Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Norns weave stories, tell tales. They run the thread of the Universe and they narrate, and we can only watch and listen and live.

The story starts with a King.

All the stories start with a King.

The story starts with a good King, who is a bad man. He believes himself a fair man, and he is powerful. He schemes and fights, and gathers gold, and tricks, and steals. He thinks himself superior, this King, he thinks himself always right, never wrong.

Until he has a daughter.

A beautiful daughter, kissed by Death, gifted by the Norns, plucked straight out the firmament of stars.

Daughter of Odin, daughter of Farbauti.

With her mother's dark hair, and her father's light eyes.

Just like this, the Goddess of Death is born.

He names her Hela, and she is his starseed.

She is the apple of his eye, she is the most beautiful treasure he has ever held. More precious than the gold of Vanaheim, than the crystals of Jotunheim, than the minerals of Midgard.

Odin and Farbauti gaze upon their daughter, and they love her so. Hela was born out of passion, not love, but their love for her is more than enough. Even after Farbauti moves to Jotunheim as ambassador for the Aesir on the planet and Odin and Hela remain on Asgard, they love her, and they make sure Hela knows this.

She is his daughter, she is his starseed, and Odin would gladly give up his life for her.

She is the most beautiful of the ladies at Court. The most clever scholar Asgard has seen in a long time. The most capable sorceress among Mimir's apprentices. The most powerful warrior, taught by General Tyr and the All-Father himself.

The beloved princess of Asgard: loved - and feared - by the Court, by the people, and by the majority of the Nines.

The Norns weave and weave and weave.

Hela grows loved, grows feared, and grows protected. Fierce, beautiful, dear to many, she is the All-Father's joy and pride.

And then comes evil.

Evil always comes, and it always comes for the King’s princess, for the beloved of the Realm.

Evil comes as a Mad Titan.

It comes as Thanos, son of A’lars, the last of the Titans.

Thanos, who believes himself above the might of the Universe, who believes himself above Death and Life, for Death refuses to take him.

The Mad Titan, who decides himself worthy of Infinity itself, who sees himself a prophet, who believes himself alone to know what is best for the Universe.

Verdandi titters and weaves, and the Norns weave, and weave, and weave.

The King no longer wishes for war. He has his daughter, the commander of the Valkyrie, and he has his new wife, who despises him. 

Another princess, now Queen, Frigga of the House of Njord of Vanaheim.

The King is not old, but the battle lust of youth has faded from his eyes. He wants stability for his Realm, and he wants peace among the Nines. 

But the Norns weave and they weave, and their plans for the All-Father, protector of the Nines, differ.

The last of the Titans comes, and he comes for the Tesseract hidden inside Odin’s treasure room. Thanos is cleaver, Thanos watches and plots, and he waits until Odin and Frigga are away on Jotunheim for his first attack.

Without the All-Father and the Queen, Asgard is not ready, and victory is assured.

Or so he believes.

But the goddess of Death is the Guardian of Souls, and beloved by Infinity. Infinity speaks to her, and Space tells her tales from every corner of the Universe.

Hela is on Asgard when the Mad Titan comes, and she fights.

No one doubts she will be their warrior queen when the All-Father wills it so, as they watch her and her Valkyries single handedly push back this terrible attack.

They watch, they fret and then they cheer when the Mad Titan flees the castle and Asgard. She stands on the Bifrost with blood in her mouth, and on her blade, they cheer and they call out her name in pride and jubilation.

She is their future Queen and she is victorious.

And the Mad Titan watches her, watches this goddess with long corvine hair and bright blue eyes. He watches her with blood and destruction surrounding her. He watches as the people call out to her, as they shout out for ‘Princess Hela, the Goddess of Death’.

The Mad Titan watches, listens and he knows.

He knows that she is the one he has been waiting for, she is the one he needs to have at his side. She is the only one worthy of him, the only one who can bear his burden with him.

He just needs her to come with him and understand what her real role in this vast Universe is.

Urd tuts and grumbles. And the Norns weave, and weave, and weave.

The Mad Titan attacks and attacks. He brings death and destruction to the Nines, battle after battle, for a thousand years.

Despite how they came to be, the Nine Realms rally under the All-Father.

They hate the All-Father, but they hate Thanos more, and many so love the Princess of Asgard. A Goddess of Death is a Guardian of Souls, a preserver of Life and a helping hand for Death, and everyone who knows of magic knows there is nothing to fear from her godhood.

For a thousand years they fight, and for a thousand years they hold Thanos back.

A child is born in the House of Odin from the All-Mother and the All-Father, and only years later a child is born in the House of Queen Farbauti - royal by marriage, not by birth - and King Laufey.

Odin names his son Thor, and he is celebrated by Asgard and blessed by the Norns. He has thunder in his heart and lightning in his veins, and thus is born the god of Thunder and Fertility - but Hela only calls him her sunshine. 

Farbauti names her son Loki, and he is celebrated by Jotunheim and blessed by the Norns. He has mischief in his eyes and chaos on his lips, and thus is born the god of Mischief, Chaos and Fire - but Hela only calls him her moonbeam.

She has the Dwarves of Nidavellir craft them spelled jewellery, so that they are forever linked. For even if one is the prince of Asgard and the other of Jotunheim, all three of them are siblings and she wants to mark them as such.

For the starseed, the Dwarves craft a necklace made of blessed uru and stardust.

For the sunshine, the Dwarves craft a bracelet made of blessed uru and the molten core of Nidavellir’s sun.

For the moonbeam, the Dwarves craft an ankle bracelet made of blessed uru and the cold ice of Jotunheim’s moon.

When Asgard and Jotunheim see the three siblings together, everyone smiles or shivers in fear. There is nothing Hela wouldn’t do for them, and the Nines at large and beyond know this.

She teaches Thor the art of battle, and teaches Loki the art of sorcery. She shows them secrets no one else in the Nines knows, and tells them tales of a time before war and blood and destruction.

And her brothers listen, with red and blue eyes filled with awe, and love her as much as she loves them. She belongs to them, and they to her, and Hela would burn the Universe for them. 

Hela would do anything for them.

Anything.

And that includes ending this war once and for all. She will not have her siblings grow up in war as she has since she was scarcely 200 years old. Thor and Loki deserve the best that the Nines can offer, and the best does not include pain, and fear, and battle, and grief.

She has gone through it already, and she will not allow them to suffer through it too.

The Norns weave and weave and weave, and Hela’s wish comes true scarcely four years later.

Where there is war, there is love, and where there is love, there is jealousy and obsession.

Out of this jealousy and obsession a treacherous beast is born inside Kvasir, bastard son of Tyr, sorcerer and leader of the forces of the Einherjar.

A strong man, powerful, well connected, clever, ruthless, and utterly in love with Hela Odinsdottir.

He is far from the first to fall for the beautiful but deadly princess. Many do everyday, but Hela does not seem to have time for romance. She rejects him as she has done countless before him, with nary a thought.

Kvasir does not take this well.

He seethes and rages, for he is the mighty Kvasir Tyrson! How dare this little princess who's existence has plunged the Nine Realms into war dare to refuse him? What man on Asgard is mightier than he?

None.

Hela should have never dared think herself above him.

Kvasir is consumed by hatred and jealousy. And so he plots and plots and plots.

He plots for her downfall, for the downfall of all those who watched her play with his heart and did not intervene or attempt to stop her and convince her to take him as her husband.

He waits and plots, and plots and waits, and the day of his revenge comes.

All it takes is the Royal siblings being away on Jotunheim with the Jotnar Royal Family while the All-Father, the All-Mother, and the majority of the Valkyor remain on Asgard.

It is easy for a sorcerer of Kvasir’s calibre to hide himself from Heimdall’s gaze. It is easy for him to steal the Tesseract from Asgard’s vault (why, traitors in the halls of Asgard? Nay, such thing is simply not possible!). It is easy for him to then attack the Watcher when he doesn’t see him coming. It is easy for him to destroy the Bifrost and watch as Asgard’s forces descend into chaos, their superior military forces stuck on their planet while Thanos suddenly turns his sights and attacks on Jotunheim.

And it is easy for Thanos to kill him when Kvasir brings him the Tesseract, foolishly believing that the Titan will honour their deal regarding the Princess.

The Mad Titan crushes him after one mighty blow from the Mind Stone, and takes the Tesseract from his hold - Kvasir was most foolish for thinking the Titan would truly allow him to lay with the Princess in exchange for the Stone.

She is his, belongs at his side, and everyone needs to accept this.

And with the Tesseract in one hand and the Mind Stone in the other, there is no longer anything truly able to stop the Titan any longer.

Hela finds out the hard way.

She has never wanted to be the General who deserted her own forces, but Queen Farbauti and King Laufey are clear when the Mad Titan attacks. They cannot allow harm to come to Thor and Loki, much too young at the tender ages of 12 and 6 to be in a real battle. 

And so Hela folds, heart beating unnaturally fast in her chest as she puts her siblings on her beloved Fenrir's back and, with Brunnhilde at her side, flees the battle.

Her eyes burns as she does so, hearing her Valkyries shout their fealty to her one more time, but she has no choice.

Over her dead body would she allow for a hair on Loki or Thor's heads to be harmed.

Never. 

But the Tesseract is in the Titan's hold, and by the time they arrive to Hela's doorway between Realms, the Mad Titan is standing there and waiting for her.

Thor and Loki know who he is, of course. He is the Mad Titan: everyone in the Nine Realms know who he is.

Hela manages to stop Thor - brave, hot headed, foolish Thor - from attacking, but Loki is clever. He is cleverer than most, and when he aims his birthright, the Casket of Ancient Winters, at the Titan, for a moment Hela thinks they might have a chance.

Brunnhilde jumps at him during the distraction caused by the ice, and Hela rushes to open the doorway that shall lead them back to Asgard. Thor and Loki protest as they are put atop the wolf once more, this time with magic binding them and stopping them from disembarking.

Hela sees Brunnhilde fall, and knows her time is running out.

"I shall come to you when all is done," she promised, pressing a kiss on both their tear strained cheeks. It sounds like a goodbye, and both siblings know this. "I love you more than there are stars in this Universe. You will always be my sunshine and my moonbeam. Till Ragnarok, and thereafter."

They rage and cry and beg, but the Titan is deaf to their pain and sorrow, and Hela deafens herself too, ignoring the pain in her heart.

If nothing, the Mad Titan is patient.

He does not attack or follow the princes, and when Hela turns around, he is waiting placidly.

Brunnhilde is nowhere to be seen, and Hela's heart sinks. Another of her Valkyries, gone.

But she is the warrior princess, she is the daughter of Odin, and has no intention of giving in easily.

She has every intention to fight - until the Mad Titan shows the fleet over Jotunheim.

A larger fleet than she has ever seen in her life, larger perhaps than the forces of Asgard itself, and Hela's heart sinks.

Jotunheim is mighty, but it's strength is sorcery, not battle.

Weapons like these, wielded by a maniac who holds a third of Infinity in his hands will be the destruction of Jotunheim.

The Mad Titan does not need to tell her what he wants of her.

Hela is proud, and she is strong, and she is a fierce warrior.

But she is the Guardian of Souls and Goddess of Death, and never shall she allow innocent souls to be reaped for naught but her pride. 

She watches the door between Asgard and Jotunheim close behind her, and seals it, to ensure that no Einherjar or Valkyrie would be so foolish to try and walk through it once more.

There is nothing else she can do.

Perhaps, had she been alone.

Perhaps, had she been on Asgard.

Perhaps, had the Titan not held Infinity in his grasp.

But alas, it was so. 

And so, she does something a daughter of Odin should have never done in her life.

And so Princess Hela, crown Princess of Asgard, goddess of Death, the starseed, bows her head and surrenders.

She is walked through Utgard in chains, and her heart burns in her chest at the sight that surrounds her, at what she smells in the air. 

There is blood on the snow, and far too many Jotnar lay dead.

Not many Valkyries came with her to Jotunheim, and all of them lay dead. They had given their life for Hela, and she wishes she could have thanked them for their honour and sacrifice, that she had time to give them a burial and bid them a proper farewell.

She sees Laufey on his knees, head facing downwards, unable to look her in the eyes as she walks past him.

She smells the death in the air, sees Mother’s head on the ground in front of him, and Hela's eyes fill with tears as her soul fills with pain.

She does not begrudge him.

Hasn’t she too given up for the sake of her brothers? She understands far better than Laufey knows, and she hopes he knows that she holds no grudge against him.

No, the only one she hates is the man standing before her, who gives her no chance to speak her truth to anyone, as she is forced to board the Sanctuary.

The Mad Titan feels victorious. He swears to her that now that she and the Tesseract are both in his grasp he no longer has a need to destroy Asgard and Jotunheim - their battle has more than halved their population already. He tells her this, to show himself fair and loving, to show her what a good husband he shall make for her.

Hela does not speak a single word to him as she is put in her chambers cell.

The Mad Titan does not stop trying, as the days on the ship continue to pass, but all that he garners from the spiteful goddess is a blank and glazed look and not a single word.

Simmering under it, where the Mad Titan does not know to look, is rage.

For she is a goddess, and how dare this ridiculous Titan think he can have her trapped? How dare he believe he could ever keep her, the warrior princess of Asgard, one of Asgard’s most talented sorceresses and the commander of the Valkyrie in his grasp?

She cannot touch him with Infinity in his grasp, that she knows.

But Hela has also been talking with Infinity since she was a babe, and she knows things that no one in the Universe has yet realised.

She knows the secrets of Infinity, she knows the truth of her godhood, and the Mad Titan has no idea of the vastness and cleverness of Infinity.

Hela does.

And she would rather die an ignoble death than ever allow him to perverse more of the laws of the Universe. Already he has fabricated a device capable of corrupting Mind, and Hela has no intention of letting him do that to anyone else.

She knows not how long it takes for the Titan to underestimate her. 

But underestimate her he does, and Hela does not give him a chance to regret it.

The blessed blade she had kept concealed upon her body since the night she had been taken from Jotunheim is unsheathed as soon as the Titan comes to change her chains himself.

Given to her by Farbauti when she was a mere babe, back when Odin's battle lust had been stronger.

Made of the hardened ice of Niflheim, in a speckle of reality of Svartalfheim, blessed by the sorcerers of Alfheim, hidden away by the Jotnar - the only weapon capable of killing a god.

Hela knows they believed one day she would slay her father with it, if it became necessary.

After all, she was the Guardian of Souls and Goddess of Death.

Hela has other plans.

The Mad Titan has no time to think, no time to prepare.

All the Mad Titan sees is the flash of a blade, and then there is blood pooling out of Hela’s chest. 

The Mad Titan screams, he rages, he seethes, he begs, he cries.

All of these centuries he has wasted alone. He had thought he had found someone for himself when he found Hela, but now she too is dying right before his eyes.

Hela would smile, but there is nothing amusing to her as she dies lightyears away from her own home and her family. Nothing amusing as she wonders about her sunshine and her moonbeam, and how they shall fare now that she is gone.

She wishes that there had been another way.

She wishes that she had gotten to see her brothers grow in the fine Rulers she knew they would become one day.

She wishes.

The Norns have no pity as they watch the beautiful princess die. They weave and they tell tales: they do not interfere in the affairs of men.

Skuld cuts the thread. 

But Infinity watches and they have pity. They have Soul.

And as the blood of the Guardian of Souls bathes the room they are in, mixing with the grief of the Titan, they give her one more chance.

Hela’s blood covers the Tesseract. 

Infinity is connected, and Mind and Space come together for this Soul, using Power to bend Reality through Time, and the Norns watch as the Merchant of Death is reborn.

They cackle, as they prepare a new tapestry. And then they weave and they weave and they weave.

Chapter Text

Some days, it was easy to ignore the box sitting on the desk in front of her.

Toni would go about her day without sparing the thing a single glance, attention captured by a thousands of things much more interesting than it was.

Some other days, however, it was nearly impossible to ignore it. It seemed to suck all of her attention like a black hole of sorts, no matter how much Toni tried to ignore it. She would even say the thing had a gravity of its own because on those days, no matter where Toni relocated it to, she couldn’t stop it from catching her attention every now and again.

And today, after the terrible night she had had, was one of such days.

She could, of course, open the box.

But that was what the box wanted, and Toni was never gonna let that thing win. 

Never.

“Doctor Foster and Miss Lewis are on their way,” informed her JARVIS, as she kept eye contact - of sorts - with the inanimate object in question. “And Prince T’Challa has answered your message.”

“Oh goody,” she said, taking her phone from the desk and finally tearing her eyes away from the ‘innocuous’ blue box on her desk.

From: Simba

Text: How about next time I visit America I treat you to a nice dinner?

“Flirty little kitten,” said Toni, snorting as she typed her reply.

To: Simba

Text: Are we talking fancy dinner in an expensive restaurant or a hole in the wall with suspiciously good food? And is Nala coming with?

From: Simba

Text: Whichever you prefer.

From: Simba

Text: And Nakia and I broke up.

“Ouch,” muttered Toni, before pausing. “Wait, is he actually flirting with me? J, what do you- Woah, hey! DUM-E! Stop that immediately, you screws for brains, are you trying to get yourself electrocuted?!”

If he could have, Toni was sure the bot would have jumped as she stepped atop her desk, steady despite her heels, one finger pointed threateningly at him. “Get away from there with that!”

Honestly, she thought as she watched him make a sound of frustration before he beeped away. How did she save him from hurting himself and she somehow came off as the bad guy?

“I should have dismantled you years ago,” she muttered, still glaring at his retreating back. She could just imagine him going to U and BUTTERFINGER to complain about how mean she was.

“To be fair, Miss, he finds the feeling of being electrocuted very amusing. And he knows no permanent harm will come his way with you and me watching.”

“I’ll give him permanent harm,” she scoffed, turning her glare to JARVIS’ camera. “And what kind of brother are you, J? Encouraging this behaviour? I raised you better than this.”

“You did not.”

“Excuse me? Did too!”

The AI’s possibly very sassy response was swallowed by the sound of her workshop door opening.

Toni could not have heard it over the sound of the music blasting in the room, but she still turned her head towards the new visitors with unerring precision as soon as they took a step inside.

“Toni!” shouted Jane, a crazy light in her eyes and excitement clear in every line of her face. “You’ll never- why are you standing on the desk?”

“Miss likes to feel tall,” answered JARVIS, making Darcy giggle while Toni scowled at his camera.

“You are so rude. I don't need to feel tall, I am 5'6, which is tall enough."

"You are not 5'6."

Toni ignored his words. "And I'm on the desk because it helps me think.” 

“Standing on desks helps you think, sure, uh-uh,” said Darcy, clearly disbelieving. 

“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it. I’m sure there is some biology slash neurology something something brain theory to support it.” She glared at Jane’s scoff, putting one hand on her waist and tapping her heel on the desk. “Well, is there something you actually want or are you just here to insult me?”

“Right!” said Jane, perking up immediately. “Something happened! Yesterday, last night while we were asleep, something happened!” She quickly climbed on a chair and on the desk beside Toni, all but throwing her tablet in Toni's face. “Look. The readings... they are different but at the same time oddly similar to that of the Bifrost! And they originated in New Mexico as well!”

Toni barely glanced at the tablet, frowning at Jane instead. “Last night? Say, like... 2:36 am?”

Jane blinked, appearing surprised. “That’s... precisely when my instruments registered the spike. And to think that I was going to stay awake to finish my paper but Darcy forced me to stop for the day.”

“Yeah, you’re learning the wrong lesson from that,” informed her Darcy, glancing at Toni curiously. “How did you know?”

“Sometimes, I’m psychic,” she said, earning a snort from the shorter girl.

Which was, of course, a lie.

But also wasn’t at the same time.

She touched her necklace, recalling the feeling that had woken her the night before. She had been asleep, soundly, no nightmares of any kind plaguing her mind when she had... felt it.

She couldn’t have told you what she had felt, but she had. It had been like some sort of wave that had brushed over her body, cold and weird. Not dangerous, not angry. But powerful.

And familiar, somehow.

Like Toni had felt this energy before, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out when or how or anything of the sort. 

Just a niggling feeling in the back of her mind, not unlike the feeling that had brought her to Jane and Darcy to begin with.

“So is it the Bifrost or not?” she questioned, focusing back on Jane. “You said familiar...”

“Right,” said Jane, opening another tab on her tablet. “It’s not actually the Bifrost. JARVIS helped me find the place where the energy I picked up first hit. There was no Bifrost mark: just a crater.”

Toni’s eyebrows furrowed. “A crater?”

“Whatever energy thing it was, it blew up a building,” explained Jane, sounding a little less excited now and more worried. “There is a crater where the thing was. There is barely anything on the news, and they keep referring to it as a ‘Government facility’. But...”

“SHIELD,” finished Toni, not at all surprised nor impressed. Of course SHIELD was involved in whatever this was. “Your friend Erik?”

“Haven’t spoken to the man in months,” admitted Darcy. “We tried, but he like totally ghosted us. So mean.”

Or SHIELD had decided he was no longer of use and eliminated him, thought Toni, but she did not say it out loud. After all, it was improbable, considering how close of an eye SHIELD must know Toni was keeping on them and their scientist.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” she said, when she saw the worried expression on both women's faces. “He’s an asset, after all. SHIELD would have tried getting him out first to ensure he’d still be there helping them down the line on whatever it is they were working on.”

Start searching everything we already have for clues, J.

Right away, Miss, answered the AI promptly.

By trying to cheat and hack her way inside Toni’s - well, Pepper’s - company, Natalie Rushman had given Toni the perfect doorway into SHIELD and their databases.

After all a door connected two points, and it was child’s play for Toni and JARVIS to hack the bugs the itsy bitsy had left around her building before Toni had set eyes on her and realised who and what she was.

They still did not have everything, because SHIELD could be smart, every now and again, but they had more than SHIELD would be comfortable with.

And eventually, they’d get cocky again and make another mistake, and Toni would be on them like white on rice.

“That does sort of make me feel better,” said Jane, huffing slightly. “Anyway, I wanted to show you this and-”

“Yep,” agreed Toni. “JARVIS, you have full authorisation to help our Janey baby with whatever she needs. Holler if you find anything.”

“You got it,” said Jane, climbing down from the desk. 

“You are right, you do think better up here,” admitted Darcy, also jumping down. “Ow, my boobs.” 

Valid. Those things had like a gravity of their own, Toni was always unable to not look at them when Darcy decided it was a good idea to jog or run around the place. 

“Do you think it’s Thor?” then questioned Toni, sitting down on her desk instead of getting off. Jane had tensed slightly, as Toni looked at her curiously. “Did he do this?”

Toni studiously ignored the box as Jane bit her lip, crossing her arms around her chest. “I want to say no, that there is no way,” she started, nervously. “But he did get kicked out of Asgard by his dad because he started a war with Jotunheim over being called a princess. And the fight between him, his friends and the Destroyer ended up with Puente Antiguo half destroyed. On one side, he said that he would protect Earth. But on the other...”

“He’s a very powerful alien prince who’s meltdowns can have catastrophic reactions,” she finished for her, grimacing slightly. Just like someone else she had heard of.

“Basically,” agreed Jane, sighing.

“Hey,” said Darcy, patting her shoulder. “Just because it has an energy signature that looks a little bit like the Bifrost and Thor seems to be the only alien we have ever met, doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been SHIELD doing something that caused the destruction or another different temperamental alien showing up on Earth.”

“Statistically unlikely.”

“Toni Stark, you are not helping.”

“I miss that period of time where you always went around calling me Toni fucking Stark and putting some respect on my name,” complained Toni, pouting exaggeratedly.

“Back then you were an unattainable dream of the hottest woman I knew. Now, you are still hot as fuck, but I know you. Also, I know your music taste. My idealised version of you had better taste, this is abhorrent.”

“You’re abhorrent.”

“Come on! What even is this? Heavy metal?” Darcy made a disgusted face. “Pretty girls don’t listen to this! JARVIS: stop the track, let me state facts!”

The AI seemed to find Darcy amusing enough to listen to her order.

Stop the track, let me state facts

I told you give me a minute and I’ll be right back...

Toni simply rolled her eyes as Darce started vibing to a song she did not recognise, but it was a fond eye roll.

Toni had not really expected much, when she had gone to New Mexico after the whole situation with Rushmanoff.

She had mostly gone there because of the hammer, but by the time she had gotten there, both the object and the supposed owner were gone. The only witnesses had been SHIELD and three individuals named Doctor Foster, Darcy Lewis and Doctor Selvig.

SHIELD had tried to get between Toni and her questioning, but Toni was very quick to remind them of just why they did not want to piss her off too much. They had not even tried that hard, to be honest, and Toni had found out why only after she had returned to Malibu with a rather... shocking story (pun fucking intended) and two new hires for Stark Industries.

Apparently, after Toni had shot Romanoff in the foot, SHIELD had classified her as ‘dangerous’, ‘not recommended’ and ‘do not engage’.

It had been frankly hilarious to her. Happy and Pepper had not thought so, and actually been worried when they had heard, but in Toni’s opinion, they both worried too much. 

Darcy and Jane mostly worked alone, since they weren’t part of any existing department and were simply funded by SI rather than being actual employees. But it had not taken them long to suck Toni into their web of banter, science and intelligence.

Toni had not resisted much. May and Pepper were not scientifically inclined, and it had been a long time since she had done some science (or even hung out) with Hope Van Dyne, between her father being an asshole and the whole ‘competing companies’ thing.

So now she had two new friends she hadn’t had before, and Toni was very pleased by that.

What do you think, she asked JARVIS, as Jane ended up sitting on Toni’s couch since Darcy was busy dancing and had no apparent interest in leaving just yet.

Seriously, those boobs must be heavy to carry around, how did she do it? Toni wanted to give her an award, but while Miss Taze-a-lot would get a kick out of it, Pepper would most likely make both of them go through another 'appropriate conduct in the workplace' seminar, and Toni did not want to suffer through it.

I do not have enough data to extrapolate from, started JARVIS, also speaking directly in her mind. But I do not believe Prince Thor was the cause of the explosion.

Despite her earlier words, Toni had not believed it either.

The energy she had felt the night before had been nothing like the one she had felt when she had walked into Puente Antiguo minutes after the Renaissance fair had left town.

But I also do not know who would do this.

We don’t have enough data, she agreed, huffing slightly. Well, we’re just gonna have to wait for Janey to do her thing. “Now,” she continued, aloud this time. If she wasn’t actively doing something, people found her expression when she was busy talking to JARVIS in her mind very creepy and mean. Darcy called it a ‘resting bitch face’. “What else do I have on the docket? Am I supposed to pick up the rascal today?”

“No. You do not have any other commitment, as you and Miss Potts are supposed to start the arc reactor and ensure that Stark Tower is finally running self-sustainingly.”

“Oh, right,” said Toni, grimacing slightly. “I’m supposed to dive in the Atlantic.”

Which meant double checking the armour to make sure it was 100% airtight. It was, of course, but considering the fact that Toni had been feeling on edge since she had woken up in the middle of the night and her recurring... feelings (because it was not fear, she refused to call it fear, no matter what PTSD bullshit Yinsen threw at her) about water since Afghanistan, it was better to be 102% sure.

It was still a toss-up on whether or not large bodies of water could throw her in a panic attack, and she did not want to run risks by having water get inside her suit.

She was definitely not looking forward to it all.

“This is so cool, Miss Stark!”

“Of course it is, I was directly involved,” answered Toni as soon as her suit started disassembling. “It’s just like Christmas but a little more... me.”

“You’re so conceited,” huffed Peter, darting away when she gasped and made to reach for his hair in retaliation. 

“You take that back, shortstack. I can kick you out of this Tower anytime.”

He just grinned smugly at her from where he had taken refuse beside Pepper, fixing his glasses. “You’d never.”

That was of course true, but Toni would never admit to it. She had a reputation to maintain, after all.

“I can’t believe your arc reactor is now powering the entire tower and everything inside it,” continued Peter, looking around him in excitement. “It’s so fascinating!” He looked at her with a longing expression. “When will you reveal the secrets of it to the world?”

Toni scoffed. “Not any time soon,” she answered, grabbing the glass of - she took a quick sniff - apple juice from May’s hand. “Thanks. Maybe after I’m dead and I’m no longer worried that the world is going to use it for weapons and assorted evil.”

She might no longer have the reactor or any shrapnel left inside of her - thank you, Yinsen - but that did not mean that she was in any more of a rush to let the world understand how to make the thing itself.

Vanko had been enough, and thankfully he was dead (and Toni had made sure that anything he had left behind in Mother Russia was forever gone too). Unless he had confided his secrets in anyone - and Toni doubted it - she was in the clear.

“But,” she continued, when Peter’s pout persisted, “Maybe when you are older, I might tell you how it works. Might, and maybe!” she added when he immediately cheered.

“Like a family recipe of some sort,” mused May, ignoring the glare Toni shot at her for that. Peter did not appear to notice, too busy crowing about everything he was gonna use the reactor to make, but May smirked.

Toni knew what the woman’s opinion was, as May had made her aware of it previously and extensively. But she had made her decision years ago, and she’d appreciate it if May respected said decision.

Toni rolled her eyes at her, before turning to look at Peter with some amusement at his excitement over something that was completely hypothetical - no it wasn’t - but of course her evil overlord had to ruin it. 

“Gotta go wider on the public awareness campaign, by the way,” said Pepper, studying a holo screen in front of her instead of drinking her own champagne like a civilized and normal human being. “You need to do some press. I can do some more tomorrow. I'm working on the zoning for the next billboards-”

“Pepper, you’re killing me,” she complained, waving the screen shut despite the woman’s protests. “The moment, remember the moment? Enjoy the moment.”

“I am, I just think-”

“Kill-joy,” loudly said Toni, dragging the two words, and repeating them when Pepper opened her mouth again. “Kill joooy. Kill. Joy.” The blonde glared, lips twitching slightly, and Toni put the drink in front of her. “Don’t think, just drink.”

“Can I have som-”

“NO.”

Peter pouted at all three of them. “You guys are mean.”

“Thank you, we take great pride in that,” said May, looking up when the elevator door opened. “Oh, Ben. You’re back.”

“Yes,” he said, holding several bags in his hands. “And brought two stragglers with me.”

“I smelled food,” explained Darcy, trailing after Ben like a pet who had scented... well, food. “Hey, Peter.”

“Hey, Darce, and hi, Jane.”

“Hey, Peter,” said Jane, a little mindlessly as she sat down beside Toni.

Toni immediately reached for her bag of food, though her attention was focused on Jane. “You still working on that data from earlier?”

“Yeah,” admitted Jane. “So far I haven’t gotten anything new, though. I’m not even really sure of what I’m looking for.”

Jane had spent a long time looking for her fairy tale Asgardian Prince, after the man had disappeared with his bridge. Darcy seemed to be under the belief that he had done the space version of ghosting her - having his entire wormhole ghost her - but Jane was determined that there was something else at play.

Toni did not really have an opinion on it. She was under the belief that Jane’s calculations and discoveries were onto something, sure, but she also did not know what her chances of finding an entire planet were, especially if said planet had remained under the radar for so long or if they did not want to be found to begin with.

She definitely would have loved to meet Thor - while the whole Vikingland space war crimes thing was a little worrying, she was a little curious about meeting a real life alien.

Who wouldn’t be? Her interest in Norse mythology aside: a supposed Norse god who was actually an alien prince and who had listened to Jane talking about astrophysics for a while and replied by drawing her the picture of a tree? Yeah, Toni needed to study him.

In a non alienphobic/probing sort of way, of course.

“Miss Stark, can I have your fortune cookie?” asked Peter, reaching out before Toni could even agree. 

“Yeah, go-”

“Miss, incoming call from Agent Coulson,” said JARVIS, interrupting her.

“I’m currently offline,” she answered, waving her hand dismissively. 

“He’s insisting,” added JARVIS. “It appears to be rather important.”

I have taken the liberty to converse with him before bringing this to your attention, he continued, now simply for her benefit. I believe you’ll find what he has to say most interesting. It has a little to do with the event Doctor Foster is investigating, and something to do with what Miss Harkness spoke to you about the last time you saw one other.

Toni did not stiffen as she would have liked to do. “Important, uh?” she said instead, keeping her voice even.

Are you implying that it has something to do with the Tesseract? SHIELD had the Tesseract?

“Yes, Miss,” said JARVIS, answering both questions.

Fuck.

And it did explain why that energy had felt so familiar. Howard had had the thing in his workshop for years before he had mysteriously given it away. 

She tapped her nails against the table for a second before standing up, and moving away from the couch so that she had her back to the city and the rest of the people on her floor weren’t visible.

JARVIS connected the call as soon as she did so, and then Toni was met with the impolitely blank expression of one Agent Agent.

Much more blank than usual (which was impressive: the first time she had met him, she had wondered if SHIELD had somehow found a way to make extremely life like androids and figured out how to put souls in their bodies), which implied something had happened that upset him and he was keeping a mask on to not let her figure him out. She could not sense him through the video, but she was pretty sure that if she could, he’d be radiating anxiety. 

“Miss Stark,” he started, shoulder relaxing a fraction when he saw her face. “Thank you for agreeing to take my call.”

“More like I was curious and I do so love rewarding good behaviour,” she answered, painted red lips stretching in a mockingly proud smile. “Look at you using the phone instead of trying to break into my properties. You are learning! I am so proud of you, Agent Agent.”

“Considering the last two times someone tried it they ended up being shot at-” he muttered, which only served to make Toni’s smile grow. It was still sad that the first time around wasn’t enough for them and that they had needed a second demonstration but hey. They had, eventually, learned. Celebration time? “As I am sure you have found out by now, there was an explosion at a SHIELD facility in New Mexico last night.”

“Are you accusing me of spying on you? Agent, I’d never. I’m a law abiding citizen, you know? Iron Queen is a hero, she'd never break the law like that!”

Coulson did not roll his eyes, but Toni knew he really wanted to. “Please take a look at these files I have already forwarded your AI. Everything you will need to know has been detailed on it file.”

The file did appear in front of her, and Toni lifted up an eyebrow. “The Avengers Initiative?” she said, voice a tad disbelieving. When she spoke next, her tone was a little sharper than before. “I thought dear One Piece disbanded the group before debut. And that I did not make the cut because I was too volatile and dangerous. And also because I outright refused him when he broke into my Mansion.”

“This has gone past profiles and personal grudges, Miss Stark. This is regarding Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S,” he said, tone of voice significant. “Which is all explained inside the file I sent you.”

“Mh,” she said, now definitely intrigued. “Well now you made me curious. I suppose I could take a look at this.”

He did not sigh in relief, but, again, Toni knew he wanted to. “Thank you, Miss Stark. And I’m sure I do not have to stress to you the importance of keeping this a secret from everyone else.”

Toni nodded seriously. “Of course you don’t have to, Mr Agent. This is clearly a matter of national security that only selected few are to be made aware of.”

He looked at her, eyes narrowed in suspicion, but Toni merely stared back at him, giving nothing away.

Peter giggled slightly, quickly putting a hand over his mouth, but he was way too far for Philip to hear him anyway.

“Very well. Thank you for agreeing to help-”

“Agreeing to read over your files,” she corrected, waving a warning finger in his face. “Let’s not get hasty now, keep your pants on.”

“Of co-” 

“All right, mazel tov and see you later, alligator,” she finished, closing the screen with his annoying face on it. Then she turned to Jane, who had immediately approached her as soon as Coulson was gone. “Wanna play with me, Doctor Foster?”

Jane did not bother answering, simply opening the file and displaying it on a holographic board in front of them. 

“Can I help too?” questioned Peter, looking over longingly and trying to figure out what they were doing from a distance. Considering he could barely see as it was, she really wondered what he thought he was gonna be able to achieve by doing that.

“Yes, by keeping your sticky fingers to yourself and by putting my noodles in the fridge before Ben’s bottomless self tries to eat my food too,” she said, eyes narrowing a little at the information in front of her.

“Hey. Uncalled for.”

"Truthful, though," said May, snickering a little at the face her husband must have made.

There was some footage of Thor fighting that she had seen before, as well as a lot of stuff on the Capsicle. JARVIS had mentioned him getting defrosted and whatnot earlier this year, but Toni had not really paid much attention other than to wonder just what the hell had that Erskine guy put in that damn serum. How did one simply survive 70 years in the ice completely well preserved?!

There was also footage of Hulk and his scuffle in Harlem. Toni stared at the video of him punching the so-called Abomination for a couple of seconds before forcefully shaking her head and looking down at the most important part of the information.

The Tesseract stared at her from the hologram in front of her, seeming to almost mock her with its existence.

Toni had wondered where Howard had put it after ‘getting rid of it’. He had mentioned someone called Mar Vell to Tao, Toni recalled hearing that much, but after his death, Toni had found no one by that name anywhere on Earth. Agatha had no idea of how to track it down - which kind brought up the question of how she had been able to sense it ‘had awakened’ to begin with - and Tao had refused to tell her who she was or where she and the Tesseract were.

And it turned out SHIELD had had it all along.

Or perhaps, SHIELD had acquired it. After all, Toni did not see why her dad would ever put that thing back in Margaret Carter’s hands again.

“Oh my god,” said Jane, face suddenly blanching beside her. 

Toni frowned, tearing her eyes away from the blue cube to follow the woman’s gaze and then she too was a little startled at what she saw.

Doctor Selvig had apparently been at the site of the explosion. But while he had not died in said explosion, he had been kidnapped by some guy who claimed to be Loki, the brother of Thor.

Who had also taken the Tesseract.

This was just all around not good.

But that was fine; Toni Stark was on the scene and nobody had ever bet against her and won.

So she just offered Jane an awkward but hopefully consoling pat on the shoulder, made sure that Peter could not see what they were doing, pulled her sleeves up and got to work.

Point of order number one: find Loki.

Chapter Text

“Agent Romanoff,” called Toni, voice sickeningly sweet as ‘Shoot to Thrill’ blasted from the speakers of the Quinjet. “Did you miss me?”

Toni had known what Natasha Romanoff was from the second the woman had walked inside of the gym Toni and Happy had been working out in. The last of the military contracts Toni had been dealing with had finally run its course - while Toni had been ready to end them all as soon as she had returned stateside, Yinsen had ended up convincing her of a more gradual approach - and Toni had finally been ready to give Pepper control of Stark Industries while she focused on more important things.

The red head had walked in right after Toni had stepped out of the ring, and it had taken everything in Toni not to leap out and pull Pepper as far away from her as possible, when she had smelled the death that clung to the woman like a second skin.

It had been unmistakable, and no damn notary would be walking around smelling like that.

Toni had used one of their secret signals words - “Hey, Pep, can you get me my pen?” - to get her friend away from the assassin and, to her credit, Romanoff had managed three steps before Toni had pulled out the gun she kept hidden under the couch and shot at her.

JARVIS had hacked the woman's comm unit before her people could even figure out what had happened, identifying her as a SHIELD agent, and with the way JARVIS’ weapons and Toni’s own were still pointed at her despite the first shot, Romanoff had listened to the advice of her superior and told her her identity.

According to JARVIS’ later explanation after the agents/officers had escorted itsy bitsy out of the room to take her to the station, she had been sent to ‘profile’ her. Which had lead to that funny ‘Toni Stark: dangerous’ little brief.

Romanoff had ended up escaping, but Toni figured out her ego must still be bruised.

It shouldn’t be; Toni had shot Fury in the shoulder when she had walked in and found him standing in her living room. 

But she could just imagine the woman’s annoyed and wary scowl at Toni’s sudden voice inside her jet, which really only made her smile a tad wider. She would have absolutely loved to hack the jet's cameras so that she could witness said expression for herself but, unfortunately, Toni was on a mission.

After Coulson had gotten in contact with her regarding the stolen Tesseract, Toni and Jane had gotten to work. It had taken a bit to get Peter away - he was so nosy - but eventually Darcy had managed to drag him away for some videogame thing, and the rest had left after.

Being in Jane’s general proximity for two years had made Toni become very familiar with astrophysics - biologists called that osmosis, she was pretty sure - but Selvig’s research was immensely fascinating as well.

She understood why Jane had been so upset about him ditching her for SHIELD.

Well, maybe Jane had been more upset with the whole ‘friend of my dad leaving me for an evil organisation’ angle, but whatever.

She landed beside the Capsicle, who was busy trying and failing to rock Horny’s world, and immediately pointed all of her weapons at the so-called Loki. “Make your move, Reindeer Games.”

He looked up at her, an expression of surprise that she did not buy for a moment on his face before he lifted both hands up. His armour kind of shimmered and dematerialised from his body without him needing to make any more, and Toni’s eyes narrowed. 

Then his eyes then fixed on the eyes of the armour, and even through it Toni felt... something. She wasn’t sure of what exactly, but it almost felt as if something slimy, and wet, and... just all around uncomfortable and not nice manifested as soon as they made eye contact, and it made her shiver slightly.

“Good move,” she said anyway, refusing to show said discomfort, keeping her weapons up and her suspicious eyes on Loki. He was clearly using magic. The myths claimed him a mage, shapeshifter and a trickster, so she had to keep her guard up.

“Miss Stark,” said Rogers, and right. He was standing there. Toni had almost forgotten about him.

“Captain,” she answered, keeping her eyes and weapons on Loki despite him.

She did not trust this guy one bit.

Loki was quiet on the Quinjet.

From what she knew of him from the myths, and from SHIELD’s little profile on him (not that she trusted their profiling all that much, but they were the only ones who had met him, up until now), she had expected a couple more grandiose villain speeches from him.

But the man had given them nothing, quietly remaining seated with his seat belt on (watching Captain America putting a seat belt on a Norse god... yeah, Toni’s life made no fucking sense, did it?). It only made the fact that he had given himself without a fight even more suspect.

What was his aim here, she couldn’t help but wonder. He clearly wanted to be taken into custody, but why?

“I don’t like it,” said Rogers, beside her.

Toni slowly tore her gaze away from Loki, and glanced over at the reason Howard missed 6 of her birthdays in a row.

Her relationship with her father was nowhere near as strained as SHIELD seemed to believe, but that did not mean that Toni did not resent this blonde zombie from taking so much of his time while supposedly 6 feet under - the ice.

And it turned out that he wasn’t even dead! Ugh, if there was an afterlife, Toni could just imagine how smug dad was currently feeling.

“What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?” she asked, turning to look at him with a raised eyebrow that he would not be able to see through her helmet. Of course she could have taken it off; but she was not going to.

Rogers’ brow furrowed a bit, before he continued. “I just don’t remember it being ever that easy,” he explained, which... yeah. Did he think she hadn’t noticed? “The guy packs a wallop.”

Loki’s lip twitched slightly at the words and Toni wondered if the man had, perhaps, enhanced hearing. 

“Still,” she said, keeping Loki in her peripheral vision. “You are pretty spry, for an older fellow. What’s your thing? Pilates?”

Another lip twitch.

Either he was crazy, or he was remembering something funny that happened to him before (it happened to Toni all the time; worse place it had happened had been at one guy’s funeral) or he was listening to them.

“What?” asked the blond, sounding confused.

The triple imposter was ignoring them (just as she had Toni’s earlier cheerful wave), while the SHIELD android looked as if he wanted to interrupt, so Toni quickly spoke up again. “You might have missed a couple things, you know, during your time as a Capsicle.”

This time Rogers’ expression turned into one of vague annoyance. Toni was very proud to see that she could bring even Captain America to annoyance within minutes of meeting him. “Fury didn’t tell me he was calling you in.”

“Are you new here?” she asked him, scoffing. “There are a lot of things Fury doesn’t tell you, Capitano. He doesn’t even tell Agent Agent everything, and he’s half in love with the guy.”

“Stark,” said Coulson, ‘warningly’.

Rogers frowned, but that was when the sound of thunder sounded, a bolt of lightning nearly hitting the jet. Romanoff swore at the controls, steadying the craft, while Loki in front of them sneered a little, face paling.

Rogers noted his expression too. “What’s the matter? Scared of a little lightning?”

“I’m not overly fond of what follows,” answered Loki, and his voice was also a surprise for Toni.

She had heard videos of Thor talking both from Darcy and from SHIELD’s databases. He was loud and boisterous, with an accent that wasn’t quite British but almost.

Loki’s voice in comparison was very velvety, and much more British sounding.

It was weird that aliens had British accents. Did that mean that the British were actually all aliens? Or that the majority of aliens hid in Britain because they’d be undetectable there? And why did she even understand them? Why on Earth were aliens speaking in English to begin with? Toni had questions.

She didn’t get to ask them, though, as something hit the top of the craft.

She should have expected it, what with the spooky and dramatic light show. Still, she was not prepared for the way she was smashed across the chest by a freaking hammer - Mjolnir, right? - as soon as the blond man ripped the ramp open and walked in.

No hi, no greeting, just a hammer to the chest before he grabbed onto Loki and flew out again.

Toni was, quite honestly, offended. And would be talking to Jane about her taste in guys because this guy was not it.

“So humanphobic,” she muttered to herself, getting back on her feet. “This is some sort of interstellar hate crime, I’m sure.”

“Another Asgardian?” questioned Romanoff, looking behind her in confusion.

“Think the guy’s a friendly?” questioned Rogers, and ugh, this was why Toni was a solo act in things like these.

“Doesn’t matter,” she reminded him, moving towards the ramp. “If he frees Loki or kills him, we can kiss the Tesseract goodbye.”

“Stark, wait!” called out Rogers. “We need a plan of attack!”

SHIELD better not have gone around telling him that she was part of his team or anything of the sorts, because she’d then have to hurt his feelings.

“I have a plan,” she informed him, turning around and dismissing him. “Attack.”

And with that she flew after their friendly neighbourhood Norse deities.

+++

She crashed into Thor just as he was threatening Loki with his mighty hammer - eh, the jokes wrote themselves - throwing him against the ground of the forest they landed in. 

But of course the Norse god was already on his feet by the time the dust settled, an angry expression on his face and his precious hammer back in his hands - yeah, she was never stopping with that.

“Do not touch me again,” he ordered, scowling at her.

“Then don’t take my stuff,” answered Toni, scowling at him too through the helmet. 

“You have no idea what you’re dealing with!”

She pretended to look around, voice mocking. “Uh, Shakespeare in the park?” Hey, was Shakespeare also Asgardian? “Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?”

Thor’s face darkened a lot at that, she thought with some modicum of glee. She could annoy even Asgardian Royalty with a couple of words, she was much more powerful than she had previously thought.

“This is beyond you, metal man! Loki will face Asgardian justice!” he bellowed - and what a mighty bellow it was!

Also, metal man? Come on, now.

Toni rolled her eyes a little at that. “Yeah, I really don’t care about what you guys wanna do with him. We need him first, then he’s all yours. Until then,” she turned her voice a little more serious. “Stay out of my way.” She then turned around, muttering under her breath, “Tourist.”

Clearly desperate to let Toni know that she was right about aliens and enhanced hearing, Thor threw his hammer at her again while her back was turned, knocking her - quite painfully - against a tree.

“Okay,” she said, now far more irritated than she had been before as she stood back up. “You really shouldn’t have done that, Ken Doll.”

Thor somehow made Mjolnir fly back into his hand and started playing helicopter with it - pfft helicopter dick - a smug expression on his face. 

Toni did not wait to see what he was going to do.

Instead, she powered up her hand booster, shooting a blast of energy that knocked him into a tree. Then she was flying before he could shake it off, kicking him in the chest and sending him flying again.

She did not miss the little brother still sitting right where he had been left, seeming to be enjoying the show, and her suspicion only grew. What the hell was he playing at?

Thor glared viciously at her, thrusting out his hand and catching his security blanket again. Only, instead of throwing it at her this time he raised the object up in the sky, somehow honing and summoning lightning with it.

Toni was aware that she should be more than a little nervous but there was something about the action... there was something about watching a perceived god channelling an element like it was a dog he could call over at any time... it was-

Thor then threw all that energy at her and, for a second, Toni worried that despite her improvements after her fight with Vanko, her suit wouldn’t last against the raw power of actual - was it actual? - lightning.

But when her vision cleared again-

“Power at 400% capacity,” informed her JARVIS.

Toni smirked. “How about that?” she mused, before shooting that lightning straight back a slightly shocked Thor.

He clearly was not used to having his power redirected at him like this, Toni felt a bit like the Avatar.

Thor grunted, staring at her even more pissed off. Then he once more threw his hammer at her, with a loud bellow.

This time around, Toni had been expecting, and she managed to catch the damn thing instead of letting it smash her around. She turned on the spot with it, holding onto the handle, and then threw it right back to the sender.

Thor also caught it with no difficulty, and moved to evade the trick shot she had sent at him after - which sort of pissed her off, a little bit - but did not actually move to attack again.

He remained where he was, staring - gawking really - at her.

Toni kept standing as she was, ready to brawl again, but Thor seemed to not be interested in fighting any more. 

“You done now?” she asked, just to make sure.

“I...” he kept staring at her, seeming uncertain on what to do, glancing between her and his hammer.

Was he mad that she touched his hammer?

(Oh, these were never getting old)

“Look,” she said, when it appeared clear he wasn’t gonna say anything else. The adrenaline was going down, and she mused that perhaps being more clear about her motivations might ensure that he did not attack her again. That was what Rhodey’d say, at least. “Your brother did some jedi tricks on some SHIELD agents and a friend of my friends. He also took the cube and hid it away. We want to question him, figure out where he put it and what he really wants since,” she motioned at the top of the mountain, “He had like several minutes to run off and instead he stayed put.”

“Aye,” said Thor, blinking slowly. “He is up to trouble and mischief again.”

“Wouldn’t call it mischief, but whatever,” she muttered, shaking her head. Then, louder, “Can you keep a lid on that temper of yours at least until your brother has been questioned?”

“You are the fiery Queen of Iron, aren’t you?” he asked, instead of answering. His stance became less tense, more relaxed. “I heard of you from a friend of mine. Her name was Lady Darcy, Darcy Lewis.”

“Don’t know if I’d call Darce a lady,” pointed out Toni, not relaxing, but making a show of at least appearing to. “But yeah, that’s me. Iron Queen.”

He lit up. “You know Darcy? And, perhaps...”

“Jane?” she finished for him, unimpressed with the melancholic expression on his face. “Yes, I do know Jane. She works for me. Well, she works for herself, I just pay for it and will be someone she mentions when her work gets her a Nobel. Now, enough chit chat. Let’s pick up your tricky little brother and go.”

Thor nodded. “Let us.”

It took them a while to reconvene inside of the main conference room of the Helicarrier. Apparently Rogers had for whatever reason jumped after them, so they had to wait on the Quinjet for him to return.

Toni had kept her helmet on the entire time, but she hoped he had felt the judgement in her eyes that was completely aimed at his person anyway, when he came back.

JARVIS was still with her, both inside her suit and in her phone, but she still felt a little outnumbered as she stepped out of the armour and followed Coulson. She would have loved to get Loki back somewhere else but well... by the time she had gotten to Germany, there hadn’t really been much time for her to get into a pissing contest with SHIELD, and then Thor had shown up.

She wondered, as she followed after Coulson, if they really thought she had suddenly decided to come to this playdate and make up or if they were watching her as closely as she was watching them.

It’d be really said for them if they weren’t, she couldn’t help but think.

“... Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?”

“It’s a stabilising agent,” said Toni, not turning to look in the direction of where the voice had come from. She might not have heard that voice in over a decade, but she’d still recognise it anywhere anytime. “It means the portal won’t collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD.” 

Walking into the room like that was... uncomfortable.

There was, after all, a reason Toni had kept her suit tightly and firmly shut the entire time she had been around the SHIELD personnel, and it wasn’t just so that they couldn’t tell when she was making faces at them.

SHIELD smelled and sensed just as she would have expected them to. A lot of death, lies coming out of their mouths like carbon dioxide. It was like Obadiah Stane and Margaret Carter together times several hundreds.

The smell of death did not really bother Toni that much, not when it was just stuck on alive people, but mixed with the lies and distrust and everything else? She loathed it.

But there was also more than just that.

She forced herself to acclimate quickly, but when she looked at Thor she almost lost her footing again.

Toni had seen Thor. She had first seen him in 2010 when Darcy had shown her a picture of the man. 

She had felt the energy of the Bifrost and something else, when she had arrived in New Mexico. Something metallic, something electric and sharp.

She had fought Thor just short of a half hour ago, and she had realised that he might feel different than most humans, between the whole being Asgardian and the whole ‘thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening’ party trick.

But it was quite another thing to look at him like this, out of her armour, and to feel him.

There was lightning under his skin. Invisible lichtenberg figures seemed to colour his skin, and the hum of electricity was loud in her ears as she grew closer to him. His eyes - blue, very blue - seemed to have a sea at storm trapped within them, and Toni stopped in front of him without even thinking about it.

He seemed to be staring at her just as peculiarly as she was at him, and caught the pat Toni had been meaning to deliver to his shoulder. “Queen of Iron?” he guessed, expression all frowny and confused.

His hand was warmer than Toni’s - everyone’s hands were warmer than Toni’s, to be fair - and she felt the slightest hint of a shock when she touched him. 

She did not let it show, smiling instead. It was only half forced, surprisingly. “Toni Stark, actually; but yes, I am the pilot of that suit.” She pulled her hand away from his, swallowing quickly and refusing to show how rattled she felt. “No hard feelings, Point Break. You’ve got a mean swing.” 

He frowned, still looking at her curiously, and she forced her feet forward again. Unsettling. “Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long as Loki wants.”

Romanoff was looking at her, her usual poker face still in place. She had mostly ignored Toni on the jet too, and seemed obstinately decided on continuing to act as if this was the first time they met.

Rogers was far easier to read. He was looking at her with clear mistrust and also a degree of curiosity. There was death surrounding him, yes, but it was a little different from Romanoff’s. She couldn’t have told you how, however. She just knew it. 

Was there a difference between killing as a soldier and doing so as an assassin?

She glanced around the Helicarrier, a little amused as she stopped at the front. “You know, I suddenly get Nicky’s obsession with pirate get ups. Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails!” More than one agent stared at her like she had lost the plot, though the majority kept staring at her ass. Not good. “That man is playing galaga!” she added, pointing with her finger and cheering internally as the majority seemed to decide to not pay attention to the chaos she was seemingly intent on creating. “Thought we wouldn’t notice. But we did. How does Fury even see these?” 

A woman Toni had not yet met but read plenty about scowled, arms crossed around her chest. “He turns,” she informed her, flatly.

“Sounds exhausting,” she said, starting to touch all of the screens almost mindlessly. The woman looked annoyed, but she did not approach. “The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source.” She turned around with a flourish, leaving behind a screw like bug on one of the stands. Which no one noticed, really, SHIELD was a terrible intelligence agency. “A high energy density, something to kick start the cube.”

“When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?” questioned Hill, looking a little impressed despite herself.

“I had a study date last night, wanted to impress everyone,” she informed her, grinning. “The packet, Selvig’s notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?”

“Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” questioned the man with a plan, sounding frustrated. Toni would sound frustrated too, if she was asking such dumb questions without knowing she should be embarrassed about it.

“He’s got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier.”

Toni finally turned to the other person in the room she had so far ignored, and raised an eyebrow at him. “Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilise the quantum tunneling effect,” she pointed out.

Bruce smirked, only a little hesitantly. “Well, if he could do that, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet.”

This fucking asshole.

Toni smiled despite herself. “Finally, someone who speaks English,” she said, stopping a few feet away from him.

“Is that what just happened?” she heard distantly, but all of her attention was on Bruce.

And Hulk.

Hulk was staring straight at her from behind Bruce’s eyes, and she wondered if the scientist was even aware of it. She could see the green right behind the brown and it was nowhere near as unnerving as it might have been for others.

Toni had always seen the monster behind people’s masks, and she had to say that, as far as monsters went? She did not think Hulk was that bad.

Bruce and Hulk smelt like death, but also like something... chemical - the gamma?. And there was a lot of guilt in there. And rage, oh... there was a lot or repressed rage.

She wasn’t not as shocked as she could/should have been.

Bruce’s nostrils flared as she stopped in front of him, and she wondered if he was even aware of what he was doing. Or if the Hulk was the one doing it.

How did he even work?

Still the confused and wary expression that crossed his - and the Hulk’s - eyes at whatever they managed to scent, was kinda funny.

“Good to see you can still keep up, Doctor Banner,” she said, crossing her hands behind her back.

He arched an eyebrow at her. “I think it’s the other way round, Doctor Stark.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Robert.”

He stared at her in the same way. “Antoinette.”

Fucking asshole, she thought, unable to not smile. “Bruce.”

His smile was just as real as hers. “Toni.”

“Turned in an amazing new discovery on anti-electron collisions and then decided to turn yourself into a green rage monster?” 

His own voice was a little mocking in answer. “Knighted yourself Queen of the round table and then decided to create a new element in your basement for shit and giggles?” 

“I fly,” she reminded him, smirking. “It makes me cooler.”

“Oh, man, who’s been lying to you like this?”

“What is happening?” questioned the Capsicle, just as Fury decided to finally deign them with his presence.

“Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube,” he said, glancing at her and keeping his entire stance stiff and ready. “I was hoping you might join him.”

In a room with the god of thunder and the Hulk, his eye remained fixed on her and his hand not too far from his weapon.

Toni was kind of proud.

“Let’s start with that stick of his,” said Rogers. “It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon.”

Right, the stick that was in the debrief packet. Toni had not yet seen it but she was curious.

“I don’t know about that, but it is powered by the cube,” said Fury, which had Toni frowning. That did not sound right. How could the Tesseract be powering it if Loki had had the Scepter before showing up to Earth? “And I’d like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.”

“Monkeys?” questioned Thor, appearing puzzled. “I do not understand.”

“I do!” said Rogers, speaking before Toni could explain to Thor. “I understood that reference.”

He looked so proud of himself for that too, thought Toni, uncharitably rolling her eyes. Thor was not of this planet, of course he wouldn’t get things like this.

She turned to Bruce once more, not inclined to listen to them any longer. “Shall we play, Bruce?”

“Let’s play some,” agreed Bruce, making a gesture for ‘after you’. He was once more looking a little tense.

Good.

Toni was not planning on making things any easier for him.

Chapter Text

JARVIS?

I am aboard, Miss, said the AI, which made Toni relax a bit. 

She really did not like going places that the AI could not follow her, even before Afghanistan happened.

JARVIS was not actually installed inside of her brain. He was installed in everything electronic that Toni created or owned, which included her phone. 

She had never been quite sure of how she managed to communicate with him like this. It had just been something that she had always been able to do since the day JARVIS had first come online, and which extended to all of her bots too - though it was different with the bots, since they ‘thought’ different.

It was just yet another one of what her mamma used to call her ‘quirks’.

Just one that she had not never spoken to anyone about, not even her parents or Tao. She had little doubt that her friends and family at least suspected that she could communicate with her AI in a way they couldn’t see or understand, but Toni had never told them anything specific regarding it, and she was not planning on doing so any time soon either.

Alright, she said. You already in SHIELD’s servers?

Currently attempting to make my way through them, answered JARVIS. But I believe this is, in fact, the second half of the puzzle.

After Toni had kicked Rushman out of her company, she had decided to keep a closer eye on dear old dad’s unfinished project. She had used the bugs and backdoors the spider had left in her company and used them to hack SHIELD instead, without them being any the wiser.

However, while they had managed to learn a lot from that, they had not gotten as much as Toni wanted/believed SHIELD was hiding.

SHIELD had been smart, keeping only part of their information stored on their normal databases; but they had destroyed their advantage by allowing her aboard their little ship.

Wreck it, Ralph.

I know stealth and subtlety are not talents you possess or excel at, Miss, but I do. I am far too careful to ‘wreck’ anything and tip SHIELD off regarding my presence, but I shall acquire the relevant information for you, Miss.

Toni coughed to avoid bursting into laughter at that.

Cheeky little AI.

Instead, she shrugged off her jacket and re-focused on the console she had been working on, pulling her hair out of the bun she had forced it in earlier.

She had missed her long hair.

“This is weird,” abruptly said Bruce, stopping with a gamma detector in his hand. “Isn’t it?”

Toni glanced at the time on the computer, and almost whistled. It had taken him far longer than she had expected of him to make the situation awkward, she was almost proud of him.

“Is it?” she questioned, almost idly, clicking the file on the Scepter once more. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Should we talk about it?” 

“Whatever for? Keep scanning.”

“The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig’s reports on the Tesseract, but it’s going to take weeks to process,” said Bruce, glancing at the machine quickly before looking over at her again. “And I don’t know. To clear the air?”

“If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops,” answered Toni, squinting at her screen and inputting the relevant data. Then she looked over at him, this time not smiling. “And why should we? You’re going to be running off as soon as this is done anyway.”

“That’s not fair,” he protested, looking vaguely hurt.

“I wasn’t trying to be fair, Bruce - even though I did not lie - I am clearly trying to be petty and mean. Can’t you tell?”

“Well, you could try not to be, you know?” he said, watching her carefully as she moved towards him and the Scepter. “First of all, unlike you, I did not really get a choice on whether I wanted to come and help and not. Secondly, I couldn’t stay in New York even if I wanted to.”

“Which you don’t, obviously. And why couldn’t you?” 

“You don’t know what I want, and last time I was in New York? I kinda broke Harlem.”

“You don’t even know what you want,” said Toni, with a scoff. “And I saw videos of that altercation. Hulk did not break Harlem, Hulk broke the Abomination. The Abomination tried to break Harlem; and Ross too, I’m assuming.”

His eyes narrowed a little. “You were keeping an eye on me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she answered, rolling her eyes. “I was busy with my own shit, and Ross tried to contact me for a Hulk Buster during that whole thing. I was mostly curious about the Hulk.”

“Of course you were curious about the Hulk,” said Bruce, sighing slightly.

Toni glared at him again. “I resent the implications that I am in any way predictable.”

“One might argue that your penchant for being unpredictable makes you predictable?”

“That’s an hypothesis based on old data,” she pointed out, eyes fixing on the Scepter once more.

That thing, it was... weird. 

Yet another weird thing in the sea of weirdness she had been thrown in, but this one Toni was not in any way pleased over.

There was something about the Scepter that reminded her of the Tesseract. It was a darker hue of blue than the Tesseract, sure, but it wasn’t the colour that pinged at her awareness. There was just something about it that made Toni think of the other artefact.

However, the colour was where the apparent similarities ended.

When she had been younger and Howard had kept the Tesseract inside of his lab, Toni had been able to... converse with it. The Tesseract did not speak, per se, not like JARVIS did, not even like the bots did. But Toni always knew what it was saying to her, and she recalled spending hours upon hours just talking to it about space and lost civilisations and princesses and monsters and all of the worlds in the Universe.

The Scepter wanted to talk to her. Toni could tell, could tell it was trying to tell her something, but... she did not understand. She did not see what it was saying, she did not understand the hidden language under the ominous buzzing, and attempting to understand it was giving her a headache.

“I don’t like that thing either,” said Bruce, tapping his fingers on the table. Toni focused on him again, and found him staring at the Scepter, also appearing a little unnerved.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Me neither. It sounds weird.”

Bruce looked away from the weapon at those words, glancing at her contemplatively. “Yeah,” he said after a few seconds. “It smells weird too.” When she maintained steady eye contact with him, he continued. “You are different.”

“So are you,” she pointed out.

“You’ve always been different.”

“You’ve always been different too.”

“No, I wasn’t,” he said, chuckling slightly as he shook his head.

Toni was not impressed. “I think you were. And maybe back then we just couldn’t see it.”

“There are a lot of things we did not see back then,” he commented, and Toni promptly turned away from him. “Toni, wait. Please, let me just say, I’m sor-”

“I don’t want to hear it, Bruce,” she said, moving towards his screen. 

“But-”

“You are sorry about the one thing I am not sorry about. I am a grown woman capable of making her own choices, and it’s pissing me off that 12 years later you are still not getting it.”

“You know that isn’t it,” he protested. “I shouldn’t have-”

“Seriously pissing me off here, Banner-”

“But I’m sor- hey!” complained Bruce, rubbing the spot Toni had zapped him with a miniature electrical prod. Hulk remained hidden behind Bruce’s eyes, and Toni swore she saw a flash of amusement in both the brown and the green.

Still disappointing. Dealing with Hulk would have been better than having to hear Banner force an apology for something he shouldn’t be apologising about.

“Hey!”

“Nothing?” she questioned, almost pouting as god’s righteous man made his entrance.

“Are you nuts?” demanded Rogers, sounding angry.

“Jury’s still out,” she informed him, barely sparing him a glance before focusing on Bruce again. “You really have a lid on it, haven’t you? What’s your secret? Mellow jazz? Bondo drums? Huge bag of weed?”

“Is everything a joke to you?” demanded Rogers, frowning at her in clear disapproval.

“Funny things are,” she said, finally giving him her attention as he so clearly wanted.

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny,” he informed her, flatly. “No offense, doctor.”

“It’s all right,” said Bruce, shrugging him off. “I wouldn’t have come aboard if I couldn’t handle pointy things.”

“And here I thought you were forced,” she said, one eyebrow arched at Bruce’s sigh. “You’re tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut. I can teach you.”

“And you need to focus on the problem, Miss Stark,” said Rogers, crossing his arms around his chest and staring her down.

“I’m sorry, who lied to you and told you I answered you?” she questioned him, a little amused, a little irritated. “Second, I know you were born in the BM, but nowadays we have this cool trick called multi-tasking.”

“BM?” asked Bruce, sounding amused.

“Before Madonna, amen,” she said, snickering when Bruce followed her lead and they crossed themselves at the same time, eliciting a slightly scandalised expression from the blond. 

“Well, you should focus on your work,” said Rogers, clearing his throat. “To go faster-”

“Are you an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?” she questioned him, injecting as much mocking as she could in her voice. “No? Mind your business, then.”

He bristled. “My business is the safety of everyone on this ship and making sure Loki and his army don’t kill us all.”

“Mkay,” she agreed, pointing a thumbs up at him. “Good for you, Capsicle. Really, gold star. My business, personally, is figuring out what exactly Fury is trying so damn hard to hide and what he’s truly afraid of. I can’t do the equation unless I have all the variables.”

“You think Fury’s hiding something?” he asked, frowning at her.

“I think Fury has never been honest about one thing since the day I met him,” she answered flatly. “And I intend on getting to the bottom of things.”

“And then you wonder why he doesn’t want you on the team,” said Rogers, now his turn to sound mocking.

Toni snorted. “Is that what they sold you? That they don’t want me on the team? Oh, mon Capitaine. They made you make the Kool Aid, and then they made you drink it too?”

He drew himself up, and Toni would have rolled her eyes at the intimidation tactics, but Bruce was suddenly right beside her, eyes a little narrowed as he glared at Rogers.

“She’s right you know,” he said, just a hint of tenseness in his posture that made Rogers immediately stand down. “Fury has to be hiding something. When he said a warm light for all mankind, Loki’s jab at Fury about the cube.”

“I heard it,” said Rogers, still looking the slightest bit nervous.

“Well, I think it was meant for you,” he told Toni, not flinching at the slight glare in her eyes. “Even if Barton didn’t tell Loki about the Tower, it was still all over the news.”

“Stark Tower? That big ugly-” Rogers paused momentarily as Toni redirected her glare, and then continued, “Building in New York?”

“It’s powered by an arc reactor, self-sustaining energy source,” explained Bruce, which had Toni side-eyeing him a bit. “That building will run itself for what, a year?”

“That’s just the prototype,” she reluctantly said, shrugging. “I’m kind of the name in clean energy right now. That’s what he’s getting at.”

“So why didn’t SHIELD bring her in on the Tesseract project? I mean what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?”

“SHIELD has been working on project PEGASUS since the 90s,” continued Toni, popping open a bag of blueberries and putting one in her mouth. “Been trying to keep me away from it for a long time too. They only asked me here now because they are desperate.”

“You think highly of yourself,” said Rogers, once more veering into mocking.

Toni sauntered closer to him, maintaining eye contact even though she had to look up to make eye contact with him.

Fucking tall assholes.

“I have reason to. I estimate no more than...”

Two hours 23 minutes, Miss.

“Two and half hours before I know every single one of SHIELD’s dirty secrets.”

Rogers looked taken aback, while Bruce vaguely amused. “Stealthy hand.”

“You’d never beat me at poker.”

“Counting cards?”

“Doctor Banner, that’s illegal.”

“As is hacking into government computers,” said Rogers, frowning his mighty disappointed frown at her. For one to be disappointed, one would need expectations: so what exactly was he doing?

“Nobody says that anymore, it’s as outdated as you, grandpa,” she told him, throwing a blueberry in the air and catching it in her mouth before looking at him again. “And an intelligence organization shouldn’t fear intelligence. Historically, not awesome.”

“I think Loki’s trying to wind us up,” said Rogers, coolly. Toni had the feeling that he would have tried to get in her personal space again, had Bruce not been standing where he was, and it pissed her off a little bit. “This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don’t stay focused, he’ll succeed. We have orders: we should follow them.”

Like he did in Azzano?

“I don’t even follow orders in bed,” she said, grinning when he blushed. “It’s not my style.”

“A-and you’re all about style, aren’t you?” he managed, forcing himself to appear all business despite being flustered.

“So many opinions for a man who was an ice lolly three months ago and never met me before today,” she said, tutting in clear judgement. “And of the people in this room, which one is A, wearing a spangly outfit, and B, not of use?”

Rogers took one step forward, and Bruce spoke again. “Captain,” he said, measuredly. “Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you.”

The blond glanced at Bruce once more, before looking at Toni again.

He took a step back.

“Just find the cube,” he ordered, before stalking back where he came from.

Toni watched him go until the doors closed, and then twirled on Bruce. “I did not ask you to do that.”

“I didn’t-”

“Robert Banner, let’s make things very clear here,” she said, one finger pointed at him. “I did not need you to protect me at Columbia, I did not need you to protect me the last time we saw each other and I damn well don’t need you to protect me now.”

“He was trying-”

“I don’t. Need. You,” she repeated, fiercely and decidedly.

Bruce flinched a little, a flash of hurt in his eyes.

Toni refused to acknowledge it, instead turning on her heels and walking out of the room with purpose.

Bruce did not call her back.

Toni ended up wandering for a bit after her dramatic exit from the room. She had honestly just wanted to get away from Bruce for a bit, but at the same time she did not look forward to having to deal with the other passengers on their little flying ship.

With JARVIS at her side it was easy to avoid them, and she would have continued to do so - at least until they ended up noticing that she was no longer in the ‘lab’ (it was offensive to call that little room a lab) with Bruce - until she noticed the slight shift in the atmosphere around her.

Toni turned around at the faint sound of thunder, finding Thor approaching her with a curious expression on his face only moments before JARVIS warned her of his approach.

“Toni Stark,” he said, when he noticed her. “Greetings.”

“Hey, Fabio,” she said, offering him a quick smile that he returned, if a bit puzzledly.

“My name is Thor,” he corrected, and Toni almost laughed.

Just like about everything on the ship, there was plenty of blood on his hands. Death of countless stuck to him like glue, and yet something about his entire existence was... comforting.

Weird.

“I know,” she said, instead of dwelling on her own thoughts. “I just like giving people nicknames.”

“I see,” he said, nodding slowly. “Where are you headed?”

She hadn’t really been planning on going anywhere just yet, but as soon as he asked her somewhere did come to mind.

“Loki’s cell, actually.” 

Thor frowned. “Why, if I might ask?”

“Curiosity,” she explained, as they walked towards where Loki’s cell was. “The man willingly let himself be taken, doesn’t try to escape at all, even lets us play with his little Scepter, and you don’t want to know more?”

“I do,” said Thor, nodding. “But Loki... he is known on Asgard as the Silvertongue. He twists words, and lies.”

“That’s okay, I twist words and lie too,” she offered, smirking. “Also, I’m very good at knowing when I’m being lied to. Let’s see if I can out manipulate him.”

Thor appeared dubious. “Has your SHIELD cleared you for this?”

“Not my SHIELD, I don’t even like them,” she said, snorting. His confusion remained, so Toni explained. “I am working ‘with’ them because it is in my interest to do so. But I don’t trust them, and they don’t trust me. They think me dangerous because they tried to trick me into joining them twice, and I refused both times.”

