[ When the next day comes, he makes sure to arrive at the apartment in plenty of time, bringing with him the essentials: namely, a couple of glasses. When Jason arrives at the building, he'll clear his ID for entry. ]
( quiet, but what else did he expect? jason brought the whiskey and himself, which is all strange asked for and all he's getting. when the door lets him in, he--just waltzes on in, takes a look around the place while he's at it. )
[ The apartment is brochure standard, all smooth lines and floor to ceiling windows along the outer wall at the end of the hall, then the same in the lounge where Jason will find him sitting in a stock armchair alongside his stock couch. The two glasses on the stock furniture coffee table are the only trace of personality in the room - a pair very evidently lifted from Red Wings.
They're leaving the place as they found it. All traces of his life here are gone. ]
You too. [ He sits there for a few seconds, watchful, waiting— then shakes himself, a visible flinch of the head, and forces himself to his feet to welcome Jason in with a gesture to the couch. ] You're a surprising addition to the reunion tour.
[ There are a couple of new features of note to differentiate the man who greets Jason from the one he'll have seen last. Firstly, a lichtenburg figure scar that creeps in angry pinks, reds and purples up from under the collar of his shirt to reach branches across his throat and snake away behind his neck. Second, and perhaps less noticeably at first, hands that have never seen a scar in their lives. ]
( boring. no personal touches, no nothing. it makes him wonder what the hell stephen has been doing here. or how long it's been since he was here. jason--reaches up for a higher shelf, runs gloved fingers across the bottom of it to see how much dust he can pick up. keeps his attention there instead of on strange for the moment. )
Well, y'know. Can't exactly leave without tying up all my loose ends. What kind of guy just does that?
( most people who have left, actually. his head tips back to look back towards strange, notes what's different. he's no tim drake, but all of his pack have been trained to notice subtle differences. and strange's aren't exactly subtle at all. his eyes stop on those hands, raise a brow. )
[ None of the brothers rowdy, that's for sure. Jason came back for his loose ends, Damian made neat work of his even in his absence, and it would appear that Dick's back too, with or without any recollection that it's a return. (Dust is perhaps the only telling thing Jason will find in this place: thorough cleaning doesn't seem to have been a priority during the great exodus of any trace of personality, and Stephen certainly hasn't made any contribution on that front since returning.)
The question is unexpected. It shows only in the slightest pinch of his brow, there and then gone. ]
No. [ No. For a year and a handful of months he'd avoided the all too easy act of getting a fix for the mistake that changed his life. And now... ] I just never drove off a cliff.
so this aerie shit is even more complicated than it seemed at first glance. it's one thing to fuck with someone's memories. jason has seen that happen over and over again. erase what's there, replace it with something else, brainwash people to think they're something that they're not, that whole bullshit.
fucking with them down to their physical bodies takes something else entirely. gods. of course. stupid of him to underestimate them. )
That's fucked.
( rolling his shoulders, before moving over to the living room area and setting the bottle of whiskey down on the coffee table. helpfully. )
[ That's certainly a word for it that he's not about to argue. With the whiskey duly deposited, Stephen plucks it up off of the table to crack it open and pour a couple of glasses. A glass and its amber liquid tremors slightly as he holds it out to Jason. ]
Only a little cosmetic fix up.
[ Everything is still more or less as it was, only now the damage is exclusively internal. ]
( not that he's super doubting strange but also. if his body has been changed that an incident didn't happen, wouldn't those changes also be internal? is this, potentially, just some asshats fucking with the scar tissue that's visible, or is this strange's psyche fucking him over because he doesn't know how to turn off what damage had happened before? )
[ A wry little twitch around the mouth. The glass he offers remains held out in front of him, shuddering slightly every time Stephen's concentration slips. ]
Unless the pain and the renewed difficulty with fine motor control are psychosomatic.
[ He's fairly certain. But there's genuine humour in the response: it's a fair question to have asked if you've a good head on your shoulders, which Jason has. ]
[ There's a discordant comfort to be found in hearing a little slice of home. Stephen huffs out a breath through a smirk and ducks to snatch up his own whiskey, taking an answering - considerably smaller - swig before landing himself back down into the seat he'd occupied when Jason first entered. ]
To what do I owe the honour?
[ Not business. Not pleasure. But surely not just commiseration, either... They've made strides, but enough to have earned a well-being check-in? ]
I can't visit you for a drink without needing something?
