New York - Pym Tech Company House (May 2017)

[Hollywood Heidi]

Pym Tech Company House

Brownstone owned by Pym Tech located in Brooklyn, New York for use by Hope, her father, or a special guest visiting the area, usually for business.

[DarkSideCookie]

Three weeks had passed since Hope and Andro had met on that restaurant's roof back in San Francisco, a scene that had ended with a precipitate leaving on Hope's part. Although he had noticed her rejection some way or other, in a completely wrong way for that matter as he misconstrued the real wherefores with uncertainty, Andro still wasn't willed to give up. She meant a potential companion in his new plan to purge the world. She just didn't see it herself yet. But she will.

Andro's misconstruction even went so far as to make him believe the fact that she hadn't answered any of his messages, and he might have sent out an alarming amount of them, would be part of her uncertainty as well. And so he had stopped to reach out to her that way and instead had made all effort to gather information about her whereabouts. Eventually, his research had led him to a planned flight to New York, obviously work-related. It actually hadn't taken him too long to hack Pym Tech's security system, not that this would have been the first time anyway, and to get a view of the schematics from all installed observation cameras. Andro had studied them for quite some time to have all information safe in his head before he would have dared to commence this mission starting with his travel to New York. And here he was.

Making sure the cameras' eyes at the anterior part of the house weren't directed at his view, as he knew these were equipped with one of those highly modern motion sensors, Andro sidled his way up to the roof entrance where it would be easier to get inside without getting caught by the sensors yet still. Once he had reached the house's peak by making use of his great climbing skills without any tools, because when you know where to cling and above all where to head next it could become a daily routine, Andro double-checked the security system was turned off via a hacking software on his phone. Then he began picking the lock of the roof access door, another task that had become a routine over the years. And so it didn't take long until a quiet clicking noise told him that he was good to go; all the while making sure the roof camera wasn't catching him either.

Inside the house Andro did some steps around, eying the interior decoration with not too much of entrancement. Although he always had been far away from being used to such a prosperity, he never had aspired to these kind of property anyway, as he put absolutely no value to it. Instead, he paused his steps to draw his attention to his phone, once more opening the only message he had gotten from Hope.

‘When and where?’

Andro left it unreplied as he had done for the last hours of checking it. He was not to fool any longer. She wouldn't come to another meeting, so he would come to her.

While Andro patiently waited for Hope to arrive, he eventually placed himself in front of one of the huge windows directed at the back yard, motionless looking outside. During the years of isolation he had re-educated himself in patience, and so he could practically spend hours with just waiting without even moving an eyelid nowadays. Sooner or later she would make her way here...

[Hollywood Heidi]

The cab pulled up to the Pym house and Hope reached to the front with cash in hand. The cab driver thanked her for the generous tip and Hope smiled her response as she stepped out.

As the cab pulled away, she dug into her pocket to look at her phone for the hundredth time since leaving the Avengers Facility. The annoyance was back. Not over the endless messages--she'd gotten numb to that--but because now, after finally having replied, she was getting radio silence. With a disgruntled sound, she momentarily stuffed her phone into her pocket to handle her keys.

Hope let herself in and once again retrieved her phone to go into her settings. Maybe something had gone wonky during travel. She'd automatically gone to the alarm pad near the door but upon the realization something was off, she pulled her eyes from her phone to study the alarm pad. It wasn't giving that consistent beep that warned the place was armed and counting down to how much time a person had to input the correct code. Instead, the screen read 'UNARMED'. 'Huh,' she thought. Whoever had been a guest at the Pym Tech Company house last had forgotten to arm the place after leaving and whoever was in charge of keeping track of the Pym house hadn't gone through their routine check to be sure things were left as they should have been.

As she moved through to the living room, Hope tapped into the Notes section of her phone and started to type out a reminder to find out who'd shirked their responsibilities. Stepping into the living room, the corner of her eye immediately caught something else off, a large, darkness splitting the sunlight streaming through the window. With indrawn breath, Hope's head snapped up and she nearly dropped the damn phone that had distracted her from realizing there was an intruder far sooner than she should have.

