The first thing he tried was waking up.
He pinched his arm hard enough to hiss, then slapped his own cheek just to be sure. The sting lingered. The embarrassment did too.
"Great," he muttered. "Still here."
The alley looked the same as it had a minute ago. Brick walls. A leaking pipe. Trash pushed into corners by habit more than intention. Somewhere nearby, a siren wailed and faded.
Real sounds. Real smells.
Real fear.
He leaned back against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the cold pavement, head tipped back, eyes shut. His thoughts raced, crashing into each other with no clear winner.
This isn't possible.
You don't just fall into another world.
Marvel isn't real.
Except it was. He'd seen the screen. Heard the name. Felt the weight of the place press into him.
Iron Man.
The beginning.
A shaky laugh escaped him before he could stop it. "If this is a dream," he said quietly, "my brain's got an insane budget."
Something stirred at the edge of his awareness.
The shadows.
They responded the way a limb did when you forgot it was there—slow at first, then undeniable. The darkness near his feet stretched, thinning unnaturally, before snapping back into place like it had never moved at all.
He froze.
"That's… not normal," he said.
Carefully, experimentally, he focused again. Not forcing. Just… asking.
The shadows shifted.
No strain. No pain. No learning curve.
They obeyed.
His stomach dropped.
Power wasn't supposed to feel like this. Easy. Intimate. As if it had always been his and the world had simply been hiding it until now.
He stood up slowly.
"Okay," he said, voice steadier than he felt. "So I'm not hallucinating. And I didn't just teleport."
That left one option he wasn't sure he was ready to say out loud.
"I'm stuck."
Across the city, Natasha Romanoff didn't like loose ends.
She sat in the back seat of an unmarked car, city lights sliding past the window as she replayed the alley encounter for the tenth time. Every detail. Every tone shift. Every half-second pause.
He hadn't attacked.
Hadn't threatened.
Hadn't tried to disappear until she noticed him.
That bothered her.
Most people who could hide that well either ran immediately—or never let themselves be seen at all.
"Anything?" she asked, eyes still on the glass.
The driver shook his head. "No ID matches. No facial recognition hits. Like he doesn't exist."
Natasha exhaled slowly.
"Run it again," she said. "And flag the area. Quietly."
"Director Fury wants—"
"I know what Fury wants," she interrupted, calm but final. "This isn't a priority threat. Not yet."
Not yet meant watch closely.
She leaned back, closing her eyes for just a moment.
There was something else. Something she hadn't put into words in her report.
He'd looked… lost.
Not confused. Not arrogant. Lost in the way someone looks when the rules they relied on no longer apply.
That wasn't something training could fake.
Back on the rooftop, he stared out over the city again, arms wrapped around himself more for comfort than warmth.
If this world followed the same rules as the stories, then things were going to get worse before they got better. Invasions. Gods. Aliens. Wars fought over ideals he wasn't sure he shared.
And somewhere in the middle of all that—
SHIELD.
HYDRA.
Natasha Romanoff.
He swallowed.
"I don't want to change things," he said quietly. "But I don't want to die either."
The shadows shifted at his feet, stretching slightly toward the skyline, as if listening.
For the first time since he arrived, he made a decision.
He would stay hidden.
He would observe.
He would survive.
And when the time came—when hiding was no longer enough—
Then he would step forward.
Not as a hero.
Just as someone who was already here.