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Chapter Text

Tim landed hard, a grunt escaping his chest as concrete slammed into his shoulder. Somewhere behind him, Jason cursed loudly, and a blur of blue and black flipped through the air before landing in a graceful crouch.
Dick straightened up and scanned the area, hands already moving to help Tim. “Everyone alive?”
“No thanks to whoever just turned us into dimensional cannonballs,” Jason muttered, brushing dirt off his jacket. “What the hell was that?”
Tim groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know. One minute we’re chasing that meta through the sewers, next minute, boom. Portal. Screaming. Now... this.”
“This” was a suspiciously normal-looking city street. Busy, loud, and smoggy in a very un-Gotham way. There were people everywhere, most too distracted by phones or coffee to notice three guys in body armor crouching behind a dumpster like they’d just rage-quit a cosplay convention.
“Okay,” Dick said slowly. “Let’s just, take a breath. Assess. That didn't look like a Zeta beam. And there were no boom tube signatures. So either someone’s tech got way too advanced, or-”
“Or we’re somewhere else entirely,” Tim finished, standing and adjusting his domino mask.
Jason snorted. “Somewhere else? Like where? Blüdhaven's suckier cousin?”
Dick’s expression tightened as he took in the unfamiliar skyline. “No. This isn’t Gotham. Or Blüdhaven. Or anywhere I’ve ever seen.”
“No familiar buildings,” Tim added. “No Wayne Enterprises tower. And I checked my comms, no Bat-signal, no Watchtower pings. We’re off the grid. Completely.”
“And no one is staring at us like we’re weird, which either means this place sees way too many guys in capes or we’re not the first to fall through a hole in the universe,” Jason said. He scratched at the edge of his helmet but didn’t take it off yet. “I vote we ditch the gear before someone asks why Robin’s dressed like it's 2010.”
Dick nodded. “Agreed. We need to blend in. Lay low, gather intel.”
“Right. ‘Cause that’s always easy when you’re literally broke in another dimension,” Jason muttered. But he was already following Dick’s lead as they slipped down a side alley.

Half an hour later, after some tense negotiation with a bodega owner and some fast-talking from Dick (and a two hundred-dollar bill Jason always kept in his boot “for emergencies”), they walked out wearing jeans, sneakers, and generic hoodies.
They looked like three normal twenty-somethings.
Except for the fact that all three had eyes like hawks, muscles like gym rats, and the casual posture of men who knew seventeen ways to kill you with a pen.
“We need shelter,” Tim said. “And a plan.”
Jason glanced at the cheap phone Tim had just picked up. “Well, Mr. Genius, what does Google say?”
Tim’s brow furrowed. “Okay, weird… there’s no mention of any League. No WayneTech. No Gotham. No LexCorp.”
Dick frowned. “Try searching for ‘heroes.’”
Tim did.
“What the hell is a Spider-Man?” Jason said as he leaned over Tim’s shoulder. “Is that a villain? A meme?”
“Apparently he swings around New York stopping muggings in spandex. With webs.”
“Sounds fake,” Jason muttered.
But as they turned the corner, they got their answer.
An explosion rocked the street, followed by screaming. A metallic-looking guy with a jetpack was tearing through a jewelry store display, laughing like this was Tuesday for him.
People screamed. Civilians ran.
And all three vigilantes tensed out of instinct.
Jason reached for a knife that wasn’t there. “We jumping in?”
Tim hesitated, and Dick grabbed his arm before he could move.
“Wait.”
A red-and-blue blur swung into view, flipping with practiced ease as webs shot across the street. He kicked the villain square in the face, cracked a joke loud enough to echo, and then zipped out of the way of a repulsor blast. The fight was fast, flashy, and oddly stylish.
The three of them stood frozen on the corner, blinking in collective disbelief.
“That’s him,” Tim said slowly. “Spider-Man.”
“No cape. No team. Just… soloing that guy like it's a game level,” Dick murmured.
“I’m getting secondhand whiplash,” Jason muttered.
They watched until the villain was webbed to a lamppost, police sirens echoing in the distance. Spider-Man waved once, then launched himself into the sky again.
Jason broke the silence first. “Okay. So. We’re definitely not in Kansas.”
Tim looked up from his phone. “I think we’re in Queens.”
“Close enough.”
Dick ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Alright. No Batcave. No Bruce. No Justice League. No idea if we’re stuck here permanently. We need to be smart.”
“No telling anyone we’re from… wherever we’re from,” Jason said immediately. “That’s just asking for men in lab coats.”
“Agreed,” Dick said. “We stay quiet. We play it cool. We survive.”
“And,” Tim added, “we find jobs. Because apparently, we need rent money now.”
Jason groaned. “I did not survive dying just to become a barista.”
“Hey,” Dick said with a grin. “Maybe they need dance instructors around here.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Jason muttered.
They walked on, blending in with the crowd again. Just three strangers in a strange world, pretending like they belonged.
For now.

The motel smelled like bleach and broken dreams.
The wallpaper was peeling in streaks that resembled claw marks, the TV had one working channel (static), and Jason swore the suspicious stain in the corner blinked at him once.
“This place is gonna give me tetanus just from breathing,” he muttered, using a sock to avoid touching the doorknob to the bathroom.
“It was the cheapest we could find,” Dick replied, balancing on the edge of the lumpy bed as he scrolled through rental listings on Tim’s secondhand phone. “And at least the door locks.”
“Barely,” Jason muttered, holding up the splintered wooden bolt with a skeptical glance. “I could kick it in with a toe.”
“Then don’t.”
Across the room, Tim sat cross-legged on the other bed, hunched over a stolen laptop that had clearly seen better centuries. The screen glowed dimly as his fingers flew across the keyboard with alarming speed.
“You know,” Dick said carefully, “I’m not sure I want to know what you’re doing right now.”
“Relax,” Tim said without looking up. “I’m just, cleaning up some DMV records, backdating a few employment histories, and creating completely legal Social Security numbers for all of us.”
Jason leaned over his shoulder. “...You made me a degree from Georgetown?”
“Well, your fake resume needed a little sparkle.”
“I dropped out of high school.”
“Yeah, but this Jason Todd didn’t.”
Dick blinked. “Tim. You made alternate versions of us that sound more successful than we actually are.”
Tim shrugged. “Look, I don’t make the rules. Employers like college degrees. Also, congratulations, Dick, you’re now a certified barista with five years of experience at ‘Bean Me Up.’”
Jason groaned into his hands. “Tell me you did not just make up a Star Trek-themed coffee shop.”
“Too late. It’s on your résumé now too.”
Dick looked vaguely betrayed. “You made us both baristas?”
Tim gestured at the phone. “They were hiring, the place has a decent rating on Yelp, and they don’t ask a lot of questions. Low turnover, minimum wage, high caffeine environment. Perfect for blending in.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “And what job did you get, oh master of digital forgery?”
Tim leaned back smugly. “None.”
Dick squinted. “You didn’t apply anywhere?”
Tim pointed at himself. “I’m a sleep-deprived seventeen-year-old who looks like I crawl out of vents for fun. Nobody’s hiring me unless I lie about my age, which I could do, but then you’ll get mad when I end up working graveyard shifts in a sketchy warehouse with mob connections.”
Jason considered that. “...Fair.”
“You’re saying we get to be the ones with mob-connected shifts?”
“Precisely.”
Dick sighed, flopping backward onto the bed with a groan. “How is it that you look like the least employable one here but somehow run our entire lives?”
“Because I’m efficient, adaptable, and have zero ethical concerns about lying to the U.S. government,” Tim replied cheerfully.
“Still concerned,” Dick muttered.
Tim clicked a final key and shut the laptop. “Congratulations, gentlemen. You’re both starting work tomorrow at 8 a.m. at Brewed Awakening.”
Jason blinked. “Is that the one near Midtown?”
“Yep. It’s within walking distance. Uniforms are black aprons and fake smiles.”
Dick narrowed his eyes. “You said ‘Bean Me Up’ earlier.”
“I also said I lie a lot.”
Jason flopped dramatically onto the bed. “We’re going to die working retail.”
Tim yawned, curling up under the scratchy motel blanket like it was a nest. “If anyone asks, you’re Jason Taylor and Richard Gray. Don’t screw that up.”
“Why do you get to decide our names?” Jason asked.
“Because I’m the one who has to remember eighteen aliases at any given time. Good night.”
Dick and Jason shared a look over Tim’s slowly rising blanket cocoon.
Jason shook his head. “He’s gonna run the world someday, isn’t he?”
Dick sighed. “Only if he doesn’t get arrested first.”
Meanwhile, several blocks away, Peter Parker wiped a milk steamer clean behind the counter of Brewed Awakening, blissfully unaware that two vigilantes from an entirely different universe would be clocking in with him tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Jason adjusted the black apron and scowled at his reflection in the espresso machine. “I look like a Hot Topic manager who got lost and ended up in a Starbucks.”
Dick patted him on the back cheerfully. “You look great. Very rugged. Customers are gonna love the brooding.”
“I’m not brooding. I’m miserable.”
Dick flashed a megawatt grin. “Same thing.”
“Can I punch you in front of customers or is that against company policy?”
Before Dick could respond, the bell over the café door jingled again, and just like that, another wave of customers shuffled in, most of them immediately spotting the two new hires behind the counter.
Jason noticed the change instantly.
A group of college girls giggled behind their frappes. A middle-aged man openly stared. Someone by the window tilted their sunglasses down with a soft “holy sh-”
“You seeing this?” Jason muttered.
“Yeah,” Dick said with a blink. “I think we accidentally became local eye candy.”
One of the girls leaned on the counter. “Hi! So sorry, but... are you guys models?”
Dick laughed as he handed over a latte with perfect foam art. “Nope. Just baristas. First day on the job.”
Jason handed someone their order with a completely deadpan “Enjoy your coffee. Don't trip on the thirst.”
The girl squealed.
“Okay, you’re good at this,” Dick muttered as they moved through orders. “You’ve got the ‘dead-eyed heartthrob’ vibe down.”
“Shut up before I throw this scone at your perfect hair.”
A voice piped up from the side. “Hey, uh. So... are you guys actually new?”
They turned.
Peter Parker stood there in uniform, friendly smile on his face and a towel slung over his shoulder. He was the definition of “nice coworker energy,” if a little wiry and perpetually five seconds from total stress.
“Yeah,” Dick said with his usual charm. “Just moved here.”
“Oh cool! You guys, uh… from around?”
Jason blinked once. “Out of the country.”
Peter’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh yeah? Where from?”
“Small country,” Dick said smoothly. “Tiny. Not on most maps.”
Peter tilted his head. “Huh. So how’d you end up working coffee in New York?”
Jason, without blinking: “We just got back from a draft.”
Peter blinked. “...Military?”
“Yep,” Dick said brightly. “Two years of… being yelled at and running through mud.”
“Three years,” Jason added. “I got extra mud.”
Peter processed that. “Wow. Sorry. That sounds intense.”
Dick shrugged. “This is actually kind of relaxing in comparison.”
Peter nodded slowly, a little skeptical now. “Well. You guys are handling the rush really well for new hires. Better than I did. I once exploded a milk frother my first week.”
“Exploded?” Jason asked.
“Like, foam everywhere. Manager cried. It was bad.”
Jason cracked a grin. “Cool. Maybe I will like it here.”
Meanwhile, over in the corner of the café, Tim sat curled in an oversized hoodie, sipping a coffee he absolutely did not pay for, with a laptop open and five tabs running. His face was blank, eyes flicking across screens of scrolling code.
No one noticed.
To the average customer, he looked like a very tired high schooler abusing free Wi-Fi to cram for exams.
In reality, he was currently halfway into a Stark Industries firewall, muttering under his breath, “No security protocol should be this pretty. Who designed this? A sadist? A sadist with taste?”
He took another sip of lukewarm coffee.
Peter glanced over and blinked. “Uh, hey… is that your friend? He’s been here since, like, 7 a.m.”
Dick glanced toward Tim, who gave them a small wave without looking up from his code.
“Yeah,” Dick said. “That’s Tim. He’s... in between gigs.”
Peter frowned slightly. “He okay?”
Jason leaned over the counter. “He’s seventeen and smarter than everyone in this building combined. Let him vibe.”
“I can hear you.”
“Good.”
The day passed in a blur of lattes, weird small talk, and the increasing realization that New York customers were either terrifying, unhinged, or both.
But somehow, they survived shift one. Barely.
Peter handed Dick a spare rag as they wiped down the espresso machine together. “So… you guys planning to stick around?”
Dick offered an easy smile. “For now.”
“Cool,” Peter said, nodding. “Hope you like weird. New York gets kinda... unpredictable.”
Jason glanced at the street through the window just as someone in a flying metal suit buzzed by like it was just another Tuesday.
He muttered, “No kidding.”

The Avengers briefing room was quieter than usual, which was saying something, considering Thor once held a strategy meeting while juggling Mjölnir and a turkey leg.
Peter landed on the balcony and slid through the tower’s glass doors as Spider-Man, pulling off his mask and running a hand through his sweaty curls.
“Hey,” he said, breathless. “You said it was urgent?”
Tony spun around from the massive holographic projection blooming in the center of the room. He looked… irritated. And maybe a little insulted. Which, for Tony Stark, was basically DEFCON 2.
“Took you long enough,” Tony said, waving a hand at the display. “Tell me, Underoos. Ever feel like someone just kicked your brain in the shins?”
Peter blinked. “That’s… not how anatomy works.”
“I got hacked.”
That got everyone’s attention.
Natasha sat forward. “Into what, exactly?”
“My personal systems. StarkNet. Research storage. Experimental archives. Nothing that would, you know, explode, but still not exactly open-access.”
Steve frowned. “Are we talking some rival tech corp? HYDRA? What kind of files were they after?”
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not blueprints, exactly. More like scans of my old AI defensive protocols, security override hierarchies, some new internal drone designs. They didn’t get through everything, either their rig couldn’t handle it or they ran out of time.”
Bruce looked up from his tablet. “So they’re good, but not elite.”
Tony gave him a dry look. “Oh no, they’re elite. The code trail was clean. If I hadn’t been running a background integrity sweep at 4 a.m., I wouldn’t have even noticed. I only caught the breach after they left a message in the data logs.”
Peter raised a hand halfway. “Like… a literal message?”
Tony swiped the hologram sideways, revealing a screen filled with code, and highlighted in bold red text, a note tucked into the error report:
“Your security is insultingly fragile. I broke in while sipping a caramel latte. Do better. ❤️”
There was a beat of silence.
Clint coughed. “So… this guy's got jokes.”
Thor looked impressed. “Their confidence is mighty.”
“Arrogant little-" Tony started pacing, arms flailing. “I’m Tony Stark. Do you know how rude it is to break into my systems and roast me in a footnote?!”
Peter tried to stifle a snort and failed. “At least they were polite about it?”
Tony shot him a glare. “I will revoke your suit access.”
Steve folded his arms. “Any leads on who it could be?”
Tony sighed. “Not yet. I’m running facial and behavioral analysis on all known hackers, but the signature doesn’t match anyone on file. It’s too clean. Like they built a temporary system just for this job and then torched it on exit.”
Natasha raised a brow. “So either they’re a pro… or a ghost.”
Tony’s frown deepened. “Or both.”
Bruce leaned forward. “Did they take anything you can’t rebuild?”
“No. Just enough to be annoying. And a little concerning. I want everyone on alert, keep an eye out for any suspicious tech, weird questions, unknown players sniffing around. Whoever this is, they’re smart, and they know exactly where to hit.”
Peter crossed his arms. “Do you think they’re trying to sell it?”
“If they wanted to sell, they would’ve stayed quiet. This was a flex. A warning. They wanted me to know I was vulnerable.”
“Cocky,” Clint muttered. “Dangerous combo.”
Tony nodded grimly. “Exactly. Keep your ears open. If anyone hears anything about a new player in town, or someone poking around where they shouldn’t, let me know.”
Everyone murmured agreement, already shifting into mission-mode.
Peter remained silent, thoughts drifting momentarily to his two new coworkers.
Jason and richard.
They were weirdly competent at handling stress. Like, "someone-throws-a-hot-coffee-and-they-don’t-even-flinch" competent.
And they both had that subtle edge, like they were always listening to more than what was being said. Jason moved like he expected to be attacked at any moment. Richard smiled too easily but had a soldier’s reflexes.
But hacking? No way.
Peter mentally shrugged it off. They were baristas. He’d seen Jason panic over a milk steamer just this morning.
“Alright,” Tony said, hands on hips. “Team dismissed. I’ve got a hacker ego to un-bruisingly avenge.”
As the others filed out, Peter lingered near the back, glancing one last time at the hacker’s snarky little message.
He chuckled to himself. “Caramel latte, huh?”
Back at the café, Tim clicked open a new browser window, sipped from a slowly disintegrating paper cup, and muttered, “Stark’s security is like a glitter-covered eggshell. Pretty, but mostly vibes.”
He cracked his neck and stretched.
Then opened a new tab labeled: S.H.I.E.L.D. Internal Access (mirror link 3)
“Alright,” he whispered. “Round two.”

