It's been a while. I just started overthinking this adventure because I'm scared it won't be up to everyone's expectations, so I put off editing for way too long. On top of that, I'm supposed to have some doctor knowledge for this and I'm worried it'll be inaccurate. Anyways, enjoy what I have. try not to kill me for making you wait. I'm sorry.

IDon'tOwnMarvel

"I want to help." I called, following after Tony in steep pursuit.

"Yeah, nice try. You'll just mess something up." He scoffed, then stopping briefly on the stairs to point at me. "Isn't it past your bedtime?"

"I don't have a bedtime." I protested, continuing to follow him down the stairs. "And I can be careful. I hacked into your AI."

"You manipulated Jarvis." He tilted his head at nothing and raised a finger in the air as if making a point. "And don't say 'hack'. This isn't the 80's."

I glared at the back of his head and kept at his heels. Tony had taken me back three-ish months ago after making me promise not to disappear again without telling him where I was. Apparently he didn't like that Steve had been the only one aware of my location. He 'respected' the fact that I wanted to be alone, but he didn't like it, so now I had to make dumb promises for his peace of mind. The only promise he made to me was that he wouldn't yell anymore.

Right before I could follow Tony into the room, the glass door shut in my face.

"Tony! Open the door!" I shouted after him, only getting a mouthed out answer from him before he gestured at his ears. I glared at his fake apologetic smile. "Jarvis, let me in."

"Sorry, Miss Patel." The AI apologized. "It's not allowed under the new protocol."

I wrinkled my nose at that in distaste. "Yeah, well, let me in and I'll tell you who replaces you."

"Like I said - it's not allowed."

The camera in the corner got a scowl right before I turned back to Tony. "Pepper would let me in."

He didn't look back at me. "No, she wouldn't."

I shoved my hands in my pockets, hiding a soft smile while I came up with a solution. "Fine, but I want to go with you to see Mr. Rhodes on Thursday. I haven't met him yet."

He looked at me quickly through the door, catching the soft smirk I had. "I hate that you know about that."

He made a beckoning motion with his hand and the door opened, letting me in. I smiled and wandered over to my corner of the garage that Tony had so kindly left open for me. It really just consisted of a plain table with a drawer to hide my laptop and a few little trinkets that I stole from him. Since I was shit at engineering, I opted to just 'borrow' the stuff he made when he was in a sleeping daze and forgot what he was doing. I had no idea what half the stuff was, but when it looked cool or shiny, I took it.

Maybe I'm a crow...

"I am never going back upstairs if I keep coming down with a leech attached to me." Tony grumbled, then pointing over at me. "You hear that? Leech!"

I shrugged nonchalantly. "You let me in."

"I had to. You were holding my work hostage."

I smiled over at him and gave DUM-E a wave before pulling my laptop off the table and putting my feet up. If my brain wasn't going to let me sleep, I was going to spend my time being productive. I had been not only creating more malware, but also selling said malware to Fury for a small price. What can I say? I'm an entrepreneur. Right about then, Fury was in need of a Remote Access Trojan which, by my book is called a 'Zombie'. Fury was very against my naming system, but he consistently came back asking for more. Honestly, the amount of malware devices he thought he needed was a little suspicious. I wasn't complaining though, and...neither was he.

Tony rolled his eyes at me and started loading up a gun shaped object. By the time I looked over, he was already injecting something under his skin. My brain processed the familiar scene for only a moment before I quickly caught on to what day it was. Sighing, I got up again and moved under the table to sit. I was not about to be hit by one of his suit pieces.

We're still two weeks from christmas. Seems a little soon, doesn't it?

Jarvis mentioned a safety briefing, but Tony brushed him off quickly. "Micro-repeater implanting sequence complete."

I looked on at the scene with much more interest now. Watching him fail at this was high up on my list of things I wanted to see and do on this planet while I was trapped here for all eternity. It was best not to start thinking about that now though. I didn't really need another breakdown.

