sixthiterationlogs | sorry mario

Entry tags:

sorry mario

WHO: Tony Stark
WHERE: The Fountain, Blacksmithy.
WHEN: 25 Sept.
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Tony Stark.
STATUS: Open, ongoing. Like I'll ever remember to edit this once it's not.

ᴛʜᴇ ғᴏᴜɴᴛᴀɪɴ

He squints.

Both at the sunlight and the fact that the world seems to have rearranged itself somehow in the last little while since he most recently took survey of his surroundings, and he's not entirely sure to which direction things have swung but he knows he doesn't like it.

Level one, assessment. He's sitting up on the bottom of a probably-concrete pit outside, and he can hear wildlife. No, wait, not a pit, a fountain, unless one makes the argument that a fountain without any water is technically a pit anyway. "Somebody changed my clothes, sure, why not, that's not weird at all. That hasn't happened since like. Ninety four." Investigating the backpack tells him very little aside from the fact that someone around here apparently lacks forethought and that he's retroactively pretty happy this fountain is empty aside from one increasingly irritated engineer.

"Alright, I don't know what kind of game this is, but it's pretty crappy! Like, terrible. Duke Nukem wouldn't even touch this with a wavebird, and now I'm just talking to myself in a hole. Fantastic. I have red pants, a peacoat, and nothing to get out of here with."

Shouting into the void seems like potentially a Bad Idea, so instead he's gonna poke around and see if he can finagle something out of the pipework maybe. Probably with running commentary to himself.

ʙʟᴀᴄᴋsᴍɪᴛʜʏ

Well this is familiar. His hand releases the strap of his backpack over his shoulder and trails over the edge of a shelf. Tony hasn't seen much of wherever the hell this little place is - nothing even really indicates whatever country he's supposed to be in now - but he can't really say it looks that appealing. If there's a blacksmith, then this might be a little bit more rustic than he's comfortable with. Either that or he's found the last bastion of hipsters. That might at least explain the overalls.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sam Wilson is here? Is this place some kind of repository for people he's heard of, because that would just be weird. Literally nothing so far explains why they would have been targeted though, and his experiences with kidnapping tend to lead towards reasons-we-want-you-here being revealed rather early on in the proceedings. Really, they're pretty impatient about it, in general.

"Father," he states bluntly, still smiling, because maybe that will help him forget that there are serious timeline issues apparently at play here and lord the math he's going to sprawl across some flat surface here soon is going to be immense, before he realizes there might actually be a little bit of clarity needed there. "As in, mine. Tell Wilson I said hi."

Peggy blinks, taken aback by the notion that Howard Stark procreated. Well, of course he has, she's actually a touch more surprised there aren't more children out there, but asking how many siblings Tony has seems a touch crude and out of step. "He's your father. Howard Stark is your father. Howard Stark?" She tries to see it, tries to imagine Howard in a paternal light, and tries to imagine the type of woman that would be willing to put up with him like that for so very long.

"I'm sorry, this is all a bit much," she admits. "What year were you born?"

Yes that's more or less the reaction he was anticipating.

"1970. Agreed on the 'much' element, by the way."

Took Howard a while to settle down, apparently, but Tony doubts things would have been too much different if his birth year had been 1960 or 1950. After the whole expo thing he had briefly entertained the idea that, like most other things regarding his relationship with his father, Howard had intentionally waited in an attempt to angle Tony further forward in the technological advancement game. Or something. He'll never know now anyway, so he doesn't really bother thinking about it too much.

Then again, by all accounts his father was more or less a different person than whatever individual inhabited his body when Tony was in the room, so who knows. Maybe things would have been different.

"What year are you from?"

Her eyes widen in sharp surprise when he says the year, doing the math in her head to figure out exactly how old she'd be when he was born, which is quite a bit older than Peggy ever expected to think of infants being around her. "1947," she answers, now a touch more cowed seeing as there's true purpose to asking this question. The trouble is that Peggy is still obsessing over what he's been saying.

He's Howard Stark's son. The Tony Stark people keep mentioning is Howard's son, a son born in 1970, well past the age most people settle down into families. She's afraid some of this shock (and potentially a smidgen of horror) is showing on her face, and she shakes her head. "Siblings?" she ekes out.

Good lord, she's what, half his age? He officially hates time travel. Probably this place too, while he's at it, just chuck it right on in with the former, although maybe it wins some points back if he gets to talk to her again. It's been a long time.

That familiar feeling of guilt creeps in a little at the edges, and he rationalizes it away because he can't feel guilty for not talking to her when he's actively talking to her, right? It cancels itself out.

Kind of.

"Just me." Thank god. The world can only handle so many Starks in it at once. He'd put the max at approximately two, but then that just makes them sound like Sith lords, and his mother always seemed to do okay, so, who knows.

