"Tony! So glad you could make it! And, er, you brought guests. Fantastic!"
Natasha almost rolled her eyes at that. Reed Richards was pretty much what she had expected—handsome, charismatic, fatherly, brilliant. Almost too good to be true. Sure, there was a touch of grey in the perfectly trimmed brown hair, and he didn't stand right—compensation, she guessed, for having his skeleton turned into the biological equivalent of Silly Putty—but overall, he had it together. The perfect hero.
She didn't trust him. Nobody was that perfect.
"Reed, buddy." Stark shook his hand, and couldn't resist pulling back suddenly to watch Richards' arm elasticize on instinct. Natasha watched Richards' face closely. Flash of surprise, then delight. He liked the attention. "My team. Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, and, uh, Thor."
"I am honored to make your acquaintance!" Thor boomed, clapping Richards on the shoulder. "I understand you will show us a second Yggdrasil."
Richards looked confused for a moment, but smiled and shook his hand.
"Oh! Don't forget your guest passes," he said, passing a small, clip-on nametag to Stark and Thor. There was a flash of something in his face, and then it was gone. Natasha watched him closely as he shook hands with Clint Barton—hint of distrust, general politeness—and Steve Rogers—admiration, respect, tinge of jealousy. And Bruce Banner.
Reed Richards' face went carefully neutral.
"Dr. Banner. Pleased to meet you. I enjoy reading your work."
Banner dropped his eyes, muttering something polite, and moved quickly past Richards to Stark, fumbling with his tag. He usually did when people made oblique references to the Hulk. Natasha shook hands cleanly and professionally, and followed her team. Partially out of habit and partially out of re-awakened paranoia, she did a visual sweep for cameras and security devices as they moved through the lab. Or mansion, really. She'd thought Stark's lab was large and expensive.
Natasha couldn't help noticing the number of cameras, tripwires, and sensors in the laboratory. Richards wasn't the paranoid type, and the other members of the Fantastic Four lived at the building (where were they, anyway?), so the security measures were… disconcerting. Natasha walked briskly and professionally and mapped out paths of escape in every room they passed.
"Here she is," Richards said at last, stopping in front of an enormous piece of equipment that looked… well… like something from a science-fiction movie. Natasha registered a twenty-foot screen and several control boards. The rest was a mystery. Stark and Banner were already playing with the control panels, looking like kids in a candy shop. She heard the words "teraflop" and "quantum operator" being tossed around.
"So, this is it," Rogers said, with a hint of disappointment. "The world's… biggest computer."
"Yep. Pretty impressive," Natasha said.
"It looks like something from…" Rogers shook his head. "Flash Rogers or something." He sighed and put his hands in his pockets. "So this is today's technology."
"No, this is Reed Richards' technology," Barton said. "I'm still having trouble getting my head around it myself. Parallel universe." He shook his head.
"And we don't know what could come out of there, so let's get our weapons ready and stand back when they fire it up," Natasha said.
"Come out of there?" Rogers said blankly. "I thought it was like—like a telescope."
"Not quite. It's really more like… a window," Natasha said. "I've been talking to Bruce—something about Heisenburg and determinism and our photons connecting with their atoms. I don't understand the technical terms. But I do understand there's a risk. We're making a connection to another reality—for now, it's observation, but, as with any connection, there's always the possibility…"
"The Tesseract," Clint said, bitterly.
"Not quite. But…" Natasha stepped back and checked her gun. One of her guns. "It doesn't hurt to be ready."
"Explain to me again why this metal…" Thor's eyebrows went up, and he hunted for a word. "This metal…"
"Computer," Reed Richards supplied.
"Why it is a 'she?'" Thor asked.
"Because she's gorgeous and powerful and probably gets hot when Reed's around," Tony shot in, before disappearing under the mainframe again. "Bruce, buddy! Look at this. Look. At. This."
Thor laughed. The Man of Iron and Dr. Banner were bound together—he sensed they were brothers of the battlefield, as he felt among his Warriors Three. They met over bewildering metal objects, not scores of slain enemies. It was the same.
But it had been a long time since he saw either one of them so… happy.
"This computer, she serves as Heimdall does in Asgard," he said, half-stating and half-questioning. "To let you see where you cannot."
"That's the theory, buddy," said Stark.
Suddenly, Richards' head appeared over Thor's shoulders.
"Ready to take a look?" he asked.
"Oh, yeah," Tony said. In literally seconds, he, Bruce, and Thor were pressed up against the screen (and only later would he wonder why Cap and the assassins were hanging back), staring at the blank monitor with eager eyes. There was a low whir as the machine hummed to life, and the room slowly dimmed.
