Thanos was a bastard alright, his defeat was legendary, but at what cost? For Tony, a missing arm and a divorced wife. Who could blame Pepper though? This was the straw that broke the camel's back, the decision was almost too easy, there was no child that held them together, so it didn't hurt as much. It hurt her the most, to be frank, leaving the love of your life after he destroyed himself once again. The constant near heart attacks was too much to bear, what was the purpose of trying anymore and it started to take a noticeable toll on her mental health. Natasha was still in everyone's loving memory, Bruce always visited her memorial statue in central park. After a year of being in physical therapy, he was able to do fine motor movements of his injured arm once again. His sacrifice was worth it though, having half of the universe back was enough to make the pain in his arm worth it.
Tony sat in his lab, one-handedly tinkering on his arm, the iconic red was edged with gold to keep his Iron Man likeness, he smiled as the arm came to life, "there ya go, stop freaking out over fibers getting caught will ya?" He places the arm back onto his shoulder and grabbed his coffee taking a sip before spilling it onto his (thankfully) empty from a sudden yell. He glanced upto see Peter grinning with joy, "hey kid, long time no see."
The mechanic was met with a tight hug "hey Mr. Stark, it seems like forever! Let's go to the kitchen, Mr. Banner, Mr. Wong, and Mr. Wilson are all there!" Tony nodded before grabbing a napkin and wiping his mess up.
"So how were your last two months of school?"
"Easy , I finished early though, I won't be having the ceremony until June. Can you believe it?" The boy vibrated in his spot causing the man to smile.
"You've always been a smart kid, I never doubted you." He patted Peter's shoulder before following him into the community kitchen of the Avengers headquarters where in fact Sam, Wong, and Bruce were waiting for the man. "Hey Wizard, Bird, Green Giant, how's it going?" He yawned into his metal hand.
"Great, I can write now," Bruce beamed, proud of his achievement, waving his scarred hand, "how have you been Tony? I like the new arm." He glanced down at the red and gold appendage and nodded.
"I've been great, getting over Pepper, designing Sam's new wings which I assume that's why you're here," Sam nodded unashamedly.
"Everything is completely fine, why is the wizard here?"
"Kid dragged me here," answered Wong.
Peter smiled proudly at the answer and replied, "yes I did! Since you guys are the Avengers now we need to get closer as a team." Wong looked over at Tony who shot back a look of 'that's Peter for ya'.
"So wizard, how is keeping our reality safe working out for you and the other one" Sam held back his chuckle. Wong shook his head in disapproval if only the Stark knew about the man he was talking about.
"It is fine. Stephen is in another dimension currently to investigate some disturbances in our energy fields. The cosmic rhythm has been off-tempo lately and he wants to make sure it's nothing dangerous." the gang slowly nodded, pretending to know what the hell Wong said. He rolled his eyes "Something smells fishy and he's investigating" now they seemed to understand. Tony sat down at the table and stole an orange.
The sound of sparks could be heard behind Peter, "that should be him right now, a bit ear-" Wong was interrupted by Peter screaming as he jumped out of the way "hit the deck!" The sparks weren't their usual yellow, it was a deep ocean blue opening to a vacuum of kaleidoscope colors. The four men stood and tried their best to move away as two figures shot out smashing into the granite table, the portal closing. Pieces of charcoal granite and oak wood were scattered across the floor. Of the two figures one of them groaned loudly while the other could be hear whimpering.
Getting a closer look, both figures were female, the shorter one had a deep blue iron suit which let the lavender accents stand out the mint green lights creating a statement piece to the suit. The taller one was a…well completely different story. She was very tall, maybe 6'2? The platform boots didn't help, from her position on her back she had deep royal purple crossing fabrics that covered her chest and torso that lead to a loincloth skirt as long as her legs. Speaking of her legs one was exposed showing warm honey brown skin. Her arms were covered in the same fabric down to her wrists, but that wasn't the most noticeable part. The most noticeable was the extremely large yellowed dog skull she had on her as a mask and the midnight blue cloak that covered her head letting black curls barely peak though and almost tickled the bottom of her boots. The suited girl started to lift on her arms before falling back into the floor groaning loudly, her mask deteriorated revealing her heavily injured pale skin. By the looks of it, those two were beaten with bricks: scrapes, cuts that were actively bleeding, bruises to oblivion, it hurt to look at.
Bruce was the first to move, placing two fingers on their necks, "out cold. They need medical attention now," he motioned Peter to come over as he picked up the suited girl, Peter picked up the tall mystical one. The other three men followed suit to the medical bay. The two were laid on gurneys, skull girl's cloak was taken off with ease as he started with the robes, Bruce advised Peter to leave before he saw anything indecent. "Tones, can you figure out how to take off that suit on the other one" Tony nodded at the order going to her gurney.
