voidtreckerexpress | Event: Expulsion (Day 24)

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Event: Expulsion (Day 24)

"Good morning passengers, today is the twenty fourth day of the month of Apple." The morning announcement sounds as usual as dark turns to the ever shifting colours of the void outside the train windows. Some passengers may stir. It might be that they are an early riser or bad sleeper and get out of bed the moment the announcement wakes them or perhaps they roll over and go back to sleep.

Either way the morning rolls on for a few hours whatever they might be doing. Until a sudden judder runs through the train, followed quickly by another. Much like bad turbulence. Really bad turbulence. A third follows and there is a crackling sound before an alarm starts going off blaring loudly, the lights begin flashing red, white and red again.

"Warning. Void engines failing. Warning. Void engines failing. Warning Expulsion from void imminent." More shaking, worse each time, enough to knock them over and then a bang, the train plummets into darkness and lurches, sending everyone flying...

… They never crash land. Instead they float, suspended in the air. In the darkness it is hard to orient themselves or even understand what is happening. There’s a roar in their heads as pressure builds, their ears pop. "All systems critical." Breathing is hard, for one terrifying moment there seems to be no air to breathe.

"Oxygen levels stabilising." They can breathe, the pressure in their heads fades, their ears eventually stop ringing. "Pressure levels stabilising." They are still floating, suspended in darkness. "Gravity systems critical".

Emergency lighting flickers on finally, a red glow from either end of each carriage, in the cabins and along floor strips, enabling them to move without bumping into anything. If they can figure out how to move at all that is. Outside the windows is dark. Not the blackness of the void at night but the deep vastness of space. A few moments pass, enough time to just about process that fact before the voice over the speakers is heard once more.

"Passengers of the Voidtrecker express, due to technical issues we are currently experiencing void engine failure. Thank you for your patience as we endeavour to continue our journey as quickly as possible. We ask that all passengers help in securing the train for re-entry into the Void and on behalf of the Voidtrecker Express I apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Then there is silence. Broken only, no doubt, by the passengers on this now stranded train.

(OOC: Event information is here.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cabins/Corridor: Initial check-ins
Wow, he'd even been dozing off about life back on the Galaxy Railways, and here we are -- back in zero-G. For a bleary moment, Manabu thought he was back in a simulation, but...no. No, the lights are a universally bad sign, and a jarring one at that, and he's up and at 'em without a word.

"Hey! Everyone alright in there?"

Right to work, Manabu takes to drifting from cabin door to cabin door, pounding on it and calling the same thing, waiting for response and using the overhead rail as a means to anchor and move himself along in a steady float.

Medbay

"Ah, jeez...!"

Opening up, Manabu finds quite the mess floating around -- can't exactly bolt down iodine or surgical instruments, can you? But the sharp-pointies can't be left floating around for people to drift into or collect for their own devices, so Manabu takes to gathering up what he can, using his pockets and a biohazard disposal bag as a means of carrying them until he can get them stored away.

"Oh, hey--" Glimpsing someone drifting in, he turns himself partway. "Here to help, or here to get help?"

Tony had been sleeping a little later today than he had recently. He'd started up a regiment of taking sleeping pills to avoid his nightmares and it seemed to have done the trick. Those don't really work though when you abruptly are thrown into the bunk above you and into the wall next to you. Those were mild irritations compared to what happened next.

The knowledge that he was on a stranded vehicle in space had crippled him with panic for several long minutes in his room. He'd somehow pushed past that enough to get himself moving to the medbay.

By the time he was navigating himself into the room, he was feeling shaky and fighting back memories that kept wanting to take over his mind. He shoots Manabu a stressed out glare and grunts as he pulls himself further into the room. Between clenched teeth, he hisses, "Anxiety pills. Quick!" He takes a labored breath before he can clarify a little more. "Ativan. Blue jar."

Manabu barely has time to finish his question before he clams up at the sight of the dire expression on Tony's face. His own expression sobers just as quick, hesitating only at the request -- he doesn't understand right away.

"What-? A, oh--" But he does, quick enough despite the beat, and turns back to the floating mass of jars and bottles he'd been trying to corral. "Uh, hang on, uhh..."

