revivalproject | But This is Not Black and White

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But This is Not Black and White

WHO: Cal Kestis, BD-1 and you
WHERE: Sh'Ka
WHAT: Totally avoiding Certain People while trying to recenter himself
WHEN: Mid-July
WARNINGS: N/A
NOTE: Will match tag format/preference!

"I will find you, Cal Kestis."

While the sentiment in those words is nothing new, the real concern that haunts the young Jedi is the fact that the threat is new and most importantly, here on this planet. Worse yet, within a confined area of a planet that they really had no great means to travel to, much less any knowledge of any possible places beyond the two cities they currently have access to.

Cal had thought that being on the run would have been over for him. He'd finally come out of hiding, fearlessly faced the Empire and the Inquisitors it sent relentlessly after him and his friends. He'd infiltrated the Fortress Inquisitorious and somehow made it back out alive. Being able to stay alive after everything is always a positive outcome. Being brought back to Agra 10 was considerably a vacation in comparison.

Once again, he finds himself in a defensive mode. At least he has the Force to rely on, and the one who might seek him out does not, but Cal had learned early on to be wary of Albert Wesker. Those concerns had only been further underlined once he'd found himself in the man's dreamspace.

If nothing else, Sh'Ka proves to be at least much more bearable for the weather. Cal had had BD-1 shoot off a few messages to Tony, Jon and Echo to tell them where he'd be if they needed him, an abrupt enough message to leave without seeing them, but the last thing he wanted was to draw attention to them if Wesker was on the prowl. He decides to revisit the power plant where he'd last set up camp, back when he'd led a small team on the repair work for the power grid. If he's going to be here, he may as well make himself useful and see if he can pick up on what was being done about the water.

It's been easier to find focus here too, for some reason. Calmer. Quieter. When he's not working on the water treatment equipment or tracing water lines, he's up on the roof of the hotel, meditating. It's not an easy spot to get to but it's peaceful, and the view's pretty nice.

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He'd eaten under worse circumstances. And clearly he was shameless when it came to eating cheesecake as he popped a glob of it into his mouth. "Mmf. Okay that is so good right now."

Cal listened as Tony went on, continuing to pick at one side of the cheesecake. "I'm not?" That was news to him, or should it be, he wondered. He frowned a little but nodded, unsurprised that there were others that had drawn Wesker's ire.

"He out to kill anyone else?" he asked almost too absently, but maybe having one too many people out for his head had jaded him some.

"I'm not really an expert when it comes to mountain formations but I'm pretty sure they don't pop up within a couple of months without something pushing them up. We've been here... a while, but it's only recently we'd felt anything, and then suddenly there's that."

Direct threats like that weren't necessarily part of the pattern that Tony was hearing, making him raise his eyebrows, slow and expectant, giving Cal another more open study like he might see something that the Iron Man hadn't been able to sense. "That all he said?" he pressed, and didn't wait for an answer again before he was continuing, "Figure it'd take a lot more than that to run you out of town. My number's pretty low, honestly, easy to get me on that train, maybe that's why you seem so much stronger."

"He didn't say as much, but he didn't have to." Cal could sense the intent well enough as the dream abruptly ended. He probably wouldn't have been able to sleep any for the following days were it not for it being mandatory.

"I was more hoping maybe he'd cool off if I wasn't there to immediately remind him that he had something he wanted to settle with me," he sighed. "Aside from me just needing to step away from whatever tension was lingering. I could avoid him- it's not like he's difficult to sense coming, but I wasn't much in the mood to want to keep having to constantly look over my shoulder again."

"What--he didn't even say anything?" Tony had to clarify. "You could just...sense it?" At this, he sounded skeptical. Not at Cal's powers, those he couldn't claim to understand well enough to doubt. "You do that often, make a call before a fella's actually put a finger on the trigger?" Maybe he shouldn't sound so confrontational. He was a futurist, or supposed to be. Most of what he did was because something might happen tomorrow. There was a difference, he thought, in preparing for something, and in deciding something was true.

"No, just when my life's potentially on the line," Cal replied dryly. "And believe me, I've had way too much experience with that."

He held back another sigh, eyeing another dollop of cheesecake. "I mean, there is a possibility I'm wrong, but that's not something I want to risk by a confrontation and other people potentially caught up in collateral. The man's dangerous- you have to agree with me on that much."

