buildingitsir: (oh shit; dirty)
York Stark ([personal profile] buildingitsir) wrote in [community profile] revivalproject2022-05-09 11:18 am

And look at me, I'm tattered

WHO: York & Open
WHERE: York's Calibration Room
WHAT: Calibrations event
WHEN: May
WARNINGS: CW/TW: York's room has the potential to bring up the following situations: gaslighting/manipulation, abuse, gun violence, death, and assault. The items are labeled with warnings.

Waiting Room Post
Mingle Post

Calibrations Room

The room is a workshop that has seen better days. Once a sterile, almost hospital like room, with a black, pleather covered chair for android repairs. Now, the room is ripped apart. Cables and wires have been ripped apart or unplugged from exposed panels, electricity sparking from live ends. The chair is broken in numerous pieces and thrown about the room, covered in oil, grease, and blue blood. There's broken parts, both mechanical and biocomponents, littered about. On the walls in that same blue blood is "I AM ALIVE" painted by hand in a large, bold, Helvetica font. The floor is wet. Shell casings glint in the light from above.


On the floor are items: a black NYC hoodie that smells earthy; a fireman's hatchet caked in blue and red blood [cw: gun violence, death]; a news tablet with a line about robotic parenting [cw: gaslighting, abuse]; and a pamphlet of Bryant Park’s 191st anniversary ripped midway [cw: assault, physical violence against human and android].

Around the items are some wires that haven't been destroyed, and all of them lead into the back of an older looking and taller York, who is curled up on the floor surrounded by the objects. There’s thirium covering his hands. The wires weave around the items, but don't touch them. He is shirtless, with his knees drawn up to his chin to hide himself. He wears black sweatpants as his only clothing.

The whole room feels isolated, full of fear, and strangely enough: it feels too small.

Upon seeing another enter his mind, York is immediately aggressive. "What are you doing in here?! Ģ̡͝E̸̵T̴̢͠ ̶̴̸O̴̧UT̴́͟!̸̨!̴͘" York gets to his feet - his LED is swirling red, throwing light against the open section of his chest next to it where his thirium pump beats. The android moves quick, as though to try getting to the intruder, but the wires seem to reel in, snap taut, and pull him back towards the wall he’s written on. It’s then apparent that York is too big for the room, with his hair almost brushing the ceiling. There's no hiding the fear in his expression as he struggles for freedom the cables aren’t giving. Realizing the vulnerable state, York relaxes and turns away from his intruder, with those tight wires loosening around him. It shows the wires going into the open panels of his back now, hooking somewhere deep within the machinery that moves and gives him life. York wraps his arms around his chest, ducking his head down. His open interior section pulses blue like a heartbeat.

"I̸͠ţ's̶̡ ņ̀̕o̸̶t̸̡ s͘͝u͡p̷p҉ós͏̕͘ed͘ ͟͞t̨̨o ̨͜h̵̸̛u̶͞͞r͜t́́," he whispers angrily, though the room is small enough that the other would be able to hear it anyways. "D̕͜͡ò̷n̨̡'ţ̕ ̡h͜u͢ŗ͜t̢͠͞ ̴͝me̢͟"

[I'll be using a different set of icons for the older version of York in replies, but that face doesn't apply outside of the calibration room. ~Xi]
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2022-05-23 07:26 pm (UTC)(link)
The last thing Tony wanted was to actually make this man cry, so that reaction instead of the edge of anger that Tony thought he would draw out had him recoiling slightly, eyes darting around the room again, refusing to acknowledge it to not make it worse. He only reluctantly glanced back York's way as he saw the guy climb to his feet out of the corner of his eye, making sure he wasn't coming any closer to express that anger.

"Nothing is a coincidence--" Tony interrupted, not about to buy that half-assed explanation for anything that happened in this tightly controlled nightmare. So the Agrii deliberately doing something, that got Tony to shut his mouth again, chin slowly dipping down as York continued.

