Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Titan

Infinity War

Tony stares at Strange, watching him twitch and shift in place. It’s odd; he can tell the man’s head is moving almost too fast to keep track of, but it also seems to move with a gradual slowness in certain areas. The green aura around him shifts and swirls, making the air around him shimmer like heat.

“Is he okay?” Peter asks, leaning over and speaking quietly.

“Probably.”

He’d better be. Tony and the kid are stuck here because he let himself get kidnapped by that alien asshole.

Strange snaps out of his trance with a deep gasp, dropping onto shaking legs. Tony crosses the distance between them, steadying the man with a frown.

“You didn’t use up all of your magic juice on that, did you? We need you at your best, doc,” he says.

“I didn’t, no,” Dr. Strange says, standing up straight. He blinks, steps away from Tony and clears his throat. “But I did see a way for this to resolve. I need to see your Arc Reactor.”

“It’s built into the suit,” Tony says.

“Yes, I know. I need to enchant it, for your protection,” Dr. Strange says, holding his hand out expectantly. “It’s necessary, if we’re going to win this.”

Tony hesitates for a moment, lets out a huffing sigh, and taps a simple code into his suit to recall the nanobots back into the casing. The suit rolls off of him, shrinking down into the central light at the center of his chest. He pulls that off of his shirt and hands it over, suddenly feeling very naked and exposed.

“This won’t take long,” Strange says, taking the small puck in one trembling hand. Immediately, golden light and strange glowing symbols fade into view, swirling around the sorcerer and the arc reactor in his hand. The man shuts out everything around them, focused on his task.

It’s a good thing Titan has a breathable atmosphere, or this would be awkward. Still, the air is stale and dusty, and somehow smells wrong. Lifeless. Tony crosses his arms, aware of the fact that he’s now just standing around in his exercise clothes: sweatpants, hoodie, sneakers, and light t-shirt. None of them are really meant for the windy, dusty planet.

After a moment, Strange finishes his spell, letting out a sigh as he drops his magic. The arc reactor in his hand shimmers with power, both magical and regular, the steady white-blue now accented by shivering, red-orange symbols that gently orbit the metal casing.

“Fancy,” Tony says, reaching out to take it.

Strange pulls his hand back instead and says, “Forgive me, Tony.”

Tony can’t move. He freezes in place, hand twitching above the changed arc reactor. Confusion, followed by shock, follow very quickly by fear driven anger has Tony snap his eyes back to Strange.

Strange meets his gaze and says, “When you find him, ask Tim for help.”

A flash red-gold light sweeps over him, blinds him--

* * *

--and disappears as quickly as it forms.

When the light dissipates, Tony finds himself standing in the middle of a filthy alley inside a city. A human city. On Earth. Presumably. Hopefully.

More to the point, he’s in the clothes he had on under the nanosuit. The tracksuit. He doesn’t even have a phone, for fuck’s sake. Thank god he remembered to bring his wallet for some reason. He’d be screwed if he showed up in nothing but his clothes.

After a quick look around the dirty alley, he comes to the uncomfortable conclusion that he might be screwed regardless.

Oh, he is going to beat the shit out of Strange for this.

Step one, get off the streets. Find clothes. Blend in. Figure everything else out from there.

As plans go, this isn’t his best, but it’s all he has.

* * *

He finds a homeless shelter down the block from where he appeared. It’s overcrowded, stinks of cleaning agents and unwashed bodies, and a heartbreaking amount of human misery that should never exist.

Being poor sucks. And not just in the ‘rock bottom poverty’ way either, though he can’t pretend that isn’t a significant factor. Tony is used to being physically uncomfortable--being rich as hell doesn’t help when you have a goddamn power plant stuffed into your chest--but he isn’t used to the uncertainty that comes with being utterly broke. Food, water, and shelter have been constant no-brainers for him since he was a kid. Even if it’s just people looking for an easy payday because they gave the rich guy something he needed. That isn’t true here for obvious reasons.

Frankly, he isn’t used to being powerless, either. Giving someone his name was enough to guarantee some amount of authority without any issue from most people, especially after he became Iron Man. Even at his lowest point back in Tennessee, he had his reputation as both Tony Stark and Iron Man to trade on. In Gotham, he has nothing. Hell, he doesn’t even exist in the systems around here--no birth certificate, no social security number, no work history, nothing. A headache, but he can maneuver his way around that if he can get his hands on a computer and commit a felonious amount of identity theft and/or financial crimes. He’s not above it at this point.

Gotham itself is a nightmare. Casual violence is everywhere, and the poverty is almost overwhelming. The casual cruelty he sees in the homeless shelter alone is a soul killing affair.

If I get out of here alive, I’m beating Strange into a coma, Tony thinks furiously. This is what I get for saving his ass.

He realizes, with no small amount of misery, that he’s never been so painfully aware of the amount of money he has to his name. What used to be a facet of his background is suddenly a life or death thing.

He would’ve preferred getting skewered on Titan over dealing with this.

His wandering thoughts keep him distracted, which is something of a double edged sword when he stumbles over the ice and straight into the back of a man standing on the sidewalk near a bus. The big man scowls at him, but then pauses, taking in the state of Tony: bad shoes, worse clothes, soaked through by rain, obviously freezing and clearly confused.

“You alright, mister?” the man asks. His tone is gruff and guarded, but not openly hostile, which is a good start. And a mild surprise for Gotham.

“Yeah, yeah, fine--” Tony says, looking around the street as his awareness drifts back to full power.

It’s a disaster; dark shapes in the alleyways, slinking along the shadows, angry looking men stalking the street with poorly concealed weapons tucked into waistbands and under coats, with regular people clumping together and purposefully avoiding the eyes of said angry men. Tony isn’t a moron, he recognizes danger when he sees it. He was stumbling through a potential warzone, too wrapped up in his own misery to notice.

“Less fine than I was a week ago,” he finishes. “I’m kinda new in town. Hasn’t been a great experience.”

The big man grunts, motions to the bus parked along the street. “I’m Lou. Come on, let’s get outta this damn rain and you can tell me how the hell you ended up in the middle of Gotham lookin’ like that.”

“Deal.”

Lou hauls himself inside his bus and opens the doors for Tony. Tony sits behind the man and revels in the comparative warmth inside the bus. At least he’s not out in the damn rain.

“So, how'd you end up here?”

“Asshole coworker dropped me off and left with the car.”

Sort of. Metaphorically speaking.

“And no one came to help you?”

“Don’t have anyone here, at the moment,” Tony says. Which is technically correct. And desperately sad, now that he’s said it out loud.

“You need better friends,” Lou says mildly. He starts the bus and pulls out into traffic, smoothly making his way through the constant parade of cars and trucks on the street. The windshield wipes make a rhythmic sound in time with the rain. “I’ll take you somewhere safer than this place.”

“I can’t pay the fare,” Tony says.

Lou shrugs. “Didn’t ask you to pay.”

“You won’t get in trouble giving me a free ride?” Tony asks.

Lou scoffs. “They can bite me. I’m union.”

Tony smirks. “Fair enough, big guy. Where are we headed?”

“Wayne Enterprises is hosting a job fair a few blocks over. Sometimes they give out small loans to people, too,” Lou says, driving them out of the depths of Crime Alley and into a slightly less depressing part of the district. There are fewer bullet holes, at least. “Most of the time, they never collect on those loans. Bruce Wayne has enough money to throw it around.”

This is either a tax dodge or insanity. Tony has never heard of a billionaire going to that trouble, and that goes double for a billionaire in a place like Gotham. “How’d you hear about it?”

“Flyers. News. The radio has commercials for it every ten minutes,” Lou says. “And it's how I got this job ten years ago. It's not glamorous, but I'm not a glamorous kinda guy, and I like the work. They can help you.”

Tony mulls over that. A charity event. It never occurred to him to look for one of those. Sure, this one sounds entirely too good to be true and probably isn’t actually what he says, but what does Tony have to lose?

Lou pulls the bus up alongside an old brick building, the brakes letting out a hiss of air as the vehicle comes to a stop. He puts it in park, and turns to face Tony.

“Here, grab yourself a sandwich from the food truck across the street before you talk to anyone. Hard to think when you're hungry. And take this umbrella. It rains like hell in this city,” Lou says, digging out his wallet from well worn uniform pants. He pulls out a couple of twenties and hands them over to Tony, as well as an umbrella tucked beneath his seat. “You could probably use it to knock some heads around, too.”

Tony takes both the money and the umbrella, shocked. Lou has just handed him more money than he makes in an hour driving this rattletrap bus around town. The kindness from that gesture briefly overwhelms Tony, and he’s not sure how to react. In the circles he usually runs in back in his universe, there would be an unspoken understanding, a tit for tat, to go with it. Strings are always attached to kindness in his world. But he has nothing, and Lou doesn’t have much more than that in the grand scheme of things, but he’s sharing it all the same.

“I’ll pay you back--”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lou says, waving off the offer as if he didn’t just make the last two hours of labor a moot point. “I’ll be fine. Good luck, Tony.”

“Yeah, thanks, Lou,” Tony says, getting off the bus. “I'll remember this.”

“Just pay it forward. Good luck, Tony,” Lou says.

He closes the bus doors behind Tony and pulls away from the sidewalk, leaving Tony in a new part of town, forty dollars and one umbrella richer.

Tony takes the opportunity to grab a sandwich from the food truck. He eyes the squat brick building thoughtfully, and eventually heads inside.

Why not? The most they can do is call him a jobless bum--which, admittedly, he is--and kick him out. He straightens his shoulders and marches into the building as if he owns it himself. A little confidence might carry him a long way here.

The building is just short of crowded, with people moving to and from various rooms or conference rooms, and the air filled with the buzz of conversation. The overall mood is positive, but busy. A polite woman settled behind a desk at the entrance doesn’t give Tony a chance to speak. She looks him over and immediately sweeps him up into a whirlwind of questions and paperwork with the sort of prim efficiency that Pepper would have appreciated before depositing him in a waiting room sectioned off from the others. This room has two well dressed men here, both far more well dressed than Tony, and both of whom look entirely uncomfortable to be in the presence of someone visibly homeless. It’s also a bit nicer than the other rooms they passed on the way here.

Tony straightens his ill fitting jacket primly, tucks his gifted umbrella under one arm, and goes to sit directly between the two well dressed corporate drones. One of them actually flinches away from him, much to his amusement and disgust. Eventually, one man mutters an apology and practically flees the room, leaving Tony alone with the shorter of the two strangers.

Computers and tablets have been set out on a table for the waiting crowd. Tony grabs one, finds it too slow for his tastes, but makes do. This is his first chance to dig up some information on this weird universe Strange just shoved him into.

Ten minutes later, he’s left in a worse mood than before. He doesn’t exist here (probably for the best, really). Neither do the Avengers. Thor is just some myth. Captain America never existed--apparently someone named Wonder Woman intervened during World War II--and most of the heroes here are in a group called the Justice League. No Battle of New York has taken place, but apparently they've had similar nonsense. Mostly in Metropolis--which is a dorky name for a city--and mostly handled by Superman.

These people need better branding.

Another quirk is that this world is just lousy with famous billionaires. Lex Luthor, Ted Kord, Oliver Queen, Bruce Wayne--all of them drifting in and out of the headlines. Lex and Bruce more than the others combined, but Oliver Queen sometimes shows up for funding hero groups with his fortune or being a loud nuisance in some place called Star City.

Funnily enough, there was Howard Stark and Stark Industries back in World War II in this world. He had considerably worse luck though. He ended losing out on contracts to rival companies and couldn’t stand out from the crowd.

Wayne Enterprises bought him out. And he disappeared afterward.

Tough luck, Dad, Tony thinks idly. At least he can build something off of that.

One of the others in the waiting room, a meticulously dressed and thoroughly forgettable looking man, clears his throat.

“I think the job fair is on the other side of the building,” he says. There’s a forced politeness to his tone, as if he’s addressing a child.

“And this room is for...?” Tony asks.

“Business loans,” the man says. “Wayne Enterprises only holds these meetings once a year, and it's for established business owners.”

“Right. Well, good luck with your pitch,” Tony says, going back to the tablet. “You're gonna need it, pal.”

The man stares at him. “I'm going to need it?”

“Yep.”

Now he looks amused. And mildly annoyed by Tony’s attitude.

“Okay, smart guy. Lay it out for me.”

“You're forgettable. You need to be able to make an impression during these things. And, unfortunately, you're boring. They make guys like you in a factory,” Tony says. He glances at the man again, quick and dismissive.”Let me guess, Harvard?”

The man startles. “How did--”

“The smugness,” Tony says, secretly pleased his half formed guess was correct. He’s missed bullying corporate drones more than he realized. A part of him does feel bad that he’s . “Word of advice: no one cares that you went to school there. In fact, most people will think you’re a smug prick from that alone. If you aren’t in with the Harvard crowd--and if you're here, you aren’t--it'll be a detriment,” Tony says. The guy is starting to go red in the face. Tony figures he's pushed the guy's buttons enough. “What’s your big pitch anyway?”

“More efficient debt repayment systems,” the man says stiffly. “Wayne Enterprises is leaving money on the table---”

Tony scoffs and shakes his head. “You’re pitching that during a job fair for the homeless? At a place where they definitely don’t keep track of that? Did you learn anything at Harvard or were you too busy rubbing elbows with legacy wealth to pay attention?”

The man’s face flushes again, this time in genuine anger. Tony idly wonders if the guy plans on swinging on him. But he stops, frowns, and thinks over the conversation--and pales. After a few seconds, he stands up and stiffly walks out of the room, leaving Tony behind in the waiting room.

Another minute passes, and the door at the end of the waiting room opens. A tall, slim black man in a perfectly tailored suit steps out into the waiting room. He looks amused and somewhat relieved.

“That was well done,” he says, his voice rich and warm.

“I get the feeling your assistant put me in here to chase those two off,” Tony says, standing up to speak with the man.

The man smiles. “You were. Ms. Saberton assumed you wouldn’t be offended by it. And that you’d be very good at it.”

“She’s good at reading people,” Tony says.

“The best,” the man says. He approaches Tony, offering him his hand. “My name is Lucius Fox. I’m running today’s program on behalf of Wayne Enterprises. And you just saved me a lot of time, Mr...?”

“Tony Stark,” Tony says, meeting Lucius halfway and shaking his hand. It’s brief, businesslike, utterly free of the showmanship common to most people who work in senior management. “I don’t suppose you’re interested in helping me out with a loan. You know, since I volunteered to be your attack dog for the day and everything.”

Lucius considers him for a few long moments, and then gives him another polite smile, stepping aside to motion Tony towards his office. “Step inside and get comfortable. I’ll need to look over your paperwork first.”

Tony walks into Lucius’ office. The furniture is well made, but not ostentatious, and the room is nearly silent compared to the hustle and bustle of the crowds in the main entryway. Tony takes a seat while Lucius picks up a tablet from his desk and settles into his chair. He looks over the questionnaire the young woman filled out on Tony’s behalf earlier, idly scrolling his tablet with quick, sure movements. Tony does his best to not fidget or get up and pace around. He hates sitting still like this.

“College education, but you haven’t listed where you got your degree,” Lucius remarks.

Because I doubt MIT has me on record here. “There’s been a few issues with getting everything accredited.”

“Engineer?”

“Electrical and computer science.” Give or take a few other specialties.

“Hm.” The man folds his hands and stares at Tony frankly for a long moment. “You’re new to the streets. No drugs, no alcohol, and you aren't suffering from the kind of exposure most of the veteran homeless deal with. What happened?”

Tony mulls over that for a moment, and goes for simplicity.

“Lost my business, lost my family, got stranded here,” Tony says. Quick short facts are best, because being honest will put him straight into a psychiatric hospital.

Lucius hums, reads over the screen in front of him. “You were a business owner?”

“I know how to run one, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I haven’t found one registered under your name,” Lucius points out.

Yeah, he’s not getting this loan. “It’s...complicated?”

Another beat of silence. Lucius stares at Tony for a moment, considering him. Finally, he smiles. He taps the screen in front of him, brings up a document, and pushes the tablet over to Tony. Tony picks it up and frowns down at it, then quirks a brow once he recognizes what it is.

“That’s a generous offer,” Tony says. “Money and a building?”

“There’s a building in Park Row that used to belong to a mechanic. It’s a fixer upper, but it’s yours if you’re up for it. You’ve read over the terms of your loan?”

“Skimming it,” Tony says, scrolling through the document. His eyebrows raise further the more he reads. “An upfront loan large enough to get things off the ground, with debt forgiveness or investment from Wayne Enterprises if I let you guys come in and see what I’ve done with the cash. Either way, you’re signing over the building and footing the utility and tax bills for the next two years. This is generous to a suspicious degree.”

“But you’re not so suspicious you’ll turn it down,” Lucius notes, setting a set of keys down on the desk in front of him.

“I know a good deal when I see one,” Tony says.

Or, at least, a deal that he can work with until he finds something with no strings attached. The relief that sweeps through him when he grabs the keys almost breaks through his control. He has a place of his own again. That’s worth more than anything at this point. Living on the street means living in the public eye at all times.

Lucius smiles, and it looks sincere. “Mr. Wayne and his family believe in good deals for honest people, Mr. Stark. Your first inspection will be in a month. Good luck.”

Tony stands, turns to leave, and then stops and looks back at Lucius. “This is insane. Why me?”

“I have a good feeling about you, Mr. Stark,” Lucius says. He pauses and adds, a bit sheepishly, “And that Harvard guy was hounding me for weeks.”

Tony smirks at that, and leaves before Lucius can change his mind.

The young woman at the desk stops him at the door. She hands over a duffel bag, a card, and a phone. The phone is cheaply made, but serviceable, and the duffel bag appears to be a care package in bag form--food, toiletries, clothes. Tony quirks a brow and looks up at the woman.

She smirks. “A parting gift. Good work, Mr. Stark. You just saved my boss one hell of a headache.”

“I hope he’s paying you well,” Tony says, turning on the phone.

“Money isn’t everything, but I live pretty well,” she says. She smiles. “I’ve arranged a taxi for you. I hope everything works out for you.”

“Me too,” Tony says.

His taxi pulls up outside, and he considers it a moment before looking back at Ms. Saberton. She’s already back behind the desk, talking with another homeless person, this one a slightly terrified looking girl with a black eye. She looks barely older than fourteen. He can guess at her story.

Ms. Saberton is handling her with prim professionalism, filling out paperwork and tugging a much larger duffel bag out from under a neatly stacked pile of them behind her desk.

He leaves, gets into the taxi, gives the address of the shop to the driver and sits.

One chance meeting with a friendly bus driver just turned his luck around.

He's going to have to find a way to thank Lou for this.

* * *

The driver takes him into the heart of Crime Alley, right to the front door of the wrecked shop. It sits at the corner, across the street from an equally abandoned fire station that stands relatively whole in defiance of the ruined street. The shop is in decent condition, all things considered: bars over the windows, a heavy steel door, working lights that shine through grimy windows. It's in a sad state, but it’s a solid building, and it's his.

Tony steps out of the taxi, handing over some of the cash Lou gave him. The taxi driver leaves the engine idling, one foot on the gas, and barely waits to be paid before speeding down the street and around the corner. Tony scoffs, and then goes inside the shop, shutting the door firmly behind him.

The interior of the mechanics shop is a wreck. Full of rats, old equipment, and a pile of random car parts and scrap taking up most of the garage. Toolboxes and computers lay in dusty heaps across ruined shelves and trash, giving the place an overall wartorn look.

It's an utter goldmine for Tony, frankly.

He gets to work immediately, clearing out the back room and turning it into a makeshift living space that closely resembles the lab he had back in the Tower years ago. One of the first things he makes is a small wristwatch gauntlet, painfully weak but strong enough to blast someone away from him. He’ll have to work on nicer weapons and a suit at a later date.

In the space of three days, he has the place relatively clean and sorted. By the third, he's piled up the trash and spends the whole day dragging it out to the dumpster behind his shop. He drags junk out to the dumpster for most of the day.

He tosses the last bag into the dumpster. It lands with a thump, and is followed by, “Ow.”

Tony pauses, backs up, and peers into the dumpster. He recognizes the hero. Even homeless, Tony managed to piece together some information on the resident heroes of Gotham City. Birds and bats, who mostly slip through the nightly warzone of Gotham City, stopping god knows what from happening to the city at large.

He thinks finding one beaten half to death behind a dumpster is a bit rare, though.

At least, he hopes so.

The kid--and he is a kid, a teenager no older than Peter--is dressed in a red and black suit that’s ragged and torn, with a heavy yellow belt clamped around his waist. What’s left of the armor on his suit is misshapen and out of place, as if someone has taken a hammer to every protective plate woven into the suit. His mask isn’t much more than a thick covering across his eyes, not quite fabric.

“Oh, shit,” Tony says.

He lunges into the dumpster and hauls the kid up and out of the dumpster. The kid helps, taking Tony’s offered hand, grunting in pain as Tony sets him down on the ground. Tony is not at all happy to see a streak of blood running down the back of the kid’s head and back.

“Hey, focus up, stay awake,” Tony says, kneeling down. He snaps his fingers in front of the hero’s nose, whistling sharply. The kid wince. “Pop quiz time. What’s your name?”

He starts to say something, blinks, changes his answer. “Red Robin.”

“Good enough,” Tony says. Secret identities are probably sacred to all teenage heroes, which is the only reason why he hasn’t taken the kid’s mask off yet. He’s still tempted. He holds Red Robin steady, gently prodding the bleeding head wound. It isn’t deep, but head wounds bleed a hell of a lot. Red Robin hisses and winces, moving away from Tony’s hand. “You've probably got a concussion. Please tell me you have a way to call back up.”

“He could have killed me, but he stopped at the last second,” Red Robin says, as if he didn’t hear Tony at all. His voice is clear enough, but he’s speaking slowly, with a slightly puzzled tone that Tony doesn’t like at all.

“Well, it's not easy killing people. Most people stop before that point,” Tony says, leaning back and letting Red Robin get some space.

“No, he physically stopped himself. He was fighting for control,” Red Robin says. It almost sounds like he’s giving a report to someone.

“Lucky for you,” Tony remarks.

Red Robin doesn't argue that. “Urgh. Hard to think.”

“See previous comment regarding your concussion.”

“I've had plenty before.”

“Okay, that's worse. You realize that, right?” Tony asks. He eyes the kid, keeping him braced. “Do you need me to call someone?”

Red Robin waves irritably at him. “Already called them.” He pauses, and adds, “But thanks. You can go inside. In fact, you probably should. It's dangerous for someone to look too friendly to people like me in this neighborhood.”

“I'll deal. Look, I'm not comfortable leaving you out here alone,” Tony says, glancing around the eerily quiet street. It's late, and cold but not so late or cold that the more dangerous members of society won't be out looking for easy targets. “If your pals don't get here soon--”

“We're here,” a calm voice says behind Tony.

Tony whirls around to face the voice, hand drifting towards the half finished gauntlet in his pocket. He stops when he sees the man braced on top of his shop's roof, dressed in a blue and black suit, with a blue mask covering his eyes.

The man catches the movement and grins, a cheerful and amused expression crossing his features.

“Were you going to fight me?” he asks, dropping down to the asphalt and strolling over to Tony and Red Robin with an easy grace. He doesn’t seem intimidated or worried by Tony in the least.

“Still might. Call it professional courtesy,” Tony says, shifting slightly to block the man’s way. He glances at Red Robin from the corner of his eye. “Is he--”

“Nightwing,” Red Robin says, a twinge of relief in his tone. “Yeah. He's the one I called.”

Tony relaxes and moves out of the way. Nightwing gives him a long, pondering look as he walks past and Tony gets the feeling the man could have tossed him across the street if he wanted to reach Red Robin.

“Okay, let's get you home,” Nightwing says. He helps Red Robin up, lifting him gently, and bracing his arm across his shoulders. “And then you get to explain what the hell caught you off guard.”

A sleek black car prowls down the street and stops in the alley behind the shop. The movements on it are so precise, so finely tuned, that Tony has to assume it drove itself to his shop. He looks it over, curious. He has--had--cars with built-in autopilot back home, and a part of him is itching to pry open the engine hood on this car.

Red Robin pauses next to Tony on the way to the car, frowning up at him from beneath his bloodied mask. Nightwing dutifully stops, supporting his friend.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Tony,” Tony says.

“Tony. Got it. I'll remember this.”

“Remember how to duck next time,” Tony retorts.

That earns him a flat look from Red Robin and stifled snicker from Nightwing. The older man looks over Red Robin’s head to Tony.

“Thanks for looking out for him. It's always refreshing to meet people like you,” he says. “Stay safe.”

“You too. Next time, try the front door instead of the dumpster, kid,” Tony says.

That earns him another annoyed look from Red Robin and a smirk from Nightwing. The two heroes enter the black car, the engine kicking to life the moment the door shuts. Half a second later, the car backs out of the alley behind the mechanic’s shop and back onto the street. It zips down the street, leaving Tony alone in the alley.

He watches them, curious, and adds two new names to his research efforts. He found an old laptop inside the shop, and the internet is a part of the utilities. He was saving the research for later, but maybe he’ll bump that up to tonight’s project and put the gauntlet on hold.

Chapter Text

Another day of work, and the workshop is cleared of junk. Tony has two piles of stuff in the garage: useful and potentially useful. A casual observer would find it difficult to label both piles as anything other than ‘slightly less old junk.’ He knows better, of course.

The walls are bare and the paint is chipped, the floor has stains that vary from oil to something far more suspect, but the shelves are useful, and the toolboxes he found in the garage have already proven their worth. The windows are a lost cause; he covers them with plywood or tarp to keep the constant cold and rain out of the shop. The best discovery comes late in the day: tucked behind three half rotten pallets, Tony finds a heavy steel door. Behind the door, he finds a set of stairs leading down into a dusty, but well furnished apartment. It runs the length of the shop, with a small kitchenette tucked into one corner, a bed on the other, and stainless steel work tables along one wall. It almost looks like a safehouse. One of the doors leads into a plain, clean bathroom. He’s struck gold for a second time.

The wiring is, somehow, completely intact and actually up to Tony’s standards. The plumbing works, minus the part where the shower activates with the hateful strength of a power washer, which was a fun discovery to make while naked and afraid. Still, his life just got that much easier.

That night, he sets aside time to fix the laptop and connects to the internet thanks to an honest to god ethernet cord.

He searches the internet, both the regular web and the dark web. Sends out signals with junk tech cobbled together out of trash. Most never make it past the city. Something interferes, dispersing the signal entirely. Without anything more advanced on hand, he can’t cast a wider search, and he’s not eager to figure out who is keeping such a close watch on the city.

He doesn’t find his suit.

He doesn’t find the Iron Spider.

Obviously, there are no Stark Tech satellites or servers to contact.

The cold realization that he’s here, alone, cut off from his own universe and world, settles in. That asshole Strange didn’t just sideline him from the fight--he sidelined Tony from their goddamn universe, putting him solidly out of play for the duration of Thanos’s attack. That’s beyond aggravating. It’s unacceptable.

Doubly so because Peter followed Tony into that ship. Now Tony has no idea what’s happening, and has no way of contacting them. He left the kid behind with a jackass sorcerer, and a bunch of actual morons. To fight Thanos.

Frustrated, he shoves himself away from the flimsy desk the laptop rests on. The whole thing rattles from the force of it, and he has to fight the urge to kick it out of sheer frustration, forcing himself to pace the length of the shop like a caged lion. He makes a solemn vow to kick Strange’s ass from one end of the multiverse to the next once he gets out of this mess.

When you find him, ask Tim for help. What the hell did he mean by that? Who is Tim? And find who? God, he hates magic.

He misses Pepper. He wishes Rhodey was here. He wants to call Happy.

He hopes Peter is okay.

Tony feels the start of a headache and decides to table the topic for the night. He needs to sleep and then think of his next move. Sure, this situation is a new one for him--penniless and alone, without any kind of support whatsoever--but that brief but invigorating stint in Tennessee showed him how to survive this. Theoretically.

He also needs to start to pay back his loan, sooner rather than later.

Fortunately, he has an idea for that.

* * *

Auto shops are a dime a dozen in Crime Alley and almost all of them are chop shops that work on everything from bicycles to city buses. Tony knows the type of client he’d get if he opens car repair shop in the heart of Crime Alley and goes for a slightly different tactic.

Within one week of arriving in Gotham, he opens Tony’s Repair Shop, fabricating the sign out of the remains of a diner sign he found inside the random assortment of junk inside the shop. The sign is weathered, the neon tubes buzz and flicker in the rain, but it works. It’s almost charming, in a noir murder mystery kinda way. The shop and its sign are an oasis of light in the sparsely lit street, standing out against the abandoned buildings nearby.

The first few days are slow: a construction worker wanders inside with a broken phone. A haggard looking nurse comes in with an old tablet covered in coffee. A kid drags a bicycle with two flat tires into the garage. Tony sees less than five people over the course of that first week and idly wonders if Lucius will take an earnest attempt as payment for that loan. Or possibly a kidney.

But then the kid with the broken bike brings in his mom’s vacuum cleaner. An old man limps inside with a VHS player tucked under his arm, claiming the nurse at his check up mentioned Tony. Three construction workers walk in with broken radio equipment that was accidentally left out in the rain overnight. And every one of them mentions Tony to the people they know. The work is easy, even boring in some cases, but it starts to pile up when people realize he’s not overcharging them or refuses to charge at all for simple five minute fixes he can do at the counter with the customer in view.

Tony has become one of the rarest types of people in Crime Alley: an honest businessman. It trickles in, but business picks up constantly and steadily. He starts to suffer from the success. He can’t afford to hire anyone else to help him at a wage that isn’t insulting, and he can’t keep up with the work. It’s simple stuff, he just doesn’t have enough time in the day to do it while also working on his rudimentary suit in the basement and searching for a way back home. So he builds a robot. DUM-E II is a smaller, sleeker version of the original, but fully capable of handling most of the tasks that are piling up.

Over the next few weeks, things enter a steady rhythm. The shop gains a small but potent reputation. Tony’s prices are good enough to repay the loan and keep the lights on, and that’s about as high as he’s interested in keeping them. People come in with phones, TVs, tablets, electric scooters, sometimes a car rolls into the garage and he’s always excited to have an excuse to pry one of those open. Most are easy fixes that take him twenty minutes or less. When DUM-E II becomes fully functional, he streamlines the process and is able triple his repair work. DUM-E II can fix a broken phone in minutes, and that’s by far his most common repair.

People in Crime Alley call him the Mechanic, and this corner of the blighted district becomes just a few shaders brighter. Tony doesn’t pay much attention; he keeps the shop going, gives DUM-E II the resources it needs to keep the repairs working smoothly, and has the bank repay the loan like clockwork, keeping just enough for himself for food, tools, and utilities.

This place is a stopover, a multiversal hotel stay. A thoroughly unpleasant one, at that. His focus is on getting home. Magic hasn’t fixed this, so mechanics will. Possibly. Once he figures out how to piece together a Stark Fabricator in a world that doesn’t have Arc Reactor tech.

