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No. Well— not exactly. I wasn't there on official business, anyway.

[ Fitz leans back against the desk with his arms still crossed, reluctance written into his posture as much as his tone. ]

I've done time travel, too. [ Is that a lie? He hasn't. But a Leo Fitz has, and he's gotten the play-by-play of it. Case in point: ] I don't know if our presence here is creating paradoxes or alternate universes or whatever, but I know it'll be messy.

[ See also: hell yeah we're dwelling. But he's extremely sick of dwelling and thinking, generally, and there's a frustrated huff of breath before he continues. ]

I don't think I should tell you anything you've missed. But I don't think I'll be able to work with you on research without letting things slip, either.

[ Confident without sounding remotely final, like a pitch seeking feedback. ]

Edited 2020-03-14 19:58 (UTC)

You've done time travel before.

[ If you were almost as smart as Tony Stark, you might be impressed. Because Tony Stark is as smart as Tony Stark, he's tunneled all the way from a generalised skepticism, through the part where he could be impressed right away, and out the other end into informed skepticism.

And it's by virtue of the circumstances in which they are having this conversation that he says; ] Okay.

[ Okay. ]

Howard Stark was here.

[ :) ]

Circa 1940s, some'n like that. He disappeared about a month before you showed up. So what did we learn? [ Breezing by-- ] That he either did not show back up in our world with all memories of his experiences here intact, or he's-- even better at compartmentalisation than anyone knew about, or he didn't go back at all, or there's an alternate timeline in which arc reactor technology took off a hell of a lot sooner than it did. Whatever option begets the fact that you and I are from the same place and we remembered the same history.

So I posit whatever we tell each other doesn't mean jack.

Edited 2020-03-16 00:07 (UTC)

[ Oh. His brow furrows sharply, face generally scrunching up like he's just landed on a sour thought. ]

That's.... [ Good? Good not having to worry about screwing everything up with spoilers, absolutely. Bad in the sense that "he didn't go back at all" is an option. ] Is that reassuring?

[ — is the first thing he says, because that information sets off a domino chain of theories. Alternate timelines mean alternate selves, an alternate Jemma. Would that matter? But that's the domino that brings him back around, eventually, to another careful and — he can't help it, sorry — concerned look. ]

Your father was here? That must've been— [ Cue a mental blue screen. He has no idea. Haplessly: ] Strange.

Edited 2020-03-16 00:55 (UTC)

[ His shrug is for this first part. Reassurance, sure, for whoever wants it.

The second part could net the same, and kind of does, but the jerk upwards of shoulders is more resettling his folded arms, some relieving of tension, more than an articulate gesture. ]

It sure wasn't normal. But, disparities, he wasn't exactly anyone I knew ever.

[ The city slick fast-talking kid with a pencil mustache was not and never will be the silver-haired, stern-faced fixed point in his memory. But that's not what they are here to talk about. Literally no one is!

Hard pivot; ]

They don't think we're people from other worlds, here. They think we're something else.

[ Very hard pivot and very noted. His gaze drops to the floor again without focusing on much of anything, a sort of reactive and mutual avoidance. Them?? Talking about absentee dads??? Definitely not.

Something else. Demons. He's heard that. Considered it, minus the moralising. Agitated silence begins to fill the space where his response should be; then movement, one hand lifting to pinch the bridge of his nose like he's trying to bear out a headache. ]

Okay. [ Like Tony's "okay" moments before. Not really okay, but okay. His hand drops, shoulders relaxing slightly. ] Maybe we are. Maybe we're just— manifestations, or copies. If Coulson's—

[ The pause isn't overly abrupt. Just tired, and the redirect's similarly weary. ] SHIELD had files on some sort of rift. They thought it was leaking energy from another dimension, and that the energy could physically manifest people's fears.

[ does this sound very on the nose re: rifts?? yes. does it also sound kind of stupid?? yes, he's not excited about it. ]

[ There's a blink at the name Coulson, kind of glitchy, out of rhythm, but he doesn't interrupt, conditioned as he's decided to be to yank on the reins at any curiousity that has to do with Back Home in spite of, you know. It not meaning anything. It still doesn't, but some things probably need a little more familiarity, liquor in a glass. Sitting down.

