Chapter Text
There's something really soothing about the roar and hiss of the ocean. It's enough to keep Tony from waking all at once, though sand as a mattress leaves a lot to be desired. The warm sun feels good on his skin, but as he shifts and stretches, he realizes first that that's...really a lot of skin, more than he's used to showing these days thanks to the scars on his chest and the arc reactor before that.
His second realization is that he feels like he's been beaten with rocks, which doesn't exactly jibe with his notions of a tropical getaway.
Sitting up with a groan, he leans back on his right hand and lifts his left to scrub at his face, and--
Stops. Stares.
What the fuck is on his arm?
Lurching upright, he claws at the diamond embedded in his wrist--metallic, inset with a second diamond that glows a bright, warning red--but his short nails won't find purchase at the thing's edges. It goes deep, his flesh healed seamlessly around it, like he's already had it for years. And that's...okay, yeah, he's a little creeped out here, because the last thing he remembers, he was in New York, at the tower, not even fighting. Funny thing is, it hadn't been just--
"Ugh," Barton groans blearily at his back. "Natasha? Was that you?"
"No."
Tony whips around, scrambling up onto his knees, and shit. Shit. The gang's all here.
One by one they all sit up: Barton and Romanoff, Bruce and Thor, Cap and Barnes because someone's been listening to their own Smithsonian hype and taking 'inseparable' a little too literally. Thor reaches automatically for his hammer and scrambles to his feet when he realizes it's gone, holding his hand out expectantly. He strikes a listening pose after a moment, but nothing fucking happens. That...is a bad sign.
Barnes is next on his feet, but he holds his left side stiffly, angled unsubtly away until he clenches his jaw, forces his shoulders back, and pretends not to care who sees him like this. They're all wearing the same ridiculous little white shorts--and okay, so there are varying levels of ridiculous on display, but some of them look damn good for a man in his forties, is all he's saying--except that Romanoff's also rocking a sleeveless, strapless chest band number that shows off two bullet scars and a frighteningly blank expression.
Right, yes. Tony's officially terrified, and also doesn't give their kidnappers a snowball's chance in hell once Romanoff gets her hands on them. Or her thighs. Or her pinkie nail. Has she ever killed a man with an eyelash? She looks like she could kill a man with an eyelash. She looks like she's contemplating it very seriously.
Steve scratches absently at his left wrist as he heaves himself to his feet and freezes. "What the...?"
Tony's up like a shot, grabbing at Steve's wrist, and fuck. He's got it too. Inspiration has him lunging next for Barnes, who nearly stiff-arms Tony back before catching himself, but turning over Barnes' left arm reveals absolutely nothing.
"Jesus, Stark," Barnes grumbles, holding up his right arm with a look-don't-touch reluctance. Seeing the same implant on the wrong arm is both a weird kind of relief and a bitter disappointment.
"Shit," Tony mutters, shoulders slumping.
Barnes gives him a wary look as he tugs his arm free. "What?"
Tony shakes his head. "They're smart, whoever they are. If they'd installed that on the left, I could've taken it apart."
"With what?" Barnes scoffs, shifting uncomfortably back on his heels.
The question takes Tony momentarily aback. Right, with what, because their kidnappers are smart. They haven't just emptied his pockets; they've taken every stitch he had on, and that means no tools, no hidden surprises other than the obvious. Thank God the suit implants aren't common knowledge, or he'd be--
"Uh," Bruce says quietly, staring off to his right. "I think we have a situation."
For a moment he thinks Bruce is staring at the tower off in the distance, or no, the obelisk, because Tony's sure as hell staring at the obelisk: so huge it's hard to get a sense of how far off it is, lit up at the top by a glowing diamond that's a match for the one set into their implants, and also floating in midair with no visible source of thrust to keep it airborne. Then he takes a better look at just where Bruce's eyes are aiming.
The sandy beach they've found themselves on is empty, but off to Tony's left, the water seeps inland, lapping noisily around thick stands of scraggly trees whose roots arch up out of the marsh like crazed stilts. A toad roughly half the size of a VW Beetle eyes them, lazily flicking its tongue out to snap a nightmare dragonfly out of the air, but Tony's more concerned with the genuine fucking pterodactyl soaring overhead. And the enormous, furless, four-legged thing grazing on the unfamiliar bushes and the tops of the trees. And the massive fucking crocodile--make that crocodiles--that...fuck. They're lumbering this way.
