Tony Stark is characteristically hyperverbal. (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} the_iron_man) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} avengers_logs,@ 2020-09-02 22:23:00 |
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| Entry tags: | -complete, fern, kitty pryde, peter wisdom, tony stark |
Who: Tony, Kitty, Pete W
What: Genosha talk
When: after this net convo.
Notes: in progress!
Tony was waiting on the 39th floor commons area. A much bigger space than what could be found on the residential floors. He was dressed in a vintage concert tee - AC/DC - and jeans, far below levels of casual work attire while he was in work mode. He was kneading at a nano-ball, letting the nanobots spread out like thick mercury over his fingers, before pushing it into what looked like a hard metal ball in his palm.
He was going to be meeting with Kitty and Pete, and had a few questions about Genosha. With any luck, they might be able to put some more pieces together.
Getting Pete to wake up at all was a chore, much less get dressed and act like a human being. He currently spent his days yelling at contacts over the phone and trying not to strangle a free laptop when he couldn't find the info he wanted. A few handles were melted in his apartment, and maintenance was going to pop in and fix them that afternoon.
In the meantime, a cup of coffee was clutched in his hand and he had a five o'clock shadow that was eeking more toward six o'clock.
It wasn't that he wasn't looking forward to this meeting, because he was there for answers too. Kitty would be there, which would help temper things. That, and he liked having her around. He wouldn't admit it, but after that much time on that island, he was more than a little attached too. That was a liability in his profession....
Adjusting to real life again was more difficult than Kitty anticipated during those long months locked up on Genosha. She was finally trusting her system with real food though and had arranged for Friday to have a dozen bagels, cream cheese, and lox delivered in time for her meeting with Pete and Tony. She made a pot of coffee and poured it into a carafe she found in one of the kitchen cabinets.
“Pete, you ready?” she called, standing outside his door, hands too full to actually knock.
Pete opened the door and looked at everything she was carrying, while taking a big swig of coffee from a paper cup that was not labeled as Starbucks (because they're the devil). He had clearly been on a binger, the room smoke free but smelling faintly of cigarettes and hard liquor, jacket and shirt rumpled, and his tie hanging loose and askew.
He'd right it later. He looked semi-respectable in his spook suit, and that was a passing grade as far as he was concerned. He tossed the cup aside and held his hands out to take some of the load.
"Ready and right as rain. Hand that over before you drop it all," he said, taking the carafe and bagels. Always save the bread and coffee first. "Look, I've got my nice face on."
He smiled and it looked like it hurt.
Kitty thought that he might look worse now than he had when they were stuck on Genosha, but she didn’t say anything, simply handed him some of her load so she wouldn’t drop anything. It wasn’t her place to judge his coping mechanisms.
“Good, let’s keep it that way,” she said, making her way to the elevator so they could go up to the common area floor. When they stepped off, she wasn’t surprised to find Tony Stark already waiting for them. “Morning,” she said, suddenly a little shy. He was famous and she’d long admired his innovative tech work.
"Hiya," he called out cheerfully, standing up and tossing the ball down on the couch. It slowly started to turn into a slowly melting blob without sinking into the material. "Wow, you brought sustenance. Thanks. Its good to see you up and around. Some of the people that showed up are in rough shape."
He let them set it down before looking at Pete, up and down.
"Bender?" he asked, with the air of someone who knew what those were like.
"Too right," Pete replied as he set the coffee and bagels down on the nearby countertop and stepped in, with ihs hand extended. "Peter Wisdom, MI6. No hard feelings about ragging on your computer system, I hope."
"Nah. She bosses me around half the time," Tony said with a shrug, and shook Pete's hand. "You're a spy. That's handy. The CIA and FBI here don't like me."
He turned and looked at Kitty, holding out his hand to her.
"Hey, fellow code junkie," he told her. "Not to be super creepy, but I looked at your grades. They're really impressive. What were you looking at as a career path?"
So far, so good. Kitty was glad that the boys hadn’t immediately thrown down. That would have been awkward. “Still easing into food,” she admitted. “But what kind of Jewish girl would I be if I didn’t bring bagels to a morning meeting?”
When Tony mentioned he’d looked at her grades, Kitty couldn’t hide her surprise. “Oh, um, I don’t know,” she said. “I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Something in programming, probably.” It was what she enjoyed most.
"I like programming too," he said, reaching for a bagel and some cream cheese. "Ever do any hacking?"
He was curious, not just because she was in his building, but also because that's where the best things to read were.
Pete was eyeing her too as he found some cups and poured another cup of coffee. He slid it across the counter, over toward Kitty. Ever the height of class, he assured her, "Go on, drink this. Promise I haven't spat in it or the likes."
