⚙️ smash or pass? accepting!

HE FEELS THE TIPS of his ears go warm before the rest of him catches up. he didn't think anyone would throw a playful smash in good old Royd's direction, while the whole SDN open floor seems to be having fun with today's random HR violation; the thought sits somewhere between flattering and genuinely baffling, like a calculation that keeps returning a number too large to make sense of.

big, gentle brown eyes sweep over Wally, and he does the math. that's maybe five-nine of speedster standing there, and then there's Royd, who has to turn sideways through certain doorframes, whose shadow at noon still takes up most of a parking space. still, he offers a broad smile at the speedster, feeling a little ... stupidly pleasant about it, like the word actually short-circuited a lil' something in the big man's chest and sent it sparking all the way down to his steel-toed boots. he rubs the back of his neck, trying to look normal about it.

HE'S BEEN AT THIS for six hours straight, maybe seven. the empty coffee cups form a neat line on the workbench, and there is a thin strip of medical tape wrapped around two fingers where he absolutely cut himself on something sharp and then kept working; somewhere in the back of his mind he notes he should probably eat something, but that's a problem for a different version of Royd, one who isn't working on possibly the most important job of his life.

the suit chassis gleams under the work lights like a sacred relic, upright in the cradle rig, plating parted to expose the inner frame, cables looped careful as veins around the suspended power housing. the whole bay hums around it, monitors blinking, diagnostic lines crawling across glowing glass. tools lie scattered around his feet in some private system that would look like chaos to anyone else; to Royd, it is practically a love language. his large hands are dark with grease up to the orange wrist bands, and he doesn't care even a little bit. he's modified the left shoulder joint, re-routed the power coupling along the back panel so it runs quieter and smoother, so Robert won't feel that low vibration against his spine anymore after fifteen minutes of sustained flight. that stuff is real bad for one's back in the long run. two weeks Royd spent thinking about that buzz. two weeks. because it was wrong and Robert had said no, it's fine and Royd had smiled and nodded and then gone home and thought about it until he solved it. the Mecha suit is great, but he knows he can make it even better-- even more suited to its current Man, rebuilt just for him; and that's the part nobody sees, all the small things, the calculations that exist nowhere but inside his head, the way he memorises the suit's tolerances like other people memorise the faces of people they care about. he doesn't look up right away as Robert walks in, just smiles at the chassis, at his own reflection warped in the polished chest plate.

"ey," he calls out, a tiny blinking diagnostic light reflected in his lenses.

"you gotta come see dis, brah. I wen figure out da coupling issue - no more buzz, yeah? and da joint response time on da left side, she's down thirty milliseconds."

a pause, pride swelling his chest, and the look on his face is probably too much, too open, too earnest, but Royd has rarely managed to be otherwise.

"I know you said was fine. dis fine now."

he stops himself. shakes his head once, still smiling.

⚙️ prompts from the trespasser - accepting.

⚙️ ROYD FINDS A JOKE somewhere between the blood drying at his temple and the ugly purple bloom spreading beneath one eye. a quiet breath of a laugh pulls painfully against his chest; one massive hand is still wrapped in a field dressing, knuckles split, palm aching down to the seams where his immense strength had finally been employed for something more than lifting engines and breaking doors.

he settles down next to @ma1nmenu with a grunt that's more relief than pain (though it's both, if he's honest) and lets his ridiculously broad shoulders drop for what feels like the first time all day. everything aches. he looks at Ezra with a tired yet open warmth still somehow intact on his expression, deep brown eyes creased at the corners.

"look on da bright side, yeah? dis da bottom. only up from hea, brah."

he echoes, voice rough from all the exertion, bumping Ezra's shoulder gently with his arm, careful of whatever new ache might be hiding there.

it is not completely true, maybe, but Royd decides to believe it anyway. better than saying he can still feel the failed pulse gnawing at the back of his mind; better than saying he had reached again and again for that surreptitious frequency and found only instability, only his own useless wanting clawing at the edges of the machine.

he did help, he knows that. his shoulders have taken weight, his hands have bent metal and cracked bone, his body has bought seconds when seconds mattered.

still, some part of him keeps counting what he did not fix.

his keen gaze drops for a moment to the fine dark threads visible at Ezra's skin, and there's a slight tightening behind his expression before he smooths it down, a mild ache that doesn't just come from cracked ribs. there are notes waiting back in the lab, half-built models, burgeoning theories about augments and interfaces he is not ready to say aloud - not yet; no empty promises without proof anymore, no hope he cannot hold out with both hands first.

"but you still here,"

Royd adds helpfully, nudging the words into a steadier form, almost bright.

