Thank you to everybody who read or reviewed the last set of messages. I appreciate all your feedback.

Emails eight: Dear Other Tony


Dear Other Tony:

Calm down, Poppa Bear. Your daughter has arrived safely in our timeline. She crashed the slumber party with her sisters this morning. Pepper promptly brought her to the compound. She is now sleeping after way too many vials of blood were taken. Morgan is taking a nap with her, giving me quality science time. Picture attached.

Afia says it was an accident, but everyone, especially Laura, is skeptical. I know myself at 16 and coming here on purpose, but pretending it was an accident is something I would've done if time travel were a thing back in 1986 outside of the Back to the Future movies. If you remember, we spent most of the summer of 1985 trying to make our own time-traveling DeLorean. The time watch is an interesting variation on that.

The fact that Afia had most of the data on time travel, the watch, and her transformation on her Stark pad and the beads of her bracelet makes me suspicious. Junior also had her backpack filled with what Friday identifies as nanotech bracelets, making me even more suspect, mainly because Afia doesn't want to discuss them. All I know is that it was something she was planning to give Peter, and it was related to your plan to deal with the purple one.

I gather the grand plan is no longer sending all the stones here, so he doesn't get to them. Are you planning to use the stones to take him out as they did in the timeline that killed us? Don't answer that question. I don't want to know if my other self is suicidal. Although I'm well aware of our martyrdom complex, it's definitely something we would do.

I do want to know more about Wakandan technology. One of those beads had enough space for several terabytes of data, and the updated Stark pad was similar. I couldn't even read the beads without using her Stark pad as an interface.

I'm going through that info as soon as I finish this letter. I know better than to let you linger. Otherwise, you'll be here to get your precious baby back when you should be working on your secret plan. Please try to stay alive for the kid. She needs you more than ever right now.

Earlier in this letter, I mentioned that Afia is crashing after giving a lot of blood. Thanks to whatever Wanda did, Junior now has blood and a heartbeat. Although no homicidal urges. May says that's a good thing because the last Android she dealt with, who wanted to become a real girl, went on a homicidal rampage when Monkey Lover rejected her.

We're running tests right now, including a DNA test. That was May's idea because she is suspicious after the entire Adia fiasco, which is understandable since that incident is why she lost her boo bear.

I personally don't need a DNA test to know that she is my child because Laura had to practically drag her to medical after resorting to emotional blackmail despite the fact she suddenly had a pulse. Even I would agree that suddenly having a heartbeat requires a visit to medical at a minimum. You will probably be getting a letter from Laura arguing against grounding. It was part of the deal to get Junior to go to medical.

The aversion to hospitals is a genetic trait, and Afia has it. Morgan likes to punch when you take her to get a shot. It's never a good experience for anybody.

Since our child risked grounding for life to bring us the information from the other timeline, we're going through it. I'm doing this to get your kid back to you as soon as it's safe, hopefully before she completely corrupts Morgan. It's already too late with Steve's kids. I hope I'm not dealing with accidental time travel when Morgan is 16.

I was just about to press the send button on this message when Friday told me to first look at some of the time travel GPS data. Your main goal wasn't just getting the ring pops to our timeline but being able to go back in time in your own timeline. I'm assuming you're trying to get the ring pops from earlier so you can do what our counterpart did the first time without us dying. Seriously, don't die.

Also, according to Friday, the nanotech bracelets in Afia's backpacks are actually Vibraniumgauntlets. Three guesses on what they're designed to grab. Laura thinks Junior doesn't want to tell me about them because she's afraid that I'll follow in the footsteps of other us.

You focus on that project. Let me worry about getting your kid back. Also, I understand if you want to keep her here until you're done. Laura said you were planning to send all the kids here anyway.

PS: Afia has decided I am Uncle Antonio, probably because it's easier for her to view us as siblings. However, you are well aware of our college science fiction porn reading habits to know where I stand on the issue, mainly because I'm still in the holding hands while watching movies phase with my Steve. Which is still better than whatever happened the first time. I'm having a very long conversation with Grant Roth when we bring him back from the decimation.

PSS: I'm still mad I lost half of my comic collection during the great Malibu incident. I'm so glad the Tijuana Bibles were stored elsewhere. Did you ever show Steve the ones he drew?

Xxx

"Friday, is there anything else I need to know before sending this letter to my other self?" Tony asked, looking up from his Stark pad. He'd already tried to send this letter twice before, but Friday kept stopping him. It was for the best that he did look over what they were actually doing in the other timeline. If the team was trying to go back to get the missing stones, then it seems even more like this was a purposeful accident.

"There is nothing else that needs to be included in the letter. I will forward it when a window is available as soon as possible," his AI responded.

"See if you can find a window sooner rather than later. I'm sure Tony is probably going to be really impatient." Laura said from across the lab. She was currently looking through the data from the other timeline.

"I really would be. How long should we let Junior sleep?" Tony asked.

"At least another hour. Unfortunately, we probably need to talk to Junior before our conference call with the other timeline. Friday, when will we be having our large group text message session?"

"It's most likely 6:03 PM today, but that could change. The time windows are shifting," Friday answered. "That window may also be too short. Tomorrow looks more probable. We are trying to find a window of at least 10 minutes."

"That's later than I expected. At least we can let Afia sleep until Morgan wakes her up."

"So, about another hour?"

"If we're lucky."

To be continued…