Fanfiction | Fandom: Inception/Marvel (movies) | Title: Phone Call | 2/2
Title: Phone Call
Fandom: Inception/Marvel (movies)
Rating: PG
Characters: Arthur, Tony Stark
Word count: ~700
Warnings: AU, crossover
Summary: Arthur’s involvement in the Inception job is much less impressive to his father.
Notes: Set after “ Daddy Dearest”; it’ll make more sense if you read that first, but it’s not strictly necessary. Also, I need sleep. Please point out any typos caused by this and I’ll fix them when I’m more awake. I blame clair3 for this being done already.
~
Arthur rarely kept a phone on the job. It was dangerous. It made it easier for people to find him, and he didn’t want people finding him. That was his job-finding people, learning everything relevant about them. He didn’t go into as much detail as Eames, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at it. It just meant they did it differently.
But he had a phone on this job, because they had things to coordinate in the waking world. So when he got a call on his way to their current workshop, he made the mistake of answering.
“So what’s this I hear about a new job? I thought we were done with that.”
Arthur grimaced, biting down on his tongue to stop from actually cursing aloud. “I’m not in America and I haven’t gotten caught,” he said, looking around quickly to check that no one he knew was listening. “So really, I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“Of course it’s my business. You’re being photographed right now heading towards a-”
“There are no cameras here,” Arthur said, and then he realized. “Did you actually repurpose satellites to keep an eye on me?”
He could hear the familiar sound of his father drumming his fingers on the table. “It’s not my fault. Really, you shouldn’t be doing this anyway.”
“The only thing you said was that if you had to bail me out again,” Arthur checked again to make sure Eames in particular wasn’t listening and dropped his voice, “you’d out me as your son. You said nothing about things I don’t get caught doing.”
“Are you really going to argue semantics?” Stark asked, doing his best to sound offended.
“Depends,” Arthur answered. “Are you going to say why you really called?”
Tony Stark didn’t answer.
“Come on, dad. It’s been three months since I heard from you. I don’t believe you just thought to repurpose those satellites now. And I know I’ve been busy in that time, so what are you really calling about?”
“Robert Fischer announced today that he’s going to break up his father’s company.”
Arthur tried to sound surprised. To be fair, even after everything he’d never expected the inception to take. But now that he’d been told it had, it didn't come as much of a shock.
“That’s the energy company, right? So why are you calling me?”
“Well, it was a pretty sudden decision. I was trying to figure out why a loyal son would do something like that.”
Arthur smirked. “No idea. If I see one, I’ll be sure to ask.”
“Ha-ha, funny. No, really, I’m splitting my sides. What did you have to do with it?”
“Why are you so sure I had anything to do with it?” Arthur stopped a block away from the warehouse; no need to give anyone on the team any clues to who he was talking to by continuing the conversation at the workshop.
“I found you in the airport security footage.”
He’d told Dom they needed to be more careful about cameras, but now wasn’t the time. “You mean, Jarvis found me.”
“I made Jarvis. It counts.”
“You made me, too. So does that mean you’re taking credit for the job?”
“I didn’t make you. You were an accident that I happened to be accidentally involved in the conceptual stages of. I didn’t plan for you, raise you, or do anything to help you become the person you are today. You were just-”
“An accident,” Arthur said. He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but he wasn’t entirely successful even to his own ears. “I heard you.”
Tony sighed. “So what was the job?”
“There wasn’t a job, because there couldn’t have been a job. Planting ideas in people’s minds is impossible. It’s not like extraction-the subject can always trace the origin of the idea.”
“Who said anything about planting ideas?”
“Taking information wouldn’t change someone’s mind about something like that,” Arthur said simply. “You’d need to plant an idea. Which you can’t do, so there was no job.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“If I was, would you want the truth?” Arthur started walking again.
“Yes.”
“I’m not lying.”
There was another sigh from the other end of the line. Arthur could almost see Tony staring, frustrated. He didn’t believe Arthur, and he was right not to. But the truth would ruin the tenuous truce they had, which would ruin Tony.
