Chapter Text
They didn't even bother using his name.
"Subject has shown remarkable resilience to previous testing protocols." Bishop's voice drifted through the fog of whatever they'd given him this time.
Clinical. Detached. Like he was discussing weather patterns rather than torture.
His wrists ached where the restraints cut into already raw skin. The wounds never had time to heal between procedures, flesh rubbed down to tendon in places.
Every shift sent fresh pain radiating up his arms.
He'd stopped counting the days since they first strapped him to a table like this. Since they first began taking him apart piece by piece to see how he worked.
Time had become meaningless, measured only in intervals between pain.
But this lab was different.
The metal table beneath his shell was wider, angled to catch runoff in steel gutters along the edges.
The lights caught on unfamiliar equipment, gleaming off surgical implements arranged with terrible precision. More personnel than usual moved around him, their efficiency carrying an edge that made his pulse spike.
His arms were stretched out to his sides at unnatural angles, tendons already screaming from the strain. Not just restrained - displayed. Like specimens pinned for study.
The raw patches where they'd taken tissue samples yesterday burned against cold steel. Every point of contact was agony, his nerves hypersensitive from weeks of testing.
"Begin preparations." Bishop's command cut through the air, "Mark the incision sites. Local nerve blocks only - anesthesia will interfere with the serum's efficacy."
"Implementing preliminary safety measures." A technician approached, rubber bit in latex hands. The same one they'd used yesterday when they'd taken bone marrow.
Leo kept his jaw clenched, but latex fingers dug into pressure points until his mouth opened. Like every other time they'd forced him silent.
"Protective measures in place. Continue prep."
Gloved hands touched his arms, marking careful lines that made his stomach lurch. Black ink against skin already mapped with surgical scars.
They measured and remeasured, discussing angles and points he couldn't quite grasp through the chemical haze.
"Initial incision points mapped." The technician stepped back, checking measurements against charts full of previous results. Previous subjects. "Musculature is ideal for the procedure. Complete severance should be clean."
Severance.
The word filtered through the fog in his mind.
Made something cold settle in his chest where they'd cracked him open last week to study his heart.
He watched them prep the surgical tools, laying out blades and clamps and bone saws with terrible precision.
Watched them marking those careful lines up his arms, discussing points of separation and nerve clusters and-
Understanding crashed through him like a physical blow.
No.
The realization hit, the horror crystallizing with perfect clarity.
No. They wouldn’t. Not this.
Leo thrashed against the restraints, training shattering under the weight of blind panic. The wounds on his wrists tore open, blood slicking the cuffs.
But his body was sluggish, uncooperative.
Because yes Bishop would. God…yes, he would. Leo had seen it before on other subjects. Had shelved the horror and hidden it in some dark part of his mind.
Couldn’t face the possibility that it could happen to him.
Was happening now.
"Subject showing elevated stress response." Clinical notes. Clinical hands pressing him down against wounds that hadn't healed, "Implementing additional restraints."
More straps. More hands. Each point of contact a reminder of how thoroughly they'd stripped away his autonomy. His dignity. His personhood.
The first touch of antiseptic made his heart stutter in his chest. The same sharp smell that came before every cut, every test, every violation. Made everything too real.
His breathing came in sharp gasps that fogged the oxygen mask they'd strapped to his face. His vision tunneled, the world narrowing to steel and glass and latex hands that moved with mechanical precision.
"Beginning phase one."
No, no, no, no. Please no.
The first cut burned like acid, like every other wound they'd given him but somehow worse. Because this one wasn't about testing pain thresholds or studying healing rates.
This one was about taking pieces of him away.
Leo's world narrowed to bright lights and sharp steel and the wrongness of hands inside his flesh. Each sensation burned through the drugs they'd given him, too sharp, too real. He could feel every slice, every separation of tissue. Could feel them taking him apart with methodical precision.
He screamed around the gag until he tasted blood, body arching against restraints that cut deeper into already raw flesh. The monitors screamed with him, recording every spike of pain, every surge of terror.
More data. Always more data.
Blood ran warm down his arms, dripping into those carefully placed gutters. The sound echoed wrong in his head. Soft plinks mixing with the clinical beep of monitors and the soft discussion of technique.
Like they weren't unmaking him piece by piece.
"Note the muscle response. Clean separation of the deltoid." Voices discussing him like he wasn't even there. Like they weren't cutting away parts of him that would never- could never-
Terror stole his breath.
Stop.
Please stop.
Black spots danced across his vision but they wouldn't let him pass out.