"So. This is fun," he says, hooking his thumbs on the straps of his backpack. "You make a habit of walking around with rope, looking to help handsome strangers out of boring situations?" There's a joke there to be potentially made about the rope, but. He's not sure how he feels about making it in present company. Maybe.

She raises her brow and lets her posture go slightly slack when he refers to himself as 'handsome'. Between the ego and the patter and his general ego, she's beginning to see the parts of Howard in him, though she doesn't exactly say as much. After all, she's only known the man in front of her for a few minutes, she hardly thinks she can make full personality assessments based on that.

"I was walking around with rope so I could head out to the canyons in order to explore them a little more in depth," she counters. "And instead, I apparently rescued my friend's son from the future from a pit," she says, trying to figure out whether this is more or less strange than her life these days. "You know me, then," she interprets, given his reactions. "In the future?"

What, he's seen a mirror, he knows what he looks like. If she wants to disagree she's going to need to make a very compelling argument. Like she doesn't know she's beautiful, please. He raises an eyebrow right back at her for a few moments in response, before she starts to actually reply.

"Canyon thing on temporary backburner," he starts, because privately it's both nice and weird to hear 'my friend's son' for reasons Tony can't really explain and it's worth mentioning that this is the case, there's mostly a slight pause between discerning tenses. Does he still know her? He hasn't seen her in... A while.

Whatever. When in doubt, fudge. "Yeah, I - you were around a decent amount, when I was younger. Not only then, but. Mostly." Or just omit because it's not always that easy to lie, even sideways. Topic change!

"What's in the canyons?"

She would have been forty-nine when Tony had been born, so any relationship they must have had would have been a very matronly one, she assumes. He's certainly older than her, now. This is all quite an odd thing to process, though she can certainly see how she would want to be there to support any child of Howard's. Especially since she can even imagine what life in that household might have been like.

"The canyons move, as best as I can tell. I'm trying to map out the borders, but they're eluding me," she says, but she doesn't want to talk about canyons. "Who's your mother?" she asks, grateful that at least Tony hadn't greeted her with a cheerful 'Mum' because the prospect of her having children with Howard is a touch of a recurring nightmare she's had once or twice.

That's sad, because moving canyons sounds much more interesting than catching up Aunt Peggy on relatives and old family history. In the same breath, barely a pause between the two very different topics of conversation, "Maria Carbonell, they what. I'm sorry," he says, tilting his head a little, "I must have misheard you - the canyons move? How?"

Canyons are by definition only defined by the area they don't inhabit, they literally can't go anywhere. He's been here less than half an hour and he's already learned that apparently time doesn't matter and now it doesn't sound like matter matters either. Where the hell is this place? Are there any constants at all?

She might beg to differ, but when you strip away the emotional component, she does suppose that the canyons being malleable is more interesting than her finding out what kind of woman was able to put up with Howard Stark long enough to both marry and stay -- though perhaps only by a little. She doesn't know a Maria Carbonell, which she likely wouldn't.

"Younger than Howard, I take it," is Peggy's wry comment, staring him down calmly. "Yes, they move. I haven't figured out why, but I'm in the process of mapping and re-mapping them to amend to the changes."

"Couple years. Sometimes three. Hitched up sometime in the fifties I think." They can totally have these two conversations concurrently, right? It's like a trade off for information, you know what I want to know and all that. He's willing to volunteer a little more information than she asked for since she's probably trying to put some pieces of her future together while he calculates the degree to which he already dislikes this place.

"So I guess they Red Light, Green Light this whole cartesian conspiracy? That's mildly considerate of them, at least. Keeps people from falling into a random pit." Emphasis because the latter part of that sentence is directed partially to whatever Supreme Beings might be controlling things, and partially to the empty fountain beside him. He faces her more fully with a flash fake smile, and moves on. "So, you have a map?"

"Of course I do," Peggy replies, filled with pride and a mild indignation that she might not. Ever since Killian had finished something for her, Peggy has been determined and rushing to get the map drawn up. It had seemed fine enough to put the streets, homes, and residents on it. The trouble had arose when she'd reached the canyons. Then, she found that all she did was map and remap.

"How was Howard, then?" she finds herself asking as she feels a pit in her stomach grow, given that she's worried that she knows the answer. "As a father, that is."

He's about to ask what he feels is the obvious follow-up of Well then can I look at the map, why aren't you getting it out yet, when she just. Point blankly asks him something he was mostly assuming would either be sidestepped politely or just not brought up at all. It's a question he has been asked before, but only really by interviewers angling down specific avenues in his life. Then again he supposes she probably has more reason to ask it than most, but still, he wasn't expecting it. Most people don't just out and out ask how your parents were at parenting.

