Work Text:
The first time something went missing from the oven in Avengers Mansion, it was a pizza Thor was trying to cook for himself.
When the timer went off and he went back to remove it from the oven, it was simply gone, along with the metal tray it had been cooking on.
Thor went into the living room and loudly asked who had stolen his food, but no one confessed. It was chalked up as a prank by Barton (again), and forgotten about as Thor ordered in instead.
Barton’s food, first another a pizza and then a tray of pre-made cookie dough, was next. Once again, it was assumed to be retaliation for the earlier theft despite Barton’s earlier denial of guilt.
The third time, it was Natasha’s food which went missing, and the Avengers began to suspect something was actually wrong with the oven. No one had that large of a death wish.
When Tony returned from Malibu, he didn’t take the other Avengers seriously when they insisted the oven was stealing their food. It took a few attempts at cooking in the oven before the phenomenon happened again, but when it did, at least two Avengers had kept their eyes on it the entire time the food was cooking, and everyone was convinced.
The food was simply vanishing.
Then the Experiments began, led by Tony, with a very enthusiastic Barton assisting.
At first, more food items, both frozen and fresh, were tested, regardless of whether one should bake said items or not. When they all disappeared, and with an increasing frequency until anything disappeared once placed in the oven, non-food items were tested, both with the oven off and on.
The items disappeared regardless, to the continuing confusion of the Avengers.
A week after the pink stuffed unicorn went in the oven (with the oven off, even they weren’t that twisted), things started coming back.
But not the things they’d put in.
Anyone in the immediate vicinity of the kitchen could hear a small beep when something appeared, and when they opened the oven, strange things were waiting inside.
At first, the items were clearly only foodstuffs, some of which were familiar (such as an only-slightly-overcooked curry), some familiar but with a twist (such as the bushel of apples whose insides looked like green chicken meat but tasted like pumpkin pie), and others which were just downright weird (such as the glowing fluorescent orange drink which gave off a strong smell that was appetizing but entirely unfamiliar, and upon further investigation, contained a high enough alcohol content to get Steve and Thor both extremely drunk).
Everything was tested for compatibility with human (and Asgardian) digestive systems before anyone ate anything - Bruce’s small contribution of common sense to the insanity of the Avengers at large.
(“Not everything that’s shiny or glowing needs to go in your mouth, Barton! Tony!” Bruce exclaimed, chasing after the archer and the genius.)
After that came the inedible items.
First came two portable hairdryer-looking machines which turned out to emit a stream of water instead of air and ran on some sort of battery Tony had never seen before.
Next came half a dozen assorted roofing tiles, followed quickly by a neon blue Furby. Tony and Barton both insisted the Furby be demolished and destroyed immediately, to Steve’s total confusion.
The next day, Steve woke up at his usual early time and checked the oven (which was quickly becoming a ritual). He found a toy chicken which would not stop making a “bawk bawk” noise and moving around.
The other Avengers blearily walked into the living room, rubbing sleep from their eyes, when Steve made too much noise trying to run away from the stupid toy as it angrily chased him around the room.
Tony was the last to walk in the room, and found the sight of the other Avengers standing around and staring as Steve was chased by the toy chicken.
“It’s too early for this, I don’t even want to know what happened,” he grumbled, turning on his heel. “If anyone wakes me for anything less than an alien invasion, it will result in your immediate demise via repulsor blast.”
He stalked back to his bed, leaving the other Avengers still staring at Steve and the chicken.
“Stop staring and do something,” Steve demanded, running over the back of the couch.
“Guys, hawk, not chicken,” Barton said, seeing that all the other Avengers were looking at him.
“Both are birds,” Natasha said, unhelpfully.
Barton rolled his eyes.
“If it will let everyone go back to sleep...BAWK BAWK,” he half-shouted.
No one expected the toy chicken to halt, dead in its tracks, and slowly turn to look at Barton.
“Uh, guys…”
Steve had stopped in surprise too, staring at Barton, then jumping onto one of the armchairs and crouching there, feet off the ground and away from the chicken.
The toy chicken gave one more bawk, staring straight at Barton, and he badly wished he had his bow.
“Guys…”
The chicken ran for him, and Barton fled into the hall, running for one of the vent grates.
“Not cool guys!” He called as he disappeared into the ceiling.
Ten minutes later, the chicken toy had been taken out by one well-aimed arrow, and Barton was eating cereal out of the box. The other Avengers except Tony and Bruce had given up on sleep, and were quietly eating their own breakfasts.
“We are not speaking of this ever again,” Barton grumbled, before retreating to his room.
---
It didn’t take long for Tony and Bruce to set up a special room in the mansion for the weird items still coming out of the oven, including glowing green slime which tasted like marshmallow fluff, cranberry muffins, a Dutch-singing fish (literally, it ended up living in a pond in the backyard), and half a dog-sized slug. (Or some alien species that looked like a slug anyway, but wasn’t.)
The edible things were carefully tested and then consumed, and the inedible things were recorded, studied, and then either kept (like the singing fish) or disposed of (like the half slug, which stank horribly).
The bots, particularly Dummy, were also rather interested in the strange assortment of objects coming out of the oven, and Dummy regularly took on the duty of opening the oven door whenever it let out a quiet beep to signify the arrival of a new item, then running off to fetch one of the Avengers.
So when the Steve heard Dummy roll over to the oven, which let out its quiet beep a little later, he didn’t think much of it until he realized the robot was being awfully silent. He usually began excitedly beeping and chirping the moment something new arrived.