"Shit," Tony breathes, and--
"Run!" Barton yelps, which absolutely sounds like a good idea.
"Tony! Your pack!" Bruce shouts, which makes zero sense, only when he looks back at where he'd been lying when he woke, there it is.
"We're fucking naked!" he grouches as he scoops it up, shaking it a little even though he's certain by the weight that it's empty. He's right. "Why the fuck do we have backpacks if we've been left here naked?"
"Be grateful!" Bruce shoots back. "And we're not naked!"
Steve actually hesitates until Barnes grabs him by the arm and starts tugging. Tony notices that Barnes doesn't even try to drag Rogers out of the hindmost position, even though the pair could have outrun the lot of them. The Winter Soldier might have been an unstoppable murder machine, but Bucky Barnes knows how to pick his battles.
"So are we just not talking about the pterodactyl?" Clint asks as he runs.
"We could not talk about the triceratops, if you'd rather," Natasha offers, deadpan.
Wait, the what?
Tony looks around wildly. There's nothing but ocean off to his right, but to his left the shore is bounded by a line of short cliffs covered in thick forest at the crest. It's hard to see through the gloom between the trunks at first, but then something moves.
Holy shit.
"I thought Jurassic Park was just a movie," Barnes says. He sounds uncertain, like he's waiting to be corrected.
Tony nearly stumbles as a bark of hysterical laughter escapes. They're in a movie--only not literally, he hopes, or...maybe he does. He's an action hero, after all, not a sidekick. Barnes is the one in trouble if they're playing by movie rules.
He really, really hopes they're just on some crazy villain's island lair instead. It might take a few hours, but the suit he's called will reach him soon enough, or FRIDAY will send a Quinjet, or both. If they've been sent back into the past, however....
He really fucking hates that time travel is a thing.
They keep running until Tony's got a stitch in his side and Bruce is gasping for breath. Their supers--soldiers and spies alike--look barely winded when Cap calls a halt. Thor keeps watching the sky.
"So," Tony begins, refusing to pant. He really needs to fit more treadmill into his day. "Does anybody remember how we got here? Wherever 'here' is?"
Thoughtful frowns and headshakes all around. Barnes looks especially pissed, but also especially resigned. Steve hunches a shoulder. "Last thing I remember, we were all in New York. At the tower."
"More dressed," Barton chips in wryly.
Tony huffs. "Okay, first, this is not my fault."
Steve blinks at him owlishly. "No one said it--"
"Being at the tower was just a coincidence. You probably jinxed me by all showing up out of the blue--"
"I thought you wanted to talk communications for the compound," Romanoff reminds him, arching a brow.
Bruce one-ups her and arches both brows, hiding a smile. "You invited me for a working retreat."
"Uh, fixing my arm?"
Clint cocks a thumb in Romanoff's direction. "I'm with her."
"Same," Cap adds, tilting his head at Barnes.
They all turn to Thor, who sheepishly ducks his head. "Er...Jane barred me from the lab for being too distracting. Is it not the custom to visit one's friends when...exiled?" he asks, settling on the word like he knows it's not quite right but isn't certain his AllSpeech isn't acting up on him.
Tony just manages to swallow a laugh. "Right. Okay. Still not my fault," he insists, "but whatever. So. From the looks of it, we've been kidnapped, repackaged, and left to fend for ourselves, which--minus the dinosaurs--is pretty much the setup for every survival game ever."
"So our objective is to survive," Cap sums up wryly.
"Nope, our objective is to figure out who did this and kick their collective asses, but in the meantime, yes, survive." Tony looks at the others then out across the wide mouth of the river they've fetched up near and winces. "Also, is that a T-Rex? I'm pretty sure that's a T-Rex."
It is a T-Rex. Fuck his life.
