revivalproject | Indictment

Entry tags:

Indictment

WHO: Absolutely everyone.
WHERE: The diner.
WHAT: A decision has to made about threats to the community.
WHEN: After an attempted murder, a chaotic rescue, and an awkward reunion. Now.
WARNINGS: Nothing yet. Mark it if something comes up because...
NOTES: Structurally, this is a mingle, so you can decide what part of this is actually important to you. What you talk about in here doesn't have to be directly Beck-related, but for details about the incident, further organizing, and if you want to determine what your characters might have done/seen/heard in the meantime, this post is still good!

[NETWORK//text @ everyone]

Come to the diner. We have to talk.
If you don't show up, I'll assume you agree with me because you're incredibly intelligent and graceful. The city of Temba thanks you for your contribution to our justice system.

This was the last thing Tony wanted to do. The diner at least felt familiar, neutral--somewhere he could be in control, without having all of the attention on him. Being able to bask in the attention would have been so much easier. As it was, that felt like he would be inviting everyone to really examine the cracks in the armor. They were here because he had already lost control.

As if that didn't already feel enough like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Tony found himself standing in a circle of seats that he had arranged, the tables pushed up against the walls, and couldn't honestly say how much that had been intentional. He raised a lip, and looked to Felwinter as though he would have any illuminating insight about productive interior design. He seemed like he wanted to be here even less than Tony did. Beck was his charge for the time being, though, and as awkward as it was to stand in his stupid chair-circle with the pair of them, Tony did appreciate having Felwinter there to keep an eye on their...problem. Even if having witnesses to his restless energy made it all the more humiliating. Felwinter couldn't sit on Beck forever just to make sure he didn't lure anyone else off the edge of a cliff, so they were all going to have to survive a little humiliation.

"I think the coffee's done," Tony declared, with absolutely no idea what state the coffee was actually in and readily moving toward the kitchen regardless. "Do you want one? I'll get you one. Do you do that sort of...?" He was still talking, and what Felwinter did or didn't eat and drink might have otherwise been something Tony pushed him about, but he was already mentally in the kitchen and trailed off as he went, flapping a hand to wave off any refusal of his offer or explanation about Felwinter's digestive situation. Maybe he would just stay in the kitchen and listen, let Beck hang himself.

Tony took a deep breath, pushing his sunglasses up his nose and squaring his shoulders, readying himself for a performance.

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"That I'll go to bat for them over--" Tony started to interrupt, then had to consider how best to explain in a way that sounded convincing even to himself. He did still basically have the Agrii's word for it, after all. A lot of what they put up with here was an elaborate manipulation, that the Agrii couldn't be considered entirely innocent of. "I saw how they reacted to the effects of the storm, when we were with them on their ship. Takes them right out. In comparison, we really aren't as affected, even if our brains are getting scrambled."

He took a deep breath, gritting his teeth then deliberately trying to relax before admitting, "Someone knows. Or--I don't know. Something happened to me, down there--I really should be dead, it was a freefall. Something caught me. And--and this has been bugging me, for a while, but there was this thing, couple weeks back, with a knife--it just disappeared. No harm done." He hadn't effectively sorted out his thoughts yet on what either incident could mean, and had to admit, "But people have been hurt here--really hurt. I've fallen further. I've cut myself with the same knife just about every day." Maybe this wasn't something he should be trying to work out at Felwinter.

He wasn't so sure he agreed with being as affected when it came to the storm, looking away pensively as he thought back to those past weeks. The storm had robbed him of a part of himself when he was cut off from the Light. The Light was what made him something more than just an AI, after all.

He looked as though to day something, leather creaking around his hands as he made a fist before he relinquished grip and thoughts, setting the matter aside like a book on a shelf. "It is difficult to make out a bottom to that pit. How far did you fall?" he asked, instead picking back up on the conversation as Tony spoke of his experiences.

"Someone does not wish us to do harm. Perhaps we already know who. Why give me a shotgun with no means to fire it?" He seemed to frown as Tony mentioned harm caused by themselves. Was that the difference? "Accidents?" he asked as he eyed Tony, a beat, two passing before he followed up with, "As opposed to intentional? Is it according to target? If I were to shoot myself now, would there be intervention?"

