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spectraspecs-writes · 6 years

Text

Original writing incoming!

Hey, @luzillaaddicted and @averruncushd - I love that you’re so eager for this, this feels so good to be validated. So here is a chapter of backstory I wrote for my villains in my time traveller book series. Then I’ll post some background stories I wrote with them.

Also I tried to add all the trigger warnings I could think of - if someone thinks of any others I should add, just hit me up.

Kodali is a homosexual aromantic alien called a Theta Reysian. I’d tell you more but this backstory actually gives you a great picture of him.

Gideon Starkhill is a pansexual aromantic, also a Theta Reysian. You get a good picture of him, too.

Thomas Crane is... actually just a manipulative douchebag, which is not a term I use lightly. And he is a Bellatrix, the race that possesses time travel. Allen Carpenter is the hero of the time travel story.

Chapter 3.3.1 - Roots

Kodali It was no surprise to the State that Kodali found it so easy to not feel. Their genetic engineering techniques had improved in the last 200 years, since “the incident.” In that case, perhaps there was an anomaly within the brain, an issue with the amygdala, or maybe it was a flaw in the technique. They honestly didn’t know. But the techniques had improved since then. They still could not remove emotions altogether, and in fact they did not want to. The effects would be too great on that being’s psyche. But while they could not remove emotions, they had gotten as close as possible, through suppressing them. Kodali still felt fear, sadness, anger, rage, and hatred, but they were tempered with a cool rationale. He did not hate blindly, but could channel his hatred to make himself a better fighter. When he was afraid, as of course all soldiers become, he allowed his instincts to protect him when he so chose, and ignored them when he chose. Every emotion was backed by logic.

It was no surprise to Kodali, either, that he was so good at not feeling. It wasn’t just their techniques that gave him this ability. That only made it easier. For as far back as he could remember, Kodali had been an orphan. Nobody loved him. Did people care for him? Yes, he knew that; of course they did. But care did not mean love. He knew that, too. Care meant responsibility. Care meant that someone felt an obligation to make sure you stayed out of trouble and didn’t die. Love was about your reasons for care. Love was about why you felt responsible. He was a ward of the state. They felt responsible for him because it was their job. That wasn’t love. They didn’t want to care for him, necessarily; they just had to. Kodali had felt genuinely happy when the genetics board asked for him because it meant that someone genuinely wanted him.

But then came the endless poking and prodding, the countless procedures, the nonstop questions. All he wanted was to make them happy. All he ever wanted was to make them happy, to make them love him. But they didn’t.

He certainly made plenty of people happy. His test scores in every subject were off the charts - cognitive reasoning, visual acuity, hearing, tactile processing, eyesight, image processing, mathematical reasoning, language skills, fitness tests, you name it. But none of it was ever enough for them. There was always one more test, one more procedure. From the evening-out of his toes to changing the color of his eyes to switching his dominant hand to the heightening of his senses. They made him almost perfect.

He didn’t feel perfect. After all, if he was so perfect, why did they keep changing him? Why did he feel this emptiness inside? Why did no one want him? Those people who were bought - they must have been perfect. Someone wanted them.

What is the meaning of life, anyway? What’s the point of it if no one wants you? Was there something he hadn’t done yet? What was it? He would do it, of course. Would someone want him then? That had to be it. It wasn’t that no one wanted him - it was that he wasn’t good enough yet. So he just had to get better.

Admittedly that was quite a task he had set for himself. If his scores were already the highest, getting them to go even higher would likely prove impossible. For anyone else, that is. But Kodali nevertheless did his absolute best, pushed himself to his limits trying to be the best he could possibly be. And he succeeded. His already high aptitude test scores went even higher. He wasn’t just good. He was beyond good. He wasn’t just excellent. He was beyond excellent. He was the utmost best.

When he caught the eye of the state militia, he thought that everything was finally going his way. Someone wanted him. He was finally enough. Maybe it wasn’t love, as such, but it was a family. Someone who would be there for him, no matter what.

And then… and then they put that thing on his arm.

No, not on his arm. In his arm.

He’d never been trusted with a weapon before, never even seen one. After “the incident,” they’d kept all weapons out of the facility, including the non-lethal pellet guns the guards used to use. It was just too risky. This was his first weapon - a plasma-charged blade that would cascade out of his left arm with a single thought, an impulse. It was tied to instinct. If something triggered his fight-or-flight response, if his adrenaline levels went up from his normal level, if he was startled, or if he sent the impulse for it to activated, the blade would charge with plasma and come out of his arm. It was a bit awkward at first. He’d sneeze unexpectedly and the blade would come out. And he wasn’t quite sure how to use it. Was he supposed to slice with it? Was it like a sword, except the sword was his arm? The last thing he wanted to do was use it wrong, but they didn’t exactly tell him how to use it. They told him to experiment with it.

