Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

-James POV-

"James, I know you and Nat are on a job, but you need to come home. Immediately." 

James fumbled with his phone, they were meant to be on radio silence so he hadn't exactly expected Dax's voice to pop up out of nowhere. Tash tilted her head in question, wondering what the hell was going on. 

They were outside a targets house that they'd been monitoring for 6 days, and yeah, he ached to go home. 6 days was a long time for him to stay away from Tony since he'd moved into the tower, but James had been the one to suggest this job. The three of them had spent months preparing and getting everything in order. That, on top of the 6 days of pain staking watching? Yeah he was kind of pissed and wondering why the hell he was breaking the radio silence. They had just been about to move in, if he had spoken just 10 minutes later, that could have gotten them in serious trouble. 

"What the hell Dax, were on radio silence." 

"James, that doesn't matter right now. You need to come home. Fast, like yesterday would be preferable." 

A trickle of worry started to spread through him. Dax sounded.. bad, stressed, upset. Dax was possibly the happiest member of their strange little family. Nothing got the Demonfyre down. 

"Dax, what's happened? What's wrong?"

"It's Tony." 

The worry he was feeling sharpened and he was standing and packing his gear immediately. 

"Yash, I can handle this job on my own, you go." 

"You sure?" 

"Yeah, I'll probably even get it done faster too. Not slowing down for you." 

He snorted at that as he packed his gear as fast as possible, thankful that everything clicked into place with speed and ease. He pulled his hoodie back on before pulling his pack into his back. 

It was amazing the amount of gear they each could fit in these packs. Tony's design. His clever Tony had based them on his kit from when he had been operating primarily as Mr Gold, taking down Hydra piece by piece. He'd developed individual ones for himself and Natka. Each piece was completely customised, none of their gear could be bought on the market. He puts weeks of work into making everything perfect for them. 

His Tony that had turned his life around, brought him happiness like he had never imagined, given him a purpose like he'd dreamed of. 

His Tony. His Soulmate. 

And something was wrong . 

"Dax, I've packed up, I'm hiking to my bike… can.. Can you put him on?" 

He needed to hear his voice, he needed to know what was happening. He had only been gone for 6 damned days, things had been fine when he'd left! Tony had been smiling. Happy. He was meeting with Marcone for a few days and had then planned on being at the Tower when they hit their target. They had quickly realised that when the other was on a job, the other either had to be with them or in a safe location, or their minds wandered to much. Unless they were on the job together. 

"That's … that's not possible." 

"Fuck Dax, give me something here!" 

He shouldn't snap, not at Dax. He knows this, Dax is like the precious heart of their little group. The one that you tuck away, protect. Even Peter thought so. 

"How much has Tony told you about his Fractures?" 

He froze. 

"What?! Please tell me I didn't hear you right Dax, tell me that Tony hasn't suffered a fracture?" 

"How much do you know?" 

He started moving again, no point just standing around. Fuck he was too far away. 

"I know some, when Roger's decided to have an impromptu interrogation at 3am, he said it sent part of him back, that it was a partial fracture. It was bad Dax, I could see it in his eyes that he was back there ." 

He still hadn't forgiven the man for that, for putting pictures of the place Tony had been held captive in and not even trying to move them. Not even trying to take them away. Just left them in front of him, then started questioning him about that place. Tony might have been out of Hydra for a few years at that point, but 2 of those years he spent on his own doing little more than training and hunting before accidentally triggering himself so bad he had a partial fracture. Tony was notoriously bad for not quite understanding his own mental health, it's why they looked out for him. 

It had been more than easy to ignore any attempts at contact since they'd left. 

"That wasn't an actual partial fracture, that… it was close, it could have been, but you pulled him back." 

"But I'm not there, I'm here. Fuck! This is worse than that?" 

He was running now, why had they left their vehicles so far away? It had seemed like a great idea at the time, but now it was just a severe inconvenience. 

"Did he tell you much about the medical base?" 

"Some, he said he'd fractured but he didn't explain it much. I didn't want to push him." 

"That's probably wise. Did he tell you about the songs?" 

He bit his tongue as he ran, trying hard not to snap at Dax who was playing some kind of damned question game or something while there was something wrong with Tony. Even on his bike, if he broke every speeding law it would take him 6 hours to get home. Fuck. 

"He said he always remembered the songs, even through the wipes. Hang on Dax, I'm at my bike, switching you to the helmet." 

He slid the helmet on and transferred the call, bringing up the quickest route possible, one that he could speed on and not risk getting picked up by the cops. 

"You with me James?"

"Yeah, I'm here. Now, tell me what is happening."

"I know you'd rather hear this from Tony, and if he thought he was at risk, he'd have told you by now. We thought… we thought he was safe, so.." 

"I get it Dax, it's fine. Tell me." 

He put his head down and set off at a fast speed. They hadn't spoken much about his time at Hydra. Only overarching themes, he hadn't gone into specific details, and he got that. Tony had wanted to enjoy his freedom. He'd felt safe, happy. He was safe. They were safe. 

This shouldn't have happened. 

"To remember through the wipes, Tony came up with a tactic. He called them fractures, but what he was really doing was using the chair to break his mind into pieces." 

He twitched at that, he had enough memories of the chair, of the pain, the fire as it erased your mind. He had no idea how Tony could have done that, it sounded insane. 

"How?"

"I don't know exactly, he explained it when he was not long back but I didn't quite understand what he meant. Maybe you could? If he explained it. Before he found you the fractures were close to the surface. He told me it was like broken glass, the edges not fitting together and grating. Then he found you. You settled him James, he didn't speak of the fractures so much after that. You hold him together. That's what he said." 

"Anchor." 

"What?" 

"Anchor, that's what Tony calls it. He had two others in the Charnel House, people that were his anchors, they held him together." 

"Thats sounds about right, he fractured his mind into smaller pieces with songs, encoding information into the song in his mind somehow. To save some parts, he said he shattered and then had to start again. Breaking and rebreaking his own mind. Everytime they put him in the chair. "

He clenched his fists, he hadn't known that, but he did know how many times he had been in the chair. The number had made him sick when he'd been going through Tony's files to digitise them for him. There were times they used it several times in a single day. Tony never said the words, never said "Ready to Comply." No matter how many times they wiped him, it was like he couldn't say them, and some techs took offence to that. Wiping him repeatedly until he was completely unconscious. 

"Do you know how many times they used it on him?" 

"No. You do though, don't you James?" 

"Yeah, got a good idea of it. I helped Tony digitise the files he had on himself the ones he wanted to go through some day. Covered everything from his acquisition report to when he was transferred to an off site medical base." 

"Fuck, so it's more times than I thought judging from your voice." 

"Most likely. I'd say quadruple any number your thinking, you might have half of it." 

He heard the phone clattered to the floor and a series of shouts, but he couldn't work out when the hell was going on. It was an agonising 8 minutes before Dax came back and he'd taken a shortcut through a field and knocked nearly 37 minutes off his trip. 

"James?" 

"I'm still here, what's happening?" 

That Dax stays silent tells him enough. Whatever it is, is bad. 

"Tell me what a fracture means to Tony now Dax, what happened? What's happening? Just give me something." 

"Tony's Fractures, it basically means the chair, but he doesn't need it anymore to strip the pieces back." 

"What?! Dax, enough, just. What is happening? Why can't I talk to Tony." 

"Because Tony isn't here right now James, and I don't know how to get him back." 

He'd pulled Tony together once, he can do it again. He has to. 

"What caused this? Who am I going to have to kill?" 

"What has Tony told you about Silver?" 

"He was one of his Anchors, his main anchor. They were friends, he considered him a brother of a sort, but Tony talks about him more like he was mentoring him. He felt responsible for him, tried to protect him at his own expense. When Tony was out on mission, Silver was checked out. Then he never came back." 

He left out the fact that anytime Tony dreamt about Silver that he cried. Tony didn't exactly cry for much, or anything really, but Silver was different. He was trying to find him, but all he had was a description from a woman he had told him was part of the old guard. Group Alpha. Her description was effectively useless, brown hair, pale eyes, silver magic. 

By the time Tony had befriended Silver, he hadn't known his name anymore, neither of them did. 

He was 592A, Tony had told him once that he'd traced the number. 

"Opal was meant to be getting a picture for him. Dax, did she come through? Is… is he dead? Is that what…" 

"Opal said she couldn't find any pictures, everything with his image has been completely wiped. James.. She was his only lead. He hasn't found any others of the old guard alive. We weren't here when they spoke, but.. I think he lost hope." 

Shit, that, that was extremely bad. Hope was the dividing line in Tony's mind. What seperated Tony from being The Operative. Or worse, from going completely over to the Gold. 

"Siles has managed to get him to lie down. He didn't recognise us, but his magic recognises us and its given us an in. We're hoping with the two of us watching he might feel safe enough to sleep until you get home. I'm going to.." 

"Shit, yeah. Dax go." 

"But what about you?" 

What about him? He was just driving and utterly fucking useless and just too fucking far away! 

"I'll be fine, I'm coming home. Keep him warm, if he's more Gold than Tony right now, his claustrophobia will probably be back to square one. No blankets either. He might stay in place if he has a weapon and one of you stays awake. Be careful about what food you offer him, he'll be thinking there is a price to every kind gesture and without one he'll stress himself out."

If there was one thing he was good at, he knew what felt weird to an Asset. What things were suspect and made you nervous. Things normal people might not even think about as weird. 

"Thanks James, hurry home, and be safe. We don't want to lose you too." 

"We'll get him back Dax. Try and think up some parameters in case he asks for them not open ended ones just, action by action. The more open ended, the less stable he'll feel." 

If there was nothing to tie him to the penthouse and he felt too off balance, not understanding what people wanted from him, Tony could vanish on them. None of them were good enough to believe they'd be able to find Tony if he intended to vanish on them. Tony's pattern recognition ability was extremely sensitive, he always made sure even he couldn't see the pattern in his actions. Fuck, they hadn't found him when he'd spent 7 years making it easy. If he disappeared… 

"I hope so, I… I've never really had friends like you and Tony before. I don't know what we'd do.." 

"Dax, Tony is strong, strong enough that he shattered his own mind to remember his family. You're his family now too. We'll fix this. We'll get him back. You're doing great for him right now, that he's staying? That's a good sign." 

"Yeah.. Okay. We can do this. Thanks James." 

"And do you know what else we're going to do Dax?" 

"What?" 

"We're going to find Silver." 

The trip home seemed to take forever, James mind was just going around and around, going over what Tony had told him. Going over what Dax had told him and cursing himself over and over for not fucking being there when this went down. Even though there was no way anyone could have predicted this. It doesn't stop his mind from tormenting him though. 

The idea of Tony being alone when his mind fractured, it fucking hurt. He was supposed to be there for him. 

He skipped his usual parking spot and took his bike direct to the parking spaces that connected to Tony's workshops. He was off, tossing his helmet, bag and jacket to the floor as he ran into the lift. 

"Welcome home Bossman, I'm glad you're home, Boss.. He needs ya." 

"Happy to be home Fry, I'm sorry I wasn't here, are you OK?" 

"I'm scared for Boss, he's hurting again and there is nothing I can do. When he first found me, he slowly built himself up. What if that's all gone?" 

"Then we'll start again Fry. We don't give up on family, yeah?" 

"We don't give up, Good luck. Bring him back to us Bossman." 

The lift doors open and the penthouse… it looked like the Hulk had ripped through. The thick, marble breakfast bar was completely and utterly shattered and James was sure that weighed an actual ton. Pretty much everything that could be destroyed is wrecked, even the floor was damaged in places. Like someone had tried to tear it up. Like someone having to get the pain inside out of them.

"They still on this floor Fry?" 

"In the Bedroom." 

Dax voice came from the dark room before he appeared in the door frame. His and Tony's room. Dax looked completely exhausted, but then that was understandable given what he had seen from the penthouse. 

"You two go get some sleep. I've got him." 

"You sure?" 

He nodded as the pair slipped into their room next to his and Tony's, Sile squeezed his shoulder as he passed him. Dax looked wrecked, Siles looked torn, his attention flitting back to the bedroom and to Siles. He could at least give them a break to spend some time alone to recharge. If he knew Dax, and he had started to know the man quite well by now, he'd likely been burning his magic out to keep up with Tony. Anything to give Tony something to hold on to. Minds may forget, but James was starting to realise magic was different. Magic remembered. Dax had trained Tony over months, much of it was quite intensive. That and Dax helped Tony out when he was starving. The demon probably hadn't taken a break since he'd called him.

He slipped into the bedroom, sitting down on the bed slowly, telegraphing all of his movements and going to the effort to make noise. It was hard to sneak up on Tony, but he didn't want to do so accidentally. In the dark of the bedroom, Tony easily had the advantage. Knowing that Tony had actually woken up the second the elevator door opened. Let alone him walking across the trashed apartment. 

He and Tony had worked on his ability to occasionally sleep through new people entering the penthouse. It was why only those who lived there couldn't enter the apartment without Tony's vocal permission. Sure, it meant him being woken up if Pepper wanted to bring a friend home or something. But they all figured it was worth it that Tony trusted them enough to remain at full sleep when they entered, even if James wasn't sitting awake. He'd been considering adding Sam to the list recently, as he'd been visiting them more often lately. 

Tony already had a contract written up, James had hoped they'd have him moved over in the month. Sam had been someone Tony went to now when he didn't understand something, which for Tony to show trust like that. Sam knew it was a big deal. That Sam never even considered passing anything onto Steve was important too. Tony had some plans to gift the compound, and effectively Steve, to Fury, and his new SHIELD. That was all on the back burner now. 

They'd come a quite a ways when it came to Tony's issues with sleeping, but that was likely stripped right back to point on now, from how he was before James was even involved. He was feigning sleep right now and likely tracking him, and if James didn't know Tony's habits pretty well already, even he might have believed it. His breathing was perfectly managed to mimic REM sleep, even the small movements were perfectly done. 

He spread his fingers and pulled at that place he was starting to recognise as where his own magic came from. 

Tony could read desires, but him? He could read pain. Any kind, physical or mental, he could read it and soothe it at the very least. Sometimes he could heal it. They'd been practicing and he could even speed up healing injuries now. His magic didn't have the sheer raw strength or impeccably honed skill that Tony had, but then Tony rarely ever did things by half and he had had to be that good too survive. Had to be that good too hide the fact he needed to feed when they were under constant watch. 

He brushed his hand over Tony's head, running his fingers lightly through his hair. Just as he summoned his magic Tony's hand grabbed his wrist. Tony opened his eyes, perfectly awake and James sucked in a breath. James had seen Tony's eyes full of gold to many different degrees, sparks glinting in the brown to gold completely drowning out the brown. Right now, there was just pure gold, nothing else. No white, no pupil and the light seemed to spread past his eyes too. Even so, he could feel that hyperfocus settle on him, with a weight that he could almost feel. 

"Tony. I'm sorry it took my so long to get home." 

"I… don't.." 

"Shh, Doll, let me help, please. It's okay, I got ya. You recognise this don't you, your magic recognises mine?" 

The hand at his wrist loosened slightly and Tony didn't make any further movements as he sent the black, cooling magic out towards him. Tony watched him though, in this state he wasn't completely sure who he was, but he knew that James was sending out the magic from himself, magic that Tony always held close. Even more so before he came home. He'd occasionally sent his magic across to people he trusted, he did it more every week. 

It had been his first lesson. Never send your core essence out from yourself, especially not to another magic user. Unless you trust them, implicitly . Tony had broken that rule with him once, before they'd even started talking. Had cast his magic across the street questing for him. He obviously didn't want to move that far away to show Tony the same level of trust, but he could still send it to Tony from here. 

Hoping that there was enough of Tony in there to not make him regret it. Hoping enough of that bond was still there even through his fractures. Tony had recognised something in him when he was not long free from the medical facility, basically he was betting a whole lot on hope and he knew when Tony was back together, he was going to yell at him for this. It was worth it though if it worked, maybe he could help Tony pull the pieces together a little bit. 

Tony shuddered slightly before going completely lax, his hand still loosely curled around his wrist but the rest of him lost the ready tension of a man on the edge, ready to attack. Tony didn't move to summon his own magic, which was definitely a good sign, content to let him help.

"Tony?" 

"My Soldier."

"Yes, God Tony, I was so worried." 

"Sorry darling." 

It was awkward, but he kicked off his shoes and sat back on the bed, pulling Tony with him. Not losing contact or dislodging Tony's hand for a second. With his magic still skating across his skin he stayed lax and easy to move and pull closer to him, practically curled up in his lap. Tony's voice was still wavering slightly, he wasn't completely out of the woods yet. He could feel that much, but he could feel Tony trying to pull the pieces together too. 

"Do you remember what happened?" 

"Fracture. Silv-" 

"Its OK, Dax told me. You don't have to go through it, I just wanted to know if you remembered." 

Tony just nodded as if he didn't quite trust himself speaking, he didn't know how they were going to do it, but they were going to find Silver. 

First, he needed to help Tony, he was still in pieces and just trying to claw himself back together. Then, he was going to speak to this Opal character. No way should it have taken this long to discover things were wiped clean, which meant that she had been delaying. Likely in the hopes that she could get the information out of Tony before she'd have to admit she had nothing. James was fuming and she was very lucky that she was in Australia. 

However, since becoming part of this family, since throwing his lot in, since taking this job. Tony had reach, and now? So did James. Tony, no matter what he did, had a good heart when it came down to it. He had a soft side, he could pack it away when the situation called for it, but it was just under the surface. It was one of the things James loved. 

James? Well, for his family? James's good side was left behind. Especially when they'd hurt someone in his family. The cold detachment of the Winter Soldier was easy to pull across his shoulders. To a person who had hurt those he loved? Well, he didn't see why he should be good. Didn't see why they deserved mercy. A person had taken what fragile hope Tony had and had crushed it and James was pissed. 

"I think he's gone. I think he's been gone for a long time." 

"Hey, Doll. We aren't giving up on this. This is a set back, that's all." 

Tony looked up at that, and the gold had started to pull back slightly, the bare amount of whites around the edges, but the rest was still lost to the gold. 

"We?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind a bit of help? Because I know several people who would happily do this for you Doll. Tash is always on board. You know you have Dax and Siles in your corner, those demons are pretty gone on you. Plus, I'm on the case now, you know what I'm like with a mission."

At least he hopes that there was enough to remember that right now. 

"It's impossible." 

"Why?" 

"Because I don't even know what he looks like. I don't even have a starting point. There's no trail and even if there was, its years old." 

"Well, I have some ideas. Going to make some enquiries, but I need more information first. We aren't giving up yet." 

Tony practically curled up in his lap, arms wrapping tightly around his right hand where he kept a steady amount of the black tendrils spreading from his fingers, the white stars standing out more than usual as Tony hadn't entangled his golden magic with it. Pushing his head into James palm, as if he were actually the cat he and Dax accused him of being. 

"What do you want to know?" 

"Anything you want to tell me, I know you don't like to talk about your time in the Charnel House. I need some information if I'm going to work this case, otherwise I'll be missing pieces of the equation. Zolotaya Iskra I know it is hard, but.." 

"No, I understand Stella Dorata. Telling you, it… it is different. I don't feel the edges fraying, don't feel the cracks splintering or the glass shattering. It's solid. Whole, the songs, the songs are still there but I can feel the information I encoded. It's stable." 

He wished he knew how Tony did that. How he seemed to treat his brain like a computer, the ability to partition of parts of his mind and protect them from the chair. Having experienced the chair, he saw it for the amazing feat that it was. 

"How did you do you it? How did you remember? Dax couldn't exactly explain it well to me, I don't think he knows or understands the way the chair works." 

"It was because of you actually." 

"Me?" 

"Yeah, I'd seen some of the Winter Soldier file when I was writing up your Accords Deal. It included information about the chair. How the electric current alters brain chemistry and makes the brain adaptable for commands. Based pretty much from what I could tell, it was based off a rudimentary dos operating system but for the mind, because that chair is old. With a command line interface but spoken instead. Which is why it didn't just blank memories just return to a base of 'Ready to Comply.'"

He blinked a few times, because he'd never considered that. The chair wiped his memories, that was the purpose, at least he thought it was. But if it really made him blank, then he would have been useless. An assassin that doesn't know how to do anything or take commands? He didn't just follow orders because he had no memory, there had been a degree of compulsion involved too. 

"I waited until the chair had started the process, and got in there first, with command lines I'd seen in the Hydra files to alter the core programming.  Running a sort of, disk partitioning program, to create one or more regions of secondary and tertiary storage, so that each region can be managed separately. But I couldn't just put memories in, because that would conflict with the program, so I encoded the memories into the songs. The songs did not conflict."

"Fucking hell Doll, and you did this whilst you were in the chair?"

"I planned it ahead of time. It didn't take long to work out the pattern for processing new experiments. They didn't think I was listening, when they were in the first stage, thought I was too out of it from the experiments. So I worked out when the chair was most likely to be used and prepared ahead of time. Weasel kept me in the Black Cells longer than most, gave me more time. I knew it was risky, the human brain is fundamentally not a hard drive. What they were doing was dangerous, what I did was plain fucking stupid."

"Not stupid doll, I think you did the impossible." 

"Paying for it now though aren't I? My mind is still in pieces and after a while, I forgot why I should only do it so many times. I fractured until I shattered and fractured and split. People start to remember after spending years away from the chair, it doesn't matter of many years I'm free, I'll always be fractured." 

"I think you're jumping ahead, start at the beginning Doll."

Tony shifted so he was looking up at him, he kept his head securely in his hand, still holding his wrist to keep the magic that was helping to anchor him. Helping hold the fractured pieces together. Soothing the pain and giving him the strength to talk. His eyes were still bled to gold and he felt like Tony was looking inside him. 

"Are you sure about this darling? I don't want to do this at your expense." 

"You aren't, I'm a good decade free of Hydra Doll. My head feels pretty screwed on these days. Even if it wasn't, the cell that ran the Winter Soldier Program was nothing like the Experimental Asset Program. The only thing in common was the chair. I spent time between missions in Cryo, not in fighting pits. The other Winter Soldiers were more of an anomaly than a standard. I trained some groups, but it was usually chair, cryo, mission, repeat. You were awake for all 5 of those years."

Tony hummed, closing his eyes as the humming took form, slowly became a song. Not one that he recognised. He knew quite a few of Tony's songs, the information they carried. How they would occasionally come out without him intending it. 

"What song is that?" 

"Hmm, oh, the first one. When gold first flickered across my fingers. The chair doesn't work well with baseline humans, so they start the process with a number of options, if you survive they test you in the chair. If you haven't been modified enough, your brain practically ends up liquified at the levels required for the effect to last."

He never had thought before that he'd been lucky to have been injected with that serum, so long ago. He'd had hated it. Despised it's very existence. Because it kept him alive through the tortures. Kept him alive through the brainwashing. Kept him alive through the code words and their installation. Kept him alive for the chair. Kept him alive even in the cryo tubes. No matter what they did, he survived. 

Without the serum, anyone of those things would have probably killed him. The shock and pain from the surgery on his arm might have actually been enough to kill him. Let alone making it to the chair.

At the same time, the idea of having his brain liquified in the chair yeah, that wouldn't have been pleasant. These days he saw the serum as a benefit instead of something to despise. 

"Play the first song for me doll?" 

"Are you sure darling, you really don't have to do this. This is my impossible mission. You don't have to drag yourself down with me." 

