revivalproject | On the Prowl

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On the Prowl

WHO: Jon & OTA
WHERE: Around the Agrii Ship
WHAT: The Archivist is hungry and prowling an alien space ship on the hunt for wild tape recorders ~~and your fear~~
WHEN: Late September
WARNINGS: None yet.

Ever since the Agrii have been rescued and the Graq returned to their own home planet, things have calmed down more or less around the large ship the Agrii have been staying on and that is still on its way back to Agra 10, where, in all likelihood, they are expected to resume their rebuilding efforts.

And yet way too many questions remain, at least for Jon. The Archivist has spent a lot of time asking their alien captors all sorts of questions and not always has received satisfying answers. But as the weeks pass by and he finds fewer things to ask, Jon’s curiosity is slowly replaced by something equally nagging: Hunger.

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling for Jon, though it’s also not one he finds himself entirely able to ignore. He has lost enough weight as it is and while the turtlenecked poncho-like piece of clothing he has picked up on their brief stop and has come to wear around the ship to feel less cold makes these things less obvious, Jon at least remains aware that it’s not entirely healthy.

And so he is wandering the large ship, eyes and ears open for the familiar sight of an outdated tape recorder or the unmistakable whirring noise of one.

A - Mess Hall

The mess hall is a place for food, right. Not quite the food Jon consumes anymore, but he has tried a few of the offered items - Only to be met with an atrocious taste.

Though the mess hall is also a place where people met. And talked about stuff. So chances are that one of those curious recorders might be around, quietly recording away one conversation or another. Which means Jon is more or less prowling around between the tables, head cranes forward to peek under the various tables and benches and counters.

“Excuse me...” He mutters distractedly while moving past someone with their tray of food.

B - Medbay

Another place Jon suspects, or at least hopes, to find a recorder in is the medbay. It may not be as much of a social place as the mess hall, but people still pretty much talk in there. And that’s not rarely important talk. And probably quite to the liking of those curious little devices.

So he pushes the door open cautiously and peaks as well as listens around for a moment before stepping inside and into the center of the room, simply letting out a sigh at the lacking presence of a tape recorder.

C - Engine Room

The engine room is an unusual place for the Archivist to show up in, and it’s not entirely intentional to begin with. He just finds himself wandering in, then notices the large core set in the middle of the large room and stops short, staring for a couple of moments in blinking silence.

“.....Jesus Christ.” Is all he utters before slowly backing towards the exit again.

D - Anywhere Else?

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It would have been a very dire situation that Tony had missed and Jon wasn't telling him about, he thought, to lead to Jon misplacing his tape recorder, and Tony held him in a skeptically narrow gaze to make sure that wasn't what he had just suggested to Tony, before breaking that cold calculation abruptly to glance idly around the room. Tony had seen those randomly appearing ones himself; that seemed more likely. "Not on me," he said, then cocked his head with a question, because he didn't think he should have been expecting one to appear without Jon around. That was very much a personal problem, not a community one, he had understood. More importantly, "You didn't bring snacks this time," he surmised, viciously burying the regret that they hadn't started this journey together to deal with later, like when he was dead. He had a more immediate problem to fix.

"I did!" Jon protests, though there is a hint of guilt in that stubbornness as well. "I just... I didn't expect us to be gone quite as long, and.... I... I suppose I neglected... gathering...." If Jon is entirely honest, he hasn't really been harvested any tapes since before they went into the tunnels. The weeks in there have plain left him overloaded and barely able to hold everything in. And then the debacle at the forge happened, leaving Jon with no appetite and no mind to be bothered with food.

He gives a little shrug, now turning the light in his hands. "I'm taking care of it, I promise." A pause, and Jon quickly adds: "Ah-- W-without hurting anyone, of course!"

For a moment, he was back under Tony's skeptical scrutiny, 'without hurting anyone' hard to believe since Jon didn't need such a dire excuse to use his power on Reeve, and the last time Tony knew Jon was hungry, he had gone all spooky-glowy. Which made Tony clear his throat, shifting in his seat to swing his legs over the side of the bed, because that had definitely only freaked him out and not awakened anything else questionable in him that probably needed professional intervention, then he brightened suddenly to ask, "Do you want to?"

