Chapter Text
It would have been useful if there was a book called Satellites and Telescopes for Dummies. As brilliant as Tony Stark was, it still took him a few days to read up on enough NASA material (Jarvis broke down the firewalls like they were made of paper) to know where to start. Thor hadn’t returned by the time he started construction, so he began with making the smaller components.
Thank God he was a billionaire…
Even once he’d got his head around what to do it took a further week or so to get the workshop up and running the way he wanted. The upper gantry of the warehouse had become a decent living area that Tony had taken some time-out to child-proof and the main warehouse was full of robotic bits and pieces. If one looked carefully enough it was possible to see that some of the robots were building others; one of the most crucial aspects of the project being to make a scaffold on which to make the satellite itself.
One thing Tony also had to take into consideration was the disruption all this was causing to his daughter. Leaving her back in New York, even in the capable hands of the other Avengers, wasn’t an option, so he had had to compromise with living in the New Mexico lab the working days of the week, then taking the girl home each weekend. This meant that Evie could switch round her toys and clothes if she wanted to, and could still go to her weekend activities. In the meantime Jarvis had also worked out a new school time-table for her that would work alongside her moving between states twice a week.
Once again; thank God Tony was a billionaire. With a private jet that could fly at Mach 2 it took less than half an hour for the journey.
Evie understood what was happening, mostly. She had already been showing the same tech-savvy that Tony had shown at the same age, although with her own twist on things, of course. The girl was absolutely excellent at following complex mechanical instructions and only needed to be shown how to do something once. She could just see how things went together, how they worked. However, they had discovered pretty early on that she had no inventive spark what-so-ever. Whilst she could fix things and put together things that already existed, she so far hadn’t shown any sign of inventive genius.
Tony still hoped that it would happen.
What this meant, however, was that the child was often found in the workshop when not in lessons, helping her father with some of the simpler things that would later make their satellite. This did not impress Jarvis one little bit.
“Sir, I am perfectly capable of becoming angry and I am beginning to do so!”
Tony was lying half-under the large armature that would eventually become the support for the solar panels (eventually it would be arc-reactor powered, of course, but the panels provided a good backup). His voice was muffled. “It’s fine, Jarv, shut up.”
“No sir! I will not be silenced on this matter! Miss Evelyn is late for her science lesson!”
Stark pulled himself out from under the machine enough to wink at his daughter. “Jarvis, my dear darling Jarvis. Evie is helping me build a deep space satellite. This kicks the ass of any other science-fair project I’ve ever seen! This counts as a science lesson. Right, Birdie?”
Evie looked up, grinned and nodded. She had a partially put-together circuit board in her hands; Tony had coached her through the simple ones and left her to it.
Jarvis audibly sniffed snootily. “Very well, if you insist, sir. And for the record I believe Michio Kaku’s science-fair project is the most kick-ass ever. It most certainly beat your third grade jet engine.”
“You traitor!”
“Of course sir. In the meanwhile I shall use my sudden spare time to perfect my Project Skynet.”
“Jarvis…Sometimes you scare me.”
“I know sir, consider it one of the perks of the job.”
There was laughter from the large doorway into the warehouse and Tony heaved himself out from under the machine to see Bruce approaching with a mug of coffee, beaker of orange juice and large plate of biscuits.
“Sounds like you’re busy in here.” The physicist handed the drinks to their respective recipients and sat down cross-legged on the floor. “What’s this bit?” He looked up at the complex machinery.
“Supports for the solar panels. At the moment I’m still making the robots that will make the satellite itself.” Tony wiped his oily hands on an old piece of cloth and picked up a cookie. “I can’t really just knock something together on the floor – it needs all the rigs and gantries for support first. So I’m building all that. The plan is that once the scaffolds are done Jarvis can automate the putting together of the actual satellite.”
“As if I didn’t have enough to do already, sir.”
“Oh don’t put on that ‘world weary’ voice, Jarvis. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Of course not, sir.”
Bruce smiled again. No matter how much work there was to be done, Jarvis was always Tony’s first point of call. At least something’s never changed.
“So, how long do you think this will all take?”
Tony took a deep sip of coffee before looking back up at the piece he’d been working on. A sombre expression crossed his face.
“A while.” He flicked the metal with his finger. “The scaffolds and armature will take maybe six months to fully assemble, then the telescope will be another eight or so months to fully put together and test. Assuming Thor can get the mirror in time that is. Then another month or two to get the damn thing up into space. All in all we’re looking at approximately two years’ work just to get this thing up and running.”
“And once it’s up there?”
At that question Tony smiled again. “Ah, I think I’m onto a winner there. Jarv, put it up on the screens.”
The two large monitors on the desk next to them lit up and a complex stream of equations sprawled across the screens. At a first glance it was somewhat reminiscent of the Matrix. Bruce got up on his knees to get a better look, frowning as he tried to make sense of the compound calculations. He mouthed a couple of the longer strings of algebra to himself before letting out an ‘oh’ of understanding.
“These are atmospheric coefficients.”
“Bingo.”
“But you’re factoring time into the equation?”
Tony picked up a wrench that was long enough for him to point at various parts of the calculations without having to get up. “The thinking is that once the telescope is running it can scan the atmospheres on the planets and such in galaxy IC11001, then Jarvis can use these equations to calculate what the atmospheres may have evolved into. That way we’ll have a more accurate idea of what the planets might currently look like and therefore which ones we need to take a closer look at.”
“Hmm, smart.”
“Of course.”
