revivalproject

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[ The video turns on to reveal your local Archivist, deep scowl on his perpetually tired face, an already very used looking pencil behind his ear and a cigarette between his fingers. Yes, that particular habit is getting worse, but judging by the open sky above him he's at least not taking it inside.

But it's the scowl that mainly addresses the network. ]

Very well. Might as well inform you all that the hospital staff has been reduced to one. I am no trained professional, have no noteworthy abilities that qualify me for the task, but I... I will do what I can should the need arise. I won't always be at the hospital, so you will have to contact me should you need anything- And I ask of everyone to abstain from needlessly reckless endeavors more likely to getting yourself hurt than resulting in any progress. I... I just-

[ He pauses, takes one deep breath and closes his eyes. ]

... I can't split myself in two.

I'm sorry.

[[ ooc: Adult Content Warning for the comments below. ]]

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Tony's initial response earns him a glare and a huff in acknowledgement of the look he offers before Jon lets his head drop back again "I didn't expect it to go this badly. I... I hadn't even planned to say all of that. It just... Happened."

He lets his nails trail idly over Tony's back, feeling rather grateful for the still oddly calming presence of his body "Maybe a letter would have been the better choice."

That wasn't a surprise, Jon happened to say some cutting shit all of the time, so Tony gave a slow nod as he bit his lip against a laugh. It didn't speak well of Altair's resolve still, letting Jon's charming personality scare him out of an important job, but Tony could see someone who had any kind of pride to protect taking it much harder than Tony did. The one-two of two people calling Altair an asshole couldn't have helped.

He gave Jon a break, his calculating fingers working their way up to his shoulder to test the tension they found there and along the side of his neck while Tony watched for any more in his face. It wasn't meant to be the cause of more tension, it was just a thought that occurred to him that, Tony reasoned, really made Jon's concerns about causing pain unreasonable unless he honestly thought his bedside manner could use the work, when Tony asked, "Is that what you did to Tommy?" The kid was good at riling anybody up and was incredibly easy to read; someone with a deadly strike like Jon could devastate him.

"..." The silence this question brings forth is a palpable one. Tommy. Tommy is a difficult case. Jon still wants to think he sought the boy out in hopes of helping him, but the more he thinks about it the more he wonders if he hasn't been attempting to hunt after all.

He stares up at the ceiling as he answers "I... tracked down his fear, followed him, trapped him in his own home... And forced him to tell me his darkest secret - And the names of those he fears the most to learn about it." He turns his head away after those words, feeling a certain shame welling up in him again. He hasn't told anyone just what exactly Tommy has told him - And he doesn't plan to. But back then...

He had felt powerful.

The pregnant pause was enough to make Tony regret asking. His wandering hand didn't quite still, but dropped loose over Jon's chest, fingers curling endlessly through the short hair there while Tony studied his face, not completely sure how to read it even with a tilt of his head to try to follow Jon's gaze as he turned away. This position dulled his senses, he knew that from the amount of trouble it had gotten him into in the past, but this wasn't nearly the most heinous of crimes he had heard confessed on his pillows. Besides, the fact that it wasn't ever the last crime didn't put Tony's judgement entirely in doubt, he was still very sure that particular anxious flutter of a heart against his had to mean remorse.

He lifted his head to comb his fingers through Jon's hair again, shifting himself up to first assure him with a light kiss to his jaw then under his ear before Tony settled his chin back into his hand. "He's just a kid, Jon," he muttered then. It might not have been heinous, but it was horrifically invasive, especially for someone Tommy's age-- Tony wasn't sure if he was angry, necessarily. Frustrated, maybe. Scared, definitely. He couldn't tell what had made Tommy Jon's target in this case, but there wasn't a good option that he could see.

"He is..." Jon agrees quietly, tensing his hands into fists to subdue the light trembling beginning to overtake them and he turns his head back to face Tony again "But at the time... It felt right? All I did was ask and watch him tell me those names despite not wanting to. He was mortified..."

And Jon had soaked it all up greedily back then. It had just felt so justified back then. But thinking back be feels sickened by his own actions.

"I keep wondering... How much of my humanity I even have left." He pauses, then glances away with a tiny frown and a tinier twitch at the corner of his mouth "...right now I feel incredibly human." Confessing all this while allowing himself to be vulnerable. While being with someone he cares for.

