And we're back! Though I think I should warn you this is almost like a side-journey. Next week we're going back to Bouquet of Roses and the rest of rose's story with the X-Men... this chapter is only meant to help you keep track of where Loki and Nightingale were, and what they were doing, while their daughters were off changing the world. Also, some things that had been mentioned but not quite explained about Howard, his connection to Charles, and his not-connection to the Institute...
I really hope you'll enjoy. And for this chapter the song is: "Please Remember", as sung by Leann Rimes. I know the original connotation isn't quite how I put it here, but I think it still fits. Hope you'll agree.
Please Remember
Memories are tricky, and sometimes we forget that which we ought to remember...
For the first few weeks, the first few months even, after Rose and Willow left, nothing special seemed to happen. The girls let us know they'd made it to Westchester, to Charles's estate, and then took to calling us once a week. They were short, simple calls, greeting, asking how we were, telling us they were fine; sometimes they would talk a bit about Anya's gardening projects, or a new melody Rose might be practicing in the piano (or a new mess Hank had caused in his lab... that seemed to be the source of a great amount of hilarity... and sometimes awe).
There was one week, in the second half of October, where Rose couldn't be on the phone. Willow told us that Charles had gotten ill and Rose was playing nursemaid... we knew it couldn't be that simple (the girls wouldn't have split, if it had been that simple). However, we had all agreed never to talk about mutations or gifts in general over the phone, just in case either side was tapped, so in the end we didn't ask.
In late November I found an article in the New York Times that I could have never expected: Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto, the former leader of the Brotherhood, who'd been involved in President Kennedy's assassination in '63... was dead. According to the news, there had been an accident while he was being transported to another prison. I could read between the lines just fine (as could my love), whatever the accident might have been, it was no coincidence, and not only because Lehnsherr was the only reported casualty. Something had happened. Yet, as curious as I was, I knew better than to ask the girls anything about it, so I pushed the matter aside for later.
The war against Vietnam ended early the next year, and I was hopeful that meant we'd get to see Hakon more often. Ever since he'd been sent to the front we'd hardly seen him. In fact, he hadn't had leave in years, and all we knew about it was that he hadn't taken leave because he refused to leave his unit to the 'mercy' of someone who wouldn't care for them. Somehow I didn't think he was exaggerating about that.
We even knew he'd gotten the Commandos involved in a scheme to help his men reincorporate themselves to society and civilian life after being discharged... though I had no idea why he'd gone through such lengths exactly. I wondered if the fact that all of our children were involved in the kind of things that couldn't be talked about in an open line was more telling of the way we'd raised them, or their own choices... or perhaps it was a mix of both.
And, of course, there was always Sia. Who would send us a telegram or a postcard every several months, yet we hadn't seen neither hair nor hide of in more than half a decade! All we knew was that she was still tracking the Winter Soldier, that it... he was important for some unfathomable reason only she knew. Still, we trusted her, if she believed it needed to be done, then it must be necessary... hopefully she'd trust us enough to tell us the truth eventually.
In February, just a day after my birthday, we got a visit we weren't expecting: it was Howard:
"Howard!" I called, probably a bit too loudly, I was taken completely by surprise. "I didn't know you were coming! How are you?"
"Alright." He answered immediately, though I could tell there was something off about him.
"Howard?" My love called as he entered the house. "Everything alright? We thought you would be too busy to visit right now... you'd said something about back to back meetings for the whole month or something..."
"That's still the case." Howard nodded, a bit seriously. "However, I was forced to drop everything when I got called into a top-secret meeting in Washington..."
"If it's top-secret, should you even be mentioning it?" I interrupted him.
"I think I should." He replied. "Came here as soon as the meeting was over. Perchance, have you any idea where the girls are right now?"
To anyone else the question would have seemed like an attempt to change the topic, because it couldn't possibly have anything to do with a top-secret meeting in Washington... except I knew it very well could. Even if we didn't know exactly what Rose and Willow might be in. We at least could make an educated guess...
"You know the Peace Accords taking place in Paris?" Howard asked next.
I nodded, waiting to know what exactly connected everything up, already suspecting I wasn't going to like it; in the back of my mind I could hear my husband's similar line of thought.
"There were a few more meetings taking place than originally scheduled." My 'brother' explained rather calmly. "Trask and some military-minion of his were discovered trying to make business with the Communist leaders."
"Bolivar Trask...?" I inquired, surprised by that.
"The very same." Howard nodded grimly. "The kind of things he's apparently been involved over the last few years... you don't want to know, Ari. I didn't think anything could ever be worse than some of the things we saw in the war, and yet..."
