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Tony took Echo's direct command to deflect to BD with a gesture of the mug down to the splatter of coffee that had made it to the floor, "Yeah, take care of that, would you?," half hoping he actually would to see what other destruction he might be capable of. They could handle it, there was four of them and only one of him, even if Jon didn't seem so sure by the way he was still hanging on. Tony gently extracted his arm to wrap reassuringly around Jon's shoulders instead, muttering, "Echo just needs five minutes to himself, he'll sort out the bear thing that Cal's so worried about." He finished with innocently raised eyebrows, and the hand with the mug up in surrender at Cal, because only one of them had thought it important enough to bring up again and start this problem.

BD-1's little antennae drooped as he contemplated how he'd manage to clean anything up with no handses. Cal gave the droid a pat.

"Yeah, I've been there," he said in response to Jon. "That's how I met her. Plenty enough things that want to kill you over there, terrain included." Bears might've been a welcome thing if they were even common creatures in their galaxy. Probably in some form or another, somewhere, anyway.

"Come on, BeeDee- let's go find something to clean this up, huh?"

The former ARC Trooper rolled his eyes as Tony passed the buck to BD-1, turning to face forward as the man continued to twist his words for fun. "I'll need less than five minutes if you keep this up..." Gruff as Echo sounded, he didn't really mean anything else by it.

His brow creased slightly when Jon asked about Dathomir. "I only saw it when I visited her dream, too. Never in-person," he answered. Cal's reply made the corner of his mouth twitch, casting a brief sideways glance his way before he started wandering off. "So you already have experience?"

Jon makes an irritated little noise, but doesn't stop Tony from putting an arm around his shoulder. He still gets a glance from Jon. "There is only one person on this ship that is worried about bears and it's neither Echo nor Cal." He points out, then nods towards some nearby seats. "Come on. I was going to tell Echo about Frank. Why don't you take over that part and I help Cal. You can have a fresh coffee as well."

The lure of fresh coffee, Tony shouldn't be able to resist.

Cal going with BD kind of ruined the point, and Tony did his best to pointedly widen his eyes at the droid hoping he might understand that he was meant to find his freedom to push buttons once released. In fact, all three of them leaving was also ruining a point, though maybe bothering them enough that they felt like they were the ones that had to escape still got Tony the results he was hoping for. Not the ones he wanted, it turned out, as he slipped away from Jon with a reluctant pout, then expressed his displeasure by ignoring the indicated seats to pour himself against the back of Echo's instead, looking dangerously close to pressing all of those buttons that BD didn't get the chance to experiment with. "Frank's a big lizard who laid eggs in the library. He's very friendly, gets attached easily," he reported, only to continue at a clip, "Have you really never been? Omega makes it sound like you're flying all over the galaxy. We should make a bouquet for her, too, while we're out here. She...deserves one."

Cal only tossed Echo a crooked smile in response before nodding at Jon as the Archivist opted to join him in clean-up duties. He helped BD-1 back into his usual spot, the little droid hanging behind Cal as he glanced back at Tony with a tilt of his head, clearly not understanding why the man was making crazy eyes at him.

The Jedi couldn't help but give a little bit of a sigh once they were headed back down the corridor towards the galley.

Jon reaches over to pat the back of Cal's shoulder in an understanding manner, but also as a sign of reassurance. It'll be fine. Jon won't allow any bear fights. "I apologize if he made you uncomfortable, Cal. Tony can get very... Enthusiastic." He says and picks up a clean mug along with a cloth. "He means well, but his ways of showing it can be rather unique."

It takes some getting used to, but luckily Cal has known Tony for some time now as well.

"No- I know, and it's not that I'm surprised or anything..." Cal says, his smile just a little strained. "Enthusiastic I get, but sometimes I wonder if he's forcing it too much. Or maybe it's just me and how different his approach to things is..."

He lifts a hand and drops it. "He suggested flowers and I didn't think that was a bad idea. I think Merrin would like them. But then he made it sound like I wasn't doing enough, or... I don't know," he says, shaking his head. "Maybe I'm reading him wrong. Or I'm doing something wrong, I don't...." He stops himself from being repetitive, sighing again.

"A lot keeps happening. In general. I think if I just keep myself moving forward I won't fall back instead of waiting for a rebound, but maybe I'm just running after all." Pretending the losses don't hurt. They're not permanent losses like that of his master, but they're noticeable absences all the same. Merrin said he was strong. Maybe he's been deluding himself and her all this time.

"Everyone's approach is different." Jon says matter-of-factly as he starts preparing the coffee he has promised. His voice softens. "Trying to be someone you aren't... Is not going to work."

