By the time both teams had reassembled, suspicion and confusion were running rampant and each group seemed quick to point the finger at each other.
Thor, Bruce and Bucky had all landed in isolation, apparently the same was the case with their effeminate counterparts. It took a little while to calm Thor enough so that he wouldn't go swinging at these 'figments of Loki's trickery.' And unsurprisingly, the towering, armoured voluptuous blonde opposite with her hair in a braid shouted similar remarks, her electric blue eyes shining under heavy, crease eyebrows as her teammates tried to sooth her mistrust. She carried a hammer identical to Thor's, brandishing it like one would wave a fist in anger, but slowly she was able to quiet down, settling on merely shooting the heroes she was not familiar with dark, stormy looks.
Bruce's counterpart looked just as battered as he did at the moment. Her clothes were shredded from where she too must have transformed to battle, though a sports bra and stretchy pants seemed to save her dignity where torn fabric could not. She sported broken, crooked glasses on her nose, with bushy curls pulled back into a chaotic ponytail that would have been a few inches past her shoulders if her hair was straight. She gave him a wary smile, seemingly just as tired and aching as Bruce felt, and he was glad for a moment his female form didn't seem to have quite the temper that Thor's did, especially if she did have to deal with the other guy-, ahem, girl.
Bucky's counterpart had exactly the same reaction as he did when entering the clearing, training a gun on the nearest person who she didn't recognise and quickly switching targets every time she noticed another until both she and Bucky had their weapons pointing at each other. Their dark brown eyes both widened in recognition and realisation at exactly the same time. Bucky couldn't bring himself to speak, and merely lowered his weapon and looked back to Fury, refusing to acknowledge the lean, hardened woman with wispy, dark brown hair that fell free just below her shoulders. Bucky was sure she was ignoring him too, and for a crazy moment he wonder what her name would be, whether she had a nickname like his, whether she had been through the traumatic brainwashing and experiences that had turned him into the Winter Soldier. As if able to hear his thoughts, her hands clenched and he caught the glint of metal under the edge of one of her gloves. The same metal arm he had, by result of his fall from the train. His blood ran cold and Bucky shook away his thoughts, unable to get a clear handle on how he felt about that.
Clint, who had warily lowered his bow when he had received Fury's call and was sure the two he had threatened weren't going to turn on him, had arrived back walking well behind Claire and Nikolai. He had carried Natasha until she had gained consciousness halfway on the walk back and stubbornly insisted she was not a damsel in distress and could walk on her own two feet. Having already been exposed to Claire, she was not as freaked out as she noticed the similarities between herself and Nikolai, and grudgingly she had to admire he had a very mean sleeper grip, even if she had to experience it firsthand. The fell into place looming back behind their Fury and fellow SHIELD agents, eerily in synch with Nikolai and Claire as they did the same.
The Stark's and the Rogers' were the last Avengers back for both sides. Tony had abandoned his drained armour when Steph had let him after getting the call from Nikita Fury there was a tentative truce now in place. He and Toni had walked back, seemingly quite content to swap stories after getting over the shock of the whole scenario, though Steph and Steve thought the only reason the two Stark's were talking was to try and trump one another with their accomplishments. There was only enough room in the world for the ego of one Stark, after all. Steph and Steve gave themselves a wary, formal distance. Like two troops on opposing sides of the war giving each other enough space during a truce to bury their dead. However, feeling guilty as she spotted the hole Toni's repulsor beam had made in his suit and the burn that was beneath, Steph apologised profusely for that.
"I understand, battle reflexes, you work a lot better with her than I do with my Tony." Steve noted quickly, glancing ahead to the two Stark's who looked so small without their suits, but were bickering just as confidentially as if they were hidden beneath pounds of protective metal.
Steph gave a chuckle at that, shaking her head with an exasperated sigh. "…Trust me, it's not as easy as it looks, we just know sometimes we have to step above our own issues and work as a team. United you stand, divided you fall and all that. Toni co-operates… Most of the time. Just let her feel like the big hero and her ego does the rest of the teamwork for her."
By now they had reached the two groups and the Fury's began to take control, conversing quickly with each other out of ear shot of their teams, but slowly nodding every so often. With folded arms, Nick and Nikita turned back to their reunited ground teams.
"…Okay." Nick began, hushing everyone's quiet chatter. "…From what we can gather, we all find ourselves face to face with… Well, ourselves."
And just as everyone pipped up loudly to try and ask how that was possible Nikita's slightly higher voice rang out, and Nick found himself impressed how a slightly shrill tone could shut double the Avengers up so easily.
"ANYWAY, what we believe, is that Loki lured both our teams to a trap. And yes, before you ask questions, we have a Loki as well, she's a pain in the ass." Catching the thunderous look from the braided blonde, Nikita sighed. "Sorry Thora, but it's true. Now back to what I was saying, we can't see the purpose so far, but the Loki's have obviously co-conspired."
Nick piped up again, catching where Nikita left off without missing a heartbeat, their thoughts so in synch it was eerie even thought they were nearly carbon copies. "The glowing magic we all hit, at the same time, on both sides… We're guessing that the Loki's have somehow entwined the fabric of our two dimensions. When we all threw our own energy at the field, we sealed the final connection."