How blue is blue? There's a few shades here and there...oh, whatever. Just grab a bunch! Sort it out in a second; Tony sounds wretched and needs him to help!

"Ah! Here!" This one is definitely blue enough to be blue -- and its label started with an A at a glance, so that's good enough for him. Manabu bends back so he can tilt his head and eyeball where Tony's drifting at before lightly lobbing the jar and sending it floating over his way.

"Head's up!"

Medical officer he is not, clearly: It's only in hindsight that he realizes he ought to be asking what's wrong before chucking drugs around. So while he turns back around to face his friend, he grimaces.

"He-hey, what's going on? Did something happen?"

There was a scratch on his forehead and his nose might have been bleeding just a little from the turbulance, but apparently he looks bad enough Manabu doesn't even question him over the medication demand.

It was likely the same stupidity that makes Tony take the bottle hurtled at him and stick two pills in his mouth before even looking at the label. He didn't know what dose he'd just taken. He just needed the anxiety attack to go away.

Wedged as well as he can against a cabinet and the wall to feel somewhat grounded, Tony closes his eyes and just fights to keep the emotions in check. He can hear Manabu's question, but it's at a distance further than the span of the room. He remembers Dread's advice about having to hold it together so others don't become afraid and he knew he was failing at that right now.

And he complained that Peter was fragile.

Oh, man...

Manabu watches Tony scarf those pills down, taking stock of the haggard state of him. His eyes wince, watching him recede and seem to try to press into the walls behind him, as if he were intending to phase right through.

For as long as he's been in Sirius Platoon, and for as much chaotic action he saw on Earth...it seems some signals are similar from place to place, planet to planet.

Swatting a jar of swabs out of his way, Manabu finds his footing on an examination table and pushes himself over. As he goes, he catches the surgical clasped from the ceiling and pulls it with him; should anyone else pop in, at least the sight of Tony in distress won't be the first thing they discover.

"...Hey." Manabu's tone is hushed, less urgent. "I'm gonna put my hands on your shoulders, okay?" I'm just gonna push you a bit so you get some solid ground under you is all."

Each movement is preceded by a narration -- no surprises, but also no hesitations.

"Then I'm gonna--hang on, just...get my feet up here..." He has to wait a bit for his body to move as he wants, but eventually he's got flat feet on the ceiling above, looking rather silly crouched upside-down. "Alright...now..."

He slowly starts to straighten his legs, and in doing so, guide Tony toward the floor to settle.

I dream about you. It's always you.

Tony sees the blue dim lights of Benatar around him. He sees the helmet in front of him that he'd made the last recording on. He hears very soft whispers of his own voice. It was like he was there, but he was also watching it from some unknown place outside of himself.

It's not real. He got out of that. It wasn't real! He blinks and suddenly he sees a familiar face and form moving toward him. For a moment, he can't remember who the man is except to know that he was a friend. The small man was speaking. What was he saying?

I'm fine. I'm totally fine.

He has no idea if that was said aloud or as part of the memory. He could remembers saying something about social media. It was a joke, but it wasn't funny.

I promised. No more surprises.

He was being touched and pushed. What was happening? His gaze shifts from internally where he was seeing the Benatar again to outward. The boy- no man, just small and young- was pushing him. Why? What was going on? He felt the floor suddenly touching his feet. He's shaking and having such a hard time understanding which was reality and which was memory. However, there was something strong about standing where he was supposed to be- on the ground not floating.

He gasped and shakes his head. He was suddenly seeing the medical bay. And.. "M- mana.." It was a slurred mumble, but he was finally coming aware of his surroundings again. It was like getting that one foot hold was enough to start slowly making some progress. "Where.. how much oxygen is.. it'll be gone by tomorrow morning!"

"Whoa, hey! Hey!"

It was great to see the glassy look pass from Tony's features, but what followed wasn't very encouraging in its own way. His grip on his shoulders tightens a little bit more.

"The oxygen levels are fine, Tony. It's going to be alright!"

