revivalproject

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Orbit

WHO: Tony, Jon and Omega
WHERE: Above and below Temba
WHAT: Tony just trying to keep it together now that he's made the moon scream, apparently.
WHEN: During the SCREAM event
WARNINGS: Event-related traumas might occur. Alcoholism mention at the top.

a. Before the storm... [For Jon]
There had to be only so many times Tony could make this apology before Jon stopped accepting it. In fact, Tony might run out of stuff he could possibly give Jon before he was done making all of his apologies, because his replicator charges went quickly to an ever growing list of necessary components, and the local gift shop had really atrocious service. Jon never even seemed particularly appeased by the flowers. Maybe because they weren't roses. Tony should have gotten Felwinter making more of them.

Apologizing to Cayde for the disastrous Prime thing was much easier--he'd had to make a lot less apologies to the Exo, that line still had some slack, and the pool table had almost been finished before Tony had been distracted by the next incredibly pressing bolt of inspiration. The biggest challenge here was that it had left Tony standing, alone, in the middle of the Deep End, surrounded by the parts that needed some assembly, and a very different kind of distraction standing proudly along the bar. Maybe if he brought one of those bottles to Jon, it would solve both of his problems at once.

He was standing outside the library by the time he realized what an awful idea that was, some distance and fresh air between him and the bar bringing a terrible clarity that left him sitting on the cold step and rolling the pilfered bottle between both hands to watch the liquid roil. If Jon had wanted a bottle, he could have gone to the Deep End himself. Tony would just have to bring this one back to the forge, ruminate on a better apology, maybe not come out again until he had built himself into a someone worth forgiving. The mist starting to gather along the roads in wispy, damp patches was making Tony feel like it was already too late, so much like the cold dew heralding the sharp, unforgiving crest of the morning sun.

The weight that had grown steadily heavier in his pocket wasn't supposed to feel like an apology, and if he didn't figure this out before this dark night was through, it might end up yet another ring in his most shameful collection.

b. Gathering clouds... [For Omega]
There was an unfamiliar focus to this storm that Tony couldn't help but take personally. The others that he had experienced had been so chaotic; as if designed to separate them, and designed to hurt them. The stillness of this one felt intentional, like Tony was meant to reflect on what he had done, cut off from the expansive distraction that was Extremis, trapped in his own head with only the rumble of thunder to fill any of the space.

And that awful scream.

Staring at the moon, hideous enough to the naked eye and no more revealing under telescope, hadn't told him much about how he was meant to fix this problem he had caused, unfortunately. It had just left him very exposed for when that noise came again, making the nanoweb jump out of his skin and leaving him feeling like he was tangled in his own bones, and sending the plates of the armor crashing around the forge erratically. He had to take his investigation out of that danger zone, trying to plot what the moon might have been distracting from. Those figures that appeared looked so much like the holograms that had been at the fair, but it was gone, an empty field with no more to tell. The light in the distance continued to blink, and the one atop the tower continued to be dark.

And what of those strange tunnels? That wasn't a place Tony had investigated for himself yet at all, trusting Cal's reports of the spiders and their strange cages. But if they were part of this whole system, there to spring more tortures on them, maybe they had more terrible secrets. Maybe that was where the projections were coming from.

It did look very dark down that ladder, though. The flash of lightning bursting across Tony's vision only made the darkness deeper in the afterimage.

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Omega giggled. "Maybe it helps," she shrugged.

As she was set down again, she stuck close, carefully tucking her black and red Tooka into her bag. "I didn't think to look when the faire was still there," she admitted, beaming the light around. "I guess that would make sense though. Something wired underground, you think?"

At his question she looked up at him, nodding. "All right. We're here, after all. And I don't think I want to go back up alone."

"Being up there alone is terrible," Tony muttered as though to himself. Maybe this was better all around, maybe if he was right there couldn't be any of those projections down here, and they could even be cut off from hearing the moon. He waved for the gal with the light to lead the way, with a quick pat down the back of her head to assure her he was close behind and watching their backs.

"Have you seen anything strange while you've been playing around down here? What about your little friend?" he asked.

She was feeling a little braver with him there, so she took point without complaint, also well aware by then that she was the only one carrying a torch, apparently. Leaving Tony to watch their six, Omega led the way.

