Archive of Our Own

The bet started just a few weeks after joining the Valorant Protocol. 

It became kind of a running joke around headquarters-- getting Cypher's mask off, seeing who could do it first. It didn't take long for them to put good money on the line, seeing as neither Phoenix or Jett were the type to back down.

From that point on the lighthearted game quickly devolved into more of a hunt.

They waited for Cypher during meal times and offered him his favorite teas when they ran into him in the hallways to try and get at least a peek. Phoenix turned up all the thermostats as high as they would go, heating up the entire building until it was sweltering and the whole team was left miserable and sweating. Jett even tried sneaking into Cypher's room in the middle of the night. 

No dice.

(And that last one had gone particularly poorly.)

As it turned out, their good old friend Cypher might as well have been a radiant. Clearly, he didn't need sleep, he didn't get bothered by the heat, and he'd probably never eaten a thing in his life. His bedroom had more security than the front doors of the compound and anyone who tried to pry information from him would have more success prying blood from a stone. 

Killjoy's running hypothesis was that it wasn't a mask at all, but Cypher was simply a security android gone rogue. Sova, on the other hand, seemed certain that Cypher had come out of the womb wearing the thing. Viper mentioned offhandedly one morning that the Moroccan was probably just extraordinarily vain about his appearance.  

Everyone had their own theories, but the bottom line was that Cypher never took off his mask.

Never.

And with every month that passed, that seemed more and more like an indisputable fact. It was hard to imagine that there was a human somewhere beneath the metal alloys, and it hurt Phoenix's head to try and match a face to the voice he’d grown used to.

Gaunt skin, high cheekbones, maybe? He could bet on eyebags, at least. Was he completely bald, did he have a beard? Was his mouth perpetually twisted up in that smirk that his voice always seemed to imply?

All they really had to go off of was his accent and his Moroccan heritage, but that didn’t carry much weight in how he actually looked. 

Still, the curiosity never really went away, even after he and Jett began giving up. 

Phoenix saw him once in the kitchen area, drinking a cup of tea with his back turned. The mask was clearly still on, so he could only guess that Cypher's mask had a sliding bottom plate that he used when he needed to eat or drink. It was a startlingly rare display of vulnerability by Cypher's usual standards, but when he turned back around the mask was whole once more, not allowing Phoenix to see so much as an inch of skin. 

The Moroccan didn't look particularly surprised to see him, either, and just laughed.

"You're going to have to try a bit harder than that, Anqa."

Phoenix shook his head, "unbelievable. Y'know, with how often you're out there on the battlefield puttin’ your life in our hands, it seems pretty ridiculous not to trust us with somethin’ as simple as your face."

Cypher dipped his head. "Ah, trust. Is that what you think this is about?"

He frowned. "Isn't it? What else would it be about?"

There was a long pause, an almost imperceptible stiffening of Cypher's posture. "All information is precious, Phoenix," he finally murmured. "No matter how insignificant it seems, anything can be used against you. Believe me, if I didn't trust the people here, I wouldn't be here."

Phoenix couldn't quite tell if the words were meant as a reassurance or a warning. 

"Yeah, well," he reached out to refill his own empty coffee mug. "Jett owes me about five thousand creds if I see your face first... so if you're ever feelin' generous, I might be able to split the deal. Win-win situation, yeah?"

Cypher breathed out a little amused huff. The undefined tension fell away and his shoulders deflated. 

"My friend, let me rephrase what I said; information is not just precious, it is priceless. You could come to me with an offer twenty times that and I would still deny you."

As infuriating as it was, Phoenix had to respect the dedication. The man never did things in halves, and he was pretty sure anything short of physically tackling Cypher and ripping the mask off himself would be pointless. 

He spared himself another round of cryptic responses and didn't press the point further than that, slipping back out of the kitchen with a short wave. At least he knew that Jett wouldn't have any more luck.

As far as he was concerned, Cypher's face was a stalemate.

Seven months later, lying inside a Kingdom prison cell, Phoenix couldn't get the conversation out of his mind. 

All information is precious, Cypher had said. Anything can be used against you.

He wasn't an idiot-- Phoenix knew what those bastards were probably going to do. They would interrogate him, torture him, question him for hours and do whatever it took to get information on the Valorant Protocol.

He knew it was his job to sit still and keep his mouth shut and wait for the others to track him down, but knowing that didn't calm his heart, which was practically beating right out of his chest, or soothe his muscles, which were aching from the shivers continuously wracking his body. 

Between the thick suppressing manacles wrapped around his hands and the cell, which could be more accurately described as a giant freezer, he wasn't going to be in a position to fight back anytime soon. 

"If we could get a move on," he said loudly, fully aware there was a camera somewhere in the room.

It was far easier to mask the fear with anger, and it’s not like it was particularly difficult to summon a whole lot of that when it came to Kingdom.

God, it's fucking freezing in here. 

He couldn't stop himself from flinching when the door suddenly slid open, filling the dim room with light. Two masked people (he couldn't tell if they were scientists or soldiers) hauled a figure into the cell beside him, and Phoenix's heart flew to his throat when he realized it was Jett hanging limply between them.

She was dressed in the same uncomfortable outfit Kingdom had changed him into; thin black pants and a thin white shirt, both made from the same itchy fabric. Her legs were twisted at unnatural angles and there was a smear of blood dashed over one of her eyebrows. Despite the cold, Phoenix felt like an inferno as he watched them chain her up to the slab on the other side of the room.

The façade of bravado was gone-- no, he wanted them dead. And he told them.

"I'll fucking kill you," he promised.

His own hot breath fogged up the air around them as he strained against the metal. It was a relief to see the same little puffs of air coming from his best friend, too-- it meant that at the very least she wasn't dead; that there was still a chance he could get them both out in one piece. 

He'd worked with worse odds before. This was nothing. 

"Jett," he hissed, glaring ferociously at the two guards as they left. He was ignored completely, like they didn't even notice he was there, which was probably better than if he'd actually managed to antagonize them. 

From across the room, Jett made a faint groaning noise, head lolling while her eyes blinked in a disoriented state of awareness.

"Hey! C'mon, Jett, talk to me here--!"

