So I must dedicate a solid 12% of this fic to my dear friend and co-conspirator, Chels. I tried to give her more but she wouldn't take it. She's a beautiful person who pretty much always helps me out with everything, even tolerating my endless bitching about Steve in this fic because GOD, HE IS SO HARD TO WRITE. She helps channel my thought process, because I have so many ideas and then she provides NEW ONES and sometimes I steal her little comments to use in the story, so we can basically consider her my cheerleader, advisor, inspirer, and wow hey she's my Pepper, guys. If you guys could give her a cheer, here or on ffnet (here's her u/1412981/) I'd appreciate it cuz damn, she deserves it. Seriously, without your support and hers, this fic would not be here.
2008
He's starting to forget what English sounds like.
There are plenty of signs and things, people who, as he passes, try to make deals or start conversations in broken, accented English. Some people are fluent, and that's alright but he establishes pretty early on that he doesn't (won't) speak the language. It never sounds right, never feels right to carry a conversation in it, not when he can't remember Happy's voice and is hanging on to the barest thread of Rhodey's.
Yinsen's, he never forgets. Yinsen is with him, all the time. He never speaks in English, anymore. For every new language Tony picks up, Yinsen matches. Sometimes his words are garbled, hesitant, or spoken in a different language instead but he catches on just as quickly as Tony does. It's a relief, he thinks, to have someone around with him all the time. He needs that to ground himself.
Pepper used to be his rock, but now he can't remember the color of her eyes. She used to do everything for him, she was there all the time, and he misses her so much that it's a constant ache on a good day and a debilitating agony on a bad one, rendering him useless as he mourns his loss, and he can't even remember if her eyes are blue or green. Selfish, he thinks, to miss a woman he deliberately turned away from. In order to save himself, no less. To start over, with no regard for anyone who has to deal with the aftermath.
Sudden guilt gnaws his insides. He'd never thought of it like that.
"Don't start that now, Tony," Yinsen warns, arms crossed and leaning against the wall, to his right, always to his right. "It's too late for regrets. You have more important things to worry about."
More important things, such as finding a home and a job and a name, such as leaving those regrets on trodden dust but oh, Nagpur is hardly the India they put in the pictures, is it? No dust roads here, at least not in Sitabuldi Market, the center of the city. He almost thinks of pulling out his cell phone and calling JARVIS, demanding for his AI to pull up any and all information about the land he's walking, can almost hear his friend's voice, too -
But he can't remember, and that's what ruins the scene. He's staring at a modern marketplace, with people and cars and food and goods, and he turns and slips into a back street, just a man with no name and the clothes on his back.
The road on the other side is a lot quieter, with few people and some slow moving cars. It's hot and bright and exposed, and Tony wishes for his sunglasses to protect him. But he doesn't have those, and thanks to the higher beings for his overgrown hair and beard because he honestly looks like a different person except for his eyes, but nobody ever saw his eyes because he never let them.
He feels like this situation has been coming to him for a long time.
He shoves his hands in his grey jacket pockets and slouches down the street, head at an acceptably low angle and staring at the ground as he walks. He's been here a day, using a bit too much of his money to stay in a slightly nicer hotel, and he has yet to learn the language. Marathi, it's called, but he's never heard of it. He assumes it's some sort of dialect, but it'll take a few months of full-time immersion to master (but that won't be hard, will it, because look what he's doing now).
There's a sudden outbreak of what seems to be violent cursing, in Marathi. Tony freezes up on instinct, whips around, sees the smoke. Oh god he's out of time, he steels himself for an explosion, for screams and cries and blood and death, so much death everywhere, and even though he can't feel them dying under his hands it's everywhere, they're dripping, his metal patchwork hands are covered in blood, painted red with it in the dim underground lighting and he can't move, gunshots and bones and Yinsen's face as he dies -
The smoke clears to a view of a man with rolled up sleeves, hands on his hips and glasses half sticking out of his pocket. He runs a hand through his short hair, still muttering curses in Marathi. The smoke is billowing out from the car, thick and black and was that all? Tony finds himself relaxing before he realizes his hands are shaking, and that is just too much, it was a little smoke from a car and the idiot driver, and wow, he hasn't felt a need for coffee since before he got over his caffeine withdrawal and he's about to fuck up his record, seven whole months and not a drop of coffee in sight, but right now it's a thing that he needs, and he needs it now.
