Man of Iron (Worm/Marvel Crossover - with some fusion elements)

AN - Impure version of the MCU; it will be incorporating elements from the Prime Marvel Universe (known as Earth-616) into the MCU (known as Earth-199999). Will be playing a little loose with some of the feats for Worm as well, given the insanity that is the Marvel Universe.

Also - my first attempt at writing in the Worm Universe, please be gentle. Very slight AU - Taylor does have a cellphone, but it's an old Nikola 6210 - but she still dislikes them, yet the convenience is just too useful.

EDIT - Revised on Date: 6/29/2023

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The Battle of New York on Earth Yod marked a turning point in the history of Earth Bet; a tragedy in its own right that, in terms of the damage done and the death toll, was biblical. While it paled in comparison to what an Endbringer could bring - in many ways due to the extremely limited Cape presence at the battle itself, the damage and casualties thus rivaled some of the smaller attacks. In terms of Capes, there was only about twenty or so split between heroes and supervillains; notables included the newly formed Avengers under the Avenger Initiative by Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (SHIELD), the independent superhero team known as the X-Men, an independent traveling supervillain team known as the Wrecking Crew, a local independent Superhero known as Spiderman, among others. However, with the sheer numbers of invaders, most of the heavy lifting was done by the United States Armed Forces as well as local law enforcement agencies.

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The soon-to-be-named Earth Yod
New York City, New York

The city burned, long fingers of dark smoke rising into a brilliant blue sky like the jagged teeth of a great monster.

From the shimmering portal that loomed seven thousand feet above the fifteen hundred foot tall building known as Stark Tower, came the invaders - a stream of Skiffs of various sizes ranging from small two-man affairs to much larger vehicles mounting heavy weapons descended upon the city to attack it. They weren't alone, huge creatures ranging from thirty to fifty meters in length were among them, launching pods and running amuck either between the buildings above the island city proper to deploy more troops elsewhere in the city.

Fell weapons spat bolts of glittering blue-white fire that streaked forth at supersonic velocity to smash asphalt, concrete, brick, and other materials alike with equal ease sending sprays of semi-molten dust flying as matter decoupled violently. Other weapons, mostly types of explosives, were also used.

But this assault wasn't going unanswered.

In the streets of the great city, New York's Finest fought back - and while their weapons weren't particularly effective, what made them terrifying to face was that they knew the city like the back of their hands. Areas that the aliens thought were secure would suddenly not be secure when members of the police would appear either on their flanks or behind them, having used either the subway tunnels or the various alleys to bypass the alien lines to attack the invaders and rescue civilians caught in the crossfire.

They weren't alone in fighting back.

Through the streets National Guard Humvees and other vehicles along with Guardsmen prowled, sweeping through the urban jungle with grim methodical efficiency as they returned fire with their weapons at the aliens invading the city, sweeping Subway Stations and buildings clear of aliens and developing strong points.

While above in the overhead sky, engines screamed, sonic booms echoing over the city as dozens of glittering shapes, a mixture of practically every type of combat aircraft in USAF service, along with some Navy and Marine Corps planes that twisted and howled through the air. They engaged the Skiffs and Leviathans that were trying to bring them down with missiles and guns, to great effect on the former but with limited effect on the latter. All the while additional aircraft dove through fields of energy weapon fire to provide close air support to the defenders of the city.

These mundane forces formed the bulk of the defenders and while they were fighting furiously - they were outmatched. More invaders came out of the portal, a seemingly endless stream of reinforcements flowing in to replace those the enemy had lost. Already, the United States Armed Forces were escalating their response, with the entirety of the Marine Division in Camp Lejeune mobilizing along with National Guard elements from the rest of the Northeast; it was clear that the New York and New Jersey Army National Guard wasn't going to be able to win this fight alone.

But despite all of that, the mundane forces weren't alone, for there were bonafide superheroes and villains in this bout. A glittering red and gold man shot through the skies, held aloft on a glittering streak of plasma. Iron Man rapidly closed in on a point where National Guardsmen had requested support. As he approached he could see that yet another Leviathan had decided to descend out of the portal that was tearing the clear blue skies apart, and into Manhattan to further complicate things for the defenders.

He would deal with it as well as the dozens of Chichtauri that it was deploying after he helped out these Guardsmen who were taking an unholy beating. As he thought of that, another marker for a vehicle winked out along with half a squad of Guardsmen two blocks over. This was getting worse by the second - but they were making slow if steady progress. They could win this if they could just figure out how to close that damn portal.

Until that occurred, they were frantically working on containment. but spillover was still occurring. The battle had expanded to include the five boroughs and New Jersey to some extent, despite their efforts to contain the battle.

He closed in on his target - the aliens sprayed the Guardsmen with blue laser bolts, who in turn were returning fire with everything they had. Glowing red tracers pattered off armor constantly, except in the rare instances where bullets penetrated either joints or seams in the armor, or overwhelmed its ability to take hits. Roughly twelve Chitauri were engaging three Guardsmen. Tony judged the distance and nodded, it would have to do; he slowed down to prevent the need for multiple runs against this target.

He brought his repulsors up, there was a whine and then the repulsors discharged. The setting he was using would be devastating to organics, even ones wearing modern ballistic plates.

The first two aliens never knew what hit them, the beams melting and vaporizing their armor with ease, they crumpled to the ground with craters the size of a dinner plate in their backs.

The next three died the same way.

An alien turned, screeched out in alarm, and raised its weapon. But before it could fire, a 40mm grenade struck it and the alien exploded, gore and shattered armor flying in all directions.

A sustained burst from the M249 that one of the Guardsmen carried had managed to cut down another alien after hammering through its armor; the deformed bullets that made it through turned the creature into hamburger meat.

It was clear that the aliens had lost their cohesion, shattered in an instant by the appearance of Iron Man, letting up the pressure on the Guardsmen, which allowed them to rally and hastily throw together a counter-attack.

Stabs of blue light and a sound like thunderbolts ripped through the air as one alien managed to return fire. Tony twisted, twirling through the bolts of fire and retaliating with a repulsor blast that hurled the now corpse to the ground, smoking badly.

Another alien corpse hit the ground as bullets ripped through it.

Two more Repulsor blasts and two more aliens joined it in death. The third alien turned to run, but a grenade landed at its feet and exploded, shredding its body in an instant.

"Sergeant Parker here, thanks for the aid, Mister Stark." The man in charge of the Guardsmen said Tony had to fight back a sob, he sounded similar to one of the soldiers that had been killed in action when he had been kidnapped by the Ten Rings back in 2008. That… he shook the thought off, he could deal with the rough few days he was going to have after this later.

Half a block up, the Leviathan that had just decided to come down closer to street level crashed through a building, that had multiple tiers with a glass facade. The whole thing started to cave and crumple like a soda can as the immense beast ripped through it. Pop-ups appeared on Tony's HUD as he rocketed after the brute, warming up the laser on his left wrist. "Sergeant Parker, get your men inside now, building collapse is in progress half a block up from your location!"

"Roger, we're getting undercover now!"

Iron Man shot past the disintegrating building which was caving in on itself, an immense cloud of dust and smoke rising as the building collapsed, glass shattering in a cavalcade of razor-sharp fragments that tumbled to the street below as concrete sundered and steel shrieked in protest. He caught a glimpse of silver and red on his right as he streaked up the monster's left side.

Thor. Tony thought and he heard the wind howl through the soundproofing in his armor as the Asgardian tried to do something to minimize the collateral damage. Right now, he was worried about stopping this damned thing. The fact that Hulk was over in Columbus Circle and seemed to be fighting a new type of alien that looked like a gorilla that was actually in his weight class and Thor was trying to minimize the building collapse, meant that he was probably the only one who could take this monster down.

Flying parallel he fired the lasers on his wrist, the beams carved shallow furrows in the plating. He discharged them twice more at higher frequencies including UV - but the beams just weren't doing much!

Shit.

"Sir, we're going to drain our energy reserves before we get through that armor using lasers," Jarvis said and Tony resisted the urge to swear - this stupid thing was one of the most heavily armored behemoths he's ever seen.

"Jarvis, probability of full power repulsors penetrating?" Stark asked his loyal AI.

"Estimate two percent with a single shot - it's going to take multiple shots to penetrate and that's if they land within a half meter of each other," Jarvis replied and Tony once again resisted the urge to swear, the Repulsors unlike the lasers had significant recoil, particularly at maximum power.

Landing shots like that were an impossibility in this situation. The Unibeam might be able to get through but that would be considerably more difficult, especially considering its significant charge time.

Then an idea came to Tony as he hit the gas, pushing the armor past the Leviathan and then snapping around so he was now flying parallel to it. "Jarvis, are you familiar with the story of Jonah?" he jovially asked his AI as he deployed his knee-mounted skid plates.

"I wouldn't consider him a very good source of inspiration." the AI replied.

"Meh, semantics," Tony said before pulling a snap turn, barreling towards the monster's throat. What ensued was quite bumpy, with a lot of grunting from the billionaire, and more than a few explosions followed by a very rough landing.

"Ow." Tony groaned as the immense creature, having been gutted, fell from the sky, crashing into yet another building and becoming partially embedded there. "Yep, he's not a particularly good inspiration," he said as he stood up, as he did so, he noticed a restaurant nearby, a Shawarma place; he was getting a little hungry, maybe after this was all said and done, himself and the Avengers could go to it and get some food?

Then he got shot.

An energy blast smashed into his chest plate, burning through the dispersive coatings meant to blunt energy weapon blasts like paper and melting through the outer layers of the multi-layered carbon-nanotube reinforced composite plating, dispersing the blast in the process. That being said, the kinetic energy was still transferred to the suit and therefore its wearer. Tony staggered back with a yell of surprise. Another energy blast caught him in the shoulder and though it nearly twisted him around, it did cause him to stagger backward into something. He looked up and swore, Chitauri, at least twelve of them.

There was another flash of light - this one was blinding in its radiance as it took him clean in the head and threw him to the ground. "Gah!"

What to do? Get up? No, the aliens would just shoot him down again. Plus they were likely closing in, coming to a standing or kneeling position would just take valuable time. Dammit, alright, this was going to be hairy.

The next forty-five seconds pass in a blur of chaos - he's taking more hits but dishing out just as many, there are moments of clarity that stand out.

Back handing a grenade that an alien threw at him back to its owner.

An energy blade carving a furrow in the flank of his armor and his retaliation in the form of a roundhouse kick that caves the alien's helmet and skull, dropping it to the ground with a sickening crunch.

A sustained burst from the laser scythed down two aliens in an instant.

An energy pulse struck him in the stomach and threw him to the ground.

That's when Director Nick Fury's voice came through his line, he sounded winded as if he had just run a marathon through the bowels of the Helicarrier James Morita and was more than a little pissed at something. "Stark, you got a motherfucking F-35 equipped with a nuclear weapon headed straight for the city. If that thing hits, it will wipe out Midtown."

FUCK! Stark thought angrily, as if fighting aliens weren't hard enough, he now had the lives of millions resting on his shoulders. No pressure, if he survived this, he would have to verbally ream Fury about this.

"Jarvis" Tony began, but the AI was three steps ahead of him.

"All power has been redirected to the thrusters, information on the missile and its trajectory is being displayed on your HUD now sir."

The roar and sonic boom from Iron Man's take-off shattered windows in a three-block radius as Tony pushed his suit to its limits. The missile that was coming was a JSOW variant, the thing didn't have a tactical warhead nor did it have a turbofan engine. The model being used mounted a repulsor-tech engine, and the relatively lower fuel consumption allowed for a smaller fuel tank to be used for a given range, meaning that it could carry more payload - the missile that was closing in mounted the same type of warhead that the Peacekeeper ICBM mounted. To make matters worse… it had contact fuzing.

Who was the dickhead that ordered a contact fuze nuclear bomb to be used on Manhattan?! You use contact fuzing on missile silo fields, not cities. Tony knew that if this thing went off, the pressure wave and ensuing crater would be massive - much larger than what you would expect from such a missile because the substrata of New York City was riddled with countless tunnels. If this thing detonated it would be utterly devastating.

