Disclaimer:
1. The MCU and it´s characters do not belong to me, neither does the DCU or the X-Men. I wish though.
2. English is not my first language, so both my grammar and my spelling are probably all other the place.
3. There is most definitely stuff I misunderstood or got wrong or whatever so:
Feedback is appreciated but don´t expect too much.
Honestly, I don´t even know if anyone is going to find/read this fic, so... But hey gotta start somewhere :)

Also, I got the idea through a bunch of other fics I read about Lanterns waking up in space and it haunted my mind for months! Sadly, I can´t remember any of those fics names though. They formed my bogus interpretation of a Green Lantern Rings powers, but those are more of a set-up, not what the story is about.

Edit: Have gotten multiple reviews concerned about this, so here it is:

MC is technically gay. Well, bi, but more interested in men. I didn´t add a warning before becuase it doesn´t really matter for the story. In the 60.000 words I wrote until now, there are like 3 refrences to that.

There won´t be a main pairing. I repeat, there won´t be any romance or relationship for MC. I don´t really care for writing romance. There is reason I put this as Humor/Adventure.

Chapter 1 – Space (or: AaaArgh!)

When I first woke up in space, just floating around, I had a panic attack. You know, the kind of shit that happens when you have agoraphobia and suddenly find yourself in fucking space. Okay, so I´m fairly certain that the fear of space is actually called astraphobia? But I am more so afraid of wide-open spaces and things, that make me feel really small – like space, so… Semantics? I mean, if you like space that´s cool for you but no thank you. Earth is a heaping pile of trash on fire thanks to humanity but it is my pile of trash (on fire).

Anyhow, I was freaking out and ohmygodthatisthemoonitssohugeohmygod! By now I was feeling hyperaware of my surroundings and was increasingly convinced of the reality of my situation. This wasn´t a nightmare. In my nightmares I can never move properly. I was moving just fine, ergo no nightmare.

What. The. Fuck.

Taking a deep breath, I halted in my thoughts. How was I breathing? In space? Where there is no air? For the first time since waking up, I actually looked at my body while touching my face. Observation numero uno, I do not have a mask on or anything. Observation numero dos, this is not my body. What is the difference you ask? Well, nothing much, just that yesterday I had boobs and now I had a dick. And yes, after confirming, that there was no mask allowing me to breath, I immediately started to feel my crotch.

So surreal.

The panic abated and I was just left plain confused, staring at myself for quite a while.

I had to admit, it was most definitely a nice body. Very muscular and lean and tall. So pretty much the exact opposite of yesterday. Well, except the skin tone. Even new me was as pale as they come. And if I have anything to say about it would stay that way, I fucking hate the sun. Make as many vampire jokes as you want, shadows and sunscreen were and always will be my best friends in the summer.

Now, after the issue with space and the issue with my body came the issue of my clothes. A skintight green uniform, that hugged my body nicely and quite resembled a Green Lanterns suit. Ah shit. I looked at my hands – a Green Lantern ring. Ah shit.

I dropped my hands in defeat, closed my eyes and cursed quietly in my head. So, either this is a very intense lucid dream, I am in coma, or I actually got ROBed? Call me crazy, but I was inclined to think all of this was real. At least I would treat it as such, I´d rather be cautious with my possibly very real life, thank you very much.

I grimaced as I began to think about what this ring meant. While I definitely counted as a nerd, I had never been a comic book nerd. There wasn´t even a comic book store anywhere close to where I grew up, so getting into comics would have been costly. I know, I looked. They sounded really cool and who doesn´t like Batman?

Sadly, I didn´t know a whole lot about DC, I watched the movies, sure, even the worse ones like the Green Lantern and I watched some animated ones (not bad!), the Young Justice show and read more than a few fanfics – even a bunch that started just like this! My patchwork of knowledge led me to be not that confident, I knew just enough to be certain that I would probably be in way, WAY over my head.