Tony eyed the cup, and put his bagel down so he could promptly pour his own cup of coffee.
Kitty rolled her eyes at Pete’s joke, choosing to focus on preparing her own bagel. It smelled amazing and she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had one.
“A little, yes,” she admitted to Tony. “Mostly just to see if I can.” She didn’t really do anything once she hacked into something. That wasn’t her style. She finished arranging the lox on top of her bagel and then picked up the cup of coffee that Pete poured for her, taking a careful sip.
Pete, surprisingly, did not make shitty coffee for others. He was doctoring his own, while keeping a watchful eye on them both during the exchange.
When he did chime in it was to say, "You have questions about Genosha. Before we tell you anything, I want guarantees that you'll make sure Kitty's safe and she can contact her parents. We'll need a burner phone, and a way out of the building while making the call. Preferably a rental with false credentials. I'll be with her."
Tony had poured his own coffee and was about to take a bite of bagel when he was asked that. He looked over at Kitty. He looked at Pete. He looked back to Kitty again. There was a story here and his brain was, of course, going into
"Deal, I can get you a burner and a car," he said. "If you two can tell me anything about what's going on in Genosha, and who's doing it."
Tony took a big bite of bagel and chewed, looking back and forth like it was a tennis match.
“Can you guarantee my parents will be safe if I contact them?” Kitty asked, flashing a quick grateful smile at Pete for making this part of the conversation. She really wanted to let her parents know that she was okay. “What if the people who grabbed me are monitoring them?” She was more concerned that they might be used against her than she was about her own safety.
She also wasn’t sure how much she could really share about Genosha that would be useful, but she was willing to try.
Tony swallowed in a way that looked painful, or maybe it was just because he was wincing at the questions she asked him.
"Uhh, no," he said slowly. "I can't personally guarantee that without assigning special agents to follow their every move. I'm not the FBI or the CIA. We do have SHIELD, even if they're a smaller outfit now. They might be able to spare an agent...but then again, they might not. Agents are kind of limited right now."
Phil and Bucky were gone. They couldn't spare Natasha while Bruce and Steve were out of commission. Clint wasn't there anymore. Maybe a lower ranked Agent could manage it, but Tony wasn't comfortable leaving something important - like her parent's safety - up to chance.
"There's no way to do that," Pete said, for clarification. "Not without tipping off whoever nabbed you that he knows about them, and you. If he hired someone, there's the risk they'll nab them and trace back here. We'll need to cross a bridge or two, and call. Then drive back quickly after breaking the phone. That way if they are being watched, it'll be a fruitless effort. They'd have trouble tracking us in a metropolis."
Tony had put down the bagel and was taking a careful sip of his coffee. Although he didn't stop, he did give a thumbs up in Pete's direction.
That wasn’t the answer Kitty was hoping for, though she understood why they couldn’t guarantee that. Part of her wanted to skip contacting them just to ensure their safety, but she trusted Pete’s judgment since he got them off the island so if he thought it was safe, she would do it.
“Okay,” Kitty said. “Thank you.”
She took a drink from her coffee, more to give herself a moment to regain her composure than because she was thirsty, and then focused her attention on Tony’s questions. “The man who experimented on me was called Mr. Sinister,” she said. “He was trying to figure out how my powers work and what all he could make me do with them.”
"That's not ominous," Tony said. While his tone held a trace of sarcasm, he was also very interested about this. Rogue had told him how terrible it was, but he was hoping that a fellow computer enthusiast and a spy might be able to offer hard facts. "Any idea why he's doing that, or if anyone's backing the world's worst science project?"
"No ideas on who's backing it," Pete said. "But I got a name when one of his shirty little minions spoke to him out of turn. Doctor Essex. Same experience as Pryde had. He was testing the changes he made in us. Methodically. Wrote down every gristly bit of it, as well."
"Essex. Ok, that I can run with. You said you could do some hacking, right? And you're a spy." Tony pointed between the two. "I think maybe you should go file a report over at SHIELD, both of you. Fury doesn't remember jack about being alternate universe Fury, and we're kinda keeping that stuff on the down-low. Flip-side me is dead and that's something that never stops being creepy."
Tony whistled like that was weird enough, and it helped him blow on his coffee before he took another sip.
“I think the why is because he can,” Kitty said. “Why does anyone do anything terrible to other people? He can make himself feel better by saying it’s in the name of science, but he’s just another power hungry megalomaniac.”
They’d seen plenty of the course of history and she was fairly certain that Tony in particular dealt with more than his fair share since becoming Iron Man.
