Chapter Text
NEW YORK, 12:04 PM.
The first thing Anakin registers when he wakes up is an insistent pounding headache.
The second thing he registers is the fact that his mouth feels (and smells) like something crawled in just to die in the closest thing to a desert environment anywhere in New York.
The third thing is that this is not his messy New York apartment, because for one thing, he still hasn’t gotten the plastic cling wrap off his furniture, and his cheek is definitely not pressed against plastic cling wrap.
He practically flings himself off the couch, which he quickly finds is a terrible idea, given that: one, his headache immediately intensifies the moment he moves; two, his stomach immediately rebels the moment he moves; and three, he does not land as gracefully as he should have, instead banging his knee on the floor and giving a pained scream.
“Oh, hey,” says a man with a goatee--says Tony fucking Stark, “you’re awake! Morning, sunshine. Or, noon, sunshine.” He pauses, then adds, “Or, well, baby-Darth.”
“What the fuck,” says Anakin, but he’s hungover, so it comes out more like, “wh’th’fuck.”
“Anakin!” Thor cheerfully calls, walking over to help Anakin up to his feet. Anakin lets himself sway a little into Thor’s body, selfishly happy that he can at least have this much, before the name and Tony’s casual nickname hits him. “I must go, follow the trail Ultron left when he took Loki’s scepter, but I needed to brew you something first--not more mead, Stark, that is the very last thing he needs. Loki used to make it for us when we were recovering from a long celebration, and he taught me how to brew it.”
Anakin stares blearily up at him and says, “What the fuck did I do last night?” To him, his own voice sounds strange, too loud, and he winces as Thor pushes a cup of something green that smells like petunias into his unresisting hands. “No, seriously, what did I do? Last night gets a little blurry after shots with Helen.”
“You blew your cover wide open,” says Ahsoka, stepping into view, holding a cup of coffee. “And no, this cup’s mine, get your own.”
“I what,” says Anakin. “What.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot to ask,” says Tony Stark, sounding extraordinarily calm for someone who’s just been told that one of the most iconic villains of cinema is currently hungover on his couch drinking his thunder god ex’s hangover cure, “Thor, did you have sex with Darth goddamn Vader?” He pauses, then says, “Oh, god, why does that sentence make sense?”
Anakin almost pukes the hangover cure all over Tony’s couch.
--
THE NIGHT BEFORE.
“But you know, the suit can take the weight, right? So I take the tank, fly it right up to the general’s palace, drop it at his feet, I’m like--boom! You looking for this?”
Ahsoka looks at Anakin, who’s smiling politely at Rhodey with a vague look of confusion on his face, then back at Rhodey, who’s looking at them like he’s expecting some kind of impressed reaction from them. She shrugs, because really--she’s pulled off a lot more impressive stunts than that.
“Okay, and?” she says.
Rhodey huffs out a breath. “Boom, are you looking for--dammit, if I wanted this kind of reaction, I’d talk to Tony.” He crosses his arms and shakes his head at them. “You’re a tough crowd, Dr. Foster, Ms. Tanner.”
Anakin’s eyes refocus, and he says, “Oh, uh--that’s it?”
Rhodey’s jaw drops, a little. He lets out a long breath, scrubs his free hand over his face, and says, “You weren’t listening, were you.”
“I was listening!” says Anakin. “Look, it’s a very interesting story. I think maybe--Helen might like it, she was a sucker for those stories when we roomed together.”
“No, you weren’t listening,” says Ahsoka, sipping at her beer.
“I don’t even know why I thought I could talk to you people,” Rhodey grumbles, walking off to, presumably, impress some other group. Ahsoka feels kind of terrible for him, it’s not as if he knows that she and Anakin have done much crazier with much less.
“Dr. Foster!” calls Tony kriffing Stark, and both Ahsoka and Anakin turn at nearly the same time to see Stark walking up to the both of them, dressed to the nines and holding a glass of red wine. “So nice to see you here. I thought Thor said you had fifty different schools all clamoring for your attention.”
“Mr. Stark,” says Anakin, with a fixed smile. “Well, I make a lot of time for my friends.” He looks around, says, “I thought Ms. Potts would be here.”
