Darcy drops onto the couch in her apartment at Stark Tower after her last final. Why the hell had she let Stark talk her into going for another degree? Oh yeah, he'd let Pepper talk her into it. She'd had a list of all the positions that needed to be filled thanks to that damn disease.

"Are you done?" Jane asks from the doorway.

"Until this fall." Darcy sighs. "I heard from Professor Xavier, Wanda and Pietro passed all their tests and are 'officially' graduates of his institute. They're hoping to get into a community college this fall."

"I don't see why not, even before that jackass and his disease students were able to get into community colleges easier than universities. Do they know what they want to go for?"

"No, that's why they're looking at community colleges and talking with their advisors."

"Stark, do you know anything about the influx of 'retired' supervillains who are turning their powers to good?" Coulson asks a couple weeks later.

"Yes, Reed and I talked to them. After seeing what that asswipe Trask did they decided robbing banks and whatnot was a waste of their powers. I know a few of them are working on the roads since we the NY department of transportation can't handle all the potholes. They've got a lot of business, crews are heading out all over to help states who don't have the money to fix everything. Another crew is busy cleaning government buildings. . .and doing a damn good job. The subways haven't been this clean in years. The police are complaining but the government cleaned up their records and they've got guaranteed jobs for decades. Both government work and private sector."

"Good, some of the younger . . .villains just needed some guidance."

"Yep, Xavier's got a bad case of 'if your powers can't help me, you're not welcome at the school' and a lot of lesser mutants are left out in the cold. Now we've got more groups taking in younger mutants and helping them. I heard a lot of schools are complaining but they were told to shove it up their useless asses. Not all mutants have fantastic powers, some just look different. They went whining to the supreme court and were told to grow the hell up. People don't have time for their bigotry and hatred after everything that happened. . .if you accept government money you have to take in everybody. The schools that didn't quickly went bankrupt. People have started learning bigotry isn't welcome anymore, not after dumbass Trask and his disease. He didn't care if they were mutant, super-human, normal humans, or aliens, if they didn't kiss his ass, they were his enemies and had to be taken out of the equation."

"What happened to Trask's wife? Last I heard she was trying to get him declared a martyr, a national treasure, a saint, and everything in between until people with some brains realized what a miserable bastard he was." Pepper asks after the call ends.

"She ran off wailing that she was going to kill herself because she couldn't live without her husband but went off sulking when nobody begged her to reconsider and said they'd do everything she wanted. She's living in a three floor walkup studio apartment somewhere and having to work to pay her bills. Same with our 'beloved' former mayor's wife. Who wailed like a hyena when everything she brought on the city's dime was taken away from her. The city attorney was really interested in charging her but being a greedy bitch isn't a crime. . .otherwise every prison would be full of gold diggers." Tony snorts. Pepper snickers, those type gravitate to Tony at the few formal events he's been dragged to since the disease. People have more important things to do now and the charity dinners that are held aren't fancy dress anymore. Work instead of asskissing is actually done at those dinners and everybody agrees they're never going back to the old ones, despite the wails of the people who wanted to attend to show they were somebody and can't now.

"Stark, some fool is trying to take over the capital of New Mexico." Phil says a couple days later.

"Why? New Mexico doesn't have any big industry or anything they'd want to control."

"Because some asshat is trying to declare it his personal fiefdom, Anything you can do he can do sooooo much better, because he won't have to deal with mutants, superheroes, or military other than his own. He's hired a lot of mercenaries who are at loose ends with their leaders dead to other groups or the damn disease. Oh yeah. . .and schools are going to be closed and stay closed. Because he says so."

"Oh dear god." Tony sighs. "This isn't going to go well."

"No, no it's not. He's not got a cohesive unit, they're already infighting. Fool's going to end up dead or in prison for the rest of his life." Coulson sighs. A tap on his door is Skye walking in. "Yes, the military is already routing them and he's wailing 'but Stark got away with it'."

"Tony Stark is working with SHIELD and didn't just wake up one day and decide to take over the world." A judge snorts as he listens to the whining of the fool who thought he'd been all that. "Tony Stark is making life better for his employees and the people of New York, not just trying to make himself big man on campus. Children need an education, no good parent. . ." the judge sneers at him. "Would want their children working sixteen hours a day in the same job they do."

