The Toga of Time
Title: The Toga of Time
Fandom: Ancient History RPF, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man
Characters: Gwen Stacy, Scipio Africanus, Hannibal Barca
Warnings: Chose not to use
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 2 880
Summary: The History of the Second Punic War keeps changing, Gwen Stacy keeps having to go back to fix it and Hannibal Barca and Scipio Africanus keep meeting for the first time under different circumstances.
Author's Note: This is the first draft of what ended up being Punica Fides. It's very different from that fic, as you can see from the character list.
In Johnny and the Bomb, Terry Pratchett postulates the existence of the Trousers of Time, where sometimes History goes down one leg and sometimes down the other. Ancient Romans wore togas instead of trousers.
“Why me?” Gwen asks, “I don’t know anything about Rome. I don’t even know where Carthage is!”
“Trust me,” Tony Stark says, “if we could have picked anybody else, we would have.”
Gwen stares at him. He can’t possibly mean for that to sound as bad as it does, can he? “So why me?”
“Because you’re a clone. Hold out your arms,” Tony says. He tosses the measuring tape nervously from hand to hand. He’s retrofitting one of his suits for her. It’d be really cool if the suit was able to do anything except travel in time. It’s still pretty cool.
Gwen holds out her arms. “What, being a clone makes me expendable?”
“No.” Tony shakes his head. “Being a clone… No, actually, being you, means you’re exempt from the big problem with timetravel.”
Gwen waits, but that seems to be it. “Which is?”
“Dying in the past.” Tony pins the tape to her shoulder and pulls it to her fingertips.
“I’m pretty sure being a clone means I can die,” Gwen says. She turns around when Tony motions her to.
“Yeah, but,” here, Tony sticks her with a pin, “you, Gwen Stacy, have already died in the present so you dying in the past won’t cause History to collapse on itself, because you died when you were supposed to. That’s the theory, anyway. We haven’t tested it yet.” Over his shoulder, the skyline changes again. The new building is a temple to the glory of Tanith. That’s a lot better than some of the alternatives.
“Does that make my superhero name Guinea Pig?” Gwen knows how serious the situation is. The whole of Queens is gone. History is unravelling and only sometimes ravelling back. When it does, things are different. They were lucky that when the change hit Congress, it left a senate and Suffet Captain America in its place. When it hit Rhode Island, it became a Chitauri hive. So yes, Gwen knows how serious this is. That doesn’t mean she can’t joke about it.
Tony laughs, startling Gwen. “Only if you want it to be.”
***
“Hannibal has taken Rome,” Gwen tells Scipio. They’re in Utica. This is not supposed to happen.
“We should go back,” Gaius says.
“No,” Scipio says, then louder, “No. We can’t take Rome back, especially not from Hannibal Barca, not while he holds the city. If he leaves, we can beat him. The siege must have weakened his armies and Hasdrubal’s greatly. He won’t leave.”
Gwen has a feeling she’s not helping the situation, but she has to at least somewhat stabilise this timeline. “Then what do we do?”
“While he’s in Rome,” Scipio puts his finger on the Rome on the map, “he’s not in Carthage.” He moves his finger to Carthage and stabs at it. “We are.” Scipio looks up at her and smiles. “Let’s show him what it’s like to have your city taken from you.”
***
“Romans in Carthage and Carthaginians in Rome. What is the world coming to?” Hannibal speaks Latin, as a courtesy to Scipio. It is not everyone who can march on Carthage.
Scipio acknowledges the favour with a nod of his head. “Sicily is lovely this time of year.”
They both know that’s not why Hannibal picked it for the summit, but it sometimes pays to play the fool. And it is lovely, the sound of wind through chestnut leaves and hooded crows cawing.
“I assume you want your city back,” Hannibal says.
“You shouldn't assume.”
“No? It’s served me well so far. I marched on Rome because I assumed you were away. You were, and I won. There’s not many in Rome who can do what you did in Ilippa. You’re unique, Scipio.”
