thisavrou_log | ( closed ) I get lost in space

( closed ) I get lost in space

Who: Bruce Banner and Tali'Zorah
When: Dec 10th
Where: The engine room
What: Bruce goes check out the engines and power reserves, and runs into someone else there.
Warnings: None, I don't think.

There are only so many books he can read. At this point, he's probably absorbed all the publications in the library about mechanical engineering, anything even remotely related to what goes into the workings of spaceships, not to mention that book that Elizabeth got him with several blueprints and specifications on various other ships. That's about all the knowledge he can get under the current circumstances, but now he needs the practical aspect, to see the actual ship at work, and to try to find where the flaw really is.

So, the engine room is his destination. It's the most important room in the ship, where the power supply is stored, and where he'll find the massive devices that will keep the ship going. If there's a flaw that affects power in general, then it has to be there.

No one seems to mind him coming by the engine room. In fact, as far as he can tell it's completely empty at the moment, and he's not even stopped as he gets himself a pair of ear muffs for the noise and steps farther inside. The room does have an advantage: it's warm. It's hot, even, unlike the rest of the ship, and right now that's a huge relief, even so far as making up for the loud noise that he can practically feel thumping away inside his chest.

He doesn't touch anything, not for now anyway, looking over the control panels, then shifting his attention to the engines, and looking around for where the power's stored away.

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She's been more grateful than ever to be working down in engineering since the temperature dropped throughout the whole rest of the ship. Not that her working in here is much of a help to the rest of the ship. She's found not a single problem with the engines beyond intermittent overloads she can't really explain.

Nothing's wrong with the engines. They're just...not...working.

That hasn't stopped her from pouring all her energy into trying to find something anyway, with more enthusiasm than is probably warranted. But for one thing, the ship is a freezer now, something she notices so much more keenly now that she doesn't wear her environmental suit. Engineering, though, for Tali, isn't much more than a touch uncomfortably hot. (She's already slept down here at least once)

Crammed under one of the larger conduits, fixing what could potentially become a micro-fracture, she doesn't see anybody coming into the room, or hear them through her sealed mask, sound dampened from the engines. It's not until she pulls herself out from underneath to do a general check of the rest of the room that she sees him...and visibly jumps at the sight of him. She didn't much like being by herself at first, but she's so used to doing her shifts alone at this point the sight of another person there is enough to startle her.

There are a lot of people on the ship whose faces she's seen before, but she can't remember their names - and this is one of those people. Making a flapping sort of a gesture with one hand to get him to wait, she adjusts the sound and mic on her face mask quickly with the other.

"Hey." She has to not-quite shout to even stand a chance of him hearing her. "Do you need something?" Beat, and then, "Or are you just warming up?"

Bruce's more startled by her reaction than by her presence, though he barely shows it, only tensing slightly as he turns to face her. With the noise, he hadn't really expected to hear anyone, so her appearance comes a little out of nowhere, but nothing that sends his heart beating faster.

He smiles a little apologetically at her, nodding as he waits for her to adjust some system in her helmet. Eventually he takes off the muffs, if only momentarily, stepping a little closer to be able to hear her, and to be able to answer too.

"Studying the ship's engines," he offers in a tone of voice as high as hers. "I wanted to help. But the heat feels nice too."

For a change, he doesn't feel like he's starting to freeze to the bone.

She's really not used to getting visitors down here, so there's the slightest bemused tilt of the head as he tells her he wants to help with the engines.

...Well, she's not going to say no. Actually, she'd like the company - and if there's anything Tali loves more than chattering away about engines, she can't think of it right at this moment.

"Doesn't it?" There's a grin in her voice, mechanically filtered though it is. "I've just started taking longer shifts in here. I mean... Technically I do a normal shift and then sleep in the back, but it's basically being on call, right?

"Anyway, everything's fine down here - except for the overloads - so if you want me to help, I can talk you through some things..." She trails off at the end, a clear request for a name.

Bruce's been in some pretty terrible places, and the engine room doesn't feel particularly unwelcoming to him. Especially right now, with the cold that's taken over the ship, it might just be the nicest place to be. At least he can feel his fingers without having to wear socks as gloves, or hide them underneath some thick blanket.

"I'd probably do the same, honestly." Sleeping in this warmth sounds pretty pleasant, after cold nights curled up on himself. "And since I'm here already, I'll take a look around, if you don't mind."

Sounds like he won't find anything, but well. At least he's doing something with his time - plus, he gets to learn more about the ship. He can't say he minds that.

