Tony took me to a penthouse that he has in New York. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the glowing city. Extremely expensive and likely one of his many homes around the world.
He didn't speak at first.
Which was how I knew he was thinking.
Tony Stark went silent only when something truly bothered him.
Tony pointed at the couch.
"Sit."
I sat.
He paced. A lot.
Then he finally stopped and faced me.
"You teleported to another universe almost one week ago," he began slowly, like he was afraid the words might explode. "We had no way to know that you reached the other side in one piece. Then you teleported back tonight. Alone. Into a random alley. At midnight."
He held up a finger.
"And then you almost got kidnapped by a drunk."
Another finger.
"And THEN you made a death threat against my suits using someone else's phone."
I scratched my cheek. "... I needed you to arrive fast, and it worked. Plus, it was the fastest way to get JARVIS' attention."
"That's not the POINT."
He dragged both hands down his face.
"Kid, I— look, I don't do well with… tiny people in danger."
The admission came out rough, almost frustrated.
Tony Stark didn't like feeling helpless. And picking me up from May Parker's apartment?
That had made him feel very helpless.
He sat across from me, elbows on his knees.
"What's going on with you?" he asked quietly. "You said you'd be back. We were waiting. But I didn't think 'back' meant 'barely avoiding being murdered in Queens.'"
I exhaled slowly.
"I didn't plan that," I said honestly. "I didn't even know where I'd appear. And… I couldn't use my powers."
His head snapped up. "What?"
"My telekinesis," I clarified. "It barely worked."
Tony swore under his breath, stood, paced again, then pointed at me dramatically.
"New rule. If you're doing interdimensional travel — I supervise."
I rolled my eyes. "I don't need a babysitter."
"You do now," he shot back. "Congratulations."
"God, I sound like my dad."
Despite everything…
I smiled a little.
He rubbed his forehead, exhausted. "Look, I didn't fly across New York in my pyjamas at two in the morning just to dump you somewhere and go home. We're figuring this out."
I blinked. "We?"
Tony sighed as if he regretted saying it, then waved it off.
"Yeah, yeah, don't make it weird. The point is — you and I are talking. Here. Now. Because clearly, the universe refuses to make my life peaceful."
"Ok, there was a reason why I traveled during the night. I still don't know how this thing of dimensional travel worked, but if I disappear for hours, my parents will be suspicious, so I snuck out to another universe while they were sleeping."
"And I thought I was rebellious as a kid," he muttered. "The worst thing I did was steal the family jet and sneak off to party across Europe."
He pointed at me accusingly. "You, however, set a new dimensional record."
I held up my hands. "In my defence, I was not planning to run into a drunk man, nor to appear in a random alley again."
"That's not a defence!" Tony snapped. "That's… that's just worsening your case!"
I crossed my arms. "It worked out."
"That's not the point," he repeated, pacing again. "The point is — you can't just casually hop universes before we figure out how it works."
"Why not? I just need to focus on a clear landing point next time." I asked, thinking he was exaggerating, despite being currently ten years old. I also took care of myself for a whole lifetime, even if it was only until my teens.
Tony stopped mid-pace, turned, and gave me the flattest stare I had ever seen.
"Because you are TEN," he said slowly, "You are still a kid."
I opened my mouth, then closed it. I couldn't argue with that, wait, I could.
"Well, ten years old is young enough to help save the world, but not to travel dimensions."
Tony ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Look, kid… you're smart. You're tough. Kinda terrifying. But you're still a child. And children do not go dimension-jumping without adult supervision. And, you shouldn't even be at that battle in the first place."
I rolled my eyes. "Fine. You can supervise when I travel back. Happy?"
Tony blinked, clearly not expecting compliance.
"…Yes. Actually. Very."
He straightened his posture dramatically. "Good. See? Teamwork."
I snorted.
Tony clapped his hands once. "Next order of business — why did your powers stop working?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," I said. "The best I managed was lifting a bottle for two seconds."
Tony grimaced. "Great. Love that. Universe travel comes with cooldown periods. Amazing. Maybe next time you'll bring back souvenirs."
I raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"Preferably not trauma!" he shot back. "Or kidnappers. Or drunk men. Or whatever cosmic nonsense the next universe throws at us."