Oh, the training dummies he went through. He tried stabbing through them at first, going for maximum damage. Cotton batting fell out everywhere. But he found that too awkward to do all the time. What if he needed his hand back right away? There would be blood everywhere and it would get too messy. He didn’t like messy. When things got messy people got upset with him, they liked him less. So he tried slicing with it. He’d memorized the locations of major arteries for at least a dozen species and could cause a lot of damage that way. Plus, it was faster than going straight through…

Wait…

Wait a minute…

Why was all this so natural to him? Here he was, casually thinking about the most efficient way to kill someone with this weapon in his arm. What about helping people? A knife of any kind is, after all, a tool. What could he do with it besides hurt people?

… Nothing came to mind.

He knew other uses existed, but for some reason he couldn’t think of any.

When his formal training began, Kodali was told that it was really for the best that he abandon the notion of helping anyone at all. Sentimentality and attachment were better off left alone, better off avoided. So even though he didn’t want to, he would do his best to not get attached to anyone at all. Anyone. No one.

What was the point?

The question he’d asked himself when he was younger seemed to be even more pressing in his mind. Then, he’d asked what was the point if no one wanted you. Now he asked himself - What was the point if he couldn’t feel anything? What was the point of having enemies if one had no friends? How would one know they were their enemies? What would one fight for if they felt nothing for any cause? How could one be effective at anything without feeling?

No matter how much he trained, how much he learned, he kept asking himself these same questions. What. Was. The point?

Then, one day, they put Kodali in a different training group. Most of the Reysians in this new group, he had never met before. And that day, out of nowhere, there was a man. Watching him. Watching him train. Watching him fight. Watching him run. Not any type of Reysian, that was certain. His stance was different than any Kodali had ever seen before, and the way he carried himself was with confidence and pride. The Theta Reysians had not felt that type of pride in centuries, living in the shadow of the Gamma Reysians. And the Gamma Reysians had not had any use for the Theta Reysians in years. The man watched all the trainings, but when he was watching Kodali, he smiled. And at the end of his maneuver, he clapped. Kodali was very suspicious of him, but he didn’t say anything to the man, or to anyone else. This was an investigation that, should he need to, he would have to conduct on his own.

He was returned to his room after maneuvers, a peculiarity. Usually he and the other trainees were fed after rigorous training. But of course that was his old group. Were things done differently with this new group? Or did it all have to do with that man? Who was he? What was going on? Kodali had been trained to react to uncertainty with caution. To, when the situation turned abnormal, prepare for attack. His blade pulsed patiently in his arm, still sheathed but only for now. Ready to be withdrawn. The plasma vent in his forearm pulsing blue. Then the door to his room was opened. It was the man who had watched him.

“Good afternoon, Kodali,” the man said nicely, “My name is Thomas Crane.” He held out his hand for Kodali to shake. Kodali did not shake it. Crane chuckled uncomfortably, retracting his hand and scratching his eyebrow. “I’m sorry, I’m a little uncomfortable. I’m used to calling people by their surnames. As I understand, you don’t have one. No family, no family name.”

Kodali stood cautious of this man, not saying anything. So Crane continued on his own. “This is my first time doing it like this. Through all of time and space, I’ve never seen, never found, anyone quite like you.” Still uncertain, Kodali cocked his eyebrow, surveying the room carefully. Was this going to lead to an attack? He would be ready if it did. “I have need for a second-in-command, someone who understands what needs to be done, who can follow orders without question. I also need someone who’s very skilled in hand-to-hand combat, with high dexterity. Someone I can trust, someone with an eye for the little details that I can’t focus on all the time.” Kodali stopped surveying the room. “Need” - that was like “want”, he knew that. Was this stranger proposing what he thought he was? “I was here today to look at all the potential candidates. I saw them all. I want you.”

Want. Someone wanted him. Kodali was speechless with joy that he could not express. Uncertainly, Crane said, “You’re being very quiet. I’ve looked at your psychological profile. It said that you felt a desire to be wanted, for family.” Crane scratched his nose. “I’m purchasing you. You’re going to leave this place with me. Do you understand me?”

Kodali reached around Crane, hugging him. The gesture felt odd, childlike. But he was happy. This man could be his family. He was his commander. His Master.

Gideon Starkhill There was something wrong.

That’s what everyone said.

There was something wrong with him.

If you went to the Theta Reysian outposts, ask anyone and they’d tell you, “Oh, yeah, there was something wrong with that Starkhill boy.”

