#wildcardone

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 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.

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.

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").