"Jesus, Andro! You scared the hell out of me. People usually ring the bell and wait to be let in," she said dryly. Though even if he'd done that, she assumed she'd still have felt some level of distress at finding him on her doorstep. In New York. That explained the disarmed alarm. Hope deleted the now unnecessary note and put her phone back in her pocket. "I thought you were in San Francisco?" It was both a comment and a question. 'Please don't tell me you somehow found out I'd be here and followed me across the country,' she thought, though she had a strong feeling he'd done just that.

[DarkSideCookie]

There was no change seen on his face, not the slightest hint of a smile nor any other emotion, when finally the noise of the front door was breaking through the silence. Still standing idle, Andro was waiting.

"Jesus, Andro! You scared the hell out of me. People usually ring the bell and wait to be let in,"

It was only when Hope spoke up that he slowly turned around to face her. He said nothing, but instead waited for her to go on. Or was she just quick enough to go on so that he wasn't able to say anything first even if he would have tried? Well, that was immaterial.

"I thought you were in San Francisco?"

"I was.", Andro suddenly replied with kind of a coolth in his voice. Or maybe his voice was just sounding even more like that with this whole setting? Immaterial as well. Material was just them to be here, finally meeting again, after last time's sudden exit of their conversation.

"Why have you not answered any of my messages?", he asked as he made some steps in her direction.

[Hollywood Heidi]

"I was."

He didn't elaborate and she knew he wouldn't, so she saved her breath. Besides, Hope already knew the answer to the real question she'd implied.


"Why have you not answered any of my messages?"

"Andro..." Hope heaved a sigh and rubbed her temples, still feeling off kilter and not just at his surprise appearance on the other side of the U.S. She did want to talk with him though. Maybe she'd be wasting her breath, but rocky as it may have been, there was still history between them. "We need to have a serious discussion. Just let me put some coffee on. I'm still really jetlagged." She started to head to the door between the living room and the kitchen, adding, "Make yourself at home," over her shoulder.


She grabbed a couple mugs from the cupboard and placed one of them under the single serve coffee makers then popped one of the single serve flavored coffee cups into the top, snapping it shut and pressing the start button. While the machine did its thing, Hope rested the palms of her hands on either side of the sink and dropped her head, heavy with thoughts of what she needed to say to Andro and how the hell to approach it without setting him off. She raised one hand to pinch the bridge of her nose as memories of years ago came back. For years, she's buried those memories and they resurfaced along with him, fresh as if all the years had fallen away. The first time she'd learned the hard lesson that she had to be careful about how she approached a topic he may not like. Was he still prone to fits of rage? She didn't want to find out with a repeat of him trashing another room. The emotional clean-up of that event had been even harder than the physical.

[DarkSideCookie]

"Andro..."

And yet again there was no change seen on his cold features. If there ever had been real emotions towards her, today there was nothing left but the thought of what he was doing was the right thing for she was the only person who ever understood him; or that was at least what he was thinking. This thought was even so deep-rooted that it was overlaying the memory of once have been let down by her.

"We need to have a serious discussion. Just let me put some coffee on. I'm still really jetlagged."

And yet again Andro said nothing. When Hope left to the kitchen though, a totally different memory came to the surface of his mind all of a sudden. We need to have a serious discussion... these words, along with the smell of freshly cooked coffee seemed to trigger something, yet he wouldn't allow this triggered emotion that was connected to the memory to rise to the surface as well. He had left it behind during the years of isolation.

And so he turned towards the window again, thoughtfully looking out into the night while he waited in patience; waiting for Hope to come back and finally hear him out.

[Hollywood Heidi]

The smell of freshly brewing coffee was a small comfort in the air thick with tension. She was interrupted in the middle of her therapeutic deep breath of it with the vibration of her phone in her pocket. Pulling it free, she looked at the screen, slightly puzzled. Tony didn't call her often. Usually he'd send a text. Why, of all times, did he choose now? Maybe he'd decided to share more information on what she'd asked him to look up? Well, now was not the time with the person she was researching in the other room.