Without his own brief encounter with Wesker that almost had his suit compromised, Tony wasn't sure he could have agreed, making him narrow his eyes and hesitate as his mouth opened. By that same evidence, he had to point out, "So are you." He gave an inquisitive lift of his eyebrows, wondering just how many people Cal thought were talking about him as a threat. "So am I," he added, with a flourish down his polished chest, and the RT there that could blast through a building. People were definitely talking about him. There must have been a point on that curve where the danger was worth reacting to, but Tony wasn't sure he wanted to define it. Quieter, he still ventured, "So, what do we do?"

That much, Cal conceded, nodding. It was true enough.

"...he probably could have killed me the first time we met," Cal admitted. "Tried to, actually. And that was just because he didn't believe me when I said we were brought here by aliens."

The intent then had been quite clear, and he'd only managed to surprise Wesker by avoiding what was meant to be a deadly blow then.

Cal shook his head. "That's what I've been trying to work out."

"And yet, here you are," Tony observed, dropping back on his hands languidly like that wasn't a challenge, toes bouncing restlessly. "You know, listen, here's what I'm struggling with: when Beck did try to kill me, left me for dead in that hole, there wasn't a whole lot of keen interest in dealing with it even then. The only real result is that someone else got hurt, and then he was gone, not our problem anymore, and I would bet you that no one else has thought too hard about it since then. I don't...I don't think it was because it was me, there are other...It's not something anyone wants to think about. It's dark. It's hard. So, in that scenario, the one where you are beholden to no one else, where it would be a relief for you to just make the call, what call is it that you really want to make?"

Cal blinked at that. The incident with Beck was practically years ago and technically the future from when Cal was from now. He could still remember the things he'd experienced in the years he'd been in Temba but it was still an odd whiplash when you were back at nineteen when you'd left at twenty-two.

He licked off his fingers as he dredged up those memories. The weird trial they'd attempted to have. The entire idea that someone had tried to kill Tony but thankfully hadn't succeeded. But that wasn't entirely the point. Cal rested his hand over his knee, sighing quietly.

"...I don't want to take anyone down if I don't have to. Especially here when we're all brought without our own say-so. It's not my call to make when it comes to someone's life. We're not on a battlefield, not in a war. We're not even on opposing sides."

That was evasive. Tony's fingers drummed impatiently, head tilted as he watched Cal, unable to wait for him to say something that would surprise Tony. "You made the call to run," he pointed out. "Serious enough for that. Maybe that's what the other kid does, too. Maybe one by one, we all make that call, until he has to follow us. Now we're back where we started."

"It wasn't meant to be a long-term solution," Cal said. "It never is anyway." He'd already tried that once, and it was sure no way to live. Five years living in hiding, right under the Empire's noses... Even if he hadn't meant to reveal himself, moving into a more active one rather than a defensive one had been freeing.

"I figure I'd have to confront him at some point, in which case I'll just have to see whether he's open to conversation or if he means to pick up where he left off."

"That's a lot of variables," Tony mused, like this could have possibly been an idle observation. "Not a fan, myself. You want something to work right, you have to keep them to a minimum. Set a specific course, solve the wind problem first, pick a day it's not going to rain, send your own car to pick up the hot blonde you're trying to impress. Make sure it's stocked with champagne so you know she'll be open to conversation."

"Give him a call, ask if he's up for a chat over dinner?" Cal smiled crookedly. "Public venue where he can't pull anything without further bringing attention to his questionable reputation."

Unless he just got too mad to care, but Wesker had been trying to keep his secrets and there really wasn't anywhere he could go if everyone became aware of them. He was already established as dangerous. After what Cal had heard from the man in that dreamspace, he had no doubt Wesker would kill everyone if he felt the need to, and that was what was frightening.

Just talking out their differences would have been a very nice solution. Hard to imagine, but nice nonetheless. Tony's fingers drummed again as he squinted thoughtfully across the rooftops, and muttered, "A party. Bring everyone together so they can let him know how he's hurting them. That's just--I've seen interventions like that work, I guess, it's a wake up call for some people. Assuming they're not intending to hurt anyone." Tony wasn't so optimistic about Wesker's intentions. "Maybe it is a date," he continued, not quite talking to Cal anymore. "Dinner. Someone he trusts. Relies on. In this place, there's got to be at least one person."

Edited 2023-07-27 00:55 (UTC)

Cal shook his head. Tony's further proposal was sounding less and less realistic. Wesker wasn't going to care that he was hurting people because that was exactly what he meant to do. Potentially 'ganging up' on him might provoke him to do worse.

He listened as Tony continued to put forth his thoughts, nibbling on more cheesecake. "He seems pretty intent on being self-sufficient," he observed. "Keeps his cards close to his chest."

