Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

📍 Celestial Island

“Sam, Jackal just fired his last missiles!” Joaquín said, already going after one of them. He fired two countermeasures, hitting one of the missiles dead-on.

“I got one! Going after the other.”

“Back off! I’ll get it!” Sam yelled through comms.

“No, no, no, no! I got it!”

“Back off!”

“I got it!”

He fired. It was a direct hit. The missile exploded midair, but the blast was too close. The shockwave slammed into him. His right wing tore off with a high-pitched shriek of metal and his HUD cracked, glass shards scratching his face.

Then—fire.

The flames licked across the right side of his body, flash-searing his armour, burning through fabric and biting into skin. His scream cut short as static exploded in his ears and his oxygen feed failed.

He spiralled. Control surfaces dead, the left wing twitching as sparks flew from its joints. The EXO-7 system gave one last sputtering whine before going completely dark.

Joaquín was plummeting, trailing smoke and fire.

“JOAQUIN!” Sam yelled, already going down after him. But he was too far ahead.

The Indian Ocean rushed up to meet him.

He hit the water like a stone dropped from orbit, tumbling into the ocean. His body struck the water with bone-cracking force, the cold punching the breath from his lungs.

Then—nothing.

“Joaquín’s down! I’m going after him,” Sam said.

“We’ll send search and rescue. You have to stop Jackal.”

“Damn it! I’m putting an end to this now.”

And he did. Sam stopped Jackal. The med-evacs found Joaquín’s broken body floating half-submerged, kept alive by his suit’s emergency life jacket. They transported him to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was immediately rushed into surgery.

📍 Walter Reed Medical Center | 72 Hours Later

He made it through surgery. Barely.

Burns laced across the entire right side of his body, from his ribs to his neck. The doctors said his flight pack saved his spine—but only just. He had second-degree burns and a partially collapsed lung. He was unconscious for most of the first day, hovering in that drugged limbo where the pain and memory blurred into fire.

The EXO-7 was unsalvageable. And Joaquín wasn’t far behind it. He was in critical condition, and they had to restart his heart, which hit Sam with a kind of dread he’d never known—heavy, crushing, and something he never wanted to feel again.

They kept him sedated, stabilized, recovering. For 72 hours.

◝   .   2:34 AM ֹ    ₊

The security cameras didn’t show anything unusual. Two men in scrubs and with badges. Calm. One held a clipboard and the other wheeled in a gurney. Their movements were practiced, efficient—military. Their credentials scanned clean. Their faces registered no concern, only purpose.

The night nurse barely glanced up from her monitor. They told her there was a quiet transfer scheduled—classified transfer for burn treatment. She didn’t question it. The order was in the system, their badges cleared, and the name on the chart matched the patient.

She buzzed them in.

The room was dim, lit only by the monitors tracking his vitals and the faint glow of moonlight through the window. Joaquín lay still, strapped gently to the inclined bed to prevent fluid shift. A nasal cannula fed him oxygen. His right side was wrapped in fresh gauze, chest rising in slow, shallow intervals.

The taller man reached for the IV, eyes scanning the chart before inserting a syringe into the tube.

The fluid shifted—but this was no routine sedative to ease pain or calm nerves. It was colder. Denser. A calculated paralysis, designed to wipe away time itself.

The second man unlatched the bed restraints, and they lifted Joaquín onto the gurney. They looped a full oxygen mask over his face, strapping his arms in with just enough tension to keep him still without leaving marks. His head lolled to one side. A drop of dried blood flaked from his temple.

They rolled him out through Sub-level Transfer Exit 4B. No alarms. No rush. The security keypad beeped once, and door clicked open. They disappeared down the corridor.

The cameras blinked once. Then, static.

📍 Walter Reed Surveillance Room | 7:04 AM

He only stepped out once. To answer a phone call from his sister, checking in on him. He hadn’t left Joaquín’s side since the surgery—but in the space of one phone call, Joaquín was gone.

Sam went through the security footage himself, he didn’t let anyone else near the monitor. The only other person he trusted with intel like this was Joaquín—and now he was missing. Sam refused to think about what that meant. Not yet. He had to find him first.

Sam watched the footage on loop, eyes pinned to the grainy black-and-white screen.

Two men in scrubs. Calm. Efficient. They moved like they belonged here—no hesitation, no wasted motion. The way they lifted Joaquín’s body... like they’d practiced it.
Like they'd done it before.

“Sublevel exit,” one of the techs said behind him, voice cautious. “Camera 4B, exterior angle.”

Sam clicked over.
There it was: the van. An old ambulance. No hospital markings, license plate torn off, paint faded under a fake medical logo.

He watched as they loaded Joaquín in. Secured the gurney. Shut the doors.

The time stamp hit 2:57 a.m.

And then—

“What the hell?” Sam muttered.

The feed blinked once, then again. Then static. The next frame was an empty street, the time stamp showed 5:42 a.m.—the van was gone and so were the men. Every second in between was wiped.

“Where is the next cam feed?” Sam asked. His voice was too calm, which meant it was dangerous.

“There should be three more angles,” the tech said. He hesitated, “But they’re all… all corrupted. Someone scrubbed it.”

Sam leaned back in the chair, jaw locked so tight it hurt.

“Facial recognition.” He demanded.

“Nothing came up, sir. They aren’t in any of the systems.”
Sam abruptly stood up and slammed his hands onto the table. He paused for a moment and exhaled. He couldn’t even bring himself to curse.
They were ghosts. They came in, took Joaquín like he was nothing, and vanished.

“I need some air,” he said firmly.

Once he was out in the hall, he pulled his phone out. He needed to calm down and there was only one person on his mind that was able to help him do that right now.

Sam paced the hallway, the phone pressed tight to his ear. It rang once. Then again.

“Pick up,” he muttered. His free hand curled into a fist. “C’mon, man—”

Click.

“Sam?” Bucky’s voice came through, gravelly and clipped. Tired. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s gone.” Sam didn’t waste time, “Joaquín. They took him. Out of a federal hospital. Without a trace in the middle of the night. No alarms, no breach. They just took him. They wiped the damn cameras, Buck.”

Bucky was silent for half a beat. Then, “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“You said wiped?”

“Gone. Every feed after 2:57 a.m. is static or conveniently corrupted. They scrubbed the whole goddamn system and no one noticed. Two guys in scrubs walked in and just took him. It was clean. Military-clean.”

Sam heard Bucky exhale hard through the line. “Do you think it’s them? SERPENT?”

“I know it’s them. I just don’t have proof yet, but come on—who else moves like that?”

There was another pause, then the sound of movement—Bucky shifting, possibly throwing on gear. “I’m still at the UN site. Cleanup’s chaos after the Void incident here. Valentina’s in custody, but everything’s delicate right now. Sam, if I walk out now—”

“I’m not asking you to drop everything.” Sam’s voice was tight, but steady. “I just… needed to hear your voice before I broke something.”

Bucky was quiet again, but softer this time. “You won’t have to do this alone. I’ll find a way to be there soon. We’ll get him back. You hear me?”

Sam shut his eyes.

“Yeah. I hear you.”

A beat passed. Then Bucky added, voice low and steady:
“They took the wrong kid from the wrong man.”

Chapter Text

📍 ???

Joaquín woke up to dim, artificial lighting. He’s upright, both arms restrained by cuffs anchored to metal poles on either side of him. His hospital gown was gone. Now he wore scrubs with an open back, leaving his spine cold and his skin crawling. The room spun around him. His throat was dry. Bandages beneath his arms and ribs were soaked with sweat or something worse. He had no memory of being moved, the last thing he remembers was plunging into the Indian Ocean. 

The room was both dungeon and laboratory. Clinical equipment lined one wall—IV drips, data terminals, sedatives, scalpels—while across the room stood a restraint chair, a drained vat with unidentifiable residue, and burn marks scorched into the floor.

The door hissed open and the sound of heels clicked on the cold floor. Followed by a few pairs of heavy boots. Joaquín tensed, straining against the cuffs. 

“Well, you’re not as broken as I thought you’d be,” a woman said, voice smooth but edged with something dangerous.

Joaquín’s jaw clenched, “Who the fuck are you?”

She paused, letting the silence hang heavy like a guillotine’s blade. Then, her smile widened, sharp and venomous. “I’m the new boss around here. After your buddy Captain America put Sidewinder out of commission, I took the reins.”

Her eyes locked onto his, cold and unyielding. “They call me Viper. And you,” she grabbed Joaquín’s chin and tilted it up slightly, “you’re Subject Seven. The one I’ve been waiting for.”

Viper’s eyes glinted as she circled him slowly, the heels of her boots clicking sharply in the sterile room. “I’ve been watching you long before Celestial Island. The neural interface in your EXO-7 suit gave us a roadmap inside your biology. You’re the perfect subject.”

“For what?” Joaquín spat, voice low and sharp.

Viper smirked, stepping back and leaning casually against the metal table. Her fingers toyed with a gleaming scalpel, flicking it lightly as she spoke.
“When Sidewinder ran the Serpent Society, he had this little pet project—something called Project R.A.P.T.O.R.” She said the name like it was a joke. “It was all about creating the perfect pilot. Not just a soldier, but a weapon that could think and act on its own—fly faster, react faster, survive longer.”