"I wasn't playing," she felt she had to correct. She wasn't quite sure how that worked when you had no one to play with anyway. "I haven't been down here very long, but I thought I'd gotten turned around. I haven't seen anyone else besides you in a while though."

That sounded like a perfectly serviceable answer for Tony to nod along with as he followed Omega through the dark, until it occurred to him to ask, "What do you mean, 'a while'?" That either implied she had seen someone down here, or that she had been alone since this whole storm had started, which meant they both had every reason to be concerned about Echo. He would have come to find her, right?

The girl offered a faint shrug, and her being ahead of Tony made it easier for her to hide a sad frown. "It's a big city. Everyone's spread out. ...and Kyle's gone, so I thought it'd be strange to stay at their place. Maybe most people are staying inside since it's so...quiet."

She navigated her way around some particularly damp ground, beaming her light back for Tony to see once she'd picked the best path. Once he'd joined her, Omega looked around again. "Quiet until that awful screaming, anyway," she said, making a face. "I don't know what it was, but I wasn't sure I wanted to find out."

Maybe that Echo thing was a misguided presumption. Tony watched her find her careful path with his own frown of concern, and had to quickly school it away as she swung the light back around for him, hurrying a little less carefully after. "The phone works both ways, you know," he pointed out, sounding irritated that she even had this problem and wasn't calling her favourite person, Tony. Also sounding horrifically like his dad, so he immediately cleared his throat and scratched restlessly through his hair, impatiently brushing past her like he could check around the next corner for them.

"It, uh...it's the moon," he admitted, and did not know how to prove that he wasn't messing with her this time, because it did sound so suspiciously like something he would say to mess with a kid. Making up another explanation right now could do more harm than good.

She hunched up her shoulders a bit at that, even if it wasn't exactly a reprimand, but it still threatened to sting like one. She didn't want to be a bother to people, wanted to prove she could do things too. Not that it was really happening at the moment. She looked up as Tony moved past her, pushing down a spike of irrational concern that he just meant to leave her behind.

"The moon? How?" He wouldn't have to look back at her to see the confused, uncertain look on her face. "I've been on a moon, and they don't scream. Unless it has very big, loud creatures, but the sound wouldn't carry from that far, would it?"

"You know, listen, Stardust, those are very good questions, very astute, and I do not have an answer for you. I do wish I could tell you how it was possible, because then I might know how to make it stop happening, because I really hate it. Have you met Peter yet? You'd love him," Tony replied, leaving Omega to figure out that Peter had similar concerns. "My working theory is that it's..." Deep, disappointed breath, "Magic. But if we can find some evidence of a source for those projections, we might be on a path to figuring out the moon thing, too."

"Peter- I know him," Omega said, nodding. "I helped him get untangled from his hammock a few weeks ago." The kid was a little awkward, but he seemed all right.

As Tony admitted to his theory, the girl frowned thoughtfully, perhaps not entirely approving of the idea either but not dismissing it. From what she'd learned from Ezra, magic could encompass a lot of things. The Force he said he used, Lark's sewing tricks, so why not screaming moons?

"Well, let's see what we can find," she said then, looking more confident that they'd do just that.

Edited 2022-03-20 04:41 (UTC)

That should not have been so easy to believe, and yet Tony's eyes were rolling up to the ceiling with a sigh and a nod, not doubting for one second that Peter would manage this, and Omega would be enthusiastic enough to help him. It was a good thing the kids had each other around here, though the tact could use some work. "You're not telling people embarrassing stuff like that about me, are you?" Tony asked, just as his voice bounced in a strange, echoing way from the left, making him tilt his head attentively. That was water, he realized after another echo came, a clear drip that was somewhere down a hall they had come alongside. "Deeper that way," he surmised. "Probably not where we want to go."

Brows lifting, Omega glanced at Tony before smiling a little. "That depends on what you consider embarrassing that you've done," she countered.

She fell silent then, listening for whatever he had heard, her own head tilting as though to mimic him. When he suggested they redirect, she glanced down in that direction, squinting after her light although it didn't reveal much more than a deceptive reflection of wetness. Probably a good call. She was about to turn the light back down the main way they'd been going along when she paused, flicking the torch back through the damp darkness. "-I thought I saw something," she said, taking a step within the opening. "Hello?"

