Blood, Gold and Broken Lace

Chapter 4

Turns out, the Avengers Tower was haunted.

And it was not a feature he paid for.

The Tower was haunted by a raving, shrieking and frankly annoying ghost.

Now Tony wasn't a spiritual man but he prayed to God that the ghost would just shut up. He couldn't get any work done like this. With the ghost snarling and growling and throwing things around the room. At least he couldn't possess people anymore. That had almost been a disaster and a half.

Correction, it would've been a disaster and a half if Thor hadn't been there. He threw up some spell or something (Tony didn't know that gods of thunder could do magic but hey—he wasn't about to police people's interests or abilities. That was Fury's job.) that trapped the ghost and kept him from doing any major harm. Like possessing people. But apparently throwing things didn't count as 'major harm'. Tony complained, Tony complained a lot. And Thor's explanation was long and winding and didn't exactly make the most sense.

(Again—he had no idea the guy could do magic and he was only at the tower for the pop tarts. So Tony was glad the big guy was there in the first place.)

But essentially what it boiled down to was that the ghost couldn't leave because he was 'tethered' or something to the Advenger's Tower somehow and the most Thor could do was stop him from killing anyone in his ghostie anger fulled rage. Which was nice but Tony wished the thing would just stop throwing his stuff. Everything that was thrown was replaceable but those things cost a pretty penny to the common man. And Tony wasn't keen on replacing antique vases imported from China.

Thor said there wasn't much else he could do and Tony would need to get a actual magic user to exorcize the ghost. (And then he left to steal Tony's pop tarts . Wonderful. Just...wonderful.) Which—was just peachy because Tony knew so many wizards—

Wait.

Wasn't Doctor Strange a magic user? And a pretty accomplished one too if Tony remembered correctly.

Did he know how to exorcise ghosts?

Eh probably, he's pretty sure he had his number.

Now just to give the wizard a call.

(::)

Lloyd didn't get it.

He didn't get the weird magic energy stuff, and the hand movements were lost on him. It was like Elemental Powers but completely different somehow??

Lloyd didn't get it. He really, really didn't get it.

First Master—he hated t that he didn't get it.

Lloyd swept through the motions again, flicking his wrists in the way Doctor Strange showed him. His Elemental Power swirled and fizzled like water on a hot pan, but it didn't create the runic circle it was supposed to. Ridiculous, dumb, stupid—

"You need to lead with your Soul and only then can your movements follow,"

Lloyd wanted to groan. He really, really did but honestly he's been through worse and even more cryptic training. Turns out Energy as an Elemental Power was completely different from Lightning in the way you used it, Jay Walker. You'd think they'd be basically the same being energy and lightning.They sound like they'd be the same but nooooooo—Jay used Lightning like a caffeine high kid would use heelys, silly string and darts. Random, insanely creative and precisely deadly with a single minded accuracy that would make a high grade sniper jealous. But Energy was...well it was like a cat. Or a dog. Or a really intelligent parrot. That had super powers or absorbed energy from the sun and shot it out of its mouth when it was trained or convinced to. It was protective, but not as protective as the Bleeding Gold. Lloyd had to earn the Green's trust in him as a Master and Student to the Arts before it started working properly. And it was loyal too. Lloyd wasn't sure what that exactly meant but once Sensei Wu mentioned how he had an unusually loyal Element. It was cryptic and muttered and Lloyd probably would have understood it more if he didn't hear Sensei say it at all.