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My left arm is glass from shoulder to fingertips. I need something to keep it protected while I fight. Preferably something lightweight that isn't going to hinder my movement too much.

Sound doable?

[ As Tony talked, Adrien rocked pensively from one foot to the other, listening to his roommate closely. It was something, indeed, to hear Tony admit that the Ingress was practically incomprehensible. That alone would have impressed the gravity of the situation on Adrien, if the doctor wasn't already seeing it from the front lines in Medbay.

As Stark spoke, the doctor began to actually pace. He was wrestling with himself, had been for hours now. He could just shove his head into Medical, like an ostrich in the sand and ignore the rest of it. Just work in his little corner of the ship and pretend the rest was for someone else to figure out.

Apathy.

The crunch of bone as necks were snapped. Caducian crew members falling dead as he shot or sometimes stabbed them. Some of the crew little more than civilians driven by grief to try to bring a fight to people who were better trained.

More blood, more death and if the Moira was hopelessly damaged, dying a slow death, then the sacrifice of those lives meant nothing.

Neraki ... Ajna.

Adrien squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as if attempting to obliterate an image he didn't want to see (or couldn't handle envisioning) and he took a deep breath. He shook out his hand, fingers twitching before he shoved them into the pockets of his lab coat.

When he walked back to Tony, he was composed. ]

Has anyone tried talking with the Captains? [ It was a genuine question. He'd had his head down in Medical for so long that he would have missed the memos. ]

you're basically asking for an impact-absorbing exoskeleton
the engineering is easy enough

[ It's really, really not, but he's Tony Stark, so. ]

but around here, the hard part is materials

[ It doesn't sound easy at all, but Snake's best friend has designed and constructed a bipedal robot and can hack through just about anything, so...

He's used to this brand of confidence, at least. ]

It doesn't help when half the ship is also glass.

Maybe we'll get lucky and stop off at a resource-rich planet next. Until then, I'm guessing I just have to put up with this, right?

not necessarily
you'd be surprised how much junk scrap is around, from abandoned Caducan weapons alone

but failing that
putting in a mail request for aluminum-steel alloy probably wouldn't turn TOO many heads
i'm sure people have asked for weirder shit

I picked up a few of those myself. If you think they'll work, I can drop them off to you.

And I've asked the mail drop for weapons before, so definitely more suspicious than some alloy.
How much would you need?

[ Tony doesn't say anything, but he's watching Adrien pace with the same dangerously perceptive look he uses on complex mechanical devices that aren't quite working the way they're supposed to. Like when he's trying to isolate which part(s) aren't functioning, and why.

The look lingers for a beat too long before he deigns to answer the question. ]

Probably. [ He just shrugs, like that one dismissive gesture can encapsulate his entire opinion of this place's authority figures. ] The people around here aren't stupid - well, most of them, anyway. If the info were offered up just by sitting down for tea, I'm damn sure we wouldn't be in this position.

it's a start, at any rate

i won't know an exact amount until i've gotten to thoroughly fondle your glass appendage

[ Christ. Is this just how he is? It wasn't the alcohol talking during their first conversation?

Snake doesn't have much of a choice, so he rolls with it. ]

When are you free?

shift's over at 7
which means i'll be done working by 11

[ Or, you know, never. Just literally never done working. ]

[ Why is it that all scientific types are workaholics? Not that Snake can judge. He doesn't really have much of a life beyond his work.

It takes a matter of seconds to look up Stark's job assignment. Engineer. Well, he's not sure what he expected. ]

Where do they have you, the engine room? I can swing by there, unless you don't like to be bothered while you're working.

hi tony sorry for being such a depressing murder happy weirdo a few days ago i guess it gets too easy to switch off after long enough anyway i hope u and bruce are okay is the science dept still in one piece??

[ Stop being so fucking perceptive, Stark. ]

But you don't know. [ It was a statement and issued in a soft voice that intended to express that he wasn't saying it in a derogatory way. His words may suck at times, in their order and content but he liked to think he'd learned some lessons about delivery. ]

In the medical field you have many moving parts. Doctors, nurses, lab technicians, experts in different fields. When a patient is suffering, these pieces come together to diagnose and treat the affliction because if any one tries to work alone, shit gets missed.

Everybody has a role.