He keeps the store stocked and clean and legal. The basement apartment gradually turns into Tony’s lab, where the more delicate work stays put. He can’t get much farther than the Mark II suit wise, and even then it’ll be leaner than the original design since he can’t fabricate the weapons he needs. But he’ll feel a lot better if he has something.

The Bats pass by every now and then. Nightwing will give him a little salute as he swings by. Batgirl watches him curiously, but never gets closer than two buildings away, preferring to stay mostly out of sight. Red Robin swings by more often than most, stopping to check on Tony and his shop, making sure both are still there. He’s tense every time, as if searching for, or chasing away, some unseen threat. Which is understandable, considering the last time he was here he got his ass kicked and thrown into a dumpster. Tony would be tense, too.

Signal actually saunters inside one foggy afternoon to buy a phone case, much to Tony’s confusion.

“Dropped it earlier,” Signal explains, grabbing the sturdiest model off the shelf. “Can’t afford to break my phone again. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“The Bats shop here?” one of the other customers mutters to his friend. She shrugs back, baffled.

“How many of you are there?” Tony asks Signal.

“Man, I wish I knew. I’m still kinda new,” Signal says, shrugging. He pulls out a credit card.

“You do not have a Bat credit card,” Tony says incredulous, ringing him up.

Signal grins at him, swipes his card with a flourish, grabs the phone case and jogs back out.

Tony stares after him.

Dammit, he should’ve made an Iron Man branded credit card.

* * *

Eventually, the mailman just drops off a gentle reminder from Lucius Fox that his first inspection will take place soon, to be completed by someone named Timothy Drake. The name gives him pause, and Tony takes a moment to research the name.

And comes away from that rabbit hole with mixed feelings. Timothy Drake, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, is a teenager running his father’s business while Bruce Wayne is out of town. He’s younger than Tony was when he took over Stark Industries, but not by much, and Tony sympathises for the guy. The news media is making a circus of the kid, circling him like sharks, and every other news story about him is a hit piece from Jack Ryder or a snarky opinion piece from Vicki Vale.

This can’t be the guy Dr. Strange was talking about.

Well, at least he knows who’s coming to give the inspection.

* * *

The first break in happens three weeks after the Tony opens up the shop, which is right around time the shadier elements of Crime Alley realize someone’s inside the old mechanic’s shop at the end of the block. They announce their intentions by flinging two cinder blocks at the front window. The first one cracks the window badly. The second one shatters it entirely.

Tony barely looks up from his project. He simply yanks the gauntlet out of his watch and over his hand and aims the repulsor at the first guy crawling through the window. The blast is small, but potent enough to send the man flying back out onto the street and into his fellow thieves. He hears the whole crowd shout and curse out on the street. An argument between angry men keyed up for a robbery and caught on the backfoot by a random mechanic.

Fair enough.

Tony stands up, grabs his prototype suit and some chains, and steps outside.

The argument on the street suddenly stops, and then turns to terrified screams and shouts. The interior of the shop is lit by a string of weakened repulsor blasts.

It’s Crime Alley; no one comes to help them.

A few minutes later, Tony steps back into his shop, out of his suit, and picks up the phone.

“Hi, 9-1-1? I’ve got some guys tied up outside my shop that need to be picked up. Yeah, attempted robbery. What happened? Dunno. I heard a commotion, came outside, and found them tied up. I’m told that’s pretty common for this part of town.”

He pauses, makes a face, and says, “Forty five minutes? Are you serious?”

As it turns out, they are.

* * *

Even the police won’t come into Crime Alley without backup.

They bring a Bat. Or, more likely, the Bat invited himself. Red Robin stands on a nearby light pole, watching the group below a steady calm that’s remarkably intimidating.

Either way, they seem far more at ease having a Bat around, even if they steadily ignore him in favor of hauling the break in crew into a heavily armored transport van. Tony doesn’t think it should take twelve cops to haul in four guys bound up in chains, but what does he know.

One of the older cops approaches Tony. “Hey, just need a quick statement.”

“Always happy to help Gotham’s finest,” Tony says, still riding the high form wearing the suit again.

Sure, the repulsors are so weak they can barely bruise, and the jets are only capable of hovering at moderate speed, but it’s a start. He can fine tune what he was and build up resources for something better. His mind flits from one thought to the next, and his hands itch to get to work.

The cop, fortunately, takes it as regular Crime Alley weirdness. “What happened?”

“I was working in the shop and two cinder blocks flew through my window. They started arguing, and then the next thing I know, they’re tied up outside and screaming,” Tony says.

“Bats don’t usually use chains,” the cops says, puzzled.

“Try not to think about it too hard, big guy,” Tony says, patting the cop’s shoulder. “I’m just glad they’re your problem now.”

The cop scoffs, but signs off on the report. “Yeah, whatever. Invest in a security system, Mr. Stark.” “Will that make you guys get here quicker next time?”

“Fuck no,” the cop says, before turning walking over to the van.

He practically dives into the passenger seat and the van, and other patrol cars, peel out of the parking lot and onto the street.

“Fantastic,” Tony says dryly to no one in particular.

The security system idea is appealing, though. He makes a mental note to add that to his to-do list. An automated solution to a constant problem should have been a no-brainer for Tony, but he’s admittedly off balance in this new universe.

He hears a huff of a laugh and glances up at Red Robin.

“Give them some credit for showing up at all,” he says, hopping down from the light pole and landing with precise grace.

Red Robin seems more interested in Tony’s shop than he does the robbery crew. Tony has to assume he’s seen five other crews just like them on the way to the shop.

“You cleaned this place up,” Red Robin says.

“It was in the contract,” Tony says absently. He squints at the tablet tucked into Red Robin’s heavy yellow utility belt. “Looks like you dropped that. Need me to fix it?”

“No, but I wouldn’t mind borrowing your tools.”

Tony shrugs, waves him into the back. “Just don’t wake up DUM-E. He needs his beauty rest.”

“Dummy?” Red Robin asks. “A coworker.”

“Basically, yeah,” Tony says, waving him inside. “Just head into the back. I'm going to fix this window before the rain starts.”

Red Robin stops where he is and turns around to help Tony put a piece of plywood over the broken window and nail it in place. Tony is grateful for the help, and a little charmed by it. This is little guy stuff. Peter would probably like this guy.

They walk into the back of the shop and DUM-E II pauses working on the half dozen phones arrayed out in front of it. DUM-E II twirls his gripper claws around and then waves at Red Robin. The kid looks both amused and fascinated, and waves back. DUM-E II preens, the LEDs along its sides blinking happily, and the gears spinning up into a pleased purr. Red Robin seems charmed by the little display.

“Why DUM-E?” Red Robin asks.

“The first robots I ever built were named U and DUM-E,” Tony says fondly. “They’re gone, but I missed having them around. So, DUM-E II was born. He’s a little smarter than the original, but not by much. Here, let him see your tablet.”

Red Robin tilts his head, but hands over the broken tablet to DUM-E II. The robot whirrs, flipping one of its three claws around, popping the tip off of it to expose a holographic scanner that runs up and down the broken tablet. It projects the interior on a holoscreen next to Tony.

“Huh. Pretty minor damage,” Tony says evenly. “Whoever made this knew what they were doing. A couple of solder points need to be reseated, but you should be good to go after that.”

Red Robin stares at Tony, the hologram, and the robot for a moment before taking back his tablet.

“That's a little more advanced than I expected to find in here,” he says, his tone stiff but curious.

Tony managed to surprise the guy, and he can tell that isn’t a common or welcome feeling for him. He shrugs.

“DUM-E's an assistant,” Tony says with a shrug. “It's not like he's going to grow legs and decide to hunt people down or anything.”

Red Robin doesn't look entirely convinced. Tony idly wonders what the fuck he's seen to be dubious about a simple robot that's bolted to a table.

“You built him by yourself?”

“I built the original when I was fourteen,” Tony says. “Just to test a theory.”

Red Robin considers that, heading over to a clear spot on the work table. He grabs one of the soldering irons on the table and cracks open the tablet to fix it.

“You were also the one to catch those guys and trap them in those chains,” Red Robin says. It isn’t a question, but a statement of fact.

Tony shrugs. “I figured you wouldn't mind the lie.”

“I'd like to know how you managed it.”

“Talent,” Tony says, waving a hand.

Red Robin glances at him. “You aren’t going to tell me?”

“Nope,” Tony says. “You Bats love a mystery. This is enrichment for the local bird population that occasionally shows up beaten half to death in my dumpster, since they keep swinging by to check up on me.”

“We have a new player in town that’s...” Here, the young hero pauses, as if trying to figure out how best to describe it. “He’s not quite causing trouble.”

“Other than kicking your ass?”

“Yes, other than that,” Red Robin deadpans. “Which he only managed once, for the record. But he’s strong, he’s fast, and he’s acting odd. And he keeps circling Crime Alley.”

“Any idea why?” Tony asks.

“No. Have you seen anything unusual?”

Tony gives him an even look.

“Unusual by Crime Alley standards,” Red Robin clarifies.

“Only the break in crew, and they’re not even unusual. I'm mostly pissed that they broke the window,” Tony says.

“Oh?”

“The timing is a little annoying,” Tony admits. “I’ve got my first inspection in a few days and now half my night is going to be spent dealing with this.”

“You’ll be fine,” Red Robin says, half paying attention as he takes a closer look at Tony’s workshop.

“Think I could get the Bat stamp of approval to show off to the guy coming by to inspect me?” Tony asks, half joking. “I've gotta impress this Tim guy somehow.”

“He's pretty easily impressed.”

“You know him?”

“Only some rumors,” Red Robin says. “He’s just some spoiled kid. You won’t have to struggle to impress him.”

Tony scoffs. “Well, as a former rich spoiled kid, we might have some common ground at least. How’s the tablet?”

“All fixed,” Red Robin says. “I better get going. Stay safe, Tony.”

“Right back at you,” Tony says.

* * *

Three days later, Timothy Drake drives a sleek sports car into Tony’s parking lot, parks it beside a true jalopy of a sedan, and strolls into the shop as if he owns it. He’s dressed for the weather--a miserable, foggy rain--in finely tailored clothes and leather shoes so brightly polished that they’re practically at a mirror shine.

Tony notices him immediately, but ignores him. He’s already working with a customer: an older woman bracing herself heavily against walker, with a phone so ancient it’s a wonder it works at all.

“If you could just get it back to me by next week, I’ll be grateful,” she says. “My granddaughter calls on Tuesdays--”

“No need to wait,” Tony says. He switches out a few pieces, taking new ones out from under the counter. He’s halfway through the repair when he speaks again. “It’s not even broken. You just need a new battery.”

“Oh,” she brightens. “How much do I need to--”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony says.

She’s old. On a fixed income. Any price short of free wouldn’t make sense. He’s seen enough crushing poverty to be wary of inflicting it on someone who already lives in Crime Alley during their golden years. Besides, he can always charge the asshole muscleheads from Iceberg Lounge three times his going rate to make up for the lost sale.

He finishes the phone, turns it on, checks a few things, and then hands it back to the woman.

“All done,” he says.

“Oh, thank you,” the old woman says. “You know my granddaughter is single--”

He’s suddenly extremely grateful Rhodey and Pepper are a universe away. He would never live it down if either of them overheard that. He quickly shuffles the kind old woman out of the shop, leaving him alone with Tim Drake.

Tim waits for a few moments, then approaches Tony. He holds his hand out. “Hello. I’m here to inspect your shop.”

“Timothy Drake, the current CEO of Wayne Enterprises,” Tony says, taking his hand. The handshake is quick, firm, businesslike. Someone taught this kid well. “Tony Stark, of Tony’s Repair Shop fame. Which is probably around the same thing.”

Tim smirks a little at that. That earns him a few points in Tony’s book. He’s always a fan of people who find him charming. Which is probably egotistical of him, but whatever. He’s allowed to have some pride since he’s lost everything else.

“You aren’t just repairing things. You're upgrading them,” Tim notes. “Most people would charge extra for that.”

“They can't afford it, and it takes me an extra five minutes at most,” Tony retorts. He motions to a phone on his work bench. “That one belongs to a woman who works twelve hour shifts on the docks. Her phone battery lasts four hours on a good day. Batteries aren't exactly hard to replace, and she needs it by morning so she can check in on her kids. Five minutes. Nothing.”

Tim studies him for a moment, and seems to relax a tiny bit. “Interesting. Can I see the back of the shop?”

“Sure, mind the junk,” Tony says. “Or as I call him, DUM-E II.”

Tim glances at him from the corner of his eye at that, but steps into the back area, which is a mess of parts, electronics, and DUM-E II hard at work. The young man studies DUM-E II curiously, staying out of his reach, but tilting his head as the robot works through a series of repairs. His face is passive, thoughtful, and Tony is fascinated by this weirdly calm teenage billionaire businessman. He’s nothing at all like Tony was at his age.

Tim eventually moves on from DUM-E II, then comes to another work table, this one spread out with plans and tools and a prototype Tony’s left half finished. He glances at Tony curiously, quirking an eyebrow.

“That’s an air scrubber. Since every other psychopath in this city wants to unleash a bioweapon every other Thursday, I decided to make something to protect myself,” Tony says idly, flipping through the paperwork. “That should cover the shop and the firehouse across the street if the Joker decides to unleash some kind of murder gas. I actually was debating on asking the city to let me mount them around the subway entrances and bus stops. Except most city contracts happen through connections I can’t afford.”

Tim is fascinated by the design. He reads through the plans, gently pushing aside a few pages of Tony’s notes.

“They like to take out the power before they unleash gas,” Tim notes. “Everyone has air filters, but they don’t typically work when the power grid fails. Have you designed around that?”

“Obviously. Passive charging for a hyper efficient battery would be ideal, but there isn’t enough sun to make solar panels worth it. There's plenty of wind. Miniature turbines charge a battery.”

“Batteries can't last that long,” Tim points out. “Not with the kind of wind speeds that sweep through the inner city areas that are typically hit hardest.”

“The ones I design do,” Tony says simply.

Tim looks at him, first with indifference, then with interest once he catches the simple confidence in Tony’s voice.

“Can you show me the design plans for those batteries?” he asks.

“Not unless you plan on funding their research and development,” Tony quips. “I--”

“Done.”

Tony pauses, blinks, and faces Tim. “What.”

“I said I'd pay. But you'll need to develop them in my labs--safety precaution, you understand--and you'll work with Wayne Enterprises. Product research consultant.”

Tony drums his fingers over the work table, thinking hard. This is pretty generous, almost suspiciously so, but it makes sense when Tony considers all of the factors. Wayne Enterprises employs a significant portion of Gotham, and loses countless people every time Scarecrow or a literal murder clown decides to launch a terrorist attack. Tim would have very good reason to want those scrubbers, if only to put them inside all of the office buildings, warehouses, and production facilities he owns.

“Okay,” Tony says. “What happens to my loan if I say yes? I can’t run this place and do research and development for you.”

It would be all too easy to yank the rug out from under Tony if he takes this in good faith and discovers both the air scrubber design and his shop are taken from him in lieu of payment for a loan that's probably on shaky legal territory to begin with.

“Your loan is already paid off,” Tim says, waving a dismissive hand. “You’ve paid up for the next six months and didn't break any laws doing it, which is so rare in Gotham it qualifies as a minor miracle. So consider all debts paid.

“I own this place now?” Tony asks.

“Check your bank account if you don’t believe me.”

Tony squints at him, considers that, then grabs a tablet to do exactly that. Ten minutes later, he sets it back down, wondering exactly how the hell he fell in with an honest company in a place like Gotham. Nothing this place is doing should work out the way it has.

Of course, Stark Industries was fairer than most back home, if only because it was easier to actually be above board rather than pretend to be. It was overall smarter to run it that way. Especially when the guy who owns the business makes a habit of pissing off the US government.

Something about that thought lingers, and he files it away for later.

“Mr. Fox did say you believe in honest deals for honest people,” Tony muses.

“I also want to get you out of Crime Alley,” Tim admits. “It's dangerous for someone like you.”

“Like me?”

“Good people don’t last very long in Crime Alley. Not alone,” Tim says, walking towards him. He looks up at Tony, considering him. “And your air scrubber design fascinates me. If it works the way you say it does, then I’ll obviously want it in every building we own. But Wayne Enterprises just won the contract for replacing the subway trains destroyed in one of the more recent tragedies. If we can add your design to the trains...”

Tony tilts his head. He’d heard about that--something about a Scarecrow attack that caused the train’s engineer to have a heart attack at the controls. Fortunately, he was the only one on the train. Unfortunately, the gas indirectly killed the man in the driving booth, which left the train to travel directly into the depot at top speed. From what Tony can tell, the subway system is totally useless.

“I’d have to look at the train designs themselves, and potentially redesign them from scratch to get the scrubbers to work the way they should,” Tony says idly.

“Can you draft plans that complicated?” Tim asks, curious.

“In my sleep,” Tony says.

Tim watches him for a moment, eyes sharp and curious. “Done.”

“We haven’t discussed pay.”

“Name your price,” Tim says. His phone buzzes, ringing in his pocket. He pulls it out and checks the screen, frowning slightly at an alert pinging across the surface.

“That’s brave,” Tony remarks.

“I can afford it,” Tim retorts, heading for the door of the shop. He pushes open the door, letting in a rush of chill wind and the sound of heavy rain. He glances at Tony. “Come in on Monday. We’ll figure out the fine details. Bring your prototype. I’ll have the details emailed to you.”

He steps out into the rain without another word, letting the door shut behind him with a clatter. Tony considers the past hour, idly rocking back and forth on his heels, frowning after the young CEO.

Well. It looks like he’s just snuck his way into gainful employment.

Why does it feel like Tim came in prepared to make that offer regardless of what he found in Tony’s shop?

Chapter Text

Tony gives Tim a contract so ludicrous even he thinks it’s too much. A salary that’s just short of what Tim makes as CEO. A penthouse apartment in the heart of the city. A company car, phone, and credit card. The ability to cancel the contract at any point but keep the goodies for himself. It’s practically an insult. If someone handed this over to Tony or Pepper, they’d be laughed out of the building.

That doesn’t stop him from strolling into Wayne Enterprises campus bright and early on Monday morning, dressed in a scruffy band shirt (thank god AC/DC also exists in this universe) and jeans, and dropping it directly on Tim’s desk.

Tim doesn’t blink, just signs the contract.

Which is interesting. Tony’s designs are good, but they’re not that good, not without the Arc reactor and subsequent technology that came from it. This just helps confirm his earlier suspicion that Tim wants to keep him close.

“Take a couple of weeks to get set up,” Tim says. “Welcome to Wayne Tech, Mr. Stark.”

* * *

The penthouse is nice. The car is better. Tony would be lying to himself if he didn’t sleep easier in what’s similar to the home he once had in Stark Tower. Somedays, he even mistakes it for the old tower. There are times when he wakes up in the middle of the night disoriented, reaching out to the other side of the bed for Pepper. It’s always empty, always cold, and it stirs him awake further. And then he’ll look at the skyline, confused, and see a Bat or two swinging past, and remember. Every now and then a goddamn Bat themed jet flies past, sleek and silent, and he’s both impressed and mildly annoyed he didn’t think of stealing one of SHIELD’s quinjets for it.

A more comfortable setting means he becomes more comfortable with the setting. The penthouse doesn’t lack for luxury or comforts, and he begins to fully relax, often late in the night. With that comes the usual issues when he relaxes: anxious insomnia and restless pacing late at night at a place where his usual distractions are out of reach. He’s just tired enough to make going to the shop to work on his suit too dangerous, not tired enough to sleep, and too twitchy to settle on what he should work on in the penthouse. To make matters worse, his chest begins to ache with phantom pains from the arc reactor, a burning, bruising pain that spreads from his repaired sternum to his ribs every time he takes in a breath.

Suddenly, the penthouse, which is easily the largest living space in the entire residential tower, feels suffocatingly hot. He’s on the razor edge of a panic attack. He steps out onto the balcony, wearing only sweatpants and an open robe, and welcomes the feel of Gotham’s icy mist and chill wind. He braces himself against the balcony railing, idly reaching up to rub his chest, keeping his breathing easy and even. The scarring from his surgery aches at the touch, and while he’s aware it’s at least halfway due to his psychological turmoil, it doesn’t make it any less painful or annoying. He frowns out over the city, following the vibrant patterns of a dozen red and blue lights tracing their way through the streets below, willing himself to keep it together. He can’t afford to backslide into a panic attack. Not here. Not until he gets home--

“Are you all right?” a voice asks beside him on the balcony.

“Fuck!” Tony shouts, jumping in place before whirring to face the voice. It’s the guy who came to help Red Robin get home. Tony relaxes. “Where the--yes. I’m fine, yes, why are you here?”

“I saw you holding your chest and wanted to make sure you were all right,” Nightwing says. He gives a sheepish grin, rubbing the back of his neck. “I realize startling a man I suspected of having a heart attack wasn’t my best move. Sorry about that, Mr. Stark.”

Tony scoffs. “It’s not a heart attack. It’s just an old war wound.”

Literally.

Nightwing glances at the mass of scar tissue, frowning. “That looks horrific. Do you need to see a doctor?”

“They wouldn’t be able to do anything for me,” Tony says, tugging the robe closed. In fact, if anything, they’ll have a hell of a lot of awkward questions he’s not interested in answering.

“What happened?” Nightwing asks, hopping up to sit on the edge of the balcony. The movement is done so gracefully and confidently, that Tony only belatedly realizes how goddamn high they are and how insane Nightwing has to be to just sit there.

Of course, the kid used to do the same thing back in New York.

“A life lesson learned a bit later than normal,” Tony says. He’s not used to living in a world where no one knows the story, and he’s not sure he should share it. Nightwing simply tilts his head at that answer, and Tony can tell the man won’t let the topic drop without a bit more. He sighs. “I got it during hostage situation that got uglier than most. I got out, the guy who helped me escape didn’t. I started thinking about it earlier. Couldn’t sleep, it started to ache, came out here to clear my head.”

Which is just true enough to satisfy Nightwing, at least for now.

“Maybe you should call off work tomorrow,” Nightwing suggests.

Tony shakes his head. “That’d make it worse. The last thing I need is to stop working and be left alone to think, with nothing to keep my hands busy. Thanks for the concern, bird boy, but I’ll be fine. You guys have more important things to worry about than some random asshole having a bad night.”

“Not really,” Nightwing says evenly. “We mostly handle random people have bad nights, in fact.”

Tony glances at him, and smirks, a little fond. “Right. Looking out for the little guy.”

“Exactly,” Nightwing says, grinning.

The smirk turns into a smile, and he thinks Peter would like Nightwing and Red Robin and the Bats in general. “Met someone like you guys once. You’d get on like a house on fire.”

“Who was he?” Nightwing asks.

Tony pauses, considers that, and waves a dismissive hand at him, lowering it down to rub his chest through his robe. Explaining Peter would start even more complicated discussions than the chest wound scar.

Nightwing doesn’t press him, simply sits with him for a moment, before slowly standing back up, recognizing Tony’s discomfort.

“How’s your pal?” Tony asks, eager to change the topic. “I haven’t seen him much since I moved up in the world.”

Nightwing tilts his head. Tony’s sudden change of topic wasn’t exactly a large leap. Equating Peter to Red Robin isn’t correct, exactly, but it’s a short jump for Tony. One young street level hero is like another.

“He’s busy these days, but he’s doing fine,” Nightwing says. “I’ll let him know you asked. Thanks again for helping him.”

“Is it usually this busy?” Tony asks, waving vaguely at the dozens of police lights tracing their way through the city below. The sirens must be a constant wave of noise for those in the rundown neighborhoods. No wonder there are a dozen heroes in this city alone.

“It’s usually worse,” Nightwing says with a slight shrug. “Something--or someone--has the usual suspects running scared.”

“Is that good or bad?” Tony asks.

“You know, it’s a little early to tell,” Nightwing says. “Red Robin is the only one who managed to get close to him.”

“Yeah, and that didn’t go well.”

Nightwing scoffs. He starts to say something, then pauses. A nearly hidden earbud buried in his ear clicks on. Tony can’t hear the words, but he recognizes a terse radio call when he sees one. Someone either calling for help, for backup, or because they found something that needs to be handled immediately.

“Listen, I have to--” he starts.

Tony makes a brief shooing motion. “Go, I’m fine.”

Nightwing gives him a little salute, and then promptly backflips off of his balcony, straight down into the city below. Tony gapes after him and eventually comes to the conclusion that every street level hero is at least half insane.

At least Tony’s bubbling panic attack has deflated into regular stress. The conversation with Nightwing helped him with that, at least.

Maybe he’ll put out some sunflower seeds or something. It’s only polite to feed the local birds, after all.

* * *

His work at the company labs is so easy and boring that he almost quits. It's not that it's unnecessary. It's routine. He hates it. To make matters worse, he has to share the work with a night time employee, who seemingly comes and goes as they please, leaving things half finished at times. Annoying.

But he needs the cash to buy the parts he needs to build the fabricator. He already has the base done. The rest will take time, from manufacturing and resources, to building a personal lab that he would feel far more comfortable doing the delicate work in. The basement apartment of the workshop should work for that. There aren’t any residential buildings near his shop, and no one in Crime Alley is going to call the cops over strange lights and stranger noises.

The groundwork is being laid. It's an ongoing process, and in the meantime, he’s doing some good with this air scrubber project. Tim was serious about that, as it turns out. He may have used it as an excuse to snatch Tony off the street, but he is genuinely interested in the technology.

Two weeks into his new life, he sees Tim walking down the hallway. A beautiful woman moves beside him, a redhead with sharp eyes half hidden behind glasses.

His first thought on seeing her is brief: It’s a good thing I’m a married man.

Which is the kind of thing he’d think in a previous life. He’s just experienced a flash of an older version of himself. The next thought that appears is a much more sensible: Pepper would love this woman.

She’s in a wheelchair--a good one, too--moving gracefully through the lab while speaking with Tim, their expressions serious and, in Tim's case, mildly frustrated.

Tony keeps his distance. The conversation, whatever it is, looks personal, and he’s not interested in prying into his boss’ personal life if he can help it.

When he sees her, he thinks of Rhodey, and the braces he built for him. And quietly adds that to his to-do list. He forgets that the medical tech he pivoted Stark Industries into doesn’t exist here. His designs should work with any power source, not anything specific to his universe, they’ll just be less efficient. That would gall him personally, but done is better than perfect, and Wayne Tech can certainly come up with something decent.

To his shock, he runs into the woman at the break room half an hour later. He’s in a band shirt and jeans, and the sound of his music can be faintly heard from behind his laboratory’s door down the hall, AC/DC gently thumping through the walls to the amusement and mild confusion of the others in the department wing. He’s pouring himself some coffee when she comes to a stop near him.

She smiles at him. “You’re the new guy, right?”

“Is it that obvious?” he asks, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“A little. You’d stand out in that outfit, but it’s more than that.”

“Oh?”

“You don’t walk like a Gothamite,” she says.

He smirks. “What do I walk like?”

She gives him a considering look, frowning at him.

“Like a few people I know in a different line of work,” she says, after a moment. She gives him a surprisingly frank look, then grins at him, offering her hand. “Barbara Gordon.”

Intrigued, Tony takes her hand, shaking it briefly.

“Tony Stark. I haven't seen you around before. What department do you work in?” He thinks of the labs in the basement of the building and makes a leap. There’s no way this woman isn't running a research and development program somewhere. “Wait, let me guess: the black labs downstairs. The ones only Tim and Lucius go into.”

She smirks, her gaze sharpening briefly. “Actually, I don't work here.”

Tony quirks an eyebrow. “But you can call on the CEO like an old friend?”

“I work at the library,” Barbara says. “And every now and then, when the city budget takes its usual beatings from newly appointed city councilors, I come down here and browbeat a Wayne Enterprises CEO into making a sizable donation. Usually I make a big enough circus out of it that the city is shamed into leaving the budget alone.”

“And you get a newly restored budget and get to keep the donation.”

She smiles at him sweetly. “Well, it was a gift.”

He grins. He likes Barbara. “Cute racket.”

“It only counts as racketeering if I do something illegal, Mr. Stark. This is just good business.”

Yeah, Pepper would love this woman. “I'll keep that in mind. How did you hear about me if you don’t work here?”

Her grin turns mischievous, and he’s more than a little charmed by it. “The same way I knew Tim would be in the office today, of course.”

He smirks. “You’re wasted on public service, Ms. Gordon.”

“I disagree,” she says primly. She grins. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Stark. Have a good day.”

She wheels away, moving quickly and smoothly. Tony finishes his coffee, weighing his options, and heads back into his lab. He bumps up the braces project from the backburner. He’s not sure he can pull it off in this universe, but it can’t hurt to check.

* * *

Obviously his time at the repair shop drops off, shrinking down to the odd weekend shift every now and then when he isn’t busy turning the basement apartment into a workshop. He figures out an alternative for running the shop in person. The window shattered by the break crew is replaced with a drop off box set up, similar to the mailboxes used in larger apartment buildings. People open a box, drop off the broken item with a note indicating what’s wrong with their particular item, close it, and take the key to that particular box with them. DUM-E II gets an upgrade, sorting through the drop off boxes and fixing phones, tablets, and whatever else can fit inside the locker boxes. A tag system on the locker door indicates whether an item is fixed or not: red for no, green for yes.

It isn’t perfect. It isn’t even foolproof. Tony sends a distressing amount of money replacing keys people keep forgetting to put back into place. But it works, and it keeps the shop open, and it gives Tony some passive income not connected to Wayne Enterprises to shore up for the big ticket purchases he’ll need to create a Fabricator and upgrade his suit.

And a part of him has to admit that he enjoys it. He loves designing new technology, but fixing broken tech is fulfilling in an entirely different way. He might have to figure out a way to do this back home.

For a time, his life enters a comfortable stasis. By the time his suit is three quarters of the way done, he finishes the air scrubber project for Tim.

* * *

Tim comes to his lab to see the final product minutes after Tony sends him a brief message. He looks tired and worn, with dark bags under his eyes and a jittery movement that comes from either too much caffeine or not enough sleep. Potentially both. He winces when he steps into the lab, only to be assaulted with the thundering noise of Shout at the Devil.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Tony calls out from behind the air scrubber. He lowers the music down to a tolerable level with a wave of his hand. “Didn’t expect you to come down here so soon.”

“I’ve got a personal interest in this project” Tim admits, crossing the lab. He scrutinizes both Tony and the air scrubber. “It's exactly the sort of thing Bruce would invest in, the kind of thing Wayne Enterprises is famous for.”

Lots to take in with that statement. First and foremost, how many happy children call their parents by their first name?

Of course, Bruce Wayne looks to have taken hedonistic debauchery to a level even Tony would struggle to keep up with. Tony also dropped that act before getting married. Bruce decided family responsibility isn't an excuse to stop a good party.