As the water boils, Jon moves on to gather up a cloth to clean up the spilled beverage. "Just try not to overthink it. Merrin and you have been going along without any input from any of us, haven't you?" He turns to look at Cal now. "Tony and I? Hardly got along at all."

The brief flush across his face is telling. Cal glances away, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck as he tries not to look awkward, even with the shy smile that tugs at his lips. "Er, well...yeah." He looks back at Jon then, brow arching. Him and Tony not getting along? That's surprising to hear.

"...I mean, I guess Merrin and I didn't either, at first. Actually when I met her she sent the Nightbrothers after me," he admits with a weak laugh. "And...then her dead sisters."

"Her dead sisters?" Jon blinks at Cal. He has heard about the Nightbrothers from Merrin. "Sounds like you really started out... At odds with one another." Jon being too flustered by Tony's default setting of flirting with everyone he meets is barely a comparison.

"I assume she was protecting her home." He muses aloud. Her home seemed to be important to her.

"Yeah, you could say that. But you're right. She was. She'd...lost everything, her entire family, and then she was lied to by a former Jedi who found his way there before me." Cal frowns. "He took advantage of her, wanting to learn how her magick worked."

He remembers that time clearly, even if it's been a few years now. It had been among the last things that happened before he and BD-1 arrived here on Agra Ten.

"...but then I came and he tried to get me to join him. Merrin felt betrayed- aaand that's when she raised the dead Nightsisters. I had to make a run for the ship, my lightsaber was broken. I...think you saw why from that memory the last time we were stuck in the calibrations rooms."

"Christ..." Jon exhales, his eyes dropping with a frown. Cal, Merrin, Echo, Omega... How come everyone brought here from that particular galaxy had to deal with so much dreadful stuff while still being so terribly young? And in most cases it doesn't even seem to be their fault.

"I... ah... I'm just- I'm glad you are no longer fighting." He looks back up at Cal, offering a comforting smile. "And if you can find some happiness here, that wouldn't necessarily the worst outcome either."

Cal smiles back, nodding at that. "Me too. I guess things worked out later on. I just had to find a different way about it, here, but...I'm glad." He can agree though, having a chance to be happy is definitely an improvement, even under strange circumstances.

"No, not at all. I know not everyone agrees about this place, but there are experiences I've had here that I'm thankful for."

Jon nods is agreement. "I remain glad that I ended up here. Meeting everyone and-" He gestures vaguely at nothing and the by now finished coffee. "It's not always easy and yet I can't deny that I'm quite happy. Here. On an alien planet." He gives a short little laugh and hands the fresh coffee over to Cal while keeping the washcloth to himself.

"From what I have seen and learned of your galaxy, being here must feel like a much needed break as well." Since despite everything, they all are relatively safe here.

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out_of_order - 2022-07-01 03:34 (UTC) - Expand

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beholding_archivist - 2022-07-01 15:00 (UTC) - Expand

Echo frowned as he felt Tony's weight against the back of the pilot's seat. He couldn't see where he was exactly, eyes sliding to one side as if he had an inkling of the crime he was going to pull. "A big lizard with a sticky tongue." His nose wrinkled. "Why do you call him Frank?"

Keeping up with Tony was still something he needed to refine, but he managed, arching a brow at that. "Never. It was mostly Kamino and space, but I've visited other planets." Omega wasn't wrong about them traveling everywhere, though, and the exhale lent itself to a shortened explanation of what he now knew. "Now we mostly travel because of the missions Cid sends us on. The Empire's not a fan of desertion. You never realize how small the galaxy is until you find out most planets are now under surveillance."

His tone softened, however, with the added thought of a bouquet. "...Yeah. Might be nice to give her something like that."

Ever prepared, Tony answered, "He's very straightforward." He probably was not actually the best choice to deliver any Frank-related information, however much time he spent around the animal, when Jon was also on board.

Tony's tension palpably shifted, no longer straining with that threatening intrigue toward the ship controls like he wanted to find out how quickly they would pitch, though Echo wasn't entirely saved from his impulses. Bringing up Omega only produced an uncomfortable knot in his chest, leaving him watching Echo cautiously, wondering if he even knew what he had done to her. It was safer to skim a suggestion of a touch over Echo's ear, around those strange ports and his pale skin, as Tony asked, "Is that what happened to you?"

Expecting any other useful information on Frank was pointless coming from Tony, so Echo had to take what he said with a grain of salt. The clone wasn't sure when the shift happened, but he barely flinched, the response automatic in regards to being examined and inspected so closely.

"It's distantly related." A thin line formed upon his lips - a rueful smile of sorts. "Want to hear the story of how I got blown up?"

