"To the point," Abel said. "You have something to ask me."
"I do." Tony's voice lost its showman's polish, going flat and serious in a way that felt almost rehearsed. Like he'd practiced this part. "I need to know something, and I need you to be completely honest with me. No games, no deflection. Are you really a mage? Actual magic, not technology I haven't figured out yet?"
Abel let the question sit for a moment.
"I've never lied to you, Tony. Not once. I'm a mage. I use magic. Real magic, not sufficiently advanced technology pretending to be magic." He paused, choosing his angle. "Think about it logically. You saw me use a wooden stick to fire energy beams in multiple spectrums, project shields, generate force fields, and manipulate objects at a distance. All from a piece of carved wood with no visible power source, no circuitry, no electromagnetic emissions. Is there any technology on Earth, current or theoretical, that could do all of that from a stick?"
Silence on the line. Abel could practically hear the gears turning.
"No," Tony admitted. "I ran every analysis I could. JARVIS couldn't identify the energy signature. It doesn't match anything in my database, anything from SHIELD's files, anything from any research institution on the planet." A beat. "So either you're an alien using tech I've literally never seen before, which I've ruled out because I'm very confident you're Theresa Shaw's son. Or it's actually magic. Which, for the record, violates about fifteen laws of thermodynamics."
"Sixteen, technically."
"Don't push it." But there was a smile in Tony's voice. Then it shifted again, drifting into a tone Abel hadn't heard from him before. Almost wistful. "By the way, speaking of your mother. Theresa Shaw is a genuinely beautiful woman. Especially when she's cooking. There's this quality she has, like—"
"Tony."
"Yes?"
"Tony, I am going to hang up this phone."
"Sorry, sorry. Deflecting. It's what I do when I'm nervous, and right now I'm very nervous, which you'll understand in about thirty seconds." Tony went quiet for two seconds. When he came back, the wistful tone was gone, replaced by something flat and careful. "So. Mr. Mage. Since you do, in fact, use actual real magic that breaks physics. Quick question. Can magic fix poisoning?"
The playfulness evaporated. Abel felt the shift like a change in air pressure.
Here it is. The real reason he called.
Abel kept his voice carefully neutral. "Poisoning? What kind of poisoning are we talking about, Mr. Stark? Are you telling me you've been poisoned?"
"Tony. Call me Tony. And no, it's not me. It's a... a friend. A very good friend. Modern medicine can't do anything for him, so I thought of you, figured maybe there's something on the magic side that could—"
"Tony."
"What?"
Abel let a beat pass. Then, gently: "You're very good at lying to women. But i am not one. I know it's you. So maybe drop the 'friend' routine and just tell me what's happening."
Silence. Long enough that Abel checked his phone screen to make sure the call was still connected.
Then Tony exhaled, slow and heavy, the sound of a man putting down something he'd been carrying for too long.
"Fine. It's me. Palladium poisoning. The arc reactor in my chest uses a palladium core. It's keeping me alive and killing me at the same time. Ironic, right? Very on-brand." His voice cracked on the joke, just barely, just enough. "I've tried everything. Every element, every alloy, every compound I can synthesize. Nothing works as a replacement. And the palladium is spreading through my bloodstream."
"How long?"
The question came out blunt. Abel didn't soften it. Tony didn't need softness right now. He needed someone to treat the situation with the seriousness it deserved.
"Two, maybe three months."
Abel's jaw tightened. His free hand curled into a fist against his thigh.
Two to three months. That's... significantly worse than I estimated.
He'd known about the palladium poisoning from his knowledge of the MCU timeline. He'd been preparing for it, had spent five months working on the Blood Toxin Elixir specifically to address it. But he'd assumed Tony had more time. A year, maybe. Six months at minimum.
Two to three months changed everything.
"My current spells can't directly cure heavy metal poisoning," Abel said. He heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end, the barely suppressed sound of hope collapsing. He pushed forward before the silence could harden. "But I have a potion. An ancient formula designed specifically for blood toxins. The problem is that the original ingredients are from a different era. Some of them are extinct. I've been working with colleagues to find modern substitutes, and we're close. Very close."
"You've been... working on this already?" Tony's voice was careful. "Before I even called?"
Careful. Don't reveal too much.
"I recognized the symptoms when we met. The discoloration spreading from your chest. I started researching immediately."
Another silence. When Tony spoke again, his voice sounded different. Thinner. Like something had come loose behind the walls.
