revivalproject | Idle Hands Something Something

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Idle Hands Something Something

WHO: Donnie, Leo, and circumstantially open
WHERE: Agrii Ship - That Room
WHAT: Being delinquents
WHEN: During the end of Phase III
WARNINGS: Injury?

They probably shouldn't be in here.

But then the thing about places that were locked up is that it just screams that something's been hidden there, something people aren't supposed to be meant to find. And naturally that just begs questions of what.

Handling repairs and skirting Agrii politics gets tedious, so it's inevitable that Donnie opts to go investigating new secret tech. He'd had a brief look at the place before, back when the shield had yet been in place, but now that it's open, there's nothing keeping him from poking around.

"Creepy, right?" He'd dragged Leo along, or at most gave the suggestion because he has no other brother to be a willing accomplice. The space is huge, lined with rows of some sort of beds as far as the eye can see, hundreds upon hundreds of them.

"Why the heck would this be in a sealed off area of a spaceship?"

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Leo hesitates again, staring at Tony. From where he’s standing this is a stupid idea, and doesn’t address the fact that his brother got shocked and now he’s not waking up.

“Uuugh, fine, but don’t blame me when you end up in a pod right next to him.”

Leo pulls Donnie’s goggles back down over his eyes and clicks on the pod until he can pull up the command line again. He inputs the same command as last time, then watches as the pod begins its diagnostics.

“Okay… it’s running. …Huh.” He can’t understand everything he’s looking at, but… “It has a record of the energy it just put out.”

To shock Donnie. Like it’s going to shock Tony, if he isn’t careful…

"How about we don't try to fix something that appears to be working as intended." Wesker argues while closing the readouts he has been able to get from the machine before turning around to set his eyes on the impending repeat of Donatello's mistake. Damn. This man would hear about someone getting shot by his own gun because they foolishly decided to keep it on their person while having a MRI scan and decide the correct approach is to take more guns into the same MRI scanner because the issue can't be foolishness but must be in the flawlessly working machine.

He steps away from the pod and starts to swiftly march back towards the exit, but not without fixing his eyes on Leonardo. "Make sure he doesn't hurt himself or breaks anything. I will be back shortly. Then we get your brother out of there."

They had been in here for an excruciating lifetime already and Tony still hadn't solved the problem, so he probably deserved that deliberate misinterpretation and only grit his teeth, glad to watch Wesker go out of the corner of his eye. Ideally, they could get Donnie free and be gone before they had to deal with him again. Tony was still tense as he rose curiously at Leonardo's observation, to consider the screen himself. "It wasn't a random discharge, it's a security feature," he was willing to accept then, with the evidence of careful management and diligent recording in front of him. "Good job, sweetheart, keep it up, what else you got for me?"

The whole thing relied on steady power. Why were they bothering to play by the same rules? With a glance up and around like he was searching for something, Tony suddenly asked the air, "Enide, beautiful, you up?" Snatching up the screwdriver and turning back toward where Donnie was contained, he continued seamlessly, "If there isn't a failsafe, we'll just crack this thing open. Enide, throw the breaker for this room, we're doing some repairs, safety first."

Nothing happened. After a beat, the strange, synthetic voice of the ship rang out, "I do not understand the designation, 'this room'."

Frustrated, and standing over Donnie's bed with the screwdriver clenched in his fist like a knife, Tony demanded, "This one, the one I'm standing in right now. You know where everyone else is all of the time."

The voice didn't seem to have an answer for that.

Sweetheart? Is that the machine or him?

Leo doesn’t have time to puzzle that out, because things happen very fast. The doctor leaves without explaining what he’s doing or where he’s going, and then Tony starts addressing that weird ship AI as Enide.

Who is completely unhelpful. Great.

“Do we even want to turn the power off? What if he needs it?”

"The power is what is keeping that thing sealed," Tony pointed out, scanning around again. "If our conclusion right now is that he needs to be in there, then, great, job done, let's hit the showers." If the ship wasn't going to help, Tony would go to the source of the power himself, crouching down to find the likely point of connection that was feeding energy to the pod.

“That’s why I wanted a doctor, but he just left!”

Leo groans in frustration, running his hands over his face again. Why did he think he should contact Tony? Because he thought Donnie would want him here, but Leo isn’t sure it’s actually helping. Then again he doesn’t think the other guy is helping either…

Leo comes close to the force field again, looking down at Donnie. He’s way too still, it’s unnerving. He puts his hand against it, wishing he could touch his brother.

“We can’t just screw around here. Dee… he has to be okay. If anything happens to him…” Leo trails off, his throat suddenly very tight.

