ic contact

[motherofnemesis]

"This is Max, leave a name and number and tell me what you want.
I may or may not get back to you."

[ leave a message, call her, come drop by her apartment. ]

Comments

yo dawg

[fe_male]

don't think all that age shit means you're getting off without explaining anything

what's uuup

[motherofnemesis]

what am i supposed to be explaining?

[fe_male]

how you got those guys in hickville to calm their tits and wander off

[motherofnemesis]

i was very logical and persuasive

THIS IS NOT FOR EX THIS IS [SPARTA] FOR US also 1/3 i think

[fe_male]

[ This doesn't happen as often as it might have towards the beginning of their relationship had he been more certain of things at the time and less completely terrified he might run her off. It hasn't happened as much into the duration of it simply because he hasn't been in the situation so often. And also that one time he was drunk and in prison and she came to get him was pretty memorable.

But it's happening now. He's safely well within his own property lines, and somewhat unsafely outside the legal limit, because Tony simply can't not fuck up every now and then. At least hopefully this time it'll be funny. ]

you give me a boner

2/3 maybe

[fe_male]

not like a penis boner
but a boner in my heart

i can't believe i actually wrote these words out 3/3

[fe_male]

a heart on
an affection erection

i believe anything out of you also 1/2

[motherofnemesis]

what are you drinking it sounds like it really works

2/2

[motherofnemesis]

[ Except if he's drunk, and maybe he'll filter her answer through alcohol, and - she sends the next one without thinking nearly enough about it and then spends a little while staring at her phone wondering if she should be regretting this more. ]

ily too please tell me you're being careful

[ She can always claim she was shorthanding I like you, right. ]

i'm not sure if i like that or not

[fe_male]

it's kind of a teal color right now but they've been tasting different as i keep making them

i'm totally being careful don't you trust me

i trust youuuuu

you see why i shouldn't hang out with my Ex?

[fe_male]

[ He hates that people who want to target him wind up targeting them both. Or maybe these are her people this time - they both have a lot of demons, after all. He hates that they get her when they're coming after him and he hates that her past comes up at all. He doesn't mind being collateral damage in her history, just so long as she isn't such in his.

And he's dangerously close right now, watching things happening and slipping into that daze that seems to precede a true fugue. He's observant, cataloging, just not reacting that much. He's reacted enough, it's why they reacted to him like they did. They reacted all over him, although thankfully it was after he'd pissed them off enough to be taken to another room. Part of it had been by accident, and part because he wanted more of them in the room with him and out of the room with her.

Of course, now they're back together and that's not going that well either. ]

shaking my head at you with great love

[motherofnemesis]

[ They haven't said anything yet about what they want. Maybe they're trying to drive her crazy by the lack of a purpose to this, maybe they're just softening her up, or him up, but if they wanted something from her the moment to get it was when they had Tony in another room and she had no way to reach him or protect him and nothing to do but listen because apparently they'd decided to concentrate efforts on him for a bit. Now?

They'd waited too long, now. She was angry, in the cold hard way that came rarely and was almost entirely a result of Tony's face right now and the hard red light that danced in front of her eyes every time she felt how close he was to fugue. It had been a little while since she'd fought with the aim to kill, but they'd made the mistake of assuming she couldn't untie her own bound hands and she had one hand loose in its coils of rope and not a single one of them who'd touched Tony was going to leave this room alive.

She'd been tossing out insults for a little bit now, seeking out their attention with cutting disregard for anything they did to her. Just a little closer, and she finally had one of them with a gun just angry enough to come too close for his own good. Just angry enough, and she takes the pistol to her face with a turn of her head, her hand slipping free and up to grab his hand and break it, clean and fast and then she catches the gun and stands. ]

Close your eyes, Tony. [ Her face is completely devoid of expression when she shoots the guard in the forehead and then she moves, uses the chair she's still bound to by one hand as a weapon before it smashes. She has a limited window of surprise that's running out fast, but she bided her time and watched how they moved and she's done her calculations. They're already dead. They just don't know it yet. ]

it was a bad pun wasn't it

[fe_male]

[ It's weird, how often the pair of them seem to be softened up prior to anyone ever actually telling them what they want from them. Tony was wondering earlier if they hadn't somehow developed some sort of reputation from prior experiences. Beat 'em up first, ask questions later, then beat 'em up again. Tried and true method, obviously. Both of them are being hit now, which wasn't what he'd wanted, but there's not much he can do about it. They'd already seen to that earlier. The last hit comes when his eyes are closed, centering himself from the previous one, still recalibrating and recovering.

