Logs:Operation: R.I.F.T.S.P.L.O.S.I.O.N.
| Operation: R.I.F.T.S.P.L.O.S.I.O.N. | |
|---|---|
Rectifying Interdimensional Fluctuations Turns Somewhat Perilous, Leaving Out Several Individuals; Others Nabbed. | |
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2020-11-18 boom (Immediately followed by attempted explanations.) |
| Location
<NYC> NYPD 121st Precinct - Staten Island | |
The 121st Precinct station house is one of the newest in the borough, its unique top-heavy outline eyecatching where it perches at the top of its hill. There are no police officers in sight now, though, nor any cruisers out front, though some remain in the actual parking lot in back. There are instead quite a number of commercial vans (Strategic Pest Control and Mold Remediation, they read, beside an incredibly generic geometric logo) parked in the circular driveway, and workers in coveralls coming and going at regular intervals. Today the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents normally posted in the building are standing by outside, where there has been much excitement and nervous speculation since they've withdrawn, leaving only the lead team inside. The custom machinery they've been working feverishly to assemble has been deployed at the rift site -- an array of several dozen emitters mounted all around the cell, joined by thick cables to a control console that looks distinctly like Stark's handiwork and also to a massive battery of industrial generators that have been moved into the station's unused office spaces. Steve is in his tactical uniform today -- predominantly blue, with red and white stripes along the lower torso, deep red boots, silver piping along the shoulders and a silver star on his chest, though he's forgoing the helmet and gauntlets at the moment. For once the rest of him matches the great targe shield slung across his back, and he carries a pistol at his left hip. He's just returning from his final round of the station and is coasting to a stop in front of the control console. Meets the eyes of his teammates in turn, his expression grave, and gives a single firm nod. Natasha looks unobtrusive as she often does -- black leather jacket that mostly hides the holster at her waist and cuffs at her wrists, comfortable jeans, comfortable black boots. Steve's gravitas is not mirrored in her expression -- a mild curiosity, as she sits on a stool nearby the console, one leg tucked up beneath her and one planted on the ground. She's not studying the rather innocuous looking empty cell but the readouts on the console, brows lifting as her fingers drum against her knee in the only outward sign of mild impatience. Clint had been leaning one shoulder against the bars of a cell beside Natasha, but at Steve's nod he straightens, all the casual slouchy inattentiveness of his posture fled. He's wearing a black tactical jacket, cargo pants, and combat boots, clear black-framed goggles on his face. There's a pistol holstered at his right hip, a complicated quiver and compound bow at his back. His arms uncross from his chest and he rolls his shoulders, his gaze also going first to the console, but from there quickly to the experts behind it, his expression inscrutably neutral. Bruce has been working steadily at the console for a while now, his attention flitting between its various displays with astonishing alacrity considering the sheer volume of data continuously generated by all of the monitoring equipment, not to mention the diagnostics they've been running on the emitter array itself. He's wearing a white lab coat over a plum colored button-down with the top button undone, charcoal slacks, and black penny loafers. His eyes are shadowed with the long nights spent working on the rift, but still sharp behind his thick-framed glasses. The final diagnostic results scroll up on one of the holographic displays and he flicks it over to Tony--all systems go. At the console, Tony is more casual than the rest -- jeans, sneakers, Styx shirt over a grey long-sleeve tee. He's been very engaged with calibrating the equipment, monitoring the diagnostics, but nods at the okay from Bruce. Flicks a switch with a flourish -- -- to blare a sound system to life, the iconic opening notes of "Highway to Hell" filling the precinct. His head bobs along with the music, and it's only just before the actual first sung lines of the song begin that he presses another button, far less ostentatiously -- In that first moment, anyway. Only the blaring music, the expectant looks on the team's faces, and a whole lot of nothing from the empty cell. In the next, the precinct turns itself inside out. Maybe not literally, but the dizzy-dissonant lurch that ripples through the assembled people might make it hard to tell the difference, anyway. There's a fluttering stomach-churning twist, a warped moment where the walls seem to lurch, change, bare concrete and steel bars and high-tech machinery replaced with the rustic charm of a cosy warm kitchen, herbs strung from the ceiling, a marmalade cat curled up on one dining chair, an ancient enormous tricolor mutt padding hopefully toward the table. Another shift, something frigid and icy rippling like a cold wind through the room, though nothing stirs -- not exactly. But when it settles, Steve's team is gone. The room is not quite empty, though. Just in front of the control console where Tony had been is -- very much not-Tony, now, though in jeans and plain blue-green flannel he hasn't traded much up on the casual front. Wide-eyed, open-mouthed, DJ's eyes are darting around the room in bewilderment, flitting from the cells to the machinery to Steve. Locking there, his breathing speeding. The flutter-blink of motion is almost overlookable -- a quick hop away, a quick hop back to where he started, wavering and indecisive though his eyes don't leave the other man. His left hand comes up to cover his mouth, fingers running against his neatly-trimmed beard before he drops it to rest against the control panel as if for stability. Though he opens his mouth no words come out, only a soft half-gasped breath. Steve had started moving before reality had quite settled around him again, and is swaying slightly now in the wake of that disorienting shift, but he freezes when his gaze lights on the man standing where the rest of his team should be. His ice blue eyes go wide-wide, his breath catches audibly, and when he lets it out it's with a quiet, shapeless noise of distress. An instant later he's moving, far more decisively than DJ, closing the space between them in a single step. His left hand lifts to the other man's face, right arm slipping around his waist to pull him into a desperately passionate kiss. | |