"But if they work sixteen hours they'd be able to cover all three shifts without having to have Stark bring out robots. .. look, I made up a schedule. . . we can still have the factories running 24/7 with the employees we already have."

"And everybody would be getting 24 hours of overtime in a week."

"But do we have to give them overtime? They should be glad to work as many hours as we say they should work." he whines.

"Yes moron, every damn union and special interest group would be up in arms. . .especially at the thought of children having to work sixteen hour days." He's harangued for several more hours by his own lawyer who's calling him a fucking fool and to enjoy staring at the same four walls for the rest of his life if the government doesn't just shoot him. At least one thing. . .nobody's sitting for decades on death row anymore.

"What the hell did he think would happen when he took over New Mexico? There was no way in hell he'd be able to keep it." Peter snorts as Clint talks to his wife on the phone. He'd come back to New York when he heard the news.

"He expected the 'right' people to come flocking to his side to tell the local, state, and federal governments to kiss his ass." Sam snorts. Tony nods. "He just saw me working with agent when we took over Manhattan, he didn't see all the hard work that went into getting things working well for the first time in decades." Everybody nods. "Let alone all the work we still have to do."

"Have you started the nanos?"

"Yes, we started with the schools since they will have the rest of the summer to do the work. Hospitals are nearly done, the police and fire stations are next. Any other buildings will be as a as needed status."

"Have you been getting any flack with having a greenhouse just for spices?"

"No, not with so many cooks clamoring for everything we can grow." Pepper snorts. "Some whiners bitch about not just using what's on the shelf but a lot of spice shelves in the stores have empty spots thanks to commercial farms having to close. People are going to be getting hungry this fall because of food shortages."

"Yes, the president's not happy but letting them sink or swim on their own. But you know the saying, 'you can tell somebody something a million times but until they live through it themselves they'll still swear you don't know what you're talking about'. That's why so many MRE's are being made up ahead of time, the government will have to start sending them off when food stores start running low. Though the assholes who decided not to reopen the farms can starve to death for all I care but innocents need food." Nods from the others.

"Tony, it's the president. Line one." He picks it up once he's in his office with the door shut. "Yes, Mr. President?" He listens for a few minutes. "Yes I do Mr. President, I've never used them personally but I got the information from reputable sources. We never used them because the commercial farms we control have enough employees. . .but the other farms will need them if we can't get people to come back to work at them."

"More people would complain about you taking over the world." Pepper snorts as she comes in with reports that she dumps on Tony's desk after he ends the call. "Arizona and New Mexico's governors have called, they're interested in growing areas like we have outside Vegas. They've talked to growers in the areas and they wouldn't be able to do it." Tony nods and starts pulling out the information on the growing areas, faxing it to the governor's mansions in Arizona and New Mexico. They look over it for a couple weeks and talk with their advisors before okaying it. Tony flies out to those states in early September to look over areas that are both large enough for the growing areas yet within easy distance of a large city. . .or two so employees can commute easily before he starts bringing out crews to start building the operations, including a crew of 'reformed' villains who cut the time for the exteriors to go up nearly in half. A mutant who has a 'green thumb' is hired to be the head of one of the Arizona locations.

The first meeting before schools reopen sees Don bringing in a guest. . .Mac Taylor. Who looks at Steve and Bucky and roundly slaps them both upside the head. "You're annoying assholes gentlemen. My grandfather was James McDonald Taylor." They both blink then laugh. "He told me and I quote 'I know those two troublemakers will show up one day, smack them upside the head and call them annoying assholes if you ever get the chance'."

"Do we wanna know?" Tony asks.

"A howling commando who was ducking his girlfriend. We hogtied him and left him for her as a present before that final mission." Steve chuckles. "Did she marry him?"

"Yes, he and my grandmother were together nearly seventy years before he died of cancer. He raised all us kids on stories about the howling commandoes. I know I didn't hear all of them, Grandma nearly died laughing when he refused to tell us some of them. Something about never betting on a sure thing and 'damn, that was fucking cold?'" Bucky is busy sniggering while Steve sighs.

"Your grandmother and Peggy were two very strong women, they were worth any man during the war." Steve shakes his head. "Did your family follow him in the military?"

