tushanshu_logs | if your past calls, don't you pick it up, it's got nothing new to say

Characters: Tony, Gene, Pepper, Valdis, Miles and Danny
Date: February 8-12
Location: House Spicy Iron Dragon, a kedanese dojo, KPD HQ, the College, Jasmine Dragon Tea House
Situation: Memory sharing catch-all!
Warnings/Rating: mentions of violence, major injury, death, roller skates

1. Pepper | House Spicy Iron Dragon | ɢ ʀ ɪ ᴇ ғ

Ah, it's so nice to have a day off once in a while, to kick back, relax, and... work in the lab. Okay, yeah, his hobbies are exactly the same as his work. So what?

He's been at it a couple hours, so Tony trots upstairs to the kitchen for a refuel. Pepper's already there eating lunch. Tony smiles. "Hey, Pep," he says, grabbing a leftover sandwich from the fridge. "I was gonna make some tea." (Coffee, as scarce as it is, is now reserved for special occasions.) "You want some?"

2. Gene | The Dojo | ғ ᴇ ᴀ ʀ

Tony's been diligent about attending his practice sessions, even with the temporary relocation while the Jade Dojo gets repaired, and it's paying off. He's getting pretty damn good at hand-to-hand combat (if he does say so himself), and he doesn't look like a complete idiot holding a sword.

Gene can still totally kick his ass, though.

"Uuugh," Tony groans from the mat. "My everything hurts." Nevertheless, he's smiling. He props himself up on an elbow and wiggles his other arm at Gene, asking for a hand up. "One more round?"

3. Danny | Jasmine Dragon Tea House | ғ ᴜ ɢ ɪ ᴛ ɪ ᴠ ᴇ

Tony's on edge. The... incidents with Pepper and Gene had been incredibly emotionally draining. Whatever magical bullshit is going around like the flu, Tony wants no further part in it.

He'd needed a little time away from the house, so he's escaped to the Jasmine Dragon tea house, where he's sitting in a corner with some technical diagrams, trying to lose himself in his work. The papers are scattered all over the table (some in dangerous proximity to his pot of tea), and Tony himself, open book that he is, looks a little bit frazzled. It's been a long couple days.

4. Miles | Tony's College lab | ᴄ ᴏ ɴ s ᴜ ᴍ ᴇ

Tony's glad he's just an all-purpose on-call genius and not a professor, because it means he can put the "WARNING: DANGEROUS EXPERIMENTS IN PROGRESS" sign up on his lab door and avoid people without having to cancel any classes.

His working theory on the memory swaps is that the memories have to have some sort of association with the person receiving them (Gene and the plane crash is obvious; Pepper had lost her mother at the same age Tony had; Danny and Tony both had the secret superhero identity thing going on), so there's a lower chance of swapping traumatic memories with random strangers and casual acquaintances. Still, Tony doesn't want to take any chances. Until this is over, he's going to be making the most of the 'antisocial engineering nerd' stereotype.

He can't avoid everyone, though. He's fixed Miles' camcorder, and since they've only met a couple times, Tony figures his risk factor is pretty low. So Tony sends him a quick message letting him know that his camcorder is fixed and waiting for him in the lab. Fingers crossed that nothing weird happens when he shows up!

5. Valdis | KPD Headquarters | ʙ ᴇ ᴛ ʀ ᴀ ʏ ᴀ ʟ

So, based on the reports of the other Foreigners, the only consistent feature of the memory swaps is proximity. Everything else seems pretty much random. Which means Tony can either become a complete recluse for the entire duration of whatever this is, or he can suck it up.

He decides to suck it up. He's got too much going on to just vanish for a week or month or however long (as tempting as it is).

One thing that he definitely doesn't want to let slide is keeping tabs on the Cultists. As a sort-of-consultant to the KPD, he checks in with Valdis regularly to make sure they're on the same page. He doesn't have any new intel this time, but she might, so he drops by her office for a meeting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Pepper nods her head after a moment, words having temporarily, horribly abandoned her. She's sorry, too. Not that it's either of their faults, but there's not much else to say.

That losing a parents, one or both, had been a tragedy that Pepper, Gene, and Tony had all had to deal with at a young age wasn't the kind of thing she ever wanted to have in common with them. Nevertheless, she does, and as much as it hurts like hell, it's a tiny, ragged shred of comfort to know that she's not alone in how it makes her feel, even now. Maybe it would be better, if they talked about what happened once in a while.

"Yeah," she sniffs. "Me too." Pepper sighs and shifts a little more comfortably against Tony. "This sucks," she complains softly. They can't go back, they can't fix it, they can't make it better. This is just how it is.

Tony pulls Pepper closer and nods. "I don't really remember her," he says quietly, a minute later. "Not all that well. I— I don't even remember a lot about... what it was like when she was around. It was just the way things were, you know? Just me and dad." Tony pauses there, and his shoulders start to shake again.

