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OCTOBER + NOVEMBER TDM.
● ● ● T D M . 0 4
… What are you willing to do to erase your regret from existence?
These are the words that ring in your ears, as a slowly growing red glow surrounds you in this dreamspace, filling you with an acute sense of dread — and whatever it is that you’ve just agreed to might have changed everything forever.
It is this sense of dream that startles you awake, and as it fades, and your heart begins to slow into something resembling your normal tempo, you'll notice something you should have picked up on immediately: you are not in your bed.
1.0 White walls, clinical yet clean, sparsely-furnished rooms. You may wake in one of three rooms: a room with only one bed, a room with two beds, or a room with four beds. Those waking up in rooms with more than one bed notice that they are not alone. Perhaps the other occupants of the room are still sleeping, dreaming the same dream as you just did, or a regular one after returning to the station just barely a week ago … or perhaps you wake up to the other person in the room watching you.
What you do is entirely up to you: yelping in surprise when you wake to someone staring at you is always an option. Or maybe you’ll try to sneak away before anyone notices you...
2.0 Those with life-threatening injuries will find themselves waking up in the infirmary, in a regular hospital bed. Most of their injuries have been treated, and any lingering illnesses or conditions will have designated medicine bottles on the table next to the bed.
White curtains surround the bed on both sides, providing an illusion of privacy. But is that a rustling sound you hear? A set of footsteps? Perhaps you’re not the only one in need of some medical attention.
In fact if you’re very badly off, you might want to hold out hope for some company - you can’t stay in the infirmary forever. You'll have to make your way through the hallways of the station to the living quarters, and claim a room and a bed there.
Once upright, you might notice something in your ear: an earpiece that, when you become aware of it, quickly runs you through the instructions for how to use the network, a recorded message by a female voice that explains exactly why you’re here… and leaves you with a map of the station.
So what else is there to do but to explore, right? Best get to know your way around your new home.
3.0 When trying to decide where you go, you might find your way to the armory, where you can make attempts to work the machine and create a weapon for yourself — maybe replace the one that didn’t come with you to the station ... or maybe you decide to prepare something for the future. Any recently-returned team members will surely recommend having a functional weapon with you.
And speaking of weapons: why not put them to the test and head over to the training room, where the entire purpose of this space is to provide you with opportunities to spar and train to your heart’s content!
4.0 After you’ve exhausted yourself from training, your stomach will prompt you for something to eat. For that you should head to the kitchens and the mess hall, which is equipped with all the basic appliances you might need, along with some more unusual ones (including an ... interesting-looking waffle maker and popcorn machine), as well as ingredients for most generic Earth-based dishes. For some reason, there are also some bags of now-cold popcorn left abandoned over the counters.
5.0 A welcome reprieve to the cold, dark space that surrounds you can be found in the sunlight room. A skillful illusion builds up around anyone who steps inside the room: you can hear the trilling of birds, feel a light breeze caress your skin as you walk through a grass field. The illusion has been programmed to reflect the seasons — the leaves in the trees are currently bright with all the colours of autumn: orange and red and yellow; and the air is crisp and clean. If you follow the path, you'll be led to a bridge rising over a sparkling, babbling brook, a few fallen leaves floating on the water and falling around you like very bright raindrops.
Here, it's easy to forget (for a moment, anyway) that you are in space at all. Maybe that gives you comfort, or maybe it just makes you miss the real thing all that much more.
6.0 If you’d rather choose tinkering with objects over wandering through nature, the lab is guaranteed to provide you with some entertainment. Glass vials and jars of chemicals sit on shelves in a surprisingly beautiful display of colour on one side of the room, while the other side of the room contains stacks of boxes filled with assorted equipment: cords, bolts, panels, buttons, gears, gadgets, gizmos, and thingamabobs. The downside is that the parts available seem to have no apparent method to their sorting. So get digging and you may just find exactly what you need to make what you’ve always wanted to!
7.0 Some time after your arrival, the earpiece alerts you to a new message. If it’s items you’re lacking, you may just be in luck.
