When Tony Stark wakes up slumped against the wall of a strange room with stars glittering outside the windows, he decides that he was either drunk last night or had somehow managed to get himself kidnapped. When he remembers that he was up all night working on a prototype suit, he decides it was the latter.
He spins around when he hears muttered curses coming from behind him and curses himself. God, everyone is here–Rhodey, Vision, Wanda, Clint (where’d the sides of his hair go?), Nat (okay, her hair’s blonde), Sam, Barnes (good God, his hair’s longer), the Wakandan king, T’Challa, the shrink-y guy (Ant-Man? Termite-Man?), his Spider-Kid, Peter, and Steve. The dude doesn’t have the same clean-shaven, All-American look anymore–his beard is full and his hair falls into his face, and God, Tony can’t even look at him in the face anymore—his insides twist.
All in all, Tony decides that he definitely wasn’t drunk last night.
(What is with all this new hair?)
Then there’s a grunting, growling sound towards the back of the room has Tony looking past the Avengers towards the shadowy wall, and that’s the Hulk. Bruce Banner. Holy—
“Shit!” Sam yells, stumbling backwards a few steps and nearly tripping over a seat. The Hulk takes a look around him and grunts irritably, noting the Avengers and rolling his eyes at them.
“Holy shit,” Tony echoes, half to himself, because holy shit, Bruce Banner, one of his best friends, his science bro (Tony doesn’t even know where that name came from), is standing twenty feet away from him. “Holy shit, Bruce?”
That seems to displease the Hulk, who thumps a fist on his chest. “No Banner, only Hulk!”
“Uh, right,” Tony says. “Hey, big guy, mind giving us Bruce back for a minute?”
The Hulk shakes his head, almost petulantly, and insists, “No Banner! Only Hulk!”
A bright flash momentarily blinds Tony, and everyone is silent and then all hell breaks loose, because Loki is standing not twenty feet away from them in the back of the room near the Hulk, knives outstretched and a feral look in his eyes. There’s someone standing behind him, and the way Loki stands isn’t exactly protective but he’s most certainly trying to shield someone. But then he sees their faces—the faces of the Avengers, new and old, and rolls his eyes. “Typical.”
“Damn you, Loki,” a familiar voice speaks up from behind the trickster, and Loki steps aside. “What did you do this time?”
“Nothing, brother,” Loki hisses. “Merely berating myself for leaving you alone with Thanos.”
“Oh, please.”
“Um, will someone please explain what’s going on here?” Someone—Tony thinks it’s Clint—demands. And Tony thinks he demands rightly, because that's the guy that tried to murder them and the rest of the population of New York and he's standing right there, and right beside him is someone who Tony has to assume is Thor. His figure is too shadowed to make out, but the silhouette of the cape and deep voice are telling enough.
The Hulk’s expression sours, and he grunts exasperatedly. “Lackey. Thor. Where—”
Another echo of bright light stops the Hulk in his tracks, and when Tony’s vision clears, there’s a woman standing there, silvery markings on her face and exotic clothing on and a bottle in each hand. She surveys the room, sighs, then knocks back a swig.
“Angry girl!” The Hulk exclaims cheerfully from his position a few meters from her. She turns her head and smirks a little.
“Hey, big guy! Long time, no see, eh?”
Instead of just acknowledging her, the Hulk rushes forwards, fist outstretched and ready to hit her (and probably snap her neck). Natasha stands up straighter at that, and opens her mouth. “Hey—!”
The strange woman laughs, bottles still in hand, and ducks under the blow. And sure, Tony finds that impressive, but still doable. But his jaw drops down when she kicks against the backs of Hulk’s knees and sends him sprawling. He tries to rise, but she kicks him in the jaw and knocks him down again. She then sits down on his broad back, tipping the other bottle back. The Hulk tries to get up, but she stomps on his back and he flops down.
“Um, if I may—” Rogers starts, seemingly trying to alleviate the tension. The weird chick spins, and as fast as a whip, she chucks the empty bottle at him. It breaks right next to his head, and he ducks away, startled. She smirks smugly. “No, you may not.”
Honestly, Tony shares the sentiment. He can see himself getting along with this girl.
“Ah, your Majesties!” She announces, throwing her arms wide. “Now, if you don’t mind–”
She steps off the Hulk in the direction of all the Avengers, facing them. “Who are these people?”
Loki smirks at her. “These are the Avengers.”
She raises an eyebrow and turns to face him. “The what? Sounds an awful lot like...” She smirks and then full-on laughs, taking another swig of the bottle. “So that’s where he got the idea.” She shrugged, stepping on and over the Hulk and knocking him back to the floor. He gets up with a grunt and a bit of a smile (God, is the Hulk fond of this chick?), and she continues, still laughing. “Stupid name, anyway. I mean, wh–what kind of name is the Revengers?”
