Temba's Where The Heart Is

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, OTA (Some closed or limited starters)
WHERE: Temba: Greenhouse, Diner, The Twin Roses
WHAT: Tommy got hurt in Not Temba so now he's staying home for traditional work
WHEN: Early August
WARNINGS: Tommy's attitude is going to be testy due to leg soreness/pain

1. New Plants Need Time | Greenhouse | OTA

Green. Tommy had never thought he'd feel so attached to the color. Yes, it was part of his uniform but this green space, this peace... It was magical in its own way. Somehow he hadn't noticed it in himself back home, the way that when he was stressed he ran to not only natural wonders, but ones that were in some way green. But here, on Agra 10, he had found some measure of peace in the greenhouse right at the start, and in a strange way, the place felt like home.

"I'm back babes," he called out to the plants, dragging along the bubble-olive tree that Obi-Wan had helped him dig up back in the other city. He needed to get it to the place where it would have its final resting and a chance to adjust. "I've brought new friends. Once I've got them in, we're going to do a prone. And it's almost harvest time, so everyone do your best."

There was peace, calmness, happiness to be had in finding the greenhouse still standing after all the stress in life.

"Now if only I had more hands," he mused as he kept going, limping along slowly. Stupid hurt leg. But he'd power through it. He always had.


2. Food Makes Family | The Diner | OTA

Okay, so maybe he hasn't done this in a while, but that doesn't mean Tommy doesn't know what he's doing. Okay, maybe he doesn't know what he's doing very WELL but dammit he's trying. And, with people everywhere and some of the diner help staff working their asses off exploring and Tommy no longer easily able to do that, he had come to do it instead. This afternoon he was falling back on a classic. Anyone who had an issue with soup as a side today was going to get serious glares from him. For now Tommy was working on making fresh noodles from one of the Coruscant grains he had just ground into flour for the purpose.

With the back door to the kitchen open he could hear someone enter the building and he called out from the back as loud as he could to let them know he was working.

"Hold on and there will be a fresh salad or fruit if you want. I'm working on a noodle-soup. Come on back!"


3. Welcome to the Roses | Twin Roses | Closed to Twin Roses Crew

Home. Tommy was one of the lucky ones and he didn't even know it. He had brought some new plant samples to try in the Twin Roses hydroponics system and had no clue that the ships had been juggled. Then again, save for the first assignments, this had really been his ship. It was, in a weird way (especially when considering his claustrophobia) home. He moved easily and confidently through the ship, not expecting that the people on it could be so different. And once in the hold he moved right to his hydroponics unites.

"Hey kiddos," he greated them. he'd heard once that talking to plants helped, and given they had to live in the more artificial environment of the ship, he didn't intend to not do it. "Got you some new friends seeing as the sorta pea-pod vine things weren't working out. Say hi."

And now it was time to get them started.

Later on, after he was done with that task, Tommy busied himself in the laundry area, sitting on top of the washer with a bowl of chocolate protein paste with slices of fruit cut up into it, eating as the machine worked on cleaning his clothes. His injured leg hung to the side, keeping all weight off of it.

We anyone to enter he would look them dead in the eye.

"What, never seen a dude washing laundry before?"

Well, they might have, but given Tommy was literally wearing only a pair of what looked like booty shorts, there might be another reason to be staring. Be glad he wasn't standing, because that shining silver script 'juicy' on the ass might just make some people react less happily. But hey, free shirtless dude. Comment on the faint scars on his skin and there might be trouble though.


4. A Mind Is A Beautiful Thing To Use | Young Avengers home | Closed to Quentin Beck

Learning for himself had never been something Tommy was good at. It was just something that was universally true. He'd been bad at school because even before his powers had come in he'd had some attention issues. After school had been brutal. And then, well, there hadn't been school at all. The Kaplans had stressed the importance of him getting his GED and it had been pure stubborn desire to get a job and his own place that had Tommy getting his degree.

But complex issues? Tommy had always thought himself too stupid to learn really useful and valuable things. He hadn't thought about how one putting together thousands upon thousands of electronics, even according to instructions, was teaching him things. Between that and watching Tony, helping Tony, having Tony put up with him, Tommy had started to think he could learn it. Except he'd run into a road block. How was he supposed to learn the basics?

Less mobile as he was after getting hurt in Not-Temba, his mind turned back to the thing he wanted to learn. So he did the only thing he could do. He borrowed some supplies from Tony's forge he would apologize when Tony got back and sat down in his home, trying to puzzle out different resistors Tony had put together into the systems.

"This is so fucking stupidly complicated," he hissed in anger. How could he have been so fucking smart in that damn fake-city!?

Comments

[itsamysterio]

Beck jotted the number down in a notepad filled with scribbles, and fixed Tommy with a curious look. "If you don't mind me asking- how does it work? Do you switch that kind of thing on and off? Are we constantly in slow motion for you? Or is it some state I can't properly imagine?"

[doubled_speed]

Oh Beck, how can you even begin to open up this can of worms? Tommy sighs, fingers coming up to the bridge of his nose, to pinch at it.

"It takes... It takes a lot of focus, actually, to stay in time with everyone else. Sometimes, back home, I'd keep a watch on me, one of the old manual ones with a second hand that would tick loudly and you could feel. It would serve as a metronome to keep me anchored. Caffeine, surprisingly, helps. Most people, they feel energized and worked up with it? Me, I feel slowed down. But yeah, most everyone seems slow to me most of the time when I'm not focused. I put energy into keeping at human speeds. And..."