In another world, Scipio would have argued the point. In this one, he says, “Carthage is unharmed, as much as I could make it.”
It’s Hannibal’s turn to nod and acknowledge a favour. “As is Rome. Your wife and sons are safe and sound.”
“Yours as well,” Scipio says. “She does not miss you.”
Hannibal seems to search his memory at that. “Imilce? I’ve not seen her in fifteen years and she never loved me. I would have been surprised if she did. Still, I hold her no ill will. If I die here, you may marry her to keep her safe.”
“You won’t die here” Scipio says. Then, in a rare moment of honesty passing as levity, “I’d much rather marry you.”
***
“What happens to me if I die in the past, Adonibaal?” Gwen takes off the armour’s helmet and shakes out her hair. She nearly took an arrow to the chest at the fall of Carthage.
“I told you to call me Dony,” he replies. “And you die, that’s why it’s called dying. So don’t die, because there’s only one of you, and this is nowhere near fixed.”
"Don't you want to hear how it went down this time?" Gwen feels like she needs therapy about this.
"No need. The suit records changes in the era's temporal accretion," he carries on about science and Gwen tunes him out.
Gwen peers over Dony’s shoulder at the displays on his screen. “I’m going back more than once, aren’t I?”
***
This time, Gwen is at Hannibal’s side at Cannae.
When the Numidian cavalry closes in on the Roman army, Gwen recognises a face in the crowd. He’s barely older than her now, but that’s Scipio alright.
She lays her hand on Hannibal’s arm. “Wait.”
She doesn’t really understand what it is that makes people more susceptible to her suggestions - something about retrograde temporal resonance and other multisyllabic words - , but as long as it’s something they might conceivably have done otherwise, they’ll listen to her.
Hannibal stills. “Perhaps now is not the time. There is a battle to be won, after all.”
Gwen points Scipio out to him. “There, that one. He saw the flaw in your strategy.”
Okay, yeah, so it’s a groundless accusation. She doesn’t even know if there is a flaw in Hannibal’s strategy, but if there is, Scipio’s the one who’d know and she does know Hannibal can’t take the risk.
"I know," Hannibal says.
Hannibal throws a knife over her shoulder into someone’s eye and goes back to the melee. Gwen hefts her sword and goes back at it too. Who knew war was this tiring?
***
Somehow, almost impossibly, Scipio survives the battle of Cannae. He’s captured by Hannibal’s troops, but he’s alive and that means he can escape back to Rome.
A man walks in. He’s tall, tall enough that he has to stoop a little to get inside the tent, but not overly so. He’s handsome and surprisingly, his eyes are a muddy green. Scipio’s not quite sure what he expected, but this isn’t it. Blue eyes chillier than alpine snow, perhaps, or grey like the hide of an elephant, but not the colour of a river in spring. It makes sense, he supposes. Given enough time, rivers wear mountains down into nothing.
Less surprisingly, he wears an eyepatch over his left eye.
So. This must be Hannibal, then. Scipio would almost be ashamed of thinking him handsome, but he got over that a long time ago and he has always admired Hannibal’s mind.
“To what do I owe this honour?” He’s been expecting this since waking up alone in this tent. Not even guards inside and so he’s managed to get some leeway on his bonds.
Hannibal sits down in front of him. “You saw my strategy.” Scipio would deny it, but then Hannibal adds, “You sent your troops away as soon as my cavalry started coming back, maybe even before. If Ahirom hadn’t unhorsed you, we wouldn’t be speaking now.”
“At first, I wasn’t sure if that was your plan, but when your Numidians circled back that was all the proof I needed. My men were only going to get themselves killed if they stayed.” Scipio looks up and stares Hannibal straight in the eye. “That was masterful.”
Hannibal bows his head a little as thanks. “Not as much as you seeing through it. I have had days to plan this battle, you had only minutes.”
“I was at Trebbia,” Scipio says, one hand set free behind his back. “I know how you think.”
“Do you?”
Scipio works his knife free from his sleeve. He cuts through the rest of his ropes and lunges at Hannibal.