Kitty did cock her head in confusion at the rest of what he said though. “Wait, what do you mean, alternate universe?”
"If he is, he's got a whole fat lot of finances at his disposal. There's no way someone could create an island like that without funding," Pete pointed out, as he reached for a bagel and loaded it with enough cream cheese to clog his arteries on contact, and enough lox to reconstruct half of a salmon.
"I think he's talking about what was in that pamphlet too. Weren't you, mate?"
"Yeah, that's what I gathered too," Tony conceded, frowning a bit. "As for the whole alternate universe thing? It's part of the theories about the multiverse. Some of us kind of hopped after a time-related snafu. As in, someone stopped time, someone broke time, and a parallel world split off from that world. Before we futzed up the timeline ourselves. So that means that two versions of you had to be where we came from already, if you're here now. You know what falling down the wiki hole is? This is like that. Only it's a physics hole, with more questions than answers. It's confusing, even for us."
Pete shrugged as he chewed on approximately half of the bagel, like he hadn't gotten his hands on solid food in weeks. In fact, he devoured an entire greasy meat combo pizza eight hours ago, along with a six pack of cheap lager.
"S'like time slips. We've got files about that," he admitted, before he began inhaling the other half of that poor, poor bagel.
Kitty had forgotten about the pamphlet. It was somewhere in her room, but she hadn’t taken the time to read it yet. Apparently she needed to. “Oh, I’ve read about multiverse theory,” she said. “And of course I’m familiar with Dr. Foster’s work on the Einstein-Rosen Bridge.”
Nothing seemed off to her about this universe though, so she was guessing she hadn’t fallen through some kind of dimensional rift.
“So, did you all know of Sinister in your other universe?” she asked. “Is he one of the threats the Avengers have faced?”
Tony looked at Kitty with his head tilted slightly, like he appreciated that she knew those things. It also spared him from watching Pete eat.
"It's kind of like that bridge, yeah. A tunnel between time and space, branched off." He was guessing the same thing, and that these two were here as their own selves. No dimensional travel involved from World A to World B.
As for Sinister?
"Nope, not that we knew of. Brand new thing over here. There were some genetically enhanced mega-monsters, like Godzilla on steroids, that attacked the city. We stopped the government facility involved, but kinda wondering if this guy had a hand in it."
“Right, I remember the giant monsters,” Kitty said. “That was just the beginning of this year. Not long before I got nabbed.” It would make sense if Sinister was somehow involved in that, though she didn’t recall hearing him or anyone else mention it during her time on Genosha.
She glanced over at Pete, not bothered by watching him eat after all those months sitting together for meals during their captivity. It was a bit messier with actual food instead of protein paste though. “Do you remember that?” she asked, assuming that it would have made news in London and/or that MI-6 would have been aware of it even if it didn’t.
"I remember it. It was before I was sent on assignment," Pete said, finally finished eating and taking a swig of coffee to wash it all down. He was looking back at Kitty the entire time. "We were looking into it, actually, and doing a threat assessment if it happened in coastal cities on our soil. I went out on one last mission. Which was utter complete rot, before being sent to Genosha."
In fact, he was supposed to be in charge of keeping an eye on weird happenings. Everything qualified, lately. Including any links between stompy Godzilla monsters and mad scientists doing human experimentation.
"There's no telling how long this guy has been under the radar, doing this stuff. Or how many people he's done it to." Tony leaned an elbow against the edge of the counter, coffee held in one hand. "I get the bad feeling that this has happened to a lotta people, and you two aren't the last we're gonna have showing up."
That bad feeling was one Kitty shared. Unfortunately. “I couldn’t even begin to guess how many people were being held captive there,” she said. “Some of us were permitted to share meals, but from what I gathered, some were kept completely isolated. There could have been hundreds of people being held captive and experimented on.”
Which was really quite terrifying to think about.
“I don’t understand how he found us all. Or knew that we had some kind of abilities. I mean, I didn’t even know until his goons came after me,” Kitty said. “Did you?” she asked, turning to Pete.
"Not a bloody clue," Pete replied, leaning onto both elbows as he talked to her. "Although I now suspect I was sent on purpose. They kept asking me back for physicals. I thought they found a lung tumor, which would have figured considering I quit five years ago. She's right as well. We couldn't get a sense of how many were there, either. We were in the same group getting meals, if you could call it that. Paste. Bloody paste. Tasted like boiled unsalted almonds. S'disgusting."
"Okay, valid points but hold up," Tony said, pointing between the two. "Are you two a thing? Sure, my wife says I'm totally inappropro and it'd be hard to knock boots in prison. But I'm getting this whole vibe here that's pinging at my workplace gossip radar."
