Avengers: A Darker Shade of Scarlet

Light as a Feather

Dean had traveled across the cosmos before. It came with the territory of dating and then being married to an Asgardian prince. But those travels had never been so jarring as what he was experiencing now.

With a rapidness that had his head spinning, their party fell through multiple portals that America kept generating. With each portal, the world around Dean- and Dean, himself- shifted. They fell through a world of water, surrounded by all manner of strange and unfamiliar underwater creatures. His head began to throb from the pressure of the water around him, but then the pressure dissipated and they passed through another star-shaped portal. Dean's body transformed into a large stream of paint, the colors bright pink, purple and aqua.

"Why are you paint?!?!" Kyle screamed frantically from beside him.

"You're paint, too!" Dean shouted back.

"Oh, shit! Dean, I'm paint too!" Came Kyle's frantic cry.

"Yeah. I know!"

They collided with another portal and the world changed once again, this time to a cartoon.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Kyle muttered, his cartoon skin turning green.

"Shut your eyes!" America screamed from nearby.

"This is so fu..." Kyle started to say. But then his voice shifted to a familiar belching vocalization.

The cartoon world shifted to a lush jungle. Looking at the others, he saw that all of them had transformed into gorillas.

More than anything, Dean wanted this experience to stop. But then, just when he thought he might truly lose his mind from the constant shifts from world to world, the movement stopped altogether and he landed painfully on his back. He slowly peeled his eyes open. A clear blue, cloudless sky met his gaze. He rose up and looked at the others.

"That was horrible," Kyle groaned from beside him. "Next time I'm just letting the witch get you."

Dean stood and offered a hand to Kyle while America helped Strange up.

"Is everyone alright?" America asked.

"Define 'alright'," Dean asked.

"Whatever 'alright' is, I'm not," Kyle groaned as he leaned against Dean.

"I'm fine," Strange said with forced calm. "That's not my first bad trip, kid."

"Where are we?" Dean asked.

"New York," America said.

Strange was about to say something when he suddenly felt a bout of nausea and began to vomit profusely. Dean looked over at Kyle, who bent over and threw up all over the grass at his feet.

"What?" Kyle asked as he slowly stood back up. "I'm totally unbothered by what we just went through. It's just sympathy vomiting! I'm fine."

"Right," America teased.

"So this is New York in this universe," Dean said as he slowly turned in a circle and took in the sights around him. An endless vista of futuristic and shiny steel buildings reached for the sky. They were standing in a very well-manicured park, the grass a vibrant and healthy shade of green.

"Yeah. Pretty isn't it?" America asked.

"Yeah," Dean admitted.

"You should see the Fairytale Universe," America said. "It's one of my favorites."

"Fairytale Universe?" Kyle asked. "Now that I have to see."

Strange shook his head. "We don't have to time reality hop more than we already have, okay?" He turned back to America. "You need to open up a portal and take us back right now."