InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Hug me!"

Tony Stark: Earth's Best Defender (allaboutego) wrote in snapthread,
@ 2019-03-28 14:00:00

Entry tags:

peter parker (mcu), tony stark (mcu)

Who: Tony Stark and Peter Parker (mcu)
What: Aventures of Stark and Ward.
Where: The House.
When: March 28th
Rating: Low, will change if necessary

He hadn’t been through the doors yet.

It wasn’t avoidance, exactly, except for maybe the part that it was. Tony, equipped with what little nanotech he had left to make a suit (although it remained dormant, encased in it’s spot on his chest), stood in the middle of the lower floor of the House, considering the multiple doorways.

He didn’t care for not knowing things - that was what this was really about. Uncertainty was not something that he dealt with well, and this place was just made up of it. There was no real end game to walking through a door beyond exploration for the sake of it, and if he didn’t go through the doors, he knew exactly what to expect every day: muddling through making something out of scraps of tech, Steve Rogers inevitably losing his shirt whilst trying to good things for other people. Some versions of Hawkeyes running around with a dog or talking a mile a minute with coffee in their veins.

It wasn’t the life he’d have chosen, but it wasn’t bad either. He had Peter. That was something he couldn’t get anywhere else.

Speaking of, he glanced over to his right to look at said Spiderman. “So do you just pick at random? If I click my heels together three times will I at least end up in a hardware store?” His entire kingdom (ironically, Starklandia) for a power drill, at this point.

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idontfeelsogood
2019-03-30 12:54 am UTC (link)

"Yeah, just at random." He said with a nod. "I mean, I like to go up to each door and touch it, see if it sparks danger or joy and pick after that."

Peter was only mostly joking. He could sense danger at times, sure, but he'd never felt it when it came to these doors. That only popped up later, after he'd gone through one and found himself in imminent danger. He was sure Tony knew that he was joking, though with his anxieties ramped up the way they were, it was hard to really know how he was going to take everything. Peter was proud of his mentor, he was holding together well and now he was feeling brave enough to try his hand at one of the doors. Sure, he was ready to pull him out if things got bad, but steps like this were important and he wasn't going to discourage him.

"I've mostly gotten lucky, only a tornado tried to kill me and even then it only made me hide in a mall for a few hours. Maybe if we both think really hard and like cross our fingers or something we'll end up someplace that's just an endless hardware store?" He suggested with a shrug. "Or maybe just someplace with a 3D printer they won't miss?"

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allaboutego
2019-03-31 01:26 pm UTC (link)

Tony would have one hundred percent not appreciated Peter's pride over well-handled anxieties because -- well. Tony would not have admitted to having them. He also was absolutely certain that he was here to protect Peter and not the other way around. He didn't need encouragement, he just wanted to -- to make sure it was fine.

For Peter.

Not that the uncertainty behind any door would ever be fine. One place could be sunshine and rainbows and the next place could be an alien planet where everything was made of acid and --face huggers. Or something.

"Well," he said dryly, "let's hope for one that sparks joy." And then thank it when it does. Yeah, he hadn't missed that Peter was joking. "I'd like a 3D printer," he said, but wasn't particularly expecting to find one that could live up to his standards. Still, he pulled a door open and was a little surprised when faced with sunshine. "Laptops, Printers and Toys, oh my," he said, because Tony was apparently keeping to his theme.

And then, before his idiot nerves could make him change his mind, he stepped through the door into a new place.

At first glance, it didn't seem so bad. Just tall buildings and sunshine.

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idontfeelsogood
2019-04-02 02:18 am UTC (link)

Peter was just behind him and while he was technically an 'old pro' at these sorts of trips he still looked around the new place with wonder in his eyes. So far it seemed better than the two worlds he'd already visited. It wasn't some dead, empty world that seemed plagued by tornadoes, and it wasn't some post-apocalyptic hellscape with weird mutated people and animals. This one might actually be nice. He hoped it would be nice. If Tony was going to start making these trips with him then he deserved a nice, easy place to start.

