mark xv suit ❦ [ text ] ❦ they say i only think in the form of crunching numbers

[starked]

[ it's perhaps a side effect of how he hadn't been sleeping as well as he should have been before the jump, and how there's been a mess of nervous energy with him that he practically jolts out of the medbay after seeing that pepper and natasha and— everyone else, except jaye, jaye wasn't there. he should check that. but first he needs to check the numbers, check the data of everyone who's here, see the numbers left. that'll kill two birds with one stone, won't it. because he'll see her number, and it'll be fine.

it doesn't take long for him to get to his room and look at the program connor and him had set up once upon a time to track numbers of people, to make sure as soon as they were gone, you'd know for sure. it's faulty, he knows that, you don't have names to go with numbers, but he knows the important numbers for him. there's jaye, just fine and then he looks down, toward the later numbers, making sure none of the people he saw were just doubles with the wrong number and then he notices.

018 has people he already knew were there. 019 seems like it only has one person. and then 020 looks like a normal jump where people come. they shouldn't be on twenty. they had just done the nineteenth jump, he hadn't been asleep again, had he? had they had a coma and no— someone would have stopped him when they were stumbling about and he was rushing. it's another moment before tony scrambles to look at the network, hand shaking a little before he sees hotspur and jaye and other people, and he should say something to jaye, but that doesn't point to them not skipping a jump. why wasn't there talk about the nineteenth jump. why hadn't— he just needed to ask everyone the simple question. in text, because okay no, he is definitely not feeling like talking. ]

Anyone remember the nineteenth jump? Going through it, anything that happened? Don't tell me it's the one we just went through, because you might want to check all the new batches numbers, seriously. Actually you know what, 019 » 034, you have a name, don't you? You want to shed some light on being a 019er?

[ like how it seems like you're the only one maybe? ]

Comments

i do it's true

[sinewy]

Never said anything like that.

[ he so implied it. ]

Proof's something I don't know much about, either. All I know is the odds this is that Tranquility's gotta be slim.

[starked]

You're on voice. I know that tone.

[ he has so been on the side of that tone more than once. ]

Your existence being real is pretty slim. You don't see me pointing that out to you. Is it because it's been missing a while? Sort of a Bermuda Triangle shit.

[ tony. ]

[sinewy]

Yessir.

[ he's not agreeing he said it so much as tony seems like he'd know the tone. ]

My-- huh. Never thought I was anything special. [ that's a really odd thing to say, dude. ] If Bermuda's been missing longer than I've been alive, yes.

[starked]

...Don't sir me. It's weird.

[ ...because that's a good thing to say. ]

That was before now. Maybe. Only nineteen. You woke up with twenties. You're actually from here. And honest to god, the only Pernambuco I'm particularly familiar with is the one in Brazil. On Earth. In 2012. But it's in Pasiphae for you. And yes and no. Bermuda is still there. But ships and planes get lost near it. Sometimes.

You don't sound younger than forty.

[sinewy]

Yessir.

[ he's not sorry. ]

That'd be because I'm not.

[starked]

You're going to keep doing that.

A decade? Half a decade? Couple a years? No way you're sixty.

[sinewy]

Yessir.

Forty three last spring.

[starked]

That just bred into you?

When was last spring, btw?

Also, do I add a decade to your age to find Tranquility lost time? Or something?

[sinewy]

[ placidly: ] Yessir.

...three months back.

[ these are weird questions tony. ]

I just don't ever remember it not being missing.

[ it's been missing about as long as he's been alive, truth be told. ]

you boomerang this and i will kill you.

[starked]

Yes'm.

Well I'll be damned, I missed my own birthday.

You're kidding me. Tell me the last forty years estimate we got was off.

[ no why is the date changing, why. ]

[sidri]

[sinewy]

Could've sworn it was closer to fifty, but forty's about right.

JOE WHY ARE YOU YELLING!!! IN THE ICON. (also asshole.)

[starked]

...You all lost a ship for forty years. And are just now. Finding it.

he's making an unsure face dammit

[sinewy]

I don't know if I count as finding it, but yessir. That's the size of it.

details!!

[starked]

I don't know, is it right in front of you? Can you see it?

[sinewy]

Yessir, but that only lasts so far as I can get word back.

[starked]

Word back to all of them, right?

[sinewy]

Not much of a discovery if nobody knows about it, and if you don't mind me saying so I'd like to get home.

[starked]

Wouldn't we all? Except the dead people.

Can't enjoy a discovery all by yourself?

[sinewy]

I never felt much call towards discovery-- I like what's already discovered well enough.

[starked]

Follower instead of a leader.

[sinewy]

Content with my lot.

[ but some of that one, too. ]

[starked]

You're content being boring. Not moving up in the world. Doing things. And stuff.

[sinewy]

S'pose you could see it that way.

[ joe doesn't. ]

[starked]

It's staying in one place. Doing nothing. I literally could not come up with something more boring for me if I tried.

[sinewy]

Got my need to travel out already. Settling's fine by me, now.

[ he's chill with boring lbr ]