revivalproject | The Mystery Begins

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The Mystery Begins

WHO: Beck & Tony
WHERE: Temba
WHAT: Its a secret
WHEN: Near end of event, during the day
WARNINGS: Beck

It took Beck a while to analyze the storm, to be more or less sure the pattern was consistent. It was sooner than he had planned to act, but the conditions were perfect so long as he didn't try it while the damned moon was screaming. The network was down, everyone was preoccupied. The suspicious librarian would be less of a threat. It was well worth the risk of moving things up.

It took a bit of stalking to fine the best time. Stark hardly ever left the forge, and logistically it didn't make much sense to approach him there. He wanted intend to catch him on his way back from the diner.

"Stark!" he called, panting as he ran to catch him, touching his shoulder as though to be sure he was real and not one of the apparitions. "Stark- the kid- he ran off after one of those things, and I- I can't reach him. I need help."

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Good. Not one of those ghostly Starks. No one had caught one of them with him yet, but given so much of his story revolved around having never met Stark, it would be a hard one to explain away.

"That big hole, the mine or- whatever it is-" he explained, a rushed urgency to his voice, "He fell down it, but he's caught on a ledge. I don't know how long it will hold."

That sounded like about the worst case scenario, chasing one of those apparitions, and at first Tony snapped, "And you just left him?" They could argue about whether or not Tony would have had a better plan some other time, because Tony was already moving, a jog at first with a tense hand outstretched at his side and his teeth grinding with effort that would never be enough to draw out the nanosuit, let alone call the Iron Man. A sprint, then, if he couldn't fly, and his voice echoed off of the hollow buildings as he first called, "Cayde!," who had saved Tony from that same hole with his extraordinary jumps, then after a thought, "Celty!," to move faster. It wasn't likely either of them were close enough to hear, and it wasn't like he could detour to find them first; these analog alternatives were not paying out.

"Didn't exactly have a lot of options," he snapped back, but was glad to see it had spurred Stark into action. People were so easy to manipulate once you understood their motivations.

He suppressed a frown as Tony called for assistance, not wholly prepared to deal with company, but all ready devising a plan to ditch them if things took an unexpected turn. "Come on- " he encouraged.

Skidding to a halt, he peered down into the hole, brows creasing with concern as he struggled to catch his breath. He'd had a whole plan with his drones, but he'd had to opt for a different sort of drama once the storm took them out of commission.

"Kid??" he called, looking alarmed, "I don't see him. He was right there- I-"

This was Tony's fault. It was like this whole thing was designed to make sure he knew it was his fault. He shouldn't have teased the kid, he should have been more aware and made sure he was safe before this bullshit started and he most definitely should have fixed the bullshit by now. Instead, he was sliding down on his knees, barely stopping before pitching clear over the edge of the hole, where he gripped to lean as far as he could to spot Peter with his heart in his throat from the terror and the panic. "Pete!" he tried calling along with Beck, voice sounding pathetically weak, the hole too vast to even echo back at him. He couldn't see anything but dark.

"What do you mean, where?" he demanded, but was already looking wildly around for the stakes he had planted into the ground, and the ropes he had left behind--far too long ago, rotten by now if they were even still there, but the best chance Tony had at lifting someone out.

"There," he said, pointing with a defeated sigh, "That sort of ledge. I don't-...maybe he fell further down? Maybe he's stuck on another ledge and hit his head..." he offered doubtfully, leaving it for Stark to pick up that shred of hope.

Beck looked around with feigned uncertainty, and then seemed to spot something. He hurried to uncover the tangled and half buried remains of Tony's rope.

"Do you think this would work? Could we use this??" he asked hopefully, "Where did this even come from? I don't know if it will support our weight..."

Tony snatched that hope readily, interrupting, "There's tunnels down there, in the walls. He could have found one." How much better that was than dangling over the pit was debatable, but it would have seemed like a welcome reprieve until Peter discovered the bugs.

"Good, perfect--quickly," Tony said as Beck unearthed the rope, rushing over as well to search the ground for those stakes that must have been close. They hardly had the time for this ridiculous search, and besides, "No. You stay up here. No one else is falling down there."

Beck started to protest, lips parted and brow furrowing with an argument on his lips, but he seemed to realize they didn't have the time to debate and gave a reluctant nod, as though Tony had convinced him and it wasn't the plan all along.

"...I'll brace the rope," he agreed

He gathered it up, making quick work of untangling it, looking the picture of a guarded but anxious man, like the guilt was eating away at him and he was only keeping it together to find Peter.

"But I'm pulling you out of there at the first sign of danger. The kid'll never forgive me if he loses you."

That was as much of a plan as they had time for, and the rope alone was a minor miracle that Tony only paused long enough to wind around his wrist a few times for safety. Peter was the one that was going to use it to get out, after all.

He was back at the edge of the pit where he had knelt and already vaulting himself over it, hanging by his elbows and searching for a foothold when he checked, "You're sure it was right here?" They couldn't be messing around checking the perimeter.

