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Chapter Text

Grim knew NY was prone to weird incidents, but this was getting ridiculous. Some nutcase trying to take over the world with lizards and a gang manufacturing alien tech was bad enough, but then the aliens said finders keepers didn’t count and opened a hole in the sky. 

(was it actually a hole in the atmosphere? Where they all going to die of suffocation before the giant snake things got to them. Also, how were they flying?) 

Don’t ask him about the gang thing. He hadn’t meant to find out on purpose, but his last set of foster parents had been a real piece of work. Two halves of a whole illegal disaster zone. They hadn’t done much anyway, probably wouldn’t for years, since the stuff kept blowing up and killing people and outing their bases, so it was a controlled disaster waiting to happen, if nothing else.

He ducked a stop sign as it went hurtling where his head had been, and prayed Kala, the ghost girl he had met at his high school and had magically befriended on the spot, wouldn’t haul him into the air. When the gang was having a shoot out on the top of a building she pulled him off and down into the street in a free fall before catching him, and he was deeply shaken up by that. Like, real bad, and he was great with trauma usually.

The building behind him was on fire. Maybe someone inside had had the gas on. But plenty of spirits were already on it, subtly keeping the flames at bay and guiding people, invisible angels of protection. 

Ghosts normally couldn’t do much, unless they really got worked up. Not I-got-annoyed-at-something-I-couldn’t-stop emotional, like I-saw-my-murderer-kill-someone-else emotional, the kind of thing that could cause a saint to commit murder. 

With all that was happening all around them, there was plenty of emotion to work off of. 

Kala hissed like a cat at a snake-like flying alien as it passed, to no effect. Obviously. 

He ran forward, hopping over growing cracks and holes in the pavement without hesitation. Most people would be in shock by now. Most people would be cautious and careful, wincing at every creak and inhuman roar.

Grim, he decided as he watched Iron Man whiz by and shoot effing lasers at some levitating slug beast and just kept running past that whole mess, was pretty firmly not most people.

But he certainly wasn’t the bunch of superhero maniacs running around trying to blow these things up either. 

But he could still help. His messenger bag, half school supplies and notes on mythology (a slightly more than casual hobby to anyone who asked) and half medical supplies, since injuries carried over on someone’s body in death.

He could set up a temporary help station. Something to treat broken bones and burns and stuff. It’d be hard, juggling the living and dead and not getting got in all this nonsense, but his stupid help-people-instinct was going again, and he just couldn’t stop himself.

He’d cheer himself up with ramen later. Make up for it in his subconscious. 

Because imminent danger over a long period of time is totally fine as long as he gets some food out of it, according to his monkey brain.

Ok. He had to find a building tucked out of the way, but not too far out of the way, and stable. Get set up. Herd people over, probably help in evacuations knowing him. 

Ghosts, his brain supplied. Ghosts could help.

Haul people out of wreckage and calm them down instinctually, restock him on supplies and make sure the building wasn’t about to crumble.

He looked around a bit. Most of the buildings in this area were offices, full of glass (shattered) and steel. (easily spread germs, no thanks) That wouldn’t work.

He mapped out the area in his head as he vaulted a fallen support beam. Coffee shop on the corner, glass on two walls, nope. The open decorative brick square was a good landing area for freaky sky giants, even if the clear space was tempting. The brief historic area was better; it had less glass everywhere. But he didn’t know how stable the ancient things were. But it would be full of people…

Curses. He was going to be so dumb today, huh?

He asked Kala to scout out the block for somewhere good enough, and she saluted him before vanishing through a crumbling concrete wall. He sighed through his nose and stopped in an alleyway at the sound of crying.

No time like the present, right?

They eventually found a restored brick building that had been an open-floor office, with copper instead of steel for the Aesthetic and stuff. After checking in with the local spirits for any hazards, they got to work.

Ghost games of telephone are surprisingly efficient. Soon enough, Ghosts were hauling unconscious patients through the door right to him.

He blinked away the sheer absurdity of the situation, and focused on the problem at hand. Second and third degree burning, probably from the fire he saw earlier- 

Some time later (he didn’t know. He never claimed to have a good sense of time, never would. Things were a blur right now anyway, one of his coping mechanisms when stuff got too wild for him to handle all at once) Bruce Banner himself puttered by in a bucket of bolts generously called a motorcycle, and he just couldn’t justify not stopping him. A weird medical condition unexplainable to modern science? That was most of what he did nowadays, skipping school to listen to stories and patch up shimmering figures right and left.

Also, the green energy coming off him in waves was pretty concerning all on its own. No one else seemed to notice, so it was probably a Him Thing. 

“Hey! Hey, sir! You alright?” He could pass it off as not knowing him, maybe worried he had a head injury. He was riding straight towards the portal thingy, so that would probably fly alright. Banner blinked at him, slowing involuntarily as his clunky engine sputtered. Perfect opening.

“I’m fine.” He said, looking dazed. Straight to the point, plus he had ground to stand on with the concussion thing. Hallelujah, amen b*tches.

“Sir, you’re driving into a disaster zone and you don’t look too great.” He pointed out in his best Concerned Customer Support Voice from helping out sometimes at the hospital. (he hadn’t been able to figure out how to sneak in and help the dead there, it was a mess anyway despite his trying. One of the surgeons thought he was nuts, and a whole group of the night nurses were convinced her was a cryptid.) “Are you sure you haven’t hit your head?”

His lips pursed. “I’ll be fine. I… have friends out there. You might want to move, too. This area might get attacked.” 

To be fair, they were now two blocks from the portal weirdness. He sighed, eyeing the perimeter of the dead shoulder to shoulder around the building protectively. “We’ll be fine, trust me.” A hacking cough, then a groan from behind him. Sh*t, the burn patient!

He turned around, scanning the woman instantly, and after some ‘miracle’ ointment he made himself, (chemistry, people. The witches of old knew what was UP) he turned around to nothing. And no Kala. He caught glimpse of mint green-silvery familiar silhouette trailing a motorcycle in the distance, and sighed. 

Did he trust his personal wreck friend to handle an alien invasion while being dead?

Absolutely. 

It had been two weeks. Two weeks since The Invasion. There had been an actual invasion, evacuations (eventually), defense measures, a freak lightning storm, something about Norse Gods (he did tons of research in the aftermath because of it, he liked to come to these sorts of things prepared) and then superheroes. IRL superheroes. 

He thought that on top of the ghost stuff, he had his life time supply of weird.

He, according to Squirrel Girl and Spiderman outside battling a human-rhino mutant man in the street, was very, very mistaken. 

It was turning into a legit ‘villain of the week’ scenario. The neighborhood by now just knew that when stuff got funky, to head straight to him, the super ‘lucky’ emo kid who seemed untouchable in the worst situations. (and only the worst situations) 

This led to him babysitting four elementary kids while Kala hit Rhino Guy with a street sign. He kept roaring at her and Spiderman, and Squirrel Girl sounded like she was on drugs. A junkie disney princess. That was four feet away and hitting an animal-man-hybrid repeatedly with an actual superhero and enough squirrels and birds to drown in. 

“Mama says you can help. Can you help?” A girl with copperish red hair asked him, gripping her box of sidewalk chalk tightly.

He recalled the medical station from earlier in the month, and nodded. 

“Then why don’t you go beat ‘em up!?” Accused a nine-year-old boy.

He looked him in the eye. “Violence isn’t the answer to all problems. Sometimes you have to be smart.” He remembered all the times being able to sneak around kept him alive in foster homes, once in a natural disaster, and now in a superhero comic book’s opening plot arc. “Like spies, or ninjas.”

A girl in a tie-dye skirt wrinkled her nose. “Ninjas hit people.”

“But only when they have to, yeah?” He booped her on the nose, and she giggled and swiped wildly at his face in revenge. 

“So Spiderman’s not helping?” Asked Angry Child, looking slightly lost. Grim slipped a hand into his hoodie pocket and kept a straight face with a bit of effort at the ridiculous conversation happening here and outside.

“Nah. He’s helping his way, I’m helping mine. Ok, I have candy, don’t ask how or where, and definitely don’t tell your parents. Don’t choke, ok?”

Kala is a gummy-stealing fiend. But it did come in handy sometimes.

Chapter Text

Tony Stark is indisputably a maniac. Grim could see the death energy coming off him through the TV, and here he was, racing in a national race car tournament and stuff. Doing EXPOs and presentations and drinking heavily.

No wonder the world was wondering if he’d snapped. The man was checking off his bucket list in the darkest way in the world. Grim couldn’t even fathom what he’d do with infinite money and that situation.

Was someone poisoning him? Was he bleeding out? Rare medical disease? Why was the face of American Dream-whatever dying on live TV?

Grim chewed on his bottom lip as he watched the news over his foster parent’s shoulders, and wondered if he could pull off a plane ticket to Europe.

He didn’t in the end. Had a few ghosts -nurses, doctors, phycologists, concerned randos- watch over him just in case, and did a deep dive into poisoning’s long and dark history.

He passed it off as a morbid section of his chemistry interest just fine. That wasn’t the problem, none of that was currently the problem.

It’s just the ghosts wouldn’t. Stop. Screaming. About. Hammers. And a bird, and electricity, and fire, and needles, and something about Russia of all things. (human experimentation? Horrific kidnapping murder spree? A YA novel’s plot he was about to get smooshed into? Who knew? Certainly not him.)

Some ghosts really didn’t get the message all the way through their skulls that he really could hear them just fine, huh? Thought they’d have to yell and scream to get him to hear ‘em.

He invested in an army of dollar-store earplugs and splurged on sound-canceling headphones. He didn’t want to be rude, but he did want to sleep. And focus on literally anything. Not have a constant migraine while Kala tried to negotiate the terms of his sanity.

Tony Stark was possibly dying from something in his suit. The design wasn’t public knowledge, wasn’t even private knowledge, but he could guess whatever the h*ll he was using to get himself and several dozen pounds of metal reliably off the ground would have some adverse effects on the body after a hot second passed. He did the math, and the force needed to pull it off would be absurd. Impossible for anyone with a healthy respect for physics, really. Especially with all the shenanigans he pulls off casually.

So, Tony Stark could have I dunno, found a new chemical with extreme potential energy properties. That poisoned the human body by being within a certain distance. And Stark knows this. And has given up. Sure. Ridiculous, but sure.

But how on earth was he supposed to help with that?

Grim hadn’t wanted to show up to the last day of the EXPO, but his help-people side of his brain wouldn’t let him be, so here he was watching Justin Hammer (Hammer…?) show off something about the army and navy and robots. It was all very patriotic, but frankly Grim, as a child of the foster system and all the rest of America’s failings, didn’t have enough patriotism in his entire body to metaphorically make up a baseball, let alone be excited about this weirdness.

Ghosts were still yelling, bobbing in and out of the crowd. He had one ear un-plugged, and scanned the area whenever the pitch suddenly got worse. Nothing amiss. Excited crowd, fast food everywhere, lots of lights and dramatic sound effects. Strobe lights shone, and he felt a headache blooming behind one eye.

He nearly doubled in over in pure surprise and instinct when they all screamed in a note as high as they could go all at once.

Then the explosions went off. The Hammer bots started attacking, and Grim’s brain loaded far too late.

Hammer. Electric. Who knew what the bird thing meant, but the rest of the message was pretty out in the open.

He watched Iron Man zoom around the night sky, dodging fireworks and AI-driven death bots built to survive a war, and he cursed himself for what he was about to do.

He was the dumbest man alive. The most stupid person on planet earth. Even more so than Stark, because at least he didn’t go into an actual fire/missile fight without a plan or backup.

He literally just followed Iron Man and some other flying suit of armor holding a dumb*ss seemingly on his side decorated like the American flag and ended up in some glass dome park thing. He slid down an artificial beach down to a perfectly curved river, eyeing the bomb-bots that were closing in on the two as they… argued? Really?

Kala put a foot through one’s chest, then went corporeal. It shorted out terribly, sparking and stuttering like crazy.

He just pushed a bunch of them into the water, dodging lasers and Tony Stark and Co.’s yelling at him once they actually took in their surroundings for once. It worked fine, because apparently Hammer couldn’t design to save his life. They were built like tanks, all chunky and bold, but with obvious cracks in the armor where wiring was.

He put an army knife through different lines and found the magic spot along the neck.

Kala kept kicking and punching and occasionally hitting things with her ghostly baseball bat she seemed to take everywhere with her now since she stole it from his crummy, sexist gym coach last month.

Shots of light were everywhere where Iron Man, Friend and Hammer’s inventions went to war.

Stark had quit trying to shoo him away, now, which he appreciated. They’d have to drag him off by now if they wanted him away; he was way too invested and dumb for it to be anything otherwise.

He hurt all over, but that was nothing new. Dodging things meant to take down soldiers without armor or sanity to help him left him covered in bruises and welts.

He had had worse.

There’s an army of ghosts around him, now. They had always been interested in looking out for him, ranging from pointing him in the direction of their favorite restaurant at lunchtime to ‘taking care of’ bullies who thought he was a nutjob and they therefore did not need their moral compass when interacting with him.

He could conceivably just stand there, at this point, and watch, and later walk out in exactly the same shape. Though it did help that a bunch of soldiers from varying time periods were nearby and were more than happy to stretch their legs.

Some still had all their old war equipment on them, ranging from actual bayonets to rudimentary grenades and rusty machine guns along with the occasional molotov.

With the amount going down around him, that’s exactly what he did when all robots without knifing distance were down and half-submerged in the creek.

He ducks the occasional shrapnel piece, tried not to get in anyone’s way (living or dead) and does a mental catalog of events later for the police.

He’s in over his head, but when is he not?

Chapter Text

Then people started exploding in the streets. Iron Man had gone missing, and half the country was in a panic, including him, until a long game of ghostly telephone informed him he had surfaced in Idaho, of all places, and had adopted a Potato Child.

Like he knew what that meant. (Was it an actual potato, like how someone adopts a pet rock, or some farming kid?)

Anyway, they were back to screaming about needles and lightning and lairs, so he politely asked them where, and they led him to NY harbor, and one of the biggest boats in the place. Something about transporting… something. And the president? Nope, his daughter, his mistake. Maybe the vice president’s, who knows anymore.

He hadn’t even known the president had a daughter. He could have a pet raccoon for all he knew.

So now he was sneaking onto a boat. (someone was holding the Preisdent hostage and stuff, Iron Man suits were everywhere, people with red skin and anger issues were functionally suicide bombs and actual Iron Man saved a bunch of people falling out of a plane? He barely knew what was happening.)

Anyway, he found the makeshift lab area of the boat, nearly got blown up a couple of times, and did some experimental ghost medicine to see if he could get their souls to be less… explode-y. Aggressive. Un-brainwashed and dangerous.

If one more person gave him a horror movie smile and ran at him to give him a red-lined hug, he was going to scream, and then Kala would hit someone, and he’d have a migraine. He just knew it.

He didn’t know how else to handle this sort of thing, so he literally was just… holding the souls in so they physically could not die, and hoping that would somehow stop the explosion, because he apparently didn’t care about his own well-being anymore. Which was fair, considering he already had a pretty chill relationship with the dead.

Listened to a bunch of explosions and yelling up top on deck, tackled a few people who tried to escape. One lady he recognized, Miss Potts of Stark Industries, he was able to disconnect from the weird science experiment nonsense, and she stopped glowing red, so that was probably fine. Ya know.

I mean, she was breathing steadily, her heart rate was good, and she didn’t seem to be in much pain? He tabled her for later.

And then he looks over, and some dark-haired dude is coming at him and Potts with a needle.

Kala takes care of him in a move straight from a cartoon, so he just watches him flop to the ground and nudges him with one foot to double-check he’s out.

He is, indeed, out.

He sighs to the now-conscious Potts. “Hi there. Uh, Stark is upstairs negotiating for someone’s life, maybe the president’s? Oh, I’m Grim, nice to meet you.” Her hand shakes slightly when he shakes it, but she seems pretty lucid and un-crazy.

“Virginia Potts. Were you-?” She glances around at the medieval chains on the wall, and he shakes his head.

“Nah, I snuck on here after someone tipped me about a hostage situation and human experimentation. I’m medically certified, so tell me how you're feeling, please? None of these guys are very positively responsive.” He gestures to a lady with a messy blonde bun, who snarls at him from the ground like a werewolf in an eighties movie. He tied her up with some zip ties about an hour ago, the ones that are heat and friction resistant and cut off circulation if you move too much, fighting the weird body heat and super strength thing. Could be hysterical strength, now that he’s thinking on it…

He holds someone’s soul in, a guy with fiery red hair and still-glowing veins (is their blood radioactive? Is that what’s up here?) to keep him from, you know, dying, and Potts looks further lost.

“How are you- what are you-?”

He shrugs calmly, pressing the shimmery copy of the man into his body firmly. “Dunno. Just seems right, and it works. So.” Liar.

She nods shakily.

The explosions putter out, and Potts disappears to either find or chastise her man, and he lets her. She was lucid, reliably conscious, and not in tons of pain, but still needed to be checked over once no one was having their soul falling out.

He can practically smell the climactic scene he’s missing, and Kala gleefully tells him what she can see whenever she pops down from spying. There are helicopters, now. And kissing. He sighs and asks if she could see an ambulance, which she said she was mainly watching the explosions. (Which was admittedly fair, if annoying)

He briefs the police squad that turns up, who are thankfully from the station that all know him by name. (It makes it so much easier and faster, it’s great.) Helps the EMTs shepherd who he can, gets checked over himself, and then escorted off-site while the FBI swarm in. A camerawoman tries to mug him, but he just stares into her eyes silently and lets the camera roll, and she quits bothering him soon enough.

He takes a well-deserved nap when he gets back, and silently prays for some peace from wanna-be comic villains.

And then one day a new neighbor was moving in. That wouldn’t be too alarming, really, normally. Mundane, actually. Single lady, nice, unassuming, calm and quiet.

Grim, used to being able to identify people by shadow, outline, facial features’ outline, hair texture, and/or voice, identified her immediately as none other than the lovely Black Widow, and then went on to have a small crisis over ‘how is no one else seeing this? Wait, is she dead? No, no colors. What’s happening? Why is a superhero living next door? Doesn’t the government love her or something?’ and such.