"You could be walking through hell and I'd happily follow. We're going to do this. I might not know how yet, but we're going to find him. I'm sure of it." 

Tony's eyes closed and he breathed out with a sigh. Muscles relaxing that he hadn't noticed were still tensed. It warmed something inside him that Tony was willing to share something so crucial with him. That he trusted him, that just because James had taken on the mission, he looked a little less hopeless now. That Tony had such faith in him, it was a heady mix. 

When everything, everything, everything you touch turns to gold, gold, gold.

Gold - Imagine Dragons 

Chapter Text

Tony POV - Flashback-

Tony had started to lose track of time, the constant white snowfall against the gray backdrop of the bunker had a strange, endless feel to it. He couldn't work out if it was getting deeper or not, it was just all white. Just like how he couldn't feel if it was getting colder or if it was just his imagination. 

The coughing hurt, wet, hacking coughs that made him worried for the damage that was hidden by the suit. 

Tony had passed out, like an idiot, after Rogers and Barnes left. The pain had just crested and he'd… slipped. By the time he came back to himself, the catches of the suit were frozen shut. Even if he could move to open them. Collar bone breaks suck. Even small movements seemed to tug on a muscle here and there and blinding pain ripped across his chest. 

He'd started feeling hot a few minutes ago, like he wanted to take a few layers off. He knew what that meant. 

Just like he knew what it meant that he was losing feeling in his extremities. That his eyes felt painfully dry. 

This was going to be a slow death. 

He nearly cried with relief when he heard footsteps. Someone had come for him. Maybe FRIDAY got off an emergency signal before the light faded. Maybe… maybe Rogers told someone he was here. Maybe there was something left to that friendship. 

"Oh look, he's alive. Well, isn't this interesting. I bet Dracker will pay a pretty penny for you." 

"Who the fuck actually says pretty penny?" 

He slurred slightly before coughing up more blood. 

"I could probably sell you on ebay, I bet I could get an interesting bidding war going. Although I suppose you are a bit damaged. Can't have you dying, I bet that suit is useless without you in it. Right, ready to move him. I have some calls to make." 

The blinding pain from his collarbone when he is lifted brings him relief from just, whatever the fuck was happening. He knew that he wasn't lucky, but he hadn't expected to be that unlucky. 

"Oh look, its waking up."

"Rude." 

His mouth tasted awful, and he was still too warm and sensation started to come back to him sluggishly. A slight haze let him know that he'd been drugged at some point, the fuzz made him think it was opiate based at least. 

"Let's try something new with this one, its blood work is interesting and it's nearly dead anyway." 

Before he can say anything else there is fire started at his inner elbow. It burns and spreads and he tries to move away from it but he's strapped down. Now he realised he was strapped down he can feel it, restricting even small movements. Everything is blurry, he can just about make out shapes that could be doctors. 

Tony doesn't think that he's lucky enough that this is an opioid induced hallucination and that he's actually in a very normal medical facility. 

It's hot, he's burning. His mind feels like it's working faster and slower.

He listens and finds out where he is. 

The Charnel House. 

"What a morbid name."

No one answers him. 

Tony discovers what he is. 

An experiment. 

"Well, it's not dead yet, brand it." 

He's burning, but the white hot pain feels likes being forced down to his bone. The pain is chased by a strange almost numbness, a leftover ache, as if even his body isn't sure how to process what just happened. 

"186A, Welcome to your new home. It did so well with that special cocktail I think it might just survive this, or do you think it'll go like the last one?" 

Things blur, but it's very clear people are taking bets. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, he feels like he's got a fever, delirious. He'd strapped down whilst a needle is pushed deep into his leg. Bone marrow. They're taking it? Or something else. Fuck that hurts. 

There is something cool on his face and it feels good. 

He doesn't know how long it takes him to realise is the floor and he's lying on it. There is a bed next to him, whoever dumped him in this cell apparently couldn't make the whole extra step to the bed. Although from his perspective, the bed might as well be miles away as his body doesn't answer his commands. It just hurts.

Everything hurt, everything is hypersensitive. His mind is faster, but it's like he's trapped when he can't even move his damned hands. He's Tony. Not 186A. Tony. Tony. Tony. They're depersonalising him. 

If there is one thing that Tony knows well is that line. Sure, there are awful people that do awful things to people. The line, the second you depersonalise a group or a person… the easier it becomes to do more. To go further. 

He doesn't know how long it goes on for. But the constant tests make planning hard. The delerium eats time, he wakes up in different places, not knowing how much time has passed. I could be a day or a week and he has no fucking clue. Back and forth. Back and forth. 

Black of the cell. 

White of the room. 

Gold on his hands. 

Tony. Tony. 

He can move this time, so he drags himself to the bed for a change of pace, it isn't exactly a great improvement. He decided to try and take stock of himself. His collarbone is healed, it's as if the fight or the subsequent hours in the cold never happened, he's strong. Too strong. 

They've changed him. He knew that was what they were doing, but it's.. Different. Different to feel it, different to see it. 

His pains, the ones he carried for years are gone. He can breathe fully. His heart isn't occasionally skipping, or those long, sluggish beats that feel like a thump out of place. His knees. His back, that hairline fracture that never set right. All of it. Gone. It's perverse how good he feels when added to where he is. 

He forces his eyes back to his hands, nothing. Maybe he imagined it. The delirium had tricked him before, made him see things, made him see his friends. Maybe the gold was part of his overheated mind desperately grasping for straws. 

Then, there it is, gold. 

Like Wanda's red. 

What have they turned him into? Why is he hungry ? His senses are heightened to the point of painful, it was like he could feel people in cells around him, even though he can't see them. Can feel them moving around, his attention drawn to where they are. Even though there is no one he should be able to know. 

Tony didn't notice the collar until the electricity crackled and the world went black. 

White Room again. He blinked as he took the room in, he had no idea how many times he'd been dragged here now. How many times he'd had to see the Weasels creepy face when he opened his eyes. 

"Haven't you experimented on me enough?" 

Surely they have, how many serums and shit were they planning on giving him anyway? He was pretty sure they'd passed over into overkill awhile ago now. 

"Oh, that's interesting. 186A has regained cognitive abilities 5 weeks faster that every previous Experiment injected with MalA and MalB. Very interesting. Prep C and D." 

Apparently not. Tony wasn't exactly an expert in taking a human from baseline to powered, but he had a feeling that this method of pump the experiment full of everything and see what sticks was more likely to end up with dead experiments. So either they were idiots, or he was in a lot more trouble than he first thought. 

"Are you sure? We haven't managed to get another one to that stage on MalA or MalB. He's.. stabilising." 

He tilted his head, to see a man in a suit that really just did not suit him. He looked self important. Great. 

"Exactly. Perfect reason, I haven't had the chance to test C or D. This is exciting." 

Tony blinked as the little Weasel man looked so excited he was practically clapping. 

"How many times are you planning on cycling me through this White Room anyway. Initiation, branding. Bit over the top maybe?" 

"Oh, now, we have to. It remembered, I was sure it had been unconscious. What else do you remember 186A."

For the first time in his long life, his many experiences of being kidnapped, Tony thought he should stay silent. 

"I know the guy with the creepy attempt at prepubescent facial hair lost 50 dollars when I didn't have a seizure and the man who stank of cherry tobacco thought the bone marrow transfusion would kill me, so he lost on a hundred." 

Fuck. 

He can't even take his own advice. 

"Very interesting!" 

"I don't like it. He sees too much." 

"That's easily solved, the chair will clear any of this away. Now get me those vials." 

Fuck. The chair. He had a feeling which chair they were referring to. Which meant his assumptions about where he was were correct. Hydra. They were going to wipe him and turn him into an asset. He scrapped all of his current plans and reformulated, the only way to escape was to play the long game. He needed to remember. 

Tony tries to phase out now and then, because fuck it hurts. Sure, it's cowardly, but there is only so much pain you can take before your mind starts slipping like sand through his fingers. Every time he comes out of the delirium from a new concoction, he gives himself 5 minutes. To rest. To mourn. Then he gets back to work. 

He goes back and forth. 

Black to White. 

White to Black. 

The gold becomes a comfort. Watching it grow, dance between his fingers. It should unnerve him. It should scare him. It doesn't, it feels good. 

He finds out why most of the Weasels experiments die horrifying deaths from the mixed concoctions they pump into them. Blood, bone marrow. He doesn't have a medical degree but he's pretty sure ventriculoperitoneal shunts aren't supposed to be used like that. 

The Headmaster, Mr Ugly Suit. Well, he desires stronger experiments, so he lets the Weasel play. They seem to have no shortage of new experiments, Tony wonders how so many people are vanishing into this pit and yet no one notices. What's happening to the world outside that this place exists and no one knows? Wonders who is looking for him. Thanks to him they wouldn't even know where to start. 

Many experiments don't even make it to the point where they get branded. He's heard what happens to those who react badly to the serums. Heard them die, sometimes fast and painless… well, other times he wishes his new enhanced hearing was a little less sharp. Depending on which Black Cell he's put in these days, he can hear everything in the White Room as if he was standing in the room with them. Cowardly, but it might be him next time he goes to the White. 

The Headmaster wants to whittle down the weak, he only wants the strongest, has no time for anything but the best of the best. Then you have the Weasel, now he doesn't actually care if any of his experiments survive, he only desires the data they can supply when they're dying or dead. If anything, the experiments living is problematic for him. Enough survive to satisfy the Headmaster, no one cares how many die.

Tony starts to understand the name at last. 

He's not sure how he knows these things. How he knows that the Weasel wants to be anything but baseline human. How he dreams of being more. How he hates the experiments who survives and are better than him. How he hates him. It's why he keeps adding more and more and more. The Weasel is trying to kill him, Tony knows this on a base level. 

The Headmaster, he has dreams of power. Having those beneath him doing what he wants. That Hydra would recognise his program. To create not only a perfect asset, but to have a fleet of them. Specialising in different areas. To be checked out like library books. 

There is more too. Everyone, there is just information that is under his fingertips. Whatever they desire, it's there. In his mind, to pick through like a folder on the heights and depths of humanity. 

He keeps it silent, hides it. Stores the information whilst he's preparing for the chair. Whatever they've done has changed his mind, it's faster, clearer, he can think about multiple things at once. Things that had stumped him suddenly feel easier. Every time he falls into the delerium it's worse, hotter, but he comes back faster each time. Stronger each time. 

"We can rebuild him. We have the technology." 

He hears someone choke back a laugh, the Weasel looks unhappy. He wants him to die. The headmaster won't let him directly kill any experiments and if he doesn't die, he can't do an autopsy. 

The gold keeps him sane as he plans, the songs, encoding the memories. Tony. Tony. Takes the fundamental parameters and runs them over and over in his mind to the music. Until when he thinks of the song, the memories come with it. The colour gold winding around his fingers, stops his mind slipping into bad areas. Stops him giving into the madness inherent to this place. Soaking in the desires of people that horrify him. He can't shut it out. 

So they take it away with a heavy blindfold so tight it cuts into his face. Because he sees too much. The Weasel had it linked to the collar, just touching the blindfold would get him shocked. The Weasel over jacked his collar too, hoping that he would accidentally kill himself. So he never touches it. He doesn't know how he knows all these things, but he can feel it. He can pick out what people want from nowhere now. He thinks it's because of the gold. He can't read minds like Wanda can, but he knows desires, even those deep, dark ones you don't admit to yourself. 

So he behaves, never makes a move to touch the blindfold because it's the Weasels desire, he'll give him nothing. Make his desires rot and burn. 

When the Weasel and the headmaster come to a compromise of the autopsy problem he kind of wishes he had died. He survives. Always survives. 

The headmaster is tired of pandering to the Weasel, he wants him moved to the barracks. The Weasel wants to keep him in the Black Cells just a little more. There are a few more things he can try that might kill him. He tries them all. 

He's learning how to navigate with his other enhanced senses. He walks unaided between the White and Black now. The guards have an acrid scent when he does that. 

It doesn't take him long to work out its fear. 

He wonders if he should be unnerved that he knows that, that he can smell fear. That's definitely not normal, but then it's just added to the list of changes now. When he woke up hearing the guards desire to get a different job, smelling that guards fear at seeing him walk around as if he could see wasn't such a big deal. 

He hasn't got much of a concept of time, there is only black now, and the regular delirious bouts make time stretch and bend. There is no schedule of food, at least he can't work one out in between bouts of delirium. He is so hungry but it feels… different. At first it was an awareness, but the last trip... The last time he went from the Black to White, something changed. Now he's starving. He doesn't know how to make it stop. Eating doesn't stop it, it's sharp, painful, insides twisting in pain and starvation. Pushing him. Taunting him. Even when he eats. It makes no sense. He picks up scents that smell like food to him occasionally, but he isn't sure what they are. The Black Cells hold him in place when he wants to hunt. 

He figured it had been a while. Because the headmaster finally put his foot down. He's going to the chair tomorrow. 

Another person is on the chair when they walk him in, he hears them screaming, he doesn't recognise them, but then he hasn't been near many of the other experiments. He picked up a few scents, but no one in the room matches any of the ones he has already logged. There are 3 stood next to him. Restrained.  They stopped doing that with him, it was amusing how easy he lured them into complacency should he ever need it in the future. The figure he is declawed, docile without his eyes. They are wrong, he sank into his mind and planned. 

His brushed up against one of them and oh, that's different. The guards, they have long sleeves, gloves, masks but this, that is someone's bare arm. He feels his magic wrap around and he's just hungry . 

He steps back as the figure drops to the floor, they think he fainted from seeing the person in the chair. Tony knows he has to hide this, they'd use it for their own means and they'd use it against him. His adds it to his plans. 

He recodes his brain by shattering it on the pain of the chair. They drag him to his feet and he can't help but laugh. The words are there the ones he should say. When he reaches for them they slip away. Instead - 

"When everything, everything, everything you touch turns to gold, gold, gold." 

They try 4 more times, he layers the encryptions, hiding Pepper in his chest, keeping Rhodey at his side, Happy at his back. He wraps himself in his family and hides them in the music until he's laughing. T-o-n-y. 

In the end, they send him to the Barracks without ever uttering 'Ready to comply'. They smell nervous around him now but he doesn't understand why. He only stumbles a few times in the new location, his life is dark. He knows how to navigate by now when it's always been this way. He needs to create new maps. 

In a few days he has plotted the walkways and has a map of the areas they're allowed to walk in his mind. He walks the pathways each day to update his map. Sometimes more than once, if he is moving there is less chance of being attacked. He passes each cell to log every scent, to create profiles in his mind of the other experiments, which ones he's fed from, so he can hide, always hide. He finds small pathways so he can appear and disappear as he wants. The collar is gone, the blindfold is never removed, he never touches it. It stays, no matter what he is expected to do and it is not an excuse to be lacking compared to the other experiments. 

The chair takes away some memories, he knows he's left this place, but he doesn't have the memories to back up this knowledge. He has scents logged in his mind when he doesn't remember doing it. His magic is suddenly stronger overnight when realistically he knows it wasn't overnight. Scars appear out of nowhere. Maps to places he doesn't recall. 

He picks up the new scent in the White Room on one of his visits, because The Weasel is always coming up with more. It's similar to his. Have they made another like him? Will that be competition for food? He figures two of them feeding off the other experiments might be noticed. 

He tracks it, through the hallways. He's clever, fast. He can move unseen almost as well as 186A. Which is impressive, no one moves as silently or can be as invisible as 186A. 

He is avoiding him too. The new scent, he's watching him too. But there is only so much space, and everyone comes to the room where the food is at least once a day unless you want to starve. 186A likes to sing now and then when he eats. It keeps people away from him. 

A new smelling woman who didn't know that, attacks him with a knife for his bread, he walks away with her knife and her food, the smell of her blood makes his nose itch. No one blinks. As long as they don't kill, fighting is encouraged. The new ones usually come after him, only seeing the blindfold. He tried speaking to several, but that didn't end well. 

186A finally finds the man who smells of magic and something else he recognises but can't name. Something he had maybe decided unimportant and allowed the chair to take? Something it took anyway? He and the chair, sometimes they argue. It takes too much sometimes. Breaks too much. 

They both walk to the centre of the canteen and conversation drops off as the circle each other. He matches his movements and the fight is inevitable. 186A has been here much longer, but he finds himself holding back. Unsure why. Then he reads his desires, he's desperate, the chair is fragmenting him, he wants something solid to bring him around. There magic clashes but instead of sparking, the gold recognises the spark. This came from him, everything is lost on a blast of gold in his mind as they both stop, breathing hard at the magical expenditure. Wasteful given their poor diet and high expectations. 

Magic scent is taller, but they rest, forehead to forehead. 186A waits for them to speak first. 

"Gold." 

"What is yours?" 

"Silver." 

Someone mistakes their rest for weakness and comes up on his left, on Silvers right. They both strike, their magic twisting and wrapping and slamming the man against the wall. He decides to take a chance. There is at least 15 minutes before they start bringing food out, others line up. 186A knows he doesn't have to anymore. Maybe… maybe Silver can be someone to talk to. Someone he can finally connect with. 

"Come on, Silver." 

He takes up his usual spot, sitting cross legged at the end of one of the tables. Silver pauses, unsure of himself, so his summons a spark of gold to tug him over, trust. Not something he has ever shown, but it feels right. Sat, back to back, he takes his left arm. Tracing the numbers, wondering how many experiments passed through the Charnel House before the Headmaster got to keep another magic user. Born from his magic, he feels connected to the man, brother, son, something. Family through the magic. 592A. He wondered how many in-between 592 and 186 made it from the White and Black. How many didn't even get branded. 

"Gold?" 

"Why are you calling me Gold?" 

"You called me Silver, do you really want to be known by a number?" 

"No."

He had had a name, hadn't he? Didn't he encode it? 

"When everything, everything, everything you touch turns to gold, gold, gold." 

"See. Gold." 

"Only you." 

"What?" 

"Only you can call me Gold." 

He leant back against him, Silver was much taller than him, so the top of Gold's head rested at around the top of his spine. He was tall, with a long reach, he could train him to fight better. The two of them together would be hard to defeat. Increasing both of their food intake would increase the potency of their magic. 

"Acceptable. How do you do it Gold. No one knows, everyone talks about you. Blinded yet you see more than anyone here. You know when we're going to the pits, you preempt every bell, I've never seen you get caught in a night test. You vanish in the halls and appear elsewhere. Even the guards look at you nervously."

He tilted his head, he can't help the smile. He knew he was watching him, but that was more than he had thought. 

"Have you been watching me Silver?"

"Yes."

"All of those things, are because they blinded me. I map out the building and check for changes, so I notice when the guards move for the bells or rounds. They change the food on pit days, or there are greenies in the water. New scents, new blood. No one looks up Silver, that's where you will find me."

"What about the singing?" 

"What about it?" 

"How do you do it." 

"Dangerous, fractured, split my mind on the chair to encode the songs." 

"Sing for me? Sing for me Gold." 

He stretched his back and felt the general feel for the room, he would be up to get food soon. Usually he only sang after food was handed out, but maybe this was good he thought as he rested against Silvers back. Their magic humming and crackling between them. Like to like. 

He couldn't refuse. He pulled a song from the codes, one that he had never sung before. Another one of Gold because Silver liked to call him Gold. There was something else to the song, there always was, but he can't always reach all the encoded parts. It's enough that they're there. 

I am flesh and I am bone

Rise up, ting ting, like glitter and gold

I've got fire in my soul

He wondered if he had the hunger like him, he didn't feel like it. His magic felt light, skimming the top and plucking out information. Not heavy like his, sinking in deep, pulling out people's desires. 

Rise up, ting ting, like glitter

Like glitter and gold

Like glitter

He tapped the beat and felt Silver watching him heavily instead of his side of the room, could feel that he wanted to do what he was doing. That he wanted to remember. Gold had to protect him from that. Protect his mind. 

Do you walk in the valley of kings?

Do you walk in the shadow of men

He could teach Silver many things, with his magic, it had a strong potential but he needed to hone it. Same with his fighting skill. If Gold had not gone easy on him in their fight he might have accidentally killed him. 

Who sold their lives to a dream?

Do you ponder the manner of things

He could teach him much, but he could not teach him that which he desires most. 

In the dark

The dark, the dark, the dark

He was already responsible for his magic, if it were not for him, he wouldn't have Silver pouring from his hands. He would not be a target, because they were different, they were unique. It was not good to be unique here. 

I am flesh and I am bone

Arise, ting ting, like glitter and gold

I've got fire in my soul

Silver was tapping along now, picking up the song. This would be how he teaches him. This would be the only way he teaches him a song. He would teach him the same after wipe after wipe to spare him the fractures. 

Rise up, ting ting, like glitter

Like glitter and gold

Like glitter

The pain from the fractures 

He would protect the Silver to his Gold. 

The Glitter to his Gold. 

He will protect Silver.

Like glitter

Chapter Text

-James POV-

James stretched, moving slowly so he didn't jostle Tony. The man had been willing to go through practically everything he had remembered from his time at the Charnel House in one go. It had taken some to convince him to take a break. He never seems to realise how badly something is affecting him. Until he has a panic attack, and then seems utterly shocked and confused that he's having one. 

He'd assumed that the Experimental Asset Program was bad, it was Hydra. There was an extremely low bar set in his mind for the lengths and lines that Hydra would cross. 

Somehow, what Tony had told him had been worse. 

Although, he wasn't exactly surprised that Tony went and adopted himself a human, it seemed to be his nature. Something they never managed to take away or remove. 

Everyone thinks of fighting and sex for humanities base urges, but companionship, friendship is high up on the list. People naturally come together in some way or another. 

However they had created Silvers magic came from Tony, he assumed that that brought them together. That connection. That kept their magic from tearing each other apart when it clashed together. Kept them connected instead. 

It was typical of Tony really, that after that he took him under his wing. To give him the skills to survive the Charnel House. That he wouldn't teach him how to remember, but would shatter his own mind for them. Anything to protect them. 

Very Tony. 

He slowly slipped out of the bedroom, leaving Tony curled up, the blankets around him in a nest but with none of them actually on him. He pulls off his jumper and leaves it next to him. Higher chances of him staying asleep whilst he got to work if his scent was around them. 

He pulled the door closed as silently as possible. 

"FRIDAY, enact silence protocols around the bedroom." 

He heard a few, low thunks that he could just pick up as he sent enough magic to activate the wards. Tony wasn't a fan of activating the silence protocols, but he didn't have much of a choice. Tony needed to get some rest and he needed to get to work. Either the experiments  or potentially, by blinding him, Tony's other senses are much higher than even his own. His hearing can easily trump most soundproofing with a little effort. The silence protocols lowered all ambient noise outside of its range. The first round had completely silenced everything, but it didn't take long for Tony to realise that the complete lack of sounds was actually more disturbing to his sleep. 

He picked his way through the remnants of their living room and kitchen, diverting to the fridge to grab a carton of orange juice before making his way to his office. 

The destruction seemed to have been kept to the main rooms by the looks of it. Anything Tony's magic could reach most likely, although he isn't sure what actually happened. When he'd seen Tony start to slip, his eyes had glazed as if he was seeing something else, but that was all. He'd blacked out and mostly been out of it, his speech patterns changed, became more stilted. There had been no property damage. The penthouse was well and truly smashed. 

Pepper was going to be pissed. 

Speaking of. 

"Where are Pepper and Rhodey?" 