That was enough to make me swallow, as well as decide I need never know more than that on that particular topic.
"Trask is in jail, his minion... I've no idea actually." Howard admitted with a slight shrug. "And once I'm done there will be nothing left of that company, or Bolivar's reputation."
I could sense a deep hatred inside him; it was rare, Howard wasn't the kind of man to truly despise someone. But he obviously despised Bolivar Trask... and I still had no idea how the girls were supposed to be involved in the whole thing.
"Anyway, that's not the actual reason why I was called in." Howard went on. "I was asked for my opinion regarding a new alliance our government has made... with a team of gifted individuals, known as the X-Men..."
I lost my breath. The X-Men... I'd known it was coming, someday, but wasn't it too early? Also, I couldn't actually remember if the X-Men had been allied with the government in the future... though, seeing how I'd only been to the Institute once or twice before, and hardly come in contact with the X-Men, it's not like I had to know.
"Apparently a group of gifted went to Paris to stop Trask's deals with the Communist leaders, they also ended meeting with the leaders of the CIA, British and French representatives, and military leaders of a number of countries..." He made a pause before adding. "Hakon was there, apparently because he's the leader of a unit in our country's army that's formed entirely by mutants!" He ran a hand through his head. "Oh, yes, and the group of gifted that met with all of them, they were lead by a young woman, reportedly in her early twenties, with auburn hair and eyes like fire. She called herself the Rose of Chaos..."
I froze, could hear Loki cursing colorfully in a variety of languages in the back of my head. We had no idea what had happened exactly, but there was no doubt who the Rose of Chaos was. Our daughter had just revealed herself to people of power from at least four different countries...
"That's not all." Howard went on. "I was also told that she used the civilian name of Alfdis Eisenhardt, sister of an Anya Eisenhardt, and daughter of Max Eisenhardt, German immigrant, field commander and generally second in command of the X-Men..."
Alfdis Eisenhardt... it wasn't hard to guess why exactly she'd done that (or even who had helped her to get papers good enough that no one had been able to tell they were fake); she was putting distance between us, both Willow and her were. As a way to keep us safe, and while a part of me couldn't help but think that it was us, my Maverick and I, who taught her (both of them really) to do anything necessary to protect those we loved, the family... it was still hard to accept the fact that it was them protecting us rather than the other way around. My husband and I... we had done all we could, but they were grown girls, living their own lives, making their own choices. It was no longer up to us to protect them (though that did not mean we wouldn't do our best if the opportunity ever arose).
"How do you know all this?" When the question came from my love, I couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to me to wonder that before.
"I was called by the Secretary of Defense to inquire my opinion regarding the X-Men." My brother announced, stoically.
I didn't know what to say, not for the longest time, and when the words finally came from my mouth... they weren't what I'd been planning: I didn't question why the Secretary of Defense would call on him; my brother was well known as a patriot for his service during WWII, and his continued creation of weapons that had helped the American military for decades. I also knew that he'd been one of the few civilians present on a certain top-secret meeting, in October of 1962, when two navies had decided to make a truce and fire their missiles on a Cuban beach, filled with teenagers and young adults, almost all of them gifted, most of them those to whom we owed the fact that there had been no WWIII... And yet, I didn't question him about either of those topics; I knew, instinctively, neither of them was the crux of the matter:
"Howard, how much do you know about the X-Men?" I finally asked him.
"Officially, nothing at all." He answered in a perfect deadpan. "Unofficially, more than you would expect, more than even Charlie realizes..."
Charlie... I knew he was talking about Charles Xavier. He'd had a laugh about it a few time, back in the early sixties, knowing we'd become such good friends of the Xaviers. Had told us all about Brian Xavier, the nuclear physicist with such a promising carrier... until his life was cut short by a tragic accident. And the fact that Howard himself had almost been there, if he hadn't gotten stuck in traffic and arrived late to the labs...
Howard had considered Brian a dear friend, and also held a special affection for little Charles Xavier, a young child at the time of his father's death. He'd tried to be there for the boy, as a caring uncle, and possibly even a father figure (spirits knew his step-father had never cared for it) but it hadn't been easy. According to my brother, Kurt Marko had hated him, seen him as a mere jump-start, not good enough for high-society (never mind that Marko himself had had more debts than money to himself before marrying Charles's mother); while Sharon herself was the youngest daughter of a family who had the name, but not the money... In the end, Howard had tried, at least until the war, when it had simply become next to impossible.
