New York City

2012

Long before the mysteriously moving Tesseract had practically thrown itself back at him, case and all, Loki had known what he would do should he get his hands on the glowing blue cube once more.

Underneath the cool, nonchalant exterior and mischievous smirk he'd presented to his (adopted) brother and the little Midgardian gang of hero-wanna-be's, hatred and an irate desire for revenge boiled just beneath the surface. So, he'd spent the past few hours rubbing his wrists against his bonds, pushing down his humiliation at being muzzled like a dog, and thinking up scenarios of what he would have done should the Tesseract be in his possession again. Now that he knew more about the stone and was, in a sense, freed from Thanos's tight reins, the god of mischief could think of so many ways he could take down the moronic plebeians and their junkyard technology.

Puny god indeed.

He'd show them. He'd show them all just how powerful the god of mischief and magic could be. He'd put Thor in his place. He'd make Freya proud of the warrior of stealth and mystique he'd grown to be. He'd –

Then it happened. The man of Iron (who Loki found himself reluctantly respecting, considering the lowliness of the creature) had collapsed suddenly in a struggle with some sort of Shieldagents, the case had dropped and skidded an impossible distance where it was casually picked up by a security guard, and dropped just as quickly when the Green One burst through the door (along with half the wall) and practically ran over said security guard. This time the case broke open and the Tesseract bounced once before sliding right next to Loki's foot, making him lift his eyebrows in surprise before quickly glancing around. Seeing as everyone was still preoccupied with the one they called Stark, he swiftly squatted down and grasped it with his bound hands, lips turned up in his signature grin behind the offensive muzzle. With a flash of sucking blue light, he stepped back into the space continuum and made his escape, his mind already focused and in connection with the blue stone.

It was time to use the Tesseract to place him into one of the magickal portals he'd set up for situations such as this. A sliver of space that served as a window into a timeless pocket of space Loki often used to recollect himself and think, something he'd discovered could be done by combining his own flow of magick with the power of the stone. With his…ahem, connections, he may very well be able to get back to a time somewhere in 2012, before the Avengers had assembled and all that. But something felt wrong… the usual gust of space rushing around him felt bumpy and even jagged at times, biting into him and making his entire being prickle with something akin to electricity. The flashing blue spiral of Space itself was marked and eroded with patches of black, red, and yellow….like the streets of a city at night. Concern coiled in his stomach like Jormungand at the foot of Yggdrasil.

He should have been in his cozy little pocket dimension by now.

In the next second the breath was knocked completely out of him, making Loki wheeze and gasp for an air that was nonexistent in the vortex, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head and his hair whipping across his face. It was like he had hit a stone wall – or like the Hulk had grabbed him by the ankles again and bashed him repeatedly against the ground. Only this time… this time, Loki was yanked suddenly and viciously to the side, nearly giving him whiplash before the world spun around him, there was a sensation of falling, and he felt the ground beneath his feet.

And hands.

And it wasn't really the ground – more like… grass?

The blue energy around him faded and Loki found himself blinking up at a starry sky, sitting on his knees with his hands on the manicured grass of a football field, wondering exactly what he'd gotten himself into this time.

"Robin. Rob. Robby. Roooooooob. Robin. C'mon buddy, you're missing Clash of the Titans!"

No answer.

Wally threw the communicator onto the couch with a sigh, morosely chewing on one of M'gann's burnt cookies. The redhead had tried to contact his best friend thirty-six consecutive times, and the bird was still not answering.

"Alright guys, I'm gonna go see if I can find Rob, I'll be back in a flash." he called out to no one in particular. M'gann was in the kitchen humming some sort of strange Martian tune as she pulled more cookies out of the oven, Kaldur was shaking his head and muttering in Atlantean as he fiddled with the audio cords to the TV, Artemis was savagely brushing her impractically long hair, and Superboy was intently watching his favorite show – static.

"Weirdos."

In a millisecond, Wally dashed to his bedroom and pulled on a dark blue hoodie with a faded Superman logo before zipping back to the zeta beams and putting in the coordinates that of the team, only he and Robin knew – the code for the Batcave. With a bright flash of light, he left the Mountain. Luckily, he'd eaten enough in the past hour that the nauseating trip through the zeta beam didn't make him throw up – if he'd done that in the cave Batman would have him scrubbing the giant Penny with a toothbrush for weeks.