They called it “the incident.” They never ever said his name again. It was taboo.

There was something wrong with him.

Maybe it was a preexisting neurological condition. Maybe his parents had sold him to the wrong dealer before he ended up with the newly organized genetics board. Maybe it had been a part of his reengineering, quite intentional. Maybe it was a mistake in the reengineering. Whatever the case, Gideon Starkhill was perpetually angry, and the most vicious reengineered subject ever produced by the Theta Reysians.

He was certainly difficult to resell. The Theta Reysian government had considered terminating him even before “the incident” — he was a drain on their already stretched-thin resources. After all, they weren’t much of a government. They, combined with a private business interest, had spent eighteen years and thousands of credits on his reengineering. It included not only reworking of his neurobiology and genetics, but also social conditioning. And whenever he did something wrong, something they didn’t like, or they were going to start a procedure of whatever sort, they would tell him the same lie: “It won’t hurt. Don’t be scared. This is good for you.” It always hurt. Every time. No matter how much anesthetic they gave him, he could still feel it and it still hurt. Of course he was scared - they were changing his brain with big, scary-looking machines, they would strap him in, hold him down, come at him with masks covering their faces looking like the monsters from his nightmares. And it didn’t feel good for him. It felt like they were changing him, doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.

Gideon hated being alone, and was tired of it. When he came to the facility at age 4, no one left him alone, ever, but from age 6 to age 20, they would put him in a room for hours, alone, and tell him to wait. There were no windows, no chairs or tables. Just a metal bed, and a hard, thin mattress through which he could feel the frame. He’d tried doing all he could to occupy himself, occupy his mind. He counted the tiles in the ceiling, until one day they took the tiles away, leaving a textureless surface as the ceiling. He’d tell himself stories, until one day he was unable to. He’d play back his memories, until one day they held no joy for him. He tried sleeping, but they never turned the lights off. They buzzed, quiet at first but soon it was all he could hear. He tried talking aloud to himself but all the talking could not drown out the noise. It made him feel worse. And when it was quiet, completely quiet, he would feel even worse, like something was gnawing at him from the inside. He hated quiet, even more than he hated the buzzing. The silence made him feel paralyzed, deaf, dumb, and blind, feeling like he couldn’t breathe, trapped inside himself, looking out at the world around him and screaming a silent scream of insanity. It was in the quiet and alone that the thoughts he didn’t dare tell anyone about would turn to himself.

Sometimes they would turn the lights out, just to see what he did. He hated them for that. Hated that woman, that sadistic woman who always had her fingers on the buttons that were used to manipulate him. His secret thoughts turned to her many times. And he knew she was watching him out of the dark and silence and alone, watching him sit straight as the walls, tense, like a puppet being held by taut strings. Watched him with his teeth clenched, at first trying to listen to the sound in his own breathing but that would never help that would make everything worse. Watched him close his eyes and shudder in terror? Some sort of seizure? They were never sure. Gideon was never certain of it either. Watched him as he started to cry, silently. That was when Gideon felt the most hatred for all of them. More than once, they watched as Gideon fainted, from the tension, from the dehydration because his mouth and throat would dry up almost instantaneously even though there was water in the room but he couldn’t get to it because he couldn’t move, from exhaustion. Watching him. Studying him. The sadistic bastards.

But then they would turn the lights back on and there was that damn buzzing!

So he exercised. When the sound was back he could move again, and so move he did. He did pushups, jumping jacks, sit-ups, stretches, calisthenics, and anything else he could think of to distract himself from the noise and sometimes his own thoughts, the thoughts he didn’t dare tell. If he didn’t get those thoughts out of his head, they would do it again. “It won’t hurt. Don’t be scared. This is good for you.” But even if he didn’t tell anyone, they would find out. They always found out somehow. And he made up imaginary friends who would talk to him to try to make himself less lonely.

Until one day they went away.

It was the same day he stopped smiling, too. Stopped smiling due to happiness, anyway. It all became work then, hard work, work he loved doing because it distracted him from his thoughts and from the quiet, but work he hated doing at the same time. He could retain the paradox in his head, but only by not thinking about it, which made more thoughts he had to distract himself from.

People liked to talk about him behind his back. He could hear them whisper, especially after they’d improved his hearing — they were studying him, staring at him, laughing at him. He was twenty-one when “the incident” occurred, when someone decided to talk about him like he wasn’t a person, like he was… not. He was eating his lunch, alone, when a group of people came in with a man. They were talking. The man was showing the group how the processes of bio-reengineering improved people. “This is one of our specimens,” he said to them, gesturing to Gideon, “It came to us as a pitiful, malnourished child, and due to our program it’s a fit and healthy member of society.” (A bold-faced lie; Gideon had never been allowed outside of the facility. He wasn’t a part of society. He knew nothing about society.) The man wrapped his hand around Gideon’s arm, showing the people how strong he was. It fired a spark in his brain. A panic. He was being attacked. This man was attacking him.

