thepurpleone: (are we allowed to do that?)
Othello Von Ryan ([personal profile] thepurpleone) wrote in [community profile] revivalproject2023-08-13 09:51 pm

Connect This Space Between

WHO: Donnie and you..?!
WHERE: The Warrens
WHAT: Taking things one step at a time...
WHEN: Post volcano eruption
WARNINGS: N/A
NOTES: Will match tag format.


i. hanging in there
The trip down had more or less been a mechanical process. Just follow everyone down, one foot in front of the other. For all that he's observed, the whole matter of a volcanic explosion happening somewhere overhead was still a difficult thing to process, or perhaps it was just everything else with that just topping it all off. He'd traveled in uncharacteristic silence, just waiting for that last straw that would possibly make him snap.

Thankfully he's been able to hold it together. Fresh water helps, and having other things to mind has kept his thoughts from spiraling completely out of control. It might be an odd sight to see a humanoid turtle carrying a makeshift tank with some kind of local alien turtleish creature in it, but Donnie's clung to it like a lifeline. And then there's DATA, Tony's strange little robot-spy-camera who's apparently been demoted to a cantaloupe as Donnie's chosen method of carrying him along is by a net-like bag. But now there's space and they can rest, so they're set down while the teenage turtle tries to get some feeling back in his fingers as he slowly allows himself to start assessing their new surroundings. Data collection usually helps him relax.


ii. like mapping out dungeons
Being underground isn't really a problem for him. He's more or less lived underground all his life, and compared to the sewers of New York, this is far less complicated to navigate.

Donnie takes to mapping things out, wandering the strange tunnels. He hasn't yet managed to cobble together a replacement computer for the one he sorely misses wearing on his arm, so he's doing things the old-fashioned way, with pencil and paper. He's tackling things in sections, intent on working out every possible direction down one way before he'll commit to the next. Which will explain his absence from the main area at given times. This may not be some technical project to work on, but he's approaching it the same way, completely caught up in his findings.

Someone might want to make sure he remembers to eat or you know, sleep.


iii. no time for idle hands
If he'd been completely without some sort of access to tech he might have lost it by now. At least here the atmosphere is much more inviting than Calibrations. But it also means there's no doors he can close when he wants to keep to himself and work on things. Not that he's finding himself too bothered by people.

His main concern is potential fire hazards, and what with moss and mats everywhere, at times Donnie gathers up some of his things and relocates himself down some tunnel or another where there's less of a risk of burning anything when he tries to do some circuitry work or welding.


iv. aces wild
Choose your own adventure! Throw me a starter or whatever.

quark_assassin: (Seething | can't believe this shit)

iii

[personal profile] quark_assassin 2023-08-16 05:06 pm (UTC)(link)
The tunnel Donnie relocates to for whatever project he wants to work on, as it turns out, is already occupied. Dustin - in his exoskeleton suit, as he refuses to leave it unattended when there are so many people around - stands at the end of a side path, chin propped pensively in a hand. There are pipes that look freshly-laid along the ceiling and they are...slowly leaking water onto the floor. In a growing puddle.

This is a problem.

"Hmm?" Donnie acts as only a slight distraction, drawing Dustin's gaze away for a second before he recognizes who it is, breathes a sigh. The chin-on-hand gesture becomes more of a hand-to-face one of frustration. "Oh, it's you. What do you want?"
in_extremis: (Default)

ii.

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-18 06:38 pm (UTC)(link)
"Find any monsters?"

Everyone was going a little crazy and testing their limits, Tony thought, but being methodical about it was more rare. He hadn't seen anyone else carrying notes, anyway. Even he was leaving marks on walls to remind himself of what he had found, or didn't. What he hadn't found a lot of traces of was Donnie, even when he was back at the familiar junction and most everyone else was counting their berries. Not until he was down a dark hall, listening for the rhythms of the machines in the walls to trace, and picking up shuffling footsteps and the rustle of paper instead.

He turned to lean against the tunnel wall, arms crossed to watch the approach defensively until he had made out the shape in the low light. Couldn't have been anyone else. "Jon says there aren't any. We brought a few along with us, though. Non-zero possibility."
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-18 07:21 pm (UTC)(link)
The big reaction had Tony's eyebrows raising, with a hint of amusement at the pose that Donnie fell into, not sure how seriously he should be taking it as a threat. "What is that, aikido?" Tony tried, one finger flicking over the stance as he sauntered closer, moving like he might help Donnie pick up the mess Tony'd caused. He just stopped to lean a shoulder against the wall again, though, watching as he filled in helpfully for both of them, because clearly Donnie had accounted for this, "Except for the ones that built and maintain the place. Of course."
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-18 08:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Tony wasn't sure he knew of a military, even secret ones that mutated animals, that functioned on karate. He looked a little skeptical, suspecting maybe the situation Donnie had been drawn into was closer to the Hand, somewhere between martial arts and magic. He leaned closer, though, to peer at Donnie's notebook, squinting at the map he was building, and taking a beat to work out what he might have meant by 'other place'. It wasn't even that long ago that he had been stuck in that terrible nightmare bunker.

"Pretty far," Tony mused. "There are closer underground networks, and this place seems loaded with services, power, water. Got to be serving something else." Not that Tony didn't think there was a connection, it just wasn't that direct. "Why, you got a pattern?"
quark_assassin: (Flustered | really don't know about this)

[personal profile] quark_assassin 2023-08-18 09:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"Well, this one is--"

--Is what Dustin starts to say, before Donnie wanders in past him and starts making himself at home. He scowls, folds his arms. And it only gets deeper a moment later when the turtle recoils, though from the way his face flushes deep crimson, it's not just from offense.

