No copyright infringement intended here. No profit being made. All our continuity are belong to Marvel. All creative rearranging of it is my fault. I take responsibility, but I make no apologies... Think of this as working with character archetypes, with bits of continuity thrown in for plot points.
Little bit of angst to get through, hijinx to resume shortly.
Chapter 10
Tony took his eyes away from the phone as Hank succumbed to the tranquillizer as soon as he ensured that it wasn't going to blow anything up in the immediate future. "Holy shit. JARVIS said you had it, but I didn't think you'd actually do it." Tony said.
"I do not set my life at a pin's fee and all that." Audrey replied. She was still cradling Hank's head in her hands. "JARVIS helped me do a little homework on him. His genius is so wide-ranging it's kind of scary. Who knows what he would have done with that phone?"
"You had him. He probably would have come along peacefully."
"Until he decided he didn't want to anymore... He knows me, Tony. Did you hear what he said? How he looked at me... He knew exactly who I was." She said softly.
"And he seemed pleased to see you, until you knocked him the fuck out." Tony said.
"Why did you do that?" Steve asked her as he jogged up beside them.
"Because Audrey is as calculating as Brand. We can check out the house and what he's been up to this way." Natasha said. "We should do that. How long do we have until he wakes up?"
"Looks like she gave him a dose meant for someone with Steve's metabolism, so we've got at least a few hours." Clint said, retrieving the cartridge.
"Should we move him inside or into the jet?" Audrey asked Steve.
"The jet. He's coming back to New York with us. Tony, can you give us a basic scan of the house's tech so we don't walking into whatever he's booby-trapped it with? Steve asked.
"Already on it, Cap. I think he disabled the defenses once he saw Audrey. The timestamp on the order matches her stepping off the jet." Tony said, his eyes back on the screen of Hank's phone. "You got this thing uploaded on a secure server, J?"
"Yes sir, I am currently checking the functions of the house's security system. Dr. McCoy it seems, has a mercurial, puckish sense of humour about these things." The speakers in the suit said, as the suit itself fired back up. Tony stepped back into it, the phone already stashed somewhere inside it. Audrey helped Steve carry Hank back to the jet, still somewhat surprised by her own strength. McCoy was a massive being. They lowered him down, and Audrey stroked his cheek while she helped Sue start to check his vital signs.
"Holy shit! Steve, Audrey! Get in here! I need art nerds stat." Tony crowed into their ears.
"You got this, Sue?" Steve asked.
"Sure. Send Johnny my way though." She said. Audrey was reluctant to leave Hank, but went along when Steve put his hand on her shoulder.
"How pissed off at me do you think he'll be?" She asked him.
"Knowing him, he's probably already ridiculously proud of you. He's odd like that. He likes the unexpected." Steve said. Johnny jogged past them on the way to the jet and winked at them.
"He's so... greasy." Audrey said.
"He's young... Though, he'll be cashing in his pension and still be young." Steve said.
"Get your ass in here, Rogers!" Tony barked again.
"Dammit, what is it, Tony?" Steve said and sighed.
"Nothing to panic about, but you absolutely have to see this." Tony said.
They dashed inside the house and were immediately stopped at the spacious common room. All the furniture had been removed and replaced with tall, heavy, steel wire racks, which had sleeves that rolled in and out. "Holy shit." Audrey gasped. Tony had several rolled out, and they were looking at masterpieces.
"Holy shit." Steve repeated.
Tony was across the room, and had several computer screens up and was now gazing intently at them, looking comfortable despite still being in the armor. "Is this what I think it is?" Steve asked, approaching one of the paintings with such care that it looked like he was trying to avoid even breathing in its presence.
"Looks like Hank has been tracking down art that was stolen or destroyed by that Nazis. In many cases, he's gone back in time to the last known location of a work, and just walked out with it... And further poking shows that he's trying to find descendants of the rightful owners, or donating quietly to museums... Fuck me. And here I thought he was zipping through time to put his plans for world domination in place." Tony said.