“Pepper’s got a company to run,” says Stark, in a manner so casual that Ahsoka’s pretty sure he and Thor just came fresh off a pissing match. “You know, just one of the largest information technology companies. Important stuff.”
“Okay,” says Anakin, with a shrug.
Stark looks distinctly disappointed. Then he nods to Ahsoka and says, “Hey, who’re you? I thought you’d be bringing your intern, the one with the rack?”
“I’m Ashley Tanner,” says Ahsoka, raising her glass and giving Stark a smile--that is, the kind of smile where she pulls her lips back over her teeth and remembers that once upon a time, she was descended from a line of predators. “The other intern. Also, that’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.”
Stark’s eyes widen as what she’s said seems to sink in, and he nods. “Yeah, okay, you’re a lucky girl, Ms. Tanner,” he says hastily, which is apparently the Tony Stark version of an apology. “So, uh--”
“Dr. Foster,” comes a familiar voice, and Ahsoka turns first to see Maria Hill, formerly known as Jedi Master Depa Billaba, walking calmly towards them, a wineglass in her hand.
Anakin does not turn immediately. Ahsoka knows, because she can feel his anxiety bubbling up in the bond between them, and sends a small amount of reassuring warmth his way. She also elbows him in the side to get him to turn around.
“Agent Hill,” Anakin blurts. “Or, uh.”
“Hill’s fine,” says Hill, shortly.
“Oh, you two know each other?” says Stark, stepping around them to perch himself on a stool. “Small world.”
“We went to the same high school and I used to babysit for Ashley,” says Hill, not taking her eyes off Anakin. “It’s been a while, John.”
Ahsoka coughs. “Hey, so,” she says, “I’m glad you found a job. We heard about the fall of SHIELD.”
Anakin’s smile looks so brittle she’s surprised it hasn’t broken then and there. This party’s terrible, he tells Ahsoka over their bond, and she only barely manages to stifle a laugh. “Yeah, we were in the same class,” he says.
“This is the most awkward reunion I’ve ever seen, and I’m counting the time I showed up drunk and high at the MIT reunion ten years ago,” says Stark.
“Gee, thanks,” says Hill, at about the same time Ahsoka says, “How are you not dead?”
“Sheer audacity, dumb luck, and also the world’s fanciest pacemaker,” Stark returns, as glib as ever, before he hops off the stool and says, “Anyway, I have a science bro to rescue from secret paparazzi, so I’ll just leave you both to your awkward yet no doubt entertaining reunion, shall I?”
“Please do,” mutters Anakin, looking anywhere but at Hill. He immediately grabs Stark’s seat the moment it’s vacant, and says, “So, uh, looking well. Master Billaba.”
“Hill,” says Hill. “Which name do you go by these days, anyway? I’m curious.” Hopefully not Vader, goes unspoken, but it hangs in the air between all three of them, the shadow of Anakin’s deeds while under Palpatine’s thumb. Ahsoka thinks neither of them will ever be completely free of that shadow.
“Anakin,” says Anakin, fiddling with his medical bracelet. “Just--Anakin. But John’s as good a name as any.”
“Foster, then,” says Hill, “at least for now.” She waves her wineglass at the party and says, “We have a cover to maintain.”
Ahsoka hops up onto another stool, and says, “So how is it? Working in the corporate sector, I mean.”
“Soul-crushing,” Anakin mutters, flagging down the bartender. Ahsoka strangles a shocked noise when the Black Widow walks over, mixing drinks, and smiles charmingly at Anakin.
“Not quite,” says Hill, with an enigmatic smile. “Hey, Nat.”
“Hey, Maria,” the Widow shoots back, as casual as anything. “Who’re these guys?”
“Thor’s plus-one and his plus-one,” says Hill. “We go way back.”
“Small world,” the Widow remarks casually, but the way her eyes narrow at the two of them gets Ahsoka’s hackles up. Her hand drifts over where she’d keep her lightsabers out of habit, but her fingers brush over empty air. Right, they’re in her bag.
