Chapter Text
***
"We should tread carefully. We would not wish to disturb the spirits of those who died here."
"Is he serious? Are you serious?"
"This was the site of a great battle, was it not?"
"Yeah..."
"Then the spirits of the slain may be lingering. We should take care to not anger them."
"You don't actually believe in ghosts, do you?"
"It is not a matter of belief. When the body dies, the spirit remains until it is sent on, or chooses to pass on. If I did not believe this, it would not make it cease to occur."
"Well, technically—"
"Stark."
"Look, I'm just saying, the alien from the super advanced society believes in ghosts. This is a little weird for me."
"I take it that humans cannot sense them?"
"No, we can't."
"Are you saying you can?"
"I am not well-versed in magic of the spirit, but I may feel them if I concentrate."
"Are you concentrating right now?"
"No. They may not wish me to do so, and could take offense."
"You're fucking with us. He's fucking with us."
"Could you ask them if they'd be alright with us looking around? We just want to know what happened here."
"It would be better if we had a proper oracle perform such a task."
"I don't have any oracles in my address book."
"Me neither."
"I forgot to invite the one who works in HR."
"Can you give it a shot? We're not going to blame you if anyone gets possessed."
"It would most likely be me they would possess—"
"Oh."
"Uh, in that case—"
"—but I will try."
***
“And then Stark had to go and mouth off to them—”
“Hey, that is not how it happened, they were already pissed at Captain Sensitivity here for asking them why they’d suicided—”
“I didn’t say it was suicide.”
“Sorry, ‘sacrificed’, whatever you want to call getting all of themselves killed to—okay, okay. Next time he agrees to play John Edwards I’ll keep my opinions about the recently deceased to myself.”
“He did warn us.”
“I’m sorry if I was skeptical that he could not only sense the dead, but even communicate with them a little.”
“He can control the weather and has a hammer no one else can pick up, but communing with spirits of the dead is a stretch for you?”
“Both of those things are completely explainable via—”
“He’s waking up.”
“Hey. How’re you feeling?”
“Did I not say to be respectful?”
“I thought we were pretty—”
“Tony.”
“Fine, fine.”
“You okay?”
“I am as well as I may be.”
“That’s not a yes. Did you get anything we didn’t?”
“Some of them showed me what happened while that one spoke with you.”
“And?”
“The object we seek is this way.”