Chapter Text
Tony Stark stood in the middle of the small abandoned warehouse building in a city he’d never heard of and in a universe that wasn’t his. His Iron Man suit had long since retracted itself, leaving him in a simple navy tee and black jeans that were scuffed a bit.
A small groan of pain came from the side of him, its source being Bruce Banner, his hands shaking slightly as he stood unsteadily onto his wobbly feet, Doctor Stephen Strange assisting him despite his one arm useless as it remained wrapped up in bloodied bandage. Natasha Romanoff favored her left leg only slightly as she paced the confines of the warehouse’s main floor, her eyes flickering to every corner in a restless and paranoid manner while Peter Parker laid on the floor and groaned tiredly behind her, not bothering to get up quite yet despite Scott Lang trying to offer to help him up.
Only some of the Avengers and other heroes were present in the alternate universe. Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson, Peter Parker, Eddie Brock with the symbiote Venom, Scott Lang, Loki Odinson, and Bucky Barnes were amongst those present.
Vision, Deadpool (Wade Wilson), Daredevil (Matt Murdock), Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Thor Odinson, Wanda Maximoff, and all of the Guardians of the Galaxy plus Nebula were all still missing.
Doctor Strange could only bring so many of them straight into this universe, the others were each scattered into various hidden limbo realms within the multiverse until they could figure out a way to safely retrieve them.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter stood, his Iron Spider suit was dusty and bloodied, a sight that made the inventor wince internally, “What do we do now?”
Anthony Howard Stark straightened his back, his expression firm and confident despite feeling so very exhausted, and his tone was level and eerily calm, “We bring everyone back, and then we rebuild.”
“How do you plan on doing that?” Bruce somehow managed to keep his glasses intact minus a small crack in one of the lens during the dimensional hopping, “We have no place to live, no food to eat, no water to drink, and no money to get any supplies that we need to make the portal-jumpers,”
“If I may make a suggestion?” Loki stepped forward, his hair somehow still impeccable as always, “We are in an alternate universe, one with a few massive technology-developing companies and quite the reputation of being crime-ridden,”
Scott glanced at the god of mischief curiously, “Are you implying that we steal from a bunch of rich guys to get the supplies we need to build this portal thingy? ‘Cause if you are, I’m totally in,”
“I’m just putting the idea out there,” Loki shrugged, “Though we do already have two votes then for said idea…”
“Isn’t stealing kind of the opposite of what we do?” Peter Parker frowned, fiddling with some scrap metal in his hands and causing Tony’s lips twitching briefly upwards.
“We don’t have much of a choice,” Bucky grunted, his metal arm’s fingers curling into a fist, “We don’t have anything, and we’re missing people. Matt, Wade, Thor, Clint, Steve—”
The Winter Soldier’s voice cracked slightly. He had just gotten Steve back, he couldn’t—he wouldn’t—lose him again.
“The end justifies the means,” Natasha muttered, her eyes meeting Tony’s, “We take only what we need, no more and no less,”
Dr. Strange cleared his throat, “If it’s any comfort to you, Peter, this universe holds a business that I believe is called LexCorp here. It's a rather shady and corrupt organization under Lex Luthor, and stealing from them would likely prevent any further and actually dangerous crime from happening.”
Peter ran a hand through his messy hair, the brown coloring covered almost entirely by mud and dust, “That does make me feel a bit better, thanks Dr. Strange,”
“Stephen’s fine,”
“Thanks, Mr. Stephen,”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“He won’t call you anything else,” Eddie piped up, Venom’s inky black head having materialized on his shoulder and now everyone was watching the symbiote lean against the man’s neck in an almost domestic scene.
Well, domestic if he wasn’t, y’know, an eight feet tall black ink alien with cannibalistic tendencies. Although, one could argue on the last one saying he wasn’t human so it wasn’t really cannibalism.
“We have tried,” Venom added, “The spiderling is stubborn,”
“I have manners,” Peter grinned innocently and Venom patted his head with a black tendril.
It took all of Tony’s willpower not to grab the kid in a football style hold to make sure the anti-hero stayed far away from his underoos. It's not like he doesn’t like or trust Eddie, it was Venom he was hesitant about.
Once you see someone bite off Deadpool’s arm and then eat it, it can be rather hard to remain completely neutral around them. (Though Venom would insist that Deadpool deserved it, which Tony couldn’t exactly disagree with, but still).
“So,” Scott yawned as he found an old and broken down couch to drape himself across as he fiddled with some cards that he somehow managed to keep intact through dimensional traveling, “When do we start becoming master criminals, Sparky?”
He was staring at Tony, who snorted at the frankly pathetic attempt of a nickname.
Sam Wilson laughed, “Stark’s the evil mastermind of this operation? Can’t wait to see this play out,”
“Rude,” Tony huffed, “I’d be an amazing crime boss,”
Peter shook his head as he squeaked out, “Mr. Stark–”
“I’m joking, Pete, I’m not going to become a crime boss,”
“Well,” Loki grinned.
“Don’t you start, Slithers,” The inventor glared.
“I rebuke that title!”
“Too bad, the name stays,”
Slowly but surely the heroes started to begin their mission. Tony created their identities with the help of FRIDAY, Strange’s and Loki’s magic placed a protection barrier over their warehouse-slash-base of operations. Bruce, Peter, Sam, and Tony worked to create weapons and repair suits with some new enhancements and features, sometimes pulling in Scott (since he had no sense of self-preservation) for test drives and such.
Natasha and Bucky stalked the night and snuck into tech businesses to swipe some smaller scale stuff, Venom assisting at times—either as a failsafe if anyone saw them or using his inky form to slip through the cracks and take things.
The team of heroes was coming back, slowly but surely and having changed more than ever. They were still the heroes they always had been, they had simply adjusted. They wouldn’t fail this time, they’d bring everyone back and rebuild their lives. They’d dust themselves off as they rose from the ashes of their last battle.
They would avenge the lives they lost by creating new ones—after all, they were the Avengers.