Author's Note

Alrighty. First off, I claim ownership of nothing mentioned in this fanfic, with the exception of my OC, Nicole. This is only my second attempt at a fan fiction, the other being a Naruto fic some years back which I never got past the second chapter for ( I was young). This is (of course) my first Avengers fanfic, and most of what I know is learned from the movies. I have read none of the comics. If I mess something up, feel free to correct me. Polite and constructive corrections and criticism are always welcome. :3 Hopefully my writing will loosen up some as I get more accustomed to writing like this, as most of my online story-writing experience comes from RPGs (and not even human ones at that).

Also, if Tony seems like a bit of an ass right now, it's because he is an ass, at least when his beliefs are threatened and/or Steve brings lost kittens and/or twenty-somethings he doesn't intend to play with back to the tower. It's part of Tony's charm. :3

Chapter One

Walking through downtown alone in the late September chill, things seemed strange, probably because of how few people where out on the street. It was quiet as she made her way toward Fountain Square. Most of the shop fronts and office windows were bare, or covered in their normal signs and posters. Come in here. 25% off. Buy this. Hurry. Don't miss out. All of it meant to tempt the materialistic masses. Not that she hadn't fallen victim to those Clearance sale signs once or twice. She was just a girl after all, and every girl had her limits of self-control during sale season.

Roused from her musings by the little white guy on the "WALK" sign, she looked both ways before crossing the street. Just as she reached the sidewalk on the other side her phone rang, Iron Maiden's El Dorado blaring from within the confines of the front pocket of her jeans. Pulling out her BookBook phone case, she flipped it open and saw that there was a new message from Stephanie. 'Nic, where are you?' her friend had texted her. Rolling her eyes, she turned the phone on its side and texted back, 'On my way. The bus was running late.' It was normal. One minute late (okay, maybe more like ten), and Steph started worrying.

Just after she hit send, there was a flash of light from her left (a light or shiny something in a shop window, or someone's misaligned headlight, she suspected), and she stopped a moment to blink away the brightness, rubbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie. Thank Cthulhu her glasses had that anti-glare coating or she might have walked into a wall right then and there to save herself the trouble. Once she could see again, she stuffed her phone back into her pocket and started walking again, eyes on her shoes as she tried to remember when she had last been rollerblading, much less ice skating.

She was likely preparing to make a complete ass of herself, but she could deal with that. Even if she was terrible at it, it would make for a fun couple of hours, and then they would go somewhere for lunch, and she'd have a good time spending the day with a female friend, which would make her father happy. Her dad was convinced that she was spending entirely too much time with her guy friends. He was kind of protective, her dad. Never mind the fact that she both got along and identified with most males better than she did most females. The only reason she and Stephanie got along was because Stephanie was as much a tomboy as herself.

Just as she began to think that Stephanie should have replied back already, a car horn blared from just a few feet away. Her head whipped around and a taxi cab filled her vision, its brakes screeching. She stood there paralyzed, transfixed by fear as a screaming yellow monster bore down on her. Suddenly, just as she should have been turned into paste on the asphalt, she was swept off her feet. Still too shocked to move, she didn't even notice when the cabby rolled down the window and began alternately cursing her being and asking if she was okay. Funny, she didn't remember seeing any yellow taxis since moving to Cincinnati…

"Are you alright, Miss?" someone asked from nearby, but she heard them as though through a tunnel. Her brain was still busy processing the fact that she had narrowly missed out on an accident that could potentially have wiped her from existence. "Miss, are you okay?" they asked again, a bit louder and a little more firmly, and they gave her a gentle shake. This snapped her out of her shock-induced reverie, and she realized that she was being held in someone's arms. Her head swiveled around towards the voice, still too-wide eyes taking in everything around her while not really processing even half of it.

The first thing she noticed was that he was quite tall. Most of the people who had stopped to watch or who passed them by didn't even come to his shoulders. And he had a broad, muscular chest, to which her left arm was currently pinned while her right swung limply at her side. Blushing, she scrambled free of him and stood on her own shaky legs, hesitating only a second before taking hold of the proffered arm to steady herself. Once she had straightened her clothes and taken a few deep breathes, she looked up and actually saw who it was that had come just in the nick of time, out of the blue (or maybe that should be red, white, and blue) to save her life.