"I don't think it was a cooldown," I said slowly. "The first time I travelled here — during the battle — my powers didn't feel unstable. When they first appeared, it was like something unlocked inside me. I felt… overpowered. Like I could do anything. Like I instinctively knew how to use them. I just had to think, and it happened."
Tony stared at me.
Then he threw both hands in the air.
"Hold on — HOLD ON — go back to that part!"
He pointed at me accusingly. "So the FIRST time you discovered your powers, with zero practice, zero understanding, zero training, your brilliant little brain decided the best course of action was to glue yourself to Capsicle's back and participate in an INTERPLANETARY WAR at TEN YEARS OLD?!"
I blinked. "Yes?"
He made a strangled noise.
"YES? That's your defence?! YES?!"
"You're the one who said I was terrifying," I reminded him.
"That was a COMPLIMENT, not a CHALLENGE!" he shouted, pacing wildly. "You don't just unlock god-tier powers and immediately sign up for the apocalypse!"
I crossed my arms. "It worked."
"That's not the POINT!" he groaned. "Do you have any idea how many heart attacks you've already given me and I've only known you, what, a week?!"
"Not my fault, you're dramatic," I muttered.
Tony froze mid-pace and slowly turned toward me.
"Kid, you are grounded."
I snorted. "Good luck with that. You're not my father. My parents live in another dimension. If you somehow invent interdimensional travel just to tattletale on me, I won't even argue — I'll just applaud your god-tier achievement."
Tony pointed at me like I was the unreasonable one. "See? SEE? This is exactly why I should never have children. You already gave me grey hairs in days that I managed to give my father during my whole childhood."
"So you admit defeat?" I asked sweetly.
"I admit," he said, dragging a hand through his hair, "that I am very grateful I'm not your father. If I were, I'd have aged twenty years tonight alone."
I shrugged. "To be fair, you did fly across New York in pyjamas to pick me up, when May made me call my guardian, Uncle Tony."
"Because you threatened my suits!"
"I needed your attention."
"You could have said 'please'!"
"Where's the fun in that?"
Tony stared at me with the tired exasperation of a man who had just realised the universe had personally assigned him a chaos gremlin.
"Yep," he muttered. "Never having kids. By the way, you are still grounded, my dear 'niece'."
"Anyway, back to the important topic. It's what, four in the morning? I need to be back by six at the latest, at least until I can confirm how the time difference works between our universes. Considering you said almost a week passed for you while only two days passed for me, my theory is getting stronger… but I'm not risking it yet."
"I need help," I admitted. I needed the Avengers' help to prepare for what was going to happen in two months with the lab, but I could not reveal my future knowledge. I had to convince them that something dangerous was happening in my town, and that a ten-year-old's suspicion and paranoia had led me to notice it.
The truth was on my side. I did seem for my age. I had literally fought a war beside them; they won't think of me as an ordinary kid. And between my past life's knowledge in a ten-year-old body and my naturally intelligent mind as Erica with the possible intelligence boost I received, I probably came across as a child genius.
Today, I spent the whole afternoon planning exactly what I would say. I pieced together the facts I had seen myself with the information I knew from watching the series, shaping it into a story they could reasonably believe. And they would believe it because the fear in my voice was real. My desire to fight that lab was real.
I truly wanted to stop them from the bottom of my heart. They were the bad men. And as the only one who knew the truth, I had to prepare for the coming battle. Because if the lab discovers something, they will be coming after me.
"I think I discovered something strange in my home universe," I said. "I live in a place called Hawkins, and… something is happening there. When I came back, I was extremely paranoid that someone would discover my powers and turn me into an experiment. So I started watching everything, assuming every little thing could be a threat. No one knew about my abilities; I was too scared to use them when I returned, which is why I only realised they were weakened now. And this discovery only made my fears worse, because without my powers, I can't fight back at all."
I swallowed.
" When I was going to school with my brother and his friends, I noticed strange patterns around town. There's a U.S. Department of Energy facility in Hawkins, my brother's friend Will lives near it, and the security around it is way too strong for a normal lab. Too many guards, shipments, and military grade equipment, they were not normal security guards, they looked like the agents I saw in the battle."
Tony listened, arms crossed, eyebrows drawn tight. When I finished, he let out a long breath and leaned back a little.
"Okay… Hawkins," he repeated. "Small, quiet town. Government facility. Guards. Trucks. High-level security."