The details were still unclear to Tony, and he wasn't that interested in decoding the magic, but as far as he had gleaned, Jon didn't necessarily need the tape recorder if people around him were spooked enough. That sounded like a fun way to spend an afternoon, for a good cause.

"Do I want what?" Jon asks, partially dreading the answer before cautiously inquiring further. "Are- Are you asking me if I want to hurt someone...?" The answer to that is obvious enough in his face and the way the Archivist almost appears to shrink where he stands while wrapping an arm around his own middle. He slowly shakes his head. "No. I... I hurt too many already. Hunger, anger... Christ. At first it was because I wanted to do my job! ...and for a long while it was curiosity of all things." Before he learned what those nightmares truly meant. It's what still sickens him. His willingness to experiment and knowing that there is indeed a part of him that wants to go hunting for suitable victims.

"It's still bearable." Jon tries to assure Tony, but can't quite bring himself to raise his eyes back up from where they have dropped to the floor.

It was possible Tony could have bridged those thoughts more articulately, because he found himself sliding to his feet to try to explain, "No, not--necessarily, just--," with his hands up, curled into claws, like he was about to pounce. Minor scares, was all he meant, get the adrenaline pumping, but it seemed he had already done that to Jon and started a spiral. Tony dropped his hands limply, that was a bad idea, fair, then reached to pluck Jon's away from his body to stop him from shrinking any more.

"Hey, no, don't do that," he said. "Sorry, I didn't mean to--bring all that out. You've got weird shit going on that you didn't ask for, it's got side effects. If you lost your teeth, I'd chew all your food for you." Maybe not literally, but Tony grinned hopefully, brow still furrowed with concern. "Look at him, how do you think they're feeding him? That's got to suck," he pointed out, gesturing to Cloud and not really wanting to think about what the onboard Agrii solution to the problem was.

Jon isn't really inclined to put up a fight, so Tony meets no resistance when he goes for his hands. He kind of understands what Tony has been trying to suggest, but- That wouldn't have worked. He knows that much by now. He has been able to keep the Eye somewhat satisfied by catering to its curiosity. By learning new things and studying the Agrii, their technology and by now also the Graq.

"I'm sorry..." Jon mutters at Tony's words, still well aware that Tony doesn't like to talk or even think about anything to do with his magic. And yet that comment about chewing his food? That gets a tiny chuckle before Jon allows the topic to be directed towards Cloud and he can offer a more scientific answer. "Feeding tubes. Not... Not very different from the ones we use on Earth. But-- Maybe a more acceptable way to consume what the Agrii serve for food."

Pushing his luck, Tony kept tugging at Jon's hand until he was close enough to wrap both arms around his neck, letting them weigh heavily as Tony tucked Jon's head under his chin, folded around him as long as he was going to be small and apologetic because of something Tony didn't think about before he said it. Maybe that would make it clearer, see, at least one of them wasn't holding all of that questionable behaviour against Jon, even if Jon wanted to feel guilty about it. That kind of guilt was very hard to shake, Tony knew that intimately well, even if he didn't think Jon's was particularly well earned.

"Gross," was what he had to say about feeding tubes, biology only slightly less offensive to him than magic. "Not my style, I couldn't hang around here for so long if someone was was feeding me with a tube. Coma over, not worth it." Flippant, but not entirely irrational--something innocuous had brought Bucky out of it, and that couldn't even be rationalized away by him being a supersoldier, because they both were. "Maybe no one else is coming to talk to him," Tony muttered. Steve had been dedicated to keeping watch over his partner, that was different. Tony had been sitting in here pondering that problem for the better part of an hour already, though, so it wasn't completely effective at distracting him from Jon's, and he tipped his head slightly to lower his voice as he continued as though he was still talking about Cloud, "Have you tried watching the videos?"

Letting himself get tucked in like that, Jon releases a drawn-out exhale before following with a deep inhale, letting himself and his fretful mind be soothed by the action.

"Comas are not something that leave you with much of a choice..." He mumbles into Tony's chest, his face just about turned enough to have an eye on Cloud himself, contemplating the man's situation. "I was out for six months... Stuck in that rotation of dreams I have inflicted. Until Oliver Banks showed up. Told me... I had to make a choice." And a choice, he made.

