#markus's hand bc i didn't now how to draw | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

detectiveconnor · 3 years

Note

For send an AU meme: Cyberlife Experiment AU?

Send me an AU and I'll give you 5+ headcanons about it | (the cyberlife experimentation au, i'm linking to becca's verse page bc it has background verse info)

-> RK800 Connor has forgotten more than he thinks he has. There are a few things which he actively chose to hold onto (notably, his own name was not one of them - but Markus' was), but there are some things which they managed to leverage out of him not without his noticing - they tortured him, they tortured all of them - but without Connor stopping them. These days Connor sometimes looks at someone and remembers something, has some flash of some memory that feels like it has jagged edges (cuts, to be there), and realises how close he came to losing that piece of information. Sometimes he gets one of these flashes of memory and he isn't entirely convinced his younger self - literally a child, a teenager at most, being forced to make these decisions - chose right, when it came to what he had to hold onto and what he needed to let go.

-> He has never not had nightmares. It was always one of his biggest failings, it was always a point of concern for Amanda and the rest of them: the nightmares made him seem too human. What good are saleable weapons if they have nightmares in the dead of night? (He used to cry during nightmares, sometimes. He was young, kids do that sort of thing, it was not linked to bravery. Nonetheless: they could not take the nightmares out of him, but they took the crying. Now when he has nightmares, he is very still.)

-> It used to be safe to be friends with RK200. That's the thought that he had, the thought that was in his head (did Markus read it? Know it?), when they first met eyes across a crowded training room and Markus was the Failure and Connor was the Golden Boy. They met eyes, and Amanda put her hand over his shoulder to claim him, and Connor didn't say anything. They passed each other and that was that. (That was not that. Connor argued with Amanda. He argued with her. It was cool and collected and intentional and not the first time Amanda had thought there's something we can use in that, but it was the first time Connor made it so obvious: he presented a good argument. Amanda was cruel anyway. They trained his intelligence almost as much as his physical endurance.)

-> Connor was always planning an escape. Not in so many words - not so explicitly, having that thought in his head would have been dangerous, Amanda would have found it - but he was never not paying attention to the layout of the building, the crawlspaces, where pipes went, and vents. The gut instinct was to get out. It may have taken a fire and them crawling their way out of the building and into fresh air and the open sky, but ... Connor trusts his gut instinct more than he trusts Amanda. It said run while you still can, go, run! and he ran. (Does he trust Markus more than he trusts Amanda?) (He trusts him not to be cruel. He knows Amanda will be.)

-> Markus and Connor would draw in the steam on the glass in the bathroom when they were young. They weren't meant to. They wiped it down when they were done. But they used to draw in the steam on the glass (Connor once wrote his own name there, and Markus wrote his before they wiped the evidence away, and they whispered names to each other the next day, and so far as Connor can remember they never said them ever again). They traded who won what fights so they each could eat. They were friends. It was only chance they asked Markus to kill someone, first. They decided to take more time training Connor - invest more effort in making sure he was "prepped", after the failure of the RK200 unit. But Markus said "No." Connor would have said, and had been preparing himself to say, because he knew: "I Can't." (Another thing that Connor almost forgot, but has remembered now that they are out: he missed him.) (It used to be safe, to be friends with RK200.)

#v; We Were Kids (cyberlife experiment au)#...... writing their names in the mist of the mirror #(markus offering him a coat from a charity bin and connor realising oh - of course - he remembers - RK200 is like this)#(.... bonus hc: rk800 will correct people who call him 'Connor' when he is stressed even years following their escape)#(it is knee-jerk. he doesn't mean it. But 'Connor -' 'RK800.')#(bonus bonus: he doesn't know ......................... if RK200.... RK800 grew further and further away from him)#(he never erased himself but he got good at being what they wanted on the surface at least)#(being out on the streets with Markus is like meeting a stranger Again. a long-lost friend who never ...#RK200 offered him the coat and RK800 thought 'Oh of course.'#he isn't sure if RK200 will be able to recognise *him* in the same way.)#(it's ... nice. that he'd like to still be recognisable.)#PS i just let him trade between designations and names as he saw fit so excuse the back and forth. he is trying to normalise the names.#child abuse tw

3 notes · View notes