"So, we're not in Game of Thrones. Or dinosaur times. Though that would be cool, for just like a minute, right? Does it count as a time machine, do you think? One world I went to felt like the 90's." He avoided making a joke about the 90's being ancient history, he knew reminding Tony how young he was would likely be a bad idea. Both for his nerves, and for him not freaking out over Peter's current relationship.

He took a break from looking around all wide-eyed and curious, only half trying to make sure they weren't about to be attacked, to glance back at Tony. "Still good, Mr. Stark?"

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allaboutego
2019-04-04 01:04 am UTC (link)

"I don't think it counts as an anything machine, although I suppose that we can't rule out if it was built with purpose or not." It felt a lot more ominous if they considered it that way - that the house with it's doors was meant to be that way and someone with a hell of a lot more power than what they could imagine had built it for the purpose of --

Well, he wasn't sure actually. That was just another thing he hated about it.

"But definitely not a time machine. Or at least not a competent one. Dinosaurs probably wouldn't be cool," he said, even though he knew exactly why a teenager would think so. Hell, even some hind part of his brain thought so -- but thinking about dinosaurs and seeing them was two different things. Jeff Goldblum had warned everyone about that, already.

"Good," he repeated, glancing ahead at Peter, fingers tap tap tapping at the housed nanotech. "Why wouldn't I be good? Are you good? You seen this world yet?"

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idontfeelsogood
2019-04-04 04:07 am UTC (link)

Now Peter was really tempted to make a joke about Tony's age. Dinosaurs not cool? He wondered if he should be worried for his mentor, after all he was spending more and more time on his porch these days. Was it only a matter of time before the brilliant Tony Stark was grumbling about the next generation and shouting at kids to get off his lawn? That was a scary thought.

"I just- Oh yeah, I'm good. I'm great. This is super cool, you know? Traveling other places even if it really isn't a time machine. I mean, I want to get home, I want to go home more than anything, but I can appreciate how cool this is. I feel like I should be writing everything down, you know? Really put something great together, save it for whenever it comes time to write a thesis in theoretical physics in college." College, now that was a thought. It hadn't crossed his mind since he came back to life, before that it had fallen on the list of things he regretted not getting to do before he disintegrated. Now it was a possibility again, if he ever got home.

If Tony didn't kill him for everything he was getting up to that he probably didn't approve of. Like making sure Tony was still okay.

"No, this is a new one, but I was thinking maybe we shoot for the top of one of those tall buildings? Get the lay of the land or whatever?" Something that would have been great for Droney, but Peter still hadn't found him.

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allaboutego
2019-04-04 10:18 pm UTC (link)

"You should be taking notes. It'd make a great thesis, or a standalone project," Tony agreed, because he'd sort of been thinking of that too. Well, not a thesis. He didn't need one of those, he already had more than enough in terms of PhDs. But a research paper in general. Or, well, even notes that'd help him recreate a portal of such a nature would be -- well. It'd be great. Particularly if he could implement control over it. Not really the point though. The point was that Peter was thinking about things like college, like normal high school kids ought to have been. And it made Tony feel guilty all over again. He hadn't done enough for Peter. He shouldn't have recruited him to take care of things that were so well about his pay grade or age group. Even if he hadn't though, he'd failed the rest of the universe so greatly that college probably wouldn't have been on the docket anyway.

"Sorry," he said, and fuck if he didn't hate apologizing, but if anyone deserved one, it was probably Peter. "I'm working at it. Getting everyone home."

And because, yeah, he didn't want to hear it's okay or, worse yet it's not your fault, Tony activated his nanotech suit until he was properly Iron Man again, and wasted no time shooting off up to the building tops. He knew Peter would follow, and it wasn't hard to keep proper track of him when both of their suits had AI.

He had to admit he'd missed the HUD and everything that came with it -- even if it was a little lacking, all the little pieces were lacking un full numbers so while he had a functioning suit, self repairs would be severely limited. Best to not get into any fights, or to do it smartly if he did.

"Well," he said through the comms, "this isn't New York or Kansas."