Hill shifts, drums out an old code developed during the Clone Wars on the table. Widow’s safe, she tells her. Just cautious.
Ahsoka relaxes.
“I hear you’re working on your degree, Ashley,” says Hill. “And you, John--little birdy’s telling me you might be up for a Nobel prize, huh?”
“The what,” says Anakin, eyes widening. “No, I--probably not, I think it’s going to someone named Quinn. Uh--”
“I’m actually not enrolled just yet,” says Ahsoka, and Anakin shoves gratefulness at her along their bond. “But I’m thinking, maybe General Science, to start with?”
--
NEW YORK, 12:25 PM.
Anakin finds Clint Barton in one of the many, many kitchens in the Tower’s residential floors, nibbling on a waffle shaped like a heart. Compared to Anakin himself, with a pounding headache and last night’s clothes, Clint in his ratty, faded Captain America shirt and sweatpants looks more like an adult with his life mostly together, albeit with a few bits loose.
Clint stares at him. The waffle drops from his hand.
“You’re going to want to pick that up,” says Anakin, mildly.
“You’re Darth Vader,” says Clint.
“I used to be,” Anakin corrects, quietly cursing his drunken self for apparently blowing his cover wide open. Now he’s never going to escape the wide-eyed staring and terror. “Is there coffee?”
“None for you,” says Clint. “Pot’s all mine, buddy.” He pauses as Anakin opens the fridge and grabs a box of leftover Chinese. “So, uh. About three years ago.”
Anakin turns, and says, “Wait--what?”
“New Mexico,” Clint clarifies.
Anakin stares at him, briefly remembering--short man, bow and arrow, punched him in the face so hard he’d blacked out and come to in an interrogation room. “Jesus,” he says, clutching the box of leftovers close to his chest, “you.”
“Please don’t choke me,” says Clint.
“Why does everyone think I’ll choke them, I don’t do that anymore,” Anakin huffs, then, “look, just show me where you keep the spoons and the aspirin and tell me what the fuck did I do last night that everyone knows who I am now.”
“What,” says Clint, blinking at him, confused, as he perches on top of the counter, “you don’t remember?”
“I drank a lot more than I usually do, of course I don’t remember,” says Anakin. He smiles a little to himself--then again, not remembering’s his usual state of affairs. Or it had been until the Aether. “Just tell me how badly I blew my cover.”
“Very badly,” says Clint, “because you threw a robot halfway across the room while drunk.”
“I did what.”
--
THE NIGHT BEFORE.
Anakin’s sitting at the bar with a line of empty shot glasses and two bottles of whiskey in front of him, when Ahsoka manages to peel herself away from the Avengers daring each other to lift Thor's hammer.
“Hey, Skyguy,” she says, perching on the stool next to him.
“Hey, Snips,” says Anakin, pouring himself another shot.
“You should be up there,” she says, propping her arm up onto the counter. “Mingling. Wasn’t that why you accepted the invite in the first place?”
“Been mingling since we got here,” says Anakin, his words slurring together. Ahsoka sits up straighter. “Don’t feel like it now.”
“Come on,” she says, nudging his shoulder. “You like engineering, you can probably pick Stark’s brain.”
“No,” says Anakin, firmly. “Look, ‘Soka--what’re they doing up there?”
“They’re trying to lift Mjolnir,” says Ahsoka. “I managed to get it to budge a little, and so did Captain America, but as for everyone else…” She shrugs. Not even Helen had gotten the hammer to move more than an inch, and she’s the one with the regeneration cradle. “You’re not gonna try it out?”
Anakin knocks the shot back with worrying ease. “Not a question I need answered,” he says, not looking anywhere but at the bottom of his empty glass. He reaches up, wipes his mouth with the back of his gloved hand, and says, “I--I’m. I’m not worthy. Don’t have to pick up a magic hammer to know that.”
“It can’t hurt to try,” says Ahsoka. “I mean, I couldn’t lift it. Captain America couldn’t. I’m starting to think maybe Stark’s right about the fingerprint encryption.”
“Nope,” says Anakin, firmly. “If you an’ fucking Captain America can’t lift it, ‘m’not going to.” He pours himself another shot. “Not worthy. Could never be.”