Kala comforted him by googling ridiculous animal’s science names. Brown bear’s is just ‘bear’ a bunch of times. Apparently.

Okay, okay. This is fine.

Shut up meme side of brain, shut.

So he just… avoids her. Easy enough; he has school, and doesn’t have a social life or leave the apartment for literally anything, so.

But she is a spy.

He sighs, and watches the bowl of cheap ramen spin in the microwave in defeat. Why was a superhero even moderately interested in him, honestly?

I mean, he did witness like, half of three and half major national security disasters. Maybe they think he’s involved. Which is bull, because he just wants his cheap burrito and people to stop being dramatic and trying to die/kill all the time around him. It’s getting old.

So he decides, one not at all unusual afternoon when his foster parents are out at ‘work’ and he’s alone with Kala and the cat, that enough is enough.

She’s doing laundry, he can see her from the balcony into the living room next door. So he sucks it up and starts talking. “Um. Hi ma’am. My name’s Grim. Can I ask why the Black Widow is stalking me?” She looks up sharply, and he swallows. He’d never seen quite that expression before, meaning this was officially uncharted territory. With shark-infested waters and a sinking boat.

Joy.

She continues folding laundry while looking at me dead in the eye. Which. Scary.

She studies me, the picture of nervous innocence. “Who do you work for, kid?”

I blink. I glance over at Kala, who is seeing if she can steal some chocolate from the ‘hidden’ candy spot I discovered on night one in the place at two AM, occasionally flying too fast and disappearing into the wall without warning.

“The cat cafe down the street? The hospital, sometimes? No, that’s volunteer… Uh, I volunteer at the station too, because I keep getting caught up in stuff and they deal with me a lot. Know me by name and everything…”

She keeps staring.
I start sweating.

She breaks the staring contest to calmly fold a skirt with confident hands. “What kind of ‘stuff?’”

“Well. You know that serial killer from Hell’s Kitchen?” Daredevil had chased him out, and so he came to Grim’s neck of the woods.

She nodded, all business. “Yeah, he’ll be in the system soon. Fought him in a public bathroom and called the cops.” His latest victim had still been yelling for help after death, and when he asked her as kindly as he could what was the matter, she started sobbing about knives and big men and the bathroom. He put two and two together, got four, and investigated.

She looked vaguely impressed, but stayed silent.

He panicked. “Not that I was in with him or anything! I heard yelling and went over to see if someone was being assaulted and just… walked right into it. You can check the records, if you want.”

She nodded smoothly, which didn’t help his nerves. “Hm. And not even a scar.”

He had Kala to thank for that. Clawed at his eyes, teeth, all the spots that felt freaky when touched by the dead for a more than decent distraction while he put in a call and made a loony-tunes style trap consisting of zip ties, water, some pens and a cat. Not the last one of purpose, but it turned out alright and the cafe got a new kitty out of it.

“Yeah. I get lucky a lot. The nurses at the ER think I’m a cryptid, and one thinks I’m blessed or something? I haven’t really figured it out yet. I only got bruises from the Boat Thing and the EXPO, it’s kinda just a thing I’ve always lived with.”

The dead had protected him for as long as he could remember. Reassuring him in bad homes, telling him where he could get food or shelter or a helpful adult. Leading him to safety when he got lost, telling him stories to cheer him up.

“The current working theory is that I used up all my bad luck when I was tiny. Or that I’m a protagonist, I haven’t chosen just yet, so I’m open to options.”

She kept folding, but nodded along every once in a while. She’d be decent company if it weren’t so creepy talking to her. “The whole neighborhood’s agreed on it, now. Something’s up? They send their kids straight my way, if they can’t make it. They’ve got jobs, so.”

“And you parents don’t mind?”

“My foster parents wouldn’t know the difference either way, frankly.” They weren’t bad at all, he had all the food and showers and bedding he could ever want. Enough freedom to be away for days at a time, see his friends and help people out, living and dead, without suspicion.

She frowned ever so slightly, and seemed to be filing away the information alongside everything else.

“How involved were you in each incident?”

He shrugged again. “I made a med station at New York: Alien Addition, helped the captives on the boat the last time, and at the EXPO I kinda just tailed after Iron Man and… Iron Patriot, is that what they’re calling it now? I cut some wires and shoved a bunch into the creek they had there, but nothing much really before I had to skedaddle because of the whole bomb situation.”

She looked up again, and his instincts screamed. She looked… concerned? Like, legitimately. Not faked at all.

Nope, no, nada. She’s a master spy. She’s totally faking it. Nope, nah, not allowed.

“And what were you trying to do at the EXPO, then?”

He blushed in embarrassment. Not his best moment. “I- uh. I knew neither of them had medical experience, and everyone was rushing around, and they both started being sniped by bots, and I always want to help…” He trailed off, shuffling socked feet on the carpet, a comfortingly worn down and scratchy shag that might have once been white but was now stuck a pale cream-yellow shade.

Who else would have known where the captives were? Would the EMTs have gotten there in time otherwise on the boat? Where scared civilians had tucked themselves away from the robots and the emergency crews?

He saved at least a handful of lives, he knew that. But he’d never be able to explain it. To the living, at least.

Spies die young, right? When she passes, he should explain the whole thing, it seemed only right.

Though it felt majorly wrong waiting around for someone to die to do literally anything, bleh.

“Alright. Pay attention to the door, by way. Surroundings are important.” Like it had been orchestrated, the front door rang, and he started. Kala was signing that it was something important from the hallway, and he scrambled over successfully without slipping or further embarrassing himself.

He opened the door, expecting his foster set back early, the mailman, someone with a noise complaint, the usual.

He did not expect Tony Stark himself.

Chapter Text

He blinked, fought back the urge to immediately shut the door (too much weird too soon, thank you very much) and stared at the man. He seemed… sheepish. Awkward, under his ill-fitting baseball hat and cheap sunglasses, a massive hoodie swallowing him up from below that down to nearly the knees. (though the jeans he could peg as expensive immediately, the man tried)

“Hi. I- uh. You the kid who saved Pepper?”

He scanned his memory for a ‘Pepper’ and came up empty. Maybe the unnamed lady he helped from the Invasion with the broken leg? She ever introduced herself, too confused and disoriented by the pain and sheer ludicrousy of what she was witnessing. But what would Tony Stark have to do with a random civilian?

He could think of a few options, but none that made total sense.

Curses. How was he supposed to respond to that?

Okay, okay. Think. First things first: Tony Stark is at his doorway. Manageable. Stark is a human being same as he is, and seems about as capable of casual non-romantic/political interactions as Grim was. Two: Pepper, someone he knows, and that I saved, and he knows I saved and cares as a result. Not knowing who Pepper is is the main problem here, but how on earth does he address it?

Oh, also his newest pair of watchers will be back from their shifts any minute. He had been risking it with the chat with the Widow, but this was getting dicey.

He can’t even fathom what would happen if they walk up to him with Tony Stark on the doorstep. They weren’t the most respectable sort: the kind that were sitting decently, but got foster kids regularly for extra pocket money.

Anything could happen if they stop this. Manipulation, blackmail, questions he can’t answer, anything in between.

So he clears his throat and throws on a Customer Service Smile(™) and beckons him inside.

“Of course. Come on in. Would you like something to drink, sir?”

Stark blinks, and his facial expression smooths out to something neutral and perfectly polite. A practiced expression.

They were in it together, then.

“Coffee, please. You can never have enough of that, eh?” He steps inside with his polished black boots that click on the cheap hardwood. Grim chews on his lip subtly while he’s facing away from the man.

He’s only got the strongest, cheapest stuff that was palatable on hand.
Maybe he could water it down? No you’d be able to tell, like, immediately.

Well, here we go then. Better make this quick.

Stark settles onto the surprisingly comfortable couch like he owns it (or is in that sitting-how-you’re-not-supposed-to meme) while Grim retreats to the kitchen to think in peace.

God help him. He’s going to keel over from all this potentially dangerous social interactions.

Billionaires, spies, foster parents. Ugh.

He brewed an extra cup for himself in case he had to give himself time to think/regret life decisions by drinking conveniently while talking.

He put on his mental armor, eyed Kala asking if she could rob Stark, shook his head in exasperation and walked in with a confident posture to boot.

“Here. I hope you like it strong.”

Stark snorted with a smirk. “If I didn’t kiddo, I wouldn’t be awake half the time I am.” He accepted it quickly and sipped it far too quickly to not have been burned. So he was a fellow man of culture. (When food was too hot, Grim showed no weakness. Most people try to cool food by like, sucking in air or something. He just swallows and lets his throat burn. Eventually he burns through the tissue and can’t feel a thing, so it evens out in the end)

He sits down on the uncomfortably overstuffed armchair that had almost never been used while he had been in the house.

“You wanna be a doctor or something? I could give you the funds for that easy. What college you aiming for?”

He nearly dropped the mug into his lap, which would have been bad for a variety of reasons, not the least of which the extreme embarrassment.

He sets it down on the side table just to be safe. “I-uh. Don’t know. I’d like to be able to help people and-” Not work late hours so he can wander around helping the living and dead in the constant drama spiral he called life- “make enough not to worry about getting by ever again. You know?” He probably didn’t, considering he had been swimming in bills since he was born.

Damn it, he couldn’t even pull the relatable card here.

Stark nodded, and smirked again. “Done. I’d be happy to put in a good word too… Jarv?”

He blinked as the man’s watch came alive with nothing more than a soft click and flash of blue light. “Yes, sir?”

Stark hummed and took a sip. “Put in a recommendation to all human health colleges in the state. If they’ve got the program, they’re getting an email, you know the drill.”

“Of course sir.” The glass face pushed upwards, revealing more bright neon light, before clicking shut again. Stark thanked him, and Grim considered finding a reason to verbally push him out the door for the sake of his sanity.

“And Brucie-Bear tells me you were at New York too.”

“That is where I live, yes.”

A snort, a friendly smile with a flash of mischievous eyes.

He felt threatened.

“The battle with the space slugs? The Great Invasion For All Armored Bug-Kind? Ring a bell?” A camera ready grin, a pose better settling back in. Looks like all the avengers were way over-dramatic, huh? He’s batting about two and a half to three, so the odd’s aren’t looking great. “Made a med-station. Tried to wave him down.”

He grimaced at the memory, and used the spoon to swirl the molten hot coffee around to give him an excuse to look somewhere else. “He obviously had a concussion.” He managed simply, and Stark nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, we noticed when he got back to base. He’s fine now, that gamma radiation really does wonders, eh?” He took a sip and nodded along, ticking off the dangers of exposure to radiation in his head, once again in utter disbelief of the Hulk.

Maybe there were some scientists that hadn’t survived the blast that could fill in the gaps wandering around Bronx he could track down. It would be useful, if he could feel it in his bones.
Most ghosts can’t move far past the spot where they died, so if they’ve cleared the building the explosion happened in…

“Stark Industries has departments for that kind of thing. H*ll, our interns get living wage.” I blink, and do a double take.

He did not just turn this into an advertisement for his own company. Did he?

“Now, I know this sounds like a sell out, but somehow who can keep cool in that mess is more than welcome over with us. Plus, I want an excuse to boot our Medical Department head that’ll look good. Less ‘he’s a prick’ and more ‘there’s a tiny genius who can do it better than him.’ Preferably from a minority, but don’t let the press hear that. Whad’ya say?” This somehow didn’t feel like an ad. This wasn’t a scripted offer, this was… him legitimately wanting to keep him close.

Huh.

A long moment of silence as he had an internal freak-out. (He moves enough that working anywhere was risky. One day he can be within commute range, the other he’s clear across the city. But steady pay- And being guaranteed a good job and future-)

He snorted. “Yeah, people get like that. Well, Emo Wonder. Call once you think on it a bit more.” His watch produced a slim piece a paper with tiny letter showing a phone and email for JARVIS, which he recognized as his crazy AI project. “Call if you want something else, too, I’ll set it up no problem. And... thanks. Again.” The abrupt change from World Famous Billionaire Albeit A Nice One to An Actual Human Being was striking. Softer, almost. Less on guard.

“I- I’d do it again.” He mumbled, still deep in his own thoughts.

Stark grinned again, chugged the coffee, and made for the door with even, measured steps.

He even walked like a rich guy.

His nostrils flared as he scrambled to follow. The Samsons would be back on average in three minutes, that should be enough time for Stark to be long gone right? Except there’s usually a media frenzy everywhere he goes, so how would this go down?

They uttered polite goodbyes, shook hands, and he made to close the door.

“Honey, why is a man at our door. Dear, did you call for guests?”

His heart skipped a beat. The Samsons were… fine. Uncaring, but providing.

He had seen their type before. Draw attention, cause trouble, you’re out flat on your back, possibly with a fresh bruise. Or maybe you get an awkward dinner conversation and two extra months of steady meals, you can never tell-

He swallowed down the raw anticipation and kept his Customer Service smile firmly in place.

“Samsons.” He ducked his head in a nod, keeping his gaze down and posture relaxed. Mrs. Samson caught sight of Stark, started, then slipped into Important Guest Mode.

“Oh, dear. Call me Mom, how many times do I have to tell you?” A hand gripped his arm, pushing him subtly move inside, and he felt his teeth creak from how hard he was smiling.

Mr. Samson was some political big-shot. He was their ticket to a free good headline and positive press after some tax scandal last month, so he was likely to stay for a good while, even after this.

For better or worse.

So he was probably thinking Stark was here for him, Grim opened the door, and he managed to botch it up somehow. They’d probably crowd him into his room, dance around begging Stark for a good cut in a deal, and then maybe they could all move on with their lives.

He just had to wait a few minutes with the anxiety eating away in his gut. Then he could slip out the window, buy something cheap and messy from that stand two blocks over, track down his friends-

Polished and manicured nails dug into his arm lightly as his socks ground against the carpet. Right, he was supposed to step back. Retreat, stay out of sight and mind.

Hide, hide, hide. Stark can’t help you here before it gets bad. Retreat, retreat right now. Why are you sticking around!?

The Black Widow had slipped back towards the window at Mrs. Samsons shrill exclaiming, picking back up her laundry with a fresh cup of steaming… something at her elbow. Watching, Waiting. Poised and waiting to strike.

Dread settled like a weight in his stomach, but he took a breath and loosened up as Stark explained why he was actually here out of sight on the other side of the chunky dark oak door. Apparently Pepper was his fiance? Whatever. It didn’t matter now. He could look up someone named Pepper’s relationship to one Tony Stark later, for now he had to focus.

Stark joined him in the Please The Public zone, instantly reverting back to that shallow, blank oh so rich man. It was almost disturbing to watch the complete one eighty in character of a person at close range. I had just seen that mean joke about coffee and the wink at me when his watch came to life. Now he had a smile that you could cut yourself on, and the stiffest posture he had ever seen of someone not within range of a threat to their life. Back straight, eyes ahead, smiling and ready for battle.

He weighed the pro and cons of staying and going. Widow could get him moved from an abusive home if he jumped ship, but it was pretty decent here. So he had to stay nearby, but staying in his room at this point wasn’t going to cut it.

D*mn it. Caught between a rock and one very hard place.

“Nius, dear, don’t be rude. Grab the nice man some coffee.”

He’ll take the rock.

Ah, Nius. His ‘presentable to new foster couples’ name, because Grim was ‘his temporary emo rebellion nickname’, silly him.

His lips twitched momentarily into a frown before slamming back into place. His cheeks were going to hurt soon. “I already did, Mrs. Samson.”

“Mom, dear. Lovely.” She scrambled for a reason to get him out of sight, and came up empty. Yeah, him too lady. “Such a polite boy. You’d never know his… background.”

The Samsons were big fans of getting over any mental trouble like it never happened, preferably within a time limit. They treated his depression like a bad cold. A lot.

Normally it was mildly annoying. Now he felt like hiding and never coming out.

Stark glanced at him, and he refused to shrink back. He kept his back uncomfortably straight and whisked both mugs off to the kitchen to buy some time to recover.

Oh, he means “washing the mugs”. Slowly. By hand. And putting them back. After drying them. Slowly. By hand.

The Horsemen would approve.

He listens passively to chatter about business deals and stock percentages, easily accepting that most of what he’s hearing is going right over his head. Oh well. No skin of his nose, at least probably.

Stark sounds stiffer than before, even when he was on the more defensive side. All flash and intimidation, straight as a board.

Huh.

He finishes one mug, gives himself a minute to rid himself of the slimy feel of too much soap and too little water on his hands (ewwww) before painstakingly starting on the second. Luckily coffee left a stain, even if it could be scrubbed away, it would take time to do by hand.

He was so glad he had thought of this.

He wondered if Widow was going to report for child abuse. He hoped not. Going back to the shelter where he had the reputation for being the Weird Witch Kid wouldn’t exactly be pleasant, and the staff there didn’t like him even a little.

Now they’re going on about the benefits of government and economic interests, and how it can be hid from the public eye easily (yikes) and he would be able to do whatever he liked. (double yikes)

Stark shut it down so fast it left him subtly smiling into the sink. He still remembered the time he drove up to a pride march, rolled down the window, and shouted ‘H*ll YEAH, HERE WE GO MY FELLOW GAYS!’ much to the horror of the media and delight of the internet as a whole.

The next day they came out with Pride Iron Man merch, funded different LGBT charities by a lot, and named every Stark business an undisputable safe ground for the community.

Honestly, why did everything have to get so complicated so fast?

Stark left as quickly as possible, and he was locked in his room within a minute of the door closing in a flurry of polite smiles and fake concern.

Fine by him, really.

But then he thought about it.

A superspy, if that was even a thing, was watching him. This meant that if he went to his homeless has-definitely-broken-the-law friends, he’d be putting them in danger. He could always raid vending machines for food for dinner, wander around for a few hours to help people, and then check back in at midnight to sleep. But what if Widow saw him talking to someone that didn’t seem to be there?

Grr.

Well, sitting here and staring at the walls until he got tired didn’t sound appealing.

He sighed, cut his losses, and opened the window he had picked the lock on last month.

Soda sounded pretty good right about now.