"Yes, My uncle lost his legs in Vietnam but he's become better for it. Another cousin was in the space program. I was a marine, retired and now I run the felony crime lab here in Manhattan. Don is one of the detectives that we work with on cases. Oh Mr. Wilson," He looks over at Sam. "I work with Sheldon Hawkes and he said that the study sessions will be on Tuesdays this fall. He wasn't able to get in the day class, he's got to take the night one. The official announcement is going out next week to the list." Sam grins and nods.

"Sam?"

"I'm going back to school to get my doctorate, Sheldon is attending classes and he set up study sessions for those of us who are adult students going back for higher education. We take over a study room at the library. We usually have a couple dozen people in the group and we're all going for different degrees. Not all of us attend every session, some of us have families but. . ." he shrugs. "Scott shows up every couple weeks since he's going for his doctorate in electrical engineering."

"Ohhhh really." Tony purrs. Pepper snorts. "Pepper?

"Yes, we're paying for it. He's getting in two classes a semester and will be a semester in this fall." She flaps a hand in irritation at him and everybody sniggers. That's a 'pay attention to what's going on here once in a while' hand flap. He wraps an arm around her and she swats him amiably.

"How are the gardens coming in?" Pepper asks Peter when she walks out of the meeting.

"Good, we're picking and canning food every day for the winter as well as eating it fresh. We're already seeing empty spots on shelves and it's just going to be worse come winter." Peppers sighs but nods. "And we're a lot better off than the other areas because we if we don't farm it ourselves we might not be able to get it. And we have the growing dimension."

"Yes, thank goodness for that."

"Has there been any news about cooking and growing classes?"

"Yes, as kids age out of foster care and find their own apartments they get some cooking classes and there's always classes on growing food at various places. Either planting a full garden or just having a few plants in pots in your home." Sam says as he walks past Pepper's desk. "I'm off to sign up for my classes this semester and get my books, I'll be back in a couple hours."

Peter nods. "My aunt and Frank's wife have been taking some of the classes since we have the gardens."

"Your classes?"

"I signed up for them and got my books and supplies yesterday. My schedule's in the inbox." Pepper looks through the box and nods when she finds it.

"How is your home?" Tony asks Stephen Strange in the meeting room after Steve and Bucky have walked off with Mac.

"Thank you for using the nanos on the building, it is cleaner than it has been in years. The sepic unit is working well and Wong is in raptures for being able to grow herbs that normally aren't grown anywhere outside Tibet. And even then in small magical enclaves. Though with the ability to grow fresh fruit and vegetables he keeps nagging me about my diet." The others chuckle despite themselves.

Peter brings out cases of canned food from the back of the car and put them in the overflow house. His aunt shakes her head but nods that they might not be able to get it later as people are already complaining about empty spots on shelves. The people who have some brains are saying 'welll yeah, the damn commercial farms were closed because we couldn't keep enough employees there to do the work. . .you fucking morons kept bleating they should be working in the factories instead' when people in congress had complained. They'd tried ordering people to start working at the commercial farms as well as their other jobs but were told it was too late in the year to start crops before they froze. And that working the fields was an all day job, not just an eight hour shift. The fools had gone off whining that they didn't know that not having the commercial farms operating meant there'd be less food and had been called goddamn fools by everybody with two brain cells to rub together.

More than one person had snorted that that was why they'd gone into politics, because they were too damn stupid to hold down a normal job. They'd started complaining about being insulted and been told to go stand in the damn corner while the adults talked. They'd complained louder and been jeered at until they slunked off. They'd been so damn sure factories were more important than farms, how could they have been wrong?

Fucking fools had been the nicest thing said about many of them.

Phil sighs as Tony smirks at the wailing on the news. "Morons, they know they're going to need food, where did you think it comes from if not from farms."

"They'll learn. Or they'll be voted out of office and have to work for a living." Pepper chuckles. "Have you heard any complaints about people learning to cook or grow food?"

"Mot here, I heard rumors of complaints in other areas but people with some damn sense told them if they don't know how to cook they'll be living on takeout the rest of their lives. And while that's okay in your teens or twenties it's not something want to do in your fifties and a parent." Phil snorts. Tony rolls his eyes but nods.

"Has anybody heard anything about congress trying to restart the space program with the thought of colonizing other planets?" Sam asks.

