multiversallogs | here are some clompy things.

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here are some clompy things.

Who: Will and ~~Bruce~~ Tom
What: Will has a shiny new job, Bruce is... looking for things.
Where: Tinker's Lot
When: Misdi/Tuesday
Warnings: Not to start with!

This is, technically, Will's first day on the job. He'd spent most of the day after party trying to pour his angry energy into his job search, because there wasn't much else he could do. It figures that he'd get pulled from one bad situation into a worse one, and one where he doesn't even know how to begin to fight back. There has to be some resistance movement somewhere, if things are that bad, even if there's a total media blackout, but he's not acclimated or connected enough to try to seek it out. He's pretty confident in his ability to not get killed, but he's more careful than he used to be.

None of that is showing right now – not when he's a few hundred feet above the ground and attempting to control a – actually, he's not even sure what it is. He'd been surprised, yesterday, when he was told to show up at 8 o'clock sharp, but now he's figuring this is probably a difficult job to fill. He pulls hard on the lever in front of him, attempting to even out the – whatever, he's going to call it an ostrich. He's never seen a real one, but he thinks he remembers them having ridiculous legs like the giant metal pair he's currently perched atop of.

“Can you get it to jump?” the green guy he's currently working for shouts from the viewing platform, and Will spares him a glance before he's being jerked sideways again.

“I'm working on it,” he yells back, lurching forward again. He's not too optimistic about it, since this thing doesn't really even walk all that well. Will got the hang of the controls pretty easily, but it's not a very responsive machine.

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Back down on the ground, Tom is out in what his boss at the energy research center calls a junk yard, not for the first time. Normally when he's on company time, he gets sent to stelanmancy centers, but every so often he gets to come out here, and he's happier for it - on his own time, he's fixed up a few things for some of the more avid builders in the area, and it's afforded him a little more leeway when it comes to browsing and scavenging. (So what if they think it's all for work.)

The whatever-it-is clonking around across the complex is fascinating. His escort, who's talking to him about the clockwork device he's currently holding, trails off to watch the sight of it as the both of them slow near a pathway on the edge of the artificial clearing. They're nearby, under a cement and steel overhang - close enough but not dangerously close. Hopefully.

Bruce closes the back of the little thing in his hands and it begins to tick; he hands it back to his escort, and they both watch the industrial mover (or whatever) as it walks. Neat.

This is not going to end well. Will doesn't need the alarms going off in his head to tell him that. He can still anticipate the ostrich's movements, the way he did with the mechanoids back home, but the movements themselves aren't smooth. It moves in sudden jumps and lurches and his shoulders are going to be sore tomorrow. His neck too, once the thing starts shaking, and Will has to grit his teeth to keep from biting his tongue.

The everybody get down siren starts going off, then, and Will doesn't know how it works, exactly, but he was told that something is probably about to explode if he hears it and to seek cover immediately. That's a bit more difficult when he's riding what's likely to blow up, but after taking a second to weigh his options, Will disentangles himself from the cockpit and launches himself at the nearest viewing platform. He lands with less grace than he's accustomed to, scrambling over the railing and ducking down just before the ostrich clanks to a stop and starts shaking itself to pieces, bits of shrapnel flying everywhere. It's probably a good thing Will thought to wear his flightsuit – it's light and flexible but still pretty protective.

Once the noise dies down and the siren stops wailing, Will stands back up, brushing himself off as he turns to survey the smoking wreck that's just starting to topple over at the edge of the clearing. Maybe the siren cut out prematurely.

It's less neat when it starts falling apart.

Debris falls like comets, and Bruce backs up, yanking the mechanic he's ostensibly socializing with back alongside him - they could run, yes, but it's very hard to dodge flying shrapnel when you're running away from it; he stays, moving them as needed to duck or hide. Finally the klaxons stop, and Bruce shoves a piece of broken siding out of the way so he can see what the hell's going on, and - oh.

There's a muted "Oh, Jesus" from the man who's huddled on the floor behind him, and Bruce's expression blanks - he's concentrating. A heartbeat later, he's hauling that guy up again, and walking very calmly, but very quickly, forward.

His grip on the other man's arm is vice-like, not letting him struggle away even though he tries. The overseer working with the previously-functioning ostrich machine screams at them to run, but Bruce ignores him, keeping a steady pace right towards the thing as it starts to lean dangerously. He marches straight through its legs, and out the other side, just as it finally collapses, falling forwards - right where they would have been, if they hadn't moved.