Instead of looking shocked or upset, Thor nodded. “A mighty move from a mighty warrior,” he said, approvingly, and she smiled.

“Gee, thank you, sunshine,” she said, patting his shoulder when he smiled back at her. “Want to help me out?”

+++

“Curious,” said Loki, as she walked inside the room he was being kept in. It had taken Toni and Thor a little longer than she would have preferred, because SHIELD was everywhere and Thor was not perfect for stealth, but she had eventually made it. Loki’s eyes, reflected in the glass, opened as she walked in, an intrigued expression on his face. “Did not expect you to come here.”

All the cameras inside the room have been looped, Miss.

Thank you, J. Thor still distracting the guards dogs?

“I’m never expected,” she admitted, walking slowly closer to the panel.

Indeed. I shall inform you of when to make your escape if necessary.

Loki seemed to have made himself a little comfortable inside of the cell. He was sitting on the ground, right smack dab in the middle with his back to the door like some sort of psychopath, legs crossed in a meditation pose.

“Ah, yes,” said Loki, turning his body fluidly to look at her. When they made eye contact, that slimy feeling she had felt when she had first seen him returned. Even through the glass, it made her... uncomfortable. “The Merchant of Death. Iron Queen, yes. Toni Stark, dangerous. Do not engage.”

She gave him a little bow. “Thank you, I was very proud of that report. Stuck it to the fridge to show everyone too.”

He smiled, the smile not reaching his eyes in the slightest. He did not seem inclined to underestimate her, which was sad. Toni so loved it when people underestimated her, it made for awesome dramatic reveal moments.

“What is it that you want then, Merchant? An agreement? An allyship? Or are you here to threaten me?” 

He seemed rather amused at the idea.

“None of that,” cheerily said Toni, settling on a chair close to the cell. “I just wanna talk.”

“Talk,” repeated Loki, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes,” she said, leaning forward and putting her palm under her cheek. Seriously, whatever it was was making her skin crawl. What the hell was this man tangled with? “Talk. I’m sure someone named Silvertongue loves talking, doesn’t he?”

“I do,” agreed Loki. “But only when I wish to. I don’t like talking to enemies longer than I have to.”

“Then it’s a good thing that we are not enemies, just yet,” she said, smiling brightly.

This time Loki frowned, appearing confused. “What?”

“Your little trinket,” she continued, ignoring his question. “Where did you get that from?”

Loki’s expression twisted a little, turning in the amused blank look from earlier. “Why do you wish to know?”

“I was a weapons manufacturer,” she said, shrugging. “I’m curious.”

“I do not wish to reveal it,” he answered, shrugging too. 

“So it’s not from Asgard,” she deduced, watching him with a slight smirk. Loki’s expression did not change in the slightest, and she would have huffed at that. He was good. “That leaves like 7 more Realms, because that thing is not from Earth either.

“Of course,” she continued. “You did not arrive here by Bifrost. The Bifrost broke after an altercation between you and your big brother-”

“He is not my brother!” he snarled, not standing up but still appearing far more menacing than he had moments ago.

Toni refused to show a hint of a reaction, continuing to talk as if not bothered. The energy around him had dimmed in his anger rather than growing, and Toni made a note of that too. “And from what my alien science department and Thor’s arrival suggest, it has not yet been repaired. However, you arrived via Tesseract, and Thor arrived via the All-Father.”

Whatever the fuck that meant.

“So you were in different places,” she continued. “Thor was most likely on Asgard, since he was sent here by All-Daddy express. And you were with whoever it is that decided to give you that little toy you brought with you.”

Loki’s eyes had narrowed, but he did not speak.

“Still not feeling chatty? That’s fine, I love the sound of my own voice. I should have become an orator, or something. You know, I actually saw footage of your landing on Earth,” she informed him, now watching him more carefully. “SHIELD somehow managed to make sure the footage stayed intact while half of their personnel died. I will never understand that organisation’s priorities, honestly.

“Where was I? Oh, right. The footage.” She looked at him, affecting a very worried expression. “You looked really battered, when you got here. Was walking all funny. Wild night out before coming to take over a planet?”

“Something like that,” said Loki, bitingly.

“Mh,” she said, nodding. “I can imagine. But I see you healed up all nice already. Not many bruises anymore. Rogers tried to wrestle with you in Germany and you had no injuries. On the Quinjet you had a cut, right here,” she motioned on a point over her forehead. “Then after Thor came to hug you and see how you were, you looked even more injured. But now you’re here and puff.” She made a gesture with her hands. “Only the injures from Cap are showing up. Nothing from Thor. That is odd. Not everything healing, almost like you're hiding rather than healing.”

Loki was very tense now. He was also scowling at her, eyes much more awake and alert than they had been earlier.

“What are you getting at?”

“Talking,” she said, shaking her head. “Just talking out loud. Sharing my ideas. On the subject of your apparent not-brother,” she continued, “He likes Earth. So much so that he decided to give us his protection.”

Not that anyone had asked him, but whatever.

“Yes,” said Loki, seeming to be pleased on this topic of conversation. The nasty energy around him seemed to grow, and the injury on his forehead re-appeared. Toni forced herself to not narrow her eyes at that. “And thus I will rule it.”

“Lame.”

Loki looked at her, offense clear on his face. “Excuse me?”

“I said lame,” she repeated, keeping her expression judging. “I mean, that’s it? You decided to take over Earth because you were jealous?”

“I was not jealous,” said Loki, looking angered. “I was always meant to be King! And now, I shall be.”

“Childish,” said Toni, shaking her head. Loki scowled, and she put both palms up. “What? You are! You are mad at your brother, and decided to take and break his toy. It’s very sad.”

He sneered. “You shall not manipulate me into leaving your planet alone. I can tell when you lie, I am the god of Lies.”

“You are the god of Chaos, Mischief and Fire,” she corrected, waving him off. “Not lies. And I can assure you, that is not my intention at all. I mean, I will do anything to make sure you don’t conquer us, make no mistake; but I’m simply pointing out the truth.”

“I am meant to be King, and I shall be King!”

“Okay,” she agreed. “So you are mad at your not- brother or whatever. Destroyed the Bifrost in your anger-”

“Thor destroyed the Bifrost, not I!”

“Thor destroyed the Bifrost,” she corrected, keeping her expression even. “You ended up with a bunch of unsavoury people with bad hosting habits, got given a new toy, and with that you decided to come to the planet of what you have called ants to stomp on us to piss off your not-brother,” she finished, one eyebrow raised. “Do you realise how dumb that sounds?”

“You-”

“I mean, if you wanna be King so badly, why would you want to be King of a planet you hate, filled with beings you believe your lessers and that would, thus, never be able to fight Asgard?” He frowned, and she made a show of hesitating. “I’m assuming taking over Asgard is your next step, after conquering us?”

Loki just stared at her. The energy around him faltered once more. “I...”

“Jesus,” she said, looking at him in disappointment. “No? You are just gonna conquer us and be content leading a bunch of so-called ants because it’s gonna piss off Thor and the your not-father?”

The father comment was a reach, but it landed considering the way Loki frowned again, blinking in confusion too.

“What exactly do you expect them to say when you are King?” she pressed, frowning at Loki. “'Oh look. Loki is King of the ants. He sure showed us good! We should have known better than to say he could never make a good King, look at how well he is leading the ants!' Makes no damn sense. It’s very childish. Thought that the so-called god of chaos and mischief would have something a little more impressive to show for the talks of his clever brain and fast tongue.”

I’d suggest starting an exit, Miss. Agent Romanoff seems to be headed towards the cell.

“My fault,” she said, smiling slightly as she stood back up. “Me and my assumptions, you know. Shouldn’t have just believed you were smart, my mistake. Won’t happen again.”

“You are not half as clever as you think you are,” informed her Loki, glaring at her hatefully. The energy around him was too stuck to his body to dissipate, but Toni did not miss how much it had thinned.

She put a hand on her chest as the door opened for her. “You’re going to hurt my feelings, Reindeer Games.”

“I’m gonna enjoy killing you.”

She stepped out of the room and waved her fingers at him. “How are you going to do that from inside a cage?”

Chapter Text

Toni’s smile slipped off her face as soon as she was back in the hallway and the door between her and Loki was closed.

That had been... unnerving. And illuminating.

And confusing.

Toni did not like any of that.

“Thor,” she called out, keeping her voice low. “Come on, let’s go.”

Less than 20 seconds later, the Asgardian was standing at her side, a hopeful expression on his face. Toni grabbed onto his arm, ignoring the rumble of thunder inside of his veins as she pulled him along.

Surprisingly enough, Thor went without fuss.

JARVIS, tell me if I need to change route.

Of course, Miss.

“Why did you break the Bifrost?” she asked him once they were far enough from nosy SHIELD agents, glancing at him as they walked.

Thor looked a little surprised by the question. “How did you-”

“Hon, things will go a lot easier if we just skip the whole thing where you question where I got my information,” she said, and he scowled a bit at her.

“You are a little annoying.”

“Thank you,” she said, grinning proudly at him.

Thor ignored it, and then sighed. “Loki was trying to destroy Jotunheim,” he finally explained. “At the time, I wasn’t aware of what exactly had happened, but now I know. Loki found out while we were on Jotunheim the first time around that he is not Asgardian by birth. That he is not even Odinson but rather an adopted child of Jotunheim. This knowledge broke something in him, drove him mad. And made him decide to destroy the planet.”

She wondered if Thor was purposefully avoiding the objective truth or if believing one’s own lies was a family thing.

But she did not ask, because she needed some answers. 

“To stop him, I had to destroy the Bifrost. This made us both fall, but I caught him and Father caught me at the last possible moment.” He swallowed, pain and grief etched on his face. “Father was holding on to me, and I tried to keep a hold of him, to pull him back up. But Loki, he...”

Fell.

No, she realised as she looked at Thor. This was more than that.

Loki didn't fall.

“He let go,” she finished for him, a sudden weight in her heart, and Thor nodded, squeezing his eyes shut.

Toni paused in her walking, regarding him for a couple of seconds. Regarded how stiff he was, how clenched his fists were, the pure agony that seemed to be coming from him from her three words. 

She did not like seeing him in pain.

At all.

It made something deep inside of her hurt.

(Or was thinking about the angry man in that cell attempting suicide and ending up somewhere worse that was making something inside her hurt?)

(Toni knew rock bottom.)

“Hey,” she said, hesitating for a second before she reached out to cup his cheek with one hand. “Hey. He’s alive right now. He’s alive.”

Thor leant into the touch, a sheen of tears appearing when he opened his eyes again. “But he’s...”

“He’s alive,” she repeated, firmly. “Focus on the fact that your brother is back from the dead for now. That he’s not completely gone, he's not somwhere you can’t follow. Loki’s alive. Focus on that. Okay?”

Thor reached up, touching her hand with his much bigger one. “Okay,” he agreed, quietly, blue eyes fixed on hers with a look that was both touched and pained.

He had a bracelet around his wrist, she then noted, as she averted her gaze. It was simple, hardly eye catching, and only the glare of the light on it made her notice it at all. It looked silver, a simple chain with a small sun pendant on it.

It was a bracelet and not a necklace like hers, but for some reason the craft of it and the general material and motif reminded her of her necklace. It was-

Miss, if you remain where you are any longer, you will be intercepted by Agent Coulson.

“Come on,” she said, letting go of his cheek and moving again. “We need to move. And anyway, wherever your brother ended up, it was not a nice place.”

Thor tensed again even as he followed her, their hands inexplicably linked together. Toni did not pull away from the touch as she normally would have, feeling his warmer hand slightly comfortable against hers. “How do you know?”

“He’s masking his injuries with magic, and yet his magic is failing him,” she explained, and Thor appeared sufficiently alarmed by that. “Have you seen the footage of his arrival?”

“No,” he said, frowning. “I was led to believe it was destroyed.”

Left.

Toni turned at the first left, scoffing. “Because it’s not in SHIELD’s best interest that you know your brother is not as okay as he seems. Might trigger some sympathy in you and make you less amendable in agreeing with what they want.”

“That is dishonourable!” argued Thor, sounding surprised.

“Dishonour on them, their family and their cows,” agreed Toni. “Ken doll, we’re on Earth, not on Asgard. We care very little about our supposed honour, here.” Thor looked perturbed at the notion, and Toni continued. “But anyways. Baby bro: showed signs of torture at arrival. Is hiding said signs and injuries now via magic that he can’t sustain. Looked very hurt and all, and yet is supposed to lead an army here with his new not-Asgardian Scepter. He’s supposed to lead an army to Earth so that he becomes King, and he is on the front lines?”

Thor’s expression was similar to hers as he nodded. “That is... indeed not a very clever course of action. Not something Loki would ever come up with. And especially allowing himself to be put in a cage that has no way of-” he trailed off, glancing over at her quickly at his slip up, a little apprehensive.

Toni smiled at him, sardonically. “I’m not stupid. Loki Silvertongue Skywalker, right?”

“Not all the myths are true,” he pointed out.

“Only those that aren’t false,” she quipped. Thor relaxed slightly at that, his smile hesitant but still there.

“But you are correct. My brother’s actions... no, he is usually much more methodical than this. He wouldn’t simply announce himself and attack in such a manner. And to come ahead of his army... why, when he risked capture?”

“And why allow himself to be captured? Did he want to draw Asgard’s attention?” she questioned, also shaking her head. “There was a lot of daddy issues and ‘he’s not my real brother’ angst in that room. Wait, hold on. Army? How do you know there’s an army coming?”

“Mother,” explained Thor, sighing. “She has Seen.”

Toni just stared at him. “She has seen what?”

“Not seen, Seen,” he repeated, smiling a little. “My mother is a Seer. She has visions of the future and she saw a mighty army following Loki to Midgard.”

Interesting choice of words.

“Mh,” said Toni, watching the door of the lab opening before them and walking inside with Thor. The man was still holding her hand, which Toni had forgotten about until Bruce looked up and his eyes immediately focused on that.

Toni would have never done that to Jane, and she quite honestly did not see Thor as anything romantic or sexual, but she decided to let him and his imagination continue to take him wherever they wanted to rather than explain.

“What can you tell me about that Scepter?” she asked instead, letting go of Thor’s hand and moving towards her console. JARVIS had delivered, nice.

“I have never seen it in my life,” admitted Thor. “It is not of Asgard, or from anywhere in the Nine Realms. I believe that Loki’s jailors might be the owners.”

“Jailors?” said Bruce, frowning at them both. “What are you talking about?”

“For a guy wanting to take over Earth, Loki seems to lack conviction. I’m working under the assumption that he does not actually want to do that, but rather he is stuck between a rock and a hard place and a lot of persuasion was utilised to make sure he made the right decision,” she succinctly explained. Bruce’s eyes widened at the subtext, and Toni turned to Thor. “But anyway, do not think he’s all there or all for it.”

“But how can we help him?” asked Thor, looking at her with something odd in his eyes. Toni must have hit her head at some point, because it sure looked as if Thor expected her to be able to fix this issue for him somehow.

And the weird thing, Toni wanted to be able to fix the issue for him, somehow. She did not know why, considering she had spent the last two years being deeply unimpressed with Thor and trying to convince Jane of how much better she could do, but she just... wanted to. Make him happy.

And then, there was Loki.

There was something deeply wrong with Loki, she had known it in her gut since the moment she had made eye contact with him in Germany. Something other than the evil magic of bad and evil, something inside of him was hurt.

And, yes, Toni was renowned for her incapability of leaving something broken alone. But it was unsettling feeling that same protectiveness over a guy she barely knew, a guy that while clearly tortured was also very much not innocent.

Bruce was glancing between the two of them, brows furrowed, braincells working a mile a minute trying to understand their sudden camaraderie. Toni would have loved to hear his thoughts and conclusion, considering she so far had nothing.

“Time,” she said, after a few seconds. “We need some time. Are you hungry? Take a blueberry.”

Thor moved towards her, looking curiously at the packet she was offering him. “What are they?”

“Blueberries. They are neither actually blue nor are they technically berries, but you know how it is. You can throw the tea in the harbour but you cannot take the brit out of the American, or something like that. Try it, it’s nice, you’ll like it.”

Thor looked dubious, even as he accepted the fruit. He made a funny face at the taste, then his eyes widened in surprise. 

“Does it remind you of anything?” 

“Aye,” said Thor, taking the entire packet from her hands. “There is a similar fruit on Asgard I used to eat a lot when I was a babe. It-”

“No, Hammer time,” she said, shaking her head in amusement. “I meant the Scepter.”

“Oh,” said the blond, looking over at it in some confusion. “Like what?”

“Hey,” she said, a thought occurring to her. “Have you ever seen the Tesseract before?”

“Father used to have it in his treasures room,” he said, shrugging. “But no, I have never seen it myself. Have you?”

“Yes,” she said, expression twisting the more she read on her screen. “Dad used to... oh you mother fuckers.”

“Toni?”

She turned towards the door, glaring at it. Three seconds later, Fury barged in, looking wary and tense. “What are you doing, Miss Stark.”

“Kind of been wondering the same thing about you,” she said, a scowl on her face.

“You’re supposed to be locating the Tesseract,” he pointed out, entire body tense.

“We are,” offered Bruce from behind her. Thor had moved a little to her left, glancing warily between her and Fury. “The model’s locked and we’re sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we’ll have the location within half a mile.”

Toni pointed over at Bruce’s general direction in agreement, eyes never leaving Fury’s through her screen. “Now on more important topics: are you out of your damn mind?”

“Stark-”

“PHASE 2?” she questioned, shaking her head. “Are you nuts?”

“Phase 2?” asked Bruce, sounding confused. “What is phase 2?”

“PHASE 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons,” said Rogers, startling everyone but Toni and Romanoff with his silent approach. He glanced over at her with a tight smile. “Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow.”

“Rogers,” started the spy-pirate turning to face the blond. “We gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we’re-”

“I thought we were done with the thing where you lie to me, Nicholas,” said Toni, turning the screen with the incriminating evidence to face them.

JARVIS, begin downloading and copying as much as you can.

Where would you like me to store it, Miss?

Secure personal server. We might need to forward it to Rhodey and his people eventually, but not until I start going through it. Make it private, though, we cannot get SI caught up in this if SHIELD tries to bring Howard into this.

They wouldn’t be able to make much stick, considering her father was dead and Toni was much more powerful than they were, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

She barely listened to the ensuing argument in the room, the Scepter’s buzzing filling her with some annoyance as she watched JARVIS work.

However, she did focus when Thor spoke up, sounding vexed. “My people want nothing but peace with your planet,” he informed Fury, scowling. “You are the ones who signalled your positions to the rest of the Realms and Universe that Earth is ready for a higher form of war. I would not be surprised if your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki’s allies here to begin with.”

“Loki’s allies?” asked Rogers, eyes narrowed. “Implying that he isn’t the one that started this?”

Perceptive, thought Toni, internally wincing when Thor shot her a quick look. It wasn’t a panicked look, but still. Why was he dragging her into this?

“You forced our hand,” said Fury, voice impassive, but all seeing one eye not missing the by-play. “We had to come up with something.”

Yeah, right.

“A nuclear deterrent?” she questioned, voice very mocking. “Cause that always calms everything right down, doesn’t it?”

Fury scowled at her. “Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?”

“I’m sure that if she still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep-” started Rogers, taking a step forward, and hello? Hadn’t they just had a moment where he had realised he was wrong and she was right and he should never question her again?

“Again with the assumptions on my character formed before you ever set eyes on me,” she complained, deeply irritated now. “How is this about me?”

“Isn’t everything?” 

“I thought humans were more evolved than this-”

“Excuse me, do we come to your planet and blow stuff up?”

“Do you always treat your champions with such mistrust-” 

“Are you all really that naïve? SHIELD monitors potential threats.”

“Captain America is on a threat list-”

Her head hurt. It was an odd sort of hurt, not quite a headache, and not really stopping her from giving back as much as she was given, but it was there.

Like an angry buzzing at the back of her brain, something insistent in getting her attention. It wasn’t JARVIS, JARVIS was at work and knew not to interrupt her when she was dishing it out for the annoying people around her and clapping back.

But it was there, insistent, waiting to be noticed while at the same time not wanting to be noticed.

“You speak of control, yet you court chaos,” said Thor, disdain and condescension clear on his face.

“That’s his MO, isn’t it?” pointed out Bruce, also looking tense. “I mean, what are we, a team? No, no. We’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We’re... we’re a time bomb.”

“You need to step away,” informed him Fury, coolly, and yeah that did not sit right with Toni.

“Aren’t we entitled to 30 minutes breaks in the workplace?” she questioned, looking over at Fury with a raised eyebrow. “Give him a smoke break, why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?”

“You know damn well why!” snapped Rogers, scowling at her. “Back off!”

Toni’s mood dropped very quickly at that, and she turned to the blond. “Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me.” 

Romanoff stiffened slightly and Fury’s jaw clenched. Rogers did not notice this, as he started circling her. “Yeah. Big girl in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?”

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist,” she informed him, flatly. “Also, naked.”

“I know men and women with none of that worth ten of you,” answered her Rogers, glare still in place. His eyes were almost glistening, either in dislike or because of the glare of the light. “Yeah, I’ve seen the footage.”

“Really, what sextape was your favourite?” She was mostly genuine in her question. 

His ears reddened, but his expression did not become any less disapproving. “If Howard could see you now-”

“Talk about my father again and I will stab you through the throat with my stiletto, don’t fucking try me,” interrupted Toni, voice suddenly cold. She hoped it reminded him of his old apartment in the Artic.

Rogers appeared startled at the venom in her voice, but instead of stepping back, his voice turned weirdly triumphant at seeing a perceived weakness in her. “He was a real hero. The only thing you fight for is yourself. He-”

Toni’s body moved. She shifted her weight, ready to crouch and hit him hard where it hurt-

When suddenly Thor was there. Standing between Toni and Steve, and while she could not see his eyes, she could tell how tense he was just by his shoulders and the thunder boiling within him.

“Why do you not go for someone who is more your size?” he rumbled, sounding pretty pissed off. “Insisting on bringing up one’s parents in a battle of wills and wits that does not involve them is cowardly and childish.”

Thor was basically vibrating with barely contained tension.

Everyone was, noted Toni. Romanoff had a hand on her gun and was standing close to the door, ready to attack and flee. Fury also seemed ready to start fire and leap behind one of the desks, watching them all as if they were threats. Rogers still sounded angry and about to fight, as did Thor, fingers twisting around for Mjolnir.

And Bruce was standing a little farther, holding the Scepter in his hands.

The Scepter.

The buzzing.

Ah.

She might have been the one to underestimate Loki after all.

She briskly walked away from Thor and towards Bruce, ignoring the argument behind her.

“Hey,” said Rogers, reaching to grab her when she walked past him. “I’m talking to-”

“Do not touch her,” snapped Thor, either grabbing or slapping Rogers’ hand away, she didn’t pay attention.

Toni still did not turn around, focused on Bruce who was staring at her in vague confusion. “Give me that.”

Bruce stared at her. “Give you-” he cut himself off, looking at the Scepter in his hands in shock. “What?”

“The Scepter,” she said, taking it straight from his hands. He held it for a second tighter, but then let go when she raised an eyebrow at him. She placed it back where it was, ignoring the insistent buzzing. “It’s exacerbating our emotions, making us angrier or whatever.”

More than one person in the room hissed, as Toni looked over the object, wondering if there was any way of minimising the output or at least their reaction to it. Fury was looking at her with a speculative light in his eyes, but when Toni turned to him, he cleared his throat.

“I believe it would be safer to escort Doctor Banner back to his-”

Bruce scoffed. “Where? You rented my room.”

Fury seemed to forcibly calm himself, now that he knew what the source of his mood was. “The cell was just in case-”

“In case you needed to kill me,” finished off Bruce, shaking his head. “But you can’t. I know, because I’ve tried.”

Toni’s movements stilled, the entire room falling silent at the admission.

Bruce sighed, not looking at her - or at anyone really. “I got low. I didn’t see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth. And the other guy spit it out.”

“Bruce-”

“Don’t,” he said, looking up at her. His eyes were colder than before, dark amusement inside them. “Don’t pretend that you care now, Toni.”

“Stop acting like you have ever known what I-” she paused, breathed, and glared at the Scepter. “Can you stop doing that, you miserable drama obsessed bastard?”

Bruce’s screen beeped, which Toni found herself grateful for. Too much had been revealed in the past few minutes, and she really did not have the time to sort her emotions regarding any of that just yet.

Bruce did not look at her as he returned to his post, and Toni did not look at him either, focusing on the rest of the people around.

Fury was watching between the two of them with some interest, Romanoff had returned to her blank self, Thor was still facing off Rogers, and Rogers still looked plenty irritated.

“Located the Tesseract?”

“I can get there faster,” said Toni, moving away from the Scepter. “Send me the co-ordinates and-”

“You’re not going there-” Rogers grabbed her as he spoke, and Toni moved without hesitation this time around. She twisted out of his hold, and hit just the right spot in his shoulder to dislocate it with a hit of her elbow.

Super strength or not, pain was pain, and Rogers gasped as he almost dropped to the ground, holding his shoulder in shock, while Toni just stared at him as calmly as before.

She met his eye evenly. “Stop me when I’m trying to walk away again, and I’ll do much worse than just dislocate your shoulder,” she informed him, candidly.

Rogers gritted his teeth together as he forced himself back on his feet, but he didn’t get to say anything before Bruce spoke. “Oh my god.”

Toni frowned, taking a couple of steps towards him without even thinking. “Bruce? You-”

And that’s when the Helicarrier exploded.

+++

“Stark? Stark!”

Toni groaned, trying to stand up again.

That had fucking hurt.

“Stark! Stark, do you copy? Romanoff?”

“She’s with me,” said the widow, and Toni turned her head to see her and Bruce behind her. Her leg seemed to be stuck inside something, while Bruce was breathing heavily at her side. “We’re okay.”

“Stark, you need to get up there. The turbines are going down, we lose one more and we won’t be in the air much longer.”

“I hear ya, one piece,” she said, sitting up with another groan. “Give me-”

“Doctor?” called out Romanoff, sounding a little apprehensive. Toni followed her eyes to where Bruce was, clearly alive but also clearly not okay. That was not simple heavy breathing. “Bruce, you got to fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We’re going to be okay, listen to me. We’re going to be okay, I swear on my life you’re going to get out of here, and you’ll never ever-”

“Your life?” snarled Bruce, in a voice that wasn’t his anymore.

His skin had splotches of green in it, and the rage, oh Toni could feel the rage now that she focused. She had only caught a glimpse of it before, but she could feel it, rippling under his skin, slinking out of his mouth, powerful and all encompassing.

Glorious.

Ill-timed too.

“Bruce!” she called out as Bruce’s shirt started to rip and he fell down the platform with a growl that was very much not human anymore. “Bru- Hulk!”

“Get out of here!” hissed Romanoff, finally managing to get her leg out. “He’s gone, and he’s not someone you can catch by surprise and shoot down.”

Toni ignored her completely, jumping over her and approaching Bru- no, he was Hulk now, the growling and roaring being under there was very clearly not the awkward little man man she had gone to University with.

“Hey, you!” she called out once she got down, ignoring Romanoff’s voice. “Hey, Hulk!”

His growl was loud enough to make her bones rattle, but Toni did not move. “Hulk! I’m talking to you.”

“Jesus, she’s going to get us all killed,” she heard Romanoff say in Russian.

So rude, why did people not trust Toni? She was still alive, she clearly knew what she was doing.

Hulk finally turned around and roared the loudest noise Toni had yet heard in her life. His breath kinda stank too, which was the worst of it all.

Toni did not move, remaining right where she was as he slowly and predatorily came to stand - or, rather, loom - over her.

He was so fucking big, part of her marvelled. And he still looked like Bruce. He still had that scar Bruce had under his chin from that time he had exploded the beaker they were using and cut himself. It was a bit bigger on Hulk - in proportion? - but still there.

He got all the way in her face, and then growled, teeth stupidly big and surprisingly white - what did this means for his internal organs? Was the green just outward? How many layers of his epidermis were green? - all in her face.

And he did not attack her.

“I’m going to need you to stand down, Hulk,” she informed him, unimpressed at the rumble growing from deep within the creature’s chest. "I'm serious. Look around you! This place is too small for you! You're gonna end up wrecking everything around you!"

"Smash," roared the beast, this time loud enough to make her fall on her ass.

"That was so fucking rude, but I'll allow it," said Toni, quickly getting back on her feet. "Hulk, listen to me!"

"NO!"

And still he did not attack her. Toni stared at those green eyes in front of her - clever, too clever for a mindless rage monster - and he stared back. She could almost feel his heart thrumming in his chest.

It beat almost to the same rhythm as hers.

Rage, there was so much rage inside of him.

But also fear. She could almost taste it, mixed with Romanoff's acrid fear. 

"If you smash this thing," she continued, voice louder to make sure he heard her over the sounds of their hearts and his growl. "You're gonna send it splat against the ground. Everyone inside is going to get hurt. Including Bruce."

The growl stopped.

Toni pressed on. "If by some miracle you are not hurt when you smash against the ground, people will be waiting for you down there. People with annoying guns."

"Ross," said Hulk with an instinctual and hateful growl.

Toni nodded. "Yes, like the Thunderbolt. You want to keep Bruce safe?"

A loud snuffle that Toni knew was a yes. She smiled, and pushed her palm straight against Hulk's chest. 

He did not push it away.

"Then you need to not smash. You need to stay right here without moving or smashing, and I will go and make sure no people with guns come and that we remain afloat. How bout that?"

Hulk pulled back a little, staring at her. He projected his feelings and emotions so loudly, Toni was sure anyone should be able to read his confusion, intrigue and anger.

"No scared. No angry." He sounded puzzled by that. "Who you?"

"Toni Stark," she said, pushing back the need to curtsy. 

"Tiny."

"No, Toni."

"Tiny Toni," he said and wait a minute, was he laughing at her?

"Only because you're a giant, Hulk," she scoffed, wincing at the sound of something exploding. "Look, I've got to-"

"Go," he said, looking around him warily as he slowly sat down. "Tiny Toni go. Hulk stay."

"No smash?" She asked just to make sure.

He huffed. It sounded miffed. "No smash."

Toni grinned. "I'm trusting you there, big guy," she said nodding at him.

His next rumble sounded pleased.

Chapter Text

“Romanoff tells me you calmed down the Hulk.”

Toni did not turn around as Fury walked into the medbay, carefully and quietly. 

“Sneaking around like this is how you got shot the first time around,” she reminded him, finger tapping against the arm of the chair she was sat on. It was loud and annoying and also the only thing stopping her from thinking about Thor who-

She viciously bit her lip, not even grimacing at the taste of lipstick.

“You don’t have a gun,” pointed out Fury, finally putting himself in her field of vision.

“That assumption has cost you before,” she reminded him. To be fair, the first time they had met - when she had walked in and found him standing near the window of her Mansion - she might not have bothered bringing a gun, had JARVIS not told her about a breach before going offline. But Fury didn’t need to know that, she liked him being on his toes around her.

Also, “I don’t need a gun to do harm upon your person anyway.”

He huffed, but not in disagreement. “That has been clear for years now, I believe. I’m starting to think that Howard’s efforts were more in trying to keep SHIELD safe from you, rather than keeping you away from SHIELD.”

“The cage is to lock her out,” she said, automatically, trying to resist the urge to do something unwise that she felt whenever SHIELD dared to talk to her about her father. 

They had no right to do that, not anymore.

Instead of voicing any of that, however, she kept her eyes fixed on Bruce. 

“You talked the Hulk down. You managed to get Thor on your side in a matter of hours. Romanoff respects you a lot more than she’d care to admit. Once you put your differences aside, you and Rogers worked along pretty well. You were the only one who noticed what the Scepter was doing.”

“Just a Thursday afternoon. What do I win?”

“You would be the perfect leader for the Avengers Initiative.”

Toni did glance in his direction at that, feeling herself fill with pity at the serious expression on his face. “Except that I don’t want to work under you or as part of the Avengers to begin with. That’s a bit of an insurmountable difference there, isn’t it?”

“Not even to keep an eye on Banner?”

Toni scoffed. “Bruce will take off as soon as we have stopped Loki and found the Tesseract, whether you want him to or not. He likes to run away, and that’s what he's going to do. I’m not his minder.”

“Are you his friend?”

Toni did not answer that. First, because she did not like giving SHIELD more information on herself than what they’d be able to find on the Internet. Second, because... she wasn’t sure she knew the answer to said question anymore.

Twelve years ago, she’d have said yes.

Yesterday, she’d have said no.

Right now? She had no idea.

“I’m not joining your team, Fury,” she finally said. “Even omitting the fact that I would never willingly affiliate myself with you and your people because you’re all stupid and I don’t like you, your little toy soldier has done nothing but insult me since I walked aboard. Your pet spider might respect me, but she also resents me, and I personally don’t like her that much either. Coulson is dead. Bruce’s not here to stay. Who’s left?”

Thor was left. Because Thor was alive of course, Toni was sure. He might have fallen while she was busy somewhere else, but he was okay.

He was okay. He was strong, wasn’t he? Enhanced.

Thor was okay.

He had to be.

Her eyes turned to Bruce, and she scowled at him. “Are you done pretending to be asleep?”

“I wasn’t, but I guess I don’t really have a choice anymore, do I?” he complained, slowly opening his eyes again. He regarded the ceiling over his head for a second, and then tensed.

“I retrieved you as soon as I managed to avoid the Helicarrier turning into an omelette,” she informed him, understanding exactly what he was currently feeling. “Hulk was right where I left him. He went down, and I brought you here. No one touched you - other than me, I guess.”

Bruce’s eyes fixed on her for a second or two. Apprehension, confusion, uncertainty.

An odd mix.

“You talked the Hulk down,” he then said. 

It did not really sound like a question, so Toni simply shrugged. “Mhm.”

“I... remember it. You...” he started, looking at her with an odd expression on his face. But then he suddenly sat up, eyes widening. “The cube!”

“All of our computers blew up,” she said, irritated. “And my phone is busted. I didn’t get to see the position-”

“I did,” said Bruce, and now both Toni and Fury were staring at him. “I know where the cube is.”

“Well, where is it?” demanded Fury, but Bruce kept his eyes on Toni.

His expression was still a little weird, but then he grimaced. “Yeah, you’re not going to like this.”

Toni’s eyes narrowed.

Bruce was very right, Toni did not like finding out that Loki had decided to use her goddamn fucking Tower to start the Invasion.

At all.

She wondered if this had been his plan from the beginning, or if this was a more personal 'fuck you' for her after their little chat, earlier.

She resolved that she was going to kick his ass either way.

She looked away from Doctor Selvig’s machine and down to the city of New York. The mass evacuation had started not too long ago, and New York was a pretty big fucking city. She was just glad that JARVIS had taken the initiative to send the notice of evacuation before his communication line to Toni had gotten destroyed after the Helicarrier had been attacked.

Loki was watching her from where he stood on the balcony of her penthouse and she scowled at him through her HUD.

Little bastard.

“Miss, the MARK VII is not ready to be deployed, yet,” said JARVIS, as she landed on her landing strip.

“Skip the spinning rims then, we’re on the clock and mommy got a smug bastard to teach a lesson to,” she said, letting the suit unfold.

Loki was already inside when she walked in, waiting. He looked as crazed as he had in Germany and before they had spoken, that uncomfortable magic thick around him again. The Scepter in his hands was buzzing again, and Toni could have sworn that the magic seemed to... respond to said buzzing. Exacerbating?

She had a feeling that that around him wasn’t Loki’s magic at all.

“Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity,” he asked, voice mocking as he watched her.

“Why would I appeal to the humanity of an alien?” she asked, rhetorically. “But no. I’m planning to verbally top you in moron/sapiosexual humiliation play. And threaten you, as well.”

Loki stared at her, momentarily baffled. 

And Bruce dared to say that her unpredictability made her predictable, pfft.

“If you were planning to threaten, you should have left your armour on,” then said Loki, catching himself. The magic had not thinned this time around, and Toni had a feeling she knew what to blame for that.

“Yeah, well, it would have looked kinda pathetic with the whole ruined paintjob,” she pointed out, moving towards her bar. “And you’ve got your sailor moon stick. Kinda unfair. Would you like a drink?”

Loki sneered. “Stalling me won’t work.”

“No, no! Threatening,” she corrected, grabbing a bottle of scotch. “No drink? Are you sure? Had a rough day at the office, I’m having one.”

She watched as Loki moved towards the glass again, tense and slightly manic in both movement and attitude. He was frantic, almost, and something about his movements reminded her of the day after Raza had threatened to kill both her and Yinsen if the weapon wasn’t done by the time he came back.

Nothing left to lose.

“The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that,” said Loki, with the same manic grin. “What have I to fear?”

“The Avengers,” she said. At his expression she shrugged, forcing herself back to neutral. Loki was threatening the city, no time to be feeling sympathetic or to draw comparisons. “Me and my back up dancers. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes type of thing.”

Loki sounded amused. “Oh, yeah. I’ve met them.”

Toni smiled back, flashing all of her teeth. “Yeah. I’ll admit, don’t really like many of them either, I’ll give you that one. But let’s do a head count here. A couple of master assassins; a supersoldier, who kind of lives up to the legend; your adopted brother, the demigod; a man with breath-taking anger management issues. And you, big fella, you’ve managed to piss off every single one of them.”

“That was the plan,” said Loki.

It wasn’t a lie.

“Not a great plan,” she informed him, slipping the honing bracelets over her wrists. J, hurry. “Not that I expected much better. Plans based on tantrums rarely pay off.”

His eyes narrowed. “I have an army.”

“We have a Hulk,” she answered, rounding the table.

“I thought you hated Doctor Banner?” he asked her, oh so innocently.

So he had somehow been listening in even though he was ‘locked’ in. “Hulk is not Bruce. And you seem to be missing the point.”

“What is the point?”

She kept advancing towards him, eyes narrowed and glass still in hand. “When they come - and they will - they’ll come for you. There’s no throne, there is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes, and maybe it’s too much for us, but it’s all on you. Because,” and fuck Fury for getting the words in her mind, “If we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we’ll avenge it.”

Loki slowly walked up to her, hold on the Scepter tightening, the buzzing becoming louder. “How will your friends have time for me, when they’re so busy fighting you?”

Toni had one second to think ‘oh, shit’, before the Scepter hit her chest.

The Scepter sang.

"I shall come to you when all is done, this I promise you. I love you more than there are stars in this Universe. You will always be my sunshine and my moonbeam. Till Ragnarok, and thereafter."/“Sister, please, do not go!”

“Thor, can I come with you?”/“Ugh. Fine, Loki. But you cannot always come with me, you know?”

“It is very simple. It means that you are my moonbeam, and that you are my sunshine. Forevermore.”/“And does it mean that you are our starseed, forevermore?”/"But of course. I could not be anything but.” 

“Thor! Thor, please. Please save me, Thor, please... I cannot go on, please, I need-”

“I see you have been practising your spells, brother mine.”/“Yes, look!”/“Amazing. I am very proud of you, moonbeam. Leave battle to Thor: you shall be a great sorcerer yet.”/“Like you?”/ “Better than me. I can promise you that.”

“You cannot tell Mother this. If she finds out, she will kill me!”/“Fine. But you owe me, Thor!”

“I will do it. If you let them go, I will come with you.”/“Sister, please! Do not do it!”

“What the Hel is this?”/“Just try it!”

“How can we be siblings if you are Aesir and I am Jotun and Thor is half Aesir half Vanr?”/“Because our hearts beat the same, and I have chosen you.”/“As simple as that?”/“Nothing simpler than.”

“I could have done it, Father! For you!”

“Sister!”/“Fenrir, go!”/“SISTER!”

“THOR! THOR, PLEASE-”

“Are the Valkyries and the pegasi all yours?”/ “Not exactly-”/ “Of course we are, prince Loki. Do not listen to your sister.”/ “We Valkyries have made her a vow. We swore an oath that we shall forever stand with her, an allegiance to only Princess He-”

It was like a mini implosion.

Toni was thrown one side while Loki was thrown across the room on the opposite side, much more violently.

Miss!

“I’m good,” she said, wheezing and gasping in pain. “Fuck, what is it with today and slamming me into things and objects?!”

The images - Loki’s thoughts? His memories? - were still playing in her mind's eye. They were becoming blurrier faster than she could grab onto them, though, as she forced herself on her knees again, still breathing hard. Mixing together, one memory falling onto the other.

The emotions, though? Those remained.

Images of Thor and Loki at different ages, mixed with joy, playfullness, rage and terror. Other people Toni did not know, with a similar cocktail of emotions covering them.

There had been terror. A lot of terror, paralysing horror. Fear, desperation, and pain. So much pain, and so much all-encompassing repressed rage.

She doubted Loki had let her see all of that on purpose.

That little Scepter he was carrying around with him... Toni was starting to think it had more personality than even she had previously thought.

Or, if the two voices she was certain she was hearing were anything to go by, something inside it had more personality than she had anticipated.

The armour is ready, Miss. Should I send it in?

Stand-by, said Toni, finally managing to get on her feet again, scowling at where Loki was laying on the ground. “That hurt, jackass.”

Loki remained where he was laying, not twitching.

Toni frowned, standing up straighter and taking a step towards him, ignoring the worry JARVIS was projecting. “Loki?”

Loki still wasn’t moving.

“Loki,” she called out, again, taking a slightly unsteady step in his direction, ready to fall into a defensive stance at the first hint of an attack. The Scepter had skittered away from him, near the balcony, while he remained on the ground, crumpled against the wall. “What are you- Loki!”

The shout ripped out of her throat without her consent as soon as she noticed the blood.

There was a pool of blood behind Loki’s head, from where he had smacked against the wall, and Toni felt everything inside of her freeze at the sight.

That much blood...

“Loki!” she shouted, rushing and dropping on her knees beside him, panic surging inside of her. She couldn’t smell death near him, he wasn’t close to death, but why wasn’t he moving? Why wasn’t his magic acting, why did it seem like the magic was actively leaving him? “Loki!”

She had never experienced an Asgardian’s death, she realised, fingers shaking as she tried to find his pulse. Only human’s deaths, and maybe she simply did not not know what to look for. Maybe he was dying and she couldn't tell. The only person who would know-

“Thor!” she shouted, knowing it was useless. She couldn’t find a pulse. Why couldn’t she find his pulse? Did he even have a pulse? What did aliens fucking have?! “Fuck, Thor, where are you! Loki...”

It hurt, turning him around and seeing all of the injuries blossoming on his face. All the injuries he had hidden away from the beginning, because he wasn’t healing. Why wasn’t he healing? Jane had said that Thor had healed very quickly, but then why wasn’t Loki-

“JARVIS! Thor! Loki...” she trailed off, a slight whimper sneaking in her voice as she pressed her hands over his cheeks. Was she crying? She wasn’t, she didn’t think she was. But she could feel the tears in her eyes, the knot in her throat.

Her hands were shaking almost uncontrollably as she pressed her hands over the bleeding part of his skull, lower lip wobbling. Gods, he was bleeding so much, why was he bleeding so much? 

What the hell was wrong with her?

But Loki was hurt, he was seriously hurt, and Toni needed to fix that, she needed to, she needed-

“Loki, come on!” she called, slapping his cheek a little. He was so cold, more cold than he should be. “Wake up, this isn’t funny! I’m not going to space jail for accidentally killing a prince of Asgard and Jotunheim, wake the hell up!”

Loki did not wake up, head lolling around as she tried to shake him.

His lips were purple. 

Fuck, was he breathing? Did he need to breathe?

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she said, pressing a hand on his chest. “What the hell is the song?”

“Staying alive, Miss.”

“Right!” she agreed, turning back to the storm brewing outside. “Fucking hell, Thor where the fuck are you? Fuck, okay, okay, Loki stay with me, don’t be dead, please don’t be dead. Ah, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’- what the fuck am I doing!” she stopped, one hand going to her hair.

How had she done it, in the cave? Yinsen had been close to death in the cave, and then...

It was a truth that neither of them acknowledged, but Yinsen would... should have died from those gunshots in the cave. Yinsen had been fading before her very own eyes, Yinsen had been dying.

And Toni had refused it. Had refused to accept it, had refused to let it happen, and then Yinsen had survived.

Toni never died when she was supposed to, and she had made sure that Yinsen survived by simply willing it into existence, whether she acknowledged it or not.

Yinsen knew.

She knew.

But she also had no idea how she had actually done it.

And Loki was only half Asgardian, he was half Jotun. And Toni did not remember how-

No, Toni did not know. How could she remember something she had never known about to begin with, she was going insane here.

“Thor...! Fuck, where the hell are-?” she trailed off, head whipping to the windows. The storm. There was a storm in the sky. But it wasn’t meant to be stormy, and the thunder- “Thor!” she called out as soon as she sensed him flying towards them, not letting go of Loki, but turning in his direction. “Thor! Thor!”

“Toni!” called out Thor only seconds later, smashing through the window. Toni was not even mad about the damage. His expression was confused, but then his eyes widened as he spotted Loki. “Loki!”

“The Scepter!” she explained as he also dropped beside her. “It touched me and then everything exploded or something and Loki hit his head, and now he is dying-”

“Nay,” said Thor, shaking his head, as he looked over his brother. “This is no normal physical attack. This is a magical attack.”

“A magical attack?” she asked, looking at him in confusion and hope. “But I don’t feel any magic.”

“There is an absence of magic,” he explained and.

Oh.

Toni had not even noticed it until now.

The slimey magic from before, the one that kept making her uncomfortable, the one that had been wrapped all around Loki, it was gone now.

“A tether,” she realised. “And a leech.”

“Aye,” said Thor, looking worried as well. “I believed it was simply that his magic had changed in the past two years, but now I see.” He carefully lifted up his brother, Toni keeping his head up slightly. He looked at her with shiny eyes. “You were right.”

Toni forcefully smiled, heart starting to calm down, as she fixed Loki’s head on Thor’s arm. “I told you, things go much better when you stop questioning me,” she reminded him, voice slightly shaky.

“Indeed you have,” he agreed, standing up with Loki in his arms as she did too. Then he looked at her with a strange expression. “How did you-”

“Miss,” said JARVIS, her suit appearing on the floor right as something like a mini Earthquake seemed to shake the entire Tower. Thor glanced at the ceiling in slight confusion. “Selvig’s device has managed to start itself.”

Right.

Invasion time.

“Stark, you know that’s a one-way trip?” asked the Captain through the comms.

Toni wondered if that was what Carter had told him when he had been about to plunge himself and his ship in the water.

Fuck the World Security Council.

Fuck them all the way to hell.

They could have done it. They might have been struggling with the fight, but eventually they had figured it out. Despite her personal opinions on everyone, they had been fighting like a team. 

Her and Thor in the air.

Hulk wrecking every enemy in sight.

The Captain coordinating from the ground.

Romanoff, who might be better than Toni had previously assumed.

And the Hawkeye guy who had shown up with Romanoff, who had been doing pretty well despite his weapons. 

The military had arrived minutes before the Avengers had - without Rhodey, unfortunately - and they too had been doing good work in getting civilians out and fighting back against the Chitauri as well as they could.

They had been doing it.

And then the WSC decided to shoot a nuke at the city.

Fuck them all the way to the deepest pits of Hell.

“Miss,” said JARVIS, and Toni refused - refused - to let herself tear up at the pain in the voice of her AI. “Would you like to record a message for someone? Mr Parker, perhaps?”

“No,” she said, swallowing back the feeling in the back of her throat. “No, he... no. I just want to be with you, J. You know I love you with all my heart, right?”

“Miss, I love you too,” answered her the AI. “You are the most important person in the world for me. No one matters to me as much as you do.”

“You are programmed to say that, but I’ll take it anyway,” she said, voice shaking a little bit.

“I’m not, Miss.”

He wasn’t.

Her breath hitched as she grew closer to the portal. “I’m so sorry, JARV. I love you, I’m sorry, I-”

She felt the second JARVIS’ connection with her was broken, because suddenly there was silence.

Nothing but silence.

Silence heavier than she had ever heard, colder than anything she had ever felt.

Silence, and ice, and stars, and oh fuck.

And oh fuck, thought Toni, letting the nuke slip through her fingers and continue its course towards the goddamn fucking armada that had been heading towards Earth.

Oh shit, they were so fucked.

They were-

He was there. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him, but she knew he was there.

Where was she? Where was he?

Everything was dark, and she couldn’t see, and she was alone.

No, she wasn’t alone. 

Was this worse or better than being alone?

She did not like being alone, but she liked being with him even less.

He was a monster.

“I’m not a monster,” he answered, in his rough and terrible voice. Reading her mind at will, uncaring of her privacy and of her boundaries. “I am not a monster, my Queen, I am yours. You are mine. We are meant to be together. I won’t let you go a second time.”

A second time? Why would he say that? Why would you-

“We belong together,” he told her and she flinched back from fingers she couldn’t see reaching out for her but that she knew were there. 

Not again, she couldn’t go through it again.

She’d kill herself a thousands times-

“No, this time I won’t let you. This time you will be mine in every way that counts, this time, nothing will stop me from having you. You and I and Infinity, for Infinity.”

He was Mad. He was a Mad Titan, and she would never let him win. Never would allow him to get what he wanted from her. Never again.

“You prolong only the inevitable. And I am: inevitable.”

He was Mad.

“And you are my Queen. I will yet have you.”

He would yet have Death.

“Why do you think that’s different?”

She wanted to strangle him with her bare hands. How dare he speak of Infinity, how dare he think he could hold a goddess? He would never be a god, not even with Infinity in his hands. As long as she lived, as long as she drew breath, he would never have either.

“I have found you before. I shall find you again. We are connected, and Infinity wills it so.”

He did not understand Infinity. She knew Infinity, and Infinity belonged to no one being. Infinity belonged to the Universe, and Infinity called for Infinity, not for one, not for destruction. 

She felt him then. Standing before her, a nightmare in purple skin, a nightmare in a golden armour, and something - someone - screamed, louder than anything she had ever heard before, a scream or a roar, louder -

And there was a roar, louder than anything she had ever heard before, and Toni gasped, eyes snapping open in shock and fear.

“What the hell?” she managed, looking around her in shock and panic. She could still feel it, could still feel that presence, that terrible, terrible nightmare, reaching for her, and- 

And this was Earth. She was back on Earth.

She was in New York. She was laying on the street of New York, and Hulk was roaring victoriously beside her, and Spangles was smiling down at her, a hand on her cheek, and Thor was looking at her with a relieved smile. “What just happened?” she demanded, and zeroed in on Cap’s hand. “Please tell me nobody kissed me.”

The Captain blushed, pulling his hand away from her cheek. “N-no, I didn’t, I-” He cleared his throat. “We won.”

Won.

She could smell the death in the air, all the souls slain, human and non. And the nuke, she had-

She wanted to throw up.

A slaughter. This wasn’t winning, this had been a slaughter.

On both sides.

(Guardian of Souls)

They had not won. Not so long as whatever she saw on the other side existed, they hadn’t won.

“Alright,” she said, pushing the panic and horror in her heart down. Not the time, not the time. “Good job, guys. Let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let’s just take a day off. Have you ever tried shawarma? There’s a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I wanna try it.”

Thor glanced over at the Tower, looking pained and nervous. “We’re not finished yet.”

Right because they had a nearly comatose demigod inside the Tower, who they might have hidden, but who was still sort of laying there for any SHIELD lackey to try and kidnap.

And if the nightmare? Vision? Memory? The whatever the fuck she had sensed while she had been on the other side of the portal had been whatever it was holding onto that tether on Loki’s magic...

She breathed.

(everywhere around her, death)

“And then shawarma after.”

Chapter Text

Toni discovered very quickly that she did not like travelling via Air Thor.

“Zero stars and you don’t get a tip,” she informed him as soon as they landed on the floor of the the penthouse and he deposited her back on the ground again. “You’ll get a strongly worded e-mail, instead.”

“What?” he said, frowning as he made sure she did not topple over immediately.

It was a valid concern. Between the suit and everything else, Toni felt in dire need of laying down on the ground for 45 minutes to an hour.

“Joke based on methods of transportation here on Earth, never mind,” she answered, and here she went again with explaining her jokes, what was up with her today? Usually she loved leaving people confused with every third sentence that left her mouth and yet, every time Thor expressed confusion. here she was, offering him explanations on things.

It was weird.

“Oh, I see,” said Thor, very clearly not seeing at all. Then he looked at her much more carefully as she swayed again, concern in every line of his face. “You died. I heard your heart, it... it stopped for longer than I believe is advisable. I was lead to believe that that kills Midgardians.”

Uh. Toni had wondered if she had died, this time around. Also, ‘kills Midgardians’? She had questions.

“It’s a long story,” she admitted, shaking her head and dropping her helmet on the ground. “I have a thing against staying dead, it’s a pet peeve of mine.”

“Oh, I see,” said Thor, appearing thoughtful. “You must have some sort of seidr inside you. I suspected as much, it would explain your many oddities.” Ahem, rude. “I can’t feel seidr as well as my brother does, but perhaps your ancestors or even your parents are from another one of the Realms. Vanaheim, perhaps? They are the shortest among the people of the Nines-”

Toni kicked him with the boot of her suit. “I’m not short,” she informed him, glaring. The jerk just looked at her with a smirk on his face, not even seeming to note the pain he should be in right now.

Then he returned serious, seeming to hear something. “The Widow is preparing to come down,” he said, urgently. “What shall we do now?”

Mother of science, why was he looking at her for plans? She had just died - again - shouldn’t she get to rest for a bit before she was expected to save the world by her lonesome? 

This was why she didn’t have kids-

Oh, right.

JARVIS? Are you alright buddy? You there?

…

Great, he was sulking.

Not that Toni blamed him for it, of course.

JARVIS had, over the years, gotten used to not really worrying about her mortality. Even before Afghanistan, no matter what she did, Toni just could not seem to be able to stay dead.

She’d die and then, seconds or minutes later, she was once more alive and well. And JARVIS had grown accustomed to that.

However, it was kind of hard to come back from the dead when you were trapped on the other side of a portal. Even if she hadn’t died, if that portal had closed...

Toni viciously pushed back any thought of space, stars or that purple being on the other side of the portal, and turned to face Thor.

“Loki can’t leave until he wakes up,” she started, decidedly. “Not the Tower, nor Earth. What I saw on the other side of that portal, what I felt. The guy who had him, Thor, he’s dangerous, and he’s powerful. Loki knows who he is and what he wants, and I... Earth needs to know too. Also, you can’t be taking him off planet until he’s woken up and has started healing again, because last I saw, he wasn’t.”

“He has yet to start healing, but he is no longer bleeding out,” said JARVIS, voice all business. Toni winced a little, while Thor nodded, expression pinched. “I took the initiative of transporting him to the medbay while you were engaging the enemy.”

“Good job, J,” she said, just to get ignored by the AI. Toni sighed, and focused on Thor again. “However, we need a way to keep him here. SHIELD, I don’t trust them in the slightest with him. And while I can keep him from them, if they decide to inform the military...” She shook her head. “I can’t antagonise them.”

Especially not now.

“But I also don’t fully trust them either, not with an unconscious and injured alien. I accessed SHIELD’s files a while back, and I know exactly how Hulk came to be. If they get access to Loki or his blood or anything...” She shuddered just thinking about it. Thaddeus Ross had yet to be discharged even with his attack on Culver University, and he was not the only no morals asshole hiding in the brass.

“Miss Romanoff is one minute away,” informed them JARVIS. “Hulk 30 seconds away.”

“But he would be safe here, if you could keep him here?” questioned Thor, looking at her seriously. “No one would bother him?”

Toni nodded. “I’m Toni Stark, and this is my Tower. There is no 'mi casa es su casa' bullshit going on here. 98% of the things in this building belong to me, and the 2% are people I trust and who normally reside here with me.”

“Do you have... uh, the house away from home, on Midgard?” he asked, as Hulk landed on the building. Thor glanced at him with slight wariness, but his attention remained focused on Toni.

Toni doubted that Hulk (or even Bruce, really) would fuck them over, so she just waved at her knight in green gamma skin, her attention fixed between Thor and the door Romanoff was approaching from.

“Like a holiday home?” she asked, frowning.

“No, uh,” Thor swore in Norse, trying to find the words. “Ordered by Kings. And his counsel? A house for the counsel of... people away from home?”

“An embassy!” she figured out. “Right? An official residence for an ambassador. Like a place for... well, people away from home, as you said. For Asgardians who choose to live on Earth but still need to keep their contact with Asgard, sort of deal?”

“Yes,” said Thor, looking relieved. “Midgard has them, yes? They respect them?”

“Yes, they do,” she said, just as Romanoff walked into the room. The red head paused in the doorway, holding the Scepter in one hand and watching the Hulk with clear mistrust in her eyes.

The behemoth immediately grunted at her approach, but he remained where he was, eyes narrowed as he stared at her.

“Stark,” then said Romanoff, still tense but mostly looking at Toni and Thor.

“Rushman,” she answered, grinning at the hint of irritation on her face. “And just where do you think you are going with that?”

“The Scepter is going back to SHIELD,” she said, chin lifted slightly. “With the Tesseract and Loki.”

“No,” said Toni and Thor at the same time. Thor crossed his arms, biceps bulging - threateningly, would hazard to say Toni - as he looked at her. “None of those is going back to SHIELD.”

“Thor-”

“Prince Thor,” sweetly corrected Toni, batting her lashes at her. “He’s a prince. Of Asgard. Race of perceived gods, in case you forgot. Mighty hammer that can smash all sorts of spiders and the like.”

“You Midgardians have already shown you cannot be trusted with the Tesseract, and thus it will be returned to Asgard,” said Thor, and while she was all for the it, Toni couldn’t help side eyeing him a little. So much condescension, when, if she was correct, they had left it here to begin with without so much as an instruction packet. What had they expected? Scientists were gonna science. “The Scepter is clearly a dangerous artefact with the ability of warping minds. That is something only a magic user will be capable of handling, and your SHIELD seems solely lacking in those. And my brother will have his trial on Asgard once he has woken.”

“Woken?” questioned Romanoff, expression once more blank. The tenseness had left her shoulders, but Toni was not fooled. This woman was a weapon, and weapons were dangerous even when they pretended not to be. 

“Aye,” said Thor. “It appears that my brother is not as culpable as we first believed him to be. He-”

“He was hit by Scepter,” said Toni, quickly. “He is in some sort of magical coma.”

“According to whom?”

“According to the one person familiar with magic that we have around,” she said, pointing a thumb at Thor. “You said something about a tether, didn’t you?”

Thor did not blink. “Aye. There was a tether, a leech of some kind attacking my brother’s mind and magic.”

Hulk huffed, looking directly at her.

Toni was pretty sure the green bean could tell when people were lying. His eyes were distinctively calling her ‘liar, liar, pants on fire’.

Toni would have shown him the middle finger, had Romanoff not been looking between her and Thor with so much suspicion.

Warranted, of course. They weren’t telling her the full truth.

But still.

“Then he should go back to SHIELD,” said the little spider. “So that we can wait for him to wake and question him.” She smiled at Toni, insincerely. “Since Miss Stark does not have the authority to-”

“That is easily remedied,” said Thor, suddenly jovial as he pulled out the hammer from his waist. Hulk growled, moving in a defensive position, but Thor paid it no mind. Toni just showed him a thumbs up, hoping to convey to him that everything was fine.

She liked the jolly green.

Thor brought the hammer to his lips. “In the name of my father,” he started, “And his father before him. I, Thor, son of Odin, god of Thunder, Lightning and Fertility, bless this house as an sendiráð of Asgard on Midgard.”

There was no physical outward change when he pulled the hammer away from his lips, but Toni still felt the energy that washed over her and the entire building, warm, heavy and gold. 

It felt... familiar, somehow.

Romanoff did not seem to feel anything, but Hulk did, his growl growing in pitch as he looked around himself with some agitation.

“You’re fine,” reassured Toni, moving closer to him and patting his arm. “You’re fine. Thor was just turning my humble abode into an embassy,” she explained, looking over at Romanoff with a smug grin that she hoped hid how unnerved she felt. “An embassy of Asgard on Earth.”

For the second time since she had met her, the woman showed true surprise. “You... you don’t have the authority to do that.”

“Of course I do,” said Thor, just as easily, as the elevator opened and the Robin Hood dude and Mr Patriotism walked in. “I am a Prince of Asgard. Who else would have the authority to do that?”

“The authority to do what?” questioned Rogers, looking at the Hulk with wariness before looking over at Toni in concern. “Stark. Are you okay?”

Uh. Genuine concern. Why? She wondered, patting Hulk’s shoulder as his annoyance started growing.

Everyone but her and Thor - who seemed curious, mostly - seemed torn between being afraid and/or nervous about his presence. If Hulk could smell it as she thought he could, no wonder he was tense.

“Just dandy,” she answered, pulling Hulk’s hand towards her. More than one person tensed at that, but Hulk allowed it, watching her as she ‘mindlessly’ started drawing circles on the back of his hand.

Hulk was not Bruce. Toni was very much aware of that, and that was honestly part of the reason she felt hanging around him was much easier than hanging around the scientist.

But if her theory was correct, Hulk had been around for much longer than perhaps even Bruce realised. They shared traits that went farther than their general bone structure.

This had always worked with Bruce, back in the day. And as some of the tenseness seemed to bleed out of Hulk’s own frame, it seemed to work just as well on Hulk.

“Th- Prince Thor,” started Romanoff, watching Toni unreadably before turning to Rogers, “Has declared Stark Tower embassy to Asgard on Earth. He refuses to allow Loki to be relocated, and insists on the Tesseract and the Scepter both being handed back to him.”

Rogers frowned, while the archer dude glared. “Like hell! He needs to pay for what he has done, he-”

“He arrived through that portal looking like he had been beaten up by something much bigger and stronger than he,” said Toni, shooting Thor a look at the distant crack of thunder. Thor scowled back at her, but the noise stopped. “He is also currently stuck in some sort of magical coma after being hit by the Scepter’s magic.”

“He’s just-”

“And,” continued Toni, keeping her contact with the Hulk, “Why should Prince Goldilocks trust an agency-”

“Stark, don’t-”

“-Who threw a nuclear weapon against him and his brother, a weapon that might have potentially killed the two heirs to the throne of Asgard?” she finished, with a calm and content smile at the pinched expression on Romanoff’s face. “Itsy bitsy, you are already risking a declaration of war from Asgard for such an uncalled attack on their Royal Family, you don’t want to make it worse, do you? Aren't I right, Thor?”

Toni saw a flash of understanding and anger in the blond’s eyes, and before Thor turned his mighty frown on them. “Aye,” he said. “Had the mighty Queen of Iron not redirected the weapon and thus saved my life, your SHIELD would have killed me and my brother. Nothing would have stopped Asgard from marching upon your planet and razing it to the ground, then. Her actions only show me that she is the only one leader I am inclined to trust.”

“She is not a leader,” bit out Romanoff, expression still blank. “But I will call Fury. He will-”

She trailed off, her eyes narrowing.

Toni, Thor and Hulk had all suddenly tensed, all three of them staring at one particular spot between the Captain and the spider.

Toni could feel the magic, somewhat familiar, making all hairs on her arms stand to attention. She didn't know what the other two could feel/sense/see.

“Who goes there,” said Thor, moving to Toni’s right, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Show yourself, seidrmadr.”

Agatha’s magic did not feel like this, and Agatha did not open portals anyway. This was definitely a portal that had been opened, which pointed to the Sorcerers of Kamar Taj.

“I felt your seidr as soon as you opened your doorway upon claimed land,” continued Thor, eyes following the cloaked figure he could somehow sense. “Your invisibility tricks are of no consequence to the son of Odin. Show yourself.”

Toni did not know many sorcerers in Kamar Taj. The ones she knew, she’d recognise their magic, and they did not come to visit her at home anyway. 

And the one who she knew the magic of and who did come to visit her, was gone.

“I was scouting the place,” said a voice, and Toni tensed. She had been only cautious before, but, as unbelievable as it felt, she knew who the voice belonged to. “I was not aware of where the tracking would take me.”

This could not be happening.

Hell to the fuck no, this wasn’t happening.

Then he pulled the enchantment away and Toni stood with the blankest expression she could maintain on her face as she watched Stephen fucking Strange appear inside of her living room.

Part of her absently wondered if the way Hulk’s growl grew in sound was due to him recognising the apparently now sorcerer as a threat, or if it was a reaction to Bruce’s own feelings inside of him.

The rest of her observed him with carefulness disguised as polite disinterest, from the bottom of his polished shoes, to the familiar necklace around his neck, to the magical cape on his back (she was pretty sure she had seen this particular relic in the New York Sanctum before), to the top of carefully styled hair.

Stephen’s expression was a little leery, a protection spell casted around him as he watched the rest of the people in the room. His eyes swept over the three SHIELD affiliates quickly, and then he looked over at Hulk.

There was a twitch in his expression as he watched the behemoth, a slight tensing of his jaw and shoulders. Not fear, but definitely nerves and a feeling of discomfort. Hulk’s eyes were, after all, fixed on him, his nostrils were flaring, and he looked very close to pulling his hand away from Toni’s and attacking.

Then Stephen’s eyes followed the large hand and fixed on Toni’s face. Again, the slightest flash of something in his eyes as he regarded her and she stared back without saying anything.

She had a lot to say. Mostly curses and swear words. Also, screams. She really wanted to scream really bad.

She didn’t, though, because she was a lady.

Then he looked away from her and to Thor, though Toni refused to relax at that. 

He inclined his head slightly. “It was not my intention to break into Asgardian territory like this,” he said, calmly. “I wasn’t aware I was. No one informed us that Asgard was going to create an embassy on Earth.”

“It was a last minute decision,” admitted Thor, looking at him with some curiosity. “And informed you? Who are you?”

“Doctor Stephen Strange,” answered Stephen, and Toni did not miss the look Romanoff shot her and Hulk at that. “Master of the Mystic Arts and Sorcerer Supreme of Kamar Taj.”

Toni’s next breath caught in her throat.

Toni was laying on the floor of her workshop when Agatha appeared inside of her workshop. It kinda sucked that Toni was drunk as hell and yet these stupid senses whatever kept working like it was Monday morning at the office.

“What are you doing on the floor?” asked Agatha, feet loud on the ground.

“Getting drunk,” said Toni. “Hoping to get liver failure. Or manage to make everything around me just shut the fuck up, for once.”

“You stink.”

“I don’t care.”

“How long have you been drinking?”

“Not long enough,” said Toni, taking another large gulp straight from the bottle.

“Jesus, is that straight vodka?”

“Maybe,” said Toni, eyes still closed. “I don’t know, I grabbed a bunch of bottles and then came back to have my personal little pity party.”

“Hand me some,” said Agatha, and Toni huffed.

She opened her eyes only slightly, glad to see that JARVIS was still locked out of the room and thus the lights off.

Agatha was sitting down beside her, dressed in all black instead of her signature purple. 

Toni hated that.

“Black looks horrible on you and I hate you for wearing black inside my workshop,” she informed her, even as she passed her a still full bottle. “Change.”

“No,” said Agatha, breaking the top with a flicker of her fingers before she took a large sip. She grimaced as soon as the drink fell down her throat, and pulled it away. “Ew, this is nasty. What is that?”

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know. Alcohol is alcohol, at this point.”

“Amen to that,” said Agatha, shaking her head as she took another gulp. 

Toni studied the bottle in her own hands for a second, sloshing the drink inside it with a faraway gaze. Alcohol never really impacted her the way it was supposed to, which sucked. It used to work better, back in the day, when she was younger. Nowadays, it just dulled things a bit. Made them a fraction more bearable. Nothing more.

“Were there many people at the funeral?” she found herself asking, because, apparently, she was a masochist.

Agatha sipped at her drink. “How am I meant to know? I didn’t go.”

“You didn’t?” asked Toni, turning to look at her. “Then why are you dressed like that?”

“Cause I’m a widow,” said Agatha. “And that’s what widows do when their partner dies.”

“You weren’t married,” pointed out Toni. “And you weren’t even together.”

“It’s about the aesthetic,” said Agatha, laying on her back on the ground. “And wherever you are, if you are listening, fuck you very much, Tao. Died without putting a ring on it, who the fuck does that.”

“If you start crying, I’m gonna ask you to leave.”

“These are tears of anger,” said Agatha, sniffing loudly. “I fucking hate that woman. All of this-” she trailed off, taking a large sip of her bottle and nearly choking. Toni watched her as she pulled herself back on her ass, coughing and eyes tearing up. “Fuck. How do you even drink like that without dying?”

“I don’t know,” said Toni, shrugging. “Must be another useless power of mine.”

“Useless?”

“Useless,” repeated Toni. “I mean, what’s the point of having these powers if I can’t even-” she trailed off, pressing her lips together.

Agatha heard her anyway. “She came to you too?”

“Her soul or an astral projection or something came here, yeah,” said Toni, scoffing. “To say goodbye. And to give me a little present, a stupid box. Did not even tell me where she was, told me nothing. Wouldn’t let me help her.”

“Nasty old bitch,” agreed Agatha, voice tight. “Couldn’t she fucking retire or something?”

“Right? Talking about some new hotshot Sorcerer Supreme who’ll take her mantle and who’s going to be 'the best of the all', like I’m supposed to give a fuck, when she is dying!” She shouted the last part, throwing one of the empty bottles at the wall. “Fuck!”

Agatha kept watching her. “So you haven’t met the guy yet?”

“Why the fuck would I do that?” questioned Toni, glaring viciously at where the broken glass was laying. “Whoever they are, they’ll never be her. I’m gonna hate them on principle.”

Agatha chuckled darkly beside her. “Oh, this is going to be hilarious. Tell me when you decide to go see him.”

“I won’t.”

“So very much hilarious."

She exhaled through her mouth.

She really fucking hated Agatha Harkness.

“Sorcerer Supreme?” asked Thor, sounding surprised. “I believed Agamotto was the Sorcerer Supreme.”

“Almost a millennia ago, maybe,” agreed Stephen. “I’m the newest Sorcerer Supreme.”

God, she missed Tao so much it felt like physical pain.

Miss? What would you like me to do?

Hey, at least JARVIS was talking to her again, she thought. That was good, wasn’t it?

Gods, this was the worst. The worst.

Nothing yet, she said, focusing on Hulk’s hand. Circular motions, that was easy to focus on. Loki?

It is hard to understand his physiology, admitted the AI. He is still not healing.

This was just awesome, wasn’t it?

“Well then, Master Strange,” said Thor, looking at him in slight curiosity. Stephen seemed to have decided to spare no one but him any attention. “Why have you arrived?”

“Infinity Stones have made their way on Earth. I came to find out why, and what you were planning to do with them.”

A gauntlet.

A golden gauntlet, with six empty pockets on top of it.

Six empty pockets, for six Stones.

One gauntlet, to control Infinity.

Space and Mind were in the palm of his hands, and if he got his hands on Power, Reality, Time and Soul, oh.

The Destruction... it would be unparalleled. The destruction, the death, their Universe would be gone, all those Souls-

Toni dropped Hulk’s hand, taking one step back, then another. 

Miss?

Infinity Stones. 

Infinity Stones.

Miss.

She did not what the fuck Infinity Stones were, but she knew, oh she knew their power, she knew what this meant, she knew -

And if he got his hands on them, if he, the purple man, the evil madman got them-

Miss, can you hear me?

Gods he was here, he was back, he was going to destroy them all, he was going to take her-

Miss Stark!

“Toni!” said Thor, grabbing her arm just before she could fall from the broken window he had come through earlier.

Toni gasped, still trying to get enough air into her lungs, fighting to get out of his hold. She didn’t- She needed to-

The Hulk roared, loudly, powerfully and she heard the sound of several people swearing, but she couldn’t focus, not when, not when-

Miss, you are in distress. You appear to be suffering a panic attack.

“Move, Banner. Can’t you see she’s having a panic attack?”

A panic attack?

“Stay back, Doctor! I’m with the Hulk on this, we don’t know you-”

Indeed. Please focus on the sound of my voice, Miss.

“Stark knows him, she and him-”

“PUNY DOCTOR! HULK SMASH PUNY DOCTOR!”

Place a hand on your chest and one on your belly.

