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Chapter Text

It was obvious that the problem was really big, Bruce thought, when the whole team enthusiastically decided to run a training exercise together in order to get a break. Except they weren’t all together, which was the crux of the whole matter and the training only served to highlight how much they needed Steve Rogers. Clint and Natasha were experts in their respective fields and competent leaders, just not for the type of high profile team The Avengers were. They specialized in solo or small ops that took place in the shadows. Plus, Clint couldn’t be budged from his farm, wife and kids and was enjoying his retirement. No one had ever, in his entire life, called Tony an excellent team player and the public wasn’t particularly thrilled with the idea of giving Stark more power. Wanda, well, she was a bit too recently affiliated with terrorists for anyone’s comfort and her head still wasn’t screwed on just right yet. Thor was just a walking pile of planetary sovereignty issues waiting to happen when he was even around. War Machine was still firmly property of the U.S. Armed Forces and ‘War Machine’ wasn’t precisely the PR image the Avengers were going for. And Bruce? Well he was a bit unreliable in combat zones and had a few too many people gunning for his head on a pole. General Ross anyone?

Sam Wilson had stepped up to the plate and was doing a great job, but he wasn’t Steve. He wasn’t Captain America and no one knew that more than Sam himself. Bruce thought that there wasn’t a more thankless task than being the placeholder for a legend because obviously Steve was going to be found. Obviously. He just had to be.

Wilson was becoming frustrated, extremely frustrated. He was somewhere near the end of his considerably long rope and was missing rigid military discipline like he was missing a limb. Couldn’t his team at least pretend to listen to their temporary leader?

“Re-do that last formation, folks! Air support fell apart during the last phase.”

Tony gave a half hearted acknowledgement and flew off in lazy circles. He was even more of a wild card than he had been before the Ultron incident and Sam kind of wanted to fire him, but it was kind of difficult to kick this egotistical, prime financial backer off the team, especially when he wasn’t exactly in charge. Tony was only back to working directly with the New Avengers because Steve wasn’t there, which meant Sam was supposed to be grateful. So he was bitter, sue him.

“Hold it!” yelled Natasha. “There’s a vehicle approaching 500 yards to the west and we’re supposed to be alone out here. The whole area was cleared.”

Sam looked and did in fact see something big and black driving towards them. “Iron Man! War Machine! We need aerial recon. Get me everything you can. Widow over here with me, you get to do the fast talking. Wanda, cover us. Banner hang back and wait.”

By the time all his troops were correctly deployed, the vehicle was within 100 feet, but Sam had a plethora of information to work with. It was a brand new 2015 suburban with a few interesting differences. It was heavily modified with full armor made of materials that Tony was making covetous noises over. Rhodey had picked out combat tires, extremely bullet resistant glass, a lead lined frame that was making it impossible to get a good look of the inside, and an odd energy signature emitting from the back half. It was a little funny, but mostly helpful, Sam thought wryly that his team was actually listening to him. The car came to a stop a comfortable distance from where he and Natasha were waiting. Before Sam could get War Machine to demand that the mysterious visitors identify themselves, the doors opened and five people piled out.

At least, he was pretty sure they were people, there wasn’t a way to be entirely sure. They had abandoned their place of relative safety instead of mounting an assault from the inside of their combat vehicle, so Sam had some hope that they’d prove to be friendly. What kind of people wore masks and capes though? Weird not-people like Vision and Thor, that’s who. Everyone else on the Avengers was very practical.

“Hey! Thanks for the welcome party, but we come in peace. At least, I think we do,” announced the the blonde in a full cowl, cape, and black bodysuit with tasteful eggplant accents. “We’re looking for our youngest brother, dude, person. He’s only about this high-” she held a hand out three quarters of the way up her body, “-but he makes it up in attitude, has a big honkin’ sword and is dressed pretty obnoxiously, which is saying something considering the rest of us.”

“And we’re also looking for a universe jumping monster thing with bright blue wings, four mouths full of sharp teeth, a rainbow colored tail, and of indeterminable size,” said a dude with a general black and red theme going on, a strangely stylized emblem on his chest, and a full cowl and cape as well. “The monster is our primary objective, the sword swinging menace is just a plus.”

Sam wasn’t sure how to take that; younger brothers were supposed to be important. “What makes you think that we can help you with any of that?” he asked. “That’s not really-”

“You’re heroes, yeah?” interrupted the big one in a shiny red helmet, leather jacket, and enough guns to supply a small army. “Also you’re the Avengers, Captain America’s team. We saw him get nabbed on TV and recognized the goons as the same ones that nabbed the psychotic Robin. So you know, common enemy and all that jazz. We’ve also got some cool toys.”

It took a minute for the Avengers to process that. After two weeks of fruitless searching, a potential new lead had just turned up out of the blue

“I know this question might seem a little strange to you,” said Bruce quietly. “But it would be nice to know who you are.”

“And whether or not we have to worry about you killing us all or building genocidal, independent, evil robots when our backs are turned,” Wanda added. The visitors didn’t seem particularly phased by the question.

“I’m not a huge fan of those myself.” said cowl dude mildly.

“We don’t kill,” said the man in skintight suit with a flashy blue emblem in the middle and finger stripes, of all things. “Permanent brain injury is generally okay, but killing is right out. No killing ever. It’s the number one rule. We just don’t. Except for the weirdo back there in the emoting helmet, and he’s gotten substantially less homicidal in the past couple months. I’m Nightwing by the way.”

“Red Robin,” said cowl dude.

“Red Hood,” said emoting helmet.

“Batgirl, the third,” said the blonde with a smile.

“Black Bat,” said the fifth one who had not yet spoken. “We stop bad guys, save the world, and kick ass.” No one doubted her.

“And we apparently go dimension hopping these days,” Red Robin threw in. “ If you want to go somewhere a bit more comfortable, we’ve got plenty of room in the trunk.”

The Avengers stared incredulously. “The trunk?” demanded Tony. “Man, you are some awful kidnappers if you think we’re going to fall for that lame line. Also did you say dimension jumping? Because that sounds seriously cool.”

The Avengers waited expectantly for an answer; visitors from alternate universes were something new and interesting.

“Yeah,” said Red Robin. “The boss man back home got bit by the dimension hopping monster that we’re chasing. The poison in the bite is not technically fatal, but it makes a person forget every one of their bad memories. That sounds like a good thing, but our tragedies have a tendency to turn us into who we are and the boss man wouldn’t be himself without those memories. He’d be a different person. And speaking for myself, even though I’m like trauma on legs, I wouldn’t want to lose those memories non consensually. That make me, me.”

In the following silence Black Bat’s posture changed only slightly, but Natasha could make an educated guess that she was asking “Dude, how much sleep haven't you gotten in the last few days.?” In response, Red Robin’s posture became subtly defensive.

“Or he could just be high,” said Red Hood prosaically. “How many painkillers are you on anyway, you dumbass? Don’t expect much more feelings crap,” he said, addressing the Avengers. “Don’t talk about shit is basically the family motto.”

“No hugs, only Justice!” said Batgirl.

“No games, only violence!” added Black Bat.

“Night!” growled Nightwing.

“You’re fired!” shouted Red Hood. There was awkward silence.

“Too soon,” whispered Red Robin. “It will always be too soon.”

Suddenly a device on Batgirl’s utility belt went ding. “Oh, something nasty’s about to happen.” She sounded a bit too enthusiastic for the comfort of the home team, and they looked at her questioningly. “What? I don’t know what’s on the way. I got this from some guy a couple of universes ago in a version of the 1960s. It goes ding when there’s stuff. That’s about all I know.” The Avengers continued to stare at her.

“Am I supposed to be expecting something bad?” asked Sam.

“You just go around relying on tech you know nothing about?” demanded Tony. “That seems a little stupid. I mean, I fly around in experimental suits all the time, but at least I built them and know what’s going on generally.” None of the Bat-people looked particularly abashed.

“He helped us out with the trunk too,” said Nightwing. “Which as Red Robin has pointed out previously is pretty sweet and whatever it is, it  is definitely something nasty. I have an infallible Bat-Badness Detector I picked up from an incredibly screwy, completely different version of the 60s in one of our recent jumps. I think I’m scarred for life. There is just some stuff that a person should just not have to see.” He then pulled out a gadget helpfully labeled ‘Infallible Bat-Badness Detector’ and showed Sam the dial which read ‘Bat Plan: Run for your lives.’

“I feel like I’m in a Monty Python skit, and I don’t mean that in a good way,” said Sam.

The assembled Bat-people started looking impatient. “Look,” said Red Hood, “I’m not saying you should unconditionally trust us, but if the detector says something bad is coming, something bad is coming, and we should be prepared. We can help each other; you can help us find our brother and possibly a memory stealing monster and we can help you find Captain America. So why don’t we all get in the damn trunk like my blasted replacement suggested.”

Black Widow was beginning to realize that their visitors had some very interesting internal dynamics going on and wasn’t completely sure that she wanted to get into a confined space with all of them. There might be explosions. Actually, Natasha couldn’t figure out how everyone was going to fit in the first place. Sure, Suburbans really were enormous vehicles, but not that enormous. Before she could bring up her substantial doubt, Wanda beat her to the punch.

