AU-squared: someday it will have a name

[americas_son]

Cal could study for the sociology test coming up on Monday. It's not like his grade in that class is so stellar that he can afford to bomb it.

But he could also play sounding board for Sherlock's latest "only in Sunnydale" case.

Guess which one he picked?

Comments

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

Cal looks relieved. It would be nice if Tony knew, too, but at least someone does.

"No," he says. "But I am from a different world. I know both of you there."

He's only met Miss Potts a handful of times, since she's busy on the East Coast with Stark Industries, but it still counts.

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

"Pepper, make this make sense."

[chandler-npc.livejournal.com]

"Milliways is real, sir," Pepper says matter-of-factly, her eyes still on the boy. "Adams probably borrowed the idea from having visited himself. It's a nexus between worlds that appears to some people when they open doors at home."

Pepper has been visiting for years. How else could she get all her paperwork done on the days when Tony has been particularly - time-consuming?

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

He takes a beat to digest this.

"...Okay, and now it makes sense. Back to the part about college kids in my basement."

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

Well, that was easy. Thank god.

"I don't know what happened," Cal admits. "But nothing here is the same, so. It must be a different world."

Where Tony and Miss Potts are older (maybe it's a different year, too?) (but there's still something not quite right about that) and don't know him - oh. Right.

"My name's Cal Chandler," he adds.

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

Wait wait, no.

"Pepper, why didn't you tell me you had concrete evidence of alternate universes?"

[chandler-npc.livejournal.com]

Because she knew that if he didn't get a door of his own, she'd never hear the end of it.

"It never seemed to come up," she says.

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

"Okay, well, next time you radically redefine the laws of physics, tell me about it."

Back to Cal!

"And you, if Douglas Adams didn't put you here, what did?"

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

"I don't -" Cal is frowning, thinking carefully.

"Jarvis triggered an alarm." He'd only heard it for a second or two, but he'd definitely heard it. "Our Jarvis, I mean. Something went wrong."

. . . come to think of it, when the last time he even saw his Tony for more than about three seconds at a time? He's been really absorbed in something or other.

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

"Your Jarvis? Does alternate me have a college-age boyfriend?"

Because the only person in this universe who might conceivably call Jarvis an 'our' is Pepper, and Cal is not a Pepper. But he is sort of pretty. Tony isn't sure what he thinks of that.

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

"- What? No. I, uh, hang out there a lot."

This doesn't really seem like the time to get into the fact Sherlock and Tony are more his family than his actual family is.

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

Lightbulb!

"Alternate me is your age?"

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

"Oh!"

Duh.

"Yeah. A year younger, actually. Twenty. We graduated high school together, he skipped a year."

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

"Of course he skipped a year, he's me. Okay. For a minute there I was thinking some weird early-midlife-crisis shit."

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

Cal laughs a little, taken aback.

"Yeah, no. I don't really go for guys almost twice my age, sorry."

It's a thing.

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

Cheerfully: "No, good. That's a good thing."

...What are they even talking about, again?

[chandler-npc.livejournal.com]

"So your world's Tony Stark was working on something that went wrong."

Pepper is used to gracefully stepping in to get Tony's conversations back on track.

"Jarvis, is there any way we can verify that?" As opposed to, say, the possibility that their visitor is lying through his teeth?

[poeticterms]

"No known means of transportation corresponds with the young man's arrival and he does not appear to legally exist in any country. Interdimensional travel is a likely explanation."

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

- huh. Cal has noticed, in Milliways, that the Chandlers don't seem to exist in a lot of worlds. He's pretty much used to it.

It's still kind of weird to hear Jarvis say it out loud like that, though.

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

"See?"

Suddenly college kids in his basement is the awesomest thing.

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that look on Tony's face is pretty familiar.

- but why would something Tony was working on send him to another world? That's really random.

[chandler-npc.livejournal.com]

"He was working on interdimensional travel?"

That sounds like Tony.

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

"I don't know."

That would be less random, but why would he have to do it that way when there are already ways to -



Oh.

[inhandcuffs.livejournal.com]

"Why wouldn't he be working on interdimensional travel?"

Sometimes Tony is a little slow on the uptake.

[americas-son.livejournal.com]

"We have magic that can do that," Cal blurts out, because he really doesn't want to follow that thought to its natural conclusion.

(He'd really thought Tony had come to terms with what happened.)