Life Measured

Tony grinned as he attached the power cut off for the tower.  “Okay, you’re good!” he called into the coms.

“Transition lines are disconnected?”

“We are off the grid.  Stark tower is about to become a beacon of clean energy for the world,” Tony replied as he shot out of the harbor and back toward the city.  On his HUD, he saw the Tower power up systems.

“Assuming the reactor takes over and works, you mean,” Pepper quipped.

Tony rolled his eyes. “I assume.”

“Sir, the reactor is holding steady at just over 90% capacity.”

“What’s it look like?”

Tony looked up as the tall building he’d been working on for over a year lit up.  The Stark name blinked on and he grinned.  “It's like Christmas.  But with more me?” he joked.

“Congratulations, Master Tony.” Jarvis’s warm voice came over the coms.  Tony could hear cheering in the background.  He grinned.  

To think, three years ago he’d been dying and pushing away all his family.  Today, he wasn’t alone.  Ever.

Dr Foster, Jane, had jumped at the chance to work with Stark Industries.  SHIELD may have more resources in dodging publicity, but Tony had more resources, flat.  So she’d turned to Coulson for all her things.  Tony had watched with a small smile as she coaxed, or threatened but who’s counting, all her research back from him.  Then she and Tony and Coulson had sat in that blown out diner, eating newly baked pie and pancakes with no butter, and hashed out an agreement.

Jane would work for Tony and retain all rights to her research.  Stark Industries had first dibbs on using her work, at a very generous cost, for its products.  In return, Jane got her own research lab and a salary for 3 assistants.  Coulson negotiated access to the outcomes of the work, but on Tony’s schedule, which Jane could override if she thought he wasn’t being generous enough.  Coulson also negotiated for access to Tony as his direct contact to SHIELD moving forward.

Thus Jane, Darcy, Eric and Coulson were added to the people commonly frequenting Tony’s home.  His base in New York had been where he’d launched the clean energy project.  Jane and her group were set to move to the Tower the next day.

Erik had gotten an offer from SHIELD for a consulting job over in Nevada. 

“Wait, are you taking him to Area 51?  Is there really an area 51?  I mean, we now know there are aliens.  What do I have to do to get an invite?” Tony asked Coulson enthusiastically.  When Coulson simply smiled at him in that knowing way, Tony sulked. “Nevermind, I didn’t want to see it anyway.”

He pretended not to hear Darcy whisper to Jarvis, “What will he do if we tell him he could go if he got kidnapped by aliens?”

“Please do not suggest such a thing. Master Tony gets kidnapped far too often as it is.”

Tony had promised Coulson he wouldn’t track the man as long as he checked in with Jane on a weekly basis.  He had other fish to fry anyway.  He’d been going over his projects with the military and found one that concerned him.

“Jr, can you track these sonic cannons we sold?  They are marked as domestic use.”  Tony didn’t want any more American soldiers to fall to his weapons.

“That order was from General Thaddeaus Ross, Sir.”  

Tony frowned as he reviewed the specs.  Aimed at a normal person, it wouldn’t kill them, but their eardrums would burst, permanently, preventing them from ever hearing or walking again.  Memories of the sonic taser leaped to the forefront of his mind and Jr had called in Jarvis to prove everything was fine while the AI searched for the request.

“Master Tony, you mustn’t work yourself into such a tizzy!” Jarvis admonished softly.  When Tony had returned from MIT after his degree and started working full time for SI, Jarvis had been there almost always.  It had been an adjustment to Tony, who had been at college and thus without some sort of adult guidance in his home for a while.

Rhodey didn’t really count.

Jarvis had always coaxed him to go to bed and to eat and to be responsible.  Half the meetings Tony actually went to happened because Jarvis was there.  It had sparked a few fights.

Well, one-sided fights.  Tony would complain, Jarvis would patiently point out certain truths and agree with Tony, sort of, and still convince him to sleep and eat.  Then, out of exasperation, Tony had sent Jarvis out to see the family of an injured worker.  The lab tech had gotten hurt at another work site and Tony was helping the man sue the business into safe practices.  In the meantime, the guy was stuck at home recovering, with his two year old kid and wife.  

Tony had sent Jarvis with a gift basket and hidden crossed fingers, ready for some major progress on his project, JARVIS Jr.  Jarvis was set to be back around 8pm.  So Tony dug in as soon as Jarvis walked out the door, with reminders to Tony that lunch was in the fridge.

He’d worked hard and accomplished a lot the first seven hours.  He had a bag of chips and some chocolate bars in the workshop that he ate as he went.  Shortly after 5pm, he got a call from Jarvis saying he would be a little later than expected and to not forget dinner.

Tony agreed, silently cheering.  He could get more work done.  He fell into another engineering haze that he emerged from, mildly dizzy, at midnight.  Looking at the clock, he realized Jarvis should have been back hours ago.  He’d wandered out of his workshop, calling for him.  

Maybe Jarvis had gone to bed without seeing Tony?  Tony could get caught up in his work.  Maybe Jarvis had finally agreed that Tony should be able to set his own schedule?  Something cold ran through Tony at the thought.  Maybe Jarvis decided to stop caring?

Walking quickly, not running, Tony made his way to Jarvis’s quarters.  He paused outside the door.  Shuffling his feet, he realized that he couldn’t just barge in.  “Ummmm, Jarvis, are you still awake?  Look, I’m coming in, if you aren’t, so you should say something.  Like...Jarvis?  Are you…”

Tony cracked the door carefully.  “-okay?” When he saw that the room was empty, he opened the door wider.  The bed was not slept in.  He didn’t see any evidence Jarvis had been in the room since that morning.

He frowned and turned and hurried to the garage.  The car Jarvis had taken was also gone.  Jarvis hadn’t made it home.

Images of a smashed car, night drive and death, flashed across his mind and he reached for a phone.  He dialed 9-1-1.

The nice operator listened to his story patiently once she stopped asking if he was hurt.  Then she explained that there hadn’t been any accidents in the area.  At least, none reported and Jarvis was following a fairly well-traveled route out of the city.

Tony had hung up when she stopped being helpful, like suggesting he would come home in the morning and that he was just taking a break from the weather.  Tony knew better.

He tried the fire department with similar responses.  Then he tried the fire department and police station near Jarvis’s destination.  They had one large crash they were handling, a bus and a semi had kissed, but no fatalities and all injured were with family.  Tony was Jarvis’s only family.

He tried the coast guard, but they claimed no jurisdiction.  Tony hung up before they even had a chance to tell him not to call back.  Obie was in China on a run to discuss steel and thus would be of no help, but Tony finally tracked down Rhodey’s location.

He’d only had to hack the Pentagon and then local base overseas.  The nearest satellite phone had gotten him a communications officer on base who had located Rhodey and called him in.

“Rhodes.” 

Tony had heaved a huge breath when Rhodey’s voice finally came on the air.  “Rhodey!”

“Tony?”

“I can’t find Jarvis!  I know he’s in trouble or hurt or dying or dead because he’s so late and he’s never late and he should be home by now, it past 3am and he was supposed to be back by 8 and I know the weather is a bit much, but he’s a really really good driver and he would keep coming home and no one will tell me where he is-”

“Tony!”

Tony bit back a sob that had been building for over an hour.  He heaved a breath as Rhodey took a deep breath.  “Did you try his cell phone?”

“If he’s hurt, he won’t be able to answer!  That’s what I’ve been trying to say-”

“Tony!  Did. You. Try. His. Cell. Phone?” Rhodey enunciated slowly.

“No,” Tony answered in a small voice.

“Call him!” Rhodey growled and hung up.

Tony had stared at the phone almost crying for a full minute before shakily dialing Jarvis’s cell phone number.

Jarvis had answered, of course.  He’d stayed at the worker’s home when the snow storm had caused a major traffic issue with a bus and semi on the highway.  He’d not called Tony with an update because he’d assumed Tony would be asleep and hadn’t wanted to wake him up.

After that, Tony had been a little less frantic about his searches for Jarvis, and Jarvis had been a lot more wary of leaving Tony to his own devices at home.  And Rhodey had made Tony do a security report on his hacking as an apology to him and the US military.  Eventually, Jarvis and Tony had found a medium.  Yet the attack by Stane had ramped some of that fear back into high gear for Tony.

 “Come.  Ms Pepper left these papers for you to sign on the land contracts.”

Tony groaned.  “Paperwork, really?”

“Also, you should be heading to bed soon.  It's past 11pm.”

Tony glared at his butler’s back. “I can stay up if I want.”

Jarvis didn’t turn and look at him, focusing on picking up the coffee mugs.  “Yes, Sir.”

“And I know what I’m doing.”

“That is always good, Young Sir.”

Tony pouted.  “You just want me to sign these papers.”

“It would make life easier for Ms Pepper, Young Sir,” Jarvis explained mildly as he picked up a blackened screwdriver to get at the plate it was resting on.

“If I sign, can I have more coffee?”

“You have a mug at your elbow, Young Sir.”

“That’s not coffee.”

“Decaf coffee is best at this time of night.”

“You’re a menace.”

“Thank you, Sir.  And I’m happy to report DUM-E has refrained for three days from adding oil to your smoothie.  I believe we are making progress.”

Tony sighed and rested his head against the stack of documents that would put him to sleep if he tried to read them.

“Young Master Tony, you are only this recalcitrant when you need sleep,” Jarvis said from over his shoulder where he was trying to coax the engineer up and to bed.

When Tony had woken the next morning, hot caffeinated coffee, fruit, the documents and the file on the use of the sonic cannons were waiting for him.

The sonic cannon report had led him to Bruce Banner.  Which had led him to the Hulk.  He’d traced the military’s, and Ross’s, personal vendetta, as they chased him around the world.  Jr had gone off to find out if SHIELD had a similar tracking on Bruce.  They had found him in South America, but lost him again shortly before Tony’s Afghani vacation.  

Tony winced as he noted an avalanche in the Arctic that SHIELD was investigating as possibly being the Hulk on a rampage.  That investigation was full of protected files, which spelled secret.  Tony left that to Jr as he found Bruce’s most recent location in Bardhaman, India.

So Tony had added himself to the next recruiting drive to India.  Then he’d conveniently “gotten separated”.  He’d found Bruce trading his chemistry skills as an herbalist for food and shelter.

“Got anything for a headache for a white as shit tourist?” Tony asked quietly after the last person had left.  Bruce had spun about in near panic.

Tony had waved from his seat.  

Bruce had frowned at him, moving to glance out the window.  “How’d you find me?”

Tony shrugged, “SHIELD has this file on you. I hacked.”

Bruce eyed him.  “Why?”

Tony looked down at his hands where he was fiddling with a bag of dried mangos he’d bought at the airport.  “I wasn’t paying enough attention.  I made stuff.  People got hurt.  You got hurt.”

Tony shrugged after that.  He finally looked at Bruce and saw the man scrutinizing him.  Unable to take the silence he opened the packet.  Tossing one in his mouth he held it out, “Mango?”

Bruce seemed to stare at it a moment before reaching out for one.  Tony grinned in relief.  At least this gift wasn’t an allergy.  He took another and popped it in his mouth.  Finally, he swallowed and glanced at Bruce.  “I was wondering if you wanted to come home with me?  I read your paper on anti-electron collisions in ‘02.  I have this other scientist.  We are trying to revolutionize physics.  Oh, and solve the energy crisis, but, you know, one is much more fun and doesn’t involve lawyers so…”

Tony glanced at where a bemused Bruce Banner was staring at him.  “And if I say no?”

Tony shrugged. “You’d be missing out on Candyland.”

“And if the other guy says no?”

Tony cocked his head.  “I could talk to him.”

Bruce’s head spun to look at him in genuine fear at that.  “You want to-  You can’t talk to him!”

“I’m very persuasive.  I mean, most people find themselves thinking that.  I dunno what it is about me.  Animal magnetism?”

“Stark!”

Tony looked at him with a confused grin.  Bruce stared at him.  “I’m not...I’m a nerve, exposed, it's a nightmare!” Bruce hissed.

Tony scoffed.  “Don’t know if you heard, but my arc reactor isn’t fancy jewelry.  It's a power source, terrible privilege trying each second to stop me from being killed.  I learned to control it.

“It's different.”

Tony blinked and then looked at him. “I read all about your accident.  That much gamma radiation should have killed you.”

Bruce eyed him a moment, running his hands through his hair.  “So you’re trying to say the Other Guy, he saved me? That’s a nice sentiment.  Saved me for what, exactly?”

Tony grinned.  “Don’t know.  Guess we will just have to find out.”

“You may not like that.”

“And you just might.” Tony shot back.  He paused and set his bag of fruit on the counter.  “I’m a futurist.  The future is what we will all find out.  And we will all like and hate it.”  Tony shrugged.  “Personally, I prefer to like it.  Keeps it interesting.”

