revivalproject | Succession

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Succession

WHO: Anyone on the first train out of Temba!
WHERE: Not-Temba, the Not-Transport Station
WHAT: First look at the new city! Tony has some specific things in here he's doing, but you can make it your own first impression experience.
WHEN: As soon as possible after receiving Ga Re's message, time to Ex Floor.
WARNINGS: I'll let you know if this gets weird.

a. Arrival! [OTA! This is a mingle option, so display your preferences accordingly]
The last time they got an urgent message from the Agrii about travel plans, they were headed to space to fight a war. So when Ga Re said far, Tony was not expecting to be standing at the train tracks, staring at the vehicle with some bewilderment. It hadn't been that long since the last time Tony had come this way, and it hadn't looked to him like this station was going to be in service for a good, long time at that point. Even now, as he looked down the tracks to where they disappeared into the woods, he wouldn't confidently say they looked serviceable. Even if the train itself had the juice, it very much looked like a rusty bolt and warped metal was its first and last destination.

That was a problem to solve when they got to it. Tony wasn't the only one ready to find out what was going to happen, and he glanced around the platform to the few people who had dropped what they were doing to come see Ga Re's train with a faint, wry smile, before turning back toward the city to watch for Jon with a flurry of encouraging text messages to spur him on. They had plenty of time already to hang around Temba, it was time to go forward.

The train itself was a sleek tube, like a subway car, lined with seats on the inside that weren't particularly comfortable or inviting. It wasn't giving a long-distance impression, without much room for luggage or travel comforts that a long-haul vehicle might. It didn't even appear to have any kind of control system that Tony could find after some frustrated investigation; just walls and windows and a button to open and close the door, that swished enough times to be irritating before Tony fully gave up on it. He was about ready to apologize for not solving the go puzzle when the car gave a rattle and lurched forward of its own volition, starting its slow roll toward the woods. From there, while Tony bounded for the window to watch Temba disappear behind the foliage, the train rapidly picked up speed, until the leaves were whipping by and then they were suddenly plunged into darkness.

An hour, when you don't know when its going to end or where you are even going, is an incredibly long time.

Abruptly, somewhere deep in that dark tunnel, Tony could feel a snap at the back of his neck, a tingle that numbed the base of his skull enough to touch it gingerly as he realized with a pitch of dread that he couldn't reach out to the network anymore. He reached for Jon's hand first, waiting for a steady breath as he stared distantly out at that endless darkness before he stood to get the rest of the car's attention. With his communication device in hand, he announced, "We've been bricked."

It was possible that Tony should have better prepared for this. It was possible that he should have been ready for the rapidly mounting anxiety as the train burst back out into the sunlight, lashed from all sides once again by the dense, untamed growth of the abandoned planet. And he should have been thoroughly anticipating stepping down from the train as it sighed into the strangely familiar station, and looking back over his shoulder with the realization that they had no control interface, and no way to contact anyone back in Temba.

Were they stuck here now?

b. Transport Station [For Bucky, but you're welcome to join!]
If they were meant to be here for the foreseeable future, the immediate experience wasn't what Tony would call hospitable. He never experienced Temba as it was when the He Rows first arrived, only coming to know it well after some progress had been made and there was clean, running water, and he hadn't realized how thankful he was for that small mercy until he disembarked the train in this new abandoned city. If he didn't have the map to orient himself and assure him that this place was a strange mirror of Temba, he wasn't sure how quickly he would have recognized the shape of the transport station obscured as it was under the tangle of vines and enthusiastic bushes. It took Tony some work to pick his way out of the snarl of it, thorns managing to catch in the seams of his heavy, metal boots and snagging where they met the nanoweb on his thighs, to turn and take in the structure as a whole, looking for a place to start. Where Temba could be shockingly quiet, here Tony could hear a whole cacophony of life calling and chattering high up in the branches of the expansive trees. The air itself smelled sweet with the overripe rot of lush fruit that hung heavily everywhere Tony looked, and littered the ground where more plants yet would grow. Tony wrinkled his nose and planted his hands on his hips. The train wasn't broken, that much was clear. There had to have been a way to make it run.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Stable? No. Let down by the brother back home? Yes. And it wasn't like Captain America ghosted Tony. Except for when, you know, Tony made what they did illegal.

"Apologizing to you or Drake? You I'd consider if you would even consider apologizing for thinking you understand more of my life than I do. Him? No."

It was a shame that they were stuck in this tunnel, because the moment Tony started to mirthlessly chuckle at Tommy still entirely ignoring the actual problem was about the best time for him to get some distance. Instead, Tony had to lick his lips and illuminate Tommy, "Apologizing to your brother. The one you blew up at." But that would only be valuable if Tommy actually considered that Billy had his own feelings, and the fact that he didn't even consider this an option suggested they were pretty far off from that project.