Stark hung up without another word, and Arthur continued to the meeting.
Fandom: Inception/Marvel (movies)
Rating: PG
Characters: Arthur, Tony Stark
Word count: ~700
Warnings: AU, crossover
Summary: Arthur’s involvement in the Inception job is much less impressive to his father.
Notes: Set after “ Daddy Dearest”; it’ll make more sense if you read that first, but it’s not strictly necessary. Also, I need sleep. Please point out any typos caused by this and I’ll fix them when I’m more awake. I blame clair3 for this being done already.
~
Arthur rarely kept a phone on the job. It was dangerous. It made it easier for people to find him, and he didn’t want people finding him. That was his job-finding people, learning everything relevant about them. He didn’t go into as much detail as Eames, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at it. It just meant they did it differently.
But he had a phone on this job, because they had things to coordinate in the waking world. So when he got a call on his way to their current workshop, he made the mistake of answering.
“So what’s this I hear about a new job? I thought we were done with that.”
Arthur grimaced, biting down on his tongue to stop from actually cursing aloud. “I’m not in America and I haven’t gotten caught,” he said, looking around quickly to check that no one he knew was listening. “So really, I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“Of course it’s my business. You’re being photographed right now heading towards a-”
“There are no cameras here,” Arthur said, and then he realized. “Did you actually repurpose satellites to keep an eye on me?”
He could hear the familiar sound of his father drumming his fingers on the table. “It’s not my fault. Really, you shouldn’t be doing this anyway.”
“The only thing you said was that if you had to bail me out again,” Arthur checked again to make sure Eames in particular wasn’t listening and dropped his voice, “you’d out me as your son. You said nothing about things I don’t get caught doing.”
“Are you really going to argue semantics?” Stark asked, doing his best to sound offended.
“Depends,” Arthur answered. “Are you going to say why you really called?”
Tony Stark didn’t answer.
“Come on, dad. It’s been three months since I heard from you. I don’t believe you just thought to repurpose those satellites now. And I know I’ve been busy in that time, so what are you really calling about?”
“Robert Fischer announced today that he’s going to break up his father’s company.”
Arthur tried to sound surprised. To be fair, even after everything he’d never expected the inception to take. But now that he’d been told it had, it didn't come as much of a shock.
“That’s the energy company, right? So why are you calling me?”
“Well, it was a pretty sudden decision. I was trying to figure out why a loyal son would do something like that.”
Arthur smirked. “No idea. If I see one, I’ll be sure to ask.”
“Ha-ha, funny. No, really, I’m splitting my sides. What did you have to do with it?”
“Why are you so sure I had anything to do with it?” Arthur stopped a block away from the warehouse; no need to give anyone on the team any clues to who he was talking to by continuing the conversation at the workshop.
“I found you in the airport security footage.”
He’d told Dom they needed to be more careful about cameras, but now wasn’t the time. “You mean, Jarvis found me.”
“I made Jarvis. It counts.”
“You made me, too. So does that mean you’re taking credit for the job?”
“I didn’t make you. You were an accident that I happened to be accidentally involved in the conceptual stages of. I didn’t plan for you, raise you, or do anything to help you become the person you are today. You were just-”
“An accident,” Arthur said. He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but he wasn’t entirely successful even to his own ears. “I heard you.”
Tony sighed. “So what was the job?”
“There wasn’t a job, because there couldn’t have been a job. Planting ideas in people’s minds is impossible. It’s not like extraction-the subject can always trace the origin of the idea.”
“Who said anything about planting ideas?”
“Taking information wouldn’t change someone’s mind about something like that,” Arthur said simply. “You’d need to plant an idea. Which you can’t do, so there was no job.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“If I was, would you want the truth?” Arthur started walking again.
“Yes.”
“I’m not lying.”
There was another sigh from the other end of the line. Arthur could almost see Tony staring, frustrated. He didn’t believe Arthur, and he was right not to. But the truth would ruin the tenuous truce they had, which would ruin Tony.
Stark hung up without another word, and Arthur continued to the meeting.