For notes and acknowledgements (aka: the boring bits), see the end of the story please.
THE ROAD TO HELL
4. All the beautiful sounds of the world
"Why am I here again?"
Obadiah Stane exited the limousine, tugged at the front of his black tux and fumbled with his bowtie. Obviously the young fresh faced Harvard graduate was not used to playing with the big boys yet, or walking around in their uniform. His striking light blue eyes usually had a piercing intelligence behind them. Right now he was just nervous.
Stark put down his whiskey and clambered out the limousine, rounded the car, batted the young man's hands from his chin, straightened the tie and smiled at him.
"You are here because tonight this is where you taste triumph, my friend."
"Yes sir."
"Oh dammit, shut it with the 'sir' will you? Say 'yes Howard.' "
"Yes Howard."
"Okay- you look fine. Excellent. You made the plan, you made the deal, your victory. Now let's gloat, let's have a couple of drinks and let's get the hell out of here."
In spite of being almost thirty years the senior, Howard Stark was the more boyish of the two men, even as the mask of ´business tycoon´ settled over him. His flashy maroon dinner jacket and bowtie would make him impossible to miss in any crowd, while he led his young associate up the steps of an excessive Westchester mansion done in some neo classic style with useless pillars at the front and too many French windows. While their chauffer removed the limousine from the driveway, the next expensive car with expensive guests rolled in over the gravel.
The large marble hall opening up to the two men held a crowd of colorful women in wide flowing dresses glittering with jewelry, accompanied by penguins. Some men had dared a white diner jacket instead of black and one of those immediately attacked Stark with open arms and a fake smile, even before he had been able to greet their host.
This would be a long evening. Stane had to save his employer twice before they had made it halfway through the hall and Stark had hissed to him to pretend to be in heavy conversation with him and to stride with purpose.
"Oh my word, who is that." Howard lifted a glass of champagne from a passing tray and stared across the hall to the lovely young lady at his host's side. Probably not a natural blonde, swan neck, olive skinned, full lips, high cheekbones and a cute little tip-tilted nose. The girl seemed to have a taste for simple yet elegant jewelry in contrast to the many gold decked females here. She wore a glittering dark green sleeveless, almost backless gown, a sight making his pants uncomfortably tight in places. Stane shook his head and snorted.
"That is the daughter of our host whose twenty-first birthday we are supposedly here to celebrate. By the way, how drunk are you already exactly?"
For once Howard was on time for one of these little soirees where the rich and famous came to be seen and businessmen like him made more deals, mostly of the shady kind, then they did in the boardroom. His timeliness was due mainly because Stane had accompanied him tonight to the Westchester estate to seal the deal between their host and Stark Industries. Or perhaps he had accompanied Stane- he was a bit fuzzy about that right now. The birthday girl looked as bored with the whole affair as he was. She stood in front of the dais of the doubled stairs with a practiced smile on her face, receiving well-wishers and being introduced to a rather large number of able bodied young men radiating eligible bachelorhood. Stark wondered if those young gentlemen would be so eager to marry the little half Italian Catholic heiress, had they realized the takeover by Stark Industries of her father's mining companies were the only thing that would keep her family from bankruptcy. Stark and Stane had known it all too well, since they had orchestrated said bankruptcy. Their company needed steel and they needed it cheap.
Stark eyed his already empty flute. "To survive this? Not nearly drunk enough."
Stane narrowed his eyes at the father-daughter pair. "She –is- cute. She's also less than half your age."
Harold shrugged. "She's cute, she's legal, she's game." He chuckled. "Do you want her?"
"Did I mention she's Carbonell's daughter? Pleasure and business do not mix in my opinion."
Stark sighed. "Live a little, kid- besides, how desperate again is Carbonell for that little deal we're making him to save his ass?"
"Very."
"So?"
"So he might just kick you in the balls for deflowering his daughter instead of getting his shotgun to blow your brains out."
"Deflowering? Have you even-looked- at the girl? I'll eat my hat if that's a virgin."
Howard picked up another flute of champagne from a passing waiter, while dropping his empty one.
"Keep that up," said Stane with a nod to the glass, "and you won't- erm- keep 'it' up." Howard just laughed.
"Come on, let's go wish the kid many returns. "
"Lead on."