His blade on Hannibal’s throat, he says, “you’re not going to call the guards.” It’s not a question.
“You’re not going to kill me.” This isn’t a question, either.
***
“What’s next?” Gwendolenn has cramps in her legs from horseback riding and cramps in her arms from swordfighting. She wants nothing more than a warm bath and good night’s sleep in a real bed.
“Next you go back in time,” Dony says and Gwendolenn rolls her eyes, because duh, “and shoot Hanno the Great in the face.”
Dony’s words stop her short.
“Hanno the Great? I thought he was a good general for you Phoenicians, like Boudicca was for us Celts, beat the Romans and everything.”
“‘You Phoenicians’? ‘Us Celts’? Are you stuck in the pre-Empire era?” Dony starts fiddling with her gauntlets.
Gwendolenn stares pointedly at the back of his head. “Well, yes.”
"Besides, Hanno the Great lost us both Punic Wars." He stops. “Oh, right. Look, the gun’s on the table, it’s a genetic match-lock, you won’t be able to kill anyone but him.”
“Wish me luck.”
***
The gun has a limited range, so Gwendolenn infiltrates Carthage. Hamilcar Barca has just won the battle of Mylae and the city’s doors are wide open in celebration.
The last time she was in Carthage, the city was burning and blood was running in the streets. War has a way of turning soldiers into monsters.
Once inside, without fire-cast shadows on the walls and slippery cobblestones under her feet, she gets lost. As she’s about to give up and try again in a new era, she finds the Hundred and Four by accident.
She’s in range and shoots Hanno the Great in the face. She doesn’t stay to see him die.
War turned her into a soldier when she wasn't looking.
***
Mago’s being mean and Hasdrubal is a poopyhead, so Hannibal runs away. He’s never been to Rome before. It’s exciting! There are people speaking Roman and oddly accented Phoenician. Also, their food is weird.
He drifts through the crowd until he comes across the empty barracks. They’re huge, bigger than Father’s back in Sicily, bigger than the ones in Carthage, even. Rome had a lot of men.
Hannibal’s father still won, though. Hannibal’s father is the best general.
“Hey!” Someone's calling him. “You can’t be here. I’ll be in trouble if they find you inside.”
Hannibal turns around. There’s a kid his age with flyaway ash blond hair making ‘get out’ motions with his hands at Hannibal. Hannibal goes over instead. Nobody tells him what to do, except Mother. “Do you know who I am?”
The kid’s looking at him and Hannibal sees the flash of recognition in his eyes. “Will knowing who you are make me not get in trouble?”
Hannibal finds himself off-balance. He likes it.
“I guess not,” he says. “I’m Hannibal.”
“Publius Cornelius Scipio.” The kid stands up, straightening himself out to his full size. Hannibal is taller. Ha! Hannibal wins. “But you can call me Scipio. Cornelius is my father.” He pulls a face.
“Why will you be in trouble?” Hannibal decides he likes Scipio. He’s funny.
“The barracks are closed because Rome’s not allowed an army anymore. Also, they’re old and they can be dangerous, so you shouldn’t be here. Plus, they’re boring.” Scipio takes Hannibal’s hand. “Come on, let’s go someplace fun. I have something to show you.”
Scipio takes Hannibal through the catacombs and it is so cool! Even if it’s not really catacombs and more like just a tunnel, but it’s a cool tunnel.
They emerge on a hill overlooking the city as the sun sets and it is beautiful.
“This my city,” Scipio says. “It might not be Carthage, but it’s mine and I love it.”
There are highlights like red gold in Scipio’s hair and his smile is brighter than the sun. Hannibal is going to miss Scipio.
***
“I think I fucked up,” Gwendolenn says, “they’re not supposed to be the same age.”
“Never mind that, you went back too far when you shot Hanno anyway. Carthage was supposed to win the Second Punic War, not the first one," Tony grabs her chestplate of the disassembler and starts tinkering with it. As far as she can tell, he’s improving spatio-temporal metrics.
