revivalproject

If you'd tell me about her, maybe it'd stick.

Or you're just really fucking incompetent at listening!!

_{[Hey, a start! Billy didn't scream at him this time, but he does still sound pretty angry.]}

"Yeah, yeah." Now Tony's voice is overlapping, the tinny phone voice an echo of the one investigating the broken glass of the gaping wound leading into the civics centre. Not difficult to find, with the amount of shouting that Billy had been generously sharing with him. He still held his communicator up, not against his ear, clearly given up on that some time ago, but primly by his chin with an extended pinky, where he spoke into it while raising his eyebrows at Billy. "Here's the thing, I'm not the one you're tearing the place down over, so I'm having a hard time understanding why you'd rather talk about that than talk about her. Clearly don't want to talk about you, either, so it's not that. Just your redecorating process?" He clicked his tongue, looking up and around at the clinging shards of glass. Not a process that Tony got away with himself.

The civics center is quite the mess, with equipment pushed or tossed about. The weights are a scattered pile near Billy, who heaves for breath as he listens to the comm device. Squints in confusion as he hears Tony's voice coming from it and the--

A quick turn around shows the guy on the other side of the door. Billy hesitates to answer, glaring at Tony like all of this was his fault even though he knows it isn't. The mess is Billy's fault, the bleeding knuckles are Billy's fault, and hell, Max's return home is probably his fault, too.

"She's my sister!" he says with emphasis, like he does think Tony is stupid. "She's got red fucking hair and an intolerance for people's bullshit! Tommy would pull her around the city on her stupid skateboard and she'd yell at me for staying at the beach house during the winter until I came here!" Why his tone is so accusatory and aggressive, he doesn't know.

'Stupid' was an accusation that Tony was getting used to, so he took that first volley with a passive nod as he tucked his tablet away. Whatever degradation Billy had for Tony was fine, because it seemed to be effectively keeping Billy distracted from further destruction of his own environment. Whatever wounds he left on Tony didn't matter.

"She was looking out for you," Tony acknowledged, this time with pursed lips of empathy, now that Billy was finally veering close to what this hurt actually was. "And knew how to motivate you. That's a rare commodity. Personal tailoring." Meanwhile, he picked his way into the room, and started in an arc that kept him relatively distant from Billy as he deliberately gathered glass together with the tip of his shoe, or picked up overturned furniture.

It was an accusation that didn’t have much weight when he’s angry. Maybe after he’s calmed down, he could figure out how to make apology cards.

Max did look out for him. Of course she would, with everything that happened to just the two of them in Hawkins. "That’s what siblings do." Billy and Max never really had a healthy sibling relationship back in Hawkins, but it was better here. He knows it was. And Billy knew how much Max was hurting after his death back home now.

He hears the slide of furniture against the floor and points over in that direction with a sharp movement. "Don’t."

He takes a breath, ragged and trying to calm down. Billy can’t rage when someone else is in here - too many people would be disappointed if he hurt someone else. And Tony knew about cars.

"My fucking mess. I’ll clean it up." The blond can almost feel Neil breathing down his neck like a threat if he let someone else clean up his mess.

The command was sudden and unexpected enough that it briefly stunned Tony in surprise, watching Billy with raised eyebrows and slow sweep of his tongue along his teeth that barely hid the impulsive tick of his smirking challenge. Even if it was took quick to see, though, it was obvious as Tony continued as though the stutter never happened, dragging one of the weights unnecessarily against the floor to screech as he swept it up. "Never had any of my own," he replied lightly, "Only child, you know, got it right the first time." Using the weight, he made an easy tap at the air, the gesture of a confident tennis serve, then spread his arms in welcome. "Can't imagine what a sister is like, in your position."

It's the sound of movement that keeps his attention and he turns when he hears the sound of the weight being dragged against the floor. The simmering rage rears up again and he crosses over quick to shove Tony away from his mess.

"I said I'll fucking clean it up!" he yells, then recoils. It's been awhile since he's actually shoved someone - the last time was Harrington during the volcano ordeal. That had ended with Billy sporting a broken nose. His cheeks burn red at this moment and at the memory and he takes a step back.

He breathes in through his nose and back out through his mouth. "I should clean it up. I fucking made the mess," is what he says through a tense voice, but he goes to pick up the weight Tony had been fiddling with. Don't shove people trying to help!

The move was telegraphed enough that Tony was reasonably prepared for it, holding his ground with his chin raised and absorbing the shove with only a small stumble back, rocking on his heels until both of them had found equilibrium. It seemed like Billy was less prepared. In the tense seconds that followed, Billy's shout a blast that seemed to leave them deafened in its wake in the still room, Tony waited expectantly. That Billy didn't ultimately reevaluate was what made Tony's shoulders deflate, and he swung back another step, where he could slouch against the wall instead without a direct order to chafe against. "I've seen worse," he offered. With his ankles crossed then, arms folded to prop up one elbow for a loosely gesturing hand as he rolled his eyes, he continued, "This isn't even the aftermath of a good party. Everyone still knows where their pants are."