She slammed the scalpel down with a clang, stalking toward him again. “They got their hands on the first ever EXO-7. It was wrecked, nearly unsalvageable, but they stripped it bare. Pulled every biometric log—every twitch, every manoeuvre made at top speed. They wanted to build a bioweapon that could feel flight, not just simulate it.” Her smile curled, predator-sharp, as she circled him. “Then they started layering in DNA—falcons, other raptors. Because survival at altitude? That’s built into their bones. Reflexes, metabolism, vision. All of it.”

“But Sidewinder?” She scoffed. “He was a coward. He shut the project down. Said it didn’t fit the brand. Not ‘on-theme’ for SERPENT.” She rolled her eyes. “But once Captain America took him out of the picture, I stepped in. I brought it back, and rebuilt it.”

Viper leaned close, voice dropping into a whisper. “I renamed it The Archangel Protocol.”

Her eyes lit with dark fire. “And now, thanks to me, that little pet project will finally shine. Change the world, maybe. Or burn it.” She shrugged. “Either way? You, Seven, are all I need for it to succeed.”

📍 The Watchtower | New York City

Sam arrived at the tower stiff and exhausted.

It had been Bucky’s idea—he knew how much Sam hated being at the D.C. base without Torres. It felt wrong. Too quiet. Like standing in the wreckage and pretending everything was fine. The Watchtower, at least, had movement. Possibilities. Bucky had also convinced him the intel would be better here. Unofficial channels, spy shit. Walker had his ear to the ground, and Yelena had her knives in every dark web thread imaginable.

The Thunderbolts were scattered, all of them waist-deep in legal fallout—cleaning up Valentina’s messes, talking to Congress, working damage control while trying to help Sam where they could.

And Sam?

Sam was trying to stay composed. But he was unravelling, thread by thread. He couldn’t sleep. He barely ate. Every few hours he checked the satellite feeds, surveillance drops, encrypted chatter, clearance-level mission briefs—anything. Three days. Not a whisper. Not a leak. No ransom, no footage, no claims. Just... gone.

The Tower’s main headquarters wasn’t built for operations, more for being the “living room”—but Sam had turned it into an ops room anyway.

The long central table was buried in satellite printouts, security feed screenshots, and a cluttered mess of hard drives, comm links, and coffee cups that hadn’t been touched in hours. His own monitors glowed against the room’s low light, patched into every intel stream he could bribe or borrow. A red digital map rotated slowly on the main screen—Celestial Island, Walter Reed, airspace overlays. Nothing new. Just cold data mocking his lack of progress.

Sam sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on knees, eyes fixed. He didn’t even blink.

The elevator hissed open and boots echoed down the hall.

Bucky entered first, dropping a duffel on the floor. His eyes went straight to Sam. Yelena followed, twirling a drive between her fingers. “Brought you a gift,” she said. Walker stepped in last, scanning the room like he still didn’t feel welcome—which was accurate.

Sam didn’t look away from the screens. “You bring good news or more silence?”

Bucky pulled off his gloves and dropped them onto the armrest beside him. “Footage review from the UN server farm’s deeper layer. Hidden cache in an offsite node.”

Yelena plugged in the drive. “Encrypted. But baby Walker here actually helped.” Walker grunted, “Takes one military ghost to recognize another. That scrub job at Walter Reed? I’ve seen that exact format before. Blackout overlays. Time-fragment distortion. It’s SERPENT tech.”

Sam’s head finally lifted. “You sure?”

Walker nodded. “They used similar scrubs during an incident in Seoul around six years ago. That hospital was wiped the same way.”

The screen flashed as Yelena pulled up a freeze-frame. “Enhancing,” she said, leaning forward. The footage jittered, and then sharpened. There they were: two men wheeling the gurney. One tall, one broader in the shoulders. Moving clean, no wasted motion. But it wasn’t their faces that mattered. It was the glint of something inked on the taller man’s inner forearm—just a split-second as he reached to adjust the straps.

Yelena zoomed in. The image was grainy, but sharp enough to make out the symbol: a coiled serpent wrapped around a winged dagger. Burned into flesh.

Sam’s heart slammed in his chest. “That’s their old mark,” he muttered. “The first iteration of SERPENT. Before it was changed.”

“No one outside the inner circle would wear that now,” Bucky said, voice low. “Which means…”

“They didn’t just hire mercs,” Walker finished for him. “This is in-house.” Yelena leaned back, arms crossed, frowning. “They came for Joaquín Torres personally.”

Sam stood slowly. “That’s it. That’s the proof I needed.” He turned toward the map display, already tapping keys. “Pull every known SERPENT facility tied to that symbol. Sidewinder-era. Black sites, training zones, anything abandoned but not confirmed destroyed.”

Bucky joined him at the screen. “I’ll get Torres’s old mission reports, see if anything lines up.”

Walker pulled out a data slate. “And I’ll cross-check with satellite heat maps from the last 72 hours. Someone has had to move him.”

Yelena cracked her neck. “Good. Because I am sick of waiting. And I want to punch someone.”

Sam stared at the symbol again. They hadn’t just taken his partner. They’d taken his brother who trusted him with his life. And now?

Now Sam had a direction.

Now they hunted.

📍 ???

He was pressed against the cold surface of the restraint chair, hands and legs tied down. His body sagged slightly, weak from previous sedation, but at least he was laying down now. Tubes snaked from his arms, intravenous lines dripping a sterile promise of survival—or something far worse. 

Other than the hum of machines and the faint buzz of overhead fluorescence, the room was silent. The only light came from a single, harsh luminescent fixture mounted directly above him—white, clinical, merciless. It cast his face in stark contrast, shadows pooling beneath his jaw, ribs, and eyes. Everything was beyond reach—the walls, the corners, the rows of surgical tools and biotech consoles—fell into darkness. But the equipment near him gleamed under the spotlight. Like stage props in a play he hadn’t auditioned for.

Heels clicked on the tiles as Viper stepped into view like she’d been waiting for the cue. Cool, composed, the shadows peeling off her like silk. Her silhouette sharp and in control. She met his eyes, tilting her head ever so slightly. “Sleep well, Seven?”

Joaquín didn’t answer, but his glare said enough.

One of the lab techs stepped into the light, clipboard in hand, voice clipped and clinical. “Aviation Experimental Variant One is ready for injection, boss.”

Viper smiled with no warmth behind the expression, “Thank you. Let’s begin.” She turned her eyes back to Joaquín, voice syrup-smooth and slicing. “Seven, I’d like to introduce you to AVEX-1.”

Without waiting for a response, the tech approached. The serum in the syringe shimmered faintly under the light—clear, viscous, wrong.

The needle slipped into one of the IV lines, and the serum hit his bloodstream like fire.

A burning inferno ignited beneath his skin, molten agony racing through every artery, every cell. Joaquín arched against the restraints, breath shattering into ragged gasps as his back bowed. His chest seized and his spine jolted against the chair. A scream tore from his throat, hoarse and raw, before choking off mid-breath. 

The pain subsided, only come back ten times worse.

His scream echoed through the walls—basement, lab, whatever this place was—then cut off, sharp and sudden. But it wasn’t relief that washed over him. It was something worse.

Convulsions racked his body—wild, uncontrollable, violent. The restraints groaned with the force of his spasms. His vision shattered into static, white light fracturing into prismatic shards. Everything hurt. Everything burned. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

Only pain.

Only heat.

Only—

Darkness.

He woke to the machines again. Cold. Relentless.

A line beeped in time with his heartbeat. Another tracked his brainwaves; sharp spikes etched across a monitor just out of sight.

He was upright again. Back in the restraints. Both arms were pulled tense, chained to the steel poles on either side of him. His knees nearly buckled beneath him, but the weight of the cuffs kept him from collapsing entirely. His body trembled with the aftermath—muscles twitching from trauma, skin coated in sweat, bandages soaked and useless.

The same white light glared down from above, still fixed on him like an interrogation lamp in a room that had no windows, no time, no exit. 

The silence was too full. Too loud.

Joaquín grit his teeth and clenched his jaw, trying to ground himself, but the burn still lingered in his veins. His skin felt too tight. His body still hummed with the memory of that fire. He didn’t know how long he’d been out. Minutes. Hours. A day?

From somewhere beyond the light, voices murmured—too far to see, but close enough to hear. “AVEX-1 results were unstable,” one of them said. A man, bored. Like he was talking about a malfunctioning circuit board and not the person strung up in front of him. “Extreme neural reactivity. Seizure onset at forty-three seconds post-injection. Total blackout at one-fifteen.”

“Vitals have stabilized,” another replied. “Respiration’s irregular, but within acceptable ranges. Brainwave spikes are… interesting.”

“Muscle degradation?”

“Minimal. We’ll monitor for further necrotic spread, but as of now, the side effects should subside within a few hours.”

A page turned. A pen clicked.

“Shame about the convulsions. The strain tore through some of the dermal grafts.”

A pause. Then, “He’ll hold.”

Their voices drifted away again, swallowed by the dark. Left only with the sound of his own breathing—ragged and real. Joaquín clenched his fists, chains rattling slightly.

He would not break.

Not yet.

Chapter Text

📍 ??? | Lab Wing 4A, Observation Holding

They told her not to look at his face. Just check his vitals, switch out the IV, and chart the readings.

But she did.

The subject—Torres, Joaquín—was conscious again. Eyes half-lidded, blood crusted under one nostril. Burned bandages peeling at the edge.

