Tony keeps sending Steve flowers.
Which would be weird enough if they were just bouquets left outside Steve's door for him to trip over when he got back to the Tower at night. Yeah. That would be weird. Steve would probably sigh a lot and ask Tony to please stop, probably while blushing, because this is Steve after all and somehow this is his life now.
But no, actually, Tony keeps sending Steve flowers while he's on missions for Fury. Top secret missions. To Russia, Afghanistan, China. Rough, usually mountainous terrain. The flowers usually appear when he's been on his own for days, sneaking up on the borders of some secret base, when even he isn't quite sure where he is anymore.
And sometimes they appear in the middle of a firefight. Like right now.
Steve raises his arm, catching the shield and throwing it again in one smooth motion. He's captured a gun from one of the AIM lackeys (who were never even supposed to know he was here, dammit) and he fires it at the technician to his left before he can raise his own weapon and get off a shot. The elevator door above the control station and to the right starts to open, and Steve's just getting a bead on the occupant while reaching out for his shield when he hears the unmistakable sound of a bullet hitting metal about two feet behind him.
Steve squeezes off a shot, taking down elevator man, spins on a dime and pushes the robot to the side as he gets off one last shot, right to the chest, and the last of the AIM goons is out for the count. (It's a stun gun, this time, for which Steve is infinitely thankful.)
He rises to his feet, letting out a breath and looking carefully around the remains of the control room. There's a computer, right where Bruce had suggested it would be. He pulls the USB key out of the pocket at his belt and goes to plug it in, and as he does so the robot moves itself between Steve and the computer.
This one is hovering in the air - Steve can't tell how, but it is, somehow. It's roughly cone-shaped, made of silvery metal; the base of the cone, towards the ground, is impaled in a sphere. At the thicker top is a glass-covered dome, and as Steve watches the dome slides up and thin arms with pincers at the ends extrude from the sides. The left pincer reaches up, plucks out a single tiger lily, and extends the flower toward Steve.
It tilts forward, like it's bowing. The dome falls shut and Steve can't help but think of a gentleman doffing his top hat.
He reaches out and takes the flower. "… Thanks?"
The robot hums, and a long sheet of paper extends from a slot in the front. Steve rips it off.
You're welcome, Cap! MWAH.
While Steve's reading this vitally important missive, the robot has zoomed off, flying up through the jagged hole in the roof, the result of one of the AIM tech's jittery fingers on the weapon they'd been developing.
Steve sighs.
That's the other thing: Tony's flowers are delivered by robots. Because of course they are.
-------
Later, when he's called in his abysmal failure at stealth and SHIELD has coptered in to take control of the facility, Steve wanders a few meters into the forest and calls Tony, connecting through SHIELD's portable cell phone tower.
"Steve! Hey! How's it going? I heard you fucked up Fury's plans again, nice job."
"Tony, what's going on?"
"Good question! You're usually the golden boy, it's not like you to blow something this - "
"One of your robots just saved my life."
"… what?" Steve can almost hear Tony blinking through the connection.
"Yeah, one of your dumb flower robots took a bullet for me in there. What's going on with them, Tony?"
"Oh. Um. You okay?"
"Yes! I'm fine! Tony, why are you sending flower-delivering robots to look after me?"
"It's not supposed to - they're just delivery - bullet, you said? Bulletproof? Is the robot okay too?"
"Yes, Tony, it took off right away just like all the others. Come on, what's -"
"Yes! Bulletproof! Awesome! That's awesome, I am a genius, Jarvis, make a note, add that to the catalog."
"Catalog? Tony, for the last time, what are you up to?"
"Ah, um. Well. You ever hear of a company called Wrylon Robotical?"
Steve leans back, knocks his head into a tree.
"Umm, it sounds kind of familiar. Something people told stories about? Race cars, I think? One of the guys used to go on about how hard it was to get parts for his Renault since the company - no - no, Tony, seriously?"
"Yep. I own their little mechanical asses."
"What - but - how? Didn't the company disappear or something?"
"Yeah, I don't know, I've been trying to work out exactly what happened. There's an empty lot in Missouri that was part of my parent's estate - well, technically, my mom's. I've never done anything with it, and no one's ever tried to buy it from me, so I kind of forgot it existed. Until two months ago."