Billy finds the lack of any push-back almost embarrassing for himself - if he wasn't already feeling that way by lashing out against someone. Destroying the gym was different than pushing someone when he was still trying to be better. Instead of pointing it out, Tony at least moved to get distance between them and lean against the wall.

"So have I." Billy flexes his hand, staring down at the bloodied knuckles before heaving the weight rack upright. "Also no one's drunk."

There's a little bit of tension still left in his voice as he starts righting up his mess. It's tougher, with all the adrenaline melting out of his system and the pain in his hand taking its place. Billy should ask for help. That was part of his process of being better and all that. But he's wronged Tony now, pushed and yelled at him. That meant he had to do it himself, right? That's what Billy thought.

One weight does clang back to the ground and Billy winces and tries to hold his hand still for a moment to let the pain pass before continuing on.

The attempt at reassurance appeared to have the opposite of Tony's intended effect, and while it had him tipping his head back against the wall to watch Billy through his lashes, he did have to admit that he couldn't have expected a positive response in the midst of radioactive decay. The process just had to stabilize eventually. That had probably been true all along, and Tony had just been telling himself that he was helping. It was Billy that slowed himself down while Tony watched, until both of their focus was on the blood sliding down Billy's hand, and in the quiet that followed this time, Tony intruded with the faint rattling of screws and clatter of tools as he searched his belt to produce tweezers and a slim, metallic cylinder. "That'd probably help," he finally said, staying where he was and only curling a finger expectantly. His dad wanted a chilled glass after his hands were left stinging, too.

Billy Hargrove wasn't keen on giving positive reactions when he was riled up like this. Nearly anyone who knew him, here or home, knew his temper was like an erupting volcano. And after Tony's careful handling and the pain lacing through the muscles. Little drops of blood drips down to the floor.

He lifts his hand but Tony's movement distracts him from it, and then the tweezers alongside a little tube.

For a long moment, Billy studies Tony's hand, then his face, before holding his injured one out carefully. If Tony was here, attempting to calm his ass down, offering a way to get the glass out, there couldn't be a way to hurt him, right? His device was on way out of reach, so he couldn't call for backup. Then the teen holds his knuckles out towards the techie. "I'll make it worse if I try to do it lefthanded.

Tony's own hands should have been more rough and scarred; he certainly moved then like he had plenty of experience managing the kind of damage his hands might have been subjected to in the forge, and he agreed, "Takes some practice." As it was, the pink welts of burns and scabs from nicks seemed like mostly fresh damage, all except for the thin, white lines of scarring circling several of his fingers, already fading. They were otherwise smooth as he carefully tipped Billy's hand to catch the light, and juggled his tools to deftly test then pluck out the glass that glinted. The tube, it turned out, was for the more freely bleeding of these wounds, which he flexed experimentally to push the skin together before sealing it with a line of glue.

Where Tony‘s hands were lacking scars, there were many of them all over the back of Billy‘s. Little slivers of them traced all over his fingers and part of the back of his hands. There were others, from the times of working on the Camaro, but those looked different compared to mechanic work.

For what it was worth, Billy did try to keep still. Inevitably, there were twitches here and there as the man worked on the shards and slivers. "I’m better working with stuff left from fights," he tells Tony with a sullen tone. There’s a hiss when the glue comes into play, and Billy almost pulls away before steeling himself.

"…I found a letter from her. She wrote it to me, probably after—" Billy swallows hard, blue gaze focused hard on Tony fixing him up. "I found it on my bed here. She wrote that my dad was worse, started fighting with her mom. That things got worse after I…left… and that normal left when I did."

And Max goes back to that. She goes back to the memories of Neil hitting Susan and leaving before shit hits the fan again at home.

Extracting the glass and sealing the worst of the cuts was at least something that Tony could fix. Kids stuck in violent homes was not a problem that anyone could solve with the right equation, let alone from a universe away.

Carefully, he said, "Here's, you know, something positive: she knows it's not normal. That's good, that she's not blaming herself. He's going to do his worst, and the next day she's going to get up again and go to school." He twirled a finger in the air, a loop they were going to be in, until it stopped. "And then she's going to get out of there, some day, and we're going to get you back home, and one day you're going to be arguing with her about how she's changing a tire, and you're going to realize neither of you have even thought about it in days."

Billy visibly tenses, which is most likely the opposite reaction Tony was going for. He grits his teeth against the stinging pain as he curls his fingers into a fist, then breathes out to uncurl them.

