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Hope has been working with Tony Stark for a few months now, doing her best to come up with something that might let her travel back to her own time, but the technology available in this time just isn't what she needs. To be honest, the technology she needs isn't going to be available for a very long time, and she's probably better off just waiting for someone to find her, but Hope's never been very good at waiting and doing nothing.
Which is why she managed to get an appointment set with one Reed Richards, even if she has some doubts about if he'll show up for it.
Unfortunately, the poor girl waits almost an hour. It's not until the door to a side office opens and Reed Richards, young scientist, superhero, and all around nerd, comes through on the way to the other side of the room. Perhaps he forgot something. A pen or his notes, or a meeting that someone made for him. "Oh, hello," he says cheerfully, not realizing he would have company in the conference room. He seems most preoccupied.
Hope may not be the best at waiting idly, but she can amuse herself for an hour easily enough. The rolling chairs are definitely a good source of amusement. In fact, when Reed comes in, she's rolling across the room and looking out the window, whistling to herself. "Oh. Hi." She pauses, blinking. "Wow, you're young."
"Hmm?" Reed says, absently and with a double take. "What's that?" He reaches into a cabinet on the side of the table and pulls out a giant hunk of junk. It's got springs everywhere and looks like some sort of power converter or maybe a power source. It doesn't look trustworthy at all.
"Like, really young. Which is weird, because everyone else seems to be a mostly normal age, and of all the people, I sort of pictured you as always old." Hope pushes up out of the chair, coming over to get a look at the junk on the table instead, half-sitting on the edge. "I'm Hope," she introduces herself belatedly. "Your, uh…" A glance to the clock, then back. "Two o'clock."
"Reed," he says with a smile as he gives her his hand should she take it. "I get that a lot. Lot of stuffy types here and folks are a bit on the older side. Myself and my three cohorts, well, we're a bit young. Hope. You know, you look a bit like Sue. You her cousin or something?" Reed scoots the power converter over so Hope can get a better look. "I haven't seen her today, but Johnny is around somewhere."
"I don't know," Hope shrugs. "Usually people tell me I look like Jean Grey, but I'm starting to think that's mostly been a redhead thing. And I don't actually know who my biological father is, so…I guess I could be?" She reaches out to poke at the power converter, checking a few of the connections with the air of someone who knows something about gadgets. "It'd be a bit weird, though. I'm from the future, so."
"From the future?" Reed asks as his eyebrow stretches impossibly high. He apparently either has an open mind or he doesn't believe her at all. His interest is piqued, though. "What's it like in the future?" He pauses, "And why are you here?" The words themselves seem cold, but the cheerfulness of this guy means it lands better than it would otherwise. He's just genuinely curious.
"The further you go, the worse it gets." Hope shifts back on the table, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged. Table manners aren't really her thing. "There's a whole long story behind it, but the short and immediate version is I'm pretty sure an emerging mutant's out of control powers flung me back here, and if I'm not there to help them stabilize their powers, then…Well, chances are it's going to be a while before anyone figures out how to come back for me."
"Hnh." Reed seems intrigued. It's a much better story than the science fiction novels he read as a child. It's almost like he wants to believe. "So, that's why you're here." He seems to sink back into his seat a little bit. Like, literally. It's only noticeable in a slight way, but it's noticeable. He seems relaxed as he thinks. "What have you tried so far."
"I've…" Hope pauses, lips pursing for a moment as she tries to figure out how to explain it. "I've got two problems. One, I don't actually know how to build a time machine. I've seen them work, I've seen it repaired, but I've never built one. And two, I don't know that the necessary materials can be found now. I mean, my- the man who raised me had one that fit in his arm. Here, computers take up whole rooms."
Reed takes a deep breath and looks up at the ceiling lights, losing himself for a moment. "You see, that's the real trick of it. But you're not thinking outside the box on this one. That's your problem." He gives her an upwards nod, "What's the biggest difference between then and now? What do you miss most?"
Hope shakes her head, shrugging. "Not the right person to ask. Most of the future I grew up in, we were using the trash that hundreds of years in the future of that had left behind. I just make do with what I've got, whatever that is." She half-turns, going back to inspecting the gadget. "This some sort of…power source?"
For a moment they're having two different conversations. "It's not when. You can't make the leap back from here, not with the technology. But it's like an airline. Sometimes there's not a direct flight. Sometimes you need a layover. That's what you need. You need a layover."