“I personally don’t see how we’re all going to fit in there, and being in a confined space with Dr. Banner over there isn’t my idea of a fun afternoon.” Natasha thought that that was an excellent point.

Suddenly the sky filled with boiling, steel grey clouds and the air thrummed with crackling electricity, effectively  grounding Tony and Rhodey. The Avengers collectively and immediately decided that the mysterious trunk was the lesser of two evils and followed their visitors in a mad dash for safety. The number of lightning bolts striking the ground around them was frankly terrifying and extremely unsafe. Red Hood got shoved into the driver’s seat as the rest of the Bats pushed everyone else into the back, jumped in after, and slammed the door shut.

The Avengers, expecting a crushed and crowded space were completely disoriented for several moments.The ceiling was a good 20 feet up and they seemed to be in a cave instead of a trunk. Sam could make out bunks, a medbay, gymnastics and training equipment, motorcycles, what looked like a complete crime lab, a bank of computers and several servers immersed in tanks of water, a full kitchen that looked incongruous sitting in the middle of its dark surroundings, and for some reason, an eight foot tall Lego minifigure dressed as a construction worker.

“Locker rooms are on the left, just beyond the medbay. There’s clean clothes and all the other essential stuff in there, just make sure you don’t fall in the swamp on your way over” said Batgirl.

“We’re in a trunk,” said Rhodey blankly. “We’re in the trunk, right?” Black Bat just pointed to the sign on the wall beside them that read ‘Welcome to the Magical Bat-Trunk! Please enjoy your stay.’ It was arguably one of the most surreal moments of the Avenger’s lives, which meant something considering what they tended to have to deal with. Everything was labeled helpfully with a bat prefix. There was apparently a swamp. Bruce felt like he was going slightly mad, and Tony could be heard muttering, “It’s bigger on the inside. How is it bigger on the inside?” furiously under his breath.

The computer screens in the middle of the cave, trunk, whatever, flashed with what looked like weather data and Sam finally noticed Red Robin and Batgirl running diagnostics on the storm raging outside. Nightwing surveyed the group of off kilter superheros and took charge. “I actually think you all should stay out here for a while yet until we figure out what the problem is. That storm isn’t natural. Those two over there could use some help with their tests, Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark, I think that’s the best place for you two. Falcon and Widow, we should probably talk, War Machine and Ms. Maximoff, you should probably guard the door we don’t know what might come through. Black Bat, with me, and Red Hood?” Nightwing had pulled out a comm unit at some point. “Let’s get moving.”

Sam had to acknowledge that the guy had some serious skills. He’d successfully arranged not only his own team but also one that  was unfamiliar and had some serious trust issues. It didn’t escape Sam’s notice that the line up didn’t provide the Avengers with the opportunity to see their host in combat. It most certainly didn’t escape him that the Bat-people, despite being dimensional visitors, seemed to already knew an awful lot about them. He glanced over at Nat who caught his eye and managed to convey that she felt exactly the same way. Since Nightwing seemed to be in a leadership position similar to Sam’s own, he had to wonder if that meant that this Black Bat was a rough approximation of Natasha. If she was, she would have to be watched very carefully.He threw a quick glance over to the computer station and saw that though all four were working quickly, there didn’t seem to be any signs of impending doom, so he allowed himself to relax a bit and concentrated on learning everything he could about his potential allies.

Natasha meanwhile was studying Black Bat intently. There was something about the slim girl that reminded her of herself. She wasn’t sure what it was since the mask and lenses made it nearly impossible to see the girl’s face. Maybe it was the almost effortless way she blended into the shadows or maybe it was that her small stature and sex made her easy to discount. There was something about the girl that called out to the Black Widow and she was determined to figure it out. Nightwing she had mostly pegged. He reminded her of Steve. The earnestness and trustworthiness just poured off of him, but there was an undercurrent of utter ruthlessness there too and possibly a touch of sadism. He looked confident, like he was accustomed to being listened to. In short, he was very, very dangerous. Just as Nightwing opened his mouth to speak, Batgirl called out a stand down.

Banner decided that he should explain. “It’s just an incredibly violent storm caused by all of the dimension hopping. The excess energy locked onto the nearest anomaly and just let loose. We still shouldn’t go outside, besides the terrifying amount of lightning going on out there, reality is more than a bit unstable, and you might get sucked into a portal. We’ll be stuck in here for about five hours, but that’s better than being sucked into a void.”

“We should also stop the car. Since the vehicle is the anomaly, we’ll be taking the storm with us everywhere we drive,” added Red Robin.

The Avengers stationed by the door relaxed and Nightwing commed Red Hood to kill the engine - ”Not literally dude! What’s wrong with you?” - and to join everyone in the back.

“The good news about the storm,” Tony said,” is that the intensity strongly suggests the presence of another anomaly on this Earth, which means your monster’s probably here. Also,” he said with something approaching reverence, “You’ve got some pretty sweet equipment back here in your mobile unit. What does your headquarters look like?”

Red Hood, dropping in from the front said “Huge-ass space station” as though it ought to be perfectly obvious. It was only a slight misdirection. Batman had paid for it, so his associates were allowed to brag about it. “Anyway,” he said, “I’m going for a shower and a change of clothes if there’s no immediate crisis, and Red Robin should probably do the same. You look like you got hit by a fucking bus Replacement and then stuck your face in a cement mixer. Everyone looked a bit uncomfortable, and the Avengers couldn’t tell how anyone could see how Red was doing considering his uniform covered more skin than a nun’s habit.

“If you’re trying to get me into a vulnerable position so you can finally assassinate me and write a gory message to my loved ones in my own blood, I’m going to have to disappoint you, Hood.” Rhodey could feel Red Robin’s piercing glare through the lenses in his cowl.

“They’ve got a few issues between them,” Nightwing muttered to Widow and Falcon. Both thought that that sounded like a bit of an understatement. The tension between those two was even worse than the cold war Tony and Steve usually maintained. “How about everyone follows Hood’s example and gets cleaned up,” he continued a bit more loudly. “And more importantly, makes sure that he doesn't murder Red Robin in the showers, and Red Robin doesn’t remove any of Red Hood’s limbs or non-vital organs. Falcon, Widow, Black Bat and I can finally get around to our meeting, but everyone else should be free to go.”

There was plenty of tension as everyone moved towards their respective locker rooms. It was hard to miss how Batgirl intentionally placed herself between Hood and Red Robin and how the two felt one bad move or word away from tearing each other's throats out. The relaxed, slightly comical initial behavior of their visitors, in addition to the vaguely wacky costumes had relaxed Sam a bit, and while he hadn’t exactly trusted them, they seemed rather harmless. He was quickly reassessing his position. The playful start had most likely been an intentional misdirection. Though Sam was was the nominal head of the Avengers in Steve’s absence, he didn’t have much experience as an interdimensional diplomat and ceded control of the conversation to Nat.

“There’s something about you all that I’m curious about,” Natasha allowed a bit of genuine interest into her voice. “You know an awful lot about us for being dimensional visitors. Some of that stuff isn’t common knowledge.” She kept it friendly but serious.

Nightwing made a noise of affirmation. “We’ve been here three days. We got here while the footage of your Captain’s abduction was still playing on basically every television station on the planet, and our brother got kidnapped the same day we got here. We’ve got video footage of that kidnapping as well, so it was simple to make the connection after some comparison. Besides, two years ago someone dumped a boatload of information about the Avengers on the internet and one year ago there was an incredibly well documented incident involving killer robots and an entire eastern European city. We’ve got software that can sort through that stuff easily, so honestly, information on your team was ridiculously simple to find.”

His answer was perfect, Natasha thought. He gave up just enough information to look trustworthy, but not not anymore than was strictly necessary. She was beginning to get a good picture of the group in general. The crime lab, training equipment, counter interrogation techniques, and unassuming mobile unit suggested covert operations and shadowy government operations, but that made the startling, theatrical costumes even more perplexing. Her thoughts were broken up by her current verbal sparring partner asking a question.

“Do you have any information whatsoever on who could be behind the abductions? Back home we’d know exactly who to shake down and what techniques to use, but here, despite all the documents helpfully unloaded and readily accessible, three days just isn’t enough time to completely understand the inner workings of a new dimension.”

He sounded relaxed enough, but Nat noted an underlying tension and a hint of desperation. “I understand the person you’re looking for is your brother. Are you all related then? And if you are, is this a common setup for families in your dimension? Are costumes and outlandish names a cultural thing?” She drew the last two words out insolently.

Sam was feeling impressed with her needling skills, and a bit nervous of the other guy’s responses or lack thereof. This was the woman who’d successfully outmaneuvered the god of lies. A flashy kid with what was dangerously close to an eight pack and the whitest teeth this side of the galaxy shouldn’t be any kind of difficulty.

“We’re not related by blood or anything like that. And our situation is hardly unique on our earth” Sam could hear something odd behind those words but couldn’t figure out what exactly.

“So battle brothers and found family kind of situation?” he asked, thinking of Riley.

