Avengers and the Multiverse

Wanda Greenleaf: You know those fics where our heroes read the books/watch the shows? Well, one of the Gods of Recurring Fiction stormed into my room when I was still fighting Writer's Block, pulled out a list of "cliches every writer worth their salt has written' and demanded to know why I had only completed two of the Harry Potter ones. I protested (while putting Writer's Block in a chokehold) that I had a lot of ideas and worked on them sporadically, and I was trying to explain to my brother why Steve annoyed me sometimes, but he wouldn't listen! Of course, the GRF was not interested in my excuses and threatened to make Writer's Block invincible unless I picked one of them. I panicked and threw my busterblade at it. I struck 'read the books'. Thankfully, he gave me a little leeway...and I'm allowed a little help!

Dana: Sup.

Wanda: This is also a collaberation with my friend DanaCardinal. She's quite new to writing stories, but she has a lot of great ideas and I ask that you check her out and give her some constructive comments so she can really get off the ground.

Dana: I also stopped Writer's Block from killing her in her sleep.

Wanda: That too. I do not own anything related to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, no matter how much I wish I did.

Prologue

"STUPID, STUPID, STUPID OLD MAN! IDIOTIC, BRAIN DEAD, IRRESPONSIBLE ASSHOLE! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOUR SHEER ARROGANCE AND EGO! GAH!"

To say Steve Rogers, aka Captain America was very confused right now was an understatement. One minute, he had been arguing with both the Director of SHIELD, Nick Fury, and Tony Stark aboard the Hellicarrier. They were in a tense situation – they had an unpredictable enemy (an Asgardian, no less) supposedly imprisoned on board the ship, and no one was willing to co operate in the face of mortal danger.

Nick Fury was hiding the truth – ie Phase two – from everyone involved.

Natasha was helping him along and sowing discord in Bruce Banner while she was at it.

Tony was being his usual hard-to-work-with-unless-your-name-is-Pepper self.

Thor had reverted to his old 'puny mortals' mindset.

Poor Bruce was just trying not to Hulk out.

Clint Barton, the final member, was currently a brainwashed minion of said villain, who was undoubtedly responsible for their current dissonance.

Fed up with Howard's son (the man had completely dashed his hopes of seeing shades of his old friend in the present) Steve challenged him to go a few rounds.

And then reality had exploded.

-Avengers and the Multiverse-

"Ughh..." Steve returned to consciousness an indeterminate amount of time later. His head ached as if he had taken a grenade to the face (which had nearly happened a few times during the war) and his vision was swimming, so it took him a while to figure out where he was and what was going on.

However, the screaming of a very irate young woman brought him back to the fore.

"-SO TYPICAL OF YOU, GETTING INVOLVED WITH SHIT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND AND JUST EXPECTING IT TO WORK OUT THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO-"

Steve shot to his feet, only to find that his shield was missing. The rest of the Avengers were there as well – at least, everyone who had been in the room.

"Fury? What did you do?" Tony asked groggily as he got up.

"I didn't do a damn thing, Stark! What the hell is going on?" Fury demanded, his voice hardly registering over the sheer volume of the voice.

Natasha just groaned while Bruce was curled up in a near fetal position, struggling against his inner beast.

They weren't on the Hellicarrier anymore.

Instead, there were in a...strange place. It almost looked like a normal school auditorium, albeit mostly devoid of chairs except for a couple of rows; all of which were roped off from each other with gleaming crimson chains. There was a stage near the north end, which was currently occupied by a very strange looking person.

At first glance, she looked like a fairly ordinary teenaged girl – messy, wavy brown hair, pale skin, hazel eyes. She was dressed in a blue and white striped t shirt, jean shorts and running shoes, a purple circle pendant hanging from her neck. But when Steve looked at her, her form seemed to shudder and twist in ethereal light, other images super imposing over each other. One image involved a strange red and black metal suit somewhat resembling Tony's armor, but different at the same time. Another image gave her pointed ears and a green getup that looked vaguely familiar from his attempts to absorb modern pop culture. Another image gave her spiked leather armor and a savage look. None of these images stayed consistent. Also, in her hand she was holding an enormous sword almost as high as herself, which seemed to have a gun barrel attached to it. Not very normal.