"When he stops avoiding me," Tommy noted. Then again, he was sorta awkward about it too. Neither of them were good at apologies. "Yeah. And... And explaining why I got like I did."

Billy only had a rough idea.

"I came to that conclusion days ago. But I don't want to force myself into his presence. We've both got tempers when we build up a head of steam."

His hand went without thinking to the electrical burn scar on his arm.

Okay, that was something, and while Tony knew nothing, he thought he did have some experience with making amends with people who were better off not seeing him, so he settled less tensely into his seat with a slow nod. It didn't sound like that apology would be particularly smooth at this stage anyway, if Tommy was still finding things to blame Billy for. That did leave Tony with a question, though, and after ticking his finger through the air like he might be able to calculate it himself, he did eventually have to ask, "What is it you're not remotely apologizing for then?"

"You really need to use more pronouns and context, Tony. To who? Billy, you, Drake, myself, the Agrii? If I don't know what you're asking, how the fuck do I answer?"

He can come up with so many different possibilities, and it's driving him crazy. The good news was that he wasn't actually going through the same panic over the space they were in anymore.

As far as Tony could tell, Tommy was still losing it because Tony had to glance around to try to figure out what the hell he was swearing at now. "Have you tried yoga?" he suggested, hand out flat between them like he was trying to present a very serious point here, before twirling a finger to rewind the tape for them. "I don't know, that's what I'm trying to figure out, those were your words and you keep coming at me like you haven't been saying any of this. Quick, repeat after me: transistor, Excalibur, pool party." Clearly, their calibration was off and someone had to make sure they were actually speaking the same language.

"Yeah, of course I have. But it's so slow," Tommy groaned. Why are they even talking about yoga? His fingers card through his hair and he resists shaking his head at the nonsense words.

"I'd rather, you know, learn about transistors than just say the words."

Great, Tommy was completely losing his mind and trying his best to bring Tony with him. For a moment, it looked like it worked, because Tony had to clench a fist in frustration, then splayed it open expectantly as he searched Tommy's face for a proper response that clearly wasn't forthcoming. Tony could no longer go down this path. He dropped the hand, and his head back in defeat with a groan up at the unforgiving ceiling of the rattling train. Still looking to the ceiling, he encouraged, "Fine, deal, you just talk and I'll listen, don't let me intrude on whatever it is that you're doing right now."

Okay, now Tommy doesn't even know what the fuck was going on. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned at Tony.

"Dude, do you know how good you are at driving someone crazy?"

Pot? Kettle. Nice to meet you.

"Yeah, here's the thing, usually I'm putting a little bit of effort into it to create the intended reaction," Tony replied, not about to downplay one of his many talents, but clearly this situation had gone well enough out of his control that he couldn't even articulate what was happening beyond a gesture between them and the inscrutable complexation they were inducing.

"You say you're worried for your brother, I say you're really close, you go off on me about how he takes care of himself, and blow a whole gasket when I suggest he can take care of himself. You say you think your friends hate you because they went and became West Coast Avengers, I tell you that that wasn't my experience as a West Coast Avenger, and you're absolutely baffled that I would even mention it. You say you're not going to apologize, I say you should, and you're acting like you've never heard that word in your life. Is this some kind of game? Could we not have gone with I Spy? I am not nearly fed up enough with this trip to keep playing this one," Tony laid out for them.

Wow, when heard from Tony's perspective, that conversation sounds really fucked up. Except that's not what Tommy experienced. He moves to sit down on the floor and look up at Tony.

"Way I see it, I said I was worried, and you brought up what we were like back home. Everything else, all the complex tangles and shit, that came from you bringing up how you saw us together a lot back home. I was attempting to talk about shit, and it seems like you got confused. And I didn't say my friends hate me because Kate moved to California. She did that to get away from the mess of Clint's life, not that it lasted. I said they all left me behind, and used that as an illustrative point, while you went off on your own time out there which wasn't the same sort of situation of people leaving you behind."

If anything, it was Tony ditching other people, in Tommy's book. But everyone knew his book was off a bit.

"And the ones I said I wouldn't apologize to were you for being annoyed at you over all you were saying, and Drake because of his bullshit. I didn't say I wasn't going to apologize to Billy. Not my fault that I didn't understand that vague language you use."

He really was confused, and maybe that comes across in his voice and the title in his head. What in the world, man?

"I'm just so confused now. Which I guess is better than nearly blowing up the train?"

This supplicating position was weird enough that Tony knew he would prefer to go back to the yelling, but he kept still for about as long as it took to realize that Tommy might actually have processed something Tony said and that was revelatory enough to lean forward, elbows on his knees and watch this change with interest. Tommy was still committed to believing that Tony was worthless, but he was still graciously going through Tony's timeline with him, so they weren't speaking entirely different languages.