Whoever had ordered this launch was doing so in a manner that would maximize collateral damage. A nuclear explosion would be bad for sure, but if it was an airburst it was unlikely that the subways would suffer catastrophic collapse. With a ground burst, the subways would likely collapse and if it was bad enough, probably flood a decent-sized chunk of the city along with producing horrific levels of fallout.

As Tony blasted clear of the furball he noted something, the aircraft in the sky weren't disengaging and fleeing. This meant that this wasn't a strike authorized by the United States, but he knew that Fury would give them a heads-up that a nuclear strike was inbound. But he had sounded out of breath, so it must've been a very recent development.

It didn't take a genius to reach a fairly sickening conclusion: Someone had completely bypassed the chain of command within SHIELD and ordered a nuclear strike that would kill millions of civilians and thousands of American servicemen. But who the hell was the bastard that would do this?

"Fury," Stark said in a harsh tone - this was likely a one-way trip for him.

"I'm here Stark," Fury replied.

"I am going to intercept this thing and throw it into the portal. I don't care if you don't have authorization, I want you to find this nuclear launch order and release it to the public along with names. Make the bastards who ordered this thing burn." Tony snarled, he was more than a little furious, to say the least.

Fury's response was chilling. "With fucking pleasure Stark."

The missile was approaching The Narrows now, going nearly five hundred miles per hour. This was going to be tricky as hell; tricky, but doable. As the missile raced over the suspension bridge he started angling for an intercept. One thing that must be stated is that Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOWs) are not small weapons. They are very large devices - being thirteen feet in length and weighing a half-ton.

His armor could shift that mass, but he would have to overcome the thrust of the missile's engines and fight its control system - along with hoping that safeties don't engage and blow the missile to pieces while he's holding onto it. Which meant that this was going to be fun in quite a painful way.

Shooting after the missile as it screamed past him, Tony pushed the armor, battered as it was, to its limits - he came up below it. The noise from the large-scale repulsor tech engine was deafening, a mind-numbing roar whose depth shook his bones. Tony gritted his teeth as he got a handhold of the missile's fuselage and pressed his body against it.

He heard Natasha say something about the portal and he gave a response but he was too focused on making sure that the damn missile didn't initiate. Snarling and grunting he fired the thrusters on his belly and the missile climbed, it climbed, and climbed. The portal loomed above him and he raced straight into it - then he was in space.

This wasn't a problem actually, the Mark VII Armor was designed to be sub-orbit capable, it had a life support system, and the suit itself was designed to handle the rigors of space with the forces involved therein. All it took was a few moments for the right trajectory to be achieved then he released the missile. It streaked through the void to the ship that had hundreds if not thousands of Leviathans and other things swarming around it. The missile flies like a javelin straight into the large alien spacecraft and the ensuing blast is a tremendous acetic flash of light. There must have been some sort of weird interaction between Earth's magnetic field and portal because then some of his systems went dead as an EMP crashed over him and then he started to fall.

He knew they would reboot - but by the time they did, the portal would be closed and he would drift amongst the ethers. Still, he tumbled down and then his vision went white.

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Earth Bet
Protectorate Region Northeast, East-Northeast Division
Brockton Bay, New Hampshire
January 18th, 2011

Victoria Dallon, more commonly known as Glory Girl shivered slightly as she flew through the skies over Brockton Bay at three thousand feet. It was very cold up here given that it was the middle of January in the Northeast, and it was even colder at the altitude she was at than it was at the surface. Granted she only just had started her patrol and was moving at a little over a hundred miles per hour, but it still took a couple of minutes for the air resistance to warm her up.

Her patrol route today was going to take her over the bay proper towards the Market - she didn't like patrolling. Mostly because villains had long since figured out the patrol route system and when heroes would naturally be out. She knew that her mother was trying to convince the local Director to allow for more randomness in the patrol cycle or even unrestricted patrols. But well, it was well known that the Director wasn't the biggest fan of Parahumans.

Though she knew that some circles referred to parahumans as something way crueler… mutants. Simply because they had powers that could defy imagination, it made them different from normals in a way that they could never compete against. Some of the more unsavory people at Arcadia High had said those sorts of things behind her back. Naturally, she had reported it to staff and faculty but there always seemed to be more of those assholes around despite everyone's efforts to stamp it out.

She sighed, the sound lost in the ripping wind. She was grateful that she was going to Arcadia. She couldn't imagine the sort of treatment that a known Parahuman would get at Winslow. She shuddered in disgust, Winslow was a shithole and she would have loved nothing more than to bring that school down. With how run down the place was, there was probably something they could use as a cause to close it down!

A section of sky rippled, pulsed, seemed to invert upon itself, and spat out something tumbling down head over heels that was red and gold towards the waters of the bay. What the hell? She thought, instinctively angling towards the falling thing.

It seemed to be an armor of some sort, not sure if powered or unpowered - but it was man-shaped and likely occupied. She accelerated, pushing herself faster. She was very much on the slow side for an Alexandria Package, most of them could go transonic, and a lucky few including Alexandria herself could go supersonic, she could only manage high subsonic.

The figure was getting closer and closer to the water. Come on! Come on! She pushed herself harder to catch the man - who no longer seemed to be tumbling.

The man's boots and hands blazed with fire; okay a power armor with flight capability, pretty com- Oh shit!

The man had stabilized and was climbing now, right at her. "WATCH OUT!" she screamed.

"WHAT THE F-?!" The figure said in a distinctly male voice, huh, no modulator then.

Then there was pain, she instinctively grabbed hold as the two of them collided. The world flipped over as they tumbled out of the sky, shades of gray, red, and gold flashed through her vision as she spun head over heels. The motion was playing utter hell with her inner ears. I am going to be sick. She thought miserably before the tumbling, thankfully, came to an end.

She knew this because her back hit the water at an awkward angle, flat enough though that momentum transferred and the two of them skipped into the air. This happened again before she hit something a lot more abrasive than water, rock worn smooth by wave action.

Ow. Victoria thought after she came to a halt and managed to regain her wits, breathing deeply as she did so. Right, which limbs still functioned because she wasn't sure right now. The fact that she was able to think straight told her that she probably didn't have a concussion, but she wasn't sure.

Neck? It seemed functional - but she wasn't about to try moving until she had it looked at by Amy.

Shoulders? One seemed fine, the other felt like it was bruised or cracked.

Elbows? Ouch. Judging by the pain she probably dislocated or even broke one or both of them.

Wrists? She couldn't tell due to the state of her elbows.

Hips? Bruised and battered to hell - it was extremely painful.

Legs? The right one wasn't functioning at all and her left was painful to move.

Great, Amy's going to give me absolute hell for this since I either broke a knee or my femur or just tore the hell out of the muscles in my right leg. Victoria thought before looking down at the figure she had rescued or well, crashed into while trying to rescue.

He was wearing red and gold armor that was frankly beaten to shit, probably even before one took into account the water skipping they had gone through. In the center of the chest was a glowing blue-white circle of light. Whoever this was, they had likely fought a major battle before coming here, she was thinking that the man who flew this armor was likely a Tinker parahuman.

A thought came to her, that flash looked similar to a portal transition. A botched attempt at linking a portal from some other Earth to Earth Bet? Seemed reasonable all things considered. Shaking the line of thought off she then asked a question, her voice trembling slightly from pain. "You alright?"

"That wasn't the smoothest landing I've ever experienced. Where am I?" The man asked as he sat up and looked around. "This isn't New York, I don't recognize any buildings in that skyline at all, and neither does my armor."

"You're in Brockton Bay," Victoria said, hoping that whatever Earth the man came from, it wasn't too different - but given that the red and gold plated figure had just stated that neither he nor his suit recognized the Brockton Bay skyline, her hopes weren't very high.

"Never heard of it."

Crap. Okay, let's focus on the Cape side of things then; but I hope to god they know what the Unwritten Rules are. Victoria thought before asking. "What's your name?"

The man looked at her with his helmet, the faceplate gold with a pair of glowing blue eyes, but she was given the feeling that the man was boggling at her. "Anthony Stark, please call me Tony."

Victoria would have facepalmed if her arms were functional. "I meant your Cape name," she said, intending it to be a growl, but it came out as a hoarse rasp.

"Cape name? Oh, you mean who I am in the armor? Iron Man." The man, Tony, and I guess you could say, Iron Man, replied.

Before Victoria could answer, she heard the sound of running feet on the beach. "Glory Girl, are you alright?" a tall, rail-thin girl with brown hair asked as she came running up to them.

"Been, been better," Victoria replied with a groan, her voice still hoarse.

Iron Man looked at the other teenager as he knelt in front of her. "She needs medical attention, I fear she might have hurt her back."

"Right, and I guess I should call the local Protectorate and PRT too. Have them pick you up." The other girl said.

"I don't think he's from around here, and I don't think it's from Aleph." Victoria wheezed, yeah, it was getting pretty hard to breathe, she probably cracked or broke her ribs as well.

"I see, what's his cape name?"

"Iron Man," Victoria replied, wincing as the pain slowly built up.

The other girl nodded. "Iron Man, can you call emergency services, I'll call the Protectorate and we can sort things from there."

"Okay - I might need a trip to the hospital as well and Miss Glory Girl probably needs a good chiropractor." Iron Man replied.

"What happened?" the other girl asked.

"I tried to rescue him due to him falling out of the sky from a botched portal opening, but he regained control of his suit before I could catch him. We crashed into each other, and then lost control of our flight," Victoria explained as the pain continued to increase and then. "I got a couple of broken bones, yeah, I need to go to the hospital."

"Thanks." the other girl said as she started dialing.

"What's your name, by the way?" Iron Man asked.

"Taylor, Taylor Hebert." the other girl, Taylor replied.

Victoria wondered why Iron Man had asked that, but then the other man tipped his head in acknowledgment. In the distance, sirens wailed, both the electronic sirens used by Emergency Services and mechanical sirens used by the Parahuman Response Team. As the noise grew louder, all Victoria could think about was how this day had started and how now she was looking at a stay in the hospital - and it wasn't even because of a fight but because of a botched rescue attempt.

She felt herself drifting off. Snap, snap, snap. The metallic noise of fingers snapping under her nose startled her. Why? Then she heard Iron Man's voice yelling at Taylor.

"Shit! She's falling into Shock."

"I have an EpiPen!" Taylor cried out in alarm.

"Apply it right now! She must have suffered a severe neck or spinal injury in the crash and is going into Neurological shock. We're also going to have to lift her legs to improve blood flow to her brain."

The screeching of the sirens was much louder now and then agony exploded through her legs as first something was stabbed into her left thigh, then Iron Man and Taylor lifted her legs. Victoria wanted to scream, but instead, she suddenly felt supremely dizzy as the world started to dim and the sound was like it was underwater. I am dying. She realized in horror, she didn't want to die, she was too young to die. Not like this, not because of some stupid botched rescue!

She heard Iron Man saying something as in her dim vision, a paramedic appeared and she felt something being put around her head and over her face - then cold air started forcing its way into her lungs. She felt something on one of her legs and then her neck and something else on one of her wrists.

Then she was in an ambulance, the last thing she heard as the doors slammed shut followed by hearing Iron Man's voice. "Better step on it docs, she needs an ER."

AN: Now, this chapter shall have its turn to be looked over.

Special Thanks to my Betas for effectively tearing this chapter apart and rebuilding it.

UPDATED: 10/12/2023

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Brockton Bay
The Boardwalk

"Will she be alright?" Taylor asked quietly. A moment later, her ears were blasted with noise as the ambulance containing Glory Girl roared off, its sirens wailing and its emergency lights strobing as it shot down the street.

"I don't know, neurological shock is an ugly thing. She could come out of it fine or she could be declared DOA when she arrives at the hospital. Still, we probably saved her life, you did a good job under pressure." Tony said
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Taylor nodded slowly. "Thanks, Iron Man, I…" Taylor said. She didn't know what to say, a cape had just complimented her on keeping a cool head.

"No problem kid, it's what I do." He bent his neck back and forth, trying to loosen up a bit after the fall. He winced, rubbing at the area. "Ouch. That being said, you can't get too big of a head, that doesn't lead to good places." Taylor couldn't help but feel shocked by how humble those words were.