"Yes, but it's sheer stupidity. They're just trying to make names for themselves." Peter snorts. The others look at him. "One, there's no need for colonies. . .the damn disease took care of overcrowding, the lowered birth rate thanks to people working two jobs means no baby boom like the last time the world's population was this low." Nods from the others. "Two, there's whole countries sitting empty." Nods again. "And three, what's to say that damn disease wouldn't follow a colony to another planet?" Everybody moans at that thought.

"True, we don't know if it's run it's course, just lying dormant, or can periodically reoccur." Leo Fitz says quietly. This is the first time he'd been invited to one of these meetings. He's being quiet around these legends, he'd grew up on stories of Captain America and to actually meet him. . . Bucky smirks and claps him on the shoulder with his human hand. "He's still a human being kid, he puts on his spangly tights one leg at a time." Steve gives him a 'look' as the others laugh.

"Tony?" Pepper asks a couple days later when she finds him sitting in his office, staring at the wall.

"I just got a message from the Wakandan embassy in DC wanting to talk about renegotiating that agreement we used to have. It was years ago. . ." he says at Pepper's look. "My dad pissed off their king and the agreement to talk science stuff fell by the wayside. The old king died and there's a new man on the throne. With all the nonsense that has been happening they want to talk. . .to see if there's anything they need and to see if there's any information on that damn disease. Thanks to their high-tech lifestyle and their seclusion, they didn't lose many people."

"And the new king?"

"Youngish, in his twenties. His father was killed by one of their enemies who were trying to take over the country. He's got a younger sister who's a genius, she reminds me a lot of me back in my younger days but without the weapon industry." He sighs. "The embassy is passing along the official paperwork in a couple days."

"You are nothing like the tabloids claimed. . .or like your father." T'Challa says slowly.

"I hope I've grown out of the tabloid claims." Tony chuckles. "and my father was a thoroughbred champion of horses asses. I never want to be anything like him. That's why I keep Pepper and the others around, they'll tell me if my behavior is going from normal Tony Stark asshole to Howard Stark asshole." Everybody in earshot nod vigorously.

"My father loathed Howard."

"Everybody loathed Howard. . .including himself. He died a miserable old man having pushed aside everybody who ever loved him. . .including my mother." He looks at the former Queen who nods in agreement that she's known people like that herself. Darcy is talking history with one of their guards in the Dora Milaje, she'd seen one of her history books and they were talking about events from the Wakandan side of history.

"I cannot believe that fool believed his pet scientists would be able to control the diseases." Shuri complains as she looks through everything.

"You said it yourself Princess Shuri, he was a fool. He hated everybody that didn't vote for him and wanted to punish them for not kissing his ass. This. . ." the list of estimated deaths by country is waved at. . . "was the result. If it wasn't the disease itself, it was the fall of communism causing countries to collapse."

"Which is what he was trying to do with your country."

"Yep." Tony sighs. "the little fool had already overthrew term limits and I have no doubt he would have appointed himself president for life by banning elections."

"I have heard. . ." the former queen starts to say.

"That we're not allowing elections in New York? Not true, we've offered to hold elections multiple times but nobody is signing up as a candidate because things are running smoothly and. . ."

"nobody wants to be the one to blame for making things worse." she chuckles.

"Yes. There's still been elections for smaller government positions in the city and for the most part they've been running unopposed because they're handling things well. I've learned that if you keep people who know what they're actually doing in the job, it makes things run a lot smoother." The three visitors nod in agreement. The talk quickly moves to what they'd contacted him about and plans soon flow across the tables.

"Anything interesting?" Bruce asks a couple days later after the party has returned to Wakanda.

"Their treatment plants are on a par with ours but smaller, they really liked the plans for hydroponics, this way they can grow fresh fruit and vegetables over the winter beyond the greenhouses they use now. Mostly it was a 'okay, he's not a big an asshole as his father' meet and greet. Not in Wakanda, but they talked about putting up a couple fields of solar panels for electricity and a fish farm. Both for food and to help replenish local rivers."

"Has there been any news on the rest of Africa?" Bruce asks.

"The smaller communities. . .are gone. Either this disease or the other illnesses that ravaged the areas. Government and privately run orphanages are full of kids, there's no street kids anymore. As in the US unemployment doesn't exist anymore. The charities that routinely raised money for food are now helping with money for places like reservation schools and the charities that came in and gave free medical care."