But apparently the Kingdom agents weren't done. Within a few moments of leaving, they were back, dragging another unconscious body into the cell. 

The man was scrawny, all gangly limbs with dark olive skin and a mess of loose black curls.

Phoenix didn't even remotely recognize him. 

At least it wasn't Killjoy or Raze, but it was hard to feel relief that it wasn't another one of his teammates. He only had pity for any poor sod who happened to be on Kingdom's bad side-- they were all in for a rough time. Phoenix ducked his head, trying to gauge if the man was really unconscious or not, but there was a thick blindfold under the curls that completely covered the man's eyes and it was impossible to tell for sure.

The guards spent such an excessive amount of time securing the third prisoner that Phoenix was almost offended.

Vacantly, he wondered if the man could potentially be another radiant that Kingdom had deemed 'dangerous'. If they were making the effort to restrain him to the same degree it had to be a possibility.

The two assholes made sure his hands were completely encased in the cuffs before leaving the cell once more, and as soon as the door clicked shut behind them Phoenix turned back to Jett.

"Jett! Jett!"

She didn't respond. Her expression just twisted in drowsy pain-- no doubt a result of her mangled legs, which Phoenix could hardly bear to look at himself. He grimaced and hoped Brimstone had the wherewithal to bring Sage with him for the rescue party. 

Speaking of rescue party.

He turned his attention to the other man that had been brought in, figuring he couldn't just leave the guy with Kingdom. 

"Ay bruv, you awake? Can you hear me?"

It was just Phoenix's luck that he seemed even more unresponsive than Jett. 

Phoenix muttered a string of colorful curses under his breath and gnawed on his lower lip as he considered the best course of action. It was one thing to mentally prepare himself for interrogation, but he wasn't sure if he could sit still and keep his mouth shut if the agents were going to be hurting Jett, too.

C'mon, Brim. Anytime now.

With a new desperation, he twisted his back around and craned his neck to try and get a better look at the cuffs. It wasn't just the cold atmosphere or the covering that went right up to his wrists; there was something else in the cuffs that felt like a huge weighted blanket had been thrown over his fire, smothering it out completely. It was an awful feeling, not being able to tune into such an integral part of himself.

His fire was there, but just out of reach, like a phantom limb or an itch he couldn’t scratch.

Even if they'd broken her legs for good measure, he could safely assume that Jett's restraints would do the same thing to her wind (as well as to whatever powers the stranger beside him had, because there was no way he could believe Kingdom would go through the effort or risk on any normal civilian). 

The cell itself was dark aside from one dim fluorescent light. There were a row of slabs, too hard to call them cots or medical beds, with restraints coming down from the walls and around the sides of the metal grates. No windows, no chairs, no carpets. Just concrete walls, a smooth white floor, and the nauseating odor of bleach fumes that were already giving Phoenix a headache. 

Okay, escape plan.

Step one was clearly to get out of the cuffs. Then he just needed to break Jett and the strangers' cuffs and find a way to break out of the cell. Step three, somehow navigate around the larger Kingdom complex, around their inevitable security, fight off the guards, and physically carry Jett and the stranger out of the building and to safety. 

And make a short stop to find wherever they were keeping his prized jacket, because like hell if he was leaving without getting it back. 

Right. Plan A seemed simple enough.

But Plan B—burning the entire building to the ground the second he had the opportunity to do so— was sounding more and more appealing. 

Several hours later, with no more of a plan than he'd started with, the door slid open again. 

The first man who entered was thin but towering, probably even taller than Breach. He was all lightly tanned skin with a wave of dirty blonde hair and he looked like a fucking douchebag, in Phoenix's completely unbiased opinion. There was a plastic nametag on the side of his coat, Dr. Greene, although Phoenix was fairly certain it was just a pseudonym. 

Greene was flanked by four other workers in long white coats, each with masks that covered their faces entirely. The last to walk in was dragging a rolling metal rack behind them. 

Phoenix could only guess the sharp metal needles lining the racks were tools, but regardless of their purpose they looked extremely dangerous and painful and oh shit, okay, here we go.

It was hard to get into any kind of secure position while laying prostrate on the slab, but he turned himself around in an attempt to face them anyway, trying to clear his thoughts. Jett had probably gone through worse the first go around, so he could handle whatever they were planning for him.

He could survive long enough for Brimstone and Sage and Cypher and Viper and the rest, he could do that for them. 

Except that they didn't stop at his slab.

No, the four Kingdom agents circled around the guy next to him, and one of them jabbed a syringe into his neck.

It must've done something, because Phoenix could see the guy's chest start rising and falling rapidly like he was on the verge of hyperventilating. He was still blindfolded, but his throat constricted with a thick swallow-- definitely awake, then. 

One of the Kingdom agents began rummaging through the metal instruments on the rack.

"Hey," Phoenix blurted out, fighting off simultaneous relief and panic. 

It wasn't him or Jett, but Phoenix couldn't just lie around and let another poor dick get tortured, either. 

Once again, he was completely ignored by the other agents, but Greene paused and glanced at him with an expression of faint interest. Even when the agents begin adjusting the man on the slab, the head doctor didn't look away. The eye contact was unnerving. 

Phoenix didn't want to give him the satisfaction of backing down first, but when he heard a hoarse bark of pain to his right he couldn't stop his hands from clenching into fists. 

"You're gonna regret that," he ground out.

One of Greene’s eyebrows rose. "Oh, am I now? How heroic. But you should know better, Grant Galloway." He didn't give Phoenix a chance to process his own full name before continuing, "then you know Aamir here, I assume?"

Not even a little. 

The words were spoken casually but something about the way Greene said them made Phoenix think the man was searching for something.

Unfortunately, without any idea of what he was searching for, Phoenix had no idea whether it was in his best interest to lie or not. It couldn't hurt to tell them he didn't know the guy, could it? Then again, it was probably better to lie, given the circumstances. 

He broke contact to look at the man next to him. One of the agents was taking an unreasonably large sample of blood from his elbow through a large syringe, the barrel thicker than two of Phoenix's fingers. The man-- Aamir, apparently-- looked two seconds away from passing out again, and his entire body twitched every time the agents turned to inspect another area of him. Like he was a specimen, not a person. Something to dissect.