Before he realized what he was doing, Gideon’s arm was wrapped around the man’s neck. He had a dull plastic knife in his hand and pushed the serrated edge as hard as he could into the man’s face, drawing blood from his cheek. The warm, coppery, metallic smell of his blood entered his nose. (Did he like that? What was he feeling?) People screamed as Gideon choked the man to death. He bared his teeth at the man and growled softly at him, the beast of the primal past emerging strong from his heart and mind. He continued to strangle the man even after he was dead, and then it got worse.

Armed men came in and pointed guns at him. Gideon grabbed one of the guns by the barrel and punched the man who held it in the face, breaking not only his nose but also, thanks to his genetically heightened muscle force, his skull, killing him. It took 10 men to finally restrain him, and suddenly he realized what he’d done. “I’m sorry!” he cried.

But it genuinely surprised him, because he knew what he’d done. He was fully aware of it. And he wasn’t sorry.

The case against him was open and shut, and Starkhill offered no words in his own defense. He had no words, not for the courts nor for himself. He was sentenced to execution for his two murders, with his execution scheduled, incidentally, for his twenty-second birthday. How fitting for him. For Reysians in his position, in the facility, you received your billing on your twenty-second birthday, if not before. When you received your position, be it the state or independent militia, the concubines, labor district, whatever - if you hadn’t yet been sold, you were sent to your permanent position. If you were bought after that, you would still be doing that job, no other. Twenty-two was when a Reysian officially became an adult, and when the facility got rid of you. So death was his billing now. He was locked away, alone, with only a buzzing light to fill the space with sound, until that day. And it was during this time of solitary waiting that he began to understand himself. Not only did he not regret killing that man, but he liked it. He hadn’t taken joy from anything in years, but felt its unfamiliar rush when he crushed the life from that man’s body. Not only that, but, hell, it was the only thing he’d been good at. The doctors and specialists in the facility had been testing him since the dealer his parents sold him to sold him to them for food and medicine. They tested his initial skills, and then tested for increases as they engineered and reengineered him. He hadn’t gotten all that better at anything, no more than anyone else his age who was normal would have. They hadn’t tested how well he killed. They tested how well he responded to orders - probably they intended for his increase in muscle force to make him an excellent laborer - and it wasn’t that he couldn’t follow orders, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to stack the blocks so that all the blues were together and all the reds were together and so that the blue tower was higher than the red tower. He didn’t want to measure the water so that he got exactly 12 centiliters every time. He wanted to do something that interested him. That certainly didn’t.

He also realized that he hated everyone. Not just anyone who attacked him, or anyone who told him to do anything, but everyone. But he also didn’t want to be alone. Within the adult and past the face of an unconcerned man was the sad and lonely child who still missed his mommy, who wanted to go home, who wanted friends. But who was fitting if he hated everyone? Especially when he wanted and loved to kill people. When he wanted to feel the warm flesh within his hands and squeeze the blood from his victim and feel the flesh turn cold, watch the life leave their eyes and their bodies. Who was safe from him? Who was enough?

The answer to this was unfortunately very clear: No one. No one was suitable to be his friend. They were all his enemies. And since they were all his enemies, he wanted to kill them all. And as much as he knew that it was just and right for him to want to kill people, he also knew deep in his heart that it was not, that it was wrong! Killing people is wrong. He’d been told that forever. Because this was not the first time he’d felt this. These were his secret thoughts that he didn’t dare tell anyone. When he was alone in that room, in the buzzing and in the silence both, he would imagine people he’d seen. He would imagine killing them. They had done nothing to him, but he wanted to kill them. And as part of his testing when he was littler, they would ask him questions. “How would you deal with someone who was mean to you?” he’d been asked by one of the doctors, for the first time when he was eight. Gideon had said quite honestly, “I’d be mean back, and I’d kill them.”

