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Chapter Text

Tony Stark died three times after Siberia.

Which wouldn't have been that bad in itself if it didn't come with a side serving of cliché, of the whole "life before your eyes" variety, he had to re watch the whole debacle, starting from that fateful day in Afghanistan. He even made side trips into Loki's and darling Rogers life. Carol Danvers, too, and Tony thought "well, Platypus will be glad."
The next time, he saw the present: Ross, the Accords, Siberia...

Joy.

And the last time, it was the kid getting in trouble, the threat he'd been talking himself hoarse about just to be dismissed, and his death.

Again.

And then two idiots talking it out like it was a movie or something, saying "There's no butterfly effect in the MCU".
Right.

First, what's the butterfly effect has got to do with time paradox, respect your science, people. No, really.

Second, that was the worse movie marathon he'd ever been forced to endure, and that included the Star Wars movies that shouldnotbementionned. Honest, compared to Rogers, Darth was a peach.

And the fact that this was his fucking life (what was left of it, anyway) was... really tragic.

Now, Tony had noticed that those were not his memories. Heck, he was not present half of the time. At least it gave him an interesting perspective on what had happened, up and including the shitty way the Avengers behaved. Not only toward him, but towards everybody. Heck, Loki and his half-assed (if that) attempt at world domination had a lower body count than Rogers and his merry band in pursuit of the Winter Princess.

Tony almost giggled while picturing Rogers in tights... When realizing it what not that different from his usual getup. Wondered, briefly what was the percentage of Captain America's popularity was due to the spandex. 12% ?

Speaking of Rogers, did it really mean the utter bastard was there, somewhere, knowing everything that was supposed to happen and never lifted his tush from the couch to prevent ANY of it? Up and including his BFF capture, torture, brainwashing and so on. Tony now knew Rogers was an utterly selfish bastard, but that was taking it to another level.

"CHOOSE."

"Uh?" yes, Tony could be articulate. Now, however, was not one of those times.

"CHOOSE" Afghanistan and his stumbling through the desert before Rhodey found him... Himself lying in a hospital bed with beeping machines and tubes going everywhere... or the gauntlet with the stones.

"CHOOSE!" well, okay, he was getting used to weird shit by now. So he chose.

Chapter Text

So, knowing his platypus was going to show up any minute now was not making that little stroll in the Afghan desert any more pleasant, but then, that had been his choice.

If you get to start again, might as well start at the beginning, so to speak.

And considering what he'd just seen, the more time he got, the better. If only to cut a few things down, like the Widow's massive ego, Rogers bullheaded stupidity and Fury's manipulative tendencies, for starters.
Ha, he heard the 'copters coming his way, and...

"Tony!"

Yep, that was his platypus. Tony knew a great big ball of fire and some explosion would draw him like a moth to a flame. Rhodey may grumble for form, but he LOVED explosions. Actual rocket scientist, after all, people.

But between the Siberian showdown, the movie marathon from Hell, and his post Afghan cave body, Tony wasn't feeling too good. The minute he felt Rhodey propping him up, he managed to point at his chest and say "don't let them poke at it, Sugarplum, I need that."
Felt Rhodey lift what was left of this tee, heard "Oh, Tones..." and then blissfully passed out. He was protected.

When he woke up, he was comfortable, or at least as comfortable as one could be on an army issue med bed, and Rhodey was slightly dozing on a chair at his side. He avoided moving, recalling what Peps had told him afterwards, how relentlessly his honey bear had looked for him during his captivity, pushing all the buttons, calling all the favors and then some. Of course, he was tired!
And Tony had put him on protection detail, so as soon as he moved, he would...

"I'm awake, you idiot."

"But..."

"You stopped sounding like a buzz saw." Was the somewhat terse answer. Tony gasped in outrage.

"Are you suggesting I snore? I am feeling so maligned right now!"

"And apart from that, how are you feeling, really? And what is that... contraption, and why do you *need it*?"

His platypus was not in the mood to be beating around the bush, so Tony explained. Well, the cliff notes version, at least, before catching his eyes.

"Rhodey, we got to talk."

"Isn't it what we're doing?"

"And by WE, I mean, *we, the United States of America armed forces*. I blew up all I could in there when I escaped, but there were a LOT of SI weapons in those caves. We've always had that problem with fakes, but this is different. This is genuine stuff, and not a little of it.
Someone has been back door dealing at SI, and considering the stuff they had access to in that hellhole, it's someone very high up. This is BAD, Rhodey bear..."

"One to ten?" Rhodey answered, resorting to something that could be used to rank explosions, alcohol, the latest Stark screw up... And had done so faithfully since MIT.

"Depends. At least 8, and you may want to up it a notch when you learn their backer wanted me killed initially. They decided to keep me around so I could build them a Jericho."

Rhodey blanched, went out of the room like jet-propelled, came back with a burly MP, and was out again like Schrödinger Platypus.

Besides the somewhat amusing hijinks, it was the first thing Tony had decided to change. Going lone wolf with Iron Man, not to mention his decision to shut down the weapons division, had been a very bad decision, looking back on it.

First, it had cost him the Army support, which in turn had isolated him and made him a prime target for all those assholes out there, Fury, Natashalie, SHIELDRA and all the gang.

So yeah, he'd stopped making weapons.
Not that anybody had been grateful. The Army, as expected, had been collectively pissed. So had the board, even without Stane muddying the water for all he was worth (not much).

And it's not as if it had changed anything afterward. He had STILL been making weapons, except just for a very limited bunch of morons... Leaving regular forces to the likes of Hammer industries, which, ouch.

And it's not as if he'd been able to turn that page either. Iron Man or not, the press loved to dust up the "Merchant of Death" thing regularly. And the Avengers...
Considering the roaster consisted of people who either worked, had worked, or were still working with the military... And add to that a pair of professional assassins, well it's not like they had a leg to stand on.

Which had sure not stopped them in treating him like the scum of the Earth.

In short, he'd blown up all his credit and support to keep doing the same job... but without the perks... Or the money... Or even a modicum of respect as time went by. And considering Thanos, leaving the Earth woefully unprepared.

And all the while, the merry band of morons had been gallivanting around the planet, killing people and destroying stuff right and left, without repercussions because reasons... And having a temper tantrum of epic proportions the first time they were told "no".

Which, Tony admitted, had been partly his fault. If he hadn't run himself ragged to protect their sorry asses, they might have realized earlier they were not exempt from the law. Might, mind you. He'd just learned a very pointed lesson on how far Rogers could take the *his way or the highway* thing.

Yeah, not this time.

He heard the commotion in the corridor leading to his room and steeled himself for what would be the first of a looooong series of meetings.

Chapter Text

Well, he sure had not realized it at the time (thanks for nuthing, Obie!), but his abduction had sure stirred up stuff in the alphabet soup that lived and thrived around the Pentagon and in DC.
So, it was not all that hard, relatively speaking, to get the secret services, the CIA, the FBI... Or even the Texas Rangers, for all Tony knew, to cooperate.

Stark weapons were the best and the Army loved them, but by the same token, they sure didn't want to see them in other hands (alright, in very selected other hands). And when Tony hinted at the possibility that the flying armor he'd used to escape could be refined and maybe available to the Air Force, he'd been briefly afraid that general was going to kiss him.

Which, no. Eww. (not that Tony was adverse on principle, but short, balding with a big varicosed shnotz, was not his thing. Yep, call him picky.)

Not that it was going to change a lot. Contrary to what Rogers & al thought, the armor was NOT doing all the work. Go tell a jet fighter pilot that the plane does all the work... And then run very fast, 'cause that's not bound to go down well.
In fact, jet fighters and astronauts were the only ones likely to ever get into a suit and be able to manage it without crashing it in the next ten seconds... Well, them and JARVIS (note to self: find a way to make the iron legion palatable to the public). And his Platypus, of course (and he was killing the Iron Patriot thing in the egg, this time).

Not to mention the price for armors that had to be custom-made for each pilot, so yeah, not for all the troops.
But there was a difference between point bland refusing like he'd done previously... Or let them draw their own conclusion on what the Army could afford or not, because gold/titanium alloy is pricey, and that's before Tony did anything with it..
But they didn't know that yet, and anyway, he sure had other possibilities, like the body armors he'd refined for the Avengers. Those would do nicely, once Starkium production was up and running.

With the added bonus to shake Wakanda's superiority complex a bit, once they realized Starkium was basically synthetic Vibranium. Tony could barely wait, he still had that "let them come" in his ears.

Anyway, Starkium was the most pressing order of business once he got back home, since he really didn't have fond memories of his bout of heavy metal poisoning from last time. Also, not building a Haldron collider on his lonesome this time, when he had a perfectly good and functional lab at SI.
Also, if it was build "in house" so to speak, it was going to make all those patents bloody airtight, which was just what he needed. Starkium, arc reactors...

And the prosthetics.

Now there was something straight out of Iron man tech that could be REALLY positive to veterans and all, and Tony could kick himself for not having thought of that before his Platypus had been hurt.
There was a place where he could do real good for a lot of people AND get some real goodwill out of it.

When he'd raised the idea at the end of one meeting, the brass who'd been leaving had stopped dead in their tracks, and then gone back to circle his hospital bed like a bunch of joyful barracudas.

At this point, he could probably have asked for a hot chocolate and bedtime story from the President, and nobody would have raised an eyebrow. What he wanted, however, was Stane's head on a platter... Not that he could tell them that. He just helped them to reach that conclusion.

Once you knew where to look, (and JARVIS was busy looking, per Tony's instructions) it was not very difficult to see what Obie and his cronies had been up to... And also gave Tony the answer to why his godfather had suddenly decided to kill the golden goose (note to self: find that damm cat and take him to the tower): Stane had gotten greedier in recent years, and by extension sloppy, to the point it was only a matter of time for Tony to stumble on something sooner or later. Probably sooner, and Obie didn't fancy the idea of prison, when he was concerned.

Not that it was likely to happen anyway. An extremely polite gentleman who didn't introduce himself but was probably from the CIA had quietly hinted at an *alternate solution*, and Tony had not protested. After all, in another life, he'd had to do the deed himself.

Since he was NOT a professional assassin, contrary to what Wanda had claimed and the rest of the ingrates had supported (even if at least two of them should have known better), Tony was all for letting someone else to take care of the problem.

And Stane was too dangerous anyway. Peggy Carter and SHIELD were not the only ones who'd covered his parents murder, Stane going as far as saying he's witnessed the *accident*. Looking back on it, Tony had to wonder if his godfather had been only a corrupt piece of shit or HYDRA (why not both?).

Anyway, he didn't fancy reliving another attempted murder (how was this his life again?), so if someone arranged for a convenient accident, he was not opposed.

So, on one fine morning, Tony climbed on his private jet (after it'd been thoroughly gone over with the proverbial fine comb by the secret services), and at the same time the FBI showed both at SI and at Obie's place. Then Stane tried to run, and in the subsequent car chase, *lost control* of his vehicle on a tight spin and exploded at the bottom of a convenient cliff, with at least half a dozen FBI agents watching him burn to a crisp.
Not that Obie was a bad driver, but it's admittedly hard to steer when you got your brain pulverized by an explosive bullet.

The CIA is sort of efficient that way.

Obie's death had two effects: One, the criminal investigation was extinct, even if various federal agencies fell on Obie's estate like a pack of suited vultures. Tony did not care about that, they were welcome to the loot. Two, his cronies suddenly found themselves on the front line, and of course rats couldn't jump ship fast enough.

JARVIS quietly bought enough shares of SI during the panic to ensure Tony had control of the board. It made a dent in his private funds, but not as bad as he had feared, since his captivity had brought SI shares to an all time low, that even news of his rescue had not corrected yet. Now with all the board and a few high ranking employees panic and flailing around, JARVIS got more than he needed dirt cheap.

Not a problem, Tony knew of a very competent CEO.

Chapter Text

But first things first.

There was one person, and one person only, Tony could trust with the whole truth.

"Welcome home..." The lab lit up with screening upon screening of his own body "... Sir"

"You doubted it, JARVIS? You should have said something." Tony sat down and patted DUM-E and U claws, eliciting excited beeps.

"You were not doing anything susceptible to harm Sir, even if... You weren't you. Those decisions were not reflective of the Tony Stark I know, however."

"JARVIS, I do have a VERY long story to tell you."

And it was indeed a long story. Eidetic memory, people. Tony had, in fact, trouble forgetting things.
Not that he hadn't tried other the years.PTSDD was not easy to cure for anyone, but for somebody who was able to recall every. single. thing. and in excruciating details? Funsies.

NOT.

It took Tony almost two days to tell Jarvis everything. The AI asked very few questions, storing the data instead. And Tony was not idle while he talked either, calling up his personal keyboard and boosting JARVIS security to the latest he'd given FRI before going to the fated German airport.

"I see." JARVIS said at last "What is the plan, sir? Since you already changed things from what you told me happened."

"And I'll keep doing it. I may lose the hindsight at some point, but I'm not so fond of how things turned out last time. Not fond enough to relive it, at any rate. And well, I have changed, but I don't think anybody else did. So, we can expect Fury & co to show up at some point, invited or not.
Speaking of which, JAR, whatever happens, do take the time to up and secure your backing servers. I will NOT lose you again."

There was a brief moment of silence, then the AI sort of coughed "I will endeavor not to disappoint, Sir."

"You never did, JARVIS. But Vision... I know it wasn't his fault, but hearing your voice while..."

"He betrayed you."

Tony sighed "I guess so, in a way. His love story with a psycho who was fond of saying she wanted me dead was not something I enjoyed. Mind you, I'm not angry at him. He was a child, in many ways... And let's face it, the least you can say about the Avengers is that they were not a healthy environment to grow up in."

There was a moment of silence, then the genius clapped his hands together.

"But priorities! One, got to synthesize Starkium, since nobody will let me call it Badassium, a vastly superior name..."

"That is a point where we differ, I'm afraid, Sir. And how are we going to proceed?"

"As fast as possible, for one. Last time was..." There was another moment of silence the AI hurried to break.

"I think the term you are looking for, Sir, is *courting disaster*"

"The sass, JARVIS, the sass! ... Even if you're not wrong. At least I only have to write down the research this time. Do we have a particle accelerator at SI R&D yet?"

"Actually, Sir, you ordered one just before you left for Afghanistan, and it has been build. It is in the upstate NY facility."

"Perfect! Allrighty, JARVIS. We're going to revive the Stark expo like last time, hopefully with less Hammer and Russian interference. THAT will give me the opportunity to study that old model again, if anyone asks question later on how I came about the new element. Anyway, perfect occasion to contact some people about branching out: I have a hunch putting Maya Hansen and Helen Cho in the same lab could lead to great things... I want to get SI to expand into medicine in a big way, Jarv."

"Prosthetics as you said, Sir?"

"Well, the Iron man tech would be invaluable, for those... And once we get into nanites... Yes, this does have wonderful prospects, not even mentioning a way to pull the rug under Killian's feet. The man won't get saner, so we'll have to keep an eye on him, but people are lest likely to turn themselves into living bombs if there is an alternative... One should hope."

"And SHIELD, Sir?

"Well, we do have some time. We didn't need Agent this time to deal with Obie, so they don't have their foot in the door. I have no doubt Fury knows about the palladium core and will reach his own conclusions, but like last time, he's likely to wait for me to become desperate before showing his face. Likely to send his pet spider nosing around, but the Stane thing gives us all sorts of marvelous reasons to tighten security and new applicants review, don't you think?"

"It certainly would be reason enough, considering the joint internal and FBI audit of SI, Sir."

I'm certain they're bound to find ALL SORTS of interesting things, JARVIS. In any case, if anything resembling a Natalie Rushman as I described her to you show up at SI, just have her go through the process with a female HR employee.
Contrary to what the dear Widow thinks, she's not infallible, and about three quarters of her tricks are of the honeypot variety. Bound to go south quite quickly with another female... of the straight variety, that is.

And JARVIS?"

"Yes Sir?"

"We do have Captain America's giant Frisbee in storage. Have it melted."

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"Melted Sir?"

"And refined. If memory serves, that thing was a vibranium/iron alloy. I need the vibranium."

"May I ask why?" JARVIS inquired.

"Sure you can. With all what I had to do for the Ingrates, research had to go on the back burner these past years, but I do recall I noted some similarities between Starkium and Vibranium, according to Howard's notes. I need to test that, and thoroughly, before publishing anything."

"We do have an item somewhat similar in storage, Sir, but I'm afraid it doesn't look..." Tony threw a glance at the holo display and waved a hand.

"Nah, that's the thing. The original one.
I don't think Rogers ever knew, but Howard was a bit more even keeled about him before he did his Capsicle thing. It's later it turned into an obsession and a semi religion, with Peggy as the high priestess: They both build the Captain America legend... And then they started believing it.
Anyway, to cut the story short, Vibranium was always extremely valuable, and at the time, dear old dad was not all that rich yet. So, that Frisbeee was collateral to a few loans Howard contracted to build his business.
Never quite got why he just let Rogers have it to start with... Until I met Captain What'smineismineandwhat'syoursisminetoo, that is.
So, either the Board made some noise because the thing wasn't on inventory anymore, or dear old dad wanted his vibranium back, so he switched it for an Adamantium one at the first opportunity. And then he played a bit with his very own toy, since he had it back."

"And Mr Rogers didn't say a thing?" JARVIS tone was slightly doubtful, but Tony only shrugged.

"Dunno. I'd say he didn't notice the difference, so as long as he thought it was HIS shield, everything was good in Asshole Land, I guess. Howard must have refined the curve a little so it would Frisbee better, and as for the weigh, I guess the difference was not that noticeable for a super soldier. Don't really care, to be honest.

Oh, and while we are talking about idiots, Jarv, I need you to send a note to PR and Legal: We are going to change policy with the Press. From now on, we're going to sue when they cross the line. Every time. And in the serious cases, we're gonna take away the ads."

"Is this wise, Sir? You were always good with the Press."

"Was I really? Unfortunately, it's too late not to have sex with Everhart, but even if she led the pack, the others weren't far behind. That was a Obie policy, Jar, and like all Obie policies, it was not done with my interests in mind. Ever wondered why I was the only billionaire treated that way?
Try slandering Bezos or Gates this way and you'll see a squadron of lawyers descends on you.
Me, I was fair game.
I was the irresponsible genius that could be let to play in his lab, but Heavens forbid I get out of it and touch something serious like business. The fact that all my shortcomings, either real or imaginary, ended up on the front page ensured that."