"He was fine, Howard Stark was good at everything." The problem with having only been asked by interviewers is that the knee-jerk response is the one for press, which. Likely won't work on someone who was friends with his father since nobody is ever actually good at everything. Who knows, maybe it will. It wouldn't be the first time he would be reminded that they didn't really know each other that well. "Can I see the map?"

Peggy is, in fact, digging out the carefully folded map from her backpack, but then, she's also keeping it a fair distance away from Tony, refusing to simply hold it out to him. "Howard Stark is most certainly not good at everything," is her calm retort, "and anyone who says otherwise has been blinded by the shiny baubles he bestows upon them."

"You can look at the map, but it's still in progress," she warns, unrolling it to lay it out on a flat stump near the fountain.

Yes, well. Tony's not really sure how to respond to that. It's not as though he was totally expecting her to buy it, but he definitely wasn't expecting something that sounds so... Borderline condemning, maybe? about dear ol' dad. He'd almost forgotten what talking to her was like, how blunt and un-mincing she could be. It's nice. Tony's choosing to ignore the whole 'shiny baubles' aspect though, because he recognises his own general pattern of behavior in her wording and there's really no need to get into that just now.

He elects to come over to look at the map in lieu of immediately replying to the first topic, though. "And probably always will be, if the topographical layout changes like a high school trying to figure out which clique to impress that day," he says, eyes darting over it here and there, taking in and committing as much to memory as he can. "Were any of these buildings labelled or did you just discern their use by whatever was inside them?" Because he can imagine that unless it still actually had items indicating its use, something like a schoolhouse or town hall might not necessarily immediately look like one.

After that though, he looks over at her, aspect switching from calculating to something a bit more thoughtful. "You've known him for a while by your time, haven't you?"

She opens her mouth to agree regarding the changing landscape, but settles for an arch of her brow when he gets into so many foreign colloquialisms that Peggy's immediately lost because those words all make sense, but not when strung together like that - at least, not to her. "I've discerned their purpose by what's inside," she admits. "For the most part, it was easy to distinguish the inn, the mill, and the blacksmith," she says, pointing to them on the map.

She turns to catch his look, trying to figure out where his line of questioning is meant to go. "I've known Howard for half a decade, for better or worse."

"So how did you figure the town hall and the schoolhouse?" he questions, figuring there must have been something within them to designate them as such, because he knows she's not stupid and is that sort of person who likely wouldn't have labelled them at all if she didn't think that's what they were for. At least, that's what he thinks of her. The schoolhouse might have had desks in it, the town hall maybe... Well okay, he's not sure how to distinguish a town hall.

The other topic of conversation doesn't really have much of a point since Tony abruptly realizes he's not willing to come out with what was he like? just yet. So he really just sort of shrugs and nods and looks back at the map. "That's longer than most people. He must have liked you."

"There were the remnants of something like desks in the schoolhouse," she replies, "and the town hall had sufficient space for meetings. I suppose a city hall or gathering space might have been apt, but I thought perhaps to go with what I knew." She stares at the frustrating canyon that keeps evading her, sighing as she begins to roll it back up.

She gives Tony a curious look, not sure what she can say about her relationship with Howard, but she thinks she might be safe if she sticks to the basics. "Well, for three of those years, we had a working relationship," she points out. "He and I were both attached to the SSR in different capacities. We simply ran in the same circles. After the war...well, I was lucky enough to be the only person who could prevent him from being locked up for treason," she says wryly.

Well that makes sense at least. It's also encouraging, because it means this isn't a map of a whole bunch of empty buildings with arbitrary uses assigned to them. "Are the residences furnished too? Like, to the same degree across the board? Are any of the indigenous people still here?"

There's not a whole lot to a map if you're not actively using it and he feels like he has enough of an idea of things - he's gonna be heading over to that blacksmith shop later - so he doesn't protest when she begins putting it away. He's sort of at a loss for how to handle himself posture-wise - he hasn't spoken to her in years and it's amazing how seeing her like this, seeing her young and the closest to when he was young in decades, manages to take aspects of him straight back. It's confusing, and he doesn't know how to feel about it, and by virtue of both aspects he doesn't like it, but he does, because it's her. And because Tony Stark has never been any great determiner of what is and is not good for him.

"I think that came up a couple times, yeah," Tony replies, smiling a little bit. She's the one who actually told him about it, years and lightyears from now. Also it establishes not a pattern, but at least a trend - Stark men forge friendships by forcing people to stay close and seeing if they can't push them away regardless. Both of Tony's best friends were - and still are, to varying degrees - paid to work with him. He hasn't forgotten.

There's so much to adjust to, and he still wants to know things but he also doesn't, because he doesn't need more contrast than he already has and also because there's a time and a place, and right next to an empty fountain creates too many metaphors. He has no idea what they are, but he's sure they're somewhere. Back to the whole keeping-dad-out-of-jail-for-treason thing: "Thanks for that, by the way."