"They're still in Italy Bossman, Dax told me to hold off informing them of what's going on until Boss is in a better state. The less people he's around the better right now." 

"Good, when are they due home?" 

"4 days." 

"Can you fiddle things and give us more time? Without them realising something is up?" 

"Will do Bossman!" 

FRIDAY was always happy to be sneaky he noticed, she fit quite well into their little family. Especially after the restrictions had been removed. James hadn't known FRIDAY had restrictions, but he had noticed that after a while, she had started to change. That she had a little extra sass. She also was better at helping him too, he hadn't thought about it too much until speaking to Tony. It wasn't until Tony had told him about how Sokovia went from his side did it all start to make sense. FRIDAY had been dealing with Tony daily, James little strange behaviours must have been easy to manage in the larger scheme of things. 

He had to move what looked like half off a very heavy, previously solid wood bookcase to reach his office. Leaving it propped up in the hall where it hopefully wouldn't fall on anyone. Inside was exactly how he'd left it. He sat down and started pulling up information on Opal. FRIDAY knew what he was up to and had everything ready for him as he reached for it. 

Experiment 941A, code named Opal. It didn't say why, he knew not all of the colours of Tony's old guard had meaning, but some did. She was mostly checked out for bodyguard style duty. Except when she was with Silver. Then she was his bodyguard from what he could figure from the files.

She'd given Tony 3 things. Brown hair, pale eyes and silver magic. 

Tony had a few things scratched down, memories he was keeping for the man. Some of them were painful to look at, he knew what it was like to lose everything to the chair. So a mother, brown hair. A sister. A father. The mere concepts of family without any of the information to fill these things out. Hair colour, a scrap of personality. Bits and pieces that could belong to millions of people. 

It had taken a long time away from the chair before he could even recall his sisters eye colours. 

As small as these little details were, he knew they'd seem huge when the chair wiped you. Confirmation he had family. Confirmation there were people outside of these walls who maybe once loved him. That maybe missed him. Confirmation that maybe you were loved. Cared for. Wanted. 

They'd seem huge . 

Looking at them here? They were like tiny threads pulled clear from a tapestry. 

They were so small . 

A (potentially?) missing person that has a mother, sister and father? Sometime in the last decade? They might have even been declared dead. They might have runaway, they might have been disowned. As he had no idea what country, the family might be dead. Hydra had taken over quietly in some places, but in some it had been bloody, drawn out, long. Even now people were struggling to find each other, prisoners, hundreds vanishing overnight into Hydra's depths. Even before hydra took over, this information would not be enough to find someone, the world was still healing and some areas were a mess. 

There wasn't even a point compiling that data, but Tony did it anyway, just in case Opal came through. He had compiled potentials for every country, the data was insane but he understood why he did it. It was something to do. Tony wasn't good at doing nothing after all, his mind was always moving. 

Tony didn't know if Silver had been a Hydra volunteer, a runaway, prisoner of war, or maybe even like him. Stolen and sold into the program. The chair had a habit of changing people's accents too, Tony's became harder, more stilted in his speech the closer to a fracture. Concepts in blocks, parameters as he called them. Trying to understand what each person wanted from him so he can give it as soon as possible to avoid potential pain. Survival tactic. 

Opal hadn't even mentioned the guys skin colour. It was painful how little she had told him and it was not helping when it came to his anger.

"Show me Opal now Fry." 

He tapped on his screen and the GPS locator on her watched showed up on the map. FRIDAY started accessing cameras in the general area, giving him a wide range of angles to watch her from. 

"She still staking out the Valadies property?" 

"Yes Bossman."

"Any sign that she's preparing to grab the kid and run?" 

"Not that I've seen, she knows Boss has contingencies in place that she couldn't even dream of. Apparently he used to build things that exploded a lot. Left them with a fear of anything he set up." 

He snorted, because that really did sound like Tony. He could terrify people quite effortlessly, he loved it. 

"Used to?" 

"Touché." 

"When she spoke to Tony, how was he?" 

"Boss didn't suffer the fracture until after the phone call." 

"Good. Call her for me and put it through even if she tries to duck me." 

He moved the video chat onto his left screen pushed the other CCTV feeds on to one of his other screens. Tony had upgraded some of the cameras around the house, had to have because the quality was far too good. He also had the ability to move them, that was interesting and fun. 

She was sitting on a bench, not far from the Valadies property. Close enough to watch but not too close that someone would call the cops on her for being a creep. He was sure they were nice people, they were just fostering a kid, they didn't ask to be dragged into business they couldn't fathom. James obviously didn't wish them any pain or suffering, but, Opal didn't know that. Opal knew nothing about him and he would be using that to his advantage. He brought up the rest of the cameras Tony had installed around the property to. Fiddling with a few things as he went. 

"What do you want Gold." 

"Not Gold."

"Who the fuck are you?" 

"Golds left hand." 

He tilted the camera on himself to cover the screens he'd just loaded. She instantly went rigid, well, this was going to be easy if she had such good tells. 

"I told him all I know." 

"Took you a very long time to say you know jack shit. And you didn't tell him everything. For one, a sketch artist will be arriving in 37 minutes. If I am not happy with what he sends me, you will know. Understood?" 

"Understood." 

She grated out, teeth clenched, he eyes flicking to his screens and off in the distance. To the house most likely. He was starting to see why she'd only been used for bodyguard duty. Sure, she looked scary, but he doubted she'd be much use for more sensitive jobs. 

"Why did you make him wait so long." 

"Because I had nothing. You don't go to Gold with nothing. Not when you want something. I was hoping I could find something. Anything." 

She miscalculated, it would have been far, far better to go to Tony with nothing over lying to him. Tony did not tolerate lying well at all. 

"True. You also don't lie to him, because do you want to know something about me Opal?" 

He switched the cameras to show some of the security measures around the house. Ostensibly to protect those inside, or to keep Opal back. Personally James wasn't sure about separating the kid from a stable home to her care. So there were a number of disguised weapon systems in hard to reach places, he'd pick a few that didn't have obvious identifying characteristics but the house was visible in the shot, then he'd flipped them. Didn't want her finding and destroying them after he got off the call. 

"I will do the things Gold is to kind to." 

He switched the screens back, not giving her enough of an idea about where the security measures were installed. Or even what was there. Blithely switching it back to an open shot of the house. 

"What do you want?"

"Well, we've got some time before the sketch artist arrives don't we. Let's go over your last mission." 

The sketch would be helpful but it was more of a back up. Sketches could be great, and they could be utterly awful. Even with FRIDAY on hand they might not be able to match a sketch up to a missing person report. He'd still try though, it would take ages to get through all the potential data Tony had amassed. 

Plus, there was also the problem that some people changed under the experiments, like a picture of little Stevie wouldn't get matched up with Captain America. Tony had come out of it mostly unchanged physically, broader maybe. His changes were internal, his mind, his magic. Reshaped him in ways humans just… aren't. Turned him into a predator where humans were his food. 

He'd seen some of the images FRIDAY had pulled of the facility Tony was taken to after his 'rescue'. They had trouble working out who 6 of the people were, because the ones that still had fingerprints looked quite different to pictures in criminal databases. 

So, the sketch was more for Tony.

So he could finally see him. 

He deserved that. 

What James wanted was the sketch of the handler. That was his starting point. Even if he was dead, he wanted to know just who he was, what he was doing and who he came into contact with. The experiments physically changed, but the handlers, they stayed the same. 

"Silver, he could read things about people. He tried to keep the skill hidden, but he let it slip at some point, so it was useless. Handlers talk. He could read people's intentions sometimes. Stand next to someone and know they'd turn left or feel a person choosing to kill someone."

He nodded along, that made a sort of sense. All of their kinds of magic seemed to be about reading something. 

Tony had explained that they went against most magic principles he'd read up on. Magic users channelling magic through their cores to affect their will. That was how it worked. Where as their cores were exposed. 

It started with Wanda. When the mind stone ripped her open and lit up that potential. They'd taken samples from her to try and recreate her. A mind reader was handy, and her magic had several uses beyond that. Humans are good at creating, with an exposed core like that, the options are only limited by what you think. 

Which was probably why Wanda used hers for telekinesis, shielding and mind reading when Tony created his own ward language. 

But maybe he was biased.

Silvers magic came from Tony directly, he'd felt a connection to it when to Wanda he'd felt nothing. Maybe the serum was too far removed? He didn't know. Either way he'd felt nothing but contempt for Wanda. Tony had been working on a way to remove her power entirely. 

James's magic also came from Tony. There was untapped potential for something, Tony's magic had ignited and sparked off the change in himself. 

Wanda read minds. 

Tony read desires. 

James read pain. 

Silver read intentions. 

"He could also pick up on skills. See a person and know they were highly skilled in something. The Handler was moving into a new territory and was choosing a team. Spent 6 fucking days standing around watching Silver shake hands." 

He bet Tony taught him that. Bare skin contact, he can pick up quite a bit with the contact now, but nothing compared to Tony. He can't read a person's mind, but you can apparently tell a lot about someone based on their desires. 

"Then what?"

"Then the handler decided he wanted Silver." 

"Gold told me that you guys usually got a choice when a handler offered something. Longer position." 

Personally, James thought that was cruel. Forcing them to choose a type of servitude. Putting the decision on them. Tony said that most of them always said no, the Charnel House was hell but it was known . James was pretty sure that couldn't be good for their mental health, making them choose it. Making them choose to go back. Tony had told him that usually it was an easy question to answer, which meant that at least once it hadn't been easy for him. 

"Usually, yeah. This guy, I don't know who the fuck he was, but he made a single phone call after Silver said no. One call, I went back alone."

Fucking Handlers. 

"When the sketch artist arrives, I want to know everything about this handler. Do you have a name?" 

"Yaromir."

He snorted. Man of peace. 

"Is that a first name?" 

"No idea, that's all any of his men called him. All I found in the documentation checking me out." 

"Great. He sounds like a dick." 

He pulled up Tony's private servers that included all the information that he had taken from Hydra over the years to run the name through. When he had the image he'd find this man. If he hadn't been one of Tony's handlers, he might even still be alive. 

"That sketch artist is nearly there. I expect those pictures soon and Opal?" 

"Yes?" 

"You caused a lot of trouble for me. Understand that? You dragged this out, so, I will not be turning these weapons around until we find Silver."

He hung up before she replied, he kept the CCTV cameras he had on her up and watched her start pacing back and forward. Trying to force a call through on the watch. That wouldn't be happening anytime soon. 

"Bossman, I think you should head back to the bedroom now." 

"Sure, FRIDAY, switch all this to my tablet?"

He picked up the tablet, a smaller image now of Opal waiting for the sketch artist. He stood up as he kept one eye on her whilst he started trying to match Yaromir up with people in Tony's files. It threw back a bunch of possible hits. He doubted Yaromir was a real name, and if it was it wasn't a full name. 

He made his way back to the bedroom, the low thunk of the silence protocols moving back so he could open the door. Tony still seemed asleep, he hoped he actually was. He had curled around his jumper in his sleep which he thought was adorable. 

Tony twitched and then shuddered and now he knew why FRIDAY had asked him to come back. 

He threw the tablet on the pillow as it carried on running his rudimentary search. The details were too vague at the moment, he'd get far to many hits. It was however creating a smaller pool he could run the sketch against. 

James slipped back into the position he'd been in before he'd left for his office, his hand and magic stretching out to soothe as he pulled Tony back onto his lap. Running his fingers through his hair as he slowly relaxed some. 

With his magic helping, Tony stayed asleep when James heard Dax and Siles start moving from their room. He wouldn't be able to keep up this level forever, but he could keep it going for quite a while, especially on Tony. 

"James, you awake?" 

"Yeah. You two alright?" 

Dax just half shrugged at that, always the kind of person to forget to care for themselves during situations like this. Not that he could say anything, considering he did just the same. Tony and Siles reminded them each to occasionally be selfish.

"We're fine, how is he?" 

"Better, I think we're out of the red, I'm building a case." 

"FRIDAY told me, he told you about that place?" 

Dax really hated saying the Charnel House. Hated that it ever existed. 

"Yeah, about when he first arrived, and how he met Silver." 

As much as he needed information on everything, as much as he knew that it was good for Tony to finally talk about some of the things that had happened. That just getting the memories back and ignoring them was actually an awful tactic, he knew that the nightmares Tony was currently flitting in and out of had to do with Silver. He always knew because he cried.

Chapter Text

Tony POV - Flashback-

He is awake as soon as he hears someone stop outside of the room. Silver huffed as he rolled onto his back, poking him in the ribs. 

"You have to tell me how you do that someday." 

Gold sat up, stretching as Silver shifted next to him, the other entered, slowly. It hadn't been long since Silver had randomly brought this guy in one day, smelling of gunpowder and starvation. 

He was good, could see more than other people, wasn't put in the chair too often either and even remembered some of his missions. They mostly included shooting people from far enough away it wasn't important to wipe him. He spent more time checked in that out. He slept in one of the smaller cells, furthest from the canteen as it meant he was bothered less. It also meant that he ate less, made him late to the canteen. Didn't have the strength to fight for food. 

"You sleep like the dead, teaching you to wake up is beyond even my abilities Silver. You alright Snipe?" 

"Yeah.. Yeah. Just. This is weird, how did you know who I was and how-" 

Silver cut him off, laughing. Not something that they heard often so he and Snipe didn't interrupt. He smiled, he knew that he creeped people out with how aware he was about things around him. From his perspective it was like everyone else was running around sense blind and he was the normal one. Two guards passed the room and turned left instead of the normal right for rounds. 

"Come on, guards are moving so they're opening the canteen early." 

"See, this is what I mean. With the creepy." 

"You get used to Gold." 

"Somehow I don't think that's gonna happen." 

In the canteen, Silver and Snipe were talking lightly to each other when a familiar smell hit him, he sat up straight and breathed in, trying to confirm it. It was the main reason he always sat in this spot, the air currents in the room, he could pick up on people as they entered. The conversation stops abruptly and he can feel Silver and Snipes attention on him. 

"What is it."

"Magic, two new people who just entered but.. They smell wrong." 

He chased the scent, trying to pin-point what it was that was wrong until the accompanying smell of blood chased it. 

"Wrong?" 

He nodded before turning his attention back to his food. 

"They're dying, rotting from the inside." 

"How do you know? They look perfectly fine.." 

"Because me and Silver are the odd ones out. Most don't even leave the Black and White. They'll last 4 days, maybe 5. Organs will liquify, they'll go back to the White Room." 

"Holy shit, I'm so happy they don't seem to want to try and give me magic." 

"Why did we survive Gold?" 

"No idea, the Weasel guy tried pretty much everything in his arsenal to kill me. I just didn't die." 

Silver leaned up against him, resting his head on top of his own. 

"That's different, as soon as they saw me with magic they moved me to the barracks. I remember that much right now." 

He hummed, he knew why. It was because of him. Before he had his hands on a magic user, the headmaster hadn't been overly interested or impressed with the idea. So, he'd let the man play. After he'd had him? Now anytime anyone showed even a scrap of magic prowess, they were processed. 

Instead of dying in the Black and White, they died here. 

"Sleep Silver."

They'd had several 'training' days in a row, so he knew what was coming tomorrow. He'd heard a few guards taking bets too. 

"I'm on first watch." 

"No, pits tomorrow again. You need to be sharp. Sleep. Make it up to me tomorrow night. Yes?" 

He heard him yawn as he collapsed onto the tiny bed next to him. He stayed sat up, leaning against the headboard. He kept Silver on the wall side, away from the open cell door. Silver needed to sleep tonight, if he was right, and Gold was usually right, they would put Silver up against him tomorrow. 

They were leaving the cell doors open tonight by the looks of it, which meant that they were hoping some of them would attack others in the night. Always made pit days more fun for the Handlers if there was blood out before they entered. 

He stayed awake. Watching the door, humming different songs as Silver slept. 

3 different people came to his door. They all stopped when he looked in their direction and smiled, cleaning his nails with his knife. Each left, leaving the acrid smell of fear that always made his nose itch. Being feared was handy. Silvers sleep was uninterrupted. 

He hoped up onto the bench, his and Snipe's food in hand. They'd worked out quickly that even just carrying food made him a target. People were less likely to take on himself or Silver out of desperation, the magic scared them off. But Snipe, his skill was with guns, of which they had none. 

"Here, eat fast. Pits today." 

"Okay, how do you know that?"

"Increased portion size. See?"

"Okay. I get how I see, you're blindfolded." 

Silver was leaning up against his back again, chuckling, Snipe had actually sat along the bench. He'd finally stopped sitting on the side with his back to the room without being told. Silver had adapted to being around him pretty fast, so he found Snipes questions hilarious. 

"Heavier. The weight changes. More food. Silver, they're going to make me fight you today." 

"What? Why?" 

"Was always coming. That's why I've been training you." 

"So, let me get this straight, you have been training him to fight you?" 

"Yes." 

"You two are crazy." 

Gold snorted, well, he supposed that might be an accurate description for himself. Fractured mind. 

"I don't want to fight you." 

"I know, I don't want to fight you. That's why they do it. Take me down fast. Okay?" 

"No one would believe the kid could take you down Gold." 

"He let slip about his magic, how he can read intentions, to a handler 3 missions ago. They will now." 

He could practically feel how miserable Silver was behind him, so he tore the bread in half and handed it over. There wasn't exactly much else he could do to cheer him up. He didn't have much to give. All he could do was train him, protect him while he slept. Make sure he got in the line for food early before they ran out. 

"So, I figure I been with you two long enough to ask this without getting knifed. Why do you sing?" 

"Silver likes it." 

"OK. But. How? I haven't been dragged to the chair for months, I think, but I don't remember music. You were in it last night, yet you do. You still know us." 

"He won't tell you how he does it." 

He shrugged as three new people entered the canteen. He didn't recognise them, two of them had the similar scent for those who ended up stronger. He'd started to work out the different serums that were used by now. The third, he still smelled baseline. Or at least close to it. 

He must have been altered enough to survive the chair however. 

"Two strong, one unknown. The unknown is in the left quadrant." 

"Got them, unknown, he's around 5"9, looks military. He's fast too. Just swiped someone's food before they even realised what was happening." 

"Hmm. Interesting." 

He logged the information in his head with the guys scent.

"So. The songs?" 

"He won't teach you, I've been trying to get him for, well. I don't know how long. Because I don't remember. This is the 9th time we've met?" 

"11th."

"See."

"But, Gold. You practically live in that chair."

He nodded at Snipe, because it was true. He'd kept count on certain people and he definitely seemed to be dragged to the chair more often.

"That's because I remember. They don't like it. What I do, it's dangerous. Risky. And because of it, I see the chair more. Which is why I won't teach you Silver." 

Silver sighed, long as if Gold was keeping something amazing from him. He smirked, because he found that amusing for some reason. 

"I'll remember for you." 

It was a stupid offer to make, but he couldn't not make it.

"What?"

"Silver, I will remember for you. Tell me what you want to remember. I remember and I'll tell you." 

"That's what you don't get Gold, I want to remember you."

When they got into the pits he pulled Silver straight to the training mats, Snipe too, there were some handers around, but sometimes you could avoid them if you looked busy. 

Trying to hide back around the edges would get you hurled into a full fight. Snipe had nearly died a few weeks ago when a handler got fed up of him hiding around the edges. 

He was trying to hone Silvers ability to read intention without physical contact, with that ability combating him would be very difficult. As he could avoid attacks before they even came at him, feints and tricks would be useless. 

"You need to be faster." 

"You have impossible standards." 

He ignored that, he didn't have impossible standards. 

"I won't always be here, the two of you need to know that."

He went back and forth between the two of them, making sure they both looked busy and they knew to keep it up when he was pulled away. 

Because that always happened. 

He was dragged to the pits go fight. He was pulled for a mission, many more than Silver and Snipe combined. Or he ended up in solitary. 

Everytime it meant leaving them without his defence, meant leaving them open. He hated it. Hated coming back and smelling blood or pain. He'd been gone for a week once and silver had eaten twice in that time. If he and Silver were out, Snipe always smelled of starvation again. 

"When they put you up against me, come in hard and fast." 

"I… Okay. Okay." 

"Good." 

"GOLD!" 

He flinched, he hated that other people called him that. He only liked Silver calling him Gold. Or maybe Snipe. He was starting to get along with him. He was funny. Not much to laugh about here. 

Handlers calling him Gold, that was the worst. They had so fucking little, but the handlers even stole their names for each other. 

He didn't let any of it show on his face, he pulled Snipe forward so they could spar and walked in the direction of the handler who called him. Cherry Tobacco and Vanilla. He hated this handler. 

This handler taunted him when he was new, he remembered his voice and smell and the feeling of his hands on the blindfold. He had missions with him, even though he didn't remember them. He kept his stance easy, relaxed. Maybe if he didn't piss him off, maybe they wouldn't make him fight Silver this time. 

"Didn't know you could be this obedient Gold! I guess the chair is starting to work on you after all." 

He nodded and grit his teeth. If he opened his mouth he'd say something and usually that didn't bother him. If anything he enjoyed it. But some people had started to notice that he always picked Silver up after the chair. 

Stupid, they should avoid each other occasionally. 

He couldn't though, even though he knew this was coming. 

They noticed that he cared about something, about someone. They'd use that against him. 

"Why don't you go up against Green?" 

He nearly sighed in relief, he moved to the pit fast before he changed his mind. 

Green was a hard opponent, rarely hungry. Thick build and strong. His hits could send you clear across the pit. He usually drew out fights, to piss off the handlers. Dancing out of reach. This time, this time he didn't want to piss a handler off. 

So he grabbed his knife and went straight into attacking, Green's yell of shock as he was instantly on the defensive. 

"What the fuck has gotten into you! Since when do you do what your told?" 

Again he kept his mouth shut. Just attacked. The fight went for around half an hour if he judged it right before he was called off and Green was dragged away to recover. 

"SILVER!" 

He couldn't help the flinch and knew that it was probably seen. He needed to get better at controlling his reactions when it came to Silver. 

"Come at me hard." 

"But Gol-" 

"Now!"

He made to lunge, made his attacks look fast and hard, meaning to make the fight look good. But few of his hits actually landed and when they did he cushioned the blows with his magic. He put himself in the way of Silvers hits on more than one occasion. 

"Stop!" 

He stopped and stepped back, holding himself perfectly still as Silver stumbled slightly from the fight being ended abruptly. Not as used to it, where as Gold always ended up here. Others got to have breaks. He didn't know what it was about him that made them push him harder, sneering, amused. He was from the Black and White. 

It's all there in Black and White 

"Gold, out." 

You can lay down or you can put up a fight

He slipped out and followed the cherry tobacco handler until they were at the edge of the room. 

Or you can, break bread with the beggars and thieves

"You aren't as clever as you think you are. I know you went easy on him." 

Or you can, highhorse your way to your knees

He tensed but didn't say anything. Fuck. This could be bad. 

Or you can take that lesson that you learned today

"You're lucky you coached him not to hold back on you. If you stay this well behaved on your next mission, I'll only report you. I know you'll remember for me, won't you Gold?" 

Share it around or throw it away

He nodded, that was the best case scenario, he actually had not expected it. He still hated it, hated this handler, but Silver was safe.

But in the end you're gonna see

"Hmm. Good. I'll check you out when you've recovered. You know the way. And you'll walk yourself there won't you? Anything to protect that Silver." 