The motel door clicked shut behind Jason, and he let out a long, exhausted sigh, tossing his apron onto the wobbly dresser like it had personally offended him.
“I smell like milk and lies,” he muttered, flopping onto one of the twin beds.
“Hey, we survived,” Dick said, toeing off his sneakers and stretching until his back popped. “Nobody recognized us, nobody started a fight, and we got a ten-dollar tip from someone who said I ‘smile like a sad god.’ That’s a win.”
Jason groaned into the pillow. “I hate this universe.”
“I’m just glad no one found out-”
“Found out what?”
The voice came from the corner.
Tim sat in the dark with his laptop screen glowing like some kind of tech goblin. His hoodie was up, there were at least three empty coffee cups beside him, and his expression was very “I just committed something illegal and I’d do it again.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing.”
Tim blinked at them. “Oh. I hacked Stark Industries.”
The silence was immediate.
Like, nuclear silence. Earth-shattering silence.
Then-
“YOU WHAT.” Jason shot up so fast the mattress squeaked violently.
Dick’s eyes widened like someone just told him Bruce was dating Superman. “I- I’m sorry, you did what now?”
“I needed to check if they had tech that could send us home,” Tim said matter-of-factly, swiveling around in the motel chair. “They have the cleanest and most advanced systems I’ve seen since the Watchtower. Even better, honestly. It was worth a look.”
Jason was pacing now. “You hacked the one tech company with facial recognition satellites because you were curious?!”
“I was careful,” Tim said. “I only downloaded a few blueprints. My laptop couldn’t handle more. And I left a note.”
“YOU LEFT A- YOU LEFT A NOTE?!”
Dick dragged both hands down his face. “Timothy Jackson Drake.”
“Oh no,” Tim muttered. “Not the full name.”
“You left a paper trail!”
“I left digital sass,” Tim corrected. “Big difference.”
Jason pointed dramatically. “Do you even know who Tony Stark is?!”
Tim shrugged. “Yeah. Face of the Stark brand. Tech genius. Billionaire. Bad goatee. Maybe drinks too much.”
Jason stared. “Is he a supervillain?”
“I dunno. He’s too rich to tell. Could go either way.”
Dick staggered into a chair like he’d been shot. “Oh my god, Tim. That guy might be connected to everything. You don’t poke people like that! Especially if we’re trying to lay low!”
“I was subtle!”
“You flirted with the firewall!” Jason shouted. “That was not subtle!”
Tim rolled his eyes. “Okay, yes, I might’ve pushed it a little. But look, I think I know where we could find materials that could actually replicate a Zeta-like beam or open an interdimensional rift. I can’t build it yet, but Stark Industries has the components. At least some of them.”
Jason looked horrified. “You’re not suggesting-”
“I might apply for a position there,” Tim said casually, as if he was talking about a grocery store job. “Internship, maybe. Tech assistant. Something to get inside.”
“Tim, no!”
“Tim, yes,” Tim replied, unbothered. “We need to get home, and unless you two have a spare Mother Box under your aprons, this is our best lead.”
Dick looked ready to cry. “Do you even know if Stark is connected to the local heroes here? Did you research any of them?”
“I skimmed some reports,” Tim admitted, closing one tab and opening another full of grainy battle footage and red-string conspiracy charts. “There’s a lot. Flying metal suit guy. Lightning hammer man. Big green rage monster. I’ve got names but not secret identities.”
Jason flopped back on the bed again. “This is how we die.”
Tim gave him a thumbs-up. “But possibly not in this universe. You’re welcome.”
Dick stared at the ceiling. “We are not letting you walk into Stark freaking Industries.”
Tim just smiled faintly, typing something.
“I already submitted a résumé.”
Jason sat up. “With what name?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Tim said smugly.
Jason screamed into a pillow.

Chapter Text

“I hate this. I hate everything about this,” Jason muttered, arms crossed tightly over his chest as he leaned against the grimy motel window.
“He’s going to get caught,” Dick whispered from where he stood beside the door, fingers twitching like he was ready to snatch Tim and sprint into the night. “They’re going to find out he hacked them, and then, what? Throw him in space jail? Dissect him? Blow up the motel with a tiny drone?”
“I’ve read their patent list,” Tim called from the bathroom, voice echoing as he adjusted his tie. “They definitely have a drone small enough to do that.”
“Not helping!” both Jason and Dick shouted in unison.
Tim emerged looking far too smug for someone about to walk into a mega-corporation he’d literally hacked two nights ago. He wore a crisp dress shirt, borrowed slacks, and a secondhand blazer from the thrift store down the street. His hair was actually combed for once. He looked almost like a normal seventeen-year-old.
Except for the part where he was a genius vigilante hacker about to stroll into the lion’s den.
Jason pointed at him. “I still think this is a terrible idea.”
Tim rolled his eyes. “You said that fourteen times already.”
“Because it is! Do you even know how dangerous this is? You’re walking into a tech fortress run by one of the smartest people on the planet!”
“I am one of the smartest people on the planet,” Tim replied, deadpan. “He and I should get along great.”
Dick nearly choked. “No! That is exactly why you won’t!”
Jason started pacing. “What if he has facial recognition? What if he tracks your alias? What if he smells your coffee and knows it’s the same one you were drinking when you hacked him?”
Tim blinked. “You think Tony Stark has scent-based cyber defense?”
“I DON’T KNOW, TIM, HE’S A BILLIONAIRE WITH A TEC LAB, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!”
Dick stepped in, putting a hand on Tim’s shoulder like he was going off to war. “Look. Just… be careful. Don’t say anything weird. Don’t poke the bear.”
“Don’t look too smart,” Jason added. “Pretend to be average.”
“Act like you pay taxes,” Dick said.
“Don’t quote anything,” Jason warned. “He’ll Google it in front of you.”
“Don’t tell him your real name, obviously-”
“I know how to fake an identity,” Tim cut in, lifting a manila folder with his résumé, transcripts, and background check, all carefully forged, of course.
Jason gave a long, low groan and sank into the motel chair. “This is the worst timeline.”
Dick was chewing on his thumb. “We are literally sending our baby brother into enemy territory.”
“I’m literally not a baby.”
“You look like one,” Jason snapped. “You couldn’t get a job as a barista.”
“Because I don’t sleep, not because I’m unqualified.”
Dick sighed and rubbed his face. “Okay. Just… if anything happens, and I mean anything, we come get you.”
Tim raised a brow. “How exactly? Walk into Stark Tower and ask the front desk to return our hacker?”
“I’ll scale the damn building,” Jason said darkly.
“I will disguise myself as a billionaire intern,” Dick added.
“I already submitted your résumé too,” Tim said, smirking. “Just in case.”
Dick paled. “What?!”
Jason buried his face in his hands.
Tim checked his watch. “Alright. Wish me luck.”
“No.” Jason and Dick chorused.
Tim gave them a lazy salute and strolled out the door.
As it clicked shut behind him, Jason immediately stood. “We’re following him.”
Dick nodded grimly. “We’re definitely following him.”

Stark Tower gleamed like a beacon of wealth, tech, and extremely bad decision-making.
Tim stepped through the front doors dressed like the most harmless intern applicant in the city, blazer, slacks, smooth smile, and an extremely convincing résumé that claimed he was a recent transfer from a prestigious Swiss prep school with a robotics scholarship and three glowing letters of recommendation (none of which were real).
“Tim’s in,” Jason muttered from an adjacent rooftop, peering through binoculars.
“No visual yet,” Dick’s voice crackled softly in his comm. “Hang on, tapping into the external cams now. Give me a second…”
Jason adjusted the grip on his rifle and grunted. “You’re really about to hack Stark while we’re staking it out?”
“It’s not hacking,” Dick muttered. “It’s light surveillance.”
“You’re literally breaking into the security feed.”
“Semantics, Jay.”
Jason sighed and shifted his weight. He was in full Red Hood gear, crouched behind a vent. Nightwing, across the street, was perched dramatically like a gargoyle with a laptop propped open in front of him.
Below, Tim breezed past security and was waved toward the elevator. One of the guards offered him a complimentary water bottle. He smiled, thanked her politely, and mentally mapped every blind spot in the lobby.

Inside the building, Tony Stark was watching.
Not obviously. Not openly. But his internal security alerts had just pinged, again.
He was seated in his sleek, glass-paneled office, pretending to read through a different applicant’s file while glancing discreetly at a separate monitor behind a false screen.
Someone was accessing his camera feed.
Again.
“Interesting…” he murmured, sipping coffee.
The access was external. Not from within his building. Rooftop, somewhere within half a block.
The tech signature didn’t match the one from the previous hack exactly, but it had the same flavor. Professional. Clean. No breadcrumbs except the ones meant to be found.
Tony switched screens. “JARVIS?”
“Two unidentified individuals on the rooftop across the street,” came the calm AI response. “Thermal signatures active. One appears armed.”
Tony frowned. “Same ones from the security breach?”
“Unconfirmed, but possible. Would you like me to alert security?”
Tony tapped his fingers against the desk. “No. Let’s not spook the intern.”

Tim entered the interview room and immediately sensed the shift.
Tony Stark sat behind a desk that was far too minimal for someone that chaotic. The man himself looked… normal. Kind of rumpled. T-shirt under a blazer. Loafers with no socks. His expression was friendly, but his eyes were sharp and flicking over Tim like a laser scanner.
“Timothy Drake,” Tony greeted smoothly. “Nice to meet you. Come on in.”
Tim smiled and sat. “Thank you, Mr. Stark. Big fan of your work.”
“Oh yeah?” Tony raised an eyebrow. “What part?”
“The clean energy arc reactor applications. And your software integration with biomedical devices,” Tim answered instantly.
Tony smiled. “Smart kid.”
Tim played the part of slightly nervous but eager. “I try.”
“You’ve got a nice résumé,” Tony said, flipping the fake papers without looking. “Swiss prep school. Robotics scholarships. Fluent in four languages.”
“Five,” Tim said helpfully. “Working on my sixth.”
Tony didn’t blink. “So tell me. What’s a genius Swiss schoolboy like you doing applying to my New York office instead of, say, MIT or DARPA?”
Tim tilted his head. “Your company has better coffee.”
Tony huffed a short laugh.
Outside the building, Dick hissed into the comm, “I don’t like this, Jay. Stark’s body language just shifted.”
“He’s onto him?”
“No,” Dick muttered. “He’s suspicious. But I don’t think he thinks it’s Tim. I think he thinks it’s us.”
Jason cursed quietly. “We should pull out.”
“No, not yet, I wanna see how far Tim gets.”
Jason peered down. “You’re pushing your luck.”
“I am luck,” Dick muttered, typing faster.
Back in the office, Tim noticed the smallest change on Stark’s screen, a single line of code flickered. A scan.
They were tracing the external camera breach.
Tim didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. But he knew.
Tony was tracking Dick.
He glanced briefly at the reflection on the glass wall behind Stark, just enough to catch an aerial drone blinking to life and drifting silently upward.
Tony smiled. “Just a moment. Something weird’s pinging my systems.”
“Trouble?” Tim asked, voice smooth.
“Eh,” Tony waved it off. “Probably just some squirrels on the roof.”
Tim resisted the urge to sigh.
Squirrels in black Kevlar.
Stark tapped something behind his desk and the message was sent.
Encrypted. High-priority. Avengers-only.
“Possible security breach. Sending drone feed. Two suspects watching Stark Tower. One may be the intruder from earlier hack. Quiet recon preferred. Don’t spook the intern.”
Tim’s internal alarm bells were going off.
He smiled anyway.
“Shall we continue with the interview?”
Tony smirked. “Yeah. Let’s see what you’ve got, Swiss Miss.”

The rooftop was quiet.
Too quiet.
Jason squinted through his scope. “Something’s wrong.”
Dick’s fingers paused over his keyboard. “Yeah. Security loop broke five seconds ago.”
“Drone?”
“Gone.”
“Not good.”
Jason rose to a crouch, scanning the skyline, hand hovering over his holstered pistol. “Think they spotted us?”
“I think they-”
CRASH.
A blinding bolt of electricity cracked through the air as a hammer the size of a car battery came spinning out of nowhere and slammed straight into Jason’s chest like a freight train.
“JAY!” Dick shouted.
Jason was yeeted off the rooftop with the force of a small missile, cursing all the way down.
He smashed through a glass window and straight the interview level of Stark Tower.
Dick didn’t hesitate. “Oh my god, you absolute magnet for destruction.”
He grabbed his grappling line, anchored it to the ledge, and dove after him like it was Tuesday in Gotham.
Behind him, the air shimmered, and Natasha Romanoff appeared, red curls tied back, twin batons already crackling with voltage. She narrowed her eyes at the rooftop, found no one left, and spoke calmly into her comm:
“Target two breached the building. Pursuing.”

Inside Stark Tower, Tim was mid-sentence about renewable power modeling when the window behind Tony Stark exploded.
“and that’s why cross-polarized-”
SHATTER.
CRASH.
Jason landed shoulder-first into a sleek conference table, snapping it in half like it was made of styrofoam. Papers flew. A water carafe exploded. Someone in the hallway screamed.
Tim blinked.
Tony blinked.
Jason groaned. “Ow. Hate magic. Hate blonde magic men.”
Dick swung in after him, landing in a perfect crouch with a short baton drawn and eyes already scanning the room. His domino mask lit up briefly as it synced to the nearest threat profiles.
“Get up, get up, get up,” Dick hissed, yanking Jason to his feet.
“Why do they always throw me-”
“Because you’re heavy and throwable, now move-”
“Excuse me!” Tony snapped from behind his desk. “Can we not treat my building like a smash-and-grab target?!”
“Oh my god, that’s Tony Stark?” Jason whispered.
“Focus,” Dick hissed.
The doors burst open again as Thor strode in, cape swishing dramatically, hammer crackling with residual energy.
“Friends!” Thor declared. “Apologies, I did not intend to hurl you through the fortress!”
Jason pointed at him. “You YEETED me, Blondie!”
“I threw with precision! You were simply airborne!”
Dick yanked Jason back. “Not the time, come on!”
They dodged Natasha just as she appeared from the stairwell, ducked a taze baton swipe, and leapt toward the opposite window.
“This is a corporate skyscraper, not a circus tent-!” Tony shouted as Dick launched a second grappling line.
Jason grabbed his arm and the two of them crashed through another floor-to-ceiling glass window with perfect chaotic synchronization.
Another blast of glass, a scream from reception, and they were gone.

Silence.
Shattered glass sparkled like snow across Tony’s office.
Thor brushed dust off his shoulders. “Shall I pursue?”
Tony held up a hand. “No. Let them run. We’ve got footage now.”
He turned slowly to Tim, who was still sitting in his interview chair with his hands folded neatly in his lap.
Tim blinked innocently. “...So, should I reschedule?”
Tony looked him over, deadpan.
Tim smiled like a total angel.
Tony sighed and grabbed a fresh cup of coffee. “You’re hired.”