They can't stay where they are--there are crocodiles at their back, and an eagle-vulture thing with a beak as large as Tony's head takes vocal offense at their presence when it flaps in for a landing--so they press on. They get a better look at the obelisk off in the distance as they follow the river inland, but as the clouds clear away from a vast, snowy mountain off to the north, they spot a second obelisk, just as massive as the first.
"We should check those out," Steve says, frowning thoughtfully at the second. "Later. When we're better prepared."
At least Tony's not the only one who wants a closer look.
They hold a brief discussion about following the river inland, but there are even more carnivores visible in that direction, so they wade across at the river's shallowest point while the T-Rex picks a fight with a megaturtle.
Hoping not to be noticed, they stick close to the tree line. Tony has some vague idea that triceratops and rhinos probably have the same reaction to strange new creatures imposing on their territory, but the trio of trikes they pass ignore them utterly in favor of grazing. It's honestly pretty fascinating, but Tony doesn't give in to the urge to stop and stare until a long, long neck rises up above the trees beyond the next bend in the shore.
"Holy shit," he breathes. "Is that a Brontosaurus?"
"Ah, Apatosaurus, actually," Bruce says automatically, "though there's a British-Portuguese team putting together a study that--"
"Don't mess with the classics," Tony scolds, lengthening his stride. Steve snorts. "And not a word from the peanut gallery."
It's not long before he finds himself grateful for his abbreviated wardrobe. The higher the sun climbs, the hotter the air gets, though it's bearable under the trees. He guesses the more-than-tropical heat makes sense, although--
"Oxygen," Bruce reminds him grimly.
--right, the atmosphere's oxygen content used to be a lot higher to go along with a hotter, wetter climate. It's simply not feasible to recreate a lot of prehistoric species, like the pair of scorpions he'd briefly glimpsed upriver: massive amounts of genetic tampering aside, they shouldn't be able to breathe. Biology doesn't work like that.
"So are we in the past or not?" Barnes asks, impatient.
Has he been rambling aloud all this time?
Barnes rolls his eyes.
Right. Of course he has.
Tony glances at Thor, who keeps looking worriedly to the sky. Still no hammer. Shit.
"Sorry, Dorothy," Tony says with a shrug, infinitely more casual than he feels. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
Even hearing Cap and Barnes mutter "I get that reference" in unison can't distract him from the icy dread gnawing away at his gut.
***
"Empty?" Barton asks, his hopeful tone at odds with his question.
"Afraid so," Romanoff says as she glances up from her own pack. Tony still can't figure out why whoever dumped them here left them with backpacks; it makes no sense at all to furnish the enemy with any sort of tools.
It's quiet under the trees. Hot as hell, but quiet. Tony's grateful for the chance to rest his aching feet, though he'd rather have his fingernails pulled out one by one than admit it aloud. He'd rather not open that line of conversation again, the one about how much he relies on the suit, but Steve hadn't looked at him or at Bruce when he'd cast that concerned glance at the sun and called a break. A glance at Barnes and the two had split up, walking out a perimeter, but they're back now and no longer making the rest of them look bad.
Well. There is the matter of those tiny white shorts.
"Stark?" Barton calls.
Fuck, his wrist itches. Well. Not really--not physically--but mentally it nags at him. He is fucking sick of waking up in sandy places with weird shit grafted to him.
He grunts to show he's listening, though he knows what Barton's question will be. He could just answer it, sure, but where's the fun in that?
"Have you checked your pack?" Barton asks patiently.
Right. Tony sighs as he lifts his arm to examine his implant again. What does he have in his feather-light--
The implant's glow turns arc reactor blue as data smears itself across his retinas: latitude, longitude, temperature, the weight he's carrying and the empty status of his goddamn backpack.
Spitting a startled curse, Tony lunges to his feet and scrapes his back up on the bark of the tree he was leaning against, cracking his skull against it as he tries to take an instinctive step back while clapping his right hand over his eyes. The others jump up after him, and he doesn't quite fight it when Bruce wrestles his left arm down and out to take a better look.
The blue glow fades as Tony cracks an eye open and peers between his fingers, seeing nothing but trees and dirt and worried faces. "What happened just now?" Bruce asks, turning his arm this way and that. "Your implant changed colors."