It was anger, Tony realized, from that brief insight. It was cold and sick in his stomach, not hot and urgent, tangled in a protective instinct for the Young Avengers that wrestled with a shame of not having earned it, especially not after the way Tommy had reacted to him on Risa. It was a twinge of his own humiliation for the words that seeped out of him because Jon had asked so naturally, the skin-crawling intrusion of it even without the horror of revealing his darkest secret. And it was the knowledge that he didn't have an easy avenue to reach out to Tommy, already resentful of him, without telling Tommy that he knew about this shame, another exposure. He swallowed thickly and carefully unwound himself from Jon to push himself up, needing the room and the air, rolling to his feet aimlessly with only the counter where Jon had gone to prepare the tea focusing his intent. He could figure out how to boil water, probably.

"Step nine," he offered eventually, "Make amends." Tony had been over here assuring Jon he was more than the addiction, of course he was human, not nearly long enough ago to forget because of a blowjob and a confession, so he couldn't really direct that anger at Jon. He knew what Jon needed to eat, and he knew how Jon drawn him back in apology for using the same tricks on him, but it had to be fucking Tommy and Jon trapped him...Tony folded his arms on the counter, bowing over them with his shoulders pushed tensely up as he heaved a sigh.

With Tony withdrawing like this, Jon found himself painfully aware of the chill of this room. Maybe it has even become colder. He sits up with a silent sigh and pulls his legs towards him, sitting cross-legged and pulling the blankets up and around him. It’s not the same feeling, of course. But with Tony lamenting...

He has been aware that his actions were bound to mark him out as the monster he is. His friends haven’t been able to forgive him, why should these strangers? He can practically hear Helen’s words ’It would be better if you just embraced it, Archivist.’ And maybe she is right... struggling to remain human so far hasn’t been working out too well for him.

Tony’s suggestion draws Jon’s attention up from where he has been staring at one of the blankets and he finds himself biting his lip “I- I don’t know... How. Or if I e-even can. Never had his trust before. He didn’t even like me. Why- Why would he forgive me...”

This water was taking far too long to boil and the stutter was back in Jon's voice, drawing Tony's haunches up further. This conversation he could handle, though, he'd had it a million times before with himself; he might not be able to fix the problem with Tommy, but he spent most of his life ruminating on forgiveness. He pushed himself away from the counter, irritable with his progress there, and back to the boxes where Jon's dishevelment now just made him look small and tortured. "He doesn't have to," Tony pointed out as he took a seat again next to him, not sure if the blanket meant he wasn't allowed to touch anymore and pressing his back against the uncomfortably cold wall for it. He clasped his hands between his knees and squeezed his wrists in his thighs, like the vice might finally stop their ceaseless wandering. "He might never forgive you. That's his call. But that's a lame excuse not to make your apologies anyway." With his head against the wall, Tony watched Jon beside him carefully, not sure if he was communicating any of this clearly with his nails biting into his skin. "Make amends for yourself, admit you were wrong, and give him some peace because right now he knows you're going to do it again."

It's odd how the first thing Jon notices when Tony returns to the boxes is that he keeps his hands pinned away and pretty much out of Jon's reach. The words Tony speaks, however, make another thing obvious to Jon: He has never even tried to apologize. Be it out of shame or out of fear of yet another rejection he doesn't know. But he hasn't even attempted that simple and in theory very obvious first step.

The realization makes him wince a little as he mumbles "...I didn't even try to say sorry."

Taking his nest-cocoon of blankets with him, Jon shifts over to the wall himself, flopping gracelessly against it but leaving a little space between himself and Tony. A space which he isn't sure is his place to cover. He lets his eyes trail over the folds of the blankets "But you are right. I- I should at least let him know." Oddly enough that idea hasn't crossed his own mind, even. But maybe that's instinct, too. Leave people to dwell in their worries and fears to return to watch them suffer again and again and again...

"Always am," Tony still managed to mutter, without the usual bravado and down to his lap, but with a faint smirk nonetheless. It faded just as quickly as it appeared, Tony furrowing his brow and unsure that was even a step toward fixing the larger problem, that Jon had done this thing and seemed to actively starve himself into the position of wanting to do it, but a sincere apology was never a step backward. The space between them felt cavernous, rare enough even when Jon was snapping frustrated with him and Tony was still pawing at him anyway, worse with the feel of Jon's heartbeat still fluttering under Tony's ribs. "I'm sorry," he said abruptly, head still down, taking his own advice, "For...this." One of his hands had to escape then, language failing him again, so he could gesture to Jon wrapped up protectively in his blankets; for taking advantage of Jon when he knew he was vulnerable, manipulating him into telling Tony about Tommy, his impatience. "You should-- you were trying to tell me about your-- thing," he tried to acknowledge, giving that loose gesture toward the door and the stacks of paper that Jon had churned out and Tony had just offered to fix with a generator, he could listen, honestly, Jon didn't have to entirely pull away from him.