Chapter Text

He’d stopped caring overly much about the figure with a quiver of arrows strapped to his back about two hours ago, and instead focused on using the little pocket change he had to make some homeless people’s lives that much better. He was already decently well known; a kid to talk to if you had no one else, someone who could give you some comfort food or a new shirt free of charge.

Getting ‘em new hats and such for the winter when banned from helping the dead seemed par for the course.

He got a cheap painting set for a doodler on a street corner (a lovely man who was a failed artist, made him silly sketches in thanks every time they spotted one another) and burner phones for everyone who will allow him (stupid pride and egos) so that they can talk to one another and stuff. He tells them to be wary of the man that is following him, but not to try and beat the sh*t out of him, yeah?

He can only imagine the consequences of a group of angry homeless people beating a superhero.

Actually, he can’t. (won’t)

New York is alive, even at eleven at night on a Thursday. Sure, it’s a different kind of alive then at noon; every crowd has an even sprinkling of drunks and lovesick couples among them. The dead smile at him over (or through) shoulders and heads, and he makes a mental note to help a man with a busted eye on a later date, and lets Kala, his friendly high-school age trickster companion, comfort him in the meantime.

It doesn’t help the guilt of leaving him to that pain, but the sugar high from the soda and the raw distraction factor of the city does.

He wandered into a 24-hour pizza place that had free breadsticks today to gorge himself and pass the time. The owner was a lovely lady named Mrs. Sangrino, and she rather liked him, especially after he chased away a robber. (That incident had the vibe of Crime Man. Out-crime the criminals. Not his fault his friends went a little wild!)

Then he surfed from coffee bar to coffee bar to get that caffeine high to make it through the night, and found several hole-in-the-wall bookshoppy types- with old leather chairs and enough shelves to fill an off brand IKEA.

He bought himself a sandwich with some emergency pocket money with his second cup, as a makeshift dinner combined with the breadsticks from earlier. Then he looked in his bag and found that Sangrina had slipped a slice of cheese pizza in his bag wrapped securely in wax paper.

He munched moodily (he needed the food, sure, but-!)(it was probably why he was so short. Hadn’t gotten all the calories he needed to be a basketball player) as he wandered/people watched.

Then he got mugged.

He didn’t feel very threatened, considering the dummy tried to steal from someone who looked homeless and very much not caring about his own safety or wellbeing. Not to mention his stance with that knife was laughable. But the figure on the roof started moving towards ‘im much faster than before.

He glanced between the mugger and the possible government-agent/Avenger. Mugger. Shadow archer. Mugger. Superhero.

He kicked the man in between the legs and booked it, grumpily trying not to drop his crust as he ran.

Grunts and curses behind him. He felt a bit bad, but unless he was already injured right there it wasn’t like it was anything permanent. He’d hate to doom someone without healthcare to anything more than a papercut.

He made sure to steer clear of where his friends hung out more often.

Eventually his lungs started prompting for revolution, and he was two doors down from a coffee shop. Not a big-bucks kinda one, but a smaller, quainter shop that popped up every few blocks. Hidden Secrets. He could smell dark-roast and cinnamon, and spotted pastries on display inside. He didn’t hear anything from behind him, either, which was encouraging.

Good enough for me.

He dashed inside and definitely did not wince at the annoyed looks he got when he barrelled in and came to a screeching halt.

He looked around. It was an exposed-brick sort of place, one that fancies itself historical or whatever, but had a distinct lack of TVs, which he was grateful for. Black-leather seats, wooden tables polished to a cloudy shine.

He tried his best not to gape at the man ordering at the counter, he really did.

Did every Avenger have a subconscious guideline set whenever going in public? Like: Being a Totally Normal Person Base Kit: oversized hoodie and baseball hat. Dark sunglasses. Jeans as dark as your soul. Slouched posture and hands constantly stashed in pockets. Congrats, you are a Regular Civilian, Yup, Definitely.

I mean, who’s not going to recognize Captain America even with a sulky teenager’s getup?

Everyone with eyes was the answer, but were tactfully ignoring it. Several were too hopped up on caffeine and misery to even consider giving a sh*t, while the others were content to let the sleeping wolf lie.

He had found where the Thawed American Dream adjusted to modern life, then.

A ghost hovered in the corner, a little boy dressed like he had lived sometime in the industrial revolution. He grinned conspiratorially at Grim, and in that moment he knew that his way too eventful day had yet to wind down.

D*mn it.

The American Wonder Boy was shockingly down to earth. Grim got himself another sandwich (which he pocketed) and a coffee with sugar this time around no matter how much he hated the bitterness, and managed to chat idly with him in line. He thought the girl behind the counter was rude. Grim thought she looked dead on her feet.

He’s really in for a ride huh? Twenty first century all at once must be nuts.

He gets his order with extra shots of espresso to keep up that energy buzz to hold himself back. Captain (“I’m Steve. You?” “Uh… don’t laugh.”) insisted they sit together, and they sit in awkward silence for a half a beat while Grim internally screams.

“So. Everything alright? Ran in here like your heels were on fire.”

Oh yeah, two of your friends just verbally beat me up, I nearly got mugged, I don’t know they next time I’m going to eat or sleep, and the entire city's dead population have at least three odd jobs they needed him for. Totally normal.

He bites down on a hysterical laugh (smile!) before taking a long drink to buy himself time. God, he’s going to have so much caffeine in his system tonight.

He considers how to respond. Most republicans thought Golden Boy would support them, but he knew for a fact that was bull. There were grainy pictures of him in picket lines, letters of him supporting women's rights, recorded speeches against minority descrimination, the whole nine yards. So overall not the worst person to be asking the wrong questions.

But he was also a superhero with a bleeding heart, and would be emotionally obligated to help him out. Not to mention legally.

He didn’t even want to know what would happen if the Samsons blacklisted him in the system. With the government on his tail. And his main friends being renowned thieves.

He took another sip for good measure.

He stares into the man’s eyes and hopes the sheer social anxiety would stop him.

It didn’t. And now he felt weird.

Captain grinned calmingly, and grabbed his backpack from the back of his chair. “Take a walk with me.”

He didn’t like the sound of that.

But he wasn’t dumb enough to think he could get away from the man either.

He chugged the coffee and prayed.

He could hardly comprehend how dumb some of the Avengers were. Stark could barely calmly lead a private conversation with a teenager. Banner refused medical attention.
Rogers led him right to the Tower, personally made sure he got in past reception, and shooed him into some lounge area under ‘avenger level clearance’ without any sort of explanation. If Grim was much dumber than he was, he’d be flipping out. The window, maybe.

Okay. Okay. He could handle this. This was fine. Everything was hunky-dory.

“Sit down. Tea? Water? Milk? No more coffee, it’s bad for you.” He knew drugs were bad, thank you Captain Obvious.

“Uh. Honey tea? Just like, hot water with honey.” He liked sweet teas, but most were herbal or whatever. Plus it was good for his throat.

The man didn’t react past a nod, and wandered off into the kitchen. Leaving him to stare into the cushions of the couch opposite him in silent wonder at… really everything about right now.

How in the h*ll was he supposed to deal with this?

How could he spin this? The Samsons would be pissed if he ditched ‘em and their reputation did a nose dive, so that was out.

Maybe something about being scared because of past abuse and whatever? That might work. Paired with mugging that could be pretty convincing. And he could be comforted by American’s Golden Boy, and be back to sleep by breakfast time.

But if Black Widow came back by some wild chance…

Urg.

This was a headache waiting to happen. He could feel it.

There’s no way he can tell the truth, and very few places where he can tell a lie.

God help him, the chain-smoking, drunk f*ck.

Well. If this was what was going to happen then he was d*mn well going to get some food out of it. Something more substantial than garlic bread, a bit of cheese pizza and bean water.

“Hey, am I allowed in the kitchen too?” He didn’t wait for the grunt of acknowledgement before slipping off the couch.

He was going to win on one front or the other, god of gen z help him.

ANNOUNCEMENT!
Hi! Jay here. I've put one of my works on pause (Robots and Heroes) due to lack of inspiration. If you guys wanna read it and throw some ideas my way or adopt it was your own, that would be cool. Otherwise, the updates past here are going to stop being daily because I'm running out of pre-written stuff to post. Enjoy reading!

Chapter Text

Stark kept his kitchens well stocked, it seemed. Grim neatly packed four salads, three ham sandwiches, (fully loaded) and loose bags of fruit or veggies while Rogers looked on in mild concern as they waited for the kettle to boil. 

He considered the drinks in the fridge for a second. He had two water bottles, one for water he could refill, and one for those instant coffee packets he had in case he was dependent on coffee when he had to ditch. But something else for flavor wouldn’t hurt. 

Two orange and apple juices join the origami pile in his backpack, carefully packed between school supplies he doesn’t use for school and clothing, toiletries, emergency stashes, burner phones, (three, because he was paranoid and those things broke way too easily) and first aid. 

He really wouldn’t be able to fit much more, so he zipped up the bag and prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that the weird looks wouldn’t last too long. 

Luckily, Rogers dropped it when the water started to boil, busying himself with mugs (he got Grim a stupid little goth one with black roses, it was… nice) and honey and tea packets with his back turned and very pointedly not scruitinizing him. 

He despaired at where this was going when Captain turned around with the mugs in hand, shooing him over to a giant, gleaming wooden table. There was no escape now.

“So.” he said as they both sat down. “Talk to me.”

Oh no, this was going to be horribly awkward, wasn’t it? 

He stirred his tea and stared into the faintly golden depths as he internally panicked. He could go with the mugging, that should fly. No, I’m not injured sir. Not a scratch. Yes, I was just scared because of a past experience with knives. Haha, you know, foster system, amiright?

“I was mugged. Wasn’t really a big deal.” Can’t tell them he knows how to fight cause of a small pack of street rascals… “Kicked ‘im where the sun don’t shine and booked it. He was making it a bit of a scene so I kept runnin’. Ran into the coffee shop, and well. Yeah.”

Rogers looked like he half-believed him, which was never a good sign. And he had even been telling the truth! (very unfair)

But he nodded along, so at least he was polite about it, even if he had a deplorable poker face. “Right. Very smart of you, good job.”

Grim nodded along, and took a sip to buy himself time in case this was going somewhere.

It was.

“But- Well. I don’t know the modern terms, but you had the thing I would call the hundred yard stare-”

Oh no-

“And I just got concerned is all. I’d like it if you could tell me the truth, that’s it.” 

Oh no-

The elevator dinged, and for the second time today he nearly dropped the extremely hot liquid all over himself. He was too twitchy right now for any of this.

“Oi, Mr. ‘Merica, up for another round? You’re getting better my guy.” Climt Barton, Avengers name Hawkeye strolled into the kitchen and immediately snagged a bag of m&m's from seemingly nowhere along with a red gatorade and a bag of chips, he rounded on Grim with a searching expression.

“Who’s your friend, Wonder Boy?” Rogers sighed at the nicknames. 

“A kid I meant in a coffee shop. Just having a chat, is all. And no thank you, I’m really not.” 

Clint pouted. “Turning down the wonders of Mario Kart, a true sin. So, you wanna play then? Don’t leave me hanging, kid.” 

Was this some weird interrogation tactic? He liked it better when the superspies were upfront.

He should have seen this coming. He had been stalking him across the rooftops for hours, of course he would follow him onto home territory.

Stupid, stupid, stupid-

“Sure.” He faked a smirk (now was not the time) and Barton led him over to the massive couch.

It was far too plush. He felt like he could sink into it, become one with upholstery. 

But no. Life is disappointment and there was no escape. 

Barton booted up Mario Kart and handed him a controller. As the title loaded up, Barton glanced over at him. Rogers plopped down a bit down from the man, probably trying to give him space or whatever. 

“So. What’s on your mind?”

Just repeat it from earlier. You’ll be fine. There’s no way he’ll press you on that completely true story over a video game-

“Got mugged. Really wasn’t a big deal, shouldn't have been so touchy about it. Ran, ended up in a coffee shop with Captain America, and was just shaken up enough to strike up a conversation.”

He had been so dumb. Why hadn’t he just quietly ordered and moved on? He already had enough to deal with without this mess-

Barton snorted, and picked Rainbow Road without asking him, then Yoshi. Clint scanned the character screen, most of the people he was unfamiliar with, and felt a hint of irony at the cartoonish ghost of to one side. 

He picked it with a shrug. 

“Right, kid. I know that look. What else?”

Well, f*ck. 

Maybe he could force him to be more upfront?

He set his jaw and took a breath. “Look, could you just be straightforward, I know you were following me. Black Widow’s my next door neighbor, man, I’m not dumb. I’m a person of interest, right? Someone to keep an eye on? Godamn it, I barely have a criminal record. Are you guys bored or something?” Once he opened his mouth, it wouldn’t stop. By the time his brain caught up to his tongue, he had successfully dug his own grave.

Barton stared at him thoughtfully, then clicked the start button and cackled when Grim startled to attention. “Yeah, command thinks your some big player because you’ve been at all these crazy events. I think that’s bull, though, so no sweat. And according to our favorite spider-” he waved his phone, a sleek StarkPhone he would never be able to afford for him to see. “You’ve got a really fun set of fosters. So, spill.”

Mission failed. This was going to crash and burn horribly.

He grinded his teeth a bit to ground himself again. “The Samsons are a political family. I’m their ticket to good ratings this election, and I’m not allowed out until they get a shiny new headline. I mean, that’s fine. I get food  and a good bed and all. But…” He trailed off, hoping the spy could put the puzzle together without him putting it all together.

“But they suck and there’s no out, so you ditched, probably with a deal to come back with social events so you wouldn’t have a tail.”

Grim’s mind flashed to the note left on his dresser with that exact offer, and barrelled into the abyss in his cart. The ghost would be fine, it wasn’t like he could die again or something. And winning was the last thing on his mind.

Grim swallowed as he realized just what he had gotten himself into. F*ck.

They both ignored Roger’s shell-shocked expression, and Barton finished his first lap with subdued cheering.

They finished the race in shaky silence. At the end of it Barton handed him the unopened bag of chips. 

They looked at each other for a second, Grim trying to figure out if this was some sort of apology for the ultra-awkward confession, Clint considering his options. 

“Ya know we can handle a few senators, right? Can even sweep it under the rug if you like. Look, kid-”

“I haven’t been a kid for a long time, Arrow Man.”

“-sleep in one of the guest rooms. Tony’s stressed about something for he won’t even notice if you keep on the down-low. And Jarvis won’t tell, won’t ya buddy?”

“Not unless specifically prompted according to my programming.”

Clint did finger guns at the ceiling while Grim had a heart attack and realized that all could have been on camera and also he was in a super intelligent AI’s f*cking home. 

Rogers jumped on the bandwagon without a hint of hesitation. “He’s right. There’s tons of guest rooms, and Tony takes in kids anyway.” Clint cackled, and mumbled something about science children. Grim decided he didn’t want to know, and let himself be steered in the direction of the elevator.

Next thing he knows, he’s inside a five-star hotel-ish room with an armload of snacks, his bag, a couple of goodnights from the Avengers duo, and assurance that the door was locked from the AI.

Grim blinked at the window, which had plain grey curtains pulled, hiding a probably fantastic view, for a few moments, before cutting his losses. (losses and winnings. A mixed bag of a day, truly)

He set his bag carefully on a foot rest thing on the foot of the massive bed, dumped the snacks on the oak desk, didn’t bother to change out of some weird fear of being recorded, and laid down stiffly on the too-comfortable bed.

What even was his luck.

But he was no fool. He would take the bed and food for the price of a few awkward conversations, easy. He just needed to scram real quick and disappear for a while. It’d be harder without the Horsemen’s help, but he knew a thing or two as well. He’d be fine.

‘Yeah, command thinks your some big player because you’ve been at all these crazy events.’

Or maybe not.

Who on earth did the Avengers report to? The President? He was half-sure he had saved him from like murder and all, so maybe if he got a false charge after all he could use that little bargaining chip. Maybe he should just leave this sinking boat of a country. But how?

He groaned into the pillow, which felt like pressing his head into a cloud. 

He was doomed.

He had a hard time sleeping, what with the omnipresent AI possibly watching his every move, plus all the coffee in his system, (he played stupid phones games for like half the night) and got up at seven with a solid five hours of sleep. Overall, not too bad.

He still desperately needed that instant coffee, but he was prepared for that.

He ate a sandwich and some fruit and felt like he was back in elementary school, before watching some cat videos to cheer himself up on his phone. No one can judge someone for watching cute cats play tag.

The day passed with an odd quality of timelessness. Time didn’t matter, it being noon or four didn’t change what he was doing. It was a weird feeling, but not unwelcome. The lack of stress from the isolation paired with a game plan made him relaxed enough to enjoy it. He had canned soup for lunch, and looked around for cameras. (he found none)(he eventually gave up and went back to watching medical, phycology, political, and self-defense advice videos.)

Then at five in the afternoon Barton swung down in a perfect backflip form the air vents. 

He stared in dumb shock. He hadn’t considered that. How did he even fit in the vents? How did they hold up his weight? Did Stark specifically design his tower to be spy-friendly or something? 

Nope, he didn’t want to know, he was not thinking about that right now.

“Okay, kid. Whatever’s bothering Tony must’ve hit the road, because he’s fine today. He’s been in his lab until now, so don’t come out to the kitchen, yeah? I’ll bring up I dunno, adoption to him.”

Grim felt like he was having heart palpitations. Not from a risk of being caught, but the idea of being adopted into the Stark lineage. The media attention alone would kill him.

He nodded dumbly and watched the archer jump right back into the vent, hoist the grate back into place, and scurry off on his merry way without a sound. 

He didn’t know whether to be impressed or weirded out. 

He looked up into the siler-painted metal grate, which blew cold air innocently into his face. 

And then he decided that he wasn’t doing that right now, and drank an apple juice to make himself feel better. Again. 

Tony Stark stormed in at about three AM. That timeless feeling had only increased into the early hours of the morning as sleep evaded him (his body was starting to process after his mind had finished up, makes sense) so he had been chilling in bed within convenient reach of the exit and also snacks. This means that when the billionaire idiot extraordinaire barged in with all the grace of a drunk walrus, he took a page out of Barton’s book and was in the vents before either of them could fully process it.