“No,” they’d said, and they smacked him and wrote something on their clipboards, “Killing people is wrong.” And Gideon sighed anxiously and wrung his hands nervously, because this had happened before. He would say something they didn’t like and they would dig in his brain. It wouldn’t hurt, they’d say. Don’t be scared, they’d say. This is good for you, they’d say. But it hurt. And it was scary. And it didn’t feel good for him. They’d strap him down. And no matter how many sedatives they put into him, no matter how deep a sleep he was in, he could still feel it. He still cried. He still had the same dream. A man with a pale face, his own face, glaring out of the nothingness, saying, “Never, damn it. I’m coming. This is me.” And it was scary, too. Who was he? When was he coming? What was he? What did he mean? So Gideon learned after countless times of reengineering and countless appearances of the dream, of the man’s words, he would swallow their truth. Yes, of course killing is bad. He didn’t have to believe it, so long as they believed him and never hurt him again, so long as he never had to have that dream again. But he still did sometimes, but this time the man was smiling, not scary, feeling familiar and safe, a part of himself. Of course, killing people is wrong. That’s what they said.

Was killing wrong? How could it be when it was the only thing that felt right? If it was wrong, maybe he was wrong, too. How much real person was left in him, after everything but his name had been changed? Maybe it was for the best that he died. Then maybe the wrong would be gone, and at least in death he’d be a real person.

When the men came and removed him from his cell, he went willingly, resisting the urge to strangle the both of them. Because he hated them. He hated everyone. He hated himself. Everything was wrong.

But they didn’t take him to his death. They took him to a room with a man. A quick survey told Gideon that he would be easy to kill. His fancy suit showed that he was pampered and spoiled. His relaxed posture meant that he was not used to attacks. There were no callouses on his hands, he wasn’t used to hard work. But, no, don’t kill him. Don’t kill people. You’re going to die soon, don’t kill anyone. The man was suddenly shaking his hand. Don’t kill him, don’t kill him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Starkhill, my name is Thomas Crane. I have purchased you and your services,” he said as the other men left.

“You… you know I killed a man, right?” Gideon asked, confused.

“With your bare hands, yes, I know,” Crane said, “Two of them. That’s why I want you. Someone with your skills is very difficult to find. I’m glad I found you before your execution.”

“I- I don’t understand,” Gideon stammered, “You- you want me because I killed someone?”

“Precisely. I find myself in need of someone with no qualms about killing. You seem to be the man for the job,” Crane said.

“No, but… I apologized.”

Crane chuckled. “Mr. Starkhill, I did my research on you before I came here. This was not your first incident, or the first time you expressed an interest in killing a man. We both know any apology you gave was not meant,” he said confidently.

Gideon was silent. “I have another one of your kind already in my employ. He was engineered to be the perfect soldier. He’s a fine leader for my command squadrons. Unfortunately, however, he simply does not have it in him to kill another. Every time he’s failed me in that respect. This is where you would come in. You like killing, don’t you?” Crane asked. Gideon was hesitant to answer, but he nodded, almost looking ashamed of himself, like he felt he was supposed to be. “I understand. I would like to put your skills and services to use. You’ll be given the opportunity to kill people regularly, but it must be on my command. There are some that I simply can’t have you kill. They’re too valuable.”

Gideon held in a smile, suspicious of this man. It all seemed too good to be true. “Should you agree to this, you will be cleared of all charges and you will come with me and receive comprehensive weapons training, as well as payment in addition to a suitable place to live on a planet far from here. But if not, there are two men outside who would be more than happy to escort you to your death. It’s entirely up to you. But please decide now. Time is short and things are starting to come together.”

But killing is wrong, Gideon thought. This man actually wants me to kill people?

Maybe killing isn’t wrong. After all, he’s going to pay me to do it.

But I’m wrong, because I want to kill, and killing is wrong, right? So I should die.

Killing isn’t wrong if he’s going to pay you. Putting money into making sure you’re good at it.

I don’t want to die.

“Okay,” Gideon said resolutely.

Gideon Starkhill arrived in Chicago, Illinois, on January 2nd, 2018.

That was also the last day anyone saw a waitress named Tammy St. Martin alive.

Thomas Crane The Bellatrix High Council refused to even speak of him again. They passed a motion, the likes of which had only been passed six other times, most recently with respect to Alex Tobias Carpenter. This was final, and backed by all sects of the Bellatrix High Council, something which had never happened before. Most often the Kaellatrix objected. The artists tended to have a different perspective on matters than the legal-minded Trillatrix or the science-minded Bellatrix. But in this case even they could not condone the actions of this man. Even they could not forgive him. Even they could not stomach his rationale. The motion was unanimously passed, and Thomas Ishmael Crane was exiled.

When the Bellatrix exile someone, they send them to a period of galactic history where they will not be able to return or do harm to that planet's history or people. When they'd sent Alex Carpenter to Earth in the early 1930s, for example, they had intended for him to die from the polio outbreak. Those human diseases can be quite dangerous, you know. But he got smart, quickly discovering his immunity and fleeing to the West Coast. As for Thomas Crane, they sent him to Germany in the late 1870s, in the German Empire. Perhaps he’d be executed for his homosexuality. Perhaps he’d survive until the first World War and perish as a result of that, or maybe afterwards as a result of the following economic problems. And if he survived all of that, then he’d most definitely be taken care of in the Holocaust. But the unpredictable happened - He found his way to America. Perhaps he’d snuck over on a boat. Maybe he’d crossed the border into France and found another way out of Europe. Whatever the case, he found a way out of Germany.

