June-July Storm and Calibrations - OTA

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommy Sheperd, OTA
WHERE: Around Temba, Calibrations Waiting Room, Tommy’s Calibration Room
WHAT: The lead up to and time around Calibrations
WHEN: June 2nd to July 10th
WARNINGS: CW: Tommy’s Calibrations room potentially contains depictions of child abuse and neglect, deprivation of food to a minor, bullying, and possible references toward unintentional property destruction.. It depends on what you touch (each will have warnings in strike-through attached). One happier memory does occur, though.


Helping Hand (Around Temba - June 2nd, the 36 Hours - OTA)

The message comes and a few things happen. First, Tommy freezes. The storm had been bad the last time. The lack of powers, the way he fractured his ankle, the way he’d seen people he’d lost, the way he’d wanted to hide and never come back. The idea of it happening again scared him more than anything. Add in his new issues with lightning and it got more complicated, not less. Of course while he freezes forever, it’s actually only a minute, and then he’s moving.

While he hasn’t been to his home since things went wrong, he moves immediately there and starts packing a box with all of his things. And after a moment of thought, his brother’s things, and Teddy’s for good measure. Some clothes for them all, a few personal touches to feel comfortable. The painting Vision made for him happened to go into a box too. And once that is all left off in the mouth of the tunnel, he’s back in the city.

He stops at the Greenhouse and spends time harvesting every last thing that’s ripe that he can get his hands on. They’ll need food if they’re going to be there for a while. Then it’s off to the ships. Grabbing anything loose and useful on the ship is the goal to get things back. He then moves around the city, racing up to anyone he sees and stopping to ask an important question.

“Is there anything I can do to help you? Anything you need carried? Hell, I’ll carry you.”

Safety matters, and he’s a hero. It’s going to happen.


Calibrations Waiting Room

Here

Calibrations [CW: Tommy’s Calibrations room potentially contains depictions of child abuse and neglect, deprivation of food to a minor, bullying, and possible references toward unintentional property destruction. It depends on what you touch (each will have warnings in strike-through attached). One happier memory included.]

The room is different than the waking hours, but not much. It’s not actually emptier but it somehow manages to feel it, in an abandoned sort of way. Instead of a queen-sized bed, there’s a twin mattress on the floor, next to which there sits a half-eaten package of off-brand poptarts cw: neglect and deprivation of food. The mattress itself is resting under a window so dirty and dusty that it’s almost impossible to see out through it. Instead of the drawers there’s just a closet, open and mostly bare save for a pillow in the corner. And across from the pillow a beat-up bookbag cw: bullying. Hidden up on the shelf in the closet is a dusty high school yearbook cw: explosions, property destruction, for a school in New Jersey, Go Pumas! The last object of any real note in the room is a discarded belt cw: child abuse. Okay, no, there’s also what looks like a picture pinned to a wall, seemly drawn by a child. It’s on that level at least, it’s made of crayon, and depicts people in very colorful costumes, with something scrawled under it. Welcome to the Young Avengers it reads.

In the middle of it all, metaphorically, is Tommy, looking around the room in disgust.

Comments

Calibrations

[wearingthestars]

Fortunately this is no longer Billy's first experience with these rooms, but rather unfortunately, he finds himself walking into his brother's and freezes up. Even without touching anything he feels guilty for the intrusion. Tommy tries so hard to keep himself safe, that just occupying this space feels like a betrayal.

"...Hey," he greets, "I- um...is there anything you'd rather I didn't...see?" he asks awkwardly.

Re: Calibrations

[doubled_speed]

Oh boy, is there ever a list.

"Does it even fucking matter?" Tommy asks, his voice soft and strained. An hour is a really fucking long time to sit around, especially for him. Actually, it's longer. A LOT longer here. Because right now, they're in Tommy's mind. And thus they run at his speed.

An hour is an eternity here.

[wearingthestars]

"Of course it matters." Even if it meets sitting here in silence for as long as it takes to get out on his own, he doesn't want to force anything on Tommy he doesn't want. Not when he knows what's bound to be hidden in some of these.

"It's your mind, I wouldn't-...I won't look at anything you want to keep to yourself."

[doubled_speed]

Tommy scoffs, looking away, not looking at his brother.

"Time here, little bro, it's relative to me. It's an hour, but it's an hour out there. Do you even KNOW how long an hour is? Fuck, it's bad enough that I actually sleep eight hours. That's so fucking wrong."

What are they going to do, sit here and talk? Or be quiet? There isn't even any GAMES to play.