"That and the fact you don't like business, Sir."

"I like business just fine. I dislike having to explain myself over and over again to a bunch of old guys who basically distrust me because they don't understand physics, and always viewed me as too young, then too irresponsible, to be taken seriously.
Basic fact that I was making all the stuff that made them rich notwithstanding.
Nah, the Press has to get in line, it will make our job easier in the long run. And while, you're in the mail business, contact my platypus to know when he'd be free to come see me. Once you got his date, lock it with Peps and Happy."

"I do hope it is to *come clean*, Sir?"

"Yep. If I ever did one stupid thing, it was to cut me off the real friends I had at that moment. Left the door wide open for all sorts of vermin infestation.
Also, got to strategize. Pepper was the best CEO SI ever had, but I want to ease her into it this time. Once that bunch get used to have her *relay* my instructions, it'll be a smoother transition.
Another thing, not putting Happy through the *Iron Man bodyguard* torture again. He was a damm good head of security, even with his problematic relationship with spiders.
And of course my honeybear to liaise with uncle Sam."

"And me, Sir?"

"Oh, JARVIS, we gonna be really busy, you and I, but I trust you to keep an eye on SHIELD. Once Nathashalie goes down the sprout, you can be sure they're gonna try to hack this place. We've got to give them tit-for-tat.
Also, got to find how deep the roots go in SI... I would be nice if the FBI investigation would be the ones to find that... And to see their reactions. The post Data dump mess led me to believe that the FBI, CIA, and the rest of the alphabet soup knew about them, but that one, they weren't very popular... Two, no one was really sure where they belonged exactly. I've begun to wonder if the local mailman had more federal legal authority than Fury did.

Probably going to be fun to find out, won't it JARVIS?"

The moment of silence that followed was very telling, and so was the dryness of the AI's voice as he answered.

"If you say so, Sir."

Tony laughed. Truly and really laughed.

It had been years.

It was good to be back.

Chapter Text

Rhodey looked at the dinner table in the kitchen, frowned, and said:

"Okay, you can come clean now. Where's the fire?"

"Wha...?" Tony was a bit taken aback, and Rhodey rolled his eyes and pointed at the table.

"C'mon Tones, that's Happy fav cheeseburger, Pepper preferred sushi place... And something that is not a NY pizza, but a Philly one. So, who died and where do we stash the body?"

Tony looked at the other two and saw they were right behind his platypus. Ah, well, he should have expected it, he usually didn't befriend idiots (And the Avengers weren't his friends, so no, they didn't count). So he took a deep breath (or as deep as he could take it these days), and dropped the bad news:

"Sorry guys, but there's no easy way to say it: I'm slowly dying."

"WHAT!!?" Was the horrified chorus, so Tony hurried on.

"But it is not irreversible! I just need your help, guys." He said as Pepper pinned him with her best dragon glare, Happy sighed, and Rhodey went into serious Army man mode.

"Explain."

"It's the Arc reactor. It is keeping me alive, so I need it... But Palladium has its own risks..."

"Heavy metal poisoning." Rhodey said to the horrified gasps of the other two.

"You need to get rid of it!" Pepper exclaimed.

"That's the plan, but I need a substitute. Yes, I know it wasn't that you meant, Peps, but removing it completely is just a faster way to die. The statistics on what my chances of survival are if I try to have the shrapnel surgically removed are not looking good either."

"You're between a rock and a hard place, then, Boss. What do you plan to do about it?" Happy said. Tony picked up a breadstick and munched on it, trying to send the signal for the others to get on with the food. Pepper was looking a little to pale for his liking.

"Need to find a substitute to the Palladium. Used it mostly because that's what I had on hand, so to speak, and it was sure better than a car battery, but I need to look to alternate sources. Unfortunately, the obvious substitutes all have unfortunate side effects, so I need to dig a little deeper. That's where SI R&D comes in... And JARVIS, of course. I'm confident we'll find something, but I need to concentrate on that in the near future."

"Of course, Tones."

"Yeah, well, some people may be less understanding, so I need you guys to keep them at bay for me till I find a fix. The Board, for starters. Sure, with the Obie thing and rats jumping ship, JARVIS was able to buy stock. Enough of it that I have control of the board. Still, they're here, and to be honest, I trust that lot just as far as I can throw them. Need someone to keep them in line, sooo... Oh, Pepppppeeeerrrr! "

Said Pepper did a very good deer in headlights impression. Tony was so used to the hyper competent CEO that he'd almost forgotten how vulnerable she'd been in those early days.

"Me?" She squeaked (Tony sure hoped JARVIS was recording, because knowing what he knew, that moment was gold)

"Yep, you. If you can keep ME in line, I'm pretty sure you can whip those old farts in place. So, here's how we going to play it: I'll appoint you CEO, and I'll go before the board to explain it's a temporary kind of thing, due to health issues after my ordeal kinda thing, and that I will be the one driving anyway. In reality? You boss.
Can always call me if you have questions or anything, or if one of those guys have a case of *old rich white man* you can't handle, though I doubt it."

"But temporary, right?" Pepper asked a bit uncertainly, even though Tony saw a familiar light in those eyes. The board didn't stand a chance. He smirked.

"Temporary is a very useful word that can cover LOTS. And who knows? You may find you like it. So, you accept?

She nodded "I'll do my best for you and SI, Tony."

"Great! Congratulation, boss." He was a bit surprised when she hopped off her chair and hugged him. From what he'd seen in that bunker, their relationship had been one of the most positive thing in his previous life... But it had been such a tire fire otherwise that he'd mostly decided to let things run their course and not try to force the issue. It's not like he was going to lack heirs anyway... No, there lay madness, he reminded himself. So...

"Happ..."

"If you think I'm going to leave your side now, Boss, you got another thing coming"

"Nah. I trust you to keep me safe and those pesky reporters at bay. But once I'm deep in the bowels of R&D with my..."

"Minions" Rhodey interjected with a smile, and the others smiled too. Everytime Tony eschewed his private labs to pay a visit to R&D labs anywhere, the scientists did a very good imprinted ducklings impression, at least the first day. It was kinda cute, in a way.
And it always embarrassed Tones when it was pointed out, and today was no exception.

"Erm, yes, well... Anyway. Once I'm there, apart a lab incident, I'm somewhat safe. So I'd like you to go over SI security... I wonder what other stuff might have festered in there under Ob...Stane rule. And I wouldn't object if you kept an eye on the FBI while you're at it. JARVIS will help."

"And me, Tones?"

"I'd say keep the brass happy, but you know that. Some of those guys are not going to prioritize my health versus more toys... Even if that means no more later. On the other hand, getting them occupied with cleaning up the latest mess would be nice, but I'll try to get on a few side projects... By the way, Peps, I'd like to have the Stark expo model taken up to my R&D office... I'll prioritize the prosthetics, since it should be the fastest to implement. Also..." Tony hesitated, and Rhodey frowned.

"Also what? C'mon, Tony, even you can't be dying twice!"

Tony barked a laugh. How wrong his platypus was!

"No, not that. The flying armor thing? Maybe a tiny bit expensive?" He suggested. Rhodey frowned.

"How expensive?"

"A couple of jet fighters worth at the very cheapest? You may want to break that gently to the Air Force. Not mentioning that finding people able to fly those is going to be difficult... And that the upkeep and maintenance is likely to be costly too."

"But you're still going to build some, right?"

Tony shrugged. He had no intention to walk the same path, especially regarding the Morons, but so much of his work in the last years had been around Iron man and the Ingrates. A lot of good tech could be borne out of Iron man. He'd always wanted to expand on that, but never really had the time, since he was running himself ragged to cover Rogers ass. At least all the hours he'd spent on the Avengers suits and tech wouldn't be entirely wasted, the Army would likely be delighted.
Except for Barfton's stuff. The archer had been a waste of space in more ways than one. Come to think of it, he was as shitty as a sniper as Natashalie was as a spy: What good are you if everyone knows it's you killing people with arrows?
And why, WHY had he gotten so suckered in with that bunch?
He'd sure fared better as a solo act... Although there would be some changes there, too.

"At least a couple. I have ideas *you got NO idea, honeybear*, but I need to see how they're likely to turn out. Some of the tech should be adaptable to other things, anyway."

"Alright, I can work with that. The prosthetics will bring good press, so that'll keep them happy. Now, to the big question: How long before we can stop worrying about you?"

"I hope never, Honeybear." Tony retorted "But this?" he rapped his chest lightly. "Probably faster than you think."

"Well, we shall see how that is by the times my mum manages to corner you. You know she will, Tones." Tony opened his mouth "I'm not lying to my mom."

Tony sighed. The threat was real: His platypus was no patsy, but his mother was a regular terror "I promise, Rhodey. No need to involve Mama. I'll get well soon."

"You'd better." His platypus answered, and then lifted a pizza slice, to signal a lovely meal should be had by all.

Chapter Text

Tony gave a little sigh of relief once the elevator doors closed, direction SI R&D labs.
Little chance of Fury getting to him in there, since security is usually a thing with weapons manufacturers.

Of course, it was much too early for the one eyed pirate to show up. Tony had little doubts that Fury knew about the palladium core, the subsequent poisoning, and true to form, was biding his time.
But...
But Tony had severely curtailed SHIELD's access to him, this time. Agent had not had the opportunity to get in touch with Pepper... And Romanoff had been bored silly in a menial secretarial job, one she got out of in a hurry when the FBI had gotten around to audit her office.
Which, okay, she got out... But leaving your desk with all your shit and not coming back is a sure way to raise federal agents interests, go figure.

Tony had had his own suspicions about Natashalie's abilities outside of honeypotting and subsequently killing men with her ankles for some time now, but really, that was shitty spying. SI had fended more competent attempts from Hammer, for God's sake!
Anyway, there was one very excited FBI agent who was on the trail and digging for all he was worth. JARVIS had played the little victory dance the agent had done when he'd found the bug in the archives server room. Cute.
Not that it mattered, really. JARVIS had been aware and filtered information: If someone tried to build anything following THOSE plans, they were in for a big surprise. Just ask Justin Hammer.

Anyway, back to Fury: Since Tony had done his best to curtail access, there was no guarantee the one-eyed pirate wouldn't try to get to him earlier... And Tony didn't want to face him before he had a number of ducks in a row.
Oh, he would meet with Fury at some point... if only to meet the furry (Tony wanted himself some flerken time!). But he was not in a hurry.

Other priorities, ya know?

He did find the minions all gathered around the Stark Expo model that had been relocated in the break room... It was the perfect place, and also the perfect moment, to have his "new element" epiphany.
Right there in front of everybody. (And OF COURSE Jarv was fully integrated in every room at R&D! Don't be ridiculous.)
After a few moments of stunned silence, most of the room exploded in cheers, while the most science oriented of the bunch outright raced each other to the newly minted Hadron collider, to get it started.
It took most of the day of intense sciencing, but in the end, Tony had an arc reactor that wasn't poisoning him... And SI added a new element to the periodic table.

The party was EPIC.

No, truly. Nobody parties like a bunch of nerds letting loose. Quite a bit of them MADE their own alcohol right there on the spot, and those potatoes died for a good cause, lemme tell ya! On top of that, with SI inegration policy, R&D had a really high female/male ratio, for a high tech company. Nothing to talk all that much about usually, but in this case... Well, if any of his minions found themselves in the family way, Tony was gunning for Godfather.

But for him, the fun really started when it was time to find the new kid on the block it's place in the periodic table... Just cozily nested between Adamantium and... Yep, Vibranium!
Tony had Happy get the remains of Cap's shield from his own lab safe and sent to him.
(No, he hadn't come with. There's genius, and there's suspiciously prepared.)

But it was so much fun, to see how similar Vibranium and the future named Starkium were.( Yes, Tony still thought Badassium was a superior name, but it didn't merge with his newfound mature personality. On top of that, discovery was published under the name of BOTH Starks, and Howard had never had much in the way of humor, as far as Tony knew.)

Still needed to do the work and research, of course, but Tony had had an inkling of what Wakandan Tech looked like and was able to do.

A lot.

And Starkium was basically synthetic Vibranium... Oh the possibilities!

Time for the lawyers to come in.
Tony chose not to clamp ownership and copyright on Starkium. First, because he truly believed that nobody should *own* an element. Second, because there was plenty to go around and even SI was too small to explore all the possibilities.
So Tony and his lawyers crafted an open-source agreement on the element creation process, just asking first dibs on partnership for any outside invention... It was not totally out of the goodness of his heart.

Tony never had much interaction with T'chaka, but his son was not amongst his preferred people... And there was something fishy about that country. Nobody can have a whole population with above average income... It's just NOT mathematically possible.

And, yes, Vibranium, rarest metal on Earth, yadda yadda.

Except Wakanda NEVER sold vibranium, apparently for religious reasons. Something you can't sell has no value by definition, so what Tony had seen of Wakanda material wealth made no sense whatsoever.
Same deal with Wakandan tech which apparently relied quite heavily on vibranium. It was very advanced, some good scientists in Wakanda obviously...But... It was also unsalable. For quite the same reasons. And once the labs around the world were going to grab Starkium and start playing with it, someone in Wakanda, at some point, would realize what was going on.

That the rest of the world was going to close the gap.

Tony wondered if T'Challa's father decision to open his country to the world was linked to Starkium discovery, the first time. No way to know, but smart. Especially since Tony had ben too harried to really study what he had.
But he recalled Wakandans tended to be very thin skinned regarding vibranium and related tech, which was the second reason he'd gone for the open-source thing. One billionaire, the infamous "Merchant of Death" hoarding a new element to himself and his company? Fair game.
Trying to wring a new toy out of the hands of scientists the world over? Good luck Wakanda.

Tony didn't wish ill to Wakanda. Quite the contrary. You could say that Tony, in fact, was very invested in T'Chaka continued good health. T'Challa, from the get go, had been a disaster of a king: Going on killing rampages, harboring terrorists... Giving away the conduct of his Army to Cap and his beard of Sorrow?! Which, WTF?(If Tony had been that Okoye lady, he would have been seriously pissed... And from what he'd seen in the movie marathon from Hell, she was not the kind of gal you want to piss.)
Tony was hoping that, if only by age and experience, T'Chaka would be more level headed and know that International Diplomacy is NOT supposed to be a dick measuring constest.

Hopefully.

But if Wakanda got pissy about Starkium, well, Tony wasn't going to go out of his way to interfere in what would likely happen: The world wondering why this small nation was kicking a fuss, more likely finding about the reality of Wakanda... And Wakanda not making friends the world over, starting with their neighbours.
But that was not his responsibility.

And Tony was going to be busy: He'd decided to stay close to the original timeline and go on with the Stark Expo, hopefully with much less Vanko... With less Monte Carlo races, too. It had been sort of fun for two minutes, but Tony could admit privately it had been stupid.
Heavy metal poisoning was a bitch.

Besides, why drive cars when he could go Mach 3 in the suit?

On another front, he had to devise a strategy to deal with SHIELD... and it's HYDRA addon.
His first instincts would have been to cut all and every possible ties with that bunch of leeches... But it had been such a big part of the original timeline that he would lose all hindsight if he did that.

And was it even possible?

Tony had to hand it to the one eyed menace (Fury, not Odin... even if that was another disaster in the making). He'd timed it masterfully, getting into his head when he wasn't thinking straight, and once he was there, manipulating him to his own end.
THAT had been Natashalie main job: Gaslighting and pushing on all his insecurities to make him a nice puppet.Which she was very good at... Much like Obie and using the same tactics.
Showed two things: One, that he had to watch for that, because genius or not, he was a sucker for that kind of thing. Two, that SHIELD needed him more than he needed them... so...

"Let them come."

Chapter Text

"Sir, someone matching your description of one Nick Fury has been caught on CCTV coming near the house" Jarvis notified him.

"Okay, I wasn't meaning right now... That bastard won't even give me the time to take a shower, will he?" Tony grumbled. He was tired and cranky.

"Sir? Shall we proceed?"

"Is he alone? Because if Natashalie or Agent are with... Not a fan of either's bedside manners."

"It seems so, Sir"

"Seems so?"

"There's also a feline on the same approach, at a short distance, but it could be a stray, Sir." JARVIS answered, and Tony felt a thrill of excitement. "Sir?"

"We'll proceed along what we planned, Jarv. If Nat or Agent materialize, zap them... Otherwise let Fury think he hacked you and record..." Tony thought for a moment. In his last life, on this exact date, and almost this exact hour, he was sitting on a giant doughnut, slowly losing his life and his mind. The least you could say was that the old pirate was consistent. So...

"Just in case he makes a move to have me injected with something, zap him too, Jarv. Last time, the stuff the Widow did me with was supposed to help, but that's no guarantee he hasn't decided I'm more trouble than I'm worth this time around, especially since we made life hard for him lately."

"Of course, Sir." The AI said with finality, and Tony had a small smile. It was good to associate that voice with JARVIS and not Vision again. In the end, it was a question of trust: he could trust one, and not the other.

*Well, color me surprised. Not.*, Tony thought as Fury took his leave in a great flap of leather coat like the drama queen he was. Almost word for word from their actual first meeting. Now that the billionaire could think clearly, he could really see the Director of SHIELD being as coy as a stripper with a G-string with his Avengers initiative. A bad one.
The fact that he'd fallen for it the first time around showed that heavy metal poisoning was no joke, and...

"Meow."

Tony looked down to see a somewhat familiar marmalade kitty "Sir, we have another visitor."

"So I see. Scan the house for bugs and disable them, JARVIS. Including on the cat."

Goose huffed slightly.

"Done, sir."

"How many?"

"Ten, Sir. Plus one on the collar tab of the...."

"Flerken, JARVIS. Goose is a Flerken."

Said Flerken looked highly offended, and was pawing it's collar in an irritated manner. Soon enough, there was a minute metallic sound, and a small tentacle grabbed the thing and disappeared in the cat's mouth. There was a slight crunching sound, and...

"Meow."

"Alright, Goose. Yes, I know who and what you are."

"Mreew?"

"Lived through some of the future, was shown the rest after a fashion. My best bud Colonel James Rhodes, will be happy to see Carol again. Yes, I also knew her. Now, to the point: Do you know who Thanos is?"

The Flerken hissed. Obviously, not a fan.

"He's going after the infinity stones for his little depopulation project... And we have two of those, possibly three right now on Earth. So the purple ape is going to show up sooner or later. You game?"