Calling out to a thing that lurked in the sewers could not have been a good idea, and Tony quickly stepped up after Omega to cover her face with a hand (more her forehead than her mouth that he was aiming for) to keep her still and quiet for any acknowledgement of her greeting. It didn't come quickly, but Tony still kept his voice a low whisper as he bent closer to answer, "I've never done anything embarrassing, I'm the coolest person you know."

With a pat to her shoulder to indicate that she should follow his lead, he slipped around her again to creep down the hall, sticking close to the wall and avoiding disturbing any more puddles. It took a beat of hyping himself up, and a glance back at Omega for assurance, to stick his head out past the wall and try to assess what they were creeping up to.

Which was pointless, because it was still very dark, except for the watery, grey bloom of the edge of Omega's light.

As was probably the reaction with most kids in such a situation, Omega tries to duck out from under Tony's hand, nudging it away in mild annoyance although not enough for it to stick. She did smile as Tony proclaimed that he was impervious to embarrassment.

And she did intend to follow once he'd started along again, save that something had caught her attention once more, her boots scuffing the floor in her abrupt halt. Her heart felt like it had leaped up into her throat. Had that been a flash of black and red? She looked again, certain she saw someone this time, someone familiar.

"Hunter!" she cried out, not a sound of alarm or fear, but shock and hope. "Hunter, wait!" Her feet were already moving, carrying her down the other way despite the nagging thoughts in the back of her mind. Why would Hunter be here though? Shouldn't he have heard her?

They were supposed to be sneaking, so nothing prepared Tony for Omega's sudden, loud voice, making him jump and back up against the wall with a bewildered stare her way. Shouting at all was already a big swing, and it left Tony struggling to process the tone she was using when she said hunter. That was supposed to be a warning, they were trying not to get hunted down here.

Omega seemed to have a very different idea.

"What--? Kid!" Tony called after her, slipping in the damp grunge of the sewer as he tried to give chase to the shape of her cut out from the bob of her light.

Her boots splashed at the edges of pooling water, nearly slipping on slick, mossy surfaces here and there, but she propelled herself forward. "Where are you going?" She'd at least stopped yelling, having the feeling she wasn't going to get an answer. The situation started to rub her more and more as wrong. Hunter would have heard her, would have been the first to notice them. His senses were enhanced, his tracking skills amazing.

The thought that it might not be her brother after all made her heart ache, and stubbornness to prove that possibility wrong warred with the building sense of danger as other questions niggled at her thoughts, her doubts. If it wasn't Hunter than who- or what was it? She'd been so sure she'd seen someone. Just like she'd thought she'd seen Echo... Omega gasped at the thought, the slim connection, still missing the focal point to put it all in perspective.

And then she gasped again, this time startled as her foot plunged through what should have been solid, her light flailing wildly, giving only a brief glimpse of the area the tunnel had opened out to, with a sudden drop off at least several feet, filled with water collected in a now flooded dead-end. The girl twisted, the torch clattering onto the tunnel floor as she abandons it, her fingers barely grasping onto the edge as she disappears from Tony's sight with a frightened shout.

Talking to some phantom was bad enough, and sprinting on ahead leaving Tony to navigate the unsteady ground in the dark, keeping him from easily catching up with her short legs. The noise she made of actual fear, though, and that dark shape of her suddenly plunging out of sight, froze Tony's blood in his veins. He wasn't thinking anymore about what was making the floors so slick, and didn't slow to find his footing as he bolted forward with his own desperate shout, letting his heel slide and coming down heavily on his knees where he sent the flashlight spinning and cracking against the wall. He should have just brought Omega back up to the surface, found Echo with her, made sure she was in one place and safe and not on this ridiculous hunt that Tony didn't even have any real leads for.

"Holy--!" He was just as surprised to find her still hanging there where he slid to a stop as he was to have seen her fall, and didn't stop to think before he was grabbing at the first thing he could reach, finding a wrist and the back of her shirt to haul up as he slid further under her weight.

It wasn't the best hold, and she could feel her fingers slipping. Omega didn't even try to look back, afraid that the movement might send her falling. She feared she was about to do so either way, flinching as water sprayed from Tony's arrival, a firm hand grasping her wrist just as her fingers on the edge started to pull free.

