2014.02.01 - Scrambled Chronons and a Side of Technobabble

SHIELD Helicarrier Argus - Research Lab

This lab is full of high tech equipment for research and development. It has vaults for volatile substance storage, and prototype weapons storage. Long metal tables are filled with electronics for use by S.H.I.E.L.D. techs and consultants.

In an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D., things happen very quickly, and they happen by the numbers. The moment Rokk Krinn, a registered metahuman and member of a registered metahuman organization, requested to deliver critical information to S.H.I.E.L.D.? That machine went to work, parsing Rokk's request through all known channels of intelligence on Krinn, the League of Superhumans, and collected data related to the incident on US 95 north of Las Vegas. Potential security threats are measured against potential gains to international security, and after a handful of random Agents review the information, Rokk's request is granted.

Without its cloaking mechanisms engaged, the Helicarrier hovers like a behemoth against the setting sun and impending evening. A S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopter carries the visitor to a docking port attached to a section of the massive carrier that was intentionally designed to minimize any visitor's exposure to the full size and breadth of the Argus. A nameless agent, accompanied by two armed guards, escort Rokk through a series of corridors specifically designed to further minimize his exposure, not to mention S.H.I.E.L.D.'s exposure. He's signed in, searched, scanned, and finally, brought toward one of the Helicarrier's research labs.

Inside, there is another armed guard, and a pair of young scientists engaged in what appears to be rampant bickering.

"I can't attenuate the axial servos unless I've got an active bio-electrical field!"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Fitz. Here." Jemma Simmons slams a simple, circular device over her wrist, which lights up in blue, and begins humming. She gestures over toward a spherical device laying upon a work table, smirking. "Power up."

Fitz grins wickedly, and is about to put the goggles back on his head, when the sound of doors opening draws his attention. The Scottish lad looks up, his eyes blinking rather large behind a pair of magnifying goggles, prompting him to reach up and remove them. "Who's there?"

Once the access request was granted, Krinn declined transportation -- something about not entirely trusting the twenty-first century's flying cars. He at least made sure he was in communication with the Helicarrier's radio control tower on the approach and had clearance to land. Which, well, is more than people who ride flying unicorns do. Proof of identification, sign-in, all sorts of security scans, and one armed escort later--

Who's there at their door is an absurdly cleancut man somewhere in his mid-thirties, wearing what looks for all they world like a varsity jacket over regular clothes. Black hair, blue eyes, square jaw, pleasant demeanor. "Afternoon! Rokk Krinn. I've got some data on the temporal goat rodeo and the metahuman abductees over in Nevada a few days ago, and was told you were the people to talk to," he says, offering his hand to whichever of the two is closest, first. "But I'm not sure which of you is Agent Fitz, and which is Agent Simmons."

"The pretty one's Simmons. The ruggedly handsome one's Fitz."

Tony says as he comes into the lab. He's in armor, but it's currently opening and retracting so he can simply step out of it. "I'm of course too sweet to be sour too nice to be mean Tony Stark..and you would be..?"he asks, adjust the tie of his suit, because he'd be the kinda guy who'd wear it under his armor to a meeting on the hellicarrier.

Both Fitz and Simmons open their mouths as if to speak at once, but then there's Tony Stark, and... not only is he introducing them, he's in his armor! Jemma Simmons can't help but cock an eyebrow and watch. Sure, he may be twice her age (to be fair, 1.628538462 times Jemma's age, 1.611958401 times Leo's age, and yes, she just did that in her head), but it's quite a show.

Before Jemma can bite her lip, however, Fitz is stepping forward and offering his hand. "Agent Leo Fitz. Simmons is Bio..."

Jemma darts her eyes to Leo, glaring.

"... right." Security measures, Leo. "Temporal goat rodeo." He lifts a hand, snapping his fingers multiple times while realizing in layers that it was a joke. Sort of funny, but not really. "Do you have a digital record? Something we can bulk download?"

"Or we could do it the old fashioned way," interrupts Simmons, and angles her head toward both Tony and Rokk in such a way that her hair falls over her shoulder, and that was totally not intentional at all. She smiles, winningly. "And, you know. Have a talk. An interview. A debriefing!"