"I'm sure," Beck urged, nodding with as earnest an expression as he could manage.

This was all too easy.

"You want to test if it will support your weight?"

Really they should be taking far more precautions. Stark might have just as easily killed himself without Beck's intervention.

That was where Tony finally hesitated, looking down the rocks anxiously. He didn't intend to put much of his weight on Beck, they could save that for lifting the kid up, and instead just climb his way down. If they got that far and the rope couldn't handle Peter's weight, though, it was probably better to know now.

With a sharp nod for Beck to brace himself, Tony carefully leaned back, gripping the rope wound around his arm tightly and balancing on his toes on the rock, until his fingertips were barely keeping their grip on the muddy ledge.

He could have ended this at any point easily. A simple push and no one would be the wiser. But he wanted Stark to know. And so he braced, twisting the rope around his hands and digging his feet in to support him.

"You good?"

"Yea-up..." Tony breathed, not entirely sure but not willing to stop to examine that as long as the kid was still down there. He didn't return the question, just looked up at Beck with concerned pinch of his mouth, searching for any sign that Beck wasn't okay and trusting that it wasn't overt enough to matter. Instead, he let himself slide down an inch to swing back toward the wall and find his grip again, hanging from his fingers on the ledge and one foot dangling.

"Hey, Stark-" Beck offered a small smile, abruptly yanking the rope back and then letting it go slack again to try and shock Tony into keeping hold of the rope, "For what's it's worth....the kid'll be okay. He'll get over you," he promised, letting the rope slip through his fingers again.

This was the wrong time to realize everywhere Tony had gone wrong. He was impulsive, rushing to help, not thinking about how much he should have trusted Beck to hold the rope, let alone be honest about Peter's whereabouts. He should have stopped and gotten help. He should have been more aware of where everyone was. He definitely shouldn't have joked about this fucking moon.

Being very aware of all of that did not help him as he swung perilously away from the wall, knocked off balance and scrambling a clinging hold with both hands onto the rope, the only thing keeping him from pitching entirely backward into the void. He stared up at Beck for only a shocked second, his whole body tight and cold, before trying to throw himself forward to get any kind of hold on the wall again, then get his hand out of its tangle in the rope, then climb back up over the ledge before Beck could stop him...His nails scraped against rock, and he jerked back on the rope to try to pull himself higher.

"I would have loved to get to do this to the real you," Beck hissed, eyes narrowed pointedly, and he pointedly released the rope.

His gaze stayed locked on Tony's face before it fell away, drinking in that shock. It wasn't quite as rewarding as it would have been had it been the real Stark, but it helped bring some semblance of closure.

There was no desperate denial of Beck's intent then, and no solid ground for Tony to find a grip on and push himself through this situation the way he was sure Cap would. He didn't have the strength, or the grace, or the pure determination to pull himself up before he fell, he didn't even have the pride it would take to stop himself from gasping, "You don't have to do this--please--" only for the line to go slack in his hands. Beck wasn't denied an ounce of that shock as Tony pitched back into the dark, toes just scraping the wall where he had been trying to get his balance, only to fly out from under him--eyes wide and stinging, so surprised and horrified that it was a spike of pain that quickly blurred the image of Beck's leering face above him.

The thing was, Tony wasn't really afraid of falling. When he kicked to try to stop himself, catch himself on anything and stop this plummet, it was out of fear for Peter, who was either already down here, or about to see that same expression on Beck's face. It was a fear for Jon, who would see through Beck's performance, but in this fog was so vulnerable and easy to distract. Easy to manipulate. Tony was afraid for all of the people he was leaving behind, up there in the rapidly retreating circle of light, who he had told to wait and see about Beck. When he closed his eyes, it wasn't unlike falling from the edge of the atmosphere.

They were better off without him, of course. He did know that. So maybe he wasn't terribly afraid of dying, either. He was the one that fell for this transparent trick, after all--of course it was him, they would be smarter than that, more cautious. Rely on each other for help. It didn't stop the knot of pain in Tony's heart, but if they mourned him it would be blissfully short, the next storm forcing them into action, or an invasion, or a new track for the train. If he couldn't warn them then, if that was something they could overcome, his regret was that he hadn't said enough that he loved them. Was that how he would say it? A familiar impulse, to write a text to Jon, to tell him every time he discovered something new, had to stop as a message that Tony could just hold in his head, still falling, forced to consider it. You are loved, he should have said. Not a text, but an image that he clutched himself around fiercely, tried to shove it out and bigger than him; a photo he had stolen of Jon and Cal in the library, crouched over the mothkittens when they were still small, in a beam of that clear, spring sunlight.

He didn't think he was afraid of dying, until he gasped, eyes flying open, fear yanking his heart into his mouth with the certainty of no more of that warmth, but the hell that was waiting for him. He stopped falling.

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The Mystery Begins

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