“It was the best I could think of!” That familiar voice insisted indignantly, stepping out of the shadows. “It’s not like I had the time to think of my badass team name!”
She scoffs and tips the bottle back one final time, but it’s empty. She shakes it for a moment, then sighs resignedly and chucks it at Loki, who catches it with a roll of his eyes. But Tony’s not paying attention to them, because holy shit that isThor.
The Goldilocks hair is gone, cropped short and darker than it had been. His armor is different, more worn, and his cape is torn off one one shoulder. His face is bruised and a bit bloody, but that’s not what Tony was paying attention to, because the most pressing difference was the patch covering his left eye.
His friend was missing a freaking eye.
“I mean, seriously.” Thor continues, stepping past Loki and closer to her and the Hulk. “What’s a better option? The–the Fantastic Four?” Loki gives him a deadpan look and gestures to the three of them. “No, I was including Banner in this,” Thor explains. “You know—Valkyrie, me, Banner, and the big guy!”
The Hulk roars, seemingly enraged, and repeats himself. “No Banner, only Hulk!”
He takes a swing at Thor, attempting to take him down, but the god only sidesteps and shoves him away, causing the green creature to stumble back. “Oh, get over it, you big baby.”
The Hulk plops down petulantly and crosses his arms, looking away from the group.
The Avengers, both former and current, were watching the exchange with wide eyes, witnessing the Hulk’s newfound intelligence and Thor’s evident camaraderie with these unlikely… creatures.
A large, threatening shape that resembles a boulder steps out of the shadows from behind Thor and Loki. It isn’t quite as big as the Hulk, but it’s significantly bigger than Thor. There is a smaller, bug-like shape beside it, and a dark-skinned man standing behind him, a sword slung over his back.
God, can Tony’s life get any weirder?
The boulder waves cheerfully. “Hey, guys! I’m Korg! Yes, this big pile of rocks, waving at you! I’m actually a thing; I’m a being.” Korg gestures to the weird slimy thing beside him. “This here is Miek. He’s got knives for hands.”
Thor turns from his argument with the Hulk and eyes the rock pile curiously. “That is exactly what you said to me when I showed up in the arena. Is that your, like, rehearsed line or something?”
Loki rolls his eyes viciously and turns away. The Hulk, seemingly not over his and Thor’s little spat, makes a move to push Thor again, but the demigod snaps his fingers, and sparks fly. Literally.
The Hulk is knocked backwards several feet by the mini lightning bolt that Thor conjures. The Hulk snarls irritatedly and Thor raises an eyebrow at him. “You want to go round two?”
The Hulk snorts. “Thor cheat.”
The god splutters. “Cheat?” he demands. “How did I cheat? I won that fight. It’s not my fault that the Grandmaster zapped me with that stupid disk so I couldn’t finish it!” As he talks, Thor gestures vaguely towards the side of his neck.
The Hulk snorts. “Thor weak. Thor no win.”
Korg begins chanting under his breath. “Thunder, thunder, thunder!”
“Oh, please—”
“All right, enough!” Rhodey announces. “Someone explain what the hell is going on here!”
The strange girl winds up to throw something, but realizes that she’d thrown her last piece of ammunition at Loki. She claps her hands and gestures for him to give it back. He rolls his eyes and tosses it back at her. She catches it and makes to throw it at Rhodey, but Thor stops her.
“Valkyrie, wait a moment.”
She turns to him, bottle still in hand, and makes an expectant face. “What is it, Your Majesty?”
He rolls his eyes (eye?), reaching out and pushing her arm down. Just as quickly, her other arm comes up holding the bottle. He pushes that one down too.
Hell, this is Tony’s kind of girl.
“I know them,” Thor tells her. “I knew them before I knew you.”
Her expectant face remains. “So? Where were they?”
Wanda speaks up for the first time. Her eyes are tinged with red, wary. “Where were we when?”
Valkyrie scoffs and turns to Thor again, jabbing his chest with a finger. “My point exactly.”
The look on new-Thor’s face is pure discomfort, and he laughs uneasily and turns away. “Loki, how did we get here? Is this your doing?”
“You think I’d want to be anywhere near these fools?”
“Hey.” Tony complains. “We’re not fools.”
“Forgive me,” Loki says acidly. “You think I’d want to be anywhere near these utter buffoons?”
“Hey, these utter buffoons kicked your ass a few years ago!” Tony insists, crossing his arms. Thor smirks, the Hulk snorts, and Valkyrie full-out laughs.
At Loki’s expense, apparently. “Oh, Odin!” She doubles over, still cackling and pointing at Loki. “You lost to a bunch of—a bunch of Terrans!”
That was almost more insulting than Loki’s ‘fools’ comment. Loki tells her, almost petulantly, “A human killed Ronan the Accuser a few years ago.”