He peeked down at the weirded face of the man, considering his options. Had Jarvis snitched? He didn’t know the floorplan of the regular tower, let along the ventilations. Maybe Barton was coming to bail him out? Maybe he should try the window? (no that’s too risky, what if Kala doesn’t catch him properly?)

Neither of them seemed to know how to proceed in this situation, which was kinda nice; they were on equal footing. Kinda. 

They stared at each other before a soft chime echoed in the silence. “If I may, sirs.” 

Tony blinked. “Hey, J-man?”

Grim didn’t know how to feel about any of this. 

“I would advise you both stay calm and talk this out civilly. For both of your sakes.” Hearing Jarvis while in the vents was an interesting experience. The sound of his lilting voice echoed and was coming from two spots at once, creating a spooky effect that let him know exactly where each part of his body was. The steel of the grate dug uncomfortably into his palms as he eyed the billionaire with the power to functionally blacklist him from existence.

Stark swallowed and grimaced, then schooled his features briefly before it once again melted into a tired frown. 

“Right, right. Sorry, kid. I didn’t mean to scare you. I-uh.” He shook his head probably to himself before getting back on track. Grim could physically feel the awkwardness in the air. Would it go away if he left the vents? That might work… 

“Look, I’m sorry for earlier. With your parents.”

He blinked, and absorbed that. “Foster parents.” 

Stark nodded. “Clint filled me in. I could- sue them? If you want? I mean, I was already going to weasel you away from them and hopefully with a job with me, but uh…”

Grim stared into his eyes and tried to find a hint of malice. The papers would have you believe he was a manic mess of man hopped up on god knows what and riding the highest high possible of life. But he was just… a guy. A rich one, sure. But also incredibly awkward and protective in that weirdly nice way and shockingly pleasant company over bad coffee.

He reluctantly dropped out of the ventilation. He grabbed his bag and flung it over his shoulders, then straightened up and waited for Stark to start talking.

He would have preferred another round of Mario Kart with Barton at this rate.

Apparently Stark indeed was a serial adopter. He learned of Peter Parker, a shy nerd at a local honor’s school that also happened to be Spiderman, Shuri, a princess running a whole country he had never heard of, (what kind of madness was this-) Harley, nickname ‘Potato Boy’ by Stark, and mentioned something about turning his garage into a workshop after Stark met him, and something about Ohio, and Riri, who had been inspired by his suit to make her own and then things had kidna just spiralled out of control or reasonable logic. 

Clint grinned at him from where he was making an omelette at the stove, and winked. “Welcome to the family, kiddo.”

Stark started. “Right! Paperwork! God, I’ve wanted to take the foster system by storm for years Pep just wouldn’t let me without a reason but now-!” 

Grim didn’t want to know where this was going anymore. He made himself a smoothie with lots of fruits and some kale and yogurt and sipped it every once in a while while watching Stark mess around with holograms. He hadn’t even known those existed, but sure, yeah, let’s just keep going down this absurd rabbit hole.

They set up shop in the kitchen/living room/lounge area of the tower for a few hours. Clint picked Mario Kart back up while rambling about future prank plans, and Stark was up to his eyeballs in a mixture of holograms and important-looking-papers at the bar. He kept making different drinks every hour or so.

He glanced over from the breakfast bar when the elevator dinged, and the doors opened. And out strode one Miss Black Widow.

They looked at each other. She looked at Barton, then Stark. Back to him.

And she silently walked down the hallway in the direction of the bedrooms.

He saluted her with his half-empty glass (now full with cherry coke, since he never had this stuff, like, ever-) in understanding.

He didn’t want to be in this nonsense either.

Did that mean her weird stalker mission on him was done? That was nice. He could work with that. Ya know, not being hounded by the government and all. And he’d be able to see his friends, too.

He eyed the way-too-intense video game match with mild interest. Could he swipe some candy bars for them? They used candy as a currency in their weird betting/gambling network within themselves to be less bored all the time. Maybe Stark has a stash somewhere? If he had chips, he must have chocolate, right? Unless Barton had those in his back pocket by some miracle, but he didn’t exactly see him pull them out of a cabinet either. 

This was hurting his brain far more than it should. 

He wondered where the other Avengers were. Granted it was about four in the morning, but if he was willing to bet on any group of people having crippling insomnia, it would probably be these guys. (or his fellow foster suckers) Rogers had holed up in his room hours ago, and he had yet to lay eyes on Banner since the attack. Thor was probably off in his freaky alternate dimension, he seemed like the type to just scram if something wasn’t actively going on. War-mongering god and all. Scarlet Witch was famously introverted, completely stone-walling any interactions with the public at every turn, which he could work with. Stony silence was familiar, more so than any of this mess.

He was still a bit sour about how Banner reacted at the attack. He knew from experience concussion were like a drug trip and a dream/nightmare combo all at once, and the man had been driving. Into a verifiable war-zone.

So yeah, he’s a slight bit salty. Just a little. (he just threw himself into danger as his super persona, absolutely no worries about himself the idiot-)

Kala appears, bringing with her an armload of sweaters, wool socks and stuff, and winter pants, along with what looked like the basic set-up for a hammock.

He raised an eyebrow, unwilling to sign ever since he caught sight of the aides in Barton’s ears an hour or so ago and she grinned conspiratorially. “Relax. They’re chain store stuff. I got warm and cold. And fidget.” She held up a cheap-looking fiddle cube proudly, and he wasn’t about to start complaining. He would have trouble with this if she was robbing some mom-and-pop shop blind, but he was perfectly fine swiping something from Target in an emergency. 

Stark was out of his mind. He’d probably be gone soon enough, and the goodies would be well appreciated. Besides, his feet were always cold, and he liked being able to get that nervous energy out before he snapped at someone and started risking his well-being for zilch and nada. 

But at least he wasn’t dying anymore. Maybe he should ask about that, actually. That seemed important. He just didn’t know who he’d go about it. He didn’t have obvious health problems you might see after a poisoning, (nature held no true antidotes. You might pop the anti-pill, but you still probably had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency care anyway. It’s so much easier to kill someone than to save them, biologically anyway) like vomiting or hair loss, or an unwillingness to eat stuff he himself hadn’t made, which was always good.

What, had someone been blowing darts at him then? Maybe putting gas in the vents?

Maybe he wasn’t a main character. Maybe he was just some schmuck who wandered in and out of plots for the comedy of it. Well, f*ck that. (wouldn’t that make him a protagonist anyway? Maybe in a spin off??) 

Instead of sleeping how he probably should, he decides to properly investigate the expensive-but-make-it-minimalist lounge he’s found himself in. The U-couch is leather, and totally pristine, which is almost unholy. The table is less magazine-ready; larger than what’s ‘stylish’ to be more practical. There’s abstract art on the walls, and a wrapping wall of windows split into dozens of panels. Tabloids are sprinkled liberally around the entire place; the cork board off to one side with a headline declaring ‘AVENGERS: HEROES OR HAZARDS?’ has a few darts sticking out of it and a comforting number of holes. There’s a couple printed-out pages of Avengers memes, which is weird but he’ll let it slide, and coffee cups are everywhere you look. There’s also knives laying around on the couch, and tucked in between books? He presumes Barton is going to dramatically pull a knife out of ‘nowhere’ later, Widow didn’t seem the type. 

The walls are that usual beige color you would find in a designer photo, but the crown-molding running around the place up against the ceiling is a fun mixture of neon red and gold, and black. 

He suspects an inside joke here. In fact, he sees one staring him in the face.

He blinks groggily, and the limited amount of sleep hits him like a train, which is very rude. He sighs, and peers over at Crazy Man One and Two. Barton was on five out of fifteen rounds, and Stark was making a bloody mary with his back turned. Good.

He slipped back towards the bedroom he had claimed earlier, and opened it cautiously. Nothing. Certainly no vengeful Black Window for stepping on her territory.

He crashed into the bed and loosned up, letting every muscle relax to get his mind to calm down as well.

Yeah, he could use this. Wasn’t so bad. 

Maybe.

Chapter Text

The next day he looked a bit closer at the lives of the Avengers. In all ways possible, really. There was the small details that made them human; Steve was sketching the New York skyline to compare it to an old drawing from way back when in the ‘40s. Barton gushed about how well his daughter did on an exam while spectacularly burning an omelette and Romanov made a perfect plate of scrambled eggs. Stark was grinning into a hologram Grim could only assume to represent the sins of the foster system.

But then he focused on what only he could see. The mournful crowd dogging Romanov’s every step, murmuring about tragedies long past. None looked vengeful or angry, even when one outlined the fact that most of them had been her targets. Sad, sure. Robbed, maybe. But they didn’t blame her. One whispered about a dark story years ago. Little girls in some ballerina-themed horror movie spy mix nightmare. He blanched and backed off after promising to not hurt her. (hah, right. She was Black Widow, but fair enough) 

Stark had a similar entourage. More of them were angry, yeah. Ranting about capitalism, (fair) billionaires, (also fair) and the wrongs that had been done to them. He listened as respectfully as he could while making a smoothie and bagel with his coffee. But more were nudging water glassesand plates with food towards Stark, and delicately dragging shot glasses just a little bit farther away from his elbow. One smiled conspiratorially in his direction over some paperwork, and from then on he refused to approach them, and Stark as a result. Poor guy didn’t get it, but he didn’t need to. 

Steve had a bunch of people following him around yelling about winter and metal arms, trains and mind control. He made a mental note to look into ‘octopus organizations with mind control in Europe’ and left it at that. Lots of these guys had injuries, and he needed to figure out how to handle that with a superintelligent AI watching his every move, maybe. Jarvis seemed polite enough, but Grim knew next to nothing about him, and he had trust issues with people he could see, let alone ones somewhere in the ceiling. 

The answer for now came in the form of ‘sorting’ his bag in his room, (like he didn’t have that thing down to a science by now, psh) leaving the medical supplies in clear view and easily accessible, and not commenting when bandages and stitching supplies mysteriously disappeared. Underneath other stuff, so Jarvis wouldn’t have a good angle to get proof. He felt real smart for that one.

And tired. God, coffee addictions while stressed out suck. 

Oh yeah, and someone hacked his phone. Invited him to a group called Science Bros, which he stared at dumbly before clicking away quickly and leaving that be. 

For an hour.

KittyMajesty: I was told there w be a newbie where he at

PotGunzMan: idk, ask Dad

Webster: We are not calling Mr. Stark that

Webster: ok who changed my name

IronWoman: No we totally are

PotGunzMan: It’s a mysteryyyyy

Webster changed Webster ’s name to Spidey

Spidey changed PotGunzMan ’s name to PotatoJerk

PotatoJerk:  oh h yeah

Well then. Not like this could be worse than vying for kitchen space with two known super assassins and worrying about medical treatment of the dead inside a highly fortified and security-intensive building. 

New User has changed their name to SpookyGoth

SpookyGoth: what fresh Hell have I been introduced to

Spidey: Hi!!1!!!

KittyMajesty: oh good. What type of nerd are you

SpookyGoth: excuse me what

PotatoJerk:  yeah like I do potato engineering

He didn’t even know where to begin with that. 

IronWoman: run. Run while u can

Encouraging. 

Spidey: i do really any interesting project but i like doing stuff for mutants!!!

SpookyGoth: medicine, then, would be closest

Spidey: oh then we can help each other!!

PotatoJerk: nooooo

IronWoman: *well get em next time bois*

KittyMajesty: oh yeah there’s definitely going to be a next time lol

He wonders what this lot would think about his little ghostly hobby, and huffs a laugh. 

SpookyGoth: What about the rest of u

KittyMajesty : I run the military of my country :)

IronWoman: nanotech

SpookyGoth: ...right

He had a vague idea on what nanoengineering was. Something about tiny robots. Maybe mind reading? Like, controlling the bot with your thoughts. Real science fiction stuff.

He’d look it up later, when his pride was down. 

Still. Intimidating stuff. Less so in a memey chatroom, but still. Especially when his burner phone was terrible so it was all sorts of blurry on top of being cracked six ways to Sunday. 

He sighs, and leans up against the wall in thought. He had hoped to be able to ditch sometime soon, but he can’t just scram when a good portion of the ghosts in NY that still in New York are within shouting distance bleeding onto the expensive flooring. So what to do, then?

Tell Stark? ‘Oh yeah, Mr. Bad Decisions, I can see the dead and you’ve got a lot hanging out around you. Wanna swap tragic backstories? Huh? How? How should I know, tough guy? No you can’t expirement on me.’ 

Yeah, that’d go great.  

He rubbed at his temple, feeling the beginning of a headache sprout behind his eyes. But what other choice did he have? Take his chances with the AI? Sneaking in later preferably shortly before fleeing the country?

What a mess. 

Maybe… he could test Stark. See how he reacts under stress. Make sure he doesn’t blow up to kingdom come and all before giving it a go, because damn his hero complex or whatever but he wasn’t about to just walk out now. 

Risky, but better. And it was probably all he had. He did better in the heat of things, not before anyway. But he covered his bases anyhow, there’s no excuse for being dumb.

He starts out with simple things; making small messes around him. He ‘trips’ with the coffee pot. Stark looks only mildly upset, and mostly over having to wait an extra five minutes for his bean water. He doesn’t lash out at all; he just grumbles lightly, cracks a terrible joke about insomnia and butter fingers, and goes back to his fancy blueprints. 

Shattered mug? ‘You’re fine, kid. Hey Jarv, get a cleaning bot in here before one of us cuts our foot open, buddy.’ 

Knocks over a stack of important papers? ‘Thanks for the distcraction, kiddo. Say, wanna know how to make a flamethrower?’ (he did, indeed, want to know how to make a flamethrower)

So he starts bothering him, comforted by the chances of him lashing out being pretty low even when he tries to rile him up. He keeps asking questions about Jarvis and the tower and the Avengers. Nothing that gets Black Widow to look at him suspiciously about, just basic stuff he wants to know for his own sanity. Stark only jokingly swears him to secrecy about Jarvis’ code and outlines the way the AI was ‘born.’ (one very crazy, coffee/redbull fueled college night. He made a mental note to talk to ‘Rhodes’ about Stark when he was younger, if nothing else for a funny story) 

Virginia Potts rolls in at nine o’clock in the morning sharp to herd Stark to a meeting he had ignored. She gave Grim a soft smile, and he nods seriously, scanning her for lasting injuries from The Boat. Nothing visible, no sings of lasting pain. Good.

Halfway through the week he’s 99% sure Stark might be the most slow-to-anger adult he’s ever willingly interacted with. But should 4 ½ days of anger testing really be good enough when he’s a mutant with the government on his tail?

Okay, okay. So he could just… test him in a situation like that, but without the higher stakes. Yeah. 

Alright. Time to ramp things up.

The problem, though, was finding a problem to point him in the direction of in the first place. He brainstormed for half a day before feeling like an idea. Obviously he couldn’t rat out his street rat friends, but th disaster couple with the freaky alien tech? Absoultutly! Stark might even enjoy the weird science aspect to boot.

But getting the government involved would be a must, and he could scope out the reactions in all parties during the fireworks.

To kick things of, he got dressed in his usual blend-in outfit: (which now made him smirk whenever he wore it, thinking back to his ludicrous meeting with Rodgers and his classic sulking teen getup) black jeans, a baggy hoodie in gray, scuffed-up high-tops he got out of a church donation box half a year ago, (he hated hardcore religious families with his entire soul) and a dark blue beanie to hide his hair. All any witnesses would be able to say is that he was white-aisan, younger, and didn’t possess a lick of self-restraint of self-preservation. 

Not that he was planning to get too involved, but he came prepared where he could. 

Step one; go to the safehouse they had mentioned once in whispers when the police nearly ganked ‘em towards the end of his time with them. Easy; it was an abodnoned warehouse with literally no one around. He trekked through the shadier districts without trouble (well-versed in how to blend in, even when obviously not a local. The trick is to look like you’d definitely hit back if someone jumped ya. Self-doubt just isn’t an option) and slipped in through a window someone had opened, presumably so whatever blue-tinged fumes the glowy power sources they were using didn’t kill them all. He had to shimmy through some home-made air filtartion device they had set up so no one would notice the odd smell in the area, but no sweat. He took some pictures on each of his burner phones of the very much illegal weapons manufacturing and trading, found an abondoned peice of paper that had apparently been used for recruiting recently; and snapped a picture of that to. God, these people were dumb. 

The door creaked open. He stopped where he was smoothly; sudden movements would give him away. He was facign away from the door, which was good: the face is the easiest part to make out at a glance. 

He inched towards the dark section where three crates, two next to each other and one ontop, met and ducked inside when nobody immediately went through the door. Their hand was still fiddling with the lock, and he could hear low swearing about broken keys. 

Dumb, but not violent. 

He shuffled through his bag- he had purposufully kept it open in prepaeration for something like this- and grabbed the taser a friend had given him years ago. The switchblade he had in the same pocket would be a last resort, along with the varying chemical and smoke bombs. 

If he could get out of this with a quick jab-and-run, he was doing it. 

He leaned over to get a a bad angle on the entering figure that wouldn’t reveal his face in the dim light. His thumb tapped a couple of time on the phone screen, and he was recording. Just to makeu sure no one could throw this back in his face with some ‘what if you were part of the gang, punk’ logic. 

“So you got a kid.” A voice he didn’t regonize that reminded him of a country song of a guy obviously drunk crooning about his tractor hit his ears. Middle-aged, while. Mid-western, maybe. From the great Corn Land section of America. 

“Mhm.” That he regonized. It was the dude in his old disaster foster couple. He had been less in love with the booze and beneifets of their lifestyle as his partner was, and more so the thrill and the powerful feeling it might bring. Adrenaline junkie to the max.

He was obviously annoyed too, which didn’t spell great things for him if they spotted him. 

“You got a kid.” 

“We needed the money, dude. Lay off.”

“Yeah, yeah. So the coppers come, and you know he knows junk, and you let him go?” 

“Little brat was slippery. Vaulted right over the counter to get to the boys in blue and right out the door before I could thwack him.”