He lets that hang for a moment, then tilts his head a little more to peek up towards Tony. "...what videos?"

Tony leaned back to better meet Jon's eye, searching for confirmation that Jon had no clue what he was talking about. "In the theatre room," he tried to elaborate. It wasn't like going to witness those atrocities was a great group activity, but Tony had been pretty sure he wasn't the only one not sleeping and cataloguing them, hoping to find more answers, like from the record from Agra 10. He gave himself a final moment to stroke a hand through Jon's hair and down his neck before giving a nod as though in farewell to Cloud and angling them toward the door to lead the way.

In the meantime, he said, "So, we have to get in touch with Oliver," because Jon made it sound like there was some agency in the coma status. Elaborating probably wouldn't be that useful for Cloud, but might shed some light on what kind of choice Jon was talking about for Tony. He thought he had witnessed those dreams for about six seconds, so six months made him keep Jon close even as they made their way into the hall, not quite holding his hand but restlessly touching his sleeve and his back as they walked.

Jon blinks once, but again doesn't resist. "Oh. I believe BD-1 downloaded one of them... I saw that one with Cal, but apparently there were more. BD-1 couldn't download them all." And oddly enough Jon hasn't gone to check them himself as of yet. Though he wouldn't have known how to even navigate the Agrii computers.

"And I... I actually don't think you'd like to have him around." Jon admits with his lips pressing into a tight line as Tony steers him towards the door. "Oliver Banks, that is. He's... An avatar of the End. You know. As in... Death." Very polite, though. And a nice voice.IN a way Jon regrets not having met the man when he woke up. "He is... Not as reluctant to feed his patron."

It wasn't as easy to be flippant while Tony contemplated the implications of what Jon had to tell him; the choice must have been wake up, or 'feed his patron' as Jon so eloquently put it, which wasn't all that different from many long-term comas, Tony thought, just more fanciful; and that another one of these avatars had appeared in his dreams. Eventually, Tony could still flip, "I've met a couple of those," waving his free hand dismissively like they weren't a huge problem to deal with, and Thanos hadn't very much been a chilling destructive force for the entire universe in his scourge to satisfy his 'patron'. More importantly, "Have you tried, uh, visiting Cloud?" Jon had made it sound like that was uniquely his parasite's wheelhouse, but if it wasn't even that limited of a skill to travel the realm of sleep, it couldn't have been that hard.

It has, indeed, been a choice between dying and waking up. Which also meant to decide to become something else. By this day Jon isn’t certain just how conscious this decision has been on his end, though he has accepted that he has made a choice back then.

The question of whether he has been visiting Cloud sounds odd to Jon and he gives Tony a sufficiently confused look. “Ah- I.... I come to the medbay every once in a while, I suppose. Never talked to him the same way you did, but...” That’s what Tony is referring to, Jon assumes.

Jon didn't really have to trail off, Tony was already talking over him to correct, "No, not there," then tap at his temple to illustrate. "While you're wandering people's dreams." So, clearly not, Tony hadn't been particularly focused on selling the concept of the Dream Dimension when he tried last time and it hadn't sunk in. It would be really helpful if Dr. Strange would get himself kidnapped, just for a second, to better explain these things, because Tony was really not the best host in that regard.

"Like I was saying, before, and we could experiment, and see if we could get you some control..." he tried to remind Jon, but they had made it to the theatre. Tony hadn't been through all of the videos yet, even sped up, there was innumerable hours of footage here, and he didn't even really know the specifics of what worked for Jon. So he spread his hands, welcoming Jon to the console himself as they stepped inside, lingering by the door and not sure if he should stay.

"Oh..." Is Jon's initial reaction to being reminded of that particular idea. "...you mentioned that idea before, I remember..." But there hasn't been much in the way of actually attempting anything of that sort. Jon still has no control over what happens in his dreams. He remains a passive, watching bystander. And he isn't even sure if he could access the dreams of another person that isn't already in his nightmares.

But the musings on this, again, come to an end when they reach their destination and Jon steps inside the theater, eyes falling onto the console once he stands before it. He takes a moment to let his eyes move over the alien technology before turning back to Tony, wordlessly asking him why he is staying back there. "How does any of this work?"