"Yo Rob! You're missing movie night again!" Wally called out, letting his eyes adjust to the dark interior of the Batcave. As always, it was freezing – the fact that it was snowing in Gotham obviously didn't help. A dim, blue glow came from the array of computers set up on one side of the cave and he sped over there, crossing his fingers and hoping the person in the chair was his best friend and not the Bat.

It was neither.

"Master Wallace, I presume you have a reasonable explanation for being here?" the old butler said, not even bothering to turn around. He had on a headset and was staring up at the mainframe. A map of what could only be the head-ache inducing network of Gotham's streets was displayed with side screens zeroed in on two slow-blinking points of blue and red light.

"Aw, man. Di – I mean, Robin didn't say he had patrol tonight!" Wally moaned, shuddering at the thought of having to spend movie night without his fellow prankster. Now he had no one to double-team with against Artemis.

"It was not on his schedule, no. Unfortunately, the Penguin has decided to engage in some rather suspicious activity on Gotham East tonight, and both Batman and Robin have had to set out on patrol early without even having consumed an ounce of their dinner."

"I bet that made Dick real happy," Wally said with a wince, no longer bothering to use code names now that he was sure the Big Bad Bats wasn't around to hear. Alfred raised an eyebrow but made no comment.

"Indeed. I regret it for the young Master especially, he's bird-like enough without missing meals. Not to mention it is negative four degrees outside and he has orders to be on stakeout."

"Whoooaaa negative fo – wait, you're probably talking Celsius. That would make it, uhh…. Around twenty five degrees in 'Murican. Geez."

Wally shoved his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, staring at the unmoving red dot. It didn't look to be more than a block or so away from Pickerton's Ice Cream Parlor. An idea began to form in his mind.

"Say, Alfie, you don't think I could drop him a quick visit. Ya know, just to bring him a thermos of your awesome hot chocolate or something? I mean, from what Dick's told me about the Penguin he's not exactly a fast-acting sort, is he? So he could be out there for hours."

Alfred frowned, looking over at Wally for the first time since the Speedster's arrival. The redhead looked at him with hopeful green eyes, bouncing on his toes a little in nervous energy. Robin had been on that rooftop for over an hour already, and so far no changes had been made to the Penguin's suspiciously quiet status. Still…with the Flash's nephew's habit of effectively bumbling up any stealth missions, and in his civvies at that….

Then an unbidden image of Dick having to get up almost as soon as he'd sat down for a slow-cooked pot roast dinner and leaving to go sit out for hours in his less-than warmly designed costume for even more hours came to the elderly Englishman's mind, causing him to let out a world-weary sigh.

"It will have to be a quick visit, Master Wallace, and I expect you to deliver the thermos promptly and without delay. You shall report back here immediately and either wait for Master Richard to return or transport back to the Mountain yourself."

Wally straightened his back and threw up a salute, grinning broadly. "Sir, yes sir!"

If Alfred had been less dignified, he might have been tempted to roll his eyes.

"Wally, Wally, Wally. Will you ever learn you can't sneak up on a Bat?"

"What is with you people? Even Alfred knew I was there!"

"Shh!" Robin hissed at him, the white lenses of his mask barely visible from the shadows. The Boy Wonder was crouched on the edge of a thirty-story building, his cape falling around his lithe build and his black hair doing the rest of the work at keeping him hidden. Wally might have missed him entirely if Alfred hadn't given him a tiny watch-like device that directly connected him to Robin's tracker. The wise old guy had even given him a thermos of hot cocoa as well, as though he knew of Wally's tendency to…er… 'snack,' on other people's nourishment.

The cold air of Gotham hardly bothered him (one of the many benefits of a lightning fast metabolism), but Wally could see Robin give a little shiver every now and then - although that could just as well have been from the kid's insatiable need to move, a need often evidenced by the random flips and cartwheels and hand-walking he would do around the cave, something that came as naturally to the former circus performer as breathing. But yeah, either way, Dick needed some hot chocolate and good company.

"I brought the goods," Wally whispered conspiratorially, crouching down next to his friend and holding out the black metal thermos. Even with the hood drawn over his flaming red hair, he wasn't hidden quite as well as Robin, but he figured they should both be good for now. Robin made a quick scan of their surroundings before coming to the same conclusion and gratefully accepting the thermos, shrugging his shoulders.

"Thanks, dude. You didn't have to come out all this way."