“Daddy’s always smart.” Evie held up her circuit board. “And I’m finished.” She handed it to her father who looked it over critically, then connected it to his StarkPad. The tablet whistled at him and Evie beamed at the confirmation that her piece of electronics worked.
“Good work, birdie.” Tony slid back under the machine and slotted the little section into place. He held a hand out and she high-fived him. “Team Stark!”
“Winter is coming.” Bruce quipped, then grinned as his friend glared at him and the girl looked confused.
“Enough with the Game of Thrones jokes, or I’m going back to calling you the Jolly Green Giant.”
“You never stopped calling me that.”
Tony pulled himself back out and sat up. “Huh. True.” He glanced at the screens again – with their scrolling equations – and then at the mess of blue-prints surrounding them on the floor. “You know, this baby will need a name when it goes up into space. I’m sure I could cope with one more joke. Give it your best shot.”
“You seriously want a Game of Thrones reference as the name for your kick-ass, God-saving satellite?” Bruce asked sceptically. When he just received a big grin in return he sighed and tried to remember the details from when he had last read the books. “Uh…Well, you’re Stark’s, so the banner for the House Stark is a direwolf…?”
“Direwolf…” Tony turned the name around a few times then looked at Evie. “What do you think, Evie?”
“Sounds like a werewolf.” The girl clearly didn’t have a clue what the two men were talking about in terms of the references, but took the question seriously. “Werewolves are cool and you can’t kill them, are direwolfs like that?”
“Pretty much.”
“Okay then, I like it.”
Tony whooped and fist-bumped Bruce. “We have a name! Jarvis; rename all pertinent files ‘Project Direwolf’ then write letters to HBO and George Martin asking if that’s cool with them. Can’t see why it wouldn’t be; after all, how many other books and TV shows have a satellite named after them?”
“Right away, sir.” Jarvis sounded as near as he ever did to amused. “Project Direwolf has been created.”
“Hell yeah!”
Evie tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. “Daddy, can I watch Game of Thrones now? You said I couldn’t before, but now our telescope’s going to be called after it, so can I watch it?”
A mental film-reel played in Tony’s head. Blood, sex, a bit more blood, a lot more sex, some confusing politics and – oh! – He forgot the blood and sex! “Nooo…Not yet. I don’t think you’d understand a lot of it. Wait until you’re a bit older, birdie.”
Like, until you’re in your thirties…
MWMWMWMWMWMMWWMWMWM
It was dark. Extremely dark, which in turn was odd.
Tony had almost forgotten what real darkness was like. He was so used to the little night-light sitting in his chest that chased all the shadows away. But it was dark.
He slowly sat up, hands pushing away bed-covers that he could feel but not see. Even under his pyjama T-shirt the light would still be glowing, but there was just nothing. Surely he should be worried? Without his arc-reactor he would die, that was something to worry about, wasn’t it?
Or not. Even as the thought occurred his chest was already lighting up – as if responding to his train of thought.
Unusual to say the least….
A low groan nearby caught Tony’s attention, taking his mind away from his misbehaving reactor as he tried to peer through the gloom.
“Hello?” The single word was swallowed up by the darkness and he rolled his eyes. Right, no way was he going to conform to horror-movie stereotypes. “Jarvis, lights.”
Nothing.
“Jarvis..?” Okay. Straight back into horror-movie set-up then. He had definitely heard someone else in the room and it hadn’t been a happy sound so surely the sensible thing would be to find out who, what and why.
The man pulled himself to the edge of the bed and swung his legs over the side, automatically fishing around for his slippers. However, his foot didn’t connect with the shoes and found only carpet.
Wet…cold…carpet.
“What…?” Tony leant over, the small light from his reactor highlighting enough for him to see that when he lifted his foot up it was stained red. “What the hell?”
There was that moan again, low and drawn out, a sound of pure pain drawing his gaze back up to the darkened room. Slowly the man put his foot back down on the sodden carpet before standing up and taking a cautious step forwards. The small light illuminated a stretch of floor infront of him as he carefully made his way towards the source of the noise.
There.
Pale against the dark carpet was an out flung hand, fingers twitching minutely. Tony crouched down slowly, the scent of blood assaulting his nose and making him grimace. He leant forwards enough for his arc reactor to illuminate the rest of the scene.
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
The man scrambled backwards with an exclamation of pure horror, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. His back hit the edge of the bed and for a long moment he just pressed up against it, shaking his head furiously and biting down on his knuckles to muffle the scream that was desperate to force its way out.
No. No! This couldn’t be happening!
Loki was lying on the floor, face up so that he was staring up at the ceiling, one arm fallen to his side and out-stretched in a silent plea.
There was so much blood.
His stomach was sliced open, a cut that ran from chest to groin and spilt entrails across the floor. Through the gaping wound it was possible to see his lungs desperately trying to pull in air, his heart frantically trying to do its job.
“Please…God no…” Tony’s voice came out as a broken sob. “This isn’t real! This isn’t real!” He gripped his hair, chest heaving as he felt himself beginning to hyperventilate.
Loki tried to speak, but all that happed was a strangled gasp, blood bubbling up his throat and making him choke. The coughing motion caused something inside him to shift and another coil of intestines slithered to the floor, red and slick in the light of the arc reactor. There was no sign on his face that he realised his own innards were surrounding him; he was far too gone for that.
“Loki…” Tony was barely able to choke the name out, his pulse hammering in his ears as he struggled to breathe through the terror of the situation. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Someone was whimpering and he was pretty certain that it was his own voice.
This can’t be happening!