Her name was Maria and it sang through Stark's blood like a Leonard Bernstein tune. He gave her the glad eye when he kissed her fingertips as her father introduced them to each other, and his little lopsided smile and charming voice had the effect they always had on women. He understood immediately that the fact her father did not seem to like him very much made him all the more attractive to the little debutante.
The evening through he made sure to stay in her line of sight, coincidentally looking up and her in the eye when he suspected she was watching him and when their eyes met, he held hers just those few seconds too long. They never spoke. Stark was constantly swarmed by people who wanted. A deal, a connection, influence through his influence and every hello was politics with an insincere smile and so he danced this well rehearsed number where he spoke a lot yet said nothing.
The party had moved from the hall to a ballroom, where the crystal chandeliers glittered endlessly in the two mirror covered walls and most people just stood around and talked, waiting to be served their caviar and champagne. Some young people valiantly tried to dance to the mellow tunes of a bad white jazz band and Stark had to suppress the urge to grab a sax and play it like he learned to play in Soho during the war.
At a convenient moment Stark and Stane were discretely pulled from the party and led to an old-fashioned smoking room, furnished with velvet curtains and decorated to look vaguely Turkish. Starks accountant was in attendance, the documents for the takeover were signed and toasts were made. Stane held his tongue, being by far the most junior in attendance. But Harold had known Stane would enjoy to watch Carbonell hesitate that one tiny moment before he wrote away most of what he had worked for all his life.
The men returned to the party for both had some unfinished business. Stane honed in on a few new acquaintances of his to talk money and Stark allowed him to be visible for a few moments before he wandered through the French doors to the patio and fumbled with his cigarette case as if to smoke. Not even thee minutes passed before he heard the light clack of high heels following him. When Maria spotted him, she went straight for him, looked at his unlit cigarette, took it from his fingers, threw it away impatiently and drew him into the shadows against the house behind one of the fake pillars. The first thing she ever said to him besides the platitudes of their meeting was: "Shut up!", and pulled him down into a kiss. One of her young men entered the patio through the French doors and called out for her. Howard pulled Maria´s body against his so her young suitor had no chance of seeing them and she grinned wickedly when she felt the effect she had on him against her belly.
After the boy went inside, she took him by the hand and fled deeper into the garden to a teahouse surrounded with rosebushes. The heady scent of the roses mingled with her perfume and they were reckless and foolish and she cried out unashamed when he made love to her on the wicker garden seat. Afterwards when she had straightened her dress and fixed her hair and gave him a handkerchief to wipe the lipstick of his face, she told him to stay a while so they would not be seen entering the party together again and he nodded dumbfounded.
That was when he knew his lecherous little scheme of seduction had royally backfired and he was so very, very fucked.
Love them and leave them stood written on the blueprint to Stark's life. Maria Collins Carbonell, for all her daring still somewhat naïve, broke thought his mold and tore him asunder. It was the seventies now, and women could be just as forward as men, thank you very much. He thought the girl far too young to know what she really wanted and he was right. But if she allowed him her affections today, he would selfishly take what she wished to give him. So she stormed into his office, ignoring his protesting secretaries and claimed he had promised her lunch, allowing her to take his hand and lead him along and he spoiled her with whatever she pointed towards at Tiffany's. Howard knew she fought her father over him, but in private matters as well as in those of business Carbonell lacked the will and backbone to fight the mighty Howard Stark, even for his daughter. Another obstacle were their own indiscretions and the tabloids hastily picked up on them, describing the budding romance as some May- December fling which embarrassed Maria and insulted Howard. After five too short weeks, he felt her starting to withdraw. Fate however, had made other plans a long time ago and their mutual foolishness eventually landed the girl firmly in is grasp.
Stark knew he sounded a bit petty but Lord in heaven, this was not just his fault. On the other hand, it was not just her problem either.
"I do not understand," he wined: " I thought you were a liberated woman and used contraceptives. I sure as hell did."
Howard paced the large and rather impersonal lounge of Stark Mansion. Maria sat small like a trapped bird on the edge of one of the Chesterfields, legs pushed together, hands folded in her lap. She looked at her toes while she spoke to Stark and he wished to god she would look up so he could see those beautiful eyes- and wished just as hard she would not because he hated to see her cry.
"No I don't- they make you fat."
Well yes, that was logical.
Hand on his chest Stark heavily sat down next to her, reaching out by laying his other arm over the backrest towards her, almost touching.