“More or less, yeah, that’s…” Nightwing hedged and then trailed off. Natasha couldn’t help but think it was some kind of ploy.

“Look, we can talk all you want, but I’m not in the habit of trusting men in masks who know my name when I don’t know theirs. I don’t see myself or my partner here agreeing on an assist unless we know a bit more about you.”

“Fair point, but you know, my name might actually be Nightwing and you could have just offended me mightily.” He smiled a little and turned to his silent shadow, cocking his head a bit. She stayed silent a moment longer and then nodded decisively, grinning.

“Thanks,” he said, reaching for his comm. “I’m about to do the identity reveal kids. When you get done back there I want civvies and no masks. We’ll patch Red Robin up in the medbay instead of in the back.”

“Are you flipping kidding me!” came a female voice through the intercom behind them.

“Like Hell am I hanging out in streets with a dude who’s got laser cannons in his hands!” followed a rough indignant voice.

Nightwing sighed and reached around for the trunk wide intercom with an apologetic lip quirk. “Everyone’s coming out in civvies in the name of interagency cooperation. Avengers and Bats. This is a Cass approved plan so pick up the pace a bit.” Grumbling could be heard following his announcement until he switched it off and stashed his own unit. “Sorry,” he said after a moment. “Our identities are a big deal. The fallout from anyone knowing has an exceptionally high probability of catastrophe for a metric shit ton of people.” Nightwing grinned wryly. “Plus we’re some of the most paranoid bastards you’re ever likely to meet, so…..”

With that he pressed a finger to a catch on his domino, reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small spray bottle and lightly misted his mask before tossing the bottle over to the girl apparently named Cass. He pulled his mask off with a flourish, revealing a stunningly handsome face and deep blue eyes.

“Richard Grayson, but everyone calls me Dick.”

“You’ll see why soon,” said the previously silent shadow with a small laugh as she revealed a lovely face set with south east asian features. “My name’s Cassandra Wayne by the way. If you don’t mind, I think it would be best if all four of us changed. Chat with your team and let’s all meet out here in, let’s say 20 minutes.”

“Sounds good,” said Sam. “Thanks for trusting us, we won’t abuse it.”

All together in their locker room and finally without their visitors, the Avengers finally had the opportunity to analyze the Bats at length. Tony was in awe of the computers. “The Red Robin dude knew his stuff, and I’m seriously in awe of the network he’s got them hooked up to. I’ve never seen anything like it. He was being a bit over protective of it, but I saw enough to realize it was set up by someone who lives computers as much as I live engineering.”

“The network wasn’t his apparently,” said Banner. “Red Robin wasn’t much of a conversationalist, he was looking slightly grey and like a stiff breeze could knock him over. Batgirl told me the whole thing was the brainchild of someone named Oracle. Oracle is, and I quote, ‘the most badass paraplegic you’ll ever meet.’ I’d really like to.”

Rhodey, now wearing a surprisingly well fitting pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt emblazoned with a pair of stylized Ws, was in favor of trusting them. “They could have done any number of things to us once they got us in here, and while I’m sure they’re dangerous, they seemed immovable on that no kill rule.”

Tony assented and added, “I’m also mostly positive we could kick their asses if we need to. I haven’t seen any evidence of superpowers among them. They only thing they seem to have going for them are their freaky costumes.”

Wanda, sitting off to the side barefoot and wearing a t-shirt with a red and gold lightning emblem looked over at Tony with a frown. “I wouldn’t discount them so easily. It’s true that they haven’t done anything especially violent, but the universe hopping ability, computer tech, physics-defying SUV, and the extensive knowledge that they have of us all add up to some formidable people. I wouldn’t underestimate them.”

Natasha and Sam emerged from the showers in yoga pants and sweats respectively matched with t-shirts that both had an S on a shield scrawled across the chest just in time to hear the end of Wanda’s rebuke. “I’ll definitely second that,” said Sam. “Nightwing, who says his real name is Dick Grayson-,” Sam frowned at Tony’s inelegant snort and continued pointedly, “-could play the interrogation game as well as Natasha. He only gave up information he was already planning on giving up I think. Cassandra Wayne, Black Bat apparently, gave me serious goosebumps on top of that.”

“Cassandra reminds me of myself,” said Natasha thoughtfully. “I don’t know much more beyond that; however, we’re stuck in here for several more hours, so there’ll be plenty of time to get to know them better.”

Wanda glanced up again, this time looking more vulnerable and asked in a belligerent but wobbly voice, “Do you really think they’ll help us find Steve?” The “I don’t want to lose anyone else” went unsaid but was certainly implied.

“I think,” said Sam slowly, “they want to find their brother as much as we want to find Cap, no matter how dismissively they tend to talk about him, and anyone that can jump universes is someone I want on my search and rescue team.”

“I agree,” said Bruce, “and it looks like they’ve got a sense of humor mostly fit for civilized company, which is a lot more than can be said for our last couple antagonists.”

The situation in the other room was significantly more fraught.

“I like them, don’t get me wrong, but this other group doesn’t look like the kind of people who are going to appreciate child soldiers, especially ones that look like they got blown up at one point. Just saying,” said Red Hood, with a sneer.

“Cultural differences,” said Batgirl with a smile. “Just stick Dick in a pair of yoga pants and they won’t remember their own last names.”

“Hey! I object to that,” yelled Dick from the showers.

“I don’t trust them,” came Red Robin’s muffled voice from where he was sprawled face first on the floor. “But I’m not agreeing with anything Hood says on principle. Maybe we can trade him for the nice red head in the jumpsuit.”

“That’d leave the nice lady in red, who freaks me out slightly, as the only woman in a group of testosterone laden, muscle bound men. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Might as well bring her along as well. She’d probably get on great with Spooky.”

“Point,” said Red Robin from the floor,” but that’d leave a bunch of dudebros guarding the fate of the entire planet and I wouldn’t be so cruel. We’ll just leave him here and say we’ll be back for him.”

“If you’re not careful, I’ll curb stomp your pretty little face.”

“I’d like to see you try,” came the belligerent response.

Any further bickering was forestalled by Dick emerging from the showers with Cass. Dick was most certainly not in yoga pants and the extremely baggy sweats showed exactly what he thought of that idea. Cass looked down at Tim lying on the floor and stated “medbay” in a very firm way. “Also, I trust these Avengers. They are desperate to find their Captain and besides, this is an almost completely different version of Earth than ours. None of us seem to exist here in any form. Risk free justice is a winner in my book. Steph help me here please.”

“Ugh,” groaned Tim as Cass lifted him by the shoulders and Steph got his knees.

“Rib wrapping time,” said Dick cheerfully leading the procession out of the bat locker room.

The Avengers weren’t sure what they were expecting their hosts to look like in civvies, but it definitely wasn’t a bunch of painfully young GQ and Vogue models. The scars were a given, but not the sheer number. The shorter kid with great hair was getting his ribs wrapped and the blonde was counting out antibiotics. Tony couldn’t help but notice the thick, jagged scar across the kid’s abdomen. How was he still alive? When the blonde turned around, he caught sight of her back and that was not a reassuring sight at all, but neither was basically anything going on with the tall guy with an interesting white streak in his hair.

“What are you all staring at? The scars?” White streak seemed to have a short fuse.

“Nah, obviously it's your stunning good looks, jackass. The zombie look’s all the rage these days. Pity your autopsy scars didn’t stick around; you wouldn’t even need a costume for Halloween.” There was an odd pause as he checked over his freshly bandaged ribs. “I’m Tim Drake-Wayne, by the way. I was the third Robin to the Batman for a while, but these days I go by the name Red Robin. I’m also plagued by more engagement rumors in one week than any person should have to deal with in a lifetime.”

“You’re selling yourself short,” said the the guy most of the Avengers were assuming was Dick Grayson. “You’re also the majority shareholder and heir apparent of the family multibillion dollar, multinational corporation.”

“Yeah well, that too.”

“As most of you probably already know, I’m Dick Grayson. You don’t know I’m the eldest son of Bruce Wayne, was voted America’s second most eligible bachelor right behind daddy dearest, the one and only Nightwing, and sometimes the Batman when the situation calls for it.”

Tony was starting to feel threatened, he already had the billionaire superhero niche filled here. He consoled himself with the knowledge that these kids still seemed to have an intact family and the dad at least was still in the picture, although the different last names seemed to suggest some hinky business with the mothers. They acted well enough adjusted, so they probably hadn’t had to suffer through as much trauma as he had.

“Stephanie Brown,” said blondie, handing Tim a shirt, red naturally, and helping him off the exam table. “I’ve had a couple different handles, but now I’m Batgirl. I’m not Bruce Wayne’s kid. My dad was a super villain, which is kind of how I got into this whole mess in the first place.”

“Cassandra Wayne, as some of you know,” said the seriously ripped asian girl. “I’m Bruce Wayne’s only daughter when I’m not in the mask and Black Bat when it’s on. I also may have been a super villain myself at one point.”

“We don’t usually mention that though,” Steph threw out.