"Not all it did," Tony mutters, staring at the thing warily. "I think it's some kind of HUD, or--it was feeding me coordinates, a few status reports, just...not until I looked at it. Not until I wanted to know something."
And how the hell had it managed to determine that, unless it's wired right into his brain?
Not cool. He is not cool with that at all.
There's another blue flash from a few feet away: Steve, of course, staring into the blue glow of his own implant with a clenched jaw. Barnes mutters something uncomplimentary Tony can't quite make out but is certain Steve understands perfectly.
He doesn't really want to like Barnes, but the guy sure makes it difficult not to.
When nobody keels over dead or gets their brains fried through their eyeballs, they all have to try it. Tony still doesn't get it. It's not hugely useful intel, but why are the bad guys giving them access to any intel? None of this makes sense.
"Huh," Barton says. "I have an inventory. Think this thing will show me my EXP to next level?"
"This isn't a game," Cap chides, but he doesn't sound certain. Hell, Tony's not certain, and it's the kind of thing you really want to be sure of.
"Look," he says instead of arguing the creepy live-action entertainment angle. "Even if we start heading for those obelisks right now, we don't have a clue what we're going to find or how long it's going to take to get there, so maybe we should start thinking about food and shelter. Tools. Weapons. The basics."
"Agreed," Steve says instantly, then looks at Barnes.
Barnes snorts. "Hey, I got the same survival courses you did, pal. I can do a lot with a little, but I gotta start with something."
Thor nods apologetically. "The same, I fear. My friends and I slept rough many a night, but we always went provisioned."
Romanoff shakes her head with a tight smile; Barton just sighs. "The one time my Stone Age weaponry actually fits the situation...."
"Right," Tony says. Really he's not surprised. "We're going to need wood and plant fiber to start--palm leaves for thatching is good, but also something strong and flexible we can use for lashing. Also rock--round and sharp both, flint if you can find any." And...cue the staring. He plants his hands on his hips and pastes on his best smirk. "What? Did you think I wouldn't read up on this stuff after the fifth time I broke out in the middle of nowhere?"
Romanoff's tiny little smile of approval is better than a goddamn medal, not that he's going to say so. He wouldn't want her to get cocky.
"So? Chop-chop," he urges, clapping his hands together. "Time's wasting."
"You heard the man," Barton says with an easy shrug. "Let's go punch some trees."
Steve looks startled, but Tony groans. "I should've known you were a Minecraft geek."
"And yet you know exactly what I'm talking about."
Tony huffs a laugh. "Yeah, well," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Guilty as charged."
***
Tony feels like an idiot, but he stands shoulder to shoulder with Bruce and joins in the staring. He can't deny it's the only appropriate response.
The bird stares back, ruffling its feathers with a contented warble. It's nearly waist-high, greyish, and it has no fear of them whatsoever. That actually makes sense, considering.
"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Bruce asks, almost like he's hoping Tony isn't.
"Are you seeing an extinct flightless bird popularly known as the dodo?" Tony has to ask, just in case.
"Yeah, that's...pretty much exactly what I'm seeing, yes."
"Yep." Tony nods slowly. "What the hell is a dodo doing in Dinosaur Land?" he demands when he can't take it anymore.
"I have no idea. Just...maybe it's not just dinosaurs. Here. Maybe it's extinct animals in general, like...like a nature refuge, or a zoo."
"Right. A zoo. So...why are we here again?"
Bruce opens his mouth and thinks better of it, pressing his lips together tightly as he watches the find of the century peck at shiny pebbles. "Do you actually want to hear theories for that?"
"Not even a little bit."
"Hm," Bruce says with a strained smile. "Good choice."
Tony nods again. The dodo tries to walk right through Bruce, changing direction only at the last minute.
"So," Tony says. "Are we going to eat this thing or what?"
***
"Is that a dodo?" Romanoff asks as she and Barton return with their packs full of rocks and their arms full of greenery. Combined with the bamboo Barnes dropped off earlier--stalks snapped so cleanly Tony wishes he'd done more strength tests on Barnes' shiny new Wakandan-made arm when he'd still had the chance--they're maybe getting somewhere. "You killed a dodo?"