"Bruce Banner," he offers without thought, stopping just short of reaching out for a handshake when he worries about whether or not she's heard his name yet. It's been making its way around the ship after what happened to the planet, he knows that.

She wasn't ready for that answer, and in her attempt to be ready the silence between them swells around the clanking and rumbling of the engines.

Of course she's heard the name Bruce Banner, she's pretty sure half the ship has at this point and keelah she wants to be angry with him, wants to be furious, wants to blame him for everything, but she just--

"Why did you do it?" She blurts it out before she can stop herself, completely out of nowhere, voice brittle even through the microphone in her visor.

That's the question he expects to hear from just about anyone on the ship at this point, so when she asks it, despite unpleasant, it's not overly surprising. He drops his eyes to the ground, his shoulders tensing as his arms cross a little tighter over his front, making it look like's curling in on himself.

"It wasn't me," it's said with a guilty conscience, though, not really serving as an excuse. "The monster isn't me. I--"

The engines stop suddenly, in what he assumes is one of the power outages that have been happening on the ship. His attention drifts to the machines, even as he keeps answering her question, in a lower tone of voice now that he doesn't have to shout over the noise of the engines. "I turned... I was triggered. It doesn't usually happen like that, not in this way. I couldn't control the monster.

"It's still my fault, I know. I should've never been there." His eyes move from the machines to her, hesitant, the weight of all that happened clear behind them. "I'm sorry."

The way he seems to hunker in, as if protecting himself from her judgement, makes her ache for him - genuinely ache, and of all the tangled, painful emotions swelling in her throat, anger really isn't one of them.

She's watching him curiously - the monster, the green thing; she remembers seeing it only when they caged it, a giant humanoid with such an air of fury it rolled off it like blistering heat - when there's the sudden ringing silence of a power outage, and she's glad for the excuse to look away, glare in dismay at the engines. Already she's learned there's no point in scrambling around to fix them; they'll turn back on in a few minutes after the systems reboot.

"None of us should have been there. We were supposed to be gone," she says, and she has to swallow hard. "You don't need to say sorry to me."

She's one of the last people on the ship who needs to be apologised to for destroying a planet, of all things. Flustered, throat constricting as that thought occurs to her, she looks back to Bruce to find him looking at her and... Keelah--

"I can't be the first person who's asked you that, I didn't mean to--" make him think about it again, although if he's anything like her at all, it's probably barely been off his mind. "There's no way you could have meant to set that reaction off, even if you were..." She makes a vague gesture that's close to a flail of the arm. "...Even if you were in you're right mind. I know that, I'm sorry."

There's nothing for her to feel bad about, as far as he's concerned. He doesn't blame her for her reaction in the least, and he won't complain about having to explain it, explain himself time and again. He understands where they're coming from - all of them, all of the people who've asked him about what happened on that planet.

It's not like he can run and hide here, like he did back in his world. So this seems like the least he can do, simply facing what he's done and owning up to it. If people want to know details, he'll share as much as he can. But why? That, he has no answer to.

"If I don't need to say sorry to you, then you definitely don't need to say sorry to me," he offers in a lilting tone and with a self-deprecating smile. "And you couldn't have known. You didn't know me. I could have... could've done it on purpose. I could be as much of a monster as--" He pauses, glancing away for a moment. "The other guy."

He does feel like it sometimes. Especially after something like this happens, that thought sticks to him like a stench, a black hollow stain he can't get rid of.

"The other guy," she repeats uncertainly. Uncertainly in that, like many things since she left home, there is so much she's come to realise that being a literal rocket scientist...doesn't actually help with, knowledge-wise.

Not even the Moira's engines. Certainly not issues of some kind of...transformative blood rage, or the bile-raising realisation that she's looking at somebody going through exactly what she has before. Who's watched the destruction of whole races and species and civilisations and felt that responsibility swell up in the very air around them, drowning in it.

"What is..." She doesn't even know how to ask. "...he?"

It's not a feeling he ever wants to get used to. Every transformation, every consequence, every bit of destruction caused by the Hulk's hands, Bruce doesn't ever want to be alright with that. Maybe it's more weight than one single man can and should be able to carry, but he makes do somehow. He survived the massive flow of gamma radiation, and it's not like he can kill himself now, so... it's not as if he has much of a choice.

"An experiment gone wrong." He puts it simply at first, crossing his arms tightly around himself as he turns to her. "Something I was working on involving gamma radiation, but I wasn't given all the information. I should've died, actually." He pauses, then adds in a lower tone. "I wish I had."