"Hmm." Two months ago is when Tony sent Steve the first flower, a single rose delivered to the Yukon Territories by something that Steve could only describe as an AT-ST (since Bruce and Clint had forced him to watch Star Wars over Christmas).
"Yeah. There's a big factory there, all of a sudden. And a greenhouse. No people, no technicians, it just started churning out these robots and flowers. The first I knew of it was when Pepper asked me about the new website showing up as a charge to my corporate account."
"Wait, you're telling me you're, what, Rhoderick Wrylon's great-grandson? And you didn't know about this already?"
"Yeah, no, I dunno. I think he's my mom's great-uncle or something? Or maybe his wife was Mom's great-aunt? Look, by the time she was even born it was only an empty lot! All I know about this I've had to dig up."
"And you don't know why the company disappeared. Or, for that matter, reappeared."
"Nope, but I'm working on it. Cap, you don't even - this place is amazing. I can hardly believe it was built a hundred years ago. Perfectly clean energy powering thousands of robots remotely, all over the world - if I can crack this it'll make the arc reactor look like a coal-burning fireplace."
"Hmm." Steve frowns, and runs his hand through his hair. "Tony, it sounds too good to be true. Just - "
"Look, I'm being careful, all right? I don't know what this is, it could disappear from under me at any time, yadda yadda. But this is mine. It belongs to me, I know it belongs to me, and it's not going to hurt me. I have to figure this out - I have plenty of time, it stuck around for six years before. As long as no one goes crazy with the distance, this should last for a good long while. So you can just - just - "
Tony's voice drops, still into something less manic, more purposeful. " … just come home soon, okay?"
Steve sighs, drops his forehead onto his hand. "Tony, I -"
"And anyway, don't you think these little guys are just adorable?"
Stiles only tries it because he thinks it's a publicity stunt. And because it doesn't need a credit card. Because really, $10 to deliver flowers to anywhere in the world? The website doesn't even ask for a recipient address, just a name. When it costs like $40 to even get a crappy corsage for Homecoming, and when he did that he didn't even make them deliver.
So yeah, anyway, he really doesn't think it'll work, it's totally a ridiculous advertisement for the new StarkPhone or something equally dumb.
And he only sends it to Jackson because, duh, he knows where everyone else is so that wouldn't even be a good test of the technology, okay.
If anyone asks he definitely didn't spend an hour going through the online catalogue before finally deciding on snapdragons (no symbolism or anything, he's not trying to bring up bad reptilian memories, really, he just thinks they're cool because, ACTION FLOWERS) in Beacon Hills maroon-and-white (okay, fine, sure, symbolism, because lacrosse or something, oh God Stiles is a terrible person).
The robot's easier because he kinda figures Jackson would get a kick out of the one that's built like a tank, with giant treads and a tiny little head on top.
And just a really quick message:
Hey Jackson this is dumb and probably won't work. But maybe it will and that'd be cool! So if you get this, are you okay? No one's heard and I miss you
Wait, no, backspace — the website won't let him backspace.
Oh well, screw it, Stiles thinks. It probably won't do anything anyway.
He hits Send Robot, and goes to eat dinner with his dad.
Later, Stiles is on his way to meet Scott at Derrick's when his phone buzzes. It's a text from a number he doesn't recognize. He frowns, opens it, can't hold back a ridiculous grin.
you nerd
and then
im okay
followed shortly thereafter by
thanks.
Stiles thunks his head back against the roof of his Jeep, drinks in the moonlight, lets out a breath as his eyes flutter close and some nameless, undefinable tension releases itself from his chest.
He programs the number into his phone, and texts back
<3.
It's Andrew's idea, of course.
"Buffy, you have to come see this!"
He's at the computer, which he always is. Buffy doesn't know what he does on there all day and she doesn't ask, because she's important and busy and has to keep a network of Slayers all over the world in contact with each other, all the time. The task of leadership is a difficult one and falls heavily on the shoulders of -
— anyway, also because she's pretty sure he's watching porn, and knowing Andrew it's probably nerdy porn, like, Captain America and Iron Man getting it on or something - oh no, that's kind of hot, wait, back up, stop thinking about tights and abs and -
"Buffy!"