"What? No!" Tony protests, casting a nervous glance at Bruce. It is still alive, right? "It's asleep. It ate the berries. Twice."
"Clearly that was its first mistake," Romanoff says with more gravitas than the situation really warrants. "Which berries were these again?"
"The black ones," Bruce replies without turning, methodically stripping a bush of its fruit and depositing it by the handful in a makeshift basket. They look a bit like blackberries, only they're bright blue. "I'd stay away from those, but the red, yellow, purple and blue ones appear to be fine."
"Einstein there likes the yellow ones best," Tony adds as he sorts through the haul, "but there's no accounting for taste."
Barton snorts. "Einstein? You named the dodo Einstein?"
Tony blinks, brows shooting up. Named it? Einstein? He'd meant that as a joke--hello, dodo--because they're not exactly collecting pets here. They'd needed a poison tester and the dodo was there.
"Uh," Tony says, trying to decide whether Barton's fucking with him or not.
"Guys?" Steve calls as he strides out of the trees, Barnes keeping pace a step behind. Steve's wearing a slightly freaked look that doesn't bode well, and Barnes looks like he's had all expression surgically removed. "I think we've found a decent spot to hole up for the night. Fresh water, high cliff sides, only three ways in or out unless you can fly."
"Or fall in," Barnes amends flatly, always the cautious one. "But even a dino's going to hurt after that."
"Right. Thing is...I don't think we're the first ones to have found the place."
Tony has to run that that through his brain a second time, because if Cap's saying what Tony thinks he's saying, then...he has no idea whether this is good news or bad.
"Good thing I didn't build that fire pit yet," Tony says, rising to his feet and dusting off his hands. He wants to demand to be taken there right away, but now's not the time to hare off on their own or leave anyone behind, and Thor's still out looking for supplies.
It doesn't take them long to pack up, everyone working with their usual efficiency and none of their usual banter, too consumed by curiosity to pepper Cap and Barnes with questions they probably won't be able to answer. Thor returns just before Tony's patience can fray entirely, lugging an armful of vines and with a salmon the size of a small dolphin slung over one shoulder. That should be everything, but Barton hesitates before they can get moving.
"What about Einstein?" he asks, glancing from Tony to Bruce and back.
"Einstein?" Steve asks, shaking his head.
Barton jerks his chin towards the shore. "The dodo."
Steve's eyes go wide. "You killed a dodo?"
"It's just sleeping!" Tony protests. It's not like he single handedly drove them to extinction a second time; there are plenty more where that one came from. He checked.
"Well, if we leave it here, something's going to eat it," Barnes points out reasonably.
"If we take it with us, I'm going to eat it," Tony warns.
Thor laughs at him outright. "If you're still hungry after the feast I brought, you're welcome to try."
Thor's pleased as punch with himself, but at least he's not smug about it. And salmon steaks do sound a lot better than gamy, oversized pigeon.
"It makes a good test subject," Bruce points out with a shrug.
Tony sighs. "Fine. We'll take the stupid bird. Literally."
He's not carrying it, though. The damn thing is huge.
***
Steve's right about the not-quite-valley nestled between the cliffs. It's perfect: packed with resources, easily defended, the entrances hidden by boulders and trees. There are a few dinosaurs roaming inside, but it's just a small herd of crested, duck-billed things--
"Hadrosaurs?" he guesses, thinking back to his brief--very brief--childhood obsession with all things dino-related.
"Broadly," Bruce says with a smile. "From the crests I'd say they were Parasaurolophus."
--and a pack of fire lizards.
"Dimorphodons," Bruce corrects him, trying manfully not to laugh. He tries very hard. "Pern, Tony? Really?"
"Whatever. It's still sci-fi." So he's always wanted to fly. Sue him.
Steve also wasn't kidding about the place having been settled once before. There are actual ruins at one end of the sheltered valley, though there's not much left: just one corner of a crumbled, mossy wall, a few stubs of pillars and a pair of arches ready to collapse entirely. A few dirt-clogged openings in what's left of the wall might have been intended as arrow slits or maybe ventilation; the architecture isn't exactly jumping out at him as belonging to any one place or time.
