A little too tired of just hanging on

Chapter 06

Blasting AC/DC in the workshop right now felt weird, almost inappropriate. That music was his favourite but meant for happy moments or energetic ones at the very least, when he was still able to tinker. It reminded him of better times that seemed so far away now, that would never come back. So he put Star Trek in the background instead. He always liked it more than Star Wars because of the science but it was a close tie he would never admit in public. Not that the public cared anymore. The voices from the show made him feel a little less alone.

Stark Industries was in the process of being fragmented into smaller businesses and then sold. It was oddly simple to destroy when it had been so hard to create and make it grow. Everybody wanted a piece of SI just to be able to brag about it. They were almost fighting to get their share. His employees were happy to have another boss. Someone less problematic. Someone they would be proud to work for. Almost anyone would do at that point in time. The money from the sale was easily hidden in Switzerland and tax havens. A first for Tony but he could play by these new rules as well as any other. At least, Harley and Peter would have a secure future.

Sending Ross in jail would have been a lot easier if Bruce had still been around. The other scientist could have testified or at least given pointers. The general had tracked the Hulk down for years. Really, Bruce was the one who had the more reasons to get the other man down. Of course, anybody with an ounce of human decency should want that despicable man gone anyway. Bruce was nowhere to be found and Tony had looked everywhere. The quinjet Bruce had "borrowed" after Ultron and Tony had tried to locate it all over the world both using the GPS and the SI satellite grid. The only logical explanation was that both the quinjet and Bruce weren't on Earth anymore. In the end, the genius would do the job as best as he could. He felt like he had no other choice.

"Beam me up, Scotty." Captain Kirk was saying once again.

How nice would it be to travel like that. Tony would be able to go everywhere in a blink of an eye. He kind of could already but it took time even with the speed the armour was capable of reaching. Iron Man wasn't welcome in most places these days. Red and gold wasn't discreet. He had never needed discretion before. As Tony Stark, it would be easier to go unnoticed. Not simple per say. His face had been on the front pages of every magazine and newspaper for so long, people knew him. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted that beam. Another of his little side projects. Nobody would tell him to stop sciencing now.

Tony started working on Extremis once again. He was only working on formulas. He couldn't do much without his fingers. Friday was helping a lot. He was just dictating and his baby girl was doing the heavy work of writing it down and calculating the probabilities. The virus had been used to help remove the arc reactor. Surely it could be twerked a bit more to help him out. It would need to heal him, regrow his toes and fingers without making him go boom or super soldier. He really didn't want to be like Rogers in any way.

Tony should have worked on it straight away. It was difficult to even think about his hands. But it was even harder not to. Tony knew he wasn't even logical. He wasn't forcing things out, not this time. He had all the time in the world to figure things through. Anyway, once you understood how the formula was working at its basis, it wasn't that hard to make it do what you needed. The solution came to him pretty quickly but Friday and he kept on recalculating again and again. He had only one test subject available, himself. Dying while trying it on wasn't the problem. The worry was to fall in between. His health could get worse without killing him. What would he do then? The green rage monster position was already taken and that was actually not the worst outcome possible. Tony didn't really want to imagine what could happen.

The formula wouldn't work on anyone else. Only one vial would be put in fabrication. If it worked, everything would be destroyed. Tony had taken into consideration his previous shots with extremis but also the palladium poisoning. Even in the impossible case of someone finding his work, it wouldn't work on them, not the way they would hope anyway.