Chapter Text
You were a teenager when they took you. You’d committed the great offense of being the daughter of a foreign diplomat who had fallen on the wrong side of a violent military coup. They had taken everything of value from your home and killed the security team that your parents had in place; they had taken you as well, and you’re not sure if you were better off for having survived it.
The room they put you in was small, with little more than a thin mattress on a stainless steel frame pushed lengthwise against the wall, with a flat pillow and a scratchy grey blanket thrown haphazardly on top. The lighting was dim and the room was cool, the walls padded most likely for sound, and the single door was made of thick steel with only a small opening through which they passed food. There was a small arched doorway that led to a tiled room with a toilet and a sink; there was no door, simply an arch that led inside, and no light in the little closet-sized washroom.
It was difficult to gauge the passage of time. You slept or daydreamed most of the time; you tried to ask for books or paper, anything to make it drag a little less, but your captors didn’t speak your language and only grunted at you when they passed food or water through the slot in the door. They lowered the lights when they wanted you to sleep, but you couldn’t be sure it was nighttime or even that a full day had passed. Even meals were irregular, making it possible to mark out the days.
Sometimes you felt like you were losing your grip on reality, endless days flowing one into another without any stop or distraction.
You had no idea how long you had been there when they brought him in.
You shrunk to the corner, huddled on the floor. There had been vague threatening mutterings in words you didn’t know each time you took your meal from the door slot, for several days now. This, you thought, must have been what they were talking about.
He was enormous, or seemed that way to you from where you cowered on the floor, tall and broad of shoulder, and just standing there as they closed the door behind him. He was dressed in almost all black -- tactical gear, you recognized, from the days at your family’s home before the coup began. There had been inklings it was coming, and the suited security guards that had dogged your every step had suddenly become soldiers dressed in just such gear and carrying huge frightening firearms.
He had no weapons you could see, but you suspect his left arm could be weapon enough: it was gleaming metal, bright and dangerous, and when he turned towards you, you could see a red star on the shoulder.
“Please don’t hurt me,” you said suddenly, voice small and wavering. The words had come unbidden and left your lips without your permission.
The soldier -- for clearly that is what he was, some kind of soldier -- cocked his head and regarded you with some confusion, but he didn’t speak, not yet. You got a better look at his face then, at least what of it that you could see, with a black mask obscuring nearly all but his eyes. The eyes, though, those draw your attention. There is little malice there but puzzlement seems to fill them, eyes that are bright and blue and intelligent in spite of the uncertainty of the situation. They are framed by something dark, smudged eye-black like you’d seen football players wear you suspect, but surrounding them completely.
His hair is dark brown and unkempt, longer than you’d ever seen a soldier wearing and falling around his face. He took a step towards you and you shrunk back even further when he speaks, posing a question in the same language your captors had been speaking.
“I don’t understand,” you said, voice still shaking.
He tilts his head again and his eyes seem to wander over your face; it’s clear he’s considering something. You feel wild panic rise in your chest when he raises the metal arm but he doesn’t reach for you; he goes instead to the half-mask covering his nose and mouth, and pulls it away.
“Who are you?” he asks, in perfect English.
You’re shaking by then. “No one,” you whispered back, and he seemed satisfied by your answer.
He sits down on the cot, and begins to wait.