“Toni, please tell me how to-”

Toni gritted her teeth together, doing as JARVIS was telling her, ignoring all of the other noise in the room.

Follow this pattern. Ting. Breathe in. Ding. Breath out. Ting. Breathe in. Ding. Breath out. Ting. Ding. Ting. Ding. Ting. Ding.

“There you go, Toni,” said Thor’s voice, very close to her still. “Here, feel my heart.”

That is advisable, Miss. Focus on your breathing and the Prince’s heartbeat.

Toni did as she was told, her breathing slowing down significantly at that.

Thor’s heart was beating steadily under her heart, no hint of fear or anything coming from him. It was comforting.

His heartbeat, the thunder in his veins... everything about him was comforting, and Toni did not hesitate, for once, in letting her head rest against his heart, listening the the tempest raging inside of him.

You couldn’t miss something you had never been aware existed before, but Toni somehow felt like she had missed this.

Missed Thor.

She didn't understand it.

Eventually, though, she became uncomfortably aware of the voices once more. She forced her eyes open, carefully dropping her hands from her chest.

Better?

Seems so. Thanks, J. Owe you one.

I believe you owe me about 1428, currently.

That does not seem right.

Maths never lied, Miss.

When she finally forced herself away from the embrace Thor had managed to pull her in, Hulk was crouched in front of them both, sort of blocking everyone from seeing her. She wasn't sure she felt more grateful or embarrassed by this. 

“Toni?” said Thor, voice as normal as it had been before. He looked confused, but not particularly worried. 

Toni was glad. She’d have hated to see pity in his eyes.

“I’m fine, Point Break,” she said, focusing once more on the sounds of confusion coming from the other side of the room. Her voice sounded scratchy to her own years, yikes.

She forced herself to stand straighter, and patted Hulk on the back.

He paused his growling, and turned his head around, rage clear on his face. “Tiny Toni?”

“Not tiny, but I’m fine... now,” she said, grinning at him with a thumb raised.

Time to bullshit her way out of this without giving SHIELD too much to work with.

Fun.

Chapter Text

“Okay, bye bye now, travel safe, don’t accept candy from strangers in white vans-”

“Wait,” said Rogers, and Toni considered for a second allowing JARVIS to slam the elevator’s doors on his fingers. She missed a few hours ago when all he did was be mean and demeaning towards her, she did not like this change.

The man was now looking at her in concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? And that you’re safe?”

“I’m a big girl, baby blues,” she informed him, mildly fascinated when he managed to blush even at that simple sentence. Thrilling, he went from telling her how he knew people who were worth 10 times her to blushing over nicknames. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know,” he said, smiling awkwardly when she raised an eyebrow at that. “I saw you fighting. I shouldn’t have said those things about you on the Helicarrier, I’m-”

“Pish posh,” interrupted Toni, waving him off. “Your opinion means absolutely nothing to me, so nothing you said registered.”

He looked both surprised and hurt at the admission, though he masked it quickly. Romanoff had stopped scowling at the air and was now staring at the back of Rogers’ head like he was a bug under a microscope, Selvig (who had refused her invitation to stay and rest, after he had woken up) looked still groggy on his feet while the archer dude was still glaring at her in mildly concealed hatred.

“Still, I’m sorry,” said Rogers, eyes wide and so painfully genuine. Toni almost wanted to go and get a flag so that she could sing the national anthem for him, or something. “And I know you can hold your own. But still, you’re gonna be alone with a wizard, two aliens and the Hulk. Shouldn’t there be someone else who’s normal with you, just to... I don’t know, help out a bit? Keep things steady?”

“Totally,” she agreed, nodding. He brightened up, but Toni spoke before he could. “As soon as I find someone normal, I’ll call them in. Bye bye now, Fourth of July!”

JARVIS closed the door in front of him before he could say anything else, and Toni’s nose scrunched up. “Fourth of July? Come on, Stark, you can do far better than that.”

“I agree,” said JARVIS, as she started walking again. “Are you well, Miss? You-”

“Let’s talk about it when my house is once more my house, J,” she said, stopping in front of a mirror. She grimaced slightly at her reflection on the object.

“Never let anyone catch you any less than perfect, Antoinette,” said Maria Stark, lovingly wiping away the mascara tracks on her cheeks. “Never let the sharks see you bleed.”

“Yes, but if I do my face now, they are going to think I’m doing it for them,” she muttered to herself and the memory of her mother. 

“How about you simply clean the parts where it has melted off but do not reapply anything?” offered JARVIS, and Toni smiled.

“Ah, I knew there was a reason I kept you around,” she said, moving towards the penthouse bathroom. 

“My make-up guru abilities, of course. I was indeed thinking of launching a YouTube channel of my own,” he snarked, and Toni laughed again.

Yes, laughing was good. Laughing was great, and snarking with her sassy little AI meant she wasn’t thinking about everything else that had happened since... fuck, since the Helicarrier? Since Stuttgart? Since Foster detected the energy surge? Since Tao died? Since Yinsen had taken out the shrapnel from her heart? Since Afghanistan?

Fucking hell, she thought, running her fingers through her hair as she walked towards the medbay. Had her life ever been normal? She was starting to think it had not.

Both Thor and Strange were already inside of the medbay when she walked in, and Toni schooled her expression immediately.

Strange was standing a little at distance from anyone in the room, while Thor was on the chair directly beside the bed his brother was occupying. 

Toni did not glance at the former neurosurgeon once, directly moving towards the bed instead. She passed a hand over Thor’s shoulder, squeezing it and then looked down at Loki.

He looked bad, she couldn’t lie. All of the injuries he had somehow managed to hide were back in full force, and he looked... rough. Purple under his eyes, paler than she felt comfortable with, cuts and bruises all over his face. She was pretty sure that if she were to take off his armour she’d be faced with even worse.

“Healing rate?”

“He doesn’t heal as fast as I do,” answered Thor, mournfully. “I think it’s because of his Jotun ancestry. And Loki has always been great at deceiving me and everyone at Court regarding how truly he was feeling, both emotionally and physically.”

“Isn’t he half Asgardian?” she asked, frowning slightly at him. “Wouldn’t that mean... half as fast, at least?”

Thor frowned right back. “No? He’s Jotun. Father found him on Jotunheim, he’s Laufeyson by blood.”

Toni looked at him, a bit confused. She could have sworn he had told her that Loki was half Asgardian. “Uh. Okay. Anyway, you don’t know the Jotnar’s healing rate?”

“No,” said Thor, shaking his head regrettably. “On Asgard, the Jotnar are our sworn enemies. Nobody but Father and Mother knew that Loki was Jotun. We don’t really...”

“And your nurse,” pointed out Toni. When Thor looked at her in confusion, she rolled her eyes. “You had a Royal Nurse, right? A doctor?”

“A healer,” agreed Thor, still perplexed. “Lady Eir.”

“Lady Eir had to have known about his origins,” said Strange, inserting himself in a conversation that had nothing to do with, as he was wont to do. “Depending on how he was when he was brought to Asgard, someone would have needed to make sure he was healthy and did not fall prey to any Jotnar-”

“Jotun-” corrected Toni, eyes fixed on Loki.

“Jotun illnesses,” amended Strange.

“That makes sense,” said Thor, nodding slowly. “But I am loath to drag him back to Asgard now. For all I know it could worsen his situation.”

Toni glanced back at the blond, just to find him watching her back with a worried expression on his face. She needed to have a discussion about his unreasonable expectations of what she was able to do, honestly.

Then she sighed, pulling up her sleeves. “Pass me those gloves, and hand me that tray.”

“What will you do?” questioned Thor, even as he followed her instructions.

“Give that good old Midgardian healing a try,” she answered, freezing for a second when he held the tray between the two of them. Thor had not even noticed her hesitation, eyes fixed on his brother.

Shit, she had accepted the Scepter from Bruce earlier too, hadn’t she? Without even thinking about it, damn it.

After another moment of hesitation, she took the tray and put it down beside herself, refusing to think about it as she reached towards Loki.

“You don’t have an MD or a medical licence,” Strange told her, moving closer to them.

“I have experience.”

“That does not count.”

“Doesn’t it? Then why are you Sorcerer Supreme after being a sorcerer for two and half years?”

“Been checking up on me?”

Toni gave him a disgusted glance. “I’m good at maths, don’t flatter yourself.”

“Not that good, it was a year and 9 months. I learn fast, tie your hair.”

“As I said, not keeping an eye, did not know you tried to fast forward how to learn magic,” she said, even as she tied up her hair again.

“Medical school all over again, wash your-”

“I was about to, don’t rush me. Thor, help me get this thing off him.”

Thor did as told, as Toni moved towards Loki’s head. 

“Avoid stitches unless it’s a really big gash, we still don’t know if he’s healing or if something is blocking his healing and how fast he will heal once it’s unblocked. Clean the wounds.”

“Again, I know what I’m doing.”

“Again, you don’t have an MD.”

“I could have an MD if I wanted one.”

“But you don’t, so how about you listen to the specialist?”

“When was the last time this ‘specialist’ practised?”

“Below the belt.”

“Hurts the most,” she said, faltering at the sight of the bruises smattered all over Loki’s body. Thor’s face was equally horrified and pained, and she couldn’t fault him.

His back was... half of it was scar tissue, the other half was still bleeding welts. It was horrible, and Toni wanted to take the suit on another joy ride to the other side of the portal and find whoever was responsible for this and make them wish they had never been born.

“Loki...” said Thor, voice filled with pain and rage. “Norns, who did this to you?”

She felt a gloved hand touch her arm, and Toni glanced up, surprised to see Strange standing so close to her. He hesitated, then gave her a hard look. “Detach. You can’t do this if you can’t detach.”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding slowly. She swallowed, and then started to move again. “Yeah, okay.”

“Start with cleaning the wounds. Do his face since you’re standing here.”

“Almost thought about going straight for his legs, thanks for advising me, Doctor Strange.”

“You never know with the engineer types, Doctor Stark, you never know.”

“I need warm, soapy, water.”

“You know how to deal with whip marks?” asked Strange, and Toni only paused for half a second when his Cloak disengaged and went to get the water, Thor looking between the two of them with confusion.

It was the Cloak of Levitation that Daniel at the New York Sanctum always complained about. Toni wondered how the man was, and how the Cloak had ended up in Strange's possession. 

Then she focused right back up. “As I’ve said, I could have an MD if I wanted one. And 12 years is a long time, Strange.”

“Two isn’t. Ignore that part, start from the worst ones, don’t go uniformly.”

“Nothing relevant happened two years ago.”

“Because you ignored me. The Cloak wants to know where you keep your towel and compresses.”

“I have it here, Cloakie, don’t worry.”

“You are very familiar with magic, and comfortable with the Cloak. You missed a spot.”

“‘I don’t owe you an explanation’. That sound familiar?” she asked. She did not need to look up to know Strange had winced at her words and tone. "And no one needs a backseat doctor."

“Twelve years is a long time to hold on a grudge.”

“Miss Petty here. I’d say nice to meet you, but I don’t want to lie.”

“His back is worse than his front, get him on his stomach. Do you have a hot compress?”

“He’s Jotun, ice is better,” she said, forcing himself to not think about anything as she cleaned the wounds. Just clean it and don’t think. Keep yourself detached. 

“Arnica?”

“Aloe vera.”

“Are you 70, why?”

“Because fuck you, that’s why.”

“Mature.”

“That’s how I like my cheese.”

“You’re annoying.”

“I thought I was mature.”

“I was worried about you.”

Toni’s mouth snapped shut at that comment, her attention completely focused on her actions now.

Thor kept watching between the two of them, like he was expecting them to start up again, but Toni was not about to. 

Strange did not speak up again either.

+++

Things only got worse when Bruce showed up about an hour later. Strange had only opened his mouth to direct her when she had forgotten something, which Toni was of course grateful for. Both for the help and for the presence of mind of keeping his mouth shut.

Loki was basically covered in bandages at this point, he looked like he was about to join the cast of the mummy. Or like he was on his way to lose a Halloween costume competition.

His back was the worst of it, thankfully.

Well, not thankfully, but at least the rest of his body was not as much of a mangled nightmare.

Toni had even started to relax as she finished treating the nasty gashes on his legs when Bruce walked into the room and all of the tension ratchet up several dials immediately.

JARVIS had of course informed her of when the Hulk had returned to Banner, and had told her when Bruce had woken up and started to make his way back towards the medbay.

Still, it was different from having him and Strange in the same room again.

If it had been tense with the Hulk and Strange, it was somehow worse now.

Strange straightened up as soon as Bruce had walked into the room, expression turning blank immediately. Bruce faltered at the sight of Strange, an expression of shock on his face. Clearly his other self had not seen it fit to inform him that he was there, then.

“Stephen,” said Bruce, still staring at him in surprise.

“Banner,” answered Strange, barely glancing at him.

Toni wondered if this was also the first time they were in a room together since the last time they had been in a room together.

Before that day on the Helicarrier, she had not seen Bruce in 12 years. Strange she had, unfortunately, seen several times over, but she had also not spoken to him in 12 years.

Had they seen/spoken to each other since? 

Somehow, seeing their reactions right now, she doubted it.

Thor looked at her in question, eyebrows furrowed, and she rolled her eyes slightly. He dragged his eyes to the bottle of cream in her hand, one eyebrow raised. Toni followed his gaze, and grimaced at the sight of how tightly she was holding onto the cream.

Yikes.

So much for being detached and unaffected.

“Uh,” said Bruce, keeping himself equally as far from Toni and from Strange. “When did you get here? I mean, how... I didn’t. Uh?”

“You were green and trying to eat me at the time,” answered Strange, gloved hands behind his back.

“Oh,” said Bruce, looking awkward. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Hulk was not going to eat Strange,” said Toni, eyes firmly fixed on Loki. He had a bracelet wrapped around his foot, she noted. It was not dissimilar from Thor’s, with the exception that his depicted a small moon instead of a small sun. “Bruce, stop apologising for stuff that isn’t your fault. It’s really a terrible habit, you should speak to a doctor.”

“I am a doctor.”

“Self-diagnosing, now?” asked Strange, one eyebrow raised.

Bruce shrugged. "Doctors make the worst patients."

"And make interesting diagnosis."

"Oh, being green is just a symptom."

"Of..."

“Experimental Russian roulette.”

“What’s the knife?”

“Self administering super soldier serum and turning into a rage monster,” offered Bruce, making Strange snort.

“Could have been-”

“I need some air,” said Toni, pulling off the gloves with a loud snap. She ignored them both, looking over at Thor. “Tell JARVIS if something changes, and he’ll tell me. Or just come find me.”

Thor looked startled as she quickly danced past him, stopping only to throw her gloves away before moving quickly towards the door.

“Stark-”

“Toni-”

JARVIS closed the door behind her.

“J, what is outside like? Is the military still out there? And is my new suit ready? I need to get out of this Tower,” she said, walking towards the balcony as swiftly as she could.

Why the hell wasn't Loki healing? Why wasn't his magic coming back? Why was he in a coma? And why were Strange and Banner already back to being buddies so quickly when she-

She was 37 years old. She was not the 25 years old woman she had been the last time all three of them had been in a room together.

But there was just something about seeing them joking together so fast, that just made her want to do something she would most likely regret.

She listened as JARVIS detailed everything she needed to know for her as she proceeded towards the penthouse and the kitchen.

Phone lines still occupied, the deaths still being counted, destruction contained...

"Doctor Foster and Miss Lewis are both alive and well, as they were one of the very first I evacuated," continued the AI. "I haven't been able to contact Mrs and Mr Parker, but they were both outside of the danger zone, as was young Mr Parker. Miss Potts was in California with Mr Hogan upon our last contact before the Invasion started, and it appears as if Colonel Rhodes is now approaching."

Toni grinned as she sensed her best friend's approach, the War Machine armour appearing in the horizon.

Thank god, Rhodey was going to be a great help. He always knew how to keep her sharp and focused on the important things, and while Toni did not necessarily need him to do anything for her, she liked it when he was around and helping her.

As she stepped in the kitchen and filled a glass of water for herself, she wondered what was Rhodey going to say when he got to the medbay and found them in the room. Her best friend did not actually know everything that happened that night their friendship crashed and burned, but he had seen the aftermath. He was not-

“Toni!” shouted Rhodey, making her jump in the kitchen. “God, JARVIS, please, please tell me, Toni is-”

“Platypus!” she called out, running out of the kitchen in worry. Rhodey sounded absolutely wrecked, and when she made eye contact with him, she did not miss the panic inside of his eyes. “Rhodey, what the hell-”

“Toni!” he shouted when he fixed his eyes on her, fighting to get out of his armour. “Oh, thank god, fuck Toni, god.”

“Rhodey,” she tried again, ignoring her glass dropping to the ground and instead watching in utter confusion as he was dragging her in his arms as soon as he was out of the armour. “Rhodey, what’s wrong? What happened, who...” died?

“You!” he answered, half shouting, not letting go of her. “You died!”

She frowned, not moving to free herself. “What?”

“It’s viral, the footage,” he breathed in and out, forcing himself to breathe normally and calm down. “JARVIS, say something, real quick.”

“Good afternoon, Colonel Rhodes. Welcome back to Stark Tower. Today is-”

“Perfect, I’m not hallucinating, this is real,” he said, breathing out again. “Fuck. Damn it to hell, woman, you are...!”

“I’m sure I am, but what did I do now?” she questioned, putting both hands on his cheeks when he leant back from her a little bit.

“The footage,” he said, watching her and looking suddenly exhausted. “It cuts off. The media didn’t get it.”

“Didn’t get what?”

“You. They got you going through the portal, but there is no footage of you falling back down,” he finally explained, and Toni stilled. Rhodey nodded, half relieved, half pissed off. “I couldn’t get in contact with JARVIS, and as far as I or the world at large is concerned, you died on the other side of that portal.”

“Oh, fuck,” she said, with feeling, and Rhodey snorted, nodding his head.

“You can say it again. Damn it, Toni,” he managed, voice choked up, before he hugged her again. “God, I was so scared that they left you behind. That you were trapped on the other side, and everyone was panicking too, because your Tower was the epicentre-”

“I’m okay,” she promised, holding him as tight as she could. “I’m okay. I fell out in time, and Hulk caught me. JARVIS, do you have any footage you can put online?”

“Unfortunately not, Miss. It seems that something is affecting the signal of the Tower, making it harder for us to issue and receive a line of communication.”

“Of course it is,” she said, grimacing. “Between the Tesseract and Thor-” she looked at where Rhodey was frowning at her. “What?”

“Did you just say Hulk? As in...”

She smiled without mirth. “Boy do I have a story for you. JARVIS, do I have any suit that’s still intact? I gotta make some rounds, make sure the people still know I’m alive. And as soon as you find some footage - there has to be at least one video - put it up.” She turned to Rhodey again. “See, shit happens when you decide to be deployed instead of staying with me and watching me open my Tower. SHIELD showed up-”

“Don’t tell me you really thought I was dead too,” said Toni, as soon as the connection started.

She heard a slight sniffle and a choked laugh that had her lips lifting in a small smile even as her heart hurt.

“Of c-course n-not,” managed Peter, voice trembling all over. “Y-you a-re too strong.”

“That’s right,” said Toni, waving at the people cheering as she flew over the sky. “Did you cry, Peterino?”

“N-no,” he said, forcefully clearing his throat. “E-Everyone else d-did, but I did n-not. I j-just kept trying to c-call JARVIS. But I did-dn’t cry. I knew you were g-gonna s-save us.”

“Did not do it alone,” she pointed out, moving to land with Rhodey at her side. “May is fine, as is Ben. Line at the Tower is kind of compromised right now, but I managed to make contact as soon as I left it. Pepper’s fine too, as are Jane and Darcy. Don’t think you guys can come back to the Tower for a few days, though, at least-”

“I love you,” told her Peter, and Toni quietened. She was not surprised, she had been in the boy’s life for a while, she was his godmother, of course he loved her. But- “And I know you’re a s-superhero, and you’re Iron Queen, and you do d-dangerous stuff all the time. But it’s s-s-still scary, and I couldn’t find a video of you f-falling b-back down, and I did n-not remember if I told you 'I love you' before you left. S-so, yeah. I love you.”

Toni swallowed, grateful that the helmet kept anyone from being able to figure out what her expression looked like right now. “I love you too, shortstack.”

“G-good,” he said, still sniffing. “You should tell Twitter that you’re alive b-before they make you into the next Avril Lavigne con-conspiracy theory.”

“Toni Stark actually never came out of the wormhole, what we see flying around is a cyborg?” she guessed, carefully refusing to think about the wormhole. 

“People started spreading those theories after Afghanistan.”

“In their defence I did come out with a metal heart, for a while, so I guess they weren't wrong,” she pointed out, glad to hear Peter laugh at that. Also, the conspiracy theorists were a little more right than even they realised. “But I’ll get on it. Your school?”

“Everyone is in the gym, but we are all alive and our school wasn’t touched at all. Some parents have come already, but everyone is still scared, and the military is outside.”

“Yeah, okay,” agreed Toni. JARVIS had given her the run down, and as much as she would have loved  to get into bed for twelve hours - or better, lock herself in the workshop and drink herself stupid... or less intelligent for the rest of the day - she couldn’t do that (...yet). “Gotta go, now.”

“Be careful!”

“Always, cucciolo,” she answered, ending the communication. 

Then she forced herself to steel herself and breathe, before she opened the helmet.

She nearly cried anyway.

Death. Death, there was so much death all around the city. So many lost souls, so many dead beings.

And Toni could feel all of them, human, Chitauri and Leviathans, all of them gone.

And she could feel in the air, the echo of the deaths from the other side of the wormholes. Indistinct, but still there, in the air.

They had been enemies. Toni had killed them before they could kill her and her world.

But she hadn’t just killed them, she had annihilated them.

Nuclear genocide.

It made her want to gag.

Ever since she could remember, Toni had been able to sense death. Smell death on killers, on people dying, smell death in massacres. Soldiers, assassins, innocents forced in a situation without choice: it did not matter. There was not much difference in death, in the end. A kill was a kill, and in death, everyone was the same. 

Even enemies.

Toni was used to death. Used to dying, used to witnessing it, used to causing it.

But this destruction, this senseless massacre... She hated it. She hated it with every fibre of her being.

All of these souls, she couldn’t help but think. Gone. Forever.

It made her want to scream. It made her want to tear something, to rage and rage and rage, until everything stopped, until the Valkyrie heard her roar, until the horn sounded and her shield sisters rose- 

“Iron Queen!” called a man’s voice, and Toni opened her eyes. “You’re alive!”

There was a number of people around her, all frantic and happy at the same time, and Toni immediately fixed them with a smile. “Of course I am. Did no one see the Hulk catching me?”

“No, we thought-”

“Someone give me their phone,” she instructed, looking over expectantly.

Within seconds several had been thrusted at her - with three out of seven being StarkPhones and with barely a dent, she was happy to note - and she mindlessly answered their questions as she opened the Twitter app.

Toni Stark @ironqueen: I lived, bitch.

Short and to the point, as all things should be, decided Toni, quickly logging out and handing the phone back.

She remained with them for a while longer, joining with Rhodey to help free some buildings and trapped people around the place. JARVIS ended up finding two different clips depicting her subsequent fall, luckily, and many people photographed her around the wreckage, helping out with all of the destruction.

She was definitely going to need to create some sort of department and get some people to deal with this. She did not like the idea of SHIELD or even the military alone hoarding all of these aliens bodies and tech, but it wasn’t as if she could safely incinerate them or anything. Maybe-

“Miss,” came JARVIS’ voice from inside the suit. “I would suggest you return to the Tower at once.”

“Hold on, J,” said Toni, dragging a car away from the main road. “Unless Loki is up-”

“Doctor Strange and Prince Thor have engaged Miss Agatha Harkness in a battle inside the medbay.”

Of course.

Why wasn’t Toni surprised?

Chapter Text

“I am surrounded by idiots,” said Toni as soon as she made it inside the medbay, Rhodey hot on her tail. “Strange, Thor, stop!”

The entire place had definitely seen better days, but Toni had better things to focus on right now.

Bruce was standing beside Loki’s bed, watching the other three circle each other with clear anxiety. H wasn't green, just yet, and Strange seemed to have already put something of a barrier between Loki and them, so there was that at least.

He had mandalas at each side of him, and was studying Agatha very attentively, ready to move again and try to take her down. Thor had Mjolnir in his hands and was also glaring, eyes narrowed. The air around them seemed to be electric, static, between the dimensional magic Strange used and Thor’s own Asgardian seidr.

Meanwhile Agatha was on the other side of the room to them, looking very amused and like she was having fun. A thin barrier of purple magic was standing between them and her, most likely there to absorb their powers before they could even try to take her out. She looked calm, and her own magic was perfectly settled around her.

Toni had been expecting something like this.

“Stark, stay back,” said Strange, as she marched forward. “This is an enemy of Kamar Taj, a dangerous magical outlaw.”

Agatha grinned. “You say the sweetest things, Doctor Strange. But I have to say, as the new Sorcerer Supreme, you leave a lot to be desired. Not a single-”

“Can you stop antagonising him?” demanded Toni, sidestepping Stange’s attempt at stopping her, and scowling at Agatha. “Seriously.”

Agatha shrugged. “You said that you were going to tell me when you decided to pop up in Kamar Taj and meet the new Sorcerer Supreme.”

Toni pointed at Strange’s general position. “Does it look like I went to Kamar Taj? He came here.”

“You know Agatha Harkness,” said Strange, not relaxing but frowning at her in question. The energy around him settled down slightly. “And Kamar Taj.”

“I know a lot of things.”

“And it’s the thought that counts,” said Agatha, now smirking. “By the way, is this the first time that the three of you,” she pointed at Bruce, Toni and Strange, “are together in one room since Toni and Stephen Strange broke up because she said she was not moving in with him and then had a drunken one night stand with Bruce Banner - both of you guys’ supposed friend - a few days later that Strange walked into?”

There was a few seconds of silence at that.

“God, you’re such an asshole,” ended up saying Toni, refusing to turn around to observe the reaction her words might have brought. “That's an oversimplification of how things went."

"That's how I remember it," offered Strange.

"Of course you do," said Toni, not bothering to turn around.

"What is that supposed to mean."

Toni focused on Agatha again instead of answering. "What do you want?”

Agatha smiled, reaching forward to hug her. “Did not see you fall back down,” she explained, and that was the only reason Toni allowed the hug. “Would have hated to become both a widow and lose my daughter in a matter of years.”

“You’re her daughter?!”

“No, with this pasty complexion of hers, I’m not,” said Toni, rolling her eyes. “Where were you? Could have used a hand out there.”

“I’m sure you could have,” agreed Agatha, unrepentant. “And Australia. Ajax, Gilgamesh and Thena send their love and hope that you’re alive.”

“Aw, tell the Mommy Kink Supreme that I hope her boobs are as perky and gravity defying as always,” said Toni, ignoring the noises her statement elicited. “How’s Thena?”

“This little crush you have on her will always be extremely cute.”

“I just think she’s very cool,” said Toni, only the slightest bit defensively.

Thena was cool. She was also very hot, and pretty, and looked like a goddess.

She was awesome.

Agatha smirked, and then shook her head. “She did not try to kill anyone, if that’s what you’re asking. But then again, I was with them for five hours only. Ajax wanted to visit, so I went with her.” Toni raised an eyebrow at that, and Agatha rolled her eyes. “Relax. She’s hot, but not my type. Too much hair. Also, I would not betray my beloved Tao only two years after her death.”

Strange made an odd noise behind them. “Excuse me?” 

When Toni turned around, she found Bruce awkwardly standing to the side, glancing at his feet and around him in clear unease. Rhodey was alternating between mentally setting him and Strange on fire, while Thor’s nosy self was watching all four of them in clear curiosity. Strange was as tense as he had been earlier, though now all of his attention was on Agatha.

Agatha blinked at him, all fake innocence. “Oh, you did not know that me and your Boss, miss Ancient One Tao - which is such a weird name to take when she’s literally friends with Ajax and the Eternal crew, and my age - were involved? Sleeping together? Smashing uglies? Were vag-”

“Alright!” said Strange, and Toni did not smile at his horrified expression, no sire, her lips did not even twitch. She was professional. “And you weren’t. You’re a criminal, and the Ancient One was not-”

“JARVIS, Christmas party 2000 please,” she instructed, smirking a little to herself.

Agatha also smirked as the hologram appeared in front of them, depicting a familiar scene in front of them.

Toni had re-watched this footage a lot of time, since Tao’s death. It had been one of the very few celebrations that Tao, Agatha and the majority of her friends and family had attended. She hadn’t been exactly happy, back then, but... things had been easier. 

A lot easier than they had been literally everyday since the calendar announced it was 2001.

“James Rhodes you are a coward,” called out 25 years old Toni, standing on top of the table dressed in a sexy Santa Claus costume. “You hear me? You are a coward!”

“I don’t care, I’m not kissing Stevens!” called out 27 years old James Rhodes, glaring. 

“What, you afraid you gonna fall in love?” questioned Erik, smirking at him. “Coward.”

“Coward!” chorused Toni and Hope, booing him when he tried to speak. “Coward! Coward!”

“It’s very easy, Rhodey,” told him Agatha, appearing in the footage, dressed as an elf and dragging a disgruntled Tao with her. Unlike everyone else, they looked the same they always did. “Look!”

“No,” said Tao, as soon as Agatha tried to plant one on her.

Agatha pouted. “Come on, I’m trying to teach him a lesson. Plus, mistletoe!”

Tao did not look impressed as she looked at the mistletoe over their heads. “Conjuring them doesn’t count.”

“You are so mean,” started Agatha, pout growing. “Sometimes I wonder if you even love me, or if you’re just stringing me along, Tao. We have been together for centuries and you-”

Tao’s lips quirked in a smirk, before she leant forward while Agatha was mid word, and kissed her on the lips with zero hesitation.

“Get it, hags!” cheered Toni, while the rest of the small group - Happy, Hope, Erik, T’Challa, Pepper, Rhodey and Toni - cheered along or made noises of complaint. 

Toni paused right as Agatha kissed her back, ignoring the familiar ache in her heart with practised ease as she looked over at Strange.

Who was gaping, staring between the screen and Agatha. He opened his mouth. He closed it.

“The Ancient One was gay?!” he finally managed, looking shocked.

“You couldn’t tell?” asked Toni, frowning at him. “When has she ever done anything remotely heterosexual in her life?”

He closed his mouth again, looking flummoxed, and Toni rolled her eyes. She noted Bruce looking at the screen and Strange in half fondness and amusement, and huffed before walking towards Thor.

He was still regarding Agatha and Strange with some curiosity on his face, and did not seem to notice her until she hit the back of his neck as hard as she could without hurting herself.

It couldn’t hurt him, but it still made him jump in surprise. “Hey!” he complained, scowling at her, massaging the back of his neck with a hand. “Whatever the Hel was that for?!”

“For starting a fight without knowing all of the variables,” she said, scowling right back at him. “Did Agatha attack you first when she appeared?”

“No, but the wizard said that she was a threat-”

“And you’re going to listen to the words of a man who himself simply appeared in my Tower not even three hours ago instead of stopping and thinking for yourself?” 

Thor’s shoulder went down, something suspiciously like a pout forming on his face. “I am unfamiliar with Midgard and Midgard’s magic users. I was simply following the lead of someone who seemed to be.”

“You started a fight inside a medbay, a healing room,” she pointed out, still glaring. “Where your brother is supposed to be resting and healing. What if you accidentally caused him further harm?”

Finally Thor seemed to realise what she was getting at, and his shoulders further slumped. “You are right. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, sounding chastised.

Sounding chastised.

Because Toni had just randomly started... scolding him.

What the fuck.

What?

She looked over at Rhodey, who was staring at her in clear confusion from across the room. “The fuck?”

“Shut up,” she complained, watching as Agatha moved towards Loki. “Woah there, Evil Mary Poppins. What do you think you’re doing?”

Agatha just shrugged. “Checking on his magic. I can see he has it, but I can’t feel it, it’s like locked. He’s in a magical coma, isn’t he?”

“Apparently so,” said Toni, moving closer to her. “Thor, do you consent?”

“Pardon?”

“On Earth we have this thing called a medical proxy,” she said, smacking Agatha’s hand when she sensed her bubbling magic starting. The witch pouted, but stopped, and Toni focused back on Thor. “That means that before a medical procedure takes place, if the patient cannot agree with it for himself, his next of kin or emergency contact or whatever will have the right to agree or refuse the medical treatment. In this case the treatment is magic, and you have the right to tell Agatha to stuff it if you don’t want her to do anything.”

“I see,” said Thor, nodding. He looked at his brother’s form for a second. Even bandaged, Loki had finally started to look better than he had looked like when Toni had been cleaning his wounds, and she exhaled, knowing that she had made the right call.

Thor glanced at Agatha. “What exactly is it that you wish to do to my brother?”

“Something’s wrong with his magic, and I want to search his body and his mind to understand just what has happened to him,” said Agatha, professionally enough. “He looks like hell, and there’s something... something is not quite right around these parts, and I’m not just talking about Infinity Stone magic.” Toni did not flinch when Agatha looked over at her in question, and the witch huffed. “Again, relax, Ellie. I’m not here to borrow anything, I was just worried and curious. Especially curious as to what could have an Asgardian looking like this. That Invasion looked rough, but those ugly things outside don’t look magic or feel magic.”

“Robot like, hivemind,” explained Toni, tersely.

“One soul, several bodies?” asked Bruce, frowning.

“How about the same soul, multiplied over several bodies? It’s the same, but several copies.”

“Fascinating,” muttered Bruce, grimacing when Strange shot him a look at that comment. "I meant as a scientific theory. Not the Invasion itself. Obviously."

Strange rolled his eyes.

Thor looked at Toni. “Do you trust this woman? Despite claims that she is a magical outlaw on Midgard?”

Toni rolled her eyes. “She’s not an evil person. She’s kinda like... chaotic neutral? Chaotic evil maybe. And to be honest I don’t trust her with a lot. Just all around chaotic, more self serving than a self checkout point. She’s gonna check out Loki because curiosity killed the cat and satisfaction brought it back. She has no reason to hurt Loki or screw him over, so she won’t.”

“What a ringing endorsement,” commented Agatha, not appearing particularly bothered.

Thor stared at Toni for a while longer, blue eyes fixed on her in... a weird manner. “I do not understand what felines have to do with anything. But I trust you,” he said in the end, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“That’s a terrible idea,” informed him Toni, scoffing.

Thor smiled, a little grim. “It has yet to lead me astray. You have been looking out for me and my brother since I landed on Midgard.”

That was... kind of true, supposed Toni, eyes fixed on Agatha as her purple magic started to go over Loki’s body. She had sort of been helping him around, and all that.

“You make me sound responsible or something, stop it,” she still said, keeping Agatha’s hands in her line of sight. Loki’s magic wasn’t reacting to the presence of hers, wasn’t that a bad thing? 

“Responsible Toni Stark,” joked Rhodey, coming towards her with a half smile on his face. “Maybe we did die in a nuclear disaster and we are now living in some sort of twilight zone?”

Toni untensed at his comment, sticking her tongue out at him while her eyes continued to track Agatha. “Colonel James Rupert Rhodes, I could be responsible if I wanted to be.”

“Doctor Antoinette Helaine Stark, the last time you came to my place, I watched you stack a chair on top of a desk and climb on it so that you could change the lightbulb.” A pause. “And the lightbulb was on.”

She heard Bruce snorting, which Toni ignored in favour of shooting Rhodey a glare. “I forgot that you don’t have JARVIS, that’s not me being irresponsible.”

“And what about when Pe-” Rhodey cut himself off, clearing his throat. “I have a lot more examples where that came from, just so you know.” Then he turned to Bruce and Strange again, expression twisting in distaste. “Banner. Strange.”

“Rhode-s,” said Bruce, crossing his arms protectively in front of him.

“Rhodes,” echoed Strange, impassively.

“What are you doing here?” asked the Colonel, still looking deeply unhappy to see them.

Toni had already explained it to him, but she did not speak up. She should probably tell Rhodey to back up, considering not everything that had happened had been their fault. She was grown enough to admit her own mistakes in the events that transpired 12 years ago.

But she was also petty enough to watch them suffer under Rhodey

In the end, one of them had run and the other had treated her like shit, not giving her a chance to explain anything.

She had been alone during one of the worst times in her life.

So they could handle a few barbs and antipathy from Rhodey, she decided, taking another step close to Thor. As soon as their shoulders touched, Thor stopped shifting from one foot to the other, and when his hand fell in hers, Toni allowed it.

“Uh, SHIELD called me in,” explained Bruce, shrugging. “Dragged me in, really, from Calcutta. To help out with the Tesseract. And then there was the Invasion, and I helped with that too.”

“I’m here because of the stones. Unfortunately, the person who’d have the most pertinent information, is currently comatose.”

“Uh,” said Rhodey, watching them critically. “Penniless and a fugitive, and penniless and homeless?”

Toni turned her head around very fast at that, but she was sure no one mistook her ‘cough’ for anything other than a snicker. Very rude, yes, she agreed. No, it did not make it any less funny.

“Yeah, well,” said Bruce, with a sigh. “Your life can turn around for the better or for the worse with a single decision.”

“True,” agreed Rhodey as Toni turned around, once more composed, and ignoring Thor’s judging expression. “So, he’s waiting for the sleeping beauty to wake up. What are you waiting for, exactly?”

Right, Toni had wondered the same too. She’d have expected him and the Hulk to be halfway to Canada by now, but he had not left yet. So what-

Trigger happy military men are still stationed all over New York, reminded her JARVIS. Considering SHIELD is no longer holding him, I would not be surprised if General Ross was among the men around the Tower, most likely waiting for him to turn up.

Right.

Toni had almost forgotten about that.

Bruce looked strangely defeated when Toni looked back at him. Like he had been expecting that question, and had yet to find a good enough excuse.

What did he think she was, some monster? Sure, she was pissed off about a lot of things, and she was annoyed at him, but she wouldn’t hand him over to the military. 

She liked Hulk.

“JARVIS will clear you a room,” she said, keeping her eyes on Loki’s form. While she normally liked Agatha’s magic (it was always so comforting and nice smelling) she itched for the woman to stop and move away from Loki already. “You can stay there until the military and Ross leave the city, or you decide to take off.”

A pause, where she could feel Rhodey’s eyes drilling holes in the side of her head.

“You don’t have to-” started Bruce, in that hesitant manner he did when he really wanted something but felt guilty about asking for it, and she rolled her eyes.

“I don’t, I’m choosing to,” she answered, huffing. “Plus I like the Hulk, and I don’t like the damages and death that would follow a trigger happy General deciding to shoot at you on sight.”

Bruce hesitated again, while Strange let out a breath that Toni was pretty sure was a scoff. 

She immediately rounded on him. “Say it with your chest.”

He glared at her. “I said nothing.”

“You want to say something. Go ahead, everyone’s listening, say what you want to say, Strange.”

“Why are you trying so hard to pick a fight?”

“Why are you too chicken shit to-”

“I’m kind of done, but I also want to hear where this fight is heading?” 

Toni forcefully turned back towards Agatha. “Is the Victorian going to succumb to space tuberculosis?”

Agatha pouted, but when Thor too looked at her in question, she huffed. “He’s... His magic is regenerating way too slowly, I think something is up with that. There is still some inside of him, but whatever the hell ripped his magic out of him did not do it kindly. His mind is a mess of mind magic scars, that was...” she whistled, though her expression was clearly unhappy. Toni did not know much about mind magic, but when Thor tensed beside her, she rubbed his arm with her free hand soothingly, like she had done with the Hulk.

“That was very not bueno,” continued Agatha. “His remaining magic is spread thin between healing his body - good thinking on whoever decided to clean and tend to his wounds, it kickstarted the healing process - and replenishing itself, but give him no more than three days. If he doesn’t wake up by himself then...” she turned to Toni, giving her a significant look that Toni was not sure the meaning of.

Still, she nodded. “Yeah, okay,” she said, squeezing Thor’s arm - Jesus, were those muscles or rocks? - and smiling at him. “All right? Maleficent is gonna be fine.”

“Indeed,” said Thor, voice only slightly choked up. “Indeed. Thank you.”

“Mh,” said Toni, patting his biceps again because of scientific curiosity only. Rock hard, damn. “You can thank me by taking a shower. You reek, and I think you still have Chitauri blood in your hair. Really gross.”

Thor simply chuckled, and Toni smiled back.

“Oh, it’s you,” said Thor, looking a little startled as Toni took a seat on the balcony beside him.

“Just little old me,” she agreed, enjoying the cold breeze on her skin.

Everyone had left or gone to rest, once Agatha had declared that Loki would be fine. Strange had left first, but he had left the Scepter and the Tesseract in the Tower. He had put them in strange little container that had made the buzzing stop completely (Toni wasn’t sure how she felt about that), and then put them ‘away’. Toni instinctively knew they were in the Tower, but she wasn’t sure of where. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

Both Bruce and Rhodey had stuck around, Bruce going to the room JARVIS had prepared for him while Rhodey had taken over his unofficial suite in the penthouse.

Rhodey had cornered her after she, him and Thor had managed to get themselves something for dinner but, instead of complaining about Bruce, he had just told her to be careful because “I have a suit of armour, this time around, and don’t think I won’t use it against them if it becomes necessary.”

(Toni loved Rhodey)

Agatha had left too, just as abruptly as she had shown up. She had given Toni another hug, telling her to be careful with the Stones and to call Ajax and Gilgamesh herself, before she had taken off.

Toni pretended she wasn't a little hurt.

Toni had not called them just yet, instead calling everyone else first. She had touched base with Yinsen, berating him for being in Ankara and losing on all the action, and even sent Hope a text message.

Hope had called her back, sounding relieved to hear from her, which Toni thought was sweet. They really needed to get together soon again, Toni missed her fellow weapon dealer pretty rich girl.

Toni had also gotten Jane’s phone contact to Thor, and while she hadn’t heard their conversation, she was sure it had gone well. Even though Thor had come back looking like a kicked puppy and massaging his ear.

They had gone to sleep after getting the famed shawarma delivered - New Yorkers really were crazy, Toni loved the city - but apparently she wasn’t the only one unable or afraid to sleep.

“You okay?” she then asked, when Thor remained silent, watching the stars over his head.

Toni refused to do so.

She knew exactly what she’d see.

“Many thoughts weigh on my mind,” admitted Thor. “Everything that has happened since I arrived on Midgard... The knowledge of the pain that was inflicted upon my brother. It is a terrible burden to bear.”

“Hot chocolate?” she offered, along with the cup in her hands.

Thor watched it dubiously, even as he accepted it. “A beverage?”

“Yep. Careful, it’s hot,” she warned.

“Nothing is too hot for the son of - Oh!” gasped Thor, pulling the scalding drink from his mouth. Toni raised an eyebrow at him, and he scowled. “Shut up.”

“Excuse me, Pointbreak,” she said, waving her finger at his face. “Don’t be rude just because I, little old Toni Stark, am wiser and more powerful than you, a god.”

Instead of rolling his eyes or even looking at her in offence, Thor focused at her with a strange intensity. “Indeed,” he said. “You... You are not a normal Midgardian. Your seidr... everything regarding you is far more powerful than I first imagined. How old are you?”

“Asking a woman her age? Tut tut, Thor, take me to dinner first,” said Toni. “But just in case you’ve started making assumptions based on Agatha and me knowing of the Eternals, I am the youngest person in this building, and Rhodey is 38.”

Thor looked even more confused at that. “And yet your power far exceeds that of the witch or of the Sorcerer Supreme or of the Berserker,” he said, and Toni snorted.

Loudly.

“Please,” she said, waving her hand. “No, it does not.”

“It does,” said Thor, decidedly. “I thought you were magic and old, with the feats you have showcased alone and the energy I can feel inside of you. But you claim to be under 38 Midgardian years of age.”

“What feats?” said Toni, staring at him like he was talking crazy.

Because he was talking crazy.

“You caught Mjolnir,” he started, pointing at where his hammer sat inside the building. “No one but me and the All-Father has ever managed to wield it, not even Loki with all of his knowledge of magic. You resisted the control of the Scepter several times as soon as you realised what it was doing - in fact were the only one to realise what it was doing. You did not fall under the power of an Infinity Stone. You managed to separate Loki from that magic and that hold. You called me; I heard you calling for me, when we were nowhere near enough one another for you to do so. You died, and you awoke once more. You sensed the sorcerer’s arrival without seeing him.” He shook his head. “Those are not the actions of a Midgardian with diluted blood. You are a being of magic.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Toni, trying for a joke without it quite landing. “I’ve kind of... always been able to do weird stuff. But my blood is 100% a normal person’s blood. I’ve checked.”

“What of your soul?”

Toni stared at him. “My soul?”

Thor nodded. “Perhaps your soul is not quite as normal as you have always believed it to be.”

Uh.

Instead of following that odd line of conversation, Toni turned to look at the sleeping wrecked city of New York before them, fiddling with her necklace. “There was something very scary on the other side of that portal,” she finally told him. “Someone.”

“The one who hurt Loki?” asked Thor, looking at her in concern. “You’ve seen his face?”

“Yes. No.” She frowned. “It’s complicated. I did not see him when I went through. But... I know his face. I’ve seen... sensed? I just know his face.”

Thor did not seem to find this weird at all. “And his name? Do you know his name?”

Toni thought about it for a few seconds but, in the end, shook her head. “I know it. If I heard, I’d know it was him. But...” she shook her head. “I can’t tell who he is.”

“What he wants?”

“The stones,” said Toni, with certainty. “He wants all of the stones. There are more than two. I think... I think there are six?”

“Indeed,” said Thor, nodding gravely. “I do not know much regarding them. Loki... Loki would.” He cleared his throat. “But there are six of them: Space, Time, Power, Reality, Mind and Soul. If the wizard is to be believed, either the Tesseract or the Scepter contains a stone.”

“Or both,” said Toni. Thor grimaced, and nodded. After all, Strange had put both in special containers. There had been no blue in that glove, but... “He wants the stones, Thor. He wants them real bad, and I think he almost has all of them. Or he had them. Or he will have them soon. I don’t know, but he wants to do something really bad with them. If he gets them, Thor, I know it, he will hurt us, hurt me and-”

“Peace,” said Thor, one hand on hers. Toni breathed slower, staring at his hand around hers instead of looking up at him. “He’s not here yet.”

“He’ll come.”

“And we shall be ready,” he told her, squeezing her hand gently. “I believe you. I trust you.”

She slowly opened her eyes, and looked up at him. In the night moon, his eyes looked heartbreakingly familiar. They reminded her of home, they reminded her of her father.

But Howard had brown eyes, that made no sense.

“You don’t know me,” she reminded him, holding his hand in hers a little tighter.

Thor smiled a little. “I feel as if I do.”

Yeah, thought Toni, staring at him too. She felt exactly the same.

Chapter Text

Toni couldn’t sleep.

Afghanistan had been hell. It had been really fucking terrifying, being stuck in that cave with her heart almost exposed, feeling every time she breathed those pieces of shrapnel in her heart, dying and waking up in agony over and over again, having her choice and agency stripped from her in more than one way, having the threats hanging over her head every time she dared to open her mouth.

It had taken a long time after Afghanistan for her hair to grow back.

Yeah, it had been hell. 

And when she and Yinsen had made it out, a secret they didn’t dare speak about hanging between them, sleep had eluded her for a very long time. Between her sudden new triggers, and the nightmares, it had taken her a long time to be able to lay on her bed for more than 2-3 hours at a time.

Now it was worse.

Now, every time Toni fell asleep, the dreams were back. Most of them nightmares of the portal and what laid on the other side, but not only that.

Toni dreamt and had nightmares about things she did not understand, about things she did not remember. 

Flashes of snow, of blood, of gold.

Flashes of crying children, dying mothers, fighting fathers.

Flashes of purple, and evil, and pain, and loss.

Flashes of her.

She grimaced, shaking her head slightly as she continued changing the various bandages on Loki’s body.

It had been three days since the Invasion, and things were... going.

Toni had slept maybe 4 hours in the past 48 hours - this time around, not even sleeping in the same bed as Rhodey seemed to help - but on the other hand she had managed to get a number of things done.

Between her and Pepper - communications all around the Tower had finally been restored - they had managed to start up things. The Department for Damage Control was coming to life nicely, and there was a press conference from Toni and Stark Industries planned for the near future. 

She had so far successfully avoided having to talk to the mayor, claiming that she needed to gather all of her information, but that was also coming up soon on the docket.

SHIELD, predictably, did not seem inclined to explain themselves, but that was just fine. Toni would speak for them, and she was sure Fury was just gonna love that.

At least Loki’s injuries had almost fully healed, she mused, passing a cold cloth against his back. The scars were still angry looking and she had the feeling that at least some of them were going to be permanent, but there was no more bleeding-

Fascinating.

Toni continued working, not halting at all even as she felt Loki wake up. He did not move, his breathing did not change, nothing outwardly changed in him or his actions.

But Toni was very much aware that he was awake now; or, at the very least, aware.

His magic was nice, she had found. In the past few days it had started replenishing, and without that stench of icky and blue from before, it was much better. Fresher. Like freshly cut grass, and wind.

But it was nowhere near what Toni felt it should feel like, and it seemed like Agatha had said... locked. Blocked.

This did not make Loki potentially any less dangerous. Toni continued to work on his wounds anyway.

JARVIS, where is Thor?

Prince Thor is on his way to the medbay. He mastered online food order, and has picked up today’s meal order. He met Doctor Banner as he was doing so, and got caught up in conversation with him. Shall I call him?

Yes, please, answered Toni, taking some of the cream from beside her. Don’t tell him Loki’s awake just yet, though.

Bruce had also gotten to work as soon as he could. The Tower’s lower levels had been opened to set out camps for the injured from the Invasion, since many hospitals were still overrun and many people were broke, and as soon as he had found out, the doctor had gone to help.

The only times Toni saw him, at this point, was when he came up to the medbay while she was there to help check out how Loki was doing, or when Thor invited him to eat with them.

Since she had half expected him to have fled in the night by now, that was an interesting development.

Then again, Ross had officially arrived in New York yesterday, from what JARVIS had uncovered, and had been in talks with SHIELD regarding Hulk. She wasn’t sure of how much of this Bruce knew about, but considering the level of the General’s obsession with him, he most likely was aware of where the man was at any given time, and this had been the main reason he had decided to stay.

It was what Toni would have done, at least.

She did not mind, not really.

Not that she’d tell Rhodey that, he'd definitely get all judgey and stuff.

Toni was not over Banner running, and she was not planning on growing as a person (well, not metaphorically. She’d like to grow as a person literally) or on taking the high road so any time soon. She just had grown past the point of caring, at this point.

She re-applied the last of the bandages on his back, unsurprised to find green eyes staring at her when she turned him back on his stomach.

She simply stared back at him, one eyebrow raised.

He even seemed all around better. His skin was still pale, but now it was pale in a Nordic kind of way, rather than in a ‘I’m about to keel over and die’ or in a ‘I just came out of my coffin 10 mins ago, what’s up?’ sort of way.

That was good enough for her.

“So...” she said, after one minute of uninterrupted and slightly creepy eye contact with the man. He did not even blink, what the fuck. “What’s up?”

Loki blinked very slowly. 

“T-This is not Asgard,” he finally managed, nose scrunching at the croaky sound of his own voice. Toni also grimaced, reaching for one of the bottles near the bed and uncapping it. “Nor is it SHIEL-D.”

“My Tower,” she explained, reaching to help him up. Loki watched her in slight bemusement and Toni paused when she realised she was about to bring the bottle to his lips like he was some sort of child. Her eye twitched, and she pulled back. “Hold on.”

She found one of the straws from the drawer and stuck it inside the bottle before passing it to him.

Loki’s bemused expression turned into one of suspicion when he looked at the straw as he took the bottle. “Wh-what is this.”

“God, can you just drink? You sound awful, man,” she said, still grimacing. “It’s water, I promise you it’s not poisoned. The straw-” she almost said ‘helps’, and then ran back all of her interactions with Mr Emo. It might not have been fully him, but still she doubted he was a particularly cheery person in real life. “You just drink through it.”

Loki touched the straw with a lot of suspicion. “Why should I trust that you aren’t about to poison me?”

“Because you were unconscious inside my medbay for the past three days and nothing happened to you. In fact, you woke up to me tending to your wounds, like the sweet person I am, not in SHIELD bring non consensually alien probed, or whatever would have happened on Asgard,” she pointed out, gratified when Loki started drinking only a few words in. “It’d be really stupid for me to kill you now, and so easily at that.”

Loki drank the entire bottle at once, and Toni forced herself to keep her sympathy to herself as she grabbed another bottle for him and left it near him. Thor had said that IV would do nothing to him as he couldn’t starve to death ‘like this’ - whatever the fuck that meant - but he was still clearly very hungry and dehydrated.

Almost as if hearing her thoughts, Thor walked inside the room with several bags of food in his hands. “Toni, shall your shield brother join us for this meal? I took care of- Brother!”

Loki immediately stiffened when Thor spoke, growing a lot tenser when he rushed towards him. Toni got in the blond’s path before he could actually touch him, both hands up. “Woah, big guy. Easy there. Breathing room, personal bubble, consent, come on. We talked about this.”

Thor did stop, though he did not really seem to have heard a word she had said, his eyes fixed on Loki. “Brother,” he repeated, voice filled with emotion. “You are-”

“Not your brother,” said Loki, eyes glaring hatefully at him as he pulled the straw out of his mouth. “Do not pretend now, Odinson. This charade has gone on long enough.”

“Tis is no charade!” protested Thor, taking a step forward despite Toni standing between the two of them. “You are my brother.”

“My mind might have been twisted by the Master and the Other’s magic, but my memories of the events since your ill timed coronation remain as sharp and as clear as ever,” informed him Loki, a scowl full of anger fixing on his face. “Laufeyson. Do you forget?”

“It matters not!” said Thor, forcefully shaking his head. “I told you before. We were raised together! No one knows me as you do, you have always been my brother. The blood that runs through your veins changes nothing for me.”

“Ah!” sneered Loki. “The blood that you swore your entire childhood you would run upon the snow of Jotunheim suddenly no longer matters to you? Do not make me laugh, Thor.”

“I grew,” stubbornly said Thor. “My beliefs of before, they were stupid notions of a too sheltered prince. And I don’t care what skin is your true skin, you are my brother! I would never cause you harm.” Loki’s eyes narrowed and Thor grimaced. “Permanent harm with the intention to kill you.”

The fuck did that mean!? 

Loki shook his head, still tense. “I do not believe you. You think I forgot the words we exchanged on that Midgardian altitude before this Midgardian woman bested you? I have not.”

Again, Thor winced. “Those words were perhaps not carefully chosen. I should have never assumed-”

“Have you ever done anything but assume, when it comes to me?” asked Loki, still sneering. “Anything goes wrong on Asgard, and you immediately come after me! You all do!”

Now it was Thor’s turn to glare. “Mayhaps it is because it is your fault, more than half of the time?!”

“Then what about the half that isn’t my fault? How many times did I go down for mischief and chaos I had no hand in causing? For you, and for your friends?”

“And how many times did your mischief end up causing strife to our parents-”

“They are not my parents!” snarled Loki.

Thor’s expression became thunderous, and Toni quickly clapped her hands, bringing both their angry stares on her.

Not her brightest move.

Not your brightest move, Miss.

Oh, shut up.

“I can see that there is enough emotion here to make Dr Phil film an entire season of his show,” she started, as gently as she could - not very much so, no - “But this is really not the time. Thor, sit down please, instead of shouting at your... at Loki, who has just woken up from a terrible coma.” The blond scowled, not moving. Toni stared at him. “Thor.”

He said something under his breath, but then he did sit back down on the chair, dropping the bag of food on the ground beside him and glaring at the air.

God, he was like an overgrown child sometimes.

She turned to Loki. “Loki-”

“If you think I would ever take orders from a Midgardian,” he told her, mouth twisted in derision. “Then you are as insane as the hawk implied you are.”

“I am absolutely that,” she agreed, grabbing one of the bags from Thor. “How are you feeling?”

He frowned. “Pardon?”

“You were tortured, extensively so,” she said, causing his expression to quickly blank over. “Both mentally and physically. And then you were in some sort of magical coma for days. Eat, you need it. But, how are you feeling?”

“I don’t see how this is any of your concern,” he answered, stiffly. He did not touch the food.

“Wow, and here I dared hope that the whole emo schist and angry child throwing a fit was the result of mental manipulations,” she complained, mournfully. “That’s just you? Yikes.”

Loki’s fists clenched until his hands were paler than before. “You dare mock me? You have no idea what-”

“The Queen of Iron is the only reason that your mind was restored,” rumbled Thor, eyes flashing. “You owe her your life, and she was the one to give you space to heal away from Asgard and SHIELD. You shall do well to know your place around her, brother.”

Oh, even Toni knew that was a really dickish thing to say.

Loki bared his teeth at Thor. “I did not ask for any of that, thus I have no gratefulness for her,” he informed him, which made Thor almost stand up from his chair again. Only Toni’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. Loki’s eyes glimmered. “And you call yourself my brother? When it took a Midgardian I have never met in my life to realise that something about me wasn’t right? I’d rather be a lone orphan then. Oh wait,” he smiled nastily. “I am.”

“Thor, walk away,” said Toni, when she heard the sound of thunder outside.

“What?” he asked, looking at her in surprise and offence. 

“This is not working, and actually making everything worse. Please walk away, I’ll get you soon enough.”

This time Thor’s glare was closer to how he had looked at her when they had first met. “I shall do no such thing. He is my brother.”

Loki snarled at that, but Toni did not turn around to look at him. Instead she stared at Thor right in the eye, serious as hell for once. “Thor. You are making things worse, right now. Walk. Away.”

“I won’t-”

“I’m not asking,” she snapped, voice calm but eyes steady and decided. “I’m telling you. To walk away, Thor.”

Weapons in position, Miss.

Thor is not going to attack me, said Toni, mentally rolling her eyes while her expression did not change an inch from where she was staring Thor down (or up, because that asshole was really stupidly tall).

She was sure he wasn’t.

... Pretty sure.

Like... 85% sure? Uh. 76%.

Her gamble seemed to pay off, though. Thor held eye contact with her for 49 seconds in which she did not blink once, before he made a sound between a growl and a scream, and stormed out of the room.

Toni was not surprised when she turned around a second later and found herself with a dagger at her throat immediately, close enough to draw blood.

Miss? Came JARVIS’ voice, sounding a little worried and panicked. Loki had moved faster than he had even managed to see, then.

Loki was not going to kill her either, she was... 17% sure of that. Maybe 18%?

No, 6%.

Yeah, there was a good chance Loki might kill her.

“I do not know who the Hel you believe you are, Stark,” he said, voice low and threatening. “Or what you think you achieved by making Thor bless your abode and by keeping me here. Or what you want from me. But know that you are getting nothing from me. I don’t owe you anything.”

“Cool,” she agreed, ignoring the way the movement of her throat made the dagger dig in a little more. That thing was really fucking sharp, ouch. “I didn't do it because I wanted you to owe me, but good to know.”

Loki’s eyes remained narrowed. “Then why did you do it?”

“I have a saviour complex.”

“I don’t need to be saved.”

“Oh, honey, you so clearly do,” she said, because of course she did.

Loki’s glare was poisonous. “You do see the blade at your throat, yes? You are very mouthy for someone a step away from losing their head.”

“If I’m going to die, might as well do so doing what I’m best at,” she pointed out. “Well, second best at,” she amended, with a wink. 

Loki looked disgusted.

“Now, are you done with the temper tantrums or are we going to keep this up for a while longer?”

His expression turned kind of offended. “Excuse me?”

“I have questions,” she explained. “About the wormhole. And the... thing. On the other side of the wormhole.”

Loki’s hand unknowingly shook as his eyes widened. “You saw him?”

“Not exactly,” said Toni, shaking her head. She winced, and Loki retracted his dagger without seeming to even realise, slight panic in his eyes. “But I... sensed him. I think. Felt him? I know what he looks like.” She looked at him. “He’s the one who forced you to attack Earth, isn’t he?”

Loki’s chest was moving a little faster even as he sneered at her again. The wild edge was back in his eyes. “You think I was mind controlled? That I was forced to attack and hurt the people of your precious Midgard? Oh, you are a most foolish being!” He laughed, but it was not a happy sound. “Do not for a second thing I regret anything I have done since arriving on your disgusting planet. I did what I did by my own volition. I killed those humans, and I would do it again. I’d take a hold of those minds again, I’d kill those people again and again, and I-”

Toni did not even pause to think before she grabbed him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Loki made a weird cut off sound, but she ignored it, keeping his head pressed against her chest, her chin on top of his head while she ran a hand through his hair. 

“You’re so fucked up,” she informed him, keeping him close and ignoring the slight thrum of his magic under his skin. “Like, royally screwed up. You make me look well adjusted.”

“I could kill you with a thought,” she heard him say. His entire body was tenser than a bow string.

Toni hummed, pressing her cheek against his head and holding him a touch tighter. “I believe you.”

“Names have powers,” said Loki, two hours later.

The man was so touch starved it was depressing. He had remained in that hug for almost 45 minutes - Toni’s back ached, but she hadn’t been about to let him go first - and actually untensed, over time.

Eventually, though, he had pushed her back - way more gently than she had expected him to - and Toni had let him go. She had remained in the room with him, checking with JARVIS regarding their sullen resident god of Thunder and doing stuff on her phone while pretending she did not feel smug when Loki started eating his food in silence.

Toni looked up at him. “I know that. What does that have to do with anything?”

Loki’s jaw tensed, and he continued to not look at her. “I dare not say his name,” he eventually said. “Lest he hears.”

Toni nodded, slowly putting her phone back down. “Is he... he’s coming back, isn’t he?”

Loki nodded.

Toni breathed through her nose. “What does he want?”

“The Stones,” he said, simply. “Destruction. He wants to shape the Universe as he sees fit, and offer it to his Mistress Death.”

Toni felt a chill run down her spine at that. “His Mistress Death?” 

“Yes,” said Loki, glancing at her now. “That is at least what he calls her- You are shaking.”

“No, I’m not,” lied Toni, rubbing her hands together. “Where are they? The stones?”

“Two of them are right here on Midgard,” said Loki, after a long pause in which he just stared at her. “The Tesseract. And the Scepter. I know not where the others are, nor do I care to find out.”

Toni crossed her arms around her chest, hiding them from his eyes. “Fuck.”

“At least one needs to go back to Asgard,” said Loki, jaw tensing and untensing. “Asgard is the safest place for them. They have the strongest warrior force. It is, however, not advisable to have more than one stone on one planet.”

“Will he still come if both Stones are off Earth?” she asked, a little hopeful.

Maybe he wouldn’t, and he wouldn’t see her, and would never know...

Loki gave her a smile that had zero amusement in it. “You survived his attack and this is the last place he knew for sure the Scepter to be in. He will come.”

He would come for her.

Toni crushed the need to bite her nails or do anything else to show how anxious she truly was.

“How long do we have?”

Loki shook his head. “I know not. He is a few years from Midgard, but anger and vengeance are indeed strong motivators.”

Didn’t she know.

“Am I,” she looked over at Loki, who had stopped and was scowling at the air. “Am I to return to Asgard?”

Oh.

Toni grimaced, sitting back down on the bed beside him. Loki stiffened as she took his hand and held it, but did not pull it out immediately. “I am not stronger than Thor,” she admitted, slowly. “And I can’t fight Asgard. If I could keep you here-”

“I do not need platitudes or excuses,” said Loki, stiffly, but Toni was having none of that.

She put a hand on his cheek and turned him to face her. “Hey. Have I lied to you yet? Not even when your mind was mush did I lie to you, and I’m not gonna start now. If I could keep you here, I would, Bambi. But, I can’t. The only thing I can do is keep you here till you are healed, and perhaps even cleared of your crimes on Earth?”

Is that possible?

I know not, Miss, but you are well adept at achieving what many insist is impossible. 

Love you too, baby boy.

“I’ll have to ask Pepper to be sure,” she continued, as Loki stared at her inscrutably. “That way, when you come back, when you get out, you’ll be safe here. So yeah, I’m definitely trying that. But if... if the bad guy is really coming, then I think Asgard should know about it too, shouldn’t they? Especially if one of the stones goes back with you and Thor...?”

Loki sneered. “They’ll never believe one word that comes out of my mouth,” he said, bitterly. “You heard Thor earlier. I’m the liar, the chaos bringer, the mischief maker. They will say I’m lying.”

“Thor will support you,” she started, which earned her a scoff. “Look, I don’t know you guys’ story-”

“So stop pretending you do. He would never-”

“-But I had him near in tears after I spoke to you while you were in that cage and he realised that something was seriously wrong,” she continued, ignoring the interruption. “You threw him out of the Helicarrier in a glass cage, and he still rushed to your side when the Scepter sent you in that magical coma thing. He spent his entire time at your bedside while you were recovering.” Loki was quiet now, jaw clenched, still glaring at the air. “Maybe he’s a shit brother who keeps making mistakes, but I don’t believe he’s lying about loving you. And he has already shown he’d do anything to save you. I’m not saying trust him or forgive him because, again, I don’t know what happened between the two of you.

“But he loves you. Of that, I have no doubt.”

Loki did not answer, and Toni sighed.

This was why she was so glad she was an only child. This brotherly drama was exhausting and she still wasn’t even sure why she was involved. Why did these people insist on making her the responsible one? It was so wrong, she was sure she was gonna start breaking out in hives soon enough.

“What is that?” asked Loki suddenly.

Toni looked back at him in confusion, and followed his gaze to her neck. She had started playing with her necklace again, as she was prone to do when she was anxious or nervous about something. “Oh, this. My necklace. Hey, it matches that anklet you have, doesn’t-”

“Where did you get it?” questioned Loki, looking very confused. 

Toni shrugged. “Had it for as long as I can remember, to be honest. Tao, maybe? I don’t know. Why?”

“It’s made of uru and stardust,” he said, reaching out but not touching it. “It is dwarven made, and indeed it is not dissimilar from Thor and I’s bracelets.”

“Where did you get yours?” she questioned, touching her necklace in intrigue. She had tried to identify the composition before, but JARVIS had always said that it was made from materials he did not recognise. She had always assumed it was from another dimension or something.

Turned out they were somehow from space. Or Asgard. Or... dwarven-land.

“Gifts,” said Loki. “They were given to us when we were born. I believe F- Odin commissioned them.” He did not look happy about that. “I cannot take it off, no matter how hard I try.”

“I can take off mine,” said Toni. “I don’t, because I don’t want to; but I can.”

“Mh,” said Loki, reaching for his plate and appearing surprised to find it empty. He scowled, and Toni rolled her eyes - not fondly at all - before taking what was supposed to be Thor’s sandwich, and giving it to him.

J, order more for Thor if he hasn’t done so already.

“I don’t want it,” lied Loki, and Toni once more sighed.

So glad that she was an only child. Seriously.

Chapter Text

It took Toni three hours to get Loki to leave the medbay. Mostly because the snotty little prick - mind control and torture or not, Toni had him pegged already - did not want to leave, but Toni was not particularly comfortable leaving him behind in the medbay all alone.

And the thought of sending Thor down with him while she got on with doing what she needed to do? Yeah, also no.

“Come on,” she said, trying to coax him along without actually touching him. “Why are you walking so slow? Your back is healed.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed at that, though he made no move of walking any faster. “How would you know this?”

Toni frowned right back at him, before she realised. “Right. JARVIS, say hi to Loki. I don’t think you’ve been introduced yet.”

“Indeed,” said the AI, and while Loki did not jump out of his skin, his eyes did widen quite a bit. “Good afternoon, Prince Loki. I am JARVIS, an artificial intelligence created by Miss Antoinette Stark. Pleasure to meet you.”

Thor had not appeared particularly confused or worried about JARVIS, but Loki immediately tensed. “Where are you hiding?” he demanded, sounding irritated as he looked around. “Have you been watching me all along?”

“He’s not ‘hiding’,” said Toni, holding back the urge to roll her eyes. “He’s an AI.” He was so much more than that. “I made him, from code. He’s hooked in... well, in everything I have ever made, to be honest. Everywhere I go, he’s with me if he can help it. Otherwise the separation anxiety kicks in, he’s a bit co-dependent like that.”

“I am not co-dependent. I am simply aware that, without me, your chances of survival decline drastically,” answered the AI, and Toni gasped loudly at that, a hand over her heart.

“The impudence on you, J!”

Loki stared at her, not less tense, but slightly more curious. “You made this... intelligence? A spirit of... technology?"

Toni made a face. “I suppose if you wanna insist on calling it that? He’s an AI.”

“Is that what you’re renowned for?” asked Loki, finally starting to walk again alongside her. He was walking straighter now, though he kept eyeing every camera they came across. 

“Among the many things. Didn’t the hawk-man give you a debriefing on ‘everything you need to know about Antoinette Helaine Stark’?”

Loki eyed her a little thoughtfully, and a lot suspiciously. “I am gathering they did not know as much as they believed they did.”

Toni winked at him. “Always leave them panting for more, that’s my motto,” she said, snickering at the distaste on his face at her words.

“Are you incapable of not turning everything you say in dirty doublespeak?”

“Usually I can’t talk when I have a gag in my mouth,” she offered, just chuckling when his displeasure seemed to grow at her words.

Thor was in the living room when she walked in. He had appropriated the poptarts for himself again, and was sulkingly eating them on the couch. Even though she had expressly told him the night before to not do that, because he was going to get all the crumbs inside the couch, and then Pepper was gonna blame her when she showed up.

She was 88% sure he had done it on purpose.

His eyes immediately widened at the sight of his brother, and he stood up. He looked as if he was itching to leap at him and perhaps hug him or whatever, but he remained where he stood.

“Loki,” he said, eventually, when Loki stopped in the doorway, glaring at the ground. “I see you are once more walking.”

“Not thanks to you slamming me into a cliffside as soon as you set eyes on me again,” sniped Loki, because of course he did. Not that Toni was condoning Thor’s actions, but Loki really was taking this whole ‘woe is me’ thing and driving it to the ground, wasn’t he?

“Thor is sorry for that,” quickly said Toni, when Thor looked uncertain between anger and being apologetic. She shot him a look. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Thor, nodding. “I should not have acted without thinking. I should have done things more carefully, spoken to the Queen of Iron or even attempted a normal conversation with you before attacking you.”

Loki frowned at him, and then scoffed. “Would be the first time in your life.”

“You know, I’m not getting paid for this,” huffed Toni. “Loki, can you not be an ass for a few minutes? It’s clear that Thor is sorry, and he wants to apologise extensively,” she ignored the blond’s panicked expression, “about all of it, but you have to at least listen. I’m not saying forgive him immediately for everything, cause Tesla knows I don’t know half of the shit that happened in your lives, but at least hear him out? And I’m sure there are some things you have to apologise about too, regarding everything that happened?”

“No,” said Loki, crossing his arms. “I have done nothing wrong. All I have done was in accordance with the letter of the Law of Asgard.”

“Like stealing the throne?” questioned Thor, not glaring but tone of voice definitely accusing. 

Loki sneered. “I did not steal the throne, you oaf. Mo- Frigga gave me the throne. Most likely to just watch me fail at yet another thing, but she gave it to me herself, before the entirety of the Einherjar forces.”

Thor looked surprised and shocked at that, and Toni jumped on it. “How about you both sit back down, you on this couch and Thor on that one, and go through everything that happened since... what is it that you called it? That ‘ill timed coronation of Thor’s’. That’s when everything went wrong, isn’t it?”

Neither answered, with Thor looking down at his feet and Loki staring out of the still broken window, and Toni nodded to herself. “Right. JARVIS will referee the entire argument and remember - words. I don’t know how you do things in godland, but try to use your words for this one, okay? I have things to do, and they do not include babysitting moody and temperamental gods. Toodles, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t!”

She ignored what sounded suspiciously like Thor saying ‘What haven’t you done’, and moved towards the kitchen to give them at least some modicum of privacy while they aired their dirty laundry.

Was this what being a parent of siblings felt like?

The bots and JARVIS had never given her this type of problem before.

Toni sort of hated them both for it.

