When Tony Stark was seventeen years old, he built his first AI. On that day, he ceased to be his father's creation, and became a creating force in his own right. That one act likely saved his life, and not always in the most obvious ways.

In which Darcy Lewis is actually Hel Lokisdottir, Queen of Helheim, and Phil Coulson is the badass secret agent we all know and love.

Jake Jensen is sixteen when he meets Tony Stark at MIT. He's nineteen when he joins the US army, and twenty-four when he becomes a Loser. Becoming a Loser is also when he happens to discover that DADT might apply. But that is not where this story begins. It begins on a cold, winter morning in Massachusetts, when a little girl with hair the colour of cornflakes meets her newborn brother for the first time. (In which there are evil toasters, all-around nerdiness, and ohana ).

“Oh, fuck,” Squalo says, thankfully at about a quarter of his normal volume, as he tumbles to lean against the wall beside Xanxus. “This is like with that shitty Bronco all fucking over again, don’t you fucking dare.”