Hope sent the call to voicemail and shoved her phone back in her pocket. She started to move toward the coffeemaker but stopped in her tracks when her phone went right off again. With a sound of annoyance, she dug her phone out of her pocket to see Tony's name on the caller ID again. "Get a clue, Stark," she muttered quietly under her breath, hitting the Send to VM button again. "Now's not a good time," she muttered. For good measure, she pressed down the power button on the side, turning the damn thing off, then placed it on the counter and shoved it back. She was so over phones at the moment.

Hope continued on her way back to the coffeemaker, unaware that she'd been angled perfectly for the camera to pick up all her actions with the phone. With her back now to the camera, she quietly and calmly removed the filled mug and got to work on the second.


After a few minutes, she had the two steaming mugs on a tray along with sugar, creamer, two small spoons, napkins, and a plate of cookies from the always well-stocked cabinet, then headed back to the other room as if hosting a perfectly normal social call.

"Wasn't sure if you were hungry," she explained as she placed the tray on the coffee table and gestured for him to have a seat. She added a little creamer and sugar to her own mug and gave it a couple stirs, then placed the spoon on a napkin. "Judging by your tenacity in having this conversation, you must have a hell of a plan to make our vision of a better world come to fruition," she said, harkening back to the conversation they never got much into back on the San Francisco restaurant rooftop and using their mantra of 'vision of a better world' from back in their college days.

Hope carefully sipped the hot coffee as she gave him the floor. Whatever it was, based on the past, she was sure she wasn't going to like it, but rather than not giving him a chance to elaborate and making a quick escape as she'd done three months ago, she decided to hear him out. The more she knew, the better she could figure on how to help him get out of the depths that had led him to Hydra. If that was even possible. If she couldn't help him, she'd have to stop him. That spark of light she'd thought she'd seen in college of a man who could have made a positive change was now buried in years worth of dark layers. Life experiences had eventually led her to wonder if it may have been a dark seed within him that her youthful, naïve mind had mistakenly seen as a spark of light.

[DarkSideCookie]

When Andro heard the noise of approaching steps, he slowly turned back around, though still standing by the window.

"Wasn't sure if you were hungry,"

Without giving a reply - to him that hadn't sounded like a question anyway - he watched her placing the tray onto the table and gesturing for him to have a seat. Andro hadn't come for coffee and cookies, but he had learned that sometimes it was better to just go with conventions instead of refusing them, although he still wasn't seeing any sense in them. And so he stepped away from the window and sat down in the seat right opposite her, yet again trying to ignore a triggered memory of a scene from a past. A past they had shared.

"Judging by your tenacity in having this conversation, you must have a hell of a plan to make our vision of a better world come to fruition,"

"I have.", Andro suddenly spoke up, not touching his coffee yet. He fixated Hope for the while of her sipping hers, tried to read her expression, but she had always been good at not giving away what she was thinking. Or maybe Andro just had never been good at reading or even guessing. "I am just not sure if I can still trust you.", he added after a while before taking a sip from his cup of coffee as well, without averting his gaze from her, that was. Andro was no fool and, of course, hadn't he forgotten how Hope had let him down last time. He had to be really sure before he would share any information with her.

[Hollywood Heidi]

Hope set her mug on the table. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, same goes for me," she said with a slight grin to alleviate any thought that there was any animosity in her statement, only blatant honesty. Hope looked thoughtful for a moment and explained. "It's hard trusting someone you don't know. I thought I did--well, a little at least--all those years ago. But at the end, I came to realize that... I don't think I ever really knew you, Andro," she said, being open and honest. With the way he always kept everything so locked up, she couldn't imagine anyone ever really knowing Andro.

She picked up her mug and relaxed back on the couch, easing into his company, despite how unwelcoming his always closed off and cold demeanor felt. No, not cold. Even that required some form of emotion. He never seemed to possess any. Except anger, she reminded herself. She remembered that one all too well. It had come out of nowhere. Like a long dormant volcano very suddenly and very violently exploding to life. Hope took another drink of her coffee then lowered it, eyes following its decent as she reminded herself that all that rage was neatly tucked away inside that quiet, emotionless shell.