Bruce has also been noticeably absent ever since Tony staggered into this universe, apparently perfectly happy to leave the work of a multinational company to his teenage son. He would probably blithely approve any project so long as it worked and brought in a strong ROI and boost to his public image. It’s easier to get into the good parties if your company hits the headlines in just the right way, after all.

“Well, hopefully Daddy approves,” he says. “I'm guessing he'll be at the press conference?”

Tim doesn’t quite fidget, but his discomfort at the question is obvious.

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to him recently,” he says stiffly. “It isn’t unusual for us to go without speaking for awhile, but it's gone on longer than usual. I'm starting to worry something happened to him.”

Exhaustion must be dragging at the kid hard if he’s admitting that. Tony has only had brief moments of conversation with the kid, but he knows Tim plays things safe and distant, never admitting or showing much or any emotion to anyone. A side effect of being thrown to the corporate wolves far too young with little support.

“You know how you hide something from a billionaire?” Tony asks.

Tim frowns at him, perplexed by the question.

“How?” Tim asks.

“Tape it to their kid’s forehead,” Tony retorts. Tim stares at him, eyebrows raised in shock. And for good reason. Bruce Wayne is a good hearted philanthropist with a rock solid reputation as a lovable partygoer. No one in Gotham would openly say something that bold to one of the man's own children. Let alone an employee of his company. “Your old man’s busy, but he’s not dead. He’ll be back.”

“You sound like you have experience with this,” Tim notes. If he’s offended by Tony’s remark, he doesn’t show it.

Good. There might be some hope for this one after all.

“You could say that,” Tony says. “I found our issue the prototype, by the way. Whoever worked on this last night was on the right track, but it’s like they stood up and left in the middle of working on it.”

Tim looks as though he wants to say something, but stops short of it. “Show me what you’ve done.”

“Give me the name of the person who was working on it first. I want to wring their neck and then shake their hand.”

Tim says, dryly, “You're looking at him.”

Tony pauses, genuinely caught off guard, and then says, accusingly, “You didn't mention you were an engineer.”

“It turns out I have a shockingly busy schedule that keeps me out of the lab,” Tim retorts, but he seems pleased to have gotten one over on Tony. “Except for late at night.”

Makes sense. And it would explain why the work was elegantly done on his pet project. Tony’s personal regard for the kid rachets up another few degrees.

“Your talents are wasted on running this place,” Tony says. “You should promote Lucius to CEO and free yourself up for tech research. Alternatively, find a way to hire Barbara for it. She could run this place like the Navy if you give her half a chance.”

Tim quirks an eyebrow at that remark, seemingly amused. “Kind of brave to give your boss orders, isn’t it?”

“You shouldn’t expect social graces from a simple Crime Alley mechanic,” Tony says airily, waving a dismissive hand from behind the air scrubber prototype.

“And you’re just a mechanic, of course.”

“The same way you’re just a CEO, yes,” Tony says. He strikes a nerve with that. A sudden sharp glint to Tim’s eye shows he’s hit close to something. “Engineers rank higher than CEO on the utility scale.”

Tim relaxes, scoffing again. “Show me your work, Stark. We have a press conference in two days.”

Tony grins, waves him over, and starts to show him the literal nuts and bolts of their pet project. Tim is more pleased by the second, and more engaged than Tony has seen in the brief moments they’ve spoken. There’s a sharp glint to this eye when he looks over the air scrubber that’s distinctly absent at any other point. He makes a note of a few other projects to involve Tim in after that. If only to help the kid keep his sanity.

* * *

There are moments of strangeness. Times when he has the uncanny feeling of being watched. Not the casual check-ins from the local superhero population. Something else, something far more intense.

That feeling comes in waves of increasingly strong intensity one miserably cold Saturday night, as he’s leaving the shop and walking towards his car. He feels someone staring at him, the feeling so strong that he pauses to look around the desolate neighborhood.

And he swears he hears Nick Fury shout ‘Behind you, Stark!’

He whirls around, gauntlet half at the ready, and stops. There isn’t anything behind him except for the shop, the lights shining bright in the night time fog. Aside from the shadow of one of the Bats hidden along the roof--

He blinks, frowns, and looks at the shadow. No, that isn't a Bat--

Batgirl appears next to him, her black cowl slipping out of the dark, as silent as the wind. She hisses “Run!” at him as she sprints past running towards the strange shadow hidden on his shop's rooftop.

The shadow reacts to her with uncanny speed and grace, disappearing into the night with Batgirl hot on its heels. Their chase is chillingly silent, and Tony is more than a little shaken by the encounter.

He makes a note to add much more sensitive motion sensors to his shop's security system as he climbs behind the wheel of his car. He starts to drive back to the penthouse, puzzling over the whole encounter. Why the hell did he hear Nick Fury of all people?

* * *

Two days later, the press conference comes. Tim looks rough, as if he spent half the night running from one side of the city to the next. Tony can recognize nerves when he sees it. Tony himself has cleaned up from his scruffy band shirts and back into a suit with a cleanly shaven goatee and his hair press perfect. Compared to Tim, he looks like a Hollywood star.

“You sure you've got this?” he asks. “We can always send these people packing and bring them back when you’ve managed to sleep--”

“Absolutely not,” Tim says immediately, pinching the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache. “That would be a nightmare to reschedule and they’d tear me to shreds for wasting their time. I can do this. Just...handle the more technical questions for me, if they happen to come up.”

Tony frowns at him. This is a bad idea. “Right.”

Tim sighs. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Tony almost argues, but stops short. He can tell it won't do any good. Once Tim has his mind set on something, nothing will change it. It’s not like Tony would’ve listened to anyone at that age. Even Obadiah Stane had to shepard him around with careful manipulation.

To his relief, things go smoothly. At first. And then there’s something of a fuck up. The mood shifts, going sour, once the press realizes that the only people coming out on stage are Tony and Tim. The journalists were expecting Bruce Wayne to charm them with the next great invention to help the people of Gotham City. They are less than pleased to get one of middle children and some absolute nobody.

It isn’t until a reporter from the Gotham Gazette raises her hand that things truly go off the rails. Tony has no clue what Tim could’ve done to Jack Ryder, but the guy has the look of a hungry jackal about him, and pings Tony’s ‘creep’ radar hard.

“So, what happens when someone hacks into your air scrubbers and stuffs them full of Joker gas?”

The kid freezes, momentarily thrown off by the journalist’s question, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. Or it had, but he’s forgotten the answer. He hesitates, and the moment he does, Tony sees every reporter in the room perk up. They smell blood. Worse, they think there’s a scandal to dig up. Tony can practically hear them drool at the thought of raking the kid over the coals for this misstep; the news media always needs a villain, someone to point at and place blame.

He sees too much of himself in Tim to idly stand by and let that happen.

So he steps forward, cutting in smoothly, “I think I can handle that question.”

Tim’s eyes snap to his. Tony holds his gaze for a moment and the kid eventually gives the barest of nods before stepping back from the podium to allow Tony room to step in front of it. Tony can feel Tim’s eyes burning holes into his back, and knows that he’s just gained the undivided attention of the genius billionaire teen CEO. That’s fine. He can handle that. He used to be one of those himself.

“And who are you?” one reporter calls out, his tone just short of rude.

“Tony Stark, product research,” Tony says. Technically his job title is just ‘research consultant’ but if he says it in a certain way, it sounds far more important than that.

“So a nobody, then?” the reporter calls out again, earning himself a few muffled snickers from the others.

Okay, well, fuck you too, buddy.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Tony says, slipping into his CEO persona like a well worn suit. A subtle shift in his stance, a slow squaring his shoulders, and pitching his voice just so, and he has everyone’s full attention, drawing it away from Tim altogether. “And to go back to your previous question, no, there isn’t any danger to the air scrubber we designed.”

“But what you’re building--”

“Is a tool, like Mr. Drake said,” Tony says, keeping his voice confident but gentle. It’s the sort of tone a fourth grade science teacher would use when correcting a particularly dim student. “And a good one. If we get enough of these installed around the city, we can cut smog by twenty percent. And that’s just the first iteration of this technology. Give us more time and we can find ways to make them smaller, more efficient, better.”

“You think you can make them better?”

“Give me a month and access to the right tools and I can make them ten times better,” Tony retorts. “We’re starting small right now. That’s the smart way to do things, and while I’m not exactly an old hat at Wayne Tech, I do know they do things the smart way.”

The crowd begins to murmur, thrown off by this stranger taking over the conference. He’s hit that careful balance of confidence without too much arrogance, and he has their curiosity now. Tony doesn’t let up. He points past a gaggle of near rabid journalists at the front of the crowd to a tall man in the back who has his hand raised. It’s so unbelievably polite that Tony’s attention is naturally drawn to the guy. It doesn’t hurt that the man physically towers over his colleagues.

“You, poindexter, in the back, what’s your question?”

“Hi, Daily Planet,” the man says, his tone even and calm. If he’s offended by the nickname (and he shouldn’t be, Tony only gives those out to people he likes or thinks he’ll like), he’s professional enough to not show it. “What is your method for maintaining control of--”

The questions come in waves, antagonistic at first, and then begrudgingly much more polite as Tony stonewalls their not quite subtle insinuations, insults, and barbs, and responds openly to the softball questions and those that are less antagonistic. Poindexter in the back gets the majority of his questions answered (Tony knows the guy gave his name, but cannot recall it; doesn’t matter, journalists are a dime a dozen), even the harsher ones, simply because he maintains a polite tone throughout. The other journalists take their cue from him and the tone shifts from borderline disastrous to something much more palatable. Tony’s little ploy works; journalists have short memories, they’ll mention the rocky start, but focus on the strong end. Tony herds them through the rest of the meeting, back in his element, and happy to take the limelight off of his boss, running circles around the jackals until they leave the room, murmuring to one another. Poindexter is the last to leave, dutifully writing out notes in his notebook. He grins at Tony before he leaves, open and friendly, his face lighting up like the sun.

“Thanks for the lifeline,” Tony says.

“I was just asking questions, Mr. Stark,” the man says politely, before leaving himself.

“Friend of yours?” Tony asks, looking his shoulder at Tim after the room empties out completely.

“The Daily Planet has good journalists,” Tim replies simply, shrugging.

“Yeah, well, he lobbed us a softball at the perfect time and redirected the whole mood of the place,” Tony says. “Cultivate that. Give him a tip or inside scoop every now and then so he keeps it up. Trust me, that’ll pay in dividends--even if it’s just a word of warning because he’s sniffed out one of your employees playing fast and loose with company secrets.”

That was a problem, briefly, for Stark Industries, but between Pepper, Happy, JARVIS and, later, FRIDAY, he had it more or less handled. Wayne Enterprises doesn’t have that. Fortunately, it does have him.

He should ask for a raise.

Tim is still watching him as they step out of the conference room. Tony raises an eyebrow.

“I hope you didn’t mind me barging in like that,” Tony says, only somewhat apologetic. He’s forgotten how fun running circles around reporters can be. “Reporters love a good scandal, and most of them don’t care about who gets caught in the crossfire.”

“I don’t care about that,” Tim retorts. He nods to the prototype hologram gently twirling in the air. “You can make these ten times more efficient in a month?”

“Sure,” Tony says, shrugging. If he had his lab, and FRIDAY, he could go far past that. But he doesn’t. And he’d need time to safely develop arc reactor tech; what was safe during a potential suicide mission to freedom in his home world won’t be safe in a heavily populated city like Gotham. “Maybe more, but at least that much.”

“I’d like to see that,” Tim says finally.

“Give me free reign with one of your fancier labs, good coffee, an irresponsible budget, and no interruptions, and I can get the prototype done in a week.”

Another one of those long, considering looks. Tony is suddenly sure of the fact that Tim is older than he appears--at least emotionally. He doesn’t know the kid’s background, but he recognizes brilliance and all that entails easily enough.

“Go see Mr. Fox. He’ll help you set up a new lab.”

“Understood,” Tony says, relaxing a bit. He’s missed working on his own.

“And...thank you,” Tim adds, somewhat awkwardly. “Normally I can handle reporters like that, but today was an exception.”

Tony dismisses that with a wave. “Don’t mention it. Reporters are jackals. You’ve just gotta know how to throw ‘em a bone every now and then. They’re going after you because you’re too straight and narrow, kid. You’ve gotta give them a tiny scandal every now and then to distract them from the big scandal.”

“Big scandal?” Tim asks, his tone a touch too casual. Tony has struck another nerve. He’s not sure what nerve, but he’s edging into dangerous territory with that off hand comment.

Tony considers that for a long moment, and quirks an eyebrow. “You think nobody knows about your boyfriend sneaking into your office late at night?”

Tim blinks, and his face flushes. “That’s--Conner isn't--”

“None of my business, but you’d better crash an expensive car or spill some wine on someone important or something so people don’t go looking for rumors that actually hurt,” Tony says, shrugging. “Just a piece of advice.”

“Sounds like you have experience with this.”

Sure, a lifetime of it. “You could say that.”

Tim frowns at him, watching him as if he’s a puzzle to figure out. He almost says something when his phone chirps in a series of beeps. Tim freezes, listening to the ringtone, then straightens.

How many people turn their phone alerts into a secret code? Tony wonders. He can’t even begin to guess what that message was, but he recognizes a code when he hears it. Not morse code--that wouldn’t be secure at all--but a series of beeps and chirps almost similar to a dial tone.

Of course, the kid is so weird he might well have a dial tone ringtone for his cell phone. Rich genius kids are weirdos by definition.

“I have to go. Excellent work today, Tony. I’m looking forward to seeing your improved prototype,” Tim says. He ducks out of the room, moving just short of a run.

Tony puzzles over that for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

Tony’s life chugs along. He splits time between Wayne Enterprises, his personal shop, and the pent house. A few more Bats wander across his balcony late at night. It’s one of the tallest buildings in this part of the city, so he’s not very shocked to find them loitering around. He adjusts the balcony layout accordingly, moving one of the tables closer to the railing, and timing the umbrella above the table to automatically open during the darkest parts of the night, often when it rains the hardest and, usually, when the Bats happen by.

The first Bat to notice the sign saying “Birdfeeder” with an arrow pointing straight down at sealed snack bags of nuts and sunflower seeds is Signal, who bursts out laughing and jogs over to grab one. Batgirl, who was sitting beside him on the railing, tilts her head at him and catches a bag of sunflower seeds expertly without looking. They chat, Signal snaps a picture of the snack set up, and then the two are off. Nightwing pops in next, dutifully leaves a quarter on the table beside the sign, and gives Tony one of his trademark grins and salutes as he backflips off of the roof. Spoiler slips in from the shadows, grabs two bags, and leaves a note beside it:

Batgirl wanted seconds but had to go handle a hostage situation. Thanks! <3

-Spoiler

Red Robin visits after that. He looks amused by the set up, and seems to be above it all--until he finds one of the healthier snacks tucked into the back. He grabs that one and saunters off, leaping off the side of the tower with precise movements and grace, similar to, but not quite as smoothly as Nightwing.

Red Hood shows up last, scaring the absolute shit out of Tony, delicately picks out a snack and tucks it into his utility belt. He then stalks towards the floor to ceiling window Tony’s standing behind and slaps a paper against it:

Good work at your shop. Don’t get killed.

He does a cannonball off of the side of the building after that, with the exact kind of insane confidence he’s come to expect from every Bat in this city.

Well, at least they like it.

Tony makes a note on the favorites each particular Bat enjoys, and switches it up. Two days later, he adjusts them. Red Robin’s gets a bonus first aid kit since he keeps showing up beaten all to shit. That earns him a flat look from the Bat. Tony grins in return, saluting him with his drink. He doesn’t see the eyeroll, but he knows it happened.

Which is a shame. Who doesn’t love Hello Kitty bandaids?

He gets used to seeing the Bats haunt his balcony that he almost doesn’t notice the last one. Late one night, just when he’s about to crawl into bed, Tony notices a shadow shift over his balcony. The city light has done nothing to push back the night time dark tonight thanks to a surprise, violent storm. Even the balcony lights struggle to keep more than a dim glow over the snack table. If it wasn’t for a flash of lightning at just right the time, Tony wouldn’t have known there was someone out there at all.

He can’t tell who it is; the light was so brief, and they’re so deep into shadow that he can’t make out the supersuit. He frowns, cautiously stepping closer to the balcony door, but stopping at the last second. Whoever it is, they seem more interested in him rather than the city. He debates on whether he should go out and talk to them or not. The Bats are pretty intense--just look at Red Hood--but they don’t typically haunt Tony.

Another flash of lightning illuminates the balcony. It’s empty, save for a missing snack.

Tony scoffs. He’s getting jumpy in his old age.

He goes to bed.

* * *

He finds the invitation tucked into his mail, the envelope standing out by the quality of the paper and heavy stamp in the corner. Both are of exquisite make, hinting at someone very rich, or very ostentatious as the sender. Curious, Tony opens it.

You are cordially invited to--

It takes him a moment to realize what this is. When he does, he scoffs in amusement.

The very wealthy enjoy making a grand entrance whenever they happen to visit the home city of an acquaintance or rival. The form of it changes, but the intent is clear: I'm here and I'm demanding your attention.

He isn’t sure why Lex Luthor invited Tony though. Sure, he’s rich again but he's in the lower level of rich, far from the deep wealth he’s used to wielding back home which would earn him an invitation like this every month or so. Maybe Lex is running low on guests or, more likely, found Tony’s little press release stunt amusing enough to send an invitation.

Well, it's been awhile since he’s been to a good party. Why not?

* * *

The party takes place in Gotham Heights, at an old art deco style building well lit and meticulously maintained, every inch of it an urban castle imposing itself over the skyline. The Powers Club--whoever that is--has graciously deigned to host this little get-together of the rich and ludicrously rich inside their club rooms. Tony is welcomed inside by crisply polite and weirdly fit servants.

The event hall is a classical affair, with marble floors, plush red carpet, and a vaulted ceiling so high that the vintage chandeliers struggle to fully illuminate it, leaving deep shadows along the recesses of the ceiling. It adds to the overall mood, but Tony finds it too old fashioned, too stodgy.

He also wonders what their obsession is with owls. They're everywhere, in paintings along the walls, carved into the molding along the walls, even the servants even sport tiny pins on their lapels. It's weird. Creepy, even. But it's also Gotham. Weird and creepy mixed with art deco is the city's whole thing.

He grabs a martini from the open bar, curious about how the night will play out. He’s been to hundreds of these before, of course, but he was always the primary figure, not a second hand invite. Either because he dragged everyone’s attention towards himself or it was taking place on his dime. But this is a Lex Luthor affair, and the belle of the ball is stalking through his own party with the air of an emperor. Tony has the distinct feeling the man won’t tolerate any interference or peacocking from other guests. He can’t see the man, but he can trace his movements by the way the crowd reacts to him, like a school of fish moving out of the way of a shark.

Tony turns away from the larger crowd in the center of the room, and instead eyes the group slinking along the edges. Journalists and paparazzi often sneak into these little get-togethers and Tony isn't surprised to see a crowd of them doing their best to blend in. Most don't succeed; their clothing alone makes them stand out. Off the rack fashion can’t compete with wealthy pretensions when it comes to tailoring.

“Ah, Mr. Stark. I was hoping you would attend,” a smooth, well heeled voice says behind him. The owner of that voice offers Tony his hand with a placid, too well practiced smile. “I was particularly impressed by your speech.”

Tony turns to face the owner of that voice and pauses, taking the man’s hand on autopilot. His first thought on seeing Lex Luthor is: Holy shit, it’s Obadiah Stane. The second thought is: This man is dangerous, keep him away from Tim.

Take Obadiah Stane from thirty years ago, add a healthy dose of cunning intelligence, and remove the beard, and you have Lex Luthor. Although, on second glance, Tony isn’t so sure. There’s an open coldness to Lex that Stane never let show. Stane could fake happiness and warmth, at least long enough to get what he wanted. Tony isn’t sure Lex is capable of that. More to the point, he seems proud of that fact.

“It's a pleasure meeting the newest addition to Wayne Enterprises,” Lex says smoothly. His handshake is iron hard and unsettlingly cold. Tony doesn’t flinch or falter during the handshake, and he can see the man’s estimation of him change in real time. God, he has not missed corporate showboating. “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Stark. You have some interesting ideas.”

He’s not entirely surprised; Tony makes waves everywhere he goes and corporate espionage is a given. If anything, it’s more cutthroat than the government kind. He idly wonders which one of his lab associates are on a second payroll for Lexcorp. Back home, he would have FRIDAY sort through employee lists and shuffle the company spies around to harmless positions within Stark Industries, keeping them busy with nothing-work that wouldn’t harm the Avengers or his personal fortune. He doesn’t have that advantage here. Not yet, anyway.

“Lex, buddy,” Tony says enthusiastically, beaming widely, wondering if he should just yank his hand free of the too long handshake. Lex is all smooth control; Tony ups the boisterousness to counter it. “I’m surprised you’ve heard of me. After all, I’m just a simple consultant.”

“The humble act is almost perfect, Mr. Stark, but you don’t need to use it around me,” Lex replies. His handshake is sharp and strong and just short of overpowering. Tony isn’t surprised by the power play behind it, but he is annoyed by it.

“Not as much of an act these days,” Tony says, pulling his hand back. “Nice grip there, pal.”

Lex smirks, pulling back his hand, taking Tony’s exit from the handshake as some kind of victory.

Prick.

“I’m glad you decided to join us for our little celebration tonight,” Lex says, idly motioning towards their surroundings. “I was wondering how to best lure you into a meeting, but I figured a man like you prefers the direct approach.”

“That’s mildly creepy, but you have my attention,” Tony says before taking a generous drink of his martini.

Lex brushes off his snarky comment, launching into a speech that feels cold, and too practiced, as if it’s been used on dozens of men like Tony before. The more Lex talks, the more Tony finds himself struggling to stay silent. Everything about the guy--everything--reminds him of Stane. Younger, sharper, more intelligent and therefore far more dangerous, but Stane nonetheless.

Worse than that, in some ways he reminds Tony of himself. This man is Tony at his most arrogant. His most self absorbed thoughts given flesh and form. The similarities are just close enough to make his teeth itch, to make him realize how close he came to becoming this guy. If he had never met Rhodey, had never fallen in love with Pepper, had never befriended Happy, his life would be all too close to Lex Luthor’s.

That, more than anything, inspires a level of visceral hatred for the man he’d never admit to out loud.

“It comes down to human behavior, of course,” Lex says easily, dark eyes glittering coldly, despite how well lit the building is. “Which is, ultimately, economic behavior. The two most basic behaviors: need and greed. You look like a man familiar with the concept, Mr. Stark. Your needs are met. How about greed?”

Oh, here we fucking go. Tony feigns an innocent look. “I’m not following.”

“I want you to work for me,” Lex says simply. “I’ll pay anything for it. Name it.”

Tony pauses, momentarily shocked. How the hell did he get this guy’s attention? Sure, he’s loud. Yes, he took over the press conference. And yes, he’s smart, but he’s in a world full of geniuses, billionaires, and several different combinations of the two. He should not, in any way, stand out here.

And yet, somehow, he has.

A thought strikes him: the Arc Reactor plans. They’re as secure as he can make them, but that doesn’t mean they’re completely secure. His purchases for the shop are as bland and uninteresting as he can make them, but he did create the Arc Reactor out of a missile. Those components are unique and heavily observed for very obvious reasons. And he doesn’t have JARVIS, or FRIDAY available to keep constant vigilance over anyone watching him.

Good thing the plans have been deliberately left incomplete.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Tony says. “I’m happy where I am.”

“If this is some kind of misplaced loyalty to Wayne Enterprises--”

“I actually prefer Gotham,” Tony says, steering the conversation to safer waters. He doesn’t, actually, this place is fucking horrible, but it’s also not Lex Luthor’s home turf. “Metropolis is too...sunny. And I heard it’s had some trouble lately.”

Lex handwaves that away with a scoff. “There are always problems in Metropolis. Pity the people there won’t let me solve it.”

And people say Tony’s ego is unbelievable. The thing is, Tony can believe this man could solve this world’s problems if he put his mind to it. He won’t, but he could. He might not be as smart as Tony, but he has a certain cold cunning that would make up for any miniscule shortcomings in that department. If Tony had the time, he would happily dedicate it to proving Lex Luthor’s worldview wrong. It would be so satisfying.

“What happened? The news said there was some kind of an explosion near the edge of Suicide Slums?” Tony asks. He adds, “Hell of a name, by the way, I wouldn’t tolerator my home city having a place called that.”

He vaguely recalls seeing headlines about the tragedy while in the break room at the lab, most of them centered on the amount of people Superman--holy shit is that a name--managed to save from the disaster.

“Yes, someone bombed a residential block. Half of the district is a crater or so damaged it might as well be,” Lex says, thoroughly uninterested in the topic.

“Sounds like a lot of people died,” Tony prompts. Here’s a test of character for the guy.

"Death happens. It happens often and it happens regardless of what anyone tries to do to stop it. The tragedy is that those people died as helpless victims, too weak to defend themselves. One of the fundamental truths of the world is that if you can't defend it--including your life--you shouldn't get to keep it."

"It's a good thing Superman doesn't share that idea," Tony says dryly. He hates that he’s de facto on the side of someone named Superman, but fuck it, he’ll wear the guy’s stupid S icon every day of his life if it’ll chase people like Lex away.

And oh, that comment strikes a nerve in the guy. Lex doesn't quite twitch, doesn't quite scowl, but Tony can see something dark and furious flash in Lex's eyes at the mention of the hero.

Interesting.

“Ask the dead what praise Superman should be given. And the more we rely on that alien, the weaker we all become--,” Lex snaps back. He pauses, visibly fights back his temper, and smiles, the expression flowing across his face like water. The change is so smooth and so quick that it's chilling.

Okay, yeah, Tony definitely pissed the guy off.

“Our conversation has drifted off topic, Mr. Stark. Let’s focus,” Lex says. He pulls out a business card and sets it on the table. “I want you to work for me. You can even keep your job here if you want. Call this number when you’re ready to discuss the finer details.”

Tony takes the business card, glancing at it briefly before tucking it into his shirt pocket. What the hell. Maybe he can fuck with the guy a little before he leaves this universe.

Lex, of course, takes this as some sort of win, as if he’s managed to get his claws dug into Tony. He smiles again, this time a bit more genuine for its cold satisfaction.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have guests to see to,” he says, the dismissal bright and clear. Tony is eager to put some distance between himself and that snake, so he settles for a brief salute with his drink as the man turns and leaves.

Thank fuck that conversation is over, Tony thinks, sauntering away from Lex as quickly as social graces allow. He bumps into one of the journalists milling around. To his surprise, he recognizes this particular journalist.

“Sorry about that, Mr. Stark,” Poindexter says. He catches Tony’s elbow, keeping him from losing balance. Tony has the distinct feeling this guy could fastball him through the nearest wall without breaking a sweat. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Yeah, well, it can be pretty hard to notice us little people,” Tony says. He takes a surreptitious look at the man’s press pass, leery of using his nickname on a second meeting when he’s in arm’s reach of the guy. “Don’t worry about it, Clark.”

The man grins, as if he caught Tony’s quick glance, and finds it amusing more than anything else. “Having fun talking with the rich and famous?”

“What, him?” Tony asks, jerking his head towards Lex. At Clark’s nod, he scoffs. “Fuck no. I’d rather be waterboarded again. This time in acid. Feel free to quote me on that.”

That particular phrase gets him a startled blink, and vaguely worried look. Tony was being honest, perhaps a bit too honest, but most people would assume he was joking. Or lying. One of the two. Clark, apparently, takes it as the truth it is. Tony wonders how the hell someone so nice ended up in journalism, but figures the genuine curiosity and friendliness is such a novelty that most people--him included--are happy to answer any questions he has.

“Sorry in advance if you’ve got an interview with him,” Tony says, patting the guy’s arm. It’s like patting a concrete wall; the man must be nothing but solid muscle under that shirt. What the hell kind of journalists work for the Daily Planet? “I might’ve pissed him off. Good luck, though.”

He beats a hasty retreat after that, downing the rest of his drink and replacing it with a fresh martini at the bar. Clark stares after him, frowning.

Tony crosses the party, wondering how long he should stay now that he’s made his appearance. To his surprise, he sees Tim standing along the periphery of the crowd, dressed well, but eyes unfocused, as if he’s puzzling over something far more interesting than anything happening in the party. He looks like he’s handling the party well, but Tony can see the strain. Worse, he can sense the annoyance. That could cause trouble for him later on.

He strolls over to Tim, drink in hand, idly swirling it as he moves. Lex Luthor might be a soulless prick, but he has good taste in drinks. Of course, that could be the booze loosening him up.

“You’re supposed to have an assistant, you know,” he says by way of greeting.

Tim blinks at him, startled out of his private thoughts. He slowly raises an eyebrow at Tony, but doesn’t immediately walk away or end the conversation. Which Tony takes as an invitation.

“An assistant. A bodyguard, or someone you trust, someone who’s supposed to lean in and give you the name and two relevant facts for every person that’s approaching you,” Tony explains.

Happy did that for him once upon a time. He also used to rank the women based on physical beauty, but fortunately that particular skill has fallen out of use for a very good reason. Pepper had been more professional when she leaned in to talk to Tony, even when she was new and nervous at her job. Even in her first month of trailing after him, he was smitten by her to some extent.

“There are whole businesses where they hire out very attractive and smart people to do exactly that for you,” Tony continues. “It helps make you seem more human. Or as human as necessary in business administration, at least.”

Tim scoffs. “I’m beginning to hate this more by the day.”

Tony can sympathize.

“Lucky for you, I’ve got you covered,” he says, clapping a hand on Tim’s shoulder and guiding him towards the crowd. The kid raises an eyebrow, but lets himself be guided. Tony is quietly shocked by that. Tim tolerates a lot of bullshit from him. “Seriously, you've been doing this by yourself?”

“Bruce does it without an assistant,” Tim says.

“Your dad's a freak,” Tony says bluntly. “Do yourself a favor and don’t clog your head with useless bullshit.”

“I suppose I could do as you say and have you remember all the useless bullshit for me,” Tim remarks dryly.

Tony smirks. “Challenge accepted. You already know Oliver Queen--”

“How do you know that?”

“His body language, the salute he just did towards you with his drink, and the fact that you're both avoiding each other entirely aside from that little greeting,” Tony says. “I'm guessing your company and his have either worked together in the past or will in the future so neither of you feels the need to do a corporate dance for all of the onlookers. Some sort of backroom deal, maybe?”

Tim stares at him hard. Finally, he says, “He’s expressed an interest in our air scrubber design.”

Tony smirks at him, all smug confidence. Tim doesn’t quite roll his eyes, hiding an answering grin behind his own drink.

“Called it,” Tony says. He nods towards another part of the gathering. “Your pal, Clark, is sneaking around the party and pretending to be a bumbling jackass, but he’s keeping close enough to Lex to overhear almost all of his conversations. I’m guessing there’s a history there?”

His question doesn’t get an answer. He glances back at Tim, and is surprised to find him staring at him closely.

“You would make a good detective,” Tim says after a moment.