( a check up, but he won't admit to it out loud. there's no need. strange will either get it or not. jason doesn't care much either way, long as they don't need to stop and talk about their feelings. for each other. they've got more important shit to figure out how to manage than that. )
Oh. So it really is just a check in. He does them both the favor of not dwelling on it out loud just now, something to think about later. ]
A couple hundred years living in luxury with the world at my feet and more power than most people would know what to do with. [ He hadn't struggled, of course. He'd known exactly what to do with it. ] I wouldn't say it was that bad.
[ Flippant? Perhaps. But he'd watched that world through the eyes of too many others to see himself painted as a victim of that place. ]
[ It's an accurate assessment, both in that reality and this. But it feels a little too much like an excuse, like the struggle born of power might somehow absolve him of what he chose to do with it, and he doubts Jason has any idea what it is he's absolving him of.
Sympathy for the Stephen Strange of the Aerie isn't warranted. He's not about to indulge in anything close to accepting it.
A loose, non-committal smile and he moves the whole thing along after another sip of his drink. ]
Who's been telling stories?
[ Heard you had a rough go. Someone must've lit a campfire. ]
( less tales and more that strange would probably not be up to shit when he got back. which. is fine. because details aren't going to make it any less shitty. jason settles in easy enough, leaves the rest of the whiskey for strange. )
I don't need the story behind it. Either I'll figure it out eventually or I won't. Unless it's shit you plan on trying to pull here, I doubt it's relevant.
( he could go into his whole spiel about all the stupid crap he's pulled over his years and how big of a piece of shit jason had been but alternative dimensions and i got thrown into a pit once which fucked up my everything are only vaguely similar in ways he's not counting. )
[ There's a helpless little vindictive streak in him that resents the understanding. If he'd known the purpose of this meeting was kindness, would he have come?
His eyes narrow, smile cutting sharp and lacking any real humour. ]
I played a large part in subjugating a planet's worth of people for well over a century. I think that might stay relevant for a while.
( he won't ask do you regret it or why did you do it because given the whole alternate reality bullshit going on--he's betting there's some weird complicated bullshit involved. )
Shit set up they gave you in the other place, wasn't it?
( an unspecified 'you', given-- ) Outing who didn't belong by giving only us the power. Do you think it might have been intentional? I know ours got a mixed bag.
I don't think there's any way it wasn't intentional, unless gods dream in centuries-long planetwide elaborate alternate universes. Whether it was targeted on an individual level, harder to say.
( no way of knowing if it was intentional on an individual level unless he knows who was who. loki was one of them. as was thor. loki's been around for a while, so that being intentional sided with strange make sense. thor has been. . on and off. but. )
Thor and Loki I assume you know. Marian and Helena Hawke - I don't think they were related outside of the Aerie. Tony Stark, John Murphy, John— [ He stops, brow furrowing in brief surprise. He doesn't actually know John's real last name. He'd been Strange for close to a century, an orphan before that... ] Somebody. I'd not met him before the Aerie, must be relatively new. A woman called Andromache, Quintalian, and Yennefer.
[ Some names there have more significance to him than others, though he knows them all with varying degrees of overfamiliarity now. He tries not to deliver one with any more weight than the others, though the list contains relatives and lovers and victims all. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Let's go with the whiskey.
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stay in one piece in the meantime
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[ When the next day comes, he makes sure to arrive at the apartment in plenty of time, bringing with him the essentials: namely, a couple of glasses. When Jason arrives at the building, he'll clear his ID for entry. ]
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Welcome back.
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They're leaving the place as they found it. All traces of his life here are gone. ]
You too. [ He sits there for a few seconds, watchful, waiting— then shakes himself, a visible flinch of the head, and forces himself to his feet to welcome Jason in with a gesture to the couch. ] You're a surprising addition to the reunion tour.
[ There are a couple of new features of note to differentiate the man who greets Jason from the one he'll have seen last. Firstly, a lichtenburg figure scar that creeps in angry pinks, reds and purples up from under the collar of his shirt to reach branches across his throat and snake away behind his neck. Second, and perhaps less noticeably at first, hands that have never seen a scar in their lives. ]
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Well, y'know. Can't exactly leave without tying up all my loose ends. What kind of guy just does that?
( most people who have left, actually. his head tips back to look back towards strange, notes what's different. he's no tim drake, but all of his pack have been trained to notice subtle differences. and strange's aren't exactly subtle at all. his eyes stop on those hands, raise a brow. )
You get patched up?
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The question is unexpected. It shows only in the slightest pinch of his brow, there and then gone. ]
No. [ No. For a year and a handful of months he'd avoided the all too easy act of getting a fix for the mistake that changed his life. And now... ] I just never drove off a cliff.