Jon may not catch the smirk, but the apology, unexpected as it may be, has him look up and at Tony first, then towards his gesturing hand and what it is indicating. And he has no intention of letting that chance pass. So of course one of his hands slowly emerges from the accumulated blankets and seizes Tony's only to drag it into the depths of Jon's blanket nest where it is by now almost impossibly warm.

The capture is punctuated by a remotely content, yet very small noise and Jon gives a slow shake of his head.

"It's fine. I- Got it to stop." The wild input of information. "Was a bad idea anyway. I... Knew- That I can't control it." And as for everything else... Well. Jon won't say he didn't at least to some degree deserve it.

That request was self-explanatory, Jon trying to correct him from leaving in the first place, and it was such a relief that Tony found himself slouching down the wall without a rod of tension up his back, his other hand immediately jumping free from where he held it still to curl over his heart instead, fingers working restlessly to crease and smooth the gathers of his shirt. He let Jon hold the other one for only a beat, waiting for further explanation, until it was clear it wasn't coming and Tony tugged his arm away to slide behind Jon's back instead and wrap around his shoulder, tugging him against Tony's side. Fuck, he hated himself, what else was new, he wouldn't have a good answer for Tommy when he asked why Tony knew and didn't do anything about it, just like he didn't have a good answer when Sunset walked out with a few billion dollars under her arm, or he let Whitney slip away to burn down an embassy. He wanted to feel that weight against him, he had this under control, it was going to be fine this time.

"It was a pleasure to be of service," he interpreted for Jon, the arrogance still not quite in his voice but Tony breathed a laugh as he ran teasing fingertips along Jon's collarbone, happy to take all of the credit for shutting his brain off for an indulgent moment before he was worrying the front of his shirt more jaggedly with concern. "Is it going to happen again?" he asked carefully.

He may not get to keep Tony's hand in his own hold for long, but Jon will gladly accept being pulled close by it again. That at least takes care of that dreadful distance. And there is Tony's other hand as well, currently so much more restful and speaking of the man's fretful mind. The concerned display validates Jon reaching out again and simply covering that hand with his. There's a lot to worry about, he gets it.

Tony's commentary and question draw Jon's attention up to him once again and he leans his head against Tony's shoulder, pointing out "...you may have to be more precise." He glances over to the open door Tony has indicated before "Will I be flooded with knowledge again? Not to that degree, no. It normally only trickles through every now and then. Single pieces, not entire encyclopedias." He pauses to glance up towards the ceiling "Will I force answers from someone again? I don't know? I'm- Trying not to? But I'm not sure I can give a guarantee." His eyes wander further around, now landing back on Tony "Will I let you shut me up again?" And here is a pause that lingers before being met with a brief, crooked smile and a one-sided shrug "Possibly." Should such a desire even still exist.

At any rate, these are the three possible questions he can come up with right away. If Tony is asking anything else, he will need to ask full questions.

Whatever had been going on with Jon hadn't been clear, so Tony didn't know how to be more precise and was glad when he got it in one anyway, as usual more perceptive when Tony wasn't trying to fill the room with noise. It sounded like a DDoS attack to the brain, not entirely alien to Extremis, but Tony couldn't imagining functioning through it and trying to write it all down, by hand no less, like Jon seemed to have. He tickled his knuckles along Jon's neck in appreciation for figuring out what Tony meant as he reversed their hold against his chest to massage his thumb into Jon's palm, sure he had to be hiding some cramping this whole time.

He wasn't expecting any further answers, and wasn't sure he appreciated the second one so much. The ambiguity wasn't really a problem, the fact that Jon even had to ask in the first place was a whole step removed from far more invasive telepaths that Tony had known and while he clearly wasn't a fan, there was an arguable precedent for acceptability should Jon be brought before a jury of his peers. Tony wasn't as worried about that as he was about Jon hunting down kids to humiliate them, and that he didn't seem to see the difference. Still yet, while Tony didn't share the smile, the third answer made him bring the hand he held to his lips to kiss Jon's palm, then his wrist, eyes shut against his frustrations. "Your water's boiling," he mumbled instead.

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