Aside from all of that, Steve was fairly certain a normal teenage girl couldn't scream with the same volume as a five point five surround sound theater.

Stranger was the person she was yelling at.

"Father!?" Thor demanded in shock.

An old man, part of a group in one of the roped off areas, gave no sign he could hear Thor. Understandable, considering he was the one being screamed at. With him was a very beautiful but worried looking older woman, an irate black haired warrior maiden, a blonde who resembled Errol Flynn, a fat red haired man and a ninja-like man with darker skin then his companions.

However, the girl paused her rant when the prince spoke up.

"Oh good, you made it." She said in a normal vocal way, stepping over so she was standing in the middle of the stage regarding everyone in the room. "You know, I very nearly wasn't able to pull you out. The collapsing dimensions were engulfing the area in which your plane was flying when I finally realized what senile twat-waffle over here was doing."

She threw the old man a purely venomous look.

"Rescued...everyone?" Steve echoed dumbly, utterly taken off guard. "What happened?"

"LOKI!" The black haired woman shrieked in rage.

Steve spun around to see their prisoner – former prisoner, as it looked – lying back against a seat in the balcony, seemingly unconscious. Natasha gasped; Clint was there with him.

"For fuck's sake, shut up woman! Can you not see a nearly catatonic man when he's right in front of you!? Don't try and fuck things up any more than you've already contributed!" The girl on stage snarled.

The woman seemed shocked into silence at the sheer vitriol of the girl's remark.

"Are you mad!?" The old man demanded, recovering from the rant he had received upon this remark. "Deliver him to us before your foolish compassion allows him to escape!"

The woman next to him looked prepared to object, but she wasn't quite fast enough.

"Odin Allfather?" The girl barked out a laugh. "Odin All Father, you should change your name to Odin Fucking Imbecile! First you rip a BLACK HOLE IN SPACE AND TIME as a favour to your pet son, now you're telling me you can't tell when the Infinity Stone you and your father swore that you would destroy is affecting your own fucking adopted kid!?"

Steve resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears as the voice grew painfully loud once again.

"You swore!? Why am I just hearing this now?" The woman demanded of her suddenly whitening companion.

"Of course he didn't tell you! That's what he loves doing, hiding important shit from people until the last dying second after telling them the exact opposite." The girl scathed.

She looked like she was about to go on when she spotted Tony standing with his hand up in the air, like a child in grade school.

"Tony Stark, you don't need to raise your hand here...in fact it's a little unsettling seeing you act like that." She said, her expression going from furious to perturbed in a single second.

"Right," Tony said, his voice cracking a bit as he tried to keep it even. "I just noticed you were on a roll and I just wanted to ask you something...!"

"What is it?" The girl asked, her lip twitching somewhat. It was like she was predicting the response in her head.

Tony took a deep breath. "Okay, it's just...who are you, who are they, what's going on and what do you mean a hole in space and time!?" The mechanical genius sounded almost hysterical, which did indeed look quite strange on him.

The girl let out a long groan and pressed her head against her forehead. "Hold onto that thought for a sec Stark, Supreme Dickweed's work is spreading...I've got to pull off another rescue."

Bruce yelped when a multicoloured rift suddenly appeared next to the girl. She stepped inside and vanished, and for a moment, everyone was left in stunned silence.

Then there was another painful flash of light.

Suddenly, the room was significantly more crowded.

Another group had landed in the section of chairs between the Avengers and the Asgardians. There was a young man at the head, swearing in panic, leaning on...a green skinned woman, who looked equally disoriented. With them was a man the size of the hulk with rusted grey skin with red markings. Next to him was an enormous tree with a face and arms. And...and there was a raccoon. A bipedal raccoon who got up and stumbled about on his hind legs.