Tony raised his eyebrows in response, got it, staying, and glanced out into the hall once more before sliding the door shut in case anyone was wandering by and didn't need to witness what they might find on this database. Some of it featured some familiar faces on board, and Tony didn't know how comfortable they were with anyone else watching them like that. Tony definitely wouldn't be.

As he stepped up next to Jon, he swept his hands over the array of buttons presented to them, and explained, "All of these are dates," which didn't sound like it properly encompassed the thousands of choices they had to make. "Chronological, as far as I can tell, no other distinct sorting system, so...so not by, uh, genre."

Jon looks at the buttons before them while Tony explains what they are and he can't help but frown a bit in response, letting his eyes wander from one end to the other.

"...I suppose that's what it feels like to look at the episode list of a soap opera." He muses and reaches one of his hands out to let it hover over the buttons. Maybe the Eye can guide him to something worth seeing just as it had done with the mountains of tapes left behind by Gertrude.

"Are these about the ones that came before us?" He asks, just to make sure the likelihood of them stumbling over one of their friends - Or even themselves - is comparably small.

"Sure, kind of," Tony accepted the comparison with a chuckle, not sure if that made him uncomfortable or not--watching some of the videos, it was all kind of like a soap opera, honestly, so it wasn't just the backlog to get through that made the likeness apt. "Did I tell you about the Avengers soap? Absolutely bled money, but the merchandise was killer, horny housewives will pay anything for some tea towels with Thor's face on them, that is the market. Guy playing me is a total smoke show, obviously, you'll have to meet him, I'll get him to grow the beard again for you." Tony was babbling, but paused long enough to shoot Jon a sidelong look and a wolfish grin, before adding more thoughtfully, "You'd really like him, actually. Henry. He's my sponsor." That probably said plenty about when kind of trouble they got into together while the show was airing, so Tony cleared his throat, finding himself pinched between two slightly uncomfortable conversations. He preferred the one where he wasn't talking about his personal life.

"These are..." he started, waving his hand over the group of buttons toward the end of the arrangement, and they lit up under his palm to designate the boundaries he was defining, "From the other place, that some of the other guys talk about sometimes, I'm pretty sure. Some familiar faces. But..." Highlighted as they were, it was obvious that this was a very long running show indeed--they had a few decades worth of buttons to go through. Tony wasn't enamoured with the way Jon had phrased that, though--'before us', like they were being added to this database. He looked Jon's way again, brow knit with concern, asking if he really thought that was what they had to look forward to.

To be fair, Jon has no idea what sort of trouble one would get into with their sponsor and the look he offers may be testament of that. He will listen, however, should Tony feel willing to share. At the same time Jon won't force him to reveal anything he wanted to keep in his little drawer of secrets. Horny housewives, though.... That's a questionable choice of words.

"Curious to hear that actual heroism gets commercialized in worlds where super heroes exist outside of comic books..." Jon muses with his eyes shifting back to roam over the collection of buttons, then can't help a little chuckle. "Though I will admit I can't imagine how my Earth would handle actual heroes. I imagine they'd have their own sponsors as well, get booked for charities and car commercials and couldn't have a public account on any social media website."

At Tony trailing off mid-sentence, Jon looks back over at him, easily picking up on that concern and reaching one of his hands over to lightly clasp it around Tony's arm and offer a small smile. "Will you tell me what worries you?"

That commercialization was definitely not a universal truth for the heroes of Tony's Earth, most of them wearing masks to keep that kind of attention away from themselves so they could do their jobs effectively, but plenty of those heroes were also starving. "Some hero teams," Tony elaborated for Jon, "enjoy the benefits of a shrewd businessman among them, who knows they have to keep the fridge full somehow when he's not there. You would not believe how much some of them eat. And that comes before the billion dollar custom jets, security system, and hospital bills." He started to laugh at how Jon had interpreted 'sponsor', which wasn't a surprise, but Tony was so used to being the one paying the bills that this meaning hadn't even occurred to him. "No, he--no, I pay him," Tony corrected, which he hoped wasn't at all related to what he had been trying to say, "He's my AA sponsor, he got in and figured that out first. I had a, uh, deeper rock bottom to find."

