Quinn sat cross-legged in a library in front of an open book, and for a rare surprise, it wasn't forced.
She'd discovered a volume of 'Little Orphan Annie' on display while she was returning a book that she had borrowed for class (the only way she was going to get a chance to actually read it), and she'd just had to open it to see what the comics were really like. She'd seen the musical when she was younger, and even though she'd found it a little annoying then... she was curious now.
It didn't take long for her to completely want to throw down the book and walk away.
In fact, she did, but when she turned around, she saw that there was a little redheaded girl standing behind her.
"What the fuck?" she asked, immediately defensive, and the little girl stared up at her.
"Gee, I don't think that's a good word to use, lady. Daddy Warbucks used it once in front of me, but then he told me to never use it, said it wasn't right for a young lady!"
Quinn blinked, and then decided that she'd obviously pulled just one too many shifts at the Starbucks lately.
"Kid, I dunno who the fuck you are or who the fuck you belong to, but scram. I don't deal with brats."
The redhead started to look as though she might cry, and Quinn rolled her eyes.
"Cry all ya want, kid. It doesn't do shit in today's NYC. Shit, probably didn't do shit back when you were relevant."
Quinn went to go put the book in the 're-shelf' area, and then walked out the door and on her merry way.
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“His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do - the best ones. The ones who rise up and say "I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come." Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places.”
Leo had his eyes closed tight, worried that if he was to open them he'd come face to face with the haunting figure, or he'd see himself stuck in the hospital bed; a group of friends and family surrounding his body. "I need you to leave me alone now Death. You've had your fun, you've said your piece. . . now let me get back ta ma life."
What life Leo? You've been laying in a bed for three months. I know- I watched you. Your soul had even sat up for me. You were ready to leave the world behind Leo, so why are you suddenly so eager to stay?
"Because maybe I've found a reason to. Now leave, please, just. . . just go."
The silence he was met with helped prompt the engineer to hesitantly open his eyes, looking around the familiarity that was his bedroom. He had just stood up from the carpet when a small gust of wind rippled past him and flipped open the book in question. The pages fanned out until finally stopping on page 549- one of the last possible spots. Leo crept closer, and just as his eyes landed on the lines, Death spoke up for one of the last times. 'There's a multitude of stories (a mere handful, as I have previously suggested) that I allow to distract me as I work, just as the colors do. I pick them up in the unluckiest, unlikeliest places and I make sure to remember them as I go about my work.' You're one of those stories, Leo. And trust me, it's one well worth telling. And just like that, the book shut, the presence filling the room stopped, and Leo was left chasing his tail; searching for the one thing that could explain what he had just heard. How was he worth a story? How was he one of the greatest Death, himself, had ever read? What made Leo Fitz so damn special?
Eat Pie with a Fork || Wildcard Wednesday (Peter Solo)
It had been one hell of a day (week, month, year), and for once, Peter was staying inside to rest for a bit before class. It wasn't that he was healing or anything, it was just that for some reason, the thought of getting up and swinging around made him feel like there were lead weights on his chest.
Therefore, he viewed it as an entirely necessary decision to stay in and read one of his old favorite sci-fi novels.
The cover was beaten and worn, despite being a hardback edition, and was a teal blue that had obviously seen brighter days. There was a similarly-faded yellow rocket featured on it, with the words reading 'Space Cadet, by Robert Heinlein' clearly marked across it.
Peter loved that book.
He was in the middle of reading it when he saw a young man -- his age, maybe a bit older -- in the corner of his eye.
Peter was positive he'd never seen that man before in his life.
"Who are you," he asked, puzzled by the fact that his spider-sense hadn't gone off, despite the visitor having been so close to him.
"Cadet Dodson, reporting for duty," came the reply, and Peter just stopped and stared.
It was true that the other man was wearing what appeared to be a very plain uniform, and it was also true that the man was standing in sort of a relaxed, loose slouch -- one that was called the 'spaceman's crawl' in the book.
Peter had never been one for imagining book characters, but if there was a person who fit the description of Matthew Dodson, it was certainly this man.
"How...? Well, actually, never mind. Weirder shit's happened to me before." Peter paused a bit, trying to think of a good question, any question... "Wanna have a sit and chat?"
The cadet blinked before shrugging.
"Sure. Beats studying astrogation, whatever the hell's going on."
The two young men talked for the rest of the time, comparing experiences, and Peter was surprised but pleased to find out that his position in life wasn't so different from Matt's -- poised in the very beginning of an adventure that would span the rest of their lives. When Matt left just as suddenly as he'd appeared, Peter felt that the time had been cut too soon, but it was easier to put on his mask and crawl out his window after that.
After all, that guy was checking the navigation on nuclear rockets and establishing first contact with natives on Venus in his world. The least Peter could do was stop a petty jewel thief.
