5 Seconds of Summer - Easier
Post Malone - Goodbye
lovelytheband - Broken
Glass Animals - Agnes
Panic! At the Disco - Nicotine
lovelytheband - Maybe I'm Afraid
Chapter 2, Easier:
Despite this being a family matter, Tony had to ask Banner to come in. Not because he wanted Bruce to hear that his daughter was divorcing her husband - he needed to remember to find the most ruthless divorce attorney in New York - but because of the logistical nightmare of spatial-temporal-quantum repercussions.
"Holly, one more time. Please." He asked her while removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Dad."
Every time she called him dad he felt a little warm in his chest because he had a kid! Okay so she was thirty and he missed out on most of her life. Still, he had a kid! She called him dad. "Please Holly, one more time."
Holly glanced at this man who she'd seen wreck New York not once, but twice. Pepper and Tony assured her the Hulk inside Doctor Banner was reliably under control. He wouldn't be living in Stark Tower if the Hulk wasn't in check.
They'd never officially met though. She'd seen her father and Doctor Banner on the news after the Battle of New York. The X-Men had scrambled the Blackbird and made it down to help clean up the chitauri that escaped the perimeter of the destruction during the battle. Through her husband's memories she'd seen the destruction Doctor Banner's alter ego was capable of.
Unbeknownst to her, Bruce was just as uncomfortable. He knew (in theory of course because they had not met until this moment) that Tony had a fully grown daughter. Tony had explained it with a very simple: 'I was sixteen and I met a pretty girl one summer that liked me for me.' Thor had clapped Tony on the back and congratulated him on youthful virility.
Those were Thor's actual words. Youthful virility. The word tact didn't seem to be in the Asguardian's vocabulary. Probably off somewhere with the words razors and sarcasm.
The woman in front of him did look a little like her father, though, Doctor Banner supposed, probably took after her mother or Tony's parents more than Tony himself. Except for the eyes. Where Tony's were a dark brown his daughter's were a vibrant deep green.
Then it hit him and Bruce could have smacked himself. "I'm sorry," he took a tentative couple of steps toward her and held out his hand. "I don't think we've been introduced yet. I'm Bruce Banner."
Holly uncrossed arms over her midsection and gingerly took his hand in her gloved one. "Holly Harper."
He shook her hand, "I've heard a lot about you. It's great to finally be able to put a face to the name." And to the term that Tony was so fond of; 'You know, my daughter is smarter than most of the people in this room. Combined.'
Bruce assumed he wasn't included in that group assessment of the others in the Avenger Initiative. If only because he'd been called in to help figure out what happened to Holly's husband Logan. Oh. Right. Tony not only had a fully grown child, but she was married and had kids. Tony Stark was a grandfather and he wasn't fifty yet.
"So," Bruce began as their handshake released, "do you want to go over it again?"
"We're living in an alternate timeline." Holly said it so matter-of-factly that Bruce was forced to process what she said twice before speaking again.
"Okay. Could you explain how? Or why?"
"Do you know anything about me or my husband Doctor Banner?"
"Bruce, you can call me Bruce. A little? I know you're married, you have two children, and you're a…" Was it PC to call someone a mutant to their face?
"I have a mutation." Holly said, saving him from the awkward way he let the sentence hang. "My husband too. He heals from nearly everything." She sighed and sat down on the stool at the work table.
Her father leaned back on the work table across from her, facing her and watching her. He was already taking mental notes from the first time. Top of the list was finding the patents for the sentinel program and locking them in the darkest dungeon he could find.
"That's why they chose him. The mutants, X-Men I guess, from the other timeline. Professor Xavier was there, Magneto," in a move very similar to what Tony did occasionally, Holly rubbed at her temple. "Kids from the school, Kitty and Bobby were there. They looked the same as they do today. There were…" she swallowed hard the memory of it flashing in her head. Those poor people. "A piece of legislation called the mutant registration act had gone through. Sentinels were there. They're these big robots. They hunted us, adapting to our powers with help from Mystique's DNA, overwhelming us, killing us. The government was collaring mutants, kids and adults, like animals and throwing us in cages." Her throat was threatening to seize with a sob. It was a lot to think about the boy she remembered. He couldn't have been more than twelve and he looked so… empty.