Part of her understands that if she ever reaches a point where she doesn't feel anything after a thing like this, she'll have lost herself. But that doesn't stop another part selfishly wishing for it all the same. At Banner's final words, Tali starts, head jerking up to look at him properly. For a long moment, she's silent, struggling with what to say and if she should even say anything. Then she clears her throat.

"Not so long ago, I think I'd have told you that's a horrible thing to say. I'd say of course you shouldn't think that, no matter what." She doesn't even notice the motion as her arms wrap around her ribs like protecting herself, or maybe holding herself together. "But, ah..."

Breathe.

"I destroyed a planet." It's the first time she's said it out loud. "I was on a ship's crew, and that's what we did. We destroyed planets."

Her whole body language is so rigid it's like a touch could knock her over, but she's looking straight at Banner, drawn to her full - if unimpressive - height. "It was called Macha. It was a huge wilderness, and sometimes it felt like the whole planet was alive and it understood what we were doing - the native species, they hated us, the trees would scream like we were torturing them just being there...

"And they're all dead. They're gone."

She meant never to tell anybody - she hasn't told Shepard, hasn't told any of the people she met here, tries not to think about it wherever possible, as much as it is possible not to think about such a thing...but maybe... Maybe it helps.

"I can't tell you it's a horrible thing to say, not anymore." She shrugs, a suddenly deflated sort of gesture. "I get it. Not gamma radiation or your...green problem, not those bits, but I think I get it."

Bruce's shocked at first, eyes widening just so as he looks back to her. But then, another conversation comes to mind, another confession of sorts, and a dry and poor excuse for a laugh escapes him.

"You know... That's one of those things," he waves a hand first, like he's trying to figure out what to say. "One of those things you never really expect to hear. Someone just destroying a planet. At least not in my world. Here, though-- you're the second person to tell me something like this."

Niko, he remembers just from their talk over the network, came from a world where such a thing was relatively common. Just like her - traveling on ships, killing entire species and wiping planets off the sky. Briefly he wonders if she comes from the same world as he, but that's a question he saves for later.

"You probably lived through some unpleasant memories back there. I'm sorry about that." Like it wasn't bad enough in and of itself, having to see something like that more than once, to be a part of it in one way or another... it's horrible, to him. He can't even imagine what he'd do if something like this happened twice to him. He'd probably airlock himself and just float through space for the remainder of his life.

Assuming his life would have an end. He honestly hopes it does, one day.

For a split second, she's taken aback - then she remembers. He might have talked to Ratchet or Niko. The idea that there are more of them on the ship, more for whom this isn't the first time they've watched a planet shattered out of the sky, is repugnant. She doesn't want to think about it.

"There's a couple of people who came from the same place I did." She's hesitant to say their names - whichever of them who didn't tell Bruce, or both of them, wouldn't thank her for saying things that aren't hers to tell. "It honestly helps a lot having them around. I'm not alone, you know?"

Although if given the choice between having that support and letting Ratchet and Niko have their old lives back without remembering, she'd want them to be happy. Or at least she hopes she would. She hopes she'd be that unselfish, even with what she's done.

"One of them said to me... He said at least we saved people," she said, shrugging helplessly. "Last time nothing survived. They didn't have the tech - and we didn't let them leave. So this time, it could actually have been a lot worse."

She moves a little closer to Bruce, leaning against a console closer to him. "I don't know if that would help you, but it makes me feel better."

He looks at her every so often, listening to what she's saying even if it seems like he's keeping most of his attention on the engines. Not that it does any good - everything seems to be working just fine, it's just... stopped. In a little while, he imagines, it'll turn back on, and keep going as if nothing ever happened to begin with.

She's right, though. And the way she puts it, talking about the experiences she had before, he knows that this could've been a lot worse. Some people made it out, the crew of the Moira too - even if a couple had to be revived -, and they weren't actively trying to kill the entire population.

It doesn't do much for the guilt weighing down on him, but then, that's probably never going to go away.

"I'm glad some people made it out." He nods slowly. "But that's about the only thing I'm glad for. They might be alive, but they have no home, and some of them probably had their whole families killed. That's on me."

Talking, somehow, is actually helping with her nerves about the engines. She's sure they're going to come back - they have every other time - but the silence of it feels wrong down to the bone. No matter the content of the conversation, having the company, having some noise to fill the silent space growing in the room, is something of a comfort.

"They've got people to help them. At least there's that," she says, and it's almost a question, her tone tilting upwards just a little. She doesn't think it'll make him feel better - it's barely helping her.

"At first I wanted us to hand ourselves over to them - I didn't want us to just get away with destroying their world like I did last time. I still think that a little. Even if we just stayed and helped, it wouldn't have been running away."