Most of how Felwinter reacted read as annoyance, or possibly barely contained fury to Tony, so he started to raise a lip with some concern at the clench of Felwinter's fist and aversion of his gaze, trying to rapidly construct a useful diversion before he started pulling weapons again. This left him unprepared for the question, and he fell into, "Uh--couple seconds. Not terminal yet. Couldn't be less than a thousand feet." He wasn't even sure if it was actually the bottom that he had reached, and felt like he had to excuse his lack of answers as to what had actually happened to him with an awkward, "It was dark down there."

As Felwinter tried to feel out the same question Tony was struggling with, he nodded vaguely, following the logic and confirming that these two standout incidents were intentional infliction of harm. Then again, wasn't everything that happened that day Billy stopped his heart intentional harm? And nothing, not even Beck himself, had stopped Tony from decking him. That was pretty fucking intentional. The pattern wasn't coming together, and Tony raised his eyebrows in surprise to caution, "I don't think that's a risk worth taking just yet. Maybe when we have some more data, you could tell us all what it feels like to blow your own brains out."

It was a fair misunderstanding. The Exo didn't know how to properly emote. He could never understand what prompted other Exos or people to respond in the ways they did to things, he never felt taken to do so. But he knew fear, frustration. These were not things he tended to show to others outside of Felspring.

He nodded. "It looked dark," he agreed. "You would have probably been out of a Ghost's range even if we came there by chance." That was beside the point though. "Would intervention have come again if no one were able to find you? How far does this safety net stretch?" he mused aloud.

"...I am not so eager to shoot myself to prove a point," he admitted.

Felwinter could insist he wouldn't shoot himself all he wanted, Tony wasn't going to be easily convinced he wouldn't now, and was narrowing his eyes suspiciously and looking distinctly like he was calculating how to get the weapon off of Felwinter again. He did see the appeal. Of the science part, of course, naturally.

"I don't--..." Tony had to drag himself out of that pit to try to process what Felwinter had actually asked him, feeling a new squirming discomfort there without the chance yet to properly process that someone had come to find him. "I don't know. Maybe...that was the intervention. Calculated. The whole thing, top to bottom, there was a script." It was starting to feel uneasily like appealing to a higher power, and maybe that was literally true--the Agrii, or the Atroma, were somewhere above them and had powers beyond their comprehension, and presumably hadn't let Tony fall to his death. Tony wrinkled his nose at the idea, and seemed to expect Felwinter to follow the logic on his own as he abruptly asked, "You a religious man?"

Tony could believe all he wanted. Felwinter wouldn't have spent so long trying to find a place to hide away from Rasputin's eyes if he wanted to get himself killed so easily. For a moment, he looked exhausted, here in such a strange situation. It wasn't even a personal matter for him, not exactly, and yet he'd chosen to involve himself. Why? But then he knew that answer. This was not the settlement at the foot of his mountain, but it needed protection, all the same.

"Not particularly," the Exo replied, prompted for an answer. He didn't like the suggestions Tony was making, that someone was anticipating their actions to such a degree.

Then Felwinter probably wasn't going to help Tony resolve that nagging thought, if they were both coming from about the same place, and Tony muttered, "Me neither," with a thoughtful frown up at the ceiling. It could have either been a continuation of the thought, or directed up at that ship above them when he said, "I don't like thinking someone else has that much control over me. That's not a comforting thought. I already feel like I barely have any control here."

And one of their few community members going off the rails and manipulating kids certainly didn't help that. "I should have known, you know, that something was going to happen. I did know. I should have done something," he said.

The warlord's optics ticked up towards the ceiling as Tony wondered at it, seeking the unknown, or the known just far off. He nodded. "The feeling is mutual," he said. Were they just deluding themselves all this time, thinking they still had a choice in what they did, despite their very being here not of their choice at all?

"Something will always happen. Or something will yet happen. The very nature of this place, or the circumstances themselves make it inevitable. Did you know exactly what would happen, or just that at some point, something would give?" he asked, head tilting. He only had snippets of information for how the people involved in things particular to this something were related, after all.

There was always so much tension in interacting with Felwinter, just there and solid without even letting Tony manipulate it, that he was left staring curiously at the Exo for a beat for basically agreeing with him. Did they agree on anything else? That didn't seem right.

Tony's face coloured before he could think too much harder about it, gaze darting again with embarrassment, because while in general he would agree that it was a challenge to see what was coming down the line in this place, this was not one of those situations. It felt damning to admit, "I knew who Beck was from the start." He tossed his head, because he had been telling himself that he couldn't really know, the same way that a whole lot of familiar faces had shown up here and didn't really know who he was either, but the signs were there. He knew. "Quentin Beck, where I'm from, is a guy who puts on tights to manipulate people into bank robbery, kidnapping kids, terrorizing old ladies...And he's fixated on Peter Parker. And I knew, I knew, it wasn't just some coincidence that he jumped on the chance to get Peter to live with him. I'm supposed to solve these problems before they happen. I should have--I could have at least asked what he was telling these kids."

