The last ship sealed itself with a quiet mechanical sigh, panels locking into place until the hull looked like a single unbroken shell of dark metal. Tony stood back and looked at all four of them lined up in the fabrication bay, twins down to the last rivet.
"Diagnostics complete on all four vessels," M.A.R.V.E.L. said. Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere in the chamber, the way it always did. "Reactor output stable. Fold-space drives calibrated and cross-checked. Probability field emitters functioning within expected parameters."
"Any red flags?"
"None. They are ready to fly."
Tony nodded slowly, running a hand along the nearest hull. Cool under his palm. No seams. No give.
'Four ships,' he thought. 'Built for a crew of one, technically, but built to carry more. Built because I don't know what's waiting out there, and the last thing I want is to find out the hard way that I should have brought backup.'
He didn't say the rest of the thought out loud, not even to M.A.R.V.E.L. If this went the way some part of him feared it might, one ship wouldn't be enough. Four might not be either. But four was what he could build in three days, so four was what they had.
"Time," he said.
"Zero eight forty two, local. You have approximately thirty one hours before scheduled departure."
Thirty one hours. Not much, but enough for what he still needed to do.
"Hold my calls," Tony said, already walking toward the door. "I've got some people to see."
---
The portal opened with a low ripple of orange light, the air around it folding inward before snapping back into place. Tony stepped through and felt the temperature drop, the smell of incense replacing the recycled air of his own lab.
Kamar-Taj hadn't changed. Same stone courtyards. Same worn steps leading up into buildings older than most countries. He'd trained here for years, subjective time buried inside the chamber's dilation, and it still managed to make him feel like a student walking into a room full of people who knew more than he did.
He found Wanda in the eastern courtyard, sitting cross legged on a low stone wall with her eyes closed. Threads of silver energy drifted around her hands, slow and lazy, like smoke that hadn't decided which way to rise.
She opened her eyes before he said anything.
"You're back," Wanda said. Not a question.
"Word travels fast."
"You're loud." A small smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. "Even when you're trying not to be."
Tony crossed the courtyard and sat down across from her, close enough to talk without an audience. Her hair caught the afternoon light, white silver, always startling to see up close no matter how many times he'd looked at it.
"How's the training going?" he asked.
"Slow." Wanda's hands stilled, the silver threads dissolving into nothing. "The Ancient One once said I'm impatient."
"You are impatient."
"I learned that from someone."
Tony huffed something close to a laugh. 'Fair,' he thought. 'Can't argue with the evidence.'
For a moment neither of them said anything. The courtyard was quiet except for the distant sound of other students training somewhere out of sight, the rhythmic clap of practice staves meeting each other.
"You feel different," Wanda said finally. Her eyes moved over him the way they always did now, like she was reading something written underneath his skin instead of on it. "More than before. Something changed while you were gone."
"Of course things changed while I was gone, I have a training arc of my own."
"That's not what I mean." She tilted her head. "It's quieter. Whatever's inside you. It used to feel like standing near a furnace with the door open. Now it feels like the furnace learned how to close its own door."
'She's not wrong,' Tony thought. 'Signature suppression. She can feel the difference even if she can't name what it is.'
"New trick," he said out loud. "Learned to keep the volume down."
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