“Shit,” she muttered, grabbing gauze.

She wasn’t supposed to speak to him. But the silence in here felt wrong. “You need water,” she whispered, like the walls might report her.

He came to slowly. Not with a jolt, but a drag, like his mind had been buried under concrete and was just now crawling back to the surface.

His throat was raw. His skin burned, every breath scraped his lungs like knife on glass. He didn’t remember being unchained, or being placed in a holding cell.

He was lying down again, the metal bed cold under his spine. The room buzzing faintly with machinery. And somewhere nearby—footsteps. They were soft. Not boots. Not Viper.

Someone crouched beside him. A shadow passed over the light. And then—

Water.

Pressed gently to his lips.

Joaquín coughed once, the water dribbling down his chin. His tongue felt too big for his mouth. The person didn’t speak again, but a hand gently tilted his head, helping him swallow.

Kindness, Joaquín thought. Or guilt. He couldn’t tell but he didn’t care.

“They’ll kill you if they see you,” he rasped.

The person hesitated, her face hidden behind a surgical mask, “Then don’t tell them.”

She peeled back the soaked gauze at his side and hissed softly through her teeth. ‘Bastards didn’t even dress it right,’ she thought.

Joaquín’s breathing stuttered, but he didn’t flinch. He closed his eyes, not from the sting of her touch, but from the mercy in it.

Footsteps echoed down the hall as she finished bandaging him, her head snap toward the doors. She didn’t say anything as she slipped out of his cell, leaving only the half-full water cup sat beside the bed.

They came for him at a shift change.

He barely registered the noise until the cuffs clicked around his wrists again, yanking him upright. A groan slipped past his lips before he could stop it.

They didn’t speak to him, just moved him back into the chair, under the light.

Joaquín blinked against the glare. His mouth was still dry, but the water helped. His head lolled back, vision splitting.

This time, Viper didn’t even greet him. Just the sharp scent of antiseptic and the gleam of syringes lined up like soldiers.

“Subject stable. Beginning Trial Two. AVEX-2 in line, injecting now.”

This time the needle slide directly into his vein.

And the world unravelled.

It hit harder than the last, but it wasn’t heat this time. There was an immense pressure on his chest—squeezing, crushing. It felt like he was being crushed in a hydraulic press. His lungs locked. He choked, mouth opening with no air to draw. Panic surged in his bloodstream faster than the serum. He clawed against the restraints, or tried to—his hands wouldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs were failing and he knew it. His vision went dark at the edges. And with all the energy he had left, he whispered one last thing into the air—hoping that someway, somehow, the universe would carry his message from wherever he was.

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

Alarms began to blare as the EKG machine slowed down.

“Subject’s respiratory function is collapsing—”

“Code blue, get the defibrillator—!”

One of the assistants sprinted toward the equipment cabinet. Another already had two fingers pressed to the hollow of Joaquín’s throat.

“No carotid pulse—he’s flatlining—”

“Clear!”

Joaquín’s body jerked against the restraints, muscles seizing violently. A sharp beep cracked through the room—then fell flat again.

“Charge again—200 joules.”

“Ready—clear!”

Another shock. His body arched. No response.

“C’mon, c’mon,” one of them muttered—not with concern, but calculation. Their hands didn’t shake. No panic, only protocol.

The third shock triggered a weak flutter. A flicker on the screen. The EKG stuttered, then steadied into a faint, arrhythmic blip.

“We’ve got a pulse.”

There was silence for a moment, except for the soft beeping and the high hiss of oxygen flow being pumped back into his lungs.

“Log this. AVEX-2 induced full respiratory collapse at two minutes and thirty-eight seconds. Duration of arrest: 71 seconds. Subject required resuscitation via defib.”

The other tech jotted it down on a digital pad, not bothering to glance at the unconscious body on the table.

“Cognitive function?”

“Too early to tell.”

The assistant nearest the heart monitor said quietly, “His hand moved. Slight tremor.”

The lead technician looked up, finally giving Joaquín a second glance. He was still out, his face pale and damp but he was breathing. His wrists were still locked in restraints that were now blood-streaked from struggling.

“Good,” the tech said. “That means he’s still viable. Move him into the cell and start working on AVEX-3 immediately.”

📍 Nevada | Discarded HYDRA Base

The wind kicked up loose sand across the tarmac as Sam stepped out of the jet, boots crunching dry earth. The sun baked everything flat and hollow, and the old airbase rose out of the desert like a skeleton—rusted gates, half-collapsed hangars, and long-buried secrets.

Yelena’s intel had led them here. A recent SERPENT-linked supply drop pinged one of SHIELD’s old satellites. It was the best lead they had in days.

Walker scanned the airstrip. “This place looks…”

“Old?” Bucky offered.

“No. Used,” Walker said, crouching to inspect a tire track. “Like, recently.”

Sam was already kneeling near the dirt. “These tracks match the ones outside Walter Reed. Same depth, same pattern. Redwing, scan the area. Full thermal and chemical sweep.”

The drone zipped off. The building ahead loomed like a tomb.

Inside, the air was stale but not untouched.

A broken IV tube lay half-buried near the threshold. Cabinets were torn open, files missing. Metal surfaces were scraped clean, and every hard drive had been pulled, wires severed and scorched. Someone had wiped the place hard.

Bucky moved like a shadow down the hall, clearing each corridor with quiet, practiced precision. Walker covered the back. Sam swept the lab rooms.

It was all gone.

But traces remained.

On a far wall, a scorch mark curved upward in a strange pattern—jagged, chemical, sharp. Combustion marks. Sam stared at it before he turned slowly toward a rusted gurney. One of the restraints was still bolted down, stained dark red at the edges. He reached for a drawer beside it and found a half-melted, label burned but barely legible: ARCHANGEL – SUBJECT 6

They regrouped in what might have once been the command room. No one spoke at first.

Then, Sam slammed his fist into the side of a file cabinet. The metal buckled with a loud bang, the echo sharp in the dead air.

Bucky didn’t flinch. “They cleaned this place out. Fast.”

“They knew we’d come,” Sam muttered. “They wouldn’t run if they didn’t have something to hide,” Bucky said gently and glanced toward Sam. “He’s not gone. They’re still moving him.”

Walker crossed his arms. “We’ll find him. This just means we’re close.” Sam’s head snapped up. “Close means nothing if he dies before we get there.”

The silence afterward was heavy.

The jet sliced through the sky on the way back.

Sam sat near the window, eyes locked on nothing with his jaw tight. He didn’t speak the whole way back. When they landed at the Watchtower’s upper bay, he didn’t wait for anyone—just walked straight out and disappeared inside.

Bucky watched him go, then followed at a slower pace. He didn’t say anything, just reached out and squeezed Sam’s shoulder once when he passed him at the console. Sam didn’t look up. He was staring at a still image of the Walter Reed exit cam—Joaquín being wheeled away by the ghosts.

“Hang on,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “Please hang on.”

Chapter Text

Four failed trials in, and Joaquín is deteriorating.

Muscles torn. Reflexes frayed. Neural patterns unstable. But still alive.

And that’s all they needed. He wasn’t a soldier to them. Not even a person. Just skin and blood—potential to either better or destroy the world.

The days bled into each other and the purpose of it all started to blur. Sometimes Joaquín thought they were doing this just because they could. But deep down, he knew. Whatever SERPENT was planning—it was big.

AVEX-2 had nearly killed him. Seventy-one seconds without a pulse.

And still, they called him viable.

The third trial tore through his balance—his metabolism fused too fast, left his vision blurred for hours. The fourth? Auditory hallucinations. Birdcalls that didn’t exist, that were too loud. Wings he couldn’t see. He screamed until his throat bled and still they wrote it off as “mild disorientation.”

Now, it was time for AVEX-5. Joaquín was used to the routine by now; metal chair, restraints, overhead light, needles, tubes, with his body is still trembling from the previous test. The last part depends on their mood, though. Sometimes they let him recover, other times—times when they think he can handle more—they barely give him hours before moving on. If he survived, he was ready. That was the rule.

They didn't restrain him this time.

He was too weak to run, too wrecked to fight, and they knew it. They wanted the data raw, unfiltered, and unbound by the interference of steel cuffs and leather straps. Free limbs made for better readings. They were watching not to help. Not to protect. Just to see what happened when a man was torn open at the seams and left to feel everything.

The serum was cold going in. Colder than the rest. It spread quickly, too quickly. Joaquín hissed at the sensation of it travelling through his bloodstream.

For a second, he thought this might be like AVEX-3, a fast-burn metabolism crash. He braced for the dizziness, the blurred vision, the nausea.

But it wasn’t that. This time, his skin went first.

Every pore turned raw. The shirt they’d given him—thin, standard-issue, stiff—felt like sandpaper dragging across an open wound. He shifted instinctively and the pain was immediate. He clawed off the shirt and threw it across the room, his breath hitching like he’d been struck.  

Then came sound.

The rustle of a clipboard, a pen tapping, the beeping of the EKG machine, the faint hum of the overhead light. They hit him like rifle blasts—every vibration was a scream. Someone coughed outside the room and it echoed through his skull like thunder. He could hear his own pulse—no, not hear—feel it, reverberating through his bones, pounding behind his eyes.