The cat seemed to think about things for a minute or so, and then jumped on the bar, sniffed... And extended a soft and tentative paw toward the blue light in Tony's chest. "Merh?"

"No, that's not the Tessaract. Made after my father's study of it, though. Oh, and while we're on the subject: I know Carol left you in Fury's care, but I guess you're mostly a free agent?"

All cats know how to look smug. It's sort of a feline superpower. One Goose got with the cat suit, obviously.

"I suppose you heard me tell Fury I wouldn't join his boys' band. I'm not going to change my mind; the last time was a disaster. In fact, I'm going to give my best shot at taking SHIELDRA down before they can do more damage. How attached are you to Fury? Considering the collar bugging and all that?"

Goose sort of shrugged. No tentacles, though, so Tony pressed his advantage: "Not going to kill him... Well, unless he tries it first. I just don't want to be his indentured servant. I can propose filet mignon and titanium treats? Even made synthetic vibranium, if you'd care for a taste?"

Ears and whiskers perked up, someone was interested.

"Just offering an alternative, since Fury is all good as long as you work for him without asking questions, but likely to try to kill you as soon as things are not going his way..." Goose sniffed in a disdainful manner."Or Carol. Do you really want to know how many criminals were amongst the *snacks* you had in the Raft? 12%."

The Flerken managed to look a tiny bit guilty... Then suspicious. Tony shrugged.

"Don't believe me? I guess you can go back to SHIELD and do your own investigations. I won't stop you. Just, well, my door is open if you decide to change your base of operation while waiting for Carol to come back."

"Meow."

"So, now that business is done, how about that synthetic vibranium munchie?"

Goose started to purr.

Chapter Text

The Flerken moved in as cats do, incrementally increasing her visits till one day, Tony realized he had gotten himself a lab cat. He put down the screwdriver he was holding and glared a bit at Goose lounging in her favorite spot (The one from where a deft tentacle could get at any tasty bits that fell from Tony's workbench)... And when did the damned thing got a favorite spot, complete with cushion ?

He said the last bit aloud, which elicited a few reactions: Goose smirked, whiskers vibrating in amusement, Dum-E whined a bit, and JARVIS felt the need to put his two cents in.

"Sir, Dum-E asked for the cushion, since Goose indeed does cut on his lab cleaning time."

Tony looked at Dum-E, who was doing the robotic equivalent of kicked puppy, and knew he'd been had. Sighed.

"I'm not mad, Dum-E... Just, someone could have been a little less sneaky about things." Tony patted Dum-E claw, who gave a happy beep and rolled over to make a celebratory smoothie (hopefully without fine grade motor oil this time), and looked at the flerken.

"So, you left SHIELD and Fury to their lies and manipulations?"

Goose huffed disdainfully and made a good show of total indifference by licking a paw.

"Did you at least pee in his boots before you left?"

Goose froze mid lick.

"No? Too bad. I'd have thought he deserved something, for the collar bugging and second rate food, you know... Going somewhere?" He added as the Flerked moved suddenly as she was late for an appointment "Well, don't be late for dinner, I'm ordering Alaskan crab to celebrate your moving in. Get on it, Jarv."

Goose looked briefly conflicted, she was crab addicted. But apparently, a prospect of smelly revenge trumped an amusing session of shell destruction by tentacles before getting to the sweet meat inside.

Priorities.

She ran a little faster, though.

Tony didn't watch. He'd had JARVIS record Goose way of travelling via her own inner pocket dimensions to study it, and the least you could say was the procedure was slightly disgusting. Thankfully fast, but still... The billionaire shrugged and returned to his tinkering.

"Sir, I am afraid we do have a visitor that is not likely to take no for an answer" JARVIS said suddenly as a CCTV image flashed up.

"Ah, yes. Him."

"You were expecting him, Sir?" JARVIS sounded a little confused, and Tony shrugged.
"I had a hunch he was going to show up sometime as I started changing stuff. Let him in before he tears the building down, will you? Oh, and heat up the vat."

The older man that passed the lab door smiled at Tony "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr Stark. You don't know me, but I have very relevant information concerning the future... It may sound strange, but you need to shut down your weapon manufacturing and affiliate yourself with SHIELD."

There was a long silence, then Tony barked a laugh.

"That's it? Shut your business and become Fury's lapdog? You're not even going to try harder? You show up, start giving me orders, and I'm supposed to obey them?"

"You don't know who I am, but..." Tony didn't let him finish.

"Sure do. Captain Asshole."

"I beg your pardon?" But Tony saw in his eyes the other man had gotten it.

"As well you should, since for me, the last time we saw each other, you did your best in trying to kill me. Probably succeeded, in fact."

"How... what? You can't... It's not supposed to be this way!"

Tony looked at his nails while Rogers floundered for a few minutes, but it stopped being fun very fast.

"I dunno, Rogers. Something interfered, I was thrown back to Afghanistan. I have my theory, but..." Rogers came a bit closer and spoke urgently.

"Tony, listen to me. You don't know, but you were right. There was someone behind Loki, and he will come back to kill all of us".

"You, saying I was right about something? Are you sick, Rogers, or just gotten senile?"

"But we won, Tony! We won the war! So, you see, you mustn't do anything different from last time, or we might lose this time."

"Oh? so we defeat that guy and then everybody can go home? If we do things just like last time, we're saved? ALL of us?"

"Yes, now you're getting it!" Rogers smiled, obviously sure he'd gotten what he wanted... as always. Tony let him bask 30 seconds, which was much more than he deserved... But he really wanted the rest to hurt.

"Still a liar, eh, Cap?"

"Wha..."

"Not going to tell me who's going to pay the price, Rogers? Who's going to die to defeat Thanos, leaving a widow and a little girl? Piece of shit."

Rogers opened his mouth, but Tony was not in the mood to listen to whatever tripe was going to come out of it "Shut up. Tough luck, asshole. I LIVED up to Siberia, but I was shown the rest. My theory is that you staying in 1948 to live your best, selfish life was the straw that broke the camel's back. As per usual, you shat on everything to get your way.... Except this time you went too far, and the space-time continuum is trying to heal itself."

Rogers crossed his arms and gave the patented 'Captain America is disappointed in you' look "And what you're doing is no different, Tony."

"Actually, it is. THAT is why I told you to keep interactions to a minimum... Which you promptly discarded as soon as you saw something you wanted: We created time loops, which is never good. Small ones, the Universe will repair fast and the continuum is restored. That WAS the point, if you recalled. But no, you had to *get the girl*, so you created a 67 years time loop. In fact, you are still doing it."

"I'm not! I never interfered with anything!"

"That's because you're a selfish bastard. And actually, it's just because you're here: There are TWO Steven Rogers in this universe, which are both the same but different. THAT is the problem.

To be fully honest, I think it's why my spirit was sent back, to correct that wrong. You're the mistake, but I'm a palimpsest: If I erase you, I'll get to rewrite that timeline as the original one. And, honey, it's gonna be a real pleasure, not to live in Captain America's world."

Tony had worked on lots of things since he'd come back. Some new, some old. That micro missile with cloaking tech was state of the art... and the guiding program no slouch either. Straight up the nose and explosion. Whatever passed for brains in Rogers cranium was akin to consommé, at this point. Good. Now for the important bit:

"JARVIS, open the vat. U, DUM-E, you do as daddy told you and you be careful, this is very important.

Tony watched as his bots lifted the idiot remains and slid them down the vat of smelted ores. JARVIS closed the thing before the smell of burning flesh and bones could penetrate the room.

"Are you sure this was the right course of action, sir?"

"I did not lie to the bastard, Jarv. His very existence was destroying the space-time continuum. Being in two places at the same time is for quarks, not humans. So, now we keep the vat on melt till he's burned to atoms. It should solve that problem, at least."

"You don't sound very happy, sir."

"Well, we are STILL going to have to contend with a Captain Murica... Probably soon, now. Trust me, one of those is plenty enough. As for happiness? No, that's not the word.... Satisfactory? Closer. It had to be done... Like... Taking out the trash.

Then Tony sort of felt it. Like the universe sighed. A relieved sigh.

Well, he could sure get behind that one.
*one down, another one to go*

Chapter Text

Tony spent the next few months, since, you know, he was not busy dying, consolidating his position.

First, the Armed forces: He did make War Machine (with added fail safes. He couldn't protect his platypus 100%, but he was gonna try his best) as a prototype for the Air Force.

As he'd suspected would happen, the Pentagon first enthusiasm was severely tempered when they had access to projected costs, not only for purchase, but also for maintenance. Not to mention that any suit had to be tailor made for the wearer.

The armed forces are all for tech, but it needs to be exploitable on a large scale. One of anything is not enough. Also, the Pentagon has money coming up the wazoo, but there's still a limit to everything.

To sweeten that disappointment, Tony came with multiple consolation prizes, all derived from Iron Man tech: The arc reactor clean energy (like last time) but also improved HUDs for pilots (with a tank version so the Army wouldn't get jealous of Air Force toys... Yes, Navy too, stop bickering!), the body armors Tony had developed for the Morons and that would be much more useful on a regular soldier. And, since it had already been build, War Machine stayed on loan with the Air Force.

And then there was SI Medical, starting with prosthetic, but to expand soon, with the recruitment of Drs Shoo and Hansen (the first one topping the second, who was brilliant, sure, but with a slightly iffy moral compass. Tony had decided that the easiest way out of that clusterfuck was to throw money at the problem: With the contract and facilities she had, Hansen would have been crazy to work for Killian... And she hadn't been crazy, but desperate.)
The prosthetic department creation, complete with a 100% free of charge policy for veterans, brought a beaming President Ellis to the inauguration. Not that Tony was surprised: He'd recruited quite a few of those vets to work and with and test run what his engineers came up with from the initial blueprints, and it made for a nice campaign ad.

Ellis, as Pepper, were a bit baffled about Tony's choice of a small town in Tennessee to create the facility, but the locals sure appreciated the change from chicken mills.
Tony had his picture taken with just about everyone in town... Including a young boy with a potato gun he sure knew how to use (Yes, Iron Man played tag with Harley... So what?)

SI was growing by leaps and bounds. Pepper, or course, was as brilliant a CEO as last time, no surprises there. But even she had problems with the workload, though, so Tony put FRIDAY on line a bit early. The both of them made a killer team, and the board was too anesthetized by stratospheric profits to utter a peep.

All in all, it looked like a good year.

Not that all was kittens and roses, though: Senator Stern did try for a hearing, pushed by SHIELDRA and Hammer (nicer bedfellows the world had never seen...).

It didn't get very far: From the Pentagon to the Coast Guards, just about everyone was benefiting from SI tech, and if they weren't, they sure dreamed of it. No one wanted to get themselves on SI's bad side.

You don't fuck with Santa before Christmas.

So the case just puttered off after the preliminary hearing. Tony had the delightful surprise to see that just about the only high ranking military was General Ross. He must have been there last time too, but lost in the general military uproar, so he hadn't noticed.
He could get the reason: As Tony well knew, the suits were one of the few things that could keep up with the Hulk, so of course Ross wanted one, now that Brucie bear was online, so to speak.
Just, associating himself with HYDRA that way, even unknowingly, was going to be a shit stain in the future for Ross. Good.

Speaking of shit stains and pain in the ass... SHIELD.

Oh, it was around. Tony had no intentions to completely change the timeline. He couldn't, really, at any rate. Yes, he was rich, influential, powerful... But he was a lone man. In fact, this little trip in the past had the added benefit of absolving him from a lot of guilt.
He could do everything differently, but he couldn't change what other people had decided to do.

Case in point: Fury.

Arguably the most stubborn, and certainly the smelliest, Director of SHIELD.
Goose had really liked the idea, so she ran with it... In fact, the Flerken had decided Fury's boots were her new litter box, and good luck in getting anything out of the reach of a portal travelling cat. Fury was trying hard, but unfortunately for him, she now saw that as both a game and a challenge on her abilities and was not letting go. As far as Tony could tell (and sometimes smell!), she got him at least thrice a week.

Between that and JARVIS and FRIDAY looking for, and finding, the hundreds of small ways SHIELD had been bleeding SI, and Tony personally, dry (Including a lifetime pension for a Stephen Grant put in place by one Peggy Carter for "services rendered" whatever that meant. Not that he was surprised, but really, was there a moment when Captain Douche WASN'T mooching off him?), and closing them off, the Director was like a badger with a sore paw.

And just about as odoriferous.

But a severely curtailed one. For the first time in years, SHIELD was having to do with a diminishing budget. It had skimmed for years by taking smallish percentages all over the place, but those were getting cut off, and they couldn't really do much about it while the FBI, CIA... and IRS were still nosing around.
Fury was just counting his luck that Stark hadn't yet found their main source, aka what Carter had put in place behind Howard's back in the forties.

In which Pooboots was sadly mistaken. Tony knew about it, he just wasn't pushing it.

Yet.

After all, he needed SHIELD, and possibly, the Avengers, to deal with the Chitauri invasion. At this time, it was a necessary evil. The IRS and the alphabet soup were chipping at it slowly but surely, though.
And what a pee smelling SHIELD director faced with budget cuts does?
Well, he's not getting creative, for sure. First, there was the blackmail with Howard's research, and the fake solicitude with his health... Must have been his best card, since he looked like he'd sucked on a lemon when Tony opened his collar to show perfectly healthy skin. The subsequent lawsuit prompted the Agent home invasion... With assorted threats. Agent Agent was still a shitty houseguest, no matter the timeline.

And then Goose decided to pick a side.
The Flerken usually made herself scarce when Fury showed up, unannounced and uninvited (but not as discreet as he thought), but this time, as soon as Tony went to his lab on *house arrest*, she took action.
2010 Tony would probably have freaked out on witnessing what was happening in his living room, but post Siberia Tony with knowledge of Thanos could appreciate a top notch tentacles game when he saw it.

Jarvis was a bit more dubious.

"Are you certain we want the creature in house, Sir?" The AI inquired. Tony nodded vigorously.

"Certain. Especially now she's decided to kick agent Agent's ass."

"Is the cat... eating them?"

Tony looked on as Goose did her thing and disappeared from the room, to re-appear moments later. She sneezed a couple of times and expelled what could only be a regulation handgun.

"I don't think so, but we should know in 3... 2 ... 1..."

"Sir, Director Fury on the line."

"Oh, this his going to be fun... What can I do for you, Nicky?"

"STARK! What the Hell have you done with my Flerken and why did she just vomit Coulson and my other agents on my desk?!!!"

"That's the weirdest excuse for breaking and entering I've ever heard, and I'm sure the judge will agree with me. And what's a Flerken?" Tony answered lightly.

"The cat. Goose."

"Yes, what about her?" Said Goose entered the lab, climbed on the for once empty workbench and began a thorough tongue bath.

"Where did you get the cat, Stark?" Fury hissed, and Tony shrugged.

"She's been wandering in and out of the house for some time now. She has a nametag but no chip, and no one in the neighborhood claimed her, so she's probably gonna stay. She's a cute kitty, DUM-E likes her a lot. Why?"

"That's not a cat, Stark. That's a Flerken, and she's VERY dangerous. And she's mine." Fury growled. Tony gave in the laughter and turned the phone toward Goose, who, with impeccable timing, did the classic *hind leg up the air while I lick my butt* pose.

"Goose dear? The bad man says he owns you. What do you answer to that?"

Goose raised her head, looked straight at the screen and hissed, showing teeth and all. Tony would have thought twice about coming near the Flerken when she was in that mood, and, from the audible gulp, so did Fury.

"Right. So, either she's a cute kitty and you're batshit crazy... Or she's as dangerous as you say and doesn't seem to like you very much. Either way, I think Goose is gonna stay here as long as she wants. Oh, and you can be sure I will report Agent & entourage unwelcome visit and assorted threats to the FBI, Nick."

"Fuck you, Stark" And Fury cut the call.

"Well, that was quite satisfying. Thank you, Goose."

"Meow"

"Can I interest you in an assorted snack: Titanium, Adamantium and a bit of starkium for flavor?

"Meh."

"Copper gold munchies again?"

"Mwah!"

"Alright, but even if it keeps your fur a nice color, you should watch the gold intake, Goose. You're putting on a little weight." Tony said as he got the ore cabinet. Goose huffed disdainfully and gave him a playful swat. "And while you're having your snack, let me tell you about what's going to happen quite soon..."

The murderous furball kept her eyes on the munchies (that glutton liked a lot of gold in her copper), but the ears perked up. She was paying attention.

Chapter Text

Anyone who was asked (and quite a few who weren't but put their two cents in anyway) agreed: The Stark Expo was going to be THE event of the year.

Which left Tony both, well, flattered... But also trying not to laugh hysterically, as he'd sort of worked the time frame and found out that his Expo, the Culver U Hulk rampage courtesy of Ross AND Thor et al first touchdown on Earth for centuries were going to happen the SAME WEEK.

Sometimes Tony wondered if the Universe had it for him personally, or what?

Unfortunately, Tony had no way to intercept the Trickster during the very short trip he'd done at the time, and even if he could, the billionaire was pretty sure the God of mischief was not in a frame of mind to listen.

Thor would, maybe, have been more possible, but Tony was not having fond memories of the God of jocks, and showing up in a small desert town where he had no reason to be was a sure way to raise Fury's suspicions higher than they already were.

Tony had offered a grant to Dr Foster for her research, but had left it at that.

The Culver U debacle was a bit easier to manage, at least in part: Tony had set a series of tours of the Stark Expo at bargain prices for the main universities, all-inclusive, and slotted Culver U/MIT for that same week.

Nerds being nerds, the tours were already booked solid, so labs and all would quite deserted... Or at least not as bustling as they would normally be for when Ross and his goons would charge with guns blazing. The rest was on the Hulk, but Green Bean had shown remarkable restrain the last time around, and Tony saw no reasons for things to have changed on that front.

That left the Expo.

The question was with or without Vanko?

Since there had been no Monte Carlo race shenanigans, Tony has not met with his Russian wannabee Nemesis yet. So, on the plus side, while Justin Hammer was still a little rat, he was not aware of Vanko's technical expertise, which was good news for the Expo crowd (Hopefully. Hammer had requested a demo slot time, so things could still explode).

But...

But Tony didn't know were the enraged madman was, this time around. And even without boosting Hammer tech to a point of proficiency, those energy whips had been lethal and Tony didn't like the idea of that kind of firepower let loose in the Expo crowds.