Possibly. Manabu can't say for certain if it's so, but when it means keeping a man from spiraling into despair, he can be as adamant as necessary. He's stubbornly insisted on more impossible things to good outcomes before, he can do it again. And he will! Upside-down! In a weird train stranded in a void!

"We're just in a low-power mode for repairs. Remember the broadcast?"

Tony stared at Manabu in confusion. He could feel some of his terror receding thanks to the medication but, he didn't understand what was going on. Wait, he was sure there was only enough till morning. He'd told Pepper that very thing. His calculations were never wrong...

"But.."

The broadcast. There hadn't been a broadcast on Benatar. There'd been one on the void train- the Voidtrecker. Manabu wasn't on the Benatar either. But on the train there was gravity. There was no gravity here. Repairs. It must be a function the train doesn't consider a priority. He looks at the items floating around the room and can immediately see a big problem. However, the problem wasn't as dire as starving to death and running out of oxygen. "Sorry.. I'm.. it's coming back. I uh.. don't say anything about this, okay?"

Tony's scattered comprehension and efforts to get back on track, so to speak, is worrying in one of the worst ways: Manabu can bully through and do a lot of things...physically. But the barrier of another person's mind is one he can't pass through at-will. When Bruce had nearly succumbed to the chemically-induced despair of his own mind, Manabu could do barely anything more than scream and beg him to hear him, to put the gun down before he could move his finger too far.

This circumstance isn't nearly so dire, but its impact is still a strong one. After all, Tony himself is a strong impact on this vessel -- he's left quite the impression on the young man. To see him so fraught is troubling...but not world-ending.

All men suffer, after all.

"Hey," he repeats, less urgent. "It's alright, okay? Just think about your breath for a bit. Don't worry about the rest -- no one else is even in here right now, okay?"

Tony didn't know Manabu's past, but he would be both proud and impressed if he saw how well the young man was handling this situation. He'd be totally embarrassed by it too, but that was a whole other story. He'd feel bad for the young man to learn it had been from personal experience.

The instructions were helpful as they gave him some place to put his energy. Breathing in and out, reminding himself the oxygen he was using wasn't a limited resource was all he could handle for a few minutes. It was curious how short a time he'd known the young man and yet it took next to no effort on his part to trust Manabu's words and tone. Tony was safe and with a friend. That was all he needed to know right now.

"Peter.. he doesn't know," Tony began, finding it still difficult to string words together easily, but he pushed through anyway. "After um.. when he's from.. I get stranded on a spaceship. I'm able to power it for a couple days but then.. I was there, dead in the water, for twenty something days." He couldn't remember now the exact time frame. It had been blotched out by mental trauma scabs and malnourished. "We were found but.. only a day left of oxygen."

That certain explains some things. Manabu's mouth tugs in a sympathetic frown.

"Which means suddenly depowering like this isn't the most encouraging of things, huh," he remarks, voice still level and low. "I don't blame you for freaking out. I'd be kind of surprised if it didn't bother you at all, really."

It was never fun having to reveal dark incidents like that with people. It always made him wonder how much weaker they perceived him when they knew he struggled. As if anything they could say or think would light a candle to what he thought on his own about himself.

"I'm kind of surprised you aren't bothered by this. How are you so calm?"

There's a note of good humor in Manabu's voice when he replies, the frown quirking up on one side.

"I'm an SDF officer," he says. "We train for crises like this."

He pauses, squinting.

"Well...kind of like this. In space. You know what I mean. Trains in peril!"

Tony watches Manabu's expression, just as interested in his reactions as his words. There was pride and confidence- both things people needed when facing something like this. They were both the exact opposite of what Tony was currently doing.

"Is.. being upside one of those training tips? And.. is it normal to train for people who are having psychotic breakdowns?"

"Eh-?"

Manabu blinks. After a beat, he lifts one hand off Tony's shoulder to scratch at the back of his head.

"Well, I mean...when it's space, you definitely practice working in zero-g a lot. And with stressed-out passengers and stuff."

He lets go of Tony fully so he can bend, then push himself off the ceiling, curling up so he can turn and gradually straighten back out right-side up. By then, he's got more of a subdued smirk.