That couldn't be entirely true. Surviving the heat alone in the abandoned city was a community effort. Irritable that he couldn't immediately see the exploitable gaps despite this, Tony grumbled and fidgeted before proposing, "Maybe we give him one. Someone he relies on. Inspire a change of heart." That was a risky position to put someone in if it didn't work.

By the look on Cal's face, he didn't really like the sound of that proposition either. "I'm not sure dragging in any more people into this is going to solve anything. Especially if it doesn't work out."

He laughed briefly as he considered. "Unless I somehow manage to convince him I won't do anything with what I've learned about him. But I wouldn't be surprised if ended up more suspicious about that."

"That's a pretty strong in," Tony was ready to agree. "'Trust me with this secret'. You're going to go one of two ways with people who have seen you at your worst, and you said it yourself, you haven't given him the chance yet to pick that direction. You left him at the altar."

"Well, I've either given him time to rethink his options or how he'd approach trying to get rid of me," Cal shrugged, almost carefree in that, but talking about the whole deal had helped disperse any lingering tension. He dipped his fingers into the melty remnants of cheesecake again.

"If I'm lucky maybe he just forgot or didn't remember the whole thing." He doubted that, but one could hope.

All of that quiet time that Cal had found out here must have made the whole ordeal not seem that pressing, so maybe Tony should hang around and let it temper, too, because hearing about these kids getting tied up in knots back to back was a lot of pressure to him. The tapping of his fingers and bouncing of his toes finally stopped, like a breath held for just a beat while he watched Cal, wondering who he should have sent instead, who Cal could actually listen to. Everyone had to be relying on someone. "Yeah," Tony eventually mumbled, "If you're lucky."

Cal hadn't been lying about his reasons for coming out here, for the compounding disturbances that made it hard to work things out. He'd been more or less figuring that things would turn out to be a confrontation, and that was one thing he was more accepting of doing these days, especially after so many narrow escapes from the Empire. Sometimes you had to run, but other times you had no choice but to fight. And he'd learned that running didn't tend to solve anything for very long.

But he could sense that Tony still had his concerns, that even for all the talk, there was something that just wasn't clicking into place like it should have.

"I'm still not completely convinced that's the best idea," he admitted after studying the man a moment out of the corner of his eye. "But if it's going to happen sooner or later, I'd rather find him first and try to work things out than the other way around without having the option." He upturned a slightly sticky hand. "Unless you have any other suggestions."

Tony hadn't made this trip with confidence in his problem solving, some genius, and the reminder was discouraging enough to leave him pursing his lips and searching the horizon restlessly, head tilted away from that feeling of being watched like it was so foreign to him. He'd come here to deliver cake, a rousing smile, and convince Cal a visit back at home base wouldn't be so bad, and one out of three was a better success rate than his recent average, so maybe he should dredge up some optimism. The best he could do was a raised hand to open in return, a welcome and a surrender, and a thoughtful hum. He had to say something, someone had to fill all of this space that was getting increasingly airless, and as he dropped his hand with some determination he produced, "You should probably ask someone who actually knows him. Tae or Billy, maybe, they work together, they're close. Physically, at least."

Ah, right. Wesker was involved at the hospital. Cal wasn't sure how reassuring that was now that he was more aware of the man's activities, but at least here there wasn't any sort of goals that would really align with what the man usually sought after. That however didn't mean he wasn't dangerous.

"I think the problem is I know more about him than I'd have cared for," Cal said dryly, half a smile tugging at his lips. "But I guess they'd be the ones to know how he's been since we got out of Calibrations, if he's still been going to the hospital."

His smile softened at Tony then. "Still think I should come back then?"

That was something Tony hadn't properly considered; that Wesker's behaviour might have changed after being Calibrated, too. More than one person must have gotten into his head, after all. He hummed again, looking distant, not sure if he could be trusted where to put that and all of the engines firing anyway, except for the one where he expected Cal to address him again. He had to raise his eyebrows, and blurt the only answer he had prepared, "No," which surprised him, too, with its directness. "Guess not." Cal had kept himself out of harms' way, whether real or imagined. "Maybe, listen, maybe I'll stay out here, too. Just for a bit--you won't even know I'm here, whole city to get lost in, you know, I'll try out that meditation thing, got to stick eventually." That was probably better for all of them.

Cal was a little surprised at the reply too, half-expecting Tony to double down. But at least they were acknowledging the potential complications of this problem. He'd been starting to wonder if he were overthinking things.

"Still a lot of things to do around here if you know where to look, anyway," he said. "You don't...have to try avoiding me you know."

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