It made Phoenix’s blood boil. 

"Leave him alone," he said by way of response. 

"I'll take that as a yes. Interesting."

Damn. Greene sounded far too pleased. He could hear Cypher's voice, anything can be used against you, and he knew he'd made a mistake somewhere. He was doing his best to keep any sensitive information quiet, but he'd never been good at undercover work or infiltration or the quieter side of war. All he needed was to get out of the fucking cuffs and then the entire company would be done for. 

One of the four Kingdom agents held out the blood sample. "We're almost done here. Should we transport him to the lab, sir?"

Greene examined the vial for a moment before smiling. It was a plastic expression.

"On second thought, take him to the briefing room. And take the other two with him-- they might have more use here than we thought."

Definitely made a mistake, Phoenix thought, wanting to smack himself in the face even though he still wasn't sure what he’d done wrong. His thoughts couldn't go further than that before he felt a sharp prick in his neck and the world around him began sinking into darkness.

Despite the fact that he knew what was coming next, Phoenix still liked the briefing room more than the refrigerator they'd been keeping him in.

It was far warmer, and even with the cuffs still cutting off whatever tether he had to his radiant powers it was preferable to the cold. The headache and nausea were still there, along with the overwhelming disorientation that comes with being forcibly put under over and over again... but it was warm. He'd take small victories where he could find them.

The briefing room was another windowless, barren block of concrete and white vinyl. The fluorescent lights covered the ceiling completely, and were almost blinding after the long hours his eyes had spent adjusting to the dim lighting of the cell. 

There was also a low table in the center of the room, except it was tilted down at an awkward slope and there were leather straps lying across one end. He'd never seen anything like it before. 

Thankfully, Jett was finally conscious as well, and by the time he managed to get the black spots out of his vision, her gaze was already fixed on him. 

"Hey," he groaned.

Her eyes flicked between his face and the cuffs practically straight-jacketing him to the chair. "Where are we?"

"Kingdom. I reckon' they got us as we were leaving the site. Brim should know we've been taken, though... he'll come for us."

The words didn't sound as confident as they should've.

It wasn't like he didn't think the others would come for them, but he had no idea how long it had already been and every second that passed was another moment in Kingdom's clutches. Jett just nodded, not looking even a little reassured. 

He glanced towards her legs. They were wrapped in shiny black splits, but the angles still looked slightly wrong and it was clear the bones hadn't been reset. Knowing it was a stupid, useless question, he asked anyway:

"How bad is it?"

She followed his gaze and rolled her eyes. "It's fine, pretty boy. I can manage. I would've had them if they didn't play dirty-- gesekgi drugged me."

"Yeah, they're fond of doin' that," he muttered. He looked back around the briefing room. The only two chairs were the ones he and Jett were currently strapped to, but they were still missing--

Just like that, the door opened and in came Dr. Greene with his little club of masked doctors. The man sure had a knack for dramatic entrances.

They dragged in a body who Phoenix figured was the Aamir from the cell. He was struggling far more than before, though, and there was a bag completely covering his head. 

Jett's head swung towards him, confused alarm written all over her face. 

Who, he knew she wanted to ask. But even if the Kingdom agents weren't right there, he didn't have an answer for her anyway. 

The agents continued manhandling Aamir onto the slanted table so his head was lower than his legs and began securing the leather straps around him to keep him in place. Phoenix felt his throat tighten. 

There was a drain in the middle of the briefing room floor.

He stared at it. 

Greene smiled widely at the two of them. "Ah, it's good to see you both awake. I was worried we would be forced to delay this more than we already have, and at some point there really are easier options that have to be considered." He gave Jett an acknowledging nod, "especially you, Joon-Hee. I hope you can forgive us for the precautions we were forced to take earlier. It was nothing personal, it's just better safe than sorry in this business."

"Oh, you're still gonna be sorry," Jett retorted, eyes blazing. 

For some reason, the words made Aamir's head jerk back to look in her direction, but with the bag covering his face it was impossible to tell why. 

"Of course," Green said, like he was placating an angry child. "You know, your little Valorant Protocol has been a thorn in this company's side for a long time. Our higher-ups are still debating whether it's more beneficial to keep you around for testing or to just be rid of you entirely. Two radiants would be a great source for our radianite experimentation, after all. Unfortunately, seeing as we can't damage either of you too much for the foreseeable future, that only leaves a few options." 

One of the Kingdom agents passed Greene a glass of water, and he accepted it with a nod. Took a sip, smiled that same plasticky smile, and then looked down at Aamir.

"It's actually quite lucky that our friend Aamir isn't a radiant himself. I know how much he values information, you see. I know no matter what I do to him, he isn't going to talk."

Phoenix felt his brow furrow. Something about the way he described--

"But for some reason, you seem to care about his wellbeing, Grant," Greene exclaimed. "You don't want us to hurt him. And that just works out perfectly, doesn't it, because the truth is that I don't want to hurt him, either! So let me propose a solution that will make all of us happy, shall I?"

Without warning, he tipped the glass of water, pouring it right over Aamir's head.

It made the fabric of the bag flatten against his face, and there was an awful moment where Aamir's entire body strained against the leather, choking several horrible wet noises out of him that made Phoenix's insides go cold. Jett was jerking in her restraints too, shouting something in Korean. 

Greene never stopped smiling, just waited for the water to drain from the glass and then turned back to the two of them.

"You see? That wasn't very pleasant for anyone here. But it doesn't need to happen again as long as we work together and cooperate-- it's quite a simple solution, really."

Phoenix thought he knew what torture was. He'd seen horrific things in his life, seen bad things happen to people he cared about. He'd been shot and died on the battlefield before, but this was a different kind of awful that was completely foreign to him. Looking at the stranger who was still making those awful strangled sounds in front of him, Phoenix realized he was only just finding out what torture was. 

There was no shooting his way out of this. No fire, no flashes, no escaping. Just helplessly watching, being forced to choose between something bad and something worse.

He had no idea what he was supposed to do.