Behind them came the hearty roar of an engine. Taylor turned; she knew that sound, everyone in Brockton Bay did, even if you lived under a rock - given how loud that particular vehicle was, it'd be hard not to.

Armsmaster had arrived- with Miss Militia sitting behind him- on his Motorcycle, a huge monster of a vehicle that the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate had built personally - the heavy snarl of its massive engine echoed across the beach as if the vehicle was a herald introducing the Tinker known as Armsmaster.

Iron Man seemed impressed - his armor must have had sensors that allowed him to analyze what the thing could do. "I want one," he declared immediately.

Taylor snickered. "You and every single motorcycle guy ever, that thing is outright insane. The crazy part is that it has a name."

"Not completely insane to name something you're attached to, nor to think that it has its personality." Iron Man explained - although the jealousy was still very much there.

Miss Militia dismounted on shaking legs. She turned to speak to Armsmaster, and it was clear that there was a lot of tension left over from her ride.

Taylor was surprised when Iron Man chuckled. "Seems like Armsmaster takes speed limits as strongly worded suggestions. The woman, Miss Militia, is not amused."

"You must have good audio pickups in your armor," Taylor noted, though she wasn't surprised that Armsmaster rode like that. When the leader of the local protectorate decided to push his motorcycle to its limits, everyone with a couple of dozen blocks knew to clear the way.

Armsmaster had his trusty halberd slung across his back as he approached, his face masked by the helmet he wore.

"You Iron Man?" Armsmaster asked.

"I am, but I would prefer it if you call me by my actual name." Iron Man replied.

"Why's that?" Armsmaster asked.

"Because I don't like hiding who I am. Before you ask, I am not from around here, given that there's no town called Brockton Bay in my United States. There's a Brockton, but no Brockton Bay, and besides in my dimension; I've been doing this superhero business since '08 and the public has known who I am ever since my second major outing as Iron Man." Iron Man replied.

"That's dangerous, you realize that right?" Armsmaster said.

"Not for a billionaire and former CEO of a company that's in the Fortune Fifteen."

Taylor and Miss Militia whistled and Armsmaster recoiled as if he'd been slapped.

"That would make things easier." Miss Militia said, Armsmaster nodding beside her.

"Right, but you do not have access to those resources here," Armsmaster said and Taylor felt like she wanted to facepalm.

"Well Mister Halbeard, I already figured that. New Hampshire doesn't have geography like this." Tony seemingly snarked.

Taylor couldn't believe that Iron Man had said something like that to Armsmaster's face. The expression that the Protectorate Hero wore, from what little she could see of it, was outright hilarious. The man was giving off vibes as if he had just bitten into a lemon or something, particularly foul. All Taylor could think was If someone happened to be recording this, well, Iron Man has been on Earth Bet for maybe thirty minutes and it is probably going to go viral on PHO.

"Me neither." Armsmaster said, "But there's still the fact that I am not an expert in portals. Furthermore, I am not an expert on portal technology, and there is the fact that Director Piggot would not be pleased if I tried to open a portal in Brockton Bay."

Taylor thought about what she had read on the subject of the multiverse and how the Earth Aelph-Earth Bet portal functioned. "It shouldn't be too hard to build a portal to get Iron Man home, could it? I mean, all we need is his dimensional frequency…" Taylor said trailing off as she tried to think about how to continue. "We'd just need that to get a lock on his home universe, right?"

"In theory, yes, that is the case. But it depends a lot on how high the variance between quantum frequencies that Iron Man's armor has compared to ours. Earth Aelph and Earth Bet are close enough together on the frequency range that powering a portal is doable. But once you are shifting entire frequency points and not tenths or hundredths or thousandths of a point, the power requirement goes from easy to unachievable." Armsmaster replied and Taylor swore she saw Iron Man's shoulders slump.

"So I'm stuck here, right." Iron Man looked down at his armor. "First outing and the Mark VII needs an overhaul at least. Yay."

"Uh, what's a quantum frequency?" Taylor added in.

"A quantum frequency is the frequency at which the universe vibrates, at the quantum level. You need highly specialized and sensitive technology to detect the quantum frequency." Iron Man explained and Taylor hummed. Huh, the more you know.

"Miss Militia, can you please get the citizen's statement? I am going to continue speaking to Iron Man." Armsmaster said and Miss Militia nodded in response.

"Iron Man, care to walk with me?"

"Sure."

The two heroes walked off, leaving Taylor and Miss Militia alone. The heroine sighed, looking after them, and then turned to Taylor. Her expression softened a bit, her posture loosening. If she hadn't been paying attention, Taylor might have missed what she assumed was Miss Militia activating her 'PR' mode.

"I'll need your name, if you're comfortable giving it."

"Taylor Hebert," Taylor said. She almost stumbled over her own name- despite Miss Militia's demeanor, it was like being asked your name by a cop and a sports star put together Nerve-wracking, basically.

"Okay, Taylor, what happened?" Miss Militia asked. She'd pulled a pen and small notepad out of one of the pockets in her costume and was already writing something down.

Taylor took a moment to compose her thoughts, to go over the last few minutes. "I was walking along the boardwalk when I noticed a strange flash of light over the bay. I didn't get a good look at it since it took me a moment to focus on it. But the sky… I don't know, it was like it went inside-out."

"The entire sky?" Miss Militia asked.

"No, just a small area. I guess it was like a bubble popping, but instead of expanding, it went inward. And instead of soap, it was just… that part of the sky." Taylor scratched the back of her neck, averting her eyes from the hero who was watching her stumble through her explanation. She was tempted to add more, to try to clarify, but she was worried she'd just make it more confusing.

"Alright, what happened next?"

Taylor glanced back at Miss Militia, and saw only patient expectation. "So, I could just make out someone falling out of the… explosion I guess. It took me a second to realize that it was a person, and I was beginning to get my phone out to call nine-one-one when I saw Glory Girl flying towards him. I didn't know it was Glory Girl exactly, she was moving fast and she was pretty high up, but since I was pretty sure it was a hero going to help the guy, I figured it'd be fine, you know?"

"But it didn't go fine," Miss Militia guessed.

"Yeah… I wasn't looking out that way anymore, since it's not like I could even see that much out over the bay, but there was another flash of light, more orangey this time. I don't know what it was, but when I looked to see what was happening, I'm pretty sure I saw Glory Girl run right into Iron Man. She was moving really fast, too."

"You mentioned someone falling out of the explosion. That was Iron Man?"

"Oh, yeah."

Miss Militia nodded, glancing down at her notepad. "So what happened when they collided? Could you see?"

"I saw the collision, and it was weird. Instead of her just grabbing him, or even bouncing off, they both went flying back toward the shore. And when they hit the water, instead of going under, they smashed into it and kept going."

"One second, please," Miss Militia said, pen raised. "So after the collision, they went in the opposite direction of Glory Girl's flight? Did I understand that correctly?"

"Yeah," Taylor said.

"And when they hit the water, what do you mean by 'kept going'?"

"Well, it was like… like when someone skips a stone. They hit the water, but bounced off it and kept going forward."

"Okay, thank you, Taylor." Miss Militia resumed writing for a couple of moments before speaking again. "And then after they hit the water, what happened?"

Taylor winced at the memory. "They ran into the beach. It… it was hard enough that there was a ditch in the sand where they'd landed. It was this deep, long trench that went all the way from the waterline almost up to the Boardwalk."

"Did anyone else get hurt?"

"Not that I saw, that part of the beach was empty," Taylor said. "I… I guess I thought maybe they could be hurt- hell, it's hard to imagine that they weren't- so I went down to see if I could help somehow." She was expecting… well, for Miss Militia to raise an incredulous eyebrow. Ask how she could possibly be of help to a Hero, but the cape just nodded expectantly.

"So, Iron Man was fine, or at least he seemed okay. Glory Girl though… I thought she was invincible, but whatever happened must have shut off her powers, or gone through them, or…"

Miss Militia cut in, "We can figure out the particulars of what happened to Glory Girl later. All we need from you is just what you saw, so we can get a more complete picture. You're doing well, Taylor."

Taylor felt a lump in her throat, and swallowed it down. "Yes ma'am. So, Glory Girl needed help, or at least that's what Iron Man said." He probably had some kind of sensors in his armor that could tell things like that, but Miss Militia had just said to stick to the facts and not speculate. "He called nine-one-one while I called the Protectorate. I guess you have that call recorded or on file or something?"

Miss Militia nodded. "We don't have to go over the contents of the call, unless something that happened during it was relevant to the situation?"

Taylor thought for a second. "I guess not. I had just finished with the call when Glory Girl got worse. She was going into shock, apparently. Iron Man started doing… I think he called them 'emergency life-saving procedures', and he had me help with some of it. We just kept doing that until the ambulance showed up, and then you and Armsmaster arrived a bit after that."

"How long did you perform the emergency life-saving procedures?"

"I don't know, it was all such a blur. It didn't seem longer than… a minute? Maybe two? But it could have been longer." Taylor watched Miss Militia write down more notes, when she remembered, "Oh! I had an EpiPen on me, and I used it on her because of the shock. That was before the rest of it. I, uh, just thought I should mention that just in case."

Miss Militia stopped writing. "Did you inform the EMTs of that when they arrived?" She asked. Her voice was calm, but Taylor couldn't help but imagine a hard edge under the words.

"Yeah," she said with a huff of breath. "Yeah, I did."

"That's good, you've been very helpful so far Taylor. Not to mention brave, stepping in the way you did."

Taylor shrugged, again unable to meet the hero's eyes. "I guess. Uh, thanks."

"Let's go back to when you first spoke to Iron Man," Miss Militia said. "After the impact, before you attended to Glory Girl."

Taylor paused and thought about it. "Not much to say, ma'am, I had barely gotten Iron Man's cape name before Glory Girl started going into shock," she said.

"I see."

"Miss Militia?" Taylor started.

"Hmm?" the hero asked.

"Will… no, never mind."

"Whatever it is, you can feel free to ask, Taylor. I promise I won't bite your head off if it's a question I can't answer."

That not-quite-a-joke forced a chuckle out of Taylor. God, she must look like such a dork. "Iron Man didn't really know if Glory Girl would be all right. I… I was just going to ask if you think she'd be okay. Dumb question, I know."

"It's a perfectly reasonable question, Taylor, and the kind we get a lot whenever someone's in your shoes. You found someone who was injured and helped give them a fighting chance. It's only natural to want to know how they'll recover. And while the Protectorate can't share information like that with the public, I know for a fact that the hospital staff will do their best to keep her stable until Panacea arrives, and once she's done, Glory Girl will be as good as new. I'm sure you'll see a public statement from New Wave soon as well."

Taylor nodded to herself. The unspoken 'what-if' of whether Glory Girl would actually survive on her way to the hospital was probably best left that way.

"Okay," Miss Militia said, "If there's nothing else, could you give me some way of contacting you? Phone, email, home address? If there are any other questions that come up later, we'd like to be able to get back in touch."

Taylor ignored the twinge of glee at the mental picture of Miss Militia showing up to her house- it would probably be some pencil-pusher if anyone did show up to ask more questions- and gave Miss Militia her information.

"And lastly, would you be all right if I shared this information with Glory Girl or her family? I can't guarantee that they'll want to reach out to you, but it's very likely you'll at least get a 'thank you'. That said, it's also okay if you want to remain anonymous."

"I don't mind," Taylor said, shaking her head. Was this what her 'fifteen minutes of fame' looked like? Taking to a member of the Protectorate in person, getting thanked by New Wave?

---

Tony Stark/Iron Man

"Right, what's your actual name?" Armsmaster asked in a tone of dissatisfaction as if he wasn't pleased with the idea of Tony sharing his real name.

"Anthony Edward Stark, please call me Tony. Give me a second, popping the faceplate," Tony replied and then triggered the toggle to open his mask. Cool air gushed into his helmet, stuffing itself up his nose. The air smelled of the ocean, not dissimilar to the port of New York.