Chapter Text

The motel room smelled like antiseptic, sweat, and cheap soap.
Jason sat on the edge of one of the two creaky beds, shirtless, holding a rapidly purpling ice pack to his ribs. His helmet was tossed onto the floor, a visible crack down the side. His leather jacket, ripped. His mood, worse.
“Did I or did I not say I hate magic muscle men?” he grumbled, wincing as Dick dabbed a butterfly bandage over a cut above his eyebrow.
“You say that about every person that’s taller than you,” Dick replied, voice tight with tension. He’d already taken a shower, but his hair was still damp, and his shoulder was wrapped in gauze under his hoodie. His domino mask lay on the nightstand.
Jason scowled. “That dude threw me like I was a fastball.”
“Yeah, and then you broke a billionaire’s conference table,” Dick muttered. “You're lucky that’s all you broke.”
Jason groaned and flopped back against the pillows. “We are so screwed. That was so much security. You saw the redhead, right? She looked like she could kill me without blinking.”
“She looked like Barbera, but angrier,” Dick muttered grimly.
The lock clicked.
Both of them immediately tensed, hands flying to weapons, until the door opened and in walked Tim.
He closed it gently behind him, looked at both of them, took in the bandages, the bruises, the absolute silence, and said:
“Well, I got the job.”
Jason sat up so fast he groaned in pain.
“You what?”
Tim set his bag down like this was just another Tuesday. “Yeah. Stark hired me. Starts tomorrow. 8 a.m. orientation. He thinks I’m a genius Swiss kid who doesn’t know how to pronounce ‘gyro.’”
Dick blinked at him. “You got the job. After we were thrown through windows. By actual superhumans. In front of the guy who interviewed you.”
Tim nodded, pulling off his blazer and tossing it over the back of a chair. “Yeah. I said I had no idea who you were and pretended to be scared. He seemed to buy it.”
Jason just stared at him. “Timothy Jackson Drake, I swear to god-”
“I also made sure he thinks you two are the rogue hacker vigilantes,” Tim added helpfully. “So I’ve got cover.”
“You threw us under the bus?!” Dick’s voice cracked.
Tim blinked at him innocently. “You threw yourselves through two windows. Pretty sure you were already under it.”
Jason dropped his head into his hands. “We are doomed.”
Tim plopped down on the second bed and pulled out his laptop like it was not a day that involved almost dying.
“Anyway,” he said brightly, “I’ll let you know if I find anything cool at Stark’s tomorrow. Try not to get thrown into any more buildings while I’m gone.”
Dick and Jason shared a long, traumatized look.
Jason finally muttered, “I hate this universe.”

Tim arrived fifteen minutes early, wearing a clean white button-up, his ID badge already clipped to his collar, and holding a massive iced coffee that looked more like a caffeine-loaded science experiment than a beverage.
The security guards nodded him through with barely a glance.
The intern lab was on the 22nd floor, a bright, open-concept space lined with pristine workbenches, shelves of labeled parts, and far too many people who clearly thought they were the smartest person in the room.
Tim was not impressed.
Within twenty minutes, he already had a mental list of which interns cheated off open-source projects, who was compensating with vocabulary, and which kid in the corner thought coding in four languages made them special.
Amateurs.
He was scanning through a schematic Stark had publicly shared last year when Tony himself walked in.
“Morning, lab rats,” Stark said casually, waving off the few startled interns who scrambled to attention. His sunglasses were perched in his hair and he was holding a smoothie that definitely had kale in it.
Tim didn’t even look up.
Tony noticed.
“Drake,” he said, walking over. “Good first day?”
“More or less,” Tim replied, sipping his drink without breaking eye contact from the screen.
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Is that your second coffee?”
“Third.”
“…Do you have a heart condition I should know about?”
“I’m seventeen. I am a heart condition.”
Tony stared at him for a long moment, then glanced at the screen.
He blinked.
“You rewrote the energy optimization code?”
“Your old version was inefficient.”
“That’s… fair.” He nodded slowly. “You’re not like the others.”
Tim shrugged. “No offense, but the bar’s low.”
A few interns nearby looked mildly offended. Tim didn’t care.
Tony squinted at the intern lab door, then turned back. “Don’t burn the place down. Also, the caffeine limit is five. After that, we call an ambulance.”
Tim gave him a thumbs up without looking away from his code.

By lunch, he’d “accidentally” pocketed two different types of specialty screws, three wires, and a tiny strip of conductive mesh.
Not enough for anyone to notice.
Yet.
He tucked them into a reinforced patch pocket in his bag, made a quick note in his homemade inventory, and resumed “working.”
His phone buzzed.
[DICK]
“Is everything okay?? What floor are you on??”
[JASON]
“Send two dots if they’ve brainwashed you.”
[DICK]
“Seriously, text back or I swear I’m climbing that building.”
Tim sighed and texted them both in the group chat:
[TIM]
“I’m fine. Not kidnapped. No murder robots (yet). Please don’t do anything stupid.”
[JASON]
“Define ‘stupid.’”
Tim sighed louder.

By the end of the day, Stark had stopped by twice. Once to quiz him on his ideas for increasing arc reactor efficiency, and once to catch him installing new temperature sensors in a shared drone project like he’d built it from scratch.
(He had. He just didn’t say that.)
“You sure you’re only seventeen?” Tony asked suspiciously.
Tim smiled sweetly. “Would you hire me if I said I was twelve?”
Tony muttered something about “child prodigies and my therapist” before walking off again.
Tim waited exactly thirty seconds before pocketing a bolt-sized capacitor from a side drawer.
It might not be the part they needed to get back home.
But if anyone could cobble together a dimensional portal with scraps and spite, it was Timothy Jackson Drake.

Day two at the coffee shop started with Dick somehow burning his hand on the espresso machine and Jason swearing at a delivery guy who got too close to the counter.
So, you know. A normal day.
Jason was hunched over the prep station, refilling the milk fridge beneath the counter, when he moved just wrong and-
“Tch-”
A sharp, involuntary wince flickered across his face before he masked it.
Peter saw it.
“You okay?” Peter asked casually, scrubbing down the front bar with a rag. “You flinched just now.”
Jason didn’t even look up. “Didn’t flinch.”
Peter gave him a look.
Dick, from the other end of the bar, immediately jumped in. “He’s fine. Totally fine.”
Jason stood up stiffly. “Yeah. Just, uh- got clipped by a car last night.”
Peter blinked. “What?”
Dick winced. “Not, like, bad. Just bumped. You know how New York drivers are.”
Jason nodded, trying not to visibly favor his left side. “Yeah. Little fender bender. I bounced. It’s fine.”
Peter squinted. “That sounds not fine.”
“We went to the hospital,” Dick added quickly. “They said he was good to work. Bruised ribs, maybe. But nothing major.”
Jason nodded. “Like I said. I bounce.”
Peter still looked unconvinced, but let it go. “Well... try not to bounce in front of traffic next time.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jason muttered. “Tell that to the dude who blew through the crosswalk.”
Peter gave him a faint smile, still eyeing him like he wasn’t quite buying it.

Later, while cleaning the milk frother, Peter leaned over the counter toward Dick.
“Hey, where’s your younger brother? The one who was here yesterday with the laptop and three Red Bulls?”
“Tim?” Dick blinked. “Oh, he’s at school today.”
Peter paused. “Thought he was on summer break?”
Dick didn’t miss a beat. “Private school. Weird calendar. One of those accelerated programs.”
Peter nodded slowly. “Makes sense. He seemed... kind of intense.”
Dick laughed, a little too high-pitched. “You have no idea.”

Jason, meanwhile, was trying to not die slowly every time he had to bend down. The bruises from being yeeted by a Norse god were not healing as fast as he wanted them to.
He peeked toward the corner, half-expecting to see Tim buried behind a laptop screen like yesterday. It was weird not having him there.
He pulled out his phone and texted:
[JASON]
“How’s life with the tech cult?”
Tim replied almost instantly:
[TIM]
“I have coffee. I have wifi. I have successfully stolen four miniature capacitors. Life is beautiful.”
Jason groaned and shoved his phone back into his pocket.
Dick, reading over his shoulder, muttered, “We’re going to die.”
Peter looked up from the espresso machine. “What?”
“Nothing!” they both said way too quickly.

Chapter Text

Peter slouched into the Avengers conference room, hoodie half-zipped, coffee in hand. Another mandatory meeting. Another round of trying to figure out who the mysterious masked figures were that tried to spy on Stark Tower.
And yet another opportunity to not mention the two suspiciously athletic, injury-prone baristas he worked with.
Tony was already pacing in front of the holo-display. On-screen: two blurry screenshots. One showed Red Hood mid-dive through a window. The other captured Nightwing just before grappling out after him.
“-and before anyone says it,” Tony was saying, “yes, I know, maybe we could’ve handled it a little more quietly. Maybe we don’t throw people through windows unless they’re actively threatening to nuke the planet.”
He glared, pointedly, at Thor.
Thor, seated beside Sam, had the decency to look sheepish. “I did not mean to throw him through the glass. Merely... at it.”
Steve sighed.
“I don’t care if you threw him gently through the building,” Tony snapped. “That intern, what’s-his-name, Tim, looked like he was two seconds away from bolting. You know how hard it is to hire actual teenage geniuses who don’t already work for the government or in coffee shops?”
Natasha, arms crossed in her chair, spoke up. “And yet he still accepted the job.”
Tony paused. “Okay, yes, and that’s a red flag on its own.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Or it’s just impressive.”
“Either way, we’ve got two armored vigilante types who not only managed to evade Jarvis’s facial recognition and escape from Avengers Tower but also left zero digital trail after the fact,” Tony said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not saying they’re pros, but they’re definitely not amateurs.”
“Do we know what they wanted?” Sam asked.
“Intel? Recon? Maybe just testing security,” Natasha said. “But the hacker who hit Stark's database and left that note, if it's one of them, they’re bold.”
Peter blinked. “Wait, they left a note?”
Tony grimaced. “Typed straight into the firewall logs before the system rebooted. It said, and I quote: ‘Your security is insultingly fragile. I broke in while sipping a caramel latte. Do better. ❤️.’”
Bruce chuckled.
Tony scowled. “It’s not funny. That encryption was custom.”
Steve leaned forward. “So what’s the ask? Surveillance? Hunt and capture?”
“Eyes open,” Tony said. “Just keep watch. If they’re staking out the building, they’ll show up again. I’ll run another sweep of known hackers and mercs, but they don’t match anything in our system. Not even obscure files.”
Peter took a long sip of his coffee and stared at the blurred photo of Nightwing.
The acrobat stance was... weirdly familiar.
But he shook it off.
Just a coincidence.
Probably.
He wasn’t about to mention that his coworkers at the coffee shop just happened to have suspiciously good reflexes, moved like trained fighters, and looked like they knew how to use a grappling hook.
Nope. Not his business.

One week after landing in an alternate universe with no money, no contacts, and no Batcave, the boys got their first paychecks.
And they felt rich.
For exactly four hours.
Because by the end of the day, the money was gone, and they were standing in the middle of a very small, very empty apartment.
Two rooms. One bathroom. No furniture. Paper-thin walls. A questionable stain in the kitchen. But it was theirs.
Well, rented. But still.
“This is... depressing,” Jason muttered, dropping a plastic bag full of discount ramen onto the floor.
“Hey, come on,” Dick said, spinning slowly in the middle of the room. “It’s got privacy. That’s more than we had last week.”
Jason squinted at the corner. “That’s mold.”
“Character,” Dick corrected.
Tim, meanwhile, was already staking his claim.
“This room’s mine,” he said, pointing to the smaller of the two bedrooms.
Jason frowned. “Dude, that’s the only one with a window.”
“Exactly,” Tim said, already pulling out the crate full of salvaged tech components he’d been quietly stealing from Stark Industries over the past several days. “I need natural light for precision work.”
“You need therapy,” Jason muttered.
But it was too late, Tim had already set up a folding table (stolen from the alley behind the coffee shop) and was unloading what looked like a miniature lab.
Tiny wires. Capacitors. A cracked touchscreen. Something that was definitely part of a drone. A few things still had Stark Industries serial numbers on them.
Dick stared. “Tim... what the hell.”
Tim looked up, beaming. “I’m building the portal.”
Jason dropped onto a floor mattress with a groan. “Of course you are.”
The second bedroom, larger, darker, slightly less moldy, was now a mattress room. Three of them, all on the floor. One blanket each. Dick had managed to score an old box fan from a pawn shop, and it sat whirring weakly in the corner like it was struggling to exist.
Jason flopped down, face-first into the mattress. “I hate that you make more money than us.”
“You work part-time as baristas,” Tim said distractedly. “I’m a teenage supergenius being exploited by a billionaire tech mogul who feels guilty about throwing me into a traumatic hostage scenario on my interview day.”
“...You really don’t have to sound smug about it,” Dick said.
Tim didn’t answer. He was already scribbling a blueprint on a scrap of cardboard.
Jason rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know what bothers me more, that Tim’s building a probably-explosive science project in our apartment or that I’m going to have to mop the kitchen with dish soap because we can’t afford cleaning supplies.”
“Both,” Dick sighed. “The answer is both.”
From the other room, Tim called out, “Also, I need $17 for copper wire.”
Jason groaned into the mattress. “Tell your boss.”

Tim moved through the lower intern lab of Stark Industries like he belonged there, which, to be fair, he technically did. Official badge, official clearance, officially “the intern who doesn’t talk much but has terrifyingly accurate instincts.”
And unofficially?
A walking heist.
He adjusted his lanyard, glanced at the corner camera he’d temporarily looped earlier that morning, and slipped a small stabilizer module into the side pocket of his jacket. Just a piece from a scrapped prototype. Barely noticed. Totally misfiled.
It joined the thin copper coil, the microcapacitor, and a very expensive-looking wire bundle labeled "Property of R&D – Do Not Remove."
He was halfway through pocketing a thermal regulator when-
“Timothy!”
Tim nearly choked on his own heartbeat.
Tony Stark stood at the doorway, cup of coffee in hand, sunglasses pushed up on his head, and looking like he hadn’t slept in two days. Or like he had slept, but only in a high-tech cryo-coffin while his brain kept working.
Tim subtly dropped his hand, casually nudging the half-lifted component back into the box beside him.
“Mr. Stark,” he said, trying to sound pleasantly surprised and not like someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar. “Hey.”
Tony walked into the lab like he owned it, because, well, he did, and leaned on the table next to Tim.
“Question for you, kid,” Tony said, setting his mug down. “Hypothetical: if you were designing a stabilization core for a portable arc unit, would you layer the compression rings vertically or stack them radially?”
Tim blinked. “...Compression rings?”
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Please tell me you didn’t just reverse-engineer one of my drones and not learn the theory.”
“I mean, of course I know the theory,” Tim said quickly, trying to sound offended. “I just wasn’t expecting a pop quiz.”
“Life is a pop quiz,” Tony said, sipping his coffee. “Now. Rings.”
Tim leaned in, forcing himself to stop sweating. “Vertically. Better heat dispersion. Less core vibration during charge cycles.”
Tony squinted at him for a beat. “Huh. That’s what I thought too. The MIT kid thinks I’m wrong, but she also thought she could fix a pressure leak with chewing gum and aluminum foil, so.”
He gave Tim a little nod of approval. “You’re terrifyingly good at this. You’re not secretly 45 and divorced, are you?”
Tim managed a laugh. “Not yet.”
Tony clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Keep it up, Timmy. Might have something more interesting for you to work on soon. Something classified. Fancy. Probably dangerous.”
“Sounds... fun,” Tim said, smiling like a normal person and absolutely not like someone building an unauthorized interdimensional portal in his crusty apartment.
Tony started to walk out, then paused. “Hey, if you see a thermal regulator go missing, tell the lab guys to stop misplacing stuff. We’ve lost three this week.”
Tim gave him a thumbs-up.
“Will do.”
As soon as he was gone, Tim turned back to the prototype bin and sighed.
So close.
He pocketed the thermal regulator anyway.