Greene held out the empty glass to one of the agents, and they silently refilled it with a large pitcher. 

"Let's start off easy, why don't we? Tell me the location of your Valorant Protocol's headquarters."

Aamir shook his head furiously, and although Phoenix's heart sank with guilt, he knew he wasn't going to give them the information.

Not in a million years-- certainly not for a man he didn't even know. Jett seemed to feel the same way, because her jaw clenched shut with cold determination.

Greene studied them for a moment, smile flattening. "Well, alright then. I was hoping you would understand, but like I said, you get to decide when this ends. It's your decision."

Logically, he knew he was being manipulated. There was no real choice in these situations, only the illusion of one. Knowing that didn't stop it from gnawing away like acid in his stomach. 

The second glass wasn't any easier than the first. Phoenix had to shut his eyes when Aamir's body began thrashing again, but closing his eyes couldn't block out the sound. He'd never hated the sound of water more, and he knew he would despise the sound until the day he died. It was steadily streaming onto the floor, dripping off of places on the mask that had already soaked through. 

There was a pause, and then the sound of more pouring water. The sound of strangled, garbled, agonized gasps.

“Let us know if you would like us to remove the blindfold, Aamir. There are always more permanent ways to keep you blind.”

Fucking hell, this guy sure loves the sound of his own voice. 

Phoenix didn’t say it out loud, though— for all he knew Greene would pull out a pocket knife and start gouging Aamir's eyes out right then and there. 

The same Kingdom agent brought the water pitcher forward and refilled the glass once again. 

It seemed to go on forever like that and Phoenix couldn't even remember what he was being asked, he just wanted it to stop. 

"I am still wondering how you all met in the first place," Greene continued conversationally, like he wasn't standing over a drowning man. He took another sip from the glass. "All those years Aamir spent running, hiding away like that rat he is... all for him to show up right on our doorstep. I can guess he was coming after you two, but isn't that an interesting development? I wouldn't expect someone like him to get friendly with the Valorant Protocol. Or anyone, really, especially after what happened—“

Aamir jerked, a muffled growl ripping out from beneath the hood. Greene laughed. 

"Ah, ah... I take it you're still holding a grudge for that one, then. So resentful."

Not for the first time, Phoenix had the distinct feeling he was missing something important. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why Greene was so set on assuming Aamir was a Valorant agent who had come to rescue them. He turned to Jett, but her gaze was fixed on the man lying on the table in front of them, eyes wide as saucers.

What does she know? 

Phoenix was about two seconds away from straight up asking, but he bit his tongue. 

"Why, don't tell me you joined the Valorant Protocol yourself," Greene admonished. "You should've known that wouldn't end well. I mean, your so-called teammates seem perfectly content sitting back and watching you drown right now. Is there really much trust there?"

There was a muffled response from beneath the bag. 

Greene made a placating gesture towards the other agents.

"Ready to talk? Let’s hear what he has to say.”

One guard stepped forward and peeled the drenched bag off of Aamir's head. The blindfold and a gag were still in place beneath it, and the agent had to work for a moment to untie the back of the fabric so he was able to speak. Phoenix could see a swath of scars that disappeared right around the edges of the blindfold, a smattering of dark freckles.

In retrospect, he wasn't sure why he noticed details like that. 

There was a long stretch of silence as Aamir simply breathed, inhaling and exhaling air like a dying man. It was a painful, rattling sound.

"Well?" Greene prompted.

Aamir looked in his direction and spat. 

"Go to hell."

The air left Phoenix's lungs all at once. His jaw dropped to the floor, gaping, because even with how broken the man's voice was he would be able to recognize that distinctive rasp anywhere.

That lilting accent. 

It was Cypher. Aamir was Cypher.

"Oh my god," he heard Jett say. 

The nausea in Phoenix's gut roared like a tide because he had been watching his teammate get waterboarded and these motherfuckers took Cypher's mask and he had seen Cypher's face. 

It wasn't the satisfying victory he always assumed it would be. After months of betting with Jett, pulling pranks and coming up with equally elaborate and ridiculous schemes to get a peek of what lay underneath, all he wanted to do was bleach the image from his mind. 

And within his stupid, useless brain, all Phoenix could think about was how much smaller Cypher looked without his coat and hat. He had always been on the shorter side (something which was emphasized tenfold when standing next to Sova and Breach), but he wasn’t supposed to look small. 

It felt wrong, knowing things like that, seeing him like that. 

It felt worse knowing Cypher had gotten captured trying to rescue him and Jett. 

Knowing that if he'd gotten caught, the others probably weren't having much more luck, and their situation was looking even more dire than before. Brim hadn't found them yet, Jett's legs were broken, and Cypher was probably having the worst day of his life, so it turned out Phoenix was all they had for the time being.

Which— fine. He wasn't about to let them down.

He could work with this, he could figure something out. 

Greene looked from the stain of saliva on his lab coat to Cypher. Then, taking two steps forward, he put the heel of his boot directly on Cypher's neck. A wheezing noise squeezed itself from Cypher's throat at the pressure. The doctor scoffed, lifted his foot and then brought it down on Cypher's nose, hard.

There was an awful crunch. He stomped once more, until the rubber sole of his boot was dripping red and the puddles of water on the floor were turning pink. 

"Was that all? I promise you'd be just as useful to Kingdom without your vocal chords intact, Aamir. Perhaps even more so.”

"I'm gonna burn your fucking skin off," Phoenix snarled, meaning every word completely.

The boot finally came back down to the floor and Cypher twisted as he fell into a hoarse coughing fit. His head tilted around in a pointless attempt to shield his face despite the awkward positioning.

It was far too late for privacy, but Phoenix still averted his eyes as respectfully as he could, figuring the man deserved at least that much.

"Put the gag back on him," Greene said. "We continue until the water is gone."

"Stop blaming yourself."

"Who says I'm blamin' myself?"

Phoenix scowled. Of course he was, but Jett didn’t need to know that.

She gave him a hard look. There was a measure of concern in it that undermined the aggression. "I can just tell, dumbass. So stop being an idiot about this-- the only one to blame is Kingdom and all their stupid fucking psycho doctors, okay?"