Strange, too, at his own impulse towards skepticism at some kind of fear dimension sitting adjacent to his home planet, when here he is, Game of Thronesing it up with a nightmare plane that leaks demons, maybe people shaped from dreams.

He rubs his face, his own version of Fitz's nose pinching. ]

'Member when just outer space was the thing? Simpler times.

[ He refolds his arms. ] You recall if that energy was manipulable by anything or anyone who wasn't a wizard?

Edited (repetition begone) 2020-04-09 11:04 (UTC)

[ The glitch registers thanks to equal parts observation and paranoia. He has no idea what he'll say if Tony asks, which of course means he's fully ready for it — ready to be frozen by indecision, mostly. Tony dodging the subject entirely feels more like a raincheck than relief, but he'll take what he can get.

The question Tony does ask is met with the kind of small yet dramatic shrug that's universal for "who knows", because he genuinely doesn't know. After a beat, resigned: ]

There was nothing in the notes about it being manipulable by anyone. They closed the rift entirely to stop it leaking through. [ Another beat, this one distinctly cagey. ] And I don't think they had any wizards handy while they were running tests. Why?

Just running similarities. Mages [ and six months or whatever it's been doesn't stop him from putting a bit of a sarcastic spin on pronouncing this word ] are gifted with the ability to pull energy out of the Fade and turn it into elemental forces. And fear, even, I think I read that somewhere.

[ Le shrug. ]

So if we're manifestations or copies, where does that leave us. Try to get back home, kill our good twin?

[ Mages controlling the Fade's energy is a little alarming in the context of them hypothetically being made of Fade energy. The thought doesn't get particularly far — they'd have noticed something as obvious as mages controlling or affecting Rifters by now, surely — but even if it had legs, Tony's follow-up trips it up cleanly.

Fitz gives him an inexplicably sharp look, moody and a bit guilty. It's his fault for floating the theory, but it's difficult not to feel punchy about the concept of more duplicates and more fallout. ]

No. We just— we get back home, and we figure out the rest later. There's no point having an existential crisis over one theory.

[ Says the guy who has steadfastly refused to engage directly with the "our entire world is a shitty mage dream" theory since his arrival. Anyway, now it's his turn to hard pivot into safer territory: ] How much of their tech's analogous to ours?

[ That's a very fair and rationale perspective, Mr Fitz. Amusement iss cant and vague as it crosses Tony's expression, resettling his posture some as Fitz pivots the conversation around.

Very safe territory. ]

Warfare wise, artillery's pre gunpowder for most of Thedas, but the Qunari have something that sure sounds like it, and the dwarves are capable of lyrium-based explosives. Medically, everyone's in the miasmas and humours period, but Riftwatch's been given a clue.

Some of the local cities seem like they're crawling out of the Middle Ages and other places -- Val Royeux, and Kirkwall in a lot of ways -- are kind of Renaissancey. Relatively high levels of literacy, printing press, higher education for the wealthy and-or noble.

Low on scientific enlightenment. I think magic and a rock solid theocratic foundation's made 'em lazy, and even then they kept all their wizards in prison, so. The most cutting edge stuff is happening in Dwarf Town and Qunari Land, so we're operating off hearsay.

[ "This is an actual nightmare" is what he's thinking and not transcribing in expressions or fidgets, for once. He looks admirably chill about it, if a little distracted. Updating mental notes. ]

And the— [ A beat to grasp for completely made-up words. ] Corypheus. He's just got magic?

[ "Just" magic. ]

[ "Just" magic. Tony's smile is thin, fleeting. ]

Yeah. And access to a resource called red lyrium. Or-- a willingness and ability to use it for anything. Mostly mutating his soldier recruits into superhuman monster things.

[ His watching of Fitz is a little more fixed as he says so, a curious cant to his head. He adds; ]

Also he has an undead dragon. So he gets points for aesthetic.

[ "Superhuman monster things" isn't good news, by any means, but there's at least some correlating data. Explanations he might be able to drag kicking and screaming out of their universe to explain something, anything here.

Tony's observation will catch what looks like deep consideration and the run-up to verbalizing it, and the rapid death of both when he says "undead dragon". Flatly: ]

An undead dragon.

[ He doesn't sound very impressed, with aesthetics or otherwise. ]

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