"DUM-E? Hi DUM-E! How did you get that cap on your head? You earned it." Tony stated, walking over to the robot. "Hey! Hey! What are you doing out of the corner, you know what you did. There's blood on my mat. Handle it."

I frowned at him. "Don't be mean. It wasn't his fault."

He looked over at me and pointed. "I told you to be quiet. You and DUM-E were co-conspirators."

I fought the urge to talk back and instead only watched as Tony jumped up onto the center platform overlooking his suit designs. He didn't tell me to be quiet… Man is he tired.

"Sir, may I remind you that you've been awake for nearly 72 hours."

"That sounds about right." I mumbled under my breath, eyeing him cautiously. Maybe I didn't want to be in here for this.

"Focus up ladies. Good evening and welcome to the birthing suite." Tony started, ignoring my snort at the name. "I am pleased to announce the imminent arrival of your bouncing, badass, baby brother."

He directed his attention away from his suits and towards the camera that was recording him. "Start tight and then go wide. Stamp, Date, Time." He waved his hands around wildly only briefly glancing at me under the table in confusion. "Why are you down there?"

I gave him an innocent shrug, "It's comfy."

He shook his head at me and raised both his hands with a small smirk. "Mark 42. Initialize sequence. Watch this. Jarvis, Drop my needle."

Christmas music played and Tony struck a pose in the direction of his scattered suit pieces. No response. I stifled a laugh when he started hitting the arm that held the computer implants in frustration and struck the pose again. This time, a glove rose and quickly connected with his hand.

He smiled at his success. "Alright I think we got this. Send them all."

Tony's satisfied smile fell as soon as one of the pieces crashed into a display case with a suit making him duck in fear. Another one flew by and bounced off his arm into the roof, shattering a light.

"Probably a little fast, slow it down. Slow it down just a-" He called, ducking as another piece flew over his head. "Little bit."

I looked on from under the table while each piece finally found its way to him. That was when the face piece crashed over the table I was under, turning off the music and scattering some of my objects on the floor. I covered my head when it impacted and managed to only get hit with a falling pen. Tony's attention was still on the floating mask as it flew in his direction. He narrowed his eyes in a short stand off before it took off towards him and he flipped, latching it to his face.

He stood up straighter, puffing out his chest. "I'm the best."

I covered my mouth when I laughed, getting a confused look from him.

"What-"

The final piece came flying out of the display case and hit him hard in the back, sending him and all the pieces of his suit skidding across the floor. I laughed harder only for him to pull off the mask and shoot me a look. I covered my mouth again to try and hide it.

"As always, sir, a great pleasure to watch you work."

I bit my lip to hide the laughter and Tony rolled his eyes while sitting up and fighting back a smile. "Oh, you think that's funny?"

"A little bit, yeah." I admitted, watching him try to pull himself to his feet.

"Watch your back, Sparkles."

Hours later I was sitting upstairs in my newly dyed sweatshirt. Tony almost walked by down to the garage before he noticed me wearing it and smirked. He flopped down next to me with a shit eating grin. "Pink suits you."

I only gave him a quick glare, before turning back to the 'Zombie'. Just because the sweatshirt was pink, didn't mean I was going to neglect to wear it. Clothes are clothes. Also, I was feeling pretty defiant so I didn't want him to think he won by making me throw out a perfectly good sweatshirt. I was just about to speak up again on that matter when I got cut off by the TV screen turning itself on.

It only took me half a second to recognize the graphic images while my blood ran cold. Okay, okay, sure, I knew this was coming. That didn't, however, prepare me for the panicked feeling that set in at the sight of a second villain that I was going to have to deal with. Plus, those glowy people were terrifying and very hearty creatures.

"Some people call me a terrorist, I consider myself a teacher."

I just stared while the scenes played. Tony mainly looked confused, leaving me to be the actual scared one while my mind spiraled into the realization that I was going to have to actually do something here. I'd messed with the future before, but now I knew the consequences of even little changes.

