Nothing out of the ordinary. The warning siren sounded while I was above ground, we hardly had seconds, then the blast. The heat. The light of it
I passed out, woke up underground
Everything's hot. Cave ins. Electricity's down, air filtration might be down, hard to tell, air's too thick with everything else. I don't know how much of the structure of the tunnels is still intact
but even more troubling than what strange is recounting to him is that the network is still active with people who are within the simulation and none of them are reporting a nuclear attack. ]
stephen, listen to me you are inside of a simulation right now
i can confirm with you that whatever is happening in there doesn't seem to have any impact on the bodies out here
have you attempted to contact anyone who was caught in the blast?
[ It takes a moment. He's processing what he's been told, sitting with it, trying to align it with what he's seeing. With the pain of new sores opening up on his skin, his cells slowly dying.
He can't. And that still doesn't make it any less true.
With difficulty, Stephen abandons the immediate truth of his experience and takes a more thorough look at the network. ]
[ A longer stretch of time. Seconds come and go, facts aligning themselves horribly slowly. Realisations cascading into one another, clouded mind clawing for clarity.
They're fine. They're fine...
Only they aren't. Alive doesn't mean well. Surviving doesn't mean meeting the baseline requirements for okay.
They're alive. And he can't get to them. And all his efforts have done nothing but put his chosen few in the firing line and keep him from having any power to change that. ]
I don't know what to do
[ Tony must known what it is to be brutally reminded that you're fallible and human when you most need yourself to be anything but. He's perhaps the only person Stephen could risk telling.
And with it out, with the thought written clear in words, his mind latches onto it. Breeds new panic. ]
I don't know what to do
[ There's always an answer. There's always a fix, somewhere, always something he can do, some final pull of the rug out from under the impossible. But not here. In this universe he is a man with a sharp mind and hands that scream if he tries to hold a gun and somehow he still hasn't learned that he cannot win.
Here the lesson comes again, spelled out plain in millions of coded corpses. Maybe this time it'll sink in. ]
[ all it takes is six words — six simple words to alarm tony enough to push the impartial problem-solving part of him aside and give way to genuine concern. stephen, like him, isn't a man who would easily concede to something like that, especially not to someone else. it isn't just a matter of pride but stubbornness and determination too. so for him to reach a point where he's not only admitting it once but repeating it a second time is extremely worrying.
he was afraid that this would happen, to be honest. they had an entire spat over it not too long ago and they never got past it, yet it isn't the time to think that he should have done more or regret not doing enough now. ]
just take a deep breath, stephen i'm here with you ok?
[ he needs to get to him. fortunately, he knows where his physical body is. one of the first things on his to-do list was to check up on him at red wings when he first awoke from the simulation. he found him in his office, safe and sound; so it's now where he's headed. ]
we're going to work through this together so do me a quick favor and just take a couple of minutes to focus on your breathing
[ he's distracting him, yeah; but he doesn't need stephen strange getting a panic attack on him before he manages to reach the bar. the good thing is that the journey will be a short one. he was near the area anyway, so it won't be long before he has entered the premises and accessed stephen's office.
walking over to where his frozen body is, he takes a deep breath as he tries to get himself ready for what's inevitably to come. man, he seriously isn't ready. ]
Here goes nothing... [ pulling the glove off of his hand, he tucks it into the backpocket of his pants as he wraps his fingers around the doctor's wrist. ]
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no subject
hold on
what are you talking about?
did this just happen?
no subject
A while
I don't know. Today. I think
no subject
can you do that?
tell me what preceded the attack, what you know about it and what you see now
no subject
I passed out, woke up underground
Everything's hot. Cave ins. Electricity's down, air filtration might be down, hard to tell, air's too thick with everything else. I don't know how much of the structure of the tunnels is still intact
And it's quiet
[ So quiet. ]
There were millions of people
no subject
but even more troubling than what strange is recounting to him is that the network is still active with people who are within the simulation and none of them are reporting a nuclear attack. ]
stephen, listen to me
you are inside of a simulation right now
i can confirm with you that whatever is happening in there doesn't seem to have any impact on the bodies out here
have you attempted to contact anyone who was caught in the blast?
no subject
It registers moments after what Tony means. ]
No.
[ Hadn't thought to. Everyone down here is dead. ]
no subject
judas is messing with you
tell me what you see on the network
no subject
He can't. And that still doesn't make it any less true.
With difficulty, Stephen abandons the immediate truth of his experience and takes a more thorough look at the network. ]
It's active. They're active.
no subject
good. great. okay, got that out of the way. now— ]
i need you to hold onto that, stephen
they're active on the network which means they're fine
no matter what you might see in there, they're fine
no subject
They're fine. They're fine...
Only they aren't. Alive doesn't mean well. Surviving doesn't mean meeting the baseline requirements for okay.
They're alive. And he can't get to them. And all his efforts have done nothing but put his chosen few in the firing line and keep him from having any power to change that. ]
I don't know what to do
[ Tony must known what it is to be brutally reminded that you're fallible and human when you most need yourself to be anything but. He's perhaps the only person Stephen could risk telling.
And with it out, with the thought written clear in words, his mind latches onto it. Breeds new panic. ]
I don't know what to do
[ There's always an answer. There's always a fix, somewhere, always something he can do, some final pull of the rug out from under the impossible. But not here. In this universe he is a man with a sharp mind and hands that scream if he tries to hold a gun and somehow he still hasn't learned that he cannot win.
Here the lesson comes again, spelled out plain in millions of coded corpses. Maybe this time it'll sink in. ]
no subject
he was afraid that this would happen, to be honest. they had an entire spat over it not too long ago and they never got past it, yet it isn't the time to think that he should have done more or regret not doing enough now. ]
just take a deep breath, stephen
i'm here with you ok?
[ he needs to get to him. fortunately, he knows where his physical body is. one of the first things on his to-do list was to check up on him at red wings when he first awoke from the simulation. he found him in his office, safe and sound; so it's now where he's headed. ]
we're going to work through this together
so do me a quick favor and just take a couple of minutes to focus on your breathing
[ he's distracting him, yeah; but he doesn't need stephen strange getting a panic attack on him before he manages to reach the bar. the good thing is that the journey will be a short one. he was near the area anyway, so it won't be long before he has entered the premises and accessed stephen's office.
walking over to where his frozen body is, he takes a deep breath as he tries to get himself ready for what's inevitably to come. man, he seriously isn't ready. ]
Here goes nothing... [ pulling the glove off of his hand, he tucks it into the backpocket of his pants as he wraps his fingers around the doctor's wrist. ]