JARVIS was scouring the net in search on the Russian, but so far, no cookies.
Tony was almost ready to call the whole thing off when...

"Meow"

Tony looked at Goose, as the Flerken had disappeared on him for the past few days "Goose! Where have you..."

And stopped short as the feline was looking like she'd jammed her tail in a socket, fur standing on ends and small bolts of lightning coursing on it. Blue was not her color.

"Merkoff koff"

Tony watched as some quite familiar whips landed at his feet and short circuited with a last blue discharge as the cat shook herself to put her fur back in a semblance of order.

"No Vanko?"

Goose looked straight at Tony and burped delicately.

Oh, well... At least that was a permanent solution to the problem. Tony scooped the non-cat, and Goose immediately made herself comfortable in his arms, purring as her pet dutifully provided ear scritches.

This human was vastly superior to the one Carol had left her with. She would have to make that clear if her friend ever came back on Earth.

The food of course, and the accommodations (yes, Goose had noticed the very soft and comfy pillows that had appeared all over the place... And her very own bathroom for when she wasn't feeling up to find Fury's boots to do her business. Some magic machine with soft and always fresh sand), but also the fact that he didn't treat her like an employee of sorts.

Or worse, like a pet.

Let's be real, if there was a pet in this relationship, it was NOT Goose.

At least this one seemed intelligent enough to have cottoned up on that. Vast improvement. Goose stretched a bit and marked her new pet again, so that no one, especially the tabby two doors down, would get any ideas. He was cute, and maybe Goose wouldn't be adverse to further Intergalactic relations... But she wasn't sharing her stuff.

But she hadn't had Flerkins for a while now... Maybe, if the local feline population proved itself compatible?

In the meantime, Goose hoped her pet had no urgent need to move as she settled on his lap. The other human had tasted like sour cabbage, which was not Goose preferred taste, even if the blue lightning had provided a pleasant aftertaste. Almost minty. The bird had been a bit of a let down for dessert: certainly didn't taste as good as it looked. Another one which was all show and no substance.

Still, on top of the first course... Goose needed a digestive nap.

As predicted, the Stark Expo was THE event of the year.

Of course, there was a brief moment of panic when the Hammer suits short circuited and started a small blaze as they toppled over, but it was short-lived as strategically placed hoses inundated the stage with carbolic foam (DUM-E was almost unbearably excited as he watched events unfold, and then kept the scene in his internal memory to repeat at leisure. Tony wondered briefly if he'd unknowingly invented robotic porn, then shrugged. To each their own.). The picture of Hammer emerging from the foam glasses first made the news and everyone had a good laugh, which is always nice.

Culver U had its Hulk moment, with no casualties (Amongst staff and students... Ross' men, Tony was less curious), and then Banner went on the run as he was wont to do. Tony used a bit of his current standing with the Pentagon to express his surprise at Ross' behavior and wondering aloud about consequences. As it turned out, the General was not very popular amidst his equals.

Of course, the last thing the military would do was officially denounce Ross... Not to the public, at any rate. But some internal politicking was certainly at play.

The only thing that had happened exactly as last time, as far as Tony could tell was the Thor/Loki/Assholes 3 clusterfuck in New Mexico. Fun times ahead for everyone, especially the Trickster. Tony was feeling a bit sorry for him, to be honest. Compared to Odin, Howard was father of the year.

But... Well, Thanos WOULD come for the infinity stones for his little depopulation project, and Tony didn't dare touch that timeline too much. Last time, they'd won the New York invasion by an incredible combination of luck... And someone botched his own invasion left, right, and center.

Tony had to ensure it would go as well this time around, possibly better if he could.

Work to do.

Chapter Text

It was extraordinary, Tony thought, the amount of stuff you're able to do when you're not rushing left and right to extinguish brush fires after idiots... Or coddling a bunch of ungrateful sociopaths.
He'd almost forgotten how it felt, to have time that was his own.

Not that he wasn't busy, mind you. He was working on Iron man 8 jumping to 80... with perks. Once he'd gotten used to the permanent coconut taste again, it wasn't all that bad. Was he going to go through the arc reactor removal again? He wasn't sure. Not really worth it if he had another "friendly" discussion with Crapstain for whatever reaso... Barnes, of course it would be Barnes.
He thought about it, because the electro magnet casing may have been stylish, but was not exactly comfortable.

The things one does for fashion.

But however you cut it, with or without the arc reactor, Tony would apparently require Extremis at some point... The only other solution was the Eskrine serum, and Tony had some deep suspicions about that one, considering how all the recipients had turned out. So, Extremis. Not enough to get flamey because DUM-E would never get over it, but enough to boost his system slightly. Also, nanites at some point

So he was keeping an eye on what Cho and Hansen were doing, just in case. Yes, squishy science was not supposed to be his forte, but he'd managed when Pep's life had been on the line, hadn't he? And now that SI was investing in medical, it was only normal he took an interest in it, after all.
The Craddle seemed to be well on it's way, but Extremis was slow going. Tony guessed working for a psycho with blatant disregard for human life and ethics was a powerful motivator, in it's way.
Tony and SI Medical could offer full dental, but as incentives went, it was apparently not the same thing.

Oh, well...

In the meantime, Tony worked at bettering his relationship with the Pentagon... And the UN, for obvious reasons.

Tony knew how to track his own tech. Stane didn't like it, for now quite obvious reasons, but the trackers had been a Howard policy from the start, so not that easy to turn back. Tony just revived it, with JARVIS help.
Last time, he'd gone lone wolf as he blew Ten Rings hiding places all over the middle East...This time, he did it with the US military blessing... of sorts, anyway.
They never were going to say out loud they were glad Iron Man was blasting all caches resulting from Stane backdoor dealings to Hell and high water, off course...But they didn't object either. In fact it was astonishing how many assorted generals and colonels "forgot" plans and maps of known hideouts when he was in their offices and they went for coffee.
After all, all what Tony took care off was something they would NOT have to face in the field.
And yes, Tony was officially a civilian, but he'd been considered Pentagon/NATO compatible almost since the day he'd been born. So much he was actually invited to the Christmas parties and various events.

And in his spare time, Tony helped with a few local incidents in Malibu or NY, including occasionally pulling kittens out of trees. Wonderful PR, kittens... especially when Goose insisted to come with. She usually meowed a few times before pining the crying kitten with a firm paw and giving it a thorough tongue washing on the spot. The kitty usually calmed down after that, not that it had much choice.

Goose had apparently a quite "no nonsense" approach to parenting... And also a made to measure perch on the Iron Man suit, which was one of the perks Tony added since he'd discovered the Flerken simply ADORED flying, the faster the better. Tony could relate.

And it was somehow comforting to have someone quite literally "watch his back" from her comfy kitty backpack.

As one would expect, Iron Man and his "Iron Kitty" were a media sensation all over the globe. And if Tony needed any more proof that the Flerken was highly intelligent, he got it as Goose played the medias like a pro, posing for photoshoots with Iron man and even hosting a press conference that delighted cat lovers.(not a tentacle in sight, obviously)
The Maria Stark Foundation created a no kill shelter in Manhattan, close to the Stark Tower, and SI medical started working on allergies. All in all, life was good.

"Sir, the frozen body of Mr Rogers has been found."

Crap.

"They found the Capsicle? How do you know this, Jarv?"

"SHIELD internal servers are buzzing with it...And so do the HYDRA branch. Everyone seems to be overly excited by the news, sending elementary caution to the wind" Jarvis sounded a bit sceptical about the humans behavior and Tony smirked.
"Rogers hype has that effect on people at large, Jarvis. Better take that into account as we plan to erode that. How is that docu drama going?"

"Editing, Sir."

"And?"

"I don't think Director Fury is going to show it to the recovering Captain, sir." The AI said primly after a few seconds. Tony laughed.

He wasn't going to undo all that had been built around Rogers in the past forty years (Thanks, Howard!), but he was sure going to try. The thing about icons is that there's always a commemoration thing to pull out if you wanted to.

The second thing about icons is that after almost half a century of hype, not only were some people more than ready to write the darker side of the story... But people would be willing to listen... so amusing to watch an idol crumble on its feet of clay, after all.

Since Carter retired (probably to bone Cap 2.0 in peace), SHIELDRA had unsurprisingly let the propaganda about Crapstain slide. Comics, yes. But comics don't shape most of the people opinion. Not outside the US, anyway.
So when the Maria Stark Foundation offered grants to historians and documentary filmmakers to do stuff about Captain America and the Howlies "to keep the memories alive", it was unsurprising only about 12% of the project had a positive spin... Tony was sure the 88% others were persuaded they were dangerous rebels taking huge risks, conning the Starks in paying to demolish Howard's legacy, but he wasn't going to complain.
It was just the right time, too. Some of the Howlies were still alive, as were some Brooklyn people who had known Rogers as a kid. And since Captain America was such an icon, even the ones who had died had told stories to their own kids for sure.

God only knew Howard could never shut up about "Steve" once he'd had a glass or two.

And since Rogers had always been a piece of shit, Tony was pretty certain some quite ugly stuff was going to rise to the surface. Looking forward to it, actually.

Tony was not deluding himself: People were not going to change their mind about Cap fast. The simple fact that he was "Captain America" shielded (pun intended.) him with a hefty dose of somewhat rabid patriotism, and some people would willfully stay blind to anything other than Rogers been a tall blond white blue eyed man with the US flag on his ass.
A portion of those would passionately fight to keep that ass in spandex no matter what.

But they were not the majority, since, oh shock, there was a world out there.

A lot of people on the planet were not entranced with the US of A and that flag to begin with, some with very good reasons. Tony was in a position to know exactly how many countries the US Military had carpet bombed in the last 40 years, and he was not naive enough to think that endeared them to the people that emerged from the rubble.

Maximoff had made that abundantly clear, if nothing else.

And even with their nominal allies, the hamfisted tendencies of the US diplomacy and the "manifest destiny" thing tended to rub people the wrong way, go figure. SI was a global corporation, after all, so Tony had to learn that while most people were going to be polite (because nukes, if nothing else) they found the arrogance extremely irritating.

And Rogers, with his Holier Than Thou attitude, his certainty that he was always right, his unwillingness to compromise, talk... Or even consider that others would, and could have different viewpoints that would be as valid as his own, well...

"The best hands are our own"

That was going to go up like a lead balloon on quite a big chunk of the planet. And let's not mention Rogers "old-fashioned values", shall we?
The first time he would open his mouth without close supervision (and Tony knew all about how Crapstain felt about supervision), he was going to offend at least a solid dozen influencers in all walks of life and maybe a head of state or two.

In fact, time to stock on popcorn and missiles, if Tony was not mistaken about the date.

Chapter Text

Tony had agonized for quite a while to what to do about the first invasion: To interfere in Stuttgart or not to interfere in Stuttgart, that was the question.

In the end, he'd decided to attend the F-cell expo to launch his arc reactor to the EU market, which meant he was close by when Loki would do his "kneel" thing. Yes, he could have attended that concert and saved that man's eye. Maybe.
BUT, that meant the God would get swallowed by Shieldra and everything would go off script to a point where Tony was not comfortable with.

On top of that, the Trickster plan at that stage had obviously been to attract Asgard attention, and if Tony's intervention blocked that, there was no way he could predict in what direction Loki would go, since the God of mischief was nothing if not inventive by definition.

So yes, Tony had finally decided to let events unfold up to a certain point.
He'd sure lost sleep over it, had JARVIS run the numbers again and again. Jarvis had helpfully pointed out that as World Domination went, Loki's plan for it was certainly the weakest on record if Tony's recollections were exact.
The God had undoubtably botched his own invasion, as Tony had long suspected.
It made things a bit easier.

Not by much, but a bit.

So Loki did his thing, which included wiping the floor with the SHIELDRAvengers. Tony had almost forgotten about that and had to mentally kick himself to not let it go on too long, just in case Crapstain got too irritating and ended into super soldier paté (or wurst. This was Stuttgart, after all). Captain Asshole had been so outclassed in that fight it was almost not funny.

Almost. Tony may have indulged in a few chuckles.

Afterwards, events unfolded as they had last time, or close to. Thor showed up, tried to kill everyone in sight before slightly listening to reason and throwing his so called little brother under the bus. The usual, if the Trickster fleeting expression was anything to go by.
And then, because he was nice and ultimately where he wanted to be, the so called invader let everyone and his "captors" have a good night sleep.

And Tony took a gamble. There was no way to be sure he would be invited back on the Helicarrier, but he put his chips down on Fury's greed, and hit paydirt. Of course the one eyed bastard wouldn't pass the opportunity to try to get him under his thumb.

If anything, a still "Merchant of Death" Stark was an ever better fish to catch, so yeah, Tony was invited back.

Last time, the genius had taken the night to brush up on his astrophysics. This time, he spends it on conference calls between the Pentagon, the FBI, the WH and whomever might be interested to learn about the ultra shady & super secret organisation that could afford the kind of firepower that an helicarrier was.
Also, the high-ranking members of the Pentagon were VERY interested to know about more than potential extraterrestrial threats since it was sort of their job? Protecting the US? Sorta? Maybe?

In retrospect, Tony wondered what Fury thought the US military forces were for. Parades?

Considering some of the generals faces, that idea also crossed their minds and they were not happy with it.

What the NSA, CIA, FBI and their buddies disliked whas not knowing about all of this. SHIELD had no legal existence, no authority to do anything more than the average Joe Smuck, and no right whatsoever to do any of what they were doing.
Guess they took the left.

So Tony did exactly what he'd done last time, with one small differene: When JARVIS would crack open SHIELDRA, he would invite the DC alphabet soup for the ride. Sort of what Natashalie and Crapstain did a few years later, but in a much more orderly fashion. And yes, he could taste the absolute irony of that.

Speaking of Spider and Moron, nothing changed except the way he looked at them, Tony guessed. The super ultra secret spy was painfully obvious, now that he wasn't battling the aftermath of heavy metal poisoning. The Widow had obviously been told to play nice, but she despised him, and she didn't really hide it that well... Also, she was distracted because Barton was Loki's puppet.
Which was honestly the only surprising thing, the Red Room graduate had no allegiance out of her own ass... Guess she could have mild affection as long as it didn't really inconvenience her, a bit like Rogers.

Ah, Rogers...

The bis repetita version was as obnoxious as the first one had been. To the word, almost. Tony had no idea what "footage" the idiot was referring to this time, since neither the birthday party or the Senate hearing played like last time.
No matter, Tony was pretty sure Fury would find something to paint him with a shit brush, there was plenty of that floating around thanks to Stane. And so Tony did not even try and totally ignored the scepter influence, thus not indulging the Super Soldier and his dick measuring contest.

Which really irritated the idiot when he realized he was sort of ridiculous, the only one with his metaphorical dick out... And doubled down on it. Again, shades of déjà vu. Tony was sure the brass watching all this unfold live in the Pentagon was very impressed with the "Perfect Soldier."

Rogers didn't know it yet, but he'd thawed this time in a world that was much less impressed by Captain America than he was.

The Brits, in particular, had been savage.
The BBC had always known how to do documentaries well, and "Captain America vs Steve Rogers" had been no exception. A four parter mini series, no less.

So, all right, a bit was due to the increasing tendency of Hollywood and the US media in general to push the narrative that the great United States of America had won WWII all by themselves. Yes, Hollywood was primerly catering to the home market, but as time passed, it got less and less subtle... To the point of literally erasing everyone else.
In the latest iterations, it was not a World War anymore, but more "America vs Nazis Mortal Combat" type of thing. The film industry had never been renowned for its historical accuracy, but it had gotten downright ridiculous.

And Rogers, with the US flag quite literally painted on his butt, was the perfect target to aim a growing resentment at. It had not been hard to find people to talk... The Falsworth and Dernier families had quite a bit to say about their fathers, grandfather, uncles erased from History.

The gem Tony would always credit that BBC reporter for, was finding Rogers old schoolteacher. They'd apparently bonded over cats (Loved them!), and then Rachel Montalto opened up and talked about her most famous pupil: "Proudly ignorant, stubborn as a herd of mules and unrelenting little bigot"

Ouch.

Coming from a Jewish woman of Italian descent? Double ouch.
Ms Montalto had been 96, but all the crayons were in the box, and as sharp as befitted a former schoolmarm. And she directed the reporter to other Brooklyn residents or their families who had quite a different take on the "legend."
As Ms Montalto put it "He always was a little shit who'd needed a good butt paddling, but Sarah was working so hard and they were both quite sick, so we let things slide a bit. I guess I'm glad he turned out as he did and got the the heroic death he wanted so much, because I don't think I would like to have to deal with an enhanced Steve Roges."

On point. Tony could have kissed her.
Unfortunately, by the time the documentary aired, she'd passed away. Tony had to contend himself with rescuing the kitties from a harried great niece who couldn't deal with five furry deities.

Speaking of deities, here was one coming up, complete with horned helmet...

Chapter Text

"I hope you're not going to appeal to my humanity?" Loki smirked.

"I hope you're not going to appeal to hers?" Tony smirked right back.

"Meow"

"Oh, Norns..."

Tony took a seat at the counter as Goose went to work.
He'd told the murderous furball what had happened, shown her footage of the Hulk greatest hits as soon as they went online.

She'd looked impressed, and Tony had been pretty certain she wasn't going to let green bean one up her. He gave a slow clap for an exceptionally skillful maneuver between the two main tentacles at play...

...And then winced at a particularly sharp crack. ("And here goes my living room floor")

"Goose dearest? I know you're having fun but please do remember we sort of want him in one piece? When he's been tenderized enough to your taste, of course"

The Flerken gave him the side eye, huffed a bit and gave the Trickster a half-hearted last wack before retreating the tentacles and meowing imperiously.

"Yes, I know, you want on the action. Go then. And remember, no eating Rogers."

Goose looked as skeptical as she always did at that one. He'd told her the condensed version of what he'd told JARVIS and she'd been incensed even before he got to Siberia... Afterwards, she'd looked like a psychotic bottle brush for a few hours.

Tony was never, like never ever ever, leaving Rogers and Goose alone in the same room without ensuring himself an ironclad alibi. And it was up to him, because he was not certain he could trust JARVIS on that front.
Which sort of gave him warm fuzzies, but he was not sure that "The cat ate Captain America" was going to fly very far with the American public. Sounded a bit too much like "The dog ate my homework", if you asked him.