She sits down on the table and stretches her legs. The armour is really starting to hurt. Tony did his best, but the retrofitting isn’t perfect.
Tony shoves the armour back at her. “Here, try it now.”
Gwendolenn better get extra credits in History for this.
***
Scipio’s father dies after Tincinus. It’s not Gwendolenn’s fault, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling responsible.
The wound Scipio - Publius Cornelius Scipio - The Consul, why must Roman naming conventions suck so much? - suffered shouldn't have killed him. Gwendolenn does not know much about medicine, but she knows this much.
That wasn't infection, that was poison.
She might have been able to save him, maybe, if she hadn't been halfway across Italy by the time she realised this wasn't going to go according to what should have been.
Scipio's father dies after Tincinus and Scipio takes it rather badly.
He defects to Hannibal. He takes nothing with him except his knowledge and his hate for Rome.
Scipio's father dies after Tincinus and History spirals away madly into the unknown.
***
Scipio comes to Hannibal after Tincinus.
“Why join me and why now?” Hannibal clicks his nails against the table. They’re getting long.
“Rome let my father die.”
“Your father is dead because of me,” Hannibal says. He may not have struck the blow himself, but he might as well have.
Scipio shakes his head. “No. I mean, yes, but it’s different with you.”
“How so?” Hannibal steeples his fingers before him.
“What you did, you did without ill will. We were in your way so you struck us down. What Rome did was treason. My father was poisoned, not through action, but through inaction. The wound should never have festered so.” Scipio stands up and goes to rest his hands on the table and lean over Hannibal. “What you do is strategy, what they did is treachery.”
Hannibal looks up at him. “Sit,” he says. “Who would want your father dead?”
Scipio sits. “My father is - was - Consul, who doesn’t want him dead?”
“Most of Rome, if my understanding is correct.” And it is. Hannibal has always prided himself on knowing his enemies inside and out.
“I can give you Rome if you’ll take it.” Scipio rubs at the inside of his wrist, a nervous tick or rope burn, Hannibal can’t really tell. Probably neither.
Hannibal raises an eyebrow at him. “Who says I want Rome?”
“You didn’t cross the Alps for my pretty face,” Scipio says.
“But it’s such a pretty face.”
***
“Almost there,” Tony tells Gwen.
“Oh, thank fuck, I’m starting to think in that pidgin of Latin and Phoenician that developed in that one timeline.” Gwen finishes taking off the armour. “How many more trips?”
“I’m not sure. Depends on how many variables you can fix per trip. But the end is in sight,” he adds cheerfully at her dejected look.
Gwen collapses into the couch. She’s not sure why there’s a couch in Tony’s lab, but whatever. “Then why do I feel like you’re trolling me?”
“I don’t know, because I’m not.”
***
When the things that aren't gods drop out of the skies, Scipio and Hannibal are in Ephesus. The creatures' terms are simple. Surrender or die.
"I know this feeling," Scipio says, "but I can't quite remember the name. The one where you're faced with something so outside of your understanding that your mind blanks out."
"Is it awe?" Hannibal asks. "Awe's what I felt in front of the Alps."
"No. Not fear, either. I know fear. I've faced you in the field. More like elephants," Scipio adds.
"You beat my elephants," Hannibal says.
"And you crossed the Alps." Scipio smiles.
Hannibal smiles back. "I have it. The word you are looking for, dear friend, is 'challenge'."
And so they go, old men of brittle bone, to face death or glory or both at the hands or pincers of the monsters raining down fire from the sky.
***
“I swear to God, Tony Stark, you better get your shit together, because there were aliens this time. Aliens!” Gwen throws up her hands. She is so done with this shit.
“The good news is that once you fix the aliens, we’ll be back on track. Cap’s President again!” Tony sounds absurdly elated at that, but Gwen’s not been around this end of the recursive cascade much. She’s not sure she wants to know how bad things got.
Queens is back, as is Rhode Island.
She's a goddamn superhero is what she is.
She holds out her hand. “Fine. Once more, with feeling.”