Avengers Tower Conference Room.
Again.
The air was heavy with frustration, and not just because someone (Tony) had gone through at least five cups of coffee before noon.
“Still nothing?” Steve asked, arms crossed and expression grim.
“Do I look like I’m holding back some magical answer, Cap?” Tony snapped, gesturing broadly to the holographic screen showing paused surveillance footage. “I’ve run facial scans. Gear scans. Posture scans. One of them doesn’t even have a visible face, and the other moves like a circus acrobat hopped up on Red Bull and unresolved trauma.”
Natasha gave a shrug. “Could be.”
“Not helping,” Tony muttered.
On the screen, the footage showed what they’d all seen about fifty times already: Nightwing and Red Hood, dodging, grappling, and smashing their way out of Stark Tower like it was routine. The clarity wasn’t great. Shadows, motion blur, angles, but it was something.
Tony flicked the feed to a different screen, a close-up, slowed down.
“These two masked guys, whoever the hell they are, have evaded every attempt at tracking them. Facial recognition, biometric gait analysis, drone surveillance, and even a few mildly illegal satellite thermal scans.” He pointed. “The taller one, helmeted, was injured. Thrown into my lobby, thank you very much, Thor.”
Thor looked sheepishly noble. “He was quite nimble. I did not anticipate the angle of the rebound.”
“Yeah, well, he rebounded with glass shards and two of my chairs,” Tony grumbled.
Peter kept his mouth shut. Mostly. He had a vague sinking feeling about all this, but his coworkers at the café didn’t seem like vigilante types. Then again, he’d seen weirder.
Tony brought up a new screen. It was a text file, short, clinical, and oddly unsettling.
“This is what we do know.”
He ticked items off with a pointer.
“Tall guy, probably six feet even. Heavy build. Favors right side. Wears full armor, military-grade, or damn near close. bat like insignia. Moves like a trained merc or soldier.”
He switched slides.
“The other one, shorter. Lean. Probably 5’10”. White. Estimated late twenties. Facial coverage with a domino mask, but skin was visible around the jaw, forehead and neck.”
He swiped again to a scan.
“And this... is the weird part.”
The room went quiet.
Tony enlarged the screen showing a microscopic blood sample with a glowing red tag.
“When our friend with the helmet smashed through the window, he left blood behind. A small trace. Barely enough. Figured I could get a match, maybe a military record, a criminal file, something.”
He let that sit for a beat.
“But there’s nothing. No match. Not local, not international. Not even flagged in deceased registries.”
Clint frowned. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning this guy doesn’t exist,” Tony said. “Not in any government system, public or private. And with how well he moved, the gear he used, and how fast he got out, he’s not just some guy in a Halloween costume.”
Steve leaned forward, brows furrowed. “Could they be part of a black ops group?”
“Maybe,” Natasha said slowly. “But black ops don’t wear domino masks and grapple through windows in broad daylight.”
“Or hack my systems and leave snarky messages about my security,” Tony added under his breath.
Peter shifted slightly in his seat. Still didn’t speak.
Tony rubbed his forehead. “No names. No matches. No paper trail. I don’t like this.”
Bruce finally spoke. “They’re careful. Probably very practiced. I’d guess they’ve done this kind of thing before, covert infiltration, tactical evasion, non-lethal resistance.”
“Which still doesn’t explain why they were staking out my tower,” Tony said, pointing sharply to the paused frame of Red Hood watching from the rooftop with binoculars.
“They might come back,” Steve said.
Tony nodded. “They will. People like that don’t give up. Especially not if they’re looking for something.”
He gave a final flick of his hand and shut the projections off.
“Until we figure out who they are... keep your eyes open. Any contact, I want to know immediately.”

Chapter Text

The café was humming with its usual midday lull, quiet indie music playing over the speakers, the hiss of the espresso machine echoing from behind the counter, and the warm scent of cinnamon and baked bread drifting through the air. It was just busy enough to stay awake, just slow enough to breathe.
Jason liked this part of the shift. The calm before the after-school rush. The time where customers were too polite or too sleepy to argue about soy vs. oat milk.
He had just handed off a cappuccino to a woman in business casual when the door opened with a soft chime.
And Tony Stark walked in.
Jason blinked once. Then again.
No. Nope. Go away.
Tony Stark, billionaire, tech genius, alleged menace to Dick’s cardiovascular system, walked in like he didn’t own three buildings within walking distance. He wore dark sunglasses, despite being indoors, and a hoodie over a clearly expensive shirt that said I’m pretending to be normal, please let me. No entourage. Just a man in designer jeans and the aura of someone who regularly ignored meetings and refused to check his email.
Jason’s stomach twisted.
“Shit.” Dick’s voice came through the comm in his ear, low, sharp, and full of pure dread.
He was in the back, restocking the pastry case when he caught a glimpse of Tony through the kitchen window. The man wasn’t even looking their way, he was staring at the chalkboard menu like it was a riddle from the Sphinx, but Dick was already halfway into panic mode.
“He’s here. Why is he here? Why is Tony Stark here?” Dick whisper-shouted, ducking further behind a stack of milk crates like they’d offer divine protection.
Jason muted his mic for a second and plastered on his best customer service smile before turning toward Peter, who had just finished making a macchiato for an older gentleman.
“Hey, Pete,” Jason said, keeping his tone breezy, “can you handle the next customer? My brother, uh, the younger one, just texted that he got locked out. Dick ran off to go help him.”
Peter blinked. “Oh. Sure. Yeah. Hope everything’s okay?”
Jason nodded. “Totally. Just a forgetful teenager moment. You know how it is.”
If Peter had any suspicions about why Dick had vanished faster than a magician with stage fright, he didn’t show it. He wiped his hands on a towel and turned toward the counter.
Tony stepped up just in time.
“Afternoon,” Peter said, professional and chipper. “What can I get started for you today?”
Tony looked him over, then at the menu, then back at Peter. “You serve anything that doesn’t taste like regret and disappointment?”
Peter snorted. “We’ve got a cinnamon almond cold brew that tastes like crushed dreams, if you’re into that.”
Tony cracked a smirk. “Sold. Give me one of those and a flat white.”
“Double shot or single?”
“Surprise me.”
As Peter got to work, Tony leaned against the counter, scanning the interior like he was trying to rate the feng shui. Jason carefully avoided eye contact and pretended to wipe down a countertop with excessive interest.
“He’s going to recognize me. He’s going to recognize me and I’m going to spontaneously combust,” Dick whispered in Jason’s ear again. “Tell Peter I’ve quit and moved to the Alps.”
Jason turned toward the back, casually adjusting a display of biscotti.
“You’re fine,” he hissed under his breath. “He doesn’t know your face, remember? He saw you in a mask. He’s here for coffee, not a manhunt.”
“He’s a tech genius, Jason. He probably has facial recognition in his retinas. I’m pretty sure his shoes are smarter than me.”
Jason sighed and turned back around as Peter handed Tony his drink.
“Here you go. Cinnamon almond cold brew and one flat white. Enjoy.”
Tony took a sip of the cold brew and immediately made a face. “Jesus. That’s like drinking caffeinated soap.”
Peter raised an eyebrow. “Do you want something else?”
“No. I hate myself just enough today to finish it.”
Jason muffled a snort.
Tony’s gaze finally swept over to him. “You work here too?”
Jason gave a casual shrug. “Yup. New guy. Part-time.”
Tony tilted his head. “Out-of-towners?”
Jason nodded. “Moved here a couple weeks ago.”
Tony squinted just a little. “Accent’s faint. Military?”
Jason hesitated, then went with the lie they’d already practiced. “Yeah. Just finished our mandatory service overseas.”
Tony made a noncommittal sound. “You look young for it.”
Jason shrugged again. “Got out early. Complicated story.”
Tony stared at him for a beat longer before taking another sip of the cold brew like it personally offended him. “This is terrible. I’m going to drink every last drop out of sheer spite.”
Peter smiled. “That’s the spirit.”
Tony wandered to a window seat with a stack of napkins, pulled out his phone, and immediately began typing like the fate of humanity depended on it.
Jason waited until he was safely out of earshot before hissing, “He doesn’t recognize us. We’re good. Calm down.”
Dick’s voice was still high-pitched and haunted in his ear.
“I am never touching front-of-house again. Never. That’s it. I’m retiring from coffee. Burn my apron.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “You’re being dramatic.”
“We live in a shoebox with a mattress and a half-eaten bag of trail mix. This is not the time for risky behavior, Jason.”
“Relax. He’s just a guy getting coffee. He doesn’t know we’re the two guys he’s been hunting down for the past week.”
Peter passed by, raising an eyebrow at Jason.
“You good?” he asked.
Jason smiled with a bit too much stiffness. “Yeah. Totally. Just... thinking about coffee. You ever think about how weird it is? Bean juice with foam?”
Peter gave him a long look before walking away. “You’re weirder than your brother.”
Jason didn’t argue.

Back in the backroom, Dick slumped against a shelf and muttered to himself. “We need disguises. Better disguises. Plastic surgery. A new planet.”
“Or,” Jason said, voice dry, “we keep a low profile like normal human beings and stop acting like we’re in a spy movie.”
Dick glared at the wall.
Tony, in the front of the café, took another long sip of his terrible drink, sighed dramatically, and mumbled, “God, I need a vacation from my entire company.”
Jason silently agreed, for entirely different reasons.

The apartment smelled like cardboard, pizza grease, and desperation.
A half-empty bottle of soda sat precariously near the edge of their scratched-up, secondhand coffee table. The family-sized pepperoni pizza they splurged on tonight, courtesy of their first paychecks, steamed between them in its flimsy box. They had no plates, no forks, and no shame.
Jason tore off his third slice and flopped back onto the mattress that doubled as both couch and dining area, chewing like a man who’d spent the day smiling at customers and fielding questions about dairy alternatives.
Dick sat cross-legged, his hair still damp from his post-shift shower, poking a slice with mild suspicion. “Did this place forget the cheese, or is that just... burn?”
“It’s texture,” Jason said, mouth full. “Artisanal. Embrace it.”
Tim sat in the corner, legs pulled up to his chest, balancing his own slice on one knee while scrolling through blueprints on his tablet. He had marinara on his cheek and zero awareness of it.
“So,” Tim said between bites, “I think I can finish the portal by the end of the month.”
Silence.
Jason froze mid-chew.
Dick blinked.
Then they both slowly turned their heads in unison like malfunctioning animatronics.
“I’m sorry,” Dick said with forced calm. “You think you can what?”
Tim glanced up, casually brushing sauce off his face with the sleeve of his hoodie. “Finish the portal. End of the month. Give or take a few days depending on power constraints and-”
“You’re building a portal.” Jason’s voice went up an octave. “A literal portal. To another dimension. Out of stolen Stark screws and RadioShack wires.”
“I’m mixing in some parts I ordered legally,” Tim offered helpfully. “With cash. So it’s off the grid.”
“Oh good,” Dick muttered, rubbing his temples like he could physically press the migraine back into his skull. “I was worried we’d end up on another government watchlist.”
Jason dropped his slice onto the pizza box, forgotten. “Tim. This isn’t a science fair. This is, like, top-tier war crime territory.”
“It’s not a war crime if it works,” Tim said without missing a beat. “It’s a scientific breakthrough.”
Dick opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “Okay, no. Stop. That’s literally the motto of a Bond villain.”
Tim shrugged and grabbed another slice.
“And,” he added casually, “we’re gonna have to break into Stark Tower at some point.”
Dead silence.
The air left the room like someone had hit the decompression button.
Jason sat up straight. “Come again?”
“There are materials I need. Ones I don’t have clearance for. They’re on one of the secured floors. I don’t know which yet, still mapping it out, but once I figure it out, we’ll have to go in.”
Dick looked like he was seconds away from cardiac arrest.
“You want us to break into the most secure building in New York,” he said slowly, “And is owned by the same man who already wants to murder us.”
Tim nodded. “Pretty much.”
Jason stood up and paced, dragging a hand through his hair. “No. No, no, no. That’s how we die. That’s how we get caught, imprisoned, dissected, and possibly extradited into space prison. Have you seen what those people can do?! Thor threw me through a wall!”
Tim blinked. “You’re fine.”
“I have a bruised rib!”
“You’re walking.”
“I was also bleeding internally!”
“Minor detail.”
Dick pointed at Tim with a slice of pizza like it was a sword. “Timothy Jackson Drake, are you insane?”
“Only mildly.”
Jason looked at Dick. Dick looked at Jason.
Then both of them let out twin groans and collapsed back onto the mattress.
“I want to go home,” Dick muttered.
“I want to go five minutes without committing a felony,” Jason added.
Tim smiled to himself, scrolling through a schematic of what looked dangerously close to an arc reactor hybrid core.
“We’ll get home,” he said. “Promise.”
Jason stared at the ceiling like it had the answers to life’s greatest questions. “If we die, I’m haunting you.”
“Duly noted.”
“Seriously,” Dick added, “if you break the multiverse, I’m telling Bruce.”
Tim took a bite of his pizza and smiled. “You can try.”

Tony wasn’t snooping.
He happened to be walking through the intern lab that morning, coffee in hand, sunglasses on indoors, half-listening to an engineer babble about a server bug, when something caught his eye. A blueprint. Crisp lines, advanced schematics, calculations in the margins with the kind of shorthand that screamed "used to writing equations at 3 a.m. after six Red Bulls and a moral crisis."
He doubled back.
“Hey,” he interrupted the intern trying to explain the difference between two processors he didn’t care about. “Whose station is that?”
The kid blinked. “Uh- Drake’s. Tim Drake.”
Tony raised an eyebrow. Of course it was.
He set his coffee down and leaned over the worktable, scanning the design. It looked like... some kind of energy redistribution module? Part of a larger circuit, clearly. The math wasn’t just solid, it was brilliant. Efficient. Creative. Stupidly overengineered for something that would probably never see the light of day, but he respected that.
It reminded him of Peter’s and his own work. A little too much.
“Interns these days,” Tony muttered, amused. “They grow up fast.”
He tapped the paper with a finger. The circuit was oddly... adaptable. The way it handled fluctuating input, adjusted the phase resonance, definitely not a school project. No school would let this be a project.
Tony grabbed a nearby sticky note and scribbled a quick message:
“Nice work, Kid. You planning to blow up the coffee machine or just improve it? - TS”
He stuck it on the edge of the blueprint and kept walking.
Not a single alarm bell went off.
He had no idea that the “project” he’d just complimented was one piece of a dimensional portal being built in a rundown apartment across the city, funded by barista tips, stolen screws, and sheer Tim Drake-level audacity.
Meanwhile, across the lab, Tim peeked over the edge of a monitor where he'd been pretending to catalog power converters. His eyes narrowed slightly as he spotted the note Tony had left.
He sighed. Quietly walked back to his station. Picked up the blueprint. Folded it cleanly. Then slipped it into his bag along with the dozens of other pages he’d been working on.
“Too close,” he muttered under his breath.
A second later, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
Dick: Jason says if Tony finds out you’re building a space door in our apartment, he’s going to personally drag you back to Gotham and let Bruce deal with it.
Tim: Noted.
Jason: Timothy. Stop stealing from the billionaire.
Tim: He hasn’t caught me yet.
Dick: That’s not comforting.
Tim tucked the blueprint away and straightened up just in time for a different intern to ask him if he wanted to join their group project on “eco-efficient drone wings.”
He smiled, nodded, and pretended to care.

Chapter Text

Group Chat: “🏠Rent is Pain (and So Is Tim)”
🦇Tim:
tony saw part of the blueprint today.
🕺Dick:
WHICH BLUEPRINT???!???!
☠️Jason:
THE PORTAL ONE??? TIMOTHY.
🦇Tim:
yeah that one 😬
☠️Jason:
OH MY GOD
🕺Dick:
WHAT DID HE SAY. WHAT DID HE SEE. DID HE FIND OUT??
🦇Tim:
he just said “nice work kid”
left a sticky note on it.
called it a coffee machine upgrade or smth
☠️Jason:
I'M GOING TO COMBUST.
WHY WAS IT VISIBLE?? WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE THAT OUT??
🦇Tim:
i didn’t think he’d walk over there 😑
🕺Dick:
YOU'RE WORKING IN A BUILDING NAMED AFTER HIM
OF COURSE HE’S GONNA WALK AROUND
☠️Jason:
THIS IS TONY STARK WE’RE TALKING ABOUT
THE GUY WHO COULD BUILD A SUIT OUT OF OUR BONES IF HE FIGURED US OUT
🦇Tim:
he didn’t figure it out tho 🤷
he just thought it was overengineered
☠️Jason:
OF COURSE IT’S OVERENGINEERED
YOU’RE MAKING A DIMENSIONAL ESCAPE HATCH OUT OF WIFI AND THEFT
🕺Dick:
what if he gets curious and asks for updates??
what if he wants you to present it??
what if he wants to help??
🦇Tim:
then we portal faster? 🤓
☠️Jason:
I’M GOING TO THROW THIS PHONE OUT A WINDOW
🕺Dick:
new rule: NO MORE BLUEPRINTS AT WORK
🦇Tim:
too late 😗
☠️Jason:
I AM TEXTING YOU IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE I CAN’T PUNCH YOU THROUGH THE SCREEN
🕺Dick:
Jason’s pacing
☠️Jason:
I’M PACING AND BLEEDING INTERNALLY
🦇Tim:
it’s fine.
no one suspects me.
everyone thinks i’m the tired kid who mainlines caffeine and knows too much math
☠️Jason:
YOU ARE THAT
AND ALSO A WALKING SECURITY NIGHTMARE
🕺Dick:
we’re going to die
like actually
we’re going to be vaporized by a repulsor cannon and it’ll be your fault
🦇Tim:
we’ll be fine 😄
trust me
☠️Jason:
YOU JUST SAID “TRUST ME”
NOW I KNOW WE’RE SCREWED

Dick is lying face-down on the mattress at this point. Jason’s pacing so hard he might wear a hole in the floor. And Tim? Tim’s at Stark Tower, sipping his fifth espresso shot of the day and calmly redrawing a quantum stabilizer coil like he’s not the reason the Avengers might launch a manhunt by next week.

