12

Lieutenant Colonel James Rupert Rhodes, or "Rowdy" as he is known to his friends and family, had come to see his old friend Tony Stark. He was a dark-skinned, athletic-looking man of about thirty-five with a military bearing. They had met, not in the field of arms sales, as it might seem, but in an ordinary bar, where one day Stark had fallen in drunkenly. Tony had always had a sharp tongue, even more so when he was young, so word got around, he got into it with the locals, and a fight broke out. Cadet Rhodes stepped in for the outnumbered Stark and tried to stop the fight, but he got his ass kicked. They ended up drinking together, and that's how their friendship began. And the friendship is mutually beneficial - Tony helps Rowdy to climb the career ladder using his connections. In return, James promotes and advertises Stark's products in the army. At the same time, because they did not directly cross paths in the business plan, they had no reason to quarrel or share profits. From this point of view, Tony was even lucky to find a friend who did not care about his money and who could give him a punch if he was wrong. Stark valued him, so it was no surprise that when he pulled up to the house in a military Humvee, the obliging Jarvis opened the gates and doors without any questions.

- Tony? Where are you?

Naturally, Rowdy knew in advance that Tony was home. He'd been having a lot of trouble lately, particularly because of this unknown Iron Man, so the already infrequent weekends had become rare. On the one hand, the army's out-of-control mobile unit, which in terms of combat power and speed is comparable to a stealth stormtrooper, in terms of armor - with a heavy tank, and in terms of versatility - with a company of special forces, was like an eyesore. After all, what prevents him from flying to the White House, for example, and taking the president hostage? Who will prevent him? And on the other hand, they wanted to have something like this, which could change the entire warfare doctrine in the world and allow the U.S. to completely dominate the rest of the countries in military terms.

- Mr. Stark is in the garage. The bar is at your disposal if you'd like to wait for him in the lounge.

- Tempting, but I'm not an alcoholic one-person drinker. I'll go and see what he's up to.

Jarvis didn't bother to stop him, for Stark, in his repertoire of giving Pepper and Rhodes permission to go wherever they wanted, had put that fact out of his mind as unimportant. The stranger wouldn't come, and that was all right. So the dark-skinned, tall man, dressed in civilian clothes like grey jockstraps and a black T-shirt, walked down the stairs. And nearly tripped on the last staircase. The garage, which had yet to be a model of order before due to the often scattered parts of cars or new weapons, was hard to recognise, even to Stark's friend. Once lined up in at least some sort of system, the cars were currently pushed to the left side of the garage close together. Some were on lifts, thus forming a second row. The right side was occupied by a cube, workbenches, a pile of scrap metal, some steel washers, coils of thick wires sticking straight out of the wall, and a lot of different cabinets with classic spanners, as well as with vials, test tubes, racks with oscillators and other electrical equipment.

Of particular note were the strange shimmering green-blue jagged lines of black and flat obelisks, unlike anything James had ever seen. Unless it was some kind of alien artefact in sci-fi films. Another detail that caught his eye was the large metal double door, which hadn't been there before. Tony himself, dressed like a surgeon in surgery in a light green apron, cap, mask, gown, and gloves, stood next to a circular pedestal that looked like an altar inscribed with runes and geometric shapes. He was connecting some kind of wires to the girl on it. There was also a lot of strange high-tech equipment around, among which Rhodes recognised only video cameras and operating lights. Next to Tony was a pretty brunette in a hospital gown and mask and a tall brown-haired man who looked like he had stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine.

- Bruce, if you're not helping, at least stay out of the way," Stark asked, shoving the unknown man away from the rack of instruments and syringes. - Betty, don't try to put the IV in yet; she's in stasis; you'll only break the needle for nothing.

- Tony, I know you're into role-playing. Still, I didn't think you were that into it," James moved a little closer, seeing that the golden-haired girl on the altar was insanely beautiful, so much so that he couldn't find any flaws in her face or the shape of her naked body.

