revivalproject

Entry tags:

Burden

WHO: Tony and OTA??, though a few people are getting mentioned (Kaz, Jon, Cayde, Ronan?, Bucky?, this is already falling apart)
WHERE: Around Temba where all of those people can be found
WHAT: Tony's delivering gifts again
WHEN: A little while after the Eyepocalypse
WARNINGS: There could be talking about the event-related trauma in here, but none of that to begin with.
NOTES: You can interpret this as catching Tony at any of these places to interact with him, or just find the package and text him later, or not respond at all and just know you have this thing in your life now. I'm not your boss, surprise me. You may also intercept a package that isn't for you, unless the rightful owner tags in here first and claims it. Fight.

It wasn't like he was getting much sleep, so Tony had plenty of time to work. He had some apologies to make, first and foremost, and only some of the construction was like rocket science. It was the deliveries that turned out to be challenging. Most of the Iron Man's helmet was finished, too, before he was making his reluctant way through the city, D.A.T.A. bumbling along behind him to cover more ground quickly and let Tony retreat again before he lost his nerve. It wasn't like the blood wasn't already on the ground.

None of the packages were very big, easy for the robot to carry and wrapped neatly in scraps of what felt like toasted paper, which crumbled under too much handling. Small, brass tags fixed them together, bearing the name of their recipient to be found at their doorsteps.

...at the Bloodsport
A soft, squishy package labelled with KAZ. Inside, laid carefully on top of each other and smudged slightly in the ash of the paper, is a pair of black gloves whose texture is closer to vellum than leather. Maybe its this thinness that lets the wearer sense so easily through them, and interact with touchscreen devices. Its not at the sake of durability, though. A knife will leave a mark, but that's not how you're getting through these gloves.

...at the library
A small, cylindrical package labelled JON. To different people, this might look like a high calibre bullet, or a gold tube of lipstick. It's a sleek electric lighter, though. No patterns on the case.

...at the clock tower
This package clatters slightly when it is moved, which might be worrying because it only has the explosive hazard symbol on the label. If it is handled gently, you'll find a pair of generously heavy dice inside. They're slightly oversized, and feel like they might be solid iron all the way through. Every time they are rolled, they always turn up on an ornately stamped pair of feathers in place of snake eyes.

...at the theatre
Another squishy package, though this label just says 'FOR NEXT TIME'. It's another pair of black gloves, though these ones don't cover the tips of the fingers or the thumb at all, and there seems to be a distinct weight to the knuckles. They cover most of the way up the forearm, like they might be part of some kind of...superhero costume...

...at the hotel
About the size of a chocolate bar, and labelled JAMES. That black vellum-looking material has been formed into a small, stiff domino mask. Its eyes are darkened with some kind of glass. Try it on, and it will prompt you to pair with your communication device, and suggests vaguely on this HUD 'TRY ME'.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yes, exactly," Cayde nodded at Tony. Dumb is a completely different breed from weird. He continued to nod thoughtfully as plans to snare Reeve into things were laid out- pausing to scowl at him here and there. "Hah. Daddy, you're so funny. -whoa, okay, somehow that just topped the worst list. I think I'll stick with Pops."

"I'm not your secretary," Sundance noted. She wasn't the writer of the pair anyway.

Cayde grinned at the exchange, drumming his fingers restlessly over an arm at a niggling thought before snapping his fingers. "Echo! -sure, he doesn't look it but I'm pretty sure those blue markings weren't standard issue." The Exo shot a look over at Tony to see if he was following. Sure, maybe it was a stretch, but they could still have another to pull into this.

"Oh, there it is..." Tony purred with a wicked grin even as Cayde lamented, batting his eyelashes as though this wouldn't definitely make it worse. Tony didn't expect to get much fun out of this without Alberto around anymore. Hopefully, Sundance had that 'daddy' on record.

