Chapter 64: The Aether
A/N: In which Tony usurps Jane Foster's destiny.
-x-X-x-
Back in the original timeline, the others had all thought he was just trying to make sense of it all when he’d started the project. They’d unwittingly helped him more than they could ever know, thinking that Tony was just after closure. As if he could ever find closure with Pepper and their unborn child dead. As if the galaxy could ever recover after the damage Thanos had done to it.
Still, they’d told him everything he needed to know when Tony had demanded to know how it had all happened. How had Thanos gotten unfathomable cosmic power? What path had each of the Infinity Stones taken to wind up in that fucking gauntlet? How had they all failed each step of the way to stop him?
Tony knew the path of a few of the stones already, to be fair.
Mind had started out in Thanos’ hands before winding up in Loki’s Scepter. Then it had found its way to HYDRA, where they’d used it to awaken the Maximoff Twins’ powers. After which, it had been used to create Vision. Shuri and Wakanda’s top scientists had been tasked with removing the Mind Stone from Vision’s head after they found out about Thanos’ plans so that Wanda could destroy it. In the end, they’d failed to do so in time, but Wanda had still apparently done the deed at Vision’s behest, killing her lover and destroying the stone with her powers. Then, Thanos had shown up and rewound time.
Time was another that Tony knew fairly well. It was in the hands of the Sorcerer Supreme and had been for longer than Tony could fathom. It would only fall into Thanos’ hands if the Sorcerer Supreme gave it to him, like Strange had done when he saved Tony’s life. Sometimes Tony wondered if this was the future Strange had somehow seen, the one where they won. But he didn’t know how that would even work unless Strange was somehow viewing only Tony’s personal future and not the future of the universe.
Power, he’d learned about from Nebula. They’d grown close in that month where they’d drifted through space after the disaster on Titan, slowly dying. He’d earned her respect by helping her with repairs to her entirely cybernetic body. She’d earned his by telling him about the life she’d survived under Thanos as one of the detestable monsters’ daughters. The Guardians of the Galaxy, a pretentious name for a group that Tony still held a lot of bad will towards thanks to one Peter fucking Quill, had apparently used the Power Stone to destroy a petty warlord and then given it to a group called the Nova Corp for safekeeping. Fat lot of good that did.
Soul, he’d also learned about from Nebula. Only one person in the entire galaxy had known where the Soul Stone was. Nebula’s adoptive sister, Gamora. She’d given up its location under torture, but not her own torture… rather, the torture of Nebula. The Soul Stone could be found on a planet called Vormir, and Tony already know from their disastrous fight on Titan that Thanos had sacrificed Gamora to ‘earn’ it, because to prove yourself worthy of the Soul Stone, you had to give up someone you loved. Yeah, fuck that.
Space, he’d had to pry out of Thor. The God of Thunder and King of Asgard had been rather despondent by that point, and already starting to drown himself in food and drink. But Tony hadn’t let it go, forcing Thor to explain exactly what had happened with Space… and the last of the Infinity Stones after that. As far as the Space Stone was concerned, the Tesseract had stayed in Odin’s Treasure Vault until the destruction of Asgard during Ragnarok, at which point Loki had apparently pilfered it. Then, Loki had given it up to Thanos in a gambit to try and take the Mad Titan’s life, only for it to backfire and cost Loki his own life.
And then… there was Reality. The red stone, the Reality Stone… otherwise known as the Aether.
Coming in for a landing at the factory where Thor had despondently told Tony that he’d found Jane, Tony eyes up the empty building from within his Vibranium Nanotech Suit. Thanks to JARVIS and the technopathy from Extremis, he’s seeing a hell of a lot more than even the suit would have been able to show him otherwise.
“What am I looking at, J?”
“It would appear that this is the epicenter of the Convergence, Sir. Based on what you told me, over the next several days, more portals will open up spreading out from this point. However, the first set have opened here in this abandoned factory.”
Tony could see them. Or rather, JARVIS could see them with his new magitech sight and Tony was piggybacking off of what JARVIS was seeing. It was honestly quite the spectacle. A bunch of portals, some as tiny as a pinprick and some bigger than him, all spread throughout the building before him. As Tony and JARVIS scan the place, one of the portals, a particularly large one, suddenly begins glowing red.