Loki’s shallow gasps were slowing, the movement of his lungs in his ripped chest cavity decreasing rapidly. Even as Tony watched the broken ribcage slowed and stopped in it’s rise and fall action, a small sigh leaving the trickster’s blood-filled mouth. His head lolled and fell to the side, exposing the other side of his face and the gaping hole where his other eye should have been.
Dead.
Tony screamed. Not the deep cry that most males trot out when in pain or scared but a real scream. All horror and fear and agony.
Loki was dead! Gutted like a fish, intestines spilling across the floor in thick shiny ropes. Dead.
Stark curled in on himself, gripping his hair in both hands until it was tearing at the roots. The scream wasn’t stopping; he couldn’t stop it. Even when he long ran out of breath to sustain it the soundless shriek continued, silent and broken.
“Be gone.” The smooth and above all calm voice seemed so out of place as to be ludicrous.
Tony raised his head enough to see golden light banishing the surrounding darkness. The corpse flickered slightly – like an out of tune TV.
“I said; be gone!” There was force to the order this time and the body vanished completely, taking the blood-stain with it.
“What…?” His head hurt, his throat hurt, his eyes hurt, and damn it all but his heart hurt. Tony managed to look up, his face blotchy with tears and pain.
Loki was standing next to him, sceptre in hand and staring at the spot where the corpse had lain. He was dressed in his full battle armour – helmet and all – with a dark expression. That, however, lightened when he looked down at the human still curled up against the bed.
“Tony?” His voice was soft, warm. “It’s gone, Tony.” When he didn’t receive a reply he crouched down, discarding his sceptre on the floor and removing his helmet. Slowly he reached out and untangled the hair from Tony’s fingers, applying enough gentle pressure to persuade the man to lower his hands down to his lap. “It’s gone; I’m here now.”
“No you aren’t.”
The God let go of one of the shaking hands to cup his lover’s cheek. “Tony-”
“No. You aren’t here. You aren’t real. That…that thing was more real than you are.” Tony whispered. His voice was shuddering as he refused to make eye contact. “That’s what’s really happening to you right now. They’re turning you into that. I may already be too late. You could be dead right now for all I know.”
“I’m not dead.”
“You’re a dream! You can only tell me what I know myself!”
“And you know I’m not dead.” The soft British accent didn’t change from it’s soothing cadence, even as Tony grew more agitated. “I’m not dead because I know that despite my asking you not to, you are currently doing your damnedest to rescue me. I’m not dead because I am holding on for you.”
“This is just a dream…” Tony blinked when he felt lips press against his forehead in such a familiar gesture that all the pain that was just beginning to ebb away came flooding back. “Please don’t leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He felt warm arms wrap around him, armour melting away to the soft tunic that Loki wore under it. Tony took a deep shuddering breath, falling against the solid weight of his lover.
“It’s okay, I’m here now. The nightmare’s gone and I’m here.”
“Only until I wake up.” The man whispered. “Only until I wake up.”
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW
Tony refused to sleep for nearly three full days, running on red-bull, coffee and sheer determination.
The mere thought of another nightmare on those proportions persuaded him to work himself to exhaustion in the hopes of producing a dreamless sleep.
He felt like he was falling back into his old pre-Avengers habits.
MWMWMWMMWMWMWMWMWMMW
Jane Foster stood by the bank of computers in the warehouse-turned-workshop watching the small scene silently.
Amongst all of the huge machinery and boxes there was a small sofa, swamped in blankets and currently occupied by a sleeping Tony Stark. On the table next to him was a steaming hot mug of coffee.
Jane frowned at the hot beverage – wondering where it had come from. A noise from the desk area by the sofa made her circle a stack of crates to see Evie standing on tiptoe and operating a sandwich toaster that sat on the work-top.
“Evelyn?”
The girl didn’t seem in the least surprised to hear someone else in the area, although she glanced at Jane momentarily to check who it was.
“Daddy’s asleep. You’ll have to wait if you want to talk to him.” The machine beeped and the girl carefully slipped the hot toastie onto a plate. The food was then placed next to the mug of coffee. Jane frowned.
“Do you do this often?”
“Do what?”
“Sort out food for your Dad when he’s fallen asleep in the lab?”
Evie looked at Tony, then back at the woman. “No. This is the first time. I wanted to do something to help and Jarvis suggested food. He worked the coffee machine for me and the toaster wasn’t tricky.”
Jane reached over to turn the electrical appliance off at the power connection. “No, but it’s dangerous; you could have burnt yourself.”
“I’m seven, I’m not an idiot.”
The sulky comment made the woman smile. “I know you aren’t, I’m sorry. I’m just worried that a seven year old is using a coffee maker and toaster unsupervised.”
“Jarvis did the coffee for me, I told you. And he told me how to use the toaster safely.” Evie folded her arms grumpily. She and the physicist had had little contact up until this point, and Jane felt that she wasn’t making the best of impressions on the child. “Daddy always makes me breakfast and today I woke up first. So I wanted to make him breakfast.”
“That was very sweet of you.”
Evie frowned slightly. “Are you going to be my Auntie?”
“I…What?”
“If you and Uncle Thor get married, then will you be my Auntie?”
Jane sat down on one of the crates, wondering if it was worth pouring herself a cup of coffee. She had only come in to have a word with Tony, and most certainly hadn’t expected to be accosted by a small child.
“We’re not going to get married.”
Evie sat down on the floor next to the crates, easily tapping the pass-word into Tony’s tablet and finding Angry Birds. “But if you do.”
“We won’t. And anyway I heard that your uh…’Mum’ doesn’t like Thor all that much.”