Indeed, the platform located near the personal quarters is still whirring with power, and new items form neat piles on top of it. There are clothes, shoes, dishware, skincare, books ... and in one pile, a varied collection of what seems to be Halloween decorations and costumes. So, sort through the piles and grab what you want before someone else does! (But don't forget: sharing is caring.)
Whether you’re a quick study and you’ve become settled into life on the station, or you want to get the full lay of the land (in a manner of speaking) first, if you decide to explore the hall past the control room, you’ll eventually come across the simulation room. It’s been equipped with a new simulation to show you the drill where the missions are concerned, so step in and see what it has in store for you!
8.0 The moment the doors slide shut behind you, the space goes dark and then quickly lights up again, but instead of the blank empty walls you initially walked into, you’re surrounded by colour and lights, the sound of music and chatter, and the smells of deep-fried foods and overly sweet beverages. Someone calls, ‘Step right up, step right up!’ while another voice from somewhere starts to cheer as an electrical sound of a buzzer goes off, announcing its winner for prizes.
It seems that you’ve entered the Carnival simulation, so come on in and have a little fun.
There are booths spread out across these simulated grounds, each one offering food, drink or games. As you wander past you’ll notice that there is a touch of macabre to everything — the colours are black and orange and violet and red, the drinks offered have strange names, some you recognize like ‘Witch’s Brew’ and ‘Eye of Newt’, and some you might not, like ‘Viole(n)t Breeze’ and ‘Undead Essence’. It’s as though all of the things strange and wonderful find themselves spread across the entire universe to unite here.
Once you’ve had your fill of food and games, you can make your way past the little market area to a brightly glittering ferris wheel with carts rotating in a cycle, enticing you to try it out. Or if you’d rather be spooked, there is a hokey little ‘haunted mansion’ to your left that won’t take more than a handful of minutes to move through. Creatures and ghosts will pop out at you when you least expect it, their masked faces exaggerated with paint and some fairly realistic prosthetics to get the adrenaline pumping. Take a friend with you, or go it alone — just try to keep your cool through it all.
9.0 Eventually, once you’ve had your fill of the festivities, you may notice a wooden sign pointing you past the haunted mansion. Pressed on it is a round mark, and you remember that this is simulating a mission — you’re not here to just have fun, but to try and retrieve a simulated orb.
As you follow the path, you’ll find the hustle and bustle of the carnival growing quieter. All around you, there is nothing but woods — and hold on, where did all that mist come from? It surrounds you slowly, the ground seeming slightly damp as you keep walking… and arrive at a graveyard.
So the orb… it’s there, hidden in one of the graves? There’s nothing else to do but to start walking and looking at the gravestones — but when you do, you’ll be shocked to find some of the names are terribly, terribly familiar.
They might be names of your loved ones, people who were still in perfect health back home; and yet here those stones bear their names, along with an epitaph that brings tears to your eyes. And if you move closer… you may experience a flash of colour and light, and a memory suddenly plays out in front of you: the death of your loved one, whoever that may be.
Or perhaps the name you see on a gravestone is something else even more familiar to you: your own. But ... how, right? Reluctantly, your heart pounding, you approach with tentative steps, and yes — the name does not change. It's yours right there ... and it's your own death that you witness when the grave’s spell binds you.
● ● ●
N O T E: The deaths witnessed are intended to be non-canon deaths, so feel free to go wild inventing them -- this also goes for characters who are canonically dead. These are “alternate universe deaths”, not canon.
Additionally, there are three personal tasks provided to each character as they enter the simulation. In-game, each character will be given one task. For the purposes of the test drive, we’re leaving it to players to pick a task for their character and run with it.
A Find the grave of a teammate and witness their death.
B Team up with a fellow Orber win in one of the Carnival games.
C Scare a teammate in the haunted house.
F Y I
• This TDM covers both October and November, so there will be no new TDM for November.
• TDM threads can be used as samples for apps. In fact, we encourage it!
• Reserves are currently open!