To the left of the Avengers were a pair of twins, a boy and a girl who looked as though they'd just recently reached adulthood. They were both dressed as regular civilians, but a single look at them indicated they were anything but regular. The boy had messy silver hair while the girl had darker hair and was dressed in red as opposed to her brother's grey and silver track outfit. They looked around in confusion.

Up in the balcony, Loki and Clint gained a sole companion. He was dressed up in dark leather and clearly he had been carrying a number of weapons on his person. He had unkempt brown hair, a mask and goggles hiding his face from anyone looking up. He struggled for a moment before pulling the goggles down around his neck, his eyes flickering around the room in near panic.

In the Avengers's area, Pepper Potts appeared by her boss's side. Next was a young brown haired girl who was holding a thick astrology book in one hand. Next to her was a taller black haired girl who had a distinctly more willowy look to her. Rhodey was brought in, outside of his suit – which was strange, seeing as he had been sent oversees to deal with an incursion (it was the sole reason Fury hadn't attempted to make him part of the initiative.) Next to him was another young black man, whom none of the Avengers recognized.

To the left of the Asgardians, a dazed young man protectively pushed an adorable black haired girl behind him as he assessed the situation they were in. An older woman worriedly knelt next to an old man who had one arm in a sling, only for him to insist that he was fine and could get up on his own.

The flash was over, and the strange girl returned on stage looking pleased. "Damn that was close...thank god for the keyblade core." The blade she was holding – which was suddenly, oddly key shaped – melted back into its original form.

With a wave of her hand, all the visitors felt oddly compelled to be quiet for a moment when she teleported up to the balcony and muttered a few words. All three, who had started to stir, collapsed into what seemed almost like a coma.

Flashing back to the main stage in an instant, the girl smiled.

"Well, now that your planet has been secured in the frozen time, my companions can fix the hole our dear genius over there made." She jerked a thumb over at Odin again.

"Now to answer that question, Tony, I wanted to hold onto that for a second until we had a full house. Well, mostly full." She tsked and shook her head.

"To start off, I am a Gatekeeper. My name, is a bit unfortunate considering there's one here who shares it and that would be confusing. Call me Eileen."

"As to who are they...?" She gestured around the now somewhat fill room. "Bit more complicated, so I've broken it down into groups."

"Those guys on the far right? That's Hank Pym. He knew your dad, Tony." Pym looked like he wanted to object to the term 'knew', but Eileen swept over him. "That lovely lady is his daughter, Hope van Dyne. The ex con's Scott Lang; you don't have to stay away from him though, he didn't do time for murder or anything. He's a burglar. And the adorable little scrap of energy cuddled up to him is his daughter Cassie.

Don't worry," Eileen added belatedly as if just remembering something. "I've put kid censors on that particular encampment. Lil' Cassie won't see or hear anything a six year old shouldn't."

Scott Lang looked relieved at that.

"Over here is the idiot who you can thank for having to be pulled into the Inbetween, Odin Borson, the King of Asgard." Eileen's voice grew very dangerous at that. "He used Black Magic he had no concept to transport Thor to Earth, ignoring the few other ways possible, which by the way were suggested by his wife. Thanks to his pure idiocy, there's a giant black hole smacked straight in the middle of your universe, and at the same time it threatens several others in the same breath!. My companions are helping to restore things, but it will be a while before I can return you to your homes without causing you all to dissolve into unreality."

"Unreality?" Pym asked in confusion.

"Another realm – part of the Quantum realm, in fact." If Eileen noticed the look of shock passing across the older man's face, she gave no sign of it. "One not meant for anything that exists within reality itself. It would cause a paradox that, best case scenario, would cause you to simply cease to be." Eileen said darkly. "Trust me. You don't want to end up there. You'd never come back...except if you became a god of the Warp."

"I was making a calculated risk-"

"You know what? Mute."

Odin's sentence withered and died mid stroke. He visibly tried to speak again, only to find he couldn't.

