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'.

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The whiplash from Echo's approval making Tony brighten considerably, to Jon's judgmental and distinctly unenthusiastic expression making his shoulders and smile immediately drop, left Tony looking drained and apologetically inquisitive at Jon's retreating back, without the energy left to argue his case. It wasn't the worst idea he ever had. It might have been a waste of time. Slowly, in his own defeat, not sure what he had done this time to have this visit fall apart so quickly, he looked back to Echo and produced a faint smirk. "Look what you did," he accused.

He did mean it. He hadn't seen any large-scale projects in a while, and he missed seeing creative designs painted and livening up the spaces he and many other clones occupied. He also said nothing more when the Archivist started and stopped himself from continuing, allowing Jon his personal space since it wouldn't have been wise to talk him into staying.

After a few beats, the clone snorted, albeit halfhearted in its intended annoyance. "Me?" Echo feigned offense, sharing the look with Tony. "If I knew I was going to have multiple visitors, I would've made some ramen."

"Oh, please," Tony trilled, puffing his chest for a delicate hand to his heart with the other raised, pinky in the air, "No need to prepare the banquet for my sake. You know I'll settle for a good vintage and a nibble of the season's caviar." As he exhaled the lofty breath, the whole performance went with it and he finally dropped bonelessly into a chair where he slouched with his legs outstretched and chin against his chest, frowning.

"Is he okay?" he asked after a moment of sulkily wiggling his fingers, trying to avoid the admission that the question demanded entirely. He let Echo decide which men that had walked out without a farewell that Tony meant, because Tony wasn't sure which one he did himself, and it seemed like Echo knew better than he did in either case.

There was a chuckle hidden somewhere in there, but Echo felt just as tired the second Tony visibly deflated. Hands then clasped together, pressing lightly against each other as he studied them, only glancing up when the vague question was posed.

"Quieter than normal." A small, sad smile briefly showed on his lips. "He stole your sunglasses."

Tony went, "Hmf," to the observation, that had been hard to miss, though harder yet to understand. And if he did, if Tony could figure out the precise axis of lost friends, the frenzy that they had all been in that lead to both guilt for their actions and a challenge to what trust they had in each other, the specific threat that Jon had levelled against Cayde, and the myriad of clumsier slips and inattentiveness that Tony was prone to, if Tony knew the angle of all of these mechanisms, if they were even what was wrong, it was not in his array of talents to fix that kind of problem. He had to draw himself up out of this fugue, belatedly refocusing on Echo to actually process what he had said then, and breathed a sardonic laugh to accuse, "And you let him? Is that how you handle problems when you're out there doing your route, just catalogue and report?"

In receiving no immediate response, Echo sat quietly as Tony went through his own thoughts. He could have sworn he saw the gears working, wondering what made the man tick the way he did. Layers of complexity made him difficult to read, but the gist of it wasn't so bad.

He wasn't too surprised when this came up, exhaling a sigh as he rolled his shoulders, unclasping his hands so that they rested on his thighs. "Sounds about right," he affirmed with a ghost of a smirk. "It's always good to have it on record. If you want, I can tell him to give them back."

The banter was close to familiar, missing what he had while thankful for the fact that it could still be done. It helped ground him, keeping him here in the outpost, letting his own thoughts return to what happened with Jon. "Has he always been like this?"

Already scratching his beard thoughtfully in a way that could not mean good things for Echo, Tony grumbled, "Jesus, no, then he'll know that they're valuable." If Cayde knew that, it would be much harder to extract the sunglasses. "You have to go in without him knowing. This is a stealth mission." They hadn't quite recovered the levity in the room for Tony to be committed to this impish impulse, though, dropping his hand again and tipping his head back in his seat so he was looking down his nose at Echo, even as he frowned with some confusion at the question.

"I'm not actually his dad," he didn't realize he had to clarify. Cayde could have decided on all new sensitivities and proclivities the day he woke up in this situation, and Tony would have no idea. Only after that was out of his mouth did he realize, with a thumb pointed toward the door where he had gone, "Jon? I don't know. Maybe. He's done that to me, but not for a while..." Not sure what that could mean, Tony only pouted then added, "He's stubborn. Was he like that before we flew in?"

His nose scrunched slightly, but he should have known it wouldn't be so simple. "You had to make it a challenge," Echo mildly complained, his heart not completely into the tone he was trying to voice as he waited for an answer.

The admission of not being Cayde's dad made the corner of his lips quirk, but he nodded once Tony figured he wasn't asking about the Exo. "He was going about business as usual. I didn't notice anything different before that..." He then tipped his head to one side, letting a pause slip in as he thought about the development. "Maybe...he's just worried about you."

That was an embarrassing enough statement for Echo to say out loud that Tony thought he might slouch even more into his seat, his shoulders already up around his ears and rocking his heels on the floor, and he briefly managed a look in Echo's direction that suggested he had been profoundly insulted by this before dropping his gaze more bashfully to the ground between them. It was only further embarrassing that the issue might just be that they were all worried about each other, and Echo and Tony were still talking about the people who didn't actually want to talk about it.

"What about you?" Tony asked with a decisive shift, then cleared his throat to push himself up properly in the chair and fold his legs more primly, returning to his trained posture with a hand in the air that looked like it should be holding a glass. "How do you feel about me, of course--you can tell me if I've been keeping you up at night, it's understandable, you wouldn't be the first person with that problem," he qualified so the question didn't sound too heavy.

The lengths Tony went to to look offended was kind of entertaining. Echo would have laughed aloud, managing to stifle a snort to preserve the honesty that went into his answer.