"The X-Men sent Logan back, not his body but his mind. They distorted time somehow allowing his present mind to reverse track and wake up in 1973." She breathed out seeing him get out of a strange woman's bed. It didn't matter, she told the wave of jealousy and anger that washed through her. That Logan wasn't her husband. Even if he had been, that was long before she was ever born. "Maybe you two remember the changing point. Mutants saving the president, 1973?"
Bruce was nodding. "I've heard about it, but I was probably four or five at the time."
"Jarvis," Tony called out, "find the newspaper from-" It was already on the computer screen.
"As requested, sir." Jarvis said.
Tony genuinely did not care that the program had been scrapped. The fact that it got far enough for someone to have to go back in time to warp reality was enough. He'd spend what he had to to acquire the patents.
Holly wasn't looking at the screen. "Do you understand now?" She'd seen it first hand in Logan's mind.
Doctor Banner turned around and looked up at the screen. "I do." He was always angry. Always. That's how he kept the other guy in check. This though… kids in cages. People in cages. Collared for being different. He felt the other guy back there in the place that the Hulk came from. They were in agreement. It made them both indescribably enraged.
Today was not the day to ask out Ashley the waitress. Not that he didn't try. He sat drinking a cup of coffee, eating brunch like thousands of other people in Manhattan did that late morning. He read the paper and when Ashley came by and smiled at him, asked him if he wanted a refill, Steve Rogers decided not to and said no thank you. He paid his bill, left a tip and headed back. The walk to the subway was uneventful, as usual. The subway ride remained the same as always. He was back at Stark Tower and heading up to the habitat floor within the half hour.
After finding out his apartment had been lost in the battle last year, Tony offered him a room on the habitat floor. Steve didn't realize, when Tony said 'room' he meant a small apartment. Kitchenette, bedroom and dining/living area compressed into approximately six hundred square feet. Compared to where he grew up, it was huge.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened to the habitat floor. The only other suite with an occupant was Doctor Banner. Or, at least Banner was the only other person prior to today. The door to the suite next to Steve's was open and a woman, long dark hair, smaller frame, was struggling with balancing boxes in the middle of the hallway. A few stacks of boxes sat along the wall.
Long legs ate up the distance between where he was in the elevator and where she was trying not to drop the smaller box on top. His hand went out, stopping the smaller box, what looked like an old abused shoe box, from sliding off. "Need help?"
"God yes, please."
In a move deft as it was quick, Steve crouched a bit, hefted all three of the boxes out of her arms and asked, "Where do you want these?" They were actually heavy, not so much for him, but heavy enough.
She, now relieved of the boxes, shook out her arms. "Foot of the bookcase by the window if you don't mind. Thank you." The woman twisted cracking her back and neck in several places.
He set the box down at the foot of the bookcase. His suite hadn't come with a bookcase. He had to assemble one from, the name escaped him but he remembered the big blue wall on the building when he walked in. When he turned around she was already hefting another box, albeit a smaller one and dropping it on the bed.
The darkest green eyes he'd ever seen on another human being met his and smiled tiredly. "Sorry about this. Kind of an unexpected move."
Poof, blue smoke in the hallway. "Holly?" A german accent asked.
"In here Kurt."
"This is the last one." A man, dark blue skin, whorles of scars or tattoos, and an equally deep blue tail came in holding another box. He looked sad handing the woman that Steve hadn't officially met yet another box. "Are you sure this is best?"
She gave him a sad smile in return and nodded. "I can't continue living at the school. Seeing him every day and knowing the man I married is nowhere to be found." She sighed deeply. "Thank you for taking my classes."
