bakerstreet | (no subject)

Hi I see you have an interest in a Pacific Rim AU and wow I didn't realize how much that was something I wanted to play with until now. Wackiness and adventures doing various sciences in the Shatterdome y/y.

[Y. All of the Y. Perhaps early days of the Jaeger program and experiments with getting brains and computers to talk to each other? Or more movie-era and help we're getting shut down and everything is fucked?]

[Ooh ooh but either of these things sound wonderful. Whichever you wanna run with I guess?]

They were just rumors at first. Funding getting pulled, smaller Shatterdomes merged or shut down, budget cuts across the board. Tony hadn't been too worried about it. There's always a bit of background haggling between the PPDC countries over who pays how much for what, especially around election times; it always works itself out in the end. Even politicians aren't stupid enough to take too many resources away from the only thing standing between them and smashy, roaring death.

...or so he'd thought, anyway. Tony would not have described himself as an optimist, but well done governments of the world, you have shocked and disgusted even him.

It wasn't so bad right at first, but they're really feeling the strain now. The tech budget and staff have been brutally slashed: Tony's lost most of his department. He hasn't slept in days. The repairs to Howling Commando's left arm are still ongoing, Widow Hawk is three weeks overdue for maintenance, and that's just the things that have already gone wrong. He feels pretty safe in assuming there's another crisis waiting to pounce on him the second he relaxes.

Right now he's on his lunch break. It's sometime after midnight, but he lost all useful sense of time about 72 hours into this shift, so lunch is as good a term as any for what he's currently consuming. Which is coffee. Just coffee. Thick, black, and strong enough to wake the dead, which is essentially the service it's performing right now.

He doesn't look up when someone sits down across from him; the coffee has his full attention. But he does mutter something into his cup that might be a greeting.

That particular show of antisocial behavior doesn't particularly surprise her. Jemma's one of the newer faces here, all things considered -- she's young enough that she's only been with the projects a couple of years, being recruited straight out of uni thanks to her rather specific combination of degrees -- and even she knows how it works.

She doesn't remember the glory days herself, not really. This anxiety, the manic rush to keep everything running and keep the world at least mostly safe, that's all she's known here. To say she's used to being a bit frazzled is an understatement.

Lately, she and Fitz (her working partner, her other half -- the joke is that if either of them could manage to pass the combat side of things, which of course they can't, they're very much not wired up that way, they'd be as drift-compatible as anyone had ever seen) have been doing whatever experiments they can manage with what equipment they still have left. Truly figuring out the kaiju (that nobody has done already astounds them) is the goal. But nothing's going to get done if they're not at least semi-functional, which is what led to this snack run that she's on. (They take turns, that's not debatable, and it's hers.)

Being still something of a rookie, kind of the team baby, she's all politeness and nervous smiles, all, "Hello, Mr. Stark," and not expecting a response truly.

Tony eyes her over the rim of his mug. He's not sure when exactly the new scientists and technicians coming into the program started looking like they should still be in high school, but whenever it happened, he definitely doesn't like it. It's not even that it makes him feel old. Not really. But it's depressing how bright and fresh-faced they all are, and how quickly they get as jaded as everyone else.

They have a high turnover rate in the shatterdome; people come and go pretty rapidly, and he's never had a great memory for names or how they relate to faces. He does recognize her though, in a vague sort of way, possibly in conjunction with some of the other impossibly young new recruits. One of the science department maybe. Anyone who can tell one end of a screwdriver from the other and/or manage any maths more complex than basic trigonometry tends to get shanghaied by the repair and maintenance team when they're desperate.

They're desperate quite a lot these days.

"It's just Tony," he replies with a careless shrug, still holding onto the coffee like he expects it to vanish if he lets it go. This is in fact a genuine concern when literally everyone in the Shatterdome is as ridiculously sleep deprived as they are, although most people value their lives too much to steal Tony's. "You're with the science team, right? Don't tell me your name, I'll never remember it."

It's not like she means to look so young, or so optimistic either. She's always had this annoying tendency to be a bit too trusting, at least of notions and noble ideas; it's not impossible for someone to find their way onto her shit list, but she often feels better when she can devote herself to trying to do something good, something right, and she can be rather dogged in this.

She tries to stay positive if she can, and so she's trying very hard not to take her current companion's nonchalance personally. She lets her smile fade a bit, because she's pretty sure cheer won't work right now, but she's still plenty pleasant.

"Is the seat taken?" she asks carefully. "I can always find another." But she hates to eat alone, too, so she'd prefer not. Even if all they're going to do is sit there staring into space together.

Much as he'd like to claim to have been that young and optimistic once-- well, logically he has to have been that young. But optimistic? That seems a lot less plausible. And right now, bone-tired on day four of what's on paper supposed to be a twelve hour shift, sustained purely by caffeine and spite, hands peppered with cuts and minor burns he doesn't even remember picking up...even if it might have been the case once, it's damn hard to picture now.

He waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the seat in question, indicating a vast apathy toward seating arrangements in general and who he shares a table with in particular. It doesn't make much difference to him. "It's a free shatterdome. Knock yourself out."