I vaguely remembered there to be a lot of problems with the whole Lanterncorp thing. Were the bosses in Oa not crazy or evil or something in the end? And didn´t nearly every other Lanterncorp of the emotional spectrum come with their own bag full of crazy? Shit, wasn´t there a Black Lantern corp, whose whole goal was basically just to bring about a zombie apocalypse?

And to crown everything off, I just had an idea that shit was up, but I didn´t know about any details at all. Fuck.

From panic to confusion to worry, my emotional roller coaster ride left me already exhausted. For now, questions of "how the hell am I breathing?" and "how the hell am I not a popsicle?" were marked off as "the ring, I guess?", no matter how much my brain wanted to protest that the super advanced alien space technology/magic did not make the least amount of sense.

My preliminary plan was to somehow contact the justice league, sorry, the Justice League, and ask for help. Let them figure it out. The League was a thing in most iterations of DC I knew of and in some they even should have some experience with dimension travelers. In all likelihood I would also meet one or multiple of my new colleagues there, who would help me with the training I would need should I be stuck here. Being stuck seemed likely, I didn´t just travel dimensions, this was a new body after all. Maybe I had switched minds? That would be reversible right? But other than that…

Thinking of my old life I discovered that whatever had put me here, had played with my head too. My memories felt like they were covered by a haze; yes, I felt sad at leaving behind my friends and family, especially my best friend, but I wasn´t as sad as I should have been. Not like my emotions were dampened, but more like those were wounds that had already years to heal. Even what I did directly before waking up in space felt like it happened years ago. It was a bizarre feeling.

Having my mind made up and calmed down significantly, I pulled back to the here and now. Ignoring my discomfort at the fact I was still free floating in space (AAAah!) I concentrated on the ring and tried to contact it mentally, the same way I had seen (read?) it done in some of those fanfics, for which I was suddenly very grateful.

I was a bit surprised that I hadn´t noticed it doing anything. Doesn´t the ring greet it´s new wearer normally? Wasn´t there some kind of vow I had to say at some point? And where is my Lantern?

Before I could panic about the ring being out of charge and me being stuck here forever, an interface popped up.

"What?" I was so startled, I actually spoke out loud. (How does that work? I thought there were no noises in space! Is this the ring? Comic book logic is such bullshit, I swear. I was never that interested in physics anyway, but this certainly isn´t helping my proficiency here!)

This, this was not how this should work.

The interface had a slight green tint to it, in the upper left corner was a full health bar and in the upper right were the options. After a moment of baffled staring I concentrated on the options symbol and a new screen popped up. My choices were settings, archives, training simulations and help. If you need three tries to guess which option I chose, please give your family my deepest condolences.

On top of the new screen it read: "Please ask your questions"

"Em, whaa…", I said, very smart, much eloquence. "Where is the Lantern? How much charge do I have?"

"There is no Lantern as your ring has infinite charge.", read the answer.

"What?"

Now I was even more confused. This ring blew all my expectations out of the water. What was going on?

"Please specify your question."

"Smartass menu", I mumbled, fighting the urge to stick out my tongue like the grown up I was. "How did I get here?"

"No information found."

A bummer, but I hadn´t expected much. Still, worth a try.

"What information do you have about the Green Lantern Corp?"

After this question and many more like it, I had puzzled together a first idea of what was going on. There were no Green Lanterns here, no Oa, no other rings, in the archives was a list of all known aliens, no entry for Kryptonians, not even as "extinct". Looking at earth (a beautiful view by the way, had I not been so utterly terrified, I totally would have wanted to draw it) there was no watchtower in sight – sure it could be on the over side, but still… Was I not in a DC-Universe?

"Ring, can you connect to the Internet or a satellite from here?"

"Before accessing the scanning function, please successfully complete the training simulations."

I pouted and returned to the menu. The tab for training simulations opened and I felt my jaw hit the proverbial floor. Scrolling through there were hundreds of simulations. How was I supposed to go through all of them? I immediately returned to the help-tap with my complains.

