⚠⚠⚠ This chapter contains content that may be disturbing or triggering such as self-harm!! If you proceed, please do so with caution!!⚠ ⚠ ⚠

"Nobody is stronger, nobody is weaker than someone who came back. There is nothing you can do to such a person because whatever you could do is less than what has already been done to him. We have already paid the price."- Elie Wiesel

(17 years later) Percy's POV

"Страстное желание."

A long pause.

"Проржавевший."

Another pause.

"Печь."

Pause.

"Рассвет."

...

"Семнадцать."

...

"Доброкачественный."

...

"Девять."

...

"Возвращение домой."

...

"Один."

...

"Грузовой автомобиль."

They finished and I woke up. It was a cave and the men in front of me didn't look at all like they were my regular handlers. But they said my words.

"Готовы соблюдать." I said. The man to the right of me looked down at a book he was holding. It had a red star on it. He seemed to be reading and then he looked up and smiled when he finished.

He turned to two men that had their hands on their head. One had a few cables sticking out of his chest that led to what looked like a fli-car battery. The other one had glasses. Both were dressed in poor clothing. Car-Battery-Guy reminded me of someone, though I can't remember who.

Red-Star-Book-Man spoke complete gibberish to the two but Four-Eyes seemed to dig*. He translated for Car-Battery-Guy.(1930-40s slang: Dig= Think hard OR Understand)

"She is here to keep us in check." He paused to listen to more of the gibberish. "He says that he went through a lot of trouble to get her here. Her handlers were very reluctant to let him borrow her."

Red-Star-Book-Man kept speaking still. "It was only because of who you are that they agreed to let her be here. She is going to ensure that we do not do anything that could be bad for them." Red-Star-Book-Man spoke one more very long sentence before leaving with the other men with guns.

"He said that it was rumored that when she and another living drone were training girls to be perfect assassins in a place called the Red Room, that she was able to overpower him easily without any weapons, even though that living drone has a superior metal arm and more training so it would be a fatal mistake to underestimate her."

I was very curious. What is the Red Room? I don't recall training girls, and I definitely don't remember fighting Winter.

"Living drone?"

Four-Eyes looked at me cautiously. "A living drone is a person who has been experimented on, enhanced to be superior to us, chipped to keep them compliant, brainwashed to ensure they don't defect, and trained to flawlessly complete missions. They never fail, and always follow the orders they are given by the person who has said their key words. I would be cautious of her, if she is truly a living drone, then she is also the perfect murderer and if she has been given orders to keep us in check, then she will use any force necessary to do so."

"Wait, so she willingly became a puppet?"

"It is hard to say. She could have gone willingly, but she could also have been kidnapped and forced to be what she is. Whatever the case, she is very dangerous."

I tuned out what they were saying then. Because of the fact that I wasn't given orders, and because I wanted to, I decided to explore this cave. This turned both heads to me, but I've never been left without orders before and I wanted to know about where I was.

"What's she doing?" Car-Battery-Guy whispered to Four-Eyes.

"I don't know." He responded just as quiet.

I just went around the cave and explored everything, though Four-Eyes objected strongly to me touching a really pretty pot filled with orange liquidy stuff that was bubbling.

"Stop, stop! What are you doing?!" He said reaching for my hand to get it away from it. He didn't succeed. My hand almost fully submerged into the pretty liquid, a sizzle sounding when my skin met the liquid. It was pretty warm, but not enough to hurt me.

I took my hand out and it was covered in the stuff. I smiled at it, not caring that there was other people around. I did have my mask on after all. Four-Eyes was sputtering slightly.

I concentrated and the pretty orange stuff collected in the palm of my hand, and I released it back into the pot it had been in before. My hand was slightly red, but it didn't bother me. I just continued my exploration and heard Car-Battery-Guy say, "She's really supposed to be dangerous?" Very incredulously.

I ignored him and went back to looking around. I was finishing up when I found a little bottle with some shards of metal in it. I picked it up and examined it and saw a bit of dried blood on the shards.

I looked over to Four-Eyes and Car-Battery-Guy and found that they had given up on me and were dismantling the small missiles and taking little things out. I decided on just observing them rather than going up to them.

That is until Car-Battery-Guy started to make a mould. I went up to it and saw that it was a thin circle. Four-Eyes went up and had gotten some of the little things, they were pieces of metal, and was about to put it in the orange bubble liquid. I went up to him and tapped on his shoulder. He turned to me and raised an eyebrow. I just pointed to the metal and held out my hand.