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idontfeelsogood
2019-04-07 12:26 am UTC (link)

Peter nearly facepalmed. He was pretty sure he'd said the exact wrong thing, especially with how hard he was trying to get Tony to ease up on his guilt, at least where it came to what happened to him. Of course, he was vaguely aware that he could remind Tony that Thanos' snap would have gotten him no matter if he'd been on Titan or not and it wasn't up to him alone to stop the purple monster until he was the age of the older Peter and his mentor still wouldn't believe him. He'd still blame himself. Saying there was more than enough guilt to go around wouldn't have helped things either.

"You-" Thankfully Tony flew off and Peter was more focused on keeping up with him than trying to offer him some kind of comfort or reassurance. He shot a few webs, swinging through the air until he reached one of the taller buildings, running up the side of it until he found a decent spot to jump and throw himself up onto the roof. He landed in a crouch but was back up straight and standing on the ledge in the next moment, looking down over the streets and then out over the other buildings.

"Not even Canada," Peter added with a little nod. "Might not even be a planet we know. But kinda like that one episode of Star Trek where they run into alien nazis or those other planets that look like they have North American culture and other stuff for no explicable reason. Like convergent evolution, only lazier."

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allaboutego
2019-04-07 03:46 am UTC (link)

They didn't have to be on their own world for the weight of it to still be heavy on Tony's shoulders, and nothing would likely change that. It had been true before he'd ever met Peter, and it remained so -- only Tony sort of felt like had had more stake in things now than he had some ten years ago. He'd probably thought that ten years ago, too. It was just part of his general make up, maybe. Or whatever he'd turned into after that cave in Afghanistan. Maybe he was just making up for thirty plus years of not feeling bad about anything.

"Only lazier," he agreed, although there was a spark of something like pride in Tony for just how clever Peter always was. Not that Tony had anything to do with it just -- just that he was. "Let's hope for no-nazis," he went on, HUD looking for anything that there was to find, and coming up rather short, which was sort of weird. "We didn't bring our resident Nazi puncher along with us. This definitely isn't Canada. Is it just me, or is this city missing people?"

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idontfeelsogood
2019-04-09 01:06 am UTC (link)

"I always hope for no nazis no matter where I am." Peter said, taking a step off the roof and effortlessly starting to climb down the side of the building until he could get a good look inside the first window. "The kid who used to live in the next apartment when I was a kid, the one I used to play Avengers with, he was really into Cap. Like really into him. Had a plastic shield and the cowl and everything. There was like a week where he didn't take either off. Started running around punching people in the stomach if he felt they were being mean to him, would yell 'take that, nazi' every time he did it. I asked him why once, he said because nazis were mean and evil and deserved to be punched, said that even in my Iron Man mask I could punch nazis too."

By the time Peter finished his story he'd gone down three storeys of windows and didn't see anything to contradict Tony.

"Not this again." He muttered. "That one place, the tornado 90's place, there wasn't anybody there. Nothing alive. I mean, it's kinda great news because no locals to run into and we can take whatever, but it's super creepy after a while."

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allaboutego
2019-04-10 10:47 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah, that's some pretty solid hoping," Tony admitted, because frankly none of them should have had to have been hoping for Nazis not to show up in the first place. It was a wild goddamned world they lived in, some days, even without half of the universe's population turning to dust.

He made for the next building, finding a roof door that lead to a set of stairs and made zero work of the lock even as he listened to Peter's story. His weirdly cute story, that only reminded Tony of how young the kid was, sometimes. Well, not sometimes. He just... was young. Because he'd been out there wearing toy Iron Man helmets when he'd been a child, and Tony'd only been doing this for ten years now. It was mind boggling, a little. "Did you go around punching people, too?" He wondered, although sort of figured probably not. Maybe imaginary people. The air. Whatever.

"It's incredibly creepy," Tony agreed, heading down the stairs, aware Peter would follow if he felt so inclined. "Makes you wonder. Are these places that've been affected by Thanos?" Looting was all fine and good, but he was starting to think maybe they really did need to be taking notes about who saw what and the populations of the places they all went.

