Reindeer Trouble
CHAPTER 9: REINDEER TROUBLE
Harry looked out the window car and watched as people made their way to work. New York traffic literally was a pain in his bum. As much as he liked Stark Tower, he preferred living in California. There were just too many people in New York and too many cars.
He really missed his treehouse.
He missed playing catch with his dad on the lawn. He missed swimming in the pool. He missed splashing in the mud. He missed his room even though his new room was bigger. And he missed the ocean view most of all.
But he supposed it was better this way. Tony had better labs in the tower than he did at Malibu. It was closer to school too. And he liked school. It was better than all the other schools they looked into. In the other schools, he had to start all over again, like how to read and write, how to count, and one school actually had the children draw and play all day.
Harry didn't like that. He got to draw and play all the time at home. He wanted to learn cool stuff at school instead. Which is why he liked Exeton best because he got to learn a lot of Science like his daddy.
Thinking about school and California made him worry about his father. He told Harry this morning that he had set up a playdate for him with Nicholas and that he was so come over his house at 8 am. When he asked if he would take him, he only told him Happy would.
Harry had a bad feeling about it. Tony wouldn't say anything else. Not that he wasn't glad to spend the day with his friend. It's just that he knew his father would take him personally to a friend's house especially when it's his first time. Tony was like that.
"Uncle Happy?" Harry called. "Is daddy going somewhere?" He questioned.
Happy knew exactly where Tony was going but he didn't want to say that to Harry. But he didn't want to lie to him either. It's a good thing he came prepared for such questions.
"He went to work on a project at a different lab. He couldn't bring the stuff back to the tower because those weren't his." There. Situation saved.
With a quiet "oh", Harry went back to observing the people outside.
AC/DC's "Shoot to Thrill" overdrives the Quinjets speakers. Natasha groaned instantly knowing precisely who hacked the system.
"Agent Romanoff, did you miss me?" Both Steve and Loki looked up at the sky as Tony flew over in his Iron Man suit and blasted Loki to the ground.
As soon as he touched down, he pulled out every weapon the suit has. "Make your move, Reindeer Games."
Loki realizes he had no way out and puts up his hands to surrender.
"Good move." The man in the suit critiqued the God of Mischief.
Steve, who was watching the scene, made himself known. "Mr. Stark." He greeted.
"Captain." Tony droned, not wanting to talk further to the man who more or less caused his shitty childhood.
Back on the Helicarrier, Tony locked himself inside one of the labs and ordered JARVIS to cut all voice surveillance for a while.
He immediately pressed 1 on speed dial and waited for his son picked up.
"Daddy!" Harry's voice blasted through the phone.
"Hey, Hare-bear. I missed you." Tony admitted. He was fiddling with the pocket watch Harry gave him for Christmas and opened it. He needed to see his son's face to at least alleviate his lonliness.
"I missed you too, daddy. Are you gonna pick me up soon?"
Tony wanted to say yes badly. He wished he was with Harry instead of all these... people. But he had no choice. If he leaves now, they would have no idea what the Tesseract is capable as none of them understood what is was and how it works.
"Listen, baby. I can't pick you up tonight. And no, before you say Happy can, I don't think it's a good idea. You'd be alone in the tower. I got stuck on this project and can't leave without mucking things up. Happy will take you to DC tomorrow night and I'll meet you there," Tony sighed sadly.
Harry sniffled quietly and tried to hide it. Tony heard it anyway. It broke his heart to know his son expected him yet he couldn't come for him.
"But, daddy... where would I stay? Are you gonna be alright?"
"I'll be fine, buddy. I promise. I love you so much, Harry and I missed you like hell. We'll go on a trip as soon as I'm done here. Just you and me. We'll go fishing and eat junkfood by the lake. How does that sound?" Harry mumbled a soft 'good', "Now, can you please give the phone to Ms. Stella?"
"I love you too, daddy. forever. please be careful and come home very fast, okay?" Harry pleaded.
"I will, baby. I will." Tony vowed.
He heard shuffling for a while before Nick's mother called out, "Mr. Stark?"
"Hey, Stella. Listen, I really am sorry if this is on the spot but can Harry sleep over your house for tonight? Just for tonight, I promise. I got stuck with work and Pepper is at DC right now." Tony ever so slightly begged. He never begs but Harry was way more important than his pride.
"I completely understand, Tony. What about his clothes and other needs?" Stella inquired.
"I'll have Happy bring him his stuff. Thank you so much, Stella. Anything you need, anything at all. Just say the word. I owe you big time. Kiss him goodnight for me."
Meanwhile, dozens of SHIELD police escorted a handcuffed Loki to his cell. As they passed by one of the labs, the God of Mischief saw Tony Stark looking at a photo of himself and a child through the window. Loki smirked and thought the man should have stood facing the glass instead of against it.
When they passed by the main lab, Loki made eye-contact with Banner who instantly stop working on his scepter and looks up. He continued to stare at the man-beast as he walked, nodding and smiling.
Tony and Agent Coulson entered the briefing room just in time to hear someone say,
"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?"
Tony was a little bit pleased that at least someone was here with a brain.
"It's a stabilizing agent." He turned to Coulson and said, "I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive." before turning back to the group of people (and a god) and continued his line of thought, "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD."