"What!" Oh, crap, she hadn't avoided Andrew after all. Curse Captain America and all ten thousand of his muscley muscles.
"Look, come here." He rolls his chair back over to the computer, pulling her along.
It's not Captain America porn (damn, Buffy thinks). Instead, it's something about flower delivering robots. Ugh, what?
"Andrew, I really have to -"
"No, wait, look!" He points to the screen. "They're really cheap, and fast, and they deliver anywhere. And they're untraceable and unbreakable! Here, I just sent you one - look!"
Buffy follows the line of his finger to the window, outside of which is hovering a - okay, fine, it's a robot. It has a round central section with these huge eyes on it, and to each side are little keg-looking rocket engines. One little robot arm reaches out and taps the window.
Buffy lifts an eyebrow and turns back to Andrew. "Seriously?"
He nods vigorously. "Seriously! Open it!"
Instincts on high alert, Buffy flicks open the window. The spindly little robot arm hands her a single daffodil, then a little paper shoots out of its side, printing like an ATM receipt. The robots rips this off and hands it to her as well, before executing an unmistakable little bow and then zipping off into the night.
"Huh," Buffy says. The paper she's holding says You rock, o great Princess Demetria, sovereign wood-elf of the farthest dark!
Nonplussed, she passes it to Andrew. "D&D? Really? You picked that for the first message?"
Andrew grins back. "Does that mean we're gonna do it?"
Buffy shrugs. "Sure, why not? Let's give it a try."
And that's how the Slayers enlisted an army of robots to do their bidding. Or deliver messages near-instantaneously to stations around the world without Twilight so much as getting suspicious. One of those things.
"Harry, what's this?"
Murphy stalks into my new office, pulling a robot behind her by its antennae. The little guy's just bleeping and blorping, happy as can be - though who wouldn't want to be manhandled by Karrin Murphy, just a little bit?
Murph slings the robot in my direction, and it stumbles a bit on its tiny little wheels as it reaches through a door in its abdomen to offer me a carnation.
A dead carnation, actually. Flash-frozen, by the look of it.
I roll the stem between my fingers, and the whole thing starts disintegrating into powder. Definitely flash-frozen.
"Oh, hey, Mab got my message. Cool."
"You're sending flowers to Mab now?"
The robot's smarter than I am. It gives Murphy a very wide, circular berth as it zooms out the door and back to sweet, sweet freedom.
"Yeah? I mean, she likes me to check in with her and I like to get creative." By which I mean that she demands I check in with her or she will drag me back to faerie by my testicles and subject me to decades of unspeakable torture, and that I am pathologically incapable of being anything less than the most annoying fly in her ointment within the absolute letter of the requirements of our contract.
Honestly, I hadn't expected this one to get through. I'd been looking forward to a reaming in which I assured Mab I'd tried to send a letter, really, it must have got lost in the mail, I swear.
How about these robots, huh, ladies and gentlemen? Didn't even short out when it got close to me. Pretty impressive for a little metal dude.
"So you'll send flowers to the Queen of Winter expressly to piss her off, but you can't meet me for dinner?"
.. Oh, crap. There was this magic thing that I had to defuse, and that took longer than I expected, and it took a lot out of me, and I might have gone out for a drink (or three) …
Yep. I'm an ass. I sent robotic flowers to my evil boss lady and completely forgot about dinner with my not-girlfriend.
"Shit. I'm sorry." I lean back against the desk and rub both my hands over my face, the last of the powdered carnation drifting between my fingers to the floor. "I got nothin', Murph, I -"
"Harry." Murphy's opened up my folding chair, the only furniture I've got in here aside from the desk, and straddles it backwards, resting her chin on the backrest atop her folded hands. She heaves her biggest sigh, one I've sadly gotten used to hearing over the last few years. "I know. I never expected anything different. It's okay."
Wait. She's not mad?
"Wait. You're not mad?"
