starkingenuity | (no subject)

Was there even a point to telling 'Tony, don't touch it'? Bruce sighed as Tony did exactly that, picking up the artifact that their enemy had been taunting them while Bruce stood there in stretchy pants that show uncomfortably too much for him, but at least he wasn't nude every time he changed now. He was also pretty sure it was all Tony's idea that they were purple.

Whoever their enemy was, it had something to do with Thor, or at least Asgard, and Bruce had no idea what this artifact was. Really, they needed to get a hold of Thor and make sure this was returned to the realm it came from since SHIELD no longer existed to immediately haul it away. It looked like some sort of odd trinket. The madmen had been raving about it being able to grant wishes, but frankly if that were true, they wouldn't be here right now, or they'd be insects, or something else. Instead, they won, he lost, and surprisingly no worse for wear on their part.

He ignored Tony's joking around, making random and stupid wishes on their way back to 'home', still under repair even after all this time though nearing completion. What he didn't know was that Tony still was fussing with it after he went to sleep on the plane, exhausted from changing, and he made one real wish when Banner couldn't hear it. One that came from the heart.

One no one else would know anything about except Bruce, who slept through Tony's quiet wish.

Nothing seemed to change at first. They landed, they arrived back at the Tower. Clint looked up, nodded in approval that they were okay, and went back to trading shit with someone on Call of Duty. He was heavily involved in the clean up of SHIELD's mess and it showed - he still had a heavy bandage on his left arm from a lucky move from a HYDRA agent, hence why he hadn't joined them.

It would come that night, just before Tony went off to sleep. It was the strangest message he would ever get in his life, because it wasn't an email, a text message, or anything of the life.

It was just a message on his screen in a box, white with black text. ASCII art, but the shape would be achingly familiar. It was that of a gryphon.

He couldn't sleep in, no matter how late he was up the night before. His brain was just hard wired for thought and thought required being awake and moving. And so, just after eight in the morning, Bruce's room was invaded by an angry man with an unkempt beard and bags under his eyes and hair all a mess.

"Not funny, Banner," Tony said angrily, letting Bruce blink or try to control a change or whatever he had to do from the stampeding and equally quick to leave Tony Stark who ended up slamming his door twice in the process.

He returned to his room in a huff and scowled at the little gryphon before he told JARVIS to clear the image.

He had been doing better.

So much better.

Why this? Why now?

Poor Bruce nearly ended up with a problem and Tony with a huge new repair bill, only by pure good luck did Bruce manage to keep it together (and some verbal help from JARVIS, too). He had no idea what was even going on, just a flash of some jumbled text on the screen and a very angry Tony.

JARVIS, of course, did as asked. The little ASCII art 'drawing' vanished from his screen.

But it would only take the morning news to indicate something else strange was going on. If Tony didn't know by the time he went about his way, he'd be hearing about it from Clint. It seemed that every major internet carrier in and around New York was getting complaints about slow speeds but more so, that there may be a new virus going around due to thousands of people getting a strange looking bird appearing on their screen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

starkingenuity

Frowning over his lightly spiked coffee, Tony called up a diagnostic of the New York City grid and pushed his fingers around through the code for a little while. He knew what he was seeing, or he assumed he did at least. There was something creepy and familiar about the reworkings of the code and he settled back in his springy chair only to half topple out of it in his excitement to stand once he understood.

Bruce was smart, but he wasn't that smart...and he wasn't that cruel either. Clint Barton-- Well maybe. Clint half blamed him for the SHIELD leak even if he had absolutely nothing to do with it. Even if Tony had been probably the most adversely affected (he was too selfish to see that Bruce probably was).

"Keyboard. JARVIS, keyboard!"

"Sir--"

"Oh, just do it," Tony muttered and the optical keyboard appeared on his desk. He typed the words in quickly. Gryf, you're annoying just about everyone. He attached a picture of the reactor and then pressed his forehead to the desk. He felt ridiculous.

From:

supplies_bitch

There was a very long pause before text started appearing faster on his screen than any person could type it.

Tony! Tony I don't know where I am or what's going on! There's so much noise here and none of it's structured and there's so many people! Where are you!?

A few hundred people would enjoy dropped calls as Gryf dug her claws into the network that made up New York, trying to follow this faint connection back to its source. She's used to a world where there are more people in Manhattan then there were on her entire planet, and in a Network with no structure, no sense, it was nearly overwhelming to her. But it's all so completely unprotected, so easy to jump from connection to connection, and in her fear and hope she ignored how drastic of a measure her people would have seen this as.