[wearingthestars]

Billy frowns sympathetically, even though he can't ever really understand. "I can guess a little, but I've never really understood how exactly it works for you," he acknowledges. He's always pictured it something like dog years, but even that gets confusing.

"Do you know what they all are?" he asks, looking around the room. He's not sure if it's the same for everyone.

[doubled_speed]

"Well, since you're not seeing the rest of the world through my eyes at my speed, that's not going to really get taught this time. But hey, here we are."

Does he know what they all are? No. Tommy shakes his head.

"Someone touched the picture. I know what that is. The rest... I'm not sure what will happen. Or even that the same thing will."

[wearingthestars]

"And you're really okay if I-?" He trails off. It still feels strange. All of this. "...Maybe we won't remember any of this. Like...when you go under anesthetic..."

Calibrations

[heeeyadora]

Catra looks around the bare room with a hum, a little surprised after some of the elaborate displays.

"...Well this is depressing," she notes with heavy sarcasm, look very much mirroring Tommy's in that moment as she looks around. She squints out through the window, trying to see if that's a viable escape route, before sighing heavily and fixing the room's owner with a look.

"Which one of these things is the fastest route out of here, hm? I wanna get this over with." Her tail twitches impatiently behind her.

[doubled_speed]

Oh. Her. The female ‘son’ of Tony, that he’d been asked to kidnap and bring to the secret tunnel. The one that had given him a few cute paper cuts that had already healed. What was she doing here?

“And here I am, not fucking criticizing your shitty mind. Should make you sit here the full fucking hour.”

[heeeyadora]

Two toned eyes narrow, and Catra huffs pointedly, tail giving a slow swish behind her. It hadn't been the ideal introduction to say the least.

"And diiiie of boredom? No thank you. Come on, don't act like you like this any more than I do. I don't wanna go poking around in your brain any more than you'd want to be in mine. So let's just get this over with so we don't have to keep pretending like we care."

[doubled_speed]

Well, if she's going to be here and be an ass... Well, he points to the closet.

"Top shelf. The book there. It'll get you out fast."

Lies. Fucking LIES.

[heeeyadora]

"About time," she grumbles, flashing him a toothy smirk and darting towards the closet to snatch the book up. "What is this anyway?"

[doubled_speed]

"Total bullshit," Tommy answers.

And then they're in a high school chem lab. The room is that sort of low level buzz of noise that comes from a busy class. Now-Tommy stands in the back of the room, grimacing at the arrangement.

"Hope you love chemicals, Sass-bot."

[seeingscarlet]

Wanda feels like she should tread extra carefully. She doesn't belong here - Tommy's one of the few people who's explicitly told her to stay out of his head. But unfortunately, she knows from experience that there's nothing she can do about it. Whatever the Agrii got from the Atroma has made her just as powerless.

Wanda shuffles awkwardly and fiddles with the ends of her sleeves. "...sorry."

[doubled_speed]

Wanda. Tommy looks up and sees her and his face falls. This is going to be like Billy, he thinks. His brain won't let her out without seeing something serious.

"It's alright. It was bound to happen, right?"

[seeingscarlet]

"I can't control it. Whatever they've done to us...I can't make myself leave." She shrugs helplessly. "Unless you want to just wait."

[doubled_speed]

Tommy sighs and stands, moving to her side.

"There's not good things to see here," he warns her. "But it's not like you haven't seen my fears already."

[seeingscarlet]

Wanda casts her eyes around the room until they fall on something harmless: the pop tarts. Wanda laughs and kneels to run a finger over the box. "You know, I made ice cream sandwiches for Thor with these."

Surely this can't be anything important...right?

[doubled_speed]

"You sure?" And they aren't in the room. They're in terrible kitchen, a lot of the pantry doors looking like they're falling off or otherwise dirty. And there's a young kid there, black hair and Tommy's green eyes,

Also in the room is a woman, about Wanda's age. She doesn't look a lot like Tommy at all, except maybe something about her cheeks. She's making a pot of macaroni and cheese.

And there's Tommy as well, Tommy from now. Watching and glaring openly at the woman.

"You're not going to like Mary."

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve knows as soon as he walks into this room that something sorrowful lurks behind the items. The walls and the dust speak of neglect or, at the very least, avoidance. This looks as though it is a room barely entered by anyone who has a respect for it. And that only seems to be underlined by Tommy sat straight in the middle, looking around him as though he'd like to burn the whole place down.

"Hey, Tommy." Steve walks closer but gives the representation of the boy space. "Nice...uh....Nice place."

