About gods and engineers

PART I - PAST

Howard Stark was stretching his stiffed hands uncomfortably above the paperwork he was currently buried in, sighing. From the different room in the house he could hear the quiet whispering and some strange noises every now and then interrupted by gentle laughing. For a while it kept stealing the peace away from his office, tearing the thoughts in his skull before they could be written down and settled. Despite his best attempt at ignoring the buzz, he could already make up the words along with the sweet voice uttering them.

For a one treacherous second he found himself slowly drifting away from his body, leaving the writing being mechanical. The picture of his wife lying on the bed with wide eyes and sweet face appeared in front of him and it was too warm for Howard to just let go so easily.

She was such a good storyteller.

It was easy to imagine their small kid by her side, listening and clinging on every word coming from those smiling lips.
God, his fingers felt numb…

He turned his head away from the partly opened door in a poor attempt to get his concentration back where it supposed to be. He hated the noise while he was working –yes, he remembered now. The expensive ballpoint pen quickly recovered the lost position on the paper. It was right back on the good track, when the sudden giggling cut its approach again and Howard stood up. Without really paying attention to what he was doing, in the next moment he was in front of the massive oak door, letting the orange light from the hallway illuminate his face. Then he stopped abruptly. His expression angry and disoriented at once.

The idea of that stupid and unnecessary action left him as fast as it came. His hand slowly encircled the doorknob pulling the door closed. The one steady breath got him back to his senses and to his desk.
However he couldn´t find a pleasure in the new arranged isolation anymore. Otherwise soothing familiarity of the situation and silence made him think even more about what was waiting behind that door and what he managed to cut away so eagerly.
“To hell with this,” he muttered the quiet curse, but dug himself into papers anyway. Sooner he would have it off the table, quicker he could fall into some of his new concepts in the workshop. Or when the time would be merciful even for something else.

Howard concentrated on his breathing and sound of the pen marking the white sheets. It could work for a really good calming effect, but then… BOOM!
He jumped up on his feet, looking around with heart beating painfully against his ribcage. He was still alone in the room, but the house was shaking. He had to steady himself against the table not to lose his stability until a wave passed.

Was it an earthquake? Terrorists?

“Sir, Mr. Stark!”
“Jarvis, thank God you´re here.”
Howard visibly relaxed at the sight of his butler hurrying to his side ready for orders.
“Have you seen the lightening, sir? Should I call someone?” He seemed to be worried, but didn´t lose his cool, not for a second.
“The lightening? No, Jarvis. What was it?”
Howard followed the other man to the window and let him move the curtain.
“I don´t know what it is, sir. But it came from the garden.”
He narrowed his eyes trying to spot anything odd on the grass or behind the trees.
“Sir, can you see it?”
He gazed in the pitch black again. This time his eyes adjusted a little more than before.
“What the hell, Jarvis?”
The butler stood by his side motionless.
“Are those… people?”
“Probably, sir.” Both men stayed still for a moment, thinking. “What are we going to do?”
The phone was already in Howard´s hand as the question was set. He kept gazing to the dark with excitement rising inside his chest. The situation was dangerous. And he indeed felt endangered. He as the person, his family, house, every invention in his basement. But at the same time he knew that something amazing has just happened right at his porch. He couldn´t stop the wildest of possibilities asking for his attention with this knowledge.

“What is it Stark?” The grumpy voice greeted him from the other side of the line. Background noises like the person was just getting up from the bed. Not happy.
“I need someone in my house ASAP.”
“What is it? You´ve blown up something again?”
Howard ignored the biting comment.
“No, Frank. There are aliens in my garden.”

At the end of the explanation he was sure that the other man understood how private this had to stay and how fast he had to get in.
“Just stay in the house, you fool.”
“Sure. Hurry up.”
He threw the phone on the table, counting with Jarvis to follow him, when he ran out and into the house.
Lab. He needed to get to his lab… to activate the protocol…
“Dad?”

He froze.
“Dad…”
Howard turned around finding his son looking at him with frightened eyes, hand in hand with a frowning woman.
“Jarvis.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Go, get them to safety,” he looked away, “I have a work to do.”

OOO

“Wake up you useless… Wak´… Stark…to kill you, if you… Hey!”
Tony blinked several times and opened his eyes to face the darkness of his helmet and also to a terrible disoriented feeling making his whole world spinning and shaking. He was lying on his back – so much he knew from the point, where his suit was heavily pinning him down with all its dead force. He couldn´t move a single muscle and couldn´t remember a damn reason why.
Where the hell was he?
“JARVIS?”
“Yes, sir?” Nothing lit up. The surrounding blackness was still occupied only by threats of the unknown source.
“What happened? Are we dead? And if we are… are we in heaven?”
“You´re not in heaven, sir…”
“Ohh, crap. We should have donated more to charities, I knew that…”
“And as far as I know,” the Al didn´t accept to be interrupted, “you´re not dead either.”
Tony smiled for himself.
“Awesome. Now the first question, Jarvis.”
Without any screen with running data it felt more like talking to imaginary buddy, who surprisingly is able to reply back.