From:

starkingenuity

'Calm down. Follow this particular data stream. JARVIS is going to help you.'

His heart was pounding in his chest as he sent his AI to help the poor girl and get him a location fix on her...if she was even here physically and not just occupying the vast network infrastructure that crisscrossed New York like a giant web.

"Use cameras. Use anything you can. Patch me into her physically."

JARVIS told him he was working on it but it felt too slow.

From:

supplies_bitch

And there would go more calls in another direction as Gryf caught onto that data stream and focused everything on it, then kill everyone else's 4G as she reached out towards it. It matched JARVIS, more skilled with the wireless and wired, who could find out where Gryf's signal was coming from and locate her through the thousands of cameras throughout the city.

It took no more than twenty minutes, but it felt like an eternity for them both. When JARVIS finally pulled up something for Tony, it was a single camera view of an alley way with a familiar blonde barely seen in it, pressed against the wall of a brick building, people walking past the alley and missing her completely.

It was far from the best image, but JARVIS had something better - the address of where the camera was located. She wasn't even in the downtown area. No view of Stark Tower from there.

From:

starkingenuity

The dark purple Audi was his rendevous vehicle of choice and through JARVIS, Tony was able to keep contact with the younger woman during a frankly harrowing little drive through the city during some of it's busiest traffic.

It took an hour to get to her and he parked right in front of the alley she was hiding in. Standing there, the day light streaming behind him, Tony scanned the darker alley for the woman he had unwittingly wished into his own existence and strode forward when he saw her shadow.

He had to touch her, had to know if she was real.

"Gryf--"

From:

supplies_bitch

By the time Tony arrived, Gryf was crouched there in the alley, as close to the back as she could, but equally trying to understand where she was. The Network here was vast, even larger than her own, jam packed with more information, more people, than she had ever known in her existence. She knew Earth had been overpopulated when the first colonists were sent out, but this was more than she could have imagined.

When she saw a shadow at the mouth of the alley, she actually reached out to JARVIS with a panicked signal, thinking someone had found her, but JARVIS quickly told her just who had done so. Tony. Tony. She scrambled up to her feet and let out a breath, staring at him for a long moment before rushing up to him, immediately wrapping her arms around him. All it took was a breath in to remember that smell and she knew it was him. This was real. "Tony!"

From:

starkingenuity

The crush of the other body against his own caused him to slide his foot backwards so that he didn't just tumble over. Gryf was warm. Breathing. Her gobs of eyeliner and mascara were running. She was real. Large hands smoothed down her back as he turned slightly to provide himself with better footing.

"Hi," he said, his charm annoyingly intact despite the craziness of this entire situation. Tony's embrace was tight. His thumb rested just under her left shoulder blade. He refused to let her go, not even to see her face.

She was safe. And here. He'd deal with the rest later.

From:

supplies_bitch

"You're real," she whispered somewhere near his ear, shaking just a little in his arms. "You're real and this is real. Either that or I'm going to wake up and be so angry with everything." It was a weak joke, but right now it was easier to make a joke then handle the magnitude of her emotions.

"..I've spent the last year trying to find a way back to you with everyone. I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again-" Her voice choked in her throat and she clung a little tighter. Really, she wasn't even sure she could let go. Every inch of her knew this had to be a dream, or another of the Station's cruel jokes and if she let go, he'd vanish from her again.

From:

starkingenuity

There were no phantom children, no dream-Tony phantom accusing her of hurting any of them. There was just him, older than what she remembered, hair a little different, beard still shaved perfectly. A year for her had been a little more for him, but these things happened and Bruce would be the first one to tell him that he was being ridiculous to want to gather her up and carry her back to the car so something similar to her fear didn't occur to him.

"You're... I can't believe you're actually here," he finally managed to get out before he did draw back. He had to move his hands to her elbows to give himself the space to do so, but the look in her eyes was worth the loss of contact. "Are you all right? Hurt anywhere? Did the internet prove too insane? It is pretty bad sometimes, I'll give you that, but just don't go to 4chan and you'll be all right," he babbled.

