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Chapter Text

The silent alarm activated a repetitive beep on the building’s owner’s phone.

The artificial intelligence announced the presence of intruders in the living room. It was afternoon and, at that time, only Tony Stark was in the Avengers Tower. The man ordered his A.I. to alert the rest of his team and rushed in the control room to check from the CCTV whoever was attacking them. He didn’t expect two kids fighting on the moquette. Distracted by the roughhousing brats, he didn’t notice a third individual until the microphones received a thud.

“Damn it!” Swearing, the third intruder had let fall a metal bowl full of popcorn.

Tony zoomed on that person: a twenty-something young man who carried two guns on his belt. Pressing some icons on an interactive screen and some buttons on the keyboard, Stark activated one of his armoured suits to be ready to get to him in case of necessity and tried to better understand what was happening. The pop-corn guy had approached the fighters and was trying to put an end to the struggle. He was unsuccessful.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. start intruder protocol 17b in the recreational room.”

Activating protocol 17 B in: ten, nine, eight…

The automated voice started counting backwards, hermetically securing the room. When the countdown ended, a hiss was heard, and the space was filled with a narcotic gas. The intruders looked for a way out, but Iron Man knew they wouldn’t have found one.

· · ·

When the other team members arrived, Tony asked them to help him brining the three strangers into separated interrogation rooms before they regained consciousness.

The first surprise was realising that the pop-corn guy, Stark insisted on calling him that, was the oldest of the three. The others were a teenager and a child. The second surprise came when they couldn’t identify any of them, neither from facial recognition nor from fingerprints. They had taken some genetic material from each of them, but some time was needed for those results.

“They’re waking up,” Natasha Romanoff informed the others.

“That was fast,” Steve Rogers commented.

“Desflurane is fast, Capsicle. Keep it up to date,” Tony mocked.

“Two out of three” Wanda Maximoff spoke softly. The girl still felt intimidated when they were all there; she had been living with them for less than two months and often she feared they had hosted her only to keep an eye on her.

“Good observation, - Clint agreed. - The middle one is still asleep.”

“I say we start asking some question to the awake ones, - Steve said. - We need to understand how they got here: out of thin air is not enough.”

“Nat, would you go to the kid? I heard that a feminine figure is better with children.”

“Er, Tony… - Barton interrupted. - It would be better if I went: Natasha is many things, but a motherly figure is not part of the list.”

With that, Clint turned to the woman and he brought his closed left hand to his chest and rotate it clockwise twice. [Sorry].

Natasha replied with a couple of fast movements of her hands [Don’t worry].

“I’m going to the other one, then,” Steve announced.

· · ·

Clint entered the room where they put their youngest intruder.

It was empty except for a cot bed fixed to the floor on which the boy was sitting with his leg crossed. He kept his eyes closed as he was meditating.

“Hey champ, - the hero sat on the bed. - Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”

The boy was unperturbed and ignored him.

“I’m Clint. What’s your name?” Except for regular breathing, he was completely silent. After several minutes spent waiting, Agent Barton rose and walked towards the door. He asked for the door to be unlocked from outside, but he closed it without living the room. He kept his breath for few seconds. The kid peeped out and noticed the man hadn’t actually left.

“You are still here,” he grimaced.

“Good. Now I know you aren’t blind or mute,” Clint smiled.

“I do not care what you want. I can resist to any form of interrogation.”

“I’m not here to interrogate you, I just want to know if you want something to eat.” The man’s kind tone seemed confusing the boy. Yet, he was staring at Clint with emerald eyes that stood out against his olive skin.

“Would you rather something sweet or savoury? Or maybe something to drink? Warm or cool? We’ve anything.”

The kid’s stomach grumbled quite loudly. Although Clint didn’t get an answer.

“I’ll leave you some time to think about it. If you change your mind, wave at the camera in the corner and I’ll be right back.”

Clint smiled one last time to the little boy and left the room, hoping that Captain America would be achieving more success with their other surprise guest.

· · ·

Steve punched the wall in exasperation. Sighing, he put himself back together and went back to the boy sat in front of him, that was cuffed to the table. “Alright, we shall begin anew. My name is Steve Rogers. What’s yours?”

“The first half Y.M.C.A.”

“So… you’re Y.M.?”

“Mh-hm.”

“Which is short for…?”

“Your Mama! - the young man laughed. - It’s the third you fall for it! Soon it will get boring!” Captain Rogers rolled his eyes. “Why do you keep acting dumb?” “Because, until you want something from me, you have to keep me alive.”

“Nobody here wants to kill you.”

“Who assures me that?”

“The fact that we are heroes, protectors of the Earth.”

Another derisive laughter came from the boy. “No offence, mister Rogers, but I met most of them: you can’t fool me. Also, none of them would be so carefree of their secret identity.”

Tony talked through a loudspeaker. “Steve, leave the room. We need you over here.”

“Goodbye, Steve, - the stranger grinned again. - Say for me to the Big Brother out there.”

· · ·

“What’s going on?” Captain America asked to the colleague who had called him outside.

“Natasha studied the body language of the boy you were pathetically questioning. She saw something.”

“He’s scared,” the Black Widow explained.

“I didn’t notice. He was quite annoying and sarcastic. But didn’t look intimidated.”

“Psychological defence system. Watch more carefully: his posture is not of someone feeling safe. While you were there, he never crossed your eyes for more than a few seconds and kept looking around. And now that he’s alone he’s trying to break free from the handcuffs.”

“He isn’t trying to remove the cuffs, - Wanda was nibbling her lower lips as she moved closer to the screen. - He’s detaching them from the table. Like getting out was more important than having his hands free.”

“So, now we know he’s claustrophobic or something, -Tony sighed. - Barton, tell me you got something out of the kid.”

Clint shrugged. “He’s not cooperative at all, seems trained.”

“Look at this,” Steve pointed at the screen showing the boy he had been talking earlier.

He had removed the screws from the metal plate that secured the handcuff to the table. Currently he was standing on the chair with his face close to the camera. “Hey! You hear me out there?”

Tony activated the intercom. “We hear you.”

“I’ve got a couple of requests for you.”

“You are not exactly in the position of requesting anything.”

“Let me see my brothers and I might answer to some of your questions.”

“Are they really brothers?” Clint voiced the question for everyone.

“I still haven’t the complete test’s results, but the preliminary analysis doesn’t point in that direction,” Iron Man replied, checking a series of data.

Tony addressed their prisoner. “How do I know you won’t try running?”

“Listen, dude, I kept the cuffs on and I’m not trying to force the door. You’ve got to make it suffice. Now bring me to them, ‘cause if something happens to those two, I’ll be in a mess I would like to avoid.” Tony started walking to the door.

Natasha opened her eyes wide. “Are you seriously considering his offer?”

“He said he’ll answer our questions.”

“Might! – Clint pointed out. – We’re not sure about it!”

“I have to say he seems a hundred times more serious than before,” Steve admitted.

“Two on two, - Tony sighed. – Wanda, the decisive vote is yours: what do we do?”

“I… - Wanda pressed her lips and moved her gaze on all four heroes. – I’d let him see his brothers.”

· · ·

The young man was surprising cooperative when Steve and Tony let him out of the small room. “Finally! – He seemed truly relived of being in the corridor. – No offence to your hospitality, it’s just that last time I was left handcuffed in a room it didn’t end well.”

The two men ignored the following rambling speech: a series of incoherent phrases that seemed having the sole goal to distract them. They brought him to a room similar to the one he had woken up, they didn’t let him in, but they showed him what was happening inside. Through the slight opening of the door, it was possible to see a teenager with his head on the table.

“He’s still asleep, but he’s okay, - Stark assured, closing the door. – We put him in handcuffs before: we thought we would wake in few minutes.”

“Asleep? – the boy barely held back a laughter. – Later you have to tell me what you gave him: in all these years I’ve never seen the Replacement sleeping!”

Captain Rogers stayed focused. “Now you’ve seen he’s alright, answer some question.”

“I want to see them both.” Clint and Natasha joined them. “Before you have to give us something. At least your name,” she ordered.

“Beautiful, to you I’d give my number right now. My name is Jason.”

“Wow. That was easy,” Tony commented. Jason looked his jailers up and down.

“Why didn’t you send her to question me right away? Speaking of, can you return the info or should I keep calling you gorgeous?”

“Заткни́сь [Zatknís']” the woman hissed.

“So, I don’t have to answer to your questions anymore?”

Natasha stiffened for a second. “We keep our word. We are letting you see your other brother.” She started pushing Jason towards the room the kid was in.

“Did you cuff him too?”

“Of course not! – Steve exclaimed. – He’s just a child.”

“And you call yourselves heroes, protectors of the Earth?”

“What do you mean?”

Jason shrugged. “Nothing, nothing. Can I go inside?”

“Isn’t peeking from the door enough?”

“You said it yourself: he’s just a child. May I enter alone? You know, to not startle him.”

“As you wish, - the super solider granted. – But remember we’re right outside the door. So, no tricks.”

· · ·

“Hey, shrimp.”

“Have they already bought you, Todd? What have you undersold yourself for? Half a loaf of bread?”

Jason ignored the cheap dig and slowly moved near the child. “I see they gave you the best chamber,” he said ironically alluding at the cob bed.

“You have been given a couple of nice bracelets, - the child sneered. – Should I feel diminished?”

“They underestimate you, - Jason explained moving his cuffed hands. – That’s a good thing.”

“Where is Drake?”

“Still out of action.”

The kid scoffed. “Inept as usual.”

“You know they’re watching and listening to us, right?”

Disdainful, he replied with only one word. “نعم [Nem]”

“Stop acting superior. OK?” Jason suddenly raised his voice and moved forward.

“I am superior!” The kid jumped up and leaped on him. Clint and Steve had to enter the room and separate them. The former held the youngest, the latter pulled the older boy out.

Barton realised he was using more force than expected to contain him. “Calm down, you little devil!”

“Leave him to me!” The child growled waving a fist.

After a minute, he started relaxing. When Clint let go of him, he swung his arms back and forth a bit. When the boy seemed calm enough, Clint left the room, but the door jammed before closing behind him. The man bent: there was something near the hinges.

“A… screw?” he said confused.

“Surprise.”

Clint rose his gaze toward the monotone voice who had just spoken, he saw was the kid’s hand approaching his face for a split of a second. Then everything got dark.

Chapter Text

The first thing Clint saw when he woke up was Natasha’s disapproving scowl.

“What… What happened?” he asked still dazed. The woman put an icebag on his forehead.

“Happened that you got tricked by a tween. Now Wanda is dealing with him.”

“Wanda?”

“Yes. Apparently, off the ground, all he can do is struggling like an eel and insulting us. Right now, our newest recruit is trying one of her mind tricks to prevent him from causing more problems.”

“She won’t get him nightmares, I hope.”

“I think she’ll spare him that. Also, because, judging from the precise hit he landed on you, I fear the little one saw some bad stuff. I mean like in the…” Natasha stopped talking; she put the tip of her right index finger on her chin and brushed down twice. Then, she held both her hands in front of her chest; first with the palms facing her body, next she twisted her hand and got the palm facing each other. [Red Room]

The feminine automated voiced filled the infirmary. Black Widow, Hawkeye. Mr. Stark informs you that Subject number 2 is awake.

“Thanks, F.R.I.D.A.Y., - Nat helped Clint standing up. – Tell Tony we’re going talking to him.”

· · ·

Unlike the two others, this boy didn’t look scared or aggressive. At most he was annoyed; it was clear on his face that the was irritated by the situation. He didn’t look like someone at his first interrogation, but rather like someone who was wasting his time.

“I hope you’re well rested. I am agent Natasha Romanoff and this is my colleague: agent Clint Barton.”

“God, what did those two got me into this time?” the boy whined. The two agents exchanged a quick look.

“What do you mean?” Natasha asked.

“Am I mistaken or no one read me my rights?”

“We aren’t cops.”

“I can’t call my lawyer, then?”

“Can you afford one, boy?” Clint was both confused and curios.

The teenager touched his face as he was checking it was intact. It was. There were a couple of scratches due to his recent fight with the younger kid, but it was nothing that could make him unrecognisable. “Are you for real? You don’t know who I am? I get in the Daily Planet every two or three weeks. And I’m on the Gotham Gazette even more often.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Er, dudes! I’m Timothy Wayne, - he recited like he was reading a newspaper title. – CEO of Wayne Enterprise at only seventeen years old.”

“Never heard of.”

“C’mon, meet me halfway. You tell me what did Jason and Damian do, and I pay for bail and damages. No one will know and we can all go our merry ways.”

“So, the little one’s name is Damian. And you are Timothy,” Natasha verbally noted.

“Tim, - he corrected. - Can I know where I am? At least in broad terms.”

“New York City,” Barton granted before his colleague could stop him.

“Good. Not too far from home. Could have been worse. I could have been in Kansas and I’d like not having a criminal record over there.”

“Where are you from then?”

“I told you! Gotham City, New Jersey. Are you deaf or something?”

“Well, actually, I am, - Clint admitted, pointing to his hearing aids. - The point is that this Gotham you talk about doesn’t exist.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t… - he boy stopped midsentence and opened his eyes wide. His face, already quite pale, turned whiter. – I think I’ll need a coffee.”

“Is all right?”

Tim began hitting the table with his head, saying a word or two for every hit. “Why the one time I have the house for me and a planned evening I end up in a parallel reality?” Natasha got up and took him by his shoulders.

“Stop it.”

“OK, but I was serious about the coffee.”

“I’ll bring you some. Clint, stay here.” The woman left them alone.

“So, - Barton broke the silence. – Why the first thing that came to your mind was your brothers framing you?”

“Essentially, because the Son of Satan tried to get rid of me about a minute after we were introduced and Jason enjoys a little too much breaking the law.”

“When you say son of Satan…”

“I mean that hobgoblin that was given the name of Damian.”

“Are you exaggerating by saying that he tried to kill you?”

“Not at all. I got near three week of bed rest because of him.” The spontaneity he gave that information with shocked Clint, leaving him unable to reply.

After a minute of silence, Tim seemed to suddenly remember something. “Uh, sorry about the deaf comment.”

“Don’t worry,” Clint brushed off.

· · ·

It wasn’t Natasha who brought the coffee.

“Tony Stark, - the man introduced himself. – Here you go, boy.”

Tim held the mug in his hands like it was a priceless treasure and he emptied it in few sips. “You are the sponsor,” he claimed after looking the man up and down.

“What?”

“Agents Barton and Romanoff are clearly trained in espionage and hand-to-hand combat. You’re the rich guy that puts the money. Even if I haven’t understood yet what your organization consists in.”

Tony crossed his arms. “Oh, yeah? And what gives you that impression?”

“Very easy, - Tim sped up his already not quite slow chatter. – Your shirt, your watch, and your belt are clearly branded. Selected craftsmanship. Your glasses look custom-made. And your perfect hourglass goatee! Not a hair out of place. You have all the time you want in the morning. Not counting you introduced yourself without the agent title.”

Clint whistled. “Not bad!”

Tim shrugged. “At nine years old I tracked down Batman’s secret identity. This is nothing.”

“Who’s Batman?”

“I’ll tell you another time. Is there any more coffee?”

Tony held out a tablet showing images of Damian and Jason. “You look so normal! Are you really brother with these two?”

Tim looked away and cringed at the word normal. “Adopted. Can I have more coffee?”