“That our target, J?”
“Yes Sir. That portal is radiating the same energy as the Tesseract and Loki’s Scepter… aka the Space and Mind Stones respectively. There is no doubt that the Reality Stone resides within that portal where Mr. Odinson’s grandfather, King Bor, put it five thousand years ago.”
The Reality Stone, aka the Aether. Before it was sought by Thanos, it was sought by some elf bastard named Malekith. Even though the final battle between Thor and Malekith had taken place on Earth as well as another half a dozen worlds at the end of the Convergence, the big guy had never asked for Tony’s help or even thought to shoot him a message. He’d had to find out about that shit afterwards, though at least he could take some solace in the fact that Rogers and SHIELD and all the others had been left in the dark as well.
Before Malekith got his hands on the Aether though, it had wound up infecting Thor’s girlfriend Jane Foster. After it inhabited her, she’d started dying because her human body couldn’t handle the power. Thor had taken her to Asgard but they’d been unable to help her, forcing him to then take her to Svartlalfheim to have his enemy, Malekith himself, extract the Aether from Jane so she could survive.
In the end, Thor had apparently defeated Malekith and secured the Aether. But because Asgard already had the Tesseract, Thor speculated that Odin believed the danger of trying to hold onto two Infinity Stones to be too great. So they’d gone and given it to some man called The Collector for safekeeping instead.
Obviously, that hadn’t worked out well because Thanos had taken the Reality Stone from the Collector and added it to his collection anyways. And then he’d used it along with the other stones to great effect on both Titan and Earth to defeat their forces again and again until he won.
… But what if he never got his hands on the Reality Stone? What if it never infected Jane Foster in the first place and Asgard never gave it to The Collector? What if… the Aether wound up in better hands?
Moving through the factory silently, Tony passes by portals that would have been invisible to the naked eye. He slips among them, heading for his target as it glows red through his visor.
“Sir… are you absolutely sure about this? I do not know if I will be able to go with you through the portal. You told me yourself that the reason Thor said he knew something was wrong with Dr. Foster in the first place was because even Heimdall couldn’t see her, wherever the Aether was. Even the transponder that we prepared might fail us.”
Coming to a stop in front of the red portal that’s giving off the energy readings of an Infinity Stone, Tony smiles softly.
“Yeah J, I’m sure. I’ve done a lot to try and get ready for Thanos. I’m on the cusp of not only destroying HYDRA in one fell swoop, but building a defense force for Earth that even Wakanda can’t scoff at. And all on our enemies’ dime, leaving my own vast wealth and resources focused on building up even more defenses. I’m making good on a promise I’ve never made in this timeline… to put a suit of armor around this whole planet.”
Staring at the red glowing portal, Tony exhales sharply.
“… But it isn’t enough. ES3+, Vibranium Nanotech, the Helicarriers, the Iron Legion, all of it… it’s not enough J. Even you… my wonderful baby boy. You’ve become so much more than I ever could have imagined. I know you’ve been growing beyond my upgrades.”
“Sir, I-!”
But Tony cuts him off.
“I couldn’t be prouder of you, JARVIS. And even if this kills me, I know you’ll keep fighting. I know I can count on you to continue the fight against Thanos, against HYDRA, against all of our enemies out there. But if it doesn’t kill me… shit J, if it doesn’t kill me, we’ll finally have a real weapon against Thanos. The first piece of a puzzle I’ve been trying to put together since before I even went back in time.”
Power, Space, Reality, Soul. Those were the four stones that Thanos had when they fought him on Titan and even then they still almost won. But what if they could rob him of them? What if he never got his hands on any of the Infinity Stones? What if… the Infinity Stones could be turned against the Mad Titan?
His resolve firming up, Tony curls his gauntleted hands into fists.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, J. Remember, Foster was apparently gone for five hours, so don’t freak out on me too fast if we lose contact for a while, okay?”
“Yes Sir.”
Letting out an explosive sigh, Tony steps forward and enters the portal. It’s not like some of the portals he’s seen in his time. Definitely not like a sorcerer’s portal, where you can see both sides like a window through time and space. Instead, one moment he’s inside of the factory and the next he’s somewhere else. Somewhere filled with black stone and darkness. Somewhere so fully ‘other’ that Tony can’t even begin to comprehend it.
