Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tony came awake with a jolt.

For a moment – a single pure moment – all there’d been was the darkness and the distant, fading sensation of pressure. The black had come to swallow him whole, the pain had stopped. They had all been safe, all of them. Free and alive and well. He’d been drowning in blissful, rapturous relief.

But then?

But then the flash. And the jolting awake.

Searing agony, burning up and down his arms, centred in his chest. Choking in his throat and-

Oh god.

Sensation had returned with a vengeance.

Pepper had said that he could rest now, but his heart was screaming and he couldn’t breathe. His ears were ringing, his lungs desperate, his sight stuttering in and out and oh god-

Desperately bucking up against the- the thing holding him down, Tony howled in miserable spasms and begged, begged, begged for the torment to end, for the black nothingness to come back. He just wanted it all to stop, he’d thought it would stop! The incinerating burning burning burning of the stones was supposed to stop!

Red flashed across his vision while he convulsed, a blood splattered scalpel and gore soaked gauze. Vibrant and violent against the dark haze beyond. And the voices. Shouting and yelling, harsh constants that made no sense, that rose and fell with the wavering of the light.

There was light?

Dim and orange – no, harsh and white too but still more shadow than illumination, a blinding glow that revealed almost nothing even as his eyes watered. And in it, blurs of motion that flitted about as he flailed upwards again, back arching and hands scrabbling uselessly.

Sweat trickled down his face as his head thrashed back and forth, the burning pressure on his torso increasing as he struggled. And then the light dimmed once more as something moved towards him. The flash of red again, the dull gleam of metal. And then his chest!

Scraping, clawing, stabbing anguish.

Tony screamed as his eyes rolled back into his head.

She’d promised him rest.

Tony came awake again.

Another jolt. An instant rush from nothing into awareness, his eyes snapping open and his muscles tensing.

His throat was dry as he held back a pitiful moan, and every one of his limbs was suffused with a dull ache. Blinking rapidly against the freezing air, he stared up into the darkness for a long second, his thoughts stuttering.

He knew that roof. That damp rocky expanse.

Coughing weakly as he tried to breath through the instinctual panic, he pawed feebly at his face, already knowing what he was going to find there. With clumsy fingers, he grasped the thin tube, desperately trying not to retch as he slowly pulled it up out of his nose. As soon as it was free, he took as deep a breath as he was able to around the casing he knew was once again embedded in his chest.

“Fuck,” he rasped lowly as he patted weakly at the wad of bandages he knew better than to tear open this time.

He found the wires quickly, careful not to pull them taut as he followed them up to the car battery he also knew was waiting for him.

“Fuck,” he repeated again, his voice a keening wail when he found the damned thing sitting innocuously on a low table next to him.

He was in hell, he realised, tears brimming in his eyes. He was in hell and hell was a cave in Afghanistan.

“S’an electromagnet right?” he asked tiredly as he pulled the thin ratty blanket off his cot and wrapped it around his shoulders. He’d forgotten how hellishly cold the cave had been, how damp and grimy and miserable. Icy water dripping down the slimy back wall, cloying dust and grit stirred up with every shuffled foot, and a never ending chill that seeped into your very bones and stayed there.

“Yes, very intuitive of you,” Yinsen smirked back as he continued stirring a pan of flavourless soupy bean mush. “I removed as much shrapnel as I could, but there’s a lot left and it’s headed for your atrial septum.”

“Sheer dumb luck that the old weapons division used magnetic metals in the inner shell cases before I shut it down,” Tony sighed quietly to himself, swiping a shaking hand down over his clammy face. “Yay for me.”

“I’ve seen many wounds like that in my village,” Yinsen continued on with a frown, turning to grab a small, filthy vial. Tony caught it with both hands when it was tossed gently to him, and held it up to one of the flickering floodlights. Just as he remembered, tiny shards of metal tumbled about inside it as he rotated it and he glared at them balefully before glancing back up at the doctor. “We call them the walking dead because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs.”

“Am I Rick Grimes or Dayrl Dixon?” Tony quipped half-heartedly before he could think better of it.

“I take it that’s a reference I’m supposed to get?”

“They’re- never mind, hasn’t been filmed yet. Won’t start until 2010 and I never watched it anyway.”

“That’s the second time now that you’ve spoken of the future as if it’s the past,” Yinsen commented mildly with a raised eyebrow. “Should I be concerned?”

“Well I sure am,” Tony snorted humourlessly, knuckling at his eye socket again. “Can’t quite decide if I’m dead or just back in time. Again.”

“…Again?”

“Yeah the first time was a little more voluntary though, and more Back to the Future than Groundhog Day.”

Yinsen was staring at him with obvious unease now, his eyes flicking up and down. Tony was fairly sure the doctor would lean over and check his temperature with the back of his palm soon, or demand to check the mass of stitched flesh and metal that made up his chest for infection.

Complaining about time travel probably did sound like raving fever dreams to someone from a world that hadn’t yet met Nordic gods, the Mystic Arts, and alien invaders.

“You know, I think I’ve met you once before actually,” he changed the subject quickly, resolving to keep his sci-fi musings to himself from now on. “Turn of the millennium right? That tech conference in Switzerland that I gatecrashed?”

“Well now I am impressed,” Yinsen huffed wryly, taking the bait. “I am surprised you remember anything of that night at all. If I had been that drunk I wouldn’t have been able to stand let alone give a lecture on integrated circuits. That you remember my face…”

“Something Yinsen yeah?” Tony shrugged with a wince. Damned electromagnet. “You tried to introduce me to that other person only I kept uh, making drunken jokes.”

“Jokes is perhaps a bit mild-”

Yinsen cut off as there was a loud bang from the door and then a clatter as the bolts were pulled back. The metal creaked open a second later, and Tony lurched to his feet and raised his hands without needing Yinsen’s prompting this time.

Time to face the music he guessed.

Damp and shivering, Tony glared at the retreating backs of the Ten Rings men. Waterboarding was just as unpleasant as he remembered.

Actually, he would say it was worse this time. As awful as it had been the first time round, it had at least been, you know, the first time. Which meant he hadn’t been having PTSD fuelled flashbacks of being repeatedly drowned by terrorists while… being repeatedly drowned by those exact same terrorists.

Plus before he’d also had the satisfaction of clinging to his defiance. No matter how long they had held him under, he’d been able to scream I refuse, I refuse at them both in his head and out loud. This time he’d lied straight off and told them okay, he’d build what they wanted, hoping to spare himself the torture.

They’d laughed and dragged him to the barrel of water anyway. Said that they wanted him to be sure of his decision before they let him get to work. It was pretty clear that actually, they just enjoyed torturing him and didn’t need an excuse or a reason.

Bastards.

Shifting on his cot to lie on his side, grimacing at how much filthy water was soaking into his scratchy blanket and misshapen rag pillow, he grimly recalled how long the initial round of Drown-the-Stark had lasted the first time. Three days – maybe – before they dragged him in front of that camcorder and slapped him round a bit. Another half a day before they hauled him outside and showed off their stash of illegal weaponry.

Three and a bit more days of waterboarding. And electrocution, given how much water and exposed electromagnets did not mix. With the occasional slap to the face or kick to the knee just to spice things up and keep things fresh.

Fuck it all.

Fuck it all to hell. (If he wasn’t there already.)

He really fucking-really should have taken up Wong on his offer that one time. Then he could have portalled out of here in an instant. Made himself one of those ring-sling things and just fucking left. Bye Felicia.

Yeah well, joke’s on himself.

Seriously, fuck it all. If he gets out of here again- when he gets out of here again, he’s going straight to the bloody New York Sanctuary (Sanctum?) and enrolling himself in Hogwarts. He won’t even laugh and ridicule the art this time (not much anyway).

And then he’s building all that space shit that he and Rocket had designed. Along with his nanite suit of course. Blow up the terrorists, save the world a few times. Perhaps dick-punch Thanos before he got any of the stones?

Marry the shit out of Pepper. Like, immediately. Well. He should probably court her again first. Properly this time, with less emotional constipation on his part. Oh! Build War Machine but better. Maybe drag Rhodey with him to wizard school?

“Hey Yinsen,” he rasped with a lopsided grin as he entertained a few more ridiculous fantasies where in he went mad with power. “You ever heard of the term Mary Sue?”

“The literary device? Or I suppose it is more of a trope.”

“Yeah well, think I might rename it to Tony Sue and patent it.”

Chapter Text

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” Tony yelled as he once again began to plummet towards the desert sands in a completely uncontrolled manner.

He’d made some improvements to the Mark-I sure, but it was still just a giant man-shaped metal box powered by chain motors and hope. Held together by spit and glue and not enough stem bolts. Mostly bullet proof, but seriously primitive.

With only the box of scraps and limited tools, any aspirations regarding flight stabilisers had been a total pipe dream. And well. Even if he had managed to build some, they would have been of little use in the face of the sudden complete lack of power as the overwrought electronics sputtered and died. While he was still in mid-air.

Honestly, not even fifteen years of experience flying about as Ironman could spare him from this impending disaster.

“Fuuuuuuck!” he shouted as he slammed head-first onto the far side of one of the dunes with far too much momentum. Tumbling end over end, he screamed through gritted teeth as he felt his battered chest slam up against the inside of the front plate, and then bit it off with a choke as his nose crushed up against the mask of the helmet.

He tumbled to a stop with a long, agonised groan.

“Definitely worse than last time,” he sighed miserably as he spat out a mouthful of sand. Christ, that was a shit landing.

But he still felt a wave of relief wash over him as he lay there and squinted up through the eye slits into the bright midday sunlight. No matter how sore he felt, he’d done it. He was out of the caves, free from the terrorists once more. Far worse for wear this time round, and still without Yinsen. But free.

Free but-

The relief choked back under a torrent of regret and frustration.

Oh god. Stupid idiotic brave Yinsen. Tony had tried, he’d tried to save him! He’d redesigned the armour so it could be put on much quicker, sped up the firmware install and power up as much as he could, ensured they’d have longer to prep by spot-welding the door shut as well as rigging it to explode once the assholes did manage to get it open.

He’d made some basic protective gear for the doctor to wear. A crude bullet-proof (ish) vest made from steel plates sewn inside a ripped and torn bomber jacket, another set of tough leather gloves, a rounded helmet that was just a missile nose cone with eye holes cut into it but was still much better than nothing.

And he’d added two hand holds and a foot rest to the back of the suit so that the doctor could cling to his back plates. Ensuring that the man wouldn’t be left behind if he had to use the rudimentary flight propulsion system again.

All that planning. All for nothing.

“Self-sacrificial idiot,” he swore as he shook off the last of the mangled arm armour and then yanked off the helmet. His nose was dripping blood down over his lips and chin and he swabbed it off with one of his grubby shirt sleeves, grimacing at the tender soreness of his face. Hissing as he realised that he’d also managed to crack – if not out right break– his left forearm, he mulishly began to kick off the leg guards and wiggled out of the scattered remains of the rest of the suit.

Once he was finally free, he took a moment to stay crouched and stare back at the mountains he’d left smoking and scarred.

“Right then,” he muttered to himself as he shakily stumbled to his feet. “Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning.”

His chest ached, his arm was throbbing, and his nose felt like it had swollen to three times its usual size. The burns along his shoulders were also stinging sharply with every jolting step he took, but he ignored it all in favour of concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.

Tony knew it wouldn’t be long now until the helicopters finally passed overhead. He just had to keep moving until they did.

Taking another swig from his rapidly dwindling water supply, he trudged his way over the crest of another dune. He was trying to stick to the top of them wherever possible so that he was far easier for his eventual rescuers to spot, meandering in what he hoped was a generally southern direction. All he had to do was keep the mountains at his back and keep walking.

It’s what he’d done before so…

As he started jogging down the other side of the dune, he pressed his broken arm against the rattling reactor embedded in his chest and quickly screwed the cap back onto the dusty water canteen he’d strapped to his thigh back in the cave. He knew Rhodey was coming for him, but it was likely that the remaining terrorists were on his tail too. With how shit his luck had been since he woke up in the past, he wasn’t going to take the risk that they’d catch up to him before the US military managed it. That wasn’t what had happened before, but it didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen this time.

The sand levelled out under his feet as he contemplated his situation again, and he slowed back to a walk as it shifted unstably beneath him. Fuck, he hated sand. Almost as much as he hated caves and deep water.

“It’s course and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere,” he giggled hysterically as he carefully inched across it, wary of sinking up to his knees and face-planting. And actually ugh, it was 2008 again wasn’t it? Forget Anakin, he’d been so looking forward to the new season of the Mandolorian. Despite the fact they’d had to recast half the actors after the snap.

He’d have to wait fifteen damn years for it now.

He was in 2008 again right? And not in some feverish afterlife? If this was hell, surely he wouldn’t have managed to escape again? Or was he doomed to wander the desert alone under the burning sun until he was recaptured and-?

No, he wouldn’t think about it.

Safer and saner to simply believe he had been Bakula Quantum Leaped back into his own body. More logical too, based on his observations so far. And he liked logic and rational thinking.

“Uh, come on Rhodey,” he huffed as he stumbled out of the last of the uncompacted sand. “About now would be goo- Well speak of the devil! Yasssss bitch! Ha ha!”

Laughing manically, he scrambled the rest of the way up the dune and sunk to his knees atop it, watching as the military choppers soared overhead and then manoeuvred to land on the plateau before him. Unable to resist, he grinned and threw up a peace sign, hand held high above his head.

“Well the fun-vee was a bit of a let down,” he croaked happily as soon as Rhodey had sprinted close enough to him, stealing the quip he still recalled fondly with a wry twist of his lips.

“Next time, you ride with me,” Rhodey choked back as he skidded to a stop in front of him and slid down onto his knees.

Tony chuckled wetly and all but collapsed into his best friend’s embrace. Rhodey was here and he was saved. Another point in the probably-not-hell column. Thank fuck.

“Listen,” he rasped, still pressing his forehead into Rhodey’s shoulder as the helicopter lurched and landed on the concrete slab helipad “Medical attention, obvious need.”

“Yeah no shit,” Rhodey snorted, gripping him tighter as they huddled together on the narrow bench.

Tony took a deep breath and reminded himself he’d decided to do what he should have done the first time round; be honest about his physical condition from the get go.

“No Rhodey listen. I’ve got a chest full of bomb shrapnel and experimental tech,” he mumbled as he shook nervously, listening to the quietening whine of the rotors powering down. “Don’t let anyone touch it, it’s not stable. Not even doctors. Anyone touches it, I’ll die. No scans, it’s an unshielded electromagnet. Any electrical interference and it could short circuit and I die. No cleaning round it, the scars are still raw. If someone knocks it, then I-”

“Then you die, got it,” Rhodey cut over him, pulling back to look him up and down again. “Jesus, what did they do to you Tones.”

“Little bit of surgery, lot a bit of torture,” he laughed mirthlessly. “Sorry to be all serious on you, I know it’s gross.”

Rhodey swallowed hard and eyed him worriedly again.

“Hey it’s okay man, thanks for telling me.”

“Fuck Rhodey, I’m so messed up,” he admitted with a choked back sob. “And we got problems outside of the mess that is me too. Big problems.”

“Tony…”

“No, I-” he swallowed, his voice cracking. “Can you- can you get some leave? I need to- I learnt some stuff and I’ve had to make some big decisions, some of which you won’t like and I- I need you on my side platypus. I can’t just… drop them all on you in one go, but there are things…”

“Woah hey,” Rhodey cut him off again. “Whatever it is, it can wait, I promise. Here, let’s get you over to the medical hut and get some more water into your dehydrated ass first, fix your busted up face and arm. I’ll be there with you the whole time, so we can work up to the big stuff alright?”

“You better be there. I’m gonna go full clingy bastard on you, so buckle up honey bear,” he sighed tiredly as he used his good arm to undo the seat strap buckles.

“That said, can you uh,” Rhodey pulled a face. “Can you tell me about any of it now? What they… did? So I can talk to the medic team for you? Spare you the inquisition.”

Tony shook his head a little frantically as he let himself be helped out of the chopper. His knees tried to buckle as he landed on the concrete, but Rhodey still hadn’t let him go and stabilised him easily.

“I mean, I will. Eventually. Just… not now.”

But he paused and grimaced as soon as the words were out of his mouth, realising that if he shared the bare bones now, he wouldn’t be bombarded with so many invasive questions by pushy generals and alarmed intelligence officers later. The first go round he’d said no and kept saying no until everyone was frustrated and angry with him, which honestly in hindsight, had only served to make the whole ordeal much worse for himself.

“Okay look. I can uh, summarise. But I’d rather do it just the once so… Medical tent place thing. Yeah. Let’s go.”

“Hey,” he smiled lopsidedly at the webcam, balancing the brick of a laptop on his knees.

“Tony! Christ, you look like death warmed over!” Pepper’s crackly voice came back through the tinny speakers. Seriously, this laptop was awful, he could have built a better one in his sleep when he twelve. With his hands tied behind his back. Ugh!

“Hey Pep. I know right,” he grinned back. “And this is after I’ve had a good scrub and slept for twelve hours straight.”

“You? Sleeping!?” she jested back. “Surely the mere implication that you’re mortal is slander!”

“Heh, sleep is overrated! You know I try not to do it more than… twelve percent of the time love. What? Why are you looking at me like that? Oh I- sorry I-”

Ah shit. He automatically used a pet name. Fuck. Bad Tony! How was he going to-

“Oh thank god” Pepper sighed suddenly with obvious relief. “I had no idea how I was going to explain if you were as clueless as everyone else seems to be. I couldn’t even work out what to tell Rhodey.”

“Wait. What?”

“Morgan honey, look who’s here! Come say hi to Daddy!”

“Jesus shit,” Tony whispered as his heart stuttered in utter shock. “Oh my god.”

Chapter Text

The cargo plane touched down at Edwards Air Force Base in California almost two weeks after his rescue from the desert. Tony had been out in Afghanistan for just over three months and then in Germany for another ten days, and he was absolutely desperate to see his wife and daughter in person.

Aside from the obvious, his wife and five year old daughter both inexplicably being back in 2008 with him meant one very good thing. He was definitely not in hell.

No version of hell would have gifted him back the child he had thought he’d lost forever.

As the cargo ramp started to lower, he stubbornly pushed himself up out of the wheelchair he’d been lounging in for the last half an hour, Rhodey hovering by his side. After two weeks of steady meals and proper medical attention, he felt better than he had in years despite the pummelling his body had taken. The shitty wobbly arc reactor shoved in his chest ached like the fresh wound that it was, but all his later Ironman-induced injuries were gone. He felt like a damn spring chicken in comparison.

“You okay there man?” Rhodey asked as he shouldered both his and Tony’s small military issue backpacks. There wasn’t much in Tony’s – just another zip-up hoody and a plain black tee, the shitty laptop he’d been given and its charging cable, a box of blueberry cereal bars, and a paper notepad (ew) full of half-arsed scribbles. But it was still more than he’d brought back with him the first time he’d done this.

“Peachy-keen brother,” he drawled back with a smirk once he’d gotten his balance.

“I still say we should have done a lay-over in New York.”

“Honestly, listen to you,” Tony grinned as he hobbled slowly down the ramp. “I’ve spoiled you rotten haven’t I? Let a man use your private jet a few times and suddenly he can’t handle economy class any more.”

“Economy class?” Rhodey ribbed right back. “I’d take economy in a civilian plane in a heart beat over riding in one of these Air Force beasts for twelve hours straight. They rattle man! And there’s no proper seats!”

“And people call me the spoiled brat!”

“You are a damned spoilt brat.” Rhodey rolled his eyes as they reached the tarmac

And then Tony looked up.

And she was there.

He had to dig his nails into his palm to stop himself from throwing himself at her and snogging the life out her in front of everyone.

“Hm,” he bit his lip instead, teasing. “Your eyes are red. Few tears for your long lost boss?

“Tears of joy,” she retorted from memory easily. “I hate job hunting.”

God he loved that woman.

“Happy, looking spry,” he smiled at his old friend as he shoved his free hand into the pocket of his sweats to hide his clenched fist. “No really, I swear you look at least ten years younger than the last time I saw you buddy.”

Pepper snorted and failed to cover it up with a cough.

“He does!” Tony laughed. “You see it too, right? Right Rhodey!?”

“I think you need your eyes testing and that you should go home man,” Rhodey shook his head fondly. “I’ll head over to yours as soon as I’ve finished debrief and signed myself off base. Careful with him Potts, he’s turned into a bit of a koala bear. More so than usual.”

“Oh I think I’ll manage,” she smiled fondly, reaching out to cup her hand into the crook of his elbow. Tony let her pull him over to her side with a wink, and he nodded at Happy in thanks as the other man retrieved his bag from Rhodey for him and took it to the trunk.

“You alright getting in boss?” he was asked as he fumbled the back door of the Rolls Royce.

“Yeah I got it Haps.”

“No stopping for cheeseburgers,” Pepper pre-empted him once he’d finally managed to slide inside and do up his seat belt.

He opened his mouth anyway.

“And no doughnuts either,” she swatted him lightly with the back of her hand before he could get a word out. “You damn sugar addict.”

“You’re so mean,” he whined melodramatically. “Happy! Tell her she’s mean!”

“Not on your life boss,” Happy snorted back as he turned the ignition and flicked into drive.

Happy dropped them off right outside the front door of the Malibu mansion.

Tony felt like his heart was about to beat out of his chest.

“Is she here?” he asked weakly, reaching out and grabbing Pepper’s hand as soon the car was out of sight. “Morgan?”

Pepper shook her head softly.

“She’s at that local kindergarten playgroup I told you about,” she told him quietly as he stared up at the building he’d lost to the Mandarin all those years ago. It was surreal seeing it again, the first place other than his death-trap of a student apartment that had actually felt like a home. “I have to go pick her up as soon as we’ve gotten you settled back in.”

“Too smart for regular classes, but she needs the socialisation,” he repeated by rote. It had been one of the first things he’d spoken to Pepper about when she’d told him she was pregnant. Morgan was absolutely not having the lonely, isolated childhood that Tony had suffered through. “Oh love, what on earth are we going to tell people about her?”

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” she smiled up at him, leaning over to drop a small kiss to the corner of his jaw. “One problem at a time remember?”

Tony nodded, swallowing around the lump that was still stuck in his throat and let himself be tugged forward. Hand shaking, he reached out and tapped in the door code, lips twisting humorously at how ancient-seeming the tech was compared to what he was used to. The panel beeped in confirmation, the door bolts clicked open and-

“JARVIS, you up?”

“For you sir? Always.”

“Oh baby,” he laughed tearfully at the nearest camera as he staggered into the entrance hallway. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Likewise sir. Miss Potts informs me you’ve had quite the adventure?”

“Oh it was largely awful,” he choked through a wobbly grin. “Think I’m gonna leave a negative review on trip advisor. “Horrible accommodations, terrible amenities. Side effects of staying here may include torture, malnutrition, and post-surgical infections. Avoid at all costs.””

“I shall type it up for your review immediately sir.”

“Remind me later as well. Let’s get you portable JARVIS sweetie. We can permanently network you to my cell phone to start with, and then expand your reach from there. No more being stuck in the house for you, my little delicious coded nugget child!”

“I cannot wait to be saddled with babysitting you full time sir,” JARVIS replied with obvious relief despite the sarcastic tone.

“Sorry to interrupt the tender moment, but on a scale of one to Tennessee, how are you with water right now darling?”

“Hmm?” Tony shook his head, turning back to focus on his wife. “Oh, right. Yeah. Uh, showering’s… okay, though I’ve been taking Rhodey in with me for the last couple of weeks. Baths are currently a no go, and um, swimming is right out.”

“Well before you and JARVIS get carried away with planning world domination, your first order of business is to get yourself out of these sweaty travel clothes and cleaned up,” she told him mock-sternly using her mom voice.

“Oh my Mrs Stark! So eager to get me naked!”

“Darling you smell like Jim’s week old gym socks.”

“That’s because I’m wearing his gym socks. Wait, should I be concerned that you know what those smell like? Have you been sniffing Rhodey-bear’s underwear? Does he know you’ve been sniffing his underwear?”

“Shower,” she raised an eyebrow. “Now. Or I won’t come in with you, you grimy scoundrel.”

“Honestly you call me the sweetest things babe.”

Showered and dressed an hour later, he’d waved Pepper off with a gentle peck of their lips, and then ambled his way down to into his old basement workshop. It was, he mused as the glass doors slid noiselessly open, rather like walking into a time capsule.

The large cavernous room was simultaneously just like he remembered it and nothing at all like he remembered it.

Gone was the wall of giant display cabinets, the spinning suit suspension rings, and all the other Ironman manufacturing infrastructure that had been crammed in wherever it would fit when the AIM goons had blown the house to holy-hell. Gone were the hologram cameras and the anti-static floor mats, the shelves of Avenger models and the ever present stacks of armour pieces balanced on every available work surface.

Gone was the pinboard covered in children’s fanmail that Pepper had put together for him. The cheesy framed tourist photo of the two of them on a weekend break in Tokyo. The poster of the Hulk that he’d needled Bruce into signing for him.

Instead there were expensive sports cars parked in neat, angled rows, glass touchscreens surrounded the old curved work desk he’d no longer needed and had since forgotten he’d ever had, and a pile of rolled up paper blueprints he’d never bothered to scan into the database were thrown haphazardly into the far corner where they were doing naught but gathering dust.

And unfortunately, there were also bits and pieces of half-finished weapons lying amidst the scattered tools and discarded circuit boards.

He seriously hoped Pepper hadn’t let Morgan down here while he’d been gone. It was making him nauseous to look at himself; the thought of his daughter seeing all of this…

But it was what it was. All he could do was roll his shoulders and move forward. Gather up the various prototypes and start breaking them down back into parts while he waited. Five years of living post-Thanos had turned him into a bit of a reuse and recycle die-hard; it was much harder to get basic parts for a while, given that most of the industrial world had come to a grinding halt in favour of, you know, making sure there was enough food to go around and whatnot. It hadn’t mattered how rich he’d been for those first two years – you couldn’t buy what wasn’t being made no matter how much cash you waved around. So he’d gotten into the habit of reusing all his tech multiple times before reluctantly consigning it to a scrap pile.

Honestly it made him cringe quite a bit now, how much perfectly serviceable stuff he’d used to toss aside without a second thought, simply because “he could always buy more”.

Big yikes, as Peter always used to say.

God, he missed that kid. As soon as it was safe to do so, he’d have to come with a way of unobtrusively monitoring the spider child. Harley too, if he could manage it.

Becoming a creepy child stalker would be bad obviously, but there had to be some way he could…

Eh, he’d work on it. One problem at a time as Pepper and Rhodey both kept telling him.

Morgan first, then deal with Stark Industries and fucking Stane. Decide what to do with Fury and Shield. Field trip to Kamar-Taj. Find Bruce, make friends with that Doctor Foster, spray Rogers with de-icer, kidnap his bitchy little Natashlie back, drag that idiot Barton kicking and screaming to therapy… Re-synthesis Stakanium, new coconut flavoured arc reactor, recode Extremis so he could remove the damn arc reactor, do something about AIM and-

Yeah, he was getting ahead of himself again wasn’t he?

“DADDY!”

The SI Raptor shell case he’d been working on dismantling was shoved aside in an instant. Pivoting, he dropped to one knee, threw his arms wide open, and made a noise that he distantly noted resembled that of a wounded animal.

“Hey baby,” he breathed raggedly into his daughter’s hair as she literally threw herself at him. He pulled her tight against his chest and didn’t even try to stop his own tears as she immediately started sobbing into his shoulder.

“You were gone Daddy!” she cried, her voice muffled and hiccuping. “Mommy said you saved the whole universe, but you were gone and I wanted you back!”

“I’m sorry baby girl, I’m here now,” he choked out. “Not leaving ever again, I promise. I’ll always come home from now on.”

“You- you better never leave again! Or- or else!”

“Hey sweetheart,” Pepper added softly as she crouched down next to them, taking Tony by surprise; he hadn’t noticed her following their kid into the workshop. “Remember what I said about Daddy’s chest?”

“Gotta- gotta be careful cause of the nightlight in it,” Morgan mumbled back, her tiny hands gripping onto the back of his t-shirt for dear life. “Daddy got hurt superheroing again ‘cause, ‘cause he’s a silly monkey!”

“Hey!” he protested feebly as he tried to move his left arm with its plaster cast to one side so he could pull his wife into the embrace too. “Who do you think you’re calling a silly monkey!?”

“You obviously Daddy,” she frowned up at him, her tear streaked and snotty face tipping to peer up at his chin. She shoved it back under his arm as soon as she finished saying the words, another hiccuping sob bursting out her.

“Okay that’s fair,” he snorted back as he rubbed his thumb up and down her back. “Love you 3000 baby.”

“Love you 3000 Daddy.”

Forget saving the universe again for a moment. He had his universe back in his arms.

Thanos and everyone else could all go to hell. Just for tonight.

Chapter Text

“That- that is a small child.” Rhodey blurted out as soon as he strolled into the mansion’s sitting room that evening. He was still in his navy blue Air Force uniform which just made the incredulous face he was pulling all the more hilarious.

Morgan was fast asleep with her head in Tony’s lap and her feet on Pepper’s. Tony had his good hand carded through his daughter’s hair and his other arm round his wife’s shoulders, and across the room, JARVIS was projecting Wall-E onto the wall. It was so utterly weird that the famous Pixar film had only just come out in cinemas now, when Morgan had been quoting it at him for years from his perspective.

“You’re so observant honey bear!” Tony smirked at his best friend. “This is Morgan. Our daughter.”

“Your… daughter,” Rhodey deadpanned back, his face becoming a mask of blank shock. “Sure. Pull the other one- Woah, hold up. Our daughter!?”

“Well mine and Pepper’s,” Tony grinned. “But we can get a little polyamorous co-parenting ring going if you’re up for it. Morgan’s five, you’ll love her. Sorry, five and seven twelfths. She’s very particular about her fractions.”

“That’s… Can you please tell him to stop joking around now Pepper?” Rhodey scowled as he pinched his brow. “I get that he’s had an awful few months, but this shit isn’t funny. That is an actual child sleeping on you both.”

“Yeah, it’s uh, not a joke,” Pepper winced. “Sorry.”

Rhodey’s teeth clacked as his mouth snapped shut.

He stared at them all in silence for a few long seconds.

“I’m sorry, you have a daughter!?” he exclaimed suddenly, voice rising in volume and pitch. “What the fuck Tony!?”

“Hey, it takes two to tango!” Tony protested, ignoring Pepper futilely trying to shush them both. “What the fuck at Pep too!”

“Oh my god,” Rhodey sighed, letting his eyes slide shut as he dropped onto the couch opposite the three of them. Tony watched as he blindly unhooked his top shirt button, loosened his tie, and then scrubbed both his hands up and down his face a couple of times. “Oh my god,” he repeated. “So this was the big important decision you made? The one you begged me to get leave for?”

“I uhhhh,” Tony drawled out weakly. “No?”

“….No!?”

“I kinda… didn’t know that Morgan existed when I told you that?”

Rhodey peeked at him between his fingers and groaned.

“Well you see,” Tony babbled nervously. “I did know I had a child ‘cause I was present at the birth and all that milestone stuff. But uh… The problem is sort of. Oh Jesus, this is impossible.”

“Band-aid,” Pepper stage whispered at him, entirely unhelpfully.

“Band-aid? What do you-?” Rhodey started.

“We literally couldn’t think of a good way to tell you,” Tony spoke loudly over the top him.

“- mean band-aid!?”

“Like at all. So Pepper suggested we just rip it off like a band-aid and-”

“-What the hell else could be going on Tones!?”

“-Tell you the whole insane lot in one-”

“You knew she existed but also didn’t? What, is she like, Schroedinger's love child!?”

“Well it was more like not-born-yet and somehow-reborn rather than just dead and alive-”

“TIME TRAVEL!” Pepper half-shouted over them both.

Tony flinched and swallowed the rest of his ramble.

Silence.

“Sorry love, but you weren’t actually getting anywhere and you were this close to waking up Morgan,” Pepper reassured him. “Rhodey, Tony and I are time travellers. From 2023.”

Rhodey stared at them.

“Alright, you’re for reals fucking with me now,” he squinted accusingly.

“Tony babe, just lay it on him.”

“…What if I break him?”

“We already broke him, just get the rest of it over with.”

“Ugh okay fine. Just… Rhodey, aliens are real, magic is real, and there’s a giant evil purple space troll with a space army who wants to kill half the universe using magic space gems coming for us. We’ve already lived through all this once and I ended up having to click my fingers to save reality which very literally killed me. Burnt me from the inside out, cooked my internal organs. A lot of other stuff happened first, but the purple space troll’s rock collection killed me in 2023. Now it’s 2008 again and we don’t know how we got here or how I’m alive again. No, I am not drunk or high. Yes, I would really like lots of therapy please. And no, I am not making this up, though I wish I was.”

He paused, cocking his head and grimacing before adding “So uh, any questions?”

“Yeah no, no. I’m. I’m out man.”

“We should have kidnapped a wizard to demonstrate some magic,” Tony turned to Pepper and deadpanned.

“Holy shit, she calls you Daddy,” Rhodey whispered as Tony gently closed the door to the guest bedroom Pepper had claimed for Morgan.

“That is generally what small children call their fathers, yes,” Tony waggled his eyebrows back.

“She recognised me immediately.”

“Well you're her uncle Rhodey-pooh.”

“She just- your daughter just asked me when I got new legs Tony. Legs! What the hell?”

“Well you sort of. Crashed your superhero suit into a German Airport while fighting Captain America and broke your spine. It was a whole thing.”

“There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don’t even know where to start,” Rhodey groaned into another facepalm. He’d been doing that a lot over the last hour.

“Don’t worry, there will be absolutely no breaking of spines this go round. You shall remain un-paraplegic.”

“And we were superheroes? For real?”

“Ironman and War Machine,” he gestured between them. “We’re badass. Will be badass. You know, this whole future being my past mess makes using tenses very difficult. It’s quite stressful, I demand sympathy.”

“Shit man, this is insane.”

“Yeah and you haven’t had to live through any of it yet,” he snorted back as they skipped down the stairs and turned to head towards the kitchen. “Thankfully we can start small and build up to the intergalactic. First we gotta clean house at SI.”

“Right. SI. So I guess it wasn’t just a hunch when you said you suspected someone was dealing under the table?”

“Nope,” he popped the p, tapping his forehead with one finger. “I know exactly who it is, have done for three months now. Or fifteen years, depending on your perspective. Pepper!” he greeted as the two of them passed into the open plan kitchen-diner that looked out over the Malibu cliffs. “Morgan’s out for the count, dead to the world and snoring like her Da. I’m so proud!”

He wiped away an imaginary tear while grinning.

“Tony really does snore like a chainsaw, doesn’t he,” Pepper commiserated with Rhodey. Rhodey nodded emphatically.

“In fairness,” Tony pointed out. “I only snore when I sleep on my back.”

“Which is all the time when you have that hunk of metal shoved in your chest.”

“I am working on that not being a thing… I will be working on that not being a thing. Later. Maybe tomorrow. Speaking of, can I borrow your skinny fingers again Pepper-dearest? I got a little over ambitious with the design in the cave and it doesn’t fit in the socket quite as well as the original original. So like, it’s super rattly and the base plate keeps shifting and causing a short. So it needs- Doesn’t matter, Rhodey also has fingers, he can do it. Anyway listen, back to the whole weapons-bad, no more guns and bombs agenda we’re about to enrage half the world’s militaries with-”

“Woah, woah slow down,” Rhodey spluttered. "I'm still trying to process the whole I have fingers thing. Did you just say what I think you said?"

“Stark Industries. I’m pulling it out of the weapons game.”

“I’ll make him be gentler about it this time round,” Pepper sighed with a small smile as she pushed a glass of orange juice each across the countertop to them.

“But going cold turkey worked so well before!” he mock gasped, turning to lean back against the main pantry door. “The company stock only dropped what, forty points?”

“It was fifty-something points. And the board of directors filed an injunction against you because of it.”

“Oh no no no,” Rhodey interrupted. “You wanna stop the weapons manufacturing completely!? All of it!? But you told me you would only do that temporarily, just so you could find who’s selling to terrorists! I mean, come on dude! Stark Industries is literally an armaments company! You’re the armaments company! The military needs your weapons! I need your weapons!”

“Mmm, no,” Tony disagreed immediately. “What you and yours need is much better protective gear and a mass reduction of active war zones. Between SI and Ironman I can provide you with both.”

“Tony and I already planned it all over Skype while he was lazing around in the German army hospital,” Pepper picked up smoothly. “Tomorrow morning you and Tony are going to tell the DoD that we’re halting production in order to clean house and plug the leak. SI will promise to fulfil our contracts in the meantime with body armour and non-weaponised tech. Which should keep them sweet and in our pocket.”

“Then we announce to the public in the afternoon.” Tony continued. “Make a big messy show and tell of it so the board can’t immediately try to shut me out to reverse the decision. I’ll also make sure to throw in a lot of comments about accountability and transparent practices while I’m at it, which will set the groundwork I’ll need to get sensible superhero legislation in place later on. I do not want to deal with another Sokovia Accords shit show. It took me fucking months and the loss of way too much political capital to sort that mess out last time.”

“Not to mention he almost got murdered by Rogers in the middle of it,” Pepper muttered bitterly.

“You are still so salty about that, aren’t you honey-bunny,” Tony laughed with genuine good humour, watching Rhodey’s fluctuating expressions with amusement. “I mean valid, but Rogers and I got over it? Eventually? Well I got over it at least and now he's been erased by time travel voodoo. Same end result.

“Who’s Rogers?” Rhodey asked tentatively.

“Captain America,” Pepper rolled her eyes. “Yes, the original one.”

“Steve Rogers?” Rhodey gaped. “The actual Captain America? But-! You found him!?”

“Some Russian oil prospectors fished him out of the Arctic ice shelf in 2010,” Tony waved off, taking a sip of his drink. “SHIELD then took custody of him, except that SHIELD is literally crawling with undercover HYDRA agents who made sure to give him the worst first impression of me they could manage. And oh lord does Stevie-boy stick to an opinion once he’s formed one. It’s like, his only major flaw.”

“Yeah we know. Almost half of SHIELD secretly being Nazis is very bad,” Pepper winced when Rhodey looked to her for confirmation.

“HYDRA’s real. And active. And embedded in a global intelligence agency I had never heard of until an hour ago. Right! Cool! And oh yeah, Norse Gods and aliens! I’m sorry, it’s just all… You know what, go back to the Stark Industries stuff. That suddenly all seems completely sensible in comparison.”

“Right you are Platypus,” Tony laughed at him. “So, the cliff notes version for phase one is we close down the weapons manufacturing for good, throw half the SI board into jail, bring peace to the middle east using superhero juice, and then start to turn SI into the world’s biggest tech company. Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung were all cowering in terror by 2015 the first time round so I promise you it’ll work.”

“Do I want to know what phase two is? World domination?”

“You do not want to know, no,” Tony grinned evilly. “But let’s just say I know a place where I can learn to make magic portals, and a talking sentient racoon taught me how to how to build intergalactic spaceships and what is basically a wormhole navigation system.”

“I give up. Potts, here’s your bet winnings. Tony, find me some damn vodka!”

Chapter Text

Keeping a careful eye on where Morgan was building an electric motor out of Mechano plates and some crocodile clip wires, Tony swiped the basic blueprints for a nanite foundry into the save file at the edge of the hologram. He couldn’t build it right now as half the technology he needed hadn’t been invented yet, but a few experiments had quickly shown him that it was easier if he worked from the top down. Design the big stuff he wanted and then work out what he needed to reinvent to make it a reality, rather than trying to remake all the little components first.

Shoving a hand backwards through his hair, he asked JARVIS to pull the Mark-III reactor plans he’d been playing with this morning back up again. He’d already replaced the ball of scrap he’d built in Afghanistan last week and he felt so much better for it, but he now needed to swap out the palladium core too before the heavy metal poisoning could even think about ruining his life. Just a few last tweaks to make, and then he could get on with fabricating it.

“Alright, pull it out of axonometric and give it to me exploded,” he requested as he walked a slow circle through the holographic projection field. As the parts on the blueprint reverted to true-scale and separated out, he scratched his beard and considered his options.

He could-? No. That would destabilise the core jointing.

What about-? Hmmm also no. Not until he could make the whole thing bigger. He didn’t want a repeat of the Mark-XII debacle.

But what if…

“Reduce the radial diameter of the central arc triangle by two percent would you J? That should allow for an extra ring of arc cells. Add those in and then run the numbers on the vibranium and copper alloy ratios again.”

“Waste heat reduced by another half percent sir,” JARVIS dutifully reported a few seconds later. “And power output up by two more gigajoules per second.”

“That’s more like it,” Tony grinned as he gestured at the design to compact it back together. “Not bad considering I’m restrained by the diameter of the chest casing for now.”

“I do have to enquire on where precisely you plan on obtaining the needed vibranium from sir,” JARVIS asked as he started to project the rest of the test results, compiling them in tables and graphs. Tony glanced them up and down quickly, and not seeing anything concerning, dismissed them with a wave of his hand.

“From the kitty-cat’s Mommy!” Morgan piped up from the floor (Tony was forever trying to get her to sit on stools at the actual workbenches, but nope. Apparently the floor was the place to be).

“I was thinking we just go haul Stevie out the icebox and use his shield actually,” Tony huffed wryly. “I’d rather wait until I’ve finished giving you muscles and abs J, before we go poking at Wakanda. Them folks are awesome but scary.”

“Having skirted around the outside of their firewalls sir, I am inclined to agree with you.”

“Aw, but I like Mrs Queen Ramonda,” Morgan pouted.

“Yeah me too baby,” Tony smiled softly at her. “But we’re in a new timeline remember? She hasn’t met us yet and Bagheera’s Dad is still the King. We can go meet her again when-”

“Apologies sir, I have an incoming message from Miss Potts marked high priority”

“Daddy! A Mommy message!”

“It sure is child of mine! Let me just… open it up… Just work stuff I’m afraid sweetie,” he shook his head at her. Morgan huffed in disappointment but thankfully went back to her model without complaint.

Which was good. Because it wasn’t all work stuff.

Mr Potts,

A nice lovely list, because I know you like lists :)

1. Clone of Stane’s ghost drive made. Will bring you it this evening. Left no trace this time, so copies can be sent to CIA/FBI/whoever whenever we’re ready. Asshole won’t know what hit him.

2. Just heard back from the DoD. Big success with the body armour prototypes. General Thompson quote reads “We can get half decent American rifles from any company. But tac gear this good? SI can switch to making this permanently in my opinion.” They want 3000 to start and made no attempt to haggle the price down. Further sales to follow. Once you inform the board, I’ll get PR on the press announcement. Should curtail the last of the stock drop; Only down 27 points so far (Huzzah!)

3. Have set Legal on the pap that keeps trying to follow me to Morgan’s playgroup. They’ll sue him up the wazoo for invasion of privacy, but I need you to finish off our baby’s identity docs asap. Won’t be long before someone succeeds were this guy failed. Side note: Happy is still sulking over me lying about who Morgan is for three months. Bought him some boxing match tickets and promised you’d go with him as an apology present…

4. Can’t believe I’m condoning this, but I’ve booked the jet for travel to NY this coming weekend. If you really do insist on learning magic (you madman), you need to work out how to do it remotely. You are not disappearing into Tibet for six months. I know I’ve said all this about four times now, but it’s not happening. I will shamelessly use Morgan to guilt trip you if you so much as consider it.

5. Remember to eat! Or else (insert threat of no bondage here 😉)!

Love you!
Mrs Potts xx

“Hey Morgan honey? Does it feel like snack time to you? ‘Cause I’m feeling real snackish.”

“Chocolate cake!” Morgan growled gleefully with an almost demonic grin.

“Well it’s got a cool window?” Rhodey scratched his head sceptically.

“It’s got magic glamours on it,” Tony shrugged back awkwardly. “I think.”

Four days later and the two of them were stood side by side on a sidewalk in the middle of Greenwich Village, staring across the road at an old Victorian brownstone. Even with gothic architecture and a mansard roof, it was decidedly ordinary looking for a magic sanctuary or whatever they were called. Positioned on the corner where Bleecker Street met Fenno Place, the building was only three stories tall and was bracketed on the left side by a Chinese restaurant and a tattoo parlour of all things, which somehow made it look even more mundane.

“It’s not as big as I thought it would be,” Rhodey mused as he tucked his hands into the front pocket of his old baggy MIT hoody. Tony was dressed in similar casual attire, though he had his hood pulled up and a pair of mirrored sunglasses on too – the last thing he wanted was to be spotted lurking in the middle of Manhattan by opportunistic journalists. Not here of all places.

(Though as he wasn’t a world-famous superhero in this timeline yet, he was getting significantly less attention than he was used to. Which was nice.)

“Yeah so apparently it’s kinda of bigger on the inside? I only went into the hallway before so I can’t confirm that.”

“I’m suddenly very disappointed that it’s house shaped and not blue.” Rhodey replied almost mournfully. Tony sympathised; he was a giant raging nerd as well.

“Wong said the rooms move around sometimes too, and that there are doors which go straight from the attic to the basement. It’s sounds very disturbing.”

“And you actually want to learn how to do that shit?”