Light followed next. Sharp and alive. The surgical lamp above him didn’t just shine—it scorched. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, he could see the colour of it; blue-white, violent. He turned his head away but the brightness chased him, searing through his lids. His breathing quickened as panic clawed at his throat. His nerves were on fire—he could feel every shift of air in the room. Every heartbeat. Every wrinkle in his clothes. There was too much of everything.

He staggered back, attempting to escape the light with his vision stuttering, and fell. The floor was smooth, but it felt jagged beneath him—wrong. Like lying on gravel. His palms scraped against it as if it were broken glass. He crawled backward, not knowing where he was going. He needed to get away from the brightness and the sound and the burn.

Then came the taste—copper and acid. Blood? Vomit? He couldn’t tell. He wasn’t even sure if it was real or imagined. His teeth ached. His tongue swelled. His jaw clenched until he thought it might shatter.

He cried out.

No—he screamed. And it was the worst part. Because the sound of his own voice hit him like a siren, exploding inside his skull, vibrating through his ribs. It didn’t sound human, it sounded like an animal being skinned alive.

The scream stopped, but the pain didn’t.

He tried to speak. Beg, maybe. But he couldn’t form words. Couldn’t think. He curled into himself, fingers clawing at his arms, nails scraping skin raw. Was it pain or touch or sound or light or all of it at once? He didn’t know anymore. He clasped his hands over his ears, hoping drown out the world.

“M-make it stop! PLEASE, make it stop…”

He cried. Then cried harder because crying made it worse. Sobbing shook his chest, sent stabs of sensation through his ribs. Too much. It was all too much.

They watched. No one moved. No one flinched. Two of them were by the machines, monitoring his vitals and brainwaves, one was by the door with a clipboard in hand. Only the beeping of the vitals monitor broke the silence—no, screamed through it. It beeped with every spike in his heart rate. Every burst of adrenaline. Every new wave of agony.

Ten minutes in, he stopped screaming. There was no energy left.

His nails bled. His nose bled. His throat felt like it was bleeding. He curled tighter in on himself and stared into nothing, breath hitching in uneven sobs. His fingers twitched at sounds that weren’t there and flinched from light that never touched him.

Fourteen minutes and forty-nine seconds.

That’s how long they let him break.

Eventually, one of them pressed a button. The lights dimmed and the sound quieted. It took another minute before Joaquín moved again. Even then, he didn’t rise. Just uncurled an inch, taking a breath like it might kill him.

“AVEX-5. Trial complete. Duration: fourteen minutes, forty-nine seconds. Subject exhibited full sensory override and persistent overstimulation. No loss of consciousness. Side effects ongoing.”

They jotted down the tremors. The damage to his vocal cords. His widened pupils. Joaquín noticed a camera in the far corner of the ceiling—no, he noticed the beeping of it—it was almost invisible, cloaked by the darkness of the corners. ‘Has that been there this whole time?’ He thought.

He didn’t resist when they carried him back to the cell. He couldn’t.

But later, when the hallway lights outside his door flickered just slightly, he woke. His body barely moved—but his eyes locked onto the shift in brightness.

He’d heard it before it happened. The side effects hadn’t worn off.

This one stayed.

Somewhere in the building, Viper watched through the feed. Joaquín’s body twitching in the corner of the cell, his eyes wide and unblinking.

A slow smile curled across her lips. “Perfect.”

She didn’t look away from the screen. “I want a full report on this trial. Every detail. Every deviation. The sensory persistence is new—catalogue it.”

A pause.

“We’re close. I can feel it.” Her voice dropped, almost gleeful. “I’ll be overseeing AVEX-6 myself. Prep the lab. Begin formulation immediately.”

📍 Lab Wing 4A
This time they let him recover—but only because they needed more time to perfect the next version of the serum.

Joaquín curled into the far corner of his cell, knees to his chest, spine pressed to the cold wall. The light above flickered in intervals too fast to track, but every flash scalded his retinas. The hum of the ventilation system thrummed like a jackhammer in his skull. Even the silence wasn’t quiet—just space filled with static.

His hands trembled. Not from fear, but because his body no longer knew how to rest. The nerve endings in his skin flared like live wires, and he could feel everything—too much. The rough edge of the wall against his shoulder. The coarse fabric of his pants. The pulse in his fingertips.

He missed the pain. And he hated that he did.

At least pain was something familiar. Something his mind knew how to process. This—this constant pressure behind his eyes, the scent of blood sharper than it should be, the throb of his own heartbeat louder than footsteps—it made him feel like he was splitting open without ever being touched.

The longer they waited, the worse the next trial would be. He knew that. But the stillness? The stillness was unbearable too.

He was about to pass out, again, from the gnawing hunger, the exhaustion, the too-loud world inside his skull. Then he heard it: the metal groan of his cell door creaking open.

He didn’t lift his head. Didn’t flinch. If they were here to drag him back under the light, fine. He didn’t have the strength to fight it, only enough left to survive it.

But it wasn’t boots this time. Just the soft shuffle of sneakers, the hush of fabric against floor, and the clink of a tray being set down.

“You’re awake,” said a voice. Soft. Familiar.

He blinked—slow, heavy—and lifted his head just enough to see her silhouette in the harsh light. It wasn’t a soldier. It was her. The medic.

She didn’t wait for permission. Just crossed the room and knelt beside him. The tray clicked gently on the floor with a water bottle and a protein bar. Even that tiny sound scraped against his hearing like sandpaper. He winced.

“They’re prepping another dose, aren’t they,” he muttered. His voice was hoarse, frayed at the edges.

“Soon,” she answered quietly. “But not tonight.” A pause. “You get one night.”

He huffed, the motion too dry to be a laugh. “Lucky me.”

She glanced at his shaking hands—tremors that hadn’t stopped in hours—and picked up the bar to unwrap it for him. “Eat this slowly. I couldn’t get more without raising suspicion.”

He looked at her, eyes glassy but sharp. Not trusting. Not hostile. Just... tired. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

After a beat, he tried again, “What’s your name?”

“That’s classified.” She picked up the tray again, stood, and walked back to the door.

She hesitated before leaving—just for a second—and then sighed, soft.

“Riley,” she said.

Then the door sealed shut, and he was alone again.

Chapter Text

📍 Watchtower

It was six thirty-two in the morning and the city was waking up. Except Sam. Sam hasn’t slept. He’d tried—twice. Once after 1 a.m., again sometime around 4. But his body wouldn’t let him stop. His brain was wired, spiralling through every possibility. Every lead. Every mistake.

He sat alone in the Watchtower’s main operations room, surrounded by glowing monitors and digital static. The entire board in front of him was cluttered with red-marked maps and crossed-out coordinates—every known SERPENT base they’d already hit. So far, everything lead back to dead-ends. He ran a hand over his face. Nothing fit. Every time they got close, SERPENT slipped through the cracks—jamming signals, wiping logs, ghosting entire facilities. Sam looked up at the board in front of him—covered with maps of SERPENT’s every known base—and sighed. Every key area was crossed out, reminding Sam once again that he was stuck.

The door behind him slid open with a low hiss. Footsteps, light but familiar approached him.

“Figured you’d still be up,” Bucky said softly. Without a word, he leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Sam’s temple. Sam closed his eyes—just for a second.

“I’m going to punch you if you haven’t eaten,” Bucky murmured.

“I ate.”

Bucky raised a brow. “A protein bar from four hours ago doesn’t count.”

Sam didn’t argue, just shifted. He tapped a few keys to pull up the last surveillance log from Redwing. A video fragment played—a scorched patch of desert, blurred motion in the corner, static.

“Still nothing?”

“No faces. No clear heat signatures. Just… movement. Then it cuts.” Sam exhaled sharply. “Every time we get close, they pull the plug.” He zoomed in on one corner of the footage. A shadow—human-shaped, maybe. Or a trick of the light. Sam’s jaw clenched.

Bucky watched him for a beat, then said quietly, “You’re not alone in this, you know.”

Sam shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. If we don’t find him soon—” He stopped. The words caught in his throat. They hung there, heavy.

“Anything on this Subject 6 thing?” Sam quickly changed the topic.

“Nothing new.” Bucky sighed. “Yelena wasn’t able to pull anything else from what we have. But, Walker promised to look into it more today.”

Sam just nodded, “I just—I need something. Anything.”

And as if on cue, Walker walked in with a tablet in hand. He had this unreadable look on his face that neither Sam nor Bucky liked.

Sam turned, wary. “What is it?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Walker said. “So I started digging again.”

“Into what?” Bucky asked.

“Subject 6. And... I think I found something. Something solid.”

Walker tapped his tablet, transferring the data to the main screen. The file projection blinked alive across the room—dated, grainy, and stamped with HYDRA’s old black-site classification tags.

“I traced a buried data log from an old HYDRA facility in Algeria. Nothing stood out at first—then I found this.” He zoomed in. “Check the timestamp.”

Sam leaned in. “That’s from last month.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not HYDRA. Not anymore.”

“It’s not,” Walker confirmed. “It’s SERPENT. Everything we suspected—they’ve been reactivating old HYDRA tech, hiding in their shadows. Using black-site resources, rerouting communications, even ghosting their logs to avoid detection.” He swiped to the next file. “This one was decrypted five days ago and immediately transferred—location unknown. But the file name was redacted under six layers of encryption. Something called PROJECT R.A.P.T.O.R.”