“J?”
Nothing. They’d tried to plan ahead, making an extra powerful transponder in the hopes that JARVIS would be able to come with him, but it looks as though it didn’t work. Wherever King Bor put the Aether, it was at the ass-end of the universe… or maybe not IN this universe whatsoever.
Tony looks behind him and can’t see the portal that brought him here anymore. But that makes sense because he was looking through JARVIS’ ‘eyes’ before and now he can’t. They’re cut off right now by Convergence Bullshit. Still, he has to hope it’s there… or that it’ll show up again eventually. And he can’t step back through now to test it and risk it closing on him.
Instead, he moves forward. The sensors designed to read for Infinity Stone energy are still operational. He doesn’t need JARVIS’ magitech for that, thankfully. And the red glow… it’s right in front of him, albeit a fair distance away on foot. Of course, Tony doesn’t need to walk. Pushing off the ground with his Repulsors, he flies through the air to his destination, arriving in under a minute.
A massive monolith of a pillar stands in front of him, split along the horizontal by a gap. And from that gap seeps a red glow through the visor of Tony’s helmet.
Clenching his jaw, Tony pulls back the suit, returning the Vibranium Nanites to their containment unit. In a couple of seconds he stands there armorless. He can’t see the red glow anymore, but it doesn’t matter. Jane had told Thor what had happened to her here and Thor had in turn told Tony while eating cheese puffs and drinking beer in larger quantities than any human being could ever hope to put down either.
Stepping forward, Tony doesn’t hesitate. Hesitation was for five minutes ago, before he stepped through the portal. Hesitation was for five years ago, before he traveled back in time. Here and now, he thrusts his bared arm into the space between the two massive blocks of black stone and waits.
He doesn’t have to wait long. He feels something like sapient liquid reach out and tentatively touch his fingers. And then he feels it latch on and yank him up against the face of the stone. Tony grimaces, bracing himself and clenching his trapped hand into a fist as the Aether infects him and invades him. He feels it inside of him, feels it filling his body and inhabiting his blood.
… He’s pretty sure he feels it a lot more acutely than Jane did. She was just a normal baseline human at the end of the day. Tony was more than that. He was enhanced, first with Extremis and the Super Soldier Serum, and then with the Extremis Upgrade that Maya had developed. It gave him an unparalleled understanding of his own body.
Once the Aether is inside of him and Tony can pull his arm back, he immediately envelopes himself in his Vibranium Nanotech Armor again, using it to run full diagnostics on himself with his technopathy as well. Immediately, he can see that the Aether is eating away at him just like it ate away at Dr. Foster. Albeit… slower. Much slower.
He can also see the problem. The human body didn’t have the energy to feed an energy hog like the Aether. It needed more power. A lot more power. Even with the upgrades he’d given himself, he wasn’t going to be able to hold it within him forever. Frustrating.
But… he might have a solution. Flying back to where he’d come in, Tony takes a deep breath and tries to step back through the portal. To his mild surprise, it actually works.
“-ir! Sir! You’re back already. Was the mission a success? How are you feeling?”
Realizing his mouth and throat are as parched as the desert, Tony gets some water and swishes it around for a moment before swallowing as he nods.
“Mission successful, J. As for how I’m feeling… well, I’m dying a bit faster than before. Which is not optimal. Might have a solution to that though. Going to need five more Arc Reactors from the Moon, stat. The Vibranium ones.”
“Right away Sir.”
Tony has an idea. It’s a crazy idea, but if it works… well, he’s dead even if he doesn’t try it, so he might as well right? While he’s waiting for the stealth package to arrive from the Moon Base, Tony begins experimenting with his Vibranium Nanites. Specifically, he begins experimenting with putting them under his flesh and into his body.
This isn’t something he ever would have tried before. Vibranium and Human Biology don’t really mix very well, even upgraded human biology. Technically he could have made subdermal Vibranium Plating under his skin at any time and then had Extremis heal him later, but it would have been excruciating the entire time he was doing it.
Now however, Tony has the Aether in his veins. Reality itself is at his fingertips. He just has to reach out and take hold of it. Easier said than done, of course. The Infinity Stone isn’t so sure about playing ball, Tony can feel it. But at the same time… he gets the impression that its curious about him, for as much as it can BE curious.
