S.I.: Test Pilots For the 21st Century

The contraption fell with a clang at her feet, and Sharon was just about to give Tony the patented Carter Death Stare ™ when she realised that for one, he couldn’t see it through her sunglasses anyway, and secondly, Dum-E had suddenly appeared brandishing a fire extinguisher. If the bot was a dog, his tail would’ve surely been wagging as he looked to Tony for praise, then turned to Sharon. Sharon patted him gently on his … Head? (She was always confused about robot anatomy, no matter how many times Tony tried to explain it. When he got into his engineering mode, most of his words became mumbles anyway to her.)

“Good bot,” she said, and Dum-E nuzzled into her. No matter how long it has been since the last time she had visited, the bot always remembered her, always carried out the same actions he had been doing since Sharon was a kid. It was basically the only thing that was still the same all these years later; it made her happy in a way she couldn’t really explain.

Tony’s workshop was as familiar to her as any childhood memory, and it was the one place she could go and feel like she was six again. Maybe that was why as she had grown she had stopped hugging Tony as much, stopped telling him so much about her life, stopped almost crying with how much she loved him. It was too much; she didn’t want to be reminded of a happier time, didn’t want to think about how much Tony had been suffering yet still always, always made time for her.

She leaned against one of his workbenches, making sure first that there was nothing pointy on its surface. It had happened too many times for her to count, embarrassing for one of the world’s supposed greatest spies. She took her sunglasses off and pushed them onto her head, simply because in the dullness of the workshop the tinted glass was making her head spin.

“That’s cute,” she said. “You thinking Steve trusts me as far as he can throw me.” She had, after all, lied to him about her name, her occupation, her relation to Peggy, her relation to Tony, her motivations, her loyalties … Come to think of it, she was pretty sure there was only one meeting ever where Sharon has been completely honest with the man. “But I am here to check up on you. Last I heard from you was before you got … you know.”

Dum-E whirred in the background. The bruise on her face hurt more as she spoke. She had tried to cover it with makeup, but to no avail. Natasha had always been better at that kind of thing. “Look, I don’t care if you did it,” Sharon said. “You know me. You know I wouldn’t care if you killed a hundred villains. Fair as I’m concerned, the guy deserved it. But if you didn’t do it, and you’re still holed up down here ‘reinventing the wheel’, I’ll be a bit concerned.”

Dum-E was, technically, the most useless thing Tony had ever created--more broken than he was fixed, his coding a mess and so dated, Tony couldn’t have possibly made him functioning in the modern age without stripping him down to the basics and starting from scratch (and Dum-E wouldn’t allow that, wouldn’t sit still long enough for an oil change, let alone a full reboot). But he was, also, the best thing Tony had ever made: loyal to a fault, friendly--if Robots could be such a thing, which Tony unwillingly believed they could, no matter what he told himself to the contrary--and the truth of the matter was this: rebooting Dum-E would be like killing him (not true, not accurate, no scientific backing in the world to hold that up, but he felt it all the same) and Tony just didn’t have the heart for it. Let no one call him a sentimentalist, but, well, Dum-E had been with Tony longer than anyone else.

Tony reached out on instinct, lifting himself off the spinning chair, about to get in between her and whatever could potentially kill her in his lab--there was always something: tox spills, pointy objects, things that might explode--but when she found a clear space, Tony breathed a sigh of relief and fell back into the chair, spinning in it once and crossing his arms over his chest in an attempt to look like he’d never been worried. Nonchalant. Cool. Tony liked to pretend he hated Dum-E--that the old rust bucket was a waste of his time and space--almost as much as he liked to pretend he was an unsympathetic and uncaring tool, but Sharon was harder to hide the truth from, harder to be anything in front of but her cousin. 

Whether she was six and running wild through his space, picking up everything she could and letting him teach her the basics of quantum-mechanics, or a grown woman taking the world by storm as a SHIELD spy, Sharon was his family, and no amount of time apart--no amount of workoholism on either of their parts--was going to change that. “He doesn’t have to trust you to have something in common with you. Something very important and all around wonderful. Me.” Tony spoke without looking up, smearing motor oil on his pants as the machine in front of him--he was not even sure himself what he’d meant for it to be at this point, having worked well beyond the point of comprehension--exploded and stained the desk with black tar and grease. “Before I got arrested for murder?”