In the meantime, he had a God to put back on his feet as Goose took the place of his new armor coming up in the elevator.The furry fury wanted to be where the party was gonna be. He just waited as the Trickster opened his eyes (Green, yeah!) and extended a full glass of Bruichladdich X4 Quadrupled Whiskey. One dark eyebrow raised, but the god accepted the drink. A sip, and the second eyebrow joined its brother.

"This is actually quite good."

"Not your Asgardian mead, but that's one of the strongest alcohols on the planet. I thought you'd appreciate a stiff one, all things considered."

"You're exceedingly hospitable" The green eyes sharpened suddenly "Also, you know far too much."

"For a Midgardian you mean? Would you believe me if I told you I lived through this before? Also, something you might appreciate: Odin's a dick."The God gave a sharp bark of laughter at that before taking another sip "And I know you wanted to attract Asgard attention, but trust me, that's not going to get you very far. Odin's just going to lock you up and throw away the key."

The God of Being Lied To hand spasmed and the empty glass shattered "I had hop..."He took a sharp breath and got himself under control, pinching his lips. With some surprise, Tony could see the faint dots around the Trickster's mouth *so THAT was true*

"So what is your plan? The Chitauri will come... I had an army."

"I have a Flerken... And a Hulk... And also an army. Which you should know. You HAVE been here before, after all."The Trickster lips twitched, but he didn't provide an answer. Tony let it hang there for a few seconds, but they were on the clock here.

"Okay, I'll bite. I can secure you refuge on Earth, since I can prove the mind control... As long as you can be seen helping. Closing the portal that will..."

"Just has opened, Sir. Sending drones as planned." Jarvis interfered, which made the Trickster jump "Who's there?"

"That's JARVIS, my AI."

"Your manservant?"

"I am Sir gentleman's gentleman, yes."

"And so much more, JARVIS. But back to you...What do you say?"

"What happens to me? You said you lived through this before..." Tony sighed, but it wasn't an unexpected question.

"Okay. Shit dad throws you in jail, Thor totes forget you exist till his girfriend releases the Reality stone and he needs you. Your mom dies, Thor believes you also do saving his ass, has a sad and decides to get better with his girl on Earth. You not dead of course, so you surprise shit dad who has convenient Odinsleep attack and you get to rule Asgard under disguise for awhile. Odin kicks the bucket, surprise elder sister come out of magic prison mad as Hela (see what I did there?). Big fight, big sis kicks BOTH your asses and you get hitched with disco Jeff Goldblum for awhile. Steal a ship, another big fight you lose and Asgard gets destroyed so you end up here anyway. Thanos shows up, whips our collective asses, yours in particular and you get very dead, for real this time. That's good enough for you?"

To his credit, the Trickster only blinked a few times during that "What's in it for you?"

"I want your loyalty."

The God laughed, "You want the loyalty of the God of lies? Are you insane?"

"Don't bullshit me, Loki. You're the God of Mischief and Fire, not the God of lies. And you've been insanely loyal to that crap family of yours for millenias. I want that. I've been giving all to people who stood in line to stab me in the back, and I'm tired of it."

"You want an ally."

"And you badly need one."

Both men sized each other, then the Trickster smiled, sharp and dangerous "You got yourself a deal, Stark. Get me political asylum from Asgard and you will have my loyalty up to the moment we defeat Thanos."

Tony smiled internally as he'd expected the God to put some limitations on that. Not that it made that much difference, considering their respective life expectancy: The Jotun would still be young when Tony would be long dust. But it was still a good sign the Trickster started to put down limits."Good. Now let's go close that portal before the World Security Council panics and I Have to piggyback a nuke again."

But of course it couldn't be that easy.
In the minute or so it took them to take the elevator to the roof and bash Selvig a good one on the head, Tony coms exploded. First Barton, then the rest of the CrapVengers having hysterics because Tony was on the roof with Loki and had been "compromised." Tony killed that feed fast.
Then a very irate General informing him that indeed, a nuke was on it's way to New York. Tony sighed, "Honestly, I need a karma vacation... Fury?"

"The World Secu..."

"Of course, what was I thinking? You self professed *Protectors of Humanity*, and your first instinct is to nuke the East Coast, congrats!"

"Does this mean we can't close the portal yet, Stark?" The Trickster had to put his two cent in.

"Is that Loki? Are you compromised, Stark?"

"Oh shut up you idiot. JARV how long?"

"Three minutes before impact, Sir."

"What's going on, Stark? We need to close that portal before more Chitauri get through."

"We can't."

"Why?"

"Do you know what an atomic bomb is?"

Allspeak could be tricky with technical terms, but the God nodded "Yes. Crude but effective."Tony snorted.

"Yes, you could say that. Well, there's one going our way right now, and the only safe place that thing should be is through THAT. So I guess I'll go and..."

"Allow me, Man of Iron"

Tony almost blurted, "Are you channeling your brother right now?" but stopped himself as the Trickster grabbed the stone encasing of the scepter. The light dulled as the Gods eyes went neon green and he thrusted the scepter at Tony. "Close the portal as soon as I am on the other side, Stark"

"What? Lokes?!"

But the God was already gone in a flash of green, only to reappear carrying the bloody missile right in the axis of the tower and fly up in a flurry of long hair, leather and green.

"Honest, the drama queen... JARVIS, did that asshole just WINK at me?!" But he kept the HUD trained on the missile as it went through the portal and then took the two steps to Selvig's machine as he counted in it's head. He remembered them well, some of the longuest 10 seconds of his life. And then thrust the scepter on the engine and shorted the portal.
For a couple seconds, he couldn't see anything, and then...

"He's not slowing down." he looked around and slid the scepter in direction of a patiently waiting Goose before taking off, barely managing to break the God's fall and take him back to his landing pad "Hey, you okay, Reindeer games?"

There was a sliver of green "I knew I could count on you, Stark"

"You... Are you telling me this was a TEST, you bastard?"

"Well, that's for me to know and for you to guess, Anthony." The God answered with a chuckle.

"Don't call...crap, forget that. Yeah, too late and I so want to kick your ass right now."

"My, my, Anthony... not before at least the second date, who do you take me for?"

"You piece of shit, get up before your not-brother gets up there. I can stop SHIELD to get their paws on you, but not him." The Trickster smiled. "And I can stop him, but not your shield."

"How convenient. Drink?"

"Yes, it must be fates. And why not?"

As they settled on each side of the bar, the God of Thunder landed on the pad, the rest of the Avengers emerged from the elevator, and Goose jumped on the bar. The three exchanged a glance.

"May the games begin, Loki doki."

"Indeed, Tin Man"

"Meow."

Chapter Text

Of course they had to contend with the noise first. Between Thor dulcet tones and the Avengers who were already on the track of "if we scream long and loud enough it's real", it was a regular pandemonium.

Tony took his phone out and updated the Pentagon on last events, Loki sighed and looked as he had a serious headache coming... And then Goose had enough an unleashed a flurry of tentacles as a warning.
Fast, but impressive.

The sudden silence was almost deafening.

"My God, what is THAT?" Rogers finally said.

"Flerken." Both Thor, Loki and Tony answered while Natasha remarqued "It looks like Fury's cat" and Barton made retching noises before notching an arrow toward Goose.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Birdbrain, Fury would not like if you harmed her... And neither would I."

"Why should I listen to you, Stark, you're obviously compromised." The Archer hissed, to which Tony shrugged "Roll it, J"

Once the video admission of Goose identity and nature recorded a few monts ago was seen and heard by all, Barton let out a low growl and let the arrow fly toward Loki. It worked just as well as the last time as the trickster snatched it off the air before looking at it curiously.

"I wanted to ask, Stark. I thought you would have evolved past that stage by now?"

"We have. Barton is just a bit slow on the uptake, that is all."

yes, it was nasty. Yes, he probably shouldn't have. But as nasty comments went, Tony had quite a score to settle with the archer.
On top of that, he was powerfully distracted as Goose ambled towards the end of the bar toward the Hulk and raised her head to sniff. Curious, Hulk squatted down to be level with that new and fearless creature. Goose took the last step and nose booped him.

Which almost had Tony making cooing noises... And the Hulk melt down to Banner after a laughing rumble. Goose watched the process with what could only be described as curiosity, but completely lost interest as soon as a confused Bruce Banner stood in lieu of his alter ego, going back to stand with Tony and Loki. With and added head bump to Tony so he wouldn't feel neglected.

"We should have some stuff to fit you, Brucie bear." The billionaire offered, "Just follow Jarvis directions." The elevator doors opened with a "This way, Dr Banner." Bruce went in, a bit zombie like as he always was after a green moment.

One down, four to go.

Rogers was wearing his should be patented "Cap is disappointed with you" face, which Tony found surprisingly ineffective now that he didn't give a fuck. Natashalie looked shifty but that was her default mode so Tony didn't read much on it, Barton was apoplectic but when wasn't he? Useless, in short.

"So, what now?"

There was a chorus on both sides about arresting Loki, with an added Odin bit from the Asgardian side of the room.

"Arrest? On what grounds and by whom?"

"Because he wanted to invade Earth, and by the Avengers" The spider snapped, an exasperated *duh* somewhere in there. Tony shrugged.

"Yeah, no. You're conveniently forgetting that Reindeer Games here just saved our collective asses, by flying the nuke YOUR PEOPLE sent on New York to that portal. Second, if you want to arrest Loki, why is Barton free?" Barton growled but the Widow restrained him.

"What do you mean by that, Stark?"

"I mean what color are your brother's eyes, Thor?" The God looked surprised.

"Well, green of course, Man of Iron. You can see that yourself. Our friend Sif always says it's because he's green with envy." Tony raised both eyebrows at that "Woah, she may be your friend but sure isn't your brother's. Anyway, why are Loki's eyes blue from the moment he arrived on Earth up to when Goose here did some intensive cranial recalibrating?" Tony asked, pointing at the crater in the middle of his living room."I have the footage to show this."

"Brother?" There was a lot of hope in Thor voice, and the expression on the Trickster face, however fleeting, was interesting to say the least.

"Not your brother." The blond God face fell "I, however, was no more free of my actions than you were, Agent Barton... Less in a way, since I was under constant supervision while I granted you some autonomy. Didn't I, Dr Selvig?"

The scientist, who'd wandered down from the roof toward human noises, looked pensive for a few seconds "Well, you just told us what you wanted and left the rest to us. That's how I could build that backdoor to close the portal... So you knew that."

"I hoped for it" The Trickster replied "As a whole, humans are quite resilient... Agent of SHIELD apart, that is. You really obey orders too well."

That little barb from the God of hard Truths flew as well as you would expect... And there was something very stupid to say, so of course Rogers volunteered: "There's nothing wrong about obeying orders."

Selvig looked incredulous and Tony snorted "The *I just obeyed orders* excuse, hasn't flown for decades, Capsicle. Not that you would know much about obeying orders anyway, now do you?"

"How can you say that? I'm a soldier!" Crapstain bristled. Tony shrugged.

"Easy. I watch TV. You should ask Natashalie about it later.
Anyway, let's get back on track. Lucy here got some splainin' to do? No question about it. But certainly not to SHIELD.
Why?
Because you have no legal existence."

Even the Spider looked surprised at that "Director Fury..."

"Has less authority than the local Mailman, as far as the Federal Governement of the US is concerned. Your WSC, which is NOT the very real (and unhappy right now) World Security Council at the UN, is an informal gathering of very shady individuals with even shadier methods and aims. You see, Miss Romanova, when you look in the Abyss, the Abyss looks righ back at you, as the saying goes. The bugs you planted in my company (which is Corporate fraud BTW, and Pepper is going to fall on you lot like a ton of bricks) led the way to SHIELD inner servers..."

"You have no more right to arrest us than..."

"Who said I was going to arrest you? I don't have the authority to do so and it's not my job anyway..." Tony let her have this moment of joy before giving her an utterly fake smile "...It is, however, the job of all the Federal Agencies I invited for the ride. And after that stunt with the nuke, I think they're really going to get a move on. You know how those military types are: Hate when someone borrows their toys.... Oh, and please do tell Fury that I cut the drain Carter had installed in SI all those years ago. So you see, you're not in a position to arrest anyone... Much less being judge, jury and executionner"

"Well, Loki will be tried on Asgard anyway." Thor said.

"I don't think so, Thunderer." Loki stated very calmly which had the blond flounderin' "But Brother, Odin..."

"Shall we start to the root of this, Thor? Once again, I am emphatically NOT your brother. I am not even Asgardian, a fact that was carefully hidden from me since Odin himself kidnapped me as a baby.
I have more a case against Asgard than Asgard has against me."

"But the coronation..."

"What about the coronation, Thor? I was there with all of you that day in the throne room when the vaults were breached by the Jotnar, why am I supposed to be more guilty of this than the other hundred people that were there?"

"Sif said you told father I was not ready" Thor objected.

"So it had to be me, right? Always so eager to believe the unprooven word of a woman who's hated me since I changed her hair color. But yes, in this case, I told Odin your weren't ready... Which you amply demonstrated by having an epic temper tantrum because your big day was slightly delayed (delayed, mind you, not cancelled) AND decide it was smart to rekindle the war on Jotunheim."

The God of Jocks looked mulish at that "Which you advised..."

"Which, I advised against, if you'd recall. And reminded you of Odin's express orders."

"You knew that I wouldn't listen..."

"So what? I should have told you to go? Your mind was set anyway, and even IF it was not and IF I was attempting to manipulate you, it would make you exceedingly gullible as a ruler. No Thor, do not try to foist your anger and subsequent bad decisions on me, that was all you. I tried to save all our asses as per usual by having Odin alerted, but I still, also as per usual, went with your harebrained scheme. Things may have turned very different if I hadn't."

"But you decided to steal the Throne anyway after Father banished me."

"Says who?" The Trickster snapped.

"Well Sif and..."

"... The idiot three, of course." Loki rolled his eyes. Goose was having an impromptu tongue bath to wash off the battlefield grime(while no doubt paying close attention), while the rest of them watched the brothers exchange barbs like if it was the Wimbledon finals. Tony had to put his two cent in:

"I'm sensing a theme, here, point break."

"You weren't there, Man of Iron."

"And neither was Sif!" The Trickster barked which had Thor taking a step back. "She wasn't there when I confronted Odin in the vaults by the Winter Casket as I found out who and what I was, she still wasn't there when Mother, knowing all this, decided to give me the Regency while Odin slept.
Don't ask me why she did this, I have no idea. Maybe she thought it would ground me or something. Anyway, the transfer was all witnessed, legal and not really my decision.

The first Sif knew of any of this was when her and your sycophant friends showed up to the throne room to ask Odin for their little playmate back and found me instead.

And promptly decided to commit treason when I refused, once again obeying Odin's final orders, mind you.
Aided and abetted by Heimdall, because what's an oath of fealty to the Throne when you don't like who's sitting on it, right?"

"But the Destroyer..." Loki sighed.

"The Destroyer was a mistake. In my defense, I was not thinking very clearly at the time. I had just learned I wasn't who I thought I was, but instead something I'd been told to hate all my life, people I knew were betraying me right and left, there were rumbles of war from Jotunheim and my only support decided to lock herself up in the royal chambers to hold Odin's hand while he slept.
But in any case, the damage wasn't done to Asgard anyway."

"You did destroy the Bifrost!" Thor clearly was having a *haha!* moment.

Loki raised an eyebrow "Actually, Thor, no. You did. YOU broke that thing to pieces with Mjolnir."

To say the God of Jocks was stunned was putting it mildly, as his mouth worked without a sound for a few moments. Tony was fighting a fit of giggles, not helped by Goose who was looking at Thor with whiskers vibrating with amusement.

"But... But I had to stop you.." He sounded so miserable that Tony felt a moment of pity. Loki obviously didn't.

"The Bifrost has a switch, Thor."

Oh my.

Oh dear.

Oh Lord.

Selvig had a very sudden coughing fit, Barton was curing his nails, Natashalie did the blank face and Rogers was intently studying the ceiling? Tony and Goose both sneezed.

The God of Mischief smiled sweetly "Let me tell you something, """"Brother""". Odin wants the Tessaract because without it, he has no means to transport troops and the nine realms are going to slip out of his grasp. He would also LOVE a convenient scapegoat to pin all his bad judgements and shortcomings on... And I've always been very useful for that in the past, haven't I?
However, I don't feel so inclined to do that anymore. The days were Odin can send me to con the dwarves out of treasure and get my own lips sewn shut as a reward while you all look on are over, I'm afraid."

Everyone winced at that one except Thor who shrugged

"That was a long time ago, Loki."

"Not long enough for me to forget it." the Trickster bit, then sighed
"As long as you bring back the Tessaract, Odin's not going to stay angry at you very long. He can even have his little trial if he wants to save face, just not with me in it."

"But wouldn't it clear your name if there was a trial?" Selvig asked, sounding confused. The God spared him a glance.

"That's because you think of it as how it goes on Midgard. Things are quite different on Asgard.
I'll probably be dragged in chains in front of the whole court and the Allfather, found guilty of whatever strikes his fancy and thrown in jail to rot up to the moment he'll need me again... With a little torture thrown in, if he feels so inclined. Wouldn't be the first time."

"but if you tell..."

Lightning fast, the Trickster pointed a finger at Thor, and there was a metallic sound as a set of very heavy chains and gothic looking face mask fell at the God's feet. Loki snapped his fingers and said mask reappeared in his hand.

"Whoah, kinky." Tony said before Loki turned the mask around and the very sharp points inside were visible "Eeewww!"

"And you didn't even clean it..." *as if that was the main problem* Tony thought.
"You see, Dr Selvig, I managed to talk myself out of punishment a few times early on... So Odin decreed that in my case... And in my case only, the accused was to be gagged in front of the court. If I wanted a defense, I had to have someone volunteer for me."

"Well, you are the God of Lies" The Widow interjected, to which Selvig retorted "No he's not!"

"What?" from Barton

"So is he or is he not?" Rogers asked.

Loki smiled, sharp, dangerous, and very intent on his brother's face that looked increasingly uneasy "Yes, ""brother"" am I or am I not?"

The blond was both reluctant but obviously wary "Loki is the God of Mischief and Fire... Not lies"

"Then why...?"

"One of the nasty little rumours Sif really enjoyed spreading the last time I had to spend some time in that thing, and thus unable to defend myself. Thor and his other little friends found it very funny, and I got invited to all the banquets for awhile..."

"Why invite you to the banquets if you couldn't... Oh." Selvig looked a bit sick

"Yes... I'm actually surprised you know that was fake." The God looked genuinely curious.