Tony had to consider how to approach this again in the way that kept Tommy's attention, despite how poorly the calculation had gone last time, and worried his lip between his teeth with his hands laid out flat to stare down at. "You say that a lot, 'not my fault'," he started. "If not in those exact words, then in how you approach an issue--I can't apologize to Billy yet because he's avoiding me and he has a bad temper, too. Not my fault." Tony clenched a fist there, tight, to signal to Tommy to not immediately blow up about how off base that was because Tony didn't know the backstory with Clint's mess, or whatever, and maybe use the moment to consider this was the way he spoke to Tony and maybe this single experience Tony had was valid. God forbid. "That's armor you're putting up against onboarding anything I'm trying to tell you. I didn't 'go off', I was trying to share an experience with you, but because nothing is your fault, you must be on the defence in this exchange." Tony did not board this train expecting to lead a substance abuse group meeting.

He doesn't abuse substances, Tony. He just goes his best to live his life. But clearly he already knew some of what Tony was telling, he knew this was a defensive thing for him. Had to have because he grimaced. But it was there and gone too fast for anything short of a slow mo camera to catch a flicker of.

Say a thing enough and it's hard to put into words when you really mean it wasn't your own fault and when you thought it might be but you were trying not to get hurt.

"Yeah, you've got experience. I get that. I just don't know how to pick out the parts of it that will help me with the problems I'm having. Like how to protect Billy from these evil powers that be using his powers against him again."

"I think--and, forgive me, it's a new thing I'm trying, this is a test run, thinking--that we're approaching this idea, that Billy is at risk, as fundamentally different problems," Tony ventured, because if the total breakdown of this conversation wasn't evidence enough, that was overwhelming true of any discussion he had with an Avenger. "Listen, I do understand the instinct to protect him, that's not incorrect, and if I could I would be equipping him with the gear and the tools that would keep his ass covered in any circumstance. But I think that's exactly where we're dropping connection. Taking on the responsibility to shelter him from the world is not the same problem as providing him the tools and respecting him enough to use them. He knows he has those scars you were talking about. He busted you out of jail to help him the first time around. I don't know what you think has changed. No one of us is nearly strong enough to take on the kind of power that can threaten Wiccan, but him."

"Jonas busted me out," Tommy counters. Billy was just standing there, and had kept Tommy from hurting people.

But he does think Tony is wrong, but in a way he doesn't now. There's something they can do to protect Billy from the Atroma. If Tommy just knew how to make it work.

"I think my brother got tortured with his own memories into using his powers, because he did. I think if he had the ability to effectively turn off his power at his own will would help him. I think he needs special, like, reverse hearing aids. Say the magic word, they cancel noise, keep him from hearing himself so he can't be forced to hurt people. Another special word in his own voice to turn that part off. Wouldn't that do it?"

This ongoing commitment to being profoundly literal had Tony scrubbing at his face and grumbling, "You're right, I know nothing." After all, it was very relevant that Billy was just involved in asking for help, that totally undermined the point Tony was trying to make. When he felt he could no longer scratch a deeper layer of frustration from his skin, Tony balanced his chin in his hand where he could press a finger to his temple and squint at Tommy intently, trying to work out if it mattered what answer he gave to Tommy's question or if he could save them both the trouble by looking ahead in Tommy's uneditable script.

"It would do somethin'," Tony was willing to accept. "Here's another hypothetical, and I know these are risky, bear with me--if I told you the best way to handle a problem was to turn off your powers, would you have waited for the train to stop to throw me into the ocean?"

"The difference between that hypothetical and mine is personal choice, Tony. Would I like to be able to, for a change, sleep through a whole night like I haven't done since I was a kid? Yep, that would be nice once in a while. And drinking? I'd like to have the choice for that to have an impact on me. If it was only me that could control it?"

Yeah, he thought he'd go for it. He thought a lot of mutants might go for it, even though they'd deny it. He didn't look at Tony as he said the next thing.

"It would be nice, every now and then, to be able to just sit down and watch a movie without straining myself to keep slow enough so it's not just a slide show. Or to be able to play video games without wanting to break my controller for it not responding right because it doesn't have tolerances for me."

The world won't make adaptive tech for people like Tommy. So if he had something that could give him the briefest moments of getting to interact with the world, he'd do it. And chances were he'd be seen as a traitor to what he was for that.

"If it was completely under my ability to turn on and off, and it was the best way to handle a problem, I'd listen. If you said the best way to handle a problem was to take my powers away from me, against my will, yeah you'd be drinking salt water."