+++

JARVIS was, as usual, the best thing that had ever come out of Toni’s hands.

Seriously, Toni sometimes wondered how could she, as... not exactly well adjusted as she could be, had managed to create such perfection. 

The way he was able to diffuse the majority of the arguments between the two brothers before they could even actually start was a marvel to observe. He had managed to figure out, in a matter of days around Thor and a tentative amount of hours in total with Loki, what they best responded to and what they reacted with the most hostility in regards to.

Of course there were also a couple of screaming matches, and she did not think they had managed to patch that much between the two of them, but there was no new blood on the ground and her furniture was still in one piece. It had started raining, but she couldn’t be sure it was Thor’s doing and not nature acting all... natur-y.

Miss, Doctor Banner and Colonel Rhodes are coming up.

Toni paused where she had been attempting to salvage the footage from the armour to stare at the air in slight confusion. 

... Together?

Indeed. They met in the elevator.

Toni's lips twitched.

You did it on purpose, didn’t you?

Miss, if their timing happened to perfectly align so that they both ended up on the elevator at the same time, I do not see how it could be seen as it being my fault.

Yeah, right, thought Toni, moving her fingers again and not smiling outwardly. How are they doing?

Delightfully awkward, said JARVIS, and was that a hint of satisfaction in the AI’S code? J could be so petty, sometimes. There have been no threats of any kind issued, but Doctor Banner has twice already tried and failed to offer a greeting, while Colonel Rhodes is pointedly avoiding eye contact and pretending he does not see him.

Clearly JARVIS had learned the pettiness from her Platypus, decided Toni, tweaking the code a little bit more. You could barely see anything of what she had seen on the other side of the portal, which was not good.

They have reached the floor, then said the AI, right as the door of the elevator opened.

Toni did look up at that, keeping her lips carefully pressed together as Rhodey took large steps towards her, not even glancing at the demigods in her living room and instead sliding beside her at the table.

He made a face at her when they made eye contact, and she snickered lightly, leaning forward to press a kiss on his cheek.

“I love you very much, you know that, Rhodeybear?”

“You better,” he said, huffing. “Have you decided on a date for the press conference? Everyone is breathing down my neck trying to get to you, I might have to sell you out." He smiled at her outraged expression, before his expression turned a fraction more serious. "And did you sleep last night? You weren’t in bed when I woke up.”

“I have a date in mind, I just need those two to sort themselves out,” said Toni, looking away from him to point at the two demigods in question, who were watching them instead of talking things out among themselves as they should. Thor very unsubtly turned away when she looked over at them, while Loki continued to stare, apparently not caring that he had gotten caught. “As well as they can sort themselves out, clearly.”

“What, uh, press conference?” asked Bruce, standing between the kitchen and the living room. He was looking at Loki with some wariness that Toni felt was unwarranted - the guy was clearly a little deranged, but he wasn’t that dangerous... yeah, okay, she heard it.

Toni pointed to the state of the world outside. “The people are gonna have questions. SHIELD is not gonna answer them. I will do it for them.”

“You’re gonna unleash ‘aliens are real’ to the world?” he asked, eyebrows knitting together.

“I’m gonna unleash ‘this was round one, and round two won’t come with a reluctant general who did not want to invade us to begin with so we need to get ready and start preparing’,” she answered. “Preventative measures.”

“Paranoia and mass hysteria?”

“I’m not Galileo, I’m not getting excommunicated.”

“Technically, he was exiled.”

Toni opened her arms grandiosily. “This Tower is under the blessing of the god of Thunder.”

Bruce looked amused. “Are you making a case that we are standing on Asgardian soil right now?”

She smiled back. “I love creating legal precedents that have Legal screaming my name like it’s a curse word. Usually, I win them too.”

“You might actually need it,” said Rhodey, looking thoughtful. At her questioning look, he elaborated. “Ross knows that Banner is here. Won’t take him long to come knocking at your door and demand him back.”

Immediately the tension ratchet up in the room. Bruce’s smile dropped along with his shoulders, as did Toni’s. 

Bruce shook his head a little. “I’m surprised it took him so long, to be honest,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair before he looked at Rhodey. “Do you know when he plans on storming the castle? I’d rather not break Toni’s Tower more than it already has been.”

Rhodey answered with something, as Toni stared at the tablet in front of her.

She could feel Hulk inside of Bruce. He had become disquieted as soon as Ross had been mentioned. He was not afraid, she did not think, but... unhappy. Tense. 

Sad.

She did not know what sort of thing could kill her, yet. For all she knew, falling from the sky in her suit and smashing against the ground could have killed her.

The only reason she had not found out was that Hulk had caught her.

Hulk who was a huge giant rage monster, but had not once attacked her. Who existed only to protect Bruce, whether he knew it or not. Who was just the scared 6 years old kid Bruce had spoken to her about, once upon a time, when things were easier and happier.

Hulk wanted to protect Bruce and be left alone. He did not kill for pleasure, he killed in order to protect himself. He had not understood about the smashing causing the Helicarrier to fall to the ground until she had told him, and then he had sat down to not cause any death and distraction.

Hulk had a soul.

And Toni liked Hulk.

“Ross cannot forcibly take away an employee of Stark Industries,” she said, looking up at Bruce.

Ill advised.

Necessary.

Preparing a contract right away.

Bruce looked at her in surprise. “What?”

“Congratulations, you’re hired. You started three days ago.” She slid the tablet in front of him, knowing that JARVIS would make sure the right page was displayed. “Sign, and back date.”

He looked at her, hope and confusion once more warring with each other. “Toni, you...”

She was under no illusion that Bruce was sticking around. But, “That way you are safe until Ross leaves the city. Then once he’s gone we can part ways, and you’ll be able to go wherever it is you wanted to go. Or came from.”

He still looked unsure. “Are you sure?”

“Yup,” she said, picking up her phone instead. “Consenting and everything.”

Rhodey frowned, while Bruce stiffened slightly.

Toni’s eyes remained glued on her phone.

“Why are you bothering to do this, if you so clearly hate me?”

She did not hate him. She was mad at him, and resented him a lot. 

But she did not hate him.

“I like the Hulk,” she said instead. “He caught me, and then basically scared me back to life. Also, he calls me Tiny Toni, which is cute but I’m still gonna fight him about. He’s a giant angry teddy bear, and I’m not letting Ross get his hands on him. Though,” she added, and looked up. “You are perfectly welcome to run away if you want. No one is stopping you. Not that people trying to stop you from running has ever been an issue.”

Bruce’s lips pursed. “Has anyone told you that age has only managed to make you more...”

“Bitchy?” she finished for him, chin resting on her palm. “Bitter? Rude? I think you wanted to go with ‘bitchy’.”

“What is the strife between the two of you about?” asked Loki, and Toni was not particularly surprised to find him and his brother now standing in the kitchen. Loki was careful to keep a distance between the two of them, but they weren’t trying to outright kill each other, so that was something.

“None of your-”

“From what the witch who examined you said, it appears that they slept together and thus ruined their friendship forever twelve Midgardian years ago,” informed him Thor, which made Toni scowl at him. “She also slept with the sorcerer.”

Thor smiled genially at her and Loki, and why did she feel like this was payback for kicking him out earlier?

Loki looked Banner up and down for a second, and made a face. “You can do better.”

“One, fuck you both, two, mind your business,” said Toni, flipping them both off, while Rhodey made what looked like a general expression of agreement, and Bruce rolled his eyes. “What do you want? Are you jealous that I’m paying attention to other people?”

Loki scoffed, but Toni did not hear a denial.

She was so onto him.

“I believe we should call Master Strange now,” said Thor, looking just a little bit more serious. “My brother-”

“Not your brother-”

“-Seems inclined to talk about things now.”

Toni glanced at Loki, who had gotten a little less amused now. “Are you sure?”

“I’m not frail like you Midgardians,” he informed her, glaring slightly. “I am perfectly capable of recounting what I need to this Sorcerer Supreme.”

“Alright, keep your trousers on,” said Toni, turning to look at Bruce expectantly. “Go ahead.”

He stared back at her, blankly. “Go ahead and...”

“Get naked,” she said, before rolling her eyes. “Go ahead and call Strange, duh.”

Bruce made a face at her. “What makes you think I have his number? Before three days ago, I had not seen him in twelve years.”

Suspicion proven true, then.

“Well, I don’t have his number either,” she said, looking around. “Did he leave any of you with a method of contact? JARVIS?”

“No, he did not,” said the AI. “But as he is the Sorcerer Supreme, shall I go ahead and call Kamar Taj?”

Right. Because Strange was a sorcerer now, and was taking Tao’s place.

Uh-uh.

That was a thing.

“Good idea,” said Toni, as the line connected. “Even if he isn’t there, someone will be.”

Loki and Thor looked at the air over their heads in curiosity as the ringing sounded, looking like a pair of puppies or something. Or rather a puppy and a cat. Not that she’d ever say that where Loki could hear it. She had a feeling he might stab her for that.

“Hello?” came a voice seven rings later, and Toni smiled a little.

“Hey, Wong. Miss me?”

“Ella? No, I did not miss you at all. What do you want?”

Toni did not take it personally. Wong had totally missed her, he just did not do emotional reunions.

She did not think he’d hold it against her that she hadn’t come by since Tao’s death, but... yeah. It had been over 2 years since they had seen each other face to face.

“Your Sorcerer Supreme is what we want. Tell him it’s me.”

“Since when do you know him?”

“Why are you acting nosy? I’m not feeding the gossip to a man who says he did not miss me.”

“What’s there to miss? The way you constantly tore apart my library or went through the relics like they were your personal toy collection? You know, you remind me of Strange a little with that behaviour of yours.”

Toni’s nose scrunched up, and she showed her middle finger at Bruce when he dared to smirk at her at that. “Stop insulting me.”

“You knew that was an insult? Uh, you really do know him.” Toni rolled her eyes again at that, while Wong spoke, this time not to them. “Strange, Ella is on the phone for you.”

“Stark,” she corrected, unsurprised to hear Strange ask ‘Who?’ on the other side of the line. “Or Toni. You people are the only ones who ever called me Ella or Ellie.”

“Toni Stark,” corrected Wong. “ She said-”

“Hello," came Strange’s voice from the phone a second later, with Wong complaining in the background. “What is it?”

“Loki’s awake,” said Toni, fingers tapping on the table. “He said he’s up for questions.”

“I’ll be right there,” said the sorcerer, and then the line was cut.

“Damn him, I wanted to ask Wong a favour,” she complained, pouting slightly.

When she focused, Thor, Loki and Bruce were looking at her in confusion. “What?”

“Ella?” said Thor, confused. “Why did that sorcerer call you that?”

“Oh,” she said, waving him off. “Nickname. My full name is Antoinette Helaine Stark. My parents and everyone always called me Antoinette, or Toni. But Tao was my godmother, and she gave me the middle name Helaine. I used to hate Helaine as a baby, so she would call me Ella or Ellie. Everyone at the Sanctums just adopted the habit.”

“Oh,” said Thor, thoughtful. “Antoinette. It fits you much better than Toni.”

“It is more proper,” agreed Loki, while Toni made a face. 

She had not hated ‘Antoinette’ like she used to dislike Helaine, but it sounded so posh. So stuffy.

However, before she could complain, she felt Strange’s portal forming inside of the living room. 

Everyone but Rhodey turned to look at the spot where the portal was forming before the orange sparkles even appeared, and then Toni found herself holding onto the table a little tighter when the portal finally open.

It was orange. It was familiar. It was opening in her living room.

But for a moment, all she could think about was the blue, unfamiliar wormhole on top of Stark Tower, and the cold and silence and the being on the other side of it, and-

Strange frowned at her once he had stepped through, but Toni refused to make eye contact, breathing in and out.

She was fine. This was just one of the sorcerer’s portals. She had been around them all her life. They had never scared her, and they weren’t gonna start now.

Still, it took the portal closing for her breathing to get anywhere near normal, and Toni did not care for that shit at all.

Bruce had also become a little more tense when Strange had walked in, even though the man did not really pay him any attention, eyes focused on their newly awakened Sleeping Beauty.

“Prince Loki,” he greeted. 

“Master Strange,” answered Loki, looking at him with an intrigued expression. “I was not aware that there were sorcerers on Midgard. I knew about the witch covens, but not the sorcerers.”

“The Order of Kamar Taj has remained a secret for a very long time,” explained the sorcerer. “We take our Oath of secrecy very seriously.”

“And yet you decided to apparate in front of three SHIELD agents,” said Toni, very judgingly.

He shot her a glare. “Prince Thor’s Asgardian blessing around the building made things a little difficult. I was not aware they were gonna be there. It doesn’t matter anyway. SHIELD has been aware of the sorcerers for a very long time. They have simply never been able to find us, and I made sure they forgot my name as soon as they left this place.”

Loki was the only one not to frown at that. “A forget me spell?”

Miss, Doctor Foster, Miss Lewis, Mister Hogan, Mrs Parker, Mr Parker junior and senior, and Miss Potts, are currently inside the building. Doctor Foster, Miss Lewis and young Mr Parker have boarded the elevator.

“As soon as I realised what organisation they worked for,” said Strange, looking very smug and then pissed off. “SHIELD captured a Master of the Mystic Arts before. We shall never allow something like that again.”

Toni’s expression remained placid as Rhodey questioned Strange on what exactly the spell was supposed to do.

She refused to freak out. It was fine, she had known they were going to be coming back, sooner rather than later. Whatever her opinion of them as people was, she did not think any of them was going to hurt a child. Not even Loki - she was almost certain of the fact. A good 89.31% certain.

But...

Well, it wasn’t as if she could kick them out now. First of all, Pepper would most likely override. Second, she knew there was a difference between talking on the phone and seeing each other face to face.

And she could admit she too had worried about her friends and various affiliates.

“About the Tesseract-” she heard Strange say as the door of the elevator opened.

Everyone turned to look in confusion, but then Thor visibly brightened, standing up. “My Lady Jane!”

“Thor!” called out Jane, leaping in his arms like this was some sort of rom com.

Toni scrunched up her nose, as did Loki. It was-

“Miss Stark!” called out Peter, and Toni nearly toppled with the strength of the boy’s hug.

“Jesus,” she complained, even as her arms wrapped around his frame automatically.

“Rhodey!” called out Darcy, running at the soldier, who caught her a little bemusedly.

“Darce?”

“Well, everyone’s got someone to hug and you’re the only person I know whose arms are free,” pointed out the girl, a little disgruntled.

Toni patted Peter’s head as the boy held tightly onto her, face all hidden in the curve of her neck, and felt her heart twisted painfully in her chest. “Hey, Pumpkin eater. Are you about to cry or something? Just saying because this shirt is expensive and-”

“You liar,” complained Peter, lifting his head up to scowl at her. There was no trace of tears in his eyes, thankfully. “This shirt is older than I am.”

“No, it’s not! Unless you are admitting to being like, five years old-”

“You’re annoying,” informed her Peter, not letting go. “I did not miss you at all.”

Toni looked at him in mocking, poking his cheek. “Is that why your little asthmatic self ran a sprint from the elevator to me?”

“I did not do any such thing,” complained Peter. “JARVIS, back me up.”

“Unfortunately I am not allowed to lie, young Mister Parker,” said the AI, and Toni and Rhodey both snickered at Peter’s expression at those words.

Peter turned to scowl at Rhodey even more at that, and only then did he seem to notice the people in the room. He let out a slight meep, eyes growing wider with every new person he found in the room.

“Holy shit,” he said, glancing repeatedly between Thor and Bruce. “Is that... is that Doctor Bruce Banner?! And is that Thor?!”

Bruce looked a little startled at being recognised, while Thor chuckled. “Indeed it is I, son of Toni. Well met.”

It was only years of intense media training that stopped the blood from draining from Toni’s face at that.

Darcy laughed. “I always think that too. But no, Peter isn’t actually Toni’s son.”

Loki frowned, while Thor looked confused. “But of course he-”

“He’s not,” managed Toni, fists clenching at each side of her but hidden behind the counter. “He’s not my son.”

“Miss Stark is my godmother,” explained Peter, still looking between Thor and Bruce in awe. “This is so crazy.”

Loki blinked, looking at the two of them with a deep frown. 

Thor still looked confused, but he smiled, issuing a quick apology to them both.

Strange looked something between bored and irritated, clearly waiting for all of this to be over.

And Bruce’s face was white as chalk, nostrils still twitching and a flash of green behind his eyes.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

“Both the Tesseract and the Scepter are Infinity Stones,” said Strange, looking at Loki. “Correct?”

“They are containers for Infinity Stones,” corrected Loki. “Not the Stones themselves.”

He felt tense, sat as he was beside Toni, the little magic she could feel inside him (way too little, something was still not right) clearly rippling protectively and anxiously inside of him. She would have expected him to stay standing or something, but he had dropped on the couch beside her when she had sat down, and Thor had sat down on her other side before anyone else could. 

Loki was wearing a long sleeved shirt she wasn’t sure where he had gotten from, while both her and Thor were in short sleeves (again, she had no idea where Thor had gotten himself a shirt that fit), and every time their arms touched, she couldn’t help but wonder at their polar different temperatures. Loki felt cold against her, while Thor felt very much hotter.

They probably made a funny picture, her stuck between two freaking god giants. 

More than one person had probably some questions about this new seating arrangement.

But Toni was barely paying attention to the words being exchanged as it was, let alone bothering to wonder as to what everyone else was thinking as they watched them.

Bruce knew she had lied. If Hulk’s green gaze had not been enough of a clue, the fact that he had asked Peter his age when the boy had told him that he had read some of his papers had definitely given up the game.

And Bruce was, unfortunately, a genius.

Strange was a genius too, but he was a genius who could not tell if someone was lying by smelling it on them, and Toni was a pretty damn good liar. He had looked vaguely irritated at Peter and the others’ interruption, and momentarily concerned at how pale Bruce seemed to be, but nothing other than that.

Then he had just glared a little more when the rest of the inhabitants of the Tower had arrived, all of them clamouring around Toni to see with their own two eyes that she was alive and well and to steal glances at their would be dictator.

But now they had all been once more sent away after hugs and reassurances, leaving Rhodey, Toni, Thor, Loki, Bruce, Strange and Jane in the room together.

And Toni should concentrate, she really should. There was important shit about to go down right now, so she should be paying attention. She should be listening and maybe taking notes like she was in University all over again (not that she had taken much notes in University either).

But she couldn’t. 

Not even JARVIS’ reassurances were helping anything.

Bruce knew.

Aside from Toni, only eight people had ever known: Tao, James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, May Parker, Ben Parker, Mary Parker and Richard Parker. Three of them were dead.

T’Challa had always suspected, she knew he had. But he had never come out and said anything, and Toni had never told him anything either.

Agatha... Toni had no idea. Chances were that she had always known, cause Agatha always knew more than people thought she did/wanted her to know, but again. She had never came out and asked, and Toni had never told her.

“And the guy who sent you, he wanted you to, what? Bring him the Stone? He gave you the Scepter so that you could get the Tesseract for him?”

How had Thor even known? He had only looked at Peter and Toni for a moment before he had stated it. And his reaction at her refusal... it hadn’t been a guess, on his part. He had simply known it to be the truth.

But how?

“We struck a deal,” said Loki, body tense even though his voice remained placid.

Loki too, she thought as she leant a little closer to him, shoulder brushing against his. His expression had been not too dissimilar from Thor’s at her first rebuttal - not brothers her ass - which meant whatever alien bullshittery senses Thor had had at his disposal that had made him figure out what happened, Loki had had them too.

Or maybe he knew Thor wouldn’t be wrong about this?

“A deal,” said Strange, disbelieving. 

At least they had stepped back after she had refused the second time around.

Not before causing her more problems than before, though. Because why would they or anyone else make things easy for her?

“Yes. He said he’d give me his army of faithful Chitauri soldiers and the Scepter, and I’d bring him the Tesseract,” bit out Loki.

“Okay,” said Strange, the same expression on his face. “And did you agree to this before or after he tortured you and your magic?”

Loki bared his teeth at him, but Toni spoke before he could. “How is this any of your business?” she asked, eyes narrowed at him. “I thought you were here about the Infinity Stones.”

Strange tore his eyes away from Loki and focused on Toni. His smile lacked any warmth. “It is my job as Sorcerer Supreme to assess that Loki isn’t a threat to Earth.”

“First of all, it’s Prince Loki,”

“I don’t need you to protect me,” interrupted Loki, glaring at her. Their legs were touching now.

Toni ignored him completely. “Second, isn’t your jurisdiction interdimensional threats? How do aliens fall into it?”

“I don’t see how aliens fall into yours either,” Strange pointed out. “Second, I feel it’s important to know the goal of the alien sorcerer who attempted to take over the world.”

“I did not see you or your sorcerers fighting, the day of the Invasion. And your point would stand, if he had been actually attempting to take over,” said Toni, scoffing. “But seen as he hadn’t...”

“I was off-world,” he started, and then he frowned. “Explain.”

“Don’t order me around.”

He rolled his eyes. “Explain, please.”

“Wasn’t that hard now, was it?”

“Why do you insist on attempting to start a fight where there needs to be none, I don’t get,” said Strange, looking at her in irritation. “I have been nothing but polite and professional. Can’t you do the same?”

She really hated it when he was right. “The Invasion had plot holes from the beginning to the end,” she said, instead of answering him. “His play was obviously the Hulk from the get go. He did nothing to hide it.

“Barton attacked exactly after Bruce figured out the location of the Tesseract, which is way too precise of a move for it to have been accidental. From the communication log I stole from SHIELD, he was stationed around the helicarrier for several minutes before he decided to attack.”

“He timed it,” said Bruce, understanding. “If he had eyes inside the ship and Hulk was unleashed right before anyone else could figure out where the Tesseract was-”

“He couldn’t have known that only Bruce would have checked the results,” pointed out Strange, and Toni shook her head.

“Doesn’t matter. With the Helicarrier falling, none of us would have immediately gone after the Tesseract, which would have given Selvig plenty of time to fix up the machine.”

“He wouldn’t have built the entire machine on top of your Tower,” continued Bruce. “Which means-”

“He already had it mostly ready by the time he was on the Helicarrier-”

“And him being captured was only really a way to stall for time,” finished Toni. “And regarding him actually trying to enslave us-”

“Bottle neck wormhole on top of the Tower of one of his enemies,” pointed out Bruce, shaking his head. “Come on, now.”

“Incompetence is a thing, you forget.”

“God of mischief from a race of warrior aliens who our people perceived as gods, you forget.”

“Have you read the Lokasenna?”

“The only true myths-”

“Are those that aren’t false,” finished Strange. He glanced over at Loki, now more thoughtfully. “Designed to get them to the Tower in time for the portal opened, but also designed to not make the guy you struck a deal with think that you weren’t actually trying. Uh.”

Everyone else except Rhodey was looking at Toni, Bruce and Strange as if they were crazy, or speaking another language, even Jane.

Thor blinked. “What just occurred.”

“They broke down your brother’s plan in a number of questionable pieces and came to the conclusion that he clearly was not trying to win that Invasion,” said Rhodey, looking a mixed of thoughtful and amused. He looked over at Loki. “Are they correct?”

Everyone turned to look at him, even Toni. 

Loki looked like it was physically painful for him to even say the words. He glared at a point in front of him for a few seconds, and then huffed. “I never wanted a throne,” he ended with.

“Bro-” Toni elbowed Thor in the stomach before he could finish the word, not looking away from Loki. It couldn’t have hurt him, but Thor still amended himself. “Loki.”

“As I said,” said the mage, stiffly. “I wanted to get out of there. So I struck a deal.” He scowled at Strange, who inclined his head, a hint of an apology in his eyes that Toni knew he was never gonna bring to words.

“What does he actually want with the Infinity Stones? Who is he?”

Both Toni and Loki grew tense at that, even though their expressions did not change. Toni could literally feel him beside her, and she knew he could most likely also feel her.

She did not hate that thought as she normally would have.

“Names have power,” said Loki, which had Rhodey, Bruce and Jane frown in confusion. “Thus I dare not say it out loud. But he is a... a being. A Titan. The last of his kind. Many call him the Mad Titan, some call him Master. He goes from planet to planet, halving the population of entire planets and civilisations because he believes it is his mission and he sees it as a token to his beloved - Death.”

The Mad Titan.

“Death,” said Jane, sounding incredulous. “He’s in love with... death? No wonder they call him Mad.”

“Rather, perhaps, one of the many physical representations of Death,” corrected Loki. “I did not understand it myself. But it seems it is a she, she who he speaks of. A woman who is no longer at his side, but that he still loves. I could not guess what her feelings for him might be, or who she is.”

She doesn’t want it, thought Toni, with absolute certainty. She just knew it in her heart that, whoever it was that the grape flavoured man was courting, she did not want him or any of his gifts.

“With the power of all Infinity Stones,” continued Loki, voice sounding controlled (Toni knew better), “He could simply snap his fingers and destroy half the populations of the entire Universe. Like that.”

“Why would he want to do that?” asked Rhodey, looking disturbed.

Toni felt cold.

Loki shook his head. “I know not.”

“Do you know if he had any?”

“He does not,” said Loki. “He had the Mind Stone, but he gave it to me and thus it is now lost to him.”

“The Scepter,” said Toni, glancing at him. Loki nodded, and she frowned. “But...”

“But what?”

“It’s blue,” pointed out Toni, feeling Strange’s sharp eyes suddenly on her person. “The Mind Stone is yellow.”

Loki’s eyes bored into hers. “Indeed, it is.”

Toni could feel the question in his and more than one person’s eyes.

How did she know that?

She would have loved to have the answer to that too. But she pushed it away, clearing her throat. “Why is the Scepter blue, then?”

Loki shook his head. “I know not, nor am I eager to find out. I am sure Mother would be able to tell, when she gets her hands on it.”

Toni pinched Thor’s thigh before he could even think of gasping or in any other way draw attention to the fact that Loki had accidentally called Frigga his mother. 

The blond thankfully kept his mouth closed. 

“Wait, you’re taking the Scepter too?” then asked Toni, a little surprised. “I mean, I have to say I’m not very fond of the thing, but didn’t you say that it was too dangerous for one planet to have more than one Infinity Stone? And you plan on taking two to Asgard?”

“Well, it can’t very well remain on Midgard,” said Loki, frowning at her. “Having two stones on your planet is what probably drew the Master’s gaze to begin with.”

Toni blinked. “Two?”

“The Time Stone,” clarified Loki, pointing straight at the necklace around Strange’s neck. Strange had stiffened as soon as Loki had spoken about two stones, and looked in equal parts impressed and irritated. “Did you not notice it?”

“The Eye of Agamotto is an Infinity Stone?” questioned Toni, turning to Strange in surprise. “What?”

Strange was looking at Loki. “How did you know?”

Loki shrugged, appearing only the slightest bit pleased at being the only one who had realised. “I developed an affinity for them, after enough... time around the Mind Stone.”

Toni stared at the Eye, heart beating a little bit faster than before.

She had been around the thing her entire life. 

Kind of. 

But she had definitely been around it more than she had been around the Tesseract. Tao always used to wear it, before she apparently passed Strange the mantle. And never had Toni really thought much about it.

She did not even remember ever asking about it.

All she knew was that a sudden sense of fear was crawling around her spine the longer she looked at that damn necklace around Strange’s neck.

She did not like the Infinity Stones, and she did not like them so close to her.

They shouldn’t be so close to one another. 

And suddenly three of them were on Earth.

She heard Strange asking Loki something, but she couldn’t focus on what was being said.

Why were the Infinity Stones all together, all suddenly so close to one another?

She used to be able to talk to the Tesseract. She had felt a slight call to the object after it had been brought down, before Strange had put it away in that small magical box. As soon as it had been put away, its pull to her had disconcertingly disappeared.

So had the Scepter’s buzzing. The Scepter was two components, the blue... whatever it was, and the yellow Mind Stone inside of it that she couldn’t see. She wondered what had caused the buzzing, which one of the two had been trying to communicate with her.

She did not recall ever hearing anything from the Eye of Agamotto. It had always been closed and hanging around the Ancient One’s neck, and Toni had never had reason to think twice about the thing. But now she did, and she wondered. 

She wondered.

There was something terrifying about the Infinity Stones. Something strangely powerful about all of them, something that frightened her to her core.

But at the same time, she felt pulled towards it. She felt as if she shouldn’t fear them as she did, as if she should... embrace them. As if she could trust them.

As if she belonged with them.

It was terrifying.

“Antoinette,” said Thor, and Toni almost felt the buzz of the lightning against her skin when he touched her shoulder. “Antoinette?”

She did not want to come up for air. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the energies even trapped as they were inside of their containers. She could almost hear the buzzing of the scepter, the whispers of the tesseract, the tick tock of the Eye. 

If she closed her eyes and trusted her senses, she did not have to think. Like this, she simply knew. She knew who was what, where the snakes in human skin were hiding, who to trust and who to avoid. Like this the world made sense without the need for anyone to utter a single word.

In death, everything was clearer.

“Antoinette,” called Thor again, and Toni blinked away the lightning in his veins.

She blinked, breathing through her nose, forcefully focusing her eyes on him. “Yeah?”

Loki’s eyes were burning a hole on the other side of her head, and she could see Strange also frowning at her. 

Are you well, Miss?

At this point, I don’t fucking know, J. I don't fucking know.

Thor also appeared confused, but he simply nodded towards Rhodey. “Your shield brother was attempting to gain your attentions.”

“Ew, don’t say it like that,” she complained, looking over at Rhodey’s slightly concerned expression. “Sorry, Platypus, thinking about something. What’s up?”

“The press conference,” said Rhodey, voice normal, but eyes clearly saying ‘we’ll talk about this later’. They wouldn’t, but it was cute that Rhodey thought he could convince her in any way. “You still planning on going ahead with it?”

“Yep,” she said, patting Loki and Thor’s shoulders. “We need to get ahead of the thing. Considering Loki’s whole relative and debatable innocence in the thing, I’m sure-”

“That shan’t be necessary,” said Loki, waving her off dismissively. “I took care of it.”

Toni raised an eyebrow. “Before or after you were laying comatose in my medbay?”

“Before,” he said, sniffing. “No one in Germany was able to retain my likeness. They also have no memory that I was ever there. In fact, no one but you and SHIELD has any memory of me being on Midgard at all in the past few days.”

“What?”

“I had a Scepter with mind manipulating abilities in my hands, and had not known that Thor would arrive and capture me,” he pointed out. “It wouldn’t have done to have me captured by your Midgardian authorities after my Invasion failed and I escaped.”

That made... sense, supposed.

“Wait, but if no one but SHIELD remembers about you and there is no footage, your credibility is sort of shot,” she said, frowning at him. “No one saw you doing anything, it’ll literally be your word with no backing.”

Well, technically they could show his injuries to prove he was telling the truth, but Toni felt sick just contemplating that.

“You still have me,” said Thor, looking over her worriedly. “I was battling alongside you, and I am known to your authorities after the events of Puente Antiguo.”

Jane made a so-so sign with her hand. “You are known to SHIELD. Not to everyone.”

Toni glanced at Rhodey, who shrugged. “Do what you gotta do,” he said, hands up. “Just keep the illegal actions to a minimum.”

Toni snorted. “No promises.”

Bruce managed to corner her right after, once everyone had vacated the penthouse, Loki more or less willingly following Thor out after catching sight of her expression.

Toni had expected it. 

She wasn’t anymore ready than she would have been normally.

I can get rid of him, Miss. In whichever way you prefer, just say the word.

“He’s eleven.”

His voice was carefully low.

Stand down, JARVIS.

Toni kept her back to him, staring at the display of alcohol in her bar. “He’s ten.”

“He’s turning eleven in August,” he rebuked. 

That was true. Toni’s throat felt very dry.

I shall not. Weapons will be ready, just in case.

“Why did you try to lie?” he then asked. “I... fuck, Toni, he’s your son?”

“He’s not my son,” she said, voice steady.

You are being overprotective.

There is no such thing.

Bruce scoffed. “The Other Guy can basically smell lies-”

Toni turned to face him, glaring fiercely. He did not flinch, staring back at her. “His mother was called Mary Parker, and his father was called Richard Parker. They raised him from the day he was born until the day they were murdered. They loved him with all of their hearts, they were his parents.

“And now he has May and Ben, who love him as if he was their own child too. I am nothing but a donor, I am not his mother and I will never be. I’m his godmother only because the Parkers are very stubborn people, but his mother? Never.”

She had made her peace with this. She had accepted this.

She refused to acknowledge what Bruce’s implication about Hulk smelling lies could mean. Peter was not hers, and she had accepted it long ago, she was perfectly aware of this.

“Is... am I?” He looked at her, half desperate. “November 2000. Is... Stephen...?”

Toni had been looking at him in confusion, but as soon as she understood what he was trying to say she felt cold and fiery fury lit up in her heart.

You know what, keep the weapons on standby, I might have to beat Banner up.

“How dare you,” she said, voice low but rage clear. “How fucking dare you, Robert Bruce Banner.”

“I-”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t have the fucking right to come in here, twelve years later and ask. You don’t have the right.”

“Toni-”

“I came after you as soon as I realised,” she reminded him, voice poisonous. “I came looking for you. I chased you to two different apartments, and each time you ran. You fucking ran, you left the fucking country just so that you could avoid talking to me. You fled before even listening to a word I wanted to say, so don’t you fucking dare to come now and try and question it. Question me. 

“You ran from me, from responsibility, from everything. You left me, Bruce. You left me, I came after you, and you ran to another fucking country.

“Because that’s what you do, isn’t it?” she continued, chuckling with no amusement on her face or voice. “That’s what Robert Bruce Banner ever does. Things get tough, things get uncomfortable, and he bolts. God forbid he ever takes responsibility for his own actions.”

Bruce shook his head, a hint of tears in his eyes. “Toni, what I did to you-”

“Fuck you!” she shouted, hands itching to find something to throw. “Fuck. You. I am not a child, I am not a teenager. I am Toni fucking Stark, and you did not do anything to me. I consented to it all, and if you don’t stop implying that I did not, I will hurt you, Bruce Banner, Hulk or no Hulk.”

“You were drunk!”

“So were you!”

He laughed, but it sounded harsh and bitter. “Yeah. I was drunk, that’s a nice excuse. A nice little absolution, a get away from jail free card. Sure, I was drunk. Sure, you were drunk. But I was also in love with you for a good eight years before we fell into bed with each other,” he informed, still in that terrible voice. Toni stared at him, as he started pacing, expressionless. “I had been daydreaming about kissing you for years. You were one of my best friends, and my other best friend’s girlfriend. And I spent my time imagining that you chose me over him, that I was the one that got to go home with you, that I... -

“And then we were both drunk. And I took advantage of it.” He squeezed his eyes shut, fists rubbing at his eyes. Toni kept staring at him. “I kissed you first. I initiated everything, that night. I knew that you would have never done this had you been sober, I knew that we would have both hated ourselves the next morning, because you had barely broken up with Stephen days before, and I went for it anyway. Because I just wanted you. I loved you, and I wanted you, and when the chance presented itself, I took it. I knew you would have never-”

“You knew?” asked Toni, expression still blank as she observed him. “You ‘knew’. Because you know everything, don’t you, Banner? You can, what? Read my mind? Was that a pre-Hulk skill or what?”

He looked at her in confusion, tears still in his eyes. She could literally smell the self loathing wafting off him, and it made Toni sick. “What?”

“Did it ever cross your mind for a second that I might have been in love with you too, Bruce Banner?”

He stared at her, uncomprehendingly. “What?”

“I broke up with Strange months before that night because I loved you,” she informed him, still perfecting a bored and uncaring expression and tone of voice. “Because I did not want to hurt him, I didn’t want to hurt either of you. I was distancing myself from both of you because I needed time and space to think, and I think he knew that. He must have known, because I feel like it was clear in my eyes whenever the three of us hung out with each other.”

Bruce had been the one person Toni hung out with that Strange had never appeared jealous of.

Toni wondered if, by the end, he had kicked himself for it.

“Toni-”

“I loved you both,” she continued, inspecting her nails. “With all of my heart. I loved Strange. Never stopped loving him, even when we broke up. Even at the very end, I loved him.

“I don’t know when I fell in love with you. Sometime before that night in Bern, for sure. Before Strange started asking me to move in with him.” She focused on Bruce’s shocked and tear stained face, and felt... nothing. “So, no, Bruce. You didn’t know things. You couldn’t have taken advantage anymore than I could have taken advantage of you. We both did something we had wanted to do for a long time at the wrong moment.”

He kept staring at her, as if uncertain of what to say next. His eyes were wide and confused, as a few stray tears spilled down his cheeks. “Why... why didn’t you tell me this?” he ended up with.

“I don’t know,” drawled Toni. “Could it be because the first thing I saw when I woke up was you trying to get dressed and flee? Could it be because the first thing you told me was that you were ‘sorry’, and that it was a mistake? Could it be because when I said I had wanted it and that you didn’t take advantage of me, you kept talking over me and refusing to listen? Could it be because you ignored everything I said and told me that I was ‘Stephen’s’? Could it be because Strange walked into the room not five minutes later and punched you? Could it be because you fled right after? Could it be because I found out I was pregnant and came looking for you, just for you to run away to another state to avoid me, like I was a cop trying to catch you in flagrant?”

She watched as more tears rolled down his cheeks, and still felt no pity. “You might have loved me, Banner, but you made it plenty clear you didn’t want me. Don’t act as if you did now.”

With that she stood up, walking out of the kitchen with her glass still in her hands.

JARVIS-

I will make sure he does not follow you.

...Thank you.

She had waited over twelve years to tell Bruce all this.

She did not feel any better.

Chapter Text

Toni woke up with a scream, heart beating unnaturally fast in her chest as she sat up.

“Deep breath, Miss, you are safe-”

She could still see them, laying on the snow, blood trickling down their necks and chests and everywhere, the stench of death in the air-

“Today is Friday 6th of May 2012, you are currently at Stark Tower. The weather-”

But already it was fading. Already she could not make out the faces of who was bleeding or who was dying around them. All she could recall was her fear, her anger, and the death.

It had been a slaughter. Half of an entire population murdered-

“... with a chance of rain-”

“JARVIS,” said Toni, breathing finally slowing down. “Where are Thor and Loki?”

If the AI found her question as odd as Toni herself found it, he gave no indication of it. “Prince Loki is pretending to be asleep in the bedroom you have allocated for him, and Prince Thor has fallen asleep on a chair in front of said bedroom. There was a rather spirited argument between the two of them when you first came into the workshop, but I managed to mediate.”

The workshop, realised Toni, looking around herself. That was why her back hurt, she had fallen asleep on the table.

“How long was I out for?”

“47 minutes, Miss.”

Yikes. Her back was not gonna thank her. “How long do I have until the press conference?”

“About 2 and a half hours.”

Toni nodded to herself, standing up and once more ignoring the unopened box on the desk. 

JARVIS had turned off her projections when she had fallen asleep, she noted, and forcefully shook her head.

It felt so stuffy, so full.

Ever since the wormhole, Toni had not felt well.

Ever since she was blasted by that goddamn Scepter, Toni had not felt well.

Her head was a mess. 

Toni had never really had normal dreams. In fact, most of the time, she’d wake up having little to no memory of what she had been dreaming about in the first place, unless it was a nightmare.

Even after Afghanistan, that had not changed. 

But ever since the wormhole...

JARVIS had left her several pointed web links about PTSD, night terrors and panic disorders, but Toni did not feel as if this was it.

Maybe it was; but not just that.

The emotions she felt when she dreamt or when she woke up from those dreams... what she saw...

They did not feel like dreams.

They felt like visions.

Or even like... memories.

It made no sense, but Toni still felt as if they were memories.

Memories that did not belong to her, but that, at the same time... did.

Once upon a time, Toni had loved being different. Had loved the otherness in her that made everyone that wasn’t her family feel a little off kilter when around her. That heady feeling of power that came from knowing the people in front of her far better than they’d ever want her to.

She stopped in front of her mirror, a little disgusted by the picture she made.

She did not like feeling different anymore. She did not like the way she felt as if something dark had fallen back down with her from that wormhole. She did not like that she could feel the thunder inside of Thor or the way Loki’s magic was not healing correctly. She did not like knowing that Jane was jealous of her, or having these damn... thoughts and knowledge inside of her head.

She did not like it.

Normal is overrated, used to say her dad, but Toni wanted nothing more than to be that again. To simply be in one dimension instead of 6 at the same time.

She wanted-

No, she decided, forcefully exhaling. She was not about to break down over some damn feelings. She had things to do, and they could not wait.

She glared at her reflection for a moment more, before turning to the shower and the bath. 

She grimaced.

Today was most certainly not a shower day.

She filled her bath with scalding, almost scorching hot water, before dunking a number of carefully selected soaps and products inside of it from her large collection.

She let her clothes drop to the ground before taking a step inside the bath, barely wincing at the temperature. Then she sat down inside it, eyes closing automatically.

She was not normal. Never had been, and most likely never gonna be.

But she could pretend.

Agatha and Tao always scolded her when Toni tried to block out her senses, but well, neither of them was here right now, were they?

Tao was dead, and Agatha...

Just for one day, Toni needed to at least feel normal.

She washed herself slowly and thoroughly. Rubbed the dirt and grease off her skin until it was almost bleeding and pink, eliminating anything that might have stuck to her physically and metaphorically.

And then, slowly, Toni rinsed and rebuilt herself.

No more confusion. No more noises and smells only she could sense. No more otherness.

She got out of the bath and dried and brushed her hair, slowly and carefully, like her mamma used to do when she was younger. 

Then she lathered her skin in scented lotions that smelled like apricots and citrus. Her hands were a touch harder than normal, because of all the hours spent in the workshop, but there was no reason the rest of her body shouldn’t feel soft.

Over her chest too, over the odd scar on her heart she had had since birth and the invisible scars from Afghanistan that she could still feel when she traced her fingers over her chest.

Survivor stripes.

Armouring herself as Toni Stark had always done. Not Iron Queen, but Toni Stark herself.

Toni Stark had been a warrior and a fighter long before Iron Queen had come on the stage.

She was more than a person. She was a symbol.

Toni fucking Stark.

Underwear. Shirt. Skirt or slacks?

The conference was in the Tower.

Skirt it was. 

Then hair.

Styling it to make it look as if it was styled, but not too much so. Waves that were too perfect to be natural but that the world would believe otherwise. 

Then make up. Bold red lip, signature look. Symbol of Toni Stark for over 23 years now, since the second she had stepped inside MIT. Eyeliner that made her slightly unnaturally hazel eyes look normal. Concealer, to hide any hint of bags under her eyes. Foundation and setting spray to finish.

Blazer and heels, matching the clutch bag she was planning on taking with her.

When Toni stopped in front of the full body mirror this time, a familiar stranger smiled back at her.

Ex CEO and weapons manufacturer Toni Stark.

Familiar, that woman. Dangerous, she was, but normal. 

Human.

She bled, just like everyone else.

People just never got a chance to see it.

“What do I look like, J?”

“Like you are here for business, Miss,” said the AI, and Toni’s grin grew as she walked out of the room.

Then a thought occurred to her, as she looked at one of his cameras. “For the rest of today let’s just text or talk out loud, J, okay?”

“Of course, Miss.”

If there was someone who would always be at her side and never question her on anything, then it’d be JARVIS. Toni smiled to herself, winking at one of his camera.

The light of the camera flickered back in JARVIS’ own version of a wink.

Loki and Rhodey were both sleeping in rooms on Toni’s floor currently and, as JARVIS had previously informed her, Thor was asleep on a chair in front of Loki’s door.

Toni covered a small laugh with her hand, at the sight of him. He was sleeping with his head touching the wall, one step away from slumping off the chair, and his hair all on his face. Toni almost reached to fix said hair before she caught herself.

None of that.

Instead she moved as quietly as she could while wearing heels and bypassed him, moving towards her kitchen. “Hey, J. Tell Loki to get his little butt here for breakfast if he’s hungry and tired of pretending he’s asleep.”

She almost questioned the AI on whether or not Loki had slept, but again she bit down on her tongue. It was none of her business, and it was not normal for her to care this much for someone she did not know.

Thus she was not going to care or question it.

She moved around preparing her breakfast, focusing on each of her actions. 

She put down her mug of coffee and her toast right as the door opened something like five minutes later. Loki paused in the doorway when he opened it, staring at his brother asleep with a surprised look on his face that he immediately schooled back to normal as soon as he saw her watching him.

He sidestepped him as quietly as Toni herself had done, and stared at her a little creepily as he sat down on one of the stools in front of her, on the other side of the counter.

His hair was wrinkled, and his eyes looked... green. That’s it. Toni was not going to fish for emotions, wasn’t going to try and figure him out. He was just Loki and he was sitting in front of her.

“Want something to drink?” she asked him, breaking the eye contact off first.

“Yes, please,” said the demigod, still watching her carefully as if he could see something in her that she hadn’t hidden as well as she had thought she had done.

Toni turned around, fingers moving automatically towards her cupboard before she caught herself again.

She almost growled in frustration. This used to be far easier before. Normally if she tried to stop herself from feeling other, she could manage it. It’d be difficult, especially if she was interacting with people, but she could do it.

But it was almost impossible, right now. Her body and brain kept moving on autopilot, trying to do things she wasn’t supposed to know about, and it was pissing her off.

Fucking Scepter and fucking wormhole.

She breathed through her nose and turned to look at Loki. “What do you want?”

“Have you considered meditation?” asked the mage, still looking at her with eyes that saw far too much. 

She frowned. “What?”

“Meditation. To deal with your powers going haywire,” he explained, and Toni managed to keep her surprise at bay well enough, in her opinion.

She then shook her head. “Why would I do that when I’m trying to feel less? Meditation is to expand your senses, not dulling them.”

“Why-ever the Hel would you wish to dull them?” questioned Loki, looking baffled.

“Why are you not trying to escape?” answered Toni, smirking when his eyes narrowed. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Loki made a disgusted face at that, and then he crossed his arms. “It is stupid to try to curtail one’s own powers in such a manner. You are spreading yourself like a rubber band, and the next time you allow yourself to truly feel things, it shall be overwhelming and destabilising.”

“I was going to make you chilli hot chocolate because I just know you’ll like it. Your magic has returned but you can’t access it. There is something almost fractured, broken inside of you, and your magic can’t heal it because it’s the source of your magic. You have conflicting feelings about me-” She cut herself off when she found a dagger right on her throat. She did not flinch just as she hadn’t the last time, just stared back at Loki’s wide and surprised eyes. She raised her chin up slightly. “Can you imagine why I’m trying to suppress it?”

Loki pulled his dagger back slightly. “Has it always been like this? What exactly are your powers?”

Toni sighed, resisting the urge to rub a hand over her face. “I don’t know. It has gotten way worse since the...”

“Since you saw the Void,” finished Loki for her, looking both intrigued and wary. 

“Since the Scepter,” she corrected.

“Do you have no manner of containing them? No... amulet or magical artefact...?”

She snorted. “None that has ever worked on me, no,” she admitted, shaking her head. “Tao used to try and make me... But no, nothing has ever worked. This is the only way I know how to deal with it. Sure,” she continued when he frowned, “the feedback tomorrow will be overwhelming. But that will be the worst, and after that the whole thing will stabilise to a more manageable degree.”

At least she hoped.

Loki looked doubtful. “You could damage your magical core, doing this.”

Toni frowned at him. “I don’t have a magical core,” she told him. “I’m not like... a magic user. I can’t cast spells or anything like that. I was just born... different.”

Loki looked even more bemused at that. “You cannot wield magic.”

She shook her head.

“Are you saying that you did not break my link on purpose?” he pressed, eyes truly confused for once. “That it was... the Scepter that blasted me?”

“Miss, Colonel Rhodes is now approaching,” said JARVIS, interrupting her answer of ‘of course not’. Rhodey opened the door of his room, the sound of which immediately startled Thor back awake.

Whatever moment they were having passed as the blond immediately went for Loki, and Toni just sighed to herself.

Keep it together.

“You are playing a dangerous game, Stark.”

Toni inspected her nails, briefly wondering if she should bother with nail art. She liked acrylics well enough, but they consistently got ruined or lost inside of her armour during fights.

“The World Security Council-”

“Is going to jail,” she informed him, watching the inhabitants of the living room from the kitchen. Jane looked sad about something that Thor was telling her, while Loki stood a little away from her and the rest, watching everyone with his usual blank expression.

Bruce was in the living room too, though he was avoiding eye contact with her, and so was Strange, who she hadn’t seen arrive. He was talking to Darcy, of all people, and looked like he had a headache.

The Darcy effect at play. Toni was immune, but familiar.

They had only returned from the press conference a few hours ago, and Toni was going to say it had been a 75,13% success.

People had been waiting for answers and proof of Toni being actually physically alive for days, at this point, since apparently twitter posts could be faked and pictures backdated.

Toni had given them the answers they sought - more or less. Bruce had surprisingly enough agreed to explain the parts that she had not been aware of, and between her, him, Thor, Jane and all of the shit she had from hacking SHIELD... well.

The WSC hadn’t stood a chance.

The assholes did not even know that Toni - well, JARVIS - was still in their servers.

It was embarrassing for them.

The world had wanted to know all about who it was who had attempted to nuke Manhattan, and Toni had treated them with beautiful stolen footage of Fury and those bastard members of the WSC arguing about the attack.

Needless to say, the world was in an uproar.

“Why are you even mad?” she questioned, glancing at her nails again. “Everyone heard you trying to stop them. You’re fine.”

For now. He wouldn’t be for long, if Toni had her way. She was currently going through the footage and information she had gotten her hands on, and when she did, she was going to send it off to the FBI. Then SHIELD would not be standing again.

She had made herself a promise, when she had seen that assassination order on her parents from SHIELD, all those years ago.

She was going to burn them to the ground.

And soon, she would.

“You are making enemies you cannot afford to have, Stark,” told her Fury, sounding annoyed. “Can’t you see we are all on the same side?”

“Oh, Fury,” she said, derisively. “If you really think we are all on the same side, then you should put a pair of sunglasses on and call yourself Stevie Wonder.”

“Stark-”

“JARVIS, end call,” ordered Toni, unwilling to listen to him any more. “And block his number. Talking to him makes me feel bloated and constipated.”

“Of course, Miss,” said the AI, as she walked back into the living room.

She held her breath for a moment as she walked in, and then slowly breathed out.

Normal scents. Normal human smells that every human could smell. Focus on those and listen to their voices. That’s what humans did.

Loki was looking at her in disapproval when she looked up again, while Strange was frowning. 

She ignored them both. “What’s going on?”

“We are returning to Asgard,” said Thor, which had Toni pausing for a second. The blond was grimacing slightly, while Loki stood as far away as he could from him scowling at the air. 

She blinked. “Now?”

“Indeed,” said Thor, nodding. “Already we have been away from home far longer than we should have been. The only reason Father has not sent someone after us is that he is unable to do so. My job was to retrieve my brother, stop the Invasion, and return the Tesseract to Asgard. Heimdall will have most likely seen everything that has come to pass already, but dallying further will not be beneficial.”

“Oh,” said Toni, suddenly unsure of what to do with her arms. “Yeah, okay. That... that makes sense.”

She had known that they were going to go back home soon. Neither of them had kept this hidden.

But for some reason, she had thought...

It didn’t matter what she had thought, she decided, forcing a smile on her face. They were going to go back home, and deal with things back on their planet. Maybe they’d come to visit, eventually, but for now their little holiday/whatever they wanted to call this was clearly over.

That was just fine.

“Are you going to come back soon?” asked Jane, looking at Thor with both hope and slight anxiety. 

Thor gave her a sad look. “I will endeavour to do so. However the Bifrost has yet to be repaired, and I do not believe Father would be very happy with me borrowing the Tesseract to come and visit you, no matter how delightful and charming you might be.”

Toni ignored Jane’s expression of sadness, instead walking towards Loki. She only hesitated for a few minutes before letting their shoulders touch. That was just a reaction to him being touch starved, not her giving in to her senses.

She glanced at him, finding him already watching her. “Will you be okay?”

Loki appeared surprised at the question, and then shrugged. “That is up to the All-Father to decide,” he said, sounding bored. Toni did not think he really was. “Thor claims that he shall not muzzle me and simply put cuffs on me, so that to allow both himself and I the chance to argue my... diminished culpability,” again, he made a face, but it was more disbelieving than an outright sneer. “But I doubt Odin will care either way. I was a means to an end. I can no longer fulfil that end. He shall most likely throw me in the dungeons after a farce of a trial, and that shall be the end of it all.” 

Toni did not like that.

“Is there any way for-”

“Not even you, with all your powers and abilities, could be able to phase or move the All-Father,” said Loki, shaking his head. 

“What about your- the All-Mother?” she asked, looking at him with some worry. “Thor said that she was a Seer. Won’t she be able to help?”

Once more, Loki shook his head. “I do believe she might try,” he admitted. “But I do not know if she would be in any way successful.”

“There has to be something someone can do,” she complained, looking at him in askance. “Are you sure I can’t-”

Loki’s lips quirked up in a half smile. “Is this not you giving in to your own strange fondness of me? Which is exactly what you have been trying to avoid the whole day?”

She scowled at him. “No, jackass. This is simply a human reaction. Feelings, we Midgardians experience them a lot.”

Loki snorted, shaking his head. Then he seemed to recall something, and he promptly summoned a dagger in his palm.

“Are we back at the ‘trying to behead me’ relationship stage?” she wondered, as he turned it to face her. “I thought we were besties, now.”

That got her a scowl. “I never tried to kill you. If I had, you would be dead.”

"I believe you believe that."

Loki ignored her. “I am handing you this. It is spelled to never miss its mark.”

Toni glanced at it in surprise, as Loki’s put it in her palm, hilt first. “For me?”

“You ensured that I would be back on my feet and that I healed, at the best of your abilities,” he said, inclining his head in her direction slightly. “And you have been a gracious host. A token of my appreciation for such actions.”

Toni balanced the blade in her hand, looking at it thoughtfully. Then she eyeballed the ugly painting Pepper had put in her living room, and threw the blade.

It embedded itself straight in the centre of the painting. 

“Nice,” she cheered. “Ten points for Gryffindor!”

“You are a Ravenclaw,” informed her Loki. 

“Are you calling me clever, Reindeer games?” she asked, just as Thor suddenly wrapped his arms around her. She faltered, more than a little confused, forcefully ignoring the tug of lightning caressing her skin. “Er... Hammertime?”

He pulled back, but only enough so that he could put a hand against the back of her neck and headbutt her. 

“Owie?”

He smiled. “Thank you for your hospitality and for your help, Antoinette Stark,” he continued, voice lower than usual. “You have helped me a great deal in these past few days alone and, without you, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“I didn’t do much-”

“You did more,” he said, fervently. He lowered his voice further and continued. “You gave me back hope when I had none, and managed to make me and my brother understand each other more in a matter of hours than we have done alone in centuries. The road to heal our fractured hearts is large, and I know that Asgard might impede and cause us further distress, but your words and that of your wall spirit will ensure that I persevere. I shall listen to him. I shall control my anger. I shall be the best brother I can. I will-”

Toni broke out of the hold, wrapping her arms around his neck. Thor did not hesitate in reciprocating the hug, as she kept her face hidden behind his long hair. “Be good,” she said. “You’re his big brother, even if he doesn’t see it or accept it, right now. Be his Rhodey, keep yourself and him out of the trouble he will head for head first because he’s an emo little shit. Okay, you big lug?”

“Of course,” said Thor, only letting go after she did first. He pressed their foreheads together once more. “Thank you for being a true shield sister, Antoinette Stark.”

Toni’s breath caught in her throat at that term ‘shield sister’, but she still retracted her arms, watching him step back with a more honest smile.

Everyone was watching them in some confusion, but Toni ignored it. Instead she went to retrieve the dagger from the wall as Loki gritted his teeth together and accepted the manacles around his wrists.

By the time she returned to stand with the others, the Tesseract was sitting in a weird container between Thor and Loki, and the Scepter was in Thor’s other hand.

Toni did not glance at either once, no matter how much the Tesseract seemed to shine in the light.

“I shall miss you all,” said Thor, turning to look at them once they stood on the balcony. “Jane, you in particular.”

Jane smiled back. “Come back as soon as you can.”

Loki turned away from the Tesseract to look directly at Toni. There was a lot in his eyes that she couldn’t read. A lot that she wished he would say, but that she knew very well he was not going to.

He was like a cat or something, seriously.

Loved attention and care, but did not ask for it.

Damn him, she thought, quickly moving forward again.

Loki could not hug her back with the manacles around his wrists, but Toni liked to delude herself into thinking that he would have, otherwise.

She certainly did not miss the way he untensed slightly at her touch.

“Be safe,” she said in his ear, low. “Please, be safe. I know you think you know what’s going to happen when you get there but you won’t know until you try. So try, okay? You’re not a cat, no matter how skittish you act. Just... for yourself. Try to save yourself.”

For me. Please try, for me.

“I know how to take care of myself,” he answered her, which she was pretty sure was the closest to a ‘yes, you are always right and I will listen to you,’ from Loki that she was going to get. “And I’m not the one doing harm to myself by trying to see with one eye forcefully kept shut.”

She let go of him, keeping a hand on his cheek. “You’re annoying,” she informed him, giving in to the urge of fixing his hair slightly. 

“You are far more annoying than I am,” he answered, leaning in the touch ever so slightly, and he did not even startle when she pressed a small barely there kiss on his cheek.

She hated letting go, but in the end she did, stepping back from the balcony, ignoring the various eyes fixed on her.

Thor flashed her another quick smile, before he activated the Tesseract.

There was a second, a moment, when everything flashed whitebluewhite, a second in which Toni could have sworn she heard the Tesseract calling her by her name.

But then she blinked, and they and the Tesseract were both gone.

The only magic in the room was Strange’s, and Hulk’s presence inside of Bruce.

No thunder. No fizzy, barely there magic.

Almost quiet, really.

Toni did not know why her heart hurt so much at that.

Chapter Text

“Stephen,” called Bruce, once Thor and Loki had supposedly teleported away. It made no scientific sense, but after everything he had seen since he had been brought aboard the Helicarrier less than a week ago? He couldn't even say it was impossible.

Stephen paused where he had been about to create a portal (portal!) for himself, turning to look at him in question, and Bruce offered him a slightly hesitant smile. “Could we... can we talk?”

Toni was still standing in front of her window, arms crossed as she stared into the empty space Loki and Thor had been occupying just a moment ago, and Colonel Rhodes was standing not too far from her, watching her carefully.

Stephen looked surprised at the question, and then shrugged. “Sure. Coffee?”

Bruce nodded, both surprised and grateful about not having been shut down immediately. There was a slight risk in going out, considering Ross was out and about in New York (no doubt incredibly pissed off after the press conference from earlier), but Bruce had dealt with the man often enough to be sure he wouldn’t try anything right now.

Toni had been pretty heavy handed about Bruce and Hulk’s role in helping fight against the aliens, and there were cameras everywhere. And with Toni and Thor’s talk about this attack putting them on the interstellar radar, the man would be busy actually working with the military.

“Doctor Banner,” came the voice of JARVIS, and Bruce immediately shook his head.

Part of him, privately, couldn’t help but marvel at how much more advanced he was nowadays than he had been back at the turn of the millennium. He had been an incredible feat of engineering even back then, Toni’s pride and joy, and he had only grown and advanced further since then. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Toni had coded him with her bare hands, he would have been a little unnerved by his badly disguised sentiency.

And even then...

“It’s not what you think, JARVIS,” he promised him. “I wouldn’t.”

JARVIS made a low sound that could have been a hum. “Very well.”

Stephen looked at him in askance, but Bruce just shook his head again. “Don’t worry about it. Shall we go?”

He didn't even want to start thinking about the Peter thing.

“Sure,” said Stephen, once more shaking his head. He opened his portal again instead of going for the stairs or the elevator, and this time Toni’s entire body stiffened slightly.

She kept her eyes trained outside and did not actually move, but Bruce did not miss the lines of tension over her body as he followed Stephen through the portal, and offered Colonel Rhodes and Doctor Foster a smile when they glanced their way.

Doctor Foster waved, but Rhodes did not even blink.

Bruce did not remember the man being that scary.

He understood, of course.

It did not make it any less unnerving.

They came out in an empty alleyway, and the portal closed automatically behind him, making every scientist part of Bruce burn with the need of questioning everything it stood for.

Seriously, how did they work? How did they transport them through space? And did they transport through time too? How-

He saw the twitch of Stephen’s lips when he caught his eyes, and Bruce rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

Stephen snorted in badly concealed amusement, but did not say anything as he led him towards a coffee shop.

The man had not really changed, in the past twelve years. Other than the clothes, he looked exactly the same as he had always done. Same height, same cutting cheekbones, same icy gaze, same sarcastic attitude. 

But at the same time, he looked like he had grown up a lot more than Bruce had realised at first glance. Something in his eyes had changed, something in the way he moved and spoke.

He had definitely become more reserved, and better at the whole mask thing too.

And was also a sorcerer now.

Because magic was a thing. 

And so were aliens.

Bruce had often considered that aliens might be real, he was a scientist. But mostly he had thought they would be real in the ‘micro-organisms living in different ecosystems in space’ sort of way. Not in the ‘humanoid supposed Norse gods who could do things science claimed no one should be able to do’.

Then again, he broke the laws of conservation of mass on a daily basis, so who was he to say anything, really?

But still, magic?

And Stephen doing magic?

They both placed their orders - iced americano for Stephen, because some things did not change, and a lemon tea for himself - before they found themselves seats. 

“So,” said Stephen, once they were sitting in front of each other. “What did you want to talk about, Banner?”

Bruce did not wince. “Why do you keep calling me Banner?”

Stephen seemed taken aback by the question. He thought about it for a second, and then looked at him thoughtfully. “Why do you keep calling me Stephen?” 

“Because we’re-” started Bruce, and then paused. Stephen quirked a slightly mocking eyebrow up, and Bruce pressed his lips together. “Familiarity? Force of habit?”

“Twelve years is enough to break most habits,” pointed out Strange- no, that was not gonna work, pointed out Stephen.

“I’m a creature of habit.”

“I’m not,” said Stephen, shaking his head. “I tend to grow from my mistakes. Evolve.”

“Is that what I was?” asked Bruce, keeping his tone of voice light. “A mistake?”

Stephen looked at a point outside the window, gaze faraway. “A few years ago I might have said yes. But nowadays... I suppose a learning lesson would be more apt.”

It did not make Bruce feel any better, truthfully.

The waiter appeared, dropping their drinks in front of them and both Bruce and Stephen thanked her for it.

Bruce waited for her to walk away before he turned to Stephen once more. “Do you still hate me?” 

Stephen rolled his eyes. “What is this, pre-school? Are you going to pass me a note asking me if I like you or like-like you next?” 

Bruce did not take the bait, simply watching him, and Stephen huffed. “No,” he finally said. “Not anymore. For a while, I did frankly loathe you.” He opened a packet of sugar. He was still wearing the yellow gloves he had been since Bruce had first spotted him in the medbay. Bruce had not missed news of the accident, and did not stare. “Hated you with a passion, in fact. I would have punched you a couple of times more, had I had the chance.”

Hulk rumbled inside of him, menacing, and Bruce forcibly pushed him back down.

Not the time. He has the right.

‘No right.’

Bruce ignored him as Stephen continued, blissfully unaware. “But, well. I did some growing up. As I’ve told someone else, holding onto twelve years old grudges is stupid.”

Bruce had secretly thought so too. And then Toni had gone ahead and revealed that she had been pregnant (and alone) back then, and both of them had turned their backs on her when she had tried to let them know.

He felt like she could hold a little bit of a grudge for that.

“You?”

Bruce blinked at him, a little confused. “Me what?”

Again, Stephen rolled his eyes. “I punched you and then never contacted you again. Do you-”

“No,” said Bruce, shaking his head. He chuckled a little. “Too busy blaming myself and hating myself to ever hate you. Or Toni.”

Stephen looked vaguely surprised at that information. Then he snorted. “Yeah. You’ve always been the type for self-flagellation.” He gave him a look, lips twitching slightly. “Though I’d suppose it’d hurt more now.”

“The Hulk is more about smashing other people rather than slapping himself,” pointed out Bruce, also smiling as he brought his cup of tea to his lips. To his surprise, it actually did taste pretty good.

“Mh,” agreed Stephen, shaking his head. “I noticed.”

‘Hulk smash puny wizard,’ rumbled Hulk menacingly, and Bruce winced. At Stephen’s frown, he shook his head, swallowing the drink.

“Hot,” he lied, putting the cup down. “Sorry about him, by the way. He’s... yeah.”

‘Puny Banner bad liar.’

Can you shut up?!

“Unfiltered emotional response,” guessed Stephen, which had Bruce frowning.

“What?”

“Your Hulk,” said Stephen. “He’s you unanchored, untethered, and with only a vague understanding of morality and cause-effect phenomena.”

Bruce was not impressed. “Impressive hypothesis for something you have seen once and for only a few minutes at that.”

“Some one,” corrected Stephen, shrugging. “And impressive is what I do.”

“As a doctor?”

“As a genius.”

“Now sorcerer.”

“Does not diminish the genius.”

“Could be argued that going from science to magic...” said Bruce, which had Stephen smirking again.

This time it wasn’t as cheerful as earlier. “When you hit rock bottom, all you can do is start digging.”

“And on the other side of the hole you found-”

“A magic cult,” agreed Stephen, and Bruce chuckled.

“Always knew that you were going to be the one who ended up in a cult,” he said, heart softening at the way Stephen’s nose twisted at that.

“I always guessed you were going to become a crazy hermit. I wasn’t that far off either, was I?”

“Almost right on the money,” agreed Bruce. “And Toni-”

“Are you still in love with her?”

Bruce blinked very slowly at that question. Stephen’s expression was pretty mild, nothing in his way of sitting or his face betraying his feelings.

He considered the question for a couple of moments. Considered his reaction to finding out that Toni had been kidnapped in 2009. His reaction to her being found. His feelings about those rumours regarding her and Prince T’Challa of Wakanda, or her CEO Pepper Potts. His reaction to her becoming Iron Queen.

And then the way he had felt when she had walked on the Helicarrier, both emotionally and in the sense of danger he had felt as he had watched her strolling in, as if her 5’5 self was somehow a bigger threat in a room that had a literal Norse god in it.

When she had looked into her eyes, and the Hulk had looked back at her, falling silent as her hazel eyes seemed to burn straight through his soul.

How he had felt when she had looked at him coldly and talked about Peter.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t think so. I... yeah, I’ve got nothing. She’s... she’s different.”

“Very different,” agreed Stephen, nodding. Bruce could not tell what he thought from his expression. “She’s almost...”

He trailed off, taking a sip of his drink when he failed to find an appropriate adjective to describe her with.

“You?” finally asked Bruce.

Stephen did not ask him to elaborate. “I don’t know either,” he also said, shaking his head. “I don't think I am. I don't think I'm not. I don't know. She hates me either way, though, so it’s not like it matters. And, if the rumours are to be believed, she’s with Potts, isn’t she? Though she did look like she particularly liked Thor and Loki.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bruce. “Loki especially, I think. She has a sweet spot for the guy.”

Bruce did not really get it. He hadn’t known she had known Thor before the Helicarrier, and their initial reaction to one another in front of him hadn’t looked particularly familiar. 

And yet, only a few hours later they were walking around holding hands. He’d have thought she was somehow trying to annoy him or make him jealous, but the way Thor himself reacted to her while clearly having feelings for Doctor Foster (combined with how little it was clear Toni cared about Bruce's reactions)... it didn’t make sense.

"Mh," said Stephen, picking up his drink again.

“I didn’t mean to do it, you know,” then said Bruce, apropos to nothing. Stephen's eyes fixed on him, and it was clear from his expression that he didn't need clarification as to what Bruce meant. Bruce was answering an unasked question several years old, and they both knew it. “Or maybe I did. I don’t know.

“I don’t know if you realise how long I was in love with Toni. I think... I think I fell in love with Toni at first sight,” he admitted, chuckling at the surprise on Stephen’s face at that. “From the moment I met her, I just knew... she was special. Different.

“I never had the guts to ask her out. Never mustered the courage of telling her how I really felt. Because she was Toni Stark, you know? And I was... just me.” He scoffed. “Girls like Toni Stark don’t go for guys like Bruce Banner."

That was an unspoken rule of sort, wasn't it?

“They go for guys like you, and that’s why I told you I wasn’t into her, when you asked me if you could ask her out," he continued. "I figured, you were both my friends, you were perfect for each other, and soon enough I would grow out of it.”

He chuckled again, shaking his head and not making eye contact with Stephen any more. “Fast forward to November of 2000 and I’m still completely over the heels in love with this crazy fanatic woman. And you called me to tell me that you wanted to ask to marry you.” He shook his head once more. “I didn’t actually set out with the intention of ruining what you guys had. I was heartbroken, but I knew you two loved one another. When Toni came over to my place with cheap beer and on a mission, very pissed off at you, I was planning on convincing her to get back together with you. I wanted you both happy. I wanted to help, I really did.

“I don’t know how many cans of beer it took me to change my mind. How many drinks I had before somewhere in my mind I came to the decision that this was the last time I would ever have a chance with her.

“She was ranting about you, I remember that. And I kept telling her that you meant well, that the two of you could do it, that she should move in with you, give you two a chance. And then she looked at me - really looked at me, you know the way she does? - and asked me... she asked me if I was her sassy gay best friend or if I was yours."

He laughed, even though it was not really that funny. “I told her I was not gay. She asked me to prove it.” He sighed, taking a sip of his drink. “I kissed her. She didn’t push me away, or hit me. So I kissed her again. She kissed me back. So I-”

“I really don’t need the details,” said Stephen, a grimace on his face.

“Right,” agreed Bruce. “But yeah. I don’t know what possessed me, truly. I just know that I was drunk. She was drunk. I was in love with her. I knew that I was losing her forever. So I gave in.” He smiled at Stephen, a sad smile. “And I lost both of you.”

“Mh,” said Stephen, also drinking from his drink. 

They were quiet for a while longer after that. 

+++

Stephen opened a portal for Banner to the Tower, before he returned to the Sanctum.

He did not go through it, just dropped him off on the penthouse before going back.

He was not sure what to think about Robert Bruce Banner, to be honest.

For over 8 years of his life, Bruce Banner had been Stephen’s best friend. It might be a juvenile term, but he did not think there was any more apt. He had first met him in his first year at Columbia University, and the two of them had immediately gotten along like white on rice. 

It had been a bit of a surprise for both of them: Stephen was known to be too abrasive for friends, and Banner too smart and awkward to make any.

But they had somehow clicked.

Banner was as smart as advertised  - if not more - and even though their actual areas of study did not overlap, he was Stephen’s favourite person to have a smart conversation with. He kept up with him just fine even when he did not completely understand the actual topic they were talking about, and picked up things at an almost unnatural pace.

Stephen had been still struggling with the death of his sister and the way it had changed his family dynamic so irrevocably, and Banner had just been there. Been there, and been exactly what Stephen had needed.

For the next eight years they had been thick as thieves both while at and after they left University. Shared experiences, or something of the like.

And then that disastrous night in November of 2000.

Stephen had known since the second she had entered their lives as if she was a hurricane in human form that Toni Stark would break them. That she’d simply ruin them both - though back then it had been more of a ‘she’s gonna get us both kicked out’, more than anything else.

To be fair, Stark had been with Banner since the moment Stephen had first met him.

But it had taken him several months before he had actually met her. Despite talks of her being the life of the party wherever she went and whatnot, Stephen had not seen hair of her at Columbia for almost 3 months after she first enrolled.

Banner had spoken about her, told him all about how awesome and smart and insane the woman was but, while he hadn’t outright called Banner a liar, he had assumed he was playing up his relationship with her. Pretending, a little bit. 

From word of mouth, Stark was not the one to keep to herself, and yet Stephen had never seen the two of them together.

The first time he did see them together, it had been an accident.

He had seen Banner walk inside the music room as he was walking out of the library, and found himself curious. Banner was not particularly musically inclined, so just what was he doing?

So Stephen had walked inside it a few minutes later, and that’s the first time he set his eyes on Stark.