Bruce stubbornly continued to look away.  Tony set his personal card on the table.  “Call me if you want to find out too.”

Tony had left Bruce with that line of communication open.  He didn’t pursue it any further than that.  If anyone understood wanting to be left alone, Tony did.  Instead, he set Jr to tracking all the illegal activity he could about Thaddeus Ross, not to be confused with Everett Ross, and compile it.

In the process, Jr brought his attention to a few disturbing patterns emerging from SHIELD.  Tony hadn’t liked the analysis and asked Jr for a more in depth idea.  And no getting caught!

Bruce had showed up on his front door nearly a month later, calling him from the payphone in the lobby.  He’d not yet left.

 So Bruce had been added to the commonly present people in Tony’s home.  

Coulson was also usually in the building, since most of his assets were there, but he’d been called away to handle something about Erik.  Tony had warned him that if Tony didn’t hear from either of them in 24 hours, he’d come looking.

It was coming up on hour 18.

Still, everyone seemed happy and celebrating the accomplishment.  Tony was zoning four other buildings and the utility companies had just gotten wind of his plans.  Pepper was handling, *cough* fending them off *cough*, with aplomb.  

Tony zoomed through the city as he heard Jane and Bruce delve into discussion of energy breakdown.  Jane’s research had continued and sprouted a few new technologies in energy readings and monitoring that Tony was selling as a cheaper, more accurate safety equipment.  And Bruce’s assistance in the intellicrop and agriculture department had more than earned him a cheer or two.  All said and done, their little group was producing faster than SI could make money off them.

Tony came in for a landing with a grin as Jarvis stepped forward with a glass of champagne for him as he strolled down the walkway.  “It worked!”

“Congratulations, Young Master Tony.” Jarvis approved.  Tony preened a moment before entering the room to find Bruce and Jane in a discussion he very much would enjoy.

Unfortunately, Jr’s ping distracted him, “Sir, Agent Coulson claims to have news to discuss.”

Tony rolled his eyes.  Fury had succeeded in repairing Tony’s relationship with SHIELD, mostly by working through Coulson only.  And the threat of further manipulations would be met with some on Tony’s side.  With the Avengers project scrapped, Tony had given Fury a lot of leeway.

“Tell him it's a party here.  Either celebrate or leave a message.”

“He says it's urgent.”

“Then tell him to leave it urgently.”

“Stark!” Coulson growled as he hurried on the floor.

Tony sighed. “Grow a spine, Jr.”

“Sorry, Sir, my abilities were overridden,” Jr reported wryly.  Tony grinned at his son’s sense of humor.

He walked over. “Consulting hours are from noon to 2 every other Thursday.”  His steps slowed as Jarvis reached out to set a hand on Coulson’s shoulder, something he did when worried about someone.

Tony frowned and let Pepper hand him the package as Yinsen’s wife, Rhay, coaxed the agent to sit and drink a glass of water.  Tony pulled the information up as Jane and Yinsen came over.  Bruce hung back a bit, still leery of SHIELD, but relatively trusting of Coulson.

The files that popped up were the Avengers’.  Pepper made a small sound of surprise. “The Avengers Initiative?”  Coulson’s head sprang up and she quickly backtracked, “That I don’t know anything about.”

Tony grimaced.  “The Avengers Initiative was scrapped.”

Pepper glanced at Coulson with a smile. “I didn’t know that either.”  Now Jane was fingering through some of the data.

Bruce spoke through gritted teeth. “That’s the group I somehow qualified for, but Tony didn’t.”

Darcy piped up from the couch. “Pep and I didn’t know that either.”

Tony rolled his eyes, hoping none of them thought they were anything but transparent.  “Apparently, I’m volatile, self-obsessed, don’t play well with others.”

“That sounds like a newspaper article.” Jane’s rebuke was mild as she read over the information about Agent Romanoff.

Coulson sighed. “This isn’t about that.  I-”  He looked at Jarvis a moment before taking a deep breath. “Two of mine are missing.”

Tony zeroed in on Coulson then.  He knew what that meant.  After all, Tony was one of his now.  He knew Coulson had a few assets outside their little ragtag group of misfits.  Romanoff being one that popped by on occasion, though she made Bruce stutter like a teenager.  

Coulson met his gaze with a breaking of his usual composure.  “Please.”

Tony felt the room shift at that.  Jarvis glanced at Tony at that request and Tony firmed himself up.  With a nod, he unlocked the rest of the files and opened them up.  He noted that the WWII relic they’d found after Bruce had been so kind as to avalanche some ice away in the Arctic was on the list.

When he’d last checked in on the files surrounding Steve Rogers, the man was just starting to adapt to the world now.  And not very well, if the reports could be trusted.  Tony had been split hard on whether he wanted to reach out.  Captain America had been both a boogey man and an unattainable goal for Tony throughout his childhood.  Aunt Peggy still spoke of him often, when her mind was in the present. 

Tony skimmed the information on Bruce and Romanoff as familiar and already read.  He focused on Barton and this cube.  He tossed it Bruce’s way.

“Friend of yours?”

Bruce pulled up the attached notes and a moment later he and Jane were deep in Thermonuclear physics works.  Tony would read the papers later.  Instead, he zeroed in on an important bit of information.

“They’ve taken Selvig,” Tony said with a voice empty of the fury in his throat.  His lips were a thin hard line as he glanced back at Coulson.

Coulson nodded.  “I had Barton there as insurance, back up for him.  Clint has been my asset for years.  He brought Romanoff in out of the cold.  He’s also gone.”

Tony gritted his teeth and saw Darcy rise, anger clear in her eyes too.  Time to put their big guns to work.

Jarvis drove Darcy, Jane and Bruce to SHIELD's pick up while Yinsen coordinated from the Tower and Tony took off for Germany where Loki had suddenly appeared at a public venue.  Coulson promised to meet them at SHIELD; he’d left the night before to pick up Rogers.  The scientific information had been dense but Bruce had set up some tracking algorithms for the tesseract also taken along with the agents.  The extraction papers had been enlightening and Tony continued his discussion with Bruce and Jane as he flew over the atlantic.

They all agreed that Loki’s presence in public was some sort of diversion.  What kind, they didn’t know.  Tony had Jr check SHIELD’s security anyway.  Jr reported two things.  One, it was written by Hammer and needed updating, which was a generous report for Hammer, and two, SHIELD had an underbelly that paralleled the report he was collecting on the odd pattern he’d detected.

“Okay, merge with the security system and lock down all access codes Erik or Barton would have access to.  Let’s not let those bastards use them against their own team.”

“Yes, Sir!” Jr had liked Erik.  The man had a sort of way of explaining things that made them sound so fantastic.  Jr liked that.

Tony had just gotten to Spain’s airspace when Jr piped up. “Sir, we found a break in in progress at the Schafer Sicherheitsdienst.  The leader of the institute is in Stuttgart, where Loki has been located.”

“I guess Thor didn’t hug it out,” Tony muttered, opening a com to the group.  “Bridge Girl, does the name Schafer mean anything to you from a physics perspective?”

“Meteors.  Mostly iridium, which is-” Jane replied.

“A stabilizing agent,” Tony finished wryly.  “Splendid.”

He blasted forward and found a group of civilians fleeing as Romanoff in a quinjet aimed at a pair of small figures dodging back and forth.  “Jr, hack in.  I don’t want stray bullets.  And give me a beat.”

“Rock and Roll for you, Sir.”

Tony grinned. “Agent Romanoff, you miss me?”

Tony grimaced as he saw Rogers roll to the side on his back as he came in and blasted Loki away from him.  Tony might not know yet what to make of the guy, hero from the storybooks or ghost of his father, but Loki didn’t call dibs on beating his ass.

Tony landed a step in front of Rogers, an attempt to not step on his toes while still making sure Loki didn’t try a lucky shot.  As he challenged Loki to make a move, Rogers joined him.

“Mr Stark?”

Tony sighed, he hated that term of respect.  But he had Jarvis in his other ear telling him to give what is given.  “Captain,” he confirmed.

He heard Romanoff come in for a landing as Loki surrendered with no fuss. Tony checked in with his science group and found they’d hooked up with Coulson and were thus safe.  In the meantime, Tony oversaw Loki entering the ship.

As Tony joined Rogers and Romanoff on board, his neck hairs stood on end.  Glancing over, he saw Loki staring at him as Agent Romanoff lifted off.  He frowned.

“I’m prettier out of the suit.”

“Stark?” Rogers asked.  Tony looked at him and shrugged.  “My butt has been rated top notch, I’m told.”

“You are Tony Stark?” Loki asked quietly.  Both of them turned to look at the bound god.

“Yup.”

“My brother spoke well of you,” Loki said simply.

Tony cocked his head a bit.  “He spoke of you too, Rock of Ages.”

Loki’s lips tensed and thinned.  Tony frowned at that, but Loki didn’t comment further.

Rogers turned away. “I don’t like it,” he commented to Tony.

Tony glanced at him.  “What?  Peaceful surrender?”

“That felt less like a surrender and more like a trap,”  Rogers commented shortly.  Tony reasoned this as he let his mouth run.

“You are pretty spry for an old guy.  Calisthenics?  You should get into pilates.”

Rogers looked at him with resigned irritation. “What?”

Tony grabbed control of his mouth before it could get him further down this hole.  “It's exercise.  To stay agile and fit.”

Tony looked over at Loki who was watching them closely.  It was unnerving. Thor had said he was going back to try to talk to his brother.  He loved his brother.  What the hell had those two been doing?

“Where the hell did this come from?” Romanoff muttered from the cockpit.  A flash of lightning crossed in front of the ship.  Tony looked out the window and held in a groan.  A ship flying was not the place for one of those symbol circle-y thingies Thor liked to travel through!

“Afraid of a little lightning?” Rogers asked their ‘prisoner’.  Tony glanced back to see Loki also leaning forward with an attentive look.

“I’m not always fond of what follows.” Loki’s reply confirmed for Tony, at least, that Thor was enroute in some manner.  Tony grabbed his helmet.  If Thor appeared, Tony was likely going to fly.  

They all staggered when a thud shook the ship.  That was less violent than Tony had expected.  Still, no sense in letting Thor destroy the plane.  Tony opened the hatch.

“What are you doing?” Rogers shouted.  They were all distracted as a moment later Thor touched down and climbed aboard.  He had eyes only for his brother and tore him out of his seat and out of the plane immediately.  Tony sighed and moved to follow.

“Stark, who was that?”

“Another Asgardian?” Romanoff shouted from the cockpit.

“That guy’s a friendly?”

Tony rolled his eyes.  Clearly, SHIELD hadn’t finished briefing Rogers.  “I got him.”

“Stark, we need a plan of attack!” Rogers shouted and Tony ignored him, and jumped before Thor fell off his radar.

Thor landed on a cliff where he was facing his brother.  “We all did!  Father-”

“Your Father!  He did tell you of my parentage!  What have you to say now, Brother?” Loki spat.  Tony came to a stop nearby.  

Thor glanced his way but stayed focused on Loki. “We were raised together, we played together, we fought together. Do you remember none of that?” he pleaded with his brother.

“I remember a shadow. Living in the shade of your greatness. I remember father tossing me into an abyss. I was and should be king!” Loki shouted.  Tony could hear a thin veneer of pain and anguish in that voice.

“Shitty father figure?  Join the club!” Tony called out.  It redirected their attention a bit.  Thor glanced at him before looking at Loki.

“Brother, I cannot be Father.  But you-  I still-”  Thor was breaking his heart.  Tony could see Loki wavering in the face of Thor’s puppy dog eyes.  “You’re my brother.”

“THEN WHERE WERE YOU?” Loki shrieked.  Tony heard that loud and clear.  He knew that plea, that anger.  He’d felt it once.  He’d had to recover from it once.  Which meant something important.  

“Brother, I was-”

“I have grown in my exile, Odinson,” Loki sneered.  “I have seen the true power of the Tesseract,  it has shown me wonders, and when I wield it-”

Thor growled, gripping his hammer. “Who showed you this power? Who controls the would-be-king?” He advanced on Loki and Tony nailed down the last piece of the puzzle.

Loki wasn’t acting of his own accord.  Well, that made everything harder.  

Loki snarled at Thor, “I am a King!”

“Not here!  You give up the Tesseract! You give up this poisonous dream! You come home.” Thor ended those demands with a plea.  One Loki couldn’t follow if Tony was right.

“I don’t have it,” Loki informed them calmly.  “You need the cube to bring me home, but I sent it off I know not where.”

“And telling your big brother would be a big no-no in the little brother playbook, right?” Tony quipped, stepping forward before this could turn into more of an argument.  “I mean, when we have some big blond perfection to live up to, you can’t just give them the information!”