Tony nodded. “Barton, you mind unlocking his cuffs so we can go in the kitchen?”

“No need, I’ll do it.” Tim took a hairpin from his head and used it to open the lock.

“Why do you have a bobby pin?” Clint asked.

“This afternoon I was working to… something and my hair kept falling over my eyes. So, Steph thought to fill my head of hairpins. I haven’t been able to remove them all.”

“Steph?”

The boy rose and fixed his clothes. “My ex-girlfriend who basically lives in my house.”

As much as intrigued, Clint decided to not pry into that matter.

“How do you know what a bobby pin is?” Stark asked under his breath while the three left the room.

“What did you say?” The wording had been so quiet Clint wasn’t sure he had actually understood. The billionaire had to repeat the question speaking louder.

“I’ve got a wife and a daughter, remember?” he answered then.

· · ·

“Whoa, slow down, kid!” Stark confiscated the mug when he saw Tim aiming for refilling it for the third… No, that was the fourth time in the last fifteen minutes.

“Alright… - the boy grumbled. – I hoped that ending up in another universe gave me right to some more caffeine.”

Tony offered him a sandwich that received only a bite and was put aside when Tim realised there was a lettuce leaf inside. “You seem quite convinced that there are parallel universes and that you don’t belong to this.”

“Because it is thus.”

“How can you tell?”

“Did you take my phone? – Tim started rummaging in his sweatshirt, a black hoodie with a big white logo on the chest that resembled a trident or perhaps a W. – I can swear it was in my pocket.”

“We put your things in a box. Wait here.”

“No way! I’m coming with you. I get bored waiting.” Tony, who wasn’t really trusting leaving the boy alone with the coffee pitcher, allowed Tim to follow him.

· · ·

The billionaire led the teenager to the room they were watching the others from. It was full of screens and control panels.

“This is Captain Rogers, the only timeworn thing in this building, - Stark introduced. – Steve, this is…” Tony vaguely waved his hand, making clear that he didn’t remember the name.

“I’m Tim. Nice to meet you.” The boy shook hands with the blond man in splendid form. He stared at him for a few seconds too much, wondering where did he have seen him already.

Steve nodded to the technology surrounding them. “Impressing, isn’t it?”

“Only the best for the Avengers,” Tony started bragging.

Tim limited himself to an unimpressed “meh” and retrieved his mobile phone from the box in plain view on a steel table. He fiddled with it for a couple of minutes. Then, he shook the phone and hit it twice. “4G? Are we serious?” he exclaimed.

Tony gloated. “As I was telling you, we are best equipped.”

“Best? 4G is your best? – Tim gave him a frantic look and shivered. – What Middle Age did I end up in?”

“Is everything right?” Captain Rogers asked, trying to participate to the conversation.

“Your tech is at least fifteen years behind my Earth’s.”

Steve, confused, looked at Tony who quickly explained how the boy was certain to be coming from a parallel universe.

“If you don’t believe me, I’ve got a bunch of georeferenced pictures on my phone. I can give you the coordinates and you can check your satellite images with my photos. Provided you have a coordinates system here in the Neolithic.”

Chapter Text

Tony did his best to hide it, but the idea that what he thought as avantgarde was obsolete for that boy saddened him. With this weight on his heart, he started the search Tim had suggested, while the teen snooped around.

“Hey, that’s Jason!” he laughed noticing him in a reinforced cell. He started blabbering and pushing random buttons until he got how to speak to his adopted brother.

“Jason, I see you,” he said then in the creepiest tone he could emit.

The young man lifted his head when he heard a known voice calling his name.

“What are you doing, Replacement?” he shouted.

“I did a tour. And, guess what, we’re in a parallel Earth!”

“Why are you wandering around?”

“Because I’m better than you.”

“In your dreams. Get me out of here!”

Tony intervened. “We let you out for five minutes before and I got a man on the ground.”

“And now the Big Brother is back! – Jason scoffed. – C’mon, Timbers, tell them I can be cooperative. You weren’t the only one with plans for tonight.”

Tony rose an eyebrow and gave Tim an inquisitive gaze.

“I was supposed to have home for myself this evening,” the boy explained briskly.

“Were you planning a party?”

Tim blushed. “Not exactly.”

“Tony, - Steve interrupted them. – Here it says: inconclusive search. What does it mean?”

“Looks like a confirmation of the parallel universe theory, - the genius man commented. – Now, young man, can we trust your brothers to roam around or hell breaks loose as soon as we let them out?”

“Jason can really be reasonable, when he wants to. Damian as well. But not if I ask him to. Or he feels diminished. Or for a thousand other reasons.”

“How does one get on the little one’s good side?”

“You give him a way to show off. I don’t know… A chess game or a training session.”

“I think I can arrange something.”

· · ·

Following Mr. Stark orders, Wanda opened the door of the Tower’s gymnasium for Damian. Natasha was waiting for them inside.

“A little bird told me you’re a good fighter.”

A corner of the child’s mouth bent upwards. It was the first gesture not dictated by ire or disgust Wanda saw seeing him doing.

“Are you challenging me, woman?”

The Black Widow’s answer was tossing him a wooden staff he caught unfazed.

Wanda quickly left the gym. She didn’t like the vibes that child emanated. To restrain him she had to run in contact with his aura and what she had felt was a mix of anger and fear. She couldn’t believe that such rage could be hiding in such a small body. She hadn’t met anyone with a similar emotional turmoil, other than herself and her brother Pietro.

She headed towards the kitchen, it had become her favourite room in the building. When she was surrounded by cookware and ingredients, she felt like she was again the Sokovian little girl who nibbled before dinner trying not to get caught by her mother. Lately, she spent most of her free time in there. She wanted to recreate the recipes of her childhood, she hadn’t got a lot of successful results yet: she probably needed a cookbook.

In the hallway she came across Clint, the man who had emotionally adopted her since she joined the team.

“How did it go with the brat?” he asked.

“He’s weird.”

“Well, you too are weird.”

“I guess, - Wanda gave a hint of a smile. – Are the other two strange as well?”

“A bit less. Come with me to meet them: Tony is assessing the situation. I think this will be fun.”

 · · ·

Steve and Tony were in one of the tower’s living rooms with Tim and Jason. The two boys were sitting on the couch. The former had crossed his legs and was watching his phone. The latter was provoking Captain Rogers by looking at him. Steve still didn’t trust much that impertinent young man and he liked even less that Stark had let him out of his cell for the second time.

Tony grabbed a bottle from the bar corner of the room and poured a glass for himself. Full glass in one hand, he enjoyed the glaring match in front of him. The challenge ended when Jason noticed two people entering the space: the man that had removed Damian from him and a young woman he hadn’t met yet.

Mr. Stark addressed her as Wanda and asked her if she had delivered a certain package to Natasha. Jason guessed it was the name of the other woman, the one that hushed him in Russian.

“Perfect. I think we can start now.”

The billionaire emptied his glass in one sip and placed it on the counter. At the sound of glass on marble, Jason quickly turned around.

“Can I have one too?” he asked nodding to the wines and spirits organized on the shelves.

“Are you old enough?” Steve scolded him.

The young man ran a hand through his hair, emphasising the white streak he had in the middle of his forehead. “I’m twenty-three and I’ve got a good metabolism.”

Despite the declaration, Tony closed the bottle and put it back on its shelf. “I need you alert, boy. We’ve more important matters than your ethanol tolerance to discuss.”

“Is that to say…” Clint prompted.

“According to them, -Tony resumed, - our guests come from another Earth. An alternative dimension or something like that. Right, Tim?”

“In simple terms, yes, - the boy nodded. – I was expecting more specifics from someone who started university at fourteen.”

The billionaire genius started asking him how he knew that information, but he couldn’t end his phrase.

“I looked up some info about you all, - Tim cut in. – The fact is that, to get us home, we’ll need a bunch of work.”

Jason had taken advantage of the attention mostly focused on his brother and had gone close to the shelves where Mr. Stark’s collections of wines and spirits was. Or, at least the part of it the man made available to consumption. Jason started browsing the bottles. He took one, checked the label, put it away, and passed to the next. He seemed to be a connoisseur. Despite this activity, he kept paying attention to the conversation.

“Wouldn’t recalibrate a Zeta tube be enough?” he dared, when he noticed no one suggested anything.

Tim closed his eyes and bit his tongue, bracing himself for two words to get to his hears.

Steve frowned. “A what?”

Here they were. Such common sounds had never been so unpleasant.

Jason, gotten a glass from a cabinet, tried illustrating what he was talking about. “You know, don’t you? Those huge tubes that allow to travel from a place to another in minimal time, almost immediate.”

“Are you talking about teleportation? – Clint opened his eyes wide. – Where you are from you can teleport from place to place?”

With a sudden jump, Tim sat on the sofa’s seatback, putting his feet on the proper seat. Tony made a pained face. At least he wasn’t wearing shoes, he told himself

“One can go from a tube to another tube in few seconds, but not anywhere, – the boy rectified. – If you think teleportation as a satellite network, a Zeta Tube is more like an intercom.”

“Is it something we can build?” Wanda asked.

Jason emptied his glass. “Obviously. We always go around with blueprints of every invention both patented and not in our back pockets. Who doesn’t, after all?”

Wanda wished she had kept her mouth shut: she should have realised that such a machine couldn’t be built out of nothing. Tony tried to loosen the awkward tension that was rising.

“At least you got here with us. Not everyone has the same advanced means as the Avengers.”

“Speaking of. What are the Avengers exactly? – Tim asked. – Googling your names, this word kept showing up.”

“It’s us, - the billionaire explained, pointing his colleagues in the room – and some others that are not here right now. We’re a team of heroes who protects the world.”

“Why you call yourselves Avengers and not, I don’t know, something like Protectors?” Jason asked while fiddling with the bottle he had in his hands.

“Because, if we can’t save the Earth, then we’ll avenge it,” Tony recited.

“Not very propositional.”

“But it’s realistic,” Steve explained.

“In your world, is there something equivalent to our team?”

The boys nodded, but they didn’t add anything.

“Anyway, - Tony got back to the main topic. – How hard can it be to build one of these zeta tubes?”

“More than you think, - Tim admitted. – On our Earth, we came across this super advanced technology almost by chance and we duplicated it best we could. We would need a module or a fragment to start from.”

“If we can’t send you back with that plan, - Steve proposed, - we could get you home in the same way you got here.”

Tim and Jason exchanged a couple of looks.

“I’ve no idea how we got here,” the older declared.

Clint suggested to piece together what had happened before their sudden teleportation, in case something relevant had occurred.

“Bah, - Tim frowned, trying to remember better. – I was in the cave… I mean, in the basement and I was working to something. Then Damian arrived bothering me and that’s it.”

Jason shrugged. “I saw the shrimp heading downstairs, so I made some popcorns and I followed him. When I got in the basement, there was a flash and we got here. The two idiots were fighting, then that stinging smell and blackout. You know the rest.”

“Why did you make popcorns?” Tony asked.

“Because Damian was going in the same room where Tim was.” Jason had the face of someone forced to explain the most obvious concept.

Steve supported his colleague. “Seriously, what does your siblings in the same room have to do with popcorns?”

Wanda emitted a choked hiccough in the attempt to hide her laughter.

Clint hinted to Steve and Tony. “Only children.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Rogers and Stark still couldn’t understand the reason behind the grin the others had on their faces.

The subject was dropped since the artificial intelligence that oversaw the tower activated.

Mr. Stark, it is 6 P.M. The automatic alarm by Ms. Potts activates now, the feminine voice announced, Mr. Stark, I must point out that you have neither ordered dinner nor booked a restaurant. I remind you that you should not skip meals. If nothing changes, this alarm will repeat itself in less than 10 minutes.

None of the Avengers was surprised; their guest from the other Earth, instead, were quite perplexed.

“What happens after the second alarm?”

Tony sighed and ran his hands on his face. His glasses risked to fall, the man removed them to adjust them. He cringed when he saw how dirt the lenses were and put them on again.

“Nothing pleasant, - he said enigmatically. – Luckly you won’t find out. What do you think about some Shawarma? There’s a place nearby that makes it great and maybe your little brother will like it to.

Tim and Jason immediately replied. “No. Awful idea.”

“I thought that the little one would appreciate a Middle East dish, - Tony was surprised. – My facial recognition software says he’s at least partially Arab.”

“But it didn’t tell you he’s vegetarian, - Tim explained. Out of the corner of his eye the boy saw his older adoptive brother slightly shaking. – Jason, don’t you dare!”

The invoked one shouted. “You don’t even know what I was about to say!”

“So, you weren’t about correcting a pronunciation or making an inappropriate digression on something only you care about?”

The glower Jason gave Tim ill-concealed a touché. Not finding the words to answer back, the young man waved his arms to brush off the subject. In his rush, though, he slapped his glass and it slid to the edge of the marble counter. Half a second later there should have been a crash of the glass on the floor, but it never happened. The glass was floating in the air, wrapped and held up by a pulsing scarlet light. Energy of the same red tone was also in Wanda’s right hand. The young woman slowly moved her fingers and rotated her wrist: the glass went back on the counter.

Tony noted that, for the first time, the guest who kept belittling their high-tech seemed truly surprised. However, he couldn’t bask long in the satisfaction.

 “F.R.I.D.A.Y., tell Nat to join us, - he ordered the A.I. – And make her bring the kid.”

Chapter Text

Natasha had been observing Damian for a few minutes. After Wanda had left them alone, the child took off his shoes and got barefoot on the exercise mat that covered three quarters of their gym’s floor. The only moment he hadn’t been staring at her had been when he made a ritzu rei, the traditional bow of Japanese martial arts when climbing on the tatami.

He was standing in front of her, distancing himself of a little more than a metre, wielding the staff she had given him earlier. He had weighted it, moving it from one hand to the other before he had chosen to hold it in his right one. At that point, the little boy had wheeled around the staff a couple of times, splitting the air. As sign of beginning of the match and respecting the adversary, the woman had bowed down. The answer had been a slight nod of the kid’s head.

Ever since then they had done nothing but studying each other. They were going around in circles, without losing sight of the other, not even for an instant, with the grace of two felines ready to clash. The child’s movements were fluid and precise at the same time, he was exploring the gym almost by dancing. The Black Widow wasn’t sure of who was truly commanding that carousel, each time they switched the direction of their rotation she couldn’t say who had followed whom. Wherever he had been educated, it was clear he trained with someone fluent in body language.

The first charge almost took her by surprise: a sudden forward movement. In a split second he had rose the bamboo shaft and held it with both his hands, everything while he turned his body to deliver a precise hit from above. Damian had tried hit the hand Natasha used to hold her staff. The woman had successfully blocked the attack still she realised that, if she had blinked at the wrong moment, she would have ended with quite a bruise.

After he poor result offensive, the child withdrew and their carousel began anew. The more they moved around, the more Natasha could see how long the kid had been trained. Regardless of strength and instinct, most of beginners tends to cross their legs when they move in a circle. A literal misstep, a simple mistake able of throwing the whole body off balance. An oversight that was both banal and fatal. Even she had made such faux pas, in the beginning of her training. The little one hadn’t executed any action that could make him trip.