This is Ginny's Fault || Viktor Solo || Wildcard Wednesday
Viktor almost cried when he turned around to find Eddard Stark stood in his home. He'd gone into his kitchen area to make his lunch only to find the Stark Lord stood in his kitchenette.
Almost. But didn't.
He was still a HYDRA agent after all, he did have to be mature about this. It had happened before, the idiocy of it all with mutant powers and experimentation.
But to have Eddard Stark in his kitchen was disarming and completely blamed on Ginny. It was her fault that he was reading A Game of Thrones anyway.
"Why are you here?" Viktor snarled before turning back to his chicken stir fry and flipping the noodles, using the back of the spoon to break apart the packet of store bought straight-to-fry cheap noodles.
"Why am I here?" The accent familiar to a Yorkshire drawl echoed around the rooms, the heat of the stir fry a radiating from the pan as Viktor lifted the food into the bowl.
"Like the hell I know." Viktor groaned, pouring a layer of soy onto his noodles. "Why you?" He motioned for the Stark to sit down opposite. "Of any of them, why you?"
The Stark Lord just stared at him, little emotion on his face as he glanced around the flat. Viktor wasn't sure what the man was looking for or at but the confusion that only just laced the man's eyes was prevalent to Viktor - and most likely only Viktor.
"You're in New York, Lord Stark." Viktor said, attempting to keep his glare at bay. The man was as confused as he was, even if Viktor's subliminal hate for the character was prevalent - he knew that the man before him would not know. "It's nothing to worry about, my lord."
"New York..." Lord Stark repeated the words and walked towards the window to look out across the city. "I'm not in Westeros..." Viktor smiled at that and watched the man carefully.
"No you're not." Viktor watched as the man walked back and sat down opposite him. "Do you want a drink?" He walked towards the fridge and pulled out a beer for himself before glancing back over his shoulder to see the man nod. Viktor pulled out a second for the man and promptly opened both before passing the second to Eddard Stark. It wasn't hard to notice the confusion now, especially as he passed the glass bottle between his hands.
"I'm sorry about this, Lord Stark." It was all Viktor could think to say as he leant towards his phone and texted Ginny. Hopefully the Stark would be gone soon, back to his family and back to his ignorant bliss.
Take My Hands and Keep Them Busy Again || Self-Para
Tony had been called many things in his life, but nostalgic was not one of them. He'd told this to Pepper once as she held his heart in her hands--his old heart, his outdated heart: prototype one. She hadn't listened; she'd saved the old heart; the old heart had saved his life. It was a story they'd played on repeat--Pepper calling the shots, Tony too stubborn to listen, and Pepper proving herself justly right in the end, but underneath that tale was another: the story of how Tony had whizzed right past updating tech and had moved on to updating himself.
Maya Hanson's life's work scattered his desk, blue-prints and diagrams, notebooks and journals, anything and everything he'd managed to grab from AIM and anything that could point him in the right direction, anything that could fix the problem of Extremis once and for all. And this time, it wouldn't just keep Pepper safe, wouldn't throw a blanket over the problem; this time, if it worked at all, it would change the world.
Problem one was finding where to start.
Problem two was only slightly more problematic: Tony just couldn't seem to get his hands to stop shaking.
It had started when he'd stopped drinking, he knew, and it was, in fact, getting better with time, but without a drink in his hand, without a drink to quiet his mind, he could hardly hold on to a single tool, or see the blueprints he was supposed to be working on over the hundreds of numbers and varied equations flashing in front of his vision. "And that's useless," Tony mumbled under his breath, tossing the pen he'd been trying to use aside (he'd thought, stupidly, that perhaps actually writing would be easier than using the computer, but it had been no use).
Rolling his chair back, Tony stopped at the couch that so often housed Steve these days--the couch where the soldier sat, playing with the bots or sketching in his notebook. Under the left side cushion, collecting dust and lint but never thrown away, was buried an old book that Tony now pulled out, shaking off the mess and flipping open the cover. Maria Stark was signed in the upper right hand corner, and every other page was dog-eared or scribbled upon. Maria had cared about very little near the end of her life, spending every day in a nearly ghost like state of apathy, but once upon a time, she had loved that tattered old book.
Tony was not, by any definition of the word, a nostalgic man, but he just couldn't bear to throw it away either.
As Howard had thrust tool after tool, schematic after schematic into Tony's hands, it had been Maria who had read to him at night, Maria who had always said that a good book was like stepping into a new world, that no matter how tired you became, how strange life seemed, a book could always take you somewhere better. Tony had been out of practice over the years, had not read nearly as much as he used to, when a free afternoon meant reading two, three, four books if he could manage it. Even back then, he'd hardly ever had the patience for it, despite his skills at speed reading, and would always rather have a tool in his hand than a story (something he could make, dictate, create, rather than simply be told about); but he'd always rather have been like Maria than Howard to, and so for year after year, he had tried his best.