He shivered. They were in the refrigerator cell again, tied back down to the slabs.

Even with the cold, the unforgiving metal beneath him, and their general situation as a whole, Phoenix just wanted to shut his eyes and sleep for the next twenty years. He kept hearing the same wet, choked noises on repeat in his mind. The crunch of Cypher's breaking nose. Black curls and brown skin, blood and water.

"You're doing it again."

Something snapped inside him.

"I'm not blaming myself!" he shouted, turning on her with gritted teeth. He was surprised by his own outburst but the words just kept pouring out anyway. "You saw the same shit I did, Jett! What, you think they're givin' him a five star spa treatment right now?!" 

Her face twisted with anger. "Of course not, you fucking dick! Fine, keep blaming yourself if you want to!" 

"Yeah, I will!" 

He wanted her to keep yelling, but she turned away with her jaw clenched. His eyes caught sight of the black splits wrapping around her legs and the anger drained away as quickly as it had come.

"Sorry," he finally muttered. "I'm just-- I'm just worried, yeah?"

She sighed. "Yeah, whatever, it's fine. I am too, okay? I get it."

They lapsed into another miserable silence. 

He looked at the empty slab between them, wondering if Greene was even planning on bringing Cypher back to the cell. He hoped the doctor at least had the sense to get Cypher some medical treatment and to clear his lungs-- even just the bare minimum, even if it was just to keep him alive for another round of torture-- but he knew that keeping Cypher alive wasn't exactly on top of Kingdom's priority list.

They needed to start thinking about a course of action in case the others weren't coming. 

Well, “start” wasn’t the right term.

Phoenix had been racking his brain since the moment he'd woken up and there still wasn't a plan. Even if the cuffs were out of the equation, he couldn't think of a way he could safely get Cypher and Jett out, especially when they were separated and only God knew where Cypher was at that point. 

He opened his mouth to ask Jett if she remembered anything they could use to their advantage, but before he could speak the cell door slid open. 

Shit.

"—Sedate them again, we'll keep them under until the blood tests come back," Greene was saying. Four Kingdom agents filtered into the cell beside him.

Phoenix saw one of them lift a syringe in his direction and put so much pressure on the restraints that he was sure his fingers were about to break. He heard Jett grunting— she clearly wasn't going down without a fight either.

And then—

He wasn't quite sure what happened after that. 

The first thing he registered was a deafening bang. Then Phoenix felt something wet and warm mist across his face.

The agent holding the syringe collapsed to the floor, blood streaming steadily from the bullet hole between their eyes. Dead.

Another bang.

Phoenix's eyes darted towards the guard to his left. There was a raised sheriff in their hands, still smoking, and an identical situation between the two guards standing around Jett; one on the floor, the other with a gun raised. 

Dr. Greene took one look at his two dead men and practically tripped over himself trying to run, reaching up to turn on his commlink, but it was too late. 

Another bang, and Phoenix could only watch as Greene's blood exploded across a backdrop of white and he slid down the wall. 

"Wha--"

The remaining Kingdom agent beside him lowered their gun. Then they reached up, pulled their mask to the side, and Phoenix felt lightheaded with relief when he saw Sage's face beneath.

She gave him a strained smile.

"Sorry we're late."

Beside Jett, Brimstone also removed his Kingdom mask. He looked more than a little frazzled. "Son of a bitch," he barked, "thank Christ you two are alive." 

Phoenix looked up at the ceiling while Sage and Brimstone worked on his restraints, trying to catch his breath. Clearly they knew what they were doing, because within minutes there were several clicking sounds and the metal clasps were prying open.

"Holy shit," he said breathlessly, "how did you--?"

"You don't work in a Kingdom facility for years without learning a thing or two," Brim said, "besides, Cypher kept us updated on everything up until he got caught. We tracked his location here."

"We don't have much time," Sage added. "Killjoy and Omen are holding the perimeter, but the sooner we get out the better."

It was instantaneous. As soon as the cuffs clicked off, Phoenix felt like he could breathe again. His hands immediately caught fire, spreading a warm heat throughout his body. He was off the slab before Brim and Sage could even make it over to Jett, spreading his flames across the floor and bathing himself in them. 

It was heavenly. 

The feeling abated when his eyes caught sight of Dr. Greene's body. He swallowed. Sage had taken him out in a single shot to the head and it had seemed so simple, so easy. It made his gut turn to think about the past day they'd spent in the briefing room, to remember that feeling of helplessness. 

There was a dark part of Phoenix that was glad Greene watched his men die first. That the man got to experience that fear, the knowledge that he was about to die, just before getting shot himself. 

The guy had it coming in twelve different ways. He only wished that he had been able to do it himself.

"Trust us, we want out way more than you two," Jett drawled, "but we can't leave until we actually find Cypher."

"We were tracking him through a bug in his hat, and that's probably locked up in storage if it's not with him."

"But you can still track it?" Phoenix asked. 

They were interrupted as Jett's restraints slid back to the wall and a huge gust of air barreled through the cell, almost lifting them off their feet with its intensity. Jett rode the wind like second nature, lifting off the slab and into the air. For a moment, her expression lifted, but when her feet touched back down her legs buckled and Sage only barely managed to catch her before she could fall on her face.

Brimstone's expression went dark when he realized what the splints were for.

"They broke your legs?"

"I'm fine," Jett said, her body tense with pain. 

"Bullshit. Sage--"

"On it," Sage was already helping Jett sit back on the edge of the slab. "I just need a few minutes to heal her."

Phoenix glanced back at Greene's body. His feet had landed at awkward angles, exposing a stain of blood on the sole of his boot. At that point the floor was covered in puddles of blood, but he knew exactly where that particular mark had come from. 

If he had to wait another second he was going to combust.

"I'm gonna go find the Eyes," Phoenix said. It wasn't a question. 

Brim immediately opened his mouth with protests ready on the tip of his tongue, but Sage was shaking her head before he could voice them.

"No, no-- Phoenix is right. After I heal Jett I'll take her to the rendezvous point. Go find Cypher and we can meet back there." 

A good thirty expletives later, Brimstone caved, and the two of them took off down the hallway.

