Chapter 6
Long range Legilimency without eye contact was difficult, and impossible without consent, but Lilith had grown up breaking such barriers.
Tony, where are you? Are you alright?
Yeah. I'm injured but nothing that isn't fixable.
Can you ping me so I can come and get you?
Not yet. I have unfinished business here.
Alright. I trust you, and I will check in every day, but Teddy misses you, and I'm not the CEO of SI.
No, you're just the mastermind behind it all. Don't worry about me, I know what I'm doing. They accidentally gave me the key for finishing my biggest project.
Alright.
She thought to him and departed the space in the back of his head. He still felt like he could connect with her if need be.
He ended up not needing to connect back to Lilith, and he grabbed Yinsen as he flew out of the Ten Rings caves, blowing up their entire stock of manpower and weaponry.
When he came back, it was to find out his PA, who he had rehired from Obadiah, was double-dealing with said mentor of his, and it was all a whirlwind as he fought off the Iron Monger, tacky name really, and then hugged it all out with an extremely worried Teddy.
At the press conference the next day, when a SHIELD Agent tried to hand him notecards and a cover story, Tony declined, and when the agent, who looked more like a human cinnamon bun than an agent, but Tony knew better than to underestimate him based on appearances, and when he insisted, Lilith glared at him until he shuffled away to deliver his report to his superiors.
The press conference was his shortest one yet. “The truth is…” He held out for dramatic effect as the room quieted. “I am Iron Man.” He stated with a smirk, as he walked off the stage and back to his limo with Lilith and Teddy.
Bruce Banner’s life was shit after the whole destroying Harlem episode, but at least he didn’t endanger anyone else. So one can imagine his shock when he got the employment offer from Stark Industries, an emergency Hulk-proof room included in the workplace .
But even through his shock, he saw the opportunity for what it was, a godsend, and took it. It was far better than anything he could have hoped for.
Thor Odinson found the Destroyer vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared. He looked around, to see who could have accomplished that, as there was no trace of the bifrost, so it was someone here, but in the end, everyone else was looking around the same as him. He finally spotted the only unsurprised person, but his Lady Jane asked her about it first.
“Darcy, you don’t look shocked.”
“Tony Stark is my brother-in-law, Jane, I've seen much more surprising things brushed off.”
“Who is this Tony Stark person?” Thor asked.
“Just as close as an American can come to international royalty.” the owner of the Café whose window had gotten blasted in gushed.
“Yeah, well, my sister married him, so you can imagine my lack of surprise at the whole giant murderbot thing.”
Jane looked at Darcy and then asked, “Wait, is this not the first giant murderbot you’ve seen?”
“I was babysitting Teddy during the whole Obadaih Stane turned out to be an evil ripoff Iron Man thing. Yeah, not my first giant evil murderbot.”
“Do these things happen often on Midgard?” Volstagg asked, confused.
“Does that make you royalty?” Fandral asked.
Jane doubled over laughing, as she pulled out her phone, as Thor learned these peculiar small flat handheld devices were called. She pulled up a picture, and handed it to Darcy. “Yeah, American royalty.”
She then showed it to Thor, and his jaw dropped. There was Darcy in a beautiful pale green gown, with jewelry made of Jade and looking far more beautiful and royal-like than she did in her current casual clothes paired with a beanie hat.
“You still have that photo? Was that for holding those invitations over the heads of all of Culver for two months?”
“I do not understand.” Thor said.
“My sister made me wear jewelry of basically all Jade because Jade is also my middle name, literally.”
“And yes, that is for those invitations. I had four different guys acting like leeches that year.” Jane said.
Darcy explained to Thor. “My sister’s wedding was basically the event of the century, everyone wanted to go, and I had extra invitations to hand out. I held them over our classmates heads back at Uni, Jane was the only one that got one right off the bat. It came with a plus one spot, so there were about a dozen guys asking Jane out and trying to leech off her to get invited to go .”
“Is that a common occurrence?”
Darcy laughed, and lightly smacked his forearm. “Poor, poor naive cute little alien guy. Thor, it was absolute mayhem and the chaos was glorious.”
“You sound like my brother.”
“I doubt your brother’s the only one who can appreciate some good chaos. We have those types here on Earth as well.” Jane said.
This was the moment when the SHIELD transports arrived at the Bifrost site, and Thor said, “Midgard is a very interesting place and you are a very interesting person. I promise, I will do my utmost best to return for you.”
“You do that,” Jane said, hugging him, and placing a kiss on his lips, leaving a gobsmacked Thor to be sucked up by the Bifrost.
After he was, Darcy mentioned, “You do realize he probably needs to be carbon dated?”
“Yeah. Hopefully at least Einstein was wrong and time goes at the same pace everywhere in the universe.”
“Yeah. Hope he returns.” Darcy said, a strange look crossing her face briefly before disappearing. Jane wasn’t completely horrible with human interaction, she understood where that look was coming from, with Darcy’s dad, for all she acted nonchalant, she was to this day, hurt by his disappearance, and she didn’t want a similar thing to happen to Jane. Jane felt touched.