"How can I complete all of this? What about food? How am I supposed to collect information to safely live while completing these sims?", I whined like the very much grown-up person that I am.

"Until the completion of the tutorial your body is held in stasis. It does not need to sleep. It does not to drink. It does not need to eat. It does not need to excrete waste."

Slightly indignant and more than a bit creeped out (very convenient, aha, it even called this a tutorial!) I sighed and started the apparent tutorial.

Training montage time, yay!

What followed were hours upon hours bleeding into each other. How long exactly I couldn´t say, I was very disorientated after a few simulations. Some of them took me more than a dozen hours to complete, others not more than twenty minutes (if I had to guess). I learned how the constructs worked, went through green hologrammed fighting scenarios, both in the air and on the ground, got to know how the scanning worked, what the ring could do and what it couldn´t do and even had quite the extensive first aid course. It gave me the option of repeating any simulation whenever I wanted, so I didn´t have to worry about finding a sparring partner ever again. Not that I had ever encountered that particular problem before. My brief stint in life with marital arts before waking up in space had been more embarrassing than anything and had involved a whole lot of conditioning and not a lot of fighting. Although I have been told, I pack a mean punch. Especially if it´s a punch in the nuts. Weirdly we were still friends after that. (Masochist, I´m sure.)

To my somewhat spoiled disappointment I still had some limits. Without the need for a lantern my ring would slowly but surely sap my energy with each construct until I would ultimately faint. The bigger the construct, the faster I would be out. A simple concept.

According to the ring over the years I would become more efficient, my mental stamina would expand. But there would be hard limits. No shield around the earth or something.

The last training required me to sift through the options. I was pleased to discover that I apparently never again had to learn a language as the automation option in the language menu made clear. Subtitles were also available for socially awkward people like me, who asked people way to often to repeat themselves, which yay!

"Aha!", I cried out in triumph. "Take this, you evil fiend! Never again will you force me to wear colors I do not like!"

I cackled in delight at my new teal-colored uniform with white highlights. Changing the suit in the settings hadn´t been all that difficult, I even redesigned the Lantern emblem, so that it fit my style better. I just added some elements from the other corp-logos I liked. The only thing that had been a bitch and a half to change had been the green. It´s not that I don´t like green. It´s fine in nature or some green here and there. But everywhere this slightly glowing foresty-green? No, thank you. It gave me flashbacks to the awful CG-suit in the film. Not even Ryan Reynolds could defend that one. In fact, I remembered him actively dissing the suit later in his role as Deadpool. The second variation of Deadpool that is. Man, that guy has a lot of charisma with how quickly he made me forgive and forget the many shitty movies he´s been in.

Anyhow, back to my fight with the settings. The ring would only accept green but after a lot of fiddling with color grades I managed to find a shade of teal, that was honestly more blue than green. I counted that as a success and put together a night mode, as I like to call it. Well, it is a stealth mode, but I barley passed the stealth sim, so … yeah. The teal becomes black, and the white highlights turn a teal so dark, it is basically blue.

The ring changed too. It was now just a small innocuous dark teal band on my finger. I added a face mask à la Kakashi to the outfit as default and a hood construct to cover my hair, leaving only my eyes visible.

Humming happily as the interface turned teal too, I started flying closer to earth.

"Hey Ree, connect to the closest satellite and get me internet access so I can browse the news. Make sure no scanners or cameras can pick me up while I am flying. As long as I am suited up and not in civilian clothes secrecy mode is engaged.", I ordered my ring.

I know nicknaming my ring Ree was not the most creative, but I hoped Apple existed and the name was close enough for people to think I was just talking to my phone as I had developed the unfortunate habit of talking to my ring out loud here alone in space. I could already see the cringe in the future when I would inevitably end up talking to myself in the middle of a crowd full people who think I have a few screws loose.

The secrecy mode would make sure that I didn´t show up on any agencies radars until I wanted to.