Ahsoka huffs out a breath. “How drunk are you, anyway?” she asks.
“Not that drunk?” Anakin guesses, but he almost knocks over a shot glass. “Oh. ‘Kay, guess ‘m’drunk.”
Ahsoka sighs, nudges his shoulder. “Come on, up,” she says. “I’ll give you a hand up.”
“Don’t want to,” says Anakin, decisively. He downs the shot again, lines up another one before he glances at her. “Lemme be drunk, I don’t ever get t’be. Want one?” he offers. “Stark’s not too bad. When it comes to drinks. ‘S’pretty good stuff.”
“One of us kinda has to come home sober,” she says. “Come on, Anakin, up, I’m cutting you off--”
She cuts herself off when she--well, feels an unpleasant twang in the Force. A disturbance, she realizes, but of what kind? “Anakin,” she says, quietly, “did you feel that?”
“Fucking kriffing shit-Sith hells,” Anakin hisses, the clearest he’s been since the conversation started. Yeah, he definitely felt that disturbance. “I am too drunk for this.”
“Your own fault, Skyguy,” Ahsoka says, looking back at the Avengers’ small gathering, at Natasha sitting back and taking a long pull from her drink. “Damn it, and here I left my ‘sabers in my bag.” Which she left with Thor, and which she can’t pull away from him using the Force in front of the other Avengers. She’s starting to regret that decision now, along with picking a dress without any pockets. “Okay--get behind me.”
Anakin stares at her. “This disturbance--thing--whatever. S’in the way of me getting even more drunk,” he says, “the hell am I s’posed t’do? Leave you?”
“In your state, you probably should,” says Ahsoka.
“Fuck that,” says Anakin, as Thor picks his hammer back up. “Not doing that again.” He pauses, then says, resigned, “Fuck. Got an idea.”
“Let’s hear it, then,” she says, though she privately doubts it’ll be any good.
“You won’t like it,” says Anakin, and tells her.
At the gathering, just a few feet away from them, everyone groans.
“That,” starts Ahsoka, “is a horrible idea, and you’re--”
Then that noise breaks through the air and cuts off her admonishment--a screech like nails on a chalkboard, like a microphone emitting too much feedback. Ahsoka claps her hands over her ears and squeezes her eyes shut.
Then--that sound. Like a heavyset droid’s marching towards them. A malfunctioning heavyset droid, there’s an erratic pattern to its footsteps, and a dripping noise like oil, or blood, hitting the tiled floors.
Ahsoka opens her eyes.
“Anakin,” she hisses at Anakin, who’s gripping onto the counter as he pulls himself up to a standing position. “Anakin, remember what I said?”
“I know how to deal with droids,” says Anakin.
Ahsoka’s just glad Darcy’s too busy hanging out with her cousin Kate, somewhere in the middle of Force only knows where. She’s pretty sure the girl would have a premature heart attack, seeing this.
“Had this horrible dream,” the droid’s saying, conversationally, moving erratically about. Something about him stinks of darkness, though Ahsoka can’t fathom how--droids don’t usually have a Force presence, and that this one has one that’s so steeped in darkness--something is off here. “There was this--terrible noise, and I was tangled in--strings.”
“Hey,” says Anakin, calling everyone’s attention to him.
“Shit,” breathes Tony. “Uh, Dr. Foster, maybe you should lay off the drinks--”
“John,” says Helen, “maybe we should both get out of here--”
“For fuck’s sake, Foster,” says Hill, “not this again.”
The droid tilts his head. “You,” he says, and there’s something awful about the way he says it, dripping with venom, with familiarity. Ahsoka risks a peek at his presence, recoils from the oil-slick wrongness of it, as if someone only half-familiar with the Force, yet still incredibly powerful in so many other ways, shoved something into him. Something evil. “The least worthy of them all.”
“Yeah, ‘m’aware,” says Anakin. “Shut up.”
“Who sent you?” says Thor.
The droid tilts his head again, and something plays--I see a suit of armor around the world. It’s Tony Stark’s voice, Ahsoka realizes. “Or, well,” says the droid, “someone else showed me the light. Someone much higher than any of you.”
