Telling them truth (Multiverse)

"...Okay. But I'm going to need some stuff for that."

Moments later, I'd gathered everyone in a room that had once been dedicated to conferences. Avengers only though. That meant Fury, Tony, Steve, Natasha, and Clint. A small group to learn something that could be earth-shattering.

The five of them watched as I worked in Jury Rigg form. I was creating a large ring in the center of the room, building it from one of the HYDRA armors Natasha had found, a TV, and a broken Quinjet ring. It looked like something I'd seen from a kids show once, just a metal ring as tall as Natasha with a bottom section attached to the floor, the armor piece stapled to the ring (literally stapled actually) and the flat screen tv broken and attached to the bottom. Soon, I was done.

"Fix, fix, fix!" I cried triumphantly, stepping away.

"Okay... so what is it?" Fury asked.

"You'll see!" I chirped.

"An entire machine just to tell us where you came from and got the watch?" Natasha asked skeptically.

"And why only us?" Clint added.

"Give him a chance to explain," Steve said. "Mahmoud... go ahead."

"One more thing," I took a deep breath, then tapped the Omnitrix. My red skin became black with green circuits, and I grew far larger in an instant.

"Upgrade!"

With that, I joined with the ring. "This is called the Viewer," I explained as I joined with it. "I needed the Chitauri parts-"

"Chitauri?" Steve asked, startled. "That's where HYDRA got them from?"

"They did look familiar," Clint noted.

"Yeah, I can read their code," I said. "But yeah, I needed them for their power. This... this is going to take a lot," I said. "The only way this is going to work is for a couple of minutes. I'm using the arc reactor from this helicarrier to power it, and I need to be Upgrade to even work with that. I can't do it for long either, this thing is basically thinning the walls between universes just for a glimpse."

"You're really not making this clear," Fury said. "Are you about to break my ship?"

"No," I said. "The fact is, I've tried this before. Shut down the power in my borough for three days and only got static. But with the big arc reactor, my new experience, and Upgrade, all working together... I won't keep it up for long, and this thing will implode on itself afterwards, but it will be enough for me to show you guys. Besides," I admitted. "I don't want this thing to last too long. I'm worried about who I'll piss off," Now fully integrated into the ring, I took a breath for dramatic effect, since Upgrade didn't need air. "I am from Oregon. I was born in Oakland. But... not your Oregon, not your Oakland."

"What?" Clint asked.

I activated the viewer. The sensation that followed was painful. I pulled in power from the arc reactor, and actually felt the massively powerful engine struggle to keep up with the demand. Even for all of Jury Rigg's genius, I felt the ring I'd made almost buckle inwards under the weight of the task. I adjusted myself, advanced the machine in a dozen different ways. I fought through a strange sort of pain, and I felt the energy pull at my nanite body. It was a struggle, but after a fight to stay in control, I was showing an image of Captain America speaking to Black Widow.

But not the ones I'd come to know and love. The Captain America here had his mask down, revealing someone very different under it. One I'd only recently become familiar with, but that one of us had known his whole life.

"Bucky?" Steve asked in shock.

"Whoa," Tony said as he watched Natasha give him a very loving kiss that Bucky returned. "Natasha?"

"That..." Natasha stared. "That's me? But different?"

It was true. This was comic book Natasha. Slightly taller, with longer hair and a gold belt that held a familiar symbol on the center. She had gold bracers on her wrist.

Bucky was clean shaven, unlike the one getting deprogrammed in another room. His hair was cut, and he wore a blue and black spandex version of Steve's uniform. Well, unstable molecules rather than spandex, but still.

"This is another reality," I said. "A universe where Bucky and Natasha ended up together, according to the scans I'm getting from it."

I switched the view to the next place and felt the arc reactor struggle with it, but there was no danger of the machine disappearing on me. Tony uncrossed his arms when he saw himself as a teenager. "Is that... me? Rhodey? And Pepper?"

The three of them were standing around in casual clothes with an Iron Man suit in front of them. The teenagers were joking with each other, clearly close.

"But I didn't meet them until-"

"Not in this reality," I corrected. "But there, you have been friends for much longer."

Another one. This time, it was Clint. He winced at the sight. "Well... shit."

Hawkeye was sitting in a chair, his head and limbs strapped to it. He was wearing only a white tanktop and orange pants. He'd clearly been tortured and was surrounded by men carrying guns.

"Is this happening right now?" Steve asked, worried. "Can we help somehow?"

"Hell, is this even real?" Tony asked, apparently fascinated.

"It is," I answered. "But the way this works is that I'm only getting glimpses. This actually happened further back in this world's history. I wouldn't worry though."

"Why not?" Clint asked, clearly disturbed.