Murphy sighs again, and pulls my hand down to where she can grab it. "Harry, look, I - We talked about this, how there can't be an us right now. I knew when we planned this that dinner was verging a little too close to there being an us. So no, I'm not mad, I'm just - I - I just .. "
That can't be right. That's not right. Murphy's eyes are glistening.
"Karrin," I whisper. I don't know what to say. We're beyond words, me and Murphy, and I know she knows - she has to know that if I could I'd give her so much more than dinner. But the fact is I stood her up and I don't know what to do with that, besides feel like shit.
"Sometimes, I just wish - " Her voice hitches.
"Shh. I know." I slide down until I'm sitting on the floor, my back against the desk. Murphy towers over me from the folding chair, our linked hands bridging the distance between us. High and low, up and down, better and worse and everything in between, together. I never want to let go.
I wish Murphy still had her job. I wish I hadn't sold my soul to Mab. I wish I knew what I'm turning into. I wish things were simple and I wish I could just - take her out for an evening like a normal person. I wish my biggest worry were convincing CPD to pay my rent this month. And while I'm at it I wish I had a unicorn and a million dollars.
I wish we hadn't made the rational decision to step back from - wherever this is going - to try and keep our emotions on an even keel. Because right now we're both caught in a feelings typhoon that doesn't seem like it's about to blow over.
I'll never understand women. But sometimes I think I almost understand Murphy, and somewhere along the line that .. has stopped scaring me.
"I'll send you a robot flower if you want," I offer.
She laughs. Just once, just a little, but I'll take it. "I really, really don't, Dresden."
Murphy squeezes my hand and nothing is even remotely okay, but just here, just now, just for a moment, there's peace.
"We're not inviting him to our wedding." Mickey scowls and jabs hard at the remote. In the process the television does turn off, but the remote skitters off the arm of the couch and across the floor, coming to rest at Martha's feet. "Nope."
Martha sighs, picking up the remote and depositing a cup of tea into Mickey's lap as she folds onto the couch beside him. "Yes we are.”
He takes the tea, scowling, and blows across the top of it which kind of ruins the scowl, but oh well.
"No we're not. You used to have a thing for him. How would that not be weird?"
Martha pokes him in the chest and he almost spills his tea. "As if you didn't, Mickey Smith."
"Okay, that's it." Mickey sets the tea down and grabs Martha around the waist, aiming to get her nice and distracted from this topic, but before he can blink she's deftly twisted his arms over his head and flipped him down onto the couch, straddling his hips and grinning like a Cheshire cat.
Martha leans forward and whispers in his ear, "We're inviting him and that's the end of it."
"O-okay." Defeated, Mickey shifts his hips a little, suddenly realizing that he actually doesn't give a crap who they invite to their wedding, Martha could invite Prince Harry and the Hulk for all he cares.
It briefly crosses his mind that the distraction ploy was supposed to work in his favor. How do things keep happening this way?
"How are you even going to invite him? He's not answering his phone." One last token protest. He shifts again and Martha lets one of his hands go free.
"Oh, don't worry about that." Martha grins and it's terrifying and Mickey has never loved anyone so much in his life. "I have ways."
And then she's kissing him and Mickey doesn't think about anything else for a while.
————————————————
The Doctor’s got one more thing to do. Just one more thing before he answers the call, the Ood call that’s been building in his head, ever so slowly, but it’s not unbearable yet and he doesn't want to. One more thing, one more day to be saved.
He’s calculating the best way back to the late 16th century when it appears right next to him with a little "pop" of displaced air. It's bright silver and shaped like a kiddie flotation device, two long eye stalks protruding from the front of a thick ring that's all floating about a meter above the floor of the console room.
In the middle of the ring - where if it were actually a flotation device there would be a toddler - is a large glass dome. Which retracts. And under the dome is a marigold. In a pot. Nestled in its leaves is a printed card with the words,
Pick up the damn phone, Doctor. We’re getting married and we want you there. - M&M
The Doctor flicks the card between his fingers. “Another wedding .. No. Nope. I’m at my wedding quota for the century. So you can just turn right around and send my regrets.”
He’s already turning back to the keyboard at the central console when he feels the tug on his jacket, and there’s the robot, pincer outstretched and just looking at him with the biggest, most liquid puppy dog eyes he’s ever seen on anything mechanical.
