InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "it said sorry to inform ya,"

sam_thefalcon (sam_thefalcon) wrote in avengers_logs,
@ 2018-04-06 20:09:00

Entry tags:

-complete, sam wilson, stephen strange

The Falcon Has Landed
Who: Sam Wilson, Doctor Strange
What: The Welcome Wagon Cometh
Where: Sam's apartment
When: After Hulkfest 2018
Rating: Green for now

Sam put down the machine pistol he'd been cleaning. He put down the barrel brush. He stood up, ready for action, surveying the room though he knew it was empty. Something was wrong. Something he couldn't put his finger on, but his instincts had rarely played him false.

The coffee table in front of him was covered with several layers of newspaper. On it lay a thoroughly-cleaned and reassembled Steyr SPP machine pistol and its disassembled twin, still only partially cleaned. A bottle of solvent, a can of oil, a small mound of soiled cleaning patches, and a large plastic bag of clean new patches, as well as a plastic case containing the cleaning kit were scattered across the table.

The light coming through the windows hadn't changed. Nor had the sounds of the city drifting up from street level many floors below. The scent of cleaning solution filled his nose, which was only reasonable. No creak of floorboards or soft footfalls on carpet. No air movement where none was to be expected.

Nothing out of place. Nothing unexpected. Everything was as it should be. And yet, it was all wrong somehow. It was like the opposite of deja vu. Instead of looking at the room and feeling that he'd experienced this moment before, it felt like it was all completely new. Like he'd been shunted into someone else's life without warning.

One corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk of amusement at his own thoughts. "'You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house,'" he murmured. "'You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife.'"

He moved silently through the apartment, clearing each room. No assassins lurked in the apartment. The doors and windows were all closed and locked. He was alone in the--in his--apartment. He returned to the living room.

The feeling that something was off didn't fade, but nothing overt happened. Sam resumed his seat on the sofa, though he remained ready to spring up again for a time. Still nothing happened. He sighed, then picked up the weapon and the barrel brush and went back to work.

After a time he sensed he was not alone. He looked up. "My oh my, the circus is in town."

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doctor__strange
2018-04-07 03:22 am UTC (link)

Standing there, portal already gone, was Stephen Strange. There was a wrapped welcome-to-your-nightmare gift tucked under one arm and a wry smirk on his face, and the cloak he was wearing actually waved a corner of the collar at Sam. At least this one had a sense of humor. Maybe he would be as lucky as he was with Daisy Johnson, as far as embracing the weird, or at least making fun of it.

"This universe has been a weird circus to everyone, lately," he said, with the wave of one hand. "Hello. I'm Doctor Strange. I'm here to explain why you are one of the chosen ones, a protector of this broken timeline. Sorry. That's my bad. Time magic backfired."

He shrugged, apologetically.

"Oh. Before you ask questions, you're going to need this," he said, holding out the package wrapped in colorful Tibetan cloth and string. "The welcome to the circus starter pack."

Now including a FAQ pamphlet. With color diagrams.

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sam_thefalcon
2018-04-07 03:38 am UTC (link)

Scenes from episodes of Star Trek and Doctor Who flashed through Sam's mind. An Air Force officer, upon hearing Spock explaining yet another accident resulting in their displacement to the 1960s saying, "You people seem to have a lot of them." The Tenth Doctor babbling about "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey...stuff."

Sam stood and took the 'welcome to the circus starter pack' from his visitor with a grin. At least the man had a sense a humor. Sam didn't get any hostile vibes from the man, despite his inexplicable appearance in a locked apartment. And his mentions of 'chosen ones' and backfiring time magic.

He gestured at a nearby chair. "Please, have a seat." He resumed his own seat and began opening the colorfully wrapped package, speaking as he did.

"Doctor Strange, huh? Is that a stage name or your real name? I've encountered some humdingers in my time. It could be either one."

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doctor__strange
2018-04-07 07:59 pm UTC (link)

Stephen would have agreed with both the classic Trek and the timey-wimey stuff, had he known that was what Sam was thinking. Instead, he looked apologetic, before looking over at the nearby chair. The cloak billowed out just as Stephen sat down, giving itself enough room that it was getting bunched up under a seated sorcerer.

"It's an actual family name. You can't imagine the amount of lewd jokes I've heard about it, either. Since you mentioned humdingers."