Arthur Conan Doyle's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes had not been Maria's favorite book, not even in the top three, but it had been the one Tony most liked to hear, the story he most understood--the man too smart for his own good, never quite able to communicate right with others, but always skilled at his job in the end. Holmes had been described as a man "of iron" and Tony never quite forgot it. He'd always nursed a small, crazy dream that one day, by some burst of magic, he could meet the detective.
When that dream came true, however, he sort of wished he'd never thought it at all.
Hat perfectly straight, pipe between his lips, the man appeared as though from thin air, surveyed the room with one long, quizzical stare, then called out for Watson as he pondered aloud about the "strange and magical world" he had found himself in. It was not the first time Tony had hallucinated--not by a long shot--but as his detox addled fever had now died down, he'd rather thought he was over the crazy.
Too tired to fight it, and frankly, too interested to try and rid himself of the "vision," Tony gestured to the nearest couch and mumbled, "Make yourself at home.
And Holmes certainly did, though not quite as Tony had expected. Rather than sitting, he walked around the room, studying every machine and every bot and concluded in just under a minute, that he was in the future and then proceeded to guess the function of each machine.
Tony had always hoped to be the smartest man he knew, but he was floored by the genius in front of him (though if it was all a hallucination, was it his own genius he was admiring? Wouldn't exactly be the first time). In fact, Tony was so enthralled in watching the detective, that when thirty minutes passed (for which it felt like seconds), and the man disappeared, Tony felt oddly disappointed, especially when he took into consideration that he was mourning a figment of his own imagination.
Except that there was no reason for that. Except that JARVIS had run the tests, and Tony was fine. Except that he lived in a tower full of people who could do amazing and unimaginable things, and it wasn't so very impossible that perhaps a single one of them could change logic as they knew it.
Spinning once in his chair, Tony mumbled under his breath, "...when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," then quickly returned to work.
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Wildcard Wednesday: Steve meets Gabriel Conroy, a character from "The Dead" from James Joyce's The Dubliners.
That, however, didn't explain why there was now a strange man sitting on his couch in his living room, reading the book. Steve had his shield up and at the ready. "Who are you?" Steve asked.
"Conroy. Gabriel Conroy," He replied, closing the book and standing up. What struck Steve right away was his familiar Irish cadence. Steve looked him up and down. He was a stout, tallish young man. The high colour of his cheeks pushed upwards even to his forehead, where it scattered itself in a few formless patches of pale red; and on his hairless face there scintillated restlessly the polished lenses and the bright gilt rims of the glasses which screened his delicate and restless eyes. His glossy black hair was parted in the middle and brushed in a long curve behind his ears where it curled slightly beneath the groove left by his hat. Steve took a second to figure out where he knew that name before glancing at the book in Gabriel's hand.
"Gabriel Conroy. Married to Gretta Conroy, nephew to Julia and Kate Morkan?" Steve asked. If he was honestly looking at a fictional character from his favorite story from one of his favorite books, then he would just be completely done with the world and go curl up under the cover with Tony -- because this was ridiculous.
"At your service," he replied, extending his hand. Steve gave him one last suspicious look before shaking his hand -- or trying to. His hand seemed to go through Gabriel's. If Steve needed any more proof that Gabriel wasn't just a stranger who broke into his home, then this was it. Steve exhaled deeply and set down his shield.
"Okay, how did you get here?" Steve asked, needing to make sense of the situation. Gabriel gave him a sad smile, and Steve wondered what a young man like him could be sad about when he remembered Gabriel's story. A man who was married to a woman who was still in love with her former lover, her former lover who had died for her. A man who never felt such love for another woman that he would be willing to die for her. It made him think of all of the people he would die for. (Well, he would be willing to die for the world's safety, but that was Captain America. As Steve Rogers, he would die for a small amount of people. And Steve would definitely die for someone he was in love with.)
"O, I haven't ought a clue," Gabriel replied with a shrug. "I remember falling asleep next to my wife with snow falling down in the sky and the next thing I know, I'm here."
Steve had so much to ask because Gabriel's story always stuck out ot him. Perhaps it was because it was the idea of being in marriage where there was surely love, but a lack of passion. Perhaps it hit a little close to home for him. They sat down and just talked. Steve told Gabriel about himself and Gabriel did the same. Steve gave Gabriel advice about what to do with his relationship ("Learn to fall in love; if not with Gretta, then with someone else.") and Gabriel talked to Steve about his life ("Travel and learn. That's all I've to offer. Get educated but also become experienced about the world").
He found himself hanging onto Gabriel's every word, not because everything he had to say was so interesting, but because his Irish cadence reminded him so much of his mother. The voice and the intonation was all wrong, but it was that cadence of Irish roots that brought him back to his childhood, brought him back to memories of a warm eyes, a kind smile, and a strong heart. It brought him back to the person who inspired him to never back down from a fight, no matter how disadvantaged he was. ("Thank you, mum," Steve thought wistfully.)