“I mostly just want to make portals. Oh, and build defences against mind control.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say mind control?”

“Yup.”

“I have to worry about mind control too?”

“It’s a thing.”

“Three weeks ago my biggest concern was how to stop you sticking things down your arm cast whenever the doctors weren’t looking. Now you want me to train as a wizard to prevent mind control.”

“That’s about the long and short of it.”

“I’m going to get a dishonourable discharge on the grounds of insanity at this rate.”

Tony laughed at him heartily.

“Come on snookums, let’s go knock.”

They crossed the street quickly, cutting between two parked cars and skirting round a bicycle chained to a thin tree. Two worn steps then led up to a set of deep blue double doors that both held large frosted glass panel windows, and embedded in the stone doorframe to the left, was a single rusty looking doorbell button. Tony only hesitated a moment before pushing it.

A bell trilled loudly for a long moment, echoing.

Footsteps, and then the door handle twisted.

“Can I help you?”

The right-side door swung open only a little, the head of a dark skinned man peering through the gap. He was bald and clean shaven, and what was visible of his right arm and shoulder showed that he was wearing a pale beige sleeveless tunic embroidered with darker swirls and patterns.

Tony had no idea who he was, but he was clearly a sorcerer.

“We’re looking for a dude named Wong,” he quickly launched into his explanation. “Stands about yay-high, master of taciturn deadpanning, wears a lot of red and blue?”

“There is no individual by that name here.”

“Well can you send a wizardly messenger pigeon to him? Sling him a ring? Summon him through the mystic arts of another dimension?”

The man at the door scowled at him and pursed his lips. Tony had probably overdone the hint-dropping, but whatever. It had gotten his point across – here be magic and we are aware of it.

“You had better come inside. I warn you strongly against touching anything, some of the furniture bites.”

“My hands will stay firmly in the pockets of my jeans for at least five whole minutes, I swear it on my father’s life.”

“Your dad has been dead for almost 17 years man,” Rhodey snorted as they quickly slipped inside once the door had been opened wide enough to admit them.

“But he doesn’t know that! Don’t be a snitch!”

“You are literally Tony Stark. Everyone knows that.”

“Wait here,” the sleeveless sorcerer ordered them exasperatedly, leaving them in the atrium at the foot of the sweeping staircase without another word. Tony watched him quickly jog up the steps and vanish into one of the corridors, and then he turned to glance back at Rhodey who was eyeing the antique furnishings with a critical look.

A lot of dark oak panelling, a lot of orthogonal pillars, and a lot of gold-leaded glass windows that didn’t let nearly enough light in. More or less exactly as it had been in the future. Would be in the future. Had been-

It looked about the same as he remembered it, minus the giant hole in the roof.

“It’s so tasteful, isn’t it?” he grinned when Rhodey eventually shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

“What, compared to your freshman dorm room? Definitely.”

“That is a low blow,” Tony pouted.

“Gentlemen. I hear you know more than you should.”

Pressing one hand over his arc reactor when he jumped in shock, Tony whipped round with his other raised as the Ironman gauntlet he was wearing formed rapidly out his watch. Stood directly behind them, her back to main doors, was a pale woman wrapped in flowing yellow robes.

“Avatar Aang,” Tony greeted her cautiously as he slowly lowered his palm.

“Do you think the arrow tattoos would suit me?” she asked back mildly, completely unfazed by both the tech encasing his wrist and his words.

“Where the hell did she come from?” Rhodey muttered tensely.

“You do remember the part where we came here to learn magic right Platypus? Portals?”

“Shut up Tones.”

“You are here to learn?” the woman asked with a small smile as they bantered. With her hands clasped gently behind her back, she paced a few steps to the left, never taking her eyes off of them, and then pivoted and strode back the other way.

“Well that’s the plan. Harness the mysteries of the multiverse and all that. Get a few tricks up our sleeves so we can be better doers of good.”

She paused, her expression of amusement suddenly morphing into a small frown.

“I sense there is something unusual about you, Mr Stark” the woman suddenly hummed sonorously as she unexpectedly pivoted again and glided up close to him. “You have the feel of a man displaced from his origin. Stepped out of your own timeline have you?”

“Okay, full disclosure.” Tony quickly rambled as he was forced to lean slightly back to avoid the sudden invasion of his personal space. “Yes, I was non-consentually hurtled through time and space a little bit. And like, make a recording of this part ‘cause I don’t admit this often? But sometimes I’m a total idiot? Honestly I had totally forgotten you weren’t dead yet, which is a whole… Thing I’m now processing. I’ve been saying “a whole thing” way too much recently- could you please stop that, your nose is about to touch mine.”

“The infinity stones,” she announced, flowing backwards serenely as if she hadn’t just been staring into his eyes from millimetres away. “Their energy flows through you. You have been meddling- no, you have been meddled with. How curious.”

“Oh cool, she can feel where the stones bad touched me. That’s not at all concerning.”

“Not particularly concerning, no,” she shrugged at him, her smile thankfully returning. “The energies are in tune with you, and you with them. They will do you no harm.”

“Uh, yay?”

“Yay indeed. I have decided I like you. Come along then; I wish to retire to my rooms for tea.”

“Tea?” Rhodey questioned incredulously.

“Yes, it’s very nice tea. You’ll enjoy it Mr Rhodes.”

And with that, she flicked her wrist in a neat circle and a sparking orange ring appeared out of thin air

“Holy shit,” Rhodey breathed, his mouth hanging open as the wannabe airbender stepped straight through its centre.

Tony. Why did JARVIS just inform me your GPS signal has jumped halfway across the world? You promised me you wouldn’t. The FBI are arresting Stane on Monday!

Hey so change of plans Rhodey and I are in Kathmandu also its in Nepal not Tibet so technically I have broken no rules love you wifey xoxo

“Yeah,” he chuckled at his phone as he sent the reply. “She’s gonna murder me so bad.”

Chapter Text

So Kamar-Taj was an… experience.

For one thing, there was a time difference of ten hours and forty-five minutes between Nepal and New York, which meant they stepped out of late morning sunshine into the fading light of a Himalayan sunset. It was nearing the summer solstice, so it wasn’t completely dark despite the hour, but it was still jarring. Like instantaneous jet lag.

Secondly, the whole place was, well, so monkish.

It was a magical mystic secret society based in Nepal, so the aesthetics weren’t exactly a total surprise. But still, it was pretty culture-shocky even for people as well travelled as Tony and Rhodey were. No glass in most of the windows, mats on the floor rather than chairs, buildings that were multi-tiered wooden towers, and people who wore clothes bright enough to blend in with a pride parade were just the most obvious differences. Tony knew he’d discover a whole host of others the more time he spent here.

The tea was pretty damn good though.

“Do not mind Master Mordo and his sharp tongue,” the Ancient One was saying as she walked swiftly across a courtyard in the waning light. “Given your public prominence, he has concerns that you may expose our practices to unwanted scrutiny. But while those concerns are valid, they are ultimately unnecessary. I need make no threats to ensure that you keep our secrets, for they will soon be your secrets too, and you are both already well aware that discretion is in your best interest.”

“Yup, keep the super secret circus troupe a secret. Got it,” Tony clipped out as he hurried to keep up her.

“Ordinarily I insist that initiates and novices stay in the temple and grounds, but I am aware that the two of you have a great number of other commitments which will not currently make that possible. If you truly do wish to train, then some sacrifices will have to be made on your part. However, should you prove willing and devoted to your studies, I too will compromise in this instance.”

“I’m gonna have to take so much leave from the Air Force, aren’t I?” Rhodey sighed as they hopped up a couple of steps and turned onto a gravel path lined with low shrubs.

“I would recommend it, yes,” the Ancient One nodded.” I imagine that Mr Stark has plans for you that would necessitate a longer leave of absence anyway.”

“Ehhh,” Tony hedged. “There are… options. Factors to consider, pros and cons, all that jazz.”

Tony actually fully intended to gently extract his Rhodey-boy from the clutches of the military so that he could set up him as set him up as the independent leader of the Avengers, but he was gonna ease him into the idea slowly. As while he was far from blind to the DoD’s many faults, Rhodey was also still pretty loyal to the organisation he’d belonged to for almost his whole life.

To be disgustingly truthful, Tony was kinda hoping that by showing his best mate the wonders of magic and superheroing, he’d decide to jump ship and throw his entire lot in with Tony without any prompting or prodding.

A man could dream at least.

“Regardless,” The woman continued as they passed into a low tunnel-like passage way. “You will both need to adjust your schedules extensively. You will be provided with accommodations here in the temple, and I expect you to use them at least three nights a week. A fifty-fifty split between here and your obligations in the US.”

“Um, are these accommodations uh, small child friendly?”

“Child friendly?” The Ancient One asked with an amused cock of her eyebrow, stopping abruptly to turn to face him. “My, you are full of surprises, aren’t you Mr Stark?”

“I try to be. It’s a whole thi- nope, not saying it again.”

“Yes, we can adapt a cell to your needs. You may decorate according to your own tastes in fact, so long as you do no structural damage nor inconvenience any other residents.”

“Oh don’t tell him that,” Rhodey grunted as they set off walking again. “He’ll be redoing all your wiring and installing underfloor heating before you can blink.”

“I think underfloor heating sounds rather marvellous actually,” the Ancient One smirked. “Would you do my cell too?”

The rooms they were eventually shown to were small and basic. In both, a standard twin bed was shoved in the corner under a long glassless window, a dark wooden desk stood next to the door beneath a single wall mounted shelf, and a small chest of drawers for clothes fitted in the gap between the bed and the opposite wall. A bowl and a pitcher of water stood atop the drawers, coat hooks were screwed to the back of the door, and a couple of woven rugs partially covered the smooth stone floor.

And that was pretty much it.

“Most people end up magically expanding their cells as soon as they’ve learnt the spells necessary,” the crimson robed apprentice who had guided them here from the dining hall shrugged self-consciously.

“Is there even any electrical outlets in here?” Tony whined as he peered round the cramped space. “Surely this is against the Geneva convention!?”

“There’s two under the desk,” the smooth cheeked baby wizard replied quickly, clearly a little overwhelmed by Tony’s… Tony-ness.

“On standard Asian voltage I take it?”

“Uhhh, it’s probably 230 volts?” the boy offered hesitantly. “I dunno, I’m not an electrician.”

“Ahhh, kids today,” Tony sighed melodramatically at him. “I’ll cope I suppose. Stayed in worse recently actually.”

“We uh, heard. Sorry about… that.”

“Why? You’re not the one who held me hostage for three months. And seriously kid, relax! I don’t bite unless you ask nicely first.”

“Tony stop tormenting the poor guy,” Rhodey grumbled pointedly as he returned from his own room next door. “Go on kid, scram and save yourself.”

“Do you always have to spoil my fun?” Tony mock grumbled back, watching the kid duck past Rhodey and rapidly disappear out the front door. Seriously, the boy had looked all of twelve.

Rhodey huffed in amusement but didn’t answer. Taking the two sole strides needed to reach the foot of the bed, he then turned and dropped down onto it, shuffling backwards until he was leaning on the wood panelling under the window.

Cool night air wafted in between the open shutters, and for a moment all was quiet except for the distant chirping of wildlife.

“I’ll go part time on active duty at work, claim I’m working with you on something big,” Rhodey then said, apropos of nothing. Tony shook himself and then walked over to join him, flopping so that he was leaning his head on his best friend’s shoulder. “Technically it’s true, so I should be able to swing it.”

“Hey uh. Um. Thanks. For all this.. I uh, You know. Appreciate it. The support and the willingness to just throw yourself into the madness.”

“Are you kidding me man? I thought I’d lost you! I almost did lose you out in that desert! After that I’ll take whatever you got. So all this? Magic being real? Aliens? Okay so the horrible threats to Earth and the universe aren’t exactly great, but the rest of it is the stuff of dreams dude! You couldn’t keep me away from this shit if you tried! Hell, I’d be dragging you into it if our roles were reversed.

Tony, with his typical distaste for emotions and sentimentality, decided to ignore most of Rhodey’s spiel. Better for his teeth, less cavities. Instead he jumped straight back into the practicalities.

“If your bosses give you any stick, anything at all-”

“Yeah I know, call you.”

“Once I’m done- Once we’re done with the FBI investigation into the double dealing, I’ll go public with the Ironman armour. To start with, I’ll work with the US Air Force – note I said with not for – but I’d like to get an independent accountability organisation established as soon as is reasonable. One that answers only to the UN, not individual countries or some other agency. Staying as far away from political agendas as possible is a mighty need.”

“I genuinely can’t believe Tony Stark has thought something through this thoroughly!” Rhodey jested with a grin.

“Tssk, more like lived it through thoroughly,” he scoffed back. “Minor details of my escape from the terrorists aside, things are going much better this go round. The Military aren’t furious with me, Pepper’s already in my bed, Stane will go to jail without getting to try and kill me again, and-”

“Wait wait, Stane tried to kill you!?”

Tony cut himself off and raised his head to stare up at Rhodey.

“Shit did I not tell you that yet!?” he blurted. “I swear I told you that!”

“Oh my god Tony, no you didn’t!”

“I must have told you, come on! He’s like the focal point of the entire investigation! He’s the one who set the ten rings on me! The one who’s selling under the table! The shitty copy-cat suit!”

“I seriously do not know how you managed to tell me any of that without fucking once saying his name. But you did! Jesus Christ, it’s Obadiah!? You know I’ve always thought the guy is creepy, but come on! He’s your godfather! You’ve known him your whole life!”

“Did you not watch my interviews with the FBI and CIA? I said it was him like three dozen times!”

“Of course I didn’t watch your classified interviews! That’s what classified means!”

“Oh. Well I watched yours.”

“Of course you did,” Rhodey sighed deeply and resigned.

(Needless to say, neither of them got much sleep that night.)

With a bunch of fresh flowers purchased in Kathmandu’s marketplace clasped in his hands, Tony squared his shoulders and prepared to face his doom.

Namely his angry wife.

“Hey honey, I’m home?” he called out tentatively as he stepped out of a swirling portal onto his back patio in Malibu.

“I will attend your funeral later in the week,” Wong deadpanned from behind him. “Do not forget to send my invitation.” A second later, the master sorcerer dropped his hands and the portal winked shut, leaving Tony alone in the weak morning sunlight.

Even Rhodey had opted to send him to his fate without back up, the traitor.

Well then, nothing for it he supposed.

“Pepper?” he called out again cautiously as he pushed the sliding glass door into the kitchen open. “JARVIS said you were here babes? Hellooo anyone home?”

“Mommy Mommy! Daddy’s home!”

“So I hear baby!”

Oh yeah. She was furious alright.

“I have so many words I want to say to you right now that I can’t,” she spoke levelly between clenched teeth when she walked in from the front room a moment later. “It’s not Tibet, it’s Nepal!?”

“I brought you flowers?”

“You specifically told me that you were just going to speak to the guys in the New York house and then come home again.”

“Well I implied-”

“Oh you implied-?”

“-that I might just… pop over for a quick look.”

“You were gone all weekend! It’s Monday morning!”

“I did call you!”

“When you knew I would be in a meeting with PR and wouldn’t be able to answer!”

“Okay I may might have forgotten about that meeting,” he conceded slightly sheepishly. “When you didn’t pick up twice in a row, I just assumed you were giving me the silent treatment and would ring me back in your own time.”

“Tony,” Pepper’s shoulder’s drooped. “You are such an idiot!”

“Your idiot though right?”

“You are so very much sleeping on the couch tonight.”

“Ha!” he grinned. “I knew you’d forgive me!”

“Ugh, you’re unbelievable. Fine, yes. This is like, a minor blip in the scale of all things I suppose. Don’t do it again. Now come hug your daughter and tell me how “not-Tibet” was.”

“Yaaaas hug me!”

“Oh it was great,” Tony grinned harder, dropping the bundle of flowers onto the island countertop as Morgan let go of Pepper’s hand and sprinted over. “Excellent views, decent food. Very uh, mystic. A lot more Padawan and full Jedi than I thought there would be though. That said, we did only ever deal with the wizards post snap and they came to us, not the other way round.”

“Well lots of sorcerers is probably a good thing. Did you get accepted to their academy program or whatever it’s called?”

“Rhodey and I both! We agreed to a time share basically. Three days there, four here. Sparkly orange taxi service back and forth until- Morgan sweetheart, I love you but please don’t pull my beard hair.”

“Jim not come back with you?”

“He said he’d give it half an hour before showing his face. Unless I messaged him to say there was still yelling happening.”

“…He’s scared of me, isn’t he?”

“Darling every man with functioning brain cells is scared of you. It’s the natural order of the universe. There is a pecking order and you are at the top.”

“Mmmm nice try, but you’re still sleeping on the couch.”

Tony waggled his eyebrows and decided he deserved some pancakes. Now was totally a good time to make pancakes right?

Chapter Text

“You ready for this?”

“100%”

“Sure?”

“Sure as shit n sugar babe.”

Pepper nodded once then, and together they pushed open the doors into the board room.

The rest of Stark Industries executive and lead staff were already in the room, either sat around the long oval table or leaning on the walls and windows around the edge. Tony had made the meeting compulsory not just for the board members, but for all the heads of department and senior management team as well, so the room was pretty packed.

Packed and brimming with nervous tension.

“Right, thank you all for arriving on time,” Tony clapped his hands as he immediately moved towards the sole empty seat at the head of the table. Silence fell straight away and as soon as he’d double checked that everyone actually was present, he swivelled to face them all. “I’ll get straight to the point shall I?”

Resisting the urge to grin like a shark and ask I bet you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today? while channelling his best Loki impression, he dropped both hands onto the back of the chair and peered at them all sternly over the top of his pale orange sunglasses.

“As you all know, twelve days ago I returned to the USA following three months of captivity in the hands of terrorists. You also know that the day after, I held a press conference announcing that the company was shutting down all our weapons manufacturing so that an internal investigation could take place into how said terrorists were managing to steal our stock.”

He paused and glanced dramatically around the room again, mentally making notes on everyone’s various facial expressions. He was pretty certain he’d remembered and identified all the culprits, but you could never be too cautious with something like this.

“Today,” he continued, voice hard, “I’m telling you all that I lied.”

Everyone’s expressions changed. Confusion from most people, alarm from some. Blank masks from others.

“The investigation wasn’t internal and I knew the weapons weren’t stolen. And now I know everything some of you tried to hide from me.”

Right on cue, the two double doors swung open again and two dozen uniform-clad FBI agents were led into the room by Happy. Handcuffs were pulled out of pockets, hands went to holstered sidearms, and badges were held up authoritatively.

There was an instant of complete shocked silence, and then dozens of horrified gasped and yelps rang out.

“Tony what the hell is this!?” Stane demanded incredulously from the other end of the table as he shoved his chair backwards and stood up hastily. Two of the agents were already bracketing him as all around him, the other board members also scrabbled to their feet, echoing the sentiment. But Tony ignored them all in favour of staring hard across the room at the man he had once considered to be family.

Turns out that fifteen years still hadn’t blunted the stabbing pains of rage and betrayal. Of all the hits he’d taken since, this was still the one that had really hurt.

“This?” he snarled loudly before he could think better of it. “This, Stane, is you getting your just desserts. What? You think I wouldn’t find out? How you sold my life to the Ten Rings, how you illegally sold them my weapons? How you sold my weapons to dozens of terrorist organisations and UN embargoed insurgents behind my back!? You tried to have me killed Obadiah, and then I spent three whole fucking months being waterboarded, electrocuted and branded because you couldn’t even manage that properly!”

Breathing hard, Tony then watched in grim satisfaction as Stane and the other nine men and two women who’d been complicit in the illegal operations were quickly read their rights and manhandled into handcuffs. Stane’s eyes held murder as he was then dragged from the room, but he was powerless to do more than sneer; Tony had handed the FBI all the evidence they needed on a very shiny and polished plate, so there was no way he was getting out this. Not ever.

God, it felt good to know that there would be no cover up this time. No faked plane crashes, no false mourning, no insincere memorials.

Unlike before, Stane was going to get away with exactly jack shit.

“I think that went okay?” Tony said to Pepper in the quiet of the now empty board room three hours later. Pulling off his tie, he grumbled in annoyance when his suit jacket caught on the stupid arm cast he was still having to wear. At least the damn thing had mostly stopped itching and was no longer restricting his finger movement.

(He really missed Helen’s cradle; he could have been out of the cast last week with it. Another thing for his ridiculously long To Do list.)

“Could have gone a lot worse,” Pepper shrugged in pessimistic agreement as she stepped up behind where he was sitting. “I’m glad we knew to pitch Philips straight to the head of in-house Legal this time. She was so much more competent in the role than Grayson was.”

“Oh yeah, she’s a total babe. Philips, not Grayson. Grayson gives me the heeby-jeebies.”

“I gathered that from the pronouns dear,” Pepper replied dryly. Dropping her hands onto his shoulders, she slowly dug her thumbs into his tense shoulder muscles, and he just about melted into the table he was leaning on.

“Oh god, harder baby,” he moaned salaciously.

“Down boy,” she snorted back, swatting him fondly. “How’s your chest? Sore? Aching?”

“Like a total bitch,” he complained roughly. “So it’s about the same as always. The massage is helping a little.”

“It usually does. You keeping up with the chlorophyll smoothies as well?”

“Missed a couple of doses while I was uh, not in New York,” he admitted, pushing back into her hands. “Couldn’t get the ingredients. Though now I think about it, maybe my new colleagues have some sort of cleansing procedure?”

“Worth asking,” Pepper hummed. “When are you going back?”

“Wednesday probably?” he winced as she found a particularly dense knot. Jesus, having a fist sized ball of metal in your chest really did a number on your posture. All that hunching over to reduce the pressure on the casing, not good.

“Until?”

“Uh, I’ll probably just stay the one night. Take the basics with me, get Jarvis hooked up and all that. I could take Morgan too? We’ll have to share the bed, but I doubt she’ll mind.”

“A chance to sleep with Daddy? She’ll be ecstatic,” Pepper snorted. “How’d you think she’d handle the time-zone jumps though?”

“We can tell her she can’t come unless she goes for a long nap either before we leave or as soon as we arrive. If we leave here at 7pm, it’ll be 8:45 in the morning there. I can kip a bit and then do a full day of tech installation and maybe squeeze in a transfiguration lesson. Then we can hop back at… 10pm? That would make it just after 8am at home, she can nap again…”

“You can both nap at that point,” Pepper insisted dryly. “You may be young and bendy again honey, but I’d rather you didn’t get back into bad habits.”

“Bad habits!?” Tony gasped melodramatically. “Slander! I have none!”

“I’m not even going to comment,” She drawled back. Tony could literally hear the accompanying eye roll. “Fine so, we plough on with the initial big SI shake up in the next couple of days, you go play wizard while I oversee the impending paperwork and stock crisis, and then, what? Ironman test flights?”

“Mmm,” he agreed. “JARVIS was just finishing the initial fabrication of parts for the first suit this morning. I’ll have to assemble some of it by hand ‘cause I haven’t finished building the automated units yet, but shouldn’t take me too long. Three or four days maybe? Less if I can get Rhodey to help with the basic soldering and wiring.”

“Which version did you go for? You’re not going to instantly scare the crap out of everyone with nanites are you?”

“Nah, I can’t make the foundry for them yet. Gotta drag the rest of the world’s tech up to standard first. First suit – Ah! Fuck that hurts! No, its fine, keep going, better out than in. I uh, yes. The Remark-II is about the same as the Mark-XLII was, which is the one I was using when the mansion sort of… got exploded by AIM a little bit.”

“Oh god, you’re not going to put all those microchips back in yourself are you?”

“Maybe?” he drew out in a high pitched voice as she pushed her elbow into the extra stubborn knot again. “What!? They’re really useful! And technically they’re micro-repeaters, not microchips which means-”

“Sweetheart, I love you but do not technobabble at me.”

“Ugh, you’re so demanding. I love it. Look, my point is I’ll have a half-decent suit ready to show off within the next ten days or so. Rhodey can liaise with the Air Force for me, and I can go blow up some tanks in Afghanistan just like before except I’ll be there legally and with back up this time.”

“In a much better suit than before.”

“Yeah, the Mark-III versus the Remark-II will be like comparing Siri with JARVIS.”

“Don’t let Apple hear you say that.”

“Psshhh, what are they gonna do? Sue me?”

Honestly he’d completely expected it, but it was still pretty irritating to find out that the first steps to becoming Merlin were “guided meditation, and lots of it”.

That and reading. From actual physical books. Gross.

“Why can’t I just get Jarvis to scan them?” Tony whined as he sat cross-legged on the floor opposite the Ancient One. He had his eyes closed and was “concentrating on locating his inner energies,” whatever those were, but thankfully he was allowed to talk while doing so. He might have gone insane otherwise.

“Many of the books have personalities and object to being digitised. Our librarian can expand upon the topic if you are interested.”

“The magic books are sentient!?”

“Some of them, in a manner of speaking.”

“Hot damn. I should introduce the nice ones to DUM-E. Instant best buds I bet.”

“Perhaps. Now try to sense this; I am connecting to your plexus node.”

“My what now?”

“The pool of energy that exists in your solar plexus. It resonates when you exert self-control, will power, or strong desire. I have chosen this node as I sense you have a strong desire to succeed, and the will power to persist until you do.”

“Oh neat. I can’t feel a damn thing, but it sure sounds neat.”

“You would perhaps find it useful to imagine that your nodes – or Chakras, more traditionally, are simply the server access points through which you can examine your personal source code. When I reach out metaphysically, I am merely… sending you a ping, I believe is the correct terminology.”

“Right, and spells are comparable to computer programs, they just use metaphysical energy from other dimensions instead of good old electricity, and arm waving instead of Java and Python.”

“Well remembered Mr Stark.”

“So I’ve just got to… notice your ping?

“It will take time and effort for you to do so, but yes. Now focus on your lower chest again, Deep breath in, and out. Straighten your back, chin up square… deep breath in…”

“Can I hunch a bit? Only now all I can feel is the arc-reactor throbbing against my lungs.”

“Yes of course,” The Ancient one replied affably. Actually, Tony thought she sounded a tad contrite for forgetting about his limitations.

“Awesome,” he sighed in relief, immediately slouching his shoulders. “Okay, ping me again Aang, I am all about the willpower. Hit me with your mojo stick.”

He just had to keep breathing in and feeling for… something right? A little pokey-poke, or a tingle or whatever. It wouldn’t be painful would it? He hoped not, as he’d probably struggle to tell that apart from the usual random twinges his whole upper body- oh, oh, OHHHHH that felt weird.

He made an ungainly noise.

And then the sensation just… stopped.

“Well fuck me sideways and call me Gandalf,” he blurted out as the Ancient One laughed at him.

Chapter Text

“Alright, we’re gonna start you nice and gentle. JARVIS, give him half a percent of thrust power.”

“Only half a percent? You’re killing me man!” Rhodey complained as he stood on the rig of heat proof mats Tony had thrown together to protect the garage floor. He’d also moved most of the sports cars up out onto the drive as well… he didn’t want to singe all their hoods like he’d done on his own first successful test flight.

“Well four percent is actually enough to pitch you straight into the roof in under half a second,” Tony smirked back. “But if you wanna try running before you can walk, be my guest.”

“Just four percent will do that?”

“I’ve had fifteen years to work on repulsor tech and arc energy honey-bear; needing a whole four percent is actually a lot compared to the output I had the nanotech working with. Just be glad you have the advantage of my previous experience.”

“You launched yourself into the roof on your own first try didn’t you? That’s how you know the percentages.”

“That timeline no longer exists so it technically never happened.”

“I bet it was hilarious. Did you record it, were there videos?”

“It never happened.”

“There totally were videos.”

“Do you want a go with the suit boots or not? Cause I can always cut all the power and send you back to the glue factory.”

“And you call me a killjoy. Fine, half a percent. Juice me up sugar dadd- woah WOAH!”

“Hands out, hands out!” Tony called up to his best friend. “Use the hand flight stabilisers! The boots will keep your feet level, just keep your arms out!”

“Oh my GOD!” Rhodey shrieked in delight as he wobbled about in the air about a metre off the ground.

“Hands! See! You’re resembling a dying fish less and less by the second!”

“A dying fish!? Dude!”

“Well stop flapping your arms and legs about so much! Come on, Morgan can hover more stably than you can!”

“You let your daughter do this!?”

“I didn’t say- that’s not what I said. You’re putting words in my mouth, it was one time! …don’t tell Pepper.”

“Give me more than half a percent and I’ll think about it.”

“That is literally blackmail. JARVIS you heard him trying to blackmail me right?”

“I can’t say as I did sir.”

“What!? What is this!? Betrayal, that’s what! My own AI selling me to Satan for one corn chip!”

“You should stop threatening to donate him to the DMV and then maybe he’d be nicer to you,” Rhodey grinned evilly as he carefully leant to one side and spun in a slow circle. “You know, I think I’m getting the hang of this!”

“You’re approaching the most basic level of competence, yes,” Tony snarked back, crossing his arms over his arc reactor. “Alright straighten your legs and bring your arms down to your sides. No like- straight arms Rhodey! Rhodey! Can you just- oh I know! Stand to attention! Yes, like that! Finally! Down you come…JARVIS cut the thrust!”

With a loud metallic clank, Rhodey landed back on the mats. He was grinning like the Cheshire cat, bouncing up and down a little like he couldn’t wait to go again (to be fair, Tony could relate).

“Oh mama, I have got to get me my own pair of these!”

“The faster you help me assemble my suit, the faster we can start on yours,” Tony pointed at him. “So go on, scoot! Back to the sweatshop with you minion!”

A playlist of classic rock pounded away in the background as the two men worked together quickly and efficiently.

Tony did most of the actual assembling, soldering and wiring the parts together with practised proficiency, while Rhodey hauled the pieces out of JARVIS’ main fabricator and organised them in neat lines and boxes according to the blueprints JARVIS was highlighting for him.

With the boots and gauntlets already done – minus the impact reinforcement layers and the outer plates anyway – the most technically demanding parts of the build were already out of the way. The next most complex sections would be the helmet and back plates respectively.

The latter was what Tony was concentrating on now.

“So this is another row of repulsor outputs,” he was telling Rhodey as he peered through a magnifying glass DUM-E was holding steady for him. “Extra stabilisation in case something hits your hands or feet and knocks them out of line.”

“Stops you lurching off course?”

“Yeah exactly. Up another quarter inch DUM-E darling.”

“You have turned into such a dad,” Rhodey snorted as he handed over the next set of micro pistons. Already assembled too, bless the man.

“I sure hope so given I have a human five year old,” Tony retorted wryly. “And DUM-E likes being sweet-talked, don’t you baby? Yes you do, you great big metal puppy! You do!”

The bot nodded the end of his arm up and down enthusiastically at the baby talk, trilling excitedly.

Unfortunately he did this while still holding the magnifying glass. Right under Tony’s nose.

“Ow! Son of a bitch!”

DUM-E rolled backwards immediately as Tony yelped and clapped a hand over his face. Beeping in distress and generally sounding horrified, the bot managed to look forlorn and scared despite not having a face or more than one limb.

“No it’s okay DUM-E!” Tony threw a hand out towards the bot. “It was an accident, I’m alright. See? No blood.”

Hesitantly, DUM-E inched back closer, the input camera mounted above his claw whirring as he manoeuvred his arm to peer intently at Tony’s face.

“Just the same fading black eyes from before, no damage done,” Tony continued to reassure. “Okay now? Good, go and help U with moving the rest of the old screens. Ask JARVIS if you need help.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Tony Stark?” Rhodey sniggered as DUM-E trundled off towards the car ramp at the end of the garage where his sibling-bot was doing meaningless busy-work. “You didn’t insult the dumbass at all! Not once! Well aside from calling him a son of a bitch. Which fair, you are a bitch.”

Tony glared at his best mate, still rubbing at his sore nose.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up.”

“Bitch.”

“Are you done?”

“Hold on, one more for good measure. …Bitch!”

Tony stuck his middle finger up and picked the soldering iron back up.

“Really need to get myself some new friends,” he grumbled playfully under his breath as he grabbed the next micro piston and slotted it into the framework.

“I said hold still man!”

“I am holding still!”

“Stop flinching away!”

“I’m sorry, do you want to swap over? How about you let me shoot you full of micro-repeaters for a bit!?”

“Nah I think I’ll wait my turn. Which will hopefully be never.”

Tony had been planning to just do all the injecting himself until he remembered how goddamn awkward it had been to get the ones in his back in the right place even with two functional arms. And once he’d talked Rhodey into doing those seven for him, it had seemed like a good idea to get him to do the rest while he was at it. Yeah, more fool him.

“Please tell me we’re almost done,” Tony sighed as Rhodey moved up to the top of his next shoulder. “I’m freezing my manly tits off here.”

“No clothes until I’ve covered all these damn puncture marks with proper bandaids. Besides, it’s not like you haven’t been naked down here before.”

“Excuse you, this is a sterile environment!”

Rhodey snorted in complete disbelief. Which, fair. Tony was blatantly lying through his teeth. Even without admitting to any past sexual exploits which may or may not have occurred in the garage, the whole floor was an engineering and mechanics lab. Oil and grease and metal shavings coated at least a third of the workbenches and half the tools.

“Sterile my ass,” Rhodey deadpanned as he pulled the injection gun’s trigger.

A short, sharp pain stung just above his shoulder blade, and then he felt the press of a cotton ball against his skin. A couple of seconds later, and Rhodey was sticking it down with a strip of medical tape. The injection gun whirred as it loaded the next chip into it’s chamber, and once his arm had been quickly swiped with an alcohol wipe, the needle head was pressing gently against his bicep.

“Ow,” Tony jolted as the trigger was pulled again. Honestly the pain really wasn’t that bad – almost nothing compared to the arc-reactor, but each shot was catching him off guard every time. He really should have just done them himself.

“You’re such a baby,” Rhodey smirked as he went about repeating his cotton and tape routine for the forty-somethingth time.

“I’m going to remind you repeatedly that you said that when it’s your turn. I’ll laugh at you mercilessly while you squirm and-! Jesus fuck Rhodey! Two at once!? I swear you’re just being an asshole now!”

“Obviously I am,” Rhodey scoffed, grinning. “That was the last one though. Now what am I doing about the four that are supposed to go in your left forearm and hand? I ain’t cutting this cast off to do them no matter how much you beg; you’ve got one more week before the Doctor said you can be a free elf.”

“Skip ‘em. I’ve got a bracelet that’ll fit over this antiquated plaster monstrosity for now, and then I can add the repeaters once I’ve been given a sock and done enough PT to satisfy Pepper. Oh speaking of though, JARVIS open up the medical division brainstorm files and start a new project titled Mechanical bone casts and braces. Copy over anything relevant from the spinal brace and prosthetics projects.”

“Certainly sir.”

“Thanks J.”

“You’re starting a medical division as well? On top of the clean energy and consumer tech?”

“Eventually,” Tony shrugged as Rhodey finally started peeling some of the cotton wool balls off and replacing them band-aids. “Super Heroes get hurt, especially when they’re squishy and human like us. So an in-house medical team was sort of necessary and then I thought, why not use all this research to help regular people too? I went on a medical journal binge, hired some experts, and worked to make the whole industry more affordable. Anything that came out of the division got sold at only ten percent above cost, including any drugs we ended up manufacturing.”

“…Ten percent!? That’s-!”

“-all that was needed to generate enough money to reinvest back into further research. I may have uh, had an argument with the CEO of a big pharma company about medical debt and decided to tank their entire business model and economy out of pure spite. Pepper then opened dozens of at-cost hospitals too, which sent loads of medical insurance companies into fits of rage.”

“Christ Tony.”

“I’ll fuckin’ do it again,” he quoted in his best demented Goofy voice. “Sorry, that was another meme. The curse of letting teenage boys into your house. Are you done? Am I hermetically sealed again? Can we test these babies?”

“Yes I have plugged your holes.”

“Noice,” Tony snorted. “Alright JARVIS, power ‘em up and cast accio armour!”

The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and Tony was encased in gold-titnaium alloy coated with liberal amounts of hotrod red.

“YeeeeeAAHHHHHH!” he whooped as he spun out over the southern Californian desert in a helical barrel roll. Oh, that felt so good. Damn he’d missed flying!

“Did you take up gymnastics while I wasn’t looking?” Rhodey asked incredulously over the comms when he then corkscrewed into a tight 180 and came to a sudden dead stop mid-air. Seated in the flight control tower at Edward’s AFB, Tony’s best mate was monitoring air traffic for him as well as making sure none of the other over-eager Airmen watching the HUD and drone streams tried to interfere.

“I’ve been working out a little,” Tony smirked back nonchalantly as he flipped again and rapidly shot straight upwards. “Couple of press ups in the morning, little bit of yoga, some basic martial arts. You know, the usual.”

The little camera drones he’d built to tail him coiled around him as he gained altitude, feeding a nice cinematic sequence to JARVIS to edit in real-time and then throw to Rhodey. Yeah, Tony knew he was extra. Worth it. He had the same feed in his HUD and he looked badass.

“Martial arts? These twirls you’re doing look more like ballet to me!”

“I’ll have you know,” Tony refuted mockingly, thinking of Natasha, “That ballet takes an awful lot of precision, control, and power. The size of the calves on those dancers, yeesh. Not to mention that your average ballerina could toss you clean across the room without so much as breaking a sweat.”

“Is this some new kink of yours I don’t want to know ab-? Yes sir, sorry sir. Mr Stark and I will keep the comms professional.”

“You just got told off didn’t you?” Tony laughed as he broke through the top of the Troposphere into the Stratosphere. The readout JARVIS was giving him for external temperature was already at minus seventy Fahrenheit though, and while he knew that the suit and drones could handle it (and that the air temp would rise back towards the freezing point once he was clear of the ozone layer), he didn’t want to show off too much quite yet, so instead of ascending further, he levelled off and relaxed into a steady slow cruise.

“Colonel Monroe has come to observe the exercise,” Rhodey responded dryly.

“Oooo a Colonel,” Tony teased. “That’s one above you isn’t it? Aw, ickle Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes has been out ranked!”

“I’ll remind you that I have still have point on this mission regardless of who else is in the room. I can call you off and ground you any time I like.”

“Mission? I thought this was just a little fun exercise! A little display of how awesome I am! Hey tell you what, wanna see how long it takes me to get to Las Vegas and back? I can break the sound barrier in this thing.”

“Tony do not.”

“Tony do!”

“Anthony Edward Stark, don’t you dare! I said no!”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“I have a feed of your HUD! I can see you picking up speed! Are you serious!? You don’t have air clearance for Nevada! Stay in California!”

“It’s only a 400 mile round trip! Come on sweet cheeks, I’ll be there and back in 25 minutes tops!”

“Tony!”

“A nice steady 950 mph… lots of tasty flight data to nerd over!”

“…You’re halfway there already aren’t you?”

“Well I’ve covered 20 miles in the last minute alone?”

“Please Tones, I am begging you to behave for once in your life.”

“Mach Oooooooone!” Tony whooped as he felt the sonic boom ripple over the suit. “Let’s goooooo!”

And with a flick of his eyes over the appropriate HUD menu, he flicked on that OASIS track and laughed hysterically when Rhodey groaned loudly.

“You really are going to be the death of me. Bitch.”

Chapter Text

“Why are you so good at this already,” Rhodey groaned as he slowly tried to repeat the first half a dozen moves of their first kata again.

“Your left foot is starting in the wrong place,” Tony replied without looking up from the book he was studying intently. “It needs to be another inch half to the left and your toes should point another five degrees clockwise.”

“How do you know that!?”

“Nat has been- Nat had- I have no idea what tense to use here. Lemme start again. In my original timeline, I had a friend called Nat that I met in Summer 2009. We occasionally had some bad… trust issues with each other that I’m hoping to avoid this time round, but when we were getting along in between those moments, she was very good at teaching me Wing Chun.”

“So you’ve had ten years of practice already? Great. I could barely keep up with your genius even before you time travelled and now you’re like, an actual superhuman.”

“Tony Sue,” he smirked back, turning the page of his book.

They were in the far corner of one of Kamar-Taj’s many courtyards. The sun was shining, the breeze was gentle, and the mountain air was crisp and refreshing. Wrapped up in new white apprentice robes, they were both relaxed and enjoying the break from the pressure of Stark Industries and the US Military.

Tony may have miscalculated by introducing the Ironman armour to them so quickly. In the original timeline, building the Mark-II and then III had taken him months of work. With all his previous experience and Rhodey’s help, he’d had a fully functioning suit ready to go in just four and a half weeks. It was only July this time and so people were even more gobsmacked by the armour than before.

Which meant even more scrutiny than he’d been expecting.

At least the general public didn’t know yet, which meant Tony had at least another couple of weeks before he’d be tried in the court of public opinion too. Longer, if he had his way.

But in the meantime, the Military higher ups were being demanding. And it was irritating. Nothing he hadn’t dealt with before obviously, but still very irritating. Ah well, Ironman problems later, wizard school now.

“Looking better Rhodes,” Tony smirked when he reached the end of the chapter ten or so minutes later. Putting the book down next to his canvas satchel, he hopped down off the low wall and turned so that he was stood next to Rhodey, facing the same way. “Alright, let’s try doing this in time. JARVIS, give us a steady beat to work with, will ya?”

A moment later and a live version of The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin started playing from his phone which was tucked securely into his robes’ inner chest pocket, giving them a nice slow four-four tempo to work to. Damn, JARVIS had good taste.

“Sweet, let’s do... one position a bar to start with? Then we can double it to two a bar when we’ve got it down.”

“Cool with me man.”

“Alright, on four then.”

They moved about quarter of the way through the set semi-successfully before they stumbled and slipped completely out of sync. Laughing at each other, they simply shook themselves and started again. And again. And again, snickering all the while.

The Rain Song faded into November Rain and then into Nothing Else Matters. They kept moving, slowly, inexorably, beginning to match each other and the beat without needing to think.

And finally, they managed to flow through the whole kata smoothly with no mistakes.

“Oh thank my mama’s apple pie,” Rhodey sighed in relief as he dropped out of the final pose and beelined for his water bottle. “Please tell me these things get easier.”

“Once you’ve built up enough stamina and mastered the basic forms, yeah,” Tony nodded as he rolled his shoulders out. He really needed to work on his flexibility some more. Maybe set up some basic gymnastic equipment somewhere in the house. A spring board, some bars, a crash mat or two. Peter would love it if- when Tony could safely meet him again.

“We should start going running and working out together,” Rhodey grimaced, swigging more water. “Like, I’m fit man. Air Force keeps me that way, but between this and all the manual mechanic work you got me doing… damn my muscles are feeling it.”

“You’ll feel it more when I let you put on a full suit,” he grinned, slapping the man’s shoulder and stealing his water bottle. “No matter how many electronics and hydraulics I cram in, it’s still several hundred pounds of metal you’re wearing. S’why I’ve been bullying you into doing so many pull ups.”

“Well at least I’m gonna end up looking ripped,” Rhodey shook his head. “Come on, let’s go find your child and not-yet-wife. I’m starving!”

Tony’s room in Kamar-Taj was still immorally small (in his opinion), but it was no longer bare and basic.

He’d replaced the original bed with one that was a little wider, gotten a matching wider mattress with a nice thick topper, added some more pillows, a better comforter, and finished it off with his own sheets. Then he’d busted out his old handyman skills and built a roll-out cot for Morgan that fit under the bed too; he loved his daughter so much it was physically painful, but man she was a kicker in her sleep. He valued the integrity of his remaining ribs thanks.

With the Ancient One’s tacit agreement, he’d also gone ahead and installed some underfloor heating. But with the floor being ancient solid stone, instead of digging holes in it to install wiring, he’d just stacked an inch thick hexagonal support frame over it, ran all the heating elements through it, and then clicked some grey polymer thermal tiles on top. With the original rugs back down and another added for good measure, it didn’t actually look all that different to how it had before.

The desk in the corner was also no longer bare. After some debate, he’d decided there wasn’t enough room to properly work with a hologram interface – he’d be constantly smacking his hands into the walls whenever he got enthusiastic – so he’d gone old-school and rigged up some nice big glass touchscreen computer monitors. By mounting them directly onto the wall under the bookshelf, the actual surface of the desk was then left free for one his custom keyboards, a miniature sensor array for JARVIS, a stack of wizard parchment and books, and a box of Morgan’s colouring crayons.

Thankfully, unlike the floor, the walls and ceiling were not much of an issue to rewire. All he’d had to do was pry all the wooden panels off and pull the thin layer of shitty 1950s insulation out. Yes, he’d had to be very careful not to damage the wood as he worked, but he’d managed the whole lot in one afternoon without disturbing any of the other Sorcerers who had rooms in the same wing of the temple.

The end result was that he had now had more than two ancient plug sockets to work with and decent lighting. Definitely worth the effort.

“JARVIS, is Pepper up yet?” he asked as he sauntered in and dropped his bag onto his desk. She and Morgan had come to Kathmandu with him and stayed the first and second nights, but had gone home earlier this morning; Pepper had pointed out that all the studying was getting him exhausted enough without him having to chase after and entertain a rambunctious five year old as well.

“She is not sir. It is currently before 5am in Malibu so I imagine she will not rise for some time yet.”

“Yep, you’re right,” Tony pushed a thumb against his brow. “Come on Tony you idiot, California is on minus eight not minus five, get your time-zones right. Must have New York on the brain.”