The gunshot is loud.

For a while that's all he can think about, because while he started to turn to look at her when she started moving - in a fugue or at least just before it, you don't really need to look at things to know they're happening, not unless you need specifics, but it doesn't mean that things that move don't catch your eye regardless - the gunshot is loud and he squeezes his eyes closed again almost immediately and curls away from it. Fugue sends all his senses outward, spreads him wide until he's covering everything and everything comes back to him, and in the pre-stages, that much of anything, before the numbness sets in and he's actually there, it's too much. It's not normally as wide a window as all that, but then, normally he's not doing it at all, normally it's not such a slow slide into it.

Eventually he does open his eyes though - it's not that long, because he can hear things and he needs to see them too, part of his brain isn't so far gone and part of him needs to see even if it doesn't constitute believing per se.

There's not a whole lot he can do though, between states, and part of him feels kind of useless and part of him is relieved that he doesn't have to do this this time, and part of him is just watching, awed. He doesn't typically get the chance to watch her in true action. He's kind of sad for that - or, he will be, once he's got the presence of mind to do so. There's someone trying to hide behind him now, he can tell, now that she's in control of things, now that he's no longer something to target but something to divert the target off of himself. Tony doubts that will work, keeps watching her move in the meantime because there's an elegance to it that he doesn't often get to witness. Normally - and not just with her, but in general - he doesn't move like that, he thinks. Not in the suit, which is all brute force beyond its graceful dynamics. His methods bear no technique beyond their superficial intention, merely the madness behind their inventor's second mask.

It's things like that that make him not worry about things like the guy behind him, the guy he can tell is terrified six ways from Sunday (or at least three, because Tony can hear his breathing, smell his endocrine system's balancing for the flight or flight, for adrenaline, and feel his pulse through the skin of the arm around his neck, feel the tremble in the hand holding the gun). He hasn't even reacted to that guy. He's not worth that much attention. ]

text 1/2; godawful early in the morning and only slightly inebriated no really

[alittlesweptup]

Hullo hi we ought to throw eachother about again at some poibt

really I swear

[alittlesweptup]

Punching I mean

I'm talking about punching you but not in a cross way in a perfectly reasonabl way

uh huh

[motherofnemesis]

good idea

sounds like tomorrow won't be a good time though

text.

[bumbles]

Max, this is Atlas.

Just checking in. I know you're probably not okay but I wanted to see how you are.

( Thing is, it's not anonymous, or anything. Just... him. Telling her how to get hold of Atlas now that the line he had independent of the network won't be working any more. )

text. 1/2

[motherofnemesis]

i'm fine

[ blatant lying ftw ]

text. 2/2

[motherofnemesis]

thanks for the check in. do you want a new encryption channel for Atlas communications because i can probably sort that for you if you do.

[ This is how she says thank you for being trusted with his identity. ]

[bumbles]

None of us are fine and you're an empath.

( Seriously, Max. Even if she was fine, being an empath in this situation would make you un-fine so fast. )

Maybe. I don't know. It seems sort of pointless.
There's more important things to deal with.

( Than his identity crisis, than his being a stupid child, than indulging his stupid pointless identity. )

[aithinkthereforeaiam]

You have been delivered a complete file on the blueprints and history of the World Space Program as related to the Moon Base historically, and affiliated movements starting in the 20th Century onward by request of End User Caesar Silverberg. Please check your home screen for the relevant file link.

Thank you, and have a day.

[motherofnemesis]

sweet, thanks

text, 12/10;

[alittlesweptup]

Alright?

text;

[motherofnemesis]

no i keeled over and died upon meeting snow

[alittlesweptup]

Typing from beyond the grave. Impressive