He was watching Sam and liked this one. If it was capable of sentience - and who was to say that there wasn't some speck of it that might be - the universe chose wisely when it randomly picked this man. As stable as Fury but more openly honest. That was refreshing.

"I think you're in for a few more of those humdingers," Stephen finished saying, folding his hands together and looking strangely (pun intended) at ease.

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sam_thefalcon
2018-04-07 08:39 pm UTC (link)

The package contained a laptop, a Starkphone, a small card labeled Avengers Network with a username and password written out on it, a small folder containing a hotel card key to a very swanky hotel in Manhattan, and bundle of cash. The coffee table being covered with weapons and cleaning paraphernalia, Sam laid the items out on the sofa next to him.

He started the laptop. While it booted up, he turned on the phone. He was unsurprised to see a bare-bones gray log-in screen on each. Clearly both the laptop and the phone were encrypted and secured. He'd expected as much; people don't generally give away things like that without good reason. He shut them both down again.

Doctor Strange had sat quietly while examined the contents of the package. Now Sam looked up at him again. "Well, as welcome to the circus gift packages go, this is pretty swanky. Thanks. Cash is always welcome, but I don't think I'll need this," he touched the hotel card key. "Unless you know something I don't know about the current state of my lease."

Sam looked around the room. "This is my place. I remember living here the last few months, and yet--suddenly it doesn't feel like my place. That have something to do with these time travel shenanigans?"

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doctor__strange
2018-04-07 09:30 pm UTC (link)

"You're the third arrival this week, and I'm tracking down a memory vampire of sorts on the astral plane. I'll take that key-card back and someone else can use it. It does seem as though you have an established residence, already."

Stephen looked around and it was neat and orderly. The sort of place that someone with a military background would keep in order.

"You took one step to the left," he explained to Sam. It looked as though he was getting comfortable for a long conversation. "It's still your place. You've always been here. What's happened is this timeline is fragmented, beyond repair. A copy of a prime universe, which another separate you is still in. I remain hopeful that this will settle and become stable. Someday. Now isn't that time. Because people like you are sensing one of those cracks in time. I suspect the latest hairline crack is on the part of time that is intertwined with your life. That means you may be of some importance in future events. Either here, or you were going to be in the prime universe. There's still some overlapping, it seems. You might be experiencing some of that overlap with your prime counterpart."

Stephen wasn't sure. He was still discovering new things and little nuances. He did know there was a risk of total collapse, and every living thing expiring in the space of time it took for a glycerin bubble to pop on an inquisitive child's fingertip. No use getting everyone worked up though. If they stopped whatever showed up, quickly, the less strain there would be overall.

Bottom line was that Dr. Strange was trying not to be fatalistic. Things were currently looking up. It was better to concentrate on that and what could still be done. Shifts in time or not.

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sam_thefalcon
2018-04-08 04:54 am UTC (link)

A step to the left. Sam had read plenty of science fiction, so the concept of alternate timelines and/or parallel worlds wasn't unfamiliar to him. He just hadn't expected to ever experience it firsthand.

"Third one this week, huh?" Sam woke the Starkphone again and punched in the username and password he'd received. He intended to scroll through a couple of screens worth of recent messages. He didn't get that far.

Tony, yes, of course. Then--"Peggy Carter?" The icon for this 'Peggy' showed him Peggy Carter as she'd looked in the blown up photo at her funeral. She'd been old, then. She'd lived through all the decades Steve was on ice. An icon didn't mean anything--it was just a photo--but Tony's offhand reference to 'Young Howard' appearing and then vanished again....

He looked up at Strange. "Peggy Carter? She died. I attended her funeral. And Howard Stark? He died twenty years ago or more. Just how many revenants are wandering around?"

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doctor__strange
2018-04-08 08:00 pm UTC (link)

"A handful, so far. Stark's father disappeared, Miss Carter appeared. The timeline giveth...." and Strange simply left it at that, as the 'taketh away' part didn't need elaborated on. It was a part of life that people flitted in and out, and only a rare few stayed for as long as feasibly possible. Enjoy it while it lasts was a good manifesto to live by.

"It doesn't seem as though she remembers dying," the doctor pointed out. It was worth mentioning, if Sam was at the funeral. "I'm sure she's put two and two together, and she seems a very strong character. But maybe it might be better not to say 'Hi, I was at your funeral.' There's probably some time-travel etiquette that should be observed."

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sam_thefalcon
2018-04-09 07:29 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah, 'I was at your funeral' is probably the best icebreaker," Sam said.