Damian’s stature was another factor that hindered Natasha more than she cared to admit. She was used to fight adversaries that were bigger than her or at most her size. Most of her techniques aimed at taking advantage of her opponents’ strength against them. Usually, she would have done some acrobatics and jumped on her competitor’s back in order to unbalancing them with her own weight. Alternatively, she would have stricken a blow or tried a joint lock that would shock her cocky adversary that was underestimating her. Right then, though, she wasn’t fighting an enemy nor training with Clint or Steve: she was the imposing one and any display of strength wouldn’t have been surprising to the boy.

In addition to that, she didn’t really want to hurt him. Tony had hinted something about not to belittle the kid. All the commitment to consider him an even adversary couldn’t change the fact that he was middle school aged.

The next offensive from Damian was more Jujitsu textbook like and Natasha harmoniously stopped it the following series of hits. She decided to counterattack. With a short run-up she lowered her weapon from above. She knew she had announced her whole move: every inch of her body had been manifesting her intentions; she wouldn’t risk to seriously injure the little boy. She was hesitating, she was perfectly aware of that. Probably even the kid could see it. Tant mieux, she told herself; he’ll stop the hit.

So, he did. Damian intercepted his opponent weapon before she could hit him. He kept his staff horizontal above his head and he used it to block hers. Natasha found herself contrasting more strength than she had expected to.

“不情愿表示死亡。 [bù qíng yuan biǎo shì sǐ wáng]” he said, scrutinizing her from below with his sharp green eyes.

Those fast rhythmic syllables were so rapid they couldn’t form a meaning in the woman’s head. She wasn’t quite sure which language they were in: the tones revealed an Oriental language, but she hadn’t got the time to recognise any word. Maybe the whole parallel Earth story the other boy had talked about wasn’t a tall tale. In that case, it could have even been a completely unknown language.

They had reached an impasse. Natasha perfectly knew that from that point there were several ways to regain advantage on the opponent. She just needed to move a couple of steps back. However, the first move that came to her mind was dangerous, too dangerous to try it on a child. The same could be said about the second one. She noticed a flick in Damian’s eyes, immediately after she got a knee hitting her right leg.

She had to draw back, more clumsily that she had in years. Damian watched her with insolence.

“As I said: 不情愿表示死亡。 [bù qíng yuan biǎo shì sǐ wáng]” he said again with an arrogant tone.

At that point, Natasha recognised the origin of the words: it was Mandarin Chinese. The kid’s pronunciation was a little different from the Beijing one she had learned, not that his was erroneous. She felt out of training with that language, but she got the core of the phrase: hesitation is death.

The former mercenary had already heard similar words, during the years of training that had marked her youth. She didn’t like the confidence the child had spoken those words with. It looked like a forcefully inculcated idea, almost brainwashing. The thought that this child had already been trained for a long time unsettled her. She wasn’t facing whichever preteen who had studied martial arts for a few years, that was an almost certainly indoctrinated warrior that, by a mere coincidence, happened to be twelve years old. That awareness gave her the right push to resume their match.

Shortly after, they got back into clashing their staffs; firstly, without a precise rate, then they got a rhythm. The alternated up and down hits grew more and more regular until they reached a defined sequence, almost a choreography. However, they were in another stalemate: their hits were too fast to insert another one and take advantage.

Natasha started noticing a slight defect in the technique of her young opponent. At the third move of their round of attacks he left his left side faintly uncovered: such a small opening that it could have been unnoticed even by not amateurs. As much as high Nat’s esteem for her best friend was, she knew Clint wouldn’t have seen that defence flaw.

The first time she noticed that vaguely wrong movement she didn’t mind it much. The second time she started thinking it could be a systematic error. The third time she was certain enough that Damian hadn’t completely mastered that move; she couldn’t blame him: he was very well trained, but had still a lot to learn. She decided that, the next time the kid would have been in that disadvantaging position, she would have exploited it.

She didn’t hesitate. The moment Damian began the movement that would have got him exposed, she started her charge. What happened in the next splits of second was totally unforeseen. The child’s weapon changed direction without any apparent warning and Natasha found herself hit on the throat by the bamboo.

The woman pulled back fast. She coughed a couple of times and held back the impulse to vomit, while the metallic taste of blood reached the tongue. She didn’t expect such a move. Even less she expected to see a satisfied grin appearing on her adversary’s face.

“Cheater,” she commented in a faint voice while massaging the hit part of her neck.

“A cheater win surpasses an honourable loss.”

Damian pronounced that last adjective with a disgusted face, as if associating the concepts of loss and honour left a sour taste in his mouth.

Then, the kid moved back and waited for Natasha to catch her breath. The woman noticed some impatience mixed with what looked just like amusement. She didn’t like that. She was still shaken by the hit to her throat: if the strength had been miscalculated she could have ended with serious damage to her vocal cords, her airways or, even worse, her cervical vertebrae. She realised only then that the child had been holding back: he knew deadly moves and he stopped before inflicting them.

Natasha shook her shoulders. She was learning better and better how much the little one had been training and any reservation she had ever had about hitting a child was fading out her mind.

That disrespectful smirk was getting on her nerves and she looked forward to wipe it from his face.

They went back to moving around the gym, but, before either of them could strike a blow, F.R.I.D.A.Y interrupted.

Agent Romanoff, Mr. Stark asks for you both to join the others for supper as soon as possible. If it was necessary, our young guest may use the room usually assigned to Mr. Harley Keener to freshen up.

“Thank you, Friday, - Natasha nodded and revolved her attention back to Damian. – Do you need to take a shower or change your clothes?”

“Tt, - the child scoffed. – We only warmed up: I had not the opportunity to even start to perspire.”

The woman closed her eyes to hide that she was rolling them. “Perfect. Let’s go, then.”

The Black Widow walked a couple of steps behind the boy to keep an eye him. The more she observed him the more she felt a stab in her stomach. She had half an idea of the way Damian had been risen and she couldn’t help to wonder how much horror he had seen in his short life. She pushed away the memories of the Red Room, focusing on the present: she needed to find out if his alleged siblings had been trained the same way or if they were keeping him away from an harmful past.

The older boys didn’t seem as emotionally stiff as the youngest, but she had seen them too briefly to be certain: they could have been pretending. The eldest, Jason, had already tricked them once; it was possible that everything Tim had told them wasn’t anything but an act.

She decided to keep those doubts for herself for a bit more. In the meantime she would have watched them all.

Chapter Text

Natasha saw the child considerably relaxing the moment he reached his brothers.

“Todd, Drake, will you tell me what is going on? Here no one wants to tell me anything,” he said with the same haughty tone.

She started suspecting that, maybe, he wasn’t so arrogant and that was just he’s normal voice.

Tim didn’t even try to mitigate the news and went straight to the point. “We’re on an Earth that isn’t ours.”

“And who are these individuals?”

“They call themselves Avengers, - Jason explained. – There are a team of heroes.”

Tim pointed to each of their hosts.

“He’s Tony Stark, a rich engineer with a metal armour. He’s called Iron Man. Next, the blond fit man is Steve Rogers, he’s three times the age he shows and he’s a veteran known as Captain America. The less blond, less fit dude is Clint Barton. You can see him as a broke Green Arrow, but with a less basic name: Hawkeye. Last, the two ladies are Natasha and Wanda, though I didn’t get their aliases.”

Tim stopped to catch his breath and Nat took the opportunity to tell her nom de guerre was Black Widow, like the spider. Wanda admitted that she hadn’t officially joined the team or thought of a name yet.

Natasha asked Clint to fill her in on the situation.

She kept sporadically nodding while she kept an eye on the three boys. Tim was now chatting with Wanda on the other side of the room. The other two were quietly speaking to each other, she believed to see some glances at herself, but wasn’t certain.

“I think you said that on your world there’s a team just like ours protecting the planet from alien attacks and terrorism on a global scale…” Tony started at some point.

“Indeed, - Damian confirmed. – We have the Justice League which is composed of more than five people.”

“We’ve got some other member who’s not here right now.”

Damian stiffened. “The Justice League has about twenty permanent components and plenty of occasional and honorary ones.”

“Well, what can I say? Congrats to your Government and its resources.”

Tim stopped talking with Wanda and stepped in the conversation that was happening close to them.

“Government? You’re funded and approved by your politicians?”

It was Steve’s turn to be surprised. “Your heroes aren’t?”

“Ehm, not exactly. They are quite international and independent. Also, most of what we do is illegal and…” Tim shut his mouth with a hand when his little brother stepped on his foot.

“Great job, Drake!” The kid hissed.

“I don’t think it’s a problem, - Tim whispered. – We’re on another Earth: even if we tell them what we do, I don’t think it matters.”

Tony cleared his throat. “I’m getting that you kids like to play hero. Am I wrong?”

“It’s not a game, - Tim was serious. – We save lives. And, by the way, we’re classified as vigilantes.”

“How did some kids ended up being vigilantes?” Steve sounded horrified.

Jason laughed. “In Gotham City it isn’t that ridiculous. I don’t think anyone around there has a clean police record. Unless they paid to bury everything. One can end up way worse than beating up criminals.”

“How worse?” Clint asked.

“Bah, when I was the shrimp’s age I slept in an alley and nicked stuff here and there. If his old man didn’t caught me stealing his tires, probably I would have wound up in some gang… - Jason, lost in his thoughts, took a breath, - I think right now I’d have more common childhood traumas than those I’ve got.”

“What do you mean?”

Jason’s face darkened for half a second. “My business. But I gained a nice little family: a rich ass dad, a butler that is another parent, and a train of siblings.”

Steve glanced at Tim and Damian. “Train?”

Jason counted on his fingers. “I’m the second, between me and Timbo there’s an adoptive sister, Tim’s ex is unofficially part of the family, then there’s the little demon here, and another dude who’s started gravitating the house. It’s just matter of time before good old B adopts or fosters him too. He’s obsessed with housing strays under his roof.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupted the conversation one more time.

Mr. Stark, you have not gotten your supper organized yet. At next notification, I will have to inform Miss Potts.

Tony, resigned, sighed. “Alright. Start suggesting: what do you want for dinner?”

· · ·

Natasha sat at the head of the long rectangular table. She was annoyed that she hadn’t been able to properly understand the three boys in the full half an hour she had to observe them before dinner. She wasn’t sure she could buy Jason’s story: he seemed quite good at telling lies. To all of that it added the fact that she wasn’t enjoying her meal as she would have liked: her throat was still sore because of the hit given her from Damian.

The kid was sitting on the longer side of the table on her left, right between his older brothers.

Tim had sat close to Wanda, who was on the other end of the table. Those two had started talking about a sitcom the girl followed almost obsessively and hadn’t stop. Wanda had met her match.

At the moment, the spy was focused on the boy who was closest to her: Jason.

Maybe, boy wasn’t the best term to describe him. The young man was at least one metre and eighty, with a muscular tone worth of a mixed martial arts heavyweight. Also, he was full of scars on his arms, face, and, most likely, the rest of his body. They weren’t too evident, but, once spotted, it was impossible to unsee them. She wondered if the others were hiding such torn bodies under their long sleeves.

Besides wearing a T-shirt, there were others details of his appearance that distinguished him from his brothers; just to stark he wasn’t as dark haired as them. His hair was brown, under the right light it looked even auburn. It was impossible to not see the grey strike. Natasha knew that intense strain can cause some hair to lose colour. Who knew what could have caused him so much stress to whiten an entire lock.

Clint diverted her blur of thoughts touching her lightly on her arm. Gotten eye contact, the man touched his own left shoulder with his left hand, which he then rose a little. [What’s happening?]

[Nothing. I was thinking.] Nat replied using American Sign Language as well.

Clint shook his head. [You’ve got your distraught wrinkle. There in the middle of your forehead.]

[That’s not true!] The woman acted hurt.

 Clint used a nacho to pick up a bit of guacamole from his plate. [We both know it’s true. You shouldn’t lie] he taunted her.

[And you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full.]

[I’m not talking.]

Jason snorted loudly from his nose, holding back a laughter. The two agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. looked at him perplexed.

“Sorry, it’s just that he’s right: technically he wasn’t speaking.”

Hawkeye was pleasantly surprised. “I didn’t think you knew ASL.”

“I’m still learning, - the young man explained. – I started about a year ago.”

Clint, satisfied, nodded. “It’s a good thing. By the way, good idea ordering Mexican.”

Natasha filled her glass, trying to get rid for a few minutes of the feeling that their intruder guests had other secret besides hitting crooks in their free time.

· · ·

Mexican food was turning out to be a winning choice for all of the tablemates. Sure, if the youngest commensal hadn’t been looking at him like he wanted to murder him, Steve would have enjoyed his chuletas much more. Damian, right opposite to him, was eating his second quesadilla and hadn’t stopped glowering at him ever since Steve had put those pork chops in his plate. He didn’t choose them intending to be unfair to the child: the super soldier serum he had been injected decades ago had given him superhuman strength, but it had also increased his caloric needs, therefore he needed those proteins.

The tension was so clear that, towards the end of the meal, Tony decided to intervene. “Natasha and… Cranky Brat, you haven’t told us who won you scrimmage.”

Damian directed his hostile gaze to the billionaire. “No one, - he declared. - You interrupted us almost immediately.”

“Also, - the woman rose her voice to make sure everyone heard her, - you all could have bothered telling me the mite plays dirty.”

Tony rose an eyebrow and gave a look that spoke volumes to the boy who had suggested let the kid stretch in the gym.

“I never claimed the opposite, - Tim shielded himself with a shrug. – That may be because we’ve been living under the same roof for a couple of years, but I thought it was written on his face.

· · ·

After dinner, Tony announced he had a bedroom ready for each of their young guests. Natasha insisted that it would be their youngest recruit to show them the rooms quite vehemently. When she was sure they weren’t within earshot, she explained her reasons.

“They are lying to us or at least hiding something,” she claimed sure.

“What do you mean?”

“The whole story about vigilantes, Steve. It isn’t an activity some teenagers can carve out nothing. One needs training to face a criminal and not die by doing it.”

“You think they made it up?” Iron Man asked.

“No, but I think there’s someone behind who trains them, who indoctrinates them even.”

“Indoctrinate? Don’t you think that’s exaggerating?” Hawkeye was slightly doubtful of his colleague’s opinion.

“For starters, Damian used a potentially fatal move today. Then, he said something that reminded me of my training. Trust me when I tell you that behind that childlike visage there is everything a child should not be.”

Clint face darkened. “Earlier, when I was alone with Tim, he said something about the little kid trying to kill him. It sounded like a joke, but now I’m unsure.”

Steve glanced at the doorway their guests had used to leave the room. “Do you think Wanda might be in danger alone with them?”

Clint shook his head. “The girl can menage herself. Anyhow I’d keep in the dark about our suspicion, at least for now: I wouldn’t risk her to let something slip.”

“I want to get to the bottom of this matter, - the Black Widow concluded. – If in the meantime, Tony, you find a way to send them back where they’re from, even better.”

“Where are you going?” the billionaire asked.

“To count the knifes of your kitchen, in case someone thought of stashing weapons that aren’t in the official inventory of the Tower.”

* * *

Wanda opened her eyes with difficulty.

She was in a wide and dark building. The only windows were at least ten metres above the floor, only a trickle of light leached through them, perhaps the Moon.

She didn’t know the place.

She tried to look around, but her vision was blurred: shapes were distorted and a dark fluid dripped from her head in front of her eyes. She wanted to remove it, but she couldn't. She couldn’t feel her arms. She couldn’t feel her legs. She was dazed, confused, and scared.