We also knew that Charles had sought Howard at some point during the early sixties (after Cuba), and something had happened, something had gone wrong. Though we had no idea what. We also knew Hakon had talked (more like argued) with his uncle about it, but they'd never talked about it with us, and we had chosen to respect their privacy...
"How much did your son tell you about the argument we had before he was shipped off to Vietnam?" He asked, very quietly.
"Nothing at all." My love told him.
"We asked him once, but he claimed it was something personal." I put in my two cents. "You have your right to your privacy, both of you, so we didn't insist."
"I suppose some might consider it personal." Howard conceded thoughtfully. "Though probably not in the manner you would expect. We had a disagreement over personal opinions. Choices I made... Hakon did not agree with them at first... I think it's possible that even after I explained my reasoning, he probably didn't agree with me. But he respected my choices. Then went on to make his own, as was only right. You raised him well, Ari, Luke. The boy might have been furious with me, but in the end he seemed to realize that, wrong or right, our choices are exactly that, ours, and they must be respected."
"Howard..." I murmured, not quite sure what to say. "What happened?"
"Charlie came to see me in the Spring of 64." Howard began.
"Spring of '64..." My husband repeated, seemingly thinking back on where we'd been at the time.
"Why didn't we know about that?" I decided to go the more direct route.
"You were laying low." My brother reminded me. "After the mess in Dallas... there were too many people coming and going. If one of them had seen you, had realized you and Luke hadn't changed at all over the previous twenty years... you spent a couple of years in Boston, until things settled down, remember?"
Actually, I hadn't. The move hadn't changed much, as I hadn't thought much about it.
"Anyway, Charlie came, he was in a wheelchair..." He shook his head grimly. "Talk about shocks. I couldn't believe it when I saw him. And all he would say about it was that it had been a tragic accident. I have a feeling that something about that accident hurt him worse than the actual loss of his legs." He shrugged. "Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, he came to talk to me about the school he was planning on opening..."
"The Xavier Institute." I finished for him.
"Exactly." Howard nodded. "I think he was hoping that I would agree to ally with him, that my name would grant his school better standing, as well as protection..."
"It was a good plan." Luke admitted, thoughtfully. "Your influences, money..."
"I declined." My brother interrupted him. "I actually said something disparaging about his ideas, and made veiled comments about what had happened in Cuba... about gifted."
I drew a sharp breath, not quite believing what I was hearing.
"But... Howard... I don't understand..." I mumbled.
I really didn't. From the very beginning he'd been so accepting of all of us, of our abilities. How could he have said something like that?
"Charlie was being careless." Howard explained. "He didn't even realize that I knew more about his children than I should."
"That's a good point." My love agreed. "How do you know so much?"
"Oliver Platt." My brother replied. "I knew him... before I got to where I'm today. Back when I was just a kid in the bad side of town... His dad was a cop, and a damn good one. He realized I was just a kid, in over his head, helped get me out of some things before they became too bad, and too big. And when I began making money... I did my best to pay him back. Oliver and I were never exactly close, but we did enjoy a drink together now and then. He always had some outlandish ideas about gifted and enhanced individuals, believed in magic, even without having seen anything to prove it... He was a good man." He shook his head with a nostalgic sigh. "The last time I saw him was in the Summer of '62. He was thrilled, like a child at Christmas, saying he was right, that gifted people did exist, and they were simply wonderful. You know, of course, how high my clearance is. It was enough for him to send me a few files... I couldn't believe it when I saw Charles's name... Couldn't believe he'd been careless enough to not only reveal himself to the government, but to give them his real name!" He let out a sigh. "It was I who convinced Oliver to make sure there would be no personal files for any member of his special team. And he agreed with me that it would be too risky, so he had them destroyed."
Which explained why Trask and whoever else that had been with him hadn't been able to go after Charles and his students in the last decade.
"If you did that," I asked softly. "Why did you turn him away?"
"Because Charlie was being reckless!" My brother explained, running a hand through his hair. "If he had managed to convinced me, do you know who he'd have gone to afterwards? The Worthingtons, they are the only other family with the same economic and social levels as us; but they're snobs, the worst kind. No amount of money, influence or the Xavier and Stark names would have ever been enough for them, they would have sold out Charlie and his kids at the first opportunity."
"Why not accept to help him, and warn him about people like that?" Luke wanted to know.
"Because Charlie's too trusting." Howard said grimly. "He'd have believed he could convince the Worthingtons to see thing his way. The only way I could think to stop him from doing that, was to force him to see the risks he was taking."
"So you made them very real for him." My Maverick suddenly understood. "You made him believe you were the very kind of person the Worthingtons would have been."