"And, I mean...I'm not a specialized medical officer or anything, but I don't know if I'd call that a psychotic breakdown. You're not even frothing at the mouth!"

Tony laughs. It sounds a little more hollow and weak than the usual sound, but he was coming back and it shows as his demeanor was slowly relaxing. It was amusing to watch Manabu very artfully manipulate his body in zero gravity (or 'zero-g' which was also amusing).

His gaze drops a bit as they talk, feeling the humiliation creeping in. "I don't think 'stressed' works quite right either." He shakes his head and rubs his face, suddenly noticing the small scratch when a tiny bit of blood is smeared on his hand. He frowns and reaches into his pocket. Unfortunately he was in his pajamas and not his normal outfit so no handkerchiefs were there. He sighs and leaves it alone. "Whatever it was, thank you. It's.. probably not what you were expecting from me."

Where handkerchiefs were lacking, other supplies were in surplus! For example...Manabu, noticing his distaste with the scratch, fiddles through his pockets stuffed with random supplies to procure...a cotton ball. He shrugs and offers it anyway before making sure the rest of his pockets' contents didn't float away in the meanwhile.

"I dunno..." He grabs a pill bottle passing by. "I mean, I don't know what all a big iron suit's going to do when the lights go out, unless you had flashlights hiding in it.

"I guess I didn't get too far along to start expecting much of anything from anyone but myself, if I'm honest. And just cleaning up loose equipment doesn't really feel like a whole lot, you know? But someone has to, and it may as well be me since I'm here to do it."

Briefly, Manabu's toes scrape the floor, prompting him to kick away toward a cabinet to start putting his findings away.

"I think we should just do what we can, whether we expect each other to or not. Even if it means having to take a few minutes to remember what it feels like the last time we were in a ship in crisis-mode."

Cotton ball works! He presses it against his cut, wincing just a little at the pain. He presses a little harder too, glad to have something else to ground him in reality.

He listens as Manabu talks and he can't help admire how wise the young man was. He was quite sure he hadn't been that far along at Manabu's age. Of course, he'd been too busy partying and flaunting his mental prowess. It seemed more than a lifetime ago he was that arrogant, self-absorbed man who didn't have anything to believe in. While he was still arrogant and probably self-absorbed, he was also a dedicated defender of the world. That had to count for something.

Still, that leads him back to this curious SDF officer. "One would think five years ago would be enough time to recover from just about anything. I've never figured out why mental damage- mental wounds- take so long to heal."

So now what was there to do? His trembling was subsiding and he was left with the exhaustion that always seemed to follow an anxiety episode. He simply watches Manabu for a few more minutes before breaking the silence again. "Your father would be very proud of you, kid."

It's in that quiet that Manabu wonders on those words. How long does it take for a mind to heal from hurt? And is it really the mind? Again, he thinks of Bruce. For so long, so many years, he held on to the guilt and anguish of losing his first partner...an anguish he projected outwardly as anger at Manabu, fearful to lose again. He'd not understood where he was coming from at first -- Manabu is Manabu, not anyone else -- but...as time went on, as experiences gave him further insight, he started to get it.

People are themselves...but also reflections of other people, whether intentional or not. People's influences impress upon the heart like handprints in clay, and over time they harden, becoming permanent fixtures.

In that same way, experiences do the same. Good and bad ones, each one a particular impression. That means the bad...they're just as molded-in as all the rest.

He wonders if there's really any fixing that. It's what he wonders when Tony speaks up again, catching him off-guard. Manabu makes a soft, surprised sound, looking over his shoulder. Not a beat later, a heaviness settles in his chest and crawls up to squeeze at his throat. He swallows against it.

"Oh, I...I don't know." It takes a conscious effort to push a note of good humor into his voice. "I think he'd be exercising a bit more control of the situation than this, you know? He was a captain, after all..." He turns his head away, back to trying to keep trays of utensils in their shelves.

"I think by now, he'd have convinced who or...whatever's running the show to compromise, make a good-faith effort to lay their cards on the table and be straight with all of us. So we'd at least not be in the dark in this."