A figure appeared from the dark, a woman. She tried asking her for help, but she couldn't emit any sound. Despite that, the woman moved close. Wanda tried to focus on the face with poor result.

Mama?

The thought left her confused: her mother never had short hair, let alone blond.

When the woman got closer, she started to change: her hair became green, her face as white as a sheet of paper and, on it, a disproportionate red grin appeared. That terrifying face whose eyes she couldn’t see leant back: they were laughing. Only then Wanda realized she wasn’t hearing anything.

Her instinct screamed her to run or, at least, to close her eyes, to look away.

ANYTHING!

Nothing.

She couldn’t move at all.

She glimpsed something in the hands of that creature that wasn’t looking human anymore, maybe a metal pole. She couldn’t figure out. It was about to hit her. Then the monstrous figure disappeared.

She found herself alone, lying on the ground. Something terrible was about to happen, she could feel it.

A red writing started gleaming in the air, it looked like a digital clock counting backwords. In place of the numbers, however, there were letters, letters that made words.

UNLOVED

FOR

THOU

ART

ZERO

The countdown ended. Everything became light and fire.

Wanda wasn’t feeling the heat of the flames, yet she sensed tremendous pain.

No ache, no burn. What she felt was anguish, the awareness of having disappointed everyone. No, not everyone: someone in particular.

Everything went dark.

· · ·

Few seconds later she was sitting on her bed, her heart was beating wildly. Her sheets were damp of her sweat, her cheeks of tears. Through the window the light of New York City got in, combined with the sounds of the metropolis: it was the dead of night.

It had been a particularly vivid dream and she knew only one thing: that nightmare was someone else’s. She tried to fall back asleep, but those terrible images reappeared every time she blinked.

After some endless minute, Wanda decided to go for a walk.

She had entered before the dreams of other people and she had rarely found the event pleasant. That nightmare was now part of her top ten of her ranking of worst stolen dreams and it challenged for first place one that she was almost certain was Natasha’s. She supposed it belonged to one of the boys.

She roamed through the hallways in her nightgown. Despite being wide awake, she couldn’t brush off the anguish. In moments like that, she missed Vision; the synthetic android decided few days prior to take some time to explore the world incognito. He said he wanted to experience and learn. Wanda knew he wasn’t a human being, but that didn’t make him less of a person to her eyes. There was something within him the girl felt almost alive. He didn’t sleep and he didn’t have nightmares, so he could keep her company without being bothered.

Passing the living room, she noticed a light on. She went in.

“Hi, Wanda,” Tim greeted her quietly.

He sat on the floor, surrounded by several scribbled paper napkins. The young woman wondered how he had recognised her, since he had his back turned to her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I got a thought…”

“And it couldn’t wait until the morning?” She said half perplexed half amused.

“I would’ve forgotten it. I tried getting into the lab, but it’s closed. I suppose it’s rude to pick a lock the first night.”

Wanda noticed in front of him there was a metallic sphere slightly bigger than a ping pong ball.

“What’s that?”

“A theory. Don’t touch it for any reason, - Tim turned to look at her. – Instead, why are you up at this time?”

Wanda held herself in her own arms, that was a good chance to find out whom the nightmare belonged to.

She came out with a simple “Bad dreams.”

Tim hesitated and went back to looking at his napkins notes.

“Listen, advice, or distraction?” he asked at last.

“What?”

“It’s a thing we have in our family. When someone tells you they’re in a bad mood, you ask if they want to be listened, if they want an advice, or if they’re looking for a distraction.”

“I think… I think I need to be distracted,” she admitted. She wasn’t actually keen to revive that frightening vision.

“Great, - Tim sounded a bit too enthusiastic to learn that he hadn’t to deal with her problem. – In that case, can you use your powers to get the ball? I want to put it somewhere safe but I don’t trust to touch it.”

“Where do you want me to put it?”

“For now, this glass I took from the bar corner will do.”

Completed the procedure, Wanda asked him again what that thing was.

“I told you, - Tim picked up the papers he had filled with strange calculations. – I got a theory about it. Maybe we got here because of it…”

They spoke about everything and anything until the woman felt her eyelids getting heavy.

“I’m going back to sleep,” she declared.

“See you at a more human time,” the boy waved.

* * *

Dawn had just cracked and Jason had already tried several doors with no results. Tim had told him that their hosts were keeping all of their stuff in a box inside a lab, however the little genius had omitted to tell him where said lab was.

Hawkeye saw him looking around.

“What are you doing?” he asked with a volume a bit too loud.

Jason turned around and noticed the man wasn’t wearing his hearing aids. He decided to sign his answer. He made a C shape with his right hand and describing a circle from right to left with it. [I search]

Clint brushed the tip of his left finger down across the flat palm of his other hand. [What?]

Jason frowned. He didn’t remember the sign for cigarettes, he had never needed it. He decided to mime the action.

Clint let a surprised “Oh…” leave his mouth.

Jason put both his hands in front of his mouth and closed his fists. [It’s a secret.]

“Wait here” the man said both vocally and in ASL.

As soon as Clint left his visual field, Jason started wondering if he should have followed him. What if he told the others? They would have certainly scolded him for his unhealthy habit. He didn’t want to be yelled at. He needed a distraction, something to empty hid mind.

When he reappeared, Clint signed to follow him. He lead the young man to a terrace. It was so vast a helicopter could land there.

[Huge!] Jason signed to Avenger.

The man nodded and walked closer, he gave him a cigarette and a lighter.

[Thanks]

[Don’t think of this as approval] Clint pointed out.

[Occasional], he tried to explain. He wasn’t used to conversation that extended.

Hawkeye noticed that Jason’s sentences in American Sign Language were getting more and more rudimentary. He put a hand in his pocket and drew out a pair of hearing aids.

“I told Stark I was looking for these when I ransacked his lab, - he admitted as he adjusted the volume. – Now I can hear you.”

“I don’t smoke often, - the lad explained lighting his cigarette. – Only when I need to calm down and nothing else works.”

“Have you ever tried seeing a therapist?”

Jason snorted. “I’m not in the mood for being psychoanalyzed. You can leave me alone. I’ll get back on my own when I’m done.”

Clint crossed his arms. “I think I’ll stay here, instead. If you want, we can just look at each other’s eyes. Otherwise you could tell me why you started learning ASL.”

Jason blowed a puff of smoke. “I went back home last year after a definitely complex period, to sum it up. And I found out that in addition to the Replacement, the old man adopted a girl, Cassandra.”

“Replacement?”

“How else should I call the boy that was adopted shortly after I was declared dead?”

Clint restrained himself from saying by his name only because he hoped that, without an interruption, he would have given more details about the being declared dead topic.

“Anyway, Cass is a cool girl; she just struggles with words,” Jason resumed after exhaling some other smoke.

“Does she have troubles hearing?”

“Quite the opposite, all of her sense are hyper trained. From what I’ve been told, she was never thought to speak.”

“You mean she doesn’t speak English?”

“I mean any language. Apparently, her father raised her to live and breath martial arts. I think he meant to build some kind of war machine. She can read body language in a, I dare say, perfect way.”

Jason stopped talking to breath in and out the smoke.

Damn, Clint thought, that was a great ability. Sure, everything behind it wasn’t great at all.

“She’s smart. A family friend is teaching her to write and read, she can say some word. However, signing came more natural to her. More or less like dancing.”

“So you started studying ASL to better communicating with her.”

“Essentially. I thought it was the least I could do for her, considering she had a childhood almost certainly worse than Damian’s.”

Clint was about asking more details about that last statement, but Jason put out the cigarette butt and headed back inside the building.

The man recalled Natasha’s warning on not trusting their guest, since they seemed trained and dangerous. Jason’s words confused him: the previous evening he said that him and Tim had been adopted by Damian’s father and that there were other siblings. The hint to the girl’s past gave him the impression that the man, whom they have only called B, had been saving children from lives of horror. Nevertheless, the fact that Jason had put on the same level Damian’s infancy with that sister’s one could be a point in favour of the woman’s thesis.

Clint got back in the Tower, imaging that the tormented young man would have gone to get breakfast. When he caught up, he was stunned: Jason looked like an entirely different person.

Chapter Text

Entering the kitchen, Jason found his brothers and Captain Rogers already in the middle of having breakfast. The Avenger was reading a newspaper, last millennium habits were hard to lose. Damian was wearing clothes that didn’t belong to him, probably borrowed from one of their guests who had kids, Jason guessed. Tim left his stool to grab the coffee pitcher. He had taken off the sweatshirt he had been wearing the previous evening and was now in a T-shirt. The tee in question was black and a couple of sizes too big and, when the boy turned to greet his older brother, it revealed an emblematic red logo that reminded of an S on the chest.

Jason exulted. “Ah – ha! Dick owns me twenty-five bucks!”

“What are you talking about, boy?” Steve asked without raising his eyes from the article he was reading.

“The shirt, - he grinned. – I just won a bet.”

“You won a bet because your brother is wearing a T-shirt?”

“The shirt he’s wearing technically isn’t his. And the person he took it from…”

Tim interrupted him as he blushed violently. “Stop it!”

“As you wish. We both know what the truth is.”

Jason snagged something to eat and sat opposite his brother with a satisfied smirk.

Clint forced himself to be indifferent, but he was definitely confused. Two minutes ago, the young man seemed almost desperate. Something was tormenting him to the point where he needed substances to keep his temper. Now, he was laughing and teasing his brother, like if all that had crossed his mind on the terrace hadn’t happened at all. How much else did he hide to people around him?

Wanda and Tony joined them, shortly after Natasha followed. The latter had moist hair from her post morning training shower.

“What’s going on?” The homeowner asked when he saw Tim hiding his now purple face in his hands.

Steve shrugged from behind his newspaper. “Something about his shirt.”

“What about it?”

“It has Superman’s crest on it,” Tim started getting a little less red.

“Who?” Iron Man voiced the question all the Avengers had.

“An alien, - Damian explained with a neutral tone. – He is one of the most powerful beings in the World. Fortunately, he is sweet temperated.”

Jason impulsively corrected the expression. “Sweet tempered.”

Damian replied with a single sound. “Tt”

“So, the shirt has something to do with this Superman?”

“Sort of, - Jason clarified. – It belongs to Superman’s son and it’s what I needed to prove that Superboy and Timmy here are together. Therefore, I won a bet.”

Tim looked like he had retrieved most of his composure. “It’s your word against mine.”

Jason didn’t give up. “Akhi, you’ll confirm everything to Dick, right?”

Damian stopped sipping his tea. “Why should I? What would I gain?”

The child saw that his embarrassed brother was relaxing. He rolled his eyes and mumbled something in an Arabic dialect that Natasha couldn’t decipher nor recognize. The tone gave the impression that he had just reiterated that he wouldn’t waste his time in that matter. However, the bending of a corner of Jason’s mouth made her suspect that he had said the opposite.

· · ·

Wanda had remained silent. She didn’t care much about the T-shirt and its history: she had something more urgent in mind. She was still thinking about last night dream. She was sure enough that it wasn’t Tim’s, so she was searching for traces of fear in one of the other boys. Exploiting that she needed to grab tableware and food she walked around the breakfast bar a couple of times, almost touching the potential owners of the nightmare.

Damian was mostly unperturbed both in and outside. Jason, instead, was laughing and taunting the other brother. When Wanda got closer to him to scan his psyche, she immediately felt a stab in the stomach. Pure anguish, perhaps a little clouded and repressed, but not for this less real. It was the same torment that had woken her: the dream had to be his.

She didn’t realize she had zoned out until Jason himself called for her attention waving a hand before her face.

“Hey, Wanderer! I know I’m awesome, but can you stop staring at me like that?”

Wanda muttered an apology an sat, keeping her telepathic powers at bay to the best of her possibilities.

Tony unwrapped an energy bar and watched the coffee match that had just started. Clint had tried to pour some for himself and Tim had clutched the pitcher with unforeseen strength. Taking pity on the colleague struggle, Tony decided to help by distracting the boy.

“Didn’t you say you had a girlfriend?” he recalled, returning on the T-shirt topic.

“Had, - Tim stressed the past tense. - And now I’ve got a boyfriend. Something I would have told my family in due time. Instead, as soon as we get back home everyone will know. Thanks a lot, Jay.”

“Wait… Boyfriend? – Steve frowned and closed his paper. – Boyfriend as in lover?”

The teenager let go of the coffee pitcher to fully pay attention to the conversation. “What? Are you telling me that him being a guy is more shocking than him being half an extraterrestrial?”

Captain America stammered out “Yes. I mean no. What I want to say is… in your world, that’s normal?”

“Heterosexual couples are more recurring, but, yes, it is usually accepted.”

“Yes, but… - Steve gesticulated a bit. – Can really people have a true relationship with a woman first and one with a man then? I mean is it something that happens?”

Tim looked at his hands and counted something on his fingers. “More often than you’d think. Liking more than a gender isn’t that rare, at least where we’re from.”

The expression on the veteran face changed several times. Confusion. Surprise. Doubt. His eyes darted left and right like if was solving an enormous invisible equation. In the end, he stuttered something about needing a moment and left the room all of sudden.

Tim looked around for a moment. “Did I say something wrong?”

No one answered. They all remained silent until Wanda asked the teen if he had any progress on his nocturnal theory.

“Oh, right. I almost forgot about it! I might have found out how we got here. Wait a second.”

The boy darted out the room and came back in about a minute. This time he was walking. In his hands he had some scrabbled napkins and a glass with a metallic sphere inside.

The young woman recognized the object. “You understood what it is?”

Tim cleared the way for his napkins notes and pointed some filled with letters, numbers, and other messy symbols.

“I think it’s a device able to open interdimensional breaches. I was trying to disassemble and understand it, before we got here.”

“Let me guess, - Stark interrupted him. – You activated it instead.”

“Not at all, nothing happened until Damian arrived and decided that touching an unknown object with his bare hands was a good idea.”

The kid shrugged “You could have stopped me.”

“I don’t have the slightest intention of arguing with you now, you’d enjoy it, – Tim bit back, then he turned to Tony. – Mr. Stark, is your lab equipped with mechanical arms and others basic supplies?”

“Yes, it is. What do you need?”

“A safe place to disassemble this thing, - Tim shook the glass containing the device. – So we can learn how it works and get us home.”

“To the lab!” the billionaire announced with emphasis.

The two of them gathered the young genius’ messy notes and vanished. The others had barely the time to notice the same curious light in the eyes of both of them, one that foretold pure chaos.

· · ·

“So, what do we do now?” Wanda asked after she put her tableware in the dishwasher.

“You, young lady, go wear something fit for training, - Clint was at the same time gentle and unmovable, almost fatherly. – You’ve been skirting for too long.”

The girl grumbled a little.

“He’s right, - Natasha sided with her colleague. – Chop-chop. In seven minutes, I want to see you in the gymnasium.”

Resigned, Wanda complied.

“Listen, Natalia, - Jason approached the Russian woman. – Last night Damian told me you’ve got a nice gym…”

“I said it is adequately ample and decently equipped,” the child corrected.

“Which is, once translated from Damian, a nice gym. Am I allowed to use your gear?”

“Only with one of us there.”

“Perfect. Other thing: I’d need some clothes more suitable to train in.”

“Of course. I’m sure Clint has something to lend you. – Then, the woman addressed the youngest. – In six minutes, I trust to find you as well in the gym.”

Damian nodded and ran out of the room shouting: “Last one to reach the gymnasium is an inept!”