Getting blown up could really have gone one of two ways, and since Echo was still very capably flying a ship and to tell Tony about it, Tony guessed the reasonable answer was, "More than anything." It obviously hadn't gone well, but Tony had bounced back from being blown up himself, and even Rhodey eventually recovered from his own new, mechanical legs courtesy of some fireworks. Perhaps the two of them made for anecdotal evidence, but that did suggest to Tony that Echo could at least eventually look back on it as a learning experience.

Echo was half-expecting it. He had known Tony for a long time now - not too long to let the unpredictability sink in, but enough to understand how his thought process meandered. Still, he deserved to know what happened.

"...There was a mission I was assigned to," he said, looking outward as they continued their trek across the sky. "A Jedi General and some naval officers were being held captive in a high security prison known as 'The Citadel' on Lola Sayu. Our objective was to enter undetected to retrieve them and get out of there as quickly as possible. So it went as smoothly as you could imagine."

Dry humor was fleeting, the frown returning to neutralize his gaunt features. "When we got to the landing platform, they were set on destroying our shuttle. And I tried to stop them." He turned his head, glancing up at Tony. "The explosion should have killed me. Instead, the next thing I knew I was being rescued myself."

Knowing that this story was going to involve an explosion from the outset really highlighted the irony of Echo's stealth directive for him, making Tony breathe a laugh. He met Echo's eye with the slant of a lingering smirk that started to fade with some concern when faced with the grim reality of what could have happened to the clone, but Tony quickly rallied to advise, "You know, you could have made that a lot more badass. 'I was the only one willing to act when the whole mission was on the line and I knew one wrong move would be my last one. Semper fi. Etcetera.'" Even as he clearly struggled through inspiring words, Tony was still clutching an inspiring fist in the air, which he had to abruptly drop after a beat of silence where his Rhodey impression ran out of gas. He wasn't even a marine. Belatedly, Tony tried to amend, "Aim high," but he had already lost his energy and attempted to recover the tempo, "When I got blown up, it wasn't nearly as noble. My own landmine. Unbelievable. Did always have my name on it," which he also regretted. He cleared his throat and clearly improved the situation by prompting, "So, they couldn't find all of your parts?"

A faint snort and a few lines crinkling around Echo's eyes clued Tony in on the current rating of his impressions. "I figured you wanted an explanation that wasn't as bombastic. Guess I was wrong." The same lines smoothed out again as the ones over his brow returned while he listened to Tony's brush with death. "...That's...well. Ironic," he sympathized. "I don't know if it helps, but I was practically trained for that mission. Putting my life on the line was one of a few expected outcomes." He shrugged, shaking his head as he adjusted the steering. "Better for everyone else to live than have all of us die there."

He let the pause sit for a little longer after Tony prompted him again. There really was no easy way to go about it, and Echo replied as plainly as he could, barely filing down the edge in his tone. "Limbs were replaceable. All that mattered to the Separatists and the Techno Union was my mind."

With an affronted gasp for this unflattering assumption, Tony lamented, "I thought I had made my predilections alluringly clear. You wound me." That Echo was even capable of bombast didn't seem likely, not without plenty of encouragement. Tony could be encouraging. Case in point, that shrug of acceptance for his inevitable death. Tony's performance flagged, and he watched Echo first from the side, then through his reflection in front of them, trying to assess if he realized how unfair that was. He wasn't a marine either, or Air Force; those boys at least chose to put their boots on.

The matter of the missing parts gave Tony a lot more to think about than he was anticipating, and his natural reaction was to flap his teasing hand again and purr, "It is your best feature." While his pose didn't change, he did at least sound fractionally less flirtatious as he pressed, "The Techno Union sounds very sexy, I'm seeing black leather and pulsing lights, go-go dancers with PhDs." The Separatists weren't quite so evocative, thought Tony had a few guesses about what they were separating from.

The slight face Echo made was almost routine by this point. "Wat Tambor had pulsing lights, but you wouldn't want to see him in black leather." Despite the subtle shift in Tony's flirting, he sort of noticed when it happened. "He and his cronies salvaged whatever they could while they experimented on me, all in order use my knowledge of strategic algorithms against the Republic." The corner of his mouth twitched. "And if General Skywalker, Rex, and The Bad Batch never found me, I would've still been held captive on Skako Minor."

This was a multiple stage rescue then. That was a lot of names now for Tony to file away, which he did by immediately throwing them on the floor and hoping that got sorted out eventually, because the middle part of this 'rescue' was still unclear to him. "If they had been the ones to scrape you up from the explosion, would you have made it?" he had to ask, assuming something that called themselves the Techno Union were dealing in some advanced wetware replacement. "I mean, if it wasn't for the wet tambourine, would you just be a brain in a jar?"

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branching off again?

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