Archive of Our Own

           In the universe, things exist that Buffy and Willow don’t understand.

           There’s a lot that covers.  Buffy and French, for instance.  He’d never really cared for French.  Tony'd tried learning the language to impress, you know how it is, but the spelling just does not make sense in his brain.  The Iron Maiden can do it perfectly, the showoff.  She just laughs at them flounder, though.

           But the most important is this:

           He doesn’t need the suit.  The design is nearly finished in his head.  The only remaining problem is the power, and without an Arc Reactor (simply not possible in this universe, unfortunately), he refuses to strap a bomb to his chest.  Trying to channel in enough power on his own would kill him.

           But he’s completely capable of all the same things using just magic.

           One of the first things he designed was the bracelet.  It was designed as a shock absorber.  When hit, the magic becomes visible, a green glowing set of runes and geometric shapes a centimeter above the skin spreading outward from the point of impact.  It makes punches a lot less painful, and protects him from attacks.  He’s trying to come up with a good name for it, something catchy.  Eventually settles on Exoskel.

           He can manage repulsor-like blasts, since he found a spell.  He can even vaguely fly, with that, though it’s hard to use it with his feet so it’s more like hovering.  Still, it’s enough to do weird awesome acrobatics and punch with more than a human’s strength.

           And he can do magic.  It’s still not very stable yet, but he can at least get the shields, which is more than enough, so there.

           He wears a hoodie and goggles (the ones he doesn’t use for welding) when he’s out for a patrol.

           So he doesn’t need the suit.  He can fight as well without.  They don’t realize that, though.  He can compare it once he finally makes his suit.  Without, he can’t sleep for ages.  Sparks travel across the circuitry of his synapses like the wires for a lights display.  He’s jittery like he’s overdosed on caffeine again, and it’s not the friendly, happy sort of jitters he gets sometimes when he’s in a good mood and can’t sit still.  He gets the urge to use magic for everything.

           He doesn’t.  He works out in his newly made workshop until he collapses, and then he sleeps dreamlessly.