"I'm looking to fill the position. I hear the pay is incredible," he tried to encourage, because he really had been languishing without Pepper to keep his life together. Unfortunately, she was also the one that decided how much she got paid, so he wasn't in a great position to make the negotiations. Cayde having his bolt of inspiration saved Tony from trying to lure a Guardian's Ghost into a day job.

"Brilliant, he must be very precise," he agreed. "And he's far less maintenance than Reeve. Just point him in the right direction, really."

That was definitely a pinched look of distaste on Cayde's face as he shook his head at Tony's eye-batting, reaching out to apply a hand over that bearded face with a friendly nudge back. Yeah, that was enough of that.

"Yeah, just tell him it's a mission or something. You just can't tell him exactly what it entails until he's got a brush in hand, then there's no backing out of it," he nodded. "Worked with the zipline."

While Tony didn't quite flinch away at the contact this time, his nose was still wrinkled in a wince and his laugh began sounding strangled until he allowed the shove to put a step between them. "Then I'll get the colours ready, and you can lay down the first lines--" he started before Cayde had finished talking, effectively distracted by the zip line to look up and spot it and consider for a slightly stunned beat. "That was him?" he had to ask, pointing up. They might be able to get away with more than a few silly portraits if that was the case.

He still wasn't even sure what they were painting but by now he supposed they were as good as committed. Slinging an arm around Tony's shoulders, Cayde blinked and then laughed as he followed Tony's glance up towards the rope between the two towers.

"Nah, that was me," he clarified. "But he came in while I'd hopped over to his place to find somewhere to secure the rope. -okay so there was a slight sidetrack but in the end he didn't complain. Much. Oh right! I was gonna ask if you could help me figure out a better thing than a bent piece of rebar to use." He waved a hand. "Anyway- So, lines, paint, some slight deception..."

Still looking up at the rope, clearly already beyond the painting thing, Tony answered vaguely, "And we have a mural of everybody, the whole team..." Some battered scrap metal was definitely not the best way to travel, but sounded like a lot of fun to Tony so before he made the appropriate upgrades to make the zipline more secure, he pointed again and asked, "That'll take us right to him?" Not that he needed the answer to that question.

That was going to be a tall order, but Cayde found himself smiling all the same. At least there'd be a place that'd preserve something of a memory of the people who'd been brought here, even after they'd inevitably have to leave. He didn't let himself think about the when's and how's, but he considered how to drag Reeve into it all the same. That was a lot of linework.

"Yep," he nodded. "Well, if he's in, anyway. Good chance of that at least, he usually patrols early morning and just before things get dark." His free hand swept outwards and towards the door of the clock tower in open invitation.

The thought of Echo actually having a home that he returned to honestly hadn't occurred to Tony yet, picturing him exclusively in full armor and upright at all times like a toy soldier, so he pouted as he was briefly torn between leaping on the zipline immediately, and waiting for that evening patrol to have the chance to inspect how the soldier lived without restraint. As usual, immediate lack of restraint took precedence over potential future lack of restraint, and Tony didn't need to be invited a second time, realizing only after he had darted away from it that the weight of Cayde's arm had been on his shoulders and he had hardly registered it. He stumbled to a stop then in the doorway, reaching back to grab the Exo by the collar and drag him in after him and keep him close so he wasn't taking any leisurely route up and making Tony wait, all the while talking, "I didn't know you were so close. He has nothing but nice things to say about you, of course, but I thought that was just a little crush, you know, armor to armor, he really laid it on thick. An unavoidable personality, I think he said, really fills up the room, can't be ignored."

The Exo stumbled along for the first couple of steps before he batted away Tony's grabby hand, well inside at that point that the other wouldn't think he'd put in the extra effort to take his usual route if Cayde had even considered it. That of course meant passing through Ikora's former residence, which had been the lower floors of the tower, all bearing the Warlock Vanguard's touch.