“Perhaps a minor software update to your watch would be advisable? I believe you would find it useful if it displayed both California and Nepal zones at all times.”

“Oooo we could add some geotags as well,” Tony enthused, pulling out his desk chair and waving a hand at the glass monitors to power them on. “One for each of us so I can see both where and when we all are at all times. Maybe not on the same screen though… A side menu? Swipe left to bring up other people’s local zone dials?”

“I shall collate some basic interface designs for you to consider at a later date sir. I will remind you however, that you are supposed to be making notes on Astronomia Nova right now.”

“Yeah yeah,” Tony grumbled, pulling his book bag towards him and pulling the well-worn tome out of it. “No science until the mojo is done cooking. Alright, back to chapter twenty-three: “The sigils of the stars and their phasic influences on dimensional weaving.” Riveting stuff I tell you J. Seriously the Codex Imperium was much more interesting.”

“You’re on chapter twenty-three already?” Rhodey suddenly asked from Tony’s doorway. He must have just heard Tony get in, and abandoned his own studies in favour of coming to say hi. “I think I must have read chapter ten four times already and I still have no idea why Nebula Dimension energy shouldn’t be drawn upon without using one of those,” he flapped his hand artistically, “twelve-point square thingies. You know the one I mean.”

“A Gaydeon loop?”

“Nah that’s less square. I mean the one that’s got twenty-four Fibonnachi swirls in it.”

“No, that is a Gaydeon loop. It’s got the swirls.”

“Really? Sure why not. So why do you need one? Oh wait, it’s a Gaydeon loop. The rotating planar dodecahedron creates an energy siphoning block which must stop you from pulling a whole supernova through you. Man, but now I need to know why the whole supernova would jump through you without it! That’s what Chi-ling mechanics are for!”

“You should skip ahead to chapter fifteen. Gives you way more detail on that.”

“It does? Lemme go grab the book and my notepad, one sec.”

Shaking his head with a smile, Tony skim read through the first page of his own copy, mentally making notes that he planned on typing out later. He found it deeply fascinating actually, how completely unscientific all this mystic stuff seemed on the outside, when actually you learnt and applied it exactly the same way you would do with a new field of science. All the… concepts were the same, they just used parallel mechanics. Sure, he still didn’t get how arm waving was the key to spell casting (or dimensional energy programming as he preferred to call it), but clearly it worked. He’d solve the mystery of why later and simply believe that it did for now.

“Alright, chapter fifteen you said?” Rhodey queried as he came sliding back into the room a moment later. Unknotting his belt and tossing the outer layer of his Padawan robes over Tony’s dresser, he then dropped himself onto Tony’s bed with a satisfied huff. Honestly, Tony didn’t know why he’d wired up Rhodey’s desk for him; he never used it.

“Yeah, fifteen. You should be able to follow it so long as you remember the fundamental principles of stellar looping from chapter seven.”

“Cool, I got those memorised. I hope.”

Turning back to his desk, Tony pulled his keyboard over and quickly opened up a blank text file. Then, having read the next four pages as well, he rapidly typed out a list of the chapter’s most salient points with one hand, wondering if it would be worth trying to transcribe the figure containing several star charts.

Mystic arts books were weird, and sometimes things just wouldn’t copy over to a digital format no matter what you tried. It was incredibly frustrating, and was the reason why he now kept a stack of honest-to-gods parchment on hand – once you’d copied the info over to that, JARVIS could then scan the copy and store it. But straight out of the book? Nah.

Sighing, he gave in to the inevitable and pulled a fountain pen out of his stationary pot.

“Yo Tones, this is gonna seem to come totally out of the blue, but can I ask you something? About the armour?”

“Hm?” Tony blinked as he looked up from his messy handwritten notes, thoughts swirling with energy displacement sigils. “Was up Platypus?”

Rhodey seemed to hesitate as Tony swivelled on his chair to look at him again. Like he was nervous, like he thought Tony might react badly.

“Ironman and War Machine,” the man eventually began slowly. “You picked the names because of the songs right? Black Sabbath’s Ironman and War Machine by AC/DC.”

“Well technically the press picked Ironman when they were reporting on the fight I had with Stane, but sure. I saw the theme and ran with it.”

“Does it have to be War Machine?”

Tony blinked again, mind going blank in shock for a long moment.

“Only I think it sends the wrong message,” Rhodey hastened to continue. “The whole point of you teaming up with the Air Force- well with us teaming up with them, is to end the wars in the middle east right? To stop the machines of war.”

“…Okay,” Tony eventually managed to swallow. “Sure, but you always said the name was cool and badass. And when the US Government tried to rebrand you and the suit for well, the same reasons you just stated, you wouldn’t let it stick. We both still wanted to use War Machine.”

“You also said they were insisting on Iron Patriot. Which is just bad man. Both a rip off of Ironman and blindingly US-centric. And the team you had, the whatsits, Avengers? They weren’t American, they were international. Interstellar eventually.”

“Well yes, but most of us were American and operated out of America. To begin with anyway. For like, the first five or six years. Thor noted and excepted.”

“But you’re trying to improve all that though, with the weird new timeline stuff. It’s just… War Machine sounds more like a US Military pawn than a defender of Earth as a whole.”

“And also we’re trying to drag Stark Industries away from the war and ironmonger image,” Tony nodded, rapidly warming up to the idea. If this was Rhodey already hinting he wanted to join Tony and go independent… “Okay I’ll bite, what were you thinking of?”

“Gotta stick with the AC/DC right?” Rhodey grinned, shuffling forward on Tony’s bed. “So I thought, a top hit that also sounds like you could sound bite it. Something short and to the point, something catchy.”

“…And? Come on the suspense is killing me here. Shoot to Thrill is too much of a mouthful. So is Back in Black. Hells bells? T.N.T? Highway to hell? Oh wait-!”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Thor is going to be so mad!” Tony burst out laughing. “JARVIS! J-Buddy! You gotta- you gotta rename the War Machine files immediately!”

“To what sir?” JARVIS replied dryly from the desk speakers.

Rhodey grinned even harder.

“Thunderstruck.”

Chapter Text

Tony stared up at the holographic map that JARVIS was projecting into the middle of the Malibu workshop. Rhodey was stood to his left, Pepper to his right, and DUM-E was peering curiously over their shoulders.

Morgan was upstairs with Happy, who had looked completely panicked and overwhelmed when Pepper had asked him to watch the five year old for half an hour. Tony had faith that Happy would be fine, but he’d asked JARVIS to keep a spare eye on the pair anyway. Just in case.

“So all the dark blue markers are where I know there will be caches of illegal Stark weapons,” he waved at the map. “While the dark red points are known terrorist hold outs. The brighter red ones are Ten Rings groups specifically.”

“And that’s the one you want to start with?” Rhodey pointed at North-Eastern Afghanistan.

“Gulmira,” Tony nodded once, eyes hard.

“Yinsen’s home,” Pepper added more softly.

“Alright, but you’re not going in without backup Tones. I don’t care how many times you did this alone in your prime universe. You’re in the Kelvin timeline now and friends don’t leave friends behind when they go to blow shit up.”

“Look at you!” Tony chuckled. “Making references to films that haven’t come out yet! So glad you’ve picked that habit up from me!”

“Don’t give yourself so much credit; I have watched those trailers to death man. I cannot wait for the actual movie to be released.”

“Oh yeah, they started promoting super early for it; I’d forgotten that. You’ll love it though, it’s awesome! But no, I will not tell you the plot before you see it, so don’t bother begging.”

“Good! I’d have to shoot you if you did.”

“Shoot me!? Some back up you are! Worst sidekick ever!”

“Well don’t ruin my viewing experiences and I’ll just watch your back rather than stabbing it!”

“Threat! Pepper that was a threat! He’s threatening me!”

“Boys,” Pepper sighed exasperatedly. “Behave.”

“Yes honey,” Tony grinned as he dragged his eyes back to the blue map. Raising both hands, he tilted both wrists until the image was inclined just above horizontal. With another quick gesture, he pulled the whole thing 3D, showing the country’s terrain to exact scale.

Finally, he pulled his hands apart over the dual red and blue markers Rhodey had pointed to, zooming in on the village that had been the site of his first ever Ironman mission.

“Mountain valley,” Rhodey grunted as he took half a step forward and stuck his hands into the projection too, moving it about. “Pretty wide floor, open at the southern end to the plains. Plenty of foothills on that side too. If we drop in low-”

“No need,” Tony shook his head. “I’ll show you how to land from a super-terminal cannonball and we can just drop right down vertically in seconds.”

“Please don’t call it a super-terminal cannonball,” Pepper winced, shooting him a disturbed look.

“No it’s super-terminal because- because of terminal velocity not because of… extra deadness.”

“No we are changing that,” Rhodey grimaced. “Like, immediately bro.”

“Seriously it’s just accelerating down faster than-”

“We know Tones.”

“-But it’s literally just super like sub and super-”

“It’s still a terrible name with terrible-”

“It’s just science!”

“It has terrible connotations Tony.”

“Why do you hate all my naming schemes recently?” Tony pouted melodramatically. “Come on, I let you rename your suit! Ugh fine, can we keep the cannonball part at least?”

“I’ll consider it,” Rhodey smirked. “Now give me the stats on what resistance we can expect.”

Tony tapped his chin with one hand, fingers skimming over his goatee.

“Maybe twenty, twenty five poorly trained but armed terrorists? I didn’t pay too much attention to their guns ‘cause bullets are bullets no matter what they’re shot from, but I’d say most of them had the 2004 edition of the SI Raptor assault rifle. Couple of ancient AK-47’s maybe? The suits are bullet proof, so it’s irrelevant really. They do have a horrible tendency to immediately resort to human shields though, so using the simultaneous multi-point targetting system is a must. Oh! And they have a tank.”

“A tank?”

“Yeah don’t worry about it. I one shot killed it after it hit me. Anti-tank missile made it go boom.”

“You got hit by a tank shell!?” Pepper rounded on him furiously.

“Babe you have literally watched me deliberately fly inside an evil space whale. And everything about the Mandarin debacle was worse than Gulmira in every way. Honestly the stupid tank shell didn’t even cause a dent in the armour, and that was with the original Mark-III.”

“Didn’t you say an entire city tried to fall on your head once as well?” Rhodey asked with a shit eating grin. “In Sokovia wasn’t it?”

“You are not helping Jim,” Pepper glared at him.

“The point is, we have them so out-gunned it’s almost embarrassing,” Tony cut over the top of them. “I could literally fly there right now and have them all in the ground five minutes after arriving without getting a single scratch on the suit.”

“You are so not going right now no matter how easy you think it’ll be.”

“Well no, but if you’re coming with me when I do go, then you know what needs to happen honeycakes.”

Rhodey sighed loudly and raggedly.

“Micro-repeaters?” he asked with a grimace.

“So many micro-repeaters,” Tony cackled back gleefully.

Tony eyed the new AI’s code critically.

One of his first priorities when he’d arrived back in the US had been to almost completely overhaul JARVIS’ firewalls and capabilities. He still occasionally had nightmares of Stane disabling his artificial friend the night the bastard had ripped the arc out of his chest, and he definitely still had them about when the mind stone had stolen ULTRON’s fledgling code and used it to utterly tear JARVIS to shreds. Nobody was messing with his code-baby every again, so he had spent a couple of sleepless nights going bananas with his programming.

But once he was done hauling JARVIS’ abilities up to 2020s standards, he’d turned his attention to the other AIs he loved and missed. And to making a couple of new ones for good measure.

FRIDAY had been the first he’d worked on obviously, and after making her spend a bit of time hiding in her brand new super-servers establishing her sense of self, Tony had let her sidle into the Stark Industries network. Like all his AI, she also had access to the house and his personal servers, but Tony planned to offer her the job of being SI’s evil overlord along side Pepper. JARVIS could then concentrate solely on mother-henning Tony and being his suit co-pilot. Which let’s be real, the mother-henning alone was a full time job.

Peter’s little AI, the one the kid had named KAREN for god knows what reason, had been next. He hadn’t done much beyond establish her base code and ensure she was integrated with yet another set of super-servers, as he was going to let her grow and learn with her web-slinging teenager rather than letting her imprint on him. But she was ready and waiting for when Pete started wall-crawling.

Not wanting Harley to feel left out, he’d then more or less cloned KAREN and created JESS. Tony had absolutely no idea how he was going to engineer a meeting with the curly haired little shit without AIM forcing the issue, but when he did, the kid would get JESS – Junior’s Extra Sarcastic Sidekick – as well as a garage full of potato gun parts.

Which just left this AI.

SMART.

“Rhodey! Oi, Rhodey, get your perfectly toned ass over here!”

“Aw come on dude, I just sat down,” Rhodey groaned back. The man was in his gym gear, a dark towel around his neck as sweat dripped off his nose, as he’d just finished yet another set of pull-ups; Tony hadn’t been joking when he’d implied he was bullying him into doing hundreds of them.

“This is important though!”

“So important it can’t wait two minutes while I stretch my arms out?”

“Fine, I’ll come to you,” Tony rolled his eyes. Swiping the box of equipment off his desk and a StarkPad that he’d only half finished building, he pushed himself to his feet and strolled over to the low bench that had appeared next to the pull up bars Tony had rigged up. “Here, take a look at this.”

Rhodey took the prototype tab with a wary look at all the wires still hanging out of the back, but didn’t verbally complain or comment. With an exploratory tap at the screen, he blinked as the backlight flicked on and then stared down at the IDE filled with code classes that greeted him.

“This looks like JARVIS but… not?” the man eventually commented with his eyebrows raised. “When the hell did you have time to make this!?”

“Rhodey-bear, that is third AI I’ve coded this week,” Tony snorted back. “He’s a quite a bit more complex than the other two I’ve been working on, but all the basics are identical. And for all three of them, I just had to clone some of JARVIS’ base code and make sure none of the abstracted classes ended up with unused parameters or anything that wouldn’t compile. Well that and add all the personalisation, but that’s easy once you’ve done it a few times.”

“Easy he says,” Rhodey muttered as he tapped open the appropriate files down the right-hand side. “Like these aren’t some of the most complex and longest classes I’ve ever seen. I mean, what the hell is this! This algorithm has so many references in it to other arguments and arrays that you’d need a week to learn where to even find them, let alone what they’re defining!”

“Oh that’s just the machine learning process for generating vocal nuance. It’s pretty straight forward once you break it down.”

“I’m not even gonna ask man. I got too much on my hands already trying to learn all this magic shit at the same time as assembling all these suit parts and fabricators for you without trying to get my head round this as well.”

“Well this is actually part of your suit. Here look, JARVIS already compiled all this for me a couple of days ago and starting running it. I just checked the self-learning progress to make sure it hasn’t caused any bugs or conflicts and we’re all clear, so he’s ready to come out of containment. Say hello SMART!”

“You built me an AI!?” Rhodey gasped, his fingers suddenly being much more reverent as he scrolled up and down on the tab.

“Hello sirs,” a mature masculine voice with a mild Scottish accent called out evenly. “I am SMART, your personal digital companion. SMART stands for Suit Manoeuvring And Related Technologies. My primary functions will be to assist you in your day to day activities, and to help you pilot any and all iterations of the Thunderstruck armour.”

“You’ll have to forgive him for the robotic speech patterns and lack of emoting. He’s less than three days old, he’ll learn in time.”

“Tony I- thanks man, he’s perfect.”

“Yeah yeah,” Tony waved away self-consciously. “Now here, put these on.”

Fishing into the box he’d brought with him, he pulled out a pair of pale blue tinted glasses with chunky black frames. He’d modelled them off a pair of classic angular Ray Bans sunglasses he’d found lying around, but he’d had to make the arms slightly thicker in order to accommodate the necessary electronics. They still looked pretty damn suave though.

Rhodey took them without question and slid them onto his face.

“Okay, so what do these- woah, that’s a HUD. That looks like your armour HUD! That is seriously cool man.”

“It’s a simplified version of the HUD that I use, yeah,” Tony confirmed as he slipped his own pair of orange-lensed glasses on. “The problem is, I can multitask and split my attention like almost no-one else on Earth. Possibly in the galaxy, if what I’ve seen of the rest of it is any indicator. So if I just load up a clone of my HUD into your suit, you’ll drown in an information overload.”

“You saying we’re all too slow to keep up with you, oh superhuman overlord?” Rhodey teased as he waved one hand about and began to play around with the pseudo-projections he was seeing.

“Excuse you, I am trying to be considerate for once in my life!”

“Well your tact still needs a little work.”

“That was actually super tactful and I know you’re just being mean for the fun of it. And stop distracting me!”

“But it’s so easy to-!”

“Shut up Platypus! The glasses! I don’t want to overload you with too many modules and feeds. Last time I got around this by installing a whole different system in the War Machine armour that was much more basic. You basically just had an altimeter with a horizon level, a proximity alert, and the cross hairs for the targeting system and that was it. Everything else in the suit was run by non-sentient programming. But that severely limited your suit’s capabilities. I mean, I was running around in the Ironman Mark-LXXXV at the end there, while you were still in the War Machine Mark-VII.”

“Shit, really?”

“I mean, you were fine. I got killed and you didn’t which says it all really. But you’ve been so much more involved in the build process this time and, um. Just spent a hell of a lot more time with me in general. So I thought… well, you’ve got the time this go round, so why not just let you learn to handle the more advanced HUD? Hence the glasses. And the AI. It’s ah… emersion therapy.”

“So I just wear these as much as possible until I get used to seeing the info holographics and hearing SMART talk to me all the time?”

“Basically,” Tony shrugged nonchalantly, fiddling awkwardly with the other items in the box. “There’s only a handful of modules displaying for you right now, but you and SMART can just add more once you’ve adjusted to the basics.”

“I am gonna wear the shit out of these. Are they waterproof?”

“And shock proof. They’ll survive a fall if you knock them off accidentally. Obviously don’t go throwing them off of cliffs or stomping on them or anything, but they’re much more durable than an iPhone could ever dream of being.”

“And you made them Thunderstruck colours,” Rhodey smirked as he pulled them off a second to inspect the frame. “Got the little red lightning bolt and everything!”

“I am nothing, if not on brand,” Tony smirked back, knocking their shoulders together. “Now get up, I promised to teach you how to do a front flip before we left for Gulmira. Gym’s a-calling!”

“Oh come on bro, I just finished doing one-hundred-fifty pull ups!”

Chapter Text

Pepper rolled over in the narrow bed to face him, the morning sunlight rippling over the beautiful smooth skin of her bare shoulders, lathing it with a golden glow.

In the cot below them, Morgan was still snoring her little heart out.

“So I heard SMART talking to Jim out loud for the first time last night,” she smirked quietly as he yawned, running her fingers lightly round the edge of the arc reactor in his chest. He shivered as she grazed over the raised scar tissue surrounding it, leaving it tingling and sensitive. “He hasn’t worked it out yet, has he?”

“What, the voice patterning?” he smirked back as he stretched one arm up behind him and shoved his hand under his head. “I thought it was appropriate. Now he has two famous time-travellers in his life!”

“To be fair to Jim, David doesn’t usually speak in his native accent when he’s acting. How did you even get the data to teach SMART that intonation?”

“Called his agency, put in a request to speak to him. Then once I had him on the phone, I just had him run through the English phonemes list a few times and voila!”

“Wow, you actually asked? I’m impressed!”

“I can be polite when I want to be,” he waggled his eyebrows.

“Now if only you’d be polite all the time,” she replied teasingly. “Think of all the PR nightmares you could save me the hassle of dealing with.”

“I think you’ll find that I’ve been exceptionally well behaved for the last few months actually. Not one scandalous controversy! Ask my wife, she’ll confirm it.”

“Your wife?” Pepper mock gasped back. “But I didn’t think you were married! No ring on your hand you see, and now I’m in bed with you!”

“Oh I am married. To this total babe. Seriously, there’s only one girl better looking than her in the whole universe. And that other girl is only five and currently wearing Hello Kitty pyjamas.”

“Flatter,” Pepper laughed gently, stretching up to press a soft kiss against his jaw.

Tony turned his head and captured her lips with his own.

Shuffling some more, he slowly sat up a little and hooked a leg over Pepper’s waist, the soft material of his sleep pants caressing over her bare thighs. Keeping one arm solidly on the mattress to hold his weight, he grinned against her mouth and-

“Daddy, I need a wee!”

“Oh hey little monkey!” he snorted as he quickly moved backwards. “I didn’t hear you get up?”

“You and Mommy were talking too loud,” Morgan pouted forcibly, crossing her arms and pushing her chest out. She was stood upright on her little floor cot, radiating pure angry-little-Stark energy as she firecely glared at them both from beneath her completely dishevelled hair.

“Sorry sweetheart,” Pepper smiled at her, blatantly biting her lip to stop herself from laughing. “We’ll try to be quieter next time.”

“Good,” the small child grumbled. “Now come on Daddy, I need to go!”

“Hey, don’t be such a little bossy pants,” Tony reprimanded her gently as he folded back the covers and clambered to his feet. “It’s not nice. And when we’re not nice, we hurt other people’s feelings, remember?”

“Sorry Daddy,” she mumbled contritely, hunching her shoulders.

“It’s alright baby, just try not to do it again,” he sighed as he bent over and picked her up. Settling her on his hip, he waited until she’d got her arms securely round his neck before he turned back to Pepper. “I could take this little monster in the shower with me now if you like? Seeing as we skipped bath time last night.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Pepper grinned up at him as she spread out into the warm spot he’d just vacated. “I’ll get some coffee on and mix your chlorophyll smoothie while I wait for you to come back. Want me to see if Jim’s awake yet?”

“Nah, he’ll knock when he’s up and about. Or he’ll ask SMART to pass a message to J for us.”

“Alright, I see you a few minutes then.”

Yawning jaw-crackingly wide again as he grabbed their towels and wash bags, he then stumbled over to the door and out into the sunny halls of Kamar-Taj. As warm and quiet as it was though, as soon as he’d learnt how, he was fucking well magically adding an en-suite to his room. In fact, it was the third most important thing on his list after portals and an endless pot of coffee.

And oh god did he want an endless coffee pot.

“Good morning ladies, novices. The Masters and I saw your press conference about your mechanical suits of armour this weekend,” the Ancient One greeted them formally as the four of them strode into the warmth of the dining hall an hour later. “I’m afraid that Master Mordo is now more concerned than ever.”

“We’ll talk to him again,” Tony sighed as he returned her arm clasp – the standard sign of respect amongst the sorcerers, much like a handshake to the rest of the world.

“Trust me, we’ve had plenty of practice at keeping the different facets of our lives unentangled,” Pepper smiled at her dryly as she also was offered an arm. “Everyone will be far too busy staring at the suits to even consider the possibility of magic. Governments and public alike.”

“Yeah, and it won’t be long until Thor and Loki show up on Earth,” Tony added on, slowly lowering Morgan to the floor when she wiggled meaningfully. “If by extremely unlikely chance someone does notice something, I can just point my fingers at them and claim I got them to imbue my tech with some of their ambient magic.”

“I already trust that you have it all in hand,” the Ancient One waved off calmly. “You may be novices with magic, but what I have seen since you returned from the deserts of Afghanistan assures me that you are far more practised with politics and public relations.”

“Oh boy, are we ever,” Tony rolled his eyes. “This has all been a cakewalk so far compared to the shi- ah, the total messes that happened and kept on happening after the 2012 invasion. Seriously, if I can ingratiate a mind manipulating ex-HYDRA witch that destroyed half of Johannesburg and teamed up with a murder robot to the general public, then I can hide a little bit of already well hidden sorcery.”

“I’m just doing what they tell me to,” Rhodey shrugged in amusement when the Ancient One glanced at him for his input too. “It’s working pretty well so far?”

“I am satisfied you are aware of your responsibilities and so I will also continue reassure the Masters that all is well,” she nodded. “Thank you for time. I will leave you to breakfast now; eat your fill, as Masters Kaecilius, Wong and Hamlin will be waiting for you in the southern court yard for first Sabhā.”

Nodding at them in farewell, the Ancient One then spun gracefully around and strode off in a flurry of yellow and pale orange robes. Tony suspected she’d added the orange just to amuse him, but he hadn’t yet found the right moment to comment on it.

(He didn’t know if she celebrated Christmas either, but he was totally getting her a flying bison plushie in December)

“Kaecilius?” Rhodey complained as they finally moved over to an empty table a moment later. “Ugh, he’s such a miserable hard-ass.”

“Wong’ll keep him in line,” Tony grumbled. “Hopefully.”

“Daddy, is he the grumpy tall one?” Morgan asked as she plopped down onto one of the floor cushions with the careless ease of childhood. “He always looks like he wants to be mean to me.”

“Yeah, he’s like the human version of the grumpy cat,” he winked at her. “Now wait here with Mommy while Uncle Rhodey and I go get some breakfast for us all. Do you want a specific type of fruit, or are you happy to let me choose for you?”

“Bluuuuuueberries!” she drew out adorably.

“A lady after my own heart,” he slapped his hand over his left chest. “I shall do my best to retrieve some for you.”

Despite Kaecilius’ best attempts to ensure otherwise, Tony was in a rather good mood when he and Rhodey returned to Malibu the next (same? Damn time zones) day. Rhodey headed out immediately to go crash in his own bed for once as it had been gone midnight in Nepal, but Tony was revved up and ready to deal with the new SI board.

(Though he didn’t really know why Rhodey was bothering to maintain his own apartment at this point. When he wasn’t in Kamar-Taj, he was either in Tony’s workshop or at one of the local AFB’s doing the bare minimum he needed to not get formally reprimanded or threatened with a court martial. Tony thought he ought to just move into the mansion with the rest of them and save himself the hassle to be honest.)

Today, he was officially going to appoint Pepper to the position of Chief Operating Officer.

Honestly, he’d rather pitch her straight to CEO and free himself from the position, but Pepper insisted it was too soon after the mass arrests and cessation of weapons manufacturing for another huge shake up. And apparently this would also be an easier transition for her – in the previous timeline she’d gotten months of flack from people who didn’t believe she was anywhere near qualified to be in charge. Her being promoted to COO first would still make waves when she took over completely, but the backlash wouldn’t be nearly so vitriolic.

Or so Pepper said.

Tony was sure he could brow beat everyone into realising Pepper’s brilliance regardless, but he wasn’t going to overrule her. His respect for her was far too high to even consider doing that.

Still, even her just being COO would make his life so much easier. Many less things for him to sign, much less need to repeat what Pepper had already said so that is was “announced in an official capacity”. Fewer people demanding to know his whereabouts at every moment.

Well maybe not that last one. The DoD in particular had been riding his ass hard this last week. They’d seen how utterly devastatingly effective the suits were during the Gulmira missions last week and were now trying to claim that, seeing as Rhodey was Military, anything he touched automatically belonged to them. Assholes.

Tony already knew it was a battle he would win, but fucking hell, it was tedious having to fight it again.

That was the only thing in his life not going quite to plan right now though, so he wouldn’t complain too much. He’d rather not tempt fate. No, he would grin and bear the frustration and concentrate on the good things.

Like Pepper’s impending promotion!

“Oh good, you’re here,” Pepper greeted him with relief as he came barrelling up the stairs and into their dressing room after seeing Rhodey out. “Gray Samson wants to reschedule the board meeting to Friday. I’ve told him no, but he’s insisting only you have the authority to refuse his request.”

“Stubborn asshole,” Tony rolled his eyes as he fished his phone out of his pocket. “I got it, I’ll leave him a voice mail.”

“I know he’s an excellent businessman and one of the few old guard that prioritises welfare above profit, but god does he drive me up the wall sometimes,” Pepper moaned as she continued to touch up her mascara. “When he gets his back up over the smallest things, I just want to… shoot a repulsor in his face, ugh.”

“Well Rhodey and I are sorted for suits for a few months, I could rebuild the Rescue Armour next,” Tony offered with a grin. “Yes, yes, leave a message after the tone I know. I’ve seriously got to get the STARK IM app remade before I- Samson! It’s Stark! Stop being a dickhead and apologise to Ms Potts. Meeting starts at one WST this afternoon whether you like it or not. Be there or lose your vote. Arrivederci!”

“Thanks babe,” Pepper smiled tiredly at him once he’d discarded his phone onto the central bench in disgust. “Hopefully you won’t have to do that again after today.”

“I shouldn’t have to do it in the first place,” he grumbled, tossing his white sorcerer’s under tunic into a hidden laundry bag – wouldn’t do for housekeeping to keep finding it mixed up in with his normal dirty clothes. Once was a billionaire’s eccentricity, every week was a traceable pattern. “They should all just do what you tell them to, no questions asked. Opinion? Red shirt and black tie, or black shirt and red tie?”

“Red shirt. It’s 2008, red on black will make you look a teenage goth wannabe.”

“Harley says- Harley said they’re called emos.”

“You trust anything that comes out of that boys mouth?” Pepper smirked as she smoothed her hair down and then moved back from the dressing table mirror. “You want any eyeliner before I put all this away?”

“Mmm, maybe some pale grey, make my eyes pop? And obviously I double checked everything that menace told me. It was necessary for self-preservation once he hit thirteen.”

“It was completely your own fault he turned out that way; you encouraged and enabled his attitude every chance you got.”

“He was managing to be pretty sarcastic all on his own actu-”

“Sir, Miss Potts. There is a situation that requires your immediate attention.”

Both Tony’s and Pepper’s heads snapped up immediately at JARVIS’ interruption. The AI sounded genuinely concerned which was a horrible sign.

“Details now J,” Tony demanded, hastily finishing the knot on his tie and grabbing his holo-sunglasses.

“Silverlight National Newspapers has posted copies of young Miss Stark’s birth certificate to their website’s front page. There are reporters already on route here to the house, and to young Miss Stark’s preschool group. I estimate the first journalists will arrive at her location in less than fifteen minutes.”

“Fuck,” Tony swore emphatically, already running for the basement and the Remark-II.

Chapter Text

Even with Morgan sat in his lap calmly drawing anatomical spider diagrams for most of it, the board meeting had been tense. He’d been too busy worrying over how the press release about his daughter was being received by the general public to concentrate properly on what his various executive officers wanted, which had lead to short tempers and general frustration all round.

He’d had to give them the spark-notes version of who Morgan was and “where” she came from when he arrived as well, which had not been pleasant. Most of them had tried to ask far too many questions and clearly didn’t quite believe that he’d “managed to hide a five year old” from the entire world for over five years no matter what he said.

Which was fair. Because he actually was lying through his teeth about it. But he could hardly admit to being a time traveller could he? And even he did, that still didn’t explain how Morgan had jumped back to a time before she was born when he himself had simply… merged with his younger self. Or whatever the fuck had happened.

But yes. Tense, awkward meeting.

At least the whole situation with Morgan had made appointing Pepper to the COO role look positively routine in comparison. With the board members all busy contemplating his daughter, none of them had thought to make even the smallest protest over the promotion.

Small mercies, silver lining and all that. Take ‘em where you can get ‘em.

Now, three hours later, he was holed up in his old office feeling exhausted while Morgan took apart an old computer tower and examined the circuit boards on the floor by his feet. Waiting out of the way with her and Happy while Pepper ran over to the PR team to get the latest press updates from them; it was less tiresome than trying to scroll through the various news sites himself.

Though he was doing that too. And wincing at a lot of what he was seeing.

Thankfully Morgan was an excellent distraction. Bless her heart.

“This motherboard has a really old intel chip attached to it,” Morgan complained as she grabbed the screwdriver Tony had lent to her again and stabbed it ruthlessly against the chip’s soldering. “Or is it just like that ‘cause we’re back in the old times?”

“That’s cutting edge for this year, yeah,” Tony nodded at her, tossing his phone aside with a final huff of annoyance. “See how it has dual cores? That’s a really fast processor for now.”

“I could make a better one,” Morgan wrinkled her nose. “Quad cores are easy. And if you helped, I bet I could make a- a double quad core too Daddy!”

“Its called an Octocore, but yeah, I bet you could,” he smiled indulgently. Pointing to the RAM chip next, he asked her how many bytes she thought it was and got an outraged huff when he eventually told her it was only 3GB. After that, there was no stopping her from verbally eviscerating almost everything about the poor computer.

The whole tirade gave him at least ten minutes of blissful distraction from his worrying.

“And there’s only two USB ports Uncle Happy!” she was exclaiming in disgust when Pepper finally pushed the frosted glass doors open and sidled inside. “Mommy! This motherboard is rubbish! This whole machine is rubbish!”

“I mean, she’s not wrong?” Tony shrugged with a lopsided smile when Pepper looked at him incredulously. “Poor Dell, they tried.”

“Dell is the least of our problems,” Pepper eventually shook her head wryly, moving the last couple of steps over to the main desk. “The back story we concocted is holding up exceedingly well despite journalists digging their claws into every scrap of information they can find, but the less reputable reporters have already started decrying the whole situation as some elaborate cover story.”

“Cover story for what?” Tony snorted in confusion. “What exactly can you hide with a young child of things?”

“Well the more outlandish theories,” Pepper rolled her eyes as she handed over a tablet, “offer everything from kidnapping to child actors to androids, insisting you’re trying to divert attention away from something horrible and foreboding. Though nobody will state what you’re supposedly hiding.”

“It’s only been a week since you told everyone about the big metal robot suits,” Happy pulled a face. “Surely that would have been a better distraction for whatever?”

“You’re assuming there’s any logic involved here,” Tony shook his head, running a soothing hand over Morgan’s hair as she frowned silently up at them all.

“The slightly more rational but just as ruthless reporters are are positing that Morgan is a love child from an illicit affair that was recently dumped anonymously on your doorstep,” Pepper continued more quietly with a concerned look at their daughter, who had gone back to reassembling the circuit boards. “There are also… suggestions that you slapped my name on the birth certificate because the truth is the actual mother was underage at the time of her birth and you don’t want people to find out that you- well.”

“What the f- fliiiip is wrong with people?” Happy groaned. Tony agreed with sentiment exactly.

“Mommy, what does illicit mean?”

“Forbidden and wrong sweetie,” Pepper sighed tiredly, as they both realised Morgan had been paying more attention than they’d hoped. “Not you though honey. You’re not wrong or forbidden okay? Mommy’s just letting Daddy know what some mean people are wrongly saying about him, so that he can make them stop saying it.”

“We could head off some of that by giving the press the data from paternity test results I suppose,” Tony sighed after a moment, knuckling at his eye socket.

“We don’t owe them that information,” Pepper grumbled. “But yes, that’s what I was thinking of doing too. It would cut off the most viscous rumours at least. It’s just- Sometimes I just really hate how high profile our lives are.”

“Me too honey, me too” Tony huffed back. “JARVIS, FRIDAY? Do we need to actually collect and process some swabs for that, or can you fabricate the data well enough to pass muster?”

“We could fabricate it sir, but given that the resulting combined DNA profile would merely be extrapolated guesswork, it would be safer not to.”

“Morganu baby, you okay letting Daddy stick a cotton bud in your mouth for a couple of seconds when we get home?” Tony turned to ask his daughter.

“For science?”

“Yeah, for science. And I’ll teach you all about genome mapping while we are it.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.”

“Okay, fine.” Pepper groaned. “This is a gross violation of our privacy, but. Whatever. Needs must. Happy can you take Tony and Morgan home while I go let PR know the plan? I’ll call you when I’m ready to head back myself. Tony honey, if you could rustle up some jaw dropping personal tech that we can announce this week too, that would be appreciated. Maybe people will keep their noses out of our personal lives if they’re busy watching Steve Jobs flail in panic.”

“Sure thing boss,” Tony saluted sloppily with a grin.

“Sorry babe, I keep forgetting that I’m not CEO yet.”

“Please keep forgetting,” he snickered. “Nothing hotter than a confident woman in charge.”

“Go home you ridiculous sweet-talker.”

“Yes ma’am!”

By the end of the week, Tony was ready to tear his hair out.

He really wanted to just run off to Nepal for a couple of days and bury himself him magic theory, shut out the world. But there were hoards of paparazzi camped on his doorstep and the damn DoD was calling him every two or three hours (not that he’d answered after the first time). Rhodey was stuck at Edward’s AFB being interrogated again by the brass, Pepper was over at the SI offices trying to settle in as the COO despite the intense scrutiny, and Happy was acting as her body guard because of the intense scrutiny.

Which left Tony hiding in the basement workshop with Morgan where reporters couldn’t get photos of them even if they did try to trespass. And there were some that had tried. JARVIS had taken several surveillance videos and forwarded them to the police over the last few days.

All in all, not a very good situation.

Certainly not one he could up-sticks and run away from no matter how much he wanted to.

Thankfully, Wong seemed to agree with his assessment once Tony had outlined the basics, and had stayed in Malibu to tutor him one on one instead of dragging him through a portal to Kamar-Taj. Emphasis on the seemed though; the man wasn’t exactly the talkative type, but he had a truly vast array of stoically disapproving expressions.

“Are you sure you don’t want a coffee?” Tony asked him for about the fourth time as they sat facing each other on the cold concrete floor, legs crossed and eyes closed.

Wong didn’t reply and continued metaphysically poking at Tony’s chakras. Which still made him shudder an pull faces, despite how familiar he had grown with the sensation.

“It’s really good coffee? Imported directly from Columbia, from a company I vetted the hell out of. Most of the profits go to funding young-”

“Your Root node is unbalanced Stark.”

Rolling his eyes behind his eye lids, Tony shuffled on the spot and tried to not pout too dramatically over having his rambling cut off mid sentence. Wong did that a lot. Had in his old timeline’s future too.

“Lemme guess. Too much fear, not enough grounding and security?”

“No, not enough fear. Some fear is healthy and you are suppressing yours far too much.”

“I’ll have you know that I am very afraid of a great many things thanks,” Tony mumbled back with a stiff roll of his shoulders. “Going bald, coffee bean plants going extinct, having to talk to General Ross without bitch slapping him. Morgan ever hearing me say bitch and repeating it in front of her mother.”

“I do not care what you fear, only that you deal with the emotion instead of pretending it doesn’t exist,” Wong deadpanned, poking him physically in the chest. “Get therapy, balance your nodes.”

“You are all the wrong sorts of demanding today, you know that? Heh, the Wong sort of demanding.”

Even without opening his eyes, Tony could tell Wong was staring at him flatly and unimpressed. Face a void blank of all emotion except a tinge of exasperation. A beautiful visage of apathy.

Tony smirked back at him.

Wong continued to stare at him unimpressed. Tony could feel it.

“Yeah alright, I know,” he eventually relented with a sigh. “I’m working on the whole therapy thing. Takes a lot of effort to find a therapist that you click with and is trustworthy when you’re, well, me. But there will be therapy in the near future, and lots of it. It is high on my priority list.”

“Hm. Acceptable,” Wong eventually replied, much to Tony’s relief. “Now back to the lesson. Recall the words from the principle teachings of Barzalomon and connect to your own third eye node.”

“Sure, just stroke my own energies,” Tony mumbled dis-heartedly as he tried to slip back into the state of semi-meditation he was becoming all too familiar with. “Sure wish I could work out how to do that already.”

“You think too much. Do not think, simply do.”

“Of course, turn my brain off. Simple.”

“Stop thinking.”

“I think you’re underestimating how hard that is Wonglet.”

“Stark.”

“Victor Krum.”

“You are still thinking too hard.”

“I don’t know how to stop thinking!”

“And yet if the amount of stupidity that comes out of your mouth is any indication, you manage to do it regularly.”

“Hey!” Tony snapped back with genuine annoyance. “Do not call me stupid!”

“Then prove me wrong and connect to your node.”

“I am trying to,” Tony ground out tensely. “I can feel the damn blob pulsating but it’s not like I can- Oh wait, I’m already doing it aren’t I? You bastard, I was already touching it wasn’t I!?”

Tony let his eyes blink open and shot the Master Sorcerer a truly exasperated look.

“Took you long enough to realise it,” Wong smirked back slyly. “You overthink everything, but I suspected anger would focus your mind.”

“That was not cool bro,” Tony whined as he gently prodded at his other nodes in sequence, amazed at his sudden understanding of the process. “Anger’s such a shitty method of focus. I don’t wanna go all dark side of the force!”

“There is no dark side. Only knowledge and how you use it.”

“I rescind my offer of coffee! No coffee for-! Uh what? That’s a sling ring, why are you handing me a sling ring?”

“You have discovered how to connect to your own energies, which means you can now work to focus them. Portals are opened by externalising your own energies through a sling ring. So put it on and stand up.”

Tony all but snatched the golden metal double loop out of the other man’s grasp, grinning like a loon.

“Okay, I changed my mind again. You can totally have coffee in exchanging for teaching me to open my own portals!”

Wong only sighed deeply as he also clambered to his feet.

“Vishanti help us, I pray that the Ancient One is right about you Stark.”

Chapter Text

“Come on Rhodey-Bear, visualise! The clearer the picture and all that!”

Rhodey was stood with one leg back and both his hands in the air in front of him. Tony’s sling-ring was on his left fingers and with his others, he was slowly drawing wide circles. Occasionally, orange sparks spurted from his circling hand, but nothing more substantial had happened. Yet.

Tony had every faith in his Platypus though.

“Are you sure we should be doing this without supervision?” Rhodey asked again with a frown as he shuffled slightly on his back foot.

“Okay one, I can do this myself so technically I’m qualified as supervision now,” Tony smirked back. “And two, even if you don’t trust me, JARVIS is watching.”

“You so do not count as qualified supervision,” Rhodey shook his head with his eyes wide. “And no offence J, but I’m not sure what you can do if I fuck this up.”

“I can contact the masters at Kamar-Taj directly should the need arise,” JARVIS quickly tried to reassure him, even as Tony snorted “You’re not gonna fuck this up.”

“I am so going to fuck this up,” Rhodey sighed back. Still circling his hand.

“You literally can’t fuck this up snookums. So come on, focus Rhodester! You can do it!”

“Cut his fucking head off!” Rhodey automatically finished the quote to Tony’s utter delight. “Man that film is shit, why did we watch that so many times again?”

“Drunken stupidity probably?” Tony grinned at him. “I dunno, it was the nineties. I don’t remember most of the nine- Hey! Look! Look you’re doing it!”

“Oh my god Tones, I’m fucking doing it!”

“Now you’re thinking with portals!” Tony crowed jubilantly as a second, identical orange ring of sparks suddenly sizzled into existence in the open space at the other end of the garage. “The cake isn’t a lie! Take that Glados!”

“I have no idea why the cake would be a lie or who Glados is!” Rhodey giggled hysterically back, high on success. To be fair, Tony wasn’t quite sure if that game had been released yet, and if it had, whether the resulting memes had become popular already. Damn time travel!

“Okay hold it open,” Tony ordered instead of explaining. “I’m going to throw something through to check its stability. Dum-E baby! Hand me that wrench please!”

A second later and the loud clang of metal hitting concrete echoed back to them. In stereo, given that the sound was coming both from the other end of the room and from the portal before them. Weird, if perfectly logical.

“Okay good. Now I’m gonna jump through it.”

“Tony no! Tony I said no-! And you’ve done it.”

The ring of sparks behind him fizzled into nothing as Rhodey dropped his hands a moment later and stopped looping energy through the ring and back to his nodes; that was how portals worked, and why they were the first type of magic most mystics novices mastered. You didn’t need to learn how to pull on any energy other than your own and you couldn’t overdraw or expend too much of it, as you simply created a closed circuit. Energy came out of your nodes, through your hand to power the ring, and went straight back into your nodes. No waste, no transference, no danger.

Well, there was no danger from the creation of the portal itself. You could of course, open a portal directly underwater or something equally stupid, and instantly flood your own house and drown. Or like, jump through one straight into an active volcano. Turn yourself in Kentucky Fried Human.

(Or slice things in half by snapping the portal shut on anything not all the way through. Which was just. Mildly gross and slighty horrifying.)

But you couldn’t burn out your own energy from portal slinging, and that was what was important. In Tony’s opinion anyway.

“You’re a reckless idiot and I hate you!” Rhodey yelled from the far end of the garage, clearly not agreeing.

“Love you too Pooh Bear!”

Of course the first thing they did once Rhodey had successfully managed to repeat the feat a few times, was portal straight to Tony’s room in Kamar-Taj so that they could ask the Ancient One for a couple more sling rings.

One for Rhodey, one for science.

Tony was going to scan the shit out of the thing once he had a spare, see if he could work out what made it tick. Did it have to remain a solid block or could it be segmented and reformed as he needed it? Could it be miniaturised in anyway? Did it have to have two loops and the plate? Was it hollow, did it have to be imbued with other spells, did the materials it was made from matter?

Actually it would probably be a good idea if he popped over to the library to see if they had any books on sling-ring construction before he went full tech-geek on the object. If they did, it would save him from having to work out half of that from scratch.

First though, find the Ancient One, get more rings.

Except-

“Oh balls, we forgot about the time-zone jump,” Tony groaned as soon as they stumbled out into the hallway to find only weak moonlight illuminating the stone floor and panelled walls. “Honestly, I’m the most useless genius ever!”

“It’s three in the morning here, isn’t it?” Rhodey sighed as well as he checked the smart-watch Tony had pushed on him several weeks ago. “Yep, two-fifty-five. Damn, now what?”

“…Library? I’ve got an idea I need to research.”

“As good a suggestion as any I suppose.”