Either Tommy was really excited to have devised his own way to depower Billy, or he really did think himself making these kind of calls was identical to Billy's personal choice. Tony couldn't see how else he had come up with that delineation between their proposals--it wasn't Tony that had outlined that personal choice difference. And Tony really hadn't expected Tommy to be open to the concept of turning off his powers after the sheer amount of defensive pride he took in his mutant identity. Tony had to nod slowly, very aware that he wasn't a mutant or even a metahuman, and while he was frustrated that Tommy didn't consider his experience as a superhero valuable, this was a very different experience that Tony would never be privy to. The way Tommy talked about his powers sounded so much like the ways Tony had heard people with disabilities talk about their barriers, and in a lot of ways that wasn't very surprising; Tommy's environment was at odds with his needs. But Tommy could also interact with the environment far beyond the abilities of any baseline human.

It definitely wasn't in the best interest of Tony's ongoing physical integrity that he pursue a discussion about a switch to turn off mutant powers, or comparing mutations to disabilities. None of the rest of this conversation suggested to him that Tommy had some misplaced trust in Tony to think he should be engaged like that, but that Tommy just didn't consider Tony enough of a threat not to say it.

"Okay," Tony said slowly, navigating through that tangle of wires to get back to the source, "but we're not talking about having a beer and playing Mario Kart. We're talking about Billy when he is his most vulnerable, with a mechanism attached that will suppress his ability to fight back. Whether or not its intended use is an ideal situation where only Billy has control of that mechanism, the fact that it exists makes it exploitable. Just like making that mechanism for you exist, means all those fellas in congress who make big robots and collars to keep the X-Men quiet will have something to point to to fix them."

It wasn't him making the calls. It was him coming up with an idea and then, after hopefully finding a way to execute it, offering the idea to Billy so he could choose. What was so hard about this?

"Billy doesn't need the verbal spells to throw energy blasts," Tommy counters. AT least, it had never seemed like the guy had to him. "Or the electricity. So it's not defenseless. And the goal would be something he could turn on and off at need in an emergency. Or what, do you think you'd be moved to hack the thing to take control of my brother while we're here?"

Robots and collars weren't here. What was here was people who might decide that the best way to keep Billy's powers from being used against them was to just kill him.

"I'll figure it out myself."

Neither of them should have needed Tony to answer that question, and being confronted with it had Tony raising his eyebrows then dropping his gaze back down to his restlessly twining hands with another humourless laugh. Of course that would be the firs thing Tony was doing if he knew such a thing existed. If Tommy doubted that, then the Tony Stark he knew on Earth was a very different guy.

All of them seemed to be.

"You were always going to," Tony muttered down at his hands, because Tommy's idea of collaboration so far was to be dismissive about Tony's concerns.

Wow, it would be shitty if Tony did consider just hacking something meant to make Billy feel safe and in control just because he could.

"No. I wanted your help. I wanted someone who knows how shit works to help me figure this out so I don't come to Billy with a theoretical I come to him with a plan and let him decide if it works for him. If he wanted. it. And instead I've got a guy comparing me to Bolivar Trask when it isn't, like, unheard of for mutants to have things to help them with their powers and control."

"And I'm telling you how shit works. That you've just proposed a dangerous weapon, without enough respect for Billy to bring him on in the process. I'm not helping you make a weapon, Tommy, and a weapon is not a plan," Tony replied, slow to look up to meet Tommy's eye again but steady when he did. "What you wanted was for me to agree with you, and I don't."

"I proposed a metaphorical suit of armor," Tommy answered as he stood. "But I should have realized that someone like you would only ever see something meant as a defense as a weapon. I figured the great Tony Stark would know how to help me make it safe, how to help me make a plan. Instead I get told off for even trying to help him. For thinking I might be able to put power and control back in his hands."

So he really didn't know what to do. A plan defeated before he could even work on it. And if Tony was against it, he was certain the man would try and foil it.

"So that's it, huh? Just fucking powerless to keep the person I care about safe from powers beyond just praying. Great fucking talk."

None of Tommy's sarcastic needling was going to convince Tony that he wouldn't recognize a suit of armor or a bomb when he saw one. They were firmly back in Tony's area of expertise, without any of Tony's doubts about what is was like to live as a mutant, but it seemed like Tommy only wanted to recognize that as far as he could use it as an insult. It wasn't like Tony was about to disagree, raising his hands in surrender as he leaned back to drape his elbows across the seat again.

"The dramatics are a great look, keep it up," Tony welcomed, tilting his head with a goading smirk like he was encouraging Tommy to take the easy sucker punch. "You let me know when you actually do want to make something safe, not just treat me like an idiot when I tell you that it isn't."

Tony turned armor into a weapon. Of course Tommy thought he was wrong on this one. But that jab makes Tommy's fists clench at his sides. It's only the fact that knows a misjudged punch might well kill Tony and he isn't up for that right now. Stupid fucking fragile face.

"The point of talking to you about this was to find a way to make it safe you condescending asshole! You're Tony fucking Stark, and you keep the sun from exploding! How could I not have faith that you could help my brother?"

Succession

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