For the most part, he had been enjoying the little exchange between the fame Avenger and the government agent. Standing silently, hands folded behind his back, Victor fought the smirk that dared twitch at his lips. It was not too surprising that his aid had been call upon. After all he had one of the most brilliant minds in the world. However given his encounter with the Fantastic Four and the fact that despite being allies, he was still the leader of a foreign country. It had been curious that he had been so nicely asked. 

He had only wished to have been more informed on exactly what they needed him for. Sparky-weird thing was not an accurate detailed description. Yet he supposed for a land ranked seventeenth in education, he had been expecting too much.

“I assure you Mr. Stark, working with you would not make the most ideal afternoon.” He rather spend what free time he had with a very intriguing blonde. “Seeing however that is the case. It would be best to do as many of your past lovers have. Grind through.” 

Turning his attention now to the operative, “As incompetent as you are, I am sure you could afford some clemency to my…colleague. If expected for him to work efficiently, it is only logical to afford him some comfort.” He too did not find idea of work in the same area as Stark appealing. Preferring the company of his own mind when conducting any research. In his personal laboratory, he could spend hours on end in silence. Letting his thoughts run with new inventions and discoveries. From Chemistry, Micro and Cellular Biology to Physics and Engineering. In the confides of his lab, away from society, he found peace. In so regardless of his feels for the entire situation. On a professional level he knew that those of science needed an agreeable environment. “If this proves too difficult a task. I would be glad to speak with one of your superiors.”

Tony was expecting the jab--he promptly rolled his eyes, repeating under his breath: “ha ha, original” while he held up his wedding ring to show the truth; someone had stayed--and he was expecting to see the hatred and disinterest in the other man’s eyes (yeah, Buddy, I didn’t want to be here either, Tony thought); but he wasn’t expecting the support, realistic as it might have been. That was the thing about scientists: whether you were the cool, suave, handsome type like himself--changing the world for the better--or the evil mad scientists cackling alone in his workshop with an oversized white coat, they all had something in common: their minds worked differently than other people, saw the world differently. Where most people saw a puzzle or task, they saw the future--so beyond a simple “solution” they might as well have been playing a different game. And that sort of genius took a bit of...well, creature comforts.

The operative left the room to “see what he could do,” which Tony could only guess meant ‘talk to his superiors and beg for them to help him out before he got turned to Doom-squash.’ Tony wasn’t sad to see him go, but he wasn’t aching to be alone with Doom either. “Just tell it to me straight,” he said, reaching for a wrench off the counter. He fiddled with it, knocking it against his knuckles for a moment, before he pointed it back at Doom. “How many people did you have to brainwash to get in here? Threaten? Give them the super duper scary voodoo look?” Tony shook his head. “You know what? Let’s keep the mystery alive. Because it doesn’t matter. It’s all pretty simple: you,” Tony gestured at Doom with the hammer. “Bad guy. Me?” He pointed at himself. “Good guy.”

This was priceless. It was so priceless in fact that, upon learning the news, Loki spent several minutes laughing out loud before recovering his wits. 

Tony Stark, self-appointed savior of Midgard and all-around fool, had been arrested for the killing of one of the petty Midgard villains that the heroes had recently been fighting. The very same fight in which Loki himself had ended up reluctantly assisting that silly Man of Spiders when that uncouth woman Reboot had attacked them both. Loki had dispatched her, yes, but for once it had been self-defense. Which he could only assume had been the case with Stark. Surely that was no crime. But then, who knew when it came to backward Midgardian law? At any rate, Loki found the fact that–unjustly or not–Stark had run afoul of the law to be utterly hilarious, and such very poetic justice. And he also found that the temptation to torment Stark about it was too good to pass up.

Unless Stark had hidden himself in a bunker somewhere, which was highly unlikely given his personality, Loki assumed the only logical place to find him was that ghastly monument to himself which Stark called a tower. So he made his way there, disguised as a delivery man claiming to have a delivery for Stark. The mortal guards accepted the excuse, and Loki was soon inside. 