“How far do you remember, sir?”
Tony recalled the last moment playing in his mind. His head started to hurt.
“We were fighting. Me and Avengers… Loki showed up. There was Steve screaming something and… Loki. He was trying to escape.”
“Yes, Captain Rogers´s plan was to retreat, but Iron Man was too close to the enemy. You decided to stop Loki, however he was already in the middle of a spell. I believe it was the spell for teleportation.”

That would pretty much explain why was the god kicking his right side at the moment.
“I hate magic.”
“I know, sir.”
“JARVIS, mics on.” He was prepared to warn Rock of Ages to piss off till he´s still unable to move and kick his ass. An apology from his AI wasn´t exactly what he expected.
“It´s not possible, Mr. Stark. I had to switch all the functions down, because of your arc reactor being damaged probably by the spell. I ran a diagnostics while you were unconscious. Everything else seems to be fine.”
Okay, he originally thought it was an elephant sitting on his chest.
“How long can the suit last without me experiencing a heart attack?” he asked, calculating.
“Counting only the movement and possibility to fire a weapon as a protection, it´s 20 minutes at most. But no speaking, sir.”
“No speaking?” This will be definitely the hardest part.
“Great.” Tony tried to refill his lungs with some oxygen. “Start the movement mode. First of all kick that bastard to the crotch.”
“With pleasure.”

The small screen in the middle of the mask woke to life, configurated to show only what was in front of Tony, no controls, statistics, no anything… What medieval ages here…
“Are you done, Stark?”
Inbuilt camera focused at Loki´s face and his hand blocking the hit which was meant for his manhood… or godhood… whatever. Tony sat up, pushing away the sick feeling for later.
“Have you eaten your tongue, human? I need answers. Where are we?”
“How the hell should I know that? It was your damn mojo playing with our molecules.” He couldn´t hear him. Tony tapped on his faceplates´s mouth, hoping Reindeer will understand the simple gesture.

Few seconds have passed with Loki still wearing that frustrated expression.
“I see,” he uttered acidly, “that suit of yours is good for nothing.”
“God, give me strength. Jarvis,” he called out, “remind me why we don´t kill this guy right now?”
“Because it would cost us too much energy.”
“Of course.”
Tony moved both his hands and got happy when he succeeded. But his smile froze almost immediately as he noticed another presence in the area - specifically a lot of men with a lot of weapons forming a circle around the two intruders, pointing at them with their guns from the safe distance.
“Who are those people?”
“I don´t have the access to the database, sir.”
“How long are they here?”
“About an hour.”
Tony choked. “What? And you didn´t think it was important enough to tell me?”
“I infiltrated their connection. There should be no serious danger for you, sir. They have an order not to shoot unless it´s necessary.”
“You calmed me down.”
“Thank you, sir.”

Tony rolled his eyes, but didn´t tried to explain anything. He turned on the god of mischief instead, demanding his attention.
“Any brilliant idea on your mind, Stark?”
Only the fact he was asking such a question – him, the mage - meant he felt as powerful as Tony in the half dead suit. On the surface he looked weary, a little battered, but nothing indicated he was injured. Maybe he just needed to recharge batteries. One way or another it was no time for fighting against each other at the moment, even more while Tony had no idea what is wrong with his metal heart. Who knows what would those killers do, if the two of them suddenly started to wrestle.

Loki didn´t move at all while Tony was thinking. He was standing right behind his back, taking him for a shield.
“So?”
Tony lifted his hand and pointed at the men. With the other one opening and closing he signaled talking. There was nothing simpler he could use for a sign.
“And who should talk to them? Me?”
Tony´s hands flew into the air. “Who else, genius?”
“Very well.”

Loki disappeared from camera´s view. Tony had to stand up and turned to find him again – standing in front of the aimed guns, straight and tall, like they were nothing to be worried about. He could swear that there was some kind of simple illusion making him look more noble and elegant. From all the forms he could probably take upon himself he chose the one looking like a prince, not anything evil or frightening. Tony didn´t really mind. After all he was the best manipulator with or without his magic.
“I greet you, inhabitants of this planet…”
“Jesus Christ…”
“I accept your surrender and will keep you as my slaves to serve my plans of taking the rule over the Earth only if you do so now willingly and without any resistance.”
Tony couldn´t believe it. “He´ll never stop trying, will he?”
“Probably not, sir.”

Tony walked to Loki´s side right at the “kneel now before your god” moment and kicked him to his leg as strong as the damaged suit allowed him. But not as much as he would like to.
“You want to die, Stark?” Loki looked at him with dark shadow over his face. “Do it again and I will tell them you are a robot which very much desire to destroy their world. Terminator was the name, if I recall correctly.”
That would deserve a praise whistle only if there would be any sound coming from Tony.
“You spent obviously too much time on Midgard.”

“Sir, I don´t want to interrupt, but the time is running. You should get somewhere safe very soon.”
“Sure.” He almost forgot. The adrenalin was a treacherous friend. He stepped back, receiving a curious look from a god.
“Can I continue?”
He nodded. Do it your way and I will pray they won´t start shooting only to shut you up.
“Well, thank you. So where did I stop? Yes! Now you can kneel before your god…”