Felwinter continued to watch Tony even as he averted his eyes with these developments. He was still such a puzzling man, and it seemed like with every interaction there was some revelation of another layer, a man made up of masks. But each layer that revealed itself came closer to the true core of Tony Stark. The Exo eventually shifted his own attention away from him, letting Tony gather his thoughts and his bearings.

So the man Quentin Beck did exist in even this Tony's version of Earth. The Exo was thoughtfully silent, looking across the room wherever Peter was.

"...what kept you from doing so?" he asked after a while.

That question did not alleviate any of Tony's anxiety, and he grimaced, teeth clenched. There wasn't an answer he could give that would sound justifiable, not now that it clearly hadn't paid out. He followed Felwinter's gaze to the kid, though, and indicated him with a raise of his chin.

"He could always take care of himself. One of the strongest people I know," he muttered. Not that Tony ever had much success trying to tell Peter what to do, anyway. Tony tried to gather himself, pushing his shoulders back and putting some of the flippant ice back in his voice to boast, "And I've got gods on speed-dial."

"I thought you said you weren't a religious man." He wasn't judging, he just found it strange for Tony to be bringing up such a point unless he was just being completely sarcastic, but it didn't seem the place for such.

"There is also the chance that for all the alternate existences of Earth that there appear to be, that perhaps there could be a Quentin Beck who isn't a danger to people," Felwinter suggested. "Are there others familiar with him who are here? It is everyone and no one's fault. In the end it was Quentin Beck who acted upon reasons that hold no place here, and it is only fortunate that he has failed."

"I said I could call them, not that I worship them," Tony replied easily, hand out flat for Felwinter to visualize the upper limit of Tony's affection. "But maybe you can ask again when one of them agrees to a date." There wasn't any dissonance to Tony between believing that the gods and the places they came from were real--he had seen enough of them, after all--and not having any faith in them. It was pretty easy for him not to think of Hercules as divine.

Jon might have been. He was kind of a god, wasn't he? Tony dropped his hand abruptly, the date thing sounding suddenly like less of a joke than he had intended.

Distracted, he had to blink to catch up with what Felwinter was trying to tell him--reassure him?--and just as easily shrugged off the naive idea that this whole thing wasn't his fault entirely. "There could be, but that Beck wouldn't get Peter living with him at the first opportunity," he grumbled. Being Tony's fault didn't mean Tony was the problem, though, and certainly didn't mean he wasn't going to keep trying to fix it, so he started to nod.

"He needs help," he said, still looking away, like he was trying to do a complex calculation. "'Reasons that hold no place here', that's--that's the problem, isn't it? He thinks they do. He's..." Tony twirled a finger by his ear. Maybe not the most sensitive expression.

He didn't see the difference, but perhaps he hadn't caught that Tony was possibly being literal about speed-dialing. It seemed besides the point though, so Felwinter left it be. He wasn't sure where to go with that conversation anyway, not without likely making it more complicated by asking what Tony meant by a date.

"Mentally compromised, yes," Felwinter nodded after taking a moment to work out the gesture. "If we are looking to find fault for the matter, at the source it would be upon the Agrii or their device that brings people here. Such will not solve anything, unless they decide to make right by taking back their mistaken 'hero.'" He shrugged. "What do you want out of this, Stark?"

That was a much more generous expression, and Tony was glad to accept it with a nod, letting his hand dangle again innocently like he hadn't been the one making the rude one. He didn't look convinced by Felwinter's 'source', though, wrinkling his nose and sucking his teeth, because as terrible as it was to fall into that pit, he wouldn't confidently say Beck's being here was a mistake--even outside of the possible planned dramatics. Only, Felwinter sidetracked him again with a surprising question, making him raise his eyebrows and open his mouth without a response prepared, colour returning to his face. What a generous, miserable question that Tony didn't like to answer on a good day.

"D'you mean, what do I want to be done?" he clarified. "I don't know, I guess I--I was hoping someone would have some power that made for an easy solution. Send us back in time so it never happened. Psychic calibration. Something." The grimace returned, and he tried to give Felwinter a hopeful, inquisitive look. He wasn't hiding something really useful behind that intimidating stare, was he?