Honesty, no matter how straightforward or how much it would be something he wouldn't like to hear, might ruin her chances of learning anything but at the same time, it was the only way to try to gain trust. Thumb lightly running back and forth on the smooth ceramic of the mug, she looked back up. "The matter of trusting you aside, I could never trust HYDRA." Her pointer finger lifted from the mug in the general direction of his neck. "Noticed the tattoo."

[DarkSideCookie]

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, same goes for me,"

And how could that make him feel better? Well, never mind. People were saying strange things sometimes. Also, why wouldn't she trust him? Hadn't he been always there for her while she had left him to rot in that cell back in a past over 15 years ago? Andro took a deep breath - inwardly. For some reason, this conversation was starting to produce something that he had locked up deep down his subconscious mind long ago. He ignored it or rather kept it in rein. Anger was no longer a part of him.

"It's hard trusting someone you don't know. I thought I did--well, a little at least--all those years ago. But at the end, I came to realize that... I don't think I ever really knew you, Andro,"

Andro listened without interrupting nor with any emotion seen on his facial features. And so he was just waiting for her to go on.

"The matter of trusting you aside, I could never trust HYDRA." Suddenly a quiet huffing sound escaped him, along with a smile that had nothing to do with joy. He leaned a little forward, yet still saying nothing. "Noticed the tattoo."

Andro watched her in silence for another minute before he leaned back again, still that disturbing smile around his lips. "You were right... You know nothing about me."

Before his answer, rather uninformative for it meant a matter of interpretation, could have commenced a conversation that went much deeper than any conversation they ever had, someone was interrupting - probably at an inconvenient time.

Other than Andro's emotional competence, his sense perception was excellent, so it didn't need more than a really quiet sound coming from the hallway to set him on a sudden alarm.

"This was a trap.", Andro conjectured as, maybe for the very first time since they knew each other, another emotion was reflecting in his eyes... Disappointment. He didn't leave her any time to explain nor to react at all, as he quickly raised from his chair, turned towards the window again and finally left through it without any other look back at her.

He should have known. No one did really understand him. No one had ever really seen the vision that he was seeing. He was not the bad guy. When would people finally understand? All he ever wanted was to create a better world for everyone. And so he would. Even if he had to be alone.


*** Andro exits ***

[DarkSideCookie]

*** Tony enters from New York - Avengers Facility ***


With a loud bang the door torn open and in came a familiar heroic character, all covered in red and golden iron or rather metal. His arm already prepared for a laser attack, of course only for defending reasons, Tony rushed through the door. The confusion started to come in on the face under the helmet as the incorporated detectors were still showing one person to be close, yet that person was someone he hadn't expected to meet here.

The helmet flipped open. "Where is he?", Tony asked, glancing at a face that didn't look overly pleased with his appearance. But then again, when she ever was?

[Hollywood Heidi]

"You were right... You know nothing about me."

'And I still don't,' she thought dryly. How could she, when the only response she'd gotten to actually opening up a bit herself and bringing up Hydra was his agreement that she knew nothing about him?


Hope fell back with a frustrated sigh. "Well, I'd like to--" She stopped short when Andro's intense gaze pulled away from her and toward the hallway. Hope immediately sat up straight and turned in the direction of his gaze. "What--" but he cut her off before she could ask what had grabbed his attention.


"This was a trap."

"What? No--" Hope turned back toward him with a genuinely perplexed expression and he was out the window before she could defend herself against his claim.

Hope reached her hand deep within the couch cushions and with swift movement, released the safety as she got to her feet and aimed the gun toward the door, ready to put a bullet into whatever idiot had been dumb enough to break into her house. The door tore open and Hope's finger began to put pressure on the trigger.


"Where is he?"

"Dammit, Tony! What the hell?" With a frustrated growl, Hope put the safety back on as she lowered her gun. This was one idiot she couldn't put a bullet into. It would put too much of a strain on her friendship with Pepper.

