11. Arriving and Planning

The moment they arrived in Tony's World, Peter dropped Steve and Wanda's hands and looked around.

They'd arrived back at the place they'd left, outside the compound's common room, however it was not the same version of the compound they'd left. This was the building as it had been before Thanos destroyed it and they had it rebuilt.

Peter felt a surge of fond nostalgia to be back. This place had been a home to him for years, and as much as he loved the new building and the care and thought that had been put into the gym for him by Steve and Bucky, this version had always been his favorite.

He heard gasps and retching, and looked around at his family, who were clutching their stomachs and bending over. He realized traveling through the Multiverse without a ship or suit to shield them was a little rough. He'd work out something better for when they went home.

Then he heard Sam say, "Wow, that looked rough. Get it out of your system… You'll feel better" and turned to see this world's Sam patting Peter's Sam on the back with a sympathetic look on his face.

"Okay, that's bizarre," Clint said, but it wasn't the Clint Peter had brought there—it was the Clint to whom this world belonged, whose hair was shorn close to the scalp.

"No, that's bizarre," Steve said, pointing at his doppelganger who looked at Peter with a sad smile and wet eyes, saying, "It's good to see you, Queens."

Peter realized this was going to be far more confusing than it had been to have two Tonys around, and he struggled to work out how they were going to manage it when there were two people to reply to any comment he addressed to one of his family.

"It's good to see you, too," Peter said, looking around at them all to include them, noting as he did that they were all looking at him with varying degrees of joy and sadness—some with tears in their eyes. He knew he would feel the same if he was seeing any of them after losing them years ago, but he couldn't deny he felt a little uncomfortable, as though he was on a stage with the spotlight fixed on him.

"You good, Pete?" Tony asked.

Peter pasted on a smile and nodded. "Yep, I'm great. How are you guys? Do you need water or to sit down? Or lay down?"

Though he thought it was obvious he was addressing the people he'd brought with him, those of them that were suffering from the ill effects of multi-dimensional travel, they all answered in a chorus of complaints, refusals, praise—and from Happy, a request for a chair before he fell down.

Pepper rushed inside and came out with a chair and placed her hand on Happy's shoulder as he eased himself into it. "It's good to see you, Happy," she said softly, her eyes sparkling with tears.

Peter hadn't thought of what it would mean to this world's Avengers to have Happy come back to them, too. He'd been focused on the mission they were here for, but now he recognized that Happy was also one of their lost returned to them.

He looked around at his family, noting that they all seemed to be examining their doubles. There were differences in them all. The Steve of this world had hair longer than Bucky's had been, and it was tied in a cord at the nape of his neck. This Rhodey had less hair than Peter's version and was strangely in his full dress-uniform instead of the casual clothes the others wore. Natasha's hair was jet black and braided down her back.

Though it was possible to tell them apart by looking at them, each with their own differences, some subtle some obvious, when Peter said, "Steve, can I talk to you for a sec?" both versions of him said, "Of course, Queens," in perfect synchronicity, making Peter do a double take.

"I mean, uh, my Steve," Peter said awkwardly. "Uh… Prime Steve? That's what The Infinity Stones call our world, though I suppose that's a little arrogant."

"Ya think?" the other Clint asked.

"No," Peter's Clint said. "We need to come up with a way to tell you and us apart, and as much fun as it'd be for either Nat to call me Prime, I can see that's going to be a problem. Hmm… Okay! Got it! I am Clint, not Prime, and you"—he pointed at his double—"are Hawkeye. Simple. You get to embrace your superhero side, and we get to be civilians."

Peter knew it was a weak idea, and it would probably insult the entirety of Tony's world's Avengers, but it was a way to keep things straight and they really did have more pressing problems.

"I agree," he said. "It's the simplest way to work it. So, Steve… can we talk?"

Captain America opened his mouth to answer, and then remembered and fell back a step. Peter's Steve followed him around the building until they were out of earshot of all but the other Steve, Peter said, "I need to ask you something and I really need you to answer honestly.

Steve frowned. "Okay, go ahead."