Oh yeah, that had been fun. Try dodging armed goons and officers in a state of half-starvation and see how you like it, why don’t you.

The vaulting had been kinda cool though. He needed to do that more often; for some reason people didn’t see it coming.

“And you didn’t like, follow up with ‘im at the station, or the next home.” The two ducked inside, and the wide beam fo golden sunlight thinned down to a sliver as they pulled the massive door shut with a rattle. 

“How was I supposed to know where he ended up? I was busy getting me and my girl out. Trigger-happy b*stards.” Disaster Guy wandered away from his buddy, hands in moto-jacket pockets with a scowel on his face. He was staring aimlessly at the wall and Grim smirked. He never had stellar situational awareness, the poor bloke.

A snort, carrying a sentiment Grim could agree with. “Damn straight.” 

The window was still open, but it was over a series of crates that would give him away, plus getting through the DIY filtration would cost him valuable time. Being followed wouldn’t be an option.

Neither would staying to long. The blue haze in the room got worse as the man he didn’t know literally punched open a crate. He started taking shallower breaths, and looked through his bag for something to help. Tissue wouldn’t do much, nope, that’s bandages, he’s got a limited number fo those- ahah, a bandana. He used it sometimes to tie his hair back or keep his poor scalp from baking in summer, or just to fit in occasionally. Bingo.

The wrapped it securely around his face with sure, slow movements and knew the difference when he tasted old cloth and dust as opposed to what he imagined radiation to taste/smell like in bad sci-fi movies. 

“What’s this, then?”

“We’re figuring out how to modify it. Obviously getting the core to stablize is going to take ages, so we’re working on modifying the weapons to fit the f*cking thing in the first place instead.” 

The stranger, who indeed had a salt-and-pepper mustache/beard combo and a beat-up leather motorcyclist getup complete with worn flannel, glared down at the crate. “This one gunna blow up, too? I don’t need that in ma lungs.”

Crime Man- (not the good, meme one though) who he believed to be a Jason snorted. “Stop smoking then, b*tchy jack*ss.” 

Iowa Personaifed snarled lowly before grumbling at the non-awnser, putting the crate lid down in defeat. 

The haze was getting thicker. The blue was gathering in the upper levels of the warehouse. The longer he stayed, the more dangerous the way he got in would be to exit. To door was still unlocked, because their key was brocken or something and they didn’t wanna accidentially lock themselves into this mess. Technically he could probably just book it out the door. Neither of them were very athletic; can confirm for Jason, and Iowa didn’t look to be having the best health overall judging how he stopped to hack his lungs up midway through the explanation of how they were modifying the ammo chamber. 

While they were focusing on the crate, he slipped from dark spot to dark spot -not dark in the weirdly spooky atmosphere, was he in a movie now or something?- and made sure to get a decent angle of not only the open crate with the glowing gun, huh??? but also the blueprint Jason pulled out of his coat to refrence. 

Good enough for him.

He carefully lined himself up with the door so nothing would scrape or make a noise, and shuffled sideways as fast as possible through the opening. The sudden light was blinding, but he had memorized all possible escape routes before going in. So he did the smart thing after witnessing an illegal alien tech trade; he ran like h*ll.

He got back to Stark’s tower probably looking like he had gone for a run or something. Jarvis rambled at him in the elevator about proper athletic wear for sports activities, which he did his best to look respectful during. Jarvis didn’t seem to not be his own person, which was plenty enough for Grim to respect him as his own being. He’d rather be excessively polite than the opposite, if the person seemed to deserve it in any way. 

Then he took a deep breath and pulled out his phone as he walked into the lounge. “Hey Jarvis, uh… where’s Stark?”

“Boss is his workshop. Should I notify him you wish to talk? It is near lunchtime, encouraging him to eat would be appreciated.”

Grim smirked at the AI’s mixture of sarcasm and mother-henning before sobering. 

“You know what? Sure thing, Jarv. Do I need to go down and chase him up?” The lounge had a ridiculously large spiral staircase down directly to the Science! Area, so it wouldn’t be much work. 

“That would be lovely, Mr. Grim.”

Having been banned from his last name, Jarvic stubbornly refused to drop the ‘Mr.’ bit. By now, he had given up.

He took the stairs down (he had always found spiral ones cool) and observed Stark apparently doing a ‘check up’ on his two pet robots. Best as he could tell, they were named Butterfingers and Dummy, which seemed odd for a normal person and totally on brand for Stark once you get to know him. 

“Yo, Stark, eatin’ time.” Stark muttered something into Butterfingers’ torso and made a face when Jarvis cut off the music, some old rock that had been blasting. 

“I’m the adult here!” He yelled without looking up from messing with some wires.

Grim snorted. “Yeah, the man child. Finish up or whatever, we’ve got to talk.”

His phone was burning a hole in his pocket the longer he went without making copies of the file, preferably on different phones entirely. But he didn’t want Jarvis getting a look at the screen early.

Stark nearly banged his head on an invention -some sort of flamethrower, probably the dry ice one Grim had asked if it was possible yesterday- he had hanging from the rafters at that.

“I- what? Yeah, sure. I’ll be right up, kid.”

Grim smirked. Of course the Bonding Time card would work on him. 

He sighed as he went back up the stairs, and asked Jarvic what Stark’s favorite pizza place was. He definitely wasn’t about to cook.

Three pizzas (supreme and meat lover’s, and a cheese with one slice banana peppers for him) later they were slumped around on the plush white couch in the lounge as Grim tried to find a good way to say this.

Failing that, he just sighed and passed his on phone to the man, with the video open. “So, uh. My latest foster parents past the Samsons were a real piece of work. Didn’t even have to do much eavesdropping, they’re real dumb. Anyway, they’re doing weapons smuggling. But uh… with fuel from, outerspace? It glows blue and there was something about a UFO crash and uh-” Stark snatched his earbuds from his hand and started to play the video.

A few minutes passed in silence, Grim fiddling with the edge of his hoodie, more anxious than he had been in years. 

Stark took the earbuds out with a shockingly blank expression. “You snuck in.”

Grim nodded, mentally preparing for anything. There was lots of open space in the room, and the entryway didn’t even have a door installed so running wouldn’t be hard. He’d just have to push off hard enough to clear the couch and scram. Perfectly fine. Totally coo-

Stark’s hands hit his shoulders and forced them to face one another suddenly, and Grim managed to not flinch too badly as they stared awkwardly (at least for him) into each others’ eyes. “Don’t do that! You could have died! And that smoke! That blue stuff- we don’t know what that even is! What if you had passed out? Oh god, we need to call an ambulance. Jarv-”

“Already on it, boss.”

Stark nodded with a slightly glassy look in his eye. Grim regarded him warily, less now with fear of retaliation and more so preparing in case he passed out suddenly. Shock did that to people sometimes. 

“But oh my god; we don’t know what that stuff is. Jarvis, we’re gearing up. I need to get my hands on that stuff. Call our favorite Pirate for me, will you?”

Grim had roughly enough time to question Stark’s sanity and wonder if he had fallen into the Twilight Zone somewhere along the way before Jarvis replied. 

“Of course, sir. Mr. Grim, do I have permission to do a full body scan?”

Yeah, this hadn’t been what he had been expecting.

Thirty minutes later, at the lovely hour of 11AM, (basically 3AM for Stark, who would be half asleep if it weren’t for the sheer amount of caffeine in his system) there is indeed a pirate on their couch. He’s got an eyepatch and everything, along with the Dramatic Coat and combat boots. (all black, even the same shade of black wow, dedication) He’s bald with a faint mustache on his upper lip, almost blending in with his darker shade of skin. 

Grim goes to the kitchen to prepare himself with coffee.

A plain-looking man who is more dangerous than he looks got to him before Pirate could though. He steered them off into a spare room identical to Grim’s own and sat them both down on the bed. His clunky suitcase balanced stayed with him, balanced across his knees.

“Hello. I’m Agent Phil Coulson. I understand you’ve witnessed several instances of meddling with alien technology?”

Grim nodded, slightly defensive thanks to the alarm bells going off in his head (he didn’t seem like a bad guy, but he wasn’t comfortable with people he couldn’t read well without some info to go off of) “A recent set of foster parents talked about sometimes, when they thought I wasn’t there or couldn’t hear. They needed the money to help with modifying guns and bombs and stuff to work with the whatever-it-is. Eventually someone took what I was telling them seriously and the police got around to it like, a month later, maybe? Did a raid on the house and everything. They got away, and I got a new foster set, and yeah.”

“Yes, the Samsons. And according to them, your currently at their apartment, and have been for a week.”

Grim made a face. “They’re *ssholes. I made a deal that I’ll show up for public events if I have to so they can get that shiny charity case headline, and I get to not have to deal with them in general.”

“Anything… concerning?” A protective glint entered his eyes, just for a moment, before he schooled his expression again.

“Just the usual. Locking me in the room until I agreed with them, taking away food, some threats. Like, do I look like I care if a middle aged Karen were to half-heartedly slap me? Honestly, idiots.” Coulson kept scribbling on his tiny-little notepad. Grim wondered if it was custom. 

“Right. And that video.”

Grim sighed. “Look, no one listens if I don’t have evidence, and they’re planning on hurting people. Based on their schedule I didn’t think anyone would be around, but I guess they have more freetime now or something. I tried to get good angles and whatever. Do I get to get my phone back eventually?” It was the truth. He had memorized what little he knew of when the members of the rag-tag gang came and went to different locations. 

It wouldn't be a massive deal to lose the phone; it would just be annoying not being able to use the thing he had paid for for the month already. He had limited funds and a goddamn plan, thank you very much.

“Eventually. We only need to get the file and check it over for corruption or files.” Grim idly wondered if he meant corruption as in corrupted files or corruption as in he was a jerk. 

Unimportant, finish this up to observe Stark. 

“Alright. Anything else ya wanna know?”

Coulson hummed. “Any injuries, trouble breathing, or other drugging syntoms since then? Would you allow yourself to be check over by medical?” As a mutant, in modern America? Absoultutly not. 

“No, I haven’t noticed anything. If I collapse, I promise to let you say I told you so or whatever.” He hopped up of the door and made for the door. After a second of hesitation, Coulson followed. 

Grim held the door open for him (keep eyes on the man at all times, no matter how nice he acted) and slipped in after, firmly locking the door behind him. He know knew a low-risk place to put his back against if it came down to it, at least. Escape routes were fine; the bay windows combined with Kala and damn near every other ghost in the city being willing and able to catch him made sure of that. 

He took a juice box (orange, because h*ll yeah, he never got this stuff) and sucked absently as he watched a half dozen agents in equally immaculate suits as Coulson’s consider him blanataly for a few seconds before dismissing him. Which, rude.

But he did like it better that way.

Stark was sagged onto the couch gesturing away as he argued with Head Drama Agent. “-ook, Fury, you can run the stuff through your labs or whatever, safety checks and all that, but you know just as much as I do that I would get results faster than any of your guys.”

‘Fury’ (rad) sighed, and a put a hand to his forehead, presumably to stave off Stark’s annoying energy. “Stark, we can’t just hand over a new substance to the smartest man in the room-”

“Sure you can.” Ah, there was that Stark patented grin. He even posed with drink in hand. 

Fury waved him off irritably, muttering about government protocol being a joke to the Avengers before continuing. “-because he wants to play with the shiny thing. Stand down.” Stark snorted, and saluted him mockingly with said drink.

“I ain’t your 40’s soldier to order around, Tall, Dark and Mysterious. I don’t listen to myself let alone you.” Stark brightened when he noticed Grim hovering nearby, and got up hurriedly. 

“Ay, kiddo, the agents didn’t freak you out too bad?”

Grim shrugged. “I’m fine.”

Jarvis made a whirring noise above him, something he had come to associate when he wanted to tell Stark he disapproved with actually saying it.  Usually he’d find it funny, but right now he wanted to swat the ceiling if it wouldn’t make him look completely insane. 

Modern Day Pirate, presumably the ringleader to all this, considers him the same way the agents did. 

He sucks the last of the juice out of the box and chucks it across the room to land somewhere on the kitchen floor. He missed, but who cares?

“I guess you don’t like government peeps much, huh Stark?”

Stark grins conspiratorily in his direction, and Grim smirks in reply. He can work with this. 

He resolves to finish this conversation later, and settles down with a good distance away from literally everything in the room. His hand creeps into his pocket, and he starts rolling around a marble across his fingers, then his knuckles, careful to not drop it to give him something to focus on. 

Fury (who is clearly a Grumpy) goes on a tangent that Grim partially agrees with, partially doesn’t, as he carefully monitors the body language and expressions of everyone in room. Cold professionalism, mild curiosity, some exasperation towards Stark. There’s nothing to point towards an itchy trigger finger or a sudden brawl, but he can’t get those moments out of his head where he didn’t know if the people he called to help him would be the ones to hurt the worst.

(Staring down the barrel of the gun for a long moment, jumping over the counter in a flurry of desperate movements faster than he can think, ducking underneath metal-edged arms and angry fists. Not this way, not today.

The Horsemen would kill him a second time, after all.)

He blinks to return to the present, and wishes he had his bag with him. It’s still unpacked on his bed for the ghosts, but having in on him would mean snacks would be in order.

Snacks might still be in order, if that one agent snooping in the kitchen would just wander about three feet to the left and quit going through Stark’s alcohol collection for no discernable reason. 

Or maybe his confidence would override his anxiety, who knows. Because he though purposefully involving the government that suspects him of something ridiculous was a good idea. 

Yeah, who cares anymore. Chips it is.

He takes the time to look the agent squarely in the eyes as he pulls the bag out of the cupboard, then staunchly ignores them as he anxiously shovels fistfuls of the crunchy goodness into his gaping maw. Dignity is overrated. 

Then he looks closer at the man. At where his hand is placed, the anxious, scanning look on his face, the edge of panic in his body.

The metal device snugly hidden in the back of the wooden shelf, tucked away behind three separate bottles carefully nudged into position.

He squints, and sees the outline of an octopus where the cloth of his suit meets, apparently, an arm band underneath.

“Excuse me.” All eyes on him, forced confidence to the max. Eyes ablaze and posture straight. 

He puts down the chip bag, and walks over to the sweating man with measured steps. He pushes aside the bottles, revealing the metal thingamabob, and looks the man in the eye. 

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Death would be so proud.

“I- I’ve been order to leave a recording device on the premises-”

“By who? Who’s you superior, again, Agent Kingston?” Fury cuts in with the force of a morally grey avenging angel. 

Kingston appears to be mentally writing his will. 

“I- you, sir.”

“Fantastic.” Grim forges ahead, refusing to loose steam before his confidence inevitably fails him and leaves him to scurrying back to safety. “Now that that’s established, let’s look at that funny little armband under your jacket. I haven’t seen Coulson’s in any case.”

Kingston makes a distinct but small squeaking noise. 

Grim raises an eyebrow into the silence, incredibly conscious of holding his head high. 

“Well?” Fury prompts.

Kingston slides down the shoulders of the jacket, revealing only white button up sleeve. It gathers suspiciously at the bottom, and Grim can see a single stitch of messy black thread. The agent flashes a charismatic smile. “Nothing there, kiddo. Don’t worry your little head about it.”

“Right. Take off the jacket.”

The man blinks. “You hardly have the authority to-”

“But I do.” Fury cuts in sharply, and Grim has never been more thankful for an overly aggressive adult figure in his life.

Kingston frowns, and reveals a flash of a blood red octopus-emblazoned band as he pulls out his gun.

Grim feels cold steel on his temple. “No one move, or the kid gets it!”

Kala narrows her eyes at the man, raising her hands to throttle him. His hand ‘twitches’ (obviously from the sudden stress, of course) to tell her to back off. Shockingly enough, she does. 

Still ready to kill a man, though.

He takes stock of the situation. Stark is pressing that button on his watch that summons his suit on a timer, so he has time to talk things down. All other agents have their guns pulled too, aimed at the corrupt agent. Too close to Grim for comfort. 

Full bravado it is, then.

“Look, buddy-” Stark tries, but Grim’s way ahead of him.

“You wanna bet, Kingston?” He goads, before falling into Fight Mode where, unlike what apparently everyone else thinks, talking is a very bad idea.

He gets low, causing the shot aimed at him to miss (the bang makes his ears ring) and he nods subtly at Kala as he goes for a full tackle.

Kingston goes flying (he holds nothing back in life-or-death scenarios) underneath him, and in the corner of his eye he can see the silver-green form of Kala guiding the gun to not fire when it hits the ground. 

Think fast, b*tch. 

Kingston’s no ameautor, though, and Grim doesn’t like how many guns are now pointed at him because he’s now on top, so he nails him in the gut when he tries for a head lock before he thinks Grim can get his bearings, (Kingston may not be an ameator, but neither is he) and puts all his strength into jumping away from the man. He crashes into the counter, and claws at it to regain his balance.

Not his finest moment.

He wastes no time and makes a break for the soon-to-be safety of him and his crazy suit, and dives behind the couch for extra cover. Right on time, the pieces of the suit fly onto Stark’s form, covering him in so much shiny, dangerous metallic armour.

Repulsors aim at Kingston, from where Grim is on the couch cushions in a heap. 

“Alright, game over, hotshot. Put the gun down.”

There’s a snarl from the other side of the room, and another gunshot. The couch suddenly has a bullet-zied dent, and Grim wonders hysterically if Stark made the Couch bullet proof.

More clicks. Some code talk into walkie talkies.

A crash, a familiar one. The sound of so much glass shattering under a body’s weight.

Looks like Kingston opted out. 

He peeks around the corner of the (bulletproof???) couch carefully, and indeed sees a sudden jagged hole in the massive bay windows Stark has everywhere. A bunch of goons with guns have their weapons trained dutifully on it, but no Kingston apears for round two having done something ridiculous like cling to the side of the building or suddenly develop the power of flight in that exact moment.

There’s an ominous crunching noise, and a lot of screaming from the sidewalk. Guns are lowered as Grim shrinks back between the couch and Stark’s protective side. No thank you. 

“Uh- is someone gonna get that camera thing by the alcohol?”

