( closed )

[arcreact]

Who: A Stark and a Stark
When: Early June
Where: A completely innocuous coffee shop
What: Mostly this
Warnings: N/A


[ Coffee shops are a quaint luxury that Tony's taken to enjoying on Thisavrou, for two main reasons: coffee (obviously), and the novelty of doing so without being recognized. Relative obscurity is not something he's ever been afforded back home, and while the fame doesn't bother him most of the time... there's something liberating about not having it anymore.

Of course, that doesn't mean he's free of seeing any familiar faces - or unfamiliar faces, technically. When he spots her in the small crowd, he recognizes her immediately; he does monitor the network, after all. There's a good ten minutes of internal debate on how he should proceed. Ignore her? Maybe. It's worked well so far, hell, it worked well with T for a certain length of time. But memories of his strained relationship with his previous universe double are actually what spurn him into standing up from his own table and sliding into the seat across from Natasha.

He's gonna regret this, probably, but you could say that for almost everything he does all the time.

With no preamble whatsoever, as he sets his coffee mug down on her table: ]

Normally I'd have a line or two prepared for a lady like you, but I think that'd be too narcissistic, even for me.

Comments

[modelsixtythree]

I wouldn't say all the time. [She flicks him a wryly amused look.] But it's not my first dance with the multiverse, no.

[Which isn't to say that sitting here talking to him isn't weird. Her other brushes have been quick, or so obviously different it was easier to rationalize. With him, she can't help but catalog the uncanny similarities, even if it isn't quite like looking into a mirror (the obvious aside).]

At least you have other people from your universe here?

[Wanda had mentioned him, anyway. And she was fairly sure Wanda would have said if there was more than one of him running around.]

[arcreact]

Yeah, well, that's a blessing or an awkward curse, depending on how you look at it.

[ Maybe if they all came from the same time it would be easier, but the jumbled mess of timelines among himself and the other Avengers has been a point of frustration more than once. Not to mention more than a few awkward conversations. ]

You don't recognize any of them? That seems almost improbable.

[ This is one topic he and other-him never broached. Who is a familiar face, and who isn't? Are their worlds really that different? ]

[modelsixtythree]

[Natasha huffs out a laugh and shakes her head slowly.]

Oh, I recognize plenty. The trouble is that none of them recognize me.

[It's difficult sometimes, in it's own way. All these people she should know and all of them treating her like a stranger. Mostly Natasha tries not to think about it too much.]

There's at least three alternate universes that I've been able to track, including yours. It gets a little confusing after that.

[arcreact]

Joy. Props for bothering to count, I guess.

[ Not that Tony hasn't done so, at least subconsciously, but he spends a lot of time dutifully not looking too far into it. What are the chances someone he thinks is from his universe is actually from somewhere just different enough - what if the future he's heard about isn't even his own?

That way lies madness. ]

At the end of the day, it just boils down to more Signatures to find. [ He peers into his nearly-empty mug and wonders if stress-drinking four cups of coffee in one sitting will raise the barista's eyebrow, then remembers he doesn't care. ] Hope you're prepared for a long haul in this place.

[modelsixtythree]

I've been in worse. [It's mild, but she sits back and folds her arms across her chest as she studies him.

From what it sounds like, he's still new to the idea of multiverse collisions. Which is weird, considering, but poking him further about their divergences doesn't seem like it's going to get them anywhere useful if he's already not handling it well.

Or he's just being dramatic.]

Seems like you've been here for a while.

[arcreact]

[ Yeah, caves in Afghanistan and the like probably count as worse. Somehow that doesn't make him feel much more cheerful about the whole thing, though. ]

In the scale of geological time? Hardly. Long enough to be pissed off about it? For sure.

[modelsixtythree]

[Okay, definitely dramatic. Natasha doesn't bother to hide the eyeroll she gives in return.]

What's there to be pissed about? You're just stuck on an alien planet god knows where with no direct way of getting home. [She flashes him a quick, sharp smile.] Where's your sense of adventure?