His question belatedly registered and confusion mixed in with her annoyance. Why the hell was he here, fully suited-up, no less, and how in the world did he come to the assumption someone else had been here? Tucking the gun into the back of her waistband, Hope took a step to the side to block his view of the coffee table with coffee mugs and cookies for two. "Where's who?" she said, annoyance in her voice raising in defense.

[DarkSideCookie]

"Dammit, Tony! What the hell?"

Knowing himself in the cloak of his iron man suit, Tony didn't worry too much about the gun that obviously had been aimed at him. But, holy cow! Hope seemed to have hell of awareness if she really had heard him walking up the hallway; Unless she was carrying a gun around her house all day long. Or unless she had been on defense already before, which would mean that she...

"Where's who?"

"Oh no, no, no. Don't be kidding me.", Tony almost had cut in like so often, as he tried to throw a look past her. "...Don't tell me you've actually served him coffee and cookies?" This time he was so perplexed that he even swallowed down a biting comment that had something to do with the plenty of times, sarcastically spoken, of course, she had served him a cup of coffee, not to mention cookies.

[Hollywood Heidi]

Hope shot him a look of perplexed annoyance as she gestured to the table behind her. "How the hell would you even know who I'm--" it suddenly clicked and Hope glanced up behind her in the corner of the room to the security camera. The one that was supposed to only activate when the house was alarmed with the higher security code that the place would be vacant.

Hacking into her cameras and keeping an eye on her without her permission. If she wasn't so stubbornly independent and confident in her ability to take care of herself, she might have thought it sweet, in a creepy way. Her arms crossed as she turned back toward him and pinned him with a glare. "Were you Big Brothering me?"

[DarkSideCookie]

"How the hell would you even know who I'm--"

At the sudden pause, Tony's head was rising up, and when he noticed her glancing towards the security camera, there was even a wee bit of a queasy conscience coming up... yah, as if. No, of course, Tony was seeing himself like he had totally done the right thing because Hope had been naive enough to invite a serial killer kinda person into her house.

"Were you Big Brothering me?"

"Were you catering him?", Tony asked back with a disbelieving mien, crossing his arms as well. So, now they both were standing and watching each other like this was a challenge of who starts to feel guilty first. One, that probably would never have a winner for they both were like the most stubborn persons on earth.

[Hollywood Heidi]

"Yes. I like to throw little tea parties for people who break into my home, so please, my newest Guest of Honor, have a seat," she said sarcastically with a sweeping gesture toward the chair.

Hope fell back onto the couch with a huff of frustration. "I was so close to regaining his trust," she said, her use of the word 'regaining' unintentionally revealing some past connection. She stuffed the gun back between the cushions while still staring daggers at him. "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to now. Thanks to you, he thinks this was all a set up."

[DarkSideCookie]

"Yes. I like to throw little tea parties for people who break into my home, so please, my newest Guest of Honor, have a seat,"

Tony answered her little sarcastic remark with no more than an eye roll before he uncrossed his arms to take a seat anyway. While Hope continued speaking, he busied his hands with some stuff on the table in front of him, mostly decorative objects.

"I was so close to regaining his trust,""I'm not sure I'll ever be able to now. Thanks to you, he thinks this was all a set up."

He stopped the fidgeting immediately. "What do you mean... regaining?", Tony almost cut in her words once the meaning of these two leading letters had dawned on him. "Next you're tellin' me that you've been dating that guy in high school...", he added with a shake of his head, actually joking, but then he saw something appearing on her facial features, that made him question his last remark as for it being a joke. "Oh my..." Tony's hand raised to his forehead.

[Hollywood Heidi]

Hope had been unprepared for his joke that had hit almost on the nose. Surprise and slight embarrassment flashed across her face over the stupidity of the decisions she'd made in her naïve and anger driven youth.

She defensively crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes again. "I'm sorry, is the 'Billionaire Playboy' judging someone else's past relationships?" she asked dryly, using the nickname tabloids always referred to him as. "And it was college," she bit out, taking whatever small victory she could out of correcting him. Too late, she realized that that made it even worse. Better to have been a high school mistake than college.

