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[propulsion]

"You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark."

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[propulsion]

Oh, you know, kinda like most invasions. Imperial power with bigger sticks decide to gatecrash a lesser civilisation. The natives get restless.

[acreage]

[ he doesn't, as a point of fact, have to stretch his imagination to picture this. ]

So you nuked them and they went away?

[ dubiously. that's approximately the understanding erik gave him, though. ]

[propulsion]

Yeah.

[ Does that sound ridiculous? Maybe. ]

They'd opened a wormhole into the city. Global superpowers decided the best solution was a nuclear one. I intercepted the missile and kicked it through the door. It decimated their mothership and disabled their fleet.

I get that vertically shot YouTube footage doesn't deliver on the nuance.

[acreage]

[ honestly it's not like he hasn't had alien machinery nuked, and to less effect. it's also not like he hasn't had nightmares kind of like this, because first contact clearly goes great for humans in every universe out there.

there will be a time, later, where he'll take this information about tony and let it sink in, shape his opinion of him. but right now he's still focused on another question. ]

What kind of technology were they using?

[ the real question is, was it protomolecule? but he's not sure he trusts anyone enough yet, if they didn't know about it before, with the knowledge now. even though they can't, actually, do anything with it from here. ]

[propulsion]

Why?

[ The question is kind of snapped, as if Holden has hit some previously undefined limit. Tony does not sound angry; just brisk. Impatient. ]

You wanna build some kind of alien multi-dimensional artifact to tear a hole in the sky and fly a space ship through it? Gosh dang, why didn't I think of that.

[acreage]

That's the last thing on my mind right now.

[ as if it'd even be possible with the apparent level of tech here, as if he hasn't had it up to here with people trying to appropriate alien technology they don't understand.

he hesitates, but it's not like this is a secret, even here. ]

I have some experience with alien technology. I want to know if what you saw is the same thing.

[propulsion]

[ Hackles lower. A little. ]

Probably not, [ he says. ] You ever hear about Asgard?

[ Industrialised deep space exploration strikes Tony as bearing more implications than contact with a utopian society of space vikings with good hair, but you never know. ]

[acreage]

In ancient myths, sure.

[ he WISHES they'd met a utopian society of space vikings with good hair. ]

[propulsion]

Yeah.

[ Ugh. ]

Wormhole was powered by something called the Tesseract. It's a probably near infinite powersource with the capability of manipulating space. We didn't build it, just the stabilising framework to turn it on.

Now it's Odin's favourite paperweight or whatever on another planet.

[acreage]

[ odin...asgard...deeply tempting to think tony's fucking with him.

then again, if someone had told him about thedas before a month or so ago, he'd be pretty sure they were fucking with him too. ugh. ]

You're right, [ he says after a beat, more level, ] that doesn't sound much like that we encountered. [ thank god for small mercies. ] Which is a good thing, believe me.

[propulsion]

Tell me about it.

[ Pause, then; ]

That was a—that was an invite, not just a rhetorical device. And it's only fair.

[acreage]

[ well. it is only fair. he exhales, considers where to start. ]

It's probably going to sound fucking crazy, [ admitted, ] even to you. Try imagining something that hijacks and repurposes organic life, that's constantly learning and evolving, and behaves differently just about every time you see it. That's capable of rewriting the laws of physics. If you can do that, you'll start to get an idea of what I've seen.

[ emphasis on start. ]

If that tech had hit Earth, [ and it nearly did in his system, ] even in a small amount, there would've been no survivors.