Agent Romanoff sighed as she signed another sheet and put it on top of the ever-growing pile. She was made for fieldwork, not paperwork, but this had to be done. And at least some of it was legal information involving the boy in the lower level cells.

Natasha frowned as she thought back to Alcor. At first she had thought he was a mutant with the power to open portals, but now she wasn't so sure. Something didn't add up. The grin that was just a little too wide, the teeth that seemed too sharp one moment and normal the next, there was something off about him, and the fact that she didn't know what frustrated her to no end.

It had only been five hours since he'd appeared in the middle of the bridge out of a giant colorful portal, and the whole last of those hours was spent convincing Stark that he wanted a teenager into his tower. Eventually she'd had to tell him about where he came from and her Fury's suspicions, and call in a bunch of favors before he finally, grudgingly agreed. She even got him to take him today already.

Alcor was being led to a jet right about now, if everything was going as planned. She remembered the fearful look in his eyes when he confessed he ran away from something. Was that genuine?

She shook her head when she caught herself signing her desk, too absorbed in her thoughts to notice she'd gotten through her current stack. That was it, she decided while she took another half stack from the side of her desk. She was going to visit the Avengers tower tomorrow and she was going to find out what was going on with that kid no matter how long it took.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Alcor was grinning widely as he stepped off the ramp onto the platform. Far, far below him he could see the ever busy city of New York, dotted with cars and crowded with buildings. The open space around him was perfect and he almost just wanted to materialize his wings and fly away, but he reasoned he could always do that later.

He lifted his eyes to the opening into the tower, where a man with a big prescence and bigger sunglasses opened his arms in a grand gesture as he caught Alcor's gaze. "Welcome to the Avengers Tower! Hope you'll feel at home, kid."

He bounced over to the dark haired man called Anthony Stark, although he preferred Tony from what Alcor skimmed of his thoughts, an eager grin on his face. He couldn't wait to find out all the new experiences this universe had to offer, now that he'd been let out of that dull cell.

See, the thing that mattered to him most were experiences. He knew lots of things, but the only way to really revel in the joys of the multiverse was to experience the joys of the multiverse.

"I'm Tony Stark, genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist. Call me Tony." Alcor took Tony's hand, noticing how despite his arrogant attitude he was generally a good guy. He wasn't intentionally reading the man's mind, that would be an invasion of privacy that Mabel had taught him was bad, but he couldn't help but automatically skim people's outer thoughts and feelings when he met them.

"I'm Alcor." He introduced himself, smile slipping a bit at the thought of his sister, before widening again as he let go of the other's hand. "I'm glad to be here!"

That was the right response, right? It seemed to be, as Tony nodded with not-quite-a-smile on his face. Dipper gave a mental grimace as he realized he'd be walking on eggshells during conversations for a while.

"Come in, and I'll show you around." Tony proposed.

Alcor followed him off the platform, barely noticing the jet taking off again behind them.

"Jarvis!" Tony called as soon as they walked in, still looking in front of him, where nobody was standing. Dipper frowned a bit. Was he missing something? "Introduce yourself to Alcor."

Despite the fact that it wasn't a question, it didn't feel like a command either, which surprised Dipper a bit with this man. He finally realized who Tony had been talking to when a voice came from the ceiling. "Nice to meet you, Mister Daniels. I'm Jarvis."

Ah, an artificial intelligence. Just A Really Very Intelligent System was his full name, so JARVIS then, not Jarvis.

Daniels was the name they'd put on the official papers after Dipper made it clear that Alcor was his only name. He may or may not have given the impression that whatever was before the portal had never given him a last name. Unintentionally, of course.

Alcor followed Tony as the letter led him around the upper floors of the tower. The kitchen, main lounge, the room he'd be pretending to sleep in ("Incredibly boring, but Natasha banned from decoration duty," Tony had said flippantly,) and there was a vague point towards the man's workshop and a warning that Alcor might accidentally get barbecued extra spicy if he tried to go down there.

Despite the man's grandiose act, Dipper could tell he really just wanted to get back to whatever he was doing, and he wasn't paying Dipper much attention. The sheer uninterest made it clear this was the visitor's tour. Tony viewed him as just another visitor who would go away shortly and become someone else's problem.

That was fine by Dipper, honestly. He could just explore the new world on his own and move on to the next if it wasn't interesting enough.

"Oh, and also," Tony interrupted his own stream of words which Dipper had been blocking out to think to inform him, "You're supposed to stay in the tower unless I come with you outside. Blah blah blah security."

That might be a complication. Tony obviously wasn't going outside anytime soon judging by his unhealthly pale skin and surface thoughts, so it was either break the rules and make the humans distrust him, or go through the effort of not getting caught.

Well, he wasn't that lazy, Dipper decided, as he shrugged in Tony's direction. The man had already turned back around, not waiting for his reaction. He'd decided he wanted to live a normal life, so he was going to live a normal life. As normal as he could manage.

"Well, I'm going back to work." Tony decided that Alcor- no, Dipper, he had to keep calling himself that, now that no one else did- had seen enough of the tower. "If you need anything, just ask Jarvis."

Dipper nodded silently, before Mabel's voice resounded in his head. Speak out when you want someone to hear you, Dip-dop. Dipper cleared his throat quietly and corrected himself with a soft, "Yeah, sure." Tony didn't seem to care. He was soon left alone in the big, open living room.

Dipper's smile had slipped off his face slightly, but he ignored it in favor of ransacking the kitchen for sweet things, which there were thankfully plenty of. Although Dipper didn't see any real, healthy food, which made him worry slightly about Tony's eating habits. If the guy died from starvation, would they manage to blame Alcor somehow?

He shrugged it off for now, munching on some jelly beans. He'd just make sure Tony wouldn't die. It was an unspoken deal, in exchange for the food and housing.

An unspoken deal.. Dipper looked to the side to ask Mabel if it was okay to make an unspoken deal if the unspoken part only benefitted the human, and let the words die on his tongue when the only thing next to him was empty space.

Alcor numbly popped a few more jelly beans into his mouth. He'd learn to live without her, no matter how much he didn't want to.