“The time she killed me was pretty memorable,” proclaimed Tim hanging by his knees from a trapeze. The Avengers couldn’t figure out how’d he had managed to get himself up there without any of them noticing, especially with bandaged his ribs, but that was overshadowed by the fact that Tim was alive and mostly well and talking about getting killed by his sister. And smiling about it.

“What I don’t understand,” said the big dude in leather standing in the back, “is why she didn’t kill you for real and save us all the trouble of putting up with you.”

There were several yells of “Jason!” and “Todd!” but Tim just looked resigned. Bruce was looking confused and Sam was wondering how many of his new allies were completely bat-shit insane. Tony was reconsidering the whole “well adjusted” thing.

“Jason’s a little messed up,” Dick apologized. “But he’s got good reasons for that, and he’s a lot better now than he was a couple months ago. All you’ve got to know is that he requires some patience.”

“Red Hood at your service. Name’s Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne’s second kid, but legally he’s dead, so…. Once upon a time I got beaten to death and blown up. The resurrection process involved some highly questionable elements and turned me into a murderous basket case.”

Tony was beginning feel like he’d drastically underestimated the amount of messed up these kids were dealing with.

“I’m mostly over the murderousness though. I’ve got a great therapist.”

If someone that messed up could be convinced to get himself a qualified mental health professional, Bruce thought, there was still hope for Tony.

“Ok, look, I hate to be that person,” interjected Wanda, “but I’m having a really hard time figuring out your family arrangement here. A lot of you look superficially the same, but there are some big outliers and the last names don’t fit the whole-” she made a vague gesture with her hands that seemed to to encompass the whole issue.

The Bats shifted uncomfortably, while Tony tried to quickly explain mixed families and the questionable practices of wealthy men in regards to women.

“It’s not actually like that,” clarified Steph. “Bruce has only got one biological son and Damien’s not here. He’s the one we’re looking for.”

Tony had another very bad feeling about the family situation of the kids.

“We’re all orphans or close enough for practical purposes,” said Dick. “Bruce adopted us all, kind of. Some of us are his wards, thus the differences in last names so it's a bit confusing at first.”

Tim was back to messing around on the computers and running tests.

“Seriously, does he have some kind of super ninja stealth training? I never observe him moving,” Wanda whispered furiously to Rhodey.

“Probably, it does seem like something they’d go for considering the dark, menacing theme they’ve got going on in here.”

“Hey folks!” yelled Tim. “I’ve got a lock on the other anomaly. I’ve got satellite imagery confirming that it's our memory stealing monster, but it’s all the way over in Russia. I had to hack a satellite to find it, so we might get some pissed off Russian KGB types hanging around if I get caught.”

“So don’t get caught you dork,” said Steph.

“Anyway,” Tim continued, “we’re still stuck in here for four hours at least, but the best plan of action I think is to find our missing people and then deal with the monster. Russia’s a little far away right now.”

“Great,” said Wanda with a smile.

“Yeah, but we’re still stuck in here for four more hours,” Tony retorted. “What the hell are we going to do? Ice breaker games? Never have I ever?”

“I’m pretty sure I’d win,” said Jason.

In response a slow grin spread across Cass’ face. “Violence is almost always the answer, so I’m thinking-”

“That’s not how that saying goes right? Is it different over on your Earth? Because that might go a long way in explaining you guys if it is.” Rhodey sounded baffled.

“It’s more fun this way so like I was saying, who wants to kick the crap out of each other. It’s a great team building exercise.”

“Everyone in favor of Cass’ delightful plan raise your hand!”

Bruce looked over at Dick, “Delightful, really?”

“Yeah? Come on raise those hands.”

As one the Bats complied and after a moment, so did Natasha. Bruce just looked sheepish.

“I don’t fight well indoors.”

“Neither do I,” admitted Wanda. “I don’t want to accidentally flatten anyone or anything.”

Sam considered his options. “Rhodey, Tony, and I are better in the air. We’re not really hand to hand fighters.”

Tim wandered over, “I’m pretty sure you’re selling yourself short dude. I’ve seen some of your mission footage and you employ a decent amount of hand to hand. I think you can handle yourself. I’m not saying you’re going to win, but you’ll hold your own.” Tony threw Tim a sharp look. “Hey I’m not hacking into your systems or anything, just the publicly available news footage.”

Cassandra looked everyone over and gave a decisive nod. “Jason gets you, it’ll probably get bloody.” She sounded too happy about that prospect for anyone’s peace of mind. “Tony and Col. Rhodes can fight Stephanie I think.”

Steph’s suddenly analytical gaze made Tony feel as though his self-defense training wasn’t going to be enough to keep him from getting thoroughly worked over. He had to resist the urge to hide behind Rhodey. “Who’s going up against the Black Widow though?” he asked instead.

“If we’re going for an even match, it’s probably be Tim,” said Jason. “He’s out for the moment though and so’s Dick.”

“I dislocated a shoulder a while back and it’s mostly better, but I’d rather not chance aggravating it right before a rescue op,” explained Dick. “I guess that means that it’ll have to be Black Bat versus Black Widow.”

Natasha suddenly realized that none of the Avengers had any idea how well their allies fought. The Bats had access to old SHIELD records and mission footage, so they had a rough idea, but there was no information for Natasha herself to process. She was going to be flying blind. She decided on a pre-game staredown, maybe she’d learn something.

“Who wants to go first?” asked Dick. “I’m personally in favor of Batgirl showing these people how it’s done around here.”

His proposal was met with approval and Steph immediately started warming up. After a particularly interesting series of flips, James Rhodes prepared himself for the distinct possibility of getting beat up by a girl. Tony would have to get sacrificed he decided. Cass passed around mouth guards and tape and five minutes later all three were ready.

“On the count of three.” called Tim holding a stopwatch. “One. Two. Three. Begin!”

There was the standard circling for several seconds, a few exploratory punches were thrown, and then Rhodes glanced over at Tony and they went in for the kill. It was hard and brutal, at first. Steph took a hit from Tony in order to buy herself some time to block Rhodes, his hits were significantly harder than Starks. She gave ground for a little while, feeling her way around their fighting styles. She managed to keep any more blows from landing, moving around and holding back, but started feeling bored. Tony and Rhodey were feeling like there was something missing, like the whole thing was way too easy. Then something shifted in Steph’s stance and the whole game changed. She got Rhodes hard in the kidney’s, then spun around throwing herself forward into a flashy flip, and took Tony down in a stunning display of thighs. Natasha winced in sympathy, but didn’t feel too badly, chances were that he’d totally enjoyed that one.

Rhodes was back up and looking to avenge Stark. Steph sprang back from her fallen foe, watching her second opponent carefully. He rushed her, but she was ready and it was all he could do to keep her from taking him out right then and there. The next moment, he had an unexpected break as her furious rain of hits disappeared. He looked round, disoriented and suddenly felt a weight on his shoulders as Steph used them to vault over him. She landed behind him, got him in the knee and sent him to the floor. A second later she was pinning him, a huge grin lighting up her face. She wasn’t even out of breath.

“That last move was completely unnecessary,” said Natasha. “Why’d you do it?”

“I don’t know. It was fun?”

Natasha couldn’t argue with that.

“How much were you holding back there?” Rhodey demanded. “I feel as though it was significant.”

“Trade secret,” came the smug reply, “but it was a great warm-up. Jason’s turn.”

Sam was feeling kind of nervous, he’d like his chances better if he was fighting alongside Rhodes, but he’d make do with himself. “How much better than her are you,” he asked.

“That’s not really something you can quantify. You need to gather that information first hand you know? It depends on so many different factors.”

The two climbed into the sparring ring and took stock of the opposition. The standard circling happened and then Jason went in with a flurry of jabs. Sam was a great defensive fighter he decided as every one of his punches were blocked, this one would take a while. Sam blocked a sudden right hook and then took the opportunity to send a knee straight to Jason’s groin. It connected and he went down. Before Sam could follow it up, Jason rolled away and flipped back up, wincing.

“Oh you are good, Sam, real good, I might even respect you at the end of this.”

Sam refused to take the bait.

Bruce looked up from where he was helping Tony and said, “He fought Crossbones during the catastrophe at SHIELD two years ago and he’s only gotten better since then. I’m liking his chances.”

“The odds are still firmly in Jason’s court right now,” Dick responded, “but it’ll be a fight.”

Sam and Jason were back at it again, Jason’s furious energy occasionally breaking through Sam’s stellar defence. But it didn’t seem to shake the Falcon that much, he kept right on swinging. The two broke apart for a minute.

“You’re like the fucking terminator man, I’m impressed.”

“I could do this all day pal. All day.”

“It’s cute you think you can,” Jason retorted, “but I’m going to end this. Now”

Before Sam realized what was happening, Jason had taken several steps backwards and was lunging forward. It was all Sam could do to block the stomach jab and the left hook. They were strong hits and he didn’t even see the leg sweep that followed them up. He went down. Hard. Jason was on him in a flash, pinning him. A couple of seconds later Jason bounced up, grinning.

“Oh man, now I just want to go. Dick, you sure you’re not up for a good, friendly spar?”

“Pretty sure, yeah. But if you ask nicely, I’m sure Cass would take care of that for you.”

“Dude, I actually want a fight, not just five seconds of failure.”