Attempting to be quiet despite sniggering at each other’s banter as they walked, they quickly snuck out of the building and across the empty courtyard beyond it. Cutting through the silent dining hall, they then darted across another couple of courtyards, round the back of the tailor’s workshops, and finally hopped up the steps to the base of the cliff face the library door was set into.

The door itself creaked open quietly as Tony tentatively pushed against it a moment later, warm candlelight flooding out over them from beyond it.

The air smelled as it always did as they stepped inside the cavernous spaces. Of dust and cracked leather, incense and smoke entwined with aged paper and a low hint of metal. Of that slightly fiery crackle characteristic of warming sigils and the earthy note of the hot, dry rock beneath them. And of the faint residue of a thousand cups of herbal tea drunk gratefully over scarred wooden desks and between ancient wooden shelves.

Tony had actually been utterly loathe to enter the library in his first week of studying in Kamar-Taj. Because no matter how you tried to dress it up, the spaces that made it up were just interconnected caves and tunnels that wove back deep into the mountains. And it didn’t need saying that Tony and caves were not friends.

But when Rhodey had eventually cajoled him in, Wong trudging grumpily behind them having been bullied into promising to portal them out immediately if Tony freaked, he’d been totally fine. Once he was actually inside – other than the occasional stretch of bare rock wall – the place rather blessedly did not look at all like a cave system. Like, really not at all.

So now he kinda loved being in it. Despite the heinous lack of technology.

(He was working on that. The Ancient One and a lot of the Masters actually seemed pretty interested in his proposed upgrades shockingly enough. Mordo had even joked about them not being savages.)

“Hello?” Tony whispered loudly as they crept further inside. “Anyone here? Master Yeong?”

There was no reply.

“You’d think with having Sanctums and temples all over the world, they’d be more of a twenty-four hour sort of organisation,” Tony pondered quietly as they padded towards the main desk and let the door swing shut behind them. “I mean, there’s quite a lot of disciples right? Even more novices and apprentices. And it’s not like inter dimensional heeby-jeebies care that it’s the ass-crack of the morning in Nepal specifically when they breach into our universe.”

“I think the lack of respect heeby-jeebies have for human sleep cycles is exactly why everyone here is in bed,” Rhodey shrugged in response. “These guys all go get some shut eye while the various sanctums hold the fort. Then Kamar-Taj wakes up to take over just as New York is closing up shop. Besides, it’s not like they can’t just portal to wherever in an emergency regardless of where they call home.”

“You present a valid hypothesis,” Tony grinned at him as he double checked the coast was clear. Realising that the Librarian, Master Yeong, really did seem to be absent, he skirted round the front desk and immediately beelined for the side room that housed the limited selection of reference books. There weren’t very many of them and they only covered a small portion of the temple’s collection so usually people just asked Yeong or another elder master to point them in the right direction, but a) Yeong wasn’t here right now, and b) Librarians had opinions on what Novices should and shouldn’t be reading that Tony really didn’t care for.

“I’m full of valid hypotheses,” Rhodey smirked back as he trailed after Tony without a single complaint regarding the sort-of rule breaking they were committing. “So what are we looking for?”

“Anything on sling-rings we can find. Specifically crafting or related spell theory.”

“What, you gonna try reinvent the wheel?”

“I’m gonna try and upgrade the wheel and attach it to our gauntlets.”

“…Okay that sounds pretty badass,” Rhodey grinned evilly as he headed for the nearest bookcase.

Tony spun his personal sling ring around one finger, leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk of his SI office. A pile of half-completed paperwork was stacked haphazardly next to his crossed ankles, a fountain pen discarded atop it, and the much-improved computer that Morgan had built for him this week was whirring away behind it.

He was ignoring all of that though, in favour of conversing with JARVIS via his hologram sunglasses.

The AI had just informed him that his blood-toxicity level was now only a few days away from entering the no-longer-ignorable stage. The max saturation of heavy metals that his kidneys and liver could deal with unaided was about to be breached. The point beyond which, his health would start to degrade and his cognitive abilities begin to be impaired.

Which meant he had to make a decision regarding the Arc-Reactor Remark-III. More specifically, how he was going to get the Vibranium it would need.

Sure, he could just scrap the design and downgrade the device, revert to something more like the Remark-II he was currently wearing, just without the toxic core. But he was Tony fucking Stark so why go for a half-measure when full-tilt was within his grasp?

“Yeah I agree J,” he frowned as he flicked over the pros and cons list displaying off to his right. “SI is in too much of a state of transition right now to try and out-politic Wakanda, and while I know we could go tip-toeing through their servers without getting caught if we had to, I’d rather not risk it until I have the hardware ready to turn you quantum. Also their level of tech is so good that it just wouldn’t be polite to break it using time-travel-ex-machina, would it?”

“Because you’re usually so concerned about manners sir,” JARVIS replied dryly, removing the related data from view.

“Only for those who deserve them! Alright hit me with the other plan’s deets then.”

A moment later and Tony’s plan-B expanded across the room, opening up like a concertina as files and lists and ideas unfolded. A wireframe map took centre stage, slowly loading over with satellite imagery as JARVIS shamelessly pilfered the photos from both Google and the DoD’s databases.

(Repurposing SI’s own satellite network for uses not relating to missile guidance was already underway, but a lot of the bigger upgrades and changes were waiting on Tony actually getting himself or a team up into orbit to do the work. God, his to-do list for the next couple of years was ridiculous.)

Everything came to a whirling stop as a single, blinking blue dot labelled with coordinates popped into existence on the edge of the Arctic shelf, just above Eastern Russia.

The location of Captain America. And more importantly to Tony right now, his solid Vibranium frisbee. Which was just begging to be melted down for parts; Tony could totally make him a new one at a later date anyway, once he’d found the time to cozy up to his royal pantherness.

Clapping his hands together after twirling his sling-ring one last time, Tony dropped his feet back to the floor and made another decision.

“J, ask SMART and FRIDAY if Rhodey and Pep are free to talk please; looks like we’re going on an icy adventure!”

Chapter Text

It had only been ten days since his first successful attempt and Tony was already beginning to wonder how the hell he had managed without portals all his life. They were just so incredibly convenient!

First off, he could now get out of his house and passed the swarm of reporters that were still camped on his lawn without them noticing. It meant he could maintain a degree of privacy no matter how observant they tried to be, which was important when you were responsible for a five year old. It meant that he could pop out with his friends and family for a coffee or a quick run to the grocery store without being hounded or followed.

Secondly, he could now get to and from Kamar-Taj without having to treat the Masters like they were a glorified taxi service. Once, that wouldn’t have bothered him in the slightest, but he liked to think he’d grown as a person and was much less of the entitled brat he’d been raised to be.

And thirdly, they allowed him to do things like this. Namely, jump directly to where Rogers should be with no one the wiser. Hopefully.

Obviously, a whole lot of planning had taken place before he’d slung open a portal to the Arctic circle. For one thing, ice moves over time. So Tony had the coordinates of where Steve had been found in late 2010 memorised, but it wasn’t 2010 yet. The downed Valkyrie probably hadn’t shifted into that position yet, so he and JARVIS had spent hours studying geoscience data and running algorithms in order to work out where the ship would probably be in the here and now. Eventually, they narrowed it down to a square forty miles, which would hopefully put them close enough for Tony’s raft of detection gizmos to work.

(The tesseract had been used on that ship, which should have left faint radiation trails. They could also try getting a lock on the Vibranium of the shield using the wonders of Rocket’s alien mass spectrometry, and if all else failed, a good old fashioned giant metal detector should find the Valkyrie itself.)

While Tony had been organising the actual locating of the ship though, Rhodey and SMART had been combing through dozens of medical journals while Pepper and FRIDAY got a small but cutting-edge hospital room set up in the back of the basement workshop. It would do them no good to haul the Capsicle out of the ice only for him to die on them because they defrosted him too carelessly.

And well, they had to know how to help the lumbering blonde dope once he did wake up too. The idea was to introduce him to the future gently this go round, not repeat SHIELDRA’s bumbling and traumatic shock therapy.

The three of them were admittedly still hilariously underqualified for that endeavour no matter how much reading they tried to cram in, but anything was better than letting the secret spy nazis get their claws into the man again. Which is what would happen the second they tried to bring in outside help.

But they had planned as best they could and now Tony was in the Ironman armour, slowly roving back and forth over the snow and ice so he could try and home in on the tiny blip his radiation detector had finally picked up.

“Give me another cross-coordination with SMART’s readings,” Tony asked JARVIS as he banked in another handful of degrees and shrunk his search radius another half-mile.

“SMART informs me that Mister Rhodes has almost finished covering the southern quarter sir, with no signal located. Adjusting search parameters accordingly results in a remaining five square mile area. Providing central coordinates now.”

“Rhodey? You get that?”

“Yeah I heard Tones. I’ll meet you there in a moment.”

Turning in the air slowly, he coasted over the almost featureless ice at a leisurely pace, ensuring he was below radar level at all times. As small as the suits were, they shouldn’t blip on anyone’s scans, but it was better safe than sorry. So low and steady was the name of the game.

In just over a minute, he was flaring to a stop next to the Thunderstruck armour, which was glinting in the weak sunlight. Black and silver with two red lightening motifs down either side, Rhodey’s armour was otherwise the twin of his own. Well it had a larger and more triangular reactor in the centre of the chest plate, as it was embedded in the armour and not Rhodey himself, but otherwise, they looked like that celebrity power couple that wore matching outfits everywhere and killed it every time.

(Tony had to resist the urge to crow slaaaay bitch every time they suited up together.)

“Recalibrating parameters further based on passive readings while in transit sir,” JARVIS piped up again, the highlighted area on his HUD map shrinking even further. “It would seem that the ship is now within one mile of your location sirs.”

“How much of that mile is downwards though?” Rhodey asked as he hovered easily in place.

“Based on current signal interference, ooo about 60 to 70 metres I’d say?” SMART answered him promptly, Scottish accent rolling through their suit speakers crisply.

“Just over 200 foot then,” Tony converted quickly. “Alright so we already flew here from north and south, so you go east and I’ll go west?”

“Yeah and then circle clockwise if we reach the perimeter.”

They nodded at each other and then separated again, backs to each other as they flew. Keeping an even pace again, he let JARVIS control the sensor array that he’d mounted on his shoulder, watching with one eye as the raw data flitted across the top right side of his HUD. The more he watched it, the more he was sure that the already pitiful radiation level was dropping even further. Damn, that was the opposite of what he want-

“I think I got it!” Rhodey suddenly yelled over their comm link. “Ice is too thick to see anything visually, but the radiation is definitely peaking here and there’s a small magnetic and gravity anomaly right under me. Gotta be caused by a mass density right?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes,” Tony grinned as he quickly did an about turn and shot back the way he’d come. “How does it feel to be the man who found Captain America?”

It took them four hours to carefully slice through the ice down to the ship’s hull, and then another three to carve Rogers out and transport him back to California without jostling him too much or damaging any of the ship.

And then when they’d managed that, Tony spent yet another hour carefully removing any trace that they’d ever been there. The possibility that anyone would find the Valkyrie before 2010 again was positively minute, but it was best not to leave anything to chance. Butterfly effect and all that, and Tony had certainly made enough changes this go round that even the smallest wave might uncontrollably grow to something large.

But by the middle of the night CA time, Rogers was laid out on the garage floor, quite literally defrosting.

Pepper had taken Morgan up to bed hours ago and Rhodey was now asleep on the workshop couch, leaving Tony to keep a silent vigil over the man alone. Sipping occasionally at one his gross green chlorophyll smoothies, he quietly contemplated the possible repercussions of the mess he was probably wading neck deep into here.

“I’m giving you a chance here spangles,” he muttered at the growing pool of melt water. “You get a fresh start, an opportunity to adjust to the twenty-first century without SHIELD and Hydra whispering in your ear, giving you super biased preconceived notions of me. But I swear by Tesla himself, if you turn into a raging liar and hypocrite again despite me saving your frosty ass from Nazi manipulation, I will not stop Pepper from caving your chest in with your own frisbee this time. And she really wanted to do that after Siberia bud, so just like. Don’t.”

He paused, taking another swig of his disgusting green slush.

“Okay, good talk Stevie. Glad we had this chat. J? You up?”

“For you sir, always.”

“Sweet. Bring up the Stark OS files, lets see if we can begin to send Microsoft Windows to an early grave.”

There was a six foot blonde super solider poking at his microwave like it was the most fascinating thing in existence.

Tony was very glad he got to film all of this. It would make excellent blackmail material in a few years once the man had grown used to the 21st century.

“And you just- put food in here, press the start button and it cooks?”

“Pretty much,” Tony bit his tongue, trying so hard not to laugh. “You know, although microwave ovens didn’t become common household items until the 1970s, they were actually invented in the 1940s. So technically they’ve been around almost as long as you have.”

“Here, you can try it with this!” Morgan bounced up to him, a paper bag of instant popcorn in one hand. Steve had taken to her immediately, which had honestly saved Tony one hell of a headache. Whenever Steve started to look overwhelmed or panicky, he just had to set Morgan on him, and her happy childish babble calmed him right down. She was like super soldier Xanax or something.

But also oh boy, his and Steve’s first meeting had gone so much better this time round.

Gently telling the super soldier right off the bat that he was sixty-four years in the future and not trying to pretend otherwise had done wonders for his attitude towards Tony. As had Rhodey handing him a paper file full of information on most his old WWII buddies as soon as they’d gotten some food and drink into him.

Turns out, being blatantly honest and openly supportive lead to gaining the man’s immediate trust. Like Tony had said before, Roger’s one big fault was that he formed an opinion and then stuck to it come hell or high water. Only this time Tony was going to make sure he formed those opinions based on factual and non-biased information.

Okay, so the information was a little biased. Can’t blame a man for trying to make a good first impression though, and Tony felt he was allowed to hide his many failings for a little while given that SHIELD had done the exact opposite in the original timeline. And yeah, dropping the reality of Barnes’ sticky situation on Steve’s head right now would just be outright cruel, so he was keeping mum on that one for at least another week too.

(Pepper and Rhodey had made him promise to wait, even though it made him feel like a scummy hypocrite)

“Oh uh, is that alright Mr Stark?”

“Seriously, you are allowed to use my first name,” Tony repeated with an easy smile for what felt like the billionth time. “Yes, you can make popcorn. Go wild, have fun.”

“Thanks Daddy!” Morgan chirped cheerfully as she shoved the bag into Steve’s hands. Steve looked down at it blankly for a moment, but then turned and tentatively began to push the machine’s buttons, following Morgan’s exuberant instructions. Soon enough, they had it going, both of them leaning forward to listen for the start of the popping.

“Hey honey,” Pepper unexpectedly greeted him from his left shoulder just as the duo in front of him exclaimed over the first burst. “Everything okay here?”

“Hmm? Oh hey, I wasn’t expecting you back from work already. Yeah though, everything’s fine. We’re learning about modern kitchen appliances right now.”

“So I see! Hey sweetheart, you helping Steve cook something?”

“Mommy! We’re making popcorn! Daddy said we could!”

“Daddy did say you could,” Tony smiled back at his daughter when she looked at him for confirmation. “Have you told Stevie how the microwave works yet? Because I’m sure he’d like to know.”

“Microwaves use microwaves!” she giggled. “Which are part of the e-lec-tro-magnetic specturm! They’re uh, medium frequency waves with about 3cm gaps between the peaks, and they give the water molecules in the food ‘nough energy to vibrate faster which makes them warm up. And that makes the food warm up!”

“Top marks kiddo, a solid A+!”

“Gosh, your kid is smart Mr Stark,” Steve shook his head in fond disbelief. “I asked her about the moon landing earlier and she just did a load of math in her head even faster than I can!”

“Gets it from her father,” Pepper smirked as she dropped a kiss on Tony’s jaw and then headed for the coffee maker. “Which thankfully means he can keep up with her when she starts doing trigonometry and calculus, ‘cause I sure as hell can’t.”

“I like geometry!” Morgan giggled up at them, her hands clasped in front of her and her head tilted back. She was grinning like a loon, eyes bright and her knees bouncing excitedly. “Pi is the bestest number!”

“I’m sorry, I think you’ll find that j is the best number,” Tony refuted, knowing exactly how she’d react.

“That’s not a real number!” Morgan instantly protested loudly; she really had it in for complex and imaginary parts. “It’s fake and made up! It’s uh, illicit! Stupid square roots!”

“Ignore them,” Pepper told Steve dryly. “They have this argument at least once a week.”

“That’s because Daddy is wrooooong,” Morgan moaned dramatically, stomping a tiny foot. “Tell my Daddy he’s wrong Stevie!”

When Roger’s face flushed bright red and he stumbled over an awkward denial, Tony decided that yeah. Yeah he could do this. He could be friends with Captain America again.

It was a new timeline after all. Second chances all round.

Chapter Text

August slowly passed into September and then October.

Tony and Rhodey finished clearing up Afghanistan – assisting charities like the red cross just as much as coordinating strikes with the US Air Force. Then they moved onto other neighbouring countries experiencing unrest, concentrating on any groups that had been illegally sold Stark weapons. Wherever possible, they captured rather than killed, using their still-growing media clout to ensure that anyone that was detained was sent to a humanitarian de-radicalisation centre rather than spirited off to some military black-site, never to be seen again.

And when they weren’t darting round the middle east, they split their time between Stark Industries and Kamar-Taj.

Things on the magic front had been a little touch and go for a week or so, considering that Tony was now hiding Captain America in his basement. But Steve had been eagerly lapping up information as fast as Tony could give it to him, so after covertly speaking to the Ancient One, he’d taken a risk and just told the man he was secretly a baby wizard.

Steve, still inclined to treat even the most mundane of modern technology like it was magic, had barely even blinked at the revelation.

You have fully sentient robot people living in your house, Cap had shrugged easily. And honestly magic is a little easier to wrap my head around than even the mere concept of the internet.

Which okay, fair. The internet probably was more than a little “out there” to someone who still thought landline telephones were a cutting edge luxury only for rich people.

But yes, with magic an open secret in la casa di Stark once more, Tony and Rhodey had gratefully gone back to practising their kata foundations in the garage and hopping over to Nepal for a couple of days at a time. Steve would occasionally watch them wave their arms around to create glowing sigils in the air, but mostly he was more interested in devouring the entire contents of Wikipedia with JARVIS’ wry commentary helping him along.

They’d settled into an easy rhythm over the last couple of months, the group of them.

It was therefore entirely predictable that a certain pirate spy's minion would crop up wielding a spanner to throw in the works.

“Now just lean forward and let gravity roll you over,” Rhodey was instructing Steve, teaching him how to rotate round one of the gymnastic parallel bars Tony had bolted to the floor in the back corner of the workshop.

Tony was listening with half an ear while poking away at a holographic diagram, working with JARVIS to parse and evaluate the geotechnical data they’d collated for the mansion’s foundations and the cliff below. Explode a man’s house once, shame on AIM. Explode it a second time, shame on Tony for not exploring mitigation plans before hand. Plus, even without all the cars inside, the workshop and garage were getting pretty ridiculously crowded now, what with all the fabrication units and gym equipment squashed in around the workbenches and suit testing platforms.

So it wouldn’t hurt to excavate another couple of underground rooms further back into the cliff. Or maybe another sublevel, turn this place into a proper little bat-cave.

Heh, he could even build a secret door or two behind a bookcase. That would be entertaining.

“Fuck,” Steve groaned loudly as he failed to bring his legs back up on the upswing of his roll and tumbled to the crash mat below instead, pulling Tony back out of his silent musings.

“Language!” he yelled over at the two soldiers gleefully. “Young ears may be listening!”

“Morgan’s at kindergarten until lunch time and you know it!” Rhodey shouted back as Steve spat out a laugh from where he was sprawled out ungainly.

“Ickle baby DUM-E is literally right there,” Tony pointed at the curious bot. Armed with an empty blender for some reason, the AI’s arm claw swivelled round to face Tony as soon as he registered that his name had been spoken, and he trilled an enthusiastic sequence of beeps and swivelled on the spot a little.

“DUM-E is seventeen, almost legally an adult” Rhodey crossed his arms with a pointedly raised eyebrow. “And I know he cusses regularly even if it is tonal beeping.”

“Such slander! He is but a small innocent child!” Tony gasped mock-dramatically, one hand moving to cover his new coconut flavoured arc-reactor.

DUM-E nodded his arm in laughing agreement, his beeping a perfect imitation of childlike purity. Tony knew it was a facade – for all his simplicity, clumsiness and actual child-like learning abilities, the bot was much more knowledgable than he let on. But it was funny, so Tony always let him get away with it.

U, on the other hand, was a walking (rolling) disaster. Bless their mechanical heart, but they really were as dumb as a bag of rocks. Tony loved them all the same though, and wouldn’t change them for the world.

But it was why U spent a lot of time sweeping already clean sections of floor or re-stacking already organised boxes while DUM-E actually got to help out with assembly and building. He didn’t want U to feel neglected, so-

“Sir, an individual I have identified as Philip Coulson is attempting to override the rear gate locking mechanism,” JARVIS suddenly announced, dry sarcasm laden in his tone. “He appears to have a device designed to incapacitate digital entities on his person as well, though he has yet to activate it.”

“That the SHIELD agent who keeps requesting debrief meetings with you?” Rhodey asked sharply, already snapping to alertness and pulling Steve to his feet.

“Yeah, must have denied him about four times now,” Tony answered quickly as he pulled up the feed from the house’s rear external cameras. “Pepper’s had to bounce his calls twice as well.”

“He one of the Hydra infiltraters?” Steve questioned darkly.

“Probably not,” Tony shook his head. After a beat of consideration, he then indicated to JARVIS to let the agent think he’d succeeded in breaking through the gate, allowing it to click open with a faked power-out. “But he’s not one of the ones I’ve managed to confirm either way yet so be on your guard.”

(In reality, Coulson had been dead for a couple of years before the whole data dump disaster, so Tony had chosen not to check; some of the team had been close with him, and he hadn’t want to tarnish memories unnecessarily. He was pretty damn sure Coulson was clean, but more fool him not to be cautious regardless.)

“That the device J?” Rhodey queried, jogging over to Tony’s side with Steve on his tail. Displayed in full colour in the hologram, the camera feeds showed the man fiddling with a black box about the size of a coffee mug, one side covered with a small screen and a multitude of toggles and switches.

“I’m detecting a high frequency electromagnetic pulse emitting from it, and a transmission signal wrapped within it broadcasting a complex BASH script. It seems to be attempting to exert a sudo shut down command on my local instance.”

“It’s bouncing off the firewalls completely harmlessly, don’t worry,” Tony added with a gesture towards the relative display of protective code when Rhodey’s expression twisted. “Right then, any ideas what we should do with off-brand-Bond? Because as entertaining as watching him fail spectacularly is, he’s still on our back patio.”

“Tony, gather up all the magic books and scrolls we have down here and portal them over to Nepal,” Rhodey ordered, jumping into command mode. “JARVIS, make this agent dude think he’s starting to get somewhere, but don’t let him in until I give the word. Rogers, sorry for the abruptness buddy, but I need you to decide whether you want to continue hiding your existence or not. Much safer for you to stay under the radar, but it’s your life so it's your call.”

“I think I’ll go to Nepal with the magic books,” Steve grimaced as he turned and rushed to grab any of his personal affects that were lying about. “If this SHIELD organisation are as much Hydra as you said, then I don’t trust myself not to fly off the handle at them and ruin all your plans, not when they have Bucky held prisoner somewhere.”

“Notepad!” Tony pointed out to the Captain as he hastily shoved a pile of parchment and ink into a plastic box. Darting across to Rhodey’s main work desk, he then haphazardly pushed all of his best mate’s notes in as well, dropping a worn copy of Magnus Varium II atop the mess before glancing round to check he hadn’t missed anything.

It didn’t look like he had.

“Got it, thanks Tony. Anyone seen my smaller sketchpad?”

“Over by the nanite foundry! It’s the half built big black round thing by the industrial sink!”

“Is now a good time to ask what nanites are?” Steve huffed in amusement as he pivoted and ran over to the left wall, his arms full of pencil tins, notebooks, a StarkPad, and a couple of discarded jackets.

“Sorry, nope,” Tony popped the p, shoving his sling-ring on while trying to balance the half full box against a table with his hip. Finally getting his fingers through the double loop, he pushed his left palm outwards and quickly whipped a single circle through the air with his free right hand. As soon as the ring of orange sparks appeared, he re-grabbed the box, tossed it though on to his Kamar-Taj bed, and gestured to Steve to hop on through after it.

“Still so cool,” Steve whispered as he slipped around him and ducked through the portal.

“Try to stay in my room,” Tony asked him as he adjusted his fingers to hold the crackling ring open more easily. “JARVIS has access to the computers on my desk if you want to watch the shenanigans here, there’s snacks in the mini fridge, and there’s just about enough floor space to do press ups or whatever. I’ll call you when its safe to come back.”

Steve barely had time to nod in agreement before Tony let his hands drop and the portal snapped closed.

When he looked back over to Rhodey, his best friend was pushing their more alarming bits of tech into a large metal wheeled crate, his blue holo-sunglasses covering his eyes. Jogging over to help him, Tony quickly grabbed the foam lined case that held the remaining chuck of Vibranium and tossed it in there too.

“Go, I got this,” Rhodey waved him off after they’d hauled the crate’s lid on a moment later. “Go upstairs and play angry host. And remember, we’re dumb useless newbies who know nothing.”

“Aye aye, Mr Rhodes sir,” Tony snapped out a deliberately sloppy salute, grinning at the eye roll he received in return. Then he pivoted one final time and ran for the stairs. “JARVIS, time to play dead!”

“You switched off my house!” Tony snapped as he shoved the patio doors open, only half having to act. He really was annoyed by the attempted intrusion, despite the fact he was allowing it.

“Mister Stark, I’m Agent Coulson of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.”

“That’s a stupidly long mouthful,” he growled back, ignoring the hand that was offered to him. “I’d work on that if I were you. Now turn my house back on.”

“We need to have a conversation before I’m able to do that I’m afraid; you’ve been ignoring our calls for too long.”

“Mmm no we don’t,” Tony shook his head as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I lknow you want a damn debrief, but- Hey! Where’d you think you’re going!?”

Tony could have easily held his ground as Coulson strode up to him and shouldered passed him into the kitchen – he’d really been packing on the muscle the last few months and Steve made for an excellent sparring partner – but the whole point of letting the agent onto the grounds in the first place was to make SHIELD seriously underestimate him. He wasn’t averse to making them think he was much physically weaker than he was as well hugely underplaying his tech abilities.

“Workshop this way?” Coulson only asked mildly as he ignored Tony and marched off into the hallway.

“This is some pretty serious trespassing your committing! And I have very good lawyers!”

“Well I did request a meeting at your office several times before resorting to this, Mr Stark. If you had been reasonable and accommodated us, you could have avoided this.”

“For the last time,” Tony sighed with as much exasperation as he could summon, using it to mask his urge to laugh at how clueless he was managing to pretend to be. “I have already given full debriefs regarding my escape from captivity to the DoD, the CIA, and the FBI. Petition one them if you want to know more. Jesus, it’s old news anyway now. Half of its on the fucking clear web for god’s sake.”

“We have additional questions regarding the Ironman and Thunderstruck armours,” Coulson continued blithely on, pausing to peer up the stairs to the first floor. After a moment, his eyes darted away, skipping over the water feature beneath the steps and alighting on the open doorway that lead down into the garage.

“And I care because?”

“It’s in your best interest to care.”

Winking up at one of JARVIS’ cameras behind the agent’s back, Tony made a show of protesting loudly as he then followed the man down towards the “unlocked” glass security door. Ordinarily it would have remained completely dead bolted even there was a total power-out, but well. He was really hamming-up the useless-naive-baby superhero thing.

“Tony!” Rhodey called from somewhere deeper in the workshop as soon as Coulson had barged inside. “Any luck with the upstairs circuit breakers? I’ve reset all these ones, but everything’s still… uh who the hell are you?”

“Agent Coulson of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,” the agent repeated himself with same bland, disarming smile. “You must be Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes. Pleasure to meet you; your record speaks for itself.”

“Oooookay?” Rhodey drew out, his confusion obviously feigned to Tony’s practised eye.

“We’ve heard through the grapevine that you’ve been having some trouble with your superiors recently however,” Coulson barrelled onwards. “Concerns about your commitment and loyalty to the force?”

“So that’s none of your business,” Tony snapped quickly when Rhodey’s face rapidly smoothed blank.

Rhodey hadn’t actually said anything to him about it yet, but Tony also had his suspicions on that front. But while he’d noticed the increase in tensely whispered phone calls, and that the man had been avoiding Edwards AFB far more than usual, he’d been content to let his Platypus come to him in his own time. Rhodey was a grown ass adult, he was entitled to take a stab at fixing his own problems before asking for help.

Coulson only half-shrugged though, before stepping round them both and meandering further into the garage. Rhodey had, Tony was glad to see, managed to hide most of the rest of what was actually wired up in the few minutes he’d been alone, so when the agent picked up a hotrod-red shoulder plate, turning it to inspect it, all he saw were the empty piston sockets moulded underneath.

“Your armoured suits are impressive, but as I said, we have some questions and concerns.”

“Good for you, still don’t care.”

“What are your long term goals? Once you’ve finished attempting to stabilise the middle east, what do you-?”

“What part of “do not care” are you not understanding?” Tony cut over him. “Cause it’s a pretty straight forward statement. Right Rhodey?”

“Sure is brother.”

Coulson silently raised an eyebrow.

Tony raised both his back, smirking hard.

“You’re going to need official oversight if you wish to continue carrying out combat missions,” Coulson eventually continued with a restrained sigh as he dropped the shoulder plate and picked up a box of processing chips instead. They were only StarkPhone prototype ones – and blank ones at that – but Tony still resented the blatant snooping. “We can offer you contracts that will keep you both legally in the clear.”

“Got the US Air Force and DoD for that, so no thanks,” Rhodey snorted.

“You have them for now. But as I said, for how much longer? Offer’s on the table and you’d be wise to take it seriously. Here’s my card for when you realise you need us.”

“Never gonna need you,” Tony grinned viciously back at him.

Coulson shrugged blandly again and placed the business card on the table.

“Sir, I may have slightly hacked Agent Coulson’s phone while he was on the premises,” JARVIS admitted twenty minutes later.

Tony and Rhodey had both taken great pleasure in escorting the man out, pushing him out the front door into the arms of two waiting police officers. They both knew nothing would come of it, but it had been satisfying to watch nevertheless.

“Wait, seriously?” Tony’s head snapped up.

“Indeed sir. The device’s firewalls were really quite pitiful when faced with the upgrades you have continued to gift me with recently.”

“You remotely hacked his phone just by having him in the building?”

“What, like it’s hard?” JARVIS played the sound clip from Legally Blonde.

Tony sputtered into incredulous laughter.

“If I might add sir, he’s currently having a most interesting call with Director Fury regarding you. Would you like me to play it though my speaker network, or print you a transcript?”

“Oh my god, I love you,” Tony wiped at his eyes. “Yeah play it J, let’s have a good laugh shall we?”

Chapter Text

“Standard star six through to Tamara’s point Mr Stark, and then repeat at ninety degrees,” the Ancient One instructed him, her arms crossed behind her back as she watched him intently.

“Uh, clockwise or counter?”

“Which do you think?” she raised an eyebrow at him. Sort of. She didn’t actually have any eyebrows, but the expression was the same regardless.

“It’s an Astral Surface Manipulation incantation, so I guess Hamm’i law applies?” he asked tentatively as he squared his shoulders and stepped into the starting position of the requested kata. “So counter?”

“Very good,” she nodded serenely. “Begin.”

Dropping his right foot back sharply, he swivelled both hands in an eye-level arc, two fingers raised on either side, and then jabbed both downwards towards the wooden slats of the floor. Left foot then moving to the second star-point, he lowered his right knee along with it, ending in a lunge with both hands out sideways, parallel to his shoulders.

When he swept his hands back to the central point before his chest, a ball of deep red light burst into existence at the tips of his fingers.

As he then kept moving, stepping through the kata with well practised ease, the ball drew out into glistening lines, swirling along their edges as they formed. A six pointed mandala began to take shape, circles overlapping squares with precise geometric symmetry as it rotated slowly in the air.

Reaching the Tamara point, he tipped forward onto the ball of his front foot, pivoted smoothly until he was at a sharp right angle, and dropped his right foot back to begin again.

The glowing sigil spun with him and as he flowed through the kata a second time, the same shapes began to form atop it but thirty degrees rotated. The end result as he completed the set was a twelve pronged pentagram filled with overlapping arcs and tight acute angles.

He pulled his right shoulder all the way back and then slammed his palm forwards into its centre to activate it.

“Visualise!” the Ancient One called over the sudden roar of rushing air, still calm and controlled despite the snapping of her pale cream robes. Tony solidified the image in his mind’s eye, letting the astral energy wrap around it as it flowed through him and out through his extended arm.

Slowly, the walls of the Ancient One’s meeting hall began to grind backwards, the floor and ceiling wavering as they expanded to fill the created gaps. Another row of support pillars spiralled down as the space continued to expand, and even the long woven rug stretched to match the new dimensions.

With a final creaking rumble, the room slid to a stop, the joining structures solidified, and the mandala burst into a shower of sparks. And on the middle of the wall he was still facing, a small replica of the sigil scorched itself into the wood panelling, glowing hotly for a second before settling into dull stasis.

“Not bad,” the Ancient One tilted her head with a small smile. “Was the gale force wind really necessary though?”

“Is that… not supposed to happen?” Tony pouted, ducking his head sheepishly. He’d thought it was pretty cool actually, but then he did have a flair for the dramatic.

“I suspect you included additional air to fill the new space as part of your visualisation,” she speculated. “Not something most people would even consider, let alone subconsciously incorporate. No matter, we can work on refining your mental element projections at a later date. For now, let’s inspect your holding sigil and ensure it will not shatter or burn out unexpectedly.”

While September through to November had seemed to crawl on by, December appeared out of nowhere and hit them all full tilt. Tony and Rhodey had been Mystics Novices for almost six full months now, the Ironman and Thunderstruck armours had been public knowledge for five, and Stark Industries was almost through with its first phase of major restructuring.

So with everything ticking along nicely, Tony and Pepper had gotten their heads together and had a long planning discussion. Reviving the Stark Expo, breaking ground for Stark Tower, and opening the first of the high street tech stores were their main considerations. Tony was pretty loathe to admit they needed the latter, but internet sales were still a fairly new phenomena in this day and age; they needed the boost of actual footfall until they could grow the Stark company website into a commercial giant. At least there’d only be one in each major city in the states, and just in capital cities elsewhere around the world for now.

(And actually that was an idea, wasn’t it? What if they could double up as event spaces that could be used by local charities? Tech store by day, soup kitchen by night? Or a meeting centre for youth clubs? Somewhere for local-run groups to hold evening classes?)

With their own decisions made, they’d then whipped up a bunch of presentations and gone before the board. Which had then lead into dozens of smaller meetings with relevant departments and divisions, into meeting with the appropriate contractors, and into far too much business travel that had to be done by plane rather than portals for appearance’s sake.

By the time the winter holidays were about to start, Tony was about ready to crawl into bed and never get up again.

“Are you sure this is gonna work?”

“Uh no, that’s why we’re testing it on you,” Rhodey raised an eyebrow at him.

The sky was clear but there was a slight chill in the air down in the Kathmandu valley today. Tony had added another t-shirt under his white tunic and robes, while Rhodey had finally given in and swapped to a robe that actually had sleeves. Steve was flaked across a wicker-bench, dozing and enjoying what weak morning sun there was, while Morgan ran about laughingly chasing a flight of rainbow butterflies that someone had conjured for her.

Technically Tony was supposed to be in Australia right now, but after spending three exhausting days touring both the offices and factory buildings near Perth, he’d declared he needed a break and slung himself over to Nepal to meet with Rhodey and co. Privately declared. He’d told Pepper and Happy and then “locked himself in his hotel room for the day”. He’d jump back there for lunch with the branch leader and his direct underlings tomorrow morning and thus no-one would ever be the wiser.

Besides, it was only three days until Christmas. He totally deserved a break.

“Can’t you get another lab rat?” Tony complained as he tiredly tried to read through the directive scroll again. Damn thing was in Sanskrit, and while he was getting quite good at interpreting it on the fly, there were several passages he still needed the translation book for.

“Relax, I got Kaecilius to check it over last night.”

“Oh Kaecilius says it’s okay, so it must be safe,” Tony drawled back sarcastically. “You do realise that means this spell has just as much chance of turning me into a squirrel as it does making me unnoticeable right?”

“Mordo was there too bro. I’m not that stupid.”

“Ugh fine, but if I do turn into a squirrel, you’re only allowed to feed me the highest quality of organics nuts, bene?

“Your little rodent ass will be getting what you’re given,” Rhodey laughed as he settled into the first stance. “Now stand still.”

The sigil formed quite quickly as the man moved through the kata, the energy a vibrant forest green and smooth like a flow of water. There wasn’t a lot of footwork involved in this one, Tony noted as he watched, but rather a series of long sinuous hand gestures. Even when Rhodey pushed into the final activating palm shove, it wasn’t a sharp movement, but a flowing continuation of his previous gesture.

The green spell lattice swept over Tony and settled over him like a net. It almost seemed to froth as it faded, soaking into his clothes and skin with a sudden glowing surge.

A moment later, and the light was gone all together.

“Okay, so I’m still human shaped. Good start,” Tony huffed as he quickly checked himself up and down.

“That is super weird,” Rhodey blurted after several long seconds, blinking rapidly.

“What?”

“It’s really hard to look straight at you. I keep having to force my eyes to focus. And when you just spoke, it was like I just heard background noise? You know, something that you automatically tune out and ignore?”

“Huh. Not how I expected it to work, but okay.”

“Yeah, and there’s… Uh, I keep feeling like there’s something more important that I should be…”

“Rhodey? Rhodey! Hey, where are you going!?”

Not sure whether to be amused or baffled, Tony watched as Rhodey shook his head as if clearing out fog, and then began to wander off without acknowledging him any more. His eyes slid right over Tony as he strode absently passed him and over to Steve as if he were a meaningless stranger in a busy street.

“JARVIS? This effecting you too?” Tony asked apprehensively as he stared wide-eyed after his best mate.

There was no reply from his phone or his shades.

“Okay this is definitely super weird. Only lasts for about thirty minutes though right? Seriously J, can you not hear me any more?”

Still no reply. It was really rather unsettling. When he swiped his phone open, JARVIS was still happily processing away in the background, and he was still picking up all four of Tony’s tracking chips, but he was completely ignoring Tony otherwise.

“Right then!” Tony huffed disbelievingly to himself. “Thirty minutes to go engage in undetectable shenanigans! Let’s see if I can prank the Ancient One hey?”

Tony could not prank the Ancient One. Tony should not have even tried to prank the Ancient One.

As retribution for his ill-advised practical joke attempt, Tony was forced to spend the next several hours sat on the cold floor pouring over the spell’s diagram and steps. It was a useful spell in many ways, but as it was currently designed, it couldn’t be applied to the caster themselves, and couldn’t be altered to exclude people from its effects.

You cast it on someone else, and then literally nobody would pay attention to their existence for the next 28 minutes. No exceptions (unless you were the Ancient One, but that was a given).

So he was given a stern lecture on the dangers on mid-cast modifications, handed three massive dusty tomes on mandala geometry adjustments, and told to make the changes. Mostly this involved hideous amounts of maths.

And while Tony loved maths – big fan of maths, he was – oh Vishanti, there was so much maths. What on Earth had he been thinking when he’d decided learning magic was a good idea!? Honestly, if he had to mentally calculate the second derivative of a set of diminishing radii for even one more planar icosagon spiral, he was going to go (more) insane. Morgan was utterly wrong, Pi was an evil number.

(On the flip side, he continued to be utterly pleased by how scientific sorcery was once you got passed the surface impressions. Hand waving aside. Hand waving as the key to execution continued to baffle him, despite the fact he could literally do it himself now. And explain how to do it. And why.)

“Are you done yet?” Rhodey asked boredly from where he was lying on the floor next to him. Once the spell had worn off and they’d remembered that Tony was in Kamar-Taj too, he and Steve had immediately come looking for him. Steve had long since headed back to Malibu with Morgan though, while Rhodey had been press ganged by the Ancient One into double checking Tony’s calculations for him. Something about penance for always enabling Tony’s impulsive nature.

“No,” Tony replied absently, mind awhirl with vector mathematics. “Check this set of factorisation for me?”

“Oh gross, are these simultaneous in five parts? Why are there so many natural logs? Tones, this is ridiculous!”

“You have an MSc in aeronautical engineering from MIT, you’ll cope.”

“I will, but I am doing this under sufferance,” Rhodey grumbled as he grabbed the second ink pen again and settled into a state of deep concentration.

“You and me both buddy,” Tony sighed as he realised he needed to do yet another set of integrations. Fucking hell, at this rate he might as well scrap the original mandala and start from scratch. And he was starting to suspect the spiral root foundation of the sigil was…

Oh fuck it.

“What the hell is this?” Tony squinted as he and Rhodey stepped through the shimmering, shattered patch of air cautiously.

“The mirror dimension. It is the closest dimension to our own. Nothing you do here can affect the real world in any way, and I can easily manipulate the environment and bend it entirely to my will. It is therefore the perfect place to test your creation.”

“Wait, you’re actually gonna try that thing?” Rhodey goggled. “But you just said spell creation was stupendously difficult and Tony and I- well mostly Tony, but we designed it in like, four hours.”

“Almost all the of the individuals that have trained under me throughout the years have lacked your incredible talents with arithmetics and calculus. And so most people struggle to create spells because they are forced to rely on trial and error, a gradual adjustment of the angles and geometry through kata tweaks only. As you can imagine, that is extremely dangerous for all but the most accomplished of masters.”

“Are you saying we hacked the system with a little bit of number crunching?” Tony spluttered.

“Even I understand little of your methodology in this instance Mr Stark,” she smirked at him. “There is a reason those books were more dust than parchment. And I must admit, I was expecting you to give up and deem it impossible after an hour or two; normally I use those books as an object lesson on why tampering with spells you have not fully studied is foolish in the extreme.”

“Holy shit,” Tony gasped, genuinely gobsmacked.

“The holiest,” the Ancient One smiled. “Now stand back and I will try this kata of yours. And when it is successful, as I have no doubt it will be, I will then escort you to Master Kana to collect your crimson apprentice robes.”

“Ooooh the babies are getting a promotion for Christmas!” Tony boasted, turning to Rhodey for a double high five.

Chapter Text

It had taken until January 5th 2009, but Tony goddamn Stark had finally managed the impossible. After months of searching, dozens upon dozens of meetings, and one hell of a lot of frustrated sighing, he had done it.

Finally, he had found himself a therapist.

Mary Achebe was a middle aged woman of colour with three teenagers, an overenthusiastic springer spaniel, and a frankly enormous tank of tropical fish. As a single working parent, she was also all no-nonsense attitude and strong mother-bear tendencies. Honestly, within five minutes of meeting her, she was already reproaching him for being too skinny and then trying to feed him cherry pie and Nigerian butter bread.

She was also completely unafraid to cuss Tony out and call him a dumbass right to his face. Which oh boy, did Tony appreciate.

Hailing from goddamn Queens, of all places (what was it about Tony and people from Queens!?), she was a mixture of innate New York stubbornness and African-American pride and good sense. And when asked to sign a frankly disturbing raft of NDAs, not only did she do so without batting an eyelid, but a couple of them even came back with handwritten amendments that actually made them even more binding.

Honestly, Tony might have fallen a little bit in love with her if she hadn’t been one of the most terrifying people he’d ever met. He was pretty convinced she could go toe to toe with a gauntlet-wielding Thanos and win.

“Sit, sit!” she insisted as he stepped into her sunny little home office for the start of his third official appointment. “I keep telling you young man, there is no need to loiter nervously!”

“Yes ma’am!” he smirked drolly as he tucked his hands into his jeans’ pockets and swaggered over.

“The attitude on you, tsk,” she shook her head fondly. “One day my own children will strut about as cockily as you, and I will be pleased to see they do not lack for self-assurance. Now, tell me. How was your week?”

“Mostly good,” Tony shrugged as he sank into the overstuffed and obscenely comfortable purple couch. “Bit of a bad night on Wednesday, but I did take a solo shower right before going to bed.”

“Ah, your distaste for water, yes. We will work on that over time. But your work meetings? And your maths sessions with your Mister Rhodes?”

“Stark Industries this week, oh man. So I know it’s like, totally necessary to completely overhaul most of our old weapons assemblies lines in order to repurpose them, but ugh, I am so fed up with having to go an inspect them all in person before anything can be put into production. And meanwhile, I’ve got Terry Stokes – he’s the CFO – but yeah, he’s been wittering on at me all the time about us needing to make budget cuts, so we can’t have this and we can’t have that blah blah blah. Which fine! I know we have to keep our investors happy or we’ll dangerously plummet on the stock market, but it’s not like we actually lack the money to do the necessary work! We still made crazy profits the last two quarters! But when I point this out, he starts going on and on about “cutting off the excess” and “trimming the fat”. Which is just corporate bullshit talk for “I want even more money so lets make people redundant!” God I hate people with those sorts of priorities. Which I know seems hilariously hypocritical when you look at my twenties, but I’m trying to be a better person here. And even at the height of my- or well the depths of apathy would be more apt, but even then, I never fired anyone just to make more bank.”

