somethingwithturquoise | MHA #4; Saturday Morning [07/06].

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MHA #4; Saturday Morning [07/06].

Summer found herself slipping out of sleep and desperate to cling onto it a little bit longer. With a little protesting sound, she shifted a little, curling into the body of her husband wrapped around her and tried to get at least five more minutes. After all, at any moment, one of the kids would probably start some chaos downstairs or, even worse, come busting in, and she would once again have to get on Luke's case about--

--wait a second. Summer, still refusing to open her eyes, frowned a little. She wasn't at home, she was at the Fandom reunion this weekend. And her husband was distinctly not here with her, it had been a whole big blow-up argument because it happened to fall on the same weekend as his big writer's retreat in Montana. So, if she was back on the island and he was in Montana, then...

"Oh. Mygod."

Summer Anderson was now fully, completely, terribly awake.

"Fuck," she whispered, while her brain chorused with a subsequent series of increasingly more panicked fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfucks. Followed by a groan, because, jesus christ, Summer, really? Fucking really? Couldn't even wait until the second day to cheat on your husband, huh? You just had to hit that shit right out the gate?

Whatever. She was soooo sure that Luke was doing a ton of 'writing' at his little 'retreat,' too. Ugh.

Either way, Summer needed to deal with this while not still mired in the bed of her infidelity. A subtle glance over her shoulder revealed who she had apparently slept with last night (oh, god, really, Summer? If you were going to hook up with an ex, it couldn't have been the super-genius gazillionaire, huh??), and realized that it was now even more imperative than ever to try and slip out of here unnoticed. Get dressed. Get some coffee. Maybe pretend like none of this had ever happened.

Carefully as she could, she wriggled her way out of Stark's arms and out of the bed and started to pick around for some clothes, with a few moments of staring at what else had been scattered around the room, because, okay, wow, some of this shit she hadn't done in years, good for her on that, at least...

[[ for the ex-boyfriend, omg. ]]

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Stark was a light sleeper. He absolutely noticed when Summer woke up and sleepily resisted letting her go for a moment before relenting. But then she didn't come back to bed and he knew it was early and that wasn't like her unless something was wrong.

"Summer?" His voice was still rough with sleep as he turned to get a better look at her. "Why are you up so early? What's wrong?"

They'd already had improbably children once this year. It couldn't be that!

Well, shit. Be stealthier next time,Summer, God.

Why would there even be a next time?

Summer let put a nervous laugh, having just pulled off a pink tank top that definitely didn't fit her anymore, what the fuck, Fandom? Shrinking clothes overnight was a new one.

"Hiiiiiii, Staaaark," she hedged. "Good morning? Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up, but I'll just....get out. Leave. Soon. Very soon..."

Fuck it, she was grabbing a robe and already heading toward the door. "Okay, that was fun, byyyyeeeee~!"

"It's your bedroom," Stark said slowly, pulling himself up into a sitting position. "Why should you leave? And you...you're..."

It wasn't that he was staring at her chest just then it was just that there was more of it than there had been last night and he wasn't sure how that had happened.

"Do I need to find a magnet?"

Well, Summer did pay a lot of good money for that chest, so he might as well look.

"It's my bedroom," she agreed, with a signature roll of her eyes, hand on her hip, the other held out, classic Summer pose, really, "from, like, twenty years ago because Fandom is weird like that. But, no, Stark, you don't need to get a magnet. I'm still me, although...."

There was a pause.

"Honestly, maybe that's not a bad idea, actually."

It would definitely be a more logical explanation of all...this, right? Right???

"It was your bedroom last night," Stark said carefully. "When we came back from the party. After I asked Anakin to dance? And you were yourself then and now you're...you're..."

He frowned.

"You're not yourself or at least not the self that was here when I fell asleep. Or before I fell asleep."

He would have noticed that chest, for one thing. And everything else.

"And you're trying to run away. What's wrong? Besides not being the self you were before you woke up but I suppose you are the self you were when this self went to sleep you just..."

His voice trailed off as he realized he was babbling.

Summer was squinting at Stark....a lot...as she tried to work through all that babble, and then finally had to scoff and roll her eyes.

"What's wrong?" she asked, not quite exploding with it, but just about nearly. "Seriously, Stark?? Gee, gosh, I don't know, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I've barely even been here for two seconds, and, already, I've somehow managed to cheat on my husband with my ex?? And not even the rich one!"

Poor Stark, forever cursed to be deemed 'not the rich one',even after all these years.

"Do you think that might have something to do with what's wrong??"

There was, however, a pause, and she added, a bit more calmly, "Although, damn, Stark, that alien blood must do wonders for the aging process, you seriously don't look like you've aged even a day."

Like, she was pissed and irritated and annoyed, but....props, dude.