Fandom: Ancient History RPF, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man
Characters: Gwen Stacy, Scipio Africanus, Hannibal Barca
Warnings: Chose not to use
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 2 880
Summary: The History of the Second Punic War keeps changing, Gwen Stacy keeps having to go back to fix it and Hannibal Barca and Scipio Africanus keep meeting for the first time under different circumstances.
Author's Note: This is the first draft of what ended up being Punica Fides. It's very different from that fic, as you can see from the character list.
In Johnny and the Bomb, Terry Pratchett postulates the existence of the Trousers of Time, where sometimes History goes down one leg and sometimes down the other. Ancient Romans wore togas instead of trousers.
“Why me?” Gwen asks, “I don’t know anything about Rome. I don’t even know where Carthage is!”
“Trust me,” Tony Stark says, “if we could have picked anybody else, we would have.”
Gwen stares at him. He can’t possibly mean for that to sound as bad as it does, can he? “So why me?”
“Because you’re a clone. Hold out your arms,” Tony says. He tosses the measuring tape nervously from hand to hand. He’s retrofitting one of his suits for her. It’d be really cool if the suit was able to do anything except travel in time. It’s still pretty cool.
Gwen holds out her arms. “What, being a clone makes me expendable?”
“No.” Tony shakes his head. “Being a clone… No, actually, being you, means you’re exempt from the big problem with timetravel.”
Gwen waits, but that seems to be it. “Which is?”
“Dying in the past.” Tony pins the tape to her shoulder and pulls it to her fingertips.
“I’m pretty sure being a clone means I can die,” Gwen says. She turns around when Tony motions her to.
“Yeah, but,” here, Tony sticks her with a pin, “you, Gwen Stacy, have already died in the present so you dying in the past won’t cause History to collapse on itself, because you died when you were supposed to. That’s the theory, anyway. We haven’t tested it yet.” Over his shoulder, the skyline changes again. The new building is a temple to the glory of Tanith. That’s a lot better than some of the alternatives.
“Does that make my superhero name Guinea Pig?” Gwen knows how serious the situation is. The whole of Queens is gone. History is unravelling and only sometimes ravelling back. When it does, things are different. They were lucky that when the change hit Congress, it left a senate and Suffet Captain America in its place. When it hit Rhode Island, it became a Chitauri hive. So yes, Gwen knows how serious this is. That doesn’t mean she can’t joke about it.
Tony laughs, startling Gwen. “Only if you want it to be.”
***
“Hannibal has taken Rome,” Gwen tells Scipio. They’re in Utica. This is not supposed to happen.
“We should go back,” Gaius says.
“No,” Scipio says, then louder, “No. We can’t take Rome back, especially not from Hannibal Barca, not while he holds the city. If he leaves, we can beat him. The siege must have weakened his armies and Hasdrubal’s greatly. He won’t leave.”
Gwen has a feeling she’s not helping the situation, but she has to at least somewhat stabilise this timeline. “Then what do we do?”
“While he’s in Rome,” Scipio puts his finger on the Rome on the map, “he’s not in Carthage.” He moves his finger to Carthage and stabs at it. “We are.” Scipio looks up at her and smiles. “Let’s show him what it’s like to have your city taken from you.”
***
“Romans in Carthage and Carthaginians in Rome. What is the world coming to?” Hannibal speaks Latin, as a courtesy to Scipio. It is not everyone who can march on Carthage.
Scipio acknowledges the favour with a nod of his head. “Sicily is lovely this time of year.”
They both know that’s not why Hannibal picked it for the summit, but it sometimes pays to play the fool. And it is lovely, the sound of wind through chestnut leaves and hooded crows cawing.
“I assume you want your city back,” Hannibal says.
“You shouldn't assume.”
“No? It’s served me well so far. I marched on Rome because I assumed you were away. You were, and I won. There’s not many in Rome who can do what you did in Ilippa. You’re unique, Scipio.”
In another world, Scipio would have argued the point. In this one, he says, “Carthage is unharmed, as much as I could make it.”
