With Smith confirmed off-planet, Tony flew back to his lab and sat with the problem.
The Battle of New York had made one thing clear: Earth didn't have a standing defense. It had people — extraordinary ones — but people weren't a system. They were a patchwork. And patchworks had gaps.
He turned the idea over. Giant robots had shown up during New York. White, armored, not his — some other program's answer to the same question. They'd done their job, more or less. But Tony kept thinking about scale. What if instead of waiting for the next invasion to scramble a response, you had something already up? Something always present, always operational. An Iron Legion. Not a handful of suits in a warehouse. Patrols. Coverage. The planet wrapped in active deterrence.
He was still running the geometry of it when Howard walked in.
After his resurrection, Howard hadn't gone far. He was still finding his footing — cataloguing everything that had changed, learning what had been built in his absence, carefully avoiding the question of which old friends were still alive and which weren't. Tony's lab had become a comfortable middle ground. Familiar enough not to overwhelm him. New enough to keep him occupied.
"You've got that look," Howard said, pulling up a stool.
"I have an idea."
"Let's hear it."
"Iron Legion. An automated army — suits deployed globally, running patrols, responding to threats. Not just sitting in storage. Active presence. If something comes through that sky again, Earth doesn't have to wait on any individual to suit up."
Howard considered this for a moment. "Isn't that what you and Ivan Vanko are already doing? He built a remote-controlled armor program. You've got a full suite ready to deploy at any time." He tilted his head. "How is this different?"
"Scale. Scope. Intent." Tony stood up and started pacing, which was how he actually thought. "What I have right now is reactive. I'm thinking about something proactive. Planetary coverage. Not a response force — a presence."
"There are enhanced individuals all over the world now," Howard said carefully. "Avengers. The Paragons. You've built teams."
"Teams go home. Teams have limits. Teams aren't everywhere at once." Tony stopped. "And here's the thing — not every threat is going to announce itself first. Smith might not always be around. The Eternals are sitting on the bench for reasons I still don't fully understand. The sorcerers cover dimensional incursions, not organized invasion. If another armada comes through that portal—"
"You want to make sure something is already up there to meet it."
"Exactly."
Howard leaned back slightly. "I'm still getting up to speed on everything. I can't give you a real answer on this yet." A pause. "But talk to your team first. Get their read before you commit to the architecture."
Tony nodded.
"Also — go see your mother," Howard said. "She'd like to see you. Some of her old friends, too. There aren't many of them left at this point."
The weight of that landed in the room for a moment. Howard knew, better than anyone, exactly how many of his own weren't around anymore.
Tony didn't argue.
The conference room at the S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison facility was government-neutral — beige walls, a long table, a view of nothing in particular. Hill had been in worse rooms for worse meetings. This one at least had decent coffee.
Lorelei sat across from her, composed in the specific way that Asgardians always were — like whatever room they walked into was slightly beneath them, but they were gracious enough not to mention it. The man seated beside her as legal counsel was a former U.S. diplomat, which was an interesting choice and a move Hill had anticipated.
The government officials flanking Hill had not anticipated it.
"We have no objection in principle to the establishment of an embassy," Hill said. "Diplomatic relations between Asgard and Earth — we're open to that conversation."
The former diplomat adjusted his cuffs. "One clarification, Commander. My client represents Asgard's interests with respect to Earth as a whole — not exclusively the United States. The decision to locate the embassy in New York is a logistical one, not a declaration of bilateral exclusivity."
The officials to Hill's left shifted in their seats. She understood exactly why. What the man had just said, plainly translated, was: we're not here to deal with you specifically. We're here because your city is convenient.
Hill let it pass. "S.H.I.E.L.D. operates under the United Nations charter. We represent the international framework, not a single nation-state. If this conversation is happening with Earth, then this is the right table." She folded her hands. "Our only condition is reciprocity. You establish a presence here, we establish a presence in Asgard. Standard diplomatic exchange."
Lorelei's expression shifted — a flicker of genuine amusement before she smoothed it back into courtesy.
"Commander Hill." Her voice carried the patient quality of someone explaining something obvious to a child they liked. "Do you know where Asgard is?"
"Tell us and we will."
The laugh was brief but real. "Even if I did — how would you get there? Earth's spacecraft capability doesn't extend to interstellar transit. And once your people arrived, how would they communicate back? You don't have interplanetary communications infrastructure. You don't have any of it."
The officials shifted again. She wasn't wrong, and everyone in the room knew it.
Hill's expression didn't move. "Ms. Lorelei, those are our problems to solve — not Asgard's. We're not asking you to build us a ship. We're asking you to acknowledge the right." A beat. "The technical limitations of today have nothing to do with what we're capable of tomorrow."
Lorelei studied her. Something in the directness was unexpected enough to be interesting.
"And if I refuse the reciprocal condition — you won't grant the embassy?"
Hill reached across the table and drew something with her fingertip on the smooth surface — a circle, then a five-pointed star inside it.