With a shake of his head like he was throwing that whole topic off, he shifted his arm back to take Jon's hand in his instead, pulling them up against his shoulder as the other spread over the buttons again, fingers working in the air like he was counting them. "This..." The expanse of what they were looking back, those buttons going back so far, "Is a force of nature." A much, much bigger problem than the massive problem Tony was already struggling with fixing, and something that had been hurting people for a very long time.

That added explanation does- Well. It explains a few things, at least, and Jon just nods, allowing Tony to cast the topic aside. Though he finds himself glad that Tony has chosen to accept help in some regard at some point, at least. The fact that he required that help... Now that's something Jon decides to keep in mind. An a closer eye on Tony once alcohol gets involved.

He lets Tony share his view of the console they are standing in front of. Force of nature, he says. As if he is facing a thread... And it's Jon's turn to let his eyes wander over the recordings, the information resting at their very fingertips.

"...it's an archive." He says, doing his best not to sound enraptured by what they have before them.

"You're not wrong," Tony muttered, because this was definitely an archive of whatever horror show this was that a whole bunch of people had been forced to participate in against their will, just not really the first key element of that breakdown that Tony found he was focusing on. How Jon was processing that was difficult to read, so Tony watched him carefully for a beat, slowly working their fingers together, before he asked, "Do you think this might be your guy?" The Watcher, the witness to all of the greatest fears and pains, and a carefully curated archive of what it had seen did feel coincidental. Tony didn't believe in coincidences, when patterns were far more reliable.

Jon shakes his head, shrugging "I don't know- I... I don't think so? But..." Could it be? Could the Fears be involved in more than but one world? Clearly the fears they represent are universal, but the idea itself is daunting and Jon squeezes Tony's hand without looking up while his thoughts tumble with this new possibility.

"....I'm not sure I want to find out." He does, but he feels that won't be healthy. Or something Tony would feel comfortable trying to figure out.

Withdrawing his hand from where it has been hovering over the buttons, Jon just sighs and shakes his head once again. "I don't think I can do this - Probably shouldn't. It's not right..."

Maybe he shouldn't have brought it up, because the idea seemed to trouble Jon, but it seemed like a natural connection to make to Tony. If that was all that was stopping Jon from watching any of the tapes, Tony didn't understand it--he didn't understand the whole relationship with the fears and the archive thing, honestly, and it made him breathe his own sigh as he dropped Jon's hand to rub between his shoulders instead, over the too prominent ridge of his spine. "You've got to eat something, boss," he muttered. As far as Tony could tell, if this buffet solved that problem, it might have been the least intrusive solution. It was already here for the taking. "I've already watched some of them, it's--...I'm not going to stop doing that," Tony pointed out, if it was a moral problem with act of breaching that boundary. That was low stakes compared to what Tony might be able to find in the records. "There might be something here that can help us."

"...I know." Jon agrees with a subdued sigh on his end. He doesn't like the idea of making use of something that hasn't been given voluntarily. Where's the difference between this and him compelling someone? Yet, Tony is right. He needs to eat something, if only to not give his friends any reason to worry about him.

If only his fingers weren't already itching to reach out again, curiosity nagging at the back of his mind... It's right there.

With his lips pressed closed tightly, Jon closes his eyes and shifts where he stands to lean against Tony in a moment of contemplative silence. He lets one more moment pass before conceding. "...you're right. There... Might be- Something." Another brief moment as Jon reaches his hand to hover over the many buttons once more, finally deciding on an answer on Tony's earlier questions. "And I don't think this is tied to the Eye. It might like it, though."

To prove his point, Jon focuses for a moment, the act sending a soft crackle through the console - And probably up Tony's spine as well. This level of technology simply isn't compatible with the Eye's curious retro aesthetic.

That first response, just acknowledgement and Jon's silence, had Tony gladly taking Jon's weight, his hand anxiously spreading down Jon's back and curling around his side as Tony incrementally grew more panicked by the idea that Jon didn't want to fix this problem. The relief at Jon making any move and not being immediately suicidal was very brief, Tony's slow exhale interrupted by that jolt to the back of his neck that had him wincing and reaching his free hand to it like he could massage away the service interruption in his brain. At least it wasn't nearly as bad as that storm weapon breaking the whole ship; more like a numbing, that Tony knew had only happened when Jon cut him off from the network. "Is that a good thing, does that mean it likes it?" he grumbled, not feeling particularly positive about it himself.

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