Chapter Two: The Gentleman

Tony Stark heard the sounds of a bowling alley. This was disturbing on so many levels. First, he hated bowling. The one time he'd gone bowling, Coulson and Steve destroyed him, metaphorically, and Thor destroyed the bowling alley, literally. And he knew for a fact that he didn't start the night in a bowling alley. Or without his Iron Man suit. Or sober.

He opened his eyes and lo and behold, shock and awe, he was in a bowling alley.

A bowling alley with some guy in a power suit, and a crocodile man and… didn't he see that pepper pot somewhere before?

Oh yeah. Superbridge.

He looked around and spotted a group of Icebreaker sheets.

So. He was back in Superbridge.

"Well ****."

Tony shook his head and looked around. There were ten lanes in all, and he was in the ninth.

To his right, a well dressed teen with weird eyebrows and a cigarette dangling from his lips was swooning over and some goth chick. Tony was surprised at how well they were dressed, given that they were teenagers. The goth chick was winning, apparently due to her date being so destracted by her beauty that he only ever had gutter balls.

To his left, a perfectly normal woman, blonde hair, a bit skinny, Tony would rate her as an 8. And she was apparently having the time of her life with a giant mutant (cajun?) crocodile.

"So there I was, playing poker with me and the boys. The Penguin's just finished playing his hand, Ivy looks like she wants to feed Black Mask to her babies, and Clayface has just finished his story. So, it's my turn to tell my story. And all of this time I've been wracking my brains; there was that time I joined Team Penguin, there was that time I had him in the sewers, there was the time I stole Pyg's serum an mutated a bunch of my boys to fight with me…"

"Which story did you end up telling?" The blonde girl asked as she lined up her shot.

The croc grinned. "The time I threw a rock at him."

The girl stopped and chocked, ending up on the floor, with her ball in the gutter. She kept laughing even as she hit the ground, and gestured with her hand. Her ball came out of the gutter, and made a perfect strike. "Wooh boy." She chuckled. "What did Clayface have to say about that?"

Tony shook his head and stood up. There was no way he was staying in this mad-house any longer. Dr. Strange showed him where to find the exit on his last visit he could…

He stopped and thought it through. Was he likely to get a date with another corpse? Well, according to Strange, the only way to get to Superbridge was to email in a time for the portal workers to get picked up. So obviously he hadn't cancelled his Superbridge account. Or maybe he just made up a new one in his new drunken stupor. So… assuming he made a new account, he would probably remember to ask for a nice living girl instead of a dead one.

But he wasn't going to take the chance.

He got up, checked himself to make sure he had everything, and was about to walk out of the alley, when one of the attendants stopped him. "Excuse me sir, but if you left your date wouldn't like it. Also, you can't leave without turning in your bowling shoes."

"And are you going to stop me?" Tony asked.

"No, I'm going to let you go home, and then I'm going to call security, who will go to your dimension, to your house, and arrest you, and anyone who gets in their way, for stealing."

Tony looked at the attendant. "Wait… aren't you the waiter guy last night? I'm sorry my friend stole your uniform but…"

"Sir, I'm a clone. Almost everybody working for Superbridge is a clone. I have no knowledge of anybody stealing my shirt because I am probably not the clone you're thinking of. I do, however, know that you're about to make off with those bowling shoes. And security is most definitely not comprised of clones. So if you would…"

Tony hesitated, then took off the shoes.

"I take it your evening didn't go as planned then?" The bowling alley attendant asked. "Date not to your liking?"

"I'm not one for bowling." Tony answered.

"Oh, I understand. Will we be seeing you two at the Spring Gala then?"

"No." Tony said. "I haven't even met my date."

"He's right!" Another clone called in from the back. "His date's back here causing a ruckus to find the right bowling shoes."

"So you're leaving before you've even met your date?" The attendant asked in shock. "Why?"

"Because my last date had no pulse and a pet maggot."

"Ah." The attendant nodded. "Yes, that does sound troublesome. I'm sorry about that. Do you have any idea why that happened?"

"Because I was extraordinarily drunk when I filled in my account." Tony finally got his bowling shoes off, and put them on the table.

He nodded again, and leaned behind the counter. "Hey, number 3287! Does his date have a pulse?"