"Why do you need it?" I just stared blankly at him, not bothering to answer. I just pointed to the metal, silently insisting that he should give me the metal. He sighed and handed it over.

I took it and walked in front of him to the orange liquid. Holding tight onto the metal, I formed my hands into a sort of bowl and submerged them into it, a distinct sizzle sound coming when my skin made contact with the liquid again. My arm guards caught fire and it slowly spread up, but I paid it no mind. I had to concentrate to keep the metal from slipping out of my hands.

When I was sure that the metal had melted, I concentrated even more to keep it from escaping my hands and slowly brought them out of the orange liquid. My arm guards were still on fire and my hands were getting redder and the heat of it all was starting to hurt, but I went over to the mould, and tilted my hands. The melted metal fell slowly and filled up the ring.

"Hey, how'd you do that?" Car-Battery-Guy asked me, curiosity lacing his words. To be honest, I don't know. I just knew that I could.

"I have no clue." I told him, but he just looked confused.

I took off my mask and then grabbed a nearby sharp object and brought it up to my hand. Car-Battery-Guy protested, but he couldn't stop me, my arm guards were still on fire. I cut my palm and let the blood pool and collect before I put the sharp object down.

I blew on the blood and after a few minutes, the red dissipated. In its place, was clear water. Car-Battery-Guy made a noise of surprise. There was no traces of the blood and the cut had disappeared. Like with the metal, I tilted my hand and slowly let it drop onto the metal. A very satisfying hiss was heard when the water made contact with the metal.

When that was done, the metal had cooled some and was now a ring, though I could tell that the metal was still too hot to touch.

My arm guards had now burned so that they were completely ruined. When the fire got to the skin though, is hissed and fizzled out. I just sighed and ripped them off, throwing them to the floor.

There was no evidence of the fire now other than the slight redness of my arms. The scars on my arms were now completely visible and I could feel Car-Battery-Guy's eyes looking at them.

I looked back to him and once again I was reminded of someone that I didn't know. An inventor with a habit of making things that go boom. I took my hand and holding it in front of me, I tried to see what he would look like without the bottom half of his face.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

I ignored him. But it was because without the bottom half of his face he looked so familiar.

"Who are you?" I asked back, but once again he looked really confused. I tried again, attempting to speak English. "Who are you?" It was surprising since there was no accent. He still seemed confused, like I should already know who he is.

"Tony Stark."

The memory clicked in my mind of an inventor for a camp. A certain man named Howard Stark.

"What about you, what's your name?"

I had to pause and think about it. I couldn't really be sure of what my name was. I decided to respond with the name I had always known. I think.

"PAB-24."

Tony scoffed at that, but then he saw the seriousness in my face.

"PAB-24, that's not a name."

"I cannot remember being called anything else." I told him truthfully. Tony frowned and so I decided to change the conversation.

"Is there anything you need help with?" I asked and Tony had a ghost of a smile on his face. But I could tell he wasn't about to forget.

Together, the three of us made a little glowy thing for Tony. It was supposed to keep him alive, the shrapnel I had found earlier belonged to him.

Weeks past and we got to know each other more. Yinsen has a family out there somewhere, and Tony is the leader of a multi-billion dollar company. I couldn't really offer up much of my life though. At least that's what I had first thought.

"What about you PAB? Do you have a family?" Tony asked me.

"I think so. I can't really remember much about them, but I know that I have an older twin brother. And a best friend who is like a troublesome younger brother. I can't remember their names though. But I do remember that the best friend is a cement mixer." I responded after a moment.

"Cement mixer? You named an inanimate object, assigned it a gender, and called it your best friend?" He asked incredulously.

"What? No! Do you not know what 'Cement mixer' means?" I asked him surprised.

"Did it mean something different where your from?"

"I'm from New York, and it means a bad dancer." I told him. How could he not know what cement mixer meant? Wait a second... I'm from New York?

"So, a New Yorker? Have you always been part of a bad organisation or was that a recent thing?" Tony asked, not even bothering to not sound annoyed.

I didn't even bother to keep the hurt off my face. "Maybe, I don't know. I can't remember ever not being with them."

"So you've been with them since you were a kid?"

I tilted my head at this. Was I ever a kid? I can only ever remember being as I am now, an adult. I know that everyone starts out as a kid, so I must have been one at some point.

"I... Don't recall ever having been a child," this seemed to surprise Tony and Yinsen. "I've always been this way, as long as I can remember, I've always been an adult."