That doctor caused exponentially more problems than Tony had ever seen him solve, but it wasn't a great time to assure Leonardo that his departure was probably in their best interest. He hadn't responded at all to the encouragement, the current was clearly going the other way already. "He'll be back," Tony murmured instead, not sure that was even true, as he kept his focus on his search.

He chanced looking up as the kid came closer, and immediately regretted it, quickly looking respectfully away from the humiliating display of emotion. "He's been through worse than a nap," he replied, even an conversational like he hadn't heard Leonardo's anxiety. "Did you know he fought a vampire? On his own, middle of the night, didn't even get bit."

The comment is surprising, enough to shock Leo out of his uncharacteristic display of emotion. Leo takes a deep breath and pulls his normal expression back on. He’s the face man, he can face in any situation.

“Yeah?” Leo laughs. “That doesn’t surprise me - he’s a badass.” He squints at Tony. “Don’t tell him I said that, though, or he’ll be annoying.”

That was a better tone, and Tony risked glancing back up again when he had his brief smile back under control and could insist seriously, "He's already annoying." Under his hands, the panel he had been working free from the wall behind the bed came loose, and he could duck back into his work as he continued, "That's why you like him so much. I'm definitely telling him, by the way. I could have said he punched a dragon, and you would have believed me."

Immediately, Leo bristles. Tony’s right, but still!

“Would not! Besides, whatever he’s done, I do ten more impressive things before lunch!”

So there!

“What are you doing?”

"Well, he has, so now I've got to tell him you think he's scared of dragons," Tony replied, grimacing like Leonardo had put him in a very awkward position. Who wanted to hear something like that about their own brother? Meanwhile, he was digging the flashlight out of his toolbelt to try to get a better view inside this wall, because it really should have housed more than plumbing, but all he was seeing was pipes. "I told you, I'm trying to shut the power off, no power no pod."

“Now you’re just trying to entrap me.”

In any other situation, kicking him into the pipes would be appealing. But he does want Donnie out of the pod, so he doesn’t do that.

He leans forward to look. “I don’t see a plug…”

It’s about that time when Wesker finally returns only to find the unlikely pair seemingly in the process of dismantling a different part of the room.

“I see you have somehow managed not to end up in a pod yourself.” He remarks dryly while returning to the pod occupied by Leonardo’s brother. It not makes sense. He can understand what it’s doing and how to use the controls.

The data points remain extraordinary pieces of technology, making the trip back to his ship worthwhile. Too bad none of the information gained from them is permanent. But after heading back to his assigned ship and changing his expertise to Medical, the pods and their controls are a lot less of an enigma.

The man finds his way back to the occupied pod and brings its control panel back up.

By then, Tony was waist deep in the wall, and murmuring to himself around the flashlight in his teeth, searching for the system that had to be there if he was going to persist believing they were not on board a magical construct. After a moment, he was calling something that could have been, "Got it!" to warn about an impending change, garbled around the flashlight and mostly vowels. They didn't have much time to fill in the consonants before the room went black.

The AI was suddenly very aware of where they were, filling the darkened room with noise as it alerted them all very urgently of impending doom. In the gloom, Tony was a watery light, clambering back out of the wall then bouncing as he dropped the flashlight back into his hand to grumble, "Yeah, yeah, we're all gonna die."

The AI seem very convinced, repeating, "Danger!" and "Alert!" and "Life support failing!" and mostly "Help!" While it shouted, Tony scanned Donnie's prone form, frowning at the lack of safety release. Who designed life support pods that didn't automatically open in an emergency? The performance that the AI was putting on was getting less convincing by the second. Tony tried giving the bed an encouraging kick.

Leo isn’t sure he should be reassured by the doctor’s return or not. If he’s actually a doctor then it’s good, but…

Tony announces his success, and the lights go out. Which should be good, except now the computer voice is screaming for help and the pod still isn’t opening.

Leo has about had it. Tony’s glibness is not helping matters. He turns his attention to Wesker. Of course, with the power off, Leo has no idea what he can glean from looking at this thing.

“Where did you go?!” he shouts to be heard over the AI’s alarms.

Wesker is nearly done giving the pod the necessary instructions when the room suddenly goes dark. An absolute darkness only disturbed by Tony's flashlight and the sharp glow of two deep red orbs that briefly move over the turtle only to ignore the question in favor of fixating on the man apparently set on killing at least someone this day.

"You idiot!" Wesker snarls, one of his hands landing flat on the console in front of him. Not hard enough to break it, but it's the one thing he can do to keep himself from seriously hurting Stark. "Unless you want him dead, you will turn the power back on now!"

