[With midnight behind them, the chaos at the event center was at last beginning to subside, as all the supers turned up to eleven with terror gradually either calmed down or burned out. Qubit fell squarely in the latter category. To say he was dead on his feet would imply he could stand. He hadn't exactly been taking good care of himself to begin with, prior to the event, and now running with all systems at full-tilt for hours on end was taking its toll.
It was a huge strain trying to keep track of what was real or not when his brain literally could not tell. Tony was dead, but he was around every corner. Modeus wasn't here, but everyone looked like him. And then Bette and Citadel and Metalman - then the dead eyes, burnt bodies, children's skeletons, the distant sound of the ocean washing over Singapore - as if the past had materially followed him here, because it was there that his worst fears had already come to life.
Never again.
The gas hadn't really worn off yet at this point - his heart was still pounding as if trying to escape his chest, his throat was dry, and he could feel the beginnings of a migraine stabbing at the back of his eyes. But it was starting to, i.e. he was coming down from absolute panic with scattered moments of lucidity into a state that was equal parts both. He just... he just had to sit down, just for a minute. Get his bearings. Pull himself together.
Peggy would find him seated on a curb, head in his hands, looking like an absolute mess, his face and hands smeared with dried blood. He glanced up at her with a start. At least he was lucid enough now to hear what people were actually saying to him, but it was still coming through a distorted haze and everything sounded viscerally wrong somehow.]
Don't. I- I'm all right. [At least compared to the people who got it worse. She should be helping them instead, is what he's implying. But taken in isolation, he's clearly not all right.]
12:30 on
It was a huge strain trying to keep track of what was real or not when his brain literally could not tell. Tony was dead, but he was around every corner. Modeus wasn't here, but everyone looked like him. And then Bette and Citadel and Metalman - then the dead eyes, burnt bodies, children's skeletons, the distant sound of the ocean washing over Singapore - as if the past had materially followed him here, because it was there that his worst fears had already come to life.
Never again.
The gas hadn't really worn off yet at this point - his heart was still pounding as if trying to escape his chest, his throat was dry, and he could feel the beginnings of a migraine stabbing at the back of his eyes. But it was starting to, i.e. he was coming down from absolute panic with scattered moments of lucidity into a state that was equal parts both. He just... he just had to sit down, just for a minute. Get his bearings. Pull himself together.
Peggy would find him seated on a curb, head in his hands, looking like an absolute mess, his face and hands smeared with dried blood. He glanced up at her with a start. At least he was lucid enough now to hear what people were actually saying to him, but it was still coming through a distorted haze and everything sounded viscerally wrong somehow.]
Don't. I- I'm all right. [At least compared to the people who got it worse. She should be helping them instead, is what he's implying. But taken in isolation, he's clearly not all right.]