revivalproject | affliction

Entry tags:

affliction

WHO: Tony, Billy, and anyone that wants to deal with the fallout from the first bug bites
WHERE: L'hopital
WHAT: Come visit Tony as he recovers and try to figure out what's going on with this infestation!
WHEN: Backdate a bit. Shortly after the rage incident with the Young Avengers (Tommy's included? Unsure.)
WARNINGS: Everyone got a little hurt, some injuries might be gross? Depends on if anyone is here to do actual hospital stuff.

The recovery was definitely going much faster than it would have without Extremis' accelerated healing, but that didn't make Tony any more patient with it. They had worked fast, he had only been out for a few minutes, he knew that much-- he had been completely brain dead for half an hour the last time he had a very similar heart attack, and Nick Fury couldn't keep him lying around in bed for more than a day. He could at least get some sleep that time, though. The shock hadn't burst straight through his chest, leaving him feeling mummified under the dressing that only irritated the raw depression over his heart and the lightning burst that shredded across his back, impossible still to put any weight on. And he had been revived by a team of very professional EMTs, not one frenetic teenager stabbing him with a needle that left his whole chest cavity feeling bruised and swollen and impossible to breath in any other position. If he deigned to stay in bed, he was sitting up, cross-legged, bent over the D.A.T.A. sphere recovered from where he had abandoned it in the diner, excruciatingly trying to coax Extremis from focusing on the physical to let him do some programming, at least, barely mustering a small, golden nanoweb over his fingertips to create a contact point with the sphere.

More likely, though, he was draped in a sweater that made him stiff and uncomfortable, too aware of every stitch of yarn in it, but not feel quite as vulnerable as he lurked around the front desk or break room behind it to try to fill in the gaps of his still unreliable short term memory. He still didn't exactly understand why he was here, what could have possibly gone so wrong after several months of solidly risky behaviour in an alien environment on a morning that, Tony was pretty sure, he only had plans to behave himself with a cup of coffee for once. And he was still owed that cup; he definitely didn't remember enjoying it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Someone had definitely been out of the loop. But then someone was also been busy trying to clean up a mess he was starting to have to admit was probably partially his responsibility. Unfortunately without a gun to do it, it just made the job a lot more tedious and fairly messier.

At least flaming knives worked wonders, but that wasn't a trick the Hunter could pull off back-to-back. And he still much preferred a flaming gun.

There'd been messages. Oh had there been messages. Tony'd find a considerable backlog of voice messages and some very badly typo'd but obvious attempts at texting while Killing Things, but the lack of response only made it worrying. He wasn't expecting to find Tony at the hospital when he'd meant to find Jon to see if maybe the Archivist knew anything. But then there he was, puttering about the front desk wearing a...sweater? Okay? What? Was it sweater season? Did that matter right now?

The Exo looked ready to say something, amber light spilling from his opening jaws before he hesitated, perhaps finally taking in Tony's current appearance with something of a wince.

This wouldn't have been as excruciating if the hospital wasn't so completely abandoned, both before and after the arrival of the He Rows. There were no patient records to dig into, only Jon's encyclopedia of giraffes that wasn't nearly as interesting as wasting all of this paper warranted, only making Tony slowly lean more of his weight on the desk as he lost the will to stand or stick around in this place at all. If he went back to the forge he could be getting something done while he wasn't sleeping-- finally, there Jon was to needle about the waste until Tony at least had something to fight about, making Tony turn a scathing look toward the door that opened only for it to quickly transform into surprise that anyone else was here, then a horrific realization. "Shit," he greeted, dropping his head into his hands with a groan. He hadn't even put his communicator back together since getting it back from the diner, but he knew there had to be plenty of jobs his brain had dumped when it went dark. He really needed Pepper for this kind of thing, she would have had an updated schedule for him ready the moment he woke up. "Your gun," he acknowledged into his hands.

"I do miss her," Cayde casually replied. He stepped further inside, head tilting as he hooked his thumbs in his belt. "Made do, but I'd still very much like her back." He paused. "...whenever you're good for it, of course."

He let that simmer a while before forging on, because he had a feeling there was something had happened and it wasn't pleasant.

"So," he began, his optics flicking about as he gave a slight gesture of a hand around their current surroundings. "What'd I miss?"

Tony could guess what 'made do' meant and pushed himself upright again, pressing his shoulders back as much as possible for what confident display of strength he could manage with one arm still holding him up on the desk, looking Cayde over and not sure if he would know if the guy was damaged at all from his misadventures. At first glance, though, they seemed to have treated him better than Tony's, the question making him twirl his free hand dismissively, you know, the usual. "The kids were having some kind of domestic. You'd have to ask them, but I can't recommend getting in the middle of it, they really don't hold back," he offered with a ginger pat to his chest and the peak of bandage at his collar. "It's no excuse," he continued, the pat becoming an apology held to his heart, "I shouldn't have left you hanging, name your price and we'll settle, no need to call the judge. She's back at the forge, you can go find her if you want, I got what I needed to make the ammo."

Cayde made something of a face at that, not sure that he bought the whole excuse but Tony had his own vernacular and there was a big chunk of that story that wasn't being told. He tipped his head, optics narrowing at the bandaging and the suggestion of worse beneath the sweater.

"Excuses are one thing. Unexpected circumstances, entirely permissible so long as you get around 'em still kicking." He waved his hand. "I don't do domestic disputes but how about we set that aside for the moment, I'll pick up Ace later, and you tell me you're gonna be fine, because you look like you're going to fall over if the desk weren't there."