"You recognized it and just... started working on a cure? Without telling me? Without asking for anything?"
"I'm telling you now. And I'll be asking for things, trust me. I'm not doing this for free."
Tony laughed. It was short and rough and genuine. "God, that's actually reassuring. If you'd said you were doing it out of the goodness of your heart, I'd have hung up."
"I know. That's why I said it."
Another laugh, warmer this time. "So the potion. Timeline?"
"I can't give you an exact date. But I'll throw everything I have at it. You'll have it before your time runs out."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
He wasn't. Not completely. But Tony needed certainty right now, not probabilities. And Abel intended to make the promise true through sheer force of will if nothing else.
Abel heard Tony take a long, shuddering breath on the other end. The sound of a man allowing himself, for the first time in weeks or months, to believe he might survive.
"Okay," Tony said. His voice was steadier now. "Okay. The Expo. Day after tomorrow. Come. We'll meet face to face after the show and talk properly. I have things to discuss beyond the poisoning. Big-picture things."
"I'll be there. I have things to discuss too."
"Good." A pause. "And Abel? Thank you. I mean it. Genuinely."
"Tony, 'thank you' sounds physically painful coming out of your mouth. Don't strain yourself."
"Ha! You know what, you're the first person I've actually thanked in years? It shows, doesn't it."
"It really does. See you day after tomorrow, Tony."
"See you, Abel."
The line went dead.
Abel didn't move. He sat at his desk, phone still in his hand, staring at the darkened window.
Two to three months.
His original plan had been to take his time with the potion. Control the pace, manage expectations, use the leverage of Tony's need to negotiate from a position of strength. Cold, maybe. Strategic, definitely. But now that timeline was gone.
No more delays. No more leverage games. He's dying faster than I thought, and if I don't move, he dies.
Abel set the phone down and started thinking.
The Blood Toxin Elixir was close, but "close" wasn't "done." Dosage calibration alone could take weeks of testing. Weeks he might not have. Unless...
Unless he could accelerate the process.
The bottleneck wasn't the brewing itself. It was the calculations. Hundreds of variables: ingredient ratios, reaction temperatures, timing sequences, interaction effects between the substitute compounds and the original formula. Abel could run those calculations manually, but it would take weeks of work. Months, if he wanted to be thorough.
But a sufficiently powerful computer could do it in days. Maybe hours.
And Tony Stark had JARVIS.
If I give Tony the parameters, the variables, the constraints of the formula, JARVIS could model every possible combination and identify the optimal ratios in a fraction of the time it would take me. I wouldn't need to guess and test. I could go straight to the answer.
Which meant partnering with Tony wasn't just about saving his life. It was about saving his life faster. The collaboration would benefit them both. Abel got computational power no mage on Earth had access to. Tony got a potion that could buy him time.
Another reason to make this alliance work.
Abel pulled the Expo tickets toward him, stacked them neatly, and placed Tony's note on top.
Day after tomorrow. The Expo. Then we sit down, face to face, and we build something.
Three thousand miles away, in a workshop that smelled of machine oil and burnt coffee, Tony Stark set down his phone and stared at the wall.
He didn't feel relieved. Not exactly. Relief implied confidence, and Tony didn't have confidence in anything right now. What he had was a thread. A single, thin, possibly imaginary thread connecting him to the possibility of not dying in the next ninety days.
A magic potion. From a teenage wizard. To cure poisoning caused by the miniaturized nuclear reactor in his chest.
My life has gotten extremely weird.
Tony picked up the glass sitting on his workbench. The liquid inside was dark green, thick, vaguely luminous. Chlorophyll concentrate. His own recipe. It tasted like lawn clippings mixed with battery acid, and it did almost nothing for the palladium levels in his blood. But it made him feel like he was doing something, which was better than sitting still and waiting to die.
He drank it in one swallow. Grimaced. Set the glass down.
The Stark Expo opened in two days. The first Expo since he'd become Iron Man. Possibly the last Expo of his life. The irony wasn't lost on him.
If this is my last show, it's going to be one hell of a show.
Tony turned back to his workstation, pulled up the holographic display, and started working on the opening sequence. Lights, music, dancing girls, a dramatic entrance in the suit. The works. If the world was going to remember Tony Stark, they were going to remember him at his best.
Not dying. Not afraid. Not desperate.
Just brilliant. Just Tony.
The green taste lingered on his tongue like a promise he wasn't sure would be kept.
END CHAPTER 36