"Yes." My brother admitted. "Though... it's not just that." He seemed to think it over for several seconds before adding. "I don't know if you're aware of this, but Maria comes from a Jew family. Her birth-name is actually Mirele Zimmerman."
"But..." I couldn't understand.
"I know that's not the name you know her by." He nodded. "She came to the country with her mother, and the name of Maria Zimman, before the worst of the war. Her father couldn't come with her, he was 'detained'."
Neither my husband nor I needed him to explain that part. We knew what it meant.
"Maria's mother wasn't Jew." Howard went on. "She managed to get out of country, taking her daughter with her. I met them during a ball, for one of the charities we created after the end of the war. Mrs. Zimman was a volunteer in one of the refugee centers we created. In any case, I knew Maria had issues with what had made her become a refugee, serious issues. When Magneto and his Brotherhood first made themselves known, and they killed all those navy-men... she was terrified. Had awful nightmares for days, she would wake up asking why people had to keep killing others for being different. She was absolutely terrified that one day Magneto and his brotherhood would try to do to humans, what the Nazis did to the Jews, to her father and his family..." He let out a sigh. "I knew what would happen if she ever knew I was aiding mutants. She wouldn't have seen any difference between Charlie and Magneto."
It was absolute insane, how people kept making the exact same mistakes, letting fear drive them. Would it ever end?
"So you turned Charles away, made him think you couldn't be trusted..." My match revised. "That no one could be trusted..."
"Exactly." Howard nodded. "It might not have been the kindest thing I've ever done. But if it aided even in the slightest in keeping Charlie and his students safe, then it was worth it." He made a pause before adding: "And who knows, maybe now that the little nymph is with him I'll get away with a few anonymous donations..."
He seemed so eager at the prospect, while I was still trying to wrap my head around it all. The things he'd done, the things he'd made Charles believe... I remembered from the future, someone saying that the X-Men and SHIELD didn't work well together. Tony's own suggestion that it was probably his father's fault, that he could never stand mutants... They were so wrong! Or weren't they? Had we changed Howard so much that he'd come to accept gifted? Or had he always done that? Was history changing or were the people who talked about Howard so negatively simply wrong? I did not know what to believe anymore. Wasn't sure which one would be worse, which I would prefer either. Was it better to think that we were changing things, for better or for worse, or that things had simply always been like that, and we'd just been too blind to see it?
xXx
In May we celebrated Tony's third birthday. Luke and I used magic to glamour ourselves into looking older for the day. It was necessary, otherwise it'd have been impossible for the people around us not to notice that we were different (the fact that I still looked exactly the same as I had twenty years prior, and even back then I'd already looked young for my age...).
We went through the usual pleasantries, greeting Howard, Maria, Obadiah, and several other guests; most of which were either friends or co-workers of one of the first three. Then I left my husband to chat with the man about the latest advances in technology, while I sat beside Tony on a big blanket by the beach. I had already promised to take the boy into the sea when he wanted to go (she apparently had just done something to her hair and the sea-water would have ruined it). I chose not to comment.
I was having a lot of fun, I really was. Tony was such a bright, precocious child. I loved him dearly (and it hurt knowing all he would go through in his life).
"You know." Maria, splayed elegantly on a beach-chair beside the blanket, called to me. "I never quite understood why you and your husband did not have more. Children, I mean." She seemed to think it over. "I mean, I know you have Hakon and the twins, but you were still young. It's obvious you like children so, why not have more?"
I could have turned the question back to her. After all, she was quite a few years younger than Howard, and she'd still chosen to have only one child (and had waited a decade after getting married to have him). But I knew already the answer to that question: Maria didn't like children; or no, it wasn't that she didn't like them, she didn't like taking care of them. She liked showing off her family, either in person or in pictures; but she didn't like most every day duties, like feeding, changing diapers, bathing. Anna Jarvis had handled most of that. Of course, that was a very well kept secret of the Stark household.
"I couldn't." I said eventually. "After the twins..."
I just let my voice drop off, allowing it to sound like some kind of tragedy. The truth wasn't quite so dramatic, though still serious enough. My spirit was of a Ljósálfar, my body... was a mix of the human I'd been, and the immortal I'd turned into after my mortal death. My spirit and my body managed to fit well enough, though it was still hard to get all of me in sync enough to create new life; there was also the fact that Ljósálfar weren't known for having many children, nor were Aesir, or Jotun... so, in the end, it was a mix of things.
"Oh..." Maria's expression turned almost pitying. "I'm sorry Arianna... I had no idea."
"Not many do." I murmured simply. "And really, I love my children dearly. It doesn't matter if I cannot have any more of my own, there will always be nieces, nephews, and some day grandkids to spoil rotten."