And she burst out laughing.

Nicole wasn't laughing anymore. She had told him her story, what little she knew about how she had come to be standing in the middle of a busy street, and he had told her his story in return. She believed him, that he really was Captain Fucking America, no matter how ridiculous it sounded, he was too convincing. She wasn't sure whether or not he believed her in return, or if he had even managed to follow her story. He seemed to have become hopelessly lost somewhere between 'texting' and "You're Captain Fucking America?!" Now, she sat still and quiet, lost in thought as she awaited his judgment.

Somehow she had been transported from good old sane Cincinnati to a version of New York City where Captain America (and Cthulhu only knew who else) was real (and he really looked like Chris Evans). He was not an actor portraying a comic book character in a movie, but a real person who was really turned into a super-soldier in a government-funded experiment, who really fought a real Red Skull, and who was actually trapped beneath the Arctic ice for seventy years before being discovered and thawed out again. She kept expecting Spider Man to swing by the window, or for the track team from Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngster's to come trotting by the window in gym shorts.

'Bloody fucking hell…'

She sat at a little table in a coffee shop, clutching a cup of hot cocoa in her hands (to stop them shaking), and stared wide-eyed at the man ('Superhero!') sitting across from her with a latté in his hand, his posture relaxed though he was looking at her with a mix of curiosity and uncertainty. She knew he was trying to decide whether to humor her or to take her to the nearest hospital for psychological care. She couldn't stand being stared at. Feeling as though it was everybody in the shop staring at her and not just Captain America (!), she reached into her pocket for her phone.

She still had a signal, but she had already tried dialing all of her family members' and friends' numbers. She either got a 'not in service' message, an angry or apologetic 'you have the wrong number', or in the case of her father's cell phone number, a Chinese restaurant. It took everything she had in her not to drop her head onto the tabletop and just cry. As it was, she couldn't stop the moisture welling up in her eyes, making them shine with stubbornly unshed tears. She had no idea what was going on. It was beyond her capacity for comprehension to understand what was happening.

Finishing his internal argument, Steve made his decision. It had taken him a while, between his initial ridicule and his simple difficulty understanding what the hell she was talking about (Tony had used the word 'texting' before, but he couldn't find it in any dictionaries). Finally, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, gift-to-mankind sitting across from her sighed and, finishing his coffee ('Vile stuff,' Nicole thought to herself), he stood and tossed the paper cup into the recycling bin. She eyed him, both curious and wary, as he stood there staring, waiting for her to move. "Well, come on," he said, his voice gentle as he held out a hand to help her up.

She eyed the offered hand a moment, as though it might turn into a snake, but finally she swallowed back the worst of her uncertainty and fear and took it. His palm was warm, and his grip was strong; it was reassuring, and it helped her get a hold of herself. Getting to her feet, she tossed back the rest of her cocoa like a shot, wishing it had some magical fortifying property. "Where are we going?" she asked, her voice as guarded as her movements.

"To the Tower."

"Yeah, no."

Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, tapping down on his frustration with his friend. Sometimes he still wondered what exactly went on in Tony's head. "She's just a kid, Tony. She's lost, and she's scared, and she needs our help!" he argued back, his voice firm, as though to brook no argument, but since when did Tony Stark let the voice of authority stop him? He was standing there with his arms crossed and his chin jutting out stubbornly. Tony does what Tony wants, and Tony did not want the crazy chick in his tower. No way, no how.

Glancing over the Captain's shoulder, Tony eyed the girl like he thought her crazy might be contagious. "She's talking to Thor about how we're all comic book characters, Capsicle. Like Thor's not confused enough without her help. She says she was in downtown Cincinnati one minute, heading for an ice skating rink, and then suddenly you found her in the middle of the road just staring at an oncoming taxi. She's clearly insane. She doesn't need our help, she needs to be admitted. How do you know she's not just drunk out of her mind, Steve? How do you know she's not on some sort of drugs?"