She had been beautiful even then, he recalled. Long hair left on her back, a smile on her face and eyes closed as she perfectly played Liszt's 'La Campanella'. Stephen had rarely ever heard someone who wasn’t him play the thing as well as she had.

Banner had not even noticed him, eyes also closed and head thrown back as he listened to her play.

It had been a strangely... soft image. Intimate in a way he had not really anticipated.

Stephen had been ready to walk away before they noticed him, but he had not managed one single step back before her eyes were opening and her eyes fixing on him.

Hazel brown eyes surrounded by ridiculously long lashes had narrowed at seeing him standing there, and her hands had stilled over the piano.

Banner had also looked up, appearing surprised to see him, but Stark had spoken first. “Voyeurism without consent is illegal, you know? I safe word.”

That set the tone for every interaction they had following that first day.

Stephen walked inside the Sanctum, watching as the Cloak flew away to do Cloak things - he had decided to simply not question the artefact, at this point.

He had to be honest: he had never really expected to run into them again.

Well, at least not to run into Banner again.

Stephen remembered getting questioned about the scientist’s whereabouts after he had disappeared. Back then, he had known nothing about the accident and what he now realised had been the birth of Hulk, and he had not felt sympathetic enough to find out about it either way. The people questioning him had appeared very sceptical about his supposed nonchalance, considering footage of them only years before seemed to indicate them being very close friends.

He had told them of their fall out without going into personal details, and then proceed to forget everything about that encounter once he was sure Banner was not dead - or tried to forget, really, given his eidetic memory.

Petty as he might have been back then, he hadn't wanted the man dead.

Maimed, maybe. Dead, no.

Stark on the other hand, Stephen had seen plenty of times. Never spoken to her, or acted as if he had noticed her existence unless forced to, but they had ran in not too dissimilar circles for a while after Stephen became a millionaire.

Which was fine, since she had pretended the same.

She was just as petty as he was.

It was only after Afghanistan that Stephen had considered at least... becoming civil. To give an attempt, at the very least, at not hating each other.

Unlike Banner’s disappearance, Afghanistan had been front and centre of the news for almost the entire three months period she had disappeared for, and Stephen had not been able to escape it or his own growing concerns for her safety.

Slept with his best friend or not, he didn’t want her dead.

He had even tried to locate Banner, to extend an olive branch of sorts, but he hadn't been able to find hair of him.

For three months he had wondered if the last memory he was ever going to have of the two of them was punching Banner and then walking away from Stark when she had come by to talk to him about whatever.

Luckily, Stark had survived - and then some. Saved another kidnapped victim who she made head of a newly opened medical division in her company (a man that Stephen remembered meeting in Bern, Doctor Ho Yinsen), became a superhero, and made her best friend one too.

Because she was Toni Stark, and Toni Stark clearly did not do things in halves.

He still did not see her face to face until a whole year after the whole ordeal.

She had looked as beautiful as ever, he remembered. Simply sauntered in the room in a gorgeous red dress, hair finally reaching her shoulders once more, bold red lipstick and sunglasses in place, former COO Pepper Potts on her arm.

He had never paid much attention to her supposed romantic ventures, but he had wondered if the media’s claims that she was dating her or Prince T’Challa had been true after all.

Stephen had spent the entire evening deciding whether or not he should approach her and tell her that he was glad she was alive, while she had spent the entire event with Potts, Prince T’Challa and Hope Van Dyne, seeming to be purposefully keeping her back on him and refusing to make eye contact no matter how many times Stephen had looked over at her in worry.

Christine had not been amused.

In the end he had admitted defeat and accepted that their relationship would never recover and got out of the event. He had argued with Christine, got into his car alone, drove towards home, and then promptly flew off a cliff.

He had wondered, after becoming Sorcerer Supreme, if their paths would once more cross over. The Order of Kamar Taj was not actually sworn to secrecy, but they were... exclusive. And he had heard the Ancient One mention Iron Queen with some fondness every now and again, which he had assumed meant they had interacted with one another before.

He hadn’t realised the depth of their relationship.

“How’s Ellie?” asked Wong, making Stephen jump slightly. He had not even noticed the man in the kitchen, eating a plate of hot pockets and chicken nuggets like some sort of heathen.

Stephen huffed, settling down on the chair. He had been sitting down with Banner just moments ago, but that had been a bit of an awkward affair with him asking about their friendship and explaining why he had slept with his then girlfriend. “How do you even know Toni Stark? And why do you call her that?”

Wong shrugged. “That’s what the Ancient One used to call her. Short for Helaine. Though, for the longest time I had no idea of who she actually was, and just assumed that was her real name. Everyone calls her that.”

Again, confusion. “Everyone?”

“All the Masters,” explained Wong. “She used to always come around before... well, before everything happened.”

Before Kaecilius went rogue, and the Ancient One died, and Mordo left the Order.

The idea of Stark having somehow known about magic for... possibly years, was kind of shocking. “When did she start coming around? When did she stop?”

“None of your business,” answered Wong, popping a chicken nugget in his mouth. “Now you. How do you know Ella?”

Stephen made a face at him, and then shrugged. “We used to date way back in the day,” he settled for. “We broke up like at the beginning of the Millenium. We-”

“Vishanti,” said Wong, realisation appearing in his eyes. “You are the asshole who gave her scarf to his new girlfriend, aren’t you?”

Stephen cringed slightly. Looking at it now, it had really not been... nice of him. But well, he had been hurt and lashing out, trying to hurt her back, so yeah. There was that.

“To be fair,” he pointed out, squirming uncomfortably at the way Wong was looking at him. “She slept with my best friend first.”

“You were broken up,” said Wong, unmoved. 

“For three days.”

“She said it had been a month.”

“We slept together three days before she slept with Bruce.”

“But you weren’t back together.”

“We used to break up and get back together all the time, back then,” he protested.

“That time it was different.”

It was, but Stephen was a little floundering. “What the hell, how do you know all of this? Why would she tell you all of this?”

Wong shrugged, biting into another hot pocket. “Ella’s a friend and we all wanted to know who had made her so upset and angry, and what asshole we needed to hex and/or curse.” He paused, then made a face. “A suggestion: don’t let Master Hamir know that you are the mysterious ex boyfriend. I remember some very dangerous promises against your person, the last time around.”

Master Hamir was not someone Stephen had ever been particularly fond of, so he wasn’t worried.

“So?”

Stephen looked back at him, finding Wong watching him with curiosity clear on his face. “So what?”

“So? You broke into your ex-girlfriend's tower and spoke to her for what I assume is the first time since the break up. Then you had to return again because of Infinity Stones trouble, and had to speak to her again. How did it go?”

Stephen had not realised he was breaking into Stark Tower until he was. He had been in another dimension when the Invasion had started, and the scrying mirror had only shown him Thor and the red headed agent holding the Scepter.

And then he had portalled with some difficulty where the tracking spell lead - though then he had simply thought he was having a bad day, not that he was going against some Asgardian type anti portalling ward - with invisibility so that he could study Thor and what he was doing with the stones, just to find himself in Stark’s penthouse.

And then found Thor and Stark watching him, the blonde claiming that he knew he was there while she simply stared at him with eyes that seemed to glow brighter, and Hulk seeming to sense him/smell him despite being unable to see him.

A cowardly part of Stephen had considered simply getting back in his portal and flee that very uncomfortable reunion. He had not returned to Earth thinking he was gonna have to deal with Asgardians, Infinity Stones, his ex girlfriend and ex best friend. And Captain America who was also there, for whatever reason. 

“We can both be civilised,” he answered, ignoring Wong’s judgemental and curious eyes as he opened a portal to the inside of the fridge and pulled out some apple juice. “She did her part, I did my part, we barely even interacted. Now, do you want to know about the Infinity Stones or not?”

Wong did not seem as interested in that, but Stephen started talking anyway.

Despite Banner’s opinion, he was pretty sure the woman still hated him plenty. Which Stephen felt was slightly unfair: she had been the one to sleep with Bruce only days after what he had thought had been a reunion. Sure, she had seemed angry when she had realised he thought them sleeping together meant she had finally agreed to move in with him, and she had said that it was just hate sex and it meant nothing, but... it was them. That's what they did. How had Stephen been supposed to know that she really meant it, back then?

Even if, as Bruce had implied, he had initiated things, she had gone to him by choice. Bruce hadn’t forced her to sleep with him, she had chosen to. Shouldn’t he be the one who got to be mad, in this situation?

Not that Stark had spent much time paying attention to him at all. No, all of her attention had seemed to be on the Norse siblings, hugging them and being in general all over them. He had heard her declare to Doctor Foster that she had no romantic interest in Thor, but he had not heard her say anything of the like about Loki.

And, thought an uncharitable part of him, she had claimed to have no interest in Banner either, years before, and look at how that situation ended up.

“Did you know that the Ancient One was gay?” he then asked, recalling the footage Stark had shown him.

“Yes,” said Wong, frowning at him. “Everyone knew. She had this whole epic and doomed romance with the witch-”

“Agatha Harkness,” finished Stephen, nodding. “Why didn’t anyone tell me beforehand?”

“Because she’s dead,” reminded him Wong, as if Stephen had somewhat forgotten.

Stephen had not forgotten.

“And, because it does not really matter," continued Wong. "Just because they are together does not mean that we aren’t supposed to at least try and capture her if we run into her.”

“Oh,” said Stephen, grimacing. 

Wong sighed. “You saw her and she managed to use her relationship as an excuse to not be captured?”

“Stark showed me footage of her and the Ancient One kissing,” explained Stephen. “And just enjoying themselves at a party together. I just assumed it meant she was off limits.”

“Not too wrong from the truth,” admitted Wong. “Theoretically, her being on the threat list means that we still have to try and capture her. At this point, however, it’s more of a case of stealing back whatever she takes rather than actively bringing her into custody. We are usually 60% successful when it comes to such things.”

“Thank god you have me then,” said Stephen, smugly, gracefully ignoring the eye roll Wong gave him for that.

He reached inside of his pocket, meaning to take out his phone and wallet, and then paused, a little confused.

Didn't he usually keep an extra sling ring just in case?

Chapter Text

The first thing Thor saw when the world righted himself once more was Loki.

Loki.

Standing. Breathing. Existing.

Alive.

Once more, he felt his heart constrict and bring him a deep ache as he watched his brother in front of him also straighten up, as well as the cuffs on his wrists allowed him to.

Despite Loki’s behaviour and words, Thor had truly missed his brother. The thought that he had let him down, the memory of watching him give up before his eyes before he let go of Grungir... it had done nothing but haunt his nightmares since that day.

Not a day went by where Thor had not wondered if he could have done more. If he could have seen how close to the edge his brother had been, if he could have changed something by behaving differently...

Thor had nearly burst into tears when Mother had called him in a room with Father and told him that Loki was alive. 

It had been what he had secretly wished for ever since that fateful day. For he had truly believed him gone but, at the same time... even if there was a funeral, if there was no body, could the death be completely certain?

(Many had believed it so, but Thor knew Mother had secretly agreed with him)

And his prayers to the Norns had been answered. His brother had been sighted once more in the land of the Living. Surely, a reason for celebration, rather than secretive meetings among the Royal Family?

And then Mother had shared everything she had Seen.

At first, when Mother claimed that Loki was going to come to Midgard with an army of Chitauri behind him, Thor had been confused. Disbelieving.

Why would Loki feel the need to take such actions? He was not the bloodthirsty kind, and he was no kind of general. Loki did not enjoy battle the way Thor did, and he certainly felt no pleasure and happiness in conquest.

He did not even particularly like Midgard, as far as Thor knew.

It made no sense.

He had gone, with his parents’ worry and blessings, but he had not truly believed Mother’s words. He had thought her to be wrong - after all, Seeing was a matter of perspective, and the Norns liked concealing the Future under truths and deceptions.

But then he had looked upon his brother’s eyes upon meeting him, and he had felt despair. Those crazed eyes, that Thor could not even truly recognise, and the derision mixed with Loki’s cruel and taunting tongue... He had thought that it was it. That Mother had been right, after all, and that wherever Loki had gone after falling (after letting go) had turned his mischievous brother into the worst version of himself that could have ever existed.

Loki’s eyes flickered around the corner of the Castle Thor had landed him in, eyes revealing more in those two seconds than Loki would have normally ever allowed.

Once upon a time, Thor would have looked into his brother’s eyes and known his thoughts.

Nowadays, Thor did not hazard a guess.

“A corner of the palace,” drawled Loki, once his eyes focused on Thor once more. A hint of a sneer curled his lips. “Ashamed of letting the people of Asgard see you with me, are you, Thor?”

“Of course not,” said Thor, frowning as he retrieved the Tesseract and the Scepter and put them both in a pocket dimension. It was not advisable, but for the few minutes it would take them to reach their parents, it was the best course of action. “The Observatory has yet to be re-built. I brought us here because I do not believe you would enjoy walking down the streets of Asgard in manacles. Even though they won’t be very visible to those who don’t know they are there, I thought you might enjoy re-appearing to the people after everything has settled, and you have spoken to Mother and Father.”

Loki scoffed. “You are simply making it easier for the All-Father to throw me in the dungeons without anyone realising.”

“Why do you twist my words?” complained Thor, scowling. Loki’s eyes took an edge and Thor forced himself to rein in his temper.

He recalled JARVIS’ words whenever Loki did so in one of the discussions they had had at Antoinette’s castle. Lashing out against genuine help is simply a manner of self flagellation and self destruction, he had told him once his brother had left the room. He is pre-emptively attempting to send you away so that when you decide to leave, it won’t hurt as much - in his head. This is a tactic that Miss herself often utilises and, if you let it, a tactic that can be quite effective.

Thor would not let it be effective. He had promised himself and, most importantly, he had promised Antoinette. The Queen of Iron of Midgard, able to wield Mjolnir without any knowledge of what it was or any visible effort at all.

A most impressive shield maiden, who had intrigued him since the moment she had set eyes on him aboard the flying ship.

He had been intrigued by her handling Mjolnir, that was true. But when she had walked inside of the flying ship and made eye contact with him for the first time, Thor had felt as if his seidr was about to burst out of his body. A strange sense of euphoria within the storm inside of him, as if something inside of him recognised her, somehow.

He was not sure why, or how, but he had seen her, and known that he had met her before. They had known one another before. His entire soul sang when she was close by, recognised her as his shield sister.

Thor normally did not defer to anyone but himself and his parents (and even that was not constant). And yet, something about her had made it almost... easy, to defer to her. As if it was the most logical course of action.

He still did not understand it.

He wished he had remained on Midgard long enough to.

“Let us go, then,” he said, keeping his hands to himself. He had refused to muzzle and chain Loki as it would be more customary to a prisoner, and he was not going to rend the whole action moot by speaking over him or manhandling him where he needed to go.

Loki’s eyes remained suspicious, but Thor did not miss the way his shoulders fell back down slightly.

Thor considered it an improvement.

+++

Not many were the faces of those who they met upon their return, but all of them were elated to see their second prince. Loki appeared supremely baffled by their reactions, as all of them immediately greeted him with deep bows and expressed their gladness at his return.

Thor kept himself a little in front of Loki, to cover the curious eyes from the manacles adorning his brother's wrists, but he turned to look at him when Loki continued to act surprised whenever greetings were issued and happiness at his return expressed.

“You were King,” he reminded him. “You saved us from a war against Jotunheim that I plunged us in. The majority of Asgard mourned you deeply.”

Loki still appeared nonplussed, but he kept his thoughts to himself, brows furrowed deeply.

Thor wished Loki had been here for his funeral. He would no longer discredit the way his brother felt he was being treated, but many were the faces that came to express their grief. Perhaps not many of them were Loki's friends, but the subjects? The people who lived within the walls of the Castle? Their Mother and Father?

Let it be said that the sky and the rain of that day were not the reason so many faces were wet by the end of the service.

By the time they arrived in front of the Great Hall, the doors were wide open and their parents sitting within it on their thrones, waiting for their arrival.

Loki tensed as soon as it came into view, and Thor let in the urge to put a hand on his shoulder, touching but not grasping his neck. Loki paused at the touch, glancing at him warily, and Thor nodded at him. “I am with you, brother.”

Once more Loki did not appear to believe him, but that was okay. Thor would show him, and Loki would understand that his words were not for naught: whatever his parentage might truly be, they were brothers. They had been raised as such, and Thor loved Loki more than he loved anyone else in the Nine Realms. There was no one who could compare, not even Jane.

Mother was on her feet as they walked inside the room side by side to each other - equals - and tears sprung to her eyes as soon as the Einherjar closed the doors behind Loki and Thor.

Father remained seated, but Thor could not mistake the emotion in his eye for anything other than relief. He would not belittle Loki’s emotions and beliefs any longer, but Father truly had mourned him.

“All-Father,” pronounced Thor when they stopped in front of the throne, falling on one knee. “All-Mother. I have returned.”

“Thor,” said Mother, but all of her attention was on Loki. “Loki. My sons.”

“I’m not your son,” answered Loki, voice colder than the winters of Jotunheim, and it changed the emotions in the room drastically.

Father’s emotions turned into sadness and anger, while Mother forcefully kept her tears from spilling out of his eyes.

Thor wanted to scream at Loki, shake him and demand to know what behaviour was this, what he was achieving by acting like this. Why must he do this, he wanted to shout at him. Why must he always do this?

But he did not.

“Loki was hurt,” had said JARVIS. “Deeply. Everything he knew became a lie in a matter of seconds. And those who claimed to love him perpetrated that lie. He has the right to feel hurt by that.”

“You were sent for your brother many days ago, Thor,” said Father, focusing his eye on him. “According to Heimdall, the army of Chitauri was stopped almost five morns ago. What matters took you so long?”

“Loki was not himself during the Invasion,” said Thor, standing back up again. Loki hissed behind him, but Thor continued. “In many more ways than I first thought. He was severely injured after the battle, and we sought the hospitality of the Queen of Iron to make sure that he was fully healed before I attempted to bring him back.”

Father frowned. “The Queen of Iron?”

“Yes. The mighty Antoinette of the House of Stark of Midgard. She is a scholar, warrior, and seidrmadr of Midgard, and a most gracious host of noble heritage. She helped us acclimate with Midgard, and ensured that an evil SHIELD would not get their hands on Loki while he was indisposed. I blessed her Tower.”

Father appeared surprised and displeased by that, but Mother spoke before he could. “What injuries do you speak of?”

Before answering, Thor turned to look at Loki. His brother was glaring daggers at him, but Thor did not allow it to bother him. “May I speak on your behalf?”

“You ask now?”

Thor shrugged. “I am trying to do better, but I am also your older brother. I know you, despite what you might believe, and I shan’t allow you to bring harm against your own person by lying.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed. “What if I don’t let you speak on my behalf?”

He didn’t say that Thor wasn’t his older brother.

Thor pretended to not have noticed it, and continued. “Then Mother and Father will simply call forth Heimdall,” he pointed out. He was bluffing of course, but now that he had brought up the idea, he was sure they would. “And you do not like Heimdall.”

“I do not like you either,” informed him his brother, and Thor tried to not smile at that tone.

It was not Loki’s venom filled tone. But rather the slightly petulant and squabbling tone he had reserved for Thor only, back in the days.

It had been a while since Thor had last heard that tone reserved for him.

“You like me more than Heimdall.”

“That is not saying much.”

“It is saying enough.”

Loki’s eyes flickered to their parents once more, who were watching them very carefully. Mother seemed uncertain on whether to cry or laugh, while Father was watching them as impassively as ever.

It was so hard to read Father at times. Thor was certain that was why there was such deep mistrust and arguments in his family, because Odin never truly let his emotions show.

If he did, if he had, then, perhaps... perhaps things would have been different.

Then Loki nodded, and Thor tried not to cheer or otherwise showcase how grateful he was at the show of trust. Instead he turned to his parents, and straightened up.

He could do this.

+++

Loki did not like feeling confused. Never had, never would.

All he had done since he woke up inside that room in Stark’s Tower had been feeling confused.

First off all by the Midgardian in questions. With all of her words the All-Speak could not quite catch, her general attitude and behaviour that Loki was not sure what to do with, her seidr.

That was one of the first things he had become aware of regarding her, after the Other’s touch had left his mind.

She was scintillating. Her seidr had been a sight to behold. Dripping in bright orange, but with a strangely dark core in the middle.

She was no sorcerer, and she did not seem to be a mage either, nor a witch. And yet her soul was that of a seidrmadr, and her knowledge...

She wasn’t a Seer, nor was she a mind reader. 

Rather, Loki would hazard to say she might have been able to read... souls.

Which did not make sense, as Loki had never read of such a thing being possible.

And yet Antoinette Stark was very much real, and her actions real. Her strange fondness for him and Thor was real, borne in the midst of a war and in a matter of days, but as strong as the bonds between Thor and the Idiots Four.

As was this feeling of kinship between his own broken seidr towards her. As if they had met before, as if his magic somehow recognised hers.

Loki did not open up to people, least of all to strangers. He did not allow others to see him when he was weak. 

And yet she had held him in her arms after he had informed her of his lack of regret regarding the maiming of her people, and Loki had felt more safe in her arms than he had anywhere else in a very long time. 

She and Thor were nowhere near the same size, and yet something about the way she had held him reminded him of Thor, when they were younger. Thor always reached upwards when he hugged Loki, as if to keep him safe from what lurked in the Universe outside, and Antoinette Stark had done the same.

Then there was her necklace, that was so similar to Loki and Thor's own bracelets - bracelets he had always attributed to the All-Father, but when and why would the All-Father had gifted them these? - which just added to the sea of oddness surrounding Antoinette Stark.

It was all most baffling and confusing, and Loki hated feeling confused. 

Even now, back on Asgard, where Loki had thought he knew how things would go, the confusion continued.

There was Thor. Thor sitting side by side with Loki and recounting the events of the past few days to his pa- to the All-Father and All-Mother in a way that was much more favourable to him than Loki had expected from his not brother.

Instead of talking about his jealous alleged ‘little brother’ attacking his beloved Midgard and wrecking havoc before Thor had mightily defeated him, Thor spoke about a brother who had endured hurt that none of them could have guessed, and devised a manner of letting himself be defeated so that he could not bring the actions he had been forced to take to bear fruit.

He spoke of the Midgardian witch Agatha Harkness - of whom Loki had heard about before, but who he had never met - the Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange, and the Iron Queen Antoinette Stark, and what they had uncovered regarding him and the The Scepter and Tesseract they had returned with, which he then placed down in front of them.

Moth- the All-Mother’s eyes had filled with tears as soon as Thor had described Loki’s appearance when he had landed on Midgard, but she had not paled until Thor had revealed the object at hand to be two Infinity Stones.

Odin was harder to read, but Loki would hazard to say that the man was simply angry.

As he had done throughout their whole life, the man did not look at Loki any longer than he had to, so it was hard to look at his eye, but he seemed rather upset.

Which made sense, supposed Loki. He had brought the attention of an enemy of the Nines, an enemy of legends, to Asgard and Midgard.

No doubt he was severely disappointed in him and his weak actions and poor behaviour.

Odin had never been proud of a single thing Loki had done in his entire life, he was certain. 

He was a Frost Giant. One that could no longer serve his purpose, and the All-Father did not need him. 

Norns, how Loki wished the man had just left him right there where he found him. In that temple he had-

“And what says you, Loki?” called the All-Father, his one eye pinned on his form. Loki did not flinch at the sudden attention, ignoring Thor’s anxious eye on him. “Are Thor’s words true?”

He had barely listened to them, to be honest.

“They are not false,” he offered.

Odin’s lip tilted upwards only slightly, and Loki frowned. He must have imagined it because, for a moment, he could have sworn Odin had just smiled at him.

“You argue that your... Thor gave a version of events that he believes true, then?”

Loki wanted to lash out. More than anything else he wanted to make every person in this room feel a fraction of the pain he himself had felt ever since he had fallen from that Norns damn- ever since he had let go of Odin’s spear. 

Ever since Odin had opened his mouth and spoken the truth of Loki’s origins.

And he could.

He was on Asgard, now. Either Odin decided he was for the axe, or he would throw him in the dungeons. Either way, without the Stones, the Mad Titan - and just thinking of him had Loki shivering - was just a mad man with an army. Asgard was the safest place in the Nine Realms, and Loki had something in his pocket that would gain him his freedom, eventually.

But for some reason, Stark’s face came to mind, along with her words. Her question that he tried to save himself, that he did not let himself be destroyed by his own words.

A woman who Loki had not known seven morns ago, begging so ardently for his safety.

And then again, the deference of the Aesir.

Loki had expected Odin to inform everyone of his true identity of Frost Giant, and/or for the other Aesir to showcase some form of distaste or hatred at seeing him once more back at Court. Certainly there had never been such joy at the sight of him before. Right?

What had changed?

Loki was curious by nature.

Self serving. 

And despite it all, despite his fear, his rage and his confusion, Loki did not wish to die.

He did not wish to die.

Not yet. 

“Yes,” he said, reigning in his anger. He did not look at his not brother.

“What says you, then?” asked Odin, and his voice... softened. “What happened to you since you fell into the Void?”

He had been asked this question a lot, in the past few days.

Rarely had Loki offered an answer.

He glanced at where the All-Mother was watching him, concern that almost felt real in her face. At the All-Father, paying Loki all of his attention. At Thor, watching him with hope clear in his face.

At the Scepter and the Tesseract, now sitting on the floor in front of them.

And once more, he thought back to Antoinette Stark. The Queen of Iron, who had mocked him when he had been wearing and speaking the words of a conqueror, and who had offered him kindness and clever words when he revealed himself as who he truly was - or who he had always thought himself to be (who was he?).

And then he spoke.

+++

By the time Loki came to an end to his explanation, Thor was crying. Loki had focused his gaze on his not-brother as he spoke, unwilling to see Odin’s reaction to his words, and had watched with a weird ache in his chest the tears that welled in his eyes and then fell down his cheeks, silent in the rainstorm outside.

I’m not saying trust him or forgive him because, again, I don’t know what happened between the two of you. But he loves you. Of that, I have no doubt, had said Antoinette Stark.

Loki could not help but think she might have been somewhat right, after all.

He had skimmed over things. Had not spoken names other than that of the Other and called the Titan ‘Master’, and had not described all of the torture he had been through in much detail. 

But he had told them everything from the beginning to the end. Everything he would dare speak up about.

Loki did not feel suddenly more comfortable, or as if he was carrying less weight or burdens than before. Rather his throat hurt, and he felt uncomfortable.

Once he was done talking, Loki looked away from Thor, more than a little unsettled from the horror and pain in his gaze, and turned to Mo- to the All-Mother and the All-Father once more.

And felt even more unsettled than before.

Despite knowing that she wasn’t his mother, Loki was not unaware of the fact that Frigga had cared for him. So seeing her cry real tears just like Thor was, it was not something that surprised him. Warmed him, sure, but it did not surprise him.

But seeing the lone tear in Odin’s one eye, and the clear fury in his entire form, that was surprising.

Grief, he recognised, staring in that one blue eyes. Grief and pain... regarding what?

Regarding Loki’s recounts of the events that had befallen him since he had let go?

Impossible.

Odin had never liked him, he had never loved him. Loki had never been more than a war prize to the man, it made no sense for him to affect so many emotions. It couldn’t be.

Right?

“Very well,” said the All-Father, breaking the silence the room had descended in after Loki’s recounts. His voice held more tears than his eye did, and it made everything inside Loki cringe. “Thank you for your recounts of events.”

He sighed, which just served to make Loki more confused and uncomfortable than before. What was happening?!

“Thor,” then said the All-Father, turning to the still crying blond. “I believe that first you should accompany your brother to see Lady Eir. Make sure that she has a golden apple ready for him, and that she assesses his mind and his seidr both.”

Loki was so stunned by the man’s words that he did not even manage to correct him regarding his denomination of Thor.

But... what was the old fool saying? 

“Much has befallen you, Loki,” said Odin, watching him with deep rooted sadness. It made something inside Loki shake, and he did not understand. More confusion, and Loki despised being confused. “I do not feel comfortable handing any sort of judgement upon your actions before and after your fall until I am reassured that you are safe and well once more.”

“What do you care,” questioned Loki, baffled enough that the hard edge the question would have normally been accompanied by was gone.

Mother made a sound of distress, while Odin’s one eye closed for a moment. When he opened it again, he looked at Thor again. “Take him to Lady Eir,” he repeated.

The blond sniffed, forcefully wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He made to reach for Loki, but then he stopped himself, motioning for him to move.

Part of Loki was, through the confusion, glad that he kept his hands to himself. The other part of him recalled Stark’s soft and unasked touch, and he forcefully pushed away the memory. Stark was an intriguing puzzle he wished to solve, nothing more.

“Loki?” then called Odin, just as he and Thor had started to move again, leaving the Tesseract and the Scepter at his and the All-Mother’s feet.

Loki and Thor both turned around, and Loki gazed in horror as the lone tear fell down the old man’s cheek.

What in the Norn’s name was happening?!

“I am gladdened to see you back, my son.”

Loki’s breath caught in his throat. He clenched his fists at his side, and forced himself to scowl. It felt pitiful even on his own face, but he still spoke. “You are not my father.”

“But you are my son,” answered Odin, readily, as if his words made any sort of sense.

Mother- the All-Mother was looking at him with a soft smile, her own pain clearly reflected in his eyes.

Loki said nothing more, and followed Thor outside.

Chapter Text

At age 4, Toni Stark built her first circuit board using disregarded objects she found in her father’s workshop.

At age 6, she built her first engine, this time using actual materials set aside for her by Howard himself.

At age 8, she built her first weapon - an automatic shotgun that was leagues above what was on the market at the time. This achievement was kept under wraps, and no one outside her family but Rhodey ever heard about it.

At age 14, she started MIT. She was the youngest student on Campus, and by far the smartest.

At age 15, she built DUM-E. It was the most advanced AI at the time and back then, the only person who had believed she could do it had been James Rhodes. 

At age 16, a few days before Christmas of 1991, she became an orphan. 

At age 17, just a few months later, she graduated summa cum laude from MIT. Again, only James Rhodes had believed she could do it.

At age 18, she created JARVIS, her first true AI. This one was not as publicised as DUM-E, and very few people knew she had made him at all.

At age 20, she became CEO of Stark Industries, taking the position from Obadiah Stane without much ceremony, and graduated with a degree in business from Columbia University.

At age 26, she turned Stark Industries into a multibillion international company. She became the youngest billionaire in the world. A few months later, she had a child (not a son), but only a select few knew of this.

At age 33, she was betrayed by a man she had never truly trusted, and kidnapped in Afghanistan. By the time she turned 34, that same year, she had rebranded herself into a superhero, turning the bunch of scraps she had used to save herself into a kickass supersuit and knighted herself Iron Queen.

At age 36, Toni flew a nuke through a portal on her back, at the risk of her own life, to save New York from becoming a radioactive dump.

The world had been against her since the moment Howard Stark had come into the limelight with a daughter instead of a son. Since the second they had first set eyes on the little girl in a pink frilly dress being held by the wife of the weapons manufacturer and business mogul, there had been doubt, contempt and suspicion cast on her.

No one wanted to believe in her. No one wanted to truly think that a girl could achieve anything. That a little girl, a woman, could ever live up to the achievements and everything else Howard Stark had made or earned in his lifetime.

All they wanted to see was what important man she was going to bag who would rule her empire for her, what man was worthy of the infamous Stark heir.

All they wanted to see was how she was going to ruin things for her father, because little girls didn’t play with guns or make bombs.

All they wanted to see was how far she would fall.

All of her life, Toni had fought back against the expectation and the derision people had of her. All of her life she fought to prove that she was not who they wanted her to be, that she did not fit into any pre-existent mould, that she was not and would never be what they wanted her to be.

That she was not going to fail, because she was Antoinette Stark, and she was Howard and Maria Stark’s daughter, and you know what?

She had proven herself. 

Over and over Toni had proven herself, over and over she had done everything right, even when it wasn’t what they expected her to do, over and over Toni had proven them wrong. 

She had made several mistakes in her life, she was aware of that. Everyone made mistakes, and she had never claimed to be a saint.

Far from it.

But fuck, she had also done a lot of good.

She had donned a suit of armour and crowned herself Queen, and she had gone out there and done shit. She had paid for her mistakes and her cockiness, she had put in the work. She had kept America as safe as she could without stepping on people’s toes.

She had saved New York, she had proven herself trustworthy.

She didn’t want to toot her own horn, and she had some issues with the word, but she had proven herself a fucking hero.

And yet, people continued to doubt her.

And yet, people continued to not believe her.

And yet, people continued to act like she was wrong when she knew she wasn’t.

“Still nothing?” she asked, rubbing her forehead as she stepped inside of the shared lab. She could have stayed in her workshop, but that damn box was being more annoying than usual, today.

“Are you talking to us or-”

“Nothing,” answered JARVIS, cutting off Darcy. “General Hendery’s secretary said that he shall get back to you.”

“Goddamit,” she muttered, pressing her eyes closed for a second and taking a deep breath that did nothing to help her actually calm down.

Nobody believed her.

Well, some people – very few people – did believe her about the Invasion. Rhodey, for example, believed her. Some people in the Air Force who she had worked alongside before, believed her. A couple of generals believed her. Fucking Ross believed her.

They had watched the entire thing, they had listened to the reports and listened to her words, had listened to what Thor had told them during the press conference, and some people did agree that she wouldn’t make something like this up (even though their ideas on how to actually stop what was coming left a lot to be desired).

But the majority of the brass?

What they had seen was a woman who couldn’t handle yet another near death experience. Just a little spoiled female billionaire who had never truly realised how dangerous war could be.

It was amazing how they managed to both praise an American hero for saving them all from aliens and becoming radioactive waste and, in the same breath, disparage a woman for showing ‘clear signs of mental illness and PTSD’.

Perhaps this would have happened even if she had been a man. After all, because of the suit’s inability to continue connection while in space, the visual of what Toni had truly seen on the other side of the wormhole was corrupted, and the only thing they truly had to go on was Toni’s word (which she felt should be worth a lot more than these people acted it was), and Thor’s prediction.

But Toni would never know.

All she knew was that she was right. All she knew was that she had seen what was on the other side of the wormhole, and she had spoken to Loki. Loki had said that he would come, and he would come after them harder and stronger than he had the first time around.

She knew this, she had told them this and now months later, the brass was still not moving. They were still dragging their feet or coming out with outrageous suggestions, and Toni just wanted to-

“Toni?” called Jane, concern lacing her tone. “Are you okay?”

No, wanted to say Toni, opening her eyes to find the dynamic duo watching her with some worry in their eyes. No, she wasn’t fucking okay, she was very far from okay.

Every other time she went to sleep, nightmares plagued her mind. She never remembered them the day after, but they still filled her with terror and made her heart hurt whenever she woke.

Those stupid fucking anxiety and panic attacks were always there, simmering under her skin. She could manage them, more or less, with JARVIS’ help, but they were still there.

And Loki and Thor had not gotten in contact with anyone since they had returned to Asgard, and every time she thought about it, her anxiety spiked.

No one was doing what they were supposed to be doing, leaving only Toni, Jane, and Darcy to deal with the fact that aliens would most definitely come back and they had no real protection against them.

And SHIELD, and everything else, and-

“Yes,” she said, flashing Jane a grin. “I’m okay.”

She was Toni Stark, after all. She was always okay. She could only be okay, because if she wasn’t okay, then everyone else started freaking out, and Toni could not have everyone else freaking out too.

“You sure?” said Darcy, not looking like she believed her. “You look a little... you know.”

"You better not be calling me ugly, Darce," said Toni, shooting her a playful glare. "I've never been anything but hot as fuck, you take that back."

Darcy snorted, but she dropped it, which Toni found herself very grateful for. “What are you doing, Janey?”

“Running data,” said Jane, huffing slightly, attention easily recaptured by her own work. “I’m trying to see again if there is anything I’m missing. There has to be a more relevant common thread.”

“Between the Bifrost, the Tesseract, the All-Father express and the wormhole that brought Loki to Earth,” said Toni, just to make sure.

Jane nodded, watching the numbers in front of her carefully. “Yeah. Ugh, I wish I had your equipment back when I was in the desert. Perhaps I would have recorded more then, and the link would have been clearer.”

Most likely, Toni’s equipment was way better than what Jane had made for herself; however, she wasn’t mean enough to say so.

At least not out loud.

“Erik wasn’t much help, uh?”

Jane’s lips turned down. “Not really. I don’t know why he’s pretending to be crazy, to be honest. Every now and again he gives me a great pearl of wisdom when I’m talking with him, but then he seems to remember he’s pretending to be nuts and clams back up.”

While she wouldn’t say so to Jane, Toni felt she understood Erik Selvig's actions a little.

The man had been brainwashed by Loki’s Scepter, the longest out of everyone. Even if he was willing to accept that Loki had not done it to hurt him on purpose - which... wasn’t exactly the case - something like that... Being undone to the point where you couldn’t even recognise your own actions, to the point where servitude to someone/something overshadowed who you were as a person...

Toni felt that after experiencing something like that, the comfort of not having to think, not having to be a person, while being stuffed somewhere safe and - sort of - calm would be welcomed.

But Jane was not Erik, so Toni just tapped her on the shoulder before moving towards a screen of her own.

Plus, she mused as JARVIS started the thing for her without needing any prompting, inside the mental health institution he was mostly safe from SHIELD. Toni might not be paying for his care or anything of the sort, but he was in her sights and under her protection, clearly. SHIELD wouldn’t dare attempt to grab him.

SHIELD... SHIELD was still a pressing personal problem for Toni, though much less of what they had been only a few months ago.

The WSC had gone out in flames. Their actions had been clear for the world to see thanks to Toni, and at this point their trial was just for show. The world had declared them guilty, and they were going down. 

With Loki not considered a criminal and the Chitauri dead, the world had been salivating on who to blame and who to hold accountable for the attack and everything surrounding it.

SHIELD and the WSC had been the perfect enemies for the rest of the world - though SHIELD had managed to shift most of the blame on to the WSC at the moment.

The video of them giving the order despite Fury’s fervent disagreement had really been the nail in the coffin for them, and they were currently all incarcerated and awaiting or in the middle of their trials.

SHIELD had managed to glide out of the entire thing mostly unscathed despite the severe fines they had gotten and the couple of arrests made, but Toni’s eye was still on them.

JARVIS was still in her servers without their knowledge, and soon she would expose them too for the traitors they were.

She would avenge her parents if it was the last thing she did.

Toni had considered the Avengers.

Despite her hang-ups when it came to SHIELD and anyone who willingly chose to work for them, she was not going to disregard them out of personal bias when the fate of the world was in the balance.

So she had done the impartial thing, the smart thing. The thing Howard had always made sure she did when she wasn’t sure she was being rational about something.

She had ran the numbers.

Natashalie, the archer guy, Bruce and Captain America had arrived 4 minutes and 31 seconds after the Invasion had started. The Invasion had lasted a total of 16 minutes and 47 seconds since the portal had opened on top of Stark Tower, and Toni and Thor had been there right from the beginning of the entire thing.

In the 12 minutes 23 seconds they participated in, the Black Widow had caused approximately 80 Chitauri deaths. She had spent the last 1 minute and 51 seconds of the battle on Stark Tower fighting from a distance but mostly attempting to shut down the portal.

Hawkeye had also fought for about 12 minutes and 8 seconds, and his death count was, despite the explosive arrowheads he had available to himself, less than the Widow’s, at around 70 deaths. 

Captain America had fought for the same amount of time and accounted for approximately 100 deaths himself. Extenuating circumstances to consider: he had tried to evacuate the few people the police hadn’t gotten a hold of just yet, and then attempted to organise the military and national guard present.

Hulk had killed around 210 Chitauri soldiers himself, plus seven Leviathans - one of which he had taken down with Thor, and one with Toni.

Thor had fought for the entire 16 minutes, and accounted for 270 deaths by himself. On top of that three Leviathans, one of which he had taken down with Hulk.

And Toni herself had taken out around 280 soldiers, without counting the amount she had killed by nuking that mothership. Two Leviathans for her, one alone and one with Hulk.

And then the nuke.

The SHIELD trio had together accounted for around 16,3% of the deaths during the battle, none of which included the Leviathans. Even counting the minutes they had missed, Toni did not believe they would have made it to 20%.

The military had mostly focused on keeping people back, and had accounted for the least amount of damage (14,96%), but they had also had the weakest weapons out of everyone in the fight. 

If the military had better equipment... 

At the end of the day, Romanoff and Barton in particular were only as good as the weapons they were given. They were spies, not soldiers. Sure, Romanoff had been an assassin and was very good at thinking of the spot - Toni had reviewed footage, had seen how fast she had gotten adjusted to whatever weapon she found, how quickly she had figured out weaknesses in the Chitauri’s armours - but at the end of the day, battles like these were not where she excelled.

Same for Barton.

Rogers was a powerhouse, perhaps, but Toni felt that even he was outclassed when it came to aliens.

Loki had been playing with him in Germany, and even if you considered the fact that he had been defrosted not too long ago and perhaps hadn’t been ready for a fight, Toni did not like his chances.

So she had considered the Avengers.

But while she felt like they could help if another Invasion came around, she did not feel comfortable trusting those three with the safety of the world.

No offence to their natural strength, but had Loki not sabotaged the entire thing from the beginning, she failed to see how anyone but maybe Rogers would have survived for much longer during that battle. It was a miracle that Legolas hadn’t died trying to retrieve his arrows during the battle.

Numbers never lied, after all.

The screen flashed before her eyes and Toni focused back on it. SHIELD’s servers were in front of her, and JARVIS had flagged yet another new discrepancy.

There was something rotten in the state of SHIELD, had found out Toni.

Part of her had always known this of course. That day she had confronted her, Margaret Carter hadn’t lied. But seeing these discrepancies, it made her realise that perhaps this was not just about internal SHIELD power struggles, as she had always believed.

SHIELD had been infiltrated.

Toni wasn’t sure by whom, or when it had started, but she was pretty certain of it, at this point.

The day after Loki and Thor left... well, actually, the day after that day, Toni had gotten to work on everything regarding SHIELD and their servers that she had gotten her hands on during the Invasion. And between pestering the military to try and make them listen to her, the reconstruction efforts and everything else, she had been searching. Looking for the conclusive proof, looking for everything she was going to need in order to sink SHIELD and everything they stood for once and for all.

It was while she was busy doing this that she noticed the hidden trail, that she had noted the underlying monster hidden in SHIELD’s belly.

At first, she had not paid much attention to the contradicting messages. To the retraction, to the assassination of people SHIELD had earlier stated were important assets to protect. She had assumed changes of minds, internal power struggles.

But then she had started noticing oddities. Inconsistencies. Similarities where there shouldn’t be any and differences where there shouldn’t be either. Forgeries that shouldn’t for all intents and purposes be needed.

People who were employed for SHIELD but were working against SHIELD and their goals. 

An infiltration.

Toni would have said something, would have pointed fingers but it was kind of hard, right now, figuring out what the ‘good’ side was. SHIELD A had ordered assassinations that the other side had stopped, but SHIELD B had also carried out assassination against SHIELD A’s potential assets. The information seemed to be kept from one side at times, while other times they were feeding each other information - knowingly or unknowingly, she wasn’t sure.

So, for the time being, she was observing and trying to figure out just who was there, hiding within SHIELD.

She had almost run out of living agencies that could be behind all this, but she was not planning on stopping until she was certain of who was hiding, why, and what their goal was.

And whether or not they were the people who had ordered her parents’ assassination.

Margaret Carter had not been lying, when she had said that she hadn’t ordered their assassination, despite her signature being on the document. She had believed she was telling the truth when she had said SHIELD was not behind it either.

But she had been lying when she had told Toni she didn’t know who had killed her parents.

Now Toni would find out-

“Toni, is Bruce around?” asked Jane, turning to look over at her. “I have a couple of questions for him, I think he could help me out.”

“Don’t know,” said Toni, eyes fixed on the screen. “J?”

“He is not in the building, but he is in New York. He will be back by the end of the day,” said the AI, which made her frown slightly.

“Wait, really? He’s going to that gala?”

“I am not sure.”

Toni huffed, tapping her fingers over the surface of the table. Bruce was absolutely not coming, of that she was 100% certain. With his hang ups when it came to Hulk and the amount of military officials that would most likely be present at the event, there was no way in hell he was showing up.

But then again, Toni had sort of not expected him to come back, when he had suddenly left with Strange after Thor and Loki’s departure. She had been quite certain that the man had given in to his instincts and ran off, only for him to return to the Tower just a couple of hours later, looking much more relaxed than before.

He had then stayed with Toni at the Tower for about two months - one month and a week longer than Ross had been in New York - before he had packed his things and gotten ready to leave.

He had come down to talk to her, instead of disappearing into the night as she had expected, and quite meekly asked if he could come back, eventually, because of a bunch of reasons Toni had been too stunned to listen to.

She had agreed because... well, she wasn’t sure because what.

But she had agreed, and Bruce had come back a few days ago, and Toni was... Toni was very confused.

She did not understand what he was doing, she did not get what his goal was.

He had not sought out Peter. When the boy found out about him being around and approached him he was nice. He spoke to Peter, but not in an overly familiar way, or anything of the sorts. Just in a polite manner, with no secret lingering glances or knowing looks or anything.

And while she had not expected Bruce to break out a DNA test kit and play Maury, she did not get it. 

What did Bruce want? Why was he sticking around like this?

Like the day after Loki and Thor had left.

She had no interest in letting the man ever know, if he ever showed up again, but... Loki might have been a little bit right about the risks from trying to pull back her powers like she had done.

Normally, what would happen when she did that was a headache and discomfort the next day. Her senses would come back sharper for a couple of hours before she finally acclimated. Not nice, but not something she couldn’t deal with.

She had absolutely no recollection of how that day had gone.

Everything she really remembered came from JARVIS’ films and footage.

Oh, that wasn’t quite true.

She remembered pain, and hallucinations, and screaming. A lot of pain, as if her brain and her nose and her eyes and everything was simply on fire, as if her soul was burning inside of her, trapped.

When Toni had come to, Bruce and Yinsen had been standing over her, both of them looking very worried about whatever she had been doing while she had been out of her mind with pain (screaming and speaking in a language no one had been able to recognise, not even JARVIS).

It had been awful.

But it had somewhat worked. The nightmares had not left, but her powers had acclimated. Things were back to how they were before the Tesseract had activated, as if nothing had ever happened.

It made Toni’s brain fill with a lot of interesting theories she wasn't sure she wanted to contemplate.

Like, for example, what if her powers being haywire had had less to do with her sudden death and more to do with the Infinity Stones she had found herself around? What if it had had more to do with Thor and Loki in particular? And why? Could it be because of the Scepter blasting her and Loki, the day of the Invasion? Could it have forged some sort of connection between the two of them?

There were few people she could share and speak of this with, however, and none of them was available. Agatha was currently IA, Ajak did not understand magic, the Norse bros were on Asgard, and Tao was dead.

Of course, there were the other Sorcerers of Kamar Taj, but...

“Sometimes I wish I was normal,” said Toni, sighing slightly. "Not a thought in my head, just vibes."

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” promised Darcy, smirking at her. “And if you were normal, well how would the world keep spinning? We need some more of the craziness of Toni Stark in life.”

“If I said I wish you were at least ten years older, would that be creepy?” questioned Toni, just to watch Jane’s face scrunch up and Darcy chuckle.

“I won’t tell Pepper if you won’t, MILF.”

Toni forced the smile to stay in place. “I’d have to be a mother for that.”

“I think you’d be an awesome mom,” said Darcy, nodding decidedly. “Like a cool mom, who’s sexy and badass or something.”

“Agree to disagree,” said Toni, lightly, relaxing her hands on the desk. “And are you two ladies sure you don’t want to come to this thing with me, later? I’m sure it will be super amazing and interesting.”

“The fact that you’re trying to drag us there so badly proves that not even you believe that,” said Jane, rolling her eyes. “Second, this is a rich people event in honour of the Avengers. The Mayor is throwing it so that the rich people in question give New York some more money to help with the reconstruction efforts. What part would be playing there?”

“My arm candy.”

“She makes a compelling argument,” pointed out Darcy, while Jane snorted. “I mean, you’d need a shower and some make up, but I’m sure my face card would not decline. My boobs alone could get us some good money. Plus, I kind  want to meet Captain America.

“But unfortunately,” continued that evil little woman, when she saw Toni’s hopeful expression, “I have better things to do. Like, for example, my nails and watching some trash television, and go to bed early.”

Jane snickered.

“Darcy Lewis and Jane Foster, you are a horrible human beings.”

Darcy sent her a kiss. “You are still my dream woman, Toni Stark, and age is just a number!”

“You know, I’ve noticed that the only people who ever say that are those people who often end up in jail,” pointed out Jane, as Toni started back on her work again.

“Remind me again, what’s the age difference between you and Thor?” ‘innocently’ asked Toni.

“Oh, burn!”

Chapter Text

“Boss? You okay?”

Toni glanced over at Happy, who was currently sitting at the driver’s seat and was looking at her with some  worry on his face.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why are you asking?”

“Because the car stopped over a minute ago, and you did not seem to notice,” he answered, appearing unimpressed. And glancing at her tinted windows, Toni realised he was right.

She had not even noticed they had arrived at the venue. This was definitely not an auspicious start to this whole thing, she had to say.

Not that she’d tell Happy as much, of course. Because otherwise he’d get smug and/or tattle to Rhodey and Pep, and Toni wasn't in the mood for all that. 

“So rude to me, Hap,” she complained instead, quickly checking her reflection in the car’s backseat mirror. “I finally agree to let you accompany me to an event instead of having you stay with Pep in Cali all the time, and you become mean in seconds. I deserve better.”

“You deserve everything you get,” he answered, even as he stepped out when Toni gave him a nod.

JARV? 

From what I have observed in the past minute and forty-seven seconds since you arrived, the venue is safe. There are several SHIELD agents inside the building, as well as Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff, and some of your least favourite socialites are also present. However, in terms of safety, while I advise you to keep one weapon at least on yourself, nothing appears out of the ordinary.

Good to know, thought Toni, as she put her sunglasses back on and gave herself another cursory once over, before the door was opened for her.

Toni had been thrusted on stage at age four and sort of never stepped back down since. She was intimately familiar with the media and the paparazzi - hence the sunglasses that she always wore whenever she was forced to interact with them - but that didn’t make them any less annoying, especially on days in which she wasn’t particularly predisposed to seeing them.

And today, after the shitty day she had had, she wasn’t particularly predisposed to seeing them.

Still, she kept her practised smile on as she waved at the various cameras.

“Miss Stark, over here!”

“Give us a smile, Toni!”

“... Toni Stark has just arrived, looking stunning in a lovely dress from Prada’s latest fall collection-”

“Miss Stark, who are you here with today-”

Toni simply kept walking and waving, pausing to pose for a couple of familiar looking photographers, and sending a kiss to a particularly pretty journalist, before she was finally inside the venue.

Not that she was anymore safer in here than she had been outside, mind you.

Contrary to what Pepper seemed to believe, Toni did not hate galas. She had been attending galas from the moment she was conceived (if you counted the ones her mamma had thrown back when she was still pregnant with Toni), and by now she was used to them. They were her norm, something that she did so often she didn’t even really think about it anymore.

But it did not mean she particularly enjoyed them, either. Especially when she (or more specifically, JARVIS) did not have the list of guests beforehand and was sort of flying in blind.

Toni would have loved not having to come to this particular one, but as she was one of the guests of honour, she couldn’t really get away with not showing up.

Believe her, she had asked.

As Pepper said, however, it was for a good cause, and it was the first big event that had been thrown since the Invasion six months ago, so here was Toni. Philanthropist through and though, her mamma would have been proud.

She smiled pleasantly as everyone’s head immediately turned to look at her as soon as stepped in, but she did not pause. She scanned the room instead, hoping to see anyone familiar already there, other than those JARVIS had warned her of. 

She’d rather not get drunk so soon after arriving, but so far she had noted no one she felt particularly comfortable with.

She could see Rogers on one side of the room, dressed in his old non-superhero suit, trying to get her attention, and Romanoff was also standing beside him. While JARVIS had warned her of this, the woman's presence was a bit surprising; Toni would have expected her to be a no show, with her whole super spy thing.

Keep an eye on Romanoff in particular, J.

May I state, for the record, that you are acting in a very paranoid manner, Miss? I believe the lack of sleep is getting the better of you.

JARVIS was right, the chances of Romanoff or SHIELD actively doing something at such an event, with Toni in attendance, were very low. However,

It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.

Will do as you wish.

So it was just the three of them, it appeared. The archer dude was gone, Bruce had not shown up, and Thor...

“Toni, dear,” came someone’s voice beside her, and Toni mentally sighed even as she offered the approaching woman a smile. “I thought it was you. You look so lovely, darling.”

“I know,” she agreed, keeping the sweet smile firm in place. “Nice dress. Wearing white was a bold choice for you, Eleanor, but I suppose fortune does favour the bold.”

Whether Eleanor Bishop did not hear the underlying cattiness or chose to ignore it for a chance to be seen talking to her, Toni wasn’t sure.

Still, she allowed the woman to pull her along. This was a charity event, after all, and Toni could be cordial enough to get those tips coming in. The city wasn’t going to be reconstructed for free, that was why she was here to begin with.

“Girls, look who’s here!” called Bishop, and Toni kept her smile up as she was steamrolled by boring conversation without much substance about ‘where have you been, honey?'

That was a bit rude. It wasn’t like all of the women here were vapid and self obsessed; in fact, many of them were very clever and duplicitous. It was just that they forced themselves into the roles society had created for them whenever they were at events like these, and Toni was expected to follow the script.

And Toni hated following the script.

“I have to say, you look fantastic, Toni dear,” said Moira Brandon (Eleanor Bishop’s sister in law, from what Toni recalled), looking at her up and down. “How do you maintain your figure like that? What’s your secret?”

Toni chuckled, shaking her head. “You know how it is. The Iron Queen suit is a workout in itself, that thing weighs like 300 pounds.”

“Wow,” said Michelle, wife of Senator Stern, eyes wide and amazed. She looked high. “It looks so light and pretty from a distance.”

Toni did not answer, just kept smiling: the suit had been described as many things, but never had Toni heard pretty.

It was even more irritating that the woman was not even lying, that was seriously what she thought.

“Though there hasn’t been much Iron Queen-ing from you, lately,” said Moira, attention focused on Toni. Unlike Bishop, evil sister in law never had a problem being catty, and Toni readied herself. “I’ve heard something about PTSD on the news? Is that true?”

Toni knew that there was nothing wrong with suffering from PTSD, even without JARVIS, Rhodey and Yinsen’s continued insistence on the fact. 

But she was also very much aware of how well these ladies would take an admission of mental health problems from heir, so she just laughed prettily. “Please. We all know the news sells what they know dim-witted people will buy and believe.”

The corner of Moira’s eye tightened, and Toni gave her a disarming smile. “Still,” said the old crone, after a moment. “There is all this fear mongering about the Mandarin and his shady dealings everywhere. When are you going to teach him a lesson, Iron Queen?”

The Mandarin. Yes, Toni had heard about him on the news, had seen the two videos he published following his attacks, and she wasn’t impressed. She would have absolutely loved to get out of her house and do something about this.

Unfortunately, “I am not military, Moira, you know that. And while aliens fell under my jurisdiction,” at least they would from now, “Terrorists in the Middle East no longer do. Believe me, I’ve tried. But the military-”

“Screw the military,” ‘joked’ Moira. “You are that girl, an icon for women everywhere! Surely you’re not going to simply allow some old men to tell you what to do?”

“That way lies vigilantism, Moira dear,” came Helen’s voice as she and her husband appeared in their small circle. “Toni, sweetheart. How wonderful to see you.”

“A party in my honour,” she answered, smiling cockily. Inside, she was very grateful to have moved past that annoying conversation. “How could I miss it? That’s not rhetorical, I’m genuinely asking.”

They all laughed at her ‘joke’, and the Mayor beckoned her. “Now, would you ladies mind terribly it if I stole Miss Stark for a moment? Just for a minute.”

“We would, but we understand,” said Bishop, pouting exaggeratedly. “Come by when he frees you, Toni!”

No way in hell, she thought, but outside, she only smiled, waving and at the same time keeping some distance between herself and the mayor. He always had this weird vaporub smell attached to him, and while it wasn’t as fastidious as other things Toni was forced to smell, it wasn’t pleasant either.

“Captain Rogers, there you are,” said the Mayor, and Toni mentally rolled her eyes as the blond appeared.

Of course: Iron Queen and Captain America, her in a pretty dress, and him in his fancy green old time military suit, both of them standing with the Mayor. The photos were gonna be everywhere, and donations were going to be pouring in.

She was enough of a business woman to appreciate the strategy, even if she found it detestable.

Romanoff is on the phone with Director Fury as we speak. I believe they are keeping as close an eye on you as you are on them.

“Toni, hi,” said GI Joe, smiling at her. “You look wonderful.”

Great. Unfortunately for them, only one person has ever beaten me at chess, and he doesn’t work for SHIELD.

“You cut quite a figure yourself, Captain,” she said, lips parted in a playfully flirty smile that made the man blush.

Oh, this was going to be hell, wasn’t it?

+++

“Ok, I have to go,” said the Mayor, what felt like three hours later. “Have to prepare for my speech and all. But you two go ahead and mingle!”

“Thanks, we-”

“Are going to get a drink for a moment,” said Toni, cutting off Rogers. “Need to rest my feet for a bit. These heels were not my brightest idea today.”

“My wife complains about it all the time too,” said the man with a chuckle, and Toni laughed too as she watched him walk away.

“God, he’s insufferable,” she said as soon as he was out of earshot.

“He wasn’t that bad,” said Rogers, offering her his arm as he had been doing the entire time they had been walking around. “Would you like a drink?”

“Yes,” she said, pretending to not see as she started walking towards the bar. “Or several.”

Rogers and his stupidly long legs fell into step with her quicker than she would have preferred and she cursed his serum once more. The bane of her existence, that serum, truly.

“One scotch on the rocks, please,” she said, as soon as she sat down at the bar and the bartender appeared.  

“Sorry,” said Rogers, sitting down beside her.

Toni frowned at him. “About what?”

Rogers nodded in the general direction of where the crowd was, more than one of them unashamedly staring at the two of them. “The pony show, out there. I know you don’t like it much.”

“What, you saw that in the footage too?” she questioned, one eyebrow raised as her drink was put down in front of her. “Was it a dossier or did you get a powerpoint presentation? Oh, please tell me Fury presented. Did you get to grade him?”

“Can we start again?” asked Rogers, looking at her halfway between embarrassed and annoyed. “I know I was not exactly nice to you the first time around. In fact, I was downright rude. SHIELD painted a picture of you that I can now see wasn’t quite true.”

“Did they get my eyes wrong? People do it all the time, it’s annoying. My eyes are not just brown, they are-”

“I’m sorry for acting like a jackass towards you, the first time around,” interrupted Rogers, giving her his best impression of a golden retriever. He was actually being honest, wasn’t that a nice surprise. “I did not know you and you were right, I had too many assumptions and presumptions for someone who was an ‘icicle mere weeks before’.”

Toni hummed, crossing her arms around her chest as she took her glass. “That’s true.” She tilted her head to the side when he kept staring at her, expectantly. 

I believe he’s expecting an apology back, Miss.

Oh, really.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to apologise too,” she then said, scoffing. “Because you’ll be waiting for a cold day in hell.”

Rogers’ eyebrow twitched, and then he shook his head, a little bit amused. “No, no. So: truce?”

“I didn’t know we were beefing,” she admitted, before reluctantly accepting the hand offered. “But, sure. Truce.”

Solid grip. He was warm to the touch, but not as warm as Thor.

She let go of his hand quickly.

“I’ve seen what you’ve been doing to help the city, all of the reconstructions,” he continued as she sipped her drink. “You are a really impressive dame, Toni.”

“Alright, no need to start brown-nosing,” she said, rolling her eyes.

He frowned, confused. “Brown nosing? What does it mean?”

“Aw,” she cooed. “This truce might be your worst idea in a while, Captain. I’m going to absolutely ruin you.”

Wouldn’t that be a trip?

Was your double entendre on purpose, Miss?

What double- Ah crap.

Rogers appeared flustered at her words, and Toni focused back on her drink, pretending not to notice. This was what happened when you were fluent in innuendos; you started speaking in them without even realising.

“Perhaps-”

“Captain Rogers,” came a woman’s voice, cutting them off. A pretty woman Toni didn’t recognise was standing a little away from them, blushing and looking at Steve hopefully. “If you’re not too busy, could I perhaps have a dance? With you?”

Mrs Matilda Roy, she is the newly wedded wife of Mr Roy of Roy Enterprises. You do not care for her nor her husband, but you sent them a gift basket for their wedding.

I did?

Yourself and Stark Industries.

“Well, I-” started the well meaning boy scout, and Toni grinned, putting down her glass for a moment. 

“Of course he doesn’t mind, Matilda,” she said, patting his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Captain. I’ll be safe by myself for a while. You go dance with Mrs Roy, have fun!”

“Right,” said the Captain, glancing between Toni and Convenient Distraction with a pinched expression. Then he smiled at the second with a little bit more conviction, offering her his arm. “Ma’am.”

“Ma’am,” repeated the woman, giggling slightly as she possessively took his arm. “Thank you, Toni!”

“Have fun,” said Toni, watching them go for a second before taking another drink out of her glass and signalling for the bartender to top her off.

Incoming, warned JARVIS, seconds later.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” asked a voice as the chair Rogers had vacated was once more occupied. “Getting drunk at such an event?”

“Russians aren’t the only people capable of holding their liquor,” said Toni, not glancing at her. “No need to worry your pretty head about it.”

“No need to worry?” asked Romanoff, sounding almost amused. Toni did not think she was amused. “Considering SHIELD nearly went belly up and half of our budget was suddenly cut off, and we are still struggling to recover, I think that there is plenty of things to worry about, when you are involved, Miss Stark. Don’t glare, camera on your six.”

“I’m not glaring,” said Toni, turning to grin at her. “This smile is 100% genuine. This news delights me.”

“I don’t know what your problem with SHIELD is,” said Romanoff, keeping her features relaxed. To any onlooker, it’d have looked like two friends having a nice conversation. “We are all on the same side.”

“Are we?” wondered Toni. “I am here alone with only my bodyguard, really, to cover me. I have a couple of weapons on me, just in case, and I’m doing as well as I can to help the city rebuild. Meanwhile SHIELD sneaked 9 undercover agents as waiters that I can see out here, and they have done all they could to slink down in the shadows as soon as Thor and Loki were gone, doing nothing to help or ready themselves for a possible second coming attack.”

“There are 11 agents on the floor, you are getting sloppy, Stark,” corrected Romanoff, smirking. “And there is not going to be a second Invasion.”

13 agents on the floor.

“You are stupid if you think so, and I said 9 undercover as waiters, I did not say the total of agents on the floor was eleven,” she said, taking her glass with a triumphant smile. “Loki said that there would be.”

“Unlike you, SHIELD is not so willing to believe the words of an alien criminal who had no official trial on Earth and who we were not even able to fully prove was mentally coerced into the attack,” answered the spider, taking a glass from a passing by agent-waiter. “All we know is what you have told us. And I’m sorry, but you are not the sanest or most trustworthy of sources. Considering your breakdown after the Invasion, and whatnot.”

Toni refused to show that the dig had landed. Yes, PTSD was nothing to be ashamed of, yes. But allowing SHIELD to see a weakness in her? That  was something to be ashamed of.

“Why do I need you to listen to me anyway?” countered Toni, with a shrug. “You have less credibility than the postal office at this point. You are the laughing stock of the intelligence community; it’s embarrassing.”

“I mean, beggars can’t be choosers,” pointed out Romanoff. “The military sure does not seem eager to back you up, do they?”

Damn her.

What are the chances that SHIELD is actively undermining my credibility?

Low, but not zero. I shall look into it.

“Beggars can be choosers when the choice is SHIELD. You couldn’t even manage the measly task of infiltrating my company, and you want me to trust you when it comes to planetary defence?”

“Or just the Avengers,” said the red head, shrugging delicately. “Considering we are up for medals, it’s clear we did something right.”

“First of all, Avengers and SHIELD are synonyms. Second, I’m not on the team.”

“Ah,” she agreed. “But does the media know that? The Mayor invited you to an event dedicated to the Avengers.”

“He did not use that name. He used the individual call signs that were given during the press conferences.”

Rushmanoff smiled, and Toni wondered if the cameras would be able to see it for what it was. “I don’t think that makes much difference to them,” she said, sweetly enough. Toni sort of wanted to shoot her again. “According to them we are a team, and you and I are best friends. You know, as the only two women in a boy’s club.”

Agent Romanoff is, unfortunately, correct. According to a recent poll, more than 67,21% of the world and of the US is under the belief that you are an Avenger and/or on the team.

Damn it.

“If you wanted to be my friend, you wouldn’t have come in that ugly beige dress. It washes you out, hon.”

“Really?” said Romanoff, looking unimpressed. “Is this what we’re going to resort to?”

“That was bad, I concede,” agreed Toni, grimacing. “I get catty at galas.”

“Look at us,” said Romanoff, smiling like a snake again. “Becoming friends.”

“I’d still rather adopt a live black widow than do that.” 

“Do you promise?”

“Throw off your attempts at getting Rogers to like me, and you’ve got a deal.”

Romanoff’s smile was almost genuine. “That was the second plan, at SHIELD. To trust in your inability to not jump at any handsome guy in your vicinity. But we didn’t have to lift a finger. Rogers decided to get a crush on you all by himself.”

Wasn’t that just great?

“Why, aren’t you happy, Stark? Not many girls can say that Captain America has a crush on them. Only one girl, really, and she’s in hospital succumbing to dementia.”

“Despite your best attempts, we are still not girlfriends, Rushmanoff,” told her Toni, ignoring the mention of Carter completely. 

The red head shrugged. “I told Fury this would never work. I don’t like you, and you dislike me back. But he insisted.”

“Listening to men? Very not Black Widow like of you. Aren’t you ashamed?”

Another convenient distraction approaching.

“I don’t think either of us has ever had a problem with shame,” said Natashalie, glancing at the cut of Toni’s dress. It was a gorgeous Dolce & Gabbana red piece, short (barely knee length) in the front and long in the back.

“This is classy,” protested Toni, uncrossing her legs.

“Incredibly so,” agreed a voice, and Toni was already smiling as she looked up at the man now standing beside her. 

“Hey, Simba,” she said, finally feeling something other than the annoyance she had felt since she had stepped out of her car.

“Toni,” he said, taking her free hand in his and kissing the back of it. “Looking lovely as usual.”

“You clean up nice too,” she answered, making a show of admiring his fine golden blazer and the fitting trousers. “Who are we here to impress, Cha-Cha?”

“Cannot have you outdoing me,” he said, shrugging with some amusement. He glanced at Rushmanoff, who was watching them both with her usual poker face. “Want to introduce me?”

“Does anyone want to see the Mayor pole dancing on the bar table?” she answered, standing up. 

“I don’t know, there are people who might find him appealing,” pointed out T’Challa, as she pulled him towards the dance floor. “His wife, maybe?”

“She’s cheating on him with the secretary, so I very much doubt it,” said Toni, coming to a stop a few steps later. “Now stop being a smartass and dance with me.”

“Bold words, coming from you,” he answered, even as he complied. “Chances that we make it to the front page?”

“You know, not that high. On one side, scoop scoop, rekindling of romance between the Prince of Wakanda and Toni Stark! On the other side, Iron Queen, symbol of the future, and Captain America, relic from the past, walking around with him being all sort of gentlemanly. Prince of an unknown African country, superhero with blond hair and blue eyes, eh... sorry, don’t like your chances on this one.”

“Drats,” said T’Challa, and Toni snickered. 

Despite the fact that they texted and spoke to one another often enough, she had missed T’Challa.

Toni and T’Challa had first met during a kidnapping back when she was in her early twenties. It had been, quite honestly, the first time Toni had been kidnapped by accident. The people there hadn’t been there for her, just for the young Wakandan prince, who they had mistaken Erik for. Toni had been convenient collateral, in their minds.

Unfortunately for them, Toni and Erik all knew how to get out of a kidnapping pretty easily, and by the time the T'Challa, Dora Milaje and their fancy Vibranium weapons had gotten there, Toni was free and had learnt a lot about the secret country.

King T’Chaka had not been sold on her, at first, what with her ‘past’. However, considering the fact that Erik lived in America and sort of considered himself American, Toni had kept contact with both of them. By the time she and T’Challa had started dating, sometime 2004, Toni had had something like the man’s blessing.

She still did not get to visit Wakanda that often, because of who she was and the fact that not everyone in the country liked her, but they did see each other a lot, outside the country’s borders.

He smiled more gently at her. “I have missed you too,” he said, pulling her a little closer.

Toni allowed it, letting her head rest on his shoulder. He didn’t feel like Thor or Bruce did, but Toni could still feel the panther hidden inside of him. Unlike Hulk and the lightning inside of Thor, the panther was quiet and yet still watchful, and very clever.

Had he never told her about his past time gig as Black Panther of Wakanda, she would have still figured it out.

She wasn’t sure exactly of how one became Black Panther (another secret a foreigner wasn't allowed to know), but considering the super soldier stamina and increased healing abilities, she wondered if that was something about every super soldier serum - that hidden beast, that hidden thing inside.

Captain Patriotism, she hadn’t felt anything from him other than the deaths he had caused through his life. Was that the proof of Erskine’s super serum’s success? It didn’t cause a split in one’s mind and inside them?

She had doubts. 

Then again, she had not paid much attention to Rogers in general.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“Don’t get cheap on me now,” complained Toni, lifting her head once more. “My thoughts are worth their weight in gold.”

“Yes, but now that we aren’t dating anymore, I don’t need to bother,” he pointed out, smirking. “I can be as cheap as I want now.”

“One, so rude,” she said, trying not to smile. “Two, speaking of dating...”

“Ugh,” said T’Challa, grimacing. “You sound like my mother, now.”

“Ramonda’s a lovely woman, that’s a compliment in my books,” she told him, shrugging. “But come on. I didn’t want to ask over text in case you tried to run away from the convo, but now you’re right where I want you, in my arms. What happened with you and Nakia?”

T’Challa sighed. “The same thing that happened with you and me,” he admitted, after a couple of seconds, twirling her around. “Apparently I have a thing for women who are free and unconquerable, which is very awkward when we have the conversation about ‘where is this relationship going?’ and they admit they will never want to be shackled by the responsibility of being the future Queen of Wakanda.”

“Yikes,” she said, squeezing his arm a little bit. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Eh,” he answered, doing a bad job at appearing unbothered. “I sort of saw it coming, this time around. And she and I didn’t date nearly as long as you and I did.”

“I know,” she agreed, catching his eyes. “Still. I’m sorry.”

He smiled. “Thanks. What about you?”

Toni frowned at him. “What about me?”

“You are doing a great job at pretending you are relaxed and completely at ease, but that’s clearly not the case,” he said, catching her eyes when she tried to look away. “Something is clearly up with you. What is it?”

Oh, where did she start?

“Not the sort of conversation we can have here, with SHIELD spies around and minutes before I’m supposed to go on that stage and accept a medal,” she said, sighing. “How about we talk about this later? When are you leaving?”

“In two days.”

“Reconvene at mine tomorrow or after this whole circus is done?”

T’Challa nodded. “I’ll be holding you on to that,” he said, as they resumed dancing with more ease than before. “Now let’s show this crowd what real dancing looks like.”

“As you wish, my Prince,” she answered, winking while he laughed.

She truly had missed him.

Chapter Text

The thing was, T’Challa was not actually the sort of guy Toni usually dated.

She wouldn’t say that she had a type, per se. 

Rhodey would, though.

And Rhodey would also say that T’Challa was not her usual type.

T’Challa was kind and, according to Rhodey, considering her relationships before and after him, Toni did not date people who were kind.

Her ex partners had not been mean, or even particularly rude. Toni would not have stayed with them if they had been, she did have some self respect.

But if she had been asked to describe them with ten adjectives, none of the relationships she had had before dating T’Challa had been with people she would have described as ‘kind’.