"So you have heard from Sia then?" She inquired, interested.
"She's still of in Europe doing her own thing." I shrugged.
"Oh." The Stark matriarch sounded honestly surprised. "I didn't expect... I just thought, a woman her age... I expected she'd have settled down already..."
"Settling down and Sia Serrure aren't exactly compatible, I don't think." I admitted with a slight chuckle. "But that's alright. If it makes her happy..."
I could see (and feel) that she didn't exactly agree with me, but she was too well educated to argue with me over it.
Not for the first time I felt thankful that, in the end, we'd decided not to tell Maria the truth about me, about us... she believed, like most of the world, that I was Howard's illegitimate half-sister. And just the emphasis she'd put in the word illegitimate when first hearing about it was enough to let me know she wasn't the kind of person I'd ever be able to trust with my true story. It was obvious Howard loved her dearly, and that was enough to make me give her a chance, to accept her as a sister-in-law... but I would probably never truly see her as a friend. There was a part of me that wondered if things could have been different, if Luke and I'd stuck closer to them over the past twenty years, instead of keeping our distance. But I just couldn't imagine having to live every day with a glamour to hide my true image; just a few hours using it, and it already made me feel almost itchy somehow.
xXx
When I put the sleeping boy down and tucked him in at the end of the night, I couldn't help but feel like I was about to cry.
"Ari..." Howard murmured, going to stand behind me. "What's going on?"
I shook my head, making vague motions for silence; the last thing I wanted was to wake up Tony and have him see me on the edge of tears... it was his birthday, he didn't need to worry about his depressed aunt.
For all answer, Howard took hold of my arm and guided me to his private study, there he went straight to his 'stash, prepared two mojitos and placed them on the small table in between the two armchairs where we were seated. While I didn't like most alcoholic drinks, I could stand the mojito (as long as it wasn't too strong... and Howard knew how I liked it).
"Now, will you tell me what has you so upset, sister?" He asked quietly.
I took a deep breath, took a heavy swig of the drink, breathed again, and finally blurted:
"We cannot keep doing this Howard."
"What...?" He obviously hadn't expected that. "I don't understand..."
"This!" I pointed straight at myself, at my true image. "You didn't even notice, did you?"
"No." He admitted with a shrug, settling back against the chair. "After all these years... I suppose I just don't notice it anymore."
"The fact that I'm supposed to be in my fifties yet look like I'm barely legal?" I deadpanned. "You may not notice, but that's not the case with the rest of the world."
"What about what you did earlier to look older? You and Luke..." He waved his hand as he tried, and failed, to remember the right word.
"The glamour." I offered. "It's not fool-proof. As should be obvious. If our focus fails... well, you have seen what happens. Also... it feels wrong. It's one thing when I change the color of my hair, the shade of my skin, to keep people from recognizing me... but the level of glamour needed to make me look over fifty..." I shook my head. "It's also dangerous. What do you think would have happened if Maria had been the one to slip into Tony's room and find me there, like this?"
Howard didn't answer the question, just nodded, he got the point.
"What then?" He asked, taking a drag of his own drink and beginning to play with a cigarette.
He'd become addicted to the damn things at some point... and the cigars, which, in my opinion, were even worse. The only reason he wasn't smoking already was because he knew how much I hated the smell.
"Will you just disappear?" He almost demanded. "Make pretend like you never existed?"
"That was always going to happen." I admitted very quietly.
"What?!" He was obviously not expecting that.
"We never planned for this, you know?" I asked in return.
"And what is this?" He asked, very evenly.
"This... you, your family... us being a family..." I shook my head, letting out a sigh. "We don't belong here Howard, we never did. You know that, always have... you just don't know how far it goes. The powers we have... we're not mutants..."
"No, you're more than that." Howard agreed. "From the very beginning I knew that. I think that even before I saw your boy with his blue skin, I knew that."
"And it's not even just that." I went on, not allowing myself to think much on what I was about to reveal to him, after so long. "You know Luke and I... we're older than we look. That we don't age the way most people do."
"You will go on living long after I'm dead and buried." My brother blurted out unexpectedly.
"Yes." I didn't see the point in lying to him.
"That's why you say you weren't planning on me, on us as family. You know we'll die long before you. Because we're only human..."
"Yes." I whispered, so very, very softly.
I could have left things like that. Let him believe that that was the crux of the matter. Let him think that I couldn't handle watching him grow old and die... it would have been so easy... But I wasn't the kind of girl to choose a path simply because it was easy.
"It's not just that." I added. "I need you to listen to me very carefully, brother..."
