Frozen Starks

Avengers Assemble

Originally known as Avengers Part 1

It wasn't long before Tony was called to action, not as a consultant, but as an Avenger. He and Pepper had planned for her and the kids to take the StarkJet to Malibu, California, but seriously bad wheather had gotten in the way.

No way was he putting his family on a plane heading straight into a cascade of storms. His jets may be good, best on the market, but he did not trust them to get through storms of that high power.

The more he thought of it, the more they seemed unnatural. The storms were off the scale and never predicted, all over the globe. It might be the work of Thor, who he'd read up on in the SHIELD files.

Pepper and he decided the safest decision was to stay in the tower. He was headed to Germany and the shields would hold up against any Earth force.

That was the problem: nothing looked to be going 'Earthly.'

He'd flown to Stuttguart, Germany with a spy named Natasha Romanoff in his ear. After the whole debacle of Obadiah Stane, his former godfather, wanting to betray him (a whole other can of worms that ended with Stane in jail for a very long time), she had been assigned to be a spy on him.

It was during a point when he found out he had Palladium poisoning from the reactor and was working toward a new source of power. He may have been weaker physically, but his mind had still been sharp and he figured her out before she even stepped into the building.

Safe to say, this team was really getting off to a bad start.

He met Steve Rogers while they were 'stopping' (no one gives up that easy, especially with a magic scepter on hand) Loki, and the man was decidedly not impressed with him when he tried to crack a joke.

The only Avenger he liked was Banner. He had liked him for years and he hadn't even met the man yet.

He would not admit he was fan boying on the inside. He would not.

Thor nearly took the aircraft down, took Loki, and then he and Captain America were chasing after him. It wasn't even 4 am (he'd left at 11 pm) yet and the party was already getting started.

All the other Avengers were on the control deck. Tony was talking with Phil Coulsen, the only person he felt he could trust in all of SHIELD, as they made their way down the corridor toward the deck. Phil was working with him in taking down the organization and had been giving him inside intel for months. It was dangerous for him - Fury could just invite him to his office and shoot him if he found out.

His phone rang and he looked to the other man. "Sorry, Agent, I gotta take this." He hadn't looked at the caller ID, but he knew it was Pepper. "Make up an excuse for me."

"Gotchya." Agent nodded at him.

Tony slipped into the nearest closet before he answered the call. He leaned against the wall that was currently not occupied by a broom. "Hey, Pep, how's the weather looking?"

"Not good. I don't think we'll be flying anytime soon."

"Thor's just really mad right now and can't control it."

"What?"

"Tell you later. We're going to be dealing with his brother, Loki. Guy is crafty and mischevious from what I remember of the myths, but they're turning a blind eye on him. One camera," Tony scoffed.

"That's to be expected. It's SHIELD. They only do things half way and expect others to clean up their mess."

"You got that right." He cleared his throat. Man, it was dusty. "Anyway, the team is getting off to a really bad start. We've got Romanoff, like I expected - yes, the one who tried to spy on me. SHIELD has told Rogers a lot of lies about me by the looks of it. Thor... I'm not sure about him yet. He's like a golden retriever. On that note, I think the kids need a dog."