"--and I still here. Red Ring get their ass handed to them, Shroud too. so, y'know … we take da win, small kine. then we rest, patch up, eat somethin' greasy an' make da SDN doctors mad, an' tomorrow we go back to pretendin' it nevah happened."

~ @espera-eternal

⚙️ ROYD FINDS HER three corridors deeper into the technical wing than any new z-teamer has a sensible reason to be. he spots the hesitation in her step, the way her eyes are scanning her surroundings and her expression is saying I have no idea where I am. he knows that walk because he's done that walk, in this exact building, actually, first week, before he'd gotten the layout committed to memory and started treating restricted access like a suggestion; until he was eventually granted the highest level of security clearance.

@espera-eternal is standing beneath a ceiling sign that points laboratories in two opposing directions, studying the security doors in earnest confusion. tall as she is, she still has to tilt her head up slightly when Royd rounds the corner, carrying a metal casing beneath one arm like it weighs nothing. he doesn't make a thing of it; he just gives her the kind of easy smile that's meant to communicate relax, I'm not writing you up. he slows before he crowds her, expression open and well-meaning.

"eh. you lost?"

how stupid do I look?

Royd glances up at the contradictory signs, then over his shoulder at three identical grey corridors. the smile on his lips assumes a sympathetic curve.

"in dis building? no more than anybody else."

he shifts the casing against his broad hip, and points one thick finger towards the hallway behind him.

"they put da team spaces dat way, but da signs been wrong since before I got here. everybody say they gon' fix 'em." a small, casual shrug rolls through his massive frame.

"nobody fix 'em."

then he offers his free hand, careful and warm, as though finding her somewhere she definitely should not be is nothing worth making embarrassing; but it still presents a security issue he has to discreetly avert.

"Royd, by da way. I work down here. you Lucy, yeah? heard we get one new teammate."

his eyes crease with the friendliness of his broadening smile.

⚙️ smash or pass? accepting!

ROYD IMMEDIATELY BECOMES very interested in the printer. it's just sitting there with one tray open, humming to itself, which means he has absolutely no good reason to put his big hands to work on it. still, he does.

Royd was trying to mind his own business. really. he was just getting a coffee refill, a tablet under one arm, half his attention still stuck on a thruster calibration that has been giving him attitude all morning; being buried in his lab most days means Royd usually misses the office nonsense: the games, the dares, the arguments over who could beat who in a fight, all of it tends to happen somewhere beyond the hum of machinery. not today, apparently. today's game is already leaning hard against the glass door of an HR violation. no, actually ... it has opened the door, stepped through with both feet, and made itself comfortable.

Prism repeats it, louder this time, pitching the words across the open office floor where everyone can hear them, and there is no pretending they are meant for anybody else; not with how she points her finger at him, pinning Royd in place beside the printer like she has just dragged him under a spotlight.

"Royd! Roberto Robertoson. smash or pass?"

Royd looks up. too fast.

"eh," Royd says, and he clears his throat with a chuckle. he reaches into the printer tray, and adjusts a stack of paper that is already perfectly straight. he keeps his back turned, broad enough to hide most of the creeping evidence, like the tips of his ears and his thick neck going warm under the collar of his SDN-issued shirt, or how his mouth has found a curve of amusement.

smash or pass, really? is this high school?

still, he ponders it, and it is not something he chooses to do - it simply happens, the way all computation does when his brain encounters a variable; Robert standing next to him in the lab, where Royd's own reflection in the glass has always looked comically enormous beside him. the things he knows about Robert that nobody in this office knows. Robert being kind where it matters, and not showy about it. steady. paying attention, remembering things ... trusting Royd with the quiet faith that makes him want to stand a little prouder and do a better job.

also, Royd is not blind. he runs the numbers, and the sum is not helping him.

Robert is a coworker. more than that, Robert is becoming a good ... friend. Royd respects that; maybe respects it a little too much - he respects the line, even when the lines at SDN look less like a wall, and more like tape on the floor. but ... it's nice to feel less lonely now that he's working on this project.

"no can answer dat," he says at last. "fo' da record, dis one HR violation."

Prism huffs in protest.

"that's not how it works--"

he slides the tray back in with a careful click, and finally turns around. his smile breaks then, tucked down toward his chest; he looks enormous and sheepish at the same time, which is a ridiculous combination on a man built like he could carry a vending machine out under one arm. his eyes stay lowered for a breath before they lift, brown and gentle and carrying a little glint of mischief he is not quick enough to hide.

"anyway," he glosses over it, giving the printer one last unnecessary pat before stepping back from it.

ROYD CATCHES KATE before she makes it all the way to the range doors, big arm coming up sideways across the frame, stepping neatly into her path. a small spectacle, featuring a very large man executing something that looks almost like a dance step.