“You’re selling yourself short,” yelled Tim. “I’d give you ten.”

“Minutes?” gasped Tony from where he was still lying flat out on the floor.

“Seconds, obviously,” said Steph. “Getting destroyed by Cass is an almost religious experience. Even Batman loses to Cassandra occasionally. Batman. The B-Man himself.”

“They’ve never met Natasha apparently,” said Tony. “Natasha always wins.”

“We’ll see about that. It looks like Black Bat and Black Widow are up.” Tim sounded far too cheerful about the imminent defeat of his sister for Tony’s comfort.

Jason looked up from his post match conversation with Rhodes and Sam. ”All you Avengers types are pretty firm in your thinking that Widow’s going to win. That’s good in my book; it’ll be a good fight and Cass needs a challenge sometimes.”

Natasha was gratified to hear that her team held her combat skills in such a high regard, but after watching the first two spars and seeing the level of skill that the two members of the Bat-Clan held and then hearing that her temporary adversary didn’t consider them much of a threat, she was starting to think she wouldn’t come out on top. She’d try her best though. The question of how such a young girl got to be so dangerous was something she couldn’t figure out. Not even Widow training had gotten her and her classmates to a level that would make Jason and Steph non-threats. It was possible that Cass’ abilities were being played up, so she’d have to wait and judge later.

Cassandra hopped into the ring and Natasha followed a bit more slowly. The Avenger’s were preparing to finally win one in the hand to hand category, and the Bats were preparing for the quickest match yet. The two woman sized each other up and then Natasha decided that a pre-emptive strike was key. She moved in and suddenly found herself on the defensive instead. She barely survived, only keeping herself in the game with a complicated series of acrobatics, but Cass had managed to land several blows. Nat desperately attempted to gain the upper hand, but it felt like her opponent knew her every move before she even decided what to do. Cass got her on the floor in a savage leg sweep, but she flipped back up, mostly unfazed. The follow up attack was over before it really even got a chance to get started, leaving the Widow pinned to the floor, Cass’ hand poised above her throat for a killing blow.

Natasha was completely disoriented. She realized that she was so far out of her league that it couldn’t be classified as funny, but she couldn’t figure out what exactly had happened. The Avengers sat in stunned silence as Tim gave Cass a high five.

“Ok. I was not aware that humans could move that fast without a hell of a lot of modifications, “ said Bruce, suspicion coloring his voice.

“Cass is….special,” said Dick with a small, sad smile. “There isn’t anyone better, but what happened to get her to that point...it’s considered harsh and inhumane even in our world.”

“I want to know,” said Natasha, eyes narrowed. “I had a brutal childhood to make me the way I am now, but to get Black Bat- I need to know.”

There was some nervous shuffling among the Bats the only Nat and her highly specialized training was able to see.

“Only if Cass wants to share with the class,” said Jason firmly.

“My birth father was a complete and utter bastard,” was her response. “I was conceived for one purpose: to kill. My training and conditioning started from the moment I was born. I didn’t hear words or speak them for the majority of my life. I was taught to understand body language fluently. You cannot lie to me. I know what you’re going to do before you do it. I was only ever a weapon. I had no one. I was never. Human.”

As the story unfolded, Natasha got angrier and angrier, Bruce started developing a green tinge, Tony looked as pale as a ghost, Rhodes got more and more stone faced, Sam looked like he was going to be sick, and Wanda was sick. Cass only gave the barest details in her story, but her sentences got choppier the longer she talked.

“Hey,” said Tim, voice soft. “We’ve got you. Come here.” She joined him in climbing halfway up one of the cave walls to a small alcove with great sight lines. They both curled up in a pile of blankets and promptly fell asleep. Dick looked relieved.

“They both needed that. Our last universe was kind of violent and Tim saved all our lives, but took some really nasty hits in the process. We should probably follow their example and get some rest. I’m still injured a bit and who knows when we’ll get another opportunity for uninterrupted rest.”

“I’d agree with that,” said Sam, “but if those sparring matches showed us anything, it was that we don’t know much about what you folks can do at all. If we’re going to be running a joint rescue op, that is information we are going to need. We don’t even know what it is you guys do exactly for crying out loud.

“We can brief you on all the important stuff on the way to wherever we’re going to be headed, but I don’t think it’s smart to turn down three hours of uninterrupted rest. An alarm will go off when the storm dies down. We can work out logistics and planning then, but right now my family is running on speed and fumes with some adrenaline thrown in for good measure. I’m going to have to insist on sleep.” Dick was not compromising on that one.

“There’s bunks over there for you guys, we’ve got our own.” Steph gestured to an area to the left of the swampy locker room.

Now that he was looking for it, Sam could clearly see the dark circles under his hosts’ eyes and they were looking more than a little manic. He didn’t particularly enjoy being bossed around by a bunch of almost strangers, new to his universe, but he could acknowledge that they had some good points.

“Alright, see you all in a couple of hours. I think someone needs to get Tony off the floor though, and that won’t be me. My muscles are jelly.”

Jason gave a good natured snort and hefted the comatose billionaire up off the floor. “Someone needs to give this guy some serious self defense training. He’s a huge kidnap risk isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” said Rhodes, “but he’s got some great security and most people aren’t big enough idiots to want to tangle with it. Just get him in a bunk. At least he isn’t drunk on top of being beat otherwise he’d be awful in the morning.”

Jason dumped Tony in one of the low bunks and walked away. “He’s all yours. Have fun!”

The Avengers were left with plenty of new and highly disturbing information to mull over as they tried to sleep.

[Natasha’s dreams were troubled. Cassandra’s story had awoken her own memories that she usually kept safely buried. She was running down the sterile halls of the Red Room and knew only that whatever thing was was chasing her through the familiar passages was bad. Very Bad. Darting around a corner she ran past a mirror and almost screamed when she saw herself. Her mouth was sewn shut and gaping wounds covered her body. Blood red hair changed to coal black and back again. She didn’t look human. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a little girl was singing “faster, faster, faster never let him let him catch him, never let him eat you, never let him see you fall,” so she ran faster and faster, feet making no noise of the cold tile floors

The figure was gaining. She could feel it coming closer  just as the floor beneath her disappeared. Natasha pulled herself back just in time, but there was no where to go. A lake of ghastly green waited far below and from it she could feel an almost overpowering sensation of insanity, rage, and malice. The dark figure was at the door of the room now, the flickering green doing nothing to illuminate it. It felt like death and Natasha Romanoff had only one place to go. She jumped off the edge and fell down,

down,

down,

down,

And blinding pain followed.

The poisonous green was everywhere: in her lungs and stomach, under her skin and inside her brain. It got in her mouth and flowed through her veins. There was a slimy, oozy feeling where her eyes ought to be and tar dripping from her fingers. Then there was a pounding, vicious thumping in her chest as the heart she hadn’t realized had stopped started beating again. Her lungs burned as she took the breath she hadn’t been breathing. She existed in a haze of pain, green, a steady beat, rasping breaths, and the sound of her name being repeated over and over again.

Natasha forced her eyes open to see Sam looking down at her in concern.

“You just kind of fell out of bed and….” he trailed off.

She looked around and realized that she was indeed curled up on the hard concrete floor.

“I’ve never seen you do that before,” he added conversationally but she could hear the fearful intonations.

“Yeah,” she said intelligently as she sat up. Her vocal chords felt raw and sandy, like something tossed up on the beach. “Was I screaming?”

“No. Why?”

“Because it feels like I was. This is so strange. They were my nightmares, at least at first, but then they weren’t any more. I think they were Cassandra’s, but it wasn’t anything she’d told us earlier. I don’t know why.”

“Rest time’s almost up anyway; it’s been more than three hours. Wanna find something to eat in this crazy place? I personally am starving.”

Natasha cracked a smile and stood up, accompanied by some painful popping sounds. Sam offered her a hand and for once she took it willingly; the dream had mess with her far more than she wanted to admit.

“Maybe’s there’s some sort of psychic field in this place. I mean, they’ve got everything else. If so, she left an awful lot out of that story. Quite frankly, I’m beginning to think that this bat-profession has an unacceptably high casualty rate,” she said as they walked into the kitchen. A noise from their right reminded Sam and Natasha they they probably weren’t alone.

“I’m going to have to agree with you there,” said Dick from the top of the cabinets, glass of orange juice in one hand and breakfast burrito in the other. “There’s only so many times you and your loved ones can die violently before you go bat-shit insane.”

“That was a terrible pun,” said Natasha with a touch of playful derision in her voice. “But how often do you all die anyways? Tim mentioned something about getting killed by Cassandra, Jason made those comments about getting resurrected, and last night I had some really strange dreams that seemed to suggest that Cass herself had died at one point.”

“Eh. Actually that’s a good thought exercise. What counts and what doesn’t is a bit harder than you might think. Jason died pretty horrifically and Cass got killed by her mom, but they were both resurrected using Lazarus Pits, which are slightly sketchy. Steph flatlined and the Doc. saved her, but faked her death for reasons. Tim should probably be dead. Damien was offed by his mom, kind of, but he’s back now. The boss man got kind of killed by one of the big league villains, but he was really just stuck in the past. I haven’t died, so that’s a point in our favor I think.”