Tony gave a suspicious look to the suited female, his latest Ironman suit was eerily similar to hers, but of course, a few design changes to accommodate for the female figure. If it is similar enough, then maybe he thought, pressing twice on her glowing green chest light, just as he thought her suit disintegrated into arc reactor. Her chestnut brown hair waterfalled over the edge of the gurney and the suit revealed gym clothes? More specifically, uniform gym clothes, for a school. Her short-sleeve white shirt had a cherry red patch on the right sleeve, an upside-down pentagon with two darker red gear shapes almost touching. He glanced down to her skintight just above the knee cherry red shorts. "What the–Friday can you search for this symbol? She clearly belongs to a school!" He started cutting once he noticed her stomach was heavily bleeding into the white shirt.
"On it, boss" the AI answered immediately. The gash on her abdomen was his main concern at that point, he started to work on that with the help of Wong. Bruce, on the other hand, was dealing with a shoulder being clearly dislocated. He faced a similar dilemma with the uniform, but she only had the shirt but with a cobalt blue patch with two baby blue twinkles instead. Those ten long minutes were agonizing, gloves covered in blood, fast hands with medical supplies, and then after everything, Bruce announced them stable with an additional Friday body scan to confirm. "I am sorry, boss, I can't find either symbol within the databases on any school around the Earth." That caused silence, not on Earth? Anywhere? Was this some extremely exclusive private school.
"I am going to contact Stephen; they feel like they aren't from here." Wong took off his gloves and threw them away and left the medical bay. Bruce managed to get them into hospital beds and hooked to monitors with Sam's help.
"We just going to leave them here without being monitored?" Sam looked at the two unconscious bandaged women. "And what are we gonna tell Fury?" Well, he had a point, how were they going to explain a smashed granite table and two random young women in the medical bay.
Tony took a deep breath, "Friday will monitor any movements, we'll just tell Fury we'll have to wait for what the wizards say. Remember what Wong said? They aren't from here, I'm sure he probably meant a different dimension. If they were Skrulls they would be bleeding blue right?" He sighed and took off his gloves, Bruce following suite. The three left to clean up the mess in the living room.
It was late, Sam left hours ago leaving Tony with Bruce and Peter. The sound of sparks caught their attention to the left as the two wizards they were waiting for appeared. "Finally the wizards are here-" "boss, one of the girls seem to be awake and panicking" "right on time" he groaned standing followed by the other two.
At the medical bay they spotted the taller woman struggling to stand, her ankles seem to wobble uncontrollably. Bruce was the first to act (stupidly) and grabbed her by the arm helping her stand "you shouldn't be out of bed ye-" the female turned quickly and raised her hand. Black like magic that showed the galaxy appeared out of her hand blasting him away, he slammed into a counter and groaned holding his back. Said black magic shifted into the shape of a six-foot-long scythe with a three-foot-long blade that was about a foot wide at the base. Wong and Stephen immediately formed shields of runes. She stood at 5'10, her black kinked curls were down her mid-back. She held up her brown hand and a similar shield formed but was dark blue instead of yellow.
"RWEHE IS HTSI! HOW ERA OUY!" Her deep voice yelled. Tony looked up "what language is that?" "Unidentifiable sir" "great." He groaned, looking at her it was easy to tell she couldn't fight, her ankles were shaking too much to keep her knees still. Now looking at it,her hands were shaking uncontrollably aswell. What he recognized the most was the look in her burnt umber eyes: sheer terror. He patted the two sorcerers' shoulders "put the shields away" he whispered. Inching closer to her she growled, that made him stop. It didn't sound human, it sounded like a dog. "Do you understand me? We are only here to help" "COEM AYN CSORLE I MA LIIGNLK OUY" he put his hands up defensively.
"I don't know what that means." He motioned her to lower her weapon, maybe gestures was a better way to communicate? "If you can understand me, just nod" she stayed silent, "she doesn't understand me." Her shield disappeared as she stood up straight. Her scythe disappeared into her hand. She placed a quivering hand onto her mouth, when she pulled it off her lips were glowing scarlet. Before anyone could react she was in front of Tony grabbing his face and pressing her lips on his. He screamed into it trying to pull back from the taller woman before she let go and he fell on his ass.
Stephen kneeled down beside him checking him for anything "Tony are you alright?" The smaller man nodded covering his mouth. The room seemed frozen in time as they all heard the deep female voice.
"Hello."