Thor and Loki were now both looking at Tony in confusion.  Tony strode closer now that swinging of the hammer was less likely.  “Look, Point Break, Loki managed to get the little cube all on his own-” Tony stressed, meeting Loki’s wide eyes.  “-without help from you, or anyone else.  And he’s got no one else to turn to for his plan because he’s trapped by himself in this.  I mean come on!  For decades, he’s been in your shadow with no one watching?”

Tony met Loki’s eyes at that and Loki’s pale face lost whatever color it had.  “You wouldn’t know a thing about it!” he rasped.  Tony raised an eyebrow.  Loki’s face underwent rapid changes in facial expressions.  “No mere mortal could understand what I’ve been through!”

“This mere mortal has been through a lot!  Try me!” Tony shot at him.

“I FELL!” Loki burst out.  “I tried to reach for Father, to be a good son and he let me fall!” Loki hissed at Thor.  “I fell and he found me and-”

Loki abruptly cut off.  His eyes darted around and Tony assumed he was being watched on some level.  To avoid drawing attention to the gaffe, Tony burst out, “Trust me, I know about lousy fathers!  I mean, come on!  On and on and on!  They keep talking about how perfect and wonderful their strong big blond ideal son is!  It fucking sucks!” Tony shouted.

“Loki…” Thor’s voice broke.  Both dark-haired men looked at Thor.  Tony and Loki were at least on the same page, but Tony wasn’t sure how much of that Thor had caught.  He didn’t strike Tony as the brightest bulb in the box and subtlety seemed even less his forte.

Loki rolled his eyes.  “What?  Got something to say, Odin’s Son!”

“I’ve got something to say!” A voice called from behind Tony.  They all looked and Tony almost groaned as Mr Perfect himself strode onto the cliff.  “Loki is our prisoner.  Let’s go!”

Thor frowned at him.  “This doesn’t concern you, Mortal.”

“Rogers,” Tony offered when it was clear Thor intended to simply call the man Mortal and be done with it.  

“Mortal Rogers,” Thor agreed with a huff.  Tony grinned in amusement as Loki rolled his eyes.

Rogers didn’t seem to think much of that.  “Look, he gives up the Tesseract, he’s all yours.”

“That is not for you to control.”

“Not your decision.”

Thor growled as he stepped back, raising his hammer.  Clearly he was willing to fight for custody of his brother.  “Loki will face Asgardian justice.”

“Not happening!  Put the hammer down!

“You want me to put my hammer down?!?” Thor roared.  Tony saw Loki grin on the side and crouch low.  

Tony reached forward. “Wait, I don’t think-” 

A moment later Thor put. His. Hammer. DOWN!

Tony was flung ass over helmet off the cliff at the sound of the magical Mjolnir hitting vibranium.  As Tony recovered his balance and carefully flew back to the ledge, he could see Loki’s eyes dancing as he looked at them all.  Thor looked a bit staggered.

Rogers just shook his head to clear his ears before looking at Thor. “We done here?”

When they caught up to the SHIELD carrier, Tony headed off in search of the science brigade.  Rogers, Romanoff and Thor all escorted Loki to the cage Fury had made for Brucie.  A cage that Tony handed Bruce the override code for the second he found his group.  “Jr is already in the system.  This codeword unlocks the cage and nearest direct route out.” he muttered as he transferred the paper discreetly to Bruce.  

Bruce closed his eyes in clear relief at that and Tony made a mental note to be sure Fury knew Brucie stayed with Tony.  Jane heard that Thor had arrived and headed off to greet the big guy herself.  They all met up again at the conference table on the bridge.  It seemed like a crowded place to have a conference table to Tony, but he didn’t design the ship.  He did head over to investigate the interface Fury used, dropping an additional antenna for Jr on one as he went.  Rogers was already in the room and speaking quietly with Romanoff.  Thor arrived with Jane, discussing something in hurried whispers.  When they arrived, Jane broke off to join Darcy at the table while Jarvis spoke softly to Bruce.  Tony zeroed in on Coulson walking on deck, but was waylaid by Thor’s hand on his elbow.

Tony glanced up as Thor leaned closer, “Lady Jane has explained your secret discussion with my brother.  Thank you for aiding us in our time of need once again, Tony of Stark.”  

Tony glanced at Jane a moment and realized she’d probably been listening in on his coms.  He saw her nod before turning and looking at Thor.  “Secrecy and discretion seemed to be needed for Loki’s survival.  I’ve been… under someone’s control like that before.  Tricking a captor is one of the most deadly of games.”

“Aye.  Jane said you implied and Loki confirmed that my brother had been through unspeakable suffering.  That this was how Loki was broken.”

Tony swallowed at the soft words voicing aloud that which he shared with Loki.  “It sounded like the fall, whatever that was, weakened Loki to the point he was caught.”

Thor made a face.  “None should be able to survive the void.  It is…” Thor’s eyes went ancient for a moment and Tony suddenly could believe he was really centuries old, “empty.” Thor finally finished.

Tony took a deep breath.  “Okay, so we just have to react how Loki expects us to react.  He’s got a plan, or half a plan, I guess. Rogers was right; he gave up way too easily in Stuttgart.  He needed to be here.”

“Verily. I am less skilled at these games of words than my brother, but I shall do my best,” Thor breathed firmly.

Tony grinned. “That’s why you have Loki and me!” He patted Thor’s arm as a screen popped up with Fury and Loki.

“In case it's unclear to you, you try to escape, you so much as touch that glass, and…” Fury opened the drop door in the floor beneath the cage.  Tony grimaced and noticed both Thor and Bruce shift.  Tony was never letting SHIELD get their hands on Brucie.

“Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap.  You get how that works?”

Tony could see Loki’s interest was vague.  Fury pointed to Loki. “Ant.”  He then pointed to the controls. “Boot.”

Loki chuckled drily.  “It's an impressive cage.  Not built, I think, for me.”

Tony glanced at Bruce, along with the others.  Jarvis was at Bruce's elbow a moment later, whispering in his ear.  Bruce nodded and relaxed some, looking at Jarvis, instead of the scene below.

“Built for something a lot stronger than you.”

“Oh, I’ve heard.”  Loki glanced directly at the camera.  “A mindless beast?  Can such a lost creature still be a man?  You think to call on such lost souls to defend your world?”

Tony’s eyes narrowed as he focused.  That almost sounded like a jab at Bruce.  Was Loki trying to use the Other Guy?  Bruce had decent control and Jarvis and Darcy could be very convincing when they wanted to be.  

The other double meaning shook Tony to his core.  It sounded like a plea from Loki himself:  Can a lost creature be a man?  

“I will call on anyone I need to.  You threaten my world with war.  You steal a force you can’t hope to control.  You talk of peace and kill because it's fun.  You have made us very desperate.” Fury leaned forward.  Tony could see him trying to intimidate Loki and Loki brushing it off.  If Tony was correct, Loki had been already hurt by the best.  Tony hadn’t found most people very intimidating after Afghanistan either.  Warlords are hard to top when you are a 70-year-old politician.

Loki leaned forward.  “Oooo.”  He grinned at Fury.  “Desperate.  A mortal like you has no notion of the word.  But a show on your hero’s monument will help.”  Loki leaned back, grinning.  “It burns, doesn’t it.  To have the Tesseract, to have power, a warm light for all mankind to share.  To hold that control in your hand and then to be reminded of real power.

Tony didn’t twitch, but he could feel himself tense up.  Fury on the screen frowned at Loki. Tony couldn’t tell if Fury caught Loki’s reference to his controller.  Fury was good at hiding his thoughts.  Tony had come, over the last two years, to trust Fury was trying his best to navigate all the moving parts of protecting the world without becoming a warlord himself.  Fury believed in freedom and people.  But Tony wasn’t sure the man trusted that.

The hero’s monument, though.  That meant something.  Tony’s mind raced, trying to figure out which hero and what monument he could mean.

Fury snorted and turned to leave. “Let me know if real power wants a magazine or something.”

As the screen winked out, the group looked at each other.  Bruce was the first to speak. “He kind of grows on you, doesn’t he?”

Tony hid a grin at that.  He had to admit, he was gaining a soft spot for the clever mage himself.  He liked collecting smart people.  In the meantime, they had a part to play in Loki’s scheme.  “Hey, Point Break, what do you know so far?”

Thor frowned in thought. “He has an army called the Chitauri.  They are not of Asgard, nor any world known to my people.  They will win him the Earth.  In exchange, I suspect, for the tesseract.”

“An...army.  From outer space,” Rogers said slowly.  It sounded like his brain was struggling to catch up.  To be fair, Tony had known about aliens for over a year.

“So, he’d need another portal.” Bruce brought them back on track.  “That explains why he wanted Erik.”

Jane shook her head. “Erik wouldn’t help Loki if he could help it.”

Tony privately agreed.  Romanoff spoke up then. “Loki has him under some sort of spell, along with one of our own.”  Her serious voice was composed, but Coulson put a hand on her shoulder.  Tony was inclined to believe in Coulson’s ability to read his assets.

“I want to know why Loki let us bring him here.  He didn’t exactly run away when we were on that mountain.” Rogers spoke up, seemingly finished wrapping his head around the outer space thing.

Bruce shook his head. “I don’t think we should focus on Loki.  That guy’s brain is a bag full of cats.  You could smell crazy on him.”

Tony winced at that comment.  Then perked up in curiosity.  Bruce said smell.  

“Have care how you speak. Loki may be beyond reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother.”

That comment didn’t go over well with Romanoff or Coulson.  Bruce was now looking at Tony in curiosity.  Tony realized he’d been quiet too long.  But the smell word was important.  Tony couldn’t bring the thought into focus, but it definitely grabbed something in his mind.

Tony shook his head to let that thought go for another time. “Let’s focus on the iridium.  If he sent Barton out for a stabilizing agent, they have figured out how to control the breadth and timespan of the portals.”

“Right, it won’t collapse like it did in Nevada,” Jane agreed.  “That just leaves a jump.”

“Something to kickstart the cube?” Darcy asked from where she was playing with the user interface of SHIELD’s screen.  Tony planned to enjoy her thorough, and probably scathing, review of it later.

“He’d need to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break the Coulomb barrier,” Bruce said, leaning over Jane’s shoulder to view her comments on the side of the extraction papers they’d read last night.  

Tony froze. “Unless…”

They looked at Tony in curiosity.  Tony bit his lip.  “What if he figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect?”

Bruce straightened, removing his glasses to look at Tony. “Then he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet.”

Tony was looking at Thor.  “He said ‘it has shown me wonders.  It, not ‘he’.”

Behind him Fury stepped forward, having entered at some point during the discussion.  “Back in Nevada, Selvig said the cube was ‘behaving’.”  Fury frowned, “He said ‘We turn off the power and it turns it back on’.”

Tony blinked in surprise.  “That implies the cube is far more than a power source.”  Tony spun to look at Bruce. “It could have information.  What it needs.”

“Every computer contains a manual,” Bruce muttered.

Jane grimaced. “Every machine a help button.”

Darcy looked at them all a moment before piping up. “Every McDonalds a complaint line.”  Every head turned to look at her a moment.  She shrugged. “I felt left out.”

The science group smiled at that, well used to Darcy’s more erratic input by now.  Fury stepped forward. “Let's start with tracking the cube.  That is why Dr Banner was issued the invitation.”

Tony shifted slightly to stand between Bruce and Fury at that but Rogers spoke up before he could snark at the Director.

“I’d start with that stick of Loki’s.  It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon.”

Fury grimaced. “I don’t know about that, but it is powered by the cube.  And I’d like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.”

Thor looked over at that comment, “Monkeys?  I do not understan-”

“I do!” Rogers piped up.  He looked so excited, Tony couldn’t help but feel for the man out of his home time.  “I understood that reference.”

Needing to get started, now that they had an action plan, Tony turned to Jane and held out his hand like the gentleman he wasn’t.  “Come, Doctors.  Shall we play?” He looked at Bruce.

As Coulson led them through the ship, Tony saw Jarvis following at a discreet distance.

When they got to the lab, Tony, Bruce, Darcy and Jane spread out, turning on and settling into the lab space.  Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Jarvis approach Coulson.

“Phil, have you eaten yet?”

“Trying to handle me, Edwin?”

Jarivs tilted his head ever so slightly.  “I believe Master Barton was more than an asset.”

“Not quite the same as Stark for you.”

“Heavens, no.  I would never!”  Jarvis sounded slightly scandalized and Tony had to hide a grin as he opened up and connected to the Homer cluster directly.  “But even so, I can recall his disappearance and my subsequent behavior.  You needn’t worry alone, my friend.”

Tony saw Coulson’s shoulder twitch as if to sag and Tony suddenly wondered if Coulson had intended they all meet Barton sooner rather than later.  The man seemed to mean a great deal to Agent Coulson.  

He was glad he could leave that in Jarvis’s wise hands while he ramped up neutron speed target to help Brucie localize the gamma signature.

Jane, Tony and Bruce were bickering over emissivity constants when Rogers came in for an update.  Or at least, that’s what Jarvis assumed he was there for.  Either that, or he’d seen them through the window and decided to speak.  Jarvis wasn’t sure.