It’s Hannibal’s turn to nod and acknowledge a favour. “As is Rome. Your wife and sons are safe and sound.”
“Yours as well,” Scipio says. “She does not miss you.”
Hannibal seems to search his memory at that. “Imilce? I’ve not seen her in fifteen years and she never loved me. I would have been surprised if she did. Still, I hold her no ill will. If I die here, you may marry her to keep her safe.”
“You won’t die here” Scipio says. Then, in a rare moment of honesty passing as levity, “I’d much rather marry you.”
***
“What happens to me if I die in the past, Adonibaal?” Gwen takes off the armour’s helmet and shakes out her hair. She nearly took an arrow to the chest at the fall of Carthage.
“I told you to call me Dony,” he replies. “And you die, that’s why it’s called dying. So don’t die, because there’s only one of you, and this is nowhere near fixed.”
"Don't you want to hear how it went down this time?" Gwen feels like she needs therapy about this.
"No need. The suit records changes in the era's temporal accretion," he carries on about science and Gwen tunes him out.
Gwen peers over Dony’s shoulder at the displays on his screen. “I’m going back more than once, aren’t I?”
***
This time, Gwen is at Hannibal’s side at Cannae.
When the Numidian cavalry closes in on the Roman army, Gwen recognises a face in the crowd. He’s barely older than her now, but that’s Scipio alright.
She lays her hand on Hannibal’s arm. “Wait.”
She doesn’t really understand what it is that makes people more susceptible to her suggestions - something about retrograde temporal resonance and other multisyllabic words - , but as long as it’s something they might conceivably have done otherwise, they’ll listen to her.
Hannibal stills. “Perhaps now is not the time. There is a battle to be won, after all.”
Gwen points Scipio out to him. “There, that one. He saw the flaw in your strategy.”
Okay, yeah, so it’s a groundless accusation. She doesn’t even know if there is a flaw in Hannibal’s strategy, but if there is, Scipio’s the one who’d know and she does know Hannibal can’t take the risk.
"I know," Hannibal says.
Hannibal throws a knife over her shoulder into someone’s eye and goes back to the melee. Gwen hefts her sword and goes back at it too. Who knew war was this tiring?
***
Somehow, almost impossibly, Scipio survives the battle of Cannae. He’s captured by Hannibal’s troops, but he’s alive and that means he can escape back to Rome.
A man walks in. He’s tall, tall enough that he has to stoop a little to get inside the tent, but not overly so. He’s handsome and surprisingly, his eyes are a muddy green. Scipio’s not quite sure what he expected, but this isn’t it. Blue eyes chillier than alpine snow, perhaps, or grey like the hide of an elephant, but not the colour of a river in spring. It makes sense, he supposes. Given enough time, rivers wear mountains down into nothing.
Less surprisingly, he wears an eyepatch over his left eye.
So. This must be Hannibal, then. Scipio would almost be ashamed of thinking him handsome, but he got over that a long time ago and he has always admired Hannibal’s mind.
“To what do I owe this honour?” He’s been expecting this since waking up alone in this tent. Not even guards inside and so he’s managed to get some leeway on his bonds.
Hannibal sits down in front of him. “You saw my strategy.” Scipio would deny it, but then Hannibal adds, “You sent your troops away as soon as my cavalry started coming back, maybe even before. If Ahirom hadn’t unhorsed you, we wouldn’t be speaking now.”
“At first, I wasn’t sure if that was your plan, but when your Numidians circled back that was all the proof I needed. My men were only going to get themselves killed if they stayed.” Scipio looks up and stares Hannibal straight in the eye. “That was masterful.”
Hannibal bows his head a little as thanks. “Not as much as you seeing through it. I have had days to plan this battle, you had only minutes.”
“I was at Trebbia,” Scipio says, one hand set free behind his back. “I know how you think.”
“Do you?”
Scipio works his knife free from his sleeve. He cuts through the rest of his ropes and lunges at Hannibal.