Peggy raises a brow at the thanks, wondering how much she's told Tony about the case in the future (or whether it was even her). "Howard Stark was the only person in the world, for a time, that believed in me for who I was," she says. "And if I had lost him, I would have simply been someone that the men I worked with could use to fill voids and archetypes in their lives." Even the ones she admired and respected had done that and even Jarvis had, to a degree.

"I know he was using me for his own gains, but it also meant he had such faith in me," Peggy says quietly. "And besides that, it allowed me to protect Steve, even after I failed to save him. Or rescue him, as it turns out."

She keeps her head down, inhaling sharply and choosing to focus on the other topic. "The homes are furnished, yes. My first home, before the earthquake demolished it, had everything you could want. Where I'm staying now does, as well," she happy to confirm. "And while that might make you suspect a population that existed before us, we've yet to meet a soul."

Well that doesn't hit a poignant nerve or anything. His father didn't do exactly the same thing with him or anything at all, although Tony supposes at least the man was consistent in more ways than he was aware of. He doesn't have the distraction of looking at the map to work with anymore, but he can disguise glancing to the side for a second as just general looking around, right? She's not looking at him either. "Yeah, he operated like that." Not the sort of thing he might normally say, but. Circumstances.

Although part of that statement merits a little following up, so he shifts gears and continues on with, "Rescue him after?" Tony feels like somebody would have told him about that.

As for her other response, Tony allows himself some dramatism and lets his head loll back on his shoulders for a moment with the force of his eye roll. "Of course you haven't, because that would probably entail getting some answers and who wants those?" He sighs, looking over again but this time for a reason, towards the rest of the village. "Guess I oughta find a bungalow to call home."

Peggy licks her lips in order to bide time in order to find the proper words to talk about this. Perhaps it's that, but it's also a little bit of her taking the moment to breathe in deeply and push back a wave of grief. "For two years," she begins carefully, "I thought that Steve was dead and I had to move on. I had given up on him, you see. Howard looked and didn't find anything and I told your father that he had to let go of Steve."

The lump in her throat is only growing larger, despite her best efforts to push it down. "And then I arrive here, only to be told that Steve Rogers is well and alive in the future," she says. "Which means I gave up on Steve and I don't think he ever would have done that to me. It means I gave up on rescuing him and he was alive out there." She blinks rapidly and turns her head to the side as she wills the tears in her eyes gone. "I should have pushed Howard to keep looking. He certainly had the money and the resources."

She says nothing to his settling into a home. He ought to, yes, but on that avenue, she can offer no advice. Even she has simply fallen into inertia in her own living situation, but it seems adequate enough that she hasn't thought to leave it despite the occasional awkwardness of living with Barnes.

Oh. Sometimes Tony regrets his insatiable need to ask questions. He didn't mean to poke a sore subject and make her cry.

"We didn't find Steve until 2012. Dad, he - he went back to looking for him later anyway, he just sort of took a break for a little while I guess." Tony's gonna get hives, why is this happening. "And SHIELD recovered him so the transitive property sort of means you both won the world's longest game of hide-and-seek anyway."

There's more about how people move on and they need to, or how mourning happens in different ways, and it's weird that he's comforting her like this when it used to be the other way around, but he's not really sure how to get into that just yet. There's so much happening right now that he's getting bogged down in the processing.

She's not sure whether to be pleased or angry with Howard for going back when she had talked him off a ledge in order to get him to stop the first time. She'll settle for pleased, if only because it likely helped to lead the way to actually finding Steve. And while SHIELD might have recovered him, it's too many years too late. She had spent all her time grieving and moving on, when she could have been productive.

"I'm selfish," she admits. "I wanted him to come to the Stork Club. I went," she admits, "foolishly, I went." Still, in a way, Steve is gone for her. Even here, being here, she's not sure what to make of it.

Clearing her throat, she sheds her sadness like a snake's skin sloughing off. "Would you like me to show you the houses before I go home?"

Tony's actually heard this story from her, but in a rare moment of insight he's figuring it would be the better option to maybe decline from saying so. Anyway it's less of a story right now and more an admission, and sometimes you just let those live where they lie, in the moments between making the decisions that cause them. Besides, he doesn't want to bring up years of resentment for Captain America right now, or scoot back into how Howard Stark was as a father.

Anyway, she abruptly shifts her posture and appears to move on from the topic, which - thank god - means Tony can as well. "Uh, sure, yeah why not, if you don't have anything else to do." If there's a bit of a tone in his voice it's less questioning and more on the edge of hopeful. The longer they speak, the more he realizes he's missed her.

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i meant high schoolER but. also shh i'm asleep

Re: i meant high schoolER but. also shh i'm asleep

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