“R.A.P.T.O.R.? As an acronym?” Bucky asked.

Sam turned to him, surprised. “You’ve heard of it?”

“Barely,” Bucky said. “Sidewinder kept it off the books—even from the Serpent Society. All anyone knew was the name, and that it was dangerous. Bio-engineering. The kind SHIELD used to shut down on sight.”

Walker folded his arms. “Well, whatever it was—it’s active again. And I think they’re experimenting on people. Six missing persons—possibly more—all tied to facilities that match this transfer pattern.”

“Do we have a trace?” Sam asked, low.

“Not yet. Logs were bounced through multiple relays. But Bob and Yelena are trying to reverse-engineer the pattern now. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a lead before they move again.”

Sam nodded, jaw tight. His eyes flicked back to the screen—PROJECT R.A.P.T.O.R. burning like a brand in bold, military-grade typeface. They were building something. And in some twisted way, Joaquín was a part of it.

📍 Trial Room 2A

Joaquín woke to silence. Not the ambient hum of machinery or the soft, distant shuffling of boots down sterile halls—but real silence. Clean. Engineered.

His eyes opened slowly. No flickering light. No vent hum rattling through his skull. It was the quiet that unsettled him most—especially with his new ability to feel every little shift in the air. The silence was the kind that felt intentional—like the world had paused around him.

He shifted slightly, just enough to feel the cold bite of metal beneath him.

Not his cell.

This was different. The surface under his back wasn’t concrete. It was stainless steel. Surgical. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the light overhead—bright, clinical, unmoving. The same type from wherever the previous trials were held.

Then came the footsteps. Slow. Purposeful.

He didn’t lift his head. He didn’t need to. He knew that stride by now.

Viper.

She didn’t speak when she entered. No greeting. No order. Just her presence—a calm, deliberate chill that swept through the room like a breeze before a detonation.

His wrists were still bound, even though Joaquín felt like they didn’t need to be. Every nerve ending in his body was still ringing from the last trial. His muscles tensed at the soft click of a tray being wheeled closer.

Then her voice—smooth, syrup-thick with venom.

“AVEX-6,” she said. “Final-stage prototype. Gene-tier splicing. Let’s see how much of you is still human.”

Someone nearby prepped a syringe. Joaquín didn’t turn to look. But he could hear it—every click, every pressurization valve, every molecule shifting in the liquid before it ever touched skin.

Too quiet. Too clean. Too exact. They weren’t testing anymore. They were hunting perfection.

He didn’t beg. Not because he was brave. But because there was nothing left to say.

The needle entered his vein with precision. No pain this time. Just cold.

And then—

The cold didn’t fade. It deepened. Spread.

Joaquín’s chest tightened as the serum hit his core. Every muscle locked up—then spasmed violently. He gasped, but no air came. His lungs stuttered like they’d forgotten how to work. Panic clawed at his ribs. His pulse surged.

And then it split.

A white-hot pressure cracked down his spine like lightning. His back arched off the table, body seizing with unnatural force. His vision went black—then white—then fractured. Shapes doubled. Tripled. The overhead light warped into a sunburst. He blinked—and saw the hairline crack in the ceiling tile.

He shouldn’t be able to see that.

Something twisted beneath his skin. Deep. Primal. Wrong.

He opened his mouth to scream—but choked on copper. His teeth throbbed. No— they grew. He could feel it. The way bone pushed forward from his jaw, reshaping the gumline. His tongue moved—and cut itself on the new points.

His hands trembled as his fingers curled inward. And he watched, helpless, as the tips of his nails blackened. Thickened. Split. They weren’t fingernails anymore. They were forming into something curved. Hooked. Hunting tools.

Somewhere nearby, someone was saying something—but he couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t process it. All he could feel was the scream building in his chest and the impossible sensation of his eyes shifting, like something living now watched from behind them.

He closed his mouth—tried to—
And that’s when he felt it. A sharp tear at the corners of his lips, a wet sting along his gums. Something ripped. His jaw didn’t fit right anymore. The fangs jammed awkwardly behind his teeth, jutting down too far, too fast.

He bit into himself.

A hot rush bloomed across his tongue. Metallic. Warm. Thick.

Blood.

It poured from the sides of his mouth, spilled down his chin in rivers. Too much of it. He tried to spit it out, but choked. It bubbled at the back of his throat, filled his nose, dripped down his neck. His chest heaved, but it only made the flow worse. He gagged, blinking past the crimson haze clouding his vision.

Something was wrong. He couldn’t close his jaw fully anymore. Could barely move his mouth without fresh slices tearing open again. The fangs weren’t just sharp—they were invasive. Unnatural. Growing faster than his body could keep up with.

He wasn’t sure what was more terrifying: the pain, the blood, or the slow, dawning horror that this wasn’t temporary.

The last one hadn’t been.

So why should this?

This one wasn’t going away, either.  

They didn’t even move him.

No one came when the machines powered down. No white coats returned to log vitals or prep new samples. They just left him there—shaking, bleeding, jaw slack with pain, strapped to a table that stank of steel and blood and failure. His fangs ached where they’d split through his gums. He couldn’t close his mouth fully, not without reopening the tears. So he didn’t try.

He just lay there.

Long enough that the blood began to dry, flaking at the corners of his lips, iron-heavy and sharp in the back of his throat. His eyes were open but he wasn’t seeing. Not until the door hissed.

Soft footsteps. Rubber soles. Familiar weight. Riley.

He didn’t lift his head or speak. But she was already moving—quick and quiet. There was no pretence this time. No cautious tray delivery or stolen moments. She was at his side, hands already gloved, a saline rinse uncapped before he could twitch.

“Jesus…” she breathed when she saw the blood. “They just left you.”

Her voice broke something in him.

She unhooked the restraints one by one, murmuring instructions like he was still listening. “Don’t move. Let me flush the cuts. Your gums are still—god, they’re still tearing—just breathe, Torres. I’ve got you.”

Her touch was firm and practiced, and when she moved his jaw slightly to examine the damage, something in him flinched.

He caught his reflection. In a discarded tray lay nearby, angled just enough to catch light. Stainless steel, polished, and reflective.

And there—blurry, warped, wrong—was him.

Wide, gold-ringed eyes. Split lips. Blood-streaked cheeks. Fangs. Talon-like nails curled half-formed at his sides.

Not a man.

Not anymore.

He recoiled violently, knocking the tray away as a strangled noise tore from his throat—somewhere between a sob and a snarl. His hands flew to his mouth, but it was too late. The image was burned in.

The panic hit fast—too fast.

Breath caught sharp in his throat. His chest seized like it had no room left to expand. The pressure spiked behind his ribs and everything got loud. The light overhead buzzed like a scream. His pulse thundered in his ears. His fingers—those hooked, talon-tipped things—scratched against his skin without him realizing.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe.

His lungs stuttered and hitched and stopped.

A sob cracked out of him. Then another. He tried to force air in but his chest wouldn’t move—his body refused to obey. The weight of it all crushed him—blood in his mouth, pain in his gums, the awful, impossible sense of being wrong inside his skin.

“Hey—hey, you’re okay,” Riley said quickly, kneeling in closer, voice cutting through the static. “You’re having a panic attack—listen to me. Focus on my voice. Not the rest. Just me.”

He shook his head violently, curled tighter, nails digging into the inside of his palms. He could taste iron. Smell disinfectant. Hear everything. “I—I c-c—”

“Joaquín. Breathe. I know it’s hard, I know everything hurts, but you’re here. You’re alive. Just stay with me.”

Another sob. Another gasp that caught and burned.

She reached for his hands and gripped them, firm but careful. “It’s not permanent,” she whispered. “It’s not over. You’re still here. You’re still you.”

He didn’t believe her. Not really. But her hands were warm, and her voice—steady, human—grounded him enough to gasp in one breath. Then another.

Then he collapsed forward, shuddering. Still trembling. Still bleeding. But breathing again.

After he calmed, Riley cleaned the blood with quiet, efficient care. Joaquín just sat on the edge of the table, trembling with every breath. Silent tears tracked down his cheeks, but he didn’t wipe them.

He couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t look at himself.

She stayed until the bleeding stopped, until the tremors eased. Until he no longer looked like a patient—just a ghost of the person who’d been here before. Then she packed the gauze, discarded the bloodied gloves, and left the tray—now cleaned—angled away from the light.

📍 Hallway Outside Trial Room 2A – Riley's POV

The door slid shut behind her with a hiss. Riley didn’t exhale until it did.

But she wasn’t alone.

Viper stood in the hallway, perfectly still, arms crossed like she’d been waiting.

“Touching,” Viper said coolly. “Your little bedside manners.”

Riley froze.

“I’ve been watching you,” Viper continued. “Your soft hands. The contraband water. The whispered reassurances.” She stepped closer. “I don’t tolerate sentimentality in my staff. Unless it serves a purpose.”

Riley straightened, trying to mask the panic rising in her chest. “I’ve followed every protocol.”

“You’ve pretended to.” Viper smiled without warmth. “But I’m giving you a chance to prove you’re still useful.”
She paused, letting the silence stretch. “You’re going to assist in the next trial. Personally.”

Riley’s stomach dropped.

“You’ll be in the room for AVEX-7. You will also be handling the subject’s vitals. Monitoring his neurological response. Contributing.” Viper’s gaze sharpened. “Consider it a promotion.”