“Any more that we should be aware of? Because this is generally considered important information.” Sam was becoming incredibly impatient with the trickle of information they were being favored with.

“We’ve also lost some good friends. A lot of good friends. And, you know, just because they come back eventually doesn’t mean they didn’t die in the first place.”

“Does everyone in your universe come back to life as a matter of course?” Natasha was incredulous.

“Nooooooo. It just happens fairly frequently to the people in out line of work. We mess around with some interesting shit.”

“So how do you manage not to go off the deep-end? That’s a boat load of trauma and most of you have died, which has got to leave a scar.” Sam sounded genuinely interested. “I’ve got a buddy who could use some pointers and in all seriousness, so could I.”

Dick started at him. “I’ve got some bad news for you about that whole topic,” he said finally. “Our family is a technically unsanctioned paramilitary organization that jumps off skyscrapers for fun. If you’re looking to write a book on good coping mechanisms, we aren’t the best research candidates.”

“Good point,” said Sam. “Where are those breakfast burritos at and are they any good?”

Natasha was already investigating the cupboards.

“They just kind of show up,” said Steph, literally dropping in from somewhere up in the inky darkness of the ceiling and sticking her landing perfectly. “I’m feeling granola bars, sooo-” she opened the door between the oven and dishwasher and looked extremely disappointed when all she found were hundreds of cans of tuna fish. “That’s where they were yesterday.”

“Burritos should be two from the left of the fridge,” said Dick.

Natasha pulled the door opened, flooding the whole kitchen with the delicious smell of eggs, sausage, cheese, and tortillas.

“I don’t want to know how they’re this fresh,” she said. “I’m just glad they’re here.”

“Well that’s good,” said Tim wandering hand in hand with Cass. “We don’t how it works either. Toss me one of those too. Anyone want juice?” He caught the burrito thrown in his direction by Sam and went to the fridge emerging several minutes later with a huge bag of oranges. “Anyone know why we’ve got like thirty pounds of chicken feet in there? It’s slightly disturbing.”

“Well they’re astonishingly good for you,” said Bruce shambling into the kitchen looking rumpled, pillow lines still creasing his face. “Is there any other food?”

Wanda came in behind him, practically dragging Tony. “Someone give this useless man-child some food. And since I just spent ten minutes trying to explain to him that his muscles are supposed to ache like that, someone else can do that.”

“Tell me about it,” agreed Rhodes joining the breakfast burrito party. “I’ve got to get going as soon as it’s clear by the way. I was only released for a training exercise. As much as I want to stay and help out, I’m contractually obligated to report back. I’ve also got a ridiculous amount of paperwork waiting for me about this whole damn incident.”

“You’re my only ally here Rhodey. You can’t just leave me here alone. I forbid it. I’ll arrange everything,” announced Tony imperialistically from his chair.

“As much as I love knowing how much you value and appreciate me, I do like my job and would really hate to get court martialed for going AWOL.”

“You’re free to leave the trunk whenever you feel like it,” said Tim. “It isn’t like we’ve kidnapped you. Just make sure you get some food before-”

He was cut off by the blaring of the all clear signal and Jason’s irritated shouts.

“Turn that damn thing off, I’m trying to sleep over here!”

“If you’d gotten up with everyone else, you wouldn’t be having this problem. Just get over here. War Machine’s getting ready to leave,” Tim wasn’t having any of Jason’s dramatics.

There was a general good-bye going on in the kitchen as Rhodes got ready to take off.

“You’ll keep me posted, yeah? And if you need anything just give me a call.” With one last entreaty from Tony that he stay, Steph opened the door and he flew off.

“So,” said Natasha, “Now that we can move around, how about we get down to the business of tracking our missing persons.” Tim shared a quick look with Dick.

“I’ve already got something of a lead. While I’m pulling everything up, Steph can tell you al what happened when we got here and the circumstances of Damien’s abduction.”

“One day after we arrived here, we were running low on essential items, antibiotics and duct tape among other things, so we paused our monster hunt in the first relatively major city we could find, Gary, Indiana.” Steph’s voice was clipped, nothing like her usual bouncy excitement. “While we were out and about, we realized that we needed some fresh air and a break. We found a nice park and settled down for a picnic in civvies, like any other normal family. We weren’t expecting trouble. Just as we were packing up, all these black SUVs roared up and like fifty or so armed thugs poured out and went straight for us. Considering how many there were, we think they wanted all of us, not just Damian.” Steph paused and Dick took up the narrative.

“We didn’t want to cause a huge scene; we weren’t familiar with the relationship between vigilantes and law enforcement here, so we decided flight was the best option and ran for the trunk. They weren’t expecting the car to be much of a defense, so we all made it.” He grimaced. “We thought we did. They managed to grab Damien and we didn’t notice until it was too late to do anything.”

The Avengers winced. Leaving someone behind, even if it was by accident, especially if it was by accident, was always incredibly hard. From the computers, Tim let out a shout of triumph.

“We’ll get to it. Finish the story.”

“We have constant audio and visual footage on the outside of the car, so we had data to study,” Dick continued. “We spent hours studying the images we had with no luck, until someone flipped a television on to a local news station and we saw the looped footage of Captain America’s abduction straight off the red carpet of a charity event. It was a break we weren’t expecting.”

“Robin had been missing for about a day at that point,” said Jason, “and we get really touchy about the idea of dead Robin’s around here. Any news was good news and we recognized the uniforms and tactics.”

Sam could see from their point of view, but wished that they’re break hadn’t come at the expense of the Avengers.

“We realized that both our teams would be looking for the same thing and from what we’d seen, the Avengers looked like pretty decent allies,” Jason said. “We just had to figure out how to contact you. It took us awhile, but we found out you were planning a training exercise in Wisconsin and since we were already most of the way there, we decided to join you.”

There was silence as everyone processed the information.

“We still don’t know anything about the group responsible for this, though,” remarked Cass. “We were hoping you did.”

The Avengers exchanged glances and looked regretful.

“Sorry,” said Wanda, “they’re new players for us as well. I haven’t got any new information.”

“I do though,” said Tim into the heavy silence. “The storm and monster gave me an idea.They’re really big dimensional anomalies, but so’s everyone else in my group. It should be possible to track all the anomalies on this Earth and figure out where he is. I loosened my earlier search parameters from the monster hunt, but I got way too many potential hits. I was surprised at how many. Damien’s got a simple tracker in him though, but he’s got to be activate it, since we don’t like being walking beacons at all times. It just activated, but the tracker is really general and isn’t super precise. I cross referenced the tracker with the anomaly map and have a location. We’re looking at West Virginia. Park Falls to be exact.”

“We’ll need to do some recon work. We’ve got a location, but not much more,” said Natasha thoughtfully. “We’d be going in blind.”

After a quick question about his susceptibility to road rage, Bruce got driving duty.

“It drives like any other car, just don’t hit anything unfamiliar, you might regret it. There’s some nasty surprises up there.”

Now with the bones of a plan in place, both teams were much more relaxed. The bats worked on getting combat ready

“Everything is mostly healed,” Tim insisted.

“You got the shit beat out of you not that long ago, ex-boyfriend mine,” said Steph. “Not to mention the whole-”

“That’s right, we don’t mention the-”

“What’s the vague hand waving supposed to mean do you think?” Tony asked Sam.

“I don’t know, but probably something serious considering that these kids appear to get themselves in a lot of interesting situations.”

Steph continued to run Tim through his exercises despite his instances that he didn’t need them. Cass helped Dick with his almost healed shoulder. The Avengers and Jason were working together to piece together a picture of their potential battleground using Google maps since real time satellite imagery was proving difficult to obtain.

“I know you’ve probably looked through that footage of Capt. Rogers’ abduction a hundred times, but are you positive there’s nothing there to identify the organization responsible?” asked Jason.

“Yeah, we’re sure,” Wanda was starting to get impatient. “Why don’t you show us the footage of your brother’s abduction and we’ll see if we see anything familiar.”

Jason looked back impassively.

“What is is you don’t want us seeing?” Natasha asked bluntly, expression hard. Jason hesitates a moment longer.

“You didn’t react particularly well to our ages,” he admitted finally. “And Robin’s even younger.”

“You never did tell us your exact ages, “ said Tony. “But some of you are definitely teenagers. How old’s that Tim kid anyway? 16?”

“Seventeen, almost eighteen,” yelled Tim. “I resent the baby face comments by the way.”

Natasha started thinking. If Tim was seventeen and Damien was younger, that probably meant he was around fifteen, fourteen at the youngest since she couldn’t see anyone younger than that being very useful in a fight. She was getting a bad feeling though remembering the “this high” comment Steph had made at the beginning of the whole mess. Before she could analyze further Jason suddenly said,

“Eleven.”

The Avengers looked confused.

“Robin’s eleven.”

Wanda’s hands started turning red.

