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And so he is wandering the large ship, eyes and ears open for the familiar sight of an outdated tape recorder or the unmistakable whirring noise of one.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

[[ Basically your wildcard if you want to hit me up on Plurk or Discord. ]]

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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.

Jon gives a light shrug, admitting: "I don't know what it means. Not exactly. Just that, maybe, the Fears do not feed off multiple worlds?" Because to him that would be a terrifying thought. At the same time it might mean that the Eye can't guide his hand to a recording worth watching. He will have to pick blindly.

But before that, Jon turns his head to look up towards Tony, offering an apologetic smile. "And... Ah- Sorry for that. You okay?"

What Jon called 'the Fears' already lived in their own dimension, as far as Tony could tell, and it would actually be more reassuring to him that there was just one of them that multiple worlds were dealing with. He could see how having such a vast source of 'food' would be unsettling, though. They were already incomprehensibly powerful, and not Tony's field in the least, so he didn't know how to begin figuring out that truth and had to defer to the resident expert, nodding slowly.

"What?" he asked, not sure where the question was coming from, then quickly dropping his hand to repeat the familiar, "Of course, always." He shifted his arm around Jon to drape over his shoulders and explained away the reaction with a wave of his hand, "It's just the suit." With his new hold, he pulled Jon closer for a kiss to his hair to discourage any further concern.

That concern would remain, though. The effect his powers have on Tony is something he needs to keep in mind or he might end up accidentally hurt the man. "It's part of your body." He says, and this time it's Jon who reaches up to take Tony's hand in his own while berating himself almost playfully. "It's really not something I should simply forget about, I suppose."

He casts one more look up Tony's way before nodding towards the console. "So... We just push any of these buttons, right?"

That Jon seemed ambiguously charmed by this effect he had on Tony, between his smile and light tone, made Tony breathe a perplexed chuckle, then offer, "My body is yours for the ravaging. Nobody's ever touched my brain like that before, though, that's new, that's all you, it would, honestly, be devastating if you did forget that, I was still a virgin before you."

By then, Tony was already sorting through the scattering of these videos he had watched, trying to come up with one that had an energy similar to that weird zombie story Jon's tape had told, but he wasn't sure what really compared. Maybe this--he pushed a button for Jon, before he could second guess again, and only asked as he did, "Hey, do you have to actively eat, or if something edible happens around you, it's...it's eaten?" Magic was truly nonsense. On the screen, a woman was scooping sand from the vast desert around her into a tin cup, the moonlight bright enough to illuminate dunes for what looked like miles. Close to their perspective, a wide firepit had been constructed, its warm light barely reaching a few steps beyond its stone boundaries. Another figure was taking their own cup from out of the fire, and carefully drinking from it, like they were melting snow instead of sand. At the edge of the firelight, the sand shivered, then lurched, hauling upward until it stood the height of a man, making the pair tending the fire panic, sob, and run in a spray of sand out of view. In the distance, the hills were speckled with strange, moving shadows.

"Christ, Tony! Don't put it like that!" Jon at least tries to scold, but finds himself interrupted by his own sputtering snort before making at least an attempt to press his flushed face along with his involuntary chuckle into Tony's side as if doing so would hide any of it at all. It's an overall failed attempt. But in this case that's okay.

He gets pulled back to Tony's fiddling with the buttons and his question and Jon blinks up at Tony, his expression not yet fully reigned in again. "Oh, ah- I... It- It's less an actual act of eating?" Jon tries to explain, his free hand making tiny gestures as if to try and illustrate some abstract metaphor. "Think of it as... As being absorbed? Does that make sense? Like sunlight being absorbed into flowers... I- I'm not entirely sure, but normally I just read. Or listen. Or- Or watch." Magic is, indeed, nonsense. And even Jon doesn't quite understand how he or his own powers even work. Which is what makes them so hard to control a lot of the time.

The screen coming to life is the next thing Jon's attention gets drawn to and he instantly falls silent, remaining perfectly still where he is standing while watching what is happening in the recording Tony picked.

That was much better; at least, the blush was the kind of familiar reaction Tony preferred to tease out of Jon, instead of the shamed stuttering around an apology that Tony didn't know what to do with. As long as he was laughing along with it, too, instead of treating Tony to that disapproving frown of frustration, Tony pushed with a sweetly heated, "You don't have to tell me, I already know you like to watch." He nodded as he laughed, twisting the hand he wasn't using to carefully hold Jon back from outright hitting him now, to summarize the point. "So it's not really passive, you still have to be engaged," he tried, but his gesturing hand settled into a pointed finger, because that still left questions that he wasn't sure he wanted to ask, or Jon wanted to answer. At least he was pretty sure putting the video in front of Jon counted as engaging him, though, if that became an actual problem. It was just a matter of figuring out what as actually nutritious, and the strange figures swaying in the sand on the screen definitely felt ominous to Tony, but he wasn't sure if that was one of the emotions required on Jon's nutritional recommendations. They all moved at once, surging in the direction the two people had run, before the video cut out.