Natasha gave a hint of a smile seeing that childish behaviour: perhaps that kid hadn’t been totally ruined.

· · ·

Jason was horrified.

He had glimpsed inside Clint’s closet, while the avenger looked for something for him to wear in the gym, and he found himself unprepared for the view of the wardrobe. The huge assortment of purple shades that made most of the clothing would have had Spoiler bust from envy. And that girl was the Queen of Dressing Purple.

Eventually, Clint gave him a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Black, thanking heavens.

· · ·

Natasha had dared Damian to perform the same training Wanda had. The kid had proudly claimed he could undergo the double of her exercises. For now, he seemed to keep his word.

At some point, in the exact moment she had turned her back to him, the spy heard the child speaking loudly.

“Hey, Wanda, think fast!”

Natasha turned back just in time to catch sight of a metallic object flying towards her student. The latter successfully stopped the weapon, by wrapping it with red energy, and then let it fall on the ground. The material covering the floor prevented from making much sound the object that revealed to be a coffee spoon. It had been most certainly snatched from the kitchen during breakfast.

The Black Widow picked up the piece of silverware and gave the thrower a flaming glance. Damian shrugged he had got worse glares.

“That was reckless, - Clint added. – You could have hurt Wanda.”

“Tt, - Damian scoffed, - I threw slowly and it was nothing sharp. Moreover, if you want her to become a hero, you cannot keep her in a crystal carillon.”

Jason was performing some exercises on the bench press. He put the barbell back on its safety racket and sat up.

“The expression you’re looking for, little demon, is a glass bell.”

The child mumbled something that could be taken as an apology and went back to his exercises acting a little more peaceful.

· · ·

A little later, Natasha gave Jason a pair of boxing gloves and offered to be his partner for some heavy bag drill. After a few sets she asked Clint to take over from her holding the bag. Initially, she wanted Wanda to do that, but the young man was stronger that she had anticipated and she didn’t want to discourage her pupil by making Wanda face an experienced fighter who didn’t know her level.

Instead, the woman took advantage of Jason’s great performance and quietly pointed out his stance and well executed hits to Wanda.

“It’s odd…” Natasha said when Jason allowed himself to take a break.

“What?” he asked while removing his gloves.

“The scar you’ve got on your left cheek looks like your name’s initial.”

The young man’s body was shaken by a tremor. He began staring at the void, trying to control his heartbeat. The spy thought she saw a green glow in his eyes.

Suddenly, Wanda let out a shriek.

“What’s the matter?”

“I saw a horrific face. It appeared in front of me. It looked like something I dreamed last night… Who thought of… - Wanda furrowed her brown looking for the best words to describe the image. – Who thought of a killer clown?”

Like he was possessed, Jason threw himself on the young woman and pushed her against the nearest wall. Wanda found herself with her feet a span above the floor, his forearm pressed against her throat. She was struggling to breathe.

“I don’t care ‘bout your intentions, - the boy growled. – Don’t involve yourself in what doesn’t concern you.”

Wanda stretched out a hand to touch his temple, but Jason recoiled, letting her falling down.

“Stay out of my head, - he yelled. – Keep your witching metahuman powers far from me!”

With that he stormed out of the gymnasium, leaving a cold and surreal silence. Even Damian abstained from commenting.

Wanda got back on her feet, massaging her neck. She felt she had touched a sore topic, but she didn’t know what to say or how to behave. Natasha moved close to her and checked she was physically alright.

“You mentioned a dream?” Nat asked her a question under her breath.

The girl nodded.

“Wonderful… - she sighed. Then she turned to Clint. – I’ll go check on Jason. Stay here with them.”

[OK. Try on the balcony] the man signed his answer.

· · ·

Barton was right: Jason was on the balcony.

Looking grim, he was pacing up and down, mumbling. The woman drew near him and managed to understand some word. The were all swears, in multiple languages.

“… maldito payaso hijo de la gran…- Jason noticed her and stopped. - What do you want from me, Natalia?”

The former soviet spy shrugged. “Just seeing if it’s all okay. If I got it right, last night Wanda saw a dream of yours.”

“Dream is an odd definition: I had to relive one of the worst moments of my existence.”

“I know what you’re feeling,” Natasha had force herself to use a tone that could pass for gentle or comforting.

“You know what I feel, my ass! – Jason spit. – You have no idea what I went through!”

“I know you feel violated, - undaunted, Natasha went on. It appeared she knew what she was talking about. – Re-experiencing all of that in your mind wasn’t enough. Someone else had to witness it, someone who doesn’t know neither your past nor what that moment meant for you.”

“Did Wanda the Wanderer wander in your dreams, too?”

“I told you. I know how frustrating it is. Especially, when they are nightmares or bad memories.”

“I don’t know you much, but I’m surprised she’s still alive.”

“Oh, for that you have to thank the rest of my team, - Nat gave a hint of a smile. – Anyway, we can move you in a bedroom farther away from Wanda’s.”

“Is it what you did?”

“Frankly, back then I would’ve put an inhibitory collar on her, - the woman admitted. – It would’ve happened if Clint hadn’t made me give in.”

“Clint is a good man,” Jason nodded.

“Wanda is a good person, too. She has been through a lot and she still has an hard time to handle her powers, but she didn’t mean to harm you.”

“I suppose we could start over. As long as she forgives me for lashing out at her.”

“You’ll have to talk to her. Come on. Let’s go back to the gym: believe it or not, I don’t trust much your little brother.”

“I don’t blame you, - Jason kept his voice as neutral as possible, - no one sound of mind would blindly trust Damian.”

“That’s a bit too much. Don’t you think?”

Jason pretended to think about the question only to come out with a sarcastic “Nah!”

Chapter Text

In the tranquillity of his lab, Tony observed Tim getting to work. The boy sat on a rolling stool and made Dum-e handle the strange little sphere. Using a small slotted screwdriver, he was trying to crack the surface of the device. The hydraulic arm robot seemed less mischievous than usual, the man noticed with a pinch of jealousy.

“Have you any idea of what you’re doing?”

“I’ll have one when I’m done,” the boy replied. He brought to light some little cable from inside the object. Then, the teen asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. to shoot a photograph of the components disposition every time he removed a piece.

On Tony’s face a smile took shape and the man found himself thinking that, if ever he had a child, he wanted them to be just like Tim: smart, witty, impulsively creative.

And also messy, a little voice in his head added when he moved his eyes to the rest of the work surface. The metallic desk had been flooded with tools and notes with an impressive velocity. The inventor knew he worked in a chaotic way as well, but that was someone else’s mess and he couldn’t have found anything in that.

He started collecting unused items, mostly to have something to do with his hands and not to be constantly on Tim’s back.

As he was looking for a logic to arrange the written napkins, he was told: “No, that one doesn’t concern this.”

Tony glanced at the scrabbled words. Tim’s cursive was crooked, clear enough: the graphemes were faithful to the posters that can be found in an elementary school classroom.

“Calling him dad in public in front of cameras,” he read out loud.

Tim took possession of the piece of paper. “I told you it doesn’t concern this.”

“What’s that about?”

“I had an idea and I jotted it down. At 3 A.M. it made sense.”

Stark raised a brow. Tim sighed and decided to explain better. “Conner and I decided to ruin his father’s presidential campaign.”

“His father, the alien hero?” Tony tried to imagine how an extraterrestrial being could be legally running for President of the United States of America.

“No, his other dad, – Tim continued neutral. – The brilliant and super rich businessman who, unbeknownst to most, is also a crazy super villain.”

Tony waited in vain for the boy to burst out laughing. Because that had to be a joke.

“Darn it, you’re serious.”

Tim cringed. “I omitted the part in which I explain how Kon was created in a lab with the precise intent to kill and/or replace one of the most powerful beings our planet has ever seen, didn’t I?”

Tony opened his mouth a couple of times without saying anything. He had no idea how to reply. He had always considered himself a sharp guy. He had a quick reply in most difficult situations. He had successfully stood his ground against Loki in person. For God’s sake! And now, an anaemic boy still too young for drinking ad left him in short of words.

Trying to ignore that silence that for him was rather embarrassing, Tony pretended to keep tidying up and had a look at the surveillance cameras from his cell phone. Inside the gymnasium everything seemed alright, for now.

· · ·

Steve realised that Tim’s lightly revelation on his romantic relationship of that morning had upset him. He didn’t know why, but the kid’s words had shaken him internally. He decided to think about something else, focusing on how he could help those three unusual guests going back home. However, he didn’t felt he was the best person for that.

The sensation of uselessness and the interior turmoil pushed him to go out for a jog. That kind of physical activity relaxed him, it allowed him to clear up his mind. Additionally, it gave him the opportunity to catch up with the decades of music he missed while on ice. To assist in that gargantuan challenge, Tony had gifted him some earphones that didn’t need to be attached to the device playing music. Even if he had no idea how they worked, Steve had to admit they were a great comfort.

· · ·

“Bingo!”

Tony went back paying attention to Tim. Using tweezers, he had pulled out a small plate with some circuits on it.

“Is that a motherboard?”

“Mh-hm… - the teenager nodded. – with this beauty I can finally know where I ended up.”

“Weren’t you already sure of being on a parallel Earth?”

“Yes, but now I can find out on which Earth I am. Is there something I can write on?”

Tony dug out a scratchpad and a pen from a drawer.

It took him a few minutes, but Tim got to connect the motherboard to one of the screens available in the lab. It quickly filled with a myriad of symbols the Avenger had never seen before. The boy, instead, didn’t seem surprised by that alphabet. He started transcribing some of those signs, below which he wrote letters and numbers. That brought to some equations.

“Earth 200 000, - he eventually announced. – Now I just have to figure out how to set up a trip to Earth 199.”

“What are these numbers?”

“The classification of several universes, according to the archives of Apokolips.”

“Apoca-what?”

“Apokolips. And Darkseid usually collects good info since he’s a multiversal entity.”

“Kiddo, I’m a genius only if you are speaking my language. I’m pretty sure you just invented half of the words in your last sentence.”

“There’s this dude who exists in all of the multiverse. It’s not different versions of the same guy: it’s always him. He wants to conquer and has catalogued most of existing universes.”

“So, our little sphere comes from his place?”

“The technology comes from Apokolips, but the handicraft is without a doubt terrestrial.”

“Now that I think of it. How did you find the number of this Earth?”

Tim shrugged. “I get by in Apokoliptinese. At least, the written one: it has unhuman sounds. As far as I’m concerned, it’s Space Latin.”

“You’re weird,” was the only comment Tony succeeded to say.

“It’s not that weird. Jason likes European languages, I like extraterrestrial ones.”

“Ones? As in plural? How many do you know?”

“Two. I mean, I understand them: I don’t think I’d be able to hold a conversation in either.”

“What language do you know? I’m guessing one is this Apo-what-ever-it-was. What’s the other one? Martian?”

“No, Martian is useless, - Tim shook his head and explained what was obviousness to him. – The speakers are almost extinct and Martians are telepath. I’m learning kryptonian, well kryptonese, the language of Superman’s people. The funny thing is that, among all kryptonian heroes we have on Earth, only Supergirl is a native speaker.”

Tony couldn’t say anything: Tim was already changing subject.

“If we want to open an interdimensional portal, we’ll need a big source of energy. This thing here is totally out of power.”

“How big?”

On Tim’s face slowly appeared a disturbing grin that didn’t forbode anything good.

“Oh, really big. Enough to power a skyscraper for a long time or to blow it up and wipe it out,” he concluded, miming an explosion with his hands.

“You said you’re on the good guys side, right?”

“Duh… - Tim scoffed a little, that was a dumb question. No one call themselves a bad guy… – So, do we have legal options or do I need to start digging for Uranium-235 on the dark web? Or, if you prefer it, I could look for some Deuterium.”

Tony went back to the thought he had had before, he was quite sure he had changed his mind: his future child would have not to be similar to Tim in any way. The kid seemed completely insane.

The young vigilante appeared to notice the man’s concern and smiled to him, snorting a little.

“I’m messing with you! I know that the great and smart Tony Stark developed Arc Reactors using an element he created in his own labs. I did my study.”

Alright, the billionaire conceded, the future child could be similar to Tim, but only a little.

“So, you want me to build you an Arc Reactor. Is not that, once you get back to your home, you’ll steal my invention to get rich?”

“First, I’m already rich. Second, if I wanted to steal your projects, I wouldn’t waste my time asking you for them.”

Tony frowned. “Excuse me, what?”

Thanks to the wheels of his stool, Tim got closer to the main computer of the room. He typed fast and started opening files on the screen. Only then, he turned back to the man.

“I’d do this. And, between you and me, Pepper is a basic password.”

“How did you…”

“Yesterday your AI mentioned more than once one Miss. Potts. I asked around who she was and I’ve been told you call her that.”

“Would you remind me how old you are?”

“Eighteen, freshly.”

“In those eighteen years of yours, have you ever seen a psychologist?”

“I periodically talk to a psychiatrist…” Tim started answering.

Tony interrupted him to comment: “Oh, good!”

“Usually, it is to stop her from doing crazy crimes, - the teenager resumed. – I don’t understand why so many people tell me I need therapy: as long as I have coffee, I’m good. Speaking of: I’ll go grab a cup, you want some?”

“You go ahead, I’ll be with you in a second.”

Tony noted down to find a new password and checked the gym cameras one last time. He saw Clint tearing his hair out, then he noticed Nat and the older boy weren’t there. He wanted to check where they were, but he remembered he had left Tim alone with a source of caffeine.

He probably should have prevented him from drinking any more coffee, his conscience suggested. Moreover, now that he thought about it, the kid looked a bit sickly.

· · ·

Running, Steve got to organise the little he new about other Earths. He had red something about the theory of parallel worlds and, if he understood it right, in these worlds for most of the time the same events happened until a point of divergence occurred. The older the discrepant episode was, the more two Earths would be different due to a chain of events. He hadn’t paid much attention, he didn’t thought it was a verifiable theory.

At a certain point, he remembered Banner’s name under a paper on that subject. If only he had been there. He could have been actually useful… Perhaps Tony could find something in that scientific article.

He sped up and headed back to the Tower.

· · ·

Natasha walked quickly: she felt the urgency to go back to the gymnasium. Indeed, Clint and Wanda were numerically in advantage, still she felt a grip on her heart. It wasn’t premonition, yet the sensation was impossible to ignore. She glanced a couple of times at the guest walking beside her.

“What do you want to know?” Jason asked as he stopped few meters away from the door they were supposed to reach.

“What do you mean?”

“You have the same face you had yesterday evening. Your distraught wrinkle is emerging on your forehead like it did at dinner.”

The woman ensured to go back to her indifferent expression. “I didn’t think you as the detail oriented type,” she commented trying to hide her surprise.

Jason shrugged. “I guess I learnt something from good old B.”

“And someone could look at you and think you’re all brawn and no brains!”

Jason winked at her. “Don’t underestimate being underestimated.”

“That’s correct, - she nodded with a hint of a smile. – Going back where we were, you’re right: there’s something I want to know.”

“Which is…?”

“Your little brother, Damian, - Natasha returned fully serious. – I don’t understand how he is that well trained. Or rather, I fear I understand it and the possibility of me being right both upsets and sickens me.”

“He’s been through a lot,” Jason limited himself to few words. He started regretting beginning that conversation.

“That’s an understatement. Could you expand your answer?”