"I'm listening." He nodded, staring straight at me.
"It would pain me, to have to watch you grow old and die." I admitted. "But that's not what's pushing me to make such choices. It's something else..." I took a deep breath, and dove straight in. "The truth is, I wasn't born in the 1920s... or the 1910s... I wasn't born at any time over the last century, or the last millennia for that matter."
"I don't understand."
"I was born on the 2nd of February... in 1992..."
Howard pulled back so fast he knocked his head against the armchair... and probably got whiplash to boot. Still, he didn't say a word, just stared at me.
"Howard..." I began, hesitantly, was he finally going to snap at me, over that of all things?
Instead, his reaction was completely different.
"Time travel?!" He gasped, the tone of a child receiving a long-dreamt-of toy. "You truly... you time-traveled to the 1940s...?! But how?"
It was probably a good thing I'd put up wards after we got into the study, otherwise we'd have already called Jarvis's attention to us... at the very least.
"No idea." I deadpanned. "We were on a mission for SHIELD and... something happened. None of us can remember what exactly, or where we were... not even why exactly Hakon was with us that day. We never took him with us on missions, he was just a child, after all! All we know for sure is that it was some day in early March of 2016 one moment, and the next we were somewhere in Norway, and it was March of 1941..."
"Seventy five years..." Howard gasped in wonder. "You traveled back 75 years."
"I don't even know if it was our choice, or some kind of cosmic accident!" I pouted.
"Still, it's amazing." My brother admitted. "To think that one day the world will advance to the point where we will be able to travel back in time."
"I still wouldn't recommend it." I admitted, shifting a bit, uncomfortable. "I've spent the last 22 years terrified I'm going to change too much and the world will implode or something!"
"But you have changed things, haven't you?"
"I've tried. Haven't always succeeded..."
"Sgt. Barnes... Cap and Peggy?"
I just nodded, not daring to go into either situation. How could I explain to Howard that the first had been a definite failure and I still didn't know how the second turned out?
"Wait a second." Howard said suddenly. "You said you couldn't keep doing this, keep coming here, because you cannot pretend. And while things with Maria might be hard, you wouldn't have to pretend with Tony, we could explain things to him. He's a bright little tyke, unless..."
"Unless I knew it couldn't be." I finished for him.
"So..." I wasn't sure if Howard didn't dare ask the question, or didn't know what to ask exactly.
"I do know Tony in the future, Howard." I agreed. "And the thing is... when he first met me, he didn't know me. And not only that. In the years I've had of knowing him, he's never mentioned an aunt Arianna, or any other family aside for yourself and Maria... and Jarvis, he holds him in high esteem. But that's about it. And well, you and I both know what that's likely to mean..."
"He has no memories of you." He finished for me.
I had just nodded, when something else occurred to him, something I couldn't believe I hadn't realized myself before.
"But... but even if he had no memories of you, I would tell him." He said. "I would never let him forget, even if he couldn't know at first. I would explain it all to him... unless..." I didn't say a word, in the end I didn't need to. "Unless I wasn't there to explain things to him. When...? No, you know what? I don't want to know." He made another pause before adding. "Just tell me one thing. Is my son a good man?"
"One of the best men I've ever known." I told him quietly.
Perhaps I was embellishing, but just a little. Tony truly was a remarkable man; it didn't matter if he'd made mistakes, who hadn't? And then something else occurred to me, and before I could even stop to think about it, the words were leaving my lips:
"A man who was everything you could ever ask of your heir, to your company, your genius and your name... and yet couldn't understand how true that was, because he couldn't believe that you were ever proud of him... ever loved him."
"What?!" Howard stood so fast hie glass fell, the contents spilling on the rug, he didn't care. "What the hell does that mean?! That's impossible. I love Tony..."
"I know, I know you do." I comforted him, hurrying around the table to embrace. "I know you love him Howard, I can feel the love you hold for him. So much, and the pride... the boy hasn't done anything and you're already so proud of him... I can only imagine what you'll feel when he begins to show his genius..." Something that would be happening in just over a year from that day... "Which is why I cannot understand the way Tony himself remembers you... It just... It's like the man he remembers, and you... it's like you're two completely different individuals!"
"How different?" Howard asked, in a tone that made me think he wanted to demand answers, yet instead ended pleading... "Ari... tell me... please..."