Though he did not know exactly where to find Stark, the guards had indicated the general area in which he usually could be found. A sweep of the area yielded nothing at first, but then Loki began to hear sounds coming from a room which looked to be a workshop. Yes, he should have assumed that was where Stark would be, tinkering with his little mechanical toys. Controlling what little he actually could control.

The room was locked, and guarded by Stark’s disembodied-voiced butler. But he was no defense against magic, and soon Loki had the door unlocked and slipped inside. He walked towards Stark, still wearing his delivery man disguise, but as he did, he allowed the illusion to slowly melt away.

“Delivery for Mr. Stark,” he announced, “I believe you mortals call it a ‘taste of your own medicine?’” Now back to his normal appearance, Loki grinned, relishing the prospect of rubbing Stark’s misfortune in his face. “Not so cocky now, are you? Not when the tables are turned. So how does it feel to be treated like a common criminal? I wouldn’t know, because while you and your comrades may have deemed me a criminal, I am far from common. But you…you are one of the heroes of Midgard. You are an Avenger. How could you have come to this? Have the people you protect finally seen through your facade? Have they learned how useless you really are?”

Tony hated magic. He hated magic, he hated magic, he hated magic. The thought rattled around in his head like a siren blaring--or at least as loud as the siren that was blaring the moment Loki stepped into the room. He should not have been in here, the security on the whole tower--and especially on Tony’s floor--too good for this to be possible, but what was security against magic? (He hated magic.) And he hated Loki. Was there anything more annoying than that smirk? Was that what Tony looked like when he smiled for the papers? If it was, he might have understood for the first time why he was on self-appointed house arrest, why the world had suddenly turned against him. That arrogance was infuriating. And he hadn’t missed it. Not for a second.

While Tony couldn’t say with any semblance of truth that the world had gotten safer since they’d banished Loki--not with another super villain coming out of the woodwork every day--it certainly had been happy to be free of him. Tony’s last memory of Loki (minus the battle) was being grabbed by the throat and thrown out the window of this very tower. He’d risked his own neck half a dozen times that day, put himself in this monster’s path to buy his team time, and then he’d flown into a damn wormhole into space to protect the city--the city that now thought him the bad guy. Some thanks. And now here they were, full circle, Tony jumping up from his workbench to face the man he’d thought was gone forever. Hadn’t Thor told him he was dead? 

“I’d say I missed you, but I’m trying this new thing where I don’t lie.” It was partially true--part of the twelve steps he was on as a recovering alcoholic--and a moral he’d been taught by marriage, that honesty was the first step in solving all problems. But Loki didn’t need to know any of that. Tony kept telling himself that magic was just science he didn’t understand yet, that one day he’d crack the code--that he was a genius and if anyone could figure it out, it would be him--but at the moment, he didn’t feel like a genius. Hell, he felt like a deer caught in the headlights, felt like any normal Joe off the street, about to have his ass handed to him by the god of mischief. A dead man. 

Suits lined the walls--a dozen different designs with a hundred different capacities each--and Tony could have called any to his aid in an instant. But that wasn’t the point. If Loki had come here to fight, it’d have been a poor move on his part, which meant he was here for something else, that there was a bigger plan at stake. Was it a distraction, look this way while the rest of New York burns? Tony was sure he’d have gotten an update if the city was in trouble (not that the city wanted his help anymore), but it was also possible that Loki had disabled JARVIS. 

Steve hummed, rubbing Tony’s back when he nuzzled his face into his neck. Physical comfort was easy for him to provide. For all his bulk and muscles, he really was a teddy bear at heart. He was sure that Tony could attest to that for all the cuddling they did. The mutual cuddling was one of Steve’s favorite parts of their relationship. They didn’t talk about it often, but they were both rather touch-starved. The fact that they touched one another constantly – whether it was hand holding or lap sitting – was an indicator of how much they needed this. They were generally open to casual touches, open to that level of comfort. 