Part of her would still rather the people of Cadacus Primary punish them, than they be left to punish themselves, as Tali is.

It's a deafening silence that seems to stretch on, and while Bruce hasn't been down in the engine room before, even he feels a hint of discomfort at the complete lack of noise. Almost as if he can hear some sort of background countdown to when vital functions will start going down, one area of the ship at a time.

"Right." There's that, and he knows it's something, but much like it's the case with her, it's barely enough to make him feel any better. The wound is too raw right now anyway, thinking or talking about it makes him feel like he's rubbing salt on it. Maybe someday, who knows, he will be able to cope with what he did.

There will always be the scar, the memory of it all. The cold hard reminder that there's a void in the universe because of him. But that's something to think about when he gets to that point.

"If only we could know we could have helped, and that they'd let us leave afterwards." The people in Caducus Primary seemed generally peaceful and with a strange kind of calm, but in Bruce's experience, people often want retribution. Justice. While he gets that, he wouldn't have wanted the innocent on board the Moira to be locked up for something he did, and he also doesn't think that the survivors from Caducus Primary would have been capable of building a cage strong enough to contain the Hulk. "But I get that. I wish that we could have done more too. Something... anything to help."

"I never did figure out what I wanted them to do," she says, voice a little lost in the the silence of the room; the sound bounces off the metal, but the split-second echo isn't enough. "I wanted them not to let us go, but...like you said, most of the crew didn't do anything."

Neither, really, did she - except not leave when they told her to. She gave a soft laugh, but there wasn't any real humour behind it. "I'm just going in circles in my own head. I haven't figured anything out. Sometimes I can't... fathom it, you know? It's too big for me. Cadacus Primary, Macha - both of them."

Sometimes she comes close, so close to understanding, but it terrifies her, makes her feel both unbearably tiny in a way even living in space never could, but somehow at the same time...too big, too much. One person shouldn't have the power to be a part of something this terrible and, somehow, she's been there twice. The Neraki are dead, the people of Cadacus Primary have nothing to go back to, and all Tali can do is crash dive into an existential crisis.

The deep breath she takes is hard to fit through the lump in her throat, but she manages, and it eases. "Do you think you'd go back if you could? Help, or give yourself up or...anything."

The thought has crossed her mind. To help, more than anything. But also, selfishly, to atone for something she did in a whole other universe.

He gets what she means. Even if he weren't personally at fault for what happened, he still would feel guilty, responsible in some way. The feeling wouldn't be quite so crushing, he's sure, but it still would be there, and he would want to stay behind too, to help in whatever way he could.

Actually, were he in that situation, he would be a whole lot more inclined to stick around and help. As it is, he just wants to be as far away from that place as possible, as much of a coward that might make him seem. He knows he is, sometimes, and running has been his instinct reaction to situations like this for almost a decade now.

He glances at her when she poses that question. He thinks about lying for a moment, about just saying that he would go back and turn himself in without a moment's thought, but... it would be obvious he would be lying.

"So that I could destroy another planet?" He sounds bitter about that, guilty, regretful. "No. Things... wouldn't work out. They wouldn't build a cage strong enough for the monster. Some people would try to kill me, and that wouldn't work well for anyone. Others might want to use the Hulk for their own purposes. War, more often than not." It's obvious by his tone that he's personally familiar with that particular situation. "I couldn't risk that. Those people are better off with me staying as far away from them as possible. That's the best way to help them."

It's true, she realises it in an instant, as she recoils ever so slightly, body language seeming to shrink. She, Meh and David managed to put something together, but all three of them had been experienced in cobbling together these kinds of technological solutions, or with actual cage-construction, or both. And it had held the creature - The Hulk - but it wasn't perfect, wouldn't have held up forever. Who knew if the people left in the Cadacus system could have done anything, even with more time?

Bruce Banner's help might be the end of their whole people.

"I didn't even think about that, if it happens again." She has the luxury of not having to consider such things. But then he keeps talking - other things she's never had to even think about. But now that she does - using the Hulk as a weapon would be as easy as finding a way to cage him, and unleash him wherever necessary. And it can never happen. The utter hell it must be to have to know that about oneself-- her face twists behind her mask as she shifts agitatedly.

"If you don't mind me asking..." She has to swallow back a lump in her throat. "What happens to set it off? Why does it happen?"

It doesn't surprise him that she didn't think about it. It's only to be expected, when she has no prior experience with the Hulk, no knowledge of what he is, how he came to be, why he happens. Sadly, it's something Bruce has had to think of and even live through more than just a couple of times in his life.