The firm breasts of the third size with protruding pink nipples attracted his eyes and beckoned. Her hips, lush but harmonious with her slender waist, looked as if they had come from the hands of a genius sculptor rather than having been born to an ordinary mortal woman. Even her hair, falling down to the middle of her back, seemed the painstaking work of the gods, who had dyed it golden and curled every hair into perfect locks. Perfection itself. Except... The scorched hole in her stomach was ruining everything.

- Don't come any closer, Rowdy, this is a sterile area," actually a spell that killed all the bacteria in the air, but who cared? - And she's actually dead.

- That's even worse! - a frustrated Rhodes resented.

- We'll discuss my sexual predilections a little later. Sit down on the sofa. I'll explain everything to you later," Tony continued and turned to the girl, "Let's make this quick. I heal the hole with great healing, and you insert the IV drip. Benner, you have the most important thing on you; keep staying out of the way!

- What's the big deal? I'm a nuclear doctor, not a medical doctor," the smarmy guy didn't argue.

Rowdy thought he was a little young for a doctorate. Stark, however, had got his PhD in physics at twenty. If he'd wanted to, he could have got another five doctorates and a couple of Nobel Prizes if he'd cared about the regalia. And he did. But Stark is a genius one in a billion, and this guy Lieutenant Colonel first saw. Even though his last name was vaguely familiar.

- One, two, three!

A greenish light surrounded the blonde and concentrated around her stomach. Right before the stunned Lieutenant Colonel's eyes, flesh, organs, and skin appeared out of nowhere until there was nothing to suggest that the girl was injured. Even the many small abrasions and wounds had completely disappeared, as had the scars. However, she still wasn't breathing, and her firm, taut, size three breasts remained immovable. Rhodes turned away with an effort of will - it wasn't enough to get an erection on a dead girl.

On the other hand, Betty pulled herself together much faster than the men, except for Stark, who seemed ready for anything and connected two IVs at once. After that, Tony read out a grenade in a language unknown to anyone in the room. The voice penetrated the very soul, sending goosebumps all over his body. The rune circle began to emit a white glowing haze that was absorbed into the girl's body throughout the reading. Here Tony raised the volume of his voice to a climax, the intensity of the glow peaked, the hearts of everyone in the room froze, and a convulsive sigh was heard in the tense silence.

***

Upon returning home, Tony did not immediately attend to Sif's body. He cast a spell that was diametrically opposed to Avada Kedavra. Instead of knocking the soul out of the body, he renewed the stasis and put it on the shelf. He still needed to get the ritual circles for resurrection ready. Pierce had converted almost every possible spell into ritual circles or artefact chains as he realised that spirits could get into places where there was little or no time to learn magic the classical way, leaving only word, wand, and rune magic. And that not all enchantments could be translated into the first two. So Tony concentrates on helping Bruce and Betty.

Every year about two hundred and fifty thousand people die in the United States, or 6,500 a day, most of them after forty, but a lot of them young. But since they needed a young, handsome white man with no criminal record and preferably an orphan, they had to wait a few days before one of the morgues, interestingly enough, California, did not receive a certain Thomas Fain twenty-four years old, who died of a cocaine overdose. Thomas had been orphaned at seventeen when a burglar broke into their home and killed them both to avoid leaving witnesses who suddenly woke up. The boy was already in college at the time, which is why he survived. After the tragedy, he became depressed and started drinking. Still, he sort of coped with the tragedy but didn't have enough money for college. So he started modeling part-time. Actually, this part-time job became a permanent job and led him to Hollywood, where the guy tried to work his way up. Natural artistry and a smarmy face allowed him to break on the second role and sometimes star in porn, and gay too. It was also the same way he got better roles with directors. When Benner found out about this fact, he flatly refused to give up that body:

- I don't want to become an a-hole, Tony! - outraged then Benner, who even began to turn green with rage.

- Why so intolerant, Bruce? Having a wider hole's not a big deal, but it's a plus; it makes it easier to poop! - Barely holding back from Homeric laughter, Stark replied.

- Tony, don't piss me off, I'm going to call the green man, and then it's your arse that will be in trouble!