"Gern geschehen." The blue man said in German, then hugged her. Then the blue man realized they were not alone. "Pardon."
Holly wiped tears away. "Sorry. I didn't get your name."
He took two steps closer, held out his hand. "Steve Rogers."
Holly's brain, as tired and drained as the poor organ was, misfired for a second. The first thing to cross her mind was gosh, Captain America is pretty. She stuck out her hand without thinking. As he went to close the gap she nearly jumped back. "Kurt, did you see my gloves?"
"Ah," Kurt cast around. "Pillow." He grabbed Steve's hand and shook solidly. "Kurt Wagner of Xavier's School, formerly of the Munich Circus."
Holly moved over snatched them up and pulled them on before returning. She shook Steve's hand. "Sorry. I can't," she frowned thinking better of what was on the tip of her tongue. "My mutation doesn't like new people. I'm Holly."
Down the hall, the elevator dinged.
He had figured that Kurt was a mutant. Now that he took a good look at Holly, indeed every inch of her skin was covered save her face and neck. "Holly," he said, "Tony said his daughter's name was Holly."
Her head bobbed. "That's me."
Slightly dumbfounded, he'd been expecting a teenager not a fully grown adult woman.
Voices in the hallway, both female.
"Thank you for your help Steve." Holly had to mentally keep herself from calling him Captain. Her father had referred to him as 'Cap' when bringing her down to the habitat floor. Her dad loved giving everyone a nickname.
Ivy, whom her father referred to as Stringbean, was the first through the door with her vines carrying several of the smaller boxes. "I spoke to Remy. He said…" solidly brown eyes, no pupils or whites turned on Steve. "Who are you?"
"Ivy." Rogue admonished in a southern, almost motherly way as she eased past the green woman. "I swear, livin' alone for so long robbed you of manners."
The green woman's vines deposited the boxes in a neat stack inside the door by the closet wall then slowly retracted into what looked like her back. "That doesn't answer my question."
Holly stepped between Ivy's gaze and Steve's. "This is Steve, he's my new neighbor and you're being rude."
Kurt touched Ivy's shoulder and said something in her ear. She frowned, "I'm sorry. I'm not good with people. Joan Morgan, though most call me Ivy."
Rogue smiled at him and extended her hand, gloved like Holly's. "Marie D'Acanto, but everyone calls me Rogue."
They were all mutants, Steve realized as he shook Rogue's hand. "Steve Rogers." Tony never said his daughter was a mutant. He did say she was a genius like him, but never that she had a mutation. He also said he had grandchildren. There weren't any kids in the room. No cribs either.
"Nice to meet you Steve. Officially I mean." Rogue smiled at him. "I kinda saw you when we were on the ground during the Battle last year."
Ivy blinked at her. "He was on the ground with us? A civilian?"
Kurt looked up at the ceiling. His girlfriend would never be quite tactful. Again he leaned in and whispered in her ear. While Kurt did not recognize the man, he did know the name.
"You're Captain America?" Ivy said in astonishment. Sixteen years alone in the woods robbed her of social niceties. "The one with the nice-" Kurt gently covered her mouth with his hand and poofed them away before she could finish.
Rogue bowed her head, trying to fight a laugh.
Holly gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry."
A nice what? Left hook? Fighting style? What? He almost asked but Rogue said, "She spoke to the lyin' cajun, he said the earliest he can get the cribs down here from the school is tomorrow afternoon. Somethin' about U-haul giving him the runaround."
Holly looked down at the watch on her wrist. "Think we can make it to Ikea?"
Rogue frowned and hugged Holly again. "Honey, I gotta get back. Beast's got my acting classes an' I'm sure he's probably talking on and on about Romeo and Juliette instead of West Side Story."