"I wish I could say I don't speak from experience, but..." He shrugs, shooting a tense empty smile her way. He knows it all too well, what can happen when he's too close to people who don't know enough about the monster, and worse yet, when they consciously take actions that can have disastrous effects. One would think that knowing how an uncontrolled Hulk can be would be a strong enough deterrent to anyone trying to use him for their own purposes, but that never stopped General Ross, for instance. And Bruce can't just trust people in a position with enough power that they could actually get to him. It's too much of a risk.

"Well, I'm not sure how similar your universe is to mine, but basically, the transformation happens when my body releases too much adrenaline. I had-- an accident, some years ago. I was working on an experiment, and after getting injected with a drug-resistant serum, my body was flooded with gamma radiation. When it crosses with a certain level of adrenaline, the transformation happens." It's a very basic explanation, when there's a lot more involved in the process, but that's the simplest way to put it. "What happened on the planet specifically was that we were attacked by a group of natives. I couldn't run away, and I wasn't able to stop the transformation from happening."

She has to wonder just how Bruce can come across so...so mild in the face of all this. Well, it seems that he has to be or he would never be Bruce at all. But with what he's seen, and knows about people - what he's done himself, and knowing what people would use him for if they could... How he can bear to be around people at all is a mystery to her, especially this amicably.

"Keelah, that must have been..." She hasn't got the words. She'd been in a panic herself, being dragged to the shuttles by some of the natives - and that was without the knowledge that every second they spent trying to manhandle her was another second closer to that transformation. She shakes her head like trying to fling the thoughts out of it. "I don't know how you ever stay calm at all. If it was me, I'd be panicking so much about setting it off I'd just..."

An odd kind of adrenaline feedback loop. That's a weird thought.

"Well, I don't have much of a choice," he delivers that with a small smile, shrugging a little. It's something he's come to terms with by now, that keeping calm is the only solution, the only way to control himself. His options were always limited, if any at all: even living in complete isolation wouldn't have worked in the grander scheme of things, because the Hulk could run massive distances in a very short time, and while the monster tends to prefer being alone too, Bruce couldn't risk it. Not to mention there were always people looking for him, trying to hunt him down.

And putting an end to it all, well - he tried that. Didn't work all that well either. At least learning to control it meant he could help people, try to do some good. It would never be enough to make up for the lives he destroyed, but it's better than doing nothing at all.

"For what it's worth, I'm glad it's not you. Or anyone else. But I've... learned to live with it." By lack of choice, if nothing else.

Tali's lucky in a lot of ways - through everything that's happened, everything she's seen and done, she's never been so utterly devoid of hope that any permanent option has occurred to her. Not even looking at Bruce now does the idea pop into her mind. Even if it had, it certainly wouldn't be something she'd have the nerve to ask about. Everything about this is painful enough for them both.

"I'm sorry," is all she can think to say. "That you have to live with that - and with people like me interrogating you about it."

At that, she does manage the very smallest of grins.

It's a particularly dark and deep pit when hope is completely lacking. Everyone feels a little helpless and lost at times, but to lose hope entirely, to such an extreme that there's nothing but darkness, no matter where one looks - Bruce has been there, he's felt it himself, for a long time. He wouldn't wish it on anyone.

He's glad he found a way to work through it, though sometimes it feels like he's still, and always, working through it. Finding reasons to keep going. What's happened in Caducus Primary has brought him dangerously close to that dark pit again, but he's doing his best to climb back up before he slips and falls to the deep bottom.

"It's fine. I expected no less," he smiles, relaxing a little. It's only normal that people want to know what kind of creature they're sharing a closed space with, after all. "Sorry-- I never caught your name."

"...I didn't even tell you my name before I started." Before she can help herself, she's laughing a little. Her brain had frozen as soon as Bruce introduced himself - apparently it had frozen all the way past social niceties as well.

"I'm Tali'Zorah. Just call me Tali." She bobs her head in a polite nod...and gestures to where the engines seem to be in the laborious process of restarting. "If you still want that look at the engines, I promise I won't keep interviewing you."

"Well, to be fair I think that asking the guy who destroyed a planet why he did it is a far more pressing matter." He understands, really. He would've probably skipped the introductions and pleasantries himself, were their roles reversed.

"Nice to meet you. Despite the... interviewing." Said with a small hint of humor, trying to diffuse some of the tension from their earlier topic. He nods, glancing over to the engines. "Thanks. I think I'll do that, if you don't mind. If nothing else I'll get to learn a thing or two about the ship." He smiles. "I promise to stay out of your way."

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( closed ) I get lost in space

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