Back on Bellatrix, he’d been a scientist. He’d been assigned to work on Project Infinity, a top-secret initiative to unlock the secret to immortality. He was one of the brightest and the best, even earning a large number of grants and awards for his work. At one point he was the leading scientist on the project.

One day he went into the office of the research supervisor. “I’ve got an idea,” he said, “I think it might be a breakthrough in the project. It ought to solve the whole thing.” The research supervisor was more than happy to grant the funding, without even hearing the idea. It was Thomas Crane, after all, the genius. Whatever his plan, it would be great. Why would he need to hear it?

He regretted that soon after.

A team of visitors had come to observe his work on the project. Having been approved, Crane had no qualms about showing them his work.

Lying beside his work table was an Earth squirrel hanging on to life by its teeth, and Theta Reysian in just as pitiful shape, with diodes attached to his head. “I needed a bipedal, sub-Bellatrix test subject,” he said, justifying it. But the Theta Reysian, who’d been blinded by the procedure, looked at them, pleading with his eyes. And then he died, his look of agony forever frozen on his face and in their minds.

An investigation into Crane and his work was carried out immediately. His lab was closed. His notes were seized. His license was revoked, at first only temporarily. But upon review of his notes, it was discovered that he had been studying the Alpha-7 gene, which he’d discovered was necessary for life. His theory was to extract Alpha-7, to synthesize it as a drug to make whoever took it immortal. It was a plan that would require the mass genocide of countless species to mass produce, and require massive amounts of testing on Bellatrix and other anthropoid species to perfect, killing hundreds, if not thousands, in the process. When asked about this, Crane expressed no problems with it. If he achieved his goal, well, that was enough. What was the significance of a few sub-Bellatrix species in the grand scheme of things compared with the prospect of being immortal? In his mind, the ends more than justified the means.

The case was then made for his exile, and to classify his research. Not a single vote was cast in opposition, a landslide majority of thirty to none. With nothing but period clothing on his back, Crane was banished to 1870s Germany.

They kept an eye on him, mostly checking whether or not he’d died yet. But when they found him in America, it became harder and harder to keep track of him. And after a while, they lost track of him altogether.

Crane, meanwhile, tried to continue his research, all of it. His Alpha-7 work was put on hold due to lack of appropriate data and equipment, but that did nothing to stop his development of some type of time travel device. He had the formulas memorized. He had the capability of generating the power, but only once. So he formulated a plan that would force the Bellatrix to send a device to him. If he stirred up history enough, they would come to investigate the anomaly.

But could he kill two birds with one stone? Was there a way for him to get some of the biological information he needed as well as a time machine? With a smile on his face, he knew that he could, and he input the coordinates on his time travel device for the 27th of December, 1831, Devonport, England. He could certainly afford to spend a few years on the HMS Beagle waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack Charles Darwin.

It was a simple enough strategy. The pampered biologist had no idea he was being stalked and hunted like the animals he studied, killed, and ate, had no idea that Crane was developing a poison that could kill him, and the antidote that he might or might not use. It wasn’t until about two years into the voyage that Crane was perfectly poised to attack Darwin. He put the poison into his evening tea, and in no time the scientist was collapsed face down on his desk. Crane and whoever the Bellatrix High Council, and, by extension, the Councilum Temporis Motus, decided to send had about an hour before the poison stopped Darwin’s heart. Crane wasn’t concerned though. If the Bellatrix didn’t come, so “The Origin of the Species” didn’t get published in its entirety. Darwin wasn’t the only person working on this. It had been discovered by a geologist, for crying out loud. And so maybe they cast someone else in the role of Edmund Pevensie in the “Narnia” movies. So maybe the world would lose a poet and a screenwriter and an artist. So what? But the Bellatrix would detect the anomaly, he had no doubt. They would investigate. They’d find Crane there, but before they would arrest him, he would take them out, too, revive Darwin, and he’d be on his way.

Sure enough, an agent of the Time Council was around with a half hour left until Darwin died, and Crane dispatched of him with all haste. He gave Darwin the antidote and left in his new Chrono-traverser.