"Well," Bruce says as he wiggles a finger into one of the wall holes, digging away a layer of dirt. "It does seem like this place has seen human habitation before--or something like it, anyway."
"Sleestaks," Tony says wisely, ignoring the weird looks the others give him.
Bruce snorts but doesn't dismiss the notion out of hand. "Possibly. We've already had ample proof that we're not alone in the cosmos. Maybe we're just the most recent additions to the collection."
"Lucky us," Tony mutters, trying not to think too hard about the nature of that collection, how all the others are all extinct.
When they get tired of poking at a mystery they have no hope of solving, they set up camp, Tony sorting through what the others brought him while Bruce and Thor set about digging out a firepit near the shore of the oversized pond. The water's clear, but they really need to find a way to boil and strain it before anyone goes dipping a hand in. They're taking a big enough risk with the berries, dodo testing or not.
He's not quite sure where Romanoff went off to, but as he pauses to wipe his brow, he spots Barton on the heights, having found a way up somehow. He thinks he hears a muffled curse from that direction, but he's not certain until Barton calls down to them, voice tight.
"Hey, guys? You're going to want to take a look at this."
"Again?" Tony groans, pushing aside the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "My heart can't take this."
"I'm pretty sure your heart will go on," Bruce says dryly.
Tony makes a cross with two fingers to ward him off. It doesn't help.
Fucking earworms.
Natasha appears out of nowhere and guides them up to the top of the cliffs, and then all Tony can do is stare. Dotting the landscape at irregular intervals are signal flares, huge and brilliant, in a rainbow of colors bright enough to be seen from miles off. Some rise up from the ground in thick columns, but a few lance down from boiling snarls of electricity centered in the clouds. Tony can just make out dark diamond shapes lowering slowly along the track of the light beams like a dropping elevator or a pod coming in for a landing.
"Is that some sort of ship?" Tony asks, turning his face towards Barton without pulling his eyes away from the show. If enemy troops are landing, then this probably isn't a zoo; it's a hunting preserve, and they're pretty much fucked.
Barton shakes his head. "I don't think so. The lights change when those pod things land--see?" he says pointing at a far-distant light near the top of a nearby mountain. Tony can't even make out the pod, but he watches the long column of light spilling out of the heavens wink briefly out, only to flare up again from the ground. "Most of them have landed in the trees, but I got a good look at two, and nothing's come out. They just sit there for a few minutes, and then they blow up."
"Bombs?" Steve asks sharply.
Barton shakes his head again. "More like a self-destruct. The pod collapses. Barely leaves a mark."
"It sounds like some sort of supply drop," Romanoff says thoughtfully. "Or bait for a trap."
"Or maybe it's a different kind of bait," Bruce says, brushing his hair out of his eyes as the wind picks up. "If this place really is a zoo--"
"A zoo?" Steve echoes, eyes wide.
"--maybe they're trying to lure the exhibits to the viewing area."
"I don't think I like the sound of that," Clint mutters.
Tony doesn't like it much either. He still wants to intercept one of those things and take it apart. The chance to learn what their abductors want is worth the risk.
"So," Bruce says into the silence that descends. "Late lunch? Early dinner?"
"I think I did most of the cooking back in the day," Bucky offers. He doesn't sound certain, which doesn't exactly fill Tony with confidence.
"I've got it," Bruce says with a shrug. "It's just chemistry."
"That," Tony scoffs, poking a finger into Bruce's chest, "is a damn lie."
Bruce just smirks. So unfair.
Tony's gotten used to Bruce's company in the lab and the workshop, to random people who aren't Rhodey or Pepper or Happy wandering in for other things and getting stuck watching him work. Steve's the most hilarious about it, because he gains a "can-I-just" tic that includes aborted reaching for heavy objects and a permanent grimace.
It's a bit different now that he's the only entertainment, but there's not much interesting about watching him grind two rocks together. The highlight is when he balances one rock sidelong atop another, makes eye contact with Barnes, and says, "Come over here and give me a hand."
Barnes snorts, the corners of his mouth tipping up minutely in a smile that's mostly around the eyes.
At least someone gets his sense of humor.