Armsmaster stiffened, head swiveling left and right before locking onto Tony's face. "Are you insane Mister Stark?" he hissed out slowly in a low tone.

"Probably a little, to be perfectly honest with you. Considering some of the shit I've done today - and it's been a very long day - that isn't out of the question." Tony replied and Armsmaster facepalmed.

"Put the faceplate back on."

"After the day I've had, Armsmaster, fighting on the frontline of a war, I honestly need some fresh air that isn't recycled shit from my suit." Tony hissed at Armsmaster and immediately the other man's whole demeanor changed.

"War? Iron Man, before you arrived here in Brockton Bay, what were you doing?" Mister Halbeard asked.

"It's a long story, but I can give you the cliff notes version. Essentially we had a demigod, Loki, go mad and he decided to launch an invasion of my Earth with the help of aliens. The Chitauri could be from another galaxy or another universe, who the hell knows, but they descended upon Manhattan in the hundreds of thousands. We fought for hours and hours on end, killing them and trying to rescue civilians as we did since the aliens sure as hell weren't following the Geneva Conventions."

"But there was just no end to them as we tried to keep the fighting contained to downtown Manhattan, there was spillover occurring even with the efforts of my team, the Avengers, and another team- the X-Men- helping along with support from the National Guard and USAF. Eventually, some genius decided that the best way to end the fighting was to drop a contact-fuzed W87 on the city with a JSOW - managed to redirect it into the portal to take out the alien mothership, but I had to transition the portal myself to get a clear shot. The physics of it was a bit weird, but anyway, the portal must have started closing before I could go and recross. Next thing I know, I'm falling over Brockton Bay." Tony explained. Usually, he would have been a lot more flippant but he was frankly exhausted, he had been fighting non-stop for at least four hours and he just couldn't find the energy to be more than simply factual.

Armsmaster sighed. "Right, well in that case you just earned a full medical workup. Because if you were fighting for hours, I doubt you got out of it unscathed even with that armor. You could also probably use a shower too." For once Tony felt pretty relieved, finally someone who was talking sense.

"And a bite to eat, is there a Shawarma place nearby by chance? I saw one in New York and wanted to try it out." Tony replied and Armsmaster frowned.

"There's a few nearby, but honestly, Iron Man, we should get you checked out first before you can even start to think about food. Your health comes before your stomach." Armsmaster said and Tony wanted to argue but found that he couldn't fault the logic.

"Fine, but I have to ask, is something wrong? You're stiffer than Director Fury." Tony asked, he really couldn't believe that someone could be this uptight.

"Because I am the team leader for the Protectorate team here in Brockton Bay, and who is this Director Fury?" Armsmaster replied and Tony wanted to sigh, what a stiff man.

"Director Fury isn't my boss, but an acquaintance, he's the head of the Strategic Homeland, Intervention Enforcement, and Logistics Division. But he's responsible for the creation of the Avengers Initiative which is what led to the formation of my team. I was hoping that the Avengers would go independent after the whole FUBAR in New York is over, but now I don't know if that is going to happen since I am here." Tony replied as he thought about what Armsmaster had said and decided that the Protectorate Leader probably had issues with being a leader.

"Great, you're affiliated with a team that may or may not be a subdivision of what sounds like the Department of Homeland Security. How lovely, Managing things between teams is difficult enough when you have an Independent Team and the Wards or Protectorate trying to cooperate in the same city. I can already see the paperwork headaches that are going to happen if we need to cooperate between government organizations." Armsmaster deadpanned and Tony snorted out a laugh.

"So you're hoping that the Avengers go independent or that you never have to deal with SHIELD?" Tony asked, his tone mirthful.

"Yes," Armsmaster replied.

Smartass. Tony thought as he resisted the urge to grin. "Right, so where is this place we need to go to then?"

"If you have a navigation system in your armor, it shouldn't be too difficult for you to find. But here are the coordinates." Armsmaster said before rattling off Longitude and Latitude.

"Right, thanks. I would offer to race you on that motorcycle of yours, but I don't think it can go high supersonic." Tony said and Armsmaster grumbled something about high-level tinkertech bullshit.

Tony was curious about what this so-called 'tinkertech' was - he had heard about the term multiple times. He didn't like being left in the dark - but he had to remind himself that he was in an alternate universe. First, there had been that teenager flying through the sky with absolutely no tech at all, now he was looking at a man whose armor was well designed, well fitted, and judging by the thickness of the plates was likely at least proof against HMG fire.

"Just don't go Super in the city, otherwise the FAA will get bitchy, considering that they have fined Eidolon before for going supersonic without a good reason. We won't be able to protect you from them," Armsmaster said and Tony nodded. He knew that legally busting the sound barrier without a damn good reason was a bad idea - it had nearly landed him in hot water a few times.

"Good to know, who am I going to be meeting when I get to this headquarters?" Tony asked, he had a feeling that it was going to be a long time before he got to see even a sandwich or a bed for that matter.

"There will be a squad of PRT soldiers as well as a member of the Wards to help guide you," Armsmaster replied.

"What's a Ward?" Tony asked.

"Superheroes in training, I don't know how it is in your dimension but here most capes trigger young. In the Wards we provide therapy- if needed- along with training on how to control their powers. It's not an easy life, particularly with Endbringers around, but it's something." Armsmaster replied and Tony wanted to swear loudly - kids being superheroes in a dangerous world; he also really didn't like how the phrase 'Endbringer' sounded - it reminded him far too much of what SHIELD classified as Omega Level Threats who could very much be Endbringers if something or someone was stupid enough to piss one off.

"Right - since you're worried about me hiding my face, I can tell you right now that the Mark VII Armor doesn't have a detachable helmet - it wasn't designed with that in mind since my identity of Iron Man has been known on my Earth for years," Tony said and Armsmaster sighed again.

"I'll tell PHQ that you have no way of hiding your identity outside of your armor due to your extenuating circumstances. Also - for the love of Christ, if you blab that you're Iron Man, you're going to have New Wave trying to recruit you. Hell, they might try and recruit you anyway because you played a role in likely saving Glory Girl's life." Armsmaster grunted out.

"Right. Well, is that all Armsmaster?" Tony asked.

The man with the halberd sighed and nodded. "It is, Iron Man, you're clear to go."

"Right, thanks," Tony said, and then with a thunk, his mask snapped shut and his HUD booted up.

"Jarvis, you got a course to the Protectorate HQ plotted?"

"Indeed sir, showing it on your HUD now. ETA is five minutes." his AI replied and Tony smiled. Yeah, he could fly.

He leaped into the air on a column of orange-white fire as he streaked into the sky; the roar of his repulsors and their jets of plasma carried him higher and higher into the sky. He pitched over and started flying deeper into the city known as Brockton Bay, headed for the Protectorate HQ, a large semi-submersible platform that looked like an old oil rig. The thing was massive, the closest match that his suit's sensors could ping was that of the Thunder Horse PDQ jointly owned by BP Petroleum and ExxonMobil. It wasn't an exact match, if anything the thing was even bigger than that rig, the estimates that his suit threw up were a tonnage of 75,000 metric tons and a displacement approaching 200,000 tons.

"Sir, I am picking up defensive emplacements on the PHQ passively tracking us. SAM systems and laser weapons for the most part - however there are a couple of what appear to be plasma cannons as well. Scans also indicate that the rig is outfitted with an energy shield system of considerable power. Energy is provided by a fusion reactor that is roughly fifty percent the power of a single reactor of the planned Arc Energy Plant that's being built in Southern California." Jarvis said, throwing various pop-ups on his HUD. Tony whistled, those reactors were damn impressive, particularly considering that the Arc Reactors being built for those plants weren't unique one-off designs like the ones in Stark Tower or at Stark Industries Los Angeles - but had been designed and built for the express purpose of generating power.

The reactor design being used in the power plant could generate roughly 20 gigawatts of power at nominal load and it had four of them; granted, the power plant blew the platform out of the water in terms of power generation - but still, it was very impressive tech. It also meant that the rig was likely packing some hellish heat in its energy weapons - as in it could likely carve up a Helicarrier like roast turkey from beyond visual range.

"Attention unknown Power Suit, please state your name and intentions." The radio crackled.

"This is Iron Man, requesting permission to land on helipad one."

"Right, you're the new arrival. Permission granted, please speak to Aegis after landing."

"Confirm tower, on final approach now."

Iron Man roared in for landing, he didn't go for a three-point affair as that would be overaggressive though it was tempting. Instead, he came in far more sedately, lining up on the pad and then slowly descending. He could see a kid, maybe seventeen years old, wearing a rust-red and silver-white custom-made costume, his face almost completely shrouded; the suit that he wore provided protection against ballistic, energy, and explosive threats while the helmet- according to scans- would provide resistance but not protection against flashbangs. It was an impressive bit of kit, and the kid wasn't alone.

There were ten figures in black uniforms with the acronym 'PRT' emblazoned on their breasts - they were armed with what appeared to be, according to scans, caseless high-yield plasma propellant weapons. Impressive, Stark Industries had fooled around with that technology but they could never get it to work properly, the fact that someone did was impressive enough. The fact that the weapons looked almost exactly like Pulse Rifles and Smart Guns from Aliens just increased the cool factor in Tony's own professional opinion.

He hit the concrete deck with a loud thump.

"Iron Man, I presume?" the kid in red asked.

"That's me, I assume you're Aegis then?" Tony replied.

"You're correct, would you please follow me? Director Piggot wants you out of that suit so we can give you a medical checkup followed by a debriefing on today's events and whatever the hell resulted in you coming here." Aegis said.

"Joy, who's going to be at the debriefing?" Tony asked.

"Unknown at this time, but Brandish might be there," Aegis replied as he started to lead them inside.

"Whose Brandish?"

"Glory Girl's mother."

"Oh, crap!"

AN: Moving along swiftly now - here's the next part of the Arrival Arc.

I hope I did the reactions of Vista and Aegis alright.

---

---

Tony Stark

God he was sore, it seemed like his body's bills were starting to come due all at once now. He had never engaged in a battle as long and arduous as what had occurred over New York before and frankly, getting hurled through a window probably hadn't helped - then there was the beating he had taken restarting the helicarrier's turbine. Right now, he really wanted the chance to actually lay down and get looked over rather than just sit in some stupid meeting.

But he had to admit that he was also curious about the world he was in now. "Hey kid?" he said.

"Yes Iron Man?"

"I have to ask, how long have you been a Ward?" Tony asked.

"About two years, I am going to be aging out of the Wards and into the Protectorate proper next year." Aegis replied and Tony almost stopped walking in surprise.

"You mean to say that the Wards don't have a permanent team leader who can serve as a mentor and friend to the Wards?" he asked, shocked at the blatant stupidity he had just heard. He knew for a fact that if your team leader was a revolving door and that if it changed frequently, it would be utter hell on team dynamics and effectiveness. Particularly when kids were involved, he figured that adults would be easier to handle since there probably wasn't aging out.

"Jarvis, can you please start a list of things needing improvement here at the PRT?" He asked his AI.

"Of course sir."

"No we don't, it's how things have been done since the Wards formed; granted it works because the Wards don't usually tangle with supervillains." Aegis replied, he paused thoughtfully and then asked. "Why is there a problem with it?"

"Why yes, there is. Before I took up being Iron Man I was the CEO and Chairman of a Fortune 15 Corporation for almost twenty years and I can tell you right now, that running the Wards in that matter is nothing short of a terrible idea since it will play hell with team dynamics and effectiveness." Tony hissed, being firmly in CEO mode right now.

"I can see where you're coming from due to being a former CEO for a corporation that probably makes more money in a given week than the Brockton Bay subdivision likely has in terms of budget, but the Wards do things like that because we aren't allowed to tangle with supervillains, at least according to the Department of Homeland Security's policy. But this is Brockton Bay, I can reasonably say that said policy gets fired out of a cannon around here." Aegis replied before continuing. "I hear that the revolving door system works very well in other cities though, but Brockton Bay is just plain different and after Triumph aged into the Protectorate, I must admit that more than one battle went sour because I had no idea what I was doing."