"America, ready for another lesson. In 1864 in Sand Creek Colorado the U.S. military waited till the friendly Cheyenne braves all gone hunting, waited to attack and slaughter their families left behind, and claim their land. Thirty-nine hours ago the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait was attacked."

The screen showed images of the Mandarin talking while occasionally flashing images or videos of bombs, putting me more and more on edge as he continued. "I...I...I did that. A quaint military church filled with wives and children, of course. The soldiers were out on maneuvers, the braves were away."

The fake Mandarin finally finished his spiel and got more to an 'on point' basis. "President Ellis, you continue to resist my attempts to educate you, sir. And now, you've missed me again. You know who I am, you don't know where I am, and you'll never see me coming."

Tony looked disinterested, if not mildly confused by the broadcast. It was when he looked over at me that I realized I felt like I couldn't breathe, carrying a pit in my stomach. He gave me a look of concern before turning back to the empty screen. "Jarvis, what was that?"

I took in a shaky breath and shut my computer. Eldrich Killian.

There were a lot of people and beings in this universe that scared me, but for some reason, the idea of a terrorist who was always wrapped up in his own head took the cake. I shuddered. Wow, Thanos is going to be fun to deal with if this is how I react to a human. I am so not ready for supervillain stuff. Oh, fuck. What about Pepper...

"It appears to have been broadcasted all over America." Jarvis turned the TV back on to a news station that was currently covering the cyber attack.

Tony turned away from the screen to look at me again. "You alright? You look pale."

"Yeah, just peachy." I tugged my hand through my hair and stood up, grabbing my computer in the process. "I, um..I gotta check something."

I did an uncomfortable fast-walk out of the room and into my own bedroom. Falling onto the floor quickly, I didn't hesitate to unstrap the journal from underneath the bed and flip it open to the correct page. I took a deep breath, dropping it on the bed before scrubbing my face to alleviate the unnecessary panic in my system. I knew this was going to be the first one, but it had no right being so difficult. Couldn't I have just dropped into the plot of Ant Man? That sounded much better.

After a minute of making myself relax, I took the journal up again and fell onto the couch to read it. The first thing I knew I had to do was go with Happy to the Chinese Theatre after he got suspicious of Killian and Savin. Savin. He was possibly the scariest thing I was going to have to handle over the next week and a half. If I was going with Happy to the Chinese Theatre, I was no doubt going to have to see him.

This officially sucks, I internally groaned, draping an arm over my face. Especially after Tony will hate me for not warning him about Pepper. Why can't this just be easy?

Wednesday came and went with me spending a lot of my time in my room. The Ancient One and I had certainly put in enough time with the 'chain of events' lesson to help me make plans for these events. On Thursday, Tony did allow me to come with him to meet with Rhodey which was nicer than sitting around worrying about Savin. Getting lunch was an added bonus too. Of course, I also had to do my own studies to figure out if Tony's PTSD was actually there and going to play a part in this terrifying adventure.

"If you embarrass me, I swear, you'll never be allowed downstairs again." Tony said, waiting for me on the other side of the car when I stepped out. I still didn't understand his need to fly here in his suit while I was forced into letting Jarvis drive me.

"You got it." I chirped, having a huge smile plastered on my face.

I hadn't officially met Rhodey yet, and I was almost desperate to get some new faces around that weren't Tony or Happy. Pepper and I did have a few pleasant conversations, but we were still kind of walking on eggshells around each other. I didn't want to freak her out, but by the way she acted around me, I probably already had. Not to mention, I was definitely still weird about having to wear her clothes that one time in July.

I rolled my stress ball anxiously between my hands and sat down at the small table with Rhodey and Tony. I now had a more nervous smile that could be compared to the kind you have when meeting relatives again on the holidays and they call you by your sister's name.

"Tony you brought a kid." Rhodey pointed out, giving me a small smile.