The young man hesitated: that wasn’t his story to say.

“So? – the woman exhorted him. – I’m waiting”

Jason closed his eyes for an instant, recalling his time with the League of the Assassins.

No.

On one side, he knew he couldn’t talk about Damian’s past without his explicit permission. Natasha would have reported the conversation to her team. Even if they didn’t mean to, in the best of cases, they would have gone from compassion to commiseration. He had already overheard some speeches about himself, Cassandra or Damian; after there were always eyes filled of pity. That’s what people do.

On the other hand, he was fully aware that the Russian spy with no Russian accent wouldn’t have given up easily. It was clear to him that the woman had decided to spread her query on a prolonged timeframe and he had to admit it was a good move. Learning to resist to persistent questions of the classic good cop and bad cop was a child’s play compared to what Natalia was doing now. Masking important questions as mere talk was a technique he needed to learn for the future, but right now he needed to think fast. Jason knew he couldn’t end the discourse without risking the woman started chatting with Damian. With her the shrimp would have spilled all the beans and that wasn’t an option.

The Black Widow wasn’t the kind of person Damian could open up about his past. She would criticize him, judge him. She had just said that the hypothesis she had disgusted her. Jason couldn’t risk the woman harrying Damian’s precarious emotional state.

There was something in Natasha Romanoff that reminded him of Talia Al Ghul. He couldn’t pin point what; maybe it was her stance, maybe the tone of her voice, maybe her past as an assassin (Tim had shown him some hyper censured files last night). Probably it was the combination of all those things.

If he had noticed the similarities between the redhaired and Damian’s mother, the kid couldn’t have missed it. The fact that no one (B could have lied, but he had asked Alfred and Barbara for confirmation) had seen Talia ever since she had left her son with his father worsened the situation.

Jason remembered well how it was being a child desperately looking for a maternal figure and he remembered even better what it meant ending up betrayed.

The woman cleared her voice. “Well?”

“This isn’t neither the time nor the place for this conversation,” he replied, hoping he had bought time.

“As you wish,” Natasha nodded. Clearly Jason wasn’t willing to tell her anything more, but she could still work the little one. She could use the child’s vanity in her favour; with the right dosage of flattery, she could push him in telling her about his training. Few years ago, she had succeeded in manipulating the Norse god of mischief, with Damian it would have been a child’s play.

Natasha opened the gym’s door just enough to check how Clint was handling Wanda and Damian. She wanted to know if she could enter relaxed or if she needed to wear her mean face. Everything seemed aright: Damian and Wanda were both laughing at something Clint had said.

Jason shut again the door and reduced interpersonal distance at minimum.

“Don’t you ruin his day,” he whispered.

“What?” Instinctively the woman used the same volume.

“Don’t go asking Damian about his past.” In his voice there was something that vaguely resembled a plea.

“What makes you think I want to do that?” Natasha had to admit it to herself: Jason was way more observant and smarter than what she had initially estimated.

“Don’t ruin his day, Natalia, - he said again slowly, lowering his voice even more. – Or I will ruin your life.”

Natasha stared back at the young man taller than her by a full span. She knew she couldn’t underestimate him again and felt that his wasn’t an idle threat. For the first time in years, she found herself in a dead end. She didn’t remember the feeling of exiting a conversation empty handed.

· · ·

The first people Steve found were Natasha and Jason, just outside the gym. They were whispering and they were standing so close that Steve wondered for a second if they were flirting in some weird predatory way or on the verge of slaughtering each other.

Most likely the second option, his subconscious suggested. The right hand of the Black Widow was fidgeting on her side, searching for a weapon she wasn’t carrying at the moment.

· · ·

“Is all well here?” Captain Rogers appeared from behind the corner.

“Obviously… - Jason quickly distanced himself from Natasha and crossed his arms. – We’re just having an amicable chatter, aren’t we?”

Natasha took a step back herself and she nodded mechanically. The topic of Damian’s past was officially put aside. However, she still saw a tiny chance of reopening the conversation; she just needed not to antagonize Jason.

She glanced at Steve. He looked like he had been running under the sun for a quarter hour. That, considering his super solider enhanced metabolism, he had run from ten to fifteen times as much. She calculated.

Possible. He hadn’t been anywhere in the Tower for about three hours. The fact that he was wearing a tracksuit valued her hypothesis.

“Had a nice stroll?” She wanted to start another conversation before Captain America could ask what her and Jason were talking about.

Steve nodded. “I had the opportunity to think, reflect on some things…”

“Okay, I’ll leave you two chatting in peace, – Jason announced as he crossed the gymnasium’s door. – I’ve got to apologise to someone.”

“Apologise?” Steve echoed.

“Wanda visited a dream of Jason’s last night, - Natasha explained. – A nightmare. And earlier she has peeked again in his mind. He didn’t react well, when he realised it.”

“How bad was it?”

“Everyone is still alive and kicking, but I’d rather it doesn’t happen again.”

“Anything else?”

“Something tells me our young guests have a much more intricated past than their peers.”

“We already know they spend their free time playing vigilantes,” Steve pointed out.

“I’m positive there’s much worth delving into, but the two in the gym are hard nuts to crack.”

“Maybe Tony will work on his new pupil and finds something useful.”

“As long as the opposite doesn’t happen before,” Natasha scoffed. She didn’t doubt Stark’s cunning, but she didn’t want to underestimate any of their guest again.

Chapter Text

Steve’s conversation with Natasha was brief. She confided him that she had doubts about the extent of the secrets their guests kept and then she rejoined Clint and Wanda with the two kids in the gym.

He felt the need to go check on Tony before a mysterious eighteen years old tricked him in revealing dangerous information.

· · ·

From behind his own mug, Tony observed Tim gulping down the umpteenth coffee ration. He was more and more convinced that the boy had a dopamine attention variability executive dysfunction. He had heard that people who have this kind of neurodivergence but are undiagnosed might use caffeine as an alternative to stimulant medicines. He knew for first hand knowledge that it wasn’t something drawn out of thin air.

However, he restrained himself from bringing the matter out: it could be a sore topic. Some parents think the concept of disturb or dysfunction sounds too negative to look for a specific diagnosis. He himself hadn’t had one until after his parents had died. To his father’s eyes, it would have corrupted his child prodigy reputation.

Tony stopped wandering off about the past and focused on the present. Compared with their guests, the Avengers knew nothing about the Other Earth, 199 or whatever Tim had enumerated his universe. Natasha did tell him to keep secret as much as he could, but the kid had already filled around with his encrypted computers with no apparent effort.

“Do you drink that much coffee even at home?” Tony asked, hoping to start a conversation.

Tim put his not yet empty mug down and stared at it for an endless instant. He shook his head, getting his hair even messier.

“Nah. Agent A is very careful with my daily rations. I have specific limits. Especially with things like coffee.”

“Agent A?” Tony repeated.

“Just because your whole life is dished on Wikipedia, it doesn't mean you can know everything about mine. Honestly, I don’t get how you all can afford to not have secret identities.”

“There’s this organisation that put the squat together, they recruited us and-”

Tim interrupted him without pomp and ceremony.

“In an interview you revealed to the press that you’re Iron Man. Way before establishing yourself as a hero.”

The boy seemed to hesitate with that last word, sounding almost like he wasn’t convinced the man he was facing was worth the title.

“Establishing?”

“In a very short time frame you went from abducted moneybags to futuristic armoured warrior. Where I’m from one doesn’t become a self-appointed saviour like that. Most of our heroes stays in the shadows for years before revealing themselves to the public. But maybe that’s because of the spread distrust towards aliens and metas.”

“What would a meta be?”

“Metahumans. People who develop out of ordinary abilities thanks to their genetic potential.”

“You are speaking of mutants.”

“That sounds derogatory. I don’t think Wanda would appreciate this epithet.”

“Wanda is an enhanced human,” Tony corrected, he was quite certain of his choice of words.

“No, - Tim pointed behind his interlocutor. – He is an enhanced human being.”

Tony turned around and saw Steve.

“Hey, Capsicle! – he greeted. – What are you doing here?”

“On the advice of Natasha, I’m making sure you aren’t giving secrets away to strangers.”

“Wise woman, - Tim nodded. – You should listen to her more, Tony.”

Neither of the men could say how serious he was. The boy wasn’t looking at them: he seemed more interested in observing his own index moving counterclockwise on the edge of his mug.

“Are you insinuating that I revealed you information that I shouldn’t have?”

“No, I am highlighting that, if I had bad intentions, I would already have most I’d need, - Tim rose his head abruptly. He stared at the two heroes for a couple seconds, - If you wanted to be better superheroes, you could start by saving people without putting them in danger first. I didn’t find any great deed from the Avengers that hadn’t being caused, directly or indirectly, by one or more of you.”

“If you’re referring to the incident with Ultron-” Tony started retorting. He knew that Ultron’s events had been largely his fault.

Tim sighed and failed to hide an irritated laughter.

“That was the icing on the cake. I’m talking about the first time your squad was assembled. The problem was the brother of one of yours, from what I got. Then there are all the people with the purpose of destroying Tony Stark, the recent mess with the organization that put you together, and the manhunt started when you, Steve, decided to look for your revenant comrade in arms.”

“How do you know these things?” Captain Rogers inquired.

Tim gave him an astonished glance. If he had had glasses, he would have lowered them on the point of his nose to look at Steve from above the lenses. He let his arms drop to his sides.

“Two words: terrible firewall, - he rose a hand to count on his fingers. – I would like to say no offense, but it’s outrageous how vulnerable Friday is.”

Steve stared at Tony for an instant. “That doesn’t explain where you found the time to learn all these things. You got here yesterday evening!”

Tim just smirked, rising a corner of his mouth. “I think it is time to get back to work, - he stood up and ended the conversation. – Ah, Tony, for your information, your draft of preparation for an alien invasion is mediocre, to be polite.”

At that point, Steve excused himself and headed to his room to take a shower.

· · ·

Damian confused Clint. He was around his Cooper’s age, perhaps a bit younger, but he had a light in his eyes he had seen only in few people. People like Natasha. It wasn’t constant. There were moments where he seemed a perfectly normal child, frightened by the new situation and the distance from home. At times, however, Clint feared he’d snapped and attacked someone out of the blue.

When Jason, followed by Tasha, had run out of the gym, Damian had approached him. “Agent Barton…”

“Call me Clint.”

“Agent Barton, do you think we will return home?”

“You got here, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get back.”

The kid seemed not satisfied by the answer. “I do not want everything to change. Not anew.”

“What you mean?”

“Living with Father is different from it was with Mother. Nonetheless, I began considering the situation appreciable.”

The word choice was odd for a twelve years old. The term appreciable alone sounded outdated. Hearing him referring to his parents in such a formal way felt unnatural to the man, but he could see that it wasn’t for Damian. Yet, he didn’t think it was a thing on the other Earth: Jason hadn’t been using the same style.

“You miss your mother?” Clint opted for using the same title as the child.

Damian stiffened and pointed his eyes at a random point behind the man. “This lacks of relevance. And it does not concern you.”

That was clearly an affirmative answer that the kid tried to hide. Clint left it off.

· · ·

Jason re-entered the gym and walked towards Wanda. He was going at a such fast pace that Clint thought he wanted to attack her. Damian held him back by asking him something about some weapons hung on one of the walls. Jason ended up simply speaking to Wanda. They were too far for Clint to hear them, but their conversation finished in a handshake.

· · ·

Some minutes later, Wanda tried apologizing again for overstepping Jason’s privacy. It was at least the third time she went back to the supposedly closed topic. Jason immediately interrupted her.

“Don’t do it. Don’t stuck on things. It can be fatal.”

“What?” The young woman inclined her head, she was slightly confused.

“It’s an advice for your future fights, - Jason stretched his shoulders. – When you make a mistake, especially one you can’t fix, don’t dwell on it. You screwed up a hit? Who gives a damn. Carry on with the next one. If your mind is occupied digging up the past, you’ll never be fully alert.”

“I’ve been told to learn from my mistakes…” Wanda’s eyes instinctively looked for Clint and Natasha who were kept busy by Damian. (The kid had noticed some hangers on the wall that were supposed to display swords and he was asking why there weren’t any around.)

“Right. That’s a good thing, when you have the time. In the field, however, you need to be focused. One hundred percent.”

 Jason headed to the corner where the body opponent bags were kept and he pulled one towards the centre of the gym.

“What are you doing?” Wanda asked him.

“Now I teach you how to crash one’s jaw with just a hit,” he explained lowering his voice.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s very useful: you can get people to shut up for a long time.”

“No, I mean… Are you sure the others would agree to you teaching me such a move?”

Instead of answering, Jason bounced a little on his feet and threw a right hook to the face of the synthetic bust. Despite the heavy base, the mannequin tipped over.

“Wow…”

“The first times you won’t knock your adversary out, but I promise you’ll hurt them quite a lot. But, if you think it’d be good for you knowing this, - Jason resumed while picking up the BOB, - I won’t tell you to use your entire body. Just like I won’t tell you that your knuckles need to hit a precise spot.”

“Where?”

“Right here, - Jason made her put her fingers at the bottom of the dummy’s face. – But I, obviously, never told you that, exactly as I am not telling you that you’d need to make sure your wrist isn’t bent when you strike. Otherwise, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Seems dangerous. I think it’s a good thing you aren’t teaching me this hit,” Wanda smiled.

“I see you start understanding.”

· · ·

Watching Tim programming or, at least writing, in an alien code he had never seen before kept on amazing Tony. Not that he would have admitted it.

The kid had taken a real chair this time, but instead of sitting on it he stood, leaning his body forward on the chairback. From there he typed on a holographic keyboard composed by that apocalyptic alphabet or whatever was its name. Tony didn’t even know if those symbols represented letters, syllables, or words.

“It looks like you and your brothers took all this matter quite calmly.”

“It isn’t the first time we have contact with another Earth. We even met some time travellers.”

“What?”

“I think at least one of them screwed up the timeline at some point,” the boy went on, still looking at his screen.

Of course, time travel. Why not? Tony tried convincing himself that keeping being surprised was a waste of time and energy.

“Anyway, I admire how you keep your sangfroid.”

“After a while, one just…” Tim stopped in the middle of the sentence. He threw up his hands and stepped back from his work.

“Is all…?” Tony started asking him.

“I’m an idiot! – the teenager shouted. – I’m getting this all wrong!”

“What do you mean?”

“If I keep building an advanced Zeta Tube, we won’t go anywhere. I mean, we’d go somewhere, but still on this Earth.”

“I’m not following you…”

“I was planning to build a sort of portal that should bring a person from a location to another, without needing platforms of departure and arrival. But I just realised that I couldn’t use it with coordinates from another universe. I doubt I could arrive on your Mars, even. If we used that, we’d end up in the coordinates that on my Earth would be Gotham City, New Jersey.”

“So, where?”

Tim opened an Internet tab and looked for a satellite map.

“Give or take, some town called Vineland. Hey, look! Where we have Blüdhaven you’ve got a city called Philadelphia. What a funny name! Back home that’s the name of a cheese…”

“You were saying you would end up in Vineland,” Tony took the boy back to the main topic.

“Right. Long story short: we’d need a Boom Tube.”

“And a little less short?”

“We need a Mother Box to open one of those interdimensional portals. New Genesis Technology. Impossible to replicate. I know only one person able to open one. With the resources you have here, maybe, I could build a communication device.”