"Your ego...your belief that your power makes you right..." Eileen's eyes narrowed into slits. "That needs to be broken. You're a fool, Borson. You stand here, in my domain, where time and space mean nothing, where reality is written and spun from its spindles. Here, I am it's keeper, the Writer, and the defender of the multiverse as we know it. Here I am omnipresent, and I could squash you like a bug."

"Hah! I don't care what you call yourself," The raccoon was talking. The...coon...talking. "You look like a teen who fell out of bed and got pissed about it."

Considering her attitude so far, Steve half expected this strange girl to smite the talking animal where he stood. At the very least, he expected her to erupt in a way worse than any so far.

To everyone's (even greater) shock, Eileen actually giggled, her irritated expression melting away in an instant. "I did in fact fall out of bed this morning, but my books caught me."

Looking around, seeing several people frantically rubbing at their eyes while staring at that middle group, Eileen spoke up again. "People, calm down. You are not drugged or drunk in any way. That is in fact a talking, bipedal raccoon who's an expert in all sorts of guns, bombs...really, anything that can blow stuff up. Call him Rocket – that's his name; nobody calls sentient creatures by numbers in my presence. He's genetically created, that's why he can talk."

"The tree's Groot. I'm not entirely sure what he is myself, to be honest." Eileen rubbed the back of her head sheepishly at this. "He's an alien to you folk. Be nice to him people – he can only say three words. Next to him is Drax the Destroyer – some Kree asshole killled people he cared about, if you must know why he's called that. Next, that's Gamora, former assassin; now freelance worker I'm assuming. Aaaand last but not least Peter Jason Quill, aka Star Lord. Vanished from earth in the 1980s when kidnapped by aliens, hasn't returned since."

"And no, Fury, I'm not telling you all this to sate your compulsion to make everyone around you either death fodder or your personal marionettes dancing on strings." She cast him a cold look at this.

She shifts emotions so quickly it was amazing she doesn't experience whiplash, Pietro thought, though he was wise enough not to say it aloud.

The man in question sputtered indigently but couldn't form a response before the girl was talking again.

"To your far right, that's Sokovian siblings Wanda and Pietro Maximoff."

Tony decided to talk again, something Steve regretted when he saw the expressions on the siblings faces. "Should we know you?"

Both twins looked homicidal. "Should we know you," Pietro echoed sarcastically, "is that what you say to everyone who's house you've bombed and foster parents killed!?"

The chains around the areas blasted with sudden light again. It started off red and black, only to turn white and disintegrate when it struck a pale barrier. The chains surrounding the various stations suddenly lit up in response to this – the barrier seemed to be generated from them. Wanda yelped in pain and stumbled backwards.

"Take it easy," Eileen warned as she walked over to the siblings. She didn't seem at all fazed by this. "Those chains aren't for decoration, folks. There're here to keep everyone safe and to keep you from attacking each other. That includes inside the circles, by the way. Invented it myself. When you're civil, you can mingle. Until then, detention."

She giggled. "That was a terrible impression of my second grade teacher." Then suddenly she was serious again. "Tony didn't sell the bombs. He told the Sokovia rebels they should do something physically improbable when they asked for his tech. His dad's old business partner sold it under the table. Stark didn't find out until after he came home after getting pumped full of shrapnel."

Tony winced slightly at the reminder. But Eileen's words had their desired effect; Wanda and Pietro took a small step back and exchanged meaningful and uncertain looks.

Eileen warped back to center stage and looked around. "Oh, almost forgot - right there is our Asgardian unit. The Lovely Queen Frigga, Lady Sif-(she coughed slightly) Fandral, Volstagg and Hogan; also known as the Warrior's Three."

"Brought a few girls over for you folks – the crumbling reality wave nearly snatched them up too. Betty Ross, Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, welcome."

Betty and Jane immediately made a direct run for their respective love interests while Darcy was still gaping at Eileen. She recovered and said, "That's the last time I let Erik make dinner."

"Behind them, Colonel James Rhodes and Sam Wilson, decorated military men who very nearly bit it...not helped by them accidentally making my job harder."