He shrugged. "Kid, that sounds like pretty much every classified government project in the country. You are overthinking."
He waved a hand as if brushing the worry aside.
"They're probably developing some new tech, or energy source, or just wasting taxpayer money running secret experiments on corn. The U.S. has hundreds of labs with high clearance levels. Doesn't automatically mean something spooky is going on."
I frowned. "But these guards didn't look normal. Their equipment—"
"—could be military contractors," Tony cut in. "Or federal security. Or just guys with too much funding and not enough taste."
I opened my mouth to argue, but he kept going.
"Look, you've been paranoid, reasonably so, since you came back. Anyone in your situation would be. But don't jump to the conclusion that your town has a dark secret because the local lab has a few extra men with guns."
"I doubted myself, too," I said quickly, "until I dug deeper. I convinced my mother to take me on a trip to the Hawkins Public Library and, while she was distracted at a salon and grocery shopping, I checked the archives."
Tony's posture straightened.
"I found something strange," I continued. "Old newspaper clippings about a woman, Terry Ives, suing the facility. She said they took her daughter. She claimed they kidnapped her newborn baby, Jane. But the case was dismissed due to 'lack of evidence,' and the mother suddenly went crazy."
Tony's eyes sharpened. He was serious now,
"If what she said was true," I whispered, "then the girl would be about a year older than me. And if there's one victim… there could be more. A lot more. Locked inside that facility with nobody knowing."
"What if they're being used for illegal testing?" I pressed, my voice tightening. "Experiments? Weapons? What if those kids are like me?"
Tony went still.
"We know exactly what any government, no matter the universe, would do with superpowered children," I said quietly. "But what if they're already doing it? What if there are more people like me out there in my universe… and I was just lucky I wasn't found?"
My hands clenched in my lap.
"What if I wasn't a miracle for suddenly waking up with powers?" I whispered. "What if I was a missed opportunity to them? I live near that facility. If my theory is right, I'm in just as much danger as the children trapped inside."
My throat tightened.
"And that's only if they're still alive. Because even if my theory is wrong — even if the kids aren't dead but are being used as test subjects or trained as weapons — it's still happening. They're still being hurt. They still need to be stopped. And… I think I'm the only one who can do it."
Tony's eyes widened, all traces of casual bravado vanishing at once, and his expression sharpening into something deadly serious.
He stepped closer, slowly, carefully.
"Kid… no."
His voice was firmer than before, sharp with fear he wasn't bothering to hide.
"You are not the only one who can do anything about this."
I opened my mouth, but he raised a hand.
"No. Listen."
He crouched so we were eye level, something Tony Stark absolutely did not do unless he was being serious.
"You're ten," he said. "A brilliant ten, yes. A chaos-infused, universe-jumping, telekinetic ten — but a ten-year-old nonetheless. Your powers are not even working properly."
I looked away, but he tapped my knee gently.
"Look at me."
I did.
And for once, Tony wasn't joking. He wasn't rolling his eyes.
He looked… scared.
"If what you're saying is true, then your universe has a serious problem. A dangerous one. And I get that you feel responsible. I get that you feel alone." He swallowed. "But this? You do not handle something like that by yourself."
"But you can't help me," I whispered. "None of you can come with me. You're stuck in this universe."
Tony's jaw tightened. The truth hit him too.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, I know. And it's killing me."
Silence. Heavy. Real.
Tony dragged a hand down his face, clearly wrestling with the situation.
"Look… I can't go to your universe. I can't physically help you. So… option two."
He took a breath.
"You tell an adult in your universe. Someone with authority. Police, FBI, child services, a senator, I don't care, someone grown-up handles the government conspiracy."
I stared at him, stunned.
He kept going.
"You're a kid, Erica. A smart kid, disturbingly smart, but still a kid. If this facility is doing illegal testing or kidnapping children, then your world has processes, systems, laws, people whose literal job is to fix this stuff."
I blinked hard.
He wasn't done.
"You go to the authorities. You tell them what you found. You give them the clippings, whatever clues you've got. Adults take over. That's the responsible option here."
I let out a shaky breath.
"Tony… no one will believe me."
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
"You don't know that."
"I do," I whispered. "That case was dismissed even when an adult tried. Terry Ives reported it, and they shut her down. They declared her insane. They probably did something to make her insane."