“Móhðy and Uncle Thor just need to talk. That’s what Daddy says.” The girl didn’t look up from her game. “But quite a lot of people don’t like Móhðy, so I don’t mind if you say you don’t like him.”
Jane thought momentarily of the Destroyer stalking down the high-street – killing people without a care. She remembered the terror she’d felt as it easily batted away the Asgardian warriors and then as Thor had walked towards it, entreating to a brother who simply didn’t want to listen anymore. And she remembered how the machine had thrown Thor down nearly half the street, a blow hard enough to effectively kill him. All guided by Loki.
“I’ve never met your…Móhðy.” She stumbled over the pronunciation of the Norse word. “I don’t like to make a judgement before I meet someone. Do you think he’d like me to be your Auntie?”
Evie shrugged. “Probably. You’re smart. He likes smart people. And Uncle Thor likes you.”
“He’d like me because Thor does?”
“I guess so. And I like you. I wouldn’t mind if you married Uncle Thor.”
Jane smiled at that. It was apparently quite difficult to persuade a small child brought up on Disney that a man and a woman could just be friends without all the true love stuff.
“Thor’s getting married?” The sleepy voice came from the sofa and Tony’s head emerged from the pile of blankets. “When did that happen?”
“It didn’t, Evie’s speculating.”
“Oh, shame. You two would make a cute couple.” The inventor pulled himself upright and eyes the coffee and toastie – still quite warm – in confusion. “These for me?”
“Yup. I made them.” Evie said with a grin.
Tony looked back at the breakfast again, then opened his arms wide. “Come here, you!”
As the child eagerly dashed over for a hug, Jane smiled sadly. She knew next to nothing of Loki as a person, but everything she did know just didn’t fit into the picture of a loving parent with a sweet and curious child. But maybe she could understand why getting the wayward God back meant so much to the father/daughter duo.
When Evie went back to her tablet and Tony started sipping his coffee the woman cleared her throat.
“Tony, Thor’s come back. He’s eating at the moment and has refused to say a word about what happened until he sees you.”
The inventor paused mid-sip. “Was he happy or upset?”
“Hyperactive.”
“Probably good news then.”
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW
It was, for once.
The Dwarves were apparently more than able to make the mirror required, and as a price had requested a large quantity of plastic and instructions on how to make more of it. In Tony’s eyes it was the bargain of the century, but the Dwarves – still living in a world that was essentially the middle ages – knew the true value of the material in their work.
However, to make a mirror that was smooth and flawless down to the atomic level would take time.
“How long?!”
“Eighteen months, give or take.” Thor said glumly. “They say that that will be the very least to get the work done to the quality you demand. It will be a difficult job.”
I appreciate that, but still. That puts production back again.” Tony ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “We’re looking at two years before I can get this thing into space at this rate. I can’t let…That’s too long.” The hastily cut-off but I can’t let Loki suffer for that long hung in the air between them.
“You’re doing everything you can, Tony, that’s all anyone could ever ask of you.”
“Still…”
Tactfully, the God decided to change the subject. They were seated up in the living area above the workshop, slumped in the sofas surrounding a small coffee table.
“My parents asked me to pass on their regards to you.”
“Oh? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“A fairly good thing I would say.”
Tony frowned slightly. “And they’re okay with the whole dude-on-dude thing? I’m not quite sure where Norse Gods stand on gay relationships. Views are mixed on whether or not Vikings accepted it or not.”
Thor snorted slightly. “It was your Christianity that had a problem with same-sex relationships. On Asgard it is not considered unusual for men or women to seek out the same gender. A citizen is expected to marry and produce children, but fidelity in said marriage is not necessarily kept.”
“I thought Loki had some trouble being gay?”
The God looked uncomfortable. “That would likely be because he would act in a manner that was seen as less than manly. His fighting style and use of magic were both considered ‘womanly’. For him to then prefer male companionship…Well, he didn’t do himself any favours.”
“And being a hermaphrodite can’t have helped matters.” Tony said acidly. He was gratified to see Thor wince. “After all, he’d taken enough time to convince himself that he was male and then people belittled him without even knowing the truth.”
“He never put it like that…” The God mumbled. “I knew about his…that he was different. I didn’t know why, of course, but I knew that he had…extra….”
“He’s a hermaphrodite, Thor. We have a word for it.”
“Okay. Well, I knew, but after he learnt a spell to conceal it he impressed upon me how I was to forget that he had ever been anything other than a normal male Æsir. We were still children; I grew up with it as only a vague memory.” The large blonde shrugged hopelessly. “If I am to be honest, Tony, by the time he had problems with others about his bed-partners and magic it was thousands of years later and I had put it so far back in my mind it never occurred to me.”
Tony frowned at that; put-out at the way Thor was trying to remove the blame from himself. At any rate, it wasn’t really something to be discussed at this point. Hopefully it was a conversation Loki would have with his brother when they found him again. And back to the matter in hand…
“So your parents are cool that Loki’s with me, then? After all, we proved that we can ‘produce kids’ quite effectively.”
Thor gratefully took the chance to get back to the original conversation. “They are curious about the mortal who could snare the God of Mischief.”
Tony smirked at the choice of words. “I don’t know how much snaring went on. We just realised we got on pretty well when we weren’t trying to kill each other.”
“Be that as it may, my parents would like to meet you one day. As would Sleipnir; he is beside himself with worry over Loki.”
“Sleipnir…?” Tony’s photographic memory quickly shuffled through the files until it found the right entry. “Wait, the horse?” Along with the knowledge came a memory, nearly seven years old, and one of the few times Loki had ever spoken of his other child.