You're the only one and this life's just a game

He hated that they had something over him. He hated that it was something that was going to fucking work time after time to. Silver didn't do well with the punishments, it was easier if he took them for the both of them. 

Until the game stops bein' fun

He couldn't walk back to their room, and the guards seem to never dump you on the bed, which was why he's on the floor when Silver comes back. The floor was cold. Which was actually quite nice on his burning skin, which had been the main reason he hadn't put too much effort into moving yet. The bed could wait. 

"Gold! When you vanished we thought… what happened?" 

"Nothing, m'fine."

"Gold, you can't see but I can. Can I move you to the bed without hurting you?" 

"Don't know, let's try. Avoid my hip." 

He bites his tongue and Silver lifts him. Increased strengths coming in handy meaning that he was barely jostled before he finds himself face down on the bed instead of face down on the floor. 

"They chucked my shirt in too." 

"I got it, I'll stash it until the bleeding stops, give me a second, I'm sure I can scrounge a cup of water from the showers." 

"I'm fine, don't have to risk the showers." 

"This is my fault. It's the least I can do." 

 "Not your fault Sil." 

He doesn't say anything else, but slips out any way. He hopes that if he's going to the showers that he'd be careful. They were one of the most dangerous places in this place. 

Although water would probably be a good idea, he thinks, his hip isn't in the best of states. The damage the damage is enough to make even him nauseated. The headmaster being creative never really was good for any of them, if he'd just stick to stripping the flesh from their backs things wouldn't be so bad. He guessed that was the point, after awhile they became somewhat inured to it. Not that he stopped doing it. 

They experimented on them and changed them to be strong and heal, which meant they had to get imaginative when they wanted to hurt them. 

"I'm back, got water." 

"Great, you can pour that on my hip, he did a shit job of flushing it out." 

"Fuck, Gold.." 

"I'm fine." 

"You're not fine! This is my fault!" 

He grabbed Silvers shirt and tugged him down so he was sitting next to him. 

"My fault, should have made it look better. We plan better next time? Yes?" 

"Fuck, Okay. Okay Gold." 

Silver sounds smaller, sadder as he tends to the wounds that take longer to heal. At least he doesn't have to worry about getting any infections he muses. 

"Want me to sing for you?" 

"Yes. I always want you to sing Gold. Then, you sleep and heal. I watch." 

He patted his leg lightly and sang, hoping that it would help him feel better. He couldn't really move much right now because of the pain, so there wasn't much he could do to make him feel better. The songs though, they always cheered Silver up. 

When I'm walking a dark road

It was worth it anyway worth the pain. Worth a handler having sway over him. Silver is worth all of that. Silver is the light in this place. The light in his life of constant darkness. 

I am a man who walks alone

Silver meant that he wasn't the man who walked alone. 

"Have you run your fingers down the wall

And have you felt your neck skin crawl

When you're searching for the light?"

C'mon Down - Poor Man's Poison

Fear of the Dark - Iron Maiden

Chapter Text

-James POV-

James was making breakfast, Tash had recently come in, giving him a quick run down on their mission before heading off to get some sleep. Not commenting on the general destruction of their living space, just nimbly hopping over rubble to her bedroom.. Not much could faze Tash, even the complete destruction of their home it seemed. 

James had dragged around a few bits of the kitchen to create some form of seats for them to eat on. It looked quite comfortable actually, and enough of the actual kitchen was together to make some breakfast. He was quite proud of his efforts. Dax and Siles had headed out for breakfast with the idea that less people Tony had to deal with at a time right now, the better. 

They wouldn't be able to have the penthouse cleared and repaired until they were either gone for a while, or for when Tony was feeling a lot better. No way could he abide strangers in the penthouse right now. It wouldn't be even remotely safe for them. Even just the scent trails of strangers would be problematic. 

It was pretty lucky that he had been okay with Siles and Dax last night actually. He'd watched Tash cross the room, but he was more together this morning than he had been when Dax first found him. He'd still watched her like a predator studying prey. 

Tony was back to trying to work out what people wanted from him. If there were too many people without set parameters Tony would just end up more stressed, which was not exactly what they needed right now. The more stressed he was, the less likely he would be to pull the pieces together. 

"Why do you have a picture of the Weasel?" 

James started slightly, turning around. Tony had crossed the room quietly enough that he hadn't picked up on it. Not many people could sneak up on him, Tony didn't do it that often. He intentionally made noise when he walked around him and Tash, but right now he might not remember that and was just walking as he normally would. 

"Huh?" 

Tony pointed at James's tablet, the sketch artist had come through for him. There were a number of Silver and 2 of Yaromir. He'd been flicking through them whilst sorting out breakfast. Yaromir did look quite Weasel like now he thought about it. 

Silver was quite tall, with long brown hair, vibrant blue eyes when they weren't Silver, which apparently had been quite often according to the notes. He had quite an angular face too.

"That's Yaromir. The Handler for the Kuwait mission with Opal." 

"That's the Weasel. I wondered where he had gotten to, I couldn't find him when I hit the Charnel House and most of his files were gone." 

He'd had a hit on Yaromir, that wasn't the problem. In fact, he had too many hits on Yaromir. 47 different identities over different countries and he bet that he hasn't found them all. From what he could tell, the man left Hydra before Tony broke free. It had potentially sheltered him somewhat during the fall. 

"The man in charge of the experiments and that shit?" 

"Yeah, I always kinda hoped one of his experiments broke free and killed him." 

"Well, now we hope that I can find him. There are other images too." 

He leaned over and swiped the screen across to change the image to the others that Opal had finally came through on. James was running them against databases in several countries. Despite being tall and clearly a lethal opponent, all James could think about when he saw him was that he looked so damned young. 

He wouldn't let that trick him however, not narrowing down the search. Tony looked closer to 20 these days than 50 after all. 

That was the main thing that was causing problems, even with an image, it might match up against nothing. Silver had already been wiped several times before he came to Tony, so he wouldn't even know if he looked different to his life before the program. Didn't know if he was 20 or 60. Even with his ability to remember, Tony hadn't recognised himself the first time he saw himself. Hadn't known his actual age until he started researching himself. 

The main purpose of the picture, was to give Tony something to hold onto. To try and give him a reason to potentially hope again. It was pretty risky, if his investigations came up dry, well. James would work out what to do after that. Right now, everything was on finding the handler. Finding Yaromir. 

The handler? Well, he didn't change, not like the experiments. Sure, he changed his name and there were some superficial changes here and there, but he didn't seem to change that much. Hair colour, contacts, the usual. Never enough that FRIDAY couldn't put the puzzle together. 

Tony was looking at the images of Silver intently, as if he was trying to record all the details or maybe put them with what he remembered. 

"This is what he looked like?" 

"That's what Opal described, yeah." 

"I can't believe I didn't think of this." 

Tony dropped down onto his 'seat', paying no attention to anything except the tablet. His face was as carefully blank as James had ever seen it. 

"Why would you? She was offering pictures, much better than sketch artist rendering. I'm following a few leads, just a bit of waiting now. We'll find Yaromir." 

"Good. I just wanted to kill him, after what he did. Now? Now he'll suffer." 

He pushed a plate in front of Tony with a pointed look and put Tash's plate in the microwave for her when she woke up. He knew she wouldn't be asleep too long, she'd want in on the mission. 

"Sure that can be arranged Doll."

Tony was partially eating, partially shifting his food around on his plate and staring at the image. Not much could put Tony off food, not after the years spent barely getting enough calories for day to day life. 

"He knew I'd never work for him, because I always recognised him. No matter how many times he had me wiped and brought back to the White Room. It pissed him off. So, he came up with this.. fake job just to get Silver in his hands." 

"What do you think he's doing?" 

"What he always has been trying to do. To make himself perfect. He didn't care about Hydras plans, he didn't care about anything but the data. So he could make the perfect serum. That he'd only use on himself. It's why so many experiments died. He was why it was called The Charnel House." 

That would explain the large amounts of deaths, James had thought it odd, how many died. It seemed more wasteful than even Hydra usually allowed. With two operators effectively working towards different end games, many would fall through the cracks. Yaromir put enough through to the program to be kept in board, and ran his experiments on the rest. 

Turns out, two years of Hydra being torn apart and not being found makes you complacent. FRIDAY spotted Yaromir in Brazil which snapped Tony into gear. Pulling him out of the guilty haze that discovering Yaromir was the Weasel. No matter how James put it, Tony was seeing this whole situation with Silver as his fault. Added to the blame he carried for Snipe's death which he hadn't really talked about before. James was pretty sure Hydra were actually at fault, but talking Tony down from something he'd set his mind to was tricky. It was good that he had something to do now, it had him up, moving and working a different form of magic. 

Whilst James was exceptionally good and finding people and a number of other things, Tony was extremely good at finding completely legal reasons to be in places he had no business, to get everything clear with someone that no one would interrupt them. Leaving them able to focus on finding the guy, not dodging the authorities. 

He didn't know how Tony did it, but those phone calls usually ended with Tony agreeing to do what he wanted 'as a favour' to whoever he had called. 

He wasn't even sure how it happened exactly, even if he'd been present for the entire phone call. How he always seemed to have a person to call, for just, extremely weird, specific and random things. It likely helped that Tony had a file on a lot of people, and his files were great to work with. 

Anyone Tony met who could potentially do something for him at some point in the future, he amassed a file on them. 

It was a mixture of everything that FRIDAY could find on them, which considering how many systems around the world she had access to, was quite terrifying in itself. Then Tony would meet them. Which meant that he would read them. Tony would parse through their desires, from the mundane to the outlandish. Highlighting potential pressure points, where they'd bend, where they would break. What they wanted most, how to give it to them. Or, how to ensure they never reached their goals. 

James really liked Tony's files. 

Brazil was warm. And uncomfortable. James had been following Yaromir for about half an hour now and the man was extremely boring. He was working with FRIDAY, Tony and Tash to drive him into an area they could get him into Tash's van. Then, he could go somewhere with air conditioning. That was the part of the plan he was looking forward to the most. 

However, he seemed to be sticking to areas with multiple exits and after he'd seen them once, finding him again would be trickier. He might actually put some effort into staying hidden from FRIDAYs cameras. 

"I bet if he sees me he'd run in the opposite direction." 

Tony was obviously getting tired of following the man around too he mused to himself. Considering he was feeling the same, he wasn't about to call the man out on it. Despite being seriously sleep deprived by this point, Tony looked as fresh as he always did. He could pick up the subtle cues of exhaustion in his voice that others would miss. 

"Alright, he might recognise me too if he spent enough time in Hydra? So let's see if we can what, scare the shit out of him into running at Tash?" 

"I like this plan." 

Tash sighed, dramatically over the com. 

"Boys. I swear, try not to give him a heart attack." 

Yaromir saw Tony first. James was in a perfect position to watch his face pale when he saw Tony buying something at a stall. He started backing towards himself, likely assuming that this was just some kind of terrifying coincidence or something. James stayed up on his position on the wall until he was closer. He might not even need to come down if he headed straight at Tash. 

James ended up dropping down silently into the alley, just before he was about to head this way. Stepping out into the sun, sending Yaromir nicely down the alley that Tash was waiting in. Moving fast enough that he would be likely to make mistakes. 

They knew that she'd get him bundled away with a terrifying degree of efficiency that Tash applied to everything she did. Whether that be boardgames or kidnapping Weasel faced men that fell down the pit of human experimentation. 

They hung around, just in case he spotted her or the van and came back towards them. After a few minutes when they hadn't heard anything, they figured he hadn't spotted her. 

"On board, FRIDAY has set a meet up point." 

He tapped his watch, it wasn't far off, just a few minutes and they were slipping into Tash's van. She was quite covetous of it already, and had turned the eyes on Tony who had been quite together since they had a strong goal. So he somehow suspected the van would be coming home with them. Tony was a bit of a Sap when it came to either of them and gear. 

Tony slumped as soon as Tash pulled out, heading for the hotel and leaned on James' shoulder. He wished that Tony would sleep, but knew that this resting was at least something as he turned his attention to Tash. 

"He give you any trouble?" 

"No, I don't think he's enhanced, at all. I was expecting at least enhanced strength after what you two told me about him." 

"He wants to be enhanced, but no one on the planet has seen it go wrong more times than him. It's still his greatest desire, I can feel it from here, but he's terrified of what can happen. He knows in extreme detail how each change can wreck and ruin a human. How much pain and suffering there is between baseline and powered."

"So he's chicken shit?" 

He snorted and Tony smiled, which perked Tash up quite a bit. 

"I can work with this." 

If it had been virtually any other human, he might even feel some pity for the man, because Tash had that face on. Her determined face. James had no idea how many people Yaromir had killed, but he knew it was a lot, and the deaths were usually horrific. No, he definitely didn't feel any pity for this man. A place didn't get the name like 'The Charnel House' without good reason and the Weasel had spent 5 years being the cause behind that name. 

"Tony. Please, you need to get some sleep." 

Tony shook his head, pacing. True, they could go several days without sleep, but Tony hadn't actually slept since the night of the fracture, which was a week ago now. 

Even on their best days, 7 days without adequate sleep was not good for them. 

"I'm fine."

He gave Tony a look that stated absolutely that he knew that he was pulling some bullshit and that James was not buying it. 

"You can pull that on Tash, I know your not." 

Tony dropped down next to him on the bed, sitting for a whole 20 seconds before restless energy drove him to his feet to start pacing again. He knew that part of it was to keep him awake. To keep moving so he didn't slip. 

Tash was questioning Yaromir, because they were worried that if they put him in the same room as Tony right now, he might accidentally kill him. They didn't really care about Tony intentionally killing the man, he was a vile excuse of a human. If Tony accidentally killed him before they got all the information they needed? Tony would never let himself live it down. 

They knew that this wouldn't last forever, that Tony wouldn't be able to just sit here, and wait. Waiting wasn't something Tony was all that accustomed too. If Tash didn't get something concrete soon, Tony would be talking to the Weasel. 

So, the idea was to sleep, let Tash work her magic. 

They were stalled on the sleeping aspect of the plan. 

"I can't, I close my eyes. I'm there." 

"I know." 

Tony sat again, looking pained. It wasn't something he enjoyed seeing on his face, but it was better than the carefully blank mask. 

"Fuck, you know. He was desperate for me to teach him. I… he wanted to remember me , but I remembered enough to know that what I was doing was wrong, so I fractured and held his memories for him. Every time they wiped him and Snipe, I started again."

He pulled him closer, he hadn't actually considered that. Tony let himself fall onto his chest as James ran his fingers through his hair. 

He had the information, but he hadn't put it together like that before now. He knew they were all wiped. 

He knew that Tony would remember them, but they wouldn't remember anything.

James hadn't fully considered the fact that the two people Tony literally anchored his sanity in, would forget who he was. Repeatedly. 

"Everytime he came back from a mission, I had to start again. At least Snipe didn't get wiped much, but me and Silver? We were the most checked out assets, so they wiped us often." 

"You talk him around every time?" 

"Yeah, I know.. I know I should have left gaps. Change my pattern, but I couldn't. I tried , but I couldn't. I couldn't leave him to wake up alone." 

James knew exactly what that meant, knew what it meant if someone noticed. Tony was ruthlessly rigorous when it came to people not finding patterns in his work. Even now, speaking to Tony, Tash hadn't put together all the cases they'd worked back in the Avengers. 

"Did you tell him?" 

"What? That the handlers used him to make me behave? Of course not. He was smart but he was also an idiot, he'd have kicked off and got himself in trouble. They wiped him, so he didn't realise I'd gone from belligerent to well behaved." 

"So he's like you? Because that's what I'm hearing here." 

Tony snorted, and shifted to actually rest a little, which James was taking as a win, because he was worried he was going to have to resort to actually knocking Tony the fuck out to make him rest.

Which would be very difficult, he wasn't even entirely sure of how altered Tony was, he had thought originally that he had a version of the serum and something like what Wanda had gotten. Now Tony had actually started talking? He had no idea just how many things the Weasel had pumped into him over those 5 years. What had stuck, how it changed him, how it mixed together. 

"He was good, when we were given the chance in training, he would help me gather things to rig small explosives. Very out of the box thinking too." 

"Great, so two of you blow shit up." 

"You like me blowing things up." 

Well, that was true. Mostly. 

"I like you blowing things up, I don't like you accidentally blowing yourself up. Or the lab. Or the bedroom. Or that time with the oven…" 

"I'm not that bad." 

"We'll agree to disagree. Lie down with me? Just for a few minutes?" 

Tony yawned, letting his eyes actually close and James would have yelled halle-fucking-lujah if it wouldn't have disturbed the smaller man resting on his chest. 

"Just a few."

He put the TV on, just for some background noise for Tony. This hotel was good, very good. But the sound proofing wasn't up to the level that they had become accustomed too. So Tony could hear pretty much everything in the rooms around him. That didn't even account for people's proximity and him sensing their desires. They'd booked out the surrounding rooms, but sometimes that wasn't enough. The more keyed up Tony was, the more sensitive his abilities became. 

He'd described it once like a web he cast out. That people's desires would get caught in. Then it would ping along the line to him. Some were easy to ignore, others.. Not so much. Tony hadn't gone into detail, but James was pretty aware of what humans were capable of, that some humans had darker desires than others. 

With the TV on at least, it should hopefully take up enough of his other senses to lull him into a more restful state of mind. Maybe he could get him to partially doze a little at least. James kept his hand resting on Tony's temple, to remind him that the blindfold was gone so he could keep his eyes closed without panicking. Tony was at his most lethal in the dark, but he also hated being reminded of those years he'd been kept blindfolded. It didn't help that most days, Tony didn't understand why he was scared of the dark. 

He had his tablet to talk to Tash when she needed him. Unlike at home, if Tony actually slept, he wouldn't be able to back out of the room. Without a person sitting watch, he'd be instantly awake. 

He hoped that Tash would have good news, but concentrated on his part of the job. 

Tash would hopefully break Yaromir, he would hold Tony together. 

Chapter Text

Tony POV - Flashback-

His mouth still tasted of iron, his chair always left him with a nasty taste in his mouth. It wasn't so bad if he was wiped in the morning, but it had been after lunch this time, so he was stuck with it until the morning now. He was considering a short stint to the showers for the water, but he was never at his best after seeing his chair. All his muscles hurt. It slowed his reaction times. 

The sword is soft

His head felt fuzzy, the new fractures setting into places as he explored what he knew. The heavy feeling of the blindfold against his eyes always few new again after seeing his chair. Not that he remembered what things looked like, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep visual data. 

In the fire of the furnace

Silver wasn't in the cell they shared, which meant he was probably checked out on a mission when he was gone. Snipe tried to turn up before they were returned, but he missed them occasionally. So he could still be here or checked out. He hoped he was here, Gold disliked being alone. 

It hungers to be hit

He waited until he could stand up without wavering before setting off. Dragging his fingers along the wall as he followed the maps in his mind. Listening to people moving around, logging scents with the profiles in his head. Updating, always updating. 

And wants to have a hundred sisters

He passed the room with his chair twice, not picking anything up before turning. He pulled himself up into the crawl spaces, so the guards could not track his movements. 

In the coldest state of their existence

When he returned to their cell he paused, hearing someone inside, hiking himself up to come in from above. 

They may dance the maddest

He picked up that it was Snipe before he dropped in next to the man, scaring him and having him fall back onto the bed. Chuckling slightly, the man never looked up. 

In the morass of the red rain

"Shit, fuck. How?! Where the fuck did you just come from man?" 

"I told you and Silver. You must start to look up. Where is he?" 

"Mission. 2 days after you were checked out he was picked up." 

"How many days is that?" 

Snipe smells hungry, but not starving, so it can't have been too long. He drops down next to him on the bed, tucking his legs up beneath him. 

"Only 2, they wipe you?" 

"Yes."

"You should pretend to forget, maybe they'd wipe you less. I know they use us against you, if they thought you forgot…" 

"They would not believe it. Do not tell Silver." 

"Alright, yeesh. He sees more than most people you know. You taught him that. He probably knows between wipes." 

Gold shrugged, there wasn't much he could do. It was common knowledge now that he'd gone from the most belligerent experiment to one of the most well behaved.at least for some handlers. Most people just assumed that his chair was finally working properly on him. 

A few handlers knew the truth. 

Which was a few too many, but what could he do? It's one thing to disobey and end up hurting. It's another thing to disobey and have another hurt. 

In a way, it was good that Silver forgot. Otherwise he might see. Silver would risk himself, which Gold could not allow. Obeying kept Silver safe, parameters set by the handlers. They want him to obey, he keeps his Silver and Snipe. Gold understands this. 

"Someone's coming, 2 guards, dragging someone." 

"Silver?" 

"Not sure, too far out. How many experiments are checked out." 

"Uh… 6? I think."

"We need to work on your memory." 

"Sure, I'll add it to the list oh mighty teacher." 

He scoffed and shoved the man, chuckling slightly. He did tend to work the pair hard, but they survived. That was important. 

"You remember anything new when I was gone Snipe?"

"Yeah, my sister? Her name, Tally." 

"Good, I will remember." 

"Does it hurt? I mean. What you do, to remember? I saw you once you know, I mean, saw you.. in the chair. Saw them wipe you. Again and again. Are me and Silver hurting ya with our memories?" 

"No, I'm fine Snipe." 

Well, he was mostly. Wasn't he? He fractured, but he was fracturing anyway. Remembering was something he could do for the two people who kept him together. 

Beloved brother enemy

Without them he was sure the fractures would come apart. He did it too often, they put him in his chair too often. He wondered if one day, that the pieces would split apart. What would he be then? What would he be then?

I sing my sword song for you

The guards drop Silver on the floor, Gold holds Snipe back. He waits until the guards back out and get twenty steps away before he lets the man go. Between the two of them they pick up the overly tall man. Sometimes if they went to quickly, too eager, the guards would hurt Silver. 

The lullaby of obliteration

He sits with Silvers head in his lap, running his fingers through his hair. Reaffirming that he is here. He is safe. He came back. He always comes back, those are the parameters. 

So I can wake up with a smile

They stay silent as they wait for him to come around, any time he woke up when he and Snipe were talking, he panicked. 

And bliss in my heart

He makes himself busy checking for any new injuries or scars and finds none. Silver is rarely sent out alone anymore, his skills at deduction and reading people are far too valuable to risk him being seriously injured on a mission. Even if it means he gets checked out more. 

"What.. Where am I?"

He sparks his magic not far from Silvers hand, Silvers always sparks back when he does that. Even when he doesn't know him. Even when Silver doesn't know himself. Their magic remembers. 

"You are Silver. I am Gold, this is Snipe. You are in a bad place, but we make do. You have a family. A mother, father and a sister. Your sister has light brown hair, your father was going gray." 

"I'm confused." 

"I know, I know. But we will help." 

"Yeah man, it's good to have you back, I get lonely without my two magic weirdos." 

"My memories, it…" 

"It is okay. Give it time Silver. You make new memories." 

"Golds right, it feels weird, but give it time man." 

"Okay, right, this. This is weird, right? This is weird.." 

"I know, sleep now. The chair, it makes you tired. You are safe, I watch." 

He can feel that Snipe is not best pleased, but he waits for Silver's breathing to even out. No matter how hard he tried, he can't teach Silver to wake up to sounds, so they can talk as he sleeps. 

"Man, you've barely been back a few hours! You need sleep too." 

"He needs it more." 