"I still do not understand- I used protection every time."
"Not that fist time. You were drunk that first time."
Oh yeah- right. And now it –was- all his fault.
He took her hands in his. "Sweetheart, I will take care of this. I promise you, I will take care of you. Of both of you."
Maria looked through her lashes at him. "Then you will pay for an abortion?"
Stark felt himself grow cold and he clenched his hands to fists.
"Howard, you are hurting me!"
Quickly he let go of her.
"Howard if you do not pay for an abortion, I will have to ask my parents for the money and I don't know how to do that for this. Don't you understand- We are Catholic and they don't believe in having an abortion."
"You do not have to be a Catholic to not believe in an abortion! I do not believe in an abortion! Honey- don't. Please. I'll marry you. I will take my responsibility for this child. I promise."
She jumped up and away from him. "I don't –want- you to take responsibility! I want to marry someone because I love them, not because of responsibility! I don't want to be a mother yet, don't you understand that! I don't want this baby!" She was panicking.
Stark stood as well and went toe to toe with the girl while she shrank back from him. "So that is what you came here for today, just to ask me to help you murder my child because good –old- Howard is so tightly wound your little finger that he would do –anything- for you. Well not this- I would do anything for you indeed- but not this- and for the record, I –do- love you!"
Stark's mind frosted over blue and he saw his son falling- but perhaps this child would be a girl. He could pray for a girl.
Angry and shaking Maria stepped back, her hands held up in defense as if to push him away.
"Oh now that is a very romantic proposal."
"Allow me to do better!" he hissed, grabbed Maria just above the elbows, pulled her to him and kissed her aggressively and with desperation. For a moment she melted, then she struggled but Stark held on, held her head still with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders. That was when he learned he should have held her at the wrists or at least the lower back because Maria twisted her body away to give herself a little room and kneed hem with all the strength she could muster in the crotch. Stark doubled over, keening, white spots dancing before his eyes and he had to let Maria go. She grabbed her purse and ran. For the next few minutes all the engineer could do was just try to breath and not bite his tongue while he lay on the floor. Finally he got himself together and hobbled to the phone. Maria could run all she liked, but he would cut her off at the pass and call her parents. Whether on not Maria would choose to marry him was less important all of a sudden, the child had to live. Every instinct he had told him so and he feared a residue of the old magic grabbing for him. But if she did choose to be his wife, he thought morosely, then this was one hell of a way to start a marriage. Jones had to be rolling around in his grave, laughing.
Maria was left no choice, or at least none a poor little rich girl could abide. She had some money. She could sell some of her jewelry to cater to her immediate needs should she choose independence. She might even have found herself a job.
To her parents things were simple. Do not bring shame to the family, so marry your lover or be disinherited. Besides, what exactly was so bad about marrying into the Stark fortune?
For Stark nothing was simple anymore. Here he found himself, a fifty-two year old fool, trying to convince a twenty-one year old girl, and barely that, to enter into an almost certainly loveless marriage that could but end in tragedy. If given half a chance he would see it through. A bit because he cared, a lot because he feared what would happen if he tried to outrun fate yet again and help Maria get rid of the baby.
But when he lifted her vale two months later and gently kissed his Maria on the lips with all the tenderness thirty lonely years can save up, he saw tears in her eyes that had nothing to do with grief and her mouth made a little surprised 'o' and he knew there just might be a place for them, somewhere.
Little Tony came with Maria's soft brown eyes and a healthy set of lungs that disturbed his parent's nights at ungodly hours and the four years that followed were the happiest of Stark's life. Stark forgot he should not really love the noisy little tike, or that Maria was supposed to be a trophy wife only, who as long as there were nannies to take care of nappies did seemed to love her little boy at playtime. Howard learned however, that Maria was less of an empty shell than he had feared and her shallowness had more to do with her being brought up a spoiled daddy´s girl without a sense of direction. Again it was not that he really cared to help better those around him, but he suspected that if Maria would become involved with charity of some sort, she might be able to fill that empty life of hers and become happy with being of use. So he stimulated her and Maria found her talent and an honest affection for the older husband that seemed to respect her for her mind. Discussions at the dinner table included war, prosthetics and scholarships on her end, clean energy and better ways of producing food on his.
Stark was glad. There were too many things he could not discuss at the dinner table.