"I can hear you, you know," Nicole spoke up. She stood up, hands held low in front of her, clenched into tight fists. Her own jaw squared off stubbornly as she clenched her teeth. "I'm not crazy, I don't drink (and you're really one to talk), and the only drugs I'm on are for my asthma and allergies. I know it sounds crazy, but where I come from your name is Robert Downey, Jr., and you're not Ironman, you play Ironman in the movies." She turned to Steve. "Your name is Chris Evans. And your name," she pointed an accusing finger at Thor, "is Chris Hemsworth. New York has no 'Avenger's Tower', nor a 'Stark Tower'. It's all computer animation and movie sets!"

"You guys are the ones that don't make sense, not me!" She paused to take a breath before charging on with her tirade. "I don't know how I got here, where here really is, or what the deal is with you guys. I have cell service, but none of the numbers for my friends and family, none of which have changed in years, are working. I tried calling my dad and I got a Chinese joint, for fuck's sake! His number's been the same since he got a cell phone!" She was practically growling as she vented her frustration in a low, dangerous voice as the previously contained tears ran unbidden down her cheeks in glistening rivulets. "What I do know is that I don't belong here. I don't even understand where here is."

Steve made as though to approach and try to calm her down and Tony merely rolled his eyes and began to turn away. They both stopped when Thor stood suddenly and stepped up behind her, laying a hand gently on her shoulder. Her head whipped around and she attempted to pin him to the wall with a particularly venomous glare, but he paid it no mind. He gave her what he thought was a reassuring smile before turning to the others. "I believe that what the Lady Nicole is saying is the truth. She is from another place, another version of this realm." Tony scoffed at him, but Thor took no notice and continued.

"The mages and scholars of Asgard have long believed such alternate realms to exist, but few have ever seen them, and I have never heard of a creature from another universe being brought over to ours. I can sense the magic on and around her, though, and from what I understand of the subject, I could very well be this 'Chris of Hemsworth' in her realm." He paused a moment, unsure whether he should tell them all of what he knew. It took only a brief internal struggle to decide that it would be best for them and for the girl if he were truthful.

"That goes both ways, though," he began, eyeing first her, then his friends. "There is likely another version of her that is native to our realm, and she could be anyone: friend, foe, or innocent. The Nicole of our realm will be drawn to her, and vice versa. We must be prepared for the worst, to be safe." He squeezed her shoulder gently and Steve stepped closer. Steve felt something of a kinship with the girl. While she wasn't a runt as he had been, she had asthma like he had (and from how she talked about it, it had held her back from doing the things that she'd wanted to do for much of her life), and she had as much spunk as he ever had.

Tony just shook his head, arms still crossed in front of his chest as though to physically defend his scientific beliefs. He looked uncertain, though, because he knew that Thor wasn't the kind to lie to his friends. He just had trouble buying into all of that multiple dimension crap. His world was made up of cold, hard numbers, and even according to the laws of quantum physics it was an improbable stretch. Besides, that would mean there was more than one of him, and Tony stark was one of a kind, baby. He turned back to them, rubbing his forehead as though it gave him a headache simply considering the possibility. "Alright, look. Let's say for a moment that I believed you. Why would it be my problem?"

Steve's jaw tightened and he pointed a finger accusingly at Tony, but he never got the chance to tell him off. Thor beat him to it, gripping Mjölnir tightly in his hand, his brows drawn together as he frowned. His voice was low and regretful as he answered. "Because the magic that brought her here belongs to my brother. He's up to something, and I know not what his plot might entail, but it is certainly nothing good." At the mention of Loki, Norse god of Mischief and Trickery, the reactions were powerful, immediate, and decidedly varied all around the room.

Steve tensed up, concern for his friend-slash-rescue clear on his face. Tony's arms flew up into the air and let loose a stream of curses, and he mumbled something about karma and whether or not things could get any worse. Nichole looked torn between fear and excitement. On the one hand, she remembered all of the horrible things he did in the movie and the comic books, and on the other, Tom Hiddleston was hot, and if Captain America, Ironman, and Thor all looked like their counterparts in her world… "Well, if he comes after me, at least I'll die with a smile on my face." The men were utterly confounded by her reasoning, a faintly blushing Thor most of all.