And so I did. I told him everything I knew. The things Tony had told me, and the things I'd found through other people (mostly Pepper). There was much I did not know, of course. I knew there had been a falling-out with Obadiah Stane at some point, shortly before the man had died in an awful plane crash (Darcy always said that had to have been a cover up for something...). I also knew he'd been betrayed, more than once, by people he trusted; some he had forgiven, and others he hadn't. I knew about Afghanistan, and the Ten Rings, and that he'd been hurt much worse than any SHIELD reports showed; that he had finished at least two projects his father never could, and had created the second ever Stark Expo (much greater than the first). I also suspected (didn't know for sure... had never dared ask) that the one thing that hurt Tony the most, was not knowing if his father ever loved him; there had been off-handed comments made about Howard's genius, the company, his legacy, his goals, and the way he never seemed to care for his own son...
Howard and I stayed in that study until very late (closer to early, than late), though mostly I was the one to talk. Afterwards I would never be able to believe I'd actually done it, that I'd told him the truth (all I knew of it at least). I didn't plan it, we didn't plan it; there was no way of knowing what would happen due to it. For the second time I was trying, truly trying, to change history as I knew it. And I was terrified about it.
xXx
My match might not have been in the room with me when I confessed everything to Howard, but he knew I'd done it, and while we'd never planned on doing it, he agreed that it felt right. Tony Stark... the Tony Stark we knew, was a good man, but still a man who had perhaps suffered more than was his due; the Tony of 1973 was a little boy still, innocent and so full of curiosity and joy and a light I'd never actually seen in his older counterpart. I know a part of us truly hoped that our actions would allow him to retain some of that light.
That wasn't the last trying moment of that year either. A few months later we got a call from Hakon. The X-Men had been on their first mission, Hakon had been there, seeing how he was the military liaison... apparently the facility had been a trap. They had managed to rescue many young mutants, but the place had been filled with Sentinels, and had pretty much blown up on their way out. One of our girls had almost died...
I wanted so much to rush to Westchester in that moment. To shadow-walk straight there and reassure myself that Rose was alright. Even if Hakon had already told me exactly that, and Charles had confirmed me; a part of me felt a need to see her with my own eyes... but I couldn't. Moira MacTagger, the CIA Agent was still in the premises, and she was exactly the kind of person who couldn't know the truth about me, about us. The kind of person that had made Rose and Willow decide to change their names...
So, in the end, I stayed put. Luke and I stayed in the mansion in New York, waiting until Rose phoned us, two days later. It helped, hearing her voice; knowing she was, without a doubt, alright. According to her she'd only been unconscious at the time of Hakon's call because a rock knocked her out for a little while, and the concussion gave her nausea and an awful headache for a while; still, nothing life-threatening; many people had concussions in their lives. It helped... and yet not being there with her still hurt.
That experience probably influenced what happened on Christmas Eve. Luke and I were trying a new 'trick'. We'd arrived, again, with the usual aging glamours, but after the necessary exchange of pleasantries with our hosts and the other guests, and a round to allow people to see us; we slipped away from a moment to change things a bit. The new glamour was the softer kind, that didn't itch so much. My hair was platinum blonde, my skin perfectly unblemished, my makeup heavy, I looked like a teenager trying to appear grown-up; while my love made his hair into short dark-golden curls, his eyes looking almost blue under the right light; he also had some facial hair and a more casual attire than he usually wore to such events.
Howard was the only one who recognized us, and he seemed to find it all extremely funny for some unfathomable reason. I almost expected him to suggest that we just get new papers, a new identity, and stick around. It's not like we couldn't have made it work... probably. But he didn't suggest it, and we never mentioned it either. A part of me still believed that it was too risky. It was one thing to trick a bunch of people for one party (most of them would end too drunk to remember many details of the evening anyway), and an entirely different one to try to hold onto the farce for an indeterminate amount of time.
The party went on until the early hours of the morning. Though the last hour was mostly spent finding people sober enough to drive those drunk to kingdom come, to their homes. A few, like Obadiah and some 'close friends' of the Starks, actually spent the night in the guest bedrooms, on the opposite side from the family rooms.
Luke went to gather our things (what few we'd kept in that house), while I slipped to Tony's rooms... Howard was waiting for me right outside.
"I'm guessing this is goodbye then." He murmured quietly.
He was quite sober, which surprised me, though it probably shouldn't have; and yet... and yet I'd seen him having drink after drink all night...
"Sparkling water, lime soda, a few were even apple juice." He answered the unasked question. "I haven't had more than a glass of wine all night, I promise you."
I actually smiled at him, knowing he'd done it all for me... and for Tony too, of course.
"So, you've come to say goodbye to my son, then?" He asked again.
"We don't want to..." I admitted quietly. "But we have to. If Tony is to have no memories of me... of us... then we have to go before they come into being."