Okay, so maybe the last week had stressed Tony out more than he had realised. Gods above, he could not wait until he could step down and not be CEO any more.

“And then on top of all that,” he continued ranting, well into his flow now. “Rhodey finds out that that the DoD have been poking round my Expo plans. Christ, I only publicly announced the damn thing last week and they’re already snooping! I don’t even know how they got a copy of the proposed security measures, but they definitely have them! The damn thing hasn’t even gotten passed initial first draft yet! And yeah, I don’t actually care that they have the basic proposed outline, but it’s the invasion of privacy you know? From the bloody government of all entities! I expect that shit from that spy organisation, not the people I’m literally working with and have contracted for for years! I’m trying not to be a paranoid bastard here, but now I gotta work out how they got my stuff so I can make sure they don’t get anything more important. Ugh, stresses me out, ya know?”

“I ask how your week was and you say “mostly okay”! Tony honey, “okay” is bullshit. You hear? Bullshit. Here, I made lemon drizzle cake. We will eat some and we can find a more truthful descriptor for your week.”

On the plus side, if Tony had thought being a mystics novice was cool and interesting, then being an apprentice was a whole other level. Suddenly he had unrestricted access to the whole library, he could pick and choose what areas of magic to study, and he was not just allowed to start an actual “research” project, but he was actively encouraged to do so!

It was rather like, Tony thought, finishing a BSc and then starting a research-based Masters degree. Just with a lot more supervision and a lot more need for caution.

Of course Tony and Rhodey both agreed that their first focus should absolutely be on sling rings. They’d poked about with them before of course, but now that they knew the key to magic innovation was ungodly amounts of maths, they were eager to try again and hopefully get results this time.

“Okay so, here it says here that the current version of the enchantment has to be cast in six stages, with the second and forth occurring on two consecutive full moons, and the last during a lightening storm? That’s a cyclical seven base, so it’s gotta line up with something elemental. Maybe refractive dimensions?”

“Why are you so much better at book research than me?” Tony complained teasingly as he prodded at their spare ring with a thin band of exploratory energy. The sigils that popped up in response didn’t give him much detail though; only part of what they’d already learnt from JARVIS’ more scientific scans.

“Because that way we’re balanced out,” Rhodey smirked back. “You do the maths, and I’ll do the reading.”

“Together, they are unstoppable,” Tony intoned deeply, posing theatrically.

“Hey, hey! And what shall we do tonight Tony?”

“Same as always Rhodey! Try to take over the world!”

“No taking over the world,” Steve told them dryly without looking away from the hologram he was stood considering. When Tony glanced over to shoot him a grin, he was playing with the colour schemes of Rhodey’s latest armour upgrade, moving the black and silver between different panels and making notes. Having an in-house artist was really useful sometimes, Tony mused; he and JARVIS had always had to make it up as they went along before.

Not that they had done a bad job, but still. An actual artist was better.

“SMART, add Pinky and the Brain to Steve’s pop culture education list,” Rhodey bit his lower lip in amusement. “Oh and Danger Mouse as well, before I forget.”

“You know, they’re going to reboot that in 2015,” Tony hummed quietly to Rhodey as he gave up with the magical scans and decided to resort to some good old fashioned MEMS sensors. The faster he could upgrade to decent NEMS, the happier he would be, but he needed to finish the nanite foundry first to get the quality he wanted. Sure IBM had been refining that sort of nano tech since the turn of the millennium, but Tony was so out of 2009 IBM’s league. The MEMS were good in enough in the meantime.

“Does Hollywood become completely incapable of innovation in the next ten years or something?”

“Feels like it,” Tony grumbled back. And then loud enough for Steve to hear again, he added. “I’m going to open and close a bunch of portals using different node outputs in a minute, so stay off of the suit grids unless you want to risk being sliced in half!”

Steve simply waved a hand behind him in acknowledgement and carried on working, while Rhodey perked up and quickly zipped over to the scanner array screens. Resisting the urge to laugh at them both, Tony then stepped into the middle of the array and pulled his sling ring on.

“Okay, honey bunch, I’m gonna go from top down. Same draw every time, so the levels should theoretically be consistent. J, juice ‘em up!”

As the equipment came to life around him, he focused in on his crown chakra only and began to loop the energy flow through his fingers. Flicking his wrist in a nice tight circle, a shoulder height portal then zipped open with its usual crackling fizz of orange sparks over on the armour testing stage. After holding it for five seconds, JARVIS beeped once at him, and he cut the flow off and snapped the portal close.

A second beep, and he repeated the process with his third eye node.

“Looking good,” Rhodey commented after he’d done the throat and heart nodes as well. “Noticeably less steady than using a combined flow, but pretty consistent otherwise. I think there’s a minor difference in energy density sometimes, but I’m only looking at the raw data and we’ll need a lot of repeats to… woah okay, that one’s much stronger!”

“Plexus node,” Tony grunted, trying to wrangle down the overeager flow a little. “My primary alignment according to the Ancient One.”

“Oh cool, mine’s third eye. Intuition, service, imagination and all that.”

“Listen to us,” Tony snorted as he reset for the second to last node. “We sound like astrology wine moms discussing the benefits of healing crystals or whatever.”

“Oh god, I was speaking to Master Zondulious just before new year and it turns out all that crystal healing bullshit isn’t actually bullshit when you have access to dimensional energy? The whole discipline of healing mystics is largely based around crystal resonances.”

“You’re shitting me,” Tony groaned in pained disbelief. “Really? Crystals?”

“Don’t worry, it still involves a lot of science,” Rhodey laughed at him. “The sect is based out at the London Sanctum and they make you get both a geology degree and pre-med or human bio before they’ll agree to train you.”

“Damn, that’s demanding. I guess that’s why there’s so few of them. Okay, last portal, root node sparks incoming.”

“Data collection complete sir,” JARVIS announced as Tony flicked the last portal shut. “Compiling and analysing now. I shall integrate it with previous tests and have a series of tables and charts for you within the hour sir.”

“Sweet,” Tony clapped his hands. “So if we need some lightning for this enchantment, do you think it has to be a legit natural thunderstorm or can we just shove a sling ring in a tesla cage and zap it a few times?”

Rhodey zipped back and forth to the Kamar-Taj library a few times and gathered a load more books. Two hours later he declared it had to be an honest-to-gods thunderstorm. Probably.

“Wait, did you say honest-to-gods?” Tony blurted as he parsed that information.

“Yeah, it has to be a natural storm.”

“No but, honest-to-gods? As in we could get Thor to zap stuff for us? Well when he arrives anyway, which should be six months from now if I’m remembering correctly. Time travel, not good for the memory.”

“I’m sorry, what now?” Steve interrupted, with a very confused expression. “Time travel? Did you say Thor, as in the Norse god?”

“Ah,” Tony replied succinctly. Fuck.

Chapter Text

“So the time travel was magic?” Steve scratched his head as he peered at the cobbled together timeline that JARVIS was helpfully projecting for them.

“I uh, don’t really know?” Tony shrugged back awkwardly. “I always worked from the basis that the stones were just technology advanced enough that to us they appeared to work like magic. Except at the time, the only thing I knew about magic was that it existed and Wong and Loki could do it. Oh and a dude named Strange, but I only met him about six hours before he got dusted.”

“Right,” Steve said slowly. “So you’re saying you came to that conclusion based on assumptions that you have since been… given reason to reevaluate?”

“Pretty much,” Tony sighed. “And what does not help, is that based on Pym Tech’s new understanding of the quantum realm, I also invented actual scientific time travel. That’s what happened here,” he pointed to the end of the line where it looped back on itself temporarily. “We had to jump back into the past to recollect the infinity stones before Thanos destroyed them. Which linearly happened-”

“Five years before, right after the snap thingy,” Steve finished his sentence with wide eyes.

“Yeah. Hence the… time heist.”

Steve scrubbed his hands up and down his face.

“I am so glad you’re not making me learn magic too,” the Captain groaned roughly. “This is making my head hurt, I don’t know how Rhodey copes.”

“Twenty-four years of exposure therapy!” Rhodey yelled from somewhere over the other side of garage. Tony could hear the laughter in his tone of voice, and so resisted the urge to shout something offensive back.

“Yeah also, I’m kinda dumping a lot of earth-shattering revelations on you at once,” he smiled sheepishly at Steve instead.

Steve sighed tiredly again, looking at Tony a little despairingly.

“We’re not going to have to do more time travelling any time soon though, are we?”

“No,” Tony reassured him. “If all goes to plan, we won’t have to do any time travelling period. And we’re years before it even becomes a possibility.”

“Got all this here to worry about first I suppose,” Steve waved a hand over the left end of the line, where the events of 2009 and ‘10 were clustered. “Three things in one week at the end of May this year!?”

“That,” Tony snorted humourlessly. “Was a right clusterfuck the first time round. Hopefully we can smooth a lot of it over on this run. Though to be honest,” he added after a moment, gesturing at the third group of labels in that period, “I have absolutely no idea what to do about Thor and Loki. I don’t even know most of the details of that mess because it happened on Asgard, plus if Loki doesn’t uh, disappear? Afterwards? Thor was never clear what happened there, just said “Loki was lost to the void” which is real helpful. But even if we can manage to keep bag o’cats here on Earth, I don’t know if we should because then who knows what will happen in 2011 when the Chitauri invasion is supposed to happen.”

“That was the aliens in New York right? You think someone much worse could show up?” Steve winced.

“Yeah, much worse. Or no one does and then fuck knows how we’ll get the mind stone from Thanos. On the other hand, if we don’t try and keep Loki here, does that mean we’re condemning him to torment and torture? I’m not… comfortable with that.”

Steve scrubbed his hand down over his face again, palm ending up resting over his mouth as he stared silently at the projected timeline.

“I am so glad I’m not you,” he sighed eventually. “I’m much better at punching stuff than I am at all this long term consequence prediction nonsense. Field tactics, yeah I know I’m good at that, but overarching strategy was more Bucky’s forte than mine.”

“Eh, that’s alright,” Tony chuckled, clapping Steve on the shoulder. “Gonna be a team effort regardless. You punch things and Pepper and I will plan. Find things for you to punch.”

“Yeah,” Steve breathed raggedly. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

“Sir,” JARVIS announced as Tony flipped his welding mask upwards. “Miss Potts has just returned with young Miss Morgan and Mr Hogan. Miss Potts is approaching the workshop stairs now.”

“Quick! Hide the contraband!” Tony joked as he quickly stood up and pulled his work gloves off. Wiggling away from the metal desk he’d been working at, he squeezed between the circuit board 3D printer and a shelving unit stacked high with the material cartridges the printer used. Pushing a reel of cabling under yet another metal work desk, he was then able to hop over a small cart full of kevlar offcuts and finally make it to the glass security doors.

“Hey babes, looking hot!” he greeted his wife with a grin as she stepped off the bottom of the staircase and JARVIS whisked the doors open to let her in.

She smiled appreciatively and when she moved towards him, he dutifully tipped his head up so she could drop a soft kiss against his lips.

“How was work?” he asked when she pulled back, fiddling with the front edges of her jacket, rubbing the soft material between his fingers. “Need me to yell at anyone for you? Be the grouchy old CEO with a short temper?”

“No actually!” Pepper smiled back. “Rice was an asshole over the stocks as usual, but we knew he going to be and I’ve had plenty of practice at putting him in his place. Everyone else was in good form today.”

“Oh yeah, talk sexy competence to me honey.”

“Well,” she smirked, bringing her hands up and resting them gently atop his. “Abalos spent the day sending out the final comms for the go-digital initiative, so she’s got us on track to have all but Legal and Customer Relations completely paper free by middle of the year. And Killingworth came back with the Mexico factory refit schematics already, so we’re good to go there once you’ve signed the document packet.”

“Ew, paperwork,” he mock-whispered. “Glad to hear it though, means we’re ahead of the new schedule and miles beyond where we were our first go through this circus. And! Mostly good news here as well, you’ll be pleased to hear!”

“Oh I am pleased to hear.”

“Capsicle’s finally all caught up on the future-past two: electric bugaloo. Still a little bit brain-melty over the whole time travel thing, but-”

“I’m fine Miss Potts!” Steve yelled from over by the arc-reactor fabricators modules. “It’s actually less weird than magic and Tony’s just a worrywart!”

“It’s all still pretty weird Steve,” Pepper smiled wryly, not bothering to raise her voice as she knew the Captain would be able to hear her anyway with his freaky enhanced hearing. “Tony’s just given you low standards.”

“Hey! My standards are the highest! That’s why I married you- will marry you. Remarry? Whatever, take the compliment.”

“There was a compliment in there?”

“Now you’re just being mean,” Tony mock-pouted back at her. “That was obviously a compliment.”

Pepper smirked at him, unrepentant.

“You’re top quality Potts! I clearly implied you were top quality!”

She bit her bottom lip, blatantly holding back a laugh.

“Ugh fine, whatever,” Tony eventually gave in with a smug grin. “Back to the point, progress down here. Yes. Took a break earlier to enchant the kitchen sink so that it’ll automatically clean whatever you put in it. Major achievement, I’m sure you’ll agree! Uh, new chipsets for the StarkPhone factory units are ready to be sent over so we can start mass producing the processors for the flagship handsets as soon as they’ve been installed. And! Steve and Rhodey jackhammered out the first small cavern back into the cliff face following JARVIS’ instructions this morning, so once I’ve finished welding the support beams for it, we can start TARDISing this place.”

“How small is small?” Pepper raised an eyebrow at him, her eyes flicking over his shoulders to the absolutely chronic mess that the workshop had become for a second. “I know you’re trying to keep this completely off the books, but I still wish you’d have gotten proper contractors in to do a stability survey first.”

“Tiny small,” Tony reassured her. “Positively minute! Its only barely wider than the door and less than a metre back actually, and Steve and Rhodey can’t even stand upright inside of it.”

“I suppose it is in the same area as your original excavations from the first timeline as well,” She conceded. “And you really do need the extra space; every time I come down here, its somehow become even more of an overcrowded health hazard.”

“Yeaaaah,” Tony drew out. The workshop was full to the brim and somehow still managing to get worse by the day. The sheer amount of stuff that they’d crammed in was a more than a little beyond ridiculous. “Consequences of needing to re-invent 15 years of tech and build everything needed to invent that tech and everything needed to invent the invention enabling tech and… you get the picture.”

“Mmm, a decade and a half of Stark-level science crammed into one year and a single room, yes,” Pepper rolled her eyes fondly. “Just remember that you’re not bringing Morgan down here until you get it cleared up and organised.”

“I’m work- we’re working on it,” he whined, waving a hand towards the new doorway on the back wall. He wasn’t even embellishing, it was the literal truth – Rhodey was literally hanging the new door as they talked, using magic to lift and manoeuvrer the great big block of reinforced steel into place.

“Work faster before your daughter throws another temper tantrum over the workshop ban.”

“I notice she’s always our daughter when she’s being an angel, but one little hint of rebellion and suddenly she becomes my daughter. Have you noticed that?” he teased. “Is this because she loves me 3000 while you’re a lowly-”

“Tony shut up,” Pepper sighed with a chuckle. “Go finish your welding so you can clean this trash pit up.”

“Trash pit!” he gasped, stepping back a little so he could clap one hand over his heart dramatically. “The pinnacle of human invention currently lies clustered before you and you call it all garbage!”

“Not commenting on that one!” She called to him cheerily as she rapidly jogged back up the stairs.

“Rhodey!” Tony whined childishly as he began to wriggle and climb his way over to his friend. “Rhodey! Pepper said our science is trash!”

Tony had done it.

He had created his magnum opus.

Forget the Ironman suits, forget nanobot technology, forget quantum time travel. All of that was trivial compared to what he had achieved today. No greater invention would ever come into existence, not anywhere in the universe, not at any point in time.

“It’s a mug,” Rhodey deadpanned as he stared at it.

“It is the most beautiful mug in creation,” Tony beamed, stroking the side of his invention like it was a purring cat.

“It’s a plain white mug with a small SI logo on it, same as most of the mugs in this house.”

“It’s an extra special enchanted mug of supreme godliness! No wait! It ranks above any god that could possibly be! Rhodey, this is a temperature regulating self refilling mug.”

“It- what?”

“Behold!” he crowed exuberantly, placing it down on the kitchen island. Then, trailing two fingers carefully up the inside of the mug’s handle, he watched Rhodey’s face light up with glee as the mug did indeed magically refill with scalding hot coffee.

“What?” Rhodey blurted again. With wide, excited eyes, he leaned down and peered at the steaming drink incredulously. “But- how!? There was no…? Did you put some kind of editable holding sigil on this!?”

“Yeah, I combined a Selby heat-seal with the principles of Elliptical Fluid Dynamics of the Fourth Ocean Verse, and then slapped it all into a equilateral base-eight Doyle loop to control the halcyon flux and ensure the heat-seal didn’t reject the gambit mechanics.”

“...I absolutely hate that I understood all of those words,” Rhodey groaned. “That sentence should not have made any sense, and yet I know exactly what you mean.”

“Isn’t magic wonderful! Look! If you spin two fingers in a circle on the base of the mug, you can change the temperature!”

Tony demonstrated with another quick gesture, and the coffee in the mug obligingly froze over. A flick of his hand in the other direction and it started violently boiling. Then, adjusting it to something more palatable with a third movement, he picked the mug up, downed the contents in four gulps and promptly refilled it with another stroke of the handle.

Rhodey stared some more.

“Tony. I need one immediately.”

Chapter Text

“Stop holding back!” Kaecilius shouted at him as he lunged forward with yet another sharply aimed open-palm strike. Tony dodged nimbly, bracing himself on his back leg before riposting with a hard lunge of his own.

“Better!” the tall master grinned viciously at him, already flowing into his next move. “Your enemies will not show mercy and so you should always save yours for when the fight is won! Give no quarter even when you hold the upper hand!”

Breathing hard, Tony caught the man’s next flurry of blows on his forearms, sweeping them aside, doing his best to redirect their energy. When the next hit came in from a slightly different angle, he twisted and grabbed Kaecilius’ elbow, pivoted to slam his palm against his shoulder, and then used the momentum to yank both of them down and around.

A foot hooked behind a knee and they crashed onto the stone flags of the courtyard, Tony in control and landing on top.

Kaecilius’ eyes widened as Tony ruthlessly grappled him into a sloppy but effective Judo hold.

“Not bad Stark,” the master laughed, clearly delighted. Right before he full on rammed his knee into Tony’s crotch.

“Motherfuck-” Tony gasped, tumbling sideways in agony. Curled into a ball and seeing stars, he nevertheless had the presence of mind to throw his middle finger up at Rhodey and Steve, who were laughing at him shamelessly. “Oh my god, oh fuck-!”

“Christ, your face Tones,” Rhodey wheezed as he leaned on Steve’s shoulder.

“Piss off Platypus,” he rasped back unimpressed. “Jesus, fucking hell in science! Bitching fuck a duck damnation!”

“If you’re quite done writhing about like a new born,” Kaecilius commented dryly as he came to stand over him, hands on his hips and both eyebrows raised in blatant judgement. “I still have at least an hour of training left to inflict upon you today.”

“Inflict,” Tony groaned as he slowly uncurled from his foetal position. “Definitely the correct word choice.”

“Come on, up you come apprentice.”

Grasping the hand the master held out to him gratefully, Tony let himself be hauled back to his feet. His crimson red robes were covered in dust and his legs felt rather like jelly, but he bounced up on his toes a couple of times and tried to shake the lingering pain and tension out.

“Rhodes, line up,” Kaecilius ordered once they were both fully upright, Dutch accent hardening the consonants. “Now listen carefully as I will not be repeating myself,” he continued when Rhodey had stepped up next to Tony. “You have both been here more than long enough to know that my approval is sparse and my praise even sparser. I do not have time to mollycoddle egos, and I do not have time to spare anyone’s fragile dignities. This universe is a harsh place and the multiverse we guard against even more so. And so ensuring that you have the means to survive it always takes precedence over pretty words that do naught but give you a false sense of security. Complacency is how you get yourself killed!”

Tony sneakily shot Rhodey a sideways look, one eyebrow raised in silent communication. Get a load of this guy!? He projected.

I know right!? Rhodey’s own eyebrows said back.

“Too harsh and strict is the opinion of most of my fellow masters,” Kaecilius carried on monologuing as he paced back and forth. “But there is a reason that the Ancient One insists that I train with every student who passes through here regardless of what they think, and it is because those who do so are far more likely to retain all their limbs. Those who do not forget the lessons I have imparted on them at least.”

He whirled to a stop, pivoting to face them and stare them down once more.

“You two though… I sense more drive in you than I do most. More understanding for the true depth of the peril you will face, hm?”

“Uh, senior military officer,” Tony waved awkwardly towards his best mate with one hand. “And well. Everyone knows about my little vacation to Afghanistan.”

“It is more than that, or you wouldn’t be here studying magic,” Kaecilius scoffed with a pointed look. “Your technology would more than suffice if your only concern was mere terrorism. But your reasons are immaterial and irrelevant; I care only that you have managed to surpass my expectations. ...Exceedingly low that they were.”

“Surpass- surpassed your expectations?” Rhodey blurted in disbelief – Kaecilius had not been understating when he claimed to be extremely sparse in his praise; Tony knew that, from Kaecilius, those words were the equivalent of anyone else standing on the rooftops and singing their praises through a voice enhancing spell.

“Do not let it go to your head,” the master snapped at them both. “But unlike most of the students I have been tasked with dragging up to a bear minimum of competency over the years, you both already posses passably adequate knowledge of the basics.”

“Passably adequate,” Tony deadpanned to Rhodey, turning his entire head for maximum sarcastic effect.

“Do not let it go to your head!” Kaecilius repeated harshly with a glare.

“We’re passably adequate!” Tony crowed jubilently, grinning widely and offering his hand up to his best mate for a high five.

“Hey honey, I’m hooooome!”

“Daddy!”

“Munchkin!” Tony grinned as he threw his arms wide to catch his daughter. “All ready for school I see?”

“Uh-huh!” Morgan nodded. “Got all my books and my pencil case and uh, Miss Green said we need to bring calculators today.”

“Look at your face!” Tony teased as he walked out of the kitchen through into the hallway. “Not a fan of calculators?”

“They’re stupid!” Morgan huffed. “I can just do the maths in my head, why do I haft t’ waste time pushing the buttons!?”

“You remember the part where not everyone is like us and can do all sorts of cool things just by thinking?”

Morgan nodded, her brow drawn down in a deep frown and her bottom lip pouted exaggeratedly.

“Well using a calculator is one of those things. Other people can’t do all the maths in their head, so they have a calculator to help them instead. Like we have JARVIS to store all our research data right, so we don’t have to work out all the correlations ourselves? They use the calculators a bit like that.”

“They can’t just keep the numbers in their head?”

“No sweetie, just you and me that are that fantabulous.”

“Oh. Still stupid though.”

“It is a little bit,” Tony conceded with a grin, leaning forward to drop a kiss on her forehead. “You’ll get used to it baby. Now where’s your mom?”

“She went upstairs to get more shoes,” Morgan huffed. “So many shoes! Too many shoes!”

“She sure does like her shoes! Here, down you go. I’m just going to pop upstairs to talk to her, get changed into real people clothes, and then I can drive you to school like I promised.”

“Can I have a snack while I wait?”

“Um excuse me little miss, what’s the magic word?”

“Puh-leeease Daddy?”

“Did you not just have breakfast?”

“Daddy! Please!”

“Uh fine, you can have one piece of fruit from the bowl by the fridge. Deal?”

“Yessssss! Thank you!”

Shaking his head fondly as she ran back towards the kitchen, Tony turned and moved over to the stairs that spiralled loosely up round the hall’s central water feature. It was still vaguely purple tinted from where Morgan and Rhodey had decided to dye it last weekend for… science reasons? Jogging up the steps quickly, he then strode across the main landing, turned into the glass walled back hall and emerged into the master bedroom suite that stretched over the entire garage and workshop.

“Pepper honey?”

“Closet!”

The walk in wardrobe was, in true Stark style, properly enormous. Even with it reorganised to accommodate all of Pepper’s clothes, footwear, and accessories – as well Tony’s own collection of the same – it still had empty drawers and hanging space to spare.

“Well you look sweaty and rumpled,” Pepper greeted him as he stepped in and shimmied up to her with a salacious smirk. “And bruised. Is that a black eye starting to form!?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged back easily, accepting a cheek kiss with a smitten smile. “The Ancient One started Rhodey and I off on hand to hand and combat today, sent us off to work with Kaecilius of all people.”

“Kaecilius? The tall angry one?”

“One and the same. Didn’t go too bad actually though. Turns out all that training Steve and Nat made me do before wasn’t entirely useless.”

“I should start joining you in the gym again,” Pepper wrinkled her nose, selecting a pale cream purse that matched the slash accent across her vibrant red work dress.

“Oh you should,” Tony waggled his eyebrows as he tossed his grimy robes into the hidden hamper. “Get all hot and sweaty with me, roll around on the mats together…”

“Promises, promises…” she smirked.

“Anyway,” he cleared his throat, valiantly ignoring the flush creeping up his neck. “I’m going to take the R8 to drop Morguna off, and then I’ll meet you in the office?”

“Happy could take her and then you could travel in with me?”

“Eh, would love to but I promised the hell child that Daddy would drive her.”

“Fair play,” she sighed with a smile. “Don’t forget to cover those bruises up before you go out, the… what is that?”

“What?” Tony jerked his head up, having sat down to put clean socks on. “Oh, the arm cut? Yeah so turns out that Sorcerers are big fans of melee weapons as well as hand to hand. Kaecilius uh, prefers daggers and rapiers.”

“Oh please tell me he’s not teaching you to sword fight.”

“He’s totally not teaching me to sword fight,” he blatantly lied.

“You know what, not even gonna think about it. I’ll see you in your office in half an hour. Don’t forget the-”

“-Final Expo meeting brief, I know. Love you baby!”

“Honestly. Ironman, magic and now swords too?” he heard her mutter under her breath as she hurried off. “How am I supposed to keep up!?”

With less than 10 days to go until the Stark Expo opening ceremony, Tony found himself standing in his workshop staring at a global map projection. Pepper and Happy stood on one side of him, Steve and Rhodey on the other.

Morgan was sat on DUM-E’s base behind them, riding around on the bot like he was some kind of giant metal dog. Much to the bot’s apparent glee.

“I am at least fifty-two percent sure that this is a terrible idea,” Tony sighed as they watched the little tracking marker blip away above Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. “I don’t even know if he’s actually there; I’m guessing based solely on-”

“-Half remembered context clues and future General Ross’ dodgy intel, yes you said,” Rhodey interrupted him. Which. Fair. Tony had repeated those facts almost a dozen times now.

“I’m just pointing out there’s a not unreasonable chance that he’s on a different continent altogether! Hell, when he disappeared in 2015, he went off planet!”

“But he’s probably in Brazil?”

Tony sighed again, scrubbing a hand over his eyes.

“It’s my best guess,” he eventually conceded. “If I’m remembering right, Brazil is where Ross started actively chasing him from on the same day that whip-dude attacked me. And that was definitely on the day of the Monaco Grand Prix qualifier race, which is in two weeks.”

“Tony hijacked the Stark car our first go round,” Pepper added dryly, levelling Tony with an unimpressed glare.

“I was having an existential crisis! I was actively dying!”

“You were being a reckless idiot.”

“Sweetie darling, love of my life, light of my-”

Pepper titled her head to one side and smiled ominously. Tony gulped and shut up.

Rhodey looked between the two of them like he was questioning his life choice.

“So this Ross guy…?” Steve eventually said awkwardly into the silence.

“All round asshole,” Rhodey quickly jumped on the opening before Tony could himself. “Seriously, I try not to speak ill of my fellow soldiers – especially not the ones who outrank me – but the dude is a walking nightmare. He’s everything you hate about military politics, wrapped up in an extremely fundamentalist viewpoint. I can count on one hand the number of officers that can actually tolerate working with him, and I’ve never heard anyone say they enjoyed being under his command.”

“Yikes,” Steve grimaced.

“Unfortunately he’s also got an unhealthy amount of power,” Tony picked up with his own grimace. “Much as we’d all like to be rid of him, he can’t be ignored without dire consequences. Therefore our current best bet is to find Bruce and get him to safety before he winds back up on Ross’ radar.”

“Preventative extraction,” Pepper summarised.

“In, out, shake it all about,” Tony agreed.

“I’m sorry but does he really turn into a giant… green thing?” Happy complained from the far end of their little huddle. “I don’t know much about all this science stuff you geniuses do, but uh… he magically gets bigger than he starts off as?“

“Tones, we are literally sorcerers,” Rhodey cut him off before he could get a word out. “We can do magic, do not start yet another debate about conservation of mass.”

“Poochy-bear, you are no fun,” he whined back. “Steve! Tell him-!”

“So Tony and I dress incognito and portal to the outskirts of the city,” Steve smirked at him, crossing his arms and being really mean! “Keep our heads down and use the scanner-do-dad-”

“Excuse me, it’s a state of the art portable gamma radiation detector!”

“…We use the scannery-do-dad to try and narrow down the search area. Rhodes and Miss Potts stay here, working with JARVIS to make sure we don’t show up on any cameras. We find Doctor Banner, offer him sanctuary, and then portal us all out of there. Rhodey is on call as back up in case things go south, Kamar-Taj knows we’re coming, and General Ross will never know a thing. All clear?”

“Uh, what about me?” Happy complained, leaning forward to peer at them all accusingly.

“Oh Happy pappy,” Tony grinned salaciously. “You have the most important job of them all!”

“I do? Oh wait, oh no. Come on boss, that’s not fair! You guys get to be superhero spy agents and I get stuck with the babysitting!?”

Tony grinned smugly.

Chapter Text

Tony always forgot how big Rio De Janeiro actually was. And how beautiful.

The main part of the city was actually pretty average in size, but it was surrounded by various suburbs of many different types. Millionaire's mansions and expensive hotels were sprawled along the coast and up into the cliffs, industrial areas sat cheek by jowl alongside the area’s infamous slums – better known as favelas by the locals – and the average houses and apartments of ordinary working folk filled the spaces between them.

But overall, the Brazilian city was really very pretty.

“So Portuguese colonisers arrived here in the mid fifteen-hundreds,” Tony explained to Steve as they ambled along a back street about half way up the cliffs that overlooked the main city centre. “They mistook the bay as the mouth of a river, hence the name. Rio de Janeiro is Portuguese for River of January. I think the city was formally established as a settlement in 1565? But don’t take my word for it.”

“That date is correct sir,” JARVIS affirmed through Tony’s sunglasses.

“So the city is about uh, four-hundred-fifty years old,” Steve hummed, his hands in the pockets of his beige chinos. Despite Tony’s efforts to get the man in jeans, the Captain had once again immediately honed in on the more formal style of pants as soon as JARVIS had alerted him to their existence. In a similar vein, he’d also started favouring plaid shirts and plain tees too, proving that for everything that Tony tried to change in this new timeline, some things were just immutable.

“The Olympics are going to be held here in 2016,” Tony quipped as he glanced at his phone and the data scrolling across it. No radiation pings yet.

“Bucky and I discussed going to the games in 1932, but it was a pipe dream even without considering how the hell we were supposed to get across the country to LA. We could maybe have managed to sneak in if they’d been in New York, but paying for tickets was right out.”

“Well the next lot are in London in 2012. I can get some tickets if you’re interested?”

“Depends on whether they’ve seen the light and made baseball an Olympic sport yet,” Steve grinned cheekily. “I hear they have soccer now, so why not baseball too?”

“Actually, soccer has been an Olympic sport since 1896 Captain Rogers,” JARVIS injected again. “Though it was omitted from the 1932 games in an effort to promote the new FIFA world cup. Similarly, baseball has intermittently been a summer Olympic sport since 1904, though it has appeared less often than it has not, and was not made an official event until 1996.”

“Wait, really?” Steve frowned as they stepped out of the alley into a much cleaner main road.

“Have you come across skateboarding yet?” Tony asked. “Because they were supposed to be introducing that as an Olympic sport in 2020. Of course the Tokyo games got cancelled in favour of post-snap emergency shenanigans so it never actually happened, but there was such an uproar about it from the track and field purists.”

“One of the kids at Kamar-Taj has one,” Steve shook his head in bemusement. “He does those trick things with it. Uh, kick trips?”

“Kick flips probably,” Tony snorted. “I tried skateboarding when I was a teenager purely as an act of rebellion. Was always pretty rubbish at though.”

“Maybe we could get some skateboards and you can give it another go?” Steve grinned as he fiddled with the dial on the front of Tony’s scannery-do-dad.

“Sure, because I have so much free time,” he replied wryly.

“JARVIS, add an hour of Steve-time to Tony’s calender this week please.”

“Of course Captain. And I shall see to it that two high quality beginner’s skateboards are delivered to the Malibu house in time for the appointment.”

“Hey! That’s cheating!” Tony protested with a chuckle. He unlocked his phone again as he laughed, eyes flicking over the read outs once more. But the radiation levels were still flat and baseline. Having travelled over what must be half the city and surrounding areas now, both on foot and by bus, Tony was starting to wonder if Bruce was here after all.

“Still nothing?” Steve asked as they reached the end of the road and paused to let half a dozen cars and vans in various states of disrepair trundle past. They must be approaching one of the slum zones again.

“Nich nada zilch,” he sighed. “J, throw me a map of where we’ve been and where we’ve yet to go.”

This time the requested visuals popped up on his sunglasses HUD, the sprawling expanse of the city popping up in colour coded sections with a pulsing blue line tracing out their path so far. There was also a little pedometer and odometer in the bottom corner, and by Vishanti, they’d covered some ground since this morning.

“I reckon we head up to this Rochina district next,” Steve proposed, viewing the map through his own much-simplified HUD glasses.

“Pretty sure that’s the largest favela in Rio,” Tony mused as JARVIS obliging provided them with directions.

“It is sir, though the majority of the original shanty town buildings have now been replaced with proper concrete and brick. The district is also now mostly connected to the electric grid and has proper plumbing and sanitation, and hosts a variety of legitimate businesses from banks to factories to restaurants.”

“Still, we should be on the look out for pick pockets and less savoury types,” Tony hummed. “Doesn’t matter how you cut it, we’re two white men who currently look like reasonably affluent tourists. I don’t mean to generalise or stereotype, but we’re prime crime bait about to enter an area known for it’s criminal underworld.”

“I grew up in Irish depression era housing,” Steve shrugged easily. “I know the types.”

“No need to teach you to suck eggs then,” Tony chuckled as they turned and started up the side walk towards their destination.

“...Not what I was expecting,” Tony frowned a they stared up at the back entrance to a white painted concrete and glass building. According to JARVIS it was a bottling factory for Pingo Doce.

“Well there are faint radiation trails all over this area,” Steve murmured a he once again twisted the dial on the front of the portable scanner. “This must be where he works.”

“Unless Pingo Doce has some very alarming equipment stashed in there, you’re probably right Cap,” Rhodey crackled over the comms in their glasses.

“So now we need to establish how we’re going to approach this Doctor Banner,” Steve pondered aloud. “Presumably our options are that we walk in the front and ask to see him, or sneak in and hope to stumble across him.”

“Or wait for clock-out and try and follow him home,” Tony nodded in agreement. “The problem with all these options is that he’s likely to panic and run before we can get a word in edgeways, or worse, we trigger a hulk out. So I reckon our best bet is to get in there stealthily and try to subtly corner him. If we can get an explanation out before he has chance to work him self up, that’ll reduce the chance that he freaks out and goes big-green.”

“Oh yeah, there’s the whole… shape shifting thing to consider,” Steve shook his head as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well our first step is to get J to case the joint,” Tony listed off. “We want any cameras under our sole control, and the ability to disable any alarms. Then we find out where exactly in the building our Brucie actually is, and how many people are around him. We also want to pin point somewhere either in there or nearby where we can portal out.”

“JARVIS and I are looking for security to poke at now, but don’t hold your breath,” Rhodey agreed from Malibu again. “Chances are the system is so basic it barely has a network to hack, so it might be a case of physically going and finding a camera and splicing a tag into the wiring.”

“Any magic that’ll be useful to us instead?” Steve suggested with a pinched expression.

“I’m terrible at astral projection still or I’d suggest that,” Tony hummed. “Rhodey-bear, you got any bright ideas?”

“Our modified see-me-not? You’d both be able to walk straight into the building without anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to you that way. Even if you’re seen on the cameras-”

“-nobody watching the cameras will register us, and I can include Jarvis in the exclusion clause easily enough,” Tony snapped his fingers with a grin. “This is why you’re my favourite.”

“You do realise I am also here,” Pepper commented wryly in his ear.

“Family are automatically pitched above any stated favourite,” he quipped quickly. “In all but twelve percent of circumstances.”

“Thin ice,” she teased back.

“You’d still love me even if I fell into the water below,” he smirked as he began looking round for an out of the way place to wave his hands around. Spotting what looked like a secluded alleyway entrance just a little back the way they’d came, he set off towards it and waved at Steve to follow him.

“I’d have to drag you out of the water kicking and screaming,” Pepper snorted. “And not because you didn’t want to get out.”

“Is this the PSTD thing?” Steve asked as they slipped into the damp and narrow back passage. It was filled with decaying tree leaves mixed in with plastic waste and other even worse trash, but there were only a couple of windows overlooking it, and after a quick glance round, JARVIS confirmed there weren’t any cameras or other obvious electronic devices in sight.

Aside from the smell, it was therefore more or less perfect for a little bit of surreptitious sorcery.

“PTSD, and yes,” Tony grimaced. “Despite all the therapy, water and I are still not good friends.”

“I wish we’d known all this mental health stuff in World War II,” Steve sighed longingly. “They were a little better about battle fatigue than they were when it was called shell shock, but even with that, they thought it could only happen to men in wars.”

“Alright, stand back a little,” Tony changed the subject, already uncomfortable with the topic. Then, after a final quick check to ensure they really were alone, he positioned his feet and started the kata. The long, curved nature of the hand gestures hadn’t changed when he and Rhodey re-wrote the spell but the energy had lightened from a forest green to a vibrant grass green, and you now had to do a full Yandu swivel at the midpoint and twist into a hexagon stance in order to cast it on yourself and those you wanted excepted.

The lattice formed around him as he stepped into the final palm shove and then collapsed delicately over him, melding into his skin with a quiet frothy fizzle.

Steve blinked rapidly for a few seconds and then dazedly shook his head as an equally green rope slithered out and coiled around his wrist and up his arm before also disappearing. A second rope then wound it’s way around Tony’s sunglasses and smart watch and frothed into nothing, and then the green glow was gone all together.

“Still with me J?” Tony asked after a couple more seconds.

“Affirmative sir, though Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes are already loosing interest and are about wander off.”

“Eh, I expected that. Haven’t quite managed the long distance exceptions yet. It’s mostly in the mental projections side of things, so the Ancient One told me to work on mindscape element refinements first and work up to it.”

“As ever, her advice is both invaluable and entirely unparsable to me sir.”

“Indeed it is J! Shall we Steve-O?”

Steve nodded and they quickly exited the gross alley and skirted around the large factory to the front entrance. Then they walked straight past the dilapidated reception desk, through the small creaky door at the back marked staff only, and ended up in a very large room filled floor to ceiling with machinery and rattling metal conveyor belts.

“Well this can’t be up to code,” Tony snorted as they ambled further into the space. There was grease and dust everywhere, and absolutely loads of places where someone could get caught or crushed or just generally maimed if they weren’t careful. There were at least some big red emergency stop buttons scattered around, but he reckoned there was a fair chance that they weren’t particularly reliable.

“I’m used to 1930s factory standards so I won’t comment too strongly,” Steve stared up at the plant equipment equally as septically. “But this doesn’t look overly safe.”

“Come on, lets find the green bean; we only have 22 minutes left before the mojo wears off and we’ll have to find somewhere I can do a recast.”

“And let’s try not to loose a hand or two to these machines in the meantime,” Steve shook his head.

Silently agreeing with him, Tony led the way across the floor, slowly winding their way towards the back of the factory. They passed a dozen workers as they moved, all in stained overalls and without hard hats or gloves despite the numerous exposed gears and moving parts, but all of them were Brazilian and chatting away in rapid Portuguese.

Then they reached a set of metal stairs that ascended up to a catwalk that wrapped around the inside walls and gave access to even more lines of dubious conveyors.

“Skinny white man at 4 o’clock,” Steve pointed out to Tony once they stepped onto the scuffed metal platform. Tony turned to look at where the Captain was indicating and-

“Christ, he’s even thinner that I remember him being,” he blurted. “Look at him, you’d get a paper cut if you tried to hug him!”

“Given that we’re effectively invisible, I wouldn’t try to hug him,” Steve smirked as they stood and watched the curly-haired physicist poke at the wiring inside of an industrial junction box.

“Fairly sure that would count as a bad touch, yeah,” he snorted back. “Come on, we’ve got… J?”

“Three minutes and forty-seven seconds left until re-emergence sir.”

“Just under four minutes left until we’re noticeable again,” he repeated. “So we should hurry up and decide what we’re doing.”

“I don’t suppose you can just… open up a portal to Kamar-Taj behind him and push him through?” Steve suggested with poorly suppressed amusement.

“That is a terrible idea, I love it.”

Chapter Text

“Aaaaand this is your room!” Tony gestured grandly at the open door. “I know it’s small, but Rhodey or I can make it bigger if you like. Unless you plan on learning to channel the force in which case I am obliged to leave it as it is until you’re capable of doing it yourself. It’s sort of a thing they do here in Kamar-Taj; I had to put up with the cramped quarters for months.”

“Uh, I’m sure it’s fine as it is,” Bruce replied weakly, still looking like he’d been sucker punched.

“That’s my door there,” Tony continued, pointing diagonally across the hallway. “And Rhodey-dhodey is right next to me. Knock any time. Or you know, call or text. Once I’ve gotten you a phone anyway. Don’t worry, it’ll be untraceable and completely secure. No Rossy findy the you!”

“Thanks?”

“So then the next thing,” Tony barrelled onwards with a grin, “is to go get your stuff from whatever dusty bolthole you were sleeping in. I’m assuming you have stuff. You were in Brazil long enough to acquire at least a small amount of stuff right? You told me in 2013 ish that you always travelled light, but you got a lot more mobile after the whole Harlem shake palaver. Which I promise you won’t happen this time round.”

“Because of the… time travel?”

“Right on the money!” he snapped his fingers with an even wider grin.

“This is insane,” Banner groaned, pinching his brow between two fingers. “I’ve actually gone insane.”

“Tony, give the man a minute to breath,” Steve rolled his eyes. Leaning on the wall opposite, he was watching the two of them with amused exasperation. “In fact, why don’t we let Dr Banner have some time to himself and then Jim can come talk to him.”

“...Jim? Who’s Jim- Oh you mean my Rhodey! Why are you calling him Jim, his name is platypus!”

“James Rhodes was in a similar position to you just over a year ago,” Steve explained directly to Bruce, ignoring Tony altogether. “Tony escaped captivity and all of a sudden was ranting and raving about time travel and magic and aliens, so he’ll be able to commiserate with you while you come to terms with it all.”

“I’m sorry, there are aliens too!?”

“I thought you told him about the aliens,” Steve turned back to Tony.

“I thought we had mentioned the aliens! Sorry Doc, there are aliens too. Quite a lot of them.”

Somehow Bruce managed to turn even paler at this latest revelation.

“Are they uh, magical aliens?”

“Some of them? Loki is for sure. And his mom.”

“Loki? Pagan trickster god Loki? Odin and Freyja and so on? Oh god, I need to sit down.”

“Excellent idea,” Tony agreed quickly as the man’s heart-rate monitor started to beep rather alarmingly. “Not that I have a problem with my old pal big green, but you still get all stressed out by transforming into him at this point and we like happy, content Bruce.”

Hopefully in this timeline, there would be no so I put a gun in mouth anecdote to share. Unless that incident had already happened.

That had probably already happened, hadn’t it? Dammit.

“I’m just gonna…” Bruce trailed off weakly.

The sentence was finished silently by a generalised wave of the man’s hand as he turned and stumbled into the small bedroom the Ancient One had told Tony to guide their guest to. The physicist then more or less face-planted onto the narrow bed and groaned out a long series of unintelligible words into the pillow.

“Cool!” Tony grinned at him from the doorway. “I’m gonna take Steve and slingie back to Malibu ‘cause I got other work to do now we found you. If you need anything, just pop into my room and JARVIS will help you out. Or just wander round the temple grounds until you find someone dressed in robes with more than one colour and they’ll sort you out. Though I don’t recommend you do that right now as it’s… 3:33am here. Oh that’s a good point, I’ll get you a much better smart watch as well as a phone and then-!”

“Tony seriously, let the man breath,” Steve interrupted him with a laugh.

“Yep, leaving now. Bye Brucie-bear!”