“Oh, no,” he sighs, shoulders dropping. “You've used up your power source getting here, haven’t you?”
A sad “blorp” is all he gets in reply. He pulls out the sonic screwdriver and double-checks - yep. Poor thing could barely drag itself across the room.
With the deepest of sighs, the Doctor throws his head forward and rests it in his folded arms atop the console. He thinks about what he wants, and what he doesn't want, where he’s headed and what he’s going to have to do to get there. Who he is, who he wants to be, what he’d promised himself he’d never do: go back. Going back always hurts and is always, always a bad idea.
But there’s a sentient being who needs his help. And also. There’s Martha.
"All right, little guy," he says, stretching out and patting it on the dome. "Let's get you home."
The Doctor picks up the damn phone and dials the only number programmed into it.
Okay, two more things to do before he visits the Ood. Just two. And then he'll stop putting it off.
"So," Steve says.
"So?" Tony takes a sip of his scotch, elbows resting on the railing of his balcony, the lights of Manhattan spread out like a galaxy before them.
"No flowers for a while."
With a smirk, Tony turns to face Steve. "Don't worry, sweetheart, I still love you."
"I," Steve can tell he's turning a deep red, dammit - "Okay, whatever you say, Tony, but what happened to your plans for another new power source?"
"Yeah, about that." Tony's scratching his chest, looking out into the distance, then back down at his glass.
"The factory disappeared again, didn't it." Steve settles himself against the railing, arm just touching Tony's, and crosses his legs out in front of him.
"Yeah." Tony rubs his face with his free hand. "I was so close, Steve. So close. Its power source is transdimensional - totally ingenious, but you need some way to make sure you're not stealing energy from, I don't know, a dimension full of sentient shrimp who desperately need it for themselves, and I was just on the verge of taking a peek when - bam. No more factory, no more robots, I'm standing by myself like an idiot in a field full of poppies."
"There's no place like home?" Steve holds his hand out, fingers spread. Just an offer, nothing more.
Tony looks at Steve's hand for a moment, then slowly reaches out and locks their fingers together, carefully, like the cogs of a machine slotting into place for the first time. "Something like that."
"Do you have any theories?"
"Do I have any theories? What do I look like, someone who isn't Tony Stark? Of course I have theories. Okay, look, it has a transdimensional power source - theoretically infinite, right?"
Steve nods like he has any idea what that means. Tony's thumb is rubbing across his knuckles while he talks and it's kind of distracting.
"But the capacitor is finite. Very large, but finite. And while most of the energy requirements are extracted on-the-fly, each deployment requires an initial energy boost from the capacitor, proportional to the distance traveled. So my theory is that the factory may actually have to return to the other dimension for up to a century between appearances to recharge the capacitor."
"But you couldn't - you know, recreate it? Or figure out how to recharge the capacitor from here?"
"Yeah, don't rub it in." With a sigh, Tony sets his now-empty glass down on the deck table and massages his forehead. "I've looked at the log - some people were totally abusing the 'delivery anywhere' promise. Some of these coordinates I can't even figure out if they're on Earth. And, you know, next time let's not give volume discounts."
He straightens, and squeezes Steve's hand. "But I've got a lot of good notes. If I'm right, the whole thing should start up again in a hundred years, give or take. Your great-grandkids can pick up where I left off."
"Yeah. Okay." Steve takes a breath, deciding not to ask where Tony's great-grandkids are in this scenario. "Tony, I'm sorry."
"Heh, don't be. It's not like I don't have enough to keep me - "
There's a knock on the glass doors to the balcony. Certain it'll be Pepper, Steve extracts his hand from Tony's and moves a discreet distance away; but instead there is yet another robot. This one has three long, spindly legs, balancing a fishbowl-like body between them. It opens the doors and walks slowly, almost tentatively, between Tony and Steve.
"Hey, Sweetie," Tony reaches out to the robot. "It's all right, come on over, what do you need?"
"I thought you said they were - " Tony shuts Steve up with one outstretched finger. The robot - Sweetie? - clears the last few yards in a single bound, thrusts a single tiger lily into Tony's outstretched hand, then dashes back inside and down the stairs before Steve has a chance to blink.