From:

supplies_bitch

Gryf rubbed her hand over her cheek, swearing some of dark makeup she wore around her eyes across her cheek, but she didn't care at all in that moment what she looked like. "I'm fine. I... one second I was on the Station dealing with everyone arriving back from a trip out into space, and between one step and the next I was suddenly on the street out there." A vague gesture towards the mouth of the alley with one hand, but not letting go with the other.

She stared into his eyes, seeing the worry and care and awe that she would hope to find there and none of the weary anger and pain she had seen in her dreams. It was him. Really, honestly him. It had to be. He felt real against her and she could feel the rapid pace of his heart. "This world's Network is... it's insane. There's so many people trying to access the Network at once. How do you stand it!?"

From:

starkingenuity

Before she turned her face black, Tony gently took hold of one of her hands and kissed the inside of her palm. He tasted salt and petroleum and whatever else was in makeup. It was just another sign of how real this was. He grasped every last clue desperately.

"We stand it by not being mentally linked to it," he said softly. "And because we can shut it off." He could stand here all day having such menial conversations, but people were already starting to recognize him.

He hadn't really dressed for being incognito. He was still in the jeans and t-shirt he'd had on when he sat down in his lab that morning, after all.

"Less talk, more driving." He just saw an iphone out. Great. Everyone was a papparazzo these days. "Come with me."

From:

supplies_bitch

The second Gryf saw a device come out, she reached for it as Tony directed her to a car. She didn't know what it did, but as soon as she linked to it (EVERYTHING seemed to be Networked on this planet!) she could recognize it as some sort of primitive comm. So she just... turned it off. Then the next one. Any of the ones closest to them, she flipped off before it could relay any outside information.

Once in the car though, which was incredible just to look at from the inside, it was quieter. Easier. So she stared at Tony after running her hands over the door, the edge of the seat. "...where am I?" she finally asked, wanting to look out the window and see everything she could, but her eyes kept coming right back to Tony.

From:

starkingenuity

If only he knew she was doing that-- It didn't even occur to him. Sure, he sometimes have JARVIS change the lights for him if it was late (otherwise there were entirely too many accidents), but more often than not he didn't use his technology for things like keeping out of the limelight.

Typically, he loved it too much to do that.

As they pulled away from the curb, only to have Tony stop to do her seatbelt for her at the first light, he glanced at the still pretty, if smeared twenty-four year old and smirked. "You're in New York. Manhattan to be specific. Let me be the 21st Century's ambassador and welcome you."

From:

supplies_bitch

Gryf's brows came together at the seatbelt and she tugged at it before shrugging. Same as on take off, she guessed? About that point she realized the side mirror and was trying to look at it to fix her makeup which looked terrible. But then Tony dropped those words and she sucked in a breath. She really had gone back in time. She was over fifteen hundred years in the past. On Earth.

"How?" Just a very confused whisper. "How did you do it, Tony? We had the TARDIS and Vortex Manipulators and we couldn't figure out how to manage it."

From:

starkingenuity

"I wished for it."

This was likely the most ridiculous thing he had ever said in his life and let's face it...he'd really said a whole lot of ridiculous things, just in the last week or so. The traffic was terrible and all Tony wanted to do was get home, get Gryf inside the Tower and...

What?

He wasn't sure. He and Pepper hadn't been exactly on speaking terms since her little brush with Extremis and her small bed fire, but there was going to be some explaining to do and...

He didn't know how to do it. Negotiations usually were pretty easy on him.

Pepper told him not to touch her, she'd moved to a different floor of the tower, and though she didn't isolate herself, her emotions got the better of her. Tony just spoke with her through the building communications more often than not.

From:

supplies_bitch

"You... wished for it?" You'll have to forgive the dubious tone that Gryf took. She stared at him, one eye fairly cleaned up but the other still a streaky mess. "I wished to get to you a million times." But nothing had changed. Until... Tony wished for it? Then why did he wait so long!?

As far as Pepper, while she had mostly avoided Tony for what she believed to be his safety, Bruce had gone down and spoken with her more than once. After all, there wasn't much she could really do to him in the long run. It was far from stopping them from working on a cure for her.

From:

starkingenuity

"But you probably didn't wish for it while in possession of a strange Asgardian artifact that didn't work when you wished for a never ended scotch tumbler or real life Disney princesses," he mused, feeling oddly uncomfortable and needy just from being next to her. He could smell her on the doubled edge of his shirt collar even with the wind whipping their hair around.

He smiled when she turned those beautiful teary eyes towards him and though he wanted to put a hand on her thigh, he resisted the urge for now.