"Oh yes." His clone buddy said.

"What's the hotness factor, on a scale of 1 to 9?"

"Seven I should think. Yeah, seven point five with a great personality."

The attendant shrugged. "So yeah, leave if you like, but…" He raised his hands and somehow managed to come up with the number seven point five on them.

Tony was just surprised they used scales of nine like he did, instead of scales of ten like everybody else. Still… a 7.5.

"I guess I could wait." Tony mumbled.

"Excellent." The attendant smiled. "Then you'd better keep your bowling shoes." He handed them back.

Tony sighed and picked up his shoes. "So… bowling? Really?"

"If you don't like it, there are tons of places you could go on Superbridge." The attendant began pulling up screens. "Let's see… you've signed up for our bronze package. The Bronze package is free with purchase, but if you signed up for our silver package or the gold package, you wouldn't have to deal with bowling. You could also visit any of the other attractions we have. There's the Olympic stadium we have on Segment 12."

"And… ah, you come from the Marvel Cluster. You could always check out Stan's place. That's where people from your cluster of the multiverse go to hang out. You see, with over eight billion people alive on most worlds, different people are alive at different times and have different children. But there are certain clusters where everybody generally couples together in the same formations, making the same children, hence, multiple Tony Starks, multiple Steve Rogers, multiple Nick Furies, all on similar worlds."

"That… actually sounds kind of awesome." Tony said, picturing a twenty Nick Furys in a barfight.

"Now, you just wait right there and I'll see what's taking your date so long."

Tony shrugged and put on his shoes. Maybe this date wouldn't be all bad. Sure, last time he had to run out in a panic, but this time could be sort of fun. Even if it wasn't, he could still check out 'Stan's place'.

He settled down into his old past-time of people watching. On the farthest lane, some kid had just knocked down the last pin in his lane. "Woo yeah!" He cheered. "Birds fly, fish swim, and brother, I bowl!"

He said this last bit as his date – looked like a nine, but you couldn't be blamed for mistaking her for a nine since she was wearing a bulky power suit – picked up a ball and rolled a strike. "But uh… you're good too." He amended.

Tony chuckled quietly. The girl was so out of the guy's league.

In another isle, an asian teen seemed to be having a fun time with her boyfriend. Neither of them were very good bowlers, which made Tony cringe when he realized he was probably – definitely – worse than them without his Iron-Man suit. Actually, even with his Iron-Man suit it had been… catastrophic.

Even more surprising was the ghost floating around bowling with a goth chick. He still hadn't recovered from when he had accidentally dated a corpse, but she didn't seem to mind when he went to bowl and his extoplasmic head tilted off of his neck, only held together by a few ectoplasmic sinews.

He shuddered and looked away. He'd had enough of dead people for now. He checked his icebreaker sheets.

Ask Me…

How I got my scars.

Tony blinked in surprise. And as he did, he heard footsteps behind him. "Okay, I'm ready for the date."

Tony turned around and met a man wearing a green patchwork vest and a purple longcoat and way, way, way too much make-up. Granted he had some horrible scars, but the make-up didn't do much to hide them, and Tony hadn't seen so much eyeliner in his life.

"No." Tony said.

"Oh, I like you already." The guy chuckled. "First words out of the gate, and they're already negative. What's your sign."

"My sign is NO." Tony repeated. "With a capital N and a capital O. I am not doing this."

"Oh, you're right. Bowling is so passé." The guy took him by the arm. "It took me forever just to find the right shoes."

"No." Tony squirmed, trying to get his arm away from Mr. Purple. "Maybe I wasn't clear, but I don't like guys. I like women. I like women a whole lot. I do not want to date a guy."

"But he's a seven point five!" The attendant from the front called down.

"I don't care if you're the hottest guy on the planet!" Tony yelled. "I am leaving now!"

He unhooked his arm from Mr. Purple's, but somehow, Mr. Purple had handcuffed him. "Oh come on." He winked. "How do you know you don't like it if you've never tried it?"

"Same reason I know I wouldn't like to be stabbed with a rusty fork."

"I can arrange that." Mr. Purple scowled and swung his foot around to kick Tony. Tony had always had quick eyes, and he realized with alarm that there was a rusty fork duct taped to his bowling shoes, and the kick was aimed directly at the region between his legs.