“Ultron,” says Banner, horrified.
“Who ‘showed you the light’?” says Steve.
“In the flesh,” says the droid--says Ultron. “Or. No, not yet.” He tilts his head at Steve, and Ahsoka swears that if that thing could smile, it would be. “Like I said--much higher than any of you. You don’t have the clearance.” He says it airily, casually, and Ahsoka senses a spike of anger from Natasha. “But I have a mission--”
“I’ve had enough,” says Anakin, stepping closer and flicking his hand out before Ahsoka can stop him. With a surprised creak, Ultron goes flying back against the wall, held in place by Anakin’s will. “I’ve seen droids like you before.”
“Dammit,” says Ahsoka, catching Hill’s incredulous eye before she looks back at Anakin, breathes out, and reaches a hand out, trying to grab hold of Ultron’s slippery presence. “Keep him in place, I’ve got an idea.”
“Droids?” says Clint, alarmed. “That’s--Dr. Foster, how many drinks have you had?”
“A lot,” says Anakin, airily.
“Too many,” says Hill, and there’s the sound of a gun being cocked. When she aims it, though, it’s not at Anakin--it’s at Ultron.
Ahsoka curses quietly, but delves in deeper into the Force, wrapping herself in light to try and follow after that thin, thin thread connecting Ultron to whatever’s shoved this darkness into him.
“But ‘s’not my point,” Anakin continues, unmindful of Hill. His eyes are still blue, at the very least. “My point is: you’re a terrible cliché, and about as smart as the battle-droids I used to have to deal with, because you caught me while I was drinking and I don’t like getting interrupted while I’m drinking.”
“Smart man,” says Tony, “but also, what the fuck.”
“You’ve never met anything like me before, Foster,” says Ultron, even as Anakin’s will keeps him pinned. His head jerks, erratic, malfunctioning. “Oh, and Tanner as well. You’re different.” He tilts his head again, back and forth, like a malicious bobblehead. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing. Following up on threads, trying to find the strings, never seeing the ones attached to you.” He doesn’t smile, he’s not capable of it, but there’s something mocking in his tone when he says, “I don’t have strings anymore, you won’t find--”
Anakin throws him across the room, in answer, leaving a crack in the windows where Ultron smacks into the glass, body sparking from the force. It has the side effect of breaking Ahsoka’s concentration.
“You don’t get to talk to her like that,” Anakin snarls.
“You had one job,” Ahsoka snaps.
And that, of course, is when the rest of Tony Stark’s Iron Legion comes bursting out through the walls.
“Fuck.”
--
NEW YORK, 12:56 PM.
Darcy texts him, after lunch. It reads, you suck at secret identities.
Anakin texts back, I kept one for twenty years, and steps closer to the bar, where Helen’s pouring herself a drink. “So, uh. I don’t recommend the whiskey,” he says.
“Obviously,” says Helen. “No, this is watered wine, because unlike you, when I drink, I am not drinking to embarrass myself.” She takes a brief sip of the wine, then sets it down gently, her hand only trembling slightly. “You’re an ass when you’re drunk, Foster.”
“Snips said as much,” says Anakin, resigned. “Also Hill. Um.”
“Then again, Foster’s not your name, is it,” says Helen, finally looking up from the wine. “How long?”
Anakin huffs out a breath. “Since a day or two before Greenwich,” he admits.
“And you didn’t say?”
“What could I have said,” says Anakin, looking down at his own hands, thumb brushing over his medical bracelet, “hey, Helen, you know those old movies you love so much? I’m in them, I’m the guy in black who kills people whenever he’s onscreen?” He huffs out a humorless chuckle. “How would that have gone over?”
“You have a point,” Helen concedes, taking another sip of her wine. “You’re a bastard, John. Or--Vader.”
Anakin flinches, a little. Helen’s a good person, but when she’s angry, it’s a cold, vindictive sort of anger that can cut a person’s heart out with a word. “It’s Anakin,” he says. “And, yeah, I can’t argue with that.”