"You kidding? Obviously I was saving myself from a long evening of trying to show Kaldur how to change the input on the TV and avoiding Artemis's punches."

"To be fair, you usually deserve those. And why are you guys all at the cave? Usually you and Arty at least would be out with Green Arrow and Flash on your own patrols….wait…oh. Oh yeah." The Boy Wonder lightly smacked his forehead with his glove. "It's movie night, isn't it?"

"Yup."

"Crap."

"Yup. You had one job, Rob, ONE JOB."

"Oh, shut up."

Wally smirked, reaching over to ruffle the younger's hair, much to the thirteen year-old's protests. If Robin hadn't been holding a thermos in one hand and a pair of high-tech binoculars in the other, the speedster would be sporting a very sore wrist at the moment.

"Honestly, I just want to hurry up and get this night over with. I'm cold, I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I have an English paper due tomorrow that I haven't even started."

Wally offered his friend a pitying look. "Memes?"

"Memes."

"Did you ever get a grade on that one you did in History?"

"The one where I was supposed to write a fake letter home from the viewpoint of a Chinese immigrant in 1870? Ya, apparently writing the entire thing in Mandarin symbols was 'disrespectful to the teacher.' Detention was nice. Mr. Walowski didn't even notice I'd replaced myself with a balloon under an extra hoodie I had in my backpack."

"Duuuuude, nice one!"

"Thanks."

"So what did you do instead of serving your time in detention like any other law-abiding student?"

"Climbed through the airducts and dropped mixed nuts into the hair of my enemies."

"Man, I wanna transfer to Gotham Academy so bad…"

"Trust me, you really don – "

Robin hadn't even finished his sentence when a sudden bright light appeared from the top of a skyscraper a few blocks over. Immediately following it, there was a loud boom not unlike thunder, causing the building beneath their feet to shake minutely. All around and for the many miles they could see of Gotham, lights began flickering on and off in waves, the sounds of car alarms sounding off echoing throughout the night and the screech of thousands of tires sending the night into chaos.

Wally was half-freaked out of his mind by all this, having jumped to his feet with a shout of surprise. Robin just set his thermos down carefully with a sigh of disappointment before slowly getting to his feet.

"Ol' Cobblepot couldn't have waited until I at least finished my hot chocolate?" he muttered darkly, shooting a glare toward the general direction of the now-absent explosion of light.

"Aw man, aw man, aw man, aw man…..this doesn't seem good, thisdoesn'tseemgoodatall!" Wally whispered frantically, slipping into his speed-voice by accident.

Robin had brought up the holoscreen from his wrist computer and was typing away furiously, frowning in concentration. With a growl similar to his mentor he switched it off again, tapping at his earpiece. "This isn't good. The signal's jammed. Whatever that was, it acted as a sort of EMP – I can't reach Batman."

Wally paled, trying to keep calm but feeling the urge to just zip out of there but only a fierce loyalty to his friend keeping him from doing so. Definitely not because he was frozen stiff with fear. And even if he was, this was Gotham. Trouble in Gotham was always like, ten times worse than anywhere else!

"Walls! It's no use – whatever this was it's messing with my entire system, I'm gonna need to get closer and see if I can get a read on the situation. Batman will be doing the same so that's our best bet to get communication up again."

"W-what? No! You can't go up there! That's like – like, Condiment Man levels of stupid!"

Robin looked over at him, his grapnel gun already out and poised to fire. Behind the mask, his face was completely unreadable – all business and in a full vigilante mode that only came with years of experience. Wally hated that face.

"Look, KF. I know what I'm doing. I can take care of myself, and besides, Batman's probably gonna be there before me anyway. Go back to the Mountain and save me some pizza, I might still be able to make it back in time for that, at least."

The nonchalance of the words snapped Wally out of his panic better than any slap in the face could. He set his jaw stubbornly, taking deep, even breaths to calm himself. He had superpowers. He should be even calmer than Robin in this kind of situation! Leaving his best friend to this, no matter the amount of experience the younger had under his belt, would be beyond cowardly. It would be just plain wrong.

"Nah. I'm coming with you."

Robin stared at him incredulously, his head cocking to the side. "You know how Batman feels about Metas working in his city."

Wally gulped, but pushed on. "Doesn't matter. I'm coming with."

