A Different Path

Avengers Assemble (Part 1)

Three parts left! I decided I'm going to do an epilogue. To clarify, these are the ages of the children:

Aurora: 13
Peter: 10
Harley: 6
Morgan: 3

After Agent had explained the situation, Tony knew that he was right.

"I'll get my family out of here. I'd rather them be far away from this madness," Tony said, turning to go tell Pepper when Coulson caught his arm.

"Dr. Stark-"

"It's Tony, Agent."

"Tony," he sighed, "there's on more thing I need to tell you." He paused as if preparing himself, "there's a chance he could sense Aurora's power."

Tony's blood ran cold.

"We don't know for sure, but Loki is a magic being, formally thought to just be a myth."

"What do you think it best to do?" Tony asked. He had to keep his family safe. He would keep them safe if it was the last thing he'd do.

"Bring them onto the helicarrier and we can get them to a safe house."

"Where was Loki last sighted?"

"Germany."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

Tony started pacing, hands figiting behind his back nervously as he tried to think of anything better he could do. After a minute of running all kinds of scenarios in his head, he stopped.

"Who will be joining the Avengers Initiative?"

"Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, but he is currently under mind control," Phil sounded pained as he said it. They must be close. "Dr. Banner, or Hulk, and maybe Thor if he shows up. Loki is his brother, after all.."

Tony nodded along with this, flipping through the files on all the Avengers listed.

"...and you."

Tony paused. "What? Say again?"

"And you, Dr- Tony. We need you on the team."

Tony honestly didn't expect this. Yes, he did missions for SHIELD and he was a consultant, but an Avenger? He helped write the Avengers initiative.

Agent was looking at him expectedly for an answer.

"Let me talk to Pepper."

After a whispered conversation with Pepper, Tony gave Agent his answer.

"Yes."

/

That night, Tony busted Hydra in SHIELD. He somehow hadn't noticed before, but when he did, he wrecked havoc on the interconnecting systems with good SHIELD Agents.

Nick had called, asking what he was doing.

"Busting Hydra."

He hadn't doubted Tony. "...Be careful."

Tony and Jarvis together broke the connection between Hydra and SHIELD. He stayed up hours into the night, carefully navigating through fragile connections and documents.

He called Fury at nearly 3 AM.

"I did it," he said exhaustedly. "But watch out for the World Security Council, at least three are Hydra."

"We'll do a clean up as soon as possible. I can take care of it from here, get some sleep, Tony. Big day tomorrow."

Tony yawned. "No kidding."