Fitz rolls his eyes and turns to walk over to his worktable, quickly clearing everything off into a bucket nearby and making a lot of noise while doing so.

When Tony comes in, Rokk-- has the grace to look somewhat chagrined. "Rokk Krinn," he says again, this time to Tony, even as he's shaking Leo's hand. "Or Cos. Nickname, codename, whatever. I'm with the Legion. You know, the enormous former-spaceship L-shaped building in Chelsea? That's us." When Simmons gives her winning smile, the Braalian responds with a laugh, no meanness in it. Friendly, crinkle-eyed, ssssort of Canadian accent overall. "I was hoping for both, actually. I'm not sure you've got the software extant to handle some of this, but before Brainy left the first time, he whipped up a backwards-compatability thingy, so at least you can get at the data."

Thumbing his ring around on his finger, Rokk depresses one side of it; a display comes up in the air, standard holoprojection style. "He said to hook it up to, um, fiber? I think? To transfer to present-day equipment. But anyway, there's oversight intel in case you guys are watching for that-- most of that's probably duplicated in the reports of other people who were there, like Stark here," nod of head in Tony's direction, "but I got my guys to run the telemetry data through our knowledgebase and there might be stuff in there that's helpful. And even though there aren't any samples of whatever those people were being administered, those people are safe, and accessible, and though I doubt they're fans of the idea of any more needles or tests, at least one of them might be willing to donate a sample."

Tony's lips thin out a little, "Oh? That's you guys? Good to know, I'll have to come by for the Star Tours sometime. So, Yeah, well. There was a magnetic anomaly, and I had some..problems. Kind of ended up on the Moon. With a dinosaur. And..stuff. So. Yeah. Kinda wanna know what the hell happened." - he looks to Fitz and Simmons, "I have the raw data from JARVIS, but I'm still combing through it myself. There was..a /lot/ going on."

"Cos, right," answers Fitz. He smirks when Cos doubts their ability to collect the data, and the holographic image doesn't even seem to phase him. "Fiber, right. Gentry!!"

A somewhat older, less-intelligent looking technician pokes his head out of a dark lab room. "What'cha need, FitzSimmons?"

Only then does Leo turn away, unapologetic (or perhaps blissfully unaware) that he just sort of shouted in Rokk's face. "She's Simmons, I'm Fitz. Get me an omnimorphic mining module with..." He spins about to eyeball the ring. "Parts two, seven, and twelve fiber connection diodes!"

It's worth noting that the research lab, at least this one part that has been opened to their visitor, is immaculately tidy. Save for the work Fits had been doing when Rokk entered, there's not a single other project in sight. Either the duo are incredibly tidy, or they cleaned house when they learned an outsider was coming.

"It's important to compare all the data," Fitz says with a rhetorical tone to his voice that is altogether dry. "Mister Stark, can you download the information you have into our little mining buddy?"

Jemma Simmons has been watching the whole time, occasionally reaching to push a stray hair behind her ear. As soon as Fitz has turned to Tony, however, she rushes over toward Krinn, brandishing a device in each hand. Small, really expensive looking medical devices. "There might be residual compounds or trace electromagnetic temporal discharges on you," she says quickly. "Or inside you." She's already up in his personal space, reaching one tool for Rokk's mouth. Had she not remembered her manners, she might have made an attempt to shove the swab right in there. "Oh, may I?" she asks.

"--yeahhh," says Cos, sort of ducking his head and squinting up at Tony, rubbing the back of his neck. "The magnetics were me. Too many people were killing too many other people, something had to be done, and that's all I had. Sorry. The sprocking orbital strike was Batman, though. If you want us to get the dinosaur off the moon, it can be arranged, at least."

He spreads his hands at Fitz, then digs in his pocket to pull something out, which he offers to the young Scot. "This was the thing Brainy did. Takes the hyperspace transmitter and, like-- optical? Output. So yeah. It's all beyond me, have fun. Let me know when it's ready to re-- woah, Agent Simmons, easy on the trigger finger, there."