It's edging towards dusk when something comes whistling through the air that has their supersoldiers scrambling up, poised to take cover before the rest of them hear a thing. Cap spots it first, relaxing all at once, which Barnes takes as his cue to stop dithering over who to tackle to safety: Cap or a civilian.
When Thor's hammer slams into the grass at his side, burying itself two inches into the dirt and rattling the logs in the fire pit, Thor just beams, relieved.
"Wait," Bruce says, glancing up at the sky. "How long did that take?"
Barton hunches a shoulder. "Uh...maybe a dozen hours? Give or take?"
Bruce frowns. "And how fast does that thing travel?"
Thor rests a hand on Mjølnir's handle, as if the heft of her might give him a clue. "Very fast indeed, at need. I've never really considered it. I just...call, and she answers."
"Has it ever taken this long for her to arrive?" Romanoff asks, tilting her head.
"No. Even when I was rattling through worlds like the last coin in a purse, she found me quickly enough."
"We're definitely not on Earth, then," Bruce says heavily. "And I don't think we're in the past, either. Remember what we said about the oxygen level of the atmosphere?" he asks, glancing past Tony to draw the others in. "That was during Earth's superhabitable phase, some three hundred million years ago. It was because of that high oxygen percentage that arthropods like Pulmonoscorpius could exist. Giant scorpions," he clarifies for the rest of the class.
"Like those uglies we saw upriver?" Barnes asks with a frown.
"Yes. Sort of. You see, Pulmonoscorpius topped out at about twenty-eight inches. The things we saw had to've been six feet long." Bruce pauses a moment to let that sink in and slowly shakes his head. "We'd be feeling the effects ourselves with that sort of oxygen imbalance, only we're not. So either we've been changed or they have, and honestly, my money's on them. Something made them big. It could also have adapted their respiratory systems to a new environment."
"So you think we've been taken off-world," Steve says flatly.
Bruce shrugs, palms upturned. "By my best guess? Yes. As to what our chances are that someone's going to come looking for us...."
Tony must not be the only one thinking of all-seeing retainers, because they all look at Thor.
Thor only sighs. "I am yet my father's heir," he says, almost like he's been trying to get out of it. "I'm afraid that complicates more than it solves. The actions I take could be construed as the actions of Asgard. As such it's been considered more politic at times to leave me to my own devices."
Tony barks a humorless laugh before he can censor it. "Wow, that sounds familiar. In other words, you made your bed, and now you get to lie in it."
"Even though you were kidnapped? Or does that have anything to do with being kidnapped with us?" Barton asks shrewdly.
Thor drops his eyes, his thumb tracing the leather bindings of Mjølnir's haft. "My father is...set in his opinions," he says, then clams up immediately. Tony can definitely relate.
"Right," Tony says. "So. Probably no help from Asgard, unless something happens they can't ignore. Earth...well, probably no help there either, unless the Maximoff kid's scarier than she looks or Vision's got some trick up his sleeve, and even then, there's no guarantee they'd be able to reach us in the first place. So that pretty much leaves us. I mean. No pressure."
"But Tony," Steve pipes up suddenly, wearing an apple-cheeked choirboy expression Tony doesn't trust at all. "I thought you worked best under pressure."
"That's right," Romanoff purrs. "We did bring a genius with us."
"Two," Barton amends with a shark-like grin for Bruce.
"And a few strong backs to do the heavy lifting," Barnes chips in with a faint little smile. "What more did you need?"
"Oh, I don't know, a fabricator?" Tony grumbles, torn between wanting to preen and the urge to knock heads together until they see what a fucked-up mess this is. "A trans-spatial gateway keyed to the penthouse? Coffee?"
"We'll figure it out," Cap promises, so earnest all Tony can do is groan.
"Oh God, not the Boy Scout routine. Brucie," he whines obnoxiously, leaning into Bruce's shoulder, "you said you wouldn't let the bad man do it again."
"There, there," Bruce consoles him with a pat, trying to keep a grin under wraps.
Steve shakes his head, but he lays off and lets Tony have his minor panic attack in peace. Shit. It's all on him, isn't it? Well, him and Bruce, and it's not like the others won't find ways to pull their own weight, but when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of it....
Worse than he hates people relying on him, he hates being the one to let them down.