{Ladies and Gentlemen, instead of giving you a gif at the beginning of this chapter, I give you the official SLATE trailer! Please go watch and enjoy! 😊}
"Try not to touch anything, I wouldn't want you to break my house,"
"I woke up from a nap, Tony, I know how to not break things," Lottie shot back at Tony, stepping over a piece of the ceiling that was currently on the ground. "Don't think I can break it anymore than it already is."
Tony couldn't even stop the little smirk on his face at the woman's comment, but he continued on through the house as they followed along behind Director Fury.
Lottie surveyed her surroundings, her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach as she followed behind Tony, who she found impossible to keep her eyes off of. Seeing him before her, that glint in his eye and that smirk on her face, it made the ache in her chest worse when she realized that she would never see Howard again. But here she was, seventy years in the future, and the world had given her a small piece of him right in front of her eyes.
"That thing in your chest is based on unfinished technology," Director Fury explained, sitting on the shattered balcony of Tony's home. Tony made a move to sit beside him and listen while Lottie made herself comfortable on the wall just a few feet away from them, catching Natasha Romanoff's glance on her every so often.
"No, it was finished. It has never been particularly effective until I miniaturized it and put it in my-"
"The arc reactor was a stepping stone to something greater," Fury and Tony looked over at Lottie, who quickly looked up at them. "Howie- your father had the idea back in the fourties, but never the technology to create it. He showed me a lot of his ideas when I was in training. I always knew he was going to change the world."
Tony let his gaze linger on Charlotte for a moment as she looked down at her feet. Hearing someone speak so highly of Howard, like he was the greatest man on earth, it was different to the Howard he always knew.
"He was about to kick off an energy race that was gonna dwarf the arms race. He was on to something big, something so big that it was gonna make the nuclear reactor look like a triple-A battery," Fury explained to Tony and Lottie listened in as the conversation turned to Anton Vanko. Fury and Natasha had filled her in and little bits and pieces of information, enough that she would understand what was happening. Although her brain processed everything at high speeds, it didn't mean she felt comfortable enough to step in. This wasn't her world. "Anton saw it as a way to get rich. When your father found out, he had him deported. When the Russians found out he couldn't deliver they shipped his ass off to Siberia and he spent the next 20 years in a vodka-fuelled rage. Not quite the environment you want to raise a kid in, the son you had the misfortune of crossing paths with in Monaco."
Tony shook his head, looking up at the Director.
"You told me I hadn't tried everything. What do you mean I haven't tried everything? What haven't I tried?"
"He always said that only two people in the world would have the means and the minds to finish what he started: you and Charlotte," Lottie looked up at this, her eyes wide as Fury cast a glance in her direction. "And both of those people are in this room right now. You can solve the riddle of your heart."
"Look, I doubt he said that. I don't know where you get your information, but he wasn't my biggest fan," Tony pointed in Lottie's direction, and the woman felt absolutely useless in the situation she had been thrown into. "Hell, he spent most of my life talking about her and the Captain then spending a damn minute with me."
"What do you remember about him, exactly?"
"He was cold, he was calculating. He never told me he loved me. He never even told me he liked me, so it's a little tough for me to digest when you're telling me he said the whole future was riding on me and he's passing it down. I don't get that. You're talking about a guy who's happiest day was when he shipped me off to boarding school, or the days when he found an excuse to drone on and on about that one over there,"
Lottie looked to her feet with a frown, her eyebrows creasing as Tony's words ran through her mind. That wasn't the Howard she had known for so many years. The Howard she knew was loving, caring, a complete and utter flirt with a big heart. He cared for her, Peggy, Steve. What had happened to her best friend after she went in the ice?
"Natasha will remain a floater at Stark with her cover intact. Agent Coulson here is going to be keeping an eye on you," Lottie looked up, seeing Fury and the man known as Agent Coulson already looking at her. "And Charlotte here is going to help you solve the riddle of your heart, and you're going to get her acclimated to this world. I've got my eye on you."
Lottie watched as both Director Fury and Natasha left the home. She watched Agent Coulson and Tony exchange a few words before the Agent approached her, a nervous smile on his face that made her confused.
"If Mister Stark gives you any trouble, please let me know," Lottie smiled back at Agent Coulson as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I must say, it's an honor to get to meet you, Slate. I've always been a huge fan of you and Captain America."
Lottie's smile fell slightly at the mention of Steve, but she gave him a polite nod.
"Thank you, it means a lot,"
"I'll have to show you my trading cards some time, get you to sign them. They're vintage, incredible,"
"Your what?"
Agent Coulson never answered her question, though, already out of ear shot and out of the room in seconds, leaving Lottie with Tony. She looked over to the son of her best friend, watching as he leaned over the box Fury had left with him.
"Are you just going to stand there all day, Emilia Clarke, or are you going to help me?"
"What did you call me?" Lottie questioned, moving forward and taking a seat across from Tony, who looked up at her.
"She's this pretty hot actress, you two are almost identical," Lottie only cocked her head at Tony, who rolled his eyes. "She's go this new show coming out, Game of Stones or something like that. I'll show it to you."
Lottie only nodded, watching as Tony lifted the lid of the box, examining the multiple things inside quickly before placing the lid back on top.
"I know this is weird, it's weird for me too-" Lottie began, but was quickly cut off by Tony.
"Weird? Yeah, that's an understatement of the century. Totally not weird sitting in front of the woman that my father loved more than me and my mother combined,"
Lottie couldn't deny the sting in her chest at Tony's words, but she didn't blame him. She didn't know the man Howard had become, she couldn't defend him when she didn't know who he became.
She reached a hand forward, lying it on Tony's. He quickly looked up at her and the smile on her face.
"You can resent me, I won't blame you. I don't know the man Howard became, and I can't speak to that and defend him, but I know that the Howard I knew had the biggest heart in the world. He may not have always said he loved someone, but he did. You and your mother, I can guarantee that he did love you, even if he knew showed it. But I need you to know that this is weird for me too, sitting here in a time that I don't understand in front of the son of my best friend, the man who was like family to me. That makes you family to me, Tony. So whatever we're both feeling, we're going to put it behind us and we're going to fix this, we're going to save you."
Tony looked at the woman before him for another second before he pulled his hand away, picking up the box that sat between them.
"Alright, let's start working then,"