Both hands are up mildly defensively, now, and Rokk eyes the English girl with some trepidation. "That's about as invasive as it's gonna get, right? I should warn you I am a temporal anomaly myself; I've got a fair amount of resident chronal energy I'd be pretty peeved if you messed with. I always get the worst end of it. And I'm not actually even from this planet. So your bio stuff might be way off."

Tony Stark watches, and the thin expression turns into a grin. "She /is/ refreshing, isn't she?" he says to Krinn of Simmons, chuckling and looking to Fitz, "Sure. I can do that." - he doesn't even need to take out his phone. He just speaks up, "JARVIS - send the package, would you?" - a few seconds later, and the raw data from Iron Man's HUD and Sensor Array, filtered through JARVIS is in their possession. He looks to Rokk, "Oh - THAT was you..gotcha. Next time you want to do something like that, can we /not/ do it around someone called IRON man?" he holds up a hand, "Sorry. I just had to get that out. The dinosaur's fine. It'll fossilize - eventually. I've already had an inquest at the Pentagon and with Nasa."

Booster Gold has arrived.

Pepper Potts has arrived.

Clint Barton has arrived.

Fitz and Simmons have, of course, both reviewed what data S.H.I.E.L.D. already has. They both had a pretty good idea of what happened, and before anyone had arrived, the lab had been filled with gasps, curses, and arguing. When Rokk admits that he was responsible for the magnetic disturbance, though? They both react. Simmons backs off just a hair, her eyebrows shooting skyward, while Fitz looks between Tony and Rokk as if he's about to watch a throwdown.

'Batman!?' mouths Simmons.

Fitz looks over toward a tabletop computer, which begins shooting holographic data into the air as it's received by JARVIS. "Bloody hell, that's awesome." He scratches his head and dives in, fingers flipping through the air as the sophisticated computer reads his hands' motions, a true touchless interface. He does abruptly look up, blinking his eyes. "I thought you were joking." He grabs an image of the moon, throws it into the air, expands his fingers to zooooom in, and sure enough, there's a T-Rex corpse (albeit a bit pixelated) buried into the surface of the moon. "You actually DID that?" he asks.

"Of course he did, Fitz, he's Iron Man." Simmons looks over at Tony with a bright smile, before diving back in on her actual patient, Rokk Krinn.

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. There's nothing invasive about it what so ever." That being said, she brings that swab up and sticks it right into his mouth, about the same time that she tilts her head up and says, "Say AHHH."

The swab digs around for a second or two, while one of Simmons' eyebrows cocks skyward Spock-style. "This will be perfect," she says, withdrawing the swab to study it before clipping it off into a tiny vial. Next comes a tiny little thingie with a glowing yellow tip, and she begins waving it all around Rokk's upper body. "I can use the chronal energy indigenous to your bio structure and patternize any anomalous readings by using a degrading graviton simulator. All I'd... need to do, is..." She's fiddling with the little device, eyeing it as if she could make something out of a tiny little display on its handle. "...find a base temporal resonance signature and build the appropriate algorythm." She suddenly looks up at Rokk with a satisfied look, and takes a half-hop step backward. "How does that sound, Cos?"

There's a crucial budget meeting tomorrow. Early tomorrow. It's one of the very few meetings each year that Pepper /demands/ Tony attend. And yet, when she asked JARVIS for Tony's location so she could discuss the R&D budget meeting with him, where does the AI say he's hiding? The Helicarrier.

After calling in backup (aka, Clint) in case she needs help getting Tony to leave SHIELD's version of Candyland, they make their way here, Pepper glaring her way past all of the security checks that slow her down. Clint's presence likely helped a lot too.

Now, she proves another possibly rare skill: not only can she walk in her scary heels, she can do so VERY quietly. And she walks right up behind Tony and stops there with her arms crossed and a displeased expression on her face.

They aren't going for ice cream, are they. Clint had kind of been hoping Pepper was joking about the whole SHIELD thing, and yet here they are. And while Clint is more than happy to turn on his angry-hawk-glare for Pepper, he still can't help but be wary.