Do the Infinity Stones have minds of their own? Maybe. Tony has never really known. The Space Stone was said to have thrown the Red Skull through time and space seemingly of its own volition. The Mind Stone had twisted Ultron into a mockery of what Tony had designed, but whether that was a trap laid by Thanos or whether Thor had purified the damn thing with lighting to make Vision, Tony had never known.
Reality though… Reality almost felt like an inquisitive cat as Tony asked it to help him mix Vibranium into his physiology. And after he fully outlines what he’s trying to do… it seems willing to give this a try.
Tony always carries enough Vibranium Nanites in the containment unit for multiple suits. On Titan, he’d had enough nanites for about a suit and a half and Thanos had proven how little that really was as he’d torn Tony’s armor to pieces and then stabbed him in the gut with his own fucking blade. In this timeline, Tony had expanded the containment unit and let it cover his back so it wasn’t so obvious… the containment unit for his Vibranium Nanites carried enough to make FIVE of his suits if he so chose.
He takes enough for one and floods his body with the damn things. With the Aether’s help, he’s able to reinforce every part of himself with the Vibranium Nanites, from his organs to his bones to his muscles. He stops short of the surface, of things like his skin, hair, and eyes, having no desire to turn himself into a copy of Vision right now. Everything else though…
It helps. Tony can feel how it helps. He’s effectively made himself a Human-Vibranium Synthezoid hybrid. He’s still got a human physiology, just reinforced by Vibranium Nanites across the board. And the Aether flowing through his veins is now killing him all that much slower. Still not enough though. It’ll still overwhelm him eventually, energy hog that it is. Unless…
The package Tony requested from the Moon Base finally arrives, invisible to all known sensors as well as the naked eye… but not to Tony. Deactivating the invisibility, he flips open the case and smiles at the five glittering Vibranium Arc Reactors nestled within the cushioning. Dismissing his armor, Tony reaches out and grabs the first of the five before pressing it up against his chest. There’s a squelching sound as he has to literally tear through his skin to absorb the thing into his body, after which the skin heals over thanks to Extremis.
The Arc Reactor slips downwards, somewhere around his mid-riff, nestling itself between his organs. At the same time, Tony reaches out and with technopathy is able to connect the Arc Reactor to his new Vibranium insides, as well as the Aether itself. And… it helps. An Arc Reactor is a power source based on the Tesseract’s limitless energy. But the Arc Reactor itself is not limitless. It helps… but it’s still not enough.
That’s okay though, that’s why Tony had JARVIS send five. Taking up the next, Tony presses that Arc Reactor into himself as well. And then the third. And the fourth. And finally, the fifth.
With five Vibranium Arc Reactors, all powered by Badassium (screw you patent office) nestled inside of his body and connected to the Aether, Tony finally feels the strain of housing an Infinity Stone lessen to livable levels. It’s still no joke of course, and even now he can tell that the Arc Reactors will eventually be drained and have to be replaced. Fortunately, he can keep this up for quite a while.
For the time being though, the Aether is his to command. He can feel how satisfied it is, how pleased he’s made it. Like a purring cat that’s found a hot lap to sleep on after being fed a large bowl of warm milk. Snorting in amusement at the all too apt description, Tony shakes his head and grins.
“All good here, J.”
Rather than voicing his relief, JARVIS’ response is terse and about something else entirely.
“Incoming, Sir.”
Blinking, Tony looks up… and SEES it coming. The Bifrost zooming across the stars, traveling from Asgard all the way to Midgard. It strikes the ground about a hundred feet away from him for a full second before receding and leaving the Prince of Asgard and God of Thunder in its wake.
Thor holds Mjolnir in one hand and a, heh, stormy look on his face as he stalks forward. For a moment, Tony considers putting back on his armor just in case Thor is hostile… but no. No reason to start a fight unless he has to… and besides, as he is now, he IS the armor. If Thor does decide to get aggressive like he did once upon a time in Tony’s penthouse in a timeline that never was… well, he’d be in for a nasty surprise, this time around.
-x-X-x-
A/N: Well now, Tony got a rather huge upgrade this chapter. Meanwhile, Thor looks upset. Why do you think Thor might be angry with Tony? :P