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idontfeelsogood
2019-04-11 12:35 am UTC (link)

"Nah, wasn't much into punching until the spider-thing. Used to throw paper balls, pretended they were your repulsors." Peter admitted. He'd been a small kid, he was still pretty small all things considered but he chose not to think about that, but fighting hadn't come naturally. What he remembered of his parents, and it wasn't much, included his mother telling him to be kind. And there was that day when he'd gotten into a fight with another kid at school and his uncle had been the one to come in when the school called, the whole way home he'd talked about other ways to solve his problems and when it was better to not fight. Maybe he wasn't following his uncle's advice as closely these days, but he liked to think he would be proud of him anyway.

He really didn't want to think of his family right then anyway. He didn't remember seeing them while he was 'dead' and thinking about it now made him feel more unsettled than he should have been while they were scouting.

"I don't think so." He shot out a web to a building on the other side of the street and swung across. "He only took out half the universe, or half the population of all the planets, right? He didn't draw a circle and take everybody in it, it just picked at random, right? So taking a whole city, sure, it's mathematically possible but it seems unlikely. And if he did, a place like this? A prime place for looting and whatever. There'd be some sign of somebody going through things or just something. It looks like everybody is just gone."

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allaboutego
2019-04-11 07:17 pm UTC (link)

"Not a great facsimile," Tony said, because sometimes despite all his schooled people skills and charm, he was just awkward and had very little in terms of filters. Still, the image was weird going on cute, so he couldn't say much else.

The topmost level of the building he'd entered didn't have anything in the way of people, but it did look like an office, so he reigned in his gauntlets and sat down at one of the desks, booting up a computer. It was slow, but that seemed pretty normal of any computer that wasn't his, most days.

"Half the population, right," he agreed, half distracted by the loading bar -- and trying not to think too hard into the truth of that matter, because it still sat pretty damned close to home. "And I'd say it was at random, but we don't know that for sure. He seemed able to make some choices as to who stayed and who went." Thanos had said so at least, that he'd spare Tony due to misguided respect.

"So. Where did everyone go?"

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idontfeelsogood
2019-04-15 01:08 am UTC (link)

Tony might have felt it didn't quite live up to the spirit but he had never had to face Ben and May's disappointed faces. They would never get upset over paper balls thrown at the other boys who lived in the apartment complex or the one across the street. And even if they didn't care even little Peter hadn't been the type of kid that liked hurting people. He'd become Spider-Man to help people, not to put on a cape and punch bad guys.

"Well, honestly, I was thinking that either everyone here experienced something like we did. That they all just appeared in another place, maybe another reality crashed into this one and maybe they all made the jump? Maybe this is what happens when universes merge?" He'd never been one for the Mandela Effect, sure it was a cool idea but the human brain was really fallible. But, while he hadn't really been considering it again, he was willing to play with the idea of nearly identical universes a little. It was a hard thing to deny when he could go back to Starklandia and talk to the guy who was an older version of himself. "After the other one though, the world with no people and the tornado, I wonder if there were actually any people here at all. Like- Like it's a pocket universe that is a copy of another universe, just without the people?"

He hopped over the railing of the roof he'd swung over to, finding himself on a rooftop restaurant. "Oh hey, I found the bar."

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allaboutego
2019-04-18 07:32 pm UTC (link)

Tony was clicking away at the keyboard in front of him, but was finding a whole lot of nothing behind tax forms and other forms needed to fill out tax forms. He decided rather pointedly that it was boring, and also that the computer wasn't even good enough to want to scavenge. He had principles.

He blinked, a little surprised at Peter's theory and changed what his attention was being spent on in the HUD, Peter's location popping up on the left. "That is... a surprisingly interesting idea," he decided after a moment. Sometimes, for all his genius, Tony was forgetful when it came to paying attention to anything beyond what he considered to be his own bubble. "Suppose we look hard enough, we find a room full of alternate dimensional doors?" Tony sort of hated that idea, the way that the labyrinth would sprawl only further if that was actually the case.

Making it back up to the roof took no time at all. "Why are you looking for a bar in the first place?"

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