Tesseract Child

Junior Birdsman

For now Robin waited and tried to play stupid, friendly, and five. Escaping a submarine? Robin vaguely remembered scuba lessons. He knew just enough to know water pressure was dangerous and required skill he didn't possess to deal with safely. Robin wasn't one hundred percent sure he could swim and swimming and oceans wasn't usually a solution anyway.

Nick Fury, Thor, Steve, Clint and Natasha were having a nice screaming match. Bruce was silently weeping off to the side though he had no clear memories of West Hampton, he felt responsible. Tony who wasn't supposed to be out of bed yet had his head down on the boardroom table passed out. He was recovering from a gunshot wound. The painkillers had caught up to him. The data pad he'd been working on was still in one hand.

The watch wrapped in the little yellow cape was received at the Tower from the 8:00 am courier. Hydra didn't want any money but they wanted their agents back and the weapons tech in three days time. They were threatening to broadcast Robin's execution on the web. The demands had also been copied to the three top New York news broadcasters.

Shield was already involved. They were perfectly prepared to let a little boy die to keep terrorists and weapons tech off the streets stating many more people would die if they capitulated with the terrorists.

Hydra figured they'd won either way. This much bad publicity for Shield and the Avengers would be crippling.

The Avengers and Shield complied a list of every known Shield cell. Covert operatives were frantically looking for clues.

On the second day Jarvis interrupted a meeting of chiefs and heads. "Mr. Stark, you are going to want to take this call."

"Mr. Stark. I could really use a friend with a cool robot suit right now. I took their jet but it doesn't have a lot of fuel and I can't reach the pedals to land it and I kind of took their nuke too so they wouldn't shoot me out of the sky but if I get too far out of their airspace they may shoot me down anyway. You know how to fly a jet right? And your robot suit could totally board this thing."

"Robin?!" The Avengers shouted.

"Uh huh. Oh I wonder what this button does?"

"IF YOU DON'T KNOW LEAVE IT ALONE!" shouted Tony. He'd already called his suit.

"oky doky, you don't have to yell," Robin answered softly.

"Jarvis maintain contact and trace the signal. Avengers follow me in the Quinjet. Robin if you can steer that thing over water please do."

A jet joy riding 5 year old is terrifying to have a conversation with.

"I'll be back at the com in a minute I have to go potty."

"ROBIN WAIT!" Ironman tried. The next few minutes were torture.

"Okay all done. Wait I forgot to flush!"

"Robin come back!" Ironman tried. The kid was killing him.

"Hi I'm back, Oh wait! I'll be back in a minute I'm going to go check the nuke I'm not sure I've got it strapped in right."

"ROBIN!" Ironman tried again.

"Oh rats, they got one of their jets off the ground that or re-routed it from somewhere else. This is just like a video game. Phew, Phew! Up in the air the Junior Birdsman. Up in the air upside down. Do you know that song? I sang it at a campfire once with friends."

"Are they firing at you?!" Ironman demanded.

"Just with little guns. It looks like little lasers but I think that's just tracers. Whee! Spin, spin! Up, up no, no go, uppity up!"

What in the heck was going on? Spin? Uppity Up? Ironman was glad he had an arc reactor for a heart or this whole conversation would have given him heart failure a while ago.

"Robin we're three minutes out. Why are you giggling?"

"Well they hit the right engine and it looks like my jet it's farting."

Because of the nuke involved the military heads of half the free world were monitoring the communication signal. A lot of grown ups were looking very pale right now but Robin was giggling.

When Ironman arrived the first thing he did was shoot the other jet out of the sky.

Robin watched wide-eyed until he saw a parachute.

"Robin! I'm talking to you to pay attention!" Ironman tried again.

"What?" Robin sounded a little absent. He still had a nose pressed against the cockpit window watching the parachute.

"I need you to strap in. There's a good chance you'll pass out and things will go flying around when I open the door and the cabin depressurizes."

"Okay Sir."

Ironman pulled open the door. The nuke didn't come flying out but Robin did. Apparently military jets weren't designed to restrain 5 year olds. Ironman dove catching Robin a moment before he could be sucked into the engine intake. He flew him to the Quinjet, which had, thankfully been designed for midair Ironman entry and exit.

Robin woke blearily shivering. Thor was holding him and looking at him worriedly. Dr. Banner was holding a too large oxygen mask on him. Steve was on the radio talking with someone. Clint and Natasha were piloting.

"Hi," Robin chirped cheerfully.