"Come on," Tony said under his breath. "Come on come on come on. Show us your secrets…"
BOOM! The light exploded out of the console, and for a moment, nobody could see anything. Tony closed his eyes reflexively, noting the number the light was doing on his inner ear—wait. Light shouldn't affect inner ear function. It sure felt like he was getting vertigo, though. Maybe he shouldn't have stood so close to-
Blurrily, Tony opened his eyes.
"Okay, Reed, you got me," he said, exhausted. He was on his back and it was dark, he knew that much. "Great trick, top stuff, now can we get back to firing up the computer and checking out the—" Suddenly, the room came into focus, specifically the face leaning over his. "Reed, buddy. Hey, wait a minute, you're not Reed. You're not my—oooooh."
"Careful," Reed said. Tony winked at him—he hoped it was a wink—and sat up slowly.
"You're a devious little bastard, you know that?" he said. "Nametags… you chipped the badges and used them as focus points. So was it you, or my Reed, or both of you working together?"
Reed chuckled. He looked almost identical to the Reed Richards Tony Stark knew and bantered with, but his hair had gone completely silver, and he wore a very dark blue turtleneck instead of the customary Fantastic Four uniform and lab coat.
"Intelligence. I always liked that about you, Dr. Stark."
"Mr. Stark. Don't call me doctor unless you're willing to wear the nurse uniform—and, uh, not even then, buddy. No offense."
"He's not your buddy," came Natasha's voice. Craning his head, Tony made out Natasha and Clint perched on the edge of a large crater. A crater, really? In the lab? Then Tony's brain focused, and he recognized bent metal edging a very large—very Hulk-shaped—hole in the wall. Oops. He made a quick mental note to pay for that later. Assuming he was still a billionaire over here.
"No? Is this the evil doppelganger? Please tell me we're not gonna get into a Kirk/Spock standoff," Tony said.
"I'm not an evil doppelganger, Mr. Stark, and in reply to your question: both myself and… myself… designed the experiment," Reed said smoothly.
"Devious," Tony said, nodding. "We'll have a little talk later. Okay… Natasha, Clint… there's Thor… where's Bruce?"
"He transformed," Clint said. "Stress of breaking through, I guess. Cap went after him."
"Not before he wrecked the computer, though," Natasha snapped, nodding at a hunk of twisted, smoking metal that must have looked like a science fiction prop at one time.
Oh. God. No. Tony actually couldn't think for a moment. He wrecked the computer? Reed Richards' state-of-the-art, hadron-sensitive quantum computer? He wouldn't.
"He didn't!"
"I'm afraid he did," Reed said. "Don't worry about it, though; I'll have it repaired in under two weeks."
"Two weeks?" Thor scowled, a thundercloud building on his brow. "So we are trapped here for two weeks?"
"Thor, buddy, relax," Tony put in. His head still felt like a sledgehammer was beating inside it. "I'm sure Reed has Pop-Tarts and a spare bed. If not, I'll find myself over here—I assume I exist, besides me, right?—and crash at Stark Tower. Hey Reed! I'm alive over here, right?"
"Ah… Dr. Stark is a good friend of mine," Reed said diplomatically.
"Tony Stark, right? Tell me my dad didn't name me Bertram or something idiotic like that."
"Yes, that's right," Reed said. Suddenly, Natasha was right next to him. Either she was moving faster than usual, or Tony was starting a mild concussion.
"You're not telling us something," she snapped. "Listen to me, Dr. Richards. I hate being lied to. I hate being kidnapped. I hate being 'volunteered' for experiments. You wanna tell me what's going on here?"
Reed didn't move for a moment. Then he swallowed and looked down.
"Of course, Miss Romanov." He moved back, undulating, a few feet. "Our two universes are the most similar I—and your Reed Richards—have discovered. We've been searching for about six months. Reed made contact with me about two weeks ago and suggested a—collaboration of sorts. You see, our timelines are very similar. Loki attacked New York about five months ago, and Fury responded by assembling a unique team—the Avengers. Like your Avengers, our members are Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, and Steve Rogers, but…" he shifted uncomfortably. "Thor returned with Loki two months ago. Apparently Odin wanted to punish Loki through "redemption"—living on earth as a human for one year."
"You're kidding, right?" Natasha said.
"Yes, well, one doesn't reason with a god," Reed said ruefully. "Loki escaped from Thor's custody, ran amok in Vegas, killed fifty-eight people—the body count is still rising—and, as of yesterday, regained at least some of magic, despite Odin's promises. Thor is missing."
"So why send over the whole team?" Tony asked. "I mean, I could understand snatching Thor as a replacement goldfish, but why us?"
Reed twitched.
"It's… complicated," he said.