The coffee cup is nearly empty. He stares into it contemplatively, balancing the merits of more coffee (substantial and inarguable) against the fact that he's not one hundred percent sure his legs will hold him right now. Whatever. That sounds like a future-Tony problem. At least there's someone else here now. She can give him a prod if he falls asleep face-down on the mess hall table.

She gets the message. Or she gets it enough. She's not all that sensitive, really, she's not really offended by his clear lack of interest, but she doesn't really love her attempts at politeness being rebuffed. She also can't be bothered to say anything (what would she say, really) so she doesn't. She just sits.

And for a few minutes, she's just sipping at her own drink (tea, because she's a cliche) and nibbling the really pretty horrible sandwich she'd grabbed for herself and staring out at who knows what. Nothing odd about it.

But she also can't help glancing at her tablemate from time to time, and it's her medical training that prompts her to ask, all soft like she's afraid of annoying him, "Are you feeling all right?"

He glances up from his empty coffee cup, giving her a look that's equal parts surprise and confusion. He's spent most of the last week in the deranged little bubble of the repair and maintenance crew, who don't generally ask questions like that; mostly because they all look like shit and it's considered poor form to point it out. If anyone actually seems like they might be on the verge of collapse, they're 'advised' to leave the workshop for a few hours. Other than that, 'mostly functional and not actively bleeding on anything' is about as good as it gets for them these days.

"Uh-- yeah, sure," he replies. He shrugs and gives a weary laugh, gesturing with the empty mug. "Just tired."

It's not like they're really much better in the science department, but Jemma's got this protective instinct that manifests at odd times and often with those she doesn't know as well. In her department, there are fewer of them, and they at least try to present functionally, and -- well, Mr. Stark, Tony, is about this close to not doing that.

"When was the last time you slept?" she asks, because she can't not.

It's not that he ever deliberately seeks to work himself into the ground. It's just that he comes on shift, and a shipment of replacement servos has gone astray somewhere between Detroit and LA, and angry phone calls and snide emails are going around about a discrepancy on Widow's maintenance logs, and the dangerous goods permits for Commando's nuclear core are MIA, and by the time he's got onto the actual repairs he's two days behind schedule and hasn't slept in roughly forever. These things just happen.

He appears to give the question some consideration. "...what day is it?" he asks eventually.

They might, happen that is, but for Jemma, keeping people functional is sort of what she does. (In an indirect way, mostly, but that's part of working with the jaegers and their pilots, making sure everything runs smoothly, isn't it?) She understands that things happen, but taking care of oneself needs to be one of those things.

She sighs. Like so many of the people working here, it's like trying to handle children when it comes to this. "Tuesday," she says.

"About...four days ago, then." If a few hours' sleep snatched in between handing over and being woken up again for a neural-net related crisis shortly thereafter counts. The last full night's sleep, solid eight hours he'd had? He's not even going to try and remember. Actual numbers on that could only be depressing.

Apparently ongoing sleep deprivation if extremely bad for your concentration and general health, but in all honesty he's not sure he'd even know how to function while properly rested any more. He's used to being powered solely by caffeine and spite.

"It's fine," he adds, waving a dismissive hand, because he can see the first warning signs of the mix of concern and disbelief he tends to elicit in people. "I'll go get a few hours when the day shift comes on."

"I see," she mumbles. She's not really sure what the appropriate thing for her to do right now would be: on one hand, looking after people, but on the other hand, respecting his personal space. On one hand, she's a doctor, on the other hand he's got far more standing in the shatterdome.

Eventually it's the doctor side that wins, if quietly. "I'm sure you don't need me lecturing you about that," she observes, which of course implies that there's a lecture to be had if he would listen.

Tony gives a soft, tired laugh. "The lecture about looking after myself and getting enough sleep? Yeah, you can save yourself the effort, I've got it pretty much memorized by now." He does appreciate that she opted for implying the lecture rather than just launching into it though. Efficient. Saves him the trouble of not listening.

"If you're sure," she says. "Far be it from me to -- I don't know. Intrude. But I don't much enjoy seeing someone trying to look after the world and forgetting to look after themselves in the process." It's a little bit hypocritical, maybe, but it's true.

"There'll be plenty of time for sleep after we save the world." His smile is the tired smile of a man who knows better than to believe a word he's saying. But if giving up isn't an option - and it isn't - then they might as well at least pretend they think they have a chance at winning.

She still believes, though. Sort of. She wants to, anyway. She wants to think that they're not just doing all of this for nothing. She's that sort of person, goal-oriented and the like, where it's almost necessary because if she doesn't have a purpose she just sort of floats around listlessly. Sorry, Tony, right now you're part of her attempts to stay engaged and also her latent anxiety. "Do you really think that?"

"Course I do," he replies, easy and without hesitation, as though it's the easiest thing in the world. "'Cause if I don't, I'm wasting my time here, and I don't know about you but I don't really like that thought much."

"I don't either," she admitted, voice going soft like she was embarrassed about this. "I'd like to think we're going to see the results of our work eventually, but it's... well, I'm sure you've had days where it seems hopeless, too."