"I don’t— we’ll never—" There’s no nice way to put this, so he blurts out, "I die. I know I’m dead when I go back." Billy looks up not to Tony but the scars laced through the skin of his hand. "The letter left for me here was probably written by her back home."

Now his breathing is ragged, trying to harness that grief again before it explodes.

"The others from Hawkins. They told me she’s in a coma back home. Things are a fucking mess. Here I can at least fix being an asshole to Max, to the others from Hawkins." He breathes in and out and gets some of his composure back.

"I don’t get anything else when the aliens send me back."

That definitely put the letter in a different context, much more dire, but also a deliberate exercise in harm that, unfortunately, was having its intended effect. These beings had Billy here to torture him, and if it was left up to them, he would go back to that death. Tony took his wrist then as he focused on those scars, mostly to get his attention so the meltdown wasn't initiated all over again when Tony laid the other hand along his neck.

"You're still alive. Right now. We can still decide what the future looks like. That good day is still out there," Tony said. He was sure about that part. How they got there exactly, he was much less sure. He hadn't made a lot of progress. Still, he could say, "I don't know what's keeping you going, if you don't really believe that."

Scars made from holding a creature of his making back. From killing his sister‘s friend. Only one person had seen the scarring left on his body from the night he was pulled from at home, and Billy‘s okay with that.

He’s spaced out for the moment, but flinches the moment he feels the hand at his neck. Not a flinch to lash out, but to brace for a hit that never comes. Billy doesn’t move to get away and turns his gaze up to Tony’s face. Relaxes a little from where he’s tensed up. At least he listens, nodding just enough to show he acknowledges the guy’s words. "Training. Being a better person. Tommy. Having what I can here for as long as I can."

Edited 2025-03-19 13:03 (UTC)

That wasn't exactly the answer that Tony was looking for; it wasn't going to be easy to convince Billy that his time was finite and doomed. With a sigh through a tight smile, though, Tony gave him an appreciative pat for finding and naming that drive, then a declarative point. "We shouldn't be wasting that time cleaning up messes," he said. Mostly for Billy to keep in mind the next time he felt a tantrum coming on, but also, "So you should let me help you, so you can go--" He sniffed, not sure how to cover the stutter at this distance, and had to try to just recover, "Give Tommy a smile."

Another flinch at the pat, this time to get away. But Tony doesn't move to crowd or hit him, so Billy doesn't lash back out. He's teetering on it though, still keyed up enough that he could. He's about to agree and allow for Tony to help, but he takes the sniff and small stutter the wrong way.

"You got a problem with me and Tommy?" he accuses defensively, already scowling at what he thought was Tony not liking the two of them being together.

It was truly exhausting how often Tony did not understand what he was doing wrong. At home, he could at least tell himself it was his long, public history delivering every scowl his way, but he didn't have that excuse anymore, it was just what he said. He didn't even have it to lean back on as he tried, "Trust me, I'm the last person who can judge anyone's romantic choices," with a tired sigh of resignation. "I dated someone who looks like Doctor Doom," he had to illustrate, which also probably didn't work, hold on--"Metal face. Tried to kill me. Forget it."

This isn’t you, Tony. It’s all Billy, who is on the defensive easily when he feels like he’s being challenged. Some of that immediate fight drops out as Tony explains about some pessimistic doctor with…

…a metal face?

"Sounds like some shit Tommy would fight. The doctor guy, not you." He very carefully and slowly pulls his hand away to give a tentative flex of it. The blond sits there, looking almost defeated. Maybe he was, by his anger. Would Tommy be disappointed with how he wrecked this place? "…thanks. For patching that up. Tar would probably make a really big deal about it if I went to her. And I’m not talking to Wesker - he and I don’t get along."

There was only a slight twitch of a grin from Tony to suggest that Tommy might have gotten into that exact fight a few times, but Billy was going to has him for those details. Tony only watched him, tense until he could click his teeth and shrug in lieu of accepting the thanks. "He doesn't make it easy," he had to agree, then offered the glue with some impatience, demanding before Billy could reject it. "For when you're working. So you can stay in the zone and skip a lecture from the Doc. Don't waste it on breaking more windows."

"She'll lecture me either way." Billy accepts the glue and pockets it for the moment. He is less tense now, looking more worn down than he does angry like when Tony first showed up. He rights up one of the benches for weights and moves onto the next item to fix back up.

"Speaking of being in the zone and working... I should try to get my car off the beach." The teen sounds so tired now. Focusing on something else will at least keep him from getting mad again. "Any suggestions?"

That was a problem that Tony was under the impression had already been solved, so he made a faint noise of surprise, delicate hand to his chest with appropriate horror that the car was still out there. Instead of suggestions, though, he sidled after Billy to ease him off of hauling up any more weights with a tight squeeze of his bunched shoulders, and asked, "Where did you want her?"

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