Only a couple buildings up, on the opposite side of the street where the idiot paces, Tony spies the picture of a coffee cup, unmistakably Starbucks. Oh, that beautiful, glorious food chain. If he had the assets he'd be blessing that company like no tomorrow, but as it is he's glad and grateful that all he needs is to look across the street before he finds the company he once scorned.
He walks in, is immediately wooed by the smell in a way no woman could do to him, and learns his first word of Marathi. He gives them a few coins and walks out carrying his cup of kavaah, a proud man.
Coffee in his no longer trembling hand, he finds himself meandering back down the street to pass the driver and his car, which is finally done smoking. The man has ceased his cursing but is still muttering and doing a fine amount of pacing, and now he's got dirt on his arms and tools in his hands and oh, Tony is itching to touch. Those tools look shiny and new and better than his cup of Starbucks coffee, which is already half gone and still a godsend.
The man stresses and groans over his car issues while Tony stresses and chugs coffee over his sudden overwhelming need to play with the shiny new toys, not twenty feet away, and fix that poor car before the stranger breaks her. Bad stranger. But he seems to know what to do, leaning in and reaching over to the square box of the -
No, he's grabbing at the tubing. em Oh god, he's grabbing the tubing, christ, no, it's an air circulation problem, you dumb fuck - /em
He doesn't realize he's moved until he's got the man's wrench in hand, berating him fiercely in Urdu with his hands (and wrench) flailing in the air. The man stares at him like he's crazy, which is totally inaccurate because this man, this man was doing it em wrong /em. And Tony physically cannot stand by and watch any longer.
The stranger pits his gold-rimmed glasses back on, presumably to stare properly, and asks, "वहात आर ओउ दोइङ्ग?"
Hell if Tony knows what that means, so he answers in Dari this time, shoving the wrench and his cup of kavaah at him before turning with a huff and adjusting all the stuff this idiot fiddled with. Then he tackles the real problem.
"Tony," Yinsen warns, but Tony ignores him.
It's a simple matter of popping the quick release system, pulling the case out of the lower housing and removing the filter to clean inside the box and dust it out. Since he doesn't have an air hose or a compressor to attach the hose to, he does his best with some cloth and toweling, ripping the old filter gauze out and replacing it with the massive store of it the driver's got in his, honestly impressive, extensive repair kit. It can't even be called a kit, it's so cool.
The whole thing is cleaned and replaced in an hour, and when Tony stretches, the man he'd totally forgotten about presses his now-cold cup of coffee into his hand. Tony, surprised, chugs it and the other guy sighs quietly. He asks a question that, once again, Tony can't make heads or tails of, so he looks up at the sun reflecting off the gold and shrugs, responding absently in French as he rolls the empty cup around in his hands.
Then there's a hand at his shoulder and he jumps, heart stopping, and he smacks the hand away and pushes up to his feet, hands up and ready for a fight and oh but wait, it's just the guy. The guy whose car he'd just torn into, taking apart and polishing and putting back together without asking.
"I tried to warn you," Yinsen mutters. "I always say, do as I would do, but you're Tony S-" He pauses, reconsiders. "When have you ever listened to me?" he says finally, his exasperation dissolved in light of his mistake. Tony shrugs, allowing his tension to drop with his shoulders.
The stranger asks him something a third time and he shakes his head, not even bothering this time. Clearly their communication is a lost clause, so he inclines his head and turns to leave, his fingers still itching even though he's returned the tools.
There's a sharp exclamation from the man and Tony freezes, wow he's been startling too much today, this is a completely new experience that he's not very comfortable, seeing as the only other time he's been surprised like this was way back with the arc reactor incident with the family who found him. The man repeats himself, softer, "एक्ष्चुसे मी," he says, and Tony still does not know what he's saying, but it doesn't sound threatening so he turns with a sigh and waits for him to continue.
He looks excited, packing up his tools and talking at him while pointing to his car, and then back to the tools, and points to Tony's pocket.
Tony was never good at charades.