“No thanks,” Tony retorts. “Too much people stuff for that particular industry.”

“It’s a public service, not an industry.”

“Tomato, tomahto. Same budget, different rules.”

“You sound like Lex Luthor.”

“Ouch. It’s quicker to shoot me if you want to hurt me,” Tony retorts. Tim smirks. “Why are you here anyway? You’re usually too busy for this, and no offense, but you look miserable.”

“I had to make an appearance and Lucius does have a life outside of Wayne Enterprises,” Tim says. “I’m only going to stay for an hour.”

Tony chuckles and says, without thinking, “Now you sound just like the kid.”

Tim looks at him, frowning in confusion. “The kid?”

Tony freezes, then glances at his martini. Right, he hasn’t had anything to drink since he got shoved into this universe. His tolerance is rock bottom, and what he took as a simple, cheerful buzz is riding the razor edge of drunk. Which he can’t afford at the moment, because there is no way he can explain anything even remotely attached to Peter without sounding like a lunatic.

“Ah, ignore that. Too much to drink,” he says, keeping his tone light, and hoping desperately that his discomfort reads as embarrassment rather than cagey.

Tim doesn’t look dissuaded in the least. Which doesn’t surprise Tony at all.

An image comes to him, seemingly out of the blue, of the ship where Strange had been taken to. Peter standing in front of him, in the Iron Spider, saying, “So, really, it's kind of your fault I'm here--”

The memory makes him clench his jaw, and grip his drink harder than necessary. The scar on his chest throbs in time with his heartbeat, and he subconsciously reaches up to rub it through his shirt. When he shakes himself out of the flashback, he’s unnerved to discover Tim staring at him closely.

Well, time for a not so graceful exit, then.

“Listen, I’ve hit my limit for this place,” Tony says. “I’m heading out.”

“I’ll have someone drive you home.”

Tony waves him off. “No, I can handle--”

“You’ve had enough alcohol to start stumbling over your words. I’m not letting you drive,” Tim points out calmly, his phone already in his hand. “My brother is passing by. He’ll take you home--”

Something moves in the shadows on the ceiling. Something with claws, and an owl mask. It’s only for a brief moment, but Tony’s head snaps up to the shadows along the ceiling. The alcohol is fuzzing his brain, distracting him, slowing his thoughts. He opens his mouth to say something--

And that’s when the screaming starts. Dozens upon dozens of things in owl masks--all of them vaguely shaped like men, but off somehow, with too long proportions and glowing green eyes--slowly begin to crawl down from the ceiling, like a pack of startled cockroaches sent into a speeding frenzy.

The crowd, predictably, goes into an utter panic. A wave of panicked partygoers overtakes Tony and Tim, separating him from the young man quicker than he can react. He sees Lex Luthor pushing and shoving his way through the crowd, cursing viciously as he roughly knocks an older woman in an elegant dress to the ground before stepping over her. One of the owl masked creatures catches sight of her, and dives down towards her with a screech of vicious hunger.

Tony steps between the woman and the monster, calmly aims his gauntlet, and sends it flying across the room with a careful blast. It lets out a shriek of pained fury. Tony turns and kneels down to help the woman to her feet. She babbles gratefully through terrified tears as she finds her feet and joins the crowd in fleeing the building. Tony shakes his gauntlet, willing the overheated repulsor to shed the heat faster, and strides against the crowd and through it. He’s not leaving until he knows Tim is safe.

To his shock, he sees Clark Kent charging like a bull towards a gaggle of owl monsters, shedding his ill-fitting suit jacket as if preparing to take on every owl masked assassin by himself. Tony’s confusion only grows when he sees Oliver Queen snatch up the dropped crossbow with practiced ease, and a small amount of sneering derision before defly dodging a swipe from one of the assassins. He disappears into the crowd the same way Clark does, but Tony spies three or four crossbow bolts flying out of the dark to strike down the monsters heading for the crowd. Tony adds a few more gauntlet blasts of his own, aiding the hidden man, working in sync with him.

And then the Bats appear. Red Robin is the first, swinging in with bo staff and drawing the attention of every owl creature there. Nightwing is right on heels, followed by the others. They're woefully outnumbered, but they don’t seem to mind that too much.

Tony’s gauntlet can't last for much longer. It was never meant to be more than a short term defense weapon, and he can smell the electronics inside it burning from overuse and feel the searing heat against his palm and fingers with each blast. He aims his shots carefully, stalking through the crowd to try and find Tim. A few more owls divebomb the crowd, and he loses both time and patience knocking them away from the crowd and into range of the nearest Bat.

And then Superman flies in, and clears the room of the remaining owl creatures in the space of a heartbeat, using chains to wrap up the monsters that hiss and snarl uselessly in their chains. Tony blinks, but gladly powers down his gauntlet. His hand is white hot agony, and he’s a little disconcerted by the fact that he can smell the burn forming on his palm. Second degree burn, probably. He should get that looked at and test out the fancy healthcare plan Wayne Enterprises gave him.

“Well, that’s a neat little toy,” Oliver Queen drawls, sauntering over to Tony. He idly bumps the crossbow in his hand against his palm. “Tim said you were an inventor, but I didn't think it was weapons tech.”

“It isn’t these days,” Tony says. “Nice shooting, by the way. You're almost as good as a guy I knew back home.”

“Almost?” Oliver asks. He pauses, frowns, and says, “Are you drunk?”

“Little bit,” Tony says.

Tony ignores the man’s scoff in response to that, though he’s secretly pleased to have needled him. He feels an odd sort of kinship with him--probably because they were the only two regular men to leap into the fray.

He looks up at the Bats and Superman and says, “I’m not leaving until I find Tim. About yea tall, kind of a smart ass--”

That gets a few slight smirks from the Bats. Nightwing and Spoiler in particular seem amused by the description.

“He left with the crowd,” Red Robin says dryly, cutting him off. He drops down beside Tony, frowning at the gauntlet half fused to his palm. “How are you not screaming in pain?”

“Had worse,” Tony says. Though not much worse. The pain is cutting through the pleasant buzz, and he knows from experience that getting the burn cleaned and bandaged is going to be a particular kind of hell. “Typical. He sneaks out when I blink.”

Red Robin ignores his comment, dropping down from his perch along the ceiling to land beside Tony, gripping his arm. “You. Medics. Now.”

“Bossy,” Tony retorts, but he doesn’t fight the kid on the way out of the building and into the street.

The whole street is awash in emergency personnel. EMTs, cops, firefighters, if the car comes with flashing red and blue lights, they’re there. Red Robin practically drags him straight towards a group of medics, who eagerly swarm Tony the moment they see his mangled hand. The Bat disappears in the chaos of the medical personnel, but Tony expected that. He has the bright idea to pull out his phone to try and text before the pain catches up to him entirely and he blacks out.

Chapter Text

Tony wakes up in a haze, dimly aware of the sterile scent of hospital cleaner and burn ointment. He can hear a heart monitor to his right, and taste harsh IV antibiotics in the back of his throat. His hand is slathered in ointment, bound in bandages, and his arm is suspended above himself. To say it hurts would be an understatement, but the painkillers and numbing ointment are keeping it to a bearable level. Some part of himself is dimly glad of the pain. He didn’t burn off the nerves in his hand with his little stunt. That will be a mixed blessing as he heals, but for now, he’s grateful.

Every hospital room is more or less the same, but this particular room is outfitted very well. Machines that are gleaming from care, floors that shine, and a new flatscreen TV set to a news channel with a small corner of it dedicate to hospital specific news. Mostly the cafeteria menu.

Tony’s not entirely surprised to see Tim sitting in the visitor’s chair off to the side of his bed, frowning at a tablet in his hand. He looks tired, but otherwise perfectly fine. If he’s been at all traumatized by the night’s events, Tony can’t see it. Which is interesting.

“You know, Clark Kent kind of looks like Superman,” Tony says sleepily.

Tim’s head snaps up, and he watches Tony with an unreadable expression.

“I saw him charging through the crowd. Pretty sure I saw him throw one of those owl things through a window when it got too close to someone,” Tony says idly.

“He’s a pretty big guy, but that would be a feat even for him,” Tim says evenly.

“Kinda looks like your boyfriend, too.”

Tim slowly raises an eyebrow at Tony, and he knows he’s starting to walk on substantially thinner ice now. Tim is too still, his expression too carefully neutral, and his grip on the tablet a bit too tight.

Yeah, definitely in dangerous waters now.

Tony scoffs. “Just an observation, kid.” He nods to his hand. “What’s the damage?”

“Second degree burns along your palm, first degree everywhere else. Dr. Thompkins is worried about your age, and the fact that you don’t have any known medical history despite evidence of past surgeries,” Tim says. “She’s the family doctor, by the way. I asked her to come in and take care of you. She’s going to interrogate you about a few things once she realizes you’re awake.”

“Fantastic,” Tony mutters.

“Red Robin took your blaster from the medics,” Tim continues. “Were you bringing that to work?”

“Obviously.”

Tim raises an eyebrow at him. Tony shrugs.

“Why is my boss in my hospital room anyway?”

“You don't have an emergency contact, and I heard you got hurt looking for me,” Tim replies. “I feel a little guilty.”

“Don’t. I just didn't want to lose the paycheck,” Tony retorts.

Tim doesn’t quite smirk at that. “You should fill out your emergency contact form. Someone needs to contact your spouse and let them know you’re going to be kept overnight for observation.”

He stares at Tim, baffled, then looks at his unburned hand. The tan line from his wedding ring is still there, despite the fact that he hasn't actually seen the sun in god knows how long. He'd taken it off before he and Pepper went on their morning jog.

“Tony, please tell me you are not on that ship--come back!”

“Don’t bother,” Tony says, his mood dropping entirely.

Tim pauses for a moment, then asks, “And the kid you mentioned--”

“Drop it,” Tony says, fighting back an unexpected swell of anger.

It's the first time he's raised his voice since being dropped into this world, and he winces at the sound of it. If he had been less drugged, less distracted by his pain, Tim wouldn't have gotten such an honest and, frankly, grief driven response from him. A part of him wonders if Tim waited around until he woke up specifically to ask his questions.

“I'll just put myself down as your emergency contact, then,” Tim says mildly. “And I'll let the doctor know you’re awake.”

“Thanks.”

Tim stands, taking the tablet with him as he leaves. Tony is left to his own devices for several minutes, brooding, eyeing his bandaged hand critically.

Finally, there's a polite knock on the door, and it swings open. Dr. Thompkins is an older woman, grey hair tied back in a bun, loose well worn scrubs and pristine white coat gone somewhat ragged at the edges from use. Her eyes are sharp and bright, and Tony gets the feeling not many people are able to get anything by her.

“You handle pain very well,” she says by way of greeting. She moves to the IV stand by his bed, checks it, and then disconnects it.

“Lots of practice,” Tony says, grateful to have the needle out of his arm.

“Judging by the scars I've found on you, I can tell,” she replies dryly. “Torture?”

“Only a bit.”

“Heart surgery, and reconstructive surgery along your torso,” she notes, placing x-ray sheets on the wall for him to see. She isn’t showing him anything new, really. He’s seen this before. Ribs pinned back into place, a highly abused sternum, the works. “It looks like someone hit you with a cannon dead center in your chest.”

“A missile, actually,” Tony says. She quirks an eyebrow at him and he shrugs. “I got better.”

“Obviously,” Dr. Thompkins says, smirking. “With a level of care that would be impossible to get without going to the most advanced hospitals in the world. Whoever did your surgery is the best in the world. So, who's your doctor? They should get to hear about your heroics at the gala.”

Tony waves the unscorched hand. “Let’s not bother her with that. How long do I get to wear this thing?”

“A little less than a month,” she says. “But I’ll want to check in once a week. And, obviously, if it starts to get infected...”

“Makes sense,” Tony says. “I'm guessing I'm free to go, then?”

“You passed out in the ambulance. I'd like to keep you overnight out of a sense of paranoia--”

“Pass,” Tony says, standing up from the bed. He's glad they left him in his suit, at least.

“I figured you'd say that,” she says, smirking again. She nods to a small table on the other side of the room where a bag is resting. “Painkillers, bandages, and ointment to take with you. Keep your arm in the sling so you don't bash it against anything for a few days.”

“Need me to make an appointment for the follow up song and dance?”

“Oh, don't worry,” she says pleasantly. “I'll find you.”

“Frightening,” Tony says, dutifully pulling out the sling.

“I've learned to get pushy with you heroic types,” she says, helping him with it. She eyes him critically, and seems satisfied. “That medicine we gave you has mild regenerative properties. It can cause some odd side effects. If anything feels weird, call me.”

He frowns, curious, but nods. “Got it, doc.”

“Try not to burn off your hand next time, hero,” she says.

Tony scoffs, picks up his goodie bag, and saunters out of the hospital room. Tim meets him in the private waiting room down the hall. He’s utterly absorbed with his phone, pausing to look up as Tony walks into view. He eyes Tony critically.

“I thought they were going to keep you overnight,” Tim says.

“I sweet talked her out of it.”

That earns him a slight eye roll, but he waves Tony after himself and into a nearby elevator. Tony follows him, his mind drifting. He can still hear the faint echoes of Pepper’s pleading in the back of his mind, needling him in his near drugged state.

In many ways, it's worse than the seething ache in his hand.

Tim is back on his tablet, hand flying across the screen.

“My brother will drive you home. And you'll stay home for at least three days.”

His tone brooks no argument. Tony relents. Arguing with his boss won’t lead anywhere fun, and Tim’s only doing it because he’s worried. Tim leads him out of the hospital and down the block, towards a young man in a blue flannel shirt and jeans casually leaning against a sleek black car.

“This is Bruce's car,” Tim says, frowning.

“Do you think security here would let me get within ten blocks of this place in my car?” the man asks, grinning.

“Point,” Tim says. He looks at Tony. “Tony, this is my brother. He’s going to take you home.”

“Which brother are you? Also, I want it noted that I feel very handled right now,” Tony says, as Dick opens the back passenger door for him. “You're handling me.”

“The oldest. Richard. Though I go by Dick more often than not,” Dick says easily. “And yes, you are. Indulge my crazy brother, Mr. Stark. He’s overprotective.”

“The gall of you saying that,” Tim retorts.

Dick smirks and gently shuts the car door for Tony. The two brothers talk, their words muffled by the door and ever present rain. Tony leans back into the plush leather seat of the car and closes his eyes for a moment.

He wakes some indeterminate time later, the residential tower where he lives looming large and close.

“Hope my driving didn't wake you,” Dick says from the front seat.

Tony scoffs, sitting up and idly rubbing his chest. “No. Can't believe how much of a lightweight I am these days. A few painkillers and I'm gone to the world. I must be getting old.”

Dick glances at him. “Can't party forever.”

“Tell that to your dad.”

“He's a unique case,” Dick says easily. He catches Tony’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “That was a brave thing you did, by the way. You saved a lot of people.”

“I was a loud distraction,” Tony says dismissively, waving his uninjured hand around. “Thank the Bats. Or Clark Kent and Oliver Queen. They charged in to help and didn't end up in the hospital afterward.”

That last part gets a small smile out of Dick. He drops the topic, and shortly after that, drops Tony off at his door. He starts to get out of the car and Tony waves him off.

“I can handle the elevator ride, don't bother.”

For a moment, he thinks Dick will argue, but he relents and instead sits in the car until Tony walks into the building. Tony loses sight of him when the elevator doors roll closed in front of him.

* * *

Tim gives him the rest of the month off to recover. Tony, thoroughly incapable of relaxing, spends that time at the workshop in Crime Alley. His suit is functional, like the gauntlet, but riddled with flaws. Again, like the gauntlet. He’s not exactly eager to burn himself alive inside the suit. He has a few ideas on how to address the problem.

He fails.

He fails multiple times. Each time compounds the frustration from the previous failure, until he’s a tight ball of incandescent rage and frustration at his own inability to do the one thing he’s famous for back home. He doesn’t handle failure well, and it’s happened so infrequently in his life that he’s never quite developed a way to handle it.

To add insult to injury, all he can think of is the faint echoes of Pepper and Peter’s voices with each road block, each failure. It isn’t just that he’s failing himself. He’s failing them, too.

Three hours and four more failures later, he leaves the shop in disgust. He speeds out of the parking lot, tires squealing, and floors it all the way back to the penthouse, daring Gotham PD to pull him over. They don’t, of course; they’re too busy doing far more important work.

He can’t build an arc reactor without weapons. He can't build weapons without some very expensive and thorough background checks. The alternative is making a deal with one of the shadier parts of Gotham to get the materials illegally--not impossible, but highly inadvisable--or to take up Lex Luthor on his offer. That feels worse, somehow.

He races back to the penthouse, stalks through the darkened rooms, and grabs one of the more expensive bottles of liquor off the shelf. He’s in a sour mood, and not interested in taking any painkillers tonight, so fuck it. Booze it is.

The failure stings worse than the burn anyway. He needs to numb his brain for a bit.

One hour and a generously heavy pour of alcohol later, he’s brooding on the balcony, leaning against the railing. It's still dark, though the moon, hidden behind the perpetual rain clouds above the city, flashes through every now and then. The city doesn't look half bad in the moonlight, with its lights glittering against the surrounding dark. It's almost beautiful.

He isn’t sure how long he's been there when he hears someone land on the railing behind him.

“She was pregnant,” Tony says, half to whatever Bat is behind him and half into his drink. He's well and truly hit his limit, and knows he’ll have to go without the pain meds for his hand tonight and, most likely, tomorrow. That’s fine, he’s had worse. “She didn't want to tell me, didn't want me to get all excited, but I can read her as well as she reads me. She was pregnant.”

“Who was?”

The voice is quiet, reserved, but polite in its tone. Red Robin, then.

“My wife. Pepper.”

Another pause. “What happened to her?”

“Same thing that happened to the kid. Gone.” In his heart, he's terrified of finding out she's dead. If he doesn’t know for sure, he can pretend she's survived whatever nightmare Thanos is unleashing. “Because of that asshole, Dr. Strange. If I ever manage to run into him again...”

There isn’t a follow up question to that.

Tony lets the silence hang, lets the cold wind start to sober him up, and then turns to look at Red Robin.

“Why are you and your friends following me?” he asks.

“What makes you think we’re--”

“Don’t bullshit me. I started keeping track of all of your patrol patterns after you fell in my dumpster. Just in case something happened,” Tony says, annoyed now.

Red Robin blinks, apparently startled by Tony's concern.

“Signal keeps to the Narrows, and works during the day. Spoiler and Batgirl patrol together in Old Gotham. Nightwing shouldn’t even be in this city. The only one I haven't heard of yet is Robin,” Tony says irritably, counting them off one by one. “You're all checking in on me at least once a night, sometimes more. Something has you on edge, and it’s keeping you from your regular patrols.”

There's a pause. Finally, Red Robin says, “We think you’re being followed.”

Tony frowns, his thoughts turning over sluggishly. “By what?”

“We aren’t sure,” Red Robin. “Is there anything you can think of off the top of your head?”

In Gotham? Tony can't think of anyone who knows him here.

“Not a clue,” Tony mutters. The anger and grief is gradually being smothered under the effects of the alcohol. Now he's just tired. “Maybe you should just let them find me and get it over with.”

“That wouldn’t be advisable, given past experiences,” Red Robin says dryly.

Tony scoffs, runs a hand down his face, and stands up from his lean. His burned hand is healing just fine, but it aches and stings if he moves too quickly and bumps it against something.

“I'm going to bed,” he says, pushing past Red Robin to sleep off the rest of the drinks he’s had.

Red Robin watches him, not quite hovering, as Tony shuts the door behind himself and taps the button that will draw down the shades over the windows.

It's only there for an instant, but he thinks he sees eyes in the shadows behind Red Robin, glittering a strange blue. He blinks and looks again.

Nothing. Just Red Robin tilting his head at him quizzically.

He definitely overdid it on the drinks.

* * *

He shows up to his lab at WayneTech the next day. He doesn’t want to make last night's adventure a habit, and if he is being followed, he'd rather have high tech security systems between himself and whatever it is. Tim doesn’t look happy to have him there but also looks too busy to care. He merely rolls his eyes at Tony’s cheeky greeting.

Besides, he has an idea on how to get some of the parts he needs for his suit. It might be ethically questionable but he could do it.

“And how’s Gotham’s newest hero doing?” a voice asks him from the door, all wry humor and cheer.

Tony smirks, holding up his bandaged hand and forearm so she can see. “Reaping his just reward. Hiya, Babs. Robbing my poor boss of his hard earned fortune again?”

“Checking in on a friend, actually,” Barbara says primly. “I’ve mugged him for everything he’s worth already this month.”

“Clever,” Tony says, waving her inside the lab. That earlier idea sparks fully to life, and he loses some of the tension he was holding before. “I was going to track you down for a chat at some point, so this works out perfectly.”

“Oh?” she asks. He has her curiosity now.

He motions for her to follow him and strolls towards the back of the lab. A brief tap on one of the screens lights up the entire back corner, revealing Tony’s plans and designs for a pair of walking braces. They're almost one-to-one copies of the ones he made for Rhodey back home, if a bit less high tech.

“Oh,” Barbara says, softer now. She looks over the screens, the plans, the finished design he has on the biggest screen. “Wow.”

“I've been working on these for awhile,” Tony admits.

“I had something like them before,” she says, looking over the plans. “They were pretty different, but the concept was the same.”

“The Lexcorp braces?” Tony asks. At her nod, he lets out a derisive snort. “I've seen them. Took them apart. That jackass designed those to fail within ten years with the gentlest use possible. Mine will last a literal lifetime, even if you get hit by a car. Once I get everything worked out, I wouldn't mind muscling him out of the market. Tweak the asshole’s nose a little.”

She gives him a measuring look, mildly amused. “I take it you aren't a fan of the man?”

“He's a prick. And a hack. There are so many better ways to design these that he didn't bother to consider,” Tony says. “Mine will be better in every conceivable way.”

“I see you aren’t the ‘humble inventor’ stereotype,” she says, amused.

“Humble inventors aren’t successful,” Tony quips back. “You have to believe in your work more than anyone else if you want other people to even give it a second glance, let alone give it, and you, the attention it deserves. Be as loud and confident as you can or they’ll just write you off as a whacko and some overconfident jackass will steal your idea for themselves.”

“And you’re confident in this.”

“Yes. But there are a few caveats.” Tony paces around the room, checking readouts on his tablet before handing it to Barbara. "You’ll still need physical therapy to rebuild the muscles that have atrophied. A lot of it. And it won't be easy. There's a chance it'll cause phantom limb pain, and you might get a brief case of vertigo when you stand, so we’ll have to put you in something to keep you from falling--"

Barbara tilts her head slightly. "But you think it will work."

"I know it will," Tony says simply, blinking at her. Of course it will work. He's done it before. The tech here can easily support it, and he's not above sharing some of the few truly good things he's done in his home universe with this one. It would be nice to leave a spotless for once. "It's just a matter of working out what you need specifically, building it, and then testing it."

"Then let's get started,” she says.

“You don’t want to wait and talk to your doctor--”

“No, I trust you. Let's give it a shot.”

Tony grins. “I'm glad you said that. Come back next week. I'll be ready then.”

* * *

First things first, he has to get the workshop up to his standards. Everything is nice enough for most of the projects he's worked on so far, but he wants to go the extra mile for Barbara. This could be life changing for her, after all.

The first thing to go are most of the flatscreens. He spends the first day putting together holoprojectors and holo screens across the lab, configuring them just the way he likes. That takes a bit of programming to get them to move and shift them without his input. He settles for coding a very basic assistant, something not much smarter than what someone would have in their phone. Something smart enough to switch the screens around for him when he needs it. By Wednesday, he has working holograms floating around his work table. By Friday, they switch themselves around easily and react to his touch or direction without any glitches.

After that, he gets to work on the braces themselves. He has a working prototype in no time, but everything after that takes some doing.

In the end, it takes weeks, but by the end of it, the braces are working. Barbara's walking again. She even manages to dance a few times. Her muscles have atrophied, the phantom pain Tony worried about does hit, and it takes awhile for her to get her full balance back, but it works.

A lot of adjustments have to be made to the braces for Barbara. Rhodey walks in a steady, confident march, a stride he developed after years spent in the military, particularly within the leadership branch. Barbara practically floats, walking smoothly and silently with no wasted effort or movement. Almost like Natasha, now that he thinks of it. He makes a note of that, watching as she takes another circuit around the lab.

“How’s it feel?” Tony asks. “Any pain?”

“No pain, and a bit weird. It feels like my pants are walking, not me. I’m getting used to it,” she calls out. “Are you sure implants won't work?”

“We would need to take out the Lexcorp spinal implants first, and that’s not something I want to do,” Tony admits. “This is the safer option.”

“I think I’d trust Stark implants over those,” she remarks.

“One step at a time, Babs. Literally, in your case. Think you can take another jog around town?”

She smirks, but indulges him, breaking out into an easy jog around the lab.

Tony is quietly giddy, following her with a tablet that has holograms floating around it like a blue halo. He’s making on the fly notes, corrections, and ideas for later iterations. This is just the first generation of the braces, after all. There’s always room for improvement. He steps across tables, chairs, and shelves, heedless of how obnoxious it must look (he thinks better when he’s taller anyway), and then drops down to walk across the floor once Barbara finishes her jogging circuit around the room. She’s moving well now, but he can definitely get her stride back to something much more comfortable than the stuttery jog she has now.

He spins the tablet pen around, watching her slow back down to a walk around the room in one last lap before they end the test for the day. The left brace could use some fine tuning, he thinks. He hadn’t been happy with the thermal compound on that one; it’s not much different from the kind he used on her right bracer, but it’s just different enough that he can see a miniscule difference between how they work. That won’t do. Little things always add up in engineering.

She stretches, walking back towards him. She looks happy, peaceful. “So, am I allowed to wear them home now?”

“Everything is peachy keen on my end,” Tony says. “Any adjustments I make will be on the back up pair.”

She blinks. “Back up pair.”

“I have five back up sets,” Tony admits. “I've been upgrading each pair after you leave for the night. Just in case.”

Barbara turns suddenly and starts to move with a purpose, crossing the room in a confident stride. It takes him a moment to realize she’s walking towards him. He starts to get out of her way but freezes when she grabs his hand and squeezes it.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

Tony freezes in her hold, then awkwardly squeezes her hand back, unsure of how to navigate this. This wasn’t entirely done out of an altruistic desire to help Barbara. Yes, that’s part of it, but a lot of it is that he needed a win after the suit failures, and this is a sure thing.

Naturally, this is the exact moment Tim strolls into the lab. He stares at them, then at Barbara specifically, blinking.

“Perfect timing,” she says. “I was about to find you to show off the new braces Mr. Stark built for me.”

“He fixed the Lexcorp braces?” Tim asks, impressed. He walks further into the lab, looking at the designs and holograms floating around Tony’s head.

“These are my own design, actually,” Tony says.

Tim starts to speak, pauses, goes quiet and thoughtful.

“There are limits to this,” Tony says. “The braces will take twelve hours to charge for ten hours of constant walking. Shorter if it’s hard use, like jogging, or god help me, gymnastics. The batteries I have available just aren’t able to go further than that. And we’ll have to replace them after a year or so, just to be on the safe side, since the whole thing relies on picking up signals from your spinal cord.”

That had been the limiting factor: batteries. Rhodey’s braces run off of a version of Tony’s arc reactor tech and can theoretically last for decades without charging. Tony doesn’t have that available here; he’s custom built the power source for Barbara’s braces and refined it to an acceptable point, but the tech in this universe just doesn’t quite compare to his arc reactor tech. A side effect of not being invaded by aliens and being unwilling to try and invent a whole new element in a universe that doesn't have an Iron Man around to keep it out of dangerous hands. What he has now could last longer if he sacrifices smooth movement for the regular jerky, heavy steps some other models use. That won’t work for Tony for a variety of reasons, a few of them quite literally because his ego won’t tolerate having his name on a subpar version.

“You make it sound ten eight hours of walking is unacceptable," Barbara points out, amused.

“It could be better,” Tony retorts. “It’s not up to my standards. Not yet.”

“You’ve just revolutionized medical technology in the space of a month,” Barbara points out gently. “You signed the designs over to Wayne Tech, and in six months, the braces you designed will be available to every hospital in Gotham, starting with the pediatric wards. The rest of the world will follow. Tony, you just improved the lives of millions of people."

"Yes, but--"

Barbara nudges him, walking past him towards Tim. “Maybe go easy on yourself, all right?”

Tony huffs, but at least keeps his mother henning to an internal checklist. He glances at Tim.

“So, boss man, what do you think?”

Tim quirks an eyebrow. “I think you just earned a bonus.”

“Damn right,” Tony says.

Tim smirks, then turns to Barbara. They start to speak quietly to one another and Tony saunters off to a deeper part of the lab.

This works out perfectly. It will be much easier to order parts he needs for his suit under the guise of the braces. Ethically questionable, maybe, but he only needs enough for one suit. If the theft is noticed at all, it's going to be written off as lost inventory, at most. Since Tony’s the one in charge of inspecting the components coming in, it shouldn’t be noticed at all.

Perfect.

* * *

Two days later, the suit is finished, save for the arc reactor. The materials he smuggled out of WayneTech to his workshop are nearly the exact same he would use for his suits back home. The arc reactor problem is still looming large, but he’s confident enough to wear the suit now. Tony’s hand is fully healed and free of the bandages now, but covered in mottled burn scars where the flesh is either too thin or too thick. The scars itch in the rain, but otherwise he’s fine. He’s just going to have an interesting story to tell when he gets home and finishes punching the soul out of Dr. Strange.

He’s about to leave for the workshop when his phone rings. Tim.

Tony quirks an eyebrow and accepts the call. “Hi?”

“Hi, I need you to crash a car.”

Tony pauses, looks at the phone, then presses it back against his ear. “I’m not up to date on my business ethics, but I’m not sure that’s what a boss typically asks of an employee.”

He’s done something similar, of course, but it’s still a little ethically iffy.

“I need a distraction,” Tim amends. “You mentioned a car crash, so I thought you had experience with that. Any kind of disaster that distracts the media will do.” “Why do I hear fire in the background?” Tony asks, finally placing the strange static noise. He glances out of his penthouse window and sees, distantly, a massive fire in Crime Alley. “Did you set the poorest district in the city on fire?”

“It wasn’t me, and it’s complicated, I’m handling it. But I need you to give me a distraction.”

“On a scale of zero to utterly debauched, how bad does it need to be?” Tony asks, the beginning of a plan starting to form.

“I want to be answering questions about your idiotic behavior at every conference for the next six months. Minimum.”

“Give me five minutes and permission to use the McLaren.”

“Done.”

“Pleasure doing business with you, boss,” Tony says.

Lex Luthor has a little get together taking place downtown. And it's about to get far more interesting.

* * *

Four hours later, Tony has spent a pleasant night chatting with the milling crowd of drunks, hooligans, and gang legbreakers inside the holding cell of Gotham PD's central booking. He has the whole group charmed and he is, admittedly, enjoying the attention.