• Apps open October 27 and will remain open until November 30.
• For any questions regarding TDM, please direct them here. For questions about the game, please refer to the FAQ.
FOR SOME FUN:
Have a clue for your upcoming mission:
“I’m going to bed, where I may die.”
Training - Sorry for the late tag in <3
And if Steve follows these sounds, what he'll find is Sam, training with the shield. He looks like he's been at it for a while, both arms beginning to show the faint signs of bruises, because Sam pushes himself. He catches the shield mid-air, landing on a flip, and nearly stumbling when the motion brings him to face the entrance of the room - and with it, one Steve Rogers.
And Sam is... stunned, for a moment, just standing there mid-workout, shield on his arm, with Steve Rogers across from him. Steve who left to travel back in time half a year before Sam came to the station. Steve who's been on the station, briefly, and vanished. Just another friend and partner Sam keeps gaining and losing, because the universe plays cosmic jokes on him like that.
"I feel like one of us should break the tension by saying 'On your left', huh?"
noooo, you're perfect <3 (so is he)
Steve grins, folds his arms, and leans against the doorframe while he waits for Sam to finish. He has no concern whatsoever about Sam not coping if he threw himself into Sam's training as well, but hey, this is more fun.
How did Sam get-
He must've gone ahead with it. Must've given Sam the shield, and Sam's from a later time than he is himself. Time travel is a heck of a thing. It both breaks his heart and heals it to see Sam using the shield so adeptly. Pushing himself too hard, as always, though.
(Steve never does that. Shut up.)
"That works," Steve says, grinning harder. This is not a great situation, and they should be back on Earth, but he's not going to let it stop him from being glad to see his friend. "How about a hug, does that work, too?"
sorry again - this time for writing you an entire novel
He remembers morning jogs and regaining his wings, pool games and safe houses, four years side by side near constantly, remembers throwing his life to the side without a second thought.
He remembers dying, remembers coming back, back to back battles against forces so beyond something a dude with a fancy jetpack should tango with.
Remembers living with Steve and Natasha for two years on the run, only to come back from the dead and be told that five years passed, that Natasha is dead.
Remembers the floor falling out from under him when Steve didn't appear back on that platform.
Remembers losing Natasha and Steve a second time when they disappeared off Ximilia Station within days of each other.
Grief has dug deep trenches into Sam Wilson. Six months of mourning his closest friends in the entire world, jostling a legacy he never asked to carry. For a moment, he's not sure what he's meant to feel here - relief, excitement, resentment, grief. Is he supposed to laugh, to cry, to yell? Pushes that down, too. He can untangle that with Bucky, the only person here who knows what this rollercoaster feels like.
So Sam puts the shield down with some care and steps forwards, meets Steve halfway for a hug. There's a part of him that doesn't want to, a part of him that wants to be petulant and resentful, push back against opening himself for hurt to be repeated. There's a part of him that is deeply, irrevocably hurt by what happened - not by Steve pursuing happiness or finding peace the way he did. Just by not being included in the talk about it. By being blindsided. By not getting to say goodbye before Steve lived out his life where Sam couldn't follow. By getting Steve back on Ximilia before, only to lose him all over again.
But the truth is that while it hurt, he doesn't resent Steve. Never could. The man's been through more than enough, and Sam knows with the entirety of his own too big heart that Steve thinks of others long before he thinks of himself - that it wasn't malicious that just this once, Steve didn't think things through.
So for now, he chooses to put the hurt aside. To focus on having that reunion that they never got. He meets Steve halfway, lets himself be pulled in, and hugs back tightly. Bit too tight for anyone else, but hey. What do you have a super soldier for if not hugs like this, right? It only takes a moment or him to hug Steve like he's missed him for months.
"It's good to see you, man."
And Sam's relieved to discover that he means it.
still perfect, hush you, lol
What he gets, though, feels like about a thousand years. His eyebrows draw down together over his nose in concern. What's happened to him?
