Revision (2/7)
Title: Revision (2/7)
Author: vattelapesca
Pairing(s): Tony Stark & Yinsen (gen)
Rating: R
Warnings: Strong violence, some strong language, torture
They give him a little longer to rest this time, right after the doctor and that fucking car battery kick his heart back into gear: he gets a whole two hours. Joy. It’s long enough that by the time they come for him, he can stand, and even carry the battery if he works at it. They still send two guys to haul him off the cot, not expecting his legs to hold him anymore.
The thugs drag him into the other room and shove him to his knees in front of That Barrel. One of their hands thumps against the battery he’s clutching, making it dig hard into the inflamed skin around the healing incisions: he twitches, but it’s not enough to take his focus off the water. Not much could do that right now.
The water is black and glints in the cave’s harsh shadows. Still. Patient.
“Build me the Jericho,” someone hisses in his ear.
“No,” he rasps, half defiance and half plea.
They shove his head down for the hundredth time, and everything fractures again.
It’s ice and agony and no air, darkness and slivers of rotting greenish light, shouts muffled through the water and his own frantic grunts loud in his ears. It’s the straining of his desperate lungs and the grind of his sawn-open chest, fighting the wet sucking void inside. It’s his heart thrashing against his ribs like a wild desperate animal. It’s the darts of frenetic agony that jolt through him whenever water splashes over the magnet’s contacts, making him convulse in the thugs’ grip, stopping his heart for whole seconds. It’s the futile struggle for air, warmth, air breath air LIFE-
there’s no air he can’t breathe
-they haul him back up to the surface.
His desperate gasps are splitting his chest wide open, but he still can’t gulp air fast enough. It’s never tasted sweeter. He’ll only get a few breaths. His arms have loosened, and he's nearly dropped the battery: he crushes it against his broken ribs, more willing to deal with that sharp pain than with the horror of losing his power source.
In his ear, a hissing voice: “Build me the Jericho.”
Oh, God. “No.”
They shove him under again. It feels like even longer this time, and phosphenes are boiling at the rim of his vision when they jerk him back up.
"Build me the Jericho."
Between hacking up mouthfuls of water, he manages a "no".
Again. His vision’s gone completely white, and his heart is trying to shove the magnet out of his chest.
"Build me the Jericho."
This time he can only swallow a whimper.
Again. "Build me the Jericho."
Again. "Build me the Jericho."
Again, and longer than ever before. There's nothing but the water, nothing but the impossible dream of air, but somehow he remains keenly aware of his thundering heart. It's going to burst. It's going to explode in his chest. He’s going to die. He's going to die here-
Air, and the voice in his ear, so close that the heat of its breath boils his skin. "Build me the Jericho!"
"Okay!" It’s a ragged whisper, torn from his throat between sodden coughs, but he's forcing it out with all the strength he has left. "I'll build it! Just stop!"
For a keening, horrible instant, he's afraid they don't care. He can't see, he can barely hear or feel; he wouldn't know it was coming.
It doesn’t. They heard him. He hacks up another lungful of water, and tries not to faint with relief.
---
Four hours after Stark's cardiac episode, the door to their cell bangs open and the guards toss him back inside. He lands on the floor in a nerveless, boneless heap of dripping black hair and ashen skin, the battery clattering to the ground beside him. He coughs weakly, with a worrisome gurgle, and one hand twitches uselessly towards his chest. Yinsen takes one look at him and goes for the forceps.
Five unpleasant minutes later, there's another burn on Stark's back, but his heart is beating normally again and Yinsen has him laid out on the cot. His eyes flicker open; blown pupils turn them into glassy black pits.
"I broke."
The doctor hums noncommittally, occupied with treating the fresh burn.
"I broke," Stark rasps again, trying to turn his head. He squeezes his eyes shut; his face twists, and it isn't just the pain. "Told 'm I'd build th'Jericho."
The look on his face gives Yinsen pause. He hasn't seen that kind of self-loathing since... well, since right after it happened. The ashes hadn’t cooled yet, and he’d looked in the mirror...
Stark is still trying to turn towards him. Yinsen puts a hand on his shoulder, quelling but not ungentle. "Hold still. I need to treat this." He lets the hand linger a moment, though, and quietly adds: "Everyone breaks, Stark. It was only a matter of time."
Somehow, that doesn't give either of them much comfort.
---
Tony must have fallen asleep-or passed out, he's not sure-for a bit while the doctor poked at his back, because when the boom of the door wakes him, his hair's mostly dry. That's good. It would have sucked to get a bag shoved over his head with his hair still wet. The damp just gets everywhere, and it’s cold enough in here when he’s dry. Not to mention the bed-head. Artfully disheveled is a good look on him, but there’s no “artful” in a burlap sack.
...and just who is he kidding, fixating on that?
Resting did him good, though. He's hardly staggering at all as they shove him out the door and down what must be a quarter-mile of tunnels. They drag him into a diffuse light, and someone yanks the bag off.