- Oh, you've already decided on my arse? Aren't you a latent gay? Why don't you just try it and see if you like it?

- Tony," Betty intervened in their argument. - Stop making fun of Bruce. Bruce, calm down; no one will hold you up and force you to have anal sex... Unless you want to.

- Miss Ross, I didn't realise there was such a big troll inside such a fragile girl! But seriously, Bruce, this is perfect for you. He's an orphan, he doesn't know many people, he has no friends, and no one will miss him or notice any difference in his behaviour. And great healing will correct the damage caused by bad habits to the body and overgrow everything necessary. So your arse will be virgin again.

- Okay," Bruce replied, quickly realising: "What do you mean, again?!

The two trolls couldn't stand it and laughed, clutching their bellies. So amusing was Benner's confused expression. Now Tony realised what Betty saw in him; he was funny to joke about. So, the failed actor's body was dragged out of the morgue by Tony under invisibility, after which it was cleaned in his garage, cured a few times under Bruce's gaze on the back spot, and ritualised. The latter looked disgusting - it was as if Thomas's body was sliding onto Bruce's and then spitting out his body already. It might have been easier to perform soul transmigration, but Tony didn't know how it would go or if it would be successful. This same ritual was basically swapping one body for another. Afterwards, Bruce was thrown back into the morgue to argue with the doctors who had "presumed" him dead. And Benner's own body was dumped in New York's Hell's Kitchen with several stab wounds.

That was the end of the Hulk epic. Betty temporarily returned to her father to complain about Benner running away. What happened next was challenging, too, as Tony wanted to officially get Betty and Bruce in a new body to work for him. And if the first was all simple, she already has a degree in biology. No one would be surprised that the disgraced "former" billionaire Tony Stark is looking for bright heads to save his company, but Bruce was a problem. He had yet to graduate from college. Just at this point, Stark showed that he could act with swagger. What would another man do in his position and with his capabilities? A fool would have simply hacked into the databases of the Ministry of Education and the required University and "absentee" Benner in. However, such a method would not have passed even the most cursory scrutiny. So Tony paid for his education at MIT and forced him to enrol officially so that he could then graduate with an externship. So the whole doctor of nuclear physics had to sit down to his books again. Still, he didn't complain much, especially when he came out in the morning so dishevelled and satisfied that Tony wanted to put a lemon in Bruce's mouth. It was Betty's job to choose the pictures she wanted Benner to look like, so he had to wait so long.

Only then did Tony begin to create a ritual resurrection circle of adamantium, which was directly connected to the antimatter reactor under the floor, because Stark's personal powers were now sufficient for spells up to the seventh year of Hogwarts, but no more - after all, he had recently become a wizard, having merged with not the strongest spirit. And much of the magic was used to support the half-titan's body, which was closer to an energy body, which meant it needed mana and the usual food. In fact, Tony had wanted to make it for a long time, as having such a thing in a reduced form was very useful, and there was no need to explain why. Stark chased the thoughts of the possible death of his loved ones away from him. Still, if something like that happened, he could convince himself that he couldn't do anything, as even he thought it was impossible. Now, however, there was no excuse, and as we know, God protects the frugal.

Lady Sif's death was a "good" reason to test the ritual. All the more, taking into account the survivability of Asgardians, one could hope that in the end, she would not become a vegetable due to prolonged hypoxia of the brain - at least five minutes had passed between her death and immersion in stasis. Oh, and who better than him to know that memories could also be stored in the soul. He also decided to connect sensors to the girl to understand scientifically how healing and resurrection occur. For this purpose, protean atomic resonance scanners were installed to display a record of the processes occurring with the organism in direct time and down to the molecular level. Magic is good for everything and can do even more. Still, it is often a problem to combine it with soulless technology.