What he did know was that he’d finally gotten Tony to relax with his friends and be playful in the lab.  Steve Rogers coming in with a frown was less likely to help at that.

“Are you all nuts?” Rogers asked.  He was practically scolding them.  Jane and Bruce both looked mildly chastised.  Darcy looked mutinous, but Tony beat her to the reply.

“Jury’s out,” Tony quipped before turning back to Bruce and adding a bag of blueberries to his bet that emissivity constant needed to be 30% higher.

Steve Rogers huffed. “Is everything a big joke to you?”

“Funny things are,” Tony explained.  

“The end of life on Earth isn’t funny!”

Darcy stepped forward at this.  Jarvis could see she’d lost whatever hold she’d had on her temper.  “Better to laugh than panic.”

Jarvis stepped forward before this could dissolve into Darcy trying out her new and improved taser.  “I don’t believe we've all been introduced, Mister…?”

Steve Rogers looked at Jarvis with a raised eyebrow and a frown, “Excuse me?”

“You are excused.  Sometimes new situations can be overwhelming and make manners of less import,” Jarvis agreed amiably.  “But some civility is still called for.”

Steve Rogers looked around at the group, all of whom save Tony were watching the interaction.  Finally, he looked back at Jarvis. “Who are you?  What are you doing here?”

Jarivs frowned. “Oh, really!  That is most rude.  You must introduce yourself first.” He scolded the man.

Behind him, Tony also responded.  “He’s mother-henning us.”

Jarvis turned to look at his charge with a stern look.  “Really, Master Tony!”

Tony shrugged impishly.  Steve Rogers asked, “And why would you bring him?”

Tony and Darcy snorted at that question.  Jane grinned. “Tony’s tried to lose him before.  Trust me, Jarvis tends to get where he needs to go.”

Jarvis blinked at the compliment. “Thank you, Dr Foster.”

“I think we need to focus.” Steve Rogers growled.

“What makes you think we aren’t?” Darcy shot at him.  “You don’t know us well enough to know what we are focused on.  And unless you’ve been taking physics classes the history books don’t know about, you don’t know what we need to do to finish either!”

Steve Rogers stepped forward at the obvious challenge.  Tony, strangely, broke the tableau before it got going.  “We don’t have all the variables.”

“Variables?” Steve Rogers asked with a confused frown.  

Tony shrugged. “Why did Fury only call us in on the Tesseract project now?  I can’t complete the equation without all the variables.”

“You think Fury’s hiding something?”

Tony nodded as he threw back another handful of blueberries.  “He’s a spy.  Captain, he’s the spy.  It's bugging all of us.”

Steve glanced around the room and the others, save Jarvis, nodded.  Jane leaned forward. “Loki’s jab, ‘a warm light for all mankind’?  It was probably referring to Tony’s work on clean energy.”

“Even if Barton didn’t tell Thor’s crazy mischief menace about it, the tower’s been on the news a lot,” Darcy explained.

“The Stark Tower?”  Steve Rogers asked incredulously.  “That big ugly-”  Suddenly Steve Rogers got quite the glare from several of the room’s occupants.  “-building in New York,” he finished weakly.

“It's just a prototype,” Tony confirms.  “Stark Industries is the leading edge of clean energy right now.”

“The only edge,” Darcy muttered.

Tony seemed to ignore her.  “So…”

“Why weren’t you working this in the first place?” Steve Rogers finished.  Tony nodded, offering Steve Rogers a blueberry from his bag.

The offer was ignored and Tony shrugged.  Jarvis could see the war happening in Tony’s mind.  Howard hadn’t left this relationship in a good place after so many years of speaking to a younger Tony so harshly while praising the long-gone Captain America.

The young man in the uniform was completely unaware of the minefield he was prancing through with regards to Tony.

“I’ll look as soon as my encryption program cracks that end of the files.”

Steve Rogers looked taken back by that.  “I’m sorry, your what?”

Tony rolled his eyes as he refocused on a screen flashing a message at him.  “It's been running since we were called in.  In a few hours I’ll know every secret SHIELD is trying to hide.”  

Jarvis suspected that was as much for SHIELD’s security officer watching as for the poor time-displaced man struggling to keep up.

Steve Rogers now looked exasperated.  “And you wonder why they didn’t want you around?”

Tony gritted his teeth, stepping between Steve Rogers and his science group.  “Which of us is A: wearing a spangle-y outfit and B. not of use?”

“If they’d worked with us from the beginning then we wouldn't be wondering, we’d know,” Darcy explained sensibly.

Bruce looked up at Steve Roger’s floundering face.  “Steve, tell me none of this smells off to you!”

At that, Steve Rogers stopped short and seemed to re engage his brain.  Suddenly, Jarvis wondered if anyone had called him Steve since he woke up.  It seemed to resonate with the young man.

Finally, he gritted his teeth and stormed out, throwing over his shoulder, “Just find the cube!”

The entire room stared at the closing door.  Tony broke the silence, “That was the guy my Dad never shut up about?  Should have left him on ice.”  Jarvis swung around at that last mutter.

“That is enough, Young Sir!” Jarvis said firmly.  “His lack of manners do not excuse yours.  I shall detain all caffeine if your constitution is so soured with it.”

Tony swallowed and ducked meekly, “Sorry.”

Darcy scrunched her nose.  “He’s not exactly out of the ballpark about Captain Tightpants though.”

“Ms Lewis.” Jarvis warned.  She too subsided.  Jarvis took a careful look at all of them.  “I understand we are under a lot of stress.  To combat this, deep breaths and a calm adherence to polite dignity is called for, not scathing character attacks, regardless of what comes our way.  Do remember this.”

All four of them were quiet for a moment until a screen beeped.  Tony glanced at it before glancing at Jarvis.  “Can I science now?” He asked meekly.

Jarvis softened his face and sighed.  “You may always have fun with your science club, Master Tony.”

Tony frowned.  “We aren’t a club!”  Then he muttered, “I don’t do well with clubs.”

“That’s because you’ve never found one good enough.” Jane grinned.  Tony returned her grin and Jarvis smiled as he brought over a new bag of dried fruit as Tony had finished the current one.

Darcy smiled, taking a piece, “Yeah, they were full of assholes.”

“Ms Lewis!”

Jarvis left the group to their equations and went to locate Phil.  He was worried about the fellow handler.  Erik had been entrusted to Phil’s responsibility.  Tony and Jarvis had trusted Phil because they knew how personally he took that honor.  

He found Phil talking to Thor. “We have a problem.” Phil said with a worried frown.  He looked at Thor, “On Dr Foster’s recommendation, I listened to the conversation Stark had with Loki.  Dr Foster’s interpretation makes more sense than the story Loki is trying to peddle.”

Jarvis glanced at Thor in question.  “Tony of Stark believes, and so does the fair Jane, that Loki is trying to tell us he is being controlled.  Someone unbelievably savage captured him and even now he is caught within their net.”

Coulson sighed.  “Each time you visit, you open our eyes wider.”  When Thor just looked at him questioningly, Phil smiled wryly.  “Your arrival two years ago changed all our lives.”

Thor glanced away, “They were better as they were.”  He looked out the window at the dark night.  “We pretend we are more advanced, but we came here like Bilgesnipes.”

“Like what?” Phil asked, momentarily startled out of his concern.

Thor glanced at him with interest, “Bilgesnipes?  You know; huge, scaly, biiiig antlers.”  Thor looked rather carefree describing this creature.  Kind of like a teen describing a dolphin for the first time.  “You don’t have those here?”

Phil smiled indulgently and Jarvis mentally added Thor to Phil’s personal asset list.  “Don’t think so.”

Thor seemed amused by that for a moment before the topic at hand returned to him.  “They are repulsive.” He looked back to the window again, “They trample all in their path.”

Jarvis felt his heart go out to what appeared to be a truly kind individual, used to the ways of war as only a young soldier was, still blind to the toll of battle.

Thor’s hands fisted, “When I first came to Earth, Loki’s rage and my father’s decisions followed me and your people paid part of the price.  Loki paid the rest.”

“Then help us.  Help us end this.” Phil urged.

Thor looked at him sadly.  “In my youth I courted war.  Now I seek to recover my brother from it.  I have not the skill to understand my brother’s plan, nor his situation.”

“Yet, here neither you, nor your brother, are alone.” Jarvis pointed out gently.

“From the tape of the break in, Clint was using his own skills.” Phil mused.  “Loki wasn’t telling him all the steps, Clint had a mission and he completed it.  The same attention and precision I’ve seen in him a hundred times.”

Jarvis frowned thinking.  “So Loki had some autonomy, but not enough?”

“If he was able to communicate with Thor and Tony, he has more than Clint does.” Phil commented.  “Enough that he could have his own agenda to get free in some way.”

“You think he may be faking the invasion?” Thor asked.  That earned him a few shakes of their heads.

“No,”  Phil said slowly, “but he might be faking how important it is to him that he win.”

“He does appear adept at gathering his enemies together even if we are a bit combative.” Jarvis noted with a frown.

“Pretend to destroy us then.” 

They all turned to see Agent Romanoff sitting on the step looking down at them.  Behind her, Fury was leaning on the railing.  “Even if you’re right, we cannot help without his endgame.  Thor, can you get Loki to tell us?”

Thor shook his head.  “Even if he is willing, his mind is far a field.  My voice may or may not reach him anymore.”

“Maybe a different type of voice can.” Agent Romanoff said calmly.  She looked to Phil and Jarvis saw a minute nod of his head.  She hopped up and strolled out of the room.  They all looked at Phil who was back studying the footage from the robbery.  Jarvis came up to see a still shot of Mr Barton opening a door.

“You should eat.  What are you looking for?” Jarvis asked, trying to hand the man a sandwich.

Phil ignored the sandwich and zoomed the image in on Agent Barton’s face.  On the nearby screen, he pulled up a picture of Agent Barton.  Jarvis looked at the two a moment as Phil quietly whispered, “I’m looking at the windows to the soul.”

Jarvis and Phil watched as Agent Romanoff approached Loki’s cell.  Loki paced until he sensed her eyes watching him.  Turning slowly, he eyed here with curiosity.

“There are not many people who can sneak up on me.”

Natasha tilted her head to the side, reading him, “You’d figure I’d come.”

Loki grinned and spread his hands, “After.  After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm.”  Loki nodded his head in dramatic play, “and I would cooperate.”

Agent Romanoff seemed to discard any artifice then, “I came to ask what you’ve done with Agent Barton.”

Loki cocked his head to one side.  “He would say I’ve expanded his mind.”

“And when you’ve won?”  Agent Romanoff asked.  “Once you’re king of the mountain, what happens to his mind?”

Loki let out a bitter chuckle, “is this love, Agent Romanoff?”

Agent Romanoff scoffed quietly, “Love is for children.  I owe him a debt.”

Now she appeared to have Loki’s attention.  He stepped backward to the bench and sat, spreading his hands invitingly, “tell me.”

Agent Romanoff shrugs and pulls up her own chair.  “Before I worked for SHIELD, I...made a name for myself.”  She shrugged again, “I have a specific skill set and didn’t really care who I used it for.”

Jarvis glanced at Phil to see him maintain a blank face.  This, at least, was likely true then.

“I got on SHIELD’s radar in a bad way.  Agent Barton was sent to kill me.” Agent Romanoff continued.  Jarvis saw Phil twitch out of the corner of his eye as she concluded, “he made a different call.”

Loki leaned forward, “And if I vow to spare him?”

Agent Romanoff gave him a cool look, “I’m not letting you out-”

“No, but I like this!” Loki rasped with a wild grin.  “Your world in peril, battle on the horizon and you bargain for a single man.  You put that much on him.”

“Regimes rise and fall every day.”  Agent Romanoff’s careless voice sounded too real for Jarvis’s comfort.  “I tend not to weep for them.  I’m Russian...or I was.”

A glance at Phil’s face showed amusement and Jarvis had to applaud Agent Romanoff’s acting skills.

“So you weep for one man?” Loki asked.

Agent Romanoff sat back against the chair, “it’s really not that complicated.  I’ve got red in my ledger, I’d like to wipe it out.”

Loki eyed her a moment and then slowly stood.  His grin had turned dark, almost sinister.  It was quite a contrast from the amusement and curiosity from before.  Jarvis frowned.

“Can you?”  Loki asked in a low voice.  “Can you wipe out that much red?  Drakov’s daughter?  Sao Paulo?  The hospital fire?”  Loki slowly advanced on the clear wall separating them.  “Barton told me everything.  Your ledger is dripping, its gushing red, and you plead for a man no more virtuous than yourself?  A man who would protect you?  Stand by you?”