Well, Jon may not quite make an attempt at hitting Tony, but the indignation is clear enough in the tone of his voice and the quick look he casts at him. "Tony!"

And that's about it, given Tony acts quick enough to go on and Jon shifts his attention back to the video. There certainly is some fear in there, alright. But it's different from those very personal accounts he gets in those statements.

"When we were all locked up and in each others dreams..." Jon starts, his eyes staying on the screen. "I didn't have to look at anyone and was... It was- A lot. Everyone was afraid to have their secrets known. Towards the end it just overwhelmed me. I felt sick."

That muddled how the consuming happened, but the secrets part might have been integral; something that was hidden, a deliberate invasion, making this whole video archive potentially useless. It was here to be seen, after all, though by whom was still its own secret. Still, Tony felt it worth noting, "The people who were here before us, they said they had their own...Calibrations." The name of the thing didn't feel like it fit into place yet, but it was the one they had, and Tony was gesturing to light up those buttons he had indicated before. "If that worked for you..." he said, turning his palm up to gently finish that thought, in case they were trying not to acknowledge that they might be seeing something anyone on the ship would rather they didn't.

"Calibrations... Right. I believe I heard that term before." An odd name for what they had to put up with. His eyes shift from Tony to the glowing buttons and he frowns when a particular thought crosses his mind. "Please don't tell me they have recordings from inside people's minds on here." Because that? Would be beyond disturbing.

From what Tony had seen so far, this was not outside of the realm of possibility, and he tilted his head slightly with a grimace to say that he did not have the answer that Jon was hoping for. "I haven't found those records yet," he did admit, "But even if you're not seeing the dreams, would that same fear, the being trapped and worrying about having the secrets known, would it still work like this? If no one's talking about it, and it's on video--I mean, what part of this does it for you? And, listen, this might be a long shot, but maybe--maybe if, say, Wanda knew that this," Tony gestured to the console, in general, "was here, and knew that you could see these dreams anyway, maybe she'd be willing to just share that with you anyway, in her words, for one of your tapes."

Jon sighs, shoulders sacking slightly as he glances back up towards the screens. "I... I'm not sure what... Works. What does it. Maybe it's the personal aspect of the statements. Those people facing, describing their encounters and emotions..." He pauses as a stray thought crosses his mind and Jon glances over to Tony. "Apparently my presence at the Institute helps people coming in to make a statement with coherence while writing or recording them. According to my assistants... When I was away, kidnapped... People would come in and be unable to focus. Melanie even started to try and turn them away, telling them to return once I was back in the Archives. Maybe it's that what made them write down and focus on the parts that... You know. Do it." And yet even that remains a guess.

This whole video thing was feeling incredibly unsuccessful by the minute, making Tony watch Jon as he spoke with a frown of concern and drop his hand down Jon's back to rub between his shoulders again. "Or you're just an inspiring presence," he tried to smirk, and made it mostly to self-deprecating. It had to be addressed, because Tony's fix wasn't working out yet, and Tony looked respectfully away as though there was something very interesting on the screen to consider as he said, "I know you're not going to outright ask, and I get why, and I don't want to put you on the spot. And, listen, we're talking about a finite source here. My life might make a very interesting soap opera, but I don't know how much of it is going to work for your thing, so--so this isn't a solution. But..." He opened his free hand again, welcoming the interpretation.

As reassuring as the touch to his back may be, it's Tony's words that make Jon frown and blink twice before casting a look over to the other man, grimacing ever so slightly. He then straightens his face again and takes a deep breath before turning towards Tony and reaching for his free hand with one of his own. "I am not going to consider that, Tony, but... Thanks." And it's with the softest smile that he gives Tony's hand a gentle squeeze. "I will keep looking for a recorder. Maybe you find one? I- I don't really know what their radius is, I'm afraid, but... I rather keep searching than risk subjecting you to one of my nightmares."

It wasn't that Tony didn't know the consequences, but he was sure watching Jon get any more thin would be much harder on his heart, and besides, "I'd rather you were there." With a smile in return, he combed Jon's hair back to press a kiss to his forehead, just something to think about, it was an option. Until then, Tony pulled his hand free to gesture again at the console and step away, encouraging, "See if you can find anything on there, something might work. I'll take a look around for you, see what I can...scare up." He grinned and waved a hand, don't address it, move on, and backed away toward the door, where he might have been going to hunt for tape recorders, but it did look more likely that he was going to try his spooking the crew tactic until one of them shook off enough latent fear-nutrients for Jon to sniff out. Or yelled at him, whatever came first.

That's not the response Jon would have expected and he could, maybe should argue that wishing to have any of those nightmares is foolish. Instead, Jon finds himself unable to raise any such point and instead remains silent, merely blinking up at Tony at that small, surprisingly sweet gesture that leaves him with a bit of a blush on his cheeks as he watches Tony leave and finds himself alone with the controls, the screens and what just may be an endless amount of video footage of people he may or may not recognize.

Well then.

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On the Prowl

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The answer is yes

Eww.

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