"You think he actually has one?" Steve asked.
"It's not like he wouldn't be a benevolent dictator... He told me about it years ago. So I told him mine. Most of us genius types have at least one. I'm sure we've both amended our mental plans by now. Constructive criticism can help avoid a lot of mistakes. Unless you're Reed and you don't want to hear it, so you end up failing and looking like a gigantic dick." Tony said and grinned.
"I don't need constructive criticism, plebian. Besides, it isn't what you do with it, it's the size that counts." Reed quipped from where he hunched over a worktable filled with complicated equipment.
"Oh no no no." Tony retorted. "If you all you've got is size, you're missing most of the equation, Reed."
"Tony, unless you're discussing the size of your relative egos, you're proving me right about the 'physics, geometry, and heist movie quotes' thing." Audrey said. She was taking a closer look at the other works Hank had collected.
"I never denied it." Tony said and laughed a little.
"So what do we do with this?" She asked.
"At the moment, I have no idea." Tony said softly. "We lock the house down before we leave for sure. I've got JARVIS worming his way into the house's security system."
"How about this." Steve said, looking around in awe.
"Fuck, those are the Klimts from the University of Vienna, aren't they?" Audrey asked. She trembled a bit at the sight of the reds and golds of Medicine and the figure and face of Hygieia.
"They sure as hell look like it." Steve said. "Fuck me." He murmured. And for once, in the presence of the beautiful and mysterious face gazing down on them, nobody even thought to rag on Steve for swearing.
Hank came to and saw three familiar faces, and one that should have been. Reed, Steve, Tony, and his heretofore stranger of a daughter, Audrey were standing at the end of the medical bed he was laid out on. "Hank, what were you thinking?" Reed asked before anyone else had a chance to speak.
"Shut up, Reed. How about you let the long lost family introduce themselves to one another? Then we'll grill him like a rack of ribs about the state of our timeline." Tony said through clenched teeth. Steve smirked. He was going to get Tony a nice edition of To Kill a Mockingbird for his next birthday.
"That depends if the long lost daughter in this equation is going to tranq me again." Hank said.
"You didn't keep your promise. I neutralized a threat to the people I've come to care about." Audrey said.
"My stars, you're just like Abigail." Hank said. Tony snorted and shook his head at the same time as Audrey.
"Nope." Audrey said. "Definitely not just like her. Tony insists I'm more like you. But I like to think that I am the product of decent, good people, who taught me to give a shit, and to not back down." She was gently refusing to apologize for what she'd done to Hank. His expression grew fond his eyes were locked on hers.
"Audrey." He said quietly. "Great name. Lovely name."
"Thanks." She said. "If I ever get to see my mom and dad again, I'll tell her you think so."
"The Whelans? Why wouldn't you be able to see them again? Unless of course they have anti-mutant leanings. But they didn't when I was researching them." Hank said casually. Audrey's jaw slacked a bit in astonishment.
"Explain yourself, Hank." Tony said.
"Well, isn't it obvious, Stark?" Hank asked. Mirth played the corners of his eyes and mouth.
"Nope. Sure isn't. Reed pulled her out of another dimension." Tony said. He was getting angry at the idea that Hank had slipped one past him.
"A pocket dimension." Hank said.
"So? What of it?"
"I've had some help playing with Shi'ar tech and from Stephen Strange. I've learned some interesting ways to manipulate dimensions. Really, Stark. I thought that you and Reed of all people would have had this figured out by now. Audrey's dimension was dependent on her presence in it. With her gone from it, that dimension should have folded itself back into ours more or less seamlessly. It's taken me a long time to figure this out, and I had to work backwards after I sent Audrey there. When my observations showed that the two dimensions had woven back together, I was so worried you'd somehow died, Audrey." Hank said. She could see that he wanted to reach out and touch her, but Audrey held herself back. She wasn't willing to trust him yet by any means.