"Yes, I've talked to some of the volunteers I worked with over the years and they say similar things. They now work in smaller doctor offices and hospitals in the big cities that's pretty much all there is now. The land is laying fallow for a couple years until experts can start farming them responsbly. No large corporations trying to make enormous profits destroying the land."

"That's what the Wakandans said. Most of the governments have learned they have to let the ground recover." Tony sighs. Reed Richards comes out of the elevator and they head off. Clint looks at Pepper. "They're off to clear out some buildings that need to be torn down before they fall down in various countries that don't have the resources anymore. They've managed to save everything they could and the recyclables will be turned into raw materials for them. They're also going to be picking the tree crops in the other dimension and any crops that would otherwise just go to waste since nobody's there anymore." The others nod. "Including a lot of olives that are going to be heading to that facility to make olive oil."

"Wine grapes?"

"Quietly taken over by other growers in the area. They're keeping them as heritage lines instead of taking them over fully." the others nod in satisfaction. "Any remaining kids got folded into the families so they can take back over when they grow up. They're not really competition, the labels have been working together for years to help each other out."

"So do the farmers in my area, with the deaths everybody works together to get crops in for all the farms." Clint says. "A lot of the other areas are having to do the same since we can't hire enough skilled people to help out. School kids can handle harvesting the gardens and some of the tree crops, but not the big machinery used in the fields." The others nod, they've all seen kids harvesting the community gardens and filling bags that they deliver to homes and apartments in the area.

Reed and Tony return six months later for them, bringing out bushels and boxes of food that go into the stasis rooms.

"Olives?" Pepper asks after he's showered and got something to eat.

"Delivered to the people who will be pressing them for oil, to the factories that will put them in brine for eating, and more is still growing on the trees to ripen for black olives. We only harvested empty countries or what would have gone to waste since nobody lives in the area anymore." Pepper nods as she looks at the list of what had been brought out. . .including coffee, cacao, and tea leaves. "What we could have done on the ground we did. The coffee beans will need to be roasted but that won't be too hard, just roast them in a pan like you do spices. And yes, we dropped of tons of coffee beans, cacao, and tea leaves to the manufacturers." She nods in satisfaction.

Peter brings in bags of food and May looks at him. "Food that Tony and Dr. Richards harvested in lost areas that would otherwise have gone to waste. I only took what we don't grow ourselves." May nods as she starts unloading the bags and nods in satisfaction. "The coffee beans and nuts we have to roast ourselves."

"That's not that hard." She nods in satisfaction at the bags of dried tea leaves, while she doesn't drink it often it's nice to sit down and enjoy a nice steaming cup as she looks outside when Peter is off taking classes or working in his darkroom in the other house. With stasis nothing goes to waste and she nods in approval as everything is put away. Peter looks at the time and starts setting the table, going into his study after dinner to work on his thesis since he's ahead in everything else for his classes.

The 'we gotta eat these?' complaints start showing up after Christmas when most grocery stores are more empty shelves than anything else. In fact some smaller ones have shut down since they can't get in any new stock. The complaints are met with 'quit your bitching, it won't kill you' looks and people start settling in for a long winter. There's talk of suing the owners of the commercial farms because they didn't produce and are told to grow the fuck up, if you don't have workers you can't farm hundreds of acres. The morons who wanted everybody working in factories instead of farming wail as they can't get the food they want. . .shouldn't only poor people have been affected? Effing morons is the kindest thing said about them. They try to put the commercial farms under government control and are sent off with a foot up their ass and told to grow the fuck up. . .again.

"Did we see a lot of deaths over the winter thanks to the shortages?" Tony asks in early spring when he and Reed are called to a meeting in the white house.

"Not as many as they were predicting but still too damn many." the president murmurs. "The fools who wanted everybody working in factories are whining that they didn't know if the commercial farms didn't have employees they wouldn't be able to grow crops."

Bullshit is softly coughed in the other room. Everybody chuckles. "Wellllll, so they say anyway. We're looking at a good half of the commercial farms needing the robots, either their employees died during the winter or they didn't want to come back to long hard hours working in the fields."

"Or more likely the owners of the factories didn't want to let them go. I've heard rumors of 'employment contracts' that are little more than signing your life over to them." Tony snorts. The president sighs but nods. "True. Now. . .third shifts?"