His blade on Hannibal’s throat, he says, “you’re not going to call the guards.” It’s not a question.
“You’re not going to kill me.” This isn’t a question, either.
***
“What’s next?” Gwendolenn has cramps in her legs from horseback riding and cramps in her arms from swordfighting. She wants nothing more than a warm bath and good night’s sleep in a real bed.
“Next you go back in time,” Dony says and Gwendolenn rolls her eyes, because duh, “and shoot Hanno the Great in the face.”
Dony’s words stop her short.
“Hanno the Great? I thought he was a good general for you Phoenicians, like Boudicca was for us Celts, beat the Romans and everything.”
“‘You Phoenicians’? ‘Us Celts’? Are you stuck in the pre-Empire era?” Dony starts fiddling with her gauntlets.
Gwendolenn stares pointedly at the back of his head. “Well, yes.”
"Besides, Hanno the Great lost us both Punic Wars." He stops. “Oh, right. Look, the gun’s on the table, it’s a genetic match-lock, you won’t be able to kill anyone but him.”
“Wish me luck.”
***
The gun has a limited range, so Gwendolenn infiltrates Carthage. Hamilcar Barca has just won the battle of Mylae and the city’s doors are wide open in celebration.
The last time she was in Carthage, the city was burning and blood was running in the streets. War has a way of turning soldiers into monsters.
Once inside, without fire-cast shadows on the walls and slippery cobblestones under her feet, she gets lost. As she’s about to give up and try again in a new era, she finds the Hundred and Four by accident.
She’s in range and shoots Hanno the Great in the face. She doesn’t stay to see him die.
War turned her into a soldier when she wasn't looking.
***
Mago’s being mean and Hasdrubal is a poopyhead, so Hannibal runs away. He’s never been to Rome before. It’s exciting! There are people speaking Roman and oddly accented Phoenician. Also, their food is weird.
He drifts through the crowd until he comes across the empty barracks. They’re huge, bigger than Father’s back in Sicily, bigger than the ones in Carthage, even. Rome had a lot of men.
Hannibal’s father still won, though. Hannibal’s father is the best general.
“Hey!” Someone's calling him. “You can’t be here. I’ll be in trouble if they find you inside.”
Hannibal turns around. There’s a kid his age with flyaway ash blond hair making ‘get out’ motions with his hands at Hannibal. Hannibal goes over instead. Nobody tells him what to do, except Mother. “Do you know who I am?”
The kid’s looking at him and Hannibal sees the flash of recognition in his eyes. “Will knowing who you are make me not get in trouble?”
Hannibal finds himself off-balance. He likes it.
“I guess not,” he says. “I’m Hannibal.”
“Publius Cornelius Scipio.” The kid stands up, straightening himself out to his full size. Hannibal is taller. Ha! Hannibal wins. “But you can call me Scipio. Cornelius is my father.” He pulls a face.
“Why will you be in trouble?” Hannibal decides he likes Scipio. He’s funny.
“The barracks are closed because Rome’s not allowed an army anymore. Also, they’re old and they can be dangerous, so you shouldn’t be here. Plus, they’re boring.” Scipio takes Hannibal’s hand. “Come on, let’s go someplace fun. I have something to show you.”
Scipio takes Hannibal through the catacombs and it is so cool! Even if it’s not really catacombs and more like just a tunnel, but it’s a cool tunnel.
They emerge on a hill overlooking the city as the sun sets and it is beautiful.
“This my city,” Scipio says. “It might not be Carthage, but it’s mine and I love it.”
There are highlights like red gold in Scipio’s hair and his smile is brighter than the sun. Hannibal is going to miss Scipio.
***
“I think I fucked up,” Gwendolenn says, “they’re not supposed to be the same age.”
“Never mind that, you went back too far when you shot Hanno anyway. Carthage was supposed to win the Second Punic War, not the first one," Tony grabs her chestplate of the disassembler and starts tinkering with it. As far as she can tell, he’s improving spatio-temporal metrics.