Lorelei went still. Not alarmed. Just still.
"I know exactly why Asgard wants a permanent presence on Earth," Hill said. "And I know why New York specifically." She let that sit. "With that in mind, I'd note that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cooperation on this arrangement is directly connected to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s relationship with our Inspector General."
Lorelei held her gaze for a moment longer than was comfortable, then exhaled through her nose. "Fine. The reciprocal right is acknowledged. How you exercise it is entirely your own challenge."
Hill stood and extended her hand. "Then we have an agreement. We'll coordinate a press announcement once your personnel arrive."
Lorelei shook it. "Pleasant working with you, Commander."
Walking back down the corridor afterward, Hill allowed herself exactly two seconds of relief. The precedent was what mattered — a right formally acknowledged, even if they couldn't exercise it yet. Fury had a Skrull ship somewhere outside Earth's atmosphere. He'd been quietly testing whether its communication systems had any useful range. It wasn't nothing.
And not having the capability now had never stopped them before.
Outside the factory.
Coulson stepped off the transit with Ward at his shoulder and took a slow look at the block. The facility was large — floor-to-ceiling industrial, the kind of building that held shift workers, machinery, and decades of embedded routine. Several similar structures flanked it. Coulson had already noted the material storage indicators on two of them. Flammable inventory. Heavy equipment. The kind of cascade that turned a contained incident into a neighborhood event.
Ward turned a slow circle. "Coulson." His voice was level, not dramatic. "There are thousands of people within blast radius. Multiple facilities with combustible materials. One chain reaction and this entire block goes." He looked at him. "For one person."
"Nobody is a nobody, Ward." Coulson didn't look at him when he said it. His eyes were on the factory gate. "Fitz and Simmons will find a solution. And Donnie Gill gives us options we didn't have twenty-four hours ago." He turned. "Skye goes in with Donnie. She talks to Mike — she's already built some rapport. Maybe he walks out on his own."
Ward said nothing further. He understood orders.
Skye clipped the earpiece in, checked the fit, and headed toward the entrance with Donnie Gill beside her.
Behind them, Gary came jogging up from the street — he'd been out coordinating with a photography crew, handling the paperwork Mike had given him, the ordinary forward momentum of a plan that now felt very far away. He pulled up short when he saw the agents and the vehicles and the security perimeter that had materialized in front of his workplace.
"What's happening? What's going on at the factory?"
Coulson turned to him with a look of calm inconvenience. "Dangerous individuals have entered the premises. Gunfire has been reported. We're conducting an evacuation." He held the man's gaze for exactly one second. "This is a restricted area. Please stay behind the line."
An agent materialized at Gary's elbow and walked him back before he could follow up.
Inside, Mike hadn't seen it coming.
He'd been in the middle of the floor, running through the familiar rhythm of the job, when the man appeared — cutting through the noise and machinery with focused purpose, making a beeline straight for him.
"You've been exposed." The man's voice was low, urgent. "You need to leave with me right now."
Mike looked at him. "Exposed how? I've got a stable job. I've got a plan. Why would I—"
"Your choice."
The man moved fast. The syringe was out before Mike had fully registered the shift — aimed at his shoulder and halfway in before Mike's instincts fired back. He drove a kick into the man's center mass, sending him stumbling, and yanked his shoulder away. The needle came out. Most of the contents didn't go in.
But some did.
Mike looked down at his shoulder, then at the man he'd kicked — crumpled against a pallet rack, not moving. Not unconscious. Still.
Gunfire erupted from four directions at once.
Mike grabbed the nearest steel plate — a section of machine casing propped against the wall — and brought it up in front of him. Rounds punched into it in rapid sequence, sparking against the surface, the impacts ringing up through his forearms. Around him, workers scattered. Screams. A surge toward the exits. One or two who hadn't processed it yet craned their necks trying to see what was happening.
Mike moved.
He used the plate as a mobile wall, advancing toward the closest shooter. The man adjusted his angle, looking for an edge around the steel — Mike closed the distance before he found one and put a steel pipe across the side of his helmet. The man dropped.
The second and third fell the same way — Mike's strength turning industrial scrap into effective weapons, his size and speed making the engagement short and ugly. The fourth tried to reposition along a shelving run, got cornered by the geometry, and went down hard.
Mike stood in the middle of the cleared floor, steel pipe in hand, breathing through his nose. Four men down. The workers were mostly gone — evacuation had done its job.
Footsteps from the entrance. He spun.
Skye pulled up short, eyes wide, taking in the scene with the arrested expression of someone who'd been expecting a difficult conversation and arrived at an aftermath instead.
Donnie stopped beside her, reading the room in one sweep.
Skye's voice came out quieter than usual. "Mike."
Somewhere in the back of the building, past the machinery and the cleared floor, behind a closed door with a small painted sign, Ace was still in the childcare room. Sitting cross-legged on the mat. Avengers box open in front of him. Paragons box beside it. Working out which figures went where.