FULL SUMMARY:

For the Avengers of Earth 3490, another team of Avengers getting shoved in their midst by way of mysterious cosmic cube portal is really just another (stupid) Tuesday. For the Avengers of Earth 199999, it's a little more surprising than that-and it only gets more surprising when they find that the (very female) Director Tony Stark of SHIELD is married to Commander Steven Rogers (with children). Stuck in a strange universe while both worlds work to figure out why 199999 was sent there, the MCU Avengers are sucked into a life of domesticity and family drama, of bickering at the breakfast table and making up in time for dinner and a squid attack on Tokyo. Things seem like they will be relatively quiet until the MCU Avengers can finally return to their home world.

Or at least they did before the explosion.

A/N: This story contains underage substance abuse, past alcohol abuse/alcoholism, and character death. This is essentially the literary equivalent of a soap opera. I realize that Earth 3490 names the Iron Woman as "Natasha Stark" but here I have restored her name to "Tony" both to drive home the connection to her MCU male counterpart and also because frankly three "Natasha"s makes one too many "Natasha"s for me to handle in one story. Though we have little information about Earth 3490, I also assume Natasha and Steve have no children, so that is yet another element that makes me label this as 3490-ish. Essentially, 3490 with creative license. ALMOST 3490. I hope you all enjoy the story despite my extensive creative license on the 3490 universe.

If anybody asked, the Avengers got along great. They were all super enthusiastic about their teammates. They had a bond, the bond of comrades-in-arms, something deeper than brothers (and a sister). If anybody asked, the Avengers were doing great. And really, if anybody saw them work, they were…mostly doing great. Mostly.

"Stark, what the hell are you doing?" Cap demanded through the comm. What Tony was currently doing was, bluntly, disobeying direct orders. As Tony did rather frequently. To be totally fair, he had a perfectly legitimate reason for disobeying orders, but he didn't exactly have time to stop and explain the details to the good, science-deficient Captain.

"Stuff. Things. Take a chill pill Cap, I hear you're good at that," he said, flying straight towards the alien portal device. Shiny.

"Stark. Disengage," Captain America ordered through the comm. Stark could still see him and the others fighting aliens on the ground. No one seemed overly concerned about the spacey portal being opened not far above them.

"I'm not flying into the void, Capsicle," Tony said. He was rolling his eyes and it was a shame the Captain could not see the degree of his exasperation. His exasperation level was at like, a thousand at least. They'd been fighting these aliens for quite some time now, and that portal wasn't getting any smaller. "I'm shutting it down."

"We don't know how!" Steve argued.

"No, we didn't know how, but I'm pretty sure I've got it figured out now I've got a better look at it. Cover me!" Tony said. He landed by the shiny metal machine. Instantly two aliens were on him, but he took them out with a couple of repulsor blasts—easy. He had to concentrate now, though, so hopefully Cap would take that last request to heart.

"Widow, Hawkeye, Thor, Hulk, hold position I'm going to go cover shellhead," Cap said over the comm. Tony lifted the faceplate on the suit and started removing the gauntlets—he wouldn't be able to do the work he needed with them on. Just as they were off, an alien landed on the roof next to him.

Ok, bad timing.

Most of Tony's weapons were kaput now after the lengthy battle—repulsors were pretty much all he had left. He scrambled for a gauntlet as the alien advanced—it was green and it talked and that was all Tony really understood—and Tony backed away. But just as he was thinking he was cornered and he wasn't going to connect the gauntlet in time, he heard a zing. The alien was hit right in the stomach with a shield of red, white, and blue. Steve appeared on the roof just behind Tony, popping up over the side just in time to catch the shield which inexplicably boomeranged back to him.

"I'm pretty sure you're defying the laws of physics right now and it makes me angry," Tony informed him. He headed back to the machine and used the one weapon he had reserved for this—a lower power laser. He started dismantling the outer casing of the machine. Cap just crossed his arms.

"Hello to you too," he said. "And physics defying or not—I strongly think not because super soldier I may be but I don't think even Thor actually actively defies the laws of physics—you should be just be happy that it worked."

"Uh-huh, whatever, just play lookout for a minute," Tony said, looking over the insides. He saw a tell-tale blue and something in the pit of his stomach dropped. Gotcha. But he kind of wished he didn't.