Tony seemed to be working out a giant equation and all was silent for a few minutes.

"Hey PAB. What is the first thing you can remember?" He asked finally.

I thought back to my earliest memories. The memories of my training. But those weren't it, they weren't the earliest thing I could remember. The earliest memories I had were of being trapped in my own body, a terrible headache, the sounds of explosions. A voice muttering. Being cold. Of two voices saying that I would be the perfect candidate.

"The earliest thing I can remember is being trapped in my body. I couldn't move or open my eyes. I had a terrible headache, and I was cold. I could hear the sound of explosions and I could hear a voice muttering something, but I can't remember what they were saying. We were going fast, in a car possibly. I remember being lifted up and taken to a chair. Being restrained, tied down.

"I remember a voice asking someone if I was the only subject they were able to salvage. And a second voice saying that I was the only one light enough to carry. The first voice said to give me a physical before they could continue. I think I started to cry, because the first voice noted that I was conscious. The second voice said that they would fix it, but the other told them not to because I wouldn't be able to move even if I tried.

"The first voice came closer and wiped away my tears. That person left, and I was stripped of my clothes, I'm certain they burned them. I remember being prepared like a sacrifice.

"The other voice came back, and the two voices agreed that I was the perfect candidate. I was given blood and someone performed a surgery on me. I was put into a machine. And then nothing at all. My mind draws a blank on what happens after. That is my earliest memory."

Neither Tony or Yinsen looked at me with pity. I didn't expect them to, I was their enemy after all. But then Tony put his hand on my shoulder and smiled slightly. It wasn't much, not really. But it was enough. It was a sign of acceptance. And it was a kind of acceptance that I didn't even know I needed until I had gotten it. I smiled back, how could I not?

It was one week after this was when my memories started coming back to me in waves. My childhood, my brother, my best friend, the bullies, the camp, the quests, the monsters, the worry my brother and best friend had for me; showing up a beat*, unraveled mess every year after Zoe and Bianca were killed by my actions, the war, the army, the fight in Azono, being made into PAB-24. I remembered the people I killed and the Red Room. The girl Bucky and I tried to get away from them. I didn't remember everything, but I remembered enough to piece things together.(1930-40s slang: Beat= Broken)

And I told it to Tony. I told him that I could remember small pieces of my life. I told him my stories, of being friends with an alleyway vigilante who always lost the fight. Of the fun times, the sad ones, everything I could remember of my life. I didn't tell him about the monsters, demigods and camp though. That's not for him, not yet.

I was able to tell him my real name. Percy. I couldn't remember my full one, but my nickname was enough for now.

I was telling him about the time when I had been accepted into the army when a slot in the door opened. Tony and Yinsen instantly stood up and put their hands on their heads. I also stood, but I didn't feel the need to put my hands on my head. The door opened and almost 20 men came in, two of them wheeling in something covered by a tarp.

One barked a command and they surged forward, all coming towards me. So I did what I did best. I fought them with no mercy, because these men were using me like a puppet. And if there was one thing I hated more than anything, it was being used as a puppet. But my fight was useless, they were all coming at me, it was like that night in the forest all over again!

I killed six of them, but that was when I became overpowered and three of them held back my arms while four had my legs. When the fight had started, I heard Tony protest loudly, but he was ignored. The man that had ordered them to restrain me took the tarp off of the object, and it was revealed to be the chair. I tried so hard to stay out of it, but it didn't work and they strapped my arms and legs down.

"Stop!" Tony tried again. The man turned to him. "She's helpful and strong, I'll nee-" but he was cut off.

The man spoke in his language and Yinsen translated. "She will still be here. This machine will ensure that she stays on task."

They lowered the head set and one of my eyes was covered. The other looked out on Tony, scared as I can remember what this chair does. They didn't even bother to put the mouth guard in. The men just went out of the room and I struggled against my restraints, trying desperately to get out of this chair.

And then it was turned on. And I screamed, the sounds only amplified by the walls of the cave. My mind was scrambled and I screamed because this pain was worse than even bullets tearing through your skin. And I shoved the memories that I had deep into my mind, the farthest corners that the machine hopefully couldn't reach.

Things faded away and my screams started to die. Faces, friends, places, the things I love, the things I never saw again, the things that I so desperately miss. These things left my mind, being replaced by a blank slate.

The machine had done its job. Now I wonder what might have happened. What it would have been like. If I had received my orders.