She finds that unimpressive and scoffs. “Yeah, with Thanos’s daughter and an Infinity Stone!”
“I had two Infinity Stones!” Loki insists, then seems to frown. Tony didn’t even know if he was helping or harming his argument. Valkyrie doesn’t seem to, either. She settles with, “Exactly.”
Clint stares blankly around at all the faces, both familiar and unfamiliar. “I feel like we missed a lot.”
The Hulk grunts. “Hawk-man did.”
Clint splutters while Natasha and Sam laugh. “Hawk-man?”
“All right, enough!” Thor announces. And to Tony’s surprise, the strange group of newcomers actually listen to him–even the Hulk. Sure, the Valkyrie girl crosses her arms, Loki rolls his eyes, and the Hulk snorts once more at Clint, but largely, they stop arguing and look to him for direction.
“All right,” Wanda says, eyes tinged with scarlet and her accent coming through more now with stress. “What’s going on here?”
The Valkyrie studies her for a second, noting the red tinge of her eyes, and throws the other bottle at her. Wanda flicks her hand and it shatters against a wall of red magic. Valkyrie points at it, nudging Loki. “Now that’s cool. Better than your green sparkly magic, eh, Lackey?”
“For the last time, it’s Loki!”
“Valkyrie.” Thor reprimands, half-exasperatedly, half-exhaustedly. She turns on her heel to face him and jabs a thumb in Wanda’s direction. “What? It’s better than his!” When she sees the expression on Thor’s face, she sighs. “Fine.”
“Loki, can you send them back?” Thor asks, indicating the Avengers scattered around the back of the room. “We really need to get out of here.”
Loki studies them, then nods. Clint puts up his hands, as though saying hang on a second. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says. “Are we just going to trust him? You know, the guy that tried to take over the entire Earth, like, five years ago?”
Loki looks like he wants to say a few choice words to the archer—hell, Tony has a few for the dude, too; just not about Loki—but Thor interrupts. “Yes, you are, because it’s your best bet to not be captured and tortured by the Mad Titan.”
The dark-skinned man cuts Thor a sharp look, and he shrugs helplessly. “What?”
“I would not have put it that way.” The man rumbles. “But it’s true, he draws near. We must hurry.”
Thor points a finger at him, as though saying see? I’m right! But then his brow furrows thoughtfully. “Loki, you’ve still got the Tesseract, right?”
At his brother’s confirming nod, Thor continues. “What if you gave it to them, so he can’t get it?”
“And have three Infinity Stones on one planet?” Loki says. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“Oh, have you got a better one?” Thor crosses his arms over his chest, seemingly not noticing the electricity his arms are giving off.
“Chuck it out the window,” Valkyrie suggests.
“Make the beast swallow it,” Loki counters.
The Hulk glowers at the trickster. “Hulk won't swallow glowy square.”
“Yeah, that’s a worse idea than ‘get help,’” Valkyrie admits.
“Hey, that works!” Thor interjects indignantly. “Every time.”
“Thor, we must hurry.” The weird guy with the ancient eyes warns, peering out one of the windows that opened up to show the endless stars. “He draws nearer.”
“Look, at least this way we can slow him down.” Thor says, aiming his words towards his brother. “If he could track the Space Stone, it would take him ages to reach Midga—Earth with any sort of efficiency.”
Loki throws his hands up, and the air shimmers and then the Tesseract is falling into existence right above Peter, who had been watching the whole exchange, awe-struck. He yelps and reflexively grabs hold of it when it nearly clobbers him on the head. “Uh, Mr. Stark? What do I do with this?”
Valkyrie rolls her eyes and swaggers over, her paces slightly uneven with alcohol. “Hold onto it.” She folds his fingers around the Tesseract and shoves it against his chest. “Give it to your Treasurer, or–or a Collector.” She pretends to hand it over to some unseen person facing Peter. “And then forget about it.” She mimes an explosion around her temples, as though her mind has been blown by her sheer genius.
Loki hisses to her, “They don’t have Treasurers. Or Collectors.”
The woman shrugs and steps back, Peter forgotten. “Sounds boring.”
“Your Majesty.” The dark-skinned man says to Thor insistently. “We must go now.”
“Loki,” Thor orders, and the god of mischief spreads his hands, now sparking with green light. Before anyone else can protest, Tony’s gaze is enveloped by a green light and then he’s standing in the middle of a garbage dump surrounded by his fellow Avengers and mounds of junk (some of them are indiscernible from the trash). “Uh, Vision, where are we?” Tony asks his fellow Avenger.
“Puente Hills Landfill.” Vision informs him. “The largest landfill in the world. And we appear to be in the center of it.”
Clint’s echoed curse could be heard for miles. “Mother-f—"