"Leech, more like." Tony grumbled, rolling his eyes at me.

I stuck out my hand for him to take. "Hi, I'm Lincoln."

He shook my hand awkwardly and passed Tony a quick look. "Is she...your kid?"

"No," Tony shut down the thought quickly. "I found her and she followed me home like a lost dog."

I snickered, picking up on his joking tone. "Not quite. I'm just living with him 'cause SHIELD doesn't know how to take care of kids."

"How did you end up with SHIELD?" He asked, sounding genuinely interested now.

"Long story short- I'm a dangerous minor and have nowhere to go."

Rhodey looked even more confused and maybe even slightly concerned when a waitress came up and took their order. I got myself a burger and fries with a root beer and got too busy thinking about eating it to pay attention to what the other two guys got.

When she left, Rhodey turned back to me. "Where's the rest of the story?"

I looked up at Tony who seemed to disapprove of my constant attention. Seeing that, I decided to keep it brief. "Tony ended up with me a couple months back and passed me onto Fury who promptly gave me right back."

Tony looked across the table at me with a joking voice. "Leechy, you make me sound like such a horrible person."

"You're a wonderful person, Tony." I gave him a sweet smile that he returned with a scowl. Turning back to the other man at the table, I had a more genuine smile on my face. "So, what's new with you Rhodey?"

"Not much really-" He started, only to be cut off by the TV mentioning his name and catching all of our attention.

"And how is President Ellis responding? By taking the guy they call War Machine and giving him a paint job."

"Same suit, but painted red, white, and blue. Look at that. And they also renamed him Iron Patriot. You know, just in case the paint was too subtle."

Rhodey turned away from it and already saw the look Tony was giving him. "It tested well with focus groups, alright?"

Tony put on a mocking voice. "I am the Iron Patriot…"

I cleared my throat, stifling a laugh while Rhodey defended himself. "Listen, War Machine was a little too aggressive, alright? This sends a better message."

I shrugged, pursing my lips and keeping back any sign of amusement. "I think it looks great."

"Thank you, see?" He looked over at Tony who was clearly already thinking about something else.

Said Billionaire just frowned at nothing, then passing me a glance before scooting closer to Rhodey. "So what's really going on? With Mandarin? Seriously, can we talk about this guy?"

Using my better judgement, I assumed he was questioning whether I'd be freaked out by the mention of our current super villain.

Rhodes lowered his voice a little too but for a different reason. "That's classified information, Tony. Okay, there have been nine bombings."

I winced at that while they continued. It would have been great if I could have prevented something like that. I didn't know where they were but I knew about them. Surely that made me at least a little responsible. More civilians had died because I couldn't remember little details. Or, if I did, I didn't write them down. I was snapped out of my own thoughts moments later when two small children came up to Tony.

"Do you mind signing my drawing?" One of the kids asked, holding a piece of paper out to him.

As soon as I saw what she had drawn, I started silently praying that Tony hadn't picked up any PTSD from the attacks on New York. He hadn't been sleeping much but that was a normal Tony thing, so there wasn't a real way for me to tell other than to wait for this moment.

Tony accepted the paper with a small smile and passed a glance at Rhodey. "If Richard doesn't mind. You alright with this, Dick?"

"Fine with me." Rhodes looked over at me briefly, failing to get my attention since I was still staring hard at Tony.

"What's your name?" Tony asked, looking over the picture. The girl responded at a shy whisper and he turned to the little boy who had stayed silent at the question that was meant for the both of them. "I loved you in A Christmas Story by the way."

Tony looked back down at the picture and started signing, only for his hand to start to shake halfway through.

Oh no. I bit my lip while Rhodey continued.

"Listen, the Pentagon is scared. After what happened in New York... aliens, come on. They need to look strong. Stopping the Mandarin is a priority, but it's not…"

"It's not superhero business, I get it." Tony interrupted, pausing his signing with the crayon pressed against the paper and an ever tightening grip.