Stark swore, and promptly blew the entire shelf to pieces. Grim ran through his mind if the repulsors counted as fire ‘cause then they were about to have a whole ‘nother problem like now, before deciding it was probably fine from the distinct lack of yelling.

In fact, it was deadly silent. 

“So I’m taking a wild guess here that Kingston was like, a spy for a terrorist cell or something? Did we just hop plots from an adventure movie to a spy one?”

Tony huffed, and Grim stuck out his tongue at him as Jarvis informed him he was doing another scan on the both of them. The last one had come up clean, though Jarv still suggested a checkup sometime in the near future, and this one should be no different based on the lack of searing pain or burns on his body. 

“Director Fury.” The ceiling continued in Jarvis’ signature dry tone. “I would kindly vacate the premises of all agents inside my boundaries I cannot verify as trustworthy, according to my safety protocols. You as well as Agent Coulson and Hill are welcome to aid Black Widow and Hackeye with the crime scene.It you resist, I will be happy to alert legal as well as security of the situation.”

Tony nodded, all protective fury and hard edges. Grim pressed himself into the cushion instinctively (strong, violent male. Do not engage. Do not aggravate. Escape as soon as possible) and pulled a pillow (possibly also bullet proof??) in front of his core, the part of his body with all the squishy important bits.

He knew he trusted Stark to a startling extent, and the man would never shoot him with his crazy lasers. But better safe than sorry. 

He zoned out from the general hustle and bustle as Jarvis herded most of the government people out of the building unceremoniously until Tony’s hand, armorless, tapped him on the shoulder.

“You alright, kiddo?”

Grim looked him over. The armour was gone, leaving him in a slightly ruffled T-shirt and jeans. Remarkably calm, really. 

He swallowed. “Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

Stark backed up to give him space. “No problem, you actually did us all a favor. I think. I’ll hack SHIELD later to find out for sure.” They both watched one of the cleaning robots bumble over to where the glass shards, pieces of wood, and different kinds of alcohol were becoming one with the carpet. It sucked up some glass, then beeped when it detected the liquid and backed up. Slightly to the right. Forward, more glass. More liquid, repeat. Making a slow half-circle around the whole mess.

He started to laugh when it hit the remains of the cabinet and made the sound that meant it was ‘thinking.’ Even Stark started to chuckle when he did. 

The rest of the motley gang emerged from the other floors, ready for anything including a pitched battle, to them both laughing themselves silly at a freshly named TODDLERBOT. 

Naturally, they gave him h*ll for the whole thing at dinner. 

Chapter Text

Grim was pretty confused. He was expecting some anger, he went outside the rules. They would be in the right to be angry.

And they were. They just weren’t that kinda of angry.

Stark kept squeezing his hand as if to reassure himself that he was still here, and he caught him telling to get back to Fury that ‘the kiddo was fine.’ 

He poked at his mashed potatoes, silently yearning for a microwave burrito (as cheap as possible for those nostalgia points) as he endured the stares off the Avengers. 

He sighed, and put down his fork. “Look, I’m fine. It isn’t even the first time someone’s gone gun-ho on me either, so why are you all freaking out?” He wished they’d be upfront. Yell, hit, break things. Something normal. 

The waiting for the shoe to drop was an eerie feeling, and it was wearing on his nerves.

“Grim.” He straightened under the serious look Ms. Widow gave him from across the fancy polished table. “We are angry. But not because you snuck out. We’re angry because you could have gotten hurt.”

Barton nodded. “Yeah! And say, what’s this about gun-related incidents, huh?” Grim glared at him at the obvious fish for info. Barton only held up a bag of his favorite barbecue chips (blatant bribery) with a forced grin.

Grim sighed again and made grabby motions, feeling vaguely like a moddly toddler being convinced to do something normal for once. The chips were handed over, and he popped one in before answering. 

“Yeah, well the police weren’t too smart with dealing with Mister and Missus Disaster, and I was a witness, so the guy- Jason, I think? tried to grab me along with her to make a break for it so I jumped the counter and ran and well, apparently one of the copper thought I looked a little too punk and a little too aisan to be innocent.”

A black officer, his tag reading Morales, had talked him down and confiscated the man’s gun. Even personally drove him to the station and gave him a comforting, if gruff, talk when they parked. 

Stark pulled out his tablet, and he could feel Jarvis scheming. 

Rogers grunted, sharing Grim’s view of things for once. “Oh yeah, I remember something like that with me and Buck. No one likes the Irish kid causin’ trouble.”

Grim nodded. Rogers brightened up visibly, possibly to help the mood in general.

“Did you see those friends of your while you were out?” Oh, yeah. Rogers badgered him into showing him how to use a cellphone (in return he told him how bananas tasted way back when and if movie theatres were weird now, because of the physical differences and the butter ratio) and saw his admittedly short contact list. 

Let’s say the names Death, War, Famine, Disease and Headless stuck out a little between Samson Politician- FP (1 ans 2 for organization’s sake and he’d know which kind of placating to be when picking up the phone) and Tony Stark.

He shook his head. “Nah.”

Stark looked curious, which was never a good thing. “Friends? I haven’t heard of any friends!” He sounded almost scandalized at the thought of Grim telling Rogers first instead of him.

Grim nodded and took a sip of water. (without ice, because his teeth always froze) “Yeah, but you can’t adopt them or anything. They’re like…” He thought for a solid minute of how to sum up the Horsemen without an in depth rant. Then it clicked. “They’re like street cats. With like, a dash of be gay, do crime, and some goth and punk vibes for good measure. I could probably herd them over for some medical stuff though, one of them has an eating disorder.” The Horsemen were remarkably similar to particularly friendly strays. They’d accept some food and water and other donations to the Me Fund, maybe some routine interaction if you’re lucky. But taking them home? Putting up borders, forcing them to follow rules?

Yeah, as if.

He swirled his glass in his hand, watching the whirlpool to avoid the chuckling mixed with another breed of concern around the table. “I don’t know their real names, they quit them. Call themselves the Horsemen of the Apocalypse after one of the center workers they were at yelled that they were demons. They rolled with it, and I mean, I basically did the same thing so what can I say? So uh, War, Disease, Death, Famine, and Headless. No, he didn’t get to pick. Yes, they know.” It had been a little more perfect actually; they all had mutant abilities, just like Grim. War could shapeshift, (to a reasonable degree- he only had so many calories in him and had to remain humanoid because they didn’t want to find out what would happen if he didn’t) Death could control shadows for suitably spooky vibes, Disease could see and manipulate diseases and viruses, (apparently each strand glowed a different hue, and he couldn’t comprehend a world not cloaked in deadly color) (neon goth vibes, I’m just saaaying) Famine could absorb calories from someone else on touch and pass them on to, with no off switch. (He wore gloves and all, but when he slept they’d touch him a bit to get something in his system) and Headless would lose and regrow limbs (including his head, don’t ask) like a lizard’s tail. 

Barton looked bemused. “Really? OH! Is it those pickpocket kids who intervened on that racist shop guy?” Grim nodded, because that is definitely something they would do. 

Barton cackled. Stark appeared to pull up a new tab on his tablet and ask Jarvis to call ‘Dr. Cho’ for him. Awkward silence reigned during the short phone call, before that familiar easy chatter started up again, just like his first dinner with them in the Tower.

Much better.

Sure, they’d glance over to check up on him, and Stark was more tick-y than usual- his hands fidgeted with anything he could find, he brushed his hair, adjusted his tie, his glasses. 

But that was okay. The alcohol was blown to kingdom come anyway, and he could keep an eye on him just fine. Maybe ask him to demonstrate the flamethrower he asked about…

Tony knew Grim could handle himself. Looking at just a piece of his records showed that! Survived several serial killers, nightmare abusive homes, kids-for-cash scenarios…

(his revenge would be swift and brutal)

(Legal was going to hate him for months) 

But he couldn’t help it! The kid had already been through so much! And now apparently police brutality! (the law department would be delighted to have a reason to start that particular social revolution) 

But it was nice to know he had friends. Even if they had an extensive criminal history, were probably kleptomaniacs, and refused any and all social rules. 

Also he was pretty sure Natasha either suspected him of being a spy for HYDRA or something equally ridiculous, or was considering taking him in as her own apprentice. And while that would be hilarious, it was not allowed. Also, Clint might get jealous. 

But the way his heart had stuttered for a beat when that gun came out… the feeling of not being able to help… of having to keep his cool even as he internally screamed for his newest kid (shut up Pepper) had been threatened right in front of him. 

He was upping security permanently. Happy wouldn’t exactly be thrilled, but he didn’t care. Nothing like that was ever happening again. Ever. 

Could he convince him to let him track his phone? Maybe put something in his clothes, shoes? What if he was kidnapped and they took stuff away from him, how would he contact him? Earings? They’d have to be unobtrusive, studs? That’d be easier to make in a hurry, even on the smaller scale than he was used to…

But would he think that was hovering? He remembered the times his mother would come off her pills, have a break between the partying and pampering with glitter and gauze and fear-soaked nights, where she would meld herself to him ‘to make up for lost time.’ After months or years or radio silence, it had been suffocating. 

But was he being too distant? Harley constantly called him, and he called back and knew his birthday and big events and all, sure, but what if he thought he was avoiding him because he didn’t pop over to Cornland for a visit. (wasn't his fault his mother was a terror)(and the entire town only reminded him of days riddled with anxiety and laced with explosions)

He groaned, and slumped onto the sofa. (the same sofa that had saved his kid, what if he hadn’t impulsively made everything bulletproof after Opie’s betrayal, what would have-) Clint watched him carefully from the other side of the U-shape, and Steve was there too. A glimpse showed he was finally shading his silhouette of the skyline to have some depth and less like a five-year-old’s outline. (though one with an impressively steady hand and long attention span) 

No, that wasn’t fair to Red White and Blue. He’s just… pent up.

He growled, and pulled at his hair. What was he going to do?

Even Fury was concerned. Said the kid had the same reaction he might see out of a seasoned agent. He slipped into some… fighting mode? His eyes switched from ice to steel, then when it was all over, maybe a slushie?

Okay, bad metaphor. No more of that, like, ever.

Clint scooted closer to him, plopping down near on top of him.

“Soooo, my man. How you doin?” Natasha conventiely slid out of the kitchen at that very moment with an armful of comfort foods (popcorn with freshly melted butter for Clint, cannolis for him, and homemade bread shaped into a bowl with soup, a carnival food they had shown and enchanted Steve on one of their Introducing Popsicle to This Century sessions) and sat primly to his left, leaving him with no exit from the intervention.

He sighed, and accepted the nearest cannoli. He recognized the wrapping; this was from his favorite bakery to boot. 

Grim was out with those friends of his for the first time since Steve and Clint dragged him back to the Tower. Had he been avoiding them for their sake?

Uh, this was giving him a headache. 

“I just… he’s supposed to be safe here.” That summed it up nicely, didn’t it? What he was feeling. Like he had failed. And damn near paid for it, bad. 

Natasha nodded, and put the plate in his lap. She popped a handful of popcorn into her mouth before handing over the treats to Clint and Steve, settling further into the cushioning.”I’ve cleared out all the bugs in the Tower.” She said evenly. 

Oh Boy. This was going to be a fun conversation, then.

Clint grinned more ferrally than he would have expected from the man. “You know it!”

Steve glanced back and forth between each one of them, lost, even as he enjoyed the ‘miracle’ food. “Right.”

He couldn’t help it, the snort that escaped him. But it was fine, no one even glanced at him.

Natasha continued, eyes of something he couldn’t identify. “What with the new information of the possible comprised state of the majority of SHEILD, I have personally decided that it is in our best interests to go rogue.”

Steve didn’t look happy, but nodded. Barton looked , until he realized about the farm, and Tony personally was celebrating at the thought of never having to deal with Emo Pirate ever again. 

“What about Clint’s farm?” He asked the unspoken question, and Natasha nodded sharply, eyes soft for her closest  companion a sharp contrast to the careful smirk that could cut a man.

“Well. They will be safe, but I can’t guarantee the land itself. That idyllic farm life might be a casualty, but they won’t.” Barton deflated, but only a little. 

Tony flopped an arm on his back. “We’ll keep them safe. We’ll keep them all safe.” 

When he got a text half an hour later proclaiming that Steve had betrayed the government and was going after his old wartime boyfriend, (he wasn’t about to ask questions, at least not right now) he was something a little like happy.

Then Jarvic alerted them that Grim was gone. Again. And panic reigned. 

Grim was done being dumb, at least for now. Hopefully. 

How was it that he realized how dumb his plan was after it got the weirdo goverment people involved, when that was part of the plan.

Whatever. The verdict on ‘telling Stark I’m a mutant’ was a solid ‘do later, Future Me problem’ and he was really just waiting for a good time now. Right now he needed to lay low, lay real damn low. 

Kala was watching this ‘Sheild’ weirdness from their homebase, some crazy officebuilding/fortress hybrid upstate. Pretty easy thing to so, spying, when you’re dead.

He kept getting texts worded in memes and spoken in code and silliness. AIs, nazis, child siolders, brainwashing, people not knowing the difference between and octopus and a hydra, a spy section of the government about to tear itself apart.

At least the people breathing down his necks had better things to do right now. Probably for the foreseeable future, at this rate.

Files on things (people) he may or may not need in the future. Doombot, Lizard, Rhino, Doc Oc. 

And a fascinating report on Loki.

Why was it no one questioned that maybe the man, holding the mind-controlling stick with unaturally blue eyes that were apparently normally green, might just be mind controlled himself?

Like, he bottle-nosed his forces. Through one tiny portal, one by one. Sure, the entire attack was a total d*ck move, but he hadn’t been a willing commander, at the very least.

 He’d have some serious questions for Thor, when he eventually showed face.

He juggled a deflated soccer ball clumsily he had found two blocks back in his wandering, periodically checking his phone and regularly cursing the people who apparently didn’t have brains in positions of power.

Alexander something-or-another, the Head of Sheild after Fury, was apparently one of the octopus-men, and was obsessed with someone stuck in a machine with a bunch of ice in it. The dude had a metal arm, and a curious nurse that had ducked in was in tears when she told him it connected directly to his spine.

He kicked the ball particularly forcefully, and watched it ricochet against a corner, hurtle into a dumpster, and decompress sadly into the concrete with a small hiss. He sighed and got some gum out to aggressively chew.

He popped three in his mouth in one go and continued on. 

Black Widow was on it, because she’s that awesome. She’s a one woman army, but even she might need some backup.

He wondered how she’d react to seemingly nothing tossing her new biggest problem through a window, with a blow not unlike that from a baseball bat. A pipe, if he was lucky.

Captain America was quitting, good to see. Apparently he was living his best greaser life, like a true 50’s gay rebel. He was off painting sunsets and committing treason, and Grim felt oddly proud.

The man had loved rules, for good reason. Rules kept you alive in war, if you lucked out enough. It you were important enough. But moral rules always won out for him.

Silly government. Should have done their political research.

He wondered if a civil war was on the horizon. He woulnd’t mind, just hoped they’d bring up stuff like police brutality and poverty and the housing crisis. The foster system went unspoken, he was pretty Stark was midway through rebuilding the entire thing from the ground up. 

He blew a bubble, and hoped Barton and Widow would be able to keep their ‘idiot chicks’ in line while he was gone. Apparently anything was possible on Avengers Movie Night. 

Tony could understand terrible coping mechanisms. H*ll, if he had dealt with his issues back in college by taking a hike and letting out some steam that way, Rhodes would have probably hugged him with some cheesy talk about being proud that was no less genuine despite it. 

But taking a long, long, three hour walk after nearly being shot, dropping some bomb about police brutality and his capacity for trauma and disapearing the next morning with only, apparently, half a jug of coffee from the machine and a smoothie from the fridge. The kid stored them in jars, for some weird reason, who does that? 

Not what he was focusing on right now.

“Jarv, any sight of him on public cameras?”

Jarvis let out a soft chime as he worked on it, then piped up with that familiar snark. “Last seen wandering the area of Hell’s Kitchen, before entering an area with broken cameras that have yet to be replaced, Sir.”

Tony chewed on his lip. Better than it could have been.

“Sir?”

“Yeah?” He typed frantically on the keyboard, searching for any reason why the kid any want to disappear. 

“Might I sudgest calling Mr. Grim?” 

And suddenly Tony felt spectacularly dumb. 

It was almost refreshing, when it wasn’t terrifying. 

He jammed his thumb onto the kid’s contact, and pressed the call button. It rang out three times (the kid always let it ring exactly three times) before picked up with slight static. The kid hadn’t let him replace that stupid burner phone yet.

“‘Ello?”

He nearly collpased.

“Grim!”

A soft snort. “That is ma name.” The words were slightly distrorted, half with bad connection, half with what sounded like chewing. 

“Kid, if you’re going to run on me, at least give me a notice when you do.” He slumped over his work station, boneless with relief, and mind slowly going back to whirling with plans of rebellion.

A chuckle. “Sure, but I’ll have like, a ten minute headstart. What’s up?” The true sense of cluelessness made his heart squeeze. He truly believed, on some deeper level, that the people around himt hat were supposed to protect him didn’t truly care. 

“I- Grim, you were nearly shot.”

There was a moment of silence, and he could hear the kid’s thought clear as day. ‘Didn’t we cover this last night?’

“My guy, I don’t even have a bruise. I don’t know what you’re all worked up about.” He started, and frantically speed-texted the rest of the Bradey Bunch that he had found the kid before Natasha and Clint went full super-spy. 

He doesn’t know how to communicate this feeling of care and concern to him. This abstract care he had for him, born of the hours of lost sleep staring into the depths of the kid’s foster file in horror and definitely not an ongoing habit of picking up stray smart children. 

He should check in on Harley. 

After. 

“I-” His voice cracked like a pubesecant boy, and he cleared his throat. “I know, kid. I know. But-” But that could have not been the case. But you could have died, and I couldn’t do anything. You don’t know how much of a favor you just did for people you haven’t met, and that’s kind of ridiculous.

What sounded like a gum bubble popping, then a hum. “Ok, worry wort. I’ll head back. And I’ll do my best not to be in a life-and-death situation this time, yeah?” And the call ended with a not unpleasant beep. 