The dust clears, and both men are completely fine, though one is reasonably calmer than the other.

Will's eyebrows arch. That's impressive. “Well,” he drawls, intending to finish the sentence with something like that didn't go well.

“That went better than expected,” his erstwhile boss says, seeming to have fully recovered from his earlier moment of panic. He crosses over to clap Will on the shoulder with one webbed hand. “I'll recommend you to a few of my friends.”

“Thanks,” Will says, and he is grateful – however dangerous and impractical, he'd rather do this than sit at a desk or something – but right now he's more interested in the guy on the ground. That's someone who's been through some kind of fighting all right. “I'm going to go check on them,” he says, and takes a shortcut by climbing back over the railing and shimmying down the platform's struts instead of walking all the way over to the stairs. “Sorry about that,” he says, once he's close enough not to yell. “You okay?”

Meanwhile, Bruce is making sure his buddy here isn't going to have a stroke - he helps him plunk down on a nearby overturned tire, and the guy looks up and laughs at Will. "Yeah, we're fine, as near as can be," he says, and Bruce (Tom) stays quiet - but not unfriendly - beside him. The seated man shouts up at the overseer, "HEY, PUT A SIGN ON THE FENCE NEXT TIME!" Apparently they know each other, though, and as the other guy makes his way down the stairs, they start bickering in a familiar way. It's enough that Bruce feels he can quietly edge away, though he does send a glance towards Will - hi there.

Will drifts along with him, pulling his helmet off. The visor is set to clear, at the moment, but it still obscures bits of his face and that's never conducive to making friends. He waits until they're far enough away from the other two for their chattering to be indistinct before he stops and extends his hand. “Hi,” he says. “I'm Will.”

The whole setup - from the machine, to the pilot, to his gear - is interesting. (Bruce would have an easier time hating everything here if he wasn't so innately curious.) He stops, talking in the other man as well as the rubble behind him, and then clasps his hand - his grip is firm, skin on his hands rough in places. "Tom." He tilts his head a little, curious. "I haven't seen you around before."

“This is my first day at work,” Will says, good humored, giving Tom's hand a couple vigorous shakes before letting go. Calluses. Probably not a tech, then. “He said if I did okay, I could probably pick up jobs with a few other folks around here.” They might not all be so eventful – but Will would love to get into a machine that could actually really move.

He nods in greeting - a quiet guy, this Tom, but not impolite. (Sometimes.) "There's not too many people who can work some of the stuff that comes through," he agrees. "But it's not the tech itself that's gonna give you a headache in a month, it's the fuel."

There's more metalwork and silicone technology in Baedal than people realize, but it's all dead - no massive nuclear power grid, no fossil fuel, no hydrogen. It's the real kicker, just like yes, there are guns, no, there aren't any ammunition factories.

“That's what these guys have been telling me,” Will agrees. That's a little bit more familiar to him, though not directly. He did pay attention in some of his history classes. “Most things are solar, where I'm from.” That's another reason to keep his gun under wraps, probably. He's not sure how likely it is that someone would be able to reverse engineer the ammunition source, but he doesn't think it's something he wants to chance, here. Maybe he can dismantle it and find a better use for the ignition unit.

"Is piloting constructs like that normal?"

It makes Bruce miss his toys, damnit. Not that he needs them, or anything, but - some people have kids, Bruce Wayne had an underground garage full of Lamborghinis. (...And the Tumbler.)

“Sort of,” Will says. “We have big machines like that, but they're... not quite so unwieldy.” And there are construction models, but Will's mostly familiar with the weapons-grade mechanoids. “I'm not actually sure what that one was supposed to do.”

"It looked a little whacked out anyway." Whacked out, which is totally a technical term. Really. He sticks his hands in his pockets and looks at the toppled-over machine; it did seem a bit like an open-ended experiment, but maybe that's what it was - messing with drivers.

“Yeah,” Will says, just short of laughing. “People comes up with all kinds of things, it looks like. Do you work on stuff out here?” Tom seems a bit overly competent for that, but maybe he's a hobbyist. Will might try his hand at it, eventually, but he's really only versed in basic mechanical maintenance. Techs were in charge of the rest of it.