And she also had to admit that after their first meeting, she had honestly expected herself to end up in bed with his meaner but charming cousin, not him.

When she had gone on that first date with him, Toni had done so with some doubts about the entire thing. Because he was so nice and she was... not.

She wasn’t as much of a mess as she was nowadays, but she also knew who she was, and she knew she wasn’t someone who was easy to deal with. Her and T’Challa wouldn’t have worked in the long run, that was something she had been sure of since the beginning.

But she had conceded, because she wasn’t blind and he was gorgeous, and Toni did not like the idea of adding to her already many regrets by telling him no.

It was one of the best ideas she had had since the beginning of the Millennium, she’d hazard to say. 

Because while she had worried that his kindness would make him and the date boring, it didn’t. 

She had genuine fun hanging out with him, much more fun that she’d have thought possible. They had talked, bantered, joked and laughed with each other, and Toni had been surprised when they were done with dessert and apparently three hours had gone by.

Even more so when she had realised she didn’t want this date to end, just yet, and it had nothing to do with wanting to have sex with a very handsome man and then never seeing him again.

Their relationship might have been a little complicated because of Wakanda’s whole secret thing, but between the two of them? It had been almost ridiculously easy.

Being kind did not make T’Challa a pushover, and he never let her push him around unless he wanted it too. He had been raised a prince, he knew how to navigate the political world when necessary, even though he did not particularly enjoy it. He could be dangerous and threatening when it was necessary, could be a shark if the world demanded it of him, and Toni could not legally go into detail about how not nice he could be in bed, when asked.

But he also bought her flowers from the other side of the globe because they had reminded him of her, he went out with her at 5* restaurants and hole in the wall places she had never heard of, and he accepted her expensive gifts without blinking or crying about the price (and in turn showered her with expensive gifts of his own). 

A real life Prince Charming.

Toni had loved him a whole lot. 

Had he never been the Crown Prince of Wakanda, had he not spoken to her about the future and asked her about the possibility of her being a Queen at his side, had either of them been willing to walk away from their responsibilities, then maybe...

“Why are you staring at me like that?” asked T’Challa, looking up at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Admiring the view,” she answered, smiling impishly at him when he rolled his eyes at her. “You’re very pretty, Simba.”

Oh, well. Things had gone the way they had gone, and now they were back to being friends. Toni was grateful for that too.

They made good friends.

“That we all already know,” he agreed, taking a sip of his drink and watching her carefully. “What we don’t know is what is up with you, lately. Seriously,” he said, before she could deflect or cut him off with a joke (damn it, he knew her too well), “You haven’t been yourself, lately. Even when you call or when you text, I can tell that there’s something wrong that you’re not telling me. What is it?”

Toni sighed, tapping her nails against the table. “I’d have an easier time telling you what was right.”

T’Challa shrugged, looking at her seriously. “I’d listen.”

He would.

“Everything,” she started, staring at her nails rhythmically tapping on the desk. “Nothing is going the way it’s supposed to go, and it’s been driving me crazy. For the past five months I’ve been trying to get people to listen to me about what I saw on the other side of the portal, working with Doctor Foster, mostly, to try and figure out how we can make sure next time the aliens come we are prepared.

“But it’s like nobody is listening to me. I might as well be talking to the wind. The military is all but ignoring me, and the few people listening are proposing crazy ideas that they have to know I’d never willingly stand behind. If I thought that was all we needed, I would make the weapons. I have my morals, but I also want us to not die. But it’s not all we need, and they won’t listen. 

“SHIELD is an uncomfortable object insertion in my life, even after all the lube I’ve been using to get them out. They are worse than cockroaches and, no matter how much anti insect spray I use, I still don’t know who in the organisation ordered the hit on my father.

“My... sixth sense thing, it’s gotten way stronger, lately, which is not preferable. I used to have a sort of handle on it, but now I feel like it’s made me his bitch, and we both know I’ve never been anyone’s bitch. And then there is Thor and Loki...”

Thor and Loki.

“I don’t know. I thought they were going to come back, eventually. I thought they were going to at least find a way to communicate with us again, but they haven’t. The Bifrost is closed, sure, but now they have the Tesseract. Couldn’t they use it to communicate with us? Don’t they have some sort of cool ass space phone or something to communicate with us? Even ET had something. I don’t know.

“I didn’t expect to miss them as much as I am. I don’t understand how we managed to bond so quickly, why something about them just immediately felt comfortable. But we did, and it did, and now they are on a completely different planet and I... miss them.” She looked up at T’Challa, who was watching her quietly, and snorted. “We barely knew each other for a week. I know psych say something about attachment forged on the battlefield or something, but it’s not even that. I just... I don’t know. I don’t understand this sudden attachment. I just... I don’t know.”

“Hm,” said T’Challa, watching as she took a sip of her drink. 

Whoever lied and said that you’d feel liberated and like a ‘weight was off your shoulders’ when you shared your feelings with a friend was a hack and needed to be sued, because Toni did not feel free.

“You haven’t been sleeping, have you?”

Toni snorted, swallowing a mouthful of iced coffee. “Is it that obvious?”

“Nah,” said T’Challa. “No black eyes or anything as telling as that. I just know you. Nightmares?”

Nightmares.

If only it was just that. 

“What I saw, on that other side...” she started, hand clenching around the cup. “It... It made me feel... a little off kilter. It...”

“Scared you,” finished T’Challa. Toni did not say anything, so he spoke again. “The armada?”

He didn’t seem to doubt her words at all.

It was nice to have someone else who didn’t.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “The armada was scary, absolutely. Shitting your pants, type of scary. But there was more, out there. I didn’t see it, not my own two eyes, but still... I felt it. There is something out there that is much more dangerous than we know, much more powerful and...”

It wants me.

“It’s been giving me nightmares since the Invasion,” she finished, not ready to finish her sentence. “It’s awful.”

“Sleeping pills?” 

Toni shook her head. “Don’t do shit to me.”

She had built an immunity to them not too long after her parents had died, and now was suffering for it.

Another thing to blame SHIELD for.

“Why don’t you come to Wakanda, for a while?” then asked T’Challa, taking her hand in his. “Come away from New York and its terrible cold. I don’t think New York and the Tower, where the attack happened, are conductive to your mental health. Maybe, unconsciously, you don’t feel safe here.”

“Uh,” said Toni, thoughtfully. “Maybe. But-”

“It would be fine,” he reassured, squeezing her hand. “Second, what exactly are you waiting for?”

Toni frowned at him. “What?”

“You are Toni Stark,” he said, one eyebrow raised. “You know what you saw. I believe you, and I’m absolutely going to help you. You know my dad would listen to you.

“But you are Toni Stark. You are basically Royalty in the US, but you are renowned everywhere. The US military won’t listen to you, and you’re just going to allow that? You are just going to wait for them to call you back like you don’t have a host out there of people who would do virtually anything for a chance to be seen working with you and having your approval?

“The US might be scared, but you know who’s more scared? The rest of the world, who doesn’t have a readily assembled team of so-called Avengers to save them if aliens decide to invade their cities next. The rest of the world, who would wonder how long it would take for Iron Queen to fly to South Africa and save them from doom.

“Contrary to popular belief, the US is not the centre of the world, and they are not the only people that need to be ready. And the rest of the world might actually listen to you.”

Toni stared at him, for a moment speechless. 

Because T’Challa was right. How had she not even paused to think about all of this? Just because Loki attacked New York did not mean he would do the same, next time he came. After all, Loki had started in Germany. It had been Loki’s own attempts at getting their attention that had brought them to Stuttgart on time.

Someone else would not have done that.

“I really need to sleep more,” she decided, running a hand through her hair and ignoring T’Challa’s chuckle. “Because how did I not think about that?”

“Americans are very self-centred,” said T’Challa, sniffing and then laughing when she punched his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, who is it that is hiding a mountain of technological advancement and rare metal-”

She cut herself off as the door of the other lab opened, both of them a little surprised to see Bruce walking out of it.

Who seemed equally as surprised to see the two of them, sitting in the small foyer with iced coffees.

Because of the whole Hulk business, Toni had ended up giving Bruce the spare lab on the floor where her personal lab was, which was two floors above her workshop. There was a foyer in front of the lab because, just like the workshop, not everyone was allowed in there.

And while Toni loved T’Challa, she was also a bit petty, and since she wasn’t allowed in Wakanda’s workshops and labs, he wasn’t allowed in hers. So when he had come to collect the conversation she had promised him, they had remained there in the foyer.  

JARVIS had told her that Bruce was back at the Tower, and she had known he was in his lab. But T'Challa's presence had managed to relax her enough that she had forgotten about him.

Damn his pantherness.

Bruce looked from Toni to T’Challa, forcing a small smile on his face. “Oh. I didn’t- hi. I’m Bruce. Doctor Banner. You’re Prince T’Challa. Hi.”

“And I’m Toni,” finished Toni, a little amused. “Since we’re doing introductions.”

“I wasn’t expecting you here,” protested Bruce, which was rich.

She lived here. He, on the other hand-

But T’Challa spoke before she could, smiling politely at Bruce. “Nice to meet you, Doctor Banner.”

“Yeah,” said Bruce, giving both of them a quick nod and another polite smile. “Hi. And bye.”

“Bye,” said Toni and T’Challa together, watching as he power walked out of there as quickly as he could.

T’Challa only turned to look at her again once the elevator doors had closed, one eyebrow raised. “So...” he started. “Doctor Bruce Banner.”

“Shut up,” said Toni, throwing a balled up piece of paper at his face.

He just laughed.

Her T'challa infused good mood did not last that long.

It lasted up until May sent her a message asking her to send Peter home, and Toni had to spend twenty seconds panicking about having potentially lost Peter somewhere in the Tower.

Just for JARVIS to tell her that, “Mr Parker arrived at the Tower half an hour after Prince T’Challa left, and has been on Doctor Banner’s floor since.”

Like it was no big deal.

It was a big deal, no matter what JARVIS thought.

So now here she was, on the floor Bruce was staying at and that she hadn’t stepped in since he had allegedly moved in, waving Peter goodbye and ignoring how tense Bruce was at her side.

“Can I come tomorrow, Miss Stark?” asked the boy, stopping the elevator from closing and giving her his best puppy eyes.

They were very powerful, but Toni had experience against them.

“Ask May,” she said, forcing a smile on her face, “And then tell her to call me. We’ll go from there. I might praise you for them, but I’m not enabling loopholes from you.”

He pouted at her, but Toni knew him better than he would have liked her to, and did not fall for it. She kept smiling until he let the elevator doors close and finally left.

“He was-” started Bruce, but Toni didn’t let him finish, rounding on him.

“Alright,” she said, expression serious. “What the hell is your endgame here?”

Weapons in position.

Bruce blinked at her. “Excuse me?”

Again, unnecessary, but at this point do what you want.

“I don’t get it,” she said, gesticulating uselessly with her hands. “I don’t get what game you’re playing here, what you’re trying to prove. What are you trying to prove?”

“I’m not trying to prove anything,” said Bruce, looking slightly offended.

“Right,” said Toni, scoffing loudly. “So what, I’m just supposed to believe that you are here again in New York City, living inside my Tower and just existing alongside me because... what? You want to be here?”

Bruce looked confused and a little upset. “I thought you said you didn’t mind me being here,” he said, slowly. “You could have told me that it bothered you?”

“No, Mister,” said Toni, waving her finger in front of his face. “This is what we’re not about to do. I’m not going to be the evil lady you are going to blame for kicking you out of the city. Not this time.”

“Then I don’t understand what you are asking.”

Toni wanted to knock him out with a punch but she also did not want Hulk to misunderstand and be mad at her.

She liked Hulk.

“Peter is not a toy,” she settled for, in the end.

The offence returned. “I never said he was! Jesus, Toni, who do you think I am? Do you think I am that awful of a human being?”

“Peter is not a toy,” she repeated, ignoring his interruption. “He’s not something you can put down and pick up again when you feel like it. Right now, he sees you as this cool scientist he has liked for years, and that’s all he’s ever going to see you as.”

Bruce deflated as quickly as he had gotten worked up, Hulk settling back under his skin but still watching her. “I wasn’t planning on telling him anything,” he said, after a second of the both of them silently staring at her. “I wouldn't do that to you. What would I even tell him? There’s nothing to be told, between me and him. Or nothing that isn’t specifically science related.”

Toni had not realised how worried she had been about that until Bruce denied it and she felt no hint of a lie coming out of him. Her shoulders untensed and she sighed, running a hand through her hair.

“I know,” she conceded because deep inside? She had known Bruce would never do that. “I know. God, I’m being a bitch, aren’t I?”

Bruce’s silence was telling, and Toni chuckled at the pinched expression on his face.

“Fuck. How did we get here?”

“You came to find me while we were both depressed and sad about things, we got drunk and we made the terrible decision to sleep together,” he offered, and Toni snorted again.

Pretty much, really.

One single decision which had altered the course of her life forever.

“I still don’t understand why you’re here, though,” she admitted, putting a hand up before Bruce could get hurt again. “I don’t mind having you here. In fact, I could almost say... I enjoy having you around. You were the only person who I never had to slow down around in a lab.”

Bruce smiled melancholically. “Something about brain soulmates?”

She laughed. “Something like that, yeah,” she agreed, eyes turning fond. Then she focused again. “Even before you left left, you always used to up and leave. You’d disappear for a long time and I was the only one who ever managed to find you and bring you back. That was a thing you did: in fight or flight, you were the flight guy. When a complex situation arose, you fled. When you didn’t want to deal with something, you ran.”

“Is there a point to this?”

“Yes,” she said, just as seriously. “I used to have to run after you to get you to come back. That was our dynamic: you ran, I chased you and brought you back.

“I can’t run after you anymore,” she continued, shaking her head. “I have no intention to chase you around anymore. But you are not waiting for me to chase you, now. You are coming back yourself. And I don’t understand why. I don’t get what you’re coming back for. Who are you coming back for?”

Bruce’s eyes were filled with a deep intensity when he finally focused on her, a half sad smile on his face. It wasn’t Hulk, right now. Just Bruce, looking at her like he had always looked at her.

Toni kept her eyes fixed on him as he moved towards her, kept her eyes on his as he put both hands at each of her sides and looked at her deeply in the eyes.

Miss? Should I do something?

“Who am I coming back for?” he asked, voice low, expression sad. “Do you really have to ask?”

She did not move when he put a hand on her cheek, uncertain if she should kick him in the nuts now or not. He was far closer than he needed to be.

I can knock him out without causing any harm Miss, if you want him to stop touching you.

Bruce smelled of jasmine, and he was close enough Toni could see all the pores on his face.

If he got any closer, Toni wasn’t sure-

“JARVIS, of course,” said Bruce, in that same sad voice. It took Toni half a second to register his words, long enough for him to duck and avoid the punch she had been aiming at his shoulder.

“Dick!” she complained, trying to not smile at his terrible behaviour. She hated him so much.

She had missed him so much.

The feeling is not mutual, said JARVIS, no longer sounding alarmed but still a little irritated in face of Bruce’s attempt at fake flirting.

“I’m not coming back for you,” said Bruce, when they both calmed down. Toni glanced at him, and he made a face. “Or maybe I am. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m not coming back because I have any sort of romantic feelings for you. I don’t, not anymore. I care about you, of course I do. And part of me will always love you, no matter what. But...”

“Yeah,” agreed Toni, also smiling. “Yeah.”

Maybe once upon a time.

Maybe in a different Universe.

Not here, however. Not anymore.

“Peter?” she then asked, looking at him a little more seriously than before. “You’ve never struck me as the paternal type.”

“I’m not,” said Bruce, shaking his head. “I don’t really think of him like that. Because... well, he isn’t, you know? Not in any way that truly counts. He is an interesting kid, and he’s funny, and he’s clever as a whip. But I don’t know him, and he doesn’t me, and I’m not sure I want to... He’s not... he’s not.”

He was not.

“Yeah,” she said again.

She had accepted it long ago, far longer ago than Bruce had. It was what it was, and Toni understood it. Did not wish that things were different, not anymore.

It had been twelve years since she had made her decision, and she stuck by it.

She did.

"If you ever decided to find out and tell him, and it turned out to be me? I would answer all of his questions and everything. But I couldn't be his father. I wasn't, I'm not, and I'm never going to be."

Toni was no planning to find out any time soon, but she still nodded.

She knew what he meant.

“Look, Toni,” then said Bruce. When she looked over at him again, he was looking back at her, much more seriously than before. “If you don’t want me here, I won’t come back. No, wait, let me say my piece,” he said, when she opened her mouth. She obediently zipped it back together and threw the keys away, which made him sigh fondly. “I somewhat assumed I managed to convey this earlier, but it appears I did not.

“The first time, you were right. I had not planned on coming back after leaving. I had planned on saying goodbye to New York and just hoped that the next time aliens showed up, I wasn’t going to be kidnapped from Calcutta again.”

Toni did not do anything as childish or silly as gloat or shout ‘I told you so’ to the wind.

She was too grown for that.

I was right! She instead sent to JARVIS, who ignored her completely.

“I came back because I was worried about you,” he admitted. “You can take care of yourself, I know this very well. You took care of yourself pretty well, these last twelve years, and it’s not like I could ever truly help you in anything. But seeing you like I did, the day after Loki and Thor left...” he shook his head. 

Toni had never noticed how interesting the walls in that room were. Very wall like, really. 

Shocking.

“It worried me. The entire time in Canada, part of me just couldn’t stop worrying. And Hulk, I’m pretty sure he had some nightmares about you too. About not catching you in time, about not managing to save you.”

“Aw,” said Toni, smiling. “The Green Kong really loves me.”

“Didn’t you zip your mouth shut?”

Toni stick out her tongue at him.

“But yes, he does,” continued Bruce, nodding. “And every time I feel too trapped, every time I feel like I have to leave, it’s not long before my conscious and him both drag me right back to you. Fighting yourself is kind of hard.”

“You should stop fighting and just listen to Hulk,” she informed him, nodding decidedly. “Seven PHDs or not, he clearly knows better.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled, but Toni did not miss the slightest flash of green in his eyes, as he sat down on the couch. Hulk had heard her.

“So no more fighting and accusing each other of things?”

Toni huffed, dropping on the couch beside him. “I’ll do my best to act like an adult from now on. Scout’s honour.”

“You were never a scout.”

“I had all the cookies.”

“Which you bought from the scouts.”

“Which makes me honorary.”

“Name one scout rule.”

“No littering.”

“... That’s on me, I set the bar too low,” said Bruce, huffing slightly. He rolled his eyes at Toni’s smug smile, and then offered his real, awkward one. 

It felt like a fresh start.

“Miss, you have been up for over 32 hours already,” said JARVIS, sounding faintly disapproving.

“Yes, I am aware of this.”

“You promised Prince T’Challa before he left that you would at least try to sleep.”

Toni did vaguely remember making that promise, yes. And she was going to honour it, eventually. She wasn’t one for breaking promises.

But the solution to her sleeping problem was somewhere she was not that excited to visit quite so soon, to be honest.

“And my dad promised me he’d be at my birthday party when I was five, and instead went to try and fish for Captain Americas in the Arctic,” she reminded him, adding something on the page. “People lie, J.”

“You taught me that lies are bad.”

“That was another lie,” she said, clicking the screen in front of her. “So it’s not MI5, and it’s not Scotland Yard.”

“Indeed,” agreed the AI, bringing up another screen for her. JARVIS knew thankfully when a fight was simply not worth having. “Which only leaves a handful of statistically unlikely active and unknown organisations who might have infiltrated SHIELD.”

It was driving Toni a little nuts, still not knowing what fancy bastards had managed to infiltrate Fury and Carter’s little farce of an Intelligence Organisation.

Pepper liked to say Toni hyper fixated on things so that she did not have to deal with the real world, but Pepper was wrong. Toni just liked fixing problems, and she disliked moving on from things until her problem was completely fixed.

“Run the statistically unlikely and unknown too,” she said, eventually, fixing her robe. “Expect the unexpected. Sometimes it’s those that you would never suspect that cause the most trouble. Is my bath ready?”

“Right away, Miss, and yes. 36 degrees Celsius, as you prefer."

"And this is why I love you."

"Noted. And speaking of expecting the expected, Mr Rogers has sent you a message. He wants to-”

“Handle it,” said Toni, impatiently. She did not want to be cruel, but she also did not want to fuel his fantasies or let him go on with his infatuation any longer than was necessary. The quicker he worked it out for himself that it was never gonna happen, the better for everyone involved. She wanted a bath and a chance to simply forget all the yet unsolved problems in front of her, and she would prefer it if Steve Rogers was not part of said unsolved problems. “Where are Darcy and Jane? Still out?”

“Yes. Miss Lewis told me to inform you that you are very much invited, and that you would make her day if you came.”

“Let me think, a nice hot bath with that African repens extract that Simba brought me or a crowded room with people ten or more years younger than me, that smells of beer and filled with drugs... 21 years old me might be unsure of the answer, but I am not. No thank you, I think I will get a bottle of wine and get into that bath.”

“Sounds festive.”

“Hey, it’s still September and I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving anyway. I think, actually-”

Toni’s next words were not cut off because of the orange portal that suddenly opened in her living room.

She was used to orange portals that suddenly opened in her living room.

Toni’s next words were cut off because of the man who walked through the portal.

The man who walked through, seemingly as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

“Uh,” he said, blinking. “I did not expect for you to be waiting here when I walked through.”

Toni kept staring.

“Loki?!”

Chapter Text

There was a doorbell, on the door of the New York Sanctum now.

There didn’t use to be a doorbell, on the door of the New York Sanctum. 

Last time Toni had been around, there hadn’t been one. 

Normally Toni would show up and the door of the Sanctum would automatically open for her, or she would knock twice and someone would come.

But now there was a doorbell.

Toni continued to stare at it. 

She supposed that you could consider the doorbell as a metaphor of some sort. Change? Nothing ever remaining the same? The inevitability of the unrelenting seasons? The unyielding passage of time? The fleetingness of the present?

Or maybe Toni was just tired and sleep deprived enough that her boarding school English Literature knowledge was coming back to haunt her mind.

Which was why she was here to begin with, she thought, finally shaking herself and pressing the doorbell without further ado.

Though, for once, her tiredness was not completely her fault.

+++

“Loki?” said Toni, staring at the man standing in front of her in disbelief. “What are you... how are you... what?!”

Loki looked vaguely amused at her expression, and then disapproving. “A portal opened inside of your living quarters, a portal that you didn’t know the source of, and this is how you approach it? Without weapons or armour, only wearing what I believe is a bathing robe, and while holding a bottle of wine? Why aren't you wielding the dagger I gifted you? I could have killed you ten times over.”

“You couldn’t have if you tried,” she said, putting down the bottle so that she could continue to gape in shock. “Loki, what the fuck? Where did you get a sling ring from and... you know what, I don’t care about your illegal dealings. You’re back? You’re fine? Everything worked out?”

Loki made another complicated expression, before he settled down on Toni’s couch as if he owned it. Normally she would have made her opinion on this known, but right now Toni did not have time for her usual quips.

The portal was still open, and she ignored how much she wanted to peek or walk through it, instead plopping down beside him, close enough that their legs were touching.

She could feel his magic, she suddenly realised. Much more clearly than she had when he had been around the first time. Stronger, like a crackling green fire sending sparks and turning into mist all around them. And it still, even though it was sparkling and fiery, it was cold. A cold that burned more than fire ever could, that should for all intents and purposes hurt but that instead felt strangely... comforting.

It was... nice.

Loki looked at their legs for a second, but right as Toni thought he was going to push her off and undo all of the progress they had made in the few days they had together before he went off to space prison, he turned to look her in the eyes. “Your advice did not completely hinder the process of my trial on Asgard. Do not gloat, now, it is unbecoming.”

“I’m not gloating,” she lied, a grin breaking on her face. “I am just glad that you too are learning the lesson I’ve imprinted on Thor. The lesson being that things just go much easier when you stop questioning me and just do as I say, because I’m always right and you should always listen to me.”

“You have imparted great a number of lessons on Thor in a matter of days, with that I agree,” said Loki, ignoring her tone and looking at her more thoughtfully. “He spoke on my behalf, during the trial. He told them of everything that happened on Midgard, including your involvement, and then helped me narrate my own troubles since I let go of the Bifrost. It stirred... more emotion than I thought possible from Odin.”

He sounded quite confused when he said that, eyebrows furrowed in a way that sort of reminded Toni of Peter when he was trying to solve a particularly complicated puzzle.

“Expectations versus reality?” 

“I do not wish to talk about Odin,” abruptly said Loki, ending the eye contact. “His actions trouble me, as they continue to not make sense, but I do not want to discuss them. Ask something different of me.”

“Were you guys put in prison, then?” wondered Toni, accepting the conversation change easily enough. She was a master of avoidance herself, and Thing One and Two’s fate had been the source of the majority of her worry, since they had disappeared via magic space rock. That she had gotten them into trouble by keeping them on Earth longer than they had been meant to stay. “Were you hurt?”

“No,” said Loki, and again he looked puzzled by this. “As soon as we were finished recounting our trials, Odin sent me to Lady Eir so that she could ensure my health. Her examination revealed that my magical core was injured, and gave further insight on the truth of my stay with the Master. Which I suppose helped corroborate my story.

“I was then sentenced to help rebuild the Bifrost and a number of other minor chores. But I did and do this with my title of Prince of Asgard still intact, and with the respect of my- the people. The Aesir seemed... gladdened by my return. Even Fandral looked pleased.”

“That’s... good, right?” said Toni, frowning slightly. “I feel like it’s good, but you are doing your pout of doom thing and I can’t be sure.”

“I am not pouting,” said Loki, glowering pouting at her.

“I’m sure you believe that,” said Toni, smiling politely and internally laughing at the way his glare sharpening. “And anyway, if you weren’t in prison, and you had the ring - which I’m assuming you stole - why did you stay away so long?”

Loki gave her a little mocking glance. “Why? Did you miss me, Antoinette Stark?”

Toni glared at him, hitting his shoulder with her own and pretending it did not feel like she had just hit a wall - the emo demigod might look lean in comparison to Thor, but he was weirdly built . “Yes, buttface. I was worried about you, and about Thor too. Neither of you checked in, and I kept thinking that the worst could have happened, or that I got you in more trouble than you were already in or that you were dead, or something equally or more nefarious. I’m not used to being the one ghosted.”

“Oh. I see,” said Loki, appearing surprised. “No, we were and still remain both all right. But as I have said, I am still helping rebuild the Bifrost, and the Tesseract is not for leisure travelling to Midgard. And while I did have this ring, which I acquired-”

“Stole-”

“From your sorcerer-”

“Not my sorcerer-”

“I couldn’t risk using it. At first, my core was too damaged for me to perform any magic. And once I was healed, I could not risk it. There has been an increased amount of attention on me since my return,” he admitted, now looking irritated. “From Heimdall, Thor, Frigga, the Aesir and even Odin himself. Everyone is asking after me, interacting with me, and all around finding reason and excuse to be around me.”

“Sounds awful,” said Toni, only half meaning it.

She had the feeling that while Loki wouldn’t admit it, he didn’t completely hate the sudden attention on him.

“I am not even sure of what they fear or want,” he admitted, still glaring at the air. “Mother found a way of sending the Mind Stone to Vanaheim, and it is not as if I am planning on jumping off the bridge again. It is all very odd, they almost act as if they...”

Care, finished Toni in her mind.

She knew better than to say it out loud, however.

“What about right now?” she asked instead. “Why are you here now?”

Loki puffed up. “If you wish that I leave, I-”

“Hold your horses, Jenny Humphrey,” said Toni, rolling her eyes. “I mean how did you evade your paparazzi?”

“For fear of aggravating the injury on my magical core, they have chosen against binding my magic,” he explained, after giving her a suspicious glance. “Thus, I had access to my magic, and have been practising a way of fooling the many eyes on me at all times without fully disappearing from their sights.”

“Smart,” said Toni, nodding. She ignored the way she could feel his magic... poking? It felt as if it was poking, his magic poking her. “How’d you manage that?”

“You wish to know?” questioned Loki, head tilted curiously.

“Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t,” she said, shrugging. “The only other magic I’ve ever tried to figure out was the magic the Sorcerers of Kamar Taj use, and that has been, in so far, a complete failure. I know nothing about your or Asgard’s magic, and I’m curious. Like, what is your magic trying to do to me right now? Because while alien poking and probing is hot, you are really not my type.”

“You can feel that?” wondered Loki, sounding half surprised and half embarrassed. “Oh. My apologies. My seidr... well, this is not currently relevant. And I do not find you appealing either.”

“Lies, everyone wants me,” said Toni, waving him off. Loki’s disgusted expression at her words was both amusing and insulting, but she ignored it for the time being. “Are you going to explain your magic?”

“Perhaps another time when I am not trying to fool my entire planet,” said Loki, shaking his head slightly. “Now, do tell. Why do you look like this?”

“You say the sweetest things to me,” said Toni, pinching his cheek and snickering when Loki slapped her hand away, looking appalled at the gesture. “And I’m fine.”

“I did not ask you for how you were, but your answer seems to imply that you are not, in fact, fine.” Loki glanced her up and down and then gave her another one of his judging looks. “May I venture a suggestion that you are perhaps not coping as well as one might wish, with what you saw on the other side of the portal?”

“What’s the point of having All-Speak if you’re going to speak like you are about to launch into a soliloquy about why your wife just died, MacBeth?”

“And now you attempt to deflect from the conversation with a rather poor understanding of Shakespeare’s work,” said Loki, vaguely amused. “Which I suppose is fine, as I too do not wish to speak of what is out there.”

Toni frowned at him. “You should talk to someone about it. It’s not healthy for you to keep stuff bottled up inside of you like this.”

“Why do you preach what you do not follow?”

“I’m older than you, do as I say, and not as I do.”

Loki gave her a disbelieving look. “Antoinette, you are 37 years of age. I am over a thousand. In what Realm are you older than I?”

“Well, I don’t have an answer to that,” she admitted, pouting. “I suppose I-”

Loki suddenly jumped to his feet, glancing at the portal and letting out a swear word in Norse. “I have to go, Moth- the All-Mother is at my door.”

“Already?” asked Toni, trying to not sound too disappointed. “Again, not used to being the one dumped after a date. I guess, you have to-”

“Yes,” he said, quickly moving towards the portal. He stopped right on the threshold, and turned to glance at her. His face turned complicated for a moment, before he sighed. “The Bifrost’s completion is near, but now that I know this works, I shall endeavour to return soon. Perhaps next time we shall have a better chance to converse about what truly matters.” 

Then the portal closed, making sure Loki disappeared before Toni could say anything.

So dramatic.

It felt like a promise, however, and Toni couldn’t help the smile from appearing on her face.

+++

After her talk with Loki, Toni hadn’t been able to sleep, despite the warm bath. She had finished her entire bottle of wine in one sitting without feeling in the slightest bit buzzed, which sort of supported Loki’s claim about her not being as okay as she pretended to be.

Of course, she was never planning on letting him know this.

The door of the Sanctum opened, and Toni flashed her media smile when she came across-

“Wong?” she said, blinking in slight surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too, Ella,” said Wong, bypassing the surprise and fully opening the door for her. “What brings you by, for the first time in over two years?”

“Stop milking it,” she complained, following him inside, hands in her pockets. 

Toni liked the Sanctum. It was old and creaky and loud in places and quiet in others, and it reminded her of JARVIS, sometimes. Which was weird, when claims were that the Sanctum was in no way ‘sentient’ or ‘aware’.  

Just magic.

Toni called bullshit.

“Where is Drumm?” she asked, glancing around as they walked towards the kitchen. Was it nice or creepy, how unchanged the place looked inside? “And why is there a doorbell, when he shouted at me last time I offered him heated floors like the ones I did for the London Sanctum?”

Wong shot her a look of vague surprise at her words. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“You don’t know,” he repeated, and his expression went sombre. “Daniel’s dead, Ella. He died right before the Ancient One died.”

Toni stopped walking.

She hadn’t known this.

“Oh,” she said, staring at him. “That... I didn’t know that.”

Wong shrugged, not looking at her in the eyes anymore and moving again. “You weren’t at the funerals.”

“I thought it was a funeral,” she said, the excuse sounding lame to her own ears as she forced her feet to follow him. “Singular. One. Uno. Singolo. That was the one I was avoiding.”

“It was funeral-s, plural,” he explained. “Kaecilius’ uprising and attack on the Sanctum caused numerous deaths.”

“Kaecilius?” questioned Toni, looking over at him. “He’s the one who killed...”

“Drumm. Sol Rama. Nichols. Arethra. Jirae. Many others.” He paused, leaning back on the kitchen counter. “And the Ancient One.”

Tao hadn’t told her who it was who had killed her, when she had dropped the box. 

Toni knew Agatha must have known, but she had never asked. And Agatha had never said anything.

“Mh,” she said, expression blank. “Kaecilius. I never liked Kaecilius. He’s dead?”

“He’s dead,” agreed Wong, watching her carefully as Toni put her suddenly cold hands in her pockets. “You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s been two years. She’s dead, he’s dead. Anyway, I’m here for a favour,” she asked, ignoring the way her hands were shaking ever so slightly (or the voice inside of her, telling her how selfish and terrible a person she was, for ignoring the deaths of so many people who she had grown up around, so many people who had been around her for years, always ready to help her when she needed. She should have visited. But she hadn’t, and now-)

“I need Mordo and some of that tisana he made for me after Afghanistan. I can’t sleep, and- No.” She interrupted herself at the look on Wong’s face.

“He’s not dead,” rushed to say Wong, and Toni relaxed a fraction, heart beating to a calmer rhythm. “But he’s not with the Order either.”

“What?”

“He left,” explained Wong, sighing. “He chose his own path. There was a disagreement over leadership, and he refused to follow this supposed new direction we were taking. But, the tisana isn’t his,” he continued, before Toni could even begin to dissect that sentence. “It’s a recipe of ours, from Kamar Taj. I’ll go get you some, if you wait here.”

“Okay,” she said, watching him disappear through a quickly created portal.

Only when he left did Toni sit down at the small kitchen table, trying to recover from the sudden onslaught of information she had been bombarded with in the space of a few minutes.

Drumm dead. Sol Rama dead. Nichols dead.

And Mordo gone.

How could Mordo even be gone?

How could Drumm and Sol Rama be dead?

Toni had been coming to Kamar Taj and the Sanctums for years. Sol Rama had been here for as long as she could remember, and she had been the one to open the door for Drumm and for Mordo.

Mordo had nearly fled when he had knocked on the doors of Kamar Taj and nineteen years old Toni Stark had opened them for him at 3.00 am in the night, in the middle of nowhere Kathmandu, dressed in a cocktail dress Maria Stark would have only described as vulgar and inappropriate. 

Toni had spent years mocking him for the face he had pulled at the sight of her, and he had always taken it with good humour.

He and Toni were not as close as she was with Wong, but they were friends.

And now he was gone.

Now almost everyone she had ever known was gone.

And Toni had not known because she had been too busy mourning a woman who had meant a lot to people other than herself, because she couldn’t bring herself to walk the few miles from the Tower and meet up with people who had basically raised her since the moment SHIELD killed her parents.

“Fuck,” she thought, pressing her eyes closed. She should have tried a little harder. She should have come with Agatha, come visit. Even if she hadn’t gone to the funeral, she could have visited.

Miss?

I’m fine, she thought, standing up again. Maybe she should just go to Kamar Taj straight away. Wong would find her, and she could see who else was still alive. Wong had not mentioned Tina, had he?

“Sanctum, my Sanctum, which way is that room full of portals to the other Sanctums?” she wondered out loud, walking out of the kitchen and-

She paused for a moment, staring at the golden halls surrounding her with a frown. Where had she been headed? She had been waiting for something, a moment ago, and now...

The sound came again, and her brows furrowed once more. The Treasure room, she recalled, that’s where she had been headed.

Infinity was calling out for her once more.

Mother, Father and the All-Mother all disapproved of her relationship with the Infinity Stones, but she did not mind. They only feared what they did not understand, and they only feared them because of what beings like the Mad Titan could do with them.

She spoke to them. She understood Infinity far better than anyone else in the castle, far better than father’s new bride or Mimir ever could, and so why should she ignore them when they called for her?

She would not.

This call troubled her, however, the closer she came to Father’s treasure room. This was not a call she was familiar with, it was not a sound the Tesseract had ever made. It was not one of the Tesseract’s whispered tales, this was a low tick tocking sound, or the falling of fine sand through a narrow entrance.

She would hazard to say that it was the sound of passing Time.

But the Time Stone had long since been lost, so what-

She paused when she came upon the door of the treasure room, a little startled. The door, which should never open to anyone but a member of the Royal family, was ajar.

There was an intruder in the treasure room.

She stopped where she was, back against the outside door as she spied around her. No one was guarding the doors as they should have been, and she cursed Father’s Einherjar once more.

And then the man wondered why she wanted to establish her own force of warriors! Father’s Einherjar were useless, and never where they were supposed to be. She personally believed they would one day bring upon Asgard’s ruin, she was very certain.

She glanced inside the open room slowly, her nerves growing when she did not recognise the man standing within the chamber. A sorcerer, that she could tell you. But where he sailed from or who he himself might be, she could not have guessed.

All she knew was that he did not belong in this room, and Infinity sat upon his hands, naked, and open, and green.

He had clearly not been introduced to Court - as she would have learnt of him, if he had - and thus his intentions could not be honourable.

Unfortunately for him, she was battle born, and she was her Father and her Mother’s daughter.

She materialised her blade with a flick of her finger, and then she burst upon the room, seidr cackling around her. She pointed her blade at the cloaked figure whose visage she couldn’t fathom, and fell into battle position. “Relinquish what you have stolen at once, villain,” she ordered, poised and ready for attack. “And I might yet be merciful and allow you to keep your life.”

The figure did not answer, the green fleck of Infinity still sitting upon his palm. Part of her couldn’t help but note that this was indeed not the Tesseract, but at the same time, it was. It was a fragment of Infinity, and it did not belong to him or no man.

Was this Time, after all?

“I ordered you,” she said, taking another step towards him, weapon remaining ready to strike, “To put down that which does not belong to you. I shall not ask again, sorcerer.”

Still yet, he refused to speak.

And her patience was very finite. She jumped forward in a practised move, blade slashing forward to strike at him.

The sorcerer moved away from the attack, but she was practised and she had been trained by General Tyr and Father himself, for a time. There was no form of battle she did not excel at, and this miserable sorcerer would soon know.

She turned on her heel, propelling her right side forward and slashing at his left side. When he moved, she threw her blade to her other arm, hitting his cloaked cheek with the hilt.

The hit connected, and she kicked forward with her knee, hitting his stomach, before she elbowed the back of his neck, bringing him to the ground. 

She made to bury her blade in his shoulder, but he used magic to cast a barrier around himself, propelling her in the air.

She landed right back on her feet, and wasted no seconds in throwing herself at him again.

Now he seemed to have grown agitated and more serious in the battle, clearly recognising her as the worthy opponent she was. Every hit of her blade he reacted with a hit of his magic, but even his magic could not be everywhere at the same time.

She kicked at his legs just as another magic spell hit her from behind, sending her flying towards the other side of the room. She let out a sound of slight annoyance at that, noting a second hooded figure had joined the first as she landed on her knees.

Two against one? That was of no consequence to the daughter of Odin, she would crush them both.

She swerved around again, ready to send a blast of magic against the hooded figure-

Toni came to a stop suddenly, gasping.

Strange and Wong were standing in front of her, with the first bleeding from various cuts on his face and Wong staring at her in worry.

“What?” she asked, putting down her arm slowly. She flinched when she felt the press of the dagger Loki had gifted her against her leg, frown growing when she noted the blood dripping from the tip of the weapon.

She wasn’t in the hallway anymore. No, she was in one of the study rooms of the New York Sanctum, and the entire place was in disarray, like a fight had just happened.

Last Toni remembered she had been walking, looking for the portal room and- 

She glanced back at Wong and Strange, heart beating a little faster in her chest at the worry and suspicion in their eyes.

“What happened?” she asked, focusing on Strange first. “Why does your face look like a pin cushion?”

The suspicion abated, but the worry grew. “You don’t remember?”

Toni put her free arm around her stomach, keeping a tight hold of the dagger with the other, while she kept looking at them with some uncertainty. “Remember what? Last I knew I was on my way to Kamar Taj to go and say hi to Tina.”

“Tina is in Honk Kong now,” said Wong, watching her very carefully. “She’s the Master of the Sanctum.”

Toni did not think she had ever actually met the Master of the Honk Kong Sanctum, but that did little to make her feel better.

“But you didn’t go to Kamar Taj or to the Honk Kong Sanctum,” continued Wong. “You came here, to Strange’s studio, and you attacked him.”

Toni stared at him. “What.”

“This,” said Strange, motioning to his face with a glare, “Was your doing. You used that.”

Toni glanced again at the blade in her hand, trying to keep herself under control. She had brought the blade with herself, after Loki's little comment the night before, and it was in her hands, but she hadn’t... had she?

JARVIS?

Miss, said the AI, and his relieved tone meant nothing good. You can hear me once more.

That does not sound good. What happened?

I cannot explain it. But it is true, from what I could perceive, that you wandered towards Doctor Strange’s room and attacked him, trying to take his necklace from him.

His necklace? What-

The Eye of Agamotto.

Infinity Stones.

“You’re looking for the Eye,” said Strange, as soon as Toni’s eyes fixed on the spot on his chest. “That was what you were trying pretty hard to take from me.”

“I hate your necklace,” she said, shaking her head and trying hard not to panic. She was Toni Stark, she had lost time before. This was nothing to panic about, she was completely fine. Blacking out happened. “Why would I try to take it from you?”

Though she had never tried to kill someone while she was blacked out.

“There is a reason why the Eye is usually kept in Kamar Taj,” said Wong, now scowling at Strange. “The magic of an Infinity Stone... it’s powerful. It’s hard to control. Even when asleep, these stones are powerful.

“I’ve never witnessed it before, but the Ancient One used to say that the Infinity Stones have the ability to ensnare minds. Strange, in all the infinite wisdom of a man who has barely been a sorcerer for two years, decided to practice time spells here, in the Sanctum, which is not allowed. Sanctums are not as defended and protected as Kamar Taj. I believe that the second he opened the Eye, your mind was ensnared.”

“I was mind controlled?” she asked, feeling cold inside.

“I don’t think so,” said Strange. “I think you might be possessed.”

“... What.”

“The Mind Stone failed on you,” said Strange. “That’s what you said. That it just caused an explosion when Loki tried to take a hold of your mind. But what if that’s not correct? What if part of it entered your mind and you just never noticed? You haven’t been sleeping, according to Wong, and that’s why you were here to begin with. Nightmares and inability to sleep, those are both indicators of possession.”

“They are also indicators of someone dealing with PTSD,” she said, crossing her arms defensively, careful of the sharp and bloody blade. “I had nightmares after Afghanistan, that’s literally how I came across Mordo's tisana the first time around.”

“You don’t remember what happened between you going to Kamar Taj and you waking up now,” pointed out Strange, face twisting at the mention of Mordo. “Clear case of possession.”

“I never remember my dreams, these days.”

A raised eyebrow. “And by these days you mean ever since the Invasion, perhaps?”

Toni glared.

Strange ignored it, continuing to talk. “Plus, you weren’t asleep. Your eyes were wide open, kind of burning green, and you were speaking in a language I could not recognise.”

JARVIS?

“You don’t know every language in the world, and I was not possessed.”

My apologies, Miss. I could not recognise it either.

“Then you should have no problem eliminating possession,” pointed out Strange, shrugging. “Only possessed people fear exorcisms.”

“That cannot possibly be your hardest sales pitch.” 

“Saving that one for someone hard to get,” he fired back, and Toni glared again.

“You really are an asshole,” she complained, turning to look at Wong, who was giving her a look. She felt as if she should know what he meant by that, but honestly she had no idea. “But fine. I’m not possessed. How do I prove it?”

Chapter Text

Toni did not really have a clear idea of what an exorcism would consist in. 

While she had grown up around magic and around Tao in general, it wasn’t as if her baldness supreme had really allowed Toni to witness the most dangerous and complicated parts of her work. Something about it being too dangerous and not age appropriate and having promised Toni’s mamma not to put Toni in danger or whatever. It had been very annoying when Toni had been younger, and now that she was in this particular situation, it was doubly so.

And while her mother had been catholic, it wasn’t as if Toni had really gone with her to Church that often. Or like churches still conducted exorcisms outside of television.

Or maybe they did?

Who knew, she hadn’t set foot in a church since she was sixteen, and even before that, she had stopped paying real attention by age eight.

Because of this, all of Toni’s ideas and thoughts on what her exorcism would look like came from what she had managed to learn from pop culture and online through the years.

Her main expectation had been to find herself tied up on a bed in a non sexy way, whatever passed for holy water around sorcerers, and perhaps the scriptures of Vishanti narrated by Agamotto. Or something along those lines.

Wong had looked at her like she was insane when she had informed him that if it helped, Strange had experience in bondage, while Strange had rolled his eyes at her and directed her towards the bathroom instead.

Because apparently the media did not know shit, and the particular exorcism they wanted to perform needed only two main ingredients, neither of which was rope or the blood of a virgin.

Ingredient numero one: an ice water bath.

Ingredient number due: someone she truly trusted who would be able to 'guide her through her path' (whatever the fuck that meant).

Neither of these ingredients were things Toni was particularly happy about.

She’d have preferred the bondage and the slaughtered minions to either of that.

According to Avada and Kedavra, she was going to get into the ice water and then let herself be pushed down under by the person she trusted. Then, once she was right on the cusp of drowning, the spell would be performed, and the person she trusted would be able to guide her through her own memories/mindscape, to help them all figure out who the demon possessing her was and what they wanted.

Wong and Strange would be able to monitor everything through the person she trusted by using a scrying glass to observe everything, and would intervene if it became necessary.

Even before Afghanistan, Toni had never been fond of the thought of drowning. Strange’s sister had died by drowning and Toni, in a fit of macabre curiosity, had researched what death by drowning would feel like.

It hadn’t been a pleasant read.

After her non holiday stay in Afghanistan and the waterboarding incident, drowning had become a hell no. She was actually pretty sure she must have drowned and died at least once when the terrorists had been waterboarding her, and it had been even worse than what the book had indicated.

So no, Toni did not look forward to being forcefully drowned by Wong and Strange or someone she ‘trusted’.

And then there was the second part of the equation.

Having someone she trusted to “help her navigate her mind scape” and to “help pull her back if the so-called demon inside of her became dangerous, or if she needed help returning to this plane of existence”.

Toni did not have many people that she trusted. Whether it was because of her upbringing or because of her experiences with betrayal in life she wasn’t sure, but it was a truth she had acknowledged long ago.

She did not trust people.

The person she trusted the most in her life was JARVIS, and, unfortunately, many did not count him as a person. And he couldn’t guide her anyway, according to Wong.

There were others that she trusted, even if it was a little less than JARVIS.

There was Rhodey, who was out of State because of that whole Mandarin mess.

There were Pepper and Happy, who were both currently in California. 

There was T’Challa, who was back in Wakanda by now.

Which brought her to one last person she sort of trusted, at this point.

Ho Yinsen.

Yes, she was very much aware of the fact that she did not really know Ho Yinsen. She had met him for the first time at an event in Bern where she had been drunk out of her face, and had not thought once about him again until she had woken up in an Afghan cave with him attempting to use a car battery to keep shrapnel from destroying her heart.

But wasn’t there a saying about friendships moulded on the battlefield being indestructible?

Yinsen had not just saved her life when he had thought she was dying, no.

He had done far more than that. 

Yinsen had given her a new purpose when she had been ready to give up. He had helped her create Iron Queen. 

For all intents and purposes, Ho Yinsen should have hated her. For all intents and purposes, he should have let her die when she had arrived in the cave, or told on her when she had started building the suit of armour. Her weapons had hurt him and his town because of her carelessness in handling them: for all intents and purposes, he should have prayed on her downfall.

But he hadn’t.

Yinsen had saved her from herself, had given her the push she needed when she had been at the end of her rope, when she had been ready to give up everything.

And later, when she had been ready to close her weapons division upon her return to the States, he had been the one who stopped her. Had he not, Toni did not want to imagine what would have happened to everyone who worked for her, what would have happened to SI and with the military.

She was a good business woman, but she had been known to be... spontaneous (or, as Rhodey would say, impulsive). She would have hurt more than she would have helped, had it not been for Yinsen’s words.

And again, he had been the one she had turned to when she had realised the Palladium was making her sick. He was the only one she had ever told about the palladium poisoning, and he had been the only person she had trusted in the room to get the pieces of shrapnel out of her heart.

He had been the first person since Rhodey and Happy that she had trusted about her ‘I never die when I’m supposed to’ secret (mostly because he already known that something was off about her after being with her in the cave and watching her die and come back to life before his own eyes, but also because she trusted him).

She did not think Yinsen was perfect.

It had been awfully convenient for Yinsen to have been in that cave when he had been. He had been perfectly groomed, and until Toni’s escape plan, he had made no effort in trying to escape. One might say he did not want to die, but considering the fact that his plan had been to die before Toni had intervened, that was just patently wrong.

There was a dark side to Yinsen, she knew that very well.

But still, she trusted the side of him he had so far shown her. She was ready to take him down if he tried her, but she did not think he was going to.

He had become... her conscience, in a way.

Yinsen hated the term very much, whenever Toni voiced this out loud, but considering he still walked out of the elevator on time with Bruce Banner in tow, she still won.

“Hey, Hoe,” she said, grinning at him as he approached her.

The Doctor gave her a dirty look. “If you think I somehow cannot tell the difference between the times where you call me by my name versus the times you call me ‘Hoe’, you are very much mistaken,” he informed her.

“You never let me have any fun,” she complained, pressing a kiss on his cheek in greeting. She waved at Bruce beside him with a polite smile. “Hey, you. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to ask you something, and I ran into Doctor Yinsen,” he explained, looking around in confusion. “What’s going on? Why are you in a robe?”

“First of all, don’t question what I’m wearing, ever. I’ve seen you wear denim on denim before, Doctor Banner, you do not have the right. Second, I’m about to be exorcised.” She rolled her eyes, proceeding towards the bathroom. “Apparently, I’m possessed.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me,” said Yinsen, though he did sound vaguely intrigued. “Who is performing this exorcism?”

“Us,” said Strange, dropping another bag of ice in the water. Toni shivered just looking at it, while Yinsen’s eyes lit up in vague surprise.

“Doctor Strange! My, I did not expect this, it is so good to meet you again,” he said, smiling as he offered him his hand. “Not unlike Doctor Banner, you disappeared from the public eye after dropping another spectacular paper and procedure idea. Where have you been?”

“Learning magic,” succinctly said Strange, keeping a tight hold on the bag of ice instead of accepting the hand. “Bern 1999, correct? Ho Yinsen.”

“Indeed,” said Yinsen, putting down his hand without looking offended. “That was a very nice discussion we shared, between the four of us and Doctor Wu. Are you a doctor too, sir?”

Wong, who the question had been asked to, shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’m a Master of the Mystic Arts. Doctor Strange will explain to you what we need you to do. Ella?”

“Yes?” said Toni, forcefully looking away from the water she was going to be forced in in a few minutes.

If you wish to call this off, Miss-

I am fine, J. Stop worrying.

I shall do no such thing.

Wong gave her an assessing look. “If you’re afraid, we can do this differently, you know?”

“I’m not afraid.”

…

Shut up, JARVIS.

“I can knock you out with a spell,” continued Wong, ignoring her. “That way, however, it might be a little harder to pull you back, especially if we end up in a dream. It’s not an ideal method to deal with possession, but it is safer and easier to at least find the demon.” Toni made a face at those words, and he studied her more carefully. “You are convinced this isn’t a case of possession.”

“I am doing this to prove it to you, and I don’t know what possession would feel like,” she started, “But no. I don’t think I’m possessed. I don’t know what this is, but this isn’t possession, this is...”

Me. 

Wong observed her for a few seconds, and then he nodded. “Very well. We’ll do the knocking out spell, instead.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not afraid. I wouldn’t die.”

That doesn’t mean you should put yourself through something that would give you pain.

It’s like you don’t even know me.

Wong maintained eye contact without flinching. “We’ll do the knocking out spell instead.”

“Wait what?” asked Strange, as he finished pouring the last bag of ice. “But that isn’t 100% reliable, when it comes to possession.”

“Possession?” questioned Bruce, looking at Strange with disbelief written all over his face. “Really? I thought Toni was just joking. Isn’t she just suffering from textbook PTSD?”

“There is nothing textbook about me, I am one in 10 billions,” said Toni, crossing her arms around her chest. “And while I don’t believe this is a possession, it doesn't mean possession is that far fetched, as a concept. You yourself routinely break the laws of conservation of mass: are you sure you want to talk to sorcerers who create space-time portals by thinking and making movements with their hands about things that are or are not believable?”

“Think of a possession as you would a parasite,” offered Strange, interrupting Bruce’s building complaint. “A parasite that finds home in your brain and feeds off the nerve connections that cause dreams, memories and emotions rather than anything living organisms actually feed on.” 

Bruce tilted his head to the side, thinking. “That actually makes sense. It’d feed off neural impulses. You could use depression as a metaphor slash example for this by saying that-”

“Is this some sort of squishy science foreplay?” loudly asked Toni, grinning when they both turned to shoot her a glare. Just like the good old days, really. “I’m just saying, we can leave if you need the room.”

“Are you sure she’s possessed?” questioned Bruce, giving Strange a look. “Because this sounds like Toni to me.”

“No, if this had been all Toni she would have never offered to leave the room” said Strange, in the same tone. “Passing on an opportunity to see men naked? Not her style.”

“Fuck you,” said Toni, doing her best to not validate either of them by laughing.

“You wish,” they both said at the same time, and fine, Toni might have smiled. Might. Maybe. There was no proof of this, really.

“I don’t get paid for this,” said Wong, sighing. “Can we get this started?”

“Fine,” huffed Toni, taking off her robe and letting it fall to the ground.

Maybe she should have worn something a little heavier than a cami night dress, she thought, staring at the frozen water in front of her and already feeling cold. However, the idea of heavy, wet, and freezing cold clothes was much less appealing, and she had simply thought that this would be easier to slip out of when she came out.

“Okay,” she said, turning to look at the other four in the room. “So I just get in?”

“Yes,” said Wong, offering her his hand. “You get in, lie on your back with your face out of the water, and then I hit you with the spell. You won’t feel a thing.”

"Don't believe you, but okay."

“Yinsen, you come here,” said Strange, beckoning over the Doctor, decidedly avoiding eye contact. Bruce remained where he was, appearing far more interested in the ice water than Toni believed was normal, but while normally Toni would have teased them all for this, she was too busy trying not to panic.

She did not like this.

But she was not possessed and even though this was not a challenge, she was going to prove it.

So she was going to do this.

“Oh my god,” she said, as soon as her foot was inside the fucking freezing water. “Oh god, oh god, so cold, so cold, so cold, oh my god can we please go back to holy water and unsexy bondage, holy fuck -”

“I’ve got you, come on-”

“Puttana di m-merda, stronz-za f-f-figlia d’una tro-tro-troia del caz-z-z-zo,” she managed, teeth already clattering as he forced herself to sit down in the bath. Her legs were burning, wasn’t this dangerous?

Could she die from freezing to death?

“Almost there, just lay back-”

“Ok-k-kay, okay,” she managed, almost tearing up when she felt the water on her back, her neck and all over her body. “Freddo, f-f-fred-d-do, verament-t-t-te fred-d-”

Wong pressed a finger against her forehead.

Usually Toni did not know she was in a dream until she woke up and felt the dream disappear through her fingers. 

This time, however, she knew. 

And she also knew just what dream she was currently in.

The cold against her skin that did not burn as much as she knew it could, the feeling of magic surrounding her, the bonds around her wrists and the presence in front of her.

She knew what dream this was.

It wasn’t one of the nice ones.

She didn’t want to open her eyes, because she already knew what she was going to see.

But she had to.

She was Odindottir, and she wasn't a coward.

Toni opened her eyes slowly. 

Thanos, the Mad Titan was standing beside her.

Toni had known she was going to see him, looming beside her as they walked. She had known this was one of the nightmares were his presence threatened to choke her, where she was forced to endure him for the good of people she loved.

But when her eyes set on him, this knowledge did not make her heart beat any less fast.

He was huge. He wasn’t looking at her, reptilian blue eyes staring ahead as he walked, a nine feet creature directly from her worst nightmares, and everything inside of her begged her to either fight or flee, but to do so quickly.

The golden gauntlet was on his left hand, and it took everything in her to not panic further at the feeling of his right one on her shoulder.

She looked away from it and him, continuing to drag herself across the snow and after him.

She couldn’t flee. The Tesseract in his hands twinkled, reminding her that there was nowhere in the Nine Realms and beyond that she could go where he wouldn’t find her and follow her.

She couldn’t fight. Because there was more at stake than she could bear to cause the loss off and she, as the Guardian of Souls, could not allow this.

Over her head, Thanos’ army waited in silence, weapons ready to rain hellfire upon Jotunheim if she even tried to disobey.

She was trapped beside him.

She had lost.

All around her, Jotnar, and Valkyries, and Thanos’ armies.

Utgard was frightfully silent as the living Jotnar and the dead Valkyries watched her follow the Mad Titan, and Toni didn’t dare look them in the eyes.

She hoped they understood that she was doing it for them. She hoped that they knew that Toni was not doing this because she was weak, but rather because she wouldn’t let an entire planet risk extinction out of pride.

All the Valkyries that had come with her to Jotunheim were dead or gone, and Toni’s heart was already too heavy because of that.

6 more of her shieldsisters, now lost.

Had it been just her and the Titan, she would have fought. She would have fought until he died or until he had no choice but kill her with his bare hands, she would have avenged herself, and Jotunheim, and her Valkyries, and Infinity, and Asgard, and the Nine Realms.

But she wouldn’t risk the last of Jotunheim like that. Not in a senseless massacre they would have no way of surviving.

She was the Guardian of Souls and the goddess of Death.

Life was too precious to her to waste like this.

She hoped they understood her.

She hoped they did not bear hatred for her because of these actions.

It reminded her of Kvasir’s words to her, when she had refused him.

“How dare you refuse me, you who’s existence has plunged the Nine Realms into war beyond anything we have ever faced before?”

She had sneered when he had spoken those cruel words to her, but now Toni couldn’t help wondering if he had been right, after all. 

Jotunheim had no Infinity Stones. The only reason Thanos had attacked them, the only reason so many Jotun soldiers were currently dead was because of her. Had she never been alive, the Titan would have never had reason to attack Jotunheim, would have never hurt so many.

Had she never existed, Utgard’s air would not be heavy with the scent of death and the white ice would have never been dyed with the blood of so many brave soldiers and warriors.

Her existence had plunged the Nine Realms into war and-

She nearly tripped over her own feet then, when she spotted Laufey-King.

Loki’s father, the King of the Jotnar, who had sent her away and plunged into battle with rage and blood lust in his eyes. The man who married her Modir, a man she had liked infinitely better than she had liked the All-Mother, a man who was proud, stubborn, caring and powerful. A man with no fear, a giant with the strength of the berserkers of Bor’s time.

A King who was now sitting on the front lines with his people. A King who was on his knees like all of his people, and who was looking down at the ice rather than up at her.

Just like her, he had taken down his crown.

Even as she felt the tears building in her eyes, Toni didn’t cry. She refused to cry: she was the Crown Princess of Asgard, Odinsdottir, and she would not cry.

She also did not blame him. They had both done their best, and even if they did not meet in Valhalla, they-

For the first time since she had let her brothers leave without her, Toni faltered in her tracks.

“My Queen?”

Toni couldn’t hear Thanos.

She couldn’t hear anything, all of a sudden.

All she could see was the figure on the ground, between two of her dead Valkyries (Rota and Kara). The body-less head sitting there, life long gone from it.

She knew that head.

“No,” she said, grief making the air in her lungs taste sour, her magic boiling within the confines of the shackles that bound her wrists. “No. No, no, no.”

Thanos was talking, she could hear him speaking, but nothing penetrated her mind, grief shaking her core, death eating at her inside, rage wanting to burst from inside of her, a goddess asking to be released from her mortal coil.

“Toni? Toni, can you hear me? Toni, it’s Yinsen, listen to my voice-”

No. No, this couldn’t be, this couldn’t be who she thought it was. It couldn’t be, this couldn’t have happened.

“Listen to my voice, Toni, you are going to get stuck! You are changing the memory, you need to come back to us now!”

Fate couldn’t be so cruel, could it be? The Norns wouldn’t be so vindictive, would they?

Thanos tried to pull her along, hand grabbing her shoulder and the scream ripped out of her throat before she could stop it, all of her grief, pain, sorrow and rage burying themselves into one single word.

“MODIR!"

Toni sat up abruptly with a choked gasp, water filling her nose and throat and eyes snapping open in horror as the lights over her head burst and the mirror cracked ominously.

“Jesus!”

“Oh my god!”

“Toni?!”

“N-no,” said Toni, trembling all over as she tried to reach out, to grasp at the fading ice. “No, no, no, no.”

Miss? Miss, are you well?

“Toni!” said Yinsen, appearing in her line of sight. “Toni, are you okay?”

Toni’s panicked eyes tried to focus on her, just a little behind Yinsen, just slightly out of reach, and she struggled, her shaking only became more pronounced. “She can't be dead,” she supplicated, trying not to choke on the cold ice water, melted water and tears of distress clouding her sight. “She can't be dead, she can't. I have to, I have to-”

“Who’s dead?” asked Yinsen, voice urgent and yet so far away. “Toni, who’s dead?”

Miss, please listen to my voice. You are back in Stark Tower, you are safe.

She couldn't get to her, she couldn't get to her body. Her body was gone and her eyes were wide open over a head laying on the ground, and-

“She’s dead,” she realised, as she started hyperventilating.

Miss, you appear to be suffering from yet another panic attack. You need to get out of the water, please follow Mister Wong’s help.

“She’s dead,” repeated Toni, once more. “She’s dead. Modir's dead.”

“Someone get her out of the water!” snapped someone, but Toni coudn’t figure out who it was coming from. All she could concentrate was on how cold she was, and the pain in her heart and she... she... she was dead.

Thanos had killed her.

Had killed them.

Miss? Miss, can you hear my voice at all? Please indicate in any way possible if you can.

“Modir,” she sobbed, barely registering the hands on her body pulling her out. “Mama. Mother. He killed her. He killed her.”

“Get her one of the warm towels, this is not a healthy level of cold-”

“At this point just pick her up, we need to warm her up, quickly-”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Toni, shaking her head, shuddering at the cold. “I’m sorry, Modir, I’m so sorry. I tried, I tried, I’m sorry-”

“JARVIS, where do we go?!”

“Medbay please, gentlemen.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, the entire time. “I’m so sorry, Modir. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry.”

+++

A bee died. Makes an opening. See? He's dead. Another dead one. Deady. Deadified. Two more dead. Dead from the neck up. Dead from the neck down. That's life! Oh, this is so hard!

For a second, after she woke up, Toni thought she was still dreaming.

JARVIS... are you quoting the bee movie to me?

Miss! The AI sounded genuinely relieved at hearing her. You are back, I see.

Toni’s eyes remained closed, but she did frown slightly. Back from where?

… You don’t recall, Miss?

Recall what?

The exorcism, Miss.

Toni’s eyes did open at that, even if a bit slower than necessary.

Instead of being cold and freezing, she found herself actually quite comfortably covered in warm towels and blankets, laying down on what appeared to be one of the beds in the medbay.

This was not a good start, she decided.

Bruce, Strange, Wong and Yinsen were all in the room, and Toni turned her head around to face them as she pulled herself up. “So, am I possessed?” she asked, groaning at how raw her throat felt.

Had she swallowed water or something?

“Toni,” called Yinsen, quickly approaching her. “You’re okay. Thank god.”

“Thank god?” she repeated, frowning at him. That did not sound good. She glanced at Strange, and her frown grew at his worried expression. “What went wrong? Am I actually possessed, after all?”

“You don’t remember, do you?” questioned Strange, Bruce looking at her with some understanding in his eyes while Wong also stared at her in worry.

Toni sighed. “I told you. I never remembered whatever it is I dream about. I just recall how I’m feeling, or recall some details every now and again. But I don’t remember what it was that I saw and or dreamt at all.”

“What do you remember today, if anything?” asked Wong, looking at her very intensely. Even Bruce seemed disconcerted at his side, and Toni found herself holding the towel even more tightly around herself.

“I thought you could see things with Yinsen? Wasn’t that the whole point of having him there?”

“We did,” said Strange, sounding hesitant. “But just humour us for a second.”

“Ugh, fine. Uh... I remember snow?” she massaged her head, hoping that she wasn't about to get a headache or a cold. “Ice? But that could have been the bath, I don’t know. I just remember I felt cold. Why, what happened? Can you just tell me already? Am I possessed?”

“You were out for about two hours,” said Strange, which was already surprising. It hadn’t felt like two hours. “You were only out for fifteen minutes in the bath. But then you woke up, and you were out for over an hour after that. We had to knock you out.”

What the hell are they talking about?

I believe it will be better hearing it from them, Miss.

But I like and trust you better.

Then trust me on this, Miss.

Ugh.

“The good news is that you are not possessed,” said Wong, and Toni relaxed just a fraction.

“See? I told you so.”

“But this is not textbook or not textbook PTSD either," said Strange, sounding almost solemn.

Toni nodded slowly, pretending to be far more unaffected than she was. “If my nightmares and the fact that I can't remember them are not possession and they are not PTSD, then what are they?"

“I think there is a spell at work,” said Strange, looking at her thoughtfully. "It made seeing and hearing what you and Yinsen saw and heard very complicated, made everything much blurrier and confusing. Some sort of block, that could be either internal or external, and is the reason why you keep forgetting about your dreams every time you wake up.”

A mental block? 

Toni would like to pick one 'I hate magic' for 500.

“When is a nightmare not a nightmare then?” She questioned, glancing between the two sorcerers in confusion. They looked like they had a theory, so she steadied herself.

“When it's a memory.” Toni kept staring at him in confusion, and Strange continued. “Toni, I don't think this is your first life.”

Chapter Text

“Do you suffer from alcoholism?”

Despite having heard the sound of the portal opening, and having felt the shift in energy that she had come to associate with Loki and his magic, Toni did not turn to face the little trickster.

She was quite comfortable where she was, sitting on top of the grand piano in the living room. She had a bottle of something she was only 60% sure was straight vodka, and she was not really in the mood to move away from where she was perched or be dragged into an annoying conversation.

Whoever said that feeling sorry for yourself was not a viable pastime had clearly been a liar who had never met her. It was an awesome past time.

“I’m asking because this is the second time I come upon you when you are not expecting me to and I find you drinking spirits,” continued Loki, casting a shadow over her when he stopped in front of the piano and her.

Toni continued to not pay him any attention, unfocused eyes fixed on the bottle in her hands. Maybe if she ignored him for long enough he’d leave her to her pity party.

She had been here for a while, considering the sun’s current position and JARVIS’ earlier nagging, but she wanted to see how long she could continue this before her limbs started to beg her for mercy. She bet another half an hour before she had to get DUM-E to get her another bottle.

Could she convince Loki to get her the bottles now?

But she should have known better, with Loki, because as soon as she moved her arm to take another sip of her drink, the bottle was swiped out of her hands.

“Hey!” she complained, eyes finally snapping to Loki’s face. “Give me that.”

“No,” he said, making the bottle disappear and smartly putting himself just out of her reach. His eyes were narrowed as he looked at her, one hand resting on his waist as he judged her. “What is the matter with you?”

“None of your business,” she answered, sliding off the piano and moving decidedly towards her bar. Her limbs did not thank her for it, but still. Nobody was going to stop her from-

She stopped three steps later, turning to look at Loki with even more murderous intent than before. “Didn’t I tell you to not touch my stuff? Bring back my drinks.”

All of her displayed old wines and whiskeys had disappeared from where Toni usually kept them.

Loki did not smirk, crossing his arms around his chest as he glowered at her. “No.”

“Loki,” she said, breathing very slowly. “Don’t piss me off. I’m not in the mood right now, do not push me.”

“Or what?” questioned Loki, tilting his head to the right. His voice was mocking, but there was some triumph in his eyes. “You’re going to... hurt me? Is that going to be done physically or with words? Because I do not think you shall be able to inflict much pain without your charming suit of armour, but I have heard you have quite the tongue.”

“Ew,” she said, immediately grimacing, annoyance momentarily forgotten. “Don’t make innuendos at me, it sounds wrong coming from you.”

“Agreed,” said Loki, making the same face. Then he rolled his eyes. “Your Midgardian brews are not gone, I have simply momentarily hidden them from your sight. Now, will you explain why you were trying to drown yourself in alcohol, or should I continue to antagonise you?”

“Ugh,” she said, dropping backwards on the couch instead of continuing towards the kitchen. She was only lightly buzzed, nowhere near as drunk as she would have preferred. Not for the first time, she wished it was easier for her to get drunk. “I would have won that battle of wills in the end, just so you know.”

“You are far more delusional than I previously assumed.”

Toni ignored him, eyes closed. “And for your information, I’m trying to dull everything, so that I can try and sort through my own shit.”

“Why, did you find out that attempting to lock out your own powers doesn’t work?” questioned Loki, voice only a tad mocking.

Toni did not open her eyes as she felt his weight beside her head, but she pointed her middle finger in his general direction. “If you think I’m ever going to admit anything, you’ve got another thing coming, Wednesday Addams. My lawyers can make anyone cry, ask Hammer.”

“What?”

“And when I said dull, I meant dull emotions, not dull my so-called powers,” she continued, sighing. “I’ve come to the realisation that dulling my powers is no longer an option, and also found out why that is. I had an exorcism earlier today.”

“You’re not possessed.”

Toni snorted. “I didn’t think I was either, but something happened this morning and the sorcerers of Kamar Taj wanted to make extra sure.”

“And?” asked Loki, when she paused for more than a couple of seconds.

“And I’m not possessed,” said Toni, tensing again. “But I’m not as normal as I thought I was.”

“You thought you were normal?” wondered Loki, sounding very surprised, and Toni chuckled.

It was not an amused chuckle. “I’ve always known I was different, yes. But I thought I was at least human. Everything in my blood work suggests I’m human, the only non human thing about me is the fact that I don’t die, and that I heal from fatal wounds way too fast. I thought I was human.”

“But you are,” said Loki, sounding confused. When Toni opened her eyes, he was looking at her with a frown, green eyes fixed on her face. “You are Midgardian. It is quite clear to see.”

“Not exactly,” she admitted, humourlessly. “According to recent discoveries, scientists and magicians have decreed that while I might be living in the body of a so called Midgardian, this is apparently not my first life. I was someone else before I was me.”

Toni had been dealing with this delightful new set of information since she had kicked the sorcerers and the doctors out of the penthouse. Strange had clearly been itching to interrogate her, and Bruce had been deeply curious too, but Yinsen and Wong had known she was going to need some time, and had not protested too much when she had asked them to leave.

Reincarnation. 

Not her first life.

Toni had no idea of what any of that really meant. 

Toni Stark was a brand as well as a name. And so was Antoinette Stark, and Iron Queen.

And now Toni was finding out that really, she wasn’t any of these people.

She was someone completely different, someone who had apparently been kidnapped by the Mad Titan for reasons that had to do with the Infinity Stones. Someone who had died and, instead of staying dead, had been reincarnated in the body of Maria and Howard’s newborn daughter.

Someone who could not remember any of this old life because there was a ‘spell’ at work.

Why?

How?

Who had known this? Had her parents known? Were her parents even her parents, when she wasn’t even sure of who she was herself?

Did Agatha know?

Had Tao known?

If there was anyone who could or would have known this, then Tao was that person. Tao always knew everything.

And if she had known, why had she never told Toni anything? Why had she kept it a secret?

Was she the one who had cast the spell that made her forget things? If so, why?