He smiled, letting Tony pull away to point out that Steve has, in fact, already been arrested while they’ve been together. “Okay, fair. You got me,” he agreed easily with a shrug. “Jail isn’t the worst thing when the reason that got me there in the first place is more important.” Jail didn’t scare him. What did scare him was any harm that could come to his loved ones, especially Tony. He knew that his husband could take care of himself, but that didn’t stop him from worrying. That didn’t stop him from thinking about all of the things that could go wrong in this rather delicate political situation. Things were already going downhill for Tony, and if Steve could just hug him to make it all better, then he would. Unfortunately, the serum didn’t give him that exact ability. 

He leaned back in his chair, giving Tony a chance to get through a good portion of his dinner before bringing up something that would probably result in a very loud conversation (or argument). “Funny that you bring that up,” Steve started, rubbing the back of his head and feeling unsure of how to start this conversation. “Uh, you’ve probably noticed but I’m going, you know, stir-crazy.” He said. It was true – Steve was never one to simply sit on his hands while he could be doing something. “So, I came up with this plan. And before I do anything, I figured we could talk about it.” He pulled out some sketches out of his pocket and showed them to Tony. They were Ginny’s initial sketches of his new costume as well as Steve’s notes and plans for taking action, not as Captain America. 

Tony both liked and hated to be touched, both liked and hated attention, both liked and hated being the center of attention, and as much as he tried to work out some middle ground, he’d never been able to find it. He graved a touch that was kind and gentle, but feared any touch would be one of pain (and most days, he had himself convinced that was alright, that that was what he deserved), and while he liked all eyes on him--liked to put on a good show--it was also his instinct to hide away, because the man putting on that show wasn’t him, and it never had been. It was Tony Stark, billionaire superhero. Not Tony, Steve’s husband, and with Steve, all of that was different; with Seve, Tony reached out for the touches, craved them, needed them, relied on them. With Steve, Tony felt safe--and that wasn’t something he’d ever been able to say before, not in this life. And he knew it was the same for Steve. 

Steve had grown up in hard times, woken up in even harder--though the world like to pretend it was the other way around, that they’d fixed their problems. Tony and the rest of his team knew the truth, knew themselves to be fighting bad guys like no others, knew that the terrible things that had happened in World World 2 were still happening today, just under another name, just quieter and less in your face about it. And that wasn’t Tony’s style, and he didn’t like it. So, when Steve handed him a sketch of a mask and cape in, what was, compared to the Captain America suit, subtle, he had to think the same thing: Captain America he understood--it was classic, it was loud, it got the job done. But this?

She’d seen him like this before, and, as always, it made her want to put on one of those fancy gauntlets and shoot him, or at least punch him really, really hard. Sharon Carter was not the type of woman who had developed sympathy - her mother was the coldest woman she had ever met, and her father was a SHIELD agent since birth - even when it came to family. She would rather share a beer and start a bar fight than talk about her feelings, but when Tony didn’t answer his phone for a couple days following his arrest, she doubted she’d be able to get him anywhere. Enlisting JARVIS’s help was the only viable solution.

The bruise was still healing up from where the trucker’s fist had hit her straight across the face, and she was hiding it rather poorly with sunglasses (taking a page from Tony’s book; somewhere she could hear her mother screaming about wearing sunglasses indoors).

Sharon didn’t care if he’d done it. She’d killed plenty in her time, and knew that there were occasions when it was unavoidable, not to mention the fact that the bastard had deserved to die. Yet she knew Tony, and she had the feeling that he was innocent, so she didn’t bring up the fact that she’d root for him even if he wasn’t. She still wasn’t sure where they stood with each other on the morality of things, even after years of closeness.

“You think I’m here to lecture you?” Sharon said, raising an eyebrow. “Didn’t realise I’d suddenly turned into Aunt Peg. SHIELD crashing into the Potomac must’ve aged me.” She scanned the workshop with a trained eye. He really hadn’t moved from this room, had he? Sharon had a sudden swelling of sympathy for Steve. “I’m not here on any business, Tony, if you’d stop being-” She cut herself off.

“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” she asked, exasperation evident in her voice. “Just ‘cause I’m not a super genius doesn’t mean I don’t know when you’re becoming a recluse. Come on, Tony.”