With a resigned huff, Hope uncrossed her arms and leaned forward, grabbing a cookie and napkin off the table. She didn't take a bite though. She'd just needed something to do with her hands to distract from the uncomfortableness of opening up about her past. Especially to the snarky, usually unempathetic Tony.

Not that she would make it easy. Her eyes were on the cookie she turned in slow circles between her fingers. "I feel like it's my fault he ended up mixed up in all this," was all she offered.

[DarkSideCookie]

"I'm sorry, is the 'Billionaire Playboy' judging someone else's past relationships?"

"That's not the point. The point is..."

"And it was college,", she interrupted his counter-argument as so often, while he was, of course, taking no account of the many times he had actually been the one interrupting pretty much everyone. But that wasn't the point as well.

At her correction he couldn't help but to give her the expression fitting to her own thoughts. Yah, that was not exactly playing into her hands.

"I feel like it's my fault he ended up mixed up in all this,"

"Sure, you can be a pain in the neck, but not that much to make someone going nuts of this kind.", Tony said as he make himself more comfortable and reached out for the plates with cookies, not really clear on the fact that he just might have opened Pandora's box with his words.

[Hollywood Heidi]

Hope was momentarily taken by surprise, looking appalled at Tony's conclusion. "I'm not-- That wasn't--" With a frustrated growl of annoyance, Hope leaned forward and snatched away the plate of cookies before he could grab one. Her narrowed eyes shot daggers at him for implying that her character was the problem in the equation. That had just lost him cookie privileges. Only way he would be getting one now is if she threw one at his annoyingly smug face.

While collecting herself, she placed the plate on the other end of the table before looking back at him. "Andro's not crazy. Well..." she looked thoughtful for a moment, "at least he wasn't back then. He's just..." she made a circling motion with her hand as she tried to find the right words that didn't shine him in as bad of a light as Tony was seeing him, "really passionate about his beliefs."

'Not better,' she thought after hearing it out loud. It had sounded better in her head.

"He wanted things to change for the better. He had this small club of like-minded people and he'd lecture about opening the corruption of so many people in powerful positions, trying to open everyone's eyes to the fact that things needed to change. I stumbled into a meeting one night and just got swept up. Not just by his words. He's got this way of instilling so much conviction into them. Anyway," she sighed as she skipped ahead and looked off in the distance as if replaying it in her mind, regret weaving into her tone now. "I encouraged him to do more. Helped him deal with his discomfort of public speaking, set up rallies so he could reach more people. Word about him spread like fire and soon, the rally crowds were insane. Just a sea of people worked up by his speeches to crazy heights of passion that echoed and fed his own. That fire in him just ignited--no," she lifted her fists, opening them and extending her fingers as she pulled her hands outward, "exploded."

Her hands dropped back into her lap and she made herself look back at Tony, keeping her expression hard to show that this was all very serious and important to her and that while she tolerated his smartass snarky comments, now was not an appropriate situation for it. "I didn't know until after he'd been arrested that words had no longer been enough; that he'd been starting to take action. He'd always been very closed off, just... this... seemingly cold, emotionless stone statue come to life," she said, looking away as she offered the excuse others had provided her but that she didn't quite buy. She knew now that those were often traits found in sociopaths, but feeling like she'd pushed him to becoming the person he was now, she didn't want to believe he was one. "If I'd have just left him alone in his little room with his little group..."

Hope trailed off. Remembering who it was she was talking to, she pulled herself together. Her guilt had gotten the better of her and she'd uncharacteristically let down her walls. To Tony, of all people. It was very rare for either of them to not appear to be emotionally unaffected robots that ran on sass, especially in each other's company. "Anyway," she said, squaring her shoulders and making a pointless attempt at sounding detached and unaffected, "I made a mess and now I need to clean it up."

[DarkSideCookie]

For a second there appeared a look on his face like from a huffy child that just got banned from its favorite sweets. Well, Tony could act pretty much not so adult sometimes and also just now really would have liked to eat those cookies, so the comparison was actually kind of about right. He sighed in annoyance.