He has to laugh, shaking his head.

"You can't imagine what it's like to listen to people. I'm not even sure if I really know what people's voices sound like, not to each other. I never know if I'm slow enough, and slowed down sound absolutely alters it."

[itsamysterio]

Oh, it's pure scientific curiosity, definitely nothing more.

"...Can I try something?" he asks, fiddling with his projector. "...Two somethings?" he corrects after a moment, and he starts it going again. The timing seems to be back to normal, and he looks to Tommy, "Is this how you usually see this kind of thing?" he asks.

He shuts it off again, and tries a few more different inputs before it starts playing again, much faster, probably not quite locked into Tommy's exact speed yet, but close.

"How's this?"

[doubled_speed]

Sure it is. But Tommy just frowns as Beck fiddles. He doesn't know what the man is after, but he lets him work. But hey, it's at least the leveo of failing that he expected.

"Yeah, that's more what a modern framerate should be back home. Still uncomfortable. But yeah, it's just how the world is for me."

Faster, that's less unpleasant, and yet in a way the fact that it is less unpleasant almost makes it more uncanny valley for him, because it IS closer to good.

"Better. But there isn't a lot that could even get up to my level. Like, don't exhaust yourself on the impossible."

[itsamysterio]

"Hardly impossible," Beck dismissed, trying another combination. "Just have to dial into the sweetspot. It's a pretty simple adaptation. No one's ever figured this stuff out for you before? Don't you work with the Avengers in your world?"

[doubled_speed]

Of course no one has done this for him before. No one has asked him about any of this. Or asked Pietro he expects. Not that his uncle would ever admit to weakness.

"Cute that you think Stark or Wakanda have time to work up proper interfaces for me."

More insulting is Pym never trying but fuck, he's rarely ever seven seen his great-grandfather.

[itsamysterio]

"Come're," he welcomed, beckoning Tommy to join him on the floor, and he took some time to explain how the device worked, showing Tommy which components to alter to change the speed, and welcoming him to fiddle with it himself. He'd have a much easier time dialing into what worked right for him.

"Hmm...it's strange, I know the Stark from the world I wound up in went out of his way to build a suit for Parker. Real high tech. He's never done anything like that for you?"

[doubled_speed]

With a reluctant sigh Tommy settled down next to Beck and listened. He wanted to roll his eyes and remind the man that he wasn't the dude's intern. Except... the more that Beck talked, the more interested he was. Fuck him for holding something Tommy wanted to know over his head. And when he was offered the chance to fiddle he did, soon figuring out how to overclock the projection speed to a level where it was more than even a normal fastforward and thus closer to something he could process.

EVen if the refresh rate still hurt his eyes a little. No, a normal projection method wasn't really going to work with him any time soon.

"The Avengers weren't exactly pleased for teens to be on the street. Which is stupid because Parker was on the streets fighting the good fight at about hte age we started at. It was just that no one knew. Though I've definitely seen the Iron Spider get up."

[itsamysterio]

"...Isn't Parker only...sixteen?" Beck countered, pausing for a moment to do a bit of mental math. The difference between the two worlds were interesting, The Avengers had seemed all too eager to invite Spider-Man to join them. Just as Stark had been all too ready to leave EDITH to the kid.

"You seem to be able to handle yourself," he offered, flashing him a small smile.

[doubled_speed]

Spider-Man, only sixteen. Tommy snorts in amusement.

"Your world is really behind if you're still back in those days," Tommy waved dismissively at the other man. How could Beck not know that? Tommy didn't know. "Spider-Man is a full-fledged Avenger. And older than me. A good bit older actually. Already kicked three different Mysterios' asses."

Because ye still doesn't like Beck using that name. Actual villain name there. It'd be like Captain America being bad. you need a different branding.

[itsamysterio]

"Not my world," Beck reminded reflexively. Because if he let up on that even once he was worried the kid might pick up on it. "Kid's an Avenger. Fought with them in that whole Civil War thing. Helped defeat Thanos. Stark even left him some powerful tech after he died."

He gave Tommy an unamused look at the reminder that Mysterio from their world was some kind of villain.

"You know- Peter's the one that came up with the name Mysterio."

[doubled_speed]

Civil War. Those were bad words to him. Tommy went from talking to steel in a second. He. Had. Opinions.

"Do not use those words. That stupid piece of shit bullshit doesn't get brought up around me."

[itsamysterio]

"..." That was quite the reaction. "You have a problem with the Sokovia Accords?" he asked, looking surprised, "Or is this about The Winter Soldier?" Clearly the key points of the respect Civil Wars were very different....

[doubled_speed]

Sokovia accords. Tommy laughs.

"Right, that world has a stupider reason for it. I'm not talking about it."

He pushes away from the wall and he clearly isn't engaging the topic.

"Forbidden territory."

[itsamysterio]

Beck held up his palms in surrender, though he looked damn curious as to what the reasons were in his world.

"You have a lot of forbidden territory, you know that? Talking with you is a bit like navigating a mine field."

[doubled_speed]

"Yeah, You really need to count the numbers when you hit a square to see how many mines are in squares around that one," Tommy grumbled. But his eyes were bright with annoyance. You really going to challenge him on this? Take it or find yourself outside.