“And yes he’s already died messily,” he continued, anticipating Sam and Natasha and getting defensive, “but the whole child soldier thing and the death thing are mostly his mom’s fault. She’s a lunatic and her father’s even worse.” There was a snort of agreement from Tim. Jason was beginning to resent being loomed over by deadly, superpowered individuals while the rest of his family were conveniently out of the way in the med bay. It was time for a master level evasion tactic worthy of the Batman himself; Wanda was looking frankly alarming with her glowing hands of death energy. Jason had never before wished so fervently for a disappointed Bat-glare. At least when Batman got angry, no one had to worry about dead bodies. “Well why don’t we get back to planning shit. Sound good folks?” That was professional level avoidance, Jason thought. Denial wasn’t just a river in Egypt after all.

“We still need to see that footage,” said Black Widow.

Well shit. And Jason was still in civvies, so he couldn’t bat-loom them into submission. He sent a beseeching look toward his family who only looked back apologetically. This wasn’t good. The only good thing about this situation that he could see was that Banner was driving and they wouldn’t have to worry about a Hulk situation in the trunk. They could probably contain it, but Jason didn’t want to risk it.

“Alright. Alright.” he said, bowing to the inevitable. “I’ll play it, but you kids in medical have to quite playing possum and come shield me from imminent death.” There were guilty looks exchanged and a slow migration back over to where the Avengers were gathered.

“Hey,” said Dick lightly, “You’re not allowed to blame the child soldiers for the other child soldiers. Really. Please just don’t.”

“So what? We blame you big guy,” demanded Tony.

“No,” came the flat reply. “I was nine. Anyway the people who you would even be remotely justified in blaming are over in a very different universe. All that matters now is getting both our brother and Captain Rogers back. We can argue ethics later. Jason, the video please.”

Jason pulled up the footage and every one was treated to roughly five minutes of a standard family picnic before the peace and tranquility was abruptly shattered. The attempted abductions happened exactly as Steph and Dick had described, but being told the age of the youngest bat and actually seeing it were two very different things. Natasha was more than a little disturbed to see just how well Damien fought, considering he was eleven. She put it out of her mind though and concentrated on the details. She suddenly saw something familiar on one of the thugs.

“Hey. Pause the video and go back about ten seconds. I’m pretty sure I saw something. I want to get a close up of the insignia on the upper left arm of the guy in the eyepatch fighting your brother.”

“There’s an insignia? How did we miss that?” asked Tim as he backed it up.

A symbol with three interlocking circles and a swastika in the center was just barely visible when Damien pulled the covering off in an ineffectual attempt to get out of the hold he was in.

“Share with the class?” asked Dick.

“About four years ago I helped SHIELD take out a really nasty, incredibly tough white supremacist cult in West Virginia called Brothers of the Supreme Society. It was in roughly the same part of the state as your energy readings, so I’m fairly certain it’s the same group or its successor. The symbol is the same. If it is still them, they had great funding last time and an incredibly disturbing interest in the occult to go along with their icky beliefs.”

Cassandra looked thoughtful and said, “When we arrived, we would have had an odd energy reading. If this cult has an interest in the occult they were probably looking at oddities like us. The whole resurrection process also leaves a pretty big mystical marker on a person.”

“And there were three of us with that sort of marker in one small space. They must have assumed they’d hit the jackpot on immortality,” said Jason.

“Too bad they got the middle eastern kid,” snorted Steph before sobering abruptly. “He may call me Fatgirl, but I wouldn’t leave any brown kid in the loving arms of Aryan Nation types.” Dick was looking like he was expending a lot of energy staying calm.

“Father-son relationship, kind of,” Cass whispered to Wanda. “If you’re looking for calm, cool, and collected, talk to Tim.” Wanda shot her a glance before speaking up.

“A white supremacist group would obviously want Steve; I mean, he’d be a great poster child for aryan perfection. If they could get him to change his mind on a couple of key issues, but they’d basically be turning him into the……”

“Winter Soldier, damnit.” Sam looked sick. “That can not happen, we only recently re-froze one of those. Imagine the uproar if we had to hunt down an American icon.”

“Or,” said Tony slowly, “they could be trying to reverse engineer him. It’s a miracle pill of human perfection. They’d definitely want that.”

“They’re not capable of that though,” said Nat. “They were some scary bastards last time, but they weren’t that scary.”

“Well, they don’t have to actually be capable of it to cause Steve a world of pain,” Sam threw in pessimistically.

“Or they could be successful with it,” said Tim. He sounded thoughtful. “They have an interest in the occult and skill in that shit grows exponentially. It builds on itself rapidly. Who knows what they're really capable of? They might just be messing around, but-”

“We’ve seen too much improbable crap happen with magic to write it off.” Jason frowned and continued. “We’re going to have to take a few more variables into consideration if magic is going to be an issue. You never know what you’re going to run into with shady magic users.”

“Yes. I know,” said Cass, smiling. “What if we gave them some real demons? More or less that is.” The Avengers watched the Bats have an epiphany.

“Justice, vengeance, and all that jazz.” Steph was smiling now as well.

“ Everyone knows criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot.”

Sam glanced at Tim and asked, “Are you quoting something?”

“It’s kind of our motto. One of them anyway.”

“Ah.”

Dick developed a slightly manic gleam in his eyes. “That sounds like an excellent idea. I just wish we had a Batman suit with us.”

Tim looked up in surprise. “We do. It’s too big for you though. Remember when I got lost somewhere between universes five and six? There was that incredibly trippy alternate universe with Jason as Batman and Bruce as Robin, which I’m still not over. Anyway, you sucked me back here along with one of the suits. It’s back in one of the storage closets.”

“So we’ve got a Batman, a Nightwing, a Batgirl.” Steph stopped. “Why doesn’t Cass use her old Batgirl outfit? If you want demony, there’s not much better than that freaky thing with no face. I mean, it scares me and I know you. There’s something about that sewn up mouth.”

Cassandra looked happy with the idea in an extraordinarily bloodthirsty way. “But something will have to be done about Tim’s costume. Demons are not supposed to look like condoms. Neither are vigilantes, but we put up with it generally.” Her voice was emphatic and Tim only looked a little offended. He mostly looked rueful.

“Yeah. I know. I’ve been working on some significant modifications though. I had an awesome suit design in the Unternet and I’ve been recreating it on this trip. It’s time to take it out for a trial spin and it fits the general theme we’ve got going on.”

Jason was mostly just leaning up against an empty chair looking dumbstruck. “Last time I wore Batman around you guys I did some really, really shitty stuff. Like, I tried to murder Drake.”

“In all fairness, I brought I crowbar to that particular meeting, so….”

“Yeah but I kind of deserved that. I mean I cut your throat, beat you bloody, and practically wrote ‘Jason Todd was here’ in your own blood on the wall that one time.”

Tony was seriously reconsidering that whole well adjusted thing and was a hairsbreadth away from stepping in and doing something about the whole disturbing conversation, but Dick laid a cautionary hand on him.

“They’re having a long overdue moment,” he whispered. “This trip’s been hell, don’t mess up this attempt at actual communication.”

“I’m mostly over all that,” said Tim after a beat.

“Well you might be, but I’m definitely not you idiot.”

“That’s stupid.” shrugged Tim. “It isn’t like you’re my favorite person on the planet now or anything, but I did once to worship the ground you walked on. You can get away with a lot.”

Jason was beginning to look like he might die of heart failure. “You’d better not die on this trip you little stalker; you’re starting to grow on me.”

“Thanks, the feeling’s mutual,” said Tim blandly, but he looked extremely gratified. “Besides, if you’re not in the Batman suit, you’d be in that stupid red helmet looking like an Iron Man impersonator, but significantly less cool.”

“Dude, you really know how to compliment a guy. Kon been teaching you all his moves?”

“Shut up. My grace only extends so far.”

The Avengers, while certainly enjoying the soap opera going on right in front of them, it was like Thor and Loki but this significantly less death and destruction and the distinct possibility of a happy ending, were getting confused.

“I get that you’re going for an occultic, demonic feel, but is a simple costume change going to make a huge difference? Don’t you already have the creepy factor dialed all the way up?”

“I second Wanda’s question,” said Tony. “There was an awful lot of subtext in that conversation.”

“If I gather correctly,” said Tim, “You guys have had the same superhero handles for most of your superheroing career. Well, we change ours fairly frequently whether it’s because we grow out of certain identities or need to take up specific legacies. Sometimes we just change our suits drastically for the hell of it but don’t change our handles. And some of us,” here he leveled an impressive glare at Red Hood, “steal names and drag them through the mud. Don’t you think for one minute that we’ve forgotten that whole Nightwing fiasco buster.”

“You,” ground out Jason between gritted teeth, “don’t get to lecture anyone on identity theft Replacement.”

Tim looked supremely unbothered and continued. “And a lot of our myth is built on our intimidation factor. Basically we know how to scare the shit out people and in order to do it effectively sometimes we need to use different players.”

“It’s not that we aren’t terrifying in the outfits that we arrived in,” Cass said, “it’s just-” she paused, searching for the correct words. “We already have a rep back home. The mere shadow of the Batman gliding overhead makes bad guys run. Our costumes can mean different things, important things, but we’re going for primal fear here.”