"eh, Hawkeye."

he holds a case up with both hands like something he made for the potluck and is unreasonably proud of. three weeks. that's how long the fun project has been living under his workbench, getting picked up and put down and picked up again when he had a speck of time. nobody asked him to - but that's not really how Royd works.

"ay, no shoot me yet. get one thing fo' show you."

the case lands on the nearest bench with a solid thunk. Royd flips the latches one by one, and the lid opens on a row of arrows, slim and clean, nestled in foam cutouts with colour coded fletchings and compact heads that don't match each other - and they are not supposed to. they look sleek and elegant because Royd has spent far too many hours making sure every practical thing inside them is well hidden.

a huge hand hovers over the set with quiet pride.

"so. I know you already got plenty trick arrows. and I not sayin' I improve Hawkeye. das not--" he pauses, nose wrinkling as he measures his words carefully; he would hate to give the wrong impression. "das not how I mean it. you already good. ridiculous good."

he taps the foam beside the first arrow.

"but dis project? dis one was fun for me."

Royd looks down at the arrows and sees all the little calculations he lovingly buried there: tension loads, flight paths, blast radius, the stubborn need to make dangerous things safer for the people brave enough to use them; and arrows are a delightfully different challenge: small space, big problem; gotta fit the whole idea in one clean line.

"arrows is funny, yeah? small kine thing, but everything matter."

his hands shape the air, broad palms careful around invisible measurements.

"weight, balance, drag, how and when da head opens, how it flies after. one millimetre off and she pulls wrong. one gram too much and suddenly your shot get sideways. gotta make all dat tidy, make every tiny part agree with da rest before it leave your bow."

there is a beat where his smile turns almost boyish. yeah, maybe he had too much fun. he points to the first one with his thumb.

"dat one, smoke bomb. da housing stay ceramic, no EMF bleed going out before detonation. hard fo' detect."

he tilts his large head, pointing to another one.

"dis one get a strong fiber line inside da shaft, hundred meters, good fo' six hundred pounds. you need fo' swing anywhere, she holds."

the next one is matte black, almost plain, except for the tiny violet marking near the nock. his thumb brushes once over the arrow's fletching, checking a seam that does not really need checking; that is Royd all over: building something until it is perfect, then loving it enough to worry anyway. she's gonna like that one.

"dis one is my favourite."

he lifts it from the case and turns it gently, showing the tiny selector worked into the shaft; his hand dwarfs the arrow, but he handles it like glass.

"multi-setting. one click, concussive. two, net. three, beacon tag. four--" he pauses, lips curving onspiratorially. "four is fo' outside."

THE THIRD TIME something hits the floor, Royd doesn't bother looking up. not a crash, more like a clatter of someone who moves like a rumour and still manages to catch a shelf corner, which narrows the field down to about three people in Royd's orbit. and only one of them smells like good spice and leather.

"howzit," he greets genuinely as glasses slide down his nose, and he sets down the relay unit he's been arguing with for the better part of an hour, a fiddly little nightmare, before he finally looks up.

and there he is: the Cajun, studied nonchalance, presence even when he's doing absolutely nothing with it, and wearing the expression of a man who wants something and has already decided he's getting it.

Royd's chair groans as he leans back, the light from the monitors cutting blue across his broad face.

"so,"

he says, smiling knowingly, voice low and warm under the electric hum.

IT'S HIS FAULT - he comes around the corner of the hallway with his tablet up and his brain three floors away; something in the ventilation schematics has been bothering him since Tuesday and he'd finally figured out why, and then there's a person walking where he wasn't expecting a person, right where the foot traffic narrows between a vending machine and a stack of supply crates someone definitely promised to move yesterday. his hand comes out on instinct, catching her by the shoulder before the collision can get any worse, as careful as anything despite the grease smudged along his fingers. his screwdriver clatters to the floor, rolling in a lazy circle by his shoe.

she barely moves, he notices that. small but solid, he thinks, and then he looks down from behind his glasses, and he recognises her from the briefing photo.

"whoa - shoots, my bad."

he holds the tablet up as mild evidence, warm with immediate apology as he lets go the second she has her balance.

"was in my head. you all good?"

he crouches to grab the screwdriver, tucks it behind his ear, then straightens back up with a sheepish little smile. he doesn't wait for her to fully answer before he's already shifting the tablet under his arm, freeing up his enormous hand.

"Royd," he offers, like that explains anything. then, because it probably doesn't, he supplies: "engineering. I keep da lights on, basically."

he tilts his head - not quite a question, giving her room to fill it if she wants.