“I can deal with a crying child, Tony.” The God rose to his feet, the sobbing baby safely ensconced in his arms. “Sleipnir was a nightmare.”
“Wasn’t he a horse?”
“An eight legged horse who refused to go to bed. He was a nightmare child.” There was fondness in the tricksters voice as he spoke.
The wistfulness on his face then had made Tony acutely aware in that moment that the God desperately loved his children, no matter what others thought of them.
“How long has it been since Loki saw Sleipnir?”
Thor looked miserable. “Before he fell. Over ten years ago now. Sleipnir misses him immensely.”
Whilst the existence of an eight legged horse had managed to wriggle its way into the ‘weird shit that actually exists’ file in Tony’s brain, he hadn’t given any thought as to the other anomalies said horse might have.
“By ‘misses him’ do you mean in the usual animal sense of missing a person, or is Sleipnir cognitively aware?” He couldn’t believe he was asking such a question!
“Sleipnir is as mentally aware as you or I.” The thunder God looked confused, evidently not realising that Loki had said next to nothing about his offspring. “He can communicate by way of mind-speak and is highly intelligent.”
“Oh. Wow, I hadn’t realised that.”
“He and Loki are extremely close, so to not see him for so long and then to hear that he has been taken by the chitauri…”
Tony nodded in understanding. Forgetting Sleipnir’s general appearance for a moment, he could fully sympathise with a child desperately worried about their parent. And if mythology was to be believed, only parent. Christ! At least Evelyn still had her Dad to look after her!
“How old is Sleipnir then? Mentally comparing him to a human.”
Thor shrugged. “It’s hard to calculate. He is certainly an adult in mentality, although Loki will doubtless forever see him as a spindly legged foal. Were he a human then I would guess you could say he is middle aged. As a man in his fifties perhaps? Of course, in years he is over four hundred thousand.”
A low whistle was Tony’s only reply. That was one old horse.
“He also expressed a desire to one day meet his half-sister.” Thor added.
“Huh? Who…Evie?”
The God had to smile at the dumb-founded expression on Tony’s face. “Of course. They are siblings through Loki.” His smile became a sly grin. “And he did mention maybe one day meeting with his Fóstri.”
“His what?”
“Step-father.”
That one took a while to sink in. Tony stared blankly at the thunder God as the two words slowly crept into his brain. Step-father.
“Mary Mother of God!” His head fell into his hands with a groan. “Loki and I aren’t even married!”
“Loki loves you, that’s enough for Sleipnir.”
Tony groaned again. “Well he can’t come and live with us; there are no stables and I know nothing about horses.”
“I want a horse!” Evie rounded the sofa, evidently having caught the last part of the conversation. “Daddy, are we getting a horse?”
“No we are not!”
“Yet.” Thor added, whilst Tony glared at him.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW
Time passed, sometimes slowly – when nothing seemed to work – and sometimes quickly.
The year progressed and Evie’s eighth birthday came and went. They spent it out of the tower, with Tony deciding to take her on holiday so that she wasn’t constantly mulling on the fact that Loki wasn’t turning up. The idea seemed to work and the characters walking around Disneyland kept her mind off things. Even Tony cheered up, which was an added bonus he hadn’t expected.
The satellite slowly began to take shape. An arc reactor – smaller than the one for the tower, but much much larger than Stark’s personal one – was built and fitted into the framework. Jarvis made slow but steady progress with the atmospheric detection equations and had already begun testing them on closer stellar objects to good results. The bulk of the satellite itself was also constructed as a skeletal framework. There was still a huge amount to put inside it – communication equipment, all of the mechanics to ensure it could do its job, the mirror…the list was pretty much endless.
But, for the first time since losing Loki, Tony felt like they were really beginning to make some progress.
Life as an Avenger didn’t stop just because Stark Industries was deciding to change the face of space technology either. However, world invasions didn’t happen all that often and other than having to deflect an inter-continental ballistic missile sent by a certain country that wasn’t even sure who they were aiming at, Ironman hadn’t been needed all that much.
And, well, more time passed. That’s what time does.
The mirror was completed and safely delivered to Earth. It was incredible, a thing of beauty. Nearly twenty meters across it was ten times the size of the one inside the Hubble Telescope. To the Avenger’s disappointment it wasn’t accompanied by any of the Dwarven craftsmen, but Tony made sure that the payment exceeded that which had been asked for – the craftsmanship was too fine for him not to.
It took nearly three months to properly install the giant disc into the structure and to check that it was fitted correctly (a single design flaw in the Hubble mirror had resulted in nearly ruining the entire project, and Tony didn’t have the time for mistakes like that). The second mirror assembly, which had been made on Earth, was already in place and the two pieces were carefully lined up with the optical array.
Jarvis was integrated into the whole system both to run system diagnostics and to familiarise Tony with how the AI would function inside the computer modules. It was normal for deep space telescopes to be monitored manually from ground-control, but with Jarvis the thinking was that Tony wouldn’t have to worry about having to sift through reams of data.
As well as mechanically putting the gigantic piece of technology together, there were also computer programs that needed writing for the whole thing to work effectively. Jarvis needed to know how to tell the difference between relevant and irrelevant data, what he was looking for, how to scan with optimum efficiency, and a multitude of fine details that had Tony tearing his hair out. As it was, whilst Jarvis needed to know these things, it was also Jarvis who was writing the algorithms to tell himself what he needed to know, so he started out by knowing what he needed to do to know them, which made it all a lot easier.
Bruce had tried to make sense of it and left with a headache.