"Gold, we need you. Don't go killing yourself for us, because we need you." 

"I'm fine Snipe, see. Fine." 

So I can wake up with a smile

He's fine.

And bliss in my heart

He groans as he wakes up this time, the technician on his chair had taken offence at the idea that he was one in a long line of techs who could not wipe him completely, that he would not say the words. They didn't understand. 

His head is in Silvers lap, legs over Snipe. He lets that ground him, anchor him, pulls the pieces together. 

"Gold?" 

"Here, head hurts." 

"Yeah, who did you piss off this time? You know, if you said the words, they might not keep wiping you. Just, something man, they burn you up in that chair. Give them something." 

"I fractured in the wrong place during a wipe, when I reach for the words, I get the songs." 

"But you know us, it didn't take that?" 

Silver always sounds worried when he asks that, even if he'd only been back a few days. As if he would ever let his chair take his Silver and Snipe. 

"I know you. Do either of you have anything new for me to remember?" 

Both of them freeze, he feels them go rigid around him. Hears Silver holding his breath, and Gold isn't sure why.

"What?"

"You can't keep doing this for us, it's obvious it's hurting you. Teach me, I'll take half the information." 

He's shaking his head pretty much from the second Silver started talking. Which is bad, because he is still dizzy from his chair. The room lurches and if he'd had any food in his stomach he bets he'd be hurling right now. Silver holds his head in place and the room slowly stops moving. 

"No, Silver. What I do, it's wrong." 

"I want to remember, I want to remember you. I want to remember Snipe! Fuck Gold, I don't even know how many times I've come back.. Teach me." 

"I can't. I can't teach you to fracture your mind Silver. I can't teach you to shatter." 

"So you expect us to just watch you break yourself on the chair? Over and over?" 

"Gold, I mean, come on man, they wiped you 3 times today. Let us help." 

"This is helping. If I taught you, there would be three of us being repeatedly wiped. This way? There is one. This is better." 

"This isn't better Gold. This isn't better for you , how long can you keep this up?" 

"This is better." 

He let's sleep pull him under to flashes of memories, flashes of red hair, to music and comfort. To protection. To his own voice, telling him to hide, to plan, to one day escape. He thinks he hears people talking, but he doesn't know if it's the dream. 

"What else can we do? Sil, I'm worried about him. I get wiped less so maybe I see it more, the way he talks man. Even though he remembers. It's like the chair is taking more from him than it does from us." 

He isn't sure about that voice that sounds like his own. That previous iteration. 

"I know, he always puts himself on the line for us. What little I remember, he's always there for me, isn't he? I just wish I could remember him after the wipe, I wish there was something I could do to help. He comes back to me first now, you know." 

He doesn't think he had a Silver and Snipe. 

"I know, it's good that you remember him. He'll never say it, but us not remembering him? Especially you, the Silver to his Gold, you not remembering, it kills something in him every time. Kills me to watch." 

He doesn't think he had a reason to stay. 

"We're his anchors. We help him keep the fractures together. We're all he has, and when he looks to us after we've been wiped, we don't recognise him. He can't see it, but you know Gold. He sees more than even you, without his eyes." 

He didn't have a reason to obey. 

"He never gives up on us, I don't know how he does it. We won't give up on him though Sil. I'd be dead if it weren't for you two. Gold could get by without us, probably do better really. He always comes to us." 

He's sure he feels fingers in his hair, he wants to respond, but slowly it slips away. 

"I know." 

What am I supposed to do

If I want to talk about peace and understanding

He wakes when someone walks near the cell, he had only been dozing. Full sleep being impossible right now. Both his anchors have been checked out, the small cell seems huge without them. 

But you only understand the language of the sword

He feigns sleep until the man enters their cell, hand around his blade. Feeling the air currents and tracking in his mind where Sanguire is walking. He's slow, attempting to be silent, but Gold hears his steps, his breaths, the brush of his clothing. Each noise let's him track him. 

What if I want to make you understand that the path you chose leads to downfall

He pulls his leg up as he feels Sanguire's body heat, where he went to grab his leg, and spins, lunging for the shocked man. Sanguire was also armed, they grapple quietly for a few seconds. Not wanting to attract others. He hasn't slept properly in 6 days and the others think this makes him vulnerable. They are wrong. 

But you only understand the language of the sword

After, he drags the man by his leg. Gold hurls Sanguire back into his cell to heal, making a racket so everyone knows what just happened. Knows he failed, knows Gold will be waiting should they try the same. 

What if I want to tell you to leave me and my beloved ones in peace

He spent the rest of the night in the half space, boosted slightly for the sip he took from Sanguire after he had rendered him unconscious. It has been awhile since someone got the confidence to attack him so brazenly. The next pit day he would have to fight more experiments. Otherwise they might attack his Silver and Snipe. 

But you only understand the language of the sword

Silver comes back first. So it is just him this time. No Snipe to warm his legs, but he has done this alone many times too. He never tells Silver how many times anymore, a few wipes ago he reacted badly to the number. 

"What.. Where am I?"

He sparks his magic again, at Silvers hand, Silvers sparks back, reaching. He lets the gold magic curl around Silvers wrist, feels the cool energy of Silvers magic. Feels him reading him. Reading his intentions. 

He makes his intentions blindingly clear. Happy he has learned to make his magic such a part of him that after a wipe he is using it to his benefit. He wishes he knew what his magic looked like in Silver's eyes. Wants to know what it looks like around his hands. 

"You are Silver. I am Gold, we have another friend, Snipe who will be back soon. You are in a bad place, but we make do. You have a family. A mother, father and a younger sister. Your sister has light brown hair, your father was going gray and could be a bit of a dick, your words." 

"I'm confused." 

"I know, I know. But I will help. I help." 

"My memories, it…" 

He runs his fingers through Silver's long, floppy hair. Not sure if he is calming Silver or if it's to make him feel better. Maybe both. Maybe it's fine that it does both. 

"Sleep Silver, I watch. Sleep and safe, I guard." 

"Okay." 

"Whatsit?!" 

"I said wake up, we need to head to the canteen." 

"Yeah, right so where am I again?" 

"The Charnel House." 

"Well that doesn't sound supremely fucked up. Why are you wearing a blindfold?" 

He pulls the man up, poking him lightly in the back. Knowing that if he doesn't get Silver walking they would miss breakfast. He always has a few hundred questions, sometimes he can predict them, but he waits for Silver to say them. 

"I don't know, come on, stay close. Tell if anyone shows interest in you. Yes?" 

"Right, so, you going to explain how you're walking around like you can see?" 

"They take one sense. Not all of them." 

"I don't remember food, but I think this food sucks."

"You need more?" 

"Well yeah, this is like 2 spoons of goop and half a piece of bread." 

"OK, wait, I get more." 

"They'll just give you more?" 

Gold snorted as he pushed his portion at Silver, standing on the table to get a feel of the room. Quickly locating Sanguire, he owes him for the night attack anyway. As soon as the man leaves the line, Gold steps up behind him. Landing a hard, fast crack to the temple. 

He goes down hard like a sack, Gold grabbed the food and headed back to Silver. 

"What the fuck?" 

"That's how it works here." 

"Right. Right. This is so fucked up. Thank you though, I don't… I don't think I would be good at that. You always here for me?" 

"Yes, you here for me too. My anchor." 

"Anchor?" 

"Keep my mind together."

"What.. Where am I?"

"You are Silver. I am Gold, this is Snipe. You are in a bad place, but we make do. You have a family. A mother, father and a younger sister. Your sister has light brown hair, you taught her to ride a bike, your father was going gray and could be a bit of a dick, apparently you liked that about him." 

He wished Silver would remember a name. Any name. So he could give him more . But he was never free of his chair long enough. By the time things started coming back, he was sent out again. 

"I'm confused." 

"I know." 

"I'm sorry Silver. Only been back two days, but there is new blood." 

"This means something? New blood? The new people that I've been seeing around?"

"Yes. Pits, do what I say, you need to have me down, hard and fast. Keeps you safe."

"Wait? What?" 

"They only believe that you can take Gold down at all because of your magic. If the fight goes on for too long? They know that Gold would win. You can be lethal my man, but Gold, he dances. We can't go easy on each other here. They'll hurt you more, do more damage than we ever could to each other in a fight. They always pit you against Gold, no one else is a challenge for him or you. Plus, you two are the only magiced up dudes in this joint. They know he won't hurt you too bad unlike others too, they don't mind him getting banged up." 

"Fast. I will move you. Do not worry about hurting me. Yes?" 

"Why don't they want me getting banged up?" 

"Important." 

"Yeah, Gold made the handlers see you as important somehow, they don't want you going soft but they don't want to risk you." 

"But they'll risk you?" 

Gold just shrugged, he didn't know how to explain it. Silver was important and protected. Gold could do much, stuff Handlers could only dream of, but he never let on how much. The weasel made him hardier than Silver. 

"More experiments on me. Can take more. Move now, breakfast?" 

"Experiments Holy fuck what is this place?" 

"I know man, but Golds right. They know there isn't much he can't take so they use him to keep everyone else on top form" 

"Yeah, okay, I got it. Thanks Gold. Just wish I could remember you, bet you've done a lot for us. You too Snipe, we three look out for each other? Not something I'd have expected in a place like this. Let's go and eat the disgusting excuse for breakfast." 

I let the blade do the talking...

He feels Snipe watching him and Silver heads out of the cell and turns towards the canteen. His hand heavy on his shoulder as he holds him back for a second. 

So my tongue shall become iron

"Just teach him one thing. Teach him to remember you. You deserve that Gold, for him to remember who you are, you need that." 

And my words the mighty roar of war

He shakes his head, because Silver is much like him in a way. Too much. Just like he will fracture himself for his friends. Silver would fracture for them, he knows it. He can't be the cause of that. He can't fracture another person. Not Silver. It's better that it's him, he understands the pain. He understands the cost. 

Revealing my divine anger's arrow shall strike

"No. Silver will never stop at 1."

All action for the good of all

He pays it willingly. 

I see my reflection in your eyes

"Fuck man. This sucks."

But my new age has just begun

"What.. Where am I?"

So I can wake up with a smile

"Wipe him." 

And bliss in my heart

Krigsgaldr - Heilung

Chapter Text

-James POV-

"Dear God, the problem isn't getting him to talk, it's getting him to shut up." 

Tony snorted, picking over a tray of breakfast food that they'd had sent up. Tash had come in for a break and to have something to eat. Yaromir was secure, they'd brought restraints to cover an enhanced person, to find Yaromir was very, very human. 

"I know, he's used to a captive audience."

He could tell that Tony was losing patience, actually James was surprised he'd waited this long. He'd managed to get a little sleep, even with his help he'd felt that it was full of memories, Tony had told him when he woke up how he'd be there for Silver each time he came back. He tried to keep his face passive and blank as he did, but James saw more and even if he didn't, he could feel the pain Tony carried with him. 

James knew that Tony was holding himself together out of sheer stubborn will at this point. 

"I'm going to search his properties today, I'm sure you two can handle the over talking idiot." 

"We'll be fine." 

James didn't comment, he just watched Tony, his eyes had been slowly bleeding to gold since he woke up. 

With the level that Tony had honed his ability, if the desire was strong enough. He could hear over larger distances. It was why the 6 floors beneath the penthouse had been turned into storage, so he had a place to escape from the dark parts of everyone. High up, safe from strangers. 

Yaromir was in a soundproofed room, locked and bolted, but that didn't matter to Tony. He could still hear him as if he was sitting next to him, still hear his desires. Tony's proximity to the man was not helping with his fractures, he could feel parts of him slipping. 

It was 19 minutes after Tash left that he stood. 

"I'm going to see him." 

"I know." 

"I'll be careful, I'll keep my control." 

"I know, come on." 

"You aren't going to say I shouldn't go in there?" 

"Do I think you should? No, that man tortured and fucking experimented on you for half a decade Tony, and then he took away one of the people keeping you sane. You shouldn't ever have to see his stupid Weasel face again."

"But you aren't going to stop me?" 

He could see Tony trying to work out his motivations, he hadn't asked him for parameters, which James knew was huge. But James didn't let that lull him into thinking all of his Tony was here with him right now. 

There was a lot of him, but there was an edge that Tony didn't usually have. Tony was always dangerous, just standing near him told you that much. But like this, James could see the Hydra weapon, see what Hydra had beaten him into. He could see The Operative. He could see the pure Gold that he'd become. Moving beneath the water. 

There was a waiting lethality that Tony only occasionally pulled out when the situation called for it. Like this, right now? He was honed down to that pure level. Dangerous was to light a word to describe Tony right now. Tony wasn't really the correct name either, right now, he was closer to the actual Gold than Tony. The Gold that had come together from the pieces after he'd shattered. That Gold was much, much more dangerous than the Gold who had obeyed. 

James' actions didn't make sense to this version of Tony, didn't make sense to Gold. He didn't understand that James would pick the ostensibly incorrect choice, just to help him . 

Might this end up with Yaromir dead? 

Yes. 

That might even be the best case scenario, but he'd rather be there with Tony than force him to do it in secret, alone. Even when Tony was closer to Gold, he was still his . It wasn't so much a different personality, it was more that parts of his personality had been folded away. Like how he pulled the calm detachment of the Winter Soldier over himself like a cloak when the situation called for it. 

For Tony it was the other way around. Tony was complex, fractures pulled together, layering and slotting together. The Operative was the base, stripped back, nothing but the weapon. Gold… he was more, he was much, much more dangerous than the Operative. Different fractures coming together when he realised there was no reason to obey, after he shattered. Over the years, with safety and family, he built himself up to Tony. With the ability to access these sides in a way that disoriented many people. 

James could usually track them via Tony's speech patterns. Tony was fluid, could talk you into offering up what he wanted before you realised what was happening. Liquid, fluid words that had you floating. The Operative was short, clipped, no unnecessary words, actions were more important. He would simply kill you with little care. Gold… now he was more likely to play with his food, especially after he escaped Hydra. 

Tony would understand that he would make the less logical choice. Both of them knew what it was to be alone and they knew what it meant to not be alone anymore. Gold, well, the more Tony tells him from his time at the Charnel House, Gold was good at putting himself on the line for Silver and Snipe. He just didn't seem to understand how to receive that same care back. 

James tried to push that desire louder, so Gold could hear it. He'd gotten quite good at doing that, making a desire loud enough to ping Tony's radar. 

That Gold then stepped towards him, away from the door that would lead to Yaromir? That was a pretty huge action, maybe there was a bit more of Tony still there. Maybe Gold had decided he was someone important. 

"You would do that for me? Just so I don't have to be alone?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because that's what we do. Because you deserve it. It'll come back to you and I am patient. Come on let's visit the Weasel."

Tony looked slightly bewildered, but it has also pulled his eyes back slightly, he just had to hope that this wasn't a huge mistake. When he held his hand out, Tony took it and stepped into his space. Just breathing for a minute before walking towards the Weasel. 

"Ah, 186A, I was wondering when you'd show up." 

"Weasel, I had hoped you were dead but hey, disappointments just a part of life. I'm sure we can agree on that.." 

"Ah, I don't die so easily." 

"But you are. Dying. I can smell it on you." 

James stayed back, leaning against the wall as Tony walked slowly around Yaromir. He wasn't humming, but he could tell from the path, how he was walking, that a song was moving in his mind. Unable to keep it completely inside. 

Yaromir, was trying to turn to track Tony's progress, but Tash had tied him down to the point that he could barely move. Only his head could really move and even that was barred slightly with it being a high back chair. Tony moved in his blind spots, putting him on edge. 

Tony leaned in, watching Yaromir attempt to flinch back from his hand as it started to spark gold. 

Running his fingers across his neck, Tony had a contemplative look on his face. Yaromir didn't react beyond a general unease, so he wasn't feeding. Reading him James presumed. 

"Terminal." 

"What?" 

"Your cancer. Its Terminal, spread too. I can smell it on you, smell the drugs you're taking, taste the leftover tang from the radiation. Is that why you wanted to come up with the perfect formula? Trying to save yourself? Running out of time are we?" 

The things that Tony could pick up via scent alone was more than a little disconcerting he had to admit, it was one of those things he loved. But then he was just as likely to play as Tony and Natka and more information always made games more fun. 

"I came up with several formulas people would kill for. I could make people stronger than you." 

"Oh I doubt that deary." 

James blinked, yeah, they were definitely closer to Gold than Tony today. Yaromir was probably in for a surprise, he left before this version of Gold was formed. He remembered a Gold they kneeled and obeyed. 

"You're a broken mess 186A, I watched you shatter your mind on that chair. Was it worth it? To remember scraps of information? Your attachments made you weak." 

"You know nothing." 

"Oh, I know a lot. I know how you kept that Silver and Snipe. How you shattered your psyche for them. How you became an obedient dog to any handler that threatened your precious Silver." 

Yaromir was a fucking idiot. 

James rubbed his hand over his face as he felt his own magic bubbling up as Tony slipped from anger to rage, his hand tightening around Yaromir's throat. 

" There is a lot you can learn from someones desire. On the surface, you just want to survive, be better. The next stage of human evolution. If I go deeper, it becomes more complex you see. The whys and why nots."

"What are even you talking about?" 

"You are so scared of your little serums, scared of the pain, you have seen all types of agony inflicted, bet the idea of experiencing that keeps you up at night. I'll tell you something else about my ability that you never knew Weasel. I can take a memory you see, and inflict it on someone. Thanks to you, I have quite a lot to choose from don't I? Was there anything in your little arsenal you hadn't tested on me at least once?" 

Tony leaned forward, so he was right in Yaromir's face. James was impressed, he thought Tony might have killed him by now. Yaromir was obviously trying to provoke that reaction, but bringing up Silver was a mistake. 

"And do you know what the beauty of it is? Whilst I light your nerves on fire, dip your mind in the acid of tortures past. It won't actually harm you. Even in your weakened condition." 

Tony laughed and moved to stand behind him, placing one of his hands on either side of his neck. Even without Tony's abilities, he can see that Yaromir was scared. The idiot miscalculated, by trying to drive Tony into a rage to kill him, he'd simply stripped him back closer to Gold. Gold is much less likely to fall prey to rage than Tony, more likely to play. 

"It means, I can do this as long as I want, I can make you feel exactly what your little serums feel like. Over and over and over. And you won't die deary. You won't change, you'll just… stay human ." 

Before Yaromir can say anything, and there might be something wrong with James because that was painfully hot. Tony's eyes flooded with gold, tendrils looping around his hands, questing before plunging into the man's neck like spikes. 

He'd never seen Tony use his ability like this before, he'd seen Tony pull sensation memories and push them into people, but this seemed different and multiple gold tendrils pulled back before plunging into that man.

"Tell me where Silver is." 

"I don't know!" 

"Wrong answer. You see, torture never really works well. You'll want to tell me anything just to make me stop soon. I have a little advantage there Weasel. You see, I know you are lying. And I will keep doing this until you tell me the truth."

James is suddenly very happy for the expensive hotel and fancy soundproofing. Because Yaromir doesn't scream so much and the sound in wrenched from him as he tries to move. 

The only thing that James can think of however is that unless it's the absofuckinglutely amazing feeling from when Tony feeds, he can make the sensation anything from memory, which means he felt this pain. He felt the pain that has Yaromir screaming like his soul is being ripped apart. 

After around 15 minutes Tony tapers off, the screaming dies down and Yaromir twitches slightly in his bindings. 

"Where is Silver?" 

"Why do you care? He never fucking remembered you. How many times did you chase after him? To bring him back, only for us to break him in the chair?" 

"Wrong. Answer." 

Somehow, it was worse the second time. He still didn't pity the man, everything he was feeling was something Tony had gone through at his hands. If anything, the screaming made James want to kill Yaromir more. 

"This was what MalC felt like, like your blood is boiling in your veins, your head goes slow, every thought like a train slamming into you, and then this, yeah, that's your senses becoming more sensitive. How sounds feel like they're tearing through you. You skin feels like it's humming. Then, don't forget this, that's what it feels like when an over important mad scientist sticks a needle into your bone marrow. Oh, and I can't forget the shunts now, can I?"

He texts Tash that Tony is talking to Yaromir, sending her a short video clip of what's going on. Getting a series of emoticons back. He had no idea what they mean, he's pretty sure Tash sometimes spoke in emoticons because it was one language that he did not understand. 

That and memes. Peter tried to teach him, but he couldn't keep up. By the time he had a clue what was going on, everything had changed. The kid seemed happy when he tried though. 

If they find Silver, he wonders what Peter would think of them. 

They look the same age. But that could actually being meaningless because Tony looked Peter's age and he was over 50. He didn't look much older than Peter did and he was over a hundred. He didn't know how old Dax and Siles were, they just smirked when asked. 

Another scream jarred him from his wandering thoughts as Tony removed his hands suddenly, circling around Yaromir again. He was still twitching, still in pain. There was gold spikes of energy crackling along his skin, that was new. 

"I left a little something in you, it will cycle, building up and up and then, if you answer the questions correctly, tell the truth, I'll change it…  to this. You know all about obeying don't you, these are your parameters. Push me, we'll, you should know what happens by now."

Tony turned his hand, and Yaromir went rigid. He didn't leave him like that for long however, flicking his fingers again and changing it back. 

"For now, let's have another of your treatments, hm? I know! What about the arrangement you made with the headmaster when you realised I wasn't dying." 

"No, wait.. ." 

"Oh, is it begging? Did that do me any good? Why do you think it will do you any? I'm just replaying memories remember. Where is Silver?" 

"You're just a fucked up, failed experiment!"

"Oh deary, believe me, I know, but I made more of myself than you ever did. You just mass slaughtered people." 

"What I did was for science!" 

"What you did was barbaric. And that's coming from me. Where. Is. Silver?"

"I don't fucking know!" 

"Lies." 

James was moderately worried that the guy was going to hyperventilate himself to death. Because whatever the arrangement was between Yaromir and the Headmaster looked extremely painful, he could feel how bad it was, set his teeth on edge. He still didn't shut up, grating out and gasping. He definitely understood what Tash meant be doesn't shut up. 

"It was so easy to take him, how long did it take you to break without him 186A. How long did they chain you in solitary because you were unstable? How long did it take Snipe to die without you looking out for him." 

James is pretty damned sure Yaromir was trying to get Tony to kill him, the idiot was going about it all wrong too. 

Tony grabbed hold of Yaromir's face, crushing. Each word short, clipped, like he has to force it out. 

"What. Did. You. Do. With. Silver?"

"I sold him! Viperidae. 8 months ago. Stop!"

Tony pulled back, but there was still gold energy playing across Yaromir's  skin, he could feel Tony switching it from pleasure to pain, back and forth, barely giving Yaromir a chance to really feel one or the other. James ability was picking up on the shifts.

"I told them they should have killed you. That you did something on the chair. Shattered your mind, unstable, unstrung, worth nothing! You just wouldn't fucking die! Like a cockroach." 

"Tony, let's just leave him be, chase up this lead. Yeah?" 

Tony wavered slightly before looking at him in confusion, as if he didn't recognise who he was. Ah shit. 

James remembered how Tony had dealt with Silver after the chair, holding his hand out. Black tendrils coiling around his fingers. Tony came closer, very slowly, but not close enough to be in his reach should James attack. But closer, enough to stretch his hand out. 

Tony's magic lept at the chance to join with his own. Leaving Tony blinking in confusion. 

"Tony?" 

"Who?" 

