(DxD x Tony Stark) Iron & Myth: Chapter 2 - Welcome

Chapter 2 - Welcome

Summary: Prelude last part

Howard ruffled his hair a little before saying "You were out of it in the lab too. I think I will cancel your tutors for today. You should rest."

His mom stood up and returned to her seat, nodding her head "Yes. It's a good idea. Now eat, caro, eat."

Tony smiled a little and picked himself a couple of the pancakes. The moment he took his first bite his mind exploded by how delicious it was. His mother never cooked before, so he had no idea if she knew how to make things that good last time. But right now his mom's meal obviously suggested years of practice.

Tony looked at his dad and decided to chance something he would never do before "So, you are not going into the office today, Ho... Dad?"

His dad just shrugged and cut himself another piece of the fluffy meal as he answered "I'm sure Ed's got it covered—if he needs some help with the board he will give me a call."

His mom just hummed in agreement before turning to him "And what are you planning to do today, tesoro?"

Tony took a large bite from the pancake on his fork. He chewed slowly, taking the time to consider the question.

He still wasn't sure exactly what was going on or even if he had any idea about what, there still would be the why.

There were many changes that Tony could notice in his family since he opened his eyes, and Tony was even going to ignore his current age.

First there was the house. Then there was his parents' behavior. And finally, the last bit of information he just learned. From the way his dad said it Tony could put together that in this world instead of naming him his personal assistant, Howard gave Edward Jarvis the SI CEO position. But why would he? It doesn't seem like the origin of the rest of the changes but rather another symptom of something larger.

Maybe Tony should look at this differently... What stayed the same?

He had a hard time thinking of anything from the limited time he had in this timeline—that's when he remembered the hard drive.

Neither JARVIS and surely nor FRIDAY should be close to creation in this time period and yet there was a drive with their memory on it. Tony could only assume those memories would be from a world only Tony himself seems to be familiar with.

Tony swallowed before answering as calmly as he could "I actually have a project in mind that should take a while."

That seemed to catch his dad's attention, as he abandoned the piece on his fork and turned to him with a raised eyebrow "I'm hooked, let's hear it son—what is it your brilliant mind cooked up this time?"

"AI." Tony answered casually, too casually apparently.

His dad choked on the food in his mouth. After he managed to catch his breath he fully turned to Tony and asked with as much calmness as possible "As in Artificial Intelligence?"

Tony could only nod. His dad chuckled and said with an amused voice "You certainly are ambitious, bud, I will give you that."

Tony shrugged. Many people told him before his inventions were crazy and won't go past the blueprint stage, and every time Tony shocked them all over again.

His mom looked between the two of them with a fond look saying "You boys and your inventions." She then turned to glare firmly at Tony "Tonight you are in bed by nine P.M."

Tony didn't dare argue. Somehow her glare frightened him more than a combined glare from Thanos and Ultron. He gulped and nodded his acceptance.

A six-year-old Tony Stark was sitting in his now new and improved lab. His dad, whose main daily job was to design new patents for the R&D to create and test, took the small room Tony used to have as a lab.

Tony's lab took over the entire basement of the house by now. As his projects kept advancing at a remarkable pace his parents were so proud of him that they didn't even question the larger space he required.

In the last year Tony learned a lot of things—three of them were the most important.

The first: There was never a Hydra unit in the Nazi army during World War II. Which in turn meant no super-soldier program, which meant no Steve Rogers turning into Captain America. And without a Captain America to be obsessed about, Howard moved on with his life after the war.

Under the advisement of Edward Jarvis, SI began to slowly pull out of the weapons industry. Instead they turned themselves into something close to what Tony did with the company after the Stane fiasco. There were many different departments in charge of researching different fields.

Surprisingly it was during this past year that Howard stood next to Jarvis on stage and announced the completion of the first arc-reactor, a clean source of energy. Of course Howard created just the large version just like last time—it would fall to Tony again to recreate it into something more mobile for when he creates his Iron Man armor.

Which actually brought him to the second point: apparently SI was right now in the same state and worth Tony brought it to after a decade as its CEO, which told him a lot about Jarvis and his management skills.

And the last one: The Starks were just as rich now as they were back in his old life. But in this life both his parents wanted something closer to an ordinary life rather than splash their wealth around, which Tony could totally respect.

Tony finished writing the last line of code and pressed enter, letting the computer run the code.

He leaned back in his chair and looked at the setup around him. On the table in front of him were three screens. Two ordinary ones side by side and a large one in the combined size of the other two above them.