He lowered the phone, and stared at the screen in mild shock. Maybe Emo Wonder wasn’t a fan of goodbyes, but-

But nothing. He set the phone down with a determined click against the metal table, forcing his brain to focus, throwing his worries and regrets into a box labelled ‘later.’ 

He had some disentangling himself from a spy agency to do.

Chapter Text

Grim tried his best to find a good time to share his not-so-little secret with Stark, but it seemed like Stark’s life mainly consisted of lurching from disaster to disaster, picking up adopted children and therapists along the way. It seemed ‘a good time’ was never going to come, but maybe instead ‘a better time than earlier’ could work. 

Therefore, he chose the time about when Stark was neck-deep in some project (a new suit, once again. He still didn’t know the differences between a lot of them, though this one was suspiciously him-sized) and he didn’t truly want to know either. 

Stark let him hang out in his workspace, since he always wore gloves anyway, and had thick-soled shoes and didn’t go near the blowtorch or whatever. He was hanging out on a spinny stool, agonizing over how this was going to go as Jarvis played what was definitely not ACDC (he looked it up) and lots of holograms flitted in and out of view. 

He sighed, and stared into the black fabric of his gloves, faintly damp in the palms very much not from sweat. He smoothly started changing them, and opened his mouth as he did. “Stark?”

Stark’s head whipped around, instantly honing in on any chance of Bonding Time. “What’s up, kid?”

He slid the new gloves on, and fiddled with the fit around the fingers. “What do you think about mutants?”

Stark put down a wrench, a faintly knowing look on his face. “They’re people, just like us, and should be treated as such. Do I get to ask…?”

Grim hesitated, then bit his lip. “You haven’t asked about the gloves.” Stark blinked. 

“At first I thought it was a fashion thing, then I figured you wouldn’t want the questions.” How nice of him.

He nodded, staring at the concrete floor, smudged with soot and smoke and cracked in a few places. 

There was a long moment of silence as anxiety welled up in him, and Stark eventually broke the ice.

“Look, kid, I don’t care if you can put someone to sleep on touch or summon ice cubes or whatever-”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

Stark quieted, then glanced at the ceiling. “J, are all recordings off?”

“Yes Sir, as of two minutes ago.”

“Loop the footage.”

“Already on it, Sir.”

Stark spun around on his own stool, and looked him in the eye, which he found highly uncomfortable but also kinda the push he needed. 

“I… my hands secrete a super-effective sleeping medicine, so the sleeping guess wasn’t that far off. But you know, anything in high enough doses is fatal…”

Stark filled in the gaps easily enough. “It concentrates as it builds up, eventually becoming lethal. So, you have to wash your hands a lot? Wait, so all those gloves have coma-juice on them? And you’re just stashing them in that bag of yours?” 

He huffed. “It’s a separate flap, and it’s lined with stuff to keep it from leaking, a friend did it. But uh, that’s kinda only a side effect. The main mutation is in my eyes and ears.”

“So like, Clint? He can see really far.” 

“Um. I can see stuff you guys just… can’t.”

Stark straightened up, eyes bright. “Different kinds of light? Uv, ultraviolet? Quieter sounds? Kid, that’s awesome!” 

He winced. “Not… like that. Kinda? I’m not sure how it happens or anything but…” Deep breathe, fill his confidence in his core, review his escape plans- “I can see and hear the dead.”

Stunned silence, and he anxiously starts blurting stuff out. “And I know I’m not hallucinating or anything! I do research! The people I see you guys can’t are people that recently died in the area, and once I saw them actually climb out of their body, so uh- I’m not crazy?”

Stark snorted, leaning back in his chair. “If you were, I wouldn’t sell you out, kid, I’d just point Cho in your direction.” 

He bit his lip further, nodding along. Stark hadn’t seemed to fully understand yet, but it should sink in soon… 

“Wait.”

Yep, there we go.

“Can you see…” He waved his hand around him, a bit choked up. “All the people I’ve…”

Grim hesitated again, then nodded. Yinsen, a man who apparently died so Stark could escape in Afghanistan, motioned at him frantically. “But I can also see all the people you’ve saved. Um, Yinsen from Afghanistan is here? He’s got some strong opinions, uh, and you know, a lot of the people that hang around you have like, forgiven you and all. They’re more concerned about the drinking thing.”

Stark’s eyes went a bit glassy. Yikes, okay, what was it now?

“Right.” His voice wobbled, and he partially collapsed against the metal work table.

“Your parents aren’t though. Their last thoughts were probably on something else, that’s how the whole haunting thing works I’m pretty sure. Maybe um, where they lived at the time? Each other, the car? I dunno, it could be they’ve moved on from this plane or whatever.”

Stark raised a hand. “So the afterlife is real?”

Grim shrugged. “Well, not everyone who dies becomes a ghost, and even if like, a fraction of everyone who died did, I’d be up to my ears in them by now if they didn’t eventually go away, right? So uh, sometimes I see spirits being absorbed by this… bright light? Like looking into the sun, the imprint on your eyes afterwards. And there are ghostly service dogs, they lead people to what I’m pretty sure are portals between dimensions. I tried throwing a pencil through once, but only like, incorporeal things can go in probably. So that failed.”

He peeked up at Stark’s expression again. Not lookin’ too good, he should probably slow down, Stark’s not great at processing in the first place anyway.

He hopped up and headed for the kitchenette, and filled a cup of water. He trooped over and handed it to Stark, who seemed to not notice when he took it and down half of it in one go.  

One finger, the person he’d touched would fall asleep for 24-hours. Two and they sleep for two days. Three, they go into a coma without medical help. Four he can only imagine they would fall into a coma with medical help, and five… well, he didn’t wanna find out, but he could do the math on that one just fine. 

He pulled up a chair opposite to Stark in the aisle and waited for him to mentally resurface. 

It took a minute, but when it did, it did. But not in the way he was expecting. 

“Oh my god. We have to test this!” He tensed. “You could be seeing a new form of light entirely! Or a new form of matter? A new element! Grim, this is amazing!” Stark’s hands flew, pulling up blank pages in his mess of holograms and began frantically typing.

“We can get the eye and ear test in with that check-up with Doc Cho, non-invasive and all, and oh my god, your hands. The medical opportunities! I assume it works on touch, and pretty quickly.”

Grim nodded hesitantly, not sure how to deal with this new level of hyper Science!-y ness. “Almost instantly as soon as I touch them.”

Stark’s eyes gleamed. “That kind of medication or method of usage would be incredible. Grim, this could save lives!” 

Grim stared at the man like he had lost his mind. 

Because he had.

“Can I see those gloves? The ones you just stashed?” Stark pulls out a souped-up chemistry set from the work table drawers and Grim hands over the gloves, following his sense of morbid curiosity. It has always bothered him, the differences between his abilities and modern medicine and knowledge. 

Stark fiddles with his stuff and his gloves, careful to not touch them, and eventually extracts a drop of clear liquid front gloves. He wonders how much of it is just sweat but stays quiet in silent fascination. 

The actual process from there looks less how he would have imagined, but then again, he’s mainly running off sci-fi movies at this point. It still looks pretty cool, though, what with him pulling out all sorts of liquid samples and tubes, a souped-up microscope, and a burner for good measure. 

But it is frustratingly quiet. Jarvis is no longer playing music, and the silence is driving him crazy. He fidgets with the cube Kala picked up last week and marvels at Stark’s ability to juggle big concepts in seconds flat. 

He wonders when the meltdown about privacy and weapons dealing and greif is going to happen. Hopefully not in the lab; that would probably be dangerous. 

He had been telling the truth; most of them had forgiven him, at least the ones that hung around him. Sure, there was that one guy who possibly hated himself because he sneered at Stark every time he saw him, which was every few seconds, because he was haunting him and literally couldn’t get farther than fifteen feet away at any point, but like, that’s hardly the norm. 

There’s a crowd gathering around them both, whispering. It helps fill in the silence, even if it feels kinda freaky watching them occasionally phase through things. Some things he’ll just never get used to. Like people casually telling physics to take a hike. 

But Stark probably had dead cursing his name all over the world, changed man or no. And that was just something that would have to be dealt with.

He sighed, and signed for Kala to find that one nice therapist lady from the Bronx. She hung out on one of the bridges where successful suicide attempts had occured, comforting and assuring, mostly. Made her easy to find, if nothing else. 

They might be needing her sometime soon. 

Apparently his poison was a new type of medicine never before seen, so, fun. Stark did a scan of him, and his skin had a secondary transport system like the blood or immune one, little tiny liquid vessels smaller than the tip of a hair. The poison was released like how a tree releases extra water, in little tiny holes in the skin. 

He poked at his palm at the mention of that, but no weird juices came out. Stark snorted and started walking him through the chemical formula, which apparently was extremely willing to be absorbed or something? A water-property, a big deal in chemistry, he was kinda lost. Science had never been his best subject after he hit high school. 

But that was mainly because he’d never really tried- the property only water had in comparison to other molecules wasn’t exactly something he’d use to survive anytime soon. Well, unless he met more friends who could do all sorts of wacky impossible stuff, but then he could learn that at the library just fine. 

Sure, once in a while something struck his fancy or was actually useful- for instance, phycology. That had been a good class. But most of it was him training in how long he could half-dissociate. 

Anyway, Stark was in some sort of Science!-induced haze. Muttering to himself and Jarvis in equal measure. He eyed him, halfway curious and halfway concerned. 

Should he call that Darcy lady? Natasha mentioned her as the only person that could get Tony’s type of brain to focus on anything but research 100% of the time. He had pocketed her phone number into his bag, and felt around for the slim piece of wrinkled paper as he watched. 

But then Stark took a deep breath. “Right, kid. I’m not going to reject you for how you’re born or how you cope, I’m past my *sshole phase.” He tried to get the self-deprecating joke past him, but Grim only raised his eyebrow, well aware of the undercurrent of trauma and esteem issues. “You’re you, and I care about you. And that’s final.”

Grim smiled a bit to himself, heart warming in his chest. He slipped off the stool and disappeared for the rest of the evening to go for a run to burn some energy off. (after telling Jarvis and letting him give a necklace Tony had apparently made for him? Weird, but whatever, sure. Apparently earrings were in the works, and he dryly stated he’d prefer some studs to an easy grip an enemy might have in a fight. Jarvis said that wasn't what he should be concerning himself with. He only saluated the ceiling in response on his way out the door) 

He met Peter Parker, Tony’s not-son-definitely-just-intern a few days later, just hanging out in the lab with Tony watching him rememorize chemistry to properly deal with Grim’s personal poison. 

The kid walked in, and Grim immediately clocked him as exactly what he was: brave but anxious, a genius but reckless, and most importantly of all, entirely made out of sunshine and rainbows. 

He was perched on the bar stool that was possibly once in an actual bar when he came in, clutching his bag straps and smiling like he had the sun behind his teeth. His eyes latched onto Tony before bouncing to Grim, who held up a hand casually in greeting. The kid returned the gesture hesitantly before calling out his entrance to one highly oblivious Tony. 

“Mr. Stark? I’m here, are you busy?” Tony dropped the chemistry tools he had been working with immediately, spinning in place to get a look at the kid, grin wide.

“Underoos! How ya doin’ kid?”

The kid smiled more hesitantly. His body language spoke of bruised ribs, and Grim made a mental note to keep an eye on him.  “Good! But, uh, who’s this?”

Tony snorted. “Underoos, meet the newest resident of the tower and our local emo, Grim. Grim, this Peter, my intern.” Ah, this must be Tony’s not-son everyone keep mentioning. He nodded at him before going back to scanning the news. The only major thing to report had been shut down quickly by Spiderman- who also took a hit to the core, his brain idly noticed. He tucked away that likely-useless piece of information away for later. (or never) 

Within a few minutes everyone had relaxed again and Peter was going on about the possibility of making a functional lightsaber (cool) and Tony was listening while doing Complicated Chemistry Stuff, and was even in a good enough mood from the kid’s presence to order and eat a pizza. 

While Grim didn’t know jack about complicated laws of physics or obscure math formulas, he did now how to put a thing together with another thing to make a new thing, and was plenty able to design the handle-bit with all the requirements Peter rambled to him. It would be longer than in canon because it had to be, but it came out looking pretty sleek. Besides, a bigger handle is better for this kind of weapon- less of a chance of your hand slipping into the super-charged energy you were using to slice up your enemies. 

Peter was overall nice, if a bit sunny for his taste. Dorky, positive, brilliant, a bit of confidence issues, and surprisingly strong. He didn’t ask about his last name or why he living in the tower or anything, so that was good.

He wondered what shenanigans it would take for you to Tony Stark’s intern and resolved to ask Rhodes or Potts at another time. 

That afternoon was Natasha’s main bonding time with him: workout/sparring. She had asked him on his second week in the tower if he wanted to learn how to knock out a man with only one arm (he of course said yes) and was later told by Barton that she had prepared the activity and proposal for days.

In short, Peter would fit in fine with everyone else, and so would he, maybe.

Hopefully the mutant thing wouldn’t blow up too bad, especially with everyone’s tragic backstories and the ghostly figures following them around. 

Grim hated the Villain of the Week scenario that NY collectively seemed to have adjusted to. Like, how many psycho geniuses were there in the city? Were they moving house specifically to have their revelations/breakdowns/tempertantrum in the big apple? Because the chances of this happening only in New York state were starting to get ridiculous.

Worse yet, he was being dragged into it.

He had been going for a wander, his usual people-watching session, when it happened. Some weirdo with green skin on a hoverboard that looked like a modified snowboard made out of scrap metal trying to blow everyone up. Grim, armed with a pocket knife, taser, brass knuckles, and a small army of ghosts, wasn’t too alarmed. Or suprised. But he was vaguely worried for everyone else stuck in the street. 

Especially the guy who had gotten out a handgun, because most of NY would rather swing a baseball bat at the newest villain rather than running screaming now they had gotten used to these idiot’s existence. 

Another kid was throwing rocks at the guy, who had announced himself to be the Green Goblin, and he quickly scooped him up, handed him off to his coffee-and-fear-addled mother and had them duck into a store with everyone else huddling in the back.

The street, of course, was clogged with cars, people desperately trying to escape the bomb-laced gridlock. He helped- climbing on hoods and trunks to pull people out of tough spots, having Kala punch the Very-disrespectful-to-folklore-Goblin to distract him at opportune moments, that kind of thing. (he somehow thought it was Spiderman doing the hitting, yelling for him to come out and fight like a man or whatever, proving he had a few screw loose and rattling around in there)

Just as the frustrated two-bit-villain pulled out a bomb about the size of a medicine ball from… somewhere, Spiderman did actually show up.

He swooped around the corner and used the momentum to nail Goblin in the face, sailing by feet-first before slamming Goblin into a (thankfully not glass) taller building to thoroughly knock him out. He of course ignored the witty quip, but immediately identified the voice.

Huh. Peter was Spiderman. Good for him. Were the webs a mechanical invention of a biological thing? It’d be cool to have another mutant around that hadn’t fallen for Xavier’s recruiting speech.

An unorthodox-powered one to, score. They could bond over ridiculous scenarios and weird side effects. Maybe they could have a group chat? (wouldn’t really be a group chat with only two people but still)

Oh, he couldn’t wait for Xavier to try the recruiting speech while inside Avengers tower, that would be great. 

He wondered if he should warn the Avengers or not for that. 

Nah. 

Were all the superheroes in NY this janky? I mean, it makes sense that the people who run around in spandex saving lives don’t have their sh*t together, but, I dunno, he was expecting some more… normalcy, for some reason.

That was probably dumb of him.

After getting everyone to safety, making sure Peter-Man didn’t further bust up his ribs, and checking on his ghost entourage, he slipped his earbuds back in and walked back, texting Tony that he was fine. He received a half-frantic answer asking what that meant, and he waited a second for him to bother to glance at the news, slipping the phone back into his pocket, waiting for a buzz. 

He’d be almost back by the time he figured it out anyway.

HYDRA became more of a problem. Not right now, really, but the ghosts were getting uppity. Reports of human experimentation, an escaped super-soldier with amnesia, SHIELD imploding, something about some trying to assasinate Fury (idiots) and something called the Accords. Or maybe just a set of chords? Unclear, when he asked they just said he wouldn’t be interested in paperwork, and like they were right, but it was frustrating.

He casually implied to Rogers that his boyfriend lived before talking about sustaining human life artificially when he got interrogated at their semi-weekly drawing/chilling time. Ms. Widow was totally back to suspecting him, but less in the you-might-be-the-enemy way and more in a you-might-have-seen-something-or-heard-something-and-are-very-stubborn, or maybe a you-might-be-being-blackmailed-and-I-kinda-like-you-so-spill-already way, he wasn’t sure yet. He soon learned attempting to avoid her was pointless, so he kinda just occasionally dropped a hint. (“So like, your boss, that Peirce guy? What’s his background check like?” “Do you really think Fury’s dead from a car crash?” “So this new project airship thing, right? Ever though about the morals of that?”)

Barton trusted him more but was equally insistent on getting answers. So far he just kinda stared at them until they had other things to do or went away, sometimes ignoring them (but only with Natasha- Barton would try to prank him to force him to react like the d*ck he was) and mostly feeding them just enough to go off to their red-string-covered cork boards, satisfied for the day.

Tony of course knew how he was getting this stuff, and he kept him posted. Or like, as much in the loop as he was, even though that wasn’t always very far.

There was something about someone’s parents and a car crash that was actually an assasination, and on principle had done a check on how everyone the Avenger’s had lost had died.

Bingo- Maria and Howard Stark, car crash. Security footage? Missing. What a coincidence, huh? 

He had hoped that mentioning awkwardly to Tony that he had tried to look into his parents when he couldn’t find any ghosts and finding out that weird tidbit about the lost footage, hoping that would put him on the right track to finding out the truth or at least being semi-prepared for it.

He realized he probably should have done a bit more when he came down the hall for breakfast and walked into a full blown argument, posturing and yelling and threats and all.

His instincts prickled, telling about hurt and run, which he ignored. He kept by the wall and swung by the fridge for his emergency smoothie, both men too absorbed in their spat to notice.