"I'm sorry!" Rhodey complained, sounding somewhat harassed as if he'd already apologized several times for this. "I had no idea what was going on!"

Eileen chuckled at his expense, but waved a hand in a way that suggested that she wasn't holding it against him and just said that to rile him up.

"And them?" Scott asked in confusion, waving towards the balcony. "Who're they?"

"They're our three mind controlled friends. Loki Odinson, Clint Barton, and James 'Bucky' Barns, aka the Winter Soldier."

Stunned gasps echoed from everyone who understood who the Winter Soldier was. Steve turned white and spun around to get a good look at the sleeping man in black. Tony thought that he looked as if he was seeing his own ghost. In a way, he was – he was seeing the only member of the Howling Commandos who was declared dead during the Second World War.

"The Winter Soldier!? But he's just a scary bedtime story!" Peter Quill said in alarm.

"So were aliens," Wanda pointed out, eyeing the balcony with some trepidation.

"My constructs are tending to them." Eileen said, causing everyone to blink in surprise. Two girls had appeared out of thin air – one a white haired child with cat ears inexplicably sticking out of her head, the other a silent, taller redhead with tanned skin. "They will heal and flush out any trace of the biological and psychological brainwashing that has been implemented on them. Though the healing sleep may take time, they'll be in much better shape upon awakening."

"B-B-Brainwashed?" Odin demanded, having apparently become un-muted when Eileen had been distracted. Both Frigga and Thor were stunned by the information, though in Frigga's case shock quickly melted into wild hope. "By whom?"

"By Fabio on for legs," Eileen said sarcastically, "Are you some kind of idiot?! Who have the Chitauri, once a peaceful hiveminded folk who rarely left their home world, suddenly been following the commands of?"

"I don't think he cares, WGG."

Another girl about Eileen's age appeared in the room. She had short purple hair and green glasses set upon her face. She was wearing a black jumpsuit that looked somewhat like military gear, and she held a slender blade in one hand.

"Dana, how bad is it?" Eileen asked immediately.

Dana sighed. "They're going to need to be here for a while." She reported. "Damage control could take months in order to restore the timeline. There's some room for error, but if we aren't careful the continuum will start glitching out."

Eileen said something in a language Steve had never heard before. Dana winced a bit. "Don't let your mother hear you say stuff like that."

"I try not to," Eileen responded. "What are we going to do with them?" She waved her hand in the direction of the group that was still staring at her and her new companion as if willing their appearances to make sense and the Inbetween to turn back to their respective time and space.

"They don't have much of a choice but to stay here." Dana said, putting one hand on her hip. "The two of us can keep them entertained until this mess is behind them. Kalaa and Tyene will have to monitor the place whenever we have to rejoin the Core in the repairs...oh, and you've been swapped into patrol duty."

"WHAT!?" Eileen demanded, her face flushing. "I'm not due for that in months!"

"Your brother couldn't make it. Warhammer 40K campaign." Dana responded by way of explanation.

Eileen let out another long string of incomprehensible words that made her companion whistle in amazement. "...Where did you even learn half of those?"

"Marines." Eileen responded. "But again, what should those guys do?" She and Dana turned around to examine the Avengers and their companions again. Peter Quill's hands were starting to twitch compulsively. "I can't just leave them here with nothing to do but stare at the wall and suffer a mental breakdown."

"That..." Dana blinked and frowned. "Yeah, that wouldn't be good...hey, I've got an idea. How about we activate the God's Eye and let them watch their alternate universe counterparts mess around?"

"Wait a minute, what?!" Betty protested. "Isn't that an invasion of privacy?"

"Nah." Eileen said with a wave of her hand. "It'll be just like watching people talk or interact on the street, or a pg 13 movie. You won't see anything too personal and we won't be intrusive – it's just a passive witness item. It's one of the ways we maintain the multiverse."

"Do we get a say in any of this!?" Peter asked plaintively.