"Hank, do you realize how batshit INSANE you sound right now? You're talking like Doom for fuck's sake." Tony said.
"The hell you say, Stark. You know I'm not. I screwed up... Badly. Immeasurably. And I think we both know what people like us can resort to when we're dying. Because I was dying. Without the younger version of myself, I would be nothing more than a pelt on a floor on Utopia. There's not a superhuman who wouldn't try what I did. My experiments with Audrey's dimension will help me mend the timeline. I'm sure of it now. I can stitch it all back together."
"It's not that simple, Hank." Tony said.
"Yes, Tony, it is. You and Reed pull things like this all the time, at your own moral judgment. I'm getting the understanding that you didn't know what would happen to Audrey's dimension, and yet you brought her here anyway. What if it had collapsed and the death of the whole planet was on your hands? So be glad that I was around to retro engineer the contingency plan for your impulsiveness." Hank said. He was well awake by now, but he thought he could use at least a bucket of coffee, and he couldn't cover his forming annoyance.
"We wouldn't have to worry about it at all if you hadn't let Abigail abandon her and then started dabbling in the timeline." Tony grumbled.
"Like you're one to talk about the timeline getting played with. You've done just fine for yourself." Hank said.
"It wasn't technically me doing that, Hank." Tony said. Hank fixed his eyes on Audrey.
"Audrey, please take this to heart, Abigail and I were trying to keep you safe. That was my motivation. My life wouldn't have allowed me to look after you. Not for lack of desire to. It's just... my life, my ability to function in this world is limited by my appearance. I am too well known. There would have been no normal experience for you. There would have been no way for me look after you the way you deserved to be looked after. I am sorry for that. I am. But I wanted you to have a life of your own, outside of the insanity that being my child would have dragged you into. And it was working. You would have had that. Until Stark and Richards went and screwed with the variables on me.
"Or you could have just found a way, Hank. You're smart enough. You could have manned up and taken responsibility." Tony shot back. Hank's expression soured. "You need to be held account for what you did, Hank."
"On what authority? Yours? SHIELD or HAMMER or whatever it's being labeled now?"
"No dipshit, for Audrey." Tony said, interrupting Hank before he could start railing on about the world's security organizations.
"There were times when I couldn't go outside for fear of being shot at, Stark. You tell me that you'd bring a child into that? Would you? How am I irresponsible for making sure my child didn't get her head blown off when she was too young to know what was going on?" That caused a heavy silence in the room, and everyone found a damn good reason to look at their hands. "After all that's happened, I just... I went for a walk. I had to get away from things for a while... I am just so exhausted of everything I put my hands to turning to shit, or being weaponized, or being ignored because I happen to look the way I do... So I thought I would save a few things instead."
"How about you take that attitude and turn it on Audrey?" Tony said. His voice lacked venom now. "She's awesome, Hank. She could be your saving grace. Really. If you can't find a reason to keep fighting for this world, borrow hers. Hell, just borrow her. She's your kid, Hank... In a fucked up, weird, totally Hank way to procreate, she's yours. That should be reason enough. Even if the authorities find a way to hold you to what you've done. She should be enough to make you hold on."
"Stop." Audrey said. Her head was bent down and she was grinding her knuckles into her forehead. "Holy shit the drama is exhausting... This is why I hated comic continuity." She muttered. "Tony, Reed, can you give me a minute to talk to Henry, please? You'll need to talk to him longer than I will. Steve, can you hang out?" Tony glared at Audrey and she gave him her best reassuring expression. "Just, a few minutes, and then you can argue the inner workings of dimensional blending and Henry's moral stance regarding his offspring." She said. Tony huffed suddenly and his shoulders slumped.
"I'm doing what Reed would be doing if I let him, aren't I?" He asked.
"I'll track down a Montecristo for you. But you do appear to have my best interest at heart. Thank you for that." She replied softly.