After a moment, Sam processes - something he's always been good at - and strides towards Steve, meeting him in the middle. Steve wraps his arms around Sam and near lifts him off his feet. He'll have to tell him that he's seen Nat. That she's alive.
But first things first.
"Sometime you'll tell me what's happened to you, right?" he asks quietly, cupping the back of Sam's head for a moment like he's the most precious thing in the universe.
<3
He almost feels okay, being held like that. Fucking super soldiers abusing their powers for hugs. Honestly.
"Lemme start with the fact that this glorified salad bowl of yours is goddamn heavy."
He doesn't let go. Not yet. It's starting to feel pathetic, but Sam's lost Steve twice now. He's allowed. And still, he deflects. Takes his pain, puts it in a box. Steve is here, and that means more important things than Sam are on the table. Like... well.
"Buck's here. Tony, too. Natasha's little sister. Peter Quill. T'Challa's dead cousin. A time travelling SHIELD Agent. Where do you wanna start?"
And with that he pulls back. Steve can skip all those options and insist they start with Sam, of course - it depends on how hard he's gonna let Sam deflect here, really.
no subject
Losing Tony.
And that was still a week or two back from his perspective. Looks a heck of a lot like Sam's been through worse than just being non-existent for five years and having to fight as soon as he was revived. There's the weight of something in Sam's core. Steve knows he can't just take that from Sam. Maybe he can help him lift it, a little.
"Hey, if you can carry around that ego of yours, you can manage that," Steve says lightly, even though Sam's about the least egotistical person he knows. Sam's one of those guys, those good guys, who is overall so comfortable with himself that he'll assert his strength when he needs to, and will trust others to take the reins when he knows less than they do.
"Natasha's little - Tony? Tony's here?"
Wait, no.
Sam's doing that again, isn't he.
"I want to hear about you," he says, after taking a breath. "In detail. With or without popcorn. You've obviously been through something, maybe ten or twelve somethings, and I want to at least listen to you. But... if you don't want to talk about it right now..."
no subject
He won't. Threat stands though.
Sam's mind is circling back to the days after the fight too. Everything had been rapid fire. Dying, coming back, stumbling into a fight against Thanos again. Tony's death. Reunions. The funeral.
Learning about Natasha.
Steve... leaving. The shield.
Sam and Bucky had been hauled off for their respective pardons. Turns out being dead for five years doesn't exactly automatically put you back in a government's good graces, and Secretary Ross was as smarmy as ever. Hence the contract work for the Air Force that Sam fled into almost gratefully.
Cue six months of having the government in his ear about the damn shield, Bucky going full hermit, having to deal with his nephews barely remembering him and being actual small persons now instead of the toddler and newborn Sam never saw again after the Raft.
"That almost worked, didn't it." The humor's bleeding out of the quip. Sam sounds tired, but he nods after a moment. He told Tony. He can tell Steve. Most of it at least. The broad strokes. Definitely edit out Zemo - he doesn't need Steve to pull a disappointed mom face around Bucky. Maybe also edit out that Bucky was a massive dick for a good six months there, because really, Steve's disappointed mom face is powerful and Sam can't stress enough how much he doesn't need that to show up around Bucky. Helps that Bucky's made a nice recovery on that and is now the one person Sam knows to be in his corner. "Let's... alright. I need a shower, first of all. But... yes, Tony's here. Right after... y'know. Right after. We had to amputate his arm. Bucky and I are from... shit, 6 months post the battle. Been 5 months in here, now. So... lemme grab a shower. Then we'll grab something to eat and drink so you can do spit takes at the appropriate moments."
no subject
Sam's still showing trust in him. Does that mean Steve managed to say goodbye with minimal pain? Or does it mean that he hurt Sam and Sam's just the kind of person who always manages his reactions, never gets mad if he can see a reason for the other person hurting him? Maybe there's just been so much other crap going on that Sam needs to put it aside for now.
Maybe more than one of the above.
"Almost," he agrees easily, reaching out to grip Sam's shoulder for a moment. "Whew. That... that makes sense. I'll look forward to seeing him again. I woke up in the same room as Natasha. Should let you know that, in case you haven't run into her."