"My people still study the sagas, the God of Lies and... I'm sorry... the horse thing, have been sort of debunked? It's not exactly my field of expertise, can't tell you much more."

"That's better than what was going round in Asgard last time I was there. I do presume it's even worse now... And you wonder why I don't want to go back there."

"Well I certainly woudn't." Tony said "Thor, you need new friends... And that thing? It's disgusting."

Goose had been eyeing the mask since the Trickster had dropped it on the bar and had taken to pawing it closer and closer to the edge in a classic cat move. However, at Tony's comment, she looked briefly pensive, then a tentacle snatched the thing.
A few cracking noises and "Meow"

The God smiled,"She says crunchy... You are a most excellent kitty."

Goose purred as the pandemonium started again.

Chapter Text

Getting everybody he didn't want there out of his tower and his hair turned out to be difficult.
Considering how hard it had been to keep them around the fist time, Tony was disgusted: He'd stopped playing hard to get with the ladies years ago, he had not even thought it would have worked with the Avengers.
Thankfully, the FBI came to the rescue, since flavor of the day in government agencies was to crack down on the unlawful organisation that played with nuke codes.

Surprise.

So the agents rounded the SHIELD bunch under Tony's watchful eye, as the billionaire recalled how well Crapstain Idiot reacted to actual law enforcement. Bucharest, anyone?

But of course, since his BFF wasn't involved, Rogers kept it on the low grade, just his usual *Captain America is disappointed in you* schtick. Barton was more vocal... But honestly, who cared? In the end, the Widow decided to go with the flow, obviously thinking she would walk in the end, but not wanting to make waves just in case.

Bruce Banner, like Tony, was not considered to be in SHIELD employ so he was left to sleep it of... Especially as Tony helpfully pointed out that being woken up now might not put him in the best mood.
In the end, Dr Selvig volunteered to join, mostly to warn his fellow scientist that they, in fact, were NOT working for any government body whatsoever.

That left the Alien contingent under Tony's supervision and responsibly, more or less.

Thor predictably had to show how much growing he'd done in new mexico and how capable of independent thinking he now was by immediately trying to jump his "brother" with the set of chains, plan which kinda backfired when Loki dissolved, leaving the God of Jocks face first in broken bottles, glasses... and bar, much to Tony's irritation.

"All right, that does it. You get out of my house right this minute."

"Have a care how you speak, Man of Iron." The stench of mixed alcohols drenching the cape didn't really help the God effect. Tony particularly liked the decorative effects of the pimented olives that had gotten stuck in chainmail. Very chic.

"Or what? Since we met, you attacked and insulted me, and you're now destroying my house. I'm supposed to take it and like it because you're Asgard crown Prince or some shit like that? This is my house, my planet, and I'll speak as I damm well like, thankyouverymuch. Now scoot."

"But my brother..."

"Your brother, not being an idiot, obviously saw this coming. Which, not really surprising, since even if only half of the Norse myths I read are right, your friggin' family threw him under the bus and/or betrayed him on the regular."

"You have no idea. My brother..."

"Loki, half crazed and under mind control, had more manners than you do. Not sure your mother would approve of that."Tony smirked a bit as the god looked suitably chastized. He poured himself a glass of one of the survivors, raised an eyebrow "Still here?"

"I don't know where..."

"Well, Odin wants the Tessaract... Which should be with Fury, on the helicarrier. I suggest you get there before some government official gets their hands on it and ties it down with red tape or you may never see Asgard again. Oh, and one last thing: I have no idea where your brother got to, but next time someone throws an accusation at him, consider asking for proof. It may improve your relations TONS."

"I don't..."

Tony slanted a look at one of JARVIS cameras, so the AI played the "he's adopted" bit. Thor looked briefly uneasy, but rallied fast.

"Lady Nathasha said..."

"I heard. Also heard you required no proof or explanations before dumping brother dearest in the next sentence."

"I should have? Lady Natasha..." Tony snorted.

"Romanov is a spy and a professional murderer who will lie to anyone and everyone, you included, to further her goals. Case in point, as far as I can tell, most of the 80 deaths she tacked on Loki where the ones that occurred when SHIELD didn't evacuate the base your brother landed in time, since Fury was too busy trying to retrieve the Tessaract to care for his own people. Word of advice, Thor: When dealing with those two, you can safely assume every other word that comes out of their mouths is a lie, and you won't be too far of the mark."

"Oh, like my brother then..." At Tony's quite flabbergasted expression, the god felt the need to explain "As he's the god of lies..."

Thankfully, a few years dealing with Rogers level of stupidity, not to mention a lifetime of board meetings had armed the billionaire well, so he gifted the god with his most obnoxious smirk.

"Oh, is he now?"

Thor looked surprised for a few seconds, then turned a quite ugly shade of red.
Mjolnir crackled, Tony heard the slightly squishy noise of Goose unfurling tentacles behind him. The god of Blunders shook himself and marched to the platform without any further comments, launching himself in the sky.
The helicarrier was in for a bumpy ride, if the thing was still airborne.

He turned around to the sound of a golf clap.

"Congratulations, Anthony. I think you managed to rile up Thor faster than I usually do, and I've had centuries of practice. Invoking Frigga's displeasure was a masterful touch." The Trickster looked quite appreciative. He'd also traded his Asgardian leathers for a conservative cut suit of a green so dark it was almost black the billionaire found familiar.

"Saville Row, Davies & Son? Nice. I suspected you'd been here before."

"Well, it's not like I could schedule the three necessary fittings since I've crashed here, now could I? Busy purposefully failing to achieve world domination and all that." Loki smiled sharply and rebuild the bar with a negligent wave of is hand. Tony felt a tingle along his spine, a mix of excitement and, yes, a bit of fear. This was a Loki he didn't know, never seen... And wasn't that *Interesting*?
"And yes, I've been here before. One has to, actually, since Midgard is the gateway to the Universe."

"Come again?"

Goose jumped on the bar and meowed imperiously at the trickster who blinked "Yes, I don't suppose Thor would have explained even if he had more than the roughest idea of how it all works... So, tell me, Man of Iron: What do you know about Ygdrasil?"

"Err, not all that much, really. Norse cosmology?"Goose huffed and looked pointedly at Loki, a clear order if there was ever one.

"In a sense... And what do you know about galactic collapse?"

"Not much either." The billionaire admitted."I am an engineer, not an astrophysicist. Do I need to be? Because we could reconvene in 24 hours...Or you could talk to Thor's girlfriend."

"Thor got himself a human scientist girlfriend? Wild wonders will never cease."The tone was exceedingly sardonic.

"You're objecting to Human, Scientist, or Girlfriend in there?" Tony inquired and the Trickster gave him a somewhat exasperated look.

"Scientist. What can she see in that oaf?"

"Female nerds are not immune to the power of a well toned butt, Reindeer Games... And yours is fine too, now don't get jealous. Can we go back to the galactic thingy?"

Goose sighed and smacked him with a soft paw, like an unruly kitten, as the God of Mischief giggled softly.

"Aren't you a delight? So... galactic collapse... Also known as Ragnarok or what happens when a cluster of stars turn into red giants more or less a the same time close to the nuclear bulge. I hope you can deduce what's going to happen?"

"The mother of all Kabooms?"

"Quite."Loki said a bit drily "That's what happened to the constellation the nine realms were originally from."

"Hold on a minute! You all moved? How do you move around whole sola systems?!" Tony was literally on the edge of his seat, vibrating with excitment, as the Trickster smiled and wiggled his fingers

"Magic." Tony made a totally exasperated sound, so the God relented "Nobody knows how they did it. Not any more. First, it was really a long time ago, and second, History is not a subject considered worth studying in Asgard outside of the heroic deeds of Odin and his forebears. But they must have needed technology AND magic, since most of what I found about it was on Svartálfaheimr and Alfheim, and it wasn't much as to that.
It is the reason why Asgard is not an actual planet, though.
Also, it was not possible to move all this on the same plane of existence without disrupting the equilibrium of the universe, so the Nine exist on another plane of existence, anchored to the rest of the Universe via Midgard."

"Like one of your pocket dimensions, but on a gigantic scale, then?"

The God mulled that for a moment before the green eyes widened a bit "Probably exactly like that... It is a simple solution, but it could work..." He vinced a bit "Doing that must have killed a LOT of mages, though... Anyway, for any resident of the Nine realms, access to the rest of the Universe can only be done via Midgard. Also, not exactly encouraged."

"Wich meant you did it at every opportunity." Tony pointed out and Loki had a thin smile.

"More and more as the centuries went by, since my other choices were trying to ingratiate myself to Odin by taking on all the boring stuff Thor was supposed to do as Crown Prince but didn't... Or join said crown prince to one more hunting party or one more hare brained scheme to kill someone or something that probably didn't deserve it, but was going to bring "Glory." Since Thor used to tell me about those before hand, because Norns forbid he would admit I was useful in any capacity..."

"But he sort of did."

"Probably. Also, one of the first time I got really punished by Odin, was when I stayed home, Thor got his ass handed to him in one of his little adventures and I was tried for treason because I wasn't there to save him... with my useless *tricks*. Lesson learned. As for the hunting parties, there's only so many bilgesnipes you can watch die, in my opinion... So, since I'm one of the very few people who is not dependent on the Bifrost to space travel, I did make and increasing number of trips to Midgard."

"And go figure; you never tried world domination..." Tony mused. Loki pointed an elegant finger toward the kitteh of Doom who was lounging on the bar between them in all her orange glory.

"I always one for mischief, not revolution... And do recognize a golden opportunity when I see one."

Gold? Someone said gold? Yeah, snack time!

"Mrreoow?"

Chapter Text

If Goose was honest with herself (And why not?), she had to admit she was living her best Flerken life right now.

Case in point, the new pillow she was lounging on, something so soft and floofy it was probably illegal somehow... At minima, seriously decadent. Kid Angora/silk double knit covering eider down filled pillows, her pet had said when she inquired via Loki.

Tony was very good at non-verbal communication, but it lacked a bit on practical matter. Goose could hardly wait till the Trickster did as he was told and gave her pet Allspeak... And didn't really understand why he needed to be difficult about it since he was going to do as he was told sooner or later anyway.

Sooner would be good, however.

But Goose could be patient, and indulge the vagaries of the newly publicly revealed Jotun: After all, he'd just saved her pet's life, and at some cost to himself, too. Not that it had been news to Goose, she could smell the ice on the Mage skin, certainly not how Asgardian usually smelled.
If you asked her, Aesir smelled a lot like Ass, which was fitting in Goose opinion, specially for the noble class... And she was not that much into ass sniffing, that was dog behavior. The only thing you were supposed to do with that place was give it a thorough tongue washing now and then... And not put your nose in other beings privates.

Really, *dogs*...

Erhm, we digress.

So, to cut a much too long story short, her pet had underestimated one Kilian person brand of insanity. He had abstained to be an idiot on TV however, which, as JARVIS had pointed out, was made easier since there were no terrorists attacks this time around.
Which, good. But her pet had STILL underestimated how much the entitled cretin had it in for him. Goose huffed: Way to overreact at being blown off at a party, especially since her pet was accosted by people with "wonderful business opportunities" ALL THE TIME!

Even when he was supposed to pay attention to Goose, which, no. Seriously.

The billionaire had thought that with giving a job to one Maya Hansen, he was cutting off the madman, but, sadly, not so. Said cretin had kidnapped the scientist on the first day of her two weeks vacation, tortured her a bit... Which apparently gave the woman the extra incentive she needed... And voila, Extremis!

And then the deranged arsehole decided to kidnap Pepper Potts.

To which Goose herself was certainly opposed to, but was sadly not consulted on the matter.

First, her pet had been very distraught, and Goose certainly did NOT agree with that.
Second, Goose had to admit that Miss Potts was the perfect Queen for her pet.

Not that Goose likes to share her stuff, but one has to take the future of one's specie in consideration, after all. Preferably to better it, if possible. So, Pepper Potts had Goose stamp of approval to be her pet's mate, and the Flerken didn't really like the change of plans.
Colonel Rhodey was busy in the Middle East, and even if he came back as quickly as he could, the situation devolved rapidly.

Goose tried to help, of course, but even she had to admit to some limitations as she couldn't crunch more than a pair of the flamey people without severe heartburn. She liked her food spicy, for sure, but not THAT hot, thank you very much.

The situation was really getting dicey when Loki, who'd been walking Yggdrasil on the sly to warn the eight realms about Thanos, came back, took the situation at a glance (presidential pinata included), sighed and then proceeded to demonstrate that he was:
The Norse God of Fire (people always seemed to forget that one)
In possession of the casket of Ancient Winters (Surprise!)
Jotun from the royal line and still a Mage to boot. Supervillain or not, the Killian person and his little flamey friends were popsicled in thirty seconds flat, and blue was Goose new favourite color.

Of course she was there, don't be ridiculous. Not all the madman's friends were of the jalapenos variety, so Goose thinned the herd quite a bit. She even caught, stored in a spare pocket dimension... and spewed right at the feet of the Secret Services people when they showed up, a rare breed of human weasel, aka Justin Hammer, who apparently had been financing the crazy person.

And it was her pet's turn to sigh, once he was certain his mate was not going to explode. Goose surmised that the weasel had been up to no good too in the previous timeline, too.

And speaking about up to no good people, no word nor hair from Fury, during the whole hullabaloo.
Goose was going to meow very sternly at Carol, next time the woman touched down on Terra, for leaving her in the care of that waste of oxygen when there were MUCH BETTER options available. So yes, Goose had taken matters in her own paws and she was lording it as befitted any member of the feline diaspora... But that was not the point.

Carol should have known better than to leave in the care of (and Goose was generous there.) a second rate butler. The Flerken toyed with the idea to do away with Fury's second eye briefly, but she suspected her new pet would be annoyed, and since he was already quite stressed out with his Mate bouts of flamability while he worked hard to ensure she would not go boom, she decided to abstain.

Goose made do with resuming her poo boots campaign, a way to keep Fury (literally) on his toes.
Petty, sure, but satisfying. Also, she liked to keep an eye on him and his "associates."
She had no problem with Fury's Avengers idea (Except maybe for the silly name. Avenge what?). The Flerken was on her seventh life already. She'd certainly been around. She knew what was out there in the galaxy and the even bigger universe. Yes, Terra was considered sort of a backwater planet... which, in turn, got all the idiots with stuff to hide think it was the perfect hiding place.

T'was getting ridiculous at this point.

So yes, Terra was woefully unprotected. However, Goose didn't think the smartest course of action was to enslave, enprison and/or kill any individuals who showed capacities exceeding the "normal" range, aka the best suited to protect the planet. At best it would push the others into hiding, at worst antagonize a fringe of the population with superhuman qualities.

Talk about stupid reasoning.
Of course, all of that made sense once Goose learned the idea had originated with Rogers Mate, one Peggy Carter. She'd never met the second, but she'd made a point of keeping tabs on the first, and she was NOT impressed, to say the least.
If THAT was the best humanity had to offer, Terra was in a bad way.

Fury could rave all he wanted about "the pinnacle of human", Goose could smell the mixture of radioactive enhanced steroids on the man's skin. Her pet could rest easy about Goose eating that, she was certain he would taste foul.
The Grandmaster had used such enhancements when he'd build his first arena. It made for physically strong gladiators if that was you were looking for, but it did stunt and distort the brain functions.
Which was usually bad... Unless you picked an absolute idiot to begin with.
That German scientist had obviously stumbled on an almost perfect specimen. Beginner's luck, no doubt.

On top of that, he hurt her pet. Goose could feel the man tensing up everytime "the Captain" was mentioned. She knew Loki had picked up on it too. So yes, it was another version of him in another timeline, but it was the principle of the thing: Tony was hers now, and the patriotic lab rat better not touch her stuff.

Or else.

Thor was almost as irritating... But at least it came to him naturally, one could say. Her pet often compared the blond to a Golden Retriever. Yeah, dog... fitting, sadly. For someone like Loki, who displayed distinct feline qualities (the best!) to have grown up with THAT and been found wanting was a tragedy. But then Goose knew about Asgard and Odin... Even been there once.
She recalled the tacky gold look. Tasty for sure (she'd had a few chunks.), but so nouveau riche! And unpractical. Gold was a soft metal, only suited for snacks and showing off. Since Odin was not eating it, that left only the showing off part.
If Odin kept making a nuisance of himself (At least he'd stopped sending those silly ravens... or to be more exact, the ravens refused to come near the Tower after their brush with Goose. Smart birds, ravens) and being an idiot about the Thanos situation, Goose was going to make a family outing with her next litter. Let's see how his tacky palace fared against a couple hundred hungry flerkins, shall we?

Should be fun.

Wait, Flerkins??!!

Yup, Flerkins.
It was time, and more importantly, there was finally the right environment. Of her litter, Goose had been the one who got the wanderlust gene (there was always one, that's how Flerkens expanded everywhere)... If her new pet was amenable, Goose would love to tour the galaxies with him, could hardly wait to see what he would do with other worlds tech.
Yes, that was ditching Carol, but she ditched her first, so there.

And Goose liked smart people. Up to now, she had to make do with SHIELD, but that was not an environment where to leave youngs... Now, Goose could envision a bevy of ginger kittens making guard (and learning LOTS) with Pepper Potts... And at least a couple of black furred, green eyed mischief accomplices for Loki (On top of that, let's be honest, the Trickster was likely to be a better cat mom than Goose. A bunch of Flerkins would keep him happy, busy... and out of trouble. Well, as much as possible.)
And from what her pet had told her, a LOT of interesting people were going to gather in the future...most of them to help with the Thanos situation, of course, but that was a golden opportunity to expand Flerken rule.
Because Goose had plans for the Universe...Sadly for him, Thanos did not figure in those.

Thinking about the eugenist purple cretin had Goose grumbling while she made biscuits in her luxurious bit of floof.

"You alright, Princess Pea?"

"Don't worry about it, Stark. She just hit a snag in her world domination plan."

Goose opened one eye to glare at the Trickster. She knew he was aware of the Universal Feline Domination Plan, being an occasional part time feline himself, but one didn't go out and talk about THAT.
Loki smiled.

"Just to make things a bit more sporty, Goose."

THREE green eyed flerkins. And he'd just been appointed babysitter for the rest.

"Meow."

Chapter Text

Loki watched with some amusement, in full Trickster mode, as Goose gently but firmly wrapped Anthony around her paw.