"I'm sorry, I thought I was Captain," Cap said.

"You going to make a different call? Cool, yeah, leave me here vulnerable and kill your best shot of taking apart this machine," Tony said sarcastically. "Now get over here for a second, I need your—oh." Tony would have to wait a moment for the Captain's assistant. He was a bit busy smashing a hoard of six or seven green troll-alien things with his shield.

The green meanies had presented them with a whole new conundrum. No one had felt particularly bad about killing off the Chitauri—how sentient were they, after all? Once they'd taken out the mothership, they'd all collapsed on the ground like something out of Phantom Menace—they might have been living, but were they separate, sentient beings? But these green guys—Thor had called them Kree—were clearly sentient beings. They could speak English for Odin's sake. It was a little more difficult to go around smashing them into the ground. Cap, for his part, didn't seem to have that many qualms though. Hey, Tony figured, all's fair in love and war and this was probably war. One of the Kree had mentioned something about 'taking over' and 'extermination of inferior species' so Tony figured that was probably war. And it was definitely a setting ol' Capsicle was used to.

Tony put a gauntlet back on, but before he could do anything to help the Captain, Thor flew overhead and took out a couple with lightning before flying off again. That was all the assistance Captain America needed. He'd made pretty quick work of those aliens.

"Ok, yeah, very impressive and all—get over here quick I need your hand," Tony said. The Captain frowned.

"My hand?" he asked suspiciously.

"I should mention this is not a ritual sacrifice, yes, your hand get over here," Tony said. He pulled Cap down to his level—Thor appeared to be making passes overhead, taking out anything that dared to get up on the roof. "See that shiny blue thing? Your gloves will provide more protection against that thing than my gauntlets will. Probably. I need your gloves to grab it with. Just rip it out."

"What happens when you rip out the shiny blue thing?" Cap asked, and even though he wore his cowl, Tony could see his raised eyebrows in the widened expression of his eyes.

"Either that portal disappears or we explode or both," Tony informed him.

"Got a calculation of odds for me, Iron Man?" Cap asked seriously.

"15% chance we explode, 75% chance the portal disappears, 10% chance it's both. So, a one in four bet that we explode, and an 85% chance the portal closes," Tony said. "But the explosion won't be nuclear and should be limited to this building and the area immediately surrounding us—maybe a hundred feet out from this building max."

"And it's been evacuated," Cap said. He looked at the innards of the machine hard.

"It's our best shot, Captain," Tony said apologetically. "This tech—look, I'm a genius but I can't hack it. Better to just shut off the power supply. It would take me days, weeks, years—hell I don't even know—to crack it, and if we can't shut that portal—"

"No, you're right," Cap said. "Get off the roof, Iron Man, and tell me when you're clear a hundred feet or more."

"What?" Tony asked.

"Clear the area," the Captain repeated emphatically. "Get off the roof."

"But—no—but, wait, I'm supposed to—" Tony protested.

"You got a thing about killing yourself to close portals?" the Captain demanded. "Supersoldier. With a vibranium shield. I've got the best chance of surviving an explosion this close. Get off the roof, Iron Man, and that's an order."

"But—" Tony continued to protest, though he wasn't wholly certain why. His gut squirmed. Steve's argument made sense. It did. But. The idea of it made him uneasy.

"Damn it, we don't have time for this," the Captain snapped. He grabbed Tony. Tony was too surprised to do anything as the Captain picked him up, suit and all, and physically threw him off the roof.

His brain started working again at some point, and he managed to pilot the Iron Man again, stabilizing in the air and managing to pull up before he made a big Tony Pancake on the ground. Tony was definitely not a flavor of pancake he ever wanted to taste. He preferred blueberry.

Just as he righted himself, the portal winked out of existence. No explosion. Tony sighed in relief. His heart, still thrumming like crazy from adrenaline, released a little tension. He landed back on the roof. Cap was still kneeling, staring with a troubled expression at the tiny blue cube in his hand. It looked like a miniaturized tesseract.

"It's always this thing isn't it?" Cap asked. "Always that damn blue glow." He stood.

"Did you seriously just throw me off the roof?" Tony asked.

"Yeah well, you can fly shellhead."

"Rude."