She sits down on the table and stretches her legs. The armour is really starting to hurt. Tony did his best, but the retrofitting isn’t perfect.
Tony shoves the armour back at her. “Here, try it now.”
Gwendolenn better get extra credits in History for this.
***
Scipio’s father dies after Tincinus. It’s not Gwendolenn’s fault, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling responsible.
The wound Scipio - Publius Cornelius Scipio - The Consul, why must Roman naming conventions suck so much? - suffered shouldn't have killed him. Gwendolenn does not know much about medicine, but she knows this much.
That wasn't infection, that was poison.
She might have been able to save him, maybe, if she hadn't been halfway across Italy by the time she realised this wasn't going to go according to what should have been.
Scipio's father dies after Tincinus and Scipio takes it rather badly.
He defects to Hannibal. He takes nothing with him except his knowledge and his hate for Rome.
Scipio's father dies after Tincinus and History spirals away madly into the unknown.
***
Scipio comes to Hannibal after Tincinus.
“Why join me and why now?” Hannibal clicks his nails against the table. They’re getting long.
“Rome let my father die.”
“Your father is dead because of me,” Hannibal says. He may not have struck the blow himself, but he might as well have.
Scipio shakes his head. “No. I mean, yes, but it’s different with you.”
“How so?” Hannibal steeples his fingers before him.
“What you did, you did without ill will. We were in your way so you struck us down. What Rome did was treason. My father was poisoned, not through action, but through inaction. The wound should never have festered so.” Scipio stands up and goes to rest his hands on the table and lean over Hannibal. “What you do is strategy, what they did is treachery.”
Hannibal looks up at him. “Sit,” he says. “Who would want your father dead?”
Scipio sits. “My father is - was - Consul, who doesn’t want him dead?”
“Most of Rome, if my understanding is correct.” And it is. Hannibal has always prided himself on knowing his enemies inside and out.
“I can give you Rome if you’ll take it.” Scipio rubs at the inside of his wrist, a nervous tick or rope burn, Hannibal can’t really tell. Probably neither.
Hannibal raises an eyebrow at him. “Who says I want Rome?”
“You didn’t cross the Alps for my pretty face,” Scipio says.
“But it’s such a pretty face.”
***
“Almost there,” Tony tells Gwen.
“Oh, thank fuck, I’m starting to think in that pidgin of Latin and Phoenician that developed in that one timeline.” Gwen finishes taking off the armour. “How many more trips?”
“I’m not sure. Depends on how many variables you can fix per trip. But the end is in sight,” he adds cheerfully at her dejected look.
Gwen collapses into the couch. She’s not sure why there’s a couch in Tony’s lab, but whatever. “Then why do I feel like you’re trolling me?”
“I don’t know, because I’m not.”
***
When the things that aren't gods drop out of the skies, Scipio and Hannibal are in Ephesus. The creatures' terms are simple. Surrender or die.
"I know this feeling," Scipio says, "but I can't quite remember the name. The one where you're faced with something so outside of your understanding that your mind blanks out."
"Is it awe?" Hannibal asks. "Awe's what I felt in front of the Alps."
"No. Not fear, either. I know fear. I've faced you in the field. More like elephants," Scipio adds.
"You beat my elephants," Hannibal says.
"And you crossed the Alps." Scipio smiles.
Hannibal smiles back. "I have it. The word you are looking for, dear friend, is 'challenge'."
And so they go, old men of brittle bone, to face death or glory or both at the hands or pincers of the monsters raining down fire from the sky.
***
“I swear to God, Tony Stark, you better get your shit together, because there were aliens this time. Aliens!” Gwen throws up her hands. She is so done with this shit.
“The good news is that once you fix the aliens, we’ll be back on track. Cap’s President again!” Tony sounds absurdly elated at that, but Gwen’s not been around this end of the recursive cascade much. She’s not sure she wants to know how bad things got.
Queens is back, as is Rhode Island.
She's a goddamn superhero is what she is.
She holds out her hand. “Fine. Once more, with feeling.”