Then another leg came out of nowhere to block it.

The leg was attached to the teen with the weird eyebrows that was bowling in the other lane. He took out his cigarette and blew into Mr. Purple's face. "To prepare clownfish patte, you need to roll the clownfish on a flat surface."

With a kick, he broke the chain of the handcuffs, and then he kicked Mr. Purple down the alley. It was a strike.

"Are you alright?" The teen asked.

"Yeah, I'm alright." Tony said, catching his breath. That fork had come too close for comfort. "That was some kick."

"Yes well, I came to Superbridge to escape transvestites." He growled. "I know what it's like to live that hell brother, and I would no sooner let a man starve to death then let you share that fate." He dusted his trouser leg off.

His goth date came up behind him. "So I take it that means this night is over?"

"Away from me fiend in a beauty's clothing!" The teen yelled dramatically.

The goth shrugged. "That's okay, I've found someone better." She went to the alley he'd kicked Mr. Purple down. "Hey handsome." She… no, now that Tony looked closer he realized she was a he – called.

Tony and the teen shared a shudder. "I'm right with you there." Tony said. "Listen, I don't want to make this night a total loss, but without my armor, and with my luck, I don't exactly feel safe. How about I hire you as my bodyguard for the night?"

The teen raised one weird eyebrow. "Well, leaving Superbridge would mean going back to hell. So for now, I'm at your service; the great gentleman, Sanji."


"HE WOULD MAKE A GOOD DALEK!" Dalek Sec noted, as he watched the man in purple get up, and dust himself off. Whoever he was, he had displayed great cruelty.

Dalek Sec picked up a bowling ball with his appendage. People commented on Dalek appendages before, often mistaking them for some sort of device used to remove blockages of human feces from inferior human waste removal systems. But the shape was perfect for the art of bowling. Who's laughing now inferior humans! Who's laughing now!

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Dalek Sec laughed as he bowled his twelfth turkey.

"That's the spirit Kaan." Luna cheered for him. "You're on a roll!" She weakly hefted her own bowling ball and managed to knock one of the pins over this time.

"YOU ARE INFERIOR!" Dalek Sec said. He moved behind her, and took her appendage in his own. "YOU NEED DALEK PRECISION!"

He guided her arm in an arc and she rolled the bowling ball right down the lane. The remaining five pins were knocked down. "Yay!" Luna cheered. "I did it!"

"BECAUSE I AIDED YOU!" Sec reminded her.

"Of course, how could I forget my Dally?" She wrapped her arms around Sec's armor.

Dalek Sec, for his part, decided to ignore the insulting human nickname. "CEASE YOUR ATTEMPTS AT STRANGULATION! DALEK ARMOR IS IMPENETRABLE!"

Luna pulled away and looked at him strangely. "I wasn't trying to strangle you Dally. I was just hugging you."

"WHAT IS A HUG!"

"You've never been hugged before?" Luna thought it over, then hugged him again. "A hug is a morale building exercise. Every species does it except Daleks looks like. I'm sure even Dementors must hug."

"WHAT IS A HUG'S PURPOSE!"

"A hug is comforting." Luna said, snuggling up against Dalek Sec. "It lets you know people care about you."

"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF CARING."

"But that's what you're here to learn right?" Luna pulled back.

"YES…" Dalek Sec felt that unnatural emotion well up inside him. They were bread to know only rage, but somehow, most likely through the Doctor, the Dalek race had come to learn of fear. But why did his fear well up now, when this foolish earth girl offered him his goal, to understand humanity for the purpose of crushing them? Why was this accursed emotion welling up?

"…BUT FIRST I MUST LEARN MORE ABOUT 'FUN' SO THAT I CAN BUILD MY DALEK BRETHREN'S MORALE! MY MORALE IS EXPONENTIALLY GREATER AFTER BOWLING!" He scooted out of arms length of Luna and picked up another ball.

"My morale is exponentially greater too!" Luna clapped. "Let's bowl!"


Tony learned that the Superbridge was divided into thirty segments, and that three Clusters, the Marvel cluster, the Darkhorse cluster, and Cluster 52 were so big that they had two whole segments to themselves, while most of the others didn't.

