AN: Welcome back. Before we start, I want to make one thing clear: regardless of anything Marvel may, or may not, be planning, ... Coulson looked pretty dead to me. He will not be turning up, except possibly as a memory in the Marvelites' speech and/or thoughts. I know this will disappoint some of you, but that's the way it's going to be. Sorry. I hope you like my alternative.

Little Bird's Vengeance Chapter 2 What You Know, What I Know

The boy had been treated for numerous minor or old injuries. In the course of this, he'd been sedated and undergone a full medical examination. As he'd been unconscious before, it was unlikely he'd realize how long he'd been asleep. Or how much they knew about him.

Maria Hill watched him on the screen, sitting motionless in the cell, chest hardly moving as he breathed as little as humanly possible. A readout next the camera feed showed rate of respiration; worryingly low. If his trance wasn't apparently self-induced, they'd have called it a coma by now. As it was, the medics insisted that if he didn't come out of it in another day or so, they take him down to medical and hook him up to an IV and some monitors. After all, it had been nearly four days at least since he'd had any form of hydration or nutrition. They didn't want to actually starve him.

Various reports scrolled over other screens. The medical report, the incident report when he appeared, the tech lab's report on his equipment. Even his clothing was riddled with a sophisticated system to give a sharp electric shock to anyone trying to remove it. When they'd finally found the catches to disarm it, they'd also found it to be made of Kevlar and some other substances they couldn't as yet identify. The belts, boots and gloves seemed full of little gadgets and gizmos. They were still trying to get into most of the storage compartments.

They hadn't been able to find the switch on his mask.

A small sound called her attention back to the camera. The boy was starting to breathe deeper. Hill touched her comm unit. "Barton. Romanov. He's coming out of it."

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Red Robin's chest felt tight as he slowly started breathing deeper. His warning triggers hadn't been activated, so he took his time, slowly increasing his heart rate and breathing. He could feel his muscles cramping, locked in position for three days. Carefully wiggling his fingers and toes, blood circulation picked up again. When his functions had returned to normal, he opened his eyes.

It looked like nothing had changed, not that he'd expected it would have. The same barren cell sitting in the spotlights, the control panel to drop it just in sight. Coming up to it, out of the shadows, he could see a rough outline, that resolved itself into the archer he'd seen previously.

"What were you doing?" Archer asked.

"I needed to think," Red Robin replied dully. He started stretching, working the cramp out of his limbs.

"What about?"

"What I should tell you when you start asking questions again." Although his inclination had been to keep silent, he'd concluded that would get him nowhere- figuratively and literally. Running the hints he'd got from Fury through his mind, along with comparing it with everything he'd experienced, knew of or had heard about, he'd eventually reasoned this wasn't his planet Earth. He still didn't trust this SHIELD, but had decided he could tell them as much as he would tell the media back home. Anything else, he could play by ear.

The archer was waiting for something, and after a moment, the assassin woman he'd been with before appeared next to him. She was carrying a large bottle of water, a flask and a Tupperware box. "You must be hungry," she said. "Stand back."

He withdrew slightly, and the door opened. The archer had an arrow on the string, ready to fly, as the assassin moved in, setting down the containers before stepping out and closing the door again. Red Robin picked them up and retreated back to the bench.

"We weren't sure if you had any dietary requirements," the assassin said.

"It's fine," Red told her, taking a swig of water and opening the flask.

The woman pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. "I'm Agent Romanov, this is Agent Barton."

"Red Robin," he replied, sipping the soup they'd given him.

"That's a codename," Romanov said.

"My codename," he answered.

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Are you completely human? Do you have any powers or abilities that would qualify you as more than human?"

"A meta? No."

"Meta?" Barton asked.

"Metahuman. That's what we call it where I come from. I'm not one." He took another draft of soup. "But you already know that."

"Why do you say that?" Romanov asked.

"Because I have three cracked ribs, and someone re-wrapped them while I was out. You almost certainly took DNA samples at the same time, and you've had long enough to analyse them." He drank again. "Although I'm curious. Did you get any matches?"

"You can tell your ribs were re-wrapped?" Romanov said, surprised.

"I use a different method. But that tells me you already know a fair bit about me. And now I know a fair bit about you."

"What does it tell you about us?"

He finished the soup and leaned forward. "It tells me that despite your hard-line act, you actually care about your prisoners' wellbeing. That you have some pretty sharp tech guys working for you. But I reckon I'm better. And you know that whatever I do with my life, it's pretty dangerous, that I feel the need to arm and defend myself stringently. That I'm protective of my secrets. And I can tell it bothers you."

"Why do you think you're better than our tech guys?"

"You didn't get my mask off." 'Or find my emergency batarang.' "And don't bother asking how I know you didn't. I know the feel of it after it's been reapplied."

The two agents exchanged glances. His appetite sated, Red Robin left the contents of the box alone- eating too much after a five-day fast would only make him sick. And the agents would start asking him questions he couldn't answer any moment now.

"Where are you from?" There it was.

"I can't tell you. I haven't a clue where I am now, you see."

"You're aboard SHIELD's helicarrier."

"That means nothing to me. I'd never heard of SHIELD until your Director Fury told me a little about it."

"What country are you from?" Barton demanded.

"United States of America."

"And you've never heard of SHIELD?"

"No. Judging by your clear disbelief, I think it's a fair bet I'm from a different America." Barton and Romanov exchanged worried glances. Some history there? He continued hurriedly, hoping to distract them until he had a little more information about where he'd ended up. "But I don't know enough about where I am now to work out how far I am from where I was then."

"Where were you then?" Romanov asked.

"San Francisco, teleporting to, uh…" He thought about it, trying to work out where the Watchtower would have been orbiting at the time. "Somewhere over the East Coast, I think."

"Somewhere over the East Coast?"

"It's a satellite, and it's not in geosynchronous orbit. I'd have to work out exactly where it was at the time."

"You were teleporting from San Francisco to a satellite?" Romanov seemed to find that little fact a bit hard to swallow.

"We're in a helicarrier, whatever that is, a long way above the Atlantic," he pointed out. "The difference is?"

"A helicarrier is a flying aircraft carrier," Barton said. "We don't have teleports."

"Mixture of a couple of different techs," he shrugged. "Thanagarian Nth metal transistors, Rannian Zeta-beam transmission system, power cells from Apokaliptian Boom Tubes, it's fairly complicated."

"Sounds it. How do you make one of those things?"

"From scratch? Not sure. Depends what you've got."

"Barton," Romanov snapped. "Red Robin, are you claiming to be from a different dimension?"

"I don't know," he said, almost biting the words in frustration. "Different dimension, alternate reality, parallel universe, I can't tell without some research."

"Have you ever faced an extra-dimensional assault?" she asked.

"A few times. We won, but…" he saw Conner beaten at the hands of the other-world Superboy, Bruce's clone buried as he was lost in the past, memorial services for others he hadn't been close to, "it cost us. More than I like to think about."

"Then you understand why we can't just trust you?"

"I wouldn't expect anything else," he replied mildly. He stretched again. "Any chance of bathroom break?"

AN2: You have read this; what did you think of it? Don't be shy, there's that nice little button just over there that says "Post Review". Why not use it? If anything I've said has worried you, confused you, or otherwise made you question my sanity, I will do my best to answer any and all questions sent my way via review or PM. I'm afraid ranting at the screen won't get you any answers. But you're all such pleasant, intelligent people, I'm sure you wouldn't do a thing like that, right?

Hmm, note to self, might have to try harder to come up with new ways to ask for feedback...

Sorry. Being silly. But I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, why not check out some of my other works?

Back next week with more. See you then.

Katara