Tim stands outside of the holding cell, one hand on his hip, the other pinching the bridge of his nose. He looks like he has the worst migraine in the world, one that threatens to grow larger as an officer opens the cell door and motions for Tony to step up. The group inside the cell cheerfully bids him farewell, with a few offers to come work for various criminal forces in the city from the connected henchmen he's leaving behind.

“Okay,” Tim says. “Remind me to set parameters next time.”

“Spoilsport,” Tony says, smirking. “How’d everything go?”

“It's...complicated,” Tim admits. “The fire was an accident, but it involved one of the Bats. They needed to get out of there without the media circus involved.”

Tony glances at him from the corner of his eye, almost says something, and drops it. They might as well keep a few white lies going. What’s the harm?

“Did they get out?” Tony asks.

“They did, but the person they were trying to help ran away,” Tim says, somewhat distracted.

“No back up from Superman?”

“He doesn’t usually involve himself in Gotham. The gala was something of an exception,” Tim says. He hands Tony a set of keys. “I brought your car. Thanks for the distraction.”

Tony bounces the keys in his hand for a moment, then shrugs. “Happy to help. Stay safe, kid. Got it?”

“Or what?” Tim asks, amused.

“Or I’ll help again,” Tony promises.

Tim seems to take that as the heartwarming threat it is.

* * *

He finds it during his usual check in at the shop, during an otherwise unremarkable evening. He wanders down the line of his lockers, grabbing phones for DUM-E, and reaches up for the tallest locker, flailing his hand around blindly. It's too big to be a phone, too small for a tablet, and too oddly shaped to be either of those.

He frowns, grabs it, and pulls it out.

And freezes.

He’s holding a webshooter in his hands. One he designed for, and with, Peter.

His legs go numb, and his chest aches. He leans against the wall and slides down to the floor, staring at it.

Someone in Gotham knows who he is. And they've left him a message.

Is it a threat?

Or a cry for help?

Chapter Text

Tony is unsurprisingly useless at the lab the next day. He paces the room, a protective hand pressed against the webshooter in his pocket, thinking. All of his projects are utterly ignored in favor of fixing the webshooter. He does it practically on autopilot, fixing the scorched and twisted metal, noting the damage. Someone tore this off of his arm and out of the suit. Tony can see evidence of it. He puts the webshooter on in its bracelet form once he fully fixes it, but even then, he idly fidgets with it. It’s a hail mary move, really. The webshooter will automatically vibrate and beep when it’s within thirty feet of its partner webshooter and gradually grow louder and more insistent when they get closer. It’s a feature Tony put into the webshooters after seeing how many times the kid used ‘find my shooter’ on his suit.

There’s a half full capsule inside of it, but the web fluid has hardened into a dry, chalky substance. That happens two weeks after the batch is made. Peter’s been in Gotham for at least that long, likely longer.

The day after that, Tony doesn’t bother showing up, opting to stay in his penthouse instead. Let Tim figure out if it's a resignation or surprise sabbatical, he can’t be bothered to keep up the appearance of working. Not if Peter’s here. Money won’t be a problem regardless; the paycheck from Wayne Tech and the cash from the repair shop has let him buy into and profit off of stocks in this world, and he’s now rich enough to live of zero interest loans like every other billionaire on the planet. That’s where true wealth exists anyway. If he needs to, he can fuck off from Gotham and attain something close to his old life easily, never to be seen again.

But he needs to find Peter before he entertains that thought. The webshooter is a clear enough message: he’s here. Whether he’s here under duress remains a mystery, but if he wasn’t in trouble, he would have simply found Tony, probably in the most obnoxious way possible that would give Tony a heart attack. He wouldn’t leave a webshooter behind as a message.

The thought of Peter being reduced to leaving broken webshooters in Tony’s repair shop dropbox as a cry for help makes him twitch and pace the length of his penthouse, his stomach roiling, and his heart pounding in his ears. He’s sick with fury. Peter. Alone. In Gotham City, a literal goddamn hellhole!

(He’s going to beat the living shit out of Strange for this.)

Focus.

The kid’s here. He needs help.

Time to get that suit up to standards, consequences be damned. He’s been shuffling along, finding excuses to slow down the build, unwilling to fully bring Iron Man into a universe that, quite frankly, doesn’t need him. Bumming around until the bus comes back to take him home, so to speak. That’s no longer acceptable. Tony walks towards the office in his penthouse, activates the computers and holoscreens with a wave of his hand, and gets to work. He can make an arc reactor in his sleep at this point,

He knows where to start. If he wants to do it the quick and dirty way, the way he did back in 2008, he’ll need a missile. He doesn’t have the time or patience necessary to make his knock off vibranium nanobots here--there are too many supporting technologies he’d have to invent to get that going--but a more reliable Mark VI is well within his capabilities, provided he gets serious about gathering the materials. Lexcorp has a missile similar to the Jericho which should work just fine as a jumping off point. It’s not a one-to-one equivalent because Luthor went cheap on a few of the internals (jackass), but Tony can work around Luthor’s deficiencies. He just needs the warhead, anyway. The scrap suit in the shop should work long enough to fly in, grab the missile, get out.

Fortunately, after some neatly done probing and thoroughly illegal hacking, he knows where to find such a thing. It does require a trip to Metropolis, but there’s no going around that. The scrap suit is big, and clunky, and burns more fuel that it should, but the size almost a benefit; it’ll look like a helicopter on most satellites and radar. Barring some truly insane person aiming a war time spy satellite directly on top of Gotham, Tony should be as good as invisible during his little trip.

He leaves for the repair shop, crossing the city in the sleek sports car he conned out of Tim Drake at a truly illegal speed. When he arrives at the shop, he barely remembers to lock the car and doesn’t bother returning DUM-E II's enthusiastic greeting, charging for the basement lab and the scrap suit.

Five minutes later, he’s in the stormy sky, flying towards Metropolis, using Gotham’s clouds as cover. It’s a rough flight; Tony is buffeted by wind and rain and nearly struck by lightning several times. The suit is made for utility, not comfort, and with the added fuel he’s been forced to use, it’s technically more bomb than suit. But it works. He can compensate for the shortcomings for now.

* * *

The storm over Gotham is part of a massive complex of storms that hang low and heavy over Metropolis. He’s thoroughly bruised and cold by the time he drops out of the storm. Tony gets his first glimpse of the city and comes away thoroughly impressed. Gotham has a grim sort of beauty to it in the dark, but Metropolis is a city of light and life, the lights crossing the ground bright enough to make the city glimmer in gold, even beneath a dark storm.

Tony takes a moment to admire it, idly noting the ‘City of Tomorrow!’ signs along the edge of the city boundaries. It gives him a moment to catch his breath, check his suit--rocky but holding--and make his move.

Lex Luthor owns a significant portion of Metropolis, either directly or through subsidiary companies that aren't obviously connected to his name. One such company happens to build weapons of war in the heart of Metropolis, bumping against the district more commonly known as the Suicide Slums (yikes). This is profoundly stupid for several reasons, the equivalent of holding a loaded gun against the collective heads of every person living in the slums, but Tony isn't here to critique the man’s decisions. He's here for a much more noble purpose: burglary.

The building is hidden behind tall walls, gates, and security that sadly doesn't look out of place in this part of the city. The building he angles towards is covered in security. Lasers, cameras, sensors of all kinds, the works.

Tony disables all of them as he drops from the sky, hacking into the system to give himself an opening and then steal control of the camera system. It's a simple process, but one limited by time. He has thirty minutes to get in, commit fifteen to twenty felonies (give or take), and get out.

With security down, he simply lands on the slanted warehouse roof, pops open one of the skylight windows, and drops inside. He lands hard enough to jar his teeth, the thrusters cutting out suddenly and without any of the fine tuned control he’s used to with his suits. He gives himself a moment to recover from the flight and landing, warming up as he looks over the warehouse.

This place is huge. Practically a hangar, really. Warheads of various sizes and makes are neatly stacked across the building, with room for two forklifts to squeeze past one another. There's a security office at one end of the building, with a work table and empty locker standing open. Tony eyes the office suspiciously, walking into it. If there's a guard here, he might have to get crafty--

There's a hastily written note on the desk, beside a Sam Browne belt loaded with the usual tools of the trade. Up to and including a handgun, secure in the holster.

Fuck you and fuck this job, I quit. This isn't worth $12 an hour.

-J

Well. That solves that problem.

Lex really ought to pay his people better.

He activates the terminal tucked into the corner next to a wall of screens, and neatly places two flash drives into it. A couple of keystrokes, and he extends his window of opportunity by another ten minutes. Satisfied, he goes shopping for the missile he needs to get a proper arc reactor going. He picks one out of a pile, and carefully slings it over his shoulders, hauling it towards the security room. He notices he’s not alone in the building when one of the security screens lets out a quiet beep.

A dark haired woman is slinking through the warehouse, exploring it slowly and carefully. The woman turns the corner and freezes, staring at Tony, the disassembled missile, the tools, and the terminal. Her gaze takes in all of it at once, and he can see her expression shift between wary caution and intense curiosity. Tony sees the phone in her hand and makes a wild guess based on what he’s seen of her on the security cameras since she first started stalking through the facility.

“You know, for a reporter, you’re remarkably good at breaking and entering,” Tony says, watching the download speed.

“The good reporters typically are in my experience,” the woman says, walking up to him with perfect confidence. “What’s your name, Tin Man?”

“Not really in the mood for releasing it,” Tony says. “But you’re close. Has anyone ever told you that you’re insane, by the way? Breaking into Lex Luthor’s weapons storage facility, finding someone dressed like me next to a missile, clearly doing legally questionable things, and not hiding from them?”

“Well, are you going to hurt me?” she asks.

“Obviously not,” Tony says. She quirks an eyebrow at him, and he smirks. “What brings a nice crazy lady like you to Lex Luthor’s missile storage?”

“I mostly wanted to prove it was here,” she says dryly. “I didn’t expect to find it being robbed.”

“I’m only borrowing one warhead,” Tony says, lifting a finger up to emphasize the point. The download finishes, and he relaxes. No security alerts yet. That’s good. “Just one! I could do a lot worse.”

“Oh?” the woman asks, amused.

“Yup. Like this,” Tony says, pulling one of the USB drives out of the terminal. He tosses it over to the woman.

She catches it on instinct, startled, but curious. “What’s this?”

“Lex Luthor’s little black book of financial crimes dating back to the turn of the century,” Tony says. “Honestly, this is great, I thought I was going to have to track down that Kent guy to give him this. You’re saving me time.”

If anything, he’s confused her further, but she eyes the flash drive with something close to satisfaction. “Seriously?”

“As a heart attack,” Tony says. “What’s your name?”

“Lois Lane, Daily Planet,” she says. “And you just made my life a lot easier, Tin Man.”

“Nice to meet you, and have fun with that,” Tony says, grabbing the warhead and tools, packing them up inside a lead lined case. “I mean that literally, by the way.”

“What do you have against Lex Luthor?” she asks.

“He reminds me of a worse version of myself.”

“That might be worthy of a therapist,” Lois says.

“I have it on very good authority that there isn’t enough money in the world to tackle everything wrong with me,” Tony says.

“And what do you need the warhead for?” Lois asks, watching him. And probably still recording him, now that he thinks about it.

“To save someone important to me,” Tony says.

He gently pushes himself up off of the ground, wary of going to full blast with Lois close by. This suit isn’t nearly as refined as his usual work, and he doesn’t want to blast off and hurt her. To his surprise, she takes a few steps back, merely watching him as he grabs his stolen loot and flies towards the top of the warehouse.

“Good luck, Tin Man!” she calls out.

He waves at her, distracted, and heads back towards Gotham. He uses the storm for cover, flying between arcs of lightning and sheets of rain so frigid that his breath starts to fog inside the suit. Between the flashes of light, he thinks he sees the shape of a man, keeping pace with him in the clouds, distant enough to not be a threat but there all the same.

Odd. He gets fancy with his flying and drops towards Crime Alley with a will. He doesn’t need to find an alternate universe version of himself right now, thanks.

Fortunately, the form disappears long before he reaches Gotham.

* * *

It's just after ten o'clock when he builds the arc reactor. It's smaller than the original, more efficient, and slim enough that he can keep it attached to his chest easily. He almost relaxes when he feels the warmth of it press against the mass of surgery scars crossing over his heart. He takes a moment to rebuild his wrist gauntlet, too. This one is more refined, more powerful, and won’t burn his hand to ash from overuse. He slides that onto the wrist that doesn’t have the webshooter, idly flexing his hand when the reliable weight of it falls into place. Tim can just keep the broken one for all he cares.

It takes him the rest of the night to build the suit in the safety of his repair shop. He opts for the briefcase storage and deployment system, similar to what he had in 2010. It'll take a few seconds for the suit to fully deploy, but that was true of his nanobot suit, too. He just has to avoid getting shot during those few seconds. Easy peasy.

The storm outside never lets up, pouring rain onto the streets. The clock shows 3am by the time Tony collapses the suit down into a briefcase, but the lightning and thunder continue. Some of the booming thunder is strong enough to rock the foundations of his shop and he's briefly nostalgic for the Avengers and Thor's flashy entrances.

He hopes they’re all right. He knows they probably aren't. And he's a little surprised by the grief that inspires, despite the lingering bitter fury at Steve’s betrayal.

That's a problem to fix once everything here is sorted out. First, find the kid.

He closes up shop, heading back to the penthouse to fine tune and calibrate the suit. The computer suite there is better than what he has at the shop, and he’ll need to fine tune the programming. Without FRIDAY on hand, he’ll have to rely on himself. That’s more tedious than anything else, but he’s not going to set aside time to build a rudimentary AI right now.

The penthouse is cold and quiet when he comes home, and he has the uncanny feeling of being watched. He frowns, stopping in the middle of his living room to look out onto the balcony, briefcase in hand. The balcony is empty. He hasn’t bothered to leave the usual treats out for the birds, and they normally wouldn’t bother to check in when the weather is like this.

Still, that feeling of being watched remains. He frowns, suddenly wishing he had his smart glasses on hand to peer through the wind and rain. He chances stepping close to the massive window, squinting as a flash of lightning turns night into day, fully illuminating the penthouse and half of the city besides. Tony flinches from the light, raising the hand with the webshooter up to shield his eyes.

It beeps.

Tony freezes, drops the briefcase, and turns to sprint towards the balcony door.

And nearly screams in shock when he finds himself face to face with Tim Drake. The kid is standing half hidden in the shadows of his living room, near the balcony windows. He looks unnervingly intimidating, and Tony has no idea how long he’s been there.

“Mr. Stark,” he says, wary and clearly not in a good mood. He matches Tony move for move when he tries to slip past him. It’s eerie. Too smooth, too confident. He’s moving the way Natasha moves. “We need to talk.”

“This is an unfathomably bad time,” Tony says, looking past him to the balcony outside. The max range is thirty feet, but it might go further. Hadn’t the kid asked for that? Something about dropping one off the side of a building while replacing the web capsule during a patrol-- “Seriously, kid, not now.”

“I know about the warhead,” Tim says flatly.

Tony pauses, his mind racing, and sighs. “Okay. I can answer one question, but after that, I’m out of here. What is it you want?”

“An explanation.”

“That’s going to take too long, aim lower,” Tony says, brushing past him towards the balcony door. “And trust me, I know what I’m doing--”

To his shock, Tim shifts, turning to grab his forearm and stop him cold, moving with an outright eerie grace that Tony has never seen from him before.

And that’s when everything goes to hell.

Tim has barely gripped Tony’s arm when something erupts out of the shadows of the balcony. The movement catches Tony’s attention, and he’s barely turned to face the source of it when his window shatters and a dark shape leaps towards Tim, grabbing him and bodily hauling him up and away from Tony. Tim curses, writhing to break free, but unable to shake the other’s vicelike grip on his arms.

Tony snaps his gauntlet out, and aims a hasty, half panicked shot at whatever--whoever--has just grappled Tim. He might be at odds with the kid at the moment, but the last thing he wants is to see him get hurt. The repulsor blast isn’t aimed perfectly, and the shadowed figure avoids the majority of it, but it catches the edge of their mask, burning away half of the fabric mask over the figure’s face.

Tony starts to aim a second blast--and freezes.

It’s Peter.

Pale, with strangely colored eyes and a streak of white hair. His eyes are feverishly bright, glimmering with unnatural light in the dark. A strange whistling wind surrounds him, almost voice-like, as he roughly flings Tim across the penthouse and launches himself at Tony instead. Tony tries to dodge him, but it was a foregone conclusion the moment Peter moved. The kid grips his neck and slams him against the smooth, cold floor of the penthouse. The wind, and voices, grow louder and sharper as Peter begins to close his fist around Tony’s neck. Oddly, his free hand doesn’t touch him. It taps out a quick, rapid pattern against Tony’s gauntlet instead.

His throat and face burn, his vision tunnels. He gasps uselessly, raising his gauntlet on autopilot, aiming it at Peter. The only spot he can hit at this angle is his head. His suit is thin, more cloth than armor, clearly no match for the gauntlet. The gauntlet powers up--

He can’t do it. He just can’t.

Tony drops the gauntlet and chokes out, weakly, “Kid, what happened to you?”

The unnatural blue-green shine to Peter’s eyes fades, and Peter staggers back as if struck. For one moment, Peter stares at him, terrified. Then the light reasserts itself, and he leaps back out of the shattered window. He’s still making that strange tapping, and it takes a second for Tony to recognize Morse code.

Controlled-hurt-help.

Tony is on his feet in an instant, sprinting towards the briefcase. The suit hasn’t been tested, but it should be strong enough to track Peter’s panicked leap across the city.

He never reaches it. Strong hands grab him, and yank him back and away from the window. He curses, trying to break free, and doesn’t manage it in the least. Tim Drake is frighteningly strong, and more than capable of wrenching Tony around up and away from the briefcase and shattered window.

“Stop,” Tim says. His voice is hard and sharp, subtly hoarse from nearly being strangled by Peter. “You can’t catch him when he runs--”

“Let go of me!” Tony snaps, his own voice turned gravelly. “He’s being controlled--”

“I know, I saw,” Tim says, bodily hauling Tony towards the penthouse door. “He has moments of clarity, but they don’t last long. If you go after him now, he’ll be fully under control again and he might kill you. What do you think that’ll do to him?”

Tony starts to argue, then stops, clenching his teeth. He glowers at Tim, starts to say something.

When you find him, ask Tim for help.

Son of a bitch.

“If you won’t let me go, then I need your help,” Tony says. Demands, really. There’s no real ‘ask’ in there, and frankly, he’s not in the mood to soften his tone. He decides to drive the point home, adding, “And your buddies. All of them.”

“My buddies?”

“I know they’ll come to help Red Robin when he sends out the Bat signal,” Tony says evenly.

Tim stares at him, clearly not surprised by Tony’s prodding, but not entirely pleased. He instead guides Tony out of the penthouse, towards the elevator leading to the parking garage beneath the building. He pulls out his phone and hits a specific code across the face of it. A quiet beep lets out.

“Okay, Mr. Stark. Let’s go somewhere safe and figure this out,” Tim says. “And you can start with where you came from.”

Chapter Text

“Okay,” Tim says, starting his car up. “Tell me everything. We won't be overheard here.”

So, Tony tells him. If this is the guy that's going to help him, then he can't risk leaving anything out. Even the weird stuff. Especially the weird stuff.

All things considered, Tim takes the news that Tony is from another universe surprisingly well. He either has an amazing poker face (likely) or this sort of nightmare is commonplace for him (horrifying). Either way, it saves time, and he takes it in stride, guiding his car through Gotham's dark, rainslick streets as Tony talks.

Tim takes them to the massive clock tower sitting at the heart of Old Gotham. It doesn’t take long. The clock tower is basically within the same block as Tony’s penthouse. He can see it from his balcony. The distance is so short that Tony finishes his explanation just as they enter the parking garage beneath the massive tower.

“I wondered if you were from another version of Earth,” Tim says, guiding them towards a service lift in the back of the garage. “Someone like you would have gained a lot of attention from a lot of different people a long time ago. And you were too unfamiliar with Gotham and the heroes in this world.”

“Did you give me a penthouse next to your little spy shack?” Tony asks.

“Yes,” Tim replies matter of factly. There is absolutely no shame to his tone. “We wanted to keep you safe, and the penthouse is close enough for at least one of us to come help you if necessary.”

“And watch my every move.”

“Also that.”

“I kind of respect that you’re not even trying to deny it.”

“Not worth it,” Tim says, tapping a code into the elevator button panel. “And we have more important things to focus on. Like your kid. What’s his name?”

“Point made. And his name is Spider-Man, as far as you’re concerned,” Tony says. He doesn’t mind shouting his identity out to the world, but he knows Peter wouldn’t want that for himself. He’ll try to keep that up on the kid’s behalf. Tim, for his part, seems to accept it at face value. “How long has he been here?”

“Our best guess is that he arrived here at least two months before you,” Tim replies. “He kept breaking into the same buildings over and over again. It became obvious that he was working against some form of mind control by being maliciously compliant with his orders, whatever they are.”

“But you haven't been able to help him,” Tony says, still working through the chaos of the last day. Peter is here.

Controlled-hurt-help. There’s a phrase that will forever burn in the back of his mind, no matter what.

Tim sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We got close. Remember when I asked you to create a distraction? That was why.” He pauses for a beat and adds: “Never again, by the way, you have absolutely no talent for stealth. Lex keeps sending new bills to me over that little stunt.”

“None taken, I work better with the spotlight on me,” Tony says, distracted. “Spider-Man set the building on fire to escape you? That doesn’t sound like him. He wouldn’t put people in danger just to get away from one of you.”

But he’s being controlled. He might not have a choice. That bothers him. The kid has always been better than him, morally speaking, and the idea that someone is forcing him to violate those morals makes his teeth itch.

A tiny part of him wonders if this is how Steve felt when he discovered the Winter Soldier. That leads to a whole twisted bundle of emotion that Tony isn’t prepared to fully acknowledge, let alone examine. He quickly shoves that thought to the side. He can deal with that later.

“Not on purpose. In fact, he saved Nightwing when the fire got out of control,” Tim says. He looks frustrated now. “He has moments of--not clarity, exactly, but something close to it. Awareness. He’s fighting against whatever is controlling him. He knows we can help. The problem is that none of us are able to match him physically. That’s why we kept asking Superman to come and help.”

“And he hasn’t been able to pull it off either?”

“Spider-Man disappears from Gotham within an hour of purposefully failing his missions. Completely. He's already out of Gotham by now,” Tim says flatly. “We have no idea how to find a ghost. Does he have powers that turn him invisible? Psychic powers, maybe?”

“No,” Tony says. He pauses, and adds, “Well, maybe. He can sense danger on an instinctive level, and he has enhanced senses. I’ve never had a chance to study it, but that could be enough to warn him about Superman and the rest of you.”

“You don’t know the limits of his powers?” Tim asks.

“It would have required making him hold still for at least ten minutes,” Tony says dryly. “Plus, we’re busy people. The last thing I need to do is invade that kid’s life and make it worse. He’s gone through enough.”

Tim gives him a slight side eye at that, but says nothing more.

“Your elevator is slow as hell, by the way,” Tony says after a moment, determined to get the last word in.

“We’re working on it,” Tim replies dryly.

The elevator clanks into place, right at the top of the clocktower, moments later. Tony finds himself standing in a wide, open space neatly separated into mechanics shop, weapons workshop, and design lab, with the largest area reserved for a massive data and computer lab with live maps of Gotham City directly behind the clock face.

Spread throughout the room are various Bat members: Red Hood at the weapons lab, Spoiler and Black Bat reviewing a case board near the computer bank, Signal working on his utility belt at another station, and Nightwing casually leaning against a massive office chair where Barbara Gordon sits watching the map of Gotham.

He eyes the assembled group, noting each Bat and Bird and then tilts his head on the final three. Green Arrow is propped up on one of the beams, slouching in a way that appears calm and relaxed, but would allow him to snap into full action at a moment’s notice. Hawkeye used to assume that same post and slouch. Superman is floating calmly beside Barbara, peering over her screens curiously, lost in thought. And the last one, Lois Lane, meets his stare head on, tilting her head and silently raising an eyebrow at him.

“You told on me, didn’t you?” he asks her. Tim pushes past him, moving towards the armory and, apparently, his own workshop set up in the corner.

“Obviously.”

“Narc.”

She smirks. “You weren’t exactly subtle.”

“Point,” he says, turning towards the assembled group. He eyes them, makes a few educated guesses on their identities, and notes two big absences. “So, big question: where’s Batman? It’s a little odd all of you are circling around me, but the big guy has yet to show his creepy, goth face. Figured he’d come by to say hello by now, and I’m a little offended he’s ignoring me.”

“He’s missing, and so is Robin,” Barbara says. “They both disappeared around the same time Spider-Man appeared in Gotham. We think they found Spider-Man, tried to help him somehow. Batman called for back up from Wonder Woman at the same time.”

“Not familiar with her. Don’t you usually help?” Tony asks Superman.

Superman’s expression isn’t quite a scowl. It’s too innocent for that. He frowns, the expression looking more pained than annoyed. “Normally, yes, but I was off planet when he called for help.”

“They both went missing within hours of that call,” Tim says. “Spider-Man attacked me the next night, when I was investigating the area they were last seen. It was more a show of force than an actual fight.”

“He might be able to handle one of them, but both of them at the same time would be out of his skill level,” Tony says. He adds, a little defensively, “He could give them a run for their money, don’t get me wrong, but he’s still learning how to deal with this hero stuff, and he doesn’t use his full strength during fights.”

“What’s he like normally?” Nightwing asks.

“Like him! Down to the red and blue suit,” Tony says, pointing at Superman. He pauses, eyes Superman’s suit critically and adds, “Except the kid’s is better.”

Superman blinks, makes a mildly disapproving face, and says, “My mom made this for me.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“No offense to mother Superman, big guy,” Tony says in place of an apology. “Just wanted to point out you and Spidey carry the same values.”

That mollifies him, and gives the rest of the Bats something to consider. Good. Maybe they won’t feel the need to take Peter out as a last resort. He’s not above using the Bats, Superman, and Green Arrow to help him find and rescue Peter, but he will have a back up in place in case they decide to end the threat to their city.

Tim probably knows that. The kid’s not exactly a slouch when it comes to the brains department.

“Alright,” Tony says. “Tim gave me the short version on the way up your painfully slow elevator. What do the rest of you have on Spider-Man?”

“That’s his name?” Nightwing asks, tilting his head.

“As far as you’re concerned, yes,” Tony says. “Come on, let’s hear it, Grayson.”

Nightwing stills for a moment, then smirks at Tony. “Babs?”

“We’ve managed to track most of his recent activity in the city, starting around the time you opened you shop in Crime Alley,” Barbara says, tapping out a quick few commands on the keyboard in front of her.

The big screen comes to life, showing a map of the city, the Bats, and Peter, moving around. Dates scroll by in the corner. The more he watches, the more agitated Tony becomes, grinding his teeth as Peter’s speck darts around Gotham. It always, always, at passes by his workshop or his penthouse. The kid was trying to get help the entire time, and Tony was completely oblivious to it. He was too busy moping over being pushed out of their home universe by Strange, too busy getting himself tangled up in pointless drama with the bigger players of this universe to bother looking up in the sky.

“How did you know he was close to you in the penthouse?” Tim asks, walking back from the armory. He’s in his Red Robin armor, adjusting the gauntlet on his left wrist as he walks back towards Tony. “You were running for the balcony before he appeared.”

“His webshooters vibrate when they’re within a certain distance,” Tony says, rolling back his sleeve, revealing the webshooter attached to his hand. Tim tilts his head, and Tony flicks his wrist, shooting a glob of webfluid out onto Signal’s suit.

“Man, what the fuck,” Signal says from across the room.

“Oh, thank god, we were worried that was coming out of him,” Nightwing mutters.

“The problem is that they have to be within a certain distance of each other for it to trigger, but since I know he has the other webshooter still, I can boost this one. If Barbara’s feeling generous, I can work it into her network and we can get his previous location off of it,” Tony says, walking over to Barbara. He raises an eyebrow.

“All yours, Mr. Stark,” Barbara says, motioning towards another workstation connected to the main one. “I’ll give you permission to access the network from there. It should be enough.”

“Yeesh. That’s creepy. Tony, please,” Tony says, strolling over towards the offered computer. He pulls off the webshooter and connects it to the computer. This should only take a few minutes. “You’ve been spying on me for too long to call me anything else.”

She smirks, and doesn’t deny it at all.

The webshooter rattles against the desk once it connects with its partner. The map of Gotham updates with Peter’s location, pinging around Crime Alley erratically. Tony realizes it’s a shape. And his stomach drops.

“That’s near the spots we usually find him at during our patrols,” Nightwing notes. “I didn’t realize it was so consistent.”

“It isn’t,” Tim says, watching the screen closely. “Usually he just disappears. This is new.”

“He’s drawing a letter?” Barbara asks. “An A?”

“It’s a message,” Tony says stiffly.

He’s calling for the Avengers. Or warning Tony about them? It’s possible the Avengers are under control, too. That would present something of a problem, to put it mildly. He turns to Tim.

“Have you seen or heard of anyone else showing up in Gotham?”

He doubts it. A mind-controlled Captain America wouldn’t be difficult to spot, and that goes triple for Thor. But someone like Natasha or Clint, that would be a problem. A huge one. Hell, even Sam Wilson would be an issue, and if that Ant-Man guy pops up...

Or Wanda.

Nightmare.

“No, just you and Spider-Man,” Tim says. He looks at the others. “The Avengers are his version of the Justice League.”

“We’ve been looking for anyone else out of place after you two showed up,” Nightwing adds. “No one has. We would have found them.”

He believes it. Not much gets past this group. Tony relaxes slightly, watching the screen, letting his brain absorb all of the information he has.

Dr. Strange knew they were going to lose. He removed Tony from the equation by shoving him here, out of reach of Thanos, and somewhere that Peter would turn up in. The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy are potentially mind controlled like Peter. Batman, Wonder Woman, and Robin are missing and have been for quite some time.

“The Avengers might be in trouble,” Tony says, keeping his voice steady despite the growing horror within him. If Rhodey is being controlled like Peter-- “But they haven't come to Gotham. Just Spider-Man. That's good and bad. Just how much of both remains to be seen.”

After all, the Guardians and Avengers could just be dead. That's equally horrifying, frankly, but less of an immediate problem than if they were controlled.

Peter finishes off the A, then swings directly for Crime Alley. He swings past Tony’s shop, and then takes a hard left towards a part of the district that has more or less been abandoned by the city. Tony knows it as a sea of empty warehouses, truck centers, and low to mid height office buildings. Logistic centers left to decay in urban blight.

And then he disappears.

“What's over there?” Tony asks, pointing at that part of the map.

“Nothing, and a lot of it,” Red Hood rumbles. “I haven't been there in a long time.”

“Why not?”