"That makes more sense then, the Wards are likely meant for taking care of the local normal idiots and looking good for the camera while this Protectorate handles the big boys. If that's the case then I can see how a revolving door leadership would make a lot more sense." Tony replied as he continued walking along with Aegis. "But if Brockton Bay is a big enough outlier where even the Wards clash with villains on occasion, then maybe the policy needs a change to reflect the local conditions."

"Your pretty insightful Iron Man, yes, that's exactly what the Wards are for usually. Taking down the local normal idiots and looking good for PR, hell usual orders if we encounter villainous capes are to simply flee on sight. But here in Brockton Bay, due to the sheer numbers of capes who live here, we encounter villains more often than most Ward teams and there's always at least one big fight involving the Wards about once a month around here. So you might be onto something, that local policy might need a change." Aegis said and Tony hummed in thought.

About what I expected, the DHS despite their flaws aren't incompetent. It's just that the situation here in Brockton Bay is just far outside of what is usually the norm, which means a policy that works well in many other cities simply doesn't work here. That would make Brockton Bay in essence, an outside context problem. The former CEO thought as he continued trudging along, he had to admit, the idea that Brockton Bay was different enough that ordinary policy just didn't work was simple enough.

"Still, I have to ask; you said that you have Supervillains active here in Brockton Bay? I have to ask, how many are there?" Tony asked.

"I'll be honest with you Iron Man - in terms of Capes, Brockton Bay is in the top ten for number of capes per capita in the United States and we're a pretty small city at that. Roughly three hundred fifty thousand as of the latest census, about seventy or eighty of them at minimum are Capes and that's just in the city proper, the surrounding metro area has close to two hundred capes. A delightful mix of gangs, rogues, independents, plus ourselves; it's a pretty violent city out there, the gangs run a lot of the place." Aegis said and Tony grunted.

"Sounds like New York City on a bad day." Tony grunted.

One of the troopers behind them turned a bark of laughter into a hacking cough

"You're not wrong to be honest - though I hear NYC has an even higher concentration of Capes than we do, one of the highest on the planet." Aegis said and Tony sighed.

"No surprise, that city is unique to be sure."

"Iron Man?" Aegis asked after a moment.

"Yes?" Tony asked.

"How did your armor get so banged up, last time I saw armor that badly beaten up was after Armsmaster had a particularly bad run in with Lung a couple of weeks ago." Aegis said and Tony decided that he really didn't want to know what this Lung character was, considering that the armor that Armsmaster had was at least as good as Mark IV Armor.

"Fought in a combat zone for four hours against aliens, you know, Monday." Tony replied, it was about the best snark he could come up with to be honest.

"If that's what you consider to be Monday, I hate to see what the rest of your week looks like." Aegis deadpanned as they came to a door.

In the background, laughter from a couple of PRT soldiers sounded off.

Aegis smacked a buzzer which howled loudly. "Reason for the buzzer?" Tony asked.

"Masking purposes, the door to the locker room won't cycle if you don't press the buzzer. Don't worry, an exception has been made in your case Iron Man since Armsmaster made it clear that your armor doesn't have a detachable helmet and that back on your Earth, you're known in the Public Eye so you don't carry a mask." Aegis explained and Tony frowned once again.

Hiding identities is absolute bullshit, knowing people by only their cape name. Where's the support if you need it but no one outside of this PRT can give it to you? Right. "Jarvis, make another note about asking Director Piggot for the members of the Wards and Protectorate to at least know each other's real names. It doesn't have to be public knowledge, just institutional."

"Done sir."

The door gave off a loud clang and swung inward which revealed….a completely normal locker room. As they stepped inside, a disturbingly young voice called out. "Hey Aegis, who's the new cape you got with you?"

Its a fucking kid. Tony realized - she was around five feet tall with dark blonde hair, she seemed to have been in the process of getting suited up considering that she was half armored with her legs covered in green, black, and white armor; with an undershirt or body glove of some description having been pulled hastily on and a dark green visor covering her eyes.

"Vista. This is Iron Man, he's going to be unsuiting today." Aegis replied.

"Okay, does he need a mask?"

"No I don't - I am not from around this universe actually, but back in my universe I am actually known to the public." Tony replied, it felt weird seeing a kid of all people here looking like she was getting ready to go on patrol.

"Huh, we don't get extra-dimensional visitors very often; in fact I think you're the first such cape to arrive here in Brockton Bay." Vista said and Tony grunted.

"Do you mind if I ask, young lady, how the hell you got in the Wards at such a young age?" Tony asked before he could stop himself.

"I am a Shaker 9 and I can manipulate non-living things; distort, lengthen, shorten, enlarge, shrink - it's pretty nifty actually." Vista said with a note of excitement in her voice.

"Huh, what about you Aegis?"

"I am an Alexandria Package, with enhanced strength, durability, and flight. Given that armor of yours, you're likely a Tinker; though I haven't seen a flight capable power armor that sleek before." Aegis noted and Tony shrugged.

"I doubt that since I haven't created anything as insane as Mister Halbeard's motorcycle. Wait what d-" Tony said but was interrupted as Vista began laughing hysterically as she doubled over - Aegis looked suitably mortified though.

"Please tell me you didn't call Armsmaster that to his face." Aegis deadpanned as Vista continued laughing in the background.

"I actually did." Tony replied, completely at ease.

Vista's laughter increased in intensity.

"Oh lord help me with this one." Aegis groaned, settling his face in his palm.

"Hey, technically I am not your problem; because I reckon you age out of the Wards at 18 years old. I am just over forty years old, so I am not your problem, I am technically Mister Halbeard's problem."

"Praise Jesus." Aegis said as Vista backed up into a locker in order to support herself as she continued laughing.

"I c-can't believe you called Armsmaster that." Vista said, sniffling, her laughter dying off.

"I can't either, I hope he's not too angry about it." Aegis deadpanned.

"He actually looked like he had just bitten into a lemon when I called him that." Tony replied as he trundled up to a corner.

"Oh joy; so he's going to be in a sour mood most likely." Aegis replied with a grunt.

"When isn't he in a sour mood?" Vista asked.

Aegis sighed deeply and Tony could tell just from his posture that Aegis just wanted to go get slammed. "Vista."

"Yes?" Vista asked sweetly.

"Do me a favor and don't call Armsmaster, Mister Halbeard. That will probably get Director Piggot and Armsmaster yelling at me in stereo and I don't want to be yelled at in stereo." Aegis replied.

If you can't take a joke, you probably shouldn't be in this business of being a Superhero. Tony thought mischievously.

"Why Aegis? It's funny." Vista complained.

"Yes it is funny, until I get yelled at by my superiors for being disrespectful to a superior." Aegis groaned.

"He's got a point there Vista." Tony said.

"So why did you do it?" Aegis asked.

"Because I am not part of the Protectorate or from around here thus I am not in their chain of command." Tony replied as he got to a decent enough spot that seemed good enough to doff his armor.

With a ratcheting series of thunks, the armor opened effortlessly enough for him to just step out. It closed up behind him and he reached into his pocket, pulled out a remote and clicked it. With a firm beep-beep, the anti-theft system engaged. The armor itself was battered, colors burned away revealing glistening metal in places, with numerous dents, rents, and other gashes in the armor.

"Holy shit, that's the craziest thing I've seen." Vista said in amazement.

Aegis whistled appreciatively. "That's one neat trick, no need to struggle with plating or body gloves, you can simply don your armor with regular street clothes."

"Why thank you." Tony said as he turned away from his suit.

"Christ Iron Man, you like hell." Aegis said and Tony couldn't help but nod.

"No shit kid, also not Iron Man anymore." Tony replied and Aegis groaned for some reason.

"I mean, you're unmasked, so we might as well know since we've already seen your face." Vista said with a slight frown.

Tony smiled. "Anthony "Tony" Edward Stark, genius, billionaire, philanthropist." he said.

"By genius you mean you specialize in creating things no one else can?" Aegis asked as he walked over to look at Tony.

Tony laughed. "More like I graduated from MIT as a summa cum laude when I was seventeen years old."

Aegis paused.

Vista gaped.

This state of affairs continued for several seconds before Vista got over her shock. "Holy fuck, your probably smarter than Armsmaster."

The crass statement made Aegis snap out of it. "Vista, language! Though, you're probably not wrong about him being smarter than Armsmaster."

Vista was looking at something that was on his head with alarm. "Tony, don't move!" she snapped as she hurried over to him. She then swore loudly. "Aegis, we need to get him to the infirmary now."

"Why?" Tony and Aegis said in confusion.

"Because I am seeing what looks like a few pieces of glass lodged in his skull." Vista said and Tony frowned, so that was causing the pain across the left side of his head.

"Oh shit." Aegis said before quicking helping Tony over to a bench.

"Right, Loki did throw me through a window right before the battle in New York started." Tony said in a dry tone. "I forgot about that."

"Not helping my nerves, you realize that right? Did you hit the ground at all?" Aegis demanded.

"Nope, fell about fourteen hundred feet though and almost went splat on Park Avenue though. The new suit up function of my Mark VII Armor really saved my bacon there and I was pissed off at the mad demigod - but he decided to summon his army, so you can imagine how my day went from there." Tony replied.

"Not very well I can imagine?" Vista asked.

"Bingo!" Tony said before he winced. "I think there's more glass in my shoulders and back."

Aegis looked behind him. "Yeah there is. Vista, go tell Director Piggot that Mister Stark needs to be taken to the hospital, Brockton Central and to have Panacea waiting for us. Apparently he was thrown through a window before donning his armor. Likely plate glass, how that didn't kill him, I don't know."

"Right Aegis!" Vista said before running off, the door opening and before it closed, Tony heard the sound of running feet as she ran off.

"Give it to me straight, how bad is it?" Tony asked with a wince of pain.

"Not gonna lie, your back and shoulders are badly torn up. I see several long gashes in your back, not sure how deep they are though. Your ribs probably did a decent job of making sure you didn't get torn up too much though. But it doesn't look pretty, how long were you fighting after you got thrown out the window?" Aegis asked as he ran over to a medkit.

"No clue, Jarvis?" Tony asked his AI.

"You've been fighting continuously without rest for over fours since Loki threw you out the window. But you've been going non-stop since the attack on the Helicarrier this morning - so at least six hours." Jarvis replied.

"Who was that?" Aegis deadpanned.

"Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, at your service Aegis." Jarvis replied and Aegis looked even more baffled.

"Are you an AI?" he asked.

"Correct sir, I am." Jarvis replied.

Aegis groaned and Tony got the impression that he was now looking at something in a new light or contemplating something nasty. "Yay, this will paint a target on Brockton Bay for the Dragonslayers."

"Dragonslayers?"

"A group determined to keep AIs in-check. A tinker some years back actually created a couple." Aegis replied and Tony hummed.

"Well then, they're officially on my shitlist, Jarvis has been my friend ever since he came online. Without him I also doubt that I could run the Iron Man armor because of how complicated the suit is." Tony said, wincing in pain, the adrenaline was starting to wear off, he could tell. The gashes in his shoulders and back seemed pretty deep - Aegis began applying first aid.

"Good to hear, you'll find out more about our situation here once you're released from the hospital and frankly I am curious about your team as well." Aegis admitted and Tony grunted; from what he's heard of this whole situation it was really quite interesting. In more ways than one to be perfectly honest, frankly this whole situation was convoluted.

Then there was that sinking feeling that Tony had with the mention of gangs. The impression he got was that the situation in Brockton Bay was truly worse than Aegis was letting on, hell the situation in general was likely worse than what he expected; a sensation of dread really similar to the one he had experienced when he had seen the Chitauri swarming down upon Manhattan in their thousands like a cloud of death spitting blue fire as they came.

"We're new frankly, only about a week or so old. No idea if the team will be permanent or not and if it will end up under the control of a government agency or not." Tony replied.

"I-" Aegis began but was interrupted by the buzzer wailing and the door swung open immediately, a stretcher team came barreling through. Aegis backed off as they set up.

Tony heard them saying things, but suddenly, at the moment, he just wanted to sleep.

---

Beep…beep….beep.

Awareness came slowly.

A young woman's voice said something, sounding exhausted. The words were muddled, hard to make out.