Somehow, he just knows Fury is going to turn up and convince him to take on a mission or two again. It always happens. So when Pepper gets all up in Tony's business, Clint hangs out by the door and tries to blend in with the random passing agents in the background.

Rokk gets a communication through his ring, in Interlac. |"I hit a delay. There was this young lady causing explosions and... you know, I'll explain it later."| It is from Booster Gold, naturally, because only he would end up late due to an exploding woman. Or whatever it is he's talking about. As he flies himself to the Helicarrier and deals with being checked and escorted, he adds through the flight ring, |"I have a few concerns about some temporal stuff. I really wish Brainy were still around."| By the time Booster shows up in person, he is his typical smiling self, pointing finger-guns at people with a cheerful greeting of, "Dudes."

Tony Stark nods, "Yeah, I really did that. Took me almost twenty hours to get home, because the magnetization had screwed some vital systems and I had to come up with some creative work arounds. Then I had to endure a thirty minute bitching at from Batman on my actions almost costing lives, and I'm not safe, and I'm dangerous and then when I'm getting my scotch and Ben and Jerry's on with Bruce Willis and Armageddon, what happens? In walks Pepper, all freaked out because "Oh MY God you went into SPACE and YOU COULD'VE DIED and HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ASSIST A BOSS WHO IS SPACE junk and just yip yip yip and bark bark bark and responsibility this and accountability that.."

Tony looks at Rokk, Fitz, and Simmons and their collective wide-eyed blank stares and silence. He knows what this means and he frowns, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. He nods.

"Annnnnnd she's standing right behind me. For most of that. Right." he pauses and looks down, Facepalm. "Hi Pepper."

"At least you didn't faceplant like Booster," Rokk points out, and it's not so much defensive as a very shoddy peace offering, "from midair. And at least I stopped anyone else from getting slaughtered out of hand. I mean, look, there were Romans and Nazis and civilians and Soviets and--"

The Braalian's now noticed that Fitz and Simmons have backed off from him, and he drops his hands -- which he has a tendency to talk with -- and hooks his thumbs in his pockets, taking on the most inoffensive possible Space Canadian stance in existence. "Ahh," he says contritely, and gets a cotton swab stuck in his mouth for his troubles.

Cos continues, in fact, to look amenable up until Simmons starts waving the glowing yellow tipped thingy about and talking about his time-travel jazz, at which point he immediately raises a magnetic shield. Doesn't extend any further than his clothing. "Don't," he says patiently, "muddle my chronons. I don't have a static base temporal signature; the chronal energy's not indigenous to my physiology, and I don't want to turn into a different version of me on accident. You're going to have to--"

Then Rokk's ring spouts crazy space language, and he holds up a finger to Simmons. Wait. |"I wish he were, too. These two nuts are nuts. I think they're part Coluan. With like... dyejobs. When you get in here maybe you can give them a hand, I think they think they're used to dealing with time travel."|

He's about to say something else when Pepper comes in, and since he's stopped talking, yeah, he's caught the last of what Tony's saying. That is, in fact, a silent, wide-eyed blank stare.

"I think," he replies slowly to Tony, "you just got owned by opening your mouth."

Fitz is still working on prepping all of the data for a very hardcore data-dump and cross-delination, when he looks up from his work with a dubious expression planted on Pepper Potts. He doesn't stop working, but eventually, his eyes flick over toward Tony. Then back to Pepper. Then back to Tony. Then to Pepper. Then to Tony. Then he nods his head balefully to Tony.

It was even enough to silence Jemma Simmons, who'd been halfway through opening her mouth to say something back at Rokk.

At which point, Gentry, the tech, walks out with the omnimorphic mining module that Fitz requested. He sets it down and says, "Need anything else, FitzSimmons?"

"She's Simmons," Fitz mutters, eyes still on Tony and Pepper.

"He's Fitz." Simmons' echoes. A beat later, she goes, "Right." And turns back to Rokk. "Okay, so, we have to do this the hard way. A passive chronite scan! But it will take some time. A long time. Six, maybe seven hours. But don't worry!" She raises her hands, both instruments still held (and, fortunately, the potentially-temporally-dangerous one turned off), and says, "Fitz developed the scanner, and I promise you it's absolutely flawless. Odds of your chronons being scrambled are..." Her eyes go skyward for a moment. Math time! "Approximately 375,000 to one. If it happens?" She reaches out and mock punches Rokk in the shoulder. "We'll just have to pull a Biff Tanner on you and put things right!"

