Rictor claim: "Wound-up Boy" by Eliyes
Title: Wound-up Boy
Fandom: Marvel U
Characters: Rictor, The Right, Shatterstar
Prompt: I got better.
Word Count: 806
Rating: R? Involves torture, drugs, violence, etc.
Summary: A closer look at what The Right did to Rictor, and how that affected one friendship.
Author's Notes: I swear I'm capable of writing happy fic for Rictor, really I am. This just isn't one.
Some of what The Right did to him was just research, and some was torture just for the fun of it. Most was both. One of the first things they'd injected him with was a "truth serum". He had only vague, surreal memories of the interrogation that followed, but they'd asked him his name early enough that he'd kept most of the answer behind his teeth, stubbornly not correcting them when his slurred "Richter" was mistaken for "Rictor". He was smart enough to recognise that his family would be outgunned and probably slaughtered if they tried to rescue him, so there was no point in letting on how to contact them.
There were more drugs, added to an IV drip that stayed in him so they didn't have to touch him too much. Even when he was tired, he fought the sedatives, afraid that this time he wouldn't wake up. He hated the stimulants, hated feeling full of energy and jittery while he was trapped in their restraints. The drugs he hated most were the narcotics; stealing his ability to think, or keep the contents of his stomach down; making him lose his grasp of what was happening to him, of time passing. They only gave them to him in order to put him through withdrawal, but he despised the whole cycle.
When he was weak he hoped they'd accidentally give him a fatal overdose. Other times he was afraid he was dead already, and this was hell.
They told him he was a monster. He was a mutant, unnatural, and so they fitted him with a special helmet that was supposed to keep him from using his powers. They even told him what those powers were: he caused earthquakes.
They had found him after a massive quake in Guadalajara that they told him he had caused. All that destruction -- all those people killed -- because he was a freak of nature. He didn't want to believe it, but they had proof. They could deactivate the helmet and make him do it again. That's what the seizures were for.
Pain worked better, though.
He'd never known there could be so many kinds of pain. They tried all kinds of things on him. He was beaten every which way, shocked, even burned some -- although the guy who did that disappeared after. The worst, though, was the machines. He didn't even know how they worked, just what they did. With the flip of a switch he'd be screaming in agony. They could control how intense, how often, and where the pain was. They could make him feel like he was on fire, or freezing, or being stabbed a thousand times; whatever they wanted.
They enjoyed hurting him, especially the leader. They wanted to break him, but they also wanted to use him. Nearly everything they did to him was measured, recorded, compiled until they had a sure notion of how to force him to use his mutant power they way they wanted him to. They figured out how to make him destroy another city.
First, narcotics, strong ones. They must have kept him doped for a week to make sure that getting cut off would be particularly hellish. They moved him while he was out of it. Once withdrawal was underway, they pumped him full of stimulants and started up the torture machine. It started low and just got worse and worse.
Then they took off his helmet, and suddenly he could feel that there was something there. It was like having a crick in his neck and wanting to pop it, only amplified to a truly enormous degree. It was a fault line, they told him as they injected him with the cocktail that caused the seizures.
He was going to destroy San Francisco.
The Right hated him just because he was a mutant, and had primed him to do this awful thing that would move the world to hate mutants, too. He was a helpless bomb they set, a living weapon who couldn't control his own potential for destruction.
Fortunately -- for Rictor and for the city of San Francisco -- The Right's plan was thwarted. He was saved by mutants who didn't think he was a monster, and who taught him to control the terrible power at his command.
Years later, his best friend was a time-tossed alien who had been genetically engineered to be a superb gladiator; who had risen to super-stardom in that lethal sport; whose life, even after the arena slaves rebelled, primarily centered on fighting and killing. On the outside, their relationship seemed a weird match, and in many respects it was. They had a lot of differences, but they had some very basic things in common.
Shatterstar knew himself to be an instrument of death, forged by others.