Red Hood pauses, blinks, and frowns. “I...dunno. Babs, have I been skipping this place?”

Barbara is already pulling up something on her screen. Activity reports, from what Tony gathers.

“Not just you. All of us, since Batman and Robin disappeared,” she says, disturbed. “We don't do that. What happened here? It's not in any of our reports.”

“Big guy wouldn't tolerate that,” Red Hood says mildly, while loading a massive handgun.

“None of us would, we're unwell,” Spoiler adds.

Tony secretly agrees.

“That district is...different,” Superman says, frowning as he stares off into the middle distance. His eyes have an odd sheen to them, and Tony realizes he can see across the city from here. “Someone has rearranged the buildings there. Used them for building materials, the way you would use sand for a sandcastle. There’s a massive tower there.”

Tower. That tugs at the back of Tony’s mind, a nagging worry compounding the low grade terror thrumming through him over Peter’s predicament. He leans down over his borrowed keyboard and tries something.

Numerous red banners and alerts light up Barbara’s screens. She startles, looking shocked, offended, and more than a little peeved. The look she gives Tony is a thin lipped glare.

“Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission,” Tony says. “Whoever designed your network is damn good.”

“Thanks,” Barbara says, mildly annoyed. Understandable. He's metaphorically kicked in her front door to start rummaging around in her cabinets, in a way. “Try not to ruin anything while you're in there.”

“Please, I'm a professional,” Tony says. The screens in the clock tower flicker, switching from the map of Gotham to a static image as they wait for Tony’s instructions. “And, again, you are wasted on public service.”

He works through the twin problems in front of him. The missing heroes. People behaving oddly, as if under influence, possibly mild mind manipulation, something softer than the utter control Peter is under. Peter marking out the Avengers symbol with his path. A strange tower in the heart of the city, out of view of the local heroes still remaining within the city.

Tony’s heart sinks. He has a damn good idea about what's happening here.

And the moment the screens around the clocktower begin to show the satellite images of the spire Superman mentioned, the suspicion proves true. The screens flicker back to life, giving a high definition look at the district in question. Zoomed out at its farthest level, Tony sees two concentric circles, with the outer thicker and heavier than the inner circle. The outer circle is a wall, Tony realizes, and judging by the materials in use, a significant chunk of that outer circle has patchwork layers of lead, for some reason. The inner circle is a build up of materials slowly being absorbed into a spire of twisted metal, brick, and wood. It’s a mockery of his tower, complete with the flattened platform where Natasha closed Loki’s portal. Chitauri, and some other, batwinged eyeless aliens crawl across the spire like spiders.

(These satellites are truly impressive, he’ll need to send his compliments to Bruce Wayne when he finally meets the guy.)

“Son of a bitch, it's the Battle of New York all over again,” he blurts out. He drops his suitcase, kicks it. It opens, he steps inside, letting the suit crawl up and over himself. It’s finished by the time he speaks again. “We need to get to that tower now. You're about to be invaded.”

The helmet settles over his head on the last word, and he rolls his shoulders against the clunky weight of the armor. He's using tech almost a decade old, and he's not happy about it.

God, he misses his nanite tech.

Still, he and the Avengers defeated Loki and his little army with tech worse than this. With the Bats, Big Blue, and Discount Hawkeye, he’ll be just fine. When he turns around, he’s surprised to see the Bats watching him with dull interest. He’s more surprised to see the glazed, distant expressions on Superman and Green Arrow’s faces, and deeply alarmed. He’s startled into silence, and a strange confusion settles over his thoughts. Something was important a moment ago, but--

The webshooter on the desk rattles, snapping Tony back to the present. It has the same effect on the heroes around him. All of them stare at Tony.

“When did you put on your armor?” Lois asks.

“While the rest of you went dumb and quiet,” Tony says, checking the webshooter. It’s pinging off of something in that spire. He grabs it, clips it onto his gauntlet. These aren’t normally his style, but a tool is a tool. “Whoever built that tower is using something to distract you. Come on, we have to go, hustle up.”

They don’t quite scatter. They’re too disciplined for that. They move with a purpose, grabbing weapons, securing armor, or heading for the door. Tony snaps his helmet down over his face and looks at Tim.

“How quickly can you get there?” he asks.

“Quick enough, but not as quick as you and Superman,” Tim says, leading him to a cleverly hidden rooftop exit. A sleek, black jet rests hidden in the shadows of the clocktower roof, already preparing to launch with Nightwing in the pilot’s seat. The rain outside has picked up, building up into a proper storm. Tim taps an earpiece, and his voice comes through to Tony crystal clear. “And I doubt I can persuade you to wait for back up.”

“You’re right about that,” Tony says, running through the preflight checks on his suit. This is going to be one hell of a test flight for his suit. “If you’ve got air power, keep it circling the distract. If a giant space worm crawls in through a hole in space time, you’re going to have to lure it out over the ocean to kill it.”

“Noted,” Tim says. “Don’t get killed. We’ll be right behind you.”

“You too, kid,” Tony says.

He launches himself into the sky, cutting through the storm and rain much more comfortably than he did with the scrap suit earlier. He still has to handle almost everything himself as he flies, and he deeply misses FRIDAY. The programs he’s layered into this suit are smart, but not FRIDAY smart, and he can feel the inefficient use of resources as he flies.

Something to fix later.

He reaches Crime Alley quickly and isn’t surprised to find Superman hovering just outside of the outer wall of the spire when he arrives. He is surprised to find the man looking visibly ill. Tony pulls up beside him, coming to a stop to hover beside him.

“I can’t get any closer,” Superman says, choking out the words. “There’s-- They have kryptonite. Lots of it. I can feel the heat of it from here.”

“Then keep those monsters inside and out of the city,” Tony says.

“Mr. Stark, wait--”

Tony blasts past him, directly towards the spire. A massive machine is being pieced together by the chitauri on top of the platform, all sleek black steel and eerily glowing green crystals. It looks like the anchor point for a few teleportation devices he toyed with designing a few years ago before shelving the project entirely. Tony thinks of several ways to put a stop to them as he speeds towards the platform. He could blast it--

“Webshooter connected to Iron Spider,” a pleasant voice says in his ear.

Fuck the portal. The Bats can handle it.

He blasts past the portal machine and the creatures building it, knocking dozens of them off of the platform entirely as he shoves past. He enters the spire with all the subtlety he showed when he crashed Lex Luthor’s party not so longer, entering with speed and thunder. The spire is a mishmash of buildings haphazardly sealed together, with black steel machines raising, lowering, or holding vats of orange liquid (concentrated fear toxin, according to his HUD), and others more pod like in nature, with a thick green substance inside that doesn’t get a helpful tooltip description.

His arrival doesn’t go unnoticed. Dozens of batwinged monsters shriek and swarm for him. He hits them with his gauntlets, dodges what he can’t hit, punches and kicks what he can’t dodge. The webshooter on his gauntlet rattles as he fights through the swarm, letting the webshooter on his gauntlet guide him towards the Iron Spider. It rattles with increasing intensity as he gets closer to the middle of the spire, where two of Thanos’ cronies are standing next to an almost ruined machine, one of them the big, Hulk sized alien from New York, the other a more goblin faced monster with a heavy black hood over its body.

One of the batwinged monsters falls, bloody and broken, to the platform beside them, land with a rattling thump. The big alien scoffs, grabs it, and throws it into a nearby pod full of that strange green liquid, sealing it inside. What follows is horrifying enough to make Tony pause his one man army routine.

The creature thrashes inside the pod, obviously drowning, but healing at the same time. It jerks and moves, panicking even as it becomes whole again. Tony can see its vitals on his HUD, see it flatline and come back several times until all of the wounds it carried seal shut.

The big alien leaves it there, finally looking up to see what caused the beast to fall to the ground in the first place. When it sees Tony, its eyes widen in shock.

Time to make his move, then. Tony dives down, powers up the webshooter, and launches two massive globs of webbing, trapping both of the aliens to the platform with webs thick enough to hold a building in place. He drops down beside them, stalking towards the goblin faced alien, and doing his best to ignore the drowning monster in the pod beside them.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Corvus,” the alien snaps at him. “Insolent fool, you will scream it when I--”

“Where is Spider-Man?” Tony asks, cutting through his grandstanding speech before it can start. The big alien already trying to rip his way out of the webs. It won’t work, not for awhile, but he doesn’t want to give the guy a chance to surprise him.

Besides, Tony intends to use him as an example.

Corvus sneers at him. “I have no idea what you’re talk--”

Tony aims his arm out to the side. The blast from his gauntlet turns the big alien’s hand into purple mist, the flesh below his wrist melting like slag. The huge alien stares at where his hand used to be, screams.

“Where--” Another blast, this time aimed at a knee. “--is--” His shoulder almost caves in. “--my--” The other arm disappears below the elbow. “--kid?”

Corvus stares at him, shaken. The big alien has gone silent and still, bleeding out beside them.

“Your friend’s running out of pieces and I’m running out of patience,” Tony says, aiming the gauntlet at his head.

As expected, when the threat turns to him, he starts to squawk.

“The portal! We have to send him through the portal for reconditioning after every mission, just to be safe. He destroyed it on the way out this time, we don’t have a way to open it--”

“Reconditioning,” Tony says blankly. He’s seen the videos of what happened to the Winter Soldier during his reconditioning. He cannot imagine Thanos employs methods more gentle and humane than Hydra.

“The Lazarus Machine. He needs to be submerged in--”

“You drown him in it, the way you drowned those four armed freaks,” Tony says, his tone half shocked.

Corvus is smart enough to not confirm it, but the silence is all the confirmation Tony needs.

One last blast from his gauntlet obliterates the upper half of the alien. He fights back the urge to viciously kick the corpse, to figure out a way to bring back both of those monsters to give them the deaths they sorely deserve.

Stop. Not now. He needs help.

Tony can hear the Bats join the battle outside. He isn’t surprised to see one particular Bat drop down beside him on the platform.

“You should have waited for back up,” Tim says shortly. “Going in alone was stupid.”

“Put it in your report,” Tony says, turning away from the bodies of the aliens. The webshooter is still rattling against his gauntlet, and he follows it until he finds what he’s looking for. “How are things going outside?”

“We contained the kryptonite. Superman is handling the rest just fine,” Tim says, holding a hand up to press against his earpiece. He tilts his head, quite like a bird, and relaxes slightly. “It’s done.”

The Iron Spider is lying on its side, tucked away beside some tools and materials needed for the portal machine. Obviously hidden out of sight, stashed away by someone. Tony wonders how long ago Peter hid it here, and how difficult it must have been to do that while under control. He pulls it out, taps it.

“FRIDAY, wake up.”

The pods flickers, once, twice, and then grows into a steady light. A moment later, his suit receives a ping, a response, and then floods Tony with readings.

“Good evening, boss,” FRIDAY says, her voice echoing out of the pod. “It’s been a long time. I’m unable to make contact with any Stark satellites or the Avengers Compound.”

“Neither are available, FRI,” Tony says. “I need to know what’s happened since Titan. Can you show me?”

“Yes,” FRIDAY says. “But you aren’t going to like it.”

Chapter Text

“Standby, reboot in process,” FRIDAY says pleasantly.

She projects a holoscreen in front of them, massive and blue. It brightens the dim monstrosity of the building they're inside.

One by one, the Bats drift in, silently dropping down to the platform Tony and Tim are standing on. Green Arrow follows, not quite as stealthy but just as smoothly graceful. Superman merely drifts down, taking in their surroundings with puzzled curiosity. He frowns when he sees the remains of the aliens Tony questioned, seems to mull over saying something, and drops it.

Smart of him, really. Done is done. Tony can't bring those assholes back and he wouldn't want to.

Except to kill them again.

“What’s that?” Tim asks, looking at FRIDAY's pod curiously.

“Spider-Man’s suit, the Iron Spider. He stashed it here, either to keep it away from the Black Order or as a beacon for the webshooter he left in my repair shop. Probably both,” Tony says.

“Clever.”

“Very,” Tony says.

“Reboot complete,” FRIDAY says. “Ready, boss?”

No, not particularly. There is no good ending to this.

But he can't help until he finds out what happened.

“Show me,” he says.

* * *

She starts with Dr. Strange’s spell on Tony’s Arc Reactor. The view is odd, shorter and off to the side. The camera FRIDAY is using is built into Peter’s chest plate, giving Tony a wide view of Titan and himself, looking vaguely annoyed at Dr. Strange. Strange finishes with his spell,

“Fancy,” Tony says, reaching out to take it.

Strange pulls his hand back instead and says, “Forgive me, Tony.”

Green chains erupt from nothing and freeze Tony in place, hand twitching above the changed arc reactor. Confusion, followed by shock, follow very quickly by fear driven anger has Tony snap his eyes back to Strange.

Strange meets his gaze and says, “When you find him, ask Tim for help.”

That gets a ripple of murmurs from the Bats behind Tony. He sees Tim tilt his head curiously, but he remains silent. If he’s bothered by the idea of a sorcerer from another universe knowing his name, he doesn’t show it.

Tony disappears in a flash of green. Peter is already moving, crossing the short distance between himself and Dr. Strange with inhuman speed, the golden blades of the Iron Spider snapping out to hover just short of Dr. Strange’s face.

“Bring him back,” Peter says.

“I can't. That’s a one way spell, Spider-Man,” Dr. Strange says, keeping very still.

“Don’t care. Bring him back.”

“He’s safe there,” Dr. Strange says. “You watched me look at billions of timelines a minute ago. Think about why I would want to put him somewhere safe before Thanos arrives.”

Peter pauses, blinks. The blades withdraw from Dr. Strange’s face. The sorcerer lets out a quiet sigh of relief, and relaxes. He offers Peter Tony’s arc reactor, now gently glowing a mix blue-orange as the strange symbols hover above it.

“You’ll want to hold onto this,” Dr. Strange says. “He'll need it when he comes back.”

Peter reaches out and touches the reactor--

It disappears in a flash of green and gold, leaving Peter’s hand empty. He stares at his hand, then the sorcerer.

“Um?”

“It will appear when you need it,” Dr. Strange says. “Let’s get into place. Thanos approaches.”

“Uh, yeah, didn’t the guy you just vaporized have a plan?” Quill asks, motioning at Peter and Dr. Strange with his laser pistol.

“He did,” Dr. Strange says. “I’ll explain--”

“Oh, that jackass,” Tony says, annoyed. “Shoves me into an interdimensional closet and then takes my plan.”

To their absolute credit, they almost pull it off.

Thanos arrives. Talks with Strange. When that inevitably goes nowhere, the fight starts. Peter is the strongest and fastest in the group, which means he takes on Thanos by himself, flashing in and out of view through Strange’s portals with annoying little quips meant to annoy and distract Thanos.

It works so well that Thanos snatches him out of the air and slams him into the dirt with enough force to crack the rocks they’re standing on. FRIDAY lights up every injury Peter gains from this, and Tony clenches his fists. Fractures, bone bruises, but nothing life threatening.

“Annoying insect--” Thanos snarls.

“Arachnid, actually,” Peter gasps back. He flings out a hand, shooting out a line of webbing and then snapping it back.

A boulder smashes into the back of Thanos's head, shattering on impact. It doesn’t do any real damage, but it momentarily staggers him, giving Peter a chance to escape his grip and for Strange to open a portal above him. Mantis drops down from above, grips Thanos’ head, and forces him into a half conscious daze. Strange flings out a dozen mystical chains to lash one of Thanos’ arms in place. Peter uses his webs and inhuman strength to grip the gauntleted hand, using the blades on his suit to anchor himself into the rocky ground as he starts the slow, laborious process of pulling the gauntlet off.

For one second, it looks like it’s going to work. Peter is making slow, but constant, progress. Mantis is keeping Thanos in his daze.

And then Quill discovers what happened to his girlfriend and utterly loses it. Tony cringes as the man breaks Mantis’ spell, snapping Thanos out of his daze. The plan utterly falls apart after that.

Peter sticks to his goal, and manages--for a brief second--to pull the gauntlet free from Thanos. It’s a brief victory. Thanos bodily flings him away, and sends the Guardians and Strange flying in different directions. He pulls a moon apart and flings meteors down to crush them all.

Peter recovers, expertly dodging meteors to catch the Guardians and stick them somewhere safe. Strange takes on Thanos solo, with middling results.

“Got you, got you, got you--sorry, I don’t remember anyone’s names--” he babbles, clearly panicked.

Once he finishes helping them, he zips over to Dr. Strange and Thanos. Peter whips around, grips Thanos' hand, plants his feet and the blades of his suit into the dirt and twists. Something cracks inside the gauntlet, and Thanos lets out a startled roar of pain. A golden-orange piece of a stone falls out of the gauntlet. Peter catches it on instinct, pauses, blinks, and stares at his hand.

The distraction costs him. Thanos recovers, snatches up one of the Iron Spider’s blades and snaps it off the suit entirely. He drives it straight into and through Peter’s chest, impaling him with it. Tony doesn’t bother trying to hide the hiss of fury he lets out when he sees that happen.

Peter staggers back with a startled gurgle, clutching at the blade. Thanos roughly shoves him back adjusting the gauntlet with a disdainful look, before starting to stalk towards him. Peter tries to meet him head on, but stumbles, and drops down to his knees, before gradually tilting back towards the dirt. He manages to wrench the blade out of himself and toss it aside. Blood pours freely out of the wound in his chest, and his suit is a nightmare of alarms. Tony’s jaw is clenched tight enough to make his ears ring.

“Stop!” Dr. Strange says, putting himself between Peter and Thanos. He flicks his wrist, revealing the time stone. “Spare him, and I’ll give you the stone.”

“No tricks?” Thanos asks after a moment.

“No tricks.”

Thanos considers him, briefly flicking his eyes towards Peter before focusing back on Strange. He holds his hand out, a silent demand. Strange floats it over to him.

“This will be my one act of mercy,” Thanos says, dropping the stone into place on his gauntlet without a second look. He braces himself, hisses, and withstands the sudden surge of power that crawls across him once the stone activates. “Treasure it.”

He disappears through a portal a moment later.

“Dr. Strange, why?” Peter asks. His breath is coming out in heaving puffs that have an increasingly thick wet quality to them.

“He changed things this time,” Dr. Strange says. He looks anguished, sick, and guilty. “Hold still. We need to stop the bleeding on that wound.”

“It's not stopping. It always stops. I heal fast.”

“He used the stones to slow it.”

“You had the Time Stone. You could've frozen him, trapped him, slowed him--”

“None of those methods worked,” Dr. Strange says. He presses down hard on the wound and Peter grunts in pain. “Things went badly for us.”

“Oh.”

“Listen to me. You're going to get lost for awhile, but you will come back. Okay? Tony will find you.”

“What?” Peter’s voice is slurred, slow. The blood loss is catching up to him.

“Iron Man will find you,” Dr. Strange says, emphasizing the phrase. Flares of golden light trace around his wrists, and Tony realizes the man is putting some kind of spell on Peter.

Peter slumps over without answering or acknowledging him, almost fully unconscious, and Dr. Strange flicks his eyes towards the camera built into the suit helmet. Tony has the unsettling feeling that the man is staring him directly in the eyes. That feeling is only confirmed when he looks around Tony, as if looking at each of the other heroes nearby.

“The Avengers are compromised. They are being controlled, and they’re going to be used against Gotham and your world. Spider-Man will remember enough of himself to slow them down, but he can't stop them,” he says. His eyes go back to Tony, and his tone becomes just short of desperate. “End the threat no matter the cost, Tony. Use any and every plan you’ve ever conceived of to stop this. It needs to end here, before it spreads to other timelines. You have something for this.”

To Tony’s utter horror, Dr. Strange starts to flake apart as he speaks. Flecks of flesh drop away from his face, drifting on an unseen wind. More and more begin to fall away from him, almost in a torrent. Behind him, the Guardians of the Galaxy stare at themselves in mute horror before collapsing into dust.

Dr. Strange joins them.

Moments later, Thanos returns. He has a deep wound in his chest, and he’s moving carefully, as if he just finished fighting a second battle. He looms over Peter, thoughtful.

“I agreed to spare your life. That doesn’t mean it isn’t mine to use to further my purposes. Your sorcerer friend should have thought of that,” Thanos muses. He leans down and grabs Peter’s limp arm.

The Gauntlet flares to life. The screen is filled with light.

* * *

The image freezes. Shakes. Then disappears as FRIDAY ends the recording.

“End of recording on Titan,” FRIDAY says. “I need time to piece together the rest, boss. Sorry.”

Tony doesn’t respond. He’s staring blankly at the spot where the screen used to be. His thoughts are racing through his mind so quickly that he’s unable to focus on any single part.

Strange knew this would happen. He knew they would fail from the start. Sidelined Tony to--save him? Keep him out of reach? It might be pure ego to think this, but if the alternative is Peter being shoved into Gotham while Tony becomes a mind controlled pawn of Thanos, then Strange definitely made the right choice. Tony knows himself well enough to know he couldn't fight mind control half as well as Peter.

But if Strange thinks Tony is going to hurt or kill Peter, then he’s sorely mistaken.

End the threat no matter the cost. Sure, fine, but he’s not a surgeon, who prefers to cut away problems. He’s an engineer. He works around them.

The other heroes give him space, staying silent as they investigate the surrounding spire or watch him. Except for Tim, who stands beside him, tilting his head up at the empty space where the holo projection used to be.

“That was Thanos?” he asks, breaking both the silence and Tony’s train of thought.

“Yup.”

“Hm,” Tim says. He looks at Tony. “What’s the plan?”

“What?”

“What’s the plan? Your friend says you have one.”

“I always have a plan. And that jackass isn’t my friend,” Tony retorts. He pauses, runs a hand down his face, thinks.

Focus. The kid is still alive. Despite it all, he’s still alive, and he needs help. The Avengers need help, too. They can be handled when he’s ready. Start with the knowns. Get a broad idea. Get specific as things fall into place.

Focus, Tony, they all need you. You’re all that’s left.

Rebuild the suit with the nanites from Spider-Man’s suit, rebuild the portal machine Peter destroyed on his way out of town, and go back home.

Fix this.

“Right. Got it,” Tony says, pushing himself up. He walks towards the suit pod, picking it up. “FRIDAY, shrink down. We need to build a Fabricator. What’s the ETA with the materials I’ve got on hand?”

“Thirty minutes, at most,” FRIDAY replies.

“I need a better suit,” Tony says, letting it drop down to its suitcase form. The Bats, Green Arrow, and Superman will protect him. Probably. “How long to get this up to spec? I need it to withstand jumping dimensions.”

She runs a beam across it, and says, with some disdain: “It's a decade out of date.”

“Lex Luthor has subpar materials,” he replies.

“Nanites will take too long. I can get this up to par in twenty, once the Fabricator is online,” she says.

“God, I have missed you FRIDAY,” Tony says. He eyes the spire and the machines around them and thinks. “Get started. I’ll work on the portal machine--”

“What about us?” Tim asks.

“What?” Tony asks, thrown off his rhythm.

“We’ll need suits to go through the portal, too,” he says.

“You...want to go to my dimension,” Tony says.

“We’ve come this far,” Tim reminds him. He motions to the rest of the group behind him. “Do you honestly think we wouldn't want to help after seeing that?”

Tony pauses. “Didn’t think you'd go that far.”

“You're wrong,” Tim says flatly. “I realize that's a rare occurrence for you, but come to terms with it quickly. We're going to help.”

Tony blinks at his blunt tone, but rolls with it. He looks over the gathered heroes, comes to a decision.

“FRIDAY, add in armor for our friends here, minus Superman. No offense, pal, but you don’t need it.”

Superman merely tilts his head.

“What should I base the suits off of?” FRIDAY asks.

“Their current get ups, with a dash of Falcon's wings for Red Robin,” Tony says. “Stark Suit baseline, they move like the kid. They fight like Black Widow, so whatever stealth options you can whip up will be nice to have Add in some of Hawkeye's best arrows for Robin Hood here..”

“And here I was worried you'd forgotten about me,” Green Arrow says amiably. His voice is friendly enough, but there’s an undertone to it. A hunger to help make things right.

“Easily done once the Fabricator is complete,” FRIDAY says. “I'll need someone to feed me the materials I need.”

“That can be arranged,” Tim says. He seems fascinated by FRIDAY in general, eager to work with her.

Well, Tony can use that to his advantage.

“Good. You're in charge of suiting everyone up,” Tony says. He tosses FRIDAY's pod at Tim, who catches it without looking. “Work with FRIDAY. Once we get the suits done, we can work on the portal machine.”

“We'll need information on Thanos,” Superman says. “And those gems.”

“Stones. Got it. FRIDAY, give ‘em the crash course while you work on the suits,” Tony says. He claps his hands. “All right. Let’s get started. Supes? Think you can bring that machine down here for me?”

* * *

“You need a break,” Tim tells him, several hours and a dozen new suits and weapons later.

“Can’t. Busy,” Tony says. He’s half inside the portal machine, putting the finishing touches on the rebuild, now mostly disassembled and laid out in pieces around his feet. Tools--some found, some made by FRIDAY, others outright MacGuyvered with random pieces Tony found nearby--lay in a neat line next to his left hand.

“I’m going to insist,” Tim says.

“Noted.”

A beat.

“I’m going to insist physically if you don’t catch a hint, Stark.”

“Noted with an acceptable amount of fear,” Tony says, crawling back out of the machine before the kid has an excuse to fling him out of it.

He sighs, brushing his hands off and only smearing grease across his hands. He’s shocked that actual mechanics are involved in this machine, and doubly shocked by how ramshackle the whole damn thing is. Either Peter’s campaign of sabotage was frighteningly effective (likely) or Thanos’ people were desperate (also likely). The kid must have been ripping pieces out of this thing every chance he had.

His back aches, his shoulders twinge in time with his heartbeat, and his ribs are an aching mess. He isn’t as young as he used to be, and the manic fury that's sustained him so far is starting to flag. Tim was right to pull him out of his work.

Doesn't mean he has to tell him that.

Tim is in a new suit, a fascinating mix of his Red Robin suit with a few adjustments taken straight from Falcon.

“Went with the wings, huh?” Tony asks.

“I can see the utility, and it’ll allow me to keep pace with you,” he says. “FRIDAY is working on your suit now. She’s left parts out for you to handle yourself.”

Right. He needs to handle that now, then get rest--

Tim shoves a water bottle and meal bar into his hand so quickly and efficiently that Tony doesn’t notice them at first. He scoffs, but takes the hint.

“Starting to think you've herded manic geniuses around before, kid,” Tony says, walking back over to the newly built Stark Fabricator. A work table sticks out of the side of it, and FRIDAY is hard at work on the chest pieces of Tony’s suit.

“A bit,” Tim says. He watches Tony down the water, food, and then get to work. “You’re going to seal yourself inside this, head to toe?”

“Like my previous suit, but much, much better,” Tony says. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“What happens if you die inside the suit?” Tim asks.

“You’re a morbid little bird. The suit keeps fighting until the threat is handled. Almost every suit I build has an AI powerful enough to carry on the fight based on the brain activity it last recorded from me and whatever simulations it can create, run, and review while piloting the armor,” Tony says. “Once it finishes the fight, it will send alerts out to any nearby allies about my death, as well as my lawyer.”

“Does Spider-Man’s suit have that?” Nightwing asks after a moment

The images come to the forefront of his mind. Tony doesn’t flinch. He goes very, very still, clenching his jaw. He slowly puts his hands down on the table in front of himself and says, evenly, “No.”

It’s one thing for his corpse to be a counterweight for a state of the art weapon. It’s quite another for that to be true of Peter. The quietly horrifying part about that thought is that he’s not sure Peter would be against the idea. They aren’t always similar to one another, but stupid sacrificial plays are an unfortunate commonality between them.

“I’m only asking in case he uses one of those suits against us, Mr. Stark,” Nightwing says, his tone a touch gentle.

Tony nods stiffly. “Well, he isn’t. I don’t recognize the suit he’s wearing. He should be in the Iron Spider, but if he was then FRIDAY would’ve found a way to alert me the moment she realized I was in Gotham. It’s not like I was subtle.”

“No kidding,” Tim says dryly. “What’s special about the Iron Spider?”

“It's a nanite suit I put together to enhance, amplify, and refine all of his powers. Comes with FRIDAY, my personal AI, to help him use it,” Tony says. He throws a small diagram of the suit out from his holoscreen suite for the others to look at. They circle around it, fascinated. “I didn’t have time to put his personalized AI in it before we were invaded by aliens. And then things got a little messy.”

“How so?”

“We stole their space ship and flew it back to their home world to fight their boss,” Tony says. “Which is when I was sidelined into your universe. You saw the rest.”

“You brought Spider-Man along with you?” Nightwing asks.

“I sent him home,” Tony says, a thread of annoyance entering his tone. “I told him he shouldn’t be here, I sent him home and he followed me anyway.”

“Of course he did,” Tim says. “I would’ve done the same. I have done the same. All of us have.” “And Batman lets you get away with it?”

“We don’t give him a choice,” Nightwing says dryly. “Otherwise he’d keep finding a way to almost get himself killed without backup. Honestly, he does that anyway.”

“I knew I should’ve put overrides back into his suit,” Tony mutters.

“You did before?” Nightwing asks.

“Yes. And he managed to nullify them. I put a few token ones in the Iron Spider, but apparently he managed to override those while falling through Earth’s atmosphere. I could’ve figured out a better--”

“Wouldn’t have worked,” Tim says. “You would just be training him on how to find and nullify them quicker.”

“Batman eventually gave up on trying to track us because we all did exactly that,” Nightwing says. He’s testing out his new escrima sticks, and seems pleased with the results of his personal engineering and FRIDAY’s production. “He has to rely on us reporting in on our own time now.”

“Can we focus?” Red Hood says, interrupting them. “Stark, we need to talk about your kid. He came out of a pit. Are you ready to deal with that?”

The rest of the group goes quiet at that.

“What the hell does that mean?” Tony demands.

“It means he may not have a soul anymore, just memories of who you were to him before he died,” Red Hood says, his tone empty of all emotion. “This lazarus water brings back the body, but that’s it. Doesn’t mean the soul comes back. Not unless he has some way to ferret it back into his body that we don’t know about.”

Tony stares at him, sick with horror. Tim shoots Red Hood a venomous look.

‘Really, it’s kind of your fault I’m here.’

Red Hood adds, uncomfortably, “That doesn’t mean it won’t come back. Maybe he’ll get lucky. Maybe that’s why he hesitated when he almost killed you.”

“We won’t know until we manage to find him and bring him somewhere safe,” Tim says.

“I can restrain him, if it comes to that,” Superman puts in gently.

“I’ll let you know, big guy,” Tony says, grabbing the finished pieces of his suit from FRIDAY and the fabricator. It’s the next best thing to his nanite suit, and when the HUD lights up with FRIDAY inside, he lets out a brief sigh of relief.

A message pops up in the bottom right corner:

Missed you too, boss.

He huffs out a laugh, connects to Oracle’s network, and sends a few last minute messages to a few people before turning to face his cobbled together rescue group.