"I miss her, and I never even knew her. And she never— she didn't see all the stuff I'd do. Everything I ended up building. Being Iron Man, stopping the Makluans. I... I've always wished she could."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know the feeling," Pepper replies. At least her mother knew she was dying and had the chance to put some words on paper for her later. Tony didn't even get that.

"I don't remember a lot, either," she continues after a moment. "It's just pieces, mostly. Her perfume, how she smiled. I think-- I think she was a good cook. Better than my dad anyway. She was... always more playful than him, too. After she--" Pepper has to stop, unwilling or unable to say the word 'died'. "Dad kind of threw himself into work, and I guess I followed him. It was the only thing that made sense back then."

"My dad— when I was a kid it seemed like he was holding himself together really well, but... he did the same thing. Me and his work were the only things that mattered."

Thinking back from an adult's frame of reference, things had changed. He has vague, younger memories of fancy galas and cocktail parties; his parents going out to dinners with friends or business associates; his dad flying out to meetings halfway around the world.

After his mother died, all of that had stopped. At the time Tony hadn't really noticed, and wouldn't have cared anyway, but now he realizes how much his father had withdrawn. For a long time, Tony and the lab had been his whole world. (Luckily for Howard and SI, 'eccentric recluse' isn't an unprecedented personality type for the CEO of a technology company.)

Tony stares into his cooling tea. "They never found who it was," he says quietly. "I think that was part of it." No closure. No one to hold responsible. "It was a hit-and-run. The car was stolen. The police always figured it was just a car thief who got scared when he realized someone had gotten hurt, and ditched the car and ran."

Pepper knew that last part. She'd done the research, on top of everything else that she'd unearthed about Tony when she learned he was going to be coming to the Tomorrow Academy. He'd never spoken about it, though, so she lets him talk and doesn't interrupt.

Some small part of her has always wondered if it wasn't just a hit-and-run, but now is not the time to press on that wound. There's no way to investigate it here, anyway.

"I don't know if learning the name of the thing that took your mom away would help," she says, quiet and a little distant. She knew the name of what killed her mother; two words that meant a 5% survival rate, and two words no six year old should have had to learn. It hadn't helped her any. "My dad hardly ever talks about her. I don't know if it's for me or for him. I wish we would, though. I was old enough to remember how much he changed, and... I mean, it makes sense, I guess, for a parent. Kids are supposed to be the center of your universe anyway." She sighs. "It must scare the crap out of them, what we're doing."

Being superheroes. Risking their lives. They both know their fathers are proud, too, but there must inevitably be fear of losing them, too.

A few years ago, Tony would have argued with that. Wouldn't it help to know who and why? Wouldn't it have helped to have someone to blame?

Now... he's not so sure.

Blaming someone wouldn't bring her back. Blame wasn't what fixed his heart or brought his dad back, either.

"Maybe not," he murmurs.

Her next comment makes him look up again. "You're right. I... never really thought about it." That's not to say it's a shocking revelation – but there's a difference between recognizing something abstractly and in passing, and sitting down and really processing it. (Truth be told, he may have been trying to avoid thinking about it.)

"Dad didn't try to make me stop, though. He said he knew as soon as he saw Iron Man on the news..." Tony chuckles, a little grimly. "I guess he had some time to get used to the idea."

Pepper nods wearily. "Yeah. I think they know how important it is. I mean, if you think about what we've all done the past two years back home - you especially - we've made a serious dent," she reasons.

New York City and the surrounds would be in far worse shape, and so would the world in general, depending on the villain they were talking about. The three of them were young, but they were doing a better job than many others. Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

"Plus, they'd have a hard time stopping us if they wanted to," she adds, trying for something a little more lighthearted.

"I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without you and Rhodey," Tony argues, with a faint smile. "And you guys kept me from doing a lot of really stupid things." (Sometimes the only difference between a superhero and a supervillain is the occasional solid smack upside the head.)

Pepper's attempt at humor misses the mark a little, though, because that is something that Tony worries about. "Do you think they'd want us to stop?"

Tony hopes his father is proud of what he's done as Iron Man. He thinks he's proud. But, still— wouldn't any parent rather see their child safe, even if they're risking their life for a good reason?

"Pretty sure keeping you from doing stupid things is part of the friend job description," Pepper tells him. "But yeah, you'd have gotten into more trouble," she agrees, managing a smile.

She tilts her head a little a shrugs at his question, seemingly less troubled by parental concern than Tony. Pepper's been giving her dad cause to be scared and worried for years, so it's not so new to her.

"Probably a little, yeah. It'd be weird if they didn't. But I think they also know we need to keep doing it, and that they're all proud. I know my dad is. And I mean, sure, now that they know who we are and what we're doing, they've got more things to worry about, but they can also be part of the biggest, most important thing in our lives. They get to do their part for the team, too."

if your past calls, don't you pick it up, it's got nothing new to say

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House Spicy Iron Dragon aka House Mom Trauma

Srsly that should be it's subtitle

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