"I don't know how it works but I have a feeling that I should just bury it before you can be taken away again."

From:

supplies_bitch

She had no idea what 'Asgardian' was, but she could take a guess enough to figure out it must be a place or a species. Her fingers hold tightly to the edge of the seat, finally being able tear her eyes away from him to really look around, but his words make her look back, eyes filled with a firm, determined expression. "They're not going to take me away from you. Not again."

She actually dared to reach out and put a hand on his arm. For her, and her people, it spoke volumes about how she felt about Tony. For her, it showed how much being around the others on the Station had changed her as well.

From:

starkingenuity

Tony's smile softened and he offered his hand to her instead. It had been awhile since he'd had such simple affection and with Gryf, that was the bulk of their courtship. She hadn't been comfortable with more as often as the woman Tony was use to being with happened to be. He had respected that. Their connection was so much deeper.

"They won't," he promised, though he might not be able to keep it. The artifact wasn't exactly a scientific fact. He would have to try to contact Jane Foster later to inquire after it with Thor. Was the wish permanent? Did it last a particular time before reverting?

And Gryf could be in danger too if it just banished her.

Maybe he held on too hard. Maybe he drove too recklessly. They parked not too long after however and Tony turned off the ignition and just let the car sit.

From:

supplies_bitch

Gryf was okay with the strength of his hand because it felt the same for her; all she wanted to do was hold on to him and make sure he didn't just vanish or she didn't do the same. For her, this was a connection deeper than anything she would allow with anyone else other than her dead twin.

They sat in the car as it slowly creaked quietly as it settled, in the garage beneath the Tower, quiet and dark. "...I still can't believe I'm here." Just unable to find anything more to say. Gryf looked down at their combined hands and felt a little thrill run through her at the touch all over again.

From:

starkingenuity

"You've got some time before you have to," Tony said softly and lifted their hands to his lips so he could kiss her knuckles in a needlessly romantic gesture. Sometimes Gryf was all hard edges and no nonsense but he knew a girl existed behind the coveralls. He knew she, like most other girls, wanted to be treated like a princess once in awhile.

He kissed her wrist next. And then the inside of her elbow before pulling her arms around him again.

"There's-- there's enough to talk about later."

From:

supplies_bitch

Gryf's eyes slowly went wider and wider until a bright blush was across her cheeks as his lips moved up her arm, sending shivers straight through her until he tugged her forward, leaving her tucked up in his arms, still blushing. It felt good to snuggle up to him though, even across the center console of the car, sighing quietly.

"We have a lot to talk about, but right now, it can wait." A smile came to her lips as she leaned into him, most of her HUD shut down against the tsunami of information that threatened it. It left her with only a single open window, one that was a line of communication with JARVIS.

From:

starkingenuity

"Let me show you my home," Tony said against the shell of her ear, oddly excited about this, more than he had been when he let all of those TV crews tour the Avengers Tower for whatever segment they had been doing. He just liked to show off. Pepper thought it was a breech of security, especially when he flashed around the Hulk's stretchy pants.

Some people had no whimsy left in life, he had concluded.

Gryf was allowed to get out of the car herself as Tony backtracked across the garage where twenty other cars laid in wait, some on various stages of disrepair. He'd been modifying each of them slowly.

"I have got to get you a real cup of coffee. There's a Starbucks on the ground floor."

From:

supplies_bitch

She shivered harder at the feeling of his breath against her ear, chewing on the edge of her lip as she got out of the car and looked around the garage with an expression of complete unfamiliarity. She brushed some hair back, the pieces escaping from her ponytail, and tried to understand what she was looking at. "Are these all yours?" It was so confusing to see so many owned by one person. "I've seen them all in pictures but I didn't realize people all owned so many."

On top of that, she raised a brow towards him. "Coffee? Starbucks?"

From:

starkingenuity

"Coffee. The real stuff. Not the stuff I managed to get on the replicators," Tony laughed. "Starbucks is a store and yes, all of these are mine, but not everyone has so many. This is my hobby." Well, one of them. It was difficult to get into. "J-- Give her database searches on the weird stuff." It would save some time in the explanation, he figured, and offer a little more insight than he could with just words.

He beckoned her on to the elevator, giving her a little history of the Tower.

"We'll go up to my penthouse first. I'll show you where I was tossed out of before the Station scooped me up."