“Alright,” Tony says, walking over to the portal machine. A few button taps, and the machine whirls to life, rattling alarmingly for a few moments before evening out. “Time to finish this.”

Chapter Text

“You think we can handle your friends?” Tim asks, checking over his new suit. He’s done it twice already, but Tony gets the idea the kid has an entire system in place for this kind of thing, and that said system does not include relying on FRIDAY.

“I think if the Avengers are fighting half as hard as Spider-Man, you won’t need to pull your punches as much as you want to,” Tony says after a moment. “But there’s a chance Spider-Man is a unique case. Which means you need to hit them hard, fast, and before they have a chance to react. I’ve already given you the highlights.”

The whole group is walking through a massive ship, following a route to the heart of it with help from Superman’s vision, and Tony hacking the security network. The dimensional portal dropped them into the depths of the Black Order’s mothership, and they’ve had to wind through the labyrinthine halls to reach the center of the ship, where the Avengers are.

Tim is quiet for a moment, and says, “Spider-Man has one of the Infinity Stones, you know.”

Tony pauses, frowns, and keeps going. “How do you know?”

“Nightwing noticed it when we were rewatching the fight with Thanos. We don’t know which stone, but he stole part of one off of the gauntlet. You can see the empty spot on the last frame.”

“Wonderful,” Tony mutters, putting on a bit more speed. His focus is on a small counter on his HUD, counting down the time until FRIDAY gains access to the system that controls the lights on this ship. Programming is programming, no matter what, and Thanos clearly doesn't hold technological prowess as particularly important. “That would explain why he hasn’t charged into your universe with guns blazing. The kid’s been smuggling a piece of infinity on himself the entire time, probably within arm’s reach of that asshole.”

And that's a problem for a lot of reasons, but it’s a problem to solve later. They're right outside of the massive room they need to breach.

“Just thought you should know,” Tim says evenly. “Ready?”

“More than ready,” Tony says, adjusting his suit. He has missed nanobot suits, and while this one isn't as bleeding edge as his last one, it's more than up to the task. “Be careful.”

“You first,” Tim replies, before launching his grappling hook into the newly formed darkness above.

Tony smirks, gives the Bats a few seconds to get into place, and makes his move.

* * *

FRIDAY shuts off most of the lights in the room the same moment she opens the massive door into the room, providing ample distraction for Tony’s entrance.

The interior is huge. A massive room of sleek black steel and dim lights. Ebony Maw stands in the center of the room, beside a massive portal machine similar to the one Tony rebuilt in Gotham, and another, sleeker system that holds some bright, sickly yellow rock at the top. The Avengers stand beside him, motionless and still, like rigid puppets. Threads of yellow light peel away from the stone in twitching strands, each ending at the top of an Avenger’s head. Tony can put two and two together pretty easily. The machine is a nightmare amalgamation of different parts, and FRIDAY’s analysis of it shows a schematic so complicated that Tony will have to spend hours peeling it apart before he can end the control. It’s half bomb, half mind control machine.

There are a few other oddities around. Pods, some of them occupied, strung up around the room. Tony makes note of that, too. He debates for a moment, and then flicks his helmet back, revealing his face. It’s important that Peter sees it’s him.

“Well, you have massively fucked up,” Tony declares, startling Ebony Maw's frantic slapping at the portal machine. “I think I can pinpoint the three biggest mistakes, in fact.”

“Stark,” Ebony Maw says, scowling at him with a mix of indignant fury and disbelief. “You--”

“Your first mistake was not killing me first,” Tony says, strolling across the room as if he owns it. He sees the Avengers lined up behind the evil bastard, can see blank expressions twitch and shift under the mind control. Natasha's hand twitches, Clint's hands tighten on his bow, and Rhodey’s head shifts. Tony swears he sees Steve smirk at his grand entrance. “Too late now, of course, but jot that down for future reference: kill the smart guy first.”

“What--” Ebony Maw starts, completely thrown off guard by Tony’s appearance.

“Your second mistake was grabbing him,” Tony says, pointing at Batman’s pod. Tony has no idea what the hell happened here. The man is bound in chains, sealed in a pod, and chained up like Hannibal fucking Lecter, and the Black Order still went to the trouble of aiming live turrets at the guy. On top of that, Natasha and Clint are stationed next to him, clearly meant to be a last line of defense. Batman tilts his head at Tony, watching from inside his watery prison. “Again, you should've killed the smart guy first.”

“Outriders!” Ebony Maw snaps. “Tear this fool apart!”

None of the outriders make an appearance. Tony lets the evil bastard stew in the moment before theatrically whirling around to look at the rest of the room. Finally, he looks at Ebony Maw and grins.

“Your last mistake was assuming I came here alone.”

A dozen dead outriders fall from the shadows above, landing in a series of thuds across the room. The eyes of the Bats scattered around the room appear, lighting up with the telltale blue-white of a Stark suit. All of them surround the Avengers and the Black Order, weapons in hand and at the ready, looming threateningly in the dark, sheltered and hidden within it.

Green Arrow silently slides into view of the shadows, bow and arrow at the ready, grinning beneath the hood of his new suit. Superman floats down from above, half hovering in the shadows, eyes smoldering red in the dark like coals in a fire.

“That’s the problem with invading other universes, isn’t it? There’s always an Avenger around to ruin it for you,” Tony says. A twitch of his hand, and his helmet snaps back into place, bringing up his HUD as he aims one gauntlet at Ebony Maw’s head. “Where is he?”

Ebony Maw glares at him, raises his hand, and snaps his fingers. Peter silently drops down from the ceiling above, wearing that same odd black and gold suit. Now that he has a good look at it, he can see it’s modeled after the outriders’ armor. No helmet or mask, though, which means Peter’s identity has just been revealed to the whole goddamn room.

It’s a good thing Ebony Maw is so pissed he’s become stupid. He could have unleashed Peter on the Bats, and that could have gone poorly. At the very least, they’d be too busy dealing with Peter to give Tony proper back up.

Peter is focused on Tony completely, face utterly expressionless, hand jittering in place, as if he’s trying to tap out that same message as before. Except, no, it’s different. Something else. He can’t see it clearly---

Lightning flares up from the shadows, crawling across Thor’s armor and weapon. Not Mjolnir, something else. An axe nearly as tall as he is, made of a metal FRIDAY can’t properly analyze at this distance. Thor stalks out of the shadows mechanically, like a puppet being whose joints refuse to move smoothly, giving him a jerking, uncanny movement. Lightning pours from his hands, his eyes, gathering into the head of his axe. He snaps his arm forward, unleashing the full fury of the storm from his axe at Tony’s head.

Superman, moving faster than Tony can blink, flashes into position between Tony and Thor. He catches the full force of Thor’s attack, floating back a few inches with a quiet off.

And shakes it off.

“That actually tingled,” he says, sounding impressed. And then he grins, bright and eager. “My turn.”

Crimson beams of light erupt from his eyes, knocking Thor back with a startled yelp of surprise.

After that, the two gods are off: Superman herds Thor into the larger part of the room, trading blows with the Asgardian that crack like thunder.

Thank fuck Superman is on their side.

Tony doesn’t take his eyes off of Ebony Maw.

“I'm going to give you the chance to walk away. Turn off your little machine, leave the room, and you don't die here. Limited time offer,” Tony says.

Ebony Maw stares at him disdainfully, then turns to Peter.

“Kill him.”

Peter starts to move, stutters to a stop, and clenches his fists. He grinds out a simple word: “No.”

Peter couldn’t have shocked the alien more if he had slapped him.

“I said kill him!”

“No.” His voice is firmer now, tinged with stubborn fury, but no less pained. It's as if he’s speaking around a bundle of knives shoved into his throat, and every sound is a hard fought battle against an unrelenting force.

Ebony Maw scowls at him in disbelieving fury before snapping his fingers again.

Rhodey’s Iron Patriot suit stomps over, robot-like, and faces Tony. Missile launchers, repulsors, every weapon in his suit activates, aimed directly at Tony. But they don’t fire.

Tony wonders if Rhodey is fighting against the mind control, if he’s slow rolling the firing mechanisms in his suit. Tony’s suspicions are confirmed when Rhodey’s helmet snaps open, giving Tony a clear shot to his head.

Yeah, not happening.

He makes a few on the fly calculations, then snaps his own readied repulsor to the left and fires. The shot hits Steve's shield, rebounds, and strikes one of the main power conduits in Rhodey’s suit. Rhodey lets out a grunt of surprise and is sent sprawling off to the side. He isn’t hurt, and he’s definitely not down for the count: Tony just hit one of the very, very few weak points in Rhodey’s suit. A spot he would never allow to be unguarded in an actual fight, because it’s the controller unit that integrates Rhodey’s braces into the suit. It’s a weak spot only Tony and Rhodey know about. He follows it up with a heavy spray from the webshooter he worked into his

“Sorry, Rhodey, you can punch me later. Preferably not very hard,” he calls out.

Tony swears the smirk on Steve’s face grows a tiny fraction.

“Offer rescinded,” Tony says.

The next gauntlet blast hits the portal machine behind Ebony Maw’s head, shattering it entirely. He knows the bastard will use some magic tech bullshit to counter the blast, and he doesn’t want to give the guy a chance to call in back up through a portal. The moment he destroys the portal machine is the same moment Ebony Maw takes him seriously. He shouts and snaps his fingers, sending the Avengers into action. The Bats descend from above to meet their counterparts.

It’s complete chaos. The two groups clash, each pulling their punches in their own limited ways. Nightwing and Captain America match each other move for move, Batgirl and Spoiler corner Black Widow, and Hawkeye--

Hawkeye starts firing arrows.

Green Arrow returns fire, neatly splitting every arrow Hawkeye fires with one of his own. They’re evenly matched, uncannily so, and each looks equally impressed and annoyed by the revelation.

Tony ignores all of them, blasting off from the floor towards Peter. Peter twitches, jumps, grapples with him in mid air, but doesn’t punch or attack him in any. Tony lets the grapple happen, twisting around to grip Peter’s shoulders in his hands. A twitch of his jaw and his helmet flicks open, revealing his face.

“I'm here! I found you!” He has to shout to be heard over the surrounding fight. “That jackass sorcerer was right, I found you.”

The blank, empty expression shifts to something more hopeful, and the grapple turns into a desperate cling.

“Need you to keep fighting it, Spider-Man, I can't do it by myself.”

Whatever it is remains to be seen. How does he--

“The pod,” Peter grinds out. His hands twitch and grip Tony’s arms with near crushing strength before gradually pulling back to a normal grab. The kid is actively fighting against himself to keep from tearing Tony apart with his bare hands. “Batman--”

Tony looks up at the pod Batman is trapped inside. The man makes eye contact with him, and Tony can sense the frustration from here.

“Right. Got it. Protect Rhodey, I’ll be back,” he says. He drops Peter, and angles his flight path, moving through the melee covering the room, rolling his helmet back into place to help him plan a flight path through the utter chaos erupting around the room.

Crossing the space between himself and Batman is an ordeal. Arrows fly at him from the shadows, only to be knocked away by other arrows, lightning is flung towards him only to be blocked by Superman, Cap throws his shield at Tony, and Nightwing leaps into the air to catch and return it back in a throw just as heavy. Black Widow leaps for him from the shadows, countered by Batgirl slipping out of the same shadow to attack her blindside. Tony is more than a little rattled by the time he reaches Batman’s pod and blasts every lock off of it.

“You’re up, Batsy, get to work,” Tony says once the pod pops open. A gush of ugly, green water pours of it as it unseals.

Batman ignores him, leaping into action immediately. He neatly moves from one Bat to another, helping them with their specific fights, melding into each conflict to give them a brief advantage before moving on. He even distracts Thor for Superman with a casual toss of a smoke bomb. By the time he reaches the machine holding the Mind Stone, he’s turned the tide for every fight in the room. He starts to pull apart the machine, quickly and efficiently disabling the bombs woven into the network of power cables, until he disables it entirely.

“You made that look easy,” Tony says, half impressed, half annoyed.

“I’ve been able to study it for a very long time,” Batman replies.

The machine doesn’t power down so much as collapse on itself. The thin yellow ribbons of light leading to each Avenger disappear like mist, and the Avengers collapse or stagger to a stop in the middle of an attack. Steve stumbles, catches himself, and lets out a quiet cough, dropping his shield back down from the backhanded throw he was about to complete, glancing at Nightwing.

“Hi. Sorry about that,” he says, offering his hand to the man.

“No harm, no foul,” Nightwing says, grinning. He shakes his hand. “Nice shield. I might have to steal the idea off of you.”

Steve grins at that, charmed by the younger man.

“Hey, Robin Hood,” Clint calls out. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

“Remote island in the middle of nowhere,” Green Arrows calls back. “You?”

“The circus!”

A beat. “What.”

Natasha and Batgirl are speaking quietly with one another. Tony can’t hear the conversation, but they both look equally satisfied with the conversation, with Natasha showing the Widow’s Bite bracelets she’s wearing on each wrist to Spoiler and Batgirl. Superman helps Thor up off of the ground, rubbing the back of his head and speaking politely, as if embarrassed by the fight. Thor seems both impressed and a little chagrined, but takes Superman’s hand with a grin and lets him help Thor up onto his feet. Tim and Duke help pull Rhodey free of the webs he’s trapped inside, and then begin to help him with his suit repair. Rhodey catches his eye and raises an eyebrow as his suit repairs itself and lets him stand back up.

“Sorry, honeybear,” Tony says to him, dropping down to the ground beside him. He claps his shoulder and Rhodey scoffs, but returns the gesture, letting him move past.

Peter moves towards him in a staggering shuffle that sets off alarm bells in Tony’s head. He instinctively moves towards him, catching him by his arms just before the kid slumps over. Peter stumbles into Tony’s chest, clinging to him, and Tony is horrified to see the kid is trembling.

Shock, he thinks. FRIDAY shows Peter’s bio readings on his HUD, and Tony comes to another conclusion: Emotional shock. Not physical.

His suit helmet rolls back into his suit.

“You’re okay, kid,” Tony says, trying to sound as reassuring as he can with middling success. “I'm here, you’re okay, you're fine--”

He isn’t, and he probably won't be for years after this, but it’s the only thing Tony can think to say. It does nothing to soothe Peter’s panic, and Tony is almost at a loss of what to do.

The Avengers draw back, giving them space, and the bare illusion of privacy. The Bats circle around them, watching for danger. Tim is the closest to them, clearly intending to be the last line of defense for Tony and Peter in the event they’re attacked.

Peter says nothing, too busy trying to come to terms with everything that’s just happened. Tony thinks he's having a panic attack, but dismisses the thought. He's just trying to get his head on straight.

After a few moments, Rhodey crosses the distance between the Avengers and Tony, letting his suit helmet roll back. He looks older somehow, haunted and tired. But there’s still that same inner glint to his old friend’s eyes, sharp and steady, and he manages to give Tony a ghost of the smile he’s seen on his friend’s face all of his life. Tony has never been more glad to see him.

“Thanos is on his way back,” Rhodey says, his eyes flicking briefly to Peter, apology in his tone. “We have to get a plan together, Tony. While we have the time.”

Tony clenches his jaw, but nods. “Give us a sec.”

Rhodey nods, standing back up and moving over to the Avengers again. A few of the others are watching them, but most are busy speaking with their counterparts.

Peter is shaking hard enough that he's rattling Tony’s suit. Peter’s eyes are glassy and unfocused, as if he’s seeing or hearing someone else that Tony can’t see. Tony hears something like wind, whisper like voices at the edge of his hearing, not unlike the time he heard Nick Fury outside of his shop in Crime Alley.

“Hey. Over here, kid. Focus up,” Tony says, tapping against his own suit in place of snapping his fingers. Peter blinks up at him, and Tony frowns. “Job’s not done yet. Are you good to keep going?”

If he says no, then Tony will send him back to Gotham with Tim and call it good. In fact, that idea is more appealing the more he examines it--

“Yes,” Peter says, sounding tired but determined.

Shit.

“You're sure?”

And, as if he was reading Tony’s mind, Peter says, “You aren’t sending me anywhere. I'm staying.”

Tony almost starts to call for Superman–Big Blue will haul the kid away in a heartbeat if he asked–but gives up instead. Peter clambered into a goddamn spaceship to reach Tony. Who knows what the stubborn ass will do to reach him with an interdimensional portal.

“Fine, but you listen to me and Rhodey.”

“Deal,” Peter says. He pauses and adds, with a weak smirk. “So, is this a hug now?”

“Congrats on ruining the moment, wiseass,” Tony says, helping Peter stand up.

Tim silently slips in to help Tony lift Peter up off the ground. Peter blinks, surprised by his sudden appearance, but lets him help.

“Good timing,” Tony says. “Spider kid, meet creepy kid.”

“Creepy kid?” Tim asks. “He crawls on walls.”

“He doesn't break into my apartment and hide in the shadows like a freak.”

That startles a laugh out of Peter. It’s weak, a shadow of itself, but it’s the most Tony’s seen of Peter’s personality since they broke the mind control.

“How did you do that?” Peter asks.

“Easy. I'll teach you once we're out of this,” Tim says. “You’ll figure it out in minutes.”

“Absolutely not, I'm banning you two from joining forces for my own sanity,” Tony says.

“Too bad,” Tim replies, stepping away so Peter can stand on his own. He stays close, however.

Tony glances at Peter again. His eyes focus and unfocus, darting around and taking in the room. It’s obvious he’s withdrawing to some inner world, likely processing everything that’s just happened to him. Again, Tony thinks of sending him away, but Peter catches his eye, and stares at him hard before taking a few, hesitant steps towards the Avengers and Bats. His stride grows more confident and steady the more he walks. Tony sighs, and follows.

“He wouldn’t let us take him back to Gotham even if you asked,” Tim says. “And we wouldn’t help. Sending him away now will just cause a nightmare of an argument later. Trust me.”

Batman and Superman are speaking with Steve and Natasha. The Avengers look rattled and off kilter, but ready to fight. The Bats don’t look like they’ve suffered more than a heavier than usual work out, and most seem ready to keep up the fight. Thor catches Tony’s eye and nods at him as he and Peter join the group. To Tony’s shock, Batman stops his conversation with Steve to nod at Peter directly before focusing on Tony.

“Ebony Maw slipped away during the fight,” Batman says. The man’s voice is low, commanding, calculating and gruff in a way that demands attention and obedience. It grates on Tony at first, but he stifles that immediate reaction down. “He’s had plenty of time to call for back up, and we have to assume that means Thanos is on his way.”

“Then lets give the genocidal freak a proper welcome,” Tony says, clapping his hands. “I’ve got a few plans. How about you?”

Batman smirks.

Chapter Text

Next chapter will cap everything off with an epilogue, but the story is complete for this side fic of a side fix. Hope you enjoyed it!))

“We'll need the others with us first,” Batman says. He looks at Peter. “Spider-Man?”

There's a respectful tone to his voice that the others immediately pick up on, especially the Bats. Tony has the feeling that Batman has, somehow, conveyed a level of trust and respect to Peter that the Bats rarely see. Just by saying his name in a very specific tone.

Peter gives him a tired, lazy salute, and leaps up on top of the broken portal machine. He looks around the room, thoughtful, skittering back and forth on it in a distinctly spider-like fashion.

“Gimme a second, I have to try and remember,” he says.

“You don’t remember where they are?” Batman asks.

“I forced myself to forget, or I would’ve blurted it out the first time they drowned me,” Peter says, as if that isn't the most horrifying fucking thing in the world. “Hang on, it's almost there.”

“Breathe, Iron Man,” Tim says quietly.

Tony realizes his face is still fully exposed. He snaps his helmet back on with a thought. There, now he can be horrified in peace. Steve sends him a sympathetic look. He ignores him.

“Got it,” Peter says. He swings for a small hallway on the far side of the room. “This way! We'll need the rest of the team if we want to pull this off.”

“The rest of the team?” Steve asks, falling in beside Tony and Batman.

“The Black Order has kidnapped a number of heroes from my universe. Spider-Man used his moments of clarity to hide the ones they successfully captured, and disrupt future attempts.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “That’s what the morse code was about. I could hear you tapping out messages inside that pod.”

“It was the only efficient way to communicate.”

Captain America reaches up and puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder and says, quietly, “Good work, Queens.”

Peter’s hero worship is utterly blatant. Tony can see the starstruck expression on his face.

Tony scoffs, bemused. “Unbelievable. I tear my way across the multiverse to save him with a dozen of the best heroes from another universe behind me, and he gets completely star-eyed over Cap giving him an attaboy.”

“Yeah, get used to it. He’s my kids’ favorite, too,” Clint says dryly. “They love hearing about the Battle of New York--as long as it involves Captain America, of course.”

Tony startles. He never expected Clint to say anything to him again, let alone have the man give him a wry grin.

“Except for Nate,” Clint adds. “Natasha's his favorite.”

“Smart kid,” Tony says. “She’s going to dote on him for life for that.”

“Oh, definitely.”

“You’re not allowed to say your dad's your favorite,” Nightwing puts in, surprising them both. “Even if it’s true. Especially if it’s true.”

“So, this is a conspiracy,” Tony remarks. “Good to know.”

Nightwing smirks.

Peter takes them into a distant and obviously less traveled area of the ship, often pausing to tilt his head as if looking for something. Or someone. His eyes shift back and forth, like he's listening to a conversation only he can hear. Tony thinks of the Infinity Stones and begins to wonder how much damage carrying one can do to a person. Something to work on later.

Batman looms near Peter, patient and still, the same way Tim is looming near Tony. Tony is a little amused to think that they each somehow ended up in the Bats’ orbit.

“Here,” Peter says, skittering up onto the ceiling of the hallway.

He pops open a panel and sticks his hand inside, reaching for something. A small click echoes in the hallway and a portion of the hallway rises with a near silent hiss, revealing--

Another wall, indistinguishable from the hallway. The group pauses, but Batman and Peter both stroll through. The wall ripples like water, and a second later, disappears. Tony, not eager to let Peter out of his view just yet, follows after the two of them and hears the others follow him.

What he finds is an interesting sight indeed.

The room is the same as all of the others--sleek black steel, harsh white lights, the gentle thrum of the ship--but there are two notable things about it. The first is the size. The room is as big as the portal room Tony and the Bats found the Avengers. The second is the glass tank bolted to the floor. It's filled to the brim with the same green liquid from before. Robin is inside of the pod, asleep and gently bobbing up and down in the strange water.

Batman breezes past all of them to reach Robin, and Tony isn’t surprised to see the rest of the Bats follow. The Avengers keep their distance, showing Batman the same respect they gave Tony.

“They were going to drown him in a pod like me,” Peter says, walking up to the pod. “I had enough control to stop it or distract them when they tried. And to sabotage the water in his pod the way I did to yours. I think he's meditating?”

Batman doesn't move, doesn't do much more than grip the edge of the machine's controls when Peter speaks. Tony glances at him from the corner of his eye and almost feels bad for the guy. Peter selflessly drawing the Black Order's full attention onto himself to protect Batman and Robin cost Batman something.

“We need to get him out,” Batman says, his tone all business.

“I can do that,” Tony says, stepping forward. A few, careful blasts of his gauntlet, and the pod snaps open, sending ugly green water rushing across the floor.

Robin snaps awake the moment the pod opens, and he removes the air mask strapped to his face. He staggers for a moment, catches himself, and stands straight and tall, taking in the assembled group before focusing on Peter.

“Well, I suppose this proves you weren't lying,” he says.

Peter snaps his fingers and then aims fingerguns at Robin. The move earns an approving smirk from Nightwing and a scoffing tt noise from Robin as he exits the pod. He hovers near Peter in that silent dangerous way Natasha tends to do when she’s ready to dive in and protect someone.

“Robin, what's your status?” Batman asks.

“Tired, but fine,” Robin says, stepping aside while Peter launches himself onto the ceiling of the room. “The water in my pod was just that. Not Lazarus Pit water. Spider-Man was...effective with his sabotage.”

“Wong helped me hide him, and then he hid Wonder Woman, too. I distracted the Black Order whenever they started to remember them,” Peter says, crawling along the ceiling in that too-quick way spiders tend to do. “Wong is supposed to be hiding near her--”

“Right here,” Wong says, uncloaking himself. He looks exhausted, strained to the breaking point. Beside him is the most beautiful woman Tony has ever seen. He's not the only one to think that judging by the startled curse Thor utters at the sight of her.

“By the gods, Thanos trapped an Amazon,” Thor mutters.

Steve is already at the woman’s side, with Superman beside him. The woman is asleep, bound in layer upon layer of thick, black steel chains. A heavy steel mask covers her eyes. She doesn't react when Steve removes it, apparently asleep inside her cocoon of restraints.

“They must have used something to put her to sleep. Those chains wouldn't have held her for long otherwise,” Batman says thoughtfully.

Steve directs Superman and Thor, content to let the gods among them carefully undo the interweaving chains, and only occasionally stepping in to provide them with a counterbalance of strength. When the last chain shatters in their hands, the woman snaps awake, aware and angry--and confused. She stares at Steve as if she's seen a ghost.

“Hello, ma'am,” Steve says, his tone polite and respectful. “Are you hurt?”

His voice doesn't help matters. Superman steps in, placing a steady hand on her shoulder.

“Wonder Woman?”

That helps ground her. She shakes off the remaining chains and mental effects of her imprisonment.

“I'm not hurt,” she says. She takes in the group, and her eyes hone in on Peter.

“How were you captured?” Batman asks.

“A spider caught me in his web,” she says dryly.

“Like, barely,” Peter says. He’s still skittering around the ceiling. He stops next to a bundle of webbing tucked away in the shadows, and tears it open, dropping back down with a sword, shield, and a golden lasso in his arms. He offers them to her. “Sorry. I wasn't really myself when I did that.”

“I know. You kept apologizing for catching me,” Wonder Woman says. She takes the weapons. “Every time you came in to sabotage Robin's pod, in fact.”

“So, no hard feelings?” he asks.

“No hard feelings,” she says. She seems amused by Peter’s relieved sigh.

“Is that everyone?” Steve asks Peter.

“Everyone I know of, yeah,” Peter says, shrugging. “Unless you count the ghosts.”

Steve pauses at that, glances at Tony, who shrugs in response before turning to Peter.

“Ghosts?” Tony asks.

“Yeah, the dead Avengers are in my head. I stole part of the Soul stone off of his Gauntlet when we trapped him on Titan, and then snatched the rest of it the last time he was here,” Peter says. “Just in case I couldn't break the portal machine, you know? He can’t do another Snap.”

“That would explain the voices we heard around you,” Nightwing says.

“Some of us more than others,” Red Hood mutters. “Tell your pal Bucky he can drop the snarky commentary.”

“Literally impossible, just be glad you haven’t heard anyone else,” Peter says.

Red Hood scoffs. Steve looks as if he’s been punched in the gut. Tony’s concern ratchets up another few thousand degrees.

“You’ve handled the Stone well,” Wong says, a little recovered from his ordeal. He still looks completely done in, and braces himself against Green Arrow to keep from swaying on his feet. “That’s good.”

“Wong, do you know how to reverse all of this?” Steve asks.

“We need to remove all of the stones from Thanos. Or the gauntlet, whichever is easier,” Wong says. “And then have someone use them to reverse everything Thanos has done. It will need to be someone strong enough to withstand holding the infinite power of the universe in their hand.”

The Avengers look to Thor. The Bats and Green Arrow look to Wonder Woman and Superman. The three gods blink at the sudden interest, look between each other. Thor is the first to speak.

“I was weakened by Thanos,” he says stiffly, obviously not happy to admit to losing a fight, even if its humbled him. Losing again to Superman hasn’t hurt his ego nearly as hard, but Tony suspects that’s because Superman was more interested in keeping him from hurting anyone while under mind control. “Otherwise they would not have been able to keep me chained like a dog.”

Wonder Woman sighs, rolling her shoulder as she adjusts the shield on her arm. “He might have done the same to me.”

Superman raises his hand. “I guess that leaves me?”

“So it would seem,” Thor says. Wonder Woman nods.

“Great, glad we got that settled,” Tony says. He turns to Peter. “So, we get the stone from you, give Supes the gauntlet, have him Snap, easy peasy.”

“It...doesn't work like that,” Wong says apologetically. “The Soul Stone is special. It isn’t something that can just be handed over to another person.”

“It's a soul for a Soul,” Peter says quietly. “You have to sacrifice a life for it. It's a one way thing. The sacrifice is permanent.”

“What was your sacrifice?” Natasha asks.

“I don't know,” Peter says, shrugging. He hesitates, adds, “I could make the sacrifice. I mean, anyone here could make it painless--”

Tony’s “Absolutely fucking not.” mingles with Batman’s flat, hard edged, “No.”

Peter blinks at both of them, then rubs the back of his head.

“Okay, so. Not that plan, I guess.” He sounds relieved, but frustrated as well. “But if the Gauntlet could hurt Thor or Wonder Woman, I don’t really stand a chance. You know? We’re just trading one death for a different, much more painful version.”

There isn’t a lot of argument against that. Tony thinks over the problem, moving from one unsatisfactory solution to another.

God, he hates magic.

“How the hell did Thanos even get the stone?” Clint asks, frustrated. “What did he sacrifice?”

“His daughter. It wasn’t a willing sacrifice. I can hear her in the stone sometimes, too. And...” Peter pauses, starts to say something, his eyes darting to Natasha briefly before snapping back. “And others. There’s a lot of people in the background I can hear if I stop and listen. It helped drown out the mind control sometimes. Bucky and Sam mostly, but the Guardians, and T’Challa and Shuri talk to me, too.”

The Avengers look shaken by this. The Bats take it in stride. Tony thinks back to the workshop.

“Is that why I heard Nick Fury tell me to run?” he asks.

“Ah, yeah,” Peter says, sheepish. “I wasn’t really in control when he did that. I was going to try and hurt you. Black Bat helped keep me from reaching you.” He pauses, looks at her and says, “Ow, by the way?”

“You recovered.”

“Huh,” Tony says, thinking. He shakes his head. “We’ve drifted off topic. We need to find another way to solve this that doesn’t involve roasting you alive with the full unrelenting power creation.”

“Tony's right. We find another way,” Steve says.

“We don't have time,” Natasha replies quietly. “Thanos will be here in an hour. Maybe less.”

For once, Steve looks lost. None of them are against the big sacrifice play, but all of them are against making that demand of someone else. Let alone the newest, youngest member of the Avengers. Steve glances at Peter, then the wall, wavering.

Tony has an idea. It's an ugly one, but it might work.

“Wong,” he says, thoughtful. Rhodey’s head snaps towards him. He knows that tone, and looks pained when he hears it. “What’s the range of a sacrifice for the soul stone? What would happen if, say, someone sacrificed themselves to get the stone out of someone?”

Peter looks puzzled. Rhodey slowly closes his eyes, and sighs. Red Robin's jaw clenches. Steve hasn't quite lost that hang dog look from before.

“I'm not an expert on that particular stone,” Wong says. “A soul, willing or not, is the price for the stone.”

