Logs:Right to Life

Right to Life
Dramatis Personae DJ, Tony
In Absentia Charles, Hive, Dawson, Hulk	2023-08-09 "Sure he can slice right through whatever knot's hitched you."
Location <PRV> Tony's Penthouse - Midtown Manhattan
Accessible only by private elevator, this home takes up the top four floors of Stark Tower. Three of them are residential, a luxurious sprawl of space equipped with state of the art technology and a wealth of comforts. Private gym, terraced pool room whose glass walls can be rolled back in summer to turn it into an outdoor balcony, full bar equipped with robotic-armed bartender, extensive home entertainment system. For all its opulence, the place is decorated tastefully, careful coordination through its wood-and-stone look. The views, through many windows, terraces, balconies, might be the best part of all of it; from this perch high atop the tower, the city spreads out beneath. The lowest floor of the home is less residential, more technologically bent; packed with a host of robotics, monitors, equipment. Where Tony does the bulk of his personal work, it may well be the real heart of Stark Industries' R&D. There are two someones asleep, right now, in Tony's bed, although neither of them are Tony himself. Presumably at some point he was also in bed, but now at this solidly middle-of-the-night hour he's several rooms away, in red pajama pants and a plain undershirt, seated at a terminal with a crystal decanter and tumbler half-filled with whiskey close at hand. There's a cane leaning up against the side of his chair, and his fingers are tapping idly against its metal handle as he scrolls through a page of nigh-incomprehensible numbers glowing on his holo-display. Somewhere above the figures -- is it functional, is it just because the aesthetic is Very Sci Fi, only Tony probably knows -- a small image of an also-faintly-glowing red gem is rotating somewhat pointlessly. Maybe, with late-night company over, it's not so surprising that there's movement in the apartment. It's probably at least a little surprising that the movement is fluttering in ghostlike blur from where it came in through the window a floor below. DJ is rapidly checking various Likely Spots from the workshop on up, fast enough Tony's on-the-ball robotic butler doesn't even quite have time to announce DJ's presence before the man himself is standing beside Tony's desk, in jeans and a white and green striped revere collar button-down. He's not looking at his peak -- slightly too pale, slightly too skinny; only one arm currently, his other sleeve pinned in place. A spare chair blips over from several feet away to set itself down at the side of the desk. DJ sets himself into it a moment later. "Sir --" is as far as Friday gets before Tony cuts in. "-- yyyep, think I got it." The uptick of his glance is very brief and so is his frozen pause before he reaches for his glass and downs a swallow -- but quicksilver as these tells are they are probably not fleeting enough to get past DJ's notice. "Ah, good, save me a phone call. Take it the nutty Professor fixed your --" His tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth as he waggles the glass in the general direction of DJ's head. "Looking way more awake than he said you were." "Only half awake." DJ has braced his hand on the edge of the desk, idly pushing his chair to a slow rotation. He's looking over Tony's display fairly unabashedly. "And I'm sure the Professor would have called you, if it came to that. Who knows. If he doesn't wake back up, maybe you'll still..." He trails off into a sharper breath. Flicks idly at the holographic gem where it hangs, expositorily, over the terminal. He doesn't look at Tony with his abrupt shift of direction: "What do you think the other Tony is? To you?" "Only half --" It takes Tony a moment to catch on to this line of thought, and he's frowning at DJ's head as if maybe peering hard enough would let him see the invisible presence sleeping in the passenger seat. "He still in there? Dying? Doesn't that -- won't that --" It's not DJ's head he's looking to, now, but the truncated stub of his arm. When Tony flicks at the gem the display collapses, taking its data with it. "The other -- ah. Mmm. Gone? Somewhere far -- far away. Closed that door, chucked the key, remember?" "He's not dying." This comes too-fast, too-defensive. DJ lets go of the desk, slumping back in the chair. "... yet. We don't know. If he'll wake up. Xavier is still -- they know some good doctors." His eyes drop, shifting for a moment toward his residual limb. "Oh -- no. No. Last time your robots killed him it did much worse than this." If this is meant to be barbed, there's very little sharpness to it. He almost laughs at Tony's reply, but the breath comes out a little deflated. "That's it? That's really all you think of him?" Tony has been