It was nearly midnight, and the intern lab was long since deserted. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead with the tired hum of a building trying to sleep. Most interns had left hours ago, trailing yawns and empty coffee cups behind them. But not Tim Drake.
Tim was still at his desk, hoodie sleeves shoved up to his elbows, dark bags under his eyes, and hands stained faintly with grease and graphite. A cold cup of coffee sat forgotten at his elbow while lines of code scrolled across his laptop screen. Nearby, a carefully disassembled part, an internal component from one of Stark’s lesser-used floor servers, lay in neat, surgical pieces on a microfiber cloth. He'd be done reassembling it by morning, and no one would know it had ever been missing. Probably.
He didn’t hear the footsteps behind him at first. Or rather, he did, but he was too focused to care. Until a shadow passed across his work and a familiar voice said, with amused disbelief,
“Do you ever sleep, Drake?”
Tim nearly knocked over his coffee. He snapped his head up, blinking, trying to look more “diligent” and less “caught mid-crime.”
“Uh- Mr. Stark. Sir.”
Tony Stark raised an eyebrow, coffee cup in hand, one of his own personal mugs that said ‘GENIUS. BILLIONAIRE. INSOMNIAC.’ on the side. His sleeves were rolled up, shirt rumpled, and he looked about as tired as Tim felt.
“You’ve been here for… let me check…” Tony looked at his watch dramatically. “Eighteen hours. That’s a shift and a half. That’s two Starbucks employees. That’s illegal in three states and Europe.”
Tim gave a tight smile. “Got caught up working on something. Lost track of time.” (i honestly dont know US work hours so sorry if i got that wrong)
Tony sipped his coffee and looked down at the array of wiring and detailed schematics on Tim’s desk. His gaze lingered on the modified capacitor design, the half-coded algorithm for dimensional resonance tuning (cleverly labeled ‘backup compression software’), and the heat-distribution notes scrawled in the margins. He whistled low.
“You know, I said I liked your blueprint the other day, but this? This is next level,” Tony said, tapping the diagram with his index finger. “This kind of work? It’s not intern-grade. It’s junior engineer, minimum.”
Tim's heart stuttered. “Thank you…?”
Tony set his mug down and leaned on the edge of the desk. “You ever consider working full-time? I could bump you up. Not a huge promotion, intern junior engineer level. Better laptop, more secure work space, private desk. Also comes with a coffee machine that doesn’t taste like battery acid.”
Tim blinked. His brain was screaming NO and YES at the same time.
This was… bad. More visibility meant more scrutiny. But also more access. Private desk meant fewer eyes. Better tech. Faster building. The offer was practically laced with opportunity and laced with danger.
Tim tilted his head, calculated for half a second, then said carefully, “That sounds great, sir. I’d really appreciate it.”
Tony grinned. “Didn’t even need a sales pitch. Kid, you just made my night easier.”
He stood, stretched, and paused at the door. “Official paperwork will go through tomorrow. You’ll get your desk moved to Lab C. Top right corner, next to the good vending machine. Don’t abuse the M&M dispenser, I will notice.”
Tim nodded. “Got it.”
Tony gave him a short wave and disappeared into the elevator with his coffee and his endless insomnia. The doors closed behind him with a soft ding.
Tim exhaled, finally allowing the tension to crack out of his spine. Then he smiled, just a little. Private lab access. New tech. Better firewall to hide his real files behind.
And, best of all… no Jason or Dick texting every five minutes to ask if he was being interrogated by Tony yet.
He probably should’ve told them about this. But then again, what they didn’t know couldn’t give them heart attacks.
He turned back to his blueprint and muttered under his breath,
“Step one: secured.”

It was early. Not "morning rush hour" early. Not even "Tony Stark insomnia breakfast meeting" early.
It was Jason Todd kicking down heaven’s (or hell’s, who knows?) gates early.
The sun was barely up, the streets of New York still groggy, and the reception area of Stark Tower was blessedly quiet. A sleepy receptionist in a sleek Stark Industries blazer was sipping from her travel mug and tapping slowly at her keyboard, until the front doors hissed open and a looming figure in a black hoodie and dark jeans stalked in.
Jason Todd looked like he’d walked out of a biker bar and directly into a board meeting. The bruises on his face (mostly healed from The Incident With Thor) hadn’t quite faded, and the look in his eye suggested he’d be happy to add a few more.
He stepped up to the front desk with all the calm of a grenade.
“I need to see Tim Drake. Now.”
The receptionist blinked, trying not to shrink into her seat. “Um… I’m sorry, who-?”
“Intern,” Jason interrupted. “Glasses. Too smart. Caffeine addiction. Looks like he hasn’t slept since the Cold War. That Tim Drake.”
She frowned and started to type. “I- I think he’s scheduled in Lab C today. Did you have an appointment or-?”
“No.” Jason leaned forward slightly. “But I’m his brother. He didn’t come home last night. And if he doesn’t walk out of here in the next five minutes, I’m coming in after him.”
The receptionist’s hand hovered over the internal call button. “Sir, you can’t-”
Jason just gave her a very pointed smile. The kind that said I’ve removed kneecaps before breakfast.
“…I’ll call up,” she said quickly.

Five minutes later, Tim Drake appeared in the lobby looking like someone who had not slept and had very much been dragged away from very important work. His hoodie was on inside out, one of his shoelaces was untied, and he had a USB drive clenched in one fist like a stress toy.
Jason immediately crossed his arms. “What the hell, Tim. You were supposed to come home last night.”
“I was working,” Tim said, blinking. “You didn’t have to storm the tower.”
“We thought Stark locked you in a basement! Or dissected you! Dick almost put on his suit and started wall crawling up the windows!”
Tim gave a long-suffering sigh. “I got promoted. I got a desk and equipment and private access and-”
“I don’t care if he gave you your own floor,” Jason snapped. “You’re coming home. You’re gonna eat something, sleep for more than three hours, and shower with water, not coffee.”
Jason turned to the receptionist, who looked about ten seconds away from calling security.
“Tell his boss,” Jason said, pointing a thumb at Tim, “that Tim Drake is taking mandatory health leave. Effective immediately.”
The receptionist nodded mutely.
Tim opened his mouth to protest again, but Jason grabbed him by the back of the hoodie like a misbehaving cat and started walking him toward the doors.
“I was working on dimensional resonance recalibration.” Tim muttered.
Jason snorted. “Yeah? Well now you’re recalibrating your relationship with your pillow.”
They vanished into the morning crowd, one fuming older brother and one deeply offended nerd in exile.

Tony Stark hated when things didn’t go according to his schedule.
Especially when the person causing said disruption was a kid with disturbingly good instincts, coffee dependency issues, and the kind of mind Tony saw once (twice actually, if we count Peter) in a generation, and usually after an ethics committee had a heart attack.
So when Tony strolled into Lab C with two coffees in hand and a brain already turning at full throttle, he didn’t expect… silence.
Empty desk. Unplugged laptop. No muttering. No Tim Drake.
He stopped in the middle of the lab and looked around, frowning. “Kid?”
No answer.
“Intern?”
Still nothing.
He wandered over to Tim’s desk and tapped the screen of the laptop. Password locked. Tony tried “coffee123” just to amuse himself. No luck.
With a sigh, he headed back down to the main floor and made a beeline for the front desk, where the receptionist, Avery, maybe? Ashley? looked up and immediately stiffened.
“Good morning, Mr. Stark,” she said nervously.
“Yeah, it was a good morning. Then my favorite intern ghosted me. Where’s the cryptid? Don’t tell me he exploded something and is now on fire somewhere else in the building?”
She gave a sheepish shrug. “Actually… he left. His brother came to get him this morning.”
Tony blinked. “Brother?”
“Big guy. Black hoodie. Said Tim was taking mandatory health leave and walked him out.”
Tony squinted. “Did he have muscles and a face that looked like it ate drywall for breakfast?”
“Um… maybe?”
He gestured toward the front desk monitor. “Pull up the security footage from earlier.”
A few seconds later, the feed rolled back to show Jason walking into Stark Tower with his usual looming presence, clearly ready to body someone. Tony watched as he exchanged very pointed words with the receptionist, then practically dragged Tim out by the collar of his hoodie.
Tony leaned in, eyes narrowing. Something about the guy looked familiar… not from the tower. Somewhere else.
Then it hit him.
Tony snapped his fingers. “He’s the barista.”
The receptionist blinked. “What?”
Tony pointed at the screen. “That’s the guy who works at the coffee place with the weird cinnamon pumpkin thing Peter always drinks. I saw him last week when I dropped by. Big, broody, too many belts.”
She blinked again. “…You go to the coffee place?”
“I breathe air, don’t I?”
He rubbed his temples. “Great. So the kid’s brother, barista brother, shows up and whisks him away in the middle of a very important week. Fantastic. I was literally going to discuss his analysis of the synthetic gravity stabilizer in the repulsor framework.”
He paused. “Now I’ve gotta wait for him to sleep and eat and whatever ‘mandatory health’ looks like to him.”
The receptionist cleared her throat. “Should I… send him an email that you stopped by?”
Tony shook his head. “No. Let him rest. He’ll be back soon enough. Just… flag his badge, so I know when he comes back in.”
He turned to go, muttering under his breath, “Baristas. Why is it always the baristas? Is it the caffeine?”

Chapter Text

When Jason and Tim stepped back into the apartment, Dick was already pacing the living room in nothing but sweats and a faded hoodie, hair damp and dripping from a recent shower. The second he saw Tim, he stopped mid-step.
“You,” Dick said, pointing at him like an overly dramatic soap opera villain, “are officially grounded.”
Tim dropped his bag by the door and sighed. “You can’t ground me. We’re in a different dimension. Nothing matters anymore.”
“That’s exactly why I’m grounding you,” Dick snapped. “You didn’t even text. Jason said you were still working at, like, two in the morning!”
“Technically,” Tim mumbled, toeing off his shoes, “I was about to stop…”
Jason crossed his arms. “Yeah, right after Stark promoted you, upgraded your tech, and probably gave you a private espresso machine.”
Tim perked up slightly. “It is a really nice espresso-”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Dick warned, holding up a hand.
Jason walked over to the couch and yanked the scratchy secondhand blanket off the armrest. “You have two options, Tim. One: go to bed willingly.”
“Or?” Tim asked flatly.
Jason grinned and cracked his knuckles. “Or I wrap you in this blanket like a deranged Chipotle burrito, duct tape you to the mattress, and sedate you.”
Tim opened his mouth.
“He is not joking,” Dick said before he could speak. “He already found the duct tape. It’s on the kitchen counter. I’m not above helping.”
Tim glanced between them. “You two are being ridiculous.”
Jason walked into the kitchen and held up the roll of duct tape like a sacred artifact.
“I could drug your coffee,” Dick added helpfully.
Tim stared at them. “…Fine.”
“Thank you,” Dick said, sagging in relief.
Jason dropped the duct tape onto the couch and gave Tim a gentle shove toward the shared room. “Blanket burrito was definitely plan A, just so you know.”
Tim muttered something about human rights violations as he walked into the bedroom.
They heard the soft whump of a mattress and the rustling of someone aggressively getting under a blanket.
Jason sighed and leaned back against the wall, rubbing a hand down his face. “That kid is gonna kill us before this portal is even built.”
Dick collapsed onto the couch and closed his eyes. “Only if we don’t kill him first.”
From the other room, Tim called out, “You’re both being dramatic.”
“Go to sleep!” they chorused.
A beat of silence. Then:
“…Can I get the espresso machine delivered here?”
“TIM.”

Tim had been “sleeping” for exactly forty minutes, which meant in Tim Drake terms: staring at the ceiling in quiet protest, eyes wide open, muttering code strings under his breath.
Jason was half-dozing on the floor near the mattress, flipping through a stolen tech manual just in case Tim got any more ideas. Dick was in the kitchen, making something that was probably edible. Maybe.
Tim’s phone buzzed on the floor next to him.
He reached for it silently, careful not to disturb Jason, who opened one eye like a seasoned predator.
“…Who’s texting you?” Jason asked, suspicious.
“No one.” Tim replied too quickly.
Jason was already reaching for it.
“Jason, no-”
Jason snatched the phone out of his hands and stood up, turning away as Tim scrambled after him. “You lost phone privileges when you decided three hours of sleep every three days was healthy.”
“Give it back!” Tim hissed.
Jason held up a hand to keep him back and squinted at the screen.
[Unknown Contact - A Stark]
1:37 PM
Hey. Just checking in. You didn’t respond to the lab memo and your receptionist said you’re on health leave??
Not trying to be weird, just making sure you weren’t kidnapped or something. Lmk you’re alive.
Jason blinked. “Oh my god.”
Tim groaned. “Give. It. Back.”
“Nope,” Jason said, already typing with a smirk on his face.
Tim lunged for him. Jason danced away.
Dick came into the room with a spoonful of something that looked suspiciously like cereal in tomato soup. “…Why is Tim trying to commit murder?”
“Stark texted him,” Jason said with evil delight. “Checking if he was kidnapped.”
“You’re joking.” Dick nearly dropped his spoon.
Jason grinned and hit send.
[A Stark]
This is Tim’s very responsible older brother. He is not kidnapped. He is sleeping. Under threat of duct tape.
He will return to the lab when he is less of a gremlin.
Thank you for your concern.
P.S. stop sending emails after midnight it’s weird.
Tim made a noise like a dying bird. “You just committed social homicide.”
Jason tossed the phone onto the couch. “Good. Now go back to bed before I tell him you're grounded for real.”
Tim groaned and flopped back onto the mattress face-first.
Dick snorted and took a bite of his cereal-soup concoction. “If he wasn’t kidnapped before, he definitely feels like he is now.”
Jason gave him a thumbs-up. “Mission accomplished.”

Tim returned to Stark Tower two days later looking… human.
That alone made people stare.
His hair was still a little messy, but less "I just crawled out of an air vent” and more "I maybe used a comb once." His clothes weren’t rumpled like he’d slept in them, his eye bags were reduced from “cryptid” to “finals week,” and most shockingly, he walked in holding a bottle of water.
The intern lab went quiet.
“…Who are you and what have you done with Tim?” one of the other interns muttered.
Tim ignored them, heading straight for Lab C like he hadn’t just vanished for 48 hours under “mandatory health leave.” The reception desk had waved him in like he was some kind of myth finally come back to life.
Tony was already in the lab, hunched over a prototype and muttering under his breath when Tim stepped inside.
“No, that’s not how magnetic pulse redistribution- oh hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Tony said without looking up.
“I’m not technically late,” Tim said mildly, setting his bag down.
“Technically, no,” Tony agreed. “Just casually vanished off the face of the Earth for two days without a word.”
“…I left a message?”
“Your brother left a message,” Tony corrected, finally turning to look at him. “On your phone. Which is, and I quote, ‘Tim is sleeping under threat of duct tape. He will return when he is less of a gremlin.’”
Tim gave a tiny shrug. “It was accurate.”
Tony raised an eyebrow. “You good?”
Tim blinked. “Yeah?”
“You’re drinking water.”
“It’s good for you. Apparently,” Tim deadpanned.
“Uh-huh. And sleeping?”
“...Eighteen hours. I was told it was non-negotiable.”
Tony leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You sure you're not, like, a clone or something? Do I need to run a DNA test?”
“I would prefer you didn’t.”
Tony stared at him a moment longer, then huffed a laugh. “Alright, well, glad to see you're not dead. I’ve got three people in R&D who thought you quit. And one of the interns started a betting pool on whether you were kidnapped by aliens.”
Tim blinked. “Was I winning?”
“You were, actually.”
“…Nice.”
Tony shook his head in amusement and waved him over. “Now that you're alive again, I wanted to go over that nanite interface suggestion you made on Project Delta. It's actually kind of genius. Not that I’m surprised.”
Tim nodded and followed, internally screaming. He hadn’t thought Tony would actually read that note.
Time to act normal. Be cool. Definitely not a multiversal stowaway building a secret portal in his spare time with pieces of Stark-brand tech.
Totally fine.
Totally under control.
Mostly.

Chapter Text

Tony Stark didn’t do coffee runs often, too many opportunities to be cornered by reporters or asked about the price of eggs, but something about today had made him crave a very specific oat milk cappuccino from that cozy café Peter wouldn’t shut up about.

And maybe, just maybe , he was also a little curious.

Tim Drake, his resident intern genius, was a puzzle. Quiet but sharp. Under-the-radar but clearly overqualified. And then there was that “brother” who came storming into the tower, practically dragged the kid out by the collar, and made a receptionist stammer so hard she forgot how the alphabet worked.

