revivalproject | You can't hide from your problems

Entry tags:

You can't hide from your problems | Calibrations

WHO: Billy Kaplan, OPEN
WHERE: Billy's Calibration Room
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: 3 June - 10 June
WARNINGS: Potential Warnings for Violence, Depression, Death and Suicide, but also some happy things

The room you step into isn't all that different from Billy's actually room back home, for those that know it. It looks like the room of a typical nerdy teenager, walls adorned with posters of his favourite heroes, and a desk cluttered with unfinished homework. There's shelves with books, and assorted action figures, as well as a few old games- like operation, which don't seem to have gotten much attention lately, covered in a layer of dust.

Billy lays on his bed with an assortment of comics, reading through them, though when he glances up you might note that his eyes are wrong. All black with fields of stars, like you can see the depths of universe in them.

He curls a finger, and a box beneath the bed scoots further back into the darkness.

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It was right there on the page that this was another one of Loki's schemes for whoever was around to deal with the fallout of, just like the Hulk on a rampage or Central Park blooming lollipops. But sure, it was all Billy, and Tony sighed with irritation, lips pursed. "That's because you keep listening to these..." he started, tossing the magazine back into the pile in front of Billy, not his kind of story and already not interested in a critical breakdown of it before he had finished his proposal. "What's the last thought you had for yourself? I mean, entirely your own, not some supervillain, not Teddy, not what-would-Cap-do, forget all of that," he asked.

"...The one that got Cassie killed." So yeah, not a great track record. He looks guilty, and uncertain, and the veneer of the room crumbles a little, like peeling paint, hinting to something underneath this surface level of hero devotion.

That was pretty bad, couldn't argue with that. Tony was expecting something small, like what Billy had ordered for breakfast the last time he was at Vanto's that couldn't have led to a disaster, but instead he was drawing his hand away, curling it over his own shoulder out of reach. This trip back to New York was quickly taking a turn, and the whole room seemed to be aware of it, making Tony's gaze skirt around and reevaluate. The posters sagged slightly, and the painted faces of the action figured were stamped slightly off-centre in that goofy, mass-produced way, and Tony muttered, "It's not an easy job." Standing from the bed, he moved to smooth the corner of a Captain America poster back down to the wall.

Once the poster was carefully smoothed back down, a memory enveloped them before they could get back to that awkward conversation.

Billy and Hulkling stood before an assortment of Avengers that might seem unfamiliar to Tony- some regular faces like Wanda (alive and well), Thor and Steve, but some new additions, like Rogue, Havock, and Wolverine.

"So, it's my fault," Billy explained, "I cast this spell, and it's summoned some kind of monster from another dimension or... I don't know. It's replaced our parents with drones or something. We have to get rid of it, somehow. Can you help, Wanda?"

"Of course we can, Billy," she assured calmly.

Hulkling leaned in close to whisper, "You call her Wanda?"
"Better than 'The Scarlet Mom," he hissed back.

"We know exactly how to deal with this..." Wanda continued.

The memory seemed to smash cut to the group outside of the Kaplans' open door, Billy and Hulkling held firmly in place like necking teenagers being dragged home by the police.

"Here you go, Ms. Altman. Hope they didn't scare you with their running away," Wanda said as they passed the boys off. Inside the Kaplans limbs seemed to liquefy, pinning the boys to the wall with a flesh coloured goo, though none of the Avengers took any notice.

"Some kind of fanciful story about you dying, and then being possessed by a monster," Wanda explained to Ms. Altman, "The details we're...nonsensical."

"It's okay," Ms. Altman assured, drinking from a WORLD'S BEST MOM mug, "It's been very hard for them recently, thank you so much. Are you sure you can't stay for coffee?"

"Captain! Can't you see? Hel--" Billy pleaded, silenced by Cap interrupting in a stern voice.

"Be a grown-up, William. This is beneath you." He was the last to walk out, leaving the boys to the mercy of Mother who closed the door behind them with a smile.

"What lovely superheroes they are. Fine role models."

There was so much about this vision that was strange and uncomfortable, pinning Tony to the spot immediately at the feel of the Mansion around him-- this was turning out to be a real trip back home that he didn't think he was going to get in somebody else's head. Only, the kids had never been to the Mansion, and Billy almost certainly wouldn't exist the way he did now and in this memory if the building was still standing. With Wanda in it.

Tony was barely listening, focus jumping quickly around the assembly but lasering onto Wanda, looking regal and comfortable as ever, like she hadn't gone anywhere at all and was leading the team again-- Tony started to ask, "What is she wearing--?", eyes not leaving her, only to find himself standing somewhere else entirely. And this part of the memory felt very much like a Cap plan, less pieces out of place, he was always trying to dump these kids back on their parents, but it was when Cap tossed his last nasty little dig that Tony finally thought to ask, "Where was I?" He would have at least been able to tell Steve to lighten up a little on the flight back, but instead, what, Thor was carrying him? Tony's other questions didn't matter that much, he was already waving them off, because he had to point out, "I thought you said we were from the same dimension, what the hell was that?" No wonder Tommy didn't trust him.

