revivalproject

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?"

Well, he hadn't gotten to it. Instead, he had been fixing her up piece by piece with the parts Tommy brought him. When not being worked on, she slept under a tightly tied down tarp. The touch gets a reflexive flinch, but he doesn't lash out. Just stares at Tony for a long moment and then relaxes.

"Somewhere not on the beach. Or near that flood plain where the lake is. I'm strong, but not strong enough to get her off of the beach by myself."

"Don't worry about that," Tony assured him, waving away any further concerns about the actual transport logistics. "There's some cover at the forge, if Donnie doesn't mind. You talk to Donnie?" It was unclear to Tony how often the kid used the space, especially with him securely up on the ship, so unless Billy had any objections himself, Tony was willing to risk some possible future annoyance. He was already sending some of the bots to retrieve the missile launch platform, the strange, multi-armed AGRII-bot meandering past the broken window on its path.

"What?" Billy sounds confused - why wouldn't he worry about being strong enough to get the car off of the beach? That was like, the most pressing issue. As for the turtles...

"Is uh... Donnie the one that wears blue or purple? I think I talked to the guy that wears blue. They're brothers, right?" He doesn't really have any objections. "You got space at the forge? I could do some work or something to make up for you keeping it there. Sweeping or something. Not much call for a lifeguard around here at the pool."

"This," Tony replied, casting an illustrative hand over the destruction, "is not the way to prove to the boss that you can keep the place tidy." He said it with a small, impatient shake of his head, barely wanting to consider anyone relegated to sweeping in servitude when they could be applying their talents. He continued quickly, "Brothers, right, hard to tell, well spotted--Leo's his name, in blue. The forge space is Donnie's now, he earned it, but if you really want to help out, he could use the hands. He's not so good at keeping the machine running, you know, the chopping wood, feeding himself, fluffing the pillows, giving him shit parts. Think you can do that?" Billy had a vacuum now where his big brother talents were going to waste, after all.

"You'd have to accept my offer to be my boss. And while I'm not showing that great in the interview, you can at least tell I pick up after myself." But he concedes the topic to listen.

"Leo is blue so Donnie is purple." Hopefully he'll remember that. No promises. No doubt Billy will get them mixed up at some future point. "I can keep wood chopped and stocked. It's one of the reasons I had Gladio get an axe weapon for me. I don't fluff pillows, but shit parts - if he wants what I replace in the Camaro, he can have it."

Billy's big brother talents were still really rough, sawed at with years of abuse from a man that was interested more in order than loving a son.

"You telling me to go interview with Donnie then, boss?" With his own bit of sass again.

Tony breathed a laugh with a reluctant smirk at Billy's teasing, and by way of answer suggested, "He'd probably love to help you shine her up, if you're willing to show him under the hood." By then, he was looking away, toward the window where two chopstick-thin legs had hooked over the pane, sending a few shards tinkling down the wall for D.A.T.A. to lift his camera up over the ledge. "They have to clear some of the brush to fit the car through, but they should have her moved by the end of the day. We get this place fixed up and it'll be done," Tony could report.

He's good at teasing. Just ask his boyfriend, he'll agree. Billy shrugs a little bit. "She needs more work before she shines like she used to. Definitely needs a new windshield, but that's... a big thing I think to ask for. I don't really know if the replicators can do something that big, or if it'll get it right. I use it to make cigarettes sometimes."

A habit that had gone by the wayside unless he got super stressed out about stuff.

The sound of the glass gets his attention and he looks over at the robot working over the ledge. "The fuck is that? Lemme guess, you're from the far off future where robots are a normal thing?"

"Pretty normal, sure," Tony allowed with a wry smile, and with a beckoning gesture invited the robot to lift himself up through the window. It was mostly an orb, except for the thin legs that it used to maneuver and raise in greeting. "You can call him D.A.T.A.," Tony provided for him, and with some pride added, "Development And Teaching Assistant. He was supposed to help the Agrii learn more about us, and our language, back when it was harder to communicate." The robot curiously knocked another shard of glass from the broken frame, earning him the ghost of a fond smile before Tony schooled it to turn suddenly back to Billy, continuing sedately, "Tommy's actually got a few years on me. He was still wetting the bed, on my Earth. Probably kicked the habit by now. Hey, the glass is a good place to start. Before I left it, I equipped the forge with what Donnie'd need to make something pretty durable." D.A.T.A. helpfully gave his own camera eye a plinking tap, a bespoke molded glass that must have come from somewhere.

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This one got lost, I'm so sorry! ♥︎

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