‘All that’s special about you came out of a bottle,’ youch. 

Well. This wasn’t the best form of communication, but it did get the unspoken thoughts out there.

And then then, about halfway through his smoothie, they got to the meat of the issue.

Tony’s parents had been killed by the boyfriend of the man he was sheltering from a government manhunt. 

The billionaire's face spasmed at that. Hurt, grief, anger. 

“He-I-what?”

Grim waited, eyes flicking back and forth between the men, frozen in the stony silence.

“And you didn’t say anything?” 

Pure rage filtered through, which was odd, because from what he can tell his parents hadn’t been the most loving or caring bunch.

“Well, you don’t exactly react great to these sort of things, Tony!”

He could tell the explosion that was about to happen, feel it in the air.

So he did the only logical thing and slammed the glass down on the counter hard enough for it to crack. Purplish juice slowly seeped onto the counter as he death-glared both men. 

“I’m sorry, are you both not fully grown, fully capable men?” They both stared at him, like they hadn’t noticed him before these, which he had predicated. Tony looked immediately guilty for yelling while he was nearby. 

“Tony. This is majorly hurtful, but you suspected foul play from the start, especially recently with the lost footage. You also wouldn’t know how to healthily process an emotion if someone gave you step by step instructions- relatable, fine. Get a therapist. Rogers, I know they don’t exactly cover emotional communication in the army and you’re really put out of place with the time period, but like, communication is key guys. So. Let’s take this a step at a time. Rogers, do you know for a fact Mr. and Mrs. Stark were killed from foul play and there was a cover up?”

A stiff nod. Good.

“Okay. Do you think Buck Barnes would commit that murder willingly?”

Shake of head.

“Okay. So he was coerced. We know for a fact that Nastasha committed many crimes under duress from HYDRA, and you’re okay with that.  So the real hurt here is a mixture of the personal effect of the situation and the fact Rogers didn’t immediately come clean, which is understandable.” Tony opened his mouth, but Grim shot him another glare. He wasn’t done therapisting.

“Tony. I’m sorry your parents are dead. I’ve experienced that aftermath too- it changes your life forever, you never escape it. But get your sh*t together, please? You trust this man with your life, don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t bullsh*t me Tony Stark, I’ve seen you fight, nod your god d*mn head. Alright. You’re friends and roommates and whatever, and you both struggle with talking to one another. But we’re not going to have any miscommunications or assumptions here, got that? Okay, each of you say how you feel. You can say it in a cause or effect way but don’t accuse each other. Tell your point, don’t interrupt. Okay? Tony, go.” 

They both stared at him some more, and he twitched. “Hello? Go.” 

Tony jerked, making a weird sound somewhere between a groan, a grunt, and a sigh. He slid on his emotional-support sunglasses, the ones he wore to press conferences, and looked Rogers in the eye.

“Right. Whatever kid. Look. My parents weren’t the greatest, but they were mine. And I’ve agonized how I could have changed their deaths for years, and you don’t just get to walk in here and-”

“Tony.”

A low growl.

“I know you love this Bucky guy, if he killed my parents, that might be something to mention, right? I don’t- I-” He cut off, and eyed the hallway where Natasha was either sleeping or waiting for them to finish the drama. 

“I can forgive murder.” He said softly. Grim nodded- he could forgive a lot, including killing. “But I just- just- need time. I guess.”

He sounded almost defeated. Grim sighed, walked over, and gave hima stiff hug before sitting him down on the couch. Rogers awkwardly joined them on the opposite end of the U couch.

“Alright. Your turn- state your case or whatever.” 

Rogers swallowed, and looked down at his eyes, eyes both far away and very, very present. 

“I- I love Bucky. And I thought I lost him.” Oof, voice crack. “And now I have him back and I find out in a way that could really hurt you, my friend. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you but-” God, just cry already. Have they introduced the concept of toxic masculinity to him during their Welcome to Pop Culture sessions? He couldn’t remember. “It’s hard. It’s like telling the boys that we were the only ones that got back. It’s so heartbreaking every time, and I already feel like I’m breaking from all this time travel and new century and secret government stuff and I- I didn’t know where to start. I wasn’t sure how to go about where we wouldn’t both just break.” 

God, they all needed therapists, huh?

They waited. Tony sat boneless beside him looking incredibly tired. Rogers was trying to pull himself together, and Grim was a patient man when he had to be. 

Steve broke first. “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you, even if that meant going in without a plan. I don’t know how I’ll make it up to you, but I will.”

Tony, significantly darker in mood yet much calmer, nodded. He sighed, and put his head in his hands. “I need time to process. I’ll be in the lab. And yeah, I’ll set up a therapy appointment or whatever.” And with that, he swept out of the room. 

Rogers and Grim stood still for about three seconds before actually getting around to addressing that.

“We’re going to have to drag him into eating, huh?” Rogers muttered, almost to himself if Grim hadn’t been able to easily hear it. He shrugged, and made for the paper towels to clean up his spilled breakfast.

“Probably. But Rogers?” He looked up, eyes lost. Grim smiled, just a little.

“Show him you’re there. Get him to take care of himself, be thoughtful, be present. Oh, and run everything by Pepper. Anyway, Imma study- I’ll postone the Interrogate Everyone About Thor session for later.” Seriously, he had questions about the Norse Mythology Being Real Thing. He tapped at his phone to reschedule the reminder for next week, and Rogers laughed as he retreated back to his room to plan and read.

Well. That went well.

Chapter Text

He finally thought to send Kala to scope out HYDRA, because this was getting ridiculous, and was very satisfied when she came back with actual information and a report of having pushed Peirce out of his office (which just happened to be eight floors up- a guaranteed no-go for surviving that fall as a regular vanilla human being) through the window. 

He also didn’t come back as a ghost, so it wasn’t even awkward! 

Fury had indeed survived, since that guy definitely would have had some unfinished business to stick around for, but they couldn’t find him. That was fine, he was allowed to be mysterious; traces of his influence popped up every once in a while, so he was still kicking. Doin’ his thing, the usual.

Bucky Barnes was wandering around New York. He had briefly visited the History Museum to do some research on himself before stealing a laptop to do further investigating on and fleeing to Ohio, because he wasn’t dumb enough to stay in one of the most populated cities on earth. 

He set up a series of doctors and psychiatrists to keep an eye on him while he handled the emotional explosion goin’ down at Avengers Tower. 

Oh yeah, they found like a million HYDRA bases, there’s that. All over Europe, mainly, but he’d either have to do a field trip every few days soon or drop a particularly juicy hint to the Super Spies Fair for them to chew on. 

Maybe he could give tip of the more science-inclined bases to Barnes- get the man some closure. That could be interesting.

SHIELD was very obviously completely taken over by HYDRA. Coincidentally, HYDRA plants in SHIELD started mysteriously disappearing. Strange, really. A tragedy.

On a completely unrelated note, there were plenty of vengeful ghosts killed by HYDRA floating around with… loose morals, let’s say. 

He was slowly getting to grips with the facts that he had a spiritual army. It was an adjustment. A weird one, but manageable. In any case, it made him feel a lot safer, to be in the loop and actively stopping disasters before they can happen. 

It was nice to have something to bury himself in.

But something must have leaked to Asgard, (did ghosts hop dimensions? Was that a thing) because one stormy Thursday morning, the God of Lightning arrived.

Grim had been peacefully microwaving his cheap burrito when it happened. The tower didn’t rock per se, (it was too well built for that) but there definitely was an effect. A slight rumble under his feet.

He paused, plate in hand, and considered that.

He remembered Tony b*tching about the state of his roof every time Thor made one of his dramatic entrances, and sighed, making his way to the roof. 

Honestly, these men…

Thor was exactly everything he had been made out to be- big, blonde, cheerful, caped, confident, chock full of static electricity. 

Grim, a short, suspicious, well-read, mutant teenager, was not pleased.

“Hi. You lookin’ for Tony? He’s out, but the rest of the lot are in house. Thor, right?”

Thor blinked a few times before brightening up at the question. “Indeed, young one! Would you happen to be a worker at this fine establishment?”

Grim snorted. “Nah, I’m Tony’s newest stray. Come in, we’ve replenished our Pop Tarts stash since the last time you were here, I think.” He cut off the semi-cheerful welcome with a chilly stare. “And I have questions.”

Thor followed after him without question after that. He wasn’t sure if it was the jab or the bribery that did it, but he wasn’t complaining.

Thor was odd. He almost seemed to have a separate identity he shrugged off when he was more comfortable- he dropped the yelling and dramatic phrases and poses, seemed more thoughtful and… haunted? Guilty?

Fair enough, if Asgard is in the state he’s heard of. Medieval Norway deserved better. 

Grim put the small toaster collection in the main kitchen to good use and supplied the man with an entire box of Pop Tarts before hovering awkwardly around the room until Thor finally decided it was time to talk.

It didn’t take too long, fortunately. He only had to stall long enough to make a cup of tea. 

“Son of Stark,” Wooh, that’s a strong start if he’s ever heard one, here we go. “I am here because Heimdall, the watcher of all the realms, has sensed a great disturbance he could not describe within the realm. And yet you seem remarkably calm. How are matters here on earth?”

Grim grabbed an orange and started peeling it with a knife- trying to get as close as possible to one long spiral, a challenge he’d been trying to do off and on for years. “It’s better than it could have been. The secret part of the government is crumbling, and honestly good riddance. It’s damage control now, really. Oh, and everyone just needs to sit down and talk, big surprise. Uh, lets see, the main enemy of the country infiltrated said secret government and when that little fact leaked everything kinda got messy. On the up side, no official restrictions on the Avengers and stuff. How about your corner?” Thor absorbed that with shocking calmness, mulling it over while Grim handed him a cup of coffee. He’d rather not be the one to get this guy drunk, and he reportedly preferred bean water over leaf water.

“A similar state. There is evidence of a wide cover up to hide the existence of the true heir to the throne, my older sister. Unfortunately, she is quite mad. Loki’s situation is also… complicated. May I ask, child, why you glow so?”

Grim looked up at the man, narrowing his eyes slightly. “Excuse me?”

Thor backpedaled slightly, wincing at the look he was giving the god(?). “Would you happen to be a seidr-user, young one?”

See-what?

Wait. 

If he’s even half Asgardian he’s going to be insulted. Or mad. Or sad. Maybe all three.

“A what?”

“A user of magics, a seer, a druid, a person of the mystic arts. The terms change as time flows.” Thor took a swig of coffee, possibly to avoid Grim’s burning gaze.

He reigned himself in, grumbling silently into his cup. “I’m… a seer of sorts, I suppose.” He glanced at the gaggle of medieval-looking strangers huddled around the man, curiously taking in the sights. Kala was introducing one of them to the concept of jello. 

Nope, pay attentioned, eyes on the prize.

Thor nodded respectfully. “I can see why the Man of Iron was intrigued by you, then, esteemed young one. May I talk with him?” Grim mentally flashed on Tony, currently doing his damndest to ignore his emotional state among a pile of scrap metal and hummed.

“Nah, but everyone else but him and Mr. America are open. Mostly, anyway. But first, I have some questions.”

He sat them down in the lobby, because that’s where all the serious emotional conversations happen around here, apparently. Otherwise, it was comfy, and had lots of exit points, so it worked fine. 

They still had their drinks, freshly refilled, and he maneuvered them to be directly across from each other. Nowhere to hide, but he’d probably nerd out once he was in deep anyway, so he’d be alright. 

“So. Actually a god or no?”

Thor shook his head. “Rumours of our abilities spread in the old days, likening us to gods. Truthfully, this did nothing for our egos, especially having just come out of winning a major war.” Grim nodded along, thinking of post WW2 America. “We have longer lifespans, helped by our advanced understanding of magic, science, and a natural-growing plant on Asgard, the Golden Apple. They have incredible healing properties, and every child is required to eat on by the time they are of age.”

Fantastic. He wouldn’t have taken well to any much different answer. 

“Ok, ok. Speaking of magic, what’s up with that whole thing? Loki’s case is clearly… not great.” In many ways, and putting it lightly. Thor grimaced alongside him, and went alogn with the interrogation. 

“I explained this once to Lady Jane. The idea of magic and science, in my realm, are much the same. There are many mysteries to the cosmos- much of what we do not understand or can merely temporarily bend to our will is deemed magic.” Yeah, that checked out. Wonder what he’d say about black holes?

Having the multiverse thing proved was nice too. 

(Does he have to care for multiple dimensions worth of dead people now?) 

He took a sip of tea and second to properly take that in. “Right. Tell me about Asgard. I’ve done research of what the Norse thought it to be, but I’m thinking they’re going to be a bit… off.”

Apparently Thor had been in sore need of a good vent, and Grim made a lovely willing ear if you didn’t mind him sorting away all that information for later.

About his failed coronation. About the possible war with Loki’s home realm, and the hidden adoption and Loki’s depression. About the ridiculousness of the legal system on Asgard, (it was even worse than the American one, and that was sayin’ something) something about a fighting arena, Odin’s hypocrisy and utter failures as a parent, his mother’s emotional labor and fabulousness as a ruler, about how he didn’t understand Loki anymore. His struggles as the hero to the throne of a bloody, broken kingdom. His wonder with Midgard, concern for his friends and allies. Though he did seem quite charmed with the idea of Tony ‘making a family’ by picking up sad smart children and all. 

Grim had a brilliant idea, texted Rogers, and bam, Stars and Stripes gets to rant about the Bucky Situation to a neutral party! They were kinda comforting each other with being close to the ‘villainous’ people, which was a vibe. 

Grim’d occasionally bump in with psychology tidbits and advice (“When he’s stabbing you and not aiming for somewhere fatal it’s like… play-fighting, I guess? Punch him back or whatever.”) but mostly brooded on the couch in silent contemplation.

Asgard was indeed a massive disappointment to the Norweigan people. He wondered if there’d be a formal apology if the Asgardians got their sh*t together enough for it. 

Odin was a tyrant, they did more glorious combat whatever than the Romans, (including beating them in the fighting arena department) had run out of things to conquer and flailed in peacetime, and were extremely violent and testosterone-poisoned. Like, toxic masculinity to the max.

Grim fully planned on taking the place by storm if at all possible. As it was, New York was a mess, with a great, glowing trainwreck yet to happen on the horizon.

He excused himself to do a round of healing in the area, because New York will never run out of injured dead (and living) people. His stash that was on his desk was mostly exhausted, so he went over to Medical and robbed the pantry of the older stuff (most wounds that transfered over in death were phycological- the brain knew it had been hurt and therefore created injuries. Someone who remained so deep in the denial that they didn’t fully comprehend what had happened to them therefore wouldn’t be hurt once they sat up out of their body. Therefore, they wouldn’t care about the quality of the med stuff, as long as it worked. Especially when it had to go through a different layer of reality in order to touch them).

It was pretty standard stuff, enough to almost take his mind off the whole god and mythology thing. Not really, but it was close. 

He wonders what happened to Loki. Maybe it’s better that the US gov’t didn’t get him, but from what Thor was hinting he didn’t think it was good.

Couldn’t they see torture wounds? Mental breakdowns, coercion?

Also, the whole magic-user thing. Were his eyes magic? Or was he just weird on like, an interdimensional level? 

Maybe he could get Thor and Tony to have Loki ‘teach’ him so he could actually talk to the guy. That could work.

How was he supposed to explain the concept of mutants to the god of thunder?

He rubbed at his eyes, and stopped at a convenience store to buy more gum and canned coffee.

There was plenty of other things to worry about, though. A junkie having a crisis about his life ending (literally) and in serious need of a good therapist, a heart attack victim not quite sure how to watch their family go through their own mourning process, a service dog that was very insistent on trying to help him. He was lovely, his tag said he was named Cody, and he was one very fluffy German Shepherd. 

No major cleanup to do- he had been present for the Goblin thing, the most recent major attack, so he’d been able to show up the next morning and play doctor-therapist easy peesy without anyone panicking about who he was. 

If Tony knew about his abilities, did he have to keep all the med stuff out on the desk still? It was getting mildly annoying, having to repack it whenever he went out to help folks, and the dip in that comforting weight at his shoulder was also noticeable. 

There was also the fun job of playing medium, and walking that delightful line between ‘how do you know this much about me and my dead loved one are you some sort of stalker’ (which is especially enjoyable when said ghostly loved one is yelling at both him and the still-living family member and he’s just kinda left standing there, extraordinarily tired) and ‘you’re just a scam or some punk spiritualist, scram.’ 

One cop in particular had been pretty up in arms about the whole thing, under the whole ‘manipulating grieving people’s feelings and wallets’ which he would have been prety down with and would probably have been able to talk his way out of, had it not been for his partner, who really didn’t care who it was as long as he got to get some frustration out on the nearest poor-looking schmuck.

So, anyway, either Tony or the Horsemen had a new name on the sh*tlist (he hadn’t decided who yet) and he had some bruising on his ribs, but nothing he couldn't handle.

He stopped by the public garden to check on his unofficial plot, a herb garden absolutely bursting with plants, pollinator homes, custom DIY irrigation, shaders for the sun-sensitive lot, and was generally pretty chill. He got a good haul, and spent the next hour or so chilling in the center lobby grinding it all up on a moderately uncomfortable bench. 

Feeling very much like a punk street rat witch, he wandered around, people-watching, just vibing. 

Paganism was about to get rocked.

He couldn’t wait.

On that note, he drew himself up and summoned a mixture of excitement, curiosity and determination. Back to the Tower. 

He had a god to interrogate, and another to bait down from the heavens. And hell if he’d be too chicken to finish the job.

Chapter Text

Hi everybody! This is just a quick update on me. I already have been writing less so far this summer even though I have tons of ideas (I can’t type on my phone lol) but for some fics in particular I've been dead in the water, either on an overarching plot or how to bridge from the current scene I'm stuck on to the next. If you have any thoughts for how Grim could get Loki onto earth to reach him magic and get into some found family goodness, leave a comment! I’d love to get back to this story but got stuck in the bridge between the latest scene and our great overarching story that has yet to be written down. And the lovely idea of Grim interrogating Loki shortly before adopting him right there in the kitchen lmao

Lots of love,
Jay