The sunglass trick, Tony thought. So either she was hiding a whopper of a bruise, or one hell of a hangover; his money was on the first one. Fighting until she couldn’t fight anymore, that was Sharon’s style; drinking until he couldn’t drink anymore was his. Or, he thought as he moved a few pieces out of the machine and tossed them into the trash, it used to be his style. Now he was more of the vegan tofu kind of guy, and less the scotch on the rocks. He scratched his forehead, frowning when his hand came back even more stained in motor oil than it had already been. He really needed a shower. But there would be time for that later. He hoped.

The truth was, Tony hadn’t been thinking outside of this workshop, had tuned out the rest of it, pretended the world didn’t exist. And he wasn’t ready to leave that bubble yet. He wasn’t listening to Sharon speaking, barely even realized she was there. Steve came in all the time when he was like this, would leave food or give him a kiss goodnight, and be on his way. With the music blaring and an idea taking hold, Tony could be lost for hours--for days. But when JARVIS shut off his music, Tony blinked and seemed to come back to the real world. 

“Look, I have stuff to do. Inventions to make, worlds to change. It’s not called being a recluse when you’re literally reinventing the wheel.” He rolled what he was working on--which looked a lot like a wheel--toward her and it made it most of the way before the disk fell over and landed with a clatter at her feet. DUM-E, assuming there was some danger that there wasn’t, zoomed over and used the fire equistinsher on the non-flaming metal disk. “Well, that’s one way to test it,” Tony mumbled. He’d have turned back to his work then if he didn’t get the distinct feeling that Sharon was still watching him and that she had no intentions of leaving. 

“There’s no such things as the good ol’ days f’me, homme.” And finally, a hairline crack breaks through Remy’s usually placid expression. First he was an orphan on the streets who had to deal with the stresses of not starving to death or getting swept up into the system, then he became a member of the Guild and came all the complications of that old chestnut; arranged marriages and tithes to power-hungry benefactresses, yuck.

He leaned casually against the wall and made sure that his cool and detached grin made its way back onto his face. Both hands slid into the pockets of his jeans and he huffed a chuckle. “Mebbe that’s why de Prof make me give you the tour, neh? One bad influence to another, jus’ tryin’ t’bridge the gap.” He shrugged a shoulder, the simple motion so fluid and graceful. He’d read the papers and watched the news- of course Tony Stark was a bad influence. Remy had watched his upward, downward, and back upward again spiral through the years. Maybe the Professor was hoping that their natures would appeal to one another. It was still hard to tell whether the idea was working or not.

He happened to glance over as Tony’s eyes widened and he couldn’t help but give a tiny, pleased smile. “It gets the job done.” He tilted his head and hummed. “Oh, y’know. It’s part sewing room, part engineering space. Once the students get past a certain age or level, they can start toolin’ wit’ their costume ideas or things that might help ‘em control and focus their powers. Lots of experimentin’ with flame-proof everything. Henri, y’might know him as de Beast- He helps out a lot in there. I take it y’wanna go see?” He pushes off the wall and starts sauntering lazily in that particular direction.

Something changed in Remy’s eyes, if only for a second, something closer to human, to an open book, to real--the first glimpse of reality that Tony thought he’d seen from the man since he’d met. Not that he blamed him. Life was about playing your cards right, knowing which ones to show, which ones to hide, and always keeping your secrets close to your chest--it was the only way you survived. He knew that was well as anyone. Perhaps better than most. No good times, Tony thought, AKA a bad childhood, a heap of repressed memories, and probably a good dose of daddy issues. Fake It Until You Make it was a must for the Lost Kids, but it was also crucial to reinventing yourself. Tony did it every day he stepped into a suit--whether it was Iron Man or Armani. Tony Stark didn’t exist; he was who he was made to be in the papers, in interviews, who Tony, the Engineer, constructed him to be.

And it sounded like the kids were doing the same thing in this workshop. Tony pushed down a frown, pushed down the worry that told him these kids were too young to be making super suits, to be thinking about joining up with the X-Men. And if registration goes through, they’ll never be allowed to, he thought. But that wasn’t why he was here, and at the end of the day, he didn’t know these kids, didn’t know what they needed, what they’d seen, what they’d do next. That was Professor X’s speciality, and Tony already had his hands full with his own team. “What did one bad influence say to the other?” Tony said, the start of a joke he didn’t know the end to. “I’m trying to be a better influence these days.” Especially if he and Steve truly planned to adopt a child. “Jury’s still out if it’s working.” 

