illustrious Black Widow enter their midst, and hiked a leg up on the shared bench, raising an eyebrow seductively in her direction. Natasha strode by and ignored them. She still had that heart-stopping swagger.

Natasha passed the line of them, and exited their side of the gym to enter the smaller women's quarters a flight of stairs below. She sought out a quiet corner in the lines of endless lockers where the lights had flickered out with their unfired motion sensors. They blinked awake at her entry, and illuminated the little bench she sank against. Not for the first time, she considered her poor decision making.

She should have gone off to the little Svartalfheim moon with Logan, Storm, and T'Challa. Linnor would have been entertainment enough. She might have insisted in following Loki and Clint. Barton had set himself against that. They might have been married, but he still wanted to keep her at a distance. He said it would help her get strong enough to live without him. She said he was full of crap. She'd survived well and good for the last half a century with no one in her life. Natasha didn't intend on losing Clint at all. His death, should it come, may hurt for a season, but she was confident in her ability to overcome that and move on with her life. He'd called her bluff on that point, and maybe he was right.

A pair of knuckles rebounded off one of the tin structures, drawing Natasha's attention to a newcomer. Her water bottle slipped from her fingers, and splashed against the floor. Slowly, she got to her feet.

"It's you! What are you doing here? How did you get here?" Her voice took all the authority of a child as it escaped her taught vocal cords. Across from her, the Sarhorn leaned on the row of lockers. His hands remained stuck into the pockets of his red hoodie sweatshirt. Tufts of gold and brown hair peaked out from beneath the covered hood.

"Hello again." He said.

"It isn't time yet!" She shouted, finding more strength in it. Natasha took a step toward him. She began to shake with fear and excitement. "Has something happened?"

"Nothing has happened yet." He told her.

"Then what – "

"I have a message for you."

Her throat ran dry. The last time he brought news, the galaxy was thrown into utter chaos. She regretted ever leaving Earth to find the creatures. They'd brought her only pain and misery, interspersed with moments of happiness. A dark cloud overshadowed every good thing in her life now, because of the messages he'd brought them.

"You can save him, Natasha Romanov. But you must listen very closely. What is to come will not be easy. You must do exactly as I say. Things are changing. Time is going to shift." The Sarhorn whispered, leaning closer. He spoke like an old friend and conspirator. A gleam of enchantment crossed his face, and seemed to beckon her in. Natasha's entire body lightened. If it were possible, she might have floated away. "What may happen is only one of many paths to take, but you must do as I say. You are not the only moving cog in this great clockwork. You must make allies, but you must also learn to fear."

What? WHAT!?

What does this mean? What does this change for their supposed future, predicted in the prologue? Is Natasha the key to stopping it all? AND OMG TONY! Aging sucks, and it was only a matter of time before his lifestyle caught up with him.

Next time: Clint discovers a secret, and Loki's past comes knocking