They ended up going back to the room. 

Phoenix faltered at the first corridor-- he'd been drugged to the gills every time Kingdom moved them around the building and nothing was even slightly familiar about the layout. But he’d been planning to check the briefing room first, and thankfully Brimstone's prior knowledge of Kingdom had come in use once again.

After Phoenix mentioned the briefing room, though, Brimstone's face paled significantly; apparently he was already well aware of what kind of things happened in Kingdom's briefing rooms.

Brimstone turned on his heel and they picked up speed. Phoenix was surprised at how much he struggled to match the older man's pace as they sprinted down a number of hallways. His legs were aching painfully with disuse and there were several moments where he stumbled into the walls, vision swimming.

Kingdom agents pumping him full of drug cocktails every few hours probably wasn’t doing much to help him on that front. 

All the corridors were the same blinding shade of white, lined with a countless number of nondescript doors.

The numbering on the doors were an organizational method, Brim explained as they ran. The first number was the floor level, the second was the department code, and the next three were more specific indicators. Briefing rooms were easier to spot-- they conveniently had a "B" in place of the second number and a second lock that turned red when they were "in use". 

Phoenix had to take a moment to tamp down the nausea before it returned in full force. 

"These," Brimstone said, motioning down another hallway, "they're all rooms Kingdom uses for interrogation. As long as they didn't transport him to another area or the lab, he should still be in one of them."

They cycled through the area, Brim opening each door with the stolen keycard. Phoenix anxiously popped his head into each room. They all looked like the one he had been in besides the lack of chairs and a table; empty, except for awful fucking drains identically placed in the middle of the white floors. 

He had to do a double take when Brimstone opened a door and there was a table. 

"This one," he said under his breath, hurrying inside. 

There were the two empty chairs where he and Jett had been tied to, and there was the large tilted waterboarding table in the center of the floor, close to the ground. There were the restraints, there was the drain... and there was Cypher, still strapped down to it. 

The bag was gone but the blindfold was still in place, revealing the mess of bruising covering Cypher's newly-broken nose and the mess of dried blood surrounding it. 

The tiles on the floor were still wet in some areas. 

Phoenix rushed to his knees beside Cypher's head, reached two fingers out to the man's neck (he grimaced when he realized it, too, was bruised) and checked for a pulse. He couldn't even focus long enough to feel a heartbeat before Cypher was thrashing away from the touch, a cracked noise clawing from his throat. 

"It's just us, man," Phoenix said quickly, "it's Phoenix and Brimstone. We're gonna get you out of here, yeah?"

Brimstone's mouth was a thin line. "You with us, Cypher?" He asked. 

There was a long pause before Cypher's head nodded weakly back and forth and he let out a thready wheeze that was probably meant to be a laugh. 

"Never better," he croaked. 

Phoenix smiled despite himself. He clapped a hand lightly on Cypher's shoulder, immediately regretting it when the man flinched again-- and okay, message heard loud and clear, touching was off limits. 

"You two wouldn't," Cypher paused between each word, struggling to catch his breath, "happen to have my mask, would you?" 

Is that really the priority here, Phoenix thought, although he knew he was being unfair. There was still a bitter part of him that resented the fact that Cypher didn't trust them with his face, even now, and he hated the fact that Kingdom had been able to use that against all of them. He didn't think he would ever fully understand that level of paranoia.

Luckily, Brimstone hadn't lost his own tact. 

"You can use mine," he said smoothly. He paused lock-picking the restraints just long enough to pull the stolen mask from his head and hand it to Phoenix. "It's Kingdom issue, but at least it'll cover your face until we get back."

"D’you want me to get that blindfold off?" Phoenix asked, torn between helping and respecting Cypher's clear desire not to be touched. 

There was a moment of hesitation before Cypher nodded. He twisted his head to the side, giving Phoenix access to the knotted fabric against the back of his head. It didn't go unnoticed that the motion also helped hide his face from the two of them. 

He worked on the knots, careful not to pull any of Cypher's hair in the process. When he was done, the damp piece of fabric was discarded to the floor.

Cypher didn't turn his head back and Phoenix didn't try to get a glimpse.

Phoenix wondered if Brimstone had ever seen Cypher. He figured that would've been part of the initiation process, or some kind of security measure before joining the VP, but with how secretive Cypher was, maybe not. Maybe Phoenix really had been the first person to see Cypher's face. He didn't know how to feel about that. 

Fuck, he hated Kingdom.

Within a few minutes Brimstone finally finished working on the wrist restraints, and when Cypher's hands were free Phoenix handed him the mask. 

"It's not gonna cover your hair," he said apologetically.

"Or my hands, or my feet, or my neck," Cypher pointed out. His voice was wrecked. "What's done is done, Anqa. I'm just attempting to minimize damages."

He secured the mask over his face. His shoulders relaxed ever so slightly at the cover, his head slowly growing comfortable enough to tilt back in their direction. 

Brimstone didn't look impressed.

“Yeah, minimize whatever you want, kid, but don't even think about hiding that nose. The second we get out of here I'm sending you straight to the medical wing so Sage can take a look at you.”

The last ankle restraint gave way with a series of harsh clicks, and the two of them quickly maneuvered around to help Cypher to the flat floor before he could slide back right off the edge of the table.

The Kingdom mask didn't do much to lessen how vulnerable Cypher looked. No hulking leather coat, no shoes, arms exposed, a head of black curls rising out of the open back of the mask. Phoenix's image of Cypher had always been so untouchable, a distant but solid figure who was always perfectly in control, perfectly composed. Perfectly anonymous, too— so anonymous that people couldn't be quite sure if he was a man or a machine. 

But the man hunched on the floor in front of him didn't look like any of those things. He was decidedly human.

Cypher wrung his wrists, stretching out the aching joints. "And Greene?"

"Dead."

He hummed. "Good."

Brimstone crouched beside them, brow pinched with concern. "I know you're both exhausted, but we need to get out of here. Jett and Sage should already be making their way down. Can you walk?"

"I can manage."