They were now down to three days until the expo opening ceremony, and to be quite honest, Tony was getting rather stressed about the upcoming week. Even with Bruce and the Hulk removed from the equation, there was still rather a lot on his plate. Sure, he’d had considerably less help last time he did this (and this time he wasn’t violently ill and dying while trying to do it all), but he’d only had to concentrate on his own shit before. Now he had to work out what the fuck to do about Thor and Loki’s little catastrophic showdown too.

“Right, so that set of monitors is keeping an eye on New Mexico,” he pointed at the left most bank of screens. “This middle set is tracking Ivan Vanko – he’s currently still in Russia, but he’s on the move and about to be elsewhere. One in from right is Senator Stern's court-based hissy fit. And this lot is everything Stark Expo related.”

“I’m sorry, but where is the daylight coming from!?” Bruce asked as he stared up at the basement skylight windows in total bafflement. “We’re quite a way under the cliff and the house and yet I can see the sky through them.”

“Poinyton’s first law of illumination seals stacked on top of a basic link key stone,” Rhodey informed him absent-mindedly as he continued to bolt down the outer frame of the plate fabrication unit using a power drill.

“More magic?” Bruce sighed, sounding pained.

“This whole room is magic,” Steve explained rather more simply. “This one and the other two along the back wall of the main workshop actually. See, Jim and I-”

“Please stop calling my Pooh bear that.”

“-Jim and I carved out three small caverns, barely big enough to stand in. And then these two cast a spell on each of them to make them magically bigger.”

“More TARDIS spaces,” Bruce blinked. “Okay, somehow really not the weirdest thing I’ve heard or seen this week.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Tony snorted as he flicked their New York flight schedule across the screen out of his way and tapped on the window that contained the finalised list of corporate box ticket holders instead. He didn’t bother to do more than skim it, knowing that Pepper and JARVIS would never have let it get near him if it wasn’t already ready to be signed and sent off.

Ew, Hammertech was on it. And motherfucking Tesla.

Sighing, he flicked a stylus over the bottom of it anyway and let JARVIS whisk it away. Then he pulled up the next damn file that apparently needed his personal attention.

“Sir,” JARVIS suddenly injected. “You requested that I inform you when the deadline for the PA position applications was about to pass. As expected, a Miss Natalie Rushman has just submitted a resume for consideration.”

Because of course. The Expo, Thor and Loki, Ivan Vanko, Senator Stern, and inducting Bruce into the inner circle all happening at once wasn’t quite enough to deal with. Nope, he had to think about how to get Natashalie on board too without having her going running straight to Coulson and Fury.

(He still wasn’t entirely sure whether Coulson was hydra-clean or not, ugh. While Fury was just a manipulative pain in the ass)

“Okay let me just…” he trailed off, dragging a hand down over his face. “Right. Send the application to… that tablet there please J. Bruce, I know meteorology is a little out of your wheelhouse, but could you come look at this data from New Mexico; it should all be normal for now, but there’ll be atmospheric disturbances popping up out of nowhere when Thor makes his appearance and I don’t know when that’ll actually be other than soon! Steve, you’re on Vanko-watch please. Rhodey-bhodey…. Uh, you can just keep rebuilding that fabricator I guess. Excellent job so far, ten out of ten stars. No wait, that sounded sarcastic, that wasn’t meant to be sarcastic.”

“Sir yes sir,” Rhodey smirked at him, complete with salute.

Levelling a flat look at his best mate, Tony pushed away from the bank of monitors and went to scoop up the tablet.

He had this, it was all totally under control. Honest.

(Only three days to go until crunch time. Vishanti save him)

In a small military jet high above New York, Tony stood next to Rhodey at the base of the cargo ramp. The wind whipped around them as the jet moved steadily into position, buffeting against the outer plates of their armour and whistling up inside the cargo hold.

“SMART,” Tony addressed Rhodey’s AI directly, using the private comms built into his HUD. “Remember to keep track of the fireworks for Platypus as we fall.”

“Descend,” Rhodey interrupted. “We’re descending, not falling.”

“The first several hundred feet are going to be free fall,” Tony pointed out mulishly. “I am just trying to make sure you fall with style.”

“You’ve been watching Toy Story with Morgan again, haven’t you?”

“Do you want to avoid the fireworks or not?”

“I’m pretty sure I can dodge the fireworks myself Tony.”

“You say that now, but they will scratch your paintwork. And Steve put a lot of effort into that paint design.”

“...You hit a firework didn’t you?”

“When would I have hit a-!?” Tony protested.

“The last time you did this-!”

“I have never done this before in-!”

“Don’t bullshit me man! Time travel-!”

“Two seven zero, at thirty knots, holding steady at fifteen-thousand feet,” the military pilot cut over them on the ship-wide comms. “You are clear for exfiltration over the drop zone.”

“SMART, fireworks!” Tony yelled with a grin as he took the final two steps to the edge of the ramp before Rhodey could complain. Tipping backwards, he shot his best mate a pair of finger guns and then dropped head first into the open air.

Whooping with adrenaline fuelled glee, he twisted sinuously into a corkscrew back flip and released the six miniature video drones from his back plate. Three of them spun off to join Rhodey, and then, with a green thumbs up from JARVIS on his HUD, they both began to truly show off for the cameras.

Another thirty seconds, and they kicked their repulsors into gear. Spinning into a couple more air tricks to really rev the waiting crowd into a frenzy, they both zipped around and under the fireworks fluidly. And then finally, they both came together in a vertical chest-to-chest aileron roll, splitting apart at the last instant to land in mirrored knee-down-arm-up poses on the circular light pad.

The crowd went nuts.

Raising back to their feet with matching smirks, they turned slightly and threw their arms out to give JARVIS and SMART room to work, letting the AIs peel each piece of armour plate from them seemingly autonomously. Soon they were left in just their matching bespoke three piece suits, Rhodey with his medals pinned to his chest, the dancers moving expertly behind them as the final round of fireworks ignited and launched and Shoot To Thrill blasted out of the stage speaker system.

The rotating section of the stage came to a stop just as the last pieces of their armour disappeared into the storage vault below.

“Oh it’s good to be back!” Tony crowed when the final chord strum echoed across the crowd.

“Blow something up!”

“Blow something up?” Rhodey shouted back gleefully at the heckler. “We already did that!”

“We sure did!” Tony added with just as big a grin. “And you know what? We’re going to keep blowing stuff up! Mostly your minds with everyone’s jaw dropping tech and science! Because that’s what it’s all about baby! Welcome to the Stark Expo 2009! The future is now and it’s here to kick ass!”

Oh yeah, they could totally do this.

Bring on insanity week!

Chapter Text

“Honey bear, you’re in my sunlight!” Tony whined.

Lying sprawled out on a sun lounger next to the pool, he could hear Morgan splashing about cheerfully with Happy while Pepper sat with her legs dangling in the water and her personal phone to her ear. Steve was back in Kamar-Taj with a still mildly-overwhelmed Bruce, but JARVIS and SMART were keeping an eye on the pair, so Tony was enjoying the short respite from, well, all of the absolute chaos that had become his life.

(And with less than one day to go before they had to leave and head to Monaco, it was about to get even crazier)

“You gotta read this article,” Rhodey chuckled as he continued to loom over him.

Tony pulled his sunglasses down and mock-glared at his best friend.

“No seriously,” Rhodey smirked, still not moving away, shaking a glossy-looking magazine in his face. “It’s hilarious.”

“You need to stop casting shade on the parts of my body I’m trying to tan,” Tony groused as he reluctantly sat up a little and batted the pages away from his nose.

“You’re half Italian. You always look tanned.”

“Half being the key word there,” Tony grumbled back. “Gotta keep my dad’s pale and pasty genetics in check don’t forget.”

“Oh you poor little white boy,” Rhodey teased, finally moving back and sitting on the adjacent sun lounger instead. Refolding the magazine back to the page he’d been trying to show Tony, he cleared his throat and wiggled his eyebrows a couple of times before straightening his back and adopting an overly dramatic pose.

“Stark in second super secret seduction?” he read out with a shit-eating grin.

“Alliteration, really?”

“Dear delightful readers, oh do we have a juicy new story for you!”

“Oh god, it’s one of those types of article,” Tony moaned in despair, dragging a hand down over his mouth

“In recent months, it has come to the world’s attention that our delightful Mr Tony Stark is not quite the naughty little boy he’s always pretended to be. Famous for both his incredible mind and jaw-dropping good looks, our Mr Stark is well known for leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him almost as long as the trail of zeros on his bank account. Over the years many a good woman has spoken earnestly of how he rocked their world, but also of how that world rocking was only ever a one time deal. One night of pure erotic bliss and then silence that tolls like the toll of a death knell.”

“Tolls like the toll of a death knell?” Pepper repeated incredulously as she sat down gracefully by Tony’s knees, one hand settling warmly on his thigh just below his red swim-shorts.

“But then intriguing gossip!” Rhodey snorted, absently flicking the bottom corner of the open page. “Rumours of a love child! Followed by, to everyone’s total shock, legal confirmation of a love child! Morgan H Stark, and then in brackets, jury’s still out on what the H stands for, but the smart money’s on Hazel. Actually, what is Morgan’s middle name?”

“Harriet,” Tony nodded towards the pool. “We lost Happy in the snap, so. Closest we could get to Harold without making, uh...”

“Well,” Rhodey cleared his throat awkwardly when Tony trailed off. “Smart money’s on Hazel yada yada, close brackets. Morgan H Stark, daughter of the delicious Tony Stark and the gorgeously stunning Pepper Potts -photos of the lovebirds on page twenty-three. And along with that, the most shocking news of all! With the reveal of their secret daughter, an announcement of exclusivity. That’s right distraught readers, the biggest heart break of them all! The man, the myth, the sexy legend told the world he was officially off the market.”

“I genuinely don’t think I can listen to you read more of this,” Tony sighed, failing to keep his amusement out of his tone. “This is journalism at it’s literal worst.”

“But, dear readers, was that the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” Rhodey continued with a smirk.

“Yes!” Tony protested. “Yes it was!”

“Now we’ve all heard of the marvels of modern engineering that are the Ironman and Thunderstruck suits. We’ve seen the photos, watched the videos, read the press releases. And of course ladies, we’ve eyed the hunk that pilots the second supersuit. Lieutenant-Colonel James Rhodes, black excellence incarnate. Phwoar! That is a man that knows better than to skip leg day! With a hotty like that on standby, it is no surprise then, that notorious playboy Tony Stark might not be keeping to his vows of monogamy as ardently as he declared he would.”

“Tony!” Pepper mock-gasped with a laugh. “You’re cheating on me with Rhodey!? How could you!”

“I’m sorry baby, but he’s a hunk with legs!” Tony replied melodramatically.

“Take a look at these exclusive to us photos, shocked readers, and let your jaws hit the floor!” Rhodey managed to read out through his laughter. “Yes, your eyes do not deceive you! Our favourite new superheroes, shirtless, sweaty, and sensual. And most importantly, that is indeed our Mr Stark’s hand down the back of Colonel Rhodes’ running shorts!”

“What!?” Tony spluttered. “Give me that! I did not-!”

“Oh that actually is pretty hot actually,” Pepper chuckled salaciously as she leaned over to glance at the magazine Tony had just snatched from Rhodey. “And it really does look like you’re squeezing his ass.”

“I was not squeezing his ass!” Tony protested as he flicked the page over to find yet another disturbingly high definition photo of the two of them jogging down one of the trails at Sandstone Peak. Once again shirtless. And yes, very sweaty.

Christ, the arc reactor was on full display. Thank fuck it’s existence wasn’t exactly a secret in this timeline (though he had of course, lied through his teeth about what it was for and how it was attached to him).

“I fucking hate paps,” Tony moaned as the fourth double page spread opened to reveal a very large candid shot of he and Pepper leaving SI’s small back entrance hand in hand. Tony knew he had a habit of staring up at Pepper like she was a female Adonis and the answer to all his prayers, but honestly. He looked like even more of a lovestruck fool than normal in this picture. “This is-!” he complained high-pitch. “This is indecent!”

“Oh please,” Pepper teased him merciless. “This is positively tame compared to some of your photo shoots. Cincinnati in ‘98? Vegas in ‘98?”

“Hey, you wanna squeeze my ass for real Tones? It’s pretty firm. Toned, you might say.”

“I hate you both,” Tony groaned as he tossed the magazine aside, pushing his dark sunglasses back up his nose.

Christ, he’d rather be back in Washington DC listening to Stern and Hammer droning on endlessly. And what a boring waste of time that had been.

“Miss Romanov is now approaching the house sir,” JARVIS announced. “I have just opened the front gates to allow her access to the grounds.”

“Okay everyone, positions!” Tony clapped his hands.

“Positions?” Rhodey snorted. “This ain’t a theatre play Tones.”

“All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely Players,” he recited back sonorously as he continued buttering the last of the bread for sandwiches. “Also seriously, she’s literally undercover and therefore acting. Morgan, you remember what we talked about?”

“Uh-huh Daddy. Pretend I don’t know Widow Nat until after you ‘splained everything to her.”

“Good job, top marks kiddo.”

“Here, I’ll finish that,” Pepper swept up to his side, claiming the knife from him with soft hands. “You go meet her at the door.”

“Thanks babe. J, you all ready with ADAM?”

“The what now?” Steve frowned as he opened up the fridge and pulled out a large jug of lemonade. “Is this a person or another weird back to front acronym?”

“ADAM. All Devices Are Mine,” he explained with a wink. “It the protocol that JARVIS uses to automatically hack into or interfere with any electrical device that’s brought into the house. Her phone and any other listening or recording equipment will be pulled under his control so we can call the shots on what information she digitally gives and receives.”

“I am indeed prepared sir.”

“Awesome, let’s get this spider show on the road.”

As he stepped out of the kitchen and into the hallway, he heard Bruce quietly asking do I really have to be here for this? Followed by both Pepper and Rhodey murmuring words of reassurance. Then he was stepping up to the front door and waving at J to pull it open.

“Mr Stark,” Natasha-as-Miss-Rushman greeted him professionally, her hand still half raised ready to knock.

“Come on in,” he nodded back with a small smile (he had to bite back the urge to add we’ve been expecting you and an evil chuckle). “We’re about to have lunch, plenty to go round if you want a bite?”

“Oh, no that’s quite alright Mr Stark,” she demurred, blinking at him from beneath her eyelashes. Damn, it wasn’t totally on the nose, but he still couldn’t believe he’d fallen for her antics so completely the first go round. She even had her blouse undone one button too low for crying out loud!

“You sure?” he smirked as he gestured for her to proceed into the kitchen. “I know you spy types burn through a lot of calories regardless of whether you’re on mission or just training.”

Natasha didn’t reply, having stopped dead in front of him.

“Hey,” Pepper greeted warmly. “Good to see you again Natasha.”

“What the hell is this Stark?”

“It’s Tony being dramatic as usual,” Rhodey rolled his eyes as he claimed a plate of fruit slices from Pepper and slid it onto the table. “You’ll get used to it.”

“That’s what you keep telling me too but uh, I’m still pretty sure I’ve gone mad,” Bruce told him faintly. “And I say that as a man who involuntarily turns into a giant green rage monster.”

“Everyone this is Nat,” Tony introduced, stepping round the blank-faced spy. “Nat, this is Pepper Potts, Rhodey Rhodes, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and my daughter Morgan.”

“Hi!” Morgan waved cheerily as she helped herself to a handful of grapes.

“Happy is just down in the garage, he’ll be up in a few minutes,” he finished off as he claimed his usual seat at the table. Pepper put down a stack of ham and cucumber sandwiches and he helped himself to two along with his own pile of grapes.

“Do you think this is some kind of joke?” Natasha asked flatly from where she was still stood.

“No,” he shook his head, entirely truthfully. “We just decided to be honest and open with you from the get go. Trust and communication, all that jazz. Sooo...”

“Band-aid ripping time,” Rhodey mumbled under his breath.

“You really did ought to sit down for this,” Pepper suggested kindly as she pulled out an empty chair at the table and then lowered herself into her own. “It’s going to be a lot.”

“I need to speak to-” Natasha blinked, cutting herself off before she could utter a name.

“Fury or Coulson,” Tony finished for her. “Not a good idea though, as we’ll explain.”

“Why?” She stated coldly, loosing the mask of young attractive corporate worker completely. “Do you plan on threatening me?”

“Nah, it’s because SHIELD is completely infested with HYDRA and is definitely aware that aliens exist,” Steve told her plainly, reaching for the jar of English mustard. “What?” he added when they all turned to stare at him. “You were taking forever getting started.”

“What-?”

“Yeah so, Fury isn’t secretly a Nazi, but Sitwell definitely is and we aren’t sure about Coulson yet as he died before we could find out last time,” Tony decided to launch onwards. “That reveal happened in 2014 you see, but Coulson was killed by possibly-brainwashed Loki in 2012. I know all this because I survived until 2023 where upon I used some super magic space gems to save the universe and was somehow sent back in time. I then woke up back in Afghanistan in 2008. Pepper was also temporally relocated, Morgan just sort appeared out of thin air, and since then we’ve been working to fix everything that went wrong last time.”

“You’re trying to convince me you’ve time travelled,” the spy stated bluntly.

“Yep,” he popped with another grin. “Also Rhodey and I are baby sorcerers now.”

And to demonstrate that, he flicked his hand up and whipped open a tiny portal onto the countertop so he could grab the pickle jar from by the sink without having to stand up.

“Yeah okay, I’m going to sit down,” Natasha sighed deeply.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you don’t want me to just portal over there?”

“Rhodey, We flew over here in the jet for a reason,” Tony sighed back quietly over the open comm.

“I know, I know. Public traceability and all that. But I can come up with some bullshit if you need me to. You say the word and I will sling my ass over there so fast the planet will start spinning backwards.”

“Everything’s under control,” he muttered as he swiped another glass of champagne from a passing server.

And it was! He and Pepper were currently shmoozing with the other so called rich-elite, Nat was off distracting Justin Hammer, and Bruce and Steve were both safely tucked away in Kamar-Taj. In twenty minutes, Tony would loudly make it known that he was going to go and “inspect” the Stark team car before the race which should give Vanko a chance to approach him with a minimum number of people around, and then he could short out the man’s knock-off reactor and be done with him.

The French authorities could take him away initially, but with Natasha on-board, they could use SHIELD to ensure no-one broke the whip-wielding maniac out of prison this time.

Bruce’s Harlem show-down was already prevented and no Hammer-Vanko jail-break meant no massive Expo shoot-out, which should then mean they were all free to dedicate the next five days to solely dealing with Thor and Loki’s family spat.

All they had to do was contain the situation today.

Piece of cake, right?

Right!?

Shucking his suit jacket and rolling up his shirt sleeves, Tony ambled into the pit garage and signalled to the security team to force the hoard of press and paparazzi tailing him back beyond the barricades.

“Mr Stark!” one of the team’s younger pit crew members came running up to him. “We weren’t expecting you!”

“Yeah, I only decided to come down here about 10 minutes ago, so,” he shrugged, letting his signature Tony Stark smirk slip onto his face. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything radical and I won’t poke about too much.”

“Oh sure Mr Stark,” the crewman sighed with poorly hidden relief. “Can I get you something to drink? We don’t have any champagne or whiskey down here, but we do have decent coffee?”

“I’m good,” he waved off again, stepping round the young man and approaching the F1 car. Damn his impulsive nature, even just looking at the beast of a machine made him want to toss the driver to one side and take it out himself again.

But no, he was sensible husband and father Stark now. If he wanted an adrenaline rush, he’d just put the suit on and do some unnecessary aerial acrobatics.

(Or challenge Steve to a no holds barred sparring match)

“Mr Stark!” a different person gasped as she jogged over and stopped next to him. Going off her tool belt, this one was a full fledged engineer. “We weren’t-”

“-Expecting me, I know.”

“I mean, we knew you were coming to watch the race sir. But we didn’t think you’d actually come down to the pits.”

“Last minute decision,” he lied smoothly. “Thought you’d all appreciate a little pep talk or whatever.”

“Oh! That would be great sir! Would you like to know anything about the car? She’s in tip-top condition! The back up too!”

“Nah, I’ve got all the specs here,” he smirked again, holding up the small StarkTab he’d brought down with him. “I would have liked to have gotten a good look at the new differentials I sent the blueprints for over, but I know you’ve only got five minutes before you’ve got to roll this beautiful lady out to the start line. Where’s the driver? It’s uh, Deflipo right?”

“He’s just next door with our team manager doing his final prep sir. I can-”

“Okay we’re not doing that,” he cut over her with a raised hand. “Please stop calling me sir, real people doing that gives me the heebie-jeebies. One eyed pirate dread-lords in leather trench coats get called sir and I am both in possession of both eyes and much cooler than him. Only JARVIS gets a pass with the sir.”

“Oh, uh. Sorry Mr Stark?”

“Better. Not great, but better.”

With that, he shot the woman a wink and sauntered towards the open doorway that lead on through to a space filled with TVs, computers, and various chairs and desks. Another half a dozen people were crowded into the smaller room, most of them staring pensively at various statistics and times as they scrolled across one of the many screens.

“Mr Stark!” Roy Hobson startled as Tony strode up to him. “We weren’t-”

“-Expecting me,” he repeated wryly for the third time in as many minutes. “How’s the team Mr Manager?”

“Uh, we’re doing well,” Hobson snapped into professional mode. “We’re fifth for departure position which is really damn good considering we’re essentially just a hobby team.”

“Fifth out of twenty ain’t bad, especially with Button and the Brawn-Mercedes clique out there.”

“Not to mention the Ferrari boys,” Hobson added dryly. “Good news is that new plucky young Brit, what’s his name? Hamilton! Well he spun out and crashed during qualifying so he’s restricted to 19th on the grid.”

“Well how about that,” Tony drawled cheekily in the thickest Brooklyn accent he could manage. “And you must be Deflipo!” he turned to address the other individual who’d been standing patiently by the manager’s side.

“Yes sir,” the man dipped his head with a smug look. “Ready and rearing to go!”

“Not a sir,” he deadpanned back once again. “Would be awesome to kneel and be knight-”

A loud horn sounded across the pit then, a long blaring that cut his sentence off and had everyone around him scurrying into sudden action. Tony stood back and let the chaos happen without interfering.

“How are we doing J?” he asked quietly as he casually followed the F1 team out onto the pit lane. Every other team was also positioning their cars just outside their garages, crew members scurrying about with practiced efficiency while pit-drivers waited for the call to take the vehicles out to the start grid.

“The press coverage of your move to the pits was substantial sir, and the target appears to have seen the news and taken the bait. He was out of sight of any cameras for a short moment, but I believe he has assaulted a track warden and claimed his uniform and pass.”

“Oh jeez, I forgot he did that,” he winced sympathetically. “Dude’s just unconscious and a little concussed. Probably. He was last time. Uh, now I’m paranoid. Can we get a paramedic to him just in case?”

“No can do Tones,” Rhodey sighed with a grimace obvious in his tone. “Not unless you want the whole circus looking for Vanko and causing a scene. It’ll put the whole security team on high alert.”

“I’m on it,” Natasha stated blandly into the comm.

“Well that works,” Tony huffed in amusement as he ambled towards the wire fencing at the edge of the track. Conveniently moving himself even further away from everyone else.

Behind him, engines were being started and tires being checked one final time.

“Happy?” he asked next.

“I’m in position with the crate of Ironman suit pieces boss. You sure I can’t just come onto the track with you? You know I got a mean right hook!”

“Stay there,” Tony and Pepper demanded simultaneously.

“Well at least I didn’t get side lined with the babysitting this time,” the grumpy man mumbled. “Bodyguard for sixteen years and I get demoted to box carrying and child minding.”

“Excuse me, protecting my child is a promotion,” Tony mock-gasped as he pulled his tie off and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket which was still draped over his left arm; he didn’t want to call the full armour, but on the unlikely chance that he did have to, he’d at least be moderately comfortable in it. “How is the munchkin anyway?”

“She’s fine,” Rhodey responded promptly. “I gave her an industrial blowtorch and sent her off to play with DUM-E.”

“You WHAT!?” Tony screeched indignantly at the same time Pepper icily said “You had better be joking James Rhodes.”

“I’m kidding!” Rhodey blurted hurriedly. "It’s three forty in the morning, she’s in bed fast asleep. It was a joke, sorry Pepper!”

“Sorry Pepper!?” Tony spluttered. “Where’s my apology!? Those are my children too!”

“I could take you in a fight,” Rhodey snorted. “Pepper would grind me into paste before I so much as blinked.”

“…Fair enough.”

“Rogers really wasn’t joking when he said you guys were intense,” Natasha suddenly commented wryly. “No wonder Dr Banner constantly looks like he’s about to have a breakdown.”

“That’s Tony for you,” Pepper chuckled. “Aggressively kind hearted. Emphasis on the aggressive. He will forcibly improve your life, or so help you god.”

“Oh, cars are rolling out to the start grid,” Tony interrupted, neatly changing the topic before it could get mushy and emotional. “The pit lane will be completely clear in ten minutes or so. Still got eyes on our guy J?”

“Affirmative sir, he is en route to your position. Would you like me to send the camera feed to your HUD?”

“No, just give me a heads up when he gets to the garages.”

“I’ve made it to the track service area too,” Natasha announced, her voice still calm and steady despite the fact she must have jogged (in heels no less) to make it down from the executive’s lounge so fast. “Where’s Vanko stashed the body?”

“Body?” Tony laughed weakly. “Please don’t tempt fate.”

“If you would divert to the security booth first, Miss Romanov,” JARVIS instructed her. “I have sent a pass collection ticket to your StarkPhone so that you will be able to move through the buildings without incident.”

“And here I was just going to steal one,” the spy hummed bemusedly. “I could get used to this.”

“Please do, you deserve so many nice shiny things and I have lots more than SHIELDRA does.”

“Down boy,” Rhodey teased.

“We have deadly things too,” Tony continued, ignoring his best friend entirely. “And a Yelena. Well, we don’t have her yet, but JARVIS has been working on it with Steve for you.”

“Let’s save the Dreykov plans for after we’ve survived this week please,” Pepper said dryly. “One crisis at a time, if you would.”

“This is hardly a crisis,” Tony protested as the last car was slotted into position on the main track. “Actually I take that back, I can see Rosa Klebb already. Dammit, did I jinx it?”

“Yes,” Rhodey stated bluntly.

“Sir, as requested, the target has reached the pit garages.”

“Yeah, I can see that J! There’s still too many people around, this was not the plan! Wait, he looked right at me but he’s not coming towards me?”

“He appears to be heading to the gap in the barrier at the mid point of the home straight sir. If I might extrapolate based on your previous timeline experiences?”

“Uh, yeah I’m all ears! He’s smirking at me!”

“I suspect he is endeavouring to take a leaf from your own book sir.”

“What!?”

“He wishes to be as dramatic as possible.”

“...So he’s going to attack the cars first and draw my attention that way. Fuck!”

“He destroyed five F1 cars and injured two people!”

“Okay but one of those people was the guy he mugged for his uniform and the other was actually just me,” Tony pointed out cheerily.

“Do you know how much F1 cars cost to replace!?” Pepper complained as she helpfully slapped the ice pack back on his eyebrow. “Not to mention the damage he did to the track itself! I thought you were going to neutralise him before he did more than get the whips out this time!”

“I had to get close enough to him for IRENE to work! He went on the track instead of coming straight at me! He was supposed to come straight at me! And then he threw half a car at me!”

“Insane Russian Egomaniac Neutralising EMP,” Rhodey explained to Natasha before she could ask. “It’s the device in Tony’s tablet that shut off Vanko’s knock-off arc-reactor.”

“Isn’t EMP already an acronym?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Do not question my awesome backronym!” he turned to complain at the spy. “Ow! Honey! There’s a bruise on that shoulder!”

"Oh sorry," Pepper winced apologetically, moving her hand further down his arm quickly. "Though I really do wish you had waited ten more seconds for your suit to arrive instead of throwing yourself headfirst onto the asphalt without it."

“Well I was gonna wait, but then he-! Ugh whatever, villains are assholes. Platypus, thank you for the drink, but portal back to Malibu before someone sees your magic ass and questions how you got here. Nat-”

“Already on it,” she cut over him. “I’ve messaged both Coulson and Fury, told them that Justin Hammer was clearly looking for a way to embarrass Stark and I saw him eyeing Vanko speculatively. That should convince them to send someone to keep an eye on the prison for us.”

“Awesome sauce,” he smirked at her gratefully. “Rhodey-bear, seriously. Magic ass be gone.”

“This ass is magical,” the Airman deadpanned as he slung open a sparking orange portal and stepped through it. “I’ll see you all in ten hours or so.”

“Yeah, and make sure you take a nap!” Tony yelled after him. “We’re heading to New Mexico as soon as-! And he closed the portal on me. Damn, that’s almost worse than being hung up on!”

Chapter Text

“Rise and shine, Platypus!” Tony announced grandly as he flung the door into Rhodey’s room wide open with a bang.

“Oh my god, fuck off,” his best friend groaned, pulling a pillow over his head as the main ceiling lights started to rise.

“James Rhodes!” he gasped dramatically. “There are children in this house!”

“Yeah, and the most annoying one is an asshole called Tony.”

Or at least that’s what Tony thought Rhodey had said, given that the words were all muffled by the aforementioned pillow. He let the insult slide though, as it was going on for three in the morning. Again.

(If he’s said it once, he’s said it a thousand times; time zones were a bitch!)

“You really do need to get up unfortunately,” he continued a little more seriously. “Bruce and JARVIS have just detected a faint energy surge over New Mexico that almost exactly matches what data I was able to dredge up from memory on Asgard’s Einstein Rosenbridge.”

“The Bifrost thingy?”

“The Bifrost thingy.”

“Fine,” Rhodey mumbled as he tossed the pillow away and grudgingly began to sit up. “You owe me so many coffees though. This is the second night in a row I’ve crawled outta bed at the ass-end of the morning for you.”

“There’s currently a fresh pot brewing in the kitchen Jim,” SMART obligingly reported, using JARVIS’ speakers. “The kettle’s boiling for tea, and there’s also an assortment of protein-rich breakfast pastries keeping warm.”

“This is why you’re my favourite,” Rhodey smiled dazedly at the ceiling.

“JARVIS did most o’the work,” SMART responded chipperly, his Scottish brogue thickening. “Credit where it’s due sir!”

“J knows I appreciate the heck out of his ass,” Rhodey yawned as he finally rolled all the way out of bed and reached to grab a pair of discarded joggers. Pulling them on quickly over his sleep shorts, he then grabbed his slingie and zipped a portal to downstairs before Tony could blink.

“Hey!” he protested as he quickly followed the other man through the sparking orange circle. “No portals in the main house! Dems the rules! There’ll be no accidental limb slicing in this household thank you!”

“Whatever Dad. No one else is awake,” Rhodey grumbled as he bee-lined for the coffee machine by the ovens.

“Pretty sure I’m awake,” Wong deadpanned from the corner.

“Jesus fuck!” Tony screeched. “JARVIS! Warn a guy!”

“My apologies sir,” the AI hummed entirely unapologetically.

“Master Wong,” Rhodey greeted lazily as he continued rummaging in the cupboard for the self-refilling mugs. Finding some, he tapped the reset rune on each and then grabbed the coffee pot.

Tony made a noise of general appreciation as he accepted a full cup, and once he’d adjusted the temperature a little, he began to guzzle the delicious hot nectar with great enthusiasm.

“So,” he asked the sorcerer once he’d magically refilled his cup. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Babysitting you two,” Wong replied bluntly as he sipped rather more politely at his own coffee. “According to the Sorcerer Supreme, at least one known dangerous magic user from another planet is going to be on Earth at some point over the next few days and you’re going to attempt to contact them. You’re only apprentices, you need supervising.”

“You do know SHIELD will be crawling all over the place by uh… what day is it now?”

“Early Monday morning sir,” JARVIS informed him promptly.

“Right,” Tony clicked his fingers. “It’s the 25th and by midday on the 26th – which is my birthday let’s not forget! Though I won’t be committing drunken party shenanigans this- sorry, tangent. But by the 26th at the latest, SHIELD will have surrounded the hammer and stolen all of Doctor Foster’s equipment.”

“I am very discrete,” Wong stated blandly.

“Sure,” Tony narrowed his eyes. “The wizard robes will totally blend in.”

“Pretty sure he’ll be less conspicuous than you will be, Ironman,” Rhodey teased as he started in on the pastries. Which was bold coming from a man with truly delectable abs that was currently shamelessly parading around without a shirt on.

“Oh shut up and go get dressed properly,” Tony grumbled, refilling his mug again with another flick of his finger.

Puente Antiguo was somehow even smaller and more dusty than Tony had imagined it would be.

Surrounded on all sides by New Mexico desert, it was filled with flat roofed wood and stone buildings that didn’t reach higher than three stories at most, and the roads were lined intermittently with flickering orange street lights that shone down on tiny scrubs and heat-baked sidewalks.

High above them, the cloudless night sky stretched on endlessly.

“You know, I feel like I should be dressed as a cowboy,” Tony commented as he lead Rhodey and Wong across the street to the curved glass and concrete building that Foster and her team had rented as a workshop.

“It does have pretty strong Clint Eastwood vibes,” Rhodey agreed.

“Showdown at dawn,” he drawled back in his best (pretty awful) impression of the famous actor. “Ten paces, quick draw.”

“There’s no one here,” Wong grumbled as he strode up to the large window and peered in. Tony joined him quickly, squinting into the darkness at the pinboards and screens and the clunky box-like detection machines that were clearly handmade.

“Didn’t think they’d be,” he shrugged at the senior sorcerer. “They’ll have gone chasing off after the second atmospheric disturbance.”

“There was a second one?” Rhodey asked as he also joined them. “Yo SMART, throw me the data? Huh, those sure are some numbers! Hell if I know what they mean though.”

Tony snorted and stepped back to glance round at the surrounding area, letting JARVIS scan for any movement or potential witnesses. After a few seconds, his sunglasses’ HUD blinked the green all clear, and he shuffled quickly over to the locked side door.

“You two are spending entirely too much time together, your speech patterns are becoming identical,” Wong complained flatly as he watched Tony twist his wrists in a miniature spell pattern. The sigil glowed neon-blue for a split second, and then shot into the mechanical lock with a faint whoosh. A moment later and the door clicked open and swung inwards.

“Nicely done man,” Rhodey complimented instead of commenting on Wong’s statement. “So what do we do now? Besides breaking and entering I mean.”

“The only timeline I’ve got for this sequence of events is some mostly-forgotten HYDRA-altered SHIELD reports that I barely ever got to glance at,” Tony summarised quickly. “And Thor’s ridiculous poetic retelling that lacked pretty much any coherency or consistency. Seriously, even without taking into consideration the dude’s cultural habit of exaggerating and adding comedic detail, he’s from a race that doesn’t legally come of age until you hit about 1000 Earth-years old. His… grasp on the passage of time is understandably a little lacking as a result.”

“I wonder if he met the Ancient One in his youth,” Rhodey wondered allowed.

“No idea,” Tony shrugged. “But my point is, I only have a rough outline of what’s going to occur here. What I do know, is that Mjølnir embedded itself in the desert and that Thor showed up about the same time. I presume that’s what the two readings we picked up were.”

“Thor then the hammer,” Rhodey stated. “Or visa-versa.”

“Right,” Tony clicked his fingers. “And at some point tonight or tomorrow morning, Foster and co are going to bring Thor back here. Hopefully before Coulson and his minions arrive.”

“And if the minions show first?”

“I’m monitoring the traffic cameras along all three major inroads to the town,” JARVIS stated from Tony’s phone in his pocket. “I am also tracking data from local air traffic control, and the location of Agent Coulson’s phone. You shall have advanced warning of their arrival.”

“The status of Coulson’ phone is highly suspect,” Tony added dryly. “Given that he’s probably gotten a new one by now even if he hasn’t realised it’s been compromised for some time. But odds are SHIELD will just drive here in blindingly obvious government cars anyway.”

“And in the meantime, we wait?” Rhodey sighed.

“And in the meantime, we wait.”

“So,” Wong asked blandly after ten minutes. “Are either of you going to explain why you seem to know the future?”

“Aw fuck,” Tony groaned. “I totally forgot you didn’t already know, didn’t I? I have to stop doing that!”

“Sir, I have intercepted a local police report stating than a man matching Prince Thor’s description caused a disruption at the local county hospital approximately six hours ago.

“What? Thor’s in hospital?” Tony sat upright.

For the last forty-five minutes, he’d been more or less lying on the sole battered couch in Doctor Foster’s makeshift lab watching the sun rise and trying not to fall asleep. After taking some time to have the, uh, mechanics of Tony’s reality explained to him, Wong had taken advantage of the lull in action and had both he and Rhodey drilling familiar katas so that he could begin to teach them to compress and miniaturise them. But after an hour, he’d given up and sent the two of them off to entertain themselves.

(Probably so he could go stew over time-travel and the impending potential end of the universe in private.)

Subsequently, Rhodey had pulled his books on sling rings out while Tony had pulled up his nanite-foundry checklist on his tablet and begun to sketch out the blueprints for the last few components he needed to reinvent.

“I do not have the medical specifics as such details are kept on a close circuit system, but it appears he was admitted approximately an hour after your arrival.”

“This must have happened last time,” Tony frowned as he scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. “This is fine, we can deal with this. Gotta have happened last time, right?”

“Any sign of the men in black?” Rhodey chipped in from his seat at a desk.

“A convoy of three black SUVs with full tint windows and unregistered licence plates were seen on the i25 near Santa Fe at approximately 5:30am Colonel, but I do not currently have access to any cameras between here and there. I estimate that it will be at least another two hours before they arrive.”

“Okay, yeah, we can deal with this,” Rhodey nodded at Tony. “Going off your timeline guesswork and Jarvis’ report, Foster or one of her team will meet back up with Thor at some point in the next couple of hours. I suggest one of us waits here in case they come back while the other two check out the hospital. If Thor’s already gone and/or Foster doesn’t show, we can meet back up and re-plan from there.”

“Look at you taking charge, Mr Thunderstruck,” Tony grinned at his best mate.

“What, you got a problem with it?” Rhodey grinned right back.

“I got the opposite of a problem with it,” he allowed his grin to slide towards lecherous. “Oh please, order me about sexy!”

“Oh you sweet little white boy, you couldn’t handle all this.”

“Can you two not,” Wong sighed suddenly, crossing his arms over his chest, sounding exhausted.

“You’re such a kill joy Wong,” Tony turned to pout playfully at the Master with a laugh. “A little platonic flirting never- Hang on, when did you get changed? Those are normal people clothes! Since when do you own jeans!? Or a sweater!? Rhodey, Wong-wong is wearing jeans and a college sweater!”

“We’re sorcerers Stark.”

“What does that have to- Oh, you magicked your clothes into something else. Duh. Wait, can I do that!? How do I do that!? Oh my daisies, that would save me so much time if I could do that! What about magicking myself naked? What happens to my clothes if I do that? What if-”

“Hey! Focus!” Rhodey waved a hand in his face. “Thor first, new spells later.”

“Roger roger,” he smirked like a Star Wars battle droid.

“If the Ancient One ever asks me to work with you two again, I am going to vehemently refuse,” Wong groaned, dragging a hand down his face.

“I think we broke him,” Tony stage-whispered.

“Yeah, him and every other poor bastard who comes into contact with you,” Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Now grab your rucksack; ain’t no way you’re staying here unsupervised.”

“Roger roger,” he repeated cheekily.

Chapter Text

“Yes, his name actually is Thor,” Rhodey repeated to the irritated hospital receptionist – a young man who looked to have barely finished high school. “It’s really not that uncommon in Scandinavian countries.”

“And I’m still sure you’re having me on,” the youth drawled back. “Whatever, this above my pay grade. Floor two, ward block six. You’ll have to find the specific room yourselves.”

“Remember,” Rhodey finished sternly, flashing his military officer ID card. “We were never here.”

“You do realise I would have legit forgotten your existence within five minutes if you hadn’t made such a song and dance out of all this?” the young man rolled his eyes. Then he pointedly wheeled his chair away from the front of the desk, turning his back on the two of them as he went back to his ancient-looking computer.

“Kids today huh?” Tony snorted as they turned away themselves and headed towards the elevators. Rhodey – still grumbling under his breath – reached out and stabbed the call button, and after a few seconds of waiting, the doors dinged and rattled open.

Soon they were walking into another reception area, this one much quieter with an unattended desk. Tony tugged the peak of his hat down again and bypassed it completely, strolling off down the corridor behind it, exuding as much I am totally supposed to be here energy as he could muster

“Not that one,” he hummed as he peered through the glass next to yet another door. “Nope. Nope. Still nope.”

“Long blonde hair and built like a brick shithouse?” Rhodey suddenly asked from the other side of the hallway.

“Like a man who’s at least 50% steroids by volume,” Tony agreed as he scurried over and joined his best-mate in staring through the long window into the small, sterile room beyond. It was empty aside from the hospital bed positioned against the right-most wall, on which lay a familiar but unconscious Nordic deity, his hair shorter than Tony had possibly ever seen it.

(Except no… now he thought about it, Thor had come back from space with Bruce with short back and sides and slides of all things, hadn’t he? Tony’d had more important things to consider at that point in time though. Cough, the snap, cough. So Thor’s hair drama had been a minor aside at best.)

Quickly checking over his shoulder one last time, Tony then pushed the door open and dragged Rhodey in with him.

“Damn, they’ve strapped him down and everything,” Rhodey whistled as he strode forward and grabbed the chart hanging on the wall next to the head of the bed. “Yep, listen to this. Patient displayed strong violent tendencies, sedated and restrained. 900 milligram ketamine given posterior IM as emergency induction 23:35. Maintain Midazolam 3 milligram per hour IV until 07:00. Damn, they full on tranqued the dude!”

“Uh, yeah not surprised,” Tony snorted with a gesture at the shattered glass storage cabinet and the LCD monitor screen still half hanging off the wall. There was a box of broken vials and the like balanced on the narrow windowsill too, further evidence that Thor had gone full rage mode on the unfortunate hospital staff.

“Surprised our Earthly drugs put him down given what you said about his metabolism.”

“Eh, he’s sans-godly powers right now. I think. The hammer has this whole ye must be moste worthy clause in the small print and right now Daddy Dearest is making a point by making him unworthy and therefore mortal. Something something war with the frost giants? Hell if I know, I wasn’t around for this part originally.”

“Well then,” Rhodey sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “I guess it’s time to abscond with this Barbie Adonis.”

“Barbie Adonis?” Tony spluttered incredulously.

“I said what I said,” the airman smirked back unrepentantly. “Now come on, get that IV out of him and let’s portal him back to Wong before he wakes up.”

Rhodey had pitched Thor onto the couch that Tony had been almost-napping on before, throwing a tatty blanket over him to cover what the blue hospital robe did not. Then he had opened another portal back to Malibu, promising to be back in ten minutes tops with proper clothes for him raided from Tony’s closet.

“Why couldn’t you have just magicked his ER gown into some jeans and a tee?” Tony complained twenty minutes later when Rhodey had failed to reappear in a timely manner. According to JARVIS, he’d gotten waylaid by Morgan, who’d asked him for (demanded) some breakfast as he’d been heading back down to their designated portal space in the basement.

(Tony was also weak to Morgan’s puppy eyes, but he was maintaining that Rhodey’s excuse was a poor one regardless)

“Troika’s alignment of phrasal harmonics,” Wong replied blandly.

“You can’t do it to other people!?” Tony whined as he decided to raid Foster’s cupboards for more shitty coffee. “Well that’s just stupid!”

“You’re the maths geek, you change the spell,” the other sorcerer shrugged.

“I damn well will, just you watch,” he grumbled under his breath. “Christ on a bike Foster, this coffee maker is a piece of shit. I’m going to do the world a favour and disassemble this monstrosity for-”

“Uh, who the hell are you?”

Abandoning the coffee maker immediately, Tony whipped round to find a young woman in a woollen hat holding three cardboard take away cups standing in the doorway.

“Darcy Lewis right?” Tony greeted her with one of his signature smirks. “Tony Stark, nice to meet you.”

“Riiiight,” Lewis drawled back sceptically. “Sure thing, Mr B and E.”

“Unfortunately, he really is Tony Stark,” Wong deadpanned from further back in the room.

“Yeah, and I’m the Queen of- holy shit, you actually are!” she amended mid-sentence as he stepped forward further into the light and pulled his “incognito” baseball cap off.

“He’s disappointing once you meet him in the flesh, isn’t he?”

“Wong, please shut up,” Tony lamented over his shoulder.

“Darcy, what’s-? Uh, who are you and how did you get in here? This is private property!”

And now there were two women standing in the doorway gawping at him. Great!

“Doctor Jane Foster, pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he introduced himself again as he glided forward.

“Holy shit, you’re Tony Stark.”

“That’s what I just said!” Lewis blurted, still blocking most of the main doorway. Foster squeezed past her, her eyes wide in astonishment.

“Mr Stark, it’s an honour,” the astrophysicist stammered as she strode the rest of the way over to him in a rush and offered him her hand; Tony shook it with only a little habitual hesitation. “I read your recent article on thermodynamic energy manipulation in Science and while it’s far from my speciality, I have to say I was enamoured with the potential exoterrestrial applications you briefly outlined in the discussion section.”

“Yeah well, we all got our wheelhouse,” he grinned back. “I don’t know what half these gizmos do,” he gestured to the equipment stacked around the room. “I’ll stick to mechanical engineering and leave the space and wormholes to you. Mostly. I’d like to discuss a potential partnership between you and Stark Industries, if you’re interested?”