"The next priority needs to be discovering if our worlds have been fused through Loki's little trick, or, if one team have just been sent to the other's home." Nikita finally finished, both Fury's giving a wizened nod at the summary at the same time.
"…And just how the hell are we meant to figure that out?" Clint's voice rang out, sarcastic and clearly unimpressed with the chaos this mission had spiralled into.
It wasn't one of the Fury's who spoke, instead the short girl who was meant to be his counterpart, Claire, shot back with a tone full of just the same snark.
"That's obvious, dumb ass, we contact people we know who weren't near the blast radius. If they're the gender that we know them as, you guys are stuck in our world. If they're yours, we're stuck. If they're freaking out and babbling about a clone, we're fused."
The woman who must have been Phil's double spoke up now, frowning as the creases between her eyebrows grew more prominent. "And who can we trust to deal with top priority SHIELD information? This incident needs to be kept under quiet wraps, imagine the world's panic. Civilisation already barely accepts amazing super humans, imagine the uproar if suddenly double that power turned up in the world."
So all twenty of them sat for some time, puzzling over a possible confident with secret keeping skills, when suddenly Tony and Toni blurted out at exactly the same time, a loud and simple; "PEPPER!" For a little while they blinked at each other, amused.
"You have a Pepper too?"
"Duh, I mean, why would I bother calling him Virgil all the time, that's just… Boring."
"Did he make you promise to technically not be a superhero too?"
"Yep, oh god, maybe we shouldn't call Pepper then, we're both gonna get an earful about this-"
"STARK!" Both Nick and Nikita yelled, making everybody except the SHIELD agents jump with the amplification of two furious Fury's being just plain terrifying. Both Stark's sobered up at their anger and in mirroring motions wandered a little away from the main body of the group to make the calls from their respective ear pieces.
Toni held her breath, knowing so soon she was going to get yelled at and nagged about breaking her promise. She could see Virgil 'Pepper' Potts face in her mind from memory. Every freckle on his nose, the worry lines between his brow, bright green eyes that had only ever shown Toni kindness and even a love she didn't deserve at all. Toni was the worst girlfriend in history, risking her life on a daily basis, flirting up a storm with everyone when she went to social events, sleeping and eating so rarely that Pepper was starting to become just as much as an insomniac as she was from staying up all night and worrying about her. And now, the one thing he had basically begged her not to do, Toni had done it. She had remade the suit after only a couple of months clean, she had returned to action. Taking care of the world's problems when she could barely take care of herself…
Tony was having similar thoughts while the dial tone rang through his head, though he was more focussed on the technicalities. He had said project 'clean slate', not project 'I will never do this thing again'. He would've died today in the explosion if he hadn't remade his armour, then again, if he had properly kept his promise he wouldn't have been up north in the first place-
"Tony?" Chimed a familiar voice, the tone curious and light. Pepper obviously hadn't been home yet, to find him missing, his lab wide open with the rush he had been in to respond to Fury's call, a simple note of: 'I'm sorry' scribbled for her to find. Explaining the situation in a rush, Pepper forgot to even be angry about Tony's broken promise, instead she fretted about details like the explosion and whether he was hurt. Sighing in relief, he assured her he was fine before ending the call, feeling better now that he had heard her voice.
Tony turned to his counterpart, who had dropped to her knees in the snow, her hand shakily pressing the re-dial for a seventh time. As again it rang out into nothing, Toni refused to believe she was separated a dimension away from Pepper. No, it couldn't be, he just had to be angry, avoiding her calls, his phone had died. Logic niggled away at her feeble defences, a stinging voice reminding Toni that Pepper always charged his phone routinely, three times throughout the day, and the new software she had personally installed for him gave any device a battery life of at least twelve hours regardless. And no matter how angry Pepper could get, never had he refused to answer her calls, especially after a shaky night after New York where Toni had confessed what she thought would be her last phone call had gone out to him, unanswered.
Toni felt stupid that only minutes ago she had dreaded Pepper's wrath. Now she longed for it, any echo of his voice, no matter the topic. He could call her every nasty name in the book and say he was walking out of her life and tired of all her bullshit. Anything would have been better than this nothingness.
Tony felt a deep pity go out to the girl who was slowly folding in on herself as the dead line tone began to play once more, wandering over, he helped Toni off the ground, the shorter woman too numb to even realise she was leaning on him for support as they wandered back to the group.
At the Fury's expectant looks, Tony wondered how to phrase this so he wasn't too blunt for the wreck his counterpart seemed to be at the moment, barely holding herself together.
"I got through, Pepper wants me home straight away, but apart from that, I'm unscathed. But Toni-"
It was the first time he had used her name, and it seemed to be enough to jolt her from her shock. She gave them all a forced bright grin and tried to airily laugh it all off.
"Bad news ladies, and Nikolai and Marcus, we're a long way from Kansas, and unfortunately I left my sparkly red high heels at home."
Steph and Nikita exchanged a long look, wondering how long Toni was going to hold together at the seams, before turning to start making plans and arrangements with Nick about where they would stay to keep this whole scenario incognito until they could figure out a way to get home.
Steve was the only person who was left, as most began talking among themselves, who noticed the bubble of tears start to trail down Toni's face as she turned away, her shaky hand still pressing the redial button every time she thought no one would notice, clinging on to blind hope that she wasn't as far out of her depth as she really felt.