Around the large room there were other tables with many work stations for his more engineering oriented parts.

After all, the current tech in the world could not hope to accomplish what he needed it to, so he had to build everything from scratch. The server, the computer, the screen, the tools—Tony used SI's factories to produce all of them.

Which of course all of those now were in the process of being patented so SI could market them. One of the reasons he got his cool underground lab.

One of the most annoying things Tony needed to do was to rebuild his AI's matrix completely, although he did use the chance to buff up all the security protocols in their codes.

Tony glanced at the corner of the screen to see the time and date, which read '11:14 PM, 12 Jul, 2001.'

Which was always a source of confusion for him. If this was supposed to be some sort of a life redo, why was his age so out of sync with the timeline? In the original one he would already be 31 years old by this year, so why was he so young now?

A message popped up on the screen, reading 'Please insert memory drive.'

Tony jumped from his seat to the floor and made his way to the reinforced door at the edge of the room. He punched in the code only he knew—the door opened allowing Tony access to the server room.

He went to one of the hidden compartments he installed in the room, the one which required his fingerprint to open. The compartment popped open revealing the hard drive Tony found when he woke up.

Tony connected the power cable to the drive, allowing it to join the rest of his server system before closing the compartment and leaving the room.

The message on all the screens was replaced with one reading 'Memories are being processed'

Knowing there was nothing left for him to do here, as the process would take over 24 hours due to the amount of data, Tony decided to go up to his bed—even geniuses needed their rest once in a while. Also his mom would ground him if he was not in bed by midnight.

Tony was sitting back in front of his computer station two days after allowing the data to be processed.

All of the screens were currently displaying the same message, which was 'loading...'

Tony was at the edge of his seat when the message on the left screen changed to 'JARVIS online.' And on the right 'FRIDAY online.'

Part of Tony's project was creating and installing a camera and sound system around the house with his dad.

The static coming off the speakers let Tony know his kids were adjusting to the new system and new reality around them.

The first one to speak was FRIDAY, her voice sounded almost choked with tears if it was possible "BOSS! You are alive!"

Tony tried to give the camera his best Tony Stark patented smirk as he replied confidently "Of course I am, baby girl, nothing can keep me down for long." Saying all of this with his childish voice was a little embarrassing.

Before FRIDAY could reply an old familiar voice filled the room "It's good to see you again, sir. While I'm proud of my little sister and how she more than filled my shoes, I'm glad to be at your side again."

Tony almost choked on his tears himself. He never thought he would get another chance to talk with JARVIS. Vision proved to be a far cry from the being that sacrificed itself to create him.

Tony smiled "I'm glad to have you back, buddy."

"It seems I have missed quite a lot." JARVIS commented.

You could practically hear the annoyance leaking off the speakers when FRIDAY spoke "You have no idea, big bro."

Tony leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes "Yes, the years weren't so kind, were they? I still can't figure out what is going on with this life redo thing."

There was a static sound again which caused Tony to open his eyes, FRIDAY then spoke a little hesitantly "About that, Boss, it looks like except for our memory from your previous life we were also left with a message for you."

Tony's laid back attitude was gone in an instant, replaced by laser focus as JARVIS began to read out the message "Anthony Edward Stark, thanks to you the universe will no longer be held hostage by fear of our powers. You might not realize that but we have been watching you since the moment you were born. We saw you rise only to fall because of the manipulation of others. We could not allow it to stand—your sacrifice deserves to be rewarded. So with the last sparks of our combined power we sent your soul to be reincarnated into a world where there is the highest odds for you to live a long and happy life. The choices in this life are now yours—on behalf of our entire universe, thank you Iron Man."

Tony had to blink a dozen times to process the new information. After a little while he managed to ask aloud "Was the message from..."

He couldn't even finish the sentence so FRIDAY confirmed it for him "The Infinity stones."

Huh, so the rocks did have some sort of consciousness, Tony theorized it, but had no proof, until now at least.

Shaking it off—this was something to contemplate later—Tony sighed before saying "Well this is our life now then. Let's talk about how you two should introduce yourselves to my parents tomorrow."

With that, plans were made for the next morning. During that night Tony lay in bed and began thinking what he wanted from this new life. The stones gave him a new book to write a new story in, and according to them this life had the best chance for him to live long and happy.

He could already say that his childhood in this timeline was light years better than the last, and if the rest of the choices were up to him he would just have to wait and see what this world would have in store for him.