As she was pulled up she grabbed at the ledge with her free hand to help, and then her foot once it too was able to rest on something solid, pushing her away from the opening, all but collapsing against Tony.

As the momentum reversed and Omega was falling forward instead of back, Tony's balanced slipped to kick one foot out, leaving it dangling over the watery plunge in a spray of silt and water that pattered across the pool below. The sound echoed in Tony's ears like every one was the splash of Omega's body, and he gladly let her knock the air out of him, enveloping her in both arms with her head tucked under his chin to pat restlessly, not sure if he was soothing her or himself. Even into the embrace, he grumbled, "Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I've got a condition, I should throw you in there myself."

She landed face first against him and as uncomfortable as it was, there she remained for a moment, flinging her arms around him as though she was certain that just leaning back would threaten them both to go over the edge. He didn't sound nearly as mad as she would have expected him to sound, but she still tensed under his threat, even if she didn't think he'd mean to go through with it.

"I'm sorry," she said, her words muffled in his shirt, and she was still shaking in his arms, still trying to calm herself from that close-call. She was mad at herself certainly, if he wasn't going to be. "I-I knew it couldn't be, but I thought for sure I saw one of my other brothers," she sniffed.

It was hard to tell like this how much of Omega's reaction was because she was spooked, or because of something worse, so eventually Tony had to stop his patting to try to coax her face up as he muttered, "As far as excuses go, I guess that one's not so bad. You didn't drop your friend, did you? Are you hurt?" Seeing her brothers would explain why she thought Echo had come through here. It wasn't like it was impossible. Why that vision would walk her off of a ledge was more difficult to determine. "Was your nose always all the way over there?" Tony continued, just as determined to convince himself not to spiral now. Sitting in the dark was practically asking to be afflicted by visions, even without whatever else was going on here. As long as Omega seemed to tolerate it, he stretched to try to collect the flashlight, then carefully navigate to his feet with her on his hip.

Omega reluctantly eased away from Tony enough to look up at him and then for her bag, drawing the plush from it to hug tightly. "Lula's okay," she said, sounding relieved at that. She would have been heartbroken if she'd lost her. "I'm okay too. ...thank you." She knew it would have been a very different story if she'd been down here alone. It sounded like there was water down there, but even then, how would she have gotten out?

Tony found the light for them, one less thing to worry about. Omega would have gotten down if he wanted her to, but the near-fall left her a bit clingy in case of any other surprises. She didn't understand his nose question, answering it with a confused look and a slight tilt of her head.

Tony took a breath like he was going to answer, then appeared to think better of it, giving a small shake of his head and entrusting the flashlight back to Omega for them, so he could get a more secure hold on her as he picked his careful way back up the slick path. "Bad joke, like you had smashed your face so bad your nose was over...Forget it," he said, not finding it all that funny when he had to explain it.

"Where did Lula come from? One of your brothers?" he ventured so neither of them had to linger on what violence he thought would be a fun way to distract a kid.

Keeping the plush tooka more or less sandwiched between them as she wrapped one arm behind his neck, Omega took the torch, beaming it along the tunnel floor for Tony to see where he was stepping.

"Lula was Wrecker's," she said, glad for the change of subject. "He gave her to me when he made me my own room aboard their ship out of the gunner's nest."

She cast a look back over his shoulder, her breath catching in her throat as she saw Hunter standing there at the edge just where they'd been not moments before. It's not him, she thought fiercely, grabbing a fistful of Tony's shirt as she reluctantly looked away and frontwards again.

That was supposed to keep Omega talking, so the jolt of tension that went through her had Tony patting her back reassuringly again and trying to continue very casually, "How does he get to sleep then?" Tilting his head and trying to glance back to where she had been looking without being too obvious, he tried, "Is that who you're seeing? Is he looking for her?"

"He falls asleep fine. Missions probably help tire him out." She smiled softly as she thought of Wrecker, tucked across weapon's storage crates or the seats in the main hold for as big as he was compared to the others.

Omega stole a look back, shaking her head a little. "No. It's Hunter. He's our sergeant. ...you don't see him, do you..?"

Orbit

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