He and Sanji walked towards that segment, through a segment that belonged to its own huge cluster of universes, the Pottermore Cluster. The segment of the bridge was made of stone and had a castle feel to it, instead of the high tech vibe he got from the other segments.

"And that's how I became a hero." Tony said. He'd just finished telling Sanji about his escape from the Ten Rings terrorist group. "Except whenever I come here, it's always because I've drank too much and I've lost the armor somewhere."

"You remind me of our ship's engineer, Franky." Sanji said. "Except you wear pants, and I can actually believe you're a genius."

Tony laughed. "He sounds like an interesting guy. So, what's your story?"

"Your world sounds a lot different from mine, so I won't bore you with the details." Sanji said. "I'm the chef of the Straw Hat pirates. The captain's kind of an idiot, but I get to sail with two beautiful crewmates, and I get to cook for the man who will become the Pirate King."

"Are you guys the pillaging type of pirates, or the fun-loving adventurer type of pirates?" Asked Tony. He had seen Pirates Of The Carribean.

"The latter." Sanji said. "Although this one time we did decide to pillage a bunch of gold from this island in the sky, but this was after we'd saved them from a wannabe god that wanted to kill them all, and Robin-swan told me afterwards that the 'cannon' we thought the villagers were chasing us with, was actually a pillar of pure gold they were trying to give us out of thanks. So, I guess it wasn't really what you might call pillaging."

Tony burst into laughter. "There are just too many questions I have to ask after that."

Sanji laughed too. "We do leave an interesting life." He said. "I can't wait to get back to it."

"Why are you here?" Tony asked. "I mean, you sound like you have your eyes on a few of your crewmates."

"Nami-swan and Robin-swan." Sanji sighed. "Unfortunately our crew was separated. We were too weak you see. So we've agreed to go our separate ways for two years, then meet back where we left off. But I'm stuck in New Kama island."

"I take it that's a bad thing?" Tony asked.

"The new Kama are all genderless." Sanji glowered.

"… Ouch."

"I've made a deal with the emperor." Sanji explained. "She has secret recipes that will invigorate the body and mind. I'll have to go to the greatest martial artists of New Kama island, deafeat them to learn the secret cooking arts which will empower my crew when I meet them again, and all the while avoid the residents of New Kama island trying to put me in a dress. And I have to do this within two years."

"There's training from hell, and there's being a masochist." Tony shook his head. "How on earth can you live like that?"

"Captain would do the same for me." Sanji said. "Although he wouldn't understand the recipes. Is this the place?"

They'd crossed the 'Pottermore' segment, and Stan's Place was just ahead. There was a green giant standing at the door. "Looks like it." They strode up to the door, and Tony clapped the giant familiarly on the shoulder. "Hey, are you some alternate version of the Hulk?"

"Tony Stark." The giant grinned. "Is this kid with the weird eyebrows with you?"

"Oi!" Sanji lifted his leg up in a ready stance. "Who're you calling weird moss-head?"

"Yeah he's with me." Tony waved them both down before they got into a fight. He didn't care to see who would win. "This is the place where people from my cluster hang, right?"

"Them and guests." The hulk nodded. "There are a couple of Tony Starks in there already. Oh, and here." He reached behind him, and pulled out a plate with a slice of rumcake on it. "The managerial staff noticed you expressed displeasure in your match, so they sent you cake as compensation, and hope you'll consider keeping your application on the Superbridge multiversal dating station."

"Right, because everybody likes cake." Tony picked up the fork and had a piece, jokingly. His eyes widened. "This… is the best. Cake. Ever."


Pepper was concerned when Tony wasn't back yet, so she checked the tracker. It was in a black hole. Again. And this was why she'd told his bartenders to water down his drinks.

She called him up. "Tony? Are you okay?"

On the other end of the line, she heard Tony laughing. "Hey, Pepper. Guess where I am right now?"

"In the black hole?"

"It's not a black hole, but close. I am in a bar."

"Sounds like it."

"A bar in the middle of the multiverse! I'm having a drink with three Tony Starks right now!"

Pepper sighed. All the trouble of finding every place Tony drank at and having them secretly water down his drinks so he could carry on thinking he was a heavyweight… all for nothing. "Tony, Nick Fury needs you for the meeting."