The stranger sighs, gets in the car, and gestures to the seat next to him. Tony hesitates, really sort of unsure of what to do here, what do you do in a situation like this? In America, if he got in the car with somebody he didn't know he'd be drugged and unconscious before he could put his seatbelt on. Not even funny.
"Not only Americans are capable of that," Yinsen comments dryly, peering into the car from the open passenger seat window. "This car is nice. I always wanted a Lexus, but for obvious reasons," and here he looks amused, "such as my job choice and," now a grimace, "recent events, as recent as a year ago can be, I couldn't get one."
Tony snorts. Right. "Do you have any idea what he's saying?" he asks, quietly, and even though he's on the other side of the car he is heard only by Yinsen.
"I didn't get any college experience in Guesstures," is the response. "I'd say, though, maybe, that he wants you to get in the car. Perhaps he's going to take you somewhere?"
"Oh god, you're another JARVIS," Tony grumbles, then feels terrible.
"Well," Yinsen levels him a look across the hood of the waiting man's car, "what else is on your schedule?"
That gives him pause. Well.
Yinsen smiles, his lenses flashing in the sun. "Get to it, young man."
That earns the man an eyeroll, but he complies. Why the hell not, right?
The inside is cool and comfortable, and the stranger is looking at him like he doesn't know what to think but still drives off, turning a maze of corners and passing a lot of colorful places. They pull to a stop in front of what is, obviously, a mechanic's shop. An auto mechanic's shop.
Oh, it must be his lucky day.
He's led inside, practically vibrating with excitement but somehow keeping a lid on it, and maybe it's the solid warmth of Yinsen's hand on his shoulder. The guy he drove in with calls out, and this huge guy appears from a back room, tall and muscles and tan skin, welding goggles and thick gloves and greasy overalls and Tony may die of want.
They have a rapid discussion, glancing at him and gesturing the car, and he just stands there and waits, still clutching his empty cup with some small part of his brain attempting to will coffee to appear in it, well aware that having just the one cup was a terrible idea, oh god, he's going to have a headache the whole rest of the day. The conversation is showing no signs of stopping, so he goes to find a bin to discard his cup, which at this point is just taunting him.
There's no bin in any obvious places so he wanders off into the real thick of the shop, heavy chains and saws and a solid wall of well-loved tools, and cars supported five feet off the ground to get at the underneath, hopelessly dirty floors and a spill of grease and oil over everything vaguely cloth-like and Tony loves it, loves it so much. He forgets about the cup and instead opts to investigate properly, poring over engines and ducking under hanging tires, having the best time in a way that seems slightly different from when he had a family with the caravan.
Then he sees the tiny little carburetor, half dismantled and sparkly clean, and resolutely doesn't shriek in excitement, but it's a close thing. More of a strangled, nasty sound of desperate need. Fuck the coffee cup, he doesn't even know where it is anymore, his hands need to be in the guts of that, right now.
He surfaces an hour later, after meticulously cleaning every piece and putting it back together. His eyes are aching slightly, because hey, small parts and no magnifying glass, but he's still grinning like an idiot and his hands are still itching for more, so why not find the beauty this belongs to?
Instead, he runs into the big guy and the stranger, who by the way is totally at least two inches shorter than Tony himself so it's a little odd, tech in hand and grease on his face.
Oops.
"One would think you might have a modicum of self-control, Tony," Yinsen sighs, turning away from the other two men and crossing his arms in a very disappointed way. Tony ignores him, because if it mattered that much he would have stepped in.
"I did," Yinsen says, frowning. "You did your best impression of a creature with no ears."
Oh. Alright, then.
The big guy is staring at him. He offers up the carburetor, the man takes it, and he feels slightly disappointed, because he wanted to see it work.
Big guy asks stranger a sharp question, receives a nod in return, and turns back to Tony.
"What'd you do?" he asks, in Urdu. Oh, hey, cool, communication.
"I cleaned it, and put it back together," Tony says, because really that's it, he's pretty sure. Yinsen huffs behind him and Tony does his best impression of a creature with no ears again.
"Mhm," says the big guy, skepticism clear in his voice, and gestures for Tony to follow.
That is exactly how he gets a job in Nagpur, India.