And just as Stark was about to begin, Rowdy arrived. No, Tony was always happy to have a friend, but it was too bad timing. Now explain to him what's going on ... Well, at least the understanding friend was silent and did not ask unnecessary questions. And it wasn't that Tony didn't want to say anything. On the contrary, he kept wanting to call and tell him, but he realised this was not a telephone conversation. Such things should be voiced under a bottle of cold dark Guinness or a glass of whiskey with a good snack. Even if Tony did not enjoy alcohol now, he could have a drink for company.

And so the process began, and he sang the words he had rehearsed more than once, feeling like a complete idiot but at the same time not doubting that everything would work. More than once, he'd used magic to get used to it. Rivers of neutral mana flowed through his body and circle, loading his soul. It felt like standing against the current of a raging river, except that the currents are not outside but inside you. And your task is not only to resist but also to curb the stream, not to get swamped in it, and make it your own. The experience of the spirit helped a lot, and Stark managed it. And he had already tried this ritual... on mice. They're running around the cage in the lab, killed and revived more than once.

Betty found no external or internal problems or differences except that they now shun him like the devil, but science demands sacrifice. Finally, the last tongue-breaking syllable, the sudden acceleration of the flow - and Tony immediately looks at the holograms Jarvis is displaying. If, after the great healing, the body was in perfect shape, but there was no breathing, no heartbeat, no other processes as if the girl had just died of Avada, at this moment, the scanner showed how the electrochemical processes in the brain began, how they spread throughout the body, how the heart muscles contracted, contracting the right ventricle so that the oxygen-poor blood could flow into the lungs. There was a convulsive sigh. The blood was enriched with oxygen and entered the left ventricle to travel further to the organs. Again and again. At first, as if reluctantly, but faster and faster, the activity increased, the heartbeat and respiratory rate accelerated - and now, the brain, from a phase closer to coma than to sleep, came to wakefulness.

- She's alive, my friends! She's alive! - Stark exclaimed joyfully, like a scientist in a famous film, and brought Sif to her senses.

She looked at him, at the equipment, including scalpels and other tools she might need, at the ritual circle beneath her, and snatched up the drip and immediately kicked Tony under the breath, sending him five meters backwards, where he knocked down one of the protean "obelisks," which were actually databases and computers. Jumping to her feet, Tony stopped her from doing the same to Bruce, who had closed in on Betty. After all, he was not the Hulk now but an ordinary man, to whom one blow from the Asgardian, or whatever she was, would be enough, at the very least, for broken ribs and ruptured internal organs. And at most, he'd have to use the circle again.

- Is this how you thank someone for resurrecting you? - She intercepted Sif's blow with her palm, which moved only an inch, which surprised the girl a little, for not everyone, even an Asgardian, could withstand her rock-splitting blow. Seeing Rhodes draw his gun, he shouted: - Rowdy, don't interfere. I can handle it myself! Especially your fart gun won't help here.

- I died as a warrior in battle and saw the gates of Valhalla! And you put me in a dead body with black magic! I'll kill you, sorcerer, and return with honor!

Tony realised the girl was either out of her mind or completely fucked up. So he twisted and snapped the guardian's arm back, using his greater mass and, surprisingly for a warrior, greater physical strength. Only he underestimated her; twisting her joint, she gave him a tuck, and though she drained his leg due to the hardness of Stark's body, she still made him recoil and let go of his arm. After that, she grabbed the scalpel. And it was serious, as it was also made of adamantium. The girl was armed and appeared more experienced in martial arts, swinging the scalpel like a dagger; she left deep cuts on Tony's body, which covered his face. He had no desire to see if his eyes would grow back. However, when she struck his groin, here Stark stopped holding back and slammed his forehead into the girl's face, letting his palm pierce through. And again, and again, and again, until she began to stagger. He had a metal forehead, after all. And then he threw her to the floor, pulling her arms apart.

And that was when Miss Potts chose to bring in a new batch of papers to sign. So Pepper saw Tony stretch the naked, writhing girl with a bloody, enraged face on the floor, sitting on top of her.

- Honey, it's not what you think! - Stark thought of nothing better than to repeat the phrase of all the cheating losers caught in the hot seat. And continued in an even more clichéd way: "I'll explain it to you now!