"I'm gonna miss you sister." He said, suddenly embracing me tightly.
"No more than I will miss you brother, as will Luke." I assured him. "Perhaps some day..."
I didn't dare finish the sentence, there was no point, and he knew it as well as I did.
"Promise me something, Ari." He said suddenly, holding me by the shoulders and looking straight into my eyes. "I know that by the time you get back to where you belong I will no longer be around but... Promise me that the moment the opportunity arises, you will go straight to Tony. You will go to my son, and you will tell him everything. The whole truth. The good, the bad, and everything in between. Can you promise me that, sister?"
"I promise you Howard." I assured him.
How foolish was I, that I couldn't see that with those words he meant a lot more than just my identity as Arianna Stark? How blind... I wouldn't realize the truth until it was too late.
He embraced me tightly once more, kissed my brow and then turned to walk away.
"I know what I'll do." He announced, even as he moved down the hall. "I'll send you a present when you're born. That sure will make things interesting..."
I chuckled, a watery laugh that I couldn't quite let out, nor fully hold in. It would truly make things interesting, only... Only, if my suspicions were right, if the memories I had of the past, were still the future that was to come, then that gift had never come... which meant my brother would die before my other self (my younger self? True self?) was born... he would be dead before the 2nd of February of 1992...
I pushed the thought aside, knowing that if I lingered on it, I would end up crying, and it wasn't time for tears, not yet... So instead I slipped into Tony's bedroom, and went to sit by his bed. I watched him sleep for what felt like a long time, though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes at most. I didn't even notice it when I began singing softly, a hand on Tony's blanket:
"Time, sometimes the time just slips away
And you're left with yesterday
Left with the memories
I, I'll always think of you and smile
And be happy for the time
I had you with me
Though we go our separate ways
I won't forget so don't forget
The memories we made"
"Please remember, please remember
I was there for you
And you were there for me
Please remember, our time together
The time was yours and mine
And we were wild and free
Please remember, please remember me"
I was singing to Tony... and yet, at the same time, I wasn't just singing to him, or about him. It was also for Howard, and for every other friend and family we'd made and found in the twenty two years since we'd first arrived to the past. Like I'd told Howard, we'd never expected to make friends, family even less. And while it'd hurt, having to say goodbye, losing them one by one... I would never regret having known them, having loved them; and I knew neither would my love.
"Goodbye, there's just no sadder word to say
And it's sad to walk away
With just the memories
Who's to know what might have been
We'll leave behind a life and time
We'll never know again"
"Please remember, please remember
I was there for you
And you were there for me
And remember, please remember me"
There was always the chance we'd meet again. It'd be years yet before Luke and I had to leave the US (we might one day have to leave Midgard as a whole, once the other 'Loki' began traveling around... but not yet). SHIELD still had to be created, and I wanted to stick around to see that, if nothing else. But still, we would no longer be as we'd been since the day Howard took us all in and made us a family. Whatever else might come, after that day I would no longer be Arianna Stark-Serrure... I would no longer be Howard's little half-sister. No, no more... that life was over.
"Please remember, please remember
I was there for you
And you were there for me
Please remember, our time together
The time was yours and mine
And we were wild and free
And remember, please remember me"
"And how we laugh and how we smile
And how this world was yours and mine
And how no dream was out of reach
I stood by you, you stood by me
We took each day and made it shine
We wrote our names across the sky
We ride so fast, we ride so free
And I had you and you had me"
A part of me wondered what we would find when we finally got back to 2016. Would everything be exactly the same? Exactly as we remembered? Or would everything have changed? Perhaps nothing had to change, we just needed to see, see underneath what we'd always seen as real.
"Please remember, Please remember"
It was insane... beyond insane even. The whole point of leaving, of never visiting again, was to make sure Tony would have no memories of me, of us. How could I ask him to remember me when I needed him to forget?
I couldn't handle it anymore then. I fled. The room, the house... I didn't even realize how or why it happened exactly, but suddenly I found myself standing in the middle of an overgrown garden. It took me almost a full minute to realize exactly where I was. Home, my garden... except it was not my home, and it was not my garden. I couldn't help myself, I broke into tears.
So, Nightingale has broken down... that was always going to happen. I hope you understand just how complex things are. This isn't like most time-travels, here it isn't simply a matter of changing the future, it's much more complicated than that. I imagine that by this point you might be able to tell where I'm going with the whole thing, if you can't, don't worry, it'll become evident sooner or later.
Remember that next week we're going back to BOUQUET OF ROSES, and the next phase of Rose's and Willow's life (and, of course, the X-Men). See ya there!