Tony didn’t forget faces.

Especially hot-tempered, brick-wall-built ones who looked like they’d headbutt a car if someone crossed the street too slow.

So yeah. He had questions.

When he stepped into the café, Peter was behind the counter, expertly steaming milk like he hadn’t webbed up a car chase three hours ago.

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” Peter greeted, flashing a polite smile. “Didn’t expect to see you here so soon.”

Tony slipped on a pair of obnoxiously large sunglasses. “Tell no one. I have a rep to maintain.”

Peter smirked. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Tony leaned on the counter, glancing at the espresso machine before subtly nodding toward the other barista.

“Is that him?”

Peter blinked. “Who?”

“The guy. The one who works with you. Dark hair, constant scowl. Built like he eats drywall for breakfast. Tim’s brother. ”

Peter furrowed his brow. “Wait, How do you know Tim?”

Tony raised a brow. “You don't know he works for me?”

“I thought he was, like, a full-time student or something! But what about him?”

“He’s got at least two brothers,” Tony said casually, scanning the shop. “One of them stormed my lobby like a caffeine-deprived bounty hunter. I want to know if the kid’s safe.”

At that moment, Jason Todd stepped out from the back, wiping his hands on a rag and barely masking a wince as his ribs twinged. His eyes locked with Tony’s, staring over the sunglasses and the sharp cut of the billionaire’s designer suit.

Tony’s brows went up.

Jason’s shoulders tensed.

“Hey,” Jason said, carefully neutral.

Peter blinked between them. “Uh… this is Jason. He works mornings. Makes the best cold brew in the city. Probably the planet.”

“Jason,” Tony repeated, offering a hand. “Nice to finally meet one of Tim’s mysterious brothers.”

Jason hesitated, only for half a second, then shook his hand, firm and unyielding. “You too, sir.”

Dick, who had peeked out from the stock room the second he’d heard Tony Stark’s voice, ducked back behind the door like a skittish cat.

Tony didn’t notice. Or pretended not to.

“So,” Tony said casually, not letting go of Jason’s gaze just yet. “You and Tim live together?”

“Yeah,” Jason answered, still polite. “Family stuff.”

“And you’ve known Peter long?”

“Just since we started. He’s cool.” Jason offered a noncommittal shrug. “Talks a lot about physics, like Tim.”

Peter turned faintly red.

Tony smirked. “He does that.”

After a beat, Jason stepped back. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta restock syrups before our afternoon rush.”

“Of course,” Tony said smoothly, stepping aside. “Don’t let me interrupt the caffeine flow.”

Jason walked off with practiced ease, only glancing at Dick once through the crack in the door, who mouthed a frantic “Did he recognize you?!” before ducking out of sight again.

Tony watched him go.

Peter cleared his throat. “So… uh… what brings you here again?”

“Curiosity,” Tony said simply, taking his cappuccino from the counter. “And decent coffee. Can’t get both in the tower.”

He sipped, turned, and walked out without another word.

Jason exhaled hard the second the door closed.

“ I hate everything about this universe, ” he muttered.

From the back, Dick whispered, “He didn’t recognize you, right?”

Jason answered by aggressively restocking caramel syrup.

Tim had been waiting for this moment for weeks.

Every stolen wire, every borrowed capacitor, every scrap of Stark-grade alloy he’d casually slipped into his backpack under the pretense of “clean-up duty”, it had all been leading to this.

The interdimensional stabilizer core was finally finished.

Tim admired the palm-sized device nestled in the center of the testing rig in Lab D. It was ugly. Messy welds, scratchy soldering, and a housing case made of repurposed drone plating. But it was his ugly. And if he was right, this ugly piece of tech could tear a hole through the dimensional wall.

Just a small one. Just for testing.

It had taken three cups of coffee, seven glances over his shoulder, and a lot of pretending not to exist to sneak into the private testing lab. Most of the interns were on break. Tony wasn’t around.

He had ten minutes. Tops.

Tim glanced at the console and took a breath. Please don’t explode.

He activated the prototype.

For two seconds, nothing happened. Then the machine let out a low, unsettling hum, like a blender trying to chew glass. A faint light built in the center, pulsing rhythmically.

Then- BOOM.

The stabilizer sparked violently. The lab lights died. So did every other light in the building. For exactly five seconds, Stark Tower went dark.

Tim yelped, diving behind a desk as the device shrieked and spit blue light into the center of the room. Reality rippled . A sound like a scream underwater filled the air.

Then, with a POP and a flash, someone landed in the middle of the floor with all the grace of a confused cat.

“ Tt. ”

Tim blinked, horrified.

On the ground, dressed in black and green with a scowl sharper than a batarang, was Damian Wayne.

“… No,” Tim whispered, staring in disbelief. “No. No no no. Nope. Nope. That’s a hallucination. I’ve been drinking too much coffee. That’s the caffeine talking. ”

Damian sat up, visibly dazed. “Drake? What in the seven hells did you do? ”

Tim scrambled forward and slapped a hand over Damian’s mouth. “Do you want to get us caught?!”

Damian shoved him off, blinking furiously. “Where are we? Father’s been losing his mind. You and Todd and Grayson vanished mid-mission, there was blood, scorch marks, and half a destroyed lab. Oracle’s been trying to track you for weeks! Where are we?!”

“Shhhh!”

“ Do not shhh me! ”

Tim dragged Damian toward the far cabinet, threw open a storage locker, and shoved him inside. “Get in. I’ll explain in, like, ten seconds, just- stay quiet!”

“I will gut you, Drake.”

The lights flickered back on.

Tim winced. Outside the lab door, he could already hear footsteps, technicians and security moving to check on the outage.

He turned back to Damian, who glared murderously from inside the locker, arms crossed like he was a kidnapped prince rather than a sudden extradimensional visitor.

“ Stay. ” Tim hissed like he was scolding a dog.

“I hate you.”

“Good. That means you’ll keep quiet.”

He shut the locker, spun around just as the door opened, and offered the most dead-eyed expression of surprise he could muster.

“Oh, hey. Weird power flicker, right?”

The interns stared at the smoking device on the table.

One of them pointed. “Dude. Did you blow up your project?”

Tim gave a sheepish shrug. “It’s a theoretical energy dispersal module. Guess the theory part was... optimistic.”

Behind him, something thunked inside the locker.

Tim coughed loudly to cover it. “Anyway, I’ll clean this up. You don’t need to report this to Tony, right?”

The interns exchanged looks. “We’re gonna have to. Sorry, man.”

Tim internally screamed.

He was so getting fired.

And he now had a feral demon child from another dimension hiding in a broom closet.

Tim Drake had snuck into plenty of highly secure places in his life.

The Batcave’s deepest vaults. LexCorp’s data servers. A literal alien spaceship one time.

But sneaking a scowling, bloodthirsty, twelve-year-old Damian Wayne through the intern floor of Stark Tower in a hideous combination of borrowed lab coat, a face mask, oversized goggles, and a stolen Avengers baseball cap was absolutely going to haunt his nightmares.

“Why am I dressed like this?” Damian muttered under his breath, his tiny limbs utterly engulfed by the too-long coat. “I look like a failing chemistry student.”

“You look like a background intern,” Tim hissed back. “That’s the point. Now shut up and act like you don’t want to murder everyone in this hallway.”

“I do want to murder everyone in this hallway.”

“Keep it internal. ”

Tim awkwardly guided Damian down the corridor, nodding stiffly to a passing group of real interns who barely glanced at them. Damian, to his credit, didn’t stab anyone, though he did growl at one janitor who got too close to his personal space.

After three minutes of tense elevator music and a near-heart-attack when Tony’s personal assistant walked by, Tim finally made it to the lower lab where no one ever went unless they needed to fix a coffee machine or Tim himself had done something mildly illegal.

The moment the door shut behind them, Damian ripped the goggles off. “Drake. Start explaining.”

Tim started locking every lock on the door. “Long story short: you got sucked through a prototype dimensional portal I’ve been building with stolen Stark tech. We, me, Jason, and Dick, got thrown into another universe about a month ago. You’re now on a version of Earth with its own set of superheroes. We’re trying to get back.”

Damian blinked. “You’re not lying.”

“Nope.”

“You built a portal.”

“Yes.”

“You stole from a tech empire in a strange world full of unknown threats.”

Tim paused. “Okay when you say it like that, it sounds reckless. But yes.”

Damian stared at him in the way only a pissed-off twelve-year-old assassin child could, like he was judging every life choice that led to this moment.

“Where are Todd and Grayson?”

“At a coffee shop. Long story. I have to go pretend to be yelled at by Tony Stark now.”

“Who is that?”

Tim blinked. “You seriously do- Right. Alternate universe. Okay. Tony Stark is a billionaire inventor who is basically this universe’s combination of Bruce and Lucius rolled into one. And I work for him. Kinda. Temporarily.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. “Sounds arrogant.”

“Oh, incredibly. ” Tim opened a cabinet and gestured inside. “Get in. Stay hidden. Don’t stab anything unless it moves first.”

“Fine,” Damian muttered, crawling in with the grumble of someone deeply unimpressed with this entire world.

Tim sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and left the lab to face his inevitable doom.

Stark Tower — Tony’s Office

Tony Stark did not look happy.

He wasn’t angry, yet, but his expression said mildly betrayed father figure who’s also been up for 36 hours straight and hasn’t had a croissant all day.

“Timothy,” Tony said, not even looking up from the tablet in his hands, “you wanna tell me what happened in Lab D?”

Tim gave him the best sheepish-but-promising-face he had. “Small miscalculation in energy routing. Won’t happen again.”

“You knocked out power on three floors.”

“I said small. ”

Tony finally looked up. “You’re lucky you didn’t fry half the emergency systems. Or yourself. Which, by the way, you were very close to doing based on the scorch marks we found.”

“I learned a lot from the failure,” Tim said quickly. “I’ve already reworked the designs and fixed the energy containment ratio. I promise I can-”

“That’s not the point.” Tony cut him off with a sigh, folding his hands. “I like you, kid. You’ve got a brain most people only wish they had. You work hard, you’re curious, and your coffee addiction might kill you before you hit twenty. But I need to know if you’re safe. If you’re stable.”

Tim flinched, just slightly. “I’m stable. I swear.”

Tony looked at him for a long moment before slowly nodding. “Alright. But this was your warning. Next explosion, I take away your lab keys and make you sort through StarkFax requests in IT with Garry.”

Tim paled. “That’s evil.”

“I know. It’s why I made the position.” Tony smirked, just slightly. “Go cool off. No more testing today. Clear your head.”

Tim nodded and slipped out of the office, trying not to panic. Back in the elevator, he let out a deep sigh.

He still had a twelve-year-old gremlin in a cabinet and a dimension portal to build before someone found out.

This was fine. Everything was fine.

Chapter Text

When Tim finally managed to sneak Damian out of Stark Tower, via an uncomfortable combination of service elevators, bribing a janitor with twenty dollars, and shoving a twelve-year-old into a laundry cart, he was pretty sure his blood pressure had permanently increased.

Getting him into their apartment, though, was somehow harder. Damian kept asking questions the whole time.

“How many floors did you drop during the blackout?”

“Three.”

“You caused a building-wide power failure during a test.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s how I got here?”

“Correct.”

“Drake. That’s idiotic. You could’ve died. ”

Tim’s eye twitched. “Believe me, I’m aware. My calculations were off. I’m going to figure out why.”

Damian didn’t look satisfied. But he was quiet the rest of the way, which was all Tim really cared about at the moment.

When they stepped through the apartment door, the scent of burnt toast and microwaved pizza hit them instantly. Jason was sprawled on one of the mattresses in sweatpants and a hoodie, flipping through TV channels with the grim energy of a man who had survived three wars. Dick was hunched over a pile of takeout containers, writing on something that looked suspiciously like a napkin with a crayon.

“Hey,” Tim said flatly, closing the door behind him.

Jason glanced up. “Yo. You’re alive- barely. We saw the power blip on the news. What the hell was that, you maniac-”

“ Timothy Jackson Drake, ” Dick gasped, standing up so fast the takeout flew off his lap. “What- what did you do ?!”

Tim grimaced. “Okay. So. Uh. You know how I said I was testing the dimensional component?”

“You almost exploded yourself, ” Jason snapped, pushing off the mattress and stomping over. “We thought we’d be cleaning your remains off the lab walls!”

Dick grabbed him by the shoulders. “What went wrong? Was it the containment coil? The power conversion? Tell me you didn’t reroute the conduit-”

“I did. But that’s not the problem.” Tim stepped aside. “Also. Surprise.”

Damian walked in like a tiny, judgmental gremlin. “Hello.”

Dead silence.

Jason blinked. “Why is there a demon in our apartment?”

“HEY!” Damian barked. “I heard that!”

“Yeah, you were meant to, you feral little footstool!” Jason snapped back, already winding up for war.

Tim stepped between them like a tired kindergarten teacher. “Focus. Damian somehow got pulled in through the test run of the portal. I don’t know how, but the power surge didn’t just connect dimensions, it actually worked. At least partially. Which means…”

“It’s possible to get back, ” Dick whispered, eyes wide. “You actually made progress.”

Tim nodded slowly. “The calculations were off, the timing unstable, and the entire process nearly vaporized me, but yes. It works. ”

Jason looked between Tim and Damian, then flopped onto the couch like his soul just gave up. “This is a horrible surprise. Even for you.”

Damian looked around the tiny, poorly furnished apartment, his nose wrinkling. “This place is disgusting. Why are there only mattresses ?”

“We’re on a budget,” Tim muttered.

“You’re an idiot,” Damian snapped. “You almost died trying to open a portal. And then brought me here without any plan.”

Dick collapsed onto the other mattress. “It wasn’t a plan. It was more of a very dangerous, poorly-timed accident.”

Jason nodded. “So… Tuesday.”

Tim dropped onto the floor and rubbed his eyes. “I know it was bad. My math was wrong. I’ve already started reviewing the numbers, but it’s going to take time.”

Damian crossed his arms. “Who is this Tony Stark person? Why are you working for him?”

“He owns Stark Industries,” Tim explained. “Biggest tech empire here. He’s… kind of like Bruce. But if Bruce was a snarky extrovert who runs around in expensive t-shirts and constantly flirts with danger.”

“And women,” Jason added. “Lots of women.”

“He has Bruce’s money and genius,” Dick added, “but none of the emotional damage coping skills.”

Damian tilted his head. “So he’s worse.”

“ Infinitely. ” Tim and Jason said in unison.

The four of them sat there in silence for a moment, surrounded by pizza boxes, blueprints, and existential dread.

Damian sighed. “Do you at least have any decent tea in this dimension?”

Jason snorted. “You’re lucky we have hot water. ”

“Get your shoes, demon,” Jason barked as he zipped up his jacket.

“I am not a demon, Todd,” Damian hissed, already in a defensive stance.

“Then stop acting like one and come with us,” Dick called from the bathroom, trying to fix his hair with exactly two drops of hotel-brand hair gel. “You’re not staying in the apartment alone. Not in this dimension.”

“I am twelve. Not a toddler.”

“Exactly. You’re twelve. And dangerous. And from another world,” Jason grunted, grabbing Damian by the back of his hoodie like a cat mom carrying a particularly bitey kitten. “You stay with us.”

“I hate you both,” Damian muttered as he was dragged toward the door.

“We love you too, champ,” Dick said cheerfully.

—

The café smelled like burnt espresso and mild existential dread, comforting, honestly. Jason held the door open, Damian tucked between him and Dick like a very annoyed, overprotected feral chihuahua.

Peter was already behind the counter when they walked in, apron tied, curls a little messy. He blinked as all three of them walked in, then slowly squinted, looking between Jason, Dick, and Damian.

“Okay,” Peter said, pointing his stir stick at Jason, “First it was you.”

He pointed to Dick. “Then you. Then Tim.”

And finally, Damian. “Now him? ”

Jason stiffened. Dick smiled awkwardly.

Peter narrowed his eyes. “How many of you are there, exactly? Do you multiply when you get wet or feed after midnight? Is this a gremlin situation?”

Jason deadpanned, “No comment.”

Peter leaned in on the counter, eyes flicking to Damian. “How old is this one? Eight?”

“I am twelve, you poorly styled knockoff of a squirrel,” Damian snapped.

Peter blinked. “Okay. Wow. Attitude. Got it.”

“He’s our cousin,” Dick jumped in, placing a hand on Damian’s shoulder before he could lunge across the counter.