Peter frowns at Tony, confused. “What?

The Bats have figured out his angle already. Red Robin grinds his teeth in frustration, gripping his bo staff tightly in both hands. The others look just as agitated, just as unhappy. A look of dawning horror crosses Rhodey's expression. Natasha and Clint have carefully neutral expressions on their faces. No one looks happy about this.

Except Batman. His expression is still deceptively passive, but Tony imagines he can see some approval there. Tony takes a deep breath.

And then it clicks for Peter. He glowers at Tony.

“No. Not happening. Not after we just went through--”

“If you think I'm letting you do this, you're insane,” Tony tells him flatly. He looks around the room. “All right. Everyone, give us the room. I need to talk to Spider-Man alone for a second.”

The others file out, slipping back into the hall. A not insignificant amount of them have enhanced hearing or suits with enhanced hearing capabilities, but Tony appreciates the thought. The illusion of privacy will help make this easier.

“Okay. Look, kid, there's only one way we get through this--”

“Don’t,” Peter snaps back. “You don’t know that will work. What if you just kill yourself for nothing?”

“Then you get to say ‘I told you so’ in the afterlife,” Tony quips. “You heard the magician. The sacrifice is non-negotiable.”

Peter’s jaw clenches, and he gets that dangerously stubborn look in his eye. Tony reaches down towards his own chest, sending the majority of the nanites to his hand. He gathers them up like a ball of clay, and then motions Peter closer. When he gets close, Tony claps a hand on his shoulder, sending the nanites over the thin armor the Black Order gave him. A smaller, less comprehensive version of the Iron Spider forms over the already existing suit, leaving Tony with boots, gauntlets, and a visor in place of a helmet. He won't need much of a suit. Peter glares at Tony, and Tony holds up a hand.

“I've got an idea,” he says. Just that simple phrase is enough to temper Peter’s stubborn glare into something hopeful. Tony pokes his head into the hall and calls out, “Hey, Boy Scout, I need you.”

Superman and Steve both answer, with eerily similar politeness, “Yes?”

They pause, regard each other with some amusement.

“The one that can fly,” Tony says. He adds, quickly, “Actually fly, not fall, hit the ground, and survive, Capsicle. We all know about your little moment inside SHIELD's headquarters.”

Steve scoffs. Superman walks over to Tony, tilting his head in question. Behind him, Steve shoots a look at Natasha.

“You told them about that?”

“Steve, teenagers around the world were making tiktok fan edits set to their favorite bass drops within an hour of it happening,” she says.

Steve sighs, exhausted. “Right. Tiktok.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Stark?” Superman asks.

Tony makes a face at that. “Gross. Call me Tony. And I need your help saving the day.”

He lays out his plan, quickly going over the most important parts.

Superman raises his eyebrows, tilting his head. He hums in thought.

“That may not work,” he says, as if reluctant to point out the obvious. “In my experience, all knowing gods and relics aren't the kind that appreciate tricks. There are some laws that they can't allow to be broken.”

“The simpler the law, the easier it is to weasel around it,” Tony says. “In my experience anyway. Will you do it?”

“Yes, obviously,” Superman says immediately, to Peter’s immense relief.

“Thanks, Supes, you're a good guy.”

Superman grins, bright and sunny, so much like the rare moments of shiny optimism Steve shows that it's eerie.

“It's pretty easy to be heroic around other heroes,” he says.

* * *

Tony lays out his plan to the others after that. No one looks particularly happy, but no one tries to veto the plan. The alternative is unacceptable.

Steve in particular seems to be the most at odds with it, but doesn’t argue. Tony is always up for an argument and will talk circles around him if he has to. He settles for brooding near Tony, making his unhappiness known without saying anything.

And Tony just can't help himself.

“What, jealous that I have more bird themed heroes on my side than you?” Tony asks. “You totally are. I can tell.”

Steve grins, though it fades quickly. Tony can see the doubt and guilt already starting to form behind the man’s eyes. He doesn’t like Tony's plan, and while he isn’t actively looking for a way to put a stop to it, he probably won’t intervene if Tim or Peter or the entire Bat clan decides to try and stop him. Which is just typical, really.

“Look out for the kid for me, yeah? He's more like you than me, anyway,” Tony says. “Good fit.”

“Sure, Tony,” Steve says after a moment.

Tony turns to Rhodey. Rhodey looks beaten down. Tony claps a hand on his shoulder.

“Can you take care of them?” Tony asks.

Them. Pepper. Peter. The child he might have fathered.

“You know I will,” Rhodey says. He stops, squints at Tony. “You’re up to something.”

“Nope, not at all,” Tony says, giving him an utterly innocent look as he walks towards the Bats. Rhodey smirks, the grief already beginning to melt away. He’s always believed in Tony.

“Okay, so. I need your help,” Tony tells the Bats. Well. Batman. The rest lounge or lurk dangerously in the half shadowed hallway. He can tell he has their full attention. Wonder Woman and Green Arrow stand slightly to the side, but are clearly comfortable letting Batman take the lead here. “I--”

“Need us to steal the Gauntlet off of Thanos after you essentially commit suicide distracting him,” Batman says flatly.

There's a beat of silence.

Tony turns to Red Robin. “I see where you get it now. No flare for the dramatic.” Tim smirks and Tony focuses back on Batman. “Essentially, yes. I doubt I'll hold his attention for long, but Cap and Thor are going to back me up until the hard part comes.”

“We can provide some good cover for the Bats,” Green Arrow says.

“Stealing the Gauntlet won't be a problem,” Batman says. “Protecting Spider-Man until Superman gets the Gauntlet will.”

“It's like you're reading my mind,” Tony says. “Can you keep him safe?”

Batman’s response is immediate, firm, and dry. “Obviously.”

“That’s all I need to hear,” Tony says.

Batman gives him a long look, and says, “It was smart to ask Superman to use it.”

Tony smirks at him.

“Well, I am a genius.”

* * *

Thanos is taking his time. Wonder Woman has them choose their battleground. Steve says the broken portal room would work best: big enough for their group, small enough that they can't be easily swarmed. She approves, as do the rest.

All that's left is the waiting. So they wait. And wait. Tony never thought he'd be so annoyed by being late to his own death.

Really, though, it's his nerves that bother him. The nagging doubts. The way this could all go wrong in so many ways.

Rhodey is the first one to break the silence.

“If Thanos has the stones, why wouldn't he just teleport here like he did in Wakanda?” Rhodey asks.

“He knows Iron Man is here, that he brought help, and that Spider-Man has broken through his mind control. So have the Avengers and Wonder Woman,” Batman says. “That, plus Superman, and Gotham's heroes would be enough to make him cautious.”

“He has every stone,” Rhodey counters. It isn’t a heated debate, more a strategic discussion over tactics. Tony can sense a kindred spirit between the two men.

“The stones can be difficult to wield,” Wong says. “Thanos hasn't attuned to them the way most hosts have.”

“And he’s still hurt from the Snap,” Peter adds. “He hides it, but apparently killing half the universe drains you.”

“And you've been annoying him every chance you get,” Natasha says. She’s perched up high, hidden among the Bats.

“I just ask the ghosts in my head to haunt him, that's all,” Peter says. “It's kind of a game to them.”

“Smart,” Nightwing says.

The Bats have surrounded Peter, hovering close to jump in and help him when things go to hell in the battle. Robin is the one standing closest to him, braced, silent and still, swords in hand. Tony is a little unnerved by the intense look on the kid’s face.

“It gave them something to do,” Peter retorts.

There's a distant, heavy clunk sound, followed by the sound of metal scraping across metal. The whole ship rattles and rumbles.

“He’s here,” Tony says.

* * *

A literal wave of outriders floods into the room, sprinting towards the heroes. The horde is feral, laser focused on Peter, crawling over one another in their frenzy.

Thor, Steve, and Wonder Woman meet the initial wave and it shatters against their combined attack. The wave stalls, losing momentum, creating chaos with the outriders turning to rip into each other when they get crushed from behind. Steve takes point, because of course he does. He commands the gods near him, and they leap to obey, cutting through the horde. Clint and Green Arrow pick off any outriders that try to break through, giving them cover. Superman waits in the wings, next to Tony.

“Thanos is on his way,” Steve says. He barely sounds winded. “Tony, are you ready?”

“Always.”

“Twenty seconds.”

Tony squints at the battle. It's chaos. He can barely see Steve, Thor, and Wonder Woman.

“You can cut through all of that in twenty seconds?”

There's a burst of activity. Outriders going flying in every direction, with the ones up in the air catching arrows from Green Arrow and Clint.

“Fifteen seconds,” Steve says, sounding a bit smug.

Tony scoffs. He’s been a terrible influence on that man.

Peter stands nearby, surrounded by the Bats, shifting restlessly from behind his restored suit. Tony can feel his eyes on him, can just barely hear the eerie ghostly murmurs of the souls in the Soul Stone.

“If you’ve got something you wanna say, kid, now's the time,” Tony says.

“If this doesn't work you'll have died for nothing,” Peter says immediately.

“It'll work,” Tony says. That answer obviously does nothing to comfort him. Tony shrugs. “If it doesn't, I'll pop into your head with the other ghosts and you can tell me ‘I told you so.’ I won't even argue over it.”

“A miracle,” Natasha murmurs, unseen in the dark.

Peter scoffs, but doesn’t argue further.

“Thanos is on the field. Tony, you're up.”

Tony claps a hand on Peter’s shoulder, fires up the repulsors on his significantly weaker suit, and leaps into the path left behind by Steve, Thor, and Wonder Woman. He weaves between packs of outriders, ignoring them. Ones that leap too close are shot through by arrows or shredded by batarangs. His focus is on Thanos, who leans heavily to one side as he stalks towards the three gods holding his army at bay.

Tony makes his entrance by zipping past Thanos, hitting him with a full blast from his gauntlet. Thanos blinks, turns to glower at him. He isn’t hurt in the slightest.

“Stark,” he says, the word dripping with scorn. “I don't have time for this--”

Tony sees Wonder Woman shielding Natasha as she makes her move towards Thanos' gauntlet. He pours another blast into Thanos’ eyes, hoping to temporarily blind him.

“Make time,” Tony says cheerfully. His tone drips with the self confident arrogance he heard from Lex Luthor. A tone that drives any sane person into unthinking fury. “I'm the most important person you'll meet today.”

He never sees the blow coming. One moment, he's smirking at Thanos, the next he's on the ground, a hole the size of Thanos’ fist in his chest.

The comms come alive with a furious cry. Tony can’t tell who it comes from. Steve, Thor, one of the Bats. Peter.

“Pathetic,” Thanos says.

The pain is starting to sink in. So is the blood loss. His vision grows dark at the edges, and there's a curious numbness sinking into his limbs.

Tony still finds the breath and strength to grin up at Thanos and say:

“Got you.”

* * *

He snaps awake. He's laying face down on a smooth, dark floor, surrounded by warm orange light. He hears distant murmurs, feels warm water under his hands as he pushes himself up onto his feet. He looks at his chest and finds no wounds. When he moves, there's no pain, not even the usual pain he's grown around with age.

Well, at least he won't be in pain for all eternity.

He looks around, at a loss of what to do, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees Natasha standing nearby.

Natasha watches him, a small, secretive smile on her face. Tony squints at her, tracking the differences between Natasha here and the Natasha he saw moments ago.

“You aren’t my Nat,” he says, tense.

Her eyes twinkle, the way they do when he’s puzzled through one of her little secrets.

“No, but I am a Natasha,” she says. “It's complicated.”

“Isn't it always,” Tony says dryly. “Different universes? Clone?”

“Different universe. We don’t survive every time. One or both of us makes the sacrificial play,” she tells him. She shrugs at his horrified look. “Infinity includes infinity.”

He chews on that, then raises an eyebrow at her. “So, you’re working from the inside. Making Thanos struggle with the Gauntlet in every other version of this.”

“Not just me. But yes.”

“You're the one who gave Peter the stone?”

“Yes,” she says.

Disturbing. Of course infinity includes infinity, timelines and all. “How does that play out in different--”

“Not your problem,” she tells him.

He scoffs, considers her. When Natasha says no, there's no changing her mind. And he wouldn't want to try. Every decision she makes is a victory against her history.

Another thought hits him. His stomach goes cold.

“You know my little trick,” he says. “What I want Superman to do.”

“Yes, and normally it wouldn't work,” she says. She shrugs at his confused look. “I can make it work this time. As a favor to a friend.”

He tilts his head. “Is the friend me, or the kid?”

Another smirk. She doesn't reply.

“See you around, Tony,” she says, snapping her fingers.

* * *

Tony pops back into existence in a blink. Gone, and then suddenly standing in the center of the room, surrounded by a crowd. There isn’t even any blood where he died. He feels fine. Better than fine, actually. Healthier than he has in years; no back pain, no lingering ache when he breathes, nothing related to the usual aches and pains that come from a life spent combating aliens in a metal suit.

He's also wearing something like his nanite suit.

“That worked a treat,” he says, utterly pleased with himself. He turns to face the man who saved him. “Thanks, Supes.”

“Gosh, that stings,” Superman says, yanking the Gauntlet off with a flinch before handing it over to Batman. “And you’re welcome, Mr. Stark.”

“If you weren’t a living god, I’d bully you so hard,” Tony says, crossing the distance between them to help.

“When has that stopped you before?” Steve asks dryly, helping steady Superman alongside Wonder Woman. “I remember you and Thor going back and forth for hours at a time at the compound.”

“Yeah, but Thor is a little snarky. Supes is a sweetheart. Feels mean,” Tony says.

“I have missed you too, Stark,” Thor says.

“I brought everyone back,” Superman says, his voice half slurring. The gauntlet really took a lot out of him. “When I brought you back. All the people he killed. Everywhere.”

“You did more than just bring me back,” Tony says, letting his suit scan himself. He blinks at the results. No misshapen ribs, no massive scar tissue across his chest where the arc reactor used to be, a sternum that isn’t held in place by nuts and bolts. “Hell, you changed my suit, too.”

“I didn’t like the idea of you always being in pain,” Superman admits. “So, I asked if you could come back whole. As for your suit--” And here he looks sheepish. “I'm more familiar with Kryptonian technology. Sorry. I did my best.”

“Don’t apologize, pal, you just gave me a new project,” Tony says, eyes scanning over the different design. There are thousands of tiny crystals woven into the nanite suit, and Tony is itching to take it apart to study.

“That hand is going to be useless for a long time,” Batman says, examining the wound on Superman’s arm. “You’ll need to be treated for burns.”

“Feels like I shoved it into a kryptonite bonfire,” Superman admits.

A golden portal flashes into life beside them, bringing in Dr. Strange, Sam Wilson, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Winter Soldier, T'Challa, Shuri, and oddly, Hank Pym and his family. Peter comes out of his shock when he sees them, and grins when the group surrounds him. Bucky claps his shoulder before moving towards Steve. Sam grins at him. T'Challa smiles, nodding briefly. The Guardians swarm him like family, lifting him up and hugging him. Hank Pym and his family--Tony suddenly recalls their names: Janet and Hope--greet him just as warmly as the Guardians, but without the rowdy exuberance. Wanda walks towards him, distracted, briefly places a warm hand on his shoulder and moves to stand separate from the others.

Tony lets them get it out of their systems, then walks over to Peter.

“See? Told you it'd work out just fine,” he says, still half paying attention to the suit scan on his HUD.

“I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I,” Peter says, sounding drained, but relieved.

Tony grins. “Absolutely not.”

Peter’s eyeroll is equal parts amused and exasperated. He looks exhausted, as if he’s just set down a weight too heavy to bear.

“Think you’ve earned a vacation after this, Spidey,” Tony says.

“I'll settle for a nap,” he says.

“We need to take care of the Gauntlet,” Steve says, looking at the stones lining the massive golden relic. He pauses and adds, “Wait, where are the stones?”

“I destroyed them,” Superman says. The ugly burn on his arm is much worse than Tony first realized. The burn has spread across half of his body, the supersuit flaking away from burns. “Tony’s suggestion. Keep this from happening again. Keep anyone from using them--”

His words are growing less certain and sure. Batman looks outright alarmed, as does Green Arrow. Wonder Woman helps Steve steady him.

“We need to get him home,” Batman says.

“We have a portal leading back to Gotham on the other side of the ship,” Red Robin says.

“Let’s go,” Batman says. He still has the Gauntlet tucked under one arm, and keeps hold of it as they start to move.

“Taking home a souvenir?” Tony asks.

“Yes,” Batman says. “It might be safer in our universe than yours.”

“Good idea,” Steve says, helping guide Superman to the portal. “It could be used as a symbol for people like Thanos. That makes it dangerous, even without the stones.”

Tony can’t argue against that logic. “I'll move the portal to the Avengers Compound after you guys go through. We can fine tune it together after you get Supes back home.”

Batman tilts his head, regarding him silently. It’s clear he’s focused on Superman, wants to get him back to their Earth to help him, but Tony has his interest for the moment.

Tony shrugs, smirking. “I’m a star witness against Lex Luthor. Oh, also--” Tony beams. “I’ve got work on Monday. My boss is a real stickler for attendance. He even showed up inside my condo.”

Red Robin scoffs at that.

“It isn’t a bad idea to keep a door open between our universes,” Steve says thoughtfully. “You guys pulled through for us. I’d like to have a chance to repay the favor.”

“Same here,” Clint says. He’s watching Superman with the same near hero worship people tend to reserve for Steve. “You brought back my family. I won’t forget that.”

“And I’d like to visit Gotham without getting punched in the face,” Peter adds.

“Sorry,” Red Hood says.

“You totally aren’t sorry,” Peter retorts.

“Yeah, not really.”

They reach the portal. Tony steps forward and checks over the machine. It’s thrumming with power, holding steady. He flicks a few switches and watches the portal rip open in front of them, leading back to the twisted spire in Crime Alley.

Superman is hanging between Wonder Woman and Steve, half conscious. Steve carefully switches places with Batman, moving to stand with the Avengers. Tony glances at the Bats.

“Thanks for the help,” he says. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

They grin at him, and turn to leave. The portal fires, flares, seals. Leaving the Avengers standing alone in the ship. The Avengers are silent for a moment, absorbing everything that’s just occurred.

“Well,” Nick Fury says dryly. “We’re in for one hell of a debrief.”

Chapter Text

Three months pass by. Tony has the portal machine installed in the Avengers Compound. Batman puts his side of the portal inside the Hall of Justice. Heroes from both sides pop over to visit, to plan, to coordinate. Gotham heroes in particular make a game of sneaking through the portal and into New York City unseen, where they’re only noticed when someone posts a picture on social media of Nightwing and Spider-Man racing each other through the city, or Robin dropping from the shadows to serve as back up for him. Even Batman drops in from time to time to check on him, which Tony is only mildly annoyed by.

The other heroes at least give a heads up before visiting.

Superman is still hurt, burned on one half of his body. He’s healing, but it’s slow, and painful, leaving ugly burn wounds that require careful tending. Despite that, he handles every meeting with a good mood, even if he can’t help much during the bigger fights. Or the little ones. Really, he’s mostly there because the Justice League becomes visibly off kilter and unbalanced when he isn’t there. Batman always hovers near him during the meetings where all of the heroes gather, looming quietly beside his friend, silently guarding his weak side.

Metropolis doesn’t have Superman, but it does have the Avengers. Steve in particular steps in, often bringing Sam with him, to handle the day to day threats that plague the city, working as a street level hero while Wonder Woman steps in to handle the heavier threats, often with back up from Steve. The two work well together, and earn more than a few glowing stories from the Daily Planet when they thwart a kaiju attack during a Superman Day parade.

Tony thinks there’s something more going on there, but he’s too busy to go digging. He’ll poke and prod at Steve during their holiday party at the Hall of Justice to find out more.

Today, he’s in Gotham. He’s dressed smart, idly chewing on a toothpick from lunch, testing out his phone on the network he and Bruce have been cooking up in their free time. Peter is standing beside him, eating a second sandwich from the food truck a friendly bus driver directed Tony to several months ago.

“Your friend was right, this place is great,” Peter says around bites. He finishes his sandwich, sighs happily, and glances around, adjusting the sleek vibranium metal band resting beneath his webshooters. A gift from the Wakandan royal family. “So, why are we in Gotham again?”

“Need to tie up a few loose ends at Wayne Enterprises, set up a few automatic payments to a few places,” Tony says, walking back towards his car. The phone in his hand doesn’t lose signal from his home universe, which means the network is good. They won’t have to keep poking their noses into each other’s front doors to call for help or check in on each other. Good. “I figured you’d get snatched up by a friendly bird or two while I handle the boring stuff.”

“You say that like they’re going to just kidnap me,” Peter says, amused. He follows Tony to the car.

“Trust me, kid, if they wanted to kidnap you, they’d do it. And it’d take me a week to figure out where they took you,” Tony says dryly. “Come on, I need to quit my job and donate some cash. And return a favor.”

Peter tilts his head, amused. “A favor?”

“I jumped a fare on the bus awhile back,” Tony says, much to Peter’s increasing and confused amusement. “I’ll tell you the story on the way.”

* * *

“Lou! No overtime today, go home!”

“What do you mean no overtime? You hounded us for--”

“We don’t have the budget for it, sorry,” the supervisor says, giving him a shrug. “Go home.”

He was banking on that extra cash. Linda needs meds, the kids need shoes--

Lou sighs, closing his tool box.

“You’re on day shift again tomorrow,” the supervisor reminds him before disappearing into his office where the air is far less cold, if not quite comfortable.

Lou doesn’t even remember the guy’s name. Management never sticks around long in the Crime Alley part of the department. They get their time in and transfer out as quickly as they can. He doesn’t bother learning their name; they’re almost always gone in six months.

He works on rotating shifts. Two weeks on mornings, two weeks on swing, two weeks on night shift. No one likes the night shift, which is why it’s mandatory for everyone. He’s just finished a hard switch from nights to days, and he’s dragging ass. Morning shifts are half nights; he gets up at 3am to ride a subway full of drunks to the garage in the middle of Crime Alley, works until early afternoon, clocks in for overtime, and comes home just before the evening rush hour. All in all, he spends an hour going to and coming from work, and nearly twelve hours a day out of his home when overtime kicks in.

Today, he takes the subway an extra few stops.

The young woman behind the desk recognizes him, and smiles warmly. “Hi, Lou. I wondered if you were going to come in today.”

“Hiya, Barbara,” Lou says, pulling a carefully folded piece of paper out of his pocket. Motor grease smears across the paper and he self consciously rubs at it with a thumb stained black from that same grease. “You, uh, mind finding a few books for me?”

He doesn’t feel comfortable in the library. Books aren’t really his thing. He prefers good beer, fresh wings, and whatever sport is currently showing on ESPN for his wind down time, preferably a Gotham Knights game. But his sister is a different story, and his niece and nephew take after her wholeheartedly. Linda’s too sick to go to the library these days, so the kids write out a list of books they want and Lou dutifully treks down to the main library in Old Gotham once a week to get them. It isn’t that he can’t read, just that he doesn’t get as much out of it as his sister and the kids. He isn’t a stupid man, just a simple one.

He’s secretly glad his niece and nephew don’t take after him. He wants better for them.

Barbara takes the paper out of his hand and unfolds it, ignoring the grease stains entirely as she sets it on her desk. She smiles. “Redwall, huh?”

Lou grins, thinking of his niece and nephew. “I’ve been hearin’ about this mouse fella every week for the past month.”

“It says you have an overdue fee,” she says, frowning.

Lou winces. He overslept last week, and missed the return time by a day; he always loses track of time when he’s on night shift. “That’s my fault. Forget it, I’ll come back after my paycheck comes in tomorrow--”

“It’s already taken care of,” she says primly.

He frowns at her, confused as first, until it hits him. The library has a fund set aside to pay off overdue fees for patrons who aren’t able to afford it.

“Oh, uh, no, no, Miss Gordon, that’s for people who really need it--” Lou starts.

“We have to use or lose that money, Lou. Don’t worry, there's plenty to go around,” Barbara says. She leans up and sets the small stack of books on the counter for him. “Same time next week?”

“Yeah, same time next week,” Lou says with relief, carefully tucking the books under his arm. “Thanks.”

“I’ll make sure the next few books in the series come in before then,” she says. “Stay safe, Lou.”

One of the standard goodbyes in Gotham. Stay safe. Be careful. Be smart.

“You too,” he says, and he means it. She's in a wheelchair. There's all kinds of monsters who think that makes her an easy mark, and he would hate to watch the news and see her name there.

He likes Barbara. She’s always been nice to him, and always goes out of her way to help him find whatever he’s looking for. She’s taken a liking to him ever since she found him wandering the aisles of the young readers section, utterly lost and holding a list of books to pick up for the kids and his sister.

He heads home, taking the subway. The bus would be cheaper, but he’s had enough of that for one day.

* * *

The kids shout when they see him come through the door, jumping up from the couch to charge towards him and cling to him. He has just enough time to set the library books down before they reach him. He bends down and lifts both of them up, one in each arm, planting a kiss on the cheek of each. They’re growing, getting bigger by the day, and he knows eventually he’ll set them down for the last time and never be able to swing them up into a proper hug again. His back won’t be able to tolerate it. It barely tolerates it now, really. But he pushes through it. He can hold them for one more day.

“You two behaving for your mom?” he asks, hauling them back into the living room, one under each arm. He gets a chorus of ‘yeah!’ and ‘yes!’ from them between bursts of laughter. They giggle and flail around, then wiggle free to drop back onto the couch. “Go wash up, I’ll start dinner after I check on your mom.”

They scamper off. Lou goes to the bedroom door at the end of the hall, knocks on the door, and pokes his head in. His sister is propped up by half flat pillows stacked high against her back in his bed, gaunt and pale, clearly struggling to pull herself awake as he steps into the room.

“How are you feeling?” Lou asks.

Linda smiles. “Tired, but that’s nothing new.”

“Well, that means the medicine’s working.”

At least, that’s what Dr. Thompkins says. He hopes she’s right. He doesn’t know what he’d do without his little sister. Linda watches him, frowning, and he blinks at her.

“What?”

“Lou, if this next treatment goes bad--” she starts.

Some people just don’t get better when they’re given the treatment for Scarecrow’s gas. They just get sicker. Lou grips his hands together and says, gruffly, “It won’t. You’re tough. Tougher than me.”

“If it does,” she says, speaking over him calmly. “I don’t want you to blame yourself. You’re working yourself into an early grave doing all of this, Lou. The kids can’t lose you, too. Promise me.”

“I promise,” he lies.

She sees through it. She could always read him as easily as those big books she keeps on the nightstand.

She reaches out and squeezes his hand, and says, “Thank you, Lou.”

* * *

He makes dinner for everyone. Simple stuff, but the kids eat it up around telling him about school. They talk over each other in their excitement, and it takes an effort to keep track of the names, subjects, and homework assignments, but he does his best. He washes the dishes while they do homework and shuffles them to bed before they grab the library books. They won’t sleep at all if they get hold of them.

He didn’t grow up wanting to be a bus driver. He didn’t want to be anything, just have a good time with the friends he had that survived growing up in Gotham with him. He lucked into the bus driver gig when he was twenty and found it good enough to stick with it. College was never going to work out for someone like him, and he knew it. The union paid well and it came with benefits better than most high school graduates could hope for. Especially for the ones that barely pass. Linda was the smart one, always has been. It’s not fair that she gets stuck with the short end of the stick.

It’s not an easy life, but it’s a good one. At least, as good as an honest man can get in Gotham. He was never going to be a rich man, and the best he can hope for is an easy retirement where he can sit at his favorite bar, drinking beer and joking around with the guys.

* * *

The day his life changes for the better starts the same as any.

His alarm clock buzzes, startling him out of a deep sleep. He’s not as young as he used to be, and he wakes up with a sore back and aching hip from the cheap couch he’s been sleeping on for the past six months. He should replace it, but the kids need new coats before winter and Linda’s medicine isn’t getting any cheaper. He sighs, shutting off the alarm clock before hauling himself up out of bed to shower and dress.

He makes himself breakfast and quickly puts together cold cut sandwiches for the kids to take to school. He sets out Linda’s medicine next to her favorite mug and a bag of tea, listening to Vicki Vale on the news read out the latest atrocities from the night before. Some new hero--Iron Man?--just swept through Gotham to help the Bats with something. The new guy in Metropolis--Captain America--stepped in to give kids tours at the Superman museum while Superman is out of town. The weatherman comes onto the broadcast to tersely inform everyone that the weather for Gotham is miserable and won’t get any better, so get used to it. Lou switches off the TV just as someone knocks on his door.

He answers it, and can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.

Timothy Drake-Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, is standing at the door of his dingy apartment, dressed as if he’s about to give an interview on national news.

“Mr. Freeman?” At Lou’s shocked nod, he smiles. “Good morning. Can I come in?”

“I, uh, yeah, sure,” Lou says, shuffling aside for him. He sniffs the air, wondering if he’s just been hit by some wild hallucinogenic gas cloud that’s drifted into the block, but it smells clean. “Are you--I mean--”

“I’m here on behalf of Tony Stark. He asked me to deliver this to you before leaving town,” Tim says, standing politely next to the kitchen table. The apartment isn’t that big. “He’s leaving you quite a large gift to repay you for a favor.”

Lou frowns at Tim, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. Rich people always make him nervous. He tries to steer clear of them as a rule.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Drake, but I don’t think you have the right guy,” Lou says.

“I do,” Tim says patiently. “I understand this is quite the shock, but Mr. Stark was very clear about his instructions. He’s leaving behind the profits of his inventions he’s created for Wayne Enterprises, as well as the repair shop he built on Parker Row.”

“I don’t know anything about running a repair shop,” Lou says. He shifts uncomfortably and adds, “Or any business. I just--I don’t got the head for that stuff. It’ll die in a month if you give it to me.”

And he can’t afford to switch careers. Linda and the kids are on his insurance. Leaving a sure thing like that would be financial suicide. He’d never recover.

“Mr. Stark was very clever with his contract. Wayne Enterprises will keep the shop running, and half of the profits will go to you,” Tim explains patiently. “He’s also passed all of his executive benefits package onto you. It’s unorthodox, but not something we have any reason to rescind. He was very clever with that part of his contract, I have to admit.”

Lou pauses. “Benefits?”

“Health insurance, retirement fund, legal representation, things of that nature,” Tim explains.

Everyone knows the Wayne Enterprises health insurance is worth moving to the heart of Crime Alley for. “Can my sister and her kids get on that health plan?”

“Of course.”

He sways, then sits down at the kitchen table. “Okay. Do I need to sign anything or--”

“No, that isn’t necessary,” Tim says. He hands a folded, slim piece of paper over to Lou. “Your only requirement is to read this. Mr. Stark asked that I give this to you before he left town.”

Lou frowns, taking the paper. He still doesn’t remember meeting any Mr. Stark, and he’s sure they have the wrong guy--

He reads the note. Pauses, laughs.

Written in slanted blue ink is a single sentence:

Thanks for the umbrella.

-TS