And amongst all the organised chaos, Tony had also had to update his suit. The plan was still to launch from Pluto – which Thor had already okayed with Heimdall on the use of the Bifrost – but the closer the machine came to being finished the more Stark came to realise how much his suit was going to need for him to survive.
For a start, the damn place was cold. The surface was Nitrogen ice – meaning it was at the very least -240 Celsius (-400 Fahrenheit) although Tony preferred to work in Kelvin, which made it a balmy 33K. The atmosphere was non-existence – far too cold for one – and chances were it would be extremely dark due to being so far from the sun.
So the Ironman suit was revamped, and pimped and added to until Tony was as certain as he could ever be that it would keep him alive in such hostile terrain.
He could only hope it would be enough.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW
“That…Is one big box of wires.” Clint’s sarcasm didn’t really come across as well as he wanted it to when faced with the behemoth of a machine.
It was big. Scrap that, it was huge.
Larger than a jumbo jet, it sat in the centre of the warehouse, gleaming smugly.
Finished.
It had been twenty nine months, just over Tony’s guess of two years to make and had easily sucked up about $93.5 million to build. The telescope was a pioneering piece of technology; ten, maybe twenty years ahead of anything NASA had been able to make.
The whole thing sat on top of a monster of a flatbed lorry that Tony had borrowed from the United States Army (it had once been used to transport the space shuttle Endeavour). Down both sides the Stark Industries logo had been stencilled and pride of place along the nose cone were huge letters spelling out ‘Direwolf’ (Tony had received permission from both the copyright holders, who were rather smug to have their book/show inspire the name of such a prestigious inventor’s work).
It took them three days to make the careful trek from the birthplace in the warehouse to the Bifrost site in the middle of the desert, Tony worrying over every bump and rut they hit along the way. The satellite was accompanied by three Stark Industries vans; two of them carrying a stack of large cases that Stark had been very vague about.
Thor had already spoken to Heimdall and a plan had been formulated to ensure the satellite would reach its destination in one piece. Namely, there was no way Tony was going to be able to go to Asgard this time round. The Observatory (Thor had to explain what he meant by that in relation to the bridge) was simply too small to fit the flat-bed truck and its cargo into, so Heimdall had suggested that he send the vehicle and its escort directly through without stopping at Asgard. Usually most journeys went through Asgard, since it was the main site of the Bifrost, but the Gatekeeper had been quite adamant that it was possible for him to send someone from one place to another without needing to stop in between at the city.
Tony was a little disappointed that he wasn’t going to see the fabled City of the Gods, but he supposed there were always other times.
When they reached the New Mexico Bifrost site Fury was already there waiting for them. Alongside was a large group of agents, fifteen of whom were in what appeared to be heavily modified NASA space suits.
“What’s with the costume-party?” Tony jumped down from the cab of the truck, eyeing the astronauts in amusement. “If someone had warned me it was fancy dress I would have had time to get my Wolverine costume together.”
“Not funny, Stark.” Fury swept his hand back to indicate the people – nine men and six women now that Tony looked closer. “This is going to be your team up there.”
“Uh, no it isn’t.” The man gave the five team members a sarcastic little wave. “Sorry to get your hopes up, but I’ve got my own team for this. I don’t want Shield involved.”
The Director folded his arms. “And why would that be? Truthfully, Mr Stark.”
“Truthfully? For starters, I doubt those outfits will keep them alive for more than five minutes up there. Look at them; you might as well have made them out of paper!” Tony said scornfully. “And besides not wanting to come home with a group of human-popsicles, I also don’t trust Shield one little bit with any of my tech. You know that, don’t you dear?” He patted Fury’s arm in a condescending manner before turning away from the man. “I’ve got this covered, but thanks.”
“Stark, we aren’t talking about a little jaunt to the moon here!”
“No, we aren’t.” And suddenly Tony was right back up in Fury’s face, spitting the words like acid. “We’re talking about something so far away mankind has never even bothered to dream about going there. Hell, we don’t even classify Pluto as a planet anymore! It’s so far from home that home isn’t even a concept worth thinking about out there. I’m risking an awful lot going there just by myself; don’t think for a second that I’m going to let others put themselves at risk too, purely for my selfish dream.”
“I thought you said you had your own team.” Fury’s reply was cold and direct, repeating Stark’s earlier words straight back to him.
“Yeah, I do. Jarvis? Fire ‘em up.”
The doors on the two Stark Industries vans that had been part of the satellite convoy opened of their own accord, displaying the crates inside. One by one said boxes rolled down the ramps that extended from the open doors on caterpillar-treads to line up neatly alongside the vehicles. Once all were out and in they began to methodically unfold seemingly without any other external stimuli.
Had anyone been asked to explain what they were seeing it would have been easiest to do so by referencing the battle droids from Starwars; Phantom Menace. Or maybe Transformers. The crates opened outwards and upwards at a blinding speed that was reminiscent of the Ironman armour attaching itself to Tony and in less than a minute ten suits were standing beside the vans – unpainted and gleaming a dull silver in the sun but otherwise perfectly functioning Ironman replicas.
Most of the Avenger’s team who had accompanied Tony didn’t seem surprised – apparently he had told them of this in advance – but Fury, for once, seemed taken aback.
“Are those for people?”
“No. Jarvis controls them.”
The suits saluted, in synch. Tony saw – out the corner of his eye – one of the Shield agents take an involuntary step backwards and he grinned.
“There’s only ten.” Fury stated coldly. “You’re going to need more than that. The telescope is huge.”