Stark had promoted Jarvis to be the master of his household and if he paid his butler more than royally for his services, he did not care. His guilt made him keep tabs on the Jones family, and they were relatively doing alright. Marion puttered in her garden filled with purple flowers. Henry Walton 'Mutt' III got his doctorate, got his adventures like his father before him, and got himself a wife as his mother made damn sure he married the woman before their daughter was born.
This ´keeping tabs´ on the Jones family proved both easier and harder because of Stark's S.H.I.E.L.D contacts.
During World War II the allied forces felt the need for a top secret department whose main task would be weapons development in all fields of science. One of the civilian scientist involved with the foundation of the Strategic Scientific Reserve as this branch became known, had been Stark. He quickly realized that he would be far more valuable to the war effort if he put his brain to use instead of his brawn. A failed abduction and more than one unsuccessful attempt on his life by HYDRA, gave him a somewhat inflated sense of self and made him quite reckless at times. The military did not always found him an asset when he nosed around at the front, checking if his missiles did what they were supposed to. When WWII ended, the next war, the Cold War, was already in full swing really. The ruins of HYDRA were pulling itself together under then unknown new leadership. Naturally formed mutations of the human species became visible the globe over, some of them calling themselves Homo Superior claiming to make Homo Sapiens obsolete. And last but not least, home grown criminals and terrorist with delusions of grandeur were stepping up to take over the USA and the world, or possibly just Australia. Something had to be done. So the intelligent, the frightened and the ones in power came together and in deep secrecy decided that the Strategic Scientific Reserve would not be abandoned, but that it had to evolve into something purely American. It became The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. S.H.I.E.L.D., for short. Stark remained on as a weapons developer, but he also found the time to use the agency as his personal playground and loved to provide its personnel with super spy gadgets like jet propelled cars and communicators hidden in fountain pens. Stark Industries had the chance to grow exponentially by catering to the US government, the US military and S.H.I.E.L.D. But running both his company and accepting engineering contracts on devices that only existed in somebody's imagination from three sides was wearing Stark thin. At Stark Industries a young economist by the name of Obadiah Stane had come to his attention a few moths before Stark met his wife, and the man's brilliant business plans, not to mention his a great affinity with PR and the media, allowed Stark to leave the business side and daily running of his company more and more in Stane's hands. This gave him time to venture out in fields like clean energy and become a visionary with ideas and dreams he could never make real. Finally his ideas had crossed into territory the tech of his time could not follow.
S.H.I.E.L.D. questioned Stark's interest in the Jones family. At Stark's behest they spied on Marion by giving her an elderly couple on their payroll as neighbors. Mutt's wife and daughter had moved in with her so they were not difficult to tag either. The young archeologist himself was a bit harder to track, for his somewhat erratic lifestyle traipsing around the world looking for artifacts. Like his father had. But S.H.I.E.L.D. owed favors and Stark made sure they remembered. When he was asked about it, Stark simply answered that Jones had been a friend.
S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives also questioned Stark about his little trip to Nevada and Stark told them what he had told Mutt, reinforcing the truth of his lies. After Jones' body had been exhumed by presumed graverobbers, Marion requested her husband's grave to be demolished and his remains to be cremated. Stark received pictures of Mutt Jones in Egypt climbing a mountain, opening an urn an letting the wind carry the ashes over the Valley of Kings. Stark knew Marion's home had been searched by S.H.I.E.L.D. at least once, but that had been done quite professionally and no-one of the family ever noticed. Stark had now no idea where the black stone was hidden. Whether or not the damned thing still remained in the possession of Mutt, had been brought back to Nevada by S.H.I.E.L.D or simply had been lost, he did not care. He never wanted to be near the cursed stone again and despised and hated anything magic with a vengeance.
Three year old Tony asked if the blue fairy that lived in the garden was the same one he had seen in the Disney movie ´Pinocchio´, and why she was not going home to the stars. Maria laughed when he talked about it and asked what she looked like. ´Not like the movie, ´ Tony told with a frown on his angelic little face. Tony had tried to talk to her, but she did not seem to notice him. She was blue, with a light inside, and clouded like a shard of ice from a frozen puddle in the garden. The clatter of Howard´s cutlery falling onto his plate made the boy jump in his chair and his mother look up in surprise.