He got off the couch and went to investigate, but found the oven quiet, empty, and its door shut.
He frowned, looking around, and then began calling for Dummy. When the bot didn’t roll over happily, Steve asked JARVIS to locate him.
“Dummy does not appear to be in the mansion, Captain,” JARVIS replied a moment later, sounding slightly concerned.
A few moments later, Tony ran into the room, still holding a wrench.
“J said Dummy was missing?” He asked, and Steve nodded, while the other Avengers trickled in the room.
“He went into the kitchen, and I heard the oven beep, so I figured he was going to look at it and then get me to pick up whatever it was, but he didn’t. I came in here and the kitchen was empty,” Steve explained.
“J, rewind and play the tapes,” Tony said, pulling a tablet out of a seemingly random kitchen drawer.
The Avengers all watched while the feed from the kitchen’s cameras played back. Dummy rolled into view of the oven, opened the door, and was poking around in it when the footage went a little blurry (as they had discovered always happened when something appeared or disappeared), and then the bot was gone, the oven door closed, and the oven gave its small beep.
“Oh my god,” Tony said, staring at the tablet and then up at the other Avengers. “The oven just kidnapped my robot.”
---
For the next week, things continued to appear and disappear out of the oven, and Tony began tying or taping “have you seen this robot” posters to things and sending them through the oven, hoping someone might be able to send the bot back.
In the meantime, the other bots were banned from the kitchen, to prevent further bot-nappings.
Nine days after Dummy’s disappearance, the very concerned Avengers were called into action. An army of metal-based alien life forms had materialized out of nowhere in downtown New York, and the Avengers were needed.
To their surprise, however, when they arrived downtown, the aliens were not attacking anything. They looked like small many-sided pieces of aluminum, which rotated around like oddly-shapen rubik's cubes, and they had tiny lenses in on several sides which seemed to let them see. They also were all floating, although none of the Avengers could see how they were managing it.
“Uh, we come in peace,” Steve said, approaching one of the slightly larger beings, about the size of a human head.
The thing rotated a few times in mid-air, floating up to him, then it flew to the other Avengers, staring at each of them.
When it reached Iron Man, it made a few high-pitched squeaks, slightly hurting the Avengers’ ears, and floated level with the arc reactor for several moments, chattering excitedly with the other nearby aliens.
“Iron Man, I think you’ve got fans,” Barton joked, eyeing the little creatures.
Before Tony could form a reply, the alien in front of him blinked out of existence.
“I think you scared it off,” Natasha said dryly, raising an eyebrow.
The alien quickly reappeared, however, and this time Dummy blinked back into existence next to it, surrounded by several more of the larger aliens.
“Dummy?” Tony exclaimed, clearly sounding flabbergasted despite the suit’s voice modification.
The bot gave a few happy chirps and rolled over, bumping its claw head against the suit’s arm.
The alien who had been inspecting them earlier flew over and made several more beeping noises, which Dummy replied to.
“Thor, you understanding any of this?” Tony asked, watching the weird conversation happening in front of him.
“Nay, my Allspeak does not seem to carry to whatever language these beings speak,” he replied from somewhere behind Tony.
“Sir, if I may,” JARVIS said over the Avengers’ coms.
“J?”
“I can understand them, as they seem to communicate much like Dummy does.”
“Go ahead then,” Tony said, and JARVIS turned on the outer speakers of the suit so he could let out several beeps and squeaks at the aliens.
The aliens around them made excited noises in reply, and it was clear they could understand whatever JARVIS had said.
After a few more lengthy exchanges, JARVIS fell silent for a moment and changed back to the Avengers’ coms.
“This is a friendly species,” he reported, “although the name of their species is a series of beeps which cannot be translated into English. They come from a parallel dimension, and Dummy appeared there after he disappeared into the oven. They seem to consider him a god, and when the lost robot posters you sent came through, they realized he needed to return home. They have the technology to travel between dimensions, and visited different worlds until they found the 'being with the pretty blue light in its chest,' as Dummy seems to have described you, Sir.”
Tony blinked, processing that news.
“Did you just say they they consider Dummy to be a god?” Barton blurted out.
“Yes, Agent Barton,” JARVIS replied dutifully.
Barton stared at the aliens, open-mouthed, and one of the smaller ones came up and beeped a few times in his face, friendly.
He reached out and sort of petted the thing, hesitantly, and it made pleased noises similar to how Dummy did when petted or scratched.
Tony stared at the happy robot in front of him, chattering with his new friends again. Then he turned to Steve, and even with the faceplate down, Steve knew Tony was giving him a wide-eyed look.
“How did Dummy just get kidnapped by a multidimensional oven and return with an alien army in tow? How is this my life?”
Steve just shook his head.
“I don’t know, you built him,” he replied.
Dummy’s claw arm waved happily at his new friends, and they vanished. A few more beeps with JARVIS, and JARVIS translated that Dummy’s 'small shiny friends' had returned home, but would come back if he (Dummy) needed them again.
Tony waited until he was back in the mansion and then dragged a hand down his face while Dummy obliviously trailed after him.
“My robot has an alien army at his disposal. Again, how is this my life?” He asked of the other Avengers, once again sitting around the living room.
“Hey, don’t look at me, Thor was the first one who broke the oven!” Barton exclaimed, sparking a new round of well-natured arguing over whose fault the oven was.
Dummy watched them and looked up at his creator, beeping inquisitively.
“Never mind, Dummy,” Tony sighed, patting his head again. “Time to go set up some kind of dimensional mailbox system in our oven.”