"The let's-go-smash-Hydra's-ugly-face-against-a-wall-until-it-can't-see-clearly meeting?"

"That's the one."

"Steve and Thor will be fine. Hey, speaking of, there are five Nick Furies here! Five! Only, they're all white for some reason. At first I thought they were just having an eye-patch convention, but then they started scowling, and I'm like; yup, that's him alright."

"Tony have you been drinking?"

"Pepper, what kind of a question is that? I'm Tony Stark."

"Tony, as the person in charge of making sure you don't make bad decisions, I feel you should stop drinking, and come back down to reality."

"Pepper, think of the possibilities! I think I could find some people here with technologies from other worlds, worlds far more advanced than ours! We could leapfrog out tech! The Superbridge alone is a marvel of science! We could be billionaires!"

"You are a billionaire Tony."

"With dirty money. We could be billionaires without needing military contracts!"

"Tony…"

"Hey! Watch where you're going you… Logan?" Pepper winced as she saw the inevitable future. "Is that you? You're all short… and ugly… hey not the claws! Not the claws! Stark legion, to me!"

"Tony! Tony Stark what is going on!" Pepper yelled.

"Ah, excuse me." A new voice came on the phone. "Is this a friend of Tony's?"

"Yes, is he alright?" Pepper asked.

"Oh, you sound so beautiful!" Said whoever was on the other end of the line. "Do you know how fragile these clawed guys are?"

"Wolverine?" She asked. "He can heal from almost anything. I've seen him walk away from a bomb."

"Ah, you're so smart!" He cheered. "That means I can cut loose! Which is good, because Wolverine Stew needs the meat to be tenderized… brutally."

She heard cries of pain from the other end. "Hey, is Tony alright?"

"He's fine! Don't worry, I'm protecting him!"

"Who are you?" She asked.

"I am Black Leg Sanji, the chef of the StrawHat crew!"

Pepper shook her head. "Okay, Black Leg Sanji, do you think you could do me a favor and bring Tony home?"

"Of course mademoiselle! It would be my honor. And don't worry, I know a teetotaler when I see one. I've made sure he hasn't gotten any drunker after the first drink. Oi, I'm talking here! Mutton Shot!"

"Well, thank you, whoever you are." Pepper said.

"Ah, such thanks is like the singing of angels in my ear!" She could swear he sounded like he was crying. "Oi, I'm trying to listen to angels sing! You're even more annoying than moss-head! Coullier!"

The phone went dead. Pepper was still worried, but slightly less so. At least if Tony kept winding up in an alternate dimension – or wherever, she hadn't really understood when Dr. Strange explained – she'd have a friend waiting when he got there.

She sighed, and dialed up Fury to let him know that Tony would be late for the meeting.


A/N: Not that I have anything against gays or transvestites. It's just Tony and Sanji do, and the premise of the fic is thus; they are the multiverse's chew toys, and any date they have will result in spectacular failure.

Tony's date, as you may have guessed, was the Joker from a Dark Knight fanfic where the Joker is in manlove with Batman. I haven't read any personaly, but knowing the internet, I'm sure they exist. Sanji's date is Harveste Addams, from the fanfic of the same name, where Harry Potter is adopted by the Addams family.

The other couple were; an adult version of Terra from the Teen Titans cartoon, dating Killer Croc. He's a mix of the Killer Croc from The Batman (the one true Killer Croc in my opinion) and the one from Batman The Animated Series (mostly together just as a joke; 'I hit him with a rock!'). The others are Blue Scout from Team Fortress 2, with Samus Aran, and Juniper Lee from the similarly named cartoon, with Benny Rodriguez from The Sandlot, along with Death from the Endless, dating Nearly Headless Nick from Harry Potter. The other couples in the bowling alley could be anyone. You can imagine them as alternate universes of yourself if you want, or you could imagine it's your favorite two fictional characters. There will be a lot of background characters in Superbridge.

Oh, and while Stan's Place is managed by Stan Lee, the bar is run by Old Man Logan from the comic book of that name, and his adopted son who you've seen acting as a bouncer. And Tony here is from a world much like the Marvel Movie-verse, including every Marvel movie made, except Spider-man doesn't exist on that world, and Dr. Strange does.