It seemed a natural thing to ask. Felwinter did not correct Tony in his reiteration of the question, so it must have been more or less what he'd implied. It probably wouldn't reassure Tony to know that the warlord really had nothing useful, not in that department as his answer was made. Retribution, justice. Those things were simple compared to what Tony was hoping for. But Felwinter couldn't say that the 'easy solutions' that the man sought weren't beyond reason.

He shook his head, looking towards the floor, somehow regretful he couldn't deliver on whatever Tony might have expected of him. "If such things were accessible there would be many things I would have liked to circumvent."

The inquisitive expression remained, but the hopeful part quickly faded. Tony could only guess at the kind of heavy regrets a not-warlord was carrying around, and they were already getting dangerously close to unearthing some emotions that Tony did not have the capacity to deal with. Quickly, he offered, "Listen, we can always have a redo, I'm happy to play along if you want to make a new first impression. Maybe something a little flirtier, that'd be fun, really liven up our conversations." Even rattling through that didn't ease the anxious furrow of Tony's brow, though, and he ventured, "If it's someone else you're wanting to impress--that'll take a little more work, but I'm willing to make it happen for you."

These rebounds were difficult to follow, and in this case, Felwinter was caught off guard by Tony's turn-around before he realized how it had come to there in the first place. "I do not think that anything will change how confusing you are," he decided. The words did not match the expression on Tony's face, a diversion from more difficult problems that couldn't be so easily solved, then. Unfortunately Felwinter wasn't sure how to respond in any way other than fact. He shook his head. "I have no wish to impress anyone." To what end would that be for?

"Really?" Tony returned in immediate disbelief, and had to dial it back enough to explain, "That seems like your whole thing. Being very impressive," with a wave of his hand from Felwinter's intense head to equally intense toes, and seemed to quickly realize that was a much more awkward thing to say than just questioning the Exo. He cleared his throat and tried to redirect, "What would you want to see happen?"

Was that a compliment? It was difficult to tell sometimes, with Tony Stark. "Then I do not need to put further effort into impressing anyone," Felwinter said after considering a moment. Maybe he was attempting to be funny.

The Exo looked around the room again, at those gathered, at the guilty party. "Perhaps my solution is too simple. I will tell you now, if the boy had not intervened, I would have killed Beck. -or attempted to."

Unsure if he was supposed to laugh, Tony stared back, eyebrows still raised, like he was waiting for Felwinter to elaborate and save them both from the awkwardness. He wasn't as good at that as he was at being impressive.

While Tony couldn't say he was surprised by Felwinter's very final problem solving, it was still enough of a shock to him that he was willing to commit to it before he had even talked to Peter that Tony blurted, "What, why?"

Unfortunately awkward moments came in abundance around here, and Felwinter never quite knew what to do with them. Staring people down didn't seem to work as well and somehow made it more awkward. Was it just because the people here were so different from those he would come across back home?

He was a little surprised himself that Tony needed to ask that he took a moment to consider how to respond. "Operational necessity," he said, condensing his thoughts into the two words.

Two was not nearly enough words. Tony's eyebrows only crept higher, lip raising slowly, once again hoping that Felwinter would elaborate, and was stuck having to lead him through it. "It was necessary to kill him?" he tried to clarify. "Or it was necessary that you kill?" seemed less likely, overall, but Felwinter did seem like he was on the edge of it most of the time, so maybe it was a necessity somewhere in his programming.

"Our number is few, our objective already difficult. Our very environment poses a threat to us at times we cannot anticipate. Having someone in our midst who would actively do anyone harm to the agree he has intended for selfish reasons threatens the safety of everyone who are otherwise only trying to survive."

Felwinter seemed to frown a little. "I do not kill by necessity. Any kills by my hands are a response." His shoulders sagged in what might have been the expression of a sigh, feeling once again weary of everything. He looked out past the people, out at the open door and its framed light. "I just want peace."

What Felwinter was proposing was a very straightforward equation that Tony could easily follow; if all things were static, then either Beck would continue to pick them off, or they could reduce the number of deaths to just one. Nothing was ever static, though, and the finality of ending Beck's life didn't allow for that.

"Has killing ever brought peace?" he pressed, looking slightly desperate that Felwinter couldn't actually answer that--or if he did, that he saw the inherent flaw in the question. Was it peace, if it was made by violence?

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