"It's a long story, how much of it would you like?"

"The outline."

"She was on the planet when my creator went ahead with the substitution plan. I did a flawless Miles, right up until she picked me up and kissed me, and then the obvious flinch reaction gave me away and I had to stun her and drag her off. I particularly wanted to talk to Miles alone before they had him killed, but since she was there too, I arranged a private conversation with her after the one I had with him. She didn't take it nearly as well. They're all alive and free now, by the way, don't be alarmed."

"I'm a little alarmed, but alive and free is good."

"Yes. My creator handed me a deadly weapon to demand that I shoot Miles with it, and I declined to act as expected."

"You and your creator have a much different relationship than Sherlock and Tony did. For that matter, I think you and Miles do too."

"...Were Sherlock and Tony by any chance having sex with one another?"

"...wouldn't floor me, hasn't come up, I was referring to the part where they got along on a much more basic level."

"Miles and I don't have much of a relationship as such, but I don't think he'd be keen to experiment in that direction even if he weren't married," says Mark. "We do get along, though, sort of. He gave me my name."

"Nice of him."

"He has strong feelings on the subject. His mother's influence. On her home planet, cloning is a reasonably ordinary way to generate relatives."

"Sure. I might clone myself if I was from someplace where it was customary and I was ready to have kids."

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing, my boyfriend is a vampire and the person to whom he was genetically identical died, so the conventional option isn't happening unless something currently unforseen crops up, and for another I'm sliiiightly narcissistic."

"I suppose I don't have to warn you that the person you get might not be as much like you as you might like."

"I'm aware. This is of course also a risk with conventional kids."

"With conventional kids, you have a co-parent to blame."

"Well, that sounds intensely dysfunctional."

"Are you surprised?"

"Enh." She holds her fingers a small pinching width apart.

He snickers.

"But anyway, I don't live someplace where cloning is customary. And Tony didn't leave his tech lying around and even if he did it came with an aging speedup thing so Sherlock caught up to him. I'm a technical cradle-robber."

"Charming. By how much?"

"He is chronologically six. It's occasionally weird to think about it, but he's pretty thoroughly eighteen in relevant ways."