The correct answer was actually no-- which Phoenix probably could've guessed just from looking at him. His legs were shaky and disoriented, especially after being suspended at such an angle for so long, and when he tried to stand he fell forward immediately, barely catching himself on the table before Brim and Phoenix could help him back up. 

They each took one of his arms, wrapping them around their respective shoulders to carry him. Phoenix winced at how easily he could feel the spasms wracking the muscles through the thin fabric. 

"This is humiliating," Cypher muttered. 

"Better than staying here," Brimstone replied gruffly. 

Agreeing wholeheartedly, Phoenix adjusted his hold and followed Brim's lead as they half-carried, half-dragged him out of the room. 

Piecing alarms were going off around them, lights flashing over brighter lights, the sounds of boots on the floor and Brimstone yelling orders he couldn't hear. At some point Cypher went limp, complete dead weight and although his own vision was beginning to swim Phoenix's mind had to repeat just keep running just get out just keep running like a mantra. 

He didn't stop until the alarms did, and there were arms around him, and he was finally, finally able to close his eyes and drift off knowing they had made it. That was enough for him. 

Phoenix woke up feeling significantly less like the world was crumbling around him.

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty."

The lights were dim but the room was warm, and the bedding beneath him was softer than anything he'd ever felt in his life. On the table beside his bed was a large vase of orange poppies, as brilliant and vivid as the setting sun. There wasn't a note or a card, but he already had an idea of who was behind it. 

Right, medbay. They'd made it back. 

Jett snorted from where she was perched on his bed. "Jeez, you really are out of it. Enjoy it while you can, they gave you the good stuff." 

He blinked. The motion was heavy, slower than he expected it to be. He couldn't stop the grin that broke out across his face at the sight of Jett, and her expression softened when she saw it.

"Yeah, I'm glad you're okay, too, dumbass."

"Where's...?"

She tilted her head towards the bed to his left. He slowly followed her gaze, exhaling slowly when he saw a vaguely human shaped lump inside it. The lump’s head was positively covered in bandages and thin fabric, and through the thick fog of exhaustion Phoenix managed to identify it as Cypher. 

"He's still under," Jett explained. "Sage is getting her energy back from fixing my legs, but she managed to get him stable. They had to clear out some water from his lungs and re-set his nose... but hey, he's looking pretty good, all things considered."

Phoenix glanced at the coat and hat hanging off of Cypher's bedpost.

“I thought Kingdom had all of that in storage--?"

Jett laughed. "Omen used the tracker Cypher had on it and snuck in afterwards to nab all that shit. It was like, super easy for him. Oh, and that reminds me..."

She hopped off the bed, rummaging around outside his field of view before walking back over. There was a jacket in one of her hands that she held up triumphantly. 

He lit up.

"No he did not," a laugh bubbled out of his chest as he reached out and took it from her, running his hands over the familiar leather. "Damn, am I glad to see you. Remind me to thank him later."

Looking thoroughly pleased with herself, Jett sank back onto the bed. Her whole weight was resting directly on Phoenix's leg in a position that was sure to get extremely uncomfortable very quickly, but he found that he was too happy to care. 

He must’ve been more high than he’d originally thought, because the words were already blurting out of his mouth before he could fully process them—

"I'm never gonna get captured like that again.” 

Jett's smile faded. He immediately felt bad for ruining the moment and reminding her of everything she was probably trying to forget. But she didn't look angry, just thoughtful. 

"Yeah," she said, the words falling painfully flat. "It was bad." After a moment, she ran a hand through her bangs and glanced towards Cypher, sighing. "You know what I mean. What we saw... I just wish I hadn't seen, is all. I know that's obvious, I'm just— whatever."

"Nah, I get it," Phoenix said. "Guess all we can do now is try to forget."

"Guess so."

He picked at his fingernails. They felt numb. "I still wish we'd had the time to make those bastards pay for what they did to you both. They got off easy."

"They played dirty," Jett scoffed. "They knew we'd kick their asses twenty times over if we weren't in the cuffs and we still didn't tell them shit. They got nothing out of us, not really. We won."

But it didn't really feel like a win. 

No, they hadn't given up any information, they'd all made it out alive— but even if Phoenix couldn't quite place his finger on what didn't feel right, he still felt like Kingdom had done something lasting. 

He couldn't place it until that night, when he turned on the tap to wash his hands and suddenly his heart was beating too quickly. And the following morning, when he woke up gasping awake with Dr. Greene saying the word Aamir so clearly in his mind he thought the man was right behind him. He set his hands on fire just to make sure that he could, just to burn out the phantom feeling of the cold metal slab beneath him. 

It was so fucking stupid.

They were out, and it wasn't like he had been subjected to the same pain as Cypher and Jett. Certainly not enough to develop some kind of post-traumatic stress from it, anyway. 

But there it was still, lasting. 

It took a while for everything to slide back into place.

In the following days Jett stuck to his side like a limpet, almost always in sight or within calling distance. Phoenix wasn’t sure if she was doing it for his sake or her own, but he appreciated it either way. He would've died of embarrassment if anyone else noticed him constantly checking to make sure she hadn't vanished or been taken again, and it was reassuring to know she could be going through the same thing. 

Sage also gave Cypher the clear to leave the medical wing the day after he was released, and within the hour the man had disappeared completely. It wasn't saying much that Cypher was making himself scarce because Cypher made himself scarce on the best of days, retreating to lick his own wounds in isolation like a feral cat— but this time he was well and truly gone.

And after Kingdom had forcibly revealed so many of his secrets, Phoenix was more than happy to oblige the guy some well deserved privacy. 

Brimstone made all three of them take a standard psych evaluation and Phoenix outright lied on every other question. He might’ve been down for the count but he would be damned before dealing with pity or some bloody shrink.

Besides, out of everyone in the compound, he was pretty sure he was still one of the most sane; it wasn't like Reyna or Omen were shining examples of mental health, either.

Things were fine. He was handling it.

He was just tired. 

After a particularly bad night, Phoenix didn't even bother trying to go back to sleep and wandered down to the kitchen instead.