Tony hesitated.
"And if I go to the police," I continued, voice trembling, "and the lab really is doing experiments… then I'm telling the same government that might be kidnapping children. Do you know what they'd do if they found a superpowered ten-year-old walking into the station?"
Tony's expression shifted, his frustration melting into horror as he realised the flaw in his own suggestion.
I took a breath, voice trembling.
"They wouldn't protect me, Tony. They'd take me. And I'd disappear too. Then, they would tie all the loose ends as they did with Terry Ives; they would go after my family and everyone whom I could possibly tell this secret."
"And besides," I added quietly, "I don't think the police in my town know anything. They're normal people. They wouldn't believe a ten-year-old talking about kidnapping labs and stolen babies. They'd think I'm delusional or lying. Even if they think that it is a prank and do not report it, I live in a small town, and there is no way that the government won't discover it. They are probably monitoring all telephone lines in the town."
He swallowed.
I lowered my gaze.
"I can't trust the authorities. Not when they're probably involved. This is a government project."
Tony stared at me, eyes tightening, jaw clenching — because he understood.
Because he knew I was right.
And because the "responsible adult" answer — the one he wanted to give — simply didn't apply in the world I was describing.
He sank onto the couch beside me, rubbing his temples.
"Okay," he muttered. "So telling the authorities is off the table."
I nodded.
Tony exhaled sharply.
"Damn it."
I wished more than anything that I could just walk into a police station or a newsroom, tell them everything, and have the lab shut down in minutes. But I knew better. The lab in Hawkins was ruthless; they did not hesitate to kill to keep their secrets. And even if I somehow got the truth public, they would just bury everything deeper, hide and start somewhere new, the same way they did in the series.
I took a shaky breath.
"The reason I came to you is that I need the help of you and the rest of the Avengers," I said. "I know it's impossible to ask for help, actually fighting them. I know I'm the only one who can go back and do something. But no matter how much I want to storm that facility right now and stop everything… I'm still ten. I won't win against an entire government. I need to get stronger. immediately"
"That's where all of you come in," I continued. "I need to ask a favour. I need you to teach me. All of you. Help me train my powers. Teach me how to fight. How to survive. Or maybe how to build technology that can protect me."
I swallowed hard.
"This world is ridiculously advanced compared to mine. In my universe, it's still 1983 during the Cold War. Anything I can replicate from here would be a massive advantage. Even telephones here are more advanced than anything my timeline has imagined. If I could recreate even a cheap version there, I could build a safe line of communication the government can't monitor."
I looked up at him, feeling small but determined.
"I need every bit of help I can get."
"I can say for sure that everyone will help," Tony replied, pointing a finger at me like a commander. "On one condition: you do not storm into a government facility by yourself. Not until we say you're ready. Not while your powers are unstable. Not when you don't know what's inside. Not when you can't fight back."
"But those kids—"
"—need someone who survives long enough to help them," he cut in sharply. "If you walk into that place before you know you can win, you'll just become another lost file in their basement."
My breath caught.
"You're not going to save anyone if you get taken too," he finished quietly.
I froze.
Tony exhaled, frustration and determination tightening his features.
"You're not doing this alone," he said firmly. "Not mentally. Not strategically. Another universe or not—during that battle, you became part of the team. Whether we like it or not."
I stared at him, stunned.
"And when the time comes for you to fight back?" he continued. "You'll go in ready. Smarter. Trained. Armed with everything we can give you."
A faint, crooked smile tugged at his lips.
"Think of it as remote assistance from another dimension."
Despite the fear twisting in my stomach…
Hope flickered.
Tony straightened, rubbing the back of his neck.
"I need to process everything you just told me," he said. "For now, you need to go. It's almost six. I'll find a way to contact the other Avengers; we already parted ways, and they are already back at hiding."
"Give me three days," Tony continued. "After that, you come back and meet us at my house in Miami. Do not make me track you down again in a random alley or someone's apartment."
I bit back a smile. The burden that I was carrying by myself lessened.
"I'll try," I said, already feeling the familiar dimensional pull beginning to form.
Tony pointed at me again. "Don't 'try.' Do."
And with that…
I focused on Hawkins.
In my home.
And, I vanished again.
I was back before anyone realised that I was gone.
The first part of my plan is complete.