Peter raised a brow. “Cousin?”

“Yeah,” Jason added quickly. “From… uh… out of town.”

“Arabian,” Dick said with a nod. “Very… traditional family.”

Peter paused, slowly blinking. “Does your father use protection, or…?”

Jason choked on his coffee.

Dick coughed violently into his sleeve.

Damian just looked confused. “What does he mean by protection?”

Jason wheezed, “Oh my god.”

Peter just leaned back, arms crossed. “I’m just saying. Y’all are multiplying like bunnies.”

“Okay, first of all ,” Dick said, pointing, “rude.”

“Second of all,” Jason muttered, “our ‘dad’ doesn’t know how to communicate with words, let alone buy condoms.”

Damian frowned harder. “Are we talking about Father again? What did he do?”

“Nothing,” both older brothers said at once.

Peter blinked again. “I- okay, wow. This is the weirdest family tree I’ve ever seen.”

“We’re like a disaster-shaped vine, ” Dick said brightly. “It’s better if you don’t try to trace the branches.”

Peter handed Damian a hot chocolate. “Here. Welcome to capitalism, kid.”

Damian took it with suspicion. “What’s in this?”

“Sugar. Caffeine. A warning label.”

“…Acceptable.”

Peter glanced at the three of them again. “You know, if another one shows up, I’m calling child services.”

“No need,” Jason said, sipping his coffee with a grimace. “That’s Bruce’s job.”

Dick gave Peter a tight smile. “Also please don’t call anyone. At all. Ever.”

Peter raised his hands. “My lips are sealed. But if a fourth one shows up, I’m charging you rent.”

Tony Stark stood in front of the massive whiteboard in his private lab, red and black markers in each hand, a cup of now-cold coffee teetering precariously on a pile of blueprints beside him. His sleeves were rolled up, his hair was a mess, and there were at least six different equations circling each other like sharks in a math-induced feeding frenzy.

At the center of it all, underlined three times in red:

POWER SURGE – LAB C – 3:42PM

He turned slowly, squinting at the next board.

Building-wide flicker: 3.43PM. Localized surge 13.4 seconds prior.

“J.A.R.V.I.S., play back the access logs from the intern sector at 3:30PM.”

“Access log confirms intern Timothy Drake scanned into Lab C at 3:36PM,” the AI responded.

“Then showed up in my office at 3:51,” Tony muttered, drawing a line between the two time stamps. “That’s a fifteen-minute gap. Walking from Lab C to my office takes six. Seven, if you stop to pretend you’re not terrified of the boss man.”

He stared at the number, then circled it twice.

“That’s eight minutes of unaccounted time.”

He wrote +8 minutes in giant angry red letters.

“Where the hell were you, Timmy?” Tony murmured. “If you were changing, you stayed in the same coffee-stained shirt. Not even a fresh hoodie. So not a pitstop to clean up.”

He stepped back, lips pursed.

“Let’s assume you weren’t panicking. You weren’t bleeding. So… damage control?”

Tony turned and walked back to the monitors. They’d recovered 90% of camera feeds from the outage, but not all.

“J.A.R.V.I.S., replay camera footage of Lab C hallway from 3:30 to 3:50.”

“Camera log unavailable. Data corrupted during outage.”

“Of course it is,” Tony muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Alright. Fine. What was he building?”

He turned to the digital copy of Tim’s blueprint that had somehow ended up in the system days earlier, one of many marked as ‘Independent Research – Conceptual Only.’

Tony zoomed in on the diagram again, brow furrowing. Coils. Layered focusing rings. Frequency stabilizers. Quantum junction nodes that didn’t quite match any he’d seen before.

“Why would you even need to stabilize a frequency like that unless you were-” He stopped.

“Dimensional phasing?” he whispered, eyes narrowing.

He turned to the board and began writing again, the tip of the red marker squeaking in frustration.

Known components used:

• 2 micro-tuned coil arrays
  
  
• 1 power sync conduit (missing from inventory)
  
  
• 4 ft hyperglass tubing
  
  
• …and something Stark tech can’t even keep up with?
  
  

He paused again.

His systems were designed to monitor and handle power surges, alert for any experimental tech going too far. They had absorbed entire AI meltdowns without a flicker.

This one? This one knocked out power across four floors for 6.3 seconds.

“J.A.R.V.I.S., were any materials unaccounted for after the surge?”

“A minor discrepancy in Lab C component inventory has been noted. Items flagged include: one quantum stabilizer ring, three micro-lens capacitors, two energy sync rods-”

“That’s enough to build a mini collider,” Tony muttered.

His marker squeaked hard as he wrote:
WHAT THE HELL IS TIM BUILDING?!

He stepped back, stared at his notes, and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Alright, Drake. You’re brilliant, sneaky, and always polite, which is never a good sign. And you might be trying to build something that even I didn’t greenlight.”

He picked up his phone, staring at Tim’s contact for a long second, thumb hovering.

Then he dropped it back down and looked at the whiteboard again.

“…You’re hiding something. And now I really want to know what it is.”

Chapter Text

Tim’s heart pounded in his chest as he jammed a collection of wires, capacitors, and a half-melted prototype board into the bottom of his backpack. His jacket was already stuffed with smaller tools and components, anything he couldn’t walk into a store and legally buy. He didn’t think he was fired… yet. But Stark’s tone when he asked Tim to come in for “another chat” tomorrow had definitely moved from friendly banter to "I know you're hiding something, and I'm going to find out what."

Which meant Plan B: grab the stuff before it could get confiscated.

He zipped his bag shut with a frustrated yank, muttering under his breath. “At least I figured out what went wrong…”

His eyes flicked back to the notes he’d scribbled over lunch, corrections, recalibrations, a whole new math pathway. His calculations had been right... except for the part where quantum layering fluctuated in multiversal coordinates due to Stark Tower’s ridiculous built-in arc reactor field, which had fried his stabilizers mid-initiation.

In other words: not entirely his fault.

Still. He’d nearly nuked half the lab. And accidentally teleported in a ten-year-old assassin.

Shoving the last crumpled paper into the side of his bag, he bolted.

The apartment was a symphony of chaos when he opened the door.

“-YOU COULD’VE BURNED MY EYEBROWS OFF, TODD!”

“I SAID IT WAS A CONTROLLED FLAME-”

“IT WAS A TORCH.”

“I’M COOKING. BACK OFF.”

Tim stepped inside just in time to dodge a dishtowel being flung across the room. Damian stood on one side of the kitchenette, wearing one of Tim’s oversized black hoodies (sleeves nearly swallowing his hands) and glaring at Jason, who was brandishing a spatula like it was a weapon.

Tim sighed. “What is happening right now?”

Jason turned toward him, apron covered in flour and what might have been tomato sauce. “Trying to make actual food like a functioning adult. Your gremlin tried to throw a fork at me.”

Damian crossed his arms, hoodie sleeves drooping over his fingers. “You almost poisoned us. I saw the expiration date on the eggs.”

“They were fine!”

“They were green. ”

“I scraped that part off!”

“JASON, OH MY GOD.”

A loud crash came from the living room.

Tim poked his head around the corner to find Dick crouched in front of a medium-sized flat-screen TV, surrounded by empty boxes, plastic wrap, and what looked like two sets of instructions in Korean and French. A cheap second mattress leaned against the wall behind him.

Dick looked up and grinned. “Surprise! I asked for early pay, don’t worry, it wasn’t sketchy, and got us a TV! And a mattress! And guess what? This one’s for Damian. ”

Damian leaned into the doorway and scowled. “I’m not sleeping on a glorified sack of straw. I am not a goat.”

“It’s memory foam,” Dick said defensively. “ Budget memory foam.”

Jason muttered from the kitchen, “He’d prefer to sleep in the ceiling vents like a cryptid.”

Tim finally dropped his bag, leaned against the door, and just… laughed. Hysterically. For a solid 10 seconds.

Everyone stared at him.

“You okay, Replacement?” Jason asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Tim wheezed. “I nearly got fired, had to steal half my lab, figured out I almost blew us up because of arc reactor interference, and now I come home to a twelve-year-old in my hoodie and my brothers trying to cook World War III.”

Dick blinked. “So… normal Tuesday?”

Damian huffed. “I demand real clothing. I look like an orphan from a post-apocalyptic documentary.”

“You are an orphan,” Jason said helpfully.

Tim groaned and walked into the kitchen, shoving his hoodie sleeves up Damian’s arms. “You’re lucky I haven’t duct-taped you into a closet. I nearly got atomized, again. ”

Dick offered him a screwdriver. “You wanna help me set this up before I lose my mind?”

“I wanna sleep for three weeks,” Tim muttered.

“But we have streaming services. ”

Tim’s eye twitched. “…Fine.”

Damian sat cross-legged on the new mattress in the corner, still glaring at Jason. “If you ever hand me expired eggs again, I will personally throw you out a window.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Jason muttered, flipping whatever questionable creation he’d started in the pan.

Tim collapsed beside the new TV, stared up at the ceiling, and whispered to himself: “I can’t believe this is the sane part of my day.”

Tim sat cross-legged in the middle of the small second bedroom, his “lab,” as generously dubbed by his brothers. The lights were off except for the cheap LED desk lamp clipped to a shelf, flickering now and then like it, too, was on the verge of giving up.

The message on his tablet screen still stared him in the face:

“You are hereby suspended pending review of recent lab activity and protocol violations. Further updates will be sent following internal assessment.”

He didn’t even get a name . Just cold, corporate ambiguity.

Tim sighed, rolled his head back until it thumped gently against the drywall behind him, and exhaled. “Okay. Not fired. Yet. ”

The prototype sat in front of him a skeletal frame of coiled metal, plates scavenged and reshaped, and clusters of microchips delicately wired to a central pulse core. It was… beautiful. Kind of. Ugly-beautiful. Frankensteinian. But it worked. At least in theory.

He tweaked the stabilizer casing, reaching for the newest part he’d soldered earlier, fitting it into place with precision that would’ve impressed even him two weeks ago.

And it was close. So, so close.

Tim ran another diagnostic from the tablet, watching the simulation flicker to life. Coordinates, power demands, stability predictions, every calculation was finally lining up.

That was when he saw it.

Power Requirement: 3,000 megawatts.

Tim blinked. Re-ran the test.

Same result.

“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He stared at the number like it would magically shrink if he glared hard enough. His eyes darted toward the outlet powering his desk lamp. Then the flickering ceiling light. Then the peeling socket in the corner with the adapter duct-taped into it because the wall was loose.

He shut his eyes and groaned.

“If I power this thing here, I’ll blackout the whole block. City , maybe. Gotham wouldn’t even notice, but these people will riot over missing TikToks and iced coffee.”

He rubbed his face with both hands and leaned back, letting the tablet flop into his lap. There was no way around it, if he wanted to actually activate the portal, he needed a power source that wouldn’t collapse in on itself. Something massive. Something sustainable.

Something like…

The tablet’s screen lit up again, this time on autoplay.

Breaking News: Iron Man intercepts armed truck hijacking on 45th-

Tim paused.

He tilted his head.

Watched as Iron Man blasted the axle of a speeding truck and lifted it mid-air like it weighed nothing. The man flew like it was second nature. Energy readings flared across the screen, numbers barely contained.

“…Okay,” he whispered.

Tony Stark’s building had an arc reactor , clean, near-limitless energy. Stark Tower was practically built for this kind of thing.

If he could split the portal into manageable pieces, sneak them in separately… reassemble it in a maintenance-level chamber or one of the locked labs…

He tapped his fingers against the floor rapidly, brain kicking into overdrive. Yes. If he disguised the pieces, made it modular like a Lego set, each block large but not suspicious, and chose a lab with isolated infrastructure, he could reroute the energy without drawing attention.

Except…

“Stark’s system will throttle me the second I try to pull that much power,” he muttered.

He’d need to override the restrictions. Not permanently. Just enough to run a single activation. No power surge. No safety lockdowns. No alerts.

He grabbed a pen and started scribbling a diagram on the back of an old invoice. It’d take careful coding. Stealthy rerouting. Masking the spikes so they’d blend in with normal fluctuations…

A tiny smile tugged at his lips.

He didn’t know who Iron Man was, and honestly, he didn’t care . Whoever the guy was, he probably wouldn’t notice a few interns in the background repurposing one lab and re-routing half the building’s energy. Stark had enough floors; he wouldn’t miss one.

As long as the Avengers didn’t suddenly drop in to investigate, Tim could do this.

He tapped the screen again, watching Iron Man fly away from the hijacked truck scene, golden armor gleaming against the sunset.

“Thanks for the power, mystery man.”

Sneaking into Stark Tower should have been harder.

It wasn’t easy , by any means, but with a stolen keycard, a half-hacked security system, and four Bat-trained vigilantes in full stealth mode, they were inside by midnight.

The lobby was dark and silent, save for the faint mechanical hum of cooling systems and the occasional flicker of a monitor left in standby mode. Outside, the city glowed as it always did, loud, alive, and entirely oblivious to what was happening inside one of its most heavily fortified buildings.

Each of them was weighed down by duffle bags packed to the brim. Tim’s bag alone had enough illegal tech stuffed inside to get him a life sentence in several states.

"Why do you always make me carry the heaviest one?" Jason muttered, adjusting the strap on his shoulder as they made their way down the emergency stairwell, sticking to the shadows between security cameras.

"You’re the tank,” Tim whispered, squinting at the little map he’d drawn on his palm. “It’s not personal.”

“Feel pretty personal.”

Damian huffed behind them, scowling beneath his hood. “This entire plan is idiotic. You didn’t even finish recalibrating the dimensional stabilizer.”

“It’s finished enough.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“Quiet,” Dick said sharply, leading the way with practiced ease, his eyes sweeping every corner before they moved. “We’re almost there.”

They stopped outside the access door to Lab 42 , one of the lesser-used research wings. Tim swiped the keycard and the panel clicked open. He immediately ducked inside and headed straight for the workbench he’d stashed some disguised components in earlier that week.

The lab itself was cold, sterile, and perfect. Multiple worktables, one primary reactor access port, and best of all: isolated power feeds for individual testing stations. Stark Tech thought of everything.

Tim dumped his duffle onto the floor and zipped it open, already pulling out the base of the portal and snapping pieces together with near-frantic speed.

"Red Hood, Nightwing, start unpacking. Robin, guard the door," Tim barked. “And don’t touch anything glowing. Seriously. I do not want another accidental explosion.”

“You make one destabilizer core detonate and suddenly you’re branded for life,” Jason muttered, but he obeyed.

Dick was already dragging over a worktable to start assembling the side panels, his fingers flying as he followed the mental blueprint Tim had burned into their minds over weeks (a few days) of planning. Damian stood stiffly at the door, katana in hand, looking both annoyed and very much like he was enjoying this chaos more than he let on.

For fifteen glorious minutes, everything went according to plan.

Panels slid into place. The core whirred softly as it integrated. Tim’s fingers flew over the tablet, recalibrating energy intake to sync with the building’s power grid through a cloaked feed. He smiled.

They were going to pull it off.

Until-

WHIRR-WHIRR-WHIRR.

KLAXON WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ENERGY DRAIN DETECTED.

The lab lights flared red.

“NOPE NOPE NOPE-” Tim yelped, immediately slamming the lockdown command into the tablet.

The doors locked with a hiss just as the hallway outside lit up. Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Heavy. Metallic.

They all froze.

“Well,” Jason said, drawing his gun with a sigh, “that didn’t take long.”

“ What did you do- ” Damian hissed.

“I rerouted the limiter, not shut it off! It wasn’t supposed to spike!” Tim was typing frantically, trying to shut down the feed without frying the system. “Something must’ve tripped-!”

Dick grabbed one of the overturned tables and shoved it against the door. “Not the time. Everyone, barricade.”

Jason hauled over a supply cart, slamming it against the door’s side. “You think it’s Iron Man?”

“I hope it’s not Iron Man,” Tim muttered. “I can’t explain this to Iron Man.”

“Who is Iron Man anyway?” Damian asked.

“Don’t know,” Dick said, yanking wires from a console. “But I don’t think he’ll be happy to find us reverse-engineering a dimensional portal in his city’s billionaire’s lab.”

The power flickered.

The portal’s core sparked.

Tim’s stomach dropped.

“This is fine,” he lied, plugging the last data wire into the control terminal. “Everything is completely fine. ”

Another metallic clang echoed from the hallway—closer now.

They were officially out of time.

The alarm system blared red across every panel in the building.

Unauthorized power drain. Possible lab breach. Sector: Sublevel C, Lab 42.