"The first batch of 'important' factories all have the robots, I've got a lot of thanks from the owners, the thanks by far outnumber the complaints. The threats to 'deal' with the robots have gotten their utterers arrested and they're bleating it's not fair that they're in trouble. Since adding the robots was at the request of the government, they're being charged in federal court."

"I'd wondered where some of the loudest complainers had gotten to." Brandon mutters. "Do we have a list?" Tony hands it over and Brandon shakes his head. "I see I need to start yelling at some morons. And talk to their governors about special elections to get them out of office. The citizens don't need morons like this in power. Now, plans for the commercial farms?" Tony brings out the plans and they start talking.

"Do we have enough robots?"

"Yes, once I knew they'd be needed I started having my factories working on them. They can start to be delivered to the farms on the list in a month, just in time to start spreading manure on the fields and garden plots. They already have plans on growing more crops once they get in the supplies and see how the robots fare."

"Thank your Mr. Stark. And I'm sure most of the people who went hungry this winter because MRE's may give you all the nutrition you need but do not fill your stomach will be thanking you as well when they see shelves filling again."

"And the complainers can kiss my ass." Tony snorts. "They have to have something to complain about and their whiny attempts to get the world to run the way they want is fodder for the tabloids. They're getting the publicity they wanted, but it's not good publicity."

"Serves the fools right, the world is going to hell thanks to Trask's damn disease and they're bleating about how things are being handled. If we hadn't lost entire countries and over five billion people on Earth we'd have the damn people we needed to run everything." Brandon snorts.

"And we're much better off than some smaller countries. In England people are working shifts in the gardens and working shifts in the factories to try to keep everything running."

"Ahhh yes, another complaint from the whiners in congress, we're not exporting stuff to the other countries to make them millions of dollars."

Reed makes a rude sound this time and everybody looks at him. Tony is usually the one making that noise. "Factories are barely making enough for us, let alone to send to other countries. Who don't have the money to import stuff. And the stuff that's in stasis from China isn't stuff any of us need. Now if things were better it would be stuff that consumers wanted but with all the troubles people are tightening their belts and not buying that stuff."

"Much to the dismay of the people who wanted black friday sales back, that is the sort of stuff they'd be lining up for days in advance." Tony snorts and brings out the files, handing it over to the President. He looks it over and agrees with the other two men.

Tony moans at the full desk when he arrives back at the tower, being a grown up sucks. Pepper and Clint snicker at his complaining. This is the Tony Stark they know, not this ultra-serious one who's got the weight of New York and by extension the rest of the world on his shoulders.

"Darcy and Peter already pre-sorted, business stuff is on the left, city stuff is in the middle, complaints are on the right, and early applications for internships are on the table sorted by school and then speciality. I've already got a list started of who would work best here or Malibu."

"Thank you Pepper."

Tony spends the rest of the day clearing off his desk then looking through the applications, Pepper sending out responses saying yes or no, if yes where they'll be stationed and if no, what they can work on and then sign up for a spot again. Or they're pointed to other places where they can do internships, many of which Tony now owns thanks to AIM's loss. The only difference between an internship there and at Stark itself is housing.

Clint smiles as his oldest son accepts a diploma from Xavier's school. It had been a few hard years, a lot of people in the area they live in had been lost to the disease and the school closing had hit everybody hard. Some of his former classmates were four years behind where they should have been but they weren't alone in that which made it somewhat better. Otherwise they'd have likely just gotten their GEDS.

"Mr. Stark, what are Wanda and Pietro going?"

"They're both taking classes at a community college in Manhattan. Pietro is working at a messenger service while Wanda is working with a local designer with a thought of getting a fashion degree."

Professor Xavier blinks. "Yes, I wouldn't have thought of it either but she was helping out with a clothing drive by sorting out some of the donations that weren't any good and got to talking with a local designer. Clothing will be something we'll always need." He nods.

Peter sighs as he slumps into a seat at the tower a few days later.

"Last final?"

"Yes, and I have an appointment this summer to present my thesis." Pepper and Tony nod in satisfaction. "Are you going out for a year to the Institute?"