Another voice, masculine, firm yet gentle with what seemed to be an African accent, answered, the voice seemed to be praising the young woman.

The first voice replied in response, still exhausted but seemingly thankful and questioning.

The answer of the second voice seemed to be that of an offer.

The first voice cleared up a little. "Me…I…parents?"

The second voice spoke in a deeply amused voice. "Ah…bane…over."

A laugh.

"Anyway…Mister…waking…" the first voice said.

"Indeed…think….accept…card." The second voice replied.

"Thanks again…"

"My pleasure."

Then there was a flash of light.

After that everything seemed to resolve with shocking speed and clarity - but he found it hard to move his head. "Mister Stark, I am Panacea I've been taking care of you" the young woman's voice said.

"Ugh, yeah?"

"Glad to see you are awake, you gave us quite the scare there." Panacea said.

"Sorry." Tony grunted, his mind slowly clearing up. He was in a hospital as he sort of expected.

"To be frank it's to be expected considering we pulled twenty-three odd fragments of plate glass from you and had a hairline fracture in your skull, plus combined with the various bruises, contusions, internal bleeding, etcetera that you had. Plus the shrapnel in your chest that was being kept out of your heart by a fucking reactor powered electromagnet and what appears to be the aftermath of Palladium Posioning. So it's been quite an interesting day, so I have to ask, what the hell did you do to end up with so many fragments of plate glass, a hairline fracture in your skull, shrapnel in your chest cavity being kept out of your heart by a reactor powered electromagnet, and getting poisoned by Palladium?" Panacea ranted angrily.

"That's frankly the story of my life since 2008 on my Earth, it's a really long story." Tony admitted, then he thought of something. "Wait, did you remove the shrapnel?"

"To be honest, I really could have gone without taking part in as complex of an emergency surgery as what you went through to set everything right; I might be one of the most potent healers in the world but even my healing has limits. Plus some of the glass fragments were pretty deep and it's a minor miracle that you didn't bleed out from that shit alone. But no, we didn't remove the shrapnel in your chest, that would require a very complex operation to put it bluntly with lots of prep time." she said in a bitter voice.

"You did good, you saved my life and for that, I am thankful." Tony said before thinking, the tenacity of the doctor in front of him who had just saved his life, reminded him painfully of another doctor that he had never intended to meet. But one who had also saved his life in conditions that weren't exactly pleasant to say the least, yet he owed that man everything.

Panacea perked up. "Thanks Mister Stark, now can you please tell me how the hell did you get so many pieces of plate glass lodged in you?"

"Sure, that's easy enough. An angry demigod threw me through a plate glass window of my penthouse in Manhattan. That's probably where my hairline skull fracture came from as well." Tony admitted.

"That's about what I figured and my report on the matter even said you got thrown through a window and that you have spent several hours fighting afterwards without respite." Panacea replied and Tony nodded, honestly the battle in Manhattan had been the longest battle he had ever fought in and frankly he was exhausted.

"So I take it that I am to receive bed rest then?" Tony groaned out.

"Yes and I've already told Director Piggot that if I have a say, you won't be leaving that bed for at least three days given the variety of injuries that you've suffered." Panacea said sharply in a 'don't you dare push me' tone.

"Honestly, I was feeling about sleeping for like a week once I got the chance to settle down after Manhattan was over." Tony admitted.

"Not a bad decision to be totally honest." Panacea replied.

Tony nodded, then something came to him. "How's Glory Girl doing?"

Panacea's expression changed as did her posture going from nurse or doctor, to angry sibling. "Not your concern, Mister Stark."

"I thought it would be considering I was the one who crashed into her." Tony replied back.

Panacea sighed - her posture changing again, the tightness in her shoulders vanishing as it slumped. "Not well after I am done here, I am going to head over to Brockton Bay General in order to heal her."

Tony reached out and put a hand on hers. "You're really something if you can heal people like that."

Panacea smiled lightly. "Thank you Mister Stark, that means a lot to me."

"It's the least I can do."

Panacea stood up to leave and go heal her sister. Something then came to Tony's mind. "Who was the person you were talking to?" he asked.

"Oh? Oh just the Sorcerer Supreme, apparently he's interested in me becoming an apprentice because I've been using something called the Mystic Arts subconsciously when I use my powers and he wants to properly nurture that skill." Panacea admitted and Tony whistled.

"Huh, well, good luck." Tony said and Panacea paused.

"You think I should accept it?" she asked.

"I think you should, the Sorcerer Supreme is a very powerful figure and a teacher in arts that could be best considered esoteric." Tony said, thinking about his own encounter with Doctor Strange back in 2010, that had been an overall weird experience for him.

Panacea hummed in thought. "Thank you Mister Stark, I will consider that." she said and like that she was gone.

---

Director Emily Piggot

Protectorate Region Northeast, East Northeast Division, District Brockton Bay, Director Emily Piggot ever since Ellisburg wasn't quite as in shape as she used to be; but contrary to popular belief, the forty-five year old woman was not obese even if she was slightly overweight and she did not need to use dialysis, a mundane Kidney transplant had fixed that the problem -though the Kidney itself was artificial- and the damage to her muscles had eventually recovered on their own.

But in order to prevent the knowledge of exactly just how bad Ellisburg had gone and how out of an entire Parahuman Response Team platoon of forty men, only two had survived the encounter and the fact that the Capes had almost universally fled when Nilbog had attacked. She had been slapped with a gag order and given command of her own subdivision.

The Director knew that being assigned to the Brockton Bay Subdivision meant that her career was essentially over as there was no way in hell that the Department of Homeland Security which the Parahuman Response Team was under the jurisdiction of would ever let her climb higher through the ranks, she had been, in-essence, quiet-fired just to keep her from talking about what the actual hell had happened in Ellisburg.

It had grated her, but now, ten years on from having been made Director of Brockton Bay, she had settled into her role well; she had developed reputation for having a noted dislike of Capes and the reason for said dislike and how the hell Piggot had become Director was popular scuttlebutt talk at PHQ and the PRT HQ. However, one thing that she was known for was that her fitness was something else, when powers weren't involved, the ex-Marine could beat most members of the Protectorate in hand-to-hand and a common punishment for Wards who had fucked up majorly was to do a few spars with the Director.

Right now though, Director Piggot was in a bit of a foul mood due to matters relating to the appearance of the figure known as Iron Man/Anthony "Tony" Stark. "So to wit, Mister Stark appeared out of a random portal over Brockton Bay, having come from a major battle in New York on his Earth, fell nearly eight thousand feet before regaining control where he promptly smashed into Glory Girl who had tried to catch him and the ensuing crash was so bad that she's currently in the ICU who is only now being healed by Panacea. Anything else?" she asked.

"Yes, Iron Man's armor has a security system." Shawn Garner aka Dauntless said with a smirk audible in his voice. "Armsmaster tried to move it to his lab in order to examine it and the armor basically told him to shove off before anti-theft measures were engaged."

Chuckles went around the room as Colin Wallis, also known as Armsmaster scowled darkly, between that and the 'Mister Halbeard' nickname that Tony had saddled him with - he knew that he was in trouble. Mostly because he knew that nicknames tended to stick and the more he fought it.

"So noted Shawn. I take it this means that until Mister Stark is discharged from the hospital that his armor is essentially stuck where it is?" Piggot asked.

"Essentially yes and frankly the armor is in pretty rough shape. It's some of the most advanced tinkertech that I've seen." Hannah Washington aka Miss Militia admitted and from what little of Tony's suit that Emily had seen, she was inclined to agree.

"I don't think it's completely tinkertech, I think some of it might be reverse-engineerable technology but I am not sure. The plating is a composite that according to a quick scan has a Titanium-Gold Alloy and an odd form of iron; both layers have carbon-nanotube reinforcement. I can tell you right now, that it's not a tinkertech alloy - though the layers were somehow fused together on a molecular level in such a fashion that doesn't compromise durability." Armsmaster said and Piggot raised an eyebrow, that would make for a material that would be extremely tough for sure.

"That's big, if the technology in that suit is mass-producible then it can be an enormous game changer." Aegis aka Carlos Chinea asked softly.

"Christ, that's big. But here's an issue that we have, Iron Man is currently cut-off from sources of production for the technology in that suit, we would thus need to either help him found a new company or find a way to open communications with this Earth, what do we call it anyways?" Shawn said in amazement.

"To my knowledge, this is the tenth Earth we know about, keeping with using Hebrew to name these Earth's, this one would be Earth Yod." Piggot said, she paused before continuing. "I have to admit though, the idea of technology that could pass as tinkertech here on Earth Bet being actual mass producible technology on Earth Yod is terrifying. But it also gives me hope, will he be willing to support us in our fight against the Endbringers?"

"Just another question to ask him then." Armsmaster said.

The meeting continued on for several more hours as the Director, heroes, and heroines talked about what had happened.

AN - I am almost finished with the Arrival Arc; after this will probably be an interlude and then we determine whether or not this fanfic deserves expansion or not. Please remember that this is a rough draft and thus if I do decide to make this into its own thread, editing might occur.

I have noted that Shadow Stalker even before the Locker Incident, going by the wiki actually took part in an Endbringer fight and one against the Hero Killer himself and survived - but survived doesn't mean 'Got through unscathed' and going by the odds we've seen for Endbringer battles where 1-in-4 capes don't survive it. Assuming that the Killed-to-Wounded ratio is anything approaching like modern combat - wherein for every fatality you have three wounded, chances are it's a very rare person who walks away from an Endbringer fight unscathed.

---

---

Tony Stark

The days passed with languid slowness, primarily because Tony Stark was not a figure who liked being forced to rest. But even he knew better than to argue with doctors and so he was resting and thus recovering from his myriad of wounds even after Panacea had seen him; he had learned though that the hospital ward that he was in was meant specifically for capes - and thus everyone here had gone through government background checks.

But due to not being in his home dimension - he hadn't seen Rhodey or Pepper; thus for company he had to make due with Jarvis. He was also doing considerable research on where he was now and the AI had been immensely helpful in that regard. Right now though he wasn't pleased to learn a particular fact.

"Your saying I haven't been here for a week and I've already gone viral?" Tony asked in shocked disbelief.

"In manner of speaking sir. Most of what you would consider viral has been primarily speculation on various forums regarding Parahumans about who you are and where you came from. Though someone did record your initial conversation with the capes Armsmaster and Miss Militia and posted it to the internet, you calling Armsmaster, Mister Halbeard has spawned a load of memes and jokes." Jarvis said and Tony frowned.

"There's forums regarding Parahumans and they think that I am one?" Tony asked shocked, from what he had read on Parahumans, they were almost exactly like what his universe called Mutants, right down to having a unique genetic strand that appeared whenever one 'triggered' which was when they got their power.

"Indeed sir; due to your armor there's speculation going around that you're what's known as a Tinker." Jarvis replied and Tony frowned, what the hell was a tinker? As far as he knew, the powers that mutants received were often incredibly broad to the point that they were damn near impossible to accurately classify.

"So what the hell is a tinker then Jarvis?" Tony asked, confused, if these people had broadly been able to figure out things regarding these parahumans, then he wanted to know what they could do.

"A tinker, as stated by the Department of Homeland Security's Parahuman Protectorate Division's power classification system is that 'they have an ability that allows them to create or alter devices and materials well beyond the usual definition of what can be stated to be possible by education, knowledge, resources, or physics. Most tinkers barring unique exceptions specialize in one particular area, either an area of expertise where they operate exclusively or just operate in that's better than others.' As far as research can tell, what drives tinkers in their creations can be either instinctual or driven by institutional knowledge, however this varies from tinker-to-tinker. Additionally, tinkertech is almost universally impossible to reverse engineer." Jarvis replied and Tony hummed, if he was a tinker, then how come Whiplash was able to reverse engineer the miniaturized arc reactor, because that obviously indicated that either Whiplash had been a tinker as well, or maybe he was just that smart.