"Cheat on your what?" Stark asked because he was stuck on the word husband for a moment.

He covered his face with his hand then leaned his whole head into both hands, taking a deep breath.

"Hemorrhage?" he asked without looking up. "You weren't married last night, Summer. You weren't this version of you! You were my Summer. Now you're...not. We didn't...I wouldn't..."

Ok, maybe he would but he couldn't say for certain and he'd like to think that he wouldn't deliberately try to ruin a different future Summer's happiness like that.

"That guy?" Summer's eyes went wide. "What? No! I..."

But then some of what Stark was saying seemed to finally process through all the flailing and rage and dread and she blinked, and squinted at him again, looked around the room, and then back to Stark.

"Wait, hold up," she said. "What...year was it? Last night?"

Stark, who had done his best to curl into a ball while still sitting up and remaining safely under the covers, looked up at her.

"2024 as they count it here," he said. "And it still is, isn't it? My phone..." he scrambled for his phone which was somewhere on the floor beside the bed. Oh there it was. In his pants which he really ought to putting on any moment given the circumstances. "My phone says it still is."

He sighed, pulling the pants onto the bed and laying them on the blankets. "What year is it for you, then?"

"2044," Summer reported, and let out a huge sigh of relief as she nodded and started putting together what was going on here. "Okay. Okay! This is good, then! This is very good! Fandom is clearly doing some time travel bullshit right now, it happens, no big deal, and that means that all...."

Her eyes roamed around the room, which kind of looked like maybe The Drawer had gained sentience and puked up most, if not all, of its contents.

"...this with 2024 Summer, who you are dating, and not me, 2044 Summer, who you are definitely not. So yay. Awesome! Sanctity of my marriage saved! Love that for me. And, you know, my spouse and children."

She looked at Stark, though, and felt that old, familiar pang of guilt and gave him a little wrinkle of her nose and a mostly sympathetic sort of smile.

"Sorry for not being 2024 Summer," she offered. "But, hey, if it's any consolation, it looks like you guys had a fucking bomb ass time last night? Really, uh, really felling great, right?"

Ugh, how was this actually more awkward now than when she thought she'd cheated??

Stark didn't think was good at all, actually.

"...children?" he asked, very softly.

His chest ached in a way he couldn't quite name right now.

"And yes, last night was...you were, no. Not you. Nevermind. Not you. You're not her you're you. I should go. It's your apartment even if it isn't yours and I don't belong. I'll go. I'm...I'm sorry."

"Oh, come on, Stark!" said Summer, rolling her eyes and being instantly reminded about how it was shit like this that ultimately led, in part, to their eventual breakup in the first place. "Why do you always have to be like...that? If anything, if it really is 2024 right now, then I am, cat-te-gorically, the anomaly that doesn't belong. But, I mean, whatever, right? It's a Fandom thing, ride it out for the weekend and then, guess what? You'll probably get that young, naïve 2024 Summer who still isn't sick of all this shit yet, and you can, I don't know, live happily ever after, or whatever. Besides, I was already leaving anyway."

He flinched. He couldn't help it.

"But where are you going to go?" Stark asked. "This is your place, or it used to be yours, and I have my own upstairs and you can stay down here with Pancakes, she's probably hungry, and I'll go because it isn't my place. After I put pants on."

Which he was scrambling to do under the covers and doing a terrible job at in his haste to get away.

"I..." he started to say, then decided that apologizing was definitely not the right course of action.

"I've never had to react to someone being a much older version of themselves and horrified to see me in her bed and telling me that things have changed so much before! But leaving seems correct. Even if you're leaving as well. And..."

He threw the covers back then, tugging his pants up the last bit as he planted his feet on the ground. "She's not naïve."

Summer just sort of looked at Stark for a good, long moment, most of which was her wondering if she really wanted to keep inflicting this much psychic damage on the poor guy and ultimately deciding that she was (probably? maybe? She'd never really been sure on how old Stark actually was) the older person in the room and should act like it.

But that bitter, petty, very post-breakup part of her couldn't at least getting in at least something more.

"Look, 24-year-old me might've found that white knighting shit cute, Stark," she said, "but I assure you, it isn't."

She gestured toward the door. "But alright, then. Go. I'll stick around to feed the 2020s version of my cat so she doesn't starve to death, and then I'm going to go do what I came here to do, and that's, like, reunion stuff."

Stark wasn't sure how old he was either. Nobody was.

"I'm not trying to white knight I don't even know what that is."

He could figure it out.

"I just... that's not a word I'd ever use. But I'm sorry. If that's what I was doing. I'll... I'm going. I... hope your evening goes well."

His was going to be lonely.

And he was definitely leaving without his shirt OR shoes from last night as he headed for the day.

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MHA #4; Saturday Morning [07/06].

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