A solid two months pass. Being a mechanic is a well-paying job, and he gets an apartment nearby. The shop is like his security blanket, and he practically lives there rather than his actual home. The big guy, Sarvankar, lets him stay in the shop after hours, no overtime, to mess around with everything as he likes, so long as the place stays secure. Tony is allowed to cannibalize any obsolete parts he wants for his "secret project", and yes, he abuses the privilege, but Sarvankar lets him, so it's okay. The Starbucks a couple streets over knows him well, and his second cup is always something new (his first is coffee so black it could melt the roof off your mouth and he loves it). He's almost fluent with the language now, his boss has been helping him out on that end, and everybody sort of knows him, at least as that guy with the two-layer shirts in this heat, he must be crazy.
Tony is at peace.
He's walking down the street with some froofy frappuccino he enjoys a little too much, it might have to be a check on the have-another list, in one hand and half a car door in the other when it happens. An entourage of cars comes down the street, drawing curious looks from passersby, with a limo in the center and he feels like someone just dumped a bucket of freezing water over the warmth of his new life because that, that's a Stark Industries limo and –
Ah.
That's a Stane Industries limo, and Pepper Potts is getting out to go to the Starbucks he just left. The pain is sharp and sudden, like a whip, like when he was still healing and couldn't move too much or he'd reopen a stitch around the reactor by stretching wrong and it would hurt, so much, not there and then suddenly everything he knew as he tried to breathe through it, waiting for it to go away and it didn't, not for a long time, until Yinsen was able to calm him back down and help.
The man himself is trying to speak to him now as he stands there in the middle of the sidewalk, frozen, staring at Miss Potts as she disappears into the shop. Yinsen's hands are at his shoulders, shaking him, but he doesn't really feel anything until Sarvankar's huge hand slaps him on the back and he drops his frappuccino.
"Acervi?" he asks, looking concerned. Tony turns wide eyes to him and keeps staring, still seeing, unable to believe. "Hey, Acervi. Focus."
Tony blinks and looks down at the mess on the ground, nodding, numb. Raw, but numb.
"Are you alright?" Sarvankar asks intently, hands on his shoulders where Yinsen's were moments ago.
"Yes," he answers, and it comes out as a rasp. His grip on the chunk of car door is painful. "Yes," he says again, clearer this time. "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine," Sarvankar observes, releasing his shoulders and taking the car part from him. "We got a new customer, some idiot with an Audi who doesn't know how to drive. Come down and take a look?"
The helpless snort is a kneejerk reaction. "Fuck," Tony says, following, "foreigners and their damn cars." Giving up on his coffee as a lost cause, he tosses it in a garbage bin in the alley as they pass it.
"Still no clue where you're from?" Sarvankar asks, not quite sympathetic, but perhaps understanding.
"Amnesia's a bitch," Tony replies, sighing.
"I would've thought that, whatever that was back there might mean you'd remembered something."
"I wish."
"Wanna talk about it?"
"Not really."
"Alright."
Tony hides in the office when they get there, agreeing to calm down and come back out in a few minutes. Pepper's profile is burned on the backs of his eyelids, the new Stane Industries logo, the limo. That was his, once. Now he works in an auto shop in India. Neither are horrible lives, really, so he doesn't understand the surge of resentment, directed at whom or what, he doesn't know, and he's floundering trying to figure out where it belongs, so he can push it aside and help the poor moron outside but he can't because the unknown is a terrible thing.
"Tony," Yinsen starts, and Tony rounds on him.
"Why don't you call me Acervi here, too?"
His look is unreadable. "Why don't you call yourself Acervi?" When Tony can't answer, he continues, "Because you're really not. You're still Tony Stark, whether you like it or not, whether he's dead or alive. Be Acervi all you like, but you know who you are."
Ah, so that's where all the resentment goes.
"I'm behind on my project," Ton - Acervi announces. "I gotta go work on it after this idiot with the Audi."
"Give it up, Tony," Yinsen says. "Your ruse isn't fooling me. I know you better than you do."
"You never help," Tony says, and closes the office door behind him.
**8**
so what the fuck happened here.
(guess what the secret project is. GUESS.)