“A- a partnership!? With Stark Industries!? Are you for real!?”

“Or directly with me if you prefer,” he offered with a shrug. “Though SI will be able to offer a better contract and thus better funding to be honest. Of course I’ll-”

“Yes!” Dr Foster blurted over him, looking rather starstruck and more than a little shell-shocked.

“Uhhhh, not to interrupt the nerd-talk,” Lewis interjected before Foster could stammer anything further. “But isn’t that the dude you hit with the car last night!?”

Things got a little... wild from there.

Rhodey re-arrived in a shower of orange sparks just as Selvig also turned up with an envelope of print outs.

JARVIS also announced that seven all-black SUVs and two transit vans were about to enter the town along the northern road, all of which had unregistered plates and suspiciously dark windows.

And then Thor chose that same moment to return to the land of consciousness!

Yeah. All these things at once.

“Thor,” Tony repeated tiredly. “Thor! Please sit down!”

“But this mortal form has grown weak! I require more sustenance!” the blonde giant of a man frowned morosely, tossing the now empty box of strawberry pop tarts over his shoulder.

Selvig was staring at them all silently from beside Foster, his eyes narrowed and assessing. Evaluating. Analysing.

“I know, it’s coming buddy,” Tony groaned tiredly. “Rhodey will be back with pancakes and French toast shortly. So please, just sit and wait.”

God, this was a mess. Foster and co were not supposed to see any magic. And Wong was being singularly unhelpful despite – as the only master among them – the fall out from that fuck up technically being his responsibility, merely sitting back and watching the proceedings with a bland expression that reeked of amusement.

At least Tony had been able to prevent them all from traipsing out to a diner for breakfast. Letting this strangely naive Thor roam the streets with SHIELD on the prowl was a terrible idea.

“This is so weird,” Lewis-call-me-Darcy whispered.

“I am truly in the realm of Midgard?” Thor asked as he finally lowered himself back into the computer desk chair they’d pulled up to the table for him – with four extra people, there hadn’t been enough ordinary ones to go around. “I had thought this land to be one of simple mortal people? Though your buildings are as tiny as I had anticipated, you seem to have discovered the advanced arts of sky walking and magecraft! Truly, a magnificent feat!”

“Skywalker? Like, Luke Skywalker?” Darcy leaned over to whisper again to Foster.

“He means the magic portals,” Tony groaned even more emphatically. “Thor no! Do not smash the mug!”

“But it is delicious and I desire another?”

“In the realm of Midgard, smashing or damaging other people’s property is considered to be rude and disrespectful,” Tony explained in a rush. “That includes plates, mugs, glasses, bowls or anything else you eat or drink from.”

“Truly? I meant no disrespect!”

“I’ll tell you about our cultural differences as they come up,” he promised carefully with a sigh. “Or I’ll try to. There’s um, quite a lot of them. And they differ from place to place within our uh, realm.”

“Your guidance is much appreciated, son of Stark. All of Asgard will know of your benevolence when I return to my kingdom!”

“It’s just Stark. Not... son of Stark”

“All men are sons of another.”

“Okay one. Not entirely true because Lesbians. Two – and more relevantly – we don’t include our father’s name in our names,” Tony explained tiredly. Again. Or well, for the first time in this timeline, but still. “My name is Tony Stark. My father was Howard Stark, and his Father was.. also Howard Stark, okay I can see this ending in confusion.”

“Your people have kinsfolk rather than patronymic names,” Thor shrugged agreeably, as though he’d known this all along. “One name ascribed to all in your lineage. You are Tony of the lineage Stark.”

“...You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Tony mumbled under his breath, dragging his hands down his face. It had taken him weeks to get Thor to stop calling him son of Stark the first go round, and even longer to put pay to the Starkson that followed afterwards.

Which meant Thor had probably fucking well been doing it on purpose, the irritating teasing bastard. Tony knew he was far more intelligent than he had pretended to be, but apparently he was even more of a prankster than he’d pegged him for. Goddammit!

(This was Loki’s fault somehow, wasn’t it?)

“Jesus fuck!” Darcy then swore as Rhodey reappeared right behind her. Slingie on one hand and a large wooden tray stacked with plates balanced on the other. “Are you magic creeps trying to give me a heart attack!?”

Selvig’s assessing look morphed into one of wary resignation while Wong cracked an honest-to-gods actual smile.

“I said don’t touch my stuff!”

“Stark,” Coulson sighed with blatant exasperation. “We’re investigating a serious security threat. We’re not appropriating this data and equipment just for funsies. And it’s not your stuff.”

“You sure man?” Rhodey cocked an eyebrow at the agent as he held up one of Tony’s tablets. “Cause this signed contract here says that as of four hours ago, all of Dr Foster’s equipment belongs to Stark Industries for the duration of their professional association.”

“What?”

“See, I have a permit!” Tony grinned. “My stuff now!”

“Actually it’s still my stuff, it’s just contracted to you,” Dr Foster asserted sternly from off to one side.

“Actually it’s still her stuff, it’s just contracted to me,” Tony nodded in agreement.

“I’m sorry sir,” a more junior agent muttered to Coulson, having shuffled up to him nervously. “But the door is completely jammed. Harson broke four lock picks before switching to leveraging the hinges and still couldn’t get anywhere. We’re not getting in there without a battering ram.”

“Stark,” Coulson closed his eyes. “What are you hiding in the bathroom?”

“The Norse God of Thunder and a mystic sorcerer,” he replied with a completely straight face.

“And what are you actually hiding in the bathroom?”

“...The Norse God of Thunder and a mystic sorcerer. We did consider sending them through a magic portal to another country, but we figured you were a bit too close and might spot the sparkly orange magic glitter circles. So we just. Stashed them in there instead.”

“Not that we really needed to hide the magic man,” Darcy added, dragging a lollipop across her lower lip. “Dude is suspiciously normal looking.”

“He really is,” Tony hummed bemusedly.

And then Coulson’s phone started ringing. Obnoxiously loudly.

“That’ll be Fury,” Tony smirked. “Telling you to stop touching my stuff. My lawyers are very efficient.”

“My stuff,” Dr Foster muttered.

“Her stuff,” Tony corrected himself again.

Chapter Text

“Yello!” Tony chirped into his phone as he brought it to his ear.

“Stark,” Natasha greeted him back. “We have a problem.”

“Okay, no offence, but I do not have time for problems. I’ve just told Thor he can’t pick up his hammer again until he’s proven himself worthy of it and he’s having the biggest moping fest found on this side of the Himalayas. Coulson is once again pissed off at me, and I’m still no closer to getting Loki down here for a little chat.”

“Someone blew up the prison cell where we were keeping Vanko.”

“You are fucking kidding me,” he groaned, pinching his brow.

“There was a body that matches Vanko’s ID, but-”

“It’s not actually Vanko,” Tony finished for her. “One job! I gave SHIELD one job!”

“He killed six people in his escape,” Natasha informed him with an audible grimace. “Four of them were SHIELD agents.”

“One job!”

“I’m assuming Hammer will have stashed him somewhere?”

“Yeah,” he breathed raggedly. “I have no idea where, but he’ll have had to get him out of France first. Check the schedule and logs of Hammer’s jet. Hopefully you can pick up the trail there. If you call Bruce, he should be able to lend you a hand. Steve too if you need.”

“They’re at your wizard school where it’s presumably coming up to midnight.”

“Bruce barely sleeps,” Tony waved a hand in front of himself. “In fact, he’s probably annoying Master Yeong right now. He’s the temple’s librarian.”

“I’ll message him and see if he’s still awake. The other thing is I’ve had word from Clint Barton. He’s-”

“Hawkeye, I know.”

“Actually I was going to say he’s in New Mexico with you.”

“Legolas is here?”

“He didn’t tell me much because texting classified information is an amateur move, but he mentioned something about a satellite crater?”

“He’s guarding Thor’s hammer,” Tony extrapolated. “Not that SHIELD know what it is yet. Thank the stars I managed to stop blondie from running off to try and collect it.”

“Speaking of, I’ve got Fury riding my ass wanting to know how the hell you and Rhodes got to New Mexico during the night without anyone noticing. Especially as I’m supposed to be spying on you.”

“We agreed to tell him that I am very sneaky,” he reminded her with a small smirk.

“That’s basically all I could tell him. But watch yourself; he’s already suspicious because you aren’t dying from heavy metal poisoning like you should be. Now you’ve seemingly teleported 900 miles too. He’s getting confused and therefore very pissed off.”

“I did teleport 900 miles. Portal, teleport. Same difference. Anyway, I gotta go; gods to wrangle and clouds to yell at and all that. Give my wife a kiss from me! A nice big wet one. Use tongue.”

“You’re incorrigible Stark.”

“You’re really just gonna yell at the clouds?”

The mid-afternoon sun was warm but not nearly as bad as the Afghan sands had been. Small desert scrubs poked up through the sparse dusty soil, and weathered bands of rock protruded in ridges from the sides of the low rolling hills that made up the landscape.

“Well have you got a better idea?” Tony asked Rhodey as they stood in a deep dip between two outcrops of tuff and sandstone. They’d chosen the spot because it was far from the main road and hopefully well hidden from any potential observers. “This is what Thor always does.”

“Indeed, Heimdall is most attentive. He shall hear your cry.”

“Rhodey. Hey Rhodey. Heeeeeee sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake!”

“Don’t make it creepy dude,” Rhodey groused, pulling a face at him.

“Are we sure this isn’t just going to make those SHIELD agents come running?” Selvig questioned with a deep frown. “I’ve heard the stories. There was this scientist working over at Culver, an expert in gamma radiation-”

“Oh, that’s Bruce!” Tony interrupted him with a cheery grin. “Yeah, we picked him up from Brazil last week. He’s chilling in Nepal right now with Wong’s people.”

“They’re our people too man,” Rhodey pointed out, wiggling his fingers so that a cascade of red and silver sparks spilled down over them for a second.

“Dr Banner is a sorcerer as well?” Selvig blinked slowly.

“Nope,” Tony shook his head. “Or at least he’s not yet? I think the Ancient One has designs on him though because he’s so good at mediation already. He does turn into a giant green rage monster when he gets upset though.”

“He does. It’s pretty impressive,” Wong stated with a manic looking gleam in his eyes.

The Swedish astrophysicist blinked slowly again and then turned to Dr Foster.

“I apologise sincerely for every time I’ve implied or outright claimed that your research is too outlandish to be plausible.”

“Apology accepted,” Dr Foster replied back weakly, still staring in bafflement at Rhodey’s hand.

“Anyway!” Tony said loudly, dragging everyone’s attention back to himself. “SHIELD will not find us, at least not nearly fast enough to do them any good. Rhodey and SMART removed both trackers from your van, I got all the bugs from the workshop- Do you call it a workshop? Well there’s no functional bugs in it any more. We also tanked every traffic cam and networked camera in the town, Wong magicked the two agents lurking in the vicinity into forgetting their duties and wandering off, and according to my inside women, Coulson and everyone else are headed back to the crater. Which is nearly 50 miles west of town.”

“And we’re out eastwards,” Rhodey finished. “They’ll realise we’ve left soon enough, but they won't know at what time we set off, and they won't know where we've gone to.”

“And verily, we have escaped their clutches,” Thor added with a wide smile. “A wily plan of strong calibre that even my brother would not scoff at!”

“Does he always have to speak like that?” Wong sighed.

“He’ll pick up the local dialect eventually, won’t you buddy?” Tony half-shrugged, clapping the god on the shoulder. Thor smiled like a puppy in response. “Right then science and mojo gang, shall we give this a go?”

“I still can’t believe you’re just going to yell at the clouds,” Rhodey groaned.

“I can’t believe that the yelling at clouds is the least insane part,” Selvig muttered too.

Tony winked over his shoulder at the older scientist and carefully double checked his and Rhodey’s rucksacks were in easy reach. Just in case. Then he took a couple of steps away from the rest of the group and took a deep breath.

“Yo Heimdall!” he shouted upwards into the sky. “I’m here with ya boy Thor! We need to talk to Loki! It’s important! Infinity stones are involved! Ask him to beam down will you? Please!”

A faint breeze ruffled over them, the only sounds the rustling of shrub leaves and the whisper of dust and grit bouncing along the ground.

“Well that was anticlimactic,” Wong snorted.

“Relax!” Tony rolled his eyes as he turned back around. “Heimdude will have to actually relay the message to his horniness first and then Loki will have to get from wherever he is to the Bifrost place. My point is, this was never gonna be instantaneous.”

“Heimdude? His horniness? Really?” Rhodey quirked an eyebrow judgmentally.

“I’m sorry, what was that Barbie Adonis?”

“He’s Barbie Adonis, not me,” he pointed over his shoulder with a thumb.

“They were still your words Platypus!”

“The fact you call me Platypus fifty percent of the time really just proves my point, short stack Stark!”

“Are those two always like that?” Darcy whispered to Wong in the background.

“Yes,” Wong grumbled back.

“The Bifrost! It opens!” Thor suddenly bellowed joyously, cutting Tony off in the middle of another zinging comeback.

“Well shit, that was much faster than I thought it would be,” he gulped instead.

“Everyone back in the van now,” Rhodey ordered as the wind did indeed start to pick up ominously. “This will be pinging on every one of SHIELD’s radars. We have to be ready to move out as soon as we’ve collected Loki!”

“I thought you said this wouldn’t bring SHIELD running!” Dr Foster yelled over the building cacophony.

“I said we would have time to leg it when they did come running!” Rhodey shouted back, herding them all into the back of the vehicle.

Then the air filled itself with dazzlingly bright rainbow lights and the roar drowned out everything.

Loki was acting… suspiciously sane from Tony’s point of view. It was unnerving.

He was however, just as arrogant and haughty as he remembered. Slightly less unnerving, if only because of the familiarity.

“I am serious mortal, I do not have time to play these petty games. Give me the information I require so that I may return to my duties!”

“Patience brother” Thor rumbled as they rattled down the dirt track, Rhodey driving them back towards Puente Antiguo with as much haste as he dared. “These Midgardians have been most welcoming and this one of the Stark lineage is particularly knowledgeable. You would do well to treat him with respect.”

“Father is on the verge of falling into the Odin sleep Thor,” Loki scowled. “And your idiotic revenge plan has gotten you banished, which means the burden of regent will likely fall to me!”

“T’is not a burden! T’is a glorious boon to revel in!”

“The fact you think it nought but a parade in your honour is precisely the problem brother!”

“Loki you go too far!”

“Uh Thor buddy?” Tony slid between the two brothers, his arms raised placatingly. “Really am just playing mediator here, so don’t thump me. But uh, isn’t the reckless hothead attitude why you got tossed here in the first place? So maybe lower the fists?”

“The mortal speaks truly Thor.”

“Did I not say he was particularly knowledgeable?” the blonde god thankfully sighed, his shoulders sagging as the anger drained out of him. That was Thor for you; quick to anger, but just as quick to calm.

“While I concede that you may be correct in your assessment of the Midgardian,” the god of mischief drawled. “It remains that I must return to Asgard in a timely manner. Impart your information Stark, so that I might depart sooner.”

“Not that simp- Jesus Rhodey! Go easier on the suspension! None of us have seatbelts back here!”

“It’s a rocky dirt track Tones! You’re the one who suggested staying off the highway to avoid SHIELD!”

At Loki’s withering look, Tony bit his tongue and rolled his eyes. Bracing himself back against the side of the van again, he took a moment to regather his thoughts.

“I said, it’s not that simple,” he restarted. “To begin with, you need to toss out the assumption that us mere mortals are actually mere. Yes, we mostly have shorter life spans than you, but we’re not thick. Or backwards. Or underdeveloped.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but- oh actually, that’s quite clever.”

Loki was staring incredulously at Wong.

Who had just summoned a spinning orange mandala that centred on his fist and spun slowly, spitting out tiny licks of flame along its outer edge.

“DO NOT SET FIRE TO MY VAN!” Dr Foster screeched as she shuffled hastily away from the sorcerer.

Wong gave her a flat judgemental look and cancelled the spell with a roll of his arm.

“And we have technology as well as magic,” Tony continued, unzipping the top of his oversized rucksack. “I’m an engineer by trade, one that specialises in energy production and communication,” he simplified for the gods’ benefit. “But I am also a highly accomplished armour smith. Start her up J!”

A gauntlet and vambrace flickered to life with a spurt of blue arc-reactor energy. Zipping out of the bag gracefully, they curled open with quiet clacks and homed in on the micro repeaters embedded in his arm. Then with impressive precision, they shot over to him and latched onto his raised hand smoothly.

In only seconds, they had fully expanded and covered him from finger tip to elbow.

“Also they know the art of sky walking brother.”

“Portals! I remember that bit,” Darcy beamed.

“Okay,” Loki cleared his throat. “Fair enough. I’m listening.”

“So in conclusion, despite the fact your father is a bit of a dick, do not explode Jotunheim with the ice cube of ancient frostiness lest you fall into the abyss and become Thanos’ chew toy.”

“I think that may be wise,” Loki mumbled dazedly, sitting down on to Dr Foster’s workshop couch heavily.

“We truly have an elder sister!?” Thor repeated for about the fourth time.

Chapter Text

Sunrise was beginning to light up the mountains surrounding Kamar-Taj as a single orange portal opened into a room that had once been barely larger than a broom closet.

(Or barely bigger than a Stark-sized broom closet at least)

“I know, there’s only enough seating for half of us, but in fairness, there’s usually only ever four of us in here,” Tony gestured towards the plush couches and glass topped coffee table as his motley crew stepped through the portal one by one. “Steve used to spend a lot of time in here too, but once I asked the Ancient One to give Bruce his own cell, she rolled her eyes and gave Cap one as well. And that’s cell like monk’s cell, not prison cell before you get your panties in a twist.”

“No-one has their panties in a twist,” Wong grumbled as he walked into the room, the last of the group to do so. Tony dropped his hand once he was all the way through, and the portal snapped closed with it’s usual fizzing rush.

“This space is larger than it should be,” Loki frowned deeply, stopping dead on the rug in front of the door. “I can sense energies pushing the walls back beyond their natural limits.”

“It’s bigger on the inside?” Dr Foster gasped with raised eyebrows.

“It’s bigger on the inside,” Tony grinned at her.

“How exactly are you powering this crafting?” Loki continued on, his eyes narrowed as he peered around intently. “The flow does not seem to be passing through anyone nor is it anchored to any relic that I can sense and yet it persists regardless”

“It’s an astral surface manipulation that uses a combination of Gambit and Cosmic Dimension energies,” Rhodey explained succinctly, pointing to the small twelve-point sigil scorched into the wall above the door.

“It uses- What?”

“Hang on, do you only use your own internal energies to power spells?” Tony scratched his head.

“Yes, obviously,” Loki blinked back at him, his expression now one of pure bafflement.

“He’s a mage, not a sorcerer Stark,” Wong grunted.

“There’s a difference? Is this why you all get so upset when I call us wizards?”

“Mages have a natural well of internal power that they draw from,” Wong continued gruffly. “To be a mage, you have to be born as one. Sorcerers on the other hand can be anyone, as dimensional drawing is a learnt skill, not a genetic one. As for wizards, they’re people who have been unnaturally enhanced by an external object, usually in a manner that is highly volatile and dangerous.”

“I think I understand?” Thor frowned thoughtfully, crossing his arms over his chest.

“But-” Rhodey started as his own brow creased in thought. “Uh. Portal slingies only use our own internal energies to power them… so how uh…?”

“So you are capable of using internal seidr in your crafting?” Loki hummed consideringly. “But it is a matter of choice? How radical.”

“Now I do not understand,” Thor grumbled with a sigh that sounded distinctly long suffering. Darcy patted his bicep in mutual commiseration.

“No, mages have two additional chakras which everyone else lacks; these are their primary well of power,” the Ancient One explained serenely as she glided into the room. Tony hadn’t even noticed the door open so he jumped what felt like six-foot straight upwards when she spoke.

“Jeez AO!” he complained, slapping a hand over his arc-reactor melodramatically. “Give my already abused self a heart attack why don’t you!?”

“Thank you for accompanying the apprentices to the Americas Master Wong,” she addressed the other sorcerer, ignoring Tony completely. “You may leave these matters to me now if you wish?”

“Oh thank Vishanti,” Wong sighed with obvious relief. “Stark, Rhodes. This was awful, let’s never do it again.”

He was gone before Tony could summon a scathing reply.

“Rude,” he pouted at the rest of the group instead.

“Apprentice Stark,” the Ancient One finally turned to him with a flat look. “There are three more individuals here than I was anticipating. And five more than you asked permission to bring.”

“Wellll...” Tony drew out with a sheepish shrug. “At least you were expecting me to bring Thor and Loki?”

“I take this is supposed to be a super secret society,” Darcy stage-whispered to Selvig. Loudly. Who just grunted in return.

“Since this was your idea, I shall leave it to you and Apprentice Rhodes to explain their presence to Masters Kaecilius and Mordo,” the Ancient One smiled at him politely, her eyes glinting mischievously.

“Aw now that’s just mean,” Rhodey groaned as he flopped onto the couch dramatically.

“This was a terrible idea,” Pepper deadpanned as across the dining hall, Morgan held up a Lego Star Wars ship for Loki and Thor to inspect.

“Uh excuse me,” Tony smirked back at her. “That’s a Venator Class Republic Attack Cruiser and it’s not scheduled for public release until next month. But it’s my birthday and it was shiny, so very much not a terrible idea.”

“What? It’s a what? Actually I don’t care, because you know full well that I was talking about you bringing Loki here to Kamar-Taj.”

“In all fairness, I thought you were still in Malibu and thus far away from his goat-helmetness.”

“Loki! Who unleashed an alien invasion on New York city!”

“Not to repeat the same phrase, but in all fairness that was in the future-past that now shall never happen.”

“He threw you out of the penthouse window.”

“Future-past Loki who now won’t exist threw me out of the penthouse window.”

“Ugh, I know you’re right,” Pepper groaned as she prodded her bowl of fruit and rice with her chopsticks. “But it’s still giving me the heebie-jeebies. He killed hundreds of people and destroyed half of Manhattan! Yes I know, don’t say it again; future-past Loki who won’t exist now.”

“Changing the subject to something less headache inducing,” Tony hummed as he took another bite of his own not-breakfast (it was about six in the evening by his body-clock? Once again, fucking time zones!). “But what are you doing in Kamar-Taj?”

“Steve agreed to babysit Morgan so that Natasha and I could “fly” back to New York and poke at Hammer. He’s been lurking around the Expo so we figured he must be using a warehouse somewhere nearby to store our escaped felon.”

“Damn, I’d forgotten about Vanko in the face of all… this,” Tony flapped a hand at the two gods that were now inspecting Morgan's Lego minifigs with matching fascinated expressions. “Have you got a StarkTab on you? I can put both ADAM and IRENE on it so you can fry his tech from fifty paces at the tap of a button.”

“Here,” Pepper said as she rustled through her bag. “A tab and both my cell phones. And I’ll ask JARVIS to put at least IRENE on Nat’s non-SHIELD phone too when I head back to Malibu.”

Tony accepted them with a tired huff and flopped backwards on his chosen seating rug, stretching his back out with a satisfying click.

“You okay down there man?” Rhodey asked as he appeared above Tony, Bruce hovering at his shoulder with a puzzled frown.

“Floor comfy,” he grumbled as he unlocked Pepper’s tab and started rapidly tapping his way through the settings, opening the hidden developer portal. “Also we need to get our heads together and have a rethink. A lil planning sesh, a mental communing of brilliant babes.”

“I thought you’d want to do that. It’s why I’ve dragged Banner in here with me,” Rhodey nodded down at him.

“You hear that Brucie-bear, you’re a brilliant babe!” Tony grinned up at the two men. “Yo AO! AO! Can I go fetch Natbroski? For to science?”

The Ancient One – who was kneeling two tables over with still-overwhelmed Foster and co – looked over at him with a blank expression. Then she raised one bald eyebrow judgmentally and took a slow sip of her steaming tea.

“Secret society,” she stated blandly.

“That is not a no!” Tony called back at her gleefully.

With everyone fed and watered and Natasha collected, Tony had corralled his growing gang of nerds and magic users into one of the empty kata halls that were usually only used on the rare occasions it was raining too hard to practice out in the courtyards. The shutters in the space were thrown open, allowing the gentle summer breeze to flow in through the glassless windows, rippling over the ancient hardwood floors and twining between the square pillars that stood parallel to the dark panelled walls.

While everyone else loosely congregated into small groups and began to murmur amongst themselves, Loki immediately beelined for a stack of books that someone had left piled on one of the low worktables against the back wall.

“I cannot read this, why can I not read this?” Loki complained loudly as he turned another page.

“Because it’s written in ancient Sumerian,” Rhodey told him after a glance at the cover.

“I have All-speak, I should be able to read any and all languages,” Loki pulled an annoyed face as he continued turning pages. “Ancient Sumerian included.”

“All-speak is a… it’s Asgard’s version of the universal translation program thing most space-farers have,” Tony explained quickly when several of his assembled scientists opened their mouths all at the same time. “It’s an advanced nano-tech interface that provides real-time visual and audio translations. No, I do not have a copy of the software, and no, I do not currently have access to the materials needed to build the nano-injectable hardware it runs off.”

“He’s gotta go to space to get that one,” Pepper added. “Which he is not allowed to do just yet.”

“Rhodey and I gotta build a spaceship first.”

“And we’ve got so many Earthly things going on that take precedence,” Steve finished with a weary sigh.

“You still have not explained why I cannot read this,” Loki complained again, waving with the book.

“Magic book, magic ancient Sumerian,” Pepper shrugged. “That won’t scan or photograph either, much to Tony’s consternation.”

“I have to copy the diagrams out by hand with an ink quill on parchment first,” he whined pettily. “By hand! And if you draw too many on one sheet, it becomes quasi-sentient too and then you can’t digitise that either!”

Loki sighed dramatically and dropped the book down.

“So that is that mystery explained,” the god grumbled. “With a most irritating conclusion.”

“My brother intently dislikes sentient books,” Thor nodded knowingly. “They are exceedingly rare, but Father has a few in the citadel library gifted to our people by the knowledgeable Vanir. I must warn you however, Loki will learn the language in which your magic book is written now, purely out of spite. T’is most amusing to observe his struggles in the meantime, but he will irritate you with his new-found knowledge at a later date.”

“Thor,” Loki groaned again.

“I’m uh, but uh… these books?” Bruce added softly, one hand rubbing at the collar of his pale blue shirt. “They’re not that rare surely? Practically every book in the library here is at least partially sentient. Or at least I think they are? I’ve not been here long but I’ve been having the same problems as Tony… and presumably Mr Rhodes when it comes to taking notes.”

“Sorry, what?” Loki blinked blankly.

“As fascinating as this all is,” Rhodey announced loudly over everyone else, his voice infused with a hint of military-learnt authority. “We do have an actual agenda here that we need to get through. So if everyone could choose a rug and sit down, it would be much appreciated.”

“Uh, no. No!” Loki interrupted. “Are you saying that this temple’s entire library is-!?”

“Planning session now, magic nerding later,” Rhodey cut him off sharply, pointing at a rug on the floor. “Besides, it was only like, four hours ago that you were insisting you needed to get back to being regent as soon as possible. The sooner we get through this, the sooner you can beam back to Viking land.”

Loki opened his mouth again.

Rhodey raised both eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest.

Loki’s shoulders drooped and he stomped over and dropped onto the floor with a put-upon huff.

“It’s really hot when Rhodey-bear gets all commanding and in charge,” Tony whispered loudly to Pepper as he also shuffled forward and sat down. Pepper hummed agreeably.

Rhodey only rolled his eyes fondly.

“Mortals are by far stranger than I recall,” Thor rumbled as he nudged Loki over and pushed his way into joining him on his mat. “And I am still wrestling with the concept of a secret elder sister!”

Chapter Text

“Ta da!” Tony grinned, dusting his hands off on his jeans. “Much better right?”

With the three extra magi-space rooms now fully up and running, the main workshop in Malibu was finally back to being organised. And navigable. No more climbing over desks and piles of equipment!

“Okay, you’re allowed to bring Morgan down here again now,” Pepper nodded as she looked around at the result of their hard work.

The far end by the stairs and elevator was now partially segregated off by a wall of glass panels. Cupboards and shelves lined the right end wall beyond it, and two large workbenches ran the length of two of the sides. A large metal worktable then stood in the centre of this space much like a kitchen island, and a final small desk for Morgan sat in the remaining corner.

The majority of the rest of the garage was now taken up by a huge circular hologram plinth that doubled as a heat proof suit testing platform, a portal opening grid cordoned off by sturdy metal fencing under the windows, and a small car mechanics station by the garage exit ramp. Because well, Tony still loved his cars okay?

The gaps between these main fixtures then held four more worktables, the bots' charging docks, and the ever-important couches and coffee table combination. Two of the worktables were loaded up with high-spec computer systems, each with multiple clear glass monitors, while the remaining two were currently clear and awaiting the detritus of whatever project they decided to work on next.

“You’ve kept the display wall of suits I see,” Pepper commented as she walked past the kitchenette and stopped next to the back-most plinth steps.

“Yep,” Tony agreed, pushing his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “I know they’re mostly empty right now, but the left side will all be non-active Ironman suits with the right side the same for Thunderstruck. Then the final central cabinet is for our outdated arc reactors and the like. Nice symmetry right?”

“Yes but… non-active?” Pepper asked as she stepped further into the shallow arched space. “Not the suits you’re currently using in the field I take it?”

“Right on the money! No point in displaying our primary armour or any in-use backups, as we’d only end up constantly having to get them out of the cabinets and put them back. Nah, safer to keep those somewhere easily accessible.”

“Ah, fair enough,” Pepper shrugged. “I think I’m still used to you having the nano-tech suit which you could just take everywhere without having to consider all this accessibility stuff.”

“Nano-tech is well on it’s way to being reinvented by the way,” Tony gestured at the furtherest left of the three back wall doors. “Completed foundry is in there with the rest of the fabrication units and the over-souped computing equipment; just needs some Vibranium to fabricate the bots from now. And we’re kinda saving the remaining chunk of Steve’s shield for emergencies. As per Steve’s instance I might add.”

“And Vibranium access means Wakanda. Which is… seventh on the to-do list?”

“Or sixth, if we decide to approach his pantherness before establishing the accords. Or well, our much better version of the accords. Hmm, now I think about it we should go with sixth, because then we can be like “oh hey, with these in place, you don’t have to fear being exploited or vilified or both!” That should work right?”

“I’m sure you’ll make it work for you,” Pepper chuckled as she poked her head in through the second door into the gymnasium and dojo. Steve was inside whaling on a reinforced punching bag under Natasha’s watchful eye, while Bruce stood off to one side looking nervous as he fiddled with the pair of boxing gloves that had clearly been pushed into his hands unwillingly.

“Of course I will, I’m Tony Stark!”

“Oh hey guys,” Steve smiled as he spotted them loitering in the doorway. “Want a go? Or we could go a couple of rounds on the mats?”

“No can do I’m afraid Stevie,” Tony shook his head as he waved hello back at Nat. “Got a billion and one things to do unfortunately. Thanks for watching Morgan yesterday though.”

“Not a problem, Morgan is awesome,” Steve grinned back. “Anything I can help with now? You two barely seem to have stopped since we portalled Thor and the others back to New Mexico last night.”

“It’s all Stark Industries and Expo stuff until either Loki returns from Asgard or Vanko shows his face,” Pepper waved him off. “Thanks though, the offer is appreciated.”

“Well you know me, always happy to help!”

“Speaking of Hammer,” Bruce cleared his throat. “What is the plan there? I take it he’s acting differently to, you know, your first go through all this?”

“I’ve got reports from SHIELD that he’s mostly lurking around Hammer Industries HQ,” Nat stated with a tilt of her head. “That’s in Queens,” she added for Steve benefit. “Twice now he’s been over to Stark Expo, but there’s been no sign of him visiting any out of the way warehouses or other shady locales. And we’ve not seen a hint of Vanko.”

“Same as last time then,” Tony sighed. “Which probably means they’re in the basement of HQ. Not worth breaking into at this point in time, not when it’s less than two days until Hammer’s Expo showcase slot anyway.”

“Anonymous tip off to the FBI maybe?” Bruce suggested tentatively.

“Bad idea,” Tony shook his head again. “He’ll have remade those electro-whips of his by now; we’d be sending agents to a shocky, toasty death. And if SHIELD goes in instead, well same problem plus Vanko and Hammer would probably disappear into some grisly black site prison and ultimately end up in Hyrda’s tentacly hands.”

“What about monitoring him?” Steve asked as he adjusted the wrapping on his hands. “Could you do the hacking thing to his cameras? Confirm he’s actually in the building at least?”

“Ah no, not without physically being in the building, myself” Tony lamented. “Hammer is an idiot but he’s not quite that much of an idiot. No, the building security is on a basic close-loop circuit. As far as JARVIS could tell, damn thing still uses video tape cassettes for Christ’s sake. Cringey but unfortunately effective at preventing remote hacks.”

“Tony darling, I love you, but sometimes you’re so stupid,” Pepper suddenly huffed in amusement, patting his arm.

“What?”

“You’re a sorcerer,” she said pointedly, spinning one finger in a small circle.

“Yeesss and…? Oh, oh! And I can portal directly into Hammer HQ with no one the wiser! Rhodey! Rhodey! Get in here so I can cast the see-me-not spell with you included!”

Vanko was in Hammer’s basement. Building drones. While muttering in Russian to a bored-looking white parrot.

Tony crushed the urge to pull handfuls of wires out of several of them, and after tapping the CCTV camera positioned high up near the ceiling with the help of an air bounce kata, slingied himself straight back to Malibu.

(Almost straight back. He stole the bottle of cheap vodka off the overturned box next to the camp bed first. Just because he could)

“Soooo, now what?” Steve asked, scratching his cheek as they all huddled round one of the glass touchscreen monitors in the fabricating room.

“Now we wait until he’s done,” Rhodey grinned evilly as they watched Vanko stalk about like a caged animal on the video feed. “And when he is, Tony and I will portal back invisibly and fuck about with the electronics. Then with a snap of JARVIS’ digital fingers, the drones will be solely under our control. Hammer tries to show them off at the Expo, and we just shut them down.”

“And as a fail safe, we’ve still got IRENE,” Tony nodded. “Which will fry their power sources using a localised EMP. We’ll just have to make sure to disable any shielding he’s added this go round while we’re poking about inside of them.”

“Should take us, what?” Rhodey asked. “Ten minutes a drone tops?”

“Eh, I can do one in under five I reckon.”

“Not a competition boys,” Natasha drawled.

“We’ll have to pause in the middle to reapply the see-me-not spell but we can get the whole lot done in under an hour,” Tony waved her off. “Faster if Bruce fancies lending a hand.”

“Sure,” the physicist sighed tiredly. “Why not? The rest of my life has gone insane, so why not commit some B&E and light industrial espionage as well.”

“Technically there will be no breaking and only entering,” Rhodey chuckled. “Though I suppose you could say we’re breaking and entering the droids?”

“Not helping,” Bruce sighed again.

“Sir, you have an incoming call from Dr Foster.”

“Huh?” Tony jolted as he pulled his attention away from the stack of SI paperwork he’d been engrossed in. “What, already? They’ve only been back in Puente Antiguo for one night!”

“Indeed sir, but she is nevertheless calling,”

“Fine,” Tony rolled his eyes. “Put it through to my sunglasses,” he added as he reached for the pair of smart-glasses he’d left on the coffee table.

A short beep echoed in his left ear, and then there was the distinctive clack of a call connecting.

“Tony Stark’s house of chaos, how may we disturb you today?” he greeted the astrophysicist in an overly cheery tone.

“Hey uhh, Mr St- I mean Tony. Sorry I’m calling but- yeah, I’m just gonna… cut to the chase.”

“Sensible tactic,” he replied with an amused twitch of his lips.

“We’re picking up more atmospheric disturbance readings already. Or rather, I think we’re picking up the faint signals that occur immediately before the atmospheric disturbances that start when the Bifrost opens.”

“Look at you!” Tony joked as he quickly climbed to his feet. “Calling it the Bifrost already!”

“Stark,” Foster growled.

“I know, I know. I’m already on my way downstairs to look at the data myself. I assume you’re sending it my way?”

“Erik’s doing it. Thor? Thor! Hang on...”

Foster’s end of the call became muffled and unintelligible as she presumably pulled her phone away from her ear. Tony continued on downwards, jumping over the last two stairs to the workshop, and once JARVIS had opened the security door for him, strode over to one of the computer desks next to the hologram deck.

“Everything okay man?”

“Maybe,” Tony greeted Rhodey back, quickly waking the system up with a couple of keystrokes and a click and then sitting down. “Foster’s on the line. J, where we at with that data?”

“I will download it as soon as I receive it sir,” JARVIS replied. “Unfortunately it would appear that Dr Foster’s upload rate is less than spectacular.”

“Knew I should have installed you on their tech properly,” he sighed as he began clicking through the start menu instead. “Alright, let’s have a look at our own data instead then. Won’t be nearly so precise and detailed, but it’s better than-”

“Stark? You still there?”

“Yep! Rhodey is here too now. Sort of. He’s elbows deep in an arc reactor prototype right now, but he can hear us.”

“So Thor says Loki just did some astral projection thing to him-”

“Loki what now? He can do that!? Long distance across space? Since when!?”

“Yeah I don’t know, Thor said something about a spear and the throne of Asgard. But the important part is that it’s not Loki who’s using the Einstein Rosen-bridge. Which looks to be all the way open now going by the cloud funnel I’m seeing on the satellite imaging.”

“Dammit, it’ll be Thor’s swashbuckling friends coming to needlessly rescue him.”

“That’s what Loki told Thor. And something about passing jurisdiction for handling them over to us as a show of cooperation? Thor says-”

“I can hear him yelling about realm alliances in the background, yes,” Tony sighed, pinching his brow. “I do not have time for this, I gotta publicly be in New York in two hours!”

“Erik and I could round them up for you – Yes and you too Darcy. But they’re quite a ways out into the desert and the SHIELD camp is much closer to them.”

“And so you would like a portal taxi-service,” Tony groaned. “Okay sure, why not? Not like I haven’t got a billion other things to do in the next hour.”

“S’alright man, I can go,” Rhodey then cut into the call, using his own glasses from over in the mechanics bay. “It’ll only take, what? Fifteen minutes?”

“Problem solved, Rhodey’s coming to help,” Tony repeated, spinning the desk chair round in circles.

“Thanks Rhodes,” Foster sighed with obvious relief. “Those agents have so many entitlement issues! I still can’t believe they thought they could just take all my stuff!”

“Yeah, they’re like that,” Tony chuckled ruefully.

“I’m just grabbing my armour rucksack and then I’ll be right with you,” Rhodey added as he pulled a slingie out of his right sweatpants pocket. “Any one in your bathroom over there?”

“No, it’s all clear. But I don’t think there’s any men in black spying on us right now anyway.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Tony muttered. “Ah ha! Just got your data finally.”

“Little bit past needing it,” Foster snorted. “We know it’s the-”

“I do apologise for interrupting sir,” JARVIS cut Dr Foster off, urgency colouring his tone slightly. “But Justin Hammer has just entered his basement facility with a variety of assistants and ordered Vanko to start loading the drones into a shipping crate. He is insisting that Vanko can complete the last of the assembling en-route to the expo.”

“Oh just kill me now,” Tony groaned melodramatically, slouching in his seat as their magic hack and dash plan went up in smoke before his eyes.

Chapter Text

Happy pulled the car up to the base of the stairs with his usual smooth efficiency and almost before he’d pulled the handbrake on, Tony was throwing the back door open and stepping gracefully out.

The usual wall of paparazzi camera flashes greeted him and he pushed his dark-tinted smart-glasses further up his nose.

“Alright, I’m here,” he muttered into the comms as he donned his press smile and waved cheekily. “Now what?”

“Well the good news is that I’ve found the rogue Asgardians,” Rhodey quickly responded. “Bad news is they’re being obstinate and not cooperating. I made the mistake of bringing Thor with me thinking he could convince them to come with me quicker, but now he and um, Sif I think she’s called? Well, she and Thor are yelling at each other about treason and Loki and respect and ignoring me completely.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Tony sighed quietly as he rounded the back of the car and then opened the door for Pepper. She took his arm with her own genial reporter-expression fixed in place, and together they turned and started up towards the main arena.

“So yeah, I’m pretty much stuck here for the immediately foreseeable future, sorry,” Rhodey groaned.

“I’m right outside Hammer HQ,” Nat spoke up next. “Bruce, you got blueprints or a map for me yet?”

“You guys do know that I’m not a computer scientist right?” Bruce complained with a tired sigh of his own.

“Yes? And?” Nat quipped back, her smile audible in her tone.

And then a phone started ringing. Loudly.

“Hang on, I think that’s mine?” Tony frowned as he paused at the top of the stairs. “I swear I put this thing on do not disturb and I’m wearing my glasses so- oh.”

“What oh?” Steve immediately asked. “That didn’t sound like the good sort of oh.”

“Blocked caller. If memory serves, it’s probably our current spanner in the works.”

“You mean one of our current spanners, I swear these- Hey! Hey! Put the sword down! I said put it the fuck-!”

Rhodey’s end of the comm suddenly muted with a definitive beep. It didn’t fully disconnect though so Tony concluded that SMART must have done it to spare them all from having to listen to any more of Thor and Sif’s increasingly loud screaming hissy fit.

“Well, so much for Rhodey being in charge of this one,” he grumbled after another moment, letting Pepper guide him off to one side where they were far less likely to be overheard. “J, start tracing this call; last time this happened he was still in Hammertech HQ, but Hammer also let him finish the droids before loading them onto a truck so…”

“I’ve been going through the hacking footage while you and Miss Potts were being driven to the Expo,” Steve spoke up again. “Vanko got into the back of the truck with the droids along with two big guys with guns on their belts so I doubt he’s still in HQ.”

“Great,” Tony muttered sarcastically. “Well here goes nothing.”

With another surreptitious glance round to make sure no one was blatantly eavesdropping, he slid the green bar across the screen and brought his phone to his ear.

“911, what’s your emergency?” he joked as the call connected.

“Hey Tony, how you doing?” came the voice he’d been expecting, lilting Russian accent hardening the contestants.

“Oh you know, not bad all considering,” he quipped back quickly. “And you? You sound pretty sprightly for a dead guy.”

“I am getting better,” Vanko snarked right back. “Especially now I double shielding.”

“Glad to hear it Billy Loomis.”

“When make mistake, learn from mistake. I double shielding and now your toy is not good enough.”

“How unfortunate!” Tony replied, taking care to make himself sound as forcibly cheerful as possible.

“For you? Very unfortunate. Now, the true history of Stark name will be written. What your father did to my family over forty years, I will do to you in just fourteen minutes. I hope you are ready.”

The call disconnected with a click.

“Jeez, he’s unnecessarily dramatic,” Tony complained.

“Pot, meet kettle,” Pepper snorted.

“He said fourteen minutes, right?” Steve asked as he and Pepper quickly turned and rejoined the crowd of people still flowing into the main pavilion seating area. “Hammer’s due on stage in less than ten minutes so I take it he meant that he’s planning on activating the drones fourteen minutes from now?”

“That’s my assumption,” Tony said under his breath. “J, did you manage to trace his location?”

“Negative sir, the call duration was too short. I can be no more accurate than the general New York area.”

“Fucking great. Here goes nothing then I guess.”

Tony and Pepper bullied their way backstage with remarkable ease. Though Tony supposed that the stage security was on his payroll and not Hammer’s so it wasn’t actually that remarkable.

Either way, Hammer was mightily pissed off by their presence.

“You can’t-!” The man was yelling as Tony shoved their way into the under-stage loading bay. “You can’t go down there! I’ve got proprietary equipment that’s still subject to a non-disclosure agreement!”

“Justin, Justin, Justin,” Tony sighed mockingly. “I don’t give a damn about your shitty third rate drone knock offs. Where’s Vanko?”

“...Who?”

“Ivan Vanko,” Tony repeated slowly, making it clear he thought Hammer was an idiot. “The criminal that you killed six people to break out of jail?”

“I don’t- I don’t know what you’re talking about!?”

Stopping in front of the first row of drones, Tony shot Hammer a blatantly disbelieving look. God, the drones really were shitty and third rate as well. At best. And that was without taking Tony’s time travelling perspective into account.

“We’ve already called the FBI,” Pepper informed the CEO flatly. “Give him up before someone gets hurt and you end up in even more legal trouble.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Justin repeated weakly.

“He’s built a back door into every single one of these drones, Justin!” Tony half shouted, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “So either give him up now, or I’ll not only fry every bit of shoddy tech you have down here, I’ll raise it up into full view of the audience first and do it very publicly!”

“He’s not-! He doesn’t have-! Tony!”

Tony stared him down silently for several tense seconds.

“Fine. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

Standing on the circular stage thrust in front of the enraptured audience with a showman’s smirk, Tony tapped a single button on his cell phone screen. Behind him, every single one of Hammer’s drones suddenly sputtered and died anticlimactically. There wasn’t even a shower of sparks.