"What did Bucky say to you before we left? I know he was really upset, but he didn't want to talk to me about it before and I didn't push through our connection. But I can still feel him, and I can tell he's upset."

Steve sighed. "You really need me to answer that question? Can't I just tell you Bucky is safe and will be fine when you get back?"

Peter was torn. He did want to know what was upsetting Bucky, but Steve was his best and oldest friend; Peter didn't need to break their confidentiality to set his mind at ease.

"No, I don't need to know," he eventually decided.

Steve looked immensely relieved and hugged him. "Thanks, Queens. I promise you, he'll be fine once you get home."

Peter nodded and said, "Okay, that excuse to delay done, let's go talk to the masses."

Steve chuckled and ruffled Peter's hair. "Let's go."

They were all waiting patiently when Steve and Peter got back, and Peter ran a hand through his hair and said, "Okay. We need to work out a plan of attack. First, we need to get the Mind Stone out of Vision. We'll need Shuri for that."

"Who's Shuri?" Iron Man asked.

Peter's heart sank. "Oh, well that's going to complicate things., but I can make it work."

"You sure?" Steve asked. "Because we've not got a lot of time if we're working against Thanos' clock like last time."

Peter sighed. "Yeah, true. But I don't want Vision suffering like ours did the first time around."

"Uh…" Iron Man raised his hand looking miserable. "I'm sorry, kid, but I think we have another problem."

Peter felt a pang of unease. "What's that?"

"We don't actually have a Vision."

"Then where's Wanda?" Steve asked.

"We don't have a Wanda either."

Peter's heart sank. How could he have spent a week with Tony, getting to know him and hearing about his world without knowing this? Then he realized they hadn't talked about Tony's world—they'd talked about Peter's place in Tony's world and how it was to be without him

"Well shit," Clint said.

"Language," Captain America chided, which made Peter laugh automatically and his family of The Avengers gave him a fond look. Peter's Steve, however, looked a little embarrassed.

"Been a while since we heard that," Natasha said with a smile. "Shame Tony had to miss it."

"And I'm not even a little sorry he did," Steve said.

"Ha-dee-ha-ha…" Power said snidely. "You've got a problem, kid. Stark Mark II was holding a lot back about this world. Ask him who their enemy is."

A little worried, Peter said, "Tony, who would you call your greatest enemy?"

It was Captain America that answered, a bite of anger in his voice. "Hydra. Between us and SHIELD we're beating them down. but they've got a way of resurging every year or so."

"SHIELD?" Natasha said incredulously. "Oh, wow, we've got a lot to tell you."

"Let's sit down then," Captain America said. "I have a feeling I need to take notes."

"It's not that complicated," Clint said. "You just have to accept you've been lied to for years and that you've been manipulated by Nazis. Yeah, you'll be furious that you were too stupid to realize, but that'll pass. Eventually."

Natasha nodded. "He's right. But there is something you can do about it."

"What?" War Machine asked.

"Let's go inside to talk," Steve said.

"Good idea," Peter said.

He followed them inside, thinking that the whole situation had just become a whole lot more complicated. He'd assumed they would follow the same steps Thanos took in their world to retrieve The Infinity Stones, but it turned out they were going to have to track Mind down at least themselves in order to get the set.

And they had to do it before Thanos did.

Rhodey had once promised Peter he would take care of Tony, the night he'd locked time and left his younger self in the care of them all. He done his damndest to take care of Tony since, and he thought he'd done a good job. When Peter announced Tony wasn't coming with them on this particular ride, Rhodey had vowed to himself to take care of Peter for Tony.

But he knew from Peter's worried rainbow eyes and gnawed thumbnail that he wasn't doing a very good job of it.

He'd imagined them coming to this world and just scooping up The Infinity Stones before Thanos could; because how hard could it be when they knew where each was and how it was taken before? But the gems were not where they expected because this world apparently had its own convoluted story and wacky timeline that did follow what they'd come from.