"Come on, Reed. Let's give them space." Tony said. He grabbed Reed's upper arm and escorted him out of the medical bay. Steve stood back and leaned on the wall, taking a passive stance for the moment. Hank looked at Audrey again.
"So, let's try that again." She said.
"He means well." Hank replied.
"He does. Also, while he's eating better these days, he's still sleep deprived." She replied.
"Same old Tony." Hank said. He was semi-reclined on the medical bed, designed for the larger members of the Avengers. "How are you, Audrey?" He asked. In four words, Audrey caught the depth and breadth of his question. He was asking about being brought into this world. He was asking if she was coping. He was definitely asking how she was dealing with the fur.
"Not... bad?" Audrey replied. She was obviously still thinking it over. "This isn't ideal... Though the circumstances of the situation have moments of awesome... It's been weird, Henry. Very fucking weird."
"You seem to have a remarkable attitude about it." Hank said.
"I do." She agreed. "And that's not being egotistical, I'm just good at seeing the positive side of a shitty situation, and picking my moment to react." Hank rubbed at the spot where she'd plunged the tranq dart down.
"I gathered that." He said. There was no malice in his voice though. "Forgive my paranoia, Audrey. I've been on the run for some time now. I never meant you any harm."
"Really, launching drones is a funny way to show it." She said. Steve quirked an eyebrow. He was carefully observing how Hank reacted to that statement.
"My dear, those drones would have held off most human and average threats. They weren't designed to fend off various Avengers and three quarters of the Fantastic Four. I assume they enjoyed it on some level. It's nice to exercise one's skills in a relatively safe environment with low risk of injury." Hank explained. He was looking directly at Steve, who shrugged.
"You're not wrong." Steve said as he was trying to hide half a smile.
"See? Skirmishes like that just make for an average weekday. I've done far worse things to anger the world at large lately." Hank said.
"You're not wrong on that, either." Steve said. Audrey smirked at him.
"Steve Rogers, I enjoy your elegant sarcasm." She said quietly.
"Yeah, that's because you're great. Most people can't be bothered to see past the spangles." Steve replied.
"Well, they are awfully shiny." She said, and then looked back at Hank.
"Are you angry with me, Audrey?" Hank asked.
"Yes." Audrey replied. "With you and Abigail both. I know you'll go on and on about how you were trying to save me, and honestly I can understand that point of view. But from my perspective, all I see is lack of trust in yourselves to be able to raise me, and a lack of trust in me in being able to learn to handle myself. For you personally, I also see a lot of self-loathing about what I'd end up looking like... Your self-image problems, your fear, got projected so far that it's really fucked up my life despite your best efforts to improve it. I can't really blame you for trying. But the course of action you took was nuts. Fucking crazy. I get that you think of all the outcomes probability-wise... But you need to start considering emotional states of others before you do shit like this. Would my life have been better had I known what was going to happen? Maybe? Probably not? I will never know. So far all it's done is made me very angry and confused." Audrey said and sighed.
"So, I want to like you, I think. Everything I know about you seems warm and charming, and entirely opposite Abigail Brand. For now though, I'm being very careful, because while my situation is pleasant and comfortable, it is not of my choosing. You and Abigail did that to me. But I want to like you. Anyone who goes back and saves Klimts gets points in my book. Speaking of books, the comic books were a nice touch. It was nice to have a working knowledge of this place." She said.
"I wasn't sure if that was going to take. I'm glad it did." Hank said, and smiled shyly.
"How did you rig something so specific like that?"
"Plant the right ideas, at the right time, with the right people, and hope for the best. Do you actually want the details, or will I just put all three of us to sleep?" Hank asked. His smiled widened.
"Point." Audrey agreed. Hank softened his expression, and leaned forward on the bed.
"I'm sorry." He said to her. "I wish things could have been different."
"I believe that." She said and nodded at him.
"I'd like very much to know you... More than I can ever express in words." He added gently.