Whoa. That's bright.
When he's a little bit less blind, he starts to take it all in, and right then his priorities readjust themselves. His rattling lungs and the thugs' shoving are suddenly a lot less important compared to the arsenal cached in front of him. Jesus Christ, they've got a lot of his weapons.
He says so, when the big beardy slug asks his opinion. They've dragged the doctor along, too, so Tony can follow his expression as he translates. It’s telling. The doc doesn't trust these guys any farther than Tony does. (Admittedly, he’d sort of figured that out already, what with the fear in the doc’s hissed “do as I do!”. Still. It’s nice to have confirmation of the guy’s loyalties, not to mention Tony’s fantastic observational skills.)
Where'd they get it all? SI doesn't double-deal. He didn't hear about any missing shipments. Nothing this big, anyway-there's enough here to sink a city.
...Or build a Jericho missile. Yeah. Okay. He should've seen that one coming.
Shit. There isn't going to be any delay while they get him the parts, then. It's too late to refuse again-he wouldn't survive it. He's really going to have to build a Jericho, the thing that should've kept Americans safe around here for a generation, and he's going to have to give it to these bastards.
The big beardy guy is sticking out his hand and smiling, like he’s looking to close some kind of business transaction. Tony's going to have to build it now.
Shit.
---
The Ten Rings are satisfied with Stark’s assent-it’s lucky that no one in earshot speaks English-but they still throw the bag over his head before taking him back to the cell. They’re about to do the same to Yinsen, but he raises a hand and calls out in Farsi: “Wait a moment.”
The one in front of him just frowns and says something in rapid-fire Czech. Thankfully, Abu Bakaar is close enough to overhear. "What do you want, doctor?"
Yinsen draws a long breath. “Stark’s heart is failing. I need to operate again.”
His captor just tilts his head, projecting unconcern, but Yinsen doesn’t think he’s imagining that worried twitch trying to furrow Bakaar’s brow. “Your earlier work was not enough, then?”
“The situation changed.” You’ve been drowning and electrocuting a man recovering from penetrating thoracic trauma, Yinsen doesn’t say; he is not suicidal enough to point out that the blame lies on the men holding the guns, especially when one of them is already questioning his usefulness. What did you think would happen? “I couldn’t have predicted that.
“But the fact remains that if you want him to live long enough to build your missile, I have to operate. I’ll need my kit, the supplies, assistants, a suitable theater. And he will need time to recover afterwards.” He chokes down his pride, and the loathsome feeling of begging anything from this man: “Please.”
Bakaar doesn’t appear to be feeling any more homicidal than usual, but he clearly isn’t convinced, either. He gives a noncommittal hum and folds his beefy arms. “I will consider your request.”
The Czech guard takes that as his signal to march Yinsen back to the cell.
---
By the time they push the surgeon in behind him, Tony’s hunkered down in front of the coal burner and wrapped in a blanket. The doc’s quiet sigh, and the movement as he stokes the fire, don’t really penetrate the whirl of Tony’s thoughts. There has to be a way out of all this, and he could find it if he could just think!
Right now, though, that’s easier said than done. He’s never been this tired in his life, and he knows tired. (He graduated MIT at seventeen. All-nighters are his old friends.) Every time he manages to grasp a handful of thoughts and start to combine them, he’ll cough again, or shiver, and his ribs will grind and the thoughts will skitter out between his fingers.
He’d probably give his whole fortune right now for some decent heating and a bottle of aspirin.
Suddenly, the doctor speaks. “I’m sure they’re looking for you, Stark. But they will never find you in these mountains.”
Oh, he knows. He designed half the equipment they’re using to search for him. It’s his job to know exactly how hard it is to find anything in these godawful hills.
When that doesn’t get much of a response, the surgeon crouches to look Tony in the eye. His own expression is suddenly tense and somehow pained. “Look, what you just saw-that is your legacy, Stark. Your life’s work, in the hands of those murderers! Is that how you want to go out?” His voice twists, like he’s disappointed in Tony-offended, even, by his defeat. It’s pretty rich, coming from the guy whose life isn’t measured in the time til the Energizer Bunny runs down. “Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark?”
Then the doctor’s final sentence hardens into something cold and driving. He throws it down at Tony’s feet: “Or are you going to do something about it?”
Tony’s already shaking his head before the words are out. “Why should I do anything? They’re gonna kill me-you-anyway, and if they don’t I’ll probably be dead in a week.”
The doctor glares at him, sharp and fierce. “Then this is a very important week for you, isn’t it?”
Of course it is. He’ll be dead at the end of it.
Hell, what could he accomplish in a week, anyway? It took longer than that to get the Jericho even halfway prototyped. He was a week in before he caught the mass-ratio issues with the secondary sabot. Another three days to miniaturize, one more to fix the power couplings, and that was with Pepper to run interference so he could stretch the deadline...
Oh.
Oh.
Hold that thought. He’s got an idea.
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[TBC]