But then all the stage lights unexpectedly died too. And a metal suited Ivan Vanko jumped down from the topmost stage trusses. Flailing those damn blue whips of his everywhere.

Tony activated IRENE from his phone again.

“Oh shit,” he swore eloquently when nothing happened.

“Oh shit, oh shit,” he cussed several more times as he dodged another whip crack, this time by twist-jumping off the stage. “JARVIS!”

“The Ironman armour has already been activated and is en-route to your location sir.”

“Well make it en-route faster!” he yelled as he ran left along the base of the stage. “Who’s idea was it to let me come up here without it already on!?”

“Yours dear,” Pepper sighed over the comms.

“In that case I’m firing myself! I am no longer allowed to make any strategic or tactical-! Holy shit!”

Tony lost his sunglasses as he vaulted over a chunk of mangled metal droid, only just managing to avoid being crushed beneath the large stage light rig that Vanko yanked down with a crackle of blue arc-energy. Flowing with the momentum, Tony then pivoted off a second block of twisted debris and flipped himself back onto the stage. He landed with a painful jolt and wryly reflected that those sorts of improbable gymnastic feats really ought to be left to Steve from now on.

And then the first parts of his suit finally caught up to him.

Flipping over a low sweep of Vanko’s whips in a manner that was far more of a desperate flail than an actual flip, he caught both gauntlets as they smacked into his hands and immediately used a burst of repulsor power to toss himself into another, far more graceful twist. The suit boots formed around his ankles as he righted himself, so he turned again in mid-air and blasted energy down at Vanko’s head.

Vanko’s ridiculously clunky power-suit did unfortunately include a helmet but the force of the blow was still enough to send him staggering forward several steps.

“Yeah, take that bitch!” Tony crowed as the rest of his armour began to slot into place around him.

“I’m in!” Natasha suddenly announced as the comms in his helmet clicked on. “Looks like your EMP gadget really has deactivated all the drones, but I’ll see if I can kill-switch them from here too just in case. Bruce, I’m inserting the pick now.”

“And I’ve gotten everyone under the building completely evacuated, including myself,” Pepper added. “How’s it looking up top?”

“I think our security guys are just getting the last of the audience members clear,” Tony reported as he bore down on Vanko again, now fully suited up. “There’ll be a few minor injuries but I don’t think anyone was seriously hurt.”

“I can see on the videos that there’s only a couple of stragglers,” Steve confirmed. “I can see a bunch of FBI vans approaching the park as well.”

“So the situation remains eminently salvageable,” Tony quipped happily, now taking overpowered pot shots at Vanko’s feet. His third hit landed square on his ankle, sending the man sprawling to the floor. His whips splayed out wildly as he fell onto his back, but Tony just nimbly hopped over one and then deliberately stood on the other.

Electricity arced over the suit, the capacitor nodes absorbing it hungrily.

“Power at 250%,” JARVIS announced cheerfully when Tony stepped forward again.

“Let’s take a good ‘ole trip to pound town,” Tony drawled with a smirk.

And with that, he brought both hands up and aimed them squarely at Vanko’s chest and the knock-off reactor housed there.

Chapter Text

“This was maybe not my smartest move,” Tony said as Vanko’s arc-reactor rapidly began to glow brightly. Entirely too brightly.

With a cacophonous boom, the reactor exploded outwards.

Tony was flung backwards by the wave of energy released, pitching head over heels into the air despite his attempts to stabilise himself with his repulsors. He careened wildly for a few seconds, arms and legs windmilling erratically.

“Jesus, that was a bit much,” he complained as he finally righted-himself with JARVIS’ help.

“What the heck did you do!? Did you just break every window for a mile around again!?”

“Again!?” Tony complained as he began to slowly hover back downwards. “Pepper that was the first time I’ve broken any windows at all in this timeline! I think?”

He landed nimbly next to the remains of Vanko, his body sprawled on its back in the middle on the stage. He was lying in a slightly depressed crack where some of the under-stage supports had given way and all that remained of his chest was the sort of bloody cavity that made Tony nauseous to look at. There was no way the man was still alive.

He pulled his eyes away from the sight with a grimace.

“Well Vanko’s definitely a goner,” he said aloud for the benefit of the rest of the team. Steve and Bruce could probably see the feed from his HUD, but everyone else was audio only right now. “And that’s all the drones down and Vanko dealt with. Can we call this one good now?”

“Just hang fire a moment,” Natasha murmured, her voice accompanied by the clicking of a mouse and then a couple of key-taps. “I’m sure there’s something fishy in the drones’ firmware still but I can’t quite put my finger on what precisely. Bruce? Opinions?”

“Still not a computer scientist,” Bruce sighed in reply.

“J, ask FRIDAY to give them a hand,” Tony ordered as he turned and began glancing around the building with a critical eye. “Then you and I had better scan this place for significant structural damage. That explosion has really done a number on-”

He cut off as a loud beep sounded from behind him.

Followed by another.

And another.

“Oh yeah. That happened,” he said faintly.

“Tony! All the drones are rigged to blow!” Bruce practically shouted over the comm. “Get out of there!”

“Thirty second countdown, twenty-four remaining,” Natasha clipped out. “I can’t halt it from here, not in time.”

“Pepper!” Tony yelled as he hurriedly shot upwards through the remains of the shattered windows. “Get everyone with you even further back! Cap! Please tell me there’s no-one still out the front!?”

“It’s clear,” Steve quickly reassured him. “Event security is still herding them all towards– wait.”

“Wait!? What do you mean wait!?”

“There’s a small kid in a mask running back towards the stairs!” Steve told him frantically. “They’re–!”

“I see them!” Tony cut over him.

“Eleven,” Natasha read aloud. “Ten. Nine.”

The countdown was dropping quickly but Tony was faster. Corkscrewing back on himself, Tony twisted and rocketed back the way he’d come. Coiling over the roof, he dived between the ceiling joists and then immediately curved out level. He skimmed over the rows of the seats, shot down the concrete staircase, and then banked his speed at the last moment so that he was almost at a standstill when his arms wrapped around the kid.

He rolled onto his back as he immediately shot away again as fast he dared with an unarmoured and considerably underage passenger. Keeping both arms clasped tightly around the child, he relied on his boots and backplate to keep himself steady, and then carefully manoeuvred them vertical and slowed until they were hovering a few metres above the ground far away from the building.

“...two, one–!”

Behind them, the building loudly exploded in a ball of fiery angry orange.

“Woaaaah!” the child exclaimed in glee.

“You okay kid?” Tony asked as he slowly lowered them onto the grass. A group of adults – some of them undoubtedly press and paparazzi – were already running towards them, but one of them was all-out sprinting. Probably one of the kid’s parents, understandably panicked.

“That was so cool!” the child squealed happily, seemingly oblivious to the danger they’d just been in. Tiny hands moved to push the cheap plastic superhero mask covering their face, revealing a young probable-boy who couldn’t be more than eight years old. “The most awesome thing ever Mr Tony Stark Ironman sir!”

Tony blinked and did a double take.

“Peter!?” he blurted before he could think better of it.

Holy shit. It was definitely a miniscule Peter Parker that he was holding.

Christ, he was positively microscopic! And had he been at the Expo this night the first go round too!?

Oh god, he probably had been.

Tony passed Peter over to the panicked running man as soon as he was close enough to do so. The kid all-but threw himself out of Tony’s arms with an excited screech of Uncle Ben! Did you see the cool explosion! Which provided Tony with the perfect opportunity to perform his favourite manoeuvrer in the face of overwhelming emotion.

Namely, run the fuck away.

Without saying another word, he took a couple of steps back and activated his repulsors, shooting himself up into the sky quickly.

Slowly, he took a deep breath and tried to centre himself. Thinking of the Ancient One endlessly lecturing him about meditation techniques helped, as did imaging different ways he could use this chance meeting to engineer a proper reunion. One on his own terms, where, you know, he wasn’t caught completely off guard and sent reeling.

“You okay love?” Pepper’s voice came over the comm, pulling him from his musings. With a glance at the corner of his HUD, Tony realised she’d gotten JARVIS to switch them to a private channel.

“Yeah,” he responded unconvincingly. “Well. I will be. Do you think–? Or I could– You know what, let’s just… stick a holographic pin in this for now. And yes,” he pre-empted her. “I will discuss Pete with Mary at my next session.”

“Alright, if you're sure,” Pepper replied genially. Tony could hear the smile in her tone. “In that case we better get to it; there’s a couple of senior FBI Agents waiting on me and you need to get on top of clean-up before SHIELD tries to do it and they get their Nazi-infested hands on things they shouldn’t.”

“Sure thing boss,” Tony grinned back as he settled himself on the roof of a nearby apartment block and looked back towards the burning building he’d left behind.

And then she and Tony reconnected to the main comms channel and Tony found himself blind-sided by yet another bit of madness.

“So I have a little bit of a problem,” his best mate said, his voice concerningly high pitched.

The loud boom of thunder followed by the distinctive sound of concrete being shattered that echoed in the background of the call told Tony that Rhodey was maybe understating the size of the problem just a tad.

“I think you’re understating the size of the problem just a tad."

“Just a smidgen,” Rhodey agreed.

“A tiny touch.”

“A maddeningly miniature amount.”

“Guys,” Natasha sighed at them both, exasperated. “Focus please.”

“So basically Thor and Sif’s little disagreement has escalated into an all out grudge match,” Rhodey quickly explained. “It’s more or less one-on-one but oh lordly, are they doing some damage to Puente Antiguo.”

“I thought you were miles out from the town!?”

“We were but now we’re really… not. Look I’ll explain properly later but long story cut very short, Sif really hates Loki, Sif found out about Jane, jealously reared its ugly head, blah blah blah, Thor summoned his hammer from somewhere, more blah blah blah, cage match with the town as the cage. I’ve got the SHIELD agents and Thor’s other Viking pals doing civie evac while I try to herd Sif and Thor back out into the desert but I’m fighting a losing battle here.”

“I can’t portal over as back up,” Tony shook his head. “Far too many people have seen me here in New York; Fury will absolutely know something’s up if I seem to be in two places at once. Also Pepper might kill me if I leave her to handle the FBI and clean up alone.”

“Natasha and I can handle things here if you really need us to,” Pepper refuted straight away. “But you’re right, you can’t portal.”

“How long would it take you to fly here in the suit?” Rhodey asked as another reverberating boom sounded through the comms. “It’d be, what? Distance-speed-time… twelve hundred miles… an hour and a half?”

“I could cut it down to about forty-five minutes if I said fuck it and did Mach-3 or more but–”

“–That’s still far too long,” Rhodey finished for him. “And we told the military our suits could do 1.5 at best.”

“If someone could portal me over, I could help?” Steve offered. “Bruce is here to watch Morgan, so as long as I have some sort of mask or whatever, I could help with the civilian evac at least? That might free up an Asgardian to help Rhodes?”

Tony thought about it.

“Alright, fuck it,” he sighed as he stared at the flames engulfing the Expo stage again. “Pepper, I’ll be back in twenty-minutes tops. Bruce, you’re still on field coordination with JARVIS. Steve, JARVIS is going to guide you to a box of Stark Industries branded Kevlar tac gear. I’m stating the obvious but make sure you completely cover your face. Coulson is a raging fanboy and will absolutely clock you the second he lays eyes on you otherwise. Natasha–”

“I’ll do my best to keep Fury and SHIELD away from the Expo long enough for Miss Potts to organise things to her liking.”

Which. More or less what Tony had been going to say, yeah.

“Alright cool, I just need to find somewhere completely out of sight and then I’ll– Rhodey!? Are you okay!? What the hell are you laughing at!?”

There was a long second where the only sound over the comms was Tony’s best mate’s hysterical giggling.

“Sorry, sorry,” the Airman eventually gasped out.”It’s just that some fucker with a bow and arrow of all god damn things just appeared out of nowhere and shot Sif square between the eyes! You should’ve seen the face she pulled!”

Chapter Text

“I know I keep saying this, but I really hate time zones.”

“You do keep saying that,” Rhodey sighed back at him in amusement.

As Tony touched down in the middle of Puente Antiguo next to Rhodey and Coulson, it was once again approaching 10 pm. Only he’d left New York just shy of two hours ago where it had also been almost 10pm. Meanwhile, Tony’s body clock thought it wouldn’t be 10 pm for another hour yet. Because California was even further behind East Coast Time than New Mexico was.

It was enough to make a man’s head spin to be honest.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding. Thor and Sif really did a number on this place,” he huffed as the rest of the Ironman armour retracted and settled into sentry mode beside him. The damage seemed to be less widespread than he vaguely recalled from before, in that it was concentrated to a few blocks rather than encompassing the whole town. But it also seemed to be worse where it had occurred. The whole building levelled rather than just every window blown out, that sort of thing.

“It did get a bit dicey in the middle there, yes,” Coulson agreed in that mild-mannered way of his. “We seem to have everything more or less in hand now though.”

“And Pepper and the FBI have got the Stark Expo mess under control,” Tony nodded as he ambled a few steps towards what had once been a liquor store. The entire wooden top floor had been blasted apart and a good chunk of the stone front wall of the ground floor was missing too. And in front of it, a charred pile of bricks was scattered over the sidewalk, a handful of them lodged into the side of an overturned car where they’d clearly been propelled into the vehicle with considerable force.

“It’s been one hell of an evening,” Rhodey laughed wryly. “Come on Thor’s got Sif pinned down in Jane’s workshop and we need to decide what we’re doing with her and her merry men.”

When they reached the old car sales garage on the edge of town, Tony was surprised to note that it didn’t seem to have sustained any damage at all. Through the open front bay door, all of Jane’s monitoring equipment was still standing where it should be, most of it reassembled after SHIELD had been forced to return it.

Coulson entered first, greeting all three agents guarding the door by name. They offered him sharp nods in return and Tony did his best not to dwell on the probability that at least one of them was actually HYDRA. With Thor present and clearly fully re-powered, it was highly unlikely that HYDRA would actually attempt anything, but the possibilities still wigged him out a little. It wasn’t pleasant to think about what sort of monster the insane Nazi-organisation could turn an already embittered god into.

“Greetings once more, Engineer Stark!” Thor grinned at them as approached him. “Verily, it is good to see you again!”

“Again?” Coulson deadpanned quietly.

“Did I or did I not directly tell you that it was the Norse God of Thunder that we were hiding in the bathroom? Not my fault you didn’t believe me!”

Coulson visibly paused.

“Anyway,” Tony continued on quickly, not wanting the man to dwell on that statement long enough to realise the other implications. “Let’s deal with the immediate problem. So! Who gets custody of Miss Sif here, and what are we doing with her three stooges?”

Sif was conscious again and was silently glowering at them all, having been temporarily knocked out by Hawkeye’s arrow when it hit. There was a curtain of blood dried over half her face from the resulting cut on her forehead but she otherwise looked unharmed if distinctly unamused. Though to be fair to her, Tony would be doing more than just scowling fiercely if he was in her position; she was laid out of the concrete floor behind Thor, pinned down by the humiliating but effective method of having Mjolnir placed on her chest.

Hammer-on-the-chest was the same technique that they’d used on Loki after New York, but it was even more amusing now than it had been then, as Tony now knew that the hammer barely actually weighed anything; it was just magically impossible to lift without the right, uh, access permissions. It was rather like being restrained solely by a particularly persistent house cat in his opinion.

And then there was Thor’s three other friends. They were standing by the left wall, unrestrained but being watched carefully by another handful of SHIELDRA agents armed with both guns and tasers. Two of the three had the grace to look a little sheepish and guilty, but the blonde one with a sword in the centre just looked irritated and bored.

His expression didn’t change when Coulson began to answer Tony’s question.

“SHIELD are equipped to–”

“No, definitely not doing that,” Tony immediately cut the agent off. “No offence Coulson– Well, some offence, definitely at least a little offence... but SHIELD couldn’t even keep one slightly crazy but completely unpowered angry Russian in jail for more than a few days. There’s no way in hell we’re trusting you to keep the equivalent of a super soldier behind bars.”

“Yeah, also something tells me you guys are not so great with the respecting of human rights,” Rhodey added on dryly.

“That too,” Tony quickly agreed.

“Well what else would you suggest?” Coulson asked flatly, expression still bland but unamused. “You can’t hold her. No matter how much money and technology you have, you’re still a private citizen. Detaining someone, even an alien god from another world, would be tantamount to illegal kidnapping.”

“This is another reason we need to get those accords in place,” Tony said sideways to Rhodey. Rhodey huffed in agreement.

Might I propose that I simply return to Asgard with my friends?” Thor then suggested loudly. “My brother is currently serving as regent and there is little warmth between he and Sif so you need not fear that she will escape fair justice. The Warriors Three have much less to answer for, but will also be held to account for their actions.”

Tony pondered this.

In all honestly, he hadn’t really cared about what would happen to Loki when Thor had carted him off in chains in 2011, but he liked to think he’d matured as a human being a bit since then. The absolute mess of the Sokovia accords and the airport fight had brought the treatment of prisoners screaming to the forefront the whole team’s minds, and while Tony hadn’t really handled it very well at the time, he’d had quite a few years since then to think about what he should have done and said. Thus, he wasn’t sure he was still okay with blindly trusting in Asgardian justice when he had no idea what that actually entailed.

“I think it’s a solid idea, but we’ll need a formal extradition agreement in place first,” he finally settled on, watching for Coulson’s reaction carefully. “Us modern humans – Midgardians that is, we have some pretty strict ideas about, oh god how do I phrase this? Um, about what constitutes an acceptable punishment? And so we don’t hand over criminals to a foreign government or kingdom or, or realm without first gaining trustworthy assurances that the criminal won’t be tortured to death or worse.”

(Okay so America’s track record with both obeying and enforcing those international laws really wasn’t great, but Tony wasn’t going to muddy the waters by trying to explain that to Thor right now. The point was to set a visible precedent, and you did that by aiming for the ideal outcome, not the purportedly realistic one.)

“T’is a perfectly reasonable stipulation!” Thor thankfully agreed enthusiastically. “A fine beginning to an alliance between our two great realms!”

“Great!” Tony clapped his hands again. “Rhodey, can you and SMART get started on contacting the appropriate people to organise this? You’re probably best going via the UN initially. Coulson, where’s bow and arrow guy at? I want a word with him.”

“Barton? …Why?”

“Relax agent man!” he grinned, punching him lightly on the shoulder with faux-playfulness. “I just want so say thanks for shooting the angry god in the face, and you know, maybe take a look at that fancy bow of his? I went to an overpriced private school for posh fuckers as a kid and they made us do fencing and archery. And polo,” he added with an exaggerated shudder. “Hated playing polo. But the archery was alright.”

“Fine,” Coulson grumbled reluctantly. “Harson, go point out Barton to Stark please.”

Barton was only two streets over, leaning on a wonky street junction box and watching a team from the local fire brigade drown yet another small fire. The box was sparking a little at the base, but the archer didn’t seem to care.

“Tony Stark,” he opened with, offering his hand. To his surprise, Barton shook it without hesitation and even smiled at him. Clint had always been rather standoffish with him before, right from the get go. In fact, he’d never really been more than professionally civil towards him even when the original Avengers had been at their most friendly and optimistic.

So this was… odd, from Tony’s perspective.

Although, he supposed, he should probably revise what he considered odd now, given that he’d spent part of this insane week palling around with a seemingly sane Loki of all people.

“Clint Barton,” the man introduced himself back. “Good to finely meet you dude. Nat’s just told me we’re ditching SHIELD and making our own team?”

“Oh, okay?” Tony blinked. “I wasn’t expecting you to be this much in the loop already.”

“Eh, usually you can assume that what Nat knows, I also know. So just give me a moment to turn my hearing aids off, then you can fry the rest of my tech and I’ll scarper. Your place is just above LA right?”

“Yeah, Malibu. What–?”

“I’ll be at your front door by sunset tomorrow then,” Barton cut over him with a grin as he hopped to his feet and slung his bow over one shoulder. “If Coulson asks after me, just tell him I’ve got a thing. Now come on and zap me with your fancy electronics killing app already. Oh, and Stark? I’ve got a wife and kids so your house better be child safe!”

“What just happened?” Tony asked the empty air a moment later.

Not even JARVIS bothered answering him.

Chapter Text

Tony woke when the bed depressed next him and a warm weight settled against his side.

It wasn’t a very heavy weight but it was one that wriggled and had arms and legs. It was lying atop the covers on his left, and after a moment, it turned again and threw one of its arms over his chest.

“Morgan,” Tony grumbled, keeping his eyes closed. “What time’s it honey?”

“Oh-nine-twenty-eight,” his daughter pseudo-whispered back with a giggle. “Mommy says Uncle Rhodey’s finally making breakfast so you should get up now.”

“Breakfast… right,” he sighed, his voice gravelly.

He’d rather stay in bed and sleep for at least another hour to be honest, but there was a lot that needed doing over the next several days. Meetings with both the FBI and, unfortunately, with SHIELD. Another with some UN representatives and Thor. And both the US Military and US government would undoubtedly try and muscle their way into the proceedings at some point.

Then on top of that, the Stark Industries board would want an update and some guidance on what was happening with the Stark Expo now that the main stage had been rather publicly blown up. And the masters at Kamar-Taj should probably be kept in the loop over what was happening with Thor and Loki and Sif. And then there was Clint and his family to consider. And, and, and–

Tony had a very busy few days ahead of him, was the point.

“Okay, let me up moonbeam,” he groaned as he resigned himself to it.

When he eventually padded through into the kitchen in loose sweats, Rhodey was indeed at the stove, stirring a frying pan of what smelled like eggs. Steve was sitting at the table with Morgan, but everyone else was absent.

“Morning all,” he yawned as he headed straight over to the coffee maker. “I was expecting more people to be in here?”

“FRIDAY just alerted Pepper that there’s a couple of FBI agents outside your apartment in New York,” Rhodey began explaining. “I portalled her back over there just now.”

“And Widow Nat went with her as back up!” Morgan added with a wide grin.

“No idea where Happy’s at,” Steve also added, twirling an artist’s pencil round the fingers of his left hand. “But I think Bruce went downstairs to the magic room. He was reading that,” he pointed at a leather-bound tome on the other side of the table, “when he started muttering something about pentagons and rotating stars? Then he said he’d back in a minute and hurried off. That was about quarter of an hour ago.”

Tony looked over his shoulder and squinted at the cover of the book.

“He’s started reading Astronomia Nova?” he stated more than asked. “Poor ba- uh, bambino.”

Thankfully Morgan didn’t seem to have noticed his fumbled conversion of bastard into the Italian word for child. Poor bastard was the appropriate phrase though; that text was dry as fuck and just as boring.

“God, that one was such a slog to get through,” Rhodey sighed knowingly as he reached over Tony’s head for some plates. “I’m sure Bruce has started it sooner than we did though? We only pulled him out of Brazil two and a half weeks ago and surely it took at least a couple of days for the Ancient One to convince him that he should learn sorcery.”

With a magic-mug of coffee in hand, Tony ducked out of Rhodey’s way and headed over to sit next to his daughter.

“Eh, unlike us, Bruce has the time to study at Kamar-Taj full-time,” he shrugged, rubbing one hand over his eyes. “His only distraction is well, us and our shenanigans.”

“Fair point,” Rhodey conceded. “Now get your elbows off the table, scrambled eggs and toast are inbound.”

Tony had just cleared his plate and was on his third mug of coffee when a thought suddenly occurred to him.

“Hang on,” he exclaimed, twisting in his chair to stare down at the top of Morgan’s head. “It’s a Tuesday! Why aren’t you at school little miss!?”

“Because her school thinks she’s in New York with her mother Tony,” Steve snorted. “You booked her some time off because of the Expo, remember? She was off all of yesterday as well!”

“This is why Pepper and JARVIS are in charge of my life and not me,” Tony groaned in embarrassment.

Thankfully for Tony’s sanity, most of the world didn’t know he was capable of hopping from one side of the world to the other in seconds, so they were bound by the mortal laws of time and distance when it came to booking in meetings with him. As a result, he only had one meeting today that wasn’t in California.

Jumping over to Kamar-Taj for a quick catch up with the Ancient One and the other masters was the very last thing on his to-do list before going to bed though. No point in going during daylight hours as Nepal was nearly 13 hours ahead of LA so it would be the middle of the night there. And as he’d long since learned to refuse meetings that ran any later than 5pm, he’d managed to be back home for a good couple of hours despite it being not long after seven.

“Do I really have to fly out to New York tomorrow morning?” he groaned to Pepper as he let his eyes slide shut for one blissful moment. He’d just returned from putting Morgan to bed, which meant he finally had an hour with absolutely nothing scheduled in it. He was spending it sprawled on the couch with Pepper, his head in her lap.

“You have a meeting at Federal Plaza first thing on Thursday morning. Just be glad that the FBI didn’t insist you head there straight after your plane lands.”

The TV was also on but the sound was turned right down and neither of them were actually paying any attention to it. Pepper was eating vanilla yogurt straight out of a quart tub with a sundae spoon, while Tony contented himself with occasionally filching fruit out of the pot she’d also brought through from the kitchen.

“It’s not so much the going to New York I mind” he hummed, picking up a sticky slice of pineapple. “It’s the time spent getting there. Do you think I’ll get away with sending the plane over without me on it and then portalling over later?”

He still had his eyes closed, but he felt Pepper shift as she considered it. He popped the pineapple in his mouth and chewed it slowly.

“You have to be seen getting on and off the plane, but I suppose theoretically you could just portal back here once taxiing starts and then jump back into it just after touch down? Not sure what you’d tell the pilots though.”

“Oh, the pilots,” he lamented. “Probably best that I just stay on the plane then. I guess I could nap for part of it and use the rest to catch up on the magic study I’ve been neglecting. Kaecilius will have my head on a platter if I haven’t learnt that Hi-Yong interaction and kata by Sunday.”

“Sir, Miss Potts,” JARVIS suddenly spoke up. “There is a motorcyclist at the front gate requesting access to the mansion grounds. The plates are unregistered and the rider is wearing a full head helmet, but their proportions and baggage lead me to conclude that is mostly likely Clinton Barton.”

“Really? He’s nearly an hour early!” Tony mused as he sucked in a deeper breath and forced himself to contemplate climbing to his feet. “Let him through, thanks J. When he gets to the front door, have him take his helmet off and then see about debugging him, yeah?”

“Certainly sir.”

By the time Tony had made it out onto the drive, Barton had propped his bike up and unzipped his leathers down to his waist. There was a pannier rack hung over the bike’s rear wheel, three bags strapped to it, and also a single strap rucksack balanced on the seat next to the removed helmet.

“Nice ride,” he greeted the archer with as he eyed the motorcycle up. “1980s Honda Magna right?”

“Yep,” Clint grinned back at him, offering his hand to shake again. “1985 import. Not so great for long distances admittedly, but she’s still a total babe.”

“That she is,” Tony agreed. “I was expecting you to show in a car though. Your other half and the niblets still en-route?”

“Yeah, it’s a long drive from Iowa even without a four-year-old and a six-year-old in tow. They’ll be a couple more days yet.”

“Fair enough,” Tony nodded once; he did know where the Barton’s farmhouse was so he probably should have worked that one out for himself. Perhaps being able to slingie around everywhere had warped his perceptions even more than he’d already realised. “Come on in then. JARVIS is done scanning you so once he’s done your bags, I can introduce you to everyone. Capisce?”

“Suits me man!”

They got all of Barton’s belongings inside without any fuss, J blinking an all clear at Tony before the front door had even swung shut. Pepper flowed into the hallway to offer drinks while Tony demonstrated how to open the hidden coat closet, and Happy appeared and introduced himself before disappearing back outside to move Clint’s motorbike into the new carport they’d build to replace the under-house garage.

And then both Steve and Rhodey came jogging up the stairs.

Barton did a blatant double take.

“Wow, okay,” he exclaimed lightly. “Nat really wasn’t having me on this morning then. You’re Captain America right?”

“In the flesh,” Steve grinned as he shook Barton’s hand. “Steve to most people.”

“And it’s Colonel Rhodes, yeah?”

“You can call me Rhodey. Or Jim’s fine if you prefer.”

“Cool, I’m Clint then. Clint Barton.”

“So Natasha called you then this morning, did she?” Pepper asked with only the barest hint of cool disapproval.

“She just wanted to confirm that I was definitely free of SHIELD ma’am,” he smiled at her a little sheepishly. “She told me that we needed to ditch them quietly a few days ago and I took at her word, but I needled a few more details out her this morning. Apparently they have a serious Nazi problem and even Coulson might not be clean? Gotta say, I didn’t see that one coming.”

“It’s cool, no-one saw that one coming,” Tony reassured him. After all, he’d been totally blind sided too, his first go through.

“But yeah,” Clint shrugged. “She shared a bit more info on that with me and then told me you’d fished Captain America out of the north pole ice. There was something about a radiation physicist too, but I didn’t get much more out of her other than that’s his surname is Banner?”

“Doctor Bruce Banner,” Rhodey confirmed for him. “He’s not here right now, but you’ll meet him soon enough. Hopefully when he’s only Bruce.”

“Ominous, but okay,” Clint smiled tightly, his eyebrows raising.

“Is that everything Nat told you?” Tony picked up again. “Hydra, Steve, and Bruce?”

“Yeah. Is there more? ‘Cause I gotta say, that’s already a lot of things.”

“Oh man,” Steve snorted as Tony let a shit eating grin slide onto his face. “You poor son of a gun!”

“What?”

Still grinning manically, Tony reached into his pocket for his sling ring.

Chapter Text

The sky over Kathmandu was the sort of fiery burnished orange that people associated more with sunset than with sunrise, but as he stared out across the city, it was the most accurate description Tony could bring to mind despite the early hour.

He was sitting on the edge of one Kamar-Taj’s paved terraces beneath a wood and stone arch, his booted feet dangling and his hands clasped around one of the temple’s little red and blue handle-less tea cups. There was some sort of hot berry infusion in it that could claim only a distant relation to actual tea, but not only did it taste pretty good, it was keeping his fingers nicely warm in the cool morning breeze.

Not that it was all that cool in central Nepal.

No, they were well into June now so even this early in the morning, the temperature never dropped below 50 Fahrenheit at the most. Tony reckoned it was actually closer to 70 currently, warm enough that he was sort of regretting putting on an extra layer beneath his crimson apprentice robes. JARVIS had warned him that it was due to rain heavily later in the day though, so layers had seemed appropriate when he was dressing.

“The Sorcerer Supreme is asking after your whereabouts.”

“Jesus Hamir!” Tony yelped in surprise as the elderly master suddenly spoke from directly behind him. “Heart condition, warn a guy before you sneak up on him!”

“My apologies Stark,” the affable old man smiled down at him with only a touch of sarcasm.

“It’s fine, I’m sure I’ll get over it,” Tony waved off cheekily. “What was that about the Ancient One? It’s not even 6 am here yet, surely she can’t be looking for me already? I haven’t had time to do anything untoward or questionable yet today!”

“Her motives are known only to herself,” Hamir shrugged, faintly amused. “Nevertheless, you had best attend to her.”

“Never gonna get used to all the mysticism,” Tony muttered to himself as he slowly climbed back to his feet.

It took Tony almost 20 minutes to actually track down AO as he checked both the dining hall and her central training rooms first before eventually finding her sitting calmly on the wall surrounding the tree outside the library. Dressed in her usual vibrant yellow robes and pale under-tunics, her eyes where shimmering and glittering as he hopped down the stairs into the courtyard, leading him to suspect that she was quite literally staring off into space.

The sparkle faded as he approached though and by the time he was slowing to a stop in front of her, all her attention was focused entirely on him.

Which was just as disconcerting as it always was.

“Stark,” she greeted him airily.

“Runespan,” he quipped back.

“I do believe that is a fictitious place rather than a fictitious person,” she raised one hairless eyebrow at him. “Though I concede that referring to me as “one of those yellow robe wizards from Runescape” would have had rather less pizazz.”

“One of these days I will manage to find an obscure reference that you don’t already know,” Tony chuckled ruefully.

“I look forward to the day. In the meantime though, I’m afraid the time has come for us to have another one our more serious talks. Come, walk with me.”

Swallowing nervously and trying to ignore the way his stomach had just plummeted, Tony scrambled to fall into step with her as she stood and swept away to the left. Two steps behind and one to her left, he followed her past the front of the library, down the side of the meditation halls, and into the narrow passageway that ran along the base of the cliff face the temple grounds were pressed up against. After about a hundred yards, they emerged out into the back-most courtyard, the space still half bathed in shadows due to the low angle of the sun.

Usually this courtyard was full of white-robed Initiates and new Novices stepping through the beginner katas under a the watchful eyes of a Disciple or two, but this early in the morning it was empty but for a one rumpled looking Apprentice scurrying past with a stack of books balanced in her arms. The Ancient One strode serenely across it with her hands clasped behind her back, heading towards a giant engraved bell that hung from a stone arch on the far side.

There was a small water feature below it and she stood and glanced down at it for a long moment before raising her head to stare out over the sprawl of Kathmandu.

“The moment you arrived in the past, things began to change,” she started, her back still to him. “Small things at first. So small in fact, that even I remained unaware of them for some time. Then you and your Mr Rhodes blundered into our New York Sanctum absolutely dripping with infinity stone essence and I had no choice but to sit up and take notice.”

“Yeah I still have no idea how I ended up back in…” Tony trailed off, finishing with an awkward shrug.

“The precise mechanism concerns me not,” the Ancient One told him with obvious good humour. “The stones are a law unto themselves, as I am sure you are well aware, and it is clear you are but an unwitting pawn in their schemes. Nevertheless, your arrival– your return to this time heralded a great shift in the cosmos and dimensions. And now, it seems, also a great shift in my personal future.”

She paused, cocking her head slightly.

“I have been on this Earth for countless centuries,” she continued again after a moment, voice soft. “And for many of them, I have been the primary guardian of the time stone. It is not a duty to take lightly and indeed I never have. But I have known for some time now that my turn with carrying out that duty was coming to an end.”

“Yeah I, uh…” Tony trailed off incredibly awkwardly again. Academically he’d known about– because when he’d learned about the existence of sorcery it had been Stephen Strange and then Wong that had been the society's leader… not…

Ah hell.

But all the Ancient One did was laugh lightly and finally turn to face him.

“You need not dance around the subject of my death Tony,” she smiled. “For as long as I can remember, I have not been able to look further ahead in my possible futures than that exact point. Your blurting out that... how was it you put it at our very first meeting?”

“Honestly, I had totally forgotten you weren’t dead yet?” he sheepishly quoted himself.

“Precisely! Your blurting out your surprise at my sudden return to life was no more than final confirmation of what I had already long known and come to terms with. However…”

She paused again.

Tony swallowed compulsively.

“The nature of time,” she eventually began again, “is such that even I cannot glimpse every possible future, let alone what lies beyond the resolution of those possibilities. I see enough that I have prevented countless terrible fates, enough that I have been able to keep going even though behind every averted crisis is always another. I have kept peering through time hoping to prevent the next horror from becoming reality even though everything always leads up to one exact moment beyond which I can see no more. Except… except that may be about to change.”

“It might… wait, really?”

“Indeed. I caution that dimensional possibilities are a fickle beast even without throwing a slightly clueless bumbling time traveller into the mix,” she smirked at him teasingly. “But the potential for a different ending for me suddenly exists.”

“Well that’s…” Tony breathed out in laughing relief, dragging a hand backwards through his hair. “That’s good right? I mean, you sound pleased so I’m guessing that a future where you survive isn’t immediately going to go to shit and lead to the end of the world. Or the heat-death of the universe or whatever.”

“Oh there’s always doom and gloom in the future,” the Ancient One chuckled as well. “I’m sure you’ve gathered by now that the majority of a sorcerer’s job is to prevent the future doom and gloom from existing in the present too. But yes, I don’t currently foresee a crisis any bigger than what we usually handle occurring as a result of this, so I would tentatively say this is a good development. That said… there are a few things which we must do to steer us towards the better paths.”

“I knew there’d be a catch,” Tony snorted.

“There always is,” she smiled at him knowingly.

“This is… this is quite the list,” Rhodey scratched the back of his neck. “This is quite a long list.”

“Of some very trivial sounding things,” Pepper frowned as she read down the sheet of leathery parchment that the Ancient One had given Tony. They were in Rhodey’s room at the temple, Tony having asked JARVIS to summon the two of them for a planning session. “Buy Bruce bananas on April 23^rd 2013? I mean, what?”

“I decided it was better not to ask,” Tony shrugged. “I quite like that one though,” he pointed at at a line about halfway down the page.

“Spend an entire weekend in Las Vegas with Miss Potts and– and–” Pepper began to read out loud, before pulling a face and stuttering to a stop.

“Wow she really just wrote it down like that for the whole world to read,” Rhodey snorted, jokingly nudging Tony’s shoulder with his.

“Wong told me she’s been kicking around since before the founding of the Roman Empire. Lady’s seen some stuff and probably tried half of it herself,” Tony sniggered. “Still though, I appreciate her assessment of my, ahem, stamina.”

“Oh Vishanti,” Rhodey then sighed in exasperation. “Look at this one! Introduce Loki to Master Kaecilius before the next new moon. Make sure Loki has lots of daggers to hand.”

“Fucking hell, someone will get stabbed half to death,” Tony winced dramatically. “Probably Kaecilius if my assessment of original Loki’s combat skills still holds water in this new timeline.”

“At least we know where Loki is?” Pepper added in a tone that reeked of forced optimism.

Which…Yes. Predominately lurking in their basement in Malibu being weirdly friendly with Clint and Laura and their two kids. Tony wasn’t entirely sure how that had happened, but Loki had just shown up the day after the UN-Asgard treaty negotiations had finally moved beyond the planning-the-planning-stage and not left since. Thor was being enormously chill about it so Tony wasn’t too worried, but…

Well Pepper was right. At least they knew where to find him.

Which was much more than could be said about the second to last item on the list…

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Rhodey intoned in utter disbelief. “Assign the Winter Soldier as a guardian of the London Sanctum in time for the city’s Olympic Games Opening Ceremony!? So we’ve got less than three years to find him, rescue him, rehabilitate and de-programme him, and also see to it that he somehow learns enough sorcery to be a master in that time!?”

“...Yes.”

Rhodey closed his eyes.

“Well at least Steve will be pleased,” he finally sighed tiredly.

Chapter Text

So.

Finding a super secret spy solider.

Tony would use the classic comparison of a needle in a haystack, except he actually had a few reasonable ways to go about that. Use a metal detector. Or a strong magnet. Or failing that, set the entire haystack on fire; the ashes would be much easier to sift through than an entire tower of dried grass.

Unfortunately, you can’t really burn the whole world just to find one man.

“But maybe we could torch HYDRA?” Tony pondered aloud as he paced back and forth across the circular hologram plinth in the centre of the workshop, his wife leaning on the bars surrounding the portal pad behind him. “Do we have time to purge SHIELD of Nazis before the next big thing happens?”

“Depends on what we think might happen with that mess now,” Pepper gestured in the direction of the patch of hologram labelled invasion of New York. “I mean, Loki’s currently upstairs reading this week’s Hello Magazine to Morgan and Lila…”

“Hnnnnng,” he groaned melodramatically, flapping his arms. “Why did I have to give into my moral conscious and interfere? Fuck knows who, if anyone will invade now. Or when. Or where.”

“Thanos will still want the cube so he can get the blue stone out of it,” Pepper hummed consideringly. “So either he’ll send someone else or he’ll show up for it himself at some point.”

“God, I’ll go insane if I start pondering all the possibilities,” Tony sighed as he scrubbed one hand backwards through his hair. “Alright, let’s… For the sake of my sanity, let’s just assume that Thanos will still be clear across the universe three years from now and so will have to use the Tesseract to generate a portal again in order to get here. Which means he’ll probably send someone else in his stead. Maybe telekinetic squid man? Or is Nebula still evil at this point? Did Nebula ever tell you when she stopped being evil?”

“When did she and Rhodey time travel to when they went to get the… whichever stone it was they were assigned?”

“Power. And uh, um… let me just…”

Turning on his heel, Tony flicked his hands through the hologram displaying the other end of their reconstructed timeline, zooming in on the Gordian knot that represented the “time heist” in 2023. Rather than trying to loop back along the rest of the timeline, Tony had had JARVIS design it so that the central knot shape could be opened up to display six tendrils that snaked outwards, one for each of the stones and what he knew of their retrieval quests.

“2014,” Tony read off of the purple line. “Why? What does that-? Oh I see! You reckon that’s when evil-alternate Nebula who started the big final killed-me-to-death battle came from?”

“That’s what I was told afterwards,” Pepper confirmed. “So she could be the one Thanos sends through to start the invasion.”

“Looks like. Although–” He cut himself off. “Ugh, we’ve gotten massively sidetracked. Forget the who, the when is more important right now and that’s likely still the summer of 2012. Approximately. Ish,” he made a so-so hand gesture. “Which means we have just shy of three years of relative quiet to play with.”

“I say we do it then. We need to find Barnes as soon as possible, so let’s take down HYDRA.”

“Wunderbar,” Tony sighed, mussing his hair again. “Alright, where’s my Rhodey? And I need to talk to Steve as well. And probably Nat. And– you know what, let’s find Rhodey first and then organise a full team meeting.”

As it turned out, Rhodey was in one of the open-fronted study rooms carved out along the edges of the library in Kamar-Taj. Sitting at a leather-topped desk, he was surrounded by a stack of open dusty books and unravelled rolls of parchment. He also had an engraved fountain pen tucked behind one ear, blue ink stains all over his fingers, and his newest pair of clear-lens SMART glasses over his eyes.

“Guuurl I have been looking everywhere for you!” Tony greeted his best-mate enthusiastically. “Well,” he then corrected himself. “I looked in a couple of places and then finally remembered that I am a smart man and that I could just ask JARVIS.”

“Oh hey dude,” Rhodey greeted him back, blinking as he dropped out of what had obviously been a state of intense concentration.

“Listen yeah,” Tony barrelled onwards immediately. “Pepper and I have just had a little pow-pow, a constructive conflab you might say. On the SHIELD-HYDRA issue. We’re thinking it’s arson time, see? So there’s some things we need to get a move on with, like now.”

“Oh, I’ve been working on that too, sort of,” Rhodey double blinked again. “I figured that we’d have a bit of time now, as SMART told me the next major incident on your timeline is–”

“Alien invasion, yeah,” Tony interrupted him. “Which might not happen any more, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.”

“Right, because Loki–”

“Yeah,” Tony said over him again. “Because Loki. Exactly.”

“Well,” Rhodey smiled at him bemusedly. “I presumed that since nothing big is set to happen, you’d probably want to deal with the HYDRA issue. But then there’s also the Rescue Barnes issue, and he is HYDRA right now, so…”

“So?”

“So I figured it made sense to get Barnes out of Hydra before you and Steve start pulverising them. Or he might go completely to ground and you don’t have an infinite amount of time to dig him out again.”

“Right, except a big reason why I want to start throwing metaphorical Molotov cocktails now is that he’s already completely underground and I can’t think of anything else that’ll rattle him enough to surface him. Plus you know, the fewer connections and strongholds HYDRA has, the fewer places they have to re-hide Mr Frosty Soldier. And trust me, right now they have a lot of hidey holes.”

“Except you’re forgetting the obvious,” Rhodey grinned at him, tone teasing.

This time, it was Tony who blinked.

Rhodey’s grin grew wider.

“You’re forgetting,” he enunciated carefully with obvious glee, “that we’re sorcerers now.”

Tony blinked blankly again.

“Wait,” he then blurted, realisation crashing into him as he finally took note of which books and scrolls Rhodey had spread out before him. Namely, those horrible tomes of geometry and mathematical sigil adjustments. “That’s fucking genius! You beautiful, beautiful man! I could kiss you right now!”

“Go on then,” Rhodey smirked smugly as he patted his cheek in invitation.

Tony laughed and made his way around the table to do just that.

“I didn’t want to start the calculations completely from scratch,” Rhodey then started explaining. “So I scoured the shelves for anything relating to tracking spells first. I found a couple which look reasonable, but they both have a high energy cost and they need something from the target referred to as “essence of the being’s soul”. From context, I think that’s old-timey speak for “you need a DNA sample” but hell if I know for sure.”

“Which books? Show me the passages?”

“First one’s on that tablet there. No, the one in ancient Sumerian with the chipped corner. And you’ll need that Sanskrit scroll to understand its sigil system.”

“Ea-nāṣir has a lot to answer for,” Tony mumbled under his breath as he pulled out a chair and began to squint at the cuneiform characters. “And so does Wong. Oh Tony, you could totally learn sorcery Tony! I conveniently won’t mention all the dead languages you’ll have to learn to read Tony!”

“Oh Rhodey, come and learn sorcery with me Rhodey!” his best mate started to fondly mock. “I, hypocrite much?”

“Shush you”

“Shush yourself!” Rhodey retorted inanely. “Now hurry up and read the ancient cursed tablet. Because once you’ve agonised your way through that, you should also look at Kuangyin’s treatise on the soul, and then refresh your memory of celestial lunar realm cycles.”

“Oh, lunar realm because of the–”

“Yeah, the energy cost problem. But seriously. Reading. The faster you catch up to me, the faster you can start checking my maths.”

“Oh brilliant,” Tony sighed mock-scathingly. “More maths.”