Cal Chandler (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
americas_son) wrote2010-11-21 04:03 pm
americas_son) wrote2010-11-21 04:03 pm
Entry tags:
Sunnydale AU: groundwork
There's a lot to take care of in the couple of days following Obadiah Stane's death. Paper trails have to be laid, arrangements for a body to be cremated made (unsurprisingly, in Sunnydale, finding an anonymous body with Stane's proportions is the easiest part), and a hundred other details need smoothing over. Cal does most of it himself - he's the most familiar with the process, after all, having just done it all for his father. The familiarity of it is exhausting, prods at wounds that haven't even had time to start healing, and he thinks more than once that Stane would love knowing that he managed to get to Cal one last time.
He promised he'd do it, though. Tony and Sherlock have their hands full already, figuring out what to do about Stark Industries. And having to fake a death that already happened, and you're already grieving - it's an insult on top of injury that Cal is glad to spare Tony from as much as he can.
It's also - it's something to do, much in the same way it had been after everything that had happened with Dad. He'd wondered at Sherlock's timing, deciding to finally tell Cal the story of his life when he did, but it's turned out to be kind of a blessing in disguise. He can let it sort of hum in the background in his head, all coming together while he focuses on other things.
(He can't claim Sherlock never told him. He's been dropping hints since day one in Milliways, if you want to get technical, with the way he'd smiled when Cal said, "I think there's another version of me here, but I've never seen him.")
Richard provides Cal with a copy of the paperwork for the visit to the Stark residence that never happened. The diagnosis is something Cal can't pronounce, but apparently it's common in Sunnydale, right up there with anemia for explaining away shit that never gets covered in med school.
(But he couldn't be expected to get anything from that, could he? Come on, what the fuck?
Maybe that was why, the next time they met, Sherlock had trusted him with a little more information. Why he'd so casually explained who had raised him. Maybe he'd figured Cal was too damn stupid to follow up on any of it the way Sherlock himself would, if someone else said it to him.
Well, Cal proved him right on that, didn't he? "Tony was not raised by Jarvis. Tony was raised by Maria Stark." A hundred levels of fucked up in those two sentences, and Cal had ignored every single one of them for as long as he could.)
There are nurses from a company the Chandlers have had occasion to use themselves who will, with the right financial encouragement, swear blind to anyone who might ask that they spent shifts tending to a man they've never laid eyes on.
(He kept right on dropping hints, too. Cal can't even count the number of times Sherlock referred to Tony's parents - never, ever, his own. And Cal is pretty sure that, on the occasions when the word "brother" cropped up, it came from Tony or maybe Jarvis. Even Stane. But not Sherlock.
So Sherlock never directly lied to him.)
He even thinks to check in with Mr Mayer, who has his own obscure reasons to keep secrets. Any security footage that showed Obadiah Stane on Sunnydale High grounds has, it would seem, already disappeared.
Cal has Jarvis doublecheck on that, just to be sure.
(But Cal is the son of a politician, and he knows the subtleties of lying by omission inside and out.
He'd rather have Sherlock lie right to his face. At least there's a certain amount of honesty in that kind of directness.)
Cal talks to Jarvis a lot in those couple of days, giving him messages to pass along and asking him to look into a couple of things that can be better managed with an AI's invisible touch.
(So fine, he's a fucking clone. Like that even means anything, aren't they coming right up on cloning technology being as common as computers anyway? What's the big deal?)
He doesn't talk to Sherlock.
(What's the big fucking deal?)
He promised he'd do it, though. Tony and Sherlock have their hands full already, figuring out what to do about Stark Industries. And having to fake a death that already happened, and you're already grieving - it's an insult on top of injury that Cal is glad to spare Tony from as much as he can.
It's also - it's something to do, much in the same way it had been after everything that had happened with Dad. He'd wondered at Sherlock's timing, deciding to finally tell Cal the story of his life when he did, but it's turned out to be kind of a blessing in disguise. He can let it sort of hum in the background in his head, all coming together while he focuses on other things.
(He can't claim Sherlock never told him. He's been dropping hints since day one in Milliways, if you want to get technical, with the way he'd smiled when Cal said, "I think there's another version of me here, but I've never seen him.")
Richard provides Cal with a copy of the paperwork for the visit to the Stark residence that never happened. The diagnosis is something Cal can't pronounce, but apparently it's common in Sunnydale, right up there with anemia for explaining away shit that never gets covered in med school.
(But he couldn't be expected to get anything from that, could he? Come on, what the fuck?
Maybe that was why, the next time they met, Sherlock had trusted him with a little more information. Why he'd so casually explained who had raised him. Maybe he'd figured Cal was too damn stupid to follow up on any of it the way Sherlock himself would, if someone else said it to him.
Well, Cal proved him right on that, didn't he? "Tony was not raised by Jarvis. Tony was raised by Maria Stark." A hundred levels of fucked up in those two sentences, and Cal had ignored every single one of them for as long as he could.)
There are nurses from a company the Chandlers have had occasion to use themselves who will, with the right financial encouragement, swear blind to anyone who might ask that they spent shifts tending to a man they've never laid eyes on.
(He kept right on dropping hints, too. Cal can't even count the number of times Sherlock referred to Tony's parents - never, ever, his own. And Cal is pretty sure that, on the occasions when the word "brother" cropped up, it came from Tony or maybe Jarvis. Even Stane. But not Sherlock.
So Sherlock never directly lied to him.)
He even thinks to check in with Mr Mayer, who has his own obscure reasons to keep secrets. Any security footage that showed Obadiah Stane on Sunnydale High grounds has, it would seem, already disappeared.
Cal has Jarvis doublecheck on that, just to be sure.
(But Cal is the son of a politician, and he knows the subtleties of lying by omission inside and out.
He'd rather have Sherlock lie right to his face. At least there's a certain amount of honesty in that kind of directness.)
Cal talks to Jarvis a lot in those couple of days, giving him messages to pass along and asking him to look into a couple of things that can be better managed with an AI's invisible touch.
(So fine, he's a fucking clone. Like that even means anything, aren't they coming right up on cloning technology being as common as computers anyway? What's the big deal?)
He doesn't talk to Sherlock.
(What's the big fucking deal?)