"Andro's not crazy. Well..." Tony gave her a questioning look as if he was just going to say 'You believe that yourself?' when she continued before he could have said it out loud. "at least he wasn't back then. He's just..."

"Nuts? Loony? Psychotic...?", he quickly threw in some synonyms in a rather bored tone.

"really passionate about his beliefs."

Now, that was just another synonym for crazy, used by people who try to whitewash. But then Tony actually listened to her words, trying to imagine the person in the picture she just drew for him. At some point, his features went from sobriety to thoughtfulness.

"...""I didn't know until after he'd been arrested that words had no longer been enough; that he'd been starting to take action. He'd always been very closed off, just... this... seemingly cold, emotionless stone statue come to life,""If I'd have just left him alone in his little room with his little group...""Anyway,", Hope eventually ended as if she wasn't expecting any understanding from him anyway. Well, he was not an emotionally unaffected robot or something. They were friends, after all. "I made a mess and now I need to clean it up."

"Exactly.", Tony said, and as he had the feeling this had come out rather judging than supporting, he quickly added: "You can't change the past, but you surely learned from it. And well, you know... you don't have to do this alone."

[Hollywood Heidi]

"Exactly."

Hope's eyes shot back at him and narrowed. He had no right to agree with her. At least not when it came to admittance of responsibility. Why couldn't he be like any other normal person and either make a halfhearted attempt to convince her she wasn't responsible or look away and fill the room with the awkward silence of agreement but keeping your trap shut about it?


"You can't change the past, but you surely learned from it. And well, you know... you don't have to do this alone."

Realizing it wasn't necessarily agreement but more of his problem with social ineptitude, Hope relaxed. But not enough to agree. Hope never asked for help. Being left to her own devices since her mother disappeared when she was at such a young age had made her stubbornly independent. Putting her trust into others being there for her was damn near impossible when her own father had disappeared into his grief and had dedicated his full attention to finding his wife, leaving her to not only face a harrowing emotional rollercoaster alone but to also fend for herself. Distractedly passing her off to the care of private schools.

This was definitely a task bigger than she was used to. Hydra was, or had been, involved. Andro had created a network of like-minded people. He seemed to be capable of much worse than she'd ever had imagined of him. It almost made her feel like that little girl again, facing something much larger than she should have to on her own. But still, nearly a lifetime of taking care of herself had her raising her chin in stubborn independence. "I'm perfectly capable of handling it on my own."

She wouldn't admit to needing help or easily accept it. It would have to be pushed on her just as stubbornly as she tried to turn it away. Lucky for her, she was facing one of the few people on Earth just as irritatingly stubborn as she, all thanks to daddy issues of his own.

[DarkSideCookie]

Tony could see the stubbornness written on her face, as she started pondering. He couldn't withhold at least a sigh, for it was pretty annoying to see himself confronted with the same stubborn mind as his own, almost like talking to his reflection. And so he was anything but surprised about her next words.

"I'm perfectly capable of handling it on my own."

"Yah, I knew you'd say that. And you should've known that I don't care a copper.", Tony replied as soon as she had finished her sentence. "So, you really wanna have this discussion with me or straight jump to the part where you just accept that I won't stay out of this business anyway?", he added with a mix of sarcasm and complacency, while rising from his seat to grant himself one of the delicious looking cookies after all.

[Hollywood Heidi]

Hope gave him a half-hearted glare. She sighed and rolled her eyes at him but there was amusement and appreciation mixed in. Of course appreciation toward the man who was far from needing any boost to his pride and ego was something she'd never voice. Instead, she focused on the negative quality of said pride and ego. "God, you're such an asshole," she said, putting the plate of cookies between them again when she noticed him start to get up for them. It was a sort of silent 'thank you' and the closest thing to one that existed between them.

She picked up one of the cookies for herself, still eying him with seriousness. "Fine," she said, taking a bite and chewing. "I'll let you help me." She couldn't help the smug humor in the twitch of her lips as she made it sound like she was doing him a favor.