"--Hey!" Dustin whines. He cannot bring himself to admit that he was too shy to make use of the communal showers in the Calibrations area, and then became noseblind to himself when he realized he wouldn't have his ship to go back to on the surface; his pride won't allow it. "Man, fuck off! It's not my fault the Agrii took the hot water away with the ships!"

A hand goes to self-consciously sweep through his hair - and promptly gets lodged in a matted tangle. The blush creeps down Dustin's neck.

"I-I'm trying to fix it!"
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-18 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
It took Tony a beat to do as he was expected, clearly reluctant to ever do such a thing and glancing over his shoulder like he could find some reason to go along that wasn't just because he was basically told to. With a huff, he had to push himself along, rolling his eyes at no one in case they thought he was being obedient. "Three," he corrected. "Three hidden places. They're not stingy about them. There's more." Tony was less inclined to believe they had been allowed to wander into some central hub of secret underground torture chambers. "Third one was full of spiders," he provided belatedly, in case Donnie was wondering if it was relevant.
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-18 10:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Tony hadn't considered the strange observation room as part of the same manner of facility, making him cock his head thoughtfully, slowing to a stop to scratch at his beard as Donnie investigated the machine. That had been a kind of control room that they had just walked into. Okay, it hadn't been that easy to gain access, but the same could be said of this place.

"We've met," Tony acknowledged icily in reply, giving the machinery an unimpressed once-over like he wasn't down here just to listen to it in the dark. "We could touch those screens, in that little room. There's similar ones, if you head out to that radio tower. More in the spider-place. Someone really cares about these ones."
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-19 03:05 am (UTC)(link)
Tony looked hesitant, eyebrows raised to ask if Donnie was sure, before accepting the goggles and just raising them to look through, watching Donnie's hand. At first, he wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to be looking at, before giving an experimental spin in place, swinging around on his toes and landing with a curious, "Hm," as he considered the machine once more.

It was probably pointless to run through possibilities like disruptive radiation, but Tony was still trying to find the logical path even as he provided, "They knew how to shut down my suit." Instead of holding the goggles up, they were suddenly very fascinating just to look at as he juggled them restlessly in one hand against his chest. "When I flew out, to see what was out there. They kept getting in. A virus that I couldn't root out." His mouth twisted to the side with an apology, cradling the goggles more gently then for the violation.
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-19 03:50 am (UTC)(link)
"What?" Tony replied, because they were supposed to be talking about the goggles, and his misguided mission hadn't been anyone else's concern. "No--I mean, a little. It was fine. Listen, that's the thing, it only started happening after I got out passed the mountains. They have boundaries, stuff they don't want us to see." He wiggled the goggles pointedly before handing them back. "The only system they seem to have a hard time cracking is our wetware. They have to play games to get us to react a certain way." With a tap to his temple, he concluded, "For the foreseeable future, more reliable. Now's a good time to let me know if you're clinically insane."
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-19 05:41 pm (UTC)(link)
That would have been a problem anyway, Tony suspected, and he made a frustrated gesture with both his hands, only to blow out the argument in a sigh and cross them over his chest. It still would have been nice to have a computer, as unreliable as it would have been.

"I'm very sane," Tony insisted. He might have also been very stupid and thus more insane than he had ever properly accounted for, so he was proving a lot of exceptions either way. "Never?" he continued quickly, with some disbelief that even the lunatics mutating animals wouldn't have put them through rigorous checks afterwards. He tried not to look too worried as he looked Donnie over, like he could see the inevitable cancer from his mutating cells from here, and offered lightly, "I've got someone to introduce you to, when you're ready to go back to the bullpen."
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-19 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Not that Tony meant to deny how difficult life must have been for someone with obvious physical mutations, but he had to counter, "I know someone bigger'n'greener than you who managed regular physicals." Even accounting for a reasonable lack of trust in the medical system, though, that did leave a pretty wide gap in where exactly Donnie had come from, if they were managing to teach their mutated child soldiers karate but not following up on any broken bones. 'Dad' was not making a very good impression. "Is that...who made you...?" Tony tried to posit lightly, despite the tense way he held out a flat hand to figure out just how insane Donnie might actually be before he let the trained professionals make that call.
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-19 06:47 pm (UTC)(link)
An actor who took it upon himself to rescue underground demon science experiments...wasn't that weird. Maybe Simon knew him. The part that Tony appeared to tap out was right at the end, when a man was mutated into a rat, making him frown in disbelief, sure there were at the very least some big gaps yet to fill in this tale.

"Have you considered that you're more insane than genius?" Tony proposed, as though this whole story had been a fantasy and Donnie wasn't standing before him obviously a karate turtle. At least he wasn't in some profound denial about the sadists who were dunking turtles in ooze.
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2023-08-20 01:54 am (UTC)(link)
Even as Tony was saying, "That would be pretty funny," he was aware he had done something wrong, and the square of his shoulders melted a sheepishly as Donnie dropped down, not entirely sure which part was the major misstep. After a beat of restlessly tapping against his chest, he managed to offer, "Sorry," then, "I'll stop asking." He didn't really like to talk about his dad, either. "You wanted to show me something," he tried to encourage, making an aborted movement like he would zip his mouth closed, promising, kind of, not to talk. Too much.

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