He put his forehead against the granite countertop, breathing deeply. The room was warm and the seat beneath him was comfortable. It still smelled faintly like Sova's Borscht, not bleach. Phoenix forced himself to focus on those sensations that contradicted the image of the sterile white hallways in his mind. He never thought the concrete structure could feel so comforting, a physical presence he wanted to completely immerse himself in.

He idly set tiny flames to dance along the tips of his fingers. It was a soothing, hypnotic warmth. 

"Trouble sleeping?" 

His eyes flew open. Cypher was standing slightly behind the far wall, only half visible through the shadow.

It was the first time Phoenix had seen him since initially waking up in the medical wing, but Cypher looked perfectly normal. Hat, mask, gloves, coat— every inch of skin hidden, every hint of what had happened at Kingdom carefully covered up. If Phoenix hadn't been there to witness it firsthand he wouldn't have seen a difference at all. 

His stomach twisted.

His mind was already piecing together the human beneath. He knew what color the skin was under that fabric. He knew the exact texture of the hair beneath the mask, and what Cypher sounded like when he was drowning. He knew about the scarring beneath the man's eye, and the dark freckles that stretched down his collarbones. He even knew about the bruises that were still probably there, lining the man's face and neck.

He hated that he knew.

It hadn't even been done intentionally, but Phoenix still felt like he would never be able to scrub away the guilt completely. And wasn't that just ironic, after all the countless times Cypher had invaded his privacy— as well as every other agent in the VP. 

Without waiting for an answer, Cypher crept forward and slowly took a seat beside him. 

"I do, too, you know."

"What?"

Cypher looked at him. "I have trouble sleeping, too."

Phoenix's eyebrows raised in surprise. He hadn’t even asked— the information was being given freely to him and Cypher didn't give anything away for free.

"Really?" He asked, unsure how to respond. 

"I think most of us do," Cypher nodded. "It comes with the territory of the lives we live. But something tells me there is a very specific reason you're awake in the kitchen at three in the morning. Not a very good headspace to be in, yes?"

Honestly his headspace was about three clusterfucks away from crazy, but Phoenix would rather curl up in another freezer before having a mushy heart-to-heart with anyone about that shit. He waved a hand flippantly and tried to relax into the kitchen stool beneath him.

"Nah, it's nothing. It's stupid."

He heard Cypher take a long breath beside him. After a moment, he clasped his hands together and rested his chin on top of them. 

"You know, I've tortured many people throughout my life," he said.

The words were spoken casually, and it wasn't like Phoenix was naïve about the people he worked with, but it still made a chill run down his spine.

"It's one of the most common and effective ways of extracting information. The only problem is that it can get messy, and sometimes people are stubborn."

Why are you telling me this, he wanted to ask as bile rose to his throat.

"I know you're used to physical violence," Cypher continued, "but I need you to understand that when Kingdom strapped me to that table, broke my nose, broke Jett's legs— they may have been torturing us, Anqa, but they were targeting you."

"They didn't even touch me," Phoenix retorted, looking away. 

"That's exactly my point. Psychological torture can be far more effective than any physical damage. Watching people..." 

For some reason, Cypher faltered mid-sentence. It was only for a brief moment.

"…watching people you care for get hurt can be extremely incentivizing to giving up information, often more incentivizing than going through the same pain yourself. In this business, attachments are the only things more dangerous than information. I only mean to say that even under such conditions, you didn't talk. That’s something to take pride in."

Pride? That sounded like a joke.  

It wasn’t a secret that Phoenix had confidence. He was fairly self aware of his own ego, but it never bothered him because he knew he had the skills to back it up a hundred times over. But this? He certainly didn't feel proud of anything he'd done in captivity— he would've felt more pride if he had actually done anything at all. 

They sat there together in silence for several long minutes. Phoenix rolled the words around in his mind and did his best to digest them even though his chest felt like it was cracking. It sounded like a pretty bleak future to constantly have to worry about every single person he cared about, to cut off friends just to keep them safe. But he also knew Cypher was right. It was part of what he signed up for when he joined a rogue organization. 

And truthfully, it was something he had already been doing since he was a kid. Singlehandedly burning down a school was a pretty easy way to make yourself an outcast.

But the thing was he did feel pride, just not towards himself. He was proud of Jett, who had kept her cool far better than he had even under worse circumstances. He was proud of Cypher for trying to infiltrate Kingdom alone just to get them out, and Omen for going back in afterwards just for their stuff even though that was probably the last place he'd wanted to be.

So maybe he did care about them all. Maybe they were all dangerous attachments.

But that just meant he was theirs, too.

Maybe, he thought, that's just what being part of a team is. 

"Thanks," he finally mumbled. "That's... yeah. Thanks."

"It's no trouble." Cypher stood up, taking that as his cue to leave. "Tell Sage if you continue having trouble sleeping, though. If you don't, she might mysteriously find an itinerary of your sleeping schedule within the next few days and be forced to stage an intervention." Even with the mask securely back in place, Phoenix could still hear the smile in his voice. 

He laughed. "You fuckin' creep."

"A mantle I wear with pride," Cypher said dryly. 

He started back towards the hallway to leave, but the words were coming out of Phoenix's mouth before he could stop them.

"Yo, just one more thing?"

In his periphery, he saw Cypher turn back to look at him. He couldn't find it to meet his gaze. Some part of him figured he should just shut up and let his actions speak louder than words and spare them both yet another uncomfortable conversation, but if he didn’t say it now he knew he would regret not getting it off his chest. 

"I just wanted to say that I'm not gonna tell anyone, obviously, like... about your name and your face and stuff. I'm not happy I know and I'm not gonna use it against you. Just for the record, yeah?" Phoenix awkwardly scratched at the back of his head. He'd never been the most eloquent, but—

"It's alright," Cypher said. "I'm not worried."

There was a knot in Phoenix’s throat that he had to slowly work to untangle. The words went unspoken, but he’d heard them anyway;

I trust you.

Some of the guilt that had been festering in his stomach since Kingdom finally began to ebb away.

He could still remember the conversation they'd had months ago. They were standing almost exactly where they currently were when Cypher had posed his original question—

Ah, trust. Is that what you think this is about?

Phoenix watched Cypher disappear back into the dark hallway. 

He was finally beginning to understand.