The reality of it hit Holly instantly. She wasn't going to see the kids in her classes anymore. All of her lesson plans were now property of Kurt. Her friends now lived about an hour upstate. Her husband was gone and she was going to be raising two boys alone. If Holly hadn't been hugging Rogue, her knees might have given out. It took her the handful of extra seconds that Rogue held on to her to get it together. Then Rogue pulled away.
Holly barely remembered saying goodbye. She was too focused on not freaking out. She didn't even remember that someone else was still in the room. Dazed she stood there just trying to force herself to breathe normally and not hyperventilate. She wasn't aware that she was crying until she vaguely realized her face was wet.
Somewhere, someone, a man asked if she was alright.
Holly, blinking through the tears spilling down her face, croaked the words, "No but what choice do I have?" Oh… that's right. Steve hadn't left yet. Holly breathed in a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry you had to meet me on the day my life fell apart."
He, though not knowing her, maneuvered her over to sitting on the bed. "Do you want a glass of water?"
Holly sniffed, blinking glassy tear filled green eyes at him. "I don't own any yet."
Steve gave her a patient, concerned look. "I live next door, remember?"
Her head shook. "I can't. I'm not in the right mindset to," she sniffed, "control the flow of information from whatever you hand me."
He looked genuinely confused.
"My mutation allows the transfer of thoughts, memories, etcetera from you or your property to me. I can control it, slow it down or even stop it when I'm not a complete and emotional mess." Holly drew in a deep shuddering breath. "I literally cannot take anything from you or anyone that hasn't been wiped by a negative or came directly from a factory without ever touching human hands when I'm like this."
"Give me two minutes." Steve said with an idea sparking in his head. "I will be right back." He left the room, and took the stairs at the other end of the hall that was closer to Holly's door than his. Two floors down, in a lounge that was used for meetings and entertaining according to Tony, there was a water cooler and a small refrigerator with bottled and canned drinks.
In the five minutes he was gone, Holly pulled herself together enough to get back to moving all of her boxes into the room. She was about to grab the big one with her grandfather's record player in it when the door at the end of the hall opened.
"Your choices are," said the names as he handed them to her, "Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, or Aquafina."
Holly nearly giggled at the way he said aquafina. Aqua-feen-ah. There was a little Brooklyn in there. She managed to tame it into a smile. "Diet pepsi? You trying to tell me something Cap?"
His face fell. "I-uh…"
She took the offered bottled water. "I'm teasing you. Though I don't drink diet anything. The fake sugar gives me a headache in the normal human sense."
Steve nodded toward the last box outside her suite. "Do you want help bringing that in?"
"If you don't mind," she said taking the other two drinks from him. "Thank you Steve." He crouched and lifted the box like it weighed nothing. Which reminded her of the times that Logan would throw her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing. Which brought tears to her eyes once more. She blinked them away as he sat the record player on the desk.
If the kids were younger, not crawling around on their own, Holly might have just set up some pillows and slept between them on the queen sized bed. She needed at least one crib to hold her kids. A sturdy one. She took out her cell and called her father. "Dad, is there any way to get someone to drive me to Ikea?"
That's where he got the bookcase. Ikea. Not that Steve said it aloud.
"I don't own a car remember? One of the company vehicles. Dad. I have never driven in Manhattan let alone Brooklyn." She paused listening to her father for a minute. "The closest one is in Brooklyn." Again pausing. "Dad, oh my god. Okay see you in a minute."
With a chagrined expression Holly turned back toward Steve. "Thank you again. Really."
"You're welcome Miss Stark."
For some reason that put a smile back on her face. A tired, sad smile, but still a smile. "Harper, not Stark. My parents never married." Her parents had a clumsy tumble in her father's parent's beach house one late summer evening. That was it. Holly's mom never saw him again.
But Steve didn't know that.
The confrontation with the other Logan is coming.
So are some brownies. Right out of the oven. Nom nom nom.
Please let me know if the German is wrong! I did some research on how to say "no problem", "don't worry about it", basically telling her not to even think about it and that phrase came up most often.