[doubled_speed]

"It's a fucking shithole and you know it," Tommy counters, his voice sharp as he stirs enough to look up at Steve and process just who it is.

"Come on, what you know of me already, this that surprising, Cap Spangles?"

[brooklyn_boy]

No, it wasn't. But that seemed like rubbing salt into a cut to say so. Instead Steve just shrugged and walked over toward the poptarts. He actually really liked these. They had a special 'Captain American' one with apple pie filling and patriotic icing. He wasn't a huge fan of that specific one, but coming back to life had apparently entitled him to free boxes of them every month.

Steve reaches out for it, wanting to see the flavor.

"At least you have some good snacks, right?"

cw: Child abuse and neglect

[doubled_speed]

Cut? This was so much more than that. This was an open wound plunged right through his chest. This would be rubbing salt into THAT. Handfuls of it.

"Careful," Tommy says, frowning. This... is not going to be good. But he doesn't know if he can stop the other man.


They aren't in the room. They're in terrible kitchen, a lot of the pantry doors looking like they're falling off or otherwise dirty. And there's a young kid there, black hair and Tommy's green eyes,

Also in the room is a woman, about Wanda's age. She doesn't look a lot like Tommy at all, except maybe something about her cheeks. She's making a pot of macaroni and cheese.

And there's Tommy as well, Tommy from now. Watching and glaring openly at the woman. But he's silent. He's seen this before. Lived it too. He watches the woman drain the noodles, mix in the butter and the milk and the cheese powder. The boy watches attentively as it all goes into a single large bowl. And the woman plops a spoon into it and walks out of the kitchen.

"What about me?" the boy, he can't be more than six, asks. His face is sad and his stomach absolutely makes an unhappy noise.

"What about you?" Mary asks, voice sharp as she looks back at him.

"What do I get for lunch?"

The woman narrows her eyes at that. "Who said you get lunch? you're little, you don't need lunch."

"But at school," young Tommy protests, and he can't be in more than kindergarten, "they give us lunch every day. And snacks."

Mary just scoffs and heads out toward the dingy living room.

"When you work and bring money in, you can have lunch."

The kid gets up and moves toward the fridge. And even as he moves to open the fridge there's a shout from the other room.

"You touch a damn thing without permission and I'll tell Frank!"

The boy cowers at that statement and slinks away toward an open door. Through the open door is clearly the same room that was Tommy's mental room, though it's a bit nicer in tha the things in it are not as worn down by another decade of use with no replacement. There's even a sheet on the bed, how nice. The only new thing in the room is a colorful backpack, too big for a boy his age. Far too big. It's the same one in the closet in Tommy's mind room, therefore probably having gone through his whole school career with him.

And the little boy opens the bag fetching out off-brand packages of poptarts. Clearly ones he got from school. The child is very careful as he opens a package and breaks one in half. And... then breaks it in half again sadly before sitting down in his closet to eat. Current Tommy, who had followed the boy, watches himself but younger hide in a closet and eat the poptart-piece, off brand of course, one small bite at a time, like he's savoring it.

With that the memory fades. Leaving them back in the room. Leaving Tommy standing there, glaring at the poptarts in Steve's hand.

[brooklyn_boy]

The memory that Steve sees is one that cuts him to the core. He doesn't really know who the woman is to Tommy, but it doesn't matter. Whoever she is and whoever Frank is, it is clear that they are abusive and starving this boy intentionally. The deliberate cruelness of it is crushing. To make the food as the other watches and to then laugh at his request to have some? He wants to look away but doesn't. Tommy had to live through it. Steve can do him the dignity of watching it without censor.

By the time the scene moves to the room and past-Tommy is nursing his piece of pop tart, Steve is furious at people who are likely either long gone or too far away for him to do anything about. You see, Steve knows what hunger feels like. He spent so much of his childhood hungry and miserable but that hunger was never done out of abuse. His mother and Bucky would eat half portions at every meal to make sure he had something on his plate. It was just that the 'something' was usually a thin soup and stale bread.

As the memory fades, Steve turns to Tommy, eyes soft with empathy. "How long were you with them for?" He hands over the pop tarts so Tommy can do what he wants with them. "Foster parents?"

[doubled_speed]

How long was he with them for? Tommy tries not to laugh. And he does, when Steve calls them his foster parents.

"Until I was sixteen and I ended up in juvie. And... since the day I was born. Steve, that was Mary Shepherd. My birth mother."

This was what was done to him by his PARENTS.

"I still don't know which was worse. Mary, or Frank."