At that moment, as some guy with a scar over his right eye leaned in towards Hawkeye to taunt him, Hawkeye flicked his right index finger. Scar guy suddenly grabbed his neck, choking on something. Hawkeye did the same with his left index finger, and a soldier had the same reaction. His left then right thumb flicked as well, and more men began to die until they were all done. As they fell, a scientist type who'd been watching the proceedings asked a question.

"What the hell?" he said in shock.

Hawkeye responded as a fingernail was held tightly between his fingers. "Shouldn't have left my fingernails in, dummy. Now be smart and get me outta here, or this goes right between you eyeballs."

"...can you do that?" Tony asked his universes Hawkeye in shock as the group stared at the dimensional viewer.

"No," Clint admitted. "Might be worth learning though."

"Yeah, well," I switched away. "The rest of that universe sucks."

"How do you know?" Natasha asked. "How do you have those worlds histories?"

I felt thankful for my current machine form. It made it easy to lie.

"I'm scanning them," I explained. "It's damn exhausting, but I can get summaries on what I'm showing you."

"How the hell are you doing that?" Clint asked.

"Mostly news stories and the internet," I said helpfully. "But it hurts like hell."

"This is hurting you?" Steve asked, worried.

I ignored him to focus once more. The next world made everyone blink. It was a white man with black hair going gray at the sides, sitting at a desk and smoking a cigar as he worked on something. As they watched, Maria Hill walked into view. Well, Maria with an expression on her face as though she'd seen a bad smell.

"Who is... Oh come on," Fury said when the man lifted his face to reveal the eye patch.

"In this universe," I explained. "You're the descendant, the Nick Fury Jr. to this guy, who has been kept alive since World War 2 by an experimental drug."

"Enough," Fury said. "How do we know this is all real? That it's not just some trick you've pulled off?"

"Why would I tell this kind of lie?" I asked. "I'm from another universe. One where superheroes aren't running around. Apparently, one of the few where that is true, according to my scans. Hell, everything I know about this world is from Google and hacking. I had to learn quick so I didn't end up making mistakes in casual conversation."

I switched to other views. A man with a giant pair of angular sunglasses was watching the sunset with a sword on his back and a flame-patterned cloak on his back. A giant robot was standing behind him, with two figures walking towards him.

A redheaded man and woman in gender-swapped versions of the same brown shaded clothes speaking to a young woman with black hair and red lips, wearing a white blouse and blue skirt. When the three turned to look curiously at the view screen, I switched away hurriedly.

Another world, where three people were fighting against robots with skull shaped heads, dozens of the steel monsters surrounding them. One of them was a man who wore a red cape and a blue outfit with a "S" symbol on the front as he fired heat beams from his eyes. There was a woman carrying a sword she used to impale one of the robots, wearing an outfit with a large golden piece of armor over her chest shaped like the letter "W", her beauty as clear as her talent in war. The last could barely be seen, more of a black shadow among his more flamboyant comrades, only truly evident by the destroyed robots he left in his wake, simply a mass of darkness that moved like death.

"We're just one universe of many," I said, showing a world where a boy with white hair and green eyes in a black outfit with the letter 'D' on it fought against a woman who looked like a green female genie, belly dancer outfit included. "One of infinity, because the Multiverse theory is true. And it's kinda awesome, knowing how unique we are in all this infinity."

"Then where is your world?" Fury asked.

"...I don't know," I said in frustration. I didn't fake it. All the power I had now, even with the pain I was fighting through, and I just couldn't-

"You don't know?" Natasha asked, interrupting my thoughts. Feeling testy, I began to explain.

"Look," I switched the view over to where, according to my scans, my world should have been, the world with my nephew, with my parents and my crappy room. Instead, all that appeared was static. "I got dropped into this universe, and now I can't find mine. Do you want to know something else? I can't find it at any point in its history. Any other universe, even the ones that are destroyed, I can at least view their pasts, but mine? It's just locked out to me! I've got an arc reactor, alien parts burning out, a device built by a mad genius like Jury Rigg, and Upgrade backing me up, but I can't pierce through whatever is blocking me!"

I shouted the last, enraged. "It's not just that I can't get home, it's that I can't even fucking see it! I can't see my family, my friends, I can't find out how my mom is taking my disappearance! But no, I can fucking see the Teletubbies in their goddamn house eating fucking 'pamcakes'!"

The group stared at me before I switched off the viewer. I separated from the viewer, looking at Fury, then turned into a human again. "So there it is Fury. If you want, you can try to arrest me or whatever. But I was given the Omnitrix and just dropped into this world like a bad habit. All I'm doing is making the best of a bad situation."

Everyone looked over at Fury. He eyed me for a moment. "...I'm going to have you write a full report. And we're going to still strap you to the lie detector"

"Oh come on!" Tony said exasperatedly.

Fury ignored him. "You tell me everything you can possibly remember about your life, between your home universe and this one. I don't care if it's a girl who gave you funny feelings in middle school, tell me everything," when I opened my mouth to protest, he stopped me. "The Council and others will have questions about you. Questions I'll have to answer. So I'm going to give them answers," Fury eyed the machine. "And destroy that."