“Yeah, you said that three hours ago,” Steve replied, setting the plate of food down in front of Tony, waiting for the smell of food to combine with the hunger to distract him. The moment Steve got news that Tony had been arrested for the murder of Lazarus, he immediately phoned the lawyers they kept on retainer and Pepper. They needed to take care of this as soon as they could. Tony already had enough on his plate, what with working out the budgets for various relief funds and charities on top of new designs for StarkIndustries on top of meetings with Senate and the board of StarkIndustries and SHIELD on top of working with Steve on rewriting the proposed stipulations for Registration. He did not need to stress about a murder trial for a murder he did not even commit. 

Steve kissed Tony back, savoring the feel of his lips. All he wanted was to hold Tony in his arms as soon as he came home, but he also knew that Tony needed his own time and space. “’S eight at night,” he murmured. He lifted Tony up, sitting down in his chair before settling his husband into his lap. Steve wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist, nuzzling his face into his neck. It had been a good twelve hours after Tony had been released, and while it wasn’t healthy, Tony needed the time to get his head on straight. But twelve hours was where Steve drew the line. He needed warm food in his stomach and cuddles from his husband. “Between the two of us, I think I would end up in the clink first,” he remarked. 

“And I meant it three hours ago. I just needed...one hundred and eighty more minutes. Give or take a few.” Tony looked up at his husband, allowing himself to be easily maneuvered into the man’s lap. There were certainly worse places to be, and compared to his chair (burned and acid rotted and about the worst thing he owned because it’d seen him through every experiment, good and bad), Steve’s lap was the most comfortable thing in the world, even if he was more muscle than squish. If anyone knew Tony had chosen twelve hours locked in here with the rust and the wires and the bitching of his own computer program over being locked away in this man’s arms, they’d have thought him crazier than most of the world already did. Tony leaned up and kissed him, made sure to take his time with it, to try and put as much affection--as much ‘thank you for sticking with me through the work binges’--as he could into one move. Steve’s lips were the softest part of him, and they were intoxicating. Aven more than work was. 

Tony pulled away only to burrow his face into the crook of Steve’s neck. He hadn’t had a good idea in hours; he was stalling, and they both knew it. He didn’t want to have to think about what had happened the day before, to think about the consequences. All the good lawyers in the world weren’t going to help once the government decided supers had to be ended; the system was against them now--and to think Tony had been trying to help them. “You did, remember?” Tony pulled away, smiling up at his husband as he remembered bailing him out a couple of years before, when they’d still just been dating and the law had first been on their ass about being super heroes. “And if I know you--and I think I do--it won’t be the last time.” There as unmistakable pride in Tony’s voice. Sure, they didn’t always see eye to eye, and he didn’t like seeing his husband in jail, but he did like watching him stand up for what he believed in. 

Wanda was determined to prove that she could play by the rules, she could protect people without hurting anyone too much. Yet as she followed Tony’s instructions and cuffed the rioters, she couldn’t help but plant a little seed in their head and walk away as they screamed, thinking their worst fears were coming for them. Pietro always said it was messed up, how she played with peoples’ minds so easily. She supposed he was right, but it didn’t stop her. She grinned at Tony.

“Episodes IV through to VI, I think,” she said. “Clint said the prequels were, how did he put it? A disgrace to humankind. I must admit I am intrigued.”

The riot had calmed down since their arrival, and upon seeing Iron Man in the sky and the tell-tale trails of red that buzzed around the heads of the captured, most of the other criminals made the right decision and began running, right into the cop cars that had formed around the school. Wanda thought for a moment that they were coming to help; that was supposed to be what they did, right? Helped where the Avengers were told not to? Yet if Wanda and Tony hadn’t shown up when they did, there could’ve been a lot more damage than there was.