Now Tony looked aghast, shocked at this accusation against his character and insisted, "Of course I'm fine. I just got my eyebrow back, d'you think I can make up for lost time lying around here? Please." Who there was in Temba that Tony was meant to be charming with both brows was debatable, but he did give a wiggle of them at Cayde to test their effectiveness at distracting from his hand still planted on the desk, which could have been out of necessity or pure stubbornness now, Cayde wasn't a telepath. Was he? He did hide the flying thing from Tony. "What about you? How's the hunt? Uh--" Not sure where Jon was at the moment, Tony gave a quick glance between the doors leading off of the room, then corrected, "Bottle any more juice?"

The Exo made a snorting sound that gave the illusion he could still breathe as Tony waggled those eyebrows. He was no telepath, but he was a poker player and he'd call someone's bluff as he saw it. Tony did love to try distracting from a problem. The man had his tells.

"Taking a break, recharging." He shrugged. "Think I've been doing a pretty good job if I do say so myself." That was in regards to the hunt. Giant bugs weren't his idea of excitement but it was something, and it was kind of their fault they were even around up there. Probably. Maybe.

"Negative on the juice. Still's set up but I haven't found anything to put in it yet to give it a try."

That they had even got as far as setting up the still anywhere was news to Tony, who had really only been searching for a euphemism to talk about the pest problem but was thrilled to discover any progress being made on Cayde's bar between his exterminator side job. After a noise of mild surprise, Tony asked, "Can't it be, just, anything? Throw some mushrooms in there, see what happens? If the thing blows up, it can be rebuilt, we have the technology."

It was a sidetrack he'd rather take, if only because maybe he'd get some ideas that didn't make him think of the lack of red stuff he had for a bar on the account of too many molotov cocktails. Not that he'd ever say there were too much. Who ever complained about having too many incendiaries?

"...mushroom whiskey just sounds like a bad idea. Not that I know if they even have any of those. There's these...blue banana things? Hey, I wonder what would happen if we tried those red berry things." That couldn't possibly go wrong, right?

"Isn't that what kombucha is?" Tony wondered, genuinely not sure and squinting thoughtfully at the ceiling. There were way too many radical health benefits touted by kombucha drinkers for Tony to have ever dared thinking too hard about it, that wasn't his scene, but he was pretty sure fermenting fungus was part of the process and no, that didn't make it sound like any better of an idea; Cayde was right. Bananas didn't sound any better, making Tony wrinkle his nose at the idea of banana spirits, far less appealing to the palate than the mushrooms had been. "What's Eli been using as a sweetener?" he suggested instead. He knew they were experimenting with cakes and desserts at the diner, there had to be options. "Keep it classic. Space Rum."

"I thought that was seaweed." Which really didn't sound any better as an ingredient base. "Uuuuh...haven't asked," he admitted as Eli was mentioned. He did snap-point at the idea though.

"Space Rum. I like it. Of course, we'd need something appropriately spacey." If that greenhouse had anything glowing he'd probably try that. Glowing drinks would be cool!

"-but maybe that should be put on hold until I do another bug sweep. I was thinking of bombing the hole- good idea, bad idea?"

Based on the amount of glowing this planet had to go around, it had to be pretty likely that some of it could be distilled. Now was not the best time for Tony to be wondering about the kind of buzz that glowing cave moss might be able to provide, though, and it was much less risky that Cayde had something more explosive to talk about. "Terrible idea," Tony confirmed, "You'll need someone to spot you." So it was clear who Cayde's options were, Tony peeled his hand off of the desk to hold both to his chest, only wavering slightly, to show he was willing to make this great sacrifice. "And the bombs, of course. You could always settle for an inferior product, but is this where you want to be counting your pennies?" It was starting to become horribly apparent that they couldn't leave any room for error with these bugs, unless Cayde wanted to be a full time exterminator and they had the kind of biological investigative skills to make sure the thing that had latched onto Billy was just coincidentally also a bug that happened to appear at the same time. But Cayde didn't need to know about that suspicion just yet, he shouldn't take a lot of convincing to set something on fire.

As much as Cayde liked to shoot things he didn't want to waste his time (nor his bullets) on bug hunting. They didn't even drop any loot! What was the point! ...aside from the obvious, obviously, saving people that might otherwise have problems with giant bug attacks (like Jon).

The Exo arched a metal brow at Tony's response. Then he squinted as the man finally withdrew his hand from the desk.

"...all right, we make better bombs. Preferably ones that only torch bugs and don't bring down the entire cliffside and anything above the bug burrow, otherwise people might notice."

Nodding and looking incredibly engaged, as thought Cayde was making a fantastic point, Tony slowly lowered himself back down to brace both elbows on the desk, arms folded in front of him to let out a long, measure breath instead of a grunt. Truthfully, Cayde hadn't made any point whatsoever, just expressed a preference that Tony doubted he really held and wasn't sure who the performance was for exactly. From there, Tony presented his alternative view, "Nothing wrong with being noticed, Hot Stuff," with a disarming grin that would have been much more effective if he hadn't wasted his energy on the last display. After all, it wasn't like they could make this shithole any worse. They just had to make sure no one else thought the hole was a fun place to play.

Was it a bad thing that Cayde was still curious about what lay at the bottom of the gaping pit? Surely not more bugs! That was like, what, a one in a million chance? It wasn't like they were versed in the local fauna, after all.

The important thing was gutting those bugs where it hurt and making sure no more decided to come up. ...although if they all had done so already then maybe they'd just be blowing up an empty nestNO DON'T THINK ABOUT THAT.

They had an obvious mission, and Cayde was determined to see it through. He smirked a bit at Tony. "Careful Stark, you're getting predictable." He stepped over to give him a hearty pat on the shoulder. "So what say we get to work?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

affliction

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject