Stone Walls and Iron Bars

by AwesomeMcCoolname

In this prequel to Wing It, we follow the lives of Trinity and the friends he makes after his second stay at ITEX. Bonds are forged inside the labs, and hearts are joined by shared pain. Updates depend on Wing It's progress. T for ITEX's experiments.

1. Intro

Stone walls do not a prison make,

nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

that for a hermitage.

If I have freedom in my love,

and in my soul am free,

Angels alone that soar above

enjoy such Liberty.

--Richard Lovelace (1618-58) to Althea, from prison.

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Trinity had run away from the church.

Run away from the only family and friends he knew. Away from the safety, away from the love, the warmth, the priests and sisters and the rich folk and the homeless, and the rainy streets of Manhattan. Traded the comfortable, innocent life he'd led for the past year, the year where he'd been introduced to the world, civilized; given food, clothing, some education, and a thousand, no—a trillion memories to blot out the infinite, endless patches of the insane haze that was ITEX. Traded the best year of his life for an early adolescent dream of freedom, lured away by the rebellious thoughts of a frustrated eight year old, looking for an absent father. Looking into the very place he'd sworn never to return to.

In retrospect, it was a stupid idea.

But then again—he wouldn't have met them if he hadn't run away.