"Possible." Audrey said. "It's a good possibility... Now, give me the gist of how my world folded into this one, and what does that mean for the people I care about?" Steve sucked in a slow breath through his teeth. Audrey's shift in focus was instant and absolute. Emotion was set carefully aside for the moment in order to absorb information. If he didn't know the warmer side of her so well by now, he might have doubted it existed if this was all he'd seen of her.
"The timelines will have blended. Your world will have settled into this one. You will have been gone from your home for as long as you've been here."
"And will my parents know I'm a mutant? Will they know about you and Abigail?" Audrey asked. Her tone was edging on sharp, but she was keeping it controlled.
"As you remember, your parents had difficulty conceiving your older brother... I gave them a miracle unbeknownst to them. From the age you appear to be now, people will have a hard time believing that I was old enough to be your father. It will remain a quirk in the timeline. But nothing of consequence." Hank said and looked down at his arms, which were now crossed over his chest.
"I... That's... Wow." Audrey said. She took a deep breath, and once again set aside her emotional reaction. "How do we explain my late bloomer status as a mutant then?" She asked. Henry looked up at her, and his arms fell to his sides in surprise. He had the same expression Tony had given her when Steve had first met Audrey. Hank liked the questions she asked.
"From what precious little my dear Abigail has shared, her father's species matures more slowly, and is longer lived than the average human lifespan. Sending you to a place where time moved faster made sense, or you would have been vulnerable much longer. Also, the nature of my mutation has morphed over time in terms of my physical appearance. It makes all kinds of sense for it to take this long to emerge." Hank said. "You can decide to tell them about your true parentage or not. I will leave that to you... But simply explain that that your absence was caused by the sudden manifestation of your mutation. It is the truth after all."
Audrey sat down on the edge of the medical bed and exhaled slowly. Home was a mere phone call away most likely. It was as much a relief as it was terrifying. She made brief eye contact with Steve, who came away from the wall and put a supportive hand on her shoulder. She leaned slightly into his touch. The contact gave her enough courage and she reached out and took Hank's hand in hers. Hank smiled again. "Tell me about yourself." He said softly.
"What do you want to know?" She asked.
"Everything." Hank said. "What's your favourite song? What was your favourite book as a child? Who is your closest friend? What food do you absolutely despise? What do you do for a living? Everything I've wondered since I had to send you away. I never stopped thinking about you."
"Favourite song is Hymn to Freedom by Oscar Peterson. Favourite book as a kid was Black Beauty. My closest friend's name is Alexa. We've known one another since she was about eight. But I have friends I've had longer than that... I hate orange-flavoured chocolate. It makes me want to hurl. And for a living, I am a tattoo artist. Or I was. Not sure I'll be able to work sterile with claws and fur yet though." Audrey said, and her voice was fond.
"I have gloves for a lab work make of a specialty polymer that should work." Hank said. He'd hooked his thumb over hers.
"Of course you do." Audrey said, and grinned. "Thanks for being honest with me. Thanks for not trying to shield me from the reality of this... I'll be back in a bit. We'll talk more, but I have a few phone calls we need to make."
"Your parents, of course." Hank said, using the word easily. She liked that he wasn't trying to claim that title. "They must be out of their minds with worry."
"Yeah, I hate that they've been left to worry as long as they have." She said. "I'll come back soon. I promise."
"Of course." Hank said, all understanding and kindness, the polar opposite of Abigail. Audrey squeezed his hand and stood up. "One thing though, if you don't mind, why Black Beauty?"
"On the farm growing up, animal life was valued, but only so far as the profit to be made of it. And we were one of the more compassionate operations. The book confirmed things I already had a good idea about, that there was a world far beyond my perception, and that those without voices still had feelings to be considered. And ignoring it wasn't going to make my awareness of that go away... Ignorance? Only ignorance? How can you talk of only ignorance? If people say 'oh, I did not know, I did not mean any harm.' they think it is all right... It struck a chord early and stuck with me. So while I am the absolute worst at school, I am great at learning." Audrey eyed the door, but Steve blocked her for a moment.
