Chapter 174

"You give S.H.I.E.L.D. such advice?" Thor asked.

"Well, no. But that's only because they never ask," Tony replied hurriedly.

The doors quietly whooshed open in front of them.

"I thought that you might get a kick out of seeing this level," Tony said, "see what you miss out on now that New Agent is our 'handler' instead of you."

The corridor that they'd stepped out into had only four doors in it – two close by and a further two half-way down the corridor.

"You will quite enjoy this, Son of Coul," Thor said enthusiastically. "These rooms are some of my favourites in Stark's Tower."

"Avenger's Tower, remember?" Bruce corrected. "No need to keep giving Tony a big head."

"Of course, forgive me," Thor replied. "Avengers Tower."

The door closest to them on the right opened just then, cutting off any other conversation.

"Oh, hey AC," Skye said.

"Hello, and what were you two up to?" Tony smirked.

"I was showing Skye the quinjet flight simulator," Harry stated.

Phil looked pointedly at Skye.

"Hey, May's got no worries. I crashed the thing way too many times for me to ever get behind the wheel of a real one," Sky stated, throwing her hands up defensively.

"You can pilot a quinjet?" Phil asked Harry.

"Not on your life," Harry laughed. "Magic and electronics don't like each other much. Things tend to short out or explode."

"Tony and I are working on an insulator to prevent that," Bruce stated, "but it's slow going. Practically every single piece of hardware needs to be protected individually."

"I would have thought that you had enough pilots already, between you two," Phil indicated Bruce and Tony, "and Nat and Clint."

"Yeah, well, you never know who's going to be around," Tony replied. "We tend to work on a whoever's around and available sort of basis. And while Thor and Sparrowhawk here can fly themselves – literally in his case – we want to make sure as many as possible can pilot. That includes the newbies."

"I'm assuming you're talking about Spider-man?" Phil asked.

"Him; others, you know how it is," Tony shrugged, deliberately sounding vague.

"What about that Daredevil guy from Hell's Kitchen?" Skye asked eagerly. "Have you hooked up with him yet?"

"We've met," Harry smiled.

"You must see this room," Thor interrupted, indicating the one further down the corridor on the same side. "Stark has been most ingenious in its creation."

As they walked towards the indicated door, the gymnasium and classroom cum briefing room were indicated as they passed each door.

Eagerly, Thor threw open the door and walked into a huge, blank room. It easily rose three stories and took up over half the floor area of a level of the Tower. Every wall, the floor and the ceiling was made up of panels one metre square, the only exception being high up on the left wall where a room could be seen behind a window two metres tall and six metres long.

"Dude, you are really easy to please, which I would not have expected for a god," Skye said into the echoing room.

"Don't judge a book by its cover," Tony stated. "We call this the Exercise Room."

"No, you call it that," Bruce corrected. "The rest of us call it the 'Danger Room'."

"Oh, why?" Phil asked interestedly.

"Because you never know what it's going to throw at you and you're likely to end up injured after being in it," Bruce replied.

Phil looked around the blank room with the tiniest smile on his face.

"Jarvis?" Tony called before Phil could voice his disbelief. "Control panel, please."

Three panels on the floor to the side of where Tony was standing hissed as they dropped slightly into the floor before sliding away out of sight. A stand then rose from the ground, a large computer screen and keyboard attached to it.

Tony indicated the stand to Phil.

"This controls the room," he explained. "Every panel that you see in here hides certain equipment – blocks, poles, weapon ports, platforms – that can be configured in numerous different ways according to the program that is entered. For example …"

Tony's fingers danced over the keyboard and panels all over the room began sliding out of the way, allowing dozens of blocks of various sizes to emerge from the floor. A dozen poles slid out of the walls at various heights, along with an equal number of platforms.

"A basic town configuration," Tony indicated with a sweep of his hand. "We can use this simulation either to practice together as a team with weapons firing from the walls at us or we can use it to spar against each other in a realistic setting without damaging civilians or the real thing."

"It is truly remarkable the number of different configurations this room can take for us to battle in," Thor stated happily.

"You should see it when Spider-man is in here using his webs to get around," Harry grinned.

"From up there," Bruce said indicating the room behind the window, "we can observe whoever is in the room. There are dozens of cameras built into the room as well that send a live feed to the monitors in there, allowing us to record what happens and for the combatants to watch it later and analyse not only their own performance, but those of their teammates as well."

"Impressive," Phil said. "I'd be very interested in seeing this room in use."

"I'd love to see May and Ward slugging it out in here sometime as well," Skye said happily.

A slight buzz coming from Phil's pocket had the man reaching for his phone. His expression was completely blank as he read whatever was on its screen. A few taps later and he was replacing it into his pocket.

"Unfortunately, duty calls," Phil said. "Perhaps a raincheck on seeing this room in action?"

"That's possible," Tony replied.

"I take it I'm invited back as well?" Skye asked with a mischievous smirk.

"Definitely," Harry replied with a lop-sided grin and his emerald eyes sparkling at her.

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