Even though he was a scientist, Crane had always had a knack for business. And it appeared to him that the only way to get forward in America, or Earth as a whole, was to know and understand business. So Crane plunged himself headfirst into the world of business and capitalism. He invested a heavy sum of money in a bank in the eighteenth century, so that no matter what era he chose to live in, he would be able to live comfortably. And he liked to live comfortably. Fine fabrics. Exquisite furniture. Elaborately designed houses. Oh, yes, he liked these things. And Crane was a very rich man. Rich enough, even, to, after a time, begin development of his immortality theories once again. And America wouldn’t banish him the way the Bellatrix had. America was built on commerce. America was built upon the backbone of cruelty. America was made for people like him. And even better, none of those primitive apes were smart enough to understand what he was doing. None of them were powerful enough to stop him. The Bellatrix wouldn’t, couldn’t. They couldn’t find him.

The only one who could was Allen.

But Crane had a plan for that.

And it was going beautifully.

#tw abuse #tw emotional abuse #tw emotional trauma #original writing #i wrote this #chronos book series #the man that time forgot #evolution #an irreparable schism #bellatrix #howdy doo #specs speaks

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maniibear · 7 years

Text

AA!SteveTony - the one where the married dorks get on to becoming married dorks. Continued from this fic. For @ishipallthings <33

Word Count: ~1500 Warnings: None, only fluff

Steve opened his eyes with a start in the room he claimed as his in the SHIELD facility that the Avengers were temporarily calling home. The room was little more than a barracks; it should have been familiar, but nothing had felt familiar in a while.

Brows drawn in concentration, Steve focused on where he knew the speakers were located.

“Tony?” he rasped up at the ceiling, staring blindly into the dark. When there was no answer, he murmured wryly, “I’m losing sleep because of you.”

The silence which followed that confession made him shiver. Steve threw the thin blankets off and glanced at the clock, which solemnly informed him it was 3:07AM. He sighed. He’d gotten into bed at 3, but it was unlikely that he would stay in it this night, either. Restlessness was a usual side effect of a body made for battle living in relative peace, but Steve had never lacked for activities to exhaust him. Of course, that was before this haunting quiet.

For a while, it all seemed very optimistic. Sam was able to intercept Tony’s interdimensional frequency and it was as if the genius had never left. The illusion lasted as long as they were in this facility. Outside, Steve found himself distracted by the least of things. Tony’s name accidentally spilled from his lips all the time, pauses stretched in his conversations, reserving space for comments that would never come. And he still hadn’t figured out how not to panic when Iron Man didn’t answer on the comms.

But that was part of loving Tony Stark. Steve saw the sacrifice play coming from a mile away; he watched as it snatched Tony away a place he could not follow and it took every ounce of faith he had not to pit his shield where Thor and Hulk’s strength failed. Tony didn’t need rescuing; there was a path back home that weaved through the infinite multiverse, and he was sublime enough to take it.

So Steve had sent him off with the only memento he could slip between dimensions. “You’re the best friend I ever had.” You’re too important not to return.

The memory of Tony’s red metal fingertips grazing the barrier and vowing to return was safely tucked away in Steve’s photographic memory, but the loss still hurt. Three days ago, Sam lost the signal and they hadn’t heard Tony’s voice since. It wasn’t the sheer, regretful terror of losing Bucky, but Steve suspected his body dared not sleep in case he woke up too late again.

He snuck another glance at the speakers and sighed deeply. “I miss you.”

He wasn’t expecting an answer, but when the speakers seemed to sigh back, Steve raised himself onto his elbows. So he had heard something...There was another noise, like dry leaves crumbling.

“Tony?”

“Cap?” That sounded like Sam, uncertain, but not apologetic. “Cap, you awake?”

Steve tumbled out of bed and made for his shield. “I’m here, Falcon,” he answered crisply. “What’s going on?”

“We’re picking up a bio-signature,” Sam declared. “I’ve been trying to call you; the temporal and dimensional markers seem to match, but I can’t get a read on--.”

“In English, Falcon,” Steve ordered, already pushing his way into the hall. Nobody else had their lights on, but the team was well equipped to function in the dark. “Where’s the threat?”

“No threat,” Sam replied. His confusion gave way to excitement. “It’s Tony! Guys, it’s Tony, he’s coming back!”

Steve began sprinting.

If Tony had to guess, it was probably some ungodly hour in the night and he was doing the equivalent of banging obnoxiously on the front door. So he was an inconvenience, what else was new? He was also tired, but multiverse willing, he was banging at the right door.

And even if he wasn’t, well. Whatever’s behind there couldn’t be worse than Siberia. Or that one universe-none-shall-speak-of-especially-not-to-Cap. Timelines where things went wrong were inevitable; it was a logical fact and Tony was good with facts. And yet, he was still pathetically relieved when Sam--his brave and earnest protege, Sam, called to him from the other side.