[ Looking back at the Ingress, he sighed softly. ]

That's our patient right there, the best opportunity we have for a solution to what's afflicting the crew but it feels like we're all in our silos, throwing all our resources at treating the symptoms and not looking up when we should.

[ Tony resists rolling his eyes, but only because it's clear Adrien is nearing the end of his emotional tether. He's not about to dig into specifics - he figures he can make a few solid guesses, anyway - but that much is clear from his behavior alone. ]

So, what, we need to hold hands and somehow get all these people working as a cohesive unit?

[ If it sounds skeptical, that's because it is. But it's not nearly as scathing as it might have been, once; whether he likes it or not, being aboard the Moira has already forced him into more teamwork than he's participated in - ever, maybe. And the Avengers initiative is still fresh in his mind, besides.

It's less that he's shooting the idea down wholesale, and more than he fails to see how it can happen, realistically. ]

We'd need some kind of actual leadership for that, and I think that's a pretty tall order.

[ Look at this sad idiot. ]

sup, hotshot
i'm fine
Bruce got glassed but if you ask him he'll determinedly tell you he's fine too
science appears to be sciencing on despite the thorough ass kicking

all your parts still attached?

[ The world should be thanking the scientific types for being workaholics tyvm. ]

wouldn't make a difference honestly
do you know how many clowns are already down here on a daily basis?

my names riptide

[he'll get that about an hour later.]

glassed? i guess that at least means hes alive yeah they are i took a few rockets to the face but im tuff enuff to not be bothered by it did you get glassed?

"a few rockets to the face"
okay
that seems fine?

nothing got glassed that i can't fix
which is more than i can say for
y'know
pretty much everyone else

they were human sized rockets tone if they were cybertronian sized rockets i would not have a head which would suck no way to get ahead in life ect ect yea its? i dont know as long as the ship doesnt break in half i guess

[ He really was at the end of his emotional tether, from a number of directions and Stark's words hit him all levels of wrong.

For a moment, Adrien felt his breath slam into his chest and then seem to stop moving through his lungs. It was like suffocating while standing upright. Inside his own skull, he felt like a pingpong ball was ricocheting against bone, thoughts flying every which way, with no one clear reasonable response standing out above the others.

He reached back and gripped at the short hair just above his nape, a half measure from the temple to temple grasp he wanted to indulge in. Tony wasn't aware of it, wasn't aware of any of the emotional land mines he'd triggered with that entirely reasonable statement. It truly was ludicrous, impossible ...

hopeless. ]

Yeah. [ He said, softly after a moment and in the moment after that, he dropped his hand away. ] Yeah, right. Tall order .. ridiculous.

[ Taking a deep breath, Adrien seemed to collapse in on himself even as he straightened, hands going into the pockets of his uniform as he looked back at the Ingress and then to Tony. ]

I shouldn't have wasted your time calling you down here.

[ Tony doesn't appear cowed by Adrien's sudden meltdown. He just drives the conversation onward in spite of it. ]

I said it would be a pain in the ass. I didn't say we should all roll over and give up without even bothering.

[ The keen eye that had back tracking him earlier is back, sharper this time. The current situation is stressful, sure. People are dead and haven't come back. People are crippled with no clear path to recovery. The ship is in shambles. It's enough to drive even well-adjusted people to their limit, and there are no well-adjusted people in this room.

But this reaction isn't about just that, plain and simple. There's no way. ]

This isn't just about the Ingress. So, what?

Clowns? Really?

[ What kind of insult is that? ]

I'll come by after hours, bring the weapons I salvaged.

right my bad
sorry, i am a small person who is used to those
y'know
killing people dead

and the ship probably won't break in half so much as fracture into many smaller pieces under its own structurally compromised weight

[ AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU INITIATED THIS CONVERSATION ]

[ Hadn't they originally connected over the fact that Adrien understood Tony was a genius? Should it surprise him that the man could be an insightful bastard; nope.

For a moment he just looked at his roommate before he shook his head and looked past Tony and towards the Ingress. ]

Now's not the time. [ He said in a quiet tone. He wouldn't insult Tony's intelligence by trying to pretend there wasn't something, but as Stark already recognized, there were no well-adjusted people in this room. ]

If you're not insisting it's impossible, well ... you're the social butterfly, who or whom would you tap for such a task?

[ He lets it go. Don't ever say he was never magnanimous. ]

Hey, I've been here just as long as you have. [ But if he really has to stop and think about it... ] Shepard, maybe.

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