Stark is caught up with current events.

Looking up and breathing sharply through his nostrils, Tony darted his eyes across the living room to find three other creatures like the one gently holding his hand in the same room. One he recognized as the Wasp, mostly from her face when she turned and approached the table where he laid, she seemed taller than he remembered, she ALSO had blue scaly skin, horns, tentacles and two sets if diaphanous wings that buzzed behind her when she approached the table and gently rested a clawed hand over his chest. “Tony… You’re awake, how do you feel?”

Shifting his attention between the two creatures, Tony tried to sit up, his breathing still erratic until Susan gently pressed him down and shushed him to calm down, softly tracing her talons over his forehead. “It’s okay Tony, we’re not going to hurt you.”

“W-what happened? Who are you…?”

Giving each other a sad look, the two women hesitated to answer until Susan took a deep breath and explained everything to the man. For several minutes, she went into detail on how she had been infected with some kind of parasitic DNA, how it changed her, manipulated her, and drove her to do terrible things before Reed managed to stop her. While she talked, Tony’s expression calmed down, soaking in all the information as Janet helped him sit up and make sure he was comfortable. Two other SHIELD agents checking on him helped make sure his stitches did not burst from the act as he was helped to his feet. “And that’s where we are now.” Susan sighed, letting the man sling his arm over her shoulder to help him up. “Reed came up with a gene trigger that pretty much shuts the DNA off.”

“But leaves you in the current hardware while your software is waiting for a patch it’ll never get.” Nodding to himself and pulling his arm away with a squeamish look on his face when her tentacles uncoiled from his arm, he gestured with his open hand to the rest of his armor near the table, the components flying to graft back onto him and complete his armor. “MY question is… Why did the infection not take in me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your daughter… Lilith, she spiked our drinks with her DNA, turning the Avengers into creatures like her, but not me, why?”

Narrowing her eyes, Susan leaned back her head, as did Janet when she too inspected the man. “There’s something floating around in your blood, something toxic.”

“Yeah…” Nodded Janet, seeing what Susan was seeing, leaving the man confused as the two eyed him. “What IS that? Geez Tony, what did you put in yourself THIS time?”

Chuckling, Tony scratched the back of his bare neck while thinking on that. “Well Jan, that’s going to be a long list; there was that case of palladium poisoning I get a few years ago, the Extremis bio-hardware I injected into myself, there’s probably still nanobot waste in there from my mark 50 suit and let’s not forget a couple decades worth of liver damage from alcoholism.”

“Yes, THAT I can see.” Folding her lower arms under her chest and taping her lip in thought with one of her free hands, Susan pieced it all together. “You weren’t a viable host, too sick.”

“So, I wasn’t infected?”

“OH! Yes, you were, but the DNA died the instant it tried to infect your cells. Reed and I determined that naturally, the DNA has a metabolism 500 times faster than a human’s body. If it were ever exposed to a viral agent or unhealthy DNA it would burn through it and die.”

Looking to the two woman and the window he barged through in his panic, the man got a better view of the living room and the damage he caused. “I didn’t hurt either of you, did I? I was pretty much seeing stars when I got here.”

“You tried to shoot me with a repulsar beam before you passed out.” Explained Susan, giving the man a look while biting her lip with her fanged teeth. “But I managed to redirect the beam with my forcefields.”

“To where?”

Pointing up with a talon, Tony looked up to find a gaping hole in the ceiling that led up five stories.” “Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t worry, something like that seems to happen once a month in here…” Helping the man down the hall towards Reed’s lab, the three entered the large space to find the Rest of the Fantastic four and another creature Tony did not recognise looking over a screen with what looked like a logistics readout being displayed. Seeing Iron Man back on his feet, Johnny and Ben approached, greeting the man, and making sure not to overwhelm him and make his injuries worse.

“It ‘s good to see you alright Stark.”

“Yeah, deh sorry about yer buddies at the mansion.”

Nodding back to Ben and wincing at his stone hand trying to gently pat his shoulder, Tony turned to see the other alien woman blink back at him in confusion.

“So THAT’s what you look like.” Whispered Alicia, catching Tony off guard when she approached him and gently cupped her hands at either side of his face. Despite her talons being razor sharp, her touch was delicate, cautious. Pursing her lips into a smile, her face turned to shock when she heard the collar around her neck beep threateningly, forcing Alicia to step back and fold her hands behind her, a sheepish look of embarrassment that despite her alien and predatory appearance looked almost attractive. “Sorry, I’ve heard you walk around her dozens of times in the past… When I was blind. I didn’t know you had a beard.”

“Alicia?! Alicia Masters? You can see!”

Looking away, he thought he noticed a dark blue blush on her face when she gathered a braid of her tentacles in her hands and stroked it to calm herself. “That and more…”

“Good, you’re awake.” Reed turned from his seat to stand and greet the injured man, shaking his gauntlet and explaining what had been going on. “I’ve had HERBIE synthesize more of the gene trigger I created so we can douse the city.”

“The city’s not what I’m worried about Reed, Lilith isn’t targeting New York, she was after the Avengers the entire time!”

“But why? There are millions of people in the city, this place is a buffet for her.”

“Yeah… But how many people in New York do you know can jump from Manhattan to Vermont in a single leap? How many can bulldoze through buildings like they were paper? How many can fly out into space? How many can control minds, or alter reality?” Getting the picture, the rest of the Fantastic Four worried. “She was after the Avengers the entire time, and now she has them!”

“If she makes off with their powers, she could flee Earth and infect the Milky Way Galaxy, she’d be a plague!” Gasped Susan, her four claws at her mouth in shock and horror. “I would have been a plague…”

“If we’re going to do anything, we’ve got to hit the Avengers mansion NOW while she still thinks she has the upper hand."

Nodding, Reed moved to one of the cylinders just now being filled by HERBIE and pulled it off the rack, screwing on a nozzle to the cannister’s top and hoisting it up in his arms. “Well then, lets get going.