Tony had been infected. Through Howard´s blood, Tony had been cursed with his Tesseract visions and his sweet little boy would probably have to pay an even heftier price than die young, if Howard did not prevent it.
Engineering, math, logic and harsh words became Howard´s solution for driving the magic out of his son. Oh the boy was such a delight, such an intelligent child, taking to science like a fish takes too water. Maria panicked when a forgotten soldering iron almost set a workbench on fire, but Howard only saw the motherboard Tony built him and held out for inspection and he felt so very proud of the four-year old boy.
He scolded Tony for not taking the right safety measures, regaling a grown man's responsibility to a toddler.
"Look what you did to your mother!"
Harold forbade fairytales. Tony´s nannies were to tuck him in and leave and if there was any bedtime story to be told by Howard himself, he told of a long lost soldier who had been a better man than any of them could hope to become.
Nights became hard to the adult Stark and the hours in the workshop and laboratories of Stark Industries longer. When insomnia struck, Howard took to wandering the halls of his home, unable to go near the study were the silent memory of Indiana on his knees with that hopeless, desperate look in his eyes lingered. Unfortunately Howard´s insomnia fed by stress and guilt, had his fondness for the bottle develop into full blown alcoholism. His work did not suffer, he made sure of that. But the silence started to invade his days, for Maria chose more and more not to be at home and Tony tinkered alone in his bedroom, quiet and unseen.
On his better days, Howard really tried with Tony. When there was time. He thought the boy how to build an engine from scratch, of the beauty and simplicity in thinking in zero´s and ones. But there were those other days Howard needed two people to help him up the stairs, where he hardly recognized the members of his household, or where a 'wrong look' could set of an endless tirade. Tony was spared the brunt of these days for he had been sent to boarding school from an early age. Howard knew how bad he could become at times and he was glad his beautiful boy could remain unaware of most of those very bad days, unaware his Tony would interpret Howards visible relief when he left quite differently.
One driving need Howard knew above all others. He still had to find a way to help his son survive. If he could not find his son the missing hero, he had to awake the hero inside the boy. Tony had to be raised into a humble, honest man with a backbone of steel, just like Cap, for then the boy did not need to be saved by a ghost. There would be no place in Tony's life for stupidity, hubris- or lies. Every problem life placed in his path was but a solution he had yet to discover.
Tony developed a taste for things that went boom, learned that other children his age were dumb and boring and that most adults were quite the same. Jarvis, Cookie, and the other members of the household were much nicer people, although Tony understood very well that they were servants and were paid to be nice. Tony got away with almost anything he did to them as long as his parents did not find out and by the time his parents sent him off to boarding school, Tony's way of saying 'I love you and I trust you', was teasing people.
Suffice it to say that this did not go over well with his classmates and Tony's tricks turned foul in self-defense. He also learned how to be the cool kid and buy friends. Being far ahead of the school's curriculum already the only real lessons he learned were that everyone lied and the whole world would serve the money of a Stark. The opposite of the values Howard had tried to instill in him. Suffice it to say, Howard was disappointed.
Howard found the long hours in his large home even harder to cope with now his boy was away most of the time and he did not have to fear for exploding micro-waves in the kitchen or miniature rocket launchers in the garden. He came to redesign the mansion and its basements to give him more workspace where he had nobody looking over his shoulder. Besides, the workmen were loud. Arguing about the mess with Maria gave them something to talk about that was more direct and personal then the next charity she was organizing.
When Tony was nine years old and home for Christmas, he met a very odd man. His father told him he was never to speak about this visit. This made Tony happy because he and his father now shared a secret. The man had entered the front gate on a battered motorcycle that made a dreadful noise which told Tony the engine was terribly calibrated and very dirty. The man wore old army boots, black jeans, a brown leather jacket with a lot of zippers and pockets and a very old battered mud colored hat. Jarvis greeted the man at the door and told him Master Stark would be free momentarily and if the gentleman would be willing to wait in the lounge. The man seemed nervous and annoyed but did as was bid and made himself comfortable in the large room adjacent the hall.
The room was connected to the hall through a large open arch, not a door, and Tony, who had followed Jarvis and the guest, curiously peeked around the corner. The guy had been browsing some magazine but something in his shoulders stiffened when Tony peeked. The boy quickly pulled back. The second time he looked, the old hat sailed through the air, landed perfectly on Tony's head and sunk over his head and eyes. He tilted the hat back shyly and when he saw the stranger smile, he dared a grin of his own.