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so this aerie shit is even more complicated than it seemed at first glance. it's one thing to fuck with someone's memories. jason has seen that happen over and over again. erase what's there, replace it with something else, brainwash people to think they're something that they're not, that whole bullshit.
fucking with them down to their physical bodies takes something else entirely. gods. of course. stupid of him to underestimate them. )
That's fucked.
( rolling his shoulders, before moving over to the living room area and setting the bottle of whiskey down on the coffee table. helpfully. )
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[ That's certainly a word for it that he's not about to argue. With the whiskey duly deposited, Stephen plucks it up off of the table to crack it open and pour a couple of glasses. A glass and its amber liquid tremors slightly as he holds it out to Jason. ]
Only a little cosmetic fix up.
[ Everything is still more or less as it was, only now the damage is exclusively internal. ]
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( not that he's super doubting strange but also. if his body has been changed that an incident didn't happen, wouldn't those changes also be internal? is this, potentially, just some asshats fucking with the scar tissue that's visible, or is this strange's psyche fucking him over because he doesn't know how to turn off what damage had happened before? )
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Unless the pain and the renewed difficulty with fine motor control are psychosomatic.
[ He's fairly certain. But there's genuine humour in the response: it's a fair question to have asked if you've a good head on your shoulders, which Jason has. ]
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don't waste his cheap whiskey.
when he speaks up again, jason--accentuates his accent. lower new york, rhotic. )
I ain't a doctor, this isn't my area. So. ( a wave of a hand towards strange, before he tilts his glass over his mouth to down a good portion of it. )
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To what do I owe the honour?
[ Not business. Not pleasure. But surely not just commiseration, either... They've made strides, but enough to have earned a well-being check-in? ]
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( a check up, but he won't admit to it out loud. there's no need. strange will either get it or not. jason doesn't care much either way, long as they don't need to stop and talk about their feelings. for each other. they've got more important shit to figure out how to manage than that. )
Heard you had a rough go.
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Oh. So it really is just a check in. He does them both the favor of not dwelling on it out loud just now, something to think about later. ]
A couple hundred years living in luxury with the world at my feet and more power than most people would know what to do with. [ He hadn't struggled, of course. He'd known exactly what to do with it. ] I wouldn't say it was that bad.
[ Flippant? Perhaps. But he'd watched that world through the eyes of too many others to see himself painted as a victim of that place. ]
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( a roll of his eyes, before wipes off his mouth with the back of his hand and sets down his glass. )
Hell, power itself ain't perfect. Causes more problems than it solves.
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Sympathy for the Stephen Strange of the Aerie isn't warranted. He's not about to indulge in anything close to accepting it.
A loose, non-committal smile and he moves the whole thing along after another sip of his drink. ]
Who's been telling stories?
[ Heard you had a rough go. Someone must've lit a campfire. ]
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( less tales and more that strange would probably not be up to shit when he got back. which. is fine. because details aren't going to make it any less shitty. jason settles in easy enough, leaves the rest of the whiskey for strange. )
I don't need the story behind it. Either I'll figure it out eventually or I won't. Unless it's shit you plan on trying to pull here, I doubt it's relevant.
( he could go into his whole spiel about all the stupid crap he's pulled over his years and how big of a piece of shit jason had been but alternative dimensions and i got thrown into a pit once which fucked up my everything are only vaguely similar in ways he's not counting. )
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His eyes narrow, smile cutting sharp and lacking any real humour. ]
I played a large part in subjugating a planet's worth of people for well over a century. I think that might stay relevant for a while.
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( he won't ask do you regret it or why did you do it because given the whole alternate reality bullshit going on--he's betting there's some weird complicated bullshit involved. )
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[ Not if he had a choice. That one's easy, and he gets the point before it needs to be laboured. ]
But people aren't going to forget just because I'm not a dictator anymore. Nor should they be expected to. And that reflects on all of us.
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( an unspecified 'you', given-- ) Outing who didn't belong by giving only us the power. Do you think it might have been intentional? I know ours got a mixed bag.
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( no way of knowing if it was intentional on an individual level unless he knows who was who. loki was one of them. as was thor. loki's been around for a while, so that being intentional sided with strange make sense. thor has been. . on and off. but. )
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Thor and Loki I assume you know. Marian and Helena Hawke - I don't think they were related outside of the Aerie. Tony Stark, John Murphy, John— [ He stops, brow furrowing in brief surprise. He doesn't actually know John's real last name. He'd been Strange for close to a century, an orphan before that... ] Somebody. I'd not met him before the Aerie, must be relatively new. A woman called Andromache, Quintalian, and Yennefer.
[ Some names there have more significance to him than others, though he knows them all with varying degrees of overfamiliarity now. He tries not to deliver one with any more weight than the others, though the list contains relatives and lovers and victims all. ]
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