Swaths of colorful cloth and beadwork were draped across windows and walls, bookshelves that possessed relatively few books, not for lack of trying to fill them, trinkets and whatever a Warlock of her caliber found interesting. Geometric drawings were pinned up on another wall. Cayde let Tony set the pace up the narrow, tall stairway, noting to mind particular steps as he had once so long ago, but at least there was light enough to see.

"He picked the next place over, not me! I just thought it'd be a convenient and fun way to say hi to my neighbor!" He snorted a little, casting a brief, almost hesitant look at the next floor they climbed past, long draping curtains flowing lightly, stirred by a faint breeze. "-sure he was talking about me or you?" he asked, picking up like there hadn't been a bit of an awkward pause. "I found out he was hogging two crates of instant spicy ramen though- can you believe that? He claims it fell on his head while he was on patrol. I have since relieved him of one of them."

This definitely wasn't Cayde's style, though Tony took a moment to marry it to the severe, understated Ikora he knew, making him slow slightly on the stairs and turn like he might say something, only to snort and look offended with a hand to his chest at Cayde's questioning of Tony's very accurately relayed description. Why would Cayde so cruelly accuse him of being annoying?

Unsure then how much of the same energy was being returned to him, Tony had a difficult time parsing how serious Cayde was about the ramen story, and narrowed his eyes dubiously as they reached the top of the stairs. "Why were you throwing ramen at people?" he concluded. Crates of food didn't just fall out of the sky, and that didn't sound like the kind of thing that Tony could hear Echo saying unless the source was of particular disrepute and he panicked.

Cayde was grinning as Tony glanced back at him then. He jabbed a finger lightly at his side to get him moving again. They were soon moving into more neutral territory, and the difference between occupants was quite clear for the relative barrenness when it came to decor. No drapery here, the walls mostly left as is save for some string zig-zagging across one portion, from where some random notes and odds and ends were hung. Below was a medium-sized table with the beginnings of a detailed map, at least as could be told by the faint penciled lines and the straightedges that lay haphazardly across the sheets of parchment. There were shelves with knickknacks and a familiar glitter-dusted plushy or two, knives in mugs and jars, and a hideously orange rectangle of a rug by the bed shoved up against the other wall like some halfhearted attempt to add color.

"I wasn't! Why would I throw precious resources at people?!" It was the Hunter's turn to look offended, not a new game by far although the material between them always changed. "I dunno why he'd make something like that up, but the ramen is edible if about as much as you can expect from instant."

This was not a convincing argument at all, and Tony looked his most skeptical at the assumption that Cayde was a fair judge of what could be considered 'edible'. He might have retained many of his less efficient human quirks, but Tony doubted any food sensitivities made the cut and there was no telling what he was putting in his body when the best possible source was 'the sky'. He was going to have to investigate Echo's room after all. Completely altruistically, of course.

In the meantime, he slunk toward the table and the notes, hands held behind his back like he couldn't be accused of being snoopy as long as he wasn't touching anything and just sticking his nose into the array that Cayde had strung across his wall. "I can't think of anyone more likely to be throwing ramen around," he muttered.

That would have been a point Cayde wouldn't have been able to argue. He could already drink anyone under the table and beyond, and like as the most he'd detect of food being ill-suited for consumption would be from its flavor.

The notes weren't anything very secretive, some jottings about observations in Sh'Ka, the original sketch of that not far from it, although it looked like one of the smaller pieces of parchment stretched out on the table held the beginnings of a more detailed version. Along one dangling string several small sketches hung down the line, quick face studies of some of their acquaintances, some still present, some no longer. Naturally there had to be some outlandish designs laid out somewhere in all this: a sparrow that might've been a hopeful resurrection of the one that had ended up a flaming wreck that fateful day, a gun that any reasonable person would say was completely impractical for the size and the note that said 'knives shoot from here'. About the most practical thing was probably the little arrow pointing to a little loop at the bottom of the handgrip that read 'bottle opener.'

