He laughs and shakes his head. "Who knows."

"Not me, yet, but I plan to live forever and maybe in all that time I will find out," says Shell Bell pleasantly.

"Ambitious," says Tony.

"Ambitious is that I want pretty much everyone else to live forever, too, and today I plan to see if I can raise the dead," says Shell Bell. "Planning to live forever is self-preservation."

"...Yeah," he says, "it's self-preservation if you can do it."

"I can," says Bell. "I'm magic. All I have to do is quit aging - when I've decided I like some age I am instead of wanting to see what another year looks like on top - and not get really sick or injured."

"Well, good for you," says Tony.

"Thanks," says Shell Bell merrily. "You know, the goatee really works for you, I should suggest it to my Tony."

...He laughs.

"What?" asks Shell Bell.

"I could not even begin to tell you."

"Ah, fine. You seem less stunned than I was when I first found out about alternate worlds," Bell observes. "But then, I was six at the time."

"Alternate universes are old news in physics," he says with a shrug.

"Does physics have an explanation for alts? 'Cause none of mine know why there are half a dozen plus of us running around."

"In theory, if there are infinite alternate universes, multiple versions of the same person in different settings isn't impossible," he says. "As to how you'd all end up meeting each other, your guess is as good as mine."

"How and when the doors appear is not at all a known thing," says Shell Bell, "alas. Although there's one - well, two, now - Jarvises who can open doors at will, which is very convenient. And my Tony can summon it on purpose one try out of three."

"Good for him," Tony says dryly.

"I was floored when I heard about that. When I was little I lived for trips to Milliways - I'm sure I'd be brain-damaged from malnutrition by this age without it, actually - and it would only come by after months, sometimes longer. I was so jealous. But neither him nor Sherlock started finding it until after they won their respective Hunger Games."

"...That just sounds mean," he says.

"Oh, trust me, if I knew who ran the place that wouldn't even be the first thing I complained to the management about. Although it'd be the second," says Shell Bell.

"Dare I ask...?"

"If you ever open a door and it leads to a bar instead of where you thought you were going? And it's decorated for - you have Valentine's Day here? Lace and pink and red and white and -" She makes the heart shape with her hands. "If you find Milliways and it's decorated with that crap you bolt."

"Uhh," he says. "Okay."

"Milliways thinks it's cute to celebrate the holiday with little darts of mind-affecting love drugs," Shell Bell explains.

"Creeeeepy," Tony opines.