"Hi kid. You gonna bring me my hat back or what?"
"Yeah well- I would not want to keep it- It's smelly."
The man had a very friendly smile that remained in his eyes while he pretended to be offended.
"Young man, this hat has traveled through deserts and jungles, was nearly eaten by very big alligators and wasalmost lost in a waterfall. I found treasures with it, fought spies with it, and my dad saw a real life flying saucer wearing it. I swear, that is the honest truth and I know it because I was there."
Tony cocked his head and was impressed, but not planning on showing this. "It's still smelly."
The man peered inside, took an exaggerated whiff and pulled a face.
"You know, I do believe you are right, it is smelly. I guess I'm just used to it." He extended his hand.
"Hello. I'm Mutt."
Tony made a surprised face at the name, corrected himself and politely shook the offered appendage.
"I', m Tony Stark. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Mutt."
The man laughed again and roughly ruffled Tony's hair, who, annoyed, stepped back and tried to pat the strands down again.
"Just Mutt kid. You look like your dad."
"Yeah- everybody says so. Mutt is a weird name. Why do you have a weird name? Do you know you're goanna bust your engine if you keep mistreating her like that? She's not calibrated right and she's filthy and I believe you about your hat because she –sounds-like you've –been- in the jungle and the desert with her."
Mutt interrupted the boy by laughing out loud. Tony turned around at his father's chuckle and found him smiling indulgently, leaning with one shoulder against the arch. Tony smiled shyly. It was a good day today.
"Definitely a chip of the old motor block you got here, Stark."
Howard nodded. "Jones. I had not expected a visit." He made a 'come here' gesture to Tony and held the boy close by by putting a hand on Tony's shoulder and giving the boy an encouraging little pat.
Mister Mutt stood, hat in hand. His tone more somber now and no longer smiling.
"You should have, one of these days. You see, I've found something that belongs to you."
"Really."
"Yeah. A couple of very accommodating gentlemen. They- er- helped me out of somewhat of a tight spot. I asked them about it and they said I had to go see you. Say hello from shield? So here I am, saying hello from shield."
Stark nodded and turned to his son. "Tony- why don't you go play now eh?"
The boy got a calculating look in his eye and dared give Mutt a look as if the man just had crawled out from under a stone.
"You and Mr. Mutt are goanna do grown up talk?"
"Yes we are."
"How long?"
Stark chuckled. "Probably long enough. Just, make sure you change first."
Tony nodded happily and ran away towards the stairs.
"Nice kid."
"Yes- you have a daughter, I believe."
With the boy out of the room Mutt's attitude changed and he let anger seep through.
"Oh I do dare say you believe."
Stark narrowed his eyes, nodded and motioned for Mutt to follow.
About five minutes later one of Starks bodyguards collected Mutts vehicle from the porch, and brought it out of sight, down below into Stark's underground garage.
Notes and acknowledgements, also called: the boring bits. Read at your own risk.
Paramount Pictures, Marvel Entertainment and Marvel studio's own "Captain America, The First Avenger". Paramount Pictures, Lucasfilm ltd and Steven Spielberg own "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and the other Indy movies I've pilfered.
Somewhere in Greece is a muse laughing her socks off for sending me this story and causing me al the work to write it down, forcing me to take the blame for it but also graciously allowing me the credit.
In 'Captain America, the First Avenger' the Red Scull made a remark about Hitler seeking treasure in the desert, hitting my Indy-alarm button full force. I just HAD to intertwine the tale of my favorite archeologist with the one about my favorite futurist (Tony, not his dad) after that one.
One of the most wonderful things about Marvel is the way they 'play' with their own continuity and throw in an alternate universe every other year or so. I am aware that Dr. Jones' story was continued well into his old age with the television series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". But in the (video/dvd) release of said series they apparently cut out the old Indy who bookended the stories. Well, I thought, if canon can take that liberty, why not me? So should you find things amiss with how they are 'supposed to be' within the continuity of the movie/television-verses, please be kind and assume I'm not some ill informed crazy fan girl that does not know what she's writing about, but that I'm just another proud flag-bearer of the above mentioned honored tradition of alternate realities.
The 'crazy fan girl' denomination on its own however, is acceptable.