"Yes, Aunt May bluntly told me to go and enjoy myself, I'm too young to have the weight of the world on my shoulders. She's got Frank's family across the street and she feels better now than she ever did. I won't have any trouble with my job here. . ." Pepper and Tony snort. "And it's going to be at least a year if I go on for my doctorate." Tony makes a pained sound and reaches for where a wallet would be, the others snickering.

"How are the commercial farms coming?" Phil asks as he walks out of the elevator with Reed Richards.

"Good. Everything has been planted and now it's just a matter of wait until the crops start coming up."

"Have you heard anything from Wakanda?"

"Yes, they are starting construction on a number of hydroponics buildings and I'll be going to the country to talk over their plans when we build a fish farm in a nearby area that's uninhabited now."

"Okay, the solar panels?"

"Are going to be powering the fish farm. Totally green."

"Have you thought about the power source the others told us about?" Reed looks at first Phil then Tony.

"Yes, and if we do need to bring it out it will go out there where they can protect it for us." Phil nods. "Alternate power source that can power an entire planet, it's used with boxes that can bring the power to buildings without the need of lines. . .the power grid is slowly failing and we don't have the time, money. and physical or human resources to rebuild it." Reed sighs but nods. There'd been recurring outages outside of the area where their alternate power is used and the power companies had been hard pressed to keep repairing the lines. "Of course if we do that, congress will howl about us trying to take over the world again and every power company will be up in arms about us putting them out of business. Ignoring the fact that if they can't supply power to their customers, they won't be staying in business."

"That's the problem with a free market, but the alternative isn't any better. We could have a country that controlled the electrical, phone, television, radio, and all other services. Though the reason I asked is because the President called and said that a lot of those companies are having a lot of problems keeping the power going, the machinery is old and the power grid is even older. He's expecting a massive outage one day and so are the precogs I was able to contact."

"Hell." He pulls Richards and Coulson into his private lab and puts up all the protections to keep anybody from listening in and opens the file, showing Reed all the information. "This. . .is a relief. I'd wondered how we'd be able to supply electricity to the rest of the country if it was needed. The other countries have their own grids." He says at Coulson's look. "I doubt they'd take power from us unless they had no other choice."

"Yes, some countries would be whining about trying to take over their countries." Tony snorts as he closes that file, puts back under tons of security and opens the door of his lab. Once they're gone he leans against a wall and quietly swears for ten minutes. Just when he thinks things are getting back to normal something like this pops up. But the power grid is old and was never meant to handle the loads it was under before the deaths started.

Two weeks later Tony walks quietly into the throne room, nodding at King T'Challa. "Good morning your majesty, I have the plans for the fish farm and solar panels for you and your experts to look over."

"Solar panels?" A man demands in the group.

"For the fish farm so it's totally green."

"I. . .did not think a colonizer would care about such a matter." He says slowly. "Or a Stark." He sneers. A noise from the throne has him looking over and ducking his head. "I apologize Mr. Stark, some of my advisors are rather. . .set in their ways."

"That's human nature, your majesty. You should hear all the complaints about me in my own country from members of congress because they think that all the work I'm doing to help the city and state of New York is a cover to take over the country and then the world."

"Yes, reopening schools so children have an education, making the streets safe to walk at night, having all city services have the money they need, and growing food so your citizens have food since so many commercial farms closed is taking over the world." Princess Shuri snorts. "Idiots." Her mother looks like she wants to chide her, but she agrees with her.

"Ahhhhh, but you're forgetting the fact that supposedly my buying supplies for the businesses is what led to empty spots on store shelves. . .the fact that I'm taking over factories by installing robots to take over the third shifts in places that make essential supplies instead of just making people work sixteen hour shifts, and I'm using robots to reopen all those commercial farms that closed because they lost most of their employees to factories so people actually find food on grocery shelves." Tony smirks. T'Challa rolls his eyes this time. "To quote my sister and people with sense. . .Idiots." He walks over to look over the plans Tony brings out, his experts nodding at every point Tony brings up.

"May I talk with you, your mother, and sister without the others? Please, you can keep guards at every door if you wish but. . .I need to talk to you about bringing out a power source in the empty areas that I hope your country could both use and protect."

"We have many mystics in Wakanda who have talked to the great spirits, you are talking about the boxes?" Rowanda asks after her son has sent off the others.