Rhodey went on, not noticing the sudden stiffness in Tony's demeanor. "No, it's not, quite frankly. It's American business."

"That's why I said I got it." The crayon cracked and Tony raised a hand to his face, suddenly looking very pale.

I didn't really know what to do in this situation so I just tried to run through the random things my dad talked about after his shift at the hospital. Sometimes he said useful things, so I was hoping to scrap something about anxiety attacks in the rough four seconds that I had left.

"Are you okay?" Rhodey one again passed me a glance while also trying to pay attention to his friend.

"I broke the crayon."

"Tony? It's alright, I promise. Just breathe." I said, finally finding my voice and pulling out my limited knowledge on the subject.

Tony gave me a quick look of distress and I immediately felt my heart sink for having not done more. If I was a good friend, maybe I would have stepped in way sooner, but no. Lincoln just had to do trial by error instead of just asking if he had nightmares or some other symptoms. Before I could say anything else, the little boy whispered into his ear and Tony jumped out of his seat with a short gasp for air. I stood with him as he panicked and practically stumbled away from our table in search of safety.

"Tony? Ah fuck." I cursed under my breath as I chased after him. Rhodey followed too, beating me to Tony and crouching down in front of him. I knelt down too, and leaned in closer to avoid any bystanders hearing. "It's an anxiety attack, try and calm down."

He looked over at me through the suit with a tilt of his head. "Me? No, that can't be right."

Tony paused and looked back at the pavement, listening to something else Jarvis had to say, which probably confirmed what I had just told him.

Rhodey tapped on his helmet. "You alright in there buddy?"

"Sorry, I gotta Split." Tony stood up again and took off suddenly, leaving me and Rhodey standing in his dust cloud. With the absence of the superhero, the crowd slowly dissipated around us.

Rhodey turned to me. "Has he done that before?"

"No, first time." I shook my head, watching as Tony disappeared from view. "Was a little rude of him though."

"He did just leave you here, huh?"

"Yep." I started walking back to the restaurant with Rhodey not far behind.

"How'd you know what was wrong with him then?" He asked, sitting down with me again at the table we had previously abandoned.

I shrugged my shoulders indifferently when the lady came back with our food. "It's part of what I do."

"Is that what makes you dangerous?"

"Kinda." I muttered, smiling at the food and taking a big bite of the burger while anticipating the questions that were inevitable at this point.

"How?" He pressed on, interested in getting real answers out of me now that Tony was gone.

I wrinkled my nose at him. "It's complicated. I'm not really from here. I can trust you not to go to the government about this, right? They don't really know I exist."

He nodded, definitely getting way more into the subject matter.

"Cool, so, I'm actually from another dimension in the multiverse." I started, trying to be casual about it. "My universe was a couple years ahead of your own. I was in 2020 when I popped up here during the attack on New York."

He frowned and sat back in his seat, disappointed. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I was just interested is all."

I sighed. "Colonel James Rhodes- Officer in the United States Airforce and close friend of Tony Stark. Met him in MIT, right? You really did not want him to go to Afghanistan and had a short falling out with one of my favorite quotes. 'You don't respect yourself, so I know you don't respect me.' Coolest quote man. I probably still live by it."

Rhodey's mouth dropped open. "You weren't lying."

"No, I don't if I can help it." I used the take-out box that we had been given to start packing up my food.

"I have so many questions."

"I know, but I should probably check on Tony." I said, pulling out some of the money I made off of selling malware. Honestly, I was probably just trying to escape from having to answer more questions that involved my past life.

Rhodey started going for his wallet. "Oh you don't have to pay-"

I waved him off, picking up the food and getting to my feet. "It's fine. It was nice to finally meet you War Machine."

With that, I turned and headed out the door, leaving my money and Rhodey at the table. I was not about to talk about my home with him. Roughly six months later and it was still too soon for me. Way too fucking soon.