SUPERSONIC ▷ QUICKSILVER !

THUNDER. ₃

'today is a winding road/taking me to places that i didn't want to go/today in the blink of an eye/i'm holding on to something/and i do not know why i tried' — thunder, boys like girls

"Took you long enough," Stark smirked when Pietro walked in to his lab. "Hook me up." The latter mumbled in reply, waiting awkwardly as Tony tapped away at a computer.

"Lay down there." he commanded, waving at what Pietro oddly thought to look like a surgeon's table. Complying, Pietro positioned himself on the table, watching quietly. Tony was fiddling with some wires, an expression of pure concentration on his face, before he began to hook Pietro up to a machine.

"What's that?" Pietro hissed, squirming at the contact of cold steel against his skin. "I need your physical data if I'm going to condense you in to a state able to survive a no-gravity zone," Tony hummed, checking his computer.

That was their— his— plan. Tony would alter some components of Pietro's genes, giving him the capability to enter alternate universes without the spontaneous combustion. On other occasions, Pietro might've been excited to undergo such project; but now, he was just nervous and snappy.

"Can't you be a little more gentle?" Pietro complained when Stark stuck a needle in a vein in his hand. "Do you love her?" Tony asked, much to Pietro's surprise. He was stunned in to silence as Tony glared down at him, the older man's eye twitching just a fraction.

"I said, Romanian boy, do you love her?"

"Yes," Pietro said softly. "Well, I do too," Tony snarled. "But obviously not in the way you do. God, kid. Don't you understand? I approached you because you were the only one capable to handle the pain this experiment might quite possibly bring. If you're going to give me shit over a tiny little pinprick, I suggest you get your fast ass out of here so I can spend my time on somebody more willing to find Florea. Yeah?"

Pietro's knuckles balled up in to fists and his jaw clenched. Nobody could make his blood boil quite like Tony Stark. "Hook me up." he said through gritted teeth. The rest of the prep process passed by in silence, until Tony put a hand on Pietro's shoulder.

"Look, I'm sorry," Tony began, quietly and quickly. His words tripped over each other, but Pietro caught all of them. "It's just that Flor's like a daughter to me. She's family, one of the few I have left. And to have the chance to find her— what kind of person would I be not to jump at it? I believe that you, above all people, know how it feels to not want to lose her. That's why you're here, kid. I wouldn't have anyone else help me find her but you."

Pietro let out a breath he didn't know he had, unclenching his fists at Tony's words. All of the Avengers had some sort of soft spot for Florea. "It's a privilege." Pietro mumbled sincerely. Tony nodded, moving over to a contraption halfway across the room.

"Okay, we'll start the infusion. It won't hurt, but the alternate plane test might sting a bit." Tony called out, his fingers working at several knobs and keys. "Alternate plane test?" Pietro asked. He noted a tingle beginning to run through his body: it didn't feel like much, just a slight ticklish feeling at his joints.

"I'll put you out in to an alternate plane to test if the energy coursing through you will sustain you." Tony replied. "I'm injecting the graviton manipulation molecules in to your veins. It's still finding a place in between your speed molecules, so give it a minute or two."