Jarvis glanced at Phil to see his face settle into frustration.  The thin line of his lips tightened as Loki continued to growl at his asset.  Jarvis glanced at his side screen with Tony and his group to settle himself before returning his attention to Loki.  Then he looked back at the screen when the flurry of activity registered.  The readings on the staff were of interest to the group.

Jarvis listened with one ear as Loki sneered, “this is the basest sentimentality, the most pathetic hope of connection.  This is a child at prayer!  IMPOSSIBLE!”

Tony handed Bruce a scanner on the screen and Jane and Darcy talked rapidly about something they were seeing on their screen.  Tony still divided his attention between different screens.

“You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers.” Loki’s voice continues and Jarvis glances at Phil and waves him to look at the lab screen.  Phil seemed relieved to be able to focus on something beyond Loki’s ranting at his asset.  “You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors, the utter devastation you did in your sniveling blind bumbling.”

Noting the activity in the lab around the staff, both men turned back to the screen as Loki snarled at the Agent, slamming his fist against the glass.  “Those actions will forever be a port of you, they will never go away.  That blood will be on your soul throughout your existence.”

Phil and Jarvis’s eyes met in understanding.  Loki was talking about himself as much as Agent Romanoff.  Jarvis made a mental note to see if Thor was open to giving a bit more information about his brother.  In the meantime, Loki leaned forward, hissing, “I won’t touch Barton.  No one you care about gets touched.  Not until they are made to kill you.  Slowly, intimately.  In every way you fear!  And when- when he’s done, he’ll wake just long enough to scream over his good work before his head is split open and he dies knowing just how fair he failed you.”

Loki is now level with Agent Romanoff’s disturbed, shaking gaze, kneeling in the cage.  Hr growls at her, “this is my bargain you mewling quim!”

Agent Romanoff gasped and turned away, shuddering at the vitriol.  Jarvis watched Loki carefully as he softly added, “this is mercy.”  That last bit was almost to himself.  Suddenly Jarvis knew exactly what whoever was pulling Loki’s strings had promised the mage.  Jarvis couldn’t be sure who exactly Loki was protecting, if indeed they were a single individual, but that outpouring of bitter despair had been internally focused.

On the screen, Agent Romanoff quietly accused, “you’re a monster!”

Loki’s face twisted into a hateful grimace before his shields dropped in place and a gleeful grin crossed his cheeks.  “I’m not the monster of destruction.  He came with Stark.”  The gloating had Agent Romanoff spinning back around and looking at Loki with dry, composed eyes.

“Banner?  That’s your play?”

Loki frowned, looking at Agent Romanoff in confusion, “What?”

She smiled and nodded his way, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Phil turned and headed out of the door and Jarvis followed.  Jarvis assumed Agent Romanoff spoke over their shared com, given he motion Phil made with his hand.  Whatever it was, Phil shook his head, negating the command and moved to intercept Agent Romanoff.  Jarvis was only a few steps behind him, but when Phil saw Jarvis, he leaned closer to Agent Romanoff.

Jarvis took the hint and diverted into the cafeteria nearby to go around them.  On the way. He spotted the coffee and tea table.  Collecting a decent strong English tea and a pair of scones took all of a moment before he exited the cafeteria on the far side, away from Phil and Agent Romanoff.

It took Jarvis a short conversation with Jr to access and understand the delivery controls, but soon the drink, minus Jarvis’s tea, and scones were on their way into Loki’s cell.  Jarvis stood outside the glass as Loki looked up curiously at the tray entering enclosure.  Then Loki glanced at Jarvis.

“And you are?”

Jarvis took Agent’s Romanoff’s abandoned seat and stirred his tea.  Bagged Tea would never taste as good but needs must.  “Tea service,” Jarvis finally answered calmly.

Loki frowned in confusion, glancing at the tray again.  “You know I won’t respond to most of this world’s potions, right?”

Jarvis inhaled the steam of tea from his paper cup.  “The proper effect of tea is much more than chemical.”  Jarvis tested the liquid temperature before looking at Loki again.  “And you missed most of today’s meals between galivanting around Germany and sitting here.”

Loki still eyed him distrustingly, but he reached out and investigated the tray.  He pulled the tea bag out of the liquid just like Jarvis, but instead of placing it besides the cup, he licked it.

Jarvis hid his amusement behind the cup as the god sputtered at the taste.  Raw tea dregs were terribly bitter.  It was something Tony would’ve done.

Eventually Loki tried the actual liquid with little to no response.  Instead he kept eyeing Jarvis as the man drank his own beverage placidly.  Eventually, Loki spoke, “Nothing is happening.”

Jarvis raised an eyebrow.  “Was something supposed to happen?”

Loki frowned.  “I drank your liquid, now what?”

“Ah,” Jarvis smiled, “truthfully, the drink is not the important part of tea.”

Loki raised an eyebrow, giving him a skeptical look Jarvis was used to seeing from Tony when the lad was significantly younger.  These days, Tony was more apt to give Jarvis the benefit of the doubt for a few moments.  “If this bitter beverage is not the focal of the drink, then what is?”

“The company.” Jarvis answered simply.

Loki rolled his eyes.  He ignored the tea and picked up a scone to pick at.  Jarvis was content to see his place bits of pastry in his mouth.  Jarvis calmly sipped his tea.  Eventually Loki huffed, “So you are considered good company?”

Jarvis cocked his head.  “Phil would be likely more popular.  He is closer to more of the group here.”

“Phil?”

Jarvis nodded.  “He puts everyone at ease and yet is one of the most dangerous of foes.  I applaud his ability.  Leads to interesting tea time.”

“He puts all at ease?”

Jarvis glanced at Loki with a sharp look.  “Even Thor seems to like him.  Barton and Tony certainly do.”

Loki’s lips pursed a moment before shaking his head.  “My brother does naught but argue.  He doesn’t even need a prodding.” Loki fairly spat.

Jarvis frowned a moment, thinking back.  That was the second time in the last ten minutes Loki had spoken aggressively.  Then connections aligned in his head; Loki’s aggression, the staff’s readings going haywire, antagonism in the science club where usually acceptance was the mainstay.

Jarvis set his tea tot he side and bid Loki to spare him a moment.  He hurried out of the room, muttering under his breath for Jr to check on the lab and the staff readings.  Jr reported Agent Romanoff and Director Fury heading to the lab along with Thor.  Agent Coulson was heading to investigate a security breach.

Jarvis managed to slide through the doors just after Director Fury.  Thor and Agent Romanoff were already in the lab as Director Fury demanded an explanation from the science group.  Jarvis hung back as Tony stepped in front of all of his friends to take all of Director Fury’s irritation on himself.

“Kinda wondering the same about you all, Blackbeard.” Tony quipped as his screen popped up another bit of data.  

“You’re supposed to be focused on finding the Tesseract.  You and your little science team here are our best bet.”  Director Fury growled.  Jarvis thought that was uncalled for.

“The scanning program is loaded and running.” Bruce commented, pointing to Darcy over by the corner with Jane.

“When we get a hit, it’ll have a accuracy within a half-mile.” Jane added as she continued to focus on the screen, blatantly ignoring Thor.  Jarvis thought Thor almost pouted at her for that.

“Then you can send your secret boy band to go get it, no muss, no fuss.” Tony quipped as the screen in front of him beeped at him.  “What is Phase 2 and why did you bury it so deep?”

Jarvis frowned as Director Fury rolled back slightly on his heels.  That felt almost defensive.  What ever Director Fury was going to say, he didn’t get the chance.  A loud thunk drew everyone’s attention to the other side of the room where Captain Rogers dropped a oblong device.

“Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons.” Captain Rogers was practically seething in his glare at Director Fury.  That definitely set Director Fury on edge.  Jarvis could see his stance shift at Captain Roger’s blatant aggressive anger.  

Captain Rogers glanced at where Tony was staring at him with interest and curtly, “Sorry, computer was moving too slow for me.”

Jarvis saw Agent Romanoff shift to match Director Fury as Bruce circled the table to stand with Tony.  Director Fury took a deep breath before calmly, and evenly, replying.  “We gathered everything related tot he tesseract.  That does not mean-”

“I'm sorry, what were you lying?” Tony interrupted as he spun the screen he was working on.  Jarvis winced at the image of the warhead.  Bruce, however, stepped forward.

“Warheads.  Is SHIELD serious?” Bruce spat.  He then turned to glare at Agent Romanoff, who’d stepped forward.  “Don’t even start with that monster comment!” he spat.  

That answered Jarvis on whether he’d been listening to Loki’s room.  Agent Romanoff frowned at him.  “You may want to remove yourself from this situation, Doctor.”

As Bruce started to growl at her about how SHIELD created this situation, Jarvis’s attention was snagged by Captain rogers accusing Director Fury of repeating history with HYDRA.

Director Fury’s excuses were falling thin, “The weapons were just-”

“SHIELD building weapons of mass destruction.  And what the fuck would they ever need them for?”  Darcy growled.

“Him!” Director Fury finally snapped, pointing at Thor.

Thor blinked in confusion, finally taking his attention off Jane.  “Me?”  Everyone else stared at Director Fury and Agent Romanoff in befuddlement.

Director Fury huffed out a breath, and likely a prayer for patience, “Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town.”  Director Fury looked away from Thor to Tony and Captain Rogers.  “We learned we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.”

“My people want nothing but peace with your people.” Thor protested.  Jarvis grimaced as Director Fury rounded on him.

“Yet, you are not the only people out there.”  Director Fury looked around the room.  “The world is filling with people who can’t be matched, controlled.”

Jarvis felt a chill run down his spine.  Control.  That was the word Director Fury used.  Jarvis glanced at Tony to see him lean away from the Director slightly.  People had been trying to control him all his life, usually to his detriment.  Control was what dictators wanted.

Apparently Captain Rogers recognized the age old call of the oppressor in that statement because he stepped forward, actually placing himself between Director Fury and Tony.  “Like you controlled the cube?”

Thor growled.  “You were the ones?  Your work with the tesseract was what drew Loki to Midgard.  It is a signal to the realms that you are ready for a higher form of war!”

“A higher form?” Captain Rogers echoed in shock.

Fury glared at Thor, “you forced our hand.  We had to-”

“Seriously?  A nuclear deterrent?  Cause that always calms things right down.” Tony sneered.  Jarvis felt a headache start as he shifted to defend his Master.

“Remind me again how you made your fortune?” Fury sneered sweetly at Tony.  Jarvis stepped forward, but Captain Rogers responded first.

“I’m sure if Stark still made weapons, he would be neck deep-”

“Wait! Wait!  How is this now about me?” Tony protested.

Captain Rogers turned a glare at Tony, “Sorry, isn’t everything?” he sneered.

“I thought humans more evolved than this!” Thor burst out angrily.

Fury turned to him incredulously, “Excuse me?  Did we come to your planet and blow shit up?”

“You treat your champions as enemies!” Thor retorted with disgust.

“We are not the enemy!” Captain Rogers added, glaring at Fury.  Fury and Agent Romanoff glared back as Agent Romanoff growled, “Are you really that naïve?  SHIELD monitors potential threats.”

Jarvis stepped forward at that.  He didn’t like the idea of Tony being on anyone’s terror watch list.  Especially someone who had weapons of mass destruction!  That didn’t show much for their decision making skills.

Sounded similarly irritated, Bruce growled, “Captain America is on a potential threat watch list?”

Jarvis stepped forward again only to have Tony step in front of him slightly.  That caught Jarvis’s attention.  As Jarvis focused on his Young Master, Tony smirked and quipped to Captain Rogers, “You’re on that list?  Are you above of below angry bees?”

Jarvis recognized that tone of voice.  Tony didn’t like the emotion of the room and was trying to dissipate it.  Jarvis forced himself to take a deep breath as Captain Rogers retorted sharply at Tony, clearly missing the joking tone.  

“Threatening!  I feel threatened!” Tony cried dramatically, eyeing Bruce warily.  Jarvis redirected his attention.  If his young master wanted everyone to calm down, it was Jarvis’s job to help, not inflame the participants.

Plus, he didn’t like the clenching of Bruce’s hands.  Bruce had confided in Jarvis late at night just how much he feared his Other Self.  In the dark of the early morning, well before dawn, Bruce spoke of how terrified he was of waking up.  Each time, he had an instance of panic that when he opened his eyes, devastation would surround him and he’d have lost everything again.  

Tony, naturally, was more positive about the whole thing.  In some ways, that horrified Bruce more, to let down someone who thought so highly of him.  Bruce had pleaded, begged Jarvis to help him not let Tony down.  Subsequently, Jarvis had researched all the methods to calming someone down and helping them maintain an even temper.

“Stark, show some respect!” Captain Rogers growled at Tony.

Tony’s eyes narrowed.  Jarvis discreetly placed a hand on his lower back to ground him.  That was the phrase Howard used to use and it was likely a hot phrase for his young master.  Tony clenched his teeth for the barest of seconds before giving Captain Rogers a shark’s grin.   “Respect what?” he yelped in his over-dramatic manner.  “We’re all courting chaos!”