Tony gave him one of his very best scathing looks. “Excuse me? Pluto has less gravity than our moon. I’d probably be able to lift it all on my own.” He gestured at the free-standing suits. “Nine of these guys are built for heavy lifting and one houses a new mainframe for Jarvis. The connection with him broke that time I got rid of that nuke for you, which wasn’t good for me, so I’ve built a mobile mainframe that can come with me when I’m out of range of the normal signal. I’m assuming that another planet will put me out of range. Ditto with the telescope; Jarvis is in there too. He’s my operator.”
“Will you stay in radio contact?”
“Uh…I’ll be a couple of billion miles away. What’s the reach of your walkie talkies?” Tony threw the quip over his shoulder as he turned and began to walk back over to the group of Stark Industries vehicles.
Evie had let herself out of one of the vans, dragging the case containing the Ironman armour with her. She looked up and grinned when her father gave her the thumbs up sign.
The girl had grown, as children do, over the course of making the satellite. Loki had disappeared the day before her seventh birthday and now they were only two days from her tenth (Tony had been careful with his timing so that he’d be back for it). She still bore very little resemblance to Loki, only the green tint to her irises betraying any relation. Instead the child was the spitting image of her father and it was only the longer hair that stopped anyone mixing up photographs of her with photos of Tony at the same age. It was quite clear, though that she was growing up, and Tony was beginning to sadly realise that his little girl was not going to be all that little for much longer.
“Right. Everything ready?” He clapped Evie on the shoulder.
“Jarvis said nothing happened when we moved it. Everything is working.” The girl had set up the StarkPad and showed a page covered in specs from the satellite. “It’s all ready.”
“Great!” Tony rubbed his hands together, already anticipating the job ahead. Then he noticed how his daughter’s expression fell slightly. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, birdie.”
“I don’t want you to go.” She muttered.
“I’ll be back before you know it.”
“But I don’t want you to go! You’ll be on your own and we won’t be able to talk to you.”
Tony smiled slightly. “It’s a barren rock in the middle of nowhere. Nothing can happen.” He brushed the girl’s hair back from her face. “I’ll pop up, launch the telescope and be back for dinner. What’s got you so worried?”
Evelyn shrugged slightly. “I don’t want you to go missing too.” She mumbled, looking down at the floor.
“Oh Evie…” Tony pulled her into a tight hug. “I’m not going to go missing. I’ll have ten Jarvis’s with me, and there’s nothing up there that can do any damage. Okay? I’ll be fine.”
“I’m just worried.” The three words were muffled from where the girl was pressing into her father’s t-shirt.
“I know, but it will be very quick and everyone here will stay with you until I’m back, yeah?” Tony smiled down at Evie.
“I guess.”
“You know why I’m doing this.”
She nodded at that, looking a little more sure than she had. “Yeah, yeah I know.”
“So are you going to be okay?”
The girl finally smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Just…be careful?”
“I’m always careful.”
Evie laughed at the blatant lie. Tony gave her another squeeze then released her so that she could pick up the StarkPad again. They both turned when they heard Thor approaching – the God had yet to learn to be quiet.
“Tony, are you ready?”
Stark ruffled Evie’s hair again. “Yeah, as ready as I’ll ever be.” He took a couple of steps back from his daughter and stretched his arms out wide. “Hook me up Jarvis.”
The Ironman suit folded itself around the jogging outfit that the man was wearing, flashing in the bright sun as the process finished, leaving the face plate out. Tony held out one gauntleted hand and Evelyn fist-bumped him.
“Okay, time to rock and roll.” It seemed that that was a code-phrase of some sort because the ten extra suits turned and began marching into the circle Thor had mapped out as the Bifrost site, surrounding the lorry and satellite that were already placed there. Tony flipped his visor down. “Jarvis, systems check, are you working independent of the main tower?”
“Affirmative sir, the mobile mainframe is working effectively.”
“Great.” Inside the suit it wasn’t possible for the others to see Tony take a shaky breath. He followed the other Ironmen and pulled himself up onto the truck to sit beside the telescope. It was comforting to see Evie take Natasha’s hand and the assassin allow her to do so. “Right, Thor, what do I do?”
Thor made sure that he was well outside the periphery of the site before answering. “You need not do anything.” He raised his voice. “Heimdall! Open the Bifrost!”
Tony clung to the edge of the truck with one hand as the area was suddenly bathed with an almost glaring light, and saluted. The last he saw before everything in his line of sight was blinded was Evie waving frantically.
WMWMWMWMWMMWMWMWMWM
Ironman had closed his eyes throughout the – admittedly very quick – journey. Whereas Loki’s teleportation had been a brief whirl through darkness, this was shaking and jolting and painfully bright light everywhere that made him unable to open his eyes, even with the sun protection built into the HUD.
It would be fair to say that he was pretty damn frightened too.
Years. He had spent years building up to this point, and had never really considered the important fact of launching the satellite off of another goddamn planet! It was always worry over if he had covered every angle, worry over how Evie was coping, worry over if Loki was alright, worry, worry, worry.
He hadn’t really confronted the thought of being the first man to set foot on another planet – declassified or not – until it was actually happening.
He was scared.
The shaking stopped and the light faded, but for a long time Ironman didn’t move, clinging to the security of the truck and keeping his eyes tightly closed.
“Sir…” Jarvis was working, at least. “Sir, you might want to look at this.”
The AI hadn’t really been built to have ‘awe’ as an emotional function, but he was programed to learn from the environment and Tony was pretty certain that that sounded like awe.
He opened his eyes.
“Oh…God…”
The vista was…stunning. Purely stunning.