“Anakin,” says Helen, experimentally. “I fed you my halmi’s soup. I helped you iron out your ethics paper. You.” She breathes out, runs a hand through her hair. “You--you--”
“You can punch me in the face if it makes you feel better,” says Anakin.
“Do not tempt me,” says Helen, angry and tired. “I just--you said you were from Illinois.”
“I thought so too,” says Anakin. “I liked being from Illinois, honestly. It’s not a desert hellhole, for one thing.”
Helen takes another sip. “So many things make so much sense to me now,” she says, pressing a hand to her forehead and letting out a sigh.
Anakin reaches out, unthinkingly, and settles his hand on her shoulder.
She stiffens, then pushes it off, rough. “Don’t,” she says. “I’m tipsy and angry. I don’t want to do something I might regret later.”
Anakin nods, pushing down on the urge to snap back at her, to ask her what he’s done to her that warrants this burning of the bridge between them, to apologize over and over again. This revelation isn’t easy, and either Helen will decide to stick around or not, he can’t do anything about that.
Honestly, he’d feel better, if she decided not to. Between the two of them, Helen Cho’s always been the one with a slightly better sense of self-preservation, anyway.
“Don’t you have bags to pack and a flight to catch?” says Helen.
“Yeah,” says Anakin, with a breath. “I guess I’ll call?”
“Don’t,” says Helen, standing up admirably straight. “I have a regeneration cradle to tinker with and a paper to write, I won’t answer.”
At the very least, he supposes, she’s spared his feelings. “Okay,” he says, letting the excuse go.
--
(Helen falls onto her bed and says, “I am going to murder Kowalski.”
John blinks, looks up from his beloved black notebook. The blunt end of his pen taps out an irregular rhythm against the notebook, dragging Helen out of her murderous thoughts. “Your professor in Regenerative Medicine, right?” he says.
“That’s him,” Helen confirms.
“He sounds like an asshole,” says John, dryly.
Helen sighs, turns over to muffle her angry curses into her pillow.
“Definitely an asshole,” says John. “If it helps? I got fucking Monroe last semester, I’m still recovering.”
“You poor man,” says Helen, lifting her head from her pillow. “If it helps, I hear he always singles somebody out.”
“Lucky me,” says John. “Want any help with that paper?”
“Thank you, but I think I can manage just fine,” says Helen.
“Fine,” says John. “Want any food? I think there’s still some Korean in the fridge--”
“No,” says Helen. “Absolutely not. I’m sorry, but that is some kind of pale imitation of Korean food in our fridge right now, and its very existence is a blight upon this country.”
John blinks owlishly at her for a moment, then says, “You really are tired, huh?”
“Very,” groans Helen, head falling back into her pillow. “I’ve had two papers due this week and I had to be late on another one because I’d been working on the other two. I want--I want to go home.” She closes her eyes against the burning shame of that admission--she’s Helen Cho, she’s always gone after what she wants, she’s never given up, she clawed her way out of Korea and into Columbia and proved herself worthy of a full ride.
--she wants to go home. Half a year has gone by and the American dream has been quite thoroughly ripped away from her. Land of the free, ha.
She feels her mattress dip, then John’s hand settle between her shoulder blades. “Okay,” he says. “Hey, you know what I learned about myself?”
“If this is the liver story again,” Helen starts.
“I learned to cook,” says John, unmindful. “I don’t really know what my mom used to cook for me, but I’ve been told my fried rice is passable. You want some?”
Helen lifts her head up from the pillow, just slightly. “Yes,” she says. “Please.”
“Okay,” says John, and he stands up, his hand falling away from her back. “What kind? I can probably scrounge something together from whatever’s in the fridge.”
“Something spicy,” says Helen, turning on her side to look at him, perhaps almost as tired as she is. Physics isn’t exactly the easiest subject, after all, and John’s trying to impress Dr. Selvig on top of that. “And salt does not count as a spice,” she adds.
“I can do that,” says John. “And why would salt count as a spice?”
“You,” says Helen, pointing at him. “You, I’m keeping. You’re the only white boy in half a year who’s ever thought salt didn’t count as a spice.”)