Stark Tower didn’t just ring alarms, it screamed.

Tony was already halfway down the hall by the time the others caught up with him. He had a holographic display up from his wrist interface, showing internal security footage from every angle left untouched by Tim’s earlier tampering.

The live feed was glitchy, flickering now and then, but it was enough.

Inside the sealed lab, Tony saw four figures in full gear.

“Got visuals,” Tony muttered, gesturing for the others to come closer as he paused just outside the locked lab entrance. He tapped to freeze the camera feed, enhancing each figure one at a time.

Peter, standing next to him in the red-and-blue Spider-Man suit, squinted. “Wait… that one. The guy in blue, hood, mask, escrima sticks. I know him.”

“Recognize him?” Steve asked, stepping up. His shield was already slung into combat-ready position.

“I think he works at the café i work at. He’s usually on the day shift,” Peter said slowly, “and that other guy-” He pointed at the one in red and black, heavily armored. “He works there too. Doesn’t smile much. Wears gloves inside. Weird guy.”

Thor narrowed his eyes. “The taller one in crimson… I recall launching him through a window.”

Clint blinked. “Oh yeah. That was the guy from the rooftop surveillance incident. You chucked him like a discus.”

“I did,” Thor said, proud. “He was… surprisingly resilient.”

Natasha leaned closer to the screen. “But the other two... we’ve never seen them before.”

Tony tapped again, zooming in on the second smallest of the group, the one fiddling with a complex-looking core system now humming with energy. The boy’s black and red suit was less armored, more streamlined. His mask covered most of his face, but Tony didn’t need facial recognition.

He knew that hair.

And the posture.

“Tim,” Tony muttered. “That’s Tim .”

“What?” Steve turned sharply. “Your intern Tim?”

“Yup,” Tony said, popping the “P” as he scrubbed the feed back a few seconds. “You see how he’s adjusting that capacitor? That’s my wiring format. I taught him that last week.”

Clint folded his arms. “You’re saying your intern broke into your tower to hijack your power grid and build… whatever that is?”

Tony’s jaw clenched. “Apparently.”

The footage skipped briefly as the portal flickered. A blue-white shimmer of unstable energy blinked into existence for half a second, then vanished again with a pop.

Steve frowned. “Do you know what that device is?”

“I’ve got guesses,” Tony said grimly. “Best-case scenario: unstable teleportation gateway. Worst-case: pocket nuke if it overloads.”

Peter squinted again. “So… just throwing it out there, but if that’s Tim, and that’s definitely Jason and Dick- uh, I mean, probably Jason and Dick from the café- then the little one…”

“Yeah?” Clint said, raising an eyebrow.

Peter hesitated. “If I’m right… that’s probably their little brother or cousin. I’ve seen the older guys with him. Kinda intense.”

Tony raised both hands like excuse me what?

“Wait- wait- you knew these guys worked together?!”

“I didn’t know they were breaking into your tower!” Peter said quickly. “They just helped me around at the café!”

“Do we think this is, like, a supervillain sibling gang situation?” Clint asked. “Because if so, they’re bad at branding.”

Natasha stepped back from the monitor. “They’re coordinated, trained, and young. That’s the worst kind of threat.”

Steve nodded. “We treat them as hostile unknowns. Their goal is unclear, and that device looks unstable.”

“They’ve barricaded themselves inside,” Tony muttered. “Which means either they’re scared, or they’re finishing something.”

Peter leaned forward again. “If they’re all working with Tim… maybe he didn’t mean to break things. He seemed pretty normal. Quiet. Insomniac maybe. But not, you know, heisty .”

Tony waved him off. “Kid lied to me for weeks . That’s not normal behavior, that’s supervillain intern plotline behavior.”

Another tremor of energy rippled through the portal on-screen.

Thor tensed. “Do we engage?”

“Not yet,” Tony said, eyes narrowing. “We wait. The power spikes will slow down soon, I built in failsafes. Once they hit a limit, the system cuts power.”

“Then what?” Natasha asked.

“Then I go in and have a little chat with my intern.”

The footage flickered again as someone kicked over a metal cabinet to strengthen the barricade.

Tony’s brow furrowed deeper.

“Who are you kids?” he muttered.

Chapter Text

The blaring alarm had cleared the top floors within seconds.

Tony stood just outside the sealed doors of Lab 42, surrounded by several of Earth’s Mightiest and Most Alarmed. A schematic of the lab flickered on the tablet in his hand, overlaid with video feeds he'd hacked directly from the internal cameras. Inside the lab, chaos reigned.

"How in the hell did four unidentifieds break into my building using my intern’s clearance and not trip the system until they hijacked enough power to light up New Jersey?” Tony gritted out.

The others stood tensely in a semi-circle behind him. The corridor lights had turned red, signaling lockdown. Every vent was sealed. Every security protocol was active. The situation had escalated from minor breach to potential explosion in less than five minutes.

“Because they’re competent,” Natasha said flatly. “Which makes them dangerous.”

Thor frowned at the sealed doors, Mjolnir resting lightly at his side. “Is one of these the masked man I threw through your window?”

Clint squinted at the security feed. “Looks like the same guy. Red helmet, leather jacket. Yeah. That’s him. And the other guy, blue and black, long hair, he was with him outside that day.”

Tony barely heard them. He was too busy watching the lab’s security camera feed like a hawk. Inside, four unknowns were barricading the doors. One, in a red and black suit with a long staff, was rapidly typing into a StarkTech console with the kind of precision only a genius-level mind or a nightmare hacker could manage.

Right next to him was a short, armored kid in a cape and hood, holding a sword. A literal sword. Another, in blue and black with a domino mask, was dragging a table to block the door. And Red Helmet, aka human cannonball from last time, was pulling something out of a duffle bag that very much looked like it didn’t belong in this dimension.

Tony squinted at the face of the one at the console. “Wait a second.”

Peter, crouched next to Clint and watching the feed, blinked. “...Tim?”

“You know him?” Natasha asked sharply.

“He’s- uh- he’s one of the interns. I’ve seen him in the lab,” Tony said, eyebrows furrowing. “Quiet, sharp, weird sleep schedule, caffeine addiction… Jesus, I thought he was working on robotics prototypes. What is that thing-?”

Peter shifted. “That’s definitely not a robotics prototype.”

Tony zoomed in, watching the strange structure in the middle of the room, circular frame, a glowing core, radiating blue pulses like a heartbeat. It looked like it had been assembled from a dozen different systems: StarkTech, alien alloys, custom-built components he didn’t recognize, and-

“Is that a piece of a JUMP jet stabilizer?” Clint asked.

“No way,” Steve said. “There’s no way he got access to-”

“Either he did , or he reverse engineered one,” Tony muttered. “I can’t tell which is worse.”

“Okay, hold up.” Peter raised his hand. “So, I recognize the one at the console, Tim, right? He’s the intern. But I also recognize the blue guy. Uh. I think he works at the coffee shop down the street.”

Tony turned to him, blinking. 

“Yeah, he’s- uh, kinda quiet? Super polite? His name’s Richard, I think? But like- Dick? I dunno. He works the morning shift with Jason, that’s the guy with the helmet.”

Tony stared at him like he’d been hit with a rock.

Natasha slowly turned. “Wait. Are you saying two of our possible intruders, who just hacked Stark’s lab and are building some kind of dimensional tech bomb, work at a café with you, and you didn't realize ?”

“I mean,” Peter shrugged helplessly, “...yeah?”

Thor looked confused. “Is that not where many warriors make their coin?”

“No, Thor,” Natasha said dryly. “It’s not.”

Tony ran a hand through his hair, exasperated. “Great. So let me get this straight. My caffeine intern Tim, who I promoted , broke into my lab with at least three accomplices, one of whom I literally threw out a window , and another who’s been serving me chai lattes for two weeks straight without breaking cover.”

He turned toward the group. “Do we even know who these people are? Do they have names?”

“None that we can confirm,” Steve said, watching the feed closely. “They’re fast, trained, and organized. I haven’t seen anyone work like that since... well. You know.”

“Vigilantes?” Clint guessed.

“No.” Natasha’s voice was cool and certain. “They’re not vigilantes. They’re operatives . Possibly rogue. But they're too clean for amateurs.”

“Should I... go in?” Thor asked, Mjolnir twitching in his grip.

“No!” Tony barked. “Not until I know what that thing is and how explosive it might be.”

Inside the lab, the one they thought was Tim was now yelling at the others and typing even faster, sparks flying from a terminal as the portal hummed louder.

Tony squinted. “That device is drawing too much power. Again. That’s what caused the surge the other day.”

“Should we shut it down?” Peter asked.

Tony was already pulling up the building’s power flow controls. “Trying. But they rerouted my own grid, bastard’s good. I’d admire him if I wasn’t planning to strangle him.”

Steve took a slow breath. “So what’s the play?”

“We breach. But we do it very carefully,” Tony said. “I want all of them alive. Especially Tim. We need to know what this tech is, where it came from, and how many coffee shop employees I’ve accidentally hired into a teen villain league.”

Peter raised a hand again. “...So just putting it out there, what if they’re not villains ?”

Everyone turned to stare at him.

“What?” Peter mumbled. “They didn’t attack anyone yet. And Tim’s always been nice. Weird. But, like, nerd nice. He made me a charger cube once.”

“Kid, he just hacked Stark Tower and is building a glowing hole in space,” Clint deadpanned. “That’s not nice. That’s, like, three years in federal prison.”

“Or a one-way trip to another dimension,” Tony muttered under his breath, eyes locked on the screen as the makeshift portal sparked again and the feed flickered.

“...Or that.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Everyone, gear up. Breach in five.”

The lab was chaos. Pure, unfiltered, nuclear-grade chaos.

As the thick metal doors to the lab blasted inward with a thunderous BOOM , Thor’s impatient contribution to diplomacy, Tim was throwing the final lever on the humming, unstable portal. Sparks flared, the lights flickered again, and the makeshift machine buzzed with a sharp, escalating whine that made every hair on their bodies stand on end.

“ What the hell, Stark?! ” Tim shouted from behind the half-finished control panel, arms spread wide in exasperation. “Could you NOT break my lab for five minutes?!”

“ Your lab?!” Tony’s voice pitched up into full older-brother-mode rage as he stomped into the ruined doorway, suit halfway formed on his body. “You hacked my tower, stole my tech, broke into my systems, and you’re yelling at me?! You’re lucky I don’t-”

“I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU EVEN LOOK AT THE GENERATOR I WILL REWIRE YOUR ENTIRE SUIT TO PLAY BABY SHARK ON LOOP!”

Steve tried to insert himself between them, one gloved hand raised in tired-dad peacekeeping mode. “Okay, everyone calm down-”

Jason fired a gun at the ceiling. “You first, Grandpa Liberty!”

The bullet hit a pipe and steam hissed across the floor.

“What is HAPPENING,” Clint muttered, ducking behind a table just as a flash of black and green blurred past. His bow, his actual bow , was suddenly no longer in his hands.

“ Disgrace! ” Damian yelled, sliding expertly across the tile like a mini shadow ninja. He aimed the stolen bow at Clint with eerie precision, then pivoted sharply and launched himself at Peter. “You dare wear the title of arachnid? You dishonor it with every breath you take! Your posture is an abomination!”

“I- What?! ” Peter yelped, webbing flying instinctively as he tried to ward off a very determined twelve-year-old wielding a vocabulary and a weapon with equal lethality. “Why does he know how to fight like this?! Why does he know what ‘abomination’ means at age twelve?!”

Dick was flipping and ducking and throwing punches at both Steve and Natasha with a cheerful grin that said, I'm having fun, thanks for asking. Tim threw a wrench at Tony while simultaneously rerouting power flow through a mess of cables. “ Why are you even HERE?! You don’t even drink coffee unless it costs eighty bucks and someone else makes it!”

“You broke into my tower!”

“You invited me here !”

“That was before you started building the Death Star in my basement!”

Jason was screaming something incoherent as he chased Thor, who had gone airborne with an amused “You dare challenge the son of Odin?” while Jason unloaded round after round into the floor beneath him like he was playing whack-a-god.

“Why are you with these people?!” Tony demanded, flinging an arm toward the destruction. “They’re insane!”

“WE’RE ADOPTED!” all the Robins screamed back in unison, except Damian, who was too busy calling Peter a scuttling disappointment to his species .

The Avengers all paused mid-battle, varying expressions of confusion and deep, existential horror etched across their faces.

“…You’re adopted?” Steve repeated slowly, as if that explained anything .

“Yes,” Dick said, dodging a punch and spinning around with Olympic flair. “And our father is a brooding guy with a cave under his house and a hobby in weapons collection, so-”

“So you get the trauma now,” Tim added helpfully, still throwing tools across the lab.

“Frankly, I think he has empty cave syndrome,” Jason said, kicking a Stark Industries crate toward Thor. “He keeps trying to adopt more.”

“This explains so much and nothing at the same time,” Clint muttered.

“Honestly,” Peter said between webbing attempts as Damian tried to bite him, “your dad should’ve invested in therapy, not children.”

“WE TELL HIM THAT ALL THE TIME,” they all chorused again, even Damian , this time.

The portal, humming dangerously, suddenly roared.

“IT’S READY!” Tim yelled over the chaos. “I THINK- PROBABLY, DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING OR IT WILL BLOW!”

“Wait, you can’t just activate!” -Tony lunged toward the console-

Too late.

Tim slammed the switch.

A blinding flash of light exploded outward as the portal stabilized, circular and glowing like the eye of some angry god. It rippled with unstable energy, and the air popped with the sound of something bending physics in ways it wasn’t meant to.

“GO!” Tim shouted.

One by one, the Robins leapt.

Jason went first with a “screw you, Thor!” and flipping the bird. Damian vanished after throwing Clint’s bow into the void. Dick blew a kiss to Steve and did a backflip through the portal like a performer exiting stage left.

Tim hesitated, just a second, and locked eyes with Tony.

“I liked working with you,” he said, almost too soft to hear. “But I’m going home.”

Then he was gone.

The portal sparked. Groaned. Imploded in a rain of blown circuits and smoke.

And then, silence.

The Avengers stood in stunned quiet. The lab was wrecked. Half the ceiling was gone. A table was somehow embedded in the wall.

“Did…” Clint said slowly, lowering his arms, “…did we just lose to a group of adopted crime children?”

Tony stared at the dead console.

Steve rubbed a hand down his face. “I need a drink.”

Peter sat on the floor and said, “I think I have a concussion. And a splinter. In my soul.”

“…Are they gone?” Natasha asked cautiously, stepping over the destroyed power conduit.

Tony didn’t answer. He was moving to the console, fingers already flying across what little still functioned, muttering calculations under his breath. The portal frame was fried, but the backup systems hadn’t completely died.

“…Did it kill them?” Steve asked.

“No,” Tony said, eyes locked on the remaining readouts. “…No, it didn’t. They didn’t get deleted.”

“What then?”

“They went somewhere .” He traced the trail of remaining data, coordinates. Spatial signatures. And one glaringly obvious detail:

“Shit.”

“What?”

“…That wasn’t a portal across space,” Tony said slowly. “It was across realities .”

Another long pause.

Clint raised a hand. “So... like a multiverse?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, still typing. “And they just leapt into it like it was a goddamn hopscotch square.”

No one said anything for a moment.

Then Peter just whispered, “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the portal-

Four figures tumbled onto the cold floor of the Batcave with a crash.

There was a long, echoing silence.

Then-

“Timothy?” came Bruce’s voice, shocked and breathless. “Dick, Jason, Damian?!”

“Hi, B,” Dick groaned from where he was face-down.

“Oh thank god,” Alfred muttered.

And Bruce, stoic, terrifying, unshakable Bruce, actually ran toward them.

They were home.

Chapter Text

So, i think im gonna make a sequel once i finish my Deadpool and Spiderman in Gotham fic, but i wanna know what you would like to see in this sequel!

Im asking early so i have a while to kinda brainstorm myself but i'll try to put as much of the stuff yall would like to see in the sequel, y'know, in the sequel.

Im so far im thinking it'll be either:

A: Tony reverses the portal to investigate the "intruders".

or

B: Tim made an error with the portal and only temporarily sent them back home and they go back to the MCU.

Ya'll can choose between those or give your own suggestions. I'd also like to hear ideas to each of these ideas if you have any!

Please leave all inquiries, suggestions, and questions in the comments!

You're welcome, unicornwithachainsaw!

Edit: most of tall are saying A, so that's what it'll be!

Chapter Text

So i finally published the continuation so yeah here's the link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/70584216/chapters/183416851