When the full meaning of Stark’s question hit Kitty, she choked on her coffee, knowing her face was bright red. She stared at him, wide-eyed and unable to form words, so her gaze turned to Pete, hoping he would be able to find the appropriate response.
Oh. Maybe that was why he asked. Even still, the thought of it was embarrassing. What kind of girl did he think Kitty was, that she would do something like that when she was a prisoner and a lab rat?
"Sod off. We're not shagging, if that's what you're wondering," Pete said while wearing the shittiest look in his arsenal. Which was pretty shitty, considering that half of the time, he looked like he was trying to murder others by staring at them.
He wasn't about to get into his all too spotty romantic history with deadly blondes, that happened to be either contract killers from Peckham or his Black Air boss. His new rule of thumb was never date anyone who knows what the term wetworks was.
"Here's something you can ping off your bloody radar," Pete finished, giving Tony a jaunty two fingered gesture.
Tony grinned wildly at that, and didn't appear perturbed in the slightest. Instead he shrugged and brushed it off like it wasn't the first time he'd been flipped off, either in the U.S. or overseas.
"Ok, ok, point taken. My bad. Back on task," he said, looking back at Kitty and taking pity since she was as red as his suit was painted. "We don't know how many or how, but we can at least compile data between all of you. How would they know who to nab? I mean, the easiest way is probably finding what makes you tick. Genetically. Blood test, maybe?"
By the time the two of them finished their verbal sparring, Kitty had recovered from choking on her coffee and was at least no longer in danger of passing out from lack of breathing. Her face was no doubt still bright red though, as it felt hot, and she wished she could disappear.
Which of course triggered her ability and she phased through the floor, landing on the one below, right outside of her new apartment. She was really tempted to go back inside and hide under the blankets, but she had a feeling that neither man would accept that, so she trudged down to the elevator and made her way back up to the 39th floor.
Meanwhile, upstairs, this conversation was taking place....
"If Pryde's clothes were left behind, she's probably running around starkers."
"Nope. Seems like she took them with her. Also seems like you know something from first hand experience."
"I also know several horrible ways to murder you, Stark. Stop tempting fate."
"Please, it's not like it'd be the first time. Did you see the thing in Monaco? Rude."
"Oh the nutter with the electro whips. Rather kinky, that."
"Now we know what you're into."
"At least I'm not helping set my own festival on fire."
"Hey, it was a science expo, and everyone agreed that I did ok!"
"Didn't you blow up your own novelty arc reactor in Cali-bloody-fornia? Land of bad spray tans and blindingly white teeth?"
"...that was Pepper and that was classified."
"I think you forgot the part where I'm with Her Majesty's secret service. We hear things."
"Do you have a license to kill?"
"Yes, and I'll happily offer a first-hand demonstration."
Tony just smiled. It was the sort of a smile that was almost a dare.
Pete smiled back, like he wasn't adverse to a good game of playing chicken.
Kitty was grateful that her clothes had actually phased with her this time. If she’d landed naked on the 38th floor, she definitely would not be leaving her room anytime in next century.
When she stepped off the elevator, she stared at Tony and Pete. Those smiles were frightening. At least there wasn’t any bloodshed. “Sorry,” she apologized. “Still trying to figure out that whole control thing.”
She went to pour herself more coffee and wished she had something stronger for it.
"You're getting better at it," Pete mumbled into his coffee cup, which he was using to hide a wide smirk.
Tony glanced over at Pete like he was doing a double take and then gave Kitty a bright smile.
"All good, KitKat," he said, and just like that, she gets a nickname that she probably got called during grade school, all over again. "You'll get the hang of it. That looks annoying though."
Not to mention dangerous from a physics standpoint. He was pretty sure that Kitty already knew.
"Anyway, this is useful," he told them both. "Thanks. It'll give SHIELD some leads to look into, and maybe Captain Wise-ass here can chip in."
Pete only snerked into his nearly empty coffee cup. That was enough of a non-deadly response for right now.
Tony, however, was undeterred. "I'll get your phone and ride set up, so it's there when you're ready to use 'em. I'm gonna head up to my office and make a phone call."
As he put down his cup, he picked up his bagel, and began heading to the nearest elevator. He paused and stared at a fern for a few seconds, giving it an experimental frond poke and a barely audible "Another of Pep's composting projects I guess." A sharp shrug and then Tony kept right on going to the elevator.
Kitty waited until Tony was in the elevator before she looked at Pete. “I know you have a comment. Go ahead.”