“That’s SHIELD’s MO!” Bruce burst out, still glaring at Fury and Romanoff.  “We’re not a team!  We’re a chemical mixture that creates chaos.  We’re-we’re a time bomb!”

Fury stepped forward with authority.  Jarvis could have told him that was a bad idea.  Instead, Jarvis stepped around Tony and strolled to Bruce with internet as Fury ordered, “you need to step away!”

As Jarvis ripped Bruce’s fisted hand and started working his thumb into the fist to open the palm, Tony quipped to Fury, “Why shouldn’t he let off a little steam?”

Jarvis glanced at Tony as Bruce flinched, letting Jarvis open his left hand.  Captain Roger’s knocked Tony’s hand off his shoulder as he said, “You damn well why, so back off!”

Tony frowned at Captain Rogers,  “Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me.”

Rogers leaned forward, circling Tony as he smiled malevolently, “yeah, big man in a suit of armor.  Take that off and what are you.”

Jarvis frowned at the threatening tone, almost a demand for justification for something.  Jarvis focused on opening Bruce’s other hand and standing between him and the anger that seemed to encompass much of the room.  

Tony’s reply was flippant as he likely struggled with his own feelings of anger Rogers’ body language generated.  “Genius, Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”

Rogers seemed to sneer at that.  Jarvis was very aware of the tension that suddenly thrummed through Bruce.  It was mirrored in his own body as this super soldier seemed intent on targeting someone they both cared about.

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you!” Rogers snarled.  “I’ve seen the footage.  The only thing you really fight for is yourself.”

Jarvis felt his own restraint on his temper fall away at that.  Placing himself between Rogers and his master, Jarvis looked the man in the eye, “Footage? What footage? Me and my grandson would like to take a look at it.”  Jarvis wanted to glare at Fury for that, but refused to look away from the started Soldier in front of him.  “Seems untoward to make assumptions.  Certainly, we’ve heard a lot about you, but you don't know Master Tony.  As such, that was an inappropriate response.  In any decade of your life.” 

Rogers looked off balance for a moment, “Just saying what I see!  Tony Stark isn’t the guy to make the sacrifice play!  To lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

Jarvis opened his mouth to reprimand the misguided young man again, but Tony was faster.  “I think I would just cut the wire.” Tony gently maneuvered Jarvis out from between the two men.  Jarvis allowed it, stepped back towards Fury.

Rogers looked around at everyone else.  Like it was funny that Tony was even standing up to him, like he was expecting an audience to deter Tony.  Rogers seemed to expect them to support him.  

Just like a proper school room bully.

“Always a way out?”  Rogers smile drew into a smirk of truly malicious intent.  “You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”

Jarvis could see the exact moment Tony’s hold on his temper snapped.  Tony stepped forward, shoving himself into his bully’s face.  “A Hero?  Like you?” Tony’s disbelieving voice cracked through the room.  Even Jane, Darcy and Thor had gotten quiet from where their argument had been continuing independent of the drama surrounding the patriotic soldier.  Tony’s focus was laser tight and whatever was about to come out of his mouth would cut, and cut deep.  “You’re a laboratory experiment, Rogers.  Everything special about you came out of a bottle!” Tony hissed.

That hit its mark in a way no other comment yet today had.  Jarvis could see it in the muscles of Rogers’ jaw and the set back of his shoulders.  That hit and now the man was reeling.  “Put on the suit, let’s go a few rounds,” Rogers demanded.

The staring tableau was broken by Thor laughing almost hysterically, if such a big man could do such a thing with such a deep voice.  “You people are so petty!  And Tiny!”

Janes face at that comment pretty much guaranteed the blond in for a thorough lecture, but Jarvis’s attention was focused on Tony and Rogers, who suddenly stepped back and away from each other.  Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.  It was a common action, particularly when he was trying to clear ringing in his ears.  Similarly, Rogers looked around the room with a confused frown.  His entire body language shifted from threatening to ready, like he couldn’t tell where the attack was coming from.

Then Jarvis remembered the idea that had pushed him to return tot his room in the first place.  The scepter!

He turned to look at it as Bruce as the scientist scoffed at Fury, stepped backwards towards the table.  “Yeah, this is a team!”  Jarvis stepped away from Fury to place himself next to Bruce, hoping to be a grounding presence.

Fury didn’t help, “Agent Romanoff, please escort Dr Banner back to his…”

Bruce ignored Jarvis to sneer at Fury, “where?  You rented my room.”

“The cell was just in case-” Fury tried to explain, but Bruce cut him off.

“In case you needed to kill me, but you can’t!  I know!  I tried!”

Ringing silence flooded the room.  Even Jarvis froze in the act of reaching his hand to Bruce’s wrist.  Out of the corner of his eye, Jarvis could see Tony stare at his ‘science-bro’ in despair.  The idea of never meeting this man looked physically painful to Tony.  Even Rogers had shut his mouth at Bruce’s reveal.

Bruce glanced at Jarvis, who made absolutely sure to keep his face open and caring as possible.  Even with that, Bruce looked down and away in shame.  “I g-got low.  I didn’t see an end so I-I…”

Jarvis gently wrapped a hand around Bruce’s wrist, which had been inching backwards towards the staff.  That thing was really insidious.  Bruce looked down at Jarvis’s hand and let Jarvis coax him into holding hands instead of reaching for that staff.

“I put a bullet in my mouth and the Other Guy spit it back out.” Bruce confessed, looking away from Jarvis and towards Tony.  The apology was clear in his pain-filled eyes.  They must have held each other’s gaze a moment befre Agent Romanoff shifted, breaking the concentration.

Jarvis glanced over to see both Romanoff and Fury had their hands on their guns.  Bruce did too because he scowled at them, “You want to know the secret, Agent Romanoff?  You want to know how I stay calm?”

Jarvis wasn’t sure what Romanoff intended to say to that, but multiple screen flashed at that moment.  One near Tony flashed an alert to a security breach in the helicarrier.  As Tony asked Jr for clarification, Jane called out that the tesseract had been located.

Bruce immediately headed for Jane, dropping Jarvis’s hand partway.  “Guess you don’t get to see my party tricks,” he muttered.

Thor moved to step forward, “you’ve located the tesseract?”  He then stepped back.  Jane’s glare in his direction could have peeled paint as she moved out of Bruce’s way.  With Darcy looking over his shoulder, Bruce fiddled witht he screens, likely to zoom in.

Tony left Jr’s warning alone for a moment to head for the door.  “I can get there fastest.”

“You’re not going alone!” Rogers countered.

“You gonna stop me?” Tony rejoined, still clearly smarting from the mess of assumptions laid at his feet by this myth-turned-real.

“Put on the suit, let’s find out!” Rogers growled through gritted teeth.

Tony stepped toward Rogers, “I’m not afraid to hit an old man!”

Rogers leaned in closer so they were almost touching noses, “put on the suit!”

Bruce’s soft, “oh my god!” was pierced by Jr activating an alarm on all the monitors of an Incoming.

Tony’s ears were ringing as he uncurled his arms from over his head.  Rough hands released their own protective grip on his head and he looked up to see that Rogers had in fact dove at him to get him down and covered.

Even someone he thought so little of.

Tony shied away from that thought and shoved himself into high gear as Rogers pulled him to his feet.  The breathless command, “put on the suit.” was met with complete agreement, a radical shift from the earlier threatening stance.

Tony shoved a com at Rogers as he put on in his own ear.  He hoped Rogers knew what it was.  “Jr, link me up.”

Both men jogged down the hallway as static then voices filtered through the connection.

“-that engine!  Number 3 engine is down! Can we get a run in?”

“Open hatch in Security section!”

“Intruders moving aft near engine 3.”

“Glass in the hangar bay near jets 4.  Jets 5 and 6 are gone.”

“Turbine’s loose.  Mostly intact, but it’s impossible to get out there and make repairs while we’re in the air.”

“We lose one more engine, we won’t be.”

“We have injured at Engine 3!  Evacuation and medical attention is needed!”

“Somebody’s got to get inside and patch that engine.”

“Stark, you copy?”

Tony let the voices wash over him, picking out the bits of important information.  “I’m on it!” he responded to Fury.  He hoped Jarvis, Jane and Darcy were okay.  Bruce had the Big Guy so Tony tried not to worry about him too.

He gasped as they made it to level 4.  He pointed to Rogers. “Go!  Find Engine 3!  I'll meet you there!”

Ignoring reports from Fury and Romanoff except to acknowledge that Coulson, Bruce, Darcy and Jarvis were fine.  Hopefully Jane was too.  Tony focused on clearing the carrier and heading to the smoking engine.  “Stark, I’m here!”  Steve's voice came in clear with background of chatter and wind.

“Good!  Get them to safety while I see what we got!” Tony instructed as he let the blueprints flow over the HUD screen.  He let himself sink into the engineering, muttering to Jr to keep his kid up to date.  “Gotta get the super conducting cooling system back online before I can access the rotors.  Jr, beef up the security around the other engines.  Direct camera detection to the areas and slow down any commands from non-bridge locations for evaluations.  I need to work on dislodging the debris.”

He scanned through the relays, noting the required circuits.  He glanced over and saw Steve standing at the ready.  “I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position.”

He left Steve to get to the panel while he punched his own way into the internal connectors.  “Jr, I need the circuit diagram and find me a ground to hook to.”

“Sir, the helicarrier navigation system is caught in calibration loop due to engine instability.  Manual control has turned the helicarrier South.”

“Fury is trying to get us over water in case we drop.” Tony gritted out as he located several burnt leads.  “Cap, what’s it look like?”

“It seems to run on some sort of electricity.”

“Well you aren’t wrong.” Tony muttered as he mentally adjusted his verbal filter to that level of communication and started walking an Army Captain from the 40s through hydro-electronic controls.

Darcy coughed lightly, groaning.  Whoever was next to her was already moving.  “I’m alive.  Who else is alive?” She asked weakly.

“Darcy” Bruce’s voice rasped.  Darcy forced herself to rise and open her eyes.  Bruce was kneeling next to her, breathing heavy and gripping the floor grate.  Glancing behind her, she spotted Agent Romanoff

Agent Romanoff met her gaze before looking beyond her to Bruce.  Her face paled and utter terror filled her eyes and she pulled hard at where her leg was caught.  “Lewis and Banner are with me.” She reported into her com before looking at Bruce.

“Bruce?  We’re okay, right?”

Darcy winced as she pushed herself up.  The argument from before swirled in her head.  Jane had been thoroughly peeved at Thor, largely that he seemed more interested in brooding at a window than visiting with them.

“The scanning program is loaded and running.” Bruce commented, pointing to Darcy and Jane by the corner.

“When we get a hit, it’ll have a accuracy within a half-mile.” Jane commented as she continued to focus on the screen, blatantly ignoring Thor.  Thor pouted at her and Darcy raised her eyebrow at him when he looked her way, seemingly for answers.  She shrugged.  Jane had taken a moment to discuss Loki with Thor when he’d first appeared and hadn’t approached them himself.  Darcy rather thought Jane was peeved he didn’t at least say hello to either of them.

Jane was determinedly listening to the dick-measuring contest going on in the room and ignoring Thor’s confused looks.  Always game to play along with Jane, and because the idea of the super secret, we-answer-to-no-power-on-earth, spy group having WMDs frankly terrified her, Darcy inserted herself into the ‘Mine-is-bigger’ argument.  

Director Fury’s excuses were sounding more and more like excuses anyway, “The weapons were just-”

“SHIELD building weapons of mass destruction.  And what the fuck would they ever need them for?”  Darcy growled.  Honestly, after the way they ran roughshod over them two years ago until someone more powerful came to town, Darcy would rather have fire ants crawling over her back.

“Him!” Director Fury finally snapped, pointing at Thor.

Thor blinked in confusion, finally taking his attention off Jane.  “Me?”  Everyone else stared at Director Fury and Agent Romanoff in befuddlement.

Director Fury huffed out a breath, and likely a prayer for patience, “Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town.”  Director Fury looked away from Thor to Tony and Captain Rogers.  “We learned we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.”

“My people want nothing but peace with your people.” Thor protested.  Jarvis grimaced as Director Fury rounded on him.

“Yet, you are not the only people out there.”  Director Fury looked around the room.  “The world is filling with people who can’t be matched, controlled.”

Darcy felt sick to her stomach and utter fury spark in her gut, roiling together in a mass of emotion at that phrase.  They had wanted to ‘control’ Jane’s research before.  It was an excuse to step on people.  It was also a reason Jane sided with Tony and not with SHIELD all those months ago.

Apparently Captain Rogers recognized the age old call of the oppressor in that statement because he stepped forward, actually placing himself between Director Fury and Tony.  “Like you controlled the cube?”

Thor growled.  “You were the ones?  Your work with the tesseract was what drew Loki to Midgard.  It is a signal to the realms that you are ready for a higher form of war!”