“So, you don’t need any longer the material you asked me for?”

“Oh, no. I definitely need that source of energy to transmit across the multiverse.”

“Anything else?”

“Right now, I need an idea for that communicator.”

· · ·

Since Tim had restarted from scratch every project to bring himself and his brothers home, Tony had to be on the sidelines once again. Any suggestion he tried to give was quickly dismantled by the teenager and even reading (decipher) his scribbles was getting harder than he expected: Tim was tearing up paper sheets faster than the man could read.

He opted for working on something else. Shortly after, Tony succeeded to transfer to his personal phone the alarms for the meals set up by Pepper. He hadn’t the clearance to fully disable them, but, at least, F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice wouldn’t have blasted anymore those embarrassing reminders in the whole residential section of the Tower. Deep down, he knew Pepper was right: too many times, he had found himself so deep in one of his project that he had forgotten eating. Too many times, Pepper had found him in his laboratory at the weirdest hours having an empty stomach for more than half a day.

Tony checked if the tests on the DNA samples had arrived from the labs at the downstairs floors. The three brothers weren’t blood related, but Tim had said something about adoptions. What actually surprised him was the total lack of affinity of their genomes with any person: F.R.I.D.A.Y. could look in most world databases. Theirs was human DNA, but at the same time it wasn’t from that World.

The now silent alarm lighted on his phone screen and diverted him from his conjectures.

“Hey, whizz, do you like Chinese food?”

Tim answered with an absent-minded “mh-hm” that Tony accepted as an affirmative answer. He left the lab to call the closest restaurant.

· · ·

When the food arrived, Stark had already mustered everyone up. They didn’t take the same seats of the previous evening.

For once, Tony got to seat at the head of the table in his own house. It had happened only because he had been the first one in the room with a large advantage, but it still considered it a victory. Tim sat at his right and announced he had reserved the chair next to himself for Wanda, quoting some sitcom the man had never bothered to watch.

Steve arrived next and opted for the other end of the table as he helped the two them finishing to set the table.

The others joined them after freshening up and changing out of sports attire.

Jason had gently but firmly pushed Damian until the kid took the place on Tony’s left. Iron Man noticed that the young man was little grumpier than that morning at breakfast.

Wanda seemed to gladly join Tim and ended up right in front of Jason. Tony feared that it could be a problem, since Jason had apparently attacked her during training in the gym. But, whatever had happened, they seemed to have worked it out.

Clint, who usually sticked close to Nat, sat next to Jason. Hawkeye had been probably the only Avenger that Jason not only hadn’t antagonized but with whom he had a civil conversation.

Natasha sat on Steve left, right next to Wanda, and opposite to Barton.

Tony’s instinct told him that something was off. Usually, Clint and Nat spoke openly in ASL, not that he could understand much; right now, the two of them tried to keep their signs as hidden as possible and stopped whenever Jason looked at them. On top of that, Cap’s face was concerned and he looked like he was following some of that silent chat.

· · ·

Jason had never considered himself a Chinese cuisine enthusiast. Sure, he wasn’t either one who would refuse a warm and, above all, free meal but he had always despised the suction sounds that were a sign of appreciation in that culture.

He felt uneasy. Obviously, the reason wasn’t the choice of the meal and he had no idea why his thoughts were fixed on Chinese table etiquette at the moment. Perhaps, his mind wanted to distract itself from everything that was going on.

Recently, back home, he had started neatening his life up. He had his own apartment; his relationship with his family (more precisely with Bruce) was getting manageable. He still had to dismantle the organization he had built when he returned to Gotham few years ago. He didn’t actually want to do that last thing. First of all, he had worked hard to get his domain of that portion of the city’s lowlifes and dealers; on top of that, he was still convinced that controlling those cliques was the better option.

Now, he wanted to go back home as soon as possible. Also, there was Ms. Romanoff interest in Damian’s past…

“How’s going in the labs?” He hoped for good news.

Tim hesitated. “Slowly. But I’m positive on what I need to do.”

It didn’t sound like a full on lie, but it was clear that he was keeping things for himself.

Damian scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Is something wrong?” Tim asked sounding a bit riled.

“Of course it isn’t. It was perceivable that you would have drown a blank.”

“Drawn…” Jason sighed.

That correction didn’t distract Tim from the insult. “Oh, I’m sorry that I couldn’t invent interdimensional teleport in one forenoon! I fear that Your Majesty shall have to take the postmeridian nap here!”

Jason betrayed his frustration by hitting the table with his fist. Plates and glasses clinked. He tried to justify that act as a way to assert his authority on his younger brothers. “Drop it, you can restart arguing after lunch. Now, eat in silence, both of you. Or I’ll use my chopsticks to lobotomize you.”

Surprisingly, the two of them obliged. For few minutes they limited themselves to glower at each other. Clint kept glancing at them, probably trying to interpret their not so subtle conversation made of glances and faces, but he didn’t dare to make a comment about it.

It was Mr. Stark who broke the silence.

“I did some analysis on you three and there’s one thing I’m wondering about. How is it that your clearly human genes are so different from anyone else’s on this planet?”

“It could depend on how ancient the POD is,” Tim guessed after few instants of thinking.

“The what?”

“The Point Of Divergence. The event that made our universes or, at least, our Earths, take two different routes.”

“Like what?”

“Anything. From the angle of impact of a meteorite millions of years ago to the last dispute over a patent’s rights last century. Even the choice between dining at a restaurant and cooking for oneself at home could became a point of divergence.”

“So, the older this POD is, the less similar two universes are. I got it right?” Capt. Rogers asked.

“Exactly, – Tim nodded. – And I think that our worlds have a very ancient POD.”

“What makes you say that?” Natalia showed she had been paying attention to their conversation.

“Well, you don’t seem to have other species of the Homo genus living among Sapiens and, generally, it takes several thousands of years for two or more species to develop from one common ancestor. The same for extinction caused by one species prevailing on another.”

“Other human species?” Stark echoed.

“Yes, like Homo Magi or the Atlanteans. I don’t think you have those around here.”

“This makes no sense, - Clint pointed out. – How are our parallel universes so different and yet we speak the same language?”

“Perhaps, when the metahumans first appeared on our Earth, the human language had already started developing and the existence of Metas didn’t influence it much,” Jason guessed. It seemed a logical answer to him.

“And our Earths aren’t parallel, they are alternative, - Tim corrected. – You don’t have to think of a POD as a fork on a perfectly paved road. It’s more like a rock on a free climbing wall: there are infinite paths to and from there. Most of universes also have Points Of Contact: similar or even identical events that happens after the divergences.”

“Got it,” Clint nodded.

· · ·

For a while silence fell back on the table, until Damian decided to intervene. “If there are not metahumans on this Earth, what is her?” he asked pointing a finger to Wanda.

Because of their proximity to them, Wanda felt first Natasha annoyance to Damian’s voice and, right after, a bunch of profanity appearing in the teenager on her left.

Tim sighed and shook his head, keeping all those cuss inside himself. “Technically, Meta isn’t a proper scientific category and Damian could have been a little tactful, but it isn’t totally out of place. Wanda, could you explain me the nature of your powers?”

“Is it important?” Wanda reply got out curter than she intended.

“It might be. I found something that looks interesting in some files, but what I can get out of there is limited. Most of them are written in something like, uh… Serbo-Croatian?”

“Sokovian, my mother tongue.”

“See? I not even the language I got right. Anyway, I think you’re the best option to explain your powers.”

Wanda lowered her gaze to her hands. They were trembling. The origin of her powers wasn’t something she liked to dig up, especially in front of the Avengers.

Maybe, Tim noticed her discomfort since he changed his request. “Or, later, you could translate some of those documents for me. I don’t really trust translation programs.”

“That’s alright. I suppose,” she hadn’t a reason to deny him that. Translating would have needed a smaller dive into her memories. She could do that.

Now she was wondering: how did the boy put his hands on those private documents? Tony had assured that most of the files about her were encrypted.

Chapter Text

Wanda had a look to all the documents about herself and Pietro that were popping on the screen.

“I can’t believe that Tony granted you access to everything… - her face clouded. – There’re private things in there.”

“He didn’t,” Tim reassured her.

“You sure? Because it looks like-”

“I opened them myself: he wouldn’t give me anything.”

Somehow, those words didn’t seem to comfort Wanda, he noted.

· · ·

“These are the declarations that they made us sign. They say that Pietro and I were volunteers. No one was forcing or, uh… extorting us. Or anything like that.”

“There’s a lot of pages…” Tim commented.

“Baron von Strucker said those were formalities, for any inconvenience that could happen to us, - she said mechanically. – No other… subject survived to the experiments.”

Tim nodded and put those files aside: they hadn’t anything actually useful.

· · ·

The first documents that gave them something talked about the Maximoff twins being exposed to an unknown stone.

“It was an Infinity Gem, - Wanda clarified. – I think Tony’s computer has more information about it. I only know that it is a primordial form of energy.”

“Interesting. Where did it go? It could be handy.”

“It’s part of Vision,” the woman tone got brusque, almost vexed. Protective, his intuition suggested.

“In other words?” Tim checked out Wanda with the corner of his eye. She was standing straight, her arms crossed on her chest: defensive.

“It’s difficult to explain… I don’t think the others consider him actually alive because he was born from an artificial intelligence that fused with the Gem, - Wanda’s voice softened. – But I feel he’s a real person.”

Tim completely turned towards her, squinting his eyes: the woman’s stand had gotten more relaxed. He pressed his lips and tilted his head to the left. Before replying he let his face muscles writhe into a couple of ambiguous poses, then he limited himself to a simple and polite: “Okay.”

· · ·

“What do I need to translate now?”

“Here… - Tim pointed at the screen with a finger. – I think I’m starting to recognise recurring words. Something about broken videos, right?”

“Corrupted registration. At first, our powers were definitely unstable. They moved me from a room to another few times and they had to replace the video cameras they used to observe me even often. I don’t know if the cameras in Pietro’s room kept breaking too or if it was only in mine.”

“Cell.”

“What?”

Tim turned to her again and was looking her in the eyes. More serious than ever.

“You need to call things with their name, Wanda. Trust me, in the long run it’s better not to delude yourself with words that sweeten the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you ever again call room the cell they kept you in, not even in your mind. Especially in your mind. I know it sounds better, but it doesn’t make you see reality how it is. It’s not good to lie to yourself.”

Wanda felt a turmoil of emotion leaving the boy. “Who are you trying to convince? Me or you?”

“Possibly both, - Tim hesitated, looking like he wanted to add something personal. – We should concentrate on our research. Try to remember what I told you, though.”

· · ·

A couple of knocks on the doorframe got them both to turn around. Just over the threshold, Tony was leaning on the wall.

“So, you found anything useful?”

As Stark stepped towards the screens, they started wobbling and glitching. The lights on the ceiling flickered as well.

“Perhaps, - Tim answered slowly. – But first I need to consult with my colleague.”

“As you wish. After, I hope you two would be so kind to share with us plebs your discoveries.”

As soon as Tony left the room, the interferences to both screens and lighting stopped. Wanda let out a breath; then, she realized that Tim was looking at her. That gaze disturbed her: the boy had a light in his eyes that was too similar to the one she had seen in the scientists who had experimented on her. The light of someone seeing something interesting happening to their test subject.

“What?” she managed to ask, repressing how vulnerable she was feeling.

“You never checked in at an airport, at least not ever since you got your powers,” Tim stated. His disturbing gaze had faded, but she sensed his curiosity was still intact.

As much as Wanda was sure her facial expressions were telling enough, she decided to voice out her thoughts. “What are you talking about?”

“I think I know why the cameras around you kept breaking.”

The young woman let a curse in her native language slip out her mouth. That boy jumped from one topic to another faster than Pietro used to!

“You emit electromagnetic radiations, - Tim switched from a clear statement to a pensive mumble. – I mean, not that anyone else doesn’t. Every single body with a mass emits radiations, after all.”

“I am not following what you are saying.”

“You can produce and control energy, which is mostly ascribable to electromagnetic radiations. Probably, you broke the cameras in your cell without even realizing it when you couldn’t totally control your powers. I believe this is also at the foundation of most of your mind control: like alteration of impulses between neurons or something.”

“You saw it on the files, they didn’t know the extent of my powers, - too many memories were coming back; she needed to move her thoughts on something else. – Anyway, why did you tell Tony we have found something, if it isn’t true?”

“We’ve got something. Vision’s Gem-”

“You cannot treat him like an object!”

Tim’s unsettling gaze reappeared for a split of a second, as if he had been waiting for her to have that reaction to his choice of words.

“That is not my intention, - the boy replied gently. – I’d just ask for him to get here. If Vision will be okay with it and if that stone is as ancient as I suspect, we might have a way to send a message to my Earth. And here’s where you come into play.”

“Me?”

“I doubt a normal radio could broadcast at such a distance. I’ve already asked Mr. Stark for one of his Ark reactors to fuel a project I had in mind, but I think you’d be more efficient.”

“If I had the slightest idea how to transmit any message.”

“Luckly, I have two or three ideas.”

· · ·

After the first day and a half full of chaos, the rest of the week turned out to be quite monotonous.

Tim printed for Wanda some sheets of paper containing the transliteration of the English alphabet in Morse code to learn among with some combinations of letters that were supposed to mean something to a telegraphist.

The boy claimed it was quite easy. “I learnt it when I was eight and got bored. If you want, I can give you some tricks to remember it.”

Getting Vision to come back took a bit longer than expected. Not that anything serious had happened, but somehow the synthezoid connected to the entirety of global information network had managed to find a place where his transmitter received satellite signal occasionally.

Since the others were mostly unable to assist in Tim’s project, the days followed one another with no major changes: training, meals, experiments, a pinch of relaxation.

· · ·

At this point, Wanda couldn’t use the simple circuit Tim had built in Tony’s lab. It was supposed to be a basic telegraph and she just needed to control the intensity of some spark of her powers to made it receive dots and lines. After few days of attempts, still nothing How could she send a message through the universe, no, the multiverse, a signal much more complex? She started doubting Tim’s words. Maybe she couldn’t control electromagnetic frequencies, at least not at the level they needed.

She was laying on her bed, fully awake, staring at her ceiling. At that hour in the night, she was quite certain all the others were asleep, except for Vision whom she knew was busy studying something.

She rose and went to the terrace. She was wearing a nightgown with short sleeves and she was barefoot. The first contact with the chill air made her tighten her arms around her body, then she leaned on the parapet. On the street level there were still people and vehicles, but there, way above the ground, a surreal peace reigned. She closed her eyes and breathed.

“Pretty view, isn’t it?” a voice behind her said.

Wanda stiffened, suppressing a shriek.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Jason! What… - she cleared her voice. – What are you doing here?”

“I have the impression that, if Clint catches me with one of these again, - he slightly waved a lighted cigarette, - he will hide and/or destroy the ones I’ve left. And I suspect this city is one of those places where they card you even when you’re old and decrepit.”

“It isn’t all that health…”

Jason shrugged. “There’s worse stuff around and I’m aware enough that I can’t say < I can quit whenever I want > or some other bullshit. Instead, what are you doing out here? Enjoying the pristine metropolitan air?”

“More like distracting myself from the failure I am,” Wanda admitted after some second of hesitation.

“Listening what Tim said in the last few days, you’re the one with the most raw power in this building.”