"Wait, did I say that backwards?" Simmons shakes her head. "One in 375-THOUSAND." She winks at Rokk, saying, "Gotcha!"

"You had it right the first time," Rokk mutters, not quite actively scowling.

Pepper Potts's eyes narrow as Tony turns around to look at her, and she stares him down for precisely 3.4629 seconds. "The R&D budget meeting is at seven forty-five tomorrow morning." If she's here, it's clear she'd intended to say far more than that. But, that's all Tony's getting now. She turns and heads back toward where Clint is waiting, her heels NOW clicking on the floor quite decisively. "Let's go. I'm in the mood for ice cream." A LOT of ice cream. And maybe a re-watching of Bridget Jones' Diary. But not the ending. She is in NO mood for a happy ending right now.

Mreanwhile, Clint's just over here, don't mind him. His eyes go preeeetty wide when Tony says- well... what he says. Not to be repeated in polite company.

At any rate, he is /more/ than happy to go. He is quite happy in his current arrangement with SHIELD, which involves pension paychecks in the mail and no face-to-face interaction. Except, you know, right now. "FitzSimmons," he says, offering a two-fingered salute because they are probably the least objectionable agents that Clint knows of, and then he just kind of... grimaces at Tony. Welp. Nothing Clint can do. Also, more pressing matters at hand, such as ice cream, so he trails after Pepper's angry yet dignifed stilettos.

Booster pauses in mid-step as he enters the area, his enhanced senses catching that whole exchange between Tony and Pepper. "Yikes," he says, very quietly. Further comment is kept to himself, because Booster is actually smarter than he looks or acts. Anyway, he had picked up what Fitz and Simmons are doing and he lifts a hand to them as he exclaims, "Wait, don't do anything that'll interfere with Rokk's chronons! That could be a really, really bad idea, he's -in- this era because of an unplanned cross-temporal jaunt. Also there's..." he lightly coughs into his fist, instead of just spilling Rokk's personal history. "Just, other stuff going on. We've had problems with other chronally unstable time travelers getting punted out of this timeline. It's like. Serious."

Tony Stark turns around, and if looks could kill Tony would be DOA not to some great force or foe, but to a five-foot-nothing redhead in four inch stilletos. "Umm.." he holds a hand up trying to explain himself, and then Pepper has wheeled around and is walking away. Trying to save face, he calls out, "Seven-Forty-Five, I got it Miss Potts. Thank you. I'm glad..we could..have..this..product..um..hi Clint. Bye Clint." and then he turns around and looks to those staring at him.

"Well, shit."

"So um, yes, we were discussing cross temporal jaunts and Rokk having Time Traveler herpes, yes?" he says, looking around rubbing his hands together.

"I haven't got any kind of herpes," Rokk retorts, then glances around Tony to see Pepper and Clint leaving. "I didn't know she had a new boyfriend. Seems like a smart guy. Knows when not to talk." So cheery, that addition, it's like he's not saying anything pointed at all. Maybe he's not!

What he does do, is Cos steps behind Booster. "You don't need to keep me here for like seven hours," he tells Simmons. "Booster can tell you whatever it is you need, he's probably done all those scans already." A pause, and he glances aside to the blond, questioningly. "I mean, actually I think you did last time we had the whole-- with Lori, and the magic weirdness, and-- Jazmin getting lost with the Princess and-- anyway she wants it so she can separate what's me from what might be left over from Nevada. But I figure, you were taking readings the whole time. If you have a translation algorithm Fitz's data mining'll probably go a lot faster."