There was no way to refuse. Riley nodded once, jaw tight. “Understood.”

“Good,” Viper said. Then leaned in, her voice low, poisonous. “And remember, Riley—loyalty isn’t just about compliance. It’s about sacrifice. I’d hate for anything to happen to your sister.”

Riley flinched, but didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

Viper walked away without another word, heels clicking like a countdown.

Chapter Text

📍 Watchtower | Operations Room

Morning light cut through the upper windows in fractured gold. The team was gathered around the holo-table, coffee growing cold between them, eyes scanning data streams that hadn’t stopped shifting since midnight.

“We’re getting closer,” Yelena said, frowning at the clustered red marks blinking across the eastern seaboard. “Still scattered. Still vague. But they’re consolidating.” She tapped one of the signals. “This one pinged twice. Three days apart. Same radius.”

Sam leaned over her shoulder. “Not a satellite relay?”

“Already ruled out,” Bob said, glancing up from his screen. He’d rerouted the encryption layer twice already, fingers flying across keys with casual expertise.

After the whole Void incident, Bob had opted to stay behind the scenes for now—no fieldwork until they figured out how to access his powers without triggering his darker half. But behind a screen, he was lethal. The guy could crack half a server farm before breakfast and build a schematic for a quantum disruptor before lunch.

“Signal’s low-frequency and coming from ground level,” he continued. “Not a tower. No commercial signature. And it’s piggybacking on an abandoned HYDRA relay loop. Someone really doesn’t want it found.”

Bucky crossed his arms. “What about Subject 6?”

“Still nothing concrete,” Walker replied. “But whatever this base is—it’s where they’re moving everything. Every trail we’ve followed leads to the same kind of dead-end. But this one feels different.”

Sam’s fingers hovered over the map. “Start triangulating. If they’re consolidating assets, they’re getting ready to move—or shut everything down.” He didn’t say what they were all thinking—if they don’t find it soon, they’ll lose Joaquín for good.

📍 Trial Room 2A

He woke up already restrained. This time they were stronger, more sturdy, more tight. But the chill of the restraints wasn’t what startled him—it was the silence again. That terrible, engineered silence.

The lights were already on, and a needle tray prepped to his left, and the quiet sound of someone breathing just beyond the line of his vision.

He didn’t look—didn’t need to. He could hear her heartbeat.

Riley.

A sliver of hope stirred in his chest—then vanished when he saw the figure that entered next.

Viper.

Her heels clicked like a metronome. Her eyes gleamed the same way they always did before something irreversible happened.

“AVEX-7,” she said, like it was a toast. “We’ve reached the edge of the blueprint. Now let’s see if you fly.”

Joaquín didn’t speak. Even though it had been three days his throat was raw from the last trial. He could feel his fangs dull against his tongue, jaw still not used to its new shape.

Riley moved into view. She didn’t meet his eyes. She was wearing a full lab coat now—gloves already on, tablet in hand. Official. Promoted.

But he could hear her pulse. It was too fast, unsteady. He could feel her guilt from across the room.

When she leaned down to check the vitals, she didn’t speak. But her lips moved—just barely.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Then again.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

The machines powered on one by one.

A low hum filled the room. Monitors flickered to life—heart rate, neural scan, gene-mapping interface—each one pulsing with sterile anticipation. The syringe chamber unlocked with a hiss. A vial of AVEX-7 slid into place, glowing faintly with something that looked more alive than chemical.

Everything was set—the serum, the scanners, the restraints. All that was left to break was him.

Riley was the one injecting the serum this time. Joaquín watched, but didn’t flinch.

The needle slid into his arm. Cold and smooth. AVEX-7 entered his bloodstream like liquid static.

Then—

Nothing.

No jolt. No searing pain. No change at all.

Riley checked his vitals.

Everything was normal. His brainwaves were steady and his temperature was holding.

Seconds ticked by and silence stretched.

Viper frowned. “That’s impossible.” She moved to the biometric display. Still nothing.

Another beat. Then another.

Joaquín blinked, dazed. He could barely feel his fingers. A distant chill settled behind his ribs, but it was faint—nothing like the agony from before.

Riley glanced at Viper, then back at the readings. “It might take time to activate.”

“No,” Viper said coldly. “You said it was stable.”

“I triple-checked it,” Riley insisted, voice strained.

Viper stepped forward, closer to Joaquín. “He’s not reacting.” She looked at Riley again. Accusing. “Did you—”

The heart monitor spiked. A single beep. Then two. Then everything surged.

The temperature alarm screamed. Joaquín groaned as his body arched once—then collapsed.

Flatline.

Riley lunged for the defib unit—

“Wait,” Viper snapped.

“He’s flatlining!”

“He’s transitioning.”

Then—

Joaquín gasped—no, screamed. His back arched off the table as if yanked by invisible chains. Something snapped beneath his shoulder blades. The restraints strained against his convulsing limbs.

His body slammed back against the table as he flatlined. Again.

Riley froze. “He’s coding.”

“Release him,” Viper said without hesitation. “If the serum failed, I want to see what’s left.”

The clamps disengaged with the hiss of hydraulics.

Riley barely had time to move before—

He snapped upright, body seizing mid-breath, and turned just in time to cough out a dark, arterial spray that splattered in a sick arc to his left. His nails gouged the metal as his hands shook.

He tumbled off the table and hit the floor, hard.

And then it started.

The tearing. The splitting. Right between his shoulder blades.

The skin tore first. Right above the scapula, twin lines burst open like ruptured seams. Blood spilled fast—hot, dark, arterial—soaking the table beneath him. Joaquín groaned in pain, but the groan quickly morphed into a scream. The muscles beneath spasmed violently, like something was forcing its way out from beneath.

Riley stumbled backward, eyes wide. “Oh my god.”

What emerged wasn’t clean. It wasn’t elegant or refined.

It was raw. Slick. Wrong.

Two appendages—skeletal, unfinished—pushed free from the torn muscle, stretching upward in spasms.

Not wings. Not yet. Just bones.

Long, thin structures—too thin to carry weight, too jagged to be anything human—shuddered as they unfolded. Veins still pulsed visibly beneath translucent membrane. Blood clung to every inch, stringing from tendon to tendon like torn silk.

He screamed again. Not from fear. From pain. Absolute agony.

His body jerked forward, muscles spasming in uneven pulses. Blood smeared across his arms as he tried to push himself up—he couldn’t.

He sobbed out half-words, delirious and raw. “It hurts—fuck, it hurts—” His voice cracked, too broken to carry weight, barely more than a whisper torn from a shattered throat.

“Make it stop—please—”

His cries blurred into static—hoarse, guttural, inhuman. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. Every nerve in his body was screaming, but the pain was folding in on itself now—becoming too much. Too wide.

His arms gave out.

The world tilted sideways, then dimmed around the edges.

He tasted copper. Then felt heat.

And then—darkness.

📍 Watchtower | Briefing Room

The screen blinked in static—then resolved into a low-res overhead satellite scan. Dust. Ruins. A crater where a home once stood. They’ve been following the R.A.P.T.O.R lead for a week now.

But this time… this time, there was heat.

“We’ve got movement,” Bob said, fingers flying over the console. “Same quadrant as last week, but the thermal signature’s new.”

Sam leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Confirmed ground-level activity?”

“Confirmed. Faint, but it’s consistent. It hasn’t shifted in days.” Bob paused. “They’re not mobile anymore. Which means we’re looking at a base.” He looked up, hope in his eyes.

Sam didn’t breathe for a second. “Send me the location.”

That’s when Yelena spoke up from the corner, jaw tight. “We would have found this sooner if Valentina didn’t keep intercepting half our intel. You know she’s feeding SERPENT breadcrumbs to buy herself time, right?”

“She won’t be a problem anymore, though.” Bucky muttered. “Walker filed the additional report, and court is over. So she’s off our backs.”

“Finally,” Sam said. Then turned to the map Bob pulled up—zooming into the coordinates.

Grid 17C. Upstate New York.

The weight of it hit all at once, silencing the room.

“That’s...” Bucky’s voice dropped. “That’s where the compound used to be.”

“The Avengers compound,” Sam said flatly, like the words themselves were a betrayal.

A beat passed between them.

Of course they’d hide it there. The crater left behind after the Battle with Thanos—abandoned, scrubbed from every map, but structurally intact beneath the rubble. Enough to bury anything. Or anyone.

Sam’s jaw clenched. He didn’t even blink. “Gear up. We go now.”

Bucky nodded, already moving.

“Walker, get the jet ready. Yelena, call Ava, alert ground recon, and get backup. Bob, keep the thermal feed up and coordinate with Redwing—we need eyes the second we’re in airspace.”

There was a heartbeat of stillness. Then the room snapped into motion.

And Sam? Sam didn’t look back at the map again. He didn’t need to. He could feel it now—the weight in his chest, the unshakable pull.

They were going to bring Joaquín home.

📍   SERPENT Base | Containment

He woke up to pain.

Not the sharp, immediate kind that came with the serum injections, but something deeper. Heavier. Like his body had kept moving without him—stretching, tearing, rebuilding itself while he wasn’t awake to feel it. His back pulsed in time with his heartbeat—dull, constant, and wrong.

His eyes stayed shut at first and movement felt impossible. The air was cold against his skin, but it wasn’t the temperature that made him shiver.