"My god, everyone tone it down, you're going to give yourselves wrinkles," Tony complained, eyes up at the ceiling to glare at the panicking AI for getting them all riled up. "If any of you genuinely believe that one wire is going to make the whole system shut down, I'm going to have to, respectfully, be the one to tell you that you're on the team for your charming smile." Especially after a very targeted attack; if it was that easy to wipe them out, it would have happened a long time ago. Now, Tony could jam the screwdriver into the bed of the pod, adding a shriek of metal to the cacophony of the warning voice all around them, then a groaning crack as he aimed a kick at it to wedge it open.

His question goes ignored (and what the hell is with this guy? Glowing eyes!?) in favor of yelling at Tony. The admonishment has Leo tensing - he thinks Donnie could die!? Wasn’t it “just a nap” before!?

Tony tells them all to calm down. Leo would love to, but his brother’s wellbeing is in question and no one here seems to have a real handle on the situation. He wishes he had found someone else to help. He wishes he had never agreed to try to get into the pod in the first place.

“Even if we’re fine, if the life support is off in Dee’s pod that isn’t helping-“

The screech of metal cuts whatever Leo is trying to say off, and he grounds his teeth in frustration. In the dark of the room, his stripes start to glow like neon, yellow from his arms and legs and red from his face. He’s not doing it consciously, but as his panic grows his ninpo starts to react on its own.

Wesker moves before Tony can land another kick. One moment he is at the controls of the pod, the next his hand is on Tony's throat, lifting the man off the ground with ease and a vicious, yet very much controlled snarl. "You are not listening. And I will not let you harm him."

His hold tightens slightly while Wesker's glowing eyes narrow. "If you pull him out now, he will remain in the state he is in. He won't wake up. If you damage the pod, you risk harming the patient inside. I left to acquire the knowledge we need." At the last sentence he casts a glance in Leonardo's way, who is displaying a rather unique reaction to his very own distress.

At some point, maybe the moment that Leonardo had texted him, they had all decided on very different goals, and it was only then that Tony realized he had to explain his own, "That's why I'm getting him out--" His words were crushed into his throat. In the dark, he didn't even understand what had happened for a moment, chest immediately burning in panic without a breath to hold, and hands flying up around his neck to grab at the wrist he found there. There wasn't much else for him to do, legs kicking out frantically, not even sure where to aim.

What the hell is happening now!?

Leo appreciates what Wesker is saying, but it’s all negated by the fact that he’s choking Tony now. The situation is absolute chaos and none of it is helping Donnie.

Leo has his sword out in a flash, the length of the blade lighting up with blue runes as his power floods through it.

“KNOCK IT OFF!”

He swipes through the air, not aiming to hit either of them with the blade, but that’s because he doesn’t have to; a shimmering blue portal opens beneath Wesker and Tony’s feet, to drop them across the pod room, about six feet from the ground.

However they handle this sudden displacement, Leo will be following after them, landing surprisingly gracefully for someone with a shell.

“What is wrong with both of you!?”

While Wesker notices the strange portal underneath them, he can't move out of the way to prevent the drop. What he can do, however, is to quickly shift his hold on Tony to not snap the man's neck with the sudden motion and impact. So between the portal opening and landing somewhere else, Wesker quickly moves Tony's body to hang safely over his shoulder instead and holding him there as he drops back on his feet, now glaring at the turtle instead.

"I can ask the same." He growls. "If BOTH of you just did what I said, your brother would already be awake again." It's really no wonder that these people just kept getting into these sort of predicaments. No one pauses to take a moment and just think rationally.

Tony had pulled enough Gs in his life that feeling the ground tilt enough times in quick succession wouldn't usually make him feel like he was going to puke. It was the unexpected impact on his guts and sudden rush of air that managed that part, and all he could really do was grab blindly to try to get some control back and figure out where he was based on the way Leonardo's voice bounced--first over there, then just as suddenly up close, and that wasn't helping either.

If Wesker hadn’t been choking him in the first place then Tony would have handled the drop just fine!

“What you said!? You barely said anything, and then you just took off! And you can’t do that, guy, because no matter how you look at it your vibes are rancid.

“And this guy,” he gestures at the still-recovering Tony, “is supposed to be some kind of smart guy, or that’s what Dee said. Someone who actually understands all his nerd speak. But all you did was turn off the power and then kick it!? Come on, man, even I know how to do that!”

"I recall telling you to not let this fool do anything stupid." Wesker reminds the turtle without letting go of Tony just yet. The man may be puking his guts out while clinging to him, but that wasn't the actual issue at the moment.

He uses his free hand to give his sunglasses a quick adjustment. It's at that very moment that the power returns to the room with a hum and the dim lights around them return. "My vibes change nothing about the fact that obviously I am the only one around here that prefers a professional approach. I am here to fix the mess you got yourself into and all I ask in return is that you refrain from being idiots for five minutes." Wesker has tried the non-violent approach. But with someone like Tony that always seems to be an attempt in futility.

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