Perspective
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed herein do not belong to me. They are the property of Marvel and Disney (Possibly not in that order?)
NOTES: This fic requires people to have seen 'Big Hero 6' and 'The Avengers'. It's also a really good idea to have seen 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier', as there are spoilers for it in the fic, though it's unnecessary to have done so to follow the story.
She doesn't know how long it took her to wake in this strange new place and she doesn't know how she got here. More importantly, she doesn't know how to get back.
She does know she's a long long way from home. Well, a long way from wherever what passes for 'home' might be, in a word where SHIELD was laced with Hydra and everyone was suspect and her cover was so incredibly blown by the secrets made known - made known by her own hand - that the life she had lived . . . had grown at least resigned to living (even if not grown comfortable. She's never comfortable). . . was no longer even a remote possibility.
She still doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But it is what it is, and for now? She deals. When she thinks back, it's of Hawkeye, not Clint. It's of Falcon, not Sam. And she's never thought of Captain Rogers as anything other than 'Captain', no matter how often she's acceded to his request she call him 'Steve'. But they're a world away anyway, and so it may not even matter.
She won't let it matter. What ever singularity of circumstance plucked her out of that electrical storm and landed her here seems to have been a one-off. A one-way trip.
It helps that this world is so brightly different. The languages are similar, the social structure reasonably analogous, despite a curious blending of east and west that is vastly more prevalent and harmonious than she's used to, and there's overall just enough sameness to make navigating it possible. The parallels are lulling, making it treacherously easy to make a false step, a slip. She doesn't, though. But she does let herself enjoy it, just a bit.
The local university is the logical first port of call if she ever wants to see 'home' again, and she heads there as soon as she figures out there is one: If anywhere's going to be able to provide answers, it's what's apparently the pre-eminent institute of technology in the country, chock-full with some of the greatest scientific movers and shakers this world has produced. The locals call it San Fransokyo Institute of Technology.
The scraggly, shaggy-haired child she quite literally runs into as she steps through the university's gate calls it 'Nerd School', and with multiple bowed apologies for a simple, unsuspicious accidental trip that left her upright and untouched and him sprawled across the pavement, he directs her to the administration complex. When she gets to the building a full three minutes ahead of schedule, she's pleasantly surprised to discover his directions are good; certainly he's far too young and far too dismissive of the institution to be a student here, but a number of the professors and teachers and support staff seem both old enough and relaxed enough to be his parent and anyway it's not her problem.
The fake ID she's sourced is as good as she'd hoped, there, and the staff are sufficiently impressed by her painstakingly forged government organisation credentials that they send a guide with her to the physics lab. The professor of astrophysics she wants needs wants to see is currently lecturing to a packed auditorium though, and the slightly anxious, overly-helpful woman who's been saddled with the task of guiding her to the professor and introducing her grows uncomfortable in the stretching silence. Brightening, she offers a tour of the other parts of the facility instead, 'because the project labs are always more interesting!'
Bemused, Natasha accepts; she needs to be able to move around this campus, and reconnaissance is never wasted, and as the boy from earlier today demonstrated, locals invariably have a better feel for a place than a map will ever give. Besides, a significant portion of the city's electrical power supply comes from the giant floating wind turbines fancifully painted as fish and anchored hundreds of meters in the air over the bay; it's not entirely clear what other technological differences this world features, and she hasn't seen any arc reactors, but Natasha's pretty sure an engineering lab's as good a place as any to find out, even if it can't possibly compete with the chaotically brilliant melange of projects and disasters that characterised Tony Stark's personal lab back 'home'.
Turns out it's pretty darn close, albeit much cleaner. The chaos is the same, though. The supremely unconcerned cat sailing across the room on four-paw jet thrusters doesn't even garner a second glance from the pretty blonde girl in front of the chemistry set, though the lanky boy half-hanging out of a dragon mascot suit drawls something about the designer needing to take hints from someone else, a hero of some sort (or perhaps that's a name? 'Hiro'?), if he wants to get the power and precision of his design sorted. Preferably before mangling the cat. Natasha looks a little more closely and privately agrees with him; the thrusters are large and ungainly, crude compared to what she's seen Tony Stark produce while drunk and dying and still so determinedly building his suits. The thought lets her relax a little, though the intimation that there's someone on campus who can - and does - do better keeps her wary.
Then the door spills open and a gaggle of students tumble through, high level physics equations peppering their staccato conversation and punctuated by gesticulations. Their enthusiasm is obvious, and draws the chemist and the mascot to them. Next to Natasha, her last minute tour guide surprises her by a genuine smile. "The astrophysics lecture must have finished so I'll take you to the Professor," she says with a nod. " But first, if you like, I'll introduce you to one of our students. He's quite the roboticist; the first person to win the Kanako science grant and the New Yoshida engineering prize in the same year."
Natasha couldn't care less about grants or prizes, but politeness is part of her cover, so she smiles and nods, turning towards the dreadlocked, powerfully built black man. She's slightly surprised when he steps to one side, his impressive bulk shifting to reveal the same short, slender child she'd bumped into earlier. He's chatting animatedly with the chemist and another, slightly taller asian girl and that affords Natasha a chance to look - really look - at him.
"Hey Hiro," The black man nudges his shoulder, "Annika says there's a lady who'd like to meet you."
"Whuh - okay . . .?" Brown eyes meet hers, warm and intelligent and tempered with loss but lacking the sharp-edged glitter, the tortured harshness of the last genius she looked at, and she doesn't know how she didn't see it before.
She's found this world's Tony Stark. He's fourteen at most, and frail-looking and shaggy-haired and can't possibly be up to anything more strenuous than lifting a textbook . . .and her mind flashes to the newspaper she read while sitting in that cute cat-themed cafe and the front page photo of San Fransokyo's resident superhero team and the page-two photo of a slight, blue-suited figure directing a six-foot red robot as they stop a runaway tram and she doesn't know how anyone could possibly miss the fact that the heroes' leader isn't short so much as he is young and innocent and standing right here and . . .
And he's this world's Tony Stark. Maybe she'll get to go home after all.
As always, comments and constructive criticism greatly appreciated - let me know what you think.