And apparently SHIELD was still a thing, Brock Rumlow practically an Avenger himself, and Hydra still posing a threat. Which meant they had to assume SHIELD was as corrupted by Hydra as it had been in their world and find a way to undo it.

At least that was what Rhodey assumed they had do to, but when both Steves and Iron Man started to discuss Hydra Peter placed his hands flat on the table, not a slap but it drew all eyes nonetheless, and said, "No. Hydra is not why we're here. Yes, before we go home, we'll tell you about all of the reasons our world almost fell apart so you can avoid them and deal with them or whatever. But what matters is that we get to The Infinity Stones before Thanos does. Now, as much as I wish there was a Vision here that we could make human and give the chance of a future with Wanda, that's not why we're here."

"He's right," Wanda said. "I understand the desire to make things right, I do, but we're not here to fix what we're missing in our world." She cast her eyes down at the tabletop. ."No matter how much I wish we were."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

Clint sucked in a breath, eyes sad, "You think Pietro is here, too?"

"I'm pretty sure he is," Wanda said. "And I think I am, too. Whether we've got our powers or not yet, I don't know, but I think we're here and vulnerable." She took a deep breath. "But I know that's not what we're here for."

Peter's face twisted with pain. "Pietro… I didn't think…"

Wanda forced a smile. "It's not why we're here, Pete. You just said it yourself. And it could be too late. If Hydra have The Mind Stone, we could already have been corrupted past what we were in our world."

Peter stared down at his folded hands, a deep line of stress between his brows. "Maybe we can…"

"You can't, kid," Iron Man said. "I don't know who Pietro is, but I'm guessing he is just one person whereas this plan is about a whole universe full of people."

"Pete?" Clint queried. "What are you thinking?"

Peter buried his face in his hands and said, "Okay, seriously now, shut up!"

"Rude," Hawkeye said.

"He's talking to The Infinity Stones, not us," Steve said impatiently. "What are they saying, Queens?"

Peter pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and groaned. "Okay, we don't know where The Stones are, but we know Thanos has already got Reality. And because he has them, I can't trace the others. He knows someone is going to try to stop him—The Avengers. I'd like to say he'd be scared of you, us, but he really won't be. He thinks he's stronger than any of us." He ran a hand through his hair and nodded. "He is stronger than most of us; Wanda, you hurt him in Wakanda the first time, which was incredible, and Carol and Thor did, too."

Wanda's cheeks colored and she looked inordinately pleased. Rhodey wondered over it a moment and then realized she was hearing praise from Peter which was rare. It wasn't that Peter didn't value them and their strengths; in fact, it was the opposite. He valued himself as below them all and therefore didn't realize what his good opinion meant to them.

"He's not stronger than you," Iron Man said.

"No, he's not," Peter agreed vaguely, eyes distant.

"What are you thinking Queens?" Steve asked.

Peter didn't answer for a long moment, and then he said, "We need to see where we line up so we can find The Stones. Did Loki attack New York City with an army of Chitauri and Leviathans?"

"Yes," the other Steve said proudly. "That was the first time we assembled."

Peter smiled slightly, perhaps remembering a battlefield and Steve's war cry.

"Great!" Clint said. "So you've got Mind and Space." When they looked blank, he went on, "Loki's Mind Control Scepter and the Tesseract? Tell me you have them."

We did," Iron Man said. "But they were both stolen from SHIELD in a Hydra raid. We've been trying to get them back for years. We raid Hydra bases and empty them but a new one springs up a month later. And we're never finding the real power base. The places we raid are low-level admin or experimentation."

Steve snorted. "Let me guess, SHIELD are the ones that assign your missions, and you go where they tell you when you're finding these admin bases?"

"Yes," Tony said.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "And do you remember us telling you, not even five minutes ago. that in our world Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD and in the end there was no difference between the two?"

"Yes… Oh!" Iron Man's eyes bugged.

"Well, shit," War Machine said. "That's us screwed."

Rhodey agreed. They may be The Avengers, they may be two teams of The Avengers, but Hydra was everywhere within SHIELD, and they already had a mission—to stop Thanos. They couldn't do both, yet it seemed they needed to in order to get The Stones they needed.