Not that the man objected... or actually seemed aware of what was happening, even if everyone else did. The consensus seemed to be that Anthony needed some sort of a keeper anyway.

And yes, that was JARVIS primary task, but as great as the AI was, he was still one of Anthony's creations, and as such, did somewhat lack agency if Sir decided to override the voice of caution... Which he did with alarming regularity, if what the AI had confided about Sir's *previous life* was true.

After a lifetime of running behind Thor to haul his blond ass out from one disaster of his own making onto the next, Loki could certainly commiserate. Not that Anthony was as callous and oblivious as Thor was, but anyway you sliced it, JARVIS didn't have the agency to stop his creator to be stupidly reckless at times.

Try to take Goose agency away from her, and your future was likely to be filled with tentacles and the nastiest pocket dimension the Flerken was lugging around. And that was if she was feeling merciful... Which, let's face it, was not the Flerken way.

Speaking of Flerken way, Goose was putting on a little weight these days, and the Trickster suspected it had little to do with an over abundance of treats and gold nuggets, and more about a Flerken in the family way.

He knew better than to ask another species about their reproducive process (because, rude... and in this precise case, potentially risky), but he'd read a little on the subject when he managed to tour the galaxy a bit, and Goose was spending quite a lot of time at the Sarkitty shelter in the tower. There were more Starkitty shelters around town, but this one being in Manhattan, they were the most likely to get adopted by rich people. So, quite a lot of pure breeds and the cutest markings, one has to cater to their customers, after all.

Not that it made much difference: Flerkens were known to play genetic legos with their litters, to extract and mix the characteristics they wanted in their youngs.

That implied multiple, if carefully selected partners, and Goose had been awfully busy collecting samples lately, apparently.

In a way, Goose nesting was a reassuring prospect. Yes, like all felines, Flerkens had quite a Darwinian take on rearing youngs, on the tune of "You get a head start and then you're on your own", but she was not likely to have Flerkins if she was worried about Thanos. If anything, when Loki broached the subject, she seemed more irritated than afraid. Wich was... Good?

Well, at least neither the death cat nor Anthony tried to brush the subject under the carpet, the way Odin did.

But to his surprise, the Trickster had learned that the nine realms were not actually how he thought they were. Not by a long shot.

He'd contacted his mother. Anthony had been quite insistent about that, saying there was more to it than Loki knew now. He'd been highly dubious about that, still angry about her seconding Odin's lies... But he had to admit she'd been his only sort of reliable support at court, even if a limited one.

Odin only used him, and Thor, for all his talk about brotherly love, was more often than not stabbing him metaphorically in the back.

And then had the gall to look surprised when Loki actually stabbed him in the back.

The idiot.

In any case, yes, Anthony had been right: Loki had the means to contact Frigga if he wanted to. He'd usually kept in touch with his mother when he went on a trip, if only to be forwarned if Thor or Odin were looking for him for some idiotic "quest" or some crap job nobody wanted to do. Unpleasant but failing to show up reaped worse consequences... As he'd learned the hard way.

Anyway, Frigga had been very happy when Loki stopped blocking her attempts at contacting him. She'd been exceptionally cryptic, though. It took Loki quite a few moments to understand she wanted him to visit her brother on Alfheim.

The least you could say is that it had been a revelation.

His uncle had welcomed him with open arms. Loki was even subjected to a hug, which almost sent him into shock.

Also prompted him to a rare bout of honesty.

"You do know I'm not really your nephew, don't you?"

Frey frowned slightly, which was as angry as Loki had seen him in a long time. After all, he was the one who taught him to master (and hide) his emotions when Loki was still a child. Some of the more useful lessons he'd ever gotten.

"My sister considers you her son, Loki. That is enough for me. But even if she didn't, the connections between the Vanir royal household and Jotunheim ruling class means we're still related, if in a more distant fashion. You're actually *still* related to Odin, since that monster is half Jotun himself."

And the surprises kept coming.

"You never so much as hinted..."

"How I truly felt about my brother in law? As much as it pains me to admit, Odin IS a master manipulator and you were rabidly loyal to him from a very young age. Frigga and I tried to mitigate that as much as we could... but it was not much. Not enough, at any rate... I do suppose that has changed quite a bit lately."

Well, Frey certainly got THAT right but...

"I still don't understand..." Frey sighted and indicated they should be seated. Either a long talk or some more shocks in store, then.

"Loki, you do know Frigga and I are both Vanir, don't you?"

"Yes?"

"Then why do you think I'm not the king in Vanaheim, but here?"

That was actually an excellent question, now that he thought about it. Loki had always known his mother as Vanir and his uncle as the Alfheim king, he'd just sort of accepted it... Now, however...

"I'll tell you why: I learned Bor intended to marry Frigga to Odin while standing ankle deep in the rest of my family's blood, that's how.

We were both children at the time, and I'd just watched Bor and his Helspawn personally butcher my whole family. Then Frigga was whisked away to Asgard to become "a good Aesir wife", whatever that meant, and I was deported to Alfheim under the guardianship of the then governor.

We were each other's security: Each of us were told the other life being dependant on our good behavior... In a very real way, we still are. I don't doubt for a second Odin would butcher his wife if he knew what I'd love to do to him one day... And would transform Alfheim in a second Swartalheim if she showed any sign of not being the dutiful Aesir wife she's been masquerading as all those years."

Talk, as the Midgardians would say, being caught between a rock and a hard place. Loki opened his mouth, but Frey raised his hand, stopping him.

"Let me finish first, Loki. I am not enjoying talking about this. You can ask questions later.

When Bor died, the Aesir council pushed for Odin to get married before the coronation, since he had a bride ready anyway. Odin differs from Bor in that he cares about what people (mostly Aesir) say about him. He's no less of a monster than Bor was, but he wants to pass as the "benevolent ruler."

And for the marriage ceremony, it looked better if the bride's brother was an actual monarch and not a hostage.

Odin thought himself very shrewd in offering me the Alfheim throne... I suppose he even expected gratitude."

They both winced.

"So I got my coronation on the low grade. Odin got his wedding and the bride he cheated on from day one and his all important coronation as the "AllFather", and I was sent back here with my aesir minder.

It took me two years to kill him.

All the while playing the obedient puppet king, the grateful pawn to mighty Odin. The funny thing is that after awhile, he really believed it. Not as far as to trust me to have his back into battle... Wich, if I'm fully honest, was not an unfunded suspicion.

But otherwise, I was deemed, if not totally loyal, sufficiently harmless."

"Which you're not... Loyal or harmless, that is." Loki began to smile.

Frey answering smile managed to be both angelic and predatory. Loki started to laugh.

"How?"

"Well, my nephew, you of all people should know the answer: Seidr.

Odin's been betitling it while using it in a very heavy handed way, which is also called talking from both sides of your mouth at the same time. Aesirs used to be competent at magic, but neither Bor nor Odin were actually good at it.

As I said, ham handed and they lacked the patience and the will to learn Seidr usage requires. Since such perfect beings could not have defects..."Frey's tone was quite sarcastic.

"Obviously." Loki could be just as sarcastic

"Siedr was to be at fault. Also, discouraging Seidr usage in boys, especially of the noble class helped prevent competition. Since all realms need magic to function, it was deemed safe to make Seidr the province of the "inferior" sex... And in time, as you well know, all Seidr users, being women or of a different race, were deemed inferior, and thus safe.

It is good to be underestimated, in the long run.

The longer Odin's rule went unchallenged, the sloppier he got... He even began to believe in his own myth. Which is hilarious."

"And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime, the elves had been watching me. They were not overjoyed to find themselves with a king, and from another realm as to that, when they'd always ruled themselves before, but they understood it had not been my idea.

Also, after the dark elves and the Vanirs, everyone was justifiably wary of Odin's line genocidal tendencies. To cut a long story short, when I poisoned my minder, they took notice.

We also struck a deal that is still in play. In Asgard, you got Odin and the Thing... or the rump council. Here, the Elven council still govern, if unofficially, and my main job is to make it palatable to Odin."

Frey stopped. After a few moments, Loki said something. He knew his uncle was much more than a figurehead.

"You're not telling me all."

His uncle smirked.

"Obviously not."

"But still, what you just told me... Aren't you afraid of the consequences? If...." Frey shrugged.

"Gungnir doesn't work that way outside of Asgard, since it was crafted in a time when there was no talk of a realm being above the others.

Heimdall? You know it's very possible to avoid his so-called *all seeing eyes*, but in any case...

Loki, my dear nephew, you broke the bifrost.

Heimdall is blind... And deaf."

Chapter Text

Now, Loki liked Anthony. He really did.

But any way you sliced it, the man was a deplorable influence...

"I didn't break the Bifrost. If anyone, Thor did."

Those pesky attacks of honesty had got to stop. Loki was NOT the God of Lies... but he was the God of Mischief and that necessitated a measure of obfuscation, not compulsory forthrightness.

Frey raised an eyebrow and wiped that away with an airy hand gesture.

"And if that brute has any idea about how the Bifrost actually works, I'll marry a bilgesnipe. And speaking of marriage..."

The rest of that visit had left the Trickster a bit reeling.

His not-Uncle certainly got plans... And moves.

Loki wasn't sure what he thought about the idea of being, alternatively, the King Consort and/or Queen of Vanaheim, when all was said and done.

Contrary to the rumours Sif & co liked to propagate, the Trickster had not mothered Sleipnir. He'd merely been present when one of the royal mares foaled, and, sensing seidr, had taken over the care of the little one when the mom didn't survive the birth... And he'd been desperate enough for Odin's approoval to give him the horse when the AllBastard expressed a smidgeon of interest... effectively cutting himself off his care and companionship.

Any child with Frost giant Angerboda where figment of imagination: If Loki had met (not even to mention intimates.) another Frost Giant before that ill fated conversation with Laufey... Well, his life would have been quite different.

And as for Narfi and Vali...

Loki never spoke of his marriage and children. Hodr and especially Badr had been "perfect" Aesir, favorites of Odin (who was their mother was anybody's guess). Badr, especially, made Thor look like a shrinking violet.

Since they spent their days fighting with each other (there used to be more willing "training partners", but enthusiasm waned after the first dozen or so deaths), was it any mystery that those two killed each other on the training grounds one day?

Obviously, since search for a culprit started immediately... And settled on his children, while Loki was already on babysitting Thor & co detail on Vanaheim.

He'd come back to Asgard to learn both his babies were dead after Odin forced their seidr open. Vali, being a shape shifter, changed to a wolf and killed his brother.

What happened to Loki himself when he protested on coming back home... Well, it had been one of the first time, but not the last.

It had taken Sygyn, poor grieving Sygyn, to take her own life for the "magnanimous Allfather" to relent.

Loki was sent to Frey's court to heal... And, Loki supposed, to be out of sight and out of mind for a while. Long enough to brush that disaster beneath the carpet, at any rate.

It had been some of his most peaceful... and educative years, once he'd recovered his sight.

Till Odin had needed him again and "granted" him return to Asgard... for the meagre price of never talking about what happened.

As if he'd wanted to, really. Especially since everyone, Thor included, seemed to think it had just been an "infortunate incident" they generously forgave since it was somehow his fault?

So, no, Loki was not entranced by the idea of marriage...and, since it was Royalty, children.

The Trickster could certainly see what was in the union for Frey. The Vanir was reigning in Alfheim (if in name only) and Vanaheim (behind the scenes). And union with Loki would bring both the very real connection to Jotunheim AND the very legal status of Asgardian Prince.

Loki could appreciate the beauty of Odin's machinations biting him on the ass.

The Dwarves would side with whomever the balance of power was going for. So far, it had been the Aesir, but that could always change.

Especially as the Allfather had gotten more and more stingy in paying the bills in recent years... As Loki well knew.

Surtur and what remained of the Dark elves were going to be harder to convice, but the Thanos threat was likely to be a great unifier. No love lost for Odin or the Aesir there anyway.

And Helheim... Loki didn't recall Hela. Yes, she was before his time, but there was not a trace of her in the various Asgardian libraries. Or anywhere else, for that matter... Maybe in the other realms, but, well, Loki was not going to find anything if he wasn't looking for it in the first place.

And yes, the trickster was always finding stuff out he wasn't supposed to. Not that time. Made him wonder what Hela would be like, actually. Seriously pissed off seemed like a safe bet, somehow.

They could probably bond over that, if nothing else, as Frey had pointed out.

In bed.

Which was a way to push his advantages (so to speak) and make a case for a more formal union? In any case, Loki was not adverse, and his not-uncle revealed himself to be a considerate partner. It was nice to be touched without violence or pain for once.

It had been years.

And yes, Anthony.

Yes, Loki had though about it... So had Anthony, for that matter. Some looks said all.

They'd both decided, in silent agreement, not to follow up on that.

Loki didn't know what the human reasons were for the step back, but then, he had his own. The main one being that there was no point in indulging in that pastime if you weren't really able to let go.

Which was more likely to crush the human to death than anything. Loki was not as dismissive of Mid... Terrans, as he'd made it out to be during his fake invasion (when he'd just parroted Odin), but there was no getting around the fact they were different. Terrans were more fragile, like it or not.

Honestly, the Foster woman was lucky Thor wasn't on Terra that often, because she was courting disaster.

It was not how Loki liked things in the bed chamber, so he'd pushed the temptation aside. On top of any other considerations, Goose had been quite clear that she had projects regarding Anthony... And Loki was not crazy enough to get on the wrong side of THAT Flerken.

Who was, really?

Chapter Text

Loki's trip to the Nine may have been full of surprises, but his return was somewhat unsurprisingly explosive.

Literally so, in this case.

JARVIS gave him a run down on the latest pickle Anthony managed to get himself into the second he space walked into the tower, and Loki was thrown into action the next minute.

He knew the humans were inventive, but the God of mischief hadn't expected what were essentially artificial, short sized fire giants. You'd think anyone would have more sense than turning oneself into a time bomb... But here you had it.

Thankfully for everyone involved, his not-uncle had been quite keen on having him explore his Jotun side, up to and including the most aggressive aspects of it.

In the end, even if it was somewhat learning on the job, Loki managed to master the situation... sort of.
He hadn't really wanted to expose his Jotun side this soon, however... Oh, well, one does as one must.

Turning the idiots into icicles was the easiest part, though. Stabilizing Miss Potts, so she didn't go boom required a somewhat more delicate touch, and Loki concentrated on that for a few minutes, while Goose meowed very sternly at Anthony, who looked properly chastised.

"What is she saying?"

One had to admire the poise of that woman. The Trickster shrugged lightly

"Something around the lines of stopping to put himself in danger and being more careful..."

Pepper Potts beamed at the Flerken "Oh. Please do carry on."

Anthony looked as indignant as he could while being berated by the Death cat, mouthing a silent'traitor'. Goose herself wandered to Pepper to give the woman a purr and an encouraging head bump before turning back to Anthony.

"Meow meow mreeh"

"I didn't quite get that?" The genius inquired, and Loki shrugged again.

"She wants Ice cream. Cherry Garcia and Chocolate therapy to be exact, she says she needs it for the heartburn."

"Not Stark Raving Mad?"

"Meh."

It was a clear refusal, and Anthony looked mildly affronted, but Pepper scooped up the murder kitteh and began scritching behind the ears, "Of course she can have anything she wants. I am quite in need of a few scoops of ice cream myself. We'll get a full selection, and can pick our way through our favorite flavors. JARVIS?"

"The order is on its way as we speak, Miss Potts."

Goose purred under the ear scritches as Anthony looked at the pair with a slightly worried expression. By this time, Loki had spent enough time on Mid...err, Earth, to be familiar with a few tropes, and the God had to admit the pair quite nailed the "Evil Empress" look.

Fun.

Well, not for everyone. Rhodes flew up to unhook the Presidential piñata, and the secret services made their appearance and started fussing around...Up to the point when the cute marmalade puss snorted and spat an individual at their feet, which surprised them all (except Anthony who sighed), but the agents had a practical side, so they didn't look a gift Flerken in the mouth (a perilous endeavor in any case) and promptly handcuffed the slimy (in more than one way) individual, before making off with a quite shaken, if grateful, Ellis.

Not that Anthony looked very impressed by the man's expression of gratitude. Loki was intrigued, but Anthony shook his head slightly... Oh, another one of those, then.

So everyone relocated to Stark tower and ice cream was had by all... And Loki took to report his trip, since it looked like no one wanted to touch the latest clustefuck. Well, at least not that very evening.

And Anthony was powerfully curious about the "Smurf side" as he put. Not Loki's favorite subject, but now that the cat was out of the bag, so to speak...

Goose did listen intently to the Trickster lore on what he'd learned from his not-uncle about Odin being a dick, his Jotun heritage...Odin being even dickier... And Frey's revolutionary tendencies. And did he mention Odin was the dickiest?

Then the Flerken sighed and pushed the pint of Chocolate Therapy his way, obviously thinking he needed it (she was not wrong). The God was a bit surprised, but accepted the offering as he liked chocolate.
Goose snagged herself the pint of Cherry Garcia... and one of Cookies & Cream.

That Flerken was one for the classics, obviously.

Soon Miss Potts retired for the night in one of the guest bedroom and under JARVIS supervision, Colonel Rhodes was lured back to the Pentagon where a bunch of hastily woken up (and subsequently grumpy) high ranking officers wanted answers ASAP if not sooner on the latest events... And Anthony went down to his lab trailed by Loki and the Death kitty.

"You didn't seem very enthused by your elected leader spiel of gratitude and undying loyalty, Stark"

The genius smirked without humor, "Yeah, sure. You know what they say about Democracy, right? The worst political system, with the exception of all the others."

"Interesting, but your point is?"

"Ellis is a politician. He'll be grateful as long as it benefits his polls ratings and not a minute more, trust me on that one. Also, he was, and probably still is at this point, a Captain America fanboy.
Probably not as much as he was in the previous timeline, we did make a few dents in the *perfect soldier* mythos. But the minute Rogers shows his star spangled ass, all Ellis is going to think is how to hook himself to the legend. Wouldn't work that way anywhere else, but we do love our patriotic icons in this country."

"Strange when you consider you were the one saving his life" The trickster remarked. Stark shrugged as JARVIS pulled up the Extremis files on screen.

"I did that last time too, and all I got for my troubles was a stupid medal literally pinned on me by a HYDRA senator. Rogers didn't show up for that one either, since apparently a Presidential kidnapping is beneath Fury's notice. But the minute Rogers rolled in the White House, I was yesterday garbage. Not expecting anything different this time ,to be honest."