Tony walked over to Thor who he fought with earlier that same night and patted his arm. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing."
He then went to the control desk, ignoring the eye-roll of Agent Hill.
"Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." He saw one of the crews play on his cubicle. It irked him that some didn't saw how urgent and dangerous their situation was to still go around and play mere computer games. "That man is playing GALAGA! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did."
Covering his eye, he looks around. "How does Fury do this?"
"He turns," Agent Hill deadpanned.
"Well, that sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."
"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Agent Hill questioned.
"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?" Seriously? This is what Fury hoped to save the world? These people don't even read. Oh how he wished he was at home building forts from couch cushions and blankets with his son instead.
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" asked Steve to which Banner replied,
"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."
"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." Tony commented
"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."
He then walked over to Banner, "Finally, someone who speaks English." Tony and Bruce shook hands, eyes full of respect towards each other.
Tony went on about Banner's work and how he's a fan of the Hulk. Banner awkwardly muttered out a 'thanks'.
At that moment, Fury walked in and announced, "Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him."
While the rest of the group discussed theories, Tony decided he wasted enough time and asked Bruce to join him in the lab instead.
Steve walked in on Tony poking Bruce with an electrical prod.
"Hey!" He warned. Tony ignored him and continued bothering Bruce.
"Are you nuts?" Steve bellowed.
Tony kept ignoring Steve. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"
Having heard enough, Steve questioned, "Is everything a joke to you?
"Funny things are." Well, at least he wasn't ignoring the man anymore. Harry would be so proud of him.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor."
Bruce kept working and just sent Captain America a small smile. "No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."
"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut." Tony advised Bruce.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." Steve countered.
"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."
"You think Fury's hiding something?"
"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." Tony exclaimed and pointed to Bruce "It's bugging him too, isn't it?"
Bruce, who didn't want any part of it, stammers "Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and..."
"Doctor?" Captain America coaxed.
"A warm light for all mankind, Loki's jab at Fury about the cube." Bruce started. He looked at Tony and said, "Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."
"The Stark Tower? That big ugly... building in New York?" Steve clarified. Tony sent him a look. Ugly building... His son told him it was the bestest building in the world and his four-year-old clearly had better taste than the Capsicle.
Bruce went on to explain how it's powered by Stark Reactors, a self- sustaining energy source. "That building will run itself for what, a year?" He asked Tony.
"That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."
Referring to Tony, Bruce continued his queries, "So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"
"I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Tony conveyed.
Steve immediately clarified, "I'm sorry, did you say...?"
"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide."
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?" The man wondered.
But Tony didn't want to be around. He was asked to be here. They basically pleaded for help. If he had to choose, he'd rather fly right back to New York, pick up his son, and spend the rest of the night cuddling and rewatching Jurassic park.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not possible." He countered.
"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them."
Tony had to groan. Orders, orders. Whatever. He trusts SHIELD as far as he could throw them. He's not going to let himself be dragged into this mess especially when he had promised Harry he'd come home as soon as possible.
"Following is not really my style."
"And you're all about style, aren't you?" The Captain smiled sarcastically.
Oh, the nerve of this guy, thought Tony. It's not like he was the one out of style in the room. "Of the people in this room, which one is; A. wearing a spangly outfit, and B. not of use?" he provoked.
Bruce decided to butt-in, even just to stop the verbal sparring from continuing, "Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?"
The Captain did think something else was going on but shook it off. He was a soldier, and soldiers must follow orders.
"Just find the cube." Steve walked out of the lab, still torn between following orders and breaking into SHIELD's filed.
Fury demanded Tony to locate the tesseract when he found him lounging inside the lab. Bruce interrupted and let him know they were already running a track on the energy source. Tony was still looking over files and wondered out loudly what phase two was when Steve walked in.
A fight slowly emerged when the rest of the reluctant team found out SHIELD was using the tesseract to build weapons for mass destruction. They went against each other, insulting and blaming, that they didn't notice the tesseract was glowing behind them.
Soon enough, a loud explosion blasted off on the Helicarrier. All of them were thrown over the place. Natasha and Bruce even got blasted as far as a few floors down, causing Bruce to turn into Hulk. They were already loosing their engines, making them vulnerable to crashing. Coulson immediately ordered Iron Man and Captain America on fixing the engines as the rest of the soldiers suited up to fight.
Tony immediately thought about Harry and hoped to God nothing would happen to him on the airship. He couldn't let his son grow up without a father. It would kill the boy if he ever died. If he managed to survive the attack, he would run and take his son away on a vacation. He didn't care whether he still had a ton of projects to work on. Thinking about the possibility of leaving his son an orphan broke his heart. No. He needed to survive for Harry. He would survive for his son.
Meanwhile, Agent Coulson went on to grab a weapon and check on their prisoner. When he reached the room, he found Loki tweaking on the control panel, and Thor inside the cell.
"Move away, please." He ordered, pointing a huge weapon to the god who instantly followed. "You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent The Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you want to find out?"
Agent Coulson heard a loud bang and saw the real Loki being thrown off the room. He turned around and saw Fury holding out another weapon, much like his.
The God of Mischief slowly stood up and smirked at the three. "Tell the Man of Iron, the boy is adorable," At that, Loki instantly vanished.