Peter buried his face in his hands and sat in silence for a long time while everyone else raised theories and ideas. Then Peter raised his head and said, "We're doing it all."

"All what?" Steve asked warily.

Peter grinned. "We're taking Hydra down, or at least setting up for you guys to, we're getting The Infinity Stones, and we're finding Wanda, Pietro, and Bucky, and freeing them."

"You don't think…" Rhodey cleared his throat. "You think maybe we're taking on too much, Pete?"

"No," Peter said, his voice filled with confidence now. "Because it all overlaps. If Wanda and Pietro are with Hydra, they're with The Mind Stone. Hydra also have the Tesseract, which means they have the Space Stone. That's one third of the set with Hydra alone, and it actually serves our purpose to have them brought down in the process because they're going to be confused and chaotic."

"He makes a good point," Hawkeye said. "And I'm personally pissed I spent pretty much all my working life indirectly working for Nazis. I want payback."

Natasha grinned. "It was fun doing it once; I'll happily do it again."

"What about the other Stones?" Rhodey asked. "We still have to find Time, Power, and Soul."

"Time is easy," Peter said. "Doctor Strange has it and he's already partially involved in this as he helped Tony used I-Spy to look ahead into my future."

"Yeah, to see you die," Steve said bitterly.

Peter waved that away, "Yeah, in one possibility which is not going to happen now. But Time is easy, so we're down to Soul and Power. We all know where Soul is and what it's going to take to get it back—"

"Which will not be you!" Natasha said fiercely.

Peter looked at her, rainbow eyes meeting green, and some intense energy seemed to be passing between them. If it was Bucky in Natasha's place, Rhodey would say they were communicating something vital, perhaps that Peter was even sending power to Bucky. However, without that connection it appeared to be a mere battle of two mighty wills.

Natasha looked away first and Peter smiled and said, "So it's Power which is going to be the biggest problem, but I've got an idea of where to start." He turned to Iron Man. "If I said Star Lord, Rocket, Mantis, Groot or Gamora, would you know what I was talking about?"

"Apart from the fact they sound like they belong in a seventies glam rock band, no."

Peter laughed. "Okay, that means I've got to go looking. However, first of all… Tony can you download the I-Spy schematics to a flash drive for me?"

"Uh, of course," he said. "Can I ask why?"

"Sure," Peter said cheerfully. "We left our family in our world knowing what we were coming here to do but with no way to communicate or keep watch to know what's happening. If I know my dad, he's going to be worrying—"

Rhodey snorted. "Damn right."

Peter nodded. "Exactly. So if you can download the schematics for me, I can get it to my Dad, and they'll have something else to think about for a while until they can get their own spying on."

"It never really felt like spying," Iron Man said defensively.

Peter patted his arm. "I get it. Hell, I'm setting my Dad up to do it to you. If it's spying, I don't care. But I'd appreciate if you could do it."

Iron Man nodded and got to his feet, and Peter followed him to a laptop. Rhodey went after him and examined the code while Iron Man prepared to download it. It was complex and multi-faceted, and it pleased Rhodey to see his best friend was the genius in all worlds. And he knew how much it would mean to Tony—and Pepper, Bucky, and Bruce—to be able to watch what was happening here.

It would set their minds at ease.

He hoped.

Bucky was nursing his coffee, his eyes dark and moody as he pondered on that other world and what might be happening there.

Suddenly, Peter's voice rose in his mind, calling, "Incoming!"

A flash of rainbow light popped in front of him and when it cleared he saw a small silver USB flash drive. He picked it up, noting that it was a little warm, and turned it over in his hand.

He wasn't tech savvy, but he knew how to access a flash drive. However, he had a feeling this was a gift for Tony and not him.

He rose to his feet and jogged to Tony's apartment, wondering what Peter had sent them.

Knowing Peter, it was either funny or useful.

Bucky was banking on useful.

So… so many Avengers to play with. I had a lot of fun with this and coming chapters. I hope you enjoy them, too.

Until next time…

Jadey xxx