"That was the um, the 'Avengers Unity Squad'. You were with the regular Avengers then. And then New Avengers...There's a whole lot of Avengers going on, it's confusing. I wasn't let in on that meeting, I dunno," he explains, holding his palms up.

"And then we were gone for a year, so...I'm kind of out of date on the most current situation."

That name was enough to tell Tony that he had better things to do than participate in whatever was happening there, lip raised, sure that sounded like some new Gyrich politicking. It did not explain anything else that he saw. Still looking confused, Tony turned back to the poster like he could replay the events for more clarity, only to point at the image with a thumb to ask, "Is that how you see St--Cap?" It wasn't inaccurate, Tony wasn't questioning the validity of the portrayal in Billy's memory as much as he was questioning the validity of that Mansion, but it was a surprise that it wasn't some shining image of justice, honour, righteousness, etc.

"Not really, just..." Billy shrugs a shoulder. "It's...a more recent memory. It kind of stuck with me. I always thought Cap would help, but...he couldn't see it. None of the adults could."

"Actually?" Tony asked, ghoulishly impressed by the concept of this sinister tactic. "Like, magically, Peter Pan, kind of thing?" What that would accomplish outside of traumatizing kids and driving them away from any authority figures wasn't clear, but those things obviously made a lasting impression. If Billy was then 'gone' for a year, those goals had one clear motive, and Tony had to point back at the poster and the memory in it again, "Were you brainwashed?" It was possible he could have been more sensitive with the question.

"She wanted to eat me," Billy explained, a little nonchalantly at first, before that fear properly showed itself.

"...She was an inter-dimensional parasite who feds off magic and power, and...everything was basically just a tug of war between her and Loki for who got to eat or control my powers..."

Right, they had been talking about something, and Billy just admitted the flaw in taking on this particular disaster as his personal responsibility. Even Thor wasn't down on himself for Loki's manipulations in their first battles together as a team, that kind of narcissism was supposed to come with a few years of doing this thing under the belt, not straight out the gate like these kids seemed to assume. It wasn't entirely Billy that Tony was frustrated with then when he snapped, "Why do you do it, then? Why do you bother if its always so hard on you?" All of the Young Avengers could have easily just gone back to being kids and lived normal lives until they had the emotional maturity to take on the kind of responsibility they thought they deserved, the responsibility to die for something, like it didn't effect anyone else around them and they knew better than anyone with a decade of experience already telling them to back off. The Mansion might have been gone (was it? What the hell was happening in Billy's dimension?) but the New Avengers filled in the gap that the Young Avengers thought they fit into.

This sort of tough talk isn't Billy's favourite, but it is effective, making him look away, room rumbling and shifting.

"...I tried to stop. I quit. But- it just...it feels like no matter what I try to do, no matter how much I want to help it just...ends up hurting someone in the end. How am I supposed to know what right? How did you guys do it for so long? Making all the right calls and- I don't know what to do with this power, I don't want it-"

"Listen--" Tony intervened, one hand out like he might be able to tame the room into settling again, before Billy started crying or something equally traumatic, and returned to the bed to take him by the shoulder. "I adore every one of you kids for what you do. I know exactly, in every way, how terrifying and thrilling it is to put on the tights, and I also know that I needed a better a reason than just for the sake of being kind and because I had the ability to, to put them on myself. I don't want to downplay the fact that I do think that makes all of you incredible, and I admire your bravery. However. If you could talk to your younger self right now, back when we met and you were still in diapers, just a handful of years for you, do you really think you would be telling him that he's in a place where he should be thinking it's up to him to help people, and make the judgement call on what's right or wrong? If you really don't think you'd tell that kid he can shove his ego up his ass, then it would be really nice if you could share that patience with all of the people who share that opinion with me. And I'm never wrong.

"I'm not trying to tell you that you should stop. But in another couple of years, you're going to be looking at yourself now like you can look back on the kid who made the rational choice to name himself Ass-guardian. What I'm trying to say is, don't flatter yourself."

The tremors stopped, and Billy blinked slowly, giving a few laughs that seem to surprise him each time they broke through, but in the end, despite not being entirely sure still, he looked grateful.

"...You're weirdly good at this," he muttered with a teasing grin, "You ever think of having kids?"

Only every day, but Tony cocked his head, his grin baffled, and gave Billy a shove like he could reject the whole notion. "Wouldn't fit with my lifestyle," he pointed out, chin up pridefully.

He laughs, and nods his chin towards the far wall, door ajar, "You don't have to stick around if you don't want," he offers, room fading back to the way it had started.

Tony's gaze jumped to the door, then quickly around to the beckoning tchotchkis of the room, not eager to end up reassuring Billy again but not sure when he would get another opportunity to literally see what was in his head. "Do you want me to go?" he turned back on Billy, standing like he would of course leave Billy to his privacy if that was what he wanted, idly reaching out to the shelf like he was just checking the surface for dust as he passed. Those games could use some attention.