Rictor could relate.
Cross-posted from my journal.
Fandom: Marvel U
Characters: Rictor, The Right, Shatterstar
Prompt: I got better.
Word Count: 806
Rating: R? Involves torture, drugs, violence, etc.
Summary: A closer look at what The Right did to Rictor, and how that affected one friendship.
Author's Notes: I swear I'm capable of writing happy fic for Rictor, really I am. This just isn't one.
Some of what The Right did to him was just research, and some was torture just for the fun of it. Most was both. One of the first things they'd injected him with was a "truth serum". He had only vague, surreal memories of the interrogation that followed, but they'd asked him his name early enough that he'd kept most of the answer behind his teeth, stubbornly not correcting them when his slurred "Richter" was mistaken for "Rictor". He was smart enough to recognise that his family would be outgunned and probably slaughtered if they tried to rescue him, so there was no point in letting on how to contact them.
There were more drugs, added to an IV drip that stayed in him so they didn't have to touch him too much. Even when he was tired, he fought the sedatives, afraid that this time he wouldn't wake up. He hated the stimulants, hated feeling full of energy and jittery while he was trapped in their restraints. The drugs he hated most were the narcotics; stealing his ability to think, or keep the contents of his stomach down; making him lose his grasp of what was happening to him, of time passing. They only gave them to him in order to put him through withdrawal, but he despised the whole cycle.
When he was weak he hoped they'd accidentally give him a fatal overdose. Other times he was afraid he was dead already, and this was hell.
They told him he was a monster. He was a mutant, unnatural, and so they fitted him with a special helmet that was supposed to keep him from using his powers. They even told him what those powers were: he caused earthquakes.
They had found him after a massive quake in Guadalajara that they told him he had caused. All that destruction -- all those people killed -- because he was a freak of nature. He didn't want to believe it, but they had proof. They could deactivate the helmet and make him do it again. That's what the seizures were for.
Pain worked better, though.
He'd never known there could be so many kinds of pain. They tried all kinds of things on him. He was beaten every which way, shocked, even burned some -- although the guy who did that disappeared after. The worst, though, was the machines. He didn't even know how they worked, just what they did. With the flip of a switch he'd be screaming in agony. They could control how intense, how often, and where the pain was. They could make him feel like he was on fire, or freezing, or being stabbed a thousand times; whatever they wanted.
They enjoyed hurting him, especially the leader. They wanted to break him, but they also wanted to use him. Nearly everything they did to him was measured, recorded, compiled until they had a sure notion of how to force him to use his mutant power they way they wanted him to. They figured out how to make him destroy another city.
First, narcotics, strong ones. They must have kept him doped for a week to make sure that getting cut off would be particularly hellish. They moved him while he was out of it. Once withdrawal was underway, they pumped him full of stimulants and started up the torture machine. It started low and just got worse and worse.
Then they took off his helmet, and suddenly he could feel that there was something there. It was like having a crick in his neck and wanting to pop it, only amplified to a truly enormous degree. It was a fault line, they told him as they injected him with the cocktail that caused the seizures.
He was going to destroy San Francisco.
The Right hated him just because he was a mutant, and had primed him to do this awful thing that would move the world to hate mutants, too. He was a helpless bomb they set, a living weapon who couldn't control his own potential for destruction.
Fortunately -- for Rictor and for the city of San Francisco -- The Right's plan was thwarted. He was saved by mutants who didn't think he was a monster, and who taught him to control the terrible power at his command.
Years later, his best friend was a time-tossed alien who had been genetically engineered to be a superb gladiator; who had risen to super-stardom in that lethal sport; whose life, even after the arena slaves rebelled, primarily centered on fighting and killing. On the outside, their relationship seemed a weird match, and in many respects it was. They had a lot of differences, but they had some very basic things in common.
Shatterstar knew himself to be an instrument of death, forged by others.
Rictor could relate.
Cross-posted from my journal.