closed.

[propulsion]

WHO: Tony Stark, Daisy Johnson
WHAT: Hey, what's good.
WHEN: A time.
WHERE: A place. (Tavern.)
NOTES: Attitude.

There are times when familiarity breeds more familiarity, and there are days when it absolutely does not. One day you think you have your shit together, you're getting used to the place, you're developing butt calluses from all the pony riding, and the next day, it's like everything's at a Dutch angle, and you feel like you're on shrooms at a renfaire. There really is a balding guy in the corner playing the lute and warbling through a ballad, and there really is a roast animal being slowly turned over a fire, and your beer is actually ale and really is being served in a giant tankard, foaming and dark and room temperature. Your underwear has no elastic, you have no idea what time it is to the minute, and it's all real and happening to you and it's not gonna end any time soon.

Tony Stark has days like that, anyway. Maybe Daisy can relate. Maybe not.

He plans to find out.

He finds her at a Ye Olde Tavern, picks up tankard off the tray of a corseted server, and winds his way through the crowd. She probably sees him coming, even though he is dressed like a local. A blue shirt under a nice coat, all well made and fitted as opposed to being whatever hand-me-downs he received when he was initially taken in by Riftwatch. He's done something to conceal his chesthole light, but otherwise resembles the man from her contemporary world, down to sharp facial hair styling and duck-ass hair cut.

He sets down the tankard on her table. "Mind if I join?" He is probably gonna regardless, but waits for the yes-and.

Comments

[hacker]

Shit.

For one panicked moment as he approaches, Daisy has the gall to look for a way out. She glances overtly for the door. For a spy, Daisy has had to come to terms with the fact that on a purely social level, face-to-face with people who she actually knows (or, more accurately, feels like she knows because of the bizarre nature of the parasocial, thanks twitter) — she has the impulse control of a sea sponge. So all that time bomb talk with Fitz about Tony Stark and his memory had been enough to encourage her to steer clear of one-on-ones.

But Fitz and Wysteria and all the padding in the world isn't here to save her now, and the likelihood of her putting her foot in her mouth about the future increases with each forward step of Tony's. In other words, shit.

She doesn't make it to the door. Obviously. She doesn't even make it out of her seat. So when he plops the iron tankard on the table with a thunk, Daisy summons up her biggest, broadest smile, slouching further back in her chair, affecting ease and comfort. She'd been blending in, before, even retired the tactical suit she wouldn't let go of for an age to 'missions-only' and picked out some dark-gray tunic with a high collar and a black corset around her ribs, drinking ale without any attention to how much sweeter it is than the beer she's used to. Her awkward stutter, her almost-leaving, draws a few spare glances from some of the people crowded into the tavern.

"Mr. Stark." A beat. Confusion hits her brow first, furrows it. "I ... I don't know why I called you that. Please forget that happened. Tony. Hi. Sure." She blinks off the deer-in-headlights feeling and gestures to the chair. "All yours, dude."

[propulsion]

"Thanks."

He hooks the chair out from the table and sits, and you'd probably think he didn't notice the squirrelly almost-exit if not for the knowingly frank stare down Daisy is met with in return of her megawatt smile. But now here they are, and maybe she'll tell him she needs to go wash her hair or something, but probably not after obligatory social exchange.

Maybe. Who knows, with SHIELD. "Haven't caught you round the watercooler," he says, hefting up his tankard to tip the liquid back and forth within it in a fidget. "Figured it wasn't personal until I remembered that oh yeah, you people don't do anything by accident. So what gives."

[hacker]

Right. Genius. It would be asking too much for him to be the kind of socially inept genius who couldn't read body language and social cues. No. Had to be Tony Stark.

Faced with two choices — to tell the truth, or lie to his face and hope it paid off — Daisy threads the needle between them.

"It's weird," she admits, canting her head to the side a little. "I mean, this whole thing is weird, but you in particular being here is, like, a whole added layer." The honest reason would be that she's from his future.

Instead, she opts for, "I mean, you're Tony Stark. My boss is like this ... sweaty cosplay uber-fan. Like, do I ask you to autograph a pint glass that I can bring back to him?" For emphasis, she holds up her — well, tankard, not glass. It drops back to the table with a thunk. Peering into it, she shakes her head. "Except I might not see him again."

Because he's dead. And, strictly speaking, it was Cap that Coulson had felt that way about. Daisy had been the one sweating in ironette cosplay, before she'd ever joined SHIELD. It felt like a lifetime ago. A sincere amount of wistful grief muddies her expression for one prolonged, distant moment. For Coulson. For the team. She takes a deep breath. The kind that suggests she's used to pulling herself out of that.

"I'm SHIELD, alright, I'm used to weird. But this is ..." She waves her hand. "Different weird."