I may not be in a DC-story, but the idea of an Amanda Waller scared the absolute shit out of me.

While following the automated route to New York, I solved my money problems. Well, it was mainly the ring that solved my money problems.

It established a bank account in the US of A and filled it with millions of dollars while making it look like that money came from multiple different European accounts under the same name. To that extent it fabricated a whole personal history under a new name, complete with a bachelor´s degree and a master´s degree in Arts, somewhat useless in the job market but very realistic to my skillset.

I was now officially Albert "Al" Ravenstock, a 24 year old rich Britt, that learned investment from his sadly departed Mum while growing up in a little town in Scottland. The sadly also departed Dad was from California and after striking some lucky investments with his late Mothers hard fought for wealth, Al sought to find a new beginning in his Dads homeland. Leaving behind the country where he was reminded of the passing of his beloved family and so on, and so on.

I was very proud of those emotional details that came from me, considering Ree did most of the work. Only the personal drama and the name were my idea. Of course, I couldn't use my old name, that name being female, so I chose the name I used to use in online games, Al. I came up with Al back then because it was one of the most generic names I could think of by the way. It all comes back around, I mused.

Especially my laziness.

I landed in New York City on an apartment building.

I didn´t really know where I was but my map told me there was a very expensive fancy hotel not too far from here. I let the ring retract my suit and it unveiled a dark teal suit with a white shirt and brown leather shoes. I hummed with satisfaction at my stylish ensemble and finally being able to eat again. Walking toward the exit to the staircase I thought about how it was very creepy that the suit I was wearing was teal. (WTF? Was I wearing this the entire time? How does any of this even work?! Just ignore it, don´t think too much about this.) In the end it is quite convenient for me.

Ending up naked would have sucked. So. Much.

I cracked the simple lock on the door and made my way to the street. I was vibrating with excitement, my first time in New York! I had chosen NYC mainly for touristy reasons. I was tempted to go to Tokyo, but I thought I would stick out a bit too much. Granted, I hadn´t actually seen my new appearance in a mirror but I was sure I would not be mistaken for Asian, considering every now and then locks of ginger hair fell in my face.

Yes, yes, I know, let the soulless ginger jokes begin. Nevertheless, I was satisfied with my new hair color.

Although, in my former life I had had a ginger friend, who wasn´t served at a shop because the teller refused to take the money of a soulless witch – which was wild. I had thought that particularly kind of discrimination had died out with the witch trials but hey - humans gotta human, right?

It was the late afternoon, and the streets were bustling. It was loud and smelly and there were people everywhere, but my mood was sky-high.

Finally, being back in between the living felt good. Overwhelming, but in a good way.

Even with my agoraphobia I would prefer a busy crowd to space any day. I may have gotten somewhat used to being in space, but it would never be comfortable for me.

I sat down in nearby restaurant that looked adequate and ordered myself a steak as quick as possible. Satisfied, I sipped on my (wildly unhealthy and sugary) drink and scrolled through more of the news discreetly.

On my flight still I had discovered that I was a: not in a DC-verse, no Gotham, no Starling City, no Central City, no Metropolis and no mention of any Superheroes except in comic form, b: not in my old universe, I did not exist here and c: out of my time, it was 2009.

That threw me for loop for a bit but with everything that has been happening to me? I just rolled with it. It did throw a wrench in my plans to pass off my talking to Ree as talking to Siri, but what can you do. At least Apple existed.

I pondered the idea of some sort of headset or something if talking to myself became a problem and grieved my version of the internet. In the here and now Myspace was still a thing, Myspace! I only knew what Myspace was because people made jokes about how outdated it was!

While exploring the internet I let a newscast play on the side while locking like I was staring out the window for everyone else.

One news segment made me do a quite comedic double take. With wide eyes I stared at the styled middle-aged woman delivering the news.

"It has been several weeks now since weapon manufacturer and CEO of Stark Industries Tony Stark went missing after violent attack fro-"

"Shit", I said loudly.