americas_son | AU-squared: someday it will have a name

There is, in fact, exactly enough time for Cal to start in surprise at the sound, dropping his soda, before -

- he doesn't know, exactly. Something the human mind is not built to cope with, which ends with a really hard landing on an unyielding surface.

Ow.

The lights in the room come up, and a dry, familiar voice says:

"You are not authorized to access this area."

Cal's eyes open, and he blinks a couple of times, but he doesn't register the unfamiliar surroundings yet - he's too busy trying to get his breath back after having the wind knocked out of him.

"- Jarvis, what just happened?" he manages to ask after a moment.

"You are not authorized to access this area."

"You said that."

It wasn't helpful the first time, either. And it doesn't make any sense. Since when is there any part of the Stark residence he's not authorized to access? Not necessarily encouraged, okay, but not authorized?

Cal sits up, slowly, and then he starts looking around.

"Wait. Where am I?"

This is not a room he's seen before.

It looks a little familiar, in type if not in detail. It's Tony Stark's workroom/garage. More space, more cars, more and weirder half-finished projects, but there is still something very Tony about the place.

There's a slight, almost unnoticeable pause before Jarvis repeats for the third time: "You are not authorized to access this area."

Yeah. That's the second thing Cal notices. It looks like Tony's workshop, except that he's been in Tony's workshop, and this room isn't Tony's workshop.

And for that matter, he's never heard Jarvis be this unfuckinghelpful, either.

"Great, then what should I do about that?" he says irritably.

Jarvis is silent.

"Yeah, thanks."

Cal gets up, putting his hand to his back as he does; his adrenalin is too jacked right now to feel any significant pain, but that landing was so hard he's not sure he didn't break something.

There's - something - tickling at the back of his mind. Once upon a time, three years and a lifetime ago, he would have ignored it, but now he pauses to listen. He may not have Sherlock's deductive capacity, but anyone can learn to listen to their brain when it's trying to tell them something.

Unfamiliar version of Tony's workshop . . . Jarvis being weird - no, more than that, Jarvis not seeming to recognize him . . . yeah. The situation is not unfamiliar.

It's like running into a double at Milliways.

"...my workshop, Pepper," another familiar voice is saying as it comes within earshot on the other side of the sliding glass door. "Mine!"

"And anyone who can get in there unnoticed is a threat we should take seriously, sir," Pepper persists.

Which, of course, is why she is right behind him instead of maintaining a safe distance and trying to talk him out of potential suicide over the intercom instead.

Never mind that.

Cal looks over at the sound of voices.

This is about to get a lot more interesting than talking to Jarvis was.

"He's a kid," Tony remarks from the other side of the closed door. "Pepper, there's a college kid in my basement."

"Appearances can be deceiving, sir," Pepper says tightly, but she still leans in a little to have a look for herself.

Cal is looking at them, too. They're both older, although there's something about that that's not quite syncing up either, but this time Cal doesn't pay attention to that, because where is Sherlock?

Direct as always:

"Hi! Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?"

"Hi."

Cal hesitates.

"I'm not sure yet. I didn't put myself here."

Okay, so there doesn't seem to be a Sherlock around to verify with one look that Cal isn't a threat. (There are other reasons he kind of hates that, too, but they're not important right now.) So - he's gonna have to do that himself. Somehow.

"I don't suppose you've ever heard of Milliways?" He doubts very much that Milliways actually had anything to do with this, but if this Tony is already comfortable with the idea of other worlds, that would really help.

"...No?"

What?

—actually, come to think of it:

"Why are we talking about Douglas Adams now?"

". . . I don't think we are."

Pepper takes a step forward, focused on the kid.

"You're saying Milliways put you here," she says skeptically.

Because the only thing that is always true about Milliways is that someone has to hold the door for you if you're going to visit their world, and there's no one else here.

Cal looks relieved. It would be nice if Tony knew, too, but at least someone does.

"No," he says. "But I am from a different world. I know both of you there."

He's only met Miss Potts a handful of times, since she's busy on the East Coast with Stark Industries, but it still counts.

"Pepper, make this make sense."

"Milliways is real, sir," Pepper says matter-of-factly, her eyes still on the boy. "Adams probably borrowed the idea from having visited himself. It's a nexus between worlds that appears to some people when they open doors at home."

Pepper has been visiting for years. How else could she get all her paperwork done on the days when Tony has been particularly - time-consuming?

He takes a beat to digest this.

"...Okay, and now it makes sense. Back to the part about college kids in my basement."

Well, that was easy. Thank god.

"I don't know what happened," Cal admits. "But nothing here is the same, so. It must be a different world."

Where Tony and Miss Potts are older (maybe it's a different year, too?) (but there's still something not quite right about that) and don't know him - oh. Right.

"My name's Cal Chandler," he adds.

Wait wait, no.

"Pepper, why didn't you tell me you had concrete evidence of alternate universes?"

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