twenty-eighth jump;

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Gravity Couches and beyond.
WARNINGS: Maybe some swearing, or even some violence, and more than likely some implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Another month, another jump, another round of new faces.
NOTES: It could just be the standard sensation of air on wet skin, but if you bother to check, you might notice the steam rising from your body, barely there and gone within a minute. By the time you get to the showers, it will be clear that it's not just taking you time to adjust. The room is cold — colder than usual, but no worse than the last jump. While it's nothing dangerous, it's certainly motivation to hurry through the usual routine and get dressed quickly.



It's getting closer.




YOUR EYES ARE OPEN.

KEEP LOOKING.

You wake up in darkness.

There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

You are not alone.
There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. Others have much less amiable plans. Some are merely alien and inexplicable, but there are always those who might mean you harm.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

This is your welcome party.

Comments

[specialism]

[ hook could have asked and ward might have answered truthfully — there seems little purpose in denying or concealing commonly known facts about the battle of new york (or about more recent events in london), and the involvement of both loki and thor is commonly known. there is plenty going on beneath the surface that the general public does not know about, and shield is working hard to keep it that way. those are things that ward wouldn't talk about even if pressed.

ward takes the offered hand and shakes it, his own shoulders going back a little further, a soldier standing to attention for all that ward is not a soldier and hook is not in his line of command, wouldn't be even if he were. ]

Grant Ward.

[ he could have used an alias, but there is no more information publicly available on grant ward than there is on dan filch. ( less, in fact. ) and hook doesn't seem hostile — which doesn't have to mean anything, but ward has to start somewhere. ]

[capsize]

[ the response is enough to confirm he's made the right call, and as a result hook doesn't drop the formality — casual, relaxed, but still distinctly respectful. there's no pretending it's not a slightly odd fit after all these years, but taking advantage of his own history is hardly the worst he's done in the past century or two.

there's a slight delay, as if he's considering whether to confide in ward; for show, of course, and a beat later: ] Travel between worlds — how familiar are you with the concept, precisely?

[ hook's assuming he's not completely foreign to it, given the commentary about asgard. ]

[specialism]

It happens.

[ it started with the asgardians, but the 'ghost' haunting hannah hutchings had been travelling between worlds as well. fitzsimmons have scientific explanations for it, ward's thoughts feature tactical analyses of what it might mean in a hostile situation. ] Never happened to me before.

[capsize]

Well it has happened to me, though it usually requires a bit more deliberation. It's not the sort of thing that happens without intent.

[ the implication being that if they didn't bring themselves here, someone else did. that someone could still include ward, as far as hook's concerned, but he doesn't say as much. ]

Or without a great deal of magic.

[ it's said idly, but it's more fishing, trying to gauge ward's experience with magic without asking outright. ]

[specialism]

So you're saying we've been abducted deliberately.

[ that coincides with what ward had already assumed anyways, though the mention of magic earns a raised eyebrow. magic really is just science that shield does not yet understand — and his mental voice sounded a lot like simmons' for that statement.

( he worries about his team. ) ]