Of Inventions and Daddy Issues

Chapter 1: The Illegal Alien

For the 'Which Story Should I Write' Contest

Celebrimbor admired the Ring he had crafted as it lay in the palm of his hand, shining brightly golden with an emerald set amidmost. "Well, aren't you going to test it out?" asked Annatar, a challenging smirk on his face.

"Of course," said Celebrimbor, and set it on his finger.

The world shifted, and NOT in the way it was supposed to! The last familiar thing he saw was Annatar's face, now wearing an alarmed expression, and his hand, reaching for him. Then there was a kaleidoscope of color and sound, buffeting Celebrimbor beyond comprehension, and beyond bearing. He passed out, collapsing on the cracked asphalt.

Meanwhile, in a land called the USA, Tony Stark looked up as Bruce Banner entered the lab.

"I'm getting an interesting gamma ray burst," said Banner. "It looks a little like a bifrost signal, and a little like when Loki turned up to steal the tesseract."

"But not exactly like either?" asked Tony. "Where was it, and have you told the capsicle yet?"

"Some place called Darrington in Washington State, and no, I thought I'd see what we can find out before we pester Rodgers. It's pretty small, and it's already stopped. If I wasn't looking for things of that kind, I wouldn't have noticed it."

"Never heard of the place. Jarvis, pull Bruce's data up on the screen, and tell me what you know about Darrington, stat."

Tony's AI spoke: "Yes sir. Darrington: population 1,347 in the Stillaguamish valley, Snohomish county, Washington state. The economy is based mainly on timber harvesting and outdoor recreational tourism. There is a new craft brewery, and the town is also unofficially known for its illegal whiskey distilling…" Tony scanned the blip on the graph while listening to Jarvis's account of a blip-on-the-map called Darrington. At least the place had booze. That was something.

"Get me some satellite pics of the location," Tony said.

"Will do, sir." said Jarvis.

Bruce looked skeptical.

"Come on, you know I hacked the spy satellite system when I was fifteen," said Tony.

"Any ideas why our visitor would want to visit Darrington?" asked Bruce.

"Probably trying to avoid notice. Unless he stopped in for a drink."

"The pictures are ready, sir."

The pictures showed someone with long dark hair and medieval-ish clothing, standing in the middle of the road, and fiddling with something small he was holding in one hand. A couple with a small child was standing on the sidewalk gawking at him, but he didn't seem to have noticed.

"I'm calling Rodgers. He needs to see this, and I think we need the others as well." said Bruce.

"Go ahead," groaned Tony. "Why can't Asgard keep their juvenile delinquents to themselves? I'll head on out. You get the others. Jarvis, I'll need the suit." He began getting into the Iron Man suit.

"I have requested Captain Rogers, Black Widow and Hawkeye to come here, sir. Thor is unavailable due to being on Asgard."

"Shame, but we'll manage without Point Break. Tell the Captain I'll keep him informed via Jarvis." Tony powered up and headed out his special exit.

Unfortunately, even with the suit's speed it was going to take a while to reach Darrington, since it was over near the other coast of the USA. He could keep tabs on their target via Jarvis, so he did.

The presumed-Asgardian was very interested in the device, and barely raised his head to look around a couple of times while the local people pointed at him. The funniest part was when a car came rolling down the street. The man turned to stare at it, gawked as if he'd never seen a car before, then ran out of the road, over the sidewalk and – get this – scrambled up on top of the Overwaitea foods store. He stood looking at the car from there. After a minute or so, he went back to fiddling with the device.

Tony opened a channel to others now following in the quinjet. "Hey Cap, you've been watching the video?"

"Yes Stark, we have."

"Looks like our visitor's less homicidal than Loki. Nice turn of speed on him when pushed, though."

"His climbing skills aren't bad either." added Barton.

"We can't be sure of his intentions yet," said Romanoff. "Can you make out anything more about that device?"

"Sorry, that townlet's deficient in cameras to hack into, and the satellite images won't go that small. It might be connected to whatever device he used to get here, though. Are we even sure he wanted to go to Darrington? He doesn't seem very interested in the place when he's not about to get run over."

"You mean he might just be lost?"

"Don't know. I want a look at that device he's fiddling with, though, once we've arrested him." said Tony.

"A citizen's arrest, then. What are we arresting him for?" said Rogers.

"Being an illegal alien!" said Tony.

"Can you be serious for five minutes, just once when we're on a mission?" said Romanoff.

"Well he IS illegally on American soil AND he's an alien." said Barton. "I'm with Tony on this one."

"One of you Americans can make the arrest, then. I don't really care about your country's border laws." said Romanoff.

"I'll do it!" said Tony.

Some time later, Tony reached Darrington. Hoping not to alarm their target, he came down on the street about two blocks from the grocery store, and started walking. The downside of the Iron Man suit was that this wasn't exactly silent. Clank, clank, clank…

By the time he was next to the Overwaitea, the target had stuck the device in a pocket of his leather apron, and was staring at him. He didn't actually look much like Reindeer Games from this angle. His hair was dead straight, and much too long. Plus he couldn't imagine Loki would be seen dead wearing a battered and slightly singed leather apron like the one this guy had on. No armor or large weapons, either. He did have a small dagger with an intricately worked hilt, plus some small tools. Some nice workmanship on the knife. Had he made it himself?

Tony flipped the visor of his suit up. "Well hello there," yelled Tony. "Why don't you get off the roof so we can talk?"

The man looked at him and frowned. Tony tensed. The man said something – in a language Tony didn't even recognise. WTF? At least Loki spoke English! So did Thor.

"You getting that, Jarvis? What language is that?"

"I do not know, sir. It matches no files for any known earth language, although it appears to fall within the indo-european language family. It is unlike the chitauri tongue, or the few unfamiliar words asgardians have been known to use."

"Damn," said Tony. Just when he thought he'd got it figured out. Maybe this guy wasn't an Asgardian.

"Bonjour, parlez-vous francais?" tried Tony. No answer. "Guten tag. Sprechen Sie deutsche?"

The man spoke again, but it continued to be unrecognizable, and it definitely wasn't French or German. Tony kept trying, gradually working his way through greetings in every language he, or Jarvis, could think of.

The man appeared to be doing much the same, since sometimes it was a different kind of unrecognizable than others. Then he burst into song.

Tony gawked, and then started laughing. "We're not in a musical, buddy. I don't think that's going to help." he said.

After a few more bars, the man stopped. He sighed in obvious exasperation, muttering something under his breath.

That was when the quinjet decided to turn up. Their guest stared up at it, his face paling, and his eyes wide as saucers. "Back off, you're scaring him," Tony muttered to the others on the quinjet. "He's not Asgardian, and I don't think he's seen a plane before." The plane backed off, coming down a couple of streets away.

"Tony Stark," said Tony, thumping the suit's breastplate. "You?" he pointed at the stranger.

The man blinked, then thumped his own chest. "Celebrimbor Curufinwion," he said.