You can't hide from your problems | Calibrations

[wearingthestars]

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.

Comments

[wearingthestars]

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-"

[in_extremis]

"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."

[wearingthestars]

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?"

[in_extremis]

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.

[wearingthestars]

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.

[in_extremis]

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.

[wearingthestars]

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.

[in_extremis]

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.

[wearingthestars]

"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.

[in_extremis]

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.

[wearingthestars]

"..." 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."

[in_extremis]

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.

[wearingthestars]

"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.

[in_extremis]

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.

[wearingthestars]

"They attacked the Pride's kids, Cap told us to stay in the base but- we wanted to help them." Billy answered, carefully skirting around more than a few points that would give away things he didn't think Tony wanted to know. Like who 'They' were, or why they attacked them, or what they were doing in a base with Cap. "...We were in Los Angles when he took us. I'm not exactly sure where this place is. We were out for the flight."

The Warden returned, approaching a wall panel.

"I would like this operating room taken off the grid for the next few hours, please. I am preparing to do some top secret work. Authorization code Delta, Alpha, Kappa."

Billy tried to change tactics.

"IwanthimtogotosleepIwanthimtogotosleep."

He turned to smile at Billy, "There, some privacy at last."

"IwanthimtogotosleepIwanthimtogotosleep."

"Hmmm, do you really just want me to "go to sleep"? You don't want to punish me? Hurt me?" he taunted, going to pick up his scalpel again. "The idealism of youth...I suppose you think you're above murderous thoughts. So childish."

"IwanthimtogotosleepIwanthimtogotosleep."

"Here, let's see if we can't get you to change your tune," he threatened, stalking pointedly towards Teddy.

[in_extremis]

"You have a base...?" This didn't look more recent than the other memories Tony had witnessed, but Tony got from those ones that Billy's base of operations was still his bedroom. Kate's parents must have had questions. The return of the Warden was distracting, though, and the exchange had Tony asking, "Is he trying to make supervillains?" It wasn't a very well thought out plan if he was, but there wasn't a very good reason otherwise to be trying to get Billy to 'change his tune'. That might explain Noh-Varr and his 'situation'.

[wearingthestars]

"It's Cap's base, it's...complicated." Civil War is not something Billy wants to have to explain to Tony. Especially not how.

"Maybe. I think mostly he just likes...toying with people, but- that's what he did with Noh, yeah..."

"Hmmm. Amazing. Even unconscious, the changeling's body seems to anticipate every incision I make...shifting biomass to protect vital organs," the Warden noted as Billy continued to chant, tears spilling over his cheeks.

"I wonder if that is a function of his Skrull physiology..." He turned to approach Billy with a cruel smirk. "But that's neither here nor there. It just means I can cut and cut for days on end and he won't die."

IwanthimtogotosleepIwanthimtogotosleep"

"And you get to watch."

IwanthimtogotosleepIwanthimtogotosleep"

He grinned, getting right up in Billy's personal space and snarled- "Come now...surely you have something to say to me."

Billy's face twisted with rage. "I want you to DIE."

The Warden looked positively thrilled as the memory faded away. "And our youth become killers...perhaps we do have a war on our hands."

[in_extremis]

The details about Cap and the base were just background noise, adding to the confusing alloy that was Billy's not-quite-familiar dimension, and not as immediately important as offering a hand on Billy's shoulder at the sight of his tears as Tony still carefully looked away from the display to watch the Warden's movements closely. He didn't expect the butcher's taunting to actually work, and Billy's shout made him flinch in surprise and look to the one next to him inquisitively.

They were back in Billy's bedroom for a few steadying breaths before Tony actually asked, "Did you kill him?"

[wearingthestars]

Billy shook his head, but he still looked incredibly uncomfortable with his actions. "...No. I um...I didn't, but-...I wanted to." Avengers, Young Avengers. They weren't supposed to do that. Weren't supposed to want that. Weren't supposed to feel those things. Billy looked ashamed and scared, worried those feelings would come again one day. What he'd done to Tony...He worried his lips between his teeth with a frown.

[in_extremis]

The admission made some of the tension drop visibly out of Tony's shoulders, but Tony didn't say anything for another beat, squeezing Billy's arm with a thoughtful tap of his thumb. It was a relief that Billy wasn't living with the blood on his hands. When Tony did speak, he glanced away, sucking his lip between his teeth before he admitted, "I want to. All the time," then gave a shrug that didn't match the anxious tension in his fingers or the furrow of his brow, clearly not liking the taste of the words. "But...I think and say a lot of bullshit that doesn't make it to the table, and that's where the money is," he tried to explain, spreading his free hand between them to mime the important part of the process and giving it a tap before clutching that hand over his heart.

[wearingthestars]

That drew a look of surprise. "...You do?" Some how, at least in that moment, Billy had gotten it worked out in his head that he must be the only person to fell those things. That the Avengers never struggled over those decisions, never felt those urges, that he was somehow alone and wrong. Just knowing he wasn't the only one to feel those things, it lifted a weight from his shoulders.

"I've never...meant it like that before. It scared me..."

[in_extremis]

"It's hard not to get...frustrated," Tony said, backing away and pushing his hands through his hair to hook them over his neck. Cap wouldn't have liked Tony telling any of these kids this, he would rather they were shielded from all of the trauma of being an Avenger, but the trauma had happened and Cap was obviously still just trying to keep them in his base where he pretended he wasn't the worst offender of completely losing his temper. If Tony didn't feel like he could talk about this stuff with Cap, he had no idea who there was to coach the Young Avengers through the snarl. One of them was going to kill someone, intentionally or by accident, and it was going to be bigger than any of them, Tony had already seen that coming down the pipe from a mile away. "Not just in the heat of the moment, but, you know, I don't know which is worse," he continued, looking sidelong at a Hulk toy tucked among Billy's action figures. "Sometimes it's just the easiest answer, this guy is going to keep coming back and hurting people unless there's a solution to put an end to it. The longer it goes on, the more it becomes obvious that it's your fault-- if you had just done something, these ten people wouldn't be dead now." He didn't really miss Maria, come to think of it. She had a knack for making him feel awful. "And you really have to work to walk back from it, come up with a different answer, and for a long time it's still there in your head."

[wearingthestars]

As much as it might not be the poster answer that Cap would want to push, it was the answer Billy really needed. That reassurance that it wasn't all effortless righteousness. These things stuck with you, and sometimes there was no good choice.

"Does it get any easier?" he asked, eyeing that figure in turn and frowning faintly.

[in_extremis]

That question was vague enough for Tony to drop his hands to his hips and frown at Billy before he asked, "What? Living with those thoughts?" That wasn't the part of this discussion that Tony could help him with. He started his life as a murderer; he was doing his work to make up for it. Every time he went back to being that person, and it was too often, it got harder to look at himself in the mirror.

[wearingthestars]

"...Yeah. All of it. I tried to quit. I didn't think I could handle being responsible for that stuff anymore, but...I want to help people. I do. I just- ...I'm afraid if I can't handle it I'll end up-...I'm afraid of ending up like her," he admitted reluctantly.