Tony really wasn't sure which one fit better primarily because of the fact that he knew how the arc reactor functioned near perfectly, having played a major role in seeing the prototype come to fruition. Yet at the same time, he couldn't help but agree that he might be a tinker considering he managed to build a miniaturized one, in a cave of all places, with only two captured Jericho missiles and a literal smithy in Afghanistan with only one other man, he paused and leaned back in his bed. If it wasn't for Yinsen, he wouldn't be here and more than likely Loki would have done a lot more damage than the overall containment that they managed and New York likely would have gotten turned into a crater by whoever the fuck had ordered that nuclear strike.

Tony shook his head, Yinsen had saved his life and the man was brilliant in his own way. He just wished that he had been able to save him as well.

"I see Jarvis, are there other forms of classifications for Parahumans?" Tony asked, he was suddenly hungry for more information on what Parahumans were since chances were quite likely that there was a whole system involved.

"There is sir; the other classifications used by the Protectorate and the world in general are Mover, Shaker, Brute, Breaker, Master, Tinker, Blaster, Thinker, Striker, Changer, and Trump. With a rating scale that goes from one to ten. Overall, said rating scale draws similarities to SHIELD's one-to-hundred scale, but power increases in an exponential rather than linear function as you go up the ladder." Jarvis replied and Tony hummed in thought.

"Okay, think you can send me the relative information on this rating scale? Is there anything of note that I should know?" Tony asked as he prepared himself for some major reading.

"Yessir, there is something that you should be aware of. There are multiple Omega level threats that are actively hostile on this Earth." Jarvis said and Tony felt his eyes bug in shock and horror.

Omega level threats. Going by the rating system that SHIELD used to rate the power of mutants and other threats, Omegas were the most powerful, with even a single Omega level Mutant being a match for entire Divisions if not Corps in terms of combat power and durability. To be declared an Omega Level threat was essentially to have SHIELD say that they had the potential for causing destruction and mayhem that was effectively unlimited, capable of laying waste to entire cities at minimum to in the case of some, like Jean Gray or Magneto, capable of laying waste to the entire planet should they be provoked.

To say that they were incredibly dangerous was understating things; to the point that meeting an Omega Level threat with force was likely to only rack up an enormous butcher's tally and make little if any noteworthy progress at all. They were almost uniformly incredibly fast and immensely powerful, both in terms of physical strength, durability, and more unique abilities.

Now, his own Earth actually had multiple Omega Level threats: Hulk, Magneto, Jean Gray, and Doctor Strange to say the least. But they weren't actively hostile and in many cases actually helped when it came to dealing with some of the nasties that were starting to crawl out of the woodwork. About the only Omega Threat that might be hostile, if he ever managed to escape The Cube was Abomination and he was very well contained.

The fact that this Earth actually had hostile Omega Threats changed the board dramatically. Before he was focused on getting back to his home dimension, but now he wasn't sure if he could actually bear the thought or not due to the fact that there were Omega Threats. Of course, there was also the fact that in order to actually make getting home possible, he would need money, which means he would have to do something. Before he had been thinking of joining this Protectorate as a means to get access to the resources.

Now?

Now he figured that he would have to be far more drastic in what he was going to have to do. He might have to found Stark Industries again and build it up into an impressive corporation that had continued to flourish even after his father had passed away and he had taken the reins. That being said, unlike his father, Howard, he wouldn't have to build Stark Industries from scratch, he had various starting points thanks to Jarvis. Which meant that since he had products, all he had to do was essentially patent them then work on getting grant money so that he could set up production for fancy high tech toys that could help rack in the funds.

A knock at the door brought him out of his musings. "Yes?" he asked.

The door opened and a nurse poked her head in. "Mister Stark, Carol Dallon is here to see you."

It took Tony a moment to realize who that was, the name had popped up in the news feeds a couple of times after his arrival here. Oh shit, Glory Girl's mother. He thought, if he remembered right, Glory Girl aka Victoria Dallon was recovering nicely despite the fact that she had been basically an impromptu landing pad, she was out of the ICU now thanks to her sister and on the mend, with release from the hospital being likely within a few days. But the fact that he had landed her in the hospital had more than likely earned him the ire of the independent cape organization known as New Wave.

The fact that Carol Dallon, Brandish, wanted to speak with him personally, well, he didn't know if it was good or bad. But he was leaning towards the latter, that's how it usually was with parents he succeeded in pissing off. Still, better to get the chewing out over with now rather than later - it would be better for everyone. Thus with a sigh, Tony said with a sigh "Alright, send her in."

"Okay sir." the nurse said and vanished.

Several minutes later, a woman dressed in business casual clothes whose quality immediately told Tony that this was a lawyer, walked in the door. Carol Dallon was a short woman, maybe five foot three with a slim figure and dark blonde hair in a bob cut. For a moment, Tony was reminded of Pepper back in his own reality, Carol had that same general air about her, a no nonsense woman with an attitude.

Tony leaned forward as best as he could. "A pleasure to meet you Ms. Dallon," he greeted, offering his hand.

Miss Dallon took it and they shook. "Mister Stark, it's good to see you in good spirits." she replied.

"Thank you, I am honestly surprised that I am doing this well, I guess I have Panacea to thank for that." Tony admitted and that was honestly a truth in itself. Panacea had been a damn miracle, without her, he was looking at months of recovery at best.

To his surprise, Miss Dallon smiled. "She's something, though while I would love to discuss the exploits of my adopted daughter, I am frankly more in the mood to talk about what's going to happen to you, Mister Stark."

"To be honest, I am in fairly deep shit even before we take the injuries I gave your daughter in that crash into consideration. Since well, apparently I managed to travel across realities." Tony admitted and Miss Dallon's eyebrows shot up.

"I figured judging from reports and what Victoria said that dimensional travel was involved. But it's one thing hearing and another having it confirmed." Miss Dallon said in a gentle tone.

"Indeed, it's weird since I've gone from being a multi-billionaire to having basically nothing." Tony admitted in a strange tone, as if he was having trouble believing it. "I never thought that I would be in this situation."

Ms. Dallon winced in sympathy. "So what are you planning to do then?"

"I am working on that, my best option might be to start my own business. I got a fair few ideas and with an IQ of one-sixty, it's easy to come up with new ideas." Tony replied and Ms. Dallon looked shocked.

"I am in the presence of an actual genius by IQ rather than what most tinkers claim to be." she said, shocked.

Tony smiled. "I guess that the real thing is a rarity?" he asked.

"That's one way of putting it." Ms. Dallon said and Tony had to resist the urge to laugh at her expression.

"Ms. Dallon, since I don't have access to my bank accounts or my lawyer. I am willing to make a deal here, regarding my business that I am thinking of starting up. But first I need to ask, what's the name of this Earth?" Tony said and Miss Dallon leaned forward interested.

"Earth Bet, why?"

"Because how about in-lieu of a monetary settlement, I give your family say a ten to fifteen percent stake in Stark Industries - Bet, now that might not seem like a lot, but the original Stark Industries back on my Earth is a Fortune 15 corporation, if or when we connect to my Earth, I'll make Stark Industries Bet part of the original Stark Industries while making sure stock holders keep their share." Tony said and Miss Dallon hummed.

"That's a very interesting offer, how do you know that this Stark Industries will be successful?" Ms. Dallon asked and Tony smiled.

"Jarvis, show a technical diagram for a twin reactor Arc Reactor power plant."

"Of course, sir." Jarvis replied and the holoprojector on Tony's phone warmed before activating.

Then a technical diagram of an Arc Reactor was projected into the room in a cool soothing blue, Miss Dallon stood up immediately and began looking at it. The way her eyes flicked over it, Tony could tell that she wasn't an Engineer in the slightest. But when she spoke, her voice was amazed. "Is that power generation for each reactor accurate?" she asked.

"Twenty gigawatts of power nominal load? Yes, it is, this reactor was designed to be more powerful than the most powerful fission plants in-existence back on my Earth while allowing for a vastly more compact package. This power plant would cover only about as much space as a conventional oil fired power plant while having vastly more energy output that's completely clean. I helped design the Arc Reactor since it was based on concepts that my father first pioneered." Tony said with a smile.

"Mister Stark, this thing is a massive gamechanger, ever since Iran lost its second largest oil field due to Behemoth and the entirety of Kuwait had to be sealed due to the Simurgh, the price of oil has been very high since her song rendered that area uninhabitable for humans. You propose this to the Department of Energy and they'll bend over backwards to make this happen. What's more, this isn't tinkertech, I am only understanding maybe a quarter of this, at most, of what this technical diagram is saying…but the fact that I can understand any of it, tells me it's not tinkertech." Miss Dallon said in a shocked tone of voice.

"Yeah, it's really something isn't it?" Tony said and Miss Dallon sighed.

"Yeah. it is. Damn, I am no engineer, my husband has a Master Degree in that, but even I can tell that this would be revolutionary and would solve so many problems in the world." Miss Dallon replied and then something changed in her posture. "Alright, we can haggle out the details regarding Stark Industries later as that's going to be fun and doing so here in a hospital room isn't particularly brilliant."

Tony laughed out loud. "Yeah, true."

She held out a card. "Please call me with this number once you get out of the hospital so we can hammer out details."

Tony took it. "Thank you Miss Dallon." he replied and with that, Carol Dallon turned on her heel and walked out the door.

After looking at the business card and adding Carol's name to his phone he then leaned back and then continued looking out the window as life went on in Brockton Bay for a couple of minutes before picking up his phone again. He wanted to learn as much about capes as possible.

---

The following day was another day of boredom with not much really happening, but the day after was something else. Once again, Tony was on his phone, this time however his goal was to learn about the Omega Threats of this world, he was surprised to learn that there was Kaiju running around on this Earth, just like his own which had Gojira. Creatures so huge and powerful that they were essentially above Omega Threats and were really Omega Plus.

But there were other threats that were absolutely despicable out there, probably the most disturbing of the lot was this Slaughterhouse 9 - the Endbringers were horrible in their own way. What with their nicknames of The Hero Killer, The City Destroyer, The Siren; but at least they were enormous creatures who very clearly weren't of this Earth.

Tony sighed, the Slaughterhouse 9 were truly monstrous. They reminded him far too much of the terrorists he demolished in Gulmara, people who killed for fun just because they could. It was in many ways truly disgusting. The fuckers were already on his shitlists, if they showed up, he would use his repulsors on a setting that would cause explosive effects in organics - that wasn't something he did lightly as the plasma projectors that formed the repulsors were mind-numbingly powerful - due to the fact that water really didn't like being hit by plasma and there was the concussive force to consider, at even fairly low power could make an incredible mess, as in steam and crimson would go everywhere.

There was a knock at the door and then the nurse poked her head in. "Mister Stark, Victoria Dallon here to see you."

Tony looked surprised. "Okay, send her in" he said.

The nurse nodded and vanished, two minutes later. Victoria came in, one of her arms was in a cast but other than that she seemed fine. "Hey Tony." she greeted cheerfully as she strolled in.

"Victoria, good to see that you're up and about." Tony replied as she promptly collapsed into a chair.

"Thanks, it was touch and go for a couple of hours, but I lasted long enough for my sister to put me back together." Victoria said in response from where she was.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I was more focused on regaining control. If I had been paying better attention." Tony said, trailing off.

Victoria waved it off. "It's no big deal, we all make mistakes and frankly getting out of a tumble can be difficult even when you do know what you're doing." she said with a shrug.

"Sounds like you're speaking from experience."

"I am, I might be able to fly but even I learned how to recover from tumbles. But it's not the most embarrassing thing either." Victoria admitted.

"I've done some stupid shit in the past, most notably when designing my Mark II suit, I designed it with the ability to fly at eighty thousand feet using an advanced iron alloy for protection. But I forgot to account for ice, which made things, uh, interesting when the suit iced up and the repulsors failed because of it. Didn't go splat, though I almost hit a car after recovering which took a lot longer than it should have." Tony replied and Victoria snorted a laugh.

"Seems fairly silly to forget something like that." Victoria noted.

"To be fair, I thought that heat provided by friction due to the suit interacting with the air while at speed would prevent ice from forming. But due to the much smaller cross-section of the suit compared to say a SR-71, not as much heat was built up which meant that ice could form. I got around the problem by layering a titanium-gold alloy over the iron alloy due to it having much better properties in regards to dealing with ice. But that's enough about how I've had a pretty major epic fail." Tony said, rubbing the back of his head.