It was the weight.

Something pressed down across his shoulders—dense and foreign. Not straps. Not machinery. Something anchored deep under the skin, between his shoulder blades. It moved when he breathed.

Then the smell hit him.

The smell of blood, antiseptic, and something else—something soft, organic. Feathers.

No.

No.

He shifted slightly, and felt it. The pull. The muscle strain. The way his balance shifted with the new weight.

Not restraints. Not cables. Wings.

He froze. “What the fuck…” he whispered.

His eyes snapped open. The light was dim—overhead panels flickering every few seconds like the power wasn’t stable. He wasn’t in his cell or the trial room. The walls were blank and brushed steel. A sealed door stood across from him, and a medical cart rested abandoned in the corner. No camera. No window. Just isolation. Containment. A recovery room.. or a place to leave something they weren’t sure would survive.

He sat up slowly, wincing. His hands braced against the cot—nails still curved, talon-like. And as his body shifted, the weight behind him shifted too.

He turned his head.

They were real. Full-grown, but not massive. Long enough to arc just past his waist when folded, still a little uneven at the joints. Gold and dark brown—falcon-coloured—but matte, like the feathers hadn’t fully set. Dried blood caked the base where they met his back. He could feel the way they were fused into him. Not attachments. Not grafts. Just part of him.

Joaquín stared. Then looked down at his hands. At the curve of clawed nails. At the veins threading too close to the surface of his skin. His chest heaved once, twice.

He sway as he stood. The wings adjusted instinctively, counterbalancing his weight.

It made him want to scream. The rage hit like a wave. He stumbled toward the far wall, one hand bracing against it. He groaned as his pulse thundered in his ears. His jaw ached. His spine was fire. He didn’t even know if he was still human. He didn’t even know if he was still—

The door hissed open.

Joaquín spun, unsteady, wings flaring out instinctively with the movement. Not graceful. Not controlled. Just instinct and panic.

Riley stood in the doorway, framed by the weak light behind her. She wasn’t in a coat. No gloves. Just scrubs and a med kit clutched in her hands like a peace offering.

Joaquín’s eyes locked on hers. The anger hadn’t cooled. It surged again, sharp and hot.

“What the fuck did you do to me?”

Riley didn’t move. Her eyes flicked to his wings—wide, trembling, still partially bloodstained—then back to his face. She opened her mouth, closed it again. Her grip on the med kit tightened like it was the only thing keeping her steady. “I didn’t want to,” she said. Quiet. Shaken. “I didn’t want to do any of this.”

“But you did anyway.” His voiced cracked at the edge. “You turned me into this—this thing.”

She looked down, ashamed.

“I thought you were different.” He whispered, “I thought you weren’t like them.”

“Why?” His voice was louder now. Unsteady. “Why would you do this?! Because they told you to? Because it was a promotion?”

“No.” She snapped. “I did it because they were going to kill my sister.”

Chapter Text

“No.” She snapped. “I did it because they were going to kill my sister.”

That made him go still.

She looked up at him then, eyes red-rimmed but steady. “Viper found out. About her. She’s sixteen, she’s just a kid. She lives in Berlin with my aunt. And—and Viper said if I didn’t cooperate—if I didn’t assist on AVEX-7—she’d make sure it looked like an accident.”

Joaquín didn’t speak. His jaw was clenched, shoulders tense, wings twitching unconsciously behind him.

“I tried to stall. To sabotage the tests. That’s why it took so long for them to prefect the serums I—I tried to protect you.” Her voice trembled. “But I couldn’t stop this. I couldn’t stop what they did to you. I—”

She broke off, breathing hard. “I’m sorry, Joaquín. I’m so sorry. I didn’t have a choice.” Her eyes filled with tears she didn’t let fall.

He looked away, jaw clenched tight. “And I still paid the price.”

Not cruel. Not angry. Just hollow.

And the worst part? He understood.

If it had been his family… If someone had held a gun to their head—

He would’ve done the same. He would’ve broken someone else to keep them safe.

Better me than her.

He wasn’t proud of the thought. But it was the only one that made sense

Joaquín turned away. Every movement was a struggle now—his limbs were heavy and his breath shallow. The wings drooped behind him, blood crusted at the joints. His body was shutting down, even if the pain wasn’t.

He stumbled back toward the cot and sat slowly, one hand gripping the edge like he was anchoring himself to gravity. “You should go.”

She didn’t argue. Just set the med kit on the floor and stepped back. One last look.

Then the door hissed shut.

📍 Upstate New York | Ex-Avengers Compound/SERPENT Base

The jet broke through the last layer of cloud cover just as dawn crept over the ruined landscape.

“I need visual confirmation,” Sam said to Redwing. The drone zipped past the jet and made its way down closer to the ruins of the base.

Bob’s voice came through the comms right after. “Multiple heat signatures detected at the subsurface. There’s some static and—uh…” He trailed off, tone becoming uncertain.

Sam stood behind the pilot’s chair. His brows furrowed. “Talk to me Bob, what is it?”

“Well, one of them matches Joaquín’s bio-data, but only 50%. The rest is... different.” Bob said, but it sounded more like a question than an answer.

“But it’s him?”

“Yes.”

“How many guards?” Yelena asked from her seat.

“Too many,” Bob replied. “But if you guys drop hard and fast, you’ve got a shot. The main access point is buried—southeast crater wall. But there’s a gap in the shielding. That’s your entry.”

Walker looked over at Sam. “Say the word, Cap.”

Sam didn’t blink. “Let’s go.”

📍 Lab Wing 4A

Joaquín didn’t know how long he sat there.

Time didn’t move the same way anymore. He was cold and dizzy, like his body was running out of power but still trying to function.

Then… the alarms blared. Red. Flashing. Distant boots pounding metal.

Joaquín snapped his head up, which was not a good idea as a wave of vertigo hit him like a tsunami. His eyes fluttered. His wings twitched weakly behind him.

Before he knew it, the doors slammed open. Masked guards rushed in, armed and shouting.

“Code red! Code red! Extract Subject 7 now!”

Joaquín stood and stumbled back as they approached him. He tried to resist as they grabbed his arms and tried to restrained his wings—his right wing flared wide on reflex, slamming into the nearest guard. The guard staggered—shouted—but another came from behind with a taser. The crackling pulse hit his side, and Joaquín dropped, shuddering.

Somewhere above, alarms screamed louder.

At the sublevel 2 corridors, Sam rounded the corner, shield up and Redwing cutting ahead like a blade.

“There’s movement on sublevel three,” Bob’s voice crackled in his ear.

Sam didn’t slow. “Walker, Yelena—rendezvous at sublevel three.”

“Kinda busy here!” Yelena grunted through the comms, gunfire in the background.

“We’ll be there!” Walker shouted over the comms. “You go!”

Bucky moved in close behind Sam, clearing each intersection with swift precision.

Joaquín tried to crawl—body shaking, wings dragging behind him like anchors. One hand reached forward, his last attempt to escape.

A boot slammed into his ribs.

He groaned, choking on his own blood.

Then a crack—the butt of a rifle slammed into the side of his head. His vision swam. He felt himself being dragged.

The guards dragged Joaquín’s limp body into the hallway—two hauling him by the arms, another trying to pin his wings.

He barely registered movement. Just boots, blood, and the cold sting of the floor.

Then—

A flash. A shot.

Gunfire ripped through the corridor. The frontmost guard dropped instantly. A blur of red and silver swept in like a storm.

Sam’s shield collided with the second guard, sending him crashing into the wall. Bucky moved behind him, swift and silent—disarming the third before he could react.

Joaquín’s body hit the ground again—hard.

“Joaquín!” Sam dropped to his knees, catching his shoulders before he could slip further. “Hey—hey, I got you. I’m here.”

And then he saw them. Sam’s breath hitched. “Holy shit…”

The blood, the bruises, the wings—real, massive, streaked with dried crimson and trembling faintly behind him—and scars that weren’t there before

But there was no time.

Joaquín’s eyes fluttered open—just a sliver. “…Sam?” he rasped, voice wrecked.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.” Sam’s voice cracked, raw at the edges. “You’re safe now. Okay? Just hang on. Don’t you dare die on me.”

A faint breath left Joaquín’s lips—half a laugh, half a sob.

“No dying,” he whispered. “Copy that.”

Then his body sagged forward in Sam’s arms, heavy with pain and relief—and the world went black.

The team moved fast.

Walker and Yelena met them halfway, clearing stragglers as medics surged in behind them. Redwing flew a perimeter sweep ahead while Bob coordinated evac from the Watchtower.

Joaquín was strapped onto a stretcher now, his wings awkwardly positioned beneath medical wraps to keep them from dragging or snapping. His face was pale. There was bruising along his ribs, his temple, his jaw.

“BP dropping,” one medic said. “We’ve got internal bleeding.”

Sam hovered nearby, fists clenched. “He’s stable?”

“For now. But he needs a full trauma suite.”

Sam nodded, jaw tight. “We’re five minutes from the jet. Go.”

The med team pushed forward, flanked by Walker and Yelena. Bucky stayed beside Sam as they moved.

“You okay?” Bucky asked, low.

Sam didn’t answer right away. He kept his eyes locked on Joaquín.

“I will be once he is.”

📍 Thunderjet | En Route to Watchtower

The hum of the jet was quiet and steady. Too quiet.