As he guessed, it was an ungodly hour, but the whole team was there nevertheless. To his credit, Tony had come from the portal in style, landing on one knee instead of tumbling through like the exhausted bag of bones he actually felt like.

“So, it’s really him?” Clint asked cautiously.

“Three words, Barton,” Tony replied. “Rio; last summer.”

Clint immediately back down. “Ok, it’s him.”

One would think a group of highly trained spies and superheroes would need more proof than that, but clearly not. Tony barely shed a few pieces of armor before the hugs poured in. As soon as it became apparent that he survived being tearfully manhandled by Clint and Thor and Hulk, Sam took their place with a legit reason to cry.

“The tech,” he wept into Tony’s shoulder. “It’s so outdated and I used to work for these people!”

Tony tightened his hug in engineering-bro solidarity. “I know, Sam, I’m sorry you had to work with last year’s command system, but I’m here now.”

That seemed to console Sam. “I’m glad you’re back, Tony.”

“Me too,” Tony let the last of his armor go, and felt lighter for reasons other than the fact that he shed a few pounds of gold-titanium. He smiled over at Steve, who’d come down to the lab in his sleepclothes, shield, and little else--not even the Iron Man themed slippers Tony had ironically bought him for Christmas that Steve unironically loved.

“Looking good, best friend.”

The shield crashed to the ground. Steve made a noise that might have been ‘hello’ or ‘welcome back’, or something else Tony couldn’t guess over the force of his hug. Actually, hug was an understatement to the way Steve dragged him off his feet and pulled him close like he never wanted to let go. And Tony was sure he’d never create anything that would move as gracefully, or shift as instinctively as his body did to make room for Steve. He cupped the back of Steve’s head, chest heavy with love and longing and protective anger at the wetness seeping into his shirt.

Nobody said a thing to ruin the moment, so it stretched out long and sweet until Steve loosened his grip and Tony slid back down to the floor. They didn’t lose distance; Tony slipped his palms from Steve’s hair to his flushed cheeks. Steve took the opportunity to kiss him then and--and god, Tony had missed him. Drawing Steve’s mouth to his, he wondered how he ever had it in him to go away, to risk being lost without a chance to find his friends, with nothing but a pithy one-liner to tide them over? What did it take for Steve to keep faith in his promise to come back--Steve, who had lost everything to passing time, but thrived in a world that wasn’t his because he believed in Tony’s heroic future.

Never again, Tony thought hazily as they kissed, I couldn’t do this to you again. Steve moaned softly against his lips, and Tony already promised him the world just then.

“I want to marry you.”

Tony gasped in surprise, eyes wide. “...what?”

“I want to marry you,” Steve repeated. His eyes were damp, but earnest and hopeful and endless blue. “Whenever you want, wherever you want. And if you don’t feel the same, I...it’s alright.”

Tony searched his brain for words, but the best it could do after roadtripping through universes was a confused whimper. The team fidgeted at their periphery, interested and waiting, like Steve was, for Tony to get it together, you ass!

“I only wanted you to know, Tony,” Steve told him gently. “It’s the least I could do. You’ve never been shy about what you want and all this--” he gestured to the air without taking his eyes off Tony. “It made me realize I waited too long.”

“Yes.” Tony breathed in relief.

If he didn’t know Steve as well as he did, Tony would have missed the tiny flash of disappointment crossing his brow. Steve smiled through it; he placed a kiss on Tony’s brow and started to pull aw--why was he pulling away?

Tony tugged him back ruthlessly. “Yes. As in, yes, I’ll marry you, Steve oh my god! Why would you even think I didn’t want...you just--”

Wow, what a time for a genius brain to break.

“Come on,” came a hoot from the sidelines. “Just kiss already!”

And Steve did, with a million watt smile that made Tony’s heart soar while the flash of a camera went off. Sam and Hulk cooed at the photo in the background. Tony spotted a rare smile from Natasha while Clint seemed to be channeling every ounce of his SHIELD training to keep a straight face, which only called more attention to the tears running down from under his shades.

“Congratulations, friends!” Thor declared. “The joyous return of friend Tony and his betrothal to our good Captain calls for revels! I shall send for mead! And maidens!”

Tony leaned his forehead against the hollow of Steve’s throat, contented to note how it was flushed. “Should we be worried?”

Steve shrugged and splayed his hand along the small of Tony’s back. “Not sure,” he said as the planning of revels began in earnest. “But you’re here with me, and I think we can handle it.”

#stony #superhusbands #stevetony #avengers assemble #tony stark #steve rogers #my writing #bymani

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