Donnie paused then, mentally tracing the thread of conversation to figure out where the confusion was coming from, and not without a frown at the mention of the ship- he was still on the fence about how he was supposed to feel about those- before eventually shaking his head. Start over.

"It came up not long after the... Well, that storm," he said, casting a furtive glance in Tony's direction, not at all proud of his performance then and guilty that he hadn't gotten around to checking up on people once it had all blown over.

"Anyway," Donnie continued as he picked through his tools, pulling out the ones he figured might be needed. "-we were just talking about how bad things were when the storm knocked the power out and wondering if alternate methods would function, or if it was purely anything energy-based that would get sapped. But that's basically how it came up."