"No, I ah, work in the city proper at an energy research plant." Which explains his preoccupation with fuel sources. "Not too many people know how to properly identify metal compounds, though, so I get to run a lot of errands."

Errands in which he gets to screw around with all the gadgets and gears he could ever want to poke at.

“Getting out of the lab must be nice.” Will imagines he'd take every opportunity to do that too, though he can't really imagine himself as any kind of scientist. Way too antsy for that. Granted, he's not sure he buys that Tom is just a scientist either. “That was some quick thinking back there.”

He nods, general agreement; it's not a traditional laboratory setting, but nothing is truly traditional in Baedal. Nobody has any real idea of what the hell they're doing, in his opinion, and most everything is run on magic, with people shrugging at each other and pointing at the stelanmancy division. It drives Bruce a little crazy, on a lot of fronts, so. Yeah. Getting out is nice.

But then-

Bruce looks over his shoulder at the toppled walker and the squished overhang, crumbled concrete slabs and twisted metal.

"Well, we were gonna get crushed if we tried to run backwards." Even if they made it out of the range of the ostrich, the collateral damage would have hit them. Easy logic, right? (Sure, buddy.)

“Probably,” Will agrees, turning a little to look at the collapsed ostrich legs. The scientists are both clambering around on the remnants of it now, pointing out this coil or that gear. Still, most people just panic and run any which way at the sight of a giant alien machine falling toward them. His expression is just a tiny bit narrower when he shifts his eyes back to Tom's face, but his tone is still friendly. “Keeping your head in a situation like that is still impressive.”

Will seems awful curious; it could be good, or bad. He wonders if he was in the Air Force.

"I've been around."

(Jeez, Bruce, any more clear and you'll be wholly transparent.)

He leaves that ambiguous, mostly to see where the other man takes it - it's clearly leading, though.

Will arches his eyebrows, but he laughs, shaking his head a little. “Haven't we all,” he says. He's quiet for a moment, looking at the green guy gesturing emphatically with piece of charred metal that's been curled back on itself. Well, he might as well be direct. “Military?” he asks, because that's his first guess.

"No."

Which, to almost everyone in every reality, means the remaining options are things like 'covert agent' - and Bruce is fine with that assumption. It's closer to reality than trying to fake being a soldier, and it's more believable than what he really is. So he'll just let the implication hang; Will can do what he likes with it.

"Is this the only work you do?"

Yep,” Will says, shifting his grip on his helmet. “Not qualified for much else, around here.” He offers a sarcastic little salute by way of explanation. He can believe that Tom's not ex-military – he doesn't really carry himself like a soldier – but he's had some kind of training, somewhere, and he used it to save his egghead friend instead of just himself. So that's something. What, Will isn't sure yet.

"You could always try the Militia."

There isn't much of a change to his soft-spoken tone, there, except for the sudden wry - almost dark - undercurrent. It's not a real suggestion.

Will can't quite manage a laugh this time, and his smile is leaning more toward grimace. “No,” he says, more quiet and less jovial than he has been, up to this point. They're less direct about their brutality at home, at least. Even when they kill, it's more out of lack of care, than anything. Maybe that's different, now that there's real opposition. He supposes he'll never know.

"Problem?"

That's a good reaction, Will. Bruce approves, even if there's no outward sign his disposition has changed any - though that might be strange in itself, that kind of deceptive detachment.

Will's quiet for a moment, examining Tom's face. He's not sensitive enough to do more than react in the tiny window of space before something bad happens, and he can't divine someone's character. This is a risk, but Will's going on instinct and he trusts that, if nothing else.

“Wouldn't make much sense,” he says, keeping his tone casual if not light. “Getting yanked out of a rebellion and then joining the wrong side of things.”

Ah. Good.

(If there's a list - and there is, but it only exists in Bruce's head - of potentially useful people to rile up, Will's just shot pretty high up on it; Bruce does not, as a rule, enlist people to fight his battles. But a soldier, a fellow abductee, and someone already carting around the proper disposition?)

"I wouldn't say that too loud," he remarks, ever-mild, but there's something to the way he holds himself when he says it, turning like he's about to head off, a thread of uncanny purpose to his posture, hinting. "I'll see you again."

It sounds like more of an implication than a polite goodbye.

Will gives him a nod and a wave instead of answering. He can't say for sure, but he thinks he's made a good contact today.

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here are some clompy things.

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