He scrolled through the Avenger Network feed, not reading the messages, just looking at the headers. Tony. The Hulk went on a rampage, so Bruce was here. Steve. Wanda. Pietro? Another revenant, apparently. Some other people he knew, other names he knew about but hadn't met. And some strangers.

"So everyone on this network is one of us?" he asked Strange. "If I run into someone I know--knew, whatever--but they're not on this network, then they're not going to have any idea anything weird is happening?"

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doctor__strange
2018-04-09 08:59 pm UTC (link)

Strange was nodding at the 'hey I was at your funeral' not being a good way to say hello. That nodding didn't last long, since he wanted to give Sam plenty of time to look through things and come up with any questions. He didn't have to wait long, since Sam was quick to draw some very astute conclusions.

"Correct. If they aren't on the network, they won't know. We're striving to keep it that way. Without experiencing it, or knowing why these things are happening, it might potentially be..." Strange paused to find the right words, and decided to settle with, "...madness inducing."

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sam_thefalcon
2018-04-10 04:20 am UTC (link)

Sam absorbed Strange's words without comment. Madness inducing.

He found that unlikely. It was a common trope in genre fiction, the conceit that the average person "wasn't ready" to know about...whatever. Vampires. Modern magic. Stargates. Time Travel. In reality, it allowed the storytellers to maintain the pretense that the story was happening in the real world but people simply weren't aware of it.

Sadly, it happened in the real world too. The powers that be kept secrets ostensibly for the good of the public they served, but too often in order to protect themselves from the reaction of that public if they knew what their alleged servants were really up to. He'd seen it more often than he liked to think about.

The public--the "average person" was far more resilient than they were usually given credit for. Human history was full of world-ending disasters, or at least disasters that ended the world as countless people had known it. Whole tribes, peoples, even nations had been destroyed, enslaved, or scattered. The survivors endured. They clung to their faiths and customs, or found new ones. But they endured, and they rebuilt.

He wasn't going to rock the boat. He had no proof, and it wouldn't accomplish anything to tell the world at large what he knew. But he had no doubt the world would find it a nine-day wonder and then shrug and move on.

"Okay," Sam said. "Those of us in the know, on the network. Is there something specific we need to be doing? Or are we just on call for when and if we're needed?"

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doctor__strange
2018-04-10 07:34 am UTC (link)

Aliens. Hulk attacks. Secret super weapons. The general public tended to try to move on with their lives when dealing with that crazy. Letting secrets slip like 'Your life is a copy of some other you's life, and you're in a universe that might collapse at any given moment if we're not careful' tended to run more risk of rank stupidity happening. So the less the general populace knew in that regard, the better. Not that the good doctor was volunteering that information. They needed heroes to protect the timeline so it would stabilize.

"Called on when or if needed," Strange clarified, "but it's also there to discuss anything you want. Or to contact anyone else on there. You can use it as much or as little as you want. Some people don't like talking on there. Others say too much."

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sam_thefalcon
2018-04-11 04:21 am UTC (link)

"Okay, then," Sam said. He paged idly thru the Network posts for a moment longer, then closed it.

"I think I'm up to speed, or as close to it as I'm likely to get. I should get some messages out, connect--or reconnect--with people, see where we stand."

He stood up and offered Strange his hand. "Unless there's something else?" He nodded at the disassembled weapon on the coffee table. "I should get this finished up."

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doctor__strange
2018-04-11 11:46 pm UTC (link)

Stephen stood up and shook Sam's hand, although he did so cautiously. His grip wasn't strong, given all of the metal pins still in there.

"It's been a pleasure," Strange said, and he meant it. Sam seemed like a good, no nonsense sort of person. It gave Stephen the sort of hope that things would work out for the better in the long run. "If you have further questions or want to talk, my address is on the pamphlet. Or you contact me on the network."

He looked down at what Sam was going to finish working on. From a medical standpoint, he never liked guns. Not after seeing what a bullet could do when it was lodged in someone's head. He'd pulled enough of them out to know. But they were also an unfortunate necessity, given the sheer magnitude of what they were facing. He couldn't look down his nose at them anymore, like he once used to.

He nodded before opening a portal to depart. Before he stepped through, he said, "Take care. There's strange things afoot in this universe. Not sure about the Circle K, but that's a safe bet, too."

And then he was gone, the portal closing shut behind him.

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