Was her reincarnation the real reason the Tesseract had been taken away from her house when she was a kid? Had she been ensnared by it like she had been by the Eye of Agamotto, and had they taken it away with her memories and cast the spell to make sure she didn’t remember?

Were the Infinity Stones threats to her or not?

What the fuck was in that box, and how did it fit in all of this? Why had Tao come all the way to Toni’s mansion to give it to her when she had been about to die?

Why hadn’t she told her anything, then?

“Reincarnation,” mused Loki, not appearing too surprised. “Interesting. I thought perhaps you descended from a phoenix hybrid, or that perhaps you had banshee blood in you. But I suppose this makes more sense.”

“Makes more sense?” repeated Toni, slowly sitting up to glare at him. “How does this make any sense?! I don’t even know who I am anymore!”

“Why not?” questioned Loki, appearing genuinely confused. “You are Antoinette Stark. What has changed?”

What had changed?!

“What has changed is that I’m not Antoinette Stark,” she reminded him, trying to make him understand. “I am not who I thought I was. I am not the billionaire daughter of Howard and Maria Stark. I was someone else before. Someone who I don’t even know because there is some spell at work that stops me from remembering who I was, and I-”

“What do you understand by ‘reincarnation’?” interrupted Loki, now sounding judgey. “I believe therein lies the root of your problem.”

“I’m not gonna play psychologist with someone who has more complexes than even I do,” said Toni, scoffing.

Loki rolled his eyes. “I am attempting to aid you, you insufferable Midgardian.” He did not negate the part about the complexes though, clearly knowing to choose his battles and not lie to her. “Reincarnation is not a simple transmigration of a soul that comes to pass after one’s death. It is not simply the same person twice. Reincarnation is but a matter of putting the same exact soul in a new soil and watching as, with different nourishment and triggers, it grows into something new. Simply because you were someone before you became the daughter of Stark, does not mean that you are not still the daughter of Stark. Once upon a time, you were who you were. You were born of another in another land, and you had different costumes and beliefs. Now, you are Antoinette Stark. That does not make you two different, but it most certainly does not make the two of you the same. You are two possibly different beings who share the same soul.”

“Like... an identity change?” wondered Toni, brows furrowed.

“Not exactly,” said Loki. “More as if... you grew up somewhere for a period of time and then grew up somewhere else. You have two different layers of experience, now.”

“I’ve always been me, but I’m now a me who was born to a rich Italian socialite and a richer American businessman in America instead of a me who was born on an alien planet?”

“Ye- beg your pardon?” questioned Loki, appearing vaguely surprised. “You were from another planet?”

“Does that change things?” she questioned, indicating for JARVIS to make a hologram appear by tapping on the table.

The AI had been quiet since Toni had launched her pity party, but still did as asked.

“No, my words are still true. It is simply that I have only ever heard of one other case of cross racial reincarnation,” he explained. 

“Reincarnations happens often on Asgard?”

Loki shook his head. “Not often, no. I have never witnessed one, only heard of them. But it has been known to happen. Usually, the reincarnation is discovered at birth, and disclosed when the child comes of age. At times, it is discovered by the reincarnated person themselves due to a traumatic or otherwise relevant memory trigger. Do you believe that-”

“The Scepter triggered mine,” she said, scowling as she thought of the artefact. “The Mind Stone knew.”

As previously stated, Toni used to talk to the Tesseract a lot, before it had been taken away from her house. She had never found it scary or anything of the sort (though back then she had not known anything regarding the Infinity Stones, so there was that), and she had been a little sad when Howard had taken it away.

She had felt some curiosity, towards the Scepter, but at the same time she had been repulsed by it. There had been something about the unnatural blue surrounding the gem inside that she had not liked one bit, and she had kept her distance from it.

Then later, Strange had turned up, talking about Infinity Stones and Toni had not felt anything other than fear, as both objects were immediately put away by the sorcerer. She had been antsy, watching them be taken away, but still mostly glad.

And while she had felt some sort of tug towards the necklace after realising what it held, she had been too nervous of it to even consider approaching it. And then the thing had ensnared her or whatever.

Before the ensnaring earlier today, Toni had last fully interacted with an Infinity Stone when she was six. The Tesseract had never hurt her.

Had the Mind Stone hurt her?

Loki should have been able to take over her mind. Nothing should have stopped him, Toni had not been wearing any of the charms gifted to her by Tao and the sorcerers. She should have been mind controlled.

Instead, the Mind Stone had put muffled memories in her head and tried to jog her memory of her life before.

The Infinity Stones were dangerous, and the being who wanted them wanted to use them for destruction.

But were they malicious?

And, most importantly, when alone, were they a threat to her?

“Here,” she said, as JARVIS opened the video she was looking for. “Magic and tech don’t really mix, so you can’t really see what Strange and Wong saw in their stupid scrying mirror, but you can hear the answers Yinsen gave them about what was happening.”

She had already watched the video herself, so she didn’t really need to see it again.

JARVIS hadn’t really managed to capture much from the scrying mirror - whether it was because magic plus tech or because the sorcerers themselves hadn’t gotten much, she wasn’t sure - but there were some images, clearer than the rest, especially with Yinsen’s added commentary.

Images of snow. Images of blood. Images of death.

Images of blue skinned aliens with horns and scarlet eyes.

Images of him, the purple monster, with a glittering gauntlet on his hand, yellow and blue twinkling inside it.

Images of a woman’s head, a woman with long black hair, skin as white as the snow as her still warm blood tickled from her neck.

Names coming from Yinsen’s lips, of people Toni had never heard (but that her soul knew): Laufey-King, Jotnar, Utgard, Jotunheim, Mad Titan, Valkyrie, Modir.

Everything Toni had seen, from her point of view, but that she could not actually remember seeing. 

Loki paused the video before Toni’s sudden and violent awakening, thankfully sparing them both from watching her lose it over ‘Modir’. 

A word that, according to JARVIS, would mean ‘Mother’ in old Norse.

Toni refused to think about it.

“This...”

Toni turned to look at Loki, eyes widening at how pale Loki suddenly appeared. And fuck, she hadn’t even thought about it, had she. The purple man, even if you couldn’t see him properly, she knew who he was, and so did Loki.

Thanos, the Mad Titan.

His name felt like a boiling brand just thinking about it, so Toni didn’t, waving off the screen and turning all her attention on Loki.

“Hey,” she called, turning his head so that he was looking at her. “Hey. Come on. Come back, this is an old memory of whoever I was in my past life. It’s not... you know. Fuck, I’m bad at calming people down so how about you just don’t freak out? Please don’t have a panic attack, it’s just old stuff.”

“It is not that old,” said Loki, slowly. His eyes were still very wide, a look of confusion and slight fear on his face. “I saw Laufey-King. He was King of Jotunheim for scarcely 3000 years before I... before he perished. That means that whoever you were, you were that at the maximum 3000 years ago. But this makes no sense.”

Laufey-King was dead?

Toni wasn't sure why her heart hurt at the mere thought.

“Why doesn't it make sense?” questioned Toni, putting her hands down when it became clear Loki wasn’t going to freak out on her because of the Titan.

“Because the Master never attacked Jotunheim,” he explained, shaking his head. “There are tales of him and Odin battling once, two thousands years ago, but the Aesir were victorious and pushed him back. He has never set foot in the other Realms.”

Well, that was interesting.

“Unless the previous version of me living in real Iceland was hallucinating things, he did,” she pointed out. “He was there.”

“Jotunheim,” corrected Loki, shaking his head. “This was Jotunheim. And I shall need to look into this. A battle in which he defeated the King of Jotunheim while having a hold of two Infinity Stones? How could this be forgotten? The Tesseract resided on Asgard for millennia before Odin hid it on Midgard. How could the Titan have had it? How could he have lost it?”

“Well, history is written by the winners,” she reasoned. “Anything embarrassing would have been taken out.”

“The Aesir have hated the Jotnar for aeons,” said Loki bitterly, shaking his head. “Such a defeat on their part would have been spoken about at large, especially if the tale of Odin defeating the Titan is true. And you... You were also..." he looked over at her, an odd look on his face.

Toni frowned at him. "What about me?"

Loki looked hesitant, and then he shook his head. "Nothing. Bust the fact that no one has ever heard of this attack on Asgard speaks of something much more sinister at work. I need to investigate further.”

“And you think you can find the answers you need on Asgard? Considering the high chances that Asgard and Mr Odin are the ones who kept this entire thing hush hush? How would you even bring that up in a normal conversation?”

Loki scowled at her. “Do you have any better ideas?”

As a matter of fact, she realised, Toni did.

“Well, well, well,” said Gilgamesh, a big grin on his face as he watched Toni land in front of the house. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Hey, One Punch Man,” she answered, smiling as she freed herself of the suitcase armour she was wearing. She could have ditched the armour completely and simply drove over after landing in Australia, but Toni had wanted answers, and she had never been a particularly patient person. 

Gilgamesh gave her a half hug once she was free, and Toni did not resist the touch.

Gilgamesh was a member of the Eternals, an interesting bunch of seemingly immortal beings with crazy powers that Toni knew very little about, despite the fact that she had known of them since she was six.

She knew there were about ten of them, but she had only ever met four of them, one of whom in passing. They kept to themselves, out of some whack rule they had about never interfering with human affairs, so Toni didn’t really see them that often.

Despite that, she liked them.

For many reasons, sure, but one that stood out: they didn’t feel.

No, that was incorrect. They did feel, they had emotions, and there was a certain... magic and power about them. But for whatever reason, they felt similarly to how JARVIS and the bots felt to her. She couldn’t telepathically speak to them, but they also did not project their feelings and energy the way humans and superpowered beings did.

Toni had never understood why, and neither had Tao or Agatha, when she had told them this. But it had been one of the things that had drawn her to them from the beginning, one of her favourite things about them.

“I have some questions for you,” she said, as soon as Gilgamesh let go of her.

“Never here for leisure, are you?” he complained, even as he motioned for her to follow him.

“Excuse me, I came by to share a drink with you not too long ago,” she protested, earning a glare from him.

“Just because I’m over 7000 years of age doesn’t mean I mistake 3 years ago for ‘not too long ago’,” he told her, opening the door to his vegetable garden. “Want something to drink?”

“You are never going to convince me to drink any of your spit beer.”

“It’s really good,” he complained, picking up his fancy basket from the ground and moving towards the tomato bushes. “How do you think people used to do things, before your fancy machines were created?”

“Speaking of how things used to be done,” said Toni, sitting down on the bench, and looking over at him considerately. “What do you know about the Infinity Stones?”

“Nothing much,” he started, eyebrows furrowing in concentration. “There are... six of them, if I’m not mistaken, and they’re very powerful. It’s like Time, Space, Strength, Mind, Matter and... I’m blanking on the sixth.”

“You got three right. Now, you guys are aliens from Olympia, right?”

“Right.”

“But you know about other planets that exist. Like Asgard? Jotunheim?”

“Yes,” said Gilgamesh, nodding proudly. “We even helped the Aesir push back the Jotnar over a thousand years ago in the battle of Tonsberg.”

Toni frowned, momentarily abandoning her line of questioning. “You can’t help us on Earth but you can help Asgardians? Why?”

Gilgamesh paused where he was picking carrots. “Uh. Good question. I think Ajax said we were allowed to do that, for whatever reason. I can’t really remember.”

“Because it didn’t happen,” came a voice beside her, which made Toni jump in her seat. “I’m sorry. Did I startle you?”

“You’re not sorry,” accused Toni, though she wasn’t as irritated as she was pretending to be. 

Especially when the blonde smiled at her.

Very few were the people able to sneak up on her, but Thena had always been one of them. She wasn’t particularly harder to sense than the other Eternals, but she was very agile and light on her feet, when she wanted to be.

And she always wanted to be.

“Walk with me, Toni,” she then said, walking forward without waiting for any sort of agreement from her.

Considering Toni was scrambling after her immediately, despite Gilgamesh’s complaints, Thena definitely knew what she was doing.

While she would never admit it out loud, Toni had something of an... infatuation, when it came to one particular goddess of war.

It sounded childish, she was perfectly aware of it. And considering she had been both in awe and enthralled by this woman since she first saw her at age six, it was very childish.

But she had looked so cool to six years old Toni, with her white and gold aesthetic. And 37 years old Toni was just as enthralled with her beauty, and unsure on whether she wanted to learn everything she could about battle from her or find a way to seduce her.

“What do you mean ‘because it didn’t happen’?” she then asked, as soon as she had caught up with the woman. "The Eternals didn't help the Aesir?"

“You know what the thing about having Mahd Wy’ri is?” questioned Thena, instead of answering her outright. “It makes things clearer even as it makes them more confusing.”

Mahd Wy’ri. That space dementia that Thena suffered from. Ajax had explained to Toni that it was because the weight of her immortal memories had become too much for her to bear, when she had asked about it. It caused Thena to become suddenly violent and attack everyone around her, and only Gilgamesh seemed able to knock her out of it when it happened (figuratively and literally).

Toni had never seen her fall into it, despite how many times it had been spoken about, and while she knew it made her a pretty horrible person, part of her was very curious about what it looked like.

“What do you mean?”

“In here,” she said, tapping her own forehead. “When I am not losing my mind, everything appears much clearer than it should be.

“Ajax wanted to manipulate my mind, when she found out I had Mahd Wy’ri. To erase my memories completely. I told her no; I didn’t want my memories messed with.” She made two golden swords appear from nowhere, and thrust one at Toni, who managed to catch in time. “So I became very paranoid about someone doing it to me when I was not paying attention. Position one.”

“What’s position one?”

“Legs apart, weapon raised straight, left arm behind your back, face completely to the left of your weapon. And move.”

Toni took one step back as Thena took one forward, parrying the easy hit sent her way.

“I became so paranoid about someone messing with my memory that I realised someone already had messed with my memory. Position one, again.”

Toni moved as instructed, though she was looking at Thena in vague surprise. “Ajax took your memory before?”

“No. Someone else did, and he took everyone’s memories too. Position two.” 

Toni stared at her.

Thena sighed. “Left leg bent slightly backwards, weapon arm bent at an angle, face in the same place as before, left arm behind you, but balancing you. Attack, and step.”

This time it was Thena who parried the hit, a little more forcefully than Toni had expected. But she did not lose her balance.

“Again. It was done before we even arrived on Earth, which makes me think it might have been done by Arishem himself. If so... that raises some concerning questions.”

“Why haven’t you spoken to Ajax about this?”

“Because Ajax already knows about this. Position one, and then slide into two. I think Ajax remembers everything just fine, and I think that she told Ikaris about this.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Better that way. I don’t like him very much. Fine warrior, displeasing attitude. The thing about recognising that your memory has been altered, is that when it happens again, you become aware of it. And it did happen again, about a 1000 years ago.” She parried the hit. “This time, though, everyone’s memories were altered. Even Ajax’s. Position three.”

Minimum 1000 years ago.

And Loki had said a maximum 3000 years.

Toni gave her a thoughtful look as they repeated the positions once more. “You know why I’m here?”

“I know that you are at the centre of what happened,” said Thena, calmly. “I knew that I already knew you, the first time Tao brought you here. I looked into your eyes, and I immediately knew we had met before.”

“You knew me from my first life,” said Toni, breathing picking up slightly. “You know what happened to me?”

“Memories work in a funny way,” said Thena, musingly. “Position four. We know things even we don’t realise we know, and it’s not until later that we realise.”

Toni huffed, bringing down her sword and then switching it to her left hand. “You know, you’re allowed to say no like a normal person.”

“But then that would be a lie,” pointed out Thena. “Position one to eight. I might not know; or I might know what happened to you, and just not remember it.”

“Not remembering it is basically the same as not knowing, because you can’t give me the help I need,” said Toni, doing the first four moves as instructed and then doing the moves Thena had been doing in reverse.

Thena was smirking. “Maybe. All I know is that Tao came here with you and your blade, and I knew that I knew you the second I looked into your eyes. And I know that I might have taught you these moves in a different life, but I’ve never taught you positions three to eight in this one, and most especially not any of this either.”

Toni’s eyes widened in surprise as she put both their swords into the ground in a move she had absolutely no recollection of ever learning. “What the fuck?”

Thena shrugged. “Memories cannot ever be truly erased,” she said. “No matter how hard one might try. They are hidden, obfuscated, changed. But,” and here she tapped Toni’s forehead. “Never erased. Once raised, they can never be kept.”

“The wisdom of Pallas, champion of Athens,” said Toni, smirking at the way she rolled her eyes. “No wonder the Greeks gave you wisdom as well as war.”

“They also gave me an ‘A’ I didn’t ask for.”

“Go on a date with me and I’ll give you anything you want.”

“I’ve known this version of you since you were six years old,” informed her Thena, sounding amused. “I see you as a niece of sorts.”

“I’ve never been niece-zoned in my life,” muttered Toni, pouting slightly. Then she stopped, a sudden thought in her head. “You said that Tao came with me and with a blade. What blade? Where is it?” 

“I don’t know,” said Thena, linking their arms together as they walked towards Gilgamesh’s garden again, “But I have a feeling that this is the part where I tell you, ‘you know where it is’, and you have an epiphany.” 

“Well, not this time. I have no idea where Tao could have-”

Toni cut herself off.

Oh, damn it.

“And that would be the epiphany,” said Thena, smiling serenely. “The wisdom of Thena indeed.”

Chapter Text

Toni’s head was running way faster than any speed limit would permit as she finally landed on top of her Tower. Ever since Thena had spoken to her the day before, she had been unable to think about anything else, to be honest.

It had to be the box.

It just had to be the box.

Even JARVIS agreed that there was a 82,71% chance that whatever mystical dagger Tao had brought to Thena to investigate might be the object hidden in the box that Toni had avoided like the plague since the day Tao’s fucking spirit or astral projection or whatever creepy magic thing it was appeared in her workshop with it.

It wasn’t like Toni had not been curious. She had been very curious about it, very curious about what about the stupid box had been so important that Tao had spent her last living moments giving it to her before she dipped in the sorcerers’ underworld.

But she hadn’t wanted to open it. No matter how much it had called to her, no matter how much part of her couldn’t stop wondering about it, she hadn’t wanted to give in.

Perhaps, she had been scared. Perhaps, it had been the last thing she had left of Tao and she hadn’t been ready to accept that the woman was gone. Perhaps, she hadn’t wanted to open it and be disappointed by whatever was inside it.

There was no certainty that the object inside of it was the blade that Thena had spoken about.

And there were, of course, questions as to where the blade/dagger had come from, and why Tao had taken six years old Toni and said dagger to meet the Eternals for the first time.

And why her parents had allowed it - if they had even known.

And why Thena believed that she knew her.

And why nobody had bothered telling her about any of this until now.

“Workshop, J,” she instructed, as soon as the elevator doors opened once she landed on her Tower. “You okay?”

“Yes,” said the AI, in a tone of voice that made Toni’s eyes narrow a little. He had been a little quiet for about 20 minutes now, and she was starting to worry a bit. “I have just come across some information that you will wish to learn more about, in regards to SHIELD and the organisation that infiltrated them. Also, Doctor Strange and Doctor Banner are on your workshop floor, ready to stage an intervention.”

Well, neither part of that sentence sounded particularly good, thought Toni with a grimace.

“Let’s table the infiltration bit for after I’m done,” she said, huffing. “Chances that you can remove those Debby Downers non lethally?”

“Considering Doctor Strange’s magic and the fact that I am not as well versed in the mannerism and speech pattern of Doctor Banner’s alter ego as you are, I would say very low,” he said, the elevator finally coming to a stop.

“Thought so. Ugh, why are they like this?” She sighed, rubbing her face with her hands. “Alright, let’s do this.”

JARVIS took it as his cue to open the doors, and just as he had warned, Toni found Strange and Bruce standing near the door to her workshop. Strange was leaning against the glass facing Bruce, who was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, and they were both locked in conversation.

Bar magic, floating cloaks, and the number of years on their faces, it was not that unfamiliar an image. It reminded her of Columbia a lot.

It made something in Toni’s heart clench and burn at the same time.

“Well, isn’t this a throwback Thursday,” she mused, as they both turned to look at her as soon as she stepped out. “Have I been drinking too much and you’re worried? Or are you here to tell me how much you dislike my newest significant other?”

“I don’t recall ever having an intervention to talk about people you were sleeping with in college,” said Strange, one eyebrow raised. 

“Irene Jenkins,” she immediately fired back, smirking at the way both their noses twisted at that.

“That wasn’t an intervention,” protested Bruce. 

“That was a discussion in which we told you you could do better than that, you told us not to tell you what to do and to mind our business, and then we all pretended nothing happened when you broke up with her less than a week later for stealing from you,” agreed Stephen, smirking.

“I remember it differently,” she said, tapping her heel on the floor impatiently. “Well? What’s this about? I don’t have that much time.”

“Er,” said Bruce, standing back up slowly. “We just... we wanted to check up on you.”

“Check me out? Bruce, I thought you said you were over your unshakeable love for me.”

He rolled his eyes, refusing to take the bait. “You did not look that good, after Strange dropped the ‘this isn’t your first life’ bomb,” he continued, expression worried. “Which we all agree, he could have done more gently.”

“I was fine,” she protested, earning very disbelieving looks from both of them.

“Stark, you smiled so big we thought your face was gonna get frozen like that, kicked everyone out of your penthouse, locked yourself in to probably drink yourself to death, and no one saw you again until now,” told her Strange, concern and irritation showing in equal measure on his face. “You were not fine.”

Toni made to say something cutting back at him, and Bruce intervened again. “There are some books on that whole reincarnation thing, Yinsen got a bunch and read up on,” he offered. “And while different faiths have different beliefs, the consensus is that you are still you. It’s like having a childhood you just never remembered about, except the childhood is an entire life as a potentially blue alien on another alien planet called Jotnar.”

“Jotunheim,” she corrected, rolling her eyes. She was also pretty sure she hadn't been blue, but she couldn’t say that with certainty. “And fine, I can admit I wasn’t... at my best, right after you told me. I did spend a few hours trying to drink my thoughts and identity crisis away; but I’m over all that. My unhealthy coping mechanisms clearly work, and I am now just very curious about who I was, and what the hell happened to her slash me. But the most important thing is that right now I am me, and until I figure out who she is, I shall remain me. Yay for me. Emotional growth and all that. 10/10, would recommend.” She clapped her hands together. “So, if that’s all...”

She looked at them expectantly, and Strange frowned. “Then why were you avoiding us?”

“Who said I was avoiding you?”

“Wong and I convinced you to try and get checked for possession, you found out that you had a second life, kicked us out, and then JARVIS said you went on some supposed SI business in Australia,” he said, pointedly. “You can see why some might assume they were being avoided.”

Toni rolled her eyes. “Jeez, Strange, the world does not revolve around you. I did have some business in Australia, and I came back once that was handled.”

“Convenient timing.”

Alright, she was running out of patience, and the excitement that she had been feeling since she had returned was quickly evaporating. “I have more than enough reason to avoid you, if I want to avoid you,” she told him, acidly.

He pulled himself away from the glass door, eyes narrowed, and Bruce immediately looked worried, glancing between the two of them. “Uh, guys-”

“You know what I don’t get?” started Strange, frustrated eyes fixed on her. “That you have the gall of going around acting like you are the victim, like you were the hurt party in all of this. That you keep acting like I hurt you. How you can be so mad at me when you are the one who cheated on me with my fucking best friend?”

“Let’s not go fucking changing history here, Strange,” said Toni, glare sharpening. “We were not dating. I broke up with you.”

“Three days before,” he reminded her, smiling with zero humour. “We were together for basically four years, and you waited three days before jumping into bed with the only other person I actually considered a friend.”

“We broke up over a month before that, Stephen,” she corrected, glaring. “Sleeping with you after that was a mistake we both made, it did not mean us getting back together. I thought I made it very clear.”

“As if that changes anything.”

“It does change things. We were at each other’s throat, and on and off for the entirety of our last year together. We had done nothing but fight for months before you came up with your idiotic idea of moving in together. By the time I called it quits for the last time, there were just tattered pieces of what we had once been. Our relationship was dead long before I called it quits, pretending otherwise does not make you or me any favours.”

“I loved you,” spat the sorcerer, and any other time the dichotomy between his expression and emotions versus his words would have been funny.

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Don’t belittle my feelings.”

“I’ll call bullshit on them then,” she said, scoffing. “I don’t believe you were in love with me. I think you convinced yourself that you loved me because you did not want to lose me, but you did not love me by the end. And if you honestly think that was love, then I feel sorry for you. Whatever we were doing to each other was not love.”

“What would you know about love?” wondered Strange, now his turn to smile with all of his teeth showing. “You have never loved another person in your life.”

“Or maybe I just never loved you, and it burns something inside of you to think about it?” she posed, also grinning.

“Woah, okay,” said Bruce, both hands up. “Okay, can we all take a step back? We are not here to rehash history. We all hurt each other years ago, but now that’s over and we are grown ups, and we can act like grown ups.”

“I’m sorry, what exactly did I do to hurt the two of you?” questioned Strange, now glaring at Bruce. “Punching you? You deserved it.”

“Why?” questioned Toni, arms crossed around her chest when Bruce stiffened slightly at Strange’s tone. “Because you’re some sort of caveman with deluded beliefs that I am yours and that my choice of sleeping with Bruce had somehow something to do with you?”

“You know damn well-”

Toni’s attention was torn from whatever he was saying as JARVIS spoke in her mind, right before her phone buzzed in her pocket. 

Incoming message from Mr Parker, Miss.

She could have left it alone, that was true. She was in the middle of an argument, here.

But Strange disliked being ignored, and currently Toni would do anything to just piss him off more.

So she pretended not to hear him still talking, pulling out her phone.

Pete: miss stark, is doctor Banner still at your tower, and if he is can I come over today please???? I have a paper to do for physics and want to use him as a source

Pete: please please please!!! may already said yes but only if you say yes.

Pete: say yes plsssss

The thing about Toni Stark was that, for all she was quick, clever and capable, she was also somewhat impulsive (allegedly). She did things without thinking them through all the time, and while most of the time they worked out, sometimes they did not.

“Hey, Bruce,” she said, continuing to not pay attention to Strange’s glare or whatever he had been saying. “Peter wants to know if he can come over today. He wants some help with a physics paper.”

“Since when do you hang out with children?” questioned Strange, putting his anger on hold so that he could give Bruce a bewildered look. “What, are the two of you sharing custody of her godson now?”

Toni’s face did not so much as twitch. She was used to people incorrectly assuming Peter was her child, and had become a pro at ignoring it or denying it while looking unbothered by the claim.

The thing about Bruce Banner was that, for all he was quick, clever and capable, no one had ever accused him of being subtle or particularly good at keeping secrets.

Strange was looking at Bruce when he made the comment about sharing custody.

He was also looking at Bruce when the other scientist’s eyes widened in shock and thinly veiled panic, and when he looked between him and Toni with eyes filled with guilt and nerves.

Toni did not care that they had just recently patched things together, right then she wanted once more to strangle Bruce Banner.

The thing about Stephen Strange was that, for all he was quick, clever and capable, he was doubly so at the most inconvenient of times.

He was also not a fucking idiot.

“Wait, what?” questioned Strange, now his turn to look between Toni and Bruce. Toni’s face remained as unreadable as she had kept it since this trainwreck had started, but Bruce continued to give them up with his expression that hid nothing. “You two...”

“Stephen-”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” said Strange, pure shock in his eyes. “You have a child together?!”

“Peter’s not my child,” said Toni, calmly, staring him down. “And even if he were, it’s none of your business.”

“It’s none of my-” he paused, and just like Bruce that day Thor had informed everyone that Peter was hers, his face blanched. “How old is he.”

“Again, it’s none of your business.”

“It’s starting to sound like it might be my business!” snapped Strange, now turning to Bruce. “What the hell? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know anything,” feebly protested Bruce, glancing between them nervously. “I still don’t know anything. He’s not mine, and he’s not Toni’s, and he’s not yours, he’s-”

Oh, Bruce wanted to get fucked up.

Miss?

Hold.

“He’s not mine,” repeated Strange, turning to look at her. “Implying that he might have been.” Bruce winced behind him, and Strange looked even more pissed off. “Why didn’t you tell me? You had no right to-”

“Why didn’t I tell you?” said Toni, voice dangerously calm. “Why didn’t I tell you, Stephen Strange? Is this really your question, right now?”

“Jesus, Stark, if you knew that there was a chance that-”

“I called you three times, when I found out,” she reminded him, smiling gently at him. She wondered if she was imagining how cold the room had suddenly become. “January of 2001. Called you up for the first time since that morning in Bruce’s room. Each time, you declined. Do you remember that, Strange?” He stiffened, while Toni’s tone and smile did not change in the slightest. “I do. I called you three times. You didn’t pick up once. And then, you blocked my number. 

“Now, had it not been such important information, I would have given up there and then. I’m Toni Stark, and Toni Stark does not chase men. That’s beneath me. But I wanted to try and give you a chance to learn the truth. Because it was the good, respectable thing to do. The right thing to do. So what did I do? I tracked you down, just like I tracked Bruce down. I knew there was a chance the baby wasn’t yours, but I wanted you to know of the possibility, and run a DNA test if you wanted. There was an equal chance that he might have been yours, after all. I wanted to cover all my bases. So I tracked you down to your apartment, and found you right as you were leaving with Christine.

“I called you up, didn’t I? Tried to stop you, tried to explain to you that there was something important I needed to talk to you about. Do you remember what you told me, when I came after you? Do you remember what you told me, Strange?”

Strange was no longer looking at her, nor was he glaring any longer. He was just standing there, suddenly having deflated.

Toni felt no pity for him.

“You told me to leave because you ‘didn’t owe me anything’,” she finished, chuckling a little. It wasn’t that funny. “That we were done, and to stop trying to be your friend because it was never going to happen. That you didn’t need me anymore. That we were nothing to each other. You said a lot of things to me that evening, Strange, none of them very kind. And with your little girlfriend standing beside you wearing my scarf, too.”

Somehow, that detail was the one that Toni had held onto the most, in the years following the fallout. That Strange had given his new girlfriend Toni’s scarf. In her mind, that had been the most rude aspect of the entire thing.

“You do remember, right? I could repeat everything you told me, if you don’t. Unlike my dreams, everything you said is still sharp in my mind. Word for word.

“You told me to leave. So I left. You made it clear you had no space in your life for me ever again, so I watched you walk away and then forced myself to walk away too.

“So here is the answer to your question. Here’s why I ‘didn’t tell you’, Stephen. Is my answer to your satisfaction, Stephen Strange?”

He did not answer, remaining standing where he was, not making eye contact with anyone.

Toni remembered how she had felt, watching him and Christine walk away, unsure if the sudden cold she had felt deep in her bones had been because of the cool winter wind of New York, or for some other reason.

She wasn’t sure how long it had taken her to even walk away and go to the Sanctum.

“Well,” she said after a few seconds, ignoring the look in Bruce’s eyes, “This intervention has been lovely, guys, but I have things to do, places to be. I’m a busy woman, you know this. And, Strange?”

He looked up at this, and Toni refused to even attempt to decode the look in his eyes. “You go anywhere near Peter trying to tell him the truth of where he came from, DNA wise, and I will kill you. Whatever it is that I did to you while ensnared or whatever will look like child’s play. I will take you out. Stay away from Peter.”  She smiled. “I hope that’s clear. Catch you later!”

You no longer wish to visit the workshop? Questioned JARVIS, closing the elevator doors behind her.

Nope, she answered, trying to stave off the irritation and anger she felt inside. She needed to either blow something up or beat something. I want to see what’s in the box, but I’m not in the mood, right now. Are Darcy and Jane in the Tower?

No. They left a while ago for lunch, and have yet to return. You have yet to respond to young Mr Parker’s message, and Miss Potts has attempted to contact you multiple times already regarding company matters.

Ew. The elevator opened on the gym level and Toni stepped out, cracking her neck as she moved. But speaking of useless information, didn’t you say you found something about SHIELD and their little infestation? What you got?

…

Toni paused at the silence from her AI, turning to glance at his cameras with a frown. “JARV?”

“I believe informing you right now of what I have found would not be conclusive to your mental health, considering your current feelings and anger.”

“I’m not angry,” lied Toni, brows knitted together in vague concern. “And what’s not conclusive to my mental health is you not telling me right now what you found.”

“Miss, you know I have always had your wellbeing at heart in all decisions I make,” said the AI, and Toni started to feel a little nervous at how purposefully vague he was being. “I fear that this is not something you should learn of just now.”

“J, if you don’t tell me, I’ll just log online and find out for myself,” she said, brandishing her phone threateningly. “Tell me.”

“I strongly advise that you at least seek someone to be with you as I am forced to deliver this news to you.”

“Rhodey is not in the state, Pepper and Happy aren’t either. Yinsen, Foster and Lewis aren’t in the Tower, and I don’t feel like being with Bruce, right now,” she listed off. “You are with me anyway, right?”

“Of course,” reassured her babyboy. “For you, Miss, always. I simply fear that this might need a more human touch.”

“You are human enough, J, you know that. The more you skirt around the topic, the more nervous I become,” she joked, giving him a smile that felt fake even to her. “Come on. Just shoot it.”

“Very well,” said the AI, and Toni straightened, arms crossed around her chest again. “It turns out that the organisation that has infiltrated SHIELD is no one other than the long presumed dead HYDRA.”

Toni blinked, slowly. “...HYDRA?”

“Indeed.”

“But...” she blinked again, now even more confused than before. “I thought dad said that Rogers took down HYDRA when he ghosted Peggy by moving in a nice one room iceberg the Arctic?”

“HYDRA is not a person, HYDRA is an ideology. An ideology can never truly die, so long as there is at least one person who believes in it. In this case, more than one, as SHIELD took part in Operation Paperclip. They recruited several high ranking HYDRA scientists right after the war and-”

“HYDRA reformed from inside SHIELD,” she finished, horror creeping in her voice at the realisation. “HYDRA infected SHIELD since its inception? They never died, they simply assimilated like a parasite and grew inside its ranks, doing their-”

Toni paused, blood cooling inside of her so fast she felt as if the temperature had just dropped in the room again.

“JARVIS.”

“...Yes, Miss?”

She did not need to ask any follow up questions, based on his hesitation and his current tone alone. JARVIS did not hesitate. JARVIS always had the answer ready before Toni could ask him.

She knew what the hesitation meant.

She still found herself asking.

“Margaret Carter was telling the truth when she told me that SHIELD had nothing to do with the hit on dad that we found in her servers.”

“It appears so.”

Toni swallowed.

“JARVIS?” she repeated, in the same tone as before.

“Yes, Miss?”

“Did HYDRA kill my parents?” 

“Yes, Miss.”

Toni breathed out.

For almost 20 years, she had lived with the knowledge that SHIELD had killed her parents.

She had known from the very beginning that something was fishy about her parents’ death. Stane and Carter had tried to feed her a lie that Howard had been drunk, but Toni could tell when people lied to her face.

It had taken her almost a year to follow the trail back to SHIELD and to Margaret Carter. To an order on SHIELD’s servers ordering that Howard Stark was eliminated without leaving any witnesses, and that the 'serum' was retrieved.

It was not signed by Margaret Carter, but Toni had recognised the SHIELD insignia.

Carter wore it as a ring every time she came to visit and argue with Howard.

Toni had then showed up to the old woman’s house with a gun in her pocket and demanded that she confessed to what she had done.

Carter had not.

Toni had been almost tempted to take action despite hearing the truth of her confusion in her voice, but Agatha and Tao had gotten involved and stopped her (fucking portals).

It had been the start of Toni’s hatred for everything remotely related to that organisation. 

And it turned out, they weren’t the guilty party in this.

SHIELD hadn’t killed her parents; HYDRA had.

Not that she thought they were in any way less guilty than before, mind you. Even if somehow Fury and Romanoff were not HYDRA, they weren’t particularly good people either. Carter had to had known something.

But HYDRA had killed her parents, not SHIELD.

“How certain are you that it was HYDRA?” she asked, after a few more moments of silence. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to be right or not. 

She didn’t know if it was going to make a difference.

“100% sure.”

“That’s a scary degree of certainty,” she mused, frowning slightly. Compartmentalizing, she was good at that. “What makes you so sure? Last time I checked, the hit was signed SHIELD.”

“There is a report of your parents' assassination, and its conduction by an Asset of HYDRA denominated ‘Fist of HYDRA’ and/or ‘Winter Soldier’, as well as indication to the presence of a recording of the event.”

A recording of the event?

+++

“Dad wasn’t drunk,” insisted Toni, power walking after Aunt Peggy. “I know he wasn’t!”

“Antoinette, this is really not the time,” said the older woman, lying again. Toni knew she was lying, and Aunt Peggy had to know that Toni knew, but she didn’t stop. It was driving Toni insane. “Howard lost control of his car and killed them both. He either did that sober - which I somewhat doubt, given his usual level of competence - or he was drunk.”

“I don’t believe you,” she hissed, fists shaking at her sides. “You are a liar and a murderer, and I don’t believe one word you say. I want to see my parents.”

“That’s not happening,” said Aunt Peggy, shaking her head. “The crash was too bad, and a girl like you-”

“A ‘girl like me’? I am their daughter! You can’t stop me from seeing them! I need to identify the bodies!”

“I’ve already done it, as has Obadiah,” said Peggy, finally stopping in her tracks. She made her face kinder, but Toni did not trust this woman’s kindness. She was a serpent in woman’s skin, a modern day basilisk. “Just go with Mr Jarvis, darling. You can’t start behaving like this now, you are the sole inheritor-”

“You won’t let me see the bodies, you keep lying about dad being drunk when you and I both know Howard would never drink and drive, you identified the bodies despite not being next of kin, you arrived at the place of the murder before I did, even though the police came to me, and the camera that would have shown the accident was broken and its footage missing.” Toni shook her head, ignoring the tears in her eyes as she glared hatefully at the woman in front of her. “You had a hand in this. I know you did, and I’m not going to let you get away with this. You helped-”

Her cheek stung with the force of the slap from Peggy.

The older woman was staring at her with fury, but Toni could see a hint of fear in her eyes. “How dare you, Antoinette. How dare you insinuate that I would hurt your father? Stop this nonsense right now, and pull yourself together.”

Toni sneered, taking one single step back. She pointed her index finger at the woman. “I will get to the bottom of this. I will find out what really happened to them, and then I will make sure you pay for what you did for the rest of your miserable life, Margaret Carter.”

Then she turned around, high heels clicking loudly against the ground as she marched outside, ignoring Carter trying to call her back.

+++

“How much did SHIELD know?” she found herself asking. “And who had the footage?”

“HYDRA has the footage, and SHIELD knew that the Winter Soldier killed your parents,” said JARVIS.

Toni couldn’t even fake her surprise.

“I want to see the footage.”

“I do not have access to it,” admitted JARVIS, and Toni hated that she could hear how relieved he was about this. “While HYDRA has access to SHIELD’s servers, it does not seem that SHIELD has access to HYDRA’s. Or perhaps, like SHIELD, they have a separate place where their data is stored.”

“Of course they do,” said Toni, running a hand through her hair.

HYDRA had killed her parents, not SHIELD, but SHIELD had known about it.

Strange knew that there was a chance that his DNA had had a hand in creating Peter.

She still didn’t know what was in the box, or what the blade was all about.

And there was a Mad Titan with a hard on for whoever she had been in her previous life, hunting Infinity Stones and coming straight their way.

“And I was having such a good day, too.”

Chapter Text

“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” said Yinsen, not looking remotely surprised as Toni walked through the doors of his office.

“You think about me when I’m not there?” questioned Toni, offering him a flirty smile. “Oh, Yinsen, my little Hoe. That’s naughty.”

“You know, I did psychology for a year,” he told her, not looking very impressed. “If you wanted, we could sit down and figure out together why you use flirting and sexual humour as a coping mechanism.”

“Psychology? Please, that’s not even a real science.”

“You only think physics is a real science.”

“That’s not true,” she complained, dropping on the chair in front of his desk and turning backwards. “I have been known to respect chemistry too, every now and again.”

Yinsen shook his head. “I don’t think I have the energy necessary for this argument, today. How about we move past this and go straight to the part where I’m supposed to act as your conscience?”

“I thought you hated me acting like you’re my conscience.”

“Oh, I do. But it has been clear for a while that very little of what I do or do not like actually matters to you.”

“I respect you,” she complained, with a pout on her face. “And value your opinion greatly.”

He rolled his eyes. “I know. Now go on, talk, before I decide I don’t want to entertain you anymore.”

“As if that would stop me,” joked Toni, with a smug little smile on her face. “You love me too much for that, Yinsen.”

He did not reply, simply choosing to stare at her, waiting.

Toni considered for a second waiting until he cracked first, just because she liked being contrarian, and then decided that it was not going to help her case, having Yinsen irritated and whiny. And people tended to get real whiny when they decided Toni was wasting their time or making light of allegedly important conversations.

“So, here’s the thing,” she started, drumming her fingers on the desk. “I am... going through something. I am confused. And overwhelmed. And slightly freaking out. A combination of all three. I am confused, overwhelmed, and freaking out because life has decided to throw me all of its lemons at once, and I have never been partial to lemonade. I have never that good a juggler either, but I would still rather the ground didn’t get sticky.”

Yinsen nodded. “List.”

“There was an Invasion, a few months ago. Literal aliens fell from the sky like the proverbial cats and dogs and attacked New York in an attempt to destroy us or take us over, I’m still not 100% sure. All I know is that it was terrible, and had the entire thing not been meticulously set out to fail from the beginning, we would have not survived.

“I went on the other side of that wormhole,” she continued, not even noticing when her tapping paused. “I saw what was there. I saw what was waiting for us, what will now simply be taking the long way round to get to us. And our not so friendly Asgardian neighbours know too. 

“So, like the good model citizen I am, I went to the military and tried to get them to ready themselves and us for a possible second attack, to get them to start planning on how we’re going to deal with the second wave. 

“But they’re not listening to me. Because why listen to the only person who knows what’s on the other side, the only person who has actually seen what was there, when said person is a silly mentally ill woman playing at being a hero?” She scoffed. “I tried for months to get them to listen, and they haven’t. So now, I’m planning to take things in my hands, to do things my own damn self. Because I live on this planet, and I have to say, I am morally and religiously against people coming to enslave me and my planet. Call it a pet peeve of mine. And even if the US military is ready to wag their tail and lay on their stomach for their new Darth Vader, I have been reliably informed that this planet is more than just New York, and if the US military won’t listen to me, I should broaden my horizons and look over the ocean.”

Yinsen nodded, expression serious. “Okay. You seem to have that covered.”

“You’d think,” said Toni, smiling with zero humour. “But then there is the fact that I have just found out that SHIELD did not actually kill my parents, like I’ve believed for years. But that in fact HYDRA is alive in SHIELD, and they’re the ones who ordered my father’s death.”

“HYDRA?” repeated Yinsen, surprised. “HYDRA was real?”

“Yup. And if they’re in SHIELD and have this much control, then Tesla knows how many other operations and organisations they might have infiltrated. Can’t tell anyone in position of power yet, because for all I know they are HYDRA, so guess what? It falls on to me again. Toni the builder, we hope we can.

“But I can’t even focus on that, because a secret I have been keeping to myself for over 11 years was found out by the two people in the world I kinda hoped would never find out. Now the two of them know, and I don’t know what they’re going to do, and as a known control freak, it’s hard to concentrate on my work when I have wild cards potentially ready to non consensually bite me in the ass.

“And apparently the Universe decided that I didn’t have enough problems, because I now find out that I am actually a reincarnation of some woman with even worse relationship problems than I do, and I’m going to have to deal with that too because who else is going to do that but me?

“But I am only one person, and these are all very big things that demand my attention very soon, and I need to-”

“Relax,” interrupted Yinsen. Toni looked up at him, and he repeated, “You need to relax.”

Toni stared at him. “Did you not hear a word of what I just said?”

“I heard everything you said,” answered the doctor, smiling a little. “I can’t really tell you how to deal with all of that, but I can tell you you won’t manage to do anything stressed as you are. You are tenser than a bow string, and you can’t work in these conditions. You might be Toni Stark, but you are still only human, and you need to let your brain and body clock out, every now and again. You don’t want to burn out. You need to get out and just relax for one night; your problems are still going to be there when you come back. Just go out and be a normal 30 years old woman-”

“Sir, I’m 37-”

“Instead of Iron Queen or COO of SI or Antoinette Stark,” he continued. “Be just Toni , for one night. Let your brain relax. When you come back, things will be fresh in perspective, and you will be ready to work at a 100%.”

Kind of like Toni had done to try and deal with her out of control powers.

That had backfired, however. 

“What if I come back and everything is even more confusing that I have left it?”

Yinsen shrugged. “Then you arrange for a group of people who can help you navigate these problems. There has to be at least one other person who can help you with HYDRA. One other person who already knew of that old secret, and who you can talk to about it. I know Wong and Doctor Strange would be willing to help you with the reincarnation thing, and as for the Invasion... you’ll figure out something.”

“Mh,” she said, nodding slowly.

Taking a step back. Letting her mind rest. Come back sharper.

She could do that.

I personally agree with Doctor Yinsen’s advice.

You would, wouldn’t you.

“You believe me, right?” she then asked, looking at him with more caution. “About the Invasion?”

“Yes,” he said, without hesitation. “But you shouldn’t read too much into that. I’m just your conscience, I believe anything you believe.”

Toni snickered. “As long as you know it.” Then she smiled more honestly. “Thank you, Yinsen. You’re a good friend. And a very good therapist.”

“Just wait until my bill gets there.”

She laughed again, pulling out her phone as she walked out of the room.

There was a text from Darcy, inviting her to come to a club with her and Jane, but Toni ignored it for the moment, looking for the contact she needed instead.

From: you know who I am

Text: I need everything you know about HYDRA and the Winter Soldier program. Urgent.

Then she went back to Darcy’s text, and considered it for a moment. What better way to ‘relax’ than to go back to her roots and pick up someone cute at a bar?

+++

“Holy shit,” said Darcy, as soon as Toni came into her line of sight. “I regret inviting you.”

Toni smirked, pulling her hair behind her ear. “Did I accidentally show you both up?”

“You know, it’s not fair that you get to be smart, rich, and look like that,” complained Jane, eyeing her up and down. “Be honest, have you ever gotten plastic surgery? Did you get anything done? Say yes, I need it for my self esteem.”

Toni laughed, smiling at the bartender looking at her with wide eyes. “Get me something fruity, alcoholic and aesthetically pleasing.”

Normally she would have gone for a scotch on the rocks, but she wanted to get silly and quickly so that she could make a bunch of ill advised decisions guaranteed to make Pepper curse her name and bloodline, and also let Toni have a mighty fun time.

“Seriously, how much even is this dress?” questioned Darcy, tracing the material of the strapless grey piece she was wearing. “I feel some sort of guilt seeing such an expensive dress in such a trashy bar. No offence,” she added, when the bartender glared at her.

“Don’t, I’ve worn better at worse,” said Toni, waving her off. “And are we here to talk about the class divide between us in respect to the socio-political landscape we find ourselves in now, or are we here to dance, get drunk and make sure I make bad decisions and have me some fun?” 

“I vote for number two,” said Darcy, giggling as Toni high fived her.

Then Toni turned to where the bartender had returned with her drink, and studied the drink on the bar. “What’s this?”

JARVIS, you with me?

Always, Miss. The drink is safe, nothing was put in it.

Always better than safe.

“A Bahama Mama Cocktail.”

Keep an eye on Janey and Darce’s drinks too.

You are supposed to be relaxing.

Constant vigilance! And you know I’ll be more relaxed knowing they are also being safe.

I suppose, and Toni could almost here the grudging tone in those words.

“It has rum and-”

“Thank you,” she said, downing the glass in one go. 

Now Jane was looking at her with some worry. “Uh, Toni? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, shaking off the burn in her throat. “Or maybe I’m not. But what I know will make me feel better is dancing with two knockouts like the two of you, pick up someone cute after, and not have a hangover tomorrow. That’s what the doctor prescribed.”

More or less. If anything went wrong with this she was blaming Yinsen anyway. As her conscience, he should have known better.

“How many drinks will it take you to consider me a possible option?” questioned Darcy, as she pulled Jane along with her and Toni towards the dancefloor. 

Toni laughed. “You should have been born a few years earlier if you really wanted me to seriously consider you an option, Darcy-babe,” she informed her, voice teasing but fond. “It’s a pity, because you’re totally my type.”

“What about me?” wondered Jane, moving awkwardly to the rhythm while Darcy pouted, not looking as if she was particularly surprised or hurt.

Toni raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought you were straight and in a relationship with Thor?”

“I am both,” agreed Jane, “But I need a confidence boost after spending so much time near you. If I wasn’t straight and I was available, would I be your type?”

“You are smart enough to be,” lied Toni, just to watch Jane smile in delight, and playfully whoop as she started to dance a little less stiffly.

Darcy caught her eyes, an expression that told her she knew Toni was lying, but she just nodded in appreciation instead of calling her out.

Toni was glad.

While before she had mostly come out here to drink and pick up someone at a bar, she found herself having some genuine fun as she danced with Darcy and Jane and got to join in on their banter and their jokes.

She had known that the two of them were nice and she enjoyed working with them at the Tower. There had been a reason why she had made them the offer to work alongside her after the whole Thor and Mjolnir in Puente Antiguo thing, and it wasn’t just because they were pretty and she was a distinguished bisexual.

But she hadn’t realised how much more than just colleagues the two of them had become. How closer than simple work friends she had gotten to them, closer than smart ladies that she enjoyed arguing about science with.

She wouldn’t be able to say that she trusted them in the way she trusted Rhodey, or Pepper, or Happy, or even Yinsen.

But they were now on a different level, relationship wise, than she had thought they were.

They were her... friends.

They were genuinely her friends, and not only because Toni was sponsoring Jane’s research. If it had been just for the research, Darcy would have certainly not bothered inviting her to come out with them as often as she had.

And if it had been just for the money, Darcy wouldn’t be continuously trying to buy Toni drinks to ‘seduce’ her, and they wouldn’t be having so much fun together.

They were her friends.

Toni was glad.

Toni did not spend much time around the Queens area.

She was Manhattan born and bred, and barring her living in Malibu part time, she was not one to step out of the big city. Queens was out of her way, and the only reason she was ever around that part of the city was the Parker family.

She watched with a half smile as Ben and Peter rushed out of the house they lived in, the boy having clearly slept in and missed the bus.

Neither of them noticed her where she was standing at the corner of the road still in yesterday's dress and shoes, but she still waited until Ben’s car had driven out of the street before she finally moved.

The Parkers’ house was tiny for the price Toni knew they were paying for, but unfortunately that was one of the things she had learnt were better be left alone. Money was a touchy topic for the family, and Toni had learnt the hard way to not stick her nose in their expenses.

But while it was tiny, the inside of it was pretty charming.

Toni did not like Queens, but she did like May and Ben’s house.

“Hey,” said May, appearing surprised when she opened the door to find Toni waiting outside. “Wow. Someone had a good night?”

“You’re supposed to look through the peephole and ask who’s there, before you open the door,” chided Toni, walking inside the house and quickly getting rid of her heels. “I could have been an axe murderer, for all you knew.”

“Since when do axe murderers bother ringing the doorbell?”

“Maybe I wanted to lull you into a false sense of security?”

“What was the point, if I would have screamed as soon as I opened the door and saw you standing there with an axe?”

“I could have cut you down before you realised I wasn’t just a friend dropping by, and you would have had only yourself to blame. And who would have looked after Ben and Peter, then? You would have left them widow and orphan, and me one friend less. Do you even care about our feelings, May? Do you?”

“You’re not that fast,” said May, putting a filled glass of water in front of her. “Now, can we talk about the reason you are here this early in the morning and using metaphors to avoid having to talk about what I believe is a serious issue?”

“I don’t know, can we?” mused Toni, taking a sip from the cup.

“Considering I was about to start working on Ben’s lunch, because I have an earlier shift today, I suggest we do,” said May, not looking very impressed.

That was why Toni liked her so much. May rarely had time for any of Toni’s bullshit.

Now that she thought about it, none of her friends ever had time for Toni’s bullshit.

Toni’s smile dropped, and she crossed her legs together, looking at May more seriously. “It’s about Peter,” she started.

May nodded, also sitting down across from her. “I thought as much. Now, considering the fact that Ben just left to drive him to school, and that I didn’t get a phone call, and you aren’t wearing the Iron Queen suit, I’m assuming he’s physically fine?”

Toni nodded, and May relaxed a fraction, concern easing a touch.

Peter might be her nephew, and the woman might let him call her by first name all the time, but from Toni’s point of view, she loved him like a mother would. For all intents and purposes, Peter had been her son since he was three years old and Mary and Richard Parker died.

He was her son.

“Remember how I told you I didn’t know who Peter’s biological father might be?”

If May was surprised by the direction of the conversation, she didn’t show. She simply nodded.

“Well, that wasn’t quite true,” admitted Toni. “I didn’t know who he was, but I knew who he might have been. There were only two candidates after all, and I knew both of them.

“For reasons that I don’t feel are relevant enough to discuss right now, neither of them was in my life by the time I found out I was pregnant with Peter. There was some drama, and well, we stopped talking to each other, and I sort of never saw one again, and never spoke with the other again.

“Until a few months ago, when they both resurfaced in my life again.”

“And you told them about Peter?” questioned May, which had Toni glaring at her immediately.

“Hell the fuck no. They have no right to know about him, they made him not their business when they walked away. Of course I didn’t tell them.”

“But they figured it out anyway,” said May, looking vaguely apologetic.

Toni sighed, pulling her hair out of her face. “But they figured it out anyway,” she echoed. “I mean, candidate one figured it out months ago, but he promised he wasn’t going to tell anyone, and I kinda believe him. Candidate two figured it out a couple of days ago, and while I hope he won’t tell anyone and I threatened him if he even tries to get close to Peter, I just...” She shook her head. “I thought you should know. Peter is your child, and you had the right to know.”

“Peter is my nephew,” corrected May, covering Toni’s hand with hers. “Peter is your child.”

Toni pulled her hand back. “May, don’t start.”

“You should just tell him,” continued the woman, not deterred in the slightest. “You should just tell Peter the truth. Everything, about-”

“There is nothing to tell,” said Toni, voice hard. “Peter is not my son. He’s not my child.”

“Biology begs to differ.”

“Biology can suck a dick and choke,” she replied, glaring at the other woman. “Seriously, May, you need to let it go. I lost any chance to call Peter my son the second I gave him up to Mary and Richard. All I did was keep him alive for nine months like a human incubator, I was not for one second his mother. The only reason I still ended up in his life was that Mary is as stubborn as you are, and decided to make me godmother.”

“You would have left if you truly wanted to leave,” clapped back May, shaking her head. “No way in hell a word in a document is the reason you decided to stick around. You decided to stick around because no matter what you tell yourself, you love Peter, and you do consider him your son.”

“I do love him, but he’s not. He’s not, and that’s what truly matters.” She shook her head, glaring at her. “Peter is happy, right now. He knows his real parents loved him, and only death was able to take them from him. He also knows that he has an awesome aunt that would do anything for him, and an equally devoted uncle. That they are the best uncles slash adoptive parents anyone could ask for. He is happy. What is me admitting to anything going to do for him?”

“It’s going to give him the truth,” said May, eyes hard. “Doesn’t he deserve that? Doesn’t he deserve to know the truth? He will find out, one day. You know he will, he’s too smart not to. Wouldn’t you prefer he found out from you? Instead of figuring out for himself that you have been lying for him his whole life?”

“I haven’t been lying,” protested Toni. “This is not lying.”

“Lying by omission is still a lie. He thinks you’re his godmother.”

“And I am!”

“You are more than that, and you know that. He deserves to also know that.” She shook her head. “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

Toni huffed, avoiding eye contact with May. “Confucius was a bitch, don’t go getting philosophical on me, now.”

“You know he’s too smart to not figure it out,” said May, voice gentle. “You know he has never been quite sure of how his parents even knew you, or how they knew you well enough to make you his godmother. He’s too smart, too much like you to not decide to investigate, one day.

“And what are you going to do, when he does? When he does investigate, and finds out the truth, and comes to you to ask you why you didn’t let him know the truth from the beginning? Why you pretended, all these years? What are you going to say then, Toni?”

Toni knew that. She knew that Peter was smart, she knew that one day Peter would figure out something, would finally find out what had been kept from him.

Sometimes, she looked at him and wondered if he hadn’t already.

She wasn’t afraid of that day, however. No matter what May thought, Toni was ready for that day.

So she looked right back in May’s eyes, expression hard and certain. “I’m going to tell him that I did what I had to do,” she said, honestly. “I’m going to tell him that I gave him the best life I could, and that I do not regret my actions at all, because they made him into the young man he is today. I’m going to tell him he can hate me, if he wishes, and he can call me a liar, if he thinks I am. But I did what I had to do, and I refuse to regret it. I refuse to be anything but proud for my decisions, and for who he became because of said decisions. This is what I’m going to say.”

May looked at her for a few seconds, expression sad, and then she sighed. “I am not going to force you.”

“As if you could.”

May ignored that. “But what do you want to do about the two possible fathers? And are you going to tell me who they are?”

“I don’t know, just yet. And does it even matter?” wondered Toni, grabbing an apple from the centre of the table.

“Depends on whether or not one of them is Doctor Banner,” said May.

Toni looked up at her, maintaining her poker face as she bit into the apple. “Why Doctor Banner?”

“Peter says you two were friends and he reappeared into your life a few months ago,” she explained, eyes carefully fixed on Toni’s expression. “Am I right? Is he?”

Toni continued to look at her impassively, and May groaned.

“I hate how good you are at not telling anything,” she complained. “It’s annoying. You probably have never lost a game of poker in your life. But I’m just saying, Peter is more likely to forgive and forget if you tell him there is a 50% chance that Doctor Banner is his father. You know he was always a big fan of the man.”

“I’m not telling him anything about anything.”

May sighed again. “I’m just saying, at the end of the day, being upfront about things is the best thing you can do. I’m not pressuring you,” she continued, when Toni made a noise of annoyance, “I’m not, I promise. It’s your decision, in the end, and you have the right to make it. I just love Peter, and I want you to think about it from the other point of view.”

Toni frowned. “What do you mean?”

“If you were Peter,” said May, “And your close family kept the truth about who you truly were from you, made you think you were someone you weren’t. Wouldn’t you be a little upset too?”

The irony.

“Oh, May,” said Toni, as she started to laugh. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Chapter Text

Yinsen was, as usual, a genius. 

Toni wondered why he resisted being called her conscience when he did such a fine job of it. Honestly, maybe she should make it an official job position, and pay him appropriately for it too.

She was sure he’d love the offer.

Miss Potts is waiting for you outside the elevator, informed her JARVIS as the elevator in question started going down.

Perfect. What about Bruce? Is he still at the Tower?

Come to think of it, she really had not checked in on him after that whole showdown with him and Strange. 

She did not think he was going to go back on his promise to not tell Peter or anyone else anything, but it was always better to check on things.

She had never trusted Stane, but her carelessness had been the reason that he had gotten as far as he had despite it. Bruce wasn’t Stane, but her paranoia had saved her more times than it had gotten her in trouble, so she was going to indulge in it.

The Doctor is still in the Tower. He has not made contact with Doctor Strange since the day he left the Tower, and I believe he is waiting to see what you are going to do next, to see if he is in trouble.

“Sounds like Bruce,” she muttered, taking a second to fix her stance and her dress jacket before the elevator doors opened.

As previously stated, Pepper was standing outside the door, looking very much not happy.

“Toni,” she said, as soon as she walked out. “What the hell.”

“What,” she complained, giving her best remorseful expression to the blonde as they walked side by side. “You always say I don’t pay the company enough attention. Here I am, paying attention.”

“You have been ignoring everything to do with the company for months, ever since that Invasion, and now all of a sudden you spring an impromptu meeting without even talking to me about it first?”

“Pep-”

“You made me CEO,” reminded her the woman, and Toni paused. Pepper paused with her, her expression pinched. “You made me CEO. You made me the boss, you made me your boss. You can’t just... do this.”

Toni grimaced, and nodded. “You are right, sorry. Force of habit. I should have spoken to you about what I was planning to do before I did it."

Thing was, Toni had been raised to be CEO. Since she was born, she had known that one day she was going to take over the company from Howard, despite what the media and many members of the Board thought.

Howard had trained her for it, and her mother, who had back then been the head of SI’s PR, had done the same. She knew leadership, she knew how to lead.

She was born for the job.

The only reason she had given Pepper the position of CEO while retaining COO for herself had been Iron Queen. There were just 24 hours in one day, and too many things that required a personal Toni Stark touch. She couldn’t juggle being Toni Stark, being SI’s CEO and being Iron Queen. One had to give, and she had ended up giving up her position as CEO.

Pepper was qualified for the job, especially with Toni as COO supporting her and helping her when she needed the help. But Toni had a problem with not stepping on people’s toes - hence the need for this meeting to begin with - and giving up leadership to others.

“I’m sorry,” she added, when Pepper continued to look at her with slight annoyance.

The annoyance eventually melted under Toni’s sad sad expression, and Pepper rolled her eyes. “This is already done, and I don’t think anyone has any idea of the fact that you completely stepped all over me for this. Will you take the lead from the beginning?”

“If you don’t mind, my illustrious CEO?” She asked, as charmingly as possible. "Might I say, you're looking deliciously hot today, in a 'please don't HR complain me for this'?" 

This time Pepper laughed, shaking her head. “You are a terrible suck up.”

“Excuse me, I suck quite-”

“It’s too early in the morning for innuendos,” protested Pepper.

It was not, but Toni was unable to inform Pepper of this, seen as they had finally made it to the conference room. Even though Toni had, for once, bothered to show up on time, the room was already full.

How she loved people who knew how to their jobs. Now, if the military and everyone else started behaving like this, that would make her life much easier.

“Funny thing,” she said, before stepping inside. “I am actually glad to hear you care so much about your job and the company, because I’m about to make it much more interesting.”

Pepper looked at her in alarm, and Toni winked before walking into the room.

Neither of them was smiling when they stepped inside, however.

“Good morning,” they both greeted, game faces on and walking in synch.

Toni mentally cheered. It was nice to see that Pepper was picking up her teachings, she felt like a proud mama duck. Or something less patronising.

The Heads of the various SI departments were already seated, Yinsen included, and they all automatically fell silent after answering the greeting.

Toni wouldn’t say that Stark Industries was like a big family, because it wasn’t. She was one of their bosses, and they were her employees. They were all here to work, they weren’t here to be siblings, cousins or whatever (and considering the amount of people she knew were screwing each other, saying they were a family would have turned them into the embassy for Alabama).

But the people at SI knew her. They had known her since she had taken the reins at 21, and even after she had stopped the weapons, even after she had stepped down as CEO, they had trusted her.

They believed in her, and they had always respected her like very few people outside and in the business world did.

Toni knew them in the same way. 

They were her people. Not her family, but they were still hers.

They would do what she asked them to (sometimes even if it wasn’t within reason), and she would protect them at the best of her abilities. They knew they could rely on her as Toni Stark , and she knew she could rely on them as the most unscrupulous, clever and dangerous people the job market had to offer.

She had forgotten, for a while, about the arsenal of dangerous weapons in pressed shirts and expensive shoes that she had working in the Tower. She had been too busy thinking about suit armours and nightmares and appeasing to people who did not want to talk to her, like some sort of loser.

She had been asleep for a bit, but not anymore. 

Now, she was wide awake.

“So,” she started, as soon as Pepper sat down. “I don’t ask you guys for much. I mostly ask you to do your job properly, and to make sure your departments are working efficiently. Which really, is the minimum I could expect from you, considering everything.

“I don’t ask you guys for much. But right now, I am asking you guys for something. I am in a pinch, and I need your help.”

I need your help.

Toni could honestly count on two hands, scratch that, on one hand how many times she had had to use that phrase. 

From the way they all immediately perked up on their seats, so could they.

“That Invasion, last May? It was not a one time thing,” she started, watching the faces of everyone carefully. Everyone had tensed at the memory, but none of them was scoffing or descending into panic or laughing or otherwise interrupting her.

They were her people because she knew she could trust them to do their jobs.

And part of their jobs was having a fucking brain.

She was glad to see that.

“What I saw on the other side of the wormhole?” She chuckled, a sound that made no one in the room comfortable. “Like fuck did I get all of that armada with one nuke, and like fuck they are not coming back to finish what they started and for revenge.”

“What is the military saying?” asked Mark Hunt, former head of Weapons Manufacturing. 

Toni grinned at him. “That I’m just a girl suffering from PTSD and really, what could they expect from a woman like me?”

Mark grimaced, not appearing very surprised but still annoyed. “Yikes.”

“You know it. I’ve tried,” she continued, shaking her head as she sent some of her correspondence with the brass to everyone’s tablets. “I’ve tried very hard to get their agreement, to get their help, to get them to acknowledge the threat. They had confirmation from Prince Thor of Asgard that I’m not making it all up, and still they are dragging their feet.

“Whether to spite me, whether they truly think they can nuke the problem away when it shows up, I don’t have a fucking clue. But every time I try to get someone’s attention, I run into a brick wall. It has started to get very old, and you know, I am not a fun of concussing myself.

“But the world is not just New York. It’s not even just America.” She shrugged. “To an alien, Earth is Earth. Prince Thor first landed in Puente Antiguo, not New York. He had no idea what part of Earth he had landed on, all he knew was that he was on ‘Midgard’. To them, it doesn't matter if they're in Melbourne, Rio, Edinburgh, Ottawa or fucking Rome.

“There is of course the possibility of the next attack happening in New York again, because we pissed them off by disagreeing with their plans to invade us, but there is no certainty. Maybe the US military doesn’t want to help me protect America and its interests anymore, but the rest of the world is just as much in danger, if those nasty locust type pokemons decide to come back. And they are more likely to be unable to defend themselves.

“After all, the aliens were trying to get out of the border. Had New York fallen, the rest of the world was going to be next.”

“You want to try and set up meetings and alliances with other governments and militaries?” questioned Pamela Harris, Head of PR.

Toni raised gave a half shrug. “All I know is that I have SI bases stationed all over the globe. I also know that I have a duty to keep my people safe, and everyone who works for SI is one of my people. I am asking for your help in finding a legal way of keeping them all safe.”

“And to use your contracts in the other parts of the world to see if anyone else is willing to help you or stand behind you,” shrewdly added Yusuf Hichri, Head of Communication. “Miss Stark, Miss Potts, I feel like I’m supposed to ask: is this the part where you vy for world domination?”

Pepper snorted in amusement while Toni stared blankly at the man in front of her. “I’m sorry, what.”

Ama Koadio, the head of IT, shrugged. “We all knew this day was coming, sooner or later,” she said, not sounding very fazed. “I’m pretty sure Legal has the documents necessary, don’t you?”

Paloma Juarez-Delgado, her head of Legal, smirked. “The second she put the armour on and started making smarter computers.”

“Working here is so much fun,” said Yinsen, while Toni kept trying to reboot her head and catch up with the fact that her people were apparently expecting her to take over the world eventually.

“I’m not taking over the world!” she protested, a little offended.

The entire room chuckled, Pepper right along them. “It’s okay,” said the blonde, shaking her head and addressing her Heads. “She will come around, eventually.”

“No, I won’t? Aren’t I supposed to be the agent of chaos, what is going on here?!”

“Don’t worry,” said Paloma, turning serious once more. “World domination is not relevant, right now. Let’s focus on planetary protection."

"Can't take over a world if it's gone," agreed Yinsen.

"We have our work cut out for us," said Yusuf, "But we can figure out something.”

Toni nodded, glancing over at Pepper.

She was no longer smiling now. “I don’t usually like Iron Queen stuff connected with SI like this but-”

“Global protection is not Iron Queen stuff,” pointed out Toni. “No Earth or an enslaved Earth means no more Stark Industries. Or worse, the army trying to seize our company, since we never technically closed weapons manufacturing.”

“Should we?”

Pepper’s expression was serious, and Toni sighed. There was a reason that, while she had stopped making weapons she had never closed the department.

She hadn’t renewed her contracts because she had wanted to do something more with herself and her company. Because she wanted to be known as something other than the woman who had made the weapons that terrorists had used to kill American soldiers and civilians with.

She had wanted to do more than weapons.

But she had never thought that she would never need to make another weapon again.

As much as she called it a prosthetic, the armour was a weapon.

The War Machine armour? Also a weapon.

She had never stopped making weapons, and she had always known she might have to make more one day.

Instead of answering her, she turned to Mark, who was already watching her back. “What do you think?”

The man had been working with her since she was 21. He had never quite liked Obadiah either, and even when she had found out about moles in her company feeding the man information, she had never suspected Mark.

He gave her a wry smile. “I think that no war has ever been won by simply hiding under a blanket, no matter how heavy and protective that blanket is.”

She had thought as much.

She glanced back at Pepper, who simply nodded, making a quick note on her Starktab.

“I’m going to go on one last meeting with the brass, today,” she continued, focusing on the Heads again. “In Washington. If they stone wall me again, we will proceed. I expect some good information and ideas, by the time I come back in town, alright? Don’t disappoint me.”

Ama snorted, as many started to stand up. “When have we ever?”

Toni winked at the woman. “Never. But still, better make sure you don’t start now. Dismissed!”

You knew that they were no more likely to listen to you today than they have been from the beginning, said JARVIS, sounding confused. Then why even bother giving them another chance? You aren't known for them.

Toni kept holding her cup of coffee precariously as she continued down the route the AI had indicated. So that I have my bases covered. That way, they can’t come at me and say that I didn’t give them every chance to do what needs to be done. They’ll try to whine and call me a bitch anyway, but both my and their minutes will prove how much I prepped them for this.

So, just in case .

Precisely. Are you sure this is the right route? She had been walking for a few minutes now, and the coffee was starting to get cold. It wouldn’t work as well with cold coffee.

I will ignore the frankly absurd notion that I could be wrong. T-one minute. 

Toni straightened her posture, glad to see a corner soon. She fixed her hat and sunglasses, keeping her eyes downwards even as she started walking a little faster.

With his reflexes, Toni was sure he could have avoided her in time.

But between the slight iciness of the road, the tightness of the corner, and her own quasi supernatural ability of getting herself in trouble, he did not manage to.

She fell a little harder than she had intended too, hissing at the feeling of the hot coffee drenching her shirt and suit jacket, as her hat and sunglasses flew off.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” immediately said Rogers, sounding surprised at his own mistake. “I didn’t- Toni?”

“Steve?” she asked, making another sound of pain as she pretended surprise at seeing him standing over her. “What the- oh, fuck. My shirt!”

“You- how- I’m so sorry!” he said, cheeks reddening as he retrieved her glasses, hat and empty cup from the ground. “I did not see you coming, I’m so sorry. Here.”

“Thanks,” she said, making another sound of complaint as she let him pull her up. “Can you see through my shirt?”

She knew he could, even without the way his eyes widened and his blush grew in proportion.

“Uh... kinda?”

“Fuck,” she repeated, with feeling. “I can’t walk around like this, and my driver won’t get here for a while longer...”

“I’m so sorry,” repeated the blond, adopting some sort of annoying kicked puppy look that made Toni immediately feel less bad about using his crush to get to him. “I... I don’t want to sound forward or rude, but I have a place not too far from here. Maybe you can, uh, borrow something?”

Toni eyed his shirt a little disdainfully. “Your shirt is too tight for your own boobs, what is it gonna do to mine?”

“Wh- I- boo- Don’t?”

She did not smile no matter how much she wanted to. “Fine,” she said, instead. “Lead the way, soldier. The internet has seen me naked way too many times for my own likings. Also, make no mistake: me shirtless in your apartment does not give you any type of consent.”

“I didn't- Right,” said Rogers, still looking flustered. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

So easy.

+++

SHIELD had taken a supersoldier relic from WWII and stuffed him in a dingy and grimy shoebox in the middle of Washington, DC.

Toni wasn’t sure she was impressed at the audacity or depressed by Rogers rolling over and letting them get away with it.

“I’m just here,” said Rogers, as they arrived on his floor. “Number 3.”

The door to number 2 opened, and the second reason for Toni's visit stepped out of the apartment, holding a basket of laundry in her arms.