Yaromir started laughing, but with a tilt of Tony's head, the golden arcs on his skin increased in intensity and he was too busy to be laughing. 

"Come on. Let's go into the room without the screaming idiot." 

"Okay." 

It buoyed him that Tony was trusting him, he took Tony's hand and pulled him against him the second they entered the other room. Moving them to sitting down, his hand going straight to Tony's head. 

"What are you doing?"

"I'm helping you, like you do for Silver?" 

"You know Silver?" 

"Not personally, but you told me a lot about him. We're trying to find him. Do you trust me?" 

Tony seemed confused, but he answered. Probably not sure why he trusted him. That was fine, James was patient. 

"I do."

He felt like cheering as he finally sent soothing waves, after a few short minutes Tony was practically curled up in his lap dozing slightly. He could see his tablet on the bedside table and that FRIDAY was taking the new information and running with it. He knew Tash, Dax and Siles would to. 

He needed to work out something to tell Pepper and Rhodey, they weren't going to accept last minute meetings in different countries forever. They were going to be so pissed. 

Right now, none of that mattered. All that mattered was helping Tony piece himself together, again. 

When this was over, he'd be returning this pain tenfold onto Yaromir. 

Chapter Text

Tony POV - Flashback-

"Silver, come on, must attack." 

"But Gold, this is…" 

He didn't let him finish that sentence, knowing that more than a few Handlers were watching. Could feel them. We're always watching when they put them up against each other. 

Luckily he knew all of Silvers moves by now and was good at maneuvering the man to where he needed to be. Making it look like he was fighting, even when he wasn't. If they didn't end this fight soon he was going to have to hurt Silver to get him out of the pit and he didn't want to do that. He hated it when he had to do that. 

Instead with a series of fast, complicated moves that Silver predicted and that he reacted on instinct to now, Gold started to move Silver into position. Gold had honed that ability of his to the point Silver barely had to think about it these days. He'd also been fighting Silver long enough that he could trick that ability, there were few people Gold couldn't beat after he'd learned their patterns, but the handlers didn't know that. 

He made his intentions clear, knowing that Silver would turn the blade to keep it from seriously damaging him. Layering his intentions, so when Silver turned the blade away, Gold moved. 

Silver yelled and jumped back as he felt it sink in, the knife caught on the heavy, thick blindfold. Not sharp enough to cut through the heavy material causing the blade to jump. He felt the burning line and the blood soaking into the blindfold. Head wounds always looked a lot nastier than they were. Which was what he wanted. 

He could feel the blood covering half his face, he'd made sure that he had been moving a lot before Silvers knife sliced deep. So his heart rate was elevated, added to the head wound. He knew that it looked a lot worse than it actually was. He'd had much worse, it didn't bother him, he felt bad that Silver felt bad, but he'd rather spill his own blood than Silvers any day. 

He was sure he painted a macabre picture, so he was unsurprised when he was yanked out of the ring and giving a dressing down for being slow enough, or stupid enough, or whatever insult, he wasn't actually paying attention. Handlers were not always good at handling blood, wouldn't realise the injury was superficial. Silver was being praised for getting a decent hit in on him. Reaffirming that Silver was good, special and not to be risked. That he could beat Gold, meant that the handlers were impressed. 

He didn't make any move to stop the bleeding whilst he was yelled at. It would take a lot for him to bleed out, a long time before he was even dizzy and this wound really was mostly superficial to him. It was quite deep, it might take a little while to heal due to their poor diet. It would likely scar. 

It would heal faster if he wasn't so hungry, but this way was better. It made the handlers believe that Silver could beat him, so that the handlers would not look to closely at Silver. Only at him. 

Also, it had the added bonus of unnerving some of the new guards as he stood there bleeding, blindfolded and unconcerned.

"What the hell was that Gold?" 

"Going easy on me. Bad. Risky." 

"I know, because you need a break, you have been on constant missions lately, me and Snipe can't even keep track of how many times they've had you in the chair lately. You should have taken me down. I was trying to drag it out so you'd take me down! Not end up with you bloody." 

"It is fine." 

"No Gold, it isn't fine. Snipe, he tracks you speech patterns, you've been more stilted lately. You need a break. You need a rest and the fucking Handlers aren't about to give you one." 

He shrugged, because he was unsure what he wanted him to say. He protected Silver. That was what he did, it was his function. 

"Showers. Meet you, in the cell?"

"I'm coming with you." 

"Dangerous." 

"I know Gold, that's why I'm coming with you. You lost a lot of blood, I know that was your plan with the head wound, as my knife scraped your fucking skull I read your actual intentions. How did you get that past me?" 

"Layered, like this, which direction am I going?" 

"Left." 

Gold pulled himself up into the crawl space the moment Silver said left, having layered the intention under a false ideas. 

"Goddammit Gold, get down! If you pass out up there again and the guards have to drag you down… don't make us have to watch that again." 

He sighed before dropping back down, he didn't mean to upset his Silver and Snipe. Lately he was finding himself in the room the handlers take you from more often. Which meant the chair. Juggling his duties as the operatives, managing the Handlers that used his connection to Silver to control him. The pits, tests, training and looking out for Silver and Snipe. Gold was.. Tired. He was slipping, he needed to be better. He tried his best to smile, have energy and headed for the showers. Pausing outside to listen. 

"Empty." 

"Good, I'll watch your back, you go clean up that mess." 

He frowned, standing in front of the showers was a terrible defensive position. Especially for a single person. He knew that arguing would be useless however. Could read it in the man's desires, so he ducked into the showers intending to be fast. 

The showers were old, and noisy. That was one of the things that made them so dangerous, even with his hearing, it was hard to hear someone approaching when even just one was turned on he suspected. They were also rigged for several to turn on at once. He tilted his head under the stream, feeling the partially dried blood wash away as he checked the wound. 

It had not fully closed yet in places, it had been a bit deeper than he had originally intended, but it served his purpose and that was what mattered. He quickly rinsed his hair too. Unfortunately there was no way to keep the blindfold from getting sodden. He couldn't ring it out either to remove the blood as that meant touching it. Gold couldn't touch the blindfold. 

He waited until his face felt clean, then cupping his hands and drinking the icy cold water. It wasn't a luxury they got to enjoy often. He'd brought the cup he and Silver had swiped from the canteen from long ago too. Filling it for Silver before heading out. 

"Presentable?" 

"Well, you aren't covered in blood anymore." 

"Here, drink fast, I get more." 

He didn't need prompting for that, they were pretty much always thirsty. The handlers didn't include water with meals, to force them to the showers and into confrontations. He returned twice more before Silver called it and dragged him back to the cell. 

"Rest Gold, let that wound actually have a chance to heal before you get yourself involved in something else. Let me have a look at it anyway." 

He lay on his back as silver checked the healing edges. He tried not to touch the blindfold as much as possible, but the wound partially went underneath it. 

"Gold, I know this is hard, but hold still yeah, I'm not going to take it off, I'm just checking to make sure I didn't do some serious damage." 

He nodded, because he couldn't talk whenever someone touched the blindfold. Even though he knew it was Silver, knew he wouldn't hurt him. He couldn't help the cold dread coiling in his gut as he took short, fast breaths flinching slightly as he lifted the edge. His heart rate increased and the room span, but Silvers magic helped keep him in place. 

"It's not too bad. I wish they'd let you take this off, maybe replace it with a new one." 

"It's fine." 

"Sleep Gold, I'll watch your back okay? I know your not fine, you don't have to be fine all the time for us. You're still our Gold, we know how much you do to protect us. You can need help too you know." 

He rolled onto his side, facing the door where Silver lay on the outer edge of the bed. Facing Silver. In-between him and the door, protecting him. Maybe they'd close the cells tonight and they wouldn't have to worry about night tests. Although closed cell doors meant other tests. Always tests. Maybe… maybe he could let Silver look after him. As he let himself slip past the usual state he slept in and let it drag him down deep, with fingers running through his hair he let himself fall. 

He was feigning sleep when he was dragged from his bed, the guards shoved him until he was up and walking. Silver had insisted he had multiple days of 'real sleep' but that didn't mean the proximity of guards wouldn't cause him to surface. They both reached out, like they always did when one was taken and their magic crackled against their hands, mixing and weaving together before he was pulled into the hall.

Taking some Silver with him, leaving some Gold behind. 

Dragged to the other set of showers, the ones where you were not at risk of getting stabbed. The water was still freezing and the guards were always rough but at least it didn't usually take too long to be cleaned down and then shoved in a room with his gear. 

He ran his hands over his gear as he quickly dried his hair as best he could, checking nothing had been altered before dressing in the black tactical gear. Most of his gear was stuff that he had made himself, because they realised early on that when he was allowed to construct his own gear, The Operative was much more effective. 

He knows where everything goes without seeing it, and soon the 2 tables of various items vanish onto his person. 

The door on the opposite side that he entered opened and he walked out, picking up the scent of a familiar handler. He had a strange scent, lemons and something he couldn't name, he was the only person Gold couldn't read his mental state or emotions based on scent, which unnerved him. He was also kind, which also unnerved him more, even if the handler did treat him like a dog or a pet most of the time. Petting his head. He tolerated it. Because this handler was one of the 5 that knew about Silver. So he obeyed when if it had been a different handler, he wouldn't have. He would have snapped at him when his hand touched his hair. He would insult him, do the job differently, any number of things that Gold usually got away with because he was The Operative and he was the best. 

But not with this man. 

So when he pushed him down to his knees to remove the blindfold, he tolerated it. He didn't talk when he had to obey, it was safer, because sometimes he would intend to agree and behave and completely different words would come out of his mouth. This handler was the only one who didn't get his hair knotted in the blindfold, so it didn't hurt. Which was abnormal behaviour. 

"Easy job for you this time Gold, long though. Let's get this nasty thing off you yeah? Bet you've been dying to get it off since you had Silver cut your face up. Don't think I didn't notice that. You're lucky, I distracted Ross so he didn't see. Made sure no one else worked out our little secret yeah?"

He nodded as he untied the blindfold, he couldn't stop his heart rate increasing. No matter how hard he tried to encode it, he never seemed to record what things looked like. 

The room was dimmed, because his eyes were always sensitive to the light after it was removed. Ketch knew this and dimmed the lights for him. Yet another thing that left him off balance. He couldn't stop himself looking around, logging everything because as much as he was used to life in darkness. He yearned for this. He tried to keep the movements small, but this handler already knew. He was… strange this handler, he didn't wear the gold the others did, avoided hurting him where he could. He was… kind.

He didn't know how long Ketch had been checking him out, but he always seemed to know too much about him. It left him… unbalanced. In a way he wasn't with any of the others. He didn't know how to react. 

"You get a good look around whilst I try and do something with your hair. Do the other idiots checking you out just not bother? They just catch your hair in the blindfold! Ugh. You hungry? Those gel packs look like they taste awful, some real food would be a nice change, hmm? Especially after all that blood loss." 

He should say no, he always says no. Everytime he says no even though he can smell the food. No is safe. This time… he was about to shake his head, like he always did. Instead he slowly nods, a bare movement that would be easy to miss if Ketch wasn't watching his every move, because he is starving, blood loss and healing over the last two days had him drained.

It always made him hungry when he healed and they picked him up before the canteen opened. He knows that his handler likely planned it that way, but… but… Gold is tired. The fractures are pulling at his mind, his stomach twists and it would be easy to lean into the gentle contact and it would be easy to eat the food. He usually says no… but… he is tired. He picks up on the shock before it's replaced with something else. 

So he closed his eyes,

"Well that's new, here, you eat this. I'll try to make this as pain free as possible. That's really good Gold, nice to see you trusting me." 

Sang in a voice so clear 

He half suspected it to be a trick, but no, it's actual hot food with meat. It doesn't smell like poison and he doesn't taste drugs in it either. He's pretty sure he's never had food this good before, at least not that he remembers. Maybe in the before times, but he can't remember that. 

That his imaginary world

Gold knows he should say no, just make this part go faster and get to the mission, but he doesn't. He gives in, convincing himself they're small increments. Nothing major. 

Began to appear.

The first three days of the mission include watching the target and bringing the information back to the hotel room. Easy, boring even. Each night there is food over gel packs. He stands through the day, waiting to be sent out the next night. He manages that for the following six days before he starts to feel the edge of exhaustion. 

He sang so clear this world alive,

There is a feeling, that his missions don't usually take this long. He is sure that usually he'd have been taken back now, so he can sleep. But the mission shows no sign of ending soon and he needs to sleep soon or his performance will suffer. Which he cannot allow. His performance is connected to Silver and Snipes well being. He leans against the wall to attempt to go into the doze, like trance state, that should help. 

And the boy stepped in

"Gold, you can lie down to rest, this mission is going to be quite long remember. I know you like standing in the corner like a terrifying statue, but I actually care about you and don't want you to keel over on me." 

Where he finally could survive.

Part of his mind yells no. To stay standing, but he's… exhausted and he's tired. So when he is lead to the bed he follows. Even though a handler letting an experiment sleep on the bed is unheard of and suspect. They aren't meant to treat them like people, they're meant to treat them like experiments. The parameters Ketch sets up are confusing, because things like this, they usually require more. Yet Ketch... He only proceeds with the mission as normal. As if he isn't offering things that experiments aren't meant to even dream of. 

He knows it's coming before he asks, because he always asks. Although he has given in more on this mission than any of the previous ones with Ketch. 

"You don't have to go back there you know. I have enough sway that you could stay on my personal staff. You'll be treated much better, you could even burn that blindfold." 

He shakes his head, even though for the first time he was... tempted, this mission, had been a rest. He thinks Ketch sees the hesitation. 

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?" 

He looks up at that, blinking, because why wouldn't Silver be there? Silver is always there. That is the parameter. He doesn't get yelled at for looking up but Ketch does look.. sad?

Run, run, run from the drag and from the treason

He shakes his head, because Silver is there. Silver is always there. 

far enough till I reach a warmer season.

Back in the room where he's waiting for the blindfold to go back on, he can't help that he leans away. Even as he tried to force himself not to. Not understanding his involuntary movements. He's been able to see for so many days and the chair will take it all. This is how things are, so why does he move when that can't be changed? 

Run, run, run, in the long run I’ll recover.

"I know, I know. I don't want to do this either. I hate this thing. At least I can put it on a bit looser, yeah? Make sure it doesn't take your hair with it. Wish I could do more for you. Think about my offer, we both know the chair won't wipe you completely. Finish the food quickly before the headmaster finds out I've been sneaking you real food. Give you something good to remember."

Pull myself out of this, demand no other.

He startled at that, he didn't think a handler would break rules for him, he assumed that the food was allowed. Ketch just chuckles at his reaction as he puts the blindfold in place. Gold is… confused as he goes to the chair. The confusion stays with him through the pain pain pain. He's only wiped once, Ketch never lets them wipe him repeatedly. Even when he reaches for the words they expect and a song answers. He never chooses the song, it's just there. 

"A dark year before dawn,

when no one is at hand.

Before the time is gone,

run for your life again." 

He drops into the cell to find Snipe asleep on the bed alone. He's not in great shape. 

"Hey man, I was worried you weren't coming back this time." 

"We always come back."

"You've been gone for 26 days Gold." 

"How long has Silver been gone?" 

"8 days." 

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?"  

"He'll come back." 

They always come back. 

"Gold, come on, you can't spend this long watching the chair. The guards, they're noticing."

He nods, he knows this… but. But it's been so long, he thinks. He's been wiped for hanging around here too much. For bothering the techs. 

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?"

He lets Snipe draw him away. He's worried. He's not felt Silvers magic in so many days that the fractures feel different. Like they're slipping. Moving. Grating. Like shards of glass not fitting together anymore. He forces it down, he must be together. Must be together for Snipe. Must be fine. 

"Gold… Gold. Come on man, the bells. You've missed lunch twice now, you can't just stand here all the time. Silver wouldn't like it." 

"I… I need to wait… "

"You need to eat too. Come on." 

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?"

He starts getting into fights, but he can't remember why he's in them. In the canteen he realises that he's stood with 6 experiments around him bleeding. He doesn't even have a knife. 

The guards end up taking him down, but he fights them too and he takes 4 of them before he passes out. 

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?"

He's not even sure how long it's been now. Since he felt Silver's magic. It feels like too long. 

The solitary cell is cramped and the chains keep his shoulders at strange angles, he's in pain everywhere because he keeps fighting. He does not remember starting the fights, but he finishes them.

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?"

They end up dragging him out of the pit after he puts down experiment after experiment and refuses to stop. 

"Wipe him." 

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?"

"Wipe him." 

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?"

"Wipe him!" 

He's back in the White Room, but the Weasel has gone. They think he's finally lost it. Snipe came back from the White Room last night and Gold is worried, he doesn't smell right anymore. He's worried they'd given him a serum he won't tolerate. He felt the pieces falling and then he was being dragged to the chair bloody again, where they tried to wipe him so many times he lost count, laughing. 

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?"

The White Room doesn't hold anything new to him. The pieces aren't fitting together very well, the new doctor reeks of fear when he laughs. All he hears is 10 words. 

Over and over. 

Wipe after wipe. 

10 words. 

"I know, but what if Silver wasn't there any more?"

His Imaginary World - Abney Park 

Run - Patty Gurdy

Chapter Text

-James POV-

Tash had been going through all of Yaromir's holdings, and packing everything up for shipping back to America. Tony would want to go through the man's research eventually. Mostly it was to keep all of this out of anyone else's hands. They didn't want someone finding all of his research and deciding to start up yet another experimental asset program. 

It was a fundamental fact James had come to understand, was that there are always going to be people who want a serum. Whether it is to make them healthier, stronger, faster, to give them powers and abilities. Or to have fighters at your disposal that could do more, go further. 

As much as people claim to hate those with the X gene or other powered humans, of any tier, it boils down to pure jealousy in the end. Yeah, there is fear there, that just because a person is powered in someway doesn't mean they'll sign up to be a superhero. The fear is part of it, but a huge part is just jealousy. There are far too many agencies and individuals that could cause serious damage with just this man's notes. 

Handily, Yaromir was a paranoid fucker. 

Which, Tash wasn't best pleased with as it was taking twice as long to go through everything as there were rudimentary security systems that had enough explosives attached that he'd bet Tony would have found hilarious if he'd been in a better state of mind. 

The fact that Yaromir was paranoid meant that he had been mostly working alone since he left the Charnel House, which was good for them. 

He had a decent amount of money and holdings when he left, staff and everything. The problem was, most of that was based in Hydra. 

Yaromir had several months of the good life when he was working on his formulas, before Tony escaped. 

Now? He had a large property that he owned, but the territory it once governed was gone. Tony had been attacking Hydra's finances from the first moment he got himself a computer. 

Yaromir had probably been waiting for Gold to turn up and execute him really. So, losing most of his wealth, land and staff was probably not so bad, especially after things had started to calm down. He'd thought he was safe. He'd probably only kept Silver as long as he had for security purposes against Gold turning up one day. 

Tash had found a number of projects that were in the planning stages, there were a number of proposals for different organisations that they'd be investigating too. Some much larger than Viperidae, and much more aligned to Yaromir's style and goals. If nothing else came from this, at the very least they stopped that. That he'd focused on Viperidae was… strange. 

Viperidae turned out to be a terrorist organisation that Yaromir was trying to insert himself into. 

Apart from the weird name, they just seemed like a bog standard powered hate group. They were large enough that websites had them listed as a hate group though. Tony took one look at them and was back on the phone again. Back to work. James started building a profile on them too, which was when that itch started. 

On the surface it was a single group, they hated powered people and were all for the purity of 'real' humans. The more James started to pay attention, the more he dug, the more uncomfortable he was getting, the more an itch in his mind pushed at him. 

Tony was still on edge, but he was answering to Tony. James wasn't sure if that was because he remembered the name, or simply because James had used it and Tony had decided it was safer to go along with it. James wasn't about to pick at it, it would leave Tony even closer to the edge. 

Tony was, with FRIDAYs help, able to start work whilst he and Tash started putting things together to go on. 

They had a sodding website, with their address on it and everything. It was almost… Too clear. Too open. 

Which, James thought that said something about the world today if a hate group, a terrorist organisation, had a website . There was even an option to donate money to them for fucks sake. 

Tony had everything he needed and maybe next week, their website and all of their digital traces would utterly vanish. Along with the organisation. Tony had little patience for people who had hurt Silver. 

But, there was that itch. Tony felt it too, he could by the way he was frowning whilst searching through their financials. James couldn't put his finger on it, it was almost too amateur hour. They were too accessible. Like they were a different group running a front of being something else, and they'd read the dictionary definition and followed it to the letter. 

The funds they were throwing around and that they were involved in powered human trafficking also didn't fit with the public face they had on. Now, some Purity of Humanity groups were involved in powered human trafficking, but not to this level. Silver was a high priced, top tier powered individual. Groups like that buy low level powered humans at low prices and they don't last long. It was a reason that James targeted them. If they didn't get the powered individuals out within 72 hours then they were dead. You don't pay upwards of six figures to kill someone. 

Yaromir was another aspect. Whilst he'd fallen on hard times, Yaromir had his pick of dodgy organisations. Tash had found research into multiple organisations, all kinds of proposals. Yet this was the organisation he chose? This tiny organisation? Yeah. Something was up. 

Unfortunately, James didn't think Tony was going to want to hold back for long, not when there was a potential location of Silver. They would be prepared for something bigger, James just didn't like not knowing. 

At the same time, he understood Tony's need for action. 

This last week had been hard, stressful. Painful too. 

He was looking forward to getting to take that out on someone. 

Tony was too. Tash had packed for the occasion with a bit of glee. 

If the organisation was all about the Purity of Humanity bull, that only pure humans were good. It had him worried about what they would want a powered human for. Especially a top tier like Silver. 

Silver wasn't the first, nor the last as far as he and FRIDAY has discovered. For an organisation claiming to be only interested in humans, they seemed to be deeper into powered human trafficking that James first assumed. The prices they were paying… James felt safe in saying that they were not just buying to kill for more than just Silver. The organisations that did that usually went after much lower priced powered humans. Hundreds of dollars, thousands at the most. Top tiers with the training the Silver had, that his powers were not born with. That raised the price. Could easily get past 6 figures. 

He had dismantled two kill pits personally since leaving the compound. They required quick action, their enforcers were always straight humans though so they weren't the hardest targets. 

The money being moved out of the Viperidae bank accounts was matching up with some of the trafficking rings he'd been imbedding himself into. The kind that only cared about top tier powered individuals. 

About a week after James and Tash had moved into the tower, Tony brought them in on his new project. After dismantling Hydra, he had been untethered for a while beyond the need to never be contained again. There were still dregs of Hydra here and there, but they were mopping them up with ease. The threat of captivity was something that still hung over Tony. He needed to redirect Gold. Which was how he had ended up in the world of powered human trafficking. It was seedier than Hydra, if you can believe it, but it was also a mess. There wasn't a single organisation, it ranged from huge groups to a guy who chained people up in his basement to sell. It was a seemingly impossible goal that he and Tash had thrown in on immediately. James had a list of targets that dealt in top tiers and quick kills, until Yaromir he had never even heard of Viperidae. 

That itch was growing. 