He shouldn't have been surprised at how fast he bounced back, his brow lifting at the way he turned his own words against him. It allowed him a chance to theatrically balk, gaze half-lidded as he said, "I'm pretty sure you already know, Tony. I tolerate you." Some sass crept into the statement, crossing his arms loosely at that. "Sorry to say you're not the one who kept me awake."

Tony accepted Echo's tolerance like it was an impassioned confession, hand to his fluttering heart, and might have kept beating his lashes at Echo if he wasn't so expertly distracted by his choice of words. Frozen in his tableau of romance but watching Echo intently, he demanded, "There's someone else?" No longer sure where the line was between Echo's love life and whatever trauma he was combating this week that neither of them really wanted to talk about directly, Tony lamented more sincerely, "And you didn't tell me?"

That would have been fine. Tony being insufferably Tony was fine, but the man was sharp. There was no way to switch to another topic when it was brought to attention -- not subtly, at least. Plus he couldn't think of anything he could distract Tony with aside from his own relationships.

There really wasn't any point in lying about it, either. The clone wore a fleeting expression akin to swearing under a breath at the revelation, squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds to let that slip sit. "...Was," he then clarified, his voice low and eyes reopening to look elsewhere. "It was complicated, and barely figured it out at the time."

Echo's admission was so genuinely unexpected that Tony was having a hard time reading his hesitance, eyes narrowing curiously and with some suspicion that this was a new game, then going wide at the single word confirmation. He shed his own performance slowly as Echo continued, letting his shoulders drop and bracing his arms on those of the chair to tap his restless beat into his own palms, like typing as he tried to calculate the possible who and the potential timeframe that he had somehow entirely missed.

"Sorry," he eventually offered, because those details wouldn't change Echo's expression. "I'm sorry you didn't have enough time." Tony was already bad at this kind of thing, and he had already tried the 'they could come back' angle with Cayde earlier and it was not satisfying. After carefully swallowing, he said instead, "Gotta get that painting started, huh? Lots of pictures of everybody, from before, around. Hope you're up for it. Big project. Reeve can draw, too, I've seen them, really lovely stuff, and--I know Steve will paint, though--I mean, he must like it. People to help. Do you want to...talk about it?" All at once, like he could slip that in there secretly. He hadn't exactly responded well when Jon disappeared, he probably could have used someone to talk to.

Sustaining that kind of subtlety usually took little effort; Echo would have enjoyed watching Tony's commitment to analyzing and deciphering the visual and non-visual cues he gave off, all of which fell short after the events that unfolded, leaving him with the dregs of feelings he didn't need bubbling up to the surface. Having to sort through them wasn't part of the day's plans, but he couldn't outright ignore their rawness. And it wasn't really Tony's fault for stumbling across them the way he did.

The apology was met with a slow blink -- a delayed reaction, one that realized that he was truly sorry about the circumstances, the slightest movement of his head tilting so he could look at Tony when he forged on with the impending painting project. "Yeah," he mustered a faint smile, "I'd like to see what everyone comes up with."

No, he didn't miss that question. The flow worked well, but it still stood out amid the distraction. His fingers curled into his palm, their hold relaxing after a short pause. "I don't...think there's much to tell," the clone said with a mirthless chuff. "Aside from it being unexpected."

Tony couldn't think of a situation that he had expected to fall in love, and he both had more than his fair share of experience, and was supposed to be able to see the future, so his smile in return was genuine, if tight and brief. And while every time he had been so enamoured was varied and typically tumultuous, the only other consistent variable had him asking, "Are you glad it happened?," with reasonable confidence that neither of them would be heartbroken by Echo's answer.

"...Yes."

A simple answer, but Tony was right to ask as much. The sadness wouldn't magically disappear, but he knew it was a good thing. A small indulgence he never had a chance to experience.

Although his features softened, he didn't stray too far from the business that was brought up, his expression thoughtful. "Is there a specific date or time for the project yet? Or is it still in its earliest stages?"

With a decisive nod like Echo had given the correct answer to an important interview question, Tony gave another smile with a yet apologetic knit of his brow and let Echo steer them back to a less rocky path. He waved a hand languidly and said, "You're an early investor. I'll let you know when we get it off the ground. You've got to get my glasses back first. Oh!--I was trying to--You remember D.A.T.A.? The one with the attitude problem? He's had some upgrades and could use someone to take him on walkies so he can collect some data for me. The attitude hasn't been worked out, maybe you can figure that out, too."

Echo nodded, finding the answer palatable. "Fair enough." Before he had a chance to choose between asking Cayde about the sunglasses or actually going through with stealing them back, his attention was kept with the mention of D.A.T.A. "'Course I remember," he replied, the corner of his mouth quirking. "It might take some doing, but I'll do my best."

"That's more than I could ask for," Tony accepted, hand to his heart in thanks. In a move not dissimilar to Cayde's, he rocked up to his feet, waving the other hand for Echo to relax while he tipped his head toward the door, and after their errant friends. He would hate to have missed them duking it out in the mud if they were still out there. His farewell was a hand to Echo's shoulder to keep him still for a kiss to his temple for the loss, then Tony was sauntering out with the assurance, "He'll be waiting for you the next time you're on your rounds. Keep an eye out."

As expected, the clone waited, almost leaning forward in his seat but staying where he was at that motion. The unexpected gesture of consolation surprised him, a passing warmth, meeting Tony's gaze after he stepped away. Yet all he could do was offer him a faint smile for it.

"Roger that."

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Burden

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