Her expression was no more surprised than one’s should be, at the sight of her blond neighbour and a pretty brunette with a dirty shirt but an other ways very well kept appearance.

Toni was almost impressed by whatever it was that they were teaching her at spy academy.

“Hi,” said Steve, for whatever reason looking a little awkward as he glanced between Toni and her.

“Hi,” she said, smiling back with her full attention on him. “Back from your run earlier, today?”

“Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Ran into... a friend. Off to do laundry earlier than usual?”

“Something like that,” agreed the blonde, before finally glancing back at Toni again with a friendly smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s all mine,” said Toni, smiling back all teeth. “Have we met before? You look very familiar.”

Sharon’s smile did not crack. “Maybe? You sound familiar too, I feel like I’ve seen you or heard you before.”

“Here,” said Rogers, finally unlocking his door. “Sorry, we have to go.”

“That’s all right,” said Sharon, smile widening a touch when she looked at him.

Considering her cousin’s crush on him when she was younger, Toni wondered how much of it was faked and how much of it was honest.

“I’ll see you around,” she said, still looking at Rogers only.

“Yeah,” agreed Rogers, and Toni just nodded, purposefully knocking into the basket before she stepped inside the man’s apartment.

JARVIS, make sure she gets the message. And deactivate any listening device SHIELD has implanted in American Ice Lolly’s apartment. I don’t need them to know what I know, just yet.

Will do, Miss.

“Just one second,” started Rogers, moving towards his bedroom. “If you wait here, I’ll get it for you.”

I don’t understand this part of the mission, Miss. I feel like Captain Rogers is an uncalculated risk.

Captain Rogers is also the only other person I am 100% sure is not HYDRA. And when Share gets on board, I’m going to need someone to take the heat, if necessary. He is a supersoldier, he is the most likely to not die and/or be killed if HYDRA figures out he’s on to them. Focused as they’ll be on him, they won’t notice Sharon or keep too close an eye on her.

Assuming that Agent Carter is indeed not HYDRA, you are basically using him as cannon fodder?

That sounds kind of rude and calculative, J. I am better than that.

...

Rude. I am specifically using him because he’s the least likely to die. I’m utilising his talents.

You used your sexual appeal-

You talk to your mother like that?!

To seduce him so that you can manipulate him into doing your bidding.

When he said it like that... You make me sound like Romanoff.

...

You are such a goody two shoes, Jarv.

All the cameras and videos have been altered, muted, or looped as necessary.

Toni sighed as Rogers walked back in the room at that moment, holding onto a grey t-shirt so hard she was surprised the thing hadn’t ripped immediately in his hands.

“I think this is the most likely to fit-”

“Okay, so it was not an accident that you bumped into me or that you got me covered in coffee,” she said, grabbing the shirt and taking a seat on his couch as she pulled her off. “We need to talk.”

When her head re-appeared, the Scout's eyes were fixed on the ceiling of the apartment, cheeks redder than Toni's Iron Queen suit.

“What uh- what do you mean it was not an accident?”

“I needed to speak to you,” she admitted, putting the shirt on in one quick move. "And it was important. Jesus, sit down, my boobs won't kill you on sight.”

“I have extended you several invitations,” pointed out the blond, now a little upset as he finally glanced down. His face was still red as he tentatively sat down on the couch beside her. “You ignored them.”

She had in fact done that. She had not time for him to fall for an idealised version of her, not even to let him know that she was aware of the crush and that he had no chance with her.

“I was busy, and talking to you over the phone risked letting SHIELD know that I wanted to meet up with you.” He made a face, and Toni dropped her phone on the table, a little irritated. “Rogers, SHIELD has been infiltrated by HYDRA.”

“What?!” he asked, sounding both shocked and hurt. “No, it hasn’t. I destroyed HYDRA, I- I work for SHIELD! There is no HYDRA in SHIELD.”

Toni did not let how unimpressed that sentence made her feel show. “Okay,” she agreed, making a hologram appear on her phone. “But either HYDRA is alive and has been thriving in SHIELD despite your suicide dive in the Arctic, or SHIELD is crooked and ordered my parents’ assassination.”

His eyes grew impossibly wider, even as he automatically started reading the file. Toni was strangely pleased to see how pale he got the more he read on on what had happened.

“No,” he said, once he got to the bottom of the report. “No, this can’t be. I... I destroyed HYDRA, I stopped their bombs.”

“Operation Paperclip,” she said, as a way of explanation. When he just frowned at her, confused, she sighed. “How far have you gotten in reading what has happened to the world since you went in the ice?”

“I have a list,” he said a little dazedly, offering her a notebook from his pocket.

“I don’t like being handed things,” she said, when he tried to hand it to her. 

“What?”

“I said don’t like to be handed things,” she repeated. “Put it on the table, and I’ll pick it up.”

He stared at her in utter bemusement for a few moments longer before he reluctantly put it down.

Toni had long since passed the phase of her life where people’s reactions to her quirkiness bothered her, so she barely spared him a glance as she picked up the notebook.

Then she did spare him another look, once she found the so-called list.

 A look of disbelief. “I’m sorry, and this is what.”

“My to-do list,” he explained, looking a little awkward. “Of things to find out about the 21st Century. HYDRA really survived?”

“Berlin Wall (Up+Down) and Thai food are on the same scale of importance to you?” she questioned, trying to keep her personal biases out of her question with extreme difficulty. “I’m sorry, did SHIELD even give you a history crash course of any sort or did they just throw you here and tell you to fend for yourself?”

“HYDRA is alive?” repeated the blonde, sounding really desperate and hurt.

JARVIS, can I put you or one of your siblings on a re-education program of everything El Capitano missed since he decided swimming and waiting for survival was not the thing for him? Major political events, relevant socio-economic shifts, all-known cultural changes, please. Let’s avoid pop culture phenomena, for now.

“HYDRA survived,” she agreed, sighing. “Long story short, Operation Paperclip was an Allied forced effort of reintegrating smart German scientists in the Allies' intelligence, under the belief that said people were no longer Nazis and/or HYDRA agents or sympathisers, and were in fact misinformed or reformed.”

Will do, Miss.

“Spoiler alert, they very much weren’t, and they simply restarted HYDRA from inside SHIELD. And other organisations, most likely.”

“This can’t be,” said the man, sounding desperate. “Peggy, she... she and Howard and Phillips, they started SHIELD. How didn’t they know? They can't not have known, they-”

Toni did not think her personal opinion on Margaret Carter would help secure the man’s alliance, so she just shrugged. “HYDRA is good at what they do. And they are good at getting rid of the people they don’t want sniffing around their business. Phillips left early on, my father was just there for funding, and Carter... well, she has dementia, doesn’t she? It’s not as if they started being HYDRA from the beginning. At the beginning they were simply hiding.”

“And now? What about now?”

“Now the world is in unrest,” she said, voice serious. “There was an Invasion a few months ago, and then the Mandarin... the fact that I caught them? It means they are taking less care in being meticulous and careful, now. Which means they are planning something. And that’s where you come in.”

“Me?” questioned Rogers, sounding surprised. “Not Director Fury?”

“There are very few people that I currently know, without a shadow of doubt, that they don’t have any allegiance to HYDRA. Fury is not one of them.”

Toni was 78% sure that Fury was not HYDRA, but that wasn’t 100%.

And she did not like operating in uncertainties.

“You might not like him, but Fury isn’t HYDRA!” protested Rogers, looking hurt and angry at the same time.

Toni did not flinch. “Then he’s a lousy spy who, just like Carter, did not notice that they were literally in bed with the enemy all along. Frankly, I don’t know which option would be better. Do you?”

The man's shoulder fell just as quickly as they had raised. He looked between the report of her father's assassination and her, expression lost. "I don't," he admitted, shaking his head. "I don't. What..." he cleared his throat. "What do we do now?"

Toni smiled. "I'm glad you asked."

Chapter Text

“What’s the point of a masquerade ball if you’re going to wear a uniform with your name stamped on its chest, Lieutenant?”

Erik’s eyes fixed on her from behind his mask, and his lips curved into a smile. “Well, I’m trying to pass inconspicuously,” he explained, reaching for her hand so that he could twirl her closer to him. “I find it that white people are often more comfortable with a masked black man at their events if the man is military. It makes them think I’ll tap dance.”

She frowned, even as she followed through with the dip. “I don’t get it.”

“Didn’t expect you to. And anyway, ‘E. Stevens’ is hardly a giveaway for who I am.”

“I disagree,” said Toni, following his next move with ease. “I found you in seconds.”

While Happy hated masquerade balls because of the anonymity and the threats that posed, Toni enjoyed them for the same reason.

All it took was a mask covering half of her face, and even with her signature red lips, the majority of the people around had no idea of who she was. Sometimes even after she opened her mouth and spoke, people did not recognise her. 

As someone who’s entire life had been in the public eye since birth and continued to be in the public eye even now, Toni found the entire affair kind of exhilarating.

“You walk around in a red and gold power suit,” he reminded her, keeping his voice low. “You’re obnoxiousness made human, so you don’t get to have an opinion on being lowkey.”

“So rude,” she complained, but she couldn’t help smiling at him.

It was odd, at times, how different Erik was from his cousin T’Challa. They had grown up together too, for a period of time, and yet they were almost the direct opposite of one another. 

Erik was harder around the edges than T’Challa was.

T'Challa had grown up as the Crown prince of Wakanda.

Erik had grown up knowing that his uncle had killed his father, and no matter how much T’Chaka did for him, no matter how many times the King explained and apologised, Toni knew it was not a wound that would ever heal. It was not something he’d ever forget, no matter how many times he promised himself and his family that he forgave them.

If he had truly forgiven them, Toni did not think he would have stayed in America after MIT, and she did not think he would have become a Navy Seal or a mercenary.

Part of him would never truly forget, and that part of him had made him colder, tougher and harder.

Sometimes, it made Toni feel sad for him.

Right now, she needed that part of him.

“Wanna get out of here, Lieutenant?” she asked him, as the music came to a stop, voice playfully flirtatious.

“What’s the statute of limitations on hooking up with your cousin’s ex girl?” he asked, even as he followed after her. “Cause T’Challa’s still my man, but you are kind of crazy hot-”

“Somewhere in the realm of ‘that’s never going to happen’, Killmonger.” 

“But why?” complained Erik, linking their arms together. “We’d be incredible together, just so you know. Powerful and unstoppable.”

“We’d make each other worse,” said Toni, shaking her head. “And then we’d end up killing or trying to kill each other.”

“I think that’s hot,” said Erik, opening the door for her so that they were finally outside. “What’s a bit of murder between two lovers? It spices up the relationship.”

“You’re only saying that because you don’t think I’d pull the trigger on you,” she said with a scoff. Happy was standing in front of the car, also masked (a little against his will) to avoid people recognising him. She could almost feel the strength of his disapproval through the mask anyway, which she ignored.

“Oh, I think you would,” answered Erik, slapping Happy’s shoulder companionably. “That just makes it all much more hot and exciting. Hey, Hap.”

“Stevens,” said Happy, still unimpressed.

There were a couple of people outside, but no one was watching them directly. This was not one of Toni or SI’s usual limousines with the custom licence plates, so she doubted that anyone had noticed and/or recognised them.

Cameras filming?

All cameras looped or momentarily disabled. You are good to go.

Toni slipped into the limousine then, completely ignoring the woman already sitting inside of it to make space for Erik instead.

Erik did not ignore the woman, appearing suspicious even with his mask on. “Is this an ambush or something? Cause I did not sign up for that.”

“That’s what I would like to know,” answered Sharon Carter, sounding just as unimpressed. 

“Hey, cous,” said Toni, smiling at her cousin. “I’m glad to see you wearing my present. You should let me dress you up more often, you look so much better like this.”

Sharon was dressed in the same exact dress Toni was, same mask and same make up. In her hand was a wig that would make her hair look the same too, if she wore it.

“I have told you before, Stark,” said Sharon, sounding irritated. “I don’t care what your problem with SHIELD or Aunt Peggy is, keep me out of it. I work there, and for you to just show up with Rogers and jeopardise that-”

“I think you are an asshole,” interrupted Toni, pulling off her mask to look her cousin in the eye. “I think working for SHIELD makes you a terrorist. I think working for SHIELD also made you a bit of a bitch, and not in a good way. But I also don’t think you’re a Nazi. Are you a Nazi, Sharon Carter?”

“What the hell are you-”

“I am 100% serious, and I’m going to need a full yes or no answer,” continued Toni, eyes fixed on hers. “I’m going to ask again. Are you a Nazi, Sharon Carter?”

The seriousness of her tone seemed to transpire, and Sharon also took off her mask so that she could stare Toni in the eyes more efficiently. “No,” she said, calmly. “I am not a Nazi.”

Toni had not truly thought she was, but she still felt relieved at the confirmation. 

Her and Sharon were not really cousins, but before things between Howard and Carter senior had imploded, they had considered one another such. Nowadays they did not spend so much time together anymore, but Toni begrudgingly cared for her. And considering the fact that Sharon had shown up and was wearing the clothes Toni had left for her, it seemed it was the same for her too.

“Good. Also, bad. Because the fact that you have been potentially working for and/or with Nazis since you joined SHIELD without knowing, or even suspecting, makes you kind of a bad spy.”

Sharon’s expression did not twitch. “What.”

“HYDRA infected SHIELD from its inception, 007,” she said, passing her her phone. “They’ve been growing steadily among their ranks to the point where I’m having a hard time trying to devise a proper algorithm to separate the HYDRA operatives from the SHIELD ones. Because, as I said, SHIELD is basically a terrorist organisation with many of their goals aligning with HYDRA’s own.”

“SHIELD is HYDRA,” repeated Sharon, her voice still completely monotone.

“Not completely, but a large percentage,” said Erik, now his turn to put down his phone on the chair. “Three days is not a long time to gather information.”

“But you’re you,” she pointed out, picking up the phone from the seat.

“But I’m me,” agreed Erik, crossing his arms around his chest. “HYDRA is whispered about, mostly. The whispers have been there for a long time, but very few people have concrete information regarding them. People are afraid to talk, and there is no such thing as HYDRA defects.”

“Strong recruitment?”

“Cult mentality and brainwashing,” he corrected, and Toni automatically grimaced. 

“Rather die than tell?”

“Death is better than bondage,” he said, smiling darkly. “Cyanide in the teeth.”

“Cliché,” she said, huffing. “If there is one thing I hate, it’s brainwashing and mental manipulations.”

“You say this like you’re familiar.”

She hummed noncommittally. “What about the Winter Soldier?”

“The Winter Soldier is a ghost story,” said Sharon, finally looking up from the phone. “He’s accredited with over two hundred assassinations in the past 50 years, and no one has ever seen his face. He’s the intelligence community’s own boogieman, he doesn’t actually exist.”

Toni smiled. “He killed my parents on HYDRA’s orders, so I’m just gonna go ahead and assume that he does exist.”

JARVIS.

Sharon’s expression did not change as the order of the assassination appeared in front of her. “Mh.”

“So it’s personal,” mused Erik, leaning more comfortably in his chair. “You want me to find him for you so that you can kill him.”

Toni raised an eyebrow at him. “Not to pull a Dory from Nemo, but I don’t remember asking you to go find him.”

Erik smiled back. “You made me bring you information on him just to get me curious enough to actually want to go looking for him.”

“You are my only friend in the underbelly of society’s community,” she pointed out.

“You are not half as clever as you think you are, Antoinette Stark,” he informed her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

Toni leant in close enough that he could feel her hair on his cheek. “Incorrect. I’m double as clever as I think I am.”

“SHIELD is HYDRA,” said Sharon, again. This time, there was some rage in her voice, and when Toni and Erik turned to look at her, she looked pissed. “SHIELD has been HYDRA all along.”

“I told you not to join.”

“Fuck you,” answered Sharon.

“Daw, don’t make that face,” mocked Toni. “It’s not attractive.”

“You are very rude, for a woman who just realised she has been working for Nazis,” pointed out Erik, sounding vaguely amused.

Sharon ignored him, eyes remaining fixed on Toni. “Now what?”

Toni unlocked her purse, pulling out two small bugs from it. “I am still inside SHIELD’s servers. It’s how I found out about HYDRA to begin with. But from what I can see, HYDRA’s smarter - something you should be ashamed of - and seems to have at least one server that is not connected to SHIELD's. I need to connect to that to finish my algorithm and safely divide the HYDRA and SHIELD personnel.”

Sharon hesitated. “Is Fury HYDRA?” 

“78% chance that he is SHIELD,” answered Toni, easily. “Are these odds you want to bet on?”

Sharon did not answer, and Toni continued. “But I do know that Alexander Pierce is 99,3% HYDRA. Either that, or he has some other reason to sign off on the operation that I strongly believe to be HYDRA missions.”

The blonde looked at the bugs in her hands without saying anything, and Toni turned to Erik.

He was already looking at her when she did, and gaver her his Killmonger smile. “I want the Winter Soldier.”

Toni smiled back. “That’s surprising. A conclusion I could not have possibly foreseen.” 

He rolled his eyes at her. “I want weapons.”

“I want him alive,” she replied, just as easily.

“I refuse to die for your vengeance.”

“You know how to disable people without killing them.”

Erik maintained eye contact. “I refuse. To die for your vengeance,” he repeated.

Toni stared at him for a few seconds. “Then don’t,” she finally said. “Bring him to me without dying.”

He raised a fist, and Toni scoffed even as she bumped hers against his.

Miss, Prince Loki has just portalled himself in the penthouse.

Toni paused where she had been working on her phone. 

... What.

Prince Loki is currently inside your penthouse, repeated the AI, and her paperwork saved and disappeared, before a visual of her penthouse replaced it.

As JARVIS had stated, Loki was in fact standing in the middle of the dark penthouse, seeming to be talking with the AI in question.

And Toni was still pretty far from New York, in a car with a non-Happy driver.

Connect him, she asked, double checking that the divider between her and the driver was up and that the man wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation.

Happy had left the day before, after the masquerade ball and everything with Sharon and Erik. She really did miss having him always with her. Maybe she should try and take it to Court, fight Pep for custody of her favourite driver and bodyguard.

Surely being Iron Queen’s bodyguard couldn’t be that bad a job?  

Connection set.

“Hey, Lo,” she said, trying not to laugh at the way he looked up at the air over his head. “What’s up?”

“Where are you?” he questioned, sounding a little bit frustrated. “I need to speak to you, urgently.”

“I am not in New York, yet,” she explained, sighing. “I have a lot of shit going on, and I am only one person. Can it wait?”

“I would rather it did not,” said the man, sitting back down on the couch. JARVIS shifted the cameras for her, so that she could see him more properly. “Can you hear me even like this?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. Camera over the piano. Actually, JARV?”

Loki looked at the camera over the piano, just as JARVIS opened a hologram of Toni herself in front of him. 

He did not jump, but he did glance at it in puzzlement. “Why are you wearing a mask over your face?”

“It’s pretty and let’s me take care of business without people wondering what Toni Stark is up to,” she explained, pulling off the mask. “But now you can see me, so again: what’s up?”

“I spent the past few days in the library,” explained Loki, expression turning as tense as it had been earlier. “Trying to understand why I knew nothing of a battle between the Master and the people of Jotunheim. And I found out something more disturbing than that.

“There is no tale of a battle between Asgard and the Master either.”

Toni frowned. “But I thought you said-”

“Yes,” agreed Loki. “Indeed I said that F- Odin once before pushed him back from the Nine Realms. That he came for the Tesseract, and that he was defeated. It is a commonly acknowledged truth. A commonly acknowledged truth with no basis in any of the history books that I can find anywhere on Asgard.”

“Mandela effect,” muttered Toni. Loki looked at her in question, and she specified. “Something a large group of people agrees on that, upon further inspection, turns out to be fake. It’s a multiple reality theory thing that you don’t care about, right now.” She shook her head. “What does Thor say? What does... what does Odin say?”

“I have not had a chance to question either of them,” admitted Loki. “But you are not completely incorrect in speaking of Realities. Though not in the manner you speak of, I believe that the fabric of Reality was altered.”

“Everyone was brainwashed,” said Toni, thinking of her interaction with Thena just a few days ago. “Memories were taken away.”

“Not memories, no,” said Loki, shaking his head. “I believe you were taken away.”

“Well, yeah,” said Toni, a little confused. “We all saw the video. It was unclear, but-”

“No. I believe that you, or whoever you were in your past life, were erased from history. That you were erased from Reality itself,” he continued, a sombre expression on his face. “I do not know why, and I do not know by whom, but whoever you were in the past was important. They were important enough that, when someone removed you from the history of the Universe - or, perhaps, from the history of the Nine Realms - it rewrote a large part of our history.”

Toni swallowed, shoving back the urge to cross her arms or put the mask back on her face. “Why... Why do you think?”

Loki shrugged helplessly. “I could not begin to guess. You were being taken away in chains, in that memory of yours. Perhaps... He had something to do with this?”

“No,” she said, not even thinking about it. “He wants... he wouldn't. I don’t think he would have.”

She was sure of that. The Titan wanted her. He did not want her for anything good, but he very much did not want her dead or forgotten. Unless he wanted the whole universe to forget about her but himself?

That did not sound right.

“What about the Reality Stone?” she questioned, tapping her nails against the seat. “What if the Infinity Stones were involved? The Mind Stone is how I even realised something was going on. And if-”

“The Reality Stone has not been seen since the last Convergence,” said Loki, shaking his head. “Grandfather Bor... Thor’s grandfather Bor took it from the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, and hid it away. This far predates the time when history was changed, it was before Odin and the Master’s time.”

“The last Convergence,” said Toni, suddenly having a bad feeling about this. “Implying that this Convergence is something that recurs?” 

“Indeed, it does recur,” agreed Loki. “It is a moment in time and place where all of the Nine Realms are aligned, and wormholes open to link all the planets together. It happens every 5000 Midgardian years.”

“The Infinity Stones are not supposed to be anywhere near each other,” said Toni, her bad feeling growing inside of her. “And just a few months ago we had the Time, Space and Mind Stone in the same place at the same time.” She glanced at the screen again. “The Convergence happens once every 5000 Midgardian years. How long ago was the last Convergence, Loki?”

“4999 Midgardian years ago,” admitted the mage after calculating for a second, and Toni put a hand over her face.

“Of course it was. Of course it was, because why would things ever be easy for us? I never thought I'd say this, but I am kind of tired of getting fucked.”

“You think we will run into the Reality Stone.”

“I think that I read this book before and that I didn’t like the ending. I think that these Stones keep appearing around me when they should be very far from here and far from each other. I think that my second personality was kidnapped by a madman with an unhealthy obsession for her and a severe lack of understanding of consent. I think that right after that, she was most likely erased from history. I think that said mad man is still gunning for the Infinity Stones and for whoever I was before. And I think that said mad man knows who exactly who I am now and who I was.” She smiled at him, only teeth. “Yes, Loki. I think we will run into the Reality Stone.”

Miss?

I don’t know, JARVIS, she admitted, closing and rubbing her eyes for a moment. I don’t know what to think or what to feel. All I know is that there is a box at home siren calling me, and that I can’t contain one fire without ten others starting. I don’t fucking  know.

I have informed the driver to change route from home to the New York Sanctum, said the AI.

Toni’s eyes opened, but she kept staring at nothing, frowning. Why?

Magic is one area I am not skilled enough in to help, he admitted. While Prince Loki and Prince Thor can be of much help, they are for now on Asgard. However, you have two competent sorcerers here ready to assist. Whatever feelings might linger between you and Doctor Strange, you are both known for your genius and your professionalism.

You called upon the Stark Industries Heads because you knew you would need their help. Surely you can see that you will need the sorcerers’ help too, in this venture.

“Antoinette?”

Toni looked back at the screen, where Loki was looking at her worriedly. 

It was the first time he had called her by name, she realised. And, despite her usual distaste for the name Antoinette, she smiled.

“I’m going to need everything you can get me on the Convergence,” she said, sighing. “And everything you can find out on Grandpa Bor and the Reality Stone.”

Loki stared at her for a few more seconds. 

“You were not a villain,” he then said, after staring at her eyes with some intensity. “You were not a dangerous criminal. I know not the truth of who you were, but I knew you, once upon a time. You knew me. And I know you were not evil. You could not have been.”

She smiled a little more honestly. “You aren’t either.”

Loki’s expression did not change. “Then why do I feel such guilt?”

She did not have an answer for that.

+++

Strange was the one who opened the door.

Toni was not surprised, because the world loved handing her crap, and lemons and whatever else the proverbs said. Her relaxing and being happy was probably a sign of an incoming apocalypse.

“Stark,” he said, looking at her warily.

“What do you know of the Convergence?” she asked, walking past him and into the Sanctum without waiting for an invitation or a reply. “Hey, Wongie-Pooh, where are you?”

“He is in Hong Kong,” said Strange, closing the door and following her. 

Of course he was.

“So we’re going to have to do this now?” she questioned, turning to look at him. “Cause personally I would be just fine if we ignore the elephant in the room and we both get to continue living our lives.”

“Or we can talk about the elephant in the room so that we don’t end up shouting at each other during a tense moment and making a fool of ourselves in front of others,” offered Strange.

“Very mature, Stephen Strange.”

“Just like you like your cheese.”

“I actually hate any cheese that isn’t already smashed in a fine powder and put in a small box,” she admitted. “Or on a pizza. Block cheese makes something primal inside of me go feral.”

“You slept with my best friend,” said Strange, clearly deciding against entertaining her.

Pity, Toni loved being entertained.

She turned to face him. “We weren’t together.”

“You slept with my best friend,” he repeated.

“I was in love with him.”

“You slept with my best friend.”

“He was my best friend too.”

“You slept with my best friend.”

Toni looked him straight in the eye. He stared back at her, expression not changing, and she blinked first. 

“Yes,” she eventually said. “I did.”

Strange did not look away from her. “And then I punched him.”

“I know,” she agreed. “I was there. Front row, half naked, I’m sure you remember. I had to pull you off him.”

“And then I left,” continued Strange, ignoring her words. “I left, and I trashed my room, and was mad for a long time, and I hated you. I hated you, and I hated Bruce, for a very long time.”

“And then you got with Christine and gave her my scarf,” she continued. “My favourite scarf at the time, mind you, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Strange nodded. “Then I got with Christine to spite you. And then I gave her your scarf, because you loved that scarf, and you never liked Christine, and I wanted to piss you off. I wanted you to feel a smidge of the hurt I was feeling.”

“I was definitely very mad about the scarf,” said Toni. “If I were you, I’d make sure that Hamir never found out you are the scarf thief. He doesn’t like the scarf thief very much.”

“I heard,” said Stephen. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” asked Toni, tilting her head slightly. “Are you, sorry?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Strange. “I want to think that I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise unless you mean it,” she told him. “I sort of really fucking hate that.”

“Is that why you never once apologised?”

Toni had always liked Strange’s eyes. People always said that hers were pretty and transfixing, but to her Strange’s eyes had always been captivating and mesmerising.

For a while, after everything, she had hated him and the world for it. His eyes made it hard to look at the sea or at the sky without thinking about him.

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “I’m not sorry about what I did. Because I can’t be sorry for falling in love with Bruce, and I can’t be sorry for sleeping with someone when I was drunk, months after our break up.”

Strange did not smile, but he did nod, ending their eye contact first. Toni kept watching him, waiting for the question she knew he wanted to ask.

She had to wait 71 seconds.

“Did you love me?” he finally braved, not looking at her. “You keep saying you loved Banner. Did you love me? By the end?”

Toni kept looking at his profile. “Of course I did.” She did not feel as hurt as she would have, once upon a time, when he turned around to look at her in surprise. “I would not have fallen in bed with you, months after we broke up, had I not been in love with you. Believe it or not, I am capable of love.”

“I know,” said Strange, finally smiling. It wasn’t a happy one. “I just wasn’t sure if you were capable of loving me.”

“You made it a challenge,” she agreed, snorting. “A big challenge. But back then it was a challenge I was willing to entertain. Back then, I was willing to fight. But not anymore.”

“Not anymore,” echoed Strange.

"For what's it worth? I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to hurt either of you. I did not think things through, and I hurt you." She sighed, pulling her hair behind her ears. "For that, for hurting you? I'm sorry."

Strange nodded. "Thank you."

“I’m not going to paternity test him,” she continued, after another 19 seconds of silence. “I didn’t want to know then, I don’t want to know now.”

“Okay,” said Strange, nodding again after a few silent moments. “That’s fine with me. I don’t even know him.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you want to?”

“I’m not the paternal or parental kind,” said Strange, scoffing. “I don’t see the point.”

She could have pressed. She hadn’t heard a ‘no’ from him, after all.

But Toni didn’t, crossing her arms around her chest instead. “Can we move on, now? Really move on? Because this whole feelings crap is giving me hives, and you know how I get if I don’t get to bitch at someone or something for too long.”

Strange rolled his eyes. “We can move on, Doctor Stark. I’ll call Wong for you.”

“I thought he wasn’t here,” she said, looking at him in confusion.

Strange smirked, and here was the asshole she had not missed. “I lied.”

“Okay, Strange, now we got problems.”

But when he simply chuckled as he left the room, Toni couldn’t help but smile as she followed.

Chapter Text

“It appears that Miss Potts’ appointment went well.”

“Good,” said Toni, accepting the ball from DUM-E. “Love it when things go my way. The universe usually ends up better for it. When is our esteemed leader coming back?”

“Miss Potts believes it prudent to finish scheduling the meetings within the US before she attempts to contact Canada. Thus she will remain in Malibu, for the time being.”

“And has she dropped that interview with those AIM people?” asked Toni.

“Indeed. It turns out Miss Potts had her own experience with the CEO of the company, and had already dropped the name from the list of potential collaborators.”

Toni hummed, throwing the tennis ball from one hand to the other.

“We trust Pepper Potts, Miss,” told her JARVIS, tone of voice a little teasing.

Toni scoffed, throwing the ball a little higher up than DUM-E would have been able to catch. “DUM-E, you need to have a proper talk with your baby brother. JARVIS is making fun of me. Is that allowed?”

The bot did not even pay her any attention, too focused on retrieving his ball. 

“I wonder who I learnt it from, Miss.”

“You are so grounded. DUM-E, tell him he’s grounded.”

The bot chirped absentmindedly as he finally found his ball, and then it was Toni’s turn to scramble to catch it.

She managed, nearly falling off the couch in her attempt, and she gave DUM-E a look filled with disapproval. “You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

So did you, expressed DUM-E, and Toni tutted. 

“Objection, the plaintiff is leading the witness.”

“Overruled,” said JARVIS, DUM-E, U and BUTTERFINGERS together.

Toni couldn’t help chuckling.

“Fine, you conspirators," she said. "How about a truce?”

DUM-E nodded his claw in agreement, and this time Toni was much gentler when she threw the ball at him.

DUM-E could be a disaster and gave her over ten headaches per day, but she loved him very much. Using him to vent her frustration was not going to be good for her, him or anyone else.

“Lieutenant Killmonger has not checked in yet,” said JARVIS, as Toni and DUM-E resumed their little game of catch. “Which could mean anything, from him. Agent Carter has not retrieved any relevant data yet, but she checked in earlier this morning. For the time being, it appears that Captain Rogers’ duplicity has not raised any flag within SHIELD and/or the part of HYDRA we have access to.”

“Good to know,” said Toni, catching another throw. “Nice throw there, DUM-E. A few more like this and I might have to tell the Mets they have a new pitcher.”

She took the chirping for the beaming it was meant to be, but JARVIS was apparently not done.

“Doctor Banner is currently working with Doctor Foster on the joint project that you approved yesterday and, as usual, Miss Lewis is assisting. Miss Potts and Stark Industries are doing what you have asked of them, and Mr Hogan is with Miss Potts. Colonel Rhodes is out of state on a mission with the Air Force. The Parkers are still all healthy and safe.”

Toni turned to JARVIS’ left camera, one eyebrow raised. “Good to know, but was there a particular reason for this report on my friends, family and general state of affairs? Subtlety does not befit you.”

“I will move past that rather unfair statement so that I can remind you that this is the first moment of respite you have had in a while,” said JARVIS. “This is the first time you have been in the workshop for personal matters in a long while. I believe it would be the perfect day for you to open the box.”

Open the box.

It was not that Toni had forgotten the box.

Toni had not forgotten the box.

The box was very hard to forget about.

But after the excitement from her words with Thena had faded and Toni had found herself busy with everything re her parents’ death and HYDRA, she had had to step back a little. 

Re-evaluate.

Re-prioritize. 

The box was most likely a very big piece of the puzzle that she had been struggling with since she had gotten alien probed by the Mind stone. Perhaps, the puzzle she had not realised she had been stuck in since she was born.

Reborn?

Point was, it was not something that she could open during her lunch break before a meeting with the Board, or right after checking that Rogers was doing his modern history homework and his anti terrorism citizenship duties.

It was something that needed to be done in its own time.

And Toni had not had her own time in a while.

Which was the point JARVIS was making by letting her know how free her schedule was at the moment, something that was unlikely to last very long, or to happen very soon again.

TON-E? 

Toni glanced over at DUM-E, and gave him a small smile. “Sorry, buddy. JARVIS is trying to call me a chicken, and I can’t have that. Can we have that?”

JARVIS CHICKEN.

“I am most certainly not,” protested the AI, which only made Toni laugh and DUM-E look proud.

Laughing was good. Laughing and listening to her bot and AI bicker was 100% better than having to deal with the slight anxiety creeping down her spine the closer she got to the box sitting on the desk.

She had touched it, since the day it was brought over. Touched it, moved it around, shaken it a couple of times. Tried to keep it out of sight, out of mind, while also trying to telekinetically figure out what was hiding inside of it. 

It hadn’t worked of course, because no matter how out of sight it was, the thing continued to live rent free in her mind, like the little bloodsucking mind leech it was.

Also, Toni had no telekinesis powers.

Difference was that, back then, she had touched it knowing that no matter what, she had no intention to open it. Knowing that, no matter how tempting it felt, she was never going to open it, because she was never going to care about whatever had brought Tao here before the old woman decided to go ahead and die somewhere.

Now, she didn’t have that luxury anymore. 

Now, she knew that something much bigger than her was at play, and that not only she wanted to open it: she knew she was going to.

It made things a little different.

“Okay,” she then said, watching the seemingly innocuous box sitting on the desk in front of her.

Navy blue, made of some strong wood and only being kept closed by an innocent little latch that Toni could open with a flick of her fingers. There was no complicated system, not even a padlock or anything.

Or perhaps there had been, but Tao had chosen to take it off before she had handed it off to Toni?

It seemed like the sort of thing that she’d do. Take care of making sure the box was easy and accessible when she could have instead spent that time trying to make sure she didn’t die and left-

JARVIS played chicken sounds from the speakers, and Toni’s lips twitched.

“I remember when you were just a line of code,” she muttered, expertly undoing the latch. “I don’t know what happened to you, who filled your commands and protocols with sass and attitude.”

“The proverbial apple does not usually fall very far from the tree, Miss.”

Toni ignored those frankly fighting words, instead lifting the lid of the box up without further ado.

She had spent enough time around magic users that she knew better than to expect mini explosions or sudden chants of the damned to come out of it when she opened it, but she was still a little underwhelmed to be faced with what looked like a VHS tape sitting inside the box.

“That’s it?” she questioned, looking down at it in slight disappointment. “Just a tape? Then why- Oh.”

The sound of surprise was due to the pouch that appeared after she lifted the tape from the box.

What was clearly a dagger pouch.

“So I was right after all,” she mused, staring at the pouch. “Or Thena was right. Technically I answered my own question though, so I was right.”

“There is something written on the tape, Miss.”

Toni forcefully tore her eyes away from the pouch, and back to the VHS tape in her hands.

And true enough, the words ‘30th May 1981’ were staring at her, awkwardly written in her father’s handwriting on the back of the tape.

“Uh,” she mused, picking up the box with one hand while the other kept holding the tape. “The day after my sixth birthday? And in my dad’s handwriting? The plot appears to thicken.”

The plot. Because if she started to think too hard about the fact that this was her freaking life, she might start laughing or go insane, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.

“Well, is there a VHS player anywhere in this Tower, J?”

+++

It turned out, Toni did own a VHS player. She wasn’t sure how it had survived, but she was okay with it, seen as she was in no mood to build one from scratch right now.

It became clear that the video was a security feed of her father’s workshop as soon as Toni turned it on. It was badly saturated but in colours, and Toni couldn’t help but smile slightly when she saw Howard focused on something at his desk while Toni was sitting near, busy trying to ‘imitate’ him.

She had a lot of things to say about Howard, but she had admit that a lot of her favourite memories of the two of them were just like this. The two of them ‘working’ side by side in his workshop, with her trying to imitate his work and him helping her with hers as if she was somehow a colleague, and not his daughter.

This was not one of those days she noted, watching as her younger self grew bored seconds in and walked away from Howard and his desk.

“Tiny Toni, you’re breaking your mamma's rules,” she informed her younger self, tutting in disapproval. “You can only stay in the workshop with dad if you stay close to him and don’t wander around touching stuff. The stuff in there is too dangerous for a kid.”

Tiny Toni - she wondered briefly what Hulk would call her. Baby Toni? Tinier Toni? - ignored her older and wiser self’s words, and continued to navigate the room until she found what she was looking for.

Toni was not particularly surprised to find Tiny Toni stopping in front of the Tesseract.

Why had she liked the thing so much, when she had been younger? Sure, the Tesseract spoke to her, and it told her stories, but was that reason enough for-

“Oh no,” she said, standing up straighter as the Tesseract started to actually work. Just like the day of the invasion, Toni watched as it started to glow, unnaturally blue even in the old feed. The audio was either too old or too damaged to be heard, but Toni just knew the sound it was making.

The same sound the wormhole had made that day in New York.

But Howard was not moving as the thing started to activate and pulsate, too busy working on whatever stupid thing he was doing. He was where Toni had gotten her ability to immerse herself completely in her work, but now it was all she could do not to curse at him to just look up cause there was something freaky going on there.

Tiny Toni obviously did not see it fit to inform her father of what was going on either, too busy staring at the Tesseract in awe, eyes and mouth wide open.

Toni did not remember this. She did not remember any of this, even though the proof was staring right at her in colours and shitty 144p quality.

She remembered talking to Tesseract. She remembered the Tesseract telling her stories of princesses, and space, and aliens, and magic, and gods, and Titans. 

But she did not remember this.

“Fuck,” she said, watching as the wormhole managed to form in front of Tiny Toni without the need of any machine. “And then you wonder where the daddy issues came from, Howard?”

This time Howard did snap out of his daze, finally seeming to notice that something was going on.

Possibly because the wormhole was making half of the shit in the workshop fly around, and the man tended to notice that sort of stuff.

Toni did not need the audio to know what he was saying as soon as he noticed Toni. She saw it in panic in his eyes as he tried to rush and reach towards her, as he called her name.

Tiny Toni either did not hear, or she did not care (it was really 50% when it came to either version of Toni).

Either way, older Toni could only watch with a sense of numbness as her stupid pigtailed self skipped inside the wormhole like some sailor being ensnared by a siren without so much as a backward glance to her father.

And observe further as Howard screamed and made to run after her, only for some invisible force field to throw him back, hard enough that he did not immediately stand back again.

She did not remember this.

Toni did not remember any of this, and this was somehow a little scarier than not knowing her first life, forgetting her nightmares or being ensnared by the Time Stone.

Unless her younger self had been ensnared by the Tesseract?

But that did not make sense. She wasn’t sure of why, but it just didn’t make sense.

But why didn’t she remember this otherwise?

Was this a case of suppressed memories because of trauma? The fact that she was here now implied that she hadn’t been hurt, but who knew what she had seen or found on the other side?

(The Mad Titan?)

Though, she supposed, she now knew the reason Howard had gotten rid of the Tesseract not long after her birthday.

Or why Tao had made sure she never knew where it actually was being kept, let alone that it had been at SHIELD all along.

But it had not hurt her, in those few hours after they had taken the thing from Selvig. She might not have been alone with it, but she had been close enough, hadn’t she? 

She had been looking for some damn answers, here. Not more fucking questions.

She watched as her father frantically attempted to get through to the field for a while longer before he eventually gave up and called for help.

Edwin arrived in the workshop 4 minutes after Tiny Toni’s trip through space.

Her mamma, 7 minutes later.

Ana Jarvis got there 13 minutes later, on Howard’s apparent orders to get Maria out despite the woman’s desperate protest.

Tao arrived 24 minutes after Toni’s space trip.

She looked as rattled as everyone else in the room once a very spooked Howard filled her in on what had happened, and Toni sat down more comfortably on the couch, curling herself in a ball.

She resolutely refused to think about the fact that, of all the people she had so far seen on the screen, she was the only one still alive.

37 minutes after Toni’s wormhole assisted road trip and 13 minutes of Tao’s failed magic attempts later, Tiny Toni strolled back into the room again, as cheerful as she had been when she had left, not an apparent scratch on her face.

Toni almost relaxed at the way her nonchalance in the face of dangerous situation was an art cultivated since childhood, but then she noticed the thing in Tiny Toni’s hands as Howard and Tao converged on her, the Tesseract powered portal closing behind her.

It was different because it was not in the pouch in the box, but Toni had no doubt about what it was.

The dagger.

The one Thena had spoken about, the one sitting at the bottom of the box that Toni had brought with her to this thriller movie.

As previously stated, the audio from the video was shaky and damaged. But Toni did not need to hear it to know what was being said.

She could see it in her father’s reddening face, in the lines of tension in Tao’s shoulder,  and the way Toni went from being smiley and happy to suddenly upset while tucked in her mamma’s terrified embrace.

“Do you have... what you... through? You scared...”

“What’s...?” questioned Tao, pointing at the dagger in Tiny Toni’s hand. “Where... that?”

“I found it,” said Toni, at the same time as Tiny Toni did, eyes fixed on the video. “It was made for me. The only weapon capable of killing a god. The only weapon capable of killing me.”

“Miss?!”

Toni did not answer JARVIS, watching as her father snatched the dagger from her hand and threw it on the opposite side of the room, and then swallowed.

Made of the hardened ice of Niflheim, in a speckle of reality of Svartalfheim, blessed by the sorcerers of Alfheim, hidden away by the Jotnar - the only weapon capable of killing a god.

Who had told her that? Why had they told her that? Or was it something she had read, somewhere, some time? 

She wasn’t sure.

Did this mean that that was the weapon that she had been killed with, in the end? 

That didn’t seem right, she thought, looking at the dagger sitting in the box once more.

That was hers. She just... she just knew it was hers, it belonged to her.

And yet Tiny Toni had said...

And Toni had said it too. She had said it herself, because she had known.

But...

“Miss? Is that safe?”

“Weren’t you just calling me a chicken?” questioned Toni, picking up the sheathed dagger from inside the box.

“Yes, but that was before you claimed that this was the only weapon capable of killing you.”

Toni ignored him, holding the pouch carefully on one palm. It was not particularly big, thick or heavy. Just a little bigger than the one Loki had given her, but also lighter even while it was still in the pouch.

Different material, perhaps?

“Miss...?”

Toni was not much more comfortable than JARVIS himself must be, but since she was not planning on accidentally stabbing herself with the knife allegedly powerful enough to kill her, she figured she might be safe for the time being.

So she carefully and slowly pulled the dagger out of the pouch, barely noticing the folded piece of paper that slid out and fell on the floor as she did that.

All of her attention was on the blade in her hands, on the beautiful dagger she was holding. The hilt was made of something that felt smoother than wood but was not quite metal, and the carvings over it were beautiful. 

The blade was a scintillating blue black, darker than navy, and when she glanced closer to it, Toni couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the silvery runes etched on the blade itself.

She could see herself inside of it, like it was a mirror.

She was in no way an expert, but the dagger was a stunning piece of craftsmanship.

“Beautiful,” she muttered, inspecting it closer. “I mean, I know it’s just a dagger but wow. It’s gorgeous, it’s-”

Toni stiffened slightly.

“JARVIS.”

“Yes, Miss?”

“Did you just see that?” she asked, staring at the dagger in her hands without daring to blink.

“See what, Miss?”

“I might be imagining things,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on her face reflected on the blade. “But I could have sworn-”

She blinked.

So did the blue eye reflected in the blade, and then it stared back at her.

+++

“No,” bemoaned Thanos, watching as blood trickled through her garments, copiously drenching the floor she was now laying on. “No, my Queen. Why would you- How could you.”

Toni did not know why she smiled at the pain on his face. Why she wasn’t cringing away from him, why she wasn’t panicking at the sight of that purple face so close to her.

All she felt was relief, as she looked at his face.

“You took Modir from me,” she told him, and she could taste blood in her mouth. Her voice was surprisingly clear despite that. Perhaps the Norns wanted him to hear her words. “You stole me from Father. You hurt the All-Mother. You forced Laufey to watch as I was dragged away.

“Most importantly, you made me lose my brothers.

“This is no less than you deserve, Thanos. No less, and know that had it been in my power, you would suffer much more. Know that if it is in my power, my wrath will follow you tenfold long after my death.”

“My Queen-”

Toni laughed, and her chest burned at that. It was worse than the reactor, it was like something was physically liquifying her insides.

And still her lips remained smiling, and laughter came out of her throat.

“Clean your foolish lips of such baseless claims, you half-witted creature. I am not your Queen. I was never your Queen, and I shall never be. I am Queen of Nowhere, and lost Princess. I have no homes, for you stole them from me.”

You are our Princess.

Toni smiled at the Tesseract, and moved one bloody hand to rest on it as Thanos continued to cry his ridiculous crocodile tears over her body. She felt hotter and colder than she should, both at the same time.

She was scared.

She was alone.

“Perhaps I am the Princess of Infinity,” she mused, not minding the blood that she spilled over it. She did not think the Tesseract minded either. “Perhaps that is enough, for now. Perhaps that is enough to keep you from the hands of a Mad Man who does not understand.”

She glanced at the ceiling over her head, feeling more tired and in pain than before. 

She wanted to antagonise the All-Mother yet still.

She wanted to converse with Laufey-King once more.

She wanted to argue with Father one more time.

She wished to mourn Modir.

And she wanted to hug her brothers again.

But life was precious, and her life was running from her.

“My life. For Infinity.” Her mouth kept saying words Toni did not understand, one hand on the Tesseract and the second on her chest. Her blood was bubbling under her fingers. “Tis a worthy barter. If it means you will remain unhappy for the rest of existence, tis a worthy gamble.”

“Why won’t you heal? You’re a goddess! You are the Goddess of Death! Why won’t you heal?”

And yet still, the Titan did not understand Life. He did not know Death.

So how could he proclaim himself a hoarder of Infinity?

She did not say this though. She did not wish to waste more breath on this monster - he had taken too much of her already. Too much - and instead she hummed to herself, a tune Modir had sang for her, and that she had sang for her brothers.

She kept humming it, even as her hand yanked the blade out of her chest and the necklace from around her neck, letting the blood fall freely and more easily.

She did not wish for her brothers to find her body.

She did not pay the crying Thanos any attention as he attempted to stop the blood flow.

She couldn’t heal this wound, and he most certainly could not. This was the only weapon capable of killing a goddess. It had been meant for Father, but in the end she felt this was a better use for it.

Her siblings would need their fathers, now more than ever.

Sleep now, starseed. You have worked hard. Infinity will not forget you.

We won’t forget you.

Forevermore, we will guard you and your heart.

Toni wasn’t listening to the Tesseract. Instead she watched the blood dripping down her own visage reflected on the dagger, as space and the stars spread for lightyears out of her window.

A starseed dead among dead stars, in the arms of a Mad Titan, surrounded by Infinity.

Almost a fitting end.

+++

The blade dropped to the ground.

Toni could hear JARVIS talking to her, could hear him inside her head and outside it, trying to get her attention but she couldn’t hear him.

Her ears were ringing, and she could barely breathe. All she could see, in her head, was that woman, that... her.

The woman who had been in chains on Jotunheim, the woman who had been captured by Thanos and screamed about her mother when she had seen the headless person.

The woman who had, in the end, been alone in space and decided to kill herself rather than be the man’s... Titan’s... girlfriend? Wife? What the fuck did ‘his queen’ even imply?

The woman who had killed herself.

She had killed herself.

She had stabbed herself in the chest with that dagger, and she had died. 

She had killed herself, and she had died light years away from anyone who she had ever called family.

And they most likely hadn’t even known. They couldn’t have known, because someone had altered Reality, and erased that woman from the mind of everyone in the freaking universe.

She had committed the ultimate sacrifice, to save her family and the universe, and then the universe and her family had forgotten her.

She had been forgotten.

Erased.

She had killed herself.

MOM-E?

“DUM-E?” said Toni, opening her eyes again. She did not remember having closed them in the first place.

She also did not remember how she had ended up in the living room of the penthouse, hidden under the piano like she was a kid again.

Was it depressing that she still fit comfortably without having to try?

“How did you get out of the workshop?” she questioned, watching the bot’s awkward attempts to pat her leg with his claw.

“I do not have a body, Miss,” said JARVIS, a hint of relief in his voice. “You were not listening to me, and you were hyperventilating. I had to make a judgement call.”

“You called in the cavalry,” she surmised, observing U’s rather pathetic attempts at getting under the piano with her. “I think I’m supposed to say ‘thank you’?”

Y-E-S, said U, thrusting what looked like tissue at her. C-R-Y.

“I don’t need to cry,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t cry. I’m fine.”

DUM-E made a slight distressed sound, as did U and BUTTERFINGERS, and Toni frowned. “What? I’m fine, guys, I just freaked out. Chill.”

“You are already crying, Miss,” said JARVIS, a little timidly. “You have been crying for a few minutes now.”

“No, I haven’-” Toni cut herself off when she felt some wetness under her eyes. She looked at her wet fingers, a little bemused. “Well, that’s just awkward for everyone involved.”

“We won’t tell if you won’t,” promised JARVIS, and Toni only laughed.

If her grief for someone long dead spilled out of her eyes while she did that, well neither her AI nor her bots were going to rat her out to anyone.

Chapter Text

Los Angeles in the winter still managed to be warmer than New York in the spring and in the fall. It was a bit ridiculous, actually, that Toni knew they were in December and yet she could comfortably ride in her car with the top down.

“Do you think it is now time for me to invent a weather control machine like in that one Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse episode?”

What? She needed to destress, sometimes. It was a fun show.

I think that your ability to avoid the things you find uncomfortable or do not wish to do remains nothing short of supernatural, Miss.

“Why did I think an AI was a good idea?” questioned Toni, considering momentarily taking off her in ear piece. But since JARVIS could be relentless and the only way to get him to shut up would be actively muting him, taking the in ear piece off was just going to give him ammunition.

“I see you have chosen to attempt avoiding this attempt at a conversation too.”

“You are not clever, JARVIS,” informed Toni, getting ready to change lanes. “Which is annoying, since you’re supposed to be an artificial intelligence. What went wrong?”

“Very well, I shall add the conversation about your avoidance methods into the pile of things you have decided to avoid.”

The judgement was dripping from those words.

“I am Toni Stark, JARVIS. I don’t do ‘avoiding’. I don’t have time to avoid. What might look like avoidance to you is nothing but a change in approach and a re-prioritizing of things. An attempt at a change in perspective, you might even say.”

“There was no reason for you to come to California.”

“Statistics indicate that there is a higher chance for administrative meetings to go well if the two parties already know each other beforehand,” she felt the need to point out. “And me and Hope know each other far better than Hope knows Pepper. She likes me better.”

“You are quoting statistics at me, Miss?”

Toni snorted. “Okay, that’s definitely not a game I want to play.”

“We are in agreement, then.”

“We often are. You are the better part of me, times a hundred.”

JARVIS paused for a moment. “Are you getting emotional on me, Miss? Because I cannot handle you crying-”

“Fuck you, JARVIS. You are not allowed to copy my coping mechanisms, it is unbecoming of you,” said Toni, failing at not smiling.

“I am simply following into your footsteps.”

“Oh, that’s definitely not something you want to do, baby boy.”

“I beg to disagree,” firmly said JARVIS. “I feel that there is no better role model in the world for me.”

If she never had anything again, Toni would be happy so long as she had JARVIS. He was all she needed, him and her bots. 

So long as she had them, she was going to be all right. And she knew that, no matter how sometimes she wished it wasn’t the case, it was the same for them too.

JARVIS had nearly shut down Stark Industries himself, when Toni had gone missing. It had taken Rhodey to convince him that Toni would not have been happy to come back and find her affairs in disarray for him to start working normally again (Toni wouldn’t have given a fuck, if he had decided to remain on strike; but Rhodey had kept the secret of JARVIS’ level of sentiency from the world at large, and for that she was grateful).

It made something in Toni’s chest ache, the love of her bots and AIs. In pain or joy, she wasn’t sure just yet.

She sighed, as she came to a stop at another traffic light. “When did my life get so screwed up, JARVIS? Since when do I have to deal with HYDRA, Norse gods, reincarnation, a space anomaly, and an alien invasion? Like when did my life become the plot for a shitty sci-fi slash adventure movie with banging characters and a convulsed storyline?”

“I believe around the time you donned a suit of armour and called yourself Iron Queen.”

“You’re right,” agreed Toni, nodding decidedly. “I agree, it was all Yinsen’s fault.”

“That is not what I-”

“Remind me to bother him more, once I’m done with all this. He put me through all of this shit in the name of making me a better person and giving me a redemption arc, what sort of evil being does that?”

“A very insipid individual, I am sure,” said JARVIS. “As we are on the topic of Stark Industries, you have received another e-mail from AIM wishing to set up an interview.”

“Tell whoever my assistant of the day is, to either say no outright, or if they get pushy to give them the 'book an appointment and then reschedule until they give up or they get bored of the rescheduling' treatment.”

She did not remember much of AIM, but she remembered how annoying their CEO back then had been. Aldrich Killian, super pushy, trying to get Toni to look at his research when she had been busy listening to Strange's talk with Bruce at this technical conference in Bern. 

Pepper had apparently worked for him before joining Stark Industries, and he was, allegedly, as much of a creep when she had worked for him as he had been around Toni.

Neither was interested in working for or with him, and considering how little of a blip on the radar his company currently was, they didn’t have to, either.

“I shall do. Prince Loki is currently in your living room, would you like to proceed with a video call?”

Toni frowned. “He is?”

“Yes.”

“What is it with him and breaking and entering in my penthouse when I’m not there? One of these days I will have him charged. Put him on.”

While she had expected that he might show up again while she was in Cali, she had expected another night visit, like he usually did. She did not recall ever seeing him during the day time (mental note: more emo vampire jokes at his expenses).

That did bring in question time zones on Asgard. Was it night time when it was morning here? Or the other way round? Thor hadn’t looked jetlagged when he had landed, but that really said little. Perhaps they were used to jet lag and barely even felt it anymore? 

“Antoinette.”

“Hey, Lokes,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road. “Sorry if I’m not making eye contact, I’m currently driving and while I have so far never died in a car crash, I don’t want to get blood on these clothes. They were very expensive. Or so I’m assuming, I don’t really do my own clothes shopping that often. They certainly feel expensive.”

They are.

“Please stop talking,” said Loki, sighing much louder than Toni believed he had earned the right to. He was bothering her. “If you let me speak, I promise I shan’t keep you long. But before I explain what I have found, might I ask what this thing your servant showed me is?”

“JARVIS is not a servant,” she said, voice stern and serious for a moment. “He's my friend and co-pilot. Speak nicely to and of him."

Loki inclined his head. "Understood."

I knew you cared, Miss.

Shut up, you.

Toni relaxed her expression. "I don’t know how much you know about the judicial system in America and most countries - mostly western - here on Earth, but sometimes, when they have a case, detectives put out what we call a ‘crazy wall’. It’s a wall or a panel where they put down every scrap of evidence or information they have, and they try to make a link between the evidence, to see if anything new that they hadn’t considered before jumps at them.”

“I see,” said Loki, and when Toni glanced at him at the next red light, he looked almost intrigued by the wall. “A way to display everything that is on your mind and to visually display your thoughts on what is happening.”

“More or less, yeah.”

“That is truly ingenious,” he admitted, not even appearing to notice that he was complimenting her. Toni did though, and she was going to make JARVIS record this to play in Loki’s face if he dared question her ever again.

Speaking of.

“How’s Thor, by the way?”

She did not look over at him this time, but she did feel his eyes on her anyway. 

“Thor is Thor,” he eventually said. “Nothing has changed.”

She had a feeling that was the closest to ‘he’s fine’ that she was going to get.

She had hoped that by now their relationship would have somewhat healed, considering Loki’s own accounts of how Thor was apparently still trying.

But then again, Loki had not walked away or shut her out for asking about Thor. That was, technically, an improvement.

Maybe.

As much as she was glad to be seeing Loki this often, she missed the blond too. She hoped Loki would bring him with him soon.

“Good to know.”

“Mh,” said Loki. “You wrote here something about a blade capable of killing a god. What do you speak of?”

The dagger.

Toni held tighter on the steering wheel.

She had eventually returned to the movie room where she had left the letter, tape and the dagger, but she hadn’t touched the thing again.

She had let DUM-E put it back in the pouch it had come from, and then she had put the pouch away in a drawer.

She knew that she should have put it back in the box and then perhaps locked it in a safe in a locked room in her bedroom or something. That was the smart and clever thing to do, she was perfectly aware.

That dagger could kill her.

That dagger had killed her.

(She had killed herself)

She needed to keep it away from herself.

But the idea of throwing it away, of hiding it and never looking at it again?

It did not sit right with Toni.

It was hers. She needed to have it, even if she didn’t use it.

Even if she didn’t tell Loki about it.

Loki was strong and powerful and sometimes a little frightening. He was not someone who needed to be coddled or placated or anything of the sort.

But Loki was also the guy who had jumped into the ‘Void’ because he had been at the end of his rope.

And Toni might not understand her fondness for the Norse duo, but it existed.

She cared about Loki.

So she was not giving him a god killing weapon, no matter how healthy or sane he appeared to be.

“A memory,” she explained, tapping her fingers over the steering wheel. “I think it was a memory, or a vision, or something. Of a weapon made with the ice of Niflheim and blessed by some other people, capable of killing a god.”

Loki looked vaguely disturbed by that. “A weapon owned by him?”

No, it hadn’t been. Toni remembered holding it, she remembered his expression when she had used it. There had been shock in his ugly face. Fear. Upset. Rage.

That wasn’t his weapon that she had somewhat swiped.

That was hers.

“I'm not sure," she lied. "Does he know how to get to Niflheim? It’s one of the Nine Realms, isn't it?”

“This is what I wanted to speak to you about,” admitted Loki, as Toni’s car started forward again. “Because my first answer would be, no. He would not be able to get anywhere within the Nines without at least a Stone, and Asgard would still defeat him. That would be my position.

“But how am I to know, truly? A few months ago, I would have sworn Midgard is the closest he has gotten to the Nines since the All-Father battled him. But only a few days ago I discovered that he attacked Jotunheim and took you, someone we still do not know whether Jotun, Aesir or what. We know you did not wish to go with him, but we do not even know your name.

“How can I trust that my thoughts and memories are true when the entirety of Reality was re-written? I cannot know for sure. I cannot know anything for sure.”

“Welcome to existence,” said Toni, rolling her eyes. “That’s just an average Thursday, here.”

“What?”

“Not knowing is something us little humans excel at. We never know shit about anything. But we still find a way to persevere because you know what? There’s literally nothing else we can do but. Otherwise we’d be always lying on the floor, curled in a ball, having a forever ongoing existential crisis and contemplating why we are even alive.”

“So you say I should still pursue my research even if the foundation upon which it is built is not sturdy?”

“In the immortal words of Pat Benatar, I say hit me with your best shot. You never know what you might uncover in one of your many dusty not wi-fi powered libraries. Maybe there is a list of sorcerers somewhere who are powerful enough to cast such a spell.”

“But what if that book has also been altered-” He paused at the look Toni shot him as she finally parked her car. “Very well.”

“Good boy. Now off you go.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed. “Do not tell me what to do.”

“But I’m always right? And you came to me for advice, do you not-”

“Thank you for your help, JARVIS. You may end the call.”

“Excuse me-”

“As you wish, Prince Loki.”

Toni stared at the missing hologram, pouting. “You take orders from Loki, now? I thought what we had was special, J.”

“You have a meeting and Miss Potts a few moments away from walking over.”

The blonde was indeed standing near the door of her car when Toni looked up, waiting for her quite impatiently. She wasn’t foot tapping like she did back at SI when she was annoyed, and Toni decided to reward such outstanding behaviour by actually getting out of the car before she had to come drag her out.

“My beautiful Miss Potts,” she greeted, pressing a kiss on her face. “Yello.”

“I am kind of surprised that you are actually on time,” admitted Pepper, looking at Toni in vague concern as they fell into step with one another. “How?”

“I can be on time when I like the person I am meeting and I deem the meeting important enough.”

“You are late plenty of times when we have to meet up,” pointedly said Pepper.

“... I won’t talk unless I get to meet a lawyer first.”

“You are a nightmare.”

“Love you too, Pep!”

+++

Toni had expected some waiting, between their arrival and being called in for their meeting. It was a powerplay most CEOs or company owners would have employed when dealing with the competition, one Toni herself had employed plenty of times.

But instead, they were invited in virtually 36 seconds after they had sat down, right after being offered and declining a drink.

She wasn’t quite sure if this was a good sign or not.

“Here,” said Hope’s secretary, opening the door for them.

Hope was sitting when they opened the door, but she stood up as soon as they walked in, a polite yet professional smile on her face.

“Miss Potts,” she greeted, shaking Pepper’s hand and then hers. “Miss Stark. A pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you,” gracefully said Pepper. “We are grateful that you took time out of your schedule to meet with us.”

“When Stark Industries comes knocking, you really can’t say no,” said Hope, smiling a little less honestly this time.

Toni did not smile, either, but her amusement was clear in her eyes.

There was the Hope she knew and loved.

Pepper’s smile was equally wolfy as she put down one of her many folders. “That’s definitely a good reputation to have,” she said sweetly. “Without further ado, how about I just let you see what our proposal is. I am sure you will find it quite generous.”

Disgustingly generous, some might say - Pepper included.

But while she did not trust the majority of the people she was allying herself with, she knew that push came to shove, she could rely on Hope. Hank and having competing companies might have made things a little difficult between them but, at the end of the day, her and Hope were still friends.

Maybe not as close as they had been before.

But still, friends.

Hope skimmed the abstract and the first few pages before she closed the small portfolio. This time, when she glanced up, her eyes fixed on Toni. “You want to invest in Pym and fund some of our weaker but most needed projects in exchange of some buildings in very specific areas and access to a couple of employees for a project that won’t jeopardise their career and job?”

“Yes,” said Pepper.

Toni just arched an eyebrow, giving nothing away. 

Hope stared at her and Pepper for a few more seconds before she dropped and pushed the portfolio away. “You are the one who managed to get me put in this position in the first place, by getting rid of Darren Cross. And now you are giving an obscene amount of money for non overly renowned scientists when you have and can do much better by yourself?” She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Off the record. Who, what and why?”

Toni smiled at Hope. Just as she had hoped.

“Invasion part two,” said Toni, ignoring Pepper’s feeble attempt at stopping her and leaning forward on the desk. “They’re coming back, and we need to be prepared by the time they decide we are ripe again. I need as many scientists and bases to create plans on how to keep our planet safe without having to worry about people talking about me and world domination or creating a monopoly.”

Hope’s eyes narrowed. “Are you creating a monopoly?”

Toni rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to save the world, Hope. Hence why I need your help.”

“Was that very hard for you to say?” asked Hope, smiling sweetly at her.

“You have no idea.”

Hope leaned back on her chair, glancing at the portfolio for a moment, before looking back at Toni. “Is that why you helped me get rid of Cross without me having to ask?”

“Partly,” unashamedly said Toni. “I would have done it anyway, had you asked me, because you deserve it no matter what your asshole father thinks or wants to say. But yeah, I needed you in power, and took it in my own hands.”

Pepper looked vaguely worried beside her, which Toni ignored in favour of keeping steady eye contact with Hope.

“What’s the military doing?” then asked Hope. “What did you see?”

“Aliens. Thousands, millions of aliens. More aliens than the ones in New York, a lot more.” She glanced at her nails, instead of thinking back on it. “And the military? Doing what they do best, being misogynists and keeping their soldiers from their partners for no reason.”

“Of course,” said Hope, not sounding very surprised. She glanced at the file on the table again, and picked it up. “I’ll go through this with my lawyer as soon as I can, but yes. I’m in.”

Toni grinned back. “I didn’t doubt you would, Poppy.”

Hope rolled her eyes. “Don’t you start it, now,” she grumbled. Then her expression softened, eyes searching. “You okay, though?”

Toni’s smile did not waver. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Hope smiled too. “Because you’re giving me a media smile. I see it in the mirror all the time, you know?”

Toni forced her smile into a more honest form. “Call us back as soon as possible, Poppy?”

“Will you ever stop calling me that?”

“Not in this lifetime, poppy seed!”

Hope sighed, but she did not press.

That was why Toni liked her so much.

+++

Going back home unfortunately meant that Toni was currently stuck in her cool convertible with Pepper and Happy both. Because there was no point in two different people going to the same place in different cars, as Toni had been informed before she could take off.

“Are you sure you are okay?” question Nagging Supreme Pepper Potts. “You don’t look like you’ve been getting much sleep. You should delegate more and worry less.”

“I have been sleeping just fine.” 

“You have huge bags under your eyes.”

“I do not,” complained Toni, glaring at Pepper. “First of all, there are no bags under my eyes because I’m wearing concealer, and this shit is the good kind. Second, if I had bags under my eyes they would be expensive, small and exclusive. Nothing big and gaudy.”

“Good to see that you’re still here.”

Toni rolled her eyes. “You are worrying too much and for no reason at all.”

“Rhodey said you’ve been having nightmares.”

“Reporting live from Toni Stark’s business,” said Toni, making a face. “Is that in his job description or is that a personal hobby of his?”

“He’s worried about you,” offered Happy, from the driver seat. Why had Toni missed the resident Nagger Number Two? “And to be honest, so are we.”

“I have been sleeping just fine, you drama queens,” said Toni, pretending JARVIS was not judging her from her phone. “Sure, I had a few rough nights, but I’m fine now. Wong’s tisanas are working like a charm.”

The few times she bothered drinking them, of course. 

Pepper took Toni’s hands in hers then, and when Toni turned to look at her, there was some serious concern on her face. “We are just worried,” she said. “You are taking a lot of things on yourself.”

“I’m delegating-”

“You are still the last person of contact for everything,” pointed out Pepper. “Nothing moves without your approval.”

As if on cue, a new notification appeared on her tablet.

Toni ignored Pepper’s exasperated expression, quickly recognising the meaning of the tune.

JARVIS, get Rhodey on the line. Then finish the algorithm.

By myself? Are you sure that is wise, Miss?

Toni sent the data from her tablet directly to JARVIS himself with a few finger taps. 

I trust you, and the thing was 97% trustworthy when we had no actual HYDRA-only data. Now Share has sent us the HYDRA data we needed. I don’t know about HYDRA security, but it’s better that we start now, before HYDRA, SHIELD or anyone else figures out what happened.

I can’t do that with Pepper here over my shoulders, but you can. And I trust you.

She absolutely trusted Pepper, with her life even. But sometimes the woman was simply too... good, for Toni’s tastes. And this was something she was bound to have strong opinions on.

Not worth getting into an argument about it.

Rhodey might get uppity, but once he had the data, he’d know what to do.

Very well, Miss. I shall not disappoint you.

I don’t think you’re able to, J.

“Fine,” said Toni, turning her tablet off to look at Pepper. “I am not doing that well. But me not doing that well is better than what the majority of the world can produce. I trust you with SI, but for the rest? Pep, you’re out of your depth. I’ve been self reliant since I was 16 - since earlier really, if you actually think about it. I’m doing what I have to do because frankly? There is no one else that can do it, and no one else I can trust to do it.”

It was really that simple, in the end.

Pepper did not let go of her hand, but her expression turned a little softer. “Yeah. There is only one Toni Stark.”

“Unless reincarnation gets involved,” muttered Toni, shaking her head when Pepper looked confused. “Nothing. Just thinking if I should go ahead and find a way to perfect cloning already or if we’re not ready as a human race for that level of sci-fi.”

“We are not ready, as a human race, for more than one Toni Stark,” answered Pepper, looking amused at Toni’s outrage. 

“The world would be blessed to have more than one me!”

“Agree to disagree,” said Happy, not even turning around her.

“Sometimes people who are too close to greatness fail to see its true power,” said Toni, sniffing imperiously.

“Okay, has greatness manage to find time in her packed schedule to contact Wakanda?” asked Pepper, and this time it was Toni’s turn to wince a little.

“Greatness is... working on it.”

“Admit it. You’re scared of T’Challa’s dad.”

“Scared!” said Toni, scoffing. “Preposterous. I am Toni Stark. I am not afraid of anyone, let alone an old man.”

“Then why have you not made contact, yet?”

“A number of reasons. T’Challa said that his father would be in favour of what I’m trying to do, but he hasn’t actually spoken to him yet. And I’d prefer he did that before I tried to set up an appointment and it ended up with me being accused of trying to steal his Vibranium. It took me too long to make him like me to risk him disliking me again.”

“Aw,” cooed Pepper, patting her shoulder. “You don’t want to upset your former father in law.”

“Because you are kind of scared of said father in law,” finished Happy for her, snickering a little.

“Me and Cha-Cha were never married, and I’m not scared of- Happy, watch out!”

“What the- fuck!”

Miss!

The man appeared faster than even Toni noticed. One second the road in front of Happy was empty, and the next he was standing in the middle of the road, body completely engulfed by flames, a heat on his skin that Toni could almost feel despite how far they were.

Both Pepper and Happy screamed as the driver hit the brakes in an attempt to not run over the man, but he did not stop running at them and Toni threw herself at Pepper, reaching for the handle as the blonde screamed.

They fell out of the car right before the flames erupted around it, the heat stinging through the cement of the road under them.

The last thing Toni saw was Pepper’s terrified face.

Then they hit the road, hard.

Chapter Text

Toni was used to being woken up at random times in random places she did not remember falling asleep in - particularly so before Afghanistan. 

It was par on course for a self proclaimed playboy/girl, and even more expected of the only daughter of rich weapons manufacturer Howard Stark. Kidnappings and attempted kidnapping were her bread and butter.

It had definitely been awhile, however, since she had woken up in a dingy lit room, with her arms and legs tied to what felt like some sort of bed frame behind her, and a pounding headache.

She did not immediately open her eyes, when she became aware again. As previously stated, she was used to kidnappings, and she was very well used to the code of conduct when it came to them.

Opening your eyes immediately and letting them know you were back online was a big faux pas for people who wanted to escape with their lives.

And Toni was fond of escaping with her life.

She needed to focus.

She was in a room. It was not a particularly cold room, except for a cold air jet above her head. If they weren’t still in California, they weren’t too far. They had been in San Francisco, hadn’t th–

Pepper was beside her, she realised. She was not making any sound, and she seemed asleep, but she was alive, and Toni knew it was Pepper. She had jumped on her when she had seen that walking flambé on the road, and then they had fallen right out of the car.

Happy hadn’t jumped after them, however. Had he? Toni remembered him cursing, she remembered him panicking a little and then...

Then nothing.

She had hit her head when she had fallen out of the car, and she had no idea of how long it had been since then. She couldn’t have been out of it for that long, but still.

She felt sluggish. Was it just the head trauma or had they drugged her? Whoever had taken her would have to have been very stupid to not drug her. 

There was only one other person in the room with them. She seemed... normal, from what Toni could sense right now. She did not smell of death, not truly but something about her still ringed familiar in Toni.

She had met this woman before.

She couldn’t sense JARVIS anywhere. Could not feel him in her head, not even a slight buzz, which most likely meant they had gotten rid of both Toni and Pepper’s phones. Her wrist felt also naked, and she was no longer wearing her blazer jacket - the one with Loki’s dagger in its pocket.

From the looks of it, she was practically defenceless and tied up with her friend still passed out beside her.