The questioned seemed to take him by surprise, and Billy found himself shaking his head. "...Only if you want to," he mumbled. He didn't want to be alone. Not really.

It wasn't clear where Billy might end up or who might walk into this room if Tony left it, so keeping him around might just have been the safe choice, but Tony didn't really need Billy's reason for Tony to stick around and still teased, "No, you hang up..." quietly while he searched the shelf. He plucked up the game on top, intending to busy Billy with it while Tony rifled through his stuff.

"Tony-" Billy breathed in warning, and then-

It might have been a space Tony recognized, the Cube, a S.H.I.E.L.D. prison, but the captives in question were not the sort he might have expected to find there.

The room was bloody, rusty and pieced together, three teenaged heroes strapped to the walls, a fourth left slumped broken on the floor, his neck at an unnatural angle. Billy had some kind of contraption surgically attached to him, pinned through sharp prongs in his ears. He was chanting desperately while the Warden worked away cutting open an unconsious Teddy, over and over. He stopped to access his tools and he chatted idly with Billy as he did.

"It really shouldn't be this hard," he noted, setting down a bloody knife onto a tray full of bloodied instruments.

"IwanthimtostopIwanthimtostopIwanthimtostop", Billy chanted desperately as the Warden wiped down his bloody gloves, and grinned pointed at him.

"But we do usually install power dampeners with our surgeo-machines under heavy anesthetic. Call me old fashioned but I prefer to do it by hand..."

"IwanthimtostopIwanthimtostopIwanthimtostop"

"...Which makes it very difficult when someone's organs keep moving out of the way..." He looked pointedly at the unconscious Teddy.

"IwanthimtostopIwanthimtostopIwanthimtostop"

"I don't know what you're complaining about. Your procedure went quite smoothly, I thought." He approached Billy and gestured tauntingly to his ears.

"Your 'spells' do not work if you can't hear yourself casting them...with that device implanted you can hear everything but your own voice. But do keep trying...I find it soothing."

The Billy that wasn't part of this memory tried very pointedly not to engage it with, looking away from Teddy, electricity crackling at his fingertips.

It wasn't a place Tony recognized at all, and none of the provided context helped him link it to the Cube that he had seen described on paper. That place was supposed to be a high-tech facility for extraterrestrial threats that he had no say over as Secretary of Defense, another one of Fury's sly loopholes that he thought everyone else was too stupid to figure out. If he knew it looked like this, Fury would have been in for a rude reminder that Tony let him get away with as much as Fury thought he was allowing of Tony. Tony did miss that hard bastard.

The scene wasn't totally unfamiliar, though. He had been strung up with the whole team at the mercy of some manic asshole plenty of times, stripped of their powers and subject to the ramblings of a supervillain. Tony slowly circled around the table with Teddy to return to Billy, eyes narrowed and shoulders back like he was stalking the man with the knives. "How did he catch you...?" Not that Tony needed the advice, but managing to subdue both Hulkling and Wiccan was a delicate procedure, and this guy looked like a butcher.

"..." It takes Billy a moment, and he sighed. "He um...he had control of a Kree named Noh-Varr. He killed Xavin, and knocked the rest of us out before we could stop him. They took the four of us while the others kept fighting..."

Two attendants entered the room and pulled his attention away for a moment. Like the Warden, their outfits were similiar to those worn by S.H.I.E.L.D. though with their own distinct flair.

"Warden? You're needed outside. We have a situation with Noh-Varr."

Billy continued to chant in the background, while the Warden looked annoyed and moved to leave. "That cockroach is more trouble than he's worth."

One of the attendants looked to the boy still on the ground

"Sir, the skrull-boy's neck is broken. Should I have the body vaporized?" he asked, and the girl strapped to the wall looked to the broken body with tears in her eyes. The Warden looked dismissive.

"No...I think he's fine there for the moment."

"IwanthimtostopIwanthimtostopIwanthimtostop."

Edited 2020-06-20 23:16 (UTC)

Without the Warden in the way, Tony stared at Teddy trying to figure out what exactly the Warden thought he was doing, but only coming away with a shiver. This wasn't a prison that he was Warden of; the only purpose for any of it was to torture these kids. "What did he want?" Tony asked, looking to the attendants for some clue. It wasn't like Billy had some state secrets to rend out of him.

"I don't know. This. He just wanted to-...play," Billy muttered, shuddering at the thought. He'd never asked them for anything.

Billy of the memory struggled against his restraints, still chanting uselessly, trying to free himself, free the others, anything to get them out of here while the Warden was gone.

And he had these weird goons to clean up after him? Even MODOK had limits. Pure sadism supported by an organization, that was...Tony slowly backed his way toward Billy, watching the one in the restraints squirm with his own ache of frustration. "What were you doing? Where were we?" he asked.

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