“A higher form?” Captain Rogers echoed in shock.

Fury glared at Thor, “you forced our hand.  We had to-”

“Seriously?  A nuclear deterrent?  Cause that always calms things right down.” Tony sneered.  Darcy glared at Fury a moment before Jane’s hissed voice caught her attention.  

Jane had turned to Thor, “Is war all your so-called advanced people know?!?”

“Our warriors have long been mighty.  The glory of battle has been ours for more than a generation.” Thor boasted.  

Darcy frowned at Thor’s utter disregard for the consequences of the bloody activity.  On some level, she also admired his complete lack of situational awareness, which could have told him his answer wasn’t going to be well received by Jane.

“Easy to tout war when you carry the biggest stick!” Jane snarled at Thor, eyes flashing.  Thor looked confused but now wasn’t the time to explain Roosevelt and his quotes.

“I thought humans more evolved than this!” Thor burst out angrily.

Fury turned to him incredulously, “Excuse me?  Did we come to your planet and blow shit up?”

“You treat your champions as enemies!” Thor retorted with disgust, glancing at Jane’s savage glare.

“Our champions don’t think killing someone is the automatic solution to a disagreement.” Jane snapped.

Darcy huffed.  “The good ones anyway.”

“I am the mighty Thor!  Prince of Asgard!” Thor protested.

“Are we on Asgard?” Darcy asked innocently.

Thor looked confused a moment, “I am myself where ever I travel.”

Darcy cocked her head, “Are we,” she flicked her finger to indicate herself and Jane, “of Asgard?”

“Midgard is under my protection.” Thor growled.

“But not your dictatorship.” Darcy fired back.

Thor’s frown darkened when suddenly Captain America’s snarling caught their attention.

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you!” Rogers sneered in Tony’s face.  “I’ve seen the footage.  The only thing you really fight for is yourself.”

At that, Jarvis placed himself between Rogers and Tony. Standing tall to look the soldier in the eye, “Footage? What footage? Me and my grandson would like to take a look at it.”  Jarvis commanded firmly, as stern as the beloved godfather the whole group had come to know over the past years.  “Seems untoward to make assumptions.  Certainly, we’ve heard a lot about you, but you don't know Master Tony.  As such, that was an inappropriate response.  In any decade of your life,” he scolded. 

Rogers looked off balance for a moment, “Just saying what I see!  Tony Stark isn’t the guy to make the sacrifice play!  To lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

Jarvis opened his mouth to reprimand the misguided young man again, but Tony was faster.  “I think I would just cut the wire.” Tony gently maneuvered Jarvis out from between the two men.  Jarvis stepped back towards Fury, eyeing them both with all the protective bristling fur of a enraged lioness.

Rogers looked around at everyone else.  Like it was funny that Tony was even standing up to him, like he was expecting an audience to deter Tony.  Darcy recognized the self-satisfied alpha male posturing, she’d seen it hundreds of times in all those self-righteous, so-called superior white males with delusions of godhood instead of the entitled advantages they were lucky enough to be born with instead of work toward. And like all those assholes, Rogers seemed to expect them to support him.  

“Always a way out?”  Rogers’ smile drew into a smirk of truly malicious intent.  “You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.” He seemed to gloat at a slightly shorter, physically weaker Tony.

That was when Tony’s patience well and truly snapped.  Tony stepped forward, shoving himself into his bully’s face.  “A Hero?  Like you?” Tony’s disbelieving voice cracked through the room.  Darcy wasn’t sure Tony was aware that every eyes, every argument was focused on them. “You’re a laboratory experiment, Rogers.  Everything special about you came out of a bottle!” Tony hissed in Captain America’s face.

That hit its mark.  Darcy could see that in the way the square jaw clenched and the blonde eyebrows furrowed.  Tony had many verbal talents.  One of his more proficient ones included knowing where to land barbs.  Darcy had long decided to never get in a true verbal spitting match with the man.  His power and influence through wealth was dwarfed by his control over a situation using only his wits and his words.  This particular insult landed with the same accuracy and devastation on a pissed, self-important beefcake.  “Put on the suit, let’s go a few rounds,” Rogers demanded.

The staring tableau was broken by Thor laughing almost hysterically, if such a big man could do such a thing with such a deep voice.  “You people are so petty!  And Tiny!”

“Petty?” Jane asked flatly.  Thor must have sensed the same danger in that tone as Darcy, but he froze, back tensing, before turning to look at Jane.  Jane took a small step forward.  “Petty?”  Darcy stepped back as Jane’s rage grew.  “You think we are PETTY?” Jane growled through gritted teeth.

“Did we decide the death of hundred was our right for a few dead spies embarrassing us on a coronation day?” Jane’s fist clenched as she glared at Thor.  “Did we decide to destroy people’s homes, their livelihoods, because we don’t talk to our brother?  Did we send our child to your world to teach them a lesson we were too stupid to teach ourselves?  Did we agree to return and then ignore even the most basic of manners upon the return?  Are WE so petty?”

Thor’s temper did not lessen as he listened to the criticism.  Rather, Darcy thought he was growing more and more frustrated over a lack of retort.  Finally, “I was trying to protect my people!” Thor said sternly.

“Some of us do that without endangering others.” Darcy informed him sweetly.

Jane glared at Thor.  “In fact, some of us banded together to protect each other.  And it worked out quite well until your family squabbles returned.

Than Bruce’s shout grabbed all their attention.

“In case you needed to kill me, but you can’t!  I know!  I tried!”

Ringing silence flooded the room.  Jarvis was frozen in the act of reaching his hand to Bruce’s wrist.  Out of the corner of her eye, Darcy could see Jane and Tony stare at their friend in despair.  The idea of never meeting this man was physically painful to Darcy.  Even Rogers had shut his mouth at Bruce’s reveal.

Bruce glanced at Jarvis for a moment before he looked down and away in shame.  “I g-got low.  I didn’t see an end so I-I…”  Bruce looked down at Jarvis’s hand and let Jarvis coax him into holding hands Darcy reached for Jane’s hand on the table in commiseration.

“I put a bullet in my mouth and the Other Guy spit it back out.” Bruce confessed, looking towards all of them in the science club miserably.  The apology was clear in his pain-filled eyes.  They held each other’s gaze a moment before Agent Romanoff shifted, breaking the concentration.

Darcy scowled as she glanced to see both Romanoff and Fury had their hands on their guns.  Bruce must have seen it too because he scowled at them, “You want to know the secret, Agent Romanoff?  You want to know how I stay calm?”

Darcy was dearly hoping to not hear what Romanoff intended to say to that.  Luckily multiple screens flashed at that moment.  One near Tony flashed an alert to a security breach in the helicarrier.  As Tony asked Jr for clarification, Jane’s attention was dragged to the screen near them.  

The tesseract had been located.

Bruce immediately headed for Jane when she called out, dropping Jarvis’s hand partway.  “Guess you don’t get to see my party tricks,” he muttered to Agent Romanoff.  Thor moved to step forward to Jane’s glare, “you’ve located the tesseract?”  When Bruce got closer, Jane moved out of his way and with Darcy looking over his shoulder and Agent Romanoff peeking at the screen from above, Bruce tried to zoom in on the reading.

Jane stepped further back as the corner got crowded.  When Darcy saw the Stark tower come into focus, she heard Bruce swear before all hell broke loose.

And now she was probably 10 feet below the lab, with Agent Kick-ass Barbie and Bruce.  A mildly green Bruce and not in the seasick way.

Darcy reached out and placed a hand on the shaking shoulder as she felt Agent Romanoff continue to pull on her ankle and wave off the helpful crews come to investigate the crash.

“Bruce?”

Brown eyes looked at Darcy and she could see that fear.  It was the one that hung in the back of Bruce’s every emotion.  That his emotion would become the deadly weapon that killed his chance at his own life.

Darcy ignored every warning alarm in her own head as she wrapped her arms around Bruce a moment, “It’ll be okay.  Its okay to be angry and scared.  Once your tantrum is over, we will talk about it, but for now…”

She felt more than heard Agent Romanoff pull herself free.  Darcy leaned back.  She met Bruce’s pain-filled swirling eyes.  “For now,” she whispered, “Go smash, Big Guy.”

Bruce seemed to freeze as Darcy turned, yanking Agent Romanoff to her feet and hopping down.  She tried to keep a bounce to her step as she situated them to run, already looking around for the quickest little hole before turning back to look at Bruce.  She smiled at him and waved, hiding the shaking in her limbs as best she could.

Tears started down Bruce’s cheeks as he closed his eyes, pulling himself off the platform and away from the pair of ladies.  The second Bruce’s shirt seams gave, Darcy dashed away, Agent Romanoff hobbling along just as fast.  Bruce’s roar deepened and Darcy recognized it front he tapes Bruce insisted Tony dig up and watch.  He’d refused to stay long unless they all knew what they were getting themselves into.

Personally, Darcy subscribed to Tony’s theory that the Big Guy was simply Bruce throwing the tantrums he’d never been able to as a child.  At least not safely.  The only reason they were taking so long to calm was that the Big Guy didn’t have a Mommy to pick him up and tell him things will be okay and to be gentle with the fragile world.  

Darcy and Agent Romanoff dodged some falling pipes and ducked under a corridor before rolling into a crawlspace.  Angry green eyes met Darcy’s gaze one last time before an infuriated huff receded a furious stomping away.

Next to Darcy, Agent Romanoff curled into a ball, shaking like a leaf.  So was Darcy, now she had a moment to think about it.  Dragging up a wobbly smile.  “Well, that was in-invigorating.”

Agent Romanoff blinked and then looked at her with a flat look.  “You are crazy.”

Darcy laughed, feeling a lot of hysteria release with that laugh that was way to loud.  “Hand around Tony long enough and you would be too, Agent Red.”

Agent Romanoff blinked at her.  “You seem to think that is good.”

Darcy grinned, feeling herself calm slightly.  Shaking out her jitters a bit, she said, “Well, its more fun than the alternative.”

After a moment of silence, during which Darcy realized Agent Romanoff wasn’t going to respond, Darcy shrugged, “Shouldn’t we be, I don’t know, going somewhere?”

Suddenly their entire world tilted.

Jarvis winced as he gingerly made his way through the hallways with Jane.  Thor had covered her the second the explosion rang out.  When Bruce’s Big Guy roared, he’d found Jarvis with Director Fury and left her with them so he could attend to the green temper tantrum going on.  Jarvis hoped they didn’t hurt each other too bad.

Over the coms Director Fury shoved at Jarvis and Jane, Jarvis hears Tony and Rogers fixing the engine.

“Okay, the relays are intact.  What’s our next move?”

“Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won’t re-engage without a jump.” Tony’s next sentence had Jarvis’s heart thumping.  He knew his young master so well, he could have mouthed the words along with the genius hero. “I’m gonna have to get in there and push.”

“Wait!  If that thing gets up to speed, you’ll be shredded?!?” Rogers’ voice was more confused than concerned at this point, but Jarvis applauded that he at least asked the question.  They would have to address whatever lies the poor time-displaced soldier had been fed.  Especially if he was going to interface with Tony much.

“That stator control unit can reverse the polarity long enough to disengage maglev and I can-”

“Speak ENGLISH!” Jarvis had to smile at Rogers’ exasperation that colored the tone of nearly everyone to interacted with Master Tony when he was doing his faster than light work.  As he appeared to be doing now.

“See that red lever?” Tony huffed over the com line.  “It will slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out.  Stand by it and wait for my word.”

Jarvis was proud of Tony for being able to come out of his head long enough to remember to communicate with a non-science comrade.  It wasn’t always easy for him to translate between the two languages.

“Evacuate the lower decks.  Anyone have eyes on Banner?”

“Thor has engaged Banner”

“GRENADE!!”

“Perimeter breach, hostels in SHIELD gear.  Hold on all junctions!”

“Cover high ground, Barton will use it.”

“We have the HULK and Thor on Research level 4.”

“Escort 0-6, proceed to Wishbone and engage hostile.  Don’t get too close.”

“Shooting him won’t calm him down, you idiots!” Darcy’s outrages screech had Jarvis relax slightly.  That was the last of his group to check in.

“Levels 2 and 3 are dark.”

“Copy.”

“Copy.”

Jarvis and Jane tried to make their way to the bridge.  The sight of Phil dashing down a hallway with a very large gun distracted them.  Most of the hallways around them were dark and Jarvis didn’t trust his internal map quite that much yet.  Besides, this was the detention level.

“Target Acquired.”

“Hostiles at Engine 3”

“Target Engaged.”

Jarvis and Jane stumbled slightly as the floor shuddered, likely as a result of the gun fire only a few levels away.

“Target ANGRY! TARGET ANGRY!!!!”