While she waited to hear whatever snarky remark he was going to make, she turned back to the counter to clean up the remnants of their breakfast. All she’d managed to eat was half a bagel, but it was definitely the best bagel she ever had.
"Wot?! No, of course not." Pete made a pffting noise at that before he added, "Only that you're getting better at this if you didn't leave your knickers behind."
He smirked like an asshat behind his coffee cup, pretty sure she was going to break it on his face with a well aimed punch. Still worth it.
They were good bagels, but he did eye her like she should be eating more than a half of one. Still, he was content to wait and note that aloud. Perhaps while bleeding profusely.
Punching someone in the nose was a bit too violent for Kitty. She would, however, slug him in the shoulder for the remark, even though she’d been expecting it.
“So you think we can trust Stark?” she asked.
Pete didn't even hesitate. He'd already looked into things on his end, since he liked being informed. He had a solid contact inside the SIS that he knew was clean, and that they were loyal to each other.
"I think so," he told her. "He's got a record of leaving things lit on fire behind him, which is tragic, but he means well trying to stop the big threats. Enough that your government loves to hate him, but knows his usefulness. What's your take, luv?"
Usually, he wouldn't care after spouting off his opinion. But Kitty was logical. He knew this for a fact after they were lunch buddies for so long. He genuinely wanted to know what she thought here, since they were still - in his mind - in the thick of things, together.
“I think he’s kind of a disaster, but obviously he surrounds himself with the right people,” Kitty said. “So that’s a bonus. It’s clear he does mean well and he has the means to make things happen. With the right support to actually follow through…”
She shrugged. “Besides, what other choice do we really have? It’s either this or be on our own. That seems a lot more dangerous.”
The thought that they’d go their separate ways didn’t even occur to her. She wasn’t sure exactly when she’d begun to think of them as a team, but she did, and at this particular point in time, Pete was the person she trusted most.
It was the same for him, he didn't even think of it, it simply happened naturally. Which was one bright spot in an otherwise grimy and grim life he'd led up to this point. When he looked at her it was unwavering, directly into her eyes. There was clearly a lot of trust there, and he valued her opinion just as much as she did with his...and there were a LOT of opinions there. Including quite a few angry (but occasionally amusing) diatribes.
"I think being on our own would invite another holiday in Genosha," he said, pouring himself some more coffee and reaching for the sugar. "Taking advantage of a safe refuge's best for now. He's actively helping, which is more than can be said about our governments. My contact in the SIS is having issues dredging up recent memos about me. Ne'er a good sign."
He began pouring the sugar in the coffee and showed no signs of stopping any time soon.
Kitty watched him pouring the sugar with raised eyebrows. “Have a little coffee with your sugar?” she teased.
It was easier to make a joke about that than to let herself process the reality of what he said. While she had no expectation of the government doing anything for her, the fact that his seemed to be flying blind was troubling. “So leaving the US might not help,” she said. “Then, yeah, I think this is the best place to be.”
She really needed to get the story straight that she was going to tell her parents. As much as she wanted to call them immediately, she knew they were going to have a lot of questions and if she didn’t play it exactly right, they’d be on the first plane to New York and she didn’t want that to happen.
"S'not good unless it's syrup," he said, jerking the sugar container so one last bit glopped into the cup. Then and only then did he put it down, and begin stirring. As he did that, he was watching her with a bit of a squint, as though trying to figure her out now that they weren't living in life threatening conditions.
"I'll ask Merlin if he can help me get over there. I have other contacts I can use, and I know how to get in. They'd be stupid to do anything to me now, so they'll have little choice but to save place."
He could go to The Crown, the pub for spies and assassins, in the heart of London. There was no better place to gain information on what was considered neutral ground for everyone in the business. It was once one stepped outside, that there was a higher possibility of being followed and having a bullet rattle around inside one's skull.
Not that he was about to say that to Kitty. She had enough to worry about.
He idly wondered why he was actually filtering that from her, but brushed it off as nothing of consequence. They'd both been through a hard time, and life would get back to a relative norm again. (He hoped.)
"Before we go talk to your parents, we'll have a think about the cover story. You've got to be authentic and sell it, sounding nervous is fine though. Anyone would, if they're calling their parents to say they've just gotten back from shagging their professor. Then I'll pop on and make them hate me."
He smirked and took a sip of coffee flavored syrup.
Kitty felt her cheeks get warm at the second reference to them having an intimate relationship. “Yeah, I’ll take some time to figure it out,” she said. “For now, I am going to get these leftovers put away and see if I can find out what’s going on with my school status."
Mostly, she just needed to not be around anyone for a while.