"Again. Either you can have something else to keep your minds on, or you could stare at the wall until you collectively turn into Kefka knockoffs, and I really don't want to deal with any more of those than I have to." Eileen responded as if that should be perfectly obvious. "Which of those sounds more attractive, Peter?"

"...not...going crazy...?" The self proclaimed Star Lord suggested nervously.

"We thought so," Dana said brightly, taking this as a sign of consent from everyone in the room. "If you ever want refreshments, just say the word and the Constructs will help you out with whatever you need. Eileen and I will adjust this place to give a sense of the day and night cycle so your internal clocks don't screw up, and so you can sleep. Again, the Constructs will help you out when the sun hits the water."

Eileen's sword flashed blue for a moment. The girl swore again, in English this time, causing Steve to sputter somewhat. Girls he knew never talked like that – especially young ones. "Dana, we've got to split. Cleanup near Xandar."

"Is it him?" Dana asked.

"I told you to never to mention him around me. If he's sucked into Unreality, good frickin riddance!" Eileen yelled before another multicoloured rip appeared. She and Dana vanished through it again, though not before Eileen waved her hand across the stage.

Once they disappeared, a huge tv screen appeared suspended by chains. It flickered blue before turning to a steady grey with a couple of options; though the cursor never stopped at one.

"Wait! Eileen! The remote's...! ...Broken." The white haired girl in the balcony spoke for the first time, waving the sleek black device above her head. It looked like it had been dunked in maple syrup. The tanned girl muttered something in that same strange language before delicately stepping over to help her.

In the stands below, the people sat there in the most awkward and prolonged silence any of them had experienced. This was only broken when Frigga experimentally pulled at the chain nearest to her.

"These chains are wrought with magic I've never seen," She said after a moment. "I think it's safe to say we cannot leave."

"We cannot bow to the whims of a pair of children!" Lady Sif said angrily.

"Those 'children' aren't just kids." Tony said dryly. "Or did you miss the part where she stuck your king's tongue to the top of his mouth just by saying 'mute'? Where I come from, that only works on computers."

"I think they're cool." Cassie Lang pouted. "Did you see her sword, daddy? It was huge!"

Scott nodded in agreement and petted her head; Steve could see that the man was struggling to remain calm for her sake.

"So...what happens now?" Jane Foster asked uncertainly. "Is reality actually collapsing? What about everyone else? What about Erik? Are they...gone?"

Pepper saw the panic flickering across the younger woman's face and came to her rescue. "Those two strange girls said that our planet was 'frozen'. If the word had lost chunks, Eileen would have undoubtedly mentioned it in at least one of her long winded rants. That must mean they're frozen in time, but haven't been sucked away by 'unreality'." She paused for a moment before adding thoughtfully. "Or perhaps anyone who was in danger as well was rescued by different members of this 'Gatekeeper' force. The way they spoke of it, it could be an organization."

"So the multiverse is being managed by a bunch of smart-ass kids." Rocket said flatly. "God, no wonder the galaxy's so fucked up."

"It doesn't look like we have much else to do." Gamora pointed out calmly. "Those two, whoever or whatever they may be, have complete power in this...place." She gestured around them. "The fact none of us can leave these areas, even the Asgardians, seals this fact."

"She's right." Natasha said in reluctant agreement. "It's either activate God's Eye or sit here and contemplate our existence until the problem is fixed."

None of the Asgardians looked pleased with this, especially Thor.

"Ack!" the white haired kid seemed to have made the remote do something, but what she had achieved was to set the TV line up to 'Random'. Abruptly, it began to show a series of scenes, and the stunned group beheld a look into worlds they thought weren't real.

It started with a battered, starved and soot covered Jane struggling to make her way up the side of a magma caked mountain. A bright gold ring hung on a chain around her neck.

End Chapter

I was somewhat inspired by the two fics "Understanding" and "Inverted Perceptions" when giving this story its framework - I would recommend both of them to anyone who enjoys this sort of story.

Read, Review, and suggest alternate universes please!