He'd gotten a feel for what the going rate was for different powered humans these last few months. From top to bottom tier, natural to man made, trained or untrained. He had mostly been focusing on groups paying low amounts, because they were the kill pits. Tony focused on hunting the sellers, trickier as they moved more, but when Tony got on a hunt, he always found his prey. Tash either helped him or Tony on missions but mostly gathered information for both of them, she was masking as a high priced powered-hunter offering different types of powered humans. Between the three of them, the business that had garnered popularity when Hydra had the world in its grip was starting to stutter, starting to realise that it wasn't untouchable. It didn't realise who was hunting it yet, but they knew someone was and that they were not going easy on them. 

He suspected Tony probably had a low tolerance for human trafficking before all this happened, most people do. Now however, now it was a mission. A mission where each time, he said it was for Snipe. Refusing to forget his friend and fighting in his name. Always hoping that he might run into Silver, but the mission itself was for Snipe. Tony hadn't explained why, he assumed that Snipe had been trafficked and remembered as he spent less time in the chair, telling Tony about it. 

He wished that Snipe had survived, that he could meet the two people that helped Tony survive those 5 years. Tony always said he was too good for that place. Too kind, caring. Not like himself. He was still hunting for the man's family based on the scraps of information he had, to maybe tell them about him, to maybe meet the people he spoke about, he wasn't sure. Tony didn't seem to realise that he was too kind and caring himself. 

There is a lot you can do with a magic user of Tony or Silvers calibre in captivity. As he was altered they could use his samples to maybe formulate a serum. His skills alone were very impressive, even for a top tier. He was trained by both the Hydra Operative and the Hydra Reaper, Mr Gold. Magic of their kind also has many avenues for exploitation. 

Although he suspects that if Silver is anything like Tony, and he really does sound a lot like Tony, he wouldn't be making it easy for them. Especially if he was alone. Even more so if they didn't have a chair on hand, which considering Tony hunted every chair he could, every plan, every schematic and burned them. It was highly unlikely that they somehow had salvaged a chair. Silver would have gone years now since he was last wiped. Yaromir hadn't had one in his properties. 

That was a long time for his memories to heal. 

"Coms on. You two alright?" 

James still felt on edge, this group just seemed off. Tony and Tash agreed, but they had decided to move in anyway. After Silver was safe, James would dedicate more time to this organisation. Raiding the location might help too, getting FRIDAY deep into their systems. It wasn't something James was going to be letting go anytime soon. This organisation would be finding its way onto their board at home. 

Tony had taken over the magic for this job, casting obfuscation wards on all of them. James could cast obfuscation wards, but he didn't know how to exclude a person yet and Tony had made it so Silver would see and remember them, to anyone else the memories would be like smoke. Any cameras we're already infiltrated by FRIDAY, along with their systems before they even set foot near the building, she laid in wait silently, digging deeper until she would tear everything apart. Tony also tended to methodically tag any cameras he saw as he moved through a building, a quick shot before he even came close to being caught. The magic alone was different to what he used as Gold, more advanced. 

"Were fine Incy. Bots placed. When were in, all the exits will be blocked in 15 seconds. If you need one opened, you know the frequency." 

Tash snorted at Tony's nickname for her, happy to hear him saying it. Tony seemed more together today, a goal… No a target would be more accurate. Allowing him to pull the pieces together for the mission. 

Tony told him once that that was what Gold was for. 

Hunting monsters. 

Viperidae were just another serpent for Gold to hunt. 

FRIDAY was already in their systems, moving deeper and Tony had set up jammer, so anyone elses tech would either malfunction or just not work. Calls rerouted and all numbers were logged, to find out why they called that person and who they were. Anytime Tony hit a base, he never had a single goal. Even now. Finding Silver was a priority, but Tony wouldn't let the chance to route out other powered human trafficking groups slip by. After rescuing Silver, finding out Viperidae's actual purpose was a priority. 

They started working through, room to room, sure, things would move faster if they all split up. But he was loathe to travel too far from Tony in his current state. Even if a bunch of idiot terrorists were not much for them. Tony hadn't picked up on any powered humans, all the enforcers were baseline. 

He'd worked several missions with Tony now, seen him slip into the lethal detachment of the operative. It wasn't until today that he realised Tony had still been holding back. 

They were leaving any who surrendered cuffed for the authorities, and questioning them as they went. Tony tapped each one who had surrendered once on the temple before losing interest entirely and moving on. It took him 4 people to realise what he'd done and he wanted to know how he did it, and so fast. He'd temporarily flipped their left and right. So their mind tried to move left, and they went right. Raise their right hand, get the left. It left them very disoriented and easy to cuff. 

Some of them came at them with weapons, even when they realised they were vastly out gunned. The array of weapons was strange too, virtually each combat orientated enforcer was armed completely differently, with very different combat styles too. Tony was fast and moved through people like a wraith, James was watching and it didn't even seem like he was touching some of them he moved so fast. Leaving them disabled as he moved on to the next. Until suddenly he changed. 

He was taking this idiot down after tossing his gun, about to cuff him when he froze. Tony went from constant fluid movement to as still as a statue, holding a man by his wrists. 

"Where is he?" 

Ah. 

"Who man? Who the fuck even are you? Why are you hitting us?" 

"You have a man here with Silver magic. Where is he? You have his blood on you. Tell me. Now. I might not kill you if you are quick."

Might. Ha. James knew that this guy was already dead. He died the second Tony picked up on Silver's blood. 

"What, how did you-"

"Tell. Me." 

"You are a freak like him aren't, I should have known. Oh if only you knew what we do to your freak friend in our cells-" 

Tony snapped his neck before he could say much more, after that he was moving through the base at a much faster, lethal rate. Although he did still leave those who surrendered behind, but for James to cuff now, disoriented and staggering as Tony moved on. Which was how he fell behind as more surrendered with only him to cuff them. He asked each one about the cells. 

"If you tell me where your cells are, this will go better for you." 

"Basement." 

The woman, looked so fucking young as she staggered into a sitting position. He cuffed her to a thick, sturdy metal pipe on the wall. He was about to move on, but he had to ask. 

"Why are you here anyway, why are you involved in people who buy and torture people? Why are you involved in human trafficking. Do you have any idea what people like this do to vulnerable humans?" 

"I didn't know." 

"It's a hate organisation, what did you think they'd do with vulnerable powered people they were purchasing?"

"I… I didn't know." 

"Or did you just not care because they aren't perfectly human anymore? You know the man we are looking for didn't choose this. He was altered against his will and spent 5 years having his brain wiped and forced into servitude whilst a mad scientist did whatever he wanted, then spent another few years as a test subject for that man. That's who you bought and chained up in the fucking basement. "

"I didn't know!"

"You ever bother to ask?" 

James just sighed, shaking his head, making sure she was secure before heading to a basement. 'I didn't know.' Ignorance was not a defence in his mind. The people in this base made just as much sense as anything else to do with this organisation. So none. There were some rabid Purity nuts, some neo nazi types, enforcers of completely different calibres and then the rest was fleshed out by these.. Kids. They weren't actual kids, all in their twenties at least, but they just seemed so young. Sheltered even. Some were wearing ragged, old clothes and looked like they were sleeping rough in the same place as people with serious money. Not the new rich either, the ones who were used to money, so they weren't decked in gold but everything on their person was of a very high quality, understated. 

"Incy, I'm heading to a basement, you got eyes on T? I don't like this." 

"Moving now. Me neither, it's very strange." 

He didn't get a response from Tony, but then he was hyper focused at the moment, he figured the best chance of bringing him back was potentially finding Silver. Tony probably wouldn't come near any cells until the entire base has been dealt with. 

"Got him, keep me updated." 

"Will do." 

He found his way to the cells in the basement relatively easy. He was pleased the girl hadn't lied to him. The basement wasn't as awful as he had expected it to be given some of the other organisations they'd taken down. It was relatively clean but he could pick up on the scents of the people in the cells. His sense of smell was nothing compared to Tony's frankly terrifying sense of smell, so he imagined this would be worse for Tony when he came down. 

Three of the cells were occupied. The first, closest to the door had a collared, unconscious woman in old, ratty clothing that was torn and tied together. The second cell, opposite the woman was occupied with a man in similar condition to the woman. Sporting black long hair, so not Silver. He's awake, James can tell that much but made no move to the cell door or to talk to him yet. Tony had teams on hand to help get trafficked powered humans to safety. The third occupied cell is where he hits jackpot. 

Silver was tall, and whip thin, but then he doubts that mad scientists and terrorist organisations are big on adequate diets. His eyes are almost an almost startling shade of blue, he watches him with the same weight and look that Tony does. Eerily similar in fact. Analysing his every move. Like the others, he is collard and his clothes are just a wreck. His brown hair is practically a matted mess of curls. Yet he looks in complete control of himself and very confident in his position. Even though Silver has no idea who James is. James could be worse than the people holding him captive. 

Silver doesn't run to the door, doesn't beg release. Nothing like what he usually experienced when they raided powered trafficking rings. But then James didn't expect he would, not after spending 5 years shadowing Tony. It's eerie that Silver looks more confident and in control locked, collared in a cell than some of the more powerful humans James has met. More so than some Handlers in his memories. Tony definitely trained him well. 

"Are you Silver?" 

No wonder FRIDAY hadn't matched the sketch up he thinks as he moves closer and gets a better look at the man, it was close, but there was just enough off that it would have thrown her searches off. Maybe with a photo they would find out who Silver actually was. Find out if his family was still alive. 

"No one has called me that in a long time. Who the fuck are you?" 

Silver looked unimpressed, leaning back. The picture of ease that was so weird given the setting. James can pick up on behaviours that he knows from Tony though. It's in the way he holds himself, hard to pinpoint what exactly, but it's there. 

"I'm James, we've been looking for you, he's been looking for you for a long time." 

"Who?" 

"Gold. I know they don't have a chair here, I don't know if you remember him?" 

"Tony? Oh yeah, I definitely remember Tony."

James blinked, pausing in his attempts to open the ancient, rusty as fuck lock. He hadn't expected that. 

"You know who he is?" 

"Memories started coming back to me ages ago, here and there, Gold, he always came back to me first. Even when he wasn't there to wake up to. Even when Yar took me. Gold came back to me every night. As I remembered more, I started realising that my Gold looked an awful lot like Tony Stark." 

Well, that made sense really, he bet that must have been a bit of a shock. That the man you survived with for 5 years was a celebrity. He grunted as the pick slipped and he scrapped his hand on the rusty as fuck lock. It was ridiculous, he wondered if this thing was meant to fucking open. Maybe he should have spent some time searching people for the keys. 

"Huh, bet that was a bit of a shock? Tony will probably find it amusing.." 

"Hmm, gonna punch him when you let me out." 

"Why?" 

"Because I got memories of the Charnel House back first, saw what he did for me, what he took for me. Over and over. How he obeyed for me. So, gonna hug him and then I'm gonna punch him." 

He laughed to that. Yeah, he was going to fit in well. Tony probably deserved both too. 

"Now, give me a song." 

"Song?" 

"If you really know Gold, you know his songs. The first." 

"First from the chair or first he sang to you." 

Silver nodded, and he knew that that had been a test in itself. Because the song he first sang for Silver was different to the one he first sang after being wiped. 

"To me." 

"I am flesh and I am bone, Rise up, ting ting, like glitter and gold…" 

Silver hadn't given anything away until that point. His face impassive, uninterested even. When James sang those lines, he was torn between pain and hope. The emotions completely transforming his face. Standing up to slowly walk to the cell door. As far as the chains allowed anyway. Still far, far more reserved than most people would be in his situation. 

"Where is he?" 

"Cleaning house, he uh, he picked up the scent of your blood on one of the men." 

"Ah. Well, that sounds about right. He okay? His mind I mean, without me and Snipe? He's shit at actually looking after himself. Convinced he's fine even when he obviously isn't. Always seems confused when he has a bad reaction to something. He needs someone to remind him that he matters too." 

That he was asking after Tony when he was the one locked in a cell? Yeah, he's starting to understand what Tony meant. 

He chewed his lip as the damned lock slips again. He figured that if there was anyone in the world who he could tell about Tony, it was Silver. He tries to make his intentions blindingly clear too, like he does with his desires for Tony. Silver doesn't seem to work on parameters like Tony, but he doubted that Silver trusted him as far as he could throw him right now. 

"He has good days, he… fractured recently, but I'm helping him hold it down. I figure you'd be up to helping with that? The more of us around, the more we can make sure he remembers to look after himself." 

Silver nodded, head tilted. He was probably listening for what was going on upstairs. He couldn't feel any magic coming from him, which had him worried. He could occasionally sense Tony when he read his desires, but that was because of practice. Silvers magic was connected to Tony, but that didn't mean it felt the same. 

"How'd he get free from the house?" 

"He escaped a few years ago. Months after you were taken they moved him to a different base. The then spent nearly 2 years on the run, systematically destroying Hydra." 

Silver leaned back and practically cackled at that, his eyes sparked Silver just before he heard a crackle of electricity from the collar at the man's throat. 

"Shit, fuck. I fucking hate this thing. Spent years with Gold making my magic part of me, second nature, now this piece of shit goes off everytime it activates. Been slowly working around it, but still keeps shocking me. I should have known it was Gold. Yar was terrified, started treating me all nice out of nowhere. Room with a bed and occasional meals twice a day when he remembered. Few months ago he said that I was more use as a bargaining trip than for security anymore. That's how I ended up in this dump of idiots. This place, its weird man." 

Ah, well that explained why he couldn't feel any magic and why Yaromir held on to him for so long. He had wanted Silver because he was the closest he could get to Tony. To try and work out how Tony survived and how his powers worked. From what James had worked out Silvers magic had been from Tony's samples rather than the serums. He wondered if Yaromir worked it out. How to create a stable magic user without having a ridiculously high fatality rate. James pushed the thought back, that was for later, now he was to get Silver out of the cell, work out how to get that collar off. He'd definitely be questioning him later on this place being weird though. 

"We still got Yaromir tied up at the hotel." 

"Really? Awesome." 

"You and Tony really are quite alike." 

"I know." 

James punched the lock in frustration, which pulled a chuckle out of Silver. He tapped his comm to speak to Tony. 

"I found Silver, I'm struggling with the lock. I know you're still cleaning house, but maybe find your way to the basement. Or if anyone has found some keys, toss them down" 

"I…" 

He heard Tony stumble slightly on the floor above them, if he had to guess, he was frozen on the spot. Torn between his need to clear house and come straight to the basement. 

"You go. I'll finish up here." 

Tash jumped in, giving Tony what he needed as he started moving again immediately, he heard a few, extremely short fights and it was barely a minute and Tony was at the top of the stairs. His eyes completely gold in the shadowed stairwell.

Chapter Text

Tony POV - Flashback-

Gold was slipping. He was failing. 

Tot zhe molot chto drobit steklo, kuyet stal. 

He seemed to be spending more time in solitary than he had in their shared cell now, but he didn't know for sure because time was slipping. 

More time in his chair with the wipe, wipe, wipes and breaks to crack, shatter and sing. 

He didn't even remember why he'd ended up in solitary this time, but he remembered that Snipe hadn't smelled right. He was sure there was blood on him, could smell it. On his arms and hands, at least 5 unique scents so maybe after finding Snipe he got into a fight? With who? He didn't know when that was, but it was up front in his mind. 

The cell he shared with Silver, it was starting to barely smell of the man. Each day, the scent trails grew older and older. Faded. Faded more and more until he worried they'd be gone. He didn't know how long, but it usually took months for a scent trail as heavily embedded as their cell was to fade. 

The same hammer that shatters glass, forges steel. 

With Silver missing, he'd been cracking in places, fractures slipping free. The broken jagged glass grating and moving, cutting him up, bleeding, black outs. He'd managed to occasionally come together for Snipe, usually to ensure that he had food. He was failing, Snipe needed him but his mind was fragmenting and he was losing time. Fragments cracking. He was shattering like glass, the iron nowhere to be found. Why was it so important that he be iron? He can't remember. 

That same hammer that forged him into steel. That forged the fractures. 

Was shattering him. 

Snipe needed him, and he couldn't pull the pieces of his mind together for him and it was killing him. He couldn't do anything from the solitary cell, although, he could get out of here, easily. The chains kept him in place, kept his arms pitched back, but he knew how to deal with that. The guards tolerated his ability to move around without them realising, but not from this cell. This cell he was expected to stay in. The first few times he left, he faced the consequences, but it was okay because Snipe ate. Then the threatened Snipe. So he stayed. 

They didn't fetch him out for lunch either, so he was physically hungry, he hadn't fed in days, he was fracturing, splitting, coming apart and he was worried. 

I've been on a long road

He ends up back in the White Room, they're trying to find a way of replicating his ability as he'd been compromised. They're too scared to send him out on a mission like this. Concerned he might snap and kill the wrong person. Kill a precious handler. Could he? The Weasel isn't around to laugh at him. His scent in this place is old, which is odd as it used to permeate the White room. But he is gone. Which is strange, but he can take amusement that the new doctors were having trouble working out just what the Weasel had done to him. Just how many serums, formulas, transfusions, bone marrow… how much was done to him. They can't understand it. They're not sure why he's even alive. 

With the devil right beside me

Anytime they ask him he can't help but laugh. They ask him to remember. Ask him to remember the names of the serums. Ask him to remember how many times he saw the White. Remember. Remember. Remember. 

Rising with the morning sun

They've hated his ability to remember. Done everything they can to make him forget, make his memories go as blank as his feelings on the chair. Take those memories that make him who he is. Take those precious memories he carried for his Silver and Snipe. Take his ability to remember and shatter it on the chair. Now? Now they want him to remember. Want him to tell them. As if he would. As if he would help them create more like him. He knows he is wrong, far from human, a predator the feeds on human prey. They practically beg him to remember. 

It's a hunger that drives me

If that isn't funny, Gold doesn't know what is. 

He was pretty sure the only way to leave the Charnel House is via the room. The room with his equipment, where the handlers wait. That, or in a black bag. He always thought that one day he'd be black bagged. The Weasel didn't stop after he left the Black and White. Carried on testing, adding, changing, changing, changing. Always thought that one day his body would be unable to continue. One transition too many. One change to many. 

But there is more to the Charnel House, more rooms, places that he didn't know about. Areas he'd never smelled before, with people he'd never logged and there is another door leading away from the White Room. Not the one that was so heavily laden with blood and death, that the bleach that made his nose itch didn't have a chance of covering it. There is another door. 

A door that doesn't go the Black Cells, a door that doesn't go to the Barracks. A door that doesn't lead to death. A door that leads to the night. 

Oh, long

He has a few seconds before his head was pushed down, but it was enough. Enough to pick up on the myriad of scents that are 'outside'. The scents of night and the world winding down. Long enough to pick up on the breeze and to tilt his head back as if he could see the night sky. As if he could see the white stars on the velvet black sky that he likes to try and picture. The night calms him, it is his place, the smell, the chill, the darkness beyond the blindfold. It was a few seconds, but they're his seconds. 

Set my Soul

The transport is new, which instantly had him on edge. New was concerning, new was never good. Routine, predictability, set parameters these things are safe. Well, as safe as safe can be, set parameters he can deliver upon, this is as safe as his life can be and he craves it. He doesn't like this. Leaving via a different door. Leaving into transport. Still blindfolded as they leave the Charnel House. As he's forced to leave Snipe behind its like another part of his chest has been wrenched free maybe… maybe they'll take him back. Maybe Snipe will be safe. He can hope, he has hope. Hope to find his Silver and Snipe. There is a handler, because there is always a handler. He's new. Not a scent that he recognised. He carries no Gold. There are a few guards, but they believe the drugs he was given in the White Room will keep him placid. A part of his mind asks why, why can't we kill the handler? Why do they blind us? We are good at killing, we kill for the handlers, but they've changed the rules. They changed the parameters. They ripped his Silver, risked his Snipe. Ruination is within his reach at the behest of the Handlers… but… but… He questions. 

Take my pain

It's not hard to act drugged, a while ago, maybe years, he isn't sure. Time in the Charnel House is an interesting thing when he visits his chair as often as he does. Sometimes he and the chair sing together and the steel is folded. Sometimes it slips past his defense and plunders his mind. Sometimes it takes too much when he already has too little. Sometimes it takes more from him than it does anyone else in vengeance for thwarting it. It slips into the fractures, stretching them, widening them, pilfering that which he holds dear. 

And turn it into gold

He made sure to remember the drug he chose however. They were trying to find a way to subdue him, the punishments had less of an effect when they change, change, changed him. So they needed something. He ended up spending a lot of time in the White Room, as the Weasel experimented on him. With many substances. Some that did nothing, others made the room move, the walls fade to static and shift. Faces blends, made him cold like ice or burn, burn like fire. 

Take my pain  

He waited long enough so it wouldn't be suspicious. He let the Weasel play with his drugs as he tried one after the other. If they affected him, he acted like they didn't, that wouldn't do. He had to wait a while, let him get it out of his system. If he had buckled to the first drug they tried on him, the Weasel would have known he was faking them out. He had to have the Weasel thinking he'd won, that he'd finally gotten one over on him. That would make him cocky and would add a layer of surety to the plan. So he let the Weasel play until he brought out something with a strong enough scent he would always recognise it. Then he feigned being helpless and drugged. He let the Weasel crow his victory, do as he pleased, because he was the one who won. 

And turn it into gold

He assumed that in the recent missing memories, the black outs in the fractures of grating glass, that he had kept up the ruse as they were still using it on him. He wasn't a fan of the stuff, it smelled sweet, sickly sweet like marzipan and left his mouth tasting strange for hours, it left him feeling nauseated and a little light headed too. He was however completely compos mentis and in complete control of his faculties. He staggered and fell, because he was known for never staggering. Never falling. It was unpleasant, being weak in front of prey that acted like predators, that were cruel for cruelties sake, but it gave him power. Gave him an edge. They talked freely around him, it let him learn. One day… one day maybe, he could hunt these prey that acted like predators. Even the handlers?  

'Cause all I know, all I know, all I know is..  

It had a single reveal however, and Gold hoarded secrets from the handlers. Because secrets were power and he hated the handlers.

Hated them more than the Black and White.

Hated them more than the pits.

Hated them more than every day woken by twisting hunger, every new scar.

He couldn't hurt the handlers, but he couldn't remember why he shouldn't anymore. Because why not? Wait. Wait. Plan. Prepare. The beat set by the previous iteration, that he'd ignored for so long is louder now. 

 I can take a beating

He couldn't help forming the map in his mind, of the twists and turns the van took. The chair always left his maps, it was how he knew he'd left the Charnel House so often. He'd wake up and find his maps updated, his world expanded. After a while, they slipped away from his maps completely, each turn created new pathways in his mind. Into new areas, and he wondered where he was being taken to. Maybe Silver was there, his parameters of behaviour was set, the handlers knew it. He got his Silver and Snipe and he obeyed, he kneeled, he killed, he built. He lay in the van, head swimming on the sickly sweet drug as he considered the parameters. The handlers had changed them on him, changed his fundamental settings. Could he change the fundamental settings? 

Rise again, we're into the jungle, until the end

They stopped, but instead of removing him, they dosed him up again and he grimaced as the taste in his mouth increased and the sickly sweet smell invaded his senses. It made smelling the dawn air tricky which annoyed him. He wanted to feel the dawn, but they didn't move him. He hadn't tested his reactions to multiple doses of the drug before, and he wondered if they were actually trying to kill him. If they could kill him. The Weasel would be so upset he wasn't the one to do it. 