Meanwhile, Leo Fitz has gone to work. The fibre optics are plugged into Rokk's device, and oodles of data begins streaming onto his holographic table. His eyes dance about in a hyperfocused way, and then, one hand reaches out to grab the visual representation, and he literally carries the holo-projection across the room with him. He tears through drawers and cabinets, pulling out item after item, sometimes throwing things back in after scowling disapprovingly at what he finds. He comes back with an armful of stuff, shuffling it about to keep from dropping anything, then dumps it ingloriously on one of the work tables.

It makes a lot of noise.

Just after Clint uses that nickname, Fitz literally bashes his way into one of those objects with a hammer. "See you round," he answers Clint.

"Goodbye," adds Simmons.

Seems they don't object to the nickname all the time.

Two more bashes and the object cracks open. Fitz throws the hammer aside, digs out some diodes and wires, and promptly begins creating something. "That!" he abruptly says, snapping his fingers toward Booster without even looking, "--is exactly what I needed to know." He resumes pretty much slam banging through his work, but anyone with a trained eye might recognize just how precise he's actually being.

Moments later, he's got two little nodules attached to a rat in a pretty glass cage and a makeshift control device fabricated out of an old in-ear comm remote antennae. "Or, we could do this." He eyes the device and slowly twists a knob.

The rat appears in the next cage over. Both rats exist for about three and a half seconds, before the first one disappears. "The rat has just traveled back in time exactly three and a half seconds, using the same method that brought Mister Krinn here. Well, not here here, but here, as in, to our little corner of the multi-timeline tempora-verse."

Simmons shakes her head at Fitz.

"Tempora-verse," he repeats. "I... made up that word."

Discarding the tools as if what he just did wasn't ground breaking, he walks over to snatch up the little device with the yellow light from Simmons, which he holds up in the air for Rokk specifically to see. "Now I can modify this device to take an accurate, full spectrum reading of your chronons without interfering a thing. And if you do happen to Biff Tanner your way out?" He gently removes one of the nodules from the time-traveling rat. "This will track you and let me pull you back." He grows very stern. "But be careful, Cos. If you go, you might be gone here three and a half seconds, but you might be there for much longer." Fitz doesn't specify just how long, but he's speaking as if nobody is going to have a problem with him doing this. "Unless, you know, we decide not to get any exact details on what caused these temporal rifts in Nevada, not to mention finding a way to track them through the bazillion timelines that exist and are growing exponentially every second. I'm more than happy to resume work on my Night-Nigh... ... my, uh, super classified project." Without missing a beat, he slowly turns the object over toward Booster, and his eyebrows shoot right up. "... or we could do it with you." Looking Booster up and down, he continues, "You're full of chronal energy! How in... what did... so you..." Then he looks back to Rokk. "But... we might get more accurate readings from you. Not as much noise."

"Oh. Yeah." Booster looks uneasy, although part of that is because he is watching Pepper and Clint exit. Awkward. "Hi, Mr. Stark," he adds, for good measure. "Here's... the thing. We've been keeping track of temporal disturbances for a while, out of necessity. So..." He trails off. There is a lot for him to explain, and it is difficult to know where to start. So he touches his index fingers together as he mentally counts things off. "I do have a lot of data from the Nevada site, because I specifically went there to scan for temporal issues." He touches his second finger, "I seem to have some kind of ... thing going on with temporal energy but I generally don't like talking about it." He touches his third finger. "I might kinda have a map of the time stream. By kinda I mean that I do, and apparently most people can't see the lines and fractures, but I can. So I've been keeping track of things and marking them out so they're visible to whomever."

Tony Stark nods, "Booster." he says evenly, and takes a couple of steps back, thumb over his shoulder, "So yeah, while you guys sit here and play Doctor Who all evening, I'm uh, gonna go and get some important grovelling done..that is, if it's all the same to you guys?"

"No," says Cos quickly, waving his hands in front of him and taking another step back, further behind Booster. He leaves his magnetic shield up, too. It's localized enough it doesn't mess with any equipment-- and it's strong enough it will mess with electronic sensory readings of him. "That's not how I got here at all, and if you end up accidentally shunting me out, you'll send me right outside time. And then there's only three or four entities that could get me back, and only one of those has my best interests in mind."