"Yes, Phil passed along a message from the US president that they are expecting the US power grid to collapse in a few years since it is old and never expected to have as much use as it had before the disease. Unfortunately the US doesn't have the time, money, and physical and human resources to rebuild it."

"And the US is better off than some other countries. Whose own power grids have already failed."

"Yes, I'd open it to other countries but I expect complaining and 'oh my word, he's trying to take over the world with this device'. The former communist countries would not have allowed the boxes to be used in their countries, it meant that communism had failed. The boxes will be under a number of shell corporations because otherwise the idiots in congress would be howling at me taking over the world. . .again."

Shuri snickers. "Because they wish that they could."

"Of course, that's why they went into politics in the first place."

"Have you heard anything about the disease?"

"No, the government doctors are no closer to finding a cure for the damn thing than they were when that fool Trask shut down the NIH and CDC in the first place. His pet mad scientists swore that they could control it but they admitted they just told him whatever he wanted to hear." T'Challa nods. "The precogs are expecting more deaths, probably around the time the US power grid goes down and can't be brought back."

"That would sound about right." T'Challa sighs as his mother and sister nod.

Tony slumps into a seat two weeks later. "Bad meeting with King T'Challa?" Pepper asks.

"No, I got wrangled into meetings with other government officials on the trip to and back from Wakanda. At least one government official in each country was positive I'm out to do something nefarious, when they find out I'm just out there to plan a fish farm to help restock rivers they're aaaaallllll 'oh, they didn't tell me *that*'. Seems most of the rumors can be laid at the feet of those fools in congress who are sure I'm trying to take over the world. The president was not happy and is tearing strips off of them in front of both houses of congress, they're being told to go stand in that corner until they finally realize they're too fucking stupid to live."

"That won't happen." Sam snorts as he walks through and checks his mail. "Those type of personality will never admit all the problems they cause are because they're fools. No, it has to be somebody else's fault."

"Exactly, though on the other hand I did get a number of requests for plans for hydroponics facilities from every government in Africa. It will be decades before the land is recovered enough for large-scale farming." Nods from the others as Tony pushes himself up and goes into his apartment to change his clothes. After a large meal he starts sorting through everything on his desk, amusing himself by landing crumpled up letters of complaint in the tote he put across the room.

"Did you have any problems with Wakanda and the power system?" Phil asks as he enters the office, slapping a ball of paper back towards Stark. He won't admit it but he has his own container for idiot proposals that is filled weekly though he isn't so crass as to play games with them. At least where anybody can see him.

"No, their mystics have seen the boxes and agree that they can put up sensors to protect it. Any other place and people would be trying to take it over or destroy it." Coulson nods. "Is the president done yelling at the morons who were trying to insist I was taking over African governments on my trip?"

"No, once he got done calling them on the carpet in public in front of everybody he called them into the oval office and really laid it on the line. One more word against any of us who are actually working at keeping the US from collapsing in on itself and they'll be facing treason charges and life in Gitmo. There was a difference between quiet bitching because they see you actually doing something to help people and they don't want to and actually going out of their way to contact foreign governments and telling a load of bull to make trouble for you. He was not happy with them and bluntly told them one more step out of line and he'd fire them, they serve at the government's pleasure and he wasn't too damn pleased with them. And that he'd be talking to their governors about a special election to replace them if they couldn't be grownups. That fool Anderson went absolutely white, he had no idea that his complaints, digs, and little 'tales' would actually get him in trouble."

"They don't remember what happened to that fool Stockhaven when he kept trying to make trouble for me?"

"Ohhhhh, that was different. He was a fool. . .they're sure you're trying to take over the world. The third shift robots was the first step. . .why can't we just make people work sixteen hours a day. . .who cares if they've got families. . .they need to do what we want." Coulson snorts. "Damn group of whiny fools. They want to blame somebody else, anybody else for all the problems rather than man up and put the blame where it belongs. . .their beloved Trask and his damn disease."

"I'm surprised the fools haven't tried saying I was really behind the disease and just let their dear friend take the fall."

"Don't give them any ideas." Coulson snorts. "I'm sure the damn fools would try it if they could. They absolutely hate the idea you've got the shields up and they can't order them removed, if they could they'd have the army coming in to take over but that would get them arrested since everything we're doing is legal. They're sulking because it was their 'dear' friend who passed the laws but they never expected us to be able to use them, they were passed for them."