I can live forever

Even with the increased dose, he just felt slightly dizzy and nauseated. Left alone in the van, gagged, the handlers and the guards left. Unfortunately they chained him down, he hated it, a blanket was weighted and pinned around him at night it made him feel trapped, like the cab was shifting and closing in. He didn't understand what was happening and thought maybe it was the drug having strange reactions.

I'll rise again

He attempted to slip into the half space of sleep, but with his senses up on full, he couldn't lower them, hadn't been able to for a long time. He hadn't gotten any real sleep since the last night Silver had been on watch. He'd spent some time unconscious, after starting fights but he didn't know if that counted as real sleep. He had gotten some rest with Ketch, before he'd known. When the fractures were together. Ketch confused him, but he'd been… something. He's not sure. When he thinks of Ketch there are different questions. 

Keep rising up

They repeated the situation for the next three days and he was getting slightly concerned as the fact he had been unable to feed. He waited until the guard came to dose him again and feigned a seizure. 

Take my pain

In his panic to try and hold Gold down, to keep this silent from the handler and incurring any wrath for damaging a potential asset, it was easy to slip his fingers around his wrist. To find bare flesh of prey that acts like predator. No matter how they act, how they adorn themselves, how they build themselves up, they're still prey and no matter how they drug him, how they bind him, how they beat him down, he is the predator. He is the predator and they are food. He was careful, very careful, if the man dropped dead there would be questions, questions he did not want to be asked. He needed to take enough, make it good enough, slip in like honey and syrup, warm and good , so that he wouldn't go and tell his friends. Wouldn't tell the other guards. Wouldn't tell the handlers. Fear was something he knew how to work with. He would wind pleasure and fear into chains that would hold his prey tighter than any steel they put on his person. 

And turn it into gold

When Gold released him, he lay back in the van, grinning. All teeth, sharp like edges of glass. The guard cycled through several emotions and settled on terror. He couldn't help but laugh, he knew he wouldn't tell, because that would mean telling other Hydra guards that a bound, drugged, blindfolded, starved asset got the better of him. 

And turn it into gold

He'd never fed on a guard before. Only targets. Only enemies. Only other experiments. But guards were still prey in the end, no matter how they acted otherwise. This answered a question that had only bred silence before. Now he had another. The guards were prey, so what of the handlers? 

He felt the fractures, felt the fractures start to fill with gold, it tempted him, called him. Give over to the gold. Why.. Why.. Why should he play by the rules when they didn't? 

Silence. 

Turn it into Gold

He honestly expected that the guard he'd fed off to never return, that he'd push the duty off onto the others. He was scared, he could smell it on him. But the fear, it tapered off and gave way to something new. Yet again, next stop, he returned. And again. And again. Fear gave way to addiction. 

"I can't do it again." 

The guard froze as he spoke, too close to him for safety. Even before he fed of the man, the guards didn't get too close to him. He was taking risks, the prey was trying to tempt the predator, but that wasn't how things worked. He was the predator, he was in control here. No matter that he would bound and drugged whilst prey walked free. He was in control of this. 

"Why not?" 

"You'd die." 

It amused him that he didn't flinch back from it, either not taking the threat seriously or not caring enough. Interesting. The Gold laughed at this new information and the ways we could use it. 

It was another two rounds before they stopped in the middle of the night, after only 5 hours of driving. Which broke the pattern since they'd left. Several days of being drugged constantly had him slightly more docile than he would usually be. He didn't miss the fact that that same guard was not wearing gloves when he pulled him out of the van. 

His magic reared up and it wanted to rip into the man because they were hungry. 

He kept his control, much to the guards frustration. Golden tinged laughter fluttered through his mind, poor little prey, if he were less bound oh how he could play. The fractured shards were moving in his mind, with these new questions, the silence, new ideas formed on pathways of pure gold. 

The new facility smelled like the White Room. Some kind of medical or testing facility them. Outsourcing to see if someone could replicate his ability most likely. He holds out hope, maybe Silver was sent here first. Maybe Snipe will come, if they want him to behave, that was the parameter they set? He hoped. 

It was strange, he didn't smell any others like him. He still hoped, that one day, maybe. He'll keep checking. All the baseline humans everywhere was affecting him. It was strange, he'd become accustomed to mostly being around other powered people. Baseline humans, there was something about the way they smelled that tipped his mind into thinking 'Food' with very little effort. They simply were prey, no matter what they thought about themselves. 

Being surrounded by them, didn't help his hunger in anyway. Especially as they seemed unconcerned with actually providing a diet to him. Which increased his hunger. Some smelled better than others, some seemed barely palatable whilst others made his teeth ache with the need to bite down in flesh. 

To them he was merely a test subject, to several irritated scientists by the sound of it. The Weasel hadn't wanted his serums to be replicable, it was why he dosed them in batches. 

They didn't know the predator waiting at their door, with every day the chains holding his mind weakened. The gold spread through the larger fractures and started to fill him up. 

No matter how they looked, they'd never know which of his abilities came from which serum, if removing a serum could kill another experiment.

They didn't even know how his abilities worked.

Didn't know he could touch and understand a person.

Didn't know how he could pluck their desires from the darkest most hidden parts of themselves as easy and pulling petals from a flower.

Didn't know that he was a predator, although some of them felt it.

Felt that unease, their mind skittering, screeching, screaming at them.

They didn't understand. Couldn't? 

Humanity… had spent so long at the top of the food chain. So long believing that they were the apex predator, not understanding that to him, they were food. The gold in his mind wants to play with his food, especially now guards could be food. The scientists, maybe they could be food too? The handlers ?

Gold finds it hilarious that it took them this long to realise that the Weasel worked for himself, never for Hydra. It tells him handlers are not infallible.

They were blinded, yet he saw. 

He finds himself on the bad side of practically everyone in this White Room base. It isn't entirely his fault. He can't sleep as he has no Silver and Snipe. Without them, the sharp pieces in his mind were not fitting together as well as they should. Every day it was like they shifted, pushed, cut, bled and grated a little bit more. The gold filled the cracks. 

It was hard to remember why not to do things anymore, the gold it pushed him, it offered ideas, it drew his attention. So when a scientist checked his pulse one day after injecting him with something, he wanted to play. He was locked down, unable to move, so she was alone. She felt safe because he could do nothing. He had acted docile, cowed, obedient and he'd let the Gold spread. Luring. Tempting. Then her shaking fingers brushed his neck and the prey was caught. He sent a pulse of magic through her and fed. If only he was free, to feel his teeth bite down. He fed until that edge again, then let it taper off. 

She gasped as she came back to herself. 

"Well aren't you a sweet little thing."

"What.. What did you do to me?" 

"Oh honey, you think I'll tell you?" 

He was still laughing as she backed out of the room, gold filling him up. 

Along with the fractures, the cracks and the gold, always the gold, there was the black outs. 

He didn't know if they were because of him or what the scientists were doing. But he'd blink and be in different places all of a sudden. He didn't feel rested, or much different. But he could feel the passage of time. Knew he'd lost time. The pieces… were getting harder to hold together. 

The same guard that delivered him and three others had dragged him out of his cell today. He feigned disorientation as he was dragged to a different room. He had not been to this part of the facility before. They travelled down and the temperature dropped, which gave Gold a good idea of where they were heading. He just didn't know why. 

The Morgue was a strange smelling place. He could smell the cold and the after images of the people who worked there. The chemicals for cleaning, all of that, but mostly, what he smelled was blood. Old blood. Death hung like a spectre. 

So many different people, so many different scents in such a small area, that his mind nearly overloaded for a second until everything screeched to a stop. 

No. 

Blood, sweat, I'll break my bones

"Let's see how much of a problem you are after this Gold , think this will break him completely?" 

Till all my scars bleed golden

Maybe something unnerved the guards still, as even now they stayed a few steps away from him. 

My name's forever known

"Yeah, one of his little friends is off in the wind. Probably took the first offer to escape. No one wanted this one though. Did they? Just like you. You'll die here. Last stop. You got nothing now Gold. Nothing."

Blood, sweat, I'll break my bones

He blinked as much as he could behind the blindfold as he picked out Snipes scent from the mess of all the others. He slowly stood, not remembering when he'd dropped to his knees in the first place. Different pieces moving, his mind, silent to the questions. The gold grew stronger, it surged and crested, shattering hopes because what was the purpose of hope but pain? 

Till all my scars bleed golden

Silence to the questions he'd been asking. Silence and Gold. Finally. Finally he released. He let the pieces go. Let them shatter on the floor in explosions of gold. He felt himself smile, a slow smile that spread across his face as he let the gold take over, he became it. Now, now he would hunt, hunt the monster and shred its heart so no more heads could grow. 

My name's forever known

"Oh, I have something dearies. No reason to behave." 

Won't stop till we're legend

He ripped off the blindfold, and lunged. 

Champion - Barns Courtney 

Legend - The Score

Chapter Text

-Tony POV-

Tony barely remembered the people who got in his way as he went for the basement. He trusted Natka to clean house, which let him move to the basement long before he usually would. Trusting his people to ensure no one snuck up behind them and interrupted them. It was strange, but he knew that Natka was efficient in everything she did. 

The basement smelled of pain and blood and he didn't bother tamping down his magic as it alighted around his hands, a low crackle as it lit the dingey place up. He could pick up on Silver right away, and part of him burned that he'd been trapped here. Without him. Alone. For so long. 

Part of him wondered if he even wanted to see him? He had taken such a long time to find him. Left him without protection. Had failed Snipe. 

He forced himself to walk down the steps, because he wouldn't leave Silver here. Even if he hated him. Couldn't leave him here. Had already failed so much. He logged the people in the other cells, putting their unique scents over to the side to be dealt with later as he headed over to where his Soldier was stood. He looked calm, but then he was trying to be strong for him, James had been selflessly keeping him together since his fracture in the penthouse. His mind skittered away from the memory, it still felt like an open wound in his mind. Some of it was hazy, he remembered the phone call though, and he'd been angry and railing at himself for being idiotic enough to hope again. James… he stayed. The whole time. He never left him, even when he didn't recognise him, he stayed, he helped. Bit by bit, day by day. He gave him hope and proved that it wasn't foolish to hope. That he could hope to find Silver and not break. 

When he finally saw Silver it was like coming home, his mind shifted and he wanted him out here with him right now. Silver was as integral as breathing, he knew the man better than he knew himself and finally. Finally he could see him. This memory would be one no one would ever take from him. 

He looked subtly different than the sketches he notes, and Tony had known Silver was tall, but he hadn't quite realised how tall that was now he could see him. It was frankly ridiculous. No one needed to be so tall. 

His hair was long, matted, his eyes were almost startlingly blue. Even in the dark of the cell, but Tony was stalled on the collar. He hated the collars. 

"Hey, Gold, I'm fine."

He just raised an eyebrow to that utter bullshit. Silver threw his hands up in exasperation, that drew his eyes to the chains. It wasn't too dissimilar to Solitary at the Charnel House. The collar must inhibit his magic, no way would he still be in this cell with his magic running free. He was alone, so he would take more risks than back when they were three. 

"I couldn't get this ancient fucking lock open. Figured you'd have a better go at it."

He didn't take the offered tools, he needed to vent a little bit and this seemed like an adequate source to pour his frustrations. Laying his hands on the bars, Silver immediately started backing up. Reading his intentions even though he was collared and inhibited, which made Tony smile. Silver was strong. 

"Hey. Guy. James, back up." 

"Wait what?" 

With a mix of his strength and Gold tendrils unwrapping from his hands around the bars, he wrenched, pulling the metal door clear from the stones in a cacophony of tearing metal and shattering stone. The building could handle it, so Tony wasn't exactly worried as he tossed the door in the opposite direction of his Soldier who was staring at the area the door had been. 

"Or, you could do that." 

Tony shrugged, it wasn't often he showed his strength off like that. Usually he made people think he was weaker, but James had a good idea of his abilities. Silver had a good idea of his physical capabilities. Although he had gotten stronger after being well fed for so long. Now he could tell Silver more. Could tell Silver about his magic. He hoped that it would not scare him or put him off. 

He walked over to Silver. Pushing him into a sitting position so he could get a look at his collar, tilting his head out of the way. He was smiling, and had a 'put upon' look on his face, he wondered if that was what he looked like when Gold was seeing to his wounds after fighting. Tony was sure that this was a good thing, he smelled happy, pleased and relieved. Sour notes being replaced by the good scent of Silver when he had slept well and woke up dopey. Maybe… maybe he would be happy to have him back in his life. Even though he was still broken. Where as he and his soldier healed, bit by bit. Memory by memory, he would always be broken now. 

He summoned his magic to his hands and sent a small curl of gold around the collar like a band, seeing how it pulled the magic in, what it did with the magic. It was not calibrated to his magic, so it merely pulled it along the pathways, showing him  the direction of the electricity and how it would respond to magic. It was however quite flimsy. It would be hard for Silver to remove it himself, but he was much stronger than Silver. 

"I'm going to tear it off." 

"I know, go on." 

"Maybe we shoul-" 

He had his fingers beneath the collar in the weak points just as his Soldier started to talk and ripped the thing clean in two. Electricity arcing across his hands like sharp, biting insects. Then he used his magic to completely destroy the leftover pieces. Nothing will remain. He would need to ensure all of these collars and the plans were destroyed. Along with anyone who knows how to make them. He had more abilities than his magic, but the idea of someone using one of these on him made him close to rage. 

"Hey, Gold, we'll destroy them all, yeah? I can even help." 

Silver summoned silver magic to his hands, the silver wrapping around his hands and wrists in an identical way to his own. The first time he finally got to see Silver at his hands as his eyes sparked silver in the blue, spreading outwards in the glittering, shimmering swirl. 

His other hand reaching out to Tony, which he immediately answered in an action that was as innate to him as his magic. Both of them had been free from the chair long enough that Silver had his memories back and Tony had actually recovered many as well from the lost memories of the Charnel House. He hadn't realised how many he'd lost until they started coming back. Always Silver first. 

Gold and silver jumped to mix and Tony felt a pressure he hadn't even known was there finally let up in his mind. They pressed their palms together and he was fascinated watching the gold and silver mix. He'd seen his gold mix with the star speckled velvet black of his Soldier. That made him feel safe, and warm that made him feel like home. Silver… it made him feel needed, it made him want to protect. To teach. It was also home. 

His Soldier and his Silver. 

"Now, has your friend left us anything we can play with?" 

"Oh god. You two are going to make me go gray. I can see it now." 

Tony smiled brightly, he had a feeling they were going to get on very well. Tony couldn't wait till he had them both back in his tower then he could heal the wound of this fracture. 

"Don't worry Darling, you get used to Silver." 

Silver outright cackled at that as they made short work of his chains. His Soldier had a bag with a few articles of clothing, water and some energy bars that Silver made vanish with the same speed that Tony ate at when he forgot he didn't have to anymore. When he shucked the torn shirt for the soft sweatshirt, the patchwork of old and new bruises he sees for a fraction of a second are enough. Enough that Silver will point out each person and he will return each and every mark. It eases the pain that he wasn't there to protect him. 

When they left the warehouse, Tony was content to let Silver talk for the trip back to the hotel. He had forgotten how many questions Silver could come out with as he asked about everything he could think about in the years he was out of Hydra. His time hunting Hydra and then how things were after he came back from the dead. 

Tash made a stop for some better food, which Silver was thrilled about, because even years of captivity wouldn't make energy bars much more than barely palatable sugary cardboard.

He had a feeling that the second that he hit the hotel, he would be heading to the showers. 

Silver was still on edge, even though he looked completely relaxed, kicked back in the van. The kept contact sat opposite with Silvers legs resting on Tony's lap. Tony had spent years reading the man without his eyes, so he could feel the tension thrumming under his skin. Could feel his exhaustion through the magic even though he would never show it. He really was too like him in some ways. 

"So how did you come back from the dead?" 

"I worked out that it would be best if the waking world did not believe me to be Mr Gold. So I went back to the Charnel House. Raided the base, attracted the police and returned to my solitary cells. Things did not go to plan." 

"Gold, tell me you didn't go yourself in that cell with your old blindfold on?"

"Those were the parameters." 

His Soldier wrapped his arms tighter around his waist, his chin resting on his Soldier. Tony wasn't sure what to say about this, because he still didn't understand his reaction at the time. 

"They at least get you out quickly?" 

"I do not remember, things became… Weird. Memories would reply and it was like I couldn't breathe. It was strange, because I could just unlock myself. I didn't understand." 

Silver shuffled closer, squeezing his arm before swatting gently at the side of his head. 

"Because the place is a traumatic hell hole. You made the best of it, you made it livable. Not sure we'd have survived without you. Others burned out but you kept us sane, kept us going. Maybe you let us take care of you for once?" 

Tony huffed and he could feel his Soldier nodding behind him. He had a feeling they were going to gang up on him. 

"So, tell me more about your Soldier." 

Silver raised a hand towards James, silver crackling around his fingertips. His Soldier mirrored the action without prompting. Not laying palm against palm like he and Silver did instead they brushed fingertips. Silver mixing with the beautiful black, starry magic. 

"We kept running into each other, my magic kept pulling me. I was never able to tell you about my ability, but you read intentions? I read desire, and what's more. I feed on it. On something. Energy." 

"Ah, That makes sense. I always wondered why people felt on edge around you, instinctively. And why you followed people, as if you could see them. Hmm. That why you could go longer without food?" 

He nodded, pleased Silver had noticed these things. Impressed that he knew where to look. Also pleased that he understood why Gold had not told him. 

"After I came back, I started eating properly. James kept following me although he didn't know why. My magic was after him. I can't usually use it on someone often." 

"But it gives me energy." 

"Also discovered soulmates are real." 

"What now?" 

"You heard me." 

"So what? Like some mushy romance, half of your soul crap?" 

"Nope and Dax finds it hilarious that that's what humans turned the concept into. It's a mark of compatibility through magic." 

"That is so weird." 

The discussed the group that had been holding Silver captive for a while and none of them were overly comfortable with it. 

Silver wasn't sure if they were trying to cure or replicate his enhancements, their intentions had been so muddied on the topic that he had never gotten a final, clear answer from any one person. Tony didn't like that, it was just added to the list of bad vibes this job had. 

"Fuck I'm happy to be out of those cells. Happy to be free. Every other person who came down intended something else. It was a fucking mess for a bunch of Serpents." 

"With a name like Viperidae, I didn't really expect much, but there is just something wrong with this group that I couldn't put my finger on." 

His Soldier added as he was leafing through some of the files they'd liberated. They had completely cleaned the place out of all physical and digital files. Tony was still leaning with his back against his chest as he attempted to look through the documents. It would have been much easier if Tony had moved, but the physical contact was needed as much as the occasional sparks of magic he was receiving from both of them. If Natka wasn't driving he'd have her with him too. Silver was just as tactile as him, but he knew that Silver was still trying to work out the Soldier and the Spider. That Tony trusted them got them a pass, otherwise he wouldn't be talking so freely, but it would probably take a while before he opened up around them. Tony hoped that he would not be guarded around him, but had to accept it had been years since they last saw each other. 

"Viperidae?" 

"Yeah, that's what they were called. They had a website and everything."

"That's not what the higher up called themselves."

Tony perked up at that. Silver was always good at getting information, the right information too. He was better at picking up on lies and covers that Tony sometimes. 

"What did they call themselves?" 

"The Serpent Society." 

His Soldier jotted it down into his file and Tony frowned. He didn't like the idea that even though they'd come out of the mission with what they'd set out, that somehow, maybe they hadn't won. He pushed the feeling to the side for now. He had time to deal with that in the future. They would prioritise this Serpent Society. For now, he had his Soldier, his Spider and his Silver and he wanted to just be for a little while. The four of them with no pretenses of their shared similar, yet different pasts. All of them knew what it was to be a weapon, there were not many who could understand their lives, and those who might, were more likely to be enemies that friends this… this was rare. This was good. 

At the hotel after Silver had spent around 40 minutes in the shower, he and Tony were sat cross legged, opposite each other on the bed. His soldier had brought a platter of different foods from room service and was lying on his stomach next to Tony. His head resting on Tony's leg as Tony was playing with his hair. Silver seemed the find the whole scene hilarious and cute, which he had made a point of telling him. 

"I am not cute." 

"Hmm, you are, just in a deadly kind of way." 

He sent a golden spark at the back of his Soldier neck for that who just hummed and relaxed more. Huh. Oh, he'd been so fucked up with the fractures, he'd barely used his magic like that. He and his Soldier passed magic back and forth like that pretty much constantly. He felt… guilty? He wasn't sure. He felt like he'd screwed up something but he didn't know what. 

"It's okay Tony, you weren't exactly yourself. You don't have to feel bad." 

"I don't?" 

"Nope. You can even check with Sam when you get back." 

"Who is Sam?" 

"He's our newest potential addition to the tower." 

"He's good at helping me work out why people are strange. Like why people stare at our brand or are so weird about the blindfold." 

"Huh, got yourself quite a little group set up." 

Tony hummed, because they did seem to have a large group of powered individuals. Dax had magic, but him and Siles were enhanced compared to humans anyway. Vision, whilst a pacifist had a lot of potential and had expressed a want to protect those in his family if the need arose. Rhodey and Pepper each had Extremis, but differently. Rhodey's was more electronic based where as Pepper had decided she liked the fire. Peter was enhanced and had recently asked Tony to train him, so he would be improving soon. Tash had the serum. He, his Soldier and Silver were the only three with their brand of magic in existence. At least as far as he knew, Wanda was in a dream coma until Tony worked out how to remove her abilities. They were quite a formidable grouping. The collection of power and loyalty of those in the Tower brought safety. It made Tony smile. 

Tash was bundling up Yaromir for transport back to America whilst the three of them rested for a bit. Or rather, Tony refamiliarised himself with Silvers magic and his Soldier stuck by his side, like he had since he'd fractured. 

Silver had relaxed more and more. In small increments, keeping occasional contact of their magic helped. Reaffirming that connection between Gold and Silver. 

His Soldier had offered his own up too, Tony was practically floating. 

"So, do you remember your name?" 

He had to ask. He'll always be Silver to him, but he wanted to know . Just like how his Soldier told him that Silver knew he was Tony. 

He still called him Gold as they'd finished clearing up the warehouse. Pointing out the people who had been testing on them. He had a feeling that he will always been Gold go him now, but Tony was fine with this. He had become Gold for Silver. 

The first time he became Gold to give Silver something to hold on to in that place of madness and pain. 

The second time he became Gold was the shred the Hydra heart that took his anchors. That stole Silver away. 

"Yeah, I remember yours too." 

"James did mention that to me." 

Tony chuckled, he was feeling the edges closer together now he had his people around him. Now Silver was safe and eating, he still smelled of pain and starvation, but there was warmth and comfort there too. 

He should have realised, really, that years without the chair, that Silver might have recognised him. 

"Oh, not that one." 

He tilted his head in confusion, as he didn't exactly have that many names outside of the Charnel House. He was just Tony Stark. 

He was pretty sure that was his only other name from before the Experimental Asset Program. The previous iteration hadn't had as many names as him. 

"What name do you remember?" 

Silver grinned, full on, which he was still getting used to seeing. Something he was happy go see. 

His memories were tugging at him, but so close to a fracture some stuff hadn't settled back in place yet. He felt like he was missing something. 

Some areas were still dark and it would take awhile before he could bring it all together. 

But the name Silver gave him lit up pathways in blinding bright, painful gold. 

"Mechanic." 

Chapter Text

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