Hey guys! New chappie, yay! Also, if you like this, look up the story 'Home is Where the Time Machine is'. It's like my story, but better. Yeah, I'll admit it. :P
Also, this chapter does contain some mild spoilers for the Shawshank Redemption. If you haven't seen it, what the hell is wrong with you?
I own nothing but Taylor, Tyler, and Reagan, who is introduced in this chapter.
Tyler woke up to see Taylor fiddling furiously with her phone. There was a piece of paper lying on his chest, covered with what appeared to be a bunch of random letters and numbers, scribbled down in a hurry.
Taylor looked up when she heard him groan. "Oh good, you're awake. Hey, can you figure out how to turn this on?" she asked, tossing him her phone. He grabbed it out of the air and held down the 'on' button. A little red lightning bolt flashed on the screen.
"Battery's dead. You need to charge it."
"But I don't have a charger!"
"That's because the charger for that type of phone won't be invented for five years. If Candy Crush is really that important to you, I'm sure Tony has a computer you can play other match-3 games on," Tyler said, not noticing his sister's horror-struck face.
"But-but then how will we get home?" she stammered.
"What does having your phone charged have to do with us getting home?"
She grabbed the sheet of paper off of his chest and waved it in his face. "This! Dad said that in order to find the time machine, which could apparently be anywhere, you have to set up some sort of computer search using a certain serial number- this is the start of it, the phone died before he could finish."
Tyler grabbed the paper and glared at it, willing the rest of the numbers to appear. Unfortunately, they didn't. That would save them a ton of time. "Wait- why could it be anywhere?"
"Some shit about two people going back in time and it getting confused, I dunno. I'd have had you handle the call and crazy science stuff, but you looked like you were close to going green."
Tyler was at a loss for words. "So if you'd remembered to recharge your phone..."
"I don't prepare for random time-travel trips, Tyler!"
"Well you could keep your phone charged in case of emergencies!"
"It was charged enough for a nine-one-one call, not a debate about time travel! We were safe at home, I seriously don't think either of us could have seen this coming!" Taylor exclaimed.
She was right, Tyler realized. "I know, I'm just... frustrated, I guess. I feel like we had a chance there and we blew it," he muttered, purposefully using the word 'we' so Taylor wouldn't feel like he was blaming her for the catastrophe any more then he already had.
Tyler turned his attention back to the charging port for Taylor's phone. "You know, I could maybe make a charger for this. So long as the proper microchip and conducting components already exist in the past and I won't have to make it from scratch, it probably won't be that hard."
Taylor glanced at him. Her brother was a certified genius, that was a fact she had always known. It was just that she had never been the sort of person to look at a problem and think, 'I can invent something to fix that.' She was more a 'slap some duct tape on it' type of person. It was something she was moderately proud of, since she considered herself one of the few 'regular-thinking' people in the Tower.
It wasn't that she was dumb. She wasn't. She just didn't want to have to do more work then was necessary.
"Really? I mean, you think you can do that?"
"Sure, so long as past Dad will help me with the wire-coating once he gets home from Afghanistan."
"Hey, speaking of that, do you think he'll be mad at us when he gets back?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, he'll figure out that we knew he'd get kidnapped, right?" Taylor realized.
Tyler nodded along. "That's a substantial enough life event that his future children would have to know it. Not to mention he gets held for like a month while he makes the first Iron Man suit, and has to invent the miniature arc reactor to keep the shrapnel away from his heart."
"...he's really smart... he'll know we couldn't tell him, right?"
"I think he'll be too pissed to reflect on the endangerment of his potential future, Taylor."
Taylor decided to change the subject. "You wanna pick another movie?"
"Sure."
"You choose this time. Good Will Hunting was a great pick."
"Um, okay, if you liked that one... you saw The Shawshank Redemption, right?"
"No."
"Oh my God. Best movie ever. I'm not exaggerating."
An hour later, the twins were sitting on the couch, transfixed by the movie. Taylor was talking to the screen. "No Brooksy... don't kill yourself... No you just got a new life don't do it don't do it oh..."
'Brooks was here' is engraved onto a wooden ceiling rafter. The camera pans down to reveil that Brooks has hanged himself.
Taylor burst into tears and her brother wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "He was an institutional man," Tyler said solemnly.
Pepper pushed the door open and slipped in, a young woman with brown hair following in her steps. Pepper shushed the young woman, who appeared about to greet the mourning twins. The two walked over and sat down on the couch. The twins barely acknowledged their presence. Taylor was still weeping loudly, and Tyler was attempting to console her. He had seen the impossibly sad movie before, so he was more prepared for the rather sudden and shocking loss of Brooksy, but his sister had been caught completely off guard.
The brunette looked utterly bewildered by what she was seeing. Pepper interpreted her befuddled expression correctly and pulled out her phone to explain over text.
[These are the two kids you'll be watching, Reagan. The girl is Taylor and the boy is Tyler. Thank you so much for doing this, I have so much more to do right now since Tony's disappearance and these two need someone to watch them,] Pepper texted.
Reagan glanced down at her pocked when her phone chimed. She pulled it out, read the text, and typed out a response.
[No problem. What do they like to do?]
Pepper stared at her phone for a moment, thinking about the question. [I know they love movies. It's kind of all they've done since they came here.]
[Where did they come from?]
[I'm not sure. This is going to sound silly, but they claim to be Tony's future kids.]
[Okay. Where does Tony keep his video games, books, board games, things like that?]
[Wait, just like that? You're over it?]
[Sure. He invents some crazy-ass bullshit. I wouldn't be surprised if they were telling the truth.]
[Oh, right. You and he have met.]
[Yah.]
[Well, as to the games, you'll have to ask JARVIS.]
[Jarvis!? He's still alive? :DDDDD]
[What? I mean Tony's AI. It stands for Just A Really Very Intelligent System. He's built into the walls.]
[Oh. I thought you meant someone else.]
Pepper wasn't sure what she had done, but she seemed to have dug up a bad memory. When she looked up at Reagan's profile, there were tears running down her cheeks. Something told her that it had nothing to do with the sad movie on the screen.
Okay, that's chapter 12! Let me know if you like it by reviewing please!