Victoria snorted and laughed. "Seems like a fairly major oversight when you look at it that way."

"I think that one of the logs after that test flight where I reviewed that flight basically was me going 'well I can't believe I forgot that and that was stupid. Let's fix that!' and that's where I decided on my current material for the exterior." Tony replied with a chuckle of his own. "I have to ask, have you done anything similar?"

To his surprise, Victoria nodded. "I have actually, shortly after I triggered and it was felt that I could do patrols solo - I got the bright idea to post on twitter every so often where I was and also keep in contact with my mom. I wasn't paying attention and crashed into a billboard at highway speeds."

Tony laughed loudly. "Bet mom wasn't too happy with that."

Victoria smiled. "Yep, I was literally grounded for a month."

Tony had to admit, that was a good joke, though not inaccurate, due to being an Alexandria Package, which equated to a Classic Flying Brick, Victoria really could fly. Thus he chuckled again.

"Ouch, I will admit, after some of the crazy shit I did when designing the Iron Man armors. Well, let's just say that I am certain if my mother or father saw it, I would be in a lot of trouble." Tony admitted as he thought back to those days. He didn't know who to trust back then and had wanted to keep everything secret. But after everything that had happened when he had fought Stane along with the absolute piss-poor alibi that SHIELD had come up with. He had decided to reveal that he was Iron Man and released various videos that showed him testing and refining his armor.

Hell, he knew for a fact that the helmet footage for his first test flight in the Mark II had become the most watched video on Youtube back in his home dimension.

"Mister Stark, I have to ask, why do you wear a full helmet despite everyone knowing who you actually are?" Victoria asked suddenly.

"Well, since I am not invincible, it's for protection when I fly and when I am in battle. All of my early suits, save the Mark I could go supersonic at all altitudes, at those sorts of speeds air resistance would tear my face off. Additionally it's for my own protection against guys with guns, what's the point of wearing full body armor if you're only wearing a Mardi Gras mask and thus can be killed by taking a conventional bullet to the forehead?" Tony replied and Victoria hummed in thought.

"That's something that I never thought to consider actually when I designed my costume." Victoria said in a tone as if she knew something about her power and that a realization had just smacked her in the face.

"Everything alright?" Tony asked.

"No, just realizing exactly how many close calls I've had and how oh so much could have gone differently if luck hadn't been on my side. I am going to have to try and figure out a way to actually get better head protection for my costume without ruining the look." Victoria said with a frown.

This news caused Tony to frown. "Why is there something up about your invincibility?" he asked.

"You could say that, I am going to have to tell Mom about this." Victoria said, still frowning and clearly troubled.

Tony frowned as he thought about it. While Stark Industries didn't produce weapons anymore, they had recently begun producing Exo-7 'Falcon' suits, a way for Iron Man Armor technology to be used in the field. The suit itself was multi-layered, with conventional fibers with kevlar and ceramic tiles reinforced with carbon-nanotubes sandwiched between them which provided NIJ Level 4 Protection, with detachable titanium-mylar wings that were integrated into a jetpack that had the smallest and admittedly least powerful arc reactor ever created that powered a quartet of electric turbine engines each capable of roughly one thousand pounds of thrust allowing for a top speed of roughly three hundred miles per hour; the backpack also included a parachute. It wouldn't be too hard to create something that could maintain the look of her current mask while providing better cranial protection.

The thrust there was sufficient to lift a man with relative ease. He knew that the USAF Pararescue Jumpers were very interested in the technology. To the point that two of the units were already in the field with more in production. Something to think about.

"Hey it's alright, we all make mistakes. Being a hero isn't easy and you can't possibly think of everything." Tony said and Victoria smiled lightly.

"Yeah, that's true particularly since I am still in high school." Victoria admitted.

"That must be fun, juggling life between being a hero and school work." Tony replied, thinking back to when he had been about Victoria's age, though instead of high school, he had been in college.

"It is to an extent, but I am managing well enough to the point that I am taking AP courses." Victoria said with a smirk.

"Great to hear, I've heard that I am likely to be released later today due to how well I am recovering." Tony replied and Victoria nodded.

"The Protectorate has released a few details, the crash into hello that we had made it a fairly public event. All they've said though is that you're a Cape from a different reality in the multiverse and that because of that, you'll be supplied with your own living space." Victoria admitted.

"That's good to hear, since I don't really have any cash on me right now so I can't pay for an apartment, due to you know, my bank accounts being in another dimension." Tony said with a chuckle and Victoria burst out laughing.

"Quite a pickle to be in for sure." Victoria said a moment later.

"True enough, but at least the government is willing to help me out there." Tony admitted and Victoria smiled in response.

"One of the things that I want to ask though is are you willing to join New Wave?" Victoria asked and Tony frowned.

"New Wave?" He asked, confused.

"The independent hero team that I am part of. We don't do any sort of secret identities actually with everything in the public domain." Victoria admitted and Tony nodded in response.

"I'll think about it. I just got a lot on my plate at the moment." Tony said and Victoria nodded.

"That's fair." Victoria said before looking at her watch. "Jeez, I better go. I told mom this would only take a few minutes and it's been longer than that."

"Guess I'll be seeing you around."

"Yeah, bye!"

Then she was gone, leaving Tony alone with his thoughts.

---

Later that day, Tony was walking out of the hospital with another Cape helping him along to a waiting PRT vehicle, the big HMMWV was a heavy boxy vehicle painted in an digital urban camouflage, a contrasting series of shades of gray and black. The big brawny vehicle was going to take him to what was in-essence base housing, apparently PRT HMMWVs were a common enough sight around here that seeing one sitting in the parking lot of an apartment building wasn't too unusual.

Tony had to admit that he did have a very noticeable flinch at the sight of the Humvee. After they pulled away, the woman who had introduced himself as Battery asked him outright. "What's wrong Mister Stark?"

"Bad memories involving Humvees." Tony admitted and Battery's widened.

"Former military?"

"No, had a VIP excursion to Afghanistan to show off a new weapon that my corporation had developed in a live fire demonstration in the field. We were on the way back to the airport so I could head back to the states when we got ambushed. That marked the start of what became a three month ordeal as a guest of the terrorist organization known as the Ten Rings and it's because of that attack that I have this in my chest." Tony said, tapping the arc reactor in his chest and trying to not shed tears. Those men who had been in the convoy, out of the better part of a platoon, only three or four had survived and they had done so by playing dead when the terrorists had come to pick him up.

"Jesus Christ on a cracker." Battery said after a moment.

"That's one way of putting it." Tony replied in a soft voice.

"How did you get away, if you don't mind me asking?"

"With the help of another man, Doctor Ho Yinsen, I built the reactor that's currently in my chest so I didn't need to be hooked up to a car battery and then together we built a suit of armor. Yinsen bought time so the suit could power up, I fought my way out and found Yinsen, dying. Before he died, he told me not to waste my life - and then I finished fighting my out, dual-wielded flamethrowers were involved. Ever since then, I've been trying to make the biggest difference that I could." Tony replied as he thought back to that horrible experience.

"Wise words to live by Mister Stark." Battery replied, her expression placid but Tony got the impression that she too was thinking about it.

"They are wise words to live by." Tony agreed, thinking about how much he had changed since then as the vehicle continued prowling through the streets.

Eventually the humvee, not a funvee, turned into a subterranean parking lot below a large building complex that said 'Brockton Bay District Parahuman Response Team Headquarters'. "Right, here we are, please follow me." Battery said as she handed him an access card.

"That card only has access to your room, gym, cafeteria, and armory. I hear that getting your suit to the armory was difficult enough." Battery said and Tony nodded.

"I know, Jarvis told me about it. I might need access to a workshop to repair my armor as well." Tony admitted as he walked with Battery.

"That's fair, I'll talk to Director Piggot about seeing that happen." Battery replied and Tony nodded in response, it made sense. He really needed to know what sort of shape his armor was in. He had a feeling however that the condition wasn't great. His armor had taken a beating, that was for sure.

"Thanks." Tony replied and Battery nodded.

"No problem, it's the least we can do." Battery said and Tony had to admit, these people were being exceptionally kind given the situation he had ended up in. Hell, even Carol could have sued for monetary compensation and he wouldn't have been able to fix it due to not having any kind of money at his disposal.

The hallways weren't a labyrinth thankfully, indeed the layout of the building was actually fairly easy to figure out. They had just walked through the doors that led to a common room which connected the two housing blocks when Tony saw a young black woman sitting on a recliner. She certainly looked like she hadn't been sleeping well recently judging by the bags under her eyes. "Hey Battery, who the hell is the new guy?" she greeted in a tired tone of voice; notably she didn't have a mask on like Vista had hastily put on when I met her.

"Shadow Stalker, this is Iron Man, he's going to be staying with us until we figure out how to get him home." Battery said.

The young woman, a cape apparently, nodded. "I see, hope we have luck with that."

After that they left the common room and were walking down a hallway. "What's up with her?" Tony asked and Battery sighed.

"Shadow Stalker was diagnosed about a month ago with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - we think she developed it due to what happened at the Endbringer fight she was at back in November when Behemoth attacked Toronto." Battery admitted and Tony winced in sympathy. He knew what fighting PTSD was like, Shadow Stalker looked all of fifteen or sixteen years old. She should be worrying about high school, finding a boyfriend, worrying about getting into college, etcetera. Not fighting Behemoth and having it go so badly sideways that she got PTSD out of it.

"Someone her age shouldn't be worrying about PTSD." Tony said in a bitter tone.

"No and a Ward like her, unless the Endbringer is attacking their home city, they aren't allowed on the frontlines but on SAR only. But that fight against Behemoth was uglier than most, which is saying something." Battery admitted and Tony cringed, seemed like Shadow Stalker had been shafted in a sense.

"I hope she's getting help." Tony replied as they came to a door.

"She is, its District Policy around here regarding the Wards to go into therapy after an Endbringer battle, no exceptions." Battery said and Tony snorted.

"That's good to hear, I've had my own experiences with PTSD, so I know it's not easy to deal with." Tony replied and Battery nodded.

They came to a door and at a gesture, Tony scanned his card and walked in. The room was essentially studio living, there was a bathroom off to one side and a small closet. It wasn't much, maybe twenty or so square meters. Certainly not the size of one of his rooms in his California Mansion or New York Penthouse. He hadn't lived like this since he had gone to M.I.T, but he could make do here even if it was uncomfortable.

A quick check of the closet and the dresser revealed that it had indeed been stocked with clothes. Jarvis had probably helped with them getting his size, still it was another useful thing. He turned and faced Battery. "Thanks for everything, Battery, I certainly owe the PRT and Protectorate a lot." Tony said and Battery nodded.

"Indeed, we're giving you today and tomorrow to get settled in here and then you have a meeting with Director Piggot at 0900 so we can discuss how your armor got as battered as it did." Battery said and Tony nodded, that made as much sense as anything.

"Got it, two days to get settled in and then I have to give a presentation." Tony said in response.

Battery nodded and then left.

"Jarvis you there?"

"At your service, sir."

"Can you start compiling an After Action Report in accordance with DoD Standards along with notes on the Battle of New York as well as my arrival here in Brockton Bay?" Tony asked as he sprawled out on the small couch.

"Of course sir, compiling now. Estimated time to completion, two minutes." the AI replied and Tony nodded.

With that taken care of, he pulled out his phone and charger, then started browsing the internet.

AN - My first attempt at a Worm Interlude involving aspects of PHO.

---

---

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♦Topic: New Cape crashed into Glory Girl
In: Boards ► Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay ► Weird Local Shit

ProfessionalRussian (Original Poster)
Posted on January 18, 2011:

So, a new cape just crashed into Glory Girl after randomly appearing in the sky after what looked like a portal transition. I have heard that EMTs were on the scene and that both Miss Militia and Armsmaster were at the scene and that apparently, Glory Girl was loaded into an ambulance.

Do we know who this new cape is and what the status of CDB is?

USER RECEIVED AN INFRACTION FOR THIS POST

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