"You okay?" He asked.
"I'm going to ask Tony if he'll come with me. He'll make me make the call, simply because he doesn't have time for my waffling on the idea." She said. Steve smiled at that, and stepped out of the way.
"Call me if you need me." He said, and watched her slipped out of the room quietly.
"So, Hank, stolen Nazi art. Why?" Steve asked.
"Can you blame me? I'm sure you've seen what I've saved. When it comes to that project, I have no regrets whatsoever. It will do the world no harm." Hank said, and swung his legs over the side of the medical bed. He made no further moves. The drug was well out of his system now, but he was aware that he wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. "How long was I out, Cap?"
"We kept you dosed for twelve hours, until we had set up a secure perimeter around the house and transported you back to New York." Steve said amicably. He wanted to question Hank why he thought it was okay for him to decide what was going to harm the timeline or not, but he let it go for now. Reed and Tony would be all over him for that, and Steve didn't need to add his opinion to the argument. "For Audrey's sake, I'm asking you to voluntarily stay in the tower for now. She and Abigail didn't hit it off very well, and I think she's going to need your experience. In particular if those phone calls she's about to make don't go well."
"She's got a good heart, doesn't she?" Hank asked. "First impressions being what they are, she's kind, but I think she's probably formidable when pushed."
"That sounds about right. You should have seen her take Scott to the cleaners on his moral stance. He dropped in while she and I were out for a run. While she was sensible enough to stay behind me, she barked at him, Emma, and Erik like they were new recruits and she was their drill instructor. She called them on their manipulation of kids into a war that wasn't their responsibility... Beyond that, she asks these great big questions. She's funny. She has an optimistic outlook, which really, that could have gone either way after she changed. Tony's kind of in love with her. Not romantically, just, they're good for each other. He's had a hard time trusting people, and letting people trust him since, well since everything. It's good to see him make a real friend again, and with someone who hasn't been jaded by what he's done, or is actively out for their own gain."
"Were you there when her mutation manifested?" Hank asked tentatively.
"Most of it, yeah. Tony called Bruce and I in for backup. Let's just leave it at the fact that I have a whole new level of respect for what you've been through. Bruce figured out how to handle the worst of the pain, and Tony kept watch over her. He's been so good with her, hasn't let her worry much over her mutation. He's not distracting her from reality or anything. It's more a determined effort to get her to embrace it. It's been nice to see the enthusiastic side of Tony again. I've missed it." Steve said.
"I will have to thank him. It sounds like the kind of friend I could have used years ago." Hank mused.
"Not too late to start again, Hank... We'd welcome you back here." Steve said. "Tony, Bruce, and yourself could get into some extraordinary mayhem. You could call it the No Reeds Allowed Club."
"Well, perhaps not for that reason, but I will be staying close. I promise that. After everything that's gone down with the X-Men and after Broo... I left Westchester because I needed to sort some things out. I am weary of what they're doing to one another, Steve. I am usually the one left picking up the pieces, and patching up the injuries. I am so tired of seeing people I love hurt for no reason, because it doesn't seem to change anything. We switch our allegiances, we pair off with one another for distraction, and we do sometimes even save the world, but not much changes on a level that we ourselves can appreciate. I am weary of it, Steve... And you are probably not the man I should be complaining to about feeling this old." Hank said. Steve chuckled.
"We all get tired of it. I get that, Hank. I do." Steve said and Hank nodded. "Do you really think you can fix the timeline?"
"I'm getting there. I'm close."
"Then you should let Tony and the supposedly insufferable Richards help you with it." Steve said.
"I may." Hank said quietly.
"Good... Reed is cursing your name for whatever it is you did to your network in that house." Steve said. It was Hank's turn to laugh. "Tony's been catching up on work, and is going to thoroughly enjoy the moment when Reed asks him for help. So you might want to hold off on your cooperation until then. Tony will thank you for it."