sipping at his whisky again, and once more he tips his glass out in an expansive indication, now, of the luxurious penthouse around them. "Man left me an empire to run. Got plenty to think about in this world. Here. All that other, eh --" He shakes his head, quick. "S'quicksand. It's a trap." He slouches forward, elbow propped on the now inert desk and his cheek pressed up against his knuckles. His shoulders have gone a little tighter at the mention of Rift!Hive's death, but only momentarily. "And with him out, you can't just --" His fingers make a scissoring snip motion. "Avoid repeating that." DJ looks, for a second, like he is about to protest this line of thought, sitting up just a bit straighter, his mouth opening -- and closing again as his brows furrow. His fingers clench and unclench, then drop to his knee. His eyes fix steadily on the blank desktop. "No. I mean, yeah. We could. It's just not -- that easy." "That's why you brought the big guns in, right? Final Boss of telepaths. All I've heard, man can all but --" Tony's brows furrow. "Wheel on water. Sure he can slice right through whatever knot's hitched you." "He can --" There's an audible but in DJ's tone that takes a while to surface. Even once he gets to, "-- staying with him might help Hive," it doesn't seem quite like this is all. Through the pause that follows he's growing more still, his hand just pressed flat against his thigh, the small motions of his chair halting. "It's just not our -- we can't just --" These stuttering starts do not get far, his frown deepening as he struggles for some kind of explanation that makes more sense than the honest one that finally comes out: "Dawson -- Flicker -- the other me, he's in my mind. Our mind. Somewhere between me and Hive -- I'm still trying to make sense of it, but if he cuts that cord it's not just Hive we're risking." Now he's eying the decanter on Tony's desk, although only for the briefest moment before just looking up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry, I know this sounds absolutely bonkers." Through this explanation, Tony swallows down the rest of his glass and pours another. His brows are hiking -- and hiking -- and hiking. "Huh," comes first, at the end of it. "So what, now, there's -- two of you. In there." He picks up his cane, poking its rubber-tipped end at the side of DJ's head. "Other's not some kind of -- big -- green -- rage monster, is he?" DJ bats at the cane, swatting it aside before it makes actual contact with his temple. "Wh--" never entirely resolves into the startled splutter it was going to be; it breaks into a laugh instead, a little too thin and a little to tight, but there's a real amusement in it all the same. "He's just -- me. Some other me. Or I'm some other him. Pretty sure he looks kind of --" He sucks in at his cheeks, chewing briefly on the inside of one. "Actually, I don't know. Who knows. Maybe if he takes control he'll totally hulk out. Or maybe my beard will just fall off and I'll lose my other arm." "Less impressive," is Tony's immediate critique of this possibility, but then, studying DJ's face and missing arm with some consideration: "More impressive." He's tap-tapping his cane lightly against the ground, now, his own chair bouncing with the jittery-small motions. "So how's it work. Say the Lord's name in vain three times. Ask about your magic underwear." "It's not magic." This answer comes immediate and reflexive but too rote to be properly defensive. "And he's not Bloody Mary, you can't speak him into..." DJ trails off, here, something quick and complicated twitching at his expression. He's not my anger. He's not my -- anything." "He's not your burden, either." The tapping of Tony's cane is growing a little thumpier, a little more pronounced. "You, ah --" His fingers flick up off the head of the cane, waving towards DJ's head. "Want to be tethered -- at the brain -- forever. You didn't ask to birth this, uh -- any of this. Sounds like there's still ways of dealing with it." At this, DJ just goes a little paler and a lot more still. His mouth presses together thin, his eyes fixed on the up-down motion of Tony's cane. "Right, yep, no. Your family's proof enough, huh? Respect to your mother, wonderful lady, but your people -- not so big on the bodily autonomy things. Still --" Tony shrugs, swivels back towards his desk. "Right to life. Sure. Nobody's got a right to your life, though. Is that how you want to live. That how he wants to live." There's still no answer from DJ, though his fingertips are going white where his hand clenches hard against his knee. "Well. Don't lose sleep over it just yet." Tony seems unsurprised by DJ's silence. He's flicking his display back to life, attention turning back to the arcane figures in front of him. "Your Borg Queen never wakes up, sounds like it won't even be your call."