Stunned, Steve takes the flower when Tony hands it to him, meeting Tony's eyes over the deep orange petals.
"Yeah, she didn't leave with the rest of them. She showed up a few weeks ago and just never left, not even when they all disappeared."
"So .. how is she powered, if the factory ...?"
"I don't know yet." Tony turns back around to face the city, crosses his arms over his chest. "But you can bet I'm going to find out. Working hypothesis, though? Love."
Steve blinks a few times at that. "Love..?"
Tony winks, smiles, reaches out to poke Steve's nose with one finger.
"Pretty sure she's got a crush on Dummy."
Flynn dangles, suspended in the harness above the rapidly-forming vortex deep in the Large Collections Annex under the Library. Back in the distance, Judson waits, grasping the rope at the other end of the pulley that is Flynn’s only connection to this reality. “Don’t let go!” he yells back.
Judson raises an eyebrow and, taking one hand off the rope, pats the larger coil next to him in a gesture that - against all rationality and common sense, actually is kind of reassuring. A gust buffets Flynn from below and, slowly revolving, he peers down into the rift in space that he’s just managed to open with a combination of the right words, a cursed (or blessed?) matchbook, and some kind of enchanted metal shavings Judson had retrieved from a vault that Flynn still wasn’t allowed access to.
Down below - and a little too close for comfort - a whirling storm of sparks, chrome, wood paneling, and flower petals slowly coalesces before his eyes into an early 20th-century manufacturing plant and attached greenhouse, seen dimly through the plasmoid curtain between the two dimensions. There it is - the Wrylon Robotical complex, looking just as it had when they'd last opened this door a year ago. It worked, thank goodness. Charlene had rechecked the calculations three times and still hadn’t been sure the power would hold long enough to get the whole factory through.
"Okay,” Flynn yells back, pinwheeling his arms to get Judson’s attention. He overbalances and suddenly his feet are over his head and oh crap, what is that in his hair, his head is a little too close to the vortex, too close! He scrambles to get his hands on the rope again - “Augh, pull me back! Pull me back! I see it, it worked, get me out of here!”
The rope starts to move but it’s moving the wrong way. Flynn screams and clutches the rope for dear life. “WRONG WAY, JUDSON!”
“Relax,” Judson calls. “You aren’t going to fall.”
Flynn doesn’t exactly believe that, but he holds on tight and squeezes his eyes shut as he finally feels himself moving back to the marble floor of the Large Collections Annex. He doesn’t open them until he feels Judson grabbing his belt, and his feet are firmly planted on the ground.
“Next time,” Flynn pants out as he leans forward heavily, knees almost collapsing under him. “We’re strapping you into that thing.”
Unsurprisingly, Judson ignores this. While Flynn’s dying over here, Judson has pulled out a clipboard with a thick ream of papers attached to it. He waves the first robot forward into the vortex, checking the serial number against his list.
“Come on, in you go, that’s it.” With a concerned little warble in Flynn’s direction, the first ‘bot - a boxy number with treads and a 10-gallon fish tank - trundles up to the edge of the portal and takes a nose dive into the deep end.
The line of ‘bots stretches as far into the distance as Flynn can see - and it's quite a distance. The Library goes on for miles and miles, and that's only the Large Collections Annex; little metal guys wind between the stacks, around the Fountain of Youth, and under the drydock holding the Ark safely away from the floor. One by one, they hop into the vortex - or trundle, or roll, or fly, or otherwise zoom home to the factory shelves where they'll sit in stasis for the next hundred years or thereabouts, inexorably drawn back to the source of their power.
Recovering, Flynn grins in delight as they go by, each different from the last, a unique creation of love and joy intended for one person only.
"Judson, I wish we didn't have to put them back."
One of the robots pulls out from the line - this one long and cigar-shaped, almost like an alligator - and shyly hands Flynn a daisy before slinking through the portal. Smiling, Flynn tucks it behind his ear.
"Well, we - we do. They're almost out of gas. Especially this little guy."
Judson picks up the small round robot that had appeared at the Returns desk a few days ago. Flynn thinks it would ordinarily be flying around, but it's done little more than move an antenna since it showed up.