The Avengers were very interested in learning about the inner dynamics and reasonings behind the actions of their new friends. Information that had been coming in a bare trickle was now just pouring out of their hosts. It was a heady experience.

“I get the whole intimidation factor that you want to present to our targets, but won’t it be an issue for you to make such dramatic changes in your suits right before a very important fight? I personally am still getting used to my new wings and I’ve had them awhile. From what I can tell, you’re going into these things cold.”

Steph raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not that I don't think that you’re capable fighters, you’ve shown that you are, but we’re rescuing Captain America. He’s a national icon and a great friend. There is no room for error here. Not to mention we’re also hopefully getting your eleven year old brother out of there. And this is potentially a bunch of juiced up skinheads. I just…”

“Yeah, no we understand where you’re coming from,” Tim replied. “The good news on that front is that we’re mostly going back to costumes that we’ve spent significant amounts of time in are are perfectly comfortable using. The one problem could be Jason in the Batman suit.”

“It’s a freaking kevlar ball gown,” Dick groussed. “Nightwing is so much less constricting.”

“That’s certainly one way of saying it, but we all know your fashion sense” muttered Steph.

Dick looked uncomfortable and hurried on before anyone could bring up any of his more daring costuming choices. “If we get suited up now and practice a bit, we should all be fine. It’s, what, a fifteen hour drive to the town in question? That’s plenty of time to brush up, get some rest, and work up a doable plan of action. We work best at night, so there’ll be even more time depending on what time of day we arrive.”

The party split up with Dick and Steph remaining with the Avengers and the rest of the Bats wandering off to find all the components of their outfits. Three hours later, there was a plan, variations on the plan, twenty six back-up plans, each one more outlandish than the last, and a solid chain of command with Sam as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, “it’s nice knowing that we’ve got something in common between universes.” He was feeling more than a little nervous about that one considering that he could barely lead his own team.

“We don’t really have any authority here in this universe,” Dick shrugged. “Back home we’ve got solid relationships with law enforcement and local governments and an officially recognized league of supers. We have our areas of jurisdiction and know the boundaries. Here we’re not legitimate in any sense.”

“Also, your team’s got all the really heavy hitters buster and you know them a hell of a lot better than any of us do,” Steph pointed out pragmatically.

And so Sam Wilson, one time Air Force Pararescue and current Falcon, found himself not just in charge of his own team, but also a family of crazy bat ninjas he still wasn’t sure were entirely human. Not that he was judging. He had yet to see the new costumes and he was incredibly curious about what Batman was, from all the hints he’d heard, it was going to be something terrifying. Suddenly he realized that Bruce Banner had been stuck driving all alone for the past five hours. Something most definitely had to be done about that. In a bid to decompress away from all the crazy people, Sam grabbed the opportunity to drive before anyone else could.

He left Banner cooking something delicious in the kitchen; Wanda and Steph doing some light training together, apparently Wanda wanted to up her hand to hand with someone closer to her weight class and skill level; Natasha and Jason discussing guns, shitty life choices, and the road to redemption; Tim poking at Tony’s arc reactor and grilling him on maintaining a work-life balance, which he was rapidly discovering Tony didn’t have a clue about; Cass sitting on top the fridge throwing occasional comments down to Bruce; and Dick doing impossible looking routines on the gymnastics equipment. The new kids were growing on him, kind of like a fungus.

After fifteen hours, even something as roomy as the trunk felt constricting. There’d been training, eating, technology geek outs, and uninterrupted sleep all interspersed with micro-analyzing the extraction plan. They had switched drivers every couple of hours with only a few minor disasters and most of them were automatically blamed on Tony. No one could be entirely sure if Tony hitting the button that broadcast Celine Dion over every speaker in the back while everyone was sleeping was truly the accident he claimed it was. At that point, Sam got fed up and told both teams to get changed. That at least was a productive use of time.

Then Jason dropped out of the ceiling in full Batman regalia and the Avengers briefly forgot how to speak.

“That cape,” whispered Bruce, “seems a bit excessive.”

“That’s kinda the point,” said Jason, shrugging, “but it frightens people half to death when used correctly.”

“So does the Disc-”

“That was a phase!” Dick shrieked, drowning out Steph’s contribution to the conversation. “No one’s supposed to speak of that.”

The questions that the Avengers might have had about this phase of Dick’s were cut off brutally by Cassandra slipping into the midst of their gathering. There was definitely something off about her costume, like there wasn’t even a person in there. She looked like some demented dead thing. And then her body language shifted slightly and it all fell away leaving her looking like a particularly adorable kitten. The whole thing was completely disturbing.

“Oooooooh! Timmy! You’ve got finger stripes!” Dick sounded incredibly honored.

“Yeah.They’re cool. I guess.”

“So you know, if you ever want to change to name, Flamebird’s still open.”

Tim looked incredulous. “You’re the one who fired me from my last Robin gig. You don’t get this one too, but I’ll think about it.”

“Really?”

“Don’t get a big head; the Red Robin tags get contaminated by fast food crap all the time and it’s annoying. My reasoning will be practical and rational.” He looked completely serious and completely deadly. The costume change was definitely for the better in the minds of everyone present.

“The GPS is saying twenty minutes out,” came Wanda’s disembodied voice. “If Tony wants to do the aerial recon now would be the best time.”

After a nod from Sam, Tony gave a bulky salute and flew out the back. Seven minutes later the imagery started coming back. The area was advertised as a summer adventure camp and was so out of the way it was almost its own country. There were actual cabins, swimming pools, lodges, and pavilions at the front of the property. Tony’s cameras picked out fully functional ropes courses and ziplines. The camp atmosphere made the sprawling four story cinder block building squatting back in a deep valley look even more out of place. It was surrounded by an eight foot concrete wall topped by both razor and electrified wire. To make infiltration even more difficult, there were fifty yards of cleared area surrounding the whole thing. A sign out front proclaimed it to be ‘Wild Bill’s Adventure Camp Power Station.’

“If that’s a power station,” said Tony, “I’ll eat my boots.”

“The entire area is going to be heavily monitored,” mused Sam, “but we’ve already planned for that.”

“Yeah,” acknowledged Jason, “but with this set-up, they’re going to have off-grid servers running everything. We’re going to need a hard line to hack into the security.”

“There is no internet in that whole facility, so we can’t get in from the outside. I hate to say it, but we’re going to have to go with the localized EMP blast on a couple sensors. It’s not subtle, but it’ll have to do,” said Tim.

“Someone’s going to have to cut the power lines to that electric wiring,” said Natasha. “Tony’s readings show that that stuff is deadly and I don’t want to take the risk going over that stuff.”

“Or we could just use Plan F. Sam and Tony each drop one person inside the compound. They can establish a hard line into the security systems and then everyone else can go over the wall as they please,” said Steph looking around for potential recruits, settling on Tim and Cass.

“And then hybridize F with A and M,” said Sam, nodding. “That should work out well.”

“Bruce, you had better prepare for heavy casualties. This plan ought to work, but the personal risk is kind of huge,” said Dick. “Also, we’re going to need professional medical teams and maybe a mercy flight standing by.”

“We can get a quinjet or two and the Avenger’s facility has a crack medical staff,” said Tony. “Bruce can you take care of that, can’t you buddy?”

The tension was ramping back up. “Go time in fifteen. It should be dark enough then. Stark, fly it back in.” The ring of authority in Sam’s voice was unmistakable.

Dick took over driving, taking the car off road and kicking it in four wheel to get them as close as possible to the compound. As soon as Wanda appeared back with the group, Steph immediately decided that their Scarlet Witch could do with some dress up and insisted on on painting her face. Sam checked over his wings one more time; he was going to be pararescue once again and this time no one was going to die on him. The bats were obsessively going over the contents of their utility belts. Bruce was mentally preparing for every bad situation that could come through the doors. Dick rejoined them. Cass and Tim stood up. Go time.

Sam took off first with Cass. Once he was halfway to the drop point he signaled Tony to follow with Tim. They arrived at exactly the same time, dropping their charges parallel to the building. There was a heart-stopping moment of terror as the two free fell before connecting their grapples to the parapet and slowing their descent. Iron Man and Falcon took off leaving two new teammates dangling off the side of a Nazi stronghold.

Tim was in the middle of pulling out his window tools when Cass touched his arm lightly and pointed to a cracked window, on the first floor. Security was apparently fairly lax once one got past the intimidating outer shell. There was an excellent view into a dimly lit, ugly foyer with a gathering of beefy men clustered around a reception desk. After a careful application of oil, the window slid open without a sound.

Cass went in first and hit the men like a bowling ball. They didn’t have enough time to scream, let alone get back up before Tim came whirling in like a hurricane, delivering bloody retribution with his bo. It was over in seconds without a single triggered alarm. Tim slid quickly into a discarded chair and started disabling security feeds and crippling sensors, only bothering with the ones that would cause problems. Everything would go down once the servers were blown later. He hooked the computer into the trunk’s network for Bruce to look over and then located a building plan, uploading it to Tony for distribution to the rest of the team. Cass took out a few more stragglers to the party in reception before Sam let them know their teammates had successfully gotten over the fence. Tim buzzed them in and the real work began.