"What?" Clint asked in surprise. "I wanted to see me being a badass again."

"Or see yourself turning evil," Fury said. "Or Steve staying in the forties and having a full life. Tony with kids. An infinity of possibilities, each as slightly possible as the next. Do you all really, and I mean really, want to spend the rest of your life staring into this thing, worried about the lives you might have had? The people you could have loved, who could have lived? Or to suddenly become suspicious of a friend because of the chance they might go bad the way some other version of them did? All the 'what ifs?'" I was suddenly glad I hadn't shown them the Ultimate Black Widow who had betrayed her team. "Having those worlds just out of your reach? People go insane from regular paranoia, hell I'm an expert at it. If even thinking about the possibilities can make people do stupid things, what will being able to actually see them do?"

We looked over at the viewer. I thought of all of that for a moment. Yeah. That was...

"I think you're right," Steve said, sounding sad. "As tempting as it is... Dial. Destroy it."

I went over to the dimensional viewer and looked over at Tony. "Nothing to say?"

Tony snorted when everyone looked at him. "No. I've got enough issues with my problems in this universe. Besides, I can always make one for myself now that I know it's possible at all."

We all thought about that. A moment later, feeling very nervous about working for Tony now, I waved at it. "Well, I don't have to destroy it. I'm actually surprised it's still there, it should have-"

The dimensional viewer began to shake.

"Uh," Hawkeye said slowly. "Should we leave the room, or-?"

The machine pulled into itself and imploded with a sound like gravel exploding.

"...Why is everything you make so weird?" Natasha asked.

I smiled just a bit. "They have personality," I looked over the group. "So... we good?"

Fury smirked. "Not really. Not that I don't like you, but you just admitted you have no idea where you got the watch or who dropped you here, and I believe you on that. So I'll still keep an eye on you, simply because it's safer," Steve, Tony, and I all shared an exasperated look. "But like I said. I think your hearts in the right place, and you're too useful to us not to bring in. And that's good enough for me."

Well, if that was the best I was getting.

"So uh, that makes me an Avenger?"

Tony grinned at that. "There's the Fanboy we all know."

"Is there even a protocol for new Avengers?" Clint asked.

"So far, no," Natasha said. "But with Dial, Sam, and Rhodey in the picture..."

"We'll discuss it later," Steve said, turning and opening the door for us to exit. "For now, I'd like to think on what we've seen."

Natasha and Tony seemed to still at that, clearly thinking on that. Natasha's eyes flickered in the direction of where Bucky was being held before apparently dismissing the thought that prompted that. Tony rubbed his chin thoughtfully. And Steve sighed while we all filed out. "Time has a talk with everyone out there. We have ten minutes."

"Yes," Fury said. "We're in for the hard part." He walked outside, his long coat flapping as the Avengers and I followed in his wake. Several SHIELD agents stepped aside, and soon an armed procession took spots along the wall. "You all know your roles in this conversation. Now get changed. I want the Avengers at my side when I meet them, and I need you in costume for that."

Later, in the men's locker room, Sam had joined us to put his own clothes on. Tony and Rhodey weren't in with us since their armor would just wear itself onto them in seconds, leaving Steve, Clint, Sam, and me. I was putting on my boots, the last part of my costume to go on when Steve came up and tapped me on the shoulder.

"Hey," he said. "I'd like to talk to you in private real quick."

Nodding as I tried to guess what this would be about, I finished tying my boots and went to join him in the back. Steve looked around to see if we were alone before speaking.

"You said doing that, looking between universes, hurt. I wanted to ask if you were okay."

"I'm good," I said. "Just... doing that took a lot out of me. If it wasn't for the ridiculous power of the arc reactor, I wouldn't have been able to do it, and even then I drained the Chitauri armor pieces just to boot the system up. And holding open was like... you ever hold up an impossible weight while having a conversation?"

"A couple of times," Steve said, reminding me just what kind of badass I was talking too. He sighed. "And what you said, about being from another world? I think, in some way, I understand how you feel."

"...Yeah," I realized. "I guess you'd be one of the few." After all, I wasn't the only one who'd woken up in a world that was so similar and yet so different from home.

"It takes getting used to," Steve said with a smile. "I'm still bad at it. But if you need help, I'm willing to talk."

"Same," I said warmly. "Hell, you ever want to catch up with pop culture, I'm sort of an expert by now."

Steve laughed. "Well, I have been wondering about Anime. When I went on ice we were still having issues with Japan," he scowled. "Not that I approve of how that ended of course."

I winced at the thought of the two bombs that had ended that conflict. "Yeah, well... That's why were doing this, right? To stop anything like Pearl Harbor or the bombs from ever taking place again."

He nodded thoughtfully at that.