She watched with a hand over her mouth as the officers began reading Tony his rights. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen; seeing Tony being arrested wasn’t the way the world worked. He was a hero, for God’s sakes. If anyone should be arrested, it should be her, what with the way a few of the men were still screaming about witches in the background. A few metres away, a group of teenagers had pulled their phones out and were recording the whole thing. Wanda raised her hand and red energy snatched the phones from them and smashed them on the ground.

“What are you doing?” Wanda said to one of the police officers. She noticed the others behind him raise their guns. “Tony … I don’t understand. He didn’t do anything!”

He didn’t do anything, right? As the police officers wrapped up their arrest, Wanda closed her eyes and took a little look into his mind, just a peek, nothing serious. She had promised she wouldn’t but - times must.

Tony Stark was innocent.

“Is this what you want?” she yelled to the people around her. More had began videoing, and she was too tired to concentrate. Too tired to do anything. She could save Tony if she wanted - could kill all the police officers in seconds - but she knew he wouldn’t have wanted that. He wanted her to play along.

She tried to go up to him, to take his hand, but the officers stepped in front of her. “Not a good idea,” they said. She looked over their shoulder to Tony.

“I’ll call the Captain,” she told him. “He’ll fix it.”

Angie was resolutely against registration. She’d heard the arguments, seen the talking heads blather away on the topic, and all she really heard was, “make them smaller. Make them answer to us. Turn them into our weapon.” And that was what she’d fought most of her life to avoid, to protect her students from. Checks and balances she could handle, but she wasn’t prepared to be on a register because of the way she was born, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to be a tool for someone else’s agenda. She had lived a tiny version of that, of being someone else’s attack dog, and she would never do it again, would never let anyone do it to the people she’d sworn to protect. If that made her something that the world didn’t like, she was fine with that, had always suspected it would come to that. She was just afraid of what came next. 

Angie cackled at the idea of the professor as Santa Claus. “Oh, don’t give him ideas! He would love to poke around inside everyone’s head and give them their hearts’ desire for Christmas. I prefer my Santas without telepathy, thank you. Anyway, I don’t think the students would ever let him live it down. He’s got that aura of authority, but once you pop that, who knows what could happen?” She considered whether or not Satan could get angry at the Professor, and if it had already happened. His small diatribe on the subject of American vegetables made her eyebrow rise, but she was still laughing. “I don’t know if that’s ever really been the case, as much as we like to pretend. America’s mostly very good at rewriting history to suit the current climate. But I will fight for the right for someone else to say Pah-tah-toe, even if it makes no goddamned sense.”

She handed off the drink and sank into a chair, sighing and putting her feet up on the furniture she’d been told, many times, not to. Really, people could be so fussy. “It’s nicer under there. It’s quiet, pretty, no one’s yelling at me. I’m considering making the move permanent.”

Tony shuddered at the idea. “See, that’s why people are scared to come here,” he said, accepting his drink and taking a small sip before he continued, gesturing vaguely around the room with the glass. “A leader who can read your mind? Historically: not fun. He’s a nice enough guy, but I prefer to keep my thoughts to myself, thanks.” Everything else, he thought he could handle. He lived with some of the world’s most dangerous people--literally; some of them had been on the Most Wanted List (he was pretty sure), and eventually you just got used to it. Aliens raining from the sky? Sure. Powers that could melt your skin and leave your bones rattling in the streets? So last Tuesday. Power was power was power, and it was surrounding them now, popping up all over the world. But thoughts were private. Kill his body, Tony hardly cared--hell, he’d been begging for it for years--but his mind was more important than his life. 

The inventions Tony made weren’t safe in any hands other than his own--and some of those inventions didn’t live anywhere but in his brain because he didn’t trust the world enough to write them down. He liked the professor, he really did, but being here was always going to be dangerous, and the thought of what might happen if the wrong person heard his thoughts, figured out what was coming; well, it made his skin crawl. “The victors tell the story,” Tony agreed. He came the rest of the way into the room and sat on the windowsill, looking between the woman and the tree she’d been hiding under. “Well, technically, memories don’t exist. Our brains start rewriting them to fit our own narratives even seconds after the event happens. By the time it gets written down, truth is already lost. Everything we know--everything we think we know--is a collective story. But we fight on, right?” He raised his glass to her then took a sip, desperately wishing there was something stronger in it than just juice.