The problem was, that was him. The him that the Agrii or the Atroma or whoever wanted him to acknowledge, or the him from another timeline that Tony was just lagging behind. That was the him that kept on fucking up with Peter and Tommy, and would only fuck up York if he was given the chance. "You should probably keep doing that," he suggested.
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2022-05-23 09:11 pm (UTC)(link)
It would be embarrassing enough to believe in coincidence under normal circumstances that Tony rolled his eyes, giving York a pinched look that quickly faded when presented with a much more real problem. Alright, so his reputation continued to precede him, that might explain why York didn't think he knew what the year 2038 was like. He still grumbled, "Cal can be surprisingly resourceful..." as though he would have the self-control to turn away York in a crisis situation.

Or a less than crisis situation. Just as easily as he was led into the memory, Tony was drawn a curious step closer as York offered his hand, keeping his hands in his pockets like he could draw himself back at any moment. Of course that wasn't true, it never had been, and they were jumping out restlessly with a rhythmic tap to the air like he was counting as York's structure was revealed, and very quickly concluded, "I was trying to remake Jim," not really talking to York anymore. "So you wouldn't have to hide." It didn't sound like it worked.
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2022-05-23 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
With a stunted nod, Tony agreed, "That, too," with a brief, distrustful glance back up to meet York's eyes, not eager to expound on all of Cal's virtues if York was just here to take advantage of and warp them. Maybe trying to encourage him the kid's way had been misguided, if Tony's goal was to minimize the potential harm.

He looked very intent to memorize what York was showing him, that restless motion of his fingers more obviously drawing, not counting, sketching a schematic that his waking self might replicate, but he found he couldn't ignore this android not knowing exactly which Jim that Tony could possibly be talking about. His hands continued their subtle work even as he answered with a wrinkle of disbelief in his brow, "Hammond. The Torch. The Invaders?" It did make sense, now that he considered it, that this alternate version of him didn't have Cap around to keep him in check and trying to be a good man, but it continued to make his stomach drop when someone else from what should have been Earth didn't recognize what Tony thought were its heroes. "He was the original, a man made by science, won the war, defeated the Nazis. Nothing that came after him was the same. After Ultron, he was still a hero, somehow wasn't ever touched by this machine war. I guess I--I hoped maybe if more synthetics looked like him, worked like him, people wouldn't be so afraid."
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2022-05-23 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Tony didn't hide the click of his tongue in impatient irritation as the curious machinery was hidden from him again, but he did swing back, still working hand back in his pocket and the other patting at his chest again, drumming over his heart. This Earth that York spoke about was more like Jon's then, no Invaders, potentially no Avengers if Hank wasn't making Ultron, though maybe the crisis still happened with this android model if the humans have turned on them so violently.

Still thinking, still building with his focus dancing around every shift in York's posture like the movement revealed more of his mechanism to Tony, he offered, "You should come to the hospital. If they let us out of here." With a toss of his head like the door was still over his shoulder, he continued, "I've been setting up a room for the synthetics, for the droids and the Exos and the prosthetics..." He wound his free hand around, et cetera, with a roll of his eyes, for York to pick up on the pattern--there were a lot of different kinds of problems that might need solving in their small community, and Tony could use the help managing the resources before the next problem occurred. Thoroughly understanding how York worked and how to rebuild the parts of him might have been convincingly altruistic, to some people.
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2022-05-24 01:04 am (UTC)(link)
This display of York's sudden breakdown might have been just as intriguing to Tony as how he physically worked, keeping Tony studying the movement, dipping his head like he could catch York's eye again, staring through him. Nothing in this room could be trusted, that much was obvious, but if York was anything like this outside of his dream world, then he was easy to goad into reacting. Volatile. That could have been as much of a problem as his potential subterfuge, if Tony didn't discover all of the buttons and how to manage them.

He was going to have to keep pressing.

"Good talk," he responded lightly, like York didn't sound like he was about to implode, finally sauntering in a careful arc around him toward that widening window. That had to be the way out of this funhouse. Tony lingered there a moment longer, level focus still on York until he knew Tony was watching him; not just now, in here. There were plenty more camera than the one that had captured him at the library. "They're all nice," he said then, like he was just carrying on the same conversation and expected York to have followed the same tangle of wires. "Don't confuse that with naive."