Wanda sighed. “That’s the point: I’m unable to unlock this supposed potential of mine. Nothing is working as it should...”

Silence, at least the closest thing to silence one can find during nighttime in New York City, fell back on them. Wanda spent some time contemplating the silhouette of roofs and buildings. Skyline… They had taught her that was the proper term. She moved a couple of times, when the wind brought to her nose the smell of Jason’s technique of relaxing.

“Maybe you’re focusing in the wrong thing,” he said at some point.

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever read something aloud for someone else and, once you’re done, you’ve no idea of what you’ve just read?”

“I think so…”

“You might take a similar approach: focus on sending the message rather than trying understand it.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“As you wish, - Jason let what was left of his cigarette drop on the floor and stepped on it to put it out. – Goodnight.”

Surprising Wanda, he picked up the cigarette butt before leaving her alone. She spent some more time contemplating the horizon, inventing stories about the few people she saw in the distance. When the sky began changing colours, she decided to go back to her room and rest for a bit.

· · ·

The following day, after a decent night of sleep, Wanda felt enough confident to try again to play with her powers. She just needed to send an impulse to an amatorial telegraph Tim and Tony had built in less than 24 hours.

She breathed and closed her eyes. She searched deep in her mind for the sensation, the tingling she felt on her fingertips whenever her powers interfered with some electronic devices. She tried guide it into the sensor she was holding.

And then… Nothing.

The telegraph didn’t receive anything. That disappointed and annoyed Wanda at the same time. Channelling those feelings, she tried again.

To be fair, she didn’t actually try to do something. A part of her, most of her, simply wanted to fry the circuits of that stupid doofer and Wanda abandoned herself to those emotions.

It was then that something happened. On the little screen linked to the device some signs started showing up. A meaningless series of dots and lines, unless a series of “A”s stood for something.

“Great job!” Clint clapped.

“Oh, I… honestly I wanted to break that thingy,” the young woman admitted.

“Well, you were focused.”

“I was frustrated.”

“Perhaps, true focus can be found at the meeting point between rage and calm… Now that we know that you can do it, you just need to try again.”

“I don’t know if I can redo it.”

Tim, who had spent the last minute scribbling on a piece of paper in a corner of the room, approached them. “I’d say we raise the difficulty. Try to send this.”

Wanda looked at the sheet she’d been given. Without trying to decipher the code, she concentred on the transmission.

After few attempts, on the tiny screen the message got transcribed.

Dash. Dot. Dash. Dot. Dash.  Dash. Dot. Dash.

They meant “KA” “K” respectively “attention, message begin” and “over, invite to transmission”.

“Good, - Tim commented flatly. – Let’s pass to next level.”
· · · ·

In the following three hours Clint left the lab twice.

The first time he returned with coffee for the three of them; Wanda declined the bitter brown ambrosia, however not a drop was left over.

The second time he didn’t come back and Natasha took over the supervising duty.

· · ·

When Wanda thought she’d started learning, they switched from the telegraph to a radio to see how difficult it would be to transmit without a direct mean. Tim blabbered something about wireless telegraphy and some Italian man as he messed around the new device. Maybe old was more appropriate, since he had found it in some drawer. Wanda was astonished at how fast the boy had made himself at home in Stark’s little kingdom.

Soon, she felt back at the beginning once again. They started the new level, as Tim kept saying, with generic recognition of radio waves. Now he was asking her to identify a specific frequency.

“When can we take a break?” she asked.

“When you wish so. I didn’t think you were tired.”

“I’ve been using my powers for hours, it’s quite wearying.”

“Oh… - Tim looked caught off guard. – I expected you’d ask me to stop as soon as you started feeling tired. I mean, you’re an adult and stuff.”

It was Wanda’s turn to be left at lack of words. Be allowed to take a break when she felt it, with no consequence to be feared… She hadn’t even thought about that possibility.

Probably, they would have stayed indefinitely in silence staring in shock at each other if Natasha hadn’t join the conversation. “Both of you, take some time off this stuff, - she ordered. – You’ll benefit from it. And, Maximoff, go eating something: you look about to pass out.”

Chapter Text

That morning no one had seen Tony. According to F.R.I.D.A.Y., he had left early for an interpersonal meeting with Miss. Potts with whom he had to discuss some decisions about his proprieties.

Damian had insisted for some workout. That didn’t surprise anyone: after he had first allowed inside the gym, the kid had spent at least a few hours there every day.

Jason had opted for coming along as soon as he noticed Natasha had decided to follow his youngest brother. He trusted the woman had understood from their conversation few days back that talking to Damian about his past training was taboo; nevertheless, he didn’t want to take the chance. It was better if their hosts stayed unaware of certain things.

Vision, who had shown up at breakfast out of pure curtesy, declared he had errands to attend and left by phasing through the wall.

· · ·

Steve was already in the gymnasium when the others arrived. Trying to be discrete, he kept an eye on the two boys. It had drawn his attention that Jason was always tense when Nat in the same room as Damian. Not defensive; rather ready to attack.

Nat had confided to the team her worries about the child training. And Captain America couldn’t find fault with that: a twelve-year-old able to do handstand push-ups wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

In the last few days, he had often found himself thinking of Bucky. He hadn’t got any news in about two years. Finding out that he was still alive had been shocking, but he had been even more astonished when he had discovered that his best friend had been turned into a puppet dosed with the super solider serum. The Winter Solider, that was the name the Black Widow had called him.

Steve didn’t consider himself too good at reading people, but he wouldn’t say that Damian was being controlled by an external mind. The kid hadn’t the artificially emptied gaze that he had seen in Bucky’s eyes. Oh, it wasn’t that at all… That little boy seemed amused by all those things that should not amuse anyone, as if violence was part of his normality.

When Steve was a child, he had seen some of his peers playing in an almost sadistic way with small creatures. There were those who plucked insects legs, those who opened lizards with a knife, and so forth. All of that just to satisfy their grim curiosity, to see what would happen or what was inside.

He still remembered one time when one of Bucky’s younger brothers had shown him a spider which, in its attempt to escape the rascal’s clutches, was leaving behind a limb after the other. The little creature had received some mercy when the kid had shown the spider to his sister as well. Rebecca hadn’t found the arthropod fascinating at all and, repulsed, she had squished it.

Damian didn’t look like a child who would torture a defenceless animal on a whim. However, Steve couldn’t shake off the feeling that he wouldn’t have the same coyness for human beings. He could bet Stark’s fortune on it.

· · ·

At some point, Clint peeped into the gymnasium.

“Tasha, could you go keep an eye on the little scientists in the lab? I need to make a call.”

He didn’t wait for an answer and left fiddling around with his mobile phone. He wasn’t very practical of the device yet: Tony had gifted him it not long ago. Still, he found videocalls quite practical to see and talk to his family more often.

· · ·

As soon as Natasha left the gym, Jason started actually committing to the training exercise he had been doing. Now Steve was quite certain: the boy was unsettled by his colleague. What he hadn’t been expecting was Damian reaction to the slight change in his brother attitude.

“What do you have against Agent Romanoff?” the kid inquired.

“Nothing.”

“Do not lie. You are clearly tenser when she is in the vicinity. I understand that she is an able fighter, but it does not make her an unpleasant presence.”

“Don’t be deceived.”

“What are you speaking of?”

Jason glanced at Captain America and replied in a language the super soldier didn’t know. Damian looked disappointed by what he was being told. He said something else to his brother using the same language; it sounded like a question.

Obtained his answer, on top of being embittered, he seemed hurt.

“I am no longer interested in training, - he announced to Steve. – I shall entertain myself with one of the electronic games Mr. Stark put at our disposal.”

The kid was feigning indifference he hadn’t mastered yet and the man caught a bit of betrayal in his eyes.

· · ·

That day lunch wasn’t a big event. Everyone ate when they were more pleased to and they simply put together leftovers from the precedent meals. When Clint got in the kitchen to nibble something, he found Damian and Jason halfway into their plates. Not much later they were joined by Tim and Wanda, who were followed by Natasha.

The two who had been there first left the room almost on the spot.

“What’s gotten into Damian?” Tim asked immediately.

Clint frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He’s in a bad mood. And I don’t mean his usual challenging and arrogant attitude. He’s upset.”

“Can you spot the difference?” Natasha inquired.

“Besides the fact he hasn’t insulted me? I know him enough to see it.”

“Earlier he seemed having his normal behaviour,” the Black Widow though out loud.

Tim shrugged. “Well, now he’s got something.”

Wanda decided she did not have the energy to take part to the conversation and headed to her bedroom with what she had just scraped together from the refrigerator.

“Do you think it could be related to some experience from his infancy?” Natasha hazarded her question for Tim before the subject could slip off.

The boy set down the coffee mug he had grabbed in the last minute and met the woman’s eyes. He looked quite serious. “Did you ask him about his infancy?”

“I hadn’t the chance. I tried asking Jason, but I haven’t got an answer and he’s been looking askance at me ever since.”

“This explains a lot. From Jason being in guard dog mode to him making me swear to keep my mouth shut.”

“Keeping your mouth shut about what?”

“Wow! – Tim hinted a sarcastic laugh. – Not even Damian thinks of me being an idiot to that point.”

For few minutes they all remained silent. Natasha couldn’t help to notice how the eighteen-year-old seemed to be restraining himself from saying something.

“Listen, the fact is that, – the teenager sighed. – Jason is very protective of Damian ever since both their mothers died of cancer. Then there was the whole thing with our father’s second to last fiancée, whom Damian had grown very fond of, but she left the old man on the altar because she found out he was only interested in her inheritance.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“Hmm… Let me think. Oh, right! It was about two months before he got fired from his internship as an elf for Father Christmas, because he got late to the South Pole on the winged unicorn he had rented.”

Clint, seeing Natasha’s face changing from compassion to perplexity to annoyance, burst into laughter.

“I’m a decent liar, I know, - Tim nonchalantly unwrapped an energy bar. – Oh, an impartial advice: stop investigating these matters. Later.” He saluted with a fake smile for half a second and left the room.

Neither of the spies had ever seen the boy as serious as in that moment.

· · ·

Clint enjoyed his leftover lunch with Tasha.

After he went looking for their guests. He found Tim on the couch in the recreational room. He and Damian were playing some videogame about racing cars in which the laws of physics were nothing but a mere opinion. Although the two of them spent most of their time taunting each other, Clint knew that they deeply cared for one another. From what he had learned, Damian was the youngest of the family while Tim was the previous holder of that title: it was natural for them to be in constant contention.

As he crossed the doorframe, the man flinched. Jason was leaning on the wall, placed where he could only be seen when one entered the room. He was keeping an eye on the situation while reading a novel by Louisa May Alcott. Where and how he had got it was a mystery (not that Clint had ever bothered to check for the eventual presence of literature classics around there).

Jason lifted his gaze from his reading to meet Clint’s eyes and closed his book.

Clint was about to talk, then he glanced at the two on the couch and he decided to sign.

[Can we talk?], he didn’t know if Jason’s brothers knew ASL as well: if one of them was studying it for their sister, it was quite possible that the others were too. However, they weren’t in the boys’ visual field.

[About what?] Jason seemed to grasp that that should’ve been a private conversation.

[N-A-T-] Clint began fingerspelling his best friend’s name, but he got his hand slapped. [Not here!] Jason interrupted him brusquely. The young man’s gaze was full of venom. The Avenger started to understand what was the guard dog mode Tim had mentioned earlier.

· · ·

Only when they arrived on the terrace, Jason let his nerves loosen the tension they had on his body. He let Clint stare at him for a minute as he rummaged through his pockets. Eventually, he crossed his arms with a disappointed sigh.

“So, what do you need to tell me about your friend Natalia?” he emphasized the possessive pronoun to reinforce his aversion towards the woman.

“Your brother fobbed a shitload of lies off on Natasha, when she asked him about Damian’s early childhood. Then, he almost commanded her to stop investigating.”

“You should follow that suggestion as well. It’s a matter all of you should stay out of,” Jason moved to going back inside.

“The first time I saw Natasha in person I was nocking an arrow and  I was aiming at her head, - Clint blurted out before the young man could pass the door. – She was supposed to be just another target to take out. But I saw that I could offer her more, that she had more to offer to the world.”

“This should somehow make me feel compassion for her?” Jason asked as he turned to look at the man in a mixture of perplexity and scepticism.

Clint shook his head. “What I mean is that Tasha fears Damian is living a life of indoctrination like she did. It’s unlikely that she’ll give up making sure of his safety.”

Jason kept quiet for few seconds. “Obtaining answers won’t help anyone. If you must, tell her he’s out of danger and convince her to quit this inquiry.”

There was something that resembled a plea in that last phrase.

“Is it the truth?

“Tim and I cannot tell you anything more. And Damian isn’t ready to a talk about it. Can you understand at least this?”

Clint nodded truthfully and Jason relaxed. Right after, something shook him: a thought. They wouldn’t dare, would they?

“I hope for everyone that this wasn’t a diversion,” Jason growled that promise and headed stomped inside. He didn’t bother checking if Clint was following him or not, he needed to go back to Tim and Damian. Before it was too late.

· · ·

What Jason found in the recreational room was totally predictable and, for some reason, it was something that both enervated and reassured him.

Natasha Romanoff wasn’t in the room. To make it up for it, the interactive competition had transformed into a close contact fight.

Damian was on his belly, blocked between the couch and his brother, his left arm in a joint lock.

“He bit be,” that was the only explanation Tim deign to give. Three words in a neutral tone as he lay supine on his younger brother.

Jason looked at the screen that was still showing the name of the last game winner: Damian.

“Why?” he asked.

“He let me win!” Damian’s voice was muffled by the fact that his face was buried in a cushion.

“That’s not true, - Tim replied, showing no intention of loosening his grip. – I got nerfed in the last loop. And he thinks I lost on purpose!”

“Because you did! This is an outrage to my abilities!”

Jason looked at the ceiling. “Why did I have to be stuck here with these idiots? Haven’t I suffered enough? – he sighed. Then he addressed the older of the two. – Let him go.”

Tim, betrayed, stared at him. “He’ll bite me again, if I let him go.”

“No, he won’t.”

“Yes, he will.”

“Yes, I will,” Damian chipped in, despite still being constrained. No one doubted the truth of that statement that did nothing to aid the child’s case.

Clint decided to not intervene. The brothers’ dynamics weren’t fully clear to him and he didn’t want to intrude into a chain of command he hadn’t identified yet.

Jason was the oldest. Damian claimed his blood tie to their father as a superiority factor. Tim… That clearly anaemic boy kept surprising everyone at the most random times. He had been unimpressed by Stark’s avantgarde technology. It was hard to understand when he was paying attention and when he wasn’t, the same could be said for the truthfulness of his words. And now he had pinned Damian down and was restraining him with no excessive struggle, when the kid had proved himself to stand up to Natasha herself.

“And I’m telling you he won’t, - Jason continued with a shocking calm.- Now, Tim, let him go and then go away. And you, Damian, enjoy your victory and promise you won’t attack him for this nonsense.”

“But-” the child tried to protest again.

“You want to get home or what?” Jason brusquely interrupted.

After an endless instant of stares, Damian desisted. “Fine, - he mumbled. – I promise I shall not attack Timothy for the outcome of this digital recreational match.”

Tim got off his brother and left the room adjusting his clothes. He held in his hand the dog tag he wore for a couple of seconds and then he hid it back inside his hoodie.