He nods. "You lead the way, I'll follow."
He can deal with not training right now. Talking to Sam, and most importantly listening to Sam, will deal with his general antsiness. A year. All right. A year is. Manageable.
no subject
Cleveland was a good time. Sam's still proud of that one. The look on Steve's face... ah, beautiful. The thought gets immediately derailed though at the mention of Natasha, and for a moment Sam freezes, has to stares into the far distance and swallow, hard. He's lost her twice, now. Mourned her twice, now. To have her back...
He can't think of that right now, it's like picking at a wound that's not had time to heal. Later, then. Sam pushes the thought aside, gives Steve a slight nod that tries to convey there's a more complicated story there, with Natasha, but Sam can't get into that right now.
Instead he leads Steve the short distance to where the rooms are, points out some things along the way so Steve knows where to find other features of the station. The room they eventually get to, Sam explains, is one he shares with Bucky. There are two beds in the room - they're pushed together to form one sleeping area. Neatly made, but signs of life scattered throughout the room. A few books. Clothes hung over the backs of chairs. A few more pillows and blankets than are strictly necessary. Bucky's obviously not here right now - Sam comments that he's likely in the sunlight room. Sam sets the shield aside in a corner with his Captain America suit, and he throws Steve a glance that for a moment is uncomfortable, perhaps worried, but quickly smoothes over.
"Make yourself comfortable. I won't be long." And he's not. The shower is a quick, efficient affair, really not the time and place to soak for long. A couple minutes later, Sam exists the shower again, having ditched the sweaty training clothes in favor of something more comfortable to hang around in. "honestly, surprisingly good water pressure for space."
no subject
He still has that taste in his mouth, but it was pretty funny, he has to admit. The glee on Sam's face...
That... is not the reaction of a man who has just learned that someone he cares about isn't dead any more. Well. It is, but there's more to it. There's more to everything, Steve's finding.
At least Sam's here to lead the way. Steve makes mental notes about everything, and his eyebrows climb basically up off his face when he sees the two beds pushed together. That might not mean anything romantic or sexual at all, Steve tells himself, trying to be fair and not jump to conclusions. Bucky has more than his fair share of trauma, and maybe sleeping next to someone is helping him (heck, Sam has been through enough, himself).
But it wouldn't be a terrible conclusion to jump to, right? Especially if he himself is leaving them. Not that they'd be second best for each other - he's not quite that egotistical - but it's... it's nice, in a tearingly painful way, to think that they've had each other to deal with all the pain they've each been through, which includes losing him.
He doesn't miss the suit, but Sam doesn't seem to want to address that or the bed right now, so Steve'll let both go for the moment.
Steve roams around the room while Sam's gone. Careful not to open any drawers, not to get into anything that's obviously too personal for public view. He just picks up a couple holo-photo-frames, whatever they're called, and a couple knicknacks.
"That really could be worse," he agrees. "You doing okay? Need food or anything? I always seem to be turning up on your doorstep when you have other things to do."
no subject
A smile flickers across Sam's features. They got history, alright, and while much of it is tinged with something wounded in Sam's chest, he's keeping that back. Has no desire to lash out at Steve - a Steve who, from the very looks of him, hasn't even done the things that stung so badly yet. A Steve who just wanted to embrace him.
They never got to have that heartfelt, intense reunion that 5 years of death should have awarded. Not in the way either of them needed. Sam's not sure Bucky and Steve got that either, considering that apparently a portion of their conversations before Steve's departure were dedicated to Steve sharing that plan.
Telling Bucky what he planned. Telling Bucky about Sam and the shield, too.
Sam flexes his fingers. Feels them prickle, as if he's about to fall to pieces again, ash and dust in some random Wakandan thicket. For a moment Sam just stands there, doesn't really know what to do. Then he beckons Steve over to the small sitting area the room has. Would rather do this in private than somewhere anyone could overhear them. Screw food. Screw company.
"Ain't really sure where to start honestly."