"That is unfortunate" The trikster remarked, which earned him a huff from Goose and an eye roll from Anthony.

"Tell me about it. In fact, I suspect Ellis will show his true colors soon enough. You may recall I started closing all the cash bleeding SHIELDRA has been doing on SI, now that it's been documented, and I don't intend to stop. Fury likes to behave like money is a concept that doesn't apply to him, but he's going to start feeling the pinch quite soon, I think. The minute he realises that, he's going to trot Rogers to Ellis... So the later can pressure me into *funding the Avengers*... since, you know, they're so brave and useful, and it's my patriotic duty or some other shit like that."

"Why?"

"Don't ask me, I have no idea... No, that's wrong, I do have an idea. Fury wants someone to keep paying for his shit, Ellis will probably be told very fast how expensive that is likely to be, and so they're going to try to pass me the buck onto me because reasons."

The God looked confused, "Yes, I get that, but what are those reasons?"

"You tell me. But the only person I met that was more entitled than Fury was Rogers, and even then, it was not that that wide a margin. They both considered that me and mine was at their immediate disposal, no questions asked."

"And you went with that?"

The genius frowned and Loki felt like he got a glimpse of the Merchant of Death, just then "Just like you went with Odin's bullshit, Lokes. Don't intend to fall for it a second time in any case... If Fury..."

"Mreeh!"

"Yes, I know you're keeping him busy, Goosey dearest. But just in case he get too annoying... I AM going to trot the Winter Soldier existence under Rogers nose. If Fury and Ellis are so enamored with Captain America, let THEM deal with how wild Rogers will get as soon as darling Bucky enters the picture. Not touching that one with a ten-foot pole, they can burn and crash on their lonesome."

Goose tilted her head and thought about things for a few seconds.

"Merp?"

"He killed my mom, Goosey. And Bucky Barnes was dealt a hard one, but he was not a saint either. Not goint after him is as far as I'm prepaed to get, and that's likely to evaporate if Captain Murica starts making a nuisance of himself. I don't owe any of those two anything, contrary to what anybody seems to think."

Loki exchanged a look with Goose and shrugged. Anthony sighed.

"Sorry guys, but I already have a lifetime of watching people calling me petty because I didn't become instant BFF with my parent's killer AND my own would be killer when they generously granted me forgiveness for my deplorable attitude... Provided I became their indentured servant, of course. I'll be honest, completely out of fucks to give as far as the super soldier duo is concerned."

"Understandable."

Goose decided to be more direct as she made her way to the Genius, rubbing her brow on his chin before climbing in his shoulder and purring.

"Goosey, excuse me for sayin', but you DID put on weight" Anthony noted. Goose flicked her ear at Loki who saw too much potential for mischief to refuse to do as he was told, for once.

"She's pregnant, Anthony."

Watching the genius doing an excellent impression of a fish was indeed amusing.

"Pre...We're going to have KITTENS?!!?"

"Well, YOU may... Goose is going to have Flekins. She says it's time."

"Meow."

Chapter Text

It was all Tony Stark fault, anyway.

Fury and Natasha had warned him on how irritating and irresponsible the man was, but Steve had been slightly dubious.
After all, Howard had been such a good friend, helping rescue Bucky and all the important stuff, so Steve had a hard time believing the man's only son could be that much of an irresponsible nitwick.

Of course, there was the footage… All the partying and the alcohol and the drugs and…women (and maybe even men, but THAT, Steve didn't even want to think about). Steve himself despised such tendencies for self indulgence.
After all, if Captain America himself didn't get his dance with Peggy Carter, why should the lazy spoiled brat have all the fun? Bad enough, he had all the money to indulge in his multiple sins.

Natasha had told him all about what happened when SHIELD, and her, tried to guide the so-called genius toward a saner and less selfish way of life.

To be fair (and Steve was always fair: He was Captain America, after all), he had to admit the Iron Man armour looked impressive.

Natasha didn't seem to think so, but then, when all was said and done, Nat was a woman and women didn't understand war, such was the truth. No, the armour, even if Steve didn't know (or care) how it worked, was an impressive creation.
The fact that Stark (and that friend of his, what was his name again?) was the pilot was what was wrong with it.
Yes, yes, the armour was Stark creation, and bravo to him, but the man should have relinquished custody of it to Shield as soon as they asked.

He was no soldier, and Steve was sure someone more suitable could have been found amidst the SHIELD agents. The thing shouldn't be that hard to steer after all, if Stark was able to do it.

It's not as if it required having special abilities or hard work, like being a Super Soldier.

More like being a too rich, lazy brat with a fancy sport car he won't loan to his friends.

Anyway, if Steve had any doubts about what Fury and Nat told him about Stark, they were cleared in about 30 seconds on the Helicarrier when they finally met. The man was everything Steve (rightfully) disliked: Obnoxious, far to sure of himself, and seemingly incapable of showing a modicum of respect to his betters.

Steve was absolutely certain Howard had been very disappointed to have such an individual as a son. Steve certainly was, and made sure to make his displeasure known.

It didn't work.

Not as it usually did. For such a diminutive man, he was not easily cowed.

And then there was that horrible creature. Steve never had been a cat person anyway, but that thing was a monster, and they should get rid of it. And of Loki, too, of course.

Steve had tried to talk to Fury about it, but the man had been distracted and uncooperative.
Nat had explained that Stark, of course, was being difficult and refusing to follow in Howard's footsteps, which was a damm shame... especially since it caused problems to SHIELD.

They'd managed to get rid of Thor once the Thunderer got access to the Tessaract, but Fury had managed to ascertain Loki's sceptre was still on Earth, at least.

Apparently eaten by that damm cat. And Stark didn't want to ask it to give the thing back.

It was all Stark fault.

Steve had decided quite a while ago that the man needed a good talking to, basically. He was pretty certain that once the both of them had a conversation, the genius would soon see the error of his ways.
It wouldn't be an easy task, as Natasha had warned. Contending with the man's ego was likely to take some time.

Case in point: As he'd showed up at that ridiculous tower to see Stark, he was told that he needed to make an appointment beforehand… And that the first available possibility was in three weeks.
Utterly ridiculous, it's not as if the man had a job or anything that required his time. Well, all that partying as bound to take some time, of course, but nothing as important as talking to Captain America for sure.

So Steve followed his principles and planted himself like a tree.

It took hours, but it finally worked and Steve was finally ushered upstairs.

"Rogers, I'm giving you 5 minutes just so you stop pestering the receptionists downstairs, so make it fast."

"I wouldn't have had to if only you'd seen me earlier." Steve pointed out, to which Stark rolled his eyes. How rude.

"I wasn't even here, Capsicle. Contrary to what you and SHIELD seem to think, I am a busy man."

"Those parties..."

"They're short on parties at the FBI, Rogers. Not that it matters, anyway. I don't owe you anything... my time, money, or an explanation. That said, what do you want?"

"You are cutting SHIELD funding that Howard put in place as a founder. You should respect your father's will and..."

Steve stopped when the man outright laughed. To his face, no less.

"You find this funny?"

"Hilarious. You see, Capsicle, I was at the FBI because amongst plenty of other things, they actually found Howard's will, that had mysteriously disappeared. Not exactly surprising since SHIELD wasn't even mentioned... And that it had been sitting in their archives for decades, courtesy of one Peggy Carter, apparently."

How DARE the man tarnish Peggy's legacy?

"Very easily" the man answered without hesitation, "Turns out that the delightful miss Carter embezzled, lied and outright stole my and my father's property for her and SHIELD's gain."

"She needed it for the greater good."

"As defined by Peggy Carter. Still wasn't her money, though. Disposing of other people property as you see fit is highly illegal... well, just about everywhere."

"I know Howard would have wanted, and..."

"You don't know a thing, Capsicle.

You barely knew Howard for a few weeks during the war... mainly when you needed his help or stuff from him, and then you went off with Barnes and the Howlies before tanking that plane in the Arctic and taking a seventy years long map.
Or are you going to have the gall to tell me you knew my FATHER better than me?"

Steve was a bit taken aback but tried to salvage the conversation

"No, but you owe us..."

"Owe you? What the Hell for?"

"I saved the world from HYDRA!"

"Oh, you won the war all by your lonesome, then? How silly of me not to have noticed that..."

Finally, some progress! Well, Steve could be encouraging.

"Well you weren't there, so it is excusable, I guess..."

The genius gave him a very weird look.

"You actually serious right now, Rogers? You REALLY think you won a world war by tanking ONE plane in the arctic? Well, it might come as a shock to you, but the allied forces still had quite a bit to do after your heroics... And manage without you, they did... It took a couple of nukes and a whole lot of dying, but they did.
The world in general doesn't owe you a thing, Rogers. No more than they owe their own fathers, uncles, grandfathers (and mothers), at any rate. You already garner far too much respect out of stuff you did'nt even do, but someone wrote in comics and created your fucking legend."

"Language."

"This is my home, Rogers, I'll talk as I fucking please. Now, your five minutes are almost up so let me be very clear about this:
I will not house you
I will not give you money
I will not join Fury's little boys band or whatever scheme he has concocted these days.

I do, however, intend to pursue SHIELD and their affiliates to the full extent of the law, and I don't give a shite that you don't like it. I refuse to be the sugar daddy to this freeloading enterprise, and I strongly suggest that you never darken my doorstep again. Now leave."

Steve sneered as he looked down on the genius, "And you're going to make me?"

"Allow me, Anthony"

Then the world was all green light for a moment and then...

"Well well well, what a delicious little morsel you are..."

It was all Tony Stark fault.

Tony was going to die of laughter, for sure. or something.

"You sent... the Capsicle...to a leather gay bar?!!?"

Loki buffed his nails on his lapel and then extended a finger "In leather microshorts. Looking very hip, if I say so myself. The patrons seemed to think so, at any rate."

"Oh my... What's the body count, JARVIS?"

"Strangely, none except one broken arm, apparently. The Captain seemed more intent in vacating the premises than to do actual damage, Sir."

"JARVIS, light of my life... Tell me there is footage, please."

"Apparently Mr Rogers adventures are beginning to trend on social media, Sir." And because JARVIS was awesome, he rolled it.

Hence, the dying of laughter part.

Tony particularly liked the bit where Rogers scampered in the neon lit street, bouncy gluteus maximus moulded even more tightly than his classic spandex, under the crowd cheers and whistles.
He was pretty certain it was something that was going to be treasured in some circles... especially the bit when some oversolicitude leather started to rip.

"Oh my God..."

"Yes?" the Trickster answered innocently.

"You're a genius, Reindeer Games, never let anyone tell you otherwise. I was wondering how soon I was going to have to kick Rogers out of the Tower again now that he'd found the way, but I do think we will get a few weeks of peace, at least. Hopefully."

"Surely not... Weeks?"

"Don't underestimate Crapstain abilities to delude himself and rewrite history, Lokes. Also, he has no idea what social media is, doesn't watch the news *because it's all lies anyway*..."

"Not entirely wrong on that part..."

"Yes, but that's beside the point. As soon as he can twist the story to make himself be the hero in his own eyes and everything that is not right in Capsicle world is my fault, he's happy. An trust me, Lokidoki, the level of mental gymnastics Rogers can perform in mere hours if not minutes is astounding."

"Thor level of astounding?"

"Odin level of astounding." The Trickster bit his lip "Oh my, this is not good."

"Well, it is what it is. At least I know about it this time around... And not that I didn't appreciate it, but why did you show up now? I thought that you were learning to do business with Pepper?"

"Miss Potts sent Mr Laufeyson home with quite strict instructions not to traumatize the board further... for this week, at any rate." The Trickster smirked.

"Also, Goose wants to show you something."

"Did she eat something or someone she shouldn't have?"

"Nah, it's a bit different."

And indeed it was. Goose was lounging in her room, on her favourite pillow, purring up a storm... surrounded by eggs.

Very many eggs.

Tony knew the flerken laid eggs, since Loki had told him, but he wasn't expecting THIS much of then...

"How many?"

"117"

"well, that is a big family, Goosey. Congratulation. We'll help as much as we can."

Of course, he would. He was such a sweet little human pet "Mreow purr purr..."

Chapter Text

Raising a pride of Flerkens was hard work, yo.

To be fair, not in the first couple of days, when their main activity was to eat their own shell, which was sorta neat.
But after that, the kittens matured very fast: In three days, they got to four week kitty development.

Very much helped by the literal flerkins buffet station Goose had required (and got, because what would be the point of being Queen of the world otherwise?). Some babies already showed some marked preferences in food taste.

"That was fast."

"Flerkens are not cats, Anthony, but like cats, they are both predator and prey in this Universe, so they develop in stages, with a first big growth spurt, and then it's going to plateau for a little while. They'll grow very fast and then be the equivalent of six week kittens for almost a Terran year."

Tony looked at the small sea of furs in the room. A lot of them seemed to be happy to sleep in a pile, quite close to mom, but a few were already exploring their surroundings on wobbly legs.

One little black number, in particular, seemed very determined to follow Loki around on unsteady feet, no matter how many times the Trickster put him back in the pile.

"You have a fan, Reindeer games."

"Do not be ridiculous, Anthony."

Goose huffed, stretched, extracted herself from the pile, obviously looking for something, then went to fish out not one, but TWO more black little flerkins that were literal carbon copies of each other (including the original entrepreneur), and deposited all of them at the God's feet.

"Mreow."

The Flerkins looked up, mreped in excitement and promptly proceeded to escalate Mount Loki, setting on his shoulders and head after a short scuffle for dominance and purring up a storm.

It was not very often one got to see the God of Mischief speechless, but Goose managed it flawlessly, of course.

The black trio were the first, but not the only, ones who imprinted.

Every time Rhodey showed up at the tower, one serious faced grey kitty trailed him everywhere. Rhodet, Tony knew, was not a pet person, but Tony could tell his playtipus was warming up to the idea... As was Happy with his chunky British shorthair.

Pepper, on the other hand, had immediately welcomed the three marmalades who attached themselves to her.

"It is an honour to be choses, Tony"

That left 99 babies who were just happy to wander around... and get in trouble, sometimes in surprising ways.

Like the day the bespoke cat tree came in.

A few of the kittens did climb on the new places of UP, but most of the herd went, of course, for the boxes... even better, the big one with the all the packing peanuts which literary became the equivalent of a ball pit... Well, at least till a small tentacle grabbed a peanut, and munched on it.

And Tony soon learned that:

1-If one of the flerkins did something, all the others followed suit.

2-Corn packing peanuts made baby flerkens fart.

It was sort of fun, as said farts were a bit explosive and were the equivalent of bum hiccups... much to the kittens protests, but Goose was alright with it so Tony only low-key panicked.

Sort of.(okay, he was a total nervous wreck)

Up to the point, Goose sat on her pet, snagged her interpreter (since the stubborn Jotun refused to give her Allspeak. Saying Midgard wasn't ready for talking cats, if you'd believe that... Piffles.), and proceeded to explain that baby Flerkins were very sturdy and learned by experimenting. They may be inconvenienced from time to time, but it was how one learned.
Besides, the only place where there were a few things susceptible to impacts the kids was the lab, and Goose had marked it as their special place... And didn't Tony love her any more?

With a sad little meow for good measure.

Anthony was toast, of course.
Loki had to leave the room to laugh in private.

Someone who didn't find things funny was Barton.

Of course, Fury couldn't leave well enough alone, so he sent the archer to spy via the vents, which JARVIS detected in a millisecond.

"Sir, Agent Barton is crawling in the vents..."

Tony, who'd just been joined by Pepper on their way to a dinner date, sighed and began to take his jacket off, as the suit was hell on formal clothing. Not that Tony wouldn't be welcome in any restaurant in town even with a wrinkled to Hell and back jacket, but if he could avoid it, he'd rather. One had appearances and standards to maintain, after all.

"Oh, never mind. Have a nice evening, Sir."

"Neverming? What do you mean, Jarv?"

Instead of answering, JARVIS showed:

Someone else had heard Barton crawling around. Goose climbed up the highest cat tree, pushed the ceiling slab out of the way, listened for a few seconds... And let out a cat roar that was undoubtedly a call to arms.
The flerkins almost jerked to attention, and when Goose let out another roar, followed her in the vents.

"Incoming, Sir."

A few seconds later, there was a quite noisy stampede up the living room ceiling... And another a few minutes later, with some pained noises that could only have come from Barton.

Tony was slightly confused, and even more when he saw Pepper smile.

"Pep? What is going on? I could understand Goose trashing Barton, but why calling the babies?"

Pepper adjusted her date tie and jacket with a grin. "Oh, Tony, you silly Billy. Goose is being a good mom and is teaching the kids how to hunt."

"Miss Potts is right, Sir. It is exactly like that, and apart Mr Barton, everyone is having a very good time of it."

The obvious glee in his baby boy voice surprised Tony a bit. "You included?"

"I must admit there have been a few quite entertaining moments already. Have a nice evening, Sir. I will make a compilation of the best parts for when you come back home."

Tony knew when he wasn't needed somewhere, so he shrugged and offered his arm to a smiling Pepper.

"Dinner and a show, you know how to treat a girl, Mr Stark."

Clint was not having a pleasant evening.
He had no qualms about putting down Stark a peg or two, especially since the billionaire turned his nose at SHIELD and sided with Loki, of all people.
But he was beginning to wonder if Fury was making the right call in this instance.
The Director and Natasha seemed to be operating on faulty premises, though.

Both seemed to think the billionaire would be easy to manipulate and gaslight... Which had not worked all that well so far.
Clint didn't know about Fury, but he knew Natasha disliked the billionaire.
First because he was a mark, and emphasizing with your target was not the way to stay sane in their business... Second because he didn't fall for her, and Nat resented failure on a personal level.(success wouldn't have changed much, Nat fiercely despised the marks that fell for her tactics)

Now, Clint wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box. That was not his brain that had earned him his position at SHIELD.
Underestimating your opponent so badly was not the way to come out on top, usually.
And honestly, the little monsters had sharp claws and teeth. He managed to dislodge a few of the kittens... ESPECIALLY a couple that had got a bit too close to his balls for comfort and what was on those tentacles anyway, it itched something fierce?!

"Meow."

Clint raised his head and found himself face to face with an adult sized marmalade cat who didn't seem to be in the best of disposition.

"Oh shit..."

And then there were tentacles.