The Braalian Legionnaire gestures to Booster again. "What he said," he adds. He doesn't, for the record, seem to be reacting to seeing a kitbashed time travel device in operation with any kind of surprise whatsoever. If he gives it any regard beside denial, it's this... infinitely tired look. Longsuffering, even. "Also, you mean this particular corner of hypertime. There is a word for it." Someone here never outgrew pedantry.

"Either way, that's theoretically a great idea, but it's not for me. It's really really not. Most of our teammates aren't here on purpose, but I am. Stark here would've been a better idea to check for that energy; he was there too, and he doesn't have any of these... um, issues. But," he nods to Tony, gives him a tip of an invisible hat, "he's going home. You'll have to make do with scanning my spit on that cotton swab. And Booster-- no offense to our esteemed hosts, here, but I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable with that map getting out."

The more that Booster speaks, the more dismayed Leo Fitz becomes. It's not that he's unhappy that the might have just been given a much easier solution on a silver platter, because really, he is happy about that. But all that work, and... they don't even get to try it out?

His shoulders visibly slump, and he turns away to begin rustling up his things.

Simmons gives Fitz a long-suffering look of her own, before turning back around to approach Booster and Rokk. "Really, boys. He's harmless, I promise. Fitz is just... Fitz." She gently lays a hand on Booster's forearm, smiling. "We don't want either of you to do anything you aren't comfortable with. We're not in the business of taking information that isn't wanted. Besides! You've shared plenty already, and I can't tell you how grateful we are!"

Fitz comes over to stand at Simmons' side. He offers the ring back to Rokk, and has to admit a half smile. "If you need some time to sort out just what you're willing to give us, that would be splendid."

"Oh, Mister Stark?" Simmons turns and rushes over toward Tony. "Word of advice, luv. No excuses. Just apologize. Bring a flower, and some ice cream." Before Tony might choose to retort, she lifts a shushing finger. "She'll have run out. Bring more. Oh, and fly safely."

Tony Stark cants his head for a moment, like a dog hearing a tone only it can here. He looks cofused a moment, then realization crosses his face. "ohh yeah. Right. Gotcha. A flower. More ice cream. Uhh..yeah. Thanks, Jemma." he says, looking to Booster and Rokk, "You two play nice with my friends here, and no one cross the streams..or..something." he is heading towards the suit, and steps into it, the armor wrapping around him and activating even though the faceplate hasn't covered Tony's face yet.

"Or something that goes well with ice cream." Booster shrugs a little at this. "That's all I've got, sorry. My experience with ice cream is pretty minimal. Um." After a pause, he adds, "Good luck, Mr. Stark." The glance he gives him is subtly sad, as if this were going to be the last time he might see Tony alive.

After a lengthy, hushed pause, Booster says to Rokk, "You might be right. The problem with -my- map is that it has a lot of data in it that could wipe out this timeline if the wrong people got a hold of it." He snaps his fingers, then. "Speaking of, I have to assume a person or persons opened those time rifts, those weren't random. If you have a time manipulator on the loose, that's going to be a huge problem. As in, multiversal-sized problem."

Tony Stark nods to Rokk, "Thanks, Rokk. I'll see ya around." then he pauses, "Oh, and if there's a multiversal problem? I call dibs on all my dupes. They might have some useful tech."


 * clang* faceplate down, eyes glow blue, and Iron Man strides out of the R&D lab. He didn't really /want/ to go, but sometimes you just gotta face the firing squad. Or in this case, Pepper Potts.

That's the part where Rokk actively winces. "Uh, about that," Rokk says, lifting a finger, chagrined. "Angel McGuire. The kid the court ordered home after he came to us. He has uncontrolled chronodimensional powers. He was last seen before the incident in the desert, when the team that raided New Horizons found him. I can only imagine he's somewhen else."

A glance to Simmons, then, and Cos gives her-- and then Fitz, as he takes his ring back-- a lopsided smile. "Harmless in intent, the both of you. You remind me of friends of mine-- you're both just much nicer." There's a pause. A glance to Booster, too. Then Rokk, putting his ring back on, notes cheerfully, "I've got to go, but you're welcome to a tour of the unclassified areas of Legion Headquarters any time you like."