Hope wrinkles her nose, setting a hand to her stomach. "I've done that. When the regulator wasn't broken, but it hadn't had a chance to calibrate. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I think I puked for a week after that. Then again, it was kind of, uh. Stressful."
"If you could leap to a place where technology fit what you needed, then maybe you could put together something that could get you to the time you needed," Reed offers with a shrug. "Yeah, it's a power source. Or was. And will be."
"That's…" Hope grimaces. "Yeah, I was sort of on that page. The man who raised me, Nathan? He's dead when I came from. But he was around and traveling for a long time before that. If I could send him a message, put up a flare of some sort, then I might be able to convince him to take me back to my right time. The thing is, you send up a beacon…you don't know who's going to see it."
"Well, maybe I can help you. Probably not today, but someday." He tilts his head towards the laboratories, "Come on, take a look." He sits up out of his chair and makes his way to where he was nodding. "It won't take long. Come on, take a look."
Hope quirks a brow, but there's some amusement in the expression. There's more than one reason Reed wasn't her first stop here in the past. Still, she hops off the table, following along easily enough.
Reed leads her into a gigantic laboratory that looks more like a giant teenager's bedroom. There's shit everywhere. But instead of dirty laundry and soda cans, there's all sorts of metallic devices, wiring, and the like. The young scientist leads her through a maze of crap, finally to a clearing, probably six feet wide. On a pedastal sits a weird pyramid-like contraption made from coat hangers, coiled wires, and a bunch of other rudimentary stuff. "Whaddya think?" he exclaims excitedly.
"I think you've got a lot of work here." Hope sounds sarcastic, but there's a current of genuine interest underneath it. And understanding, even. "You're…" She moves closer to the device, squinting a bit. "This is meant to open something, isn't it? Some sort of door."
"That's the idea," Reed replies as he looks around the room. He grabs a screwdriver and sets it upon the pedestal. "Alright, watch this!" He reaches to a lever on the side of the small column, but stops abruptly. "You should probably back up a couple steps."
Hope clasps her hands behind her back, taking a couple of steps back as directed. She may not have a lot of experience with Reed Richards, but she has enough to know that stepping back is probably a good choice.
Finally Reed pulls the lever and it seems like everything is a bust. He doesn't seem disappointed, though. Instead, he's just staring intently upon that screwdriver on the pedestal underneath the pyramid of coat hanger wire. A low, sternum shaking rumble of noise emanates in waves, growing louder and louder. The room itself begins to shudder and all of the clutter skitters around. At one point the lights begin to flicker as the sound builds to a crescendo and then
POP
Amid a bright flash, the screwdriver disappears.
Hope quirks a brow when the screwdriver disappears, leaning back and twisting from side to side as she looks around for it. You know, in cause it's sticking out of a wall somewhere it was launched when things went pop. "So…where'd you send it?" she asks.
"We're not sure. We call it the Negative Zone. We get a little bit of this dust each time, which we think is from a different universe." Reed sighs, and puts his hands on his hips. "The government is trying to get us to open up a bigger portal, but I'm not so sure that's a good idea."
"As someone who's been to some weird times and places, it's probably a terrible idea," Hope agrees. "Especially if the government's the one pushing it. But it's not like you're going to stop investigating it, right? So you might as well do it with enough backing to have someone around in case something else comes through."
Reed nods, "You're probably right. In any event once I figure out where it goes and figure out how to adapt it and send me to somewhere else, I'll look you up. Maybe it can help you get to a place where you can go to get to the place you really want to go."
"Sounds great," Hope smiles crookedly, crossing her arms loosely over her chest. "You should probably check that coupling, though," she nods toward a bundle of wires where tape has frayed, leaving stray copper stringing across the floor. "Be a pain if you burned your whole thing down before you got anywhere."
"I'd just make it again," Reed says as he heads out of the laboratory with a shrug of his shoulders. "I really think you might be related to Sue. You should look into that."
"Yeah, but that's time you could have spent studying it," Hope shrugs in return, ever practical. "I'm with the Avengers, if you ever get around to getting somewhere," she notes, heading for the front desk as she walks backwards away. "I'll just let them know you said it was cool if I stopped by sometime." Also not ashamed to mooch off of someone else.