Joaquín lay unconscious on the med table, oxygen mask secure, lines in both arms. The base of his wings had been cleaned and wrapped, raw skin bandaged where muscle had torn open. They twitched slightly in his sleep, as if reacting to some phantom threat.

Sam hadn’t moved from his side. He sat on the bench, shield across his knees, eyes red-rimmed but alert.

“He’s going to make it,” one of the medics said gently.

Sam didn’t respond. His eyes were still fixed on Joaquín, tracking every shallow rise and fall of his chest.

Walker’s voice cut through the silence from the far side of the jet. “Y’know, for the record—I did say we should start with a low orbit satellite sweep. But nooo, we had to chase the radioactive goat trail in Jersey.”

Yelena rolled her eyes, arms crossed. “Because your last plan led us to a cow pasture full of actual goats.”

“That’s called misdirection,” he shot back. “Classic tactical deception.”

Yelena scoffed. “Classic waste of time.”

“Enough,” Bucky muttered, leaning against the wall beside Sam. “Both of you—volume down. He’s not even conscious and you’re already giving him a headache.”

That shut them up, mostly.

Bucky shifted closer, his voice lower now. “He’s going to be okay, Sam. He’s tough.”

“Yeah, he is.” Sam said. His fingers curled around the edge of the bench. The shield glinted faintly under the cabin lights. “He was just a kid trying to do the right thing.”

Bucky placed a quiet hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Now he’s got us in his corner as well. As a team.”

Yelena, from the other side, added quietly, “Yeah, we’re not going anywhere.”

Walker gave a soft grunt that might’ve been agreement.

Sam finally looked up. His eyes lingered on Joaquín, then turned toward the rest of the team.

“Good,” he said. “Because when he wakes up—we’re burning whatever’s left of SERPENT to the ground.”

Chapter Text

📍 Watchtower | Medical Wing

— Seven Days Post-Extraction

Joaquín woke slowly. Not from sleep, but from something deeper—something colder. Like his body had shut down for repairs and was only now, reluctantly rebooting.

He could smell antiseptic, blood, and saline. Something clenched inside him. Familiar and dangerous.

Where am I.

His heart rate jumped. The monitor echoed it. He moved a hand—sluggish, leaden—and felt fabric. Cotton. There were no restraints. Still, his pulse spiked harder. Because it didn’t matter. SERPENT didn’t always use straps because sometimes sedation was enough—sometimes they just hurt you until you stopped moving.

He forced his eyes open to a white ceiling, clean tiles, and a steady drip from an IV beside him.

Then he saw it—curved into the edges of his vision. Feathers.

He jolted, breath catching.

They’re still there. Folded awkwardly beneath him, twitching like they felt his panic.

No. No, this isn’t real.

He sat up too fast that the room spun. His breath hitched and his vision dimmed.

“Hey, hey,” A voice—gentle, steady, familiar. “Easy,” the person stood, a familiar silhouette entering the corner of Joaquín’s eyes.

Sam.

Joaquín blinked, barely keeping upright. He was shaking now, with cold sweat gathered along his brow. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

“You’re okay,” Sam said again, quieter this time. He stepped closer but didn’t reach for him, but sat on the armchair beside the bed. “You’re not in that lab anymore. You’re home. You’re safe.”

The words didn’t register right away. Joaquín’s wings twitched again—reflexive, like they were trying to shield him. He looked down at his hands. They were thinner than he remembered. Bruised and scabbed with the talons. The IV tape stretched over veins that looked too sharp. Alien.

Joaquín looked at him—then away. His lips parted, but the words got caught somewhere between his bruised ribs and his throat.

Finally, after a moment, he rasped, “I’m… sorry.” Sam’s brows furrowed, “For what?”

“If I had just—” he stopped. Swallowed. His gaze drifted down to his hands again.

Sam waited, he didn’t press.

Joaquín’s shoulders curled inward. “I should’ve listened,” he mumbled eventually, barely audible. “I messed up.”

Sam let out a quiet sigh, more weary than frustrated. “You didn’t mess up.”

Joaquin only responded with silence. He didn’t argue again, but he didn’t believe him either. He just nodded, barely a twitch of the chin, and stared at the foot of the bed. As if he was waiting for the walls to close in again. As if the moment he blinked, he’d wake back up in that lab.

Both of their attention shifted as the door opened with a soft hiss. Another figure stepped in, taller, brunette, and broad-shouldered, carrying a tray balanced carefully in both hands. “Hey,” he said, voice quiet so it didn’t jar the room. He set the tray on the side table—a sandwich, soup, and a glass of water that caught the fluorescent light. “Figured you might be hungry.”

Joaquín’s eyes flicked up. Just for a second. The man’s face was unfamiliar, but not sharp with authority like the doctors had been. It was… softer, more open. He didn’t look at the monitors, or the wings, or the IV line—just at Joaquín, like he was the only thing that mattered.

“I’ll… just leave it here,” he added, stepping back with a small nod and smile. The kind of half-smile you offered a stranger on the street, polite and unobtrusive, and left without another word.

“That’s Bob Reynolds,” Sam said, “he’s one of the new members of the team.”

That caught Joaquín’s attention. Sam noticed the way Joaquín’s eyes flicked up at him, faint confusion cutting through the exhaustion.

“That night at the White House? Ross asked me to restart the Avengers. With him.” Sam let out a stern sigh, “I didn’t want to, not after what they did to Isaiah. But then this whole thing happened with Ross turning into a Red Hulk and New York almost got swallowed by a void…” He shook his head. “It’s a lot. I’ll explain more later,” Sam went on, tone steady, almost protective, “but we rebuilt it. Independently, with no strings tied to the government.” He gave a quiet shrug. “It’s not perfect, but it’s ours. And you’re still part of it.”

He pushed himself up from the chair, giving Joaquín a steady smile. “For now, I’m gonna grab a doctor or a nurse. Food was probably meant for me, but you need it more. Try to eat, okay?”

Sam left before Joaquín could answer.

The room was quiet again. Just the monitor, the drip, and the cooling tray of food. Joaquín reached out, slowly, testing his strength. The soup was easier—chewing still made his jaw ache, the new teeth scraping against each other awkwardly. He managed a few spoonfuls, but the taste sat wrong on his tongue. He pushed the bowl away and slid off the bed, bare feet unsteady against the tile. The bathroom door was close, so he stumbled toward it, wings brushing the doorframe, awkward and heavy. At first, he dragged the IV stand along with him, the squeak of its wheels and the tug of the line against his arm crawling under his skin. Too much like the lab. Too much like them.

His chest clenched. And before he could think better of it, he yanked the line free, the sting sharp, blood welling quick at the puncture. The stand clattered against the wall as he shoved past it.

The sink faucet squealed as he bent forward and spat the taste out, rinsing until the water ran clear. When he finally looked up—

The mirror stared back.

Joaquín froze. His eyes scanned his face; thinner, bruised, and eyes sunken. The fangs flash when he opens his mouth. His wings curve behind him—unfamiliar and heavy. For a heartbeat, he didn’t recognise himself. As if he was still Subject 7. Not Joaquín Torres, not anymore.

The words “Subject 7” clawed at his chest. He clenched his fingers around the rim of the sink, talons scraping the porcelain with a high-pitched screech that vibrated deep into his bones, the sound amplified tenfold. Joaquín groaned at the noise—and everything else that followed after. He could hear everything. The water running through the pipes, the hum of the florescent lights, the buzz of electricity in the walls, his footsteps echoing heavily as he stumbled back, the rustle of his feathers, the birds outside the building, the traffic, the car horns, the people—all of it. Every sound magnified with each vibration scraping his ears like knife on glass. His wings flared as he staggered back, his heart hammering. He stumbled into the wall and his breath hitched, high and ragged. The room seemed to close in on him. The panic was suffocating, relentless. He clawed the hospital shirt off, feeling some relief. But it wasn’t over yet, he still couldn’t breathe.

Not again…

Chapter Text

helloooo my loves,

i’m sad to say that this au will be on hold for awhile.

as you all know there’s been rarely any updates. well, actually there was supposed to be two new chapters last month. but me being me, i read it all over and decided that it’s not good enough (there were several plot holes), and also noticed inconsistency in the storyline. so i decided i want to rewrite the after-joaquin-gets-saved-storyline and also tweak some errors and add some details in SERPRENT’s (back)storyline too.

i've been busy with uni and also with the preparation for two major club events coming up so i haven't been able to fully focus on the storyline development of this au 😞 i really really wanna give my 100% in my works, and also properly set this au up for its sequel (YESS, a sequel !!) which will be focused on bobquin <3

while this au will be on hold, i will still be continuing my PB&J series with updates coming soon !!

and since it's the holy unholy month of october and im a sucker for whump, i will also be starting my whump series in honor of whumptober for dc since i'm back in my dc phase (batfam or nightwing focused), and for marvel i’ll just be writing it in my ongoing series !! (although may not be for whumptober, but there will be whump lol) — so stay tuned in you’re interested !! i don’t think i’ll be able to publish everyday since im too busy ㅠㅠ (plus im already behind)

i hope this update didn't bring that much disappointment to you guys 🥹 i'll will be seeing y'all soon !!

and as always i'm so so grateful for the love this au is getting, so thank you guys all so much <33 !!

love, H.