He could feel them working. Feel the precise separation of muscle from bone. Feel every cut, every clamp, every moment they reduced him to component parts.
And then, a sudden lightness.
Gone.
Just... gone.
His mind recoiled from the wrongness. From the absence where his arm should be. Where there was now nothing.
A sound tore from his throat. Pain burned through him. But the pain was nothing against the howling absence where part of him should be.
He felt part of his mind separate along with his arm.
The second arm was worse.
Because now he knew.
Knew exactly what it felt like to be unmade.
Could feel the phantom weight of the first limb they'd taken even as they started on the second.
His body trembled with shock, with horror, with the understanding that they weren't going to stop.
That they never stopped.
God please make it stop.
He thrashed weakly as they worked, the movement reopening half-healed wounds across his body. Blood mixed with antiseptic, with sweat, with tears he couldn't remember starting to shed.
More hands on his body. More voices discussed technique and blood loss and neural response like they weren't destroying everything he was. Everything he'd ever been.
Consciousness blinked in and out. He welcomed every moment of darkness, of silence.
Every moment without the horror of what was being done to him.
By the time they moved him to the holding cell, his body was barely responsive.
Consciousness returned in fragments. Cold concrete against his cheek. The distant drip of water. His own breathing echoing wrong in the darkness.
Something felt off, but his thoughts were sluggish, refusing to align. His body felt heavy, disconnected. Like he was floating just outside himself.
Pain pulsed distantly - a deep, burning ache that radiated from his shoulders. But even that felt muted, secondary to the bone-deep cold that made him shiver.
The cell was dark, casting strange shadows that his foggy mind couldn't quite process.
His training screamed at him to move. To find better position. To not stay vulnerable on the ground.
Leo tried to push himself up.
Nothing happened.
Confusion filtered through the haze. He tried again, muscles straining to lift his weight.
Still nothing.
The wrongness of it pierced through the fog in his mind. His heart rate picked up as primitive instincts registered threat, registered vulnerability, registered-
He tried to roll to his side, to leverage his weight differently.
His body moved wrong. Balance destroyed. Everything off-center in ways that made his stomach lurch.
The first real surge of panic hit as his brain finally registered what his eyes were telling him. What his body was screaming.
Where his arms should be...
Just... nothing.
Empty space.
Bandaged stumps ending mid-bicep.
The scream caught in his throat as memory crashed back.
The surgical lights. The careful mapping of incision points. The methodical separation of muscle from bone as they unmade him piece by piece.
The pain hit then - real pain, not the muted echo from before. White-hot agony that radiated from the surgical sites, from raw nerve endings, from places that shouldn't exist.
His stomach heaved. He couldn't even brace himself as he retched, body curling helplessly as pain and horror overwhelmed him.
The phantom sensations were worse than the pain. He could feel his arms. Could feel exactly where they should be. His brain kept trying to move them, to reach, to steady himself.
But there was nothing to move. Nothing to reach with. Nothing...
A sound escaped him that had never existed before. Something between a scream and a sob that spoke of devastation too fundamental to voice.
He tried to push himself up again. And again. And again.
Each failure bringing fresh waves of horror as his body betrayed him. As muscle memory tried to perform actions that were impossible now.
The darkness pressed in, watching him come apart. Watching as everything he was, everything he'd trained to be, dissolved into nothing.
Because what was he now?
A warrior who couldn't hold his swords. A protector who couldn't defend. A leader who couldn't even stand on his own.
Nothing. He was nothing.
Because there was no reason for this. No reason at all.
They hadn't taken his arms because they had to. Hadn't removed them because of injury or infection or any medical need.
There had been no purpose beyond clinical curiosity. Beyond wanting to see what would happen.
His limbs had been healthy. Whole. Until they decided to unmake him just to document the process. Just to collect data on exactly how a body responded.
There wasn't even the dignity of necessity in this. No warrior's sacrifice or noble purpose. Just the terrible understanding that they had removed healthy limbs from a living being because they wanted to see what would happen.
Had reduced him to nothing but data points in an experiment that didn't need to happen at all.
They had taken his arms simply because they could. Because his body, his autonomy, his very existence meant nothing compared to their scientific curiosity.
Leonardo’s body shook, with tears or shock he didn’t know.
He didn't want his family to find him like this. Didn't want them to see what he'd become. What Bishop had reduced him to.
Better to die here. He wanted to die here.
The night swallowed his broken sounds as Leonardo shattered.
They'd taken his purpose. His identity. His reason for existing.
And in the darkness, Leonardo wept.