"When have I ever been so disrespectful of ramen?!" Cayde not quite wailed. He stalked up behind Tony, throwing an arm over Tony's shoulders as he leaned in. "Come on, we'll go interrogate Echo and he can give his own account."

It was difficult to tell which would actually be more destructive, the new vehicle or the knife-gun, so maybe Tony just wouldn't tell anyone when he inevitably made both of them. Those he could easily memorize, though; it was one of the portraits that he almost snatched before Cayde was luring him away. "We should have done this years ago, when everyone was still here to model," he still lamented as he drew away, assured now that the mural thing had transcended dumb into his best idea yet. He was still going to make Cayde pose like a trashy novel hero, but only because that's what he would have wanted.

This could not distract him for long from the lure of the zipline, and he was quickly patting at Cayde's chest like he meant to disengage him to go enthusiastically onward again, only to suddenly back up instead. That was all the warning Cayde got, and certainly not any polite requests, before Tony was bouncing up onto his back with an arm wrapped around his neck to point emphatically with the other, "Engage!"

Hey, the Agrii expected heroes then they'd give them heroes!

Cayde let his arm drop away, only to find himself nearly bending over backwards at this sudden attack. "Grk- you're lucky my spine's metal!" He threw himself forward to counterbalance, staggering towards the next flight up. "Shouldn't this be the other way around, dad?" Not that Tony was difficult to carry, but given they weren't too different in height it made it awkward going up the tall steps.

"For the record I don't think we should double up on the zipline," he suggested. The next floor was the topmost, far more exposed to the elements for the chunks of wall missing here and there. The gears of the old clock were effectively frozen in time, years of rust and general build up hopelessly caking them together. Some of the bigger notches have been repurposed as shelf space for yet more random things, and spare materials for an impromptu molotov cocktail workshop sat in the one complete corner of the area. No sooner had Cayde reached level ground did he start for what had likely been a window that had little by little lost more and more of its frame that it was nearly a doorway. There just wasn't anything beyond it.

"On the roof," Cayde explained, or perhaps it was a warning. But Tony should know him well enough by now to figure how the Exo planned on getting up there.

Cayde's distress must have been hilarious because Tony was giggling as he found his balance and struggled his way up the stairs. It was when Cayde suggested the fun should end just when it was getting good that Tony gasped, "Then how will you catch me if I fall?" Someone had to give this thing a proper stress test, after all. He did at least know well enough to stop his restless wiggling for Cayde to step outside and not send them careening off down the side of the tower.

Oh, that sounded like a suggestion of a dare, which was good enough as a point-blank one to a Hunter as any. It was plain as day by that smirk as he turned his head to glance over his shoulder at Tony.

Then he hopped out the gaping hole, turning as he did so, so that he could leap again while facing the roof. It might have been more sheltered but most of the walls crowning the tower's top had eroded, in some places to the bare beams that provided its backbone. It's around one of these that Cayde had a rope looped, its length angling gently downwards like a giant laundry line between there and an opening in the wall of one of the neighboring tower's upper floors.

The Exo kicked up a metal bar that had been propped up against a wall remnant, catching it in his hand so he could hook it over the rope. It looked roughly the shape of a bicycle handle, obviously bent without any proper tools but still fairly even enough on both ends to provide a fair grip for each hand.

"If this breaks it was your fault," he says, just before he steps off the edge of the roof.

While the smirk was unmistakable, and the jump made for the kind of thrill that made Tony's heart drop into his stomach as Cayde stepped out the window and by all logic should have made their mural right there on the ground outside of the tower, reaching the roof was about the point where Tony was getting tired of hanging onto the Exo and he complained, "You know, Ikora just held my hand. Much better customer service," like it was Cayde's fault that Tony was hanging off of his back. They apparently weren't stopping for Tony to get all of his energy out, though, and he only had a moment to see where the design of this rebar was probably not the most reliable way to travel the zipline before they were in the air again.