Jarvis hoped the pilot was okay and that Bruce landed safely.  They’d have to go collect the scientist later.  Tony had promised Bruce that if the Big Guy appeared, Tony would make sure Bruce didn’t end the day in custody of the military.  Knowing Tony, that meant Bruce had to end the day in a Stark building.  Jarvis would be sure to serve hot chocolate with mint.  Bruce’s stomach sometimes acted up when he was stressed.

Then the floor began to tilt alarmingly.  “Sir, we’ve lost all power in Engine 1.”

“Its Barton.  He took out our systems on the bridge.”

“We can’t reengage.”

“He’s headed for the detention level.  Does anyone copy?”

“This is Agent Romanoff.  I copy”  Jarvis hoped Darcy stayed safe if Agent Romanoff was going after her partner.  Jarvis and Jane scrambled to their feet to hurry after Phil.

“Stark, we’re losing altitude.”

“Yeah.  Noticed.” Tony’s voice sounded strained and Jarvis hoped his master stayed safe.  He was distracted from thoughts of Tony when a cry rang down the hallway.

Jane dashed forward immediately as Jarvis guessed that voice to be Thor’s.  They turned the corner on the detention and Jarvis wrapped his hand around Jane’s mouth to prevent her from alerting Loki to their presence.  Thor and Loki had somehow switched places and Loki was in front of the control panel Director Fury had taunted him with earlier.

“The humans think us immortal.  Shall we test that?” Loki asked his captive brother idly, opening the drop beneath he god’s feet.

“Step away please.” Phil’s calm voice drew Jarvis’s attention.

Loki looked at him in fascination.  Phil was holding the very heavy-looking gun-like contraption.  “You like this?” he asked the god.

Loki’s face did a complicated rush of emotions before a smile crossed his cheeks “The bringer of ease.”  His honey-syrup voice washed over them and Jarvis frowned as Loki glanced at the quiet pair for a brief moment.

Phil seemed unphased.  “This is a prototype.  We started working on it after you sent the DESTROYER.  Even I don’t know what it does.”

Loki was still smirking as he stepped forward menacingly.

Phil hitched the gun higher, activating it.  “Want to find out?”

Loki froze for a moment before cocking his head.

A moment later, Phil gasped as Loki pulled his spear out of Phil’s back.

“NOOO!” Multiple voices overlapped as Jane broke free of Jarvis to run to Phil’s side.  In the cage Thor stared at the downed agent in despair, then Jane in fear.  Jarvis stepped between the pair on the floor and Loki, meeting his gaze with determination.  He’d died if he must, but he’d stand here and protect these two.

Loki paid him little mind save a small smile before returning to the control panel.  He glanced at Thor one last time before pressing the button to drop the cage.  Jane screamed, lunging forward.  Jarvis spun to catch her and pull her back.  

Loki looked over to see them with a malevolent grin.  “You’re going to lose.” Phil rasped out behind Jarvis.

Loki cocked his head, almost like an inquisitive child.  “Am I?”

“It’s in your nature.” Phil swallowed with a smile.  Blood was starting to trickle down the corner of his mouth as Jane leaped for him, unwrapping her scarf as he went.

Loki stepped forward with interest.  “Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls front he sky.  Where is my disadvantage?”

Jarvis eyed him with suspicion.  Loki didn’t appear to be disagreeing as much as curious.  Curious about Phil.

“You lack conviction.” Phil insisted.  Loki frowned at that.  Jarvis could tell the god planned to argue that.  Before he could though, a loud blast behind Jarvis heated the air.  Phil had still been pointing the weapon at Loki, who was now blasted through a wall.

Jarvis and Jane refocused on the bleeding Agent as he huffed a laugh.  “So, that’s what this does.”

Jarvis and Jane immediately apply pressure to the wound.

“Medical aid needed in detention.” Jarvis reported tersely over his com, well aware that the falling altitude had a lot of people’s attention.

“Cap, I need the lever!” Jarvis grimaced as he was reminded of the reckless activities of his charge.

“I need a minute here!”

“Medical en route to detention”

“Leverrrrrrr.  Nooooow!” Tony’s voice was wobbling, like he was driving on a bumpy road.  Jarvis gritted his teeth, knowing he was too far away to help.  He had to trust Captain Rogers as he helped the Medics try to stabilize Phil.  they pushed Jane and Jarvis out of their way and began barking instructions to get the man to the infirmary.

Director Fury appeared a moment later, looking after them.  Phil murmured something that had Fury leaning closer.  Jarvis also leaned closer to catch the last of it.  “-okay, boss.  This was never ... going to work... if they ... didn’t have s-something to…”

Jarvis frowned as Phil lost his battle with consciousness and Fury stood, watching the medics wheel Phil away, Jarvis and Jane following.

“Uh-ohI” Jarvis recognized that voice.  That was a Tony voice.  It was a Tony voice that made his hair stand on end.  Because he’d only heard that voice a few times.  That was teh voice that meant Tony had calculated a bad thing.  And that Tony knew there was nothing he could do but ride it out the best he could.  That voice meant Tony was about to get hurt.

Jarvis had to stop on his way to the infirmary with the medics as Tony’s broken comlink flickered, peppered with ‘help’s and yelps.

Jarvis listened with bated breath as they heard nothing more from Tony or Rogers.  Not until a tired voice came over the coms, “Totally saved your old-man ass”

Rogers’ chuckles sounded thoroughly exhausted.  Jarvis heaved a breath, finally.  

Then Director Fury’s voice came over the coms.  “Agent Coulson is down”

“Medics are-”

“They have him.”  there was a break as Director Fury likely took a breath.  “They called it.”

Jarvis felt his ears ring a moment.  He looked down the corridor where his friend, fellow handler had disappeared.  He’d stopped following out of concern for Tony.  He wished he’d kept going.  He hadn’t been able to do anything for Tony, but he could have been there for Phil.  He didn’t deserve to die without a friend next to him to let him know someone would keep watch.

Next to him, Jane moaned in distress and Jarvis snapped himself out of his grief.  There would be time to take his personal needs later.  Right now, he had people to help.  

Gathering the brunette into his arms, he gently led her to the bridge.  That would be where Tony would be too.  Phil and Tony had started their relationship on rocky grounds, but it had morphed over the last 21 months to something mutual.  And Tony would feel this loss keenly.

Jarvis found both Tony and Rogers on the bridge by the time he got Jane there.  He still hadn’t located Darcy or either Agents Romanoff or Barton.  He’d do that next.  For Phil.

Once he found Jane a seat, Jarvis refocused on the pair of men already at the table.  Phil’s prized cards were scattered across the table, blood smeared on them and the glass beneath them.  Jarvis felt his stomach swoop at the utter heartbreak Phil would feel over his collection damaged so.  

Tony was staring off to one side as Director Fury frowned at them.  “We’re dead in the water.  Our communications, location of the cube.  Banner, Thor.  I got nothing for you.  Lost my one good eye.”

Jarvis crossed and placed a gentle hand on Tony’s shoulder.  His young mater twitched under his squeeze as Director Fury slowly circled the table.

“Maybe I had it coming.” Director Fury said quietly.  Jarvis looked over and met Director Fury’s resigned gaze.  

Director Fury’s gaze then shifted to the trio sitting at the table, “Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the tesseract.  I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier.”

Director Fury looked at Tony with a wince, “There was an idea.  Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative.  An Idea to bring extraordinary people together, to see if they could become something more.  To work together when we needed them to, fight the battles that we never could.”

Jarvis closed his eyes briefly, recognizing his friend in those ideals.  Phil always believed in people, in heroes.  Under his hand, Tony stiffened even more.  He was pulled taunt as a guitar string.

“Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea.”  Director Fury continued quietly.  “In Heroes.”

Tony stood at that.  Jarvis could see the tension breaking in his body.  He didn’t even look around as he stormed out of the room.  Jarvis murmured under his breath, “Jr, keep an eye on him.”

A short beep confirmed Jr hearing that request as Fury’s voice caught Jarvis’s attention again. 

“Its an old-fashioned notion.”

Jarvis’s entire body stiffened at that.  Glancing over, he saw captain Rogers staring at the bloody card in his hands.  Director Fury was staring at him as well.  Jarvis felt his skin crawl and his hair stand on end.  Something wasn’t sitting right with that scene.  He couldn’t quite tap it, but something was off.

He silently walked to Captain Rogers and placed a hand on the man’s forearm.  Leaning forward, “Captain?”

Those wet blue eyes met his and he realized that Director Fury had planned this, down to the emotion.  He’d hit both men as hard as he could, to break them, unmake them.  Force them to pull themselves back together in the shape he wanted.

As the Captain stormed out, Jarvis eyed his gait.  The man was determined, not depressed.  He’d probably be fine in the short term.  Instead, Jarvis glanced down to grant he card on the table.  Carefully, he looked at it and scrutinized the blood.  It was smeared, probably by Captain Rogers.  Yet, Jarvis felt the bloody edges, there was something off still.

Glancing at Director Fury, Jarvis addressed Jane, “Jane?”

Jane sniffed and then wiped her cheeks, “I’ll be fine.  I’m going to see if I can help get sensors back.  Maybe I can find Bruce or Thor.”

Jarvis nodded, squeezing her shoulder briefly before heading out of the room in search for the two assets he’d promised Phil he’d watch over.

He found them in the medical wing, talking quietly.  He grabbed the towel and bottled water from the hall and entered.

Both looked up at Jarvis in question.  Jarvis stepped forward, holding the towel out to Agent Barton.  “Agent Barton, I am Edwin Jarvis.”

The man responded with a grunt and a nod.  Taking the towel and water, he drank down half the bottle.  Jarvis noted with approval that he’d already had some water.  Eventually, Agent Barton finished his drink and sighed.

“Phil mentioned you.  You’re with Stark.”

Jarvis nodded.  “Indeed.  You should eat something and clean up.  May I be of assistance?”

Agent Barton hadn’t need much assistance and Jarvis found himself mostly conversing with the Agent to orient him in time and place.  Agent Romanoff seemed more settled with the archer returned to normal.

Jr’s ping broke off Jarvis’s intent to help them relocate to a less medical-related environment.  “Sir and Ms Lewis know where Loki is going?”

Jarvis blinked before glancing at the pair in front of him.  They would want this.  For Phil if no one else.  “I suspect you are about to be asked to suit up.” Jarvis informed them.  Both glanced at each other, before small smiles and firm nods resulted.  Not a moment later Captain Rogers poked his head in the room.

“You fly one of those jets?”

Jarvis smiled at the nearest tech as he ducked out of the room.  Cheering all around as Tony’s weak voice echoed over the coms.  Jarvis wasn’t even surprised his master wanted to feed everyone.  Tony had inherited very mother hen tendencies that involved feeding everyone in sight.  Jarvis blamed Ana for that one.

Jarvis mentally began mapping out how to reorganize Tony’s living space to accommodate a few more guests.  In the meantime, Jarvis had finally tracked down what had bothered him about the bloody cards.  The blood was too fresh.  

Blood dries, changes color and flakes.  This blood had been wet enough to smear on the table.  For dramatic effect, an excellent show, but for realism, it doesn’t add up.  Which implies they weren’t bloodied by Phil’s chest.

Jarvis wasn’t sure Director Fury’s game, besides trauma-bonding Steve and Tony, but he owed it to Phil to protect his assets from more of it.  He headed to the medical bay, only to find no Phil.  Frowning, he tried several other possibilities before becoming stumped.  He was just passing the medical lab when he glanced through the windows.  

He then paused, retreated and looked again.  “Jr, what are the dimensions of this room?”

Jr was quiet in his ear for a moment before quietly telling him the dimension before commenting that the video feed showed a smaller room than the blueprints.

Jarvis poked his head in the medical lab.  Off to one corner was the fake wall Jr had discovered.  Jarvis slipped past it and into the room where the flurry of activity was settling down.  Lab coats and full surgeon PPE was the dress code and Jarvis ducked away to find his own set.  Because he saw the bed.

On the bed lay Phil Coulson.  After his wandering, Jarvis had guessed as much.  He’d tried the coroner and morgue already.  There was a spot for Coulson, but not the man himself.  With everyone focusing on the invasion, he wasn’t surprised this subterfuge had slid under the wire.  

But, Fury would move fast and Jarvis had to move faster.  He glanced around before walking intently around the room, moving a few boxes that were clearly out of place already.  When he could he swung past the bed.  Carefully, making sure he’d not be seen, he slipped a hand under the covers and stuck the packing tap and message tot he back of Coulson’s hip.  Low enough that any work done on the entry site wouldn’t notice for dignity’s sake.  But high enough to not be noticed in case he was bedridden long enough to require a catheter.  

Doing another lap of the room, Jarvis exited quietly, noting the lack of cameras and thus link to Jr.  Now he just had to wait for Phil to contact him.

And Jarvis knew he’d reach out.  Because Phil was like Jarvis.  They were handlers.

And they had a whole crowd of assets to wrangle.