"…and exactly how well has that particular phrase worked out for people in any movie ever," Robin muttered under his breath. Still, the situation at hand was calling and the longer he left it, the worse it would probably get. Not to mention, it would be good to have some backup when the communicators weren't working like this and he was going in blind. "all right. Follow me."

Without another word the young vigilante leapt off the building, the faint whir of his grapnel fading into the distance along with his twisting, falling-and-rising form. Wally grumbled about 'bats and their gadgets' before going back the way he came and taking the stairs. At superspeed, sure, but still. It was always kind of insulting.

Less than two minutes later he back at his friend's side, the two of them stealthily positioned on the skyscraper just opposite the one that had emitted the blast. From there they could see an enormous, spiraled metal contraption set up directly on the roof's center. The device was similar in design to their Zeta Tubes, with a few features from the Boom Tubes that the Light liked to use ("that's not good,"). Blindingly white ground lights lit up the area around it, and a few paces over a squat man in a top hat was cursing unintelligibly as he fiddled with a control unit, his face briefly lit up by the sparks coming off it in intervals.

There was no sign of Batman.

At least, none that Wally could see.

"Rob?" he whispered, lightly poking his friend's shoulder. "is Batman here?"

Robin shook his head, his mouth set tightly in a line of worry.

"Does…that look a bit like a transporter to you?"

"Worse. It's got designs similar to the reality disruption magic that Klarion uses to get back to his dimension of chaos."

"Wait, how do you even know – "

"Batman. The answer's always Batman."

Something the Penguin was doing must have gone right because the diminutive hook-nosed man let out a little 'aha!' of excitement before a light began to spiral from within the middle of the spiraled dimension device, growing in dimension until it filled the entire top of the building with his light. Wally had to squint just to be able to make out anything without hurting his eyes. It looked like the Penguin had picked some sort of a bundle off the roof and was waddling forward towards the portal…from his peripheral Wally saw Robin leap forward and shoot his grapnel out once more, his cape streaming behind him.

No!

The speedster used all his speed and strength to leap off the building after him, just managing to throw his arms around Robin's legs and holding on for dear life as they swung through the air fifteen hundred feet above ground, Robin only grunting once at what must have been a rather painful tug on his arm. They nearly collided with the edge of the building but made it all the same, the landing less than graceful. Wally had barely got his wits about him again from the dizzying stunt before Robin had rolled out of the landing and was sprinting toward Penguin, shouting something he couldn't quite understand. Finally the pressure in his ears cleared and he could make out the words.

" – HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!"

A second later he saw why,

The portal was glowing blue and was sucking the Penguin towards it, the draw seemingly growing stronger as the rotund villain eagerly let himself be pulled forward. Robin, with his lighter weight, seemed to feel the pull even more strongly and shot his grapnel to a nearby flagpole, the line growing taut just as he plowed right into the villain and hung on for dear life, trying to keep both Penguin and himself from getting sucked in.

Meanwhile Wally suddenly felt the air around him grow somehow…thicker, almost jelly-like and there was a blast of energy in the air that had him scrabbling to find something to grab, the only thing nearby being an air conditioning unit that offered little purchase for his gloveless fingers. The vacuum was growing stronger by the minute and he felt his feet leave the ground, leaving him in a parallel position that made it even harder to hold on.

"ROB!" he screamed, unable to see if his friend was still outside the portal. He heard his name gasped and he turned his head a bit, trying to see what had left the little bird sounding so strained.

That was a mistake.

The small movement was all that was needed for his fingers to finally tear loose from their anchor, sending him flying backwards toward the portal….and straight into a quickly weakening Robin doing his best to hold onto a struggling villain of fattened proportions. Naturally, this caused Robin to lose his grip on the decal line.

All three fell back into the electric blue maw of the portal, screaming themselves silly.

So this is a little something that's turned into a lot of something that I've been working on with another writer. We were hit hard by Endgame feels and I'm still languishing in DC feels and fun as well, so... CROSSOVER TIME! Peter Parker will be making an appearance in the next chapter, and our favorite Speedster and his ninja will enter Peter's dimension at a time set a few months after Homecoming. Shenanigans will ensue!

**** Also, since this was all entirely for fun and it is very hard to co-write with someone over Gmail chat, the POVs might be a little wonky (third person omniscient!). That being said, I've seen fanfics written in second person present tense, so just...er... enjoy if you want? XD Sorry for any confusion. Anyhoo, OONNWWaARRDDSssSSSsSS