Bruce sat in front of his computer, watching the loading bar inch ever forwards.

Pepper came out of the kitchen holding two cups: one of coffee, the other of tea. She handed the latter to Bruce and took a sip of her own beverage. "What's the news?" she asked looking over at the screen. Bruce sighed and sat back, gesturing to the screen. "It's taking forever to load," he told her, "but once it's up, it will bring up the log of the device's activity, which should tell us exactly what the device did."

As it went, the load did not complete until later that evening after Bucky had returned from seeing Sam off to the airport to catch his flight back to Washington D.C. He had just walked through the door when a loud notification sound came from the computer. Naturally, the three of them were in front of the screen as soon as humanly possible. "Here we go," murmured Bruce as he clicked Show Report. The anticipation was intense as they waited for the activity log to come up.

It read as follows:

Activating systems...

Complete. Operating systems live and fully functional.

Scanning field for compatible transfer location.

Scan complete. (1) location located [i.d. 924d.w_o_w].

Locating valid targets for transfer...

Scan complete. (5) targets located.

Initiating transfer of targets...

Complete. Targets (5) successfully transferred to location (1).

Integration initialized at 1%.

Sending tracking data to [i.d. lr_tv]. (Authorization code: 070418)

Setting system to standby.

Bruce read through the text, then reread it several more times. Bucky and Pepper stood behind him, glancing at each other as they read the log. Finally, Pepper broke the silence. "So," she said slowly, "it transported them somewhere else. But... where? What is this '924' location it lists? And what does it mean by 'integration?'" Bruce thought about these questions, shaking his head. "I honestly have no clue," he admitted.

Bucky frowned. "W-O-W... That seems familiar for some reason. I just can't put- wait a minute." He looked up at the others. "That game Clint was showing us, World of Something-or-Other, had some sort of acronym like that. Maybe they were transferred to the game?" Bruce thought for a moment. "As bizarre as that sounds, I will admit that it's feasible based upon our limited knowledge of the device. Of course," he continued, running his hand through his hair, "everything is guesswork at this point. Until I can run some serious tests, we won't have any definitive answers."

"It'll probably help to figure out what this "lr_tv" location is," suggested Pepper. Bruce nodded. "I can likely track that part down easily enough. The hard part will be locating everything else, including our friends."

A long silence ensued, each of them lost in their own private thoughts. "Wherever that are," murmured Pepper, "I just hope they're alright."

AN: Hi, everyone! At long last, I have updated!

I'm especially sorry for how long it's taken me to write this (curse my goldfish-sized attention-span!), and I apologize if any of the technical jargon isn't the best.

This is just an interlude, with a full-sized chapter coming up in the near future. Until then, stay tuned!