The Park, Sunday Morning

[ifwebeworthy]

Don had not had a good night. Adjusting to having a body again didn't seem like it should be as much of a struggle as it had been, especially when it came to making it rest. The sensory input was too much sometimes, particularly with his leg beginning to itch as his new tattoo healed, and his brain tended to chuck up nightmares as it tried to process his time in the void, most of which was really not something a human brain was ever meant to process.

When Don had given up and offered to tap Thor in at two AM, Thor had refused on the basis that the thunder that accompanied their switching places might have woken the tower's other residents and, more mercilessly, that Don had to adjust. He was alive; he had a body. He had to remember how to live in it.

Which was why he'd picked up a coffee from the gremlin Starbucks in Stark Towerlet's lobby this morning and dragged said body out for a walk to further familiarize himself with the town before eventually stopping to rest on a bench in the park.

"Okay," he said to the ghost of a god sitting beside him, his face tipped up as if he, too, could feel the warmth of the sun on it when Don knew perfectly well his current state did not allow that. "You were right. This doesn't suck."

(Open park is open!)

Comments

[sith_happened]

"That I can relate to," Anakin said. "A woman wearing my first wife's face arrived a few years back. It was very awkward."

[ifwebeworthy]

Oh, yeah. Jane had mentioned that, now that he thought about it (the caffeine, it was caffeinating). "So, get this," Don said, leaning toward him a little bit to share the joke. "Same woman." He settled back, took a sip of his coffee, and admitted, "You're not wrong about the awkward." Plus Don came with extra bonus awkward in the form of Thor.

[sith_happened]

"...and now it's more awkward," Anakin said after an admittedly awkward pause while he processed that.

[ifwebeworthy]

Don shrugged. "I mean, she's not actually my ex-girlfriend," he pointed out. "As far as I know, my ex-girlfriend is in New York, not being Thor." Yet.

[sith_happened]

"Oh, she's much taller than my wife was," Anakin said. "But the face is eerily similar."

[ifwebeworthy]

"She's not actually that tall," Don ratted her out. "Or blonde. That's...it's a Mjolnir thing. 'The power of Thor.'" Which he still had questions about, but you couldn't just ask someone why they were worthy.

Especially when they were your ex-girlfriend.

[sith_happened]

Nooooo, that would end very badly, and Anakin was an expert in things ending very badly.

"The power of Thor changes your height and hair color?" Anakin replied.

[ifwebeworthy]

"It's a whole package deal," Don explained. "The armor, too." And then there was him, but he was a special case.

Wait.

"Is...is Jane Thor all of the time?" That seemed odd, now that he thought about it.

[sith_happened]

Anakin nodded. "Most of the time, yes."

[ifwebeworthy]

Don considered that for a moment, then said, "Huh." Maybe it had something to do with the hammer being broken? She didn't seem to know much about that, so she might not have answers, and again, probably wouldn't appreciate him asking. "It's probably none of my business anyway." As her ex, yes, but there were other considerations he wasn't about to share with Anakin.

"Apparently I don't look the same where Jane's from, so that's weird." He frowned at his coffee. "I wonder what I do look like?"

[sith_happened]

"That's a strange thing to contemplate," Anakin admitted. "I apparently look the same in all dimensions. They recognize me right away."

[ifwebeworthy]

"There are definitely some differences in the people from...variations of my universe, I guess? Steve doesn't look exactly the same, and Wanda's pretty different..." He thought about mentioning Dean Winchester turning into, allegedly, a dead ringer for Jane's universe's Sif, but he wasn't supposed to have been around for that. "Tony's pretty much the same, though, except for his eyes. Jane's eyes are different, too, come to think of it.

"It was pretty weird," he admitted. "To have her not recognize me, and then find out she knew her universe's Donald Blake after all, just...I'm that different. Really makes you wonder, y'know?"

[sith_happened]

"It really does," Anakin agreed. "Some universes seem to feel the pull of this place harder than others, so we get confronted with a lot of different possibilities. Sometimes our brains aren't ready to process it."

[ifwebeworthy]

"I get the feeling my universe is pretty weird by most standards," Don said. "At least, this wasn't my first rodeo with the concept of a multiverse. It's still a lot, and I haven't even met my own great-grandkid yet."

[sith_happened]

"Oh, he is completely unimpressed with me," Anakin said. "Would you like to adopt him? He's in his mid-20s."

[ifwebeworthy]

"I think I'm gonna pass," Don told him after pretending to consider it. "Good luck with him, though."

[sith_happened]

"One of these days I'll be able to give him away," Anakin said with a laugh. "He's in my home galaxy working as a ship captain in shipping."

Smuggling. Say smuggling, Anakin.

[ifwebeworthy]

"That doesn't sound so bad," Don said. "But I don't know your family. Maybe you wanted him to be a space doctor?" This was an attempt at a joke.

[sith_happened]

Anakin burst out laughing. "Cade would be exceptionally badly suited to be a doctor. I'm happy he has an occupation at all, to be completely honest."

[ifwebeworthy]

"Oh, he's that kid," Don realized. "They say there's one in every family."

[sith_happened]

At least he hadn't tried to turn to the Dark Side? Anakin's family had Problems.

"At least one," Anakin agreed dryly.

[ifwebeworthy]

Maybe Cade was the one who was doing it right, Anakin. Did you ever stop to think about that?

"At least you know he's really a future generation's problem?"

[sith_happened]

Anakin would try to process "maybe Cade's right" and his brain would stop working.

"It's a great comfort to me."