The journey started with a spike of panic that had Tony gritting his teeth and clinging tightly to Cayde until it was clear that they weren't going to immediately die. Then Tony released all of that pressure in a gleeful whoop that echoed through the empty towers as they went hurtling down the line, and a shameless cackle as he let his legs drop so their weight would send them flying faster with a treacherous swing. If Echo was home, he was going to have plenty of warning but not much time before they came crashing into the building.

"Look, if you just want someone to hold your hand..."

That they could potentially end up plummeting several stories to the ground was one of many thoughts that shot through his mind, but obviously not something he felt particularly concerned about, confident that there were at least several ways he could keep them from ending up with broken limbs- or more importantly, a Tony pancake.

Not that he'd say it aloud, but Cayde was glad the rope was holding up, and as he felt that extra speed kick in as Tony flung his legs out with a laugh, the Exo grinned, letting a whoop out of his own as they went flying towards Echo's tower.

Good news for them: the line running between the clock tower and the outpost was holding pretty well.

Even better news: the outpost's sole occupant was in and now fully aware that he had an incoming guest.

Or was it two?

Echo refrained from sighing, practically dropping whatever it was he was doing to march up the stairs leading to the top level, skipping a few steps in between to save time and see if he could meet the invasion head on.

Jon remains seated a moment longer in the part of Echo's living arrangements one may consider the clone's living room. Unlike Echo, however, Jon doesn't hold back a sigh, knowing perfectly what is about to happen, yet very much still struggling to understand why.

Which, ultimately, is why the Archivist moves to follow Echo up, expression a stern scowl in response to the unneeded recklessness he just knows he is about to walk in to.

There was no way they were coming in for a controlled landing with their combined weight, and Tony's laugh cut off abruptly with a yelp as they came crashing and bounced off of the end of the line. He tried to stick his feet out to stop himself from throwing his full, charging weight into Cayde's back, only to flip himself over to go rolling across the floor and slide to a stop at a pair of what felt like very judgmental feet. He gave a cough, one eye still winced shut at the scrapes he picked up on his tumble across the floor, but there was still an unmistakable playful glimmer in his eye as he casually greeted, "Evening." Waving the one hand that wasn't still clawed up against what felt like rug burn, he explained, "We're improving on the design. This is a good angle for you, has anyone ever told you that?"

If they were expected then they were clearly not invaders, but guests!

Cayde had quickly worked out how their speed was not ideal for entry but at this point they were committed and the rebar he clung to lacked brakes. With Sundance bringing up not one but two warm bodies coming up on radar as they made their approach, the Exo could only hope that they didn't come right up to the landing zone.

While Tony went tumbling over him Cayde barely managed to throw his hands in front of him to avoid flat-out faceplanting as he hit the ground, skidding to a stop against Tony. He popped his head up with a slight wince, yet still managing a grin as he looked past his partner in crime towards the feet- oh, two pairs of feet!

"So you know, if you'd just installed a mattresss right about by the window then this could've all been avoided."

It was here the clone was glad he missed them by a few seconds. The resulting collision would have been more of a pain to deal with.

Echo tried not to smirk at Tony's attempt at explaining their landing, his nose wrinkling slightly as he looked at the man play it off like nothing was wrong. He then extended a hand to help him up if he decided he needed it.

"Must've slipped my mind," he replied in regards to Cayde's overlapping suggestion, glancing over his shoulder at Jon once he caught up. "You know this guy, right?" He meant Tony, but you know. It was a very downplayed joke.

By the time echo has begun to help Tony back to his feet, Jon has joined this little not necessarily voluntary gathering. Just in time to cast especially Tony a questioning look.

His answer, however, is directed at Echo, along with a small shrug. "Sometimes I wonder if I do."

He then directs his attention to both Tony and Cayde, inclining his head slightly. "You could have simply used the stairs, you know that."

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