The headlights of the truck illuminated ice and rock stretching out infront of him, rising up in fantastic shapes that would have given M C Escher a headache. The ice was foggy, almost blue in appearance and Tony remembered that it wasn’t actually frozen water, but frozen nitrogen – the entire planet’s atmosphere frozen solid. The horizon was much shorter than that on Earth and he could very faintly make out the shape of a moon in the sky that was desperately reflecting what little light it could get from the sun.
The sun…
He looked up, then in every direction of the sky that he could.
“Over there, sir.” Jarvis circled something on the display and Tony stared.
The sun, the thing so natural that he pretty much forgot that it existed most days, was tiny. No heat and very little light could reach the spot where he was sitting; infact it was the same amount of light Earth usually received from it’s own moon, but appeared much smaller in the sky.
“Where…can we see Earth from here?”
“No sir, it’s on the opposite side of the system to us.”
“Jesus…” He looked down from his perch on the truck at the dull surface.
Another world. So far away that mankind couldn’t even dream of reaching it. It was beyond imagining.
He carefully climbed down from the truck, letting out a shaky breath when he felt the rock and ice crunch under his boots.
“Jarv….Just, record everything you can, yeah?”
“Of course, sir.”
Tony took a hesitant step forward, feeling himself nearly float as he transferred the weight from one foot to the other. The gravity was so low he didn’t dare use the suit to fly. If he could fly at all – no atmosphere would make it pretty tricky.
“How many moons does this thing have?” It was purely something to say; to stop himself from thinking about how he was the only human on the entire damn planet.
“Five, sir. One of which could be said to be part of a binary system with Pluto.”
Hearing Jarvis’s voice was a comfort and Tony continued to talk as he began unstrapping the satellite; the other unmanned suits helping. It was all so big. Space was just big.
He’d been right when he’d told Fury that it would only need the eleven of them to manoeuvre the giant machine. Low gravity had its uses.
The man climbed up onto the telescope to access the control panel and the HUD in his helmet indicated that all of the systems were working correctly and the large arc reactor had not reacted unfavourably to the extreme cold. He quickly flicked a group of switches up to their ‘open’ positions and closed the panel back up.
“Okay Jarvis, everything’s looking good.” He very slowly climbed back down – well aware that jumping could result in him bouncing around like a rubber ball. “Fire the boosters.”
The ten suits supported the machine and lifted it as the engines fired, the blue burn lighting up more of the unusual rock around them.
“Systems are holding, sir. She is ready to go.”
Tony stood well back and nodded. “Okay, Project Direwolf, launch.”
The thrusters roared.
Unlike a rocket or shuttle on Earth, very little force was needed to escape the gravitational field. Had he been launching from home Tony would have needed a fuel cell attached to the satellite just to leave the atmosphere. However, here the arc reactor alone was able to provide enough thrust and send the giant telescope screaming upwards.
“She’s holding, sir.” Jarvis’s voice could barely be heard over the roar. “Exiting atmosphere and entering orbit now. All systems are on green, pressure holding and steady. The arc reactor is working optimally.”
Tony just stood there, staring.
Most people had seen videos of Cape Canaveral launching various missions, of watching the iconic NASA rockets dwindle into tiny specs in the sky. Not many had seen it with their own eyes. And now it was here infront of him. Not even a NASA rocket but his own project, designed by his own mind and built with his own two hands.
And with one aim in mind.
“Leaving orbit sir.”
“Fire up the telescope, I don’t want her to go too far until we know she works.”
Tony remembered all too well how Hubble’s mirror had been flawed and the whole thing had almost been a write-off. He most certainly didn’t want that happening on this one.
The HUD sectioned into two halves; normal view in one and a fuzzy television-like screen in the other. Red numbers scrolled underneath the fuzzy view until they froze and turned green, the picture suddenly clearing to show a view of the sky in perfect clarity.
“Resolution looks good, zoom in on something.” He squinted at the display as it focussed on one of the stars in the image and suddenly drew up close enough to show that it wasn’t a star at all but a large blue planet. “Neptune, right?”
“Well done, sir.” Jarvis sounded faintly amused. “I shall continue calibrating and will let you know when I am ready to start scanning for the galaxy.”
“Sounds good.” Tony turned away, looking back out across the alien – in every sense of the word – surface. “I’m going to get some rock samples. Bruce would kill me otherwise.” He began walking up to one of the giant twisted spires of stone, but was stopped by one of the other suits. It held out a small package that was covered with a thick frost.
“Director Fury wished me to give this to you.” Jarvis said earnestly.
“Huh.” Tony unwrapped it to find a telescopic pole and a rolled up wad of cloth. “A flag? I can’t really claim Pluto for America; I think some other countries would be a bit pissed off.” When he didn’t get a reply he sighed and unrolled it. “Oh…”
It wasn’t the Stars and Stripes as he’d expected. Instead it was a simple black background with a photograph of the Earth. Underneath were the words; We Come Here Peacefully And Hope To Leave Enlightened.
“That’s…surprisingly not half bad.” He attached the stiff, frozen cloth to the pole. “Jarv, I could do with a photo of this.” Whilst I resist the urge to claim Pluto in the name of Stark Industries.
“Any famous words for posterity, sir?”
“Uh…Yeah.” Tony looked up at the sky again, at the shrinking sight of his satellite. Famous words…He should have thought of that in advance. “Um…I’m currently standing on the planet furthest from our sun. I could be doing this for the money, for the fame or for the glory. But I’m not. I’m here because I’m searching for God. My God. And I will find him. Whatever happens; I will find him.”
They weren’t quite worthy of Neil Armstrong, but they had come straight from the heart.