"Whoa!" Flynn stumbles back as Judson chucks the robot through the portal, squealing as it goes. "Warn me next time!"
Judson only raises an eyebrow and goes back to his paperwork.
After a few hours of this, things get a little repetitive. Flynn’s gathered quite a collection of flowers, and as the last of the ‘bots disappears into the void he’s lazing back between the first and second toe of the Colossus of Rhodes, twirling a flower crown around his finger.
He sits up as he notices Judson frowning, flipping between the pages on his clipboard.
“What’s up?”
“We’re missing one.”
“Huh.” Flynn stands, visions of a round-the-universe quest for an AWOL robot dancing through his head. “Do you suppose - “
“It’s Stark’s,” Charlene says. Flynn spins around and almost falls on his ass again, because when did she get down here? “Let him keep it.”
Judson inclines his head. "I'll - I'll just close the portal then." He pulls the lever, and with a vast sucking sound, the vortex collapses in on itself and silence descends on the Library once again. Octavia Wrylon’s last request, honored to the letter - or almost, anyway.
Judson moves first, replacing the velvet rope in front of the wall that is now cutting off an entire section of the Large Collections Annex. He hangs a new sign around one of the poles; this one says "Do Not Touch Until 2106 - By Order of The Librarian."
Flynn wonders who would even be down here to consider touching it, except for him — and suddenly he feels insulted. Come on, he knows better than to touch things he shouldn't! Mostly. The incident with Paul Bunyan's ox last week was a fluke, and he’d already promised to replace the stained glass.
"Come on then, you two,” Charlene says. “There's actual work to be done around here, you know."
Flynn sighs. He reaches out and sets the flower crown on her head, blithely ignoring the withering looks she’s trying to bestow on him. “Can’t we just take a moment to remember the ‘bots, their time on this Earth so short?”
Judson pipes up helpfully, "You know, this - this wasn't scheduled for another four years. The distances - added up quick. And we hadn't planned on the - the extra modifications. It's thrown off the schedule but we'll - we'll make the best of it."
"Stark just can't stop tinkering." Flynn doesn't even try to hide the admiration in his voice. He's got an engineering degree, of course, but he'll never be up to Tony Stark's level, that's for damn sure.
"Yes, he's quite the scamp," Charlene adds dryly, rolling her eyes. “And the ‘bots will be back before we know it.” She adjusts the crown as she turns to lead the way out of the Annex. "Now come along, your next assignment's waiting. Make sure you get there before SHIELD this time."
They have to pass through the Hall of Librarians on the way up to the main office, where Flynn will receive his briefing and standard budgetary lecture. (He's not really sure why she bothers anymore.) He's spent a lot of time here, when he can, trying to see through the portraits to whatever it is that makes a librarian The Librarian - something that after eight years he still isn’t quite sure he shares.
Flynn slows to a stop next to Octavia Wrylon, Librarian, 1911-1935. "She must have been amazing."
Ahead of him, Charlene pauses at the base of the stairwell. Her voice seems softer somehow, her eyes more piercing under the flowers. "Flynn, you've no idea."
He looks back up to Octavia's face, that strong, adamant gaze calling him to look deeper, think harder, see more. And there's something about the set of her chin, the lines of her hair, the faint suggestion of cat fur clinging to her khaki skirt …
"No. No way." Flynn turns but Charlene's already halfway up the stairs. He glances at the painting, Judson, back to the painting.
"She was - always a firecracker." Judson's doing the thing where he almost smiles.
"I swear to God -" Flynn can't catch his breath, he leans his hand on the wall between two portraits. No way - and that would make Stark Charlene’s - and that would explain - "between the two of you, I - "
"Between the two of us," Judson says - remarkably firmly, for Judson, "you might just get to retire one day."
Flynn's head comes up. His eyes narrow and his mouth drops open as what Judson's saying hits home - retirement - the 'bots will be back before he knows it - what -
"Well - well, hurry up," Judson says innocently, making his way to the stairwell. "The mead-horn of Kvasir won't - won't find - itself."
Gaping like a fish, head spinning, Flynn follows.