He hesitates, clearing his throat.

"...Figuratively and literally speaking," he tacks on lightly, shoulders shrugging up.

Tony sees that expression and he hears all the doubt in the young man's tone. He remembers all the hurt and anger he'd held on toward his father only to let it go a day or so before he came here. It had healed a huge portion of his heart in a way he never thought possible. As he watches another young man deal with something so similar, he can't help but feel a part of his own heart bleed for him. Why did it take so long for men like them to get something so simple?

"No. Look, I don't know your father personally, but I know what being a father is. And I haven't known you long, but I think I've seen enough to know a few things at least. A good father wants their kids to be good people. Sure, it's nice to have the accolades and perks of being a leader- a captain- or whatever. But I think if he saw you now, there wouldn't be anything but pride in who you are."

"Heh, jeez, Tony..."

Manabu laughs weakly, feeling a pulse of self-consciousness beat through his melancholy, making his face and ears heat up. It's always strange to talk so openly about hurt and feelings: Growing up, he understood being a soldier, an officer, and even a man meant holding one's self to such high standards, and that included keeping cool in any situation. It's how he idolized his father!

But it was a child's understanding of it. He'd not yet learned what it meant to really be a man -- to be able to laugh and cry with true companions, to understand that there was more to it all than a sharpshooter's eye and a good right hook. Mourning his father and brother had been mourning as a child...mourning Bruce had been mourning as a man.

He still has miles and years to go, but those losses humbled him.

Sure didn't make taking compliments gracefully any easier, though...

"Oh, I hope so," he puffs out, the laugh a bit easier in his breath. "And I'd like to help get this all sorted out before he has to somehow...I don't know, come out of the ether and fix it for me, you know? That'd be embarrassing!"

He clicks the cabinet closed, turning around and gripping the edge of the countertop to keep himself in place, grinning warmly Tony's way.

"I'm glad to get a good review, though! Even if you're kind of pulling overtime to do it, what with wearing yourself out and such. Don't overdo it, okay?"

Tony actually looks a bit embarrassed too. He hadn't meant to lay it on quite that thick. He rubs the back of his neck and wonders where all of that had come from. It didn't make it any less true just.. perhaps a little more chick flick-y than he would've liked.

"Sorry.. we can blame it on the drugs. How many of those did I take?" He honestly has no idea. He chuckles, not at anything in particular. "You want embarrassing try being a fifty year old who has to take sleeping pills every night so he doesn't wake the eleven year old girl with his nightmares. No that's embarrassation."

Tony blinks and replays that in his head. Something sounded a bit off. Sleeping pills, eleven year old.. was she really seven? He wasn't sure. He really could use a nap. Something distracts him as it floats by his face. He reaches for it and would lose his balance if gravity existed. Instead, he just wobbles for a moment before becoming airborne and a little disoriented. Whoa.. this was kind of fun. He crashes right into a floating chair. That wasn't fun.

"Little help here.. Rainbow."

"Geh-?!"

He does a double-take, caught up on that mention of pills before realizing he's just...drifting around like space debris. Jeez...!

With a faint note of exasperation, Manabu pushes off the counter to catch Tony under the arm, and the pair of them glide on...into that surgical curtain. He grabs one of the rings and uses that to slow them to a stop, making a face at Tony.

"Should I not have passed you any medicine at all?" he asks accusingly. "I was only sort-of serious about that overdoing-it comment, but are you really?"

What the hell was happening? Tony had no idea what Rainbow was talking about.

"Of course you should've given me medicine. That's what is it for, no? If you're sick. I'm not sick, am I?" Was he? He was really tired and couldn't seem to remember. "I think I need to lay down. You can come too Rainbow, but no cuddling. That'd be too weird. I don't know you that well."

"Rainbow?!" Manabu echoes, incredulous. He huffs